Читать книгу The Big Dry - George Garland - Страница 6

A MIDMORNING HAZE hung over the mountains and valley when Bonnie saw the town of Bacon in the distance. A mesa cut off the view, though Cactus was driving his six-horse hitch at good speed. The town would next appear between two knolls, and from there the top of the A-T ranch house was visible.

The town lay on the east side of the San Francisco River, Bonnie’s house on the other side a quarter-mile northwest in a clump of cottonwoods and sycamores. She could see the crossing now as well as the road leading up to the mining town of Queeny in the canyon, about two miles northeast of Bacon. There were eleven saloons in the tent-and-log town of Queeny with no officer of the law to maintain order. There her father’s big mine, the Queeny, dominated the scene. Luke Mason managed it. And right through the mountain lay the Big Beulah Mine belonging to her father’s rival, Dan Turrentine.

She glanced back to the settlement of Bacon, its five stores, three saloons, livery barn, and scattered small houses. Near the Frontier Saloon was the stage stop. There her father, and Luke, perhaps, would be waiting to meet her.

Cactus cracked the whip and the yellow wheel jerked forward. The coach was rolling off the incline and clattering toward the saloon before Cactus yelled and braked down hard. The stage stopped abruptly, pitching Bonnie forward. Sack caught her.

She saw Luke through the cloud of dust. He stood near his new buggy, a distant look on his face, a long cheroot in his mouth. His small mustache was right becoming, she admitted again. In fact, Luke had more than a passable face. But something was missing. She could not readily put a finger on it. Then she realized that the Navajo called Indian Joe, almost as constant to Luke as his shadow, was not with him.

The first word she heard spoken upon alighting was, “Posse.” Before Luke reached her, she was listening to a man telling another how the Sacaton Kid fanned a six-gun. She scoffed; to hear them talk the robber had shot it out with a dozen men.

Luke took her arm, smiled down at her, saying: “Glad you’re home, Bonnie. With stage robbers on the loose and Victorio prizing up hell, it isn’t safe for a woman to travel.”

“Here I am, safe and sound,” she said. “The robber wasn’t at all discourteous.”

“That’s good. But did you hear about the massacre of the two prospectors on Gutache Mesa?”

“Yes,” Bonnie replied soberly. “Too bad. Just after they had made a big strike up on Pueblo Creek—so I heard down at the stop.”

Luke laughed. “Strike? Burns and Chalmers never hit it big. Just a few nuggets, that’s all.”

“Depend on you and father to smell out gold,” she teased. “But where is father?”

“In the Frontier Saloon. He’s talking up a posse. Want to wait for him or ride on to the ranch?”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking about her. “I wanted to introduce you to the new deputy sheriff, Luke. He’s not much to look at, though he seems to have a lot of real horse sense.”

“Joe Sack,” Luke said. “I met him in Socorro. Remember it was I who went up there for a deputy, Bonnie.”

She looked at him, surprised and pleased. “Seems you picked a good man, Luke.”

“That’s for him to prove to me. But about waiting here, if you don’t mind let’s go on to the ranch. I’ve got something on my mind that has to do with you and me.”

She knew what he meant, though she said nothing as he helped her into the buggy. Nor did he broach the subject until the shallow river was behind them. There was nothing boyish or bashful about his approach; he placed the idea before her in a cool businesslike manner that did nothing to stir up any emotion in her: due to growing Indian trouble and the threat of war hanging over the land, he wanted to get married right away.

“What’s all that got to do with it?” she asked pointedly.

“Everything. I’ll be hard put to keep the mine open for one thing. You know trouble has a way of interfering with the things you want.”

“Why, Luke, I believe that’s as fine a business proposition as I’ve ever listened to.”

He eyed her sharply for the sarcasm she withheld from her voice and expression. Her glance fell before the scrutiny of his eyes, but not before he saw the mischief at work in her.

“My reasons have nothing to do with my sentiments, Bonnie. You know that.”

“I’ve got your word for it,” she said, in matter-of-fact manner.

“Listen, Bonnie. I’ve missed you a lot, enough to know I want you to marry me without undue delay. Say Sunday week.”

She looked at him critically, suppressing a desire to ask if he could spare the time for his wedding. The urge was strong to tell him how nicely Lieutenant Dana danced. Then she was seeing her father’s trusted manager and choice of a son-in-law. Dana and the Sacaton Kid held their distance in her mind now that she was home and in Luke’s company once more. But there was a good deal missing, things she had not noticed before her trip south. Luke didn’t challenge her emotions. For all of his good manners and brilliance and polish, he had not been one tenth as attentive to her in all his courtship as the robber had been with his eyes in the few minutes allotted him.

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

Luke reined up and the buggy rolled to a stop. His hands drew Bonnie to him. Turning his best face upon her, complimenting her with longing glances, he said: “Think about it now. It means a lot to me, Bonnie.”

“Sunday week? No, Luke. I need more time.”

A little later the buggy stopped in her own front yard. She was thinking it odd that, though she had returned with three men in mind, only Luke was eligible. Perhaps she was actually closer to marriage with Luke than ever before.

Luke was opening the door for her when she saw her father and a group of A-T riders approaching. Sack was with them. She waited, thinking it was a weak-looking posse. After her father held her at arm’s length and told her how much he had missed her, she remarked on the size of his posse.

McQueen grinned. He was a large genial man in his late forties with sharp blue eyes and graying hair. He looked the part of the big businessman of the Valley since he of the few who had made fortunes here dressed the part. Coat, vest, and string tie were as essential to his dress as boots were to a cowboy. He was saying:

“Joe Sack can handle this thing, Bonnie. He’s of the opinion we won’t catch the bandit. Better to wait and let him show, which he’ll do sooner or later.”

Bonnie looked steadily at Sack. Smiling accusingly, she said: “So we’re all crazy. Is that it, Mr. Sack?”

“It’s a hunch, Miss Bonnie,” Sack said defensively. “He may and may not visit these parts. But if he does, we’ll spread out to catch him.”

“And if he were to return the payroll sack, wouldn’t he be square with us?”

Her father chuckled deep. “If the robber is that kind of a fool he ought to hang high.”

Bonnie looked fram Sack to her father. “You’re both wrong. If the Sacaton Kid shows up, there shouldn’t be a man out to stop him from turning honest. And about a banging—I won’t listen to it.”

She walked into the house.

McQueen’s heavy brows lifted. He tied his horse and said to Mason, “Seem’s we got a problem.”

“And it ain’t Injun trouble,” Sack laughed. “Which reminds me of the Gutache Mesa murders. Victorio, I reckon.”

“Obviously,” Mason replied. “Five years on a reservation, five arrows in a man. It adds up.”

“Yeah,” Sack said. “I didn’t know about that. But it adds up, all right.”

McQueen said, “That’s not the problem, Luke.”

Mason nodded and lit a cigar. As quiet as he was amiable, he seldom gave advice unless it was solicited; and then he hedged about with soft-spoken replies that might vindicate his judgment if he happened to be wrong. After seven years with McQueen, he remained as well respected as upon his arrival. Reserve and patience had made him rich and admired, though he remained unsatisfied in himself, a man with a prodigious ambition at work inside him.

Sack said: “Miss Bonnie may be right about not gettin’ in the Kid’s way if he wants to go straight. But I’d be a damn poor deputy not to try and get him.”

“Bonnie’s high-spirited,” McQueen said. “But I don’t like to hear her talk in favor of an outlaw.”

Mason’s eyes narrowed for an instant as he felt a twinge of jealousy and uneasiness. Bonnie had shown an odd streak of independence on the way to the house. She might be putting another man alongside him. A part of him boiled, another part of him laughed it off. He felt secure.

McQueen said, “What would you do, Luke?”

“Don’t know.” He forced McQueen to place the question again before saying with becoming wisdom, “I might try it both ways, A. T.”

“Both ways? What do you mean?”

“You know I’m not good at this sort of thing. Women baffle me. So I humor them. I’d go at it in a way to suit Mr. Sack and Bonnie. Let the outlaw through, if you think he’s coming. I don’t, and I’ll lay odds that he won’t. But in case he does, let him come on. Then you’ve got him trapped. Mr. Sack and a dozen cowboys can ring him in.”

This made sense to Sack. He said: “Bein’ a deputy I can’t gamble on my better judgment, which says he won’t come. I’ve got to think he might do it. And at the same time I’ve got to give him a chance to hand over the sack if he does come—like Miss Bonnie says. So I like your idea, Luke.”

McQueen said: “I’ve found Luke’s judgment pretty reliable. In fact,” he added, with a chuckle, “I didn’t know I was going to own a mine until Luke told me the Queeny Lode was my property if I wanted it.”

Sack looked up, a hand pawing at his mustache. “That’s the bonanza a fellow named West discovered, ain’t it?”

“The same,” Luke replied lazily. “Though there’s no record of West’s claim on file. When he was found with an arrow in his back, I staked it for A. T. He had the operating capital. I didn’t.”

“Luke just put up the mining brains in the partnership,” McQueen laughed. “But you seem to know a lot about this country, Sack. Ever been here before?”

“Nope. Just poked through the records at the courthouse and asked a lot of questions here’n there.” He looked at Mason and said: “But about this outlaw. Seems you hit on the right idea in this matter. Much obliged.”

Luke Mason pretended surprise at having solved the problem. He said, with the air of a man under jest by smarter men, “You two had that figured out ahead of me, and you know it.”

He took the few steps to his buggy and said: “I’m due back at the mine. Turrentine is within eighty feet of our side of the hill and he’s angling in on the Blind Monk Canyon side.”

McQueen knit his brows and rubbed his chin. “This Turrentine business—if trouble is smokin’ up there, I’d better talk to Big Dan. Maybe we can settle this thing.”

“Not yet, A. T. He’s on his claim now. But if he crosses his line by so much as one inch, we’ll tie him up in court.”

Luke climbed into the buggy and, seeing McQueen’s look of satisfaction, glanced at Sack.

“Don’t hang the outlaw before you catch him, Mr. Sack.”

Sack nodded and watched Mason drive off. He was wondering how it happened to be Luke who traveled all the way to Socorro for a deputy; and just what made Luke Mason tick, actually.

And Mason was driving toward Queeny and Beulah Orbon who operated the Green Palace Hotel, asking just what kind of deputy sheriff Sack would turn out to be. A man he could dominate, or the stubborn kind?

He shrugged it off and called up an image of Beulah’s dark eyes and soft red lips. She was more interesting in that he knew her intimately and yet really knew nothing at all of what was within her. A tall long-limbed woman of fine figure and poise, she was the item of contention between him and Dan Turrentine, who had named his mine Big Beulah after her. Big Dan could operate in the open in his pursuit of her. On account of Bonnie, Luke couldn’t. Which failed to shake Luke’s confidence. Nothing affected that quality in Luke Mason. Beulah knew this. In a way it kept her jumping, even as it did Bonnie.

But Turrentine was in the way. Often of late Mason had dropped casual remarks about the saloons, and to McQueen that hinted of trouble, far off and growing, trouble caused by a hill between Queeny Canyon and the Blind Monk. If and when it came, over Beulah, it would be about something else. And it was coming, though it wouldn’t reach any court.

Near the mouth of the canyon, a lone Apache crossed the road not a dozen yards ahead. As peaceful as you please, Luke was thinking. He stopped the horse and gazed thoughtfully after the savage. Then he caught himself about to speak to his Navajo. He laughed. Indian Joe was several miles south on a little errand.