Читать книгу Dennison Grant - Robert J. C. Stead - Страница 4

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The rancher had ridden into the Canadian plains country from below “the line” long before barbed wire had become a menace in cattle-land. From Pincher Creek to Maple Creek, and far beyond, the plains lay unbroken save by the deep canyons where, through the process of ages, mountain streams had worn their beds down to gravel bottoms, and by the occasional trail which wandered through the wilderness like some thousand-mile lariat carelessly dropped from the hand of the Master Plainsman. Here and there, where the cutbanks of the river Canyons widened out into sloping valleys, affording possible access to the deep-lying streams, some ranchman had established his headquarters, and his red-roofed, whitewashed buildings flashed back the hot rays which fell from an opalescent heaven. At some of the more important fords trading posts had come into being, whither the ranchmen journeyed twice a year for groceries, clothing, kerosene, and other liquids handled as surreptitiously as the vigilance of the Mounted Police might suggest. The virgin prairie, with her strange, subtle facility for entangling the hearts of men, lay undefiled by the mercenary plowshare; unprostituted by the commercialism of the days that were to be.

Into such a country Y.D. had ridden from the South, trailing his little bunch of scrub heifers, in search of grass and water and, it may be, of a new environment. Up through the Milk River country; across the Belly and the Old Man; up and down the valley of the Little Bow, and across the plains as far as the Big Bow he rode in search of the essentials of a ranch headquarters. The first of these is water, the second grass, the third fuel, the fourth shelter. Grass there was everywhere; a fine, short, hairy crop which has the peculiar quality of self-curing in the autumn sunshine and so furnishing a natural, uncut hay for the herds in the winter months. Water there was only where the mountain streams plowed their canyons through the deep subsoil, or at little lakes of surface drainage, or, at rare intervals, at points where pure springs broke forth from the hillsides. Along the river banks dark, crumbling seams exposed coal resources which solved all questions of fuel, and fringes of cottonwood and poplar afforded rough but satisfactory building material. As the rancher sat on his horse on a little knoll which overlooked a landscape leading down on one side to a sheltering bluff by the river, and on the other losing itself on the rim of the heavens, no fairer prospect surely could have met his eye.

And yet he was not entirely satisfied. He was looking for no temporary location, but for a spot where he might drive his claim-stakes deep. That prairie, which stretched under the hot sunshine unbroken to the rim of heaven; that brown grass glowing with an almost phosphorescent light as it curled close to the mother sod;—a careless match, a cigar stub, a bit of gun-wadding, and in an afternoon a million acres of pasture land would carry not enough foliage to feed a gopher.

Y.D. turned in his saddle. Along the far western sky hung the purple draperies of the Rockies. For fifty miles eastward from the mighty range lay the country of the foothills, its great valleys lost to the vision which leapt only from summit to summit. In the clear air the peaks themselves seemed not a dozen miles away, but Y.D. had not ridden cactus, sagebrush and prairie from the Rio Grande to the St. Mary’s for twenty years to be deceived by a so transparent illusion. Far over the plains his eye could trace the dark outline of a trail leading mountainward.

The heifers drowsed lazily in the brown grass. Y.D., shading his eyes the better with his hand, gazed long and thoughtfully at the purple range. Then he spat decisively over his horse’s shoulder and made a strange “cluck” in his throat. The knowing animal at once set out on a trot to stir the lazy heifers into movement, and presently they were trailing slowly up into the foothill country.

Far up, where the trail ahead apparently dropped over the end of the world, a horse and rider hove in view. They came on leisurely, and half an hour elapsed before they met the rancher trailing west.

The stranger was a rancher of fifty, wind-whipped and weather-beaten of countenance. The iron grey of his hair and moustache suggested the iron of the man himself; iron of figure, of muscle, of will.

“‘Day,” he said, affably, coming to a halt a few feet from Y.D. “Trailing into the foothills?”

Y.D. lolled in his saddle. His attitude did not invite conversation, and, on the other hand, intimated no desire to avoid it.

“Maybe,” he said, noncommittally. Then, relaxing somewhat,—“Any water farther up?”

“About eight miles. Sundown should see you there, and there’s a decent spot to camp. You’re a stranger here?” The older man was evidently puzzling over the big “Y.D.” branded on the ribs of the little herd.

“It’s a big country,” Y.D. answered. “It’s a plumb big country, for sure, an’ I guess a man can be a stranger in some corners of it, can’t he?”

Y.D. began to resent the other man’s close scrutiny of his brand.

“Well, what’s wrong with it?” he demanded.

“Oh, nothing. No offense. I just wondered what ‘Y.D.’ might stand for.”

“Might stand for Yankee devil,” said Y.D., with a none-of-your-business curl of his lip. But he had carried his curtness too far, and was not prepared for the quick retort.

“Might also stand for yellow dog, and be damned to you!” The stranger’s strong figure sat up stern and knit in his saddle.

Y.D.‘s hand went to his hip, but the other man was unarmed. You can’t draw on a man who isn’t armed.

“Listen!” the older man continued, in sharp, clear-cut notes. “You are a stranger not only to our trails, but our customs. You are a young man. Let me give you some advice. First—get rid of that artillery. It will do you more harm than good. And second, when a stranger speaks to you civilly, answer him the same. My name is Wilson—Frank Wilson, and if you settle in the foothills you’ll find me a decent neighbor, as soon as you are able to appreciate decency.”

To his own great surprise, Y.D. took his dressing down in silence. There was a poise in Wilson’s manner that enforced respect. He recognized in him the English rancher of good family; usually a man of fine courtesy within reasonable bounds; always a hard hitter when those bounds are exceeded. Y.D. knew that he had made at least a tactical blunder; his sensitiveness about his brand would arouse, rather than allay, suspicion. His cheeks burned with a heat not of the afternoon sun as he submitted to this unaccustomed discipline, but he could not bring himself to express regret for his rudeness.

“Well, now that the shower is over, we’ll move on,” he said, turning his back on Wilson and “clucking” to his horse.

Y.D. followed the stream which afterwards bore his name as far as the Upper Forks. As he entered the foothills he found all the advantages of the plains below, with others peculiar to the foothill country. The richer herbage, induced by a heavier precipitation; the occasional belts of woodland; the rugged ravines and limestone ridges affording good natural protection against fire; abundant fuel and water everywhere—these seemed to constitute the ideal ranch conditions. At the Upper Forks, through some freak of formation, the stream divided into two. From this point was easy access into the valleys of the Y.D. and the South Y.D., as they were subsequently called. The stream rippled over beds of grey gravel, and mountain trout darted from the rancher’s shadow as it fell across the water. Up the valley, now ruddy gold with the changing colors of autumn, white-capped mountains looked down from amid the infinite silences; and below, broad vistas of brown prairie and silver ribbons of running water. Y.D. turned his swarthy face to the sunlight and took in the scene slowly, deliberately, but with a commercialized eye; blue and white and ruddy gold were nothing to him; his heart was set on grass and water and shelter. He had roved enough, and he had a reason for seeking some secluded spot like this, where he could settle down while his herds grew up, and, perhaps, forget some things that were better forgotten.

With sudden decision the cattle man threw himself from his horse, unstrapped the little kit of supplies which he carried by the saddle; drew off saddle and bridle and turned the animal free. The die was cast; this was the spot. Within ten minutes his ax was ringing in the grove of spruce trees close by, and the following night he fried mountain trout under the shelter of his own temporary roof.

It was the next summer when Y.D. had another encounter with Wilson. The Upper Forks turned out to be less secluded than he had supposed; it was on the trail of trappers and prospectors working into the mountains. Traders, too, in mysterious commodities, moved mysteriously back and forth, and the log cabin at The Forks became something of a centre of interest. Strange companies forgathered within its rude walls.

It was at such a gathering, in which Y.D. and three companions sat about the little square table, that one of the visitors facetiously inquired of the rancher how his herd was progressing.

“Not so bad, not so bad,” said Y.D., casually. “Some winter losses, of course; snow’s too deep this far up. Why?”

“Oh, some of your neighbors down the valley say your cows are uncommon prolific.”

“They do?” said Y.D., laying down his cards. “Who says that?”

“Well, Wilson, for instance—”

Y.D. sprang to his feet. “I’ve had one run-in with that ——,” he shouted, “an’ I let him talk to me like a Sunday School super’ntendent. Here’s where I talk to him!”

“Well, finish the game first,” the others protested. “The night’s young.”

Y.D. was sufficiently drunk to be supersensitive about his honor, and the inference from Wilson’s remark was that he was too handy with his branding-iron.

“No, boys, no!” he protested. “I’ll make that Englishman eat his words or choke on them.”

“That’s right,” the company agreed. “The only thing to do. We’ll all go down with you.”

“An’ you won’t do that, neither,” Y.D. answered. “Think I need a body-guard for a little chore like that? Huh!” There was immeasurable contempt in that monosyllable.

But a fresh bottle was produced, and Y.D. was persuaded that his honor would suffer no serious damage until the morning. Before that time his company, with many demonstrations of affection and admonitions to “make a good job of it,” left for the mountains.

Y.D. saddled his horse early, buckled his gun on his hip, hung a lariat from his saddle, and took the trail for the Wilson ranch. During the drinking and gambling of the night he had been able to keep the insult in the background, but, alone under the morning sun, it swept over him and stung him to fury. There was just enough truth in the report to demand its instant suppression.

Wilson was branding calves in his corral as Y.D. came up. He was alone save for a girl of eighteen who tended the fire.

Wilson looked up with a hot iron in his hand, nodded, then turned to apply the iron before it cooled. As he leaned over the calf Y.D. swung his lariat. It fell true over the Englishman, catching him about the arms and the middle of the body. Y.D. took a half-hitch of the lariat about his saddle horn, and the well-trained horse dragged his victim in the most matter-of-fact manner out of the gate of the corral and into the open.

Y.D. shortened the line. After the first moment of confused surprise Wilson tried to climb to his feet, but a quick jerk of the lariat sent him prostrate again. In a moment Y.D. had taken up all the line, and sat in his saddle looking down contemptuously upon him.

“Well,” he said, “who’s too handy with his branding-iron now?”

“You are!” cried Wilson. “Give me a man’s chance and I’ll thrash you here and now to prove it.”

For answer Y.D. clucked to his horse and dragged his enemy a few yards farther. “How’s the goin’, Frank?” he said, in mock cordiality. “Think you can stand it as far as the crick?”

But at that instant an unexpected scene flashed before Y.D. He caught just a glimpse of it—just enough to indicate what might happen. The girl who had been tending the fire was rushing upon him with a red-hot iron extended before her. Quicker than he could throw himself from the saddle she had struck him in the face with it.

“You brand our calves!” she cried in a fury of recklessness. “I’ll brand YOU—damn you!”

Y.D. threw himself from the saddle, but in the suddenness of her onslaught he failed to clear it properly, and stumbled to the ground. In a moment she was on him and had whipped his gun from his belt.

“Get up!” she said. And he got up.

“Walk to that post, put your arms around it with your back to me, and stand there.” He did so.

The girl kept him covered with the revolver while she released the lariat that bound her father.

“Are you hurt, Dad?” she inquired solicitously.

“No, just shaken up,” he answered, scrambling to his feet.

“All right. Now we’ll fix him!”

The girl walked to the next post from Y.D.‘s, climbed it leisurely and seated herself on the top.

“Now, Mr. Y.D.,” she said, “you are going to fight like a white man, with your fists. I’ll sit up here and see that there’s no dirty work. First, advance and shake hands.”

“I’m damned if I will,” said Y.D.

The revolver spoke, and the bullet cut dangerously close to him.

“Don’t talk back to me again,” she cried, “or you won’t be able to fight. Now shake hands.”

He extended his hand and Wilson took it for a moment.

“Now when I count three,” said the girl, “pile in. There’s no time limit. Fight ‘til somebody’s satisfied. One—two—three—”

At the sound of the last word Wilson caught his opponent a punch on the chin which stretched him. He got up slowly, gathering his wits about him. He was twenty years younger than Wilson, but a rancher of fifty is occasionally a better man than he was at thirty. Any disadvantages Wilson suffered from being shaken up in the lariat were counterbalanced by Y.D.‘s branding. His face was burning painfully, and his vision was not the best. But he had not followed the herds since childhood without learning to use his fists. He steadied himself on his knee to bring his mind into tune with this unusual warfare. Then he rushed upon Wilson.

He received another straight knock-out on the chin. It jarred the joints of his neck and left him dazed. It was half a minute before he could steady himself. He realized now that he had a fight on his hands. He was too cool a head to get into a panic, but he found he must take his time and do some brain work. Another chin smash would put him out for good.

He advanced carefully. Wilson stood awaiting him, a picture of poise and self-confidence. Y.D. led a quick left to Wilson’s ribs, but failed to land. Wilson parried skilfully and immediately answered with a left swing to the chin. But Y.D. was learning, and this time he was on guard. He dodged the blow, broke in and seized Wilson about the body. The two men stood for a moment like bulls with locked horns. Y.D. brought his weight to bear on his antagonist to force him to the ground, but in some way the Englishman got elbow room and began raining short jabs on his face, already raw from the branding-iron. Y.D. jerked back from this assault. Then came the third smash on the chin.

Y.D. gathered himself up very slowly. The world was swimming around in circles. On a post sat a girl, covering him with a revolver and laughing at him. Somewhere on the horizon Wilson’s figure whipped forward and back. Then his horse came into the circle. Y.D. rose to his feet, strode with quick, uncertain steps to his horse, threw himself into the saddle and without a word started up the trail to The Forks.

“Seems to have gone with as little ceremony as he came,” Wilson remarked to his daughter. “Now, let us get along with the calves.”...

Y.D. rode the trail to The Forks in bitterness of spirit. He had sallied forth that morning strong and daring to administer summary punishment; he was retracing his steps thrashed, humiliated, branded for life by a red iron thrust in his face by a slip of a girl. He exhausted his by no means limited vocabulary of epithets, but even his torrents of abuse brought no solace to him. The hot sun beat down on his wounded face and hurt terribly, but he almost forgot that pain in the agony of his humiliation. He had been thrashed by an old man, with a wisp of a girl sitting on a post and acting as referee. He turned in his saddle and through the empty valley shouted an insulting name at her.

Then Y.D. slowly began to feel his face burn with a fire not of the branding-iron nor of the afternoon sun. He knew that his word was a lie. He knew that he would not have dared use it in her father’s hearing. He knew that he was a coward. No man had ever called Y.D. a coward; no man had ever known him for a coward; he had never known himself as such—until to-day. With all his roughness Y.D. had a sense of honor as keen as any razor blade. If he allowed himself wide latitude in some matters it was because he had lived his life in an atmosphere where the wide latitude was the thing. The prairie had been his bed, the sky his roof, himself his own policeman, judge, and executioner since boyhood. When responsibility is so centralized wide latitudes must be allowed. But the uttermost borders of that latitude were fixed with iron rigidity, and when he had thrown a vile epithet at a decent woman he knew he had broken the law of honor. He was a cur—a cur who should be shot in his tracks for the cur he was.

Y.D. did hard thinking all the way to The Forks. Again and again the figure of the girl flashed before him; he would close his eyes and jerk his head back to avoid the burning iron. Then he saw her on the post, sitting, with apparent impartiality, on guard over the fight. Yes, she had been impartial, in a way. Y.D. was willing to admit that much, although he surmised that she knew more about her father’s prowess with his fists than he had known. She had had no doubt about the outcome.

“Well, she’s good backing for her old man, anyway,” he admitted, with returning generosity. He had reached his cabin, and was dressing his face with salve and soda. “She sure played the game into the old man’s hand.”

Y.D. could not sleep that night. He was busy sorting up his ideas of life and revising them in the light of the day’s experience. The more he thought of his behavior the less defensible it appeared. By midnight he was admitting that he had got just what was coming to him.

Presently he began to feel lonely. It was a strange sensation to Y.D., whose life had been loneliness from the first, so that he had never known it. Of course, there was the hunger for companionship; he had often known that. A drinking bout, a night at cards, a whirl into excess, and that would pass away. But this loneliness was different. The moan of the wind in the spruce trees communicated itself to him with an eerie oppressiveness. He sat up and lit a lamp. The light fell on the bare logs of his hut; he had never known before how bare they were. He got up and shuffled about; took a lid off the stove and put it back on again; moved aimlessly about the room, and at last sat down on the bed.

“Y.D.,” he said with a laugh, “I believe you’ve got nerves. You’re behavin’ like a woman.”

But he could not laugh it off. The mention of a woman brought Wilson’s daughter back vividly before him. “She’s a man’s girl,” he found himself, saying.

He sat up with a shock at his own words. Then he rested his chin on his hands and gazed long at the blank wall before him. That was life—his life. That blank wall was his life.... If only it had a window in it; a bright space through which the vision could catch a glimpse of something broader and better.... Well, he could put a window in it. He could put a window in his life.

The next noon Frank Wilson looked up with surprise to see Y.D. riding into his yard. Wilson stiffened instantly, as though setting himself against the shock of an attack, but there was nothing belligerent in Y.D.‘s greeting.

“Wilson,” he said, “I pulled a dirty trick on you yesterday, an’ I got more than I reckoned on. The old Y.D. would have come back with a gun for vengeance. Well, I ain’t after vengeance. I reckon you an’ me has got to live in this valley, an’ we might as well live peaceful. Does that go with you?”

“Full weight and no shrinkage,” said Wilson, heartily, extending his hand. “Come up to the house for dinner.”

Y.D. was nothing loth to accept the invitation, even though he had his misgivings as to how he should meet the women folks. It turned out that Mrs. Wilson had been at a neighboring ranch for some days, and the girl was in charge of the home. The flash in her eyes did not conceal a glint of triumph—or was it humor?

“Jessie,” her father said, with conspicuous matter-of-factness, “Y.D. has just dropped in for dinner.”

Y.D. stood with his hat in his hand. This was harder than meeting Wilson. He felt that he could manage better if Wilson would get out.

“Miss Wilson,” he managed to say at length, “I just thought I’d run in an’ thank you for what you did yesterday.”

“You’re very welcome,” she answered, and he could not tell whether the note in her voice was of fun or sarcasm. “Any time I can be of service—”

“That’s what I wanted to talk about,” he broke in. There was something bewitching about the girl. She more than realized his fantastic visions of the night. She had mastered him. Perhaps it was a subtle masculine desire to turn her mastery into ultimate surrender that led him on.

“That’s just what I want to talk about. You started breakin’ in an outlaw yesterday, so to speak. How’d you like to finish the job?”

Y.D. was very red when this speech was finished. He had not known that a wisp of a girl could so discomfit a man.

“Is that a proposal?” she asked, and this time he was sure the note in her voice was one of banter. “I never had one, so I don’t know.”

“Well, yes, we’ll call it that,” he said, with returning courage.

“Well we won’t, either,” she flared back. “Just because I sat on a post and superintended the—the ceremonies, is no reason that you should want to marry me,—or I, you. You’ll find water and a basin on the bench at the end of the house, and dinner will be ready in twenty minutes.”

Y.D. had a feeling of a little boy being sent to wash himself.

But the next spring he built a larger cabin down the valley from The Forks, and to that cabin one day in June came Jessie Wilson to “finish the job.”