Читать книгу Robbers' Roost - Zane Grey - Страница 6

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NOT until the following morning did Jim Wall get a satisfactory scrutiny of the four members of Hays’ outfit.

His first impression was that not one of them had ever been a cowman, which gave their presence there such incongruity. Nor would any of them ever see their thirtieth year again.

Before breakfast, at the table, and afterward, out on the porch, it was give and take between Wall and this quartet. His lot had never been cast with just such men, but he knew how to meet them.

The eldest, who answered to the name of Mac, was a cadaverous-faced man, with a clammy skin and eyes like a ghoul. He was always twisting and squeezing his hands, lean, sinewy, strong members.

“Whar you from?” he had asked Wall.

“Wyoming last,” replied Jim, agreeably.

“An’ before thet, Texas, I’ll gamble.”

“Funny how I’m taken for a Texan, for I’m not. I never was in that state.”

“Not funny atall,” replied the other, with a laugh. “Leastaways not to Smoky hyar. Haw! Haw! You shore have the look of a Texan.”

“Hope that’s not against me here in Utah.”

“Jest contrary, I’d say,” rejoined Mac.

Jeff Bridges, a sturdy, tow-headed man of forty or thereabouts, probably once had been a farmer or a villager. He had a bluff, hearty manner, and seemed not to pry under the surface.

“Glad Hank took you on,” he said. “We need one cattleman in this outfit, an’ that’s no joke.”

Sparrowhawk Latimer, the third of the four, greatly resembled a horse thief Wall had once seen hanged—the same beaked nose, the same small sleek head, the same gimlet eyes of steel.

“Jim Wall, eh, from the Wind River country,” he said. “Been through thar, years ago. Must be populated now. It wasn’t a healthy place then.”

“Lots of ranchers, riders—and sheriffs,” returned Jim, easily. “That’s why I rode on.”

“Wal, them articles is scarce hyar. Utah is wild yet, except over east in the Mormon valleys.”

Hays had said to Slocum, the fourth member of this quartet, “Smoky, you an’ Wall shore ought to make a pair to draw to.”

“You mean a pair to draw on,” retorted the other. He was slight, wiry, freckled of face and hands, with a cast in one of his light, cold-blue eyes.

“Hell, no!” snorted the robber, in a way to fetch a laugh from his men. “Not on! ... Smoky, do you recollect thet gambler, Stud Smith, who works the stage towns an’ is somethin’ of a gunslinger?”

“I ain’t forgot him.”

“Wal, we set in a poker game with him one night. I was lucky. Stud took his losin’ to heart, an’ he shore tried to pick a fight. First he was goin’ to draw on me, then shifted to Jim. An’ damn if Jim didn’t bluff him out of throwin’ a gun.”

“How?”

“Jim just said for Stud not to draw, as there wasn’t a man livin’ who could set at a table an’ beat him to a gun.”

“Most obligin’ an’ kind of you, Wall,” remarked Smoky, with sarcasm, as he looked Jim over with unsatisfied eyes. “If you was so all-fired certain of thet, why’d you tip him off?”

“I never shoot a man just because the chance offers,” rejoined Jim, coldly.

There was a subtle intimation in this, probably not lost upon Slocum. The greatest of gunmen were quiet, soft-spoken, sober individuals who never sought quarrels. They were few in number, compared with the various types of would-be killers met with on the ranges and in the border towns. Jim knew that his reply would make an enemy, even if Slocum were not instinctively one on sight. There was no help for these things, and self-preservation lay solely in being able to instil doubt and fear. Respect could scarcely be felt by men like Slocum. Like a weasel he sniffed around Jim.

“You don’t, eh?” he queried. “Wal, I work on the opposite principle. Reckon I’ll live longer.... Wall, you strike me unfavorable.”

“Thanks for being honest, if not complimentary,” returned Jim. “I can’t strike everybody favorably, that’s sure.”

Hays swore at his lieutenant. “Unfavorable, huh? Now why the hell do you have to pop up with a dislike for him?”

“I didn’t say it was dislike. Just unfavorable. No offense meant.”

“Aw, buffalo chips!” ejaculated Hays, in disgust. “You can’t be pards with a man who strikes you unfavorable.”

“I have been, up to the limit.”

“Smoky, I won’t have no grudges in this outfit. I’ve got the biggest deal on I ever worked out. There’s got to be harmony among us.”

“Hank, you’re in your dotage. Harmony among a bunch of grown men, all hard, bitter, defeated outlaws? Bah!”

“Smoky, because you’re an outlaw doesn’t make me one, or Happy or Brad or Mac or any other of us, unless Jim here. He hasn’t confided in me yet.”

“I’m no outlaw,” declared Jim, coolly.

“It’s a little matter thet’ll soon be corrected. This Englishman has money enough to fetch the law out on this border. There’s your mistake, Hank. I’ve been ag’in’ this deal an’ I’ll stay ag’in’ it.”

“Same here,” interposed Lincoln.

“Wal, we don’t agree,” said Hays, calmly. “An’ thet’s nothin’. But Smoky bobbin’ up ag’in’ my new man—thet’s serious. Now let’s lay the cards on the table.... Jim, do you want to declare yourself?”

“I’m willing to answer questions—unless they get nasty,” replied Jim, frankly. He had anticipated some such circumstance as this, and really welcomed it.

“Will you tell the truth?” queried Slocum, bluntly.

“I’ll agree to—if I answer at all,” rejoined Jim, slowly.

“How do you size up Hank an’ his outfit?” went on Slocum.

“Well, that was easy, as far as Hank is concerned,” replied Wall, leisurely. “We met at the ferry on Green River. A third party came over with us. Stingy Mormon who swam his horses to save two bits. Hank held him up.”

“Wal, I’ll be jiggered!” ejaculated Slocum. “Right thar in town? An’ a Mormon, too!”

“Smoky, it was a fool thing to do, but I just couldn’t help it,” declared Hays, in exasperation.

“We’ll be huntin’ a roost in the canyons before long,” declared Slocum, derisively. And then he addressed Wall again: “Thet puts another complexion on your showin’ up with Hank. All the same, since we started this, I’d like to ask a couple more questions.”

“Shoot away, Smoky,” rejoined Jim, good-humoredly, as he sensed now less danger of a split.

“You got run out of Wyomin’?”

“No. But if I’d stayed on I’d probably stretched hemp.”

“Rustlin’?”

“No.”

“Hoss-stealin’? Thet hoss of yours is worth stealin’.”

“No.”

“Hold up a stage or somebody?”

“No. Once I helped hold up a bank. That was years ago.”

“Bank robber! You’re out of our class, Jim.”

“Hardly that. It was my first and only crack at a bank. Two of us got away. Then we held up a train—blew open the safe in the express car.”

“What’d you get?” queried Slocum, with an intense interest which was reflected in the faces of his comrades.

“Not much. Only sixty thousand dollars in gold. It was hard to pack away.”

Smoky’s low whistle attested to his admiration, if no more. The others stood spellbound. Mac rubbed his suggestive hands together.

Jim turned to them: “That, gentlemen, is the extent of my experience as a robber. I was never caught, but the thing dogged. Still, I don’t want to give the impression I left Wyoming on that account. As a matter of fact, both deals were pulled off in Iowa. Something personal made Wyoming too hot for me.”

“Women!” grinned Hays, his face lighting.

“No.”

“Guns?” flashed Slocum, penetratingly.

Jim laughed. “One gun, anyhow.”

They all laughed. The tension seemed released.

“Smoky, I call it square of Wall,” spoke up Hays. “He shore didn’t need to come clean as thet.”

“It’s all right,” agreed Slocum, as if forced to fair judgment. Yet he was not completely satisfied, and perhaps that was with himself.

Hays plumped off the porch rail with boots ringing his relief and satisfaction. “Now, fellers, we can get to work.”

“Work! My Gawd! man, we’ve been druv to skin an’ bones since you left,” complained Mac.

“What doin’?” asked Hays, in surprise.

“Doin’? Diggin’ ditches an’ post-holes, cuttin’ an’ snakin’ poles, mixin’ mortar, packin’ rocks, killin’ beeves. Say, fellers, what ain’t we been doin’?”

“Wal, you’re cowboys now,” returned Hays, facetiously. “An’ thet reminds me. Herrick puts a lot of things up to me. I ain’t no cattleman. Jim, do you know the cattle game?”

“From A to Z,” smiled Wall.

“Say, but I’m in luck. We’ll run the ranch now. Who’s been boss since I left?”

“Herrick. An’ thet shore made Heeseman an’ his outfit sore. There’s trouble brewin’ with him, Hank. We got to get rid of him an’ his pards before we can pull any deals.”

“Listen, I’ve only one deal in mind,” replied Hays, powerfully. “Thet’ll take time.”

“How much time?” queried Lincoln.

“I don’t know. Ought to have a couple of months.... Shore Heeseman sticks in my craw. We’ll have a pow-wow tonight. I’ll go see the boss. Rest of you get to work. Haw! Haw!”

“What’ll I do, Hank?” asked Jim.

“Wal, you look the whole diggin’s over.”

Jim lost no time in complying with his first order from the superintendent of Star Ranch. What a monstrous and incredible hoax was being perpetrated upon some foreigner! Jim had no sympathy for him. He was just curious.

Evidently there had been ranchers here in this valley before Herrick. Old log cabins and corrals adjoining the new ones attested to this. The barns, the pastures, the pens teemed with ranch life. Jim did not recall ever having heard so much of a clamor. Burros were braying all over the place; horses whistled and neighed; turkeys gobbled; pigs squealed; roosters crowed; sheep baaed. It was certainly a farm scene, and despite the overcrowding, the disproportion to the natural effects of a normal ranch, was colorful, bustling, thrilling in the extreme.

He would have been willing to wager something that no Westerner had ever seen a barn like the one newly erected. Jim did not know whether to proclaim it a monstrosity or a wonderfully new and utilitarian structure. Probably it was English in design. If Herrick did not mind expense, this sort of improvement was all right. There were fences new and puzzling to Jim, as in fact were all the peeled-log constructions.

Jim passed cowboys with only a word or a nod. He could get along with that breed, whether here or anywhere, because he had developed his own range life with them. He made unobtrusive effort to espy ranch hands of another type—that which was giving Hays concern. He talked with a stable-boy who proved easy to make friends with, and to an old man who said he had owned a homestead across the valley, one of those Herrick had gathered in. Jim gleaned information from this rancher. Herrick had bought out all the cattlemen in the valley, and on round the foothill line to Limestone Springs, where the big X Bar outfit began. Riders for these small ranches had gone to work for Herrick. They were Mormons. Jim concluded this was a desirable state of affairs, because it might account for the natural antagonism sure to arise between the real cowboys and the older employees of uncertain vocation. He was told, presently, that Heeseman, with ten men, was out on the range.

Presently Jim encountered Hays, accompanied by a tall, floridly blond man, garbed as no Westerner had ever been. This, of course, must be the Englishman. He was young, hardly over thirty, and handsome in a fleshy way.

“Mr. Herrick, this is my new hand I was tellin’ you about,” announced Hays, glibly. He was absolutely shining of eye and face. “Jim Wall, late of Wyomin’.... Jim, meet the boss.”

“How do you do, Mr. Wall,” returned Herrick, extending his hand, which Jim took with a bow and a word of acknowledgement. “Hays has been ringing your praises. I understand you’ve had wide experience on ranches?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve been riding the range since I was a boy,” replied Jim, aware of being taken in by intelligent blue eyes.

“Hays has suggested making you his foreman.”

“That is satisfactory to me.”

“Are you a Mormon?”

“No, sir.”

“To what church do you belong?”

“My parents were Methodists,” replied Jim.

“Married?”

“No, sir.”

“You are better educated than these other men. It will be part of your duties to keep my books. I’m in a bloody mess as to figures.”

“Mr. Herrick, if you haven’t kept track of purchases, cattle, supplies, wages—all that sort of thing—it won’t be easy to straighten it all out. I’ve tackled that job before.”

“So I was tellin’ the boss,” interposed Hays. “But I’m shore, Jim, you’re equal to thet.”

“As I understand ranching,” went on Herrick, “a foreman handles the riders. Now, as this ranching game is strange to me, I’m glad to have a foreman of experience. I was advised in Salt Lake City and at Grand Junction not to go in for cattle-raising out in this section. The claim was that the Henry Mountains was a rendezvous for several bands of steer thieves. That fact has been verified here by the ranchers from whom I bought land and cattle. My idea, then, was to hire some gunmen along with the cowboys. Hay’s name was given me at Grand Junction as the hardest nut in eastern Utah. Not so flattering to Mr. Hays, by Jove! but eminently satisfactory to me. So eventually my offer reached Hays and he consented to work for me, in the capacity, you understand, as a buffer between me and these cow-stealers. It got noised about, I presume, for other men with reputations calculated to intimidate thieves applied to me. I took on Heeseman and his friends.... Would you be good enough to give me your opinion, Wall?”

“It’s not an original idea at all, Mr. Herrick,” responded Jim, frankly, seeing the impression he was making on the Englishman. “That has been done before, in some cases, even to the setting of a thief to catch a thief. Its value lies in the fact that it works. But you really did not need to go to the expense—and risk, I might add—of hiring Heeseman’s outfit.”

“Expense is no object. Risk, however—what do you mean by risk?”

“Between ourselves I strongly suspect that Heeseman is a rustler and head of the biggest Mount Henry gang.”

“By Jove! You don’t say? This is ripping. Heeseman said the identical thing about Hays.”

Jim was on the lookout for that very thing.

“Hays will kill Heeseman for that,” retorted Jim, curtly. “But of course not while he’s in your employ. ... It seems important, Mr. Herrick, for you to understand something of Western ways. There is a difference between hard-riding, hard-gambling, hard-shooting Westerners and rustlers, although a rustler can be that, too. But rustling is low-down. Hank Hays’ father was a Mormon prospector. Hank never grew up with cattle. But with horses. He has been a horse-trader ever since I knew him. If you go over to Green River, to Moab, and towns to the east you will hear that Hays is absolutely not a rustler.”

“I took Hays at his word,” replied the Englishman. “Heeseman did not impress me. It’s rather a muddle.”

“Wal, Mr. Herrick, don’t you worry none,” interposed Hays, suavely. “Shore I don’t take kind to what Heeseman called me to your face, but I can overlook it for the present. Just let Heeseman ride on till he piles up. Then it won’t be our fault, an’ whatever blood-spillin’ comes of it can’t be laid to you. Besides, so long as you hire his outfit you’ll be savin’ money. Jim had it figgered wrong about expense. You see, if Heeseman is workin’ for you he can’t rustle as many cattle as if he wasn’t.”

“Meanwhile we will be learning the ropes,” put in Jim. “Such a big outfit as this needs adjustment. You oughtn’t sell a steer this summer.”

“Sell? I’m buying cattle now.”

“That makes our job easier,” returned Hays, with veracity. “Anythin’ come of thet deal you had on with thet Grand Junction outfit?”

“Yes. I received their reply the other day,” rejoined Herrick. “We’ll have to send a letter to Grand Junction to close the transaction.... By Jove! that reminds me. I had word from my sister Helen. It came from St. Louis. She is coming through Denver and will arrive at Grand Junction about the fifteenth.”

“Aw yes, I recollect—a sister comin’ out,” replied Hays, constrainedly.

“Young girl—if I may ask?” added Jim, haltingly.

“Young woman. Helen is twenty-two.”

“Comin’ for a little visit?” asked Hays.

“By Jove! it bids fair to be a life-long one,” declared Herrick, as if pleased. “She wants to make Star Ranch her home. Friends of ours ranching it in Colorado were instrumental in my traveling out here. Helen and I are alone—except for distant relatives. We are devoted to each other. If she can stick it out in this bush I’ll be jolly glad.”

“Ahuh,” replied Hays, without his former radiance. “Utah ain’t so good a place for a young woman.”

“How so? By Jove! she will love it!”

“Rough livin’. Rough men. No women atall. An’ Mormons! ... Excoose me, Mr. Herrick, but is this here sister a healthy girl?”

“All English girls are healthy. She’s strong and rides like a Tartar. It’s conceivable that she’ll turn Star Ranch on end.”

“I reckon any good-lookin’ girl would do thet, Mr. Herrick,” said Hays, resignedly. “But, Jim an’ me, here—we only guarantee to handle rustlers.”

“By Jove! you’ll have to handle these Mormon cowboys, too,” laughed Herrick. “Can you drive from Grand Junction in one day?”

“Shore. Easy with buckboard an’ good team,” replied Hays.

Jim Wall sustained his first slight reaction of dismay.

Their colloquy was interrupted by cowboys driving a string of heifers through the yard before the stable. And when they had passed Herrick resumed his walk with Hays, leaving Jim to his own devices.

Jim strolled around the corrals, the sheds, down the lane between the pastures, out to the open range, where for miles the gray was spotted with cattle, and back to the blacksmith shop. Here he scraped acquaintance with the smith, who proved to be a genial fellow named Crocker. He was another of the homesteaders Herrick had bought out, but he was not a Mormon. Manifestly he and his farming associates had been bewildered by the onslaught of the Englishman upon their peaceful valley and were frankly far the richer for it.

From the smithy Jim gravitated up the winding road to the top of the bench, where the rambling, yellow ranch-house, so new he smelled the rosin from the peeled logs, and the stately pines, and especially the view down the valley, wrought from him a feeling he seldom experienced—envy. How inconceivably good to own such a place—to have a home—to be able to gaze down the trails without keen eyes alert for riders inimical to life, and to revel in the far-flung curves and spurs and deeps of the desert! It was something Jim Wall could never know. His lot did not lie in the pleasant lanes of life.

This Englishman’s sister—this Helen Herrick—she would be coming to a remote, wild, and beautiful valley that any healthy-minded girl would love. But whatever the joy of reunion with her brother and the thrill of such unfettered life in the West, such a visit could only end in tragedy. Jim did not like the idea. A woman, especially a handsome one, always made trouble for men, though on the moment Jim was thinking only of her. What queer people the English! He remembered a gambler at Abiline, an immaculate, black-frocked, white-vested Englishman who frequented the dives of that frontier cattle town. He had been the coldest, nerviest proposition Jim had stacked up against. This Herrick had something of the same look, only one of pride and position instead of disgrace and ruin. What would the girl be like? Twenty-two years old, strong, a horsewoman, and handsome—very likely blond, as was her brother! And Jim made a mental calculation of the ruffians in Herrick’s employ. Eighteen! More, for including himself there were nineteen.

He seemed to feel disgust at the prospect of his being party to the misfortune of a young woman. But here, as in so many instances of recent years, he found discontent in the very things he might have avoided. Why rail at circumstance? Hank Hays had befriended him, even if his aim was selfish. Beggars could not be choosers. A robber should not be squeamish, and he, for one, could not be treacherous. Still——

He strode on and let action change the current of his thought. Avoiding another long gaze at the vast expanse half a hundred miles below, yet exquisitely clear in the rarefied atmosphere, he found a precipitous path down to the level, whence he made his way back to Hays’ cabin, satisfied yet dissatisfied with the morning.