Starr, of the Desert

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER FOUR

  STARR WOULD LIKE TO KNOW

  Properly speaking Starr did not belong to New Mexico. He was a Texas man,and, until a certain high official asked him to perform a certain missionfor the Secret Service, he had been a ranger. Puns were made upon hisname when he was Ranger Starr, but he was a ranger no longer, and thepuns had ceased to trouble him. His given name was Chauncy DeWitt;perhaps that is why even his closest friends called him Starr, it was somuch easier to say, and it seemed to fit him so much better.

  Ostensibly, and for a buffer to public curiosity, Starr was acting in themodest capacity of cattle buyer for a big El Paso meat company.Incidentally he bought young sheep in season, and chickens from theMexican ranchers, and even a bear that had been shot up in the mountainsvery early in the spring, before the fat had given place to leanness.Whatever else Starr did he kept carefully to himself, but his meat buyingwas perfectly authentic and satisfactory. And if those who knew his pastrecord wondered at his occupation, Starr had plenty of reasons for thechange, and plenty of time in which to explain those reasons.

  As to his personal appearance, there is not a great deal to say. I'mafraid Starr would not have attracted any notice in a crowd. He was atrifle above average height, perhaps, and he had nice eyes whose colormight be a matter of dispute; because they were a bit too dark for gray,a bit too light for real hazel, with tiny flecks of green in certainlights. His lashes were almost heavy enough to be called a mark ofbeauty, and when he took off his hat, which was not often except atmealtime and when he slept in a real bed, there was something veryattractive about his forehead and the way his hair grew on his temples.His mouth was pleasant when his mood was pleasant, but that was notalways. One front tooth had been gold-crowned, which made his smile atrifle conspicuous, but could not be called a disfigurement. For therest, he was tanned to a real desert copper, and riding kept himhealthily lean. But as I said before, you would never pick him out of acrowd as the hero of this story or of any other.

  Like most of us, Starr did not dazzle at the first sight. One must comeinto close contact with him to find him different from any other passablyattractive, intelligent man of the open. Oh, if you must have his age, Ithink he gave it at thirty-one, the last time he was asked, but he mighthave said twenty-five and been believed. He was bashful, and he got onbetter with men than he did with women; but if you will stop to think,most decent men do if they have lived under their hats since they grew tothe long-trouser age. And if they have spent their working days astride astock saddle, you may be sure they are bashful unless they are overboldand impossible. Well, Starr was of the bashful, easily stampeded type. Asto his morals, he smoked and he swore a good deal upon occasion, and hedrank, and he played pool, and now and then a little poker, and he wouldlie for a friend any time it was necessary and think nothing of it. Also,he would fight whenever the occasion seemed to warrant it. He had notbeen to church since he wore square collars starched and spread acrosshis shoulders, and the shine of soap on his cheeks. And a pretty girlwould better not make eyes too boldly if she objected to being kissed,although Starr had never in his life asked a girl to marry him.

  It doesn't sound very promising for a hero. He really was just a humanbeing and no saint. Saint? You wouldn't think so if you had heard whathe said to his horse, Rabbit, just about an hour before you wereintroduced to him.

  Rabbit, it seems had been pacing along, half asleep in the blisteringheat of midday, among the cactus and the greasewood and thosedepressing, yellowish weeds that pretend to be clothing the desert withverdure, when they are merely emphasizing its barrenness. Starr hadbeen half asleep too, riding with one leg over the saddle horn to resthis muscles, and with his hat brim pulled down over his eyebrows toshade his eyes from the pitiless glare of New Mexico sunlight. Rabbitmight be depended upon to dodge the prairie dog holes and rocks anddirt hummocks, day or night, waking or sleeping; and since they wereriding cross-country anyway, miles from a trail, and since they wereheaded for water, and Rabbit knew as well as Starr just where it was tobe found, Starr held the reins slack in his thumb and finger and letthe horse alone.

  That was all right, up to a certain point. Rabbit was a perfectlydependable little range horse, and sensible beyond most horses. He wasambling along at his easy little fox-trot that would carry Starr many amile in a day, and he had his eyes half shut against the sun glare, andhis nose almost at a level with his knees. I suppose he was dreaming ofcool pastures or something like that, when a rattlesnake, coiled in thescant shade of a weed, lifted his tail and buzzed as stridently, asabruptly as thirteen rattles and a button can buzz.

  Rabbit had been bitten once when he was a colt and had gone around withhis head swollen up like a barrel for days. He gave a great, horrifiedsnort, heaved himself straight up in the air, whirled on his hind feetand went bucking across the scenery like a rodeo outlaw.

  Starr did not accompany him any part of the distance. Starr had gone offbackward and lit on his neck, which I assure you is painful anddisturbing to one's whole physical and moral framework. I'll say thismuch for Starr: The first thing he did when he got up was to shoot thehead off the snake, whose tail continued to buzz in a dreary, aimless waywhen there was absolutely nothing to buzz about. Snakes are like that.

  Starr was a little like that, also. He continued to cuss in a fretful,objectless way, even after Rabbit had stopped and waited for him withapology written in the very droop of his ears. When he had remounted, andthe horse had settled again to his straight-backed, shuffling fox-trot,Starr would frequently think of something else to say upon the subject offool horses and snakes and long, dry miles and the interminable desert;but since none of the things would bear repeating, we will let it go atthat. The point is that Starr was no saint.

  He knew of a spring where the water was sweet and cold, and where alonesome young fellow lived by himself and was always glad to see someone ride up to his door. The young fellow was what is called a goodfeeder, and might be depended upon to have a pot of frijoles cooked, andsourdough bread, and stewed fruit of some kind even in his leanest times,and call himself next door to starvation. And if he happened to be infunds, there was no telling; Starr, for instance, had eaten canned plumpudding and potted chicken and maraschino cherries and ginger snaps, allat one sitting, when he happened to strike the fellow just after sellinga few sheep. Thinking of these things, Starr clucked to Rabbit and toldhim for gosh sake to pick his feet off the ground and not to take rootand grow there in the desert like a several-kinds of a so-and-so cactus.

  Rabbit twitched back his ears to catch the drift of Starr's remarks,rattled his teeth in a bored yawn, and shuffled on. Starr laughed.

  "Durn it, why is it you never take me serious?" he complained. "I canname over all the mean things you are, and you just waggle one ear, muchas to say, 'Aw, hell! Same ole tune, and nothing to it but noise.' Someof these days you're going to get your pedigree read to you--and readright!" He leaned forward and lovingly lifted Rabbit's mane, holding itfor a minute or two away from the sweaty neck. "Sure's hot out hereto-day, ain't it, pardner?" he murmured, and let the mane fall again intoplace. "Kinda fries out the grease, don't it? If young Calvert's got anyhoss-feed in camp, I'm going to beg some off him. Get along, the fasteryou go, the quicker you'll get there."

  The desert gave place to scattered, brown cobblestones of granite. Rabbitpicked his way carefully among these, setting his feet down daintily inthe interstices of the rocks. He climbed a long slope that proved itselfto be a considerable hill when one looked back at the desert below. Thefarther side was more abrupt, and he took it in patient zigzags where thefooting promised some measure of security. At the bottom he turned shortoff to the right and made his way briskly along a rough wagon trail thathugged the hillside.

  "Fresh tracks going in--and then out again," Starr announced musinglyto Rabbit. "Maybe young Calvert hired a load of grub brought out; that,or he's had a visitor in the last day or two--maybe a week back,though; this dry ground holds tracks a long wh
ile. Go on, it's only amile or so now."

  The trail took a sudden turn toward the bottom of the wide depression asthough it wearied of dodging rocks and preferred the loose sand below. Ofhis own accord Rabbit broke into a steady lope, flinging his headsidewise now and then to discourage the pestiferous gnats that swarmedabout his ears. Starr, also driven to action of some kind, began to flinghis hands in long sweeping gestures past his face. He hoped that thecabin, being on a higher bit of ground, would be free from the pests.

  Bounding a sharp turn, Starr glimpsed the cabin and frowned as somethingunfamiliar in its appearance caught his attention. For just a minute hecould not name the change, and then "Curtains at the windows!" hesnorted. "Now, has the dub gone and got married, wonder?" He hoped not,and his hope was born not so much from sympathy with any woman who mustlive in such a place, but from a very humanly, selfish regard for his ownpassing comfort. With a woman in the cabin, Starr would not feel so freeto break his journey there with a rest and a meal or two.

  He went on, however, sitting passively in the saddle while Rabbit headedstraight for the spring. The bit of white curtain at the one small,square window facing that way troubled Starr, though it could not turnhim back thirsty into the desert.

  It was Rabbit who, ignorant of the significance of that flapping bit ofwhite, was taken unawares and ducked sidewise when Helen May, standingprecariously on a rock beside the spring, cupped her hands around hersun-cracked lips and shouted "Vic!" at the top of her voice. She nearlyfell off the rock when she saw the horse and rider so close. They hadcome on her from behind, round another sharp nose of the rock-strewnhillside, so that she did not see them until they had discovered her.

  "Oh!" said Helen May quite flatly, dropping her hands from her sunburnedface and looking Starr over with the self-possessed, inquiring eyes ofone who is accustomed to gazing upon strange faces by the thousands.

  "How do you do?" said Starr, lifting his hat and foregoing instinctivelythe easy "Howdy" of the plains. "Is--Mr. Calvert at home?"

  "That depends," said Helen May, "on where he calls home. He isn'there, however."

  Rabbit, not in the least confused by the presence of a girl in thisout-of-the-way place, pushed forward and thrust his nose deep into thelower pool of the spring where the water was warmed a little by the sunon the rocks. Starr could not think of anything much to say, so he satleaning forward with a hand on Rabbit's mane, and watched the musclesworking along the neck, when the horse swallowed.

  "Oh--would you mind killing that beast down there in that little hollow?"Helen May had decided that it would be silly to keep on shouting for Vicwhen this man was here. "It's what they call a young Gila Monster, Ithink. And the bite is said to be fatal. I don't like the way he keepslooking at me. I believe he's getting ready to jump at me."

  Starr glanced quickly at her face, which was perfectly serious and even atrifle anxious, and then down in the direction indicated by abroken-nailed, pointing finger. He did not smile, though he felt like it.He looked again at Helen May.

  "It's a horned toad," he informed her gravely. "The one Johnny Calvertkept around for a pet, I reckon. He won't bite--but I'll kill it if yousay so." He dismounted and picked up a stone, and then looked at heragain inquiringly.

  Helen May eyed the toad askance. "Of course, if it's accustomed to beinga pet--but it looks perfectly diabolical. It--came after me."

  "It thought you would feed it, maybe."

  "Well, I won't. It can think again," said Helen May positively. "Youneedn't kill it, but if you'd chase it off somewhere out of sight--itgives me shivers. I don't like the way it stares at a person and blinks."

  Starr went over and picked up the toad, holding it cupped between hispalms. He carried it a hundred feet away, set it down gently on thefarther side of a rock, and came back. "Lots of folks keep them forpets," he said. "They're harmless, innocent things."

  He washed his hands in the pool where Rabbit had drunk, took the tincan that had stood on a ledge in the shade when Starr first came to thespring a year ago, and dipped it full from the inner pool that wasalways cool under the rocks. He turned his back to Helen May and dranksatisfyingly. The can was rusted and it leaked a swift succession ofdrops that was almost a stream. Helen May decided that she would bring awhite granite cup to the spring and throw the can away. It wasunsanitary, and it leaked frightfully, and it was a disgrace tocivilized thirst.

  "Pretty hot, to-day," Starr observed, when he had emptied the can and putit back. He turned and pulled the reins up along Rabbit's neck and tookthe stirrup in his hand.

  "Oh, won't you stop--for lunch? It's a long way to town." Helen Mayflushed behind her sunburn, but she felt that the law of the desertdemanded some show of hospitality.

  "Thanks, I must be getting on," said Starr, touched his hat brim androde away. He had a couple of fried-ham sandwiches in his pocket, andhe ought to make the Medina ranch by two o'clock, he reminded himselfphilosophically. A woman on Johnny Calvert's claim was disconcerting.What was she there for, anyway? From the way she spoke about Johnny,she couldn't be his wife, or if she were, she had a grudge againsthim. She didn't look like the kind of a girl that would marry theJohnny Calvert kind of a man. Maybe she was just stopping there for aday or so, with her folks. Still, that white curtain at the windowlooked permanent, somehow.

  Starr studied the puzzle from all angles. He might have stayed and hadhis curiosity satisfied, but it was second nature with Starr to hide anycuriosity he might feel; his riding matter-of-factly away, as though thegirl were a logical part of the place, was not all bashfulness. Partly itwas habit. He wondered who Vic was--man, woman or child? Man, he guessed,since she was probably calling for help with the horned toad, Starrgrinned when he thought of her naming it a Gila Monster. If she had everseen one of those babies! She must certainly be new to the country, ifshe didn't even know a horned toad when she saw one! What was she doingthere, anyway? Starr meant to find out. It was his business to find out,and besides, he wanted to know.