The Heart of the Range

by William Patterson White

  CHAPTER XXVI

  THE QUARREL

  "Lo, Peaches, ain't you afraid of gettin' sunburnt?" Peaches Austin,gambler though he was, flickered his eyelashes. He was startled. Hehad not had the slightest warning of Racey Dawson's approach.

  "Didn't hear me, did you?" Racey continued, conversationally. "Ididn't want you to. That's why I kept my spurs off and sifted roundfrom the back of the blacksmith shop. And you were expecting me tocome scampering down the trail over Injun Ridge, weren't you? Joke'son you, Peaches, sort of."

  Still Peaches said nothing. He sat and gazed at Racey Dawson.

  "Don't be a hawg," resumed Racey. "Move over and lemme sit down, too.That's the boy. Now we're both comfortable, Peaches, you mean to sitthere and tell me you didn't hear any shooting up at the Starlight awhile back?"

  Peaches Austin wetted his lips with the tip of a careful tongue. "Iheard shootin'," he admitted, stiff-lipped.

  "And what did you think it was?"

  "I didn't know."

  "Didn't you see Thompson ride away?"

  "Shore."

  "And didn't you think anything about that, either?"

  "Oh, I thought, but--"

  "But you had yore orders to sit here and wait for li'l Willie. And youalways obey orders. That it, Peaches?"

  "What are you drivin' at?"

  "Yo're always asking me that, Peaches. Try something new for a change.Look."

  Racey extended a long arm past Peaches' nose and pointed up thestreet toward the Starlight Saloon. A man was backing out through thedoorway. Another followed, walking forward. Between them they werecarrying a third man. The hat of the third man was over his face. Hisarms, which hung down, jerked like the arms of a doll. Even at thatdistance Peaches could see that there was no life in the third man.

  "That's Doc Coffin," Racey murmured without rancour. "I wonder wherethey're taking him? He used to bach with Nebraska Jones, didn't he? Iguess that's where they're taking him to. Yep, they've gone round thecorner of the stage company's corral."

  "Where's Honey?" queried Peaches in a still, small voice.

  "In the Starlight. He ain't hurt bad. Foot and arm. Lucky, huh?"

  Peaches Austin considered these things a moment. "Doc Coffin wasreckoned a fast man," he said in the tone of one who, after addingup a column of figures, has found the correct total, "and Honey Hokewasn't none slow himself. And you got 'em both."

  "I didn't get 'em both," corrected Racey. "Honey is only wounded."

  "Same thing. You could 'a' got 'him if you wanted to. Yo're lucky,that's what it is. Yo're lucky. And you been lucky from the beginning.I ain't superstitious, but--" Here he lied. Like most gamblers Peacheswas sadly superstitious. He looked at Racey, and there was somethingmuch akin to wonder on his countenance. He shook his head and wassilent a long thirty seconds. "Yo're too lucky for me--I quit," hefinished.

  "How much?"

  "Complete. I tell you, I don't buck no such luck as yores no longer.I'll never have none myself if I do. I'm goin'."

  Peaches Austin got to his feet and walked across the street to thehotel. Twenty minutes later Racey, sitting on the bench in front ofthe blacksmith shop, saw him issue from the hotel, carrying a saddle,packed saddlebags, and _cantenas_, blanket and bridle, and go to thehotel corral.

  Within three minutes Peaches Austin rode out from behind the hotel. Ashe passed the blacksmith shop he said "So long" to Racey.

  "See you later," nodded that serene young man.

  "I hope not," tossed back Peaches, and rode on down the trail thatleads over Indian Ridge to Marysville and the south.

  Racey watched him out of town. Then he went to Mike Flynn's to seeand, if it were possible, to cheer up his wounded friend, SwingTunstall. But he was not allowed to see him. Swing, it appeared, hadbeen given an opiate by Joy Blythe, who was acting as nurse, and sherefused to awaken her patient for anybody. So there.

  Racey went to the Happy Heart to while away the remainder of thehour set by Judge Dolan. The bartender greeted him respectfully andcuriously. So did several other men he knew. For that respect andthat curiosity he understood the reason. It lay on a bunk in NebraskaJones's shack.

  No one asked him to drink. People are usually a little backward insocial intercourse with a citizen who has just killed his fellowman.Of course in time the coolness wears off. In this case the time wouldbe short, Doc Coffin having been one of those that more or lessencumber the face of the earth. But for the moment Racey felt hisostracism and resented it.

  He set down his drink half drunk and walked out of the Happy Heart.

  * * * * *

  "See anything of Luke Tweezy lately?" asked Judge Dolan when Racey wassitting across the table from him in the Judge's office.

  "Saw him to-day."

  "Where?"

  "Moccasin Spring."

  Judge Dolan nodded and rasped a hand across his stubbly chin. "Luke isin town now," said he.

  "I ain't lost any Luke Tweezys," observed Racey, looking up at theceiling.

  "I wonder how long Luke is figuring on staying in town," went on JudgeDolan, sticking like a stamp to his original subject.

  "Nothing to me."

  "It might be. It might be. You never can tell about them things,Racey."

  Racey Dawson's eyes came down from the ceiling. He studied the Judge'sface attentively. What was Dolan driving at? Racey had known the Judgefor several years, and he was aware that the more indirect the Judgebecame in his discourse the more important the subject matter waslikely to be.

  "No," said Racey, willing to bite, "you never can tell."

  "We was talking one day about a feller making mistakes." The tangentwas merely apparent.

  "Yep," acquiesced Racey. "We were saying Luke Tweezy made a goodmany."

  "Something like that, yeah. You run across any of Luke's mistakes yet,Racey?"

  Racey shook his head. "No."

  "Did you go to Marysville?"

  "Why for Marysville?"

  "Luke Tweezy lives in Marysville."

  "And you think there's somebody in Marysville would talk?"

  Judge Dolan looked pained. "I didn't say so," he was quick to remark.

  "I know you didn't, but--"

  "I don't guess they's many folks in Marysville _know_ much aboutLuke--no, not many. Luke is careful and clever, damn clever.But they's other things besides folks which might have usefulinformation."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. A gent, a lawyer anyway, keeps a lot of papers in his safe asa rule. Sometimes them papers make a heap interesting readin'." TheJudge paused and regarded Racey coolly.

  "They might prove interesting reading, that's a fact," drawled Racey.

  "Now I ain't suggestin' anything," pursued Judge Dolan. "I couldn't onaccount of my oath. But it ain't so Gawd-awful far from Farewell toMarysville."

  "It ain't _too_ far."

  "I got a notion Luke Tweezy will find important business to keep himhere in Farewell the next four or five days."

  "I wonder what kind of a safe Luke has got," murmured Racey.

  "Damfino," said the Judge. "You know anything about dynamite--how it'shandled, huh?"

  "Shore, handle it carefully."

  "I mean how to prepare a fuse and detonator and stick it in thecartridge. You know how?"

  "I helped a miner man once for a week. Shore I know. You cut the fusesquare-ended. Stick the square end into the cap until it touches thefulminate, and crimp down the copper shell all round with a dull knifeto hold the fuse. Then you make a hole in the end of the cartridgeand--"

  "I guess you know yore business, Racey," interrupted Judge Dolan."You'll find a package on that shelf by the door. Handle it carefully.I'm glad you dropped in, Racey, Nice weather we're having."

  "But there are some people about due for a cold wave," capped Racey,stopping on his way out to take the package from the shelf and wink atJudge Dolan.

  The wink was not returned. But the Judge's tongue may have been in hischeek
. He was a most human person, was Judge Dolan of Farewell.

  Racey, handling the package with care, went back to the draw wherehe had left the two horses. In the draw he opened the package. Itcontained six sticks of dynamite and the necessary detonators andfuse.

  "Good old Judge," said Racey, admiringly, and rewrapped the dynamite,the detonators, and the fuse with even more care than he had employedin unwrapping them.

  He rolled the package into his slicker and tied down the slickerbehind the cantle of his saddle. Untying the two horses he mounted hisown and, leading the other, rode to the hotel corral.

  Bill Lainey was only too glad to lend him a fresh horse and a bransack.

  It was dusk when he dismounted at the Dale corral. There was a lampin the kitchen. Its rays shone out through the open door and made arectangle of golden light on the dusty earth. Molly was standing atthe kitchen table. She was stirring something in a bowl. She did notturn her head when he came to the door.

  "Evenin', Molly," said Racey.

  "Good evening." Just that.

  "Uh. Yore ma around?"

  "She's gone to bed." Still the dark head was not raised.

  He misunderstood both her brevity and the following silence. Heleft his hat on the washbench outside the door and stepped into thekitchen.

  "Don't take it so to heart, Molly," he said, awkwardly.

  "It's hard, but--Shucks, lookit, I've got something to tell you."

  In very truth he had something to tell her but he had not meant totell her so soon.

  "Lemme take care of you, Molly--dear. You know I love you, and--"

  "Stop!" Molly turned to him an expressionless face. She looked at himsteadily. "You say you love me?" she went on.

  "Shore I say it." He was plainly puzzled at her reception of what hehad said. Girls did not act this way in books.

  "How about that--that other girl? Marie, I think her name is."

  "What about her?"

  "A good deal."

  "What has she got to do with my loving you, I'd like to know?"

  "She loves you."

  "Marie? Loves me? Yo're crazy!"

  "Oh, am I? If she hadn't loved you do you think for one minute she'dcome riding all the way out here to give you a warning?"

  "Marie and I are friends," he admitted. "But there ain't any lawagainst that."

  "None at all." Molly's eyes dropped. Her head turned back. She resumedher operations with a spoon in the bowl.

  "Lookit here, Molly--"

  "Don't you call me Molly." Her tone was as lacking in expression aswas her face.

  "But you've got to listen to me!" he insisted, desperately. "I tellyou there ain't anything between Marie and me."

  "Then there ought to be." Thus Molly. Womanlike she yearned to use herclaws.

  "But--"

  "Oh, I've heard all about your carryings on with that--creature; howyou talk to her, and people have seen you walking with her on thestreet. I saw you myself. Yesterday when Mis' Jackson drove out hereto buy three hens she told me when the girl was arrested and fined fortrying to murder a man you stepped up and paid her fine. Did you?"

  "I did. But--"

  "There aren't any buts! You've got a nerve, you have, making love tome after running round with that wretched hussy!"

  "She ain't a hussy!" denied the exasperated Racey, who was alwaysloyal to absent friends. "She's all right. Just because she happens tobe a lookout in the Happy Heart ain't anything against her. It don'tgive you nor anybody else license to insult her."

  This was too much. Not content with confessing his friendship for thegirl, he was standing up for her. Molly whirled upon him.

  "Go!" Tone and business could not have been excelled by Peg Woffingtonherself.

  Racey went.

  "What's the matter?" queried a sleepy voice from the doorway givinginto an inner room, as Racey's spurred heels jingled past thewashbench. "What's goin' on? Who was here? What you yelling about,anyway?"

  "Racey was here, Ma," said Molly.

  "Seems to me you made an uncommon racket about it," grumbled hermother, plodding into the kitchen in her slippers.

  Her gray hair was all in strings about her face. Her eyes and cheekswere puffed with sleep. She had pulled a quilt round her shouldersover her nightdress. Now she gave the quilt a hitch up and sat down ina chair.

  "Make me a cup o' coffee, will you, Molly?" said Mrs. Dale. "My headaches sort of. I hope you didn't have a fight with Racey Dawson."

  "Well, we didn't quite agree," admitted Molly, snapping shut the coverof the coffee-mill and clamping the mill between her knees. "I don'tlike him any more, Ma."

  "And after he's helped us so! I was counting on him to fix up thismortgage business! Whatever's got into you, Molly?"

  "He's been running round with that awful lookout girl at the HappyHeart."

  "Is that all?" yawned Mrs. Dale, greatly relieved. "I thought it mighthave been something serious."

  "It is serious! What right has he to--"

  "Why hasn't he? You ain't engaged to him."

  "I know I'm not, but he--I--you--" Molly began to flounder.

  "Has he ever told you he loved you?" Mrs. Dale inquired, shrewdly.

  "Not in so many words, but--"

  "But you know he does. Well, so do I know he does. I knew it soon asyou did--before, most likely. Don't you fret, Molly, he'll come back."

  "No, he won't. Not now. I don't want him to."

  "Then who's to fix up this mortgage business with Tweezy, I'd liketo know? I declare, I wish I'd taken that lawyer's offer. We'd havesomething then, anyhow. Now we'll have to get out without a nickel.Oh, Molly, what did you quarrel with Racey for?"