The Trail to Yesterday

by Charles Alden Seltzer

  CHAPTER V

  DAKOTA EVENS A SCORE

  With the thermometer at one hundred and five it was not to be expectedthat there would be much movement in Lazette. As a matter of fact, therewas little movement anywhere. On the plains, which began at the edge oftown, there was no movement, no life except when a lizard, seeking aretreat from the blistering sun, removed itself to a deeper shade underthe leaves of the sage-brush, or a prairie-dog, popping its head above thesurface of the sand, took a lightning survey of its surroundings, andapparently dissatisfied with the outlook whisked back into the bowels ofthe earth.

  There was no wind, no motion; the little whirlwinds of dust that arosesettled quickly down, the desultory breezes which had caused themdeparting as mysteriously as they had come. In the blighting heat thecountry lay, dead, spreading to the infinite horizons; in the sky no speckfloated against the dome of blue. More desolate than a derelict on thecalm surface of the trackless ocean Lazette lay, its huddled buildingsdingy with the dust of a continuing dry season, squatting in their dismallonesomeness in the shimmering, blinding sun.

  In a strip of shade under the eaves of the station sat the station agent,gazing drowsily from under the wide brim of his hat at the two glisteninglines of steel that stretched into the interminable distance. Somecowponies, hitched to rails in front of the saloons and the stores, stoodwith drooping heads, tormented by myriad flies; a wagon or two, minushorses, occupied a space in front of a blacksmith shop.

  In the Red Dog saloon some punchers on a holiday played cards at varioustables, quietly drinking. Behind the rough bar Pete Moulin, the proprietorstood, talking to his bartender, Blacky.

  "So that jasper's back again," commented the proprietor.

  "Which?" The bartender followed the proprietor's gaze, which was on a manseated at a card table, his profile toward them, playing cards withseveral other men. The bartender's face showed perplexity.

  Moulin laughed. "I forgot you ain't been here that long," he said. "Thatwas before your time. That fellow settin' sideways to us is TexasBlanca."

  "What's he callin' himself 'Texas' for?" queried the bartender. "He looksmore like a greaser."

  "Breed, I reckon," offered the proprietor. "Claims to have punched cows inTexas before he come here."

  "What's he allowin' to be now?"

  "Nobody knows. Used to own the Star--Dakota's brand. Sold out to Dakotafive years ago. Country got too hot for him an' he had to pull hisfreight."

  "Rustler?"

  "You've said something. He's been suspected of it. But nobody's talkin'very loud about it."

  "Not safe?"

  "Not safe. He's lightning with a six. Got his nerve to come back here,though."

  "How's that?"

  "Ain't you heard about it? I thought everybody'd heard about that deal.Blanca sold Dakota the Star. Then he pulled his freight immediate. A weekor so later Duncan, of the Double R, rides up to Dakota's shack with abunch of Double R boys an' accuses Dakota of rustlin' Double R cattle.Duncan had found twenty Double R calves runnin' with the Star cattle whichhad been marked secret. Blanca had run his iron on them an' sold them toDakota for Star stock. Dakota showed Duncan his bill of sale, all regular,an' of course Duncan couldn't blame him. But there was some hard wordspassed between Duncan an' Dakota, an' Dakota ain't allowin' they'reparticular friends since.

  "Dakota had to give up the calves, sure enough, an' he did. But sore!Dakota was sure some disturbed in his mind. He didn't show it much, bein'one of them quiet kind, but he says to me one day not long after Duncanhad got the calves back: 'I've been stung, Pete,' he says, soft an' evenlike; 'I've been stung proper, by that damned oiler. Not that I'm carin'for the money end of it; Duncan findin' them calves with my stock hasdamaged my reputation.' Then he laffed--one of them little short laffswhich he gets off sometimes when things don't just suit him--the way he'slaffed a couple of times when someone's tried to run a cold leadproposition in on him. He fair freezes my blood when he gets it off.

  "Well, he says to me: 'Mebbe I'll be runnin' in with Blanca one of thesedays.' An' that's all he ever says about it. Likely he expected Blanca tocome back. An' sure enough he has. Reckon he thinks that mebbe Dakotadidn't get wise to the calf deal."

  "In his place," said Blacky, eyeing Blanca furtively, "I'd be makin' someinquiries. Dakota ain't no man to trifle with."

  "Trifle!" Moulin's voice was pregnant with awed admiration. "I reckonthere ain't no one who knows Dakota's goin' to trifle with him--he'sdiscouraged that long ago. Square, too, square as they make 'em."

  "The Lord knows the country needs square men," observed Blacky.

  He caught a sign from a man seated at a table and went over to him with abottle and a glass. While Blacky was engaged in this task the door openedand Dakota came in.

  Moulin's admiration and friendship for Dakota might have impelled him towarn Dakota of the presence of Blanca, and he did hold up a covert finger,but Dakota at that moment was looking in another direction and did notobserve the signal.

  He continued to approach the bar and Blacky, having a leisure moment, cameforward and stood ready to serve him. A short nod of greeting passedbetween the three, and Blacky placed a bottle on the bar and reached for aglass. Dakota made a negative sign with his head--short and resolute.

  "I'm in for supplies," he laughed, "but not that."

  "Not drinkin'?" queried Moulin.

  "I'm pure as the driven snow," drawled Dakota.

  "How long has that been goin' on?" Moulin's grin was skeptical.

  "A month."

  Moulin looked searchingly at Dakota, saw that he was in earnest, andsuddenly reached a hand over the bar.

  "Shake!" he said. "I hate to knock my own business, an' you've been apretty good customer, but if you mean it, it's the most sensible thing youever done. Of course you didn't hit it regular, but there's been timeswhen I've thought that if I could have three or four customers like youI'd retire in a year an' spend the rest of my life countin' my dust!" Hewas suddenly serious, catching Dakota's gaze and winking expressively.

  "Friend of yourn here," he said.

  Dakota took a flashing glance at the men at the card tables and Moulin sawhis lips straighten and harden. But in the next instant he was smilinggravely at the proprietor.

  "Thanks, Pete," he said quietly. "But you're some reckless with theEnglish language when you're calling him my friend. Maybe he'll be provingthat he didn't mean to skin me on that deal."

  He smiled again and then left the bar and strode toward Blanca. The lattercontinued his card playing, apparently unaware of Dakota's approach, butat the sound of his former victim's voice he turned and looked up slowly,his face wearing a bland smile.

  It was plain to Moulin that Blanca had known all along of Dakota'spresence in the saloon--perhaps he had seen him enter. The other cardplayers ceased playing and leaned back in their chairs, watching, for someof them knew something of the calf deal, and there was that in Dakota'sgreeting to Blanca which warned them of impending trouble.

  "Blanca," said Dakota quietly, "you can pay for those calves now."

  It pleased Blanca to dissemble. But it was plain to Moulin--as it musthave been plain to everybody who watched Blanca--that a shadow crossed hisface at Dakota's words. Evidently he had entertained a hope that hisduplicity had not been discovered.

  "Calves?" he said. "What calves, my frien'?" He dropped his cards to thetable and turned his chair around, leaning far back in it and hooking hisright thumb in his cartridge belt, just above the holster of his pistol."I theenk it mus' be mistak'."

  "Yes," returned Dakota, a slow, grimly humorous smile reaching his face,"it was a mistake. You made it, Blanca. Duncan found it out. Duncan tookthe calves--they belonged to him. You're going to pay for them."

  "I pay for heem?" The bland smile on Blanca's face had slowly faded withthe realization that his victim was not to be further misled by him. Inplace of the smile his face now wore an expression of sneering contempt,and his black eyes had taken on a w
atchful glitter. He spoke slowly: "Ipay for no calves, my frien'."

  "You'll pay," said Dakota, an ominously quiet drawl in his voice,"or----"

  "Or what?" Blanca showed his white teeth in a tigerish smirk.

  "This town ain't big enough for both of us," said Dakota, his eyes coldand alert as they watched Blanca's hand at his cartridge belt. "One of uswill leave it by sundown. I reckon that's all."

  He deliberately turned his back on Blanca and walked to the door, steppingdown into the street. Blanca looked after him, sneering. An instant laterBlanca turned and smiled at his companions at the table.

  "It ain't my funeral," said one of the card players, "but if I was in yourplace I'd begin to think that me stayin' here was crowdin' the populationof this town by one."

  Blanca's teeth gleamed. "My frien'," he said insinuatingly, "it's yourdeal." His smile grew. "Thees is a nize country," he continued. "I like itver' much. I come back here to stay. Dakota--hees got the Star too cheap."He tapped his gun holster significantly. "To-night Dakota hees gosomewhere else. To-morrow who takes the Star? You?" He pointed to each ofthe card players in turn. "You?" he questioned. "You take it?" He smiledat their negative signs. "Well, then, Blanca take it. Peste! Dakota givehimself till sundown!"

  * * * * *

  The six-o'clock was an hour and thirty minutes late. For two hours SheilaLangford had been on the station platform awaiting its coming. For a fullhalf hour she had stood at one corner of the platform straining her eyesto watch a thin skein of smoke that trailed off down the horizon, butwhich told her that the train was coming. It crawled slowly--like a hugeserpent--over the wilderness of space, growing always larger, steaming itsway through the golden sunshine of the afternoon, and after a time, with agrinding of brakes and the shrill hiss of escaping air, it drew alongsidethe station platform.

  A brakeman descended, the conductor strode stiffly to the telegrapher'swindow, two trunks came out of the baggage car, and a tall man of fiftyalighted and was folded into Sheila's welcoming arms. For a moment the twostood thus, while the passengers smiled sympathetically. Then the man heldSheila off at arm's length and looked searchingly at her.

  "Crying?" he said. "What a welcome!"

  "Oh, daddy!" said Sheila. In this moment she was very near to telling himwhat had happened to her on the day of her arrival at Lazette, but shefelt that it was impossible with him looking at her; she could not at ablow cast a shadow over the joy of his first day in the country where,henceforth, he was to make his home. And so she stood sobbing softly onhis shoulder while he, aware of his inability to cope with anything somysterious as a woman's tears, caressed her gently and waited patientlyfor her to regain her composure.

  "Then nothing happened to you after all," he laughed, patting her cheeks."Nothing, in spite of my croaking."

  "Nothing," she answered. The opportunity was gone now; she was committedirrevocably to her secret.

  "You like it here? Duncan has made himself agreeable?"

  "It is a beautiful country, though a little lonesome after--after Albany.I miss my friends, of course. But Duncan's sister has done her best, and Ihave been able to get along."

  The engine bell clanged and they stood side by side as the train pulledslowly away from the platform. Langford solemnly waved a farewell to it.

  "This is the moment for which I have been looking for months," he said,with what, it seemed to Sheila, was almost a sigh of relief. He turned toher with a smile. "I will look after the baggage," he said, and leavingher he approached the station agent and together they examined the trunkswhich had come out of the baggage car.

  Sheila watched him while he engaged in this task. His face seemed a trifledrawn; he had aged much during the month that she had been separated fromhim. The lines of his face had grown deeper; he seemed, now that she sawhim at a distance, to be care-worn--tired. She had heard people call him ahard man; she knew that business associates had complained of what theywere pleased to call his "sharp methods"; it had even been hinted that his"methods" were irregular.

  It made no difference to her, however, what people thought of him, or whatthey said of him, he had been a kind and indulgent parent to her and shesupposed that in business it was everybody's business to look sharplyafter their own interests. For there were jealous people everywhere; envystalks rampant through the world; failure cavils at mediocrity, mediocritysneers at genius. And Sheila had always considered her father a genius,and the carping of those over whom her father had ridden roughshod hadalways sounded in her ears like tributes.

  As quite unconsciously we are prone to place the interests of self aboveconsiderations for the comfort and the convenience of others, so Sheilahad grown to judge her father through the medium of his treatment of her.Her own father--who had died during her infancy--could not have treatedher better than had Langford. Since her mother's death some years before,Langford had been both father and mother to her, and her affection for himhad flourished in the sunshine of his. No matter what other peoplethought, she was satisfied with him.

  As a matter of fact David Dowd Langford allowed no one--not evenSheila--to look into his soul. What emotions slumbered beneath the mask ofhis habitual imperturbability no one save Langford himself knew. Duringall his days he had successfully fought against betraying his emotions andnow, at the age of fifty, there was nothing of his character revealed inhis face except sternness. If addicted to sharp practice in business noone would be likely to suspect it, not even his victim. Could one havelooked steadily into his eyes one might find there a certain gleam to warnone of trickery, only one would not be able to look steadily into them,for the reason that they would not allow you. They were shifty, craftyeyes that took one's measure when one least expected them to do so.

  Over the motive which had moved her father to retire from business whilestill in his prime Sheila did not speculate. Nor had she speculated whenhe had bought the Double R ranch and announced his intention to spend theremainder of his days on it. She supposed that he had grown tired of theunceasing bustle and activity of city life, as had she, and longed forsomething different, and she had been quite as eager as he to take up herresidence here. This had been the limit of her conjecturing.

  He had told her when she left Albany that he would follow her in a month.And therefore, in a month to the day, knowing his habit of punctuality,Sheila had come to Lazette for him, having been driven over from theDouble R by one of the cowboys.

  She saw the station agent now, beckoning to the driver of the wagon, andshe went over to the edge of the station platform and watched while thetrunks were tumbled into the wagon.

  The driver was grumbling good naturedly to Langford.

  "That darned six-o'clock train is always late," he was saying. "It's aquarter to eight now an' the sun is goin' down. If that train had been ontime we could have made part of the trip in the daylight."

  The day had indeed gone. Sheila looked toward the mountains and saw thatgreat long shadows were lengthening from their bases; the lower half ofthe sun had sunk behind a distant peak; the quiet colors of the sunsetwere streaking the sky and glowing over the plains.

  The trunks were in; the station agent held the horses by the bridles,quieting them; the driver took up the reins; Sheila was helped to the seatby her father, he jumped in himself, and they were off down the street,toward a dim trail that led up a slope that began at the edge of town andmelted into space.

  The town seemed deserted. Sheila saw a man standing near the front door ofa saloon, his hands on his hips. He did not appear interested in eitherthe wagon or its occupants; his gaze roved up and down the street and henervously fingered his cartridge belt. He was a brown-skinned man, almostolive, Sheila thought as her gaze rested on him, attired after the mannerof the country, with leathern chaps, felt hat, boots, spurs, neckerchief.

  "Why, it is sundown already!" Sheila heard her father say. "What a suddenchange! A moment ago the light was perfect!"

  A subconscious sen
se only permitted Sheila to hear her father's voice, forher thoughts and eyes were just then riveted on another man who had comeout of the door of another saloon a little way down the street. Sherecognized the man as Dakota and exclaimed sharply.

  She felt her father turn; heard the driver declare, "It's comin' off,"though she had not the slightest idea of his meaning. Then she realizedthat he had halted the horses; saw that he had turned in his seat and waswatching something to the rear of them intently.

  "We're out of range," she heard him say, speaking to her father.

  "What's wrong?" This was her father's voice.

  "Dakota an' Blanca are havin' a run-in," announced the driver. "Dakota'sgive Blanca till sundown to get out of town. It's sundown now an' Blancaain't pulled his freight, an' it's likely that hell will be a-poppin'sorta sudden."

  Sheila cowered in her seat, half afraid to look at Dakota--who was walkingslowly toward the man who still stood in front of the saloon--though inspite of her fears and misgivings the fascination of the scene held hergaze steadily on the chief actors.

  Out of the corners of her eyes she could see that far down the street menwere congregated; they stood in doorways, at convenient corners, theireyes directed toward Dakota and the other man. In the sepulchral calmwhich had fallen there came to Sheila's ears sounds that in another timeshe would not have noticed. Somewhere a door slammed; there came to herears the barking of a dog, the neigh of a horse--sharply the sounds smotethe quiet atmosphere, they seemed odd to the point of unreality.

  However, the sounds did not long distract her attention from the chiefactors in the scene which was being worked out in front of her; the noisesdied away and she gave her entire attention to the men. She saw Dakotareach a point about thirty feet from the man in front of thesaloon--Blanca. As Dakota continued to approach, Sheila observed an evilsmile flash suddenly to Blanca's face; saw a glint of metal in the faintlight; heard the crash of his revolver; shuddered at the flame spurt. Sheexpected to see Dakota fall--hoped that he might. Instead, she saw himsmile--in much the fashion in which he had smiled that night in the cabinwhen he had threatened to shoot the parson if she did not consent to marryhim. And then his hand dropped swiftly to the butt of the pistol at hisright hip.

  Sheila's eyes closed; she swayed and felt her father's arm come out andgrasp her to keep her from falling. But she was not going to fall; she hadmerely closed her eyes to blot out the scene which she could not turnfrom. She held her breath in an agony of suspense, and it seemed an ageuntil she heard a crashing report--and then another. Then silence.

  Unable longer to resist looking, Sheila opened her eyes. She saw Dakotawalk forward and stand over Blanca, looking down at him, his pistol stillin hand. Blanca was face down in the dust of the street, and as Dakotastood over him Sheila saw the half-breed's body move convulsively and thenbecome still. Dakota sheathed his weapon and, without looking toward thewagon in which Sheila sat, turned and strode unconcernedly down thestreet. A man came out of the door of the saloon in front of whichBlanca's body lay, looking down at it curiously. Other men were runningtoward the spot; there were shouts, oaths.

  For the first time in her life Sheila had seen a man killed--murdered--andthere came to her a recollection of Dakota's words that night in thecabin: "Have you ever seen a man die?" She had surmised from his mannerthat night that he would not hesitate to kill the parson, and now she knewthat her sacrifice had not been made in vain. A sob shook her, the worldreeled, blurred, and she covered her face with her hands.

  "Oh!" she said in a strained, hoarse voice. "Oh! The brute!"

  "Hey!" From a great distance the driver's voice seemed to come. "Hey!What's that? Well, mebbe. But I reckon Blanca won't rustle any morecattle." "God!" he added in an awed voice; "both of them hit him!"

  Blanca was dead then, there could be no doubt of that. Sheila felt herselfswaying and tried to grasp the end of the seat to steady herself. Sheheard her father's voice raised in alarm, felt his arm come out again andgrasp her, and then darkness settled around her.

  When she recovered consciousness her father's arms were still around herand the buckboard was in motion. Dusk had come; above her countless starsflickered in the deep blue of the sky.

  "I reckon she's plum shocked," she heard the driver say.

  "I don't wonder," returned Langford, and Sheila felt a shiver run overhim. "Great guns!" Sheila wondered at the tone he used. "That man is amarvel with a pistol! Did you notice how cool he took it?"

  "Cool!" The driver laughed. "If you get acquainted with Dakota you'll findout that he's cool. He's an iceberg, that's what he is!"

  "They'll arrest him, I suppose?" queried Langford.

  "Arrest him! What for? Didn't he give Blanca his chance? That's why I'mtellin' you he's cool!"

  It was past two o'clock when the buckboard pulled up at the Double Rcorral gates and Langford helped Sheila down. She was still pale andtrembling and did not remain downstairs to witness her father'sintroduction to Duncan's sister, but went immediately to her room. Sleepwas far from her, however, for she kept dwelling over and over on the oddfortune which had killed Blanca and allowed Dakota to live, when thelatter's death would have brought to an end the distasteful relationshipwhich his freakish impulse had forced upon her.

  She remembered Dakota's words in the cabin. Was Fate indeed running thisgame--if game it might be called?