by Zane Grey
“What’s eatin’ you? I ain’t got any such ailin’,” retorted Lonesome.
“Tracks, write down on yore paper there two wagons to pack food supplies. . . . How many wagons did yu buy, Mr. Lindsay?”
“Six. There were no more new ones in town. But I can obtain two second-hand, in good condition.”
“Put thet down, Tracks. . . . Now, Miss Lindsay, let me have the furniture, beddin’, hardware, household goods list?”
Laramie scanned two more pages. “Tracks, this stuff will take four wagons. We’ll have to cut down an’ take only what’s needed first off. Then send back for the rest. Say two wagons first trip. . . . Thet leaves us four wagons. . . . There are no tents on this list.”
“We never thought of tents,” rejoined Miss Lindsay.
“Yu’ll need four. Put thet down, Tracks. Also canvas an’ hoops for the wagons.”
“Oh, we’ll be traveling in prairie-schooners. A regular caravan!” exclaimed Miss Lindsay, evidently thrilled.
Laramie held out his hand for another list.
“Here’s one made out for us by Buffalo Jones.”
“It ought to do. But Jones is stingy. . . . Let’s see. Harness, tools, farm implements, saddles, blankets, bridles, salt, grain, camp utensils, seeds, oil. . . . Ah-huh. Pretty good for the old plainsman. . . . It’ll take four wagons to pack this. Tracks, put down two wagons for first trip out. . . . Thet makes six wagons, with two left. An’ we come down to the personal lists of the ladies.”
“We have trunks and bags galore, besides all the endless things we bought here,” Miss Lindsay informed him.
“How many trunks?”
“Sixteen. And twenty-eight bags and boxes.”
Laramie threw up his hands. “We’ll pack what we can an’ leave the rest for the second trip out. Got thet, Tracks? . . . Now, Mr. Lindsay, I’ll make out a list of things yu couldn’t be expected to know of. An’ Jones is a buffalo-hunter, not a cattleman. . . . How about teamsters an’ hawses?”
“Brown, the storekeeper, has engaged six drivers with teams for me.”
“We’ll need two more an’ a cook.”
Lindsay scratched his head dubiously. “My wife and the girls are good housekeepers. I — we thought they might take care of the cooking on the ride out.”
“Why, man, yu’re plumb loco,” drawled Laramie.
“I don’t know what that is, but I agree. I am.”
Harriet laughed, the first time in Laramie’s hearing. “I know. It means you’re crazy.”
“No offense, sir. Thet’s just a range word. But we cain’t have the ladies cookin’.”
“We are not afraid of work,” retorted Harriet, spirited almost to resentment.
“I reckon not, an’ I’ll bet my sombrero yu-all can cook up a delicious meal. But this will be tough sleddin’, Miss Lindsay. Not a picnic. We’ll have rain, wind, maybe snow on the way out. An’ cookin’ for ten, eleven, twelve hands like Lonesome heah, an’ yoreselves — why it’ll be one hell of a job. I object.”
“Your objection is sustained,” replied Harriet, won over in spite of herself. She gave Laramie a penetrating look that he found strange and sweet to meet.
“Anything you say, Nelson,” added Lindsay, spreading wide his hands.
“Wal, I’ll rustle up a cook. Hope he won’t be like the last one I hired. Had to shoot him.”
Miss Lindsay was wordlessly shocked.
“Only his laig off. I caught him stealin’ an’ he drew on me. . . . Wal, everythin’ looks easy. We could get away tomorrow if we were rushed,” returned Laramie, amused at the girl’s struggle to recover. “I’ll keep these lists to consult again. That’s all, Mr. Lindsay. We’ll leave day after tomorrow, early mawnin’, shore.”
“Mr. Laramie, you are either what you called father or else a magician,” said Miss Lindsay, with what seemed forced admiration.
“Wal, I’m loco, all right.”
“But what is loco?”
“It’s a weed the hawses eat an’ go right off their haids.”
Miss Lindsay arose suddenly: “Father, here’s Neale,” she said, and if there was not a warning note in her voice Laramie guessed wrong.
A young man, rather flashily dressed, good-looking, but with his pale face marred by a darkly swollen eye, came hurriedly up to Lindsay, and clutching his shoulder with one hand he extended the other with shaking finger at Lonesome.
“There — there he is,” he burst out, accusingly. “That’s the little rooster of a bow-legged, pool-room loafer who punched me in the eye!”
CHAPTER VI
LONESOME RELUCTANTLY REMOVED the cigar from his month and retorted: “Yes an’ I’ll black your other pop-eye if you’ll come outdoors. I’m too much the gennelman to hit even a rummy tenderfoot like you in front of a lady.”
Consternation was written large in the faces of Mr. Lindsay and his daughter. Laramie shared it. Could a day pass without Lonesome falling from grace? This newcomer was undoubtedly the Lindsay youth and therefore Harriet’s brother. He appeared upon the verge of apoplexy.
“I’ll — have — you horsewhipped!” he flamed.
“Nope. Not me. I ain’t packin’ my hardware, but nix on that hosswhippin’ game. It’s been tried on me. An’ there was a funeral.”
“Oh, this is dreadful,” cried Miss Lindsay, in mortification. “Neale, you should not air your grievances here. We are in an important discussion.”
“I — don’t care,” panted Neale. “Something’s got to be done with this fellow.”
“Neale, what’s ailing you now?” inquired Lindsay, and his patient and resigned expression conveyed much.
“He punched me in the eye.”
“The result is evident, if he’s the culprit. But what for? How do I know you didn’t deserve it?”
Here Lonesome got to his feet and his small stature expanded. To be sure, Laramie had been fooled before, but as a rule Lonesome betrayed it when he was guilty. In this instance he appeared righteously incensed.
“Mr. Lindsay, excoose me, but this here young fellow cain’t be with you folks?”
“I regret to say he is, Mulhall.”
“Dog-gone! . . . Laramie, can you beat my luck? Why’d he have to pick on me?” After which plaintive speech Lonesome went on: “But, Mr. Lindsay, he just cain’t be no relation to you?”
“Unfortunately, I cannot deny the existing blood-tie,” replied Lindsay, with a dry humor that tickled Laramie. “He’s my only son.”
“Aw, my Gawd, no!” wailed Lonesome. “Not this cocky cub tenderfoot in a boiled shirt?”
Neale moved as if to assault Lonesome, but was prevented by his father. “I’ll whip you myself!” he fumed.
But Lonesome was beyond reach of such challenge. He sensed dire disaster. Turning to Harriet, he appealed in desperation: “They’re foolin’ me. You an’ him couldn’t be related?”
“He’s my brother, Mr. Mulhall,” replied Harriet, and it was not patent to Laramie that she had any pride in the fact.
“Aw, no! Such a lovely lady as you — to have that — that — —”
Miss Lindsay nodded with a smile that rather hinted that she was fearful of being victim to mirth.
“See here, Mulhall, let’s hear your side of it?” demanded Lindsay.
“No help for me, Laramie. I’m a doomed man an’ you better let me slide,” said Lonesome, pathetically. Then with a dignity, that might have been assumed, but which was vastly convincing, he addressed the father. “It happened the day we rode in. Not an hour after! Me an’ Tracks was playin’ pool as peaceful as a couple of kittens. We was playin’ for the drinks an’ could afford only one game. I seen this — your son stalkin’ around the table. An’ he says, ‘Lemme in the game.’ I thanked him an’ declined the honor. He comes back, ‘I could spot you ten balls.’ That riled me, but I kept my mouth shut. Tracks was beatin’ me, but I made some nifty shots an’ was catchin’ up. I come to a decidin’ shot, an’ if I made it that beat Tracks. It was a
particular easy one for me, too, but I wanted to make sure, so I was slow. Up speaks your young Mr. Lindsay. ‘That’s the wrong way. Lemme show you.’ An’ I swear I never batted an eye. But as I was about to shoot he directed my cue from behind, an’ I missed. Tracks offered to let me do it over, but I was too mad. An’ I says to your boy, ‘I’ll spot you one on the eye.’ Which I did pronto. . . . An’ that’s the honest Gawd’s truth.”
“Served him right,” declared Lindsay, with finality. “Neale, I know your weakness of meddling in other people’s business. But for your own sake — and your skin — mend your ways. You’re out West now.”
“But, dad, that’s the blamedest lie I ever heard,” declared Neale, astounded, outraged, defeated. “I wasn’t in any pool-room. It happened on the street. I — I met a girl. We were talking. Along came this little runt in his woolly pants. He winked at the girl. I — I resented it. . . .”
Suddenly Laramie had an inspiration and he judged it was high time, if he were to save Lonesome.
“Listen to me, young man,” he drawled. “We’re about to undertake pioneer work on the range. We cain’t afford to fight over little things or with each other. There’ll shore be guns an’ blood out at Spanish Peaks Ranch.”
Neale’s flushed face lost its heat. He had been impressed.
“Can yu ride a hawse?” went on Laramie.
“Yes — of course.”
“Can yu drive a team?”
“I’ve driven a pair of fast steppers many a time,” replied Neale, eagerly.
“Wal, yu’re on. I’m shy a couple of teamsters. Yu’ll drive one of the wagons. So dig up yore warm togs an’ heavy boots an’ gloves. We’re leavin’ early day after tomorrow mawnin’.”
“Dad, is it true?” cried Neale, wild despite uncertainty. “Am I to get a man’s job?”
“Nelson has charge. You’ve my permission. Get your mother’s.”
“Yours is enough, dad. I’ve been tied to mother’s apronstrings long enough. Thanks, Nelson. You seem to understand me. Dad, you must let me have money to buy a teamster’s outfit.”
“Ask Hallie. She has the purse-strings,” replied Lindsay, evidently much relieved at the turn of the situation. Neale took Harriet’s arm and dragged her away.
“Dog-gone, Laramie, you struck fire from him,” said Lonesome. “Mebbe he’s got stuff in him, after all.”
“Shore. Thet young chap will have tough sleddin’ out heah. It’ll make him or break him.”
“Let us hope it will make a man of him,” responded Lindsay, fervently. “You’ve started him well, Nelson. I’m indebted to you. I look to you for much. See you tomorrow. Good-night.”
Lonesome talked a blue streak on the way upstairs, disturbing Laramie’s reflections. They shared the same room. It would never have done for Laramie to leave Lonesome alone. Tracks came along with them. Once the door closed upon them, they gazed at each other with rapt eyes.
“Wal, pards, I’ve landed yu good,” drawled Laramie.
“Too good to be true!” mused Tracks, dreamily.
“Laramie, I just love you,” declared Lonesome, which remark had all the sincerity of truth.
Laramie was about to suggest that they sit down and plan tomorrow’s labors when he espied Lonesome smoothing out something on the bureau.
“What’s thet? What yu doin’?”
“Aw nothin’.”
Tracks, however, snatched it away from Lonesome and held it up — a small white handkerchief with a lace border. Laramie caught a faint scent of perfume.
“Gimme that back,” said Lonesome, snatching it in turn. “Belongs to Miss Lenta. She dropped it, an’ I forgot to give it to her.”
“Like the old lady who kept tavern out West,” scoffed Tracks.
Laramie gave his erring and irrepressible friend one reproachful look. “God help me!” he sighed.
* * * * *
Lindsay’s caravan, as Buffalo Jones christened it when he bade the party good-by, got away a little after sunrise on the morning scheduled. They had, however, to take the sunrise for granted, because the sky was dull and overcast.
Jones’ last word, meant only for Laramie, matched the gleam in the old plainsman’s eye: “Hangin’ rustlers has come in strong on the range these last few years!”
“Shore has. I hope none of my outfit takes to rustlin’. Good-by, Buff, an’ look for me in town some day.”
There were eight wagons and they were loaded. Laramie prayed that the impending storm would hold off. But he would not delay an hour for anything. Let the Lindsays take what came. They were Westerners now, and rain, wind, snow, hail, heat, drought, grasshoppers, work, loneliness, horse and cattle thieves, and all the other gifts of the Great Plains were to be their portion. Laramie had his doubts about Lindsay’s strength holding out and of Neale’s backbone being sufficiently stiff, but for the rest of them he had sincere hopes.
After all, not only did Neale have to drive a team, but also Lonesome and Tracks. And as Mrs. Lindsay and Lenta rode on Lonesome’s wagon, and Harriet and Florence on Tracks’, these two proud and unrestrained range-riders were suddenly as mild as lambs. Laramie chuckled to himself over this. “If this heah trip don’t beat trailin’ Injuns for excitement I’ll shore swaller my sombrero.”
It had chanced that he had been fortunate to engage a cook who had worked for some of the greatest outfits of the cattle country. Jud Lawrence was a marvel of industry, good humor, and culinary skill, but as so often happened in case of such treasures he had a weakness for the flowing bowl. He had passed his sobering-up period in the Garden City jail, a fact he begged Laramie to conceal from the Lindsays: “An’ I swear to Gawd, Nelson, I’ll keep sober so long my friends’ll figger I’ve got religion.”
“Yu’re on, Jud, with this provision. Thet if yu break yore word to me, I’ll beat the everlastin’ stuffin’s out of yu.”
Lawrence would have agreed to more than that to get out of town, and Laramie calculated on the fact that he had seen some fellows keep sober a long time. He gritted his teeth over a resolve that Lonesome and Tracks would stay in a like condition indefinitely.
Laramie felt good to bestride Wingfoot once more on a real journey with real work at the end. And the horse seemed to respond to its rider’s feeling. Laramie was the only horseman in the party. Lonesome’s and Tracks’ horses, together with several new mounts the boys had picked up cheap, trotted behind the last wagon, where Laramie brought up the rear. Young Neale Lindsay drove this last wagon and Laramie wanted to keep an eye on him when they came to bad places. This unfledged young man had taken a sudden liking to Laramie that might be put to good use. “He’ll shore be a damn nuisance if no wuss, but his sister is wuth standin’ it for — an’ mebbe makin’ somethin’ of him,” soliloquized Laramie, quite unconscious that he had omitted the fact that the lad had two other sisters, to say nothing of a mother and father.
The cavalcade passed the last ranch, out over a rolling hill, upon the open gray prairie sloping by leagues up to the vague and dark horizon. The wind cut down raw from the north, and bore ill tidings. Tomorrow it would rain or snow, and Laramie decided he would be sure to tie on some firewood at the first camp, which would be Cottonwood Creek, thirty miles to the northwest.
Spring was backward. The ridges still held to their gray bleached hue, but down in the swales green showed. Willows and cottonwoods had begun to leaf. It was just as well that the Lindsays saw the prairie in its gray monotony, because they would have that to contrast with summer’s rich and purple bloom. Then when the bleak north winds brought the snow they might be better prepared. The only good word Buffalo Jones had had for the Spanish Peaks Ranch was: “Wal, anyway, they won’t freeze to death in winter. Thet stone house will shore be warm.”
Like a scout on duty, Laramie kept his eye on all the wagons, particularly the last. And he settled back into the pleasant idle, dreamy state of the range-rider once more out in the open, with the winding road ahead and the wild country somewhere lost i
n the haze. He liked the Lindsays and refused to answer his accusing questioning conscience as to which one he liked best. If Lindsay survived this long cold ride in the raw spring, he would probably be cured of his lung weakness. The Colorado slope down from the Rockies was high, clear, dry, with wonderful curative properties in the sun and air. Solitude and simple living would be good for a sick man, however hard it might be upon his family. Eastern Colorado, however, had growing towns, to which an occasional visit might save the girls from too great loneliness. If they took hold of the work! That eldest girl, Hallie, she would win over all the hardships. Laramie wondered about her. What had given her the sad far-away look of eyes, the firm grave sweet lips? No doubt she had left a lover back there in Ohio. Laramie soliloquized that if he had been that luckiest of fellows he would have pulled up stakes and taken the ride with her. For he had been given to understand that the Lindsays had burned bridges behind them; they had threshed it all out together; they would stick to their ailing father and to this chosen new home, come what might.
They made fast time all morning, considering the loads, and by noon were twenty miles out. And Laramie’s practiced eye began to note the lessening numbers of black dots on the prairie. Cattle were thinning out. But it was a vast country, with enough swales and draws and river bottoms to hide a million cattle. A pale sun shone after a while, making the ride less raw and giving the landscape something of brightness. Coyotes and deer and antelope fell under Laramie’s keen eye for distance, and once he espied a group of dark riders, far off, topping a ridge against the sky. Such sights always led to speculation. He had made inquiries about the road, the water, the grass, the wood, and the settlers. But of the last he had not observed much sign, and none during the last two hours.
About mid-afternoon, from the top of a hill which had taken an hour to climb, Laramie espied a wooded stream-bed some few miles on and downgrade. He rode ahead.
“How yu makin’ it, Neale?” he asked, as he rode by.
“Fine. But my arms are most pulled out,” shouted the lad, gaily.
“Hang on. We’re most in camp.”
