by Zane Grey
It seemed that the more Ames tried to avoid circumstances with latent possibilities the more they gravitated to him. He had not long shared the cabin with Lany before he divined there was something on the mind of that young cowboy. Like many boys Ames had worked with, Lany was the son of a poor rancher, a capable rider, a wholesome character, with an ambition to get on in the cattle business.
Work, for the present, on the Grieve ranch was rather light, owing to several causes, chief of which was that the rancher had just sold out most of his stock and was awaiting a consignment of cattle from Texas. This was expected to arrive at the latest in June or July. The outfit, therefore, had only odd jobs to do, and not any night work at all. They got thoroughly rested and in good humor again. In leisure hours they played poker, lolled around smoking and joking, and for cowboys had a mighty good time.
Crow Grieve was the most unlikable cattleman Ames had ever met, let alone ridden for. He drove hard bargains with smaller cattlemen, an unpardonable crime in the eyes of cowboys. He paid less wages than most ranchers, though this was obviated to some extent by the comfortable quarters he provided. Obviously he put no trust whatever in cowboys, which condition might have arisen partly because he had never been one himself.
The second day after Ames’ arrival MacKinney had delivered an illuminating remark.
“Arizonie, let me give you a hunch,” he had said. “You’re a handsome cuss. Reckon they don’t come handsomer, among cowmen, anyway. An’ you’ve got somethin’ more. Wal, don’t look at the boss’ wife.”
“Why not? I’m not blind. I heah she’s a beauty. An’ shore I cain’t hurt myself lookin’.”
“Wal, you damn idjit, I know you’re all right. But if you want to stay on hyar with me don’t go fallin’ off your hoss in front of Mrs. Grieve’s. Savvy?”
“No, Blab, I’m darned if I do.”
“Arizonie, you shure always used to rile me, an’ now you’re beginnin’ again. Listen. . . . Amy Grieve is a beauty an’ if you ever seen a hungry-eyed gurl, she’s one. Why, them big eyes of hers will haunt you. — Two years ago Grieve went south. Louisiana, I reckon. Anyway, he came back with this girl. His wife an’ not more’n seventeen! If I ever had a peep at an unhappy gurl — wal, it was then. We boys had our idees. Along comes a puncher from Texas. He told us enough to get us figgerin’. Shure Grieve had got hold of this gurl through her family or relatives owin’ him money, or somethin’ loike. Wal, afther a toime she perked up. Then came a baby. She seemed to bloom up. An’ lately she’s foine. I seen her the other day.”
“Mac, isn’t life hell?” ejaculated Ames, poignantly.
“Shure it is, you dom fool. But it could be wuss. An’ thet’s why I’m givin’ you a hunch to avoid Amy Grieve. Shure as sheep come home to roost she’d fall in love with you. She likes cowboys. Aw, I can tell. Any fellar could. An’ you can bet your bottom dollar she doesn’t love thet black buzzard, Grieve.”
“Blab, you’re shore blabbin’ a lot,” returned Ames, seriously.
“Wal, if it was anyone else I swear I’d keep still. But you know dom well, Arizonie, how things sort of lodge against you an’ stick.”
“Now you’re talkin’.”
The story had peculiar interest for Ames, such as would have actuated most cowboys, to see Amy Grieve. Romance and tragedy not his own had kept step on his trail. The oftener he saw Crow Grieve the sorrier he felt for the young wife.
Not long after that, while he was rummaging around in the drawer of a rude table in the bunk-house, a small photograph came to light under some of Lany Price’s letters. It bore the likeness of a young girl not more than sixteen — a sweet rather weak face, with most audacious eyes. A name in ink stared up at Ames. Amy! The photograph had been taken in New Orleans.
Ames regretted the incident, for which he certainly could not blame himself. What was Lany Price doing with a picture of the boss’ young wife? Ames decided to give the youngster the benefit of a doubt. Cowboys were sentimental. Lany might be merely dreaming. On the other hand, he might be seriously involved in an affair that would have grave consequences for him. Ames put this later thought out of his mind.
He had taken a liking to Lany Price. The young fellow was virile enough, but not exactly a rough, raw cowboy. On that account he came in for considerable of the teasing. However, they all liked Lany.
The day came when Ames had to blind himself to certain indications, doubtful though insistent. Lany had spells of depression. He would mope around, gloomy and cross. Then all of a sudden he became radiant. This last manifestation, coincident with Crow Grieve’s departure for South Pass, seemed too significant for Ames to overlook. It was another of those cases where fatality seemed thrown upon him.
“Heah good news from home, Lany?” inquired Ames, genially, after supper.
“No. Come to think of it, haven’t heard for ages. Darn Visa, anyhow!”
“Who’s Visa?”
“My sister. She’s the dandiest girl. I’d like you to meet her, Arizona. She’s a dandy-lookin’ kid, full of fun, an’ good as gold.”
“Shore would like to,” replied Ames.
“Arizona, you’ve got a sweetheart?”
Ames shook his head, smiling a little.
“But you’ve had one?”
“No, I cain’t say I ever had — what you’d call a regular sweetheart.”
“Funny! A wonderful-lookin’ fellow like you! — You must be lyin’. — Have you a sister?”
“Yes,” said Ames, dropping his head.
“Does she write you?”
“Shore. Once in a long time. But then she writes a long wonderful letter.”
“That makes up. Visa likes me, but she’s not much good as a letter-writer. What’s your sister’s name?”
“Nesta.”
“Nesta? Sounds nice to me. Is she young?”
“I reckon so. I feel awful old, but I’m not really. Nesta is just my age. We’re twins.”
“You don’t say! — Then she must look like you?”
“Shore. They used to say they couldn’t tell us apart, when we were little, anyway.”
“Gosh! She must be a looker! You’re the finest-lookin’ person I ever saw — unless it’s Am — Mrs. Grieve.”
“Thanks, Lany,” rejoined Ames. “I’ll show you a picture of Nesta.” Whereupon he lifted his bag to the table, and searching therein he found an old wallet, from which he extracted a carefully wrapped photograph.
“She was sixteen then,” said Ames as he handed the picture to Lany.
That worthy ejaculated, “Lord!” His eyes shone with pleasure. “Arizona, course she’s married?”
“Yes, an’ happy, thank God,” returned Ames, his sudden emotion contrasting strangely with his former casual mood. “Sam, her husband, is doin’ fine. He’ll be a big rancher before long now. But I was broke four years, sendin’ them money. . . . They’ve got two kids. Twins! — An’ the boy is named Rich after me. That’s my right name.”
Lany handed back the photograph. His eyes held a dark, far-seeing shadow. “My Gawd! it’d be great to — to be married — an’ happy, like that,” he said, speaking as if to himself.
“I reckon it would,” agreed Ames.
From that hour circumstances and thoughts multiplied for Ames. He could not obviate them. Lany Price stayed out late that night, and apparently no one but Ames was any the wiser. Ames heard him slip in noiselessly, in his stocking feet. Long sighs attested to something more than a need of slumber. Lany sat on his bunk, half undressed, absorbed in thought that made him oblivious to his surroundings. A bright moon outside cast light into the cabin. Ames could see Lany sitting there — saw him step to the window to look up at the moon, rapt and sad.
All this repeated itself the next night, with the details augmented, if anything. Ames deliberated. If young Price was in love with Amy Grieve, which assumption seemed incontestable, he simply invited death. Crow Grieve was the kind of a man who could horsewhip a cowboy for looking at his w
ife and kill him for but little more. Now Ames did not know the youthful wife, and though he sympathized with her, he could not be sure she was not to blame. On the other hand, Lany Price was too fine a young man to be merely a target for a fierce and jealous brute like Grieve. It occurred to Ames that this rancher rubbed him the wrong way — a thought which, once crystallized, made Ames restless. He sought to cast it aside. Finally he made up his mind to ascertain, solely in the interest of this foolish boy, if he were actually meeting Amy Grieve.
Therefore he did not return to the bunk-house after supper, but took a stroll among the pines. Darkness settled down soon after. The moon would not rise till late. From the gloom of the pines he watched both the road and the walk leading to the ranch house. His vigilance, not to mention the woodsman’s instinct developed during his hunting years, enabled him to catch Price stealing through the pines. At a safe distance Ames followed, just keeping the dark figure in sight. Price went round to the side of the ranch grounds, through the orchard, where he disappeared. Ames cautiously moved forward, and presently in the starlight he espied a slight form in white pass through an opening. It was that of a girl, swift and eloquent of motion, bound for a rendezvous. The only other woman in Grieve’s employ, Ames knew, was the housekeeper, who was old and heavy.
Soberly Ames retraced his steps, reluctantly accepting his misgivings and vastly concerned about Price. But he persuaded himself this was none of his business, and then had to do battle with his conscience. Still, he had not yet actually caught the cowboy with the young wife. Suppose he took Lany to task, only to discover he had blundered! But though he tried to convince himself, Ames knew he had not made a mistake. He went back to the bunk-house and fell asleep before Price came in.
Next morning Ames seized upon a favorable opportunity to say: “Mawnin’, Lany. It runs in my haid somehow that you keep late hours.”
Lany protested that he did nothing of the kind.
“Excuse me, cowboy. I’m a funny kind of a sleeper. Always dreamin’ an’ heahin’ things. I shore thought you came in late every night — since the boss has been away.”
Ames drawled this casually, careful to have his back to Price. Evidently the cowboy was so startled, so confused, that he scarcely knew what he was saying. He made too many explanations. He lied clumsily, and he betrayed himself to Ames.
On the following day Grieve came back from South Fork, not yet sober, and rancorous over some real or supposed wrong done him by a rival cattleman.
He led the cowboys a miserable life. Two of them quit, one of them after being knocked down by the rancher. MacKinney interfered to prevent gun-play.
“Boss, I shure ain’t presumin’ to criticize you,” said MacKinney, “but if you’re keen on rakin’ the outfit loike this you won’t have none left. An’ you’ve got a bunch of Texas steers comin’.”
For a wonder, Grieve did not resent this speech and made himself scarce. That night the cowboys congregated at the mess-cabin, for the most part a disgruntled outfit.
“Wal, he’s a —— —— nigger!” exclaimed Jake Mendal, dourly.
“I hit him fer my wages an’ when I git them you watch me hit the trail,” said Boots Cameron. “I’ll starve to death before I’ll ride fer this two-bit of a rancher.”
“Fellars, the wust about Grieve is thet he keeps owin’ you back pay. An’ if you quit you don’t git your money. I’ve a mind to do somethin’ so he’ll fire me,” added Sam Black, the eldest of the outfit.
One by one the other old hands aired their grievances. Ames had been six years on the ranges, riding with many outfits, and never had he heard a cattleman arraigned as was Crow Grieve.
“Shure he’s a hawg!” spat out MacKinney. “Some puncher will bust his black jaw one of these hyar days.”
“Huh! An’ git bored fer thet. Crow Grieve has throwed a gun on more than one cowboy,” replied Jem Gutline.
“Wal, he might throw a gun on the wrong fellar,” said Slim Blue, darkly. “Fer instance, suppose he tried it on Arizonie?”
“I wisht to Gawd he would,” said some one.
“Arizonie, why in the hell don’t you say somethin’?” railed Blue.
“You boys are shore sayin’ a lot. My two-bit talk wouldn’t count much,” returned Ames, calmly.
“Thet’s so. Talk is cheap. But if you chipped in with a word or two I reckon we’d all feel you was with us,” added Blue, pointedly.
“If I hadn’t made friends heah I’d shore ride away, money or not.”
“Pards, thet’s shure talk from Arizona Ames,” said MacKinney.
Then the Irishman fastened his narrow slits of blue eyes upon the working face of Lany Price.
“Cowboy, you’re shure mum as a clam. An’ I’ll bet you hate Grieve wusser than any of us.”
“That so? Reckon I’ve no more reason than any of you,” returned Price, with annoyance.
“Haw! Haw!” roared MacKinney, derisively.
“You damn Irish Mick! What do you mean — givin’ me a horse laugh like that?”
“Shure I don’t mean nuthin’, Lany,” rejoined the Irishman, with sarcasm.
Price, red in the face, flounced out of the cabin, and he did not come back for the meal.
Later that week cattlemen drove in to confer with Grieve. They received scant courtesy, and one of them, a rancher who had started as a cowboy, delivered some pertinent remarks in the hearing of Slim Blue. Then another of the cowboys, who happened to be in the confidence of the housekeeper, informed the outfit that Grieve was having hell with his wife. She wanted to go home.
Shortly after this incident Grieve left, driving the buckboard himself. That he would depart without leaving many and stringent orders was unprecedented. It gave rise to wild speculation on the part of the cowboys. They joyfully took advantage of this omission and did very little work.
Ames took a lonely ride, simply to get away from the ranch, up high somewhere in the timber. He saw the gradual disintegration of Grieve’s outfit. Hard drinking eventually ruined any rancher, irrespective of domestic troubles. Ames felt stir in him the familiar longing to ride away from this ranch, as he had ridden from so many others. But he did not want to desert Lany Price. That young cowboy was due for disaster. Often Ames had been prompted to broach Lany’s secret. Still, he had never done so. On this ride Ames resolved not to let it go longer. There would be opportunity soon, for in Grieve’s absence Lany would probably grow bolder, if he did not run wholly true to the habit of lovers in a distracted situation.
“Shore it’s aboot time for me to have some bad luck,” soliloquized Ames, meaning that in the nature of events he would likely be involved soon. He rode down the trail. Early summer had brought out the aspens in full foliage. How the green leaves fluttered! He never saw aspen leaves that he did not think of Nesta. Was this Amy Grieve another love-torn girl, frail and fluttering as one of these leaves of aspen?
Down through the pines his quick eye caught a glimpse of a white horse. If he were not mistaken, that horse belonged to Lany Price.
“By Heaven!” muttered Ames. “Shore I felt it this very mawnin’. Now will I turn tail or go face them?”
The beautiful bench below was not a long ride from the ranch. Two trails led up to it, by different routes. Ames had several times seen Amy Grieve riding, but never close at hand. Her horse was certainly not white. Lany’s was. Ames would have wagered anything he owned that the two had met up here on this lonely bench. It roused his ire. They were out of their heads, and perhaps they were guilty of more than he had heretofore suspected.
Ames dismounted and, leading his horse over the soft trail, which gave forth no sound, he went on under the pines and through the aspen thickets.
Presently in a glade he espied two horses, both saddled, but riderless, bridles down, nipping at the grass. He dropped his own bridle and went round a corner of green, almost to bump into a huge log.
Not ten steps farther, on the other side of this log, leaned Lany Price, his back to Ames.
He was talking low, disconnectedly, earnestly. He had a girl clasped in his arms. Hers were wrapped tight round his neck, her face pressed close to his cheek, his hair dark against her chestnut curls. Her eyes were closed, her cheeks stained with tears.
Ames had a wild impulse to run before those eyes unclosed to see him. But just that first look at her changed his preconceived ideas.
Under his boot a twig snapped. The girl’s long dark lashes flew up. Velvety humid eyes, large and beautiful, stared uncomprehendingly, widened to startled amaze, then dilated in sudden realization and fear.
CHAPTER VII
SHE CRIED OUT, and unclasping her arms from round Lany’s neck, she violently broke from his embrace.
“O my God!” she exclaimed, and the shaking hand that pointed at Ames swept on to her parted lips.
Lany stood a second as if turned to stone. Then he sagged and lunged, to whirl with gun extended, his face fierce, his hair up like a mane.
“Howdy, Price!” said Ames, coolly, suddenly stiff at sight of that gun.
“Arizona!” gasped the cowboy, distress edging into his wild expression.
“Shore is. An’ I’m tellin’ you this heah is an accident. I just happened along.”
“Damn you! Accident? You expect me — to believe that?” demanded Price, hoarsely.
“Lany, if it wasn’t an accident you’d never have seen me. Use your haid now.”
“No matter. Anyway, I’ve got to kill you!”
“Think quick, boy,” flashed Ames, sharply, “before you make it worse. Shore you’ve no call to kill me. I’m your friend.”
“Friend? . . . Gawd! — if I could only — believe you!” panted the distracted youth.
“Lany — who — is he?” faltered the girl.
“He’s the new rider I told you about. Arizona Ames.”
“Arizona Ames?” she echoed, and her halted consciousness seemed to be laboring over the name.
“Yes, miss. I’m Ames,” interposed Ames, moving up so only the log separated them.
