Collected Works of Zane Grey

by Zane Grey

  “Me move? — See heah, Amy, I been ‘most dyin’ to tell you somethin’.”

  “What?” she inquired, with misgivings.

  “Do you remember what you did to me the other afternoon?” he queried, mischievously.

  “I’m not likely to forget, Mr. Ames,” she returned, with mock aloofness.

  “Are you shore? I mean aboot what you swore you was goin’ to do — an’ Lany told you to show me — an’ what I reckoned I didn’t want?”

  “I am perfectly sure,” she rejoined, blushing.

  “Funny aboot that. I was shore wrong, Amy. I did want it. An’ when I leave heah I’m goin’ to ride all over the West till I find a girl like you. An’ then I’ll get a million — same as you gave Lany.”

  “What a wonderful compliment to me!” she exclaimed. “I hope you mean it, Arizona. . . . But — when you leave here! What do you mean?”

  The gravel crunched under vicious footfalls. Ames leisurely turned. Grieve stalked over, a tinge of red under his dark skin, his large black eyes bright with amazed suspicion and anger.

  “Howdy, Grieve!” said Ames, lazily.

  “I wasn’t aware you were acquainted with my wife,” he declared.

  “Shore I’m not. Course I know her by sight. I was just askin’ her to be good to some friends of mine up the river. Squatter family by the name of Nielsen.”

  “You’re damned impertinent.”

  Ames had his cue in that. As if he had been stung he jumped clear of the buckboard.

  “Who’s impertinent?” he flashed, in hot loud tone. The sudden anger he meant to simulate actually became real with the explosion of his words. His deliberate intent to attract attention to Grieve more than succeeded.

  “You are,” replied Grieve, fuming, though plainly Ames’ swift change was a surprise.

  “I’d like to know why?” shot out Ames, still louder. “I shore see no call for you to insult me before your wife an’ guests, not to say these gapin’ cowpunchers. I was only askin’ Mrs. Grieve to be good to some friends of mine. You ask her if I wasn’t.”

  “Amy, is that so?” demanded Grieve, turning to her.

  “Certainly. What did you think?” returned Amy, coldly. And with the paling of her face her eyes grew larger and darker.

  “Do you know this cowboy, Ames?” went on her husband, jealously. “Who introduced him to you?”

  “No one,” she retorted.

  “See heah, Grieve, you cain’t bullyrag her on my account,” interposed Ames. “I never was introduced to her. I just saw my opportunity to help some friends of mine. Mrs. Grieve has got a reputation for bein’ good to poor people.”

  “Suppose she has. It’s none of your business. The nerve of you — bracin’ her here!”

  “He was very courteous and polite,” interposed Amy, solicitously.

  “You shut up,” snapped Grieve. Every word edged him in deeper, which fact augmented his temper. He failed to gauge Ames’ motive, though he sensed some undercurrent here.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Grieve,” said Ames, gratefully. “But I reckon you needn’t apologize for me.”

  “Ames, if you address her again I’ll — I’ll bust your gabby jaw,” declared Grieve, stridently.

  Ames regarded the irate rancher in silent disdain. There was a restless movement of feet upon the porch, and husky whispers among the cowboys. Grieve’s temper had precipitated a situation extremely exasperating to him and which, despite a looming portent, could not be obviated by one of his intolerant nature. Certainly he had no fear of Ames, but there seemed to be something he could not understand. The steady eyes of the cowboy, with their blue gimlet-like flash, only inflamed him the more.

  “Ames, I don’t hire you to ride around huntin’ up poor squatters,” he went on. “You just made that up for an excuse, so you could speak to my wife.”

  Ames calmly and irritatingly lighted a cigarette.

  “An’ you’re fired,” exploded Grieve, with what he thought was finality.

  “Shore I’m not fired,” returned Ames, quickly.

  “What?” The rancher’s voice grew thick. “I say you’re fired.”

  “You cain’t fire me, Crow Grieve.”

  “The hell you say!”

  “Shore. I beat you to it. I quit.”

  “When did you quit?”

  “Reckon it was this mawnin’.”

  “Bah! You’re just braggin’. You windy cowpuncher.”

  “I shore can prove it, Grieve. I told Nielsen this mawnin’.”

  “All right. I’m damn glad to be rid of you.”

  “Well, that’s a question. You’re not rid of me yet. Not till I get my money. An’ if what I heah is correct I’ll get that aboot Christmas after next.”

  “I won’t listen to you,” shouted Grieve.

  “You shore will.”

  “Get off the ranch!” yelled Grieve, hoarse with rage, and he started to pass.

  Ames struck him a quick light blow in the breast, not violent, but sharp enough to halt him in his tracks. Then Ames shoved him out of line with the buckboard, where Amy sat rigid and white.

  “Listen, Grieve, an’ when I get through tellin’ you why I quit — you can go for your gun.”

  The ringing voice, with its thin icy edge, left utter silence. Some of the older cowboys, notably Slim Blue and MacKinney, had sensed this climax. Grieve certainly had not, and his black face turned livid. His guests, whom Ames now also faced, hastened to get from behind.

  “Ames, you’re plumb sure — I’m not packin’ a gun,” blustered Grieve. His shaken nerve was recovering.

  “No, I’m not shore,” snapped Ames, curtly. “I didn’t look. I hoped you were. An’ if you’re not — well, you can borrow one, or go home after your own.”

  The bitter raw challenge shot into Grieve’s teeth. The lawless and inevitable West spoke through Ames.

  “I quit this mawnin’ because I wanted to tell you just what a skunk of a rancher you are, Crow Grieve,” went on Ames, in a derision that gained rather than lost from its cool biting drawl. “Shore suits me fine that your beautiful young wife is heah — an’ your guests — an’ your cowpunchers. For once in your life, Crow Grieve, you’re goin’ to get called. I’m only sorry for one thing an’ that is I cain’t cuss you — call you every low-down name known on the range. Reckon I cain’t cuss before a lady.”

  Ames threw down the cigarette which a moment before he had taken from his lips.

  “Grieve, it’s been my bad luck to meet a lot of rotten cowmen,” went on Ames. “But I never run into your beat. You’re a cheap, two-bit, stingy buyer of cattle an’ hirer of cowboys out of jobs. You’re no rancher. If you had any guts you’d be a rustler. I reckon you steal a calf now an’ then from poor devils like Nielsen. An’ your fencin’ him in, so he couldn’t range his few haid of stock — of all the dirty jobs I’ve seen that’s the dirtiest. Nielsen’s kids looked starved. An’ heah you throw out money for whisky like a drunken millionaire. . . . An’ ‘most as bad is the way you hold on to the wages of decent hard-ridin’ cowboys. I’ve learned how many a cowhand has ridden away from heah without the money he’d earned an’ that you owed. Forty miserable dollars for a month of work, day an’ night! . . . Grieve, you’re a drunkard — a sot! — You’re a black-faced buzzard! . . . You’re shore a nigger! An’ you’ve got the soul of a nigger!”

  As the breath-arresting denunciation ceased at last, Grieve, swaying with passion, lunged round the buckboard toward the porch. He stumbled in the convulsive violence of his step and nearly fell. When he got on the porch he turned a hideous blotched face.

  “Get out!” he hissed.

  “Shore. When you pay me my wages,” taunted Ames.

  “You’ll rot before you get a —— dollar from me,” panted Grieve, and like a bull he plunged back on the porch, toward the door of the mess-room.

  “Hey, somebody slip him a gun,” yelled Ames, in high-pitched voice.

  All the movement there was among the f
ew men still left on the porch was not forward, but backward. Grieve headed into the open door.

  “Come on, you nigger prince of the range!”

  The rancher slammed the door behind him.

  Ames stood motionless, strained for a moment, then he relaxed. Presently Grieve appeared, stalking away under the pines. He had gone through the cabin. Then Ames walked over to his horse, and as he took up the dragging bridle he shot a flashing glance at the girl huddled down in the buckboard, her face as gray as ashes.

  * * * * *

  A little while later, when Ames sat in his quarters smoking and thinking, Lany Price arrived.

  “Hello, Arizona! Where you-all been?” he inquired, cheerfully. Manifestly he had neither seen nor heard about the exciting incident that had just been concluded.

  “Me? Aw, I’ve been foolin’ around,” drawled Ames. “Rode up to call on that nester, Nielsen. An’ when I got back heah seems like there was a heap goin’ on.”

  “I guess. Boss back, sober for a wonder, with some cattlemen. One of them is Mr. Blair. I’ve worked for him. An’ that bunch of Texas longhorns — they sure got my eye. I’d just give my left leg to own them.”

  “Lany, you’ll shore need your laig. An’ I reckon you’ll own that herd or one like it before long.”

  “Arizona, are you drunk?” ejaculated his friend.

  “I’m as sober as an owl. Feelin’ fine, though. Just had a nice talk with Amy Grieve.”

  “If you’re not drunk, you’re crazy,” cried Lany, jumping up.

  “Well, I’m shore not drunk. An’ I didn’t dream it aboot Amy. My, she looked sweet an’ pretty! She’s got class, Lany. I reckon she’s too good for you.”

  “You talked to Amy!”

  “Shore, just a few minutes ago.”

  “Where?”

  “Right out in front of the mess-house, before Grieve, his visitors, an’ the whole durned outfit.”

  “No!”

  “You bet. She was in her buckboard alone, an’ I waltzed up, tipped my hat, an’ braced her. Talk aboot your thoroughbreds! She was tickled to death to have Grieve see me there. Well, I made her blush, an’ among other things I told her I was daid wrong aboot not wantin’ that kiss she gave me, an’ I was shore goin’ to hunt for a girl like her an’ get a million kisses, same as she gave you. Oh, boy, but you should have seen her face!”

  “Arizona, you’re a perfect devil!” ejaculated Lany divided between ecstasy and horror.

  “Gosh! I’m jealous of you, Lany!” drawled Ames. “But, fact is, my main reason for speakin’ to Amy was to ask her to befriend these poor Nielsens up the river.”

  “Arizona, she can’t befriend a poor sick horse any more,” declared Lany. “She always was doin’ some kind thing. But Grieve found out an’ shut down on her.”

  “Shore I made a point of Amy helpin’ the Nielsens when she’s boss heah.”

  “Boss — heah!” whispered Lany, incredulously, his eyes suddenly fixed.

  Thump of boots and jangle of spurs outside interrupted the conversation.

  “Hey, pard, air you home?” called a rather husky voice.

  “I reckon, if you come careful,” returned Ames.

  Slim Blue entered with his hands up, and behind him came MacKinney, pale of face, if he showed no other sign of perturbation.

  “Put your hands down, you damn fool,” ordered Ames, sharply.

  “Wal, you said come careful,” replied Blue.

  “Set down on the bed, boys. I reckon I want to watch the door.”

  “Natural, but it ain’t necessary. Grieve won’t come out to meet you an’ he hasn’t one single man hyar who’d do it for him, even if he had nerve enough to face you.”

  Lany crashed down off the table. “My Gawd! fellars, what happened?”

  “Boy, you go back in the corner an’ listen to men talk.”

  MacKinney leaned against the bunk and gazed sorrowfully down on Ames.

  “Shure now you’ve played hell.”

  “How so, pard?” drawled Ames.

  “Same old story. You mosey into camp, make all the fellars loike you, an’ then you throw a jolt into us — an’ ride away.”

  “Mac, I’m heah yet, an’ if I’ve got Grieve figured correct you-all won’t be lonesome for my society very pronto.”

  “Slim an’ me shore didn’t bust in hyar to argy with you, Arizonie,” replied MacKinney. “We jest wanted to tell our stand. Every hand on the ranch knows how you called Grieve. An’ every darn one of thim is scared an’ tickled stiff. The Texas punchers have heerd, too, but as they’re strangers they ain’t takin’ sides. Grieve’s guests rustled away, plumb disgusted, if nuthin’ more. Blair’s an old cattleman. I heerd him say to one of thim other visitors, ‘Wal, one way or another it’s the end of Grieve on this range.’ — An’ they left. By tomorrow it’ll be all over the country, fast as hosses can trot.”

  “Ahuh. Reckon it’d have been better if Grieve hadn’t showed yellow,” remarked Ames.

  “Wal, the suspense would have been over,” laughed MacKinney, grimly.

  “Arizonie, you’re a cool joker,” put in Slim, admiringly. “Don’t you jest give a damn?”

  “What aboot, Slim?”

  “Wal, I don’t jest exactly mean about Crow Grieve,” rejoined Blue, sarcastically.

  “One way or the other you’ll have to leave us, Arizonie, an’ thet’s what Slim is beefin’ about,” went on MacKinney.

  “Friends always have to part, some time or other,” said Ames.

  “Arizonie, I’m quittin’, an’ Mac is, too, an’ I’ll bet most of the outfit is. We’ll never ride for Grieve again.”

  “How aboot your money?”

  “Aw, to hell with thet. We don’t need no money.”

  “Shore sorry to bust up the outfit, boys. I don’t see no call for that.”

  “Niver mind us,” interposed MacKinney. “But listen, pard. I’m shure advisin’ you to ride in to South Fork an’ wait fer Grieve there. Sooner or later he’ll come, fer he has to have his licker. Then he can’t avoid you. But hyar in his own back yard. . . . It shure ain’t safe, Arizonie. Grieve is a hunter, you know. The rifle is his long suit. Shure he’ll plug you from a distance.”

  “Reckon I was figurin’ aboot that,” replied Ames. “Wal, I’ll hang around a couple of days, anyhow, so he cain’t say he chased me away.”

  “Wal, so much fer thet, Arizonie,” concluded Slim. “You want to watch like a hawk. An’ it’s a safe bet some one of us will have an eye on Grieve, whenever he comes out of the house.”

  The cowboys lounged out, leaving Ames sitting there, watching through the door. Then Lany Price, white and shaken, accosted Ames.

  “You — you done this for Amy an’ me!”

  “Done what?” growled Ames.

  “Picked — this — fight,” faltered Lany.

  “Me! What’s wrong with your haid, boy? I didn’t pick nothin’.”

  “Yes, you did. I see it all now. Your ridin’ up to Nielsen’s. I know Nielsen an’ his wife. She’s a strappin’-big handsome woman. . . . I never told anyone, Arizona. Not even Amy! But Grieve tried to make up to Nielsen’s wife. An’ when he got flouted he shut down on Nielsen. . . . Then your bracin’ Amy before Grieve an’ all of them. Oh, you’re a cute one. You knew Grieve would see red — yell at you — or hit you. An’ that’d give you a chance to call him . . . . An’ you made him crawl before the crowd! An’ Amy! — Gawd! I’d like to have seen it! But she’ll tell me.”

  “Lany, since you’re such a darn smart boy an’ have such a weakness for me — suppose you take a hunch from what Slim Blue said, an’ keep your eye peeled. Shore I haven’t got eyes in the back of my haid.”

  “I will, by Heaven!” declared Lany, desperately, and stalked out of the bunk-house.

  Thereafter when Ames left his quarters he did it guardedly. Pine trees and thickets, sheds and corrals, fences and rocks, all came in for careful scrutiny. Careless men with enemies sooner or later suffe
red for it. Ames was not careless. He changed his seat at the mess-table, so that he could watch both doors. He had a preoccupied air, but a keen observer would have noted his intent, unobtrusive watchfulness.

  The following day, just before supper time, while most of the outfit were lounging at the mess-house, Ames sauntered up the middle of the road, from the direction of the corrals.

  When he reached the porch he encountered Brick Jones, a red-headed, lean-faced cowboy, lanky in form and lackadaisical in manner.

  “Jones, I shore been lookin’ for you,” drawled Ames.

  “Have ye? Wal, I ain’t quite been returnin’ the compliment,” grinned the cowboy, though it was plain that surprise and anxiety possessed him.

  “Reckon if I punched you in the nose, good an’ hard, you’d go for your gun, now, wouldn’t you?”

  “Wal — I — guess I would — if ye didn’t knock me — cold,” replied Jones, his lean face losing its red. “What ye sore at me fer?”

  “You helped build that fence shuttin’ in Nielsen, didn’t you?”

  “I did an’ I hated the job, Ames. But a puncher can’t pick his work.”

  “He shore cain’t, if he works heah. . . . All right, you’re talkin’. Now how aboot Nielsen’s wife? You treated her pretty low-down.”

  “Aw, hell, I didn’t nuther,” hurriedly retorted Jones, growing red as a lobster. “Thet ain’t so, Ames. You got it wrong. She’s a big nice-lookin’ woman, an’ she smiled so pleasant — wal, I reckoned she was plumb took with me. An’ I made a little love to her. I might have been sort of loony, for I’d been drinkin’, but I thought the lovemakin’ went with her. So I rode up again, an’ thet time — wal, if grabbin’ a woman an’ wrastlin’ her some is low-down, I’m shure guilty. But she smacked the stuffin’s out of me an’ barred me out.”

  While the listening cowboys guffawed their delight Ames looked long at Jones, evidently satisfying himself as to his status.

  “Ahuh. Well, Brick, I reckon you’re more loony than low-down,” concluded Ames. “An’ if you want to shy at a fight with me you’ll go up there, knock down that fence, an’ apologize to Mrs. Nielsen. Savvy, cowboy?”

  “I ain’t deef, what else I am,” returned Jones, surlily. “Ames, I ain’t achin’ fer a fight, but you’re givin’ me a hard choice. I’ve got to throw up my job.”