The Ridin' Kid from Powder River

by Henry Herbert Knibbs

  CHAPTER XLIV

  THE OLD TRAIL

  The following afternoon Pete, stiff and weary from his two days' ride,entered the southern end of Flores's canon and followed the trail alongthe stream-bed--now dry and edged with crusted alkali--until he camewithin sight of the adobe. In the half-light of the late afternoon hecould not distinguish objects clearly, but he thought he could discernthe posts of the pole corral and the roof of the meager stable. Nearerhe saw that there was no smoke coming from the mud chimney of theadobe, and that the garden-patch was overgrown with weeds.

  No one answered his call as he rode up and dismounted. He found theplace deserted and he recalled the Mexican woman's prophecy.

  He pushed open the sagging door and entered. There was theoilcloth-covered table and the chairs--a broken box in the middle ofthe room, an old installment-house catalogue, from which the coloredprints had been torn, an empty bottle--and in the kitchen were therusted stove and a few battered and useless cooking-utensils. An odorof stale grease pervaded the place. In the narrow bedroom--Boca'sroom---was a colored fashion-plate pinned on the wall.

  Pete shrugged his shoulders and stepped out. Night was coming swiftly.He unsaddled Blue Smoke and hobbled him. The pony strayed off up thestream-bed. Pete made a fire by the corral, ate some beans which hewarmed in the can, drank a cup of coffee, and, raking together somecoarse dried grass, turned in and slept until the sound of his pony'sfeet on the rocks of the stream-bed awakened him. He smelt dawn in theair, although it was still dark in the canon, and having in mind thearid stretch between the canon and Showdown, he made breakfast. Hecaught up his horse and rode up the trail toward the desert. On themesa-edge he re-cinched his saddle and turned toward the north.

  Flores, who with his wife was living at The Spider's place, recognizedhim at once and invited him in.

  "What hit this here town, anyhow?" queried Pete. "I didn't see a soulas I come through."

  Flores shrugged his shoulders. "The vaqueros from over there"--and hepointed toward the north--"they came--and now there is but thisleft"--and he indicated the saloon. "The others they have gone."

  "Cleaned out the town, eh? Reckon that was the T-Bar-T and the boysfrom the Blue and the Concho. How'd they come to miss you?"

  "I am old--and my wife is old--and after they had drank thewine--leaving but little for us--they laughed and said that we mightstay and be dam': that we were too old to steal cattle."

  "Uh-huh. Cleaned her out reg'lar! How's the senora?"

  Flores touched his forehead. "She is thinking of Boca--and no one elsedoes she know."

  "Gone loco, eh? Well, she ain't so bad off at that--seein' as _you're_livin' yet. No, I ain't comin' in. But you can sell me sometortillas, if you got any."

  "It will be night soon. If the senor--"

  "Go ask the Senora if she has got any tortillas to sell. I wouldn'tbush in there on a bet. Don't you worry about my health."

  "We are poor, senor! We have this place, and the things--but of themoney I know nothing. My wife she has hidden it."

  "She ain't so crazy as you think, if that's so. Do you run thisplace--or are you jest starvin' to death here?"

  "There is still a little wine--and we buy what we may need ofMescalero. If you will come in--"

  "So they missed old Mescalero! Well, he's lucky. No, I don't come in.I tried boardin' at your house onct."

  "Then I will get the tortillas." And Flores shuffled into the saloon.Presently he returned with a half-dozen tortillas wrapped up in an oldnewspaper. Pete tossed him a dollar, and packing the tortillas in hissaddle-pockets, gazed round at the town, the silent and desertedhouses, the empty street, and finally at The Spider's place.

  Old Flores stood in the doorway staring at Pete with drink-blurredeyes. Pete hesitated. He thought of dismounting and going in andspeaking to Flores's wife. But no! It would do neither of them anygood. Flores had intimated that she had gone crazy. And Pete did notwant to talk of Boca--nor hear her name mentioned. "Boca's where sheain't worryin' about anybody," he reflected as he swung round and rodeout of town.

  Once before he had camped in the same draw, a few miles west ofShowdown, and Blue Smoke seemed to know the place, for he had swungfrom the trail of his own accord, striding straight to the water-hole.

  "And if you keep on actin' polite," Pete told the pony as he hobbledhim that evening, "you'll get a good reputation, like Jim Owen said;which is plumb necessary, if you an' me's goin' to be pals. But ifgettin' a good reputation is goin' to spoil your wind or legs any--why,jest keep on bein' onnery--which Jim was tellin' me is called'Character.'"

  As Pete hardened to the saddle and Blue Smoke hardened to the trail,they traveled faster and farther each day, until, on the Blue Mesa,where the pony grazed and Pete squatted beside his night-fire in theopen, they were but a half-day's journey from the Concho. Pete almostregretted that their journey must come to an end. But he could not goon meandering about the country without a home and without an object inlife: _that_ was pure loafing.

  Pete might have excused himself on the ground that he needed just thissort of thing after his serious operation; but he was honest withhimself, admitting that he felt fit to tackle almost any kind of hardwork, except perhaps writing letters--for he now thought well enough ofhimself to believe that Doris Gray would answer his letter to her fromSanborn. And of course he would answer her letter--and if he answeredthat, she would naturally answer . . . Shucks! Why should she writeto him? All he had ever done for her was to make her a lot of botherand hard work. And what good was his money to him? He couldn't justwalk into a store and buy an education and have it wrapped up in paperand take it to her and say, "Here, Miss Gray. I got a education--thebest they had in the outfit. Now if you'll take it as a kind ofpresent--and me along with it . . ."

  Pete was camping within fifty yards of the spot where old Pop Annersleyhad tried to teach him to read and write--it seemed a long time ago,and Annersley himself seemed more vague in Pete's memory, as he triedto recall the kindly features and the slow, deliberate movements of theold man. It irritated Pete that he could not recall old manAnnersley's face distinctly. He could remember his voice, and one ortwo characteristic gestures--but his face--

  Pete stared into the camp-fire, dreaming back along that trail overwhich he had struggled and fought and blundered; back to the time whenhe was a waif in Enright, his only companion a lean yellow dog . . .Pete nodded and his eyes closed. He turned lazily and leaned backagainst his saddle.

  The mesa, carpeted with sod-grass, gave no warning of the approachinghorseman, who had seen the tiny fire and had ridden toward it. Justwithin the circle of firelight he reined in and was about to call outwhen that inexplicable sense inherent in animals, the Indian, and insome cases the white man, brought Pete to his feet. In that samelightning-swift, lithe movement he struck his gun from the holster andstood tense as a buck that scents danger on the wind.

  Pete blinked the sleep from his eyes. "Keep your hands right wherethey be and step down off that hoss--"

  The rider obeyed. Pete moved from the fire that his own shadow mightnot fall upon the other. "Pete!" exclaimed the horseman in a sort ofchoking whisper.

  The gun sagged in Peter's hand. "Andy! For God's sake!--I come clostto killin' you!" And he leaped and caught Andy White's hand, shook it,flung his arm about his shoulders, stepped back and struck himplayfully on the chest, grabbed him and shook him--and then suddenly heturned and walked back to the fire and sat down, blinking into theflames, and trying to swallow nothing, harder than he had ever tried toswallow anything in his life.

  He heard Andy's step behind him, and heard his own name spoken again."It was my fault, Pete. I ought to 'a' hollered. I saw your fire androde over--" Andy's hand was on Pete's shoulder, and that shoulder wasshaking queerly. Andy drew back. "There goes that dam' cayuse," criedAndy. "I'll go catch him up, and let him drag a rope."

  When Andy returned from putting an unnecessary rop
e on a decidedlytired horse that was quite willing to stand right where he was, Petehad pulled himself together and was rolling a cigarette.

  "Well, you ole sun-of-a-gun!" said Pete; "want to swap hats? Say,how'll you swap?"

  Andy grinned, but his grin faded to a boyish seriousness as he took offhis own Stetson and handed it to Pete, who turned it round andtentatively poked his fingers through the two holes in the crown. "Yougot my ole hat yet, eh? Doggone if it ain't my ole hat. And she'sventilated some, too. Well, I'm listenin'."

  "And you sure are lookin' fine, Pete. Say, is it you? Or did my hosspitch me--and I'm dreamin'--back there on the flat? No. I reckon it'syou all right. I ain't done shakin' yet from the way you come at mewhen I rode in. Say, did you git Jim's letter? Why didn't you writeto a guy, and say you was comin'? Reg'lar ole Injun, same as ever.Quicker 'n a singed bob-cat gittin' off a stove-lid. That Blue Smoke'way over there? Thought I knowed him. When did they turn you loosedown to El Paso? Ma Bailey was worryin' that they wasn't feedin' yougood. When did you get here? Was you in the gun-fight when The Spidergot bumped off?"

  Pete was still gazing at the little round holes in Andy's hat. "Andy,did you ever try to ride a hoss down the ole mesa trail backwards?"

  "Why, no, you sufferin' coyote! What you drivin' at?"

  "Here's your hat. Now if you got anything under it, go ahead and talkup. Which way did you ride when we split, over by the timber there?"

  Andy reached over and put a stick of wood on the fire. "Well, seein'it's your hat, I reckon you got a right to know how them holes come init." And he told Pete of his ride, and how he had misled the posse,and he spoke jestingly, as though it had been a little thing to do;hardly worth repeating. Then he told of a ride he had made to Showdownto let Pete know that Gary would live, and how The Spider had said thathe knew nothing of Pete--had never seen him. And of how Ma Baileyupheld Pete, despite all local gossip and the lurid newspaper screeds.And that the boys would be mighty glad to see him again; concludingwith an explanation of his own presence there--that he had been over tothe T-Bar-T to see Houck about some of his stock that had strayedthrough some "down-fence"--"She's all fenced now," he explained--andhad run into a bunch of wild turkeys, chased them to a rim-rock and hadmanaged to shoot one, but had had to climb down a canon to recover thebird, which had set him back considerably on his home journey. "Andthat there bird is hangin' right on my saddle now!" he concluded. "AndI ain't et since mornin'."

  "Then we eat," asserted Pete. "You go git that turkey, and I'll do therest."

  Wild turkey, spitted on a cedar limb and broiled over a wood fire, abannock or two with hot coffee in an empty bean-can (Pete insisted onAndy using the one cup), tastes just a little better than anything elsein the world, especially if one has ridden far in the high country--andmost folk do, before they get the wild turkey.

  It was three o'clock when they turned in, to share Pete's one blanket,and then Andy was too full of Pete's adventures to sleep, asking anoccasional question which Pete answered, until Andy, suddenly recallingthat Pete had told him The Spider had left him his money, asked Pete ifhe had packed all that dough with him, or banked it in El Paso. Towhich Pete had replied drowsily, "Sure thing, Miss Gray." WhereuponAndy straightway decided that he would wait till morning before askingany further questions of an intimate nature.

  Pete was strangely quiet the next morning, in fact almost taciturn, andAndy noticed that he went into the saddle a bit stiffly. "That--whereyou got hurt botherin' you, Pete?" he asked with real solicitude.

  "Some." And realizing that he had scarcely spoken to his old chumsince they awakened, he asked him many questions about the ranch, andthe boys, as they drifted across the mesa and down the trail that ledto the Concho.

  But it was not the twinge of his old wound that made Pete so silent.He was suffering a disappointment. He had believed sincerely that whathe had been through, in the past six months especially, had changedhim--that he would have to have a mighty stern cause to pull a gun on aman again; and at the first hint of danger he had been ready to kill.He wondered if he would ever lose that hunted feeling that had broughthim to his feet and all but crooked his trigger-finger before he hadactually realized what had startled him. But one thing wascertain--Andy would never know just _how_ close he had come to beingkilled; Andy, who had joked lightly about his own ride into the desertwith an angry posse trailing him, as he wore Pete's black Stetson,"that he might give them a good run for their money," he had laughinglysaid.

  "You're jest the same ornery, yella-headed, blue-eyed singin'-bird youalways was," declared Pete as they slithered along down the trail.

  Andy turned in the saddle and grinned at Pete. "Now that you've givethe blessing parson, will you please and go plumb to hell?"

  Pete felt a lot better.

  A loose rock slipped from the edge of the trail, and went bounding downthe steep hillside, crashing through a thicket of aspens and landingwith a dull clunk amid a pile of rock that slid a little, and grumbledsullenly. Blue Smoke had also slipped as his footing gave wayunexpectedly. Pete felt still better. This was something like it!