The Desert Valley

by Jackson Gregory

  Chapter X

  A Warning and a Sign

  John Carr made a special trip back to Desert Valley ranch for a wordwith Howard. He rode hard and there was a look of anxiety in his eyeswhen he came upon his friend smoking thoughtfully in the bigliving-room of the ranch-house. It was late evening and a week afterthe departure of Howard's guests.

  Howard dragged his boot heels down from the table top when he saw whoit was and jumped to his feet his hand outstretched.

  'Hello, John old boy,' he cried warmly. What's the good wind blowingyou over this way already?'

  Carr tossed his hat to the table, drew up a chair for himself and tooka cigar before he answered. Then it was quietly and earnestly.

  'Met up with Jim Courtot the other night, I hear?' he began.

  Howard nodded and waited, his look curious.

  'Well,' went on Carr, 'I wish you hadn't. He's a treacherous beast ifthis man's land ever cradled one. He's looking for you, Al.'

  'He knows where to find me,' said Alan shortly. And then, 'Just what'sworrying you, Johnnie?'

  'I've known Jim for seventeen or eighteen years,' rejoined Carr. 'He'sa cold, hard, calculating and absolutely crooked proposition. Duringthat time I've never known him to go on a drunk more than two or threetimes. And every time there was trouble.'

  'He's drinking now, then?'

  'He started in right after you got through with him the other night.And he has been talking. There's no use being a fool!' he cut insternly as Alan shrugged his shoulders. 'Courtot doesn't talk to me,but I've got straight what he has said. He talks to Moraga, and Moragatalks to Barbee, and Barbee passes it on to me. He told Moraga that ifit was the last thing he did, he'd get you. And he is carrying a gunevery step he takes.'

  'The more a man talks, the less killing he does, I've noticed,' saidHoward. But his tone did not carry conviction. Carr frownedimpatiently.

  'He hasn't talked much. He was mad clean through when he made thatcrack to Moraga. I tell you there's no use being a fool, Al.'

  'No. Guess you're right, John. Anyway, it was pretty decent of you toride over.'

  He got up and went into his bedroom. A moment later he came outcarrying a heavy Colt revolver in one hand, a box of cartridges in theother. The gun was well oiled; the cylinder spun silently and easily;the six chambers were loaded. He put the gun down on the table.

  'I'll ride heeled for a few days, anyhow,' he decided. 'I guess I canshoot with Jim Courtot yet.'

  'Did you ever find out for sure that it was Jim the other time?'

  'Sure enough to suit me,' returned Howard. 'He was in town that night.And it was his style of work to take a pot shot at a man out of thedark.'

  'He's not exactly a coward,' warned Carr.

  'No, not a coward. But that's his kind of work, just the same. Hewould go after a man just as he plays poker--simply to win the surest,quickest, easiest way. Saw Sanchia Murray in town the same day he wasthere. Are they working together again?'

  'I haven't seen either one of them. But I guess so. Barbee, poor kid,is trailing after her all the time, and he comes back hating Courtotworse and worse every day. Seen the Longstreets lately?'

  Howard admitted that he had. It was only a little way over, hereminded Carr, an hour and a half ride or such a matter, and the oldboy was such a helplessly innocent old stranger, that it didn't seemquite right to turn them adrift altogether.

  'The girl is a pretty thing.' said Carr.

  'Yes,' agreed Howard. 'Kind of pretty.'

  Carr looked at him steadily. And for absolutely no slightest, vaguestreason in the wide world that he could think of, Alan Howard felt hisface going red. Carr's look probed deeper. Then, with common consent,they turned to other subjects until bedtime. Nothing of businessmatters passed between them, although both remembered that aconsiderable payment was to fall due within ten days.

  In particular Howard had cause to remember. He had recently balancedhis books and had found that he had cut into his last five thousanddollars. Therefore, meaning to pay on the nail, he had arranged a saleof beef cattle. The range was heavily stocked, he had a herd in primecondition, the market was fair, and his system called for a sale soonand the purchase of some calves. Therefore the next morning, beforeCarr was astir, Howard and several of his men were riding toward themore remote fields where his beef herds were. Behind them came thecamp wagon and the cook.

  All day long he worked among his herds, gathering them, sorting them,cutting out and heading back towards the home corrals those underweight or in any way not in the pink of condition for the sale. Hismen rode away into the distances, going east and south, disappearingover the ridges seeking cattle that had strayed far. Howard changedthe horse under him four times that day, and the beast he freed longafter the stars were out was jaded and wet. In the end he threwhimself down upon the hot earth in the shade of the wagon and turnedhis eyes toward the uplands of the Last Ridge. He had had no moment ofhis own to-day, no opportunity to ride for a call on his new friends,and now, after he rested a little and ate, he would go back to workwith his men, night-herding. For the rounded-up cattle were now agreat milling herd that grew greater as the night went on and otherlesser bands were brought in, a stamping, churning mass whosedeep-lunged bellowing surged out continuously across the valleystretches and through the passes of the hills.

  To-morrow, thought Howard, he would ride toward the Last Ridge, takingit upon himself to gather up the straggling stock there, and, purelyincidentally, he would look in upon the Longstreets. He had not seenthem for three days. But the night was destined to bring events toalter his plans. In the first place, some of his cowboys whom he haddispatched to outlying districts of the range to round up the cattlethere had not yet returned, and he and his men here were short-handedin their task of night-herding the swelling numbers of restlessshorthorns. Howard, having had his supper, his cigarette and his briefrest, was saddling his fifth horse to take his turn at a four-hourshift, when he was aware that some one had ridden into camp. And thencame a voice, shouting through the din and the dark:

  'Hey, there. Where's Al?'

  'Here,' called Howard. 'Who is it?'

  'It's me,' and Barbee with jingling spurs came on. 'Special deliveryletter for you, old-timer.'

  Letters came rarely to Desert Valley, and Howard expected none. But heput out his hand eagerly; he had no reason to think such a thing, butnone the less the conviction was upon him that Helen had written him.His arm through his horse's bridle, he struck a match and took into hishand a scrap of paper. As his peering eyes made out a sweeping,familiar scrawl, he felt a disappointment quite as unreasonable as hadbeen his hope. It was unmistakably from the hand of John Carr, hastilywritten in lead pencil upon the inner side of an old envelope and saidbriefly:

  'Better look out for Courtot, Al. He has left Big Run and is headedout your way.--JOHN.'

  Howard tore the paper to bits.

  'Where's Carr?' he asked quietly. 'Gone on back?'

  Barbee chuckled softly.

  'He was at your place last night, wasn't he? Well, he headed back andgot as far as Big Run. That's where I saw him late this afternoon whenhe give me this for you. About that time I guess he changed his mindabout going home and shifted his trail. He's gone up that way.'

  The vague sweep of Barbee's arm indicated a wide expanse of countrylying to the north. When Howard was silent, the boy went on lightlyand perhaps a hint maliciously:

  'Get me? Gone to see how the professor and his girl are making out.Keep your eye peeled, Al, or he'll beat you to it. Old John's a sureheller with the women.'

  Howard snapped out a curt admonition to Barbee to mind his own businessand flung himself into the saddle. As he spurred away to the outerfringe of his herd he was not thinking over-much of Carr's warning;somehow Barbee's stuck closer in his mind. A spurt of irritation withhimself succeeded that first desire to slap the message-bearer's face.For he knew within his heart that he
resented Carr's making himself athome at the Longstreet camp, and he knew that to-night he was anunreasonable beast. Had not Carr once already ridden far out of hisway to warn him? Was there any reason in the wide world why Carrshould not this time send Barbee and himself ride on wherever it suitedhim to go? At that moment Howard would have been glad than otherwiseto have Jim Courtot present himself.

  'Let him start something, damn him,' he growled savagely to himself,'any time.' And he began wondering if now John Carr were sitting withHelen and her father in front of their little home? Or if perhapsLongstreet had gone in to his books, and Carr and Helen alone, sittingquiet under the spell of the night, were looking out into the shiningworld of stars? He cursed himself for a fool and an ingrate. Didn'tCarr have a man's right to ride where he chose? And had he not alreadytwice in twenty-four hours shown how clearly his thought and his heartwere with his friend? A revolver knocked at Howard's side. It wasthere because John Carr had shown him its need.

  Howard's impulse was to stay away from Last Ridge for a little longer.He reasoned that Carr would be invited to stay overnight and wouldnaturally accept the invitation. Why should he not? There is alwaysroom in camp for one more, and no doubt both Helen and her father wouldbe glad of company to break their monotony and loneliness. But beforeHoward had had time for more than an impulse there came the secondepisode of the night to set him thinking upon other matters.

  As he rode he heard several voices and recognized them as those of hisown men. One guffawed loudly and there came the sound of his big handslapping his leg in his high delight; another swore roundly andimpatiently; a third was talking excitedly, earnestly. This third wasSandy Weaver, an old hand, a little man characterized by his gentleeyes and soft voice and known across many miles as an individual inwhom the truth did not abide. All up and down these fringes of thedesert he was known simply as Lying Sandy.

  'What's the excitement, boys?' demanded Howard.

  Sandy wheeled his horse, pressing close to his employer's side, andburst into quick explanation. He had been working with Dave Terrilover on the east side; they had found only a handful of stock there,and Sandy had left them to Dave, and in order to save time for themorrow had circled the valley and combed over the north end, under theLast Ridge cliffs. Just before dark he had made his discovery. Hishorse had found it first, shying and sniffing and then trying to bolt;Sandy was nothing if not circumstantial.

  'We've got some work to do to-night, Sandy.' cut in Howard shortly.'If you've got anything to say, go to it.'

  'Haw!' gurgled Bandy O'Neil, recently from a California outfit, a manwith a large sense of mirth. 'He's got his prize ring-tailed dandy tospring, Al. Don't choke him off or it'll kill him.'

  Sandy hearkened to neither of them, but hastened on. He described thehidden sink in a boulder-ringed draw, the difficulty he had had inbringing his horse to the scene and his own stupefaction. And when hehad done all of this with his customary detail he declared that he hadcome upon a yearling bull, dead as a door nail and slaughtered after afashion that made Sandy's eyes widen in the starlight.

  'It's throat was just sure enough tore all to hell, Al,' he saidponderously. 'Like something the size of an elephant had gone afterit. And I says to myself it must have been a wolf, and I go lookingfor tracks. And, by the Lord, I found 'em! Tracks like a wolf and thesize of a dinner plate! And alongside them tracks, some other tracks.And they was made by a man and he was barefooted!'

  Bandy O'Neil's roar of mirth was a sound to hearken to joyously fromafar.

  'And,' he cried, dabbing at his tears, 'Sandy would sure take a man bythe mit and lead him to the spot, only just then a big bird, size ofhalf a dozen ostriches, flops down and sinks its claws into that therebull calf and flies right straight over the moon with it! Ain't thatwhat you said, Sandy?'

  'You're a fool, Bandy O'Neil, and always will be a fool,' mutteredSandy Weaver stiffly. 'That same calf is laying right there now, andif you don't believe it or Al don't believe it, I'll bet you a hundredbucks and show you the place as fast as a horse can lay down to it.'

  He ran on with his tale, having the end yet to recount. He had headedhis cattle down to meet Dave Terril; he and Dave had swung in togetherand moved still further south to herd in with the boys coming up fromthat direction; and being within striking distance of the ranch-house,Sandy had ridden there alone.

  'I wasn't sure but you might be there, Al,' he explained. 'And Iwanted to tell you what I saw. I rampsed right in and found somebodywaiting for you. Know who?'

  'Carr?' suggested Howard.

  'No, it wasn't. It was Jim Courtot. There wasn't anybody at the housebut old Angela and the Mex kid, and they let him in. He was settingthere waiting, and when I went in the door he come up standing and hehad his gun in his hand and it was cocked. And, Al, he looked mean.'

  There was a pause and a silence. Sandy Weaver might be lying, and thenagain he might not.

  'I got nothing against Jim, and it didn't drop on me right then that hewas out to start a row. And, being full of what I saw up there, Ispilled him the yarn. And I wish you could have had a look into thatman's face! He's no albino to speak on, and yet when I got half-waythrough he looked it. His face was as white as a rag and his eyesbulged out like he was scared, and the sweat come out on his head andall over, I guess, and he kept looking over his shoulder all the timelike the devil was after him. And when I showed him what I found onthe rock by the dead calf, he just asks me one question. He says,"Sandy, what way was them tracks pointed?" And when I tells him itlooked like they was pointed this way--well, Jim was gone!'

  'You lying devil!' shouted Bandy hilariously.

  But Howard, wondering, demanded:

  'What was it you found on the rock, Sandy?'

  Sandy yanked it from his pocket. They crowded closer and some onestruck a match. It was a bit of buckskin, and in the buckskin was alittle heap of raw gold.