By unanimous consent the game was changed to poker. Young Cullison had the chair next to Flandrau. He had, so Curly thought, a strong family resemblance to his father and sister. “His eye jumps straight at you and asks its questions right off the reel,” the newcomer thought. Still a boy in his ways, he might any day receive the jolt that would transform him into a man.
The cook’s “Come and get it” broke up the game for a time. They trooped to supper, where for half an hour they discussed without words fried quail, cornbread and coffee. Such conversation as there was held strictly to necessary lines and had to do with the transportation of edibles.
Supper over, they smoked till the table was cleared. Then coats were removed and they sat down to the serious business of an all night session of draw.
Curly was not playing to win money so much as to study the characters of those present. Bill he knew already fairly well as a tough nut to crack, game to the core, and staunch to his friends. Blackwell was a bad lot, treacherous, vindictive, slippery as an eel. Even his confederates did not trust him greatly. But it was Soapy Stone and young Cullison that interested Flandrau most. The former played like a master. He chatted carelessly, but he overlooked no points. Sam had the qualities that go to make a brilliant erratic player, but he lacked the steadiness and the finesse of the veteran.
The last play before they broke up in the gray dawn was a flashlight on Stone’s cool audacity. The limit had long since been taken off. Blackwell and Stone had been the winners of the night, and the rest had all lost more or less.
Curly was dealing, Cranston opened the pot.
“She’s cracked,” he announced.
Blackwell, sitting next to him, had been waiting his turn with palpable eagerness. “Got to boost her, boys, to protect Bill,” he explained as his raise went in.
Sam, who had drunk more than was good for him, raised in his turn. “Kick her again, gentlemen. Me, I’m plumb tired of that little song of mine, ‘Good here’.”
Stone stayed. Curly did not come in.
Cranston showed his openers and laid down his hand. Blackwell hesitated, then raised again.
“Reckon I’m content to trail along,” Cullison admitted, pushing in the necessary chips.
Soapy rasped his stubby chin, looked sideways at Sam and then at Blackwell, and abruptly shaved in chips enough to call the raise.
“Cards?” asked Curly.
“I’ll play these,” Blackwell announced.
Sam called for two and Stone one.
Blackwell raised. Sam, grumbling, stayed.
“Might as well see what you’ve got when I’ve gone this far,” he gave as a reason for throwing good money after bad.
Soapy took one glance at his new card and came in with a raise.
Blackwell slammed his fist down on the table. “Just my rotten luck. You’ve filled.”
Stone smiled, then dropped his eyes to his cards. Suddenly he started. What had happened was plain. He had misread his hand.
With a cheerful laugh Blackwell raised in his turn.
“Lets me out,” Sam said.
For about a tenth of a second one could see triumph ride in Soapy’s eyes. “Different here,” he explained in a quiet businesslike way. All his chips were pushed forward to the center of the table.
On Blackwell’s face were mapped his thoughts. Curly saw his stodgy mind working on the problem, studying helplessly the poker eyes of his easy placid enemy. Was Soapy bluffing? Or had he baited a hook for him to swallow? The faintest glimmer of amusement drifted across the face of Stone. He might have been a general whose plans have worked out to suit him, waiting confidently for certain victory. The longer the convict looked at him the surer he was that he had been trapped.
With an oath he laid down his hand. “You’ve got me beat. Mine is only a jack high straight.”
Stone put down his cards and reached for the pot.
Curly laughed.
Blackwell whirled on him.
“What’s so condemned funny?”
“The things I notice.”
“Meaning?”
“That I wouldn’t have laid down my hand.”
“Betcher ten plunks he had me beat.”
“You’re on.” Curly turned to Soapy. “Object to us seeing your hand?”
Stone was counting his chips. He smiled. “It ain’t poker, but go ahead. Satisfy yourselves.”
“You turn the cards,” Flandrau said.
A king of diamonds showed first, then a ten-spot and a six-spot of the same suit.
“A flush,” exulted Blackwell.
“I’ve got just one more ten left, but it says you’re wrong.”
The words were not out of Curly’s mouth before the other had taken the bet. Soapy looked at Flandrau with a new interest. Perhaps this boy was not such a youth as he had first seemed.
The fourth card turned was a king of hearts, the last a six of spades. Stone had had two pair to go on and had not bettered at the draw.
Blackwell tossed down two bills and went away furious.
That night was like a good many that followed. Sam was at an impressionable age, inclined to be led by any man whom he admired. Curly knew that he could gain no influence over him by preaching. He had to live the rough-and-tumble life of these men who dwelt beyond the pale of the law, to excel them at the very things of which they boasted. But in one respect he held himself apart. While he was at the horse ranch he did not touch a drop of liquor.
Laura London’s letter was not delivered until the second day, for, though she had not told her messenger to give it to Sam when he was alone, Curly guessed this would be better. The two young men had ridden down to Big Tree spring to get quail for supper.
“Letter for you from a young lady,” Flandrau said, and handed it to Cullison.
Sam did not read his note at once, but put it in his pocket carelessly, as if it had been an advertisement. They lay down in the bushes about twenty yards apart, close to the hole where the birds flew every evening to water. Hidden by the mesquite, Sam ran over his letter two or three times while he was waiting. It was such a message as any brave-hearted, impulsive girl might send to the man she loved when he seemed to her to walk in danger. Cullison loved her for the interest she took in him, even while he ridiculed her fears.
Presently the quails came by hundreds on a bee-line for the water hole. They shot as many as they needed, but no more, for neither of them cared to kill for pleasure.
As they rode back to the ranch, Curly mentioned that he had seen Sam’s people a day or two before.
Cullison asked no questions, but he listened intently while the other told the story of his first rustling and of how Miss Kate and her father had stood by him in his trouble. The dusk was settling over the hills by this time, so that they could not see each other’s faces clearly.
“If I had folks like you have, the salt of the earth, and they were worrying their hearts out about me, seems to me I’d quit helling around and go back to them,” Curly concluded.
“The old man sent you to tell me that, did he?” Hard and bitter came the voice of the young man out of the growing darkness.
“No, he didn’t. He doesn’t know I’m here. But he and your sister have done more for me than I ever can pay. That’s why I’m telling you this.”
Sam answered gruffly, as a man does when he is moved, “Much obliged, Curly, but I reckon I can look out for myself.”
“Just what I thought, and in September I have to go to the penitentiary. Now I have mortgaged it away, my liberty seems awful good to me.”
“You’ll get off likely.”
“Not a chance. They’ve got me cinched. But with you it’s different. You haven’t fooled away your chance yet. There’s nothing to this sort of life. The bunch up here is no good. Soapy don’t mean right by you, or by any young fellow he trails with.”
“I’ll not listen to anything against Soapy. He took me in when my own father turned against me.”
�
�To get back at your father for sending him up the road.”
“That’s all right. He has been a good friend to me. I’m not going to throw him down.”
“Would it be throwing him down to go back to your people?”
“Yes, it would. We’ve got plans. Soapy is relying on me. No matter what they are, but I’m not going to lie down on him. And I’m not going back to the old man. He told me he was through with me. Once is a-plenty. I’m not begging him to take me back, not on your life.”
HE WAS THE MADDEST MAN IN ARIZONA.
Curly dropped the matter. To urge him further would only make the boy more set in his decision. But as the days passed he kept one thing in his mind, not to miss any chance to win his friendship. They rode together a good deal, and Flandrau found that Sam liked to hear him talk about the Circle C and its affairs. But often he was discouraged, for he made no progress in weaning him from his loyalty to Stone. The latter was a hero to him, and gradually he was filling him with wrong ideas, encouraging him the while to drink a great deal. That the man had some definite purpose Curly was sure. What it was he meant to find out.
Meanwhile he played his part of a wild young cowpuncher ready for any mischief, but beneath his obtuse good humor Flandrau covered a vigilant wariness. Soapy held all the good cards now, but if he stayed in the game some of them would come to him. Then he would show Mr. Stone whether he would have everything his own way.
* * *
CHAPTER VIII
A REHEARSED QUARREL
Because he could not persuade him to join in their drinking bouts, Stone nicknamed Curly the good bad man.
“He’s the prize tough in Arizona, only he’s promised his ma not to look on the wine when it is red,” Blackwell sneered.
Flandrau smiled amiably, and retorted as best he could. It was his cue not to take offence unless it were necessary.
It was perhaps on account of this good nature that Blackwell made a mistake. He picked on the young man to be the butt of his coarse pleasantries. Day after day he pointed his jeers at Curly, who continued to grin as if he did not care.
When the worm turned, it happened that they were all sitting on the porch. Curly was sewing a broken stirrup leather, Blackwell had a quirt in his hand, and from time to time flicked it at the back of his victim. Twice the lash stung, not hard, but with pepper enough to hurt. Each time the young man asked him to stop.
Blackwell snapped the quirt once too often. When he picked himself out of the dust five seconds later, he was the maddest man in Arizona. Like a bull he lowered his head and rushed. Curly sidestepped and lashed out hard with his left.
The convict whirled, shook the hair out of his eyes, and charged again. It was a sledge-hammer bout, with no rules except to hit the other man often and hard. Twice Curly went down from chance blows, but each time he rolled away and got to his feet before his heavy foe could close with him. Blackwell had no science. His arms went like flails. Though by sheer strength he kept Flandrau backing, the latter hit cleaner and with more punishing effect.
Curly watched his chance, dodged a wild swing, and threw himself forward hard with his shoulder against the chest of the convict. The man staggered back, tripped on the lowest step of the porch, and went down hard. The fall knocked the breath out of him.
“Had enough?” demanded Curly.
For answer Blackwell bit his thumb savagely.
“Since you like it so well, have another taste.” Curly, now thoroughly angry, sent a short-arm jolt to the mouth.
The man underneath tried to throw him off, but Flandrau’s fingers found his hairy throat and tight-
[Transcriber’s Note: the last line printed in the preceeding paragraph was “tight-” and that was at a page break. The continuation was not printed at the top of the following page. From the context, “tightened” is likely the completed word.]
“You’re killing me,” the convict gasped.
“Enough?”
“Y-yes.”
Curly stepped back quickly, ready either for a knife or a gun-play. Blackwell got to his feet, and glared at him.
“A man is like a watermelon; you can’t most generally tell how good he is till you thump him,” Sam chuckled.
Cranston laughed. “Curly was not so ripe for picking as you figured, Lute. If you’d asked me, I could a-told you to put in yore spare time letting him alone. But a fellow has to buy his own experience.”
The victor offered his hand to Blackwell. “I had a little luck. We’ll call it quits if you say so.”
“I stumbled over the step,” the beaten man snarled.
“Sure. I had all the luck.”
“Looked to me like you were making yore own luck, kid,” Bad Bill differed.
The paroled convict went into the house, swearing to get even. His face was livid with fury.
“You wouldn’t think a little thing like a whaling given fair and square would make a man hold a grudge. My system has absorbed se-ve-real without doing it any harm.” Sam stooped to inspect a rapidly discoloring eye. “Say, Curly, he hung a peach of a lamp on you.”
Soapy made no comment in words, but he looked at Flandrau with a new respect. For the first time a doubt as to the wisdom of letting him stay at the ranch crossed his mind.
His suspicion was justified. Curly had been living on the edge of a secret for weeks. Mystery was in the air. More than once he had turned a corner to find the other four whispering over something. The group had disintegrated at once with a casual indifference that did not deceive. Occasionally a man had ridden into the yard late at night for private talk with Stone, and Curly was morally certain that the man was the little cowpuncher Dutch of the Circle C.
Through it all Curly wore a manner of open confidence. The furtive whisperings did not appear to arouse his curiosity, nor did he intercept any of the knowing looks that sometimes were exchanged. But all the time his brain was busy with questions. What were they up to? What was it they had planned?
Stone and Blackwell rode away one morning. To Curly the word was given that they were going to Mesa. Four days later Soapy returned alone. Lute had found a job, he said.
“That a paper sticking out of your pocket?” Flandrau asked.
Soapy, still astride his horse, tossed the Saguache Sentinel to him as he turned toward the stable.
“Lie number one nailed,” Curly said to himself. “How came he with a Saguache paper if he’s been to Mesa?”
Caught between the folds of the paper was a railroad time table. It was a schedule of the trains of the Texas, Arizona & Pacific for July. This was the twenty-ninth of June. Certainly Soapy had lost no time getting the new folder as soon as it was issued. Why? He might be going traveling. If so, what had that to do with the mystery agitating him and his friends?
Curly turned the pages idly till a penciled marking caught his eye. Under Number 4’s time was scrawled, just below Saguache, the word Tin Cup, and opposite it the figures 10:19. The express was due to leave Saguache at 9:57 in the evening. From there it pushed up to the divide and slid down with air brakes set to Tin Cup three thousand feet lower. Soapy could not want to catch the train fifteen miles the other side of Saguache. But this note on the margin showed that he was interested in the time it reached the water tank. There must be a reason for it.
Stone came back hurriedly from the corral, to find Curly absorbed in the Sentinel.
“Seen anything of a railroad folder? I must a-dropped it.”
“It was stuck in the paper. I notice there’s liable to be trouble between Fendrick and the cattle interests over his sheep,” the reader answered casually.
“Yep. Between Fendrick and Cullison, anyhow.” Stone had reclaimed and pocketed his time table.
Incidentally Flandrau’s doubt had been converted into a lively suspicion. Presently he took a gun, and strolled off to shoot birds. What he really wanted was to be alone so that he could think the matter over. Coming home in the dusk, he saw Stone and young Cullison with their heads togethe
r down by the corral. Curious to see how long this earnest talk would last, Curly sat down on a rock, and watched them, himself unobserved. They appeared to be rehearsing some kind of a scene, of which Soapy was stage director.
The man on the rock smiled grimly. “They’re having a quarrel, looks like.... Now the kid’s telling Soapy to go to Guinea, and Soapy’s pawing around mad as a bull moose. It’s all a play. They don’t mean it. But why? I reckon this dress rehearsal ain’t for the calves in the corral.”
Curly’s mind was so full of guesses that his poker was not up to par that night. About daybreak he began to see his way into the maze. His first gleam of light was when a row started between Soapy and Cullison. Before anyone could say a word to stop them they were going through with that identical corral quarrel.
Flandrau knew now they had been preparing it for his benefit. Cranston chipped in against Sam, and to keep up appearances Curly backed the boy. The quarrel grew furious. At last Sam drove his fist down on the table and said he was through with the outfit and was going back to Saguache.
“Yo tambien,” agreed Curly. “Not that I’ve got anything against the horse ranch. That ain’t it. But I’m sure pining for to bust the bank at Bronson’s.
‘Round and round the little ball goes,
Where it will land nobody knows.’
I’ve got forty plunks burning my jeans. I’ve got to separate myself from it or make my roll a thousand.”
The end of it was that both Sam and Curly went down to the corral and saddled their ponies. To the last the conspirators played up to their parts.
“Damned good riddance,” Stone called after them as they rode away.
“When I find out I’m doing business with four-flushers, I quit them cold,” Sam called back angrily.
Curly was amused. He wanted to tell his friend that they had pulled off their little play very well. But he did not.
Still according to program, Sam sulked for the first few miles of their journey. But before they reached the Bar 99 he grew sunny again.
“I’m going to have a talk with Laura while I’m so near,” he explained.
Crooked Trails and Straight Page 6
