by Zane Grey
“Pile off, all of you,” shouted Bodkin, stridently, dismounting to lean his rifle against the tree. “Barsh, throw the end of your rope over thet branch.”
“Hold on!”
This order issued from the Texan, whose hand obstructed Barsh’s arm in his effort to toss up the rope.
“Wha-at?” bawled Bodkin, rudely disrupted, glaring at Inskip.
Bodkin was the only rider beside Brazos who had not dismounted. The others had laid aside their rifles and shotguns to crowd back of Barsh, nervously hurrying to get the gruesome job done.
Inskip deliberately rode between them and Brazos. “Bodkin, he might have a mother or sweetheart. An’ he’ll want to send some word.”
“Aw, hell! Let him blab it pronto then.”
“Cowboy, do you want to tell me who you air an’ send some message?” queried Inskip, calmly.
“I shore do. But I don’t want this skunk to heah it.”
“Wal, you can tell me,” returned Inskip, and pulled his horse toward Brazos.
“Hyar, Inskip . . . not so close!” shrieked Bodkin.
The Texan leaned toward Brazos to whisper swift and low: “Grab my guns, but don’t kill onless you have to.”
Brazos’ clawlike hands swept out. As he jerked loose the two big guns, Inskip spurred his horse to lunge away.
“Freeze!—yu!” pealed out Brazos, as he covered Bodkin and the startled posse.
CHAPTER
2
BRAZOS heard Inskip’s horse pound over the rocks and plow the brook. The Texan was racing for town. Bodkin turned a ghastly hue. Barsh gasped and dropped the rope. The others stood stiff, surely expecting those menacing guns to belch fire and death.
“Hands up! . . . Turn your backs!” ordered Brazos, his voice ice-edged. “Bodkin, tell yore men to fork their hawses. One move for a gun means I’ll kill you first.”
“Fellars—he’s got—me cold,” rejoined the deputy, huskily. “Fer Gawd’s sake—lay off your hardware. . . . Climb on.”
While they mounted stiffly, Brazos hauled the lasso in with his left hand and wound it around the pommel.
“Ride oot, you hombres. . . . Yu go last, Bodkin. An’ when we hit the road yell for Segel an’ yore other man to go ahaid.”
When the riders emerged from the grove Bodkin bawled to the couple on guard with the dead man.
“Ride on, you fellars—an’ don’t look back!”
It might have been only a few moments and it might have been longer before the strange cavalcade entered the outskirts of Las Animas—Brazos never knew. But once having passed the portal of the town, he drew a deep breath and sat back in his saddle, lowering the big guns to rest on his knees. Bodkin had treasured his swarthy skin too dearly to make any false move, and his men evidently were not forcing any deadly issue.
The wide long main street was familiar to Brazos, despite the many new buildings. Las Animas had doubled its population in five years. The old gray clapboard and brown adobe structures stood side by side with new ones of more imposing front. Brazos’ roving gaze caught sight of a sign: Mexican Joe. Hot Tamales. And his heart leaped. If old Joe happened to come out of his restaurant now, there would be a recognition somewhat disconcerting to Bodkin and his posse. But Joe was not one of the many to see the strange procession ride down the street. Brazos was aware of a quickly augmenting crowd in his rear. Before half a block had been traversed, Brazos saw to his left a building and a sign that had not been there in his day. Both sheriff and jail had come to the cattle town.
“Turn in, yu-all, an’ set tight,” called Brazos. A quick glance assured him that either he or something unusual was expected. Men were grouped about, and out in front stood a tall bareheaded man in his shirt sleeves. He had a silver star on his black vest. He stood significantly sidewise toward the street, his right hand low. Brazos breasted the hitching rail to see a broad lined face, deep piercing eyes, a thin-lipped, close-shut mouth, and bulging chin. Texas was written all over that wonderful visage.
“Wal, Bodkin,” he drawled, in a dry crisp voice, “you ride away in the daid of night withoot orders from this office, an’ you ride back with a daid man haidin’ yore parade an’ a shore enough live cowboy with guns at yore back. What the hell kind of deputy air you?”
“Boss—I had this cowboy arrested fer murder,” panted Bodkin, “an’ thet——Inskip double-crossed me——”
“Shut up, Bodkin,” interposed Brazos. “I still want to bore yu awful bad. It’s shore only oot of respect for this office thet I haven’t shot yu long ago.”
“Cowboy, talk to me,” said the man with the star.
Brazos had not looked into many as clear hawk eyes as those with which this Texan took stock of him.
“Air yu Kiskadden?” queried Brazos, sharply.
“Thet’s me,” came the curt reply.
“Did Inskip give yu a hunch aboot this?”
“He told me you’d be likely to ride in, but I’m bound to admit I didn’t expect you.”
“Sheriff, will yu give me a square deal?”
“You can rest assured of thet, cowboy. I’m the law heah.”
“My Gawd, but it’s a relief to pass these over. Heah!” burst out Brazos, and with a dexterous flip of the guns, he turned them in the air to catch them by the barrels and hand them to the sheriff. “Sheriff, I shore haven’t had many deals where I was more justified in throwin’ guns than in this one. But when Inskip gave me a chance to use them, he whispered for me not to shoot unless I had to. So I bluffed yore deputy an’ his posse.”
“So I see. Wal, if you bluffed them, why didn’t you ride the other way, instead of insultin’ my office this heah way?”
“I happen to be a Texan an’ I’m sore.”
“I seen thet long ago. Go on. Why’d you come?”
“Last night I was held up oot heah by three men. I’ll tell yu in private how they acted, what they said, an’ the lie they told me. . . . It was aboot night. I was cold an’ tired. Bay heah was lame. So when the three hombres rode away, I went to sleep in the cabin there. In the mawnin’ I found too I’d been sleepin’ with a daid man. An’ I’d just got ootside the cabin when Bodkin with his posse came tearin’ up. I had no idee what they wanted an’ they’d covered me before I found oot. Wal, they arrested me for the murder of the young man they found in the cabin, shot in the back. Sheriff, you can bet yore life thet those three hombres last night an’ Bodkin’s ootfit this mawnin’ knew the daid boy was in the cabin nine hours before I knew. . . . There was nothin’ for me to do but go along. I went. Bodkin is a surly hombre, an’ he’s a hell of a queer deputy sheriff. First off it didn’t look like he had any idee of hangin’ me. But he stopped at this Twin Sombreros Ranch oot heah, held up by the rancher Surface. An’ from thet moment Bodkin grew hell-bent to hang me. Inskip saw it comin’ an’ he tried to reason with Bodkin. But yu cain’t reason with a bull-haided, fourflush, notoriety-huntin’ deputy sheriff who from some queer twist was daid-set to hang me. When they had the lariat aboot my neck, Inskip rode in so I could grab his guns. Thet saved my life, sheriff. I’m innocent an’ I can prove it. I want my name cleared. Thet’s why I took the risk of holdin’ up yore ootfit an’ ridin’ in heah to surrender.”
“Who air you, cowboy?” queried Kiskadden, searchingly.
“Thet’ll have to come oot, I reckon,” returned Brazos, reluctantly. “I haven’t been in Las Animas for six years. But there’ll be men heah who’ll vouch for me.”
“All right. Get down, cowboy. . . . Bodkin, you look burstin’ with yore side of this story. Mebbe you’d better hold in——”
“Aw hell!” interrupted the deputy, his face working. “Wait till you hear my side. He’s a slick-tongued fellar, believe me. I’ll gamble he turns out to be a range-ridin’ desperado. An’ it’s a thousand to one thet he murdered young Neece.”
“Neece! Not Abe Neece’s boy?” exclaimed Kiskadden, shocked out of his composure.
“Yes. Young Allen Neece.”
“Aw, too bad—too bad!” rejoined the sheriff, in profound regret. “As if poor Abe had not had enough trouble!”
“Boss, you just bet it’s too bad. It’ll sure go hard with Allen’s twin sisters. Them gurls thought the world of him.”
“Fetch Neece in,” ended Kiskadden, and taking Brazos’ arm he led him into the office.
“An’ see heah, sheriff,” spoke up Brazos. “Will yu have my hawse taken good care of? An’ Bodkin took my gun, watch, penknife—an’ a personal letter. Thet’s all I had, an’ the letter means most to me.”
“Cowboy, I’ll be responsible for your hawse an’ your belongings.”
“Thanks. Thet’s a load off my mind. An’ one thing more,” said Brazos, lowering his voice so that the men carrying in the body of Neece could not hear him. “I reckon thet letter will prove my innocence. I got it yesterday mawnin’ at Latimer, which you shore know is a hell of a long day’s ride. An’ if I know anythin’ aboot daid men, young Neece was killed durin’ the day. Hold an inquest, sheriff, an’ make shore what hour thet pore boy was murdered. ‘Cause the whole deal has a look of murder.”
“You’re a cool hand,” replied Kiskadden, admiringly. “I kinda like you. From Texas, eh?”
“Shore. I was born in Uvalde.”
“How old air you?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Wal, you don’t look thet. Any folks livin’?”
“There was—a few years ago. But I’ve been too unhappy lately to write home.”
“Air you straight, cowboy?”
“I am, sheriff, so help me Gawd!” answered Brazos, passionately, meeting full the penetrating gray eyes, that had something of shadow in them.
“Wal, I promised you a square deal,” concluded Kiskadden. “Come with me. I’ll have to lock you up.”
A corridor opened from the office. Kiskadden unlocked the first door on the right, to disclose a small room with one barred window. The only article Brazos could see at quick glance was a blanketed couch. Kiskadden escorted Brazos in and halted in the doorway.
“Cowboy, one thing bothers me. In case you air innocent, which Inskip swore you was, an’ I substantiate thet, you’re liable to hold somethin’ against Bodkin an’ mebbe his men.”
“Hell! Thet bothers me,” flashed Brazos, sitting down heavily on the couch. “Bodkin? I didn’t know aboot him. . . . An’ thet Barsh, who put a rope around my neck. Only man who ever did thet! . . . But, Kiskadden, I’ll be more interested in the three hombres who tricked me into this mess.”
“Cowboy, you don’t seem to concern yourself aboot why I’m lockin’ you up.”
“Concern? Say, I’m tickled to death. What have I got to worry aboot now? You’re a Texan an’ a man. You’ll see through my part in this deal. . . . But when I get oot . . . Sheriff, I’m askin’ yu—please get possession of my letter an’ please don’t let anybody but yu read it. I shore couldn’t stand thet.”
“We’ll see.” The sheriff went out to close and lock the heavy door.
Brazos lay down on the couch. As he composed himself, the sound of heavy boots and indistinct voices came through the walls from the sheriff’s office. The window of his cell opened on the back.
After a while, his blood ceased to race and his thoughts to whirl. “Doggone!” soliloquized Brazos. “When did I ever have a closer shave than thet?” He was well off in jail for a few days. He would be well fed and have a bed to sleep on. And meanwhile, he would piece the fragments of this case together. Something more would come out at his trial, or at least the perfunctory hearing Kiskadden would have to give him.
He had not the least doubt that Kiskadden would not only release him, but establish his innocence. This Texan recalled other denizens of the Lone Star State that he had known—Cap Britt, for one, for whom he had ridden and shot himself into notoriety some years before. Inskip was another. These men knew their kind. Brazos wondered if this Abe Neece had come from the Lone Star State. Surface was certainly not a Texan. Brazos tried to sidetrack an insidious impression of intrigue involving the three riders who had accosted him out at the cabin, this deputy Bodkin, and the young man Barsh, who had been afraid to show his face, and Surface. Brazos had only slim pegs on which to hang these suspicions. But a remarkable career on the ranges had given him an experience far beyond his years. Always he had been thrown against a background of cattle dealing, with its multiplicity of angles. The vast plains of Texas, the Panhandle and the Llano Estacado, the silver-grassed ranges of New Mexico, the Colorado steppes and the many valleys of Wyoming—these he knew as well as any cowboy who had ever ridden them. Rustlers, outlaws, desperadoes, bandits, and the ever-increasing number of cowboys gone wrong—these had multiplied with the building of the cattle empire. Likewise, the strange fact of apparently honest cattlemen being in league with the evil forces had flourished since the first great herds of longhorns had been driven north from Texas. Brazos recalled a few he had known, the most notable of whom, though not the last—Sewall McCoy—brought a cold jerk along Brazos’ nerves.
The redheaded daughter of Surface came back to mind—Lura Surface. She had certainly made him a target for wonderful blue-green hungry eyes. “I know her kind,” muttered Brazos. “A flirt—for whom cowboys air apple pie. I’ll shore have to see her again, risk or no risk. She saw I was no low-down murderer. An’ I’ll have to remember thet.”
Brazos had innumerable questions to ask somebody about this Twin Sombreros Ranch, the Surfaces, and the Neeces. At this point he was interrupted by footsteps out in the hall. He heard a heavy bolt or lock shot back. The door opened to admit a man carrying a tray.
“Hyar’s some grub, cowboy,” he said gruffly, setting the tray down on the couch.
Brazos rolled to a sitting posture, his boots clanging on the floor.
“Say, yu’re one hombre I’m gonna treat white in this burg,” sang out Brazos. “Hungry? Wal, look at thet grub! . . . Stay an’ talk to me, pardner.”
“Agin’ orders,” rejoined the guard, who went out to lock Brazos in again.
Brazos made the most of that generous meal. A starved condition was not conducive to optimism and clear thinking. He felt vastly better. Pacing the narrow confines of his cell, he lived his experience over again and realized that he got more out of it. Then he lay down to rest, and anon, he stood up on the bed to peep out of the small window. It opened out upon a high-fenced compound rather than corral, at the back of which ran a long shed of stalls. He saw the flank of his horse Bay.
The afternoon passed far from tediously for Brazos. Those heavy footfalls in the office and on the flagstone sidewalk had meaning for him. Unless Las Animas had more than doubled the population of his day, he estimated that very nearly every man in the town had visited Kiskadden. Late in the afternoon, two guards brought his supper.
“We’ve orders to take you out back fer a little exercise, if you want,” announced one.
“Wal, in the mawnin’,” replied Brazos. “An’ if yu’ll fetch me water, soap an’ towel, an’ a razor, I’ll consider myself obligated.”
“Glad to, cowboy.” They went out in the gathering dusk.
Brazos took off his clothes and went to bed, his eyes shutting as with glue. That night he made up lost sleep, and it was very late when he awoke. The stars told him that the dark hour before dawn was close at hand. The lonely silent hour Brazos had always chosen to guard the herd!
If he could not sleep, that had always been a bad hour for him. His reckless life always spread out for him to review, the ghosts of dead men haunted him, the many opportunities for betterment that he had missed, the many times he had had to ride away from ranges and cowboys he loved, and lastly the dark-eyed lovely girl who had made him a wandering, line-riding cowboy.
From now on his torture would be relentless and unabatable. That letter! He felt for it against his heart. Gone! And a wrench of pain and fury shook him. Would the sheriff read that letter aloud at the trial? Brazos did not believe the Texan would subject him to th
at ordeal.
That letter had wrenched Brazos’ soul. And he had not dared to read it all or go back to it. He had been flayed. The bitter anguish of the past had softened. What hurt so terribly was to find that his name had been revered, that love and faith still abided out there beyond the Cimarron, that Holly Ripple had named her boy for him, that her husband Frayne and her foreman Britt, and all that hard-riding, hard-shooting outfit of cowboys, the like of which had never been known on the ranges, all swore by him, made him a tradition, and never ceased to believe he would end his reckless wandering and come back to them.
“Aw, I cain’t ever go back,” moaned Brazos into the silent blackness of the night. “An’ I cain’t ever drink no more—to make me forget—an’ fight—an’ ride on some place new. . . . Thet boy will find me some day, unless I’m daid—she will send him—an’ then he’d see true. . . . By Gawd, it’s tough! I’m drove to be what she trusted me to become—what thet boy thinks I am.”
Daylight brought a cessation of Brazos’ unhappy memories and resolves. But he divined that a leaning to evil had passed out of him during his dark hour. He felt himself transformed, gone back to the old gay cool Brazos Keene with something inexplicable added.
The guards brought his breakfast, and the necessary articles with which to wash and shave, and make himself presentable.
“Your trial is comin’ off today,” the kindly one of the two announced. “An’ I reckon you needn’t be ondue worried.”
“Thanks, pardner. Thet’s fine. Take me ootside for a stretch.”
All morning, however, he was left alone, waiting for a footfall that did not come. The fact of the omission of his noonday meal augured further for his release. Brazos paced his cell, finally achieving patience. At last a slow clinking step in the corridor ended his wait. That was the step of a Texan.
