Twin Sombreros

by Zane Grey

  Brazos was not disappointed. The door opened to admit Kiskadden, who closed and locked it.

  “Wal, Brazos,” he drawled, “I’m missin’ my dinner to have a confab with you.”

  “Yu know my name?” queried Brazos, sharply.

  “Shore. It’s on the back of this letter. Brazos Keene. Wrote small an’ pretty, but I read thet much anyway. I’m glad to tell you no one else has seen it. I reckon Bodkin’s man, Segel, put no store on it. An’ heah it is, cowboy.”

  “My Gawd, sheriff, but I could die for yu—savin’ me the shame of disgracin’ a girl I once loved,” replied Brazos, in grateful emotion.

  “Wal, I’m glad if it means as much as thet,” returned Kiskadden, and he sat down on the couch to take out a black pipe. “I always figger better when I smoke. Not thet I’m not shore you’ll go free. It’s a pore case agin’ you, Brazos, an’ has some queer angles.”

  “Ha! I had thet hunch. Yu wouldn’t be a Texas sheriff if yu hadn’t seen thet.”

  “You got this letter the mawnin’ of day before yestiddy, at Latimer, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, sir. An’ all by accident, or mebbe a hunch. I was ridin’ through aboot eight o’clock. I went in the post office an’ was paralyzed to get it. I rode oot of town scared to death. But finally I sloped off under a tree. . . . Gosh, I must have been there for hours but I didn’t have the nerve to read it all. But the sun was high an’ hot when I rode on again.”

  “Wal, we had two doctors make the inquest on young Neece,” went on Kiskadden. “Our Doc Williamson, who lives heah, an’ a surgeon from Denver, who was on a train. Williamson seen him an’ dragged him off. They found young Neece had been killed early in the evenin’ of thet day you rode oot of Latimer. The bullet hole in his back was shot there after Neece was daid. Both doctors agreed thet he had been roped—there were abrasions on his arms above his elbows—an’ jerked off his hawse on his haid. Thet caused his death.”

  “Wal, my Gawd!” ejaculated Brazos, in wondering fire. “I had no rope on my saddle.”

  “Brazos, I was convinced of yore innocence yestiddy, an’ now I know it. But for yore good, I reckon you better stay for the hearin’. It’ll show Bodkin up an’ I’ll discharge him pronto. Another angle, it leaked oot somewhere thet Surface would jest as lief see you hanged, along with all the grub-line cowboys thet ride through.”

  “Hell yu say?” queried Brazos, thoughtfully. “Sheriff, I shore didn’t take a shine to him.”

  “Surface is new heah. Claims to be from Nebraska. But he’s from Kansas. Rich cattleman—an’ has a lot of stock. Same as all of us, for thet matter.”

  “Ahuh. How’d Surface get thet Twin Sombreros Ranch from Neece?”

  “Wal, thet’s kind of complicated, an’ never was cleared up to suit me. Neece was operatin’ big. He had five thousand haid comin’ up from Texas for Surface. The cash for this herd was paid Neece at the Cattleman’s Bank in Dodge. More than fifty thousand dollars. Neece was fetchin’ thet sum over heah to our bank. But he got held up by three masked men, an’ robbed. Wal, the queer angle is thet the big herd jest vanished off the range. Neither hoof nor hair of them was ever found.”

  “But the cow ootfit!” exclaimed Brazos, aghast.

  “Same as the herd. They vanished. Neece made a blunder at Dodge. He hired a foreman thet he didn’t know, let him pick an ootfit, an’ sent them south after the herd.”

  “Thet ootfit was bought off,” said Brazos, abruptly.

  “Wal, there was no proof of anythin’ except the longhorns were gone. Neece couldn’t deliver to Surface. An’ he had been robbed of the money. Twin Sombreros was mortgaged an’ the banks wouldn’t advance more. Neece lost all to Surface. He’s a broken man now, livin’ oot of town down the Purgatory. An’ the twin gurls, Neece’s joy an’ pride, air running a restaurant over by the railroad station.”

  “Twin girls!”

  “Shore. Eighteen years old—the prettiest gurls in all the West. An’ you cain’t tell them apart—not to save yore life. June an’ Janis, they’re called. Neece was powerful proud of them twins. He sent them back to Kansas City to go to school. Thet was ten years ago. An’ he didn’t see them often an’ not atall of late years. He developed this Twin Sombreros Ranch for them. Thet was his brand. Two high-peaked sombreros. Wal, the gurls just got heah when the crash came. Hard luck fer them, everybody swore, an’ was sorry. But them gurls had spunk. They borrowed money an’ started a restaurant. Old Abe’s Mexican cook stuck to them. An’ say, thet little restaurant is packed every mealtime, with a crowd waitin’ ootside. They’ve paid back what they borrowed an’ now they’re makin’ money.”

  “Stampedin’ mavericks!” burst out Brazos. “I reckoned I’d heahed some range yarns in my day. But this one takes the cake. . . . I’ll bet thet Lura Surface sticks up her nose at the Neece twins, huh?”

  “Wal, the wimmen folks all say Lura is a cat an’ powerful jealous of the twins. You see, she queened it over the range till Neece’s gurls got heah. An’ now she’s not got it all her own way.”

  “Kiskadden, what yu tellin’ me all this for?” suddenly queried Brazos, sharp with suspicion.

  “Aw, just range gossip, cowboy,” drawled the Texan, with an evasive smile.

  “Yeah? Wal, it’s shore powerful interestin’ an’ yu don’t strike me as the gossipin’ kind. . . . I figure Inskip’s a friend of yores?”

  “Yes. We’re pardners in a cattle business, but I’m the silent one. . . . Wal, to come back to yore hearin’. which is set fer two o’clock, I’d like you to read thet letter to me.”

  “Aw! Sheriff, you didn’t open it?”

  “No.”

  “What yu want me to read it for?”

  “Brazos, I really don’t have to heah it, if yu object. But it’ll strengthen my conviction, I’m shore. An’ I may have to talk turkey to Surface an’ some of his cattle association. All the same, I’ll respect yore confidence.”

  “Shore. I—I’ll read it to yu,” replied Brazos, soberly, and as he opened the thick letter his lean brown hands shook slightly.

  Don Carlos’ Rancho

  Cimarron, N.M.

  May 2, 1880

  Dear Brazos:

  This is the third letter I have written you since you left us over five years ago. I am sure the others never reached you else you would have written. They were sent at a venture. This time, however, I know you will receive this one, and I am writing much that I omitted before. We have a railroad mail service now, caballero mio; and this epistle should reach your post-office in less than two days. So near yet so far, Brazos!

  We heard quite by accident that you had lately ridden down from Wyoming to a job with the Two-bar X outfit. A cattleman neighbor of ours, Calhoun, had just returned from Latimer, and he met Britt at the station. Wherever Brazos Keene rides, it will be known! Calhoun told Britt a lot of range gossip, including your latest exploit at Casper, Wyoming (which I did not believe) and poor Britt came home like a man who had seen ghosts. He told the cowboys and Nigger Johnson (bless his white heart) told me. Not one of the other boys mentioned it to me. You’ll be amazed, Brazos, and I hope hurt a little to learn that every single one of the old outfit you once lorded it over so gayly is still riding for me. They were a sick bunch of cowboys. How they loved you, Brazos! I’d have given much to have been hidden in the bunkhouse when Britt told them about you.

  They are spoiling little Brazos Ripple Frayne, your namesake, who is nearly five years old. He is a little devil and drives me frantic. He favors his father, Renn, more than me. But he has a little of my Spanish. He never tires of stories about rustlers, gunmen, bandits, buffalo and cattle stampedes. And your name makes his eyes grow big and round. You should see Brazos roll a gun and hear him say: “When I grow up, I’m gonna bore that Billy the Kid!” Oh! it is dreadful, the propensities he shows already. His father does not seem to mind. Britt, who worships the lad, says that when Brazos takes to riding the range, the hard years of the New Mexican border will be
past.

  Since you and your outfit broke up the Slaughter gang and did away with Sewall McCoy, Clements and their tools, we have no rustling on a big scale. Strange to say, we were never drawn into the Lincoln County War, which was in its incipiency when you rode for Don Carlos’ Rancho. That terrible feud accounted for the lives of three hundred men, surely the bloodiest war the West ever knew. Billy the Kid came out of it alive. He and a few of his desperado allies still actively rustle cattle and find a ready market. Billy has more friends than enemies. He has visited Don Carlos’ Rancho twice during the last year. He is twenty years old and has killed twenty men, not including Indians and Mexicans. Billy would not be bad looking but for his buck tooth. He is a quiet little fellow. Such eyes! They are like forked blue lightning. Pat Garrett is on Billy’s trail. They are expected to meet any day. The range is speculating, Britt and Renn both say Garrett will never risk an even break with Billy. If he does, he’ll get killed. Renn said once: “I’ve seen the day I could beat that little hombre to a gun!” And Britt said: “Brazos could do it now!” . . . Oh, you border ruffians! You strange cold Westerners! I confess to a little weakness for Billy the Kid. That’s not strange, considering my Spanish heritage, and the fact that before I married an outlaw gunman, I had a soft spot in my heart for a gunman cowboy, one Señor Brazos Keene.

  So far as we know, Billy’s outfit never stole a steer off our range. After my father’s custom here, I had Billy and his gang to dinner. He told me he remembered my father and evidently cherished that memory.

  Well, the good, bad old days are over, at least for Don Carlos’ Rancho. We are running over seventy thousand head. The railroad has simplified cattle-raising. The long hard drives are a thing of the past in this territory. Chisum, the old rustler baron with his jingle-bobbed cattle, survived the Lincoln County War. Billy the Kid, who rode for Chisum once, had sworn to kill him. But the old man still holds forth at Seven Rivers, surrounded by a hard outfit, and a hundred thousand head of longhorns. Brazos, he once asked me to marry him. I’ve never forgotten the shock of that. Right now I can see you shake your handsome curly head and say as you did once: “Wal, who’n hell hasn’t asked Holly Ripple thet?”

  Brazos, I am wonderfully happy. Renn has more than justified the faith I placed in him. He is a big man on the New Mexico ranges and long ago has lived down that vague hard name that came with him from Dodge and Abilene. My father’s traditions and work have been carried on. We have our darling little boy and—dare I confess it?—expect another little Frayne at no distant date. May it be a girl—Señorita Holly Ripple Frayne! Our material riches do not mean very much. I forgot to tell you that my riders have a share in our cattle business. In fact, Brazos, there is only one drop of bitterness to taint the sweet cup of Don Carlos’ Rancho. And that is your loss, your wandering, rolling-stone life, your bitter fiery spirit and your fate to throw a gun, your inevitable fall.

  We have heard of you often. You know range gossip—how cowboys love to talk, to carry tales. If I believed all I have heard, my heart would be broken. But I know you would never be crooked. Still all my faith in you cannot change the fact that haunts me. If you persist in your lone wolf wandering from bad cow-camps to hard cow-towns, always with that chip on your shoulder, it will not be long until you too, like many of your old pards, find a grave on the “lone prairie.” That would be a pity, Brazos. You are such a fine boy. You have such splendid possibilities.

  Britt tells me that I broke your heart. Oh, how I have prayed that was untrue! I know you loved me. But you were a wild boy, Brazos. You were only nineteen years old—my own age. I felt like a mother to you. Indeed I did love you, but it was as a sister. That, of course, I did not know until Renn came into our lives. He was my man, Brazos.

  If you loved me so deeply as Britt and the cowboys seem to believe, you could never go to the bad. The greatest grief can be a source of joy. I don’t believe you loved me greatly. If you had, you would have paid me the honor of being better for it. You were just disappointed, cut to the soul, and instead of letting the goodness, the sweetness in you dominate your future, you rode away with that proud, passionate, devilish side uppermost.

  Brazos, in this letter, which I am certain you will receive, you have come to the end of your rope. You will stop your wandering—your drinking. You were never a drunkard, but you could easily have become one. You must find a steady job—if you refuse to return to Don Carlos’ Rancho—and you will be worthy of my faith, and Renn’s regard, and the love of these cowboys.

  There are hundreds of pretty lovable western girls just aching, just eating their hearts out for a man like you. Find one of them, and love her. (Oh, don’t tell me you couldn’t. You could. Didn’t you have a case on Señorita Dolores Mendozo, while you were courting me?) Ah, Brazos! . . . Love her and marry her and settle down to deserve the reward that should come to all cowboys like you—who have made this glorious West habitable for us—made its empire possible.

  Fetch her out here to live. To be my friend! And if in the fulness of time you and she were to be blessed with a little girl, let us pledge her and little Brazos to each other.

  This is the last letter I shall ever write you, my friend. I hope and pray you take it as I have written it, and that you will consider my husband’s proposition, which follows in a postscript.

  Adios Señor

  Ever yours faithfully,

  Holly Ripple Frayne

  P.S.

  Dear Cowboy Old Timer.

  I am adding a few words to Holly’s letter, which I have read. But she will not get to see what I write you.

  Britt wants you to come back to Don Carlos’ Rancho. So do I. So does the outfit. We are going to need you.

  Brazos, let me hurry to get rid of things hard to express. I know how you felt about Holly. I know because I felt the same. If she had chosen you, I still would have stayed on. I would never have expected—never have wanted to get over it. Loving such a woman changed me from an outlaw to a man. For years, I have worried about you. Britt and I, all the cowboys, have never stopped looking for you to come back. But the deeper hope, of course, is that you would go straight and true, wherever you were.

  That’s that.

  Brazos, Holly’s letter might mislead you about affairs of the range out here. Well, as a matter of fact, the rustling business is as good as the cattle business. There’s a new outfit up in the hills where Slaughter used to hide out. And Britt doesn’t like the prospects one damn little bit.

  I could tell you several queer looking deals, but one will go to show you the old game is kicking back, as we always expected it’d do. Not so long ago, the biggest herd of longhorns Britt ever saw drifted up the Cimarron—a gaunted bunch that had seen long and hard travel. The outfit worked them across the valley, avoiding the cow-camps, taking scarce enough time to fatten up, and they split the herd and drove to the railroad, shipping from Maxwell and Hebron to Kansas City.

  Britt, the old fox, thought the drive had a queer look and took pains to get these details. They were all the facts obtainable. But somewhere along this trail to the railroad, the name Surface leaked out. You know how strange things happen in this cattle game. It’s a safe bet, Brazos, that this drive was a steal, as big a one as we ever saw come out of Texas. And naturally we’re passing the buck with a hunch to you. Britt swears he never knew a cowboy in your class to scent and follow crooked tracks. Keep this under your hat, old timer, and look around over your Colorado way. There probably is another Sewall McCoy cropping up. These cattlemen-rustlers are the bane of the ranges. A real honest to God rustler was always easy to contend with, till it came to the fight, and then you could gamble on hell and bullets. But these respectable buyers and sellers of cattle, while all the while they have outfits rustling for them—these are the tough nuts to crack.

  It’s Britt’s hunch and mine that this man Surface might turn out to belong to the class mentioned above. No need to tell you, Brazos, what a delicate matter such suspicion is. It’s s
omething you just can’t speak out loud in the West. Every rancher has stolen cattle, knowingly or not, and he’s testy about it. As for the crooked rancher—at the least hint he goes for his gun, and roars to the law and his associations afterward. Ride down this man Surface, and write to us, Brazos.

  And, cowboy, while you’re doing it, consider coming back to be my foreman of the outfit running the Ripple brand. On shares!

  Yours truly,

  Renn Frayne.

  At the conclusion of this reading, Kiskadden strode to and fro in the cell, while Brazos sat with bowed head over the letter. Once the sheriff laid a heavy hand on the cowboy’s clustering chestnut curls, beginning faintly to show silver at his temples. The tread of boots outside brought Kiskadden to a halt.

  “Aboot time for yore trial, Brazos,” he said, consulting his watch.

  “Sheriff, as I told you, I never read all this letter—first time,” rejoined Brazos, gravely, as he carefully folded the pages and put them back into the envelope. “Honest I didn’t.”

  “Cowboy, I’m shore glad Bodkin didn’t read it. . . . Brazos, there ain’t much I can say, except I’m glad I trusted you. If I hadn’t an’ you’d sprung thet letter on me, I’d shore been ashamed. . . . It’s a wonderful letter, Brazos. I’d like you to know I rode fer Colonel Ripple when I was yore age. I knew Cap Britt. We were Texas Rangers under McKelvy. An’ I shore have heahed of Frayne.”

  “Aw! Yu don’t say?” burst out Brazos, gladly. “All my agonizin’ fer nothin’! When I heahed the name Kiskadden—Las Animas sheriff—I reckoned yu might be one of them hangin’ sheriffs an’ I was shore sick.”

  “Don’t blame you, cowboy. . . . Wal, we’ll go oot now an’ I’ll be settin’ you free pronto. What then, Brazos? . . . Tell me, on the square, cowboy, air Holly Ripple’s love for you an’ her faith—an’ Frayne’s an’ all of them—air they justified?”

  “Hell no!” ejaculated Brazos, with a wrench. “But, sheriff, I could look Holly in the eye an’ Frayne an’ Britt—all thet tough ootfit of pards—an ‘swear to Gawd I’ve never done a crooked thing since I left them.”