Twin Sombreros

by Zane Grey

  “Ahuh. An’ they shore knew where yu’d been an’ what you had.”

  “You bet they did.”

  “Was there anythin’ at all familiar aboot them?”

  “No. Strangers. They wore masks. But I never forget a voice, once I hear it. One of the three had a young nervous high-pitched voice almost womanish. He called the burly man what sounded like ‘Brad,’ an’ got cussed for doin’ it. They were rough, tough range riders.”

  “Brad,” echoed Brazos, with a wild leap of his pulse. “Was thet all you heahed?”

  “Yes. One of them batted me on the head. Jerry is not well yet from the beatin’ they gave him.”

  “Did yu ever tell thet you heahed the name Brad—spoke by a young nervous high-pitched voice?”

  “Come to think of it, I don’t believe I ever did except maybe to Allen. How about that, Hank?”

  “You never told me.”

  “It must have slipped my mind after I told Allen. You excite me so it all comes back clear.”

  “Wal, thet’s all I want to heah this time. I’ll walk aboot a bit an’ think. Then I’ll ride back to town an’ keep my appointment with Jack Sain. . . . Neece, do you like thet cowboy?”

  “Jack Sain? Yes, I do, though I’ve only known him since the girls came home. He and Allen were friends, and . . .” Neece’s voice broke.

  “Ahuh. Wal, I liked him too. . . . Hank, I’ll be heah in the mawnin’. An’ Mr. Neece, don’t get het up overly aboot this. I might be loco, but I swear we’re on as black an’ bloody a trail as I ever took up. So it behooves us to use our haids. Adios.”

  CHAPTER

  4

  BRAZOS KEENE rode slowly into Las Animas, oblivious of the glorious red and gold sunset, and the numerous riders who passed by. He was still wrestling with that familiar old urge to ride away. Always the safest thing to do! Yet all the while he knew he had committed himself to a stern duty that could only end in bloodshed—all the while he admitted the damnable fascination of the intriguing tragedy of the Neeces. Nevertheless, he still wanted the flaming spark.

  When he arrived at the railroad station it was near the supper hour. The restaurant he sought had more prominence than the station itself and had been remodeled from an old adobe building he had difficulty in remembering. A second story had been added and the whole given a coat of whitewash. The building, the location and the neat sign were all attractive. A hitching rail ran along in front. Brazos dismounted, still too soberly pondering his predicament to awake to the momentous meeting at hand. Tying Bay to the rail, he stalked with his clinking step into the restaurant, expecting to see the cowboy with whom he had an appointment. But Jack Sain was not there. So far as he could see at a moment’s notice, the place was empty.

  Brazos slid a long leg over the bench and leaning upon the counter, looked about him. The restaurant had windows on three sides. Evidently the entrance into the kitchen was through the other side. There appeared to be a double counter in the center with benches all around, and small tables with chairs next to windows. The inside of this new restaurant only added to the spotless white attractiveness of the outside.

  “Doggone! This is shore a hash joint. Cowboys shore will stuff themselves heah. Wonder who runs——”

  At this juncture, two things happened simultaneously—Brazos remembered the Neece twins, and a door opened to admit a girl. Brazos never figured out what gave him such a shock, but the fact was that never in his life before had any girl produced the effect this one had on him.

  She was slight and graceful of form, fair-haired, but not blonde, and her face was white, sweet, sad. She had seen him before she entered and it struck Brazos she did not act like a waitress. She approached him, and putting her hands on the counter, she leaned forward. Her eyes were a tawny light brown. They engulfed Brazos. They searched his very soul. They appeared to Brazos to be the loveliest, saddest, most accusing eyes that ever shook the heart out of a poor cowboy. A long unfamiliar trouble suddenly fermented in Brazos’ breast, but disturbing as it was, it was not so torturing as the fear her dark and troubled gaze aroused. Brazos was about to blurt out, to swear by heaven that he had not murdered Allen Neece.

  “Brazos Keene,” she affirmed.

  “Wal, I—I was thet pore hombre when I come in heah,” he said, fighting to smile, “but I cain’t say now for shore.”

  “I am—June Neece,” she returned, her low voice breaking a little.

  “Aw, I wish I could say,” floundered Brazos. He did not know what he wanted to say.

  “We are sorry you were arrested and locked up on——”

  “Thet was nothin’ atall, Miss Neece,” interrupted Brazos, with unconscious pathos. “Shore I hardly ever ride into a town but somethin’ like thet happens. I’m a marked man. . . . As for the cause this time, wal, I oughtn’t to remind you aboot . . . but I swear to Gawd I’m innocent . . .”

  “Don’t,” she interposed, earnestly. “If you had not been proved innocent, I would have known you were innocent.” And she pressed a warm little hand in Brazos’ upturned palm and left it there while she turned to call: “Jan, come here.”

  Then it appeared to the bewildered and thrilled cowboy that another June Neece walked into his heart. He was keen enough then to realize the nature of the malady that for once shunted aside his cool nonchalant self.

  “Jan, this is he,” said the first tawny-eyed vision to the second, and then to him, with a little smile: “My sister, Janis.”

  There was absolutely no telling these twin sisters apart. The one called Janis blushed and a bright glow suddenly burned out the shadow in her eyes.

  “Brazos Keene? Oh, I am glad to meet you!” she exclaimed, and repeating her sister’s action, she put her hand in his other as it lay on the counter.

  “Wal, I shore am happy to meet yu-all,” responded Brazos, coming to himself. There they stood, these unfortunate twins, holding his hands. It was a beautiful wonderful fact. Two pairs of tawny eyes instead of one pair gazed up at him with a soft warm light of faith, of sympathy. That was the moment Brazos Keene had wanted; that was the spark which set him afire.

  Brazos enfolded both of these little white hands in his own hard ones and held them tight. “June an’ Janis,” he said, intensely. “I didn’t just happen to ride along heah. There’s somethin’ back of it. I’ve met yore friend Jack Sain. Hank Bilyen is an old pard of mine. He took me oot to meet yore Dad. An’ I’ve heahed yore story.”

  “Oh, I hope Dad was not unjust to you,” interposed June. “He’s so strange—so dazed—”

  “Yore father is a fine man—a real Westerner. He’s not old or broken. Only down, heartbroken under these blows. . . . Would it make yu glad, girls, to know he shore wasn’t strange or dazed when I left him?”

  “Oh!” cried June.

  “Brazos Keene! We’ve heard all about you,” cried Janis. “We wouldn’t wonder at anything. But if you woke Dad out of his lethargy—if you roused his old fighting spirit—cheered him a little, as Allen tried so hard to do and couldn’t do. . . . Oh, Brazos Keene, June and I will worship you!”

  “Wal, it looks like I done thet already—so yu may just begin thet worshipin’ right heah,” drawled Brazos, with the slow smile that so transformed him.

  “You have!” they cried, in unison.

  “I told yore Dad I was pretty shore aboot what had become of the herd of Texas longhorns he sold to Surface, but lost on the trail north.”

  “Oh, are you sure?” entreated Janis, squeezing his hand. June gazed at him mutely, as if he were a phenomenon too good to be true.

  “Wal, I’d gamble on it.”

  “That is what Allen was trying to find out. He confided in me.”

  “Ahuh. Then yore brother was workin’ on this deal?” rejoined Brazos ponderingly.

  “Allen swore he’d never rest until he’d got our—our Twin Sombreros Ranch back again,” answered Janis, with tears brimming her eyes.

  Brazos succumbed to the moment, realizing its i
nevitableness, and that perhaps he was swearing away his life. But the bewitching nearness of these girls, the sense of a great part he had been destined to play in their lives, magnified all his old spirit to do, his reckless disregard of self. He drew the girls closer over the counter, while he flashed a wary look around.

  “Listen,” he whispered. “An’ keep this secret in yore pretty haids. . . . I’m gonna track down the murderers of yore brother—an’ kill them! An’ what’s more, I’m gonna run Surface oot of the ranch he stole from yore Dad an’ put yu back there!”

  Brazos, inspired by what he felt and much he could not understand, had exaggerated hope, daring, resolve. Once spoken aloud, the pledge seemed outrageous. But the girls gave him no reprieve, no chance to make provisions. They took him intensely, with deadly earnest, their faces paling to pearl hue and their eyes dilating. He might have been looking at just one girl, so incredibly similar were they. Neece’s daughters were new to the West, but they were part of it. They had been east long enough to share the tenderfoot’s glamorous regard for a cowboy desperado, but were Western enough not to doubt or fear it.

  The street door banged, interrupting whatever eloquent acceptance appeared to tremble on the sweet lips of the Neece twins. Jack Sain came tramping in, his sleepy eyes alight, his smile infectious.

  “Howdy, Brazos. I see you’ve got acquainted without my help,” he remarked, as the girls withdrew their hands from Brazos’ grip.

  “Jack, we introduced ourselves all around,” replied Janis, gayly. June was silent, though she smiled at the young man.

  “Wal, Sain, heah yu air, an’ I clean forgot yu,” drawled Brazos. “Yes, I’ve met yore friends an’ am I glad? I’ve been tellin’ them what tough luck I’d been playin’ in not to be heah long ago. An’ thet I’d shore make up for it.”

  “Jack, this Brazos cowboy is not so slow,” said Janis, teasingly.

  “Slow! Never in this world could you apply that word to Brazos Keene. I see he’s perked you up already. An’ I’m darned glad.”

  “Wal, I’m kinda glad myself,” said Brazos.

  “Let’s get our order in before the gang comes rollin’ along,” suggested Sain.

  “Order? Gang? Say, am I loco?” ejaculated Brazos, mildly.

  “You are, an’ it tickles me. I’ll bet you couldn’t ask June or Jan to serve you ham an’ eggs—not to save your life.”

  “Ham an’ eggs? Wal, I’ll be doggoned! No, I cain’t.”

  “Boys, what will you have?” asked one of the twins. The other had turned to the vanguard of hungry visitors now flocking from all directions.

  “Aw, air you June or Janis?” queried Brazos, helplessly.

  “Never mind. Either of us can serve you. But hurry. We will be swamped soon.”

  “I was starvin’ to death when I come in, but now I cain’t eat,” declared Brazos, eloquently.

  “Ha! Ha! Didn’t I have a hunch?” Sain laughed, evidently delighted at something not apparent to Brazos. “I’ll order double. Steak medium, mashed potatoes an’ gravy, bread an’ butter, coffee. . . . An’ tell that Mexican cook Billy the Kid is out here.”

  While the restaurant rapidly filled with a crowd of various types and the young waitresses flitted to and fro from customers to kitchen and back again Brazos listened to his voluble friend and eagerly watched for June without any hope whatever of being able to tell which of the twins really was June.

  When, however, Sain gave Brazos a dig in the ribs with his elbow, Brazos came out of his trance.

  “Say, cowboy, go easy. I’ve been pitched off hawses too often to have ribs of iron.”

  “Look behind you—at thet handsome dressed-up dude rancher,” whispered Sain. “At the table.”

  “Ahuh. Wal . . .” replied Brazos, leisurely complying. “Kinda spick an’ span, at thet. But he’s got a nice face. Who is he?”

  “Henry Sisk, an’ he has a nice face I’m bound to admit. Too damn nice! Women like him a heap.”

  “Don’t blame them. How aboot June an’ Janis heah?”

  “June couldn’t see him with a telescope. But I got a hunch Jan likes him. Anyway, it’s Jan he ‘pears to be courtin’.”

  “How’n hell does he know which one he’s courtin’?”

  “He doesn’t, unless they tell him, you can bet your roll on thet.”

  “How do yu tell, cowboy?” asked Brazos.

  Sain reddened perceptibly, but was not ashamed of it. “I don’t. Only the girls are decent enough to give me a hunch.”

  “Gosh! What’d yu do if they didn’t steer yu?”

  “Brazos, I’d be a plumb crazy cowboy, believe me. But don’t get a wrong notion. Both June an’ Janis have been friendly to me. Thet’s all. I never even had nerve enough to hold June’s hand. They’re not the flirtin’ kind, Brazos.”

  “So I see. Wal, how aboot this Henry Sisk? Is he a decent hombre?”

  “Yes. I’m jealous, I reckon. Henry is young, good-lookin’, rich, an’ a fine fellow.”

  “Wal, I’ll see if I approve of him,” drawled Brazos, coolly, as he swung sidewise over the bench. “Jack, yu order apple pie an’ milk for me, if yu get a chance.”

  Brazos gave his heavy belt a hitch and took several slow strides over to the table where young Sisk sat, glowering at no one in particular. His frank face and dark eyes impressed Brazos favorably.

  “Howdy, Sisk,” said Brazos. “My pard heah told me who yu air. I’m Brazos Keene.”

  “How do. I saw you when I came in,” returned the young rancher, not exactly incivilly though certainly awkwardly. He was surprised and aghast. But he put out a hand willingly enough.

  “I’m wonderin’ if yu need a rider,” replied Brazos, after the grip.

  “I always need a rider who can work.”

  “Doggone! Work isn’t my long suit,” drawled Brazos, with his captivating smile. “I cain’t rope very wal, an’ I’m no good at all at most cowboy jobs, an’ I’d just starve before I’d dig fence-post holes. . . . But if I do say it myself, I’m pretty fair with guns.”

  “Brazos, you’re that thing impossible to find—a modest cowboy,” said Sisk, laughing. “If you’re serious, ride out to see me.”

  “Thanks, I’ll do thet some day,” concluded Brazos, and returned to his seat beside young Sain. That worthy gave Brazos an inquiring look. At this moment one of the girls brought a generous golden slice of apple pie and a large glass of creamy milk. Brazos stared from these to the charming waitress.

  “Do my pore eyes deceive me?”

  “Didn’t you order apple pie and milk?” she asked, regretfully.

  “I shore did. But I never even dreamed of such pie an’ milk. Will yu duplicate the order, Miss Janis?”

  Brazos found his favorite dessert and drink even more delicious than they looked. Both had disappeared as if by magic when the girl returned to set another plate of pie and brimming glass of milk before him.

  “Miss Janis, all I want to know is can I come in heah as often as I want an’ get a gorgeous supper like what I’ve had?” asked Brazos, most impressively.

  “Why, certainly—so long as you pay for it,” she replied, trying to keep her face straight.

  “But I’m broke a good deal. Money slips right through my fingers.”

  “This is a strictly cash business, Mr. Keene,” she said, demurely.

  “Mexican Joe trusts me,” importuned Brazos. “Aw, Miss Janis, I shore wouldn’t want to be exclooded from this heah lovely place just on account of bein’ financially embarrassed now an’ then.”

  “Have you any references as to—to good credit and character?” she asked, mischievously. “If you will bring these, we shall be glad to trust you. . . . And by the way, I am not Janis, but June.”

  “Help!” prayed Brazos, fervently, throwing up his hands.

  Sain had heard this byplay, and he was all grin. “There ain’t any help,” he said.

  “What’s a fellow gonna do?” implored Brazos, honestly aghast at an unparalleled
situation.

  “I reckon the only thing a fellar can do is impossible,” returned Sain, sagely, from which cryptic remark Brazos gathered no solace. They finished their dessert and had to wait to pay their bill. “Wal, June,” said Brazos, taking a chance on this sister and apparently hitting it right, “how much do we owe for thet scrumptious supper—an’ do we have to stand around on the corner ootside till mawnin’ to see yu again?”

  “Dollar eighty,” replied June, as she took the bill he extended. “Twenty! Yes, you’re broke.”

  “Gosh, is thet a twenty?”

  While June went to get change, Brazos saw Janis carry a tray to Sisk’s table. There was no trouble in ascertaining the state of that young man’s mind. Janis might have been in the solitude of the outside prairie for all he cared. He raised a strong earnest appealing face to the girl. And when she had set the several dishes before him, Brazos’ sharp eye caught him plucking at her hand. Janis smiled down upon him, but shook her head and left him.

  “Heah you air, Mister Brazos Keene,” drawled June at Brazos’ elbow. She imitated his Texas accent perfectly, and did it with a straight face. Brazos held out his hand to take the change.

  “Say, Lady, I’ve handled girls turrible rough for less than thet,” he said.

  “Pooh! . . . There’s your change. I hope you will become a good customer.”

  “June, I’ll eat myself to death,” he rejoined, softly. “When can I see yu again?”

  “Breakfast time.”

  “But listen. There’s nothin’ for me to do heah. Only the saloons an’ cairds. An’ yu know, I’m Brazos Keene, doggone it! There’s always some hombre layin’ to shoot me in the back.”

  That was a happy lead for the cunning Brazos to take. It was no falsehood and he had worked it often. June’s eyes dilated. She gazed up at him, unconscious that she had already taken possession of him.

  “We are off at ten. I’d like you to meet my aunt. She is Dad’s sister, and lives with us upstairs.”

  “Thet’s just fine. I’ll come.”

  “Jack, you’ll come, too?”

  “I’m sorry, June. I can’t tonight.”