by Zane Grey
“Wal, yu cain’t never tell,” said Brazos, dropping his head. What little regard he had felt for Lura Surface went into eclipse.
“I mustn’t stay longer, Brazos,” said the girl, consulting her watch. “Father watches me closely and times my rides. I told him I wanted to ride into town, but he wouldn’t hear of it. . . . Here we have spent an hour—the last of which didn’t keep the promise of the first. . . . When shall we meet again?”
“I reckon never, Lura. But thanks for this once. When I’m far away, I’ll think I might have kissed yu, an’ kick myself.”
“Oh, don’t go away. Why, I’ve only met you! . . . Tell me, when?”
“Wal, maybe some day I’ll meet yu in town an’ weaken. But, Lady, yu’ve been warned.”
“I’ll take the risk. . . . It has been different from—well, other times I’ve met boys here.” She mounted gracefully to her saddle, aware of his appreciation, and said with dark-green provocative eyes on him: “Adios, Brazos Keene.”
Brazos watched her ride away with only one regret—that he liked her well enough to be sorry she was innocently involved in a sinister plot that dimly shadowed her father, and which she had unwittingly made clearer.
Brazos rode back to town, for once not seeing the afternoon sun flooding the range with golden glory. Long past was the day when he had distrusted his intuition. A pending tragedy of oncoming events vied in his mind with the consideration of the callousness of the acts which he had sworn to reveal. Despite his spirit of flame, and in this case the irresistible incentive, he felt as never before the reluctance of the intelligent and normal gunman to force issues. In times past, wild youth, sometimes inflamed by the bottle, had needed little spurring on. But he was a man now; he was through with rum; and he hated the trail that led inevitably to bloodspilling. Yet here he was, unalterably committed; he did not want to draw back; and still the passion needed held aloof. Brazos longed for the incident or the revelation that would make him a tiger.
When he dismounted at the corral where Bilyen had first taken him, and turned Bay over to the stableboy, he suddenly had an inspiration:
“Pedro, did yu know Allen Neece?”
“Sí, señor,” replied the Mexican.
Further queries rewarded Brazos with some significant facts. Allen Neece had come to the stable on the night he was murdered. He was on foot and under the influence of drink though not by any means drunk. He had to wake Pedro to get his horse. It was not until Neece had mounted and ridden off that Pedro had noted a companion—a boy on a black horse, waiting. This last information seemed of tremendous importance to Brazos. That boy was the cowgirl June Neece had mentioned and the girl in rider’s garb that Lura Surface had seen with Allen.
Brazos strode uptown to the restaurant. The hour was early and only a few customers were at supper. One of the twins came to Brazos and though he thought he could trust her smile and bright eye, he would not take a chance.
“Wal, which one air yu?”
“Brazos, what has happened?” she whispered, leaning over the counter.
He answered low: “June, I’ve been oot to meet Lura Surface an’ the hunch I got from her riled me.”
“Oh—what—”
“Never mind now. But don’t worry aboot me or yore Dad. Please fetch me some supper.”
That night Brazos haunted the main street and the saloons. The cowboys and cattlemen on the street, coming in or going home, the drinkers and bartenders in the saloons, the gamblers at the tables and the loungers around, and more than one dark-garbed group who drank by themselves—all heard that Brazos Keene was hunting for some one. It was spoken first by a man who had seen Keene enter Las Animas’ saloons in years gone by. Then it passed from lip to lip.
Brazos’ stalk was no pose, yet he did it deliberately. Nevertheless he had little hope that he would encounter the trio who now loomed large in the mystery of Allen Neece’s murder. They would be out on the range, hidden in the hills, or back east in the gambling dens of Dodge or Abilene. They would be in close touch with the man or men who were back of this crime. It might well be that they would be summoned presently to do away with Brazos Keene.
In the Happy Days saloon Brazos came unexpectedly upon Bodkin, whom he had not seen since the day of his release by Kiskadden. The ex-deputy had just set down his glass on the bar. Sight of Brazos cut short words he was speaking to a companion.
“Hey, Bodkin, heah yu air,” called Brazos, so ring-ingly that the inmates of the crowded saloon went silent. “Where yu been?”
“I’ve been around town as usual,” replied Bodkin, turning a dirty white under his swarthy skin.
“Like hell yu have. I been lookin’ for yu. Have yu been put back as deputy sheriff of this heah town?”
“No. Kiskadden fired me, you know, an’ then he resigned. The Cattlemen’s Association haven’t made no appointment yet. But I’m expectin’ it.”
“Yu’re expectin’ what?” drawled Brazos, with scathing insolence.
“To be elected sheriff.”
“Aw, hell! Elected? Who’s electin’ yu? Not the citizens of this heah town. They won’t be asked. If they would be, yu’d never get a vote, onless from some of yore hired hands. . . . An’ who’s yore Cattlemen’s Association ootside of Raine Surface?”
“Miller, Henderson, Sprague—all big cattlemen,” returned Bodkin, hurriedly. “Inskip was one—but he quit.”
“Ahuh. An’ when does this ootfit aim to settle yore appointment—an’ also yore hash?”
“They meet tomorrow night.”
“Wal, tell them I’ll call an’ cast one vote against yu.”
“I’ll do thet, Keene.”
“An’ while yu’re carryin’ messages from me, take this for yoreself. If yu’re appointed sheriff I’m gonna see red. . . . An’ this for yore hired hand, Barsh. He better keep oot of my way.”
Thus Brazos talked himself to a verge of the passion he required of himself. Seldom was he a talker until the cumulation of events propelled disaster.
“I reckon Joel won’t invite any meetin’ with you, Keene. You oughtn’t to have it in fer him ’cause he was only actin’ on orders.”
“But he threw thet noose round my neck,” flashed Brazos, as if the mere fact brooked no pardon.
Backing through the swinging doors, Brazos left that saloon to break its silence with a subdued sound of excited voices, and then an angry protesting roar from Bodkin. Brazos had scarcely turned up the street when the doors banged behind him.
“Hold on, Brazos. It’s Hank.” And Bilyen, keen and glinting of eye, joined him. “My Gawd, cowboy, but you burned Bodkin up! What’s the deal?”
“Howdy, Hank. Aw, I was only bluffin’ Bodkin, an’ takin’ thet chance to set the town talkin’ aboot Surface an’ his Cattlemen’s Association.”
“Brazos, you’ve got goin’,” rejoined Bilyen, shrewdly. “You shore are. You never was one to talk wild. Mebbe you were throwin’ a bluff, but you had somethin’ behind it.”
“Wal, enough to want to rile myself up. . . . Hank, I was wantin’ to see yu. If yu cain’t give me the lowdown on rustlin’ in eastern Colorado, find oot for me pronto.”
“I know, Brazos. Got thet this very day. Kiskadden an’ Inskip told me. They’re shore interested. As a matter of fact, I was surprised. I reckon you won’t be though. . . . Brazos, there ’pears to be considerable cattle stealin’ in small numbers, takin’ in all the big brands on this range. Too slick an’ bold to be the work of any gang but real rustlers under a smart leader. Kiskadden an’ Inskip lost three hundred haid last month. The Star Brand not so many. Small ootfits down the Purgatory none at all. Henderson’s ootfit rarin’ aboot a big drive on their Circle Dot Brand. Miller has lost considerable haid. Sprague an’ the big cattlemen up on the slopes hard hit for these times. All this last month, an’ the herds driven over into Kansas an’ shipped east.”
“Ha! Ha!” Brazos laughed, mirthlessly.
“Say, what’s so funny about thet?” d
emanded Bilyen, affronted.
“Struck me funny.”
“What did?”
“The way my hunches work oot,” returned Brazos, grimly. “But for some men it’s aboot as funny as death. . . . Hank, will yu meet me oot west of town at sunup in the mawnin’?”
“Yes, I will, cowboy. Where?” answered Bilyen, soberly.
“At thet old cabin on the hill—where Allen Neece was murdered,” said Brazos, tersely, and abruptly strode away toward Mexican Joe’s place, where he had a room.
Next morning Brazos rode out of Las Animas at the break of day. Nine out of ten mornings for fifteen years he had been in a saddle at this hour. But he was not trail driving today, or guarding the herd, or riding a grub line from one camp to another. He felt a keen cold exhilaration that was not entirely engendered by the morning crispness from the mountain heights.
When he rode by Twin Sombreros Ranch the sun was just rising red and glorious over the range. Two cowboys espied him from the lane that led down to the big barns, and they halted to watch him. It never occurred to Brazos that they did not recognize him. Their dark intent gaze seemed prophetic of the shadow which hovered over that beautiful ranch.
What a property to lose! No wonder Abe Neece, at his age, had seen the fruit of a lifetime pass from him with inconsolable grief! But then, Brazos reflected, Neece had worked and planned for those lovely twin daughters. It was the kind of ranch Brazos would have liked to own, and, failing that, ride for. The ideal location on the talking river, the groves and lines and clumps of trees, the peeled-log fences, and the cabins, and the low-roofed, rambling ranch house, white amid the green—they left a picture in Brazos’ mind. And they created another—of the chestnut-haired girls waving to him from the porch.
“Doggone! Thet was a funny idee,” soliloquized Brazos, puzzled. “Was I ridin’ in or ridin’ oot? . . . But it’s nothin’ like Don Carlos’ Rancho. Thet was un grande hacienda española. . . . I can see Holly now, ridin’ down from the hill. My Gawd, wasn’t she lovely? . . . I just gotta see thet little boy they call Brazos. . . . An’ Cap Britt, the old Texas son of a gun! An’ thet wild ootfit of mine!”
But the past was gone irrevocably, and for the first time since Brazos had ridden away from the Ripple Ranch he could remember without pain. Some magic had charmed away that old sadness. Never would what he had done for Holly Ripple be forgotten by her or her husband or her men! He had had help on that hard job—a bunch of the wildest and keenest riders who ever forked a horse. Some of them had died by his side, fighting for the señorita of Don Carlos’ Rancho. But in this Neece job he had started practically alone. He thought he had better go it alone, unless the trail led into the stronghold of a gang of plains rustlers. That Brazos believed was possible and probable, in which case he would need some riders.
Trotting west, Brazos’ mind was crowded and active. Yet as he cleared the timber and began the long ascent that led up to the hill, he had an eye for the country. The whole eastern range was flooded with crimson light—a rolling undulating land of shining grass, bisected by a winding green-bordered river. He could see tens of thousands of cattle, black acreage near at hand and twin dots in the distance. With cattle at forty dollars a head and a boundless range, what a harvest for a bold well-led band of rustlers! That harvest would come. It always did come. It would be a quick short one, and then the gang would ride north or east or south. Not west! That led into New Mexico, and the ranges there dealt summarily with wholesale cattle thieves. Yet even in New Mexico, just so long as cattle black-spotted the valleys and plateaus, just that long would the rustler flourish.
Brazos reached the top of the hill and halted. The cabin and grove of trees he sought lay off the road to the left and a little farther on. What halted Brazos was the prospect to the west. He looked across the Colorado line into New Mexico, and next to Texas he loved that country of black-belted, snow-capped mountains, of silver-grassed valleys, of wide shining ranges encompassed by protecting walls. Spring had almost ended, and the warm sun had made inroads upon the snowy south slopes of the Rockies. But the peaks were still white, glistening rose, still impervious to the lord of summer.
Pikes Peak in the north rose dim and grand; the closer Spanish Peaks dominated the scene; and the great red and black wall, leading south, hid the base of the range beyond. If there were any cattle along this last heave of the Great Plains into the Continental Divide they were lost in gullies and swales between the foothills, or the valley of the Purgatory. The rough, gray, rocky foothills harbored little grass and they led into the fastnesses of the mountains.
Southwest from where Brazos sat astride his saddle, gazing raptly at old familiar landmarks, yawned the gap in the range, where the Old Trail led up and over into New Mexico. It had a tremendous fascination for Brazos, not all of which came from the fact that he had ridden it and fought on it all the way from Dodge to Lincoln. Three hundred years before, the French fur traders had walked that trail, and the Spanish padres and explorers after them, and then the American fur men, down to the time of Kit Carson, and then the freighters in their covered wagons with their guards of soldiers, and the tide of gold hunters and pioneers, and lastly those other empire builders of whom Brazos counted himself one—the cowboys with their herds of longhorn cattle from Texas. It was a grand scene to Brazos, knowing as he did know so well what had taken place there down the long years. He had a melancholy feeling that he was a part of the West which had vanished. The noble wilderness appeared the same, despite the iron track he could see curving between the hills; the sun rose as always to gild those unassailable ramparts, and to shine on the rugged red walls, the black belts, the canyons of white, and the beckoning dim range. But the glory and the dream—that was to say the wildness and the romance—seemed to be passing away.
Then as a clip-clop of a trotting horse disrupted Brazos’ thoughts and he turned to see Hank Bilyen coming, he remembered his errand and he laughed outright. The robbery of Neece and the murder of his son, the mysterious workings of a hard outfit, and the recent raids on cattle herds—these were far from tame and bereft of romance. Brazos realized that June and Janis Neece could furnish enough of that disturbing element to satisfy a whole range of cowboys.
“Mawnin’, Hank,” was Brazos’ greeting.
“Howdy, Texas. Seen you a long way back. What’s the idee, Brazos?”
“Wal, I want yu to help me go over this ground with a fine tooth comb.”
“Tracks, eh? I ain’t takin’ any back seat for you, Brazos Keene. Never was one to hobble hawses.”
They rode into the clump of trees and tied their horses.
“Allen Neece was found in thet cabin. But accordin’ to the doctors he wasn’t killed there. What I want powerful to find an’ shore expect to find is a small boot track.”
“Ahuh. Wal, let’s get goin’.”
They entered the cabin, with riders’ eyes searching the ground for tracks. Hank got down on his knees to scrutinize those just inside the door. He was slow.
“Reckon them was made the mawnin’ Bodkin found you heah,” he said, at length.
“An’ heah’s my track, goin’ an’ cornin’ back. I slept on thet bunk.”
They searched the musty dry cabin as hunters of treasure might have. “Well, nothin’ heah,” said Brazos. “If thet little boot marked the dust heah it’s been tracked over. Let’s go up in the loft.”
The loft covered half the space under the roof and had been built of peeled poles laid close together. It shook under their weight. The light was dull up there, but they could distinguish objects. Bilyen concluded that the murderers had climbed the ladder up to a point level with the loft and had shoved the body headfirst back upon the poles. A dark smear of blood ran along one of them.
“What’s thet in the corner?” asked Brazos, and crawled carefully back. He found a rope, a lasso, that had evidently been hurriedly flung there without being coiled. He crawled back to Bilyen with it.
“Look, Hank. . . . Must
have been the rope which made the marks on his arms,” said Brazos. “Take it down, Bilyen, while I investigate some more.”
Brazos went over every inch of that loft without further discovery. When he got down he found Hank sitting in the door, studying the rope. Brazos knelt to scrutinize with him. They were tense and silent. Next to a gun and a horse, the lasso was a cowboy’s most treasured possession.
“Wal, what you make oot?” queried the Texan gruffly of Brazos.
“Lasso all right. Manila, wal made. Same as any one of a hundred.”
“Yes, an’ what else, cowboy?”
“It shore never was used on a calf or a cow or a steer.”
“Hell no. Brazos, it ain’t new. It’s been tied on a saddle fer a long time. A cowboy riata never used by a cowboy! . . . Does thet say anythin’ to you?”
“Ump-umm. Don’t talk so much, Hank. Let’s go all over the ground heah.”
Every path and bare spot and thin-grassed bit of ground out to the road and along the road to east and west they carefully inspected.
“Now thet clump of trees,” said Brazos. “Hank, heah’s where I run into the three hombres.” He related the incident, laying stress on the name he had heard and the nervous young high-pitched voice. Bilyen’s silence attested to the impression Brazos’ story made on him. They proceeded to the patch of timber. “Aboot heah is where their hawses stood.”
It appeared to be a scraggy bit of dead and dying timber, extending back a considerable distance. Brazos directed Hank to search there, while he began at the farther end. Brazos had something in his mind. At the farthest point, under the largest and thickest-foliaged of the trees, he found a bare spot of ground. At sight of hoof tracks and tiny boot tracks his blood leaped. Down he knelt and almost smelt at the boot tracks. Of all the innumerable imprints by riders’ boots that Brazos had ever studied these were the smallest. No cowboy ever had small enough feet to take a boot that made these tracks. Ten-year-old boys did not wear boots made to order. These had been left by a girl. Brazos knelt there as if he were reading a dark page of the book of life.
