Twin Sombreros (1954)

by Grey, Zane

  "June, I'll eat myself to death," he rejoined softly. "When can I see yu again?"

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

  A little before ten o'clock, Brazos wended a reluctant and yet impelled way toward the Twin Sombreros Restaurant. He could not have resisted the urge if he had wanted to. And he fought off the presage of calamity. When he arrived at the corner, he espied one of the twins talking to Henry Sisk. Indeed the two were arguing, from which fact Brazos deduced that this was Janis.

  Brazos mounted the side stairway leading up to the second storey and knocked on the door, sure of the trepidation and another nameless. sensation obsessing him. The door opened as if someone had heard his step outside. June stood there, in a white dress that had never been made in Las Animas. This apparition smiled upon him and Brazos dated his abject enthrallment from that moment.

  "Evenin', Miss June. I reckon I'm ahaid of time," he said.

  "No. You are late. Come in."

  She ushered Brazos into a cosy little sitting-room. "Auntie, this is our new-found friend, Mr. Brazos Keene," she said to a grey-haired woman, who sat beside the lamp table. "My Aunt Mattie, Miss Neece --Daddy's sister."

  "For the land's sake! June, this nice-looking boy can't be your terrible Brazos Keene," exclaimed the aunt.

  "Yes, he is, Auntie."

  "Aw, Miss Neece, don't believe everythin' yu heah," implored Brazos. "I'm not turrible atall."

  "I don't believe', you are. I'm glad to meet you. Janis filled my old head with nonsense. Said you were a black-browed giant--very fierce to see."

  "Air yu shore it was Janis?"

  "Yes, indeed. June has been telling me the--well, I'll not give her away. But your ears must have burned. Take his hat, June--and hadn't you better lay aside that cumbersome gun?"

  "Wal, lady, I wouldn't feel dressed proper if I did thet. There, I'll slip it around so you caint see it."

  "Thank you. I--I guess that's better," she replied, rising. "Mr. Keene, you met my brother Abraham?"

  "I did an' I shore like him."

  "Have you any ground to believe Abraham's loss can be retrieved?" she asked beseechingly.

  "I cain't explain. It's what a cowboy calls a hunch. I've trailed up a good many of my hunches an' never lost oot on one yet."

  "Only a hunch! Oh, I had prayed you might have really learned something."

  "Miss Neece, I cain't talk aboot it now. All I can say is for yu to go on hopin' and prayin', too."

  "Perhaps Abraham will tell me. Good night, Mr. Brazos Keene. Somehow, you inspire me strangely. June, I'll leave you young folks alone. Good night."

  Brazos found himself alone with June Neece, and his five endless years of wandering for he knew not what were as it they had never been.

  Her face was white and her big eyes shone up at him.

  "Brazos Keene! To think I'm alone with him! Oh, I've heard who and what you are. It has been on the lips of everybody all day long."

  "Wal, I hope it's gain' to be good for yu thet I am Brazos Keene," returned he mournfully. "But maybe if I was Henry Sisk or Jack Sain I would have more chance for you to like me."

  "We are getting on," she replied demurely.

  "Yu mean we're gettin' some place where I've no right to be?"

  "Come sit here," she returned, and led him to a little sofa in the corner. They gazed at each other again. There was something vital, compelling, drawing, that made no allowance for short acquaintance.

  "June, I'm gonna be honest. Meetin' yu has thrown me plumb oot of my saddle."

  "It means much to me, Brazos--I don't know what."

  "Girl, yu cain't be in love with Jack Sain?"

  "Who said I was?" she answered, grinning. "I like Jack. We played together when we were kids."

  "Wal, I was afraid--I reckon I thought you might care more'n thet. Jack is crazy aboot yu."

  "I'm sorry, Brazos. But I didn't flirt with him as Jan did with Henry Sisk. I'm sorry for Jack. He has had one misfortune after another. And the last is too bad. He had just found a good job after being idle for months, then lost it."

  "How'd he lose it?"

  "Al said he was running after Lura Surface. Her father caught them meeting on the road one night. He raised Cain and had Jack discharged."

  "Ahuh. June, I want to ask some questions aboot Allen. Were yu in his confidence?"

  "Yes. Allen was afraid to tell Dad what he was doing. And he didn't even tell Jan."

  "Ahuh. Wal, if I figure Allen correct, he was trackin' the ootfit thet ruined yore father."

  "He was on the trail of the three men who held Dad up that night and robbed him."

  "Did he tell yu anythin'?"

  "Not much. Oh, let me recall it," she went on excitedly. "They did not belong around Las Animas. But they rode here often. He had nothing to go by except--except the night they robbed Dad, one of them--a boy with a girl's voice--called another of the three 'Brad'."

  "Yes, June, your Dad told me. And here's the funny part of it. One of the three hombres who held me up that night called his pard Brad. By Gawd! Those men murdered Allen. He was on their trail. Did anyone else but yu know Allen was workin' on yore father's case?"

  "Lura would have heard it, surely."

  "Shore, she'd tell her father, June, can yu remember any more Allen told yu?"

  "Let me think. Yes--the night before Allen was killed he had supper with me downstairs. He asked me if I'd seen a handsome, hard-faced cowgirl, small and slim with eyes like black diamonds. She looked the real thing in riders, he said. Then he said she had made up to him in the Happy Days saloon. He seemed curious, yet distrustful. But he didn't tell me any more."

  "A cowgirl! Wal, now I wonder--An' thet's all, June?"

  "It's all I can remember now. Perhaps when I see you again--"

  "Thet'll be in the mawnin', I reckon. But don't worry aboot me. I'm takin' over Allen's job of huntin' for the three hombres who robbed yore dad--an' murdered Allen--an' held me up. An' shore as death, one of thet three was a girl with a high-keyed voice!"

  Chapter 5

  Brazos espied Lura Surface's white horse tied among the pine saplings before he turned in off the road. He found her most effectively placed in a green-shaded nook opening upon the bank of the brook. Bareheaded, her red hair flaming, her strange eyes alight, her lissome, full-breasted figure displayed to advantage in her riding-habit she made a picture that struck fire in Brazos; despite his cool preconception.

  "Good afternoon, Miss Surface. I shore am sorry to be late," he drawled, and, throwing aside his sombrero, sat down and slid to his elbow beside her.

  "Howdy, Brazos Keene," she said, with a smile.

  "Wal, I do pretty good, considerin'," returned Brazos. "Cowboys don't often fall into such luck as this."

  "I came early. But I thought you'd never get hare."

  "Wild hawsses couldn't have kept me away from yu, Lura."

  "Same old cowboy blarney."

  "Ump-um. If you take me for any other cowboy, wal, we won't get nowhere atall."

  "Where will we get if I take you as I did yesterday?"

  "An' how was thet?"

  "A lonely cowboy, down on his luck, unjustly jailed--and needing a friend."

  "Thet's takin' me true, Lura. But I cain't say I'm without friends altogether."

  "You could always get women friends, Brazos."

  "Shore. Thet's my trouble. I almost didn't come to-day."

  "Why?"

  "Wal, yu shore took my eye. An' I knew if I saw yu again I'd go loco."

  "Loco? What's that?"

  "Loco is a weed hawsses eat sometimes an' go oot of their haids."

  "Humph! I can just see you going loco!" she ejaculated. "Why, you're the coolest cow boy I ever met. And Lord knows I've met some cool ones?"

  "Wal, suppose at thet--I did go loco?"

  "I'd be delighted. You're different, Brazos. Oh, I was sorry when I thought they'd hang you! And what
a thrill I had yesterday! Scared, too! Brazos Keene--the notorious Brazos Keene! But I'm not so scared now."

  Brazos sat up, and with swift, strong arms he drew her back so that she lay almost flat with her head on his breast.

  "Lura, yu shore oughtn't play at love with a hombre like me."

  "Who says I'm playing?"

  "Shore yu air. An' I've got sense enough to see it an' decency enough to spare yu what many a cowboy I've known would take."

  "You think I'm a flirt?"

  "Wal, I never call women names, unless they're nice names. Yu're powerful seductive, Lura, turrible appealin', an' pretty isn't the word. Yu've got a devastatin' kind of beauty. If I let go of myself now, an' fell, to kissin' yu, as I reckon I might do by force, I'd be a gone goslin'. I might fall stark ravin' mad in love with yu. An' where'd thet get me? I'm Brazos Keene, only a notch or two behind Billy the Kid in range standin'. Yu're daughter of Raine Surface, rich rancher, an' yu're the belle of this corner of Colorado. Suppose such a wild thing as yore fallin' in love with me. Yu couldn't never marry me."

  "You are a queer one. What'd you meet me for, if not to make love? Who ever heard of a cowboy who didn't?"

  "Wal, heah's one. Lura, could yu get me a job ridin' for yore dad?"

  "Oh, I'd like that. In fact, I said to Father: 'Why not get this Keene cowboy to ride for us?' He flouted the idea. 'That gun-throwing desperado from New Mexico! I guess not!' And I said: 'But, Father, you never care how tough cowboys are coming from Dodge or Abilene.' And he shut me up."

  "Ahuh. He's got a grudge against Western riders, I reckon."

  "I can't understand it, Brazos," she replied as she straightened her dishevelled hair. "Riders like you are not tough or low-down. You may be wild, dangerous, and all that. But Father's excuse is queer. Why, he has hired rustlers and even outlaws when we ranched outside of Abilene. He had some bad outfits--bad in another sense. That's why he sold out and came to Colorado."

  "Reckon I savvy thet. Bad ootfits sometimes hurt a cattleman's reputation," replied Brazos casually.

  "Indeed they do. Father lost friends in Kansas. He had one serious lawsuit during which some pretty raw things were hinted against him. He shot a cattleman named Stearns."

  "Kill him?"

  "No. Stearns recovered."

  "Wal, yore dad didn't strike me as the shootin' kind."

  "He's not," the girl returned, with some note akin to contempt. "Unless he's got the edge on the other man. Why, he was scared to go into town for fear he'd run into Allen Neece."

  "Neece? Did yu know him, Lura? Did yu know him very well?"

  "Yes. I liked him better than any boy I knew."

  "From all I heah, Neece was a nice chap. Did he ever ride for yu?"

  "No. Father not only wouldn't have Allen but ran him out of the job he had."

  "When did yu see Allen last?" asked Brazos, apparently growing interested.

  "The very night he was murdered. I was in town: I met him coming out of the Show Down Saloon. He was half drunk. Allen took to drink after the Neeces lost Twin Sombreros. He didn't see me. And I didn't stop him for the good reason that he was with a little black-eyed wench in boy's pants. I had seen her once before somewhere, I think, in Dodge. Not the dance-hall type, but a pretty hard-faced hussy. I think she shad something to do with Allen's murder. If it hadn't been for that black-eyed girl my conscience would hurt me."

  "Yore what?" drawled Brazos, with his slow smile.

  "I daresay you think I have no conscience or any womanly virtues."

  "Nope. But yu don't need anythin' with yore good looks Lura, yu've made me doggone interested in young Neece's case."

  "I mustn't stay longer, Brazos," said the girl, consulting her watch. "Father watches me closely. Here we have spent an hour--the last part of which didn't keep the promise of the first. When shall we meet again?"

  "I reckon never, Lura. But 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."

  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. When he dismounted at the corral and turned Bay over to the stableboy, he suddenly had an inspiration:

  "Pedro, did yu know Allen Neece?"

  "Si, senor," 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 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 girl in rider's garb that Lura Surface had seen with Allen.

  That night Brazos haunted the main street and the saloons. The cowboys and cattlemen on the street, the drinkers and bar-tenders 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 someone.

  Brazos's 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.

  In the Happy Days Saloon he came unexpectedly upon Bodkin. 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 ringingly that the inmates of the crowded saloon went silent. "Where yu been?"

  "I've been around town as usual," replied Bodkin, turning white.

  "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, 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. "Inskip was one--but he quit."

  "Ahuh. An' when does this ootflt aim to settle yore appointment--an' also yore--hash?"

  "They meet to-morrow night."

  "Wal, tell them I'll call an' cast one vote against yu. An' while yu're carryin' messages from me, take this for yourself. If yu're appointed sheriff I'm gonna see red. An' this for yore hired-hand, Barsh. He better keep oot of my way."

  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, 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' about Surface an' his Cattlemen's Association."

  "Brazos, you've got goin'," rejoined Bilyen shrewdly. "You never was one to talk wild. Mebbe you was throwin' a bluff, but you had somethin' behind it."

  "Wal, enough to want to rile myself up. Hank, I was wantin' to see yu. Give me the lowdown on rustlin' in eastern Colorado."

  "Got thet this very day. Kiskadden an' Ins
kip told me. They're shore interested. 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 ootflt rarin' about 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' shinned east."

  "Ha! Ha!" laughed Brazos mirthlessly.

  "Say, what's so funny about thet?"

  "Struck me funny, 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 found Brazos at the cabin, waiting far Hank Bilyen. The old cowman arrived in good time and greeted his young friend.

  They searched the musty, dry cabin as hunters of treasure might have. "Well, nothin' heah," said Brazos. "Let's go up in the loft."

  The loft 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 head-first back upon the poles. A dark smear of blood ran along one of them.

  "What's thet in the corner?" asked Brazos. He found a rope, a lasso, that had evidently been hurriedly flung there without being coiled. He crawled back to Bilyen with it.

  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 scrutinise with him. They were tense and silent.

  "Wal, what you make oot?" queried the Texan gruffly of Brazos.

  "Lasso all right. Manilla, wal made. Same as any one of a hundred."