“Never thought of it that way, Jim,” the boy said contritely. “What c’n I do?”
“Next time yo’re in town, go to Evans an’ eat dirt,” the puncher said. “That’s a meal we all gotta be ready to take, an’ if it gets yu a friend, it’s worth while.”
The boy promised. He had learned another lesson.
Not until the evening meal was ended did Dan unburden his mind to Sudden and the foreman. They had already heard of the cattle incident—Yorky having given a graphic and highly-ornamented version of it to the company in the bunkhouse.
“So you had to git a Trenton outa trouble agin, Dan,” Burke remarked. “That girl didn’t oughta be allowed out alone.”
“It wasn’t her fault,” the young man found himself saying, and then, “We got somethin’ more important than that to discuss. Maitland is beginning to put the screw on—he won’t even let me have cash for runnin’ expenses. There’s tradesmen in town to be settled with, an’ pay-day comin’ along.”
“The boys won’t mind waitin’,” Burke put in gruffly.
“I know, Bill, an’ that’s why I don’t want ‘em to,” Dan said. “I’ve an offer for a hundred three-year-olds; the buyer will take over an’ pay at the Bend. It’s a poor price, an’ will mean hangin’ up our start for two-three days, but—”
“Needs must, when the banker goes on the prod,” Sudden misquoted.
“You said it,” Dan replied with a smile, the first they had seen from him all the evening.
“Well, that eases my mind. I wouldn’t like to go leavin’ debts to folks who can’t afford to lose, an’
Bill here without a shot in the locker. An’ talkin’ of goin’, Doc Malachi wants to come along; I said he might.”
The foreman looked dubious. “Does he understand what he’s lettin’ hisself in for?”
“I made that plain,” Dan replied, and repeated the conversation, finishing with, “He might be useful.”
“Shore, but how come he knows we’re in a jam?” Burke asked.
“He wouldn’t say, but I can guess. He’s been seein’ a lot o’ Maitland’s girl since the dance, an’ she helps in the bank. Her father trusts her—he told me as much.”
“That explains the ‘experiment’ too,” Sudden smiled. “I hope he wins out on it. What about hittin’ the hay—we got a coupla busy days to shove behind us?”
With the coming of daylight, they were at work, rounding up, cutting out, and road-branding the steers to be disposed of. Small as the herd was, these operations took time and entailed much riding, for the cattle were spread over a wide range. About half a mile from the ranch-house, a big bunch of steers was collected by four of the outfit, and from these Dover and Sudden roped the selected beasts, dragged them to the nearby fire, where Lidgett hog-tied them and Slow applied the iron.
The bellowing of the branded brutes, blinding sun, swirling clouds of dust, acrid smell of burnt hair, and the varied objurgations of the toilers, who sweated and swore with equal fervour, presented a scene of confusion from which it seemed impossible for order to emerge. By the arrival of dusk, however, the herd was ready to take the trail, and the discarded cattle dispersed again. The boys raced for the river, to rid themselves of the real estate they had acquired during the day. When they arrived at the bunkhouse, Paddy affected astonishment.
“Shure, Dan should ‘a’ told me he was takin’ on new han’s,” he said.
“Gwan, you of grub-spoiler,” Slow retorted. “Hump yoreself. I’m hungry enough to eat you—raw—if I had a ton o’ salt.”
“An’ it’s on’y a mouthful I’d be for ye,” the Irishman grinned, and Slow, whose mouth was built on generous lines, retired from the combat.
At daybreak the herd was on the move, Dover in charge, with Blister, Tiny, Noisy, and Sudden as his crew.
“They’re in prime condition an’ the trail ain’t difficult,” the rancher said. “If we drive ‘em middlin’ hard we oughta make the Bend before dark tomorrow. Me an’ Tiny’ll be in front, Noisy an’ Blister on the flanks, an’ Jim’ll keep the ‘drag’ goin’.” Very soon the riders had the steers lined out, and travelling at a steady pace. Cattle on the trail can, in normal circumstances, cover from fifteen to twenty miles a day, according to the nature of the country. Dan was hoping to do better than this on a short drive, but he was too good a cowman to “tucker out” the animals by pressing them too early.
The hours slid by, and the drive proceeded uneventfully. Now and then an adventurous beast dropped out of line and made a break for freedom, to be chased, brought back, and called uncomplimentary things by a sweating rider. Sudden, in the rear, was kept busy hazing the few stragglers always to be found in any trail-herd.
The approach of night found them on a plateau some miles in extent and nearly halfway to their destination. As the feed was good, and a stream adjacent, Dan decided to halt there. The tired cattle were watered, bunched together, and the rancher, with Noisy, took the first spell of night-herding. The other three squatted round a fire, and having fed, smoked and talked. In the distance, where a black blob showed indistinctly in the half-light, they could hear the watchers crooning to their charges.
“Dan’s a fine fella, but as an opery singer he’d shore be a total loss,” Blister laughed.
“Cows can’t have no ear for music, or you couldn’t soothe ‘em down with a voice that’d scare a kid into convulsions.”
“They sleep to git away from it,” Tiny explained. “That’s why I’m a pore night-herder—the critters stay awake to listen to me.”
“That won’t win you nothin’—you take yore turn,” Blister chuckled. “Fancy tryin’ that one; you got about as much savvy as a mule.”
Before the outraged cowboy could reply to this aspersion, Sudden cut in: “An’ there, though he ain’t intendin’ it, he’s payin’ yu a compliment, Tiny. Lemme tell yu somethin’ I actually witnessed. An’ of darkie was drivin’ a buckboard behind a big, hammer-headed mule with ears like wings. All at once, the beast stalled on him, just stiffened his legs and stood stock-still like he’d taken root. Well, the nigger tried persuasion first; he got down an’ talked.
“`Now looky, Abram, dis ain’t no way to act. Ain’t I allus treated yoh well? W’at foh yoh wanter play dis trick on Uncle Eph?’
“He said a lot more, but it didn’t do any good; Abram just curled his lips back over his teeth an’ laughed at him. So the darkie goes to pullin’ him, then to pushin’ the buckboard on his heels, but he might as well have tried to shift a house. Then Uncle Eph got his dander up. He climbs into his wagon, unearths a stout ash-plant, an’ lays into that mule like all possessed. Yu ever seen a fella beatin’ a carpet what ain’t been cleaned for years? Well, that was how it was. I reckon yu could ‘a’ heard the racket half a mile off, an’ the dust came out’n that critter’s hide in clouds—it was like a sand-storm. But Abram never stirred an inch, an’ when at last the nigger dropped back on his seat too tired to lam any more, that mule lets out a sort o’ sound—jeerin’ like—which made his master madder’n ever.
“`Light a fire under him,’ one o’ the onlookers advised.
“This put new life into Uncle Eph. He scouted round in the buckboard, produced wood an’ paper, built his fire an’ put a match to it. Ì burn de damn belly off’n yoh, Abram,’ he said viciously, an’ when the flames shot up an’ the mule stirs hisself, he lets out a yell of triumph. But he was a bit previous; that durned animal moved just fur enough forward to bring the buckboard right over the fire, an’ took root again; if Uncle Eph hadn’t got mighty active he’d ‘a’ had nothin’ but a fiery chariot to ride in. An’ then Abram turns his head an’ closes one eye in the most deliberate wink I ever saw. No, sir, don’t tell me mules ain’t got savvy.”
They laughed at the story, and Tiny said, “I remember once—”
But what it was they were not to hear, for from over the plateau came the crash of guns and bellowing of scared steers, followed by the thunder of many hammering hooves. �
�Hell’s joy, the herd is gone,” Blister cried.
Springing to their saddles, they scampered towards the hubbub, dragging out their rifles as they went. Sudden caught sight of a whitish object flapping in the gloom, and took a snap shot. The object vanished, but he did not stay to investigate—the important thing was to stop the stampeding cattle. By hard and, in the dark, hazardous riding, they got ahead of some of the frightened brutes, turned, and drove them back to camp.
“Stay here an’ ride hard on this lot, Blister,” Sudden said. “We’ll go hunt for more.”
On their way they met a horseman shepherding about a dozen steers; he proved to be Dover.
“We’d just got ‘em settlin’ down nicely when the hullabaloo began,” he said. “Somebody loosed off a gun, an’ another of ‘em flapped a sheet or blanket an’ shouted. You got some, you say? Good work. Lucky they was tired—ain’t liable to run far. yeah, Noisy’s all right; he’s takin’ in a small gather.”
Throughout the hours of darkness the search went on, and when dawn arrived, a count showed that they were only ten short.
“Better’n I hoped,” Dan said. “We may pick up one or two more on the way.”
As they returned to snatch a meal at the fire, a dark, huddled form, lying where the grass was longer, attracted their attention. A dead man, and beside him, a lightish slicker. Sudden remembered his chance shot. He turned the body over; the features were familiar. He visioned again the saloon at Hell City, into which this same Mexican had limped, footsore and weary, come to report failure and risk death at the hands of Satan, the master brigand. He had saved the fellow’s life then, and now blind Fate had ordained that he should take it.’
“Couple o’ twenty dollar bills with the Rainbow bank’s stamp on ‘em,” Tiny announced.
He had been searching the corpse.
“Better take those, Dan; we might be able to trace ‘em,” Sudden advised. “An’ we’ll bury this hombre if yu got no objection; I once saw him act mighty like a man—for a Greaser.”
The drive was resumed, and as Dover had predicted, they came across several of the runaways, and so could deem themselves well out of what might easily have been a disaster.
They saw nothing of their unknown assailants, and as the latter part of the journey was over a regular cattle-track, they reached their destination in good time.
The business of handing over the herd did not take long, and after a satisfying meal they drifted into the Paradise Saloon.
“Remember this joint, Jim?” Dan asked.
Sudden grinned; it was there he and the rancher had adjourned after the shooting test; somehow it seemed a good time ago. Grouped at the bar, they discussed the question of the return trip, whether to start at once, or wait for daybreak. All of them were tired, but as Tiny finally expressed it:
“A bed listens fine to me, Dan, but you on’y gotta say the word an’ I’m ready.”
“What do you think, Jim?”
Sudden did not reply for a moment; his gaze was on a short, shabby, bearded fellow sitting a few feet away. Then he asked, “Yu acquainted with the landlord o’ this shebang, Dan?”
And when the young man nodded, “Find out if he knows the whiskery gent just behind yu.”
The rancher ordered another round of drinks and, after a whispered colloquy with the proprietor, turned to his friends. “Never set eyes on him afore, but that don’t mean much—strangers ain’t no novelty in the Bend.”
“Mebbe not,” Sudden replied, and raising his voice a little, “We’d better be on our way.”
The last to leave, he saw—by the aid of a mirror—that the bearded man was also making for the door. Leading his party along the street, he swung round a corner and halted. Almost immediately the object of his suspicion appeared, and seeing the group of cowboys, hesitated and then slunk past.
“He was interested in our conversation, an’ now he follows us. What d’yu make o’ that, Dan?”
“I’m no good at riddles, Jim. You tell me.”
“Those coyotes back on the trail missed the beef, but if they knowed when to expect us, they might try for the dollars.”
“Likely enough, an’ that hombre would have plenty time to get here ahead o’ us,” Dover admitted. “What’s our best plan?”
“With that fella trailin’ us we got no hope o’ trickin’ ‘em. I vote we catch some sleep an’ start in the mornin’,” was Sudden’s suggestion. “If they waylay us, we’ll stand a better chance in the daylight.”
The others agreed that this was the wisest course, and being already short of one night’s rest, they gave the attractions of the town the go-by, and turned in early.
There was no sign of the bearded man when they set off soon after daybreak, but none of them doubted his being in the vicinity. Sudden only grinned when Tiny mentioned it. One precaution was taken: Dover called Sudden aside and slipped a packet into his hand; it was the money received for the cattle.
“You got the fastest hoss in the bunch,” he said. “If things get tight, make a dash for it.”
“Unless they’re watchin’ the trail, we’ll have no trouble.”
“They may be, or it’s possible that jasper has gone on a’ready to tell ‘em we’re comin’.”
“He ain’t,” Sudden chuckled. “Over-keen, Mister Whiskers. He took the room next to mine, an’ when I found my key would open his door, I slipped in, hawg-tied an’ gagged him, in’ told the landlord my neighbour wanted to sleep late.”
Dover laughed. “Gosh, Jim, you don’t miss any bets,” he complimented. “I’m damn glad you didn’t go over to Trenton.”
“Well, that settles Whiskers, but we still gotta remember that the others may be the patient kind.”
The three cowboys had to be told, and they looked at Sudden with added respect. Blister’s tribute amused them all.
“Jim,” he said gravely. “One o’ these days you and me won’t have a game o’ poker.”
“Blister,” was the solemn reply. “When it comes to cards. yu wouldn’t believe how dumb I am.”
“Yo’re dead right, I wouldn’t,” Blister agreed.
Having no herd to hamper them, a good pace could be maintained. Sudden led the party, and Dan brought up the rear, each man riding a little behind the next so that all of them could not be covered at once. The first score of miles were negotiated without incident, and then they drew near to where the stampede had happened. The sun was climbing the sky, and in the growing heat they did not hasten; it was necessary to spare the horses in case speed should be urgently needed.
East of the plateau, as Sudden remembered, the trail traversed a shallow gully, both walls of which were hedged by thick brush. Immediately on entering this, he slackened pace still more, eyes alert. Halfway through the sun glinted on something in the depths of a bush; it was the barrel of a rifle, and directly opposite was another.
“Shove ‘em up,” barked a voice. “We got you set—both sides.”
Sudden’s reins were already twisted round the saddle-horn his knees told the horse what to do. When, in apparent obedience to the order, his hands rose, a gun was in each, spouting flame and lead. Left and right, the shots crashed, the rifle-barrels disappeared—one exploding harmlessly—and there was a sound of breaking twigs and violent movement in the veil of vegetation. At the same instant, the black sprang onward, a few mighty bounds carrying it clear of the gully. The rest of the party followed, bending low and raking the brush with their revolvers. Scattered, ill-aimed replies came from the ambushers. When he had ridden about a mile, Sudden waited for his companions.
“Anybody hurt?” he wanted to know. “What’s the matter with yu, Noisy?”
“Ain’t nothin’,” the silent one replied. “Just a graze.”
“We’ll tie it up,” the puncher said. “I figure them fellas have had a full meal.”
The “graze” proved to be a nasty flesh-wound in the forearm, and when this had been attended to they went on their way. Blister and Tiny, ridi
ng together, discussed the occurrence.
“I never see his han’s move, but both guns was out an’ workin’. I’ll bet he got both them smarties,” the big cowboy remarked.
“Smart nothin’—a pair o’ bunglers,” said a quiet voice behind. “Lemme give yu a tip, Tiny; next time yu go bushwhackin’, don’t show yore gun; the slant o’ the barrel tells the other fella where to aim.”
“Speakin’ from experience, Jim?” Tiny came back. “Shore,” Sudden grinned. “I was a road-agent afore I came down in the world an’ had to take to punchin’.”
In due course they reached the Circle Dot, and once more the bunkhouse had a story to hear. Blister told it, finishing in characteristic fashion:
“An’ after the ruckus, the on’y trouble we had was listenin’ to Noisy yowlin’ like a sick cat over that triflin’ scratch he got.”
“Turn anythin’ Blister sez the other way round an’ yo’re liable to git the truth,” the wounded man replied, a statement which evoked a general chorus of “Yo’re tellin’ us.”
Chapter XIV
Miss Maitland and Malachi had walked as far as the cemetery. It was, as he had told Miss Trenton, a pretty place, though the oblong mounds of stones—several with staggering, homemade wooden crosses—did not add to its beauty. The customary bitter expression was absent from the man’s clever face.
“They all seem to be nameless,” the girl commented.
“Rainbow has no monumental mason yet,” he told her, and pointed to the most recent heap. “That is the resting-place of Dave Dover, who was kind to every living thing—except an enemy.” A touch of his old sarcastic humour returned. “Yet, if any other citizen had brought you here, the grave he would have shown with pride would have been that of a scoundrel who killed seven people—and he wasn’t a doctor. The town hanged him, most justly; he was a fool—he should have taken a degree before indulging his appetite for blood.”
She did not smile. “I don’t like to hear you’ joke about. your profession,” she said. “Great soldiers, who use their lives to take life, are honoured, but a doctor, who devotes himself to saving life receives—what?”
Sudden: Makes War Page 14
