Masten felt himself lifted; he did not resist. Then he felt the saddle under him; he made an effort and steadied himself. Then, still only half conscious he rode, reeling in the saddle, toward a light that he saw in the distance, which, he dimly felt, must come from the Flying W ranchhouse.
* * *
CHAPTER XIV
THE ROCK AND THE MOONLIGHT
Randerson did not leave the scene of the fight immediately. He stood for a long time, after buckling on his belt and pistols, looking meditatively toward the break in the canyon beyond which was Catherson’s shack.
“Did the dresses have anything to do with it?” he asked himself, standing there in the darkness. “New dresses might have—puttin’ foolish notions in her head. But I reckon the man—” He laughed grimly. He had thought it all over before, back there on the path when he had been talking to Masten and Hagar. He reflected again on it now. “Lookin’ it square in the face, it’s human nature. We’ll allow that. We’ll say a man has feelin’s. But a man ought to have sense, too—or he ain’t a man. If Masten was a boy, now, not realizin’, there’d be excuses. But he’s wised up.... If his intentions had been honorable—but he’s engaged to Ruth, an’ they couldn’t. I reckon he’ll pull his freight now. Catherson would sure muss him up some.”
He mounted his pony and rode toward the Flying W ranchhouse. Halfway there he passed Masten. The moon had risen; by its light he could see the Easterner, who had halted his horse and was standing beside it, watching him. Randerson paid no heed to him.
“Thinkin’ it over, I reckon,” he decided, as he rode on. Looking back, when he reached the house, he saw that Masten was still standing beside his horse.
At the sound of hoof beats, Uncle Jepson came out on the porch and peered at the rider. Randerson could see Aunt Martha close behind him. Uncle Jepson was excited. He started off the porch toward Randerson.
“It’s Randerson, mother!” he called shrilly back to Aunt Martha, who was now on the porch.
In a brief time Randerson learned that Ruth had gone riding—alone—about noon, and had not returned. Randerson also discovered that the girl had questioned a puncher who had ridden in—asking him about Chavis’ shack and the basin. Randerson’s face, red from the blows that had landed on it, paled quickly.
“I reckon she’s takin’ her time about comin’ in,” he said. “Mebbe her cayuse has broke a leg—or somethin’.” He grinned at Uncle Jepson. “I expect there ain’t nothin’ to worry about. I’ll go look for her.”
He climbed slowly into the saddle, and with a wave of the hand to the elderly couple rode his pony down past the bunkhouse at a pace that was little faster than a walk. He urged Patches to slightly greater speed as he skirted the corral fence, but once out on the plains he loosened the reins, spoke sharply to the pony and began to ride in earnest.
Patches responded nobly to the grim note in his master’s voice. With stretching neck and flying hoofs he swooped with long, smooth undulations that sent him, looking like a splotched streak, splitting the night. He ran at his own will, his rider tall and loose in the saddle, speaking no further word, but thinking thoughts that narrowed his eyes, made them glint with steely hardness whenever the moonlight struck them, and caused his lips to part, showing the clenched teeth between them, and shoved his chin forward with the queer set that marks the fighting man.
For he did not believe that Ruth’s pony had broken a leg. She had gone to see Chavis’ shack, and Chavis—
One mile, two, three, four; Patches covered them in a mad riot of recklessness. Into depressions, over rises, leaping rocks and crashing through chaparral clumps, scaring rattlers, scorpions, toads, and other denizens to wild flight, he went, with not a thought for his own or his rider’s safety, knowing from the ring in his master’s voice that speed, and speed alone, was wanted from him.
After a five mile run he was pulled down. He felt the effects of the effort, but he was well warmed to his work now and he loped, though with many a snort of impatience and toss of the head, by which he tried to convey to his master his eagerness to be allowed to have his will.
On the crest of a hill he was drawn to a halt, while Randerson scanned the country around him. Then, when the word came again to go, he was off with a rush and a snort of delight, as wildly reckless as he had been when he had discovered what was expected of him.
They flashed by the ford near the Lazette trail; along a ridge, the crest of which was hard and barren, making an ideal speedway; they sank into a depression with sickening suddenness, went out of it with a clatter, and then went careening over a level until they reached a broken stretch where speed would mean certain death to both.
Patches was determined to risk it, but suddenly he was pulled in and forced to face the other way. And what he saw must have made him realize that his wild race was ended, for he deflated his lungs shrilly, and relaxed himself for a rest.
Randerson had seen her first. She was sitting on the top of a gigantic rock not more than fifty feet from him; she was facing him, had evidently been watching him; and in the clear moonlight he could see that she was pale and frightened—frightened at him, he knew, fearful that he might not be a friend.
This impression came to him simultaneously with her cry—shrill with relief and joy: “Oh, it’s Patches! It’s Randerson!” And then she suddenly stiffened and stretched out flat on the top of the rock.
He lifted her down and carried her, marveling at her lightness, to a clump of bunch-grass near by, and worked, trying to revive her, until she struggled and sat up. She looked once at him, her eyes wide, her gaze intent, as though she wanted to be sure that it was really he, and then she drew a long, quavering breath and covered her face with her hands.
“Oh,” she said; “it was horrible!” She uncovered her face and looked up at him. “Why,” she added, “I have been here since before dark! And it must be after midnight, now!”
“It’s about nine. Where’s your horse?”
“Gone,” she said dolorously. “He fell—over there—and threw me. I saw Chavis—and Kester—over on the mesa. I thought they would come after me, and I hurried. Then my pony fell. I’ve hurt my ankle—and I couldn’t catch him—my pony, I mean; he was too obstinate—I could have killed him! I couldn’t walk, you know—my ankle, and the snakes—and the awful darkness, and—Oh, Randerson,” she ended, with a gulp of gratitude, “I never was so glad to see you—anybody—in my life!”
“I reckon it was kind of lonesome for you out here alone with the snakes, an’ the dark, an’ things.”
She was over her scare now, he knew—as he was over his fears for her, and he grinned with a humor brought on by a revulsion of feeling.
“I reckon mebbe the snakes would have bothered you some,” he added, “for they’re natural mean. But I reckon the moon made such an awful darkness on purpose to scare you.”
“How can you joke about it?” she demanded resentfully.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said with quick contrition. “You see, I was glad to find you. An’ you’re all right now, you know.”
“Yes, yes,” she said, quickly forgiving. “I suppose I am a coward.”
“Why, no, ma’am, I reckon you ain’t. Anybody sittin’ here alone, a woman, especial, would likely think a lot of curious thoughts. They’d seem real. I reckon it was your ankle, that kept you from walkin’.”
“It hurts terribly,” she whispered, and she felt of it, looking at him plaintively. “It is so swollen I can’t get my boot off. And the leather seems like an iron band around it.” She looked pleadingly at him. “Won’t you please take it off?”
His embarrassment was genuine and deep.
“Why, I reckon I can, ma’am,” he told her. “But I ain’t never had a heap of experience—” His pause was eloquent, and he finished lamely “with boots—boots, that is, that was on swelled ankles.”
“Is it necessary to have experience?” she returned impatiently.
“Why, I reckon not, ma’am.
” He knelt beside her and grasped the boot, giving it a gentle tug. She cried out with pain and he dropped the boot and made a grimace of sympathy. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, ma’am.”
“I know you didn’t”—peevishly. “Oh,” she added as he took the boot in hand again, this time giving it a slight twist; “men are such awkward creatures!”
“Why, I reckon they are, ma’am. That is, one, in particular. There’s times when I can’t get my own boots on.” He grinned, and she looked icily at him.
“Get hold of it just above the ankle, please,” she instructed evenly and drew the hem of her skirt tightly. “There!” she added as he seized the limb gingerly, “now pull!”
He did as he had been bidden. She shrieked in agony and jerked the foot away, and he stood up, his face reflecting some of the pain and misery that shone in hers.
“It’s awful, ma’am,” he sympathized. “Over at the Diamond H, one of the boys got his leg broke, last year, ridin’ an outlaw, or tryin’ to ride him, which ain’t quite the same thing—an’ we had to get his boot off before we could set the break. Why, ma’am; we had to set on his head to keep him from scarin’ all the cattle off the range, with his screechin’.”
She looked at him with eyes that told him plainly that no one was going to sit on her head—and that she would “screech” if she chose. And then she spoke to him with bitter sarcasm:
“Perhaps if you tried to do something, instead of standing there, telling me something that happened ages ago, I wouldn’t have to sit here and endure this awful m-m-misery!”
The break in her voice brought him on his knees at her side. “Why, I reckon it must hurt like the devil, ma’am.” He looked around helplessly.
“Haven’t you got something that you might take it off with?” she demanded tearfully. “Haven’t you got a knife?”
He reddened guiltily. “I clean forgot it ma’am.” He laughed with embarrassment. “I expect I’d never do for a doctor, ma’am; I’m so excited an’ forgetful. An’ I recollect, now that you mention it, that we had to cut Hiller’s boot off. That was the man I was tellin’ you about. He—”
“Oh, dear,” she said with heavy resignation, “I suppose you simply must talk! Do you like to see me suffer?”
“Why, shucks, I feel awful sorry for you, ma’am. I’ll sure hurry.”
While he had been speaking he had drawn out his knife, and with as much delicacy as the circumstances would permit, he accomplished the destruction of the boot. Then, after many admonitions for him to be careful, and numerous sharp intakings of her breath, the boot was withdrawn, showing her stockinged foot, puffed to abnormal proportions. She looked at it askance.
“Do you think it is b-broken?” she asked him, dreading.
He grasped it tenderly, discovered that the ankle moved freely, and after pressing it in several places, looked up at her.
“I don’t think it’s broke, ma’am. It’s a bad sprain though, I reckon. I reckon it ought to be rubbed—so’s to bring back the blood that couldn’t get in while the boot was on.”
The foot was rubbed, he having drawn off the stocking with as much delicacy as he had exhibited in taking off the boot. And then while Randerson considerately withdrew under pretense of looking at Patches, the stocking was put on again. When he came back it was to be met with a request:
“Won’t you please find my pony and bring him back?”
“Why, sure, ma’am.” He started again for Patches, but halted and looked back at her. “You won’t be scared again?”
“No,” she said. And then: “But you’ll hurry, won’t you?”
“I reckon.” He was in the saddle quickly, loping Patches to the crest of a hill near by in hopes of getting a view of the recreant pony. He got a glimpse of it, far back on the plains near some timber, and he was about to shout the news to Ruth, who was watching him intently, when he thought better of the notion and shut his lips.
Urging Patches forward, he rode toward Ruth’s pony at a moderate pace. Three times during the ride he looked back. Twice he was able to see Ruth, but the third time he had swerved so that some bushes concealed him from her. He was forced to swerve still further to come up with the pony, and he noted that Ruth would never have been able to see her pony from her position.
It was more than a mile to where the animal stood, and curiously, as though to make amends for his previous bad behavior to Ruth, he came trotting forward to Randerson, whinnying gently.
Randerson seized the bridle, and grinned at the animal.
“I reckon I ought to lam you a-plenty, you miserable deserter,” he said severely, “runnin’ away from your mistress that-a-way. Is that the way for a respectable horse to do? You’ve got her all nervous an’ upset—an’ she sure roasted me. Do you reckon there’s any punishment that’d fit what you done? Well, I reckon! You come along with me!”
Leading the animal, he rode Patches to the edge of the timber. There, unbuckling one end of the reins from the bit ring, he doubled them, passed them through a gnarled root, made a firm knot and left the pony tied securely. Then he rode off and looked back, grinning.
“You’re lost, you sufferin’ runaway. Only you don’t know it.”
He loped Patches away and made a wide detour of the mesa, making sure that he appeared often on the sky line, so that he would be seen by Ruth. At the end of half an hour he rode back to where the girl was standing, watching him. He dismounted and approached her, standing before her, his expression one of grave worry.
“That outlaw of yours ain’t anywhere in sight, ma’am,” he said. “I reckon he’s stampeded back to the ranchhouse. You sure you ain’t seen him go past here?”
“No,” she said, “unless he went way around, just after it got dark.”
“I reckon that’s what he must have done. Some horses is plumb mean. But you can’t walk, you know,” he added after a silence; “I reckon you’ll have to ride Patches.”
“You would have to walk, then,” she objected. “And that wouldn’t be fair!”
“Walkin’ wouldn’t bother me, ma’am.” He got Patches and led him closer. She looked at the animal, speculatively.
“Don’t you think he could carry both of us?” she asked.
He scrutinized Patches judicially. A light, which she did not see, leaped into his eyes.
“Why, I didn’t think of that. I reckon he could, ma’am. Anyway, we can try it, if you want to.”
He led Patches still closer. Then, with much care, he lifted Ruth and placed her in the saddle, mounting behind her. Patches moved off.
After a silence which might have lasted while they rode a mile, Ruth spoke.
“My ankle feels very much easier.”
“I’m glad of that, ma’am.”
“Randerson,” she said, after they had gone on a little ways further; “I beg your pardon for speaking to you the way I did, back there. But my foot did hurt terribly.”
“Why, sure. I expect I deserved to get roasted.”
Again there was a silence. Ruth seemed to be thinking deeply. At a distance that he tried to keep respectful, Randerson watched her, with worshipful admiration, noting the graceful disorder of her hair, the wisps at the nape of her neck. The delicate charm of her made him thrill with the instinct of protection. So strong was this feeling that when he thought of her pony, back at the timber, guilt ceased to bother him.
Ruth related to him the conversation she had overheard between Chavis and Kester, and he smiled understandingly at her.
“Do you reckon you feel as tender toward them now as you did before you found that out?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “It made me angry to hear them talk like that. But as for hanging them—” She shivered. “There were times, tonight, though, when I thought hanging would be too good for them,” she confessed.
“You’ll shape up real western—give you time,” he assured. “You’ll be ready to take your own part, without dependin’ on laws to do it for you—laws that don’t re
ach far enough.”
“I don’t think I shall ever get your viewpoint,” she declared.
“Well,” he said, “Pickett was bound to try to get me. Do you think that if I’d gone to the sheriff at Las Vegas, an’ told him about Pickett, he’d have done anything but poke fun at me? An’ that word would have gone all over the country—that I was scared of Pickett—an’ I’d have had to pull my freight. I had to stand my ground, ma’am. Mebbe I’d have been a hero if I’d have let him shoot me, but I wouldn’t have been here any more to know about it. An’ I’m plumb satisfied to be here, ma’am.”
“How did you come to hear about me not getting home?” she asked.
“I’d rode in to see Catherson. I couldn’t see him—because he wasn’t there. Then I come on over to the ranchhouse, an’ Uncle Jepson told me about you not comin’ in.”
“Was Mr. Masten at the ranchhouse?”
He hesitated. Then he spoke slowly. “I didn’t see him there, ma’am.”
She evidently wondered why it had not been Masten that had come for her.
They were near the house when she spoke again:
“Did you have an accident today, Randerson?”
“Why, ma’am?” he asked to gain time, for he knew that the moonlight had been strong enough, and that he had been close enough to her, to permit her to see.
“Your face has big, ugly, red marks on it, and the skin on your knuckles is all torn,” she said.
“Patches throwed me twice, comin’ after you, ma’am,” he lied. “I plowed up the ground considerable. I’ve never knowed Patches to be so unreliable.”
She turned in the saddle and looked full at him. “That is strange,” she said, looking ahead again. “The men have told me that you are a wonderful horseman.”
“The men was stretchin’ the truth, I reckon,” he said lightly.
“Anyway,” she returned earnestly; “I thank you very much for coming for me.”
She said nothing more to him until he helped her down at the edge of the porch at the ranchhouse. And then, while Uncle Jepson and Aunt Martha were talking and laughing with pleasure at her return, she found time to say, softly to him:
The Range Boss Page 11
