by Luke Short
It was during that solitude crossing the Long Reach that Anse had made a discovery. It was that he’d had a pretty good life, that his mistakes weren’t big ones and that he didn’t hate anybody. About that time he got to wondering what he was doing out on the Long Reach and he wondered about it until he caught the first glimpse of Quartzite, a little mining town that broke out of the desert far to the south.
The sight of it made up Anse’s mind for him. He didn’t know the town and he found himself not wanting to know it. He was a stranger. Days ago that might have appealed to him, but he rejected it now. That was when he turned back, and the relief that he felt when he did it told him he was right. A place where a man has lived retains a part of him when he leaves, and if he’s lived there long enough it keeps about all of him. It worked that way with Anse; out here he was nothing, but back there he was Anse Barden. He headed for home, where he’d lost a wife and a son.
Anse was roused from his musing with the awareness that his horse had stopped in the night. Anse cursed him gently and was about to put spurs to him when it occurred to him that this might be the rim and that the horse was considerably smarter than he was. He peered ahead and saw where the piebald patches of snow ended. He reined over then, knowing it was the rim, touched his spurs to his horse and rode on paralleling the rim.
Presently he noticed something ahead, a queer patch of the night sky which was lighter than the rest. As he rode on it grew brighter, and when he smelled smoke minutes later he was sure of it. It was below the rim.
When he finally came closer he could see that it was a big fire. The flames almost came up to the rim, but not quite. And then he rode up to the edge and looked down its almost sheer drop.
Four hundred feet below him was Avery’s place, with the barn on fire. It lighted up the whole night so that everything was made plainer than by daylight.
The hay had caught in the barn, and the framework of rafters, a cherry red, were ready to fold on themselves. Anse saw that the corral gate was open and the stock out, and then he saw the women. There were two of them standing by the well house watching the blaze. That would be Mrs. Avery and the girl. Only the girl wasn’t watching. She was bent over the sprawled shape of what looked to Anse like a dog.
Anse’s immediate reaction was to put his horse in motion to go down. And then he reined up, bethinking himself. There was no trail down the rim here. There was one about six miles back, and the only other one was the dug road at Sun Dust.
At that, he reflected, they couldn’t use his help much. It was done. He felt a slow wrath at his helplessness, and then it subsided. The rafters folded now, and a great gout of sparks funneled up into the night. The fire flared brighter now, and Anse watched the place. A movement off behind the brush back of the bunkhouse caught his eye. He could see something moving through the frost-stripped trees and he peered intently.
Presently it moved again. It was a horse and it vanished with its rider into the outer circle of darkness, but not before Anse saw that it had four white stockings. Avery, he knew, had no horse marked like that, and he filed it away in his memory.
Anse waited awhile longer until the fire died down and the women went back into the house. The dog, he noticed, lay there by the well house, and Anse guessed he was dead.
He couldn’t help them, couldn’t even shout his sympathy from this height, so he went on along the rim toward Sun Dust.
Anse came down the dug road in early morning and left his horse at Settlemeir’s for a bait of corn. He got a morning’s sleep at the hotel and spent the early afternoon buying a little grub and getting the conversation he was starved for. Afterward he got his ruff of iron-gray hair cut and bought a heavy sheepskin because winter was practically here.
At midafternoon he went back for his horse, a sack of flour over his shoulder. He dumped the sack on a stall partition and went back to the corral with Settlemeir.
There were a half-dozen horses in the big corral, and he looked them over as he stepped inside behind Settlemeir.
And then he stopped, staring. He was looking at a horse with four white stockings, its nose nuzzling impatiently at the board bottom of an empty feed box.
“Four white stockings,” he murmured. “Who owns him, Jake?”
“Which?”
“White stockings over there.”
“Him? Oh, that’s Joe Shotten’s gelding. He’s the new deputy we got now since Riling’s boys kicked him out.”
Anse looked sharply at him and he found Settlemeir smiling faintly. “Deputy?” Anse muttered. “Lord God.”
“How do you like that?” Settlemeir grunted and went on.
Anse was thoughtful on the ride home, his big hands resting on the sack of flour across his saddle. Things had happened here, but he wasn’t going to ask what.
At the Blockhouse road, after dusk, he reined up, wondering if he should go in and visit as a token of his forgiveness. No, better find out what had happened here since he’d left.
He rode on home, arriving long after dark. As he came into the yard from the river he saw a horse standing in front of the open door of his shack.
Anse dismounted and called, “Hello, the house,” feeling foolish because it was his own place.
There was no answer. He stepped inside the door, careful to scrape the snow and mud from his boots on the sill.
He called, “Anybody in?” from the door.
No answer. He started across the room, feeling in his pocket for a match, and suddenly stumbled over something on the floor. He caught the edge of the table, steadied himself and struck a match.
It was Jim Garry, lying face down on the floor. He had missed making the bed by only three feet.
Anse hauled him to the bed and then built up a roaring fire. Afterward he came back to the bed and looked gravely at Garry. The man looked half dead, his eyes sunken, cheeks stained with color at the cheekbones. His clothes were stiff with blood. Afterward he knelt and looked at Jim’s wound, gently peeling away the torn strips of shirt that Jim had used to stanch the flow of blood.
When at last he saw, Anse made a wry face, A knife wound. At the end of a long raking cut that ran along the lower rib there was a neat purple slit in the skin, the lips of it tinged a blue color, the flesh around it angry looking and bruised.
Anse debated on his first move and then judged that he’d better clean the wound before trying to rouse him. With hot water and bandages he washed the wound clean, and Garry lay like a dead man under his ministrations.
Afterward Anse covered him up with blankets and then brought a bottle of whisky. Garry’s teeth were clamped shut so tightly that Anse had to spoon the whisky between his lips and let it trickle down his throat. At the fifth spoonful Garry choked and started to cough, and then he groaned and opened pain-filled eyes, pulling his knees up to his chest in an effort to smother the cough that was racking his side.
When the spasm died he looked carefully at the ceiling, and then his gaze settled on Anse. His gray eyes were smoky with pain, and he stared at Anse with puzzled concentration.
Anse knew what he was thinking and said, “Yeah, it’s me. You made it to my shack. How do you feel?”
Garry lifted his head and made an effort to rise. Sweat broke out on his forehead, and his head dropped back on the pillow, and he closed his eyes, his face suddenly dead white.
Anse said curtly, “Lie still. What happened to you? Can you talk?”
Jim, eyes closed, heard him and nodded. What had happened to him? He couldn’t remember, except that he’d been hunted down the slope of the Three Braves for a day and a night while Riling and Mitch Moten and Big Nels Titterton sought him. He knew they were the ones because at one time or another he’d been close enough to see them. He knew that some protective instinct had again driven him down to the roundup grounds where his tracks would be masked. After that he couldn’t remember much, except that the last time he’d tried to mount his horse after passing out in the brush it had taken him an hour to do it.
Why he’d ended up here he didn’t know. Yes, he did too. When he’d hit the river that night he knew that he couldn’t go much farther. He’d clung to the river for more than a mile, his last remembered effort to throw off Riling. The next thing he knew he’d roused, the mane of his horse in his teeth, to find his pony standing here in this dooryard. He’d fallen off and made it inside and then he passed out again.
He couldn’t tell Barden all that; he didn’t have the strength. He said, “A fight with Riling.”
“Him again,” Barden grunted. “You should have killed him at Commissary.”
Jim shut his eyes again. The pain was with him now, throbbing with every beat of his heart, covering his whole side and beating his breath down to slow, calculated torture. He wanted to say one more thing while he could. “He’ll come tomorrow,” he whispered. “Watch out.”
Barden almost smiled. Garry remembered Commissary, remembered that it was Barden who’d shot Riordan there in the saloon and that Riling wouldn’t forgive that.
All right, he’d had his warning. What was he going to do now? He stood there by the bed, watching Garry’s fever-cracked lips moving in a whisper that he couldn’t hear. Garry needed help, needed more than Anse could give him, but Anse knew he couldn’t leave him long enough to get help. But he had to. Outside of the fact that he owed it to any man, he wanted to help Garry. Maybe it was the beating Garry had handed Riling in the face of certain death from Riordan there at Commissary that made him like the man in spite of himself, but there it was.
Anse went over to the stove and put his back to it and pondered. It came to him slowly, and he turned it over in his mind and found nothing but good in it. Yes, he’d get Amy Lufton. Not Carol; she was too flighty. Blockhouse was closest, and Amy would help him, no matter if she hated Garry. There was something else besides his liking for Amy Lufton behind his decision too. If Riling showed up tomorrow as Garry had said he would Amy Lufton’s presence would keep Riling from shooting the man in bed. As for the risk to himself if Riling appeared, Anse didn’t think of that. He could take care of himself.
Garry had fallen into a light feverish sleep. Anse stroked the fire, put in a couple of green logs to hold it, then loosely tied a blanket around Jim, lashing him to the bed. It was the best he could do. He blew the light out and went out to his horse.
Chapter Fifteen
The hand on her shoulder roused Amy, and when she wakened she saw Carol standing beside her.
“Is he worse, Red?”
“No. Ted’s sleeping. Anse Barden is in the kitchen and he wants to speak to you.”
Amy sat up, brushing the hair out of her eyes. “Anse? But I thought he’d left the Basin.”
Amy slipped on a wrapper and her slippers and went down the corridor. She stopped to look into Carol’s room, where Ted lay on the bed. He had been there, almost unmoving, since that nightmare visit of Riling’s. For days now it had been doubtful if he would live. Dr. Hogan had come and done what he could and shrugged, leaving it up to Carol and Amy. And Carol, for the first time in her useless life, had taken over a burden. Ted was alive, and that was all, and Carol wanted desperately for him to live.
Anse was sitting at the kitchen table when Amy came out. He smiled a little and stood up, his hair seeming even grayer against the new burn of his skin from the desert sun.
“You’re back, Anse,” Amy said, shaking hands with him. “I knew you couldn’t leave for good.”
Anse nodded gravely, “I’m back to stay. And I need your help, Amy. Seems like I haven’t any right to ask it, considerin’ who it’s for.”
Amy said curiously, “Who is it for, Anse?
“You remember that young fella you combed out over there at Ripple Ford? Well, he’s hurt.”
Amy went deadly pale. “Jim Garry?” she asked swiftly in a voice barely above a whisper.
“Yes, him. I come home tonight and found him on my floor. He got a knife stuck in him.”
Amy moaned softly. “Anse, is it bad?”
“I dunno. That’s why I come for help. I don’t know what to do.”
Amy turned and ran out of the kitchen. In her room she dressed swiftly, her hands shaking so that she could scarcely control them. Jim Garry was hurt. She stopped dressing and stared at the wall, a slow horror filling her mind. What if he died? What if—She yanked herself up then, afraid and sick, and afraid to be afraid. She fought her panic under control and finished dressing and went out and told Carol only that there was a wounded man at Anse’s and that she was going to help.
Anse saddled her horse for her, and they rode off into the night. When Amy could control her voice she asked Anse about it, and he told her all he could. That was little: simply that he’d said he’d had a fight with Riling.
And then Amy talked because talking would keep her from thinking. She told Anse about Jim’s return from Commissary and his disclosure of the real reason for Riling’s fight with her father. After that it was easier to explain what Jim had done. They hadn’t heard from or seen him in almost two weeks, but the army had not arrived. And that meant that Jim had succeeded in his plan with Pindalest. Yesterday the last Blockhouse herd had crossed and was even now being scattered to the far corners of the range her father had claimed. Jim Garry had done it.
Anse was silent as Amy finished. He was thinking with bitterness of that grave in the mountains, the grave he hadn’t even seen. His son had been killed to further a swindle of Tate Riling’s. There was cold murder in Anse’s heart then, but it passed. He was no better man than his neighbors who had been likewise taken in. Only there was no grave up in the mountains for a son of theirs.
Anse turned his thoughts now to the other implications of Amy’s news and saw immediately the way to guard Jim from Riling. If he could get hold of Blockhouse before Riling arrived Jim was safe. But he mustn’t tell Amy Jim was in danger yet. After she’d seen him there’d be plenty of time. More than ever now, he wanted to see Jim Garry safe; a man like that didn’t deserve death.
It was breaking daylight when they rode into Anse’s place. Anse went ahead into his shack and lighted the lamp, and Amy went straight to the bed.
Jim was awake, his face turned to the wall and bathed with sweat.
“Jim,” Amy said softly.
Jim turned his head, and when he saw Amy his lips parted in protest. “You’ve got to get out of here,” he muttered.
Amy’s smile was sweet and tolerant as she shook her head. “Not ever, Jim.” She put a cool hand on his forehead and felt his fever. “When did you eat last?” she asked in a calm voice. She was afraid to look at the wound, and this was her way of putting it off.
“I dunno.”
“I’ll get you something to eat.” She steeled herself and said, “Jim, I’m going to change your bandages first.”
The sight of his blood-stiff clothes warned her. But her first look at Jim’s wound brought terror to her heart. And then she looked again and was encouraged. The cut was bad but more painful than serious. It was the knife stab that was dangerous. But Amy saw it had missed the lung cavity and angled down into the tight knot of muscles below and into the side of his chest. Nor did the wound seem infected.
Amy rebandaged it and smiled at Jim. “It hurts, doesn’t it?”
Jim grinned at that and shook his head, and Amy was suddenly happy. She fixed up some soup for Jim from Anse’s groceries and fed him, and he wolfed the food down like a man famished, which he was. Afterward he fell into a deep and untroubled sleep.
Anse ate breakfast with Amy, and then he knew it was time to speak.
“You’re goin’ on a ride, young lady,” Anse said.
Amy looked puzzled.
Anse pointed to Jim. “Riling’s on his trail. That’s why he told you to get out of here. Sometime today Riling ’ll be here.”
Amy sat motionless, eyes wide.
“We got to get help, get Blockhouse over here. I didn’t know until you told me that your dad was working with Garry. I didn’t know he’d
help him. Now if we can get them here he’s safe. Where are they?”
“I—don’t know,” Amy said hollowly. “Oh, Anse, I don’t! I haven’t heard from Dad in days!”
“We got to find him. You got to.”
“But Jim?”
“I’ll stay here. If they come I can stand ’em off forever.” He smiled encouragingly. “I got lots of shells, and these cottonwood logs are too heavy to burn. Let ’em come.”
Amy protested. “But if I was to stay Riling wouldn’t dare—” She ceased talking, looking at Anse.
“He damn well would dare,” Anse said bluntly. “You know that, don’t you?”
Amy was thinking of Ted Elser. Yes, she knew Riling wouldn’t hesitate to shoot Jim. But she hated the thought of leaving him. She wanted to stay by, watching him every minute, helping him when she could and just be near him when she couldn’t. But she knew Anse was right. He was worth more to Jim than she was if it came to a fight.
Amy rose and said, “You’re right, Anse. I’ll go.”
“But where?”
“I don’t know,” Amy said. “Somewhere south. I can pick up the trail of the herd where it crossed and follow it.”
Anse helped her into his new sheepskin coat, which was warmer than hers. When she looked at him she saw the rugged, sad and friendly face of a man she trusted.
She said gently, “Anse, take care of him, won’t you?”
Anse nodded. “You’ll be warm enough. Hurry now.”
The morning was clear and cold, and it was tonic to Amy. It frightened her to think that Jim’s life might be dependent on whether she could find the Blockhouse crew now. As she rode down through the cottonwoods, her horse rustling the dead leaves beneath the light snow, she tried frantically to think of where her father might be. She couldn’t; she didn’t know. One Blockhouse rider had drifted into the ranch four days ago for grub, and he’d told her only that they were crossing that day and that it would be somewhere south.
