Wolves of the Chaparral

by Paul Evan Lehman

  “Shot him!” He met her startled gaze with a look of such utter misery that she impulsively drew him to her. “Tell me about it,” she said softly.

  He did; and somehow as he unburdened himself he began to feel better. When he had finished, he withdrew from her embrace and eyed her anxiously.

  “Son, we’ve been taught that to kill a man is a horrible thing,” she said slowly. “But out here where men must kill sometimes in order to live, it doesn’t seem so awful. Steve drew on you and fired before you pulled your gun. You shot in self-defense, and if you could prove it any jury would exonerate you. But you can’t prove it, and Horace Moley will hound you to the gallows if you stay to fight the charge. So you’ll have to run, Barry.” She got to her feet in that swift, birdlike way of hers, and started for the kitchen. “You make up a blanket roll. Take extra clothing and plenty of cartridges. I’ll fix a package of food and fill a canteen with coffee. If you carry your own supplies you can keep clear of towns.”

  He followed her impulsively, grasped her by the shoulders and swung her about. “Ma, you’re a brick!” he said, and kissed her.

  The matter of outfitting did not take long. Fortunately his step-father was in bed. Within fifteen minutes he had strapped a goodly sized package behind the cantle and had tied a filled rifle boot on the saddle. His mother stood on the gallery watching as he mounted the pinto. He rode over to her and, leaning from the saddle, held her to him.

  “Good-by, ma,” he said brokenly.

  “Good-by, son. Ride north. Don’t falter and don’t waste time blaming yourself. You did the only thing possible, and no matter what others think, God knows the truth. Get word to me where you are. Here—take this money. Be brave and true, and—and be—a good—boy.”

  She broke down then. Barry kissed her and straightened in the saddle. He could hear her sobbing as he rode away. He sat very stiff and erect, and a lump the size of a melon seemed to have caught in his throat. He bit his lip and dashed an angry hand across his eyes.

  Men, he knew, were not supposed to weep.

  CHAPTER II

  EXILE

  BARRY rode north, avoiding the towns, sleeping in out-of-the-way places, leaving the trail at the remotest sign of another traveller. In time he crossed into New Mexico, pushed onward into Colorado, where, safe from pursuit, he worked for a cattle outfit during the fall roundup.

  Here it was that he risked sending a letter to his mother, telling her of his escape, and asking that she address him under an assumed name at the town of Pike. When he was sure that sufficient time had elapsed, he went into the combination store and post-office with the intention of inquiring for mail.

  A man was seated on the counter dangling his feet. Barry caught his keen look as he stepped up to the window, and at the same moment saw the gleam of a metal star half hidden beneath his coat. Barry had instructed his mother to write him under the name of Butler; now, apprehensive that the officer was waiting to seize the claimant of such a letter, he asked for mail under an entirely different name.

  Of course there was none, and Barry turned away. The heartbreaking part about it was that while the postmaster was looking through the general delivery letters, Barry caught sight of one addressed to John Butler in his mother’s handwriting.

  He returned to Pike on several occasions after that, but always the sheriff was in the store; and he finally gave up his efforts to secure the letter. Had he but known it, the officer had never heard of either Barry Weston or John Butler. He was a brother of the storekeeper and boarded with him.

  At the end of the roundup, Barry headed north again, holding to the trail until he reached Sheridan, Wyoming. Having saved his money, he stayed awhile at this town, hearing finally of an outfit across the line in Montana that needed men. He applied for a job, and got it.

  He did not write again. Walt Bascomb, postmaster at Mescal, owed his job to the influence of Horace Moley. One letter from Barry had already passed through his hands; the next one might be intercepted. In an effort to forget his Texas home and the ones he loved, Barry plunged into the work of the range with a dogged determination that won him swift advancement.

  Spring came, and with it calving time. Barry had toughened and hardened under the rigors of a severe winter. The determination to win a place for himself in this north country had left its stamp upon him. He had become more serious of mein and feature; his blue eyes were somber; he rarely smiled.

  There was no regret for the shooting of Steve Maley. He knew that if he had given Steve the chance to fire another shot, he would have been killed. But he realized now that his hot temper might easily lead him into a quarrel that was not entirely justified, and he rigorously fought that hot emotion which arose within him and prompted him to act before he had thought.

  As a result he became somewhat slow of speech, forcing himself to turn things over in his mind before delivering an opinion. When angered, he formed the habit of staring fixedly at the object of his ire for a short space of time. Thus he was able to control his passion; but once decided that retaliation was justified, he went into action with the speed and fury of a cougar.

  By degrees he shed his exaggerated ideas of what constituted a man. He no longer swaggered, and he drank infrequently and sparingly. His curly hair was still a source of despair; but now that there was no Barbara Dawn in his life, he didn’t take the pains to control it, but conceded to Nature a victory that she would have won in any event.

  Always his mind was busy with thoughts of his mother and Barbara and Clement. They seemed with him constantly in spirit, and at times he longed so desperately for a sight of them that he would mount his horse and ride swiftly across the rolling rangeland in an effort to lose the urge in the sweep of the wind. Barbara had sent him home. She said she never wanted to see him again. He realized with a feeling of despair that perhaps she never would.

  He had long since sold the pinto. The animal was too conspicuous, and he had learned that a horse of solid color was more dependable and seemed to possess more stamina.

  Fall came, and then winter with its constant worries about drift fence and starving cattle. Spring and calf roundup, summer range, fall again—one season followed another swiftly. Always he worked. In his third year he was made foreman of Hank Steven’s big spread. His responsibilities doubled, and he had less time to think of Texas. He learned to handle men, to judge them, to reward and punish. Once they were bothered by rustlers, and Barry led a party of cattlemen against them. They were trapped and exterminated. Barry was forced to kill two of them, and in one case his habit of thinking before acting nearly cost him his life. When he was recovering from the wound he had received it occurred to him that, as in the case of Steve Moley, the emergency had found him calm, almost cold.

  Spring of the fifth year of exile found him a man of twenty-four, tall, broad of shoulder, somber of countenance, but entirely master of himself. The twentieth of May was his birthday. It dawned cold and dismal with the threat of rain in the air. He felt suddenly depressed, and in an effort to escape the drab dreariness he rode to Sheridan. At a saloon he had a drink which strangled without warming. He ordered another. For once in his life he felt like getting soddenly drunk. On the verge of tossing it off he stopped. A man had stepped to a place at the bar beside him. His clothes were ragged, his face unshaven, his gray hair straggled about his shoulders; but there was something in his makeup that Barry recognized. He looked into the back-bar mirror and studied the man’s face until he was sure of the identification.

  “Howdy, George,” he said quietly.

  The man turned an apathetic face towards him, then the old eyes brightened and the seamed face crinkled in a smile.

  “Barry Weston, by the eternal!”

  “George Brent, of Mescal, Texas!” They shook hands delightedly. “George, what under the sun brings you up here?”

  “I’m ridin’ the grub line, Barry,” said George sadly. “Funny, ain’t it? When you left I was runnin’ my own spread, the old Sla
sh B. Now it’s gone, and I’m plumb busted and just about down and out.”

  He turned to the liquor which he had ordered. Barry left his own drink untouched.

  “This is my birthday, and we’re goin’ to celebrate,” Barry told him. “We’ll hunt up a restaurant and have the best meal they can turn out. Come along.”

  “I—I ain’t got much dinero, Barry,” apologized Brent. “And I ain’t a bit hungry. You eat and I’ll watch.”

  “You’ll eat with me, old-timer, and you’ll talk. Gosh, George, I’m full of questions. First off, how’s mother?”

  “Now don’t you start askin’ questions now. Wait till we git to the rest’rant and I’ll give you the whole story while we’re eatin’. Lots of things have happened in Mescal Basin since you left.”

  No more was said until they were seated in a cafe with a generous meal spread before them. Brent plunged into his story without any urging on Barry’s part.

  “You asked me how I got up here, and I reckon I’d better tell you that first. It ain’t a long story. Mescal Basin is on the down grade—been goin’ down steadily for a couple of years. Two seasons of drouth and cattle disease danged near wrecked us, Matt Billings especially. Yeah, your ma’s Flyin’ Wand the Cinchbuckle was hit too, but not as hard as Matt’s MB. The sickness started on his range, but luckily for the rest of us it was fenced—only spread in the Basin that is—and the rest of us managed to save somethin’.

  “About a year ago I’d reached the end of the string. As a last resort I went to Judge Moley to see could I get me a loan of some money. You know folks always figgered he was rich. I didn’t have much hope—jest took a reckless plunge, you might say. Well, Horace agreed to lend me ten thousand dollars to restock, takin’ a mortgage on the Slash B as collateral for the loan. I give him the mortgage right willin’, for I had everything to gain and nothin’ but a few scrawny cows and a dry range to lose. I bought me some prime breedin’ stock and started out to build up the old Slash B. Well, sir, I’d hardly turned my new herd into pasture before the whole danged outfit was rustled.”

  “Rustled!”

  “Yes, sir. Never had no rustlin’ of any account in the Basin before, but they sure stripped me clean. Me and the boys started out after ’em, but they split the herd into small bunches and hazed ’em through the south hills and across the Border. Leastwise, that’s what we think they did; never could find out for sure. Since then some of the others have lost stock—the Cinchbuckle and the Flyin’ W. Seems like an outlaw named Tug Groody has a gang operatin’ in the south hills, and it ain’t far from there to the Border.”

  “What’s the matter with the sheriff?”

  “The same thing that’s ailed him all along—laziness and inefficiency. Yeah, Sam Hodge still has the job. Horace Moley gits him reelected every term some way or other. Well, Sam chased around in the hills lookin’ for Tug, but somehow he never caught up with him. As I said, they cleaned me complete. When the time came to make a payment on my note, I went to Horace and asked for an extension. A bank had opened up in Mescal run by a feller named Alonzo J. Frothingham, and Horace told me he had discounted my note and turned the mortgage over to the bank. I went to Frothington, but he refused to give me any additional time and sold me out. The Slash B was bought by Steve Moley.”

  Barry stiffened in his chair. “Steve Moley!”

  “Yeah. What’s the matter?”

  Barry had gone white. “Steve Moley! I—I thought—”

  “You’d killed him? Shucks, no. I wish you had. Didn’t nobody write you? He got well and is onerier than ever. If ever a jasper needed some killin’ it’s Steve; but your bullet didn’t do the trick—worse luck.”

  Barry drew a deep breath. “Then I didn’t kill him! I can go back!”

  “Sure you can. But there’s mighty little left to go back to, except your mother.”

  “Tell me about her, George. She’s well?”

  Brent lowered his head and for a moment was busy trying to corral some peas on his knife. Barry leaned over the table and gripped him by an arm.

  “George, why don’t you answer? She’s well, isn’t she?”

  Brent looked up soberly. “Well—no, Barry, she ain’t. She had a shock a year or so ago. When I left she was in bed, but she was gettin’ better. Only—well, them things come back, you know; and now that it’s safe, I reckon you’d better be gittin’ back there to look after her.”

  “How long has it been since you saw her?”

  “Barry, I reckon it’s close to a year. But don’t take it so hard, son. I’m sure she’s all right. Maybe I gave you the wrong hunch when I said you ought to go back. I just meant that the Flyin’ W needs you now that your step-father has gone haywire.”

  Barry frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Chet Lewis is a bum,” said Brent deliberately. “I know you never liked him, but I’d be bound to say the same thing if you did. Right after you left he took to drinkin’ and loafin’. The ranch run down somethin’ terrible. Lately he’s been pesterin’ your ma to sell out to the Moleys. Horace and Steve must be gittin’ land crazy. I heard they were after Barbara Dawn to sell the Cinchbuckle too.”

  “Let me get this straight, George. You say they’re after Barbara to sell the Cinchbuckle. What’s the matter with her father and Clement? They used to run that spread.”

  “Charley Dawn died a couple years ago. He left the ranch to Barbara and Clement and Clay. And now that Clement’s gone—but maybe you didn’t hear about that either?”

  “George, you’re the first man to bring me news from Mescal in the past five years.”

  “Well, Clement and Steve had a run-in. Steve kept hangin’ around the Cinchbuckle, mostly when Clement was away. Heard tell that Clem had ordered him off the spread. One day he walked in on ’em when Steve was badgerin’ her to sell. They had words, and Clement popped him.”

  “George, he didn’t!”

  “I’ll tell a man he did. Knocked Steve plumb loose from his boot heels. The very next night Clem tangled with Cal Garth, one of Steve’s pet gunmen. It was back of the Palace and nobody saw it. There were two shots, and when the crowd run out Cal was layin’ on the ground deader’n a mackerel. Ace Palmateer, who owns the Palace, and his two bouncers were first on the spot. They kept the crowd away until Sheriff Hodge got there. At the inquest Hodge swore that Cal’s gun was fully loaded and in his holster. That made it murder, and if Clem ever comes back to Mescal he’ll sure swing for it.”

  “Clement never shot a man without giving him a chance,” said Barry flatly.

  Brent shrugged. “There are lots of folks that believe the same, me included; but when the other jigger is found with his gun unfired and in his holster, especially a gunman like Garth, there ain’t but one verdict a jury can bring in.”

  “So Clement had to run for it,” said Barry slowly.

  “Yeah. That left the Cinchbuckle in the hands of Barbara and Clay, her younger brother. The girl runs it, and, Barry, she is one little lady to tie to! Knows her cows. And han’some? Son, she’s as purty as a new yaller buggy with red wheels.”

  George finished his meal with a sigh of satisfaction. Barry had pushed back his plate when he heard the news of his mother’s illness. Now he got to his feet. “George, I’m headin’ back to Mescal. What are you aimin’ to do?”

  “Look for a job like I been doin’, I reckon. It sure is tough. I look like a bum and feel like one. And I’m gittin’ old.”

  “We’ll fix that in a hurry,” said Barry tersely. “I’ve got a boss that ranks Ace high, and I’m takin’ you to see him. Come along.”

  They went to a store where, despite Brent’s protests, Barry bought him some new clothes. When a barber had clipped his hair and shaved him, George Brent was a new man in appearance.

  “I’m thankin’ you, Barry,” he said quietly. “If you aim to give me a job I’ll pay you back out of my first month’s wages.”

  Soberly they rode from Sheridan, Barry’s joy at the reunion dam
pened by the news which Brent had been forced to impart. Presently he began to ask questions, and Brent answered brightly in an effort to divert. Yes, his mother often spoke of him. True blue, Mrs. Lewis. Chet couldn’t talk her into selling the Flying W; she felt that it belonged to Barry even if the title was in her name. Ace Polmateer had added a dance floor to the Palace and had engaged a string of girls. Steve Moley was crazy about one of them. No, he didn’t mess around Barbara much; she was keeping company off and on with Alonzo J. Frothingham, the president of the new bank. And so on until Barry’s range captured their attention.

  They dismounted at headquarters, and Barry led his friend directly to Hank Stevens. The introduction was short and to the point.

  “Boss, meet up with a friend from Texas. Name’s George Brent, and he sure savvies cows. He’s your new foreman.”

  “You’re not leavin’ Barry?”

  “Yes. Brent tells me that my mother is—very sick. Maybe she is already gone. I got to go back to her, Hank.”

  Stevens had Barry’s full confidence. “How about that shootin’ scrape?”

  “The man didn’t die after all. If he’s had a hand in mother’s illness—if he worried her until she broke down, I may have to finish the job. Anyhow, I got to go back. Boss, we have some good men on the spread, but they’re all cowboys. Brent is a rancher; he owned his own spread in Texas. He’ll make you a good foreman.”

  Hank was a man of quick decisions. “Your recommend is good enough for me, Barry. Brent, you’re on the payroll as foreman startin’ today.”

  Barry spoke tersely. “You can draw up a check for the money you’ve been holdin’ for me. I’ll cash it at Sheridan on my way south. While you’re doin’ it I’ll be gettin’ my outfit together.” He nodded shortly and left the room.

  The two men looked after him speculatively.

  “There goes a square, upstandin’ man if there ever was one,” said Hank. “I sure hate to lose him.”