The Lost Wagon Train

by Zane Grey

  “Dad, they can stay only a month. Mr. Lee has already arranged for them to go to Fort Union to travel with an escorted caravan. But I wouldn’t go if they were to stay until September…. Dad, I’ve had enough school. I want to stay home—to help you—to share your troubles.”

  “Why, you darling child, I have no troubles!”

  “I suspect you are an awful liar.”

  “Estelle!”

  “Let’s not argue now.”

  Always her slightest wish had been law to Latch. Long ago he realized he had spoiled Estelle, but even knowing it did not change him. All of the frustrated love and passion of his maturity centered in her. All that he thought of was to make her happy. To atone in some slight measure for the tragedy he had brought upon her mother!

  “Very well. You shall stay home,” he said. “I have thought only of your education. For me it will be glorious. But, Estie, what will you do—after the novelty of being home wears off?”

  “It never will. Anyway, I’ll ride all the horses, boss your vaqueros, keep your books, run the house—and look round for a husband.”

  Latch was too nonplused and startled to laugh. Estelle had grown up.

  “Husband!” The word was a blade piercing his heart. “Where, for Heaven’s sake, will you find him?”

  “Where do you think, you goose? Shall I go to Boston to look for one, or back to New Orleans? Not much! I want a big sombrero and a pair of high boots with spurs…. Don’t look so shocked, darling Daddy. It will probably take me some time. Because he must be like your

  Latch burned under the fire of that innocent expression.

  “In that case I will try to possess my soul until such dire event comes to pass.”

  That conversation occurred the very hour of her arrival. And every time thereafter when she sought him or happened to run across him the effect of her presence was the same. She was a vivid, intense personality, beginning to manifest some of the depth that had characterized her mother. She ruled Keetch absolutely. The old outlaw’s eyes had the warm loving light of a spaniel for its master. The Bensons had no child of their own, and Estelle’s home-coming was an epochal event for them. Mrs. Benson said to Latch, “Now your old rancho will hum!” and did not explain why she seemed vastly concerned. The Mexican servants in the house, the stable-boys and laborers, the vaqueros, all trooped to welcome the young senorita. As if by magic the life of the ranch seemed transformed. Latch’s heart swelled. Always he had borne in mind that this hour would come. He accepted it, rejoiced in it, and received from it a strength which braced him to confront the last stage of Stephen Latch’s stormy life.

  The great living-room, built of walnut cut in the valley, with its dining-table for fifty guests, its wonderful huge stone fireplace where oak logs blazed on this cool spring night, the polished walnut walls adorned with horns and skins and Indian trappings, the enormous buffalo bull head over the mantel, the rugs, the easy-chairs, the wide high-backed divan and the brightly colored lamps—all seemed to have been waiting for Estelle, to take on the meaning of home for some one beloved.

  After dinner, which on this occasion had been shared only by the Bensons and Keetch, they sat before the glowing logs.

  “Boss, did you tell the gurls aboot thet young rooster who wanted a job so bad?” queried Keetch, as he settled comfortably for a smoke.

  “No, Keetch, I forgot it.”

  “What young—rooster?” inquired Estelle, turning irresistible eyes upon her father.

  “Some cowboy who rode in while I was at the barn this afternoon late. Impudent rascal. He declared I needed him whether I wanted him or not,” replied Latch.

  “How interesting!” exclaimed Estelle.

  The other girls evinced something even more than interest. Latch, keen to grasp subtleties, wondered if they knew anything about this young man.

  “Keetch, you tell them,” said Latch.

  “Wal, jest before sundown a young fellar rode into the court,” began Keetch, genially, as one who liked to talk. “He came up, said howdy an’ throwed his leg across his hoss. I’ve seen a sight of riders in my day, but never only one thet beat him…. Boss, do you remember who I’m thinkin’ aboot?…Wal, he wasn’t as skinny as most cowboys. Built like a wedge, all muscle, an’ straight as an Injun. Handsome, too, gurls. Lean face, tanned dark, cut sharp an’ fine. Sort of cold, ’cept when he smiled. He didn’t take off his sombrero, but I reckon he was tow-haided. An’ he had the damndest pair of eyes I ever looked into. You-all shore would have liked him.”

  “I think we would,” agreed Elizabeth Proctor, demurely. Marcella giggled, while Estelle sat straight and tense, anticipating Keetch’s conclusion to this long preamble.

  “He packed two guns. Did you notice thet, boss?” went on Keetch. “An’ darn me if he didn’t flip oot one as a callin’-caird. Fact is he struck me like one of them trail drivin’ vaqueros. Salt of the earth!… Wal, this boy wanted a job bad. He was kinda testy aboot it, an’ I reckon gave yore dad a poor idee of….”

  “Not at all,” interposed Latch. “He struck me most favorably. I sent him away because he reminded me of the same boy of whom he reminded you, Keetch.”

  “Ahuh. I shore pondered aboot thet. Fust rider you ever refused, boss…. Wal, anyway, he gave us a cool stare an’ rode back the way he come. Somehow I was sorry to see him go.”

  “Dad, is this boy really the first rider you ever refused to help?” asked Estelle, swiftly, her color coming.

  “If Keetch says so it’s so,” rejoined Latch, regretfully. “I’m sorry.”

  “He reminded you of some other boy?”

  “Yes, dear, indeed he did. One I loved greatly and owed much.”

  “Oh, Dad, you’ve told me about him. How strange!” Her eyes quickened and dilated with thought. “Father, it is too bad you didn’t hire him.”

  “Why so?” inquired Latch, with his indulgent smile.

  “Because you will now have to hunt up this cowboy and give him the job he asked for,” declared Latch’s daughter, spiritedly.

  Keetch enjoyed this hugely, grinning broadly behind his hand.

  “Child, I can’t do that. I refused him before Keetch and Reynolds. It was easy to see Reynolds didn’t like him. I don’t say things, then retract them.”

  “Father darling, if you don’t hunt up this cowboy and give him a job—I will,” said Estelle. She spoke too sweetly, too coolly, she was too pale and dark of eye not to be taken seriously.

  “Estelle, if you think I was unjust I will reconsider,” declared Latch, hastily. “Certainly I would not permit you to ask him. That would make him a marked rider in Latch’s Field. But why are you so insistent? This isn’t one of your whims, dear.”

  “Dad, if it hadn’t been for this cowboy I wouldn’t be home tonight…. I’d be out on the range somewhere, kidnapped by two ruffians, held for ransom, because one of them said, ‘Latch will pay handsome for his girl back alive!’”

  Latch got up to face his daughter. With subtleties and uncertainties over, he reacted to stern facts as he had a thousand times.

  “Estelle, what have you kept from me?” he demanded.

  She turned quite pale. “Father, at Findlay we slept late—missed Bridgeman’s caravan. Bill was wild. But I made him drive out to overtake the caravan…. Well, we were held up by two bandits. No sooner had Bill stopped the horses when we heard a yell, ‘Heah!’… The bandits whirled around with guns aloft. The brush crashed—a man leaped out… Oh, Dad!—He shot—bang—bang! One of the bandits’ guns went off in the air. They fell. He had killed them…. Oh, it was dreadful! … Marcella fainted. Presently I saw Bill had driven off the road into the shade. I called for water. The young man took my scarf, wet it, and we brought Marce to…. Well, he was a cowboy—had just happened to be resting there. He saved all that money we had for you, Dad, and me…. He said he was only a no-good trail driver out of a job. I told him we’d feel safer if he rode along with us. He did so—stayed with us all the way to Latch’s Fie
ld. And he—I—well, I asked him to ride for us.”

  “Estelle Latch! You kept this from me?”

  “Yes, I—I didn’t want to distress you the very first thing,” she faltered. “Besides, he said he wouldn’t ask you for a job if I told you. That you’d overrate a little service. Wanted you to take him for himself. I had a time persuading Bill not to tell you.”

  Latch thoughtfully rubbed a slightly quivering hand through his scant beard. Verily this precious daughter was the vulnerable spot in his armor.

  “Mrs. Benson said that now my old rancho would hum,” declared Latch, with dry humor…. “My child, who has grown up—she was right…. But you should have told me at once. I understand the boy. But now I dare say he won’t work for me.”

  “I can get him to,” replied Estelle, shyly.

  “Oh, I dare say. Maybe you had him in mind when you made that—er, remarkable statement today.”

  “Daddy!” she cried, blushing furiously. “It was only in fun.”

  “Estelle, we shall make amends one way or another. … Now you girls run off to bed. You’re fagged out.”

  Estelle kissed him good-night, obviously relieved and mysteriously upset, glad to run off with the girls.

  Latch stared into the fire.

  “Gimme a cigar, you—— —— ——of an old outlaw!”

  “Haw! Haw! Don’t care if I have one myself…. Boss, ain’t she a little wildcat? An’ my Gawd! how sweet!… Wal, I’m gonna grow young again.”

  “Keetch, I’ve had that thought, too, God bless her!”

  They smoked and gazed into the fire. Keetch had grown old in Latch’s service. And Latch himself had begun to feel the stress of too full and violent years. They were old tried and true comrades now.

  “All for the gurl, Kurnel. I seen thet long ago,” said Keetch.

  “All for her, old-timer,” replied Latch, sadly. “But shall we be able to—to——”

  “So help us Gawd!… Boss, thar’s only one man livin’ now who can prove——”

  Latch lifted a hand to enjoin silence or discretion.

  “I said prove… Kit Carson is daid. Jim Waters is daid. Blackstone an’ his gang, Charley Bent, the white-livered renegade—Satana an’ his red divils, all wiped out last year in thet turrible fight with Buff Belmet’s caravan at Point of Rocks…. All daid but Leighton—all who could prove——”

  “How do we know, Keetch?” queried Latch, clasping and unclasping his hands. “It’s not possible that Leighton has not told.

  “Keetch, I should have shot Leighton long ago. It may turn out just as well that I haven’t. For we may find out what late cronies of his he has told.”

  “Ahuh. We agree…. Kurnel, what struck you hardest aboot this trail driver who rode in on us today?”

  “He looked like—Cornwall…. My God, how it hurt! That boy so like a son to me!… Keetch, I’ll never forget him.”

  “Nor I…. Wal, thet struck me, too. Somethin’ strange aboot this rider—same as aboot Cornwall. I don’t know what onless it’s the way they both looked at you.”

  “Keetch, did I ever tell you Cornwall had a younger brother of whom he often spoke? So sadly—bitterly!”

  “Wal, you don’t say. Thet’s news to me, boss. By damn, it’s shore interestin’. A brother? …This fellar is bigger. You can see he was born on a hoss. He has the range-rider’s eye. A lazy, cool, soft-spoken Texan, young in years, old in trail experience. Boss, the iron hasn’t struck in this lad’s soul. Thet’s the great difference, if he is Cornwall’s brother. Reckon we’ll never find oot. …Wal, an’ what aboot him struck you second?”

  “He roused that old deadly fear in me, Keetch,” whispered Latch, hoarsely. “How I have felt it—fought it all these years! What does this stranger know?”

  “Shore. We’ve lived under thet shadow. But hyar we air, Kurnel, kickin’ yet. An’ Estie is sixteen years old. By Gawd! we’ll run the race—we’ll finish…. But listen, boss. This trail driver saved Estie—more than her life, mebbe. He rode days on end with her. An’ you can bet your last dollar thet whatever he knows now or ever finds oot hyar, will never hurt her. I love that kid, an’ I’d kill any livin’ thing thet’d threaten her.”

  “Keetch, you were always keener than I. You may be right.”

  Next morning Latch strode down to the corrals to have it out with Bill Simpson. He found the driver on the bunk-house porch with Reynolds, Keetch, Simmons and some of the Mexicans. Bill knew what was coming, but did not flinch. Latch thundered a wrath that was not altogether genuine. But he had to be Latch still. He called Bill every disreputable name known to the range. Then he spun him around and booted him in the rear. Bill sprawled to his hands and knees. Then Latch booted him again, off the porch this time. Bill hopped up, red in the face, mad as a wet hornet, and exploded while he brushed the dirt from his clothes.

  “I can stand thet once, Steve Latch,” he fumed, after his profanity was exhausted. “But don’t you never kick me no second time!”

  “Don’t you keep things from me—you damned old sentimental jackass,” replied Latch, and called for a horse.

  He rode to town alone. It was fairly early and he doubted that the trail driver would be up. Hitching his horse, he went down the familiar street, stopping in at the stores, peeping in the saloons, except Leighton’s, which he always gave a wide berth, but he did not find whom he was looking for. Whereupon Latch made a long-neglected visit to his rancher allies, old members of his outlaw gang, who with him had turned honest. Each had been true to that vow. And all were living except Plug Halstead, who had been killed in Leighton’s gambling-den the preceding year. They were prosperous ranchers now. Tumbler Johnson was the only negro on the border known to be a squaw-man. Mizzouri had a wife and two children and was happy—a most amazing fact. Latch spent the morning with these old friends, invited them to the party he was giving Estelle on her sixteenth birthday, and rode away, as always, somehow warmed deep down by the truth of what he had brought to these men who at one time lived in the shadow of the noose.

  Upon riding into town again Latch espied his quarry lounging in front of Rankin’s store, talking to Jim Rankin, the older of the two Rankin boys.

  “Come here, cowboy,” called Latch, as he dismounted at the hitching-rail. “Jim, you go back to work. I’ve got business with this hombre.”

  Jim beat a hasty retreat while the cowboy leisurely advanced to meet Latch. They locked glances. Latch, on his part, felt relief. He thrilled. What a magnificent stripling! He suffered a qualm at thought of Estelle.

  “Howdy, Mr. Latch. I see you’ve looked me up,” drawled the cowboy.

  “Howdy. I’m sorry I can’t take credit all myself for looking you up…. You should have seen me boot old Bill this morning.”

  “Dog-gone! I’m shore sorry. That was my fault, Mr. Latch. I just didn’t want you to know aboot the hold-up, till after I’d seen you.”

  “Why didn’t you want me to know?”

  “Wal, I’m queer, the boys say. I’d shore liked to have rode for you, on my merits. But I reckon I wouldn’t take the job now.”

  “You wouldn’t take money or horses or land—anything?” asserted the rancher.

  “Nope, I reckon not. I’d have done that for anyone. But it’s shore nice to remember it was for Steve Latch’s girl.”

  “But listen, boy. You just can’t refuse,” protested Latch, earnestly. “Honest, you’re the first rider ever turned away in all these years. It wasn’t because you were a—a little queer—or swaggered some… but because you reminded me of a boy who was true to me once—who was more than a son to me.”

  “Hell you say!” came in the soft cool voice, accompanied by a flash of eyes that made Latch think of blue lightning. “Why are you askin’ me now?”

  “Well, as I’m being honest it’s because I’m in bad with Estelle. She said if I didn’t give you a job she would. And I’ll be darned if I don’t believe she’s up to it.”

  “Dog-gone!” ejaculate
d the trail driver, visibly disturbed. “Did she tell you the—the story I told her?”

  “Not a word. She told only about the hold-up.”

  “Latch, you cain’t let this girl of yours come offerin’ me jobs. Folks will talk. This is a hell of a place for talk. I shore got on to that last night.”

  “Of course I cain’t. That’s why I hunted you up.”

  “Wal, you tell her you did ask me an’ that I said no,” replied the young man, ponderingly. “An’ thet you reckon I’m a no-good trail driver drove off the trail.”

  “I’ll not tell Estelle that, because I don’t believe it. What’s your game, boy?”

  “Wal, Latch, I’m not sayin’ much aboot myself.”

  “Yes, I get that. And I think you’re wrong. You befriended me. You saved me ten thousand dollars—the last money I have, to be confidential. You saved Estelle, which was more than all the money in the world. Why shouldn’t you let me make some return?”

  “Pride man, pride…. She’s the wonderfulest girl—the loveliest I ever seen. A little lady—sweet and innocent. Full of fire an’ romance. Why, she’d turn any man’s haid. But that wouldn’t phase me. Suppose she took a shine to me? My Gawd! I couldn’t let her, Latch! She’s a kid. Just out of school. You’ve kept her too—too close. She never had a beau. Oh, I heahed the girls talkin’…. Wal, she’s your daughter an’ she’ll be a rich an’ great young lady before long. Not for a gun-throwin’ trail driver!”

  “Now you’ve got me in deeper. I won’t take no for an answer. I’ll take a chance on Estelle. And I’ll take one on you. Come out to the ranch.”

  “Damn it, man! When I talk straight out to you!” ejaculated the youth, his cool equanimity ruffled.

  “Straight talk always goes far with me. Besides, you haven’t said that you were no-good.”

  “Latch, how’n hell can I say so when I reckon I’m as good as anybody?” demanded the cowboy, hotly. “But you know what I mean? I’m a tramp rider. Haven’t a dollar ’cept what the boys chipped in an’ give me. All the boys an’ bosses on the Chisholm Trail—an’ all the cattlemen I ever rode for but Lanthorpe—they are my friends. Yet I got a bad name. It’ll follow me heah. I come from as good Texas blood as ever flowed in any man’s veins. But I’m poor, uneducated, alone. An’ I’ll never risk makin’ any girl ashamed or unhappy.”