Grey, Zane - Novel 27
Page 7
“Chess, you’re adding rudeness to your many other faults,” retorted Sue, haughtily.
“Aw, Sue, I beg pardon,” said Chess, contritely, as he slid her saddle and blankets to the ground. “I’m only sore. But I’ll get over it. . . . And listen. Chane’d never give you a cold shoulder. Now remember what I tell you. He’ll fall terribly in love with you.”
Suddenly a hot blush burned Sue’s neck and face. Ashamed, furious with her ungovernable and conflicting emotions, she turned away from Chess.
“Don’t talk—non-nonsense,” she replied, hastily. ‘Who is the stranger?”
‘When I saw he wasn’t Chane I just rode back,” returned Chess. “But soon as I ’tend to the horses I’ll find out for you.”
Chess mounted and went off whistling, leading Sue’s mount toward Ora’s tent. Sue kicked off her spurs and chaps and went inside her tent to change her masculine garb. It might have been that she paid the least bit more attention than usual to her appearance. Still* though she liked the more serviceable and comfortable garb of men for riding or roughing it, she had always, when possible, given preference to feminine dress. Sue sat down to await the supper call, quite aware of an eager appetite, which, however, did not prevent her from reflection. Presently there came a rustling footfall outside.
“Sue, I yelled once supper is ready,” called Chess. “I’ll bet my horse to your spurs that you’ve been doing the same as Ora.”
“What’s that?” asked Sue, as she spread the flaps of her tent and came forth.
“Aw, Sue!” he ejaculated, staring at her. His handsome boyish face expressed both delight and regret. “I never saw you—so—so sweet. . . . All for the benefit of the stranger! Ora primped up, too. Sue, you women are all alike.”
“Why, of course! Aren’t men all alike?” returned Sue, archly.
“Not by a dam sight,” he denied, “and you’ll find out some day.”
“Well, who’s the stranger?” demanded Sue, with undue interest, just to torment Chess.
“Ahuh! Well, his name’s Manerube—Bent Manerube. How’s that for a handle ? He’s a horse-wrangler from Nevada. Husky, good-looking chap. He’s just in from the Piute country, across the canyons. Sure looked like he’d been riding rough.”
“That’s the country I saw today from up high. Wild Horse Mesa! He can tell us about it, can’t he?”
“I reckon. But see here, Sue,” went on Chess, and as he faced about to walk with her toward the camp fire he took her arm gently and firmly. “Don’t forget you’re to be Chane’s sweetheart—and my sister.”
“Little Boy Blue, I’ll not be won by proxy,” rejoined Sue.
Whereupon he let go her arm and maintained g rather lofty silence. Sue stole a glance at him out of the tail of her eye. His face seemed different, somehow. Then they reached the camp fire and the supper table. Manifestly the men were all waiting.
“Hello, lass!” called her father. “Shore you an’ Ora have held up the festal board. . . . Sue, meet Mr. Benton Manerube of Nevada.—This’s my daughter. Now, everybody, let’s eat.”
Sue saw a tall man standing beside her father and she bowed in acknowledgment of the introduction. He had gleaming eyes that seemed to leap at sight of her and absorb her. Sue dropped her own. Chess, as usual, was promptly on hand with a seat for her and Ora; and in a moment they were supplied with bounti« fully laden plates.
“Sue, isn’t he handsome?” whispered Ora.
“Who?” queried Sue.
“Mr. Manerube, of course. Did you think I meant Chess?”
“Why, I hadn’t noticed.”
“Well, he’s noticed you, and I’m jealous,” declared Ora.
"Yes, you acted like it on the ride back to camp. . . . But I’m hungry.”
Some moments later Sue covertly stole a glance at the newcomer, who sat opposite, between her father and Loughbridge. Ora had not been mistaken about, the man’s looks, despite a discolored bruise on his face. His hair glinted in the sunset glow, and his complexion, though browned by exposure, was still so fair that it made the other riders look like Indians.
Sue, perhaps following Ora’s example, rather prolonged the eating of her supper. One by one the riders got up from round the tarpaulin tablecloth and clinked away to the tasks necessary before dark. Chess remained sitting cross-legged beside Ora, while Jake, always helpful, began to gather up the plates and cups. Sue’s father, having finished his supper, rose to his feet and threw some wood on the fire. Loughbridge got up and said something in a low tone to Melberne. They were both interested in the newcomer. Naturally this quickened Sue’s perceptions. Finally Manerube stood up, showing the superb figure of a rider and the worn, soiled garb of one who had surely been in contact with hard country. He wore a belt which swung low on his right hip with the weight of a gun. His blouse was a heavy checkered woolen garment, made by the Mormons, Sue thought, and as he wore no coat or vest, hia broad shoulders and deep chest showed strikingly. Hia unshaven beard, of days’ growth, was so fair that it did not detract from the fresh ruddy virility of his face.
“I sure was starved,” he remarked, in a deep voice with a pleasant ring. “No grab for a week, except with Indians. Reckon I could bless your womenfolk, Melberne.”
“Shore, I’ve been hungry,” replied Melberne, heartily. “You looked fagged. An’ Alonzo said your horses were ready to drop. Where you bound?”
“Well, nowhere in particular,” replied Manerube, slowly. “I was disappointed in my errand across the rivers. Fellow got ahead of me, buying horses from the Piutes. Reckon I’ll tie up with the first wrangler outfit in need of a good rider.”
“Ahuh! Do you know this wild-horse game?” asked Melberne, quickly.
Manerube uttered a short laugh. “Do I? Well, Melberne, I reckon so.”
At this juncture Sue noted how Chess sat up, after the manner of a listening jack rabbit. Sue appreciated her own little thrill of interest. What assurance this rider had!
“Have you ever caught wild horses in large numbers, so they could be shipped unbroken?” went on Melberne.
“I’m the man who started that game,” replied Manerube. “Shipped three thousand for Saunders last year.”
“Saunders? Do you mean the Mormon cattleman ?” asked Loughbridge.
“Jim Saunders of Salt Lake. He brought me over from Nevada. I was with his Kanab outfit.”
“Mel, I’m thinkin’ Manerube is the wrangler we’re after,” added Loughbridge, turning to his partner. “Let’s give him charge of our outfit.”
“Shore,” rejoined Melberne, quick to respond. “Manerube, if you’ll hang up heah we’ll pay you top wages, with a per cent of our profits.”
“Glad to help you out,” said Manerube, with a wave of his hand, as if success was assured. “Who’re your riders?”
Melberne enumerated and named them, as he knew them, by their first names.
“You’re forgettin’ Alonzo,” interposed Loughbridge.
“Alonzo. Is he a Mexican, a half-breed vaquero, catches wild horses alone?” asked Manerube, quickly.
“Yes, we have him,” replied Melberne.
“Know of him. Great wrangler, they say,” returned Manerube, thoughtfully. “But I reckon I never saw him. . . . Well, you’ve hardly got enough good riders to handle big bunches of horses. Perhaps the young ladies could help?”
Manerube, while talking, had not been unaware of the presence of Sue and Ora, and now he launched this query at them as well as their fathers.
“Oh, you’re not serious?” exclaimed Ora.
“Never more serious in my life,” replied Manerube, with a winning smile. “Can you ride? I don’t mean like a cowboy, but well enough to ride fast and hard.”
“Shore they can,” declared Melberne, speaking for the girls. “You’re sworn in as wild-horse wranglers.”
“Dad, I’m not so sure I want to be one,” said Sue, shaking her head.
“Why, are you afraid?” queried Manerube. “I can see Miss Loughbrid
ge likes the idea.”
“It’ll be gorgeous,” burst out Ora.
Sue looked at the new rider and did not like the something in his eyes any better than his intimation of her cowardice.
“No, I’m not afraid,” she said.
“Say, Sue’s got more nerve than a man,” interposed Chess, with spirit. “But she hates to see horses hurt.”
“Wal, we won’t argue aboot it,” replied Melbeme, genially. “Sue can do as she likes. . . . Manerube, you come across the valley. Did you see many wild horses?”
“Thousands every day. All the way from Wild Horse Mesa. That’s what the Mormons call the last stand of the wild horses. I saw the finest stock in all this country. It’d pay you, Melbeme, after you catch and ship all horses possible near the railroad, to go after the fine stock.”
“But shore we can’t drive over thirty miles,” protested Melberne.
“No. I meant to take time—catch the best wild horses and break them.”
“Wal, shore heah’s a new idea, Jim,” declared Melberne. “I like it. What kind of range land over there?”
“Finest grass and water in Utah,” replied Manerube.
“I heah there are horse thieves in the canyon country,” said Melbeme, dubiously.
“Reckon some outfits hold up over there. But you’re just as liable to run across them here. Fact is I run into some Mormon outlaws over across the San Juan. Stayed with them a few days. Not bad fellows to meet, though.”
“Who were they?” asked Loughbridge.
“Bud McPherson and two of his pards, Horn and Slack.”
“Bud McPherson’s pretty well known over St. George way,” declared Loughbridge. “You’ve heard of him, Mel?”
“Shore, I’ve heard of a lot of these horse thieves,” replied Melberne. “They’re not worrying me. I’ve had to do with that brand down in Texas.”
“Say, Manerube, how’d you come to camp with McPherson?” inquired Loughbridge, curiously.
It struck Sue that Manerube was not averse to talking about himself. She was interested, naturally, in so forceful a character, and there seemed something compelling about the man, but all at once she found she did not like him. Ora, however, appeared completely fascinated, a fact that Manerube had manifestly grasped. Chess, too, had, if anything, grown more attentive.
“I was hunting for some Piutes, and run right into Bud and his pards,” began Manerube, taking a seat on a log before the camp fire, somewhat closer to the girls. “It really wasn’t their camp, as I learned afterward. It belonged to the wrangler who beat me getting to the Piutes. You know I told you I went to buy horses for the Mormons. This wrangler got there first. Lucky for me, because McPherson was only hanging round to steal horses. It rather tickles me, for I had a little set-to with that wrangler. He gave me this black eye. But you should have seen him!”
Manerube put his hand to the discolored blotch on his face, and his last remark was addressed to the girls.
Sue became suddenly very attentive, not because of Manerube’s words, but because she saw that Chess was reacting strangely to this rider’s story. He half rose and leaned to listen. His slender body quivered. Through Sue flashed a sudden intimation.
“You had a fight?” queried Melberne, much interested, and he crossed over nearer to Manerube.
Jake likewise had caught the drift of the story, and he stood still, staring at the back of the rider’s head.
“Reckon so. He didn’t seem eager to throw his gun, and I had to beat him.”
“Wall, you don’t say!” ejaculated Melbeme, now as interested as any boy at the recital of a fight. “But shore you must have had cause?”
“Yes, I reckon I’d have been justified in shooting the wrangler. But as I said, he wouldn’t draw. . . . It was all on account of a pretty little Piute girl named Sosie. She’d been to the government school, talked English well, and was crazy about white men. The wrangler had been a squaw man among the Navajos, so I’d heard. Well, he was after Sosie pretty hard. Toddy Nokin, the old Piute father, told him to stay away from her. But he wouldn’t. Finally I felt sorry for Sosie. She was being fooled, poor kid. So I just picked a fight with that wrangler and pounded him as he deserved.”
Manerube ended his story with a casual nonchalance and a deprecatory gesture, as if he rather disliked his personal contact in the affair.
Sue was more than thrilled to see Chess rise with the guarded movement of a cat, sustaining and banding strength, as if for a leap.
“Ahuh!” ejaculated Loughbridge, with gravity. “Did you catch that wrangler’s name?”
“Why, yes, come to think of that,” replied Mane- rube, blandly. “It was Weymer—Chane Weymer.”
Loughbridge uttered an exclamation, either of surprise or dismay. And Chess leaped wildly to confront Manerube.
“You damned liar!” he burst out, in ringing passionate fury.
Manerube was certainly astounded. “What?” he ejaculated, blankly, and stared.
Chess’s face was white, his big eyes burned, his jaw quivered. He seemed strung like a whipcord.
“Chane Weymer’s my brother!” he cried, and his quivering hand reached to his hip for a gun that was not there. Then, quick as a flash, he struck Manerube violently in the face, a sudden blow that almost toppled the man over. Righting himself, he sprang up with a curse. Rushing at Chess, he lunged out and beat the boy down. Chess fell into Jake’s arms, and Loughbridge sprang before Manerube.
“That’s enough. He’s only a boy,” ordered Loughbridge, hurriedly, and he pushed the other back.
“Boy or not, I’ll—I’ll—” panted Manerube, hoarsely, with his hand on his face.
“No, you won’t do anythin’,” said Loughbridge, forcibly, and he pushed Manerube to a seat on the log. “Reckon you was provoked, but cool down now.” Jake was having trouble holding Chess, who wrenched and lunged to get free.
“Easy now, Chess,” said Jake, persuasively. “I’m not going to let you go. Why, boy, you’re just mad. You want to look out for that temper. I had one once. I know. Now you just hold on.”
Melberne came to Jake’s assistance, and then the two men, one on each side of Chess, held him firmly until he stopped wrestling. There was blood on his ashen face, and a piercing passion in his eyes. Sue read in them a terrible intent that horrified while it shook her heart. Chess fixed his gaze on Manerube.
“If I’d had my gun I’d have—shot you,” he panted, thickly. “You dirty liar! . . . I’ll bet you’re what—you made out my brother to be.”
Then Chess turned to Melberne. “Let me go. I’ll—I’ll behave. But I want you to know my brother’s— the soul of honor. If you’d known my mother you couldn’t believe this skunk. Chane wouldn’t lie—he couldn’t hurt a girl, white or red. If he went out of his way for an Indian girl—it was to befriend her. . . He’s big enough. He could marry a squaw, but it’d be out of the kindness of his heart.”
Sue was aware that Ora was clutching at her with nervous hands. Chess, just then, seemed magnificent in defense of his brother. Without another word he wheeled away, his white face flashed in the firelight, and then he was gone.
“Manerube, shore you might have kept Weymer’s name to yourself,” said Melberne, with asperity.
“How’d I know he had a brother here?” demanded the other, wrathfully. “He hit me—right where his brother hit me. ... And he’d better keep out of my road.”
“Reckon I’ll see that he does,” returned Melbeme. “And you’ll oblige me by not making trouble, if you want to stay with us.”
Ora began to cry and ran off in the darkness. Sue sought her own tent, considerably upset by the incident. Sitting down upon her bed in the dark, she went over the whole situation. After all, as far as Chess was concerned, it had only been another fight. It was not the first. This one, however, was serious. Chess had looked dangerous. He had been like a lion. Sue thrilled anew as she recalled the blaze of his eyes, the ring of his voice. Manerube did not show admirably. Su
e had not been favorably impressed by his narrative; besides, he was too big a man to beat a boy that way. Tme, Chess had given great provocation. Sue was thinking back to the real cause of the trouble when she was interrupted by her father outside.
“Sue, are you in bed?” he asked.
“No, dad.”
He opened the flaps of the tent, letting in a ray of firelight. Then he entered, to take a seat on the bed beside Sue.
“Lass, reckon I’d like your angle on the little fracas between Chess and this Manerube,” said her father as he took her hand m his.
Sue told him briefly and candidly what she thought about it.
“Wal, wal, I reckon I think aboot as you,” he replied, ponderingly. “It looks like this heah to me. Manerube wanted to cut a dash before you girls. . . . Chesty sort of rider. But I’ve met lots like him. Only not so well spoken. Either he’s not what he pretends or he’s been something different from what he is now.”
“I felt sorry for Chess,” murmured Sue.
“Poor boy! But shore I can’t see as he needed sympathy. He said what he thought, like a man, an’ he banged Manerube hard. ... Sue, if Chess had been packing a gun—there’d have been blood spilled.”
“Oh, dad!”
“Wal, I reckon I can control the youngster. . . . Sue, he shore must love that brother Chane.”
“Dad, I happen to know he worships him.”
“More’s the pity. I’m afraid Manerube was telling the truth.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Sue. “How—why—?”
“Wal, Loughbridge told me he had heard a lot aboot this Chane Weymer. Wonderful man with horses! He’s been in some shooting scrapes. Lonely sort of chap. But, shore, that’s all to his credit. It was the rumor aboot Indian squaws. . „ . Loughbridge heard talk in Bluff. Shore, it was Mormon talk. I don’t know. I’d like to believe Chess—he was so damn fine. Somehow he just made me jump. But I reckon the boy's wrong an’ Manerube’s right. Loughbridge thinks so. Wal, wal, I’m sorry. Good night, lass.”
Sue went to bed without lighting her candle. She felt a little shaken, and slipped under the blankets more quiekly than usual. Then she- lay wide awake in the darkness. She heard the low voices of men talking by the camp fire. The wind mourned through the cottonwoods. The night seemed sad. Poor devoted Boy Blue, with his wonderful love for the wonderful brother! It was well that the boy’s mother was far away in Colorado, far from the gossip that would wound a loving heart. Chane Weymer! The vague, strange shadow of an ideal faded. Sue experienced a slight sinking sensation, almost a sickness, and following that a little heat at her vagrant and unfounded fancies. She whispered to herself: “Poor boy! He said, ‘You couldn’t help but love my brother Chane!’ ”