Man of the Desert: A Western Story

by Robert J. Horton

  She remembered what Jim Crossley had said about Mendicott, the outlaw. For a fleeting moment she considered Channing in a new light—a most unfavorable light. But that flashing smile and the look in the gray-brown eyes reassured her. Still, she couldn’t forget the laugh she had heard the night before.

  After supper they moved to the sitting room, but Channing soon excused himself. Hope was very tired, her ankle pained, and her shoulder hurt where she had fallen when thrown from the buckboard. She told her uncle she believed she would go to bed, and he hurried for a lamp to show her up the stairs. Mrs. McCaffy accompanied them, anxious that Hope should have everything she needed to make her comfortable. Her solicitude for the girl’s welfare nearly moved the visitor to tears.

  When she was in her robe, ready to retire, Hope blew out the light in the lamp and sat before the open window. Her room was a large corner room with windows on the north and east. It was by the north window that she sat. The space between the ranch house and the bunkhouse was below. Farther back, she could glimpse the barns and other outbuildings. She marveled at the quiet beauty of the night. The shoulders of the mountains were lined against a sea of stars. A breath of wind was stirring, and it brought the scent of pine and fir from the timbered slopes. She could see the dim outline of the ridge to eastward, and her imagination pictured the silent, brooding desert that lay beyond.

  Her reverie was interrupted by the sound of galloping hoofs. She looked down and saw a rider come swiftly up the road toward the house and swing around in the direction of the barns. Then she heard her uncle’s voice calling from the porch.

  The rider brought his horse to a stop almost directly beneath her window. As he turned in the saddle, she recognized him. It was Brood, the foreman.

  Nathan Farman came around the house from the porch as Brood dismounted. There was another with Farman; it proved to be Channing.

  “You’re a long time getting up here,” said Farman crossly.

  “Had trouble with the cattle,” answered Brood shortly. “Stampede in a dust storm. I guess it was the dust. Had to gather ’em up. They’re in the south flat.”

  Brood stood before the rancher while Channing leaned against the side of the house, smoking a cigarette. The bunkhouse door opened and Jim Crossley came out. He hobbled toward the trio as rapidly as he could.

  “How’d those cattle happen to come out of Lost Cañon so fast?” demanded Farman.

  “I guess the wind started ’em,” replied Brood easily. “It blew strong up there. Lots of dust. They were away from us before they could be stopped.”

  “That’s an excuse,” said Jim Crossley as he reached them. “I was in front of ’em, but I got a glimpse of what was behind ’em. Them cattle was driven!”

  “An’ you busted into them, like a fool!” Brood exclaimed. “Busted into ’em an’ split ’em an’ made it all the worse.”

  “You mean I ran from ’em,” said Crossley hotly. “It’s just luck that Miss Hope wasn’t killed.”

  “By your breakneck drivin’,” Brood broke in viciously.

  “Just a minute,” said Farman sharply. “This is serious business, Brood. My niece was in that buckboard with Crossley, an’ she might have been killed, like he says. I’m not satisfied with your explanation of how the cattle came to be running out of the cañon like that. An’ I know that just wind won’t start any stampede.”

  “Well, it started this one,” said Brood with a hint of insolence.

  “You tried to blame it on me, last night,” Crossley jeered.

  Brood turned on him with an oath. “You an’ that tramp with you made it all the worse, didn’t you? You could have took things easy. I didn’t know you was comin’ down that road or who was with you, did I?”

  “That’s just it, Brood,” said Nathan Farman in a cold voice. “I think you did know. You’ve been acting strange of late, an’ I’ve laid it to spring orneriness, but if I thought you deliberately stampeded that herd, I’d . . . I might kill you.”

  Brood laughed harshly. “I take it the tramp’s been puttin’ some sort of bug in your ear,” he said scornfully. “Maybe he don’t like me any too well.”

  Channing joined the group. “The tramp can talk on his own hook, Brood. If I had had anything to say about how this stampede started, I’d have said it to your face last night. But I reckon Jimmy knows what he’s talking about.”

  “You goin’ to butt in here on something you don’t know anything about an’ that’s none of your business?” snarled out Brood.

  “Oh, I’m not butting in,” said Channing, waving his lighted cigarette nonchalantly. “You sort of dragged me in by hinting around about putting bugs in people’s ears. You talk, Brood, like you had a bug in your brain.”

  “You’re a meddler, you desert loafer!” cried Brood. “You ain’t even as good as a desert rat . . . he’ll work!”

  “That’s enough,” said Farman sternly. “You haven’t given me a satisfactory explanation of how the stampede started yet, Brood.”

  “I’m layin’ it to the wind an’ ain’t goin’ any further,” retorted Brood.

  “In that case I know it isn’t spring orneriness,” said the rancher coldly. “You’re too anxious to shove the blame for this thing where I know it doesn’t belong. I guess your usefulness as foreman on this ranch is gone. You can quit any time an’ it’ll be all right with me.”

  “Quit?” Brood blurted out the question in an incredulous tone. “Me quit?”

  “That’s what I said,” Farman replied evenly. “Any time you want to, an’ right now is just as good a time as any.”

  “After all I’ve done on this ranch?” cried Brood in a white heat of anger.

  “You’ve been well paid for all you’ve done,” said Farman, “an’ you’ve done some things you wasn’t paid to do.”

  “I suppose you’re goin’ to hire the tramp,” said Brood sneeringly. He turned on Channing. “Been back-talkin’ yourself into a job, eh?”

  “I hadn’t been thinking of going to work here,” drawled Channing.

  “But you’ve been thinkin’ mighty hard since this talk started, I’ll lay to that!” shouted Brood. “You butted in yesterday an’ you’re Johnny-on-the-spot tonight! Looks all regular, don’t it? Pawin’ around the boss an’ his niece! Funny you stayed away from this place so long till the girl . . .”

  “Leave her out of it,” commanded Channing. “You know how I met Miss Farman. Nate, here, will tell you I refused to go to work here before he ever thought of letting you go. You’re feeling mean tonight, that’s all.”

  “An’ you’re tryin’ to pull off something under cover,” shot Brood through his teeth. “You think you can get by wearin’ a gun an’ floatin’ a tough reputation. Here’s one that ain’t side-steppin’, an’ you can take that any way you want to.”

  Brood stepped back and assumed a half crouch. Both men were looking steadily into each other’s eyes, their narrowed gazes locked.

  “How do you want me to take it?” asked Channing in a low voice.

  “You’re yellow!” snarled out Brood.

  “No gun play!” cried Nathan Farman hoarsely, leaping between them just as it seemed the draws would come. “You’ve lied tonight, Brood, an’ I order you off the ranch. Get out, d’you hear?”

  Brood hesitated, his breath coming fast, his eyes narrowed to slits, his lower lip thrust out. Then he straightened and stepped back. “Farman, you’re a fool,” he said with a sneer. “You don’t know why yet, but you are. When you wake up, you’ll wake up with a bang!”

  “You won’t gain anything by threatening me,” said Farman in a voice that trembled with the force of his feeling. “Are you going?”

  “I’m going,” said Brood, his lips curling, “but that ain’t sayin’ I’ll never come back. Listen!” His voice became a hiss. “You’ve been lucky, understand? Till now!” He swung on his horse and galloped swiftly out of sight in the direction of the road leading around the barns toward the foothills.

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nbsp; Hope Farman drew back from the window. She sat and stared straight ahead into the shadows of the darkened room. It was all incomprehensible, but appallingly real. Tragedy had stalked under her window. She realized dully that in some way her uncle was menaced, and that her coming had hastened a climax. And, although she was new in this country of man-made laws, she sensed that Brood and Channing had been on the point of drawing their weapons against each other—that her uncle’s life, too, had been in danger. It was an awakening. She thrilled, and then she caught herself. These men were not at play!

  Chapter Six

  Channing was at the breakfast table. He was silent and thoughtful. Nathan Farman, too, was in a thoughtful mood, although he strove to conceal the fact from Hope. It was Mrs. McCaffy who was the life of the meal. She chatted with Hope on sundry topics and asked many questions about what was going on in the world beyond the desert.

  Farman and Channing left the table before the women had finished eating, and this gave Hope the opportunity she was awaiting. “Missus McCaffy, do you know what took place last night?”

  The housekeeper looked startled. “What do you mean, child?”

  “Didn’t you hear? My uncle, Brood, and Jim, and Mister Channing?”

  “Was you listening?” countered Mrs. McCaffy. “Dearie, you shouldn’t pay any attention to the men’s doings on the ranch.”

  “But it was over the accident we had coming here,” said Hope. “And it sounded to me as though my uncle and Jim suspected Brood of deliberately trying to run the cattle on us. Why should he want to do that?”

  “He didn’t want to do that, child, of course he didn’t. I’ll tell you this much, Miss Hope, an’ then you forget it. There’s been some trouble around here before and your uncle was waiting his chance to get rid of Brood, I think. I always figured that man was treacherous.”

  “There’s just one more thing, Missus McCaffy, and I . . . I don’t want you to think it strange of me to ask. You see, Mister Channing saved my life and I can’t help but feel an . . . a mild interest in him. Is it true that he is just a desert tramp . . . a waster, as my uncle says, and depends on his gun and his reputation, as Brood intimated last night? What do you know about him?”

  It was some time before the housekeeper replied. Then she said: “I don’t know a thing about him except that he’s good to look at, polite in his way, and, I believe, dangerous.”

  “I was wondering if . . . if maybe he had an occupation . . . oh, Missus McCaffy, after what Jim told me about this outlaw, Mendicottt . . .”

  The girl stopped speaking suddenly when she saw the frightened look in the housekeeper’s eyes as the latter put a finger to her lips in silent admonition.

  “Come out an’ I’ll show you my flowers,” said Mrs. McCaffy, rising.

  They went out on the porch and walked slowly along the flower bed, the housekeeper pointing to the roses that she had nursed so carefully. As they rounded the corner of the porch toward the bunkhouse, a team and wagon came up the road. A small, swarthy-faced man was driving.

  “It’s Mendez bringing your trunk,” said Mrs. McCaffy.

  Mendez stopped the team in the space between the ranch house and the bunkhouse where Channing was just in the act of mounting his horse, preparatory to leaving. Hope saw Mrs. McCaffy’s house girl, Juanita, standing near the kitchen door. She saw, too, the look that Mendez threw at Channing—a look that was brimming with hatred and malice. It seemed to her that emotion of some kind was continually asserting itself in the looks and actions of the people about her in this new land. Then Channing came riding toward her.

  Hope looked up at him as he swung his hat low in his free hand. Her look expressed cool surprise. Then she remembered that she probably owed her life to this man, and she smiled. He leaned from the saddle so that his words carried to her ears alone. “If you should get into a mess, and you probably will, and need a friend, remember my name.”

  With that he was gone, galloping toward the barn where his burros, packed and ready for the trail, were waiting patiently. Hope remained standing in the same spot where she had received his message, staring after him as he urged the burros into the foothill trail and disappeared from sight among the first growths of pine. If she should get into a mess—what a way of putting it. And he had intimated that she would. Why should she get into a mess—into trouble? She tossed her head in resentment.

  A cavalcade of horsemen came riding up the road to the ranch house. In the lead was a tall, blond, blue-eyed, boyish-looking individual, dressed in regulation cowpuncher regalia. Nathan Farman met them and called to the leader.

  “What’s the matter, McDonald?”

  The cowpuncher indicated the men behind him with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder. “Quitting,” he said laconically. “You’ll have to ask ’em what’s wrong. I don’t know.”

  He rode on toward the barn and dismounted while Farman confronted the half dozen men sitting their horses.

  “What’s the matter?” he demanded, addressing them as a whole.

  “We want our time,” said one of them, a burly man with bristling red whiskers.

  Nathan Farman’s face darkened. “You mean you’re quitting me right at the start of the spring roundup?” he asked sternly.

  “That’s about the size of it,” replied the other, while the men with him nodded their heads. “We’re plumb through an’ ready to go.”

  “It ain’t done!” cried Farman. “Men don’t quit at the start of a roundup on this range or anywhere else. You’ll have to stick till we get the calves branded, anyway.”

  The spokesman for the men shook his head. “Can’t do it. You didn’t give our foreman any notice, an’ we don’t have to give you none. We’re quitting an’ we’re quitting here an’ now.”

  “So that’s it!” roared the rancher. “This is Brood’s work, eh? Goin’ to cripple me by leaving me short-handed. I’ve got the right to fire a foreman on a second’s notice, but that’s no sign you men have the right to quit the same way. You go back an’ brand those calves. McDonald . . . McDonald!” He turned to the tall young cowpuncher as the latter came striding toward him. “I make you foreman. See that these men go back to work.”

  The men muttered among themselves and turned dark looks on both Farman and McDonald.

  “You heard what he said,” McDonald told them. His eyes seemed to have changed a bit in color, and he pressed his lips together tightly.

  “Don’t make no difference,” said the spokesman for the men. “You can’t make us work. We’re quitting an’ we want our pay.”

  “You’ll get no pay from me till you’ve branded those calves!” shouted Farman. He seemed to notice Hope and Mrs. McCaffy for the first time. “You women go into the house,” he ordered peremptorily. Nathan Farman’s face was white with rage as he again confronted the men. “You heard what I said about the pay,” he said grimly. “When you’ve branded the calves, you can have your pay, an’ what’s more . . .”—he bit his lip and frowned deeply—“I’ll give each man a bonus of twenty dollars. It’s highway robbery, but I’ve got to have the calves branded, for I’m taking a big bunch of stock into the forest reserve this summer, an’ some might stray an’ get mixed with other cattle. Now go to it. McDonald’s the boss.”

  But the men sat their horses stolidly, looking at their spokesman. The latter sneered openly at the rancher and McDonald. “We don’t want your bonus,” he said. “All we want is what’s coming to us now. We’re here to get it. Then we’ll leave.”

  “If you leave me this way, you’ll leave without it,” was Farman’s retort. The rancher was shaking with suppressed passion.

  A jeering laugh came from one of the men. He hurled a curse at Farman. McDonald sprang toward the man’s horse, evidently intending to pull him from his saddle, but, as he did so, the spokesman for the belligerent party drew his gun. McDonald whirled and dropped to his left knee as a bullet sang past his head. His gun barked from his hip, and the spokesman lurched forward in the saddle
.

  Farman, unarmed, ran to the rear door of the ranch house as Jim Crossley appeared in the bunkhouse door with a pistol in his good hand. McDonald had covered the others. They put spurs to their horses and galloped for the north trail. McDonald ran for shelter as a fusillade of shots came from the five departing horsemen.

  Nathan Farman confronted the two women in the kitchen.

  “I’m afraid things are coming to a showdown,” he said in a thick voice. Then he dropped into a chair.

  Chapter Seven

  While the women, stunned and frightened with the sudden tragic turn of events, stood looking at Nathan Farman, who had buried his face in his hands, McDonald appeared in the doorway leading to the yard. Farman looked up quickly and his eyes put the question.

  “Done for,” said McDonald, his face white under its tan. “Had to do it or he’d’ve got you or me, or both of us.”

  The rancher nodded dully. “Wasn’t your fault, McDonald.” He rose. “It’s Brood’s work,” he said savagely. “I’ve seen it coming all along. He’s been acting queer all spring. I believe he stampeded that herd intending to hurt my niece or Crossley, thinking it would get me off the ranch for a time while I took them to the doctor’s or something like that. I don’t know just what he’s after, but he’s pretty near out in the open right now. How many men have we left?”

  “There’s seven of us, not counting Crossley or the Mexican,” McDonald replied.

  “An’ all the spring work to do with not another hand to be got for love or money,” said Farman.

  “We’ll do our best,” said McDonald in a more cheerful voice. “May take us a little longer, that’s all.”

  “All right,” said the rancher, showing his old spirit. “Go to it, McDonald. You’re foreman. But watch out, for that crowd has you marked after what happened today.”