by Max Brand
“What’s loose, Spot?” asked Milman.
“Hell’s loose,” said Gregory shortly. “Plumb hell, is what is loose!”
Then he remembered the ladies and by way of apology, he took off his hat.
“Go on,” said Milman.
Gregory pointed with a long arm.
“Champ Dixon, he’s jumped the water rights. He’s camped with about twenty men and he’s runnin’ a fence on both sides of Hurry Creek.”
Georgia Milman jumped to her feet.
“The scoundrel!” said she.
Her father pushed back his chair with an exclamation at the same moment, but Mrs. Milman looked up to the ceiling with narrowed eyes, and did not stir.
“They’re keeping the cows away from the water?” demanded Milman.
“That’s what they’re doin’.”
“I’ll get—I’ll send to Dry Creek, and we’ll have the law out here to take their scalps. That murdering Dixon, is it?”
“Champ Dixon.”
“Did you see him?”
“I talked to him.”
“Does he know that we can have the sheriff—”
“He says that it’s all legal. That your title from Little Crow ain’t worth a scrap and that he’s got the real title, now, from another buck in the tribe.”
“They’re going to use the law. Is that what you mean?” asked Milman shortly.
“That’s what they say. Billy Shay is behind the deal. Him and his crooked lawyers, I suppose.”
“Shay, too!” exclaimed Milman. “I’ll—I’ll—”
He stopped.
Perspiration began to pour down his face, though the morning was cold enough.
“Oh, Dad,” said Georgia, “what can we do?”
“We gotta pay two dollars a head for water rights,” said the foreman, writhing in mighty rage at the mere thought.
Milman turned purple, but still his expression was that of a dazed man.
Said Mrs. Milman suddenly: “There’s only one thing to do, my dear.”
“What can we do?” said her husband.
“We can drive them from the water by force.”
“Not that crowd,” declared the foreman. “I know ’em too dog-gone well. I saw the face of a lot of ’em, and I knew ’em out of the old days. They’re a hand-picked bunch of yeggs. Every one of them is a gunman with a record. And there’s Champ Dixon at the head of ’em! You know Dixon.”
“I know all about Dixon,” said Mrs. Milman. “But—we’ve got to get the cows to the water. We have neighbors. We’ll have to send to them all. The Wagners and the Peters and the Birch families will never in the world say no to us.”
“They’ll never budge agin’ a fellow like Dixon,” prohpesied the foreman. “They all know his record. We need State troops. Besides, Dixon is claimin’ the law. The Peters and the rest would ride with us agin’ plain rustlers, or such. But not agin’ Dixon and the chance of the law, besides.”
“He’s right,” said Milman, dropping his head a little.
He looked like a beaten man. Silence came into the room like a fifth person and laid a cold hand on every heart.
Then Mrs. Milman went on in her gentle voice: “The cows will soon be dying, my dear.”
Her husband looked wildly up at her and then away through the window. At that very moment a calf began to bawl from the feeding corral where the weaklings were kept.
“We can run the pump night and day—” he began.
“That well runs dry with very little pumping at this time of year,” said his wife.
“We could dig—”
“You know how deep we have to dig in order to get water, and through what rock. The cows will be dead, my dear. Every animal on the place, except the few that we can water from the mill—and precious few that will be.”
“You’ve heard Spot Gregory talk,” said her husband. “He knows these people and what they can do. God help me!” He was suddenly in a blank despair.
Said Mrs. Milman: “Georgia!”
“Yes, mother.”
“Take a horse and ride to the Chet Wagner house. Tell Chet what has happened. Ask him if he’ll come over here and help us fight. Remind him, if you have to, how we helped him through that bad winter, two years ago.”
“I hate to go begging to Chet,” said the girl. “He—”
“Are you going to let your pride stand between you and bankruptcy?” asked her mother coldly. “Chet is a good lad. He’ll never say no to you.”
Georgia looked desperately at her father for help.
“No, no, Georgia,” said he. “I won’t allow you to use your influence when you—”
“Georgia might fetch in the Wagners,” admitted Spot, thoughtfully. “And I might be able to raise the Birch outfit. Tom Birch always was a pretty good friend of mine I dunno about the Peters. They’re a pretty hard lot. We can try ’em, though. But I tell you what, we ain’t got the kind of men ridin, this range that can stand up to such a bunch as Dixon’s crew. However, it’s better to make a try and slip than not to try at all. It’s the ghost of the law that he has behind him that’s gonna hold back everybody. It’s just robbery, I know. But you’d have to pay him two hundred thousand dollars for a quit claim!”
There was a faint cry from Milman.
Then he exclaimed: “Well, if the worst has come to the worst, two hundred thousand will have to be paid—and then we’ll fight him in the courts and get the money back!”
“Get back water from the desert!” said Mrs. Milman, her voice much gentler than her words. “Are you going to quit and surrender, my dear?”
“Look the thing in the face!” exclaimed her husband. “What else can I do? The cows—”
“I’d rather,” said Elinore Milman, “see every cow and horse on the ranch dead of thirst than to allow crooks to beat you in this manner. Get the money back from them in the courts? Why, ten minutes after you paid the cash down, they’d have scattered to the four winds. Get the money back, indeed!”
This grave speech had such weight that Milman suddenly threw his hands above his head.
“I’ll get our boys together and lead ’em down!” he cried. “Spot, send out a call to—”
“No,” said the foreman with unexpected firmness.
“Are you going to quit on me, too, Spot?” asked Milman sadly.
“I’ll do my share of range ridin’,” said Spot, “and I’ll keep care of the herd, and I’ll do my share of fightin’, too. But I’ll never go against the mob that I saw down there by the river until we’ve got the odds on our side. I’ve only got the ordinary share of sand. I ain’t got enough to want to throw myself away. Why, Milman, there’s single men down there that would eat any three men we’ve got, and eat ’em before breakfast.”
“You see, Elinore?” said the rancher to his wife, in despair.
“Well,” she said in her usual gentle calm, “go ahead and see what neighbors we can get to join us. If they haven’t turned up by five or six this evening, I’ll take a gun and see what I myself can do with the desperadoes.”
CHAPTER 18
A Volunteer
They looked at her in amazement.
Her cheek had not reddened, her voice had not altered or her eye brightened. She was as gently calm as ever, but suddenly they knew that she was steel. All three stood like children before her.
She explained to her husband: “I’ve put a good deal of my life into this ranch and its affairs, my dear. If I have to die for the sake of it, I’ll die without a whimper. But in the meantime, let’s find out what our friends will do. Georgia, ride to see Chet Wagner. You try the Birch family. I’ll go to the Peters myself.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” broke in Milman. “You ride about begging? I’ll go myself. And you stay here!”
She nodded at once.
“Of course, I’ll do what you wish, my dear,” said she.
But when the other three left the room, they all realized something they had never guessed
before—that little Elinore Milman was the real controlling force in that ranch. Her own husband had not dreamed how true it was, but looking dizzily back through the years, he could now realize that a hundred times her voice, like a hand upon his shoulder, like a hand at his back, had pushed him along the way she chose, and given him courage for great attempts.
There was something mysterious—this utter manliness of resolution in a woman—and to the mystery they trusted a good deal. If her body were small, her soul was so great that it seemed to all three of them an overwhelming thing.
They took horses at once and cut across country in varying directions.
There were a few squatters here and there who might have been picked up more quickly, but Milman’s outfit, for many good reasons, was not on speaking terms with the squatters. The nearest big ranches were the only ones likely to be able to send forth men in sufficient numbers. Chet Wagner, in particular, was as brave as a lion, though Georgia blushed when she thought of appealing to him for help.
However, she set her teeth and went grimly on her way. She had a good fast half-bred gelding under her, and the horse worked well this morning. Her spirits rose. The keen morning wind of that gallop cut into her face and blew away her doubts and sense of shame. After all, what was shameful in asking the help of a man who once had asked her to marry him?
She thought back to her mother, rather bewildered by that quiet exhibition of strength, and yet she could tell herself that many a time before she had found the steel under that silken glove.
Her heart rose higher. Every rock was flashing with dew, and the grass sparkled. Midsummer would have been thrice as trying, but at this season the dew alone would enable those hardy range cattle to last quite a time. In the meanwhile, they could find some way. If the neighbors could not or would not help with guns, they might help with wise counsel. The familiar face of the big blue mountains was a comfort to her, also. They had looked down on her through so many happy days that it seemed impossible that they now should see her in despair.
All would come out well, she told herself. There was too great a crop of chivalry and manhood in the West for the Milmans to be abandoned in their time of need.
Then, as the horse trotted to the top of a low hill which looked down upon a wide, pleasant hollow, she reined it in suddenly with a leap of the heart. For over the opposite knoll swept a big mule deer with its long ears laid back with the speed of its running It floated down the hillside with the peculiar, bounding gait of its species, and the girl, watching and wondering, listened for the cry of dogs behind it, or the howl of the wolf running on the trail.
There was no such outcry, but an instant later over the same hilltop darted a rider on a black horse which had a strange vest of shining white over the breast and the lower part of the throat.
Instantly she recognized the markings which had given the Duck Hawk its name. And she saw the rider skillfully jockeying the fleet mare down the slope.
It lost ground. Nothing that lives and runs on four feet can keep up with a mule deer over sharp ups and downs. As though it had wings, the deer smote the ground and rose, and settled, and floated forward again with apparent lack of effort.
But in the flat of the hollow it was a different matter. The Hawk, stretched out in a straight line, came like the wind, and the frightened deer, with the shadow of a swinging rope whipping across it, vainly strove to dodge.
That instant the rope started out and the deer, snagged around both forefeet, tumbled head over heels.
It was fast to rise, but not fast enough.
Out of the saddle whipped the rider, and the hunting knife flashed across the tender throat of the deer as it threw up its head to rise. Then, stepping in, the Kid gave the poor beast the coup de grâce.
It was over in an instant.
But Georgia Milman found herself laughing with excitement. Here was a man who ran down his venison on horseback! And suddenly she thought of the wild Indians of the old days. Such feats must have been accomplished by their most famous riders, now and then, a thing for the hunter to boast of to the end of his days!
But there would be no boasting from the Kid.
Before she started her horse down the slope, she saw his knife expertly at work in cutting up the quarry—speed and business were combined with a rare efficiency.
And it seemed to the girl that it was as though she had seen a hawk drop out of the sky. Now it tore the prey which it had struck down, and presently it would be winging away across the hills.
She jogged the gelding down the hill, but had not gone far before the Hawk jerked up her head and whinnied softly. The Kid, at this, stood up from his butchering and watched the newcomer. He raised his hat and waved it to her while she was still at a little distance.
“There’ll be venison steaks around here in another half hour, Miss Milman,” said he. “Hop off and wangle the fire, while I get the cuts off.”
She shook her head, still smiling down at the red-handed killer and his kill.
“Do you do that often?” she asked him. “Do you run down your meat like that very often?”
“It keeps the Hawk on edge,” said he. “Nothing like a good brush through rough country to tune up a horse.”
“And nothing like a run after a mule deer to get you a broken neck,” she observed.
He nodded, but there was no seriousness in his face.
“Well, rifles make a lot of noise,” said he, “and ammunition costs a lot and weighs a lot. This is the Hawk’s fourteenth deer, if you’ll believe it.”
The girl looked critically at the mare. She was breathing hard, but her head was up, her eye was bright, and it was patent that she was still full of running.
“I’d believe almost anything about her.”
Her face darkened suddenly.
“Are you with those people back at Hurry Creek?” she asked him. “Are you out here hunting for that crew?”
“What crew?” said the Kid. “Who’s at Hurry Creek? I thought that ran out on your land?”
“You’re not one of them,” she nodded, with a sigh of relief. “No, if you were with them, of course, you’d be the top man, and not Champ Dixon.”
“Oh Dixon’s there, is he? What’s his game?”
“Jumping my father’s water rights.”
The Kid squinted at the skyline, as if he hunted for a thought.
“That’s the only water on your place, isn’t it?”
“That’s the only water,” nodded the girl. “They’re herding the cows back from the creek and putting up a line fence on each side.”
“Dixon and Shay,” nodded the Kid.
“How do you guess at Shay, too?”
“I’ve heard that they’re working together. Dixon turns the rabbit, and Shay eats it. They make a pretty neat pair, working together.”
“There’s another man coming,” she said, pointing to a horseman who had just bobbed into sight in the far distance, in the same direction from which the Kid had come on his hunt.
“That’s my partner,” said the Kid, without looking. “But you never have partners,” said the girl.
“I’ve changed my ways,” he declared briefly. “Are you going to dynamite Dixon and his men? How many has he?”
“Something more than fifteen. About twenty, I think.”
“That’ll take some blasting. I know the kind of fellow he’d pick for company on a job like that.”
“He’s got ’em,” said the girl. “Well, I’ll drift along. I’ve still got a stretch ahead of me.”
“If I can be any help,” said the Kid suddenly, “give me a call.”
She jerked in the reins so quickly and so hard that the gelding reared, and then landed prancing.
She paid no attention to this. She sat the saddle like a man, conscious of strength, and unafraid.
“What do you mean by that?” she asked. “Help us against Dixon and his lot?”
“If there’s to be a game,” said the Kid lightly, “I might as
well sit in for a hand or two.”
She stared at him.
“Would you do that just for the fun of it?” she asked him. “You see how it is,” said the Kid. “That would give us an excuse to camp in one spot until we’d cleaned up this venison. Otherwise, a lot of it will go to waste.”
She, watching him curiously, could not help asking: “Is there anything in the world that could make you take care of your neck?”
“I carry a thousand dollars’ insurance,” said the Kid. “You can’t expect a man to do more than that.”
She laughed heartily, and said:
“D’you seriously mean that you’ll help us?”
“I’ll shake on it,” said the Kid, extending his hand.
She moved her own, then jerked it away.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t think I have a right to tie you down to a promise. But if you’ll go back there to the ranch house and tell Mother that you’re a little interested, she’ll think you’re an angel newly out of heaven!”
CHAPTER 19
Two Reasons
When Mrs. Milman had finished her second promenade between the house and the woods, walking with a quick, eager step, she was no closer to a solution of the problem than before. She knew that the ranch was confronted by the most imminent danger of destruction. And the place meant something more than dollars to her. Sometimes her mind turned quickly toward her husband, now far off trying to bring guns to help them, but her confidence in her spouse was not great. He was made of too mild a metal to cut through to the heart of such a problem as this.
And for her own part?
She measured out her way with the same brisk steps, her head high, using a long stick for a cane like one of those dainty great ladies of the old century who had played at dairy maids in the woods of the Trianon.
She had completed her second round when, pausing by the verge of the woods, she watched two horsemen coming up the slope, one on a sorrel and one on a black with a white breast. Men and horses were about of a size, she decided, but the black had a way of going that made his rider appear small and light. He danced up that hill as though a mere form of paper were in the saddle on his back. Somewhere before she felt that she had seen that horse.
