by Max Brand
She was an expert in horses, but she was a still greater expert in men, and that rider of the black horse had a way of holding up his head that pleased her. It was, in short, like her own, though this did not come into her mind.
The pair of strangers were well up to the top of the rise, and coming in between the wood shed and the feeding corral before she recognized the Kid, and her heart leaped. For she was, as has been said, a connoisseur of men. Besides, she could remember how that single man had entered the house of Billy Shay, and how fugitives had begun to appear at its doors and windows, as though thrust out by an explosion.
Suppose such a man were applied to the affair down there at the creek.
But no! He was far more apt to be in the employ of Champ Dixon, that wily cutthroat.
She waved her stick as they came closer and the Kid, seeing her, turned instantly in her direction. Lightly as a dancer, the Duck Hawk came on, flicking the dust behind her. Then the Kid swung down to the ground and took off his hat. Bud Trainor, behind him, and a little to the side, did the same thing.
“Are you Mrs. Milman?” said the Kid.
“Yes,” said she. “Have you seen me before?”
“I simply guessed,” said he. “I was looking for the lady of the house. This is my friend, Bud Trainor.”
Here Bud mumbled something, downfaced, for Elinore Milman was several cuts above the people of his familiar world. “And I’m called the Kid, by most people.”
“I saw you calling on Mr. Shay in Dry Creek,” said she. “Oh, yes. An old friend of mine,” said the Kid.
“You’ll let me call you something beside ‘Kid,’ I hope,” said she.
“My real name,” he answered, “is Reginald Beckwith-Hollis, with a hyphen. That’s why people call me the Kid. The real name takes up so much time.”
She permitted her eyes to smile, and the Kid grinned gayly back at her.
“Are you just passing through, Mr. Beckwith-Hollis?” she asked him.
“I was just passing through,” said the Kid. “But something stopped me.”
“Champ Dixon and his boys at Hurry Creek?” she asked.
“No,” said the Kid. “I’m not playing this hand with them.” She sighed with relief.
“I met your daughter,” said he.
Mrs. Milman gripped her stick a little harder and looked more closely at that handsome, boyish, careless face.
“Ah, you met Georgia?” said she.
“Yes. She was signing up recruits, and we joined. She sent us here to report to you.”
“Georgia is a good recruiting agent, then,” said she. “What terms did she offer?”
“We didn’t talk of that,” said the Kid. “What d’you suggest?”
She looked away from him across the hills, and noted the steady drift of cattle heading toward Hurry Creek. Before long, all the cattle on the place would be gathered in vast, milling throngs which would stamp the turf to dust near the water, and that dust would quicken the pangs of thirst. She could visualize hundreds, thousands lying down to die under the hot sun. And how hot it was. It burned through the shoulders of her dress. It scorched her hand through the thin glove which she was wearing.
Then she made up her mind.
“The minute that the Dixon gang is driven off—to stay,” said she, “you’ll get a check for ten thousand dollars. You can split that with Mr. Trainor any way you see fit.”
Bud Trainor glanced up as though the heavens had opened. But the Kid, still smiling a little, shook his head.
“We’re only here for a short job,” said he. “We’ll work for two dollars a day—and keep, if that’s agreeable to you?” She stared at him.
“You don’t want money Mr.—Beckwith-Hollis?”
“Certain kinds, I can get along without.”
She turned suddenly upon Bud Trainor.
“And what about you?” she asked.
Bud started eagerly to reply. He had heard a fortune named. He had seen his start in life presented as on a golden salver. But then he remembered in what company he was traveling. He cast a sidelong look at the Kid and muttered: “The Kid does my thinking for me on this trip.”
Mrs. Milman confronted the Kid again.
“I don’t understand you,” she said bluntly. “Of course, it’s generous. But to drive out the Dixon outfit will mean risking your life! Is there something else that you want?”
The Kid smiled upon her with his utmost geniality.
“I’ll tell you how it is,” said he. “A man doesn’t like to make money outside of his regular trade. That’s the way with me, I suppose.”
“And what is your regular trade?” said she.
“It has several branches,” he answered her. “You might call me a miner. I use a pack of cards for powder when I’m breaking ground.”
“You mean that you’re a gambler?”
“Yes. That’s my main line.”
“And that leaves you—scruples”—she hesitated for words—“about making money in this way?”
“Yes,” said he. “I have scruples. Behind Dixon is Billy Shay. And Billy Shay took a friend of mine into camp, one day. He started on a trip with my partner. He finished the trip alone, and the other fellow never was heard of. You see, this job of yours is my job, as well, because Shay’s on the other side of fence from you.”
“Does that go for your friend, too?”
She nodded toward Trainor.
“We’re thrown in together,” said the Kid. “All for one and one for all. Is that all clear, now?”
She paused again.
“It’s not clear at all,” said she, “but if you want to have it this way, heaven knows how glad I am to have you helping us. Have you any plans?”
“Not a plan in the world.”
“You don’t know how you’re going to begin?”
“Why, I suppose that we ought to wait to see how the recruits turn in from the ranches around here.”
“Do you think that they’ll come in?” she asked.
“What do you think?”
“I believe they won’t.”
“I agree with you.”
“Why do you?”
“Because Dixon seems to have a bit of law behind him. And the only way to save your cows is going to be to forget that such a thing as law exists.”
The smile died from his eyes. He looked at her as straight as a ruled line; and she looked hack, her color gradually ebbing from her face.
“Bud,” said the Kid, “suppose that you take the hoses and give ’em a swallow of water over there at the trough.”
Bud nodded, and taking the horses by the bridles, he led them away.
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Milman. “I wanted to talk to you alone.”
The Kid nodded. “I thought so,” said he.
He was as grave as before, waiting.
“Don’t you think,” said she, “that we’ll get on a lot better if we talk frankly to one another.”
“Don’t you think,” said the Kid, “that there’s nobody in the world that any one in it can talk frankly to?”
“Husbands and wives, even, and parents and children?” she suggested.
“Well,” said the Kid, his old smile glimmering at her, “don’t you have to be polite to your husband?”
“I suppose so. What of that?”
“That’s not frankness. And with children—you have to be hard on ’em when you want to be soft; and you have to shake your head when you want to smile. Is that frankness?”
She looked at him with a new interest.
“You seem to know about such things,” said she.
“Oh, I know what everybody knows. I’ve had bunkies who were willing to die for me, but never one that I could talk frankly to.”
She nodded.
“This matter about the law—”
“The law would probably save you,” said the Kid. “But your cows would be dead before that.”
“Then we have to be law breakers in order to sav
e the cows?”
“That’s it. Are you willing?”
She looked again across the hills. Steadily the cattle were marching across them toward the distant water. And the color flared suddenly back into her face.
“I know that we’re right,” she said, “even if we’re outside the law.”
She waited. Then she broke out: “You can’t be frank, but I’d like to know if you’re doing this only because you hate Dixon and Shay.”
He also hesitated a moment, and then he looked her straight in the eyes again, an intolerable brightness in his glance. “No,” said he, “I’m not!”
CHAPTER 20
A Challenge
The first thought of a mother is for her child. And though she knew that Georgia had hardly more than laid eyes upon this man, suddenly Mrs. Milman was thinking of the girl. So strongly, so vividly the thought struck home in her that the name bubbled to her lips. And she had to make an effort to keep from speaking it.
For, above all, there was in this straight look of the Kid a confession of a dangerous purpose that shook her to the ground.
It frankly told her that what he wanted was something more than she would give, and the bright face of Georgia rose smiling across her mind like a sweet vision.
“You won’t tell me the other reason, I suppose?” she said.
“Mrs. Milman,” said the Kid, “you see how it is. I’m a gambler, and you can’t expect me to play with my cards face up on the table.”
She sighed a little, and then nodded.
“I’d better ride down to the creek,” said the Kid, “and look over these fellows and the lay of the land. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. By that time, we’ll have the recruits in camp, I suppose?”
She could not speak, and merely made a little gesture, but she was worried to the heart. She watched him striding off toward the horses with a darkened brow. She had met strong men before this, but she never had met men who were both strong and free, and the Kid seemed to her as free as a bird. Studying him, she thought that she could understand why he was called “the Kid,” and simply that. In his step, in the carriage of his head, there was something inexplicably and eternally young. He was the very spirit of youth. And, adding up his qualities as they occurred to her, she thought of youth as a thing swift, cruel, careless, and without precedent or law to bind it. So much the more natural that upon youth, this youth, she should be depending in the great time of stress. Through the Kid they might be able to drive the transgressors from their land and save the cattle. What other danger would they be taking in exchange for it?
She sighed.
But, after all, there seemed nothing else to do about the matter. It might be that her shrewd suspicion was right, and that the Kid was here primarily to distinguish himself in such a manner that he would be forced most favorably upon the attention of Georgia. It might be that she was entirely wrong, and that he had no such hope in his mind. In any case, she would have to be a gambler, and with her cards also hidden, she would have to play out this game against the professional, which he confessed himself to be.
When she had come to this conclusion, she started back toward the house, her head a little bowed, and the shadow of it made large by the wide brim of her hat, falling always before her, so that she was stepping continually into the edge of it.
The Kid, in the meantime, had joined Bud Trainor at the watering trough, and found him tracing designs in the dust, while the horses drank. He noted carefully that the cinches had not been loosened, and this he did himself, letting them sag down.
“What’s that for?” asked Bud Trainor.
“Well,” said the Kid, “how would you like to come in dry and have to drink with your belt sunk into the middle of you?”
“Why, a hoss can stand that,” said Bud, curiously.
“A horse can stand it, all right,” said the Kid. “But I’ll tell you what, Bud, these horses are more than horses to us: they’re to us what wings are to birds. They’re life and death to us. We’ve got to keep them fit.”
Bud regarded him strangely.
“I see,” said he. “They’ve finished drinking now, I guess.”
“Don’t hurry ’em,” said the Kid. “They’ll take a sip or two later on. Have a cigarette and we’ll watch ’em digest their drinks.”
“You’d think it was whisky, to hear you,” grinned Bud. “Better than whisky, to them,” said the Kid. “Are you sorry about that play I made, over there?”
“You mean about the ten thousand?”
“Yes.”
“No, I’m not sorry.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. But what about this job with Dixon and his hired thugs? You ain’t bit off more’n you can chew?”
“I dunno,” said the Kid, carelessly. “We can have a try at it.” Trainor swallowed hard, and then nodded.
“All right,” said he.
“Does it seem like a crazy thing to you, Bud?”
“I’m not thinking,” said Bud hastily. “You’re the boss and the lead hand in what we do. I’ll follow on.”
The glance of the Kid dwelt upon him, gravely.
“Tell me,” broke out Bud Trainor. “Whatever made you wanta have me along with you? What made you finally decide to take me along from my house?”
“I’ll tell you. By my way of thinking, murder’s not the worst crime in the world.”
“I know,” said Trainor. “I tried a worse one, back there. I tried a lot worse one. What of that? Did that make you think that I could turn straight, and stay straight?”
“I think you can,” said the Kid. “You needed more rein than you’d been having. I’m going to give you the rein. You may break your neck—or you may have a good time out of it. I don’t know.”
The other sighed, faintly.
“Which way now?” said he.
“Down to Hurry Creek.”
Bud, without a word, stepped forward to pull up the cinches.
“Let ’em hang for a while,” said the Kid. “Give ’em a chance after drinking, and they’ll run ten times as well for you later. And likely we may have to come back from the creek a lot faster than we went down to it.”
Bud, without a word, stepped forward a little as though these marching instructions irritated him, but he went on at the side of his companion, as they led the horses forward across the grass.
The Kid, finishing his cigarette, seemed in high spirits. And as they went over the top of a hill, he even made a dancing catch step or two. Bud watched these maneuvers askance. But it seemed that his friend had nothing better to do, as he sauntered along, than dance like this, and to look cheerfully up the stream of little white clouds which the wind was hurrying across the sky, sometimes compacting them into solid puffs, very like the smoke blown circling from the mouths of cannon, and sometimes stretching them out to translucent fleece.
They walked for a good half hour through the heat of the sun, Bud stumbling now and then in his high-heeled boots. At last, the Kid gave the signal, and pulling up their cinches again, they mounted. Bud’s gelding came up strong and hard against the bit, and he grinned aside to the Kid.
“You know hosses!” he confessed.
The Kid said nothing. He merely smiled. And suddenly Trainor felt that he had been let into the intimacy of the wisest and strongest man in the world. He himself was older; but he felt that all the knowledge he had was as nothing compared with the information lodged in the brain of his confederate.
So they jogged easily along, swinging into a mild canter over the level, but always walking the horses up and down the grades.
“Shoulders!” the Kid explained. “You have to watch their shoulders more than diamonds!”
At last they drew toward Hurry Creek, and on a hill before them, they saw a horseman waiting, on guard, with a rifle balanced across the pommel of his saddle. Moveless he watched them as they came up the last slope.
The Kid, from a short distance, waved his gloved hand. “You k
now that gent?” asked Trainor.
“It’s Tom Slocum.”
“Is that the Slocum that killed the Lester boys?”
“That’s the one. He’s done other things, too. Oh, this must be a hand-picked crew that Champ Dixon has with him!”
As they came closer, Tom Slocum was revealed as a mild-appearing man with pale, sad blue eyes and a pair of old-fashioned saber-shaped mustaches, which drooped past the corners of his mouth as far as his chin. The wind was blowing the long tips of them.
“Why, hello, Tom,” said the Kid.
“Hello, Kid,” said Tom Slocum, starting in his saddle. “You come up to the right place, Kid,” he went on as they came closer. “We got a need for you here, old son. Is that Bud Trainor? We can use you too, Bud.”
“What’s the wages on this job?” asked the Kid.
“Twenty bucks a day, and found, and good found,” said Slocum. “Look yonder!”
They were at the top of the rise, now, and could see Hurry Creek, and the working men, and the glistening strands of the wire fence stretching almost to the end of either side of the gap between the canyon mouths. The gesture of Slocum indicated the camp wagons in the center of the farther shore, with horses tethered around them. In the midst was a tent, above which smoke curled lazily into the sunny air.
“Nothin’ but the fat, in there,” said Slocum, licking his lips at the thought. “Anything from fresh bread to marmalade. And no questions asked. Steaks three times a day, smothered in onions. You live like in a restaurant and nothin’ to pay. Nothin’ to do but to bluff out the shorthorns on this here ranch, Kid. And twenty bucks a day for sittin’ pretty. Come along down, and I’ll show you to Champ Dixon, because he’s the boss. He might sweeten your pay, Kid, if he’s got any sense. He’s sweetened mine!”
“Who else have you got down there?”
“Boone Tucker, and Hollis, and Dolly Smith, and Graham, and Three-finger Murphy, and Canuck Joe, and Silvertip Oliver, and Doc Cannon, and—”
“Do they all stand up to that level?” asked the Kid, thoughtfully.
