by Grey, Zane
He went to a side-street restaurant to get his supper and engage lodgings for the night. As darkness came on he ventured into a store, where he made a few purchases, and then he returned to the corral for his pack. This he carried to his room.
"Reckon that'll be aboot all," he soliloquized, as he stood gazing around the dingy bare room.
He was thinking that he had walked the streets of Winthrop about the last time as an unknown man whom few people had noticed. Those swift moments--an hour or so at most--had seemed singularly sweet to Jim.
"Wal, I'm shore ready to pay all it'll take."
The small mirror showed his eyes piercing and light, like points of daggers gleaming out of shadow. He stood an instant longer, motionless in the chill lonely silence of the room. He knew that when he went forth again it must be into raw evil life of outlaws, gamblers, murderers--all that riffraff of the Southwest, which like a murky tide, had rolled into Arizona. He calculated coldly that he must be all he had ever been, all that his name had ever meant.
He must add to these the intelligence which had sharpened in the years of peace. He seemed fitted for this task, and his motive had the strength of love and passion and the sanction of right.
"Reckon I ought to thank God," he said, to his pale image in the mirror. "Shore I never had no chance to do somethin' worth while.
An' now I can use my evil gifts to a good end. For Ben--an' that means for HER--an' then Franklidge an' all the honest people who're tryin' to civilize this wild country. Reckon, after all, they need such men as Jim Lacy. . . . I see clear now. Even if I'm killed, Ben an' Hettie will know the truth some day. It's got to come out, an' I reckon I'm glad."
Then before the mirror, with a grim smile on his face, he came at last to the practical business of the matter. Though the success of this enterprise depended upon his cunning and his knowledge of the outlawed men with whom he must throw his lot--and the more of such qualities he exercised the surer his chances--the cold hard fact was that all hung upon the deadliness of his skill with a gun.
This job had to do with death. Such was the wildness of the time and the evil code of outlaws, that he could kill this one and that one, any number of them, and only add to his fame, only give himself greater standing among them. True, by so doing he must make bitter and relentless enemies; he must face the strange paradox that many an incipient gunman, or notoriety-seeking desperado, or drunken cowboy would seek to kill him just because he was Jim Lacy.
Whereupon, with deliberation he treated himself to a tense exhibition of his swiftness of eye and hand. In secret he had practiced all through these peaceful months while engaged in honest labor. An impelling force had exacted this of him. He understood it now. And with a dark satisfaction he realized that he had gained in speed, in sureness of hand. Beyond these he had in large measure the gift peculiar to all gunmen who survived long in the Southwest--and that gift was to read his opponent's mind.
"Reckon I might have bit off more'n I can chew," soliloquized Jim, as he sheathed his gun. "But from the minute I step out this heah door I shore won't be makin' many mistakes."
The Lincoln County war in New Mexico had ended recently. It had been the blackest and bloodiest fight between rustlers and cattlemen and many others who had been drawn into the vortex, that had ever been recorded in the frontier history of the Southwest.
As such it had possessed an absorbing, even a morbid, interest for Jim Lacy. He had never lost an opportunity to hear or read something about this war. And once he had ridden into New Mexico on a cattle mission for Franklidge, during which trip he had seen at first hand some of the places and men who were later to become notorious. That war had in its beginning something analogous to the present situation here in Arizona. Jim did not believe there could ever again be such a fight as the Lincoln County war. But there was no telling. Arizona had vaster ranges and more cattle.
Some of the characters prominent in the Lincoln County war had not been killed. They had disappeared. It was not unreasonable to suppose that one or more of them had drifted into Arizona. "No two- bit of a rustler is headin' that Pine Tree outfit!" ejaculated Jim, voicing aloud one of his thoughts. To be sure, Billy the Kid, the deadliest of all the real desperadoes of the Southwest, had fallen in the Lincoln fight, along with the worst of his gang. But they had not all bitten the bloody dust of New Mexico.
"Shore I'll run into some one from over there," muttered Jim.
"When I do I'll shoot first an' ask questions after."
With that he opened the door, to step out into the dark, oppressive August night.
Chapter twelve.
Winthrop, the same as many other Western towns of the period, supported more saloons than all other kinds of business houses combined. It had a vast area of range land to draw from; and if there were a thousand cowboys and cattlemen in this section, there were probably an equal number of parasites who lived off them, from the diamond-shirted saloon-keeper and frock-coated gambler with all their motley associates, down to the rustler who hid in the brakes and the homesteader who branded as many calves not his own as he raised from his stock.
Once a month, if not oftener, the men of the range could be depended upon to visit town, "to paint it red" and "buck the tiger." These customs were carried out as regularly as the work of punching cows.
During the early evening hours Jim Lacy visited some of the main- street saloons, steering clear of the Ace High and others of prominence. He lounged about the bars and tables, agreeable and friendly to anyone who wanted to talk, willing to buy cigars and drinks, while he made some excuse or other for not indulging at the time. Cowboys were all friendly folk, except now and then one whom drink made mean. Gamblers and hangers-on, Mexicans and Indians, attracted by Jim's liberality and presence, added their little to the sum of information he was gathering.
"I'm lookin' for a pard," Jim would say to most everyone he met.
"A cowboy who broke jail over in New Mexico." And then he went on with more of such fabrication, always to conclude with questions.
Cowboys under the influence of a few strong drinks soon acquainted him with range gossip he had not heard. Several habituTs of these dives accepted Jim's advances without telling him anything. These, of course, were the men who knew most and required cultivation.
But they only eyed him covertly. Bartenders were mostly procurers for this or that gambling house, and from them he amassed much information. At length he left the last resort, intending to hunt up the dance hall.
"Shore, that wasn't so bad for a start," mused Jim as he summed up and sifted the bits of talk in which he found significance. "Cash Burridge, sold out an' gamblin' his fortune away, spends half his time heah in town. Thick with some Spanish girl. Same old Cash! . . . Clan Dillon one grand hombre, eh? Wal, wal! The Ides rich Californians who're bein' rustled an' sheeped off their range.
Tom Day just as liable to be boss of the Pine Tree outfit as any one.
That'll shore tickle Tom. The Hatt outfit, except Cedar, just no- good homesteaders, low-down enough for anythin' not really big an' dangerous. Cedar Hatt, though, is a plumb bad man. Not the even- break kind, but crafty as a redskin, treacherous as a Greaser. The Stillwells hardest nuts down in the brakes. Never come to town!
Now that's shore worth rememberin'. Last an' perhaps meanin' most to me--what that half-drunk sheepherder told me. Strange riders often seen by herders passin' through the Mogollons. Wal, most of all this sounds familiar, as I think back. But now it comes close."
Jim, by following in the footsteps of hurrying young people, soon found where the dance was being held. It was out a side street, almost at the edge of town, in a low wide adobe building, very picturesque now with its hanging colored lanterns, its trailing vines over archways. Outside there was a crowd of Mexicans, Indians, white men in rough garb, noisy boys, all looking in through the archways at the couples walking down the long patio and the dancers inside, swaying to and fro with the music. There was something of the spirit of a
fiesta in the air.
Upon entering the place Jim was aware that he came under the scrutiny of men who evidently were conducting the dance, or at least overseeing those who entered. One of these individuals was Macklin, the sheriff of Winthrop, an officer who arrested cowboys sometimes, and Indians and Mexicans, but who never had been known to jail a gambler or one of the more dangerous characters. Jim, however, was not questioned. He strolled up the wide steps to watch the dancers, and then moving from one vantage point to another, amused and pleased with the scene, he at length found a place that suited him, where he sat down to watch and listen.
Jim Lacy, in the old Texas and Idaho, even the Nevada days, had enjoyed dancing, but since his advent in Arizona he had never attended a dance. This had been one of the peculiar things about Jim that had puzzled his cowboy associates of the Franklidge Ranch.
Failing to persuade him, they called him a woman-hater.
It did not take Jim long to appreciate that this dance was conducted on proper lines. He understood now why he had been so closely scrutinized at the entrance. There was no drinking permitted on this occasion, nor any obstreperous behavior. The cowboys and other young men present did not show any evidence of the bottle. Among the dancers, and promenaders in the patio, there were a number of dark-haired, flower-decorated Mexican girls, very bright and pretty in their festal array. It was indeed a gala occasion, full of color and life, and soft laughter and Spanish music. Jim had to admit that his calculations had fallen awry in this case. Rose Hatt might be in attendance, but it was a safe wager that Cedar Hatt would not be admitted, nor any of the men Jim wanted to watch, unless it might be Dillon. He, surely, would not only be welcome, but very probably the lion of the dance.
Presently Jim believed he had caught a glimpse of little Rose Hatt at the far end of the patio. So he arose to walk in that direction, and found it rather a running of the gauntlet, for as the music started up couples began gayly to hasten to the dancing floor. More than one pretty girl bumped into Jim's right side where his gun hung low. Finally another, dodging around a couple she evidently wanted to get ahead of, plumped into Jim's arms.
"Oh, goodness! Excuse me," she giggled, recovering her balance.
"See heah, lady, are you shore you didn't mean that?" drawled Jim, with a smile.
She could not very well have grown redder of face, so Jim could not tell whether or not she blushed. There was, however, a hint of coquetry in her merry eyes. Then a tall cowboy, very young in years, loomed over her and glowered at Jim.
"Hey, you dressed-up quirt!" he said. "You say 'lady,' but you don't know one when you see her. I've a notion to slap your smart- alec face."
"I'd hate to be slapped, so I beg pardon, sonny," replied Jim, and walked away.
The momentary halt had caused him to lose track of the dark curly head he had believed to be Rose Hatt's. At the end of the patio he turned, to espy the girl just stepping out upon the floor. It was indeed Rose, and a transformed little girl, too. She had on a gaudy, cheap, flimsy dress, with shoes and stockings to match, but these did not detract from her prettiness. She was young and radiant. Her partner was a cowboy not much older than herself.
They stood a moment, holding to each other, self-conscious and awkward, before they began to dance. Rose did not know how to waltz, but she made a valiant effort.
Jim watched the couple until they were lost in the whirl of dancers. This end of the patio opened into a garden or yard where a walk wound between clumps of shrubbery. There were benches here and there, and some of these were overshadowed by vines. Jim watched the dancers, hoping to see Rose again, and perhaps catch her eye. But he missed her in the whirling throng, and when the dance ended he retreated to a seat on the adobe wall. Then again the dancers tripped to and fro, hurrying for refreshments and seats, and the wide aisle was filled with murmuring voices.
This scene roused in Jim Lacy a strange regret. The pleasure and life manifested here were things he had missed. "I can't see that it was my fault, either," he muttered. Young couples passed near, excited and gay, thoughtless, enchanted with the moment. There were older people, some with gray hair, and they did not seem beyond the magic of the hour. Jim's envy was short-lived.
Happiness had eluded him. But it was not given to many men to serve as he could now.
Presently a couple approached out of the shadow. As they reached a point beyond, yet near where Jim sat, half concealed, the girl halted.
"Please--let's go outside," begged the man.
His voice prompted Jim to turn so that he could see better. The fellow had the build of a rider, lithe, tall, wide in the shoulders. He wore a dark suit and had a flower in the lapel of his coat. His face had a compelling attraction. But Jim, in his quick glance, could not decide whether it drew him because it was a handsome, unusual face, or for some other reason difficult to grasp at the moment.
"No, Mr. Dillon, I don't care to go farther," said the girl.
Jim started so violently that he almost fell off the low adobe wall. That voice! He would have known it among a thousand voices.
His cool curiosity vanished in a rushing tide of emotion. His glance leaped from the man to his companion. She stood full in the soft rose light of one of the colored lanterns. Hettie Ide! His heart bounded, then seemed to become locked with a terrible pang.
It was Hettie, grown into a woman. The face that had haunted Jim's camp fires in the lonely watches of the nights! The same rippling fair hair, the deep earnest eyes, the rich clear complexion that spoke of contact with the open, the strong full lips, more hauntingly sweet than ever for the sadness which had come!
So rapt, so agonizing was Jim's attention that he lost something of the words which passed between the two. It was the name Dillon that roused Jim from his trance.
"Mr. Dillon," she was saying, "the reason I can't marry you is that I don't love you."
"But, Hettie, you will--you must love me in time," he returned, passionately, seizing her hand and trying to pull her into the shadow. She resisted, broke away from him.
"I never will," she said, with eyes and cheeks flaming. "What kind of a man are you--that you persist so rudely? I liked you--even admired you until you forced such attentions as these on me. I've overlooked them because my brother Ben thinks so much of you. But no more, Mr. Dillon."
Her dignified yet spirited reply might as well not have been spoken, for all the effect it had to restrain Dillon. He burst into low impassioned appeal, and he backed her under the overhanging vines against the wall. Dillon was no young cowboy, mad with love. He appeared to be a man, masterful, adept at making love, absolutely indifferent to anything but his own desires. The way he confronted her in her several attemps to pass him, and without laying a hand on her crowded her back to the wall, proved how he was thinking about what he was doing.
"I--I thought you were a gentleman," she burst out.
"No man thinks of bein' over-gentle when he's in love," retorted Dillon. "I tried that with you. And to tell you the truth, I wasn't so natural then as I am now. I've plumb lost my head. I tell you I love you an' I'm goin' to have you. What do you say to that?"
"I say this, Mr. Dillon, we've all got you figured wrong," she retorted.
"Sure you have," he rejoined, with an exultant laugh. "An' here's how!" With that he attempted to seize her in his arms. But he had evidently cornered the wrong girl. Supple and strong, she wrestled free in an instant and wheeled away from the wall.
"What do you--think--Ben will do--when I tell him--you've insulted me?" she panted, backing into the aisle.
"If you've got any sense you won't tell him," replied Dillon, in a flash changing from an ardent lover to something almost menacing.
"Ben Ide's in bad here. Arizona isn't California. There are rustlers here an' you can bet some of them are the ranchers he thinks his friends. I know this cattle game. I know these men.
He's lost most of his stock. If he buys in more he'll lose that too. Hettie, I'm the only cowman in Arizona
who can save him from ruin."
"Indeed! Are you aware that I have a share in the Ide ranch?" retorted Hettie, sarcastically.
"I've heard so, but I didn't believe."
"Well, it's true."
"Ahuh! What do you mean by share?" he queried, curiously.
"I own one third of the land and the stock. Besides, I have my own house apart from Ben."
"That's news to me," said Dillon. "But it sure makes my case stronger. What ruins Ben Ide will ruin you."
"The loss of a few thousand cattle won't hurt either my brother or me," she returned, almost flippantly, studying his face with steady, penetrating eyes. She was seeing the man as if he had suddenly unmasked.
"You must be pretty rich to talk like that," replied Dillon.
"Quite well off, thank you. I often wondered if that didn't interest you, and now I know."
He laughed in a way that would have been a revelation to an older woman, well versed in the life of the frontier. But Hettie did not grasp what seemed as plain as print to Jim Lacy, crouching like a tiger under the shadow.
"Thanks, you're very smart," he said. "But I'd be crazy about you if you were as poor as Rose Hatt. I tell you I love you--want you-- need you so terribly that if I fail to get you it'll make a devil out of me."
"I'm beginning to imagine the process of MAKING has progressed very far already."
"You've got cat in you--same as other women," he retorted.
"Listen, we're wastin' talk. If you'll marry me I'll save Ben Ide.
If you won't I'll quit him an' use my influence all over the range.
I'll make ranchin' impossible for him in this country. An' I'll get YOU in the bargain."
