“An’ how does this here cowboy feel ‘bout yuh, daughter?”
She laughed aloud, tossing her head. “I don’t know.”
“See here, Sue,” he cried indignantly. “I ain’t gonna have a daughter of mine throwin’ herself into the arms of the first good-lookin’ rapscallion that sets foot in a stirrup.”
“I’m not throwing myself at anybody, Dad,” she assured him quietly.
“Then what are yuh aimin’ to do?”
“I’m going to Kansas City to look for him. I think something has happened to him.”
He was on the point of raising an objection, but one look at the determination written bright and steady in his daughter’s face, changed his mind.
“Yuh always was a stubborn monkey!” he exclaimed. There was a hint of admiration in his voice, as well as love for this headstrong daughter of his. Then a thought struck him.
“Why don’t yuh let me send one of the boys first, to look for him? If he’s in trouble maybe he’ll need more help than a girl can give him.” She looked hesitant. “Ain’t no use yuh’re chasin’ after him, when I can send Lem or Jim. Is there?”
She shook her head again.
“No, Dad,” she said. “I’ve got to go myself. If something’s happened to Huck—I want to be there.”
He tried one last appeal.
“A’right, Sue,” he said. “But why not wait a couple of days more? Mebbe yore Huck Brannon will turn up by his own self.”
“I’ll wait two days—but if Huck doesn’t return—I’m going to look for him.” And there was no hesitation at all on her face or in her voice.
VII
Salty Town
Esmeralda! Division point for the great C. & P. railroad, whose fingers of steel were reaching through the mountains toward the far-off Pacific. As yet, the great yellow passenger trains and the rumbling freights had to use a leased line to reach the western coast; but the dream of Jaggers Dunn, ex-cowboy, miner, engineer, division-superintendent—now empire builder, guiding genius of the great trunk line—the dream of a network of steel from the gray Atlantic to the blue waters of the “Peaceful Ocean,” from the pines of Canada to the palms of the Gulf, was at last coming true.
Here at Esmeralda was his newest outpost. Here on the grim mountain frontier, where the law of knife and gun was still the ruling law. Where blood and passions ran crimson-bright in the veins of strong-limbed, lusty men, glorious in their recklessness; gallant in their disregard for hardship and personal danger; superb in their thirst for adventure and achievement, which meant to them nothing more than the wild and heady thrill of victory over over-whelming odds; or the grim satisfaction of losing, of starting again with a laugh and a bitter joke and the uncomplaining tightening of their belts.
When it had been just a construction camp and division point, Esmeralda had been uproarious enough; but when a wandering prospector had panned flakes of yellow dust in the gravel that formed the lower slopes of towering Quentin Mountain, Esmeralda took a deep breath and roared the louder.
A genius by the name of Cale Coleman saw his opportunity and grasped it firmly. He brought in hydraulic machinery, and blasted down the gravel beds with eight-inch streams of fiercely driven water, manifolding the results obtained by the primitive methods of pan and cradle.
Cale Coleman was hard, arrogant, confident of his powers, not bothered much by false modesty and less by the other kind. Not bothered, either, by such mewlings as other men ascribed to qualms of conscience or fear of the possible consequence of their own acts.
“Get out of my way!” was Cale Coleman’s motto and he never hesitated to apply it.
Neither Huck Brannon nor Lank Mason met Cale Coleman when, after seeing old Tom Gaylord comfortably settled in the big new railroad hospital, they went up to the Coleman mines in search of work. Cale was somewhere in the East buying more and improved machinery.
“Figger it’s up to me to stick around until Tom is on his feet again,” Huck told Mason. “It was mighty fine of Dunn to have him taken into the company hospital that way. I hear he gave orders Tom should have the best of everything and he’s to stay until he’s completely cured.”
“Dunn took a shine to you, feller,” Mason replied. “You’d oughta seed his eyes snap when that freight conductor told him how you stayed in the fire with yore shirt burnin’ off yore back and your hair singein’ to pull Tom loose. I got a notion that old general manager has a hefty likin’ for skookum gents with guts and brains. He’s that sort hisself.”
The mine superintendent listened to their application and shrewdly appraised the potentialities of Huck’s tall and vigorous form. He asked Lank Mason detailed technical questions and nodded with satisfaction.
“You know the ropes, all right,” he commented. “I can use you over to the sluices as a foreman. Experienced men of your type ain’t as handy as I’d like. Now as to you, young feller—”
He paused and his eye shifted to the far-flung battery of giant nozzles set on solid steel supports with ball joints that permitted a wide range of both horizontal and vertical play. From each nozzle hissed an eight-inch stream of muddy water driven with tremendous force and focused on the towering gravel-bank side of the mountain. Flanged wheels moved the platforms forward or back on narrow-gauge tracking. Lines of flexible pipe stretched down the mountainside to where giant rams provided the pressure. Huck noticed that two of the nozzles were not in operation.
The superintendent turned to the cowboy, probing him with his eyes. “You know anything ‘bout hydraulic minin’?” he asked.
“Something about the engineering end, not very much about the practical side,” Huck told him truthfully. “I never worked in the field.”
The superintendent nodded. “Figgered as much. Well, you got the heft and you look like you have the brains. Think you could handle one of them big babies over yonder?”
“Show me how they work and I think I can,” the cowpuncher replied.
“Okay, I’ll give you a trial,” the super decided. “It’s a sorta ticklish job—not the kind for a lunkhead, like most of these muckers and rock busters are. Feller can do a awful lot of damage with one of them jets if he don’t handle it just so—bust up machinery in a hurry and mebbe kill somebody.
“You got to keep yore eyes open ev’ry minute, not only to see how she’s bringin’ the gravel down, but to be shore she’s p’inted right and there’s nothin’ in the way of the jet what hadn’t oughta be. It’s a job you can’t sleep on, and one that needs quick thinkin’ mighty often. That’s why she pays top wages. Come ‘long, and I’ll have Casey, the foreman, put you onto handlin’ the gun.”
“Top wages is right,” Huck said to Lank Mason later. “So far as the money end goes, this has shore got cow punchin’ beat one helluva way. Don’t know how I’ll like it, but seeing as there aren’t any spreads handy hereabouts, I reckon I can give it a shot until Old Tom is on his feet again.”
It had never occurred to Huck Brannon until now that he might ever accept any job other than riding herd and punching cattle, even with the smattering of engineering that he’d studied. For him the life of the saddle, the open sky, the thud of pounding hoofs, the hot, sharp reek of branding irons against hide and hair came as natural and as welcome as breathing. It was in Brannon blood, deep-rooted. His father and his father’s father and Brannons before them had lived their lives on the range.
However he quickly discovered that he did like the new work. There was a thrill to handling the thundering giant that pulsed and quivered beneath his hand, to seeing the reddish gravel, the packed earth and the embedded boulders dissolve like soft sugar under the impact of the crashing stream that bored into the mountainside with irresistible force. A mighty power was there at his fingertips, obedient to the slightest pressure of his hand, and capable, too, of appalling destruction.
Huck learned that there was an art to playing the stream correctly, adding to quickness of eye and hand keenness of perception and understanding of the
terrain against which the stream was directed.
And the superintendent quickly learned that he had at No. Seven Nozzle a hand of no mean ability, a man who got results. Before two weeks had passed, he shifted Huck to No. One, at the far right end of the cutting. There unusual accuracy was called for in laying out the course up the mountainside—the course that would be followed by the other nozzlemen. And Huck got a raise.
“You’re gettin’ better’n foreman’s pay now,” Lank Mason said congratulating him.
The weeks passed swiftly—a month, six weeks, two months—and Old Tom was on his feet again, fully recovered.
“We’ll discharge him the first of next week,” the hospital superintendent told Huck. “Ordinarily we would have let him go last week or the week before, but Mr. Dunn’s orders were very definite and nobody is anxious to violate the orders of Jaggers Dunn. It isn’t apt to be healthy.”
“You gonna quit when Gaylord gets out?” Lank Mason asked Huck when he reported the news.
“Got a notion I’ll hang on for a while,” Huck told him. “Winter’s right on top of us—gravel was froze so hard this morning I had to add pressure to bust the crust—and there isn’t much doing in the cow business this time of year. Got a notion I’ll hang on until Spring. It’s not a bad job; and I sorta like this salty town…Wasn’t that fight in the Blue Whistler last night a lulu!”
Yes, the fight at the Blue Whistler had been a lulu. Huck, handy with fists himself, was something of an expert in the pugilistic art. But he hadn’t gone to the fight because he liked to watch fights. He’d gone for the same reason these days he sought other diversions. To forget. To forget an amber-eyed, smiling, slender-limbed girl whose face haunted his dreams; the girl who, more than any other he’d ever seen, fitted into the pattern of his future. The girl he’d met before that future was sure enough for him to claim her.
Still he felt he had done the sensible thing. Getting away before he fell too much in love. He, a cowboy, worth less than the shirt on his back, dreaming about marriage, too soon. He had no business letting it happen. He would have preferred that his taking leave of the Bar X had been different. Not so abrupt. But since it had happened the way it had, he had to be content. It was a whole lot easier this way, in fact. No farewells, no painful explanations, no lingering doubts.
But now it was more than two months since he had last seen Sue Doyle; and her memory was just as strong and compelling as if it had been only the night before. The more he tried the harder it was to forget her. And each time she returned to his mind, she seemed prettier and more desirable.
The result was that he became moody, silent, preoccupied. Even at the saloon in that crowded, roaring roomful of revelers, he would suddenly forget what he was saying, forget the drink in his hand and go staring off into space. Several times Lank Mason had asked him what he was staring at—and had gotten only a grunt for an answer.
The only remedy he himself could find was work, work, and more work. He drove himself, working at the top of his strength all the time. He was pace-maker for the nozzlemen, and soon had outdistanced them in cutting his way up the mountainside. He strove hard and mightily to shut out the echo of a voice, the memory of a smile.
And for a while it seemed to succeed; but soon he found that the work had so built up his strength that it became increasingly difficult to achieve a fatigue that would let him sleep without dreaming…
It was the morning after his conversation with Lank Mason about Old Tom that Huck, busily pounding the frozen gravel with his “gun,” heard a voice shouting peremptorily, its bellow carrying above the racket kicked up by the nozzle. A warning hiss sounded from the mechanic working at a minor repair.
“That’s Coleman hisself, the Big Boss!”
Huck glanced to the right and saw a tall, broad man standing a yard or two beyond the play of the water jet. He was flashily dressed, had a square beefy face, long arms and huge hairy hands. His face was arrogant and ill-tempered, with a prominent straight nose, a straight mouth and straight black brows. Horizontal lines appeared to dominate the countenance that was in spite of its harshness, handsome in a sullen, rough-hewn style.
“Cut that jet farther to the right, you!” boomed the voice.
Huck obeyed, although his gray eyes narrowed slightly at Coleman’s tone. He touched the nozzle control lightly, with perfect assurance, and the gleaming snout swung a trifle in its horizontal arc. The difference at the far end of the jet, where it beat against the gravel bank, was considerable.
Coleman watched the water smash the gravel, his face glowering and slightly flushed. He raised a big hand and knuckled his forehead savagely.
“He’s got a pip of a hangover and wants to take it out on somebody,” Huck guessed.
The mine-owner continued to glower at the cutting. The gravel was coming down swiftly, the jet hollowing out a beautifully straight furrow. The very skill of the performance seemed to anger Coleman further. He whirled, his eyes red and swollen with senseless anger.
“Blast the eyes off you!” he roared. “I said to cut that jet to the right, you thumping jackass!”
Huck Brannon’s mouth suddenly clamped tight and his gray eyes turned smoky green. His right hand moved swiftly, surely, clamping hard on the control.
With a howl, Coleman leaped aside with catlike agility, his face paper-white. The missing eightinch stream grazed his coat. If it had struck him squarely, it would have killed him.
VIII
Written In Blood
Huck Brannon quietly stepped from the plat-form to the ground and stared coldly at the gasping Coleman.
“That far enough to the right?” he asked softly.
The scared white of Coleman’s face abruptly burned fiery red. With a roar of fury he rushed at the cowpuncher, his fists flailing, curses spewing from his mouth.
Huck Brannon stepped lightly aside and struck, his left hand coming up from the level of his knee. His fist smacked against the big man’s jaw with the spatting sound of a flat stone hitting the surface of a quiet pool. Coleman seemed to ripple through his whole six-foot length. His big body shot into the air and crashed down to the hard-frozen ground.
But it didn’t stay. He came up like a cat off a hot stove, blood spurting from a long cut on his cheekbone, his face black with rage.
Huck instantly realized that he had a fight on his hands. Coleman was at least twenty-five pounds heavier, and he wasn’t fat. He was perhaps an inch shorter than Huck, but his gorilla reach was longer. His fists working like pistons, he hurled himself at the cowpuncher, took a stunning right and left to the jaw, ducked his big head and kept coming.
Huck weaved, shifted, hammering out lefts and rights. Coleman grunted, spat blood and came on. He got through Huck’s guard and spun him sideways with a mighty swing. Before Huck could recover, another blow caught him flush on the jaw.
Huck went down, head ringing, a taste of sulphur in his mouth. He rolled over just in time to escape the vicious kick Coleman launched at his body, streaked to his feet and knocked Coleman clean past the nozzle platform with a slashing left hook to the chin.
Again Coleman came to his feet, shaking his head, mumbling curses; and again he rushed, head down, thick arms flailing, more than willing to take a blow for every one he could give back.
Huck blocked his rush, clinched, and the two wrestled breast to breast, blowing bloody froth into each other’s face from their cut lips, glaring with swollen eyes. Huck was dimly aware that they were surrounded by a yelling crowd; he heard Lank Mason’s voice booming encouragement.
Coleman suddenly lifted him off his feet and hurled him down, hard. Huck landed on his left shoulder, skidded along the frozen ground. With a whoop of triumph Coleman rushed in to kick the life out of the prostrate cowboy.
Huck knew he could not get to his feet in time to block the rush. Coleman’s heavy boots would smash him back before he got to his knees, and that would be the end. His brain worked at top speed, and with equal rapidity he whi
rled his sinewy legs toward the mine owner, kicking the right foot out with all his strength.
The booted sole caught Coleman on the knee. At the same instant, Huck hooked his left foot behind Coleman’s ankle and jerked.
There was a crackling sound, a yell of agony from Coleman and he fell to the ground, writhing and gasping. With another howl of pain he flopped over on his side and his hand streaked to his hip.
Lank Mason leaped forward, but Huck Brannon, bounding to his feet, was ahead of him. He kicked the gun from Coleman’s hand even as Coleman pulled the trigger.
The crowd ducked and scattered at the roar of the shot and the screech of the slug that whipped a stinging red streak along the cowboy’s bronzed cheek.
Huck picked up the big gun and thrust it in his belt.
“Been wantin’ a gun quite a spell now,” he said, panting and managing a bloody grin. “Thanks!”
“You get the hell off this property, you dirty killer!” Coleman bawled. “Get me to the hospital, some of you damned loafers, my leg’s busted to hell!”
“Jest knocked out at the knee j’int, I figger,” Lank Mason remarked as Coleman was carried away. “Well, get yore coat, feller, and let’s mosey up and see if Tom Gaylord’s ready to travel. Reckon we better be lookin’ for a new stampin’ ground now.”
“He didn’t fire you,” Huck pointed out.
“Nope. I’m firin’ myself,” Lank said cheerfully. “I don’t hanker to work for a horned toad what tries to kick a feller when he’s on the ground, and goes for his gun when he’s licked in a fair fight. C’mon, we’ll stop at the office and get our pay. You’d better have them cuts on yore face washed out and plastered while we’re at the hospital.”
They found Old Tom smoking his pipe in comfort and staring speculatively out of the window toward where, raggedly cutting the western skyline, the saw-tooth peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Range loomed blue and misty in the distance. There was a gleam in his keen blue eyes as he listened to Lank’s highly colored account of the fight.
The Cowpuncher Page 5
