Scotty Wilson’s restaurant was open, and he went in. Two sour-looking cowpunchers, still unshaven and red-eyed from the night before, drank coffee at the counter. They were obviously in no mood to talk. Taking the table at the back of the room, Val ordered breakfast.
He thought of the ride before him. It was unlikely that for some time to come he would have another meal he did not prepare himself. The route he was taking was somewhat roundabout, but water was scarce on the Staked Plains.
Actually, the Palo Duro Canyon offered the best route, but there he would be a sitting duck for anyone shooting from the bluffs. Out on the cap-rock he could see for miles and it would be impossible for anyone to come upon him without warning.
As he sat there, the door from the street suddenly opened and a tall, lean man with frosty eyes came in. He looked at Val, and crossed to his table. “Mind if I sit down?”
“It would be my pleasure,” Val said. “What can I do for you?”
“You could leave town.” The man smiled as he spoke. “Darrant, your name is?” He held out a hand. “I am Sheriff Willingham. There’s a rumor around that you had some words with Thursty Pike last night.”
“No, I can’t say I did. I was talking with Egan Gates, and Pike was in the room. He got up and left.”
“All right. Have it your way. No offense, my friend, but we’ve had too much shooting here already, and if you and Pike have something to settle, do it outside of town.”
“That’s agreeable to me, Sheriff. I haven’t spoken to Pike, and do not intend to if I can avoid it.”
“He’s a bad actor, son. He’ll give you no fair chance if he can manage it.”
Willingham studied him. “Are you planning on locating around here?”
“Not exactly, but I’m a third owner of a ranch southeast of here. Do you know the Bucklin outfit?”
“Yes—good people. I hunted buffalo with the Bucklin boys when they first came west.” He gave Val an amused glance. “You a single man?”
“Yes.”
Willingham chuckled. “You’ll have yourself a time. Pa Bucklin’s got two of the prettiest daughters you ever did see, and that Betsy … the one they call Western … she’s something to look at.”
“What about Boston?”
“A ring-tailed terror. Beautiful and wild, and she can ride as good as any puncher on the cap-rock. She can shoot and she can rope. At the roundup we had a while back she beat every hand we had at roping and tying calves.”
“They aren’t married then?”
“No, and they won’t be if they stay around here. They scare the boys. Who wants to marry a girl who can do everything you can, and better?”
The wind was picking up when Val Darrant rode from Tascosa, south and a little east. The tumbleweeds rolled along with him, rolled toward a ranch he could call home. Thunder rumbled in the clouds, and when the first drops fell he dug out his slicker. It was going to be a wet ride.
Chapter Eighteen.
There was no question of shelter. So far as Val was aware there was nothing nearer than his own ranch, which lay miles away. The country was flat as a billiard table, and it was only after he had ridden several hours in a driving rain that he saw the edge of an arroyo. It was the first break in the level of the cap-rock in all that distance, and he judged it to be a branch of the Palo Duro, long a hideout for the Comanches.
The rain rattled on his slicker and ran from the brim of his hat. Thunder rolled and lightning stabbed through the sky. His one consolation was that if Thurston Pike was riding in this weather he was doing no better than Val. He figured now that it might be best to ride to the Palo Duro and see if there was some kind of shelter in the canyon. He turned abruptly and headed that way. Riding out here on the cap-rock would make him a target for lightning.
The rain drew a steel curtain across the day. His horse slipped once in the mud, and then he reached the rim of the canyon, but saw no route by which he could descend. He followed along the rim, searching for a way.
Lightning flashed again, and the time between the flash and the roll of thunder was much shorter. Suddenly he saw where the rim was broken and a trail led down to the bottom of the canyon. It was a buffalo trail, and an easy ride.
He started down, but in a moment something struck him a wicked blow on the shoulder. In the moment when he started to turn, believing he had been hit from behind, he heard the report of a rifle and his horse leaped. Val lost his grip and toppled into the mud, while his horse, frightened and perhaps hurt, went racing away down the slope. He realized he ought to move, and lifted his head to look around. He lay on a steep part of the trail. Crawling off it, he found a place under the rim where he would be somewhat protected. He straggled to pull himself to his feet, managed it, and caught hold of a crack in the rock face and worked along it, hunting for a larger crack.
He had been shot, and whoever had shot him had been lying in wait. The chances were good that the unseen marksman, who might be Pike, or might be an Indian or an outlaw, was even now coming closer.
He clung to the rock face, his boots on the steep tall slope that fell away behind him. The rain still hammered against his slicker. He could hold himself up, but though he had been hit he did not believe he was seriously hurt.
His horse, as he saw when he turned his head and looked down, had reached the bottom of the canyon and was cropping grass near the stream, almost half a mile away. His rifle was in the scabbard on the saddle.
He listened, but heard no sound except the rain. Vaguely, he thought he smelled smoke, the smoke of a campfire.
He edged his way along the rock, knowing he had to get himself out of this spot. If the unknown marksman was within sight of him, he would certainly have fired again, but he must be working himself around to get in that final shot.
The rimrock along here was perhaps fifteen feet high, and was topped by a thin layer of soil and sparse grass. Below him the slope fell away steeply to the bottom, several hundred feet away.
The rimrock was split in many places, and suddenly he found a crack and eased himself into it. There was no overhang here, but there was a flat sheet of broken-off rock that lay canted across the split, and he backed under it, dried his hands on his shirt under the slicker, and drew his gun.
It was a long wait. Several times he thought he caught the smell of damp wood burning, but a fire in such a place was unlikely; and it was unlikely the killer, whoever he might be, would have a fire.
A slow hour passed, marked by Val’s watch. More than once he shifted the gun; at times he was on the verge of crawling out, but the memory of that rifle shot restrained him. There was no chance to check his wound. The shock had worn off, and now it hurt like blazes, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped.
He had almost decided to move out of his shelter when he heard footsteps. He tilted the gun and waited. He had never shot at anything he could not see, and he was not about to begin, but if that was Thurston Pike …
“Mister,” said a girl’s voice, “I can see your tracks and I know you’re in there. The geezer who shot you is gone. If you’ll let me help you, I will.”
“Step out where I can see you,” he said.
She hesitated a moment. “That voice is familiar, mister, and I think we know each other. I am stepping out.”
She came suddenly into full view, a tall girl in boots and a beaded and fringed buckskin skirt reaching to below her knees. She wore a slicker that was hanging open, giving her hand free access to the belt gun she wore. In her right hand she carried a Winchester. Her blouse was open at the neck and she wore over it, beneath the slicker, a man’s coat, cut down to fit her.
He saw that in a glance, but he saw much more. She was young and she was beautiful, with a wild, colorful beauty of dark hair, flashing eyes, bright red lips, and a figure that not even the rough clothes could conceal.
He eased out of his cramped position and stood up. “I thought so,” she said. “Val Darrant, isn’t it? I’m Boston Bucklin.”
She blushed, but stared back at him. “It won’t do, your making up to me. Besides, you’ve been shot.”
“Was that your fire I smelled?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t shoot at me?”
“If I’d shot at you, you’d be dead. No, it was a man on a big dapple-gray horse. When he saw me he rode off, mighty fast. He didn’t guess that I was alone.”
She looked at him as he came away from the crack, watching him move. “You can walk all right. My fire’s about two hundred yards down canyon. If you can get yourself to it, I’ll round up your horse.”
“Thanks,” he said.
Her camp, when he reached it, was almost perfect. The rimrock had caved in underneath, leaving a shelf that overhung a small area within the rimrock itself. There was room enough for the fire and a bed under the rim shelf, and a place for three or four horses in a sort of pocket not under the shelf. The camp was hidden, with no way it could be seen from above or below until one rode right up to it. Obviously the girl had spent the night here.
She rode back shortly, leading his horse, and when she had tied it, she joined him under the rim, throwing off her slicker. Her wet black hair hung down over her shoulders.
“We’ve been expectin’ you, Val,” she said. “Pa, he said you’d be along soon. We’ve been hopin’ you’d come.”
“How is your pa?”
“Fair to middlin’. He’s packin’ a Kiowa bullet picked up last spring. Ails him some when it’s wet or cold.”
“And the others?”
“They’re all right. Cody had him a mite of shootin’ over to Fort Griffin. Some fancy gent in a flowered vest had words with him.”
“But Cody’s all right?”
“Sure.”
She had put the coffeepot on, and now she turned to him. “You’d better let me look at that wound. You tenderfeet sicken up almighty fast, seems to me.”
“I’m no tenderfoot. I was born in this country.”
“I know, but you’ve been living it high and handsome back east.” She helped him off with his coat and shirt. She looked at his powerful muscles with approval. “Well, all that beef hasn’t gone soft, anyway.”
The wound was not serious. The bullet had struck the top of his shoulder and glanced off, tearing the muscle some, and he had lost blood.
“In those fancy stories a girl always tears her white petticoat and makes a bandage. Well, I haven’t got a white petticoat—never had one—and if I did I wouldn’t tear it up for no man. Not unless he was in dyin’ shape.”
“There are a couple of clean white handkerchiefs in the pack behind my saddle,” Val suggested.
She got them out. “My, aren’t we the fancy one!” She looked critically at the handkerchiefs. “You’ve become a real dude, I see.”
Val watched her. He had never, anywhere, seen so beautiful a girl. She was wild, free, and uninhibited as an animal. “Aren’t you a ways from home?” he asked.
“It isn’t so far, not across country. I like to ride. I like to see a lot of country, and I’m not worried. I can ride and shoot as good as any man, and better than most. I can also use a knife.”
“Pretty dangerous. I’ll bet all the men are scared to death of you.”
She flushed. “Maybe,” she said, lifting her eyes to him, “but it wouldn’t do them any good if they weren’t. I’m spoken for.”
He felt a twinge of disappointment that startled him. “I’m surprised,” he said.
Her head came up from the coffee she was pouring. “Oh? You don’t think I’m good enough?”
“Oh, you’re good enough, all right. Maybe too good. You’ve got a streak of broncho in you, I think, and you’d need a man who’d bridle you with a Spanish bit.”
She gave him another of those straight glances. “I’d handle with a hackamore for the right man,” she said, “and no other could do it, Spanish bit or no.”
When he had finished his coffee she broke camp quickly and efficiently, brushing aside his efforts to help. “Save it, tenderfoot, you’ll need all your strength.”
“Not if you’re spoken for,” he said. She turned on him sharply and seemed about to speak, then swung astride her horse. Only then did he notice that she wore a divided skirt. He had heard of them, but had never seen one. All the women he had known rode sidesaddle. It was considered the only ladylike way.
“If you can sit your saddle,” she said, “we can make it tonight … late.”
“I’ll be with you,” he said, and she led off at a lope. The sky was heavily overcast, although the rain had stopped and there was no more thunder and lightning. The ground was soggy and slippery, but they made good time, with Boston leading the way.
So far as he could see, there were no landmarks. The cap-rock was level and seemed to reach to the horizon on all sides. By the time they were a few hundred yards from the canyon they could no longer tell that it was there. Val studied the ground for tracks that might have been left by the would-be-killer, but there were none.
The ranch lay in a hollow among the hills, the spring at the back, a little higher in the notch. That notch was lined with trees, and other trees were growing about the place.
There was a good-sized, two-story ranch house with a balcony, and with a wide veranda all around. There were two large barns for the best riding stock, some milk cows, and the storage of feed, and there were several corrals and a bunkhouse.
Boston drew up on the slope and swept a wide gesture toward the valley. “Well, there she lays. Did we do right by you?”
“You surely did. It’s beautiful.”
She glanced at him. “I think so. Pa said we’d have to make it so. He said you were the kind of man who would want it to look nice.”
Cody Bucklin came up from the corral as they neared the house. “Pa will be pleased,” he said. “I knowed it was you when you topped out on the rise. It’s the way you set a horse,” he said.
Pa rode in with the last light, Tardy and Duke beside him. “We’ve been makin’ a tally,” he said. “We’ll drive a herd to Kansas this year.”
He studied Val thoughtfully. “You’ve taken on some size, boy, and some beef in the shoulders.”
His eyes went to Boston. “So she found you, did she? Boston allowed as how if you didn’t come back, she was a-going after you. Be careful, boy.”
“Pa!” Boston said. “You’re just a-makin’ that up!”
When suppertime came they seated themselves about the table, and Pa Bucklin said grace. Val looked around at their faces, and suddenly he felt at home. At home with these people he had known so slightly, yet with whom he had made a business pact that had proved itself, and with whom he felt strangely warm and comfortable.
He felt their easy understanding, their friendship, their sympathy. They were strong, honest people, hard-working, hard-fighting, but simple in their ways. They knew that not all men are men of good will; they knew there was evil in the world, and stood strong against it. They knew that there were some who would take by force what they would not work to acquire. They knew, as Val did, that outside their windows waited hunger, thirst, and cold; that beyond their doors there were savage men, held in restraint only by a realization of another force ready to oppose them, to preserve the world they had built from savagery into order and peace, where each man might work and build and create without the threat of destruction.
Betsy came into the room, bringing a platter of steak. She was tall, as Boston was, almost queenly. Val glanced again at Pa. How had such women come from this gnarled and hard-shelled man? Yet they were here, slender, shapely, and beautiful.
“We’ve got four workin’ cowhands now, Val,” Pa said, “and a grubline rider who drifted in a few days ago huntin’ you.”
“Me?”
“Calls himself Tensleep. Said he had word for you.” Pa B
ucklin paused to chew on his steak, and then added, “Looks like a right tough man.”
“He’s an outlaw, Pa, but he’s been a good friend to me. I met him when I was five,” he added, “and I’ve seen him around since. After supper I’d better hear what he has to say. He isn’t given to talking through his hat.”
“He’s a good hand. He’s turned out for work every day since he came, and he works fast and steady. I’d say he’s as good a man with stock as I ever did see.”
“Does he want a job?”
“Ain’t said. I’d say he’s been up the trail and over the mountain, and he’d like to light an’ keep his feet under the table for a spell.”
Then Bucklin looked sharply at him. “You figurin’ on stayin’ a while? We’ve made provision. You’ve got a separate wing of the house for your ownself. The girls furnished it, so if you have complaint, speak to them.”
“I … I’m not sure.” Val looked over at Boston, then turned his eyes away. “I would like to stay, but there is much I have to do. And I don’t know yet what I want my life to be. Or where I want to live.”
“You got call to be restless, never staying put all your born days.”
Val told them then of the places he’d seen, of the men and the women, of the gowns and the wine and the music, and the world beyond the rim of the hills out there, beyond the cap-rock and beyond the Brazos. He told of the work he had done, of the loneliness, and of Van Clevern; and then, of Myra.
After talking a long time he got up from the table, and the girls cleared the dishes away. He said to Pa, “I’d better go see Tensleep.”
It was cool out on the dark veranda. He went down the steps to the yard, and he could see the rectangles of light from the bunkhouse windows and the glow of a cigarette from the stoop. He started across the hard-packed earth, listening to the pleasant sound of the horses feeding in the corral, and when he turned once to look back at the big house and its windows, he heard the sound of male voices, then laughter from the girls.
He strolled toward the bunkhouse and said, “Tensleep?”
“He’s in yonder, a-waitin’ for you. He spotted you the minute you skylined yourself up on the ridge.” Then he added, “I’m Waco.”
Reilly's Luck (1970) Page 17
