by Zane Grey
“Shore. I was afeered of jest thet. Wal, I hate to kill a man when he ain’t out in the open. But he’s spyin’ on my pardner.”
“Slinger, don’t be so sorrowful an’ apologetic aboot it,” replied Curly. “He’s a greaser. He’s a low-down skunk, a murderer. Next trick he’ll shoot one of us in the back. Don’t forget he’s Croak Malloy’s pard, an’ not Jed Stone’s.”
“Smoke him up, Slinger,” added Bud, with a sting in his flippant speech. “We’ve had all our parties an’ dances an’ spoonin’ bees—leastways I have, an’ thet’s no joke. This hyar Sonora better keep out of my sight, fer I’ll take him fer a deer or a turkey or a bob-cat.”
Jim drew a deep hard breath that actually hurt his lungs. “God, it is hell—to wake up to this! … Boys, my softy days are past. We’ll start this long job slow, and watch as much as we work. Slinger, your job is the same as before, only it’s more. Bud, you hunt meat for camp, and I don’t need to tell you what else.”
“Now you’re shore talkin’, Boss,” drawled Curly, with fire in his eye. “We’ll fall down on this job if we don’t forget home an’ mother an’ sweetheart.”
“Say wife an’ baby, too,” added Bud, indicating the sober-faced Jackson Way. “Jack’s so damn sudden an’ mysterious I reckon——”
“Shet your loud trap,” yelled Jackson, not seeing any humor in Bud’s talk, “or I’ll beat your head into a puddin’.”
“Aw, Jack, I was only tryin’ to be funny, to cheer up the boss,” explained Bud, contritely.
Thus began the Yellow Jacket task of the Diamond. They set grimly to it, like pioneers with Indians lurking in the woods, wary and watchful. Here Jim sensed the tremendous pride of the members of the Diamond. Even Curly’s carelessness now vanished, he glided at a task with the steps of a hunter and always his matchless eyes had the roving, searching look of a hawk. Rifles took precedence of axes, or any other working tools. When one of the cowboys went forth to pack in some firewood or a bucket of water, he did not leave his rifle behind. They changed the open camp to a wide dry cavern in the side of the yellow cliff, the only ingress to which was by a pine tree dropped across the brook.
Nevertheless, the new pile of peeled pine logs slowly grew as the days passed.
Slinger spied upon the Hash Knife camp, reporting several of their number absent. They were inactive, waiting for spring. “I couldn’t get no closer than top of a rock wall,” said Slinger. “But I seen Stone, walkin’ to an’ fro, his haid bent, as if he had a load on his back. Couldn’t make out Malloy, an’ reckon he’s away. Same aboot the greaser.”
“Take my field-glasses next time,” said Jim, tersely. “We want to know who’s there and what they’re doing.”
When more days, that lengthened into weeks, passed without any sign on the part of Stone’s gang that they were even aware of the return of the Diamond to Yellow Jacket, Jim felt the easing of a strain.
“Wal, we’ll heah from them when Malloy comes back,” said Curly, meditatively. “He’ll come. I cain’t conceive of thet hombre bein’ daid or quittin’ this range. Can you, Slinger?”
“Not till he raises some more hell,” returned the backwoodsman. “Malloy an’ thet Texan an’ the greaser must be down-country, hatchin’ up somethin’, or huntin’ up cattle to rustle in the spring.”
“Wal, spring will be heah some fine mawnin’,” replied Curly. “An’, dog-gone-it, Jim, your uncle will be shovin’ all thet stock down in heah. He’s in too darn big a hurry.”
“Anyway, Uncle can’t be stopped,” rejoined Jim. “This rustler nest has long been a sore spot with him. And really, he doesn’t see any more than a scrap or two for us, like we had with the Cibeque. The Hash Knife outfit simply doesn’t faze Uncle Jim.”
“He’s shore a tough old cattleman an’ he’s been through the mill. But I cain’t quite agree with him aboot only a little scrap or two. Shore there may be aboot only one.”
In spite of these convictions and misgivings, the weeks went on without any untoward happening at Yellow Jacket. And while vigilance did not relax there was a further lulling of apprehension. It was not wholly improbable for the Hash Knife outfit to be through. Other Arizona gangs had come to an end. In the past the Hash Knife itself had rounded out both meritorious and vicious cycles.
March brought spring down into the brakes under the giant rim of the Mogollans; violets and bluebells and primroses, as well as trout rising to flies, and the bears coming out of their hibernation, to leave muddy tracks on all the trails. The brown pine needles floated down to make room for fresh green, the sycamores showed budding leaves, long behind the cottonwoods. Smoky blue water ran in the hollows, and that was proof of snow melted off the uplands. And lastly the turkey gobblers began to gobble; early and late they kept up their chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug-chug-a-lug chug.
March also brought the vanguard of Mexican laborers to blast out and grade the road down into Yellow Jacket. Already the road was cut and leveled through the forest to the rim. And at the nearest ranch lumber and framework, cement and pipe, bricks and hardware, had begun to arrive.
Coincident with this arrived also more food supplies, and mail and news, all of which were avidly devoured by the cowboys. Curly had received a letter which rendered him oblivious to his surroundings, even to Bud’s sly intrusions into his dream. Jim’s uncle had taken Gloriana to California, while Molly went to stay with Mrs. Locke and diligently pursued her studies.
“Jim, lemme see thet letter from Miss Glory,” asked Bud, casually. “I jest want to admire thet lovely handwritin’.”
And the innocent Jim handed over the letter.
“I knowed it,” declared Bud, after a quick glance, but on the moment he did not explain what it was he knew. Jim guessed readily enough that Bud had seen the handwriting on Curly’s letter, and now he was in possession of the secret of Curly’s trancelike abstraction.
News from Uncle Jim and Ring Locke, from friends of the cowboys, from the weekly newspaper recently started in Flagerstown, furnished debate, not to mention endless conversation, for many a camp fire.
Bambridge had sent his family away from Flagerstown, no one knew where, and had moved to Winslow to conduct his cattle business. Darnell had not been seen in town since Christmas, when he boarded a late eastbound train, after buying a ticket for Denver. But a cowboy friend of Uphill’s had seen Darnell in Holbrook right after New Year’s, and hinted that he kept pretty well hidden there. Croak Malloy had shot a man in Mariposa, according to range rumor. Blodgett, who operated a ranch south of the brakes, complained of spring rustling.
“Uncle Jim says to expect our five thousand head of cows and calves, with a sprinkling of steers, just as soon as the road dries up. … Darn his stubborn hide!”
“Then he’s back from California?” asked Curly, with a naïve hopefulness.
“Sure; long ago. Says he’s rarin’ to come down. I’ll bet he comes, too. And Glory—she raved about California. Let me read you gazabos some of her letter.” And Jim sorted over the closely written pages, and finding one, he read aloud a beautiful tribute to the sunny golden state. Then he went on: “And Jim, dear, something will have to be done or I’ll sure go back on Arizona for California. I didn’t meet any boys out there that can compare with our cowboys. But I can’t be loyal forever, without any reward. Tell the outfit that, will you, Jim? And tell them Molly and I are coming down there just as soon as ever Uncle Jim will let us. We’re making life almost unendurable for him now. … Tell Bud he must take me hunting—(no, Molly is going to teach me to call wild turkeys)—but fishing for trout and gathering flowers. Tell Lonestar, who’s the best rider in the outfit, that he is to teach me the flying mount, not to say how to get on a horse any old way at first. Tell Jackson—but I forgot, Jack is married, and of course, having become friends with his wife, who’s a dear girl, I can’t ask him to take me on long lonely walks, and climb up cliffs, where it would be necessary to support me—at least. … Come to think of it, I don’t know that
there is any other of the outfit I’d ask to fill such capacity. … Oh yes, Bud must show me how to carve my name on aspen trees. … I have favors to ask of Cherry and Up and Hump. And lastly, somebody must show me a real live desperado.”
Not a word about Curly or Slinger! It was an omission which the impassive faces of these two individuals did not betray. Nevertheless, no violence was needed on the part of Curly and Slinger to raise pandemonium in camp. The other cowboys had incentive enough. After they had finished their remarkable demonstration Jim calmly remarked: “Certainly I would never allow Glory and Molly to visit this wild camp, even if Uncle Jim would, which I greatly doubt.”
“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roared Bud, derisively, to the four winds.
“Boss, shore it’ll be safe when summer comes,” said Curly, eagerly, without the drawl.
“How’ll it be safe?” asked Jim, bluntly.
“’Cause, dog-gone-it, Slinger an’ I will make it safe—if we have to kill off the whole durned Hash Knife outfit.”
“I wasn’t thinking of danger to my sister and my sweetheart—from that source,” remarked Jim, subtly—and he felt deeply gleeful at the glaring glances of the suspicious cowboys.
“Jim, the outfit has aboot given up whisky and fighting, not to say the society of questionable women—all for you. Don’t rub it in,” rejoined Curly, in cool, curt drawl, and he stalked away rather too stiff and erect to look his usual graceful self.
It was a rebuke Jim acknowledged he deserved, but he did not take occasion then to explain he had been exercising the cowboys’ privilege of being cryptically funny.
The road came on down into Yellow Jacket, and all too soon the horde of bawling cattle followed, to spread over the great wild canyon and to go on down into the brakes below, and on their heels rolled the wagons with materials for Jim’s ranch-house. It took days to transport the lot. And meanwhile the two builders Jim’s uncle had sent down drove the cowboys to desperation with log-lifting. Jim labored mightily with them, and had the joy of the primitive pioneer, in seeing his habitation go up in the wilderness. Bud ran a pipe-line from Yellow Jacket spring, and had water on the place before the house was up. The canyon had never resounded to such unfamiliar noise. Its tranquillity had been disrupted. And this kept on while the log house grew, one log above the other, and the high-peaked, split pine-shingle roof went on, with its wide eaves sloping out over wide porches. Then while the carpenters were busy with the floors and windows and inside finish, the big barn was started, and long slim poles cut and hauled for corrals.
It was well on in May when the expert workmen left to go back to Flagerstown, leaving Jim possessed of a spacious new pine house that flashed yellow in the sunlight. But much labor there was still, and Jim realized it would take months before that habitation coincided with the picture in his mind.
“Jim, heah you have a log-cabin palace aboot ready,” drawled Curly, and did not add whether he meant ready for furniture or a bride or for another bonfire for the rustlers.
After the workmen left, the old vigilance was observed. Spring was at its height, and up and down the wild canyon, and far down in the brakes, cows and steers and unbranded calves roamed at will, an irresistible temptation to range men of Croak Malloy’s type. Then came the spring round-up—the first ever ridden at Yellow Jacket—and for days the yells of cowboys, the bawl of calves, and the acrid smell of burning hair filled the canyon. The Diamond brand went on hundreds of calves and yearlings. Whether he liked it or not, Jim had begun his ranching, and the cowboys had settled down once more to life in the saddle.
“Wal, the longer thet Hash Knife waits the wuss they’ll ride over us,” summed up the pessimistic Bud.
“Boss, it’s shore the range twenty miles an’ more down in the brakes that’ll take our cattle,” added Curly. “You can pen up a few hundred haid heah in the canyon. But your range is below. An’ thet damned country is big, an’ lookin’ for a lost cow will be huntin’ fer a needle in a haystack. It’s yours, though, an’ worth fightin’ fer. You can double your stock in two years. Grass an’ water mean a fortune to a rancher. To find ’em an’ hang on to ’em—thet’s the ticket.”
“Aw, you gotta hang on to the cattle,” rejoined Bud. “I’ve known many a rancher who’d made his pile—if he could only have hanged on.”
“Wal, it’s lucky fer Jim thet the Hash Knife is peterin’ out.”
“Shore. … Say, did you fellars heah a rifleshot?” Curly threw up his head like a listening deer.
“By gum, I heerd somethin’,” replied Bud.
“What’s strange about it—if you did?” queried Jim, uneasily.
“Get back under the porch,” ordered Curly, sharply. “We made one mistake aboot buildin’ this cabin. A good rifle could reach you from thet cliff.”
“Wal, it’s a safe bet Hump heerd somethin’. Look at him.”
The cowboy designated by Bud’s speech and finger appeared hurrying under the pines toward the cabin.
“Shot came from high up,” observed Curly, warily. “Back a ways from the rim. I wonder would Slinger be up there?”
“Slinger’d be anywhere where he ought to be,” said Lonestar.
They waited for Hump.
“Fellars,” he said, sharply, running up on the porch, “I heerd a forty-four crack up on the rocks.”
“We heahed a rifle-shot, Hump. But I couldn’t swear to it’s bein’ a forty-four. … Thet would be Slinger.”
“Mebbe shot a deer on the way to camp.”
“An’ pack it around an’ down? Not much. Somethin’ wrong. You could hear it in thet shot.”
The Diamond waited, with only one member absent; and every moment increased speculation. When Slinger appeared down the trail there was only one exclamation, which was Curly’s “Ahuh!”
They watched the backwoodsman glide along. He had the stride of the deer-stalker. But there seemed to be force and menace, something sinister, in his approach.
“Packin’ two rifles,” spoke up the hawk-eyed Curly. “An’ what’s thet swingin’ low?”
“Pard, it’s a gun-belt,” declared Bud.
“By Gawd! so it is!” ejaculated Curly, and then, as they all watched Slinger come on, he sat down to light a cigarette. “Boss,” he said, presently, now with his lazy drawl, “I reckon you have one less of the Hash Knife to contend with.”
“Wal, it’s been some time comin’,” added Bud, as if excusing a flagrant omission.
Slinger soon reached the porch. His dark face betrayed nothing, but his glittering eyes were something to avoid. He laid a shiny, worn carbine on the ground, muzzle pointing outward. It was the kind of rifle range-riders liked to carry in a saddle sheath.
“Wal, Slinger, what’d you fetch it heah thet way fer?” demanded Curly, sharply.
“Dog-gone if it ain’t cocked!” exclaimed Bud. Jim, too, had just made this discovery.
“Jest the way he left it,” replied Slinger. “I wanted to show you-all how near somethin’ come off.”
He bent over to touch the trigger, which action discharged the rifle with a spiteful crack.
“Funny it didn’t go off up there,” observed Slinger. “Hair trigger, all right.” Then he laid a gun-belt full of shells, and also burdened with a heavy bone-handled gun, at Jim’s feet on the edge of the porch. But Jim did not have any voice just then. He sensed the disclosure to come.
“Slinger, whose hardware are you packin’ in?” demanded Curly.
“Belonged to thet Hash Knife greaser, Sonora,” replied Slinger, who now removed his cap and wiped his wet face. “I struck his fresh track this mawnin’ down the trail, an’ I followed him. But I never seen him till a little while ago, up heah on the rim. He was lyin’ flat on his belly, an’ he shore had a bead on Jim. Pretty long shot for a greaser, but I reckon it was aboot time I got there.”
Jim stood stricken, as he gazed from the porch steps where he had been sitting up to the craggy rim. Surely not a long shot! He could have killed a deer, or a ma
n, at that distance. He suddenly felt sick. Again a miraculous accident, or what seemed so to him, had intervened to save his life. Would it always happen? Then he became conscious of Curly’s cold voice.
“You—— —— ——!” cursed that worthy, red in the face, and with a violence that presupposed a strong emotion. “Heah I’ve been tellin’ you to keep under cover! Is it goin’ to take a million years of Arizona to teach you things? … My Gawd! boy—thet greaser shore would have plugged you!”
CHAPTER
15
JED Stone regarded his Texas confederate with a long unsmiling stare of comprehension.
“Shore, Jed,” repeated Pecos, “you’re goin’ to draw on Croak one of these days. You cain’t help yourself. … I’d done it myself if I hadn’t been afeered of him.”
“Pecos, you tell me thet?” queried Stone, harshly. “You know then? He’s got you beat on the draw? You’re not hankerin’ to see?”
“Not a damn hanker, Jed,” drawled Pecos. “I’d shore like to see him daid—the crooked little rattlesnake—but I still love life.”
“Ahuh. … An’ thet’s why you’re leavin’ the Hash Knife?”
“Not by a long shot, Jed. I’d gone with Anderson, but for you. An’ I’d gone when Malloy killed thet cowboy Reed, who throwed in with us. But I stuck on, hopin’ Malloy had spit out his poison. I’m goin’ because I reckon the Hash Knife is done. Don’t you know thet, too, Jed?”
“Hell!—If we are done, what an’ who has done us?”
“Reckon you needn’t ask. You know. Malloy was the one who took up Bambridge. Arizona will never stand a cattle thief like Bambridge. She shore hates him most as bad as Texas. It’s Bambridge’s pretense of bein’ honest while makin’ his big cattle deals thet riles Jim Traft, an’ other ranchers who are the real thing. Mark my words, Bambridge won’t see out this summer.”
“Huh! If he doesn’t fork over the ten thousand he owes me he shore won’t, you can gamble on thet,” returned Stone.
“Wal, all those deals thet have brought us up lately were instigated by Bambridge. Runnin’ off the Diamond brand up at Yellow Jacket an’ shippin’ the stock from Winslow—of all the damn-fool deals, that was the worst. We could have gone on for years heah, appropriatin’ a few steers now an’ then, an’ livin’ easy. No, Malloy has done us. These last tricks of his—they make me sick an’ sore.”
