by B. M. Bower
“Your hat’s brown!” she exclaimed unguardedly. “I—I saw a man with a brown hat——”
He laughed suddenly. “If you stay around here long you’ll see a good many,” he said, taking off his hat and turning it on his hand before her. “This here hat I traded for yesterday. I had a gray one, but it didn’t suit me. Too narrow in the brim. Brown hats are getting to be the style. If I can borrow half a dozen matches, Miss Hunter, I’ll be going.”
Lorraine looked at him again doubtfully and went after the matches. He thanked her, smiling down at her quizzically. “A man can get along without lots of things, but he’s plumb lost without matches. You’ve maybe saved my life, Miss Hunter, if you only knew it.”
She watched him as he rode away, opening the gate and letting himself through without dismounting. He disappeared finally around a small spur of the hill, and Lorraine found her knees trembling under her.
“Ket, you’re an awful fool,” she exclaimed fiercely. “Why did you let me give myself away to that man? I—I believe he was the man. And if I really did see him, it wasn’t my imagination at all. He saw me there, perhaps. Ket, I’m scared! I’m not going to stay on this ranch all alone. I’m going to saddle the family skeleton, and I’m going to ride till dark. There’s something queer about that man from Whisper. I’m afraid of him.”
After awhile, when she had finished her breakfast and was putting up a lunch, Lorraine picked up the nameless gray cat and holding its head between her slim fingers, looked at it steadily. “Ket, you’re the humanest thing I’ve seen since I left home,” she said wistfully. “I hate a country where horrible things happen under the surface and the top is just gray and quiet and so dull it makes you want to scream. Lone Morgan lied to me. He lied—he lied!” She hugged the cat impulsively and rubbed her cheek absently against it, so that it began purring immediately.
“Ket—I’m afraid of that man at Whisper!” she breathed miserably against its fur.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“IT TAKES NERVE JUST TO HANG ON”
Brit was smoking his pipe after supper and staring at nothing, though his face was turned toward the closed door. Lorraine had washed the dishes and was tidying the room and looking at her father now and then in a troubled, questioning way of which Brit was quite oblivious.
“Dad,” she said abruptly, “who is the man at Whisper?”
Brit turned his eyes slowly to her face as if he had not grasped her meaning and was waiting for her to repeat the question. It was evident that his thoughts had pulled away from something that meant a good deal to him.
“Why?”
“A man came this morning, and said he was the man at Whisper, and that he would come again to see you.”
Brit took his pipe from his mouth, looked at it and crowded down the tobacco with a forefinger. “He seen me ride away from the ranch, this morning,” he said. “He was coming down the Whisper trail as I was taking the fork over to Sugar Spring, Frank and me. What did he say he wanted to see me about?”
“He didn’t say. He asked for you and Frank.” Lorraine sat down and folded her arms on the oilcloth-covered table. “Dad, what is Whisper?”
“Whisper’s a camp up against a cliff, over west of here. It belongs to the Sawtooth. Is that all he said? Just that he wanted to see me?”
“He—talked a little,” Lorraine admitted, her eyebrows pulled down. “If he saw you leave, I shouldn’t think he’d come here and ask for you.”
“He knowed I was gone,” Brit stated briefly.
With a finger nail Lorraine traced the ugly, brown pattern on the oilcloth. It was not easy to talk to this silent man who was her father, but she had done a great deal of thinking during that long, empty day, and she had reached the point where she was afraid not to speak.
“Dad!”
“What do you want, Raine?”
“Dad, was—has any one around here died, lately?”
“Died? Nobody but Fred Thurman, over here on Granite. He was drug with a horse and killed.”
Lorraine caught her breath, saw Brit looking at her curiously and moved closer to him. She wanted to be near somebody just then, and after all, Brit was her father, and his silence was not the inertia of a dull mind, she knew. He seemed bottled-up, somehow, and bitter. She caught his hand and held it, feeling its roughness between her two soft palms.
“Dad, I’ve got to tell you. I feel trapped, somehow. Did his horse have a white face, dad?”
“Yes, he’s a blaze-faced roan. Why?” Brit moved uncomfortably, but he did not take his hand away from her. “What do you know about it, Raine?”
“I saw a man shoot Fred Thurman and push his foot through the stirrup. And, dad, I believe it was that man at Whisper. The one I saw had on a brown hat, and this man wears a brown hat—and I was advised not to tell any one I had been at that place they call Rock City, when the storm came. Dad, would an innocent man—one that didn’t have anything to do with a crime—would he try to cover it up afterwards?”
Brit’s hand shook when he removed the pipe from his mouth and laid it on the table. His face had turned gray while Lorraine watched him fearfully. He laid his hand on her shoulder, pressing down hard—and at last his eyes met her big, searching ones.
“If he wanted to live—in this country—he’d have to. Leastways, he’d have to keep his mouth shut,” he said grimly.
“And he’d try to shut the mouths of others——”
“If he cared anything about them, he would. You ain’t told anybody what you saw, have yuh?”
Lorraine hid her face against his arm. “Just Lone Morgan, and he thought I was crazy and imagined it. That was in the morning, when he found me. And he—he wanted me to go on thinking it was just a nightmare—that I’d imagined the whole thing. And I did, for awhile. But this man at Whisper tried to find out where I was that night——”
Brit pulled abruptly away from her, got up and opened the door. He stood there for a time, looking out into the gloom of early nightfall. He seemed to be listening, Lorraine thought. When he came back to her his voice was lower, his manner intangibly furtive.
“You didn’t tell him anything, did you?” he asked, as if there had been no pause in their talk.
“No—I made him believe I wasn’t there. Or I tried to. And dad! As I was going to cross that creek just before you come to Rock City, two men came along on horseback, and I hid before they saw me. They stopped to water their horses, and they were talking. They said something about the TJ had been here a long time, but they would get theirs, and it was like sitting into a poker game with a nickel. They said the little ones aren’t big enough to fight the Sawtooth, and they’d carry lead under their hides if they didn’t leave. Dad, isn’t your brand the TJ? That’s what it looks like on Yellowjacket.”
Brit did not answer, and when Lorraine was sure that he did not mean to do so, she asked another question. “Dad, why didn’t you want me to leave the ranch today? I was nervous after that man was here, and I did go.”
“I didn’t want you riding around the country unless I knew where you went,” Brit said. “My brand is the TJ up-and-down. We never call it just the TJ.”
“Oh,” said Lorraine, relieved. “They weren’t talking about you, then. But dad—it’s horrible! We simply can’t let that murder go and not do anything. Because I know that man was shot. I heard the shot fired, and I saw him start to fall off his horse. And the next flash of lightning I saw——”
“Look here, Raine. I don’t want you talking about what you saw. I don’t want you thinkin’ about it. What’s the use? Thurman’s dead and buried. The cor’ner come and held an inquest, and the jury agreed it was an accident. I was on the jury. The sheriff’s took charge of his property. You couldn’t prove what you saw, even if you was to try.” He looked at her very much as Lone Morgan had looked at her. His next words were very nearly what Lone Morgan had said, Lorraine remembered. “You don’t know this country like I know it. Folks live in it mainly because they don’t
go around blatting everything they see and hear and think.”
“You have laws, don’t you, dad? You spoke about the sheriff——”
“The sheriff!” Brit laughed harshly. “Yes, we got a sheriff, and we got a jail, and a judge—all the makin’s of law. But we ain’t got one thing that goes with it, and that’s justice. You’d best make up your mind like the cor’ner’s jury done, that Fred Thurman was drug to death by his horse. That’s all that’ll ever be proved, and if you can’t prove nothing else you better keep your mouth shut.”
Lorraine sprang up and stood facing her father, every nerve taut with protest. “You don’t mean to tell me, dad, that you and Frank Johnson and Lone Morgan and—everybody in the country are cowards, do you?”
Brit looked at her patiently. “No,” he said in the tone of acknowledged defeat, “we ain’t cowards, Raine. A man ain’t a coward when he stands with his hands over his head. Most generally it’s because some one’s got the drop on ’im.”
Lorraine would not accept that. “You think so, because you don’t fight,” she cried hotly. “No one is holding a gun at your head. Dad! I thought Westerners never quit. It’s fight to the finish, always. Why, I’ve seen one man fight a whole outfit and win. He couldn’t be beaten because he wouldn’t give up. Why——”
Brit gave her a tolerant glance. “Where’d you see all that, Raine?” He moved to the table picked up his pipe and knocked out the ashes on the stove hearth. His movements were those of an aging man,—yet Brit Hunter was not old, as age is reckoned.
“Well—in stories—but it was reasonable and logical and possible, just the same. If you use your brains you can outwit them, and if you have any nerve——”
Brit made a sound somewhat like a snort. “These days, when politics is played by the big fellows, and the law is used to make money for ’em, it takes nerve just to hang on,” he said. “Nobody but a dang fool would fight.” Slow anger grew within him. He turned upon Lorraine almost fiercely. “D’yuh think me and Frank could fight the Sawtooth and get anything out of it but a coffin apiece, maybe?” he demanded harshly. “Don’t the Sawtooth own this country? Warfield’s got the sheriff in his pocket, and the cor’ner, and the judge, and the stock inspector—he’s Senator Warfield, and what he wants he gets. He gets it through the law that you was talking about a little while ago. What you goin’ to do about it? If I had the money and the land and the political pull he’s got, mebby I’d have me a sheriff and a judge, too.
“Fred Thurman tried to fight the Sawtooth over a water right he owned and they wanted. They had the case runnin’ in court till they like to of took the last dollar he had. He got bull-headed. That water right meant the hull ranch—everything he owned. You can’t run a ranch without water. And when he’d took the case up and up till it got to the Supreme Court, and he stood some show of winnin’ out—he had an accident. He was drug to death by his horse.”
Brit stooped and opened the stove door, seeking a live coal; found none and turned again to Lorraine, shaking his pipe at her for emphasis.
“We try to prove Fred was murdered, and what’s the result? Something happens: to me, mebby, or Frank, or both of us. And you can’t say, ‘Here, I know the Sawtooth had a hand in that.’ You got to prove it! And when you’ve proved it,” he added bitterly, “you got to have officers that’ll carry out the law instead of using it to hog-tie yuh.”
His futile, dull anger surged up again. “You call us cowards because we don’t git up on our hind legs and fight the Sawtooth. A lot you know about courage! You’ve read stories, and you’ve saw moving pictures, and you think that’s the West—that’s the way they do it. One man hold off a hunderd with his gun—and on the other hand, a hunderd men, mebby, ridin’ hell-whoopin’ after one. You think that’s it—that’s the way they do it. Hunh!” He lifted the lid of the stove, spat into it as if he were spitting in the face of an enemy, and turned again to Lorraine.
“What you seen—what you say you seen—that was done at night when there wasn’t no audience. All the fighting the Sawtooth does is done under cover. You won’t see none of it—they ain’t such fools. And what us small fellers do, we do it quiet, too. We ain’t ridin’ up and down the trail, flourishin’ our six-shooters and yellin’ to the Sawtooth to come on and we’ll clean ’em up!”
“But you’re fighting just the same, aren’t you, dad? You’re not letting them——”
“We’re makin’ out to live here—and we’ve been doin’ it for twenty-five year,” Brit told her, with a certain grim dignity. “We’ve still got a few head uh stock left—enough to live on. Playin’ poker with a nickel, mebby—but we manage to ante, every hand so fur.” His mind returned to the grisly thing Lorraine had seen.
“We can’t run down the man that got Fred Thurman, supposin’ he was killed, as you say. That’s what the law is paid to do. If Lone Morgan told you not to talk about it, he told you right. He was talking for your own good. What about Al—the man from Whisper? You didn’t tell him, did you?”
His tone, the suppressed violence of his manner, frightened Lorraine. She moved farther away from him.
“I didn’t tell him anything. He was curious but—I only said I knew him because he was wearing a brown hat, and the man that shot Mr. Thurman had a brown hat. I didn’t say all that. I just mentioned the hat. And he said there were lots of brown hats in the country. He said he had traded for that one, just yesterday. He said his own hat was gray.”
Brit stared at her, his jaw sagging a little, his eyes growing vacant with the thoughts he hid deep in his mind. He slumped down into his chair and leaned forward, his arms resting on his knees, his fingers clasped loosely. After a little he tilted his head and looked up at her.
“You better go to bed,” he told her stolidly. “And if you’re going to live at the Quirt, Raine, you’ll have to learn to keep your mouth shut. I ain’t blaming you—but you told too much to Al Woodruff. Don’t talk to him no more, if he comes here when I’m gone.” He put out a hand, beckoning her to him, sorry for his harshness. Lorraine went to him and knelt beside him, slipping an arm around his neck while she hid her face on his shoulder.
“I won’t be a nuisance, dad—really, I won’t,” she said. “I—I can shoot a gun. I never shot one with bullets in, but I could. And I learned to do lots of things when I was working in that play West I thought was real. It isn’t like I thought. There’s no picture stuff in the real West, I guess; they don’t do things that way. But—what I want you to know is that if they’re fighting you they’ll have to fight me, too.
“I don’t mean movie stuff, honestly I don’t. I’m in this thing now, and you’ll have to count me, same as you count Jim and Sorry. Won’t you please feel that I’m one more in the game, dad, and not just another responsibility? I’ll herd cattle, or do whatever there is to do. And I’ll keep my mouth shut, too. I can’t stay here, day after day, doing nothing but sweep and dust two rooms and fry potatoes and bacon for you at night. Dad, I’ll go crazy if you don’t let me into your life!
“Dad, if you knew the stunts I’ve done in the last three years! It was make-believe West, but I learned things just the same.” She kissed him on the unshaven cheek nearest her,—and thought of the kisses she had breathed upon the cheeks of story fathers with due care for the make-up on her lips. Just because this was real, she kissed him again with the frank vigor of a child.
“Dad,” she said wheedlingly, “I think you might scare up something that I can really ride. Yellowjacket is safe, but—but you have real live horses on the ranch, haven’t you? You must not go judging me by the palms and the bay windows of the Casa Grande. That’s where I’ve slept, the last few years when I wasn’t off on location—but it’s just as sensible to think I don’t know anything else, as it would be for me to think you can’t do anything but skim milk and fry bacon and make sour-dough bread, just because I’ve seen you do it!”
Brit laughed and patted her awkwardly on the back. “If you was a boy, I’d set you
up as a lawyer,” he said with an attempt at playfulness. “I kinda thought you could ride. I seen how you piled onto old Yellowjacket and the way you held your reins. It runs in the blood, I guess. I’ll see what I can do in the way of a horse. Ole Yellowjacket used to be a real rim-rider, but he’s gitting old; gitting old—same as me.”
“You’re not! You’re just letting yourself feel old. And am I one of the outfit, dad?”
“I guess so—only there ain’t going to be any of this hell-whoopin’ stuff, Raine. You can’t travel these trails at a long lope with yore hair flyin’ out behind and—and all that damn foolishness. I’ve saw ’em in the movin’ pitchers——”
Lorraine blushed, and was thankful that her dad had not watched her work in that serial. For that matter, she hoped that Lone Morgan would never stray into a movie where any of her pictures were being shown.
“I’m serious, dad. I don’t want to make a show of myself. But if you’ll feel that I can be a help instead of a handicap, that’s what I want. And if it comes to fighting——”
Brit pushed her from him impatiently. “There yuh go—fight—fight—and I told yuh there ain’t any fighting going on. Nothing more’n a fight to hang on and make a living. That means straight, hard work and mindin’ your own business. If you want to help at that——”
“I do,” said Raine quietly, getting to her feet. Her legacy of stubbornness set her lips firmly together. “That’s exactly what I mean. Good night, dad.”
Brit answered her noncommittally, apparently sunk already in his own musings. But his lips drew in to suppress a smile when he saw, from the corner of his eyes, that Lorraine was winding the alarm on the cheap kitchen clock, and that she set the hand carefully and took the clock with her to bed.
CHAPTER NINE
THE EVIL EYE OF THE SAWTOOTH
Oppression is a growth that flourishes best in the soil of opportunity. It seldom springs into full power at once. The Sawtooth Cattle Company had begun much as its neighbors had begun: with a tract of land, cattle, and the ambition for prospering. Senator Warfield had then been plain Bill Warfield, manager of the outfit, who rode with his men and saw how his herds increased,—saw too how they might increase faster under certain conditions. At the outset he was not, perhaps, more unscrupulous than some of his neighbors. True, if a homesteader left his claim for a longer time than the law allowed him, Bill Warfield would choose one of his own men to file a contest on that claim. The man’s wages would be paid. Witnesses were never lacking to swear to the improvements he had made, and after the patent had been granted the homesteader (for the contestant always won, in that country) the Sawtooth, would pay him for the land. Frequently a Sawtooth man would file upon land before any other man had claimed it. Sometimes a Sawtooth man would purchase a relinquishment from some poor devil of a claim-holder who seemed always to have bad luck, and so became discouraged and ready to sell. An intelligent man like Bill Warfield could acquire much land in this manner, give him time enough.
