by B. M. Bower
“Two, three days, I dunno. Mebby Tom comes then,” he hazarded, blinking at Lance. “This too quick. Nobody comes back same day, you bet.”
Lance stood looking down at him, scowling thoughtfully. “Sam, you’ve been a long time with the outfit. You’ve been a good man. You aren’t crippled up—and you’re the best rider of the bunch of us. Why don’t you go out any more?”
Sam lighted a cigarette, blew out the blazing match and laid the burnt stub carefully on a box. He smoked stolidly, gazing at the dingy wall before him.
“Bust them bronks in the corral,” he said at last, grinning briefly. “You stay long, you see me ride. Uh-huh—yo’ bet.”
“Well, yes. That’s all right. But why don’t you go with the outfit?” Lance leaned against the wall, arms folded, studying him. It was almost hopeless, trying to get anything out of Sam Pretty Cow; still, Lance tried it.
Sam Pretty Cow looked up at him, looked down at his bare feet that he had swung out of bed when Lance wakened him.
“Uh-huh. That’s why. That all right, I’m go. That ain’t all right, I’m don’ go. You bet.”
Lance tap-tapped his right arm with the fingers of his left hand, chewed his lip and looked at Sam Pretty Cow.
“Still, dad lets you stick around the outfit,” he drawled meaningly.
Sam Pretty Cow shot a quick glance toward him, looked at the door, relaxed again and studied his toes which he wriggled on the dirty floor.
“I’m good man, you bet. I’m mind my business.” He drew a long breath, glanced again from the door to Lance’s face. “Tom’s damn smart man—me, I’m mebby smarter. I dunno.”
Lance looked down at him, smiling strangely. “Sam, I’m minding my business, too. I’m doing it by—not minding my own business. Tom Lorrigan’s a smart man—but I’m Tom Lorrigan’s son.”
Sam turned his foot over, looked critically at the calloused sole of it, turned it back again and blew a mouthful of smoke. “Yeah—uh-huh. You damn smart—you don’t like them damn jail. I’m don’t. We both smart, you bet.”
Lance lifted an eyebrow. “What’s the Piegan word for accomplice, Sam?” he asked softly.
Sam Pretty Cow considered. “Me, I’m don’ know them damn word,” he decided.
“It’s a word that sends smart men to jail, Sam. It means the man that stays at home and—knows.”
Sam Pretty Cow tucked his feet under the thin blanket, laid his half-smoked cigarette on the box, with the burning end out over the edge.
“Uh-huh. Yeah. You bet.” He looked up at Lance, for the first time meeting his eyes squarely. “I’m know them damn word you call. Nh-hn. Long time I’m got that what it mean on my heart. You’re damn right.” He waited a minute, saw the Lorrigan look on Lance’s face, on his lips that smiled enigmatically. “Them Californy got bronks to bust?”
“Surest thing you know, Sam. But that’s all right. You stay.”
Sam Pretty Cow looked doubtful as an Indian may ever be expected to look.
“You stay, Sam. There’ll be bronks to bust on the Devil’s Tooth for a long while yet.” He moved to the door, pulled it open and stood looking out. Only a few miles away Mary Hope lay asleep, loving him in her dreams, please God. Here, the Shadow hung black over the Devil’s Tooth. He turned to Sam Pretty Cow whose hand was stretched toward the smoky lamp.
“You forget that word, Sam. It doesn’t mean anything at all—to a Piegan. And Sam, if I’m not around tomorrow morning, you ride over to the Douglas ranch, and take back the horse I borrowed. Belle may want to send you to town. She’s there.”
Sam Pretty Cow’s eyes widened appreciably. “Uh-huh—all right. I’m go,” he promised, and blew out the light.
Lance went slowly up to the house and lay face downward on his bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE DOPE
Traveling lightly, Lance had covered a hundred and fifty miles in four days, through country where trails were few and rough. He had made wide detours, had slept on the ground in his slicker, had eaten bacon and bannocks cooked in the small frying pan which he carried in the sack with his meager rations. He had missed altogether the Devil’s Tooth outfit, and was swinging back now by way of the Lava Beds, where Tom had said that they were going. It was because Tom had named that as his destination that Lance had ridden elsewhere to find him; good reasoning, but so far unproductive of results.
Four days, and he had not heard from Mary Hope, had learned nothing conclusive, either for or against the Devil’s Tooth. Some clues he had gleaned, some evidence that strengthened his suspicions, but nothing to make him feel that the trip had been worth the hardship.
Without knowing just why, he had ridden out expecting to learn the best or the worst and have done with nagging suspicion. It had seemed to him that Fate meant to be kind, that his destiny and Mary Hope’s pointed the way to happiness. Now he was beginning to doubt. How was happiness possible, if the outlaw blood of the Lorrigans ran at high pressure through the veins of his family? He did not know to a certainty that it did, but until he knew that it did not he could never marry Mary Hope. He had to know. It had been pure madness, going to her as he had gone. While his horse plodded up the hill to where the lava outcroppings began, Lance meditated gloomily on the madness that had driven him to her. He had felt so sure of himself and his future, so much the master of his destiny and hers! Yet, even while he wooed her tempestuously he had known that it was madness, that Trouble was reaching even then to pluck him by the sleeve. Mary Hope and her stern, Scotch integrity linked to the blackened Lorrigan name that might soon stand on the roster of the State’s prison? It was impossible, inconceivable. He had been a hound to say to her what he had said.
True, when her mother was stricken he had been there to help her, to comfort her. But it would be small comfort to Mary Hope when the storm broke over the Devil’s Tooth.
“And I said Fate was with us—I said nothing could hurt her! And it will hurt her all her life.”
His sweaty horse paused to breathe, heaving a great sigh, looking discouragedly at the climb yet before him. Lance came to himself and swung off, giving the horse an apologetic slap on the shoulder. “You ought to kick me cold, Sorry, for making you pack my hulking carcase up this hill. Why didn’t you stop at the bottom?”
Sorry looked at him, waited for Lance to take the lead, and climbed after him more briskly. He was a big-boned, well-muscled animal, but two hundred pounds had been a heavy load to carry up hill, and he was glad to be rid of it.
At the top Lance did not remount. The thickly strewn flat rocks made treacherous footing, and more than one man had taken a nasty fall because he had chosen to ride that mile of lava when he should have walked. It was somewhere along this stretch of rock outcropping that Shorty had broken his knee so that he would never ride again to the round-up.
Lance was walking along with his head down, brooding over his trouble, when he fancied he heard a faint halloo. Sorry stopped and craned his head. But Lance could see nothing save the barren stretch of lava and the monotonous wilderness beyond, with mountains in the far background and the Black Rim stretching grim on the left of him. He started on, thinking that perhaps some animal or bird was responsible for the sound. But he had gone but a short distance when it came again, more distinctly because he was half listening for it.
* * * *
He waited, made a guess at the location of the person who shouted, and turned that way, changing the reins from his right hand to his left and pulling his holstered six-shooter within easy reach of his hand. This was not the country, his was not the errand, for carelessness, and Lance was taking no risk.
As he walked his eyes roved continually over the brown expanse of rocks and stunted juniper that formed the Lava Beds. Behind him came Sorry, his worn shoes slipping now and then on a smooth rock, his head bobbing patiently, close to Lance’s shoulder. As so often happens, it was the horse that first discovered the object of their search. He pulled away from the direct line, looki
ng and looking at what Lance, keen-eyed though he was, mistook for a black rock with a juniper bush growing beside it.
Lance turned that way, focussed his glasses upon the object and saw what had happened. A horse had fallen with its rider, the two lying together, the man pinned under the horse. A black horse which he recognized, and a big, red-faced cowpuncher with gray eyes that did not twinkle. While Lance looked, the man lifted his head, seemed to be staring straight into Lance’s face, opened his mouth and contorted his pain-racked face in a shout. It was strange to have the sound reach Lance’s ears thinned and weakened by distance, while the glasses brought the injured man so close that he could see the wild look of entreaty in his eyes. Lance put up the glasses and began running, with Sorry stumbling and slipping behind him.
“I been here since morning,” the big cowpuncher chattered feverishly when Lance came up to him. “I’m fixed, all right! I was dozing and I didn’t jump and he caught me when he fell. I guess his leg is broke, but so is mine, fur’s that goes. I come down hard on a rock and I guess I broke some ribs or something. Hurt like hell for a few hours—it ain’t so bad now. Look out when you go to make him git up—if he rolls on me it’s all off. I guess it’s all off, anyway, but I don’t want to be squashed to death.”
Lance bit his lip. It was hard to hear the man talking, talking, in that rapid, headlong fashion, while his leg lay under the full weight of the black horse and the sun blazed on his uncovered head. It was hard to see his shirt all blood-soaked on the left side where he had fallen across an uptilted, thin-edged rock.
The horse, too, was in sorry state. A weed-grown crevice had cheated him with its semblance to sound footing, and he lay with front leg broken, groaning a little now and then while the man talked and talked. And while he examined the two it seemed to Lance that Fate was pointing, and saying that here, too, was one of the inscrutable instruments by which he worked out the destinies of men. A slippery rock, a man riding that way half asleep—
“I’ll have to shoot this horse, I’m afraid,” Lance said pityingly. “His leg is broken—it’s the most merciful thing I can do. And if I try to lift him off you while he’s alive he may struggle—”
“Sure thing! Go on and shoot him! I woulda done it myself if you hadn’t come along purty soon. I knowed it would be all off with us both if we had to lay out all night, so I was going to finish us both off, when I seen you. Thought I’d take a gambling chance till dark—but the sun has been baking me to a crisp—”
“It’s all right—I’ll get you to a ranch. We’ll fix you up, so don’t think about the finish.” A little of the color had left Lance’s face. Shooting a horse was to him next thing to shooting a human. He had to do it, though. There was no other way.
He took the horse by the cheek-piece of the bridle, spoke to him gently, turned the head a little away from him so that the horse could not look him in the eyes. “Poor old fellow, it’s all I can do for you,” he muttered when he pulled his gun from the holster.
“Maybe you better do the same for me,” said the man, still speaking in the rapid tone which told of fever. “You ain’t able to heave him off me, are you?”
“Sure, I’m able to. Lie still, now, and grit your teeth, old man. It may hurt, when I lift him off your leg. I’ll raise him up and put a rock under, and pull you out. Can you stand that?”
“Me? Hell, yes. Ain’t I been standing pain since before daylight? Me, I can stand anything if I have to!”
Yet he fainted when Lance took him by the shoulders and pulled him free, and Lance used half the water in the canteen on the saddle in bringing him back to consciousness. When the fellow opened his eyes, Lance remembered that he had half a pint of whisky in his coat pocket, and offered it to the injured one.
“Golly, that’s a life-saver!” he ejaculated when he had taken two swallows. He reached down and felt his crushed leg, grimacing at the pain of returning circulation.
“She’s busted all right. Busted right, if I’m any judge. And my side—things are all busted up in there. I know it. Say, oldtimer, how do you figure you’re going to get me outa here? Do you know it’s all of ten miles to the nearest ranch? I’ve got a map of the whole country in my coat pocket. I’ll show yuh if you don’t know. You’re a stranger, I guess. I don’t recollect seeing yore horse before. I always know horses. What’s his brand?”
Lance did not say. He himself was wondering how he was going to get the man out of there. If the fellow thought he was a stranger, all the better. Still, it did not matter much. Already the whisky was whipping the man’s brain to quicker action, loosening his tongue that had already been set wagging by fever.
“Think you can stand it to ride?” he asked solicitously. “I can heave you into the saddle, if you can stand being moved. I’d ride to the next ranch and bring a wagon—but the country’s too rough. A rig couldn’t get within five miles of here.”
“You’re right. Not even Belle Lorrigan’s buckboard could make it across that canyon on beyond. Say, speaking of the Lorrigans—” he hesitated, then plunged recklessly on. “I’m going to pass you some dope I’ve got on that outfit. The chances are I’m done for. The way my insides feel—and you do something for me, will you? If I cash in, you turn in this dope. We may as well ’tend to this business right now, before I tackle the job of riding.”
Lance stood looking down at him while he fumbled in his pocket, pulled out a small leather notebook and some papers.
“I’m a stock detective, see. My name’s Burt Brownlee. I was just about ready to turn in the dope and have the whole outfit pulled. Well, it’s all here. They been rustling right and left, see. But they’re cute—they’re damn cute. We been trying to work up the case on the outside, and it seemed like somebody in the Black Rim was sending stock out, and so I’ve been working on this end. Now here’s the data. I followed ’em, and I’ve got the dope. I know now how they work it, and my evidence and this dope here, that can be verified later on when the time comes, will put the whole bunch over the road, see. They’re outlaws—always have been—but they won’t be by the time they get outa the pen.”
“You better keep that,” Lance cut in gruffly. “Man, that’s nothing you want to be gabbling to a stranger. Shut up, and let me put you on my horse.”
“No, I want to tell yuh,” Burt insisted with all the obstinacy of a man half crazy with pain and whisky. “I want to tell yuh, and I’m going to tell yuh! Get down here and listen. Here’s a map, and here’s the brands they worked, and here’s how they worked ’em. And here’s the dates.”
On one knee Lance kneeled and listened, his jaws set hard together. Fast as the man talked the thoughts of Lance flew ahead, snatched at the significance of every detail, every bit of evidence. Some things puzzled Burt Brownlee, but Lance knew the answer to the puzzle while Burt talked and talked. Finally he laid his hand over the finely traced maps that showed secret trails, unguessed, hidden little draws where stolen stock had been concealed, all the fine threads that would weave the net close around the Lorrigans.
“Here, put that stuff up. This is not getting you to a doctor, and this can wait. Put it up.”
“No, you take it. And if I don’t pull through, you turn it in. You keep it. I don’t want to be found dead with that dope on me—you can’t tell who might get hold of it.” He thrust the papers and the book eagerly into Lance’s unwilling hand.
“No-o, you can’t tell who might get hold of it,” Lance admitted, biting his lip. “Well, let me take your riding outfit off this horse and then we’ll go.”
While he pulled saddle and bridle off the dead horse, Burt Brownlee talked and talked and talked. He wanted more whisky, which Lance promised him he should have when he was ready to get on the horse. He told further evidence against the Devil’s Tooth, told how he had followed Tom for two days only to see him later at the ranch where he had returned while Burt had for a time lost the trail. On that trip, he said, he would have gotten the full details of one “job” had he not turned o
ff to follow Tom Lorrigan.
While he worked Lance listened stoically. When he was ready to start he led Sorry close, lifted the fellow as tenderly as he could, saw him faint again with the pain, and somehow got him on the horse while he was still unconscious. Burt Brownlee was a big man, but he was not of great weight. Lance bound him to the saddle with his own riata, revived him with a little more whisky, and started for Conley’s, who lived nearest.
* * * *
It was ten miles to Conleys, as riders guessed the distance. Lance walked and led Sorry, and tried to hold Burt Brownlee in the saddle, and listened to his rambling talk, and gave him more whisky when he seemed ready to die. During certain intervals when Burt seemed lucid enough to realize his desperate condition, Lance heartened him with assurance that they were almost there.
On the way into the canyon Burt Brownlee suffered greatly on the steep trail, down which the horse must go with forward joltings that racked terribly the man’s crushed side. The whisky was gone; he had finished the scanty supply at the canyon’s crest, because he begged for it so hard that Lance could not steel himself to refuse. At the bottom Lance stopped Sorry, and put an arm around Burt. Lance’s face was set masklike in its forced calm, but his voice was very tender, with the deep, vibrant note Mary Hope loved so ardently.
“Lean against me, old man, and rest a minute. It’s pretty tough going, but you’re game. You’re dead game. You’ll make it. Wait. I’ll stand on this rock—now lean hard, and rest. Ho, there’s no whisky—water will have to do you, now. I’ve a little in my canteen, and when you’ve rested—”
“I’m going,” said Burt, lurching against Lance’s steady strength. “You’re a white man. That Lorrigan dope—don’t forget what I told you—turn it in—”
Lance’s mouth twisted with sudden bitterness. “I won’t—forget,” he said. “I’ll turn it—in.”
“I’m—a goner. Just—stand and let me—lean—”
