The B. M. Bower Megapack

by B. M. Bower

  Lance stood, and let him lean, and with his handkerchief he very gently dried Burt’s cold, perspiring face. It seemed an endless time that he stood there. Now and then Burt clutched him with fingers that gripped his shoulders painfully, but Lance never moved. Once, when Sorry turned his head and looked back inquiringly, wondering why they did not go on, Lance spoke to the horse and his voice was calm and soothing. But when it was all over, Lance’s underlip was bleeding at the corner where he had bitten into it.

  He walked into Conley’s yard an hour after that, his face drearily impassive, a dead man lashed to the saddle. He asked for paper and a pen, and in a firm, even handwriting he described tersely the manner of Burt Brownlee’s death, told where the dead horse and the saddle would be found, and as an afterthought, lest there be trouble in locating the spot, he drew a sketch of that particular part of the Lava Beds. He signed the statement, and had the excited Conleys, shaking man and half hysterical wife, sign also as witnesses. His matter-of-fact treatment of the affair impressed them to the point of receiving his instructions as though they were commands which must on no account be disobeyed in any particular.

  “I’ll be back and tell the coroner. He’ll want to see the horse and saddle, perhaps. Mr. Conley, you can find them without any trouble. If he wants an inquest, tell him I’ll be on hand. Thank you, Mrs. Conley,—no, I’ll not wait for anything to eat. I’m not hungry. I must get home. Good-by—sorry I can’t do any more for you.”

  He mounted Sorry, pricked him into a gallop, and presently disappeared around a bend of the trail that led in the direction of the Devil’s Tooth ranch.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  HOW ONE TRAIL ENDED

  Darkness falls late on the Black Rim country in midsummer. It was just deepening from dusk when Lance rode up to the corral gate, pulled the saddle and bridle off Sorry with swift jerks that bespoke a haste born of high nervous tension, and strode up to the house. From the bunk house, when he passed, came the murmur of low-keyed voices. The outfit, then, was at home once more. From the shaded window of Belle’s bedroom a thin silver of light shone, where the blind was curled back at the edge, but the rest of the house was dark. He went in, moving softly, but Belle must have heard his step on the porch, for she came out with her bedroom lamp in her hand, the other raised to impress quiet upon him.

  “Lance, honey! Where on earth have you been?” She set the lamp down on the table and came close, putting her arms around him, her eyes searching the impenetrable calm of his face, the veiled purpose behind his eyes. It was the Lorrigan fighting look; she had seen it once or twice in Tom’s face and it had frightened her. She was frightened now, but her own intrepid soul pushed back her fear.

  “Sh-sh, honey,” she whispered, though Lance had neither moved nor spoken since she touched him. “Sh-sh—Mary Hope and her mother are here, and they’re both asleep. I—honey, we were so worried, when you didn’t come back. That note you sent didn’t say a thing, and I was afraid—And I was between the devil and the deep sea, honey. I couldn’t stay away from here, when I didn’t know—and I couldn’t leave Hope there, and the women that came flocking when they heard the news were just cows for brains. And the old lady won’t have a nurse and she wouldn’t let me out of her sight—she keeps me singing about all the time she’s awake, or reciting poetry—Bobbie Burns, mostly, and Scott. Would you ever think she’d stand for Bobbie Burns? But I can do it as Scotch as she can, and she likes it.

  “So she wouldn’t let me leave, and I couldn’t stay—and I had Hugh make up a bed in the spring wagon, and brought her over here. If you and Hope are going to be married right away, the old lady will need to be here, anyway. The doctor tried to talk hospital—he just tried. The old lady can write now with her left hand so we can make it out, and when he said hospital to her she—she almost swore.

  “So it’s all right, Lance, honey—my God, Lance, what is it? Have you heard from Duke?” She broke down suddenly, and clutched him in a way that reminded him poignantly of that dying man in the canyon. Her whisper became sibilant, terrified. “What is it? What has happened? Lance, tell me! Tom is here, and Al; they were here when we came, today—”

  Lance took a deep breath. Very gently he leaned and kissed her on the forehead, reached back and pulled her hands away from his shoulders.

  “It’s nothing, Belle. I’m—tired. And you—you surprised me. Will it waken them if I—clean up a little before I go to bed? I’ll—be careful.” He forced his eyes, his lips, to smile at her. “Good girl, Belle. I’m—you’re a trump. Now go back to bed. Lance is on the job—Lance won’t leave again like that—he’ll—settle down.”

  He sat down on the nearest chair and pulled off his boots. He made an imperative gesture toward her bedroom, and Belle, giving him a strange, searching look, went in and closed the door after her. He gave a sigh of relief when she was gone, never dreaming how little he had imposed upon her.

  In his stocking feet he went to the kitchen, found hot water in the teakettle, carried it to his room and shaved, cleansing his body as well as he could from the dust of the trip without making any sound that might disturb the sleeping invalid and Mary Hope. He dressed himself carefully as though he were going to meet guests. The set look was still in his face when he stood before the dresser mirror, knotting the blue tie that harmonized best with the shirt he wore. He pulled the tan leather belt straight, so that the plain silver buckle was in the middle, took something off the bed and pushed it carefully inside the waistband of his trousers, on the left side, taking great care that its position was right to the fraction of an inch. He took his tan Oxford shoes in his hand, pulled open his door as quietly as any burglar could have done, stepped down upon the ground and put on the shoes, lacing them carefully, tucking in the bow ends fastidiously.

  Then, moving very softly, he went down the path to the bunk-house, opened the door and walked in, never dreaming that Belle was no more than a dozen steps behind him, or that, when he closed the door, she was standing just outside, listening.

  The blood of his actress mother carried him insouciantly over the pregnant silence that received him. He leaned negligently against the wall beside the closed door, his arms folded, his eyebrows tilted upward at the inner ends, his lips smiling quizzically.

  “I’ve another funny story to tell you fellows,” he drawled, just before the silence became awkward. “Glad you’re all here—it’s too good to keep, too good to waste on part of the outfit. I want you all to get the kick. You’ll enjoy it—being cattlemen. It’s a joke that was pulled on an outfit down in Arizona.”

  Like a trained monologist, he had them listening, deceived by his smiling ease, waiting to hear the joke on the Arizona outfit. Tom and Al, at the table with some papers before them, papers that held figures and scribbled names, he quite overlooked. But they, too, listened to the story, were imposed upon by that quizzical smile, by his mimicry, by the bold, swift strokes with which he painted word pictures which their imaginations seized upon as fast as they were made.

  It was Tom who first felt a suspicion of Lance’s purpose, and shifted his position a little, so that his right hand would be free. As he did so, without looking toward him Lance’s left fingers began tapping, tapping the muscles of his right arm; his right hand had sagged a little. Tom’s eyebrows pulled together. Quite well he knew that pose. He waited, listened with closer attention to the story.

  Lance paused, as your skillful raconteur usually does pause before the climax. His glance went impersonally over the faces of his audience. Most of them were leaning forward, a few were breathing hard. They were listening, straining unconsciously to get the meaning he withheld from them. Lance’s right hand sagged another half inch, his lips pulled sidewise in the enigmatical smile of the Lorrigans.

  “I lied, of course—about the outfit this joke is on. It’s really the Devil’s Tooth I’m talking about. But the kick remains, so listen, folks, just listen.

  “I’m a Lorrigan. Two of you are Lorrigans,
and you know what I mean when I say that. The rest of you had better guess what I mean, if you don’t know—and guess right!

  “I’m talking to you with my back against the wall—in more ways than one. Don’t think I’m fool enough not to know it. But you’re listening with your backs against another wall; I believe it is of stone, usually, and the windows have bars. I don’t think you’re such fools you fail to grasp my meaning. I’m talking—and you’re going to listen.

  “What I said—well, I have the dope, you know. I know where you took that last bunch of stolen horses, and I know the date when you turned them over. I have a map or two—I know those secret trails you made, that lead into that hidden little basin that the Rim has not discovered yet. I’ve dope enough to indict the whole outfit on five separate counts—and any one of them will put every man of you in the pen for a term of years—well, from five to ten up to fifteen or twenty—a mere detail.

  “I know why Duke didn’t come back. There’s a yellow streak in Duke, and he lost his nerve and drifted to parts unknown. Where, I’m not curious to discover. It doesn’t matter, so long as his destination remains unknown.

  “That’s the story. And now, here’s the point: Others, detectives working at the other end of the business, have an inkling of some of this dope. They haven’t got what I’ve got, but they may possibly get it. They may—possibly. And if they do—wel-ll—” He smiled at them, his eyebrows pointing his meaning, his fingers tapping, tapping on his arm.

  “You’ve got to quit. Now, without turning the deal you’re working on, you’ve got to quit. Get that. Get it right into your souls. You men that have been hired to steal, you’ve got to drift. Where, does not concern me at all. Where Duke went is good—Parts Unknown. Or if it’s to hell—why, the going is good. Never better. You’ll go quicker, but there won’t be any coming back, so I advise—Parts Unknown.

  “You two Lorrigans—I’m not thinking of you now as my brother and my father—the same advice applies to you. You’re Lorrigans. You’d rather fight it out than pull out, but you won’t. You’d rather kill me than go. That’s all right; I understand perfectly. But—I’m Lorrigan, too. You’ll go, or I’ll kill you. Tom Lorrigan, your hand is pret-ty close to your gun! But so is mine. You’d kill me, because I stand in the trail you’ve been traveling. But you wouldn’t kill me a damn bit quicker than I’d kill you! I do stand in the trail—and you’re going to take another, both you Lorrigans.

  “You had a debt—a bill of damages against the Black Rim. Wel-ll,” he smiled, “you’ve collected. Now, tonight, you write ‘paid’ across that bill. You tried to be honest, and the Black Rim wouldn’t give you credit for it; they tried to frame something on you, tried to send you ‘over the road’ on a damned, measly charge you weren’t small enough to be guilty of. I understand. The trail ends right here. You quit. You sit there ready to kill. But I’m just as ready as you are. You’ll quit, or I’ll kill you!”

  He waited, watching Tom. Tom, watching Lance, got up and faced him cold-eyed, unafraid, weighing not chances, but values rather.

  “You’d kill me, would you!” he asked, his voice matching the drawl of Lance.

  “Sure, I’d kill you!” Lance smiled back.

  Eyes on a level, the two stared at each other, smiling that deadly, Lorrigan smile, the smile of old Tom Lorrigan the killer.

  “You would, all right,” Tom said. Then his stiffened muscles relaxed. A twinkle came into his eyes. “If you’re game enough to do that, kid, by God, I’m game enough to quit!”

  Lance unfolded his arms, reached out with his open right hand and met Tom’s hand in a close grip. “That’s the stuff, dad! I knew you had it in you—I knew it!”

  Outside the door, Belle hugged her six-shooter to her breast and leaned against the wall, her knees shaking under her. “Thank God! Oh, thank God a Lorrigan can be bigger than all the Lorrigan blood that’s in him!” she whispered. “Oh, Lance, honey—oh, thank God!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE MAKING OF NEW TRAILS

  At the corral, that time-honored conference ground of all true range men, the three Lorrigans leaned their backs against the rails and talked things over in true range style: laconic phrases that stated their meaning without frills or mental reservations, and silences that carried their thoughts forward to the next utterance.

  “Al can take the outfit and drift,” said Tom, as though he were discussing some detail of the round-up. “He knows where—and they can scatter, I’ll give ’em a horse apiece as a—a kinda bonus. I’ll have to stay, looks like. Fall round-up’s coming on.”

  “Wel-ll,” said Lance, throwing an arm over a rail and drumming with his fingers, “I was raised on round-ups. I don’t suppose I’ve forgotten all about it. You might turn the management over to me for a year or so, and take a trip. Belle needs it, dad. I think I could keep things riding along, all right.”

  “Sounds kinda like you had that idea for a joker up your sleeve,” Al observed meaningly. “Are you plumb sure of that dope, Lance?”

  Lance removed his arm from the corral rail, and reached into his pocket. “I didn’t think you had it in you, Al, to be that big a fool. But since you’ve said it, here’s the dope. Take it, dad. I said I’d turn it in, but I didn’t say who’d receive it. The stock detective that’s been camping on your trail for the last few weeks was killed on the Lava Beds today. I found him. He’s at Conley’s, now, waiting for the coroner. You might ride over, Al, and see for yourself. And on the way, you might ride up the Slide trail and take a look around the Tooth. You’ll see signs where he’s watched the ranch from up there. And you can go on down and find where he camped several times at Cottonwood Spring.

  “The coroner won’t get on the job before tomorrow or next day, and it will take a little time, I suppose, for Brownlee’s employers to wake up and wonder what became of the evidence he was sent to collect. You’ll have, perhaps, a week in which to make your getaway. They’re waiting outside the Rim for the evidence this Burt Brownlee was collecting, so that they could make one big clean-up.

  “I’m not setting myself up as a judge, or anything like that—but—well, the going’s good, right now. It may not be so good if you wait.”

  He lighted a match and held it up so that Tom could glance at the maps and skim the contents of the memorandum book. By the blaze of the match Lance’s face still looked rather hard, determined to see the thing through.

  “You’d better burn that stuff, dad. And in the morning—how would it be if we went to town and got the legal end of my new job straightened out! I’ll want a Power of Attorney. You may be gone for some time. I suppose you know,” he added, “that Mary Hope and I are going to be married. So you and Belle can take a trip somewhere. They say it’s worth while going down to the big cattle country in the Argentine—South America, you know.”

  Tom did not reply. He had lighted a second match and was studying attentively the data in Burt Brownlee’s book. The third match told him enough to convince him. He gave a snort when darkness enveloped them again.

  “I sharpened my pencil pretty darn fine when I made out my bill against the Black Rim a few years ago—and by the humpin’ hyenas, these figures here kinda go to show I overcharged ’em. Some. Not so damn much, either, if you look at my side. Better get up the horses, Al, and you’n the boys take the trail. The kid’s right. The goin’s dern good, right now. Better’n what it will be.”

  In the scuffed sand before the corral gate Tom made a small fire, with a few crumpled papers and one small book, which he tore apart and fed, leaf by leaf, to the flames. The light showed him grimly smiling, when he tilted his head and looked up at Lance who watched him.

  “So you’n the Douglas kid is figuring on getting hitched! Well, don’t ever try to eye her down like you done to yore dad. She’ll brain yuh, likely—if you wait long enough for her to make up her mind.”

  Lance laughed. Up at the house Belle heard him and caught her breath. She stared hard at the three for
ms silhouetted like Rembrandt figures around the little fire, started toward them and stopped. She was a wise woman, was Belle. Some things a woman may know—and hide the knowledge deep in her heart, and in the hiding help her mate.z

  Black Rim folk, who always knew so much of their neighbors’ affairs, once more talked and chortled and surmised, and never came within a mile of the truth. The young college rooster had come home to the Devil’s Tooth, they gossiped, and had a row with Al; so Al left home, and Duke too. The Lorrigans always had been hard to get along with, but that Lance—he sure must be a caution to cats, the way he’d cleaned off the ranch.

  Marrying the Douglas girl, and taking that paralyzed old lady right to the ranch, had probably had a lot to do with it. Lance might be willing to forget that old trouble with Scotty, but the rest of the Lorrigans sure never would. And it was queer, too, how all that rustling talk petered out. Mebby there hadn’t been much in it, after all.

  Not even Mary Hope guessed why she and Lance were left so completely in charge of the ranch. Sometimes, when the invalid was captious and showed too plainly that she preferred Belle’s playing and singing to the musical efforts of her own daughter, and scrawled impatient questions about Belle’s return, Mary Hope would wonder if Tom Lorrigan really hated her, and if her coming had practically driven him out of his own home. She would cry a little, then,—unless Lance happened to be somewhere near. If he were, there was no crying for Mary Hope.

  “He’s a good son,” Mother Douglas once wrote, “I wish Aleck was alive, to see how the Lord has changed the Lorrigans.”

  SAWTOOTH RANCH (Part 1)

  CHAPTER I

  LITTLE FISH

  Quirt Creek flowed sluggishly between willows which sagged none too gracefully across its deeper pools, or languished beside the rocky stretches that were bone dry from July to October, with a narrow channel in the centre where what water there was hurried along to the pools below. For a mile or more, where the land lay fairly level in a platter-like valley set in the lower hills, the mud that rimmed the pools was scored deep with the tracks of the “TJ up-and-down” cattle, as the double monogram of Hunter and Johnson was called.