Yago’s face creased up. “I shore declared war, didn’t I?” he grinned, and then another aspect of the affair occurred to him. “Say, Jim, yu’ll have to let me tell the boys who yu are.”
“Yu breathe a word o’ that an’ I’ll take yu to pieces an’ put yu together again all wrong,” the foreman threatened.
“But I gotta explain,” the little man protested. “Hell’s bells, Jim, they’ll laugh the life out’n me.”
“Yu can say I’m an old friend, an’ seem’ yu’ll be my segundo, I reckon they’ll let yu off light,” Sudden conceded.
“Can’t I just mention how yu stood up the posse that time an’ kept my neck out of a noose?” Bill pleaded.
“Yu—can—not,” was the decided answer. “Time yu forgot it yoreself. Yu an’ me rode the same range back in Texas, an’ so yu let me off that callin’ over yu promised. Sabe?”
“Awright,” Yago said resignedly. “Yu ain’t told me why yu come here.”
“For the same reason yu did, yu of pirut. The climate down south was gettin’ hotter an’ hotter, an’ my medical man advised a change.”
“Yu ain’t on the dodge, Jim, are yu?” Bill asked anxiously. “Yu see, I heard o’ yu from time to time.”
Sudden’s face grew grim. “I’ll bet yu did—an’ nothin’ good,” he said bitterly. “Bill, I’m shorely the baddest an’ cleverest man in the south-west; I can rob a bank with one hand an’, at the same time, hold up a citizen two hundred miles away with the other. I expect they are still fatherin’ felonies on me right now.”
Yago nodded understandingly; he knew how it was. Though his own past had been fairly hectic, he was credited with crimes he had not been guilty of. In the West, if the dog got a bad name he was hanged—if they could catch him. It was Sudden who broke the silence.
“D’yu figure Luce Burdette shot young Purdie?”
“Nope,” was the instant reply. “Luce ain’t like the rest of ‘em—don’t know how he come to be in Ol’ Burdette’s litter a-tall. More likely one o’ the other boys, or some o’ that gang o’ cut-throats ridin’ for ‘em.”
They had reached a point on the mountain-side where the trees thinned and became more stunted. Far below they could see the town, a huddled, unlovely collection of tiny boxes; a blot on the beauty of the valley with its varied green of foliage and grass; and stretches of grey sage.
Behind them rose the bare, rocky fastnesses of Old Stormy.
“The C P range reaches to four-five miles out o’ town,” Yago explained. “Thunder River is our south boundary, an’ our east line is Dark Canyon, the other side o’ which lies the Diamond S, the marshal’s lay-out.”
Sudden nodded. He was studying the salient features of the mighty panorama before him; Battle Butte, bold and forbidding, at the far end of the valley, a fitting home for the Burdettes, unless their reputation belied them; the craggy, broken, jumbled country to north and south, with the black forests, stony ridges, and deep ravines. His first impression had been correct—it was a fierce and spacious land.
“Who’s doin’ the rustlin’?” he asked abruptly.
“How’d yu know ‘bout that?” Bill said. “Purdie tell yu?”
“It was just a guess,” the foreman admitted. He waved at the surrounding scenery. “The durned place was made for it.”
“Yu allus was a good guesser, Jim,” Yago told him. “Fact is, we are losin’ some—few head at a time.”
“It don’t need no artist with a runnin’ iron to turn a C P into a Circle B,” Sudden said reflectively. “An’ it would be a good way o’ rilin’ up Purdie.”
“Which it didn’t do, Purdie havin’ the same idea.”
“So they try somethin’ stronger, an’ shoot his son, huh?”
“Jim, yo’re whistlin’,” Yago ejaculated. “They’ve allus wanted this range—it’s worth five times their own, an’ besides”—he hesitated—“it’s generally reckoned that somewheres in these rocks behind us is the source o’ the goldfound in the river. Yes, sir, the Burdettes are out to drive the Purdies off an’ glom on to their property; it ain’t just a matter o’ revenge.”
Sudden was staring at Battle Butte, remembering the limp, pitiful form he had packed into town like a piece of merchandise. His face was hard, merciless, no trace of youth remaining.
Yago knew that expression; he had seen it when the wearer was years younger—no more than a boy.
“We’re goin’ to have suthin’ to say about that, Bill, yu an’ me,” the foreman said harshly.
“Outfit to be depended on?”
“Shorest thing yu know,” the other replied.
“Purdie said there was one of mosshead who would mebbe make trouble,” Sudden said slyly, and Bill Yago swore.
“Yu’ll have that trouble yet if yu overplay yore hand,” he threatened. “What’s that smoke mean?”
They had worked northwards, and were riding down the lower slope of the mountain, passing over rolling, grassy country studded with thickets, and broken here and there with brush-cluttered depressions. It was from the midst of one of these that a smudge of smoke corkscrewed into the still air, and they heard, faintly, the cry of a calf. The foreman looked at his companion.
“Any o’ the boys carry irons?” he asked.
“Nope,” Yago said, and even as he spoke, the tell-tale smoke died out. “We better look into this.”
Side by side they raced for the spot, slowing up as they neared it. A wall of dense scrub sent them circling in search of an opening. They found it, a narrow, cattle-trampled path which zigzagged downwards to where a rude pole hurdle blocked the way. Removing this, they reached the edge of the brush, and saw that the floor of the hollow was grass-covered and bare of trees. A dozen cows and as many calves were grazing, but there appeared to be no humans. For some time the two men watched.
“They’ve punched the breeze,” Bill said. “We just missed ‘em, cuss the rotten luck!”
They walked their mounts to the nearest of the feeding beasts. One glance told the story; the C P brand had been rather clumsily changed to a Circle B. The state of the wounds showed that this had only just been done.
“Raw work,” Bill commented, as he studied the rough conversion of the C into an indifferent circle and the added lower loop to the P. “But if they stayed cached here till the scars healed who’s to say it ain’t but a careless bit o’ brandin’?”
“Mebbe,” Sudden said thoughtfully, “though I’ve a hunch they was meant to be found.
Guess we’ll leave ‘em here—there’s plenty feed an’ a spring. Don’t say nothin’ to anyone. If Purdie hears o’ this he’ll paint for war immediate an’—if I’m right—play into their hands.”
On the far side of the hollow they found another narrow pathway, which accounted for their not having seen the brand-blotters. Following this up through the scrub, they emerged again into the open. Sudden smiled grimly.
“She’s a neat little trap, all nicely baited, but the C P ain’t goin’ to be catched,” he said.
“Them poles was newly-cut.”
Pushing further north, grass and sage gradually disappeared, their place being taken by sand, cactus, and mesquite. Presently they pulled up on the edge of a desolate welter of grey-white dust, the undulations of which, in the shimmering heat-haze, seemed to move like the surface of a troubled sea. To the far horizon it reached, dead, menacing, pitiless.
“She’s thirty miles acrost, they say, an’ me, I’m believin’ it,” Yago said in answer to a question. “Sandover is on the other side, but I ain’t been there; I don’t like deserts nohow. Cripes! Makes me thirsty to look at her.” His eyes followed those of the foreman to where the skeleton of a steer gleamed white in the sunshine. “No, we don’t lose many thataway—the critters stay with the feed,” he offered. “Went loco, mebbe.”
They rode along the edge of the desert, heading east, and sighted a log shack with a sodded roof.
“Our line-house,” Yago stated. “Wonder if Strip Lev
ens is to home? Yu ain’t seen him yet.”
In answer to his hail, a long, lanky cowboy emerged from the shack, hand on gun, his narrowed, humorous eyes squinting at them from beneath the brim of his big hat.
“‘Lo, Bill,” he greeted. “Come to take over?—if so, you’re damn welcome.”
“We aim to feed with yu, Strip,” Yago informed him, and waved in the direction of his companion. “This is Jim Green, our new foreman.”
“Glad to meetcha,” Strip smiled, and retired to make additions to the meal he was already preparing.
“He’s a good fella, but he don’t like this job; none of us does,” Yago explained. “We takes her in turn, three-day spells; it’s damn lonesome.”
“What’s the idea of a line-house out here?”
“We was losin’ cows, an’ Purdie figured Greasers from Sandover was snakin’ ‘em across the desert.”
The appointments of the shack were primitive. A packing-case served as a table, and up-ended boxes, which had contained “air-tights,” provided the seats. Two bunks, a stove, and shelves for stores of food and ammunition comprised the rest of the furniture. The fried bacon, biscuits, and coffee occupied the attention of all three men for a time, and then Yago asked a question.
“Anythin’ new, Strip?”
“That there ventilation in my lid weren’t there night before last,” the cowboy replied, pointing to the Stetson he had pitched on one of the bunks.
The visitors examined the two bullet-holes through the crown of the hat; obviously the wearer had escaped death by a bare inch.
“How come?” Bill inquired.
“Yestiddy afternoon I was siftin’ through Split-ear Gulch when some jigger cut down on me from the rim. The brush is pretty thick up there, yu know, an’ all I could see was the smoke.”
“Yu didn’t stay to argue, I betcha.”
“I’m here, ain’t I?” was the grinned retort. “No, sir, when Mister man with the gun is all hid up an’ yo’re in the open is one time to find out if you’re hoss has any speed. I did, an’ he had, or yu’d ‘a’ cooked yore own eats.”
“This is a two-man job,” the foreman decided. “S’pose Levens had been crippled, we wouldn’t ‘a’ knowed till his relief came out.”
Leaving Strip greatly cheered by the prospects of a fellow-sufferer, the other two continued their journey. A few miles brought them to the brink of a winding chasm, a mighty crack in the earth’s crust, which stretched left and right for miles. Less than a hundred yards in width, the bare, precipitous walls dropped steeply down to the stony floor beneath. Gazing into the shadowy depths, the foreman put a query.
“Dark Canyon—there’s places where she’s mighty gloomersome even in daylight,” Yago told him. “Makes a good eastern boundary till the range drops down into the valley. The other side is Slype’s land.”
“What sort o’ place has he got?”
“Pretty triflin’—on’y runs a few hundred head. Ramon an’ his two Greasers must have an easy time.”
At Sudden’s suggestion they made their way to Split-ear Gulch and, after a painstaking search, found the spot where the bushwhacker had lain in wait for Strip. In the flattened, broken grass lay a spent cartridge—a .38. Not far away were the prints of a standing horse, and the surrounding bushes had been nibbled; a few hairs adhering to one of the branches afforded further evidence.
“Paint pony, nail missin’ from the off fore, tied here a considerable spell,” the foreman decided. “What sort o’ hoss does Luce Burdette usually ride?”
“A grey an’ he’s a good ‘un,” Yago replied. “Yu don’t think…?”
“Why not? It ain’t so difficult,” his friend grinned. “Yu oughta try it, Bill. After a bit o’ practice.”
Yago’s reply was a short but pungent description of his new foreman, who laughed as he listened.
“Yore cussin’ ain’t improved any,” he commented. “Yu repeated yoreself twice; yu gotta watch that, Bill. What say we call it a day?”
Yago agreed, and they headed for the ranch.
Chapter VII
WHEN Yago parted from his foreman at the corral he approached the bunkhouse with slowing steps. He knew perfectly well that the outfit would ride him unmercifully and that the only excuse he had to offer would be received with jeers. That there would be no malice in the proceedings helped a little, but Bill was conscious that he had made a fool of himself, and did not welcome the prospect of having it rubbed in, even good-humouredly. Most of the boys were there when he entered. For a moment silence reigned, and then Curly spoke :
“Bill, I’m right sorry; I’ve looked everyhere an’ can’t find it?”
“Can’t find what, yu chump?” Yago incautiously asked.
“That nerve yu lost when yu saw the new foreman,” came the swift answer.
“Aw, Bill didn’t lose no nerve—he’s kind-hearted, an’ saw the foreman was young an’—Green,” sniggered another.
“That warn’t it neither,” Lanty Brown chimed in. “Ain’t yu never heard o’ the power o’ the human eye? Yu fix yore optic on a savage beast an’ it stops dead in its tracks. That’s what the foreman done.”
“I’ve heard o’ the power of the human foot on a silly jackass,” the badgered man retorted.
“If yu gotta know, I recognized Jim Green as an old friend.”
As he had known, a yell of derisive laughter greeted the explanation.
“I knowed it was that,” remarked a quiet, unsmiling youth, who, being named “Sankey,” was known as “Moody” wherever he went. “Lemme tell yu the sad story. Long, long ago, Bill loved the foreman’s mother—this, o’ course, was before she was his mother—an’ they were to be married. But, alas! Along comes a real good-lookin’ fella, an’ Bill lost out. So when he sees the boy whose daddy he oughta been…”
A storm of merriment cut the narration short, and in the midst of it Curly’s voice made itself heard : “Yu got it near right, Moody, but it was the foreman’s gran’mother Bill loved.”
The improvement met with vociferous approbation, and when the uproar had subsided a little, Bill managed to get a word in.
“Yo’re a cheerful lot o’ locoed pups,” he said. “Just bite on this—the foreman has made me segundo, an’ if yu don’t watch yore steps I’ll shake shinin’ hell outa yu.”
The grin on his weathered features belied the threat, and with one accord they fell upon him. Under this human avalanche Bill disappeared, and furniture flew in all directions as members of the struggling mass sought for a bit of him to pat. “Hi, that’s my ear yo’re pulling off,” came faintly from the depths of the heaving heap of profanity, and then, “Take yore blame’ foot outa my mouth, yu mule,” from another sufferer. “Don’t yu go chawin’ it—I ain’t no dawg-food,” panted the owner, striving desperately to recover limbs which appeared to have left him. In the height of the confusion the new foreman entered unobserved.
“Seen anythin’ o’ Yago?” he asked quietly, and then, as the tangled mass disintegrated into units again, permitting the breathless, dishevelled victim to emerge, he added softly, “An’ a good time was had by all. Why for the celebration?”
“We was just congratulatin’ Bill,” Curly explained.
“On bein’ the foreman’s friend?” Sudden asked slyly.
“No, we’re all hopin’ to be that,” the boy flashed back with a quick smile. “On bein’ made segundo; an’ I wanta say yu have shore picked the right man, an’ that goes for all of us, I reckon.”
A chorus of assent came from the others, and Sudden’s eyes swept over them approvingly. “Purdie told me he had a good outfit—he was damn right,” he said, and turning to his second in command, “Good thing they didn’t each want a lock o’ yore hair, Bill,” with a sardonic glance at the sparse covering of his friend’s cranium. “Yu feel able to hobble outside a minute?”
Yago was soon back. “Who’s next on the slate for the line-house?” he inquired
“Me is, an’ thank Gawd i
t’s a day off yet,” Moody replied.
“It ain’t,” Bill told him. “Yu start right after supper; there’s allus to be two there in future.
‘Nother thing, we gotta take turns watchin’ the ranchhouse, nights.”
“What’s the notion, Bill?” Curly wanted to know. “Anybody liable to steal it?”
“Dunno, but Jim don’t do things for no reason,” Yago said.
“I’ll bet he don’t,” the boy agreed. “He has a thoughtful eye, that Jim fella.” He nodded his head. “I’m thinkin’ King Burdette’s throne mebbe ain’t so secure as he reckons.”
Yago grinned. “There’s times when yu come mighty near sayin’ somethin’ sensible,” he complimented.
At supper that evening the foreman met the only member of the outfit he had not yet seen, a hatchet-faced youth with a beak of a nose and a saturnine expression, who was presented to him as “Flatty.” Sudden’s look was a question.
“Real name is Watson, but a piece ago we had to rechristen him,” Yago said, and chuckled. “It was shorely funny.”
“Tell the yarn, Bill; we didn’t all see it,” someone urged.
“Well, it was this away,” Yago began. “Flatty goes out without his slicker—which was plumb careless—gets wet, an’ complains plenty persistent o’ pains in his back. It’s clear he’s sufferin’ from rheumatism. Moody claims to know a shore cure, an’ Flatty admits he’s willin’ to try anythin’ —once. Ònce’ll be enough,’ Moody tells him, an’ as things turned out he was dead right. Follerin’ instructions, the patient strips to his middle an’ lays face down on the bunkhouse table. Moody spreads a blanket over him, fetches a hot flat-iron from the kitchen, an’ begins to run it up an’ down Flatty’s back. `Which if I had a straight iron I could brand you good an’ proper,’ he remarks. The patient makes noises signifyin’ satisfaction.
“But it ain’t too long before Moody discovers that pushin’ a heavy flat-iron aroun’ is tirin’ to the wrist. `This launderin’ o’ humans is shorely no picnic,’ he says, an’ stops to spit on his han’s an’ take a fresh holt. But he forgets that a hot iron gets in its best work standin’ still. It don’t take the invalid no time a-tall to find this out; he lets go a whoop that would ‘a’ turned an Injun green with envy an’ arches his back like a buckin’ pony. The iron mashes two o’ Moody’s toes, but he don’t wait; Flatty’s face, emergin’ from under the blanket, looks to him like the wrath o’ God, an’ he aims to be elsewheres when the lightnin’ strikes. He makes the door a healthy flea’s jump ahead an’ points for the small corral, plannin’ to climb a hoss, but Flatty is crowdin’ him, an’ he has to run round it. His busted foot handicaps him, but the pursuin’ gent ain’t got no suspenders an’ has to hold his pants up, which evens things some. Also, Flatty ain’t savin’ his breath, an’ the things he asks his Creator to do to Moody yu wouldn’t hardly believe.
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