They turned to look at the wagon again, the popping of ammunition having ceased. The woodwork was all on fire; soon it would be reduced to bolts and tires. Joan’s spirits seemed to have risen with the broadening of day, in spite of Swan Carlson’s visit and his bold jest, if jest he meant it to be. She laughed as she looked at the sheep, huddled below them in attitude of helpless fright.
“Poor little fools!” she said. “Well, I must go back to Charley. Don’t tell dad I was over here, please, John. He wouldn’t like it if he knew I’d butted in this way––he’s scared to death of the Halls.”
“I don’t see how I’m to keep him from knowing it,” Mackenzie said, “and I don’t see why he shouldn’t know. He’d have been out a cheap herder if it hadn’t been for you.”
“No, you mustn’t tell him, you mustn’t let anybody know I was here, John,” she said, lifting her eyes to his in an appeal far stronger than words. “It wouldn’t do for dad––for anybody––to know I was here. You don’t need to say anything about them tying––doing––that.”
Joan shuddered again in that chilling, horrified way, turning from him to hide what he believed he had read in her words and face before.
It was not because she feared to have her father know she had come riding to his rescue in the last hours of her troubled night; not because she feared his censure or his anger, or wanted to conceal her deed for reasons of modesty from anyone. Only to spare him the humiliation of having his failure known, Mackenzie understood. That was her purpose, and her sole purpose, in seeking his pledge to secrecy.
It would hurt him to have it go abroad that he had allowed them to sneak into his camp, seize him, disarm him, bind him, and set the fire that was to make ashes of him for the winds to blow away. It would do for him with Tim Sullivan entirely if that should become known, with the additional humiliation of being saved from this shameful death by a woman. No matter how immeasurable his own gratitude, no matter how wide his own pride in her for what she had done, the sheep country never would be able to see it with his eyes. It would be another smirch for him, and such a deep one as to obscure him and his chances there forever.
Joan knew it. In her generosity, her interest for his future, she wanted her part in it to remain unknown.
“You must promise me, John,” she said. “I’ll never come to take another lesson unless you promise me.”
“I promise you, God bless you, Joan!” said he.
* * *
CHAPTER XII
ONE COMES TO SERVE
An hour after midday there came riding over the hills Tim Sullivan and a stranger. They stopped at the ruins of the sheep-wagon, where Tim dismounted and nosed around, then came on down the draw, where Mackenzie was ranging the sheep.
Tim was greatly exercised over the loss of the wagon. He pitched into Mackenzie about it as soon as he came within speaking distance.
“How did you do it––kick over the lantern?” he inquired, his face cloudy with ill-held wrath.
Mackenzie explained, gruffly and in few words, how the wagon was fired, sparing his own perilous adventure and the part that Joan had borne in it. This slowed Tim down, and set him craning his neck over the country to see if any further threat of violence impended on the horizon.
“Them Hall boys ought to be men enough not to do me a trick like that after the way I’ve give in to them on this side of the range,” he said. Then to Mackenzie, sharply: “It wouldn’t ’a’ happened if you hadn’t took Hector’s guns away from him that time. A sheepman’s got no right to be fightin’ around on the range. If he wants to brawl and scrap, let him do it when he goes to town, the way the cowboys used to.”
“Maybe you’re right; I’m beginning to think you are,” Mackenzie returned.
“Right? Of course I’m right. A sheepman’s got to set his head to business, and watchin’ the corners to prevent losses like this that eats up the profit, and not go around with his sleeves rolled up and his jaw slewed, lookin’ for a fight. And if he starts one he’s got to have the backbone and the gizzard to hold up his end of it, and not let ’em put a thing like this over on him. Why wasn’t you in the wagon last night watchin’ it?”
“Because I’ve been expecting them to burn it.”
“Sure you’ve been expectin’ ’em to burn you out, and you hid in the brush with your tail between your legs like a kicked pup and let ’em set my new wagon afire. How did you git your face bunged up that way?”
“I fell down,” Mackenzie said, with a sarcasm meant only for himself, feeling that he had described his handling of the past situation in a word.
“Runnin’ off, I reckon. Well, I tell you, John, it won’t do, that kind of business won’t do. Them Hall boys are mighty rough fellers, too rough for a boy like you that’s been runnin’ with school children all his life. You got some kind of a lucky hitch on Hector when you stripped that belt and guns off of him––I don’t know how you done it; it’s a miracle he didn’t nail you down with lead––but that kind of luck won’t play into a man’s hands one time in a thousand. You never ought ’a’ started anything with them fellers unless you had the weight in your hind-quarters to keep it goin’.”
“You’re right,” said Mackenzie, swallowing the rebuke like a bitter pill.
“Right? You make me tired standin’ there and takin’ it like a sick cat! If you was half the man I took you to be when you struck this range you’d resent a callin’ down like I’m givin’ you. But you don’t resent it, you take it, like you sneaked and let them fellers burn that wagon and them supplies of mine. If you was expectin’ ’em to turn that kind of a trick you ought ’a’ been right there in that wagon, watchin’ it––there’s where you had a right to be.”
“I suppose there’s where I’d been if I had your nerve, Sullivan,” Mackenzie said, his slow anger taking place of the humiliation that had bent him down all morning like a shameful load. “Everybody on this range knows you’re a fighting man––you’ve fought the wind gettin’ away from this side of the range every time you saw smoke, you’ve got a reputation for standing out for your rights like a man with a gizzard in him as big as a sack of bran! Sure, I know all about the way you’ve backed out of here and let Carlson and the Halls bluff you out of the land you pay rent on, right along. If I had your nerve–––”
* * *
Tim’s face flamed as if he had risen from turning batter-cakes over a fire. He made a smoothing, adjusting, pacificating gesture with his hands, looking with something between deep concern and shame over his shoulder at the man who accompanied him, and who sat off a few feet in his saddle, a grin over his face.
“Now, John, I don’t mean for you to take it that I’m throwin’ any slur over your courage for the way things has turned out––I don’t want you to take it that way at all, lad,” said Tim.
“I’m not a fighting man”––Mackenzie was getting hotter as he went on––“everybody in here knows that by now, I guess. You guessed wrong, Sullivan, when you took me for one and put me over here to hold this range for you that this crowd’s been backing you off of a little farther each spring. You’re the brave spirit that’s needed here––if somebody could tie you and hold you to face the men that have robbed you of the best range you’ve got. I put down my hand; I get out of the way for you when it comes to the grit to put up a fight.”
“Oh, don’t take it to heart what I’ve been sayin’, lad. A man’s hot under the collar when he sees a dirty trick like that turned on him, but it passes off like sweat, John. Let it go, boy, let it pass.”
“You sent me in here expecting me to fight, and when I don’t always come out on top you rib me like the devil’s own for it. You expected me to fight to hold this grass, but you didn’t expect me to lose anything at all. Well, I’ll hold the range for you, Sullivan; you don’t need to lose any sleep over that. But if I’m willing to risk my skin to do it, by thunder, you ought to be game enough to stand the loss of a wagon without a holler that can be heard to Four Co
rners!”
“You’re doin’ fine holdin’ my range that I pay solid money to Uncle Sam for, you’re doin’ elegant fine, lad. I was hasty, my tongue got out from under the bit, boy. Let it pass; don’t you go holdin’ it against an old feller like me that’s got the worry of forty-odd thousand sheep on his mind day and night.”
“It’s easy enough to say, but it don’t let you out. You’ve got no call to come here and wade into me without knowing anything about the circumstances.”
“Right you are, John, sound and right. I was hasty, I was too hot. You’ve done fine here, you’re the first man that’s ever stood up to them fellers and held ’em off my grass. You’ve done things up like a man, John. I give it to you––like a man.”
“Thanks,” said Mackenzie, in dry scorn.
“I ain’t got no kick to make over the loss of my wagon––it’s been many a day since I had one burnt up on me that way. Pass it up, pass up anything I’ve said about it, John. That’s the lad.”
So John passed it up, and unbent to meet the young man who rode with Tim, whom the sheepman presented as Earl Reid, from Omaha, son of Malcolm Reid, an old range partner and friend. The young man had come out to learn the sheep business; Tim had brought him over for Mackenzie to break in. Dad Frazer was coming along with three thousand sheep, due to arrive in about a week. When he got there, the apprentice would split his time between them.
Mackenzie received the apprentice as cordially as he could, but it was not as ardent a welcome as the young man may have expected, owing to the gloom of resentment into which Sullivan’s outbreak had thrown this unlucky herder on the frontier of the range.
Reid was rather a sophisticated looking youth of twenty-two or twenty-three, city broke, city marked. There was a poolroom pallor about this thin face, a poolroom stoop to his thin shoulders, that Mackenzie did not like. But he was frank and ingenuous in his manner, with a ready smile that redeemed his homely face, and a pair of blue eyes that seemed young in their innocence compared to the world-knowledge that his face betrayed.
“Take the horses down there to the crick and water ’em,” Tim directed his new herder, “and then you’ll ride back with me as far as Joan’s camp and fetch over some grub to hold you two fellers till the wagon comes. Joan, she’ll know what to give you, and I guess you can find your way back here?”
“Surest thing you know,” said Earl, with easy confidence, riding off to water the horses.
“That kid’s no stranger to the range,” Mackenzie said, more to himself than to Tim, as he watched him ride off.
“No, he used to be around with the cowboys on Malcolm’s ranch when he was in the cattle business. He can handle a horse as good as you or me. Malcolm was the man that set me up in the sheep business; I started in with him like you’re startin’ with me, more than thirty years ago. He was the first sheepman on this range, and he had to fight to hold his own, I’m here to say!”
“You’d better send the kid over into peaceful territory,” Mackenzie suggested, crabbedly.
“No, the old man wants him to get a taste of what he went through to make his start––he was tickled to the toes when he heard the way them Hall boys are rarin’ up and you standin’ ’em off of this range of mine. ‘Send him over there with that man,’ he says; ‘that’s the kind of a man I want him to break in under.’ The old feller was tickled clean to his toes.”
“Is he over at the ranch?”
“No, he went back home last night. Come down to start the kid right, and talk it over with me. It was all a surprise to me, I didn’t know a thing about it, but I couldn’t turn Malcolm down.” Tim winked, looked cunning, nodded in a knowing way. “Kid’s been cuttin’ up throwin’ away too much money; gettin’ into scrapes like a boy in town will, you know. Wild oats and a big crop of ’em. The old man’s staked him out with me for three years, and he ain’t to draw one cent of pay, or have one cent to spend, in that time. If he breaks over, it’s all off between them two. And the kid’s sole heir to nearly half a million.”
Mackenzie turned to look again at the boy, who was coming back with the horses.
“Do you think he’ll stick?” he asked.
“Yes, he promised the old man he would, and if he’s anything like Malcolm, he’ll eat fire before he’ll break his word. Malcolm and me we come to terms in ten words. The kid’s to work three years for me without pay; then I’ll marry him to my Joan.”
Mackenzie felt his blood come up hot, and sink down again, cold; felt his heart kick in one resentful surge, then fall away to weakness as if its cords had been cut. Tim laughed, looking down the draw toward the sheep.
“It’s something like that Jacob and Laban deal you spoke about the other day,” said he. “Curious how things come around that way, ain’t it? There I went ridin’ off, rakin’ up my brains to remember that story, and laughed when it come to me all of a sudden. Jacob skinned them willow sticks, and skinned the old man, too. But I don’t guess Earl would turn a trick like that on me, even if he could.”
“How about Joan? Does she agree to the terms?” Mackenzie could not forbear the question, even though his throat was dry, his lips cold, his voice husky at the first word.
“She’ll jump at it,” Tim declared, warmly. “She wants to go away from here and see the world, and this will be her chance. I don’t object to her leavin’, either, as long as it don’t cost me anything. You go ahead and stuff her, John; stuff her as full of learnin’ as she’ll hold. It’ll be cheaper for me than sendin’ her off to school and fittin’ her up to be a rich man’s wife, and you can do her just as much good––more, from what she tells me. You go right ahead and stuff her, John.”
“Huh!” said John.
“Earl, he’ll look after your sheep while you’re teachin’ Joan her books. Stuff her, but don’t founder her, John. If any man can fit her up to prance in high society, I’d bet my last dollar you can. You’re a kind of a gentleman yourself, John.”
“Thanks,” said John, grinning a dry grin.
“Yes,” reminiscently, with great satisfaction, “Malcolm made the proposition to me, hit me with it so sudden it nearly took my breath. ‘Marry him to your Joan when you make a man of him,’ he says. I said maybe he wouldn’t want to hitch up with a sheepman’s daughter that was brought up on the range. ‘If he don’t he can go to work and make his own way––I’ll not leave him a dam’ cent!’ says Malcolm. We shook hands on it; he said he’d put it in his will. And that’s cinched so it can’t slip.”
When Tim mounted to leave he looked round the range again with a drawing of trouble in his face, as if he searched the peaceful landscape for the shadow of wings.
“I ain’t got another sheep-wagon to give you right now, John; I guess you’ll have to make out with a tent till winter,” he said.
“I’d rather have it,” Mackenzie replied.
Tim leaned over, hand to one side of his mouth, speaking in low voice, yet not whispering:
“And remember what I said about that matter, John. Stuff, but don’t founder.”
“Stuff,” said John, but with an inflection that gave the word a different meaning, quite.
* * *
CHAPTER XIII
A FIGHT ALMOST LOST
Dad Frazer was not overly friendly toward the young man from Omaha who had come out to learn the sheep business under the threat of penalties and the promise of high rewards. He growled around about him continually when he and Mackenzie met, which was not very often, owing to their being several miles apart. Tim had stationed Dad and his big band of sheep between Mackenzie and Joan, leaving the schoolmaster to hold the frontier. No matter for old man Reid’s keenness to have his son suffer some of the dangers which he had faced in his day, Tim seemed to be holding the youth back out of harm’s way, taking no risks on losing a good thing for the family.
Reid had been on the range about two weeks, but Mackenzie had not seen a great deal of him, owing to Tim’s plan of keeping him out of the disputed territory,
especially at night. That the young man did not care much for the company or instruction of Dad Frazer was plain. Twice he had asked Mackenzie to use his influence with Tim to bring about a change from the old man’s camp to his. In Mackenzie’s silence and severity the young man found something that he could not penetrate, a story that he could not read. Perhaps it was with a view to finding out what school Mackenzie had been seasoned in that Reid bent himself to win his friendship.
Dad Frazer came over the hills to Mackenzie’s range that afternoon, to stretch his legs, he said, although Mackenzie knew it was to stretch his tongue, caring nothing for the miles that lay between. He had left Reid in charge of his flock, the young man being favored by Tim to the extent of allowing him a horse, the same as he did Joan.
“I’m glad he takes to you,” said Dad. “I don’t like him; he’s got a graveyard in his eyes.”
“I don’t think he ever pulled a gun on anybody in his life, Dad,” Mackenzie returned, in mild amazement.
“I don’t mean that kind of a graveyard; I mean a graveyard where he buried the boy in him long before his time. He’s too sharp for his years; he’s seen too much of the kind of life a young feller’s better off for to hear about from a distance and never touch. I tell you, John, he ain’t no good.”
“He’s an agreeable kind of a chap, anyhow; he’s got a line of talk like a saddle salesman.”
“Yes, and I never did have no use for a talkin’ man. Nothin’ to ’em; they don’t stand the gaff.”
In spite of his friendly defense of young Reid, Mackenzie felt that Dad had read him aright. There was something of subtle knowledge, an edge of guile showing through his easy nature and desire to please, that was like acid on the teeth. Reid had the faculty of making himself agreeable, and he was an apt and willing hand, but back of this ingenuous appearance there seemed to be something elusive and shadowy, a thing which he tried to keep hidden by nimble maneuvers, but which would show at times for all his care.
The Flockmaster of Poison Creek Page 11
