by Fran Striker
Chapter VII
YUMA
It was midafternoon before Penelope returned to the clearing in thewoods. She had found some difficulty in slipping unobserved into thestoreroom on the ranch to secure the things that now reposed insaddlebags. While in the Basin the girl had made sure that MortCavendish would be occupied with the supervision of branding a lot ofnew cattle. He could hardly get back home before dark. This would givePenny ample time to make her call on Becky and be with her when Mortcame in.
When Penny turned the supplies over to Tonto, she saw the gratitude inthe Indian's eyes. "It was almost as if the food were going to save hislife," she later thought. The truth of the matter was that the food wasto save a life that was more important to the Indian than his own couldpossibly be.
While in the clearing Penny tried to learn more about the trail, butTonto either would not or could not inform her regarding its origin. Shetried again to make friends with the horse called "Silver," but herovertures were rejected. Silver remained aloof. Las Vegas stood by, andPenny had the impression that he was laughing at her rebuff by Silver inwhatever way a mustang had of laughing. It irked her.
"I'll come back," she said to Silver, "and bring some sugar and oatsthat'll make you beg to be friends."
She mounted Las Vegas and rode away, little realizing the grim sequenceof events that was to be started simply because she decided to takesugar to a stallion, or the appalling episode that portended in theBasin.
Penny reached the Basin and rode directly to the ranch house. As sherounded the corner and came into view of the porch, she saw, first ofall, big, stockinged feet resting on the railing, then long legs, andthen the sleepy-looking face of Cousin Jeb.
Jeb was looked upon by everyone as worthless. Details of work about theranch were mysteries he'd never tried to fathom, and he helped best bykeeping out of people's way. While Penny had no respect for Jeb, shedisliked him far less than she did her other cousins, Jeb's threebrothers.
She had thought several times that Jeb was not nearly so simple as hewas thought to be. He had a lot of idle time and he spent it all inthinking. Sometimes the results of his periods of concentration weresurprisingly astute.
The girl dismounted near the steps and slapped Las Vegas in the properplace. "Get going," she said, her respect for the mustang lessened afterseeing the silver stallion. Las Vegas scampered toward the corral whilePenny mounted the porch and perched on the railing.
"What's new, Jeb?" she greeted her cousin.
Jeb looked at the girl with eyes that were watery and weak. "Nothin'much, I guess," he replied without breaking the rhythm of his long-jawedchewing of a match.
He stared off at the distant Gap. "Got some more thinkin' tuh do beforeI come tuh any conclusions. So far, I'd say they hain't nothin' muchthat's new."
He let his tilted-back chair drop to its normal four-legged position. Heslipped his feet into heavy lace-up shoes that had no laces, and pushedhimself by the arms of the chair to his feet. Standing erect, JebCavendish would have been uncommonly tall. Even in his slouching posturehe was well over six feet two inches. His growin' all went one way, heexplained from time to time, and it was true. The same poundage wouldhave made a normal man of five feet eight. Jeb was that lean.
"Lot o' thinkin' tuh git done," he repeated musingly, as he pushed histapering hands deep into the pockets of faded dungarees that endedhalfway between his knees and shoe-tops. Penny waited, knowing that Jebwould have more to say if given sufficient time. Jeb spat through teeththat were large and horsy. Then he took off a battered hat that wasventilated with several holes, and scratched the naked part of his headthat was constantly widening with the ebbing of his thin, sandy-coloredhair.
"Yuh know, Penelope," he said at length, "it's writ' in Scripture thatthe Lord tempers the wind tuh the shorn lamb."
So Jeb was in one of the Scripture-quoting moods.
"What about it?" asked Penny. "I've heard of that, and I've alwaysthought that if the lamb hadn't been shorn, the wind wouldn't have hadto be tempered."
Jeb looked at the girl reprovingly and went on. "Mebbe, reasonin' alongthem same lines, it's the Lord's will tuh blind Uncle Bryant so's hecan't see what goes on around here."
"Meaning what?" asked Penny quickly.
"Meanin' it'd save Bryant a powerful lot of mental sufferin' an' bloodysweat if he didn't see too much."
Penny rose and faced her cousin directly. "Jeb," she said, "is it truethat Uncle Bryant's eyes are going back on him?"
"Dunno."
"But you think they are?"
"Bryant's never complained about his sight."
"Why do you think he's losing it?"
Jeb answered with another question. "Have yuh seen him readin' of late?"
Penny hadn't and she said so. "But he never did spend much time reading,so you can't tell anything by that."
"Yuh seen the God-defyin' sort o' men that's come tuh work here?"
Penny nodded. "I don't like their looks at all."
"Jest so. Neither would Bryant. He's left the hirin' of new hands tuhMort an' Vince. If he'd seen Rangoon, an' Sawtell, an' some o' the rest,he'd shoot 'em on general principles in the same way a man'd step on apizon-bad, murder-spider. Those men've been here; Bryant's had chancestuh see 'em an' done nothin'." Having delivered himself of this, Jebresumed his chair and slipped his feet out of the shoes again. "Take'smore thinkin'," he finished, letting his eyes return to far-off places.
Penny gripped her cousin's arm. "Look here, Jeb," she said, "I want toknow more about things in the Basin. Everyone has been so darned quiet,and so strained-acting, that it almost seems as if the place is filledwith ... with ghosts or something. What's it all about?"
Jeb fixed his pale eyes on the girl. They seemed to cover themselveswith a veil. He leaned forward and spoke in a soft confidential voice.
"Cousin, t'others around here think I'm tetched in the head. None of 'emlistens tuh me but you. They don't figger me worth listenin' to, but Iain't sleepin'. I see things, I think things out. I dunno what it is, Ican't put my finger on't, but they's ugly happenin's in this here Basin.They'll be some killin' here."
Jeb's voice took on a quality that chilled Penelope more than the rainthat had but recently stopped falling. There was something almostsepulchral about the way he spoke. He seemed to be foretelling eventswith an authority that could not be doubted.
"Things can't boil underneath without breakin' out soon. Murder iscomin' an' that won't be all. And I'll tell yuh some more." His voicefell to a hoarse whisper. "Uncle Bryant is gettin' ready tuh die."
Penelope broke in. "But that's--"
Jeb stopped the girl. "It's true. Don't ask fer no more. Bryant ismakin' ready. I know it, he's makin' ready tuh die."
Penny knew that she'd gain nothing by pressing Jeb for furtherinformation at that time. She also knew that it was time for her to goto Rebecca. She crossed the porch and entered the house, to find anothercousin sprawling in the living room. The mere fact that Wallie was therein his overdressed glory was substantial evidence that Bryant was notaround. Bryant hated Wallie chiefly for his clothes, secondarily for hisindolent love of social life and the girls in the nearest town. Walliewas experimenting with a guitar, doubtless practicing some new tune toplay in his part of Don Juan. His shirt and the tightly woundneckerchief on his fat neck were of the finest silk and of brillianthue. His trousers were of high-priced fawnskin, and his boots, as usual,gleamed like mirrors. He had practiced long to strum the strings of hisguitar in the manner that would best bring out the sparkle of theimitation diamond on one of ten fat fingers.
He wore two guns, but wouldn't have had the nerve to use them. The gunswere hypocrisy, the ring an imitation. The two were symbolic of the manwho wore them--an "imitation," and a hypocrite.
Penny walked past without speaking, and entered the kitchen where oldGimlet was cooking supper. His one good eye, set in a round and wrinkledface, was like the currant in a hot cross bun. The one eye that gave theman his
nickname was sharp and penetrating, but now it lighted withpleasure at the sight of the girl.
"Keee-ripes," exclaimed Gimlet, "I'm glad tuh see yuh back, Miss Penny.I shore as hell--pardon the cussin'--I shore worry when yuh ain'taround."
Penny smiled. "I just wanted to tell you that I won't be here forsupper. I'm going over to Becky's place."
Gimlet frowned. "If I'd o' knowed that I'd o' taken a lot less troublein fixin' good eatin' steaks."
The girl exchanged a few more words with the cook, then left by the reardoor. At the corral, which lay between her home and Rebecca's, she sawYuma working on Las Vegas.
Yuma was the only new employee in the Basin that Penny could look atwithout an instinctive feeling of revulsion. Yuma was working a brushvigorously over the hide of the mustang when Penny approached. She hadheard a few rumors about the big, pleasant-faced cowpuncher, withshoulders so big and broad that they seemed to droop of their ownweight.
It had been said by expert judges of good fighters that a blow fromYuma's fist would drop a bull. He had once been locked in the back roomof a saloon with four men in what was to be a fight to thefinish--Yuma's finish, supposedly. A short time later his fists crashedthrough the panels of a locked door and a mighty demon of a man walkedout. His clothing was in shreds. Inside the room, debris and wreckagewere everywhere, and four men were prostrate on the floor.
"You needn't rub the hide off him," said Penny as she came near. Yumalooked up and grew red in the face. Before the pretty girl, the giantwas flushed and bashful.
"Shore, ma'am, I'm right sorry. I--I had a little time on my hands an'seen yore hoss. Bein' as you warn't around, I figgered tuh clean thehoss up some."
"And if I'd been around," replied the girl in a teasing voice, "Isuppose you'd have cleaned _me_ up."
Yuma stared, mouth open. "Y-y-yew, g-g-gosh, Miss Penelope,I--er--uh...." He paused, completely at a loss.
Penny really enjoyed watching the young giant squirm in hisembarrassment. She rested her elbows on a rail of the corral, and hookedthe heel of one boot on a lower rail. Leaning back, she watched him fora moment, then said, "What's your name?"
"Folks jest sort o' call me 'Yuma'--that's where I come from, Yuma."
"But everyone has to have at least two names. Don't you have any other?"
"Most o' the gents I seen around this yere Basin lays claim tuh a coupleo' names an' lies when they does so." Yuma straightened and lookeddirectly at the girl with his clear blue eyes.
"That remark," she said, "calls for a little expanding. What do youmean?"
"Oh, 'tain't nothin' tuh take offense at," the blond man said slowly. "Alot o' gents in this country left their right names east of theMississippi, but I'd sooner not use any name than tuh borrow one thatmight belong tuh some other gent."
Penny feigned a bit of anger. "Do you mean to imply that Cavendish isn'tour right name?"
"Aw, shucks, ma'am--nothin' like that. I reckon you an' yore relativeshas a right tuh the name, but they hain't many others on this spreadthat was born with the handle they're usin' right now."
"Go on, Yuma. This is interesting."
Yuma saw Rangoon crossing toward the bunkhouse from the saddle shed."Thar," he said, "goes a gent that lays claim tuh the name o' Rangoon.Last time I seen him, he called himself Abe Larkin, but he made thatname sort o' dangerous by usin' it when he shot up a couple homesteadersnear Snake Flats."
"You mean he's a murderer?"
"That's what the law'd like tuh hang him fer bein' if they knowed wheretuh reach him."
Yuma took a step closer to the girl, his thumb jerked over his shoulderin the general direction of the open grazing land. "Out thar brandin'cattle," he said, "they's a couple _hombres_ that was in thehoss-tradin' business in Mexico last year. They sold hosses tuh somesoldiers down thar. Only trouble with that was that they wasn'tpertickler whar from the hosses came. When they got catched takin' somehossflesh from a gent named Turner, without payin' fer the same, theyshot old Turner."
Penny knew from his manner that Yuma told the truth, but shenevertheless found it hard to believe him. "What are their names?" sheasked.
"No one knows their real names, but they draw pay here under the namesof Lombard an' Sawtell. As fer me, yuh c'n jest call me 'Yuma.'"
Penny grew serious. "Very well," she said, "I'll call you Yuma."
"I suppose it's right nervy o' me tuh make mention o' this next," saidYuma, "But, I--er--uh...."
"Perhaps," interrupted the girl, "if you think it nervy, you'd betternot say it."
"Wal, I'm agoin' tuh jest the same. Now see here, Miss Penelope, I wouldsure like yuh tuh feel that if ever yuh want someone that yuh c'n counton tuh do somethin', no matter what it is, you'll call on me."
"But I hardly know you," said Penny--then, irrepressibly, "this is sosudden!"
Yuma's eyes dropped. Penny could have bitten her tongue. She had turnedthe sincerity of the man from Arizona aside with banter. She realizedinstantly that Yuma sensed the danger others had mentioned and wantedher to know where he stood.
"I'm right sorry," he apologized, "I should o' knowed better'n tuh trytuh suggest that a no-good saddle tramp like me could be of any good tuha lady like you."
Penny laid a brown hand on the solid arm of Yuma. She felt the hardmuscles trembling at her touch.
"Forgive me, Yuma," she said seriously, "I'm sorry. I want you to knowthat I do appreciate your offer and that you'll be the first one I'llcall on if I need a friend."
Yuma looked startled. "Yuh--yuh mean t-t-tuh say ... that is, Imean--you--"
"My friends call me Penny." The girl stuck her right hand out,man-style. "What say, Yuma?--let's be friends."
Yuma hurriedly wiped his right hand on his shirt. He clasped Penny'shand as if it were a delicate thing that might break at a callousedtouch. "G-gosh," he said.
Penny left and ran toward Becky's. Yuma watched the girl, who ran asgracefully as a fawn. He looked in awe at his hand, the hand that hadtouched the girl's slim fingers. Once more he muttered, "Gosh." He sawLas Vegas eyeing him. "Las Vegas," he said to the mustang, "me an' youare downright lucky critters, an' the only difference is that you ain'tthe brains tuh know it."
