CHAPTER XVI
DAVE MEETS TWO FRIENDS AND A FOE
In the early morning Dave turned to rest his cramped limbs. He was in aday coach, and his sleep through the night had been broken. The lightcoming from the window woke him. He looked out on the opalescent dawnof the desert, and his blood quickened at sight of the enchanted mesa.To him came that joyous thrill of one who comes home to his own afteryears of exile.
Presently he saw the silvery sheen of the mesquite when the sun isstreaming westward. Dust eddies whirled across the barranca. The pricklypear and the palo verde flashed past, green splashes against a backgroundof drab. The pudgy creosote, the buffalo grass, the undulation of sandhills were an old story, but to-day his eyes devoured them hungrily. Thewonderful effect of space and light, the cloud skeins drawn out as bysome invisible hand, the brown ribbon of road that wandered over thehill: they brought to him an emotion poignant and surprising.
The train slid into a narrow valley bounded by hills freakishly eroded tofantastic shapes. Pinon trees fled to the rear. A sheep corral fencedwith brush and twisted roots, in which were long, shallow feed troughsand flat-roofed sheds, leaped out of nowhere, was for a few moments, andvanished like a scene in a moving picture. A dim, gray mass of color on ahillside was agitated like a sea wave. It was a flock of sheep movingtoward the corral. For an instant Dave caught a glimpse of a dog circlingthe huddled pack; then dog and sheep were out of sight together.
The pictures stirred memories of the acrid smoke of hill camp-fires, ofnights under a tarp with the rain beating down on him, and still othersof a road herd bawling for water, of winter camps when the ropes werefrozen stiff and the snow slid from trees in small avalanches.
At the junction he took the stage for Malapi. Already he could see thathe was going into a new world, one altogether different from that he hadlast seen here. These men were not cattlemen. They talked the vocabularyof oil. They had the shrewd, keen look of the driller and the wildcatter.They were full of nervous energy that oozed out in constant conversation.
"Jackpot Number Three lost a string o' tools yesterday. While they'refishin', Steelman'll be drillin' hell-a-mile. You got to sit up all nightto beat that Coal Oil Johnny," one wrinkled little man said.
A big man in boots laced over corduroy trousers nodded. "He's smooth as apump plunger, and he sure has luck. He can buy up a dry hole any old timeand it'll be a gusher in a week. He'll bust Em Crawford high and drybefore he finishes with him. Em had ought to 'a' stuck to cattle. That'sone game he knows from hoof to hide."
"Sure. Em's got no business in oil. Say, do you know when they'reexpectin' Shiloh Number Two in?"
"She's into the sand now, but still dry as a cork leg. That's liable toput a crimp in Em's bank roll, don't you reckon?"
"Yep. Old Man Hard Luck's campin' on his trail sure enough. The banks'llbe shakin' their heads at his paper soon."
The stage had stopped to take on a mailsack. Now it started again, andthe rest of the talk was lost to Dave. But he had heard enough to guessthat the old feud between Crawford and Steelman had taken on a new phase,one in which his friend was likely to get the worst of it.
At Malapi Dave descended from the stage into a town he hardly knew. Ithad the same wide main street, but the business section extended fiveblocks instead of one. Everywhere oil dominated the place. Hotels,restaurants, and hardware stores jostled saloons and gambling-houses.Tents had been set up in vacant lots beside frame buildings, and in themstores, rooming-houses, and lunch-counters were doing business. Everybodywas in a hurry. The street was filled with men who had to sleep with oneeye open lest they miss the news of some new discovery.
The town was having growing-pains. One contractor was putting downsidewalks in the same street where another laid sewer pipe and a thirdput in telephone poles. A branch line of a trans-continental railroad wasmoving across the desert to tap the new oil field. Houses rose overnight.Mule teams jingled in and out freighting supplies to Malapi and fromthere to the fields. On all sides were rustle, energy, and optimism,signs of the new West in the making.
Up the street a team of half-broken broncos came on the gallop, weavingamong the traffic with a certainty that showed a skilled pair of handsat the reins. From the buckboard stepped lightly a straight-backed,well-muscled young fellow. He let out a moment later a surprised shoutof welcome and fell upon Sanders with two brown fists.
"Dave! Where in Mexico you been, old alkali? We been lookin' for youeverywhere."
"In Denver, Bob."
Sanders spoke quietly. His eyes went straight into those of Bob Hart tosee what was written there. He found only a glad and joyous welcome,neither embarrassment nor any sign of shame.
"But why didn't you write and let us know?" Bob grew mildly profane inhis warmth. He was as easy as though his friend had come back from a weekin the hills on a deer hunt. "We didn't know when the Governor was goin'to act. Or we'd 'a' been right at the gate, me or Em Crawford one. Whyn'tyou answer our letters, you darned old scalawag? Dawggone, but I'm gladto see you."
Dave's heart warmed to this fine loyalty. He knew that both Hart andCrawford had worked in season and out of season for a parole or a pardon.But it's one thing to appear before a pardon board for a convict in whomyou are interested and quite another to welcome him to your heart when hestands before you. Bob would do to tie to, Sanders told himself with arush of gratitude. None of this feeling showed in his dry voice.
"Thanks, Bob."
Hart knew already that Dave had come back a changed man. He had gone in aboy, wild, turbulent, untamed. He had come out tempered by the fires ofexperience and discipline. The steel-gray eyes were no longer frank andgentle. They judged warily and inscrutably. He talked little and mostlyin monosyllables. It was a safe guess that he was master of his impulses.In his manner was a cold reticence entirely foreign to the Dave Sandershis friend had known and frolicked with. Bob felt in him a quality ofdangerous strength as hard and cold as hammered iron.
"Where's yore trunk? I'll take it right up to my shack," Hart said.
"I've rented a room."
"Well, you can onrent it. You're stayin' with me."
"No, Bob. I reckon I won't do that. I'll live alone awhile."
"No, sir. What do you take me for? We'll load yore things up on thebuckboard."
Dave shook his head. "I'm much obliged, but I'd rather not yet. Got tofeel out my way while I learn the range here."
To this Bob did not consent without a stiff protest, but Sanders wasinflexible.
"All right. Suit yoreself. You always was stubborn as a Missouri mule,"Hart said with a grin. "Anyhow, you'll eat supper with me. Le's go to theDelmonico for ol' times' sake. We'll see if Hop Lee knows you. I'll bethe does."
Hart had come in to see a contractor about building a derrick for a well."I got to see him now, Dave. Go along with me," he urged.
"No, see you later. Want to get my trunk from the depot."
They arranged an hour of meeting at the restaurant.
In front of the post-office Bob met Joyce Crawford. The young woman hadfulfilled the promise of her girlhood. As she moved down the street, talland slender, there was a light, joyous freedom in her step. So EllenTerry walked in her resilient prime.
"Miss Joyce, he's here," Bob said.
"Who--Dave?"
She and her father and Bob had more than once met as a committee of threeto discuss the interests of Sanders both before and since his release.The week after he left Canon City letters of thanks had reached both Hartand Crawford, but these had given no address. Their letters to him hadremained unanswered nor had a detective agency been able to find him.
"Yes, ma'am, Dave! He's right here in town. Met him half an hour ago."
"I'm glad. How does he look?"
"He's grown older, a heap older. And he's different. You know what aneasy-goin' kid he was, always friendly and happy as a half-grown pup.Well, he ain't thataway now. Looks like he never would laugh againreal cheerful. I don't reckon he ever will.
He's done got the prisonbrand on him for good. I couldn't see my old Dave in him a-tall. He'shard as nails--and bitter."
The brown eyes softened. "He would be, of course. How could he help it?"
"And he kinda holds you off. He's been hurt bad and ain't takin' nochances whatever, don't you reckon?"
"Do you mean he's broken?"
"Not a bit. He's strong, and he looks at you straight and hard. Butthey've crushed all the kid outa him. He was a mighty nice boy, Dave was.I hate to lose him."
"When can I see him?" she asked.
Bob looked at his watch. "I got an appointment to meet him at Delmonico'sright now. Maybe I can get him to come up to the house afterward."
Joyce was a young woman who made swift decisions. "I'll go with you now,"she said.
Sanders was standing in front of the restaurant, but he was faced in theother direction. His flat, muscular back was rigid. In his attitude was acertain tenseness, as though his body was a bundle of steel springs readyto be released.
Bob's eye traveled swiftly past him to a fat man rolling up the street onthe opposite sidewalk. "It's Ad Miller, back from the pen. I heard he gotout this week," he told the girl in a low voice.
Joyce Crawford felt the blood ebb from her face. It was as though herheart had been drenched with ice water. What was going to take placebetween these men? Were they armed? Would the gambler recognize his oldenemy?
She knew that each was responsible for the other's prison sentence.Sanders had followed the thieves to Denver and found them with his horse.The fat crook had lied Dave into the penitentiary by swearing that theboy had fired the first shots. Now they were meeting for the first timesince.
Miller had been drinking. The stiff precision of his gait showed that.For a moment it seemed that he would pass without noticing the man acrossthe road. Then, by some twist of chance, he decided to take the sidewalkon the other side. The sign of the Delmonico had caught his eye and heremembered that he was hungry.
He took one step--and stopped. He had recognized Sanders. His eyesnarrowed. The head on his short, red neck was thrust forward.
"Goddlemighty!" he screamed, and next moment was plucking a revolver fromunder his left armpit.
Bob caught Joyce and swept her behind him, covering her with his body asbest he could. At the same time Sanders plunged forward, arrow-straightand swift. The revolver cracked. It spat fire a second time, a third. Thetiger-man, head low, his whole splendid body vibrant with energy, hurledhimself across the road as though he had been flung from a catapult. Astreak of fire ripped through his shoulder. Another shot boomed almostsimultaneously. He thudded hard into the fat paunch of the gunman. Theywent down together.
The fingers of Dave's left hand closed on the fat wrist of the gambler.His other hand tore the revolver away from the slack grasp. The gun roseand fell. Miller went into unconsciousness without even a groan. Thecorrugated butt of the gun had crashed down on his forehead.
Dizzily Sanders rose. He leaned against a telephone pole for support. Thehaze cleared to show him the white, anxious face of a young woman.
"Are you hurt?" she asked.
Dave looked at Joyce, wondering at her presence here. "He's the onethat's hurt," he answered quietly.
"I thought--I was afraid--" Her voice died away. She felt her knees growweak. To her this man had appeared to be plunging straight to death.
No excitement in him reached the surface. His remarkably steady eyesstill held their grim, hard tenseness, but otherwise his self-control wasperfect. He was absolutely imperturbable.
"He was shootin' wild. Sorry you were here, Miss Crawford." His eyesswept the gathering crowd. "You'd better go, don't you reckon?"
"Yes.... You come too, please." The girl's voice broke.
"Don't worry. It's all over." He turned to the crowd. "He began shootin'at me. I was unarmed. He shot four times before I got to him."
"Tha's right. I saw it from up street," a stranger volunteered. "Where doyou take out yore insurance, friend? I'd like to get some of the same."
"I'll be in town here if I'm wanted," Dave announced before he came backto where Bob and Joyce were standing. "Now we'll move, Miss Crawford."
At the second street corner he stopped, evidently intending to go nofarther. "I'll say good-bye, for this time. I'll want to see Mr. Crawfordright soon. How is little Keith comin' on?"
She had mentioned that the boy frequently spoke of him.
"Can you come up to see Father to-night? Or he'll go to your room ifyou'd rather."
"Maybe to-morrow--"
"He'll be anxious to see you. I want you and Bob to come to dinnerSunday."
"Don't hardly think I'll be here Sunday. My plans aren't settled. Thankyou just the same, Miss Crawford."
She took his words as a direct rebuff. There was a little lump in herthroat that she had to get rid of before she spoke again.
"Sorry. Perhaps some other time." Joyce gave him her hand. "I'm mightyglad to have seen you again, Mr. Sanders."
He bowed. "Thank you."
After she had gone, Dave turned swiftly to his friend. "Where's thenearest doctor's office? Miller got me in the shoulder."
Gunsight Pass: How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West Page 16