Gunsmoke and Trail Dust

by Bliss Lomax

  “It’s too bad such things have to be; but it was bound to happen, Harvey. The pity is that those who are really to blame will never see it that way. I mean Virgil and all the others who gave men like Joe Salazar good reason to believe they had a free hand with their thieving.”

  She was far more concerned about the sheep.

  “I’ve known Shad Caney for thirty years, and he’s always been a vicious, vindictive man,” she said. “The money he’ll make out of grazing a small band of sheep won’t amount to anything. All it will do will be to make trouble.”

  “Virgil says Webb will kill Shad over this.” Harvey took a cooky from the jar and munched it thoughtfully. “I don’t like to say it, Mom, but that’s the way I see it too—unless Caney gets into trouble with Ringe first.”

  “I don’t put much stock in that,” his mother declared, as she began setting the table. “I don’t believe that man is mad enough to risk a fight with John Ringe. As for Webb killing him, it could be the other way around as well as not. I wouldn’t put it past Shad Caney to have planned from the start to use the sheep as a bait to draw Webb into a trap. Thank the Lord, you’ve got a level head on you, Harvey! Trying to get along with folks is better than hating them and settling your arguments with a gun. I could never stand losing you the way I lost your father!”

  Frank Dufors and the undertaker drove past the house the next morning. They cut down the bodies of the rustlers and took them into Mescal, where they were buried at county expense. Dufors indulged in a lot of talk about bringing charges against certain parties and asking for warrants. But he made no arrests, and everyone knew there’d be none.

  It was taken for granted that word of what had happened at the entrance to Cochinilla Wash had traveled to the far reaches of the Desolations and the Ledge. There were some who said certain hardy individuals like Steve Jennings, Utah Sims, and Slick Carroll would feel called on now to make a raid just to prove that the fate that had overtaken Mescalero Joe and his two companions could not deter them.

  If so, Steve and the men he ran with seemed to be taking their time about it. Though the big outfits had almost finished the spring branding there were no reports of stock being driven off. Harvey rode down to White Pine and had a talk with Eph Adkins, the storekeeper. Eph’s store was all there was of White Pine.

  “I don’t hear nuthin’ special,” Eph declared. “Roberts comes in now and then. I reckon he’s watchin’ the store. He’s heard Steve and the rest of ’em sneak in here sometimes to buy a little grub. He’s a sorta friendly cuss.”

  “I’ve never seen him,” said Harvey.

  “No? Wal, he’s tall, gaunt, kinda youngish, and nice lookin’, yuh might say. Yuh don’t git much talk out of him, but he’s got a pair of gray eyes that bore right into yuh.”

  It was Eph’s unwritten rule never to wait on a customer till the talk had been exhausted. As a result, little happened in Magdalena Basin that failed to reach his ears. But he kept a system of checks and balances on his conversation and always insisted on getting a little more than he gave. He brought up the matter of Shad Caney’s sheep and what was likely to come of it. He had his own opinion, which he kept to himself, and tried repeatedly, and without success, to draw out Harvey. He gave up in disgust, finally.

  “If Webb is keepin’ his lip buttoned it’s all right with me,” he grumbled. “I figgered yuh might have heard what he’s goin’ to do about it. Let’s see yore list!” There were only three items on it.

  “I kin fix yuh up with the flour and the nutmeg but I can’t let yuh have the molasses. I got half a barrel of the dang stuff and it’s fermented on me! Yore ma would fire it back if I sold it to yuh.”

  Harvey had driven over. He carried the sack of flour out to the wagon. Eph followed with the empty molasses jug and the nutmeg.

  “Get in!” he urged. “I’ll untie the hosses for yuh.”

  “Eph, you’ve been around a long time and can size things up,” Harvey remarked. “Is there any grounds for thinking we’ve seen the last of the rustling?”

  “No! Of course we ain’t seen the last of it! But Roberts has raised the ante, Harvey. That’s the only reason things is quiet right now. The game appears to’ve got a little too steep fer some of the boys.”

  Chapter Seven

  MAKINGS OF DISASTER

  EUDORA HAD BEEN at Willow Creek almost a month before an opportunity to go into town presented itself. At supper, on Friday evening, Webb told her he had seen Harvey Hume during the afternoon and the latter had mentioned that he was driving in the next morning, with some butter.

  “I asked him if he’d mind takin’ you in, and he said he’d be glad to. I’ll have to git you over to his place right early.”

  Eudora thanked him. She was surprised to discover how exciting the prospect of going to Mescal could be.

  “I wish I could go with you,” Elly said longingly. “Sometime, when I’m drivin’ in, mebbe you can go,” Webb told her. “Harvey said you could have breakfast with him and his mother, Miss Stoddard. I offered to come over and git you tomorrow night but he said that wouldn’t be necessary.”

  “The Humes is nice people,” Mrs. Nichols assured Eudora. “The way Harvey buckled down and put his shoulder to the wheel is a credit to him.”

  Eudora received a warm welcome from Martha Hume the following morning. Before breakfast was over, she found herself sharing Mrs. Nichols’s high opinion of Harvey and his mother. The latter had insisted to Webb that Eudora stay there the night and that he could pick her up the following afternoon on his way back from Elder Whitman’s.

  “It’ll be late by the time you and Harvey get back from town,” she told Eudora. “It would have been foolish to make you go on to the Nichols’s, when you can just as well stay with us. You’ve been here a month and haven’t got around at all. We can have Sunday dinner together and be finished before they stop for you. It’ll be a change if nothing else.”

  “But won’t I be keeping you from church?” Eudora asked.

  “No, we go when the spirit moves us,” Mrs. Hume declared, philosophically. “I enjoy listening to a good sermon, but I never was one to believe in going to church just for the going.”

  Eudora enjoyed the long drive with Harvey. They were of an age and saw many things with the same eyes. “It’s been good to hear someone laugh again,” she said, as they neared Mescal. “A little laughter and good will might change things considerably in the basin.”

  “I can’t think of a better way to end all this hatred and fear and suspicion,” said Harvey. “But it’ll take a long time. Seems like there’s always something new cropping up—like Shad Caney bringing in sheep—to keep the pot boiling. It isn’t hopeless though; I know I’ve got enough people thinking my way to keep us out of another war unless the big outfits go crazy. As for Caney, I don’t see how what he’s done can end in anything but a showdown with Webb.”

  “Nor I,” Eudora agreed. “I’m sure it’s just a matter of time. I can’t say anything, but it makes my blood run cold to see young boys like Verne and Jeb Caney being dragged into it. I don’t know what Jeb does after he leaves school in the afternoon, but Verne no sooner reaches home than he saddles a horse and goes out armed to patrol the east range. I say east; I think that’s correct.”

  “It is if it’s the range toward Caney’s line.” Harvey touched up the team with the whip. “It would be a mistake for you to say anything to Webb. I don’t know how boys would fit into a situation like this, back where you come from, but out here they’re expected to shoulder some responsibility when they get to be fourteen, fifteen. The trouble is that they’re treated like men one time and children the next. I don’t know whether I make myself clear or not; but I’m sure Webb Nichols doesn’t intend for Verne to do his fighting.”

  “Of course he doesn’t. But it’s so easy for something to go wrong; a boy of Verne’s years hasn’t any judgment. I hear the children talking about the sheep, at school. I suppose they hear things at home. I’ve ign
ored it so far, but I can see it’s making bad feeling.”

  “Against the Caney children, of course.”

  Eudora said yes. “I suppose you’re acquainted with them.”

  “I know them,” Harvey acknowledged. “They’re wild as bobcats.”

  “I haven’t found them so,” she declared. “Little Cissy is the only one who’s given me any trouble.” Eudora smiled. “And not what you would think, at all. She’s developed quite a crush on me.”

  “I can understand why she might.” Harvey’s tone was bantering. “What did Cissy do?”

  “It was my fault,” said Eudora. “Elly used to wait after school was dismissed so she could walk home with me. One afternoon I found Cissy waiting. She said she wanted to walk home with me too, though she lives in the other direction. I tried to explain that to her. She insisted, and I let her have her way that day; but I decided the diplomatic thing for me to do was to walk home by myself. What time this afternoon will you be calling for me, Harvey?”

  “About three. Will that give you time enough?”

  “More than enough. I’ve got a long list of things I want to take back with me. Just trifles. I can gather them together in an hour or two and have time for a good visit with Aunt Jude and Uncle Dan.”

  The Stoddards were surprised to see her.

  “Does this mean you’ve given up the school?” Mrs. Stoddard inquired at once.

  “No, Auntie, of course not! There are some things I want to get, and I wanted to see the two of you. I had a letter from you about a week ago. Did you get mine?”

  “Sure we did!” Mr. Stoddard answered. “Got it promptly!” He glanced at his wife. “The mail service isn’t as bad as it’s painted.”

  Mrs. Stoddard knew the remark was meant for her. “I’m reserving judgment as to that!” she declared tartly. “There’s some other things happening out in the basin that you can’t gloss over, Dan’l. The lynching of those three men, Dora! I ain’t saying they didn’t get what they deserved; but when I heard about it, with you right out there in the midst of it, I couldn’t sleep a wink!”

  “Jude, why bring that up again?” Dan protested. “I told you Dora is out there teaching school; that’s all. You were so afraid you wouldn’t hear from her; and then you said she’d have trouble with the children. But you hear from her promptly and she says she’s doing fine. Why do you worry yourself this way?”

  “I can’t help it!” the little woman exclaimed nervously. “It may be foolish of me, but that’s the way I’m constituted. I’m not timid for myself. It’s different with you, Dora; you’re so young and kind of helpless. I dread to think what would happen to you if you had to face one of those outlaws.”

  “Shucks!” Dan Stoddard scoffed. “She wouldn’t know a rustler if she saw one! I bet you find things so quiet at Willow Creek that you’re bored stiff.”

  “I wouldn’t say that, Uncle Dan,” Eudora returned laughingly. “But I seem to get along all right.”

  Dan returned to the drugstore and Eudora and Mrs. Stoddard went over the list of things the former wanted to take back with her.

  “I guess I better get the geranium slips and pot them before I start dinner,” said Aunt Jude. “If I haven’t got pots enough I can borrow some from Mrs. Woodmancy. I don’t know what sort of pictures you want. There’s a pile of magazines in the cellar, but they’re mostly fashion books. Maybe you can find something. Dan’l has that big calendar he got from that Chicago drughouse last year still hanging up on the door. You know the one I mean, with the basketful of puppies in the picture? He’ll let you have it. The little ones will like it; it’s as cute as can be! I see you’ve got dried beans on your list. Do you mind telling me what you want the beans for, Dora?”

  “I’m going to make some bean bags, Aunt Jude.”

  “Bean bags?”

  “Yes, for the girls. The boys seem to have plenty to keep them busy at recess, but the girls just stand around. No one has ever bothered to teach them any games. The bags will cost only a few pennies,” she added as she saw her aunt frown.

  “I should think the school board would supply things like that,” Mrs. Stoddard declared. But to find Eudora concerned with things as prosaic as bean bags had a reassuring effect on her and she melted to enthusiastic co-operation. She had some remnants, she said, that would do for the bags.

  “You can cut them out, Dora, and I’ll run them through the machine. It’s nice having you home with us again even if it is only for a few hours.”

  The time passed so quickly that she and Eudora were still tying up bundles when Harvey arrived. Mrs. Stoddard asked about his mother and thanked him for bringing Eudora in.

  “I don’t drive in on Saturday very often,” he said, “but whenever I do, I’ll be glad to pick her up.”

  Harvey kept the team moving right along on the way home, and though it was late when they drove into the yard, they found Harvey’s mother waiting up for them. She insisted on getting supper.

  “You’ll rest better if you have something to eat,” she told Eudora. “You sleep just as late in the morning as you please.”

  Eudora slept so soundly that she failed to hear the Nicholses drive by at an early hour. When she opened her eyes it was after eight. The appetizing aroma of fresh coffee drifted into the bedroom. Mrs. Hume heard her moving about and called a cheery good morning and told her not to hurry.

  There was a warm, comforting friendliness in this house that Eudora found in marked contrast to the stern, gloomy air that rested so heavily on Webb Nichols’s home.

  “The Humes haven’t let hatred poison them, and Webb Nichols has,” she mused. “That’s the difference. The whole family is marked with it.”

  The morning sped by too quickly for her, and not because there was anything new or exciting to do. It was a blessed relief just to be able to relax mentally and escape the gloomy predictions and feelings of impending disaster that she found at the Nicholses’ table. The simple Sunday dinner was excellent, and she relished every mouthful.

  “I’m no such cook as your Aunt Jude,” Mrs. Hume declared in response to Eudora’s compliments. “Of course, she’s got more to do with, being in town. But then, I always say it’s what a person brings to the table, as much as what’s on it, that makes a meal good or bad. I suppose you do miss not having fresh milk at the Nicholses’. With growing children in the family, there’s no excuse for not having a milch cow. I’ll have Harvey put a jug in the rig for you, when they stop by.”

  It was two o’clock before they saw the wagon coming. Webb drove up to the door.

  “We took our time and visited a little after meetin’; we didn’t want to hurry you,” he explained.

  “We finished half an hour ago,” Mrs. Hume told him. “Dishes washed up and everything. Rheba, I’d ask you to come in for a minute, but I know you’ve got a dinner to cook and want to get home.”

  Elly was clamoring for Eudora to sit on the back seat with little Hagar and herself. “There’s lots of room, Miss Stoddard.”

  “You put these packages under the seat first, then I’ll sit with you,” Eudora consented. When she was ready, Harvey helped her into the wagon.

  “I’ll put the jug of milk up in front,” he told her.

  Webb let the womenfolk converse and directed his attention to Harvey. “Ringe began shovin’ cattle on that leased range, east of Caney’s line, yesterday afternoon. Eph Adkins says they drove some more stuff through White Pine this mornin’. That means Ringe will be keepin’ some of his crew down this way from now on.”

  Eudora was listening. She didn’t understand the significance of what he was saying, but she could see that Harvey did.

  “He’s moving in a lot earlier than he did last year,” the latter remarked. “We had snow enough to give the grass a good start this spring. I suppose he figures that by using that graze now he can save some of his high range above the Santa Bonita until later in the season.”

  Webb shook his head. “That ain’t the reason! R
inge knows there’s sheep in the basin. That’s why he’s movin’ some of his men down here. He’s goin’ to make shore nothin’ strays across his line.”

  “Can you blame him?” Harvey queried. “You’re keeping your eyes open for the same purpose.”

  “I didn’t say I was ag’in what Ringe is doin’!” Webb grumbled. “I’m just tellin’ you things is comin’ to a head, Harvey! Just wait till the grass begins to dry up a little and stock has to cover more ground to git feed! You’ll see what I mean!”

  To hear him going on in that pessimistic vein, seeing strife and disaster wherever he turned, brought back to Eudora the very thought that had crossed her mind that morning. Whether this latest of his gloomy predictions was justified or not concerned her less at the moment than the feeling that Webb’s mind was locked in a vise; that where the possibility of trouble lurked, he insisted on ferreting it out and refused to find anything else.

  Despite Elly’s chattering Eudora thought of little else on the way home. Somehow, it dampened the enthusiasm with which she had been looking forward to getting back to school on Monday. That evening, going over the things she had brought out from town, she was conscious of it. “It’s foolish to be discouraged just because Mr. Nichols feels as he does,” she admonished herself. “I have my own ideas and I’ll fight for them as long as I have the school.”

  She was sitting on the floor, the pictures she had torn from the magazines she had found in the Stoddards’ cellar strewn about her, as she trimmed the edges with a pair of scissors. The cabin door was open. Verne stood there, gazing at her with a rapt expression on his face. It never occurred to her that she wasn’t alone until a faint scraping of boot leather attracted her attention. She looked up, startled.

  “Why, Verne, I didn’t know you were here!” she exclaimed, not attempting to dissemble her surprise. Never before had he come to the cabin in the evening. “You gave me a start. Is there something you want?” she asked, the intentness of his gaze giving her a vague feeling of alarm.