by Bliss Lomax
From her position on the floor, he was a towering figure on the doorway, the yellow lamplight casting shadows that made his heavy features and neck muscles stand out in bold relief. Seen that way, he looked like anything but an adolescent boy.
“I—just wanted to tell you I’d be glad to carry some things to school for you in the morning,” he said. His manner was awkward and self-conscious, but his boots did not climb over each other as they usually did whenever he spoke to her.
Eudora got to her feet. She had taken down her hair and tied it in back. It gave her a schoolgirlish look. “That’s thoughtful of you, Verne,” she told him. “You could carry the plants. I’ll put them in a basket for you in the morning. Is there something else?” she questioned, when he did not start to leave, as she expected.
Panic began to grip the boy as she waited for him to answer. He was ready to turn and run, but something held him chained where he stood. “Yo’re awful pretty with yore hair like that,” he blurted out, hardly knowing what he was saying. “I’d do anything for you. If anybody ever tries to make any trouble for you, I’ll kill him!”
Eudora’s knees suddenly felt numb. In shocked amazement she stared at him. “You’ll have to go, Verne!” she cried sternly. “I refuse to listen to another word from you!”
He sucked in his breath, raspingly. “Does that mean you like Jeb Caney better’n you do me?”
So that’s the reason for all this! Eudora thought, a cold flood of understanding sweeping through her. “The two of you are just children to me!” she declared indignantly. “As for liking one of you better than the other, I’ve never given it a thought! And I don’t propose to! I regard you and Jeb exactly as I do the other pupils!”
She pushed him out and closed the door. Turning out the light, she watched from the window and saw Verne crossing the yard. She was so angry and shaken that she couldn’t reduce her racing thoughts to ordered thinking.
The absurd, stupid infatuation of an overgrown boy! she mused bitterly, as she undressed in the dark. I suppose I should regard it as amusing, and let it go at that!
It was not to be dismissed so lightly, however, for she realized it had its somber side and could easily turn into tragedy.
It kept her awake half the night. In the morning, she saw it in a somewhat different light, even to holding herself partly to blame. It’s just as Harvey said, she thought. You can’t treat Verne as a man part of the time and expect him to consider himself a boy. I’ll go out of my way to show him I regard him as a child, and that will end this nonsense!
Chapter Eight
THE STOUK-DETECTIVE
SCHOOL STARTED OFF well enough on Monday, and as Eudora saw the enthusiasm with which the younger children greeted the pictures, flowers, and the bean bags, she felt fully repaid for her effort.
Verne and Jeb were interested, but they acted bored and indifferent, in order to impress Elly and the others with the fact that they were too old for such things.
Eudora ignored them. During the noon recess, she went out into the yard, and when Elly and Cissy had chosen sides, she showed them how to play One-I-Touch with the bean bags. She had the feeling that Verne and Jeb watched every move she made.
The two boys had words about something, just before they went back to their seats, and almost came to blows. Eudora ordered them inside.
They spent the afternoon glaring at each other until she sent Jeb to the blackboard to do a problem. His sharp features and piercing black eyes suggested that he had a certain keenness of mind. It was borne out by the ease with which he got his lessons, though he never seriously applied himself. As usual, he worked out the problem without any difficulty and returned to his seat. Verne took his turn at the blackboard. Arithmetic not only confused him, but whenever he had to stand up in front of the other pupils, his wits seemed to desert him. When he blundered for the third time, the children tittered.
Beside himself, he whirled around and caught the contemptuous grin on Jeb Caney’s face. The blackboard eraser was the only missile within reach. He snatched it up and hurled it at Jeb. His aim was poor and the eraser thudded harmlessly against the wall.
The room was thrown into a turmoil. Eudora rapped for order, and in the charged silence that followed, she commanded Verne to pick up the eraser. He obeyed sullenly and came back to the desk, as she requested.
“Verne, I’m going to ask you to apologize to all of us for your unspeakable conduct.” Eudora was so furious her cheeks were bloodless.
He wasn’t in any hurry to say he was sorry, but he finally got it out.
“And now,” she said, “I’m going to send you home. Gather up your books. You can explain to your father why you were dismissed.”
Verne said nothing; but his face paled at thought of having to face his father. Without even a glance at Elly and his brother Moroni, he stamped out of the schoolroom and turned up the road for home. Hating Jeb with a devotion so intense that it had been warping his mind ever since early childhood, he held him to blame for his present difficulty. With such a spark to inflame him, he quickly whipped himself into a blinding rage, and when he was out of sight of the school, he left the road and turned back through the brush. Believing he was unobserved, he reached a spot where Jeb would have to pass on his way home. There, he waited. He was beyond caring about what Eudora might think, or any punishment from his father. His mind held room for anly one thought: he’d beat the life out of Jeb Caney.
Eudora dismissed school at half-past three. Josie Hume’s mother was waiting to drive her home. Elly and Moroni hurried off. The children who lived to the east walked down the road with the Caneys.
For once, Eudora was honestly glad to see them go, so that she might be alone. The flowers in the windows and the pictures on the walls mocked her as she went back to her desk.
“I’ll stick to my guns!” she thought aloud. “If this had happened the first week or two I was here, I wouldn’t have known what to do!”
She didn’t know what Webb would have to say about her sending Verne home. She told herself she didn’t care. She slammed a book down on the desk angrily.
“He was careful to remind me that my business was to teach school!” she recalled. “Well, I’ll let him know I’m making it my business! Verne Nichols won’t be permitted to come back until his father guarantees me there won’t be another incident like this!”
She was gathering up some papers to take home, when the excited voice of Cissy Caney reached her. She ran to the window and saw Cissy running toward the school. She hurried out to meet her.
“Miss Stoddard, you come, please!” Cissy cried. “Verne is killing Jeb! They’re fighting something awful!”
Eudora ran back with her. She could see half a dozen children gathered in the road. Verne had Jeb on the ground and was punishing him viciously. A few feet away, a tall man sat on his horse, watching the fight and making no effort to stop it.
“Cissy, who is that man?” Eudora gasped indignantly.
“That’s Clay Roberts, the detective!”
Fine business, enjoying the sight of two boys fighting! was Eudora’s angry thought. It’s what you might expect from such a man!
Jeb broke away from Verne and ran across the road and reached under a discarded wagon box that had lain there so long it was falling to pieces. Verne started to follow him, but Clay left his saddle and pushed him back. To Jeb, he said, “You won’t find what you’re looking for; I’ve got your rifle on my saddle.”
“You give it to me!” Jeb screamed.
“I’ll give you nothing,” Clay said flatly. “You head for home, now. I’ll ride over to your place. You’ll find me there when you show up. Go on!”
Eudora winced at sight of Jeb’s battered and bloody face. She turned on Verne accusingly. “So this is the way you obey me, is it? I sent you home to speak to your father. Don’t attempt to give me an excuse! I don’t want to hear a word out of you! Just start walking. And the rest of you go too!”
The childre
n began moving away. Eudora gave Clay a withering glance. “Why didn’t you stop them? Were you enjoying it?”
He shook his head. “I don’t like to see boys fighting any better than you do. But they all fight, and I know it’s often the best way for them to let off steam.”
This tall, softly spoken man, with the gray eyes was not at all as Eudora had pictured him. Though she prided herself on her ability to read faces, she searched in vain for any sign of hardness in him. He had a wide, generous mouth and the strong, determined chin she admired in a man.
“You’re Miss Stoddard, of course,” he said.
Eudora nodded. “How did you know Jeb had brought his rifle to school and left it in that old wagon-box?”
“I watched him this morning. I was waiting for him when that Nichols kid jumped him. If young Caney had got his hands on his gun, he would have used it.”
“I don’t believe there’s any question about that,” she admitted. “What were they fighting about—the sheep?”
“No, something that happened at school. It didn’t seem to be of any consequence. I suppose you’ve heard that the Diamond R has been putting stock on its leased range, east of here, for a couple days.”
Eudora signified that she had.
“Somebody tried to beef a steer yesterday,” he continued. “Whoever it was used a small caliber rifle, so it didn’t amount to anything. One of Ringe’s punchers saw this Caney boy out hunting later in the day. It seemed to add up to something. You can understand why I was interested when I saw him lugging his gun to school this morning.”
She appreciated the seriousness of the incident and did not try to pretend otherwise. “Did you question Jeb?”
“No, I wanted to catch him actually firing a shot. He had a cow lined up in his sights, and then, for some reason, he changed his mind. I imagine he saw me.”
“His brother and sister were with him?” she asked.
“He was alone. After he passed, I followed him. I figured he’d hardly take the gun into the schoolroom. I spent three or four hours trying to find where he had cached it before I located it under this wagon-box. It’s a twenty-five-twenty, which matches the slug that was dug out of that steer’s hide yesterday.”
Eudora gazed at him, so confident and unworried.
“You’re very likely to have trouble with Jeb’s father over this,” she warned.
“I expect that’s true,” Clay replied. “But I’ve never known trouble to get better by walking away from it. I don’t want to keep you standing here in the road, Miss Stoddard. May I walk back to the school with you?”
Eudora said yes, when she felt her answer should have been no. She had recovered her poise and in the process, somehow, her preconceived opinion about Clay Roberts had undergone a remarkable change. She had expected to find him a range rowdy in typical faded overalls and sweat-stained sombrero, picturesque enough on horseback but just a shuffling, bowlegged figure, once he had his feet on the ground; or, missing that, a sinister, hawk-nosed individual, with a brace of guns strapped around his middle. He was neither one nor the other. There was something in his quiet, reserved manner to suggest that he would measure up to any situation he encountered. He had a pleasant smile that lifted the corners of his mouth and warmed the gray eyes that some men found so fearsome. Indeed, Eudora found something indescribably appealing about him. But there was his reputation as a killer and that grisly business at Little Cochinilla Wash to give her pause. And yet, irrelevantly, she was glad she happened to be wearing one of her newest and most becoming dresses that set off her young figure to advantage.
Walking along at her side, leading his horse, his conversation contained no reference to the business that had brought him to Arizona. He said he understood she was from the East. His folks had come from Kentucky, he told her. He had gone back once for several months.
“I’d seen too much of this sagebrush country to get along without it,” he remarked. “It gets into your blood. I’ve seen better grazing country than this, but there’s something about it that hits me pretty hard.”
“You haven’t been spending much time in the basin, I understand,” Eudora observed. “Does your being down here have any significance?” She was thinking of what Webb had said about matters coming to a head.
“Not particularly,” he answered lightly. “That is, if you’re referring to the sheep Caney has brought in. They’re not my concern; my job is to curb the rustling. I don’t know what Caney had in mind, but I think it was largely a bluff. Ringe has called it, and that’ll very likely be the end of it. You’re living at the Nichols place, I believe.”
Eudora said yes.
“Caney may make some trouble for him over his sheep, but I don’t think it will go beyond that. From what I hear, he stands pretty much alone. It was the feeling of some members of the Association that any attempt to stop the rustling would bring on a general showdown with everyone in the basin. The danger of that seems to have passed. Some of these small outfits are owned by men with cool heads. Harvey and Virgil Hume, to name a couple. All they ask is a fair deal, and that’s what they’re going to get if I can manage it.”
“That’s generous and honorable—if you mean it,” said Eudora. “I’ve heard you described as a ruthless killer who whipped people into line with his guns. I must say you don’t sound very much like one.”
Clay smiled, finding her frankness refreshing.
“That’s my reputation,” he acknowledged, turning sober. “It’s proven very valuable to me in my business. But I hope you’ll reserve judgment on me, Miss Stoddard.”
Eudora frowned. “Are you suggesting that you weren’t responsible for the lynching of those three men at Cochinilla Wash?”
“I had no part in it, but it had my full approval,” Clay replied, his mouth tightening grimly. “They got what they richly deserved. It’s too bad such things have to be, but you mustn’t see it with Eastern eyes, Miss Stoddard. This is a stockman’s country. What little law there is either can’t or won’t, do anything to stop the thieving. These small outfits, down here in the basin, would feel the same way John Ringe and the other big owners do if it were their stock that was being run off.”
“I’m afraid you don’t make out a very good case for yourself,” she said firmly. “There are worse crimes than rustling. If a man robs a bank, or stops a train, he is sent to prison; he isn’t hanged for it.”
Clay shook his head. “You miss the point, Miss Stoddard. There may be worse crimes than rustling, but if a bank is hoisted, it doesn’t fold up; a railroad company doesn’t go out of business because one of its trains is stuck up. But if you’ve got cattle running free on open range, you can’t survive against organized rustling. You put your mark on your cows but the brand has never been invented that even a fair-to-middling rustler can’t alter or obliterate with a running iron. He doesn’t have to be an expert like Steve Jennings.”
Eudora felt her throat tighten. “You speak as though you knew him—or is it just from hearsay?” she inquired, averting her eyes.
“I knew Steve before he turned to rustling—and afterward. He’s smarter than most rustlers; he knows when it’s time to move on. I hope he takes the hint this time. Funny, how little it takes to send a man down one road when he could just as well have taken another,” he said reflectively, as old memories stirred in him. “But that’s life, I guess. I understand Steve has some friends down this way. Did you ever see him?”
Somehow, Eudora felt the question wasn’t as innocent as it sounded. “I’m not sure,” she replied, with a counterfeit disinterest. “Strangers pass the school.”
She was sure he was studying her carefully.
“Steve would hardly be stopping at the school to pass the time of day,” he said lightly. “He knows he’s playing a dangerous game and what the price will be if he stubs his toe. I imagine he won’t complain about that part of it. Very few of them do, Miss Stoddard. They haven’t any defense for what they do, and they know it. How does the
old song go:
It was once in the saddle I used to go dancing,
It was once in the saddle I used to go gay;
First took to drinking, then to card playing.
Got shot for rustling; I’m dying today—
He paused, his eyes on Eudora. She was looking straight ahead, her lips tightly pressed together.
Take me to boot-hill and throw the sod o’er me.
I’m only a cowboy; I know I done wrong.
“That says it better than I can, Miss Stoddard. I hate to see you distressing yourself over Steve Jennings,” he added, a deep and sympathetic understanding in his tone. “He isn’t worth it.”
“I’m not distressing myself, as you put it, nor trying to defend him,” she insisted, her voice tense and brittle. “It’s—just that I pity him.”
Clay nodded without comment. His silence was more accusing than words. When they reached the gate, she faced him suddenly, the tautness of her face betraying her agitation.
“You knew I was lying when I said I wasn’t sure if I had seen him.”
“I’ll have to say I thought you were,” he acknowledged. “It happened before I arrived in Mescal but I heard all the details from Cleve Johnson and the two boys who were with him when he talked to you. Naturally, I wondered how Steve had managed to slip through their fingers. The only way I could explain it was that you had locked him up inside the schoolhouse.”
“What else could I have done?” she demanded boldly. “He was wounded; he couldn’t use his right arm. He could have compelled me to hide him; he was desperate and I was here alone, helpless.”
She told him how she had first seen Jennings at the window and what had passed between them.
“If I acted the way I did it wasn’t because I’m opposed to Mr. Ringe and the interests you represent,” she said, in conclusion.
“I’m sure of that,” Clay assured her. “I’ve never expressed an opinion one way or the other about it to anyone. There’s no reason why I should. I haven’t any fault to find with what you did; if I had been placed as you were, I might have played it that way too.”