Gunsmoke and Trail Dust

by Bliss Lomax

  Eudora glanced over her aunt’s letter and then read it aloud.

  “Aunt Jude worries so!” she exclaimed. “I couldn’t give up the school now. I honestly don’t believe I’m in any danger. And I do owe it to the children to finish out the term. It’s such a short time now.”

  “I’ve been thinking of that,” he confessed, his gray eyes suddenly sober. “It’s going to be a short time for both of us; a few weeks more and my job will be finished. As for your giving up the school, it’s foolish even to suggest it; if I know you at all, you’ll stick it out no matter what happens. I’m sure that whenever you feel it’s your duty to do something, that ends it.”

  “I’m not just being stubborn, Clay—”

  “Of course not! You’ve got courage. It’s one of the things about you I admire most. I don’t see how there can be any more trouble between Caney and Nichols until Caney gets back on his feet. That may take some time.”

  “Is Mr. Caney out of danger?” Eudora asked.

  “Dufors didn’t say. He would have been sure to mention it if the news was bad.”

  Eudora started to speak but checked herself.

  “What is it?” Clay queried.

  “I know you won’t approve,” she answered, “but I’m going to walk over to the Caneys this afternoon; Cissy and Lorenzo are there alone. They’re just children, Clay.”

  “If you think you can ease their minds it’s all right with me. It’s kind and thoughtful of you, though I don’t believe Nichols will appreciate it.”

  “I imagine Mr. Nichols won’t have too much to say to me,” Eudora remarked confidently.

  Clay let it pass without comment, but as he rode away, he found it sticking in his mind.

  “She’s got something on Nichols,” he told himself. “That’s why she isn’t afraid to face up to him.”

  He was convinced that it had to do with the bushwhacking on Jerusalem Creek. A smile brushed his mouth as he thought of Webb trying to match wits with her.

  “Nichols will either toe the line or find himself in hot water,” he mused. “And there won’t be any mystery left about who shot Shad Caney!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  CAPTURED!

  IN MESCAL, whether on foot or mounted, overalls and a mannish-looking shirt were popular attire for young women of Eudora’s age. It followed that she soon was wearing Western garb. Topped off with a wide-brimmed Stetson, with a buckskin throatlatch dangling beneath her chin, she found it a becoming outfit. Until today, however, she had never appreciated how practical it was.

  Clay gazed at her admiringly, as they made the long climb up Cochinilla Wash.

  “I must say you don’t look anything like a prim little schoolmarm in that rig,” he said happily. “Nor an Eastern tenderfoot, either. The way you sit that saddle it won’t be no trick to make a rider out of you. This is a long uphill trail, but we’ve got most of it behind us. You’re not getting tired?”

  “Not a bit! I’m enjoying every moment. I feel as though I could go on forever.”

  “I’m afraid that would be overdoing it a little,” Clay said laughingly. “We’ve the day ahead of us. When we reach the timber, we’ll locate a spring and have lunch; we can do some exploring this afternoon. There’s one place I want to show you after the sun gets around to the west; you’ll be able to see all the way to the Colorado.”

  It was a day that Eudora was long to remember. The pine-scented air was like wine. Even more precious was the peace and quiet of the high forest and the companionship of the tall man at her side. Mag-dalena Basin, with its strife and grim faces, seemed far away.

  It was high noon before Clay found a flowing spring. He made a tiny squaw fire and boiled coffee and barbecued thin strips of fresh beef. Eudora watched him with interest.

  “You do everything so easily,” she said. “And quickly too. I suppose you’ve lived outdoors most of your life.”

  “Ever since I was a boy. I’ve been on the move most of the time. I haven’t missed much between Texas and the Coast.”

  “Having seen it all, what part of it suits you best, Clay?”

  “That would depend on what I wanted from it. I’ve thought some of starting a spread of my own some day. I’m a Texan and if I was to go in for cattle, Texas would be the place for me. In a weak moment some years ago I bought a mine out in northern Nevada. It’s country that appeals to me.”

  “And the mine?”

  “I’ve worked it some—two or three months at a time. I built a comfortable cabin on the claim. At least, it was comfortable the last time I was there. I’ve never taken a dollar out of the mine but I haven’t gone far enough— I guess we can eat; everything seems to be ready.”

  The long ride had given Eudora an appetite. She found the simple fare delicious, and praised the cook. For the first time in weeks she was lighthearted and carefree.

  Clay responded to her mood and his laughter had a warm ring. He had said nothing about his surmise that Eudora knew more about Webb’s connection with the Caney affair than she had told him, and he had no intention of bringing it up. That morning, however, Eudora had not been waiting at the gate, as he had rather expected. Deliberately, he felt, she had remained in her cabin, so that he might ride up to her door. Clay considered it a complete confirmation of his contention.

  After they had finished lunch, Clay washed his pans and put out the fire before he sat down beside her and rolled a cigarette.

  “Before we leave here we’ll walk out on the rock cap and have a look at the Desolations,” he said. “If you like mountains, there’s a lot of them, and they climb up into the air pretty high.” He glanced at his watch. “Not quite two yet.”

  “Clay, that’s a beautiful fob you wear on your watch. Might I see it?”

  “Certainly. I’ve had it a long time.”

  “Indian, isn’t it?” Eudora queried, as she laid it flat in her palm.

  “A Navaho silversmith in Santa Fe made it for me. If you like it, I’ll trade you for it,” he offered banter-ingly. “That bracelet, with all those Columbian half dollars jingling, would suit me fine.”

  “It wouldn’t be a fair trade,” Eudora insisted. “They were making bracelets at the fair, in Chicago, so I had to have one. It really isn’t worth anything, Clay.”

  “It would be worth a lot to me,” he said, suddenly sober.

  “All right, it’s a trade then! You’ll have to have the bracelet made over before you can use it as a fob.”

  “That won’t be much of a trick. I can do it myself. I’ll be wearing it the next time you see me.”

  Their hands touched as they made the exchange. That accidental contact left them tense and silent for several minutes.

  “Have you made any plans about where you’re going when you leave the basin?” she asked.

  “Only one, Eudora. When I leave here, I don’t want to go alone. I told you the other day I could hang up my guns and turn to something else. I meant I could do it for you. I’m sure about this, Eudora! I know how much I’m asking; you’re so lovely, and I have so little to offer. But for whatever it’s worth, my life is yours!”

  Breathless, she gazed at him with surrender in her eyes. “Darling, don’t put it that way!” she whispered. “You’re all I want! Everything! You know I love you, Clay!”

  With his strong arms straining her close, she raised her mouth to his. The world stood still for both of then! and the moments fled unnoticed.

  Eudora looked up at him and laid her hand tenderly against his cheek. “You’ll stay on at the Santa Bonita until school is over?”

  “Of course! We can be married in Mescal. I’d like to take you back to Texas for a few weeks. I haven’t any close relatives back there but I’ve got a lot of old friends. Afterward, if it’s agreeable to you, we can go out to Nevada for the rest of the summer. If the mine doesn’t begin to show something by the time snow flies, I’ll sell it.”

  Eudora found his plans alluring and exciting. That they were to be together wa
s all that really mattered to her. The long afternoon passed as in a dream.

  Twilight was upon them as they retraced their way down the wash.

  “I’m afraid we’ve done ourselves out of supper,” Clay declared. “We could cross the basin by way of White Pine and get something to nibble on at the store. I’ve got pretty well acquainted with Eph Adkins; he might go so far as to offer us a cup of coffee.”

  Eudora fell in with the suggestion, and they turned toward White Pine. The stars were out by the time they reached the store. Old Eph welcomed them, however, and insisted on taking them into his kitchen and cooking bacon and eggs.

  This was Eph’s first meeting with Eudora. He found her as attractive as rumor had painted her. Behind his shrewd eyes, his mind was busy, and after he had said good night to them, he stood on the store steps ruminating. “They ain’t sayin’ nuthin’,” he cackled to himself, “but they has shore taken an awful shine to each other!”

  “We fared better than I expected,” Clay remarked, as he rode along at Eudora’s side. “Eph isn’t a bad sort.”

  Eudora surprised him with a question.

  “Do you trust him, Clay?”

  “No, not particularly,” was his laughing response. “Whatever made you bring that up?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered, shaking her head as though to throw off some unpleasant thought. “His eyes were shifty and full of little schemes. I don’t like people whose eyes are never still. They’re usually slippery customers.”

  Her use of the homely expression, as much as her opinion of Eph, brought a broad grin to Clay’s face. “I don’t imagine Eph gives anyone sixteen ounces to the pound.”

  It was late, when they passed the schoolhouse.

  “Almost home,” Clay said. “Suppose we walk the rest of it; you’re too far away, in that saddle.”

  He helped her down and took her in his arms. Her eyes were wet against his cheek.

  “Why the tears, Eudora?” he murmured.

  “No reason. Just too happy, I guess. When will I be seeing you again, Clay?”

  “In a day or two, or sooner, unless something comes up, and I don’t believe anything will; the rustling is over.”

  The days that followed seemed to bear him out; news filtered into the big ranch on the Santa Bonita daily but no one reported having seen any sign of the Jennings gang. Pat Redman had been brought home and was on the mend. Clay met Eudora several times during the week and learned from her that Shad Caney was back at his ranch. Dufors’s attempt to exploit the shooting had not met with any success.

  “He couldn’t get anybody to go along with him after it got around that you were with Virgil and me,” Harvey Hume told Clay, when they met by chance as the former was returning from White Pine, late one afternoon. “I haven’t heard a peep out of him since he dropped by last Friday afternoon. I gather that Dufors would like to forget the whole business. He may be thick, but he must have sense enough to realize there’ll be some further developments that’ll make him look foolish over what he tried to do. Oh, you don’t have to look so blank about it, Clay! Shad knows who cut him down; as soon as he feels strong and sassy, he’ll do something about it.”

  “In the meantime, what do you think Nichols is going to be doing?” Clay inquired pointedly. “He knows Caney has a real score to settle with him now. But if they blow each other’s head off it’ll be all right with me if they’ll just wait until the school term is over and Eudora is back in Mescal. I’ll be through in a couple of weeks myself.”

  “I suppose you will,” Harvey acknowledged regretfully. “You don’t hear anything more of Jennings?”

  “Not a word. I imagine Steve knows where to find the pickings better than they are here.”

  When they parted, Clay continued across the basin, stopping at White Pine for a few minutes on the chance that Eph’s gossip might hold something of interest. It was time wasted, and the sun was down before he forded the Santa Bonita, several miles below the house.

  The brush grew high close to the crossing, but he was so near home and so familiar with the spot that he was not suspicious of it. His horse started to splash across the creek at a walk, head lowered as it tried to nuzzle the water.

  “Go on, drink if you want to!” Clay muttered, letting the animal have its head.

  The moment was made to order for the man who had been waiting to intercept him at the crossing. In his most optimistic calculations he had not hoped to catch Clay so completely off guard.

  “Freeze right there, Roberts!” he commanded. “I got you covered!”

  The only weapon Clay was wearing was the forty-five on his hip. He turned his head an inch or two and scanned the brush on his right and found a rifle trained on him.

  “Looks like you’re calling the tune,” he said tightly, knowing it was too late to reach for his gun.

  “Yeh!” the other grunted. “Unbuckle yore gun belt and let it drop!”

  Clay could do nothing but oblige.

  The man in the brush was mounted. He pushed out into the open. He said, “I reckon you don’t know me, Roberts. I’m Slick Carroll. This ain’t no ordinary stick-up; you won’t have no trouble with me if you do what I tell you. Back off a few feet and I’ll pick up yore gun.”

  They watched each other intently as the operation was performed. Carroll hung the wet gun belt on his saddle horn. He was tall and wiry, with a hard-bitten face, his eyes cold and emotionless. Clay could understand why Steve Jennings found the man invaluable.

  “Turn up the crick,” the rustler ordered. “I’ll drill you if you try to bust away from me.”

  He called a halt as soon as they were a safe distance east of the ford.

  “No use wastin’ words,” he jerked out. “Steve’s in tough shape; he needs a doctor damned bad!”

  Some of the tightness left Clay’s mouth. “What’s the proposition?” he inquired.

  “I’ll let Steve put it to you; it ain’t too long a ride. We sent up to Brown’s Park for Sawbones Parker. We got word today that he’s in the jug in Laramie City. Let’s git movin’!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  IMPROMPTU SURGERY

  CLAY HAD OFTEN HEARD of George Parker, the renegade doctor, who had been patching up outlaws for a dozen years. Brown’s Park, tucked away on the Green River, in the northwest corner of Colorado, where Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado come together, was a popular owlhoot rendezvous, and the men who wintered there, or sought its sanctuary, when the law was hot on their heels, had carried tales about Sawbones Parker’s skill across half a dozen states.

  “I don’t know of any deal I can make with Steve,” Clay remarked as they rode along. “I don’t suppose it would do me any good to refuse to go.”

  Carroll shrugged. “Why mention it, Roberts? I didn’t take this chance for nothin’.”

  Their way led up Cochinilla Wash and across the Ledge. Clay could see the Desolations rearing up ahead of them.

  “Are we going over the pass?” he asked.

  “I know where we’re goin’,” was the unenlightening answer. “Just hold yore shirt on.”

  In the course of an hour, Carroll swung off sharply to the north. They hadn’t proceeded very far before he reined in and raised his voice in an excellent imitation of the gray owl’s long-drawn cry. It was answered promptly.

  “All right, Roberts; we go up over this rock slide,” Carroll announced.

  Another 500 yards brought them to the narrow mouth of a small box canyon. Clay found the canyon widening almost as soon as they were past the portal. The man who had answered Carroll’s signal joined them and they broke through high brush and passed under tall pines. Presently, there was grass underfoot.

  That means water, Clay thought. Water, firewood and grass enough to keep your horses strong—a man couldn’t ask for more in the way of a hideout. He knew he had been within a quarter of a mile of this hidden canyon without ever suspecting it was here.

  A low fire glowed in the distance. Someone threw dr
y brush on it as they advanced and the fire blazed up. Jennings lay on his blanket; his men lounged near, hands close to their guns.

  Carroll slid to the ground and motioned for Clay to get down. He turned to Steve then. “Here’s Roberts,” he said. “I told him you had a proposition to make; I didn’t say what.”

  “Bring him over,” Jennings ordered, his voice rough with pain. His face was deeply lined and haggard in the firelight.

  “You’re in tough shape, Steve,” Clay said, squatting down on his heels beside him. “Does this go back to the trouble we had at Skull Tanks?”

  “Yeh! I been goin’ through hell for a few days. I’m a goner if I don’t get a doctor in a hurry. It’s my right leg; puffin’ up to beat hell. Blood poison, I reckon.”

  “You shouldn’t have waited so long,” Clay told him. “Carroll told me you sent for Sawbones Parker.”

  “I kept on figurin’ he’d come. It’s just my luck the damned fool would have to get snagged in a train holdup. But that’s cold turkey now! I know I can get a square deal from you, Clay; get the doctor out here from Mescal in a hurry and have him fix me up, and I’ll give you my word we won’t never molest another stockman in Arizona.”

  Clay realized that Slick and the others were hanging on his answer. Slowly, he shook his head. “I couldn’t get away with it, Steve,” he said soberly.

  “Why not?”

  “Ringe, Pat Redman—not a one of them would stand for it. Your word would be good enough for me, but not for them; I never could make them see it, Steve. I can see how you’re suffering. Have you been filling up with whisky to get away from it?”

  “No, not a drop.”

  “You stay away from it.” Clay reached out and put his hand on Steve’s damp forehead. “You’ve got a high fever. If you’ve got any sense in you, let me take you in—”

  “And be sent up for the rest of my life?”

  “The rest of your life may be a matter of just a couple of days if something isn’t done for you.” Clay turned to Carroll. “Have you cut the slug out?”

  “Not a chance! He wouldn’t let us touch him!”