by Zane Grey
He doubled his enormous hands and showed Cal two fists of almost incredible size.
“Say!” ejaculated Cal, with shining eyes. Then an idea flashed like lightning through his mind, and he liked it. The instant it clarified and caught his fancy it grew and grew until it was positively thrilling. “See here, Tuck, you said you wanted a job?”
“I’ll say I said so,” returned Merry, rousing to interest.
“Are you well? I mean are you strong?” queried Cal, hesitatingly. “You look like you’d fall in two pieces.”
“I’m a deceiving cuss. Pretty much tuckered out now. But I was husky when I started West. A little rest and a mess-table like this would soon put me in as good shape as when I was one of Dempsey’s sparring pardners.”
“What?” cried Cal, breathlessly.
“See here, matey. I was raised on the waterfront in New York. Do you get that? Was in the navy for years. Finally was boxing instructor. Then after the war I knocked around in sparring bouts. Last job I had was with Dempsey.”
“Whoop-ee!” ejaculated Cal, under his breath. He slammed the table with his fist. The idea had assumed bewildering and exhilarating proportions. “Say, Tuck, I’ve taken a liking to you.”
“I’ll say that’s the first good luck I’ve had for many a day,” returned Merry, feelingly.
“I’ll get you a job — two dollars a day an’ board — all the good grub you can eat,” blurted out Cal, breathlessly and low. “Up on my father’s ranch. It’s Tonto country, an’ once you live there you will never leave it. You can save your money — homestead your hundred an’ sixty acres — an’ some day be a rancher.”
“Cal, I ain’t as strong as I thought,” replied Tuck, weakly. “Don’t promise so much at once. Just find me work an’ a meal ticket.”
“My father runs a sawmill,” went on Cal. “He always needs a man. An’ all us riders hate sawin’ wood. That job would give you time off now an’ then, to ride with us an’ go huntin’. I’ll give you a horse. We’ve got over a hundred horses out home.... Tuck, the job’s yours if you’ll do me a little favor.”
Tuck Merry held out his huge hand and said: “Mate, there ain’t nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
“Listen,” whispered Cal, intensely. “First, you’re not to tell a soul that you were in the marines an’ how you got that name Tuck an’ was one of Dempsey’s boxin’ pardners.”
“I get you, Cal. I’m dumb on the has-been stuff. I lose my memory.”
Cal was now tingling with thrilling glee at the enormous possibilities of his idea.
“Tuck, I’m the baby of the Thurman family,” he went on. “I’ve two brothers an’ seven cousins, all of which think I’m spoiled. Father gave me more time for schoolin’ an’ I’ve had a little better advantages, maybe. An’ these fellows all pick on me to beat hell. Now don’t let me give you the idea there’s any hard feelin’. Not at all. I sure think heaps of all the boys, an’ as for Enoch an’ Boyd, my brothers, I sure love them. But they all make life awful tough for me. Girls are scarce, an’ when we have dances — which is often — there are not enough to go round. If I poke my nose into the school-house, where we have our dances, I sure get it punched. For that matter, fightin’ is next to dancin’ in the Tonto. They sort of go together. Lately all my cousins seem to want to beat me up. They say I’m gettin’ big enough an’ that it ought to be done right before I take the bit in my teeth. Wess Thurman licked me bad not long ago. They’ve all had their fun with me, an’, darn it — I’ve never licked a single one of them. They’re older an’ bigger.... Now what I want you to do is to lick all of them.”
“Ain’t you givin’ me a large order, matey?” queried Merry, smiling for the first time.
“Not yet. Aw, Tuck, that’ll be easy. Don’t worry. They’ll all pick the fights. You needn’t do anythin’ but wait, an’ when one of them starts somethin’ you just tuck him away. It will tickle my father ‘most as much as me.”
“I’ll do my best,” promised Merry. “What else? What’s the large order, if this one ain’t much?”
“Now I’m comin’ to hard feelin’s,” responded Cal, with more grimness than humor. “There’s Bloom, foreman of the Bar XX ranch. Bad blood between his outfit an’ the Thurmans. I’d like you to beat the daylights out of Bloom, an’ a couple others.”
“Cal, I heard this was wild country, this Tonto. Isn’t there liable to be gun-play?”
“Why, if you packed a gun it might be risky. But if you don’t there’s no danger. You’ll fool these riders somethin’ awful. I know it. I can just see what’ll come off. They’ll all make fun of you, an’ Bloom an’ his kind will insult you. All you’ll need to do is to say, ‘Mister, would you oblige me by gettin’ off your horse’, an’ he’ll pile off like a fallin’ log. Then you say, ‘You see I don’t pack a gun, an’ if you’re a gentleman an’ not afraid, you’ll lay off your hardware.’ The rest, pard Tuck, will be immense.”
“You’re on. Pard she is,” replied Tuck, offering his huge hand. There were a depth and a gravity in his acceptance of this gauge, and he crushed Cal’s fingers in a tremendous grip. Cal jerked, writhed, and then sank down with a groan.
“Say, man! Let go!” he cried, and then, as his hand came free, limp and crumpled, he rubbed it and tried to move his fingers. “Sufferin’ bobcats! I want to use this hand again.” Then he laughed with grim glee. “Tuck, you’re goin’ to give me a lot of joy. Now let’s see. You can go back to Green Valley with me. I’m to meet a woman, sister of our school-teacher, an’ take her home. I reckon you’ll need to buy some things, unless you’ve got some Sunday clothes in that bundle.”
“These are my swell togs,” replied Tuck, with a grin. “There’s nothing in my pack but blankets, some odds an’ ends, an’ a pair of boxing-gloves.”
“Huh! Then you can teach me to box?” queried Cal, with his glance dark and full of fire.
“Cal, in three months I’ll have you so you can stand your nice relatives in a row an’ lick them all one after another.”
“Glory! Wouldn’t that be great,” ejaculated Cal. “But it’s too good to be true. One a week would be good enough. Here’s some money, Tuck. You go buy what you need. An’ be sure you’re hangin’ round when that outfit rides in from Green Valley. They’re up to some job.”
“Pard Cal, I’ll be there with bells on,” replied the lanky Tuck.
Cal parted from his new-found friend and went out to take a message for his sister, an errand he had forgotten. His keen eye scanned the long, bare, dusty road that led eastward toward Green Valley. No sign of the boys yet! He did not wish them any very bad luck, but he hoped their car would break down. But he well knew that nothing short of a miracle could keep them from being on hand when the stage arrived. That thought prompted him to hurry with his errand, and then go back to the store to telephone. First he called up Roosevelt, to learn that the stage was ahead of time and had left there two hours earlier. Next he telephoned to Packard, a post-office and gasoline station on the Globe road. His call was answered by Abe Hazelitt, a young fellow he had known for years.
“Hello, Abe. This’s Cal — Cal Thurman — talkin’. How are you?”
“Howdy, Cal,” came the reply, in Abe’s high-pitched drawl. “Wal, I was shore fine jest lately, but now I’m dinged if I know whether I’m ridin’ or walkin’.”
“What’s the matter, Abe?” asked Cal.
“Cal, I’m gosh-durned if I know. But the stage jest rolled in — an’ somethin’s happened.”
“Stage? Ahuh!” replied Cal, with quickening of interest. “That’s what I wanted to know about. On time, huh?”
“Way ahead of time. We all near dropped dead. Jake’s drivin’ like hell today, I’ll tell the world.”
“Jake drivin’ fast?” echoed Cal. “Sure that’s funny. What’s got into him?”
“Reckon it’s the same as what’s got into me, Cal.”
“Aw, you’re loco. Abe, is there a lady passenger on the stage?”
>
Cal heard his friend chuckle at the other end of the wire, and then hesitate before replying. “Cal, listen to me whisper.... Yes, I should smile.”
“That’s good. She is a sister of our school-teacher, Miss Stockwell. I’ve been sent to meet her here an’ take her out home. Abe, please tell her that Cal Thurman is waitin’ at Ryson.”
A long low whistle came over the wire. Then: “My Gawd! the luck of some fellars!”
“Luck? Say, Abe, have any of the boys phoned you — Wess or Tim or Pan Handle?” queried Cal, suspiciously.
“Nary one, Cal. You’ll have her all to yourself. An’ believe me — —”
“Cut it out,” almost yelled Cal. “I know what you mean by luck. Somebody had to meet her, an’ that low-down outfit at Green Valley just quit barefaced when they saw her picture.”
“They did! Wal, I’ll be dinged! Say, Cal, mebbe you’re barkin’ up the wrong tree.”
“Say, yourself!” retorted Cal, testily. “You talk sort of queer, Abe. I’ll ring off now, before you make me sore. You’ll tell the lady, please?”
“I shore will. An’ say — Hold on, Cal. Don’t hang up. — Hello!”
“Hello!” replied Cal. “I’m still on, but in a hurry.”
A much lower-toned and hoarser voice continued breathlessly: “Cal, she was jest in here before you called. I seen her. She’s wearin’ socks! Anyway, I seen her bare knees — they’re pink — an’ so help me Moses they’re painted! Cal, she’s shore some — —”
“Shut up!” roared Cal, in sudden fury at what he thought his friend’s badinage. “You can’t josh me. You’re a liar, Abe Hazelitt. The boys have put you on.”
“Naw, Cal, I hope to die,” replied Abe, apparently bursting with glee. “I ain’t been put on to nothin’. But I shore know what’s a-comin’ to you, Cal Thurman.”
In mingled anger, fear, and consternation Cal slammed up the receiver and rushed away from the telephone.
“Pink knees! . . . Painted! . . .” fumed Cal. “The idea! What that outfit can’t think of is sure beyond me.... Abe, now, they rung him in on it. An’ he knows what’s comin’ to me, huh? . . . All right, boys, I guess none of you savvy what Tuck Merry has up his sleeve. This is sure goin’ to end in a fight.”
CHAPTER III
CAL THURMAN DID not have very much time to ruminate over the mysterious intimations that had been suggested by his talk with Abe Hazelitt on the telephone. For he had scarcely left the post-office, to walk down the road toward the garage, when he espied the boys from Green Valley. They were grouped with the garage mechanics round his Ford car. If Cal had needed any more to rouse his ire, this fact was enough.
He approached them with long strides. Upon nearer view he found, to his amaze, that the boys were clean-shaven, and all had donned spick-and-span new suits of overalls, and wore their Sunday sombreros and shiny boots. Wonderful to see, Arizona, who was noted for his slovenly dress, appeared arrayed as the others, and he positively shone.
“Howdy, Cal! I’m shore congratulatin’ you,” drawled Wess, placidly indicating the Ford car.
“Pard Cal, yore some driver,” added Arizona.
“Good day, Cal. Looks like you was a-rarin’ to go somewhere,” put in Pan Handle.
“How air you, boy?” queried Tim, serenely.
“Say, you seem mighty all-fired glad to see me,” replied Cal, sarcastically, running his keen gaze from one to another. They were cool, lazy, smiling, tranquil. Cal knew them. The deeper their plot the harder they were to reach! Their very serenity was a mask hiding an enormous guilt. Cal shivered in his boots. How he wished this day was over! At the same instant a warmth stirred in him — the thought of Tuck Merry.
Cal pushed the boys away from the Ford car and began to prowl around it to see if they had done anything to it. Here he was almost helpless. He examined engine, tires, wheel, and the various parts necessary to the operation of the car, but he could not be sure whether they had tampered with it or not. Certainly they had not had much time to do anything. Nevertheless, with the garage mechanics in the secret, they might have accomplished a good deal. Had he missed a bolt in this place? It was impossible to remember. Had he ever before noticed a crack in the floor extending across the front of the car? He could not recall it. The old Ford presented an enigma. Cal distrusted the looks of it, yet had no proof of his suspicions.
“Say, if you hombres have been monkeyin’ with this car!” he exclaimed, glaring darkly at them.
“Cal, you shore are a chivulrus fellar where ladies are concerned,” drawled Wess, “but you ain’t got any but low-down idees for your relations an’ friends.”
“Reckon you ain’t insinuatin’ I’d do some underhand trick?” queried Pan Handle, reproachfully.
“Cal, you’ve been punched more’n onct fer insultin’ remarks,” added Tim Matthews, meaningly.
“Aw!” burst out Cal, exploding helplessly. “You fellows can’t pull the wool over my eyes. You’re up to some deviltry, an’ I’m bettin’, from the looks of you an’ your soft-soap talk, it’s pretty skunky.... An’ as for your punch, Tim Matthews, I’d like to know if you think you can go on punchin’ me forever?”
“Wal, mebbe forever would be far-fetched,” replied Tim, dryly. “But jest so long as you live I shore will be able to punch you.”
Cal gazed steadily into the grinning face of his friend.
“Tim, you’re the big gambler of the Thurman outfit, aren’t you?”
“Wal, I reckon thet distinctshun has been forced upon me,” replied Tim, with nonchalance not devoid of pride.
“Ahuh! — You know my black horse Pitch, don’t you, an’ how you’ve tried to buy, borrow, an’ steal him?”
“I’m denyin’ the last allegashun,” retorted Tim, testily.
“Well, I’m bettin’ Pitch against your bronc Baldy that I lick you before I’m a year older.”
All the boys stared, and Tim’s lean jaw dropped.
“Boy, hev you been drinkin’?” he asked, incredulously.
“Bah! You know I never drink,” retorted Cal. “Are you on — or are you afraid to bet?”
“See heah, Cal,” interposed Wess, “thet’s a fool bet! You know you love Pitch an’ he was Enoch’s gift to you — the best hoss ever broke in the Tonto.”
“Sure I know, an’ you can gamble I wouldn’t bet if I didn’t know I could lick Tim,” returned Cal.
Tim came out of his trance to seize his golden opportunity.
“Boys, I call his bluff. The bet’s on — my Baldy ag’in’ his hoss Pitch. An’ all of you paste the date in your hats. Savvy? . . . An’, Cal, I hate to take your hoss, but my pride is ag’in’ such fresh gab as yours.”
“Pride goes before a fall, my friend Timothy,” said Cal, deliberately. “Now, boys, I call on you, too. An’ listen. I know you’re up to some tricks, an’ that Tim is at the bottom of it. I want you all to be around when I lick him.”
This sally brought forth loud laughter from all the listeners except Tim. He looked dubious and astounded.
“We’ll shore be there, Cal,” said Wess.
Without further comment Cal cranked the Ford, finding, to his secret amaze, that the engine again started with unusual alacrity, and then he climbed to the driver’s seat. As he drove off toward the post-office he expected much jest and laughter to be flung after him. In this, however, he was mistaken. Something was wrong with the car, surely. It ran too easily and smoothly, and it gave Cal the impression that it wanted to race. All at once he conceived an absolute conviction that the boys had tampered with it in some uncanny way. He drove to the post-office and turned round, and stopped beyond the door near the porch. A number of natives were sitting on a bench, smoking pipes and whittling sticks, awaiting the one event of Ryson’s day — the arrival of the stage. On the edge of the porch sat Tuck Merry, beside his canvas roll of baggage.
At that moment, as Cal was about to get out he espied three horsemen trotting down the road from the east. He peered a
t them, and recognized Bloom of the Bar XX outfit, and two of his riders, one of them surely being Hatfield.
“Well, I’ll be darned!” ejaculated Cal. “Talk about your hard luck!”
To be made the victim of tricks by his own relatives and friends was bad enough, but to have to endure them in the face of this Bar XX outfit, especially Hatfield, was infinitely worse. Could Wess and his partners have had anything to do with the strange coincidence of the arrival of Bloom and Hatfield?
“Aw, they couldn’t be that mean,” muttered Cal, loyally. Fun was fun, and the boys evidently had something especially to their liking, but they never would have sent for enemies of the Thurmans. Cal had no further thought of such a thing. The advent of these riders was just an unfortunate coincidence calculated to add to Cal’s discomfiture.
He watched them ride past the garage, past Wess and his comrades, who nodded casually to them, and down the road to the hitching-rail under the cottonwood tree near the post-office. They dismounted. Bloom and Hatfield approached, while the third rider, a stranger to Cal, began to untie a mail-sack from the back of his saddle. Bloom was a heavy man for a rider, being square-shouldered and stocky, with a considerable girth. His huge bat-wing chaps flapped like sails as he slouched forward. He had a hard face, and though it showed him under forty, it was a record of strenuous life. Hatfield was young, a handsome, stalwart figure. He swaggered as he walked. His garb was picturesque, consisting of a huge beaver sombrero, red scarf, blue flannel shirt, just now covered with dust, and fringed chaps ornamented in silver.
“Howdy, Thurman,” greeted Bloom as he came up. “Met yore dad this mornin’, an’ he was tellin’ me you’d come to town.”
“How do, Bloom,” returned Cal, rather shortly.
Hatfield did not speak to Cal, though he gave him a sidelong look out of his sharp, bold eyes. Then, as before, it struck Cal why Hatfield had gained the favor of most of the girls of the Tonto. But he was not equally popular with the men. Hatfield had few superiors as a rider and roper, and he was a bad customer in a fight, as Cal remembered to his grief; but though these qualities had entitled him to a certain respect, he had never been a friend of any of the Thurmans. Moreover, he did not come of Texas stock and he belonged to the Bar XX outfit.