by Zane Grey
The judge laughed, and then glanced sharply at the cowboy waiting at the step.
“Jack, you’ve got something on your mind,” he said.
“Yes, sir, but it can wait. No hurry, sir,” replied the cowboy, hastily.
“Wal, Judge, if you’ll take a hunch from me you’ll not wait too long,” interposed Day.
“Come up and sit in with us, Jack,” was Franklidge’s reply.
The cowboy did as he was bidden, but he made no reply. He sat near the porch rail and leaned over to gaze down into the green canyon. The judge’s appraising eyes took stock of the lithe figure, the service-worn garb, the lean bearded face that was half hidden under the wide sombrero.
“Stewart was in town last night, drunk,” spoke Franklidge, casually. “Is he here to-day?”
“Yes, sir — an’ he’s all right now,” rejoined the cowboy.
“Judge, your foreman may be all right, as Texas Jack says, but I’ve my doubts,” put in Day. “I cain’t find anythin’ ag’in’ him, ‘cept the drinkin’. But I’ve just come to distrust the man. Mebbe I’m wrong. It shore is a distrustful time.”
“Mr. Franklidge, I hunted up Stewart, an’ found him an’ Dillon off under a cedar, talkin’ deep an’ quiet,” said Texas Jack.
“Dillon? Who’s he? That name’s familiar.”
“Dillon is young Ben Ide’s foreman,” replied Day, with interest. “He’s held jobs all over the range the last two years. Fine cowman. Engagin’ sort of chap. Everybody likes him. I shore do.”
“Which ought to be recommendation enough for Ide or even me, sore old cattleman that I am. . . . Well, Tom, have you considered the offer I made you some time ago?”
“Reckon I have, Judge, an’ I’m acceptin’ with thanks. I know I’m gettin’ the best of the deal,” returned Day, heartily.
“We’re not agreed on that. You’re counting only the relative value of your ranch compared with this one. But I count your friendship and help. . . . It’s a deal, then.”
“Heah’s my hand, Judge,” said Day, reaching out his huge paw.
“We’re partners, then,” replied Franklidge, as he shook the proffered hand. “We’ll throw these ranches and all the stock together, I’ll have papers made out when I get back to town. . . . Now get what’s troubling you off your chest.”
“Wal, boss, the situation heah has grown from bad to wuss,” returned Day, seriously.
“Where do you mean by here?” demanded Franklidge.
“All this range thet haids along the wild brakes of the Mogollons. Say, fifty miles in a straight line.”
“Yes?”
“Reckon it takes in a good many ranches, countin’ everybody, an’ mebbe two hundred thousand haid of cattle. But Ben Ide’s range an’ this one of yours an’ mine have come in fer the wust of the rustlin’ this last month.”
“We’ve always had rustlers to deal with. We always will have. What’s the difference between say a year or five years ago and now?”
“Wal, Judge, fer a big cattleman you’re shore poor informed.”
“Tom, you know most of my holdings lie along the railroad and north in the open country. I know next to nothing about what goes on in this backwoods. That’s why I wanted you for a partner.”
“The difference you asked aboot I’d calkilate offhand to stand you an’ me an’ Ben Ide around ten thousand haid.”
The Judge’s boots came down off the porch rail with a crash.
“What?” he demanded, incredulously.
“Boss, I said ten thousand, an’ mebbe thet’s conservative. Shore most of this rustled stock belongs to Ide. But we’ve lost a good deal, an’ stand to lose more or all unless somethin’ is done. You see, Ide proved an easy mark. He bought out Burridge, who had some stock, nobody knows how much. Wal, young Ide’s cow outfit was green an’ raw for Arizona. I gave him two of my best riders. One of them, Sam Tull, was found daid in the woods. Shot! We’ve never found out aboot it. The other cowboy, Rang Jones, had a quarrel with Dillon an’ quit. I cain’t see thet Dillon has changed matters fer the better. But I reckon no one man could at this stage of the game.”
“So they’ve hit young Ide hard,” muttered Franklidge, indignantly. “Funny he didn’t complain to me. I’ve seen something of him lately.”
“Ide’s not thet kind, Judge,” replied Day, warmly. “He’s as game as they come. An’ his sister — say, she’s a thoroughbred. She stands to lose ‘most as much as Ide.”
The two men, warming to the subject, might have been alone for all the notice they took of Texas Jack. He leaned far over the porch rail, his face hidden, his long lithe form strung like a whipcord. It was the strained position of a listening deer.
“Tom, I admire Miss Ide very much indeed, and her brother, too,” responded the judge. “I regret exceedingly the reception Arizona has given these two fine young people. I am ashamed. We all ought to be ashamed. We must end this damned wholesale cattle-stealing.”
“Ahuh! . . . Boss, I reckon I feel it more than you, as I’ve come to be friends with the Ides. Why, he paid Burridge’s debt to me. Four thousand! An’ then I’m a son-of-gun if he didn’t send for Elam Hatt an’ pay the lien he had on Burridge. Don’t know how much. But the Hatts were drunk fer a week.”
“Well!” ejaculated Franklidge.
“Every since then the rustlers have been bolder than I ever seen them yet in Arizonie.”
“Who are these rustlers, Tom?”
“Huh! If I said what I think it’d be old to you. But I reckon there is a new leader workin’ now. Shore they’re all workin’. But there’s some big chief who’s keen as a wolf.”
“Where are these stolen cattle driven?” asked the judge, wonderingly. “I’ve been twenty years in this business. Yet this beats me.”
“Reckon the stock gets drove everywhere,” replied Day.
“Not to the railroad?” queried Franklidge, aghast.
“Shore to the railroad. Not to Winthrop. But, man, there’s other stations along the line. Then I had a Mexican sheepherder tell me he’d seen herds of cattle drove over the Rim, down into the Tonto. Thet’s a wild country. Shore no cow outfits are followin’ rustlers down into the Tonto.”
“Tom, the Hatts are a bad outfit,” rejoined the Judge, thoughtfully. “Some years ago I had trouble with Elam Hatt. The Stillwells are another. Surely these backwoodsmen run with these rustler outfits.”
“Shore they do,” snorted Day. “But I reckon the Hatts ain’t the ringleaders. Cedar Hatt is the wust of thet bad lot. He’s dangerous. Bad hombre with guns! Ever’ once in a while I heah of some shootin’ scrape he’s been in out there, among his own kind. The Mexican herders are afraid of Cedar. But they’re close-mouthed. In the years I’ve lived heah I’ve known of several sheepherders bein’ murdered.”
“Cedar Hatt?” mused the Judge. “Yes, I know of him. Bad name; gun-fighter. . . . How many Hatts in the family?”
“I know the whole outfit,” replied Day. “Elam an’ me always got along pretty good. But I’ve no use fer Cedar. He’s the eldest son. Then there’s Henny an’ Tobe — packrats if I ever seen any in the woods. An’ last there’s a girl — Rose. Reckon she’ll be aboot sixteen. Pretty slip of a lass, whose mother died when she was a baby.”
“What a pity! No mother. No decent home. No schooling. There are many such unfortunate girls in this wild country, alas! Why don’t some cowboys take this Rose away and marry her? She might turn out a good woman.”
“Shore she might. An’ so I’ve said often. But I ain’t hit on any cowboy yet who cared to risk his skin down there in the brakes.”
“What has Ide done in regard to the raids on his stock?” asked the judge, curiously.
“Aboot all any man could,” replied Day, admiringly. “He has spent a lot of money hiring extra hands to trail stock. He took over this Dillon at a high salary. An’ I reckon he puts a good deal of confidence in Dillon. Funny about Ben Ide, though. He gets sore when the rustlers make a raid. But he really
don’t care a damn aboot the cattle. He’s shore afraid fer his horses, though, specially thet California Red. There’s a grand hoss, Judge. I’ll bet if the rustlers got thet stallion Ben Ide would hit the trail himself. Strikes me he’s seen some wild life. He shore is a rider. Strange, wonderful sort of chap Ben Ide is. I’m just gettin’ acquainted with him. He always struck me as a rancher whose heart wasn’t in his ranch. There’s somethin’ he wants. But he worships his wife an’ kid an’ thet handsome sister. It ain’t thet. I cain’t explain what I don’t savvy. But I’ve a hunch young Ide has been hurt. Mebbe he killed some one over in California an’ had to get out. I’ve often wondered if thet could be it. Then it might be he’s lookin’ fer some man. Like a Texan, you know, who never forgot.”
Before the judge could reply to Day’s earnest statement the cowboy, Texas Jack, whirled round with a silent wrestling violence that indicated a suppressed and poignant passion. Under the shadow of his broad sombrero his eyes gleamed like clear coals of fire.
“I’m — heahin’ — all — you say!” he burst out, pantingly.
“Suppose you are, Jack?” queried the judge, in kindly surprise. “If I’d minded about being overheard I’d have sent you away.”
Tom Day stared, and it was evident he was not so surprised as expectant. He had lived with cowboys all his life.
“Wal, what the hell ails you, son?” he growled.
Jack whirled away in the same sudden violent action with which he had faced them, only now it seemed there was added a fierce struggle of mind over body. He bent over the rail. He sprang up erect and rigid. In a moment more he turned toward the men again, to present a remarkably transformed front.
“I’m shore beggin’ pardon, Mr. Franklidge, an’ of you too, Tom,” he drawled, in slow, cool, easy speech. “I couldn’t help heahin’ all you said, an’ — wal, it knocked me off my balance.”
“No offense, Jack,” replied the judge, kindly. “I think Tom’s talk sort of locoed me, too.”
“Wal, see heah, you long, lean, hungry-eyed Texan,” spoke up Day, forcefully, “jest why did I knock you off your balance?”
“Tom, I reckon I happened to hit on a way to fix the rustlers,” replied Jack, nonchalantly.
“The hell you did!” ejaculated Day. He accepted the statement without doubt or ridicule. He was pondering deeply. His sharp light-blue glance was riveted on the shadowy, half-concealed eyes of the cowboy.
Judge Franklidge sat up with a jerk, but his smile robbed his action of a convincing sincerity.
“Jack, we’d be grateful for any suggestions from one as well proven as you on the range.”
“Wal, what is this heah idee you hit on?” added Day, sharply.
“Shore it’s as simple as a-b-c,” rejoined the cowboy, blandly. “Somebody has got to ride down into the brakes an’ get thick with the rustlers.”
“Oh-ho! I see!” quoth Day, almost derisively.
The cowboy’s mild manner changed subtly, in a way to impress his listeners, though they could not have told how.
“Somebody has got to shoot up the Hatts an’ mebbe the Stillwells. An’ kill some of that Pine Tree outfit — in particular the hombre who’s at the haid of it.”
“Is thet all? My Gawd! Jack, I shore thought you’d hit on somethin’ hard to pull off,” returned Day, with infinite scorn.
“Shore it’d be hard enough,” admitted Texas Jack, who refused to see the ridicule.
“Hard! Fly, cowboy, you’re loco!” exploded the other. “Shore you hit on the way to fix the rustlers. Shore! But who’n hell’s goin’ to do it? Was you figurin’ on us hirin’ some fancy gun-slingers to do the little job? Kingfisher from Texas, huh? An’ Wess Hardin? Or mebbe you had in mind some new Billy the Kid or Pat Garrett? Or more like, perhaps, Jim Lacey, who they say has been hidin’ quiet in Arizonie for a long time!”
Texas Jack’s tan appeared to become a shade less brown. He grew tense, steely-eyed.
“Tom Day, how long have you known me?” he demanded, in a voice that rang.
“Two years an’ more, son,” replied Day, surrendering to something compelling.
“Would you trust me?”
“I shore would. With my stock, my money, my reputation . . . with my life — so help me Gawd!”
“Judge Franklidge, how long have I worked for you!” queried the cowboy, turning to the other.
“About a year and a half, as I remember.”
“An’ what is your opinion of me — as a man?” flashed the cowboy, growing more piercing of eye and voice.
“Jack, you’re the squarest and best man, the finest hand who ever worked for me!” responded the judge, feelingly.
“Thank you. Reckon you can have no idee what that means to me,” returned the cowboy. “An’ you’d trust me?”
“As well as I would my own flesh and blood.”
Texas Jack removed his sombrero and sailed it against the wall. His brow was broad and pale, his clear light eyes seemed to burn with a steady flame; there were white hairs in the long locks smoothed back above his ears; under the thin bronze beard, cheeks and lips set hard.
“Wal, then, it’s my job to fix the rustlers,” he said, deliberately.
“You! Nonsense!” declared the judge. “You wouldn’t tackle that alone?”
“It’s got to be done alone.”
“Nonsense! I say.”
“Judge,” interposed Tom Day, “it shore does look thet way. But wait. This cowboy has got somethin’ up his sleeve. I always knowed it. . . . Come heah, Texas Jack. Spring it.”
What shrewd, hard, comprehending yet wondering light flashed from the old rancher’s eyes!
“Listen,” went on Jack, bending to his hearers. “To serve Arizona an’ you an’ your good friends I’ve got to become a rustler. I may have to go a long way to find the leader of this heah Pine Tree outfit. I’ll have to drink an’ steal an’ kill. Shore I may lose my life finishin’ the job. An’ I want my secret kept till it’s ended. Then if I come back alive I want my name cleared.”
“Who’n hell are you?” asked Tom Day, in low and husky voice.
“Man, you’re forcing me against my will,” said the judge, rising to his feet. “I don’t want you to attempt this thing alone. It’s a wild cowboy idea. You’d only be killed. But I admire you, Jack.”
“Dead or alive, I want my name cleared!” exclaimed the cowboy.
“Of what?”
“Of the stealin’ an’ lyin’ I’ll have to do.”
“Man, I have power to make you a deputy sheriff right here and now. And I’d do it.”
“No. Shore I’ll never be an officer of the law. What I want is this. Your word of honor to keep my secret, an’, if I come back alive, to clear my name.”
“Jack, are you going to persist in this mad plan?” demanded the judge.
“Reckon I shore will, whether you stand by me or not,” returned the other, grimly. “It’s too late now. I’ve got a reason, Judge. But it’d only be fair for you to uphold me — to tell in court, if necessary, that you an’ Tom Day were parties to the job I undertook.”
“Jack you misunderstand,” replied Franklidge, hastily. “Don’t make me ashamed. I will give you any support and authority right here and now. In writing, if you want.”
“Only your word, Judge.”
“There! You have it. And here’s my hand.”
Texas Jack broke from the strong, earnest handclasp to make the same proffer to the other rancher.
“Tom, will you stand by me — when I come back?”
“Hell, yes,” boomed Day as he pumped the cowboy’s arm up and down.
Abruptly, then, with sharp husky expulsion of breath, Jack wrenched clear of the vigorous grasp and wheeled to a post of the porch, against which he leaned and clutched hard. Something long buried was being resurrected. Ignominy loomed out of the past to stain an honest name. There was sacrifice here, far greater than appeared plain to the two grave and expectant onlookers. Whatever the strife w
as, it passed as swiftly as it had come. Then the cowboy turned again, somehow different, so that the judge and Day had awe added to their surprise.
“Gentlemen, I shore hate to give myself away,” he drawled. A smile outshone the strange, steely light in his eyes. “But I reckon it’s got to be done.”
“Wal now, who’n hell are you, anyhow?” queried Day as the other paused.
“Tom Day, the starved cowboy you once took pity on, happens to be Jim Lacy!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WAS SUNDAY, and that hour of the afternoon when all the men off duty at the Franklidge Ranch would be anywhere except round the bunkhouse. The cowboy, Texas Jack, striding in, was relieved to find himself alone. He made for his bunk for the purpose of hurriedly packing his few belongings. An old pair of black chaps worn thin hung at the head of his bed, with a belt and gun. An instinct prompted him to throw out his hand. There, as if by magic, the gun whirled in the air.
“Reckon it was fate,” he muttered as he sheathed the gun. “Somethin’ never let me stop practicin’ that old draw. Wal, wal!”
In a few moments he had tied his belongings into a small roll to fit behind a saddle. His movements were swift, but made as if he were in a trance. He rose from his knees to gaze around; then strode out into the rude yet comfortable living room. Something prompted him to step before the mirror.
“Wal, so long, Texas Jack,” he said to the image reflected there. “Reckon I been almost happy with you. A shave an’ hair-cut will shore say adios to you forever. . . . An’ then there’ll be men who’ll recognize you as Jim Lacy.”
A quarter of an hour later he rode briskly down a trail that led into the cedars. He had taken his own saddle, but the horse he bestrode was one long discarded by the boys at the ranch. Once under cover of the cedars, the rider pulled his mount to a walk. It was nineteen miles to Sunshine, and he wanted to reach that station after dark and board a night train without being seen.
A melancholy resignation had no power to cramp the slow-mounting exaltation in Jim Lacy’s breast. Once free of the need to hurry, his mind reverted to the cause of this extraordinary adventure he had voluntarily accepted. Facts were cold, hard things. He had hidden his real identity; he had buried the past; he had risen on stepping-stones of his dead self to honest useful service; he had earned peace and victory, if not real happiness; and then, like a thunderbolt from heaven, an inevitable, irresistible fate had confronted him. What he had suffered during the moments when Tom Day had talked to Judge Franklidge about Ben and Hettie Ide! The old wound had not healed. The old love lived in his heart, stronger for the years of denial and repression. Jim Lacy rocked in his saddle. No eyes but those of hawks and prairie-dogs and perhaps a skulking coyote could see him surrender to his emotion. The old horse walked slowly down the trail; the west wind blew hot desert fragrance in the rider’s face; the dust arose and the heat beat down.