Collected Works of Zane Grey

by Zane Grey

“Where are they?”

  “Over hyar on a Mormon ranch, on the Santa Clara. They belong to a Mormon named Morgan. He lives in St. George. Heady hyar used to ride fer him.”

  “What’s your idea?” coolly went on Ames, lighting a cigarette.

  Noggin made a nervous movement that caused a quiver to run down Ames’ arm. This thief with the eyes of a ferret needed to be watched.

  “Steele, are you goin’ to give up your insides to a stranger?” he demanded.

  “No, I ain’t,” replied Steele, testily. “But I’d like Ames to throw in with us.”

  “I object. I’ll not have that.”

  “An’ why not?”

  “I’ve got several reasons. First one is we don’t know this man.”

  “Wal, I know him, enough to suit me.”

  “Do you intend to tell him who we are?”

  “Hell! We’re no better than he is. Fer thet matter, mebbe we’re not as good.”

  “Steele, you’ve the mind of a child,” returned Noggin, fuming. “I mean, are you tellin’ him our business?”

  The leader turned to Ames.

  “Arizona, what’d you take us fer? Now come out with it pronto an’ straight. This Noggin is so damn smart, I’d like some one to take him down a peg or two,” replied Steele, his swarthy face heating up. “I took you fer a cowboy on the dodge fer killin’ or stealin’. An’ I had you figgered correct as you’ve not denied it.”

  Ames surveyed the four men, while he withdrew his cigarette. He was keen enough to see that Noggin made note that he used his left hand for this purpose.

  “Steele, I reckon I didn’t do much figurin’ till just the last half hour or so,” replied Ames. “But since you tax me I’ll come clean. I take Heady heah to be a Mormon wrangler out of luck an’ willin’ to be roped into any sort of a deal. Amos there is a good fellow gone wrong long ago, who doesn’t care one way or the other. . . . An’, Steele, I figure you as a boss horse-thief, like as not Brandeth himself. I’ve long heahed of that Nevada outlaw chief.”

  “Wal, I am Steele Brandeth,” replied the other. “An’ I’m powerful curious to know what you thought of Noggin.”

  “Reckon not much,” replied Ames, his eyes on that worthy. The response to this terse remark would establish in Ames’ mind what he had to expect. Partly he looked for gun-play, and thought it would be better now than later. All he ascertained, however, was that Noggin knew him and would never risk an even break with him. Brandeth saw as much, too, for a derisive smile wreathed his coarse lips.

  “Wal, you’ve tagged us, Arizona, an’ now let’s git back to hosses,” he said. “If you’ll help me on this deal I’ll give you one-fifth of the hosses. The way we do, when we git a bunch, is to cut the deck, ace high, fer first pick, second pick, an’ so on. Then each of us picks the hoss he thinks most of. Layin’ aside a little luck fer first pick, a fellar’s hoss-sense is what tells.”

  “You’re shore a gamblin’ horse-trader,” observed Ames.

  “Steele, you can’t split this deal up any more,” declared Noggin, aggressively. “You owe me nine hundred dollars on our last deal, an’ you’re makin’ it up on our next.”

  “Noggy, you’re not goin’ to git thet all back on this deal.”

  “I am, or there won’t be any deal,” retorted Noggin, his eyes like glints of flint.

  “There won’t? . . . How so?”

  “I’ll block it.”

  “How in thunder would you do thet?” shouted Brandelh.

  “I’ll think it over.”

  “Wal, you’d better,” said Brandeth, soberly.

  The little man left the camp fire and disappeared among the huge boulders.

  “We’re stuck hyar, anyhow, so Noggin has time to cool off,” went on the leader. “This time I ain’t a-goin’ to give in to him.”

  “Looks like a stubborn fellow,” remarked Ames.

  “Stubborn as a mule, an’ some other ways, too. . . . Ames, if you hadn’t been Arizona Ames — he’d have drawn on you.”

  “I was a little worried,” admitted Ames.

  “Haw! Haw! You looked it. . . . He’s shot a number of men. I’m sorry he took a dislike to you. An’ I’m not double-crossin’ him when I advise you to —— Aw, hell! I’m wastin’ my breath tellin’ you sich things. But you know what I mean?”

  “Boss, we’re most out of meat,” put in Amos.

  “Say, we’re a bunch of hawgs. I’ll go fetch the hosses, an’ we’ll ride up on top.”

  “Reckon you can let my horse alone. He needs rest an’ so do I,” said Ames.

  Presently Ames found himself in camp with only the Mormon. Ames was quick to grasp that his reputation had made him an object of great interest, to say the least, to Heady. Ames talked agreeably and with friendliness, aiming to draw the fellow out. That achievement did not necessitate any wit or subtlety. Ames’ first impression strengthened, and it was not long before his feeling changed from contempt to pity for the apparently outcast Mormon.

  “Who’s Morgan?” asked Ames, at length.

  “He’s a rancher up St. George way. Raises hosses on the Santa Clara an’ cattle on the Virgin.”

  “Rich Mormon?”

  “Laws, no! Jim Morgan used to be pretty well off. But he’s given away so much an’ been robbed so often thet he’s no longer rich. When he loses them hosses he’s goin’ to be poor.”

  “Given away so much? What you mean? I had an idea a Mormon never gave up anythin’?”

  “You Gentiles get a lot of ideas thet are wrong. Mormons are generous, for the most part. Jim is a kind old man. If you’d rode into his place, same as you did here last night, he’d have taken you in, just the same as if you was a Mormon.”

  “Well, I like that. Shore it’s a dirty trick to rob such a man. Don’t you think so?”

  “You needn’t tell these men, but I sure hate to see it done,” returned Heady, lowering his voice.

  “Why are you goin’ to help — or do you intend to?”

  “Thet’s the plan. I met Steele Brandeth over in Nevada, an’ he talked me into it.”

  “Ahuh! — Well, you needn’t tell these men, but I think you’re a damn fool,” said Ames, with his most impelling smile.

  “But I’ve got to eat.”

  “Shore. So do I. . . . Have you any family?”

  “Yes. Wife an’ two kids,” replied the Mormon, haltingly. “But I haven’t been home in a year. I did a bit of rustlin’, an’ got scared, though nobody seems to know.”

  “Nice wife an’ kids?”

  “Too nice fer me.”

  “Are they poor?”

  “They couldn’t be nothin’ else.”

  “An’ you once rode for this Jim Morgan?”

  “I did. An’ I could get my job back, I’ll bet. . . . An’ now I’m guidin’ a gang of thieves to the canyon where he keeps his hosses hid. — Hell of a note, ain’t it?”

  “Do you want to know what I think aboot you?”

  “Yes, I’m tolerable anxious.”

  Ames took a long pull at the cigarette, blew out a cloud of smoke, and then suddenly fastened eyes of fire upon the Mormon.

  “A man who has a nice wife an’ two kids, an’ who will go out an’ help rob his employer, an’ I reckon his friend, is a —— ! . . . —— ! —— ! —— !”

  When the string of profane range epithets had scathingly passed Ames’ lips the Mormon had a sort of shriveled appearance.

  “Well, you asked me,” went on Ames, in ordinary tone. “Is this heah Jim Morgan a Mormon with more than one wife?”

  “No. Jim never had but one, an’ only three children. They’re all livin’. But the son left home an’ never come back. He’s heerd of occasionally — not much good. Reckon thet hurt the old man. One daughter is married an’ the other lives with him. She won’t leave him, though they say she’s had many chances to marry. She refused a bishop of her church an’ thet made trouble fer her father. But he couldn’t change her.”

  “What�
��s her name?”

  “Lespeth.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Twenty-one or so. Big lass, an’ good fer sore eyes. She can do a man’s work, an’ handle a hoss — say!”

  “Mormon cowgirl?” mused Ames, with interest. “That’s a new one on me. Does she like horses?”

  “Like ain’t no word. She loves hosses. It’s goin’ to be hard on her, when we steal thet bunch. Her own hosses run with them, an’ when we drive thet canyon we’ll clean them all out.”

  “Reckon you an’ I know how she’ll feel,” concluded Ames, rising. “I’m goin’ to take a look at my own horse. Have you seen him?”

  “Yes. When I was packin’ water up. He took my eye. You seldom see his like in Utah. . . . An’ he’s sure took Brandeth’s eye!”

  “Say, Mormon, are you just talkin’ or givin’ me a hunch?” queried Ames, sharply.

  “I — er — jest talkin’,” replied the other, hastily, averting his glance.

  * * * * *

  Half a mile down the canyon Ames found his horse grazing on fairly good grass. Cappy appeared less gaunt, which fact afforded Ames satisfaction. There were other horses in the wide park, though none near at hand.

  Ames repaired to the shade of the wall, and finding a grassy nook between two boulders and screened by sage, he sat down to rest and think, and perhaps take a nap.

  He had been in worse predicaments than this of falling in with horse-thieves and being taken for something as bad. Nevertheless, he could conceive that the situation might give rise to unpleasant complications.

  “Dog-gone!” complained Ames. “If I’d stayed at the bottom of the canyon, shore some kind of a mess would have bobbed up. Reckon I don’t know what to do with this heah one.”

  A solution easily arrived at was to decide to wait a day or so longer, and then, seizing an opportunity such as this hour, to saddle Cappy and ride away. That, he frankly told himself, would be the wisest course. If he lingered with Brandeth, sooner or later there would be some kind of fight. He pondered wearily over the disturbing fact that almost any combination of men gave rise to friction and strife. He had never seen a cow outfit or heard of one that was free of trouble. How much less chance of peace among rustlers, horse-thieves, outlaws!

  “Either I stay or go,” he said, aloud, and was a little disgusted with himself that he did not immediately decide upon the latter. Whereupon he asked himself why.

  Sometimes these lucid intervals of self-penetration were illuminating to Ames. Nevertheless, here he was irritated. Had not ten years of wild life satiated him with antagonism and conflict? Evidently he resented Brandeth’s conviction that he was a self-confessed cattle-thief. This ferret-eyed Noggin, more gambler than anything, rubbed him the wrong way. Noggin had heard more about him than Brandeth; he might even have seen him somewhere, on one of the numerous occasions when trouble had thrown him into prominence.

  Ames felt sorry for the weak Heady, who had easily been dominated by the forceful Brandeth. And he gritted his teeth at the thought of Brandeth and Noggin stealing the last stock of a rancher who had been rich and who through generosity and adversity had fallen to low estate. Then the Mormon girl who loved horses and who would not desert her old father — how this thrilled Ames! Some one had to do these things — to be the buffer and the anchor, to serve and sacrifice.

  It was the thought of this girl, Lespeth, that decided Ames to linger with the horse-thieves and in some way or other circumvent them. The least he could do would be to ride over to see this Mormon breeder of fine horses and to tell him of the plot to rob him. But that did not satisfy Ames.

  He pondered over the problem for a long time. Meanwhile the drowsy heat and silence of the canyon began to lull his senses. Lizards ran out of the niches of the cliff to peer at him with jewel eyes. A scaly dusty rattlesnake glided into the covert of the sage. Now and then he heard the silky metallic rustle of the wings of a rushing canyon swift — strange bird of the rock walls. White clouds crossed the blue stream between the rims above. Then color and movement and sound gradually faded into slumber.

  When he awoke his face was moist and his hair damp. He had slept through the heat of the day, and the shadow on the opposite wall of the canyon showed that the sun had slanted far on its westering journey.

  Ames arose and leisurely made his way back to camp. Some moments before he reached it he espied the four men, and had not progressed all the way when he grew aware of a changed atmosphere. Noggin paced up and down at the back of the shaded cavern like a ghoul. Amos did not wear his cheery smile. Heady looked blank. And Brandeth seemed to be chewing the end of bitter chagrin.

  “Where you been?” he growled at Ames.

  “Right down heah. Slept my haid off.”

  “Noggin swore you rode off to double-cross us with Morgan.”

  “Ahuh. Didn’t you see my horse?”

  “Reckon I was oneasy till I went out an’ seen him. I knowed damn wal you’d never leave him.”

  “I shore wouldn’t be separated from Cappy,” drawled Ames.

  “Many a fellar has felt thet way about life, too,” responded Brandeth. “There’s many things oncertain, Ames.”

  “Yeah, I’ve noticed that. An’ one of them is the dispositions of men.”

  “Haw! Haw! — Air you always so cool an’ smooth?”

  “Me? Gosh, no! I get terrible upset. An’ over nothin’ sometimes.”

  “Wal, me an’ Noggin have split,” announced Brandeth, spreading his hands.

  “You don’t say? Hope it’s not on my account. If so I can mosey along. I’m fair rested an’ my horse will do.”

  “Wal, you was the snag we struck fust. But it turns out you haven’t got much to do with it. Noggin used you as an excuse.”

  The individual mentioned heard this reference to himself, for he wheeled in his pace.

  “Brandeth, if you tell that cowboy any more you’re a locoed damn fool.”

  “Wal, I’ll talk if I like, an’ you can go to hell,” returned the leader, sullenly.

  “I’ll bet you a hundred that when I arrive you will be there ahead of me.”

  “Wal, then, as I ain’t got long to live, I’ll shoot off my chin,” retorted Brandeth, sarcastically. “No, Ames, you ain’t the bone of contention. It all came out today. Noggin made this plan. He’s a hoss-dealer, an’ buys up hosses, where he ain’t recognized. Reckon St. George an’ south Utah air yet to make his acquaintance as a hoss-thief. Fer Noggin’s long suit is to sell a bunch of hosses to some rancher, an’ then steal them back. Me an’ him haven’t worked long together. He had a gang over in Nevada an’ they fought among themselves. Wal, Noggin jumped on me with a wild idee. He once bought some hosses from Morgan, couple of years ago. Paid high fer them. But whatever his trick was, it fell through. Morgan knows Noggin under another name. Now Noggin wants to take Heady with him an’ ride over to Morgan, an’ make him an offer fer the pick of his hosses. This is only a trick to git the gurl, Lespeth — —”

  “Who’s she?” interrupted Ames, in apparent surprise.

  “Morgan’s daughter. They say when a Mormon gurl is purty an’ handy she sure is both. Wal, Noggin has seen this gurl a couple of times, an’ he’s stuck on her. She was extraordinary sweet to him, he says. Heady, hyar, who knows the Morgans, says Lespeth is thet way with any man. Reckon thet makes no real difference to Noggin. His plan is to git the gurl an’ her dad to take him to see the hosses. The rest of us air to meet them down in thet canyon, wherever it is. We’ll take all the hosses.”

  “Oh, I see. An’ what aboot Morgan an’ Lis — what’d you call her? — Lespeth?” drawled Ames, knocking a cigarette on end. Apparently for him such plots were commonplace.

  “Wal, thet’s where I hedged,” went on Brandeth. “Noggin says likely the one hoss-wrangler Heady seen on Morgan’s ranch would go with them. He’d have to be shot. Then Noggin plans to knock the old man on the head — pretend not to kill him on account of the gurl — an’ take her off with
the hosses. — Ames, what’s your idee of this deal?”

  “Reckon just what I’d expect of Noggin,” replied Ames, with strange timber in his voice. That was the instant wherein his consciousness fixed upon a determination to kill Noggin.

  “Wal, thet ain’t answerin’ me. You’re purty deep, Arizona,” went on Brandeth. “Anyway, I’d have agreed to the deal if Noggin would call off the debt I owe him, instead of grabbin’ my share of the hosses. But, no, the damn weasel-eyed little hawg! He wants the gurl, his half of Morgan’s stock, an’ enough of mine to square the debt. So I bucked. An’ we split.”

  “Too bad. Reckon Noggin is not very reasonable. Cain’t you talk him out of it?”

  “Haw! Haw! You try.”

  “Hey, Noggin, come out in the sunlight,” called Ames. “Your eyes may be sharp in holes, but mine are poor.”

  “What do you want?” returned Noggin, and it was certain that Ames had struck him differently from Brandeth.

  “Well, I reckon that depends on you,” said Ames, enigmatically.

  Noggin came out of the shade, guardedly, his eyes like pin-points, his nervous hands low.

  That short walk defined his nerve and his ability to Ames, neither of which was extraordinary. Still he could be taunted or driven to draw, if Ames wished to force the issue then. This, however, was only in the background of Ames’ thought.

  “Brandeth has told me aboot the deal you want to work on Morgan,” began Ames, as a preliminary.

  “I heard him,” snapped Noggin.

  “Reckon I figure you’re some unreasonable.”

  “I don’t care what you think. You’re not in it.”

  “Well, I haven’t refused yet.”

  “No. An’ I notice you haven’t jumped at the chance, either.”

  “Noggin, I never jump at chances. I’m considerin’ Brandeth’s offer, an’ if I do accept, your wantin’ the earth may stick in my craw.”

  Nothing was any more certain than that this man seemed trying to pierce through Ames’ armor to the truth.

  “All right, Ames. When you accept I’ll lay my cards on the table,” replied Noggin, and turned his back.

  CHAPTER XI