by Zane Grey
“Mecklin! Is it possible? Yet he was always evasive — never satisfactory. . . . And what about Stevens?”
“Wal, he’s a harder proposition. Ames thought he was either deep or honest. . . . Now, boss, I’ll run back, an’ fetch them all over soon. Reckon for the present it’d be better for you to keep mum about what I’ve told you.”
“All right, Joe. Mum’s the word. But hurry back.”
Cabel hurried out, and Halstead, after a moment, stamped into his room. Esther closed her door and lay down on her bed in a tumult. It took stern effort of will to subdue her emotion so that she could think instead of feel, and then at intervals she lapsed back again. Her interest in this Arizona Ames had been rudely shocked into something she could not define. But her sentimentality, or whatever it had been, most surely had received a violent reverse. He had killed men. Esther shuddered. Had she ever before come in contact with any man who had shed blood? If so she had not been cognizant of it. Another of the vague little dreams dispelled! Regret mingled with relief. Her pondering fell solely upon the problem that concerned Fred and her father’s dubious circumstances. But when Joe’s strange and eloquent championing of this Arizona Ames returned to mind Esther grew bewildered. Yet this time a strong vibrating thrill, rather than shudder, coursed through her. Was Joe drunk or over-excited or dishonest? Esther scouted each disloyal thought. She was discovering Joe. She believed his assertions, preposterous as they seemed.
“If this Arizona Ames stays, father’s troubles will be over,” whispered Esther to herself, as if that would aid conviction. She divined then that these troubles were not insurmountable to such men as Cabel and Ames. But they were Western. They knew how to deal with the hard knots of the range. Still, on reflection, it seemed no less marvelous, and dreadful, too, when she recalled Joe’s terse explanation. Obviously, then, the wise course was to keep Ames at Troublesome, at any cost.
Esther found herself dealing with a possible side of the situation. Suppose this remarkable Ames, who was shy of women, did not think favorably of her father’s proposition? That would be where she must come in. If Mr. Ames was afraid of a pretty girl, it might be because he feared he would fall in love with her. Very well! It would be a shame to sacrifice so wonderful a man on the altar of exigency. But would he sacrifice himself? She realized in the stark honesty of her heart that she was a firebrand ready for the spark. Pretty soon she knew she would fall in love with a clod, a dolt, anybody; and she ought to thank the Providence that Joe had spoken of, for dropping this range-riding Nemesis down into Troublesome Valley.
Esther’s slumbering spirit roused into passion, and when she slipped off the bed to look at herself in the mirror she saw a woman with inscrutably dark and eloquent eyes.
“If dad fails, I’ll make him stay!” she whisperingly promised the image she faced. “Then, oh dear! my troubles will begin.”
She bathed her hot cheeks and brushed and rearranged her hair. Then she put on her most attractive dress, waiving the fact that it was not altogether suitable for afternoon wear.
CHAPTER XV
IT WAS JUST as well, Esther thought, that she had not a moment for reflection. She had scarcely satisfied herself as to her appearance, when she heard the men enter the living-room.
Her father was greeting them when Esther opened her door and stepped in. He halted in the midst of a word.
“Wal, now, Miss Esther!” exclaimed Joe, suddenly beaming upon her.
“Howdy, Joe!” replied Esther, coming forward with a smile. “Don’t introduce your friend. We’ve already met.”
Then she looked up as she extended her hand to Ames.
“How do you do, Mr. Ames?” she said, cordially, wholly at ease on the surface. “I don’t recognize you, but I’m sure you’re Mr. Arizona Ames.”
Indeed she did not recognize in this man the gray, dust-caked, and bearded rider of yesterday. His grip was firm and strong. She saw and felt the compelling power of singularly blue eyes, that only her late mounting spirit would have enabled her to meet.
“Shore glad to meet you proper, Miss Halstead,” he drawled in the cool, lazy accents of the Southerner. “An’ if it’s a compliment you’re payin’ me, I am returnin’ it.”
Shy! Whatever had Joe Cabel been dreaming of? This man seemed the serenest, the most unconscious of self of anyone Esther had ever met. Still, Joe had said that it was pretty women of whom Mr. Ames stood in awe and fear. Evidently he had not found her listed in this category.
“I must thank you, Mr. Ames, for I think I meant to be complimentary,” continued Esther, with a smile. Then she went up to her father, who stood with an air of pride mixed with surprise and perplexity.
“Daughter, you look awful good, but this isn’t a party,” he said.
“I would go to a council of war just the same,” she replied, enigmatically, and then she kissed him. “Father, from now on, when the little game of trouble comes up at Troublesome, I’m going to sit in.”
“I savvy. Joe has been talking to you,” said her father, resignedly.
“Joe has answered a few questions. Don’t blame him. I’d soon have arrived at this decision without any help.”
“You remind me of your mother,” he rejoined. “You’re grown up, Esther. . . . Well, well! — Joe, are those cowboys coming?”
“No. I sure insisted. But Mecklin wasn’t keen about comin’. Said he’d made his report an’ couldn’t say no more an’ no less. Stevens looked worried, but he stuck with him.”
“Let’s go in my room,” said Halstead, and still holding Esther’s hand he led the way into a large apartment that had been the interior of a whole cabin. It was plain, rude, yet livable. The chinks between the logs had been newly plastered up with clay; a smoldering fire burned on the wide yellow hearth.
“Have a seat, Ames,” he went on. “And you, too, Joe, though I don’t recollect ever seeing you sit down.” He slid an old armchair round for Esther. “This was your grandmother’s, as you know. It’s about all I have left of the old home. She was a shrewd business woman and I never saw the trouble that phased her. So it’s most appropriate, daughter, that you have her chair while we initiate you as a lady director in the affairs of Troublesome Ranch. Too late, I fear!”
Halstead turned to his desk. “I can’t talk unless I smoke. — Ames, have a cigar?”
“Reckon I wouldn’t know what to do with it,” drawled the rider. “Sometimes, though, when I’m hungry or thirsty out on the range I’ll smoke a cigarette, if I’m lucky enough to have one. Which I shore wasn’t, comin’ across the Flat Tops.”
He stood to one side of the fireplace and he was so tall that he leaned his elbow on the stone mantle. Esther had a momentary glimpse of his clean-cut profile, his tanned cheek, his lean square jaw. Then, as he turned, she quickly glanced down.
“Joe told me you rode in by way of the Troublesome,” began Halstead, and with lighted cigar in hand he leaned back in his chair to look up with undisguised curiosity and interest at the rider.
“Reckon I walked most of the way down heah,” replied Ames.
“Then you had more time and better chance to see my range. What do you think of it?”
“Is all this heah Troublesome Valley your range?”
“Yes, these burned-over slopes and the meadows along the creek. I own a thousand acres outright, and my territorial range-right takes in all this open valley.”
“It’s a big range in a big country. Are there any other ranchers near?”
“None. The closest is Jim Wood, over the ridge, ten miles and more. We’ve never seen a cow or steer of his on my side. Rough forest between.”
“I reckon I never saw a finer range,” said Ames, as if weighing his words.
“For what? Deer and elk — for hunters and fishermen like my kids are growing into; for Esther, who loves wild flowers.”
“I reckon it’s pretty fine for them,” replied the rider, with a slow understanding smile at Esther. “But I was speakin’ for cattle.”
“How do you make that out?” demanded Halstead, who evidently had expected Ames to share his opinion and damn the valley.
“It burned over four or five years ago an’ — —”
“Five,” interrupted the rancher. “A year before I bought the ranch. Man named Bligh, who tried both sheep and cattle. Before that only trappers and prospectors ranged in here. Bligh was going to do well, but the fire ruined his chances. So I bought him out cheap.”
“You were shore lucky. Bligh would have done well if he had only known enough. The fire made the range. I reckon the grass just came up good this year. It’ll be many years before any timber growth gets hold again. An’ you can check that.”
“Humph! So I’ve got a good range instead of a poor one?”
“Shore fine. This heah Troublesome range will make you rich short of five years. An’ in ten it’ll double.”
“Ames, if I wasn’t looking at you and taking Cabel’s word for your — your judgment, I’d laugh,” burst out Halstead. “I’d laugh!”
“Shore. You can laugh, anyhow. I won’t mind.”
“I’ll swear instead. . . . See here, Ames, I’ve lost two hundred head of cattle since the snow melted. They ate some poison weed, swelled up and died. Last year almost that many.”
“Larkspur. You don’t know how to handle it, an’ you shore have hired some wise cowboys.”
“Larkspur! What’s that?”
“Father, I know,” spoke up Esther, quickly. “It’s one of the wild flowers I love so well.”
“Correct, Miss Halstead,” said Ames. “But it’s shore bad medicine for cattle. . . . The fact is, Halstead, that larkspur is no longer any great menace to cattlemen. It used to be. But now we know what to do. Cattle eat this plant, which forms a gas inside them. Indigestion, I reckon. Anyway, they swell up an’ if you don’t stick them pronto an’ relieve the gas pressure, they die.”
“Stick them!” ejaculated Halstead, weakly.
“Shore. You take a long thin round instrument an’ stick them. If they haven’t gone too far they all recover. Then a few good riders could get rid the larkspur in a season or so.”
“Larkspur! Ha! Ha! Ha!” roared Halstead. His face grew red. “Excuse me, Esther, while I go Joe one better.” But he did not curse aloud, though it was evident that he indulged himself thoroughly. Then reaching for another cigar he added, “I’m a hell of a rancher!”
“Halstead, don’t feel too bad aboot it,” said Ames. “It’s sort of new at that. An’ this high Colorado country is long on larkspur an’ short on cattlemen.”
“Ames, you hit me right where Joe swore you would,” went on Halstead, chewing at his cigar. “Maybe you can floor me again. . . . I’ve lost at least half my cattle through thieves. Five hundred head this season. Over a hundred lately — the last week in fact, according to Mecklin. I can’t stand that. Another raid will break me.”
“I heahed your rider talkin’ aboot it,” drawled Ames, without the slightest trace of feeling, which lack marked such a contrast to Halstead’s speech. “An’ I gathered it wasn’t work of rustlers.”
“Rustlers! — Say, what’s the difference between rustlers and cattle-thieves?”
“Reckon there’s a lot. If it was the work of a rustler you might not find out soon who he was or how he operated. An’ when you did corner him — well, you’d shore know it. But in the case of a low-down cattle-thief, why like as not he drinks aboot town with your cowpunchers — —”
“Yes, and my own son!” interrupted Halstead, ringingly. “This thief’s name is Clive Bannard, who hails from Eastern ranges, he says. And he has a right-hand man, Barsh Hensler, who lives in Yampa. How far they have actually corrupted Fred — that’s my son — I don’t know. But I’ve heard enough to distract me.”
Esther leaned forward in her chair, laboring under excitement that made it almost impossible for her to keep silent. Ames moved his brown hand in slow deprecatory gesture.
“Halstead, I saw the boy this mawnin’ talkin’ to Hensler down by the trail. I told Joe aboot the one your son was arguin’ with. An’ shore that was Hensler. Then earlier this mawnin’ I was out on the porch, sittin’ in that little offset. I was watchin’ Fred pacin’ up an’ down. He shore was a troubled lad. Miss Halstead came out, an’ I shore heahed a lot not intended for my ears. That sort of thing happens to me often. Now I reckon heah’s two an’ two put together. Fred is a wild youngster, new to the West. He’s been havin’ a fling. An’ he’s overstepped himself. He’s been gamblin’ — it was money he wanted from his sister — an’ no doubt through that he’s been led into some shady deal. I’ve seen the like many an’ many a time. But Fred is honest at heart. He might go bad, if you all went back on him, but at that I doubt it. Boys with a background like his — such a mother as he must have had — an’ a sister like Miss Halstead heah — they seldom go to hell. All Fred needs is to have this raw tenderfoot stuff scared out of him. It’s a good bet Joe heah will side with me. How aboot it, Joe?”
“I’m sidin’ with you, Arizona, all ways for Sunday,” returned Cabel, and though he addressed Ames he looked at Esther.
“By Heaven! Ames, you’re dragging me out of the depths by the hair!” exclaimed Halstead, fervently.
Esther arose impetuously. “Mr. Ames, you — you do the same for me. . . . But, oh, don’t raise me up — only to let me sink back again!”
In her earnestness she forgot both the natural tumult within her breast and the resolve to which her extremity had driven her. How sad his face — lined under its dark smoothness! She felt herself being drawn into the unfathomable blue gulfs of his gaze.
“Shore you folks are new to these heah little matters of the range,” he replied, simply. “But I just cain’t see anythin’ troublesome heah. Shore Joe has taught those wonderful kids a lot of cuss words — —”
“Arizona, I didn’t teach them,” protested Cabel.
“But if you strangle him I reckon they’ll soon forget,” went on Ames, as if he had not been interrupted. “Ronnie doesn’t swear so bad at that. An’ he’d get over it pronto if Brown would quit.”
“Will you stay and help us with them, Mr. Ames?” asked Esther, with a sweet directness that was absolutely involuntary, and foreign to the deceitful allurement she had planned.
“Ho! Ho!” boomed Halstead, banging his desk with a huge fist. His hair stood up. “Ames, next thing you’ll be waving aside this cattle-thief burden of mine!”
“Shore; it’s less than the larkspur,” returned Ames, with his inimitable drawl.
Halstead leaped up, his hand in a snatching gesture, as if here was hope and life to be caught if he were quick enough. He approached Ames, faced him impressively.
“Ames, I said once you hit me deep. I say so again. I’m failing here at Troublesome. Failing where there is big opportunity. I just didn’t know. Lately I’ve been sick about it all. My son was no good, it seemed. And I might die or be shot by some of this riff-raff. What would become of Esther and Gertie — and the kids? They’ve come to love it here. They’d lose all and have to go — God only knows where. But if I had a man like you — who might straighten Fred up and look after the girls and the youngsters — why, if the worst should happen to me, I’d not turn over in my grave. . . . Suppose you stay on at Troublesome!”
“Shore you’re makin’ out the worst. I’ll be only too glad to stop at Yampa on my way — an’ pay my respects to Bannard an’ Hensler. . . . But then, an’ now you’re haided right, why you don’t need me. Joe heah — —”
“Pard,” interposed Cabel, who had also left his seat, “it looks like a hunch to me. Not for nothin’ did you get lost on the Flat Tops an’ then wander down here to the Troublesome. I just told Miss Esther thet it was an act of Providence. An’ before thet I told Halstead if he could get you to stay his troubles were over.”
“Joe, you’re shore double-crossin’ an old friend who you owe somethin’,” said Ames, darkly.
“Sure, Arizona, I
know I am,” went on Joe, swallowing hard. Esther wondered in her tensity why it was so difficult and reprehensible for him to ask Ames that. “But there’s another side to this. Troublesome needs you. I reckon you just dropped down for a purpose. I’m stayin’ with the Halsteads all the rest of my life. The girls — the kids mean a lot to me. . . . An’, Arizona, you’ve roamed the ranges for years — fourteen years. Aren’t you tired of — wal, you know what I mean?”
“Tired? My God! man, if I could only see the Tonto once more — an’ Nesta, an’ that boy she named after me — I could lie down for good!”
He wheeled away to lean against the window. Joe had penetrated the armor of this cool, exasperating Southerner. Esther had seen a dark agony blur the blue fire of his eyes. Nesta! A woman who had named a child after him! Therein must lie his secret. Esther grew conscious of a nameless burning in the depths of her.
Suddenly she became aware that Joe was nudging her, and was quick to grasp his meaning. Crossing to the window she put an unsteady hand upon Ames’ arm.
“I am asking you, too. Will you stay?”
He faced her, and that blight of pain had vanished.
“Stay heah on the Troublesome?” he asked, smiling down on her. It was then, when emotion gave her courage, that she really looked at him.
“You may change its name,” she said, smiling up at him. “Have you any — any ties to which you’d be disloyal — if you stayed?”
“None, Miss Halstead.”
“But this — this Nesta?” faltered Esther, unconsciously driven to know. “You spoke strangely.”