by Zane Grey
“I’m not afraid.”
“No, I seen thet. But you’re too brainless — too damned innocent an’ trustin’. If you keep this heah sort of thing up, Martha Dixon, you’ll meet with outrage from someone who’ll think you’re askin’ fer it!”
She gazed at him with mute lips, surprised by his passion.
“Thet’s all. Somebody had to tell you. Why didn’t yore friend Bonnin’ tell you?”
“Why should he?”
“Wal, why doesn’t he make you stay home? If he’s so doggone stuck on you as the girls say?”
“He’s not...And he couldn’t make me do anything.”
“It’s too damned bad somebody cain’t. You oughta fall for some lucky dawg an’ stop this heartbreakin’ game...Wal, you caught me with the goods. Now what’re you gonna do aboot it?”
“Texas, what’ll you do if I tell?” she asked earnestly.
“Wal, I’ll try to collect some money from McCall, an’ vamoose oot of the country onless someone tries to stop me, which wouldn’t be so healthy for him!”
“If I promise not to betray you will you promise never to steal again?”
Texas rose to his feet, with the blood of shame again flooding his face. It receded, leaving him pale. His eyes held a piercing blue intensity.
“Martha, thet’s a big order, as you see it,” he said. “I reckon I never appreciated jest what kind of a girl you air. I’m askin’ you to overlook my love-makin’ which wasn’t so honest as I swore it was. But I’d never laid a hand on you...If you don’t squeal on me I’ll promise to go straight.”
“It’s a bargain, Texas. Here’s my hand,” she returned gravely, and held it out to him.
“Wal, I had a close shave,” he drawled with his old smile, as he pressed her hand. “Come, find yore hawse. Smoky Reed is workin’ round in thet next draw, an’ if he seen us I’d have to kill him.”
“Perhaps you had better ride home with me, or part way,” she suggested, nervously.
“Go ahaid. I’ll trail along an’ keep you in sight.”
Breathless and exultant Martha Ann ran to untie her horse, and after tightening the cinches she mounted and rode down the slope.
For once in her life she had done something worth while. One good deed, at least, might result from her mad Wyoming adventure. Martha placed reforming a wild cowboy above saving some of her uncle’s stock. And somehow she felt certain that this footloose and reckless Texan would keep his word. If he did not keep it from any innate reversion to what was right, he would because of that queer honor held by Texans in regard to women. Martha Ann was proud of herself. She could confide in Jim Fenner, at least. But she would not tell her uncle. And as for Andrew Bonning, he would not believe it even if she did confess. The thought galled her. At the same time she knew it was true — she had caught Texas Jack red-handed and she had brought the perplexing and dangerous situation to a clever and happy close.
Looking back over her shoulder she saw Texas half a mile behind, sitting sidewise in his saddle, a figure of a rider that fitted the wild environment. After she had traveled several miles further, to drop into the trail, the exuberance of her feeling wore away, and she came down out of the clouds. It astonished her a little to realize that the revelation that Texas Jack was a rustler had not destroyed her liking for him. He still seemed to be a thoroughly likable chap. She did not see any reason why she should not loiter on the trail until Texas caught up with her. Accordingly, she held her horse to a walk, which he did not like on the homeward trip; and was presently chagrined to observe that Texas also had slowed his gait to accommodate hers. He was showing consideration on her behalf, and suddenly Martha realized just what Texas meant by this holding back, when it certainly would have been so much more interesting for them to proceed down the trail together. Texas was keeping her in sight as a matter of protection, and avoiding the ride with her, because in the event that his status as a cowboy might be revealed, such association would reflect upon her good name. “Amazing! I can’t escape that even out on this uninhabited desert,” exclaimed Martha Ann disgustedly, all her old antagonism welling up. She felt here, as in everything, that she knew her own motives, her integrity, the truth about herself; and for anything else that could be thought by curious, narrow people she did not concern herself in the least.
She halted her horse, and while waiting for Texas Jack to catch up, she gazed down upon the ranch. Those gray houses appeared lost in an immensity of green. It was a lonely place. She tried to picture it with snow everywhere, white and desolate. But the thought pleased rather than otherwise. Winter would be a time to read and study and sew and learn to cook; and perhaps go home some Christmas time. Across the white-barred, green-bordered river the range spread far as the eye could see, endlessly rolling, unrelieved by a break of any kind.
A clatter of hoofs distracted the girl’s thoughts as Texas came loping up to come to a stop beside her.
“Wal, what’s it all aboot?” he asked, eying her keenly.
“I got tired loafing along alone,” she replied with a smile. “Let’s have a little run down this wide stretch.”
“Martha, I reckon you oughta be moseyin’ on by yoreself,” he drawled.
“Don’t you want to ride with me?” she demanded. “Doggone! Girls air queer...I reckon I’ll ride as far as the creek with you.”
Martha urged her horse into a canter, but when Texas’ bay lined up beside her that gait did not suit either horses or riders. They broke into a gallop and then into a run. Martha awoke to something she had heretofore never experienced — the thrill of riding at breakneck speed, the sting of the wind in her face, the blur of sage whirling past, the unexcelled joy of violent action.
The race was won by Martha, a victory no less delightful because she knew Texas had let her win, and she sat her horse breathless and tingling, with smarting skin and flying hair.
“Oh, that was glorious! I never — dared go — so fast before,” she panted.
“Wal, you don’t fork thet hawse so porely at that,” drawled the cowboy. “Shore you cain’t help lookin’ beautiful, but I’m not figgerin’ looks. Reckon you got strong laigs an’ thet’s what it takes to ride. You set a little too stiff. You wanta be easy in the saddle. Ketch the swing of yore hawse with yore body. An’ squeeze with yore knees...It wouldn’t take long fer me to make a rodeo rider oot of you.”
“Please — please do,” pleaded Martha Ann.
Texas sat up with a start and his expression of genuine pleasure vanished. “Wal, I reckon thet’ll be aboot all,” he said. “Look who’s comin’ .”
Martha whirled in her saddle, all her delight suddenly ended. Halfway across the sandy draw she saw a black horse trotting toward her. The rider was Andrew.
“It might be a good idee fer me to vamoose,” suggested Texas.
“Why?”
“Wal, if my eyes ain’t pore, Bonnin’ is seein’ red. I can always tell the way a fellar sets his saddle.”
“Suppose he is?”
“Shore it was fer yore sake, Martha,” he replied coolly. “The man doesn’t live who can scare me.”
“Stay then. Andrew Bonning has no claim on me. I can ride with whom I choose.”
Andrew blocked the narrow trail, so that they had to halt their horses or turn aside into bad going. They were at the place in the dry creek bottom where Martha had once been thrown.
“Hello, Andrew,” called Martha gaily. But her spontaneity did not ring sincere. How white his face was! And his eyes gazed upon her with a dark, scornful look of passionate conviction.
“Howdy, Bonnin’! Fine day fer ridin’,” drawled Texas, nonchalantly, as he leisurely rolled a cigarette.
Andrew did not give the cowboy so much as a glance or a nod. He fixed eyes upon Martha that suddenly she felt to be filled with accusation and with terrible disappointment. They were desperately hard to meet.
“So you’ve done it,” he spoke coldly, bitterly.
“Done what?” she demanded, a hot blush burnin
g her cheek. His look, his query aroused the red flag of her ready anger. But there was some quality in his tone, of disillusionment, or pain, or bitter conviction, that enraged Martha more than his interference.
“You met this cowboy out on the range.”
“Certainly I did. Anyone could see that.”
“You had a date with him.”
“No, I didn’t. It was purely accident. I...But see here, Andrew, this is none of your business. I’m free, white and over eighteen I can meet whom I want to. You have no claim on me. I told Texas that.”
“You would,” he replied, darkly. “No, indeed, I haven’t any claim on you. But I happen to be the only one who dares oppose you, Martha Dixon. You ran away from your mother, father, brother — if you have them. You can easily fool these two doting old men back home — who worship you. There’s no one left but me to try to save you from making a complete fool of yourself.”
“Oh, fiddlesticks! The old stuff! Andrew Bonning, I’m not making a fool of myself!” she cried hotly.
“I hope I’m not too late,” he retorted, with a look that made Martha quail inwardly.
“Maybe you are. But it’s none of your damned business,” she burst out.
“I’ve made it my business,” he said deliberately.
“Is that so? Well, try to remember where I told you to go once before.”
“Girl, if you are absolutely shameless yourself, can’t you have some regard for your uncle?”
“Regard? You know that I love him dearly. What do you mean — regard?”
“An old-fashioned virtue in disrepute with modern girls. Honor. Something due Bligh because he has given you a home. He is a newcomer here on this range. He needs to make friends. It will not do him any good to have his niece gossipped about. To have open scandal about her rendezvous in the hills with a dissolute cowboy.”
“Andrew, you don’t know what you are talking about,” replied Martha Ann, beginning to feel her spirits flag.
“Nothing to you! Good Lord! What a cold-blooded, self centered, kick-hunting little proposition you are!”
“I’ve done — nothing that I’m ashamed of,” faltered Martha Ann.
“Could you ever feel shame?”
“Yes, I could.”
“About what? For what?”
“That a supposedly decent man like you — could make me out the — the rotten little hussy—”
“I didn’t make you out rotten,” he interrupted, a dark flush spreading over his stern, pale face. “Some other time I’ll tell you what I think about you. Suffice it now to say that you are a reckless girl who isn’t helping an uncle who is very much in need of help — as this cowboy knows!”
“Oh! And you have constituted yourself the valiant knight to rescue me?” she exclaimed satirically.
“Only today Jim Fenner said you’d make bad blood out here — and spill it, too, if you were not stopped.”
“Jim! Did Jim — say that?” gasped Martha, stung to the quick.
“Yes. And it was Jim who sent me out to look for you. I, like an idiot, thought you were riding the ranch trails.”
“I rode too far, perhaps, this time — to — to — Oh, never mind,” cried Martha tragically. “You couldn’t understand. Let me pass. I want to go home.”
“Very well, go on home. I’ll settle this with your friend here,” rejoined Andrew grimly, and dismounted to lead his horse out of the trail.
“Texas will come with me,” spoke up Martha hurriedly. She did not like Andrew’s look or the cowboy’s cool silence. She dared not leave them alone.
“Wal, Bonnin’, a lady’s word is law with me,” drawled Texas.
“Just the same you don’t go,” snapped Bonning, and seized the cowboy’s bridle.
“I’m liable to run you down. Let go them reins. Don’t you know any better than to grab—”
“Stop, Andrew,” cried Martha Ann fearfully, as the cowboy’s horse reared. “Texas will stay. So will I...But have a heart — and get it over with.”
“Texas, pile off and face me like a man, if you’re not too much of a coward,” commanded Andrew.
“Say, tenderfoot, I wouldn’t be scared of a million Easterners,” drawled Texas with a smile, and he leisurely slipped out of his saddle.
“Listen then. This reckless girl is not on the level. Do you get me? She doesn’t care a rap for you or me or for anybody. All she thinks of is getting kicks out of everything. She will vamp some poor sucker just to watch him wriggle. And believe me, cowboy, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference how far she has gone with you. Do you understand?”
“I’m listenin’ powerful hard, Bonnin’, an’ I’m gettin’ mighty riled,” replied the cowboy.
“All the better. I intend to rile you, one way or another...You’re supposed to be a square shooter, Texas, at least, so they say. Everybody likes you, especially the girls. I like you myself. You’re a clean, fine good-looking cowboy. I’d sure want you for a partner, if that were possible. Well, considering all this, do you think you’re living up to your reputation — do you think it is honorable of you — and fair to this girl — to meet her way out on the lonely range?”
“No, doggone it, I don’t,” declared the Texan, as if moved by Andrew’s eloquence.
“You made love to Martha last Sunday, and before that. I saw you.”
“Bonnin’, I ask you, what in hell would any cowboy do? Or any man?”
“Dubious flattery, cowboy, if you get what I mean,” snapped Andrew. “I see that you have made quite some headway with the little lady.”
“Bonnin’, you talk too fast an’ too deep fer me,” declared Texas angrily. “Let’s get down to callin’ cyards.”
“I told Martha that you were with Smoky Reed when he shot me.”
“Hell you say! Who else did you tell?”
“I didn’t repeat that about you. But I told Sheriff Slade and the magistrate at Casper who shot me. They wanted to know if I could prove it. Well, I couldn’t. And they advised me not to make cracks about Westerners, unless I could prove them. I’m going on my own after this.”
“Ahuh. An’ what’s all this heah talk got to do with me?”
“You were with Reed. I saw you — recognized you through my field glasses. You separated, and you took the far side of the canyon. Do you imagine I thought you were hunting birds’ nests?”
The same fierce wolfish look that Texas had exhibited to Martha when he had wheeled upon her with his gun now settled on his lean face. Blue flames darted from his eyes.
“Not on your life,” went on Andrew accusingly. “You were up there for precisely the same reason as Smoky Reed.”
“Now, I wasn’t.”
“You lie, Texas. I know, I tell you. I heard you make the deal with McCall. You refused to kill cows — like Reed is doing — and you stuck to your idea of maverick branding. But that is the bunk, Texas. You know it is. You stick to your method, because in case you are held up on suspicion you can use that maverick alibi.”
“Bonnin’, cut yore talk mighty short. You’ll say somethin’ in a minnit.”
“You’re damn right I will,” cried Andrew. “You’re a rustler!”
Out leaped Texas’ blue six-shooter, to be thrust almost against Andrew’s abdomen. Martha screamed.
“You cain’t call me thet,” rasped the cowboy. “Girl, mind yore hawse, an’ keep oot of this!”
“The hell I can’t. I do call you. Rustler, damn you! What do I care for your gun? You can’t murder me in cold blood before the eyes of this girl. But I’d call you even if she weren’t here. And that’s what I mean. If you made a date with Martha Dixon — all the time when you knew that it couldn’t be honorable love-making because you are a rustler — well, you’re a disgrace to the Texas you seem so proud of, you’re a low-down yellow thief whose aim is to ruin this girl’s old uncle.”
“Bonnin’, if it wasn’t fer her I’d shoot yore laig off.”
“I don’t doubt it. And that would sim
ply prove what you are. Why, you poor ignorant cowhand, if you had any real manhood in you you’d fight for her, instead of betraying her and her family.”
“I been comin’ to thet. But you gab so much I cain’t get a word in. Now gimme a chance. You hot-haided tenderfoot! You’re muss’n a Mexican fer bein’ jealous. All because you ketch Martha with me! How the hell do you know what come off? As a matter of fact we had no date. She ketched me redhanded Brandin’ the Double X on a calf. An’ she shore called me proper. Then she made me swear I’d never rustle another calf. An’ by Gawd, I’ll keep thet promise if it’s the last thing I ever do...Now you come along, like a baby cyclone, to insult as good an’ sweet an’ innocent a girl as ever breathed. Too innocent an’ fun-lovin’ fer you fed-up eastern highbrows. She had to run out west to get understood. An’ thet to me makes it wuss fer you than my bein’ a rustler.”
“Rot! You do it well, Texas. But too late,” snarled Andrew, his face blanched. “Drop your gun, if you’re not too much of a coward. But if you are, then I’ll have to fight you your own way. I’ve a gun on my saddle.”
“Fairest thing you’ve said yet,” replied the cowboy. Then he unbuckled his gun belt and hung it over the pommel of his saddle.
Martha Ann came out of her trance and got off her horse, almost falling, to run between the belligerents, who were now glaring at each other.
“Andrew...Texas!” she cried imploringly. “Don’t fight. It’s so — so silly of both of you. All for nothing. Please, for my sake — Andy—”
He put her firmly aside. “Get out of my way, Wyoming Mad,” he said with his bitter smile. “This is where your kick-hunting has led to. Now watch and see what I do to your cute cowboy.”
“Oh, Texas — you give in. He is hopeless. Oh, I beg of you!”
“Hell, lady, what am I up agin?” shouted Texas furiously. “Between the two of you I’m aboot nutty. I cain’t stand around an’ let him pound me the way he did Smoky.”
He, too, thrust Martha to one side, not too gently, and when she recovered her balance they had plunged at each other like two infuriated bulls. Their first onset took them completely off the trail. The distracted girl stood riveted to the spot. If she had not been tongue-tied she would have screamed for Texas to whip Andrew within an inch of his life. But she knew that he could not do it. What she dreaded was the possibility of a fight with guns after this one with fists was settled. Andrew would punish the cowboy terribly and that portended a disastrous end for the duel.