by Zane Grey
They were civil, but not friendly. Andrew ate with them, and absorbed considerable from this first contact with a range outfit. The older man evidently was the boss, and owner of the K Bar stock.
“Thanks. I’ll be rolling along,” said Andrew, when he had finished his meal.
“Packin’ light,” said his host. “You’re welcome to a bed with us.”
“No, thank you. I’ll be hittin’ the hay out here some place,” replied Andrew as he mounted.
“Hope you don’t mind me bein’ curious?”
“Not at all.”
“Is your crippled pardner a cowman?”
“Old-timer from Arizona.”
“Wal, he’ll learn the ropes hyar pronto. An’ what you want to learn, youngster, is not to take this cattle stealin’ too much to heart. So long as the range ain’t fenced there’ll be some stock missin’. All the cattlemen have the same thing to deal with. An’ they just don’t notice it.”
“But in Bligh’s case it can’t be overlooked. He’s a poor man. He had only a small herd to begin with, and because he can’t afford enough cowboys to watch the stock these rustlers are taking advantage of it.”
“Thet’s different. Tell Bligh to throw in with some other cattleman.”
“He can’t because he made a deal of that nature with McCall. Then he changed his mind, which made McCall sore. He’s taking the case to court.”
“McCall? Runs the Double X. Wal, if I was Bligh, I’d buy or trade off.”
“I’ll tell him. So long.”
Several of the cowboys waved. When Andrew had ridden a short distance, one of them called after him. “Work the big draws on the south.”
That seemed like a reasonable and friendly gesture. Andrew rode on until sunset overtook him. Then he made camp beside a rocky stream. For half the night he was awake, alternately freezing and replenishing his fire. The still cold, the lonely hills, the white, watching stars calmed his spirit, but were not conducive to sleep. Next day, from daylight until dark, he rode the slopes and draws with which he and Jim had become familiar. The third day took him to the south side of the hills where cattle were more numerous. He saw several riders in the distance but did not come up with them. Late in the day while sitting beside his little campfire he heard the thud of hoofs. Soon a horseman rode up. It was Jim Fenner.
“Howdy, Andrew,” he said, as he laboriously dismounted. “Been trackin’ you since noon.”
“Anything wrong at the ranch?” asked Andrew quickly.
“No more’n usual. Bligh jest mopes around. Martha moons on yore porch. An’ Sue keeps agoin’...Run across anythin’?”
“I met the K Bar outfit. The boss was pretty decent,” replied Andrew, and related the circumstance of their meeting.
“Wal, he’s right. I tell you, Andy, nobody can see our side of it. We’re jest too small potatoes.”
“So I’ve gathered lately. Jim, if I’m ever to be a rancher, is this good training?”
“Best in the world, son. But how’n hell you’ll ever make a rancher by stickin’ to Bligh, I can’t see. We’re gonna be awful pore pronto.”
Andrew bent over the fire to rake the red embers. “Jim, I had it out with Martha. I packed her over to my cabin and asked her to marry me. She gave me the damnedest lacing any fellow ever got.”
“What fer?”
“For once believing she was no good.”
“Wal, you desarved thet,” replied the Arizonian bluntly.
“So it appears,” rejoined Andrew. “She declined the honor.”
“Ahuh. Wal, she’s crazy about you jest the same.”
“You crazy old fool!” burst out Andrew derisively. “Shore. I’m old, anyhow. An’ I feel it tonight...Say, would you like some dried beef broiled over them coals, some biscuits an’ coffee an’ a piece of cake?”
“Jim, my spirit cries ‘No!’ But my flesh is awful weak.”
“Wal, it’s a way of the flesh. When I seen you hadn’t fetched any camp tools I reckoned I’d better hit yore trail.”
“How did you find it out?”
“I didn’t. Martha did thet. An’ she told me.”
“Yeah?...What’d she say?”
“Wal, she says, ‘Andrew has run away empty-handed from home just to get a kick and because he likes to sulk. I hope he starves to death!’”
“Kindly little soul!” said Andrew with a mirthless laugh. Yet his sore heart warmed even to the sarcastic remembrance. She, too, had been terribly hurt.
“But Martha wrapped up the cake. Andy, I’ve discovered something pretty damned cute about thet kid.”
“Only something?” scoffed Andrew.
“Her bark is wuss than her bite...Wal, let’s eat. Kick up yore fire. An’ fetch some water while I open this pack.”
A cheery crackling blaze, a hot meal and a companion drove away Andrew’s melancholy thoughts. Fenner, however, did not appear to be in a talkative mood, and soon after the chores were finished he spread his blanket in the thick grass and rolled up in it without even removing his boots. Andrew paced to and fro under the stars. He was not ready yet to talk to Jim and Bligh about a new ranching venture, but he had pretty well made up his mind that he would make them a proposition sooner or later.
Clouds drifted over the sky, and an unusual mildness in the night air presaged a change of weather. The range needed rain. Many of the valleys that ran up into the hills were as dry as bone dust. Cattle had begun to work down toward the river, along which they would range during the winter.
A fine misty rain set in, sending Andrew back to camp. He dragged saddle, blankets and slicker under a thick bushy cedar, and made his bed there. The coyotes were unusually noisy. He lay snug in his covert and listened. The damp wind blew under the cedar across his face, and drops of rain filtered through and pattered down on him. The thin, high cadence of the insects seemed to carry a knell of passing autumn. The snow would soon sweep down this draw and winds would howl through the cedars.
Andrew got snatches of slumber during the night, and happened to be asleep when dawn broke. Jim called him. The morning was raw, dull and cloudy, with a light rain still falling.
“Rustle a fire, son, while I fetch in the hosses,” said Jim. “You can strip a lot of bark from under the dry side of the cedars. Never hard to build fires in cedar country. I reckon a cedar is the range man’s favorite tree, leastways in high country.”
They rode out of the protected draw into the teeth of wind and sleet that were disagreeable to face. The range looked dreary and gray. For ten miles along the south slope cattle were few and far between. They worked two draws together, and then coming to a wide valley they separated, Andrew riding across to the east side. This evidently must be one of the big draws the K Bar cowboy had told him to investigate. It was unfamiliar to him, being farther to the east than he had ridden until this time, Grass was good in patches, water was running down the gulch, and there was a plentiful sprinkling of cattle of various brands. The N.B. mark appeared conspicuous by its absence.
Andrew rode through cedar groves and thickets of oak, across grassy parks and over rocky areas, up to where the valley narrowed to a canyon box, and travel became rough. He turned back presently and took to Jim’s side. Farther down he met a considerable movement of cattle that evidently had been run that day. Fringes of thickets alternated with meadows. Andrew saw some steers running, and then he heard a distant shout. He galloped across a flat and worked through a wooded stretch to emerge into a small park. His quick eye spotted riderless horses, and then two men on foot, close together in a proximity that excited his suspicions. A thin column of smoke rising near the men confirmed Andrew’s surmise. At last Jim had rounded up Reed or one of his thieving partners.
They were just outside the rocky timbered cape that jutted out from the north slope. Andrew soon reached them and leaped off his horse. Jim was holding a gun on a man who stood with his hands above his head. Near the smoking fire lay a bound calf, still panting desperately. The ru
stler had evidently been disturbed in the initial part of his branding procedure, for only one mark was visible upon the red hide of the calf.
“Andy, there was two of them,” said Jim. “The other was ridin’ a calf down when I busted out of the brush. He rode off...Take this fellar’s gun.”
Andrew located the butt of a weapon protruding from under the man’s belt. It had been hidden by his coat.
“Cut thet calf loose, an’ tie this hombre’s hands behind his back,” ordered Jim.
This order Andrew performed under pressure of excitement that made him clumsy, but he got the job done speedily.
“Rustler, walk ahead of me,” curtly commanded Fenner. “I’m gonna introduce you to an old-time Arizony way of treatin’ cattle thieves.”
Andrew followed them, leading his horse, considerably disturbed by Jim’s threat. The Arizonian had a flinty look. He kept punching his gun into the back of the rustler who shrank visibly at each thrust. Jim halted under the largest tree along that wall of timber.
“Bonnin’, take yore rope off yore saddle, drop the noose over this gent’s head, an’ toss the other end over thet branch there.”
“My God! Are you going to hang him?” cried Andrew incredulously.
“Shore I am. Rustle now.”
“But Jim! You can’t be serious...Give the poor devil a good hiding, then let him go.”
“Ahuh. To go right back stealin’ our stock? Not much! There’s two daid cows of ours in thet brush. I seen one, an’ I heerd two shots. I’m gonna put a stop to this rustlin’ once and fer all.”
“To hang him!...Jim, that’s taking the law into our own hands! We’d go up for manslaughter, if not murder. But even if we could get away with it — I couldn’t be a party to such — such—”
“You blasted tenderfoot!” yelled Fenner, so fiercely that Andrew stood shocked. “Pitch me yore rope.”
Andrew made haste to comply. The man turned deathly pale. He was not young. His haggard face had a bluish cast under the paling skin. He had thin, tobacco-stained lips, a beaked nose, and hard, glinting eyes. Jim made him turn his back, and sheathing the gun, in a twinkling he had done what he had ordered Andrew to do. Then he strode round in front of the rustler and picking up the end of the rope he hauled it taut over the branch.
“If you want to talk, do it pronto,” shouted Fenner in a threatening voice.
“I’m a poor man,” replied the rustler hoarsely. “Been driven to steal. An’ my cattle gets stole, too. Stringin’ me up fer—”
“Who’s backin’ you?”
“Backin’ me? Nobody. What d’ye mean?”
“You been hired to rustle?”
“No, sir. I won’t hide behind thet. I done my—”
“You lyin’ hombre! Up you go!”
Fenner hauled on the lasso. The man let out a strangled cry. His head stretched with the knot of the noose biting into his leathery neck. When he had been drawn up until his toes just supported his body Fenner held him there a moment, then slowly relaxed the rope. The man sagged back flat-footed, his mouth gaping, his eyes starting from their sockets.
“How’d you like thet?” demanded Jim.
“Fer — Gawd’s — sake!” gasped the rustler. “Let me — off—”
“Who hired you to do this dirty work?”
“Nobody. I — mean—”
“Wal, mebbe I can help you remember,” interrupted the Arizonian, and with a heave he drew the man higher still, until his shaking limbs appeared to stretch. Jim held him in that position until the man’s tongue stuck out, his eyes rolled until only the whites showed and his face turned purple.
“Jim, let him down!” yelled Andrew frantically, charging in to snatch the rope from Fenner’s hands. Andrew again let Jim’s victim down. He fell to the ground, and was choking when Andrew tore the noose free. The hissing intake of his breath assured Andrew that the man still was able to breathe.
“Spoiled my necktie party,” growled Fenner.
“You bloodthirsty Arizonian!” cried Andrew, almost beside himself. “I’ve a mind to bat you a couple.”
The rustler sat up, sweating freely, and rubbing his neck with unsteady hands. Color began to creep back into his ghastly face.
“Boss,” he said huskily, “you’re on the wrong scent. Nobody’s hirin’ me. I been stealin’ a few calves on my own hook. My name’s Hall Pickens.”
“Where you live?”
“My homestead is about twenty miles east, in Spring Canyon.”
“You a homesteader?”
“Yes. Been hyar four years. Jest proved up on my property.”
“You married?”
“Sure. An’ got two kids. I’ve had a tough row to hoe.”
“You swear nobody hired you?”
“I’m tellin’ you honest.”
“Who was the rider with you?”
“I ain’t tellin’,” replied Pickens.
“Happen to know a cowpuncher named Smoky Reed?”
“Don’t recall thet name.”
“All right. I could put you in jail fer this day’s work. But if you’ll agree to lay off N.B. stock from now on, I’ll let you off.”
“I’ll agree to anythin’,” returned Pickens gratefully.
“My name’s Fenner. An’ this is Andy Bonnin’. We ride fer Nick Bligh. He runs the N.B. Have you seen many cattle wearin’ thet brand?”
“Good many steers, but mighty few cows.”
“Have you been wise to another outfit workin’ this cow-killin’ game?”
“I been suspicious of some fellers from the Platte River country.”
“Humph! None from the Sweetwater?”
“No. Course I know the Cross Bar an’ the Wyomin’ outfits across the Hills.”
“Andy, toss his gun out there in the grass...Pickens, you beat it. An’ take a hunch from an old-timer. Fer the sake of yore wife an’ kids quit the cow-killin’ game.”
The homesteader hastened to snatch up his gun and run for his horse. He was soon out of sight.
“You didn’t really mean to hang him?” queried Andrew.
“No. I wanted to throw a scare into him an’ make him confess he was ridin’ fer McCall. But we was barkin’ up the wrong tree.”
“You had me scared stiff.”
“Wal, I’ve seen many a rustler kick at the air, Andy...I felt kinda sorry fer this hombre. Pore as Job’s turkey. Did you see his feet? Had a boot on one an’ a shoe on the other, both full of holes.”
“He looked pretty seedy.”
“Reckon you an’ me will be scarecrows, too, like him, before long...Andy, let’s go home.”
“Home!” echoed Andrew, startled.
“Shore. It ain’t sense fer us to waste no more time hopin’ to ketch Smoky Reed in the act. Probably he’s quit fer a spell. Anyway they got about all of our young stock, that’s a shore bet.”
“When will we know for certain what we have left?”
“After the roundup.”
“I hate to quit, Jim.”
“We ain’t quittin’. We’re gonna tackle this game from some other angle. An’ I’m damned if I can figger what.”
“Okay. Back to the ranch,” cried Andrew.
In a sense it seemed to him that Jim’s ultimatum was a surrendering to evil forces which they were not strong enough to combat. He gave in only to experience and wisdom. After four hard days and nights with little to eat and no shelter, and the long ride in the face of rain and sleet, wet to the skin, Andrew could not help conjuring up supper at Sue’s table, and the comfort of his own open fireplace. Taken all together, his labors at the ranch and his rides in the open during these months had pretty well acquainted him with the life of a cowman. The never-finished manual tasks, the sun and wind and dust, the long rides when the saddle burned, the hours of loneliness, the cold nights sleeping out and the sting of sleet in his face — these physical tests had been welcomed by Andrew, and met, he believed, without discredit to himself. He found in them absolute refu
ge from the complexes that had tormented him back in the East.
When he rode out of the canyon after Jim, with the hard ice-bitted wind at his back, he hugged something glad and strengthening to his heart. He would make good in the West.
The moment Andrew faced ranchward it all flooded back — the love he had determined to forget — only more tumultuous and demanding after these four harsh days of oblivion. If he had been alone he would have thrown back his head to laugh his scorn to the winds. If the mere thought of seeing Martha again could make his blood surge so madly, how desperately he must love the girl! Just at the thought of seeing her! How could he ever put such a love behind him?
Andrew rode for a long time with his head down, insensible to the wet and the cold. And as he rode home he no longer doubted the strength and depth of his love for Martha Ann Dixon. How tragic that the realization had come too late, that she would never be able to forgive or forget his first mistaken estimate of her character. He was paying for that jealousy-inspired conclusion now — and would continue to pay. Yet Andrew was grateful to the fate that had sent him to Wyoming, though he railed at the bitter thought of finding his salvation in exultant, all-satisfying toil of body only to lose it in the scorn of the girl he loved.
Down off the high slopes Andrew and Jim rode into clearing weather. The gray cloud that hung over the hills did not extend to the river bottom. The sun came out to turn the water and the autumn foliage into silver and gold.
“Jim, do you ever take any stock in dreams?” asked Andrew, riding up to a position beside his comrade.
“No, son, I quit dreamin’ long ago. Do you still believe in ’em?”
“No, but I can tell you a dream I had.”
“Fire away.”
“It was about Bligh’s ranch. I dreamed we threw in two thousand head of cattle, best of stock, carefully selected for building a big herd and a successful cattle business. A bunch of fine horses from Colorado. You picked out four Arizona cowmen, the best you knew, steady, sober fellows, neither too young nor too old, to handle the stock. You brought in some Mexican farm hands. We built new barns, new corrals, new pens, fenced the pastures, pumped water for irrigation, planted whatever the soil will grow and all the acreage will stand, bought a tractor and truck, a new car—”