by Zane Grey
“Gentlemen, I call on you all,” said Texas swiftly, “you are witness that he tried to throw his gun on me.”
“Yes, we all seen thet, cowboy,” replied Jim Fenner.
McCall sagged with blood pouring out between his fat spread fingers. Stanley put an arm around him.
“Help me get him inside. Somebody run for a doctor.”
But Stanley had to support the wounded man alone. The other bystanders seemed waiting in horror-stricken immobility for Texas to shoot the sheriff. Certainly that individual seemed to express the same fear himself.
“Slade, thet’s exactly what you’ll get if you don’t lay off me, now an’ forever,” said Texas, his voice cold and hard. “You represent the law, an’ I’d respect thet if you wasn’t as low-down as McCall yoreself. You was in with him. Smoky gave you both away. An’ you’re a bootlegger besides. We can prove it. Figger on thet when you spill yore case agin me.”
He backed the sheriff up to the car that McCall had been driving.
“Get in an’ make tracks,” ordered Texas.
Slade half fell backwards into the car, and floundering over the wheel made haste to drive away.
Texas watched him out of sight. “Bligh, pick up thet gun, an’ turn it in as evidence,” he said, sheathing his own weapon.
“Good God, boy, you’ve played hob!” ejaculated Andrew, coming out of his trance.
“Wal, it was aboot time.”
Andrew and Fenner followed the cowboy to where he had his horse haltered. Texas mounted, and began to roll a cigarette. His fingers were steady. The pallor of his face and the magnificent blue blaze of his eyes had not changed.
“You fellers will have better luck now,” he said. “Make shore you git them Double X calves back.”
“How many, Tex?” asked Jim huskily.
“Aboot a hundred, mebbe more, I reckon. All on this side of the river, anyway.” He gathered up his bridle and looked down upon Andrew with a ghost of his old smile. “Say so long to my lost sweetie fer me!”
Spurring his spirited bay he galloped out beyond the corrals, and headed for the open range.
“Same ole Texas breed,” muttered Fenner, as if to himself, wrenching his gaze from the fast disappearing horseman.
“Well,” exclaimed Andrew, fighting for a full breath “how sudden it all was!”
They joined Bligh, and the other shocked spectators of the shooting, in the wide areaway of the feed store. McCall lay on the slanted planking. His pallid clammy face and closed eyes, his low rattling gasps suggested a speedy, tragic end.
“About gone,” said Stanley, rising from his knees “I reckoned he wouldn’t need no doctor.”
“What can be done?” queried Bligh.
“Nothin’ fer him.”
“Isn’t there someone to notify?”
“Slade was his only particular friend thet I know of,” responded Stanley. “He shore vamoosed quick. Damn close shave for him, I’d say.”
“Let’s go up town an’ see what Slade’s figgerin’ on,” suggested Jim.
They proceeded to the hotel and made inquiries. No one there had heard of the shooting. Nor had it been reported anywhere around town. Finally they went to the sheriff’s office.
“Howdy men, has McCall cashed?” Slade queried as they stalked in.
“Reckon so by now. He was goin’ fast when we left,” replied Fenner.
“Bullheaded fool! I told him not to rile thet cowpuncher. He brought it all on himself.”
“Slade, we was witnesses, an’ we’d like to know what will be expected of us?”
“Nothin’ much thet I can see. Soon as McCall croaks I’ll phone the report in to the Casper authorities.”
“Ahuh. An’ may we ask what yore report will be?”
Slade leaned back in his chair. “As I see it, McCall an’ Texas had some dealin’s. McCall evidently would not pay money owed. They clashed, an’ McCall went fer his gun first. But he was beat to it. Thet’s my report, gentlemen. I’ll advise against tryin’ to catch the cowboy. It couldn’t be done. An’ I don’t see any sense in repeatin’ the peculiar circumstances. Do you understand?”
“We shore do, an’ agree,” replied Fenner. “But here’s a stumper. What’re we gonna do about them Bligh calves thet Texas an’ Smoky Reed stole?”
“It’ll be roundup time in two weeks. By then this will be blowed over. I’ll probably have to settle up McCall’s affairs, as I had dealin’s with him. An’ I’ll see you get all the Double X stock on this side of the Sweetwater.”
Without more ado the three marched out of the sheriff’s office. Once around the corner, they halted to face each other.
“What do you know about that?” queried Andrew. “You could knock me over with a feather,” added Bligh.
“Plain as print. Our law-abidin’ sheriff is scared stiff,” snorted Fenner.
“Jim, our luck has changed. Mr. Bligh, the worst is over,” said Andrew feelingly.
“It does seem so. We haven’t lost everythin’ an’ we can begin anew...Jim, you won’t need to go off on that mysterious errand.”
“Wal, I’m started now, an’ I’ll jest keep agoin’,” replied Jim cheerfully. “See you both later today. I’ve gotta talk hosses.”
“I forget what I wanted to ask you,” said Bligh ponderingly, and then as the Arizonian limped away he added: “Never saw Fenner like this before.”
“Boss, as soon as I recover from the shock Texas gave us I’ll be feeling sort of flighty myself,” replied Andrew.
They separated, and Andrew went into a range supply store.
“I want to order a saddle,” he said to the proprietor. “It must be a Mexican saddle with silver trimmings, bridle and spurs to match.”
“They’ll have to come from El Paso. Cost you plenty.”
“How long will it take to get them here?”
“Inside of two weeks.”
“Okay. I’ll pay a deposit. Here are the specifications.”
Andrew went out of the store conscious of the strangest emotion — a melancholy gladness following hard on the terrible excitement he had just labored under. He was on his way back to the hotel when he ran into Martha Ann. She was carrying an armful of bundles. Above the armload her flushed face, piquant and sweet, beamed upon him.
“Hello. I’ve blown my last red cent...Andrew, you’re pale! What’s happened?”
“Let me pack that truck for you,” he replied as he relieved her of most of the load, “Which way are we going?”
“Glemm’s...Why do you look so?” she returned very quietly.
“I’ve had a little shock. It’ll be bad for you, too, I fear. Brace yourself a little, Wyoming Mad.”
“Uncle!” she cried.
“No. He’s okay. It’s just — bad news.”
“You?”
“Well! If it were? I wouldn’t expect you to look like—”
“Andrew, tell me,” she insisted.
“Texas Jack shot McCall,” replied Andrew. “We met him over here, and during the argument Texas bobbed up from somewhere. To be brief, he took the argument out of our mouths. McCall owed him money. Texas wanted it. They fell into hot talk, believe me. Slade, the sheriff, was with McCall. Then I saw my chance and butted in. I told McCall what I had on him, and that we would not give him a dime. Apparently I scared him, bluffed him. He withdrew his claim on your uncle, and—”
“Oh, Andrew, how perfectly splendid of you!” interrupted Martha Ann. “But this shooting — tell me quick.”
“Well, Texas went after McCall again. This time it looked bad. Texas asked McCall what he was going to do about the Bligh calves he had put the Double X brand on. That precipitated hell. McCall accused Texas of putting up a rustling proposition to him, in fact, tried to lay the guilt on Texas when it was his own. Texas called him the thief. McCall, the idiot, tried to draw his gun. Then Texas bored him.”
“Is — McCall — dead?”
“By now he is, surely.”
�
��Oh, how dreadful!...Did Slade arrest Texas?”
“He did not. I thought for a few moments he’d get it, too. I was so paralyzed I couldn’t open my lips to beg Texas not to kill him. But that cowboy was cool and calm as Christmas. He told Slade the plain facts and that he’d get the same if he didn’t lay off. Then Texas ordered Slade uptown, and took to his horse and the range.”
“He got away?” queried Martha happily.
“I’ll say he did. But before he went he gave me a mes sage—”
She turned to catch his arm. Her face was pale and her eyes dilated.
“Andy! You’re — implicated?...You will be held?” she whispered.
“No, my dear. Don’t rush at conclusions,” he quickly replied. “It was self-defense. McCall tried to draw. Texas shot him. That’s all there was to it. Slade has reasons of his own for not pressing the case. Your uncle is free. He’ll get his stock back. It has been a pretty strenuous day for us, but also very rewarding.”
“Oh, I — I can well understand...Wait for me — please,” she replied, and taking her parcels from him, she hurried into the Glemms’ home.
While Andrew waited, he reviewed the girl’s reaction to the news. All he succeeded in settling was the absurdity of his own hope. Naturally she would be disturbed for Texas’ sake and for her uncle’s, but that did not necessarily imply any intimate concern for the cowboy — or for him. Presently Martha came out, still white, with eyes dark with emotion.
“Take me somewhere,” she pleaded.
“A ride? No, the movies would be better.”
“Yes.”
He observed that she clung to the sleeve of his coat and walked close to him, as they headed back to town. For the hundredth time that sense of her simple trust and her wistful youthfulness rushed over Andrew, rousing anew the longing to protect.
“Tell me, Martha. Do you care — very much — for Texas Jack?” he asked earnestly.
“Care? What do you mean?”
“Do you love him?”
“Andrew! Don’t be ridiculous. I liked Texas. Who wouldn’t like him?”
“Then why do you take this thing so hard?”
“He killed that McCall for our sakes. For mine!”
“Martha, you’re being ridiculous now. Please be reasonable. It was an old grudge.”
“You be reasonable, too! Texas was a rustler. I caught him in the act. That day, you remember? I promised I’d never betray him if he’d let that be the last time he stole. He gave me his word, and he kept it. I know...One day not long ago I told him how McCall was hounding uncle, and was going to ruin us...Andrew, what do you think that wild Texan said to me?”
“I’ve no idea, but I’ll bet it was something original,” replied Andrew.
“He took his cigarette out of his mouth and smiled at me, and in his lazy southern drawl he said: ‘Sweetie, look heah. I’m gonna pick a fight with McCall an’ shoot the gizzard oot of him!’...Those were his exact words. I’ll never forget.”
“Well! What did you say to that, Martha?”
“I coaxed and scolded. But it was no use. Finally he said: ‘Listen, honey. You don’t savvy us western hombres yet. If you was in love with me, or if there was any hope you ever might be, I’d let McCall off an’ go straight. But you don’t, darlin’. An’ so it’s all day with thet graspin’ rustler!’”
“Ah! I see through it now,” cried Andrew. “Tex could have bluffed McCall. But he forced the issue. Lordy! The crazy loyal, sacrificing idiot! He never thought that his act would make you unhappy...Martha, he sent you a message by me.”
“What?”
“‘Say so long to my sweetie for me!’”
“‘So long’?...Good-by forever! That’s what he meant. It hurts me a little, Andrew...He was in love with me and I laughed at him.” She halted in the center of the sidewalk, to gaze up with tear-wet, tragic eyes at Andrew.
“Come on, dear. Don’t cry right here in the middle of the street. Be a good sport, Martha Ann, and try to be on the level, too. You never tried too hard to keep the men from loving you — now did you?”
“I never tried to make but one love me,” she answered resentfully, turning aside.
“Martha, all women are loved at least once in their lives by one man. Some women are loved by more than one, and some by many. That is your case, Martha. It is because you are beautiful and because you are lovely. You look at a poor sap once — and presto! He is lost. It is nothing you feel or really want.”
“Oh, so you have changed your mind about me?” she asked. “I’m not really a flirt, then?”
“I told you before that I had misjudged you.”
Inside the theater, after they had found seats in the dimly lighted place, Martha slipped her hand to Andrew’s sleeve, and down to touch his wrist with the lightest of fingers, and on and on, until she had her hand in his. It was a cold little hand, and it was trembling. Andrew simply held it and pressed it warmly. If in these childish moods, when she seemed to need father, brother or friend, he would do his best, silently, without making any more blunders. She sat through the whole picture without speaking. When they reached the street, once more the colored lights were blazing along the sidewalk.
“Andrew, I don’t want to go to that party tonight,” she said.
“I dare say it wouldn’t be much fun, considering.”
“Please take me to that Mexican café. After supper we’ll go home with Sue and Uncle.”
The October days came, Indian summer days, hazy, purple, melancholy. A hush lay over the land. Nature seemed quiescent, waiting. Wild ducks lingered on the river; the willow leaves fell yellow and sere, to carpet the ground.
It was Andrew’s favorite season. Often during his work he would pause to gaze down the gold-bordered river, out to the gray-bleached range, and on to the white-mantled peaks. And he would realize that the time and place suited him, that loneliness and solitude had claimed him for their own. His range-riding had, for the time being, been abandoned; and his work consisted of the various tasks around the ranch and his cabin that he could lay a hand to.
Andrew missed Jim. The old Arizonian rang true as steel; still in his kindly and persistent mania to throw Andrew and Martha into each other’s arms he had kept open a wound that would not heal. A few days after Jim had gone, the long-conceived plan of becoming a rancher and Bligh’s partner had begun to lose its zest. All that was left was the satisfaction that the old man had been saved, and therefore that Martha Ann would be happy, too.
That last trip to town had supplied the final revelation that had quieted all his doubts about Martha. He had been wrong about her; and the truth was devastating. Probably Martha Ann had not the slightest idea there had ever been a battle for her soul. But Andrew knew it; and he would have liked to communicate his infinite gladness to this girl’s mother. Martha had been deeply involved in her problem to get away, to be free from something like a deadening lichen on her heart, to discover the lure of new places, new faces, to yield to the unsatisfied longing for adventure, to seek and to find she knew not what. But Andrew understood it now, to his sorrow. Without a friend or protector this valiant young woman had set out alone on the highways, trusting in her belief in people, in life, in the future. Freed of her passionate intent to hurt as she had been hurt she had reverted to the gay, wistful, fun-loving, whimsical and curious girl that he in his cynicism and jealousy had failed to understand.
For days after Texas Jack’s coup, which had made him an outlaw and had saved Martha’s uncle, she was somber-eyed and unhappy, as if she might have been partly responsible for bloodshed and ruin, even though out of that good had come for her. But the spell passed. She was too young to be permanently affected by an act of violence that she had not witnessed. In a short time she was her happy self again. Life was good and she lived it to the full. She had found something she had risked so much to seek. She worked, she played, she sang, she was the life of the ranch. She rode often, but never far from home. She did not go to town,
though she was sought and importuned by her friends there. On Sundays the place was overrun by the young people with whom she had become so popular. Her erstwhile severest critic, Andrew, however, could find nothing amiss with her deportment.
As for Andrew; during those pleasant Indian summer days, he found that his old cynicism was gone, and he thanked God for it. It had been love that had burned it to ashes, even though a love that appeared to be unrequited. Nevertheless his gratitude to her was infinite. In the East Andrew’s sister and sweetheart had been thorns in his flesh. He had wanted them to be different from their class. They were independent, imperious, demanding, making playthings of men and never to be wholly won. They were victims of the age. But Martha Ann represented another type of womanhood, one that Andrew had not believed existed. There might be — there must be — many, many girls like Martha. He was glad to have found this new American girl, even though, for his own happiness, he had found her too late. Andrew had loved his mother, his sister, many girls, all that was feminine. And though he had lost his one chance of perfect happiness, he had gained the knowledge that girls actually existed who, like Martha, could be free and unspoiled and altogether lovely.
CHAPTER XIV
“FOR THE LAND’S sake!”
Sue’s familiar exclamation, that always indicated a real reason for excitement, came trenchantly to Martha Ann’s ears.
“Now, Sue, what’s come off?” she called.
“Martha, if things don’t stop comin’ off around here, I’ll go plain loco.”
“Let me join you in loco land!” cried Martha gleefully, and ran from her room.
Sue had gone out of the kitchen leaving the door open. Martha discovered her in the yard, arms akimbo, gazing spellbound at a boy and a horse. The former did not appear to be anyone so unusual as to cause Sue to react so violently. Martha shifted her gaze to the horse.
“Oh!” she cried out, her eyes lighting up in admiration.
The horse was a mottled buckskin with long black mane and tail, a graceful body, racing limbs and a most beautiful spirited head. There was a halter around his neck which he did not seem to like at all. The boy held it in one hand while with the other he brushed the glossy arched neck.