by Zane Grey
“My party is past — maybe the last one,” said Holly, to herself, as she slipped out of bed. “Now what? I haven’t a thing to do. There are many things I ought to do..... One that I can’t — I can’t.... But I shall!”
She had peeped out of her window, down upon the grassy pastures, the wide green and grey stretch to the line of cottonwoods, and around to the corrals and the cabins. That was never a lonely scene, but this morning it appeared even more than yesterday active and colourful with horses, Indians, riders, wagons and buckboards on the move. The scene in front of the bunk-house decided Holly at once to go down. Cowboys on foot and on horseback, to the number of a hundred or more, excited her curiosity. Her boys must be up to something. She hesitated a moment, checked by a thought, but as it appeared to be a friendly gathering Holly hurriedly donned her riding outfit, and quirt in hand she ran out. She did not inquire into her eagerness, her keen scent of the warm, sage-laden air, her mounting thrill at the purple range, with its thousands of cattle. She did not inquire into the unusual precipitancy of her blood, the sense of youth and life and happiness, the joy of unplumbed anticipations. Holly’s thought, as she ran down the path, was a rebellious one that Britt was not going to hold her in any longer.
When Holly emerged from the trees she saw mounted riders and cowboys on foot in groups beyond the cabins. She recognized some of her own boys at the far end of the long bunk-house porch. As their backs were turned, they did not see her. Holly gained the door, which was open, and from which issued a voice she knew.
“Aw, hell, Cap, don’t tell me nothin’,” Brazos said, harshly. “But I do tell you. Frayne’s hunch is to watch Talman,” rejoined Britt, sharply.
Holly knocked on the door with the handle of her quirt. “May I come in?”
“Thet you, Holly?... Yes, come in, now you’re heah. I’m shore glad Jose cleaned up this messy place.”
Holly went in to meet Britt, who for once did not brighten at sight of her. Brazos slipped off the table to greet her. But his moody face broke to the smile it always wore for her.
“Mawnin’, Lady. Yu shore look top-notch after yore all-night fandango.”
“Brazos, I’m sorry I can’t return the compliment.”
Britt interposed nervously, if not testily: “Holly, what’d you bob down heah for? You go right back to the house.” She laughed at him. “Who are you talking to?... What’s going on?”
“Wal, thet Slaughter ootfit sent word they had a hawse they’d bet no cowboy of yores could ride. I reckon it’ll delay range-ridin’ fer the time bein’.”
“I hope you’ll disprove that. Have they ever heard of Jackson?”
“Shore not, Holly, else they wouldn’t be so gay.”
“Too good to miss,” interposed Brazos. “We’ll lead them on an’ win every dollar they got.”
“Britt, what is this I heard you tell Brazos, as I got to the door?”
“What?... Aw, nothin’ much. I forget,” returned the Texan, coolly. But he did not deceive Holly.
“Will you tell me, Brazos?”
“Shore. I’d tell yu anythin’, if I remembered. But I cain’t keep track of my own talk, let alone Britt’s.”
“Call Frayne,” returned Holly, shortly.
They stared at her.
“Do you hear me? Call him, or I shall go out after him.” Britt went to the door and halloed for Frayne. Brazos gave Holly a cool, scrutinizing glance. She smiled back at him, not so coolly, but with an intelligence he must have grasped. Quick, heavy steps sounded on the porch.
“Come in. Miss Holly is heah an’ sent fer you,” said Britt. Frayne came in with his sombrero in his hand, the same inscrutable man that had so long baffled Holly. He bowed without speaking.
“Good morning, Renn.... Britt has just lied to me. And Brazos has lost his memory. Before I ask you some questions I want to tell you something, which I mean for them to hear as well.... From now on I am boss of this ranch. Britt treats me as a little girl he used to’ dandle on his knee. He thinks he’s my Dad and that I’ll never grow up. Brazos is a slick hombre who thinks I’m as easy to fool as — well, Conchita, for instance. They try to keep everything unpleasant or serious or bad from my ears. This I will not tolerate any longer.... Have I made myself quite clear?”
“Indeed you have, Miss Holly,” rejoined Frayne, in surprise. Both Britt and Brazos were dumbfounded, as well as ashamed.
“Very well, now, Renn, for the questions. You wouldn’t lie to me. You wouldn’t keep things from me?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because of last night.”
‘‘I don’t understand.”
“It is personal, of course. I always trusted you. But after your talk to my men last night, I shall have absolute faith in you.”
“You win, Miss Holly,” he said, with his fleeting smile. “Certainly I will never lie to you.”
“Thanks, Renn.... What is this hunch of yours to watch Talman? I heard Britt tell Brazos.”
“Last night Britt and I divided our time in watching. With McCoy and Slaughter in the house we did not feel at ease.
Anything could happen. Slaughter got in with a gun inside his vest, a fact he didn’t think any of us knew. He approached some of our boys and got a cold shoulder for his pains. But McCoy got to Talman. They did not go out together. McCoy went first, then Talman. They met outside.”
“Did you — follow?” asked Holly, breathless with interest. “No. It might have been nothing. Yet again it might have meant much.”
“What time did that happen?”
“Late. After you had said good night.”
“Frayne, you would not have given Britt a hunch to watch Talman, if your suspicions had not been aroused.”
“Hardly. But I never took to Talman, somehow. It’s my habit to study men. That seems to have been inborn. The need of self-preservation developed it strong. Talman is a queer duck. He’s one of the few cowboys I’ve met who loves money. He’s greedy. He’s a great horseman. He makes friends, yes, but not pards.”
“Did Talman come back?”
“No. And if he slept at all last night, it was little. It happens that I know eyes. It has saved my life more than once.”
“Therefore you advised Britt to watch him?”
“Yes, Miss Holly.”
“Well, Britt, this is what you and Brazos were quarrelling about when I stepped to the door?”
“I reckon.”
“But why the quarrel?”
“Brazos wouldn’t heah. My idee, of course, was to tell him an’ have him watch this cowboy.”
Holly turned to Brazos, who sat with downcast gloomy face. “Brazos, it may be nothing. We must respect Frayne’s judgment. Still, he may be over-zealous. And your watching might prove Talman merely thoughtless, which heaven knows you all are.”
“Dog-gone! I hate it,” ground out Brazos, with passion. “What? You mean spying on a comrade? So would I.”
“No, Lady, I don’t mind thet. It’s the idee I hate. I’ve knowed so many pards who turned oot to be jest no good atall.”
“That is bitter, Brazos,” said Holly, earnestly. “But listen. I am dependent upon my men. Why, for all, even my life and more than life.... Suppose I lost Britt and Frayne. How would you handle this case?”
“I wouldn’t discharge Talman. Thet’d tip off these schemin’ ootfits. I’d want to ketch their drift. I’d watch him, with Laigs to help me. Thet’s all.”
“But you would not listen to Britt.”
“I was stallin’.”
“Do you want to be let out of this distasteful job?”
“Not atall, Lady. Fust off I was huffy. But no more. I hope to Gawd I can prove Talman straight. It’d shore be tough to find another Dillon in the ootfit.”
“I hope so, too. Now, boys, go back-to the riding contest. I’ll stay and watch out of the window. I’d like to bet, too.”
“Wal, we’d shore like to hev yu,” replied Brazos, changing as if by magic. “Hev y
u got any money in them togs? It’ll be a cash deal, believe me.”
“Brazos! Wouldn’t you trust me?”
“I would, but I don’t know aboot—”
Britt extracted a heavy wallet from his coat.
“What’ll you bet on Jackson?”
“Five hundred. And give him half if he wins.”
Brazos smothered a whoop, and instead of letting off his exuberance in that way, he danced a jig.
“Lady, yu shore air a thoroughbred,” he declared, suddenly getting tense and business-like. “Heah, get yore haids together.... Jackson would ride a bat oot of hell fere thet much. We cain’t lose.... Now heah’s the deal with this Slaughter ootfit. They started it. We didn’t even encourage it. But they galled us pretty deep. My idee is they must have a hell-buckin’ broncho. They reckon they can clean us oot. All right. We’ll bet easy fust off. We’ll back Laigs, an’ course he’ll get piled. Then we’ll back, say, Blue, fer a little money. To egg them on, see? Then I’ll get sore, an’ fork thet varmint myself. It’ll be a bluff ‘cause I cain’t ride nothin’. We’ll be het up, then, an we’ll flash our rolls, an’ bet every damn peso we got on Ride-’Em. It’ll be highway robbery, an’ thet bunch will yell murder.... How’s my idee strike yu-ail?”
“Brazos, it strikes me fine,” replied Holly, warming to the youthful face, the flashing blue eyes, the mobile lips that expressed such glee.
“Wal, so long as Slaughter throwed this in our faces I kinda am fer it,” drawled Britt.
“Great idea,” declared Frayne, keenly. “I want a chance to look this outfit over.”
“They’re yellin’ fer us. Aw, I hate to do this. Come on.”
“Miss Holly, you can see very well from this window,” said Frayne, as Brazos and Britt started out. “Would you mind dropping the bar, after I close the door?”
“Renn! Are you afraid I’d be kidnapped?” exclaimed Holly, jokingly.
“Hardly that. But you will be seen. These men are hard, curious, insolent.”
“Oh, you don’t want me annoyed?”
“That is putting it mildly.”
“I’m curious myself. I want to see this Russ Slaughter.”
“He’s not mucb to look at. I’d say a big tawny wolf, just come out of winter quarters, ragged and rough, with hungry eyes.”
“How thrilling! I shall come out.”
“You are a woman — that is to say, hopeless, incomprehensible,” retorted Frayne, retreating into his shell. “No wonder Britt is growing grey. You won’t listen to sense. You are a contrary little devil. Come on out. Slaughter will insult you, if not by word then by look. And I’ll kill him.”
“Renn! Don’t — don’t be so harsh,” faltered Holly, subdued. “I was only teasing. I’ll stay in — and bar the door.”
Holly did not at once take her seat at the window. Renn Frayne seemed to magnify in one man all the ruthless qualities of the frontier. If her attempts at coquetry were to be met thus she would not progress very far. Thoughtful and subdued, she found herself to be merely an instinctive natural woman. Her spirit rose rebelliously at the proof of what a stern look and a few cold words from this man could do to her. If they could make her as weak as water, what would happen to her if Renn Frayne took her in his arms, as Brazos had done, as other cowboys had tried to do.
“Oh, dear! Why do I think such — such insane things?.. If he did — and I was not so — so mad with joy that I’d faint....”
A yell from outside directed Holly’s feelings into another channel. She drew a chair to the window and sat down. The edge of a crowd of cowboys, Indians and Mexicans, was not many rods from the bunk-house. The crowd split with wild shouts, to let out an ugly beast of a horse, upon the back of which Laigs Mason sat precariously. No ordinary horse could make Laigs look like a tenderfoot. It was a dark buckskin in colour, ragged and hairy, with wild eyes and steaming nostrils, humped in a distorted ball on four legs, which bounded as if on stiff springs. Such swift and violent bucking Holly had never seen. All at once Laigs Mason went flying to the ground, whereupon there arose wild mirth, punctuated by shouts and jeers. The buckskin, having gotten rid of his burden, ceased his gyrations. Standing still he was indeed a horse to tantalize any boastful cowboy. He was big, rangy, exceedingly muscular and uncouth, with an ugly head and untamed eye.
This time Holly was witness to the laying of more wagers, and to the assault of the Kentuckian upon the catapult of the Slaughter remuda. Blue was a fine horseman, but he lasted only five jumps before he was thrown. He was hurt and angry, too, as was indicated by his yell, almost unheard in the din, and by the fist he shook at Brazos.
Holly revelled in Brazos then. Since last night he had fallen from his pedestal, but she still loved him as a perfectly real, wild, terrible cowboy, the type of the age. Brazos simulated fury. He hopped up and down like a flea on a hot griddle, flung his arms, tore his curly hair, and otherwise demonstrated his rage at defeat. When the noise subsided he yelled:
“Lay yore bets, fellars. I’ll ride thet ornery cayuse myself — or die tryin’. But ask fer odds, boys. This ain’t no ordinary hawse. Russ Slaughter has jobbed us. It’s a dirty trick. He’s got a circus hawse.... Lead him heah.... Aha, yu fire-eatin’, smoke-snortin’, iron-jawed mule — you’re shore gonna be rid!”
Brazos was not only a magnificent actor, but also, according to Britt, the equal of any rider who ever straddled a horse; always excepting Ride-’Em Jackson, who was in a class by himself.
The tremendous exhibition that Brazos boasted of did not materialize. He manifested none of his skill and made the poorest show of any of the boys. Holly noticed, however, that he chose a nice grassy plot to be thrown upon. Picking himself up, he apparently had sustained a surprise and shock.
“Dog-gone! Thet ain’t a hawse,” he complained. “No long-laiged rider could ever stay on him.”
“Naw, nor any short-legged ones in your outfit,” jeered a rider, striking for his superb seat in the saddle, his hatchet-face and tawny fringe of beard.
“We call yore bluff, Slaughter,” returned Brazos, ringingly. “We got pore riders an’ pore hawses heah, but we shore got plenty of the long green. Give us two to one odds an’ we’ll bet yu again, whole hawg or none.”
Slaughter was suspicious, but his clamouring men overruled his objection, or whatever his gestures and voice implied. They crowded to take all bets offered by the Ripple cowboys. Slaughter was not proof against the sight of so much money, and he got off his horse to elbow his way into the crowd around Britt, who was holding stakes. The time required to get all wagers made attested to the large amounts and the importance of this last contest. But at last it was done. Slaugher and most of the visiting cowboys got back in their saddles, their lean, dark faces hungrily expectant.
“How aboot it, Slaughter?”, yelled Brazos. “Any more money to bet?”
“All we got is up, Keene, an’ you’ll never smell it.”
“Cowboy, take thet saddle off,” called Brazos, to the rider who had charge of the bucking horse.
“Hey, you don’t put no other saddle on him,” objected Slaughter, as his cowboy looked up dubiously.
“We don’t want no saddle atall,” announced Brazos, swag-geringly. Whereupon in another moment the saddle was stripped from the restive mustang.
“Throw him. We want him on the ground,” ordered Brazos. “What’s the idee?” yelled Slaughter, belligerently.
“Lay yore hawse down,” returned Brazos, curtly. “Our man wants to fork him from the ground. If he cain’t ride him, yu win.”
Accordingly, two of Slaughter’s cowboys roped the horse, stripped him, and threw him on his side. Brazos promptly seized the bridle from the one who held it and knelt upon the head of the horse.
“Slip them ropes loose,” shouted Brazos. “All right, Jack, come arunnin’.”
The little bow-legged negro appeared as if he had come up out of the ground. “Heah I is,” he rolled out, and ran to the prostrate horse. He straddled the an
imal. “Gimme dat bridle, Brazos. I done hate to do dis.” He appeared to wrap himself around the horse and to bend flat, almost to the ground. Brazos also bent over, evidently to see. Suddenly he leaped and backed with a wild yell. On the instant, with a borrid scream the horse raised himself spasmodically with a cracking of hoofs. Like a burr Jackson’s body appeared stuck upon him. Holly had seen Jackson perform this trick before, though never so clearly. He had sunk his teeth in the nose of the horse, which made it impossible for the animal to get its head. And when they came up together the horse had his head high, turned back in a distorted way, with the little negro like a leech upon his neck.
“Look oot!” bawled Brazos, leaping aside, as the frantic beast began to lunge. Riders and those on foot scattered like quail. The great horse, frenzied at this attack, plunged all over the space before the bunk-house, amid a din that made the former noise insignificant. It took a few moments for the intelligent beast to realize that lowering his head to pitch was impossible. He screeched like a demon. He scattered dust and gravel. And at length he bolted straight across the level. The angle of his head made him run in a circle, so that in short order he was back from where he had started. And right before his backers he quit as obviously as any horse could have done without balking. Jackson let go his cruel hold, and sliding off threw the bridle. His grin showed his wide mouth and big white teeth.
“Wharyou-all wuz, pards?” he boomed.
To Holly’s amaze her cowboys did not break into a pandemonium, as was usually their wont at any coup. Brazos strutted like an Indian chief to meet his black jockey. The other cowboys stood close around Britt. Slaughter and his men were dumbfounded.
“Come hyar, nigger,” yelled Slaughter.
Instead of complying, Jackson replied: “What yu want, boss?”
“How’d you ride thet hoss?”
“Sho mah own bizness.”
The cowboy who had again taken charge of the prize horse called out: “His nose is bleedin’. Thet nigger bit him — hung on by his teeth.”