by Zane Grey
“Hell! Can’t I see?” rasped Slaughter. “Jackson, you rode fer me onct. How come you never showed us thet trick?”
“Wal, boss, I wuzz only a nigger in yore ootfit.”
“Ahuh. Wall, you’ll be a dead nigger fer this outfit — some day.”
“Sho. We’se all gotta die — an’ some men’s gonna get hunged by de neck,” declared Jackson, sarcastically, as he slipped out of sight among his comrades.
“Take your medicine, Slaughter,” rang a voice from among the group around Britt, and the tone of it made Holly start.
Brazos sheered off to come between Slaughter and Britt’s group. “Haw! Haw! Haw! Slaughter, we Ripple ootfit haven’t any hawses or riders or nothin’! Like hell we haven’t!... Yu come over to make a friendly bet, didn’t yu? Wal, yu got it an’ yu lost it.”
“Right. We got trimmed plumb good. I ain’t kickin’, Keene. But I’ll have you know it wasn’t my idee.”
“Wal, whoever had it, shore blew some greenbacks our way,” drawled Brazos.
“Jest two-bit change fer us. Plenty more where thet come from,” replied Slaughter. But when he turned to his men he was not so boastful. “Get the hell out of hyar!”
It was noticeable that Slaughter, as he turned to ride away with his men, veered somewhat to the left, and when opposite the bunk-house window, where Holly sat, halted to light a cigarette. But when he looked up, directly at her, Holly knew that had been a ruse. He was not too far away for the expression of his eyes to be discernible. Holly unwittingly caught their hard brightness before she could avoid them.
“Howdy, girlie,” he called. “You might keep me from throwin’ in with McCoy.”
Holly left the window, nonplussed at the ruffian’s declaration, until she interpreted it through the evil meaning in his eyes. It revolted her to realize that the time had come when she was not safe from insult even on her own ranch, in front of her cowboys. But hearing steps on the porch she stifled her sickening sensations. At a hard knock on the door she slipped the bar and opened it. Frayne and Brazos stood there, as if they were her judges.
“Holly, did thet hombre see yu?” demanded Brazos. “Certainly. I was in plain sight. They all saw me.”
“Why didn’t yu duck when he rode by?”
“Brazos, I am not in the habit of ducking.”
“Wal, it’d be a darn good one fer yu to learn,” complained Brazos. “I wasn’t lookin’ jest then. Too busy grabbin’ my money from Britt. But Renn heah says Slaughter spoke to yu.”
“He did. I heard him,” corroborated Frayne, quietly, his penetrating grey gaze enveloping her.
“Yes. Did you hear what he said?” asked Holly, with a laugh. She was not so sure she could deceive Frayne. These men breathed something that stopped her heart.
“Only one word. ‘McCoy.’... It was quite far and he spoke low.”
“My vengeful caballeros, it was nothing.”
“Holly, you claimed the absolute truth from me,” declared Frayne, sternly.
“Why, of course,” replied Holly, lightly. Yet she could not but thrill at the raw wild youth of Brazos, at the ruthlessness of Frayne. If she told them the truth they would call Slaughter out, kill him, and precipitate a bloody battle she wanted to put off as long as possible. It could not be put off for ever.
“Holly, you’re gonna lie to us. To me an’ Renn — yore best friends on Gawd’s earth!” protested Brazos.
“No!” exclaimed Holly. “I’ll tell you some day. When you come back from Las Animas after the drive.”
“Probably just as well,” rejoined Frayne, briefly. “If you told us now we might not make your cattle drive to the railroad.”
“Renn!”
“He heahed Slaughter mention McCoy. What aboot him?” added the persistent Brazos.
“Well, I can tell you definitely that Slaughter is going to throw in with McCoy.”
“What’d I tell yu, pard?” hissed Brazos, with a lightning simulation of the draw. Frayne continued to pierce Holly with eyes of doubt and condemnation, and some other disconcerting thing that she found it preferable to avoid. A clamour of voices outside and a stamping of boots preceded the advent of Britt, who ran into the house, his hands full of bills, his eyes full of mirth.
“Hey, gimme elbow-room, you Injuns,” he protested. “Every man will get his money. I wrote all the bets down.”
Ride-’Em Jackson confronted Holly with great shiny black orbs, full of worship.
“Missy Ripple, I sho nebber seen so much money in all mah life. Wid yu backin’ me dat way, why I sho could have rode de debbil.... I’se tellin’ yu — dat money yu staked me is goin’ to mah ole black mammy.”
Not so many days after the event of the year, the grassy triangle below Holly’s ranch-house shone red and white with thirty-five hundred head of steers ready for the drive to the railroad.
It was early morning with sun hot and the range blossoming in flowery meadows, the cottonwoods and willows full-foliaged. The mountains burned purple up to the gradually lessening snow patches. Down to the east, where the Old Trail wound along the ribbon-like Cimarron, the descending range rolled and rippled out to the vast grey of prairie.
Brazos had just bade Holly good-bye, a cool and nonchalant Brazos as always, but somehow stronger in earnestness and less sentimental. He left Holly thoughtful and sad. She knew and he knew that some day he would depart never to return.
Britt, brisk and business-like, came in with Frayne for final instructions.
“Wal, they’re pointed, Holly, an’ all you got to do is wave yore scarf.”
“Frayne, whom did you choose to take besides Brazos? Of course he would not go without Laigs,” asked Holly.
“Santone, the Southards, Jackson, Cherokee. Eight of us in all,” replied Frayne. “Not enough for so big a job. But we must not leave you short here.”
“Who on the wagon?”
“We’ll take turns driving.”
“No remuda?”
“Only a few extra horses, which we’ll drive ourselves.”
“You are saving.... What’s the count, Britt?”
“Three thousand five hundred an’ sixty-two. Brazos had less. But Renn an’ I tallied the same.”
Holly wrote the number down in her note-book. “Here’s the mail, Frayne, and my several orders for supplies, which you may look over at your leisure.”
“What are your instructions about selling?” queried Frayne, anxiously.
“No different from Britt’s. Has he not told you?”
“Yes. But let’s go over it again. This is a new job for me.”
“Take the best offer you get.”
“Shore thet’ll be no less than forty dollars a haid,” interposed Britt.
“What is the lowest I can accept, provided conditions fluctuate?”
“Frayne, I want to get rid of cattle. You need not advertise that. Hang out for a good price, but if compelled, take any offer.”
“Very well. I don’t anticipate any save the present top price. Have you written instructions to deposit cheques, mail them east, or bring them back?”
“No, you are to take cash. And wait if it has to come by express.”
“Cash!” ejaculated Frayne, aghast. “Britt did not tell me that.”
“Wal, I wanted Holly to take the responsibility,” explained Britt. “I disapprove, but Holly’s boss.”
“Please — Miss Holly!” exclaimed Frayne, almost en-treatingly.
“Please what?”
“Don’t put such a burden on me. — Just think! — Figure it out. Allowing for losses in any way — even a little rustler raid — I’ll set out for over one hundred and forty thousand dollars.”
“What of that? We need cash. Britt agrees now is the best time. Trail conditions will grow worse. When we sell again we’ll make deposits.”
“Holly, you’ll trust me — me — with all that money?” queried Frayne, hoarsely, white to the lips.
“Certainly I’ll trust you,” repl
ied Holly, evenly, finding his level grey gaze of pain exceedingly trying to meet squarely.
“Thank you.... But you — shouldn’t.... That’s a fortune. How do you know I’ll not steal it — and run off?”
“Renn, it’d be worth that much to find you out,” she rejoined.
But he did not catch the significance of that. “How do you know the half-breeds and Cherry won’t murder me?”
“Don’t insult them, either, Renn. But they need not know. Tell Brazos.”
Frayne turned to Britt with twitching lips. “Old Timer, can you beat this? For two-bits — if it was anyone else but Holly Ripple — no — I wouldn’t take the risk.”
“Risk of what?”
“Loss. Be reasonable, you child. If through any chance I lost all that money you — you’d never believe in me again.”
“Yes I would,” replied Holly, calmly taking her scarf and moving toward the door. She bad at last intrigued or driven this man into a betrayal of feeling. It was so sweet, so beautiful, that she dared not prolong the interview. They followed her out on the porch. Her trust in him then meant something. She had planned this responsibility to see how he would react to it, how he would execute it. Yet she had not gone so far as to hope or dream that he cared deeply for the faith she reposed in him. She must wait until she was alone to ponder that out. The certainty that Frayne entertained something besides indifference to her made Holly strong and calm. She stepped off the porch into the sunlight and waved the red scarf. Scarcely had she sent the long streamer aloft when a puff of white smoke appeared against the green, way down at the apex of the triangle, and it was followed by the report of a gun.
“They’re off,” declared Britt, with relief. “I see Brazos ridin’ hell bent fer election.... Go, Frayne. Catch up.... Catch up!... Thet’s the Old Trail word.”
Holly lowered the scarf with a whirl that circled it around her neck. That was well, she thought, because her cheeks were hot and red. She extended her hand and smiled up at Frayne, no longer sure of anything except that the parting was poignant. “Adios, Renn.... Good luck! — Don’t forget — Don Carlos’ Rancho!”
“Be it on your head!” he replied, so darkly that Holly did not grasp whether he meant the risk of her money, the risk of her trust, or the risk of some terrible consequence to him that was surely not peril or death. “But don’t worry about us. We will come through.... Look out for yourself. Don’t ride out of sight of the cowboys.... Adios.”
After the blur had left her eyes Holly watched the herd wind the valley toward the gleaming, green-bordered Cimarron. She had always loved to watch a crawling herd of cattle. The yellow dust rose to cloud the sides and rear of the vast wedge of moving red and and white. There were two riders in the lead, pointing the herd. One bestrode a big brown horse, and that would be Cherokee. Brazos’ white shirt and sombrero shone in the sunlight. She watched until she saw Frayne on his black come into view below, loping swiftly eastward. Upon him she used her field-glasses, trying with shaking hands to work him into the magnified circle of her vision. What was that trailing out behind him, like a streamer of red? He had taken her scarf without her being in the least aware of it, though she remembered it last around her neck.
CHAPTER IX
WHEN BRITT HAD been captain of the Texas Rangers, hard riding, perilous and perplexing situations, criminals to arrest or kill, rescue of stolen stock, mysterious murders to clear up, settlers to protect from thieving Mexicans and marauding Comanches, all were the order of the day and taken as a matter of course.
But Britt had not then had in his charge a beautiful and imperious young woman whom he loved as his own, and who had no relative, no husband, no one save himself to look after her. It was telling on Britt. In the five weeks since Frayne and the cowboys had driven east with the big herd, enough had happened on the range to keep him awake nights without the several narrow escapes Holly had sustained. She had a habit of riding out alone in spite of orders, protestations, entreaties. There were occasions when the girl was strange, moody, and refused to have an escort. At such times Britt had to watch her or have one of the cowboys do it, and trust to Providence. The arrival of the short, hot, mid-summer period put an end to Holly’s riding, for which Britt was profoundly grateful. When the cooler weather came, Frayne and Brazos would be back, and after that it would not be long until frost and snow. The rustlers holed up in winter; there was no movement of cattle; and some peace and rest might be obtainable until spring.
“By thunder,” muttered Britt, “I’m shore goin’ to move heaven an’ earth to marry Holly off by then!”
Britt did all this soliloquizing in the bunk-house while he sat at the table, poring over the crude map he had tacked there. The drawing which had been made by the foreman himself, was not a work of art, but it was accurate to a distance of fifty miles or more beyond Don Carlos’ Rancho. The range was now knee-deep in grass and flowers, and black with cattle. The streams had been bank-full until the late hot spell, and with the summer storms still in prospect, the creeks, springs and water-holes would not go dry this season. For Britt this had its good and bad side, the latter being in the fact that many cattle would graze up into the hills and the canyons. Rustlers had become increasingly active. Small bunches of cattle were being driven to Santa Fe and Las Vegas, and to the forts. This rustling of mixed brands did not make much of an inroad upon the Ripple stock, but it would increase and in several years must count heavily. That was calculating without a great raid of thousands of cattle and the incessant drainage upon the herd of unbranded stock. One of these rustler bands was appropriating unbranded calves and yearlings for the nucleus of a herd. The cowboys had tracked numerous small bunches of young stock toward the hills to the south. Russ Slaughter and his outfit had disappeared, so far as actual sight of them was concerned, but they were well known to be on the range.
With only nine riders and himself, Britt was hard put to it to keep track of stock. They had thirty thousand head in the valley, between the pass and the head of the Cottonwood. Beyond this point a half million cattle roamed the wide plain, and more thousands of these than Britt knew and more than he had calculated before wore the Ripple mark. It was an unprecedented situation and rich in pickings for rustlers and unscrupulous cattlemen.
“Wal, let’s see,” said Britt, as he bent over his map. “Skylark with Stinger an’ Gaines air at White Pool. Jim an’ Blue an’ Flinty air at Cedar Flat. Talman an’ Trinidad somewhere in Cottonwood Basin. Rebel is ridin’ alone.... Nobody heah with me, an’ thirty thousand longhorns oot there to be run off. Shore is a hell of a deal!”
Britt had sent Talman and Trinidad to the head-waters of the Cottonwood with a deliberate purpose. This was up in the rough breaks through which the Ute Trail led to the north. Talman had been consistently watched, to no avail. One thing only had Britt noted — Talman’s unobtrusive cultivation of Trinidad since the other cowboys had gone and the usually merry Trinidad’s preoccupation. As the days and weeks passed Britt grew more convinced that there was something amiss. The crafty indefatigable Rebel had been detailed to keep track of Talman.
These several relays of cowboys had been absent nearly a week, and except the last three Britt had named, were already overdue at the ranch. Britt decided to ride out on the morrow, if none of them returned.
Later, while he was pacing up and down the porch, plodding with his hands behind his back, Holly put in an appearance, slender and graceful in her flimsy white. Her cheeks were without colour and her eyes gloomed.
“Cappy, I picked up some riders with the glass. Across the Cottonwood, five miles or so. Three horsemen with two pack animals.”
“Thet’ll be Skylark,” replied Britt, gladly. “Aboot time.”
“Frayne is four days late,” she said, broodingly.
“What’s four days? Why, lass, he might be four weeks late. Reckon he had to wait for the money.... Holly, air you worried aboot thet?”
“What do I care about money?” she exclaimed, impat
iently. “Holly, after what you told the man — you couldn’t doubt him.... In only four days!”
“Doubt him? — Don’t insult me, Cappy.... I’m worried because there might have been a fight. Brazos will fight, you know.”
“Anythin’ is possible, lass, of course. But thet’s not likely. I tell you again, Frayne will be along soon now.”
“Oh, I hope so!..’. I’ve watched that Cimarron Trail until my eyes have grown dim. Not a wagon — not a horseman for days on end.... It’s lonely.... Cappy, will you come up to the house after you see Skylark?”
Britt assured her he would come, and almost took advantage of her mood to ask a question about Frayne that he had long pondered. But Holly did not look happy. The old, gay, wilful spirit seemed in abeyance. He watched Holly with misgivings. Any question, save one of the heart, she could master with the Ripple intelligence and courage. But if it was love...
In an hour Skylark rode up with Stinger and Gaines, with the white dust sliding in little streams off horses and riders. Begrimed and sweaty, with eyes of fire, they brought a lusty welcome from the old ranger.
“Like May-flowers, you easy-cornin’ gents! Gosh, I was lonesome. I don’t care a damn if you have bad news — I’m shore glad to see you.”
“Mebbe we’re not glad,” replied Skylark, leaning over his pommel. “Any news?”
“Nope. Nobody else in.”
“How’s Miss Holly? I seen her mopin’ up the hill.”
“She’s wal. But lonesome, too.”
“Roll off, Sky,” said Stinger. “We’ll look after the hosses.” Skylark unlimbered his long frame from the tired and dusty horse and clanked upon the porch, to throw gloves, sombrero, scarf, shirt and gun-belt in a pile beside the wash-bench.
“We got out of smokes,” said the cowboy, tragically. “Ahuh. Is thet dirt or gun-smoke on yore face?”
“Both, I reckon. I pumped my Winchester pretty fast this mornin’.”
“Wal, clean up. I’ll walk over to the store an’ fetch you the makin’s.”