by Zane Grey
“Hell! Plenty’s happened. But never mind about me. What has happened to you?”
“More than plenty, Vince. I think I’ve got you topped. Didn’t you hear anything down the street?”
“We heard a lot of stories — all different.”
“Who’s we?” asked Lincoln.
“Mel Thatcher an’ me. He come over with me.”
“How come?” queried Lincoln in surprise.
“Wal, me and Thatcher got pretty thick. He’s true blue, an’ I shore think he’s had a rotten deal. He was broke and couldn’t get any kind of a job. Wuss fix than me. Lee tried to drive him out of South Pass and out of the country fer thet matter. I reckon I kept Mel from mixin’ in a bad fight. He shore was seein’ red. I dragged him up to my place at the livery stable an’ kept him there till he cooled down. We got to be pards. Always did think a heap of Thatcher anyhow. He was at his wit’s end an’ I think he’d hev gone to smash if I hadn’t taken him in hand. I questioned him about you an’ I found he’s fer you all the way. Sooner or later, pard, you’ll be wantin’ riders to ride fer you and fight fer you too, an’ I recommend Mel Thatcher.”
“Well, I’ll be damned!” exclaimed Lincoln. “Well, Thatcher made a good impression on me, too. Will he talk?”
“Close-lipped as an Injun dummy. Same as me. But thet don’t say thet he’ll always be thet way.... I’ll tell you afterwards what happened to me an’ Mel, but when we got here we heerd in the furst saloon we went in about yore run-in with Miller. We was plumb upset. After thet everywhere we asked questions the story grew wuss. We run plumb into Kit Bandon an’ if looks could kill, Mel an’ me shore would hev been daid long ago, but we ducked out of her way an’ hunted up the jail. When this Texas sheriff told us you was all right I never was so glad of anythin’ in my life.”
“How do you think I look?” asked Linc.
“Hell! You look to me like a geezer who was on his honeymoon.”
Lincoln laughed. “Well, it takes two to make a proper honeymoon, but I’m feeling pretty fine, thanks.”
“Where did you get plugged?” asked Vince, feeling gently around Lincoln’s bandage.
“Under the collar bone. Clean as a whistle. I’m rarin’ to go right now.”
“Wal, what’s keepin’ you here? It was an even break. This sheriff hasn’t got no case against you.”
“That’s true. Haught admitted it. But it seems Kit swore out a warrant and wants me kept here for a while for some mysterious reason. I thought I’d not make a break just yet. I have several good reasons.”
Vince looked around at the vase of flowers, the box of candy on the table, the plate of cake and then met Lincoln’s gaze with a quizzical look. “Pard, I’m not shore yit whether you are the onluckiest cuss in the world or not. Comin’ back to Miller, he gave you a run fer yore money, eh?”
“I’ll say he did. I made a couple of cracks that upset him and that gave me the edge on the draw.”
“Ahuh. What was the cracks, pard?”
“Vince, they had to do with Jimmy Weston.”
Vince whistled under his breath. “You nagged Miller into tellin’ you somethin’ jest at the moment of meetin’ him?”
“I’ll tell you later,” responded Linc. “But I’ve got some news, Vince, that I can’t keep any longer.”
“Yea? Wal, you kinda look like you was bustin’ with somethin’.”
“The first day I got here,” began Lincoln swiftly, “I ran into Kit and Lucy with this fellow Miller.” The Nebraskan went on to relate the events leading up to his marriage to Lucy.
“Wha — a — t!” stuttered Vince incredulously, “You, married to Lucy?”
“I did that, pard,” said Lincoln. “It sounds like a dream but it happened.”
Vince stared at his friend. “An’ all the time Kit Bandon has lost her haid over you — the fust time in her life!”
“I don’t know about that, Vince, but she comes in here and acts and talks like it.”
Vince threw up his hands and began to pace the floor. He was the picture of consternation and dismay. He actually wrung his hands. His distress was too genuine to be laughed at.
“Lord amighty, pard. Yore as good as daid right now,” he finally burst out, stopping before Lincoln. “You’ve signed yore own death warrant. You might as well cash in right now. Haven’t you got no sense? Couldn’t you wait? Didn’t you hev any hunch about what kind of a woman this she-cat is?... She’ll kill you, man, as shore as yore the onluckiest cuss who ever breathed. An’ like as not, she’ll kill pore Lucy too.”
“But, Vince, she doesn’t know it yet! Besides, you don’t think I’m going to sit idly by if Lucy is in danger!”
“But she’ll find it out,” expostulated Vince. “The longer she’s fooled the wuss she’ll be.... Pard, didn’t you know Kit Bandon had personally killed two or three men? More, for all I know.”
“I heard that but I hardly believed it.”
“Wal, I believe it. She certainly come awful damn close to givin’ it to me.”
“That’s a confession, Vince. You’ll have to tell me about that.”
“Did you fix the parson so he won’t tell?” queried Vince.
“I’m sure it won’t leak out there.”
“Who else knows?”
“Only Lucy — and I told Miller that last second before he died.”
“Lordy! Yore a cold-blooded hombre.... Lucy ought to know Kit well enough to keep her mouth shet but it won’t hurt none to scare her half to death. And how about you, Mr. Bridegroom? Can you keep from shootin’ off yore chin?”
“I don’t know, Vince. Sometimes I’m afraid I can’t. If she drives me too far—”
“Nuff said,” interposed Vince. “I can guess the rest. Now fer Lord Amighty’s sake, listen to me. Explain this to Lucy no matter what risk you run and let Kit make all the fuss she wants over you even if it kills you. It’d be better to stand fer that, wouldn’t it, than to be daid?”
“Vince, I can’t let Kit make a fool of herself,” protested Lincoln.
“Why cain’t you?” queried Vince angrily.
“I can’t — because, well, I just don’t trust myself where that woman is concerned,” retorted Lincoln desperately. “I know she’s playing a deep game, and may be implicated in Jimmy’s murder. But in spite of all that I can’t hate her for it. I couldn’t love her, but — neither can I hate her....”
“She’s got hell’s fire in her veins,” interrupted Vince. “Take my hunch, pard, keep thet secret until you an’ Lucy can run away or till somethin’ happens, an’ you can bet yore life somethin’ is goin’ to happen.”
“What do you mean, Vince?” demanded the Nebraskan.
“I don’t know. I don’t know any more than you. But, man, in the very nature of things out here on this Wyomin’ border where there ain’t no law or morality, where the times is hard an’ men are desprit, I jest cain’t believe thet even a woman, beautiful as she is, can go on forever makin’ fools of men an’ bein’ a law onto herself.”
“All right, Vince. I’ll keep the secret if I can prevail upon Lucy to trust me.”
“It’ll be tough, but yore married to her an’ Kit cain’t take thet away.... Now, listen to what I’ve got to tell you. There’s been some high old goin’s on in South Pass since you left. The cowboys is upset because of the rumor thet the cattlemen in the Sweetwater Valley are goin’ to fire them in a bunch an’ go to Caspar an’ Cheyenne to hire other hands. I reckon thet’s only a rumor. It’s too farfetched to be true. There’s more’n 80,000 head of stock in the valley an’ you know thet takes aplenty of outfits to run. The cattlemen cain’t afford to do thet. But the upset among the cattlemen is shore a real fact. Lee is the ringleader of the ranchers. He’s a Texan an’ powerful full of spunk. Some say he’s crazy about Kit Bandon and others say he hates her. I reckon he does both, because Kit made a fool out of him same’s the rest. Hargrove, Burton, Nesbit, Seymour, MacNeil, all the cattlemen down the river were in town f
er two days. They had a secrut meetin’. Mel an’ I sneaked round back of the hall an’ got chased away fer our pains. Nobody knows what went on at thet meetin’. It had to do with these cattlemen bandin’ themselves together to put a united front against any and all kinds of rustlin’. These cattlemen hev been slow to wrath. There’s a reason fer thet which you might guess. But it’s settled now — they’re as mad as hornets an’ it’s goin’ to go hard with anyone they ketch stealin’ cattle.”
“Well, Vince, that was in the air when I was in South Pass.”
“Yes, but it hadn’t come to a haid yet. The day after thet meetin’ Thatcher heerd from Bill Haines thet a cowboy had been caught red-handed an’ was bein’ held down in the river bottom by the riders who had caught him. Later me and Mel got ahold of Haines and scared him into the middle of next week. He’s a good friend of Thatcher’s an’ we finally forced him to confess where the cowboy was bein’ held. Thet night after dark Thatcher an’ me rode out of South Pass packin’ some grub an’ blankets an’ we made a beeline fer the river bottom. When we got to Hargrove’s ranch about midnight we scouted all around lookin’ fer a campfire. Couldn’t find nothin’ so we made camp ourselves.
“Next day we kept out of sight but we watched the trails. Thatcher went one way an’ I went another. Long in the afternoon late Thatcher came back an’ said he had spotted buckboards an’ saddle hosses on the Hargrove road. We sneaked out along the edge of the willows until we caught sight of them an’ then we hid an’ let them pass. Then we followed them. They stopped at Hargrove’s ranch. This was along about sunset. A little later we saw a man come out of the willows below us, look all around as if he didn’t want to be seen, an’ then run across the road into the ranch yard. We figgered thet he was goin’ to inform these cattlemen where the prisoner thet had been reported caught was bein’ held. We figgered we were gettin’ pretty hot. We found a trail enterin’ in the brush jest below us an’ we hid close to it.
“Wal, to make a long story short, as soon as it was dark a bunch of men took thet trail single-file behind their guides and went into the brush. Me an’ Thatcher followed but not too close. Half a mile in we saw a light in a clearin’ an’ we planned to sneak off the trail one on each side an’ get as close as possible. An’ we arranged to meet at our campin’ place later. I didn’t hev to go very far on my side before I came up to the edge of the thicket an’ saw the campfire a hundred steps or more away. I lay low an’ watched an’ listened. Someone threw brush on the campfire an’ it blazed up bright.
“There was thirteen men in thet bunch not countin’ a young feller they had tied to a saplin’. I couldn’t see his face well but it was familiar. I recognized Lee, Hargrove, Burton, Nesbit, and Summers in the firelight. There wasn’t any doubt about who they was. They meant business. It was jest like a hangin’ party. Lee and Hargrove did the talkin’ but I couldn’t ketch what they said. But I distinctly heerd the cowboy say no. He said it several times an’ shook his head violently. Then they ripped off his coat an’ shirt and beat him over the bare back. Lee was the fust to use the whip. Purty soon he stopped and asked the cowboy again some question. He cursed somethin’ awful. It was plain to me then thet Lee wanted him to confess somethin’. I heerd Hargrove say, ‘But they caught you rustlin’ calves.’ An’ the cowboy yelled: ‘Hang me and be damned!’
“They tried beatin’ him again in which several of the cattlemen took a hand. They were a pretty hard bunch, at their rope’s end. They had been drinkin’ too in South Pass. But they didn’t hang him. Mebbe they thought they could make him give up later. Anyway they untied him and led him away. I waited until they was gone and then slipped out in the open and made my way to our camp. Thatcher did not come back fer two hours. I told him what I’d seen and waited fer him to spill what he had seen. But he didn’t do it. All he said was: ‘Wait!’ He seemed kind of dazed. Long after I rolled in my blanket I saw him sittin’ by the campfire. In the mornin’ early we rode back to South Pass in time to get the stage.”
Lincoln maintained a long silence. “Vince, as if I didn’t have enough to think about without worrying about you!... Suppose you shave yourself and put on one of my clean shirts. By the way, is Thatcher as tough looking a hombre as you are?”
“No, he ain’t, pard. But he’s pretty seedy at thet.”
“And of course you’re both broke.”
“Wal, I had jest enough money left of thet you gave me to get here.”
“Well, I’ll dig up some more. Now clean yourself up and rustle out of here.”
While Vince made haste to wash and render himself more presentable, Linc lay back on the bed and thought over what the cowpoke had told him. What significance had this story of Vince with all that had preceded it? Common sense would indicate that any drastic movement in Sweetwater Valley had significance for Bradway and his problem. He went over Vince’s story again. The Nebraskan had experienced many an uprising of the cattlemen, but this was the first time he had ever known it to be a war to be waged upon cowboys. Vince discharged; Thatcher, a valuable and trusted cowhand, disgraced and threatened; some unknown cowboy made prisoner and beaten — these were indeed events that hinted of even worse to come. The next thing these irate cattlemen would do would be to kill a cowboy or worse, hang him. But what for? The answer was too easy. Rustling! But Lincoln could not persuade himself to believe that was all. Why did they beat the unknown cowboy? He had been caught red-handed stealing calves — but they would not beat him for that. Obviously they wanted him to talk, to betray someone else, to reveal to them what he was going to do with the stolen calves. The cowboy had refused to talk. Stripped and beaten, yet he resolutely clung to his secret, whatever it was. “Hang me and be damned!” Certainly such defiance as that must be in protection of a mighty important cause. A cowboy would have to possess great nerve and incentive to taunt a bunch of angry cattlemen in such circumstances. Lincoln cudgeled his brain over possible motives. From whatever angle he approached the mystery, every trail led in the same direction — toward the Maverick Queen — Kit Bandon.
The deduction was inevitable. It pointed to a grave and complex situation in the valley; it involved Kit Bandon’s machinations, whatever they were; a good many of the cowboys, perhaps all of them; and probably more than one rancher. What was this vigilante band of cattlemen really aiming to accomplish? To stop the rustling? Or was it something else? He must hurry back to South Pass in order to find out. Hanging the unknown cowboy would precipitate a most unusual and dangerous situation. Unquestionably it would be followed by further bloodshed. Lincoln had never quite liked that little cold deadly glint in Vince’s eyes. If the other cowboys, whether they were guilty of anything crooked or not, were treated in such a manner, they would rise in a body for vengeance, organize into a full-scale rustler band or start a war. They would not betray Kit Bandon. It was the code of most cowboys, gallant and sentimental, perhaps, but one to which they all adhered, never by word or deed to say or do anything that could be detrimental to a woman.
“Wal, boss, how do I look?” spoke up Vince, approaching his partner.
“Very much better, cowboy. Now you take this money and join Thatcher, get him to make himself look decent, catch yourselves something to eat. Then keep your eyes peeled and your wits about you. No more red liquor, no bucking the tiger, and avoid the Bandons. Savvy that?”
“O.K., boss. I’m shore Mel will be glad yore takin’ him on.”
“All right. That’s fine. Bring him to see me early in the morning.”
Vince met Sheriff Haught in the corridor. “Wal, cowboy, you don’t look quite so disreputable. Stick that gun you’re packin’ round under your coat so it don’t show so plain.”
“Much obliged, Sheriff. I kinda think you might be a regular feller after all. But when are you goin’ to let my pard out of jail?”
“Well, I reckon it’ll be a few days yet,” returned the sheriff. Leaving the door open he approached Lincoln. “Bradway, I went out and had a talk with thet
other cowboy and I’m bound to say that I liked him. Fine upstandin’ cowpuncher, and plenty intelligent. He’s pretty close-lipped. I know the rancher Lee that he worked for. There’s hell brewin’ over there in that valley. Now I want to know if you’re on the right side.”
“I think so, Sheriff. I’m sure of it,” replied the Nebraskan thoughtfully.
“Well, that’s good. Both of these cowboys who came here to see you are on the dividing line between goin’ to hell and goin’ straight. Not thet I think they haven’t gone straight but somethin’ has rubbed them the wrong way. Somethin’ mighty dangerous. I’ve seen Texas cowboys like thet and I know ’em like a book. Are those boys goin’ to work for you?”
“Yes they are, Sheriff, and I’m pretty sure I can control them.”
“I’ll feel better about thet when you leave here.”
“When will that be?”
“Well, I reckon you’re at liberty to go most anytime now.”
“Fine. But I’ll hang around a few days longer, Sheriff. There’re reasons.”
“I should smile there’s reasons!” replied the sheriff. “Today when I was down street a stunnin’ lookin’ girl came up to me. It took me a little bit to recognize Lucy Bandon. She was all dressed up in blue, happy, excited, and she asked me about my prisoner — meaning you, of course. I told her that you were a little weak from the loss of blood but you would be all right soon. I asked her to come down and call on you. She said, ‘Oh, I wish I dared. Maybe in a day or two if my aunt goes to Salt Lake. Will you give — a — Mr. — a — Bradway my — my best wishes?’ Told her I shore would. Now, Bradway, I haven’t known you a great while but I’ve taken a likin’ to you. But even if I hadn’t, the fact that a purty girl like Lucy Bandon’s sweet on you, would be bound to influence me.”
A melodious voice could be heard outside in the corridor. “Ahuh,” continued the sheriff, “speaking of angels or would you say the opposite — I think you have callers, Linc.” After he had stamped noisily out, Lincoln recognized the two feminine voices in reply to the sheriff’s greeting. Kit Bandon entered, followed by Lucy and Haught. Haught stopped in the doorway to speak to someone else outside. The Nebraskan forgot all caution. His glance passed by Kit, and for a moment his eyes met the blue eyes of Lucy Bradway. Almost imperceptibly she shook her head. He turned quickly to face Kit Bandon, who evidently had missed the exchange between the two.