by Zane Grey
When they got outside and Brazos went to the hitching rail to untie Bay, he glanced back into the restaurant. June still stood there, as if alone in the crowded room, her big eyes dark upon him. They made Brazos’ heart leap, and then they sobered him out of selfish exultation. Had he misled this girl and her sister to hope vainly? He cursed himself for a reckless cowboy.
“Jack, where’s yore hawse?” he asked, gruffly.
“I don’t own one.”
“Hell! A cowboy without a hawse! . . . We gotta remedy thet. I’ll get one from Hank. Where yu live?”
“Out of town. Not far,” replied Sain, evasively.
“It was doggone good to meet yu, Jack. I kinda like yu,” said Brazos, as he tightened his cinch. “We gotta see a lot of each other.”
“Well, cowboy, if you have ever been withoot a job or a hoss or a friend, you’ll know how I feel,” rejoined Sain, and bidding Brazos good night, he strode away up the dimly lighted street.
“Wal. Thet boy’s in trouble more’n aboot a girl,” soliloquized Brazos, as he swung up on Bay. “Doggone it, there’s nothin’ but trouble in this world. Heah I am deep in again an’ lovin’ it!”
Brazos rode out to the stable where Bilyen kept his horse while in town, and turning Bay over to the boy there, he drifted slowly up the street. Brazos could never control his heart but he had long been absolute master over his mind. And it behooved him to relegate this sweet insidious emotion to the background and begin cudgeling his brains.
The main street of Las Animas had always boasted of its numerous saloons, gambling dens and dance halls. These did not appear to be so numerous or so prosperous as during the cattle drives of 1874 and later, but there were plenty left, Brazos thought, and some as disreputable looking as they had ever been.
Brazos strolled up one side of the long wide street and down on the other. It took him just the half-hour required for this walk to decide on his line of procedure. After all, it seemed to Brazos, vital things were decided for him. With how many thousand crooked men had he rubbed elbows? What was it that made him gravitate toward the crux of a situation? Brazos asked himself many questions that he never answered. He had a supreme faith in something that led him on. All he had to do was to ride the range, and walk this wide street of Las Animas, and hang around the drinking dives and gambling dens, and the stores and corners. Watching and listening had become second nature with Brazos. When he got a scent he would track it like a hound. Allen Neece had been murdered. His father had been robbed. These black deeds seemed bracketed together. There had been a plot against the Neeces, whether simple or complex Brazos had not clarified in his mind. On the moment it looked pretty simple to Brazos. All he had to do was to find a man named Brad or Bard and a companion with a high-pitched nervous voice. That might happen any time, but Brazos did not delude himself. A rotten deal like this would have many little clues, all leading to the main issue, which was the theft of cattle on a gigantic scale.
At length, Brazos entered a saloon named Happy Days, which was a new one to him. But the garish furnishings, the noisy drinkers and the smell of rum were far from unfamiliar. The hour was too early for the gamesters. Brazos’ entrance did not appear to be noted, but though he held aloof from bar and guests, he was seen and recognized. He did not need to pretend that he was looking for someone. He actually was, though he did not know whom, and his presence had a quieting effect upon the inmates.
From this place he passed along the street taking in the several saloons. Returning on the opposite side, he entered the Call You gambling den, a house that had once been pretentious and patronized by the range elect, but which now was the most sordid he had seen. He found the bar crowded and the gaming tables mostly occupied. At one sat a gambler who would have attracted a less keen eye than Brazos’. His pale cold face, enhanced by his dark frock coat, drew attention to himself in a saloon full of range-garbed men. He espied Brazos not many seconds after Brazos singled him out. His glance held more than the cold curiosity of the gambler. Brazos accosted a cowboy on the way out.
“Say, bud, who’s the cairdsharp?” he asked.
“Reckon they’re all sharps in this camp. . . . Thet’s Howard.”
“Where does he hail from?”
“Denver, they say.”
“Howard. . . . Is he the only flash gambler here-aboots?”
“You don’t see many like him. An’ he drops in from the train pretty often.”
“I’m a stranger heah,” explained Brazos.
“Wal, if you wasn’t you wouldn’t be askin’ questions about Howard.”
“Yeah? An’ why not?”
“He ain’t partial to curiosity.”
“Aw, I see. Ladies’ man, huh?”
“Cowboy, he’s a killer in more ways than one. Haw! Haw!”
Brazos strolled unobtrusively around until he reached a point behind Howard. The gambler sat at table with three cowboys, playing poker, and he appeared to be ahead of the game.
“Excuse me, but I object to any one standing behind me,” presently spoke up the gambler, politely.
“Wal, thet’s no wonder,” drawled Brazos. “I’ll go around on this side.”
“What you hintin’ at, cowboy?” growled one of the three youths at the table, gazing irritably up at Brazos.
“Gosh, I wasn’t hintin’.”
“Hell you wasn’t. You better—”
“Shut up, before you say somethin’,” fiercely interrupted the player next to the disgruntled one. “Don’t you have no idee who you’re talkin’ to?”
After that the three cowboys were apparently blind to Brazos’ presence, but the gambler was not, though he did not look up directly. Brazos watched him steadily, studied his features, his frock coat, his white, wonderfully dexterous hands. At length the gambler queried sarcastically:
“Don’t you want to sit in?”
“Game’s too slow for me.”
“You appear mighty interested in watching it. I must ask you to sit in or get out.”
“Wal, I’ll tell you, mister,” replied Brazos. “I’d like to join yu, but it sorta riles me to play cairds with a caird-sharp when he’s got a little gun hid high up under his coat on the left side.”
The gambler dropped his cards, and his hand quivered while his eyes blazed cold fury upon Brazos.
“Careful, Howard,” interposed the eldest of the three cowboys. “Don’t be crazy enough to draw on thet fellar.”
“Who is he?” snapped the gambler, perceptibly relaxing.
“Wal, I ain’t sayin’. He might be Billy the Kid.”
“Brazos Keene’s my name, if you want to know,” said Brazos.
At this juncture, the losing member of the cowboy triangle leaped up, red of face, to slam his cards down on the table. “Whoever he is, he’s busted up this game,” he said.
“An’ a damn good thing,” agreed the third.
They abruptly left the gambler sitting alone. He raked in the few chips and little silver that his fellow players had abandoned. It was obvious that the presence of Brazos and the attention thus attracted to himself were distinctly unwelcome.
“Brazos Keene, eh?” he queried at length, sitting back to flash brilliant icy eyes upon Brazos.
“Yeah. An’ I heahed one of yore victims call you Howard.”
“That’s my name,” replied the gambler, curtly.
“From up Denver way, I heah?”
“Where I hail from and what I do doesn’t concern you, cowboy.”
“Wal, I’m not so damn shore aboot the last.”
“Were those fellows friends of yours?”
“Never saw them before. It was the way yu hide the little derringer gun thet riled me. I just naturally get cussed when I see thet kind of gun-packin’.”
“So you broke up my game.”
“I didn’t intend to do thet. Yu talked powerful sarcastic, so I thought I’d call yu an’ see if yu’d throw yore toy pistol,” drawled Brazos, with glinting eyes that did not match his soft voice.
The gambler’s face turned a shade grayer, either from anger or realization of what he had escaped.
“Curiosity has cost many men their lives.”
“Shore. But not men like me. An’ now I’ll tell yu thet I had another reason for tryin’ yu oot.”
“I had a hunch you did. And what is it, Mister Keene?”
Brazos leaned close to the thin-lipped cold face and answered low:
“Ask Lura Surface.”
It was a random shot that Brazos hazarded, but it went home. Howard growled his surprise and wrath, and turning on his heel strode by the watching line of curious men to the bar, where he ordered whisky.
Brazos backed against the wall and leaned there. He kept a narrowed gaze upon the gambler until he left the saloon. From sundry remarks which came to Brazos’ ears he gathered that he had not hurt his status there by offending Howard. Brazos pondered over the amaze and rancor Howard had evidenced. Indeed there must be something between Lura Surface and this handsome cardsharp who secreted a small gun in his breast pocket where he could snatch it swiftly. Something that probably was to Miss Surface’s discredit. Brazos had nothing against her. He really liked her for her defense of him. Nevertheless, in his cunning speculative mind she was being relegated to a place where she could not be considered with feeling. Brazos decided, however, to give her the benefit of a doubt.
A little before ten o’clock, Brazos wended a reluctant and yet impelled way toward the Twin Sombreros Restaurant. He could not have resisted the urge if he had wanted to. And he fought off the presage of calamity. When he arrived at the corner, he espied one of the twins talking to Henry Sisk. Indeed the two were arguing if not actually quarreling, from which fact Brazos deduced that this was Janis. There appeared to be several customers who were being waited upon by a Mexican girl.
Brazos mounted the side stairway leading up to the second story and knocked on the door, sure of the trepidation and another nameless sensation obsessing him. The door opened as if someone had heard his step outside. June stood there, in a white dress that had never been made in Las Animas. This apparition smiled upon him and Brazos dated his abject enthrallment from that moment. As always with him, when a thing was settled, inevitable, he found his cool easy poise.
“Evenin’, Miss June. I reckon I’m ahaid of time,” he said.
“No. You are late. Come in.”
She ushered Brazos into a cozy bright little sitting room. “Auntie, this is our newfound friend, Mr. Brazos Keene,” she said to a gray-haired woman who sat beside the lamp table. “My Aunt Mattie, Miss Neece—Daddy’s sister.”
Brazos made the lady a recipient of his most gallant bow and pleasantest smile. “I shore am glad to meet yu, Miss Neece,” he drawled, as he bent to take the hand she hesitatingly offered. “Yu favor yore brother an’ I’d have known yu.”
“For the land’s sake! . . . June, this nice-looking boy can’t be your terrible Brazos Keene,” exclaimed the aunt.
“Yes, he is, Auntie.”
“Aw, Miss Neece, don’t believe everythin’ yu heah,” implored Brazos, honestly. “I’m not turrible at all.”
“I don’t believe you are. I’m glad to meet you. Janis filled my old head with nonsense. Said you were a black-browed giant—very fierce to see.”
“Air yu shore it was Janis?” inquired Brazos.
“Yes, indeed. June has been telling me the . . . well, I’ll not give her away. But your ears must have burned. . . . Take his hat, June. . . . And hadn’t you better lay aside that cumbersome gun?”
“Wal, Lady, I wouldn’t feel dressed proper if I did thet. . . . There, I’ll slip it around so you cain’t see it.”
“Thank you, I—I guess that’s better,” she replied, rising. “Mr. Keene, you met my brother Abraham?”
“I did, an’ [shore like him.”
“June tells me you cheered him up,” she went on, in hurried earnestness. “And Dave Wesley called on me this afternoon. He had just ridden by Bilyen’s ranch. He said he had not seen my brother so near like his old self. Oh, if you are responsible for that, I thank you.”
“Lady, I’m afraid I am responsible,” rejoined Brazos, seriously. “An’ I shore hope I didn’t overdo it.”
“Have you any ground to believe Abraham’s loss can be retrieved?” she asked, beseechingly.
“I cain’t explain. It’s what a cowboy calls a hunch. I’ve trailed up a good many of my hunches an’ never lost oot on one yet.”
“Only a hunch! Oh, I had prayed you might have really learned something,” she returned, sadly.
“Miss Neece, I cain’t talk aboot it now. All I can say is for yu to go on hopin’ and prayin’, too.”
“Perhaps Abraham will tell me. I’ll see him tomorrow. Good night, Mr. Brazos Keene. Somehow you inspire me strangely. . . . June, I’ll leave you young folks alone. Good night, dear.”
Brazos found himself alone with June Neece; and his five endless years of wandering for he knew not what were as if they had never been.
“You must understand Auntie, and Jan and me,” said June, gravely. “It is not the loss of Dad’s fortune, and Twin Sombreros Ranch that hurts so terribly. It was Dad’s broken heart. All these years he had worked for us. The blow crushed him. And he was sinking under it. . . . Then Allen’s sudden ghastly death . . .”
Her face was white and her big eyes shone darkly tragic up at him.
“Never mind, June,” interposed Brazos, feelingly. “I reckon I understand. It’s hard. But you must bear up. . . . I’ve had my grief. An’ I’m a livin’ proof thet grief passes—an’ thet joy an’ hope come back.”
“You have had trouble?” she asked, softly.
“For five years I’ve been a driven cowboy . . . an’ my trouble came to an end today—when I met yu.”
“Me? . . . Oh!” She warmed wonderingly to that. “Tell me your story.”
“Some day, when I reckon I dare.”
They stood by the table, with glances locked, and constraint overcoming the simplicity of that meeting. June turned away with a blush, only to be drawn again to look at him, as if to make sure the situation was real.
“Brazos Keene! . . . To think I’m alone with him! Oh, I’ve heard who and what you are. It has been on the lips of everybody all day long.”
“Wal, I hope it’s goin’ to be good for yu thet I am Brazos Keene,” returned he, mournfully. “But maybe if I was Henry Sisk or Jack Sain I would have more chance for you to like me.”
“Brazos, don’t be hurt,” she said, hurriedly, and put an appealing hand on his arm. “I’m glad. I’ve always dreamed I’d . . .” she broke off, blushing. “I’m Western, you know. And I saw a good deal of the life here before Dad sent me away to school. I’ve a weakness for—for desperadoes. So has Janis. . . . Only it seems so strange to be with you—to know. Who would ever take you for—what they call you? No wonder Auntie could not believe her eyes! You do not look it.”
“Wal, what do I look, then?” he queried, a little gruffly, for once weakening to permit discussion of this delicate subject.
“I haven’t really dared to look at you—close,” she rejoined, shyly. “Come here, your back is to the light. . . . There. Brazos, at the risk of seeming a flatterer like Lura Surface, I must say you’re a stunning-looking cowboy. You’ve a clean tanned, boyish, handsome face—nice curly hair almost blond, the kind any girl would like to run her fingers through. . . . Oh, Brazos! It’s a little gray over your temples! . . . And your eyes take something from your winning smile and soft Southern drawl.”
“My Gawd, June, you must have kissed the blarney stone. Now, what’s wrong with my eyes?”
“Nothing. Janis said they were gray. Now I see they’re blue. You’re making sheep’s eyes at me now, Brazos Keene. But you can’t fool me. Those eyes could be terrible.”
“Could they? But I’m comin’ back at yu, June Neece. There’s nothin’ wrong with yu atall. An’ to say yu’re the prettiest girl I ever saw in my life isn’t
sayin’ what I mean. I reckon it’s the class yu was born with an’ somethin’ yu got away at school.”
“We are getting on,” she replied, demurely.
“Yu mean we’re gettin’ some place where I’ve no right to be?”
“Come sit here,” she returned, and led him to a little sofa in the corner. They gazed at each other again, questioningly, yet with no hint of doubt or uncertainty. There was something vital, compelling, drawing, that made no allowance for short acquaintance.
“June, I’m gonna be honest. Meetin’ yu has thrown me plumb oot of my saddle.”
“It means much to me, Brazos—I don’t know what.”
“Yu’re countin’ on yore hopes of what I can do for yore Dad?”
“Yes, But if we were out home—at Twin Sombreros—and if we had no trouble—I—think I would feel the same.”
“Girl, yu cain’t be in love with Jack Sain?”
“Who said I was?” she answered, smiling. “I like Jack. We played together when we were kids.”
“Wal, I was afraid—I reckon I thought yu might care more’n thet. Jack is crazy aboot yu, which is no wonder.”
“I’m sorry, Brazos. But I didn’t flirt with him as Jan did with Henry Sisk. I’m sorry for Jack in more ways than one. He has had one misfortune after another. And the last is too bad. He had just found a good job after being idle for months, then lost it.”
“How’d he lose it?”
“Al said he was running after Lura Surface. Her father caught them meeting on the road one night. He raised Cain and had Jack discharged.”
“Ahuh. The Surfaces don’t mix up in this thing—Aw, no, not atall. . . . June, I’m gonna meet thet young lady oot along the road, tomorrow afternoon. But I’m not runnin’ after her.”
“Already! You? I thought you might be one man proof——”
Brazos took June’s hands in his and bent to interrupt her.
“Listen, June. If I hadn’t met yu, I’d have flirted with Lura Surface. But I have met yu—an’ thet’s all the difference in the world. . . . Raine Surface is one of these respectable crooked cattlemen. I’ve met a few like him—to their sorrow, an’ my idee in meetin’ this girl is to get at things. Thet’s my way, June. I cain’t explain. But I follow my hunches. Please believe me, June.”