Twin Sombreros

by Zane Grey

  “Good Lord!” breathed Brazos, over her clustering hair. But the nearness of her, the surrender of her soft palpitating person to him, the maddening fact that her white arms were slipping round his neck—these drove away the appalling thought of Janis.

  “Brazos—did you ask me—anything?” she murmured.

  “I said I would—if—when I come oot of this mess alive.”

  “Better ask me—now.”

  He was overcome and happier than he had ever hoped to be in his life.

  “Darlin’ June. I’m turrible unworthy of yu. But I love yu. . . . An’ I ask yu to—to be my wife.”

  “You have my promise,” she said, simply, and lifted her face from his shoulder, and then blushing scarlet—her lips to his.

  “There! Ah, no more! . . . Brazos!” she whispered, and slipped shyly from his arms, to close the opened dressing gown around her neck. “Go now, Brazos. It’s late. And here I am—forgetting my modesty! But you’ve made me happy. . . . I’m not afraid now, Brazos. Adios, my cowboy!”

  CHAPTER

  7

  THAT night Brazos lay a long time awake, the first hours in wondering bliss, elated, exalted, transformed, and the later hours wearing toward a realization of his appalling responsibility. In the morning when he awoke again it seemed into an enchanted land. But the light of day and the sounds outside told him that dreams must give place to the sternest, coldest rationality and cunning of his life. Brazos drove love, June, future out of his mind. He knew his job and that he was big enough for it. The harder he was, the more brazen in nerve, the quicker to recognize and outguess his enemies, the greater his chances to win. That was the West.

  At breakfast in Mexican Joe’s, Brazos met a rough cattleman whom he engaged in conversation.

  “Howdy. How’s tricks oot yore way?”

  “Too many tricks,” returned the other, gruffly.

  “Which way is thet?”

  “Over toward Spanish Peaks.”

  “Losin’ cattle?”

  “Didn’t have many an’ wouldn’t have minded the loss, but I got a note to meet at the bank.”

  “Cain’t yu get more time?”

  “I haven’t tried, stranger.”

  “Wal, tell me who rustled yu oot an’ I’ll get yore time extended.”

  “Who might you happen to be?” deliberately asked the cattleman.

  “I might happen to be anybody to yu, but to these rustlin’s—I’m plain Brazos Keene.”

  “I’m Jim Blake, an’ glad to meet you, Keene.”

  “Do yu know who’s stealin’ yore stock?”

  “No.”

  “Have any ideas?”

  “I used to have. They’ve been routed lately. Rustlers hadn’t bothered me much this last year, up till lately. There are a couple of two-bits outfits workin’ back under the Peaks. But they never raided me. My cattle was run-nin’ with the Arrow Brand, most of which was rustled last month.”

  “Arrow Brand. Whose is thet?”

  “Belongs to Patterson who recently throwed in with Surface.”

  “Ahuh. Now we’re gettin’ somewhere. Pretty slick. Rustlin’ their own stock.”

  The cattleman stared mutely at Brazos, amazed and perturbed.

  “Shore yu didn’t say thet, Blake,” added Brazos. “But I did. Thet’s what I think.”

  “Every man can’t say what he thinks. Reckon you can.”

  “Suppose yu could?”

  “You’re a cool hand, Keene. I don’t wonder no more.”

  “Wal, I’m gamblin’ I’ve guessed what you think. . . . Yu go to Henderson, the banker, an’ ask him to renew yore note. Yu can mention me.”

  “Thanks, Keene. I’ll do it . . . An’ listen—if I didn’t have a wife an’ kids I’d talk freer. Sawy thet?”

  “Jim, have yu got any cowboys?”

  “Two. One’s my son.”

  “Tell them I’ll ride oot to see them some day soon. Much obliged for tellin’ me so much. Adios.”

  That morning Brazos began patrolling Las Animas much in the same mood as that in which he had accosted Blake. It was Saturday, and the influx of cowboys and other ranch folk had noticeably begun. Brazos stalked by the Twin Sombreros restaurant looking out of the corner of his eye. Across the railroad tracks the station platform showed the usual crowd and bustle incident to the arrival of a train. Inside the station Brazos encountered Lura Surface just turning away from the ticket window. She was dressed for a journey and her appearance was striking. She carried a satchel and evidently the larger bag at her feet belonged to her.

  “Mawnin’, Lura Surface. Air yu runnin’ away on me?” drawled Brazos, doffing his sombrero.

  “Brazos Keene!” she exclaimed. Then she gave him a glance from superb green eyes that was not particularly flattering. “Yes, I am running away, and for good—if it’s anything to you.”

  “Yu don’t say. Aw, I’m sorry. I been wantin’ to see yu powerful bad.”

  “Yes, you have,” she rejoined, with scorn.

  “Honest Injun, Lura.”

  “Why didn’t you then? I wrote you. I wanted to ask you to—to help me. I went to the place where we met before. But you didn’t come. And you never wrote.”

  “Lura, thet’s too bad. I’m sorry. I never got yore letter. Fact is I haven’t been to the post office. Don’t never want to get another letter! An’ I’ve been away for weeks.”

  “I heard you had—only yesterday. Too late to save my hard feelings toward you.”

  “Lura, yu made me feel bad. What’d I do to hurt yu?”

  “The nerve of you! To ask that.”

  “Wal, I’m askin’,” he returned, with his frank smile. As a matter of fact Brazos remembered very well, and also the regret he had felt at the time.

  “It’s too late, Brazos,” she said, a little bitterly. “I’m going to Denver to marry Hal Howard.”

  “Aw! . . . yu don’t say? Wal, I’m shore congratulatin’ thet hombre.”

  “But you don’t congratulate me?” she flashed.

  “Hardly. I just cain’t see yu throwin’ yoreself away on a cairdsharp. Why, Lura, yu got all the girls oot heah skinned to a frazzle.”

  “For what? Playing at love?”

  “For downright good looks. Yu’re shore the handsomest girl I know, ootside of bein’ an heiress.”

  “If you thought so—so much of me why did you . . .” she asked, softening under his warm praise, and faltering to a close. Her hard green eyes misted over. Then she went on, “Was it because you’d heard things about my love affairs?”

  “No, it shore wasn’t,” he replied, bluntly, realizing that he had met her at a singularly opportune moment.

  “I was a flirt. But I would have told you . . . I had to have a man, Brazos. . . . If you don’t want me to hate you forever, tell me why—why you started so sweetly—and left me flat?”

  “Lura, I reckon I don’t know how sweet I started, but I shore know I fell flat,” said Brazos, earnestly. It was only a half truth, but it did not lack sincerity. “An’ if I’d gone on, meetin’ yu, I’d fall’n so turrible in love with yu thet I’d half died. But I swear, Lura, it wasn’t thet which made me back oot.”

  A perfect blaze of glow and color suffused her face and warmed it to genuine beauty. That betrayed the insatiate need of her soul—the food and drink of love without which it would starve; and her eyes shone with glad comprehension, and forgiveness. Thus she faced Brazos a moment, the truest of her womanhood possessing her, while impulsively she squeezed his hand. Then a dark intelligence succeeded all this feeling in her glance, with a swift reversion to the fact that they were not alone in a railroad station.

  “Brazos! You were afraid of Dad?” she whispered.

  “No. Not thet. . . . Lura, I’m not afraid of any man. But it was because he was yore father.”

  She met his piercing gaze with understanding, and a visible shudder.

  “I can forgive you now, Brazos. And I can return your confidence. . . . Dad want
ed you hanged. And you didn’t want me to break my heart over a cowboy who knew why Dad wanted him out of the way. . . . Howard figured it all out. He had that hold on Father—so we played it for all it was worth—while I was still an heiress.”

  The train whistled for the stop. Lura designated her bag, which Brazos took up. They went out on the platform, where Brazos reverted to the man who was not going to be surprised by an enemy. The engine rumbled past; the train halted with squeak and jar; and there followed the bustle incident to its arrival. Brazos helped Lura on, found a seat for her, and depositing her bag he held out his hand, finding speech difficult.

  “Good-by an’ good luck,” he said. “Yu’re game, Lura. . . . I’m gonna risk a word of advice. Stop Howard’s caird playin.”

  “He will not need to gamble,” she flashed with a smile.

  “Ahuh. Thet’s fine. . . . Doggone it Lura, I wish now I hadn’t been so—so cold thet day.”

  “Cowboy devil! Maybe I don’t. Too late, Brazos. But oh, I’m glad I know. . . . There! You must run. One last word, Brazos Keene. Lean closer.” She put her cool lips to his ear, in what certainly was a caress as well as an act of secrecy. “For my sake, spare Dad the rope!”

  Brazos could find no answer. He clasped her hand hard, bent over it and then let go to stand erect. The train was moving. One last glance he took at her eyes, brimming with tears, and dark with pain. Then he wheeled to run back to the platform, and jump off. He stood till the train passed by, and then, absorbed in thought, he moved to stand back against the high wooden platform of the freight house. And whirling thoughts occupied his mind.

  The crowd cleared away; the station platform grew vacant except for a blanketed Mexican; the boy with the mail bags went off toward the post office; horses and wagons moved down the main street of Las Animas.

  Out of the welter of his thoughts Brazos attained a clear thread of fact and reasoning. It came only after regret and admiration for Lura Surface had had their sway.

  Despite his first conception of her and the succeeding estimates to which he had listened, Brazos preferred to believe in her genuine interest in him. Perhaps he flattered his masculine vanity. He knew that many women had an instinct to collect men as an Indian brave had to collect scalps. For his own duplicity he suffered a modicum of shame, but he excused it on the score of necessity, and felt glad that he had left her the impression that not personality but circumstances had disrupted her love affair with him. That had done no harm; it had pleased and mollified her, and had moved her to a startling confession and plea.

  Lura Surface had learned what a great scoundrel her father was. She had then visualized or had been told of his inevitable downfall. She and Howard had frightened him or forced him to give them a considerable sum of money, and they were eloping. And Lura, in reward to Brazos for his sentimental assurance, had verified his suspicions about her father, though not as a betrayal. She had wanted Brazos to know that she knew that he knew. And lastly, with a true Western girl’s knowledge of what her father deserved, she had implored Brazos to spare him the deepest degradation of a cattleman.

  Brazos wended a pondering watchful way down the street. At the corner where the bank stood an idea struck him. He went in to see Henderson.

  Without any greeting or other preliminary Brazos flung a query at the keen-eyed banker.

  “Did this heah bank get held up yesterday or maybe day before?”

  “By a bandit?” replied Henderson, laughing despite his surprise.

  “I reckon one man might think thet . . . . A bandit with green eyes an’ red hair.”

  “Keene, you’re a wizard. You beat me all hollow.”

  “Wal, come oot with it then. Didn’t Raine Surface draw a big sum of money?”

  “All he had in cash.”

  “How much was thet?”

  “Close to forty thousand dollars.”

  “Doggone! . . . An’ wasn’t Howard with him?”

  “Yes. Surface claimed it was a gambling debt. He didn’t strike me as good a loser as usual.”

  “Gamblin’ debt yore eye!” retorted Brazos, scornfully. “Hendeison, thet was the price of Howard’s silence. The gambler sold oot cheap. But still he got the girl.”

  “Lura!”

  “Who else?”

  “Good heavens!” ejaculated the banker, intensely astonished. “I begin to see light.”

  “Yu been wearin’ blinders long enough, Henderson. Keep this under yore hat for the present.”

  “Wait, Keene,” said the other, as Brazos turned to go. “That little matter of putting Bodkin in as sheriff has come up. What’ll I do about it?”

  “Air yu still in Surface’s Cattle Association?”

  “I resigned.”

  “Wal, if I was yu, Mr. Henderson, I’d say pretty pert thet I was for savin’ the town Bodkin’s burial expenses by not electin’ him sheriff.”

  “That’s certainly pert. I’ll do it, Brazos. But let me give you a hunch. They’ll make Bodkin sheriff.”

  “Shore they will—if he’s crazy enough to accept it. I guess I better throw a scare into him.”

  Brazos left the bank to stalk down the street. The business of this important day was in full swing. All available space along the sidewalks was occupied by wagons, buckboards and saddle horses. It was dusty and hot. Shirt-sleeved Westerners of every class moved along the walks or stood at doors or corners. It was noticeable to Brazos that as he approached, some of them froze and most of them attempted to conceal restraint. None of them met his glance. But when he passed they turned to watch him.

  Passing the open door of the largest merchandise store Las Animas could boast of, Brazos had a glimpse of Bodkin holding forth to a group of men, some of them dusty yellow-booted visitors from the range. Brazos passed on and halted. What could he make out of an encounter with Bodkin? The man would not draw. But he could be made a target for speech that would sweep over town like fire in prairie grass.

  Brazos turned back to enter the store. He assumed a swinging forward crouch and the sullen mien of a cowboy who had been tilting the bottle. The little group spread from a circle to a line, leaving Bodkin in the center and apart. The action was like clockwork. Bodkin showed no marked effect at sight of Brazos. As the cowboy had let him off before, he would again. This time, however, the ex-deputy packed a gun at his hip.

  “Bodkin, I been lookin’ all over this heah town for yu,” declared Brazos, in a surly voice.

  “Keene, I haven’t been hidin’,” complained Bodkin.

  “Wal, yu’re damn hard to find, an’ yu shore got thet Barsh hombre hid somewhere.”

  “He’s out of town.”

  “When’s he comin’ back?”

  “I don’t know. Probably soon.”

  “Can yu get word to him?”

  “I could if I wanted to.”

  “Ahuh. Wal, yu better want to. Yu tell yore ropin’ hombre thet he’d be wise to stay away from heah or else do some tall figgerin’ how he’s gonna keep me from borin’ him.”

  “Keene, Barsh wouldn’t dare meet you in an even break. He’s only a boy. He never shot at a man. An’ you wouldn’t shoot him in cold blood.”

  “Hell I wouldn’t! Hasn’t there been a lot of shootin’ in cold blood goin’ on aboot heah? . . . I’m sore, Bodkin. I’m spittin’ fire.”

  “So I see. That’s your game. It’s none of my business. Everybody knows you’re rarin’ to fight, but you don’t shoot men who’re tryin’ to keep out of your way.”

  “What’s to keep me from shootin’ Barsh’s laig off?” demanded Brazos, swaggering a little. He had his sombrero pulled down over his eyes so that they were in shadow.

  “Your bein’ Brazos Keene, I reckon.”

  “An’ what’s to keep me from shootin’ yore laig off?”

  “I’m not worryin’ none,” returned Bodkin, but the fading of his healthy tan attested to another state of mind. The interview had begun to be painful to him. He seemed to catch a point in it.


  “Ahuh. I reckon yu got me figgered good. . . . Wal, then, yu’re so damn smart what’s to keep me from shootin’ Raine Surface’s laig off?”

  Bodkin’s start and expression were peculiar, and he did not reply. All the other men stood spellbound. The business of the big store ceased, clerks and customers standing amazed in their tracks.

  “Answer thet, Bodkin. Talk, damn yu! Wasn’t yu loudmouthed when I dropped in on yu?” shouted Brazos, in a loud sullen voice that halted pedestrians outside. “What’s to keep me from shootin’ Raine Surface’s laig off?”

  “Nothin’, Keene—nothin’,” ejaculated the other, harassed and impotent. He knew what was coming and he could not ward it off. Only a gun could do that! “But you couldn’t do it—any more than to Brash. . . . Mr. Surface is out of your reach. He’s a big man on this range. You’re loco, Keene. You’re drunk.”

  “Not so drunk as yu reckon, Bodkin. . . . An’ yu’re defendin’ Surface from a likker-soakin’, fire-spittin’, gun-throwin’ cowboy?”

  “I’m tryin’ to talk sense. You might as well bust in on Henderson in the bank, or Mr.Jones here at his desk—as Raine Surface. Why, it’s outlandish. . . . Mr. Surface is a generous, big-hearted gentleman, a power in this town, a fine citizen who has the best interests of the community—”

  “Haw! Haw!” interrupted Brazos, in harsh mockery. “Bodkin, yu must be a fool as wal as the other things yu air. I reckon next yu’ll say Surface never did anythin’ against me.”

  “Sure he—never did,” panted Bodkin, loyally, beginning to sweat. He was caught in a trap of his own setting.

  “The hell’s fire he didn’t! How aboot ridin’ after yu thet day an’ orderin’—I say orderin’—yu to hang me right then an’ there?”

  “He didn’t order me. I was actin’ under orders from Kiskadden.”

  “Yu lyin’ tool of thet two-faced cattleman.” Brazos fairly hurled the epithet. “An’ next yu’ll be sayin’ thet Surface didn’t beat Abe Neece oot of Twin Sombreros Ranch. . . . He didn’t steal the herd of Texas longhorns thet Neece had comin’ north. Aw, no—not atall! He didn’t have his tools buy off or kill Neece’s ootfit of riders an’ drive thet herd west along the Cimarron, over the Dry Trail across New Mexico to the railroad? Aw, no—not atall! . . . Surface didn’t have his tools—one of which you air, damn yore yellow skin! He didn’t have them hold Neece up thet night late an’ rob him of the money Neece was takin’ to the bank next mawnin’. . . . Aw, hell no! not atall! . . . An’ yore big-hearted respectable fine boss didn’t have nothin’ to do with Allen Neece’s murder?”