The Quirt

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE SAWTOOTH SHOWS ITS HAND

  In her fictitious West Lorraine had long since come to look uponviolence as a synonym for picturesqueness; murder and mystery wereinevitably an accompaniment of chaps and spurs. But when a man she hadcooked breakfast for, had talked with just a few hours ago, lay dead inthe bunk-house, she forgot that it was merely an expected incident ofWestern life. She lay in her bed shaking with nervous dread, and theshrill rasping of the crickets and tree-toads was unendurable.

  After the first shock had passed a deep, fighting rage filled her, madeher long for day so that she might fight back somehow. Who was theSawtooth Company, that they could sweep human beings from their path soruthlessly and never be called to account? Not once did she doubt thatthis was the doing of the Sawtooth, another carefully planned"accident" calculated to rid the country of another man who in somefashion had become inimical to their interests.

  From Lone she had learned a good deal about the new irrigation projectwhich lay very close to the Sawtooth's heart. She could see how theQuirt ranch, with its water rights and its big, fertile meadows and itsfences and silent disapprobation of the Sawtooth's methods, might belooked upon as an obstacle which they would be glad to remove.

  That her father had been sent down that grade with a brake deliberatelymade useless was a horrible thought which she could not put from hermind. She had thought and thought until it seemed to her that she knewexactly how and why the killer's plans had gone awry. She was certainthat she and Swan had prevented him from climbing down into the canyonand making sure that her dad did not live to tell what mischance hadovertaken him. He had probably been watching while she and Swan madethat stretcher and carried her dad away out of his reach. He would notshoot _her_,--he would not dare. Nor would he dare come to the cabin andfinish the job he had begun. But he had managed to kill Frank--poor oldFrank, who would never grumble and argue over little things again.

  There was nothing picturesque, nothing adventurous about it. It was juststraight, heart-breaking tragedy, that had its sordid side too. Her dadwas a querulous sick man absorbed by his sufferings and not yet out ofdanger, if she read the doctor's face aright. Jim and Sorry had takenorders all their life, and they would not be able to handle the ranchwork alone; yet how else would it be done? There was Lone,--instinctivelyshe turned her thoughts to him for comfort. Lone would stay and help,and somehow it would be managed.

  But to think that these things could be done without fear ofretribution. Jim and Sorry, Swan and Lone had not attempted to hidetheir belief that the Sawtooth was responsible for Frank's death, yetnot one of them had hinted at the possibility of calling the sheriff, orplacing the blame where it belonged. They seemed brow-beaten into thebelief that it would be useless to fight back. They seemed to look uponthe doings of the Sawtooth as an act of Providence, like being struck bylightning or freezing to death, as men sometimes did in that country.

  To Lorraine that passive submission was the most intolerable part, theone thing she could not, would not endure. Had she lived all of her lifeon the Quirt, she probably would never have thought of fighting back andwould have accepted conditions just as her dad seemed to accept them.But her mimic West had taught her that women sometimes dared where themen had hesitated. It never occurred to her that she should submit tothe inevitable just because the men appeared to do so.

  Wherefore it was a new Lorraine who rose at daybreak and silently cookedbreakfast for the men, learned from Jim that Sorry was not back fromEcho, and that Swan and Lone had gone down to the place where Frank hadbeen found. She poured Jim's coffee and went on her tiptoes to see ifher father still slept. She dreaded his awakening and the moment whenshe must tell him about Frank, and she had an unreasonable hope that thenews might be kept from him until the doctor came again.

  Brit was awake, and the look in his eyes frightened Lorraine so that shestopped in the middle of the room, staring at him fascinated.

  "Well," he said flatly, "who is it this time? Lone, or--Frank?"

  "Why--who is what?" Lorraine parried awkwardly. "I don't----"

  "Did they git Frank, las' night?" Brit's eyes seemed to bore into hersoul, searching pitilessly for the truth. "Don't lie to me, Raine--itain't going to help any. Was it Frank or Lone? They's a dead man laidout on this ranch. Who is it?"

  "F-frank," Lorraine stammered, backing away from him. "H-how did youknow?"

  "How did it happen?" Brit's eyes were terrible.

  Lorraine shuddered while she told him.

  "Rabbits in a trap," Brit muttered, staring at the low ceiling. "Can'tprove nothing--couldn't convict anybody if we could prove it. BillWarfield's got this county under his thumb. Rabbits in a trap. Raine,you better pack up and go home to your mother. There's goin' to be hella-poppin' if I live to git outa this bed."

  Lorraine stooped over him, and her eyes were almost as terrible as wereBrit's. "Let it pop. We aren't quitters, are we, dad? I'm going to staywith you." Then she saw tears spilling over Brit's eyelids and left theroom hurriedly, fighting back a storm of weeping. She herself could notmourn for Frank with any sense of great personal loss, but it wasdifferent with her dad. He and Frank had lived together for so manyyears that his loyal heart ached with grief for that surly, faithful oldpartner of his.

  But Lorraine's fighting blood was up, and she could not waste time inweeping. She drank a cup of coffee, went out and called Jim, and toldhim that she was going to take a ride, and that she wanted a decenthorse.

  "You can take mine," Jim offered. "He's gentle and easy-gaited. I'll gosaddle up. When do you want to go?"

  "Right now, as soon as I'm ready. I'll fix dad's breakfast, and you canlook after him until Lone and Swan come back. One of them will stay withhim then. I may be gone for three or four hours. I'll go crazy if I stayhere any longer."

  Jim eyed her while he bit off a chew of tobacco. "It'd be a good thingif you had some neighbor woman come in and stay with yuh," he saidslowly. "But there ain't any I can think of that'd be much force. Youtake Snake and ride around close and forget things for awhile." Hehesitated, his hand moving slowly back to his pocket. "If yuh feel likeyou want a gun----"

  Lorraine laughed bitterly. "You don't think any accident would happen to_me_, do you?"

  "Well, no--er I wouldn't advise yuh to go ridin'," Jim saidthoughtfully. "This here gun's kinda techy, anyway, unless you're usedto a quick trigger. Yuh might be safer without it than with it."

  By the time she was ready, Jim was tying his horse, Snake, to thecorral. Lorraine walked slowly past the bunk-house with her face turnedfrom it and her thoughts dwelling terrifiedly upon what lay within. Onceshe was past she began running, as if she were trying to outrun herthoughts. Jim watched her gravely, untied Snake and stood at his headwhile she mounted, then walked ahead of her to the gate and opened itfor her.

  "Yore nerves are sure shot to hell," he blurted sympathetically as sherode past him. "I guess you need a ride, all right. Snake's plumb safe,so yuh got no call to worry about him. Take it easy, Raine, on theworrying. That's about the worst thing you can do."

  Lorraine gave him a grateful glance and a faint attempt at a smile, androde up the trail she always took,--the trail where she had met Lonethat day when he returned her purse, the trail that led to FredThurman's ranch and to Sugar Spring and, if you took a certain turn at acertain place, to Granite Ridge and beyond.

  Up on the ridge nearest the house Al Woodruff shifted his position sothat he could watch her go. He had been watching Lone and Swan and thedog, trailing certain tracks through the sagebrush down below, and whenLorraine rode away from the Quirt they were in the wagon road, fussingaround the place where Frank had been found.

  "They can't pin nothing on _me_," Al tried to comfort himself. "If thatdamn girl would keep her mouth shut I could stand a trial, even. Theyain't got any evidence whatever, unless she saw me at Rock City thatnight." He turned and looked again toward the two men down on the roadand tilted his mouth down at the corners in a
sour grin.

  "Go to it and be damned to you!" he muttered. "You haven't got the dope,and you can't git it, either. Trail that horse if you want to--I'd liketo see yuh amuse yourselves that way!"

  He turned again to stare after Lorraine, meditating deeply. If she hadonly been a man, he would have known exactly how to still her tongue,but he had never before been called upon to deal with the problem ofkeeping a woman quiet. He saw that she was taking the trail toward FredThurman's, and that she was riding swiftly, as if she had some errand inthat direction, something urgent. Al was very adept at reading men'smoods and intentions from small details in their behavior. He had seenLorraine start on several leisurely, purposeless rides, and her changedmanner held a significance which he did not attempt to belittle.

  He led his horse down the side of the ridge opposite the road and thehouse, mounted there and rode away after Lorraine, keeping parallel withthe trail but never using it, as was his habit. He made no attempt toovertake her, and not once did Lorraine glimpse him or suspect that shewas being followed. Al knew well the art of concealing his movements andhis proximity from the inquisitive eyes of another man's saddle horse,and Snake had no more suspicion than his rider that they were notaltogether alone that morning.

  Lorraine sent him over the trail at a pace which Jim had long sincereserved for emergencies. But Snake appeared perfectly able and willingto hold it and never stumbled or slowed unexpectedly as didYellowjacket, wherefore Lorraine rode faster than she would have donehad she known more about horses.

  Still, Snake held his own better than even Jim would have believed, andcarried Lorraine up over Granite Ridge and down into the Sawtooth flatalmost as quickly as Lorraine expected him to do. She came up to theSawtooth ranch-houses with Snake in a lather of sweat and with her owndetermination unweakened to carry the war into the camp of her enemy. Itwas, she firmly believed, what should have been done long ago; whatwould have curbed effectually the arrogant powers of the Sawtooth.

  She glanced at the foreman's cottage only to make sure that Hawkins wasnowhere in sight there, and rode on toward the corrals, interceptingHawkins and a large, well-groomed, smooth-faced man whom she knew atonce must be Senator Warfield himself. Unconsciously Lorraine mentallyfitted herself into a dramatic movie "scene" and plunged straight intothe subject.

  "There has been," she said tensely, "another Sawtooth accident. Itworked better than the last one, when my father was sent over the gradeinto Spirit Canyon. Frank Johnson is _dead_. I am here to discover whatyou are going to do about it?" Her eyes were flashing, her chest wasrising and falling rapidly when she had finished. She looked straightinto Senator Warfield's face, her own full in the sunlight, so that, hadthere been a camera "shooting" the scene, her expression would have beenfully revealed--though she did not realize all that.

  Senator Warfield looked her over calmly (just as a director would havewished him to do) and turned to Hawkins. "Who is this girl?" he asked."Is she the one who came here temporarily--deranged?"

  "She's the girl," Hawkins affirmed, his eyes everywhere but onLorraine's face. "Brit Hunter's daughter--they say."

  "They _say_? I _am_ his daughter! How dare you take that tone, Mr.Hawkins? My home is at the Quirt. When you strike at the Quirt youstrike at me. When you strike at me I am going to strike back. Since Icame here two men have been killed and my father has been nearly killed.He may die yet--I don't know what effect this shock will have upon him.But I know that Frank is dead, and that it's up to me now to see thatjustice is done. You--you cowards! You will kill a man for the sake of afew dollars, but you kill in the dark. You cover your murders under thepretense of accidents. I want to tell you this: Of all the men you havemurdered, Frank Johnson will be avenged. You are going to answer forthat. I shall see that you _do_ answer for it! There is justice in thiscountry, there _must_ be. I'm going to demand that justice shall bemeasured out to you. I----"

  "Was she violent, before?" Senator Warfield asked Hawkins in anundertone which Lorraine heard distinctly. "You're a deputy, Hawkins. Ifthis keeps on, I'm afraid you will have to take her in and have hercommitted for insanity. It's a shame, poor thing. At her age it ispitiful. Look how she has ridden that horse! Another mile would havefinished him."

  "Do you mean to say you think I'm crazy? What an idea! It seems to me,Senator Warfield, that you are crazy yourself, to imagine that you cango on killing people and thinking you will never have to pay thepenalty. You _will_ pay. There is law in this land, even if----"

  "This is pathetic," said Senator Warfield, still speaking to Hawkins."Her father--if he is her father--is sick and not able to take care ofher. We'll have to assume the responsibility ourselves, I'm afraid,Hawkins. She may harm herself, or----"

  Lorraine turned white. She had never seen just such a situation arise ina screen story, but she knew what danger might lie in being accused ofinsanity. While Warfield was speaking, she had a swift vision of theevidence they could bring against her; how she had arrived theredelirious after having walked out from Echo,--why, they would call eventhat a symptom of insanity! Lone had warned her of what people would sayif she told any one of what she saw in Rock City, perhaps reallybelieving that she had imagined it all. Lone might even think that shehad some mental twist! Her world was reeling around her.

  She whirled Snake on his hind feet, struck him sharply with the quirtand was galloping back over the trail past the Hawkins house beforeSenator Warfield had finished advising Hawkins. She saw Mrs. Hawkinsstanding in the door, staring at her, but she did not stop. They wouldtake her to the asylum; she felt that the Sawtooth had the power, thatshe had played directly into their hands, and that they would be asruthless in dealing with her as they had been with the nesters whom theyhad killed. She knew it, she had read it in the inscrutable, level lookof Senator Warfield, in the half cringing, wholly subservient manner ofHawkins when he listened to his master.

  "They're fiends!" she cried aloud once, while she urged Snake up theslope of Granite Ridge. "I believe they'd kill me if they were sure theycould get away with it. But they could frame an insanity charge and putme--my God, what fiends they are!"

  At the Sawtooth, Senator Warfield was talking with Mrs. Hawkins whileher husband saddled two horses. Mrs. Hawkins lived within her four wallsand called that, her "spere," and spoke of her husband as "he." You knowthe type of woman. That Senator Warfield was anything less than agodlike man who stood very high on the ladder of Fame, she would neverbelieve. So she related garrulously certain incoherent, aimlessutterances of Lorraine's, and cried a little, and thought it wasperfectly awful that a sweet, pretty girl like that should be crazy. Shewould have made an ideal witness against Lorraine, her very sympathycarrying conviction of Lorraine's need of it. That she did not convinceSenator Warfield of Lorraine's mental derangement was a mere detail.Senator Warfield had reasons for knowing that Lorraine was merelyafflicted with a dangerous amount of knowledge and was using it withoutdiscretion.

  "You mustn't let her run loose and maybe kill herself or somebody else!"Mrs. Hawkins exclaimed. "Oh, Senator, it's awful to think of! When shewent past the house I knew the poor thing wasn't right----"

  "We'll overtake her," Senator Warfield assured her comfortingly. "Shecan't go very far on that horse. She'd ridden him half to death, gettinghere. He won't hold out--he can't. She came here, I suppose, because shehad been here before. A sanitarium may be able to restore her to anormal condition. I can't believe it's anything more than some nervousdisorder. Now don't worry, my good woman. Just have a room ready, sothat she will be comfortable here until we can get her to a sanitarium.It isn't hopeless, I assure you--but I'm mighty glad I happened to behere so that I can take charge of the case. Now here comes Hawkins.We'll bring her back--don't you worry."

  "Well, take her away as quick as you can, Senator. I'm scared of crazypeople. His brother went crazy in our house and----"

  "Yes, yes--we'll take care of her. Poor girl, I wish that I had beenhere when she first came," said the senator, as he went to meet H
awkins,who was riding up from the corrals leading two horses--one for Lorraine,which shows what was his opinion of Snake.