Prairie Flowers

by Hendryx, James B

  "You'll hold me safe till you get the money?" asked the girl, a gleam of hope lighting her eyes, "and then you'll turn me over to my husband? Is that all you want—the money—five thousand dollars?"

  The man laughed and again his eyes leered evilly into hers: "You know what I want," he sneered, "an' what I want, I'll git—an' I'll git the money, too! Things has broke my way at last! Tex is dead. When Long Bill comes along to collect his share of the dinero he'll foller Tex. An' when the pilgrim rides into the bad lands with the money—well, it'll be my turn, then. You'll be a widder, an' won't have only one man after all—an' that man'll be me! An' they won't be no one a-huntin' you, neither. They'll all think you drownded along with Tex."

  "You devil! You fiend!" cried the girl, "surely if there's a God in heaven, He will not let you live to do these things!"

  "If there is, or if there ain't, it'll be the same," defied the man, "I ain't afraid of Him! He won't lay no hand on me!" More terrible even than his threats against her—more terrible than the open boast that he would murder her husband, sounded the blasphemy of the man's words. She felt suddenly weak and sick. Her knees swayed under her, and she sank unconscious at the feet of her horse.

  Staring down at her, Purdy laughed aloud, and securing his own horse and the rope, lifted her into her saddle and bound her as before. Leading the two animals, he made his way into the open where he mounted and striking out at a right angle to his former course, headed for Cinnabar Joe's.

  As he disappeared around a bend in a coulee, a man who had been intently watching all that transpired, rose to his feet. He was a squat man, with ludicrously bowed legs. A tuft of hair protruded from a hole in the crown of his hat. "I've seen considerable fools in my life, but when a man gits to where he thinks he kin put over a whizzer on God A'mighty an' git away with it—it's pretty close to cashin' in time fer him." He stared for a moment at his six-gun before he returned it to its holster. "There's them that's got a better right to him than me," he muttered, "but at that, my finger was jest a-twitcherin' on the trigger."

  * * *

  CHAPTER XVIII

  THE TEXAN TAKES THE TRAIL

  At the mouth of the coulee, Janet McWhorter stared in astonishment as the Texan swung into the saddle and headed the big blue roan up the ravine at a run. A moment later the bay mare was following, the girl plying quirt and spur in an endeavour to keep the flying horseman in sight. The roan's pace slackened, and the bay mare closed up the distance. The girl could see that the man was leaning far over studying the ground as he rode. Suddenly, without a moment's hesitation he turned into a side coulee, gained the bench, and headed straight for the bad lands. The pace was slower, now. The Texan rode with his eyes glued to the ground. She drew up beside him and, as she expected, found that he was following the trail of two horses. The trail was easily followed in the mud of the recent rains, and they made good time, dipping into coulees, scrambling out, crossing ridges. Purdy had evidently wasted no time in picking his trail, but had taken the country as it came, his one idea evidently had been to gain the bad lands that loomed in the near distance.

  "What will he do when he gets there?" wondered the girl, as she glanced into the set face of the man who rode with his eyes on the tracks in the mud, "he can't follow him in. There won't be any trail."

  True to her prediction, the Texan drew up at the edge of a black ridge that cut diagonally into the treeless, soilless waste. Since he had uttered Purdy's name at the mouth of the coulee, he had spoken no word, and now, as he faced her, the girl saw that his face looked tense and drawn. "You've got to go back," he said looking straight into her eyes, "it's a blind trail from here, an' God knows where it will lead to."

  "But—you—where are you going?"

  "To find Purdy." There was a steely glint in the man's eyes, and his voice grated harshly.

  "But you can't find him!" she cried. "He knows the bad lands. Purdy's a horse-thief, and if you did find him there would be others. He's one of a gang, and—they'll kill you!"

  The Texan nodded: "Maybe—an' then, again, maybe they won't. There's two sides to this killin' game."

  "But you wouldn't have a chance."

  "As long as I've got a gun, I've got a chance—an' a good one."

  The spirit of perversity that had prompted her to insist upon riding the blue roan, asserted itself, "I'm going with you," she announced. "I've got a gun, and I can shoot."

  "You're goin' home." The Texan spoke quietly, yet with an air of finality that brooked no argument. The hot blood mounted to the girl's face, and her eyes flashed. Her lips opened to frame an angry retort but the words were never spoken, for the Texan leaned suddenly toward her and his gauntleted hand rested lightly on her arm, "For God's sake, don't hinder—help!" There was no trace of harshness in the voice—only intense appeal. She glanced into his eyes, and in their depths read misery, pain, worry—the very soul of him was wrung with torture. He was not commanding now. This strong, masterful man was imploring help. A lump rose in her throat. Her eyes dropped before his. She swallowed hard, and nodded: "All right—only—promise me—if you don't find him, you'll return to the ranch tonight. You've got to eat, and Blue has got to eat. I'll have a pack ready for you to start again early in the morning."

  "I promise," he said, simply. His gloved hand slipped from her sleeve and closed about her own. Once more their eyes met, once more the girl felt the hot blood mount to her cheeks, and once more her glance fell before his. And then—he was gone and she was alone upon the edge of the bad lands, listening to catch the diminishing sound of his horse's hoofs on the floor of the black coulee.

  The sound died away. Minutes passed as she sat staring out over the bad lands. There was a strange ache at her throat, but in her heart welled a great gladness. What was it she had read in his eyes—during the moment of that last glance? The pain, and the worry, and the misery were still there but something else was there also—something that leaped from his heart straight to hers; something held in restraint that burst through the restraint, overrode the pain and the worry and the misery, and for a brief instant blazed with an intensity that seemed to devour her very soul. Slowly she raised the hand that had returned the firm, gentle pressure of his clasp and drew the back of it across her cheek, then with a laugh that began happily and ended in a choking sob, she turned the mare toward home.

  She rode slowly, her thoughts centred upon the Texan. She had liked him from the moment of their first meeting. His eagerness to return to the aid of his friend, his complete mastery of Blue, his unhesitating plunge into the bad lands to fight against odds, all pointed to him as a man among men. "And, aside from all that," she murmured, as she reached to smooth the bay mare's mane, "There's something about him—so wholesome—so clean—" Her words trailed into silence, and as her thoughts followed him into the trailless maze of the bad lands, her fists clenched tight, "Oh, I hope he won't find Purdy. They'll kill him."

  She turned the mare into the corral, and entering the cabin, prepared her solitary luncheon, and as she ate it her thoughts retraced the events of the morning. She remembered how he had looked when she had mentioned Purdy's name—the horrified tone with which he had repeated the name—and how he had recoiled from it as though from a blow. "What does he know of Purdy?" she asked herself, "and why should the fact that Purdy had ridden away with his friend have affected him so? Purdy wouldn't kill his friend—there had been no sign of a struggle there on the river bank. If the man went with Purdy, he went of his own free will—even a horse-thief couldn't steal a full grown cowpuncher without a struggle." She gave it up, and busied herself with the preparation of a pack of food for the morrow. "It seems as though I had known him for years," she murmured, "and I never laid eyes on him till this morning. But—Mr. Colston would never have made him foreman, if he wasn't all right. Anyway, anybody with half sense can see that by just looking into his eyes, and he's really handsome, too—I'll never forget how he looked when I first saw him—standing there beside the hayst
ack with his hat in his hand and his bandaged head—" she paused and frowned at the thought of that bandage, "I'll dress his wound tonight," she murmured "but—I wonder."

  From time to time during the afternoon, she stepped to the door and glanced anxiously up and down the creek. At last, just at sundown, she saw a rider pause before the gate of the corral. She flew to the door, and drew back hurriedly: "It's that horrid Long Bill Kearney," she muttered, in disappointment, "disreputable old coot! He ought to be in jail along with other denizens of the bad lands. Dad sure picked a fine bunch of neighbours—all except the Cinnabar Joes—and they say he used to be a bartender—but he's a nice man—I like him."

  Long Bill rode on, and glancing out the window Janet saw a fragment of paper flapping in the wind. She hurried to the corral and removing the paper that had been secured to a post by means of a sliver of wood, read it hurriedly. The blood receded slowly from her face, and a great weight seemed pressing upon her heart. She reread the paper carefully word for word. This Texan, then, was a man with a price on his head. He was no better than Purdy, and Long Bill, and all the others. And now she knew why there was tatting on the bandage! She turned indifferently at a sound from the direction of the barn, and hurriedly thrust the paper into the bosom of her grey flannel shirt as McWhorter appeared around the corner of the haystack.

  * * *

  Once into the bad lands the Texan slowed the blue roan to a walk, and riding in long sweeping semicircles, methodically searched for Purdy's trail. With set face and narrowed eyes the man studied every foot of the ground, at times throwing himself from the saddle for closer scrutiny of some obscure mark or misplaced stone. So great was his anxiety to overtake the pair that his slow pace became a veritable torture. And at times his struggle to keep from putting spurs to his horse and dashing wildly on, amounted almost to physical violence.

  Bitterly he blamed himself for Alice Endicott's plight. He raved and cursed like a madman, and for long periods was silent, his eyes hot and burning with the intensity of his hate for Purdy. Gradually the hopelessness of picking up the trail among the rocks and disintegrated lava, forced itself upon him. More than once in utter despair and misery of soul, he drew the six-gun from its holster and gazed long and hungrily at its blue-black barrel. One shot, and—oblivion. His was the blame. He sought no excuse—no palliation of responsibility. This woman had trusted him—had risked life and happiness to protect him from the bullets of the mob—and he had failed her—had abandoned her to a fate worse—a thousand times worse than death. Sweat stood upon his forehead in cold beads as he thought of her completely in the power of Purdy. He could never face Win—worst of all he could never face himself. Night and day as long as he should live the torture would be upon him. There could be but one end—madness—unless, he glanced again at the long blue barrel of his Colt. With an oath he jammed it into its holster. The coward's way out! The girl still lived. Purdy still lives—and while Purdy lives his work is cut out for him. Later—perhaps—but, first he must find Purdy. On and on he rode pausing now and then to scan the horizon and the ridges and coulees between, for sight of some living, moving thing. But always it was the same—silence—the hot dead silence of the bad lands. With the passing of the hours the torture became less acute. The bitter self-recrimination ceased, and the chaos of emotion within his brain shaped and crystallized into a single overmastering purpose. He would find Purdy. He would kill him. Nothing else mattered. A day—a year—ten years—it did not matter. He would find Purdy and kill him. He would not kill him quickly. Purdy must have time to think—plenty of time to think. The man even smiled grimly as he devised and discarded various plans. "They're all too easy—too gentle. I'll leave it to Old Bat—he's Injun—he'll know. An' if Bat was here he'd pick up the trail." A wild idea of crossing the river and fetching Bat flashed into his mind, but he banished it. "Bat'll come," he muttered, with conviction. "He's found out before this that I've gone an' he'll come."

  As the sun sank below the horizon, the Texan turned his horse toward McWhorter's. He paused on a rocky spur for one last look over the bad lands, and raising his gauntleted fist, he shook it in the face of the solitude: "I'll get you! Damn you! Damn you!"

  As he whirled his horse and headed him out into the open bench, a squat, bow-legged man peered out from behind a rock, not fifty feet from where the Texan had sat his horse. A tuft of hair protruded from a hole in the crown of his battered hat as he fingered his stubby beard: "Pretty damn lively for a corpse," grinned the squat man, "an' he will git him, too. An' if that there gal wasn't safe at Cinnabar Joe's, I'd see that he got him tonight. It looks from here as if God A'mighty's gittin' ready to call Purdy's bluff."

  * * *

  CHAPTER XIX

  AT McWHORTER'S RANCH

  Colin McWhorter was a man of long silences. A big framed, black-bearded giant of a man, he commanded the respect of all who knew him, and the friendship of few. His ranch, his sheep, his daughter were things that concerned him—the rest of the world was for others. Twice each year, on the twentieth of June and the third of December, he locked himself in his room and drank himself very drunk. At all other times he was very sober. No one, not even Janet, knew the significance of those dates. All the girl knew was that with deadly certainty when the day arrived her father would be locked in his room, and that on the third day thereafter he would unlock the door and come out of the room, shaken in nerve and body, dispose of an armful of empty bottles, resume his daily routine, and never by word or look would he refer to the matter.

  These semi-annual sprees had been among the girl's earliest recollections. They had come as regularly and as certainly as the passing of the seasons, and she had come to accept them as a matter of course. Janet McWhorter stood in no fear of her father, yet never had she brought herself to venture one word of remonstrance, nor offer one word of sympathy. His neighbours accepted the fact as they accepted McWhorter—with respect. If they wondered, they continued to wonder, for so far as anyone knew nobody had ever had the temerity to seek knowledge at its fountain head.

  McWhorter's habit of silence was not engendered by any feeling of aloofness—cowpunchers, sheep-men, horse-thieves, or nesters—all were welcome at his cabin, and while they talked, McWhorter listened—listened and smoked his black pipe. With Janet he was as sparing of words as with others. Father and daughter understood each other perfectly—loved each other with a strange undemonstrative love that was as unfaltering as the enduring hills.

  The moment McWhorter came upon the girl at the gate of the corral he sensed that something was wrong. She had greeted him as usual but as he watched her walk to the cabin, he noted an unwonted weariness in her steps, and a slight drooping of her square shoulders. Unsaddling his horse, he turned him into the corral with the bay mare. He noted the absence of the big roan. "Been tryin' to ride Blue, an' he got away from her," he thought; "weel, she'll tell me aboot it, if so."

  While Janet placed supper on the table her father washed noisily at the bench beside the door, then entered, and took his place at the table. The meal progressed in silence, and in silence McWhorter, as was his custom, helped the girl wash and dry the dishes and put them away on their shelves. This done, he filled his black pipe and seated himself in the chair. In another chair drawn close beside the big lamp, Janet pretended to read a magazine, while at every muffled night sound, her eyes flew to the window.

  "Wheer's Blue," asked McWhorter, as he knocked the ashes from his pipe and refilled it.

  "I loaned him to a man who came here on foot."

  "From the bad lands?"

  "No. From the river. He's Mr. Colston's range foreman and he and—and somebody else were crossing the river on Long Bill's ferry and the cable broke, and the boat came ashore above here."

  "An' the ither—did the ither come?"

  "No. That's why he borrowed Blue—to hunt for the other."

  "An' ye rode wi' 'um? I see the mare's be'n rode."

  Janet nodded: "Yes, I rode with him
as far as the bad lands, and then—he sent me back."

  McWhorter puffed for some minutes in silence: "Think you he will come here the night?"

  "Yes—unless something happens."

  "An' that's what's worrin' ye—that something might happen him—oot theer? What wad ye think could happen?"

  "Why—why—lots of things could happen," she glanced at her father, wondering at his unwonted loquacity.

  The man caught the look: "Ye'll be thinkin' I'll be talkin' o'er much," he said, "but ye've found out befoor this, when theer's words to be said I can say 'em." The man's voice suddenly softened: "Come, lass, 'tis ye're own happiness I'm thinkin' of—ye've na one else. Is he some braw young blade that rode that de'el of a Blue wi'oot half tryin'? An' did he speak ye fair? An' is he gude to look on—a man to tak' the ee o' the weemin'? Is ut so?" The girl stood at the window peering out into the darkness, and receiving no answer, McWhorter continued: "If that's the way of ut, tak' ye heed. I know the breed o' common cowpunchers—they're a braw lot, an' they've takin' ways—but in theer hearts they're triflin' gude-for-naughts, wi' na regard for God, mon, nor the de'el."

  "He's not a common cowpuncher!" defended the girl hotly, she had turned from the window and stood facing the stern faced Scotchman with flushed cheeks. Then the words of the hand-bill seemed to burn into her brain. "He's—he's—if he were a common cowpuncher Mr. Colston would never have made him foreman," she concluded lamely.

  McWhorter nodded gravely: "Aye, lass—but, when all is said an' done, what Colston wants—what he hires an' pays for, is cowpunchin'—the work o' the head an' hands. Gin an mon does his work, Colston wadna gi' a fiddle bow for what's i' the heart o' him. But, wi' a lass an' a mon—'tis different. 'Tis then if the heart is clean, it little matters that he whirls his loop fair, or sits his leather like a plough-boy."