Shoe-Bar Stratton

by Ames, Joseph Bushnell

  “I was just going to find you,” she said. “Rick wants to see you a minute.”

  Stratton followed her into the living-room, where she paused and glanced back at him.

  “You haven’t met my aunt, Mrs. Archer,” she said in her low, pleasant voice. “Auntie, this is Buck Green, our new hand.”

  From a chair beside one of the west windows, there rose a little old lady at the sight of whom Buck’s eyes widened in astonishment. Just what he had expected Mrs. Archer to be he hardly knew, but certainly it wasn’t this dainty, delicate, Dresden-China person who came forward to greet him. Tiny she was, from her old-fashioned lace cap to the tips of her small, trim shoes. Her gown, of some soft gray stuff, with touches of old lace here and there, was modishly cut yet without any traces of exaggeration. Her abundant white hair was beautifully arranged, and her cheeks, amazingly soft and smooth, with scarcely a line in them, were faintly pink. A more utterly incongruous figure to find on an outlying Arizona ranch would be impossible to imagine, and Buck was hard put to refrain from showing his surprise.

  “How do you do, Mr. Green?” she said in a soft agreeable voice, which Stratton recognized at once as the one he had overheard that morning. “My niece has told me how helpful you’ve been already.”

  Buck took her outstretched hand gingerly, and looked down into her upturned face. Her eyes were blue, and very bright and eager, with scarcely a hint of age in them. For a brief moment they gazed steadily into his, searching, appraising, an underlying touch of wistful anxiety in their clear depths. Then a twinkle flashed into them and of a sudden Stratton felt that he liked her very much indeed.

  “I’m mighty glad to meet you,” he said impulsively.

  The smile spread from eyes to lips. “Thank you,” she replied. “I think I may say the same thing. I hope you’ll like it here well enough to stay.”

  There was a faint accent on the last word. Buck noticed it, and after she had left them, saying she was going to rest a little, he wondered. Did she want him to remain merely because of the short-handed condition of the ranch, or was there a deeper reason? He glanced at Miss Thorne to find her regarding him with something of the same anxious scrutiny he had noticed in her aunt. Her gaze was instantly averted, and a faint flush tinged her cheeks, to be reflected an instant later in Stratton’s face.

  “By the way,” he said hurriedly, annoyed at his embarrassment, “do you happen to know where the men are? I thought I’d hunt them up. There’s no sense in my hanging around all afternoon doing nothing.”

  * * *

  “They’re down at the south pasture,” she answered readily. “Tex thinks it will be better to move the cattle to where it won’t be so easy for those rustlers to get at them. I’m just going down there and we can ride together, if you like.” She turned toward the door. “When you’re through with Rick you’ll find me out at the corral.”

  “Don’t you want me to saddle up for you?”

  “Pedro will do that, thank you. Tell Rick if he wants anything while I’m gone all he has to do is to ring the bell beside his bed and Maria will answer it.”

  She departed, and Buck walked briskly into the bedroom. Bemis lay in bed propped up with pillows and looking much better physically than he had done that morning. But his face was still strained, with that harassed, worried expression about the eyes which Stratton had noted before.

  “Yuh saw Doc Blanchard, didn’t yuh?” he asked, as Buck sat down on the side of his bed. “What’d he say?”

  “Why, that you were doing fine. Not a chance in a hundred, he said, of your having any trouble with the wound.”

  “Oh, I know that. But when’d he say I’d be on my feet?”

  Buck shrugged his shoulders. “He didn’t mention any particular time for that. I should think it would be two or three weeks, at least.”

  “Hell!” The young fellow’s fingers twisted the coverlet nervously. “Don’t yuh believe I could—er—ride before that?” he added, almost pleadingly.

  Stratton’s eyes widened. “Ride!” he repeated. “Where the deuce do you want to ride to?”

  Bemis hesitated, a slow flush creeping into his tanned face. The glance he bent on Stratton was somewhat shamefaced.

  “Anywhere,” he answered curtly, a touch of defiance in his tone. “You’ll say I’ve lost my nerve, an’ maybe I have. But after what’s happened around this joint lately, and especially last night—”

  He paused, glancing nervously toward the door. Buck’s expression had grown suddenly keen and eager.

  “Well?” he urged. “What did happen, anyhow? I had my suspicions there was something queer about that business, but—You can trust me, old man.”

  Bemis nodded, his dark eyes searching Stratton’s face. “I’ll take a chance,” he answered. “I got to. There ain’t nobody else. They’ve kept Bud away, and Miss Mary—Well, she’s all right, uh course, but Tex has got her buffaloed. She won’t believe nothin’ ag’in him. I told Bud I’d stay as long as he did, but—A man’s got to look after himself some. They ain’t likely to miss twice runnin’.”

  “You mean to say—”

  Bemis stopped him with a cautious gesture. “Where’s that sneaking greaser?” he asked in a low tone, his eyes shifting nervously to the open door.

  “Out saddling her horse.”

  “Oh! Well, listen.” The young puncher’s voice sank almost to a whisper. “That sendin’ me down to Las Vegas was a plant; I’m shore of it. My orders was to sleep days an’ patrol around nights to get a line on who was after the cattle. I wasn’t awful keen about it, but still an’ all, I didn’t think they’d dare do what they tried to.”

  “You mean there weren’t any rustlers at all?” put in Stratton impulsively.

  “Shore there was, but they didn’t fire that shot that winged me. I’d just got sight of ’em four or five hundred yards away an’ was ridin’ along in the shadow tryin’ to edge close enough to size ’em up an’ mebbe pick off a couple. My cayuse was headin’ south, with the rustlers pretty near dead ahead, when I come to a patch of moonlight I had to cross. I pulled out considerable to ride around a spur just beyond, so when that shot came I was facin’ pretty near due east. The bullet hit me in the left leg, yuh recollect.”

  Stratton’s eyes narrowed. “Then it must have been fired from the north—from the direction of the—”

  He broke off abruptly as Rick’s fingers gripped his wrist.

  “Look!” breathed Bemis, in a voice that was scarcely audible.

  He was staring over the low foot-board of the bed straight at the open door, and Buck swiftly followed the direction of his glance. For an instant he saw nothing. The doorway was quite empty, and he could not hear a sound. Then, of a sudden, his gaze swept on across the living-room and he caught his breath.

  On the further wall, directly opposite the bedroom door, hung a long mirror in a tarnished gilded frame. It reflected not only the other side of the doorway but a portion of the wall on either side of it—reflected clearly, among other things, the stooping figure of a woman, her limp calico skirts dragged cautiously back in one skinny hand, her sharp, swarthy face bent slightly forward in an unmistakable attitude of listening.

  * * *

  CHAPTER IX

  REVELATIONS

  It was the Mexican woman, Maria. As Buck recognized her he rose quietly and moved swiftly toward the door. But if he had hoped to catch her unawares, he was disappointed. He had scarcely taken a step when, through the telltale mirror, he saw her straighten like a flash and move back with catlike swiftness toward the passage leading to the kitchen. When he reached the living-room she stood there calm and casual, with quite the air of one entering for the first time.

  “Mees T’orne, she ask me see if Reek, he wan’ somet’ing,” she explained, with a flash of her white teeth.

  “He doesn’t,” returned Buck shortly, eyeing the woman intently. “If he does, he’ll ring the bell.”

  “Ver’ good,” she nodded. “I leave the door
open to ’ear.”

  With a nod and another smile she departed, and Buck heard her moving away along the passage. For a moment he was tempted to close and lock the door. Then he realized that even if she dared return to her eavesdropping, he would have ample warning by keeping an eye on the mirror, and so returned to Bemis.

  “I hate that woman,” said Rick, when informed of her departure. “She’s always snoopin’ around, an’ so is her greaser husband. Down at the bunk-house it’s the same way, with Slim, an’ Flint Kreeger an’ the rest. I tell yuh, I’m dead sick of being spied on, an’ plotted against, an’ never knowin’ when yuh may get a knife in the back, or stop a bullet. I hate to leave Bud, but he’s so plumb set on—”

  “But what’s it all about?” put in Buck impatiently. “Can’t you tell a fellow, or don’t you know?”

  Bemis flushed slightly at his tone. “I can tell yuh this much,” he retorted. “Tex don’t want them rustlers caught. He throws a clever bluff, an’ he’s pulled the wool over Miss Mary’s eyes, but for all that, he’s workin’ on their side. What kind of a foreman is it who’ll lose over a thousand head without stoppin’ the stealin’? It ain’t lack of brains, neither; Tex has got them a-plenty.”

  “But Miss Thorne—” protested Stratton, half-incredulously.

  “I tell yuh, he’s got her buffaloed. She won’t believe a word against him. He was here in her dad’s time, an’ he’s played his cards mighty slick since then. She’s told yuh he can’t get men, mebbe? All rot, of course. He could get plenty of hands, but he don’t want ’em. What’s more, he’s done his best to get rid of me an’ Bud, an’ would of long ago, only Miss Mary won’t let him fire us.”

  “But what in thunder’s his object?”

  “So’s to have the place to himself, I reckon. He an’ those greasers in the kitchen, and the rest of the bunch, are as thick as thieves.”

  “You mean he’d find it easier to get away with cattle if there wasn’t anybody around to keep tabs on him?”

  Bemis hesitated. “I—I’m not sure,” he replied slowly. “Partly that, mebbe, but there’s somethin’ else. I’ve overheard things now an’ then I couldn’t make head or tail of, but they’re up to somethin’—Yuh ain’t goin’, are yuh?”

  Buck had risen. “Got to,” he shrugged. “Miss Thorne’s waiting for me to go down to the south pasture.”

  Bemis raised up on his pillows. “Well, listen; keep what I said under yore hat, will yuh?”

  “Sure,” nodded Stratton reassuringly. “You needn’t worry about that. Anything else you want before I go?”

  “Yes. Jest reach me my six-gun outer the holster there in the chair. If I’m goin’ to be left alone with that greaser, Pedro, I’d feel more comfortable, someway, with that under my pillow.”

  Buck did as he requested and then departed. Something else! That was the very feeling which had assailed him vaguely at times, that some deviltry which he couldn’t understand was going on beneath the surface. As he made for the corral, a sudden possibility flashed into his mind. With her title so precarious, might not Mary Thorne be at the bottom of a systematic attempt to loot the Shoe-Bar of its movable value against the time of discovery? But when he met her face to face the idea vanished and he even felt ashamed of having considered it for a moment. Whatever crookedness was going on, this sweet-faced, clear-eyed girl was much more likely to be a victim than one of the perpetrators. The feeling was vastly strengthened when he had saddled up and they rode off together.

  “There’s something I’ve been meaning to—to tell you,” the girl said suddenly, breaking a brief silence.

  Buck glanced at her to find her eyes fixed on the ears of her horse and a faint flush staining her cheeks.

  “That room—” she went on determinedly, but with an evident effort. “A man’s room— You must have thought it strange. Indeed, I saw you thought it strange—”

  Again she paused, and in his turn Buck felt a sudden rush of embarrassment.

  “I didn’t mean to—” he began awkwardly. “It just seemed funny to find a regular man’s room in a household of women. I suppose it was your—your father’s,” he added.

  “No, it wasn’t,” she returned briefly. She glanced at him for an instant and then looked away again. “You probably don’t know the history of the Shoe-Bar,” she went on more firmly. “Two years ago it was bought by a young man named Stratton. I never met him, but he was a business acquaintance of my father’s and naturally I heard a good deal of him from time to time. He was a ranchman all his life and very keen about it, and the moment he saw the Shoe-Bar he fell in love with it. But the war came, and he had scarcely taken title to the place before he went off and enlisted. Just before he sailed for France he sold the ranch to my father, with the understanding that if he came back safely, Dad would turn it over to him again. He felt, I suppose, how uncertain it all was and that money in the bank would be easier for his—his heirs, than property.”

  She paused for an instant, her lips pressed tightly together. “He never came back,” she went on in a lower, slightly unsteady voice. “He—gave up his life for those of us who stayed behind. After a little we left Chicago and came here. I loved the place at once, and I’ve gone on caring for it increasingly ever since. But back of everything there’s always been a sense of the tragedy, the injustice of it all. They never even found his body. He was just—missing. And yet, when I came into that room, with his things about just as he had left them when he went away, he seemed so real,—I—I couldn’t touch it. Somehow, it was all that was left of him. And even though I’d never seen him, I felt as if I wanted to keep it that way always in memory of a—a brave soldier, and a—man.”

  Her low voice ceased. With face averted, she stared in silence across the brown, scorched prairie. Stratton, his eyes fixed straight ahead, and his cheeks tinged with unwonted color, found it quite impossible to speak, and for a space the stillness was broken only by the creak of saddle-leather and the dull thud of horses’ hoofs.

  “It’s mighty fine of you to feel like that,” he said at length. “I’m sorry if I gave you the idea I—I was—curious.”

  “But you would be, naturally. You see, the other boys all know.” She turned her head and looked at him. “I think we’re all curious at times about things which really don’t concern us. I’ve even wondered once or twice about you. You know you don’t talk like the regulation cow-puncher—quite.”

  Stratton laughed. “Oh, but I am,” he assured her. “I suppose the war rubbed off some of the accents, and of course I had a pretty good education to start with. But I’m too keen about the country and the life to ever want to do anything else.”

  Her face glowed. “It is wonderful,” she agreed. “When I think of the years I’ve wasted in cities! I couldn’t ever go back. Even with all the worries, this is a thousand times better. Ah! There they are ahead. They’re turning the herd into this pasture, you see.”

  Half a mile or more to the southward a spreading dust-cloud hugged the earth, through which, indistinctly, Stratton could make out the moving figures of men and cattle. The two spurred forward, reaching the wide opening in the fence ahead of the vanguard of steers. Passing through, they circled to the right to avoid turning back any of the cattle, and joined the sweating, hard-worked cow-punchers.

  As they rode up together, Buck found Lynch’s eyes fixed on him with an expression of angry surprise, which was suppressed with evident difficulty.

  “How’d yuh get back so quick?” he inquired curtly.

  “Nothing more to keep me,” shrugged Stratton. “I waited for the doctor to look Rick over, and then thought I’d come out and see if you needed me.”

  “Huh! Well, since you’re here, yuh might as well whirl in. Get over on the far side of the herd an’ help Flint. Don’t let any of ’em break away, but don’t crowd ’em too much.”

  As Buck rode off he heard Miss Thorne ask if there wasn’t something she could do. Lynch’s reply was indistinct, but the tone of his vo
ice, deferential, yet with a faint undercurrent of honey-sweetness, irritated him inexplicably. With a scowl, he spurred forward, exchanged a brief greeting with Bud Jessup as he passed, and finally joined Kreeger, who was having considerable difficulty in keeping the herd together at that point.

  During the succeeding two hours or so, Buck forgot his irritation in the interest and excitement of the work. Strenuous as it was, he found a distinct pleasure in the discovery that two years’ absence from the range had not lessened his ability to hold his own. His horse was well trained, and he thoroughly enjoyed the frequent sharp dashes after some refractory steer, who stubbornly opposed being driven. Before the last animal had passed through the fence-gap into the further pasture, he was drenched from head to foot with perspiration and his muscles ached from the unaccustomed labor, but all that was discounted by the satisfaction of doing his chosen work again, and doing it well.

  Then, in the lull which followed, his thoughts returned to Miss Thorne and he wondered whether there would be any chance for further conversation with her on the way back to the ranch-house? The question was quickly answered in a manner he did not in the least enjoy. After giving instructions about nailing up the fence, Tex Lynch joined the girl, who sat her horse at a little distance, and the two rode off together.

  For a moment or two Stratton’s frowning glance followed them. Then of a sudden he realized that Slim McCabe’s shrewd eyes were fixed curiously on him, and the discovery brought him abruptly to his senses. For a space he had forgotten what his position was at the Shoe-Bar. He must keep a better guard over himself, or he would certainly arouse suspicion. Averting his eyes, but still continuing to frown a little as if lack of tobacco was responsible for his annoyance, he searched through his pockets.

  “Got the makin’s?” he asked McCabe. “Darned if I haven’t left mine in the bunk-house.”