"Want to tackle another story?" queried Owen, as he put the book back on the shelf.
"If it's all the same to you, I'd jest as soon read this one over ag'in. I was trailin' that old Crusoe hombre so clost I didn't git time to set up and take in the scenery."
In his eagerness to re-read the story Pete had forgotten about the wager. Owen's eyes twinkled as he studied Pete's face. "We had a bet—" said Owen.
"That's right! I plumb forgot about that. You said you bet me a new hat that I'd ask you for another book. Well—what you grinnin' at, anyhow? 'Cause you done stuck me for a new lid? Oh, I git you! You said another book, and I'm wantin' to read the same one over again. Shucks! I ain't goin' to fore-foot you jest because you rid into a loop layin' in the tall grass where neither of us seen it."
"I lose on a technicality. I ought to lose. Now if I had bet you a new hat that you would want to keep on reading instead of that you'd ask for another book—"
"But this ain't no law court, Jim. It was what you was meanin' that counts."
"Serves me right. I was preaching to you about education—and I'm game to back up the idea—even if I did let my foot slip. Come on over to Jennings's with me and I'll get that hat."
"All right!" And Pete rolled a smoke as the sheriff picked up several addressed letters and tucked them in his pocket. "I was goin' over to the post-office, anyway."
They crossed to the shady side of the street, the short, ruddy little sheriff and the tall, dark cowboy, each more noticeable by contrast, yet neither consciously aware of the curious glances cast at them by occasional townsfolk, some of whom were small enough to suspect that Pete and the sheriff had collaborated in presenting the evidence which had made Pete a free man; and that they were still collaborating, as they seemed very friendly toward each other.
Pete tried on several hats and finally selected one. "Let's see how it looks on you," he said, handing it to the sheriff. "I don't know how she looks."
Owen tried the hat on, turning to look into the mirror at the end of the counter. Pete casually picked up the sheriff's old hat and glanced at the size.
"Reckon I'll take it," said Pete, as Owen returned it. "This here one of mine never did fit too good. It was Andy's hat."
Certain male gossips who infested the groceries, pool-halls, and post-office of Sanborn, shook their heads and talked gravely about bribery and corruption and politics and what not, when they learned that the sheriff had actually bought a hat for that young outlaw that he was so mighty thick with. "And it weren't no fairy-story neither. Bill Jennings sold the hat hisself, and the sheriff paid for it, and that young Annersley walked out of the store with said hat on his head. Yes, sir! Things looked mighty queer."
"Things would 'a' looked a mighty sight queerer if he'd 'a' walked out with it on his foot," suggested a friend of Owen's who had been buttonholed and told the alarming news.
Meanwhile Pete attended to his own business, which was to get his few things together, pay his hotel-bill, settle his account with the sheriff—which included cab-hire in El Paso—and write a letter to Doris Gray—the latter about the most difficult task he had ever faced. He thought of making her some kind of present—but his innate good sense cautioned him to forego that pleasure for a while, for in making her a present he might also make a mistake—and Pete was becoming a bit cautious about making mistakes, even though he did think that that green velvet hat with a yellow feather, in the millinery store in Sanborn, was about the most high-toned ladies' sky-piece that he had ever beheld. Pete contented himself with buying a new Stetson for Sheriff Owen—to be delivered after Pete had left town.
Next morning, long before the inhabitants of Sanborn had thrown back their blankets, Pete was saddling Blue Smoke, frankly amazed that the pony had shown no evidence of his erstwhile early-morning activities. He wondered if the horse were sick. Blue Smoke looked a bit fat, and his eye was dull—but it was the dullness of resentment rather than of poor physical condition. Well fed, and without exercise, Blue Smoke had become more or less logy, and he looked decidedly disinterested in life as Pete cautiously pulled up the front cinch.
"He's too doggone quiet to suit me," Pete told the stable-man.
"He's thinkin'," suggested that worthy facetiously.
"So am I," asserted Pete, not at all facetiously.
Out in the street Pete "cheeked" Blue Smoke, and swung up quickly, expecting the pony to go to it, but Smoke merely turned his head and gazed at the livery with a sullen eye.
"He's sad to leave his boardin'-house,"—and Pete touched Smoke with the spur. Smoke further surprised Pete by striking into a mild cow-trot, as they turned the corner and headed down the long road at the end of which glimmered the far brown spaces, slowly changing in color as the morning light ran slanting toward the west.
"Nothin' to do but go," reflected Pete, still a trifle suspicious of Blue Smoke's gentlemanly behavior. The sun felt warm to Pete's back. The rein-chains jingled softly. The saddle creaked a rhythmic complaint of recent disuse.
Pete, who had said good-bye to the sheriff the night before, turned his face toward the open with a good, an almost too good, horse between his knees and a new outlook upon the old familiar ranges and their devious trails.
Past a somber forest of cacti, shot with myriad angling shadows, desolate and forbidding, despite the open sky and the morning sun, Pete rode slowly, peering with eyes aslant at the dense growth close to the road, struggling to ignore the spot. Despite his determination, he could not pass without glancing fearsomely as though he half-expected to see something there—something to identify the spot as that shadowy place where Brent had stood that night…
Blue Smoke, hitherto as amiably disposed to take his time as was Pete himself, shied suddenly. Through habit, Pete jabbed him with the spur, to straighten him back in the road again. Pete had barely time to mutter an audible "I thought so!" when Blue Smoke humped himself. Pete slackened to the first wild lunge, grabbed off his hat and swung it as Blue Smoke struck at the air with his fore feet, as though trying to climb an invisible ladder. Pete swayed back as the horse came down in a mighty leap forward, and hooking his spurs in the cinch, rocked to each leap and lunge like a leaf caught up in a desert whirlwind. When Pete saw that Smoke's first fine frenzy had about evaporated, he urged him to further endeavors with the spurs, but Blue Smoke only grunted and dropped off into a most becoming and gentlemanly lope. And Pete was not altogether displeased. His back felt as though it had been seared with a branding-iron, and the range to the west was heaving most indecorously, cavorting around the horizon as though strangely excited by Blue Smoke's sudden and seemingly unaccountable behavior.
"I reckon we're both feelin' better!" Pete told the pony. "I needed jest that kind of a jolt to feel like I was livin' ag'in. But you needn't be in such a doggone hurry to go and tell your friends how good you're feelin'. Jest come down off that lope. We got all day to git there."
Blue Smoke shook his head as Pete pulled him to a trot. The cactus forest was behind them. Ahead lay the open, warm brown in the sun, and across it ran a dwindling grayish line, the road that ran east and west across the desert,—a good enough road as desert roads go, but Pete, despite his satisfaction in being out in the open again, grew somewhat tired of its monotonously even wagon-rutted width, and longed for a trail—a faint, meandering trail that would swing from the road, dip into a sand arroyo, edge slanting up the farther bank, wriggle round a cluster of small hills, shoot out across a mesa, and climb slowly toward those hills to the west, finally to contort itself into serpentine switchbacks as it sought the crest—and once on the crest (which was in reality but the visible edge of another great mesa), there would be grass for a horse and cedar-wood for a fire, and water with which to make coffee.
Pete had planned that his first night should be spent in the open, with no other companions than the friendly stars. As for Blue Smoke, well, a horse is the best kind of a pal for a man who wishes to be alone, a pal who takes care of himself, nev
er complains of weariness, and eats what he finds to eat with soulful satisfaction.
Pete made his first night's camp as he had planned, hobbled Blue Smoke, and, having eaten, he lay resting, his head on his saddle and his gaze fixed upon the far glory of the descending sun. The sweet, acrid fragrance of cedar smoke, the feel of the wind upon his face, the contented munching of his pony, the white radiance of the stars that came quickly, and that indescribable sense of being at one with the silences, awakened memories of many an outland camp-fire, when as a boy he had journeyed with the horse-trader, or when Pop Annersley and he had hunted deer in the Blue Range. And it seemed to Pete that that had been but yesterday—"with a pretty onnery kind of a dream in between," he told himself.
As the last faint light faded from the west and the stars grew big, Pete thanked those same friendly stars that there would be a To-morrow—with sunlight, silence, and a lone trail to ride. Another day and he would reach old Flores's place in the cañon—but Boca would not be there. Then he would ride to Showdown.—Some one would be at The Spider's place… He could get feed for his horse… And the next day he would ride to the Blue and camp at the old cabin. Another day and he would be at the Concho… Andy, and Jim, and Ma Bailey would be surprised… No, he hadn't come back to stay… Just dropped in to say "Hello!"…
Pete smiled faintly as a coyote shrilled his eternal plaint. This was something like it. The trembling Pleiades grew blurred.
CHAPTER XLIV
THE OLD TRAIL
The following afternoon Pete, stiff and weary from his two days' ride, entered the southern end of Flores's cañon and followed the trail along the stream-bed—now dry and edged with crusted alkali—until he came within sight of the adobe. In the half-light of the late afternoon he could not distinguish objects clearly, but he thought he could discern the posts of the pole corral and the roof of the meager stable. Nearer he saw that there was no smoke coming from the mud chimney of the adobe, and that the garden-patch was overgrown with weeds.
No one answered his call as he rode up and dismounted. He found the place deserted and he recalled the Mexican woman's prophecy.
He pushed open the sagging door and entered. There was the oilcloth-covered table and the chairs—a broken box in the middle of the room, an old installment-house catalogue, from which the colored prints had been torn, an empty bottle—and in the kitchen were the rusted stove and a few battered and useless cooking-utensils. An odor of stale grease pervaded the place. In the narrow bedroom—Boca's room—-was a colored fashion-plate pinned on the wall.
Pete shrugged his shoulders and stepped out. Night was coming swiftly. He unsaddled Blue Smoke and hobbled him. The pony strayed off up the stream-bed. Pete made a fire by the corral, ate some beans which he warmed in the can, drank a cup of coffee, and, raking together some coarse dried grass, turned in and slept until the sound of his pony's feet on the rocks of the stream-bed awakened him. He smelt dawn in the air, although it was still dark in the cañon, and having in mind the arid stretch between the cañon and Showdown, he made breakfast. He caught up his horse and rode up the trail toward the desert. On the mesa-edge he re-cinched his saddle and turned toward the north.
Flores, who with his wife was living at The Spider's place, recognized him at once and invited him in.
"What hit this here town, anyhow?" queried Pete. "I didn't see a soul as I come through."
Flores shrugged his shoulders. "The vaqueros from over there"—and he pointed toward the north—"they came—and now there is but this left"—and he indicated the saloon. "The others they have gone."
"Cleaned out the town, eh? Reckon that was the T-Bar-T and the boys from the Blue and the Concho. How'd they come to miss you?"
"I am old—and my wife is old—and after they had drank the wine—leaving but little for us—they laughed and said that we might stay and be dam': that we were too old to steal cattle."
"Uh-huh. Cleaned her out reg'lar! How's the señora?"
Flores touched his forehead. "She is thinking of Boca—and no one else does she know."
"Gone loco, eh? Well, she ain't so bad off at that—seein' as you're livin' yet. No, I ain't comin' in. But you can sell me some tortillas, if you got any."
"It will be night soon. If the señor—"
"Go ask the Señora if she has got any tortillas to sell. I wouldn't bush in there on a bet. Don't you worry about my health."
"We are poor, señor! We have this place, and the things—but of the money I know nothing. My wife she has hidden it."
"She ain't so crazy as you think, if that's so. Do you run this place—or are you jest starvin' to death here?"
"There is still a little wine—and we buy what we may need of Mescalero. If you will come in—"
"So they missed old Mescalero! Well, he's lucky. No, I don't come in. I tried boardin' at your house onct."
"Then I will get the tortillas." And Flores shuffled into the saloon. Presently he returned with a half-dozen tortillas wrapped up in an old newspaper. Pete tossed him a dollar, and packing the tortillas in his saddle-pockets, gazed round at the town, the silent and deserted houses, the empty street, and finally at The Spider's place.
Old Flores stood in the doorway staring at Pete with drink-blurred eyes. Pete hesitated. He thought of dismounting and going in and speaking to Flores's wife. But no! It would do neither of them any good. Flores had intimated that she had gone crazy. And Pete did not want to talk of Boca—nor hear her name mentioned. "Boca's where she ain't worryin' about anybody," he reflected as he swung round and rode out of town.
Once before he had camped in the same draw, a few miles west of Showdown, and Blue Smoke seemed to know the place, for he had swung from the trail of his own accord, striding straight to the water-hole.
"And if you keep on actin' polite," Pete told the pony as he hobbled him that evening, "you'll get a good reputation, like Jim Owen said; which is plumb necessary, if you an' me's goin' to be pals. But if gettin' a good reputation is goin' to spoil your wind or legs any—why, jest keep on bein' onnery—which Jim was tellin' me is called 'Character.'"
As Pete hardened to the saddle and Blue Smoke hardened to the trail, they traveled faster and farther each day, until, on the Blue Mesa, where the pony grazed and Pete squatted beside his night-fire in the open, they were but a half-day's journey from the Concho. Pete almost regretted that their journey must come to an end. But he could not go on meandering about the country without a home and without an object in life: that was pure loafing.
Pete might have excused himself on the ground that he needed just this sort of thing after his serious operation; but he was honest with himself, admitting that he felt fit to tackle almost any kind of hard work, except perhaps writing letters—for he now thought well enough of himself to believe that Doris Gray would answer his letter to her from Sanborn. And of course he would answer her letter—and if he answered that, she would naturally answer… Shucks! Why should she write to him? All he had ever done for her was to make her a lot of bother and hard work. And what good was his money to him? He couldn't just walk into a store and buy an education and have it wrapped up in paper and take it to her and say, "Here, Miss Gray. I got a education—the best they had in the outfit. Now if you'll take it as a kind of present—and me along with it…"
Pete was camping within fifty yards of the spot where old Pop Annersley had tried to teach him to read and write—it seemed a long time ago, and Annersley himself seemed more vague in Pete's memory, as he tried to recall the kindly features and the slow, deliberate movements of the old man. It irritated Pete that he could not recall old man Annersley's face distinctly. He could remember his voice, and one or two characteristic gestures—but his face—
Pete stared into the camp-fire, dreaming back along that trail over which he had struggled and fought and blundered; back to the time when he was a waif in Enright, his only companion a lean yellow dog… Pete nodded and his eyes closed. He turned lazily and leaned back against his saddle.
The mesa, carpeted with sod-grass, gave no warning of the approaching horseman, who had seen the tiny fire and had ridden toward it. Just within the circle of firelight he reined in and was about to call out when that inexplicable sense inherent in animals, the Indian, and in some cases the white man, brought Pete to his feet. In that same lightning-swift, lithe movement he struck his gun from the holster and stood tense as a buck that scents danger on the wind.
Pete blinked the sleep from his eyes. "Keep your hands right where they be and step down off that hoss—"
The rider obeyed. Pete moved from the fire that his own shadow might not fall upon the other. "Pete!" exclaimed the horseman in a sort of choking whisper.
The gun sagged in Peter's hand. "Andy! For God's sake!—I come clost to killin' you!" And he leaped and caught Andy White's hand, shook it, flung his arm about his shoulders, stepped back and struck him playfully on the chest, grabbed him and shook him—and then suddenly he turned and walked back to the fire and sat down, blinking into the flames, and trying to swallow nothing, harder than he had ever tried to swallow anything in his life.
He heard Andy's step behind him, and heard his own name spoken again. "It was my fault, Pete. I ought to 'a' hollered. I saw your fire and rode over—" Andy's hand was on Pete's shoulder, and that shoulder was shaking queerly. Andy drew back. "There goes that dam' cayuse," cried Andy. "I'll go catch him up, and let him drag a rope."
When Andy returned from putting an unnecessary rope on a decidedly tired horse that was quite willing to stand right where he was, Pete had pulled himself together and was rolling a cigarette.
"Well, you ole sun-of-a-gun!" said Pete; "want to swap hats? Say, how'll you swap?"
The Ridin Kid from Powder River Page 33