Brand Blotters

by Raine, William MacLeod

  “’Lissie!” she heard him call softly; and again, “’Lissie!”

  Noiselessly she got to her feet, waiting to see what he would do. She knew he must be standing on the edge of the great rock, so directly above her that if he had kicked a pebble it would have landed beside her. Presently he began to clamber down.

  She tiptoed along the ledge and slipped into the trough at the farther end that led to the top. It was a climb she had taken several times, but never in the dark. The ascent was almost perpendicular, and it had to be made by clinging to projecting rocks and vegetation. Moreover, if she were to escape undetected it had to be done in silence.

  She was a daughter of the hills, as surefooted as a mountain goat. Handily she went up, making the most of the footholds that offered. In spite of the best she could do the rustling of bushes betrayed her.

  Jack came to the foot of the trough and looked up.

  “So you’re there, are you?” he asked.

  Her foot loosened a stone and sent it rolling down.

  “If I were you I wouldn’t try that at night, ’Liss,” he advised.

  She made sure of the steadiness of her voice before she answered. “You don’t need to try it.”

  “I said if I were you, girl.”

  “But you are not. Don’t let me detain you here, Mr. Flatray,” she told him in a manner of icy precision.

  The deputy began the climb too. “What’s the use of being so hostile, little girl?” he drawled. “Me, I came as soon as I could, burning the wind, too.”

  She set her teeth, determined to reach the top in time to get away before he could join her. In her eagerness she took a chance that proved her undoing. A rock gave beneath her foot and clattered down. Clinging by one hand and foot, she felt her body swing around. From her throat a little cry leaped. She knew herself slipping.

  “Jack!”

  In time, and just in time, he reached her, braced himself, and gave her his knee for a foot rest.

  “All right?” he asked, and “All right!” she answered promptly.

  “We’ll go back,” he told her.

  She made no protest. Indeed, she displayed a caution in lowering herself that surprised him. Every foothold she tested carefully with her weight. Once she asked him to place her shoe in the crevice for her. He had never seen her take so much time in making sure or be so fussy about her personal safety.

  Safely on the ledge again, she attempted a second time to dismiss him. “Thank you, Mr. Flatray. I won’t take any more of your time.”

  He looked at her steadily before he spoke. “You’re mighty high-heeled, ’Lissie. You know my name ain’t Mr. Flatray to you. What’s it all about? I’ve told you twice I couldn’t get here any sooner.”

  She flamed out at him in an upblaze of feminine ferocity. “And I tell you, that I don’t care if you had never come. I don’t want to see you or have anything to do with you.”

  “Why not?” He asked it quietly, though he began to know that her charge against him was a serious one.

  “Because I know what you are now, because you have made us believe in you while all the time you were living a lie.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “I was gathering poppies on the other side of Antelope Pass this afternoon.”

  “What has that got to do with me being a liar and a scoundrel,” he wanted to know.

  “Oh, you pretend,” she scoffed. “But you know as well as I do.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t. Let’s have the indictment.”

  “If everybody in Papago County had told me I wouldn’t have believed it,” she cried. “I had to see it with my own eyes before I could have been convinced.”

  “Yes, well what is it you saw with your eyes?”

  “You needn’t keep it up. I tell you I saw it all from the time you fired the shot.”

  He laughed easily, but without mirth. “Kept tab on me, did you?”

  She wheeled from him, gave a catch of her breath, and caught at the rock wall to save herself from falling.

  He spoke sharply. “You hurt yourself in the trough.”

  “I sprained my ankle a little, but it doesn’t matter.”

  He understood now why she had made so slow a descent and he suspected that the wrench was more than she admitted. The moon had come out from under a cloud and showed him a pale, tear-stained face, with a row of even, little teeth set firm against the lower lip. She was in pain and her pride was keeping it from him.

  “Let me look at your ankle.”

  “No.”

  “I say yes. You’ve hurt it seriously.”

  “That is my business, I think,” she told him with cold finality.

  “I’m going to make it mine. Think I don’t know you, proud as Lucifer when you get set. You’ll lame yourself for life if you’re not careful.”

  “I don’t care to discuss it.”

  “Fiddlesticks! If you’ve got anything against me we’ll hear what it is afterward. Right now we’ll give first aid to the injured. Sit down here.”

  She had not meant to give way, but she did. Perhaps it was because of the faintness that stole over her, or because the pain was sharper than she could well endure. She found herself seated on the rock shelf, letting him cut the lace out of her shoe and slip it off. Ever so gently he worked, but he could tell by the catches of her breath that it was not pleasant to endure. From his neck he untied the silk kerchief and wrapped it tightly around the ankle.

  “That will have to do till I get you home.”

  “I’ll not trouble you, sir. If you’ll stop and tell my father that is all I’ll ask.”

  “Different here,” he retorted cheerfully. “Just so as to avoid any argument, I’ll announce right now that Jack Flatray is going to see you home. It’s his say-so.”

  She rose. None knew better than she that he was a dominating man when he chose to be. She herself carried in her slim body a spirit capable of passion and of obstinacy, but to-night she had not the will to force the fighting.

  Setting her teeth, she took a step or two forward, her hand against the rock wall to help bear the weight. With narrowed eyes, he watched her closely, noting the catches of pain that shot through her breathing. Half way up the boulder bed he interposed brusquely.

  “This is plumb foolishness, girl. You’ve got no business putting your weight on that foot, and you’re not going to do it.”

  He slipped his arm around her waist in such a way as to support her all he could. With a quick turn of the body she tried to escape.

  “No use. I’m going through with this, ’Lissie. Someone has been lying to you about me, and just now you hate the ground I walk on. Good enough. That’s got nothing to do with this. You’re a woman that needs help, and any old time J. F. meets up with such a one he’s on the job. You don’t owe me ’Thank you,’ but you’ve got to stand for me till you reach the house.”

  “You’re taking advantage of me because I can’t help myself. Why don’t you go and bring father,” she flung out.

  “I’m younger than your father and abler to help. That’s why?”

  They reached the top of the bluff and he made her sit down to rest. A pale moon suffused the country, and in that stage set to lowered lights her pallor was accented. From the colorless face shadowy, troubled eyes spoke the misery through which she was passing. The man divined that her pain was more than physical, and the knowledge went to him poignantly by the heart route.

  “What is it, ’Lissie? What have I done?” he asked gently.

  “You know. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “But I don’t know.”

  “What’s the use of keeping it up? I caught you this afternoon.”

  “Caught me doing what?”

  “Caught you rustling, caught you branding a calf just after you had shot the cow.”

  For an instant her charge struck him dumb. He stared at her as if he thought she had gone suddenly mad.

  “What’s that? Say it again,” he got o
ut at last.

  “And the cow had the Bar Double G brand, belonged to my father, your best friend,” she added passionately.

  He spoke very gently, but there was an edge to his voice that was new to her. “Suppose you tell me all about it.”

  She threw out a hand in a gesture of despair. “What’s the use? Nothing could have made me believe it but my own eyes. You needn’t keep up a pretense. I saw you.”

  “Yes, so you said before. Now begin at the start and tell your story.”

  She had the odd feeling of being put on the defensive and it angered her. How dared he look at her with those cool, gray eyes that still appeared to bore a hole through treachery? Why did her heart convict her of having deserted a friend, when she knew that the desertion was his?

  “While I was gathering poppies I heard a shot. It was so close I walked to the edge of the draw and looked over. There I saw you.”

  “What was I doing?”

  “You were hogtying a calf.”

  “And then?”

  “I didn’t understand at first. I thought to slip down and surprise you for fun. But as I got lower I saw the dead cow. Just then you began to brand the calf and I cried out to you.”

  “What did I do?”

  “You know what you did,” she answered wearily. “You broke for the brush where your horse was and galloped away.”

  “Got a right good look at me, did you?”

  “Not at your face. But I knew. You were wearing this blue silk handkerchief.” Her finger indicated the one bound around her ankle.

  “So on that evidence you decide I’m a rustler, and you’ve only known me thirteen years. You’re a good friend, ’Lissie.”

  Her eyes blazed on him like live coals. “Have you forgotten the calf you left with your brand on it?”

  She had startled him at last. “With my brand on it?” he repeated, his voice dangerously low and soft.

  “You know as well as I do. You had got the F just about finished when I called. You dropped the running iron and ran.”

  “Dropped it and ran, did I? And what did you do?”

  “I reheated the iron and blurred the brand so that nobody could tell what it had been.”

  He laughed harshly without mirth. “I see. I’m a waddy and a thief, but you’re going to protect me for old times’ sake. That’s the play, is it? I ought to be much obliged to you and promise to reform, I reckon.”

  His bitterness stung. She felt a tightening of the throat. “All I ask is that you go away and never come back to me,” she cried with a sob.

  “Don’t worry about that. I ain’t likely to come back to a girl that thinks I’m the lowest thing that walks. You’re not through with me a bit more than I am with you,” he answered harshly.

  Her little hand beat upon the rock in her distress. “I never would have believed it. Nobody could have made me believe it. I—I—why, I trusted you like my own father,” she lamented. “To think that you would take that way to stock your ranch—and with the cattle of my father, too.”

  His face was hard as chiseled granite. “Distrust all your friends. That’s the best way.”

  “You haven’t even denied it—not that it would do any good,” she said miserably.

  There was a sound of hard, grim laughter in his throat. “No, and I ain’t going to deny it. Are you ready to go yet?”

  His repulse of her little tentative advance was like a blow on the face to her.

  She made a movement to rise. While she was still on her knees he stooped, put his arms around her, and took her into them. Before she could utter her protest he had started down the trail toward the house.

  “How dare you? Let me go,” she ordered.

  “You’re not able to walk, and you’ll go the way I say,” he told her shortly in a flinty voice.

  Her anger was none the less because she realized her helplessness to get what she wanted. Her teeth set fast to keep back useless words. Into his stony eyes her angry ones burned. The quick, irregular rise and fall of her bosom against his heart told him how she was struggling with her passion.

  Once he spoke. “Tell me where it was you saw this rustler—the exact place near as you can locate it.”

  She answered only by a look.

  The deputy strode into the living room of the ranch with her in his arms. Lee was reading a newspaper Jack had brought with him from Mesa. At sight of them he started up hurriedly.

  “Goddlemighty, what’s the matter, Jack?”

  “Only a ricked ankle, Champ. Slipped on a stone,” Flatray explained as he put Melissy down on the lounge.

  In two minutes the whole house was upset. Hop Ling was heating water to bathe the sprain. A rider from the bunkhouse was saddling to go for the doctor. Another was off in the opposite direction to buy some liniment at Mammoth.

  In the confusion Flatray ran up his horse from the pasture, slapped on the saddle, and melted into the night.

  An hour later Melissy asked her father what had become of him.

  “Doggone that boy, I don’t know where he went. Reckon he thought he’d be in the way. Mighty funny he didn’t give us a chanct to tell him to stay.”

  “Probably he had business in Mesa,” Melissy answered, turning her face to the wall.

  “Business nothing,” retorted the exasperated rancher. “He figured we couldn’t eat and sleep him without extra trouble. Ain’t that a fine reputation for him to be giving the Bar Double G? I’ll curl his hair for him onct I meet up with him again.”

  “If you would put out the light, I think I could sleep, dad,” she told him in the least of voices.

  “Sure, honey. Has the throbbing gone out of the ankle?” he asked anxiously.

  “Not entirely, but it’s a good deal better. Good-night, dad.”

  “If Doc comes I’ll bring him in,” Lee said after he had kissed her.

  “Do, please.”

  But after she was left alone Melissy did not prepare herself for sleep. Her wide open eyes stared into the darkness, while her mind stormily reviewed the day. The man who for years had been her best friend was a scoundrel. She had proved him unworthy of her trust, and on top of that he had insulted her. Hot tears stung her eyes—tears of shame, of wounded self-love, of mortification, and of something more worthy than any of these.

  She grieved passionately for that which had gone out of her life, for the comradeship that had been so precious to her. If this man were a waddy, who of all her friends could she trust? She could have forgiven him had he done wrong in the heat of anger. But this premeditated evil was beyond forgiveness. To make it worse, he had come direct from the doing of it to meet her, with a brazen smile on his lips and a lie in his heart. She would never speak to him again—never so long as she lived.

  * * *

  CHAPTER IV

  THE MAN WITH THE CHIHUAHUA HAT

  A little dust cloud was traveling up the trail toward the Bar Double G, the center of which presently defined itself as a rider moving at a road gait. He wore a Chihuahua hat and with it the picturesque trappings the Southwest borrows on occasion from across the border. Vanity disclosed itself in the gold-laced hat, in the silver conchos of the fringed chaps, in the fine workmanship of the saddle and bit. The man’s finery was overdone, carried with it the suggestion of being on exhibition. But one look at the man himself, sleek and graceful, black-haired and white-toothed, exuding an effect of cold wariness in spite of the masked smiling face, would have been enough to give the lie to any charge of weakness. His fopperies could not conceal the silken strength of him. One meeting with the chill, deep-set eyes was certificate enough for most people.

  Melissy, sitting on the porch with her foot resting on a second chair, knew a slight quickening of the blood as she watched him approach.

  “Good evenin’, Miss M’lissy,” he cried, sweeping his sombrero as low as the stirrup.

  “Buenos tardes, Señor Norris,” she flung back gayly.

  Sitting at ease in the saddle, he leisurely looked
her over with eyes that smoldered behind half-shuttered lids. To most of her world she was in spirit still more boy than woman, but before his bold, possessive gaze her long lashes wavered to the cheeks into which the warm blood was beating. Her long, free lines were still slender with the immaturity of youth, her soul still hesitating reluctantly to cross the border to womanhood toward which Nature was pushing her so relentlessly. From a fund of experience Philip Norris read her shrewdly, knew how to evoke the latent impulses which brought her eagerly to the sex duel.

  “Playing off for sick,” he scoffed.

  “I’m not,” she protested. “Never get sick. It’s just a sprained ankle.”

  “Sho! I guess you’re Miss Make Believe; just harrowing the feelings of your beaux.”

  “The way you talk! I haven’t got any beaux. The boys are just my friends.”

  “Oh, just friends! And no beaux. My, my! Not a single sweetheart in all this wide open country. Shall I go rope you one and bring him in, compadre?”

  “No!” she exploded. “I don’t want any. I’m not old enough yet.” Her dancing eyes belied the words.

  “Now I wouldn’t have guessed it. You look to me most ready to be picked.” He rested his weight on the farther stirrup and let his lazy smile mock her. “My estimate would be sixteen. I’ll bet you’re every day of that.”

  “I only lack three months of being eighteen,” she came back indignantly.

  “You don’t say! You’ll ce’tainly have to be advertising for a husband soon, Miss Three-Quarters-Past-Seventeen. Maybe an ad in the Mesa paper would help. You ain’t so awful bad looking.”

  “I’ll let you write it. What would you say?” she demanded, a patch of pink standing out near the curve of the cheek bone.

  He swung from the saddle and flung the reins to the ground. With jingling spurs he came up the steps and sat on the top one, his back against a pillar. Boldly his admiring eyes swept her.

  “Nina, I couldn’t do the subject justice. Honest, I haven’t got the vocabulary.”

  “Oh, you!” Laughter was in the eyes that studied him with a side tilt of the chin. “That’s a fine way to get out of it when your bluff is called.”