by Zane Grey
“Well, if you take that view of circumstances I just figure you as one of the rustlers.”
Morton looked as if he were about to brain Duane with the butt of his whip. His anger flashed by then, evidently as unworthy of him, and, something striking him as funny, he boomed out a laugh.
“It’s not so funny,” Duane went on. “If you’re going to pretend a yellow streak, what else will I think?”
“Pretend?” he repeated.
“Sure. I know men of nerve. And here they’re not any different from those in other places. I say if you show anything like a lack of sand it’s all bluff. By nature you’ve got nerve. There are a lot of men around Fairdale who’re afraid of their shadows—afraid to be out after dark—afraid to open their mouths. But you’re not one. So I say if you claim these rustlers will last you’re pretending lack of nerve just to help the popular idea along. For they can’t last. What you need out here is some new blood. Savvy what I mean?”
“Wal, I reckon I do,” he replied, looking as if a storm had blown over him. “Stranger, I’ll look you up the next time I come to town.”
Then he went out.
Laramie had eyes like flint striking fire.
He breathed a deep breath and looked around the room before his gaze fixed again on Duane.
“Wal,” he replied, speaking low. “You’ve picked the right men. Now, who in the hell are you?”
Reaching into the inside pocket of his buckskin vest, Duane turned the lining out. A star-shaped bright silver object flashed as he shoved it, pocket and all, under Jim’s hard eyes.
“Ranger!” he whispered, cracking the table with his fist. “You sure rung true to me.”
“Laramie, do you know who’s boss of this secret gang of rustlers hereabouts?” asked Duane, bluntly. It was characteristic of him to come sharp to the point. His voice—something deep, easy, cool about him—seemed to steady Laramie.
“No,” replied Laramie.
“Does anybody know?” went on Duane.
“Wal, I reckon there’s not one honest native who knows.”
“But you have your suspicions?”
“We have.”
“Give me your idea about this crowd that hangs round the saloons—the regulars.”
“Jest a bad lot,” replied Laramie, with the quick assurance of knowledge. “Most of them have been here years. Others have drifted in. Some of them work, odd times. They rustle a few steers, steal, rob, anythin’ for a little money to drink an’ gamble. Jest a bad lot!”
“Have you any idea whether Cheseldine and his gang are associated with this gang here?”
“Lord knows. I’ve always suspected them the same gang. None of us ever seen Cheseldine—an’ thet’s strange, when Knell, Poggin, Panhandle Smith, Blossom Kane, and Fletcher, they all ride here often. No, Poggin doesn’t come often. But the others do. For thet matter, they’re around all over west of the Pecos.”
“Now I’m puzzled over this,” said Duane. “Why do men—apparently honest men—seem to be so close-mouthed here? Is that a fact, or only my impression?”
“It’s a sure fact,” replied Laramie, darkly. “Men have lost cattle an’ property in Fairdale—lost them honestly or otherwise, as hasn’t been proved. An’ in some cases when they talked—hinted a little—they was found dead. Apparently held up an robbed. But dead. Dead men don’t talk! Thet’s why we’re close mouthed.”
Duane felt a dark, somber sternness. Rustling cattle was not intolerable. Western Texas had gone on prospering, growing in spite of the hordes of rustlers ranging its vast stretches; but a cold, secret, murderous hold on a little struggling community was something too strange, too terrible for men to stand long.
The ranger was about to speak again when the clatter of hoofs interrupted him. Horses halted out in front, and one rider got down. Floyd Lawson entered. He called for tobacco.
If his visit surprised Laramie he did not show any evidence. But Lawson showed rage as he saw the ranger, and then a dark glint flitted from the eyes that shifted from Duane to Laramie and back again. Duane leaned easily against the counter.
“Say, that was a bad break of yours,” Lawson said. “If you come fooling round the ranch again there’ll be hell.”
It seemed strange that a man who had lived west of the Pecos for ten years could not see in Duane something which forbade that kind of talk. It certainly was not nerve Lawson showed; men of courage were seldom intolerant. With the matchless nerve that characterized the great gunmen of the day there was a cool, unobtrusive manner, a speech brief, almost gentle, certainly courteous. Lawson was a hot-headed Louisianian of French extraction; a man, evidently, who had never been crossed in anything, and who was strong, brutal, passionate, which qualities in the face of a situation like this made him simply a fool.
“I’m saying again, you used your ranger bluff just to get near Ray Longstreth,” Lawson sneered. “Mind you, if you come up there again there’ll be hell.”
“You’re right. But not the kind you think,” Duane retorted, his voice sharp and cold.
“Ray Longstreth wouldn’t stoop to know a dirty blood-tracker like you,” said Lawson, hotly. He did not seem to have a deliberate intention to rouse Duane; the man was simply rancorous, jealous. “I’ll call you right. You cheap bluffer! You four-flush! You damned interfering, conceited ranger!”
“Lawson, I’ll not take offense, because you seem to be championing your beautiful cousin,” replied Duane, in slow speech. “But let me return your compliment. You’re a fine Southerner! Why, you’re only a cheap four-flush—damned, bull-headed rustler!”
Duane hissed the last word. Then for him there was the truth in Lawson’s working passion-blackened face.
Lawson jerked, moved, meant to draw. But how slow! Duane lunged forward. His long arm swept up. And Lawson staggered backward, knocking table and chairs, to fall hard, in a half-sitting posture against the wall.
“Don’t draw!” warned Duane.
“Lawson, git away from your gun!” yelled Laramie.
But Lawson was crazed with fury. He tugged at his hip, his face corded with purple welts, malignant, murderous. Duane kicked the gun out of his hand. Lawson got up, raging, and rushed out.
Laramie lifted his shaking hands.
“What’d you wing him for?” he wailed. “He was drawin’ on you. Kickin’ men like him won’t do out here.”
“That bull-headed fool will roar and butt himself with all his gang right into our hands. He’s just the man I’ve needed to meet. Besides, shooting him would have been murder.”
“Murder!” exclaimed Laramie.
“Yes, for me,” replied Duane.
“That may be true—whoever you are—but if Lawson’s the man you think he is he’ll begin thet secret underground bizness. Why, Lawson won’t sleep of nights now. He an’ Longstreth have always been after me.”
“Laramie, what are your eyes for?” demanded Duane. “Watch out. And now here. See your friend Morton. Tell him this game grows hot. Together you approach four or five men you know well and can absolutely trust. I may need your help.”
Then Duane went from place to place, corner to corner, bar to bar, watching, listening, recording. The excitement had preceded him, and speculation was rife. He thought best to keep out of it. After dark he stole up to Longstreth’s ranch. The evening was warm; the doors were open; and in the twilight the only lamps that had been lit were in Longstreth’s big sitting-room, at the far end of the house. When a buckboard drove up and Longstreth and Lawson alighted, Duane was well hidden in the bushes, so well screened that he could get but a fleeting glimpse of Longstreth as he went in. For all Duane could see, he appeared to be a calm and quiet man, intense beneath the surface, with an air of dignity under insult. Duane’s chance to observe Lawson was lost. They went into the house without speaking and closed the door.
At the other end of the porch, close under a window, was an offset between step and wall, and there in the shadow Duane hid. So Duane waited
there in the darkness with patience born of many hours of hiding.
Presently a lamp was lit; and Duane heard the swish of skirts.
“Something’s happened surely, Ruth,” he heard Miss Longstreth say, anxiously. “Papa just met me in the hall and didn’t speak. He seemed pale, worried.”
“Cousin Floyd looked like a thunder-cloud,” said Ruth. “For once he didn’t try to kiss me. Something’s happened. Well, Ray, this had been a bad day.”
“Oh, dear! Ruth, what can we do? These are wild men. Floyd makes life miserable for me. And he teases you unmer—”
“I don’t call it teasing. Floyd wants to spoon,” declared Ruth, emphatically. “He’d run after any woman.”
“A fine compliment to me, Cousin Ruth,” laughed Ray.
“I don’t care,” replied Ruth, stubbornly, “it’s so. He’s mushy. And when he’s been drinking and tries to kiss me—I hate him!”
There were steps on the hall floor.
“Hello, girls!” sounded out Lawson’s voice, minus its usual gaiety.
“Floyd, what’s the matter?” asked Ray, presently. “I never saw papa as he is tonight, nor you so—so worried. Tell me, what has happened?”
“Well, Ray, we had a jar today,” replied Lawson, with a blunt, expressive laugh.
“Jar?” echoed both the girls, curiously.
“We had to submit to a damnable outrage,” added Lawson, passionately, as if the sound of his voice augmented his feeling. “Listen, girls; I’ll tell you-all about it.” He coughed, cleared his throat in a way that betrayed he had been drinking.
Duane sunk deeper into the shadow of his covert, and, stiffening his muscles for a protected spell of rigidity, prepared to listen with all acuteness and intensity. Just one word from this Lawson, inadvertently uttered in a moment of passion, might be the word Duane needed for his clue.
“It happened at the town hall,” began Lawson, rapidly. “Your father and Judge Owens and I were there in consultation with three ranchers from out of town. Then that damned ranger stalked in dragging Snecker, the fellow who hid here in the house. He had arrested Snecker for alleged assault on a restaurant-keeper named Laramie. Snecker being obviously innocent, he was discharged. Then this ranger began shouting his insults. Law was a farce in Fairdale. The court was a farce. There was no law. Your father’s office as mayor should be impeached. He made arrests only for petty offenses. He was afraid of the rustlers, highwaymen, murderers. He was afraid or—he just let them alone. He used his office to cheat ranchers and cattlemen in lawsuits. All this the ranger yelled for every one to hear. A damnable outrage. Your father, Ray, insulted in his own court by a rowdy ranger!”
“Oh!” cried Ray Longstreth, in mingled distress and anger.
“The ranger service wants to rule western Texas,” went on Lawson. “These rangers are all a low set, many of them worse than the outlaws they hunt. Some of them were outlaws and gun-fighters before they became rangers. This is one of the worst of the lot. He’s keen, intelligent, smooth, and that makes him more to be feared. For he is to be feared. He wanted to kill. He would kill. If your father had made the least move he would have shot him. He’s a cold-nerved devil—the born gunman. My God, any instant I expected to see your father fall dead at my feet!”
“Oh, Floyd! The unspeakable ruffian!” cried Ray Longstreth, passionately.
“You see, Ray, this fellow, like all rangers, seeks notoriety. He made that play with Snecker just for a chance to rant against your father. He tried to inflame all Fairdale against him. That about the lawsuits was the worst! Damn him! He’ll make us enemies.”
“What do you care for the insinuations of such a man?” said Ray Longstreth, her voice now deep and rich with feeling. “After a moment’s thought no one will be influenced by them. Do not worry, Floyd. Tell papa not to worry. Surely after all these years he can’t be injured in reputation by—by an adventurer.”
“Yes, he can be injured,” replied Floyd, quickly. “The frontier is a queer place. There are many bitter men here—men who have failed at ranching. And your father has been wonderfully successful. The ranger has dropped poison, and it’ll spread.”
CHAPTER XVIII
Strangers rode into Fairdale; and other hard-looking customers, new to Duane if not to Fairdale, helped to create a charged and waiting atmosphere. The saloons did unusual business and were never closed. Respectable citizens of the town were awakened in the early dawn by rowdies carousing in the streets.
Duane kept pretty close under cover during the day. He did not entertain the opinion that the first time he walked down-street he would be a target for guns. Things seldom happened that way; and when they did happen so, it was more accident than design. But at night he was not idle. He met Laramie, Morton, Zimmer, and others of like character; a secret club had been formed; and all the members were ready for action. Duane spent hours at night watching the house where Floyd Lawson stayed when he was not up at Longstreth’s. At night he was visited, or at least the house was, by strange men who were swift, stealthy, mysterious—all that kindly disposed friends or neighbors would not have been. Duane had not been able to recognize any of these night visitors; and he did not think the time was ripe for a bold holding-up of one of them. Nevertheless, he was sure such an event would discover Lawson, or someone in that house, to be in touch with crooked men.
Laramie was right. Not twenty-four hours after his last talk with Duane, in which he advised quick action, he was found behind the little bar of his restaurant with a bullet-hole in his breast, dead. No one could be found who had heard a shot. It had been deliberate murder, for upon the bar had been left a piece of paper rudely scrawled with a pencil: “All friends of rangers look for the same.”
This roused Duane. His first move, however, was to bury Laramie. None of Laramie’s neighbors evinced any interest in the dead man or the unfortunate family he had left. Duane saw that these neighbors were held in check by fear. Mrs. Laramie was ill; the shock of her husband’s death was hard on her; and she had been left almost destitute with five children. Duane rented a small adobe house on the outskirts of town and moved the family into it. Then he played the part of provider and nurse and friend.
After several days Duane went boldly into town and showed that he meant business. It was his opinion that there were men in Fairdale secretly glad of a ranger’s presence. What he intended to do was food for great speculation. A company of militia could not have had the effect upon the wild element of Fairdale that Duane’s presence had. It got out that he was a gunman lightning swift on the draw. It was death to face him. He had killed thirty men—wildest rumor of all—it was actually said of him he had the gun-skill of Buck Duane or of Poggin.
At first there had not only been great conjecture among the vicious element, but also a very decided checking of all kinds of action calculated to be conspicuous to a keen-eyed ranger. At the tables, at the bars and lounging-places Duane heard the remarks: “Who’s thet ranger after? What’ll he do fust off? Is he waitin’ fer somebody? Who’s goin’ to draw on him fust—an’ go to hell? Jest about how soon will he be found somewheres full of lead?”
When it came out somewhere that Duane was openly cultivating the honest stay-at-home citizens to array them in time against the other element, then Fairdale showed its wolf-teeth. Several times Duane was shot at in the dark and once slightly injured. Rumor had it that Poggin, the gunman, was coming to meet him. But the lawless element did not rise up in a mass to slay Duane on sight. It was not so much that the enemies of the law awaited his next move, but just a slowness peculiar to the frontier. The ranger was in their midst. He was interesting, if formidable. He would have been welcomed at card-tables, at the bars, to play and drink with the men who knew they were under suspicion. There was a rude kind of good humor even in their open hostility.
Besides, one ranger or a company of rangers could not have held the undivided attention of these men from their games and drinks and quarrels except by some decided move. E
xcitement, greed, appetite were rife in them. Duane marked, however, a striking exception to the usual run of strangers he had been in the habit of seeing. Snecker had gone or was under cover. Again Duane caught a vague rumor of the coming of Poggin, yet he never seemed to arrive. Moreover, the goings-on among the habitues of the resorts and the cowboys who came in to drink and gamble were unusually mild in comparison with former conduct. This lull, however, did not deceive Duane. It could not last. The wonder was that it had lasted so long.
Duane went often to see Mrs. Laramie and her children. One afternoon while he was there he saw Miss Longstreth and Ruth ride up to the door. They carried a basket. Evidently they had heard of Mrs. Laramie’s trouble. Duane felt strangely glad, but he went into an adjoining room rather than meet them.
“Mrs. Laramie, I’ve come to see you,” said Miss Longstreth, cheerfully.
The little room was not very light, there being only one window and the doors, but Duane could see plainly enough. Mrs. Laramie lay, hollow-checked and haggard, on a bed. Once she had evidently been a woman of some comeliness. The ravages of trouble and grief were there to read in her worn face; it had not, however, any of the hard and bitter lines that had characterized her husband’s.
Duane wondered, considering that Longstreth had ruined Laramie, how Mrs. Laramie was going to regard the daughter of an enemy.
“So you’re Granger Longstreth’s girl?” queried the woman, with her bright, black eyes fixed on her visitor.
“Yes,” replied Miss Longstreth, simply. “This is my cousin, Ruth Herbert. We’ve come to nurse you, take care of the children, help you in any way you’ll let us.”
There was a long silence.
“Well, you look a little like Longstreth,” finally said Mrs. Laramie, “but you’re not at all like him. You must take after your mother. Miss Longstreth, I don’t know if I can—if I ought accept anything from you. Your father ruined my husband.”
“Yes, I know,” replied the girl, sadly. “That’s all the more reason you should let me help you. Pray don’t refuse. It will—mean so much to me.”