by Alan Lemay
Working along the lip of the coulee he collected greasewood and broken drift, and with this built a tiny fire to warm the wounded man's feet, and another fire at Bishop's side.
Lee Bishop opened his eyes long enough to say faintly, "That'll only be a mark for gunfire, Kentuck."
"I'll take care of that, Lee. It's near dark enough to fire at the flash of the guns."
When these things were done there was nothing more to do but wait, keep watch, and maintain their store of fuel. An hour after dark, walking far up the coulee after more wood, he found a tangled jam of broken branches and bits of rotten log stranded in a backwater; and with this he built a third fire-a signal fire on the edge of the coulee, a hundred yards from their forlorn bivouac. When Campo Ragland and Harry Wilson returned to the Bar Hook it was reasonable to suppose that they would make some effort to find Bishop, who had gone out looking for trouble with every probability of finding it. If they came to look, the signal fire would be visible a long way off. If they did not come to look, Kentucky Jones had a long wait ahead, a wait perhaps equal to the remainder of Lee Bishop's life.
LOWLY the hours passed, cold with a bonepiercing cold, and marked only by the imperceptible turn of the stars. After an hour or two Lee Bishop began to mumble from the depths of a delirious stupor; but it must have been nearly midnight when the wounded man's mind cleared.
"Kentucky," he said.
"Right here, Lee."
"I don't know but what I've got my comeuppance, Kentuck."
"That's the bunk, Lee," said Kentucky sharply.
"Don't make me waste my darn breath," said Bishop with a weak irritability. "I got something I got to tell you, Kentuck."
"You better wait until"
"Shut up! I ought to have told somebody this before; I don't know as it'll do you much good, telling you now. But you ought to know it." Bishop's voice was very faint, but he seemed to speak with little effort, as long as he did not try to raise his tone.
"Lee," said Kentucky, "I don't want to encourage you to talk, but if you can tell me why Bill McCord wants to kill you, it sure might help in what's going to come after this."
"Kentucky, I ain't got any more idea than you," Lee said. "I don't know as I care a whole darn. What I'm worrying about is the way you're getting dragged into this killing of Mason."
"Don't you worry about me. I'm not dragged into it."
"The hell, you're not! Kentuck, what time did you leave the Bar Hook the day Mason was killed?"
"I can prove I was in Waterman by half past one."
"Then," said Bishop, "you couldn't possibly have killed John Mason."
"I never claimed I did, Lee."
"There's others will claim you did," Bishop mumbled. He seemed to trail off, but recovered himself, and his eyes opened wide and clear. "You couldn't have killed Mason," he repeated, "because Mason was still alive when you got back to Waterman. I know he was alive because I saw him alive."
"What time was this?" Kentucky demanded, hitching forward.
"It was between three and four in the afternoon. He was sitting his horse just below a knob, about a quarter mile from the Bar Hook ranch house. Right in there the snow let up for a little bit, and I saw him plain."
"But when you found him," Kentucky pointed out, "there was no snow under him; proving he was killed before the snow began to fall."
"I can't account for that. Maybe the snow under him melted, or something."
This seemed unlikely to Kentucky, but he did not interrupt.
"I was a couple furlongs away," Bishop admitted, continuing. "But don't you tell me I made a mistake. I mind how John Mason used to sit, kind of half crooked in the saddle; and I mind the round of his shoulders as he sat his horse, and the tilt of his hat. I'd know him any distance, out of a thousand men."
There was something peculiarly familiar about Lee Bishop's claim of recognition. Suddenly Kentucky knew why. He had heard Joe St. Marie use almost the same words in explaining to Jean Ragland, the night they found Zack Sanders, that he had seen a ghost.
"It isn't hardly likely," Kentucky offered speculatively, "that you'd mistake that pinto horse Mason rode that day."
"They was wrong about that," Bishop said promptly. "That was just one more of them wrong things that came out at the inquest. Mason wasn't riding no pinto horse. He was riding a little blood bay pony-an 88 pony they call Three Spot...
I was the other side of Shadow Canyon and I hadn't finished my work; I had a long round-about way to go yet, and was delayed beside, so it was near dark before I got back to the Bar Hook. Though it was not far off from the Bar Hook that I seen him sit."
"Tell me one more thing," Kentucky said. "Did this-did Mason see you?"
"He ought to have seen me. I was in plain sight. But he didn't answer to my wave."
Kentucky rose and went about his work of keeping up the fires. By the signal fire he stood listening for a long time, suspicious of small sounds far away; but he could make certain of no indication of nearby human life. He went back to Lee Bishop.
"Are you there, Kentucky?"
"Right here, Lee."
"Kentucky, I'm sorry I never told that. If only I'd told some people about it, it would clear you. But use it any way you can."
"You never told anybody at all?"
"Just one person in the world, Kentucky; and that isn't liable to do you much good."
"Who was that?"
"Jean Ragland.... She'll back up your word if you tell 'em what I said. But I don't know as it will carry much weight. Anybody can see that she's dead gone on you, Kentuck. Most likely they'll discount what she says in your favor, on that account"
Kentucky Jones said gently, "You're wrong there, Lee."
"You're a fool if you think I am. I told her about seeing Mason, and she made me promise not to tell anybody else. I disremember what I thought was her reason for that; it seemed a reasonable thing to ask, at the time."
Kentucky Jones sucked in his breath through his teeth. "Lee," he said slowly, "you sure you got this straight?"
"Sure, Kentucky. I wouldn't disrecognize Old Iron"
"I don't mean that, Lee. I mean-you told Jean about seeing this, and she told you not to tell anyone?"
"You beat me, Kentucky. How the hell would a man get a thing like that mixed up?"
"All right, Lee."
"What's the matter with you, Kentuck?"
"There's a link or two missing yet, Lee," Kentucky said. "But I'm dead sure in my own mind, now."
"What are you talking about?"
"You've got me the killer of Mason," Kentucky said.
Lee Bishop started, winced, and settled back again, more limp and more still than before. "You mean," he said at last, "you know who killed Mason?"
"Don't you?"
"I - Listen!"
They were silent for a long moment while Lee Bishop lay with closed eyes, as if the life had gone out of him once and for all.
"There's a horse coming," Bishop said at last.
ENTUCKY listened, but could hear nothing; it seemed to him that the small purr and hiss of the fire over which he crouched was preventing him from distinguishing far off, fainter sounds. He got up and walked down the gully, past the signal fire, to a place from which he could sight across the flat snow to the canyon narrows. Here the firelight was no longer in his eyes, and the small whisper of the embers could not confuse his ears; and presently he was certain that he distinguished the slow trample of a walking horse. He listened for what seemed a long time, while the sound came sometimes distinct and unmistakable, and again died away until he was half convinced that the rider had turned and drawn off.
Then the sound of the walking hoofs suddenly became sharp and close at hand. Three hundred yards away Kentucky made out the movement of a shadow in shadows, and knew that the rider was sitting his horse in the mouth of the notch. Kentucky Jones freed his rifle's safety catch, carefully, without any click of metal.
For nearly five minutes the rider in t
he notch sat motionless, and Jones knew that their visitor was watching the signal fire, trying to make out figures near it, or other sign of what the builders of the fire intended.
The rider moved out of the mouth of the notch at last, turned uncertainly to the right, and began to skirt the foot of the canyon wall so slowly that for a little while Kentucky Jones was inclined to think that there was no rider there at all, but only an unridden horse wandering about in search of its bunch. Moving slowly it circled the signal fire, as if trying to pass at the greatest possible distance. Then the pony passed before a drift of gullied snow which stood like a panel of white set into the grey rock; and against this Kentucky Jones saw the unmistakable silhouette of the figure in the saddle.
The rider turned now, cutting back to circle the signal fire more closely; and at last, as if suddenly impatient, turned directly toward the fire itself and rode to the edge of its circle of light. At a distance of no more than fifty feet, Kentucky Jones slid his rifle over the lip of the coulee and brought it to bear upon the mounted figure.
Then the rider turned; and the firelight showed him Jean Ragland's face.
"Hello, Jean," he said.
Her horse jerked as if it would shy, but its rider sat steady, leaning down to peer into the shadows.
Jean called out sharply, "Is that you, Kentucky? Are you hurt?"
"They hit Lee Bishop, Jean."
She slid out of the saddle, tossing the reins over her pony's head, and came to the edge of the coulee. "Where's Lee?"
"Drop down and I'll take you to him." He held up his arms and she let herself drop into them, but freed herself immediately.
"Is he hit bad?"
He whispered, "He can hear us from here, I think. I don't know but what they've finished him, Jean. He's shot in the side of the back, and Lord knows where the bullet stopped. You shouldn't have come here don't you know that?"
"Somebody had to come. Campo my father is back from Waterman; but Harry Wilson quit when Campo wouldn't bring out more riders. You and Campo and I are all that's left. And now poor Lee - poor Lee"
He led her down the cut to where Bishop lay. The range boss opened his eyes and turned his face toward her. "Is that you, Jean?"
She dropped on her knees beside him. "Yes, Lee."
"Didn't know but what I might be hearing things. Where's Campo?"
"He's making a sweep of the upper Bench trail. Lee, you must be plumb frozen?"
"Pretty near," Bishop admitted.
Jean slipped off her coat, and carefully wrapped Bishop's legs. Then she scrambled out of the cut, ran to her horse and, loosening the cinch, jerked her blanket from under the saddle. When this was placed to suit her, she made ready to go.
"It's sure a shot-to-pieces outfit you bought into, Kentucky."
"That deal is off," he told her. "I own no share in the Bar Hook, nor any part of a share."
Jean looked at him but there was no expression in her face, nor in her voice as she answered. "So you're quitting, too."
"No, not quite yet," Kentucky told her grimly. "I'm just going ahead in a little different way than we figured I was going to; that's all."
Jean dropped beside Lee Bishop again, and for a long time studied the mask of his face, yellow in the firelight. He seemed asleep. Irrepressible tears appeared on Jean's cheeks, glinting in the light of the fire. She bent over Lee Bishop and kissed him. "Good-by, Lee," she said softly. "I'll be back pretty quick."
Lee Bishop smiled faintly. "Take your time, kid."
Jean caught Kentucky's wrist and led him a little way down the cut. "Do you think there's any chance of moving him?"
"I don't know as we better try, Jean. When you get back to the house, phone to Waterman for Doe Hopper. Then pack a horse and come back. Get hold of a tent if there's any on the place, and all the bed-rolls that come handy, and grub, and bandages, and stuff. You know what we'll need."
Jean Ragland scaled the side of the cut, re-cinched her saddle, and rode off at a sharp trot.
Lee Bishop said, "There goes a great girl, Kentucky. You're lucky, all right."
"Lucky? Me?"
"She'd ride her horse square off the rim," Lee Bishop said, "if you told her to." He was talking in a queer and somehow childish tone of voice which Kentucky had never heard him use. "Listen, Kentucky. Get this can you hear me all right?"
"I can hear you, Lee."
"You're worse off than you think, Kentucky. Campo believes you killed Mason."
Kentucky said slowly, "I don't know but what Campo has almighty good reason to know better than that, Lee."
"What if he has?" Lee demanded. "What you don't know is, he's been gathering up stuff against you-tracing guns, and the like of that. In a pinch he'll turn on you, Campo will! But believe in that girl. She believes in you; and she'll stand by you."
"The pinch will come quick, now," Kentucky said. "But she'll not be with me, Lee."
Lee Bishop said in a curious hoarse whisper, "She'd jerk the heart out of her, if you needed it. She's got a faith in you that you don't have for her."
"Faith?" Kentucky repeated savagely. "If she'd trusted me only half way, only quarter way, you and I wouldn't be sitting here tonight."
Lee Bishop looked at Kentucky a long time, and his mind seemed to be turning vague. "You ain't licked, Kentucky," he said at last in a weak voice. "You can beat this game yet."
"Sure I'll beat it," Kentucky assured him. "Lee, I'll beat it in spite of her!"
Lee Bishop said in a queer voice, "You-you couldn't go against that girl, Kentucky."
"I'd sooner cut off my right hand, Lee; but I've got to go square against her now."
For another long moment Lee Bishop fixed staring, vacant eyes upon Kentucky's face. "You love her, huh?" he said at last.
Kentucky Jones shivered; he felt as if the grip of the night cold was getting the better of him, so that his body had a core of ice. He covered his face with his hands. "I think," he said, "I hate her as I've never hated any living thing in my life."
Lee Bishop's words jerked out of him incoherently, but unexpectedly sharp and strong. "God help you, Kentucky don't say that!"
"All right, Lee."
Jean Ragland made the round trip and loaded a mule at the other end in a little over four hours, which was wonderful time on those night trails. But she might as well have saved her animals; for an hour before she reached Trap Canyon again Lee Bishop was dead.
HEN Kentucky had packed the body of Lee Bishop to the Bake Pan camp of the Bar Hook, where he placed it with that of Jim Humphreys, he faced his horse into the steep switchback trail up the rim, and started for the main ranch; the mule, freed of half its burden, followed the horse, unled.
Kentucky had agreed with Jean Ragland that to take Lee Bishop to the Bake Pan camp was a shorter and more convenient pack; and Kentucky had seized upon the opportunity to release Jean from the mournful procession and send her home.
He now put his horse up the trail stiffly, climbing fast. He felt no weariness, but only a black temper. Now that he knew for the first time what set of ugly circumstances he was up against, he knew what he had to do; it was not easy, and he wanted to get it behind him.
On the edge of the rim he paused, while his eyes swept all the visible Bench. The voices of the guns and the circumstances of Lee Bishop's death had brought him an odd new alertness, an almost painful consciousness of everything that moved within the limits of the rimrock horizon. It was as if he had found himself returned to the days of his forefathers, when an awareness of far-off details had a lot to do with keeping on a man's scalp. Long before Jean Ragland came in sight, he knew that two horses were coming toward him along the trail, that they had but one rider, and that the second horse was not driven, but led.
For a moment after Jean came in sight he was absorbed by the sight of her. She rode a little dark pony, and her short white storm coat was in key with the snow. Hardly anybody ever saw Jean Ragland ride without following her with his eyes, as a man looks afte
r a bird that is a bright living decoration against the snow. And now the girl and the pony she rode looked better because the led horse was raw-boned and mud colored, with only a sharp, welltracked leg action to suggest that it might be more horse than at first it seemed.
As they met in the trail he saw that her face was quiet with the resignation which had characterized it for the last two days; but her eyes were alive. They looked very dark and tragically comprehending, as if she were able to see behind men and events to fatalities which she opposed without any chance of victory. But there was also in her eyes a touch of feverish light which told him that she was still fighting, though what she was fighting, or how, he was no longer sure that he knew.
"I've brought you a fresh horse," she said immediately. "Maybe it doesn't look like much horse, but it is a whole lot of horse. Pretty near any Bar Hook horse would give down under you before this plug would."
"I suppose I kind of ought to appreciate that," Kentucky said; "but, Jean, how come you think I am going to need such a long-traveling horse?"
"Kentucky," she said, "Kentucky-" She drew her hand across her eyes, as if what she was trying to say was almost beyond her ability. "Look here. I've asked a lot of favors of you, Kentuck; a lot more than I ever had any right to ask. But it seems like you never questioned that part of it."
"I don't remember when this was," he said; "but go ahead."
Her mouth and eyes were taut. "I have to ask you one thing more. If you'll do this one thing more for me, I'll be grateful to you all my life; and I swear I'll never ask anything of you again."