by Zane Grey
Latch had prepared himself for rending words and facts, but at the first wrench of the old wound he held up a hand.
“Bensons, eh?… So I owe them something…. They have shared your work and lived with you?”
“Wal, I should smile. Made home out of this ranch. Why, man alive, you’ll be knocked off your pins when I tell you all…. But Benson, figgerin’ on the future, staked out a ranch below an’ works thet at odd times.”
“Leighton?” queried Latch, sharply.
At this juncture the vaquero rode up with Latch’s pack-animals. Keetch directed the Mexican to throw the packs on the porch and take the horses around to the corrals. Then Keetch, leaning closer to latch over the hitching-rail, and with slow cautious look all around—an action that awakened old associations in Latch—continued in a whisper:
“Leighton rode in hyar a couple of years after you left. Wintered up Spider Web. Come back now an’ then for a couple of years. An’ seein’ the drift of Latch’s Field, he built himself a big place out hyar across the crick. An’ he has been runnin’ a saloon, gamblin’-hall, an’ hang-out for men who don’t like the Kansas plains in winter. Haw! Haw! Do you savvy, boss?”
“I think so,” replied Latch, thoughtfully.
“Leighton has his cronies—as bad a lot as we ever traded with,” went on Keetch. “I’m wonderin’ if you knowed Bruce Kennedy?”
Latch repeated the name. “It’s familiar. But he was never in my outfit.”
“Bad hombre! An’ there’s Smilin’ Jacobs an’ Wess Manlay. These three are Leighton’s bosom pards. Besides thet, some of your old hands are hyar for the winter. Jerry Bain, Seth Cole, Tumbler Johnson, Mizzouri, an’ Plug Halstead.”
“Good men and true, except Halstead. Mizzouri is the salt of the earth,” mused Latch. “I should have expected this. But I never thought—I never thought… Who else, Keetch?”
“Aw, there’s a score of men whose names I never even heerd. An’ across the ridge in the next valley—ride of a few miles—Jim Blackstone is winterin’ with his outfit.”
“Hell you say! I don’t like that,” flashed Latch.
“Wal, it’s so. You gotta make the best of it. I’m bound to admit they make no trouble for us. They’re hidin’ out, boss.”
“Do these strangers know of Spider Web Canyon?”
“I reckon not. An’ they wouldn’t go up there if they did. Satana has been winterin’ in Spider Web. I’m tellin’ you, boss, the old Kiowa has no use for these strangers. But he lets them come an’ go.”
“Do these strangers associate me in any way with the Kiowa?”
“Not atall. Leighton is close-mouthed where his own hide is concerned. It has jest gone out over the range that any man is welcome at Latch’s Field.”
“My own words!” ejaculated Latch, throwing up his hands.
“Shore. An’ it’s gonner be embarrassin’.”
“Rather… Keetch, how many times has Hawk Eye come to you with packs and letters from me?”
“Six times. I don’t need to count. An’, boss”—here the outlaw again glanced about warily, as if he could not trust even the air—“every damn bag you sent is safe hid.”
“In the secret cave in Spider Web?”
“No, by gosh! I couldn’t risk that. Leighton knows there’s rum an’ treasure hid in Spider Web. He goes up there every spring an’ fall. To fish an’ hunt, he says! Bah! At thet it may be to hunt. But not for meat!…So I couldn’t risk Spider Web…. Boss, I dug a secret cellar under this hyar house. An’ all you sent is hid there. I didn’t trust even Hawk Eye.”
“Old man, you’re a good and faithful fellow,” returned Latch, feelingly. “So here I am, Keetch. Back for good! The great ranch and money to buy what I want—live as I choose. Go even Maxwell one better! But for one thing!”
“What’s thet, boss?” asked Keetch, hoarsely.
Latch whispered. “The shadow of Bowden’s lost wagon train hangs over me…. Keetch, the scouts and plainsmen look on me with suspicion. It may be Kit Carson’s step I hear on my trail.”
“My Gawd! Latch, thet’s shore bad news—You gotta quit Satana!”
“I have quit that old deal.”
“Latch, you’ve pulled your last deal of any kind on this border—except honest.”
“You speak my mind, old timer. From now on it’s another kind of a fight—to live down the past. But let that go for the present…. Who else drifted into Latch’s Field besides our undesirable comrades?”
“Latch, you’ll be glad to know your valley has held a lot of settlers who happened across it, one way or another. I reckoned the other day thet there was fourteen honest settlers in the valley. An’ all ranchin’ it an’ lookin’ to the future. Thet doesn’t count Jud Smith, who keeps a store hyar an’ trades with the Injuns. An’ Rankin, the blacksmith, who has two sons. An’ Hep Poffer. He’s a farmer an’ a grafter of fruit trees. He has freighted in a lot of trees. You have a fine orchard, boss.”
“Honest men… pioneers!” exclaimed Latch, overcome. “Keetch, do these honest men know Latch’s Field is a rendezvous for outlaws?”
“Wal, if they do, they ain’t sayin’ so. Benson shore knows, though I never told him. But I reckon it wouldn’t make a sight of difference to any of them. Thet is, up to now.”
“Keetch, you intimate that Latch’s Field has a future.”
“Boss, it shore has.”
“To what do you attribute this trend?”
“Wal, since the war there’s been a boom. It ain’t only the broken-down soldiers who’re emigratin’. Take this Chisholm Cattle Trail. Have you heerd of thet?”
“Rather. I just came from Dodge City, which is the western terminus of Chisholm’s Trail. From a sleepy freightering post, Dodge has leaped to a roaring metropolis. They burn daylight there. More hell in Dodge in one hour than any night sees in another Western town!”
“I can jest figger thet, Wal, the cattle herds comin’ up the trail have had somethin’ to do with the turrible growth of Latch’s Field. Haw! Haw!… You see, boss, it’s only around hundred an’ fifty miles as a crow flies to where the Cimarron crosses the Chisholm Trail. An’ mebbe another fifty miles down the trail to Camp Supply, an army post. The North Fork of the Canadian River crosses the Chisholm Trail there. A wagon road runs now up the North Fork, for the most part, an’ comes right up into our valley. Spider Web Creek is one of the heads of the North Fork. Thet accounts for most of the travel up this way. Of course the caravans don’t tackle it. But a lot of wagons come along, sometimes single, an’ then in twos an’ threes. A few of these settlers have stuck. Webbe an’ Bartlett air both married Injun fashion, one to a Kiowa squaw an’ the other to a Cherokee. Some of the other settlers have families. They’re dam good fellars to have around us—now”
“It’s a bitter pill, Keetch. I don’t see just why. But I swallow it. I’ll make the best of everything. One more question about them. It’s cattle, of course, these settlers expect to realize on?”
“Shore. An’ it’s good figgerin’. Cattle will dominate the West. Soon as the buffalo air killed off. Thet’s goin’ to be the hellenest time this old border will ever have. I see it comin’. The Injuns will fight for their buffalo. Poor devils. I shore don’t blame them. An’ in the end it’ll be the buffalo-hunters, not the soldiers, thet’ll lick the Injuns an’ make possible the openin’ of the West.”
“Keetch, you’ve got a long head,” replied Latch, admiringly. “I’ve forgotten my instructions about cattle, if I ever gave any. What stock have I here in the valley?”
“Wal, I cain’t say correct. Around ten thousand head of cattle an’ mebbe a thousand of horses. I hate sheep an’ hope you won’t throw them on this range.”
“So much! Well, I’m a rancher before I knew it. Who runs all this stock?”
“They don’t need much runnin’ in this valley. Not yet. Lord knows what’ll be needed when the hoss an’ cattle thieves come. Which they will! At present all our help except the Bensons
is Mexican. They’re cheap an’ they’re good.”
“Keetch, all wonderful news! I won’t attempt thanks now. And that’ll do for the present…. i’ll be in—presently … after I spend a little while—by Cynthia’s grave. …You’ve cared for it—of course?”
“Shore have, boss,” returned Keetch, hurriedly. “It’s right there, under the first big walnut, all fenced in an’ kep’ green. Flowers, too. But the frost will nip them soon. I seen the walnut leaves failin’ today… No, boss, we never forgot. An’ Mrs. Benson an’—an’ Estie… Boss, wait—I—I got more to tell.”
Latch waved him silent, and strode slowly toward the huge walnut tree. The sun was setting. Rays of gold filtered through the foliage upon the greensward. Through the trim pickets of a little fenced enclosure the golden light shone upon a stone headpiece. A rabbit slipped between the pickets and hopped away. Leaves were falling, like flakes of yellow snow. Latch was conscious of faint sounds at a distance—the bray of a burro—the low of cattle—the languorous music of a guitar.
He leaned against the huge, brown-barked tree and gazed down into the little enclosure. Narrow green mound—crude monument—blossoms smiling palegold from the grass! His heart was oppressed. There seemed to be great strain and strife within his breast, as if long-strangled emotions were awakening to a poignant present. This vigil would not be what he had feared. He was going to endure it. Cynthia! All the loveliness, all the sacrifice and atonement, the passion she had given him, lay interred here. Had the wild life he had led killed his grief, his repentance? His breast labored with a dull pang. But he did not feel acute, alive, vibrant. This grave was the end of his journey. His tremendous will to go on found no impetus here. He had only to get back to Latch’s Field to realize he had nothing left to live for. So his journey had indeed been a journado del muerto. What could a ranch that rivaled Maxwell’s be to him now? In that moment Latch would have told Kit Carson who had been responsible for the loss of Bowden’s wagon train. What could the gamingtable mean to him henceforth? There was no rest, no hope, no peace, no work, no good, no use for him any longer on the earth. And a long shuddering sigh of resignation escaped his lips.
At this moment something encircled his leg. He looked down to see the little girl who had run out upon the porch. Her head with its red-gold curls reached to his gun-sheath. She was looking up at him with the wide dark eyes that had struck him at first sight.
“Little girl, please go away,” he said, kindly. “I wish to be alone.”
“Daddy,” she replied in a low, flute-like voice.
“My child, I’m not your daddy,” returned Latch, vaguely perturbed.
“I’m Estie. Didn’t Uncle Keetch ever tell about Estie?”
“No. Uncle Keetch never did. He’s a very poor letter-writer…. Please run away now, Estie.…This is the grave—of one very dear to me”
“Oh, I know,” she said, in grave wistfulness.
“Child, what do you know?” queried Latch, strangely impelled out of his dark mood.
“I love her, too. Every day I come here.”
“That’s good of you, Estie. Thank you. I—I…. But, child, why do you come here?”
“It’s my mamma’s grave.”
Latch heard. His reaction was not instant. When that message reached his brain it seemed to be a paralyzing terror.
“I’m Estie. Uncle Keetch sent me to tell you,” the child said, earnestly.
Latch’s lips barely formed the hoarse whisper. “Estie—who?”
“Estie Latch. My name’s Estelle, but Auntie Benson calls me Estie. She teaches me. I was going to write you to come home.”
“God in heaven!” whispered Latch. He knelt to take the pretty face between his shaking hands. “Child, who—are—you?”
“Estie Latch,” she replied, softly. “Don’t you believe? I was born here. I’m nearly seven years old…. This is my mother’s grave …. You’ve been so long coming home, Daddy.”
Then the agony that gripped Latch seemed pierced by the almost incredible truth. A last slant of sunlight fell upon those red-gold curls. How like the hue of hair that had once waved across his breast! Cynthia’s eyes looked into his. The same dark violet eyes that had been Cynthia’s greatest beauty!
“Call me—that—again,” he whispered.
“Daddy!” She put her arms around his neck.
Suddenly Latch snatched the child to his breast. Cynthia’s child! There had been a baby. His baby! A little girl with red-gold hair and violet eyes! And he was struck to his soul by the ecstasy of the truth, by the horror of it. This was why the fire and fury of the frontier had failed to make an end of his life. Murderer of innocent children, he had the awful fact to face—a child of his own—the image of the woman who had loved him, ruined him, died for him. His own little girl—Estelle Latch! She had her arms around his neck—a wet cheek tenderly against his. She had been taught to love her father. That crazy old man Keetch—this woman teacher—had taught the child love. Love for Stephen Latch, partner of the red-handed Satana!
But little Estelle must never know. All the great evil of this unfortunate man burst into new fire to bum away anything or anyone that might destroy the happiness of Cynthia’s child. Holding her there, all his passions concentrated into the single one of living for Estelle, to save her, to atone to her for all that he had made her mother suffer. Life would never hold another moment of peace for Latch. Not with that shadow on his name—with that step on his trail! But he prayed for nothing except life, courage, cunning to meet all issues.
A thousand thoughts, ideas, plans, whirled through his mind. He could leave the child to this kind woman and go out to be hanged as he deserved. Impossible! She had learned to love her father—had waited for him—had looked at him with Cynthia’s eyes. He could never leave her. Nor could he take her and go to a far country. No! Latch’s Field held too much to leave. Cynthia’s spirit seemed to call upon him to keep Estelle there in the purple land where she had been bom of such a tragic and beautiful love. Estelle would be her mother all over again. She would be a flower of the West; she would love the West; she would become a factor in the progress of the West.
Latch sat with the Bensons in his big living-room. A bright fire blazed in the huge stone fireplace. Outside, the November wind moaned under the eaves with a portent of storm.
Alec Benson was about forty years old, a sturdy farmer from Pennsylvania. His wife was younger, a comely strong woman, fit for a pioneer’s wife. They had come West to grow up with the country.
Latch had listened silently to Mrs. Benson’s story of Estelle’s birth and Cynthia’s death. If he had not rushed away that night long ago, mad in his grief, he might have saved himself six years of vicious life. He would not have had so much more crime to live down. He would have had Cynthia’s child to comfort him.
The part of the woman’s story which troubled Latch most was her iteration of the fact that Cynthia had tried desperately to leave a message. But she had died trying. Letters—birthright—fortune! These disturbing words were all Mrs. Benson could distinguish. Latch put the thought-provoking words out of his mind for the present. That they would bear future fruit, far-reaching and important, he had no doubt.
“I owe you much,” he said to the couple. “My thanks must show in deeds, as your goodness has shown in service to me…. Benson, if you came West to make your fortune, you need go no farther. You can make it here with me. We are on the ground first. Take your place as superintendent of my ranch, and meanwhile develop ranch and cattle of your own. Will you accept?”
“Will I? Why, Mr. Latch, I’ll be the happiest and luckiest man alive,” returned the farmer, heartily.
“It’s settled. You will live here with me. Later we will talk of plans to improve the ranch and develop for the future,” replied Latch, and then turned to the man’s wife. “Mrs. Benson, your kindness to Cynthia can never be repaid. Nor your mothering of my little girl. But if you will go on with Estelle’s education I’ll repay you
well.”
“I would do all I can for nothing,” rejoined Mrs. Benson, her blue eyes bright and warm. “I love Estie. She is a strange, adorable, wonderful child…. I used to be a school-teacher. I can answer for her up until she’s ten or possibly twelve.”
“That is splendid. When Estelle is twelve I’ll send her to school in the South.”
At a later hour Latch sat in his living-room with the men Keetch had summoned. Strong drink went the rounds, and then cigars. Latch sat back and gazed from one to another of these outlaws who had at one time or another been members of his band.
Leighton, barring the deformity of his face, appeared to far better advantage than when Latch had seen him last. He was lighter in weight and cleaner in garb. A soddenness from the bottle and evil courses did not show markedly. But more potent than ever was the man’s inscrutable force—the dominant passion that radiated from him.
Jerry Bain, the merry little outlaw of whom no stranger would ever think evil; Seth Cole, big, bland, lazy, a man who had drifted into outlawry because it was the easiest way; Tumbler Johnson, the mulatto circus performer, a good friend and dangerous enemy; Mizzouri, the old, drawling, sandy-haired, freckled-faced cowman gone wrong; and lastly Plug Halstead, one of the glinting-eyed fraternity of the border, one to whom trouble had gravitated and only the gun could end—these members of Latch’s Band in the past, carefully chosen and fairly treated, had never failed him in the slightest.
“Men, I have a surprise for you,” spoke up Latch, after an hour of talk. “You will remember how I always used to come to the point.”
“Yes, or come to the draw!” retorted Plug Halstead.
“Wal, chief, shoot,” said Mizzouri.
“Latch’s Band is no more! It is ended—through…. I am asking each and every man of you to turn honest.”
The amaze aroused by that request was depicted in the hard faces; the receipt of it in utter silence attested to its shock.
“The rest of my life will be honest,” went on Latch. “Devoted to thinking, fighting, living down the past. The odds are against me. It is an open question whether I can succeed. A shadow hangs over me. There is a step on my trail. Kit Carson, Dick Curtis, Beaver Adams, all the scouts suspect me. The plainsmen and trail bosses like Jim Waters know I’ve been leagued with Satana. All of you come under this sinister bar. You’ve all been under me in Satana’s raids. If I am found out you will be found out. So much for the past. We face the future. I can see the day when the West will not abide the outlaw. Maybe not in our day. But that’s not the point. The great drive is on. The empire-building era of the West has started. The freighters will go, the caravans, the plainsmen, the scouts, the soldiers, and with them the Indians, along with every kind of border criminal. What I respectfully call to your attention is the fact, the movement. Not the finished result! None of us will live to see that…. Now, speak up, each of you—whatever my statements strike from you.”