She avoided the thought, turning swiftly to work, busying herself with preparations for supper, trying not to think of that big, easy-moving man out there in the gathering dusk.
She had known other men. There had been many visitors to the ranch while her father was alive, and some of them had courted her, yet none of them had ever disturbed her as she was now disturbed.
He was moving around out there. She could hear the murmur of his voice, talking to the horses. She heard the twang of a pitchfork prong striking some object. He was feeding the horses. Soon he would be through. Her throat felt tight. Soon he would be coming to the house.
She heard his footsteps on the hard-baked earth. He was coming now. He was coming to the house. She looked blankly around, biting her lower lip as if she had forgotten something. He was coming to the house, and it was night, it was dark….
CHAPTER 3
SHE PUT HER hand to her hair, looked around, and went to the door as she heard him stop. There was a moment of silence, then a knock.
Angie put out her hand to the door, then took it quickly away. “What do you want?”
“I’ve fed and grained your horses.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll bed somewhere near till morning.”
She heard him turn away. She hesitated, then she opened the door. He stopped and turned, clearly revealed in the light from the doorway.
“You can’t sleep outside. There’s a wind rising. I’ll fix a pallet for you in the corner.”
Hondo hitched his saddle higher on his hip and followed her into the house. Behind him Sam slipped through the door and sat down near it, looking at the room with bright, interested eyes.
Angie turned up the kerosene lamp and Hondo took in the room with a glance. Her bed and Johnny’s were in a small alcove, curtained by an Indian blanket. He removed his hat and hung it on a peg, then dropped his saddle in a corner out of the way.
She took blankets from an old trunk and carried them to a corner. She indicated a buffalo robe to him and he spread it on the floor, then covered it with the blankets. She started to bring a pillow, but he shook his head.
“Never use a pillow. Only sometimes my saddle. Too soft. A man can’t hear good with a pillow around his ears.”
“But you’ll be asleep.”
“Yes, ma’am, but I wake up easy. This country a man had better.”
She straightened the blankets with a few quick, feminine, and totally unnecessary movements, then straightened. Without looking at him, she explained, “It would be uncivilized to let anyone sleep outside. And after all, we are civilized, aren’t we?”
“Speaking for you, of course. Speaking for me?” He considered it for a minute, then agreed. “I guess you could call me that.”
“I have to set some batter for morning. I hope the noise won’t bother you.”
“It won’t.” He sat down on his pallet and pulled off his boots. “Good night, Mrs. Lowe.”
He drew his pistol from its holster and with the gun in his hand he rolled over on the pallet and pulled a blanket around him. Almost at once his breathing was even and regular. Glancing at him, Angie saw that he was actually asleep.
He must be very tired. How far had he walked that morning? It had been just past daylight when he lost his horse, and it had been a long, very hot day. Yet he moved little in his sleep, and she worked, only dimly conscious of his presence. It had been a long time since there had been a man in the house, and it was a comforting thing.
As she mixed the batter her thoughts returned to Ed. Where was he? Had he been killed by the Apaches? No, he was simply gone, and he might not come back at all. Nor could she wish for him to come back, for these past few months they had grown further and further apart, and he had worked less and less. Most of the time he was gone, finding some excuse to be away in town.
He gambled, she knew that, and returned home only when he was broke. What had seemed to be love she realized now had been merely the natural result of proximity. It was not so amazing a coincidence as Lane had made it seem, for there were no other girls around, and few men. They had been together, and it had been a natural thing for them to talk of marriage. And Ed Lowe had got along well with her father.
In fact, he usually got along well with people when it was to his advantage. He had deliberately set himself to cultivate her father, for in those days the ranch looked good, and it was growing. After her father died, Ed came to realize that a ranch grows only by the work that is put into it, and he gradually let it go, selling a few cattle, breaking wild horses for the Army, and sometimes, she suspected, stealing them from the Indians whenever he could.
She had tried. Not even Ed Lowe could deny that. She had tried hard, because she was his wife and because he was Johnny’s father. But it had not worked, and now he had gone off and it had been a long time since she had seen him. Now, considering the matter, she knew she hoped he would not come back.
He wanted no responsibility. The chores of the ranch nagged at him and irritated him, and the problem of buying cattle and tending them on the range was not for him. Her father had got along well with the Indians. Even old Vittoro knew him, and they had done business together. Several times he had given the Apaches sugar and tobacco, always sure they understood that it was as a gift to friends and not tribute.
There was none of this feeling in Ed Lowe. He despised the Apaches, and feared them.
She put the pan aside and went to the lamp to turn it down. As she did so her eyes fell upon a brass plate set in the cantle of his saddle. She bent closer, suddenly curious.
FIRST PRIZE
Bronc Riding
Hondo Lane
She drew back quickly, startled by the name. Her sudden movement caused a stirrup to fall to the floor, and Hondo Lane was on his feet in one swift movement, gun in hand.
With almost the same movement, she had dropped back to where she had put the Walker Colt earlier. Instantly she lifted it. “You’re Hondo Lane! The gunman!”
“I carry a gun.”
Slowly the muzzle of his gun lowered and he blinked in the light.
“Only last year you killed three men in a gun fight. We heard about it. Three men!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He smiled and stepped toward her, reaching for the gun, and in a panic of some sudden emotion, she knew not what, her finger shut down on the trigger. The hammer fell with an empty click and he stood with the muzzle of the gun against his chest, looking down at her.
Frightened by what she had done, she stood helpless while he gently took the gun from her hand. “Shouldn’t point a gun at anybody when there’s an empty chamber under the firing pin. It can be seen mighty plain. Specially with the light behind it.”
He armed the Colt, then dropped it in the empty holster.
“I keep it that way because of Johnny.”
“Keep it out of reach, and with a load in the chamber.”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “Empty gun’s no use to anybody, ma’am. If you need that, you’ll need it fast.”
“I might have shot you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He turned toward his pallet. “Guess I sort of scared you. Usual noises don’t bother me. It’s those unusual ones that wake a man. Sorry, ma’am.”
He sat down on the pallet and once more he rolled over and drew up the blanket. He was once more asleep. He still held the gun.
Lane…Somehow the thought of his being Hondo Lane had not entered her mind. She should have realized who he was, for she had heard he had become a dispatch rider and scout for General Crook.
Crook valued such men, and made every effort to recruit them. She had seen the General when he first arrived on the Arizona station. He had not been in uniform. In fact, he rarely was, and he was traveling without fuss or ceremony. She had he
ard it said that no man alive knew more about pack trains than General Crook, and he got on well with the Apaches.
She stretched out in her bed, tired but wakeful. She had almost shot Hondo Lane. She had not intended to. So why had it happened? What had she been afraid of? She felt her face grow warm in the darkness and she turned her back on the room, trying to forget his even breathing. Yet she could not forget. And it was a friendly, comforting sound. For the first time in months she slept without fear, without worry.
Outside the wind moaned around the eaves and the cottonwood leaves rustled with their dry, companionable whispering.
She awakened once during the night and lay awake for several minutes. She had been worried about fuel, and now she need no longer worry. And the horses were shod. He had accomplished so much in so little time, and cutting through the big log…It would have taken her days.
If she had to leave, the payment for the horse would help. But she could not think of leaving. This was her home, and here she could eke out a living whether Ed returned or not. She could shoot, and she had been able to kill an occasional rabbit or antelope. Johnny was getting older and in a few more years he could take over the hunting and she would at least have the land to leave him. And she could trade with the Indians.
Shortly before daylight Hondo awakened quickly. He sat up, listening, placing the sounds of the predawn hour. Then he got to his feet and slung on his gun belt, dropping the Colt into its holster.
From the window he scanned the ranch yard. There was a faint gray-yellow light in the east. The yard was empty and still. The horses were standing relaxed and lazy. Returning to his pallet, he folded the blankets, then the buffalo robe and placed them in a neat pile upon a chair.
With a glance at the curtained alcove he picked up his hat and boots and eased open the door, stepping out into the brisk chill of morning. Lowering himself to the step, he put on his hat, then his boots.
The horses came to meet him and he forked hay for them. The lineback let his hand touch it before it shied away, and then he went to the creek.
The water gurgled darkly over the stones with little places of bubbling water where it ran around a branch or other obstruction. He removed his hat and, squatting, bathed his face in the cold water. The creek water was miraculously soft and very cold. He bathed his eyes, spluttering a little, and then combed his hair and straightened away from the creek.
The trees were dark and mysterious, and the cold of the morning was bracing and good. A few stars lingered, reluctant to abandon the clear sky to the coming sun. He took his time, skirting around the ranch, looking for fresh tracks, finding none but those of deer that had come down to graze on the greener grass around the edges of the corral.
The garden her father had irrigated was growing, but the few rows were painfully small, and obviously irrigated by hand now. Across the creek he saw a clump of squaw cabbage and there were no broken stalks. He must tell her about it, for apparently she knew nothing of the desert plants on which the Indians survived.
There was food in the desert if a man knew where to find it, and the Apaches knew. That was the item that defeated the Army. The Apaches lived off the country they passed through, and they knew all the water holes, and could if necessary go for several days without water, just carrying a pebble in their mouths. But the Apaches knew the plants that conserved water too.
Hondo rolled a smoke and glanced around the rim of the hills as his tongue touched the paper. Of course, the food the Apaches loved was mule meat—and that meant Army mules. An Apache preferred it to any other, with horse meat second, and only after that would he consider beef or mutton. Pork he would not eat at all.
Yet there was plenty to eat in the desert if a man knew where to look. Lane crossed the stream and gathered a double handful of squaw cabbage. He was walking back toward the house when the door opened and Angie Lowe stepped out.
“Squaw cabbage,” he said. “Lots of it across the creek. Mighty good stew when you boil it with meat. Some folks like it raw.”
She accepted the whitish stalks and put them down on the table inside. “Breadroot out there, too,” he said, “an’ you can grind mesquite beans into flour an’ bake them into a loaf.”
“You must have learned a lot from the Indians.”
“Some,” he said. “They’ve lived here a long time.”
He walked on to the corral and roped the lineback. When he led it out of the corral he bridled and saddled it, then went to the house for his saddlebags and rifle.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes, ma’am. Got to go on.” His eyes met hers. “Sure you won’t come along?”
“No. This is all I have.”
“Dam ought to be rebuilt,” he said. “Hard to get water in the garden.”
“If you’re going, I ought to wake Johnny to say good-by to you.”
“Was it me,” Lane coiled his rope, “I’d let him sleep. Youngsters grow sleeping. But you do what you want to.”
“He’s delighted with the whistle you gave him. It’s more like a flute than a whistle.”
Lane felt uncomfortable. He liked to avoid good-bys, and this was leading to one. He fiddled with the girth, rearranged the saddlebags.
“Learned to make them when I lived with the Mescaleros. My squaw used to make them for all the youngsters in the camp.”
“You lived with the Apaches?”
“Five years.”
She hesitated, but her curiosity overcame her reluctance to pry. “You had an Indian wife?”
“Wife…squaw. Took the liberty of borrowing a few feet of rope off that roll in the lean-to. Mine was ’most worn out. I’ll be glad to pay you for it if you’ll let me.”
“Of course not.”
He tied the rope to the corral post, then to the pommel of the saddle, and moved the horse back to stretch the newness out of the rope. She fidgeted wanting to know more but hesitant to ask. There was no sound from the house. The air was still fresh and cool but carried the promise of a hot day. As he worked, she watched him, reluctant to see him go.
“It must have been interesting, living with the Apaches.”
“I liked it.”
“This Indian wife you have—”
“Had. She’s dead.” He spoke quietly, without emotion.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up an unhappy memory.”
He turned, letting the horse stand. He pushed his hat back on his head and considered her remark. “I don’t remember anything unhappy about Destarte.”
“Destarte! How musical! What does it mean?”
“You can’t say it except in Mescalero. It means Morning, but that isn’t what it means, either. Indian words are more than just that. They also mean the feel and the sound of the name. It means like Crack of Dawn, the first bronze light that makes the buttes stand out against the gray desert. It means the first sound you hear of a brook curling over some rocks—some trout jumping and a beaver crooning. It means the sound a stallion makes when he whistles at some mares just as the first puff of wind kicks up at daybreak.
“It means like you get up in the first light and you and her go out of the wickiup, where it smells smoky and private and just you and her, and kind of safe with just the two of you there, and you stand outside and smell the first bite of the wind coming down from the high divide and promising the first snowfall. Well, you just can’t say what it means in English. Anyway, that was her name. Destarte.”
Rather amazed, Angie stared at him. “Why, that’s poetry!”
“Huh? Didn’t mean to go gabbing.” He looked around at Angie. “You remind me of her. Some.”
He untied the rope and began to coil it again without looking at Angie. “Good rope,” he commented. “Sure I can’t pay you for it?”
“I remind you of an Indian girl? Was she fair?”
&
nbsp; He turned and looked at her without emotion. He inspected her hair, her coloring and her face. She flushed as his eyes went over her figure.
“Her hair was black as ten feet down. It shined black like those plums you find up on the Powder. You know how the wing of a crow is shiny? Black and gleaming.” He tied the rope to the saddle horn. “That’s the way her hair shined.” He tightened the knot. “I’d like to pay you for this rope. Dispatch riding I’ve got the right to give you United States Army scrip.”
“You loved her?”
He hesitated thinking about it, his eyes wandering toward the hills. He hitched his belt a little and took out the makings. “I don’t know. I needed her.”
“But if she was dark and I’m fair?”
“Why you remind me?”
“Yes.”
“I dunno. It’s hard to figure. I thought about it. You walk like her with your head up.”
He put the cigarette in his lips. “You walk like an Indian. You don’t toe out like a white woman.”
He looked at her and their eyes met. He took the cigarette from his lips and took the front of her dress in his left hand and drew her to him and their lips met. There was nothing forceful about it, and she neither resisted nor helped, yet she was far from merely acquiescent. And when they parted her face was a little pale. She stepped back, not frightened, but not sure of what it meant.
“I’m surprised at you, Mr. Lane.”
“No, you’re not surprised, Mrs. Lowe. You knew.”
“I’m a married woman.”
“I thought about that, too. I thought about it a long time. Last night.”
She touched her lips with the back of her hand and took another step back. Nothing about it had seemed wrong. It had seemed natural, right. Angie was puzzled at her own feelings and trying to find a meaning for them.
“Maybe I kissed you because you make me think of Destarte. Or maybe because I hate to think of your hair drying, slung from the center pole of an Apache wickiup. But a long time ago I made me a rule: I let people do what they want to do.
Hondo (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Page 4