The Lawless West

by Louis L'Amour

  This from the best horseman on the whole range!

  Apparently the rancher took Tex seriously. “He sure is wild, Tex, and I know you’re a poor hand with a horse. If he throws you, why, you’ll have your own horse.”

  Miss Stacey turned away her eyes. There was a hint of a smile on her lips. Springer got in beside her, and, taking the reins without another glance at his discomfited cowboys, he drove away.

  Chapter 2

  A few weeks altered many things at Springer’s Ranch. There was a marvelous change in the dress and deportment of cowboys off duty. There were some clean and happy and interested children. There was a rather taciturn and lonely young rancher who was given to thoughtful dreams and whose keen eyes watched the little adobe schoolhouse under the cottonwoods. And in Jane Stacey’s face a rich bloom and tan had begun to warm out the paleness.

  It was not often that Jane left the schoolhouse without meeting one of Springer’s cowboys. She met Tex most frequently, and according to Andy that fact was because Tex was foreman and could send the boys off to the ends of the range.

  And this afternoon Jane encountered the foreman. He was clean-shaven, bright, and eager, a superb figure. Tex had been lucky enough to have a gun with him one day when a rattlesnake frightenedthe schoolteacher and he had shot the reptile. Miss Stacey had leaned against him in her fright; she had been grateful; she had admired his wonderful skill with a gun and had murmured that a woman always could be sure with such a man. Thereafter Tex packed his gun unmindful of the ridicule of his rivals.

  “Miss Stacey, come for a little ride, won’t you?” he asked eagerly.

  The cowboys had already taught her how to handle a horse and to ride, and, if all they said of her appearance and accomplishment were true, she was indeed worth watching.

  “I’m sorry,” replied Jane. “I promised Nevada I’d ride with him today.”

  “I reckon Nevada is miles an’ miles up the valley by now,” replied Tex. “He won’t be back till long after dark.”

  “But he made an agreement with me,” protested the schoolmistress.

  “An’ shore he has to work. He’s ridin’ for Springer, an’ I’m foreman of this ranch,” said Tex.

  “You sent him off on some long chase,” averred Jane severely. “Now, didn’t you?”

  “I shore did. He comes crowin’ down to the bunkhouse…about how he’s goin’ to ride with you an’ how we-all are not in the runnin’.”

  “Oh, he did. And what did you say?”

  “I says…‘Nevada, I reckon there’s a steer mired in the sand up in Cedar Wash. You ride up there an’ pull him out.’”

  “And then what did he say?” inquired Jane curiously.

  “Why, Miss Stacey, I shore hate to tell you. I didn’t think he was so…so bad. He just used the most awful language as was ever heard on this heah ranch. Then he rode off.”

  “But was there a steer mired up in the wash?”

  “I reckon so,” replied Tex, rather shame-facedly. “’Most always is one.”

  Jane let scornful eyes rest upon the foreman.

  “That was a mean trick,” she said.

  “There’s been worse done to me by him, an’ all of them. An’ all’s fair in love an’ war…Will you ride with me?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I think I’ll ride off alone up Cedar Wash and help Nevada find that mired steer.”

  “Miss Stacey, you’re shore not goin’ to ride off alone. Savvy that?”

  “Who’ll keep me from it?” demanded Jane with spirit.

  “I will. Or any of the boys, for that matter. Springer’s orders.”

  Jane started with surprise, and then blushed rosy red. Tex, also, appeared confused at his disclosure.

  “Miss Stacey, I oughtn’t have said that. It slipped out. The boss said we needn’t tell you, but you were to be watched an’ taken care of. It’s a wild range. You could get lost or thrown from a horse.”

  “Mister Springer is very kind and thoughtful,” murmured Jane.

  “The fact is, this heah ranch is a different place since you came,” went on Tex as if emboldened. “An’ this beatin’ around the bush doesn’t suit me. All the boys have lost their haids over you.”

  “Indeed? How flattering,” replied Jane with just a hint of mockery. She was fond of all her admirers, but there were four of them she had not yet forgiven.

  The tall foreman was not without spirit.

  “It’s true all right, as you’ll find out pretty quick,” he replied. “If you had any eyes, you’d see that cattle raisin’ on this heah ranch is about to halt till somethin’ is decided. Why, even Springer himself is sweet on you.”

  “How dare you!” flashed Jane, suddenly aghast.

  “I ain’t afraid to tell the truth,” declared Tex stoutly. “He is. The boys all say so. He’s grouchier than ever. He’s jealous. Lord, he’s jealous! He watches you…”

  “Suppose I told him that you dared to say such things?” interrupted Jane, trembling on the verge of strange emotion.

  “Why, he’d be tickled to death. He hasn’t got nerve enough to tell you himself.”

  This cowboy, like all his comrades, was hopeless. She was about to attempt to change the conversation when Tex took her into his arms. She struggled—fought with all her might. But he succeeded in kissing her cheek and the tip of her ear. Finally she broke away from him.

  “Now…,” she panted. “You’ve done it…you’ve insulted me. Now I’ll never ride with you again…even speak to you.”

  “I shore didn’t insult you,” replied Tex. “Jane…won’t you marry me?”

  “No.”

  “Won’t you be my sweetheart…till you care enough to…to…?”

  “No.”

  “But, Jane, you’ll forgive me, an’ be good friends again?”

  “Never!”

  Jane did not mean all she said. She had come to understand these men of the ranges—their loneliness—their hunger for love. But in spite of her sympathy she needed sometimes to be cold and severe.

  “Jane, you owe me a good deal…more than you’ve any idea,” said Tex seriously.

  “How so?”

  “Didn’t you ever guess about me?”

  “My wildest flight at guessing would never make anything of you, Texas Jack.”

  “You’d never have been here but for me,” he said solemnly.

  Jane could only stare at him.

  “I meant to tell you long ago. But I shore didn’t have nerve. Jane…I…I was that there letter-writin’ feller. I wrote them letters you got. I am Frank Owens.”

  “No!” exclaimed Jane. She was startled. That matter of Frank Owens had never been cleared up. It had ceased to rankle within her breast, but it had never been forgotten. She looked up earnestly into the big fellow’s face. It was like a mask. But she saw through it. He was lying. Almost, she thought, she saw a laugh deep in his eyes.

  “I shore am the lucky man who found you a job when you was sick an’ needed a change…An’ you’ve grown so pretty an’ so well you owe all thet to me.”

  “Tex, if you really were Frank Owens, that would make a great difference. I owe him everything. I would…but I don’t believe you are he.”

  “It’s a sure honest Gospel fact,” declared Tex. “I hope to die if it ain’t!”

  Jane shook her head sadly at his monstrous prevarication.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said, and left him standing there.

  It might have been mere coincidence that during the next few days both Nevada and Panhandle waylaid and conveyed to her intelligence by diverse and pathetic arguments the astounding fact that each was Mr. Frank Owens. More likely, however, was it the unerring instinct of lovers who had sensed the importance and significance of this mysterious correspondent’s part in bringing health and happiness into Jane Stacey’s life. She listened to them with anger and sadness and amusement at their deceit, and she had the same answer for both: “I
don’t believe you.”

  And through these machinations of the cowboys Jane had begun to have vague and sweet and disturbing suspicions of her own as to the real identity of that mysterious cowboy, Frank Owens. Andy had originality as well as daring. He would have completely deceived Jane if she had not happened, by the merest accident, to discover the relation between him and certain love letters she had begun to find in her desk. She was deceived at first, for the typewriting of these was precisely like that in the letters like that of Frank Owens. She had been suddenly aware of a wild start of rapture. That had given place to a shameful open-eyed realization of the serious condition of her own heart. But she happened to discover in Andy the writer of these missives, and her dream was shattered, if not forgotten. Andy certainly would not carry love letters to her that he did not write. He had merely learned to use the same typewriter and at opportune times he had slipped the letters into her desk. Jane now began to have her own little aching haunting secret that was so hard to put out of her mind. Every letter and every hint of Frank Owens made her remember. Therefore she decided to put a check to Andy’s sly double-dealing. She addressed a note to him and wrote:

  Dear Andy,

  That day at the train when you thought I was a poor old schoolmarm you swore you were not Frank Owens. Now you swear you are! If you were a man who knew what truth is, you’d have a chance. But now…No! You are a monster of iniquity. I don’t believe you.

  She left the note in plain sight where she always found his letters in her desk. The next morning the note was gone. And so was Andy. She did not see him for three days.

  It came about that a dance to be held at Beacon during the late summer was something Jane could not very well avoid. She had not attended either of the cowboy dances that had been given since her arrival. This next one, however, appeared to be an annual affair, at which all the ranching fraternity for miles around would be in attendance. Jane was wild to go. But it developed that she could not escape the escort of any one of her cowboy admirers without alienating the others. And she began to see the visions of this wonderful dance fade away when Springer accosted her.

  “Who’s the lucky cowboy to take you to our dance?” he asked.

  “He’s as mysterious and doubtful as Mister Frank Owens,” replied Jane.

  “Oh, you still remember him,” said the rancher, his keen dark eyes quizzically on her.

  “Indeed, I do,” sighed Jane.

  “Too bad! He was a villain…But you don’t mean you haven’t been asked to go?”

  “They’ve all asked me…that’s the trouble.”

  “I see. But you mustn’t miss it. It’d be pleasant for you to meet some of the ranchers and their wives. Suppose you go with me?”

  “Oh, Mister Springer, I…I’d be delighted,” replied Jane.

  “Thank you. Then it’s settled. I must be in town all that day on cattle business…next Friday. I’ll ask the Hartwells to stop here for you, an’ drive you in.”

  He seemed gravely, kindly interested as always, yet there was something in his eyes that interfered with the regular beating of Jane’s heart. She could not forget what the cowboys had told her, even if she dared not believe it.

  Jane spent much of the remaining leisure hours on a gown to wear at this dance that promised so much. And because of the labor, she saw little of the cowboys. Tex was highly offended with her and would not deign to notice her anyhow. She wondered what would happen at the dance. She was a little fearful, too, because she had already learned of what fire and brimstone these cowboys were made. So dreaming and conjecturing, now amused and again gravely pensive, Jane awaited the eventful night.

  The Hartwells turned out to be nice people whose little girl was one of Jane’s pupils. That, and their evident delight in Jane’s appearance, gave the adventure a last thrilling anticipation. Jane had been afraid to trust her own judgment as to how she looked. On the drive townward, through the crisp fall gloaming, while listening to the chatter of the children, and the talk of the elder Hartwells, she could not help wondering what Springer would think of her in the beautiful new gown.

  They arrived late, according to her escorts. The drive to town was sixteen miles, but it had seemed short to Jane. “Reckon it’s just as well for you an’ the children,” said Mrs. Hartwell to Jane. “These dances last from seven to seven.”

  “No!” exclaimed Jane.

  “They sure do.”

  “Well, I’m a tenderfoot from Missouri. But that’s not going to keep me from having a wonderful time.”

  “You will, dear, unless the cowboys fight over you, which is likely. But at least there won’t be any shootin’. My husband an’ Springer are both on the committee an’ they won’t admit any gun-totin’ cowpunchers.”

  Here Jane had concrete evidence of something she had begun to suspect. These careless lovemaking cowboys might be dangerous. It thrilled while it repelled her.

  Jane’s first sight of that dance hall astonished her. It was a big barn-like room, roughly raftered and sided, decorated enough with colored bunting to take away the bareness. The lamps were not bright, but there were enough of them to give collectively a good light. The volume of sound amazed her. Music and trample of boots, gay laughter, deep voices of men all seemed to merge into a loud hum. A swaying wheeling horde of dancers circled past her. No more time then was accorded her to clarify the spectacle, for Springer suddenly confronted her. He seemed different somehow. Perhaps it was an absence of ranchers’ corduroys and boots, if Jane needed assurance of what she had dreamed of and hoped for. She had it in his frank admiration.

  “Sure it’s somethin’ fine for Bill Springer to have the prettiest girl here,” he said.

  “Thank you…but, Mister Springer…I sadly fear you were a cowboy before you became a rancher,” she replied archly.

  “Sure I was. An’ that you may find out.” He laughed. “Of course, I could never come up to…say…Frank Owens. But let’s dance. I shall have little enough of you in this outfit.”

  So he swung her into the circle of dancers. Jane found him easy to dance with, although he was far from expert. It was a jostling mob, and she soon acquired a conviction that, if her gown did outlast the whole dance, her feet never would. Springer took his dancing seriously and had little to say. Jane felt strange and uncertain with him. Then soon she became aware of the cessation of hum and movement.

  “Sure that was the best dance I ever had,” said Springer with something of radiance in his dark face. “An’ now I must lose you to this outfit comin’.”

  Manifestly he meant his cowboys Tex, Nevada, Panhandle, and Andy who presented themselves four abreast, shiny of hair and face.

  “Good luck,” he whispered. “If you get into trouble, let me know.”

  What he meant quickly dawned upon Jane. Right there it began. She saw there was absolutely no use in trying to avoid or refuse these young men. The wisest and safest course was to surrender, which she did.

  “Boys, don’t all talk at once. I can dance with only one of you at a time. So I’ll take you in alphabetical order. I’m a poor old schoolmarm from Missouri. It’ll be Andy, Nevada, Panhandle, and Tex.”

  Despite their protests she held rigidly to this rule. Each one of the cowboys took shameless advantage of his opportunity. Outrageously as they all hugged her, Tex was the worst offender. She tried to stop dancing, but he carried her along as if she had been a child. He was rapt, and yet there seemed a devil in him.

  “Tex…how dare you,” panted Jane, when at last the dance ended.

  “Wal, I reckon I’d aboot dare anythin’ for you, Jane,” he replied, towering over her.

  “You ought to be…ashamed,” went on Jane. “I’ll not dance with you again.”

  “Aw, now,” he pleaded.

  “I won’t, Tex…so there. You’re no gentleman.”

  “Ahuh!” he ejaculated, drawing himself up stiffly. “All right, I’ll go out an’ get drunk, an’, when I come back, I’ll clean out this heah hal
l.”

  “Tex! Don’t go,” she called hurriedly as he started to stride away. “I’ll take that back. I will give you another dance…if you promise to…to behave.”

  Then she got rid of him, and was carried off by Mrs. Hartwell to be introduced to ranchers and their wives, to girls and their escorts. She found herself a center of admiring eyes. She promised more dances than she could remember or keep.

  Her new partner was a tall handsome cowboy named Jones. She did not know quite what to make of him. But he was an unusually good dancer, and he did not hold her so that she had difficulty in breathing. He talked all the time. He was witty and engaging, and he had a most subtly flattering tongue. Jane could not fail to grasp that he might even be worse than Tex, but at least he did not make love to her with physical violence. She enjoyed that dance and admitted the singular forceful charm about this Mr. Jones. If he was a little too bold of glance and somehow primitively assured and debonair, she passed it by in the excitement and joy of the hour, and in the certainty that she was now a long way from Missouri. Jones demanded rather than begged for another dance, and, although she laughingly explained her predicament in regard to partners, he said he would come after her anyhow.

  Then followed several dances with new partners, between which Jane became more than ever the center of attraction. It all went to her head like wine. She was having a perfectly wonderful time. Jones claimed her again, in fact whirled her out on the floor, and it seemed then that the irresistible rush of the dancers was similar to her sensations. Twice again before the supper hour at midnight she found herself dancing with Jones. How he managed it she did not know. He just took her, carried her off by storm. Jane did not awaken to this unpardonable conduct of hers until she discovered that a little while before she had promised Tex his second dance, and then she had given it to Jones, or at least had danced it with him. What could she do when he walked right off with her? It was a glimpse of Tex’s face, as she was being whirled round in Jones’s arms, that filled Jane with remorse.

  Then came the supper hour. It was a gala occasion, for which evidently the children had heroically kept awake. Jane enjoyed the children immensely. She sat with the numerous Hartwells, all of whom were most kindly attentive to her. Jane wondered why Mr. Springer did not put in an appearance, but considered his absence due to numerous duties.