by Max Brand
“No. He’s got to _ride_ here, understand?”
“A dead man,” said Nash calmly, “ain’t much good on a hoss.”
“Listen to me,” said Drew, his voice lowering to a sort of musical thunder, “if you harm a hair of this lad’s head I’ll-I’ll break you in two with my own hands.”
And he made a significant gesture as if he were snapping a twig between his fingers. Nash moistened his lips, then his square, powerful jaw jutted out.
“Which the general idea is me doing baby talk and sort of hypnotizing this Bard feller into coming along?”
“More than that. He’s got to be brought here alive, untouched, and placed in that chair tied so that he can’t move hand or foot for ten minutes while I talk.”
“Nice, quiet day you got planned for me, Mr. Drew.”
The grey man considered thoughtfully.
“Now and then you’ve told me of a girl at Eldara—I think her name is Sally Fortune?”
“Right. She begins where the rest of the calico leaves off.”
“H-m! that sounds familiar, somehow. Well, Steve, you’ve said that if you had a good start you think the girl would marry you.”
“I think she might.”
“She pretty fond of you?”
“She knows that if I can’t have her I’m fast enough to keep everyone else away.”
“I see. A process of elimination with you as the eliminator. Rather an odd courtship, Steve?”
The cowpuncher grew deadly serious.
“You see, I love her. There ain’t no way of bucking out of that. So do nine out of ten of all the boys that’ve seen her. Which one will she pick? That’s the question we all keep askin’, because of all the contrary, freckle-faced devils with the heart of a man an’ the smile of a woman, Sally has ’em all beat from the drop of the barrier. One feller has money; another has looks; another has a funny line of talk. But I’ve got the fastest gun. So Sally sees she’s due for a complete outfit of black mournin’ if she marries another man while I’m alive; an’ that keeps her thinkin’. But if I had the price of a start in the world—why, maybe she’d take a long look at me.”
“Would she call one thousand dollars in cash a start in the world—and your job as foreman of my place, with twice the salary you have now?”
Steve Nash wiped his forehead.
He said huskily: “A joke along this line don’t bring no laugh from me, governor.”
“I mean it, Steve. Get Anthony Bard tied hand and foot into this house so that I can talk to him safely for ten minutes, and you’ll have everything I promise. Perhaps more. But that depends.”
The blunt-fingered hand of Nash stole across the table.
“If it’s a go, shake, Mr. Drew.”
A mighty hand fell in his, and under the pressure he set his teeth. Afterward he covertly moved his fingers and sighed with relief to see that no permanent harm had been done.
“Me speakin’ personal, Mr. Drew, I’d of give a lot to seen you when you was ridin’ the range. This Bard—he’ll be here before sunset to-morrow.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions, Steve. I’ve an idea that before you count your thousand you’ll think that you’ve been underpaid. That’s straight.”
“This Bard is something of a man?”
“I can say that without stopping to think.”
“Texas?”
“No. He’s a tenderfoot, but he can ride a horse as if he was sewed to the skin, and I’ve an idea that he can do other things up to the same standard. If you can find two or three men who have silent tongues and strong hands, you’d better take them along. I’ll pay their wages, and big ones. You can name your price.”
But Nash was frowning.
“Now and then I talk to the cards a bit, Mr. Drew, and you’ll hear fellers say some pretty rough things about me, but I’ve never asked for no odds against any man. I’m not going to start now.”
“You’re a hard man, Steve, but so am I; and hard men are the kind I take to. I know that you’re the best foreman who ever rode this range and I know that when you start things you generally finish them. All that I ask is that you bring Bard to me in this house. The way you do it is your own problem. Drunk or drugged, I don’t care how, but get him here unharmed. Understand?”
“Mr. Drew, you can start figurin’ what you want to say to him now. I’ll get him here—safe! And then Sally—”
“If money will buy her you’ll have me behind you when you bid.”
“When shall I start?”
“Now.”
“So-long, then.”
He rose and passed hastily from the room, leaning forward from the hips like a man who is making a start in a foot-race.
Straight up the stairs he went to his room, for the foreman lived in the big house of the rancher. There he took a quantity of equipment from a closet and flung it on the bed. Over three selections he lingered long.
The first was the cartridge belt, and he tried over several with conscientious care until he found the one which received the cartridges with the greatest ease. He could flip them out in the night, automatically as a pianist fingers the scale in the dark.
Next he examined lariats painfully, inch by inch, as though he were going out to rope the stanchest steer that ever roamed the range. Already he knew that those ropes were sound and true throughout, but he took no chances now. One of the ropes he discarded because one or two strands in it were, or might be, a trifle frayed. The others he took alternately and whirled with a broad loop, standing in the centre of the room. Of the set one was a little more supple, a little more durable, it seemed. This he selected and coiled swiftly.
Last of all he lingered—and longest—over his revolvers. Six in all, he set them in a row along the bed and without delay threw out two to begin with. Then he fingered the others, tried their weight and balance, slipped cartridges into the cylinders and extracted them again, whirled the cylinders, examined the minutest parts of the actions.
They were all such guns as an expert would have turned over with shining eyes, but finally he threw one aside into the discard; the cylinder revolved just a little too hard. Another was abandoned after much handling of the remaining three because to the delicate touch of Nash it seemed that the weight of the barrel was a gram more than in the other two; but after this selection it seemed that there was no possible choice between the final two.
So he stood in the centre of the room and went through a series of odd gymnastics. Each gun in turn he placed in the holster and then jerked it out, spinning it on the trigger guard around his second finger, while his left hand shot diagonally across his body and “fanned” the hammer. Still he could not make his choice, but he would not abandon the effort. It was an old maxim with him that there is in all the world one gun which is the best of all and with which even a novice can become a “killer.”
He tried walking away, whirling as he made his draw, and levelling the gun on the door-knob. Then without moving his hand, he lowered his head and squinted down the sights. In each case the bead was drawn to a centre shot. Last of all he weighed each gun; one seemed a trifle lighter—the merest shade lighter than the other. This he slipped into the holster and carried the rest of his apparatus back to the closet from which he had taken it.
Still the preparation had not ended. Filling his cartridge belt, every cartridge was subject to a rigid inspection. A full half hour was wasted in this manner. Wasted, because he rejected not one of the many he examined. Yet he seemed happier after having made his selection, and went down the stairs, humming softly.
Out to the barn he went, lantern in hand. This time he made no comparison of horses but went directly to an ugly-headed roan, long of leg, vicious of eye, thin-shouldered, and with hips that slanted sharply down. No one with a knowledge of fine horse-flesh could have looked on this brute without aversion. It did not have even size in its favour. A wild, free spirit, perhaps, might be the reason; but the animal stood with hanging head and pendant lower lip
. One eye was closed and the other only half opened. A blind affection, then, made him go to this horse first of all.
No, his greeting was to jerk his knee sharply into the ribs of the roan, which answered with a grunt and swung its head around with bared teeth, like an angry dog. “Damn your eyes!” roared the hoarse voice of Steve Nash, “stand still or I’ll knock you for a goal!”
The ears of the mustang flattened close to its neck and a devil of hate came up in its eyes, but it stood quiet, while Nash went about at a judicious distance and examined all the vital points. The hoofs were sound, the backbone prominent, but not a high ridge from famine or much hard riding, and the indomitable hate in the eyes of the mustang seemed to please the cowpuncher.
It was a struggle to bridle the beast, which was accomplished only by grinding the points of his knuckles into a tender part of the jowl to make the locked teeth open.
In saddling, the knee came into play again, rapping the ribs of the brute repeatedly before the wind, which swelled out the chest to false proportions, was expelled in a sudden grunt, and the cinch whipped up taut. After that Nash dodged the flying heels, chose his time, and vaulted into the saddle.
The mustang trotted quietly out of the barn. Perhaps he had had his fill of bucking on that treacherous, slippery wooden floor, but once outside he turned loose the full assortment of the cattle-pony’s tricks. It was only ten minutes, but while it lasted the cursing of Nash was loud and steady, mixed with the crack of his murderous quirt against the roan’s flanks. The bucking ended as quickly as it had begun, and they started at a long canter over the trail.
CHAPTER XII
THE FIRST DAY
Mile after mile of the rough trail fell behind him, and still the pony shambled along at a loose trot or a swinging canter; the steep upgrades it took at a steady jog and where the slopes pitched sharply down, it wound among the rocks with a faultless sureness of foot.
Certainly the choice of Nash was well made. An Eastern horse of blood over a level course could have covered the same distance in half the time, but it would have broken down after ten miles of that hard trail.
Dawn came while they wound over the crest of the range, and with the sun in their faces they took the downgrade. It was well into the morning before Nash reached Logan. He forced from his eye the contempt which all cattlemen feel for sheepherders.
“I s’pose you’re here askin’ after Bard?” began Logan without the slightest prelude.
“Bard? Who’s he?”
Logan considered the other with a sardonic smile.
“Maybe you been ridin’ all night jest for fun?”
“If you start usin’ your tongue on me, Logan you’ll wear out the snapper on it. I’m on my way to the A Circle Y.”
“Listen; I’m all for old man Drew. You know that. Tell me what Bard has on him?”
“Never heard the name before. Did he rustle a couple of your sheep?”
Logan went on patiently: “I knew something was wrong when Drew was here yesterday but I didn’t think it was as bad as this.”
“What did Drew do yesterday?”
“Came up as usual to potter around the old house, I guess, but when he heard about Bard bein’ here he changed his mind sudden and went home.”
“That’s damn queer. What sort of a lookin’ feller is this Bard?”
“I don’t suppose you know, eh?” queried Logan ironically. “I don’t suppose the old man described him before you started, maybe?”
“Logan, you poor old hornless maverick, d’you think I’m on somebody’s trail? Don’t you know I’ve been through with that sort of game for a hell of a while?”
“When rocks turn into ham and eggs I’ll trust you, Steve. I’ll tell you what I done to Bard, anyway. Yesterday, after he found that Drew had been here and gone he seemed sort of upset; tried to keep it from me, but I’m too much used to judgin’ changes of weather to be fooled by any tenderfoot that ever used school English. Then he hinted around about learnin’ the way to Eldara, because he knows that town is pretty close to Drew’s place, I guess. I told him; sure I did. He should of gone due west, but I sent him south. There is a south trail, only it takes about three days to get to Eldara.”
“Maybe you think that interests me. It don’t.”
Logan overlooked this rejoinder, saying: “Is it his scalp you’re after?”
“Your ideas are like nest-eggs, Logan, an’ you set over ’em like a hen. They look like eggs; they feel like eggs; but they don’t never hatch. That’s the way with your ideas. They look all right; they sound all right; but they don’t mean nothin’. So-long.”
But Logan merely chuckled wisely. He had been long on the range.
As Nash turned his pony and trotted off in the direction of the A Circle Y ranch, the sheepherder called after him: “What you say cuts both ways, Steve. This feller Bard looks like a tenderfoot; he sounds like a tenderfoot; but he ain’t a tenderfoot.”
Feeling that this parting shot gave him the honours of the meeting, he turned away whistling with such spirit that one of his dogs, overhearing, stood still and gazed at his master with his head cocked wisely to one side.
His eastern course Nash pursued for a mile or more, and then swung sharp to the south. He was weary, like his horse, and he made no attempt to start a sudden burst of speed. He let the pony go on at the same tireless jog, clinging like a bulldog to the trail.
About midday he sighted a small house cuddled into a hollow of the hills and made toward it. As he dismounted, a tow-headed, spindling boy lounged out of the doorway and stood with his hands shoved carelessly into his little overall pockets.
“Hello, young feller.”
“’Lo, stranger.”
“What’s the chance of bunking here for three or four hours and gettin’ a good feed for the hoss?”
“Never better. Gimme the hoss; I’ll put him up in the shed. Feed him grain?”
“No, you won’t put him up. I’ll tend to that.”
“Looks like a bad ’un.”
“That’s it.”
“But a sure goer, eh?”
“Yep.”
He led the pony to the shed, unsaddled him, and gave him a small feed. The horse first rolled on the dirt floor and then started methodically on his fodder. Having made sure that his mount was not “off his feed,” Nash rolled a cigarette and strolled back to the house with the boy.
“Where’s the folks?” he asked.
“Ma’s sick, a little, and didn’t get up to-day. Pa’s down to the corral, cussing mad. But I can cook you up some chow.”
“All right son. I got a dollar here that’ll buy you a pretty good store knife.”
The boy flushed so red that by contrast his straw coloured hair seemed positively white.
“Maybe you want to pay me?” he suggested fiercely. “Maybe you think we’re squatters that run a hotel?”
Recognizing the true Western breed even in this small edition, Nash grinned.
“Speakin’ man to man, son, I didn’t think that, but I thought I’d sort of feel my way.”
“Which I’ll say you’re lucky you didn’t try to feel your way with pa; not the way he’s feelin’ now.”
In the shack of the house he placed the best chair for Nash and set about frying ham and making coffee. This with crackers, formed the meal. He watched Nash eat for a moment of solemn silence and then the foreman looked up to catch a meditative chuckle from the youngster.
“Let me in on the joke, son.”
“Nothin’. I was just thinkin’ of pa.”
“What’s he sore about? Come out short at poker lately?”
“No; he lost a hoss. Ha, ha, ha!”
He explained: “He’s lost his only standin’ joke, and now the laugh’s on pa!”
Nash sipped his coffee and waited. On the mountain desert one does not draw out a narrator with questions.
“There was a feller come along early this mornin’ on a lame hoss,” the story began. “He was a sure
enough tenderfoot—leastways he looked it an’ he talked it, but he wasn’t.”
The familiarity of this description made Steve sit up a trifle straighter.
“Was he a ringer?”
“Maybe. I dunno. Pa meets him at the door and asks him in. What d’you think this feller comes back with?”
The boy paused to remember and then with twinkling eyes he mimicked: “‘That’s very good of you, sir, but I’ll only stop to make a trade with you—this horse and some cash to boot for a durable mount out of your corral. The brute has gone lame, you see.’
“Pa waited and scratched his head while these here words sort of sunk in. Then says very smooth: ‘I’ll let you take the best hoss I’ve got, an’ I won’t ask much cash to boot.’
“I begin wonderin’ what pa was drivin’ at, but I didn’t say nothin’—jest held myself together and waited.
“‘Look over there to the corral,’ says pa, and pointed. ‘They’s a hoss that ought to take you wherever you want to go. It’s the best hoss I’ve ever had.’
“It was the best horse pa ever had, too. It was a piebald pinto called Jo, after my cousin Josiah, who’s jest a plain bad un and raises hell when there’s any excuse. The piebald, he didn’t even need an excuse. You see, he’s one of them hosses that likes company. When he leaves the corral he likes to have another hoss for a runnin’ mate and he was jest as tame as anything. I could ride him; anybody could ride him. But if you took him outside the bars of the corral without company, first thing he done was to see if one of the other hosses was comin’ out to join him. When he seen that he was all laid out to make a trip by himself he jest nacherally started in to raise hell. Which Jo can raise more hell for his size than any hoss I ever seen.
“He’s what you call an eddicated bucker. He don’t fool around with no pauses. He jest starts in and figgers out a situation and then he gets busy slidin’ the gent that’s on him off’n the saddle. An’ he always used to win out. In fact, he was known for it all around these parts. He begun nice and easy, but he worked up like a fiddler playin’ a favourite piece, and the end was the rider lyin’ on the ground.
“Whenever the boys around here wanted any excitement they used to come over and try their hands with Jo. We used to keep a pile of arnica and stuff like that around to rub them up with and tame down the bruises after Jo laid ’em cold on the ground. There wasn’t never anybody could ride that hoss when he was started out alone.