Sundown Slim

by Knibbs, Henry Herbert

  Despite her teasing, Corliss was beginning to enjoy the play. As a rule undemonstrative, he was when moved capable of intense feeling, and the girl knew it. She saw a light in his eyes that she recognized; a light that she remembered well, for once when they were boy and girl together she had dared him to kiss her, and had not been disappointed.

  "You are cross this morning," she said, making as though to go.

  "Well, I've begun over again, Nell. You wait till I get Chinook and we'll ride home together."

  "Oh, but I'm—you're not going that way," she mocked.

  "Yes, I am—and so are you. If you won't wait, I'll catch you up, anyway. You daren't put Challenge down the cañon trail faster than a walk."

  "I daren't? Then, catch me!"

  She wheeled her pony and sped toward the timber. Corliss, running heavily in his high-heeled boots, caught up his own horse and leaped to the saddle as Chinook broke into a run. The young rancher knew that the girl would do her best to beat him to the cañon level. He feared for her safety on the ragged trail below them.

  Chinook swung down the trail taking the turns without slackening his speed and Corliss, leaning in on the curves, dodged the sweeping branches.

  Arrived at the far edge of the timber, he could see the girl ahead of him, urging Challenge down the rain-gutted trail at a lope. As she pulled up at an abrupt turn, she waved to him. He accepted the challenge and, despite his better judgment, set spurs to Chinook.

  Round the next turn he reined up and leaped from his horse. Below him he saw Challenge, riderless, and galloping along the edge of the hillside. On the trail lay Eleanor Loring, her black hair vivid against the gray of the shale. He plunged toward her and stooping caught her up in his arms. "Nell! Nell!" he cried, smoothing back her hair from her forehead. "God, Nell! I—I didn't mean it."

  Her eyelids quivered. Then she gasped. He could feel her trembling. Presently her eyes opened and a faint smile touched her white lips. "I'm all right. Challenge fell—and I jumped clear. Struck my head. Don't look at me like that! I'm not going to die."

  "I'm—I'm mighty glad, Nell!" he said, helping her to a seat on the rock against which she had fallen.

  Her hands were busy with her hair. He found her hat and handed it to her. "If my head wasn't just splitting, I'd like to laugh. You are the funniest man alive! I couldn't speak, but I heard you call to me and tell me you didn't mean it! Then you say you are mighty glad I'm alive. Doesn't that sound funny enough to bring a person to life again?"

  "No, it's not funny. It was a close call."

  She glanced at his grave, white face. "Guess you were scared, John. I didn't know you could be scared at anything. Jack Corliss as white as a sheet and trembling like a—a girl!"

  "On account of a girl," said Corliss, smiling a little.

  "Now, that sounds better. What were you doing up on the mesa this afternoon?"

  "I took some lump-sugar up for my old pony, Apache. He likes it."

  "Well, I'll never forget it!" she exclaimed. "How the boys would laugh if they heard you'd been feeding sugar to an old broken-down cow-pony! You! Why, I feel better already."

  "I'm right glad you do, Nell. But you needn't say anything about the sugar. I kind of like the old hoss. Will you promise?"

  "I don't know. Oh, my head!" She went white and leaned against him. He put his arm around her, and her head lay back against his shoulder. "I'll be all right—in a minute," she murmured.

  He bent above her, his eyes burning. Slowly he drew her close and kissed her lips. Her eyelids quivered and lifted. "Nell!" he whispered.

  "Did you mean it?" she murmured, smiling wanly.

  He drew his head back and gazed at her up-turned face. "I'm all right," she said, and drew herself up beside him. "Serves me right for putting Challenge down the trail so fast."

  As they rode homeward Corliss told her of the advent of Sundown and what the latter had said about the wreck and the final disappearance of his "pal," Will Corliss.

  The girl heard him silently and had nothing to say until they parted at the ford. Then she turned to him. "I don't believe Will was killed. I can't say why, but if he had been killed I think I should have known it. Don't ask me to explain, John. I have always expected that he would come back. I have been thinking about him lately."

  "I can't understand it," said Corliss. "Will always had what he wanted. He owns a half-interest in the Concho. I can't do as I want to, sometimes. My hands are tied, for if I made a bad move and lost out, I'd be sinking Will's money with mine."

  "I wouldn't make any bad moves if I were you," said the girl, glancing at the rancher's grave face.

  "Business is business, Nell. We needn't begin that old argument. Only, understand this: I'll play square just as long as the other side plays square. There's going to be trouble before long and you know why. It won't begin on the west side of the Concho."

  "Good-bye, John," said the girl, reining her pony around.

  He raised his hat. Then he wheeled Chinook and loped toward the ranch.

  Eleanor Loring, riding slowly, thought of what he had said. "He won't give in an inch," she said aloud. "Will would have given up the cattle business, or anything else, to please me." Then she reasoned with herself, knowing that Will Corliss had given up all interest in the Concho, not to please her but to hurt her, for the night before his disappearance he had asked her to marry him and she had very sensibly refused, telling him frankly that she liked him, but that until he had settled down to something worth while she had no other answer for him.

  She was thinking of Will when she rode in to the rancho and turned her horse over to Miguel. Suddenly she flushed, remembering John Corliss's eyes as he had held her in his arms.

  CHAPTER VI

  THE BROTHERS

  As Corliss rode up to the ranch gate he took the mail from the little wooden mail-box and stuffed it into his pocket with the exception of a letter which bore the postmark of Antelope and his address in a familiar handwriting. He tore the envelope open hastily and glanced at the signature, "Will."

  Then he read the letter. It told of his brother's unexpected arrival in Antelope, penniless and sick. Corliss was not altogether surprised except in regard to the intuition of Eleanor, which puzzled him, coming as it had so immediately preceding the letter.

  He rode to the rancho and ordered one of the men to have the buckboard at the gate early next morning. He wondered why his brother had not driven out to the ranch, being well known in Antelope and able to command credit. Then he thought of Eleanor, and surmised that his brother possibly wished to avoid meeting her. And as it happened, he was not mistaken.

  On the evening of the following day he drove up to the Palace Hotel and inquired for his brother. The proprietor drew him to one side. "It's all right for you to see him, John, but I been tryin' to keep him in his room. He's—well, he ain't just feelin' right to be on the street. Sabe?"

  Corliss nodded, and turning, climbed the stairs. He knocked at a door. There was no response. He knocked again.

  "What you want?" came in a muffled voice.

  "It's John," said Corliss. "Let me in."

  The door opened, and Corliss stepped into the room to confront a dismal scene. On the washstand stood several empty whiskey bottles and murky glasses. The bedding was half on the floor, and standing with hand braced against the wall was Will Corliss, ragged, unshaven, and visibly trembling. His eyelids were red and swollen. His face was white save for the spots that burned on his emaciated cheeks.

  "John!" he exclaimed, and extended his hand.

  Corliss shook hands with him and then motioned him to a chair. "Well, Will, if you're sick, this isn't the way to get over it."

  "Brother's keeper, eh? Glad to see me back, eh, Jack?"

  "Not in this shape. What do you suppose Nell would think?"

  "I don't know and I don't care. I'm sick. That's all."

  "Where have you been—for the last three years?"

  "A whole lot you care. Been
? I have been everywhere from heaven to hell—the whole route. I'm in hell just now."

  "You look it. Will, what can I do for you? You want to quit the booze and straighten up. You're killing yourself."

  "Maybe I don't know it! Say, Jack, I want some dough. I'm broke."

  "All right. How much?"

  "A couple of hundred—for a starter."

  "What are you going to do with it?"

  "What do you suppose? Not going to eat it."

  "No. And you're not going to drink it, either. I'll see that you have everything you need. You're of age and can do as you like. But you're not going to kill yourself with whiskey."

  Will Corliss stared at his brother; then laughed.

  "Have one with me, Jack. You didn't used to be afraid of it."

  "I'm not now, but I'm not going to take a drink with you."

  "Sorry. Well, here's looking." And the brother poured himself a half-tumblerful of whiskey and gulped it down. "Now, let's talk business."

  Corliss smiled despite his disgust. "All right. You talk and I'll listen."

  The brother slouched to the bed and sat down. "How's the Concho been making it?" he asked.

  "We've been doing pretty fair. I've been busy."

  "How's old man Loring?"

  "About the same."

  "Nell gone into mourning?"

  Corliss frowned and straightened his shoulders.

  "See here, Will, you said you'd talk business. I'm waiting."

  "Touched you that time, eh? Well, you can have Nell and be damned. No Mexican blood for mine."

  "If you weren't down and out—" began Corliss; then checked himself. "Go ahead. What do you want?"

  "I told you—money."

  "And I told you—no."

  The younger man started up. "Think because I'm edged up that I don't know what's mine? You've been piling it up for three years and I've been hitting the road. Now I've come to get what belongs to me and I'm going to get it!"

  "All right, Will. But don't forget that I was made guardian of your interest in the Concho until you got old enough to be responsible. The will reads, until you come of age, providing you had settled down and showed that you could take care of yourself. Father didn't leave his money to either of us to be drunk up, or wasted."

  "Prodigal son, eh, Jack? Well, I'm it. What's the use of getting sore at me? All I want is a couple of hundred and I'll get out of this town mighty quick. It's the deadest burg I've struck yet."

  John Corliss gazed at his brother, thinking of the bright-faced, blue-eyed lad that had ridden the mesas and the hills with him. He was touched by the other's miserable condition, and even more grieved to realize that this condition was but the outcome of a rapid lowering of the other's moral and physical well-being. He strode to him and sat beside him. "Will, I'll give anything I have to help you. You know that. Anything! You're so changed that it just makes me sick to realize it. You needn't have got where you are. I would have helped you out any time. Why didn't you write to me?"

  "Write? And have you tell Nell Loring how your good little brother was whining for help? She would have enjoyed that—after what she handed me."

  "I don't know what she said to you," said Corliss, glancing at his brother. "But I know this: she didn't say anything that wasn't so. If that's the reason you left home, it was a mighty poor one. You've always had your own way, Will."

  "Why shouldn't I? Who's got anything to say about it? You seem to think that I always need looking after—you and Nell Loring. I can look after myself."

  "Doesn't look like it," said Corliss, gesturing toward the washstand. "Had anything to eat to-day?"

  "No, and I don't want anything."

  "Well, wash up and we'll go and get some clothes and something to eat. I'll wait."

  "You needn't. Just give me a check—and I won't bother you after that."

  "No. I said wash up! Get busy now!"

  The younger man demurred, but finally did as he was told. They went downstairs and out to the street. In an hour they returned, Will Corliss looking somewhat like his former self in respectable raiment. "John," he said as they entered the room again, "you've always been a good old stand-by, ever since we were kids. I guess I got in bad this time, but I'm going to quit. I don't want to go back to the Concho—you know why. If you'll give me some dough I'll take care of myself. Just forget what I said about my share of the money."

  "Wait till morning," said Corliss. "I'll take the room next, here, and if you get to feeling bad, call me."

  "All right, Jack. I'll cut it out. Maybe I will go back to the Concho; I don't know."

  "Wish you would, Will. You'll get on your feet. There's plenty to do and we're short-handed. Think it over."

  "Does—Nell—ever say anything?" queried the brother.

  "She talks about you often. Yesterday we were talking about you. I told her what Sundown said about—"

  "Sundown?"

  "Forgot about him. He drifted in a few months ago. I met up with him at the water-hole ranch. He was broke and looking for work. Gave him a job cooking, and he made good. He told me that he used to have a pal named Will Corliss—"

  "And Sundown's at the Concho! I never told him where I lived."

  "He came into Antelope on a freight. Got side-tracked and had to stay. He didn't know this used to be your country till I told him."

  "Well, that beats me, Jack! Say, Sun was just an uncle to me when we were on the road. We made it clear around, freights, cattle-boats, and afoot. I didn't hit the booze then. Funny thing: he used to hit it, and I kind of weaned him. Now it's me…"

  "He's straight, all right," said Corliss. "He 'tends right to business. The boys like him."

  "Everybody liked him," asserted Will Corliss. "But he is the queerest Hobo that ever hit the grit."

  "Some queer, at that. It's after nine now, Will. You get to bed. I want to see Banks a minute. I'll be back soon."

  When John Corliss had left the room, something intangible went with him. Will felt his moral stamina crumbling. He waited until he heard his brother leave the hotel. Then he went downstairs and returned with a bottle of whiskey. He drank, hid the bottle, and went to bed. He knew that without the whiskey he would have been unable to sleep.

  The brothers had breakfast together next morning. After breakfast Corliss went for the team and returned to the hotel, hoping to induce his brother to come home with him. Will Corliss, however, pleaded weariness, and said that he would stay at the Palace until he felt better.

  "All right, Will. I'll leave some cash with Banks. He'll give you what you need as you want it."

  "Banks? The sheriff?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh, all right. Suppose you think I'm not to be trusted."

  "No. But we'll leave it that way till I see you again. Write in if you need me—and take care of yourself. When you get ready to settle down, I'll turn over your share of the Concho to you. So long, Will."

  Will Corliss watched his brother drive away. When the team had disappeared up the road he walked down the street to the sheriff's office. The sheriff greeted him cordially.

  "I came for that money, Jim."

  "Sure! Here you are," and the sheriff handed him a five-dollar gold-piece.

  "Quit kidding and come across," said Corliss, ignoring the significance of the allowance.

  "Can't, Will. John said to give you five any time you wanted it, but only five a day."

  "He did, eh? John's getting mighty close in his old age, ain't he?"

  "Mebby. I don't know."

  "How much did he leave for me?"

  "Five a day, as I said."

  "Oh, you go to hell!"

  The sheriff smiled pleasantly. "Nope, Billy! I'm goin' to stay right to home. Have a cigar?"

  The young man refused the proffered cigar, picked up the gold-piece and strolled out.

  The sheriff leaned back in his chair. "Well if Billy feels that way toward folks, reckon he won't get far with John, or anybody else. Too dinged bad.
He used to be a good kid."

  CHAPTER VII

  FADEAWAY'S HAND

  Fadeaway, one of the Concho riders, urged his cayuse through the ford, reined short, and turned to watch Chance, who accompanied him. The dog drew back from the edge of the stream and bunching himself, shot up and over the muddy water, nor did the jump break his stride as he leaped to overtake the rider, who had spurred out of his way. Fadeaway cursed joyously and put his pony to a lope. Stride for stride Chance ran beside him. The cowboy, swaying easily, turned and looked down upon the dog. Chance was enjoying himself. "Wonder how fast the cuss can run?" And Fadeaway swung his quirt. The stride quickened to the rhythmic beat of the cow-horse at top speed. The dog kept abreast without apparent effort. A half-mile beyond the ford the pace slackened as the pony took the hill across which the trail led to the open mesas. As they topped the rise Fadeaway again urged his cayuse to a run, for the puncher had enjoyed the hospitality of his companions of "The Blue," a distant cattle ranch, a day longer than had been set for his return to the Concho. Just then a startled jack rabbit leaped up and bounced down the trail ahead of them. Fadeaway jerked his horse to a stop. "Now we'll see some real speed!" he said. There was a flash of the dog's long body, which grew smaller and smaller in the distance; then a puff of dust spurted up. Fadeaway saw the dog turn end over end, regain his feet and toss something in the air.

  "The fastest dog in Arizona," remarked the cowboy. "And you, you glass-eyed son of a mistake, you're about as fast as a fence-post!" This to his patient and willing pony, that again swung into a run and ran steadily despite his fatigue, for he feared the instant slash of the quirt should he slacken pace.

  Round a bend in the trail, where an arm of the distant forest ran out into the mesa. Fadeaway again set his horse up viciously. Chance stopped and looked up at the rider. The cowboy pointed through the thin rim of timber beyond which a herd of sheep was grazing. "Take 'em!" he whispered. Chance hesitated, not because he was unfamiliar with sheep, but because he had been punished for chasing and worrying them. "Go to it! Take 'em, Chance!"