Ramrod

by Short, Luke;

  The din of the agonized cattle made Peebles’ hand shake, and he threw the match away, swearing savagely. “I wish they’d shut up!”

  Bailey said, not looking at him, “That ain’t right, Tom.” The Indian in Bailey, the part of him which knew by instinct and teaching that the one crime against nature was to waste what you killed, rose in protest. He eyed the canyon darkly, knowing he would have to look into it again.

  “They’re her cattle, ain’t they?” Peebles demanded.

  Bailey nodded mutely.

  “Then she can do anything with ’em she wants, can’t she?”

  Again Bailey nodded, and yet Peebles’ words settled nothing. To kill something clean was all right; to maim it and leave it in agony was wrong, and they both knew that the cattle down there still alive had broken backs or legs or necks.

  Peebles said suddenly, “Let’s get out of here,” and put his horse over to the trail head, and Bailey followed quietly. They had to dismount here, and lead their skittish horses around and over the pile of down cattle. To get past the head of the trail and into it, Peebles had to shove one steer overside. He came back to get his horse, which Bailey held, and he was sweating and angry and he would not look at the breed. They led their horses past the last of the cattle, and then mounted and rode on down into the canyon. Three or four steers, stronger and luckier than the others in the van of the herd, were already down the trail, and at sight of the two riders they trotted away.

  Peebles reined up on the canyon floor and waited for Bailey to draw alongside.

  “You know the story, don’t you?” Peebles demanded, and Bailey nodded.

  “We’ll go right to Crew, if he’s there. She’ll be in town too, she said. You let me talk.”

  Bailey only nodded glumly, not liking this.

  16

  They buried Curley in the late afternoon in the sorry weed-grown cemetery below the town. A handful of the curious from the saloon hung back among the trees and watched, and Rose thought how strange it was that men who were not afraid of death were shy in its presence. There was Connie, straight and proud in her dull dark dress, and Bill Schell, whose eyes were a dangerous bright with liquor, and, oddly, Ben Dickason. There was Mrs. Parkinson, Doctor Parkinson’s wife, and his deputy, here today. She was a broad jolly woman, a friend to the whole country, and the rusty black dress she always wore was appropriate today. There was nobody from Bell, where Curley had spent his best years.

  After the ceremony a couple of the men under the trees filed out to fill in the grave, and the others turned back toward the gate.

  Mrs. Parkinson came up to Rose and said in an outraged voice, “Wouldn’t you think Frank Ivey might at least send a man? He worked Curley for ten years and he killed him. He’d shed a tear for a horse he did the same for.”

  “Not if you know Frank Ivey,” Rose said.

  Mrs. Parkinson nodded grimly and said, “If he ever gets sick I’ll have Harvey poison him,” and went on over to Connie.

  Connie, Rose noticed, did not speak to her father, but she nodded a gracious good-by to Rose.

  Ben Dickason fell in step beside her then and said, “That’s a pretty dress, Rose. I think Connie envies it.”

  “Is it bad luck to wear a new one at a funeral?” Rose asked. “I don’t care if it is.” It was the dress made from Dave’s present, and she had worn it out of some obscure desire to honor Curley. Nobody would understand that except Dave, and he was not here to see it.

  Ben smiled gently at her question, and did not answer. The baked ground threw up the afternoon heat, and nothing, Rose thought, had ever looked shabbier than this cemetery.

  Ben said suddenly, “Rose, I’d like to take care of the expense of this. All Curley’s expenses. Could I?” He looked at Rose almost with pleading in his eyes.

  “Why, he was a 66 hand,” Rose said. “You might talk to Connie.”

  Ben did not answer. They had reached the gate, and Ben said, “Can I give you a lift back to town?” and indicated the paint-peeled buckboard and team tied under the cottonwoods.

  “Thank you,” Rose said.

  Ben handed her in and got in himself and picked up the reins. But instead of turning back to town, he started out past the cemetery, saying, “This cuts into the south road down here, doesn’t it?”

  Rose, knowing Ben was troubled, said it did, and Ben idly studied the horses, the reins slack in his hand. He sighed once and murmured, “Poor Curley,” and added presently, “I’m personally going to see that dog of a Lea hanged for this.”

  “I don’t think you’ll have to,” Rose said quietly.

  Ben looked at her steadily a moment and said, “Nash?” and when Rose nodded, he smiled grimly. “He’ll take care of his own, that one.”

  “You didn’t think he could once,” Rose observed.

  Ben grimaced wryly. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes, young lady. They say the older you get, the fewer you make. Who said it, is what I’d like to know?”

  “Maybe they meant lasting mistakes,” Rose said quietly. “I don’t think you’ve made any, Ben.”

  “I have,” Ben said grimly. “I’ve lost a daughter.”

  “And that’s not lasting, either, once you talk to her.”

  “I’ve talked to her,” Ben murmured glumly. “She says it’s her turn to howl, and she don’t need any help from me, thank you. She wants all her things moved out of D Bar—pictures, clothes, curtains, even the horses she rode when she was a kid that’re pensioned off. Everything.”

  “You were pretty rough on her, Ben.”

  “I’ve admitted that.”

  “To her?”

  “Yes.” Ben settled slackly in the seat, and regarded the road ahead without any spirit in him.

  Rose watched him with pity, and as she thought of Connie she was puzzled. Remembering Ben’s genuine disgust with Curley’s beating and his subsequent request that Connie be sent to see him, she wondered at Connie’s indifference. Even if Dave had not told Connie to go see Ben, she had seen him anyway, and rebuffed him. It was a strange sort of heartlessness that Rose did not understand, and as they came to the forks and turned back toward town, Rose was silent and thoughtful.

  Ben put her down at her door, and she thanked him. He murmured acknowledgment and then said with a faint embarrassment, “You ever see Connie, Rose?”

  “Once in a while.”

  “Wonder if you’d tell her sometime I meant what I said. I don’t want to fight her, I want to be friends.”

  “I’ll tell her, Ben,” Rose said. She watched Ben drive off, and knew an exasperation that was close to anger as she thought of Connie.

  After the funeral, Bill Schell let Connie out of the buggy at the hotel, and Connie said, “I’ll only be a minute, Bill.”

  She walked briskly downstreet and crossed the side street and turned into Bondurant’s store. Once she was on the steps, hidden from Bill Schell’s gaze, she slowed her pace and stopped. There was something so absurd in this, and faintly humiliating too. It was not too late to forget it. She could go in and ask for any of a dozen things and nobody would ever know what had been in her mind when she started. Or better yet, she could send away for it. And then a swelling of pride decided her, and she went in, turning toward the dry goods section of the store.

  Martin Bondurant came up to her and greeted her, and Connie said levelly, “I want some dress goods, Mr. Bondurant.”

  Bondurant pulled up a small, high chair which was reserved for woman customers and seated Connie at the counter. Only when Connie looked over the bolts of rich goods stacked behind the counter did she again feel a faint contempt for herself.

  Bondurant hauled down a dozen bolts, and Connie looked at them, feeling them with a faint excitement and pleasure. Bondurant did not try to sell her any certain cloth; he was wise enough to simply keep reaching down the bolts, content to let feminine nature take its course.

  Finally Connie came to a rich, blue silk, and immediately her thought shuttled to Rose Lela
nd. This was the same material as the dress Rose Leland had worn this afternoon, and it was, in a way, the cause of her being here now.

  Connie said softly, “That’s lovely,” and Bondurant turned his head and looked at it, and smiled. “It is,” he said, and then put both hands on the counter, and said smilingly, “A strange thing, Connie. A very seedy-looking puncher came in here a few days ago and bought most of that bolt. He asked me to trust him until he’d been paid.”

  Connie looked at the goods again, and asked in a voice she strained to make seem casual, “From what outfit?”

  “Shipley’s, I think,” Bondurant said, and then, because he was a tactful man and did not want to embarrass Connie, he turned back to his business.

  Connie’s hand rested idly on the goods now. That was Dave, she thought; he had given the goods to Rose. Oddly, Connie was relieved now, and the reason gave her an obscure feeling of malice and comfort. A lot of questions she had asked herself were now answered. Rose had a free way with men, as witness her taking in of Curley and her friendship with Crew and Dave. They liked her because she gave them comfort, in what ways Connie didn’t want to know. But a man who gave a girl that sort of present wasn’t serious, and a girl who would take it was not the sort of girl to make him a wife. It was given in appreciation of favors granted. Connie had seen enough of men to know she must accept that part of them with toleration, if not liking. They went through that and then they were married and it was forgotten. Rose, therefore, was not a real foe.

  Connie chose a gray-green silk, and while it was being wrapped she came to a decision. It was, she thought, the measure of her confidence, and after receiving the goods she went back to Bill Schell who was waiting in the buggy.

  “Get some supper, Bill. I’ll be some time,” she said.

  Now she crossed the street again and headed down it, and a couple of men loafing in front of the Special in the dusk touched their hats to her.

  She rang the bell at Rose’s place, and Rose opened the door, and greeted her pleasantly.

  “Are you busy, Rose? I didn’t pick a very good time,” Connie said.

  “I’ll be glad for some work to do,” Rose said, seeing the familiar bulk of her package and knowing what it held. “Come in, Connie.”

  Rose got a lamp, pulled the curtains, and then set about work fitting Connie, the while chatting pleasantly. Connie was gracious, too, and at mention of Dave she did not indicate that she knew his errand of last night. In the light of what she knew now, Connie saw that there was something professional in Rose’s charm. The way Rose admired the goods and Connie’s small perfect figure, and agreed with Connie on the style of the dress, making tactful suggestions, all seemed to lend substance to Connie’s suspicion. She put on water for tea, and this, like everything Rose did, was done with such effortless, friendly casualness, that Connie suspected it. But there was another Rose, light and predatory and shabby and appealing to the gross side of men, Connie was sure.

  As Rose, pins in her mouth, knelt to work on the skirt, Connie wondered why she had not noticed this before. Perhaps it was because she saw so little of women and scorned their gossip. Why, even Rose’s beauty, though not common, was somehow too soft and full-blown, and she was almost without reserve.

  Some time after dark, Rose brought in the tea and cakes and they had them as she worked. Rose, sitting back on her heels to rest a moment, said, “Your father brought me back from the funeral.”

  “I saw him,” Connie said.

  “He’s not very happy, Connie.”

  “I hope not,” Connie replied.

  Rose looked up at her. “Why?”

  “It wouldn’t be fair if he was,” Connie said flatly. “He doesn’t deserve to be.”

  “But he’s old.”

  “And I’m young. That’s more important.”

  “Perhaps he’s sorry he was so hasty,” Rose murmured.

  “Let him be,” Connie said coldly. “Why should regret earn a person forgiveness. I’ve never understood that, and I don’t believe it. You have to pay for what you do. If there’s no punishment, then there’s no crime in doing anything wrong, is there?”

  “A man can punish himself, Connie. That’s when it’s real.”

  “Maybe,” Connie said stubbornly, but she did not believe it, and Rose saw she did not, and went back to work.

  Finished with that part of the fitting, she stood up and stretched, and said, “Want to rest a minute?”

  “I’ll help you with these,” Connie said, indicating the tea things. She was putting them on the tray when the doorbell jangled so loudly it startled her. Rose handed Connie a wrapper and then went to the door, unlocked it and opened it slightly.

  A man’s voice said in the night, “Miss Dickason in there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Crew wants her over at his office.”

  “I’ll tell her,” Rose said, and shut the door and turned to Connie, who had heard the man.

  “That was Bailey,” Connie said, puzzlement in her voice.

  “Did Bill leave town?” Rose asked.

  “No. He’s here.” Connie looked steadily at her. “Do you think he’ll want Bill?”

  “If he does, he’ll have him,” Rose said matter-of-factly.

  Connie slipped out of the wrapper into her dress, and took a last look in the mirror before she turned to the door.

  “Connie, don’t argue with him,” Rose said gently. “He’s a fair man.”

  Connie smiled faintly, and she looked very cool and unexcited as she said, “No, I won’t. It’s like a game of chess, isn’t it? You give away men to gain an advantage.”

  Rose nodded without speaking, and Connie stepped out. Rose walked slowly over to the dress, picked it up and stood motionless now, feeling an unaccountable depression. She had known in the back of her mind that Bill Schell would have to face this some time if he was guilty. Dave had warned her of that, and it was only right, since those were the conditions under which he took the job. But she liked Bill Schell and his happy-go-lucky cheerfulness, and could forgive him his instability and temper—except in this case. Dave and Connie were both right, of course, in submitting to Crew’s judgment, but they did it for different reasons. Dave’s reason was that it was simply a hard bargain understood by Bill from the first, and it was one in which sentiment and affection were purposely absent. Take orders, or take the consequences. Connie’s was different, and she had expressed it perfectly when she said, “You give away men to gain an advantage.” Hers was cold and calculated and heartless, like her treatment of Ben. She was right in principle, so wrong in method.

  She roused herself and put the dress away, and now smiled wryly at herself. Maybe this was all for nothing; perhaps Crew had called Connie to tell her Bill was in the clear.

  She gathered up the tea things and put them on the tray and took them back into the kitchen. She was at the sink when she heard the sound of a horse in the back yard, and she stood motionless a moment, sorting out the separate sounds of its slow tramp, the faint kick against the walk and its halting somewhere close to the house.

  Rose took down the lamp and opened the back door and stepped out, and the eyes of a horse flashed green and iridescent as it turned its head toward her.

  She held the lamp higher and saw the man in the saddle, and a terrible fear was in her as she stepped closer.

  It was Dave. He was slumped over the neck of his horse, his bloody fingers laced almost inextricably in its mane.

  Rose put the lamp down and ran to him, saying, “Dave, Dave.”

  He roused at the sound of her voice, turned his head in her direction, but did not raise it.

  He whispered softly, “You’ll have to help me down, Rose.”

  Rose took hold of his belt and pulled him gently toward her and whispered, “Let go, Dave. Let go!”

  He seemed to collapse then, as if he had held out only until he reached her. He pitched sideways in the saddle, and Rose caught him and the weight of him beat her to
the ground. She came to her knees beside him, and saw that his clothes were caked and stiff with dried blood, and a brighter spot started to spread its dampness on the shoulder where he had stuffed part of his shirt.

  Rose pulled him to a sitting position and then said quietly, “You’ve got to help me, Dave,” and he roused, the effort allowing her to haul him up by his good arm and duck under it. His weight was dead, and his dragging feet would have sent her to the ground if she had not staggered against the house for support.

  She half dragged, half carried him through the kitchen and into her bedroom, where she let him gently down on the bed. He fell heavily across it, his head rapping the partition.

  Rose ran out for the lamp and brought it in, and put it on the table beside the bed, and looked at him. His face was gray, made more so by the black dusty wash of his beard stubble, and his face seemed shrunken and strange.

  She ripped the shirt from him, but when she came to the shoulder, the blood had made flesh and cloth one. She got warm water now, and patiently spent minutes soaking the cloth away from the skin, and when it finally came away she saw the swollen, purple lip of the wound under the solid ridge of the collarbone. A trickle of blood oozed out of it now and she watched it with a quiet despair.

  She got clean clothes and covered it, and then pulled Dave’s boots off, and all the time he lay inert and heavy, his breathing deep and slow.

  With difficulty she tried to maneuver him lengthwise, but the movement brought a sudden stiffening and a groan from him, and his eyes opened. They were bright and they studied her unsmilingly, and Rose said, “Move around, Dave, so I can lift your feet.”

  He stared stupidly at her and she tugged at him again, and she felt his muscles go iron hard in the flinch against the pain. After that, he sighed and closed his eyes, and she covered him.

  Rose knelt now and picked up his bloody shirt. From the shoulder of it something dropped to the floor, and when she stooped to pick it up she looked at it and her attention was held. She had seen too much of this blood-soaked cloth in the last week not to know that it was bandage. Where would Dave have got one of Doctor Parkinson’s bandages, with the trailing pigtail ties?