The Pulp Hero

by Theodore A. Tinsley

  Rebecca shuffled across the floor, sat on one edge of the bed, and motioned with a clawlike hand for Penny to sit beside her.

  “What I got tuh tell,” she began when Penny was seated, “won’t take me long. You must’ve seen that things around here’s changed aplenty since you left fer school.”

  “Things have changed a lot,” said Penny, “but the people have changed a lot more. There used to be a dandy lot of cowhands around here, but they’re all gone. I don’t like the looks of the new men.”

  Becky nodded quickly. “Just so,” she said. “That’s why I’m here. I’ve come to tell you to clear out.”

  “Clear out!” echoed Penny. “You mean leave the Basin?”

  “That’s just what I mean. It don’t matter how you get out, just get. An’ the sooner the better. There’s things goin’ on around here that ain’t healthy. Things you’ll be happier an’ better fer not knowin’ about. Now don’t ask no questions, just git!”

  Penny at first thought that torment and torture had addled the poor brain of her visitor. There was a burning sincerity in Becky’s eyes.

  “Now take it easy, Becky,” she said softly. “I’m sure things aren’t that bad.” Penny felt she wasn’t convincing, but her main purpose was to calm and reassure the nervous woman. “Uncle Bryant wouldn’t tolerate anything that wasn’t right. You know that as well as I do.”

  “Bryant don’t know the goin’s-on around here these days. He don’t even know who’s workin’ here no more.”

  Penny laughed softly despite a feeling of misgiving.

  “That’s silly,” she said. “There isn’t a thing that goes on in the Basin that Uncle Bryant doesn’t know about.” She recalled the talk of a few minutes ago, when the men were beneath her window, and wondered if her statement was accurate. “Tell me some more, Becky.”

  Anger rose in Becky’s eyes. “Don’t believe me, eh?” She rose to her feet. “Yuh don’t believe me because the shack where I live is away t’other side of the corral, an’ yuh can’t hear the sounds when Mort takes me in hand. Yuh didn’t hear it t’other night. Oh, I ain’t sayin’ it’s somethin’ new fer him tuh raise a hand tuh me; he’s done it till it’s commonplace, but never like t’other night!”

  Unexpectedly, Rebecca clawed at the shoulder of her flimsy dress and ripped it away from her bare, bony arm.

  “Look!” she cried.

  Livid lines glowed angrily across the arm, the shoulder, and as much of the woman’s back as Penny could see. The skin in several places had been broken and was beginning to heal.

  “Mort, the damn skunk, done that with a lash,” Rebecca said. “You know why?”

  Penny, speechless at the exhibition, shook her head. Rebecca brushed a vagrant lock of hair off her damp forehead.

  “I’ll tell yuh why,” she went on. “It’s because I didn’t stay in the house one evenin’ after dark. The night was hot an’ stuffy an’ I wanted a breath o’ fresh air. I sat by the cottonwoods, south of our house. I didn’t mean tuh follow Mort there an’ listen tuh what him an’ Vince was sayin’. I didn’t even know them two was there. I couldn’t help hearin’ some of what—” Becky broke off sharply as if she had already said more than she intended to. Quickly she continued, “I—I mean, I didn’t hear nothin’ much.” Penny knew the woman lied. Such intensity could never have risen from hearing “nothin’ much.”

  “Mort an’ Vince catched me there,” the woman said. “Mort sent me tuh the house while he talked some more with Vince. Then Vince rid away an’ was gone fer a couple of days. When Mort come in he beat me worse’n I ever been beat before. He told me if I let on that I knowed what was talked about, he’d kill me! He would, too!”

  “Sit down again, Becky,” said Penny as quietly as she could.

  “Ain’t goin’ tuh,” replied the woman as she pulled her torn dress back in place with fumbling fingers. “You allus been kind tuh me an’ that’s why I snuck in here tuh warn yuh. Yuh c’n take my warnin’ an’ clear out while they’s the chance, or yuh c’n say I’m an addle-headed fool an’ stay here!” She moved toward the door. “I’m tellin’ yuh though, if yuh stay till Bryant’s dead you’ll be willin’ tuh swap places with any soul from hell!”

  “Wait, Becky.”

  “I cain’t. It’s too risky. If Mort knowed I was here he’d kill me, an’ I ain’t usin’ the word ‘kill’ as a figger o’ speech.”

  “But Mort is your husband,” said Penelope. She hoped to continue the conversation and learn more of what was said in the cottonwoods. “I thought you loved Mort.”

  “Love him?” spat the woman. “I hate the dirty cur more’n a hoss hates snakes. That’s why I go on livin’ here. It’d make him happy to see me clear out, but I ain’t goin’ tuh do it. I’ll outlive Bryant, an’ I’ll outlive Mort, an’ then my young ’uns will come intuh their share of this ranch. I’ll make him pay fer the way he’s treated me an’ his own young ’uns.”

  “Tell me,” said Penny softly, “what were Vince and Mort talking about, the other night in the cottonwoods?”

  “About Bryant’s eyes an’ how easy it was tuh—” Becky broke off sharply. She gazed at Penny for a moment. Her voice grew harder, more firm. “I didn’t hear,” she said.

  A sudden draft blew through the room. Penny saw the billowing window shades, then saw Rebecca with mortal terror in her face. Penny followed her stare. Mort Cavendish stood in the doorway. Thunder boomed outside the window.

  Mort’s face was expressionless. For fully a minute no one spoke to break the tableau. Becky assumed a look of defiance and waited for Mort to be the first to speak. When he did so, his voice was toneless, and quite soft.

  “It’s about time for you to be gettin’ breakfast for the kids,” he told Rebecca. To Penny he said, “Uncle Bryant is at the table; are you coming?”

  Penny nodded.

  Mort stood aside so his wife could pass. She moved down the hall without a backward glance.

  Mort said, “I’ll see you later, Becky,” and Penny caught the threat that the words implied.

  CHAPTER V

  TONTO

  The men were at the breakfast table when Penny entered the big dining room. She returned their abbreviated greetings and then took her seat to surround herself with the same wall of silence that seemed to confine everyone at every meal. The cousins, her uncle, and Penny had no common denominator of conversation. Though the food was good and well prepared, it all seemed flat and tasteless in the strained atmosphere of the Cavendish house. Nothing was said of Vince’s absence for the past few days. It was taken for granted that Mort would eat well with the others, while his wife ate otherwise with her brood.

  Penny was relieved when the meal was finished and she could leave the house. She avoided the swelling puddles between the house and the corral. It was easy to find her own mustang, Las Vegas. The small, strong beast advanced to meet her.

  A man came from the saddle shed carrying her saddle and bridle on his arm. “Sawtell,” she remembered. Another of the new employees. Sawtell was easier to look at than Rangoon, but he wore an expression on his bland face that made one feel that he was sneering constantly.

  “Saw yuh in the ridin’ outfit,” he said, “so I brought your leather.”

  “Thanks,” said Penny shortly.

  Sawtell seemed inclined to talk while he cinched up Las Vegas. “Not much of a day for ridin’. Looks like it’ll clear up by noon, though. Might be better for you to wait.”

  “I like to ride in the rain,” said Penny. Her face lighted as a thought possessed her. “Have you ever ridden up the side of Thunder Mountain?” she asked.

  Sawtell looked at her quickly. After a pause, he said, “Why?”

  “When I was younger, they used to tell me that no one could ride through the tangle of weeds and things on that mountain.”

  Sawtell nodded with a trace o
f a squint in his eyes.

  “But,” continued Penny, “I went there anyway, and I found a trail that could be followed right up to the peak. I wonder if that trail is still there.”

  Sawtell shook his head slowly. “I know about that trail,” he said, “but it’s all overgrown now and you’d break the leg of a horse you tried to ride up there.”

  Penny couldn’t conceal her disappointment. She mounted gracefully and swung Las Vegas away from the group of buildings.

  Most of Penny’s enthusiasm for her ride was dissolved by the statement that the old trail up Thunder Mountain was gone. She gazed wistfully at the huge tangle of green things that rose to such majestic heights. “Darn it, Las Vegas,” she complained to the mustang, “everything’s changed here.”

  She looked back toward the house and noticed that in riding without a definite direction she had unconsciously followed the route of her explorations of another day. She had placed the saddle shed between her and the house so that Uncle Bryant, if watching, would not see where she went.

  She pulled off her hat and drew the pins from her hair. It fell in soft waves, which were rapidly becoming wet, to her shoulders. Thunder rumbled somewhere overhead and rain beat her cheeks. She seemed to feel an uplifting as the wind swept her hair straight out. She thrilled to the stinging rain like an old salt returning to the spray of the sea.

  She slapped Las Vegas on the rump. “Come on!” she cried. Las Vegas dropped his ears and went.

  The horse stopped at the foot of Thunder Mountain where the tall brush and dense trees blocked the way. He turned his head as if to question Penny: “Right or left, which will it be?” This was the spot where the old trail had once begun. Penny glanced back toward the distant ranch house and the buildings that surrounded it. Sawtell had said the trail was now impassable. Penny was in the mood that Uncle Bryant had once termed “cussed contrariness.”

  “Well, what’re we waiting for?” she called to Las Vegas. “Are you scared of a few shrubs?” She heeled the mustang, at the same time whacking her hat against his flank. “Giddup!”

  The mustang lunged into the tangle. Thorns tore at his fetlocks and raked his sides. Penny was nearly swept from the saddle by a low branch. Brush slapped and scratched her. Only a streak of Cavendish stubbornness, and the fact that it was almost impossible to turn, kept her going. Las Vegas seemed determined to make the girl regret her decision as he plunged ahead.

  Then, surprisingly, the trail ahead was clear. Without warning the path widened where the brush had been carefully cut back. The route went around treacherous holes and rocks that were too large to move. Lopped-off branches tossed to one side showed that the trail was man-made, not accidental.

  This puzzled her. Sawtell had told the truth about the first hundred yards, but he had been mistaken about the part of the path the girl now rode. Interwoven branches of trees overhead blocked out a great deal of the rain. There was just a gentle dripping that would probably continue long after the rain had actually stopped.

  Penny took her watch from the small waterproof envelope that was pinned to her shirt. She thought she might have time to ride all the way to the top of Thunder Mountain if the path remained as clean as it was at present. Now that she no longer had to concentrate on staying in the saddle, her thoughts went back to the scene in her room when Becky had called. If it hadn’t been for the peculiar meeting between Mort, Vince, and Rangoon, she might have thought less of Becky’s warning. All things considered, however, she felt certain that there was something definitely wrong in Bryant’s Basin. What was it that Becky had started to say about her uncle’s eyes? What had she overheard in the clump of cottonwoods? Penny had no intention of following Rebecca’s advice. She was quite determined to stay in the Basin and see what happened next. Bryant’s eyes—what about them? Perhaps she could persuade Rebecca to say more when she saw her later in the day. She’d call on her in the humble shack and have a talk. Perhaps if she were there when Mort came in after his day’s work Rebecca would be spared some of her husband’s violence.

  Penny’s thoughts were broken when she had to rein up suddenly. The trail ahead was blocked by the most magnificent horse that the girl had ever seen. Pure white, with muscles that rippled in a way that made his coat gleam like sparkling silver, he stood there and looked at her.

  Penny dismounted, holding the reins of her horse while she advanced toward the white beast. “Gosh!” she breathed in admiration. “What a horse! Here, fellow!” She held a hand before her, but the white horse stood motionless. The girl moved one step nearer, and the white horse backed slowly.

  “Don’t be afraid of me,” the girl said, “I want to be friends.”

  “Silver not make-um friends.”

  Penny swung, startled, toward the thick, guttural voice. Then she saw the Indian.

  He was tall, fully six feet, without the advantage of heels. He was clad in buckskin and moccasins. His face was broad and characteristically high-cheekboned. Hair was drawn straight back from a part in the middle and done in a war knot low on the back of his head. Heavy revolvers, of the most modern make, swung from his waist, were a somewhat incongruous touch. A bow and arrows would have been more in keeping with the rest of the Indian’s equipment.

  The Indian was a striking-looking man. His face showed interest in the girl; intellect was indicated in his forehead. In his deep, dark eyes, instead of hostility there was a warm friendliness.

  “I—I was admiring your horse,” the girl stammered.

  “That not my horse. My horse yonder.”

  Penny looked beyond the white horse, where the Indian pointed, and for the first time noticed that the trail had widened to a clearing fully thirty yards across. The open space was bordered by huge trees, and just beyond one of the largest of these she saw a paint horse.

  “My horse there,” the red man said. “This horse not mine. This horse name ‘Silver.’”

  “Silver,” repeated the girl. “It certainly suits him.” She thought her uncle would delight in owning such a beast.

  “Is—is Silver for sale?” she asked.

  The Indian’s face showed a faint trace of a smile, as he shook his head slowly.

  There was a somewhat awkward period of silence. The Indian stood as if waiting for Penny to make the next move. She had a fleeting thought that she should have been afraid. She knew that she was far from anyone who might help her. Yet she felt quite at ease. The Indian had been friendly so far, respectful too, and there was something magnetic about his personality.

  “Me Tonto,” the Indian finally said.

  “Tonto—is that your name?”

  The man nodded.

  “Do you live here?”

  “No’m,” replied Tonto, “me stop-um here short time. Maybe leave soon.”

  Then Penny saw the crude lean-to fashioned from spreading branches of pine. Inside there was considerable duffle, packed for quick loading on a horse. “Do you mind,” said Penny with an impulsiveness that later surprised her when she thought of it, “if I sit in your lean-to and get out of the rain for a few minutes?”

  Tonto looked a bit surprised, then glad that he was so trusted by the girl. He seemed to be bending every effort to put her at ease.

  When she stepped on the soft boughs of evergreen that carpeted the lean-to, the Indian removed his belt and the heavy revolvers and tossed them on the floor close to her. “Me not need guns now,” he muttered. Penny understood, and appreciated the red man’s gesture. He was putting his only weapons where she could reach them if she cared to. He remained just outside the roof of the small shelter, ignoring the drizzle as he sat on the trunk of a fallen tree.

  “I’m from the Basin,” the girl explained. “I used to come up this trail a lot, but it was always pretty hard riding. It’s been cleared since the last time I used it.”

  The Indian nodded. “That plenty strange,” he mutt
ered.

  Penny looked at him sharply. “Strange? Why?”

  Tonto didn’t reply. He seemed deeply preoccupied. “Do any of the men from the Basin ride this way?” asked Penny after a pause.

  Tonto didn’t reply.

  “Who owns the white horse?”

  There was another pause; then Tonto said, “My friend.” The way he said it was peculiarly impressive. Penny wondered if the friend were another Indian or a white man. She said, “Does your friend live in the Basin?”

  Once more the Indian gave a negative shake of his head.

  “Where is he now?”

  “Him plenty sick. Tonto come here, look for feller to ride by. Get food for friend.”

  Penny could be very adroit at questioning when she chose. She talked with the big Indian at length and learned that his friend was close to death. She further learned that men from Bryant’s Basin had been known to travel on the Thunder Mountain trail. This surprised her. Tonto needed certain kinds of food for his friend, food which couldn’t be shot or caught with hook and line, and he was waiting to take what he needed from the first men who rode through the clearing. As Penny listened to what Tonto said, she felt herself becoming keenly interested in his needs. She tried to determine which of the Basin men had used the Thunder Mountain trail, but Tonto couldn’t describe them. He knew only what he’d read in the hoofmarks on the ground.

  It was a day of surprises, and most of all Penny was surprised at herself. Before she realized what she had done, she had promised to ride back to the Basin and secure the things that Tonto needed. The look of gratitude that showed in the Indian’s face was a thing to behold. It was radiant and said “thanks” more effectively than any spoken words.

  Then Penny mounted Las Vegas and started her return.

  “I must be a darn fool,” she told Las Vegas. “I don’t know what possessed me to make me promise to take food to that Indian. If Uncle Bryant knew about it, he’d be frantic. He mustn’t know.”

  She rode in silence for a time. She tried to tell herself that she was working in the interests of her uncle in taking food back to the clearing. Further talk with Tonto might bring out more facts concerning men from the Basin who rode on Thunder Mountain secretly. Yet, in her heart, the girl knew this wasn’t the real reason for helping the Indian named Tonto. It was something far more subtle; something she couldn’t name; something that moved her when she heard Tonto say, “My friend.”