by B. M. Bower
THE QUIRT (Part 2)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LONE TAKES HIS STAND
Lone Morgan, over at Elk Spring camp, was just sitting down to eat his midday meal when some one shouted outside. Lone stiffened in his chair, felt under his coat, and then got up with some deliberation and looked out of the window before he went to the door. All this was a matter of habit, bred of Lone’s youth in the feud country, and had nothing whatever to do with his conscience.
“Hello!” he called, standing in the doorway and grinning a welcome to Swan, who stood with one arm resting on the board gate. “She’s on the table—come on in.”
“I don’t know if you’re home with the door shut like that,” Swan explained, coming up to the cabin. “I chased a coyote from Rock City to here, and by golly, he’s going yet! I’ll get him sometime, maybe. He’s smart, but you can beat anything with thinking if you don’t stop thinking. Always the other feller stops sometimes, and then you get him. You believe that?”
“It most generally works out that way,” Lone admitted, getting another plate and cup from the cupboard, which was merely a box nailed with its bottom to the wall, and a flour sack tacked across the front for a curtain. “Even a coyote slips up now and then, I reckon.”
Swan sat down, smoothing his tousled yellow hair with both hands as he did so. “By golly, my shoulder is sore yet from carrying Brit Hunter,” he remarked carelessly, flexing his muscles and grimacing a little.
Lone was pouring the coffee, and he ran Swan’s cup over before he noticed what he was doing. Swan looked up at him and looked away again, reaching for a cloth to wipe the spilled coffee from the table.
“How was that?” Lone asked, turning away to the stove. “What-all happened to Brit Hunter?”
Swan, with his plate filled and his coffee well sweetened, proceeded to relate with much detail the story of Brit’s misfortune. “By golly, I don’t see how he don’t get killed,” he finished, helping himself to another biscuit. “By golly, I don’t. Falling into Spirit Canyon is like getting dragged by a horse. It should kill a man. What you think, Lone?”
“It didn’t, you say.” Lone’s eyes were turned to his coffee cup.
“It don’t kill Brit Hunter—not yet. I think maybe he dies with all his bones broke, like that. By golly, that shows you what could happen if a man don’t think. Brit should look at that chain on his wheel before he starts down that road.”
“Oh. His brake didn’t hold, eh?”
“I look at that wagon,” Swan answered carefully. “It is something funny about that chain. I worked hauling logs in the mountains, once. It is something damn funny about that chain, the way it’s fixed.”
Lone did not ask him for particulars, as perhaps Swan expected. He did not speak at all for awhile, but presently pushed back his plate as if his appetite were gone.
“It’s like Fred Thurman,” Swan continued moralizing. “If Fred don’t ride backwards, I bet he don’t get killed—like that.”
“Where’s Brit now?” Lone asked, getting up and putting on his hat. “At the ranch?”
“Or heaven, maybe,” Swan responded sententiously. “But my dog Yack, he don’t howl yet. I guess Brit’s at the ranch.”
“Sorry I’m busy today,” said Lone, opening the door. “You stay as long as you like, Swan. I’ve got some riding to do.”
“I’ll wash the dishes, and then I maybe will think quicker than that coyote. I’m after him, by golly, till I get him.”
Lone muttered something and went out. Within five minutes Swan, hearing hoofbeats, looked out through a crack in the door and saw Lone riding at a gallop along the trail to Rock City. “Good bait. He swallows the hook,” he commented to himself, and his good-natured grin was not brightening his face while he washed the dishes and tidied the cabin.
With Lone rode bitterness of soul and a sick fear that had nothing to do with his own destiny. How long ago Brit had been hurled into the canyon Lone did not know; he had not asked. But he judged that it must have been very recently. Swan had not told him of anything but the runaway, and of helping to carry Brit home—and of the “damn funny thing about the chain”—the rough-lock, he must have meant. Too well Lone understood the sinister meaning that probably lay behind that phrase.
“They’ve started on the Quirt now,” he told himself with foreboding. “She’s been telling her father——”
Lone fell into bitter argument with himself. Just how far was it justifiable to mind his own business? And if he did not mind it, what possible chance had he against a power so ruthless and so cunning? An accident to a man driving a loaded wagon down the Spirit Canyon grade had a diabolic plausibility that no man in the country could question. Brit, he reasoned, could not have known before he started that his rough-lock had been tampered with, else he would have fixed it. Neither was Brit the man to forget the brake on his load. If Brit lived, he might talk as much as he pleased, but he could never prove that his accident had been deliberately staged with murderous intent.
Lone lifted his head and looked away across the empty miles of sageland to the quiet blue of the mountains beyond. Peace—the peace of untroubled wilderness—brooded over the land. Far in the distance, against the rim of rugged hills, was an irregular splotch of brown which was the headquarters of the Sawtooth. Lone turned his wrist to the right, and John Doe, obeying the rein signal, left the trail and began picking his way stiff-legged down the steep slope of the ridge, heading directly toward the home ranch.
John Doe was streaked with sweat and his flanks were palpitating with fatigue when Lone rode up to the corral and dismounted. Pop Bridgers saw him and came bow-legging eagerly forward with gossip titillating on his meddlesome tongue, but Lone stalked by him with only a surly nod. Bob Warfield he saw at a distance and gave no sign of recognition. He met Hawkins coming down from his house and stopped in the trail.
“Have you got time to go back to the office and fix up my time, Hawkins?” he asked without prelude. “I’m quitting today.”
Hawkins stared and named the Biblical place of torment. “What yuh quittin’ for, Lone?” he added incredulously. “All you boys got a raise last month; ain’t that good enough?”
“Plenty good enough, so long as I work for the outfit.”
“Well, what’s wrong? You’ve been with us five years, Lone, and it’s suited you all right so far——”
Lone looked at him. “Say, I never set out to marry the Sawtooth,” he stated calmly. “And if I have married you-all by accident, you can get a bill of divorce for desertion. This ain’t the first time a man ever quit yuh, is it, Hawkins?”
“No—and there ain’t a man on the pay roll we can’t do without,” Hawkins retorted, his neck stiffening with resentment. “It’s a kinda rusty trick, though, Lone, quittin’ without notice and leaving a camp empty.”
“Elk Spring won’t run away,” Lone assured him without emotion. “She’s been left alone a week or two at a time during roundups. I don’t reckon the outfit’ll bust up before you get a man down there.”
The foreman looked at him curiously, for this was not like Lone, whose tone had always been soft and friendly, and whose manner had no hint of brusqueness. There was a light, too, in Lone’s eyes that had not been there before. But Hawkins would not question him further. If Lone Morgan or any other man wanted to quit, that was his privilege,—providing, of course, that his leaving was not likely to menace the peace and security of the Sawtooth. Lone had made it a point to mind his own business, always. He had never asked questions, he had never surmised or gossiped. So Hawkins gave him a check for his wages and let him go with no more than a foreman’s natural reluctance to lose a trustworthy man.
By hard riding along short cuts, Lone reached the Quirt ranch and dropped reins at the doorstep, not much past mid-afternoon.
“I rode over to see if there’s anything I can do,” he said, when Lorraine opened the door to him. He did not like to ask about her father, fearing that the news would be ba
d.
“Why, thank you for coming.” Lorraine stepped back, tacitly inviting him to enter. “Dad knows us today, but of course he’s terribly hurt and can’t talk much. We do need some one to go to town for things. Frank helps me with dad, and Jim and Sorry are trying to keep things going on the ranch. And Swan does what he can, of course, but——”
“I just thought you maybe needed somebody right bad,” said Lone quietly, meaning a great deal more than Lorraine dreamed that he meant. “I’m not doing anything at all, right now, so I can just as well help out as not. I can go to town right away, if I can borrow a horse. John Doe, he’s pretty tired. I been pushing him right through—not knowing there was a town trip ahead of him.”
Lorraine found her eyes going misty. He was so quiet, and so reassuring in his quiet. Half her burden seemed to slip from her shoulders while she looked at him. She turned away, groping for the door latch.
“You may see dad, if you like, while I get the list of things the doctor ordered. He left only a little while ago, and I was waiting for one of the boys to come back so I could send him to town.”
It was on Lone’s tongue to ask why the doctor had not taken in the order himself and instructed some one to bring out the things; but he remembered how very busy with its own affairs was Echo and decided that the doctor was wise.
He tiptoed in to the bed and saw a sallow face covered with stubbly gray whiskers and framed with white bandages. Brit opened his eyes and moved his thin lips in some kind of greeting, and Lone sat down on the edge of a chair, feeling as miserably guilty as if he himself had brought the old man to this pass. It seemed to him that Brit must know more of the accident than Swan had told, and the thought did not add to his comfort. He waited until Brit opened his eyes again, and then he leaned forward, holding Brit’s wandering glance with his own intent gaze.
“I ain’t working now,” he said, lowering his voice so that Lorraine could not hear. “So I’m going to stay here and help see you through with this. I’ve quit the Sawtooth.”
Brit’s eyes cleared and studied Lone’s face. “D’you know—anything?”
“No, I don’t.” Lone’s face hardened a little. “But I wanted you to know that I’m—with the Quirt, now.”
“Frank hire yuh?”
“No. I ain’t hired at all. I’m just—with yuh.”
“We—need yuh,” said Brit grimly, looking Lone straight in the eyes.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“FRANK’S DEAD”
“Frank come yet?” The peevish impatience of an invalid whose horizon has narrowed to his own personal welfare and wants was in Brit’s voice. Two weeks he had been sick, and his temper had not sweetened with the pain of his broken bones and the enforced idleness. Brit was the type of man who is never quiet unless he is asleep or too ill to get out of bed.
Lorraine came to the doorway and looked in at him. Two weeks had set their mark on her also. She seemed older, quieter in her ways; there were shadows in her eyes and a new seriousness in the set of her mouth. She had had her burdens, and she had borne them with more patience than many an older woman would have done, but what she thought of those burdens she did not say.
“No, dad—but I thought I heard a wagon a little while ago. He must be coming,” she said.
“Where’s Lone at?” Brit moved restlessly on the pillow and twisted his face at the pain.
“Lone isn’t back, either.”
“He ain’t? Where’d he go?”
Lorraine came to the bedside and, lifting Brit’s head carefully, arranged the pillow as she knew he liked it. “I don’t know where he went,” she said dully. “He rode off just after dinner. Do you want your supper now? Or would you rather wait until Frank brings the fruit?”
“I’d ruther wait—if Frank don’t take all night,” Brit grumbled. “I hope he ain’t connected up with that Echo booze. If he has——”
“Oh, no, dad! Don’t borrow trouble. Frank was anxious to get home as soon as he could. He’ll be coming any minute, now. I’ll go listen for the wagon.”
“No use listenin’. You couldn’t hear it in that sand—not till he gits to the gate. I don’t see where Lone goes to, all the time. Where’s Jim and Sorry, then?”
“Oh, they’ve had their supper and gone to the bunk-house. Do you want them?”
“No! What’d I want ’em fur? Not to look at, that’s sure. I want to know how things is going on this ranch. And from all I can make out, they ain’t goin’ at all,” Brit fretted. “What was you ’n Lone talkin’ so long about, out in the kitchen last night? Seems to me you ’n’ him have got a lot to say to each other, Raine.”
“Why, nothing in particular. We were just—talking. We’re all human beings, dad; we have to talk sometimes. There’s nothing else to do.”
“Well, I caught something about the Sawtooth. I don’t want you talking to Lone or anybody else about that outfit, Raine. I told yuh so once. He’s all right—I ain’t saying anything against Lone—but the less you have to say the more you’ll have to be thankful fur, mebby.”
“I was wondering if Swan could have gotten word somehow to the Sawtooth and had them telephone out that you were hurt. And Lone was drawing a map of the trails and showing me how far it was from the canyon to the Sawtooth ranch. And he was asking me just how it happened that the brake didn’t hold, and I said it must have been all right, because I saw you come out from under the wagon just before you hitched up. I thought you were fixing the chain on them.”
“Huh?” Brit lifted his head off the pillow and let it drop back again, because of the pain in his shoulder. “You never seen me crawl out from under no wagon. I come straight down the hill to the team.”
“Well, I saw some one. He went up into the brush. I thought it was you.” Lorraine turned in the doorway and stood looking at him perplexedly. “We shouldn’t be talking about it, dad—the doctor said we mustn’t. But are you sure it wasn’t you? Because I certainly saw a man crawl out from under the wagon and start up the hill. Then the horses acted up, and I couldn’t see him after Yellowjacket jumped off the road.”
Brit lay staring up at the ceiling, apparently unheeding her explanation. Lorraine watched him for a minute and returned to the kitchen door, peering out and listening for Frank to come from Echo with supplies and the mail and, more important just now, fresh fruit for her father.
“I think he’s coming, dad,” she called in to her father. “I just heard something down by the gate.”
She could save a few minutes, she thought, by running down to the corral where Frank would probably stop and unload the few sacks of grain he was bringing, before he drove up to the house. Frank was very methodical in a fussy, purposeless way, she had observed. Twice he had driven to Echo since her father had been hurt, and each time he had stopped at the corral on his way to the house. So she closed the screen door behind her, careful that it should not slam, and ran down the path in the heavy dusk wherein crickets were rasping a strident chorus.
“Oh! It’s you, is it, Lone?” she exclaimed, when she neared the vague figure of a man unsaddling a horse. “You didn’t see Frank coming anywhere, did you? Dad won’t have his supper until Frank comes with the things I sent for. He’s late.”
Lone was lifting the saddle off the back of John Doe, which he had bought from the Sawtooth because he was fond of the horse. He hesitated and replaced the saddle, pulling the blanket straight under it.
“I saw him coming an hour ago,” he said. “I was back up on the ridge, and I saw a team turn into the Quirt trail from the ford. It couldn’t be anybody but Frank. I’ll ride out and meet him.”
He was mounted and gone before she realized that he was ready. She heard the sharp staccato of John Doe’s hoofbeats and wondered why Lone had not waited for another word from her. It was as if she had told him that Frank was in some terrible danger,—yet she had merely complained that he was late. The bunk-house door opened, and Sorry came out on the doorstep, stood there a minute and came slowly to
meet her as she retraced her steps to the house.
“Where’d Lone go so sudden?” he asked, when she came close to him in the dusk. “That was him, wasn’t it?”
Lorraine stopped and stood looking at him without speaking. A vague terror had seized her. She wanted to scream, and yet she could think of nothing to scream over. It was Lone’s haste, she told herself impatiently. Her nerves were ragged from nursing her dad and from worrying over things she must not talk about,—that forbidden subject which never left her mind for long.
“Wasn’t that him?” Sorry repeated uneasily. “What took him off again in such a rush?”
“Oh, I don’t know! He said Frank should have been here long ago. He went to look for him. Sorry,” she cried suddenly, “what is the matter with this place? I feel as if something horrible was just ready to jump out at us all. I—I want my back against something solid, all the time, so that nothing can creep up behind. Nothing,” she added desperately, “could happen to Frank between here and the turn-off at the ford, could it? Lone saw him turn into our trail over an hour ago, he said.”
Sorry, his fingers thrust into his overalls pockets, his thumbs hooked over the waistband, spat into the sand beside the path. “Well, he started off with a cracked doubletree,” he said slowly. “He mighta busted ’er pullin’ through that sand hollow. She was wired up pretty good, though, and there was more wire in the rig. I don’t know of anything else that’d be liable to happen, unless——”
“Unless what?” Lorraine prompted sharply. “There’s too much that isn’t talked about, on this ranch. What else could happen?”
Sorry edged away from her. “Well—I dunno as anything would be liable to happen,” he said uncomfortably. “’Taint likely him ’n’ Brit’d both have accidents—not right hand-runnin’.”