by B. M. Bower
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 bad.
“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’ye 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 XIV
“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 realised that he was ready. Sh
e 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. “’Tain’t likely him ’n’ Brit’d both have accidents—not right hand-runnin’.”
“Accidents?” Lorraine felt her throat squeeze together. “Sorry, you don’t mean—Sawtooth accidents?” she blurted.
She surprised a grunt out of Sorry, who looked over his shoulder as if he feared eavesdroppers. “Where’d you git that idee?” he demanded. “I dunno what you mean. Ain’t that yore dad callin’ yuh?”
Lorraine ignored the hint. “You do know what I mean. Why did you say they wouldn’t both be likely to have accidents hand-running? And why don’t you do something? Why does everyone just keep still and let things happen, and not say a word? If there’s any chance of Frank having an—an accident, I should think you’d be out looking after him, and not standing there with your hands in your pockets just waiting to see if he shows up or if he doesn’t show up. You’re all just like these rabbits out in the sage. You’ll hide under a bush and wait until you’re almost stepped on before you so much as wiggle an ear! I’m getting good and tired of this meek business!”
“We-ell,” Sorry drawled amiably as she went past him, “playin’ rabbit-under-a-bush mebby don’t look purty, but it’s dern good life insurance.”
“A coward’s policy,” Lorraine taunted him over her shoulder, and went to see what her father wanted. When he, too, wanted to know why Lone had come and gone again in such a hurry, Lorraine felt all the courage go out of her at once. Their very uneasiness seemed to prove that there was more than enough cause for it. Yet, when she forced herself to stop and think, it was all about nothing. Frank had driven to Echo and had not returned exactly on time, though a dozen things might have detained him.
She was listening at the door when Swan appeared unexpectedly before her, having walked over from the Thurman ranch after doing the chores. To him she observed that Frank was an hour late, and Swan, whistling softly to Jack—Lorraine was surprised to hear how closely the call resembled the chirp of a bird—strode away without so much as a pretence at excuse. Lorraine stared after him wide-eyed, wondering and yet not daring to wonder.
Her father called to her fretfully, and she went in to him again and told him what Sorry had said about the cracked doubletree, and persuaded him to let her bring his supper at once, and to have the fruit later when Frank arrived. Brit did not say much, but she sensed his uneasiness, and her own increased in proportion. Later she saw two tiny, glowing points down by the corral and knew that Sorry and Jim were down there, waiting and listening, ready to do whatever was needed of them; although what that would be she could not even conjecture.
She made her father comfortable, chattered aimlessly to combat her understanding of his moody silence, and listened and waited and tried her pitiful best not to think that anything could be wrong. The subdued chuckling of the wagon in the sand outside the gate startled her with its unmistakable reality after so many false impressions that she heard it.
“Frank’s coming, dad,” she announced relievedly, “and I’ll go and get the mail and the fruit.”
She ran down the path again, almost light-hearted in her relief from that vague terror which had held her for the past hour. From the corral Sorry and Jim came walking up the path to meet the wagon which was making straight for the bunkhouse instead of going first to the stable. One man rode on the seat, driving the team which walked slowly, oddly, reminding Lorraine of a funeral procession. Beside the wagon rode Lone, his head drooped a little in the starlight. It was not until the team stopped before the bunk-house that Lorraine knew what it was that gave her that strange, creepy feeling of disaster. It was not Frank Johnson, but Swan Vjolmar who climbed limberly down from the seat without speaking and turned toward the back of the wagon.
“Why, where’s Frank?” she asked, going up to where Lone was dismounting in silence.
“He’s there—in the wagon. We picked him up back here about three-quarters of a mile or so.”
“What’s the matter? Is he drunk?” This was Sorry who came up to Swan and stood ready to lend a hand.
“He’s so drunk he falls out of wagon down the road, but he don’t have whisky smell by his face,” was Swan’s ambiguous reply.
“He’s not hurt, is he?” Lorraine pressed close, and felt a hand on her arm pulling her gently away.
“He’s hurt,” Lone said, just behind her. “We’ll take him into the bunk-house and bring him to. Run along to the house and don’t worry—and don’t say anything to your dad, either. There’s no need to bother him about it. We’ll look after Frank.”
Already Swan and Sorry and Jim were lifting Frank’s limp form from the rear of the wagon. It sagged in their arms like a dead thing, and Lorraine stepped back shuddering as they passed her. A minute later she followed them inside, where Jim was lighting the lamp with shaking fingers. By the glow of the match Lorraine saw how sober Jim looked, how his chin was trembling under the drooping, sandy moustache. She stared at him, hating to read the emotion in his heavy face that she had always thought so utterly void of feeling.
“It isn’t—he isn’t——” she began, and turned upon Swan, who was beside the bunk, looking down at Frank’s upturned face. “Swan, if it’s serious enough for a doctor, can’t you send another thought message to your mother?” she asked. “He looks—oh, Lone! He isn’t dead, is he?”
Swan turned his head and stared down at her, and from her face his glance went sharply to Lone’s downcast face. He looked again at Lorraine.
“Tonight I can’t talk with my mind,” Swan told her bluntly. “Not always I can do that. I could ask Lone how can a man be drunk so he falls off the wagon when no whisky smell is on his breath.”
“Breath? Hell! There ain’t no breath to smell,” Sorry exclaimed as unexpectedly as his speeches usually were. “If he’s breathin’ I can’t tell it on him.”
“He’s got to be breathing!” Lone declared with a suppressed fierceness that made them all look at him. “I found a half bottle of whisky in his pocket—but Swan’s
right. There wasn’t a smell of it on his breath—I tell you now, boys, that he was lying in the sand between two sagebrushes, on his face. And there is where he got the blow—behind his ear. It’s one of them accidents that you’ve got to figure out for yourself.”
“Oh, do something!” Lorraine cried distractedly. “Never mind now how it happened, or whether he was drunk or not—bring him to his senses first, and let him explain. If there’s whisky, wouldn’t that help if he swallowed some now? And there’s medicine for dad’s bruises in the house. I’ll get it. And Swan! Won’t you please talk to your mother and tell her we need the doctor?”
Swan drew back. “I can’t,” he said shortly. “Better you send to Echo for telegraph. And if you have medicine, it should be on his head quick.”
Lone was standing with his fingers pressed on Frank’s wrist. He looked up, hesitated, drew out his knife and opened the small blade. He moved so that his back was to Lorraine, and still holding the wrist he made a small, clean cut in the flesh. The three others stooped, stared with tightened lips at the bloodless incision, straightened and looked at one another dumbly.
“I’d like to lie to you,” Lone told Lorraine, speaking over his shoulder. “But I won’t. You’re too game and too square. Go and stay with your dad, but don’t let him know—get him to sleep. We don’t need that medicine, nor a doctor either. Frank’s dead. I reckon he was dead when he hit the ground.”
CHAPTER XV
SWAN TRAILS A COYOTE
At daybreak Swan was striding toward the place where Frank Johnson had been found. Lone, his face moody, his eyes clouded with thought, rode beside him, while Jack trotted loose-jointedly at Swan’s heels. Swan had his rifle, and Lone’s six-shooter showed now and then under his coat when the wind flipped back a corner. Neither had spoken since they left the ranch, where Jim was wandering dismally here and there, trying to do the chores when his heart was heavy with a sense of personal loss and grim foreboding. None save Brit had slept during the night—and Brit had slept only because Lorraine had prudently given him a full dose of the sedative left by the doctor for that very purpose. Sorry had gone to Echo to send a telegram to the coroner, and he was likely to return now at any time. Wherefore Swan and Lone were going to look over the ground before others had trampled out what evidence there might be in the shape of footprints.