by John Long
Hours soaked away. The horse sludged across mud-flats, reached a great expanse of considerably decent rangeland, and eventually came upon a trail winding through Grasshopper Valley. After following the trail for a while the animal pricked forward its ears; a few seconds later the rattling of a wagon could be heard distinctly. Then swerving reckessly round a bend, came a ramshackle buckboard driven by an old cowhand who yelled, chewed and spat to left and right with machine-like regularity. The mud was flying, the rain was blinding, and the old fellow’s naturally watery vision prevented him from seeing anything clearly ahead of him. Thus it was only at the point of being trodden down and churned under wheels that the lone rider halted, stiffly drawing himself upright in the saddle. The buckboard sliddered to a standstill, and as he stared at it he instinctively reached for a gun. A searing pain at once arrested his movement.
‘Don’t try it, Mister young fella!’ shouted the buckboard driver, his horny hands suddenly jerking up a shotgun. ‘Another toughnut, huh? Hostile, too, it seems. I jest cain’t figure what this district’s a-coming to, with mad hellions lurking almost everywheres. Gold sure is a curse.’
‘Where – where am I, neighbour?’
‘Pretty obvious, ain’t it?’snapped the oldster, cocking his weapon and blowing beads of rain from his drooping moustache. ‘You’re on my range and under my sights.’
‘What? What’s this? More – more gunfighting?’
The strained words trailed away. Jeff Rand tumbled out of the saddle.
‘Holy smoke! Guess I must look derned tough, despite what Ma sez!’ exclaimed the old rancher.
The horse began to nose the blood-smeared and senseless heap of misery that sprawled in the mud.
The driver climbed down for a closer inspection, holding his shotgun ready.
‘Holy smoke!’ he repeated with mounting intelligence and horror. ‘Say, what a gruesome sight! Looks like he was scalped, wearing his face battered in that way.’ He bent down and loosened Rand’s waistcoat, thereat making discoveries which provoked more profane language. ‘Ribs bust – bullet in shoulder, and …’ The old man’s searching gaze finally alighted on Jeff’s hands, and despite himself he gulped in a gush of pity. ‘Dern it; the fella has been mauled real bad! Whoever did that to another man’s hands – well! – he needs burning. Lift up, neighbour. Steady now; I’ll take yuh home to Ma. Shucks, hoss, quit nosing me that way; your boss ain’t dead!’
Within a few moments the buckboard had turned in the trail and rattled back round the bend at a steadier rate, carrying Rand and pursued by the weary horse. The twin ruts left behind quickly filled and overflowed. The first stream for many years was born in Grasshopper Valley. One could hardly believe the desert had one-time smothered the land.
Sunshine streamed like vapourised gold through the ranch-house window. Sweet odour came from the knotted plank walls. Jeff Rand first grew aware of the light, then the soothing warmth, and next the pleasant mingling of pinewood and baking cookies. Gradually as he recovered his senses responded to a number of altered, unexpected and confusing things. For instance he was in a bed, a real bed, not a sleeping bag or a bunk; furthermore there were cool and affectionate sheets around him; not a hairy horse-blanket but parchment-like sheets that rasped against a fellow’s chin right queerly. Next thing he noticed was a dreamy lowing of cattle, a buzzing of insects, and a real homely clink of cooking utensils. Peaceful! Why, it was so peaceful, refined and removed from the coarse things he was accustomed to having around, that it got him scared quite a piece at first. His own ranching days were awakened in his memory. Say, supposing he looked out of yonder window, would he see Pa out there on the range? Or supposing he opened that cream coloured door, would he hear his sister Jenny singing?
When gold was found in forty-eight, the people said ’twas gas,
And some were fools enough to think the lumps were only brass!
Rand, drowsy-headed, tried to grin at his thoughts, but his face had a peculiar hurting stiffness. So, raising his hands to find what the trouble could be, he received a terrible shock. With stupefied eyes he stared at the splints and glove-like bandages covering those hands – his gun hands – both of them – each afire inside and bleeding and ruined. Oh lord! From now on he was just – just a dead man!
Recollection flowed back swiftly and with frightening reality. He remembered first the gold mine and the murder of Jim Miller. Then came the long riding – gunfights – Bruce Gang – bank robbery – ambush – sandstorm – and finally, hell! A hell ringing to the fiendish laughter of Symes. Symes the killer, inhumanly rapid, and the only man who filled Rand with a shaking dread. As Jeff lay there his eyes brightened in fear. Of a sudden he started to search around for his guns, under the soft pillows, the sheets, and on the side table. Symes might pay a call; he must get ready, must find those guns. But, oh lord, these hands!
Moaning deliriously Rand fell to biting and ripping the bandages.
‘Where you looking for these?’
He heard it; a low voice coming from a far shadowy corner. No, it wasn’t Symes; it sounded mild and gentle like a woman’s voice. Feverishly Rand strained to sit upright, and his gaze travelled from the old shot-gun on the wall to the hanging oil-lamp, from the chairs with old-fashioned twisted limbs to a cattleman’s calendar. The calendar advertised grain, and stunned Rand with the date it showed. It was Monday. Somewhere he had lost three days.
‘Don’t remove those bandages, please, or you might never use your hands agin, nor these things.’
Oh, yes, the voice; he had nearly forgotten about it. He must be losing his senses to forget a thing like that. Struggling over to his right side he saw her; she was sitting in a stream of sunlight; she was young and plainly dressed; she was nimbly darting needle and cotton in and out of a shirt – his shirt. Beside her on a table were a newly-oiled pair of six-guns – his guns!
‘Who the blazes are you? And where the blazes am I?’
‘Who the blazes wants to know?’ she gently inquired, snapping the thread with her teeth and inspecting various other parts of the frayed garment. ‘Never mind, you need not answer my question, neighbour, because you ain’t to talk much. Ma’s word is law round here. I’m her niece. You’re on the Keller spread.’
It took a long time for this information to register, and when he finally managed it Rand was unable to find a sensible reply, so he just said:
‘Aw! Where’s my hoss?’
‘Ma don’t allow them in the bedrooms,’ she replied, very secretively. ‘They breathe too heavy.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ murmured Jeff, very serious and real subdued, not at all seeing her fun-making in his dazed state. ‘Is it all right to smoke, ma’am?’
‘That depends, neighbour. Just mind them sheets, that’s all. Here, mebbe I had better twist up the ’baccy for you,’ she whispered in a voice that grew husky as she remembered the state of his hands. ‘I have only one thing to warn you of, Mister Rand. Ma and Pa Keller are out-and-out gentlefolk, what don’t read the chronicle as I do. Understand? Then I would be obliged if, while you’re on this ranch, you kept quiet about your gunfighting experiences. Here’s your smoke.’
‘Thanks, ma’am,’ murmured Jeff, feeling even more subdued, with his mind busily recognizing the charity of these poor folk. ‘It seems I’m deep indebted to the old couple.’
‘You are,’ she promptly replied, attacking the collar of the shirt with a rapidly flicking needle. ‘And so am I.’
A long pause followed, during which Rand reflectively studied her while she kept sending distrustful glances to that pair of black six-guns.
‘You look awful like my sister did,’ Jeff feverishly declared.
‘Many young women look awful, neighbour,’ she calmly answered him.
‘Sure, ma’am. That is to say – I mean – oh, no! You see, my sister is dead.’
‘Oh!’ She glanced up quickly. ‘I am all sympathy for your sis, neighbour, and your comparison is a real honour.’ She smiled, rais
ing an eyebrow up and down, looking very cute.
Rand became restless; he felt hot; his temperature was up pretty bad just then. He nevertheless smiled, sighed heavily, and closing his eyes he quietly said:
‘Jest like Jenny, anyhow. Jest like home. Mebbe it ain’t good riding alone all along the way.’
Another lengthy interlude of silence occurred. Beginning to look fretful once more, Rand strove again to sit upright.
‘Begging your pardon, ma’am, but did any strangers call, asking for me? Did you see a gay-dressed, dark-skinned rider, wearing an uncommonly broad gunbelt?’
‘No, Mister Rand. Nobody’s bin out here since Lew fetched in the mail two days gone, and brought the shocking news of Flintstone bank-robbery.’ Her hands ceased to work as she watched him intently. Her information only seemed to weary him. ‘We all are naturally curious to know what befell yuh, neighbour, though you won’t be finding us prying into your affairs none,’ she went on, rising to leave, and casting a parting glance at the black six-guns. ‘The less we know the less worry for us all, perhaps. Personally I don’t think you’re a killer, are you? Maybe you didn’t rob that bank, did you?’ She waited unrewarded for answers, then, smiling she said: ‘Rest easy, Mister Rand. I’ll go tell Ma you’re awake and hollerin’ for grub.’
Jeff returned her smile as she closed the door, and released a deeper sigh, aware of a rare peace.
That awakening at the Keller homestead was the commencement of a spell of happy content for the cruelly injured drifter. The kindly company and attentions of the old folk were indescribably grand to Jeff; he had forgotten such people really existed, and he was inclined to reverence them with awe as lofty holy ones. It made him feel a right down sinful creature at first, until he got to know them better; not that he found them less decent as time passed or anything like that, but they just got around to making a fellow feel at home with them and himself. Nonetheless Jeff was kind of glad to find the old man could curse like pitch when he warmed up, which went a long way to making the place more bearable and human-like in Jeff’s eyes. Sure he was grateful, although he felt caged up and awkward for a time, and downright reluctant to surrender his independence. For the first few days he yearned to run away, hideout someplace in the wastelands, and nurse his own wounds himself like a wild animal. That was specially because Pa had to dress him, because Ma had to wash him, right down to the neck-line, and because Teresa had to feed him like a kid, roll his smokes and perform many other like things. That, for an independent saddle-tramp such as Rand, was humiliation in the raw. One thing struck him as odd, and began to frighten him: nobody ever rebandaged or even mentioned his hands.
Anyhow, life went along extra-good, and the sinner-among-saints feeling declined, while Ma set about straightening out some of his grief-twisted opinions. Of course there were drawbacks to the situation, drawbacks he knew he would never bear for long. For instance, a fellow couldn’t chew ’baccy in bed; and when the wounds got to throbbing pretty bad, he just couldn’t relieve his feelings with red-hot language when the ladies were present. Naturally he had tried it, and the shock was sort of stunning for everybody concerned, even for Rand. Getting more familiar in this fashion, Jeff started gentle inquiries to Ma about his hands, but she behaved so motherly in response, and left the room with such a dose of hay-fever, when there wasn’t a whisp of the stuff on the poverty-stricken place, that Jeff Rand began seriously to believe the worst. His gunfighting days were at an end.
Ma Keller was a fine old lady; she kept quiet most times, but she was the ruler. She allowed Pa pretend he was governor, and that pleased Pa, except when things got tangled and his temper boiled over, then Ma straightened him out good and plenty. Rand liked the old woman; and sometimes when a motherly smile creased her trouble-hardened face, Rand knew she was specially sacred. It certainly made him feel comfortable, her taking his presence quite natural that way. The old man, however, was the prying and talkative type, dangerous without knowing it. He was not tall and bony and elegant like Ma, but thick-set and nowheres near so brainy neither. Pa made Jeff uneasy; Pa was curious, naturally, and eager to acquaint himself with Jeff’s affairs. When that happened, as Jeff rightly mused, there would be real trouble. The sheriff of Flintstone would then be organising a hanging, and Rand would be supplying the neck.
‘Seen any strangers out riding today, Miss Teresa?’
‘No, Mister Rand. There ain’t no gold on the Keller range.’
This confidential and anxious piece of conversation took place without a miss. It became like a kind of ritual between them. Although Teresa concealed it, she felt somewhat honoured to be acting as Rand’s lookout. She faithfully kept secret her knowledge of his identity, yet she both distrusted him and pitied him, which to Rand was an interesting combination. Another thing, she was a poor hand with a razor even for a girl, and Jeff decided to dispense with her, leaving Pa just to take the top layer of skin off with his rough-shod methods, and a razor like a scythe. Teresa was an all-round nuisance – mainly because her cheery visits were so brief.
But, as Jeff Rand’s situation grew more pleasant, so grew a dread of endangering these simple honest folk. He was only deceiving them and himself by staying at the ranch: he was no harmless drifting cowpoke set upon by thieves; no, he was a slick gunfighter, a dealer in death, a bank robber and a wanted man. Thus his presence incriminated these people, threatened them with a raid from the Bruce Gang who could not now afford to leave him alive. Above all their lives became similarly threatened by the ruthless guns of killer Symes.
Many times Rand made private attempts to arise and leave when these fears afflicted him. But he was still too weak. Yet he must get away somehow, for the days were passing alarmingly quick. He must operate his plan before it was too late. His hands, however – what could a fellow do with such hands? Just how bad were they? They felt dead.
Every kindness Rand now received at the Keller ranch added to his bitter torment. Every drop of happiness was fast absorbed in miserably burning impatience. Beneath Rand’s calm exterior burned a desperate hell.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Fear prevented Rand from uncovering his hands. Day by day the fear developed in him, keeping him obedient to Ma Keller’s wishes; until the morning arrived when he was allowed downstairs. Thereafter his manner became disturbingly strange to the Keller folk.
It was early morning. He had just become freighted with breakfast, and now he sat rocking it back and forth and picking his teeth, enjoying the smoothly running comfort of Pa’s rocker on the veranda. A faint pinkness was spreading over the sky, and he could see for miles across the range, with its reef-like ridges of sand, and its dismally few head of cattle, rawboned, wild as buffalo, and bawling restlessly as they searched for a meal in patches of tough bunch-grass.
‘Old man Keller, the great cattle king,’ mused Rand. ‘Keller, the only fella what fought the running desert and lived. A plum stubborn old cuss. He shoulda pulled up his stakes and freighted his folk and cattle same as everybody else did when the dry winds came. There was just one other man with that fighting pioneer spirit, and that was Jim Miller. I like him.’
The comparison, however, introduced a new and infuriating train of thought. Rand rocked back and forth more heatedly, his gaze fastened on the now burning sky.
‘Jim Miller’s gold, found and lost,’ he almost muttered aloud. ‘Somewhere out yonder is the cold-blooded killer, hiding out with the Bruce Gang. I wonder whereabouts is that place Sweetwater.’
The rocker began to rattle and creak under the heavier motion, and, edging back a few inches, started to thud against the log wall. If Rand noticed it he did not care in his angrily abstracted frame of mind; but the Keller folk found it somewhat nerve-racking. Pa did not like it one bit, because it upset his digestion, and he carried a load of affection for his rocker and his ranch-house wall. They began to watch the culprit through the window.
‘Must get these hands straight – I must!’ they heard Rand mutter fiercel
y. ‘Supposing Jim’s killer was really Sturdy? Ordinarily I would stand a chance agin him, but now I can’t even practise up just in case. Holy smoke, it gives me a kind of sinking sickness thinking of it!’ Rand raised his covered hands before him and sucked deeply at the chill morning air. ‘It’s no good feeling like a scared kid. There ain’t a chance of playing hookey with this deal. Never trust myself agin if I did that. If I run away just once, then I will really grow affeared – yeah, and soon get myself plugged by a gun-proud squirt like the Crockers.’
A resounding thud ended the rhythm of the old rocker. The Kellers looked shocked at each other. Rand had reached a firm decision and, trembling and with moisture standing out on his brow, he was now tearing frantically with his teeth at the bandages. It was a frightening sight to see; it was like watching the actions of some trapped wild animal, scared into unbelievable ferocity, ready to tear the heart out of any living thing that dared to cause an obstruction. At that moment the old folk knew they sheltered a dangerous man, a man apparently haunted and impassioned by a life of bloodshed.
Pa and Ma and Teresa stood tensed and silent, pale and strained, captured by strange fascination as they witnessed the tearing away of the blood-stained rags. Rand’s long pent up impatience released itself more and more as he progressed without interruption from anybody. How he had waited for and dreaded this moment! Sure he had felt queer movements and stabbing pains inside these bandages for a few days now, and he was fully prepared for the worst of expectations to be realised. He cursed aloud; he didn’t care any more; and with a series of unwindings and rippings the bandages came off. A dead silence followed, a silence fraught with horror; then a sad groan arose from inside the ranch-house. Rand’s face was contorted with inexpressible fear and disgust. With a moan closely related to a sob he buried his head in the crook of his arm.