The Last Straw

by Harold Titus

  CHAPTER XV

  WAR!

  So, for Jane and Tom, at least, Hepburn came into the open.

  And for Hepburn, these two displayed their hands.

  Of greater consequence, Beck's reserve, his caution was swept away. Hehad taken his big chance!

  "You're all there is to me," he told Jane the following morning with adesperation in his eyes and a seriousness in his voice that made hersearch his face with alarm. "I fought against my love for you but itwasn't any use. You _made_ me love you. You'll make me keep lovin'you, won't you, Jane?"

  "I hope so! You don't know how much I hope so!" she assured him as herarms clasped his neck closely. "It frightens me, having thisresponsibility. It's the greatest I've ever had and I'm weak, Tom, aweak woman!"

  "No, strong!" he declared and stopped her further protest with kisses.

  Dad Hepburn, of course, could not stay on under the circumstances.

  "There's an advantage of having a reptile in sight if you've got tohave one in the country," Beck told Jane as they discussed the matter,"but he won't stay. He's got an excuse to back out gracefully now andwe haven't any excuse to keep him on."

  "And will you be my foreman?" she asked.

  "If you'll trust me that far," he replied with the laugh in his eyesagain.

  Hepburn departed that day, telling Jane that he would like to stay butthat he did not feel like risking his life for the sake of a job, towhich she made no reply other than writing his check. This nettled him;he did not meet her gaze because, though they both had lied, her guiltwas white while his was smirched with treachery.

  His farewell to Beck was not open but his successor read in it anominous quality.

  "I wish you luck on your job, Beck," he said as he mounted, ready toride away. "Lots of luck."

  "Mostly bad luck, Hepburn?" Tom taunted and the flush that whipped intothe face of the older man was not that of humiliation.

  He reined his horse away with a growl and did not look back.

  If the little gold locket which Tom wore about his neck brought luck,it supplied a dire need. He had two determined personal enemies in thecountry, Webb and Hepburn, and as foreman of the HC he had manyothers, identities not fully established.

  There was Cole and the Mexicans he had hired to build the fence andclear his land. There was the usual gathering of riff-raff at Webb's.And there was Sam McKee, the coward, who was not reckoned as a menaceby Beck and who, in later days, was to figure so largely!

  Another piece of news the Reverend brought:

  "They're talkin' about you in town, brother. They're saying that nowsome of this thieving will stop. They're looking to you to clean up thecountry."

  "Ain't that a lot of responsibility to put on one peaceful citizen?"Beck asked, but though he jested over the fact he did not fail toappreciate its significance.

  "Be cautious. These men are without scruple, brother."

  "And so am I ... but I got lots of luck, Reverend!" was his parting.

  He needed his luck.

  Riding alone, under a rim rock, with the country falling away to thewestward, he speculated on his luck and on the talisman Jane had givenhim. He drew the locket from his shirt front and held it on his bigpalm eyeing the thing, wondering what it contained that Jane had wantedto conceal from him.

  "I've got a half grown notion to open it," he muttered and stopped hishorse shortly.

  And he might have sprung the lid had not a zipping and a dull, deadspatter on the rock just ahead caught his attention. He looked upsharply, saw the stain of metal against the ledge and saw in thesunlight a fragment of the bullet that had shattered itself there, thatwould have drilled him had his horse taken the next step.

  Whoever fired had calculated on that next step because he was at such adistance that no report of a rifle reached him.

  Beck turned his horse and raced to cover and lay for an hour scanningthe country, but his assailant did not appear.

  When Tom rode away he smiled grimly to himself and said to the roan:

  "We won't look in it now. Stoppin' to consider saved our skin thattime; maybe we'll need that luck again ... and worse."

  Another time, the same week, he threw his bed on a pack horse andstarted a two-day ride to the south-east for, as foreman, he gave closeheed to the detail of his work.

  At sundown he made camp and while his coffee boiled stripped himselfand bathed luxuriously in a waterhole.

  He lay looking upward at the stars that night thinking more of JaneHunter than her property, thrilling at memory of her hair and eyes andlips, telling himself that conditions were reversed now, and thatinstead of fighting her off, evading her charms, he was consumed withan eagerness for them.

  Drowsiness came and, turning on his side, he reached a hand for thelocket to hold it fast while he slept. It was not about his neck. Heremembered that he had left it on a rock where he had undressed for hisbath and, slipping out of his blankets, turning them back that thenight chill might not dampen his bed, he picked his way carefully tothe place and groped for the trinket.

  His fingers had just touched the gold disc when the quiet of the nightwas punctured by a shot ... then four more in quick succession.

  He squatted low, holding his breath. He heard booted feet running overrocks, heard a man speak gruffly to a horse and, in a moment, heardgalloping hoofs carrying a rider away. He waited a half hour, thenstole back to his bed. The tarp and blankets were drilled by fivebullet holes.

  "Maybe I'm superstitious," he muttered, fastening the gold chain abouthis neck, "but this thing, or whatever is in it, has saved my hidetwice in one week."

  The man who had fired into his blankets had trailed him deliberately,had waited until satisfied that he was asleep and had stolen up tomurder him without offering a fighting chance.

  * * * * *

  "Hepburn has gone into partnership with Webb," Jane told him on hisreturn to the ranch. "The Reverend brought in that word. What do youmake of it?"

  "Not much. Without my help it makes about the finest couple of snakesthat could be brought together!" Tom muttered.

  "And somebody tampered with the ditch in the upper field. Curtis andthe men started the water down late in the afternoon. They left theirtools there and the ditch bank was broken. They tell me it surely wasshoveled out. The water is low and losing it hurt."

  "That looks quite like war," he told her.

  War it was. That night the men in the bunk house were awakened by abright glare and looking out Beck saw that four stacks of hay, totalingmore than a hundred tons of feed left from the winter, were in a blaze.While the others hastily dressed and ran toward the stack yard in thefutile hope that some portion might be saved, the foreman stayed behind... listening. From far up the road he heard the faint, quick rattle ofa running horse.

  In the morning a note was found stuck in the latch of the big gate. Itwas addressed to Jane Hunter and, in a rude scrawl, had been written:

  "The longer you stay the more you will lose."

  She showed it to Beck and after he had read and re-read and turned thesingle sheet of paper over in his hands he looked up to see her eyestear filled.

  "It isn't worth it!" she cried with a stamp of her foot. "This is onlythe start. Do you know what they are saying in town? The word has beenpassed that first you are to be driven out and that then I will have togo. People are saying that the others are too many and too ruthless foryou, that they are bound to drive us away. It is being said that youare too straight to win a crooked fight!

  "I could risk losing the things I own, my property, but I wouldn't riskyou, Tom dear ... I wouldn't do that!"

  "And there's somethin' else you wouldn't do," he said lowly, strokingher forehead. "You wouldn't let 'em drive you out. You didn't startthat way. You come out here to beat the game and if you quit cold youwouldn't think much of yourself, would you? We didn't want trouble, butwe've got to go and meet it!"

  "But you!" she moaned, putting her arms about his big
shoulders. "Whatof you?"

  "Don't worry about me when the only danger is from men that won't comeinto the open! Maybe I'm a bigger crook than I'm given credit for.Besides, you've given me lots of luck....

  "I don't know what's in this thing,"--holding out the locket--"but I'vegot a lot of faith in it ... and in you, Jane!"

  Where, before he gave his love recognition, he had taken pains to bringJane into contact with adversities, he now was impelled to shield herfrom all that he could. In the natural role of her protector he dideverything possible to allay her apprehension. He could not blind herto the broad situation but he could and did withhold the seriousness ofsome of its detail, even keeping some things that transpired, such asthe attempts on his life, to himself.

  But he did worry about the enemy that worked from cover, that shot atsleeping men, that broke ditches and burned property and sent unsignedthreats to women. That made his fight a battle in the darkness and hisstrength was the strength of light, of frankness, of honesty. His mindwas not adapted to scheming and skulking.

  To drive his foe into the open was his first objective and that nighthe set out.

  "You call it recognizing a state of war, I believe," he told Jane witha twinkle in his eye when she queried his going.

  "Tom! You're not going--"

  "Not going to take a chance," he said soberly. "It's just a diplomaticmission, you might say."

  He put her off and rode out of the ranch gate. It was dark and when hehad progressed a mile he halted his horse, dropped off, loosened thecinch so the leather would not creak when the animal breathed, andstood listening. Aside from the natural noises of the night, the worldwas without sound.

  He drew his gun from its holster and twirled the cylinder. Usually hecarried the trigger over an empty chamber; tonight it was filled. Andinside his shirt was another gun.