CHAPTER V
THE HOME COMING OF RED RECKLESS
Winter went its white way, the spring brought a thawing sun,innumerable muddy torrents and an occasional visitor, the robins andblue birds began to troop back to the mountains. Martin Leland was athome, his sturdier steers were in the valleys, Conway came back to theBar L-M and often visited the Lelands. Sledge Hume rode up from theDry Lands, fifty miles down the slope of the mountains and was often inconsultation with Martin and with Garth Conway.
Warm weather battled against the rear guard of winter, only patches ofsoiled snow remained upon the north side of the ridges, in the narrowcanons and upon the lofty summits of the peaks standing up about thevalleys. The early flowers dotted the valleys, more cattle were movedin, and the season developed rapidly. Conway came frequently to talkwith Martin, to remain for supper, to chat with Wanda and her mother.And then one day, unheralded, unlooked for, Red Reckless came home.
It was the supper hour, just after dark. Father, mother and daughterwere at the table, when there came a quick step upon the veranda, andthe joy which the gay springtime had put into Wanda's heart brimmed upand spilled over.
"It's Garth," said Martin Leland lightly. "I expected he'd ride overto-night."
"_It's Wayne_!" cried Wanda, already upon her feet.
"Wayne!" snapped her father, his face suddenly stern. "What are youtalking about?"
"I know his step. It is Wayne!"
Wanda had already run to the door, and flung it wide open. It was verydark outside. The tall form of a man loomed strangely large, dimlyoutlined against the black curtain of the night.
"Welcome home, Wanderer!" Wanda cried gaily.
Wayne Shandon came in, his big boots dusty with his ride, his red haircatching fire from the light in the room, his eyes laughing, his lipslaughing, his voice laughing when he greeted Wanda with two eagerhands. He was the same Wayne Shandon who had ridden away a year ago,the same Red Reckless he had ever been.
Mrs. Leland's startled surprise vanished swiftly before her joy inseeing him. But Martin Leland's face went black, his eyes burnedominously, it was as though he had been gripped with a choking,speechless wrath.
"Wayne!" cried Mrs. Leland. "Where in the world have you come from?"
"From a place they call Hell's Annex, seven hundred miles inland fromthe South African Coast," he laughed lightly. "My arrival timed justto the minute for supper!"
He dropped Wanda's hands with a parting squeeze which was franklyunhidden, strode over to Mrs. Leland whom he kissed resoundingly, andput out a big, strong hand to Martin Leland.
For just a fraction of a second the two women knew that Leland washesitating, for an instant they waited fearfully, for what he might do.Then he took the hand proffered him, his lips twitched into a hard,forced smile and he said rather colourlessly,
"Well, Wayne, you've come home at last, have you?"
Wayne's answer was a laugh. He seemed filled with laughter to-night.Evidently he had noticed nothing strange in Leland's greeting; he wasin the gayest of his gay moods. He had no opportunity to answerLeland's words, for Julia, who had forgotten her usual slow, ponderousmethod of travel bounced into the room like a wonderfully animated ballat the sound of his voice, and he actually swept the two hundred poundsof her off of her feet as he gathered the big woman up into his armsand kissed her. Then Julia dabbed at her eyes and fled to her kitchen,her emotions finding outlet in an instantaneous desire to make him apie, Wanda laid a plate for him and supper went on.
Chiefly because of Wanda's eager questions and Wayne Shandon's laughingwillingness to tell about his adventures, the abstraction on the partof Martin Leland and the growing anxiety in Mrs. Leland's eyes wentunnoticed. Wayne was immoderately hungry as he first frankly confidedand then demonstrated, but he found opportunity between mouthfuls todraw, in his sketchy way, the series of pictures which made up the yearof his wanderings. He had travelled from New York to London, he hadwhizzed through Paris and dipped into Baden, he had been seasick on aMediterranean which wasn't blue, he had barked his shins on a pyramid,he had been swindled out of a ridiculously large sum of money by alittle scientist in green spectacles who was out on a mummy diggingexpedition, and he had gone into the interior after big game. He hadmanaged to take in a Derby and to pick a winner, he had made MonteCarlo recognise that he had come,--although he did not go into detailas to the manner of his departure,--and he had brought home a presentfor everybody. The skin he had taken from a lion somewhere in someremote jungle to sprawl, rug fashion in Wanda's room, where it createdno little havoc in the furniture arrangement and finally caused thedressing table to be shifted to a corner to make place for theenormous, gaping head with the fierce eyes; an Indian shawl for Mrs.Leland, selected evidently for size and brilliance of pattern, verynearly large enough to carpet the dining room and of an astonishingcombination of dark greens and riotous reds and royal purples; anornate scarf pin for Martin Leland who had as much use for a scarf pinas a Mohammedan for a Bible; an exquisite set of chessmen for Garthpurchased with a quick eye to the subtle art which had gone into theircarving and with a fine disregard for the fact that Garth had existedfor thirty odd years without learning that the curveting progress of aknight is in any way different from the ecclesiastical slant of abishop, completed the assortment of presents.
Garth himself came in as they were pushing back their chairs from thetable, throwing open the door with a merry, "Hello, folks," on hislips. Then as he caught sight of Wayne who had leaped up and swungabout he stared, suddenly speechless, his mouth dropping open.
"Well, Garth, old boy," cried Wayne heartily. "Aren't you glad to seeme?"
Garth came forward then swiftly, his hand out-stretched. But his eyeswere still startled rather than glad, and they passed his cousinturning, full of question, to Martin Leland.
"Of course I'm glad," he said, his voice a little uncertain. And then,laughing, "You just surprised me out of my senses. Why didn't youwrite that you were coming?"
"Because I'd rather travel three thousand miles to tell you about itthan write a letter. I'm amazingly glad to see you. How's everything?How is the range making out?"
"Fine," Garth answered quickly. "You have come to stay? You will berunning the outfit yourself now?"
"Business to-morrow," retorted Wayne lightly. "It is after sundown andbusiness should be asleep."
"And does it wake at sunup?" Garth returned with an attempt at Wayne'sbantering mood, although a little suspicion of venom lay under thewords.
"I had a Mexican friend once," grinned Wayne by way of answer, "who wasthe wisest man I ever saw. He used to say, 'The day is made to rest,the night to sleep!' We will give our attention to Manana when Mananacomes. Wanda!" he cried suddenly in the old impulsive way, "will youplay something for me?"
Wayne and Wanda went to the piano. Mrs. Leland watched them, her facea little troubled, a little wistful. Garth and Martin Leland, afterone swift exchange of glances, rose and went to the rancher's roomwhere they remained for a long time. When at last they returned to theliving room Leland glanced curiously at Wayne. He was sitting withWanda upon the sofa under the big wall lamp, examining her pictures.Garth approached the sofa abruptly.
"We'd better be hitting the trail, Wayne, hadn't we?" he asked. "It'snearly ten o'clock and you remember it's six miles to bed."
Reluctantly Wayne Shandon said his good nights, calling in to Juliathat he was going to expect a pie the next time he came, which would beto-morrow if Garth would let him, and the two men went out to theirhorses. Wanda, bright and happy, waved to the departing horsemen fromthe door and came back into the room to drop naturally into the silencewhich had fallen over her mother and father.
Long that night Wanda stared out through the darkness which lay aboutthe orchard with no thought of sleep. She had the feeling that no onein the house was asleep yet, not even Julia whom she could hear now andthen moving as softly as physical conditions permitted in her room.That he
r father and mother were awake, she knew from the drone of theirvoices coming to her indistinctly.
The spirit of restless anxiety falling upon a household is a thing tobe felt through stick and stone and mortar. There had been no suchspirit here to-night until Red Reckless had come home. He had notbrought it with him, he had brought only his sheer madness of exuberantlife, and yet he had left this other thing behind him. Wanda wonderedwhat thoughts, what fears or evil premonitions troubled those otherunsleeping brains.
Her own thoughts fled back a year and clung fearfully about therevolver with the pearl grip. She knew that the murder of his brotherstill remained a mystery and that people do not like mysteries to golong without solution. MacKelvey was sheriff, it was his duty, and itwas his habit, to bring some man to book for every crime committed inthe county. It was quite possible that the sheriff had been playing awaiting game throughout the year, and that he was waiting for this manto come back as he must do soon or late.
Meanwhile the man who was so vividly in Wanda's thoughts rode throughthe silent night with his cousin, drinking deep of the peace of thestarlit night, finding an old familiar music in the hammering of hishorse's hoofs on the grassy hills. Silent himself while thinking ofother days and other rides, he did not notice how silent Garth was.They topped the rocky ridge which stood as boundary line between thetwo ranges, and swerved westward taking the long curve to the Crossing,welcomed back to the home outfit by the great booming voice of thedistant river. Another mile and the river itself, flashing, turbulentmolten silver, swollen with the wet winter in the mountains, sweptshouting past them.
They turned upward along the river and raced wordlessly the greaterpart of the remaining half mile to the Bar L-M corrals. When they drewrein in the wide clearing in which stood range house, bunk house,stables and corrals, there was no spark of light about. They unsaddledswiftly, turned their horses loose with a resounding slap to send themout toward the little enclosed pasture, and went up to the range house.At the door of the men's quarters Wayne stopped.
"I think I'll drop in and say hello to the boys," he remarked, alreadyat the door.
"Are you crazy?" cried Garth. "They've been asleep two hours, man.And they've got a big day's work ahead of them to-morrow."
"Oh, shut up, Garth," laughed Wayne good naturedly. "Don't you everthink of anything but work? Come ahead, and watch me bring 'em tolife!"
He flung open the door and entered, Garth following in stony silence.It was dark within the long, narrow room, although the starlightgleamed feebly through the dirty window panes. Wayne found the lanternupon the nail where it had hung when he was a boy, lighted it, andturned the wick low so that there was only a wan light in the bunkhouse.
"Where's Big Bill's bunk?" he whispered to Garth.
Chuckling softly he drew near the bunk which Garth indicated againstthe wall at the far end of the room. He leaned forward, stooping low,peering into the shadows. Big Bill was fast asleep, his great, deeplungs expelling his breath regularly and mightily, his head with itstouseled ink black hair half hidden by the hairy arm flung up over it.Wayne tiptoed away from the bunk, moved two chairs further back againstthe other wall, and still chuckling with vastly amused anticipation,again approached Big Bill's bedside.
He put out his hands slowly, gently, until they slipped into Big Bill'sarm pits. Then, his laughter suddenly booming out he bunched hismuscles and a black haired giant of a man in shirt and underdrawers wasjerked floundering out of his bunk to the middle of the room.
Big Bill's mighty roar of mingled astonishment and anger brought adozen cowboys leaping out of their bunks. In the dimly lighted roomtheir blinking eyes made out the forms of two men struggling, one inhis night dress, the other in hat and boots. One was Big Bill, for hisroar was an unmistakable as the roar of summer thunder. But the other?
"I've been hungering to get my hands on you for a year!" came thelaughing voice of the man in hat and boots. "You said that you couldroll me, Bill. Now go to it!"
He lifted the mighty body of the struggling, half wakened cowboy cleanoff the floor, carried him across the room and slammed him down in achair.
"It's Red Reckless!" cried a voice from the group of stupefied men."He's come home!"
"You ol' son-of-a-gun!" bellowed Big Bill, half in the surly angerwhich is the natural right of a man rudely awakened, half in tremulousjoy. "Wait ontil I git my eyes open good an' I'll roll you like youwas dough an' I'm makin' biscuits out'n you!"
Evidently he had his eyes "open good" before he had done talking. Hewas upon his feet, the big, swaying body oddly like a clumsy blackbear's, his big hands lifted in front of him. And then he threwhimself forward, close to two hundred and fifty pounds of brawn andbone hurled like a boulder from a catapult. Some one had turned up thelantern wick. The black head and the red head from which the hat haddropped came together, there was the thud of two strong bodies meetingwith an impact that brought a little coughing grunt from each, and RedReckless had done what any man must do before such a thunderbolt. Hewas flung backward, went down, and the two big bodies struck hard uponthe bare floor. And above the crash of the falling bodies there weretwo other sounds, Big Bill's grunt, and the laughter of Red Reckless.
They were down, and Big Bill was topmost. But by the laws of the gamea man must be forced back until his two shoulders touch the floorbefore he is beaten. Wayne Shandon's left shoulder was still twoinches from the floor.
"You would wake a man up," grumbled Big Bill with that fierceness oftone which spoke a moment of rare delight.
"I'm going to show you something, Bill," gasped Wayne, half choked withthe breath driven out of his lungs by the great bulk on top of him andby the laughter within his soul which had not been driven out."Something I learned from a Jap about three feet high. It cost me ahundred dollars and a broken collar bone. I'll let you off easier,Bill."
The light was none too good, perhaps the boys were not yet wide awake.They didn't know how the trick was done, and it wasn't at all clear toBig Bill.
Wayne seemed to grow very limp beneath his hard hands and watchfuleyes. Ready for trickery Big Bill, while he bore down hard on the leftshoulder, and wrenched and twisted at the corded neck, expectedanything. He had considerably less respect for a Jap than for a horse,looking upon the race as mimicking apes and not men at all, and he hadno wish to be bested by a Jap trick. Yet Big Bill didn't understand.
Somehow Wayne Shandon slipping out of Bill's grasp like an eel throughits native mud, had run an arm under his left arm pit, around his neck,over his right shoulder. Wayne's left hand leaped to Big Bill's rightwrist. Bill felt that his neck was breaking, that his right arm wasbroken. And then he knew that Wayne was upon his knees, that his owntwo hundred and fifty pounds of big battling body were lifted high fromthe floor, that he was jerked sideways and slammed down. And then theboys were laughing and Wayne stood over him, laughing too, and he knewthat his two big shoulder blades had struck the floor together.
"It's a damn' Jap trick," he muttered, more than half angry now,flinging himself to his feet. "White man's fightin' I c'n lick everyinch of you from red hair to toe nails."
But Red Reckless was laughing and shaking hands all round and Big Billfound no one to listen to the explanations he made. One after anotherthe owner of the outfit greeted warmly the men who were working forhim. Then he swung about, and went back to Big Bill.
"Shake, Bill," he cried. "It was rather a mean trick to do you upto-night but I couldn't wait until morning. I'll give you anotherchance when you like."
Big Bill grinned and his hard brown hand shut tight about Wayne's.
"There'll be lots of chances," he said shortly, his voice fierce, hisblack eyes very gentle. "You've come to stay, ain't you, Red?"
A look of vast disgust stole over Garth Conway's face.
"It's Bill and Red as if they're all dogs in one kennel," he muttered."It isn't hard to forecast what's going to happen to a range with aboss like that!"
/> He waited a little restlessly for Wayne to finish the conversation intowhich he had entered with the crowd of cowboys who seemed to haveforgotten that they had a day's work before them. But Wayne Shandon,too, seemed to have forgotten. He was half sitting on the table, oneleg swinging, his quick hands rolling a cigarette from the "makings"proffered by Tony Harris, his laughing eyes filled with the joy of homecoming, his tongue already busied with the answering of many rapid firequestions. No, he hadn't seen all of the world; it was bigger thanthey'd think. But he had played "gentleman's poker" with club dudes inLondon, he had hunted with niggers and potted many strange things froman alligator to a cow elephant, he had seen the pyramids--
While Garth lingered at the door, the other men, crowding closer to theman at the table, grew into a charmed circle about him, a picturesquecongregation in their underclothes of grey and white and washed outpinks and blues. Within five minutes after the defeat of Big Billevery man of them was either making or smoking a cigarette with allthought of their tumbled bunks forgotten. There were many demands forfirst hand information concerning wild niggers and pyramids and theways of the jungle; there were many exclamations testifying in mildprofanity to startled wonderment. At last Garth, turning away, calledout,
"I say, Wayne, you mustn't forget it's getting late. There's a bigday's work for the boys to-morrow."
"This is my home coming celebration, Garth," Wayne laughed back at him."Hang the work, man. We'll have a half holiday to-morrow if the wholeoutfit goes to pot."
Anything further Garth had to remark he said angrily to himself as hestrode away to the range house. And Wayne, with no furtherinterruption, explained how the games ran at Monte Carlo. Finally,since there was nothing in the world he had learned to love as he lovedhorses, he came to speak of the Derby.
"The greatest race in the world," he cried, slapping his thighenthusiastically. "Just because it's the straightest and the stakesare right and the horses are as beautiful as women and as swift aslightning!"
One o'clock came and they were talking horses and racing, the men nowupon common ground, their eyes bright with the tale retold of theKings' race. And before it was two Red Reckless was standing erectupon his two feet, his eyes brighter than the rest, his voice leapingout eagerly as he cried:
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