Kitabı oku: «Sawtooth Ranch», sayfa 13

CHAPTER XXIII
"I COULDA LOVED THIS LITTLE GIRL"

A chill wind that hurried over Bear Top ahead of the dawn brought Swan and Jack clattering up the trail that dipped into Spirit Canyon. Warfield rose stiffly from the one-sided warmth of the fire and walked a few paces to meet him, shrugging his wide shoulders at the cold and rubbing his thigh muscles that protested against movement. Much riding upon upholstered cushions had not helped Senator Warfield to retain the tough muscles of hard-riding Bill Warfield. The Senator was saddle-sore as well as hungry, and his temper showed in his blood-shot eyes. He would have quarrelled with his best-loved woman that morning, and he began on Swan.

Why hadn't he come back down the gulch yesterday and helped track the girl, as he was told to do? (The senator had quite unpleasant opinions of Swedes, and crazy women, and dogs that were never around when they were wanted, and he expressed them fluently.)

Swan explained with a great deal of labour that he had not thought he was wanted, and that he had to sleep on his claim sometimes or the law would take it from him, maybe. Also he virtuously pointed out that he had come with Yack before daylight to the canyon to see if they had found Miss Hunter and gone home, or if they were still hunting for her.

"If you like to find that jong lady, I put Yack on the trail quick," he offered placatingly. "I bet you Yack finds her in one-half an hour."

With much unnecessary language, Senator Warfield told him to get to work, and the three tightened cinches, mounted their horses and prepared to follow Swan's lead. Swan watched his chance and gave Lone a chunk of bannock as a substitute for breakfast, and Lone, I may add, dropped behind his companions and ate every crumb of it, in spite of his worry over Lorraine.

Indeed, Swan eased that worry too, when they were climbing the pine slope where Al had killed the grouse. Lone had forged ahead on John Doe, and Swan stopped suddenly, pointing to the spot where a few bloody feathers and a boot-print showed. The other evidence Jack had eaten in the night.

"Raine's all right, Lone. Got men coming. Keep your gun handy," he murmured and turned away as the others rode up, eager for whatever news Swan had to offer.

"Something killed a bird," Swan explained politely, planting one of his own big feet over the track, which did not in the least resemble Lorraine's. "Yack! you find that jong lady quick!"

From there on Swan walked carefully, putting his foot wherever a print of Al's boot was visible. Since he was much bigger than Al, with a correspondingly longer stride, his gait puzzled Lone until he saw just what Swan was doing. Then his eyes lightened with amused appreciation of the Swede's cunning.

"We ought to have some hot drink, or whisky when we find that girl," Hawkins muttered unexpectedly, riding up beside Lone as they crossed an open space. "She'll be half-dead with cold – if we find her alive."

Before Lone could answer, Swan looked back at the two and raised his hand for them to stop.

"Better if you leave the horses here," he suggested. "From Yack I know we get close pretty quick. That jong lady's horse maybe smells these horse and makes a noise, and crazy folks run from noise."

Without objection the three dismounted and tied their horses securely to trees. Then, with Swan and Jack leading the way, they climbed over the ridge and descended into the hollow by way of the ledge which Skinner had negotiated so carefully the night before. Without the dog they never would have guessed that any one had passed this way, but as it was they made good progress and reached the nearest edge of the spruce thicket just as the sun was making ready to push up over the skyline.

Jack stopped and looked up at his master inquiringly, lifting his lip at the sides and showing his teeth. But he made no sound; nor did Swan, when he dropped his fingers to the dog's head and patted him approvingly.

They heard a horse sneeze, beyond the spruce grove, and Warfield stepped forward authoritatively, waving Swan back. This, his manner said plainly, was first and foremost his affair, and from now on he would take charge of the situation. At his heels went Hawkins, and Swan sent an oblique glance of satisfaction toward Lone, who answered it with his half-smile. Swan himself could not have planned the approach more to his liking.

The smell of bacon cooking watered their mouths and made Warfield and Hawkins look at one another inquiringly. Crazy young women would hardly be expected to carry a camping outfit. But Swan and Lone were treading close on their heels, and their own curiosity pulled them forward. They went carefully around the thicket, guided by the pungent odour of burning pine wood, and halted so abruptly that Swan and Lone bumped into them from behind. A man had risen up from the campfire and faced them, his hands rising slowly, palms outward.

"Warfield, by – !" Al blurted in his outraged astonishment. "Trailing me with a bunch, are yuh? I knew you'd double-cross your own father – but I never thought you had it in you to do it in the open. Damn yuh, what d'yuh want that you expect to get?"

Warfield stared at him, slack-jawed. He glanced furtively behind him at Swan, and found that guileless youth ready to poke him in the back with the muzzle of a gun. Lone, he observed, had another. He looked back at Al, whose eyes were ablaze with resentment. With an effort he smiled his disarming, senatorial smile, but Al's next words froze it on his face.

"I think I know the play you're making, but it won't get you anything, Bill Warfield. You think I slipped up – and you told me not to let my foot slip; said you'd hate to lose me. Well, you're the one that slipped, you damned, rotten coward. I was watching out for leaks. I stopped two, and this one – "

He glanced down at Lorraine, who sat beside the fire, a blanket tied tightly around her waist and her ankles, so that, while comfortably free, she could make no move to escape.

"I was fixing to stop her from telling all she knew," he added harshly. "By to-night I'd have had her married to me, you damned fool. And here you've blocked everything for me, afraid I was falling down on my job!

"Now folks, lemme just tell you a few little things. I know my limit – you've got me dead to rights. I ain't complaining about that; a man in my game expects to get his, some day. But I ain't going to let the man go that paid me my wages and a bonus of five hundred dollars for every man I killed that he wanted outa the way.

"Hawkins knows that's a fact. He's foreman of the Sawtooth, and he knows the agreement. I've got to say for Hawkins that aside from stealing cattle off the nesters and helping make evidence against some that's in jail, Hawkins never done any dirty work. He didn't have to. They paid me for that end of the business.

"I killed Fred Thurman – this girl, here, saw me shoot him. And it was when I told Warfield I was afraid she might set folks talking that he began to get cold feet. Up to then everything was lovely, but Warfield began to crawfish a little. We figured —we figured, emphasise the we, folks, – that the Quirt would have to be put outa business. We knew if the girl told Brit and Frank, they'd maybe get the nerve to try and pin something on us. We've stole 'em blind for years, and they wouldn't cry if we got hung. Besides, they was friendly with Fred.

"The girl and the Swede got in the way when I tried to bump Brit off. I'd have gone into the canyon and finished him with a rock, but they beat me to it. The girl herself I couldn't get at very well and make it look accidental – and anyway, I never did kill a woman, and I'd hate it like hell. I figured if her dad got killed, she'd leave.

"And let me tell you, folks, Warfield raised hell with me because Brit Hunter wasn't killed when he pitched over the grade. He held out on me for that job – so I'm collecting five hundred dollars' worth of fun right now. He did say he'd pay me after Brit was dead, but it looks like he's going to pull through, so I ain't counting much on getting my money outa Warfield.

"Frank I got, and made a clean job of it. And yesterday morning the girl played into my hands. She rode over to the Sawtooth, and I got her at Thurman's place, on her way home, and figured I'd marry her and take a chance on keeping her quiet afterwards. I'd have been down the Pass in another two hours and heading for the nearest county seat. She'd have married me, too. She knows I'd have killed her if she didn't – which I would. I've been square with her – she'll tell you that. I told her, when I took her, just what I was going to do with her. So that's all straight. She's been scared, I guess, but she ain't gone hungry, and she ain't suffered, except in her mind. I don't fight women, and I'll say right now, to her and to you, that I've got all the respect in the world for this little girl, and if I'd married her I'd have been as good to her as I know how, and as she'd let me be.

"Now I want to tell you folks a few more things about Bill Warfield. If you want to stop the damnest steal in the country, tie a can onto that irrigation scheme of his. He's out to hold up the State for all he can get, and bleed the poor devils of farmers white, that buys land under that canal. It may look good, but it ain't good – not by a damn sight.

"Yuh know what he's figuring on doing? Get water in the canal, sell land under a contract that lets him out if the ditch breaks, or something so he can't supply water at any time. And when them poor suckers gets their crops all in, and at the point where they've got to have water or lose out, something'll happen to the supply. Folks, I know! I'm a reliable man, and I've rode with a rope around my neck for over five years, and Warfield offered me the same old five hundred every time I monkeyed with the water supply as ordered. He'd have done it slick; don't worry none about that. The biggest band of thieves he could get together is that company. So if you folks have got any sense, you'll bust it up right now.

"Bill Warfield, what I've got to say to you won't take long. You thought you'd make a grand-stand play with the law, and at the same time put me outa the way. You figured I'd resist arrest, and you'd have a chance to shoot me down. I know your rotten mind better than you do. You wanted to bump me off, but you wanted to do it in a way that'd put you in right with the public. Killing me for kidnapping this girl would sound damn romantic in the newspapers, and it wouldn't have a thing to do with Thurman or Frank Johnson, or any of the rest that I've sent over the trail for you.

"Right now you're figuring how you'll get around this bawling-out I'm giving you. There's nobody to take down what I say, and I'm just a mean, ornery outlaw and killer, talking for spite. With your pull you expect to get this smoothed over and hushed up, and have me at a hanging bee, and everything all right for Bill! Well – "

His eyes left Warfield's face and went beyond the staring group. His face darkened, a sneer twisted his lips.

"Who're them others?" he cried harshly. "Was you afraid four wouldn't be enough to take me?"

The four turned heads to look. Bill Warfield never looked back, for Al's gun spoke, and Warfield sagged at the knees and the shoulders, and he slumped to the ground at the instant when Al's gun spoke again.

"That's for you, Lone Morgan," Al cried, as he fired again. "She talked about you in her sleep last night. She called you Loney, and she wanted you to come and get her. I was going to kill you first chance I got. I coulda loved this little girl. I – could – "

He was down, bleeding and coughing and trying to talk. Swan had shot him, and two of the deputies who had been there through half of Al's bitter talk. Lorraine, unable to get up and run, too sturdy of soul to faint, had rolled over and away from him, her lips held tightly together, her eyes wide with horror. Al crawled after her, his eyes pleading.

"Little Spitfire – I shot your Loney – but I'd have been good to you, girl. I watched yuh all night – and I couldn't help loving yuh. I – couldn't – " That was all. Within three feet of her, his face toward her and his eyes agonising to meet hers, he died.

CHAPTER XXIV
ANOTHER STORY BEGINS

This chapter is very much like a preface: it is not absolutely necessary, although many persons will read it and a few will be glad that it was written.

The story itself is ended. To go on would be to begin another story; to tell of the building up of the Quirt outfit, with Lone and Lone's savings playing a very important part, and with Brit a semi-invalided, retired stockman who smoked his pipe and told the young couple what they should do and how they should do it.

Frank he mourned for and seldom mentioned. The Sawtooth, under the management of a greatly chastened young Bob Warfield, was slowly winning its way back to the respect of its neighbours.

For certain personal reasons there was no real neighbourliness between the Quirt and the Sawtooth. There could not be, so long as Brit's memory remained clear, and Bob was every day reminded of the crimes his father had paid a man to commit. Moreover, Southerners are jealous of their women, – it is their especial prerogative. And Lone suspected that, given the opportunity, Bob Warfield would have fallen in love with Lorraine. Indeed, he suspected that any man in the country would have done that. Al Woodruff had, and he was noted for his indifference to women and his implacable hardness toward men.

But you are not to accuse Lone of being a jealous husband. He was not, and I am merely pointing out the fact that he might have been, had he been given any cause.

Oh, by the way, Swan "proved up" as soon as possible on his homestead and sold out to the Quirt. Lone managed to buy the Thurman ranch also, and the TJ up-and-down is on its feet again as a cattle ranch. Sorry and Jim will ride for the Quirt, I suppose, as long as they can crawl into a saddle, but there are younger men now to ride the Skyline Meadow range.

Some one asked about Yellowjacket, having, I suppose, a sneaking regard for his infirmities. He hasn't been peeled yet – or he hadn't, the last I heard of him. Lone and Lorraine told me they were trying to save him for the "Little Feller" to practise on when he is able to sit up without a cushion behind his back, and to hold something besides a rubber rattle. And – oh, do you know how Lone is teaching the Little Feller to sit up on the floor? He took a horse collar and scrubbed it until he nearly wore out the leather. Then he brought it to the cabin, put it on the floor and set the Little Feller inside it.

They sent me a snap-shot of the event, but it is not very good. The film was under-exposed, and nothing was to be seen of the Little Feller except a hazy spot which I judged was a hand, holding a black object I guessed was the ridgy, rubber rattle with the whistle gone out of the end, – down the Little Feller's throat, they are afraid. And there was his smile, and a glimpse of his eyes.

Aren't you envious as sin, and glad they're so happy?