Kitabı oku: «The Ranch at the Wolverine», sayfa 15
CHAPTER XXI
SEVEN LEAN KINE
"And you looked good, all up above here?" Billy Louise held Blue firmly to a curved-neck, circling stand, while she had a last word with John before she went off on one of her long rides.
"All up in the hills, and round over by Cedar Creek, and all over." John's mittened gesture was even more sweeping than his statement. "I guess mebby them rustlers git 'em."
"Well, I'm going up to the Cove. I may not be back before dark, so don't worry if I'm late. Maybe I'll look along the river. I know one place where I believe cattle can get down to the bottom, if they're crazy enough to try it. You didn't look there, did you?"
"No, I never looked down there. I know they can't git down nohow."
"Well, all right; maybe they can't." Billy Louise slackened the reins, and Blue went off with short, stiff-legged jumps. It had been a long time since he had felt the weight of his lady, and his mood now was exuberant, especially so, since the morning was clear, with a nip of frost to tingle the skin and the glow of the sun to promise falsely the nearness of spring. The hill trail steadied him a little, though he went up the steepest pitch with rabbit-jumps and teetered on his toes the rest of the way.
Billy Louise laughed a little, leaned, and grabbed a handful of slatey mane. "Oh, you Blue-dog!" she said, for that was his full name. "Life is livable, after all, as long as a fellow has got you and can ride. You good-for-nothing old ten-dollar hoss! I – wonder would it be wicked to sing? What do you think, Blue? You'd sing, I know, at the top of your voice, if you could. Say, Blue! Don't you wish, you were a donkey, so you could stick out your neck and go Yee-ee-haw! Yee-ee– haw? Try it once. I believe you could. It's that or a run, one or the other. You'll bust, if you don't do something. I know you!"
At last on the high level, seeing Blue could not bray his joy to the world, Billy Louise let him go. She needed some outlet, herself, after those horrible, dull weeks weighted with tragedy. She had been raised on horseback, almost; and for two terrible months she had not been in the saddle. And there is nothing like the air of the Idaho hills to stir one's blood and send it singing.
Through the sagebrush and rocks, weaving in and out, slacking speed a little while he went down into deep gullies, thundering up the other side, and racing away over the level again, went Blue. And with him, laughing, tingling with new life, growing pinker-cheeked every minute, went Billy Louise. Her mother's death did not oppress her then. She thought of her as she raced, but she thought of her with a little, tender smile. Her mother was resting peacefully, and there was no more pain or worry for the little, pale, frail woman who had lived her life and gone her way.
"Dear old mommie!" said Billy Louise under her breath. "Your kid is almost as happy as you are, right now. Don't be shocked, there's a dear, or think I'm going to break my neck. Blue and I have just simply got to work off steam. You, Blue!" She leaned another inch forward.
Blue threw up his head, lifted his heels, and ran like a scared jackrabbit over the uneven ground. They were not keeping to the trail at all; trails were too tame for them in that mood. They ran along the rim-rock at the last, where Billy Louise could glance down, now and then, at the river sliding like a bright-blue ribbon with icy edges through the gray, snow-spotted hills.
"Hold on, Blue!" Billy Louise pulled up on the reins. "Quit it, you old devil! A mile ought to be enough for once, I should think. There's cattle down there in that bottom, sure as you live. And we, my dear sir, are going down there and take a look at them." She managed to pull Blue down to stiff-legged jumps and then to a walk. Finally she stopped him, so that she could the better take in her surroundings and the possibilities of getting down.
In the country it is as in the cities. One forms habits of journeying. One becomes perfectly familiar with every hill and every little hollow in certain directions, while some other, closer part remains practically unexplored. Billy Louise had always loved the Wolverine canyon, and its brother, Jones canyon, which branched off from the first. As a child she had explored every foot of both, and had ridden the hills beyond. As a young woman she had kept to the old playground. Her cattle ranged at the head of the canyons.
The river bottoms came as near being unknown territory as she could have found within forty miles of her home. For one thing, the river bottom was narrow, except where was the Cove, and pinched in places till there seemed no way of passing from one to another. Little pockets there were, tucked away under the rocky bluff with its collar of "rim-rock" above. One might climb down afoot, but Billy Louise was true to her range breeding; she never went anywhere afoot if she could possibly get there on a horse. And down there by the river she never had happened to find it necessary to go, either afoot or a-horseback. Still, if cattle could get down there —
"I guess we'll have to ride back a way," she said, after a brief inspection, during which Blue stood so close to the rim that Billy Louise must have had a clear head to feel no tremor of nerves or dizziness.
She turned and rode slowly back along the edge, looking for the place where she believed cattle could get down if they were crazy enough to try.
"Don't look very encouraging, does it, Blue?" Billy Louise stared doubtfully at the place, leaning and peering over the rim. "What d'ye think? Reckon we can make it?"
Blue had caught sight of the moving specks far down next the river and up the stream half a mile or more. He was a cow-horse to the bone. He knew those far-off specks for cattle, and he knew that his lady would like a closer look at them. That's what cattle were made for: to haze out of brush and rocks and gullies and drive somewhere. So far as Blue knew, cattle were a game. You hunted them out of ungodly places, and the game was to make them go somewhere else against their wishes. He prided himself on being able to play that game, no matter what were the odds against him.
Now he tilted his head a little and looked down at the bluff beneath him. The game was beginning. He must get down that bluff and overtake those specks and drive them somewhere. He glanced up and down the bluff to see if a better trail offered. Billy Louise laughed understandingly.
"It's this or nothing, Blue. Looks pretty fierce, all right, doesn't it? Of course, if you're going to make a perfect lady get off and walk – "
Blue snuffed at the ledge with his neck craned. The rim-rock had crumbled and sunk low into the bluff, like a too rich pie-crust when the oven is not quite hot enough. From a ten- or fifteen-foot wall it shrunk here to a three-foot ledge. And below the rocks and bowlders were not actually piled on top of one another; there were clear spaces where a wary, wise, old cow-horse might possibly pick his way.
Blue chose his trail and crumpled at the knees with his hoofs on the very edge of the ledge; went down with a cat-jump and landed with all four feet planted close together. He had no mind to go on sliding in spite of himself, and the bluff was certainly steep enough to excuse a bungle.
"So far so good." Billy Louise glanced ruefully back at the ledge. "We're down; but how the deuce do you reckon we'll get up again?"
Blue was not worrying about that part. He went on, picking his way carefully among the bowlders, with his nose close to earth, setting his hindlegs stiffly and tobogganing down loose, shale slopes. Billy Louise sat easily in the saddle and enjoyed it all. She was making up in big doses for the drab dullness of those hospital weeks. She ought to walk down the bluff, for this was dangerous play; but she craved danger as an antidote to that shut-in life of petty rules and regulations.
It was with a distinct air of triumph that Blue reached the bottom, even though he slid the last forty feet on his haunches and landed belly-deep in a soft snow-bank. It was with triumph to match his perky ears that Billy Louise leaned and slapped him on the neck. "We made it!" she cried, "and I didn't have to walk a step, did I, Blue? You're there with the goods, all right!"
Blue scrambled out of the bank to firm footing on the ripened grass of the bottom, and with a toss of his head set off in a swinging lope, swerving now and then to avoid a badger hole or a half-sunken rock. They had done something new, those two; they had reached a place where neither had ever been before, and Blue acted as if he knew it and gloried in the escapade quite as much as did his lady.
The cattle spied them and went trotting away up the river, and Blue quickened his stride a little and followed after. Billy Louise left the reins loose upon his neck. Blue could handle cattle alone quite as skillfully as with a rider, if he chose.
The cattle dodged into a fringe of bushes close to the river and disappeared, which was queer, since the bluff curved in close to the bank at that point. Blue pricked up his ears and went clattering after, slowed a little at the willow-fringe, stuck his nose straight out before him, and went in confidently. The cattle were just ahead. He could smell them, and his listening ears caught their heavy breathing. It was very rocky there in the willows, and he must pick his way with much care. But when he crashed through on the far side, and Billy Louise straightened from leaning low along his neck to avoid the stinging branches, the cattle gave a snort and went lumbering away, still following the river.
This was another small, grassy bottom. Blue went galloping after them, indignant that they should even attempt to elude him. They were making for the head of that pocket, and Billy Louise twitched the reins suggestively. Blue obeyed the hint, which proved that the human brain is greater in strategy than is brute instinct, and raced in an angle from the fleeing cattle. Billy Louise leaned and called to him sharply for more speed; called for it and got it. They jumped a washout that the cattle went into and out of with great lunges, farther down toward its mouth. They gained a little there, and by a burst of hard running they gained more on the level beyond.
The cattle began to swerve away from them, closer to the river. Blue pulled ahead a little, swerving also, and as Billy Louise tightened the reins, he slowed and circled them craftily until they huddled on the steep bank, uncertain which way to go. Billy Louise pulled Blue down to a walk as she drew near and eyed the cattle sharply. They did not look like any of hers, after all. There were five dry cows and two steers.
One of the steers stood broadside to Billy Louise. The brand stared out from his dingy red side, the most conspicuous thing about him. Billy Louise caught her breath. There was no faintest line that failed to drive its message into her range-trained brain. She stared and stared. Blue looked around at her inquiringly, reproachfully. Billy Louise sent him slowly forward and stirred up the huddled little bunch. She read the brand on each one; read the story they shouted at her, of bungling theft. She could not believe it. Yet she did believe it, and she went hot with anger and disappointment and contempt. She sat and thought for a minute or two, scowling at the cattle, while she decided what to do.
Finally she swung Blue on the down-stream side and shouted the range cattle-cry. The animals turned awkwardly and went upstream, as they had been going before Billy Louise stopped them. Blue followed watchfully after, content with the game he was playing. Where the bluffs drew close again to the river, the cattle climbed to a narrow, shelving trail through the rocks and went on in single file, picking their way carefully along the bluff. Below them it fell sheer to the river; above them it rose steeply, a blackened jumble, save where the snow of the last storm lay drifted.
Billy Louise had never known there was a trail up this gorge. She eyed it critically and saw where bowlders had been moved here and there to make its passage possible. Her lips were set close together and they still bore the imprint of her contempt.
She thought of Ward. Mentally she abased herself before him because of her doubts. How had she dared think him a thief? Her brave buckaroo! And she had dared think he would steal cattle! Her very remorse was a whip to lash her anger against the guilty. She hurried the cattle along the dangerous trail, impatient of their cautious pace.
When finally they clattered down to the level again, it was to plunge into willow thickets whose branches reached out to sweep her from the saddle. Blue went carefully, stopping now and then at a word from his lady, to wait while she put a larger, more stubborn branch out of her way. She could not see just where she was going, but she knew that she was close upon the cattle, and that they seemed familiar with the trail. Now and then she caught sight of a rough-haired rump and switching tail in the thicket before her. Then the whip-like branches would swing close, and she could see nothing but their gray tangle reaching high above her head. She could hear the crackling progress of the cattle close ahead, and the gurgling clamor of the river farther away to her right. But she could not see the bluff for the close-standing willows, and she did not know whether it was near or far to its encircling wall.
Then, just as she was beginning to think the willows would never end, she came quite suddenly out into the open, and Blue lifted himself and jumped a dry ditch. The cattle were before her, shambling along the fenced border of a meadow.
CHAPTER XXII
THE BILLY OF HER
Since she had closed up on the cattle and had read on their sides the shameful story of theft, Billy Louise had known that she would eventually come out at the lower end of the Cove; and that in spite of the fact that the Cove was not supposed to have any egress save through the gorge. What surprised her was the short distance; she had not realized that the bluff and the upland formed a wide curve, and that she had cut the distance almost in half by riding next the river.
She seemed in no doubt as to what she would do when she arrived. Billy Louise was not much given to indecision at any time. She drove the cattle into the corral farthest from the house, rode on to the stable, and stopped Blue with his nose against the fence there and with his reins dragging. Then, tight-lipped still, she walked determinedly along the path to the gate that led through the berry-jungle to the cabin.
She opened the gate and stepped through, closing it after her. She had not gone twenty feet when there was a rush from the nearest thicket, and Surbus, his hair ruffed out along his neck, growled and made a leap at her with bared fangs.
Billy Louise had forgotten about Surbus. She jumped back, startled, and the dog missed landing. When he sprang again he met a thirty-eight calibre bullet from Billy Louise's gun and dropped back. It had been a snap shot, without any particular aiming; Billy Louise retreated a few steps farther, watching the dog suspiciously. He gathered himself slowly and prepared to spring at her again. This time Billy Louise, being on the watch for such a move, aimed carefully before she fired. Surbus dropped again, limply – a good dog forever more.
Billy Louise heard a shrill whistle and the sound of feet running. She waited, gun in hand, ready for whatever might come.
"Hey! Charlie! Somebody's come; the bell, she don't reeng." Peter Howling Dog, a pistol in his hand, came running down the path from the cabin. He saw Billy Louise and stopped abruptly, his mouth half open.
From a shed near the stable came Charlie, also running. Billy Louise waited beside the gate. He did not see her until he was close, for a tangled gooseberry bush stood between them.
"What was it, Peter? Somebody in the Cove? Or was it you – "
"No, it wasn't Peter; it was me." Billy Louise informed him calmly and ungrammatically. "I shot Surbus, that's all."
"Oh! Why, Miss Louise, you nearly gave me heart failure! How are you? I thought – "
"You thought somebody had gotten into the Cove without your knowing it. Well, someone did. I rode up from below, along the river."
"Oh – er – did you? Pretty rough going, wasn't it? I didn't think it could be done. Come in; Aunt Martha will be – "
"I don't think she'll be overjoyed to see me." Billy Louise stood still beside the gooseberry bush, and she had forgotten to put away her gun. "I drove up those cattle you had down below. You're awfully careless, Charlie! I should think Peter or Marthy would have told you better. When a man steals cattle by working over the brands, it's very bad form to keep them right on his ranch in plain sight. It – isn't done by the best people, you know." Her voice stung with the contempt she managed to put into it. And though she smiled, it was such a smile as one seldom saw upon the face of Billy Louise.
"What's all this? Worked brands! Why, Miss Louise, I – I wouldn't know how to – "
"I know. You did an awful punk job. A person could tell in the dark it was the work of a greenhorn. Why didn't you let Peter do it, or Marthy? You could have done a better job than that, couldn't you, Marthy?"
Poor old Marthy, with her rheumatic knees and a gray hardness in her leathery face, had come down the path and stood squarely before Billy Louise, her hands knuckling her flabby hips, her hair blowing in gray, straggling wisps about her bullet head.
"Better than what? Come in, Billy Louise. I'm right glad to see ye back and lookin' so well, even if yuh do 'pear to be in one of your tantrums. How's yer maw?"
Billy Louise gasped and went white. "Mommie's dead," she said. "She died the ninth." She drew another gasping breath, pulled herself together, and went on before the others could begin the set speeches of sympathy which the announcement seemed to demand.
"Never mind about that, now. I'm talking about those Seabeck cattle you folks stole. I was telling Charlie how horribly careless he is, Marthy. Did you know he let them drift down the river? And a blind man could tell a mile off the brands have been worked!" Billy Louise's tone was positively venomous in its contempt. "Why didn't you make Charlie practise on a cowhide for awhile first?" she asked Marthy cuttingly.
Marthy ignored the sarcasm. Perhaps it did not penetrate her stolid mind at all. "Charlie never worked any brands, Billy Louise," she stated with her glum directness.
"Oh, I beg his pardon, I'm sure! Did you?"
"No, I never done such a thing, neither. I don't know what you're talkin' about."
"Well, who did, then?" Billy Louise faced the old woman pitilessly.
"I d'no." Marthy lifted her hand and made a futile effort to tuck in a few of the longest wisps of hair.
"Well, of all the – " The stern gray eyes of Billy Louise flew wide open at the effrontery of the words. If they expected her to believe that!
"That's it, Miss Louise. That's the point we'd like to settle, ourselves. I know it sounds outrageous, but it's a fact. Peter and I found those cattle up in the hills, with our brand worked over the V. On my word of honor, not one of us knows who did it."
"But you've got them down here – "
"Well – " Charlie threw out a hand helplessly. His eyes met hers with appealing frankness. "We couldn't rub out the brands; what else could we do? I figured that somebody else would see them if we left them out in the hills, and it might be rather hard to convince a man; you see, we can't even convince you! But, so help me, not one of us branded those cattle, Miss Louise. I believe that whoever has been rustling stock around here deliberately tried to fix evidence against us. I'm a stranger in the country, and I don't know the game very well; I'm an easy mark!"
"Yes, you're that, all right enough!" Billy Louise spoke with blunt disfavor, but her contemptuous certainty of his guilt was plainly wavering. "To go and bring stolen cattle right down here – "
"It seemed to me they'd be safer here than anywhere else," Charlie observed naïvely. "Nobody ever comes down here, unknown to us. I had it sized up that the fellow who worked those brands would never dream we'd bring the stock right into the Cove. Why, Miss Louise, even I would know better than to put our brand on top of Seabeck's and expect it to pass inspection. If I wanted to steal cattle, I wouldn't go at it that way!"
Billy Louise glanced uncertainly at him and then at Marthy, facing her grimly. She did not know what to think, and she showed it.
"How do you mean – the real rustlers?" She began hesitatingly; and hesitation was not by any means a mental habit with Billy Louise.
"I mean just what I said." Charlie's manner was becoming more natural, more confident. "I've been riding through the hills a good deal, and I've seen a few things. And I've an idea the fellow got a little uneasy." He saw her wince a little at the word "fellow," and he went on, with an impulsive burst of confidence. "Miss Louise, have you ever, in your riding around up above Jones Canyon, in all those deep little gulches, have you ever seen anything of a – corral, up there?"
Billy Louise held herself rigidly from starting at this. She bit her lips so that it hurt. "Whereabouts is it?" she asked, without looking at him. And then: "I thought you would go to any length before you would accuse anybody."
"I would. But when, they deliberately try to hand me the blame – and I'm not accusing anybody – anybody in particular, am I? The corral is at the head of a steep little canyon or gulch, back in the hills where all these bigger canyons head. Some time when you're riding up that way, you keep an eye out for it. That," he added grimly, "is where Peter and I ran across these cattle; right near that corral."
The heart of Billy Louise went heavy in her chest. Was it possible? Doubts are harder to kill than cats or snakes. You think they're done for, and here they come again, crowding close so that one can see nothing else.
"Have you any idea at all, who – it is?" She forced the words out of her dry throat. She lifted her head defiantly and looked at him full, trying to read the truth from his eyes and his mouth.
Charlie Fox met her look, and in his eyes she read pity – yes, pity for her. "If I have," he said, with an air of gently deliberate evasion, "I'll wait till I am dead sure before I name the man. I'm not at all sure I'd do it even then, Miss Louise; not unless I was forced to do it in self-defense. That's one reason why I brought the cattle down here. I didn't want to be placed in a position where I should be compelled to fight back."
Billy Louise ran her gloved fingers down the barrel of her gun, and stuck the weapon back in its holster. "I killed Surbus, Marthy," she said dully. "I had to. He came at me."
Marthy turned heavily toward the spot which Billy Louise indicated with her downward glance. She had not seen the dog lying there half hidden by a berry bush. Marthy gave a grunt of dismay and went over to where Surbus lay huddled. Her hard old face worked with emotion.
"You shot him, did yuh?" Marthy's voice was harsh with reproach. "What did he do to yuh, that you had to go t' work and shoot him? He warn't your dog, he was mine! I must say you're gittin' high-an'-mighty, Billy Louise, comin' here shootin' my dog and accusin' Charlie and me to our faces uh bein' thieves. And your maw not cold in 'er grave yit! I must say you're gitting too high-an'-mighty fer old Marthy. And me payin' fer your schoolin' and never gitting so much as a thankye fer it, and scrimpin' and savin' to make a lady out of yuh. And here you come in a tantrum, callin' me a thief right in my face! You knowed all along who worked them brands. If yuh don't, I kin mighty quick tell ye – "
"Now, Aunt Martha, never mind scolding Billy Louise; you know you think as much of her as you do of me, and that's throwing a big bouquet at myself!" Charlie went up and laid his arm caressingly over the old woman's shoulder. "You don't want to let this upset you, Aunt Martha. Surbus was a mean-tempered brute with strangers. You know that. I don't blame Miss Louise in the least. She was frightened when he came at her, and she hadn't presence of mind enough to see he was only bluffing and wouldn't hurt – "
"Bluffing, was he?" Billy Louise roused herself to meet this covert attack upon her courage. "So are you bluffing. And so is Marthy, when she says she paid for my – " She stopped, confronting an accusing memory of mommie's mysterious silence about the school money, and her own passing curiosity which had never been satisfied. "Even if she did, I don't know why she need throw it up to me now. I never asked her for money. Nobody ever did. And that has nothing to do with Surbus, anyway. He's a nasty, mean brute that ought to have been killed long ago. I'm not a bit sorry. I'm glad I did kill him."
"Yes, I know yuh be. You're hard as – "
"I wouldn't talk about hardness, if I were you, Marthy! What are you, right now – and always? Was I to blame for thinking those cattle had been stolen? They're in the Cove, with your brand on. And unless you pay Seabeck for them, you're stealing them if you keep them. It doesn't matter who put the brand on; you're keeping the cattle. What do you call that, I'd like to know? They're down here in the big corral now. If you mean to do what's square, you'll take them up to Seabeck's and explain – "
"Explain who it was ran our brand on?" Charlie's voice was silk over iron. "I'm afraid if I were forced into explanations, I'd have to tell all I know, Miss Louise. Do you advise that – really?"
"I don't advise anything." Baffled and angry and hurt to the very soul of her, Billy Louise opened the gate and went out. "It strikes me you Cove folks are not wanting advice these days, or needing it. If you know anything to tell, for heaven's sake don't hold back on my account! It's nothing to me, one way or the other. I'm no rustler, and no friend of rustlers, if that's what you're hinting at." She left them with a proud lift to her chin and a very straight back, went to Blue, and mounted him mechanically. Billy Louise was "seeing red" just then. She rode back past the gate, the three were still standing there close together, talking. Billy Louise swung round in the saddle so that she faced them.
"You needn't worry, Marthy, about that school-money," she called out angrily. "I'll take your word for it and pay you back every cent, with legal rate of interest. And I'm darned glad I did shoot Surbus!"
"Oh, say, Miss Louise!" Charlie called placatingly. "Please don't go away feeling – "
"You go to the devil!" Billy Louise flung back at him and touched Blue with her heel. "I hope that shocked some of the politeness out of him, anyway," she added grimly to herself. "Oh, I hate everything – Ward and God and all! I hate life – I hate it!"
She pulled Blue down to a walk and rode slowly for a couple of rods, fighting against the reaction that crept inexorably over her anger, chilling it and making it seem weak and unworthy. With a sudden impulse born of her stern instincts of justice, she jerked Blue around and galloped back. Charlie had disappeared, and Peter Howling Dog was walking sullenly toward the corraled cattle. Marthy was going slowly up the path to the cabin, looking old and bent and broken-spirited because of her bowed shoulders and stiff, rheumatic gait, but harsh and unyielding as to her face. Billy Louise stopped by the fence and called to her. Marthy turned, stared at her sourly, and stood where she was.
"Wall, what d'yuh want now?" she asked uncompromisingly.
Billy Louise fought back an answering antagonism. She must be just; she could not blame Marthy for feeling hard toward her. She had insulted them horribly and killed Marthy's dog.
"I want to tell you I'm sorry I was so mean, Marthy," she said bravely. "I haven't any excuse to make for it; only you must see yourself what a shock it would be to a person to find those cattle down here. But I know you're honest, and so is Charlie. And I know you'll do what's right. I'm sorry I told Charlie to go to the devil, and I'm sorry I shot your dog, Marthy."
Apologies did not come easily to Billy Louise. She wheeled then and rode away at a furious gallop, before Marthy could do more than open her grim lips for reply.
