Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 1023
“Have you, Arizona?”
“I reckon, years ago at parties an’ dances. An’ the sister I told you aboot — Nesta, she used to kiss me. But, Amy, I never had a sweetheart.”
“Arizona, I think that the most amazing thing,” said Amy. “And I believe you.” She took hold of the lapels of his vest and looked up sweetly, half in fun, half in earnest, with a woman’s gratitude for his sympathy and championship, and also with a woman’s subtle instinct to defend her sex. “I’m going to kiss you, Arizona.”
“Please don’t, Amy,” he returned, hastily, in tremendous embarrassment, trying gently to get away.
“Shut your eyes, coward,” she commanded.
“Lord! if you’re goin’ to — I — I reckon I got to see you,” he exploded.
“Arizona, I’m deadly in earnest. I’ll pretend to be the sweetheart you’ll win some day. Oh, you will! Lany and I hope you’ll feel what we feel now.”
With heightened color she stretched herself, then had to jump to reach his lips, which she kissed full and soundly.
“There, Arizona Ames!” she exclaimed, sliding back to the ground, a little scared, but still audacious.
“Now you’ve done it,” said Arizona, and vaulting the log he hurried away round the thicket to his horse. Mounting, he cut off the trail to avoid meeting his young friends again, and was soon beyond the glade, headed down into the thinning forest.
Through openings between the pines he could see the green slope, the shining river below, the wide range, and the black mountains rising to the peaks crowned in gold and white, and above, the flaming sunset clouds.
“Poor kids!” soliloquized Ames, shaking his head sadly. “No more to blame than two chipmunks! . . . Lord, what a girl! Just like Nesta — only so different in looks. An’ she kissed me. I wish she hadn’t. . . . No, I shore don’t. If I ever meet a girl like her my name will be mud. . . . Heigho! . . . I’m always huntin’ trouble. My feelin’s run away with my haid. . . . An’ it’s a shore bet I’ll have to draw on that black bastard, Crow Grieve.”
CHAPTER VIII
WHEN AMES RODE into the ranch that evening his line of future conduct seemed to have been arbitrarily arranged, as if by the fates.
During supper, at which Lany arrived late, subdued by spent emotion, Ames was preoccupied. Later he avoided his friend, and passed hours with the cowboys, evincing a sudden and unusual curiosity about Crow Grieve, prompting innumerable stories of the rancher’s hard-fistedness, his niggardly doling out of wages, his peculiar habit of always holding back the balance due a range-hand, his distrustful nature, and lastly, his cruelty to horses. These were Grieve’s common and well-known traits, such as, especially the last, were unforgivable by cowboys.
“Dog-gone it,” said Slim Blue, as Ames stalked out. “What’s eatin’ Arizonie? It’s not like him atall.”
“How do we know what Arizonie’s like? He ain’t been hyar long,” returned a comrade.
“But Mac’s told us.”
“Aw, Mac blabs too much. I reckon Arizonie is jest goin’ sour on the boss. We all got thet way, sooner or later, didn’t we?”
“We plumb sure did. But somehow it ‘pears kinda different in Arizonie.”
Next morning Ames called upon the housekeeper, Mrs. Terrill, a buxom widow of forty, who was not averse to mild flirtations with cowboys.
“Mrs. Terrill, I shore been stayin’ away from heah,” drawled Ames, in his nicest way. “The boys been tellin’ me aboot you. Handsome widows are my especial dish.”
“You cowboy cannibal,” she replied, gayly. “You’re a handsome devil yourself. I’ll bet you only want cake or pie out of me.”
“Shore I’ll take a piece. But I just ran up to say howdy, an’ ask if you know when the boss is comin’ back.”
“Laws a-mercy! Are you sweet on the young missis, too?”
“Me? Naw! I like ’em all broken in. High-steppin’ fillies are shore too hard for me to ride.”
“You’re the first cowpuncher I ever heard say anythin’ like that. . . . No, I ain’t sure when the boss will be home. I’m hopin’ it won’t be soon.”
Mrs. Terrill liked to talk and Ames was an inspiring listener. He was to hear much about the sweet and patient Amy Grieve and her adorable baby. And from that it was but easy to lead the woman to talk about Grieve. “Sure you’ll get your money,” she had answered to Ames’ query, “but only when he’s good an’ ready to pay.”
Ames worked upon her feelings then, and her evident devotion to Amy. The housekeeper, growing confidential to this earnest-eyed and soft-voiced cowboy, waxed eloquent. As her tongue loosened, she imparted many things, among them a hint that there was one cowboy to whom young Mrs. Grieve was not indifferent.
“How does Grieve treat this girl?” asked Ames, with great sympathy. But here the woman’s volubility ceased, and from her sudden restraint Ames gathered more significance than if she had actually given instances of Grieve’s brutality. Ames left the housekeeper, darkly satisfied with his interview. Amy Grieve had not exaggerated. The testimony of disinterested people, however, was what Ames required in the stern court-martial going on in his mind.
Ames encountered MacKinney on the road near the bunk-house.
“Shure was lookin’ for you, Arizonie,” he said, genially.
“Haven’t got a dollar,” replied Ames, surlily. “I’ll have to borrow, myself, if Grieve won’t shell out.”
“Borrow! Who’s hollerin’ about money? I ain’t. But I’ll lend you some.”
“Thanks, I’ll wait till I see the boss.”
“Shure you’ll wait longer till you get all thet’s comin’. . . . Arizonie, some of the outfit’s gotta work a little. There’s a corral fence to fix up, an’ some shinglin’ to do. Wanta help me?”
“Me blister my hands an’ pound my fingers?” queried Ames, in magnificent scorn. “I should shore hope to smile not!”
“Say, you Arizonie Injun,” expostulated MacKinney, in surprise, “since when did you begin shyin’ at work?”
“I reckon aboot this heah minute,” rejoined Ames, moodily, and passed on to leave his old friend standing in the road, scratching his head in perplexity.
That night Ames slumped in late to supper, minus his habitual cool and pleasant amiability. He swore at the cook, who appeared too surprised to retaliate, a lack exceedingly rare with that individual. Ames’ keen ears caught a drift of conversation outside on the porch.
“Lany, what’s ailin’ Arizonie?” asked one of the boys.
“Haven’t seen him for ‘most two days,” returned Price, in surprise and concern. “Anythin’ the matter?”
“Wal, he ain’t like himself, lately.”
“Somethin’ workin’ on Ames,” vouchsafed one.
“I jest guess yes. But I’ve no idee what.”
“Aw, he’s gettin’ sore at the boss.”
“Mac, is this old pard of yours one of these punchers who has quiet drinkin’ spells, when he ain’t sociable?”
“My Gawd, no!” declared MacKinney. “Soberest pard I ever had.”
“Wal, if you ask me,” spoke up Slim Blue, “I’ll tell you Arizonie has got somethin’ on his mind.”
“Mebbe it’s Amy Grieve,” said another, so low Ames all but failed to catch it.
“Nope. So far as I know he’s never even seen her.”
“Say, Lany, has Arizonie seen the boss’ wife?”
“I guess so. Once, anyway,” replied Price, awkwardly.
“Once is enough.”
“Boys, when I looked into them bootiful eyes of hers I felt a turrible wrench. An’ I’ve had an ache under my breast-bone ever since.”
“Wal, Saunders, thet ain’t no compliment to her. Anythin’ wot wore skirts would give you aches.”
“Bill, your hunch is wrong. It takes a gurl without skirts to give Saunders the aches. Last time we was in South Fork there was a show in town. An’ a gurl with a shape like peeled corral poles did a trapeze act. You’d ‘a’ thunk Saunders had collera morbis.”
“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roared the cowboys in unison.
Ames finished his meal and stalked out on the porch.
“Say, have any of you suckers an idea how soon that —— —— —— —— of a Grieve will be back?” asked Ames, curtly, as he bent his head to light his cigarette.
No one replied promptly. This was strong raw talk, even for a tough cowboy. But coming from a rider of Ames’ repute, it fell with a shock.
MacKinney stirred the uneasy silence, his boots coming down from the porch rail with a thump.
“Pard, we shure ain’t,” he said. “Figgerin’ past performances, I’d say he’d drive in tomorrow. An’ shure no fellar to brace. If you’ll excoose the loikes of me — Arizonie — I’d advise — —”
“Aw, blab away, Mac,” said Ames, as the other hesitated.
“Shure this ain’t no blabbin’ matter,” returned MacKinney, testily. “You ain’t in no humor lately to tackle the boss.”
“An’ why not?” demanded Ames, coolly. “If you an’ the rest of your yellow outfit haven’t the guts to call this man, Crow Grieve, it shore doesn’t follow that I haven’t.”
MacKinney lapsed into amazed silence, his jaw dropping, and manifestly his memory active.
“Listen to me, Arizonie,” spoke up Blue, with cool and deliberate force. “I reckon to you we are a purty yellow bunch an’ mebbe thet crack is desarved. But the way Mac and I figger, an’ thet holds fer most of us — Grieve is a nasty, aggravatin’ fellar to rile. Wot’s the sense in it? We’ve got purty good jobs. An’ if you crawl to him you get along an’ you can always draw a little money. Mac was tryin’ to tell you this, an’ thet the wust of callin’ Grieve would be y’u’d jest have to back it up.”
“Bah! That black hombre is white-livered inside.”
“Wal, Arizonie, we-all jest hope you’ll go slow. Not thet any of us care a damn fer Grieve!”
“Much obliged, Slim. I shore appreciate that,” replied Ames, with sincere warmth. “I’m askin’ you to overlook that mean crack. Reckon my nerves are on edge.”
As Ames left the porch to stroll away down the dark road Slim Blue’s voice trailed to him, but not its content. Ames had deliberately planted a germ among his fellows. Lany was the only one who might suspect Ames of deceit, and he was so absorbed with the enchanted hours that he could not cease his dreaming.
Next day Ames rode out on the range to call upon the “nester,” or squatter, who was the only individual of that nature remaining on Grieve’s holdings. He was a stolid Norwegian named Nielsen. He had homesteaded a little valley of fifty acres on a creek that flowed into the river. There were a hundred such places on the range under Grieve’s control, all more or less fertile, suitable for farms. In fact, some of them had been put under cultivation by the squatter type of pioneer, poor men who had to start with an ax, a plough and a horse. Grieve had run all of them off except Nielsen; and because he could not intimidate the Norwegian he had grown bitter toward him. Ames merely wanted to substantiate range rumor.
He found Nielsen to be the kind of pioneer who would in the long run do more for the West and cowboys than Grieve would. Nielsen had a pretty homestead, a comely wife, and several sturdy youngsters. He could live off the little farm and the meat he packed down from the foothills, but he was standing still. He could not get ahead at ranching. If Grieve had been a square man he would have permitted Nielsen to run his few head of stock on the range near by. But the Norwegian had to drive his cattle up into the foothills, where wolves killed the calves, and rustlers took every two-year-old steer he raised. Nielsen admitted he could not hold on much longer. His simple statement of facts put Grieve in no good light.
Ames respected the Norwegian, and liked the patient-faced wife, and the merry children, with whom he made friends.
“So Grieve fenced you off his range, eh?” mused Ames, thoughtfully. “Who built that fence?”
“It ain’t much of a fence,” replied the squatter. “Grieve an’ two of his boys put it up in a day. But it cuts me off, except from the river.”
“Do you remember who those boys were?”
“Yes. Tall fellar they called Carpenter. He was killed in South Fork a year or two ago. The other is Brick Jones. He’s still ridin’ for Grieve, but I don’t know if he is in your outfit. Brick rode out here a couple of times after that an’ annoyed my wife.”
“I know Jones. He’s workin’ at the ranch. Kind of a hand Grieve likes. . . . How aboot him annoyin’ your wife? What’d he do?”
“Not much. Tried to get sweet with the wife. Next time he’d loaded on a little rum an’ he was in a wrastlin’ mood.”
“What’d you do, Mrs. Nielsen?” asked Ames, of the wife, who stood by, listening.
“I ran in and barred the door,” she replied, smiling. “I like cowboys, but not that red-head.”
“Nielsen, you’ve a fine little farm heah an’ I advise you to hang on,” drawled Ames, and patting the bright head of the youngest child he rose to go.
“You do?” inquired the homesteader, his face lightening. “That’s kind of you. We’re mighty discouraged. I’ve some little money banked. Been savin’ it to buy stock. But I’m afraid. An’ yet we hate to pull up an’ leave here.”
“Hang on, then. But don’t buy yet awhile. Wait,” said Ames, and then he gave Nielsen a steady gaze. “Shore I reckon somethin’ might happen to Crow Grieve.”
“Happen!” exclaimed Nielsen, staring.
“Shore. Life is awful uncertain for men like Grieve. He might fall daid any minute.”
“Cowboy, you’re talkin’ queer for one of Grieve’s riders,” said the squatter.
“I don’t ride for Grieve. I used to, but no more.”
“We hope you ain’t leavin’ without tellin’ us your name.”
“Well, I am forgetful. My name is Ames. They call me Arizona . . . Good-by, folks. Stick to the range an’ send these dandy kids to school some day.”
Ames rode away, feeling a warmth of satisfaction at the hopes he had evidently kindled in the breasts of these toiling pioneers. Kind words were easy to find, but he reflected grimly, sometimes they pledged him to things difficult of accomplishment.
Soon his mind reverted to his problem at the ranch, and he realized that it had ceased to be a problem. During his visit with Nielsen he had severed his connection with Grieve. For Ames, decisions often came through events as well as long cogitation. Crow Grieve was a stumbling-block to the progress and happiness of worthy people. Many men were like that — stones in the path, weeds to tangle weary feet — thorns that lacerated and poisoned.
“Shore I just cain’t savvy Grieve,” mused Ames, as he rode along.
Dust clouds down on the range set him to wondering if the advance guard of Grieve’s expected herds had arrived. Soon he espied a long string of cattle moving up toward the corrals.
Ames put his horse, Cappy, to a lope, and in half an hour reached the ranch. When he rode round the barns to enter the wide open square between them and the bunk-houses his quick eye noted many things. Grieve had returned; dust and noise emanated from the corrals; cowboys were crossing the open toward the mess-house; several buckboards stood with teams hitched to the rail; a group of men in plain garb were conferring on the porch. And lastly Ames observed with surprise that Mrs. Grieve was sitting alone in the farthest buckboard. She held the reins and appeared to be waiting.
If adventure gravitated to Ames, and circumstances revolved around him, it was equally certain that situations seemed to be set for him by fate.
Ames rode up, dismounted, and throwing his bridle he took off his sombrero to make Mrs. Grieve a bow, a little prolonged and over-graceful.
“Good mawnin’,” he said, with a reassuring smile. “Shore there’s a lot goin’ on around heah an’ me missin’ it.”
“Good morning to you, Mr. Ames,” she replied, brightly, and she blushed becomingly. “But it’s really afternoon. You’re not the only one late for lunch.”
He put a gloved hand upon the dashboard, deliberately placing his back to the men on the porch. Ames needed only one glance at Mrs. Grieve to reassure himself. She was thoroughbred, a little puzzled and obviously excited at his approaching her, and withal pleased. No doubt she wore a mask of pride and smiling composure for the world, and it was hard for Ames to pierce to the tragedy and terror of the girl who had only a few days ago besought him so wildly.
“Reckon Grieve is back?” he asked, in lower tone.
“Yes. Surprised me no end,” she replied, likewise in low voice. “He’s sober. Brought friends to stay over Sunday.”
“Fine if it only lasts,” he drawled. “Shore fetched some cattle, too, didn’t he?”
“No. The first herd of Texas longhorns got here,” she said. “Oh, they’re such wonderful cattle. I drove down to look them over. And when I got back Mr. Grieve had arrived.”
“Where is he now, Amy?”
“On the porch, glaring like a black-eyed owl. But you stay here by me!”
“Shore. An’ while I’m heah I want to ask somethin’ of you. There’s a squatter family up the river. Name is Nielsen. He located before Grieve got control of the range an’ he won’t be driven out. Grieve has fenced him in, an’ has just aboot ruined him. There are three dandy kids an’ the mother is a nice woman. They’re awful poor. Now, Amy, I want you to promise you’ll go up there — some day when you’re boss heah — an’ help them — be their friend.”
“Boss heah!” Amy seemed so strangely struck that she even imitated Ames’ accent.
“Don’t stare at me like that, you big-eyed child. I asked you to promise.”
“Promise? — Certainly I — I will,” she returned, hurriedly. “What’s this squatter’s name?”
“Nielsen. He’s a Norwegian an’ so’s his wife. But I reckon they’ve been heah in this country pretty long. They’re Americans, shore, an’ the West needs that kind.”
“Arizona, I can feel trouble in the air,” she said, still lower, her casual glance on the men behind Ames. “But don’t you dare move.”
