Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 1029
“Sorry. Noggin’s coppered the trick. I’m not goin’,” drawled Ames.
“Not goin’! . . . When’d you change your mind?”
“I never intended to go.”
“ —— —— ! Git off thet hoss!” Brandeth screeched, reaching a swift hand toward Ames’ bridle.
Noggin’s gun crashed. Ames saw Brandeth’s fierce expression set. Go blank! Ames pitched sheer out of his saddle. Scarcely had he moved when Noggin’s gun crashed again. Ames struck the ground hard on both hands. That enabled him to spring over even as he flopped on his side. On the instant he saw Brandeth fall. Cappy plunged away to disclose Noggin, his gun high, hauling on his frightened horse. In a flash Ames drew and shot. He hit Noggin’s horse. It screamed and bounded convulsively, to fall and throw its rider.
Noggin plowed in the dust. With marvelous, terrible agility he waved up with the momentum of his fall. Half up — half turned! Then Ames’ leveled gun spurted flame and boomed. Noggin whirled clear round, flinging arms high. His gun spun up — fell — and went off while yet he seemed stiffening in grotesque position, without support. Then he slumped down.
Ames leaped up and watched Noggin a moment. One of the horses snorted and there came a pounding of hoofs on rock. Then Ames strode over close to Noggin — looked down to see him twitch and lie still. His gun lay some paces away. Amos had evidently ridden some rods off and stopped. Heady was riding back toward where Brandeth lay prone on the ground.
Ames sheathed his weapon and beckoned for the men to approach. Amos came slowly. Heady rode up to dismount beside Brandeth. When Ames reached them he saw that the robber had been shot through the temple.
“Bill Ackers! He shore fooled me,” said Ames, shaking his head. “If I hadn’t pitched quick off that horse . . .”
“He’s dead,” said Heady, hoarsely.
“Reckon he is, an’ so’s his pard.”
“Ames, you come awful close to bein’ in the same fix,” rejoined the Mormon. “My Gawd! but it all happened sudden! . . . Were you lookin’ fer it?”
“I had a hunch.”
Amos rode up within fifty paces and called out, “Ames, I hope you’ve nothin’ ag’in’ me?”
“Shore haven’t, Amos. Come heah,” replied Ames. “I didn’t start this. . . . Heady, step over an’ see what Noggin’s got on him.”
Amos approached and got off. He was livid, and his eyes rolled, then fixed on the ghastly features of his employer.
“Search him,” said Ames.
Brandeth had some gold and currency upon his person, a watch and knife, besides his gun.
“Amos, I reckon you’d better keep them.”
Heady returned with Noggin’s gun, watch, a leather wallet, a money-belt, a silver-mounted pipe. The Mormon’s eyes glistened, as if he had a premonition of fortune.
“He was well heeled.”
“So it looks. Let’s see,” returned Ames, and he opened the heavy money-belt. At each end of a long roll of double eagles lay a packet of greenbacks.
“Reckon it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good,” said Ames, handing the belt back to the gaping Mormon.
The wallet contained papers, which Ames placed in his pocket for future examination.
“Heady, keep that stuff, an’ whatever else he’s got.”
“There ain’t any more ‘cept his saddle. I sure want that,” returned Heady.
“Amos, the little expedition has been busted up. What’re you goin’ to do?”
“If it’s all the same to you, Ames, I’ll take Brandeth’s hoss an’ go back to camp. I’ll pack the outfit an’ make a break fer Nevada.”
“It’s shore all the same to me,” replied Ames. “Only I’d like to think you’ll throw in with a straight outfit next time.”
“So long, Ames,” replied the cook, with one short, steady glance, then mounting his horse he rode across the space to gather up the bridle of Brandeth’s horse, which he led at a brisk trot up the trail toward the canyon.
“Heady, I’m goin’ to ride over to Morgan an’ tell him aboot this,” said Ames. “Do you want to go?”
“Yes, if you won’t give me away.”
“Will you go back to that nice wife an’ two kids?”
“You bet I will.”
“You’ll be honest an’ decent?” added Ames, sharply.
“Ames, I swear by the Prophets I will!” exclaimed the Mormon. He was sweating hard and extremely agitated. “All I ever needed was a little money. To get out of debt an’ start over! . . . An’ there must be thousands in this money-belt.”
“Shore is. An’ you can keep it, I reckon, without any bad qualms. Money isn’t much to me any more.”
“My Gawd! . . . I’ll never forget you — Arizona Ames!”
CHAPTER XII
THE SUMMER STORM broke while Ames and the Mormon gave the best burial available to the two robbers. And that was to deposit them in a deep crevice and cover them with heavy rocks. The Mormon went further and added enough rocks to form a monument.
“It ain’t likely,” he said, “but somebody livin’ might want to see their graves.”
Thunder burst with tremendous boom and crash, to roll over the desert, and rumble away weirdly into the canyons. Streaks of white lightning blazed out of the purple clouds. Veils of down-dropping rain streaked a belt of rosy sky in the east. They coalesced to form a gray pall that marched across the desert. Then it appeared the hot air that hung round Hurricane Ledge, as if lodged there, began to move and gather strength, to whip up the dust, to shriek down from the crags, to rage into a gale.
Before it Ames and the Mormon sped northward on the trail, their horses blown from trot to lope. The pall of rain never caught up with them. Soon the full fury of the freakish gale roared at their backs, and they were lost in a yellow cloud of dust.
They halted in the lee of a huge rock, and waited till the hurricane passed. It roared and whirled away. Mounting once more, the riders went on, and Ames looked back. Hurricane Ledge was draped in the gray pall; all to the south was dim and dark, whorled low clouds, dipping into the canyons; eastward gold and silver hues had displaced the angry reds, and through bright rimmed clouds the sun shone with the glory of dawn, illumining the livid and ridged desert, clearing away the deceitful shadows and revealing distance and sublimity.
For Ames the hours of that ride were short and the miles more and more replete with the wonder of Utah. It staggered him by its canyoned and clipped and walled vastness. Spots of green were rare and stood out like gems in boundless gray.
Late in the afternoon the Mormon led Ames through a rocky break into a valley that afforded soothing relief to his seared eyes. It was a triangular oasis walled in by red bluffs. Squares of rich green alfalfa seemed to leap up alive into the quivering air; orchards and vineyards bloomed; and a grove of stately cottonwoods surrounded a stone house.
They rode on into the shade. The grounds round the house were bare and clean except where grass and willow lined the irrigation ditch. The leaves of the cottonwoods rustled; birds sang sweetly; burros and turkeys and calves had the run of the place. The stone walks, the fences, the sheds, the gray old porch, all seemed as aged as the cottonwoods.
Heady came out with a striking gray-haired man who stood erect and whose gray eyes still held fire.
“Ames, this is Mr. Morgan,” announced Heady.
“Shore glad to meet you, sir,” said Ames, extending his hand.
“It seems I have reason to be glad to welcome you,” replied Mr. Morgan, meeting Ames’ grip. “Come have a seat on the porch.” He led Ames up the stone steps, still holding his hand, and bending those kind, searching gray eyes upon his countenance. “My daughter will welcome you, too. . . . Don’t be backward, lass. Come out. He’s a very mild-looking Gentile.”
Ames turned at the sound of a light step. A tall girl came out into the light, a wholesome, blooming, rosy-cheeked young woman, whose large gray eyes met Ames’ with fearless interest.
“Lespeth, this is the gentleman who has served us well. Ames, a rider from Arizona. . . . This is my daughter Lespeth.”
“I’m happy to meet Mr. Ames,” she said, and gave him her hand.
“Miss, the pleasure’s shore mine,” replied Ames, somewhat embarrassed. Morgan slid forward an old rocking-chair, which he placed for Ames.
“Sit down, and you, too, Heady,” he invited, as he seated himself on a bench. “Lespeth, fetch out a chair. Tell Mrs. Clegg we’ll have company for supper. . . . Ames, you look dusty and worn. Let me have the straight of this extraordinary claim Heady made. Then you can clean up and make yourself comfortable.”
“What did Heady tell you?” queried Ames, laying his sombrero and gloves on the floor.
The girl came out with a chair, which she placed before Ames. Then she stood a moment, hands on the back of it, with unconscious smile as she gazed down upon him. Ames became aware that she was a magnificent creature.
“That he’d fallen in with thieves, who had forced him to act as guide for them, and but for your timely intervention I would have been robbed again, and perhaps killed, while Lespeth would have been at the mercy of a lecherous villain.”
Ames briefly related, with little reference to Heady, the circumstances of his meeting with Brandeth and Noggin, his suspicion as to their character and how that was verified by what he heard, the plot as defined by Brandeth, and then the disagreement between the two men, the ride up out of the canyon, and lastly the fight.
“Dead! — They’re dead?” asked the Mormon, aghast. Manifestly Heady had not revealed that.
“Shore they’re dead,” replied Ames, grimly. “You gather, of course, that I led Brandeth to believe I’d throw in with him an’ help rob you. But Noggin saw through me — knew I was lyin’. — Well, when it came to the pinch I had to do some tall figurin’. Noggin swore I wouldn’t go with them an’ I admitted it. Brandeth was so surprised an’ sore that he made a grab for my bridle. He’d been keen to get my horse, an’ when he told me to get off, that was what he was up to. But Noggin shot him. I threw myself off my horse just as Noggin shot at me. When I hit the ground I was behind my horse. That saved me. For when Cappy jumped I took a shot at Noggin. His horse threw him. But he bounced up like a rooster an’ was just as swift with his gun — when I got him. . . . That’s all. It shore was a close shave for me. Noggin fooled me. He was all cold nerve an’ swift on the draw. — Whew! If it had been an even break, I believe he might have killed me.”
“Thank God he didn’t!” exclaimed the Mormon, fervently. “The unrighteous villain! . . . Ames, you are a brave, resourceful young man. I am grateful. You are not the first Gentile who has befriended me, and therefore I have reverence for your creed.”
Ames took this coolly enough, but when he glanced up at Lespeth his serenity went into eclipse. The rosy face had become pale; the great gray eyes dark with horror; her red lips parted, and her body shook in a tide of emotion.
“Noggin had this wallet on him,” went on Ames, producing it. “I haven’t looked at his papers yet. But, by the way, it seems his real name was Bill Ackers.”
“Bill Ackers? Oh no, impossible!” ejaculated Morgan, with uplifted hands of protest. “I know Ackers. Have sold stock to him. He had paid court to Lespeth. Isn’t it true, Lespeth?”
“Yes, but not with my consent,” she replied, low-voiced.
“Ames, I looked with favor on his suit once,” explained Morgan. “He was well off and wanted to go in business with me. And Lespeth seemed not to want to marry any of the many Mormons who have ridden here. . . . But this Noggin could not have been Bill Ackers.”
“Describe him,” said Lespeth.
“Well, he was not a big man an’ near forty, I’d say,” replied Ames, reflectively. “He had a thin smooth face, not bad-lookin’, except for his eyes, which were small an’ sharp, like a ferret’s.”
Morgan gazed incredulously at his daughter.
“Father, he has described Ackers perfectly,” Lespeth cried. “Ferret eyes! They used to look through me. . . . But could this blood-thirsty Noggin be Bill Ackers?”
“I can’t believe it, lass,” replied her father, sadly.
“Well, I’ve run across stranger things,” said Ames. “Let’s look at his papers.”
Indisputable evidence was forthcoming that Noggin had not lied when he had assured Brandeth that he was Bill Ackers. His papers contained only the name which he had claimed was his.
“Heah we are,” continued Ames, with an air of finality. “Reckon he sailed under many handles, but this must be his right name. Bill Ackers.”
“I never trusted him,” broke out the girl, with intense relief.
“Hope you wasn’t sweet on him,” Ames teased her. “I’d shore hate to make you unhappy.”
“Sweet on him? — I was not,” she declared, in a tone that matched her face. Perhaps Ames’ glance, more than his words, had been responsible for her blush.
“Mr. Morgan, did he owe you any money?” asked Ames.
“No. But I owed him. Soon I would have paid it — though that would have left me poor.”
“Ahuh. Well, the debt is canceled,” rejoined Ames, rising. “An’ now if you good folks will excuse me I’d like to wash up.”
“Yes, indeed,” responded Morgan, heartily. “You must excuse our neglect in forgetting that. Heady, you take care of Mr. Ames. You may use the log cabin there. We always keep it ready. I will have your horses looked after.”
As Heady led Ames away toward a snug little cabin under the cottonwoods he whispered:
“Did you see them big hungry eyes?”
“Hungry eyes! Whose, man?” asked Ames, in surprise.
“Lespeth’s. They just ate you up.”
“See heah, Heady. You’re shore named appropriate,” reproved Ames, though he felt himself tingle. “All that money has gone to your haid.”
“No. I’m as cool as a cucumber. I’ve knowed Lespeth for years. An’ I’ve seen them hungry eyes look at a good many men, but you’re the first one they ever swallared.”
“Gosh! Who’d ever take you for a sentimental cuss?” retorted Ames.
“But don’t you think she’s beautiful?”
“Hardly. Nor pretty, either. . . . She’s more than both. She’s a goddess, if I know what one is.”
The extravagant compliment brought a glow to the Mormon’s sallow face. He seemed a changed man. His grimy hands shook as he opened the door of the little cabin. Ames peeped into a clean, tidy room, with two beds on which lay white spreads. Chair, table, bureau, all homemade furniture, as well as an open fireplace, reminded Ames of home.
“I forgot my saddle-bag,” he said, and when Heady ran back to fetch it he sat down on a rustic bench in the shade of a giant cottonwood. An arm of the irrigation ditch ran by the cabin, making soft, restful music. What sweetness and peace here! Ames had not felt surrounded by such atmosphere for many years. Then the Mormon came trudging back with Ames’ bag.
The next half hour the men spent in making themselves fit to sit at table with white folk, as Heady put it. When Ames resumed his seat outside the sun was setting gold over the western wall. All about him the golden light merged with the green. The water murmured, the bees buzzed. A burro brayed off in the background. Ames heaved a great sigh of relief at the thought that he had played some part in preserving the sweetness and tranquillity of this place for these good Mormons.
Heady came out, beaming and shining, though there were sundry signs of his awkwardness with a razor.
“Ames, I’ll rest here today, an’ tomorrer ride home hell-bent fer election. I want to go down on my knees to my wife an’ tell her about the cowboy who got me out of the worst fix of my life.”
“Fine. But don’t lay it on too thick aboot me,” said Ames.
“Say, Ames, if you’ll excuse me — are you really a cowboy?”
“Shore. Just a grub-line-ridin’ cowpuncher who cain’t hold a job.”
“Arizona Ames, I’ll take your word fer it. But if you ain’t a son-of-a-gun in spurs I miss my guess. . . . I swore to you I’d go straight. An’ thet’s somethin’. I’ll make up with the wife, pay my debts an’ tithes, an’ go back to honest ranchin’. I’ll be rich, Ames. I jest took another peek at this money. I’ll be rich. But I’ll take a drink damn good an’ seldom, an’ I’ll be savin’ an’ careful. You can bet your life no use of Noggin’s money could be better’n what it’ll do fer me an’ mine.”
“Now you’re talkin’,” drawled Ames.
“So much fer me. What’ll you do?”
“I’ll stay heah a day or so, an’ then ride on. Shore will look you up in St. George, to see the wife an’ kids.”
“I’d like thet heaps. Then she’ll believe I haven’t robbed a bank or somethin’. But, Ames, I’d hang here fer a spell. It’s pretty. No doubt you could give the old man some hunches about hosses. He’ll want to give you a job. An’ you could do worse, if it’s true you’re a grub-line-ridin’ cowpuncher.”
“True as gospel, Heady.”
“Then stay awhile, Ames — if only to give Lespeth what she needs.”
Ames’ leisurely composure vanished in a quick start and a sharp glance at his companion.
“What?” he shot at Heady.
“Don’t bite my head off. I don’t mean nothin’ bad. Lespeth is a good girl, clean an’ fine, more dutiful than most Mormon girls still unmarried. An’ she’s not too religious. Mebbe thet’s why she ain’t married. Mormon cowboys, wranglers, ranchers, preachers, an’ elders, an’ one bishop I know of, have come here after her. All solemn an’ slow an’ full of church in their wooin’. There’s been some Gentiles, too, like Noggin, an’ wanderin’ fellars. But none of them ever struck Lespeth right. A few times the old man has tried to get her married — like in Noggin’s case — but it always fell through.”
“Ahuh. — Well, if she’s so wonderful as you say, what’s this she needs?”
“Lespeth needs to be made love to.”
Ames stared at the man as if he had not heard aright.
