Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 1072
“I meant to. But he seemed already to be bearing a pretty heavy burden. I didn’t want to add to it.”
“You figgered correct. It’d never do to tell the boss right now. You an’ me have got to handle this deal.”
“Jim, that tickles me,” responded Andrew eagerly. “Do you know I had a fool notion I’d like to work it out alone. Absurd, of course, but it sure got into me.”
“Wal, you an’ me together can handle it at present. I don’t know about later.”
“How’d you suggest we handle it, Jim?”
“We’ll ketch those cowpunchers red-handed.”
“Then what?”
“I reckon beatin’ the rustlin’ out of them would be a good idee. Of course we used to string up rustlers in the old days. Jail is about all they get now, an’ thet not for long.”
“Humph! That Texas cowboy wouldn’t take a beating. He’d shoot, Jim. Struck me as a tough proposition.”
“Wal, if it comes to shootin’ you’d be in serious.”
“I’m okay with a rifle.”
“Good, so long as you ain’t in close quarters.”
“You’ll have to coach me, Jim...What’d you mean when you said you didn’t know how to handle the deal later?”
“Wal, Andy, if Bligh loses a lot of his cattle or if McCall gyps him, an’ I reckon both is liable to happen, it’ll take a long time to build up again. I’d hate to fail on this range. So I’d persuade Bligh to keep on. He’s gettin’ along in years an’ a crownin’ disappointment would go hard.”
“But Jim, how can disaster be averted?”
“It cain’t. Thet’s the hell of this cattle business. Good grass, good water at times are no better than a bad drought. Because all the calves will be stole. It’s not easy to trace stolen calves. You jest can’t unless you ketch the brander with his runnin’ iron.”
“You believe there’s a paying ranch business to be developed here?”
“Payin’? Hell, there’s twenty per cent at least.”
“How’d you go about developing this ranch to clear such a big percentage of profit?”
“Wal, son, you gotta have some coin. Cattle are way down now. You can buy cheap. If Bligh could restock, say with a mixed herd of two thousand haid, an’ get some Arizona punchers to ride this range, why he’d double his money when prices went up.”
“That’s the rub, then? Bligh is without means to restock...Couldn’t he borrow?”
“The banks jest ain’t lendin’ money without big securities.”
“Why hire Arizona cowboys?”
“Wal, to be shore, they ain’t any better than Wyomin’ punchers. But they’d be on the prod. They’d be like a pack of hounds. Playin’ one outfit agin a rival one used to be an old trick of mine. I’ve been foreman on some great ranches. Bucked the Hash Knife outfit once. An’ I still carry some of their lead.”
“What was the Hash Knife outfit?”
“Hardest ridin’, drinkin’, shootin’, an’ sometimes hardest stealin’ outfit in Arizona.”
“You’ll have to tell me all about it some day...Well, Jim, then it’s lack of capital that handicaps our boss — and that stands between us and a swell job?”
“It is, Andy. But what’s the use to smoke our pipes? We’re all broke, an’ the best we can hope for is to make a bare livin’ for Bligh an’ ourselves. Andy, we wouldn’t have any jobs at all if we asked wages.”
“Jim! Are you working for your board, the same as I am?”
“Shore am, an’ satisfied, too. I tell you, son, I don’t mind for myself, but it sticks in my craw thet I can’t give Sue the pretty things women like.”
“Jim, wait a minute,” said Andrew, acting upon an impulse. He ran inside to return with his wallet which he got out of his grip. “I’ve got a little money — and I’m going to lend you some, Jim.”
“Hell, no!”
“Yes, I am. It worries me, all this dough. There — two hundred bucks. I’d lose it in town. I’ve got a little left, Jim. I want to buy some lumber and tools and odd things to fix up my place here.”
The Arizonian fingered the crisp bills while his eyes shed a warm light on Andrew.
“Son, you don’t know me.”
“I’ll gamble on you, anyhow.”
Jim folded the greenbacks and stowed them carefully in an inside vest pocket.
“Wal, all my life I’ve found two kinds of men. One kind makes you want to keep on fightin’ an’ hopin’...Let’s go in to dinner. I heerd the bell.”
“I’ll wait and get mine in town,” replied Andrew hastily. “When will you be ready?”
“Pronto. You see if you can start thet truck.”
“Okay.”
Half an hour later Andrew drove the truck over in front of the house and honked the horn. Jim and his wife came out beaming, to be followed by Bligh and his niece. Andrew had only to see her again to realize why he had shirked dinner when he was hungry. Martha had changed her gray blouse to a white shirt, and she had done something to her hair. It was fluffy and shone like spun gold.
“All aboard,” sang out Andrew. “Mrs. Fenner, hadn’t you better come with Jim? I won’t guarantee his sobriety.”
“Wal, I will,” declared Jim, as he climbed in.
Whereupon Andrew reacted to a sudden impulse. “Miss Dixon, there’s room for you. Won’t you come? You’ll get a kick out of my driving.”
“I’d do anything under the sun for a kick, Mr. Bonning, as you know — except ride with you,” she replied coldly.
“Wal, Sue, you’d better wait up for us,” said Jim.
“I haven’t done thet for years, but I shall tonight,” returned his wife, with an air of happy mystery.
“Mr. Bligh, what can I fetch you?” inquired Andrew casually.
“Jim has the list.”
“Don’t you dare forget mine,” spoke up Martha saucily. “Go to a dry-goods store and ask the price of what I want. It’s all carefully written out. If the price comes to more than fifteen dollars cut out the articles checked off. Can you remember all those instructions?”
“Andrew, you heerd them, so you can jar my memory.”
“If we forget or lose the list we’ll buy lollipops, gum, candy, some movie magazines and a victrola with a dozen jazz records,” replied Andrew facetiously.
Martha Dixon did not join in the laugh that followed, but fixed Andrew with unfathomable eyes. She might either have hated or loved him, to judge by the took she gave him.
“Mr. Bonning will be surprised to see that I can make my own clothes,” said the girl.
Andrew spent a strenuous and absorbing afternoon in town. What with Jim’s supplies and the bulky nature of his own purchases, they had a good load by the time they were ready to start back. Leaving after supper, they gave several hours to the return drive, but Jim made the trip seem short by the resumption of his coaching of the tenderfoot. Andrew let all the Arizonian told him sink in. If there were any range subjects Jim did not touch upon Andrew could not imagine them.
“I shore liked both the hosses you bought,” Jim said on one occasion. “Thet bay has good points, an’ the pinto is a purty dogie. I reckon he’ll make trouble for you at the ranch, an’ I ain’t sayin’ how...Hosses are most important on the range. Now when you’re ridin’ to an’ fro practice with your rope. You don’t do so bad. But practice. Rope everythin’. An’ shoot at every jack rabbit an’ coyote you see. Learn to see trails an’ tracks on the ground. By studyin’ your own hoss tracks an’ others at the ranch, fresh or old, you can judge other tracks out on the range. For instance, you see your fresh track. You study it. An’ then one made earlier. You see what has happened to it — a little dust blown in or water, or mebbe another track over it. You know just when they was made, an’ if you make pictures of them in your mind soon you’ll get the hang of a tracker. Don’t miss nothin’, Andrew. Use yore eyes. You’ve got field glasses. Use them when you’re undecided or too far away from somethin’. When you’re lookin’ for strange riders keep out of sight. In the brush or timber, behind ridges an’ back from canyon rims. If you’re ridin’ in the open do it bold, as if you saw nothin’. When the cattle get up in the foothills — an’ thet’ll be any day soon — you can ride out at daybreak, find a hidin’ place an’ watch. I’ll be with you part of the time, an’ I’ll tell you how to look an’ what you see. But shore you’ll be alone a good deal. An’ it’ll happen when you’re alone. These two-bit rustlers of McCall’s will be slick an’ keep to cover. But often they’ll drive a cow an’ calf from the open into rough goin’. You listen for a gun shot an’ look for smoke. An’ when you sneak up on one of them, draw down on him with your rifle. Order him to throw up his hands an’ turn his back. Then disarm him an’ march him to the boss.”
Andrew was up with the dawn. How many years had he slept away the beautiful hours from the break of day to the burst of the sunrise! The soft mist above the river, the winging of ducks across the bars, the obscurity of the range yielding to a sudden magic brightness, the ghosts of mountains growing clear — these new facets of the morning held him absorbed. Then came the change from gray to rose and at last the glory of the lord of day.
He unloaded the truck and packed his purchases inside the old cabin. He discovered a fondness for tools, as well as hands unskilled in their use except when it came to tinkering with automobiles.
Mornings and evenings thereafter he labored at the pleasant task of rendering his new abode dry and warm and less bare to his gaze. But he had made no luxurious purchases. A hard, primitive simplicity seemed to be Andrew’s goal.
As he ate with Jim in the kitchen and was absent from the house except at meal hours, he saw little of Martha Ann Dixon. Nevertheless she seemed omnipresent. She filled the lives of her uncle and this Arizona couple. They had suddenly awakened to something joyous. Andrew watched her from afar and sometimes, to his discomfiture, he was caught in the act. Yet he wondered how she could have caught him had she not also been taking cognizance of him. He had to listen to Jim’s talk of her interest in horses, in the ranch, in everything and everyone but Andrew Bonning. On Sunday more visitors called on Bligh than during the entire preceding time since he had arrived on the Sweetwater. Some of these were cowboys, spick-and-span in their Sunday best, with boots as shiny as their hair. Andrew regarded them with a vague uneasiness.
Late one afternoon Andrew was riding in from the range, and coming to a wide shallow valley he espied a saddled but riderless horse galloping up the opposite slope toward the ranch. The distance was too great for him to recognize the horse, which disappeared before he could bring his field glasses into use.
Andrew rode rapidly down into the draw, and had not proceeded far along one of the banks when he saw a bright object on the sand. Urging on his horse, he plunged down into the dry stream bed to verify his fears. He came upon Martha Dixon sitting on the sand, her face white and drawn with pain, her hands tremblingly endeavoring to unlace one of her boots. Andrew leaped off his mount to rush to her side.
“Miss Dixon, you’ve had a spill?” he queried anxiously.
“Yeah,” she replied, without looking up.
“I saw your horse galloping home...Did he buck you off?”
“The old bag of bones tripped in the sand.”
“I hope you’re not badly hurt,” continued Andrew solicitously. “There’s blood on your cheek.”
“That’s rouge...I hate to ask you, Mr. Bonningbut please ride to the house and send Jim or Uncle.”
“Nonsense. Take all that time while you’re suffering? Let me see. You appear to have sprained an ankle.” Andrew knelt down to place his hands gently on the boot she had half unlaced.
“Thank you — never mind,” she said, pulling her foot away. “I can get it off. You go for help.”
“But I can help you, Miss Dixon,” he said, looking up into a frowning face lighted by pain darkened eyes. “I don’t want you to.”
“But it’s only common courtesy.”
“I’d lie here and die before I’d let you help me,” she said, turning her face away. He could not help noticing, before she did so, that her lips were trembling.
“So I see. All the same I shall not allow you to sacrifice yourself...Take your hands away.” He pulled them free and unlaced the rest of her boot and despite his care in removing it, he hurt her.
“Oh-h! You brute...Great, big, strong, he-man stuff, eh?”
“Your ankle is swollen. I advise you not to try to walk on it.”
“Mr. Bonning, you seem to know all about the shape of peoples’ ankles—”
“I have been in college athletics,” he replied stiffly.
Struggling to her feet she tried to take a step with the injured member, but faltered. With a moan she sank to the sandy floor of the draw.
“You stubborn little fool. I told you,” he burst out, sorry for her, but angrier still.
“Go get — somebody,” she said faintly.
“I’ll do nothing of the kind. I’m going to pack you up to the house.”
“You will not!”
“Watch me!” Whereupon he led his horse beside a low bank from which he could easily step astride the saddle. Then he returned to the girl.
“Don’t you dare touch me,” she flared.
“Martha Dixon, you ought to get a real kick out of this,” he replied with a grim laugh.
“You really are a brute, aren’t you?”
In spite of her struggles, he picked her up bodily. She kicked out with her feet, but suddenly subsided with a scream.
“Serves you right. Lie still!” And he shook her slightly. “Anyone would think you imagine I want to take you in my arms. Well, let me set your silly little mind at ease. I don’t.”
“You don’t because you imagine I’d want you to — that I planned all this,” she retorted.
“I never allow my imagination to run riot,” he replied coldly, and approaching his horse, cautioned him with stern words, then stepped astride. “I forgot your boot. Oh well, I can come back for that later. There. Are you comfortable?”
“I have never been so wretched — in a man’s arms,” she answered, avoiding his eyes.
“You don’t need to remind me that it is no uncommon experience.”
He held her in front of him with his left arm around her and her head against his shoulder. He had his right arm under her knees, and managed also with his right hand to hold the bridle. He gazed down at the pale face against his arm, aware of its loveliness and its danger. She was watching him with a look no man could have interpreted. But it was a look that made him tremble. Her eyes were the clearest amber, large, luminous, the color of a tawny pansy or a topaz. But it was the look in them rather than their beauty that moved Andrew. In times past he had found himself susceptible to feminine charms. He recognized the symptoms now, in magnified form and he determined that he would not permit it to happen again.
“I hate — you,” she panted.
“That’s all too obvious,” he replied, inclining his head. “And it puzzles me. It seems to be my misfortune to keep receiving you — and getting no thanks for my pains. If you ran true to form you would be employing the moment — to your peculiar satisfaction.”
“You are simply horrid.”
“Why? Because I tell you the truth? Martha Dixon, you certainly are the prettiest creature the sun ever shone on. And it infuriates me that one so sweet, so fresh, so young, so intelligent, so much of a joy to people like your uncle, and Jim and Sue, should be such a cheat to them — and to everyone.”
“I’m not — a cheat,” she cried.
“Yes, you are, if not a brazen little hussy. Didn’t I see you come down the street driving that boy’s car? Didn’t I see you at dinner, all dolled up, flirting shamelessly with him?”
“Yes, you — did. But I did it because you expected it of me. If you were half as smart as you think you are — you’d have known why I was doing it. You had hurt my feelings. I was mad...I played up to your opinion of me...and I was just fool enough to want to make you jealous.”
“Good Lord! You switch your line to suit the occasion. Martha, you have no finesse. You just trust everything to your looks. Well, you’ve cause. But you can’t get me with such sugar.”
“I don’t want you,” she cried struggling to pull herself erect.
“I meant string me, darling,” he rejoined mockingly. “Miss Dixon to you, if you don’t mind.”
“And what were you to the young fellow at the hotel?”
“Just a ‘sweetie,’ of course, if it’s any of your business.”
“Bah! You’re as bad as Connie — worse, for she was only a gold digger. You run away from home — from a nice mother. You want to get out where no one will know who you are or care what you do. And you pick up a saphead like that — drive his car so he can put his arms round you — doll up for him, a mere stranger — eat with him — go out with him — let him kiss you — let him—”
“That’s enough of that,” she commanded hotly. “No one can talk to me like that! Whoever your Connie was I’ll bet she handed you exactly what you deserved.”
“Plumb center,” he returned. “I’m sorry that I spoke that way. I have no right to ask you, but...did you go out with him that night?”
“No!”
“Did you let him kiss you?”
“No!”
“Martha, I think you’re a little liar,” he said softly.
“Just to prove it, I’ll bet even I can kiss you and get away with it.”
Fired by a sudden rash impulse he bent his face close over hers. He had not really meant to carry out his threat. But once under the spell of her dilating eyes, and the sweet red lips so close to his he found it impossible to refrain. He pressed his lips to hers in a kiss that started in defiance of her and scorn of himself, but which lingered in ecstasy. Sharply he drew erect, astonished by his act, ashamed of having given way to his real feelings when he had meant only scorn.
“I’ll kill — you!” she whispered huskily.
“‘Hell hath no fury...’ Martha, that was coming to you. But don’t get me wrong...Well, here we are in sight of the house. Your uncle sees us. And there’s your horse tied to the fence.”
