Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 1137
“Aw!” breathed Bud, reproachfully. “An’ me dyin’ hyar by inches.”
“Let Uncle Jim fetch the girls,” rejoined Curly, stoutly.
“Curly, you’re a cold-blooded Arizonian,” declared Jim, with both irritation and admiration. “Here’s the deal. We had to take Slinger home to West Fork, shot to pieces. Bud’s on his back, full of bullets and bad temper. Lonestar hobbles about making you grind your teeth. And out there under the pines lie two of the Diamond in their graves!”
“Wal, it’s shore sad,” replied Curly, “but the fact is we got off lucky. An’ we cain’t dodge what’s comin’ because of what’s past. I reckon thet fight aboot broke the Hash-Knife fer keeps. I’m pretty shore I crippled Malloy. I was shootin’ through smoke, but I seen him fall. An’ then I couldn’t see him any more. He got away, an’ thet leaves him, Madden, an’ Jed Stone, of the Hash-Knife. Stone won’t stand fer the kind of rustlers Malloy has been ringin’ in of late. Thet Joe Tanner outfit, let alone such hombres as Bambridge an’ Darnell. So heah we are, not so bad off. An’ I reckon we could take care of your uncle an’ the girls.”
Cherry Winters came in at that juncture, carrying a rifle and a haunch of venison. The cool fragrance of the night and the woods accompanied him.
“Howdy, all!” he said, cheerfully.
“What kept you, Cherry?” asked Curly.
“Nothin’. I jest ambled along. Reckon I was pretty fur up the crick. Got to watchin’ the beaver.”
“Jeff has kept supper on for you,” added Jim. “You know how sore he gets when we’re late? Rustle now.”
Jim went out on the porch.
The trouble with Jim was that he had not been weaned of his tenderfoot infancy; he had swallowed too big a dose of Arizona and he was sick. Beginning with Sonora’s ambush — which only Slinger’s timely shot had rendered futile — a series of happenings had tested Jim out to the limit. He had been found wanting, so far as stomach was concerned, and he knew it. Asleep and awake, that fight before the burning cabin had haunted him. No use to balk at the truth! He had taken cool bead with rifle at an oncoming and shooting, yelling rustler, and well he knew who had tumbled him over, like a bagged turkey. Afterwards Jim had looked for a bullethole where he had aimed, and had found it. That was harsh enough. But the fact that he had, in common with his cowboys, turned deaf ear alike to the cursings and pleadings of the gambler Darnell, and had himself laid strong hands on that avenging rope, had like a boomerang rebounded upon him. All the arguments about rustlers, raids, self-preservation, had not been sufficient to cure him. Reality was something incalculably different from conjecture and possibility. In the Cibeque fight, rising out of the drift fence, he had been unable to take an active part; and so the killing of Jocelyn and the Haverlys by Slinger Dunn had rested rather easily upon his conscience. But now he was an Arizonian with blood on his hands. He still needed a violent and constant cue for passion.
Curly came outside presently: “Fine night, Boss, an’ it’s good to feel we can peek out an’ not be scared of bullets. I reckon, though, thet feelin’ oughtn’t to be trusted fer long. We’ll heah from Croak Malloy before the summer is over.”
“Yes, it’s a fine night, I suppose,” sighed Jim. “But almost — I wish I was back in Missouri.”
“Never havin’ seen Arizona an’ Molly?” drawled the cowboy, with his cool, kindly tone.
“Even that.”
“But more special — never havin’ killed a man?”
“Curly!”
“Shore you cain’t fool me, Jim, old boy. I was aboot when it come off. I seen you bore thet rustler. Fact is I had a bead on him myself.”
“I — I didn’t dream anybody knew,” replied Jim, hoarsely. “Please don’t tell, Curly.”
“Wal, I cain’t promise fer the rest of the outfit. Bud seen it, from where he fell. An’ what’s more, he seen thet rustler shoot Hump daid.”
“He did?” cried Jim, a dark hot wave as of blood with consciousness surging to his head. A subtle change marked his exclamation.
“Shore. An’ Lonestar reckoned he seen the same. Wal, thet rustler was Ham Beard. We searched him, before we buried him. Used to be a Winslow bar-tender till he murdered someone. Then he took to cattle-stealin’. Sort of a lone wolf an’ shore a daid shot. If it hadn’t been fer thet smoke he an’ Croak might have done fer all of us. Though I reckon in thet case, if they’d charged us without the cover of smoke, we’d have stopped them with our rifles...It was a mess, Jim, an’ you ought to pat yourself on the back instead of mopin’ around.”
Jim realised this clearly, and in the light of Curly’s cool illuminating talk he felt the relaxing of a gloomy shade.
“If Glory an’ Molly never hear of it — I guess I’ll stand it,” he said.
“Wal, you can bet your last pair of wool socks in zero weather thet our beloved Bud will spring it on the girls.”
“No!”
“Shore. An’ not because of his itch to talk. It’ll be pride, Jim, unholy pride in your addition to the toll of the Diamond.”
“I’ll beg him not to, and if that’s not enough I’ll beat him.”
“Wal, Mizzouri, it cain’t be did,” drawled Curly.
Curly was not as easy in mind as might have appeared to a superficial observer. He was restless; he walked up and down the canyon trail. Jim noted that Curly’s blue flashing eyes were ever on the alert. And when Jim finally commented about this, Curly surprised him with a whisper: “Nix on thet, Mizzouri. I don’t want Bud or Lonestar to worry. They make fuss enough. But I’ll tell you somethin’. This very day, when you were eatin’ dinner, I seen a rider’s black sombrero bobbin’ above the rim wall there. On the east rim, mind you!”
“Curly!...A black sombrero? You might’ve been mistaken,” replied Jim.
“Shore. It might have been a black hawk or a raven. But my eyes are pretty sharp, Jim.”
Hours of uneasiness on Jim’s part followed, and apparently casual strolling the porch on Curly’s. Nothing happened, and at length Jim forgot about the circumstance. He went back to his account-books, presently to be disturbed by the nervous Bud.
“Boss, I thought I heerd a call a little while ago, but I didn’t want to bother you. But now I shore heerd hosses.”
“You did?” Jim listened with strained ears, while he gazed around the living-room. Lonestar was asleep, and so was Cherry, while Jack, writing as usual, could not have heard the crack of doom. But Jim distinctly caught a soft thud, thud, thud of hoofs.
“Curly!” he called sharply. That jerked the sleepers wide awake, but it did not fetch Curly.
“Boys, something up. We hear horses. And Curly doesn’t answer. Grab your rifles.”
“Listen, Boss!” ejaculated Bud.
Then Jim caught a call from outside: “Jim — oh, Jim!”
“Molly!” he shouted, wildly, and rushed out, to be followed by the three uninjured cowboys. No sign of horses down the trail. But under the pines in the other direction moved brown figures, now close at hand, emerging from the grove. Molly led, on a big raw-boned bay horse. Hatless, her dusky hair flying, she called again: “Jim — oh, Jim!”
Roused out of stupefaction, Jim rushed to meet her. “Molly! for Heaven’s sake, how’d you get here?” he cried as she reined in the bay. She dropped a halter of a pack-horse she was leading. Then Jim saw that she was brush-covered and travel-stained. Her hair was full of pine needles, and her eyes shone unnaturally large and bright. Jim’s rapture suffered a check. He looked beyond her, to see Curly supporting Gloriana in the saddle of a third horse. Her head drooped, her hair hung in a tawny mass.
“My God! what’s happened?” he exclaimed, in sudden terror.
“Shore a lot. Don’t look so scared, Jim. We’re all right...Help me down.”
She slipped into his arms, most unresisting, Jim imagined, and for once his kisses brought blushes without protest. If she did not actually squeeze him, then he was dreaming. He set her down upon her feet, still keeping an arm around her.
“What — what’s all this?” he stammered, looking back to see Gloriana fall into Curly’s arms. As Curly carried her up the porch steps Jim caught a glimpse of Gloriana’s face. Then he dragged Molly with him into the house.
“Curly, let me down,” Gloriana was saying.
But Curly did not hear, or at least obey. “For Gawd’s sake, darlin’, tell me you — you’re not hurt or — or anythin’.”
No longer was Gloriana’s face white. “Let me down, I say,” she cried, imperiously. Whereupon Curly became aware of his behaviour, and he set her down in the big arm-chair, to gaze at her as at a long-lost treasure found.
“Glory! — What crazy trick — have you sprung on us?” gasped Jim, striding close, still hanging to Molly. He stared incredulously at his sister. Her flimsy dress had once been light-coloured. It seemed no longer a dress, scarcely a covering, and it was torn to shreds and black from contact with burned brush. But that appeared only little cause for the effect she produced upon Jim and his comrades. One arm was wholly bare, scratched and dirty and bloody; her legs were likewise. To glance over these only forced the gaze back to Gloriana’s face. The havoc of terrible mental and physical strain showed in its haggard outlines. But her eyes seemed a purple radiant blaze of rapture, or thanksgiving. They would have reassured a cynic that all was well with heart and soul — that life was good.
“Oh — Jim,” she whispered, lifting a weak hand to him, and as he clasped it, to sink on one knee beside her chair, she lay back and closed her eyes. “I’m here — I’m safe. Oh, thank Heaven!”
“Glory, dear, what in the world happened?” begged Jim.
On the other side of the chair Curly lifted her hand, which clung to a battered old sombrero, full of bullet holes.
“Jim, this heah’s what I seen bobbin’ above the rim,” he said, in amazed conjecture. “Whose hat is this? Reckon it looks some familiar.”
He could not remove it from the girl’s tight clutch.
“Thet sombrero belonged to Croak Malloy,” interposed Molly, who stood back of Jim, smoothing the pine needles out of her tangled hair.
“Holy Mackeli!” burst out Curly. “I knew it. I recognised thet hat...Jim, as shore as Gawd made little apples thet croakin’ gun-thrower is daid.”
“Daid? I should smile he is,” corroborated Molly, laconically. “Daid as a door nail.”
The tremendousness of that truth, which no one doubted, commanded profound silence. Even Curly Prentiss had no tongue.
“Jed Stone killed Malloy, an’ Madden, too,” went on Molly, bright-eyed, enjoying to the full the sensation she was creating.
Jim echoed the name of the Hash-Knife leader, but Curly, to whom that name had so much more deadly significance, still could not speak.
“Molly Dunn, I’m a hurted cowpuncher,” called Bud from his bed. “An’ if you don’t tell pronto what’s come off, I’ll be wuss.”
Gloriana opened her eyes, and let them dwell lovingly upon her brother, and then Molly, after which they wandered to the standing, wide-eyed cowboys, and lastly to the stricken Curly, whose adoration was embarrassingly manifest.
“Tell them, Molly,” she whispered. “I — can’t talk.”
“We planned to surprise you, Jim,” began Molly. “It took some persuadin’ to get Uncle Jim in on our job. But we did. An’ let’s see — five days ago — early mawnin’ we left Flag in the buckboard Pedro drivin’. That night we slept at Miller’s ranch. Next mawnin’ at the fork of the road we got held up by Croak Malloy, an’ two of his pards, Madden an’ Reeves. They’d jest happened to run into us. Uncle Jim didn’t know Malloy until he shot Pedro. Malloy robbed Uncle, took our bags, an’ threw us on horses. An’ he told Uncle to go back to Flag, dig up ten thousand dollars, an’ send it by rider to Tobe’s Well, where it was to be put in the loft by the chimney. Malloy drove us off then, into the woods, an’ along in the afternoon we reached Tobe’s Well. We’d jest been dragged in, an’ they’d hawg-tied me, an’ Malloy was tearin’ Glory’s clothes off, when in comes Jed Stone. He shore filled thet cabin...Wal, Croak was sore at being interrupted, an’ Jed raved aboot what Uncle Jim would do. Queer what stress he put on Uncle Jim! Called him Jim!...Croak got sorer at all the fuss Jed was makin’ over nothin’. Then Jed stamped up and down, wringin’ his hands. But when quick as a cat he turned one of them held a boomin’ gun. I shut my eyes. Jed shot two more times. I heahed one of the rustlers run out, an’ when I looked again Malloy an’ Madden were daid, an’ Reeves had escaped.”
“Wal, of all deals I ever seen in my born days!” ejaculated Curly Prentiss as Molly paused, gradually yielding to excitement engendered by her narrative. Her big eyes glowed like coals.
“Wal, it turned out we’d only fallen out of the fryin’-pan into the fire,” went on Molly, presently. “Jed had run into Uncle Jim, an’ learnin’ aboot the hold-up, he’d trailed us, an’ he killed them men jest to have us girls all to himself. It began then...Whew, what a desperado Jed Stone was! He had to beat me with a switch. An’ when he was fightin’ an’ kissin’ me Glory grabbed up the butcher knife to kill him. She’d been put to makin’ biscuits while Jed made love to me. He had to shoot at her, an’ she fainted again...He let us alone then. Next mawnin’ we rustled off quick, without hardly any grub, an’ he rode us all over the Diamond. He got lost, he said. We had two more days of ridin’, up an’ down, through the brush, over rocks. Oh, it was bad even for me. All the time Jed made me do the work an’ near drove Glory crazy. One night he forced us to sleep in the same bed with him, an’ gave us choice of who was to lie in the middle. Glory wouldn’t let me. He had nightmare. Yesterday, late afternoon, we slid an’ rolled down into the canyon, an’ soon we rode plumb into thet place where you hanged Darnell an’ the two rustlers...The sight near keeled me over. An’ poor Glory — But enough said aboot thet. We camped above there, an’ this mawnin’ climbed out again. Glory was all in, starved an’ so sick after seein’ those daid men, hangin’ like sacks by their necks, thet she couldn’t sit up in her saddle. I had to hold her. We went along the rim till we came to the road. An’ there Jed said he’d located himself again, an’ we’d have to separate, as he could take only one of us with him, the other goin’ to a ranch he said was down heah. I begged him not to separate us...an’ then Glory told Jed she would go with him, to save me!...Then flabbergasted Jed, as you could see. He hadn’t savvied Glory. He’d been daid set to make her squeal an’ show yellow — which she shore didn’t...An’ then what do you reckon he said?”
Only questioning eyes made any return to that.
“He patted me on the haid, called me Wood-mouse, an’ then to Glory, ‘Big-eyes, go marry Curly or Bud, an’ have some real Western kids, an’ never forget your desperado.’...Then he rode off like mad. An’ after Glory had braced up we found the road, An’ heah we are!”
“Of all the strange things!” exclaimed Jim.
The cowboys were mystified. Curly ran his lean brown hand through his tawny locks, in action of great perplexity.
“Molly, was Jed drunk?”
“No. He had a bottle, an’ he made Glory drink some of the stuff. But he didn’t drink any.”
“Bud, you heah Molly’s story?” went on the nonplussed Curly.
“Yes, an’ if she ain’t lyin’, Jed Stone was locoed. Thet happened, mebbe, when he seen Glory, an’ it ain’t no wonder.”
“Bud Chalfack, don’t you dare hint I’m not tellin’ the truth,” declared Molly, approaching his bed, and then seeing how white and drawn his face was, how prone his sunk frame, she fell on her knees, with a cry of pity.
“Wal, ain’t you only a kid, an’ turrible in love?” he growled. “You couldn’t see straight, let alone tell anything straight...I’m a dyin’ cowpuncher, Molly. I reckon you’d better kiss me.”
“Oh, Bud, I’m so sorry. Are you in pain?” she asked.
“I shore am, but you an Glory might ease it some.”
Whereupon she kissed his cheek and smoothed the damp hair back from his wrinkled brow. That fetched a smile to Bud’s face, until it almost bore semblance to the cherubic visage he possessed when in good health and spirits.
“Glory, ain’t you comin’ over to kiss me, like Molly done?” he asked, plaintively.
“I am, surely, Bud, as soon — as I’m able,” she replied, smiling wanly. “I hope and pray you’re not serious — about dying.”
“Aw, I am, Glory. But I might be saved,” he said, significantly. “If only I jest didn’t want to croak.”
“Hush, you sick boy. Molly and I will nurse you.”
At that Curly arose with a disgusted look, muttering under his breath: “If it takes thet, I reckon I can get shot up some.”
Jim came out of his trance. “Boys, in our surprise and joy we’re forgetting the girls...Curly, fetch hot water, and tell Jeff to fix something fit for starved people. Cherry, bring in the bags...Now, Glory, I’ll carry you upstairs...Come, Molly.”
“Oh, such a wonderful, sweet-smelling house!” murmured Gloriana as he carried her along a wide hall, into the end room, sunny and open. It was bare except for a built-in bed of sycamore branches, upon which lay a thick spread of spruce foliage. He gently deposited Gloriana there, only to find her arms round his neck.
“Jim, brother — my old world came to an end today,” she murmured, dreamily.
“Yes. But you can tell me all when you’re rested again,” he replied, and kissing her cheek he disengaged himself and turned to meet Molly, who had followed. “Molly, you two use this room. Make her comfortable. Put her to bed. Feed her sparingly. And have a care for yourself...What a kid you are! To go through all that ride and come out like this! — Damn Jed Stone. Yet I bless him! I can’t make it out.”
Curly and the cowboys came up, packing things, and Curly lingered, unmindful of Jim or Molly.
“Glory, I beg your pardon for callin’ you darlin’, in front of the outfit,” he said, humbly. “I was shore out of my haid. But they all know aboot me.”
