Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 1361
“All that takes time, Kit,” said Bradway earnestly.
“I will be in town tomorrow or Sunday,” said Kit. “Oh, I can’t take seriously what you say, but I’ll try to think of everything. Go now, Lincoln, so that you’ll get back to town before daylight. I wouldn’t want it known that you had been here.”
She kissed him good-by and pushed him away from the window. He laid her gun on the sill. He could not refrain from taking a last look at her in the moonlight: white shoulders, white arms, white face standing out against the ebony of her loosened hair. Then he wheeled and ran out under the trees to the road.
Now that he had left Lucy and Kit behind him all that had been lonesome in the valley seemed accentuated: only the faraway howling of wolves broke the unearthly silence. As the cowboy strode through the sage he soon lost the sucking, gurgling sound of the river. He reached the edge of the willows where he had tethered his horse.
He found Bay asleep with the nosebag still hanging over one ear. The sight of his faithful horse gave Linc a warm feeling of security. He mounted and was soon out upon the valley bottom. The sage was thick and tall and the ground was full of burrows, which made traveling painfully slow. He had purposely turned off the trail because it was too close to the ranch house. As he rode he tried to recapture the glow that his short whispered conversation with Lucy had stirred in him, also the new feeling of respect and admiration for the Maverick Queen. That she had satisfied him that the change in her way of life was to be permanent pleased him, but that she refused to leave the country without him, however, presented an almost insurmountable problem. When the time came to go away it would be Lucy, not Kit, who would ride with him. That time had not yet come. There still were some things he had to know. In that respect the night’s adventure had not been completely successful. Jim Weston’s murder had taken place on this very ranch. Kit had not admitted it, but she had admitted to the responsibility for “several cowboys’ deaths.” Then the time would come when Kit would have to be told about his and Lucy’s marriage. Meanwhile, he was still reluctant to leave the beautiful, fragrant, colorful, verdant Wyoming country. If the land at the headwaters of the Sweetwater was all Lucy claimed it to be, he wanted above all to make a home for her there. It was perhaps too close to South Pass and the valley where Jim had met his death, but it was far enough away so that they never would need to visit it again.
When Bradway reached the road, he urged Bay to a swift, ground-gaining lope. At the base of the escarpment he slowed Bay to a walk, and the horse easily climbed the zigzag road to the summit. Lincoln did not look back. The moon had gone; its light had dimmed to the darkness that precedes the gray of dawn. Once more the cowboy urged his mount to a lope and soon covered the distance to the mining camp. He approached by the roundabout way, reaching the livery stable before daylight and without being seen. Putting Bay away in his stall he hurried to his lodgings and went to bed.
The next day Linc did not venture out until evening. He did not meet his friends at the restaurant nor on the street afterward. He remained clear of the stores and saloons. He avoided the vicinity of Emery’s hall because he did not want to risk meeting Kit Bandon there. He walked the streets until he was tired; then again he returned to his lodgings.
It was late Sunday morning before he left his room again. It was the usual noisy, busy day, little different from any other day in this mining town. At noon he visited the Chinese restaurant, hoping to meet Vince or Thatcher there. The waiter informed him that they had been in early that morning. The Nebraskan lingered nearby for some time, hoping his partners would return, but by three in the afternoon there was still no sign of them. Then he lost no time getting back to the livery stable. Headly was in his office and told him, “They hain’t been back since early mornin’. Did you notice thet the town is full of cowboys?”
“No, I didn’t,” replied Lincoln. “What does that mean?”
“I’ll be switched if I can call the turn on that,” said Headly, shaking his shaggy head. “There are too blamed many of them for a Sunday off. No doubt thet mess-up the other day in Emery’s place has brought things to a head.”
“Are there any more cattlemen in town than usual?” asked Lincoln, curiously.
“Wal, I should smile. Whar are yore eyes, cowboy? I’ve got five buckboards and two spring wagons in the backyard now, and hain’t got room for no more teams.”
“Did you see Kit Bandon’s buckboard?”
“Nope. I reckon she hain’t come along yet.”
Lincoln sat down to wait. He wanted very much to go back downtown, yet he wanted to avoid tangling with Emery’s crowd for the present. He would wait until the boys arrived. They strayed in at last, their faces tight-lipped and set. Bradway inquired rather impatiently where the hell they had been.
“Boss,” explained Vince, “we expected to run into you downtown any minute.”
Thatcher spoke up: “We didn’t think you would be holed up here.”
“Well, all right. Better late than never,” grumbled Lincoln. “I suppose you fellows are hungry as usual?”
“Starved to death,” vowed Vince. “We were too busy to think of dinner.”
“Busy at what?” queried Linc.
“Wal, we was tryin’ to find out what the hell was goin’ on down there.”
“All these cowboys and cattlemen got you kind of lathered up, eh?”
“It’s pretty interestin’, boss. Mel has his idee an’ I hev mine. We’ll let you do yore own figgerin’.”
“All right. Let’s go eat,” replied Bradway shortly.
They went downtown. Linc had not seen so many pedestrians, so many saddle horses, or so many vehicles since he had come to South Pass. They found the restaurant with more customers than usual, but fortunately their table was vacant. Ordering dinner, they ate in silence. At length Thatcher, bending over to light a cigarette, puffed a huge cloud of smoke and spoke from behind it.
“Bradway, I’ve got one thing to report—”
“Don’t call me Bradway,” interrupted Lincoln irritably.
“All right, boss. Vince and I have been snooping around for two whole days and nights. I had the luck to find myself sitting pretty with a dance-hall girl, one of several just come to South Pass, and I was upstairs in the little parlor with her when Emery came limping along the hall with Kit Bandon. That was today about one o’clock. I could see from behind the curtain. Kit was white and steaming like she was about to erupt.... ‘I tell you, Kit,’ said Emery, ‘I won’t oppose your splitting with me here but I can’t pay you for your share.’
“‘And why not?’ snapped Kit.
“‘I haven’t got the money.’
“‘You’re a liar,’ said Kit.
“‘To tell you the truth, Kit, I’m in bad here in South Pass. I only found it out since these cattlemen have been in town. I’ve been forced to pay debts. Some of the men I owed money to living right here in town talked damn queer. One of them said he might show up the irregularities of my gambling hall. Another said I had to be careful or I’d be run out of town. That’s honest, Kit. These men have all been heavy losers at my game and they’re sore.’
“‘I’m sore too,’ Kit replied. ‘Dig up part of the money anyhow to pay me for what I invested in your gambling deal!’
“Emery looked much surprised and worried. ‘You putting on the pressure too, Kit Bandon!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ll do my best to oblige you. But does that mean you want to split on our cattle business down in the valley also?’
“‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ Kit said. ‘But never mind that until later.’
“‘Well, you’ll find me tough on that proposition,’ he retorted angrily. ‘You’ve been treating me mean enough lately and now you make up your mind in five minutes to quit me cold. You act as though I was contaminated. Well, I won’t do it! You’re bright enough, Kit Bandon, to know that I have a pretty good hold on you!’
“‘Yes, I’m bright enough to know that you’ve always been a double-crosser. Furthermore, you have no hold on me!’
“‘Listen, Kit. This place is getting hot for you as well as for me. Suppose I talked?’
“‘I’ve shot men for less than that. There’s a saying that dead men tell no tales, Emery. Think it over. We split right here.’?”
Thatcher paused for breath. Then he said:
“Boys, you should have seen her look at him. If eyes could kill he would have been done for right then. Then she left him and ran downstairs. Emery limped back to his room and I wouldn’t be surprised if sooner or later they find Emery very neatly bored through the middle.”
“Well!” exclaimed the Nebraskan under his breath. “That is news. Particularly about Emery being forced to pay his bad debts. There sure is something doing in this mining camp.”
“Aha!” ejaculated Vince. “You only said the half.”
“Boys, I’m glad to know about this Emery business,” said Linc earnestly, leaning toward them, “for I know that Kit Bandon is going straight. Never mind how I know she’s turning her back on the old life and her old crowd. This break with Emery is the fourth proof I have of it.... She will never take any more stolen mavericks from rustling cowboys.”
Vince stared up at him with questioning eyes. His cigarette dropped from his lips, but Thatcher, hardly less impressed than his comrade, replied in a breathless whisper:
“By God! You know, I’m not surprised. Kit could do that! Boss, I’ll gamble that you had something to do with the Bandon woman’s change of heart!”
Vince shook his head. “Pard, I’ll believe thet when I see it. I’m not sayin’ anythin’ about Kit Bandon’s spots but if she’s changed them it’s a miracle, ‘cause some of them go purty deep.”
“Boys, I’ll have more to tell you by and by,” went on Lincoln. “What I want to do now is find out what all these cowboys are doing in town.”
“Boss, they’re just talking among themselves,” said Thatcher.
“About what?” asked Lincoln.
“I don’t know. But I can guess.”
Vince leaned over and whispered: “Pard, the cowboys are talkin’ about what the cattlemen are up to.”
“Will these cowboys talk to me?” the Nebraskan asked.
“Not likely, but you can try,” replied Mel.
“I’ll tell you, boss, if they don’t ride out tonight it means they’ve quit their jobs and that’s jest one hell of a thing. Cowpokes on the loose are jest so much dynamite.”
“We’ll have to have a try,” said Linc. “I suggest we split up. We’ll approach every cowboy that we can get to. If we can fill one full of liquor he may talk.”
“Sure, boss,” replied Thatcher, “but the queer deal is that these cowboys are not drinking a single damn drop.”
Vince suggested, “Pard, we might find one cowboy who’s goin’ to slope who’d give the deal away if we paid him enough. Thet is if he really knows what they’re goin’ to do. I don’t believe anyone knows.”
“Vince, you ought to know if anybody knows,” said Lincoln, looking at him sternly.
“Shore, I ought. But I’m afeerd to believe what I think.”
“Afraid!” exclaimed Lincoln, unbelievingly. “What are you afraid of?”
“Figger thet one out for yoreself,” declared Vince truculently. “Come on, let’s mosey along. We’re wastin’ time.”
The two cowboys started in one direction, while Linc set out by himself. He spent three or four hours that night approaching one cowboy group after another. He found them in the main civil, good-natured, and reserved. They recognized him to be one of their own kind, but when he tried to get them to talk they showed an impassive and stony aloofness in regard to their presence in town. The Nebraskan stayed out of Emery’s gambling hall. He was more than satisfied with Thatcher’s report of Kit Bandon’s ultimatum to Emery. About midnight he went back to his lodgings, baffled and not a little worried. He was annoyed with himself to find that he was becoming more interested in what would happen to Kit in the event of a range war than in the mystery which he had come West to solve. Then, too, there was the attitude of his two partners. They knew what was going on, but told him only as much as they wanted him to know. He was convinced that however they were bound by their own peculiar cowboy creed, if there were any real danger for Kit they would acquaint him with it. It was a long time before he fell asleep.
Next morning he found his friends at the restaurant waiting for him.
“Anything to tell me, boys?” he inquired.
“Yep. We got a good deal as far as it goes,” replied Vince.
“Leastways, Mel has, ‘cause I wasn’t with him last night.”
“Boss, this is what come off: Last night the cattlemen, at least some of them, held a secret meeting in the bank in the dark. They must have gone up there by ones and twos and around about, and after they got off the street they wore masks.”
“Ahuh. How the devil did you find all this out?” queried Bradway.
“No more about that for the present,” replied Thatcher with an odd curtness. “It’s my hunch, boys, that the cattlemen will be slipping out of town today and that sure will be interestin’ to the cowboys.”
Later in the morning Linc ran into two clean-cut young riders whose looks he liked.
“Howdy, boys. Will you have a drink this morning?” he asked cheerily.
“Well, we don’t care if we do,” one of them replied, surprisingly. The Nebraskan took them into a saloon and bought a round of drinks.
“You boys want to talk turkey to me this morning about business?”
“About what business?” asked one, glancing quickly at his partner.
“I’m going to start raising cattle,” replied Lincoln, “and I want some good riders. I’ve located a range about twenty miles out of town, not down in the valley, and I want to put two or three men to work at once. My name is Bradway. Just getting started in this part of Wyoming.”
“Sounds good to me ‘cause I quit my job on the Sweetwater,” replied the one with the tawny hair. “Have you got the money, and what will the job pay?”
“Yes, I’m pretty well heeled and I’ll pay you ten dollars a month more than you’ve been getting.”
“I’m on, mister. Name is Slim Morris. Been ridin’ for Higgins in the valley. Gimme a couple of days or so to ride down to the ranch and get my other horse and what stuff I’ve got.”
“Fine, Slim,” responded Lincoln heartily. “Be at Headly’s livery stable some time Thursday.”
“Tom, don’t you want to ring in on this, too?” asked Morris turning to his companion.
“I can’t, gosh dern it,” replied the other. “I’ve overdrawn a couple of months’ wages and I cain’t quit Sam Blake till I’ve worked it out.”
“Will it square you with Blake if you pay him?” asked Lincoln.
“Well, I reckon it would,” rejoined Tom with a smile. “None of Blake’s riders have quit on account of this mess-up in this end of the valley.”
When he found out from the cowboy what he owed the rancher, Linc handed the amount over to Tom and told him to come back Thursday with Morris.
“Boys, I feel I’ve made myself a good deal in getting you to ride for me. And I think you will find that you’ve done likewise. Now tell me one thing. Haven’t most of the cowboys in this locality quit their jobs?”
“That’s correct, Bradway. All the cowboys north of the forks on the river have quit their jobs. You can hire as many riders as you want.”
“Thanks. That is good news. I’ll look around and see if I can find any I like as well as I do you boys.”
Their new employer bade them good-by and went on up the street. He made the rounds of the stores and the saloons and approached perhaps half a dozen more cowboys. He really did not want to hire any more hands, but he used the pretext as an excuse for making himself acquainted. All this took time and kept him indoors a good deal of the time. In the afternoon, however, when he headed up the street toward the livery stable he noted for the first time that there were no buckboards in sight or any other kind of vehicle. At Headly’s livery stable all the conveyances that the ranchers had left there were gone. Headly said curiously: “They sure sloped out of town mighty sudden.”
As soon as Vince and Thatcher arrived they talked at length about this sudden departure.
“Suits me just as well,” said Mel enigmatically.
Linc spoke up quickly. “You mean they’ve split — couldn’t agree — don’t know what they’re going to do — perhaps weakening on whatever they had in mind?”
“Reckon thet applies to most of ’em,” said Vince, but Thatcher made no comment.
Linc told them about the two cowboys whom he had hired to ride for him and named them.
“I know Slim Morris,” said Mel. “Comes from way down the river. Salt of the earth. Blake’s riders are still farther south. They’re really out of this mess. I don’t know the one you called Tom.”
Vince said, “Wal, let’s go hunt them up and get acquainted.”
Linc felt the constraint in them and was agreeable about letting them go off by themselves. He had supper alone that night and went to his room early. Having ascertained that Kit Bandon had gone home, he could have gone into Emery’s place or anywhere else feeling perfectly free, but he decided against it. He was about tired of this endless spying that seemed to get him nowhere. The only bright spot in the picture was his meeting with Lucy day after tomorrow. Reverting to thoughts of finding her in her mountain paradise, he found the hours passing swiftly with the pleasure of dreams and hopes and plans.
The following day he did not find his comrades until late.
“Boss, hev you noticed anythin’ in particular?” asked Vince.
“Not this morning. I’ve been too busy thinking about tomorrow,” replied the Nebraskan, smiling.
“Wal, we’re the only cowboys left in this whole damn town.”
“You don’t say!” exclaimed Lincoln. “I’ll be doggoned. You Wyoming critters are the queerest I ever knew. Well, you boys are leaving town, too. I’m going to take you with me over to the head of the Sweetwater. You needn’t pack anything except a little grub, for we will be coming back tomorrow night. I want to leave about sunrise. We’ll head up Rock Creek and go through the miners’ diggings to the slope just before the canyon boxes and climb out there. What I particularly aim at is laying out a grade where we can build a road.”
