Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 881
His black, smoking gun, held low, quivered in his lean hand.
“You!” gasped Setter, his eyes popping out.
Nevada’s hawklike head nodded in a terrible significance.
“All the time — you’ve been — Ben Ide’s pard?” queried Setter, as if strangling.
“Pard? I reckon. Take a look at Judd an’ Walker.”
Setter’s face flashed a greenish white.
“My God!”
“Setter, look down the road,” shouted Nevada. “See who’s comin’. Bunch of riders, huh? Too far away, yes?... That’s Strobel an’ his deputies comin’ with Bill Hall. I helped Strobel ketch that outfit. I made Bill Hall give you away to Strobel. An’ I steered them heah!... Shore now it’ll be great when Hall tells Mr. Blaine an’ Mr. Ide just who you are.”
Panic seemed to clutch Setter. But he did not appear to be concerned with Nevada’s denouncement. There was a more vital and intimate thing. His changed face betrayed the malignant soul of a man of tremendous passions, betrayed, defeated, overwhelmed. His eyes stood out like round black balls. About him there was a suggestion of terrific need for hurry without the power. He knew what Nevada knew.
Then spasmodically he jerked at his gun.
Crash — crash! Nevada’s gun spoke twice, so swiftly that the two shots were almost as one. The bullets whipped up dust far behind Setter. They had passed through his body. He seemed to stop — action — glare — meaning. Then he sank like an empty dropped sack.
Nevada strode over, holding the smoking gun up, and looked down.
“Ahuh!” he exclaimed, in strange, cold finality.
Then wheeling, he made long strides for his horse. He did not see Ina, who could have touched him. Leaping astride, he bent a piercing gaze upon the stunned and sagging Ben. A wonderful smile lightened the corded marble of his lean face. He spurred the horse.
“So long, pard. We’re square,” he called. “I’ll stop over home long enough to get a pack — an’ take a good-bye look at old California Red.”
The last words came as he was speeding away. Through the gate he passed swift as a flash and swung off to avoid the group of horsemen riding up the road. The dust trailed from under the fleet horse. Nevada did not look back. Soon he disappeared in a hollow.
BEN sat his horse, eyes riveted on the grey slope where Nevada’s wild pace had soon taken him out of sight. So long, pard. We’re square! That farewell would ring in Ben’s ears and heart until he died. Nevada had saved him. But deliverance at the cost of his friend seemed on the moment pale and worthless. Ben’s varying emotions had clamped into a wrenching, insupportable pang. His one instinct was to fly in pursuit of this friend who had loved him.
Other sensations tore Ben from the fixity of his gaze down the sage slope, from consciousness of the havoc in his heart. There was a pulling at his leg. Marvie, wild with rapture, the brown freckles standing out on his white face! On Ben’s other side someone was taking his manacled hands. Ina! She was sobbing, clinging to him. Her eyes were pools of transport, anguish, of unutterable thought.
Bill Sneed, too, was there, bareheaded, with wrinkled brows and stern lips.
“Miss Ina, let go his hands,” he said, tersely. “Dam keys got Judd’s blood all over them. They was in his breast pocket.... There, Ben.”
“Thanks, cowboy,” rejoined Ben, spreading his arms with a strange sense of the significance of freedom. It rushed over him, sweet as life in its sweetest moments. Then he lowered a hand to Ina, beginning to feel a release from shock. She seized it in both hers, carried it to her lips, her wet face. The crowd pressed close, staring, clamouring. Ina was drawn away by a woman, perhaps her mother. Marvie was tugging at him. In the babble of hoarse and excited voices Ben could not hear him. Then the hubbub quieted.
“Clear the way! Get back, you cow-punchin’ hombres” That was Strobel’s voice.
Ben saw the sheriff, on foot, gun in hand, come into sight with a group of riders. The widening circle revealed the prostrate bodies of the three men, lying in grotesque laxity.
“Damn me!” ejaculated Strobel, raising a hand in awe.
“Wal, Sheriff,” replied Blaine, advancing, “we couldn’t have done anythin’ if we’d wanted to. He rode down on us like a whirlwind, an’ it ‘peared to me he shot Judd an’ Walker before he hit the ground. Then he razzed Setter to pull a gun.
... An’, you see!”
Strobel stood over Setter, curiously, without compassion, and then with his foot shoved the inert body over on its back.
“Two bullet holes — inch apart — over that left vest pocket! By gum! who was thet fellar Nevada?”
“We don’t know. Young Ide said he didn’t, either,” returned Blaine. “But Setter knew him — that’s sure as death.”
“Wal, sir, Nevada was so amiable on the way over I never suspected him of any deep game,” said Strobel. “But when he lit out down the road a ways I shore was afraid he was up to somethin’ bad.”
“Reckon it’s somethin’ bad to you, Sheriff, but it has another kind of a look to me,” responded Blaine, feelingly.
“These other two fellars, Judd an’ Walker, who’re they?” queried Strobel.
“Sheriff an’ deputy from Redlands.”
“Humph! Never heard of them. Must be new appointed. I was in Redlands last winter. By gum!”
“Strobel, is it true you’ve got Bill Hall?”
“Look at him, thar!... The heavy fellar with the big, bushy head. That’s Hall. An’ there’s his outfit.... Hart, I don’t mind tellin’ you it was the darndest piece of fool luck I ever seen.”
“Wal, wal, so say I,” returned Blaine, with loud breath. “Let’s clear up this muddle right now.”
Blaine gave orders to his cowboys to cover up the dead men. “Mr. Ide, go into my office, please,” he went on. “Strobel, bring in Hall, an’ anybody else you want. Marvie, you come with me.... Ben, I reckon you’re needed.”
The strangest hour of that terrible day, and as sad as full of joy, was this in which Ben found himself in Blaine’s office. One look at his father’s face had been enough for Ben. His bitterness, his almost hate, suffered a violent check.
Blaine proved a wonderful contrast to Amos Ide. Havoc, indeed, showed in his worn visage, but it could not dim the light, the unutterable relief, the return of will strengthened by the grief and wisdom of experience.
“Men,” he said, sitting on his desk, with his arm around his wide-eyed son, “I’ll have my say first, an’ be short an’ sweet about it. Setter was responsible for all the deals I went into. I won’t lay the blame of greed at his door. To my shame I confess I was greedy. But I’d been poor so many years that when money came, with the power it brings, I lost my head. I never meant to be dishonest. I always hated buyin’ out these homesteaders. If I’ve been drawn into somethin’ crooked — an’ lately I’ve feared I have been — it was because of my ignorance an’ blindness. I can an’ will be square by every rancher I’ve ever dealt with. I reckon I can save Tule Lake Ranch out of the wreck. But that’s all, unless the paper of mine Setter held can’t be taken over by banks or men he dealt with.”
“Mr. Blaine, I’m shore glad to tell you that any paper dealin’s of Setters are null an’ void,” spoke up Strobel.
“Wal, then, I’m luckier than I deserve to be,” rejoined Blaine, fervently. “Amos, where do you stand in this deal?”
“Nothin’ but Setter’s death could have ever saved me from ruin — maybe worse,” replied Amos Ide, solemnly.
“Wal! Reckon I thought I was the only fool round Tule Lake,” responded Blaine, bluntly. “Amos, mebbe some of our differences can be laid to the door of Less Setter.”
“That’s dawnin’ on me,” said Ide, ponderingly.
“Now, Strobell, will you tell us your side of these doin’s?” asked Blaine, turning to the sheriff. “Just pass over our quarrel at Welch’s ranch. I was wrong an’ you was right.”
“As to that, Mr. Blaine, I’m bound to tell you I’m a good deal better informed than I was then,” replied the sheriff, frankly. “But as you say, I was on the right track. All losses of stock for the last two years can be summed up in-one word. Bill Hall! We have him here, an’ he vouches for that. So I can get down to to-day.... I was ridin’ some miles up Forlorn River when this cowboy Nevada met me. He whooped an’ threw up his hat in the strangest way. I reckoned the darn fool was drunk. But shore he wasn’t. ‘Heah’s Bill Hall an’ outfit, over heah a ways, on spent hosses, an’ without guns!’... Wal, then I thought Nevada was crazy. But he wasn’t. I let him guide us an’ soon we caught up with Hall. He surrendered without a fight. That’s all, an’ I reckon Hall can clear up a good deal.”
Blaine’s face was now a study. “Hall, come here,” he called to the handcuffed rustler, who stood in the background.
The burly Hall strode with heavy step to confront Blaine. He smelled of sweat and tobacco, and he made a dusty, ragged, sordid figure. But there was frankness in his mien and fearlessness in his eyes.
“Hall, would promise of light sentence persuade you to turn state’s evidence in court an’ talk straight to us here?” demanded Blaine.
“Reckon it would,” replied the rustler.
“Wal, you have my promise. An’ if Amos Ide an’ Strobel agree you’ll sure get off easy.”
“Strikes me all right,” said Strobel.
They turned to interrogate Amos Ide. He stood erect, in exactly the same posture that he had assumed on entrance, and his features attested to grave conflict of soul. Blaine had to repeat the question at issue.
“I’ll not prosecute Hall. I’ll not appear in court,” answered Ide.
“There, Hall — you’re as lucky as — as the rest of us,” went on Blaine. “What’s your idea of this talk of Ben Ide rustlin’ cattle — especially his father’s?”
“Damn nonsense!” replied Hall, with gruff bluntness. “You fellars must have been locoed. Setter filled your heads full. It was plain business with him.”
“Setter! Business?... Then he was a rustler?” ejaculated Blaine.
“Reckon he was, if you split hairs over it. We worked together. I rustled the cattle an’ he sold them. Five years ago we worked in Arizona. It got hot for him thar. He went to Nevada. An’ then he come to Californy an’ sent fer me.”
“How long ago?”
“Reckon about three years.”
“Are there any other rustler outfits around Silver Meadow?”
“No. Mine is the only one. But we worked so it’d look like thar was other outfits. Thet was Setter’s idea. We drove most stock up over Silver Canyon Pass. Down on the south side thar was homesteaders who knowed cattle was bein’ rustled. The reason they never squealed was because Setter had us leave a good many unbranded calves an’ heifers on their range. Thet was another of his idees. So we got the cattle across the Nevada line.”
“Who’re Judd an’ Walker?”
“Reckon I don’t know,” rejoined Hall. “Thet’s straight. But the last time I seen Setter, more’n a month ago, he was full of his biggest an’ last deal. He didn’t say what. But thet’s plain now as the nose on your face. He was keen to fix rustlin’ on young Ide hyar, fer reasons I couldn’t see then. So we planned to drive some of the Ide stock into Silver an’ hold it thar. Judd an’ Walker fitted in hyar somewhars. Reckon I had their deal pat soon as I seen them lyin’ dead out thar. Mebbe Judd was a bonyfide sheriff. But if you’ll go to the county he represents you’ll find he hasn’t been thar long. Thet he had lots of money, spent it free, an’ got himself appointed sheriff. Another old trick of Setter’s.”
Hart Blaine cast a look of mingled pity and scorn at his rancher rival, Amos Ide. Then he bent to the wide-eyed Marvie.
“Lad, I reckon you can speak up now,” he said, kindly. “You didn’t get much chance out there. But your daddy was sure to hear what you had to say.”
“I stole a hoss an’ run off to watch Judd an’ Walker,” began Marvie, and hesitated fearfully.
“Ahuh! Wal, reckon it’s the first time any good ever come of your runnin’ off, an’ you’ll escape a lickin’ this time. Go on.”
“I took Ina’s field-glass, an’ rode round the west side of the lake, an’ got off, an’ crawled behind sage bushes till I could see Ben’s cabin. Then I watched. An’ I saw Judd an’ Walker carry a heavy sack from Ben’s cabin to the bam. When they came out they didn’t have it. An’—”
“Strobel,” spoke up Blaine, interrupting the lad, “Judd fetched over a few of the split an’ nicked steers’ ears that he swore he’d got out of a sack up in Ben’s loft. Said he’d left the sack there to show us.”
“Well, Dad, it never was there before Judd went over,” burst out Marvie, “‘cause I hid my fishin’ tackle up in Ben’s loft, an’ I went up there ‘most a dozen times. Never was no sack there — never!”
Blaine regarded the youngster with a grave smile.
“Marvie, among other things cleared up,” he said, seriously, “there seems to be the fact of your stealin’ a horse an’ runnin’ off to Forlorn River — say ‘most a dozen times.”
“Y-ye-yes — sir,” faltered Marvie, suddenly appalled.
Blaine drew the lad to him and actually hugged him, while his grey, hard eyes glistened.
“My boy. I’ll give you your hoss to ride when you like,” he said, “an’ as for fishin’ an’ chasin’ wild hosses — wal, mebbe me an’ my friend there — Amos Ide — mebbe we missed somethin’ that might have made us better men — an’ fathers.” Then he arose with dignity.
“Strobel, I guess our little private confab is over,” he said. “You can have the boys an’ buckboards to drive to Hammell.... Good day, Bill Hall. I wonder what made you a rustler. Wal, wal! go mend your ways, as all of us need to.”
With that he turned to Ben and offered his horny hand. “Reckon you’ll stay for dinner before ridin’ back to Forlorn River an’ that red hoss.”
Ben met the outstretched hand and found other response difficult.
“Thank you, Mr. Blaine. I’ll grab a bite an’ rustle back. I clear forgot California Red.”
“You remember my ten-thousand-dollar offer for him?”
“No. I’d forgotten. But I — now — it — Oh, Mr. Blaine, I can never take the money.”
“Why not? You earned it, an’ if you didn’t, surely then — Nevada—”
‘No — no!” broke in Ben, hastily, checking the rancher. “I can’t part with Red.”
“Wal, you’ll have to take the money, anyhow,” he replied, slyly. “I expect it an’ you an’ California Red will all be in the family.”
Then he stalked out of the open door.
Ben, suddenly ecstatic, tom by thrills and heart-beats that were dazing him, hastened to follow. And he caught a glimpse of his father still standing motionless, like a statue, riveted to the spot. Ben wheeled — passed on.
“Benjamin!” called his father, in a tone Ben had never heard. Nevertheless he rushed on.
“Ben!”
But Ben went out, deaf to that voice.
Hurriedly Ben swung around the cabin toward the Blaine camp. Marvie made a’ dive for him.
“Can I ride over with you an’ see California Red?” pleaded the lad.
“Sure, if your dad lets you,” replied Ben.
“Gee! Dad took my breath. I was scared stiff when I gave myself away. But now I know you an’ me together, an’ mebbe Ina, too, have got dad licked.”
“It looks that way, Marvie,” said Ben, as he strode swiftly on, with the lad running at his side.
“Ben, we worse than licked your dad,” babbled Marvie, in high glee. “Did you see how he looked — after my dad got through spoutin’?”
“No — Marvie — I didn’t,” returned Ben, huskily.
“By golly! you should of seen him. He looked somethin’ terrible.... But you spoke to him, didn’t you?”
“No, Marvie. I just run.”
“Ben, you will, won’t you?” queried Marvie, earnestly. “After all, he’s your dad. We’ve sure had hard nuts to crack in our dads, huh?... Ben, what my dad said about fishin’ an’ chasin’ wild hosses was an eye-openin’, wasn’t it? Gosh! I’d have liked Ina to hear that. Sort of a dig at your dad, too.”
“Indeed it — was,” returned Ben, with a deep-throated laugh.
“Here’s Ina in the hammock,” said Marvie. “Aw, she’s cryin’, Ben.”
They approached the juniper tree and the swaying hammock. Ben thought Marvie’s eyes were sharper than his, or at least clearer at the moment. Ben saw a lovely face and woebegone eyes.
“Ina!”
Marvie gave the hammock a tug. “Say, I’ll turn my back for a minnit,” he said, mischievously.
Ben heard, but could not take advantage of Marvie’s fine appreciation of the moment. He drew the box seat closer to Ina, and took her hands in his.
“Oh — Ben!” she faltered.
“Ina, how terrible for you!” he ejaculated. “All the worry — and suspense — and then — Nevada!... My God! he was terrible!... I see it all, now, dear. It was written from the first!... But you must forget — you must think—”
“Ben, you — you misunderstand,” sobbed Ina wildly. “It’s not the worry — or suspense — or Nevada!... Oh! He was grand!... I’m down in the dust — because — because — I — believed — you guilty!”
Ben’s heart froze. He leaped to his feet.
Marvie shied away from the hammock, suddenly panic-stricken. “Ben, this ain’t no place for me. I’ll rustle the hosses.”
“What?” whispered Ben, almost inaudibly, with transfixed gaze on those beautiful, darkly dilating eyes.
“‘Guilty as hell,’ you said,” wailed Ina. “I believed it.... I thought you meant — guilty of stealing. How could I — know — about California Red?”
“But you loved me!” burst out Ben, who seemed to be labouring under a horrible dread.
“It didn’t look — as if I did,” cried Ina.
“You love me now?”
“Ben Ide! — you — you... I love you so.... If you don’t stop looking like that — and forgive me — I’ll — I’ll die right here — at your feet.”
