Nevada (1995) Page 20

  "Maybe you don't know it, Lacy, but you made a lot of friends by pluggin' Stillwell, an' one sure-enough enemy."

  "Who's that? This Cedar Hatt?"

  "He's the bird. A red-tailed buzzard, an' no mistake. He's a backwoodsman, Jim, like an Indian, who knows the woods. Cedar wouldn't ever try you out, unless, like Burt, he'd been lookin' at the bottle. All the same you'll be in more danger from Cedar than from all the gun-throwers in Arizona. He's killed shepherds an' cowboys enough, believe me. He'll trail you--ambush you in the woods."

  "Much obliged, Cash," drawled Jim, yawning. "Reckon I'd better look out for this heah Cedar Hatt."

  "I'm givin' you a hunch of hunches," declared Burridge. "I'm most damn honest an' selfish about it, too. I've other reasons beside affection not to want Jim Lacy killed. Cedar Hatt will be sore enough when he hears you put Stillwell over, but, say, when he learns you got that red stallion an' sent him back to Ide--my Gawd! brother, he'll be hell's fire!"

  "How soon is he goin' to find out?" queried Lacy, with more interest. "Stillwell cain't very wal tell. An' that pard of Stillwell's--Babe Morgan, some one called him--he'll be runnin' yet."

  "Cedar'll find out pronto," declared Burridge. "If not from some one outside our outfit, then from some one inside. For you were playin' a queer high hand, Jim, when you took the stallion away from Burt an' Babe an' sent it back to the Ide ranch. They'd stolen it. Your argument sounded good to me. Ben Ide would raise more hell over the loss of California Red than a hundred thousand head of stock."

  "Huh! I'll bet he would," declared Lacy, dropping his head. The twig he had been twirling in his fingers snapped sharply.

  "Well, to go on, your argument looked good to me. Now I've got brains, an' most of these rustlin' hombres haven't nothin' but spruce gum in their heads. That deal looked queer to all our outfit. Still, only Hubrigg opened his trap to say so. Hubrigg likes you, though, an' I think you can gamble on him."

  Here Burridge leaned over toward Jim to whisper: "If our gang seem a little standoffish yet, it's only your reputation. Since you helped us to steal cattle an' drive them an' sell them, why, they're sure you are one of us, even if you are Jim Lacy."

  "Reckon that ought to be aboot enough," returned Lacy.

  He turned his ear to the faint cold wind that breathed up out of the black void below.

  "Hear anythin'?" queried Burridge.

  "Rollin' stones. Might be deer on the trail."

  "Might be Stagg, too, an' I'll gamble it is. For he's overdue."

  "Listen," rejoined Lacy, holding up a sensitive hand.

  Both men turned their heads sidewise to the wind and waited.

  Fitfully the faint wind mourned through the forest. From far below floated up a soft murmur of tumbling stream. Solitude and silence seemed to be emphasized by these wilderness factors. The campfire cracked; the gamblers slapped their cards and clinked their gold.

  "Heah anythin'?" asked Lacy, suddenly relaxing.

  "Sure. A lot of night sounds, includin' our gamblin' pards here, but no hoss," returned Burridge.

  "Wal, I heah a hoss," said Lacy.

  "Good! That'll be Stagg, unless it might be one of our hosses.

  I'll take a look an' then I'll unroll my bed."

  Burridge stalked away in the gloom of the forest, while Lacy, left alone, attended to the campfire. Once or twice he glanced at the absorbed gamesters, with something curious, strange, and menacing in his eyes. Then he fell to contemplation of the opal heart of the campfire. He watched it, the glow and sparkle and white shade and pearly red. And the moment arrived when he forgot the wild environment, the gambling rustlers, to become like a statue, cold- faced, with haunted eyes. He must have seen a ghost in the radiant embers, for not till a thud of hoofs sounded close at hand did he rouse out of his trance.

  Presently two dark forms entered the circle of light, and approached, talking low. Lacy got up to meet them.

  "Howdy, Jim!" greeted the newcomer with Burridge. He was a swarthy- faced, beady-eyed white man with a strain of Indian or Mexican blood.

  "Howdy, Stagg! Did you make a good job of it?" returned Lacy, with apparent carelessness.

  "Wasn't no job a-tall," said Stagg, reaching bare grimy hands toward the fire. "Soon as you-all left, the red hoss quieted down, an' I coaxed him out of thet measly leetle corral. He din't like thet. An' after he found out I was leadin' him home he didn't make no more fuss. An' we made fast time. Reckon it was nigh on midnight when we got down on the sage. I tied up both hosses, pulled off my boots, put on my moccasins, an' led the stallion five miles through grass an' sage. When I run into Ide's fence I kept goin' along till I come to a gate. I opened it an' let him in."

  "Much obliged, Stagg. I--reckon it was no fool move of mine-- though some think different," replied Lacy, turning his face away from the fire.

  "Lacy, it was the slickest piece of headwork I ever seen on this range," declared Stagg. "I hadn't time to tell you I was at Burton's ranch the next day after Stillwell stole the stallion.

  Ide's cowmen came rarin' over the country. Thet Raidy, he's an old hand, an' he was mad as a hornet. An' to-day as I was climbin' the Hogback I run into a sheepherder I know. Greaser named Juan somethin'. He said Ide had plastered the trees along the trails, offerin' reward for Red."

  "There, Jim--you see, it was a wise move," declared Burridge, with satisfaction. "Young Ide would have spent a fortune gettin' back that stallion. Well, he sure was grand hoss-flesh. I only looked at him once. If I'd looked twice I'd been a hoss-thief, too."

  Lacy stared out into the gloom of the forest.

  "Reckon you're hungry?" asked Burridge of the arrival.

  "Had a bite at Hatt's to-day," returned Stagg. "But a chuck of deer meat an' a cup of coffee wouldn't go bad."

  "We got roast turkey. Young gobbler that Jim shot the head off as we was ridin' along."

  "Wal, friend Jim must pack a shotgun," replied Stagg, with an attempt at facetiousness.

  "Nope. Only that old six-shooter."

  Lacy turned from the darkness to the firelight. "Stagg, did you see any of the Hatts?"

  "Sure. They was all home, an' had company, too. Strangers to me."

  "Did you tell them about takin' Red back to the Ide ranch?"

  "Sure. Thought it a good idee. An' I rubbed it in, too. Elam's no hoss-thief. He said hoss-stealin' was a low-down bizness. But Cedar swore there was somethin' crooked about a gunman an' rustler who returned stolen property. Also he swore he'd steal the red stallion again, jest to spite you."

  "Ahuh. Wal, what did Cedar say when he heahed I'd shot his pard, Burt Stillwell?" inquired Jim, in a dry, caustic tone.

  "What?" queried Stagg, with a start.

  "You heahed me, man."

  "Sure. But it--I . . . An' you shot Burt?"

  Lacy nodded coldly, eying the fire.

  Stagg stiffened a little, and after a stultified pause glanced from Burridge to Lacy, and then out into the forest. A silence ensued, broken only by the gamblers.

  "Burt's dead--then--of course?" asked Stagg, presently, with an effort.

  Cash Burridge broke the strange spell of the moment.

  "Burt's under the sod an' the leaves, waitin' the Judgment Day.

  An' it was a damn good job, Stagg."

  "No arguin' ag'in' thet," returned Stagg, recovering to grin.

  "Wal, Lacy, fact is Cedar Hatt hadn't heerd no more'n me. But if you're curious, I can sure tell you--Cedar will be hoppin' mad."

  "I told Jim that," said Burridge, impatiently. "What's it amount to, anyhow? There'll be a Hatt less pronto."

  "Wal, pards, the population of this hyar Arizonie is sure deterioratin'," returned Stagg, with a guffaw.

  One of the gamesters, disturbed by the loud laugh, looked up to say, "Bill, shet your loud mouth, an' come set in this game.

  Hubrigg an' Brann ain't very much to stack up ag'in'."

  His bold face and rolling eyes expressed exceeding gratification while he clinked his pile o
f gold.

  "I'm on," replied Stagg, eagerly. "Wait till I swaller some grub."

  "How about you--Lacy?" inquired Brann, with marked hesitation. "We ain't slightin' you. It's an open game."

  "Thanks, Brann," drawled Lacy. "I'd hate to win your pile. You see, I've got uncommon good eyes, an' it shore hurts my feelin's to see you men slippin' aces around. I'm a caird sharp. I'd break you. Like as not, then, you'd get sore an' pull a gun--which would be bad for this outfit."

  Long and loud rolled the mirth of Burridge and Stagg down the aisles of the forest. Brann appeared a droll and good-humored rustler. He stared hard at Lacy, finally grinning.

  "Jim, I'm recallin' thet invite for you to set in," he said, meaningly.

  "Gamble your heads off," spoke up Burridge. "We needn't break camp till late to-morrow. But I'm turnin' in."

  "Same for me," said Lacy, and strode out of the lighted circle.

  Presently he had to feel his way to the black tent-like spruce tree under which he had spread his tarpaulin and blankets. Sitting down, he pulled off his boots. Then he sat motionless, peering back at the ruddy campfire. Presently he removed his coat and made a pillow of it. Next he unbuckled his gun belt, took it off, and laid the gun under the edge of his coat. After that he gazed a long time out into the spectral forest. The wind had risen, and sang through the pines. A deep wild bay of a wolf rang out. How lonely, hungry, mournful!

  "Reckon that poor lofer is like me," muttered Lacy, and rolled in his blankets.

  The ring of a cold ax on hardwood awakened Jim Lacy from his slumbers.

  There was a white frost on his tarpaulin and his boots and his sombrero, also his nose, from the feel of it. Hubrigg, who appeared to be an agreeable and helpful chap, was chopping wood for a campfire.

  "Nifty mawnin', Hub," said Jim, by way of greeting. "I'll pack some water."

  "Hullo! I reckon your conscious never lets you sleep," said Hubrigg. "Look at them stiffs there. Dead to the world. Now watch."

  With that he snatched up a bucket, pounded it with the ax handle, then tossed it to Lacy. The rustlers, rudely disturbed, leaped out of their beds, wild-eyed, hair on end, every one of them holding a gun or reaching for one.

  "Haw! Haw! Haw!" roared Hubrigg. "Wake up, you sour-dough eaters, an' help at the chores."

  All of his roused hearers, except Burridge, cursed him roundly, and Burridge, when he realized what had happened, said, "Lord, I thought my day had come!"

  Jim Lacy went down the trail for a pail of water.

  Whenever such duty as this, or other opportunity, afforded, he always took advantage of it, seeking ever a moment away from the rustlers with whom he had cast his lot. That time, however short, was a blessed relief. He need not then be perpetually on the qui vive, watching, listening, reading the minds of his companions. In those stolen moments or hours he reverted to his old character, Nevada, lover of the open, of desert and forest, of the life and color and mystery of nature.

  The sun had not yet arisen. To the east the sky, over the long arms of the Mogollons, reaching, sweeping down black and wild, had begun to flush rosily. The forest seemed awakening from its slumber with the bark of squirrels and screech of jays, the bugle of bull elk, and the sweet, plaintive twittering of canaries.

  Rocks and grass showed the hoary coating of frost. The air nipped, and the water at the spring felt like ice to his face. There was a thin edge of crystal ice along the margin of the little pool.

  Upon climbing back to the rim he paused a moment to gaze down into that marvelous black basin called the brakes of the Mogollons.

  They were really not black, though black predominated over the rich gold of aspens, and the scarlet of maples, the russet of oaks, and the vivid cerise of vines for which he had no name. A ragged pine- speared slope fell almost perpendicularly to the ribbed and ridged lowland below, and here and there outcroppings of gray crags and yellow shafts added to the effect of an exceedingly broken country.

  His experienced eye wandered down to the brakes, over what from that height appeared undulating ridge and swale. Its vastness amazed Jim Lacy. Here was a wilderness country as large as the northern California he knew so well. And to increase the effect to one of staggering conception, there stretched the desert, grand and illimitable. He had a moment of silent ecstasy of appreciation, followed by a melancholy longing for a time when he might be free to love Arizona, to have a ranch of his own, a few horses and cattle, a home in the wilds where he could hunt and ride, free to live peacefully, dreaming of the past. Melancholy longing because he knew it could never come true!

  Returning to the campfire, he arrived in time to hear Brann exclaim: "What'n hell Columbia for do we want to ring the Hatts in on this deal?"

  "Say, man, there's brains back of this deal," replied Burridge, derisively.

  "Meanin' yours, eh? Wal, all right, but I'm from Missouri."

  They ceased the argument at the approach of Jim Lacy.

  "Somebody rustle the hosses," called out Burridge.

  An hour later the six men, with as many pack horses, started over the rim on the trail down into the brakes. It was a trail that would cause even the most expert and daring rider to hesitate before attempting it on horseback. Moreover, it was seldom used.

  Lacy decided it must be a rear outlet from the rendezvous of desperate men. Many a time axes had to be brought into requisition to enable pack horses to pass down. Jumble of rocks, weathered slides, narrow slanting ledges, fallen trees and thick brush, made this Hatt trail one to remember.

  But though very steep, it was not long. It let out into the head of a canyon where the stream gushed forth from under an amber- mossed cliff, and went singing down through a winding defile, surely the wildest and most beautiful that Jim Lacy's eyes had ever beheld.

  "Cash, tell me," said Lacy, at an opportune time, when they rode abreast, "is Cedar Hatt the haid of this Pine Tree outfit?"

  "Hell no!" ejaculated Burridge, in ridicule. Then as an afterthought he continued: "But, Jim, I don't KNOW he isn't. I mean I've sense enough to figure he couldn't be. There's a real man at the reins of that gang."

  "You're square now? You honestly don't know?"

  "So help me Heaven!" returned Burridge, raising his gloved right hand. "If I knew I'd tell you--even though the man was my pard.

  But I don't know. I never met a man who did. Of course no one is goin' to brag about that. The Pine Tree outfit is only three years old. It's got a brand, but sure no one ever seen it on a steer or a calf. I never seen it on anythin'. I hear it's cut on aspen trees. Sheepherders will tell you that."

  "Cedar Hatt might belong to it?" queried Lacy.

  "Sure. But he'd be a bad hombre to trust, unless you had some hold on him. My idea of the Pine Tree outfit is this. Some slick rustler from other parts has ridden in here, either with a few choice men or picked them carefully after he got here, an' he has the money an' the brains to control a small outfit. Some cowboy found a stray steer on the range. It had its brand painted out.

  Painted! That's new. But how the devil could they paint out the brands on a big bunch of wild steers?"

  "Not very practical," observed Jim, thoughtfully.

  "It's no trick to steal cattle in this country, an' it's a heap sight easier to sell them," declared Burridge. "But to do it on a big scale an' not be found out--I call that brains."

  "How far to the Hatt ranch?"

  "Round this next bend. Wonderful place to hole up, don't you think?"

  "Shore is. Are all these canyons like this?"

  "Like it? Yes, only rougher. Some of them are so thick you can't get a hoss through."

  When they rode around a high green corner Jim gave vent to an exclamation of utmost pleasure. The brake opened into an oval valley surrounded by gray-cliffed, green-thicketed walls, rising high. A level meadow, where horses and cows grazed in deep grass, ended in a low bench of land, upon which huge isolated pines and spruces towered halfway to the rim. Two log cabins stood picturesquely at the
edge of this rise of ground. In the background a corral and barn, with logs awry and roof caved in, showed half hidden in a blaze of golden aspens.

  "Here's where the Hatts hang out," remarked Burridge. "It's like a fox den, with two holes. The one we just came down, an' a pass below where a couple of good shots could stave off all the cowboys in Arizona."

  "Beautiful!" ejaculated Jim, charmed out of his usual reserve.

  "I've been here often. Once tried to buy the place from Hatt. Not much."

  "What do these Hatts live on?" queried Jim, gazing round.

  "Meat an' beans an' corn meal. An' they make their own whiskey.

  If you take a swill of that it'll knock you flat."

  "How many women-folks?"

  "Only the kid--Rose. There was a woman here, a while back, wife of one of the boys, I heard. But I never saw her. . . . Well, old sharp-eyed Elam sees us already. He's comin' out with a gun."

  The riders in advance drove the pack horses up on the bench, and followed to dismount. Burridge, arrived a little in advance of Jim. The old mountaineer, Hatt, stood shaggy-headed, with a smile of welcome on his craggy face.

  "Howdy, Elam! Did you get word I was comin'?"

  "Yep, but never expected you so soon."

  "Shake hands with Jim Lacy," went on Burridge, laconically.

  "Howdy, sir! Reckon you ain't no stranger, by name," responded Hatt, offering his hand.

  Lacy leaned off his horse to accept Hatt's advance. "Shore glad to meet you, Elam," he drawled. "Reckon I fell in love with your homestead, heah. An' I'll hang around till you kick me out."

  "Welcome you air," said Hatt, genially. "We keep open house fer our friends. Git down an' come in."

  Burridge made no offer to introduce Jim to the other Hatts present, though he called them by name, Tobe and Henny. Cedar Hatt did not put in an appearance, nor did Lacy's quick eye sight the girl--

  Rose.

  "Throw yer packs back in the grove," said Hatt. "Jest turn your hosses loose. Never yit had a hoss leave hyar."

  While pack and saddle horses were led back toward the aspen grove Elam Hatt walked with Burridge, while the two sons followed. Lacy did not need more than a casual glance at Elam to define his status. He was a rough, sturdy backwoodsman who had, no doubt, lived by hunting until an easier vocation had presented with the ranging of cattle along the Mogollons. The two sons, however, exhibited nothing to impress favorably. They were uncouth, unshaven louts with bad teeth and pale eyes, and faces that indicated very low mentality. Lacy's advent manifestly did not cause them either apprehension or interest. Tobe was barefooted.