The Rustlers of Pecos County Read online

  There he stood as if another bullet had struck him, this time straight through the heart. Perhaps one had-and I repented a little of my overconfident declaration.

  Still, I would not go back on it. I believed it.

  "Russ, for God's sake! What a terrible thing to say!" he ejaculated hoarsely.

  "No. It's not terrible tosay it-only the fact is terrible," I went on. I may be wrong. But I swear I'm right. When you opened your coat, showed that bloody breast-well, I'll never forget her eyes.

  "She had been furious. She showed passion-hate. Then all in a second something wonderful, beautiful broke through. Pity, fear, agonized thought of your death! If that's not love, if-if she did not betray love, then I never saw it. She thinks she hates you. But she loves you."

  "Get out of here," he ordered thickly.

  I went, not forgetting to peep out at the door and to listen a moment, then I hurried into the open, up toward the ranch.

  The stars were very big and bright, so calm, so cold, that it somehow hurt me to look at them. Not like men's lives, surely!

  What had fate done to Vaughn Steele and to me? I had a moment of bitterness, an emotion rare with me.

  Most Rangers put love behind them when they entered the Service and seldom found it after that. But love had certainly met me on the way, and I now had confirmation of my fear that Vaughn was hard hit.

  Then the wildness, the adventurer in me stirred to the wonder of it all. It was in me to exult even in the face of fate. Steele and I, while balancing our lives on the hair-trigger of a gun, had certainly fallen into a tangled web of circumstances not calculated in the role of Rangers.

  I went back to the ranch with regret, remorse, sorrow knocking at my heart, but notwithstanding that, tingling alive to the devilish excitement of the game.

  I knew not what it was that prompted me to sow the same seed in Diane Sampson's breast that I had sown in Steele's; probably it was just a propensity for sheer mischief, probably a certainty of the truth and a strange foreshadowing of a coming event.

  If Diane Sampson loved, through her this event might be less tragic. Somehow love might save us all.

  That was the shadowy portent flitting in the dark maze of my mind.

  At the ranch dancing had been resumed. There might never have been any interruption of the gaiety. I found Miss Sampson on the lookout for me and she searched my face with eyes that silenced my one last qualm of conscience.

  "Let's go out in the patio," I suggested. "I don't want any one to hear what I say."

  Outside in the starlight she looked white and very beautiful. I felt her tremble. Perhaps my gravity presaged the worst. So it did in one way-poor Vaughn!

  "I went down to Steele's 'dobe, the little place where he lives." I began, weighing my words. "He let me in-was surprised. He had been shot high in the shoulder, not a dangerous wound. I bandaged it for him. He was grateful-said he had no friends."

  "Poor fellow! Oh, I'm glad it-it isn't bad," said Miss Sampson. Something glistened in her eyes.

  "He looked strange, sort of forlorn. I think your words-what you said hurt him more than the bullet. I'm sure of that, Miss Sampson."

  "Oh, I saw that myself! I was furious. But I-I meant what I said."

  "You wronged Steele. I happen to know. I know his record along the Rio Grande. It's scarcely my place, Miss Sampson, to tell you what you'll find out for yourself, sooner or later."

  "What shall I find out?" she demanded.

  "I've said enough."

  "No. You mean my father and cousin George are misinformed or wrong about Steele? I've feared it this last hour. It was his look. That pierced me. Oh, I'd hate to be unjust. You say I wronged him, Russ? Then you take sides with him against my father?"

  "Yes," I replied very low.

  She was keenly hurt and seemed, despite an effort, to shrink from me.

  "It's only natural you should fight for your father," I went on. "Perhaps you don't understand. He has ruled here for long. He's been-well, let's say, easy with the evil-doers. But times are changing. He opposed the Ranger idea, which is also natural, I suppose. Still, he's wrong about Steele, terribly wrong, and it means trouble."

  "Oh, I don't know what to believe!"

  "It might be well for you to think things out for yourself."

  "Russ, I feel as though I couldn't. I can't make head or tail of life out here. My father seems so strange. Though, of course, I've only seen him twice a year since I was a little girl. He has two sides to him. When I come upon that strange side, the one I never knew, he's like a man I never saw.

  "I want to be a good and loving daughter. I want to help him fight his battles. But he doesn't-he doesn'tsatisfy me. He's grown impatient and wants me to go back to Louisiana. That gives me a feeling of mystery. Oh, it's all mystery!"

  "True, you're right," I replied, my heart aching for her. "It's all mystery-and trouble for you, too. Perhaps you'd do well to go home."

  "Russ, you suggest I leave here-leave my father?" she asked.

  "I advise it. You struck a-a rather troublesome time. Later you might return if-"

  "Never. I came to stay, and I'll stay," she declared, and there her temper spoke.

  "Miss Sampson," I began again, after taking a long, deep breath, "I ought to tell you one thing more about Steele."

  "Well, go on."

  "Doesn't he strike you now as being the farthest removed from a ranting, brutal Ranger?"

  "I confess he was at least a gentleman."

  "Rangers don't allow anything to interfere with the discharge of their duty. He was courteous after you defamed him. He respected your wish. He did not break up the dance.

  "This may not strike you particularly. But let me explain that Steele was chasing an outlaw who had shot him. Under ordinary circumstances he would have searched your house. He would have been like a lion. He would have torn the place down around our ears to get that rustler.

  "But his action was so different from what I had expected, it amazed me. Just now, when I was with him, I learned, I guessed, what stayed his hand. I believe you ought to know."

  "Know what?" she asked. How starry and magnetic her eyes! A woman's divining intuition made them wonderful with swift-varying emotion.

  They drew me on to the fatal plunge. What was I doing to her-to Vaughn? Something bound my throat, making speech difficult.

  "He's fallen in love with you," I hurried on in a husky voice. "Love at first sight! Terrible! Hopeless! I saw it-felt it. I can't explain how I know, but I do know.

  "That's what stayed his hand here. And that's why I'm on his side. He's alone. He has a terrible task here without any handicaps. Every man is against him. If he fails, you might be the force that weakened him. So you ought to be kinder in your thought of him. Wait before you judge him further.

  "If he isn't killed, time will prove him noble instead of vile. If he is killed, which is more than likely, you'll feel the happier for a generous doubt in favor of the man who loved you."

  Like one stricken blind, she stood an instant; then, with her hands at her breast, she walked straight across the patio into the dark, open door of her room.

  * * *

  Not much sleep visited me that night. In the morning, the young ladies not stirring and no prospects of duty for me, I rode down to town.

  Sight of the wide street, lined by its hitching posts and saddled horses, the square buildings with their ugly signs, unfinished yet old, the lounging, dust-gray men at every corner-these awoke in me a significance that had gone into oblivion overnight.

  That last talk with Miss Sampson had unnerved me, wrought strangely upon me. And afterward, waking and dozing, I had dreamed, lived in a warm, golden place where there were music and flowers and Sally's spritelike form leading me on after two tall, beautiful lovers, Diane and Vaughn, walking hand in hand.

  Fine employment of mind for a Ranger whose single glance down a quiet street pictured it with darkgarbed men in grim action, guns spouting red, horses
plunging!

  In front of Hoden's restaurant I dismounted and threw my bridle. Jim was unmistakably glad to see me.

  "Where've you been? Morton was in an' powerful set on seein' you. I steered him from goin' up to Sampson's. What kind of a game was you givin' Frank?"

  "Jim, I just wanted to see if he was a safe rancher to make a stock deal for me."

  "He says you told him he didn't have no yellow streak an' that he was a rustler. Frank can't git over them two hunches. When he sees you he's goin' to swear he's no rustler, but hehas got a yellow streak, unless..."

  This little, broken-down Texan had eyes like flint striking fire.

  "Unless?" I queried sharply.

  Jim breathed a deep breath and looked around the room before his gaze fixed again on mine.

  "Wal," he replied, speaking low, "Me and Frank allows you've picked the right men. It was me that sent them letters to the Ranger captain at Austin. Now who in hell are you?"

  It was my turn to draw a deep breath.

  I had taken six weeks to strike fire from a Texan whom I instinctively felt had been prey to the power that shadowed Linrock. There was no one in the room except us, no one passing, nor near.

  Reaching into the inside pocket of my buckskin vest, I turned the lining out. A star-shaped, bright, silver object flashed as I shoved it, pocket and all, under Jim's hard eyes.

  He could not help but read; United States Deputy Marshall.

  "By golly," he whispered, cracking the table with his fist. "Russ, you sure rung true to me. But never as a cowboy!"

  "Jim, the woods is full of us!"

  Heavy footsteps sounded on the walk. Presently Steele's bulk darkened the door.

  "Hello," I greeted. "Steele, shake hands with Jim Hoden."

  "Hello," replied Steele slowly. "Say, I reckon I know Hoden."

  "Nit. Not this one. He's the old Hoden. He used to own the Hope So saloon. It was on the square when he ran it. Maybe he'll get it back pretty soon. Hope so!"

  I laughed at my execrable pun. Steele leaned against the counter, his gray glance studying the man I had so oddly introduced.

  Hoden in one flash associated the Ranger with me-a relation he had not dreamed of. Then, whether from shock or hope or fear I know not, he appeared about to faint.

  "Hoden, do you know who's boss of this secret gang of rustlers hereabouts?" asked Steele bluntly.

  It was characteristic of him to come sharp to the point. His voice, something deep, easy, cool about him, seemed to steady Hoden.

  "No," replied Hoden.

  "Does anybody know?" went on Steele.

  "Wal, I reckon there's not one honest native of Pecos whoknows ."

  "But you have your suspicions?"

  "We have."

  "You can keep your suspicions to yourself. But you can give me your idea about this crowd that hangs round the saloons, the regulars."

  "Jest a bad lot," replied Hoden, with the quick assurance of knowledge. "Most of them have been here years. Others have drifted in. Some of them work odd times. They rustle a few steer, steal, rob, anythin' for a little money to drink an' gamble. Jest a bad lot!

  "But the strangers as are always comin' an' goin'-strangers that never git acquainted-some of them are likely to bethe rustlers. Bill an' Bo Snecker are in town now. Bill's a known cattle-thief. Bo's no good, the makin' of a gun-fighter. He heads thet way.

  "They might be rustlers. But the boy, he's hardly careful enough for this gang. Then there's Jack Blome. He comes to town often. He lives up in the hills. He always has three or four strangers with him. Blome's the fancy gun fighter. He shot a gambler here last fall. Then he was in a fight in Sanderson lately. Got two cowboys then.

  "Blome's killed a dozen Pecos men. He's a rustler, too, but I reckon he's not the brains of thet secret outfit, if he's in it at all."

  Steele appeared pleased with Hoden's idea. Probably it coincided with the one he had arrived at himself.

  "Now, I'm puzzled over this," said Steele. "Why do men, apparently honest men, seem to be so close-mouthed here? Is that a fact or only my impression?"

  "It's sure a fact," replied Hoden darkly. "Men have lost cattle an' property in Linrock-lost them honestly or otherwise, as hasn't been proved. An' in some cases when they talked-hinted a little-they was found dead. Apparently held up an' robbed. But dead. Dead men don't talk. Thet's why we're close-mouthed."

  Steele's face wore a dark, somber sternness.

  Rustling cattle was not intolerable. Western Texas had gone on prospering, growing in spite of the horde of rustlers ranging its vast stretches; but this cold, secret, murderous hold on a little struggling community was something too strange, too terrible for men to stand long.

  It had waited for a leader like Steele, and now it could not last. Hoden's revived spirit showed that.

  The ranger was about to speak again when the clatter of hoofs interrupted him. Horses halted out in front.

  A motion of Steele's hand caused me to dive through a curtained door back of Hoden's counter. I turned to peep out and was in time to see George Wright enter with the red-headed cowboy called Brick.

  That was the first time I had ever seen Wright come into Hoden's. He called for tobacco.

  If his visit surprised Jim he did not show any evidence. But Wright showed astonishment as he saw the Ranger, and then a dark glint flitted from the eyes that shifted from Steele to Hoden and back again.

  Steele leaned easily against the counter, and he said good morning pleasantly. Wright deigned no reply, although he bent a curious and hard scrutiny upon Steele. In fact, Wright evinced nothing that would lead one to think he had any respect for Steele as a man or as a Ranger.

  "Steele, that was the second break of yours last night," he said finally. "If you come fooling round the ranch again there'll be hell!"

  It seemed strange that a man who had lived west of the Pecos for ten years could not see in Steele something which forbade that kind of talk.

  It certainly was not nerve Wright showed; men of courage were seldom intolerant; and with the matchless nerve that characterized Steele or the great gunmen of the day there went a cool, unobtrusive manner, a speech brief, almost gentle, certainly courteous. Wright was a hot-headed Louisianian of French extraction; a man evidently who had never been crossed in anything, and who was strong, brutal, passionate, which qualities, in the face of a situation like this, made him simply a fool!

  The way Steele looked at Wright was joy to me. I hated this smooth, dark-skinned Southerner. But, of course, an ordinary affront like Wright's only earned silence from Steele.

  "I'm thinking you used your Ranger bluff just to get near Diane Sampson," Wright sneered. "Mind you, if you come up there again there'll be hell!"

  "You're damn right there'll be hell!" retorted Steele, a kind of high ring in his voice. I saw thick, dark red creep into his face.

  Had Wright's incomprehensible mention of Diane Sampson been an instinct of love-of jealousy? Verily, it had pierced into the depths of the Ranger, probably as no other thrust could have.

  "Diane Sampson wouldn't stoop to know a dirty blood-tracker like you," said Wright hotly. His was not a deliberate intention to rouse Steele; the man was simply rancorous. "I'll call you right, you cheap bluffer! You four-flush! You damned interfering conceited Ranger!"

  Long before Wright ended his tirade Steele's face had lost the tinge of color, so foreign to it in moments like this; and the cool shade, the steady eyes like ice on fire, the ruthless lips had warned me, if they had not Wright.

  "Wright, I'll not take offense, because you seem to be championing your beautiful cousin," replied Steele in slow speech, biting. "But let me return your compliment. You're a fine Southerner! Why, you're only a cheap four-flush-damned bull-headed-rustler"

  Steele hissed the last word. Then for him-for me-for Hoden-there was the truth in Wright's working passion-blackened face.

  Wright jerked, moved, meant to draw. But how slow! Steele lunged forward. His long arm
swept up.

  And Wright staggered backward, knocking table and chairs, to fall hard, in a half-sitting posture, against the wall.

  "Don't draw!" warned Steele.

  "Wright, get away from your gun!" yelled the cowboy Brick.

  But Wright was crazed by fury. He tugged at his hip, his face corded with purple welts, malignant, murderous, while he got to his feet.

  I was about to leap through the door when Steele shot. Wright's gun went ringing to the floor.

  Like a beast in pain Wright screamed. Frantically he waved a limp arm, flinging blood over the white table-cloths. Steele had crippled him.

  "Here, you cowboy," ordered Steele; "take him out, quick!"

  Brick saw the need of expediency, if Wright did not realize it, and he pulled the raving man out of the place. He hurried Wright down the street, leaving the horses behind.

  Steele calmly sheathed his gun.

  "Well, I guess that opens the ball," he said as I came out.

  Hoden seemed fascinated by the spots of blood on the table-cloths. It was horrible to see him rubbing his hands there like a ghoul!

  "I tell you what, fellows," said Steele, "we've just had a few pleasant moments with the man who has made it healthy to keep close-mouthed in Linrock."

  Hoden lifted his shaking hands.

  "What'd you wing him for?" he wailed. "He was drawin' on you. Shootin' arms off men like him won't do out here."

  I was inclined to agree with Hoden.

  "That bull-headed fool will roar and butt himself with all his gang right into our hands. He's just the man I've needed to meet. Besides, shooting him would have been murder for me!"

  "Murder!" exclaimed Hoden.

  "He was a fool, and slow at that. Under such circumstances could I kill him when I didn't have to?"

  "Sure it'd been the trick." declared Jim positively. "I'm not allowin' for whether he's really a rustler or not. It just won't do, because these fellers out here ain't goin' to be afraid of you."

  "See here, Hoden. If a man's going to be afraid of me at all, that trick will make him more afraid of me. I know it. It works out. When Wright cools down he'll remember, he'll begin to think, he'll realize that I could more easily have killed him than risk a snapshot at his arm. I'll bet you he goes pale to the gills next time he even sees me."