The Man From Laramie Page 14

  “Nothing now, Charley. Remember that, if you meet any Barb men. What luck did you have?”

  They halted by the poles of the horse corral. Charley dropped the mule’s reins and took tobacco sack and papers from his shirt pocket. They were alone here.

  “That wagon from Darrah’s ware house in Roxton Springs was hard to track,” Charley said thoughtfully. “Four-horse wagon. Horses shod. The off-wheeler stomped his off-front shoe a mite harder than the others.”

  Charley twisted the cigarette end and handed the smoke to Will, and struck a match on his flat heavy belt buckle. Will inhaled gratefully. Charley, he realized now, was that rare individual, one who read trail with the sensitivity of the half wild. Charley was starting his own smoke, frowning thoughtfully at the thin brown paper and dry golden grains of tobacco.

  “Lost the sign in town,” Charley said reflectively. “So I moved out a few miles on the Coronado road. No luck. I cut ’cross country to the Caxton road. No luck. Tried the El Paso road. No luck.”

  Will could visualize the solitary figure on the bareback mule searching patiently in a great circle around Roxton Springs. He listened intently to Charley’s soft tone.

  “Finally picked up that dug-in toe mark on the piece of trail that leads to the salt lakes. Last place I’d have figured. But it made sense. I’d heard in town that Darrah had sent men to dig salt.”

  Charley flared another match on his belt buckle and inhaled deeply, too. “Looked like that shipment of rifles was headed for Apach’ country,” said Charley slowly. “But about ten miles out a saddle horse had caught up with the wagon. Couple cigarette ends an’ a cigar butt on the ground there. The saddle hoss had turned back to town. A few miles farther on, the wagon had cut across open country.” Charley shrugged. “Too dark by then to trail. I cut back west to the salt lakes for water.”

  “Had Darrah been at the lakes?”

  “Nope. Just the five men he’d sent from Roxton. They said more men was comin’ from Coronado to get all the salt possible in before harvest time ends.”

  “Harvest time for salt?” Will asked, smiling. “Like fruit?”

  “Sort of,” Charley agreed mildly. “Low water makes the brine stronger. The salt settles out on the bottom an’ along the shore. Then the rains thin the water down an’ there ain’t no more salt until next dry season.”

  Charley stood silent for a moment, frowning at the cigarette between his fingers. “Darrah gave orders to keep everyone away from the salt. Even Indians. The men had already run off some Zuni salt gatherers. Put rifle shots close to show there was no foolin’.”

  Alertly Will asked, “Does that mean trouble with the Zunis?”

  “You can bet the moccasin telegraph got busy quick,” said Charley softly. “It’s let the Acomas know, an’ the Lagunas, the Santa Annas, the Jemez, and the Santo Domingo people. It’s reached the Navajos an’ the Apaches. No salt for their meat; no salt for their skins this winter. Old Grandmother Salt’s held by the guns of the white men.”

  Charley turned his head and spat thoughtfully, and looked at Will seriously. “Cap’n, the Navajos are tough. The ’Paches are plain hell!”

  “I know,” Will murmured.

  “Darrah’s a fool. He just ain’t got any idea,” Charley said in a smoldering tone.

  “He’s greedy,” Will mused. “That’s always a weakness, Charley. Where did the wagon go?”

  “I tracked it next mornin’,” Charley continued. “ ’Cross country to the Coronado road. Then almost to Chinaman Creek, near Coronado. Back off the road a half mile or so, the wagon had been unloaded at a stone building with an iron door. Miss Kirby says it’s a powder house Darrah owns.”

  “Are you certain the guns couldn’t have been unloaded along the way?”

  “No sign of it.”

  “Then we know where the guns are,” Will said with some satisfaction. “Darrah must have been worried. He wouldn’t have moved them at night in that roundabout way if he wasn’t afraid.”

  Charley’s eye corners crinkled at a thought. “I seen a man in Roxton who was headin’ toward the reservation country. I told him to tell the first Apach’ he seen to tell old Taite, the medicine man in Eagle Canyon, that Chris Boldt was dead.” Charley’s slight grin was relishing. “Might be Taite knows the guns came through Darrah.” Charley pointed with his chin, Indian-fashion, at the bandage on Will’s hand. “What about that?”

  “I’m riding to the doctor,” Will said soberly. “Wait here until morning, Charley, and then take some grub and watch that powder house. I’ll have the same room at the hotel. If I start back to Half-Moon, I’ll see you. Don’t let Darrah slip those rifles away again. They might vanish.”

  Charley’s grin doubted that. There would be a trail to follow. Then Charley’s look sobered also as it returned to the bandaged hand. Will knew what Charley was thinking; it was in his own mind. He might lose the hand. His army career would end. The future would be bleak indeed for Will Lockhart.

  And a little later when Will started the ride to Coronado, he saw the same concern on Kate Canaday’s broad face. He was on a Half-Moon horse now, and Kate stood by the stirrup and advised with some concern, “You get to Doc Seldon quick as you can.”

  She would have been more concerned if she had guessed the increasing pain in the arm. As the ranch buildings dropped behind, Barbara Kirby’s glance studied Will’s face.

  “It hurts, doesn’t it?” Barbara guessed quietly.

  “A little.”

  “Your face shows it,” Barbara murmured. She rode beside him, erect and light in the saddle, the westing sun golden on her smooth features and red lips. Under the edge of her small, jaunty red hat, coppery-gold glints moved again in her hair.

  She belonged to another man. She belonged to Frank Darrah. And someday she might own all of Barb—and Darrah no doubt was aware of it—

  “You are looking at me queerly,” Barbara said suddenly.

  Will smiled and did not deny it. He was wondering what lay ahead for her. None of it was good that he could see. He remembered Kate’s disapproval of this girl marrying Darrah, and he wondered what had been in Kate’s mind when she urged on Barbara this ride with him. He saw Barbara studying him from the corner of her eye, and he wondered what she was thinking.

  They rode in silence now, aware of each other, and it was oddly pleasant, intriguing. It was antidote for the pounding pain in his hand and arm.

  Alec Waggoman heard the story when Vic Hans-bro rode in ahead of the main crew, bringing Fitz, who had witnessed Dave’s folly.

  Waggoman had heard the run of their approaching horses and had walked out into the yard, tall and bareheaded. Wind off the pine slopes riffled his hair and white mustaches as he stood there in the open, listening impassively to Hansbro’s harsh, chopped account of the trouble. Fitz’s slight, uneasy figure stood by, and their froth-flecked horses blew hard in the background.

  On Hansbro’s harsh tones, Waggoman’s close attention riveted. More and more, he was aware, he leaned to senses other than his failing eyes.

  Vic’s sweating, was his thought now. Afraid he’ll be blamed.

  Hansbro’s harsh voice was almost pleading out of the short black beard.

  “I wasn’t there, Alec. Probably couldn’t have stopped it, anyway. Ask Fitz.”

  Fitz said bleakly, “Dave thought Lockhart had busted outa jail, or was slippin’ around up there on some kind of trouble. Dave didn’t speak of shootin’ Lockhart’s horse. Then it all happened quicklike.”

  Waggoman knew his voice had a cold remoteness. He felt that way. “And you helped hold Lockhart while Dave tried to blow his hand off?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “BEFORE GOD!” Fitz swore earnestly. “Wasn’t a way to tell what Dave meant to do! He was boss!”

  They waited. They were apprehensive. Hansbro, because this might mean the end of his long stay on Barb. Fitz, because he dimly sensed the full gravity of what had happened.

  “Tell me again.
Everything,” Waggoman ordered evenly.

  He listened, knowing every rock of that high valley of Chinaman Creek under South Peak. In full clarity he could visualize Dave’s folly. And to Waggoman while he listened, the despair came again. What he had feared had now happened. This was not an ending; this was a beginning.

  Dave’s insane recklessness had started a feud to the death with that tall, sun-blackened stranger, who was now backed by Half-Moon. There could be no illusions. Cripple a man like Lockhart, as Dave had done, and there would be an accounting.

  “Dave rode alone to town?” Waggoman asked.

  Fitz’s rusty spur chains jingled slightly as he moved uneasily. His “Yes” had furtive uncertainty.

  “Lockhart headed back toward Half-Moon?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You men did well to put Lockhart on a horse,” Waggoman conceded coldly. “Now get fresh horses. Ride to town, both of you. Dave will probably try to get drunk after his hand is fixed. Stop him, Vic. Tie him up if you have to.”

  Hansbro muttered, “Alec, he won’t like anything like that.”

  Then Fitz stared, his mouth going agape, as he heard a kind of terrible, held-in anger lash at Hansbro.

  “Vic, damn you, never tell me again what Dave likes! If Dave doesn’t start back sober and peaceful from Seldon’s office, bring him back tied on his horse or in a wagon bed! You hear, Vic?”

  The thick, worried mumble from Vic Hansbro was new to Fitz also. “I’ll do it, Alec.”

  “You’d better!” was the cold warning.

  Fitz was still gaping as the tall old man walked from them. Hansbro’s hoarse “Get the horses!” snapped Fitz into action.

  Later Alec Waggoman sat on the office porch in an old barrel chair covered with scarred bullhide. His vacant gaze watched the sun’s blazing dip to the western horizon. He had paced the office; he had stood at the windows lost in his thoughts. Now he gazed into the blurred distance, considering a ride to Half-Moon, and he put the idea aside.

  What could a man say of Dave’s folly? What could Alec Waggoman say to the ancient bitterness of Kate Canaday’s sharp tongue? Or say to Lockhart’s chill and justified fury?

  The crew rode in more quietly than usual. Correctly Waggoman guessed they were speculating uncertainly on the violence which would surely follow Dave’s deed. He heard the remuda being hazed toward the horse pasture, the men washing up outside the bunk house. He knew they were furtively watching his silent figure on the office porch. The cook beat summons to supper, and Alec Waggoman held a dead cigar forgotten between his fingers and sat with the vacant, despairing sense of helplessness about the future.

  Dave could not hold Barb. Now Waggoman knew it. Soon even Alec Waggoman could not hold Barb. Then what?

  The futility of the rough, ruthless, tireless years it had taken to build Barb moved in on Waggoman. What had been the use of it all? He asked it in quiet bitterness. What had the years meant? Then the increasing keeness of his hearing as sight failed picked up the far, furious beat of a horse ridden at full gallop—the kind of run which would kill a horse on the rising grades from the lower range.

  Waggoman stood up, alerting with the tingling chill which always came with great danger. No man would ride a horse like that today with good news.

  He was on the bottom step, the cigar still forgotten in his fingers, when the furious slashing run came straight to the short hitchrack in front of the office. It became a foaming horse with whistling, red-flaring nostrils, staggering as it was hauled up and the rider launched off.

  The man was Fitz, jerking out his report.

  “Dave never got to town! Doctor ain’t seen him! Ain’t a sign of him along the road! Hansbro stayed in town lookin’!”

  Waggoman asked carefully, “Did Dave say what way he was taking to town?”

  “No! He headed down the mountain to cut the road somewhere,” was all Fitz could say.

  “And you’re sure Lockhart didn’t follow him?”

  “Lockhart headed for Half-Moon.” Fitz swallowed. “But he sure coulda circled an’ tracked Dave.”

  “He could have,” Waggoman agreed calmly. “I would have. Hitch up the buckboard. Tell the men to saddle fresh horses. We’ll do what we can before dark.”

  “Yes, sir.” Fitz headed toward the cookshack in a stiff-legged run and with confused thoughts.

  That tall old man with the bold nose and rock-like face completely lacked emotion, Fitz now believed in a kind of fearful unease. Alec Waggoman was like his face; he was rock inside. All the tales about him were true. He was Waggoman of Barb, hard, ruthless, unfeeling.

  God help Lockhart an’ Half-Moon if anything’s happened to Dave! was Fitz’s conviction now.

  In the same deepening dusk, in, Coronado, a nickel-based lamp glowed in the side room office of Doctor Matt Seldon’s modest frame house on Main Street.

  Outside the house, gray-purple twilight was deepening into new night. In a small hallway Barbara Kirby sat quietly gazing through the open doorway at Will Lockhart’s arm on the doctor’s oilcloth-covered table. The same table held the lamp, basins of water, and a litter of gleaming steel instruments. The house was very quiet. Now and then Barbara swallowed silently and closed her eyes.

  Will had liked Seldon at first glance. The man’s eyes were a deep, smiling blue with puckered threads at the corners. Seldon’s hair and Van Dyke were streaked with gray. His smile was warm and quizzical. About him was an air of keen thoughtfulness.

  Bluntly Seldon had warned, “This will hurt. Will you have chloroform?”

  Will was standing then. His “No” was emphatic. But finally he had had to sit down, sweating, shaken, as Seldon, shirt sleeves rolled up, hands reeking of raw alcohol, worked on the hand with swift intentness which bordered on callousness.

  It was not callousness, Will knew. Seldon was a man of skill, doing what had to be done. When Seldon began to bandage the hand again, Will saw that the doctor was perspiring, too. Relief filled Seldon’s brief comment.

  “You’ll have a hand, I think. The bones had me worried.” Seldon fitted a thin wood splint along the palm and bound it in. “Where are you staying tonight?”

  “The hotel.” Teeth marks were blue in Will’s lips.

  Barbara spoke from the doorway where she had stepped, unnoticed. “He had better stay at our house tonight.”

  “I think so,” Seldon agreed.

  “Wouldn’t think of it,” Will objected quickly. He forced a smile, glancing at her. “Appreciated, Miss Kirby. But no need to trouble you and your father.”

  Seldon chuckled as he reached for scissors and snipped the bandage. “Doctor’s order,” Seldon said. “You’ll need attention to night. Stay with the Kirbys.”

  Later, propped against bed pillows in Jubal Kirby’s small, neat bedroom, Will had a sense of the fantastic about all this. Jubal had taken his horse to the feed corral, had brought Will’s canvas duffel bag from the hotel, had helped Will wash, shave, and pull on a clean shirt. Barbara, in a gay flowered gingham apron had brought a tray of supper. Now Jubal was laying a folded blanket across Will’s legs on the bed.

  “Penny ante, my boy, will beat Seldon’s pills,” Jubal promised drolly. Under the rumpled, Irish-black hair, Jubal’s eyes were bright with anticipation.

  Will grinned, liking already this small, clean-shaven man whose run of raffish anecdotes seemed inexhaustible. Jubal was a man who entertained and did not pry.

  In the kitchen Barbara heard their voices and paused, listening, smiling faintly. Frank Darrah had never been like this with Jubal, came regretfully to her memory. An instinctive camaraderie was audible in Jubal’s bedroom. Will Lockhart’s bursts of laughter were full-throated. Then again his easy chuckling voice roused Jubal to mirth.

  Presently, the dishes washed, Barbara hung her apron behind the door and left the lamp in the kitchen. In the living-room shadows she sat in a comfortable rocker where she could see through the open bedroom doorway.

  The bedside la
mp in there glowed cheerfully on Lockhart’s broad shoulders propped against the pillows. So different now, Barbara mused, from the filthy, salt-crusted stranger she had met at the salt lagoons. In the lamplight now, his young, sun-blackened features had a smiling, vastly human warmth. He was obviously sincere when he shouted with laughter; he was human when pain and somber thought etched briefly into his lean dark face.

  A thought touched Barbara’s gratitude into full awareness. This man, this stranger with depths of experience and self-assurance; this Will Lockhart, lean and hard and competent, was finding qualities in Jubal Kirby to like, to admire, and even to respect—qualities which Barbara passionately knew were there, even when she was most vexed with Jubal’s flamboyant, irresponsible ways.

  She was smiling a little as she watched unnoticed from the living-room shadows. The creaking hinges of the front gate broke into her thoughts. Regretfully Barbara went quickly out on the front porch. She closed the front door behind her, suspecting who was calling.

  Frank Darrah came lightly up the porch steps and confidently took her in his arms. Frank’s hungry lips found her mouth and lingered. Then Frank asked, “Nice day?” Deep urges were husky in his voice.

  “The ride to Half-Moon was nice,” Barbara said in truthful evasion. She felt oddly detached, uncomfortable as she sat in one of the cane rockers on the porch.

  Frank pulled another rocker close, and glanced over his shoulder as laughter lifted inside the house. “Company?” Frank asked, dropping into the rocker.

  “Doctor Matt wanted Lockhart to stay here to-night where he can have attention,” Barbara said. “He has an injured hand.”

  Frank’s quick protest was vehement. “Why should a bullet wound in the hand bring a stranger like that into your house? Lockhart managed to ride from South Peak, didn’t he?”

  “Doctor Matt ordered it, Frank.”

  Almost unreasonably furious, Frank snapped, “Seldon’s a fool! What does he mean, asking you to take in a killer?”