_Down the Wind_
Waring, several miles out from the home shack, on the new range, sat his
horse Dexter, watching his men string fence. They ran the barbed wire
with a tackle, stringing it taut down the long line of bare posts that
twinkled away to dots in the west. Occasionally Waring rode up and
tested the wire with his hand. The men worked fast. Waring and Pat had
picked their men; three husky boys of the high country who considered
stringing fence rather pleasant exercise. There was no recognized
foreman. Each knew his work, and Waring had added a foreman's pay to
their salaries, dividing it equally among them. Later they would look
after the ranch and the cattle.
Twenty thousand acres under fence, with plenty of water, would take care
of eight hundred or a thousand head of cattle. And as a provision
against a lean winter, Waring had put a mowing-machine in at the eastern
end of the range, where the bunch-grass was heavy enough to cut. It
would be necessary to winter-feed. Four hundred white-faced Herefords
grazed in the autumn sunshine. Riding round and among them leisurely was
the Mexican youth, Ramon.
Backed against a butte near the middle of the range was the broad,
low-roofed ranch-house. A windmill purred in the light breeze, its lean,
flickering shadow aslant the corrals. The buildings looked new and raw
in contrast to the huge pile of grayish-green greasewood and scrub cedar
gathered from the clearing round them.
In front of the house was a fenced acre, ploughed and harrowed to a dead
level. This was to be Pat's garden, wherein he had planned to grow all
sorts of green things, including cucumbers. At the moment Pat was
standing under the veranda roof, gazing out across the ranch. The old
days of petty warfare, long night rides, and untold hardships were past.
Next spring his garden would bloom; tiny green tendrils would swell to
sturdy vines. Corn-leaves would broaden to waving green blades shot with
the rich brown of the ripening ears. Although he had never spoken of it,
Pat had dreamed of blue flowers nodding along the garden fence;
old-fashioned bachelor's-buttons that would spring up as though by
accident. But he would have to warn Waco, the erstwhile tramp, not to
mistake them for weeds.
"Peace and plenty," muttered Pat, smiling to himself. "The Book sure
knows how to say those things."
The gaunt, grizzled ex-sheriff reached in his vest for a cigar. As he
bit the end off and felt for a match, he saw a black speck wavering in
the distance. He shaded his eyes with his hand.
"'Tain't a machine," he said. "And it ain't a buckboard. Some puncher
lookin' for a job, most likely."
He turned and entered the house. Waco, shaven and in clean shirt and
overalls, was "punching dough" in the kitchen.
"Did Jim say when he would ride in?" queried Pat.
"About sundown. I fixed 'em up some chuck this morning. Jim figures
they're getting too far out to ride in every noon."
"Well, when you get your bread baked we'll take a whirl at those
ditches. How are the supplies holding out?"
"We're short on flour. Got enough to last over till Monday. Plenty bacon
and beans and lard."
"All right. We'll hook up to-morrow and drive in."
Waco nodded as he tucked a roll of dough into the pan. Pat watched him
for a moment. Waco, despite his many shortcomings, could cook, and,
strangely enough, liked to putter round the garden.
Picked up half-starving on the mesa road, near St. Johns, he had been
brought to the ranch by Pat, where a month of clean air and industry had
reshaped the tramp to something like a man. Both Pat and Waring knew
that the hobo was wanted in Stacey. They had agreed to say nothing about
the tramp's whereabouts just so long as he made himself useful about
the ranch. They would give him a chance. But, familiar with his kind,
they were mildly skeptical as to Waco's sincerity of purpose. If he took
to drinking, or if Buck Hardy heard of his whereabouts, he would have to
go. Meanwhile, he earned his keep. He was a good cook, and a good cook,
no matter where or where from, is a power in the land.
As Waco closed the oven door some one hallooed. Pat stepped to the
veranda. A cowboy astride a bay pony asked if Waring were around.
"I can take your message," said Pat.
"Well, it's for you, I guess. Letter from Buck Hardy."
"Yes, it's for me," said Pat. "Who sent you?"
"Hardy. Said something about you had a man down here he wanted."
"All right. Stay for chuck?"
"I got to git back. How's things down this way?"
"Running on time. Just tell Buck I'll be over right soon."
"To-day?"
Pat's gray eyes hardened. "Buck tell you to ask me that?"
"Well--no. I was just wonderin'."
"Then keep right on wondering," said Pat. "You got your answer."
The cowboy swung up and rode off. "To hell with him!" he said. "Thinks
he can throw a scare into me because he's got a name for killin'. To
hell him!"
Pat climbed the hill back of the house and surveyed the glimmering
levels.
"Wish Jim would ride in. Funny thing--Hardy sending a Starr boy with
word for me. But perhaps the kid was riding this way, anyhow."
Pat shook his head, and climbed slowly down to the house. Waco was busy
in the kitchen when he came in.
After the noon meal, Pat again climbed the hill. He seemed worried about
something. When he returned he told Waco to hitch the pintos to the
buckboard.
"Get your coat," he told Waco. "We're going over to Stacey."
Waco's hands trembled. "Say, boss, if you don't mind--"
"Get your coat. I'll talk to Buck. You needn't to worry. I'll square you
with Buck. We can use you here."
Waco did as he was told. They drove out of the yard. Waco leaped down
and closed the gate.
The pintos shook themselves into the harness and trotted down the
faintly marked new road. The buckboard swayed and jolted. Something
rubbed against Waco's hip. He glanced down and saw Pat's gun on the seat
between them. Pat said nothing. He was thinking hard. The cowboy
messenger's manner had not been natural. The note bore the printed
heading of the sheriff's office. Perhaps it was all right. And if it
were not, Pat was not the man to back down from a bluff.
Several miles out from the ranch ran the naked posts of the line fence.
Pat reined in the ponies and gazed up and down the line. A mile beyond,
the ranch road merged with the main-traveled highway running east and
west. He spoke to the horses. They broke into a fast trot. Waco,
gripping the seat, stared straight ahead. Why had Pat laid that gun on
the seat?
A thin, gray veil drifted across the sun. From the northwest a light
wind sprang up and ran across the mesa, whipping the bunch-grass. The
wind grew heavier, and with it came a fine, dun-colored dust. An hour
and the air was thick with a shifting red haze of sand. The sun glowed
dimly through the murk.
Waco turned up his coat-collar and shivered. The air was keen. The
ponies fought the bit, occasionally breaking into a gallop. Pat braced
his feet and held them to a trot. A weird buzzing came down the wind.
The ponies reared and took to the ditch as a machine flicked past and
drummed away in the distance.
To Waco, rigid and staring, the air seemed filled with a kind of
hovering terror, a whining threat of danger that came in bursts of
driving sand and dwindled away to harsh whisperings. He stood it as
long as he could. Pat had not spoken.
[Illustration: A huddled shape near a boulder]
Waco touched his arm. "I got a hunch," he said hoarsely,--"I got a hunch
we oughta go back."
Pat nodded. But the ponies swept on down the road, their manes and tails
whipping in the wind. Another mile and they slowed down in heavy sand.
The buckboard tilted forward as they descended the sharp pitch of an
arroyo. Unnoticed, Pat's gun slipped to the floor of the wagon.
In the arroyo the wind seemed to have died away, leaving a startled
quietness. It still hung above them, and an occasional gust filled their
eyes with grit. Waco drew a deep breath. The ponies tugged through the
heavy sand.
Without a sound to warn them a rider appeared close to the front wheel
of the buckboard. Waco shrank down in sodden terror. It was the Starr
foreman, High-Chin Bob. Waco saw Pat's hand flash to his side, then
fumble on the seat.
"I'm payin' the Kid's debt," said High Chin, and, laughing, he threw
shot after shot into the defenseless body of his old enemy.
Waco saw Pat slump forward, catch himself, and finally topple from the
seat. As the reins slipped from his fingers the ponies lunged up the
arroyo. Waco crouched, clutching the foot-rail. A bullet hummed over his
head. Gaining the level, the ponies broke into a wild run. The red wind
whined as it drove across the mesa. The buckboard lurched sickeningly.
A scream of terror wailed down the wind as the buckboard struck a
telegraph pole. A blind shock--and for Waco the droning of the wind had
ceased.
Dragging the broken traces, the ponies circled the mesa and set off at a
gallop toward home. At the side of the road lay the splintered
buckboard, wheels up. And Waco, hovering on the edge of the black abyss,
dreamed strange dreams.
* * * * *
Waring, riding in with the crew, found the ranch-house deserted and the
pinto ponies dragging the shreds of a broken harness, grazing along the
fence. Waring sent a man to catch up the team. Ramon cooked supper. The
men ate in silence.
After supper Waring changed his clothes, saddled Dex, and packed some
food in the saddle-pockets. "I am going out to look for Pat," he told
one of his men. "If Waco shows up, keep him here till I get back. Those
horses didn't get away from Pat. Here's a signed check. Get what you
need and keep on with the work. You're foreman till I get back."
"If there's anything doing--" began the cowboy.
"I don't know. Some one rode in here to-day. It was along about noon
that Pat and Waco left. The bread was baked. I'd say they drove to town
for grub; only Pat took his gun--without the holster. It looks bad to
me. If anything happens to me, just send for Lorry Adams at the Ranger
Station."
Waring rode out, looking for tracks. His men watched him until he had
disappeared behind a rise. Bender, the new foreman, turned to his
fellows.
"I'd hate to be the man that the boss is lookin' for," he said, shaking
his head.
"Why, he's lookin' for Pat, ain't he?" queried one of the men.
"That ain't what I mean," said the foreman.
* * * * *
The wind died down suddenly. The sun, just above the horizon, glowed
like a disk of burnished copper. The wagon ruts were filled with fine
sand. Waring read the trail. The buckboard had traveled briskly. It had
stopped at the line. The tracks of the fretting ponies showed that
clearly. Alongside the tracks of the ponies were the half-hidden tracks
of a single horse. Waring glanced back at the sun, and put Dex to a
lope. He swung into the main road, his gaze following the
half-obliterated trail of the single horseman. Suddenly he reined up.
The horseman had angled away from the road and had ridden north across
the open country. He had not gone to Stacey. Waring knew that the
horseman had been riding hard. Straight north from where Waring had
stopped was the Starr Ranch.
He rode on, his heart heavy with a black premonition. The glowing
copper disk was now half-hidden by the western hills.
At the brink of the arroyo he dismounted. He could see nothing
distinctly in the gloom of its depths. Stooping, he noted the wagon
tracks as he worked on down. His foot struck against something hard. He
fumbled and picked Pat's gun from the sand. Every chamber was loaded.
"He didn't have a chance." Waring was startled by his own voice. He
thrust the gun in his waistband. The twilight deepened rapidly. Rocks
and ridges in the arroyo assumed peculiar shapes like those of men
crouching; men prone; men with heads up, listening, watching, waiting.
Yet Waring's instinct for hidden danger told him that there was no
living thing in the arroyo--unless--Suddenly he sprang forward and
dropped to his knees beside a huddled shape near a boulder.
"Pat!" he whispered.
Then he knew; saw it all as clearly as though he had witnessed it--the
ambushment in the blinding sandstorm; the terror-stricken Waco; the
frightened ponies; the lunging and swaying buckboard. And Pat, left for
dead, but who had dragged himself from the roadway in dumb agony.
The dole of light from the sinking sun was gone. Waring's hands came
away from the opened shirt shudderingly. He wiped his hands on the sand,
and, rising, ran back to Dex. He returned with a whiskey flask. Pat was
of tough fiber and tremendous vitality. If the spark were still
unquenched, if it could be called back even for a breath, that which
Waring knew, yet wanted to confirm beyond all doubt, might be given in a
word. He raised Pat's head, and barely tilted the flask. The spirit of
the mortally stricken man, perchance loath to leave such a brave
hermitage, winged slowly back from the far shore of dreams. In the black
pit of the arroyo, where death crouched, waiting, life flamed for an
instant.
Waring felt the limp body stir. He took Pat's big, bony hand in his.
"Pat!" he whispered.
A word breathed heavily from the motionless lips. "You, Jim?"
"Yes! For God's sake, Pat, who did this thing?"
"Brewster--Bob. Letter--in my coat."
"I'll get _him_!" said Waring.
"Shake!" exclaimed the dying man, and the grip of his hand was like
iron. Waring thought he had gone, and leaned closer. "I'm--kind of
tired--Jim. Reckon--I'll--rest."
Waring felt the other's grip relax. He drew his hand from the stiffening
fingers. A dull pain burned in his throat. He lighted a match, and found
the message that had lured Pat to his death in the other's coat-pocket.
He rose and stumbled up the arroyo to his horse.
Halfway back to the ranch, and he met Ramon riding hard. "Ride back,"
said Waring. "Hook up to the wagon and come to the arroyo."
"Have you found the Señor Pat?"
"Yes. He is dead."
Ramon whirled his pony and pounded away in the darkness.
Out on the highway two long, slender shafts of light slid across the
mesa, dipped into an arroyo, and climbed skyward as a machine buzzed up
the opposite pitch. The lights straightened again and shot on down the
road, swinging stiffly from side to side. Presently they came to a stop.
In the soft glow of their double radiance lay a yellow-wheeled
buckboard, shattered and twisted round a telegraph pole. The lights
moved up slowly and stopped again.
A man jumped from the machine and walked round the buckboard. Beneath it
lay a crumpled figure. The driver of the machine ran a quick hand over
the neck and arms of Waco, who groaned. The driver lifted him and
carried him to the car. Stacey lay some twenty miles behind him. He was
bound south. The first town on his way was thirty miles distant. But the
roads were good. He glanced back at the huddled figure in the tonneau.
The car purred on down the night. The long shafts of light lifted over a
rise and disappeared.
In about an hour the car stopped at the town of Grant. Waco was carried
from the machine to a room in the hotel, and a doctor was summoned.
Waco lay unconscious throughout the night.
In the morning he was questioned briefly. He gave a fictitious name, and
mentioned a town he had heard of, but had never been in. His horses had
run away with him.
The man who had picked him up drove away next morning. Later the doctor
told Waco that through a miracle there were no bones broken, but that he
would have to keep to his bed for at least a week. Otherwise he would
never recover from the severe shock to his nervous system.
And Waco, recalling the horror of the preceding day, twisted his head
round at every footstep in the hall, fearing that Waring had come to
question him. He knew that he had done no wrong; in fact, he had told
Pat that they had better drive back home. But a sense of shame at his
cowardice, and the realization that his word was as water in evidence,
that he was but a wastrel, a tramp, burdened him with an aching desire
to get away--to hide himself from Waring's eyes, from the eyes of all
men.
He kept telling himself that he had done nothing wrong, yet fear shook
him until his teeth chattered. What could he have done even had he been
courageous? Pat had had no chance.
He suffered with the misery of indecision. Habit inclined him to flee
from the scene of the murder. Fear of the law urged him. Three nights
after he had been brought to Grant, he dressed and crept down the back
stairs, and made his way to the railroad station. Twice he had heard the
midnight freight stop and cut out cars on the siding. He hid in the
shadows until the freight arrived. He climbed to an empty box-car and
waited. Trainmen crunched past on the cinders. A jolt and he was swept
away toward the west. He sank into a half sleep as the iron wheels
roared and droned beneath him.