Roy Improves the Shining Hours
The tender spring burnt into crisp summer. Lean hill cattle that had
roughed through the winter storms lost their shaggy look and began to
fill out. For there had been early rains and the bunch grass was
succulent this year.
Roy went about learning his new business with an energy that delighted
his partner. He was eager to learn and was not too proud to ask
questions. The range conditions, the breeding of cattle, and
transportation problems were all studied by him. Within a month or two
he had become a fair horseman and could rope a steer inexpertly.
Dingwell threw out a suggestion one day in his characteristic casual
manner. The two men were riding a line fence and Roy had just missed a
shot at a rabbit.
"Better learn to shoot, son. Take an hour off every day and practice.
You hadn't ought to have missed that cottontail. What you want is to
fire accurately, just as soon as yore gun jumps to the shoulder. I can
teach you a wrinkle or two with a six-gun. Then every time you see a
rattler, take a crack at it. Keep in form. _You might need to bend a
gun one of these days_."
His partner understood what that last veiled allusion meant. The weeks
had slipped away since the fracas in front of the Silver Dollar. The
enemy had made no move. But cowpunchers returning to the ranch from
town reported that both Meldrum and Charlton had sworn revenge. It was
an even bet that either one of them would shoot on sight.
Beaudry took Dave's advice. Every day he rode out to a wash and
carried with him a rifle and a revolver. He practiced for rapidity as
well as accuracy. He learned how to fire from the hip, how to empty a
revolver in less than two seconds, how to shoot lying down, and how to
hit a mark either from above or below.
The young man never went to town alone. He stuck close to the ranch.
The first weeks had been full of stark terror lest he might find one of
his enemies waiting for him behind a clump of prickly pear or hidden in
the mesquite of some lonely wash. He was past that stage, but his
nerves were still jumpy. It was impossible for him to forget that at
least three men were deadly enemies of his and would stamp out his life
as they would that of a wolf. Each morning he wakened with a little
shock of dread. At night he breathed relief for a few hours of safety.
Meanwhile Dave watched him with an indolent carelessness of manner that
masked his sympathy. If it had been possible, he would have taken the
burden on his own broad, competent shoulders. But this was not in
Dingwell's code. He had been brought up in that outdoor school of the
West where a man has to game out his own feuds. As the cattleman saw
it, Roy had to go through now just as his father had done seventeen
years before.
In town one day Dave met Pat Ryan and had a talk with him over dinner.
A remark made by the little cowpuncher surprised his friend. Dingwell
looked at him with narrowed, inquiring eyes.
The Irishman nodded. "Ye thought you were the only one that knew it?
Well, I'm on, too, Dave."
"That's not what I hear everywhere else, Pat," answered the cattleman,
still studying the other. "Go down the street and mention the same of
Royal Beaudry--ask any one if he is game. What will you get for a
reply?"
Without the least hesitation Ryan spoke out. "You'll hear that he's
got more guts than any man in Washington County--that he doesn't know
what fear is. Then likely you'll be told it's natural enough, since
he's the son of Jack Beaudry, the fighting sheriff. Ever-rybody
believes that excipt you and me, Dave. We know better."
"What do we know, Pat?"
"We know that the bye is up against a man-size job and is scared stiff."
"Hmp! Was he scared when he licked a dozen men at the Silver Dollar
and laid out for repairs three of the best fighters in New Mexico?"
"You're shouting right he was, Dave. No man alive could 'a' done it if
he hadn't been crazy with fright."
Dingwell laughed. "Hope I'm that way, then, when I get into my next
tight place." He added after a moment: "The trouble with the boy is
that he has too much imagination. He makes his own private little hell
beforehand."
"I reckon he never learned to ride herd on his fears."
"Jack Beaudry told me about him onc't. The kid was born after his
mother had been worrying herself sick about Jack. She never could tell
when he'd be brought home dead. Well, Roy inherited fear. I've
noticed that when a sidewinder rattles, he jumps. Same way, when any
one comes up and surprises him. It's what you might call
constitootional with him."
"Yep. That's how I've got it figured. But--" Pat hesitated and
looked meditatively out of the window.
"All right. Onload yore mind. Gimme the run of the pen just as yore
thoughts happen," suggested the cattleman.
"Well, I'm thinking--that he's been lucky, Dave. But soon as Tighe's
tools guess what we know, something's going to happen to Beaudry. He's
got them buffaloed now. But Charlton and Meldrum ain't going to quit.
Can you tell me how your frind will stand the acid next time hell pops?"
Dave shook his head. "I cannot. That's just what is worrying me.
There are men that have to be lashed on by ridicule to stand the gaff.
But Roy is not like that. I reckon he's all the time flogging himself
like the _penitentes_. He's sick with shame because he can't go out
grinning to meet his troubles. . . . There ain't a thing I can do for
him. He's got to play out his hand alone."
"Sure he has, and if the luck breaks right, I wouldn't put it past him
to cash in a winner. He's gamer than most of us because he won't quit
even when the divvle of terror is riding his back."
"Another point in his favor is that he learns easily. When he first
came out to the Lazy Double D, he was afraid of horses. He has got
over that. Give him another month and he'll be a pretty fair shot. Up
till the time he struck this country, Roy had lived a soft city life.
He's beginning to toughen. The things that scare a man are those that
are mysteries to him. Any kid will fight his own brother because he
knows all about him, but he's plumb shy about tackling a strange boy.
Well, that's how it is with Roy. He has got the notion that Meldrum
and Charlton are terrors, but now he has licked them onc't, he won't
figure them out as so bad."
"He didn't exactly lick them in a stand-up fight, Dave."
"No, he just knocked them down and tromped on them and put them out of
business," agreed Dingwell dryly.
The eyes of the little Irishman twinkled. "Brad Charlton is giving it
out that it was an accident."
"That's what I'd call it, too, if I was Brad," assented the cattleman
with a grin. "But if we could persuade Roy to put over about one more
accident like that, I reckon Huerfano Park would let him alone."
"While Jess Tighe is living?"
Dingwell fell grave. "I'd forgotten Tighe. No, I expect the kid had
better keep his weather eye peeled as long as that castor-oil smile of
Jess is working."