"IT TAKES NERVE JUST TO HANG ON"
Brit was smoking his pipe after supper and staring at nothing, though
his face was turned toward the closed door. Lorraine had washed the
dishes and was tidying the room and looking at her father now and then
in a troubled, questioning way of which Brit was quite oblivious.
"Dad," she said abruptly, "who is the man at Whisper?"
Brit turned his eyes slowly to her face as if he had not grasped her
meaning and was waiting for her to repeat the question. It was evident
that his thoughts had pulled away from something that meant a good deal
to him.
"Why?"
"A man came this morning, and said he was the man at Whisper, and that
he would come again to see you."
Brit took his pipe from his mouth, looked at it and crowded down the
tobacco with a forefinger. "He seen me ride away from the ranch, this
morning," he said. "He was coming down the Whisper trail as I was
taking the fork over to Sugar Spring, Frank and me. What did he say he
wanted to see me about?"
"He didn't say. He asked for you and Frank." Lorraine sat down and
folded her arms on the oilcloth-covered table. "Dad, what _is_
Whisper?"
"Whisper's a camp up against a cliff, over west of here. It belongs to
the Sawtooth. Is that all he said? Just that he wanted to see me?"
"He--talked a little," Lorraine admitted, her eyebrows pulled down.
"If he saw you leave, I shouldn't think he'd come here and ask for you."
"He knowed I was gone," Brit stated briefly.
With a finger nail Lorraine traced the ugly, brown pattern on the
oilcloth. It was not easy to talk to this silent man who was her
father, but she had done a great deal of thinking during that long,
empty day, and she had reached the point where she was afraid not to
speak.
"Dad!"
"What do you want, Raine?"
"Dad, was--has any one around here died, lately?"
"Died? Nobody but Fred Thurman, over here on Granite. He was drug
with a horse and killed."
Lorraine caught her breath, saw Brit looking at her curiously and moved
closer to him. She wanted to be near somebody just then, and after
all, Brit was her father, and his silence was not the inertia of a dull
mind, she knew. He seemed bottled-up, somehow, and bitter. She caught
his hand and held it, feeling its roughness between her two soft palms.
"Dad, I've got to tell you. I feel trapped, somehow. Did his horse
have a white face, dad?"
"Yes, he's a blaze-faced roan. Why?" Brit moved uncomfortably, but he
did not take his hand away from her. "What do you know about it,
Raine?"
"I saw a man shoot Fred Thurman and push his foot through the stirrup.
And, dad, I believe it was that man at Whisper. The one I saw had on a
brown hat, and this man wears a brown hat--and I was advised not to
tell any one I had been at that place they call Rock City, when the
storm came. Dad, would an innocent man--one that didn't have anything
to do with a crime--would he try to cover it up afterwards?"
Brit's hand shook when he removed the pipe from his mouth and laid it
on the table. His face had turned gray while Lorraine watched him
fearfully. He laid his hand on her shoulder, pressing down hard--and
at last his eyes met her big, searching ones.
"If he wanted to live--in this country--he'd have to. Leastways, he'd
have to keep his mouth shut," he said grimly.
"And he'd try to shut the mouths of others----"
"If he cared anything about them, he would. You ain't told anybody
what you saw, have yuh?"
Lorraine hid her face against his arm. "Just Lone Morgan, and he
thought I was crazy and imagined it. That was in the morning, when he
found me. And he--he wanted me to go on thinking it was just a
nightmare--that I'd imagined the whole thing. And I did, for awhile.
But this man at Whisper tried to find out where I was that night----"
Brit pulled abruptly away from her, got up and opened the door. He
stood there for a time, looking out into the gloom of early nightfall.
He seemed to be listening, Lorraine thought. When he came back to her
his voice was lower, his manner intangibly furtive.
"You didn't tell him anything, did you?" he asked, as if there had been
no pause in their talk.
"No--I made him believe I wasn't there. Or I tried to. And dad! As I
was going to cross that creek just before you come to Rock City, two
men came along on horseback, and I hid before they saw me. They
stopped to water their horses, and they were talking. They said
something about the TJ had been here a long time, but they would get
theirs, and it was like sitting into a poker game with a nickel. They
said the little ones aren't big enough to fight the Sawtooth, and
they'd carry lead under their hides if they didn't leave. Dad, isn't
your brand the TJ? That's what it looks like on Yellowjacket."
Brit did not answer, and when Lorraine was sure that he did not mean to
do so, she asked another question. "Dad, why didn't you want me to
leave the ranch to-day? I was nervous after that man was here, and I
did go."
"I didn't want you riding around the country unless I knew where you
went," Brit said. "My brand is the TJ up-and-down. We never call it
just the TJ."
"Oh," said Lorraine, relieved. "They weren't talking about you, then.
But dad--it's horrible! We simply _can't_ let that murder go and not
do anything. Because I know that man was shot. I heard the shot
fired, and I saw him start to fall off his horse. And the next flash
of lightning I saw----"
"Look here, Raine. I don't want you talking about what you saw. I
don't want you _thinkin'_ about it. What's the use? Thurman's dead
and buried. The cor'ner come and held an inquest, and the jury agreed
it was an accident. I was on the jury. The sheriff's took charge of
his property. You couldn't prove what you saw, even if you was to
try." He looked at her very much as Lone Morgan had looked at her.
His next words were very nearly what Lone Morgan had said, Lorraine
remembered. "You don't know this country like I know it. Folks live
in it mainly because they don't go around blatting everything they see
and hear and think."
"You have laws, don't you, dad? You spoke about the sheriff----"
"The sheriff!" Brit laughed harshly. "Yes, we got a sheriff, and we
got a jail, and a judge--all the makin's of law. But we ain't got one
thing that goes with it, and that's justice. You'd best make up your
mind like the cor'ner's jury done, that Fred Thurman was drug to death
by his horse. That's all that'll ever be proved, and if you can't
prove nothing else you better keep your mouth shut."
Lorraine sprang up and stood facing her father, every nerve taut with
protest. "You don't mean to tell me, dad, that you and Frank Johnson
and Lone Morgan and--everybody in the country are _cowards_, do you?"
Brit looked at her patiently. "No," he said in the tone of
acknowledged defeat, "we ain't cowards, Raine. A man ain't a coward
when he stands with his hands over his head. Most generally it's
because some one's got the drop on 'im."
Lorraine would not accept that. "You think so, because you don't
fight," she cried hotly. "No one is holding a gun at your head. Dad!
I thought Westerners never quit. It's fight to the finish, always.
Why, I've seen one man fight a whole outfit and win. He couldn't be
beaten because he wouldn't give up. Why----"
Brit gave her a tolerant glance. "Where'd you see all that, Raine?"
He moved to the table, picked up his pipe and knocked out the ashes on
the stove hearth. His movements were those of an aging man--yet Brit
Hunter was not old, as age is reckoned.
"Well--in stories--but it was reasonable and logical and possible, just
the same. If you use your brains you can outwit them, and if you have
any nerve----"
Brit made a sound somewhat like a snort. "These days, when politics is
played by the big fellows, and the law is used to make money for 'em,
it takes nerve just to hang on," he said. "Nobody but a dang fool
would fight." Slow anger grew within him. He turned upon Lorraine
almost fiercely. "D'yuh think me and Frank could fight the Sawtooth
and get anything out of it but a coffin apiece, maybe?" he demanded
harshly. "Don't the Sawtooth _own_ this country? Warfield's got the
sheriff in his pocket, and the cor'ner, and the judge, and the stock
inspector--he's _Senator_ Warfield, and what he wants he gets. He gets
through the law that you was talking about a little while ago. What
you goin' to do about it? If I had the money and the land and the
political pull he's got, mebby I'd have me sheriff and a judge, too.
"Fred Thurman tried to fight the Sawtooth over a water right he owned
and they wanted. They had the case runnin' in court till they like to
of took the last dollar he had. He got bull-headed. That water right
meant the hull ranch--everything he owned. You can't run a ranch
without water. And when he'd took the case up and up till it got to
the Supreme Court, and he stood some show of winnin' out--he had an
accident. He was drug to death by his horse."
Brit stooped and opened the stove door, seeking a live coal; found none
and turned again to Lorraine, shaking his pipe at her for emphasis.
"We try to prove Fred was murdered, and what's the result? Something
happens: to me, mebby, or Frank, or both of us. And you can't say,
'Here, I know the Sawtooth had a hand in that.' You got to _prove_ it!
And when you've proved it," he added bitterly, "you got to have
officers that'll carry out the law instead of using it to hog-tie yuh."
His futile, dull anger surged up again. "You call us cowards because
we don't git up on our hind legs and fight the Sawtooth. A lot you
know about courage! You've read stories, and you've saw moving
pictures, and you think that's the West--that's the way they do it.
One man hold off a hunderd with his gun--and on the other hand, a
hunderd men, mebby, ridin' hell-whoopin' after one. You think that's
it--that's the way they do it. Hunh!" He lifted the lid of the stove,
spat into it as if he were spitting in the face of an enemy, and turned
again to Lorraine.
"What you seen--what you say you seen--that was done at night when
there wasn't no audience. All the fighting the Sawtooth does is done
under cover. _You_ won't see none of it--they ain't such fools. And
what us small fellers do, we do it quiet, too. We ain't ridin' up and
down the trail, flourishin' our six-shooters and yellin' to the
Sawtooth to come on and we'll clean 'em up!"
"But you're fighting just the same, aren't you, dad? You're not
letting them----"
"We're makin' out to live here--and we've been doin' it for twenty-five
year," Brit told her, with a certain grim dignity. "We've still got a
few head uh stock left--enough to live on. Playin' poker with a
nickel, mebby--but we manage to ante, every hand so fur." His mind
returned to the grisly thing Lorraine had seen.
"We can't run down the man that got Fred Thurman, supposin' he was
killed, as you say. That's what the law is paid to do. If Lone Morgan
told you not to talk about it, he told you right. He was talking for
your own good. What about Al--the man from Whisper? You didn't tell
_him_, did you?"
His tone, the suppressed violence of his manner, frightened Lorraine.
She moved farther away from him.
"I didn't tell him anything. He was curious but--I only said I knew
him because he was wearing a brown hat, and the man that shot Mr
Thurman had a brown hat. I didn't say all that. I just mentioned the
hat. And he said there were lots of brown hats in the country. He
said he had traded for that one, just yesterday. He said his own hat
was gray."
Brit stared at her, his jaw sagging a little, his eyes growing vacant
with the thoughts he hid deep in his mind. He slumped down into his
chair and leaned forward, his arms resting on his knees, his fingers
clasped loosely. After a little he tilted his head and looked up at
her.
"You better go to bed," he told Her stolidly. "And if you're going to
live at the Quirt, Raine, you'll have to learn to keep your mouth shut.
I ain't blaming you--but you told too much to Al Woodruff. Don't talk
to him no more, if he comes here when I'm gone." He put out a hand,
beckoning her to him, sorry for his harshness. Lorraine went to him
and knelt beside him, slipping an arm around his neck while she hid her
face on his shoulder.
"I won't be a nuisance, dad--really, I won't," she said. "I--I can
shoot a gun. I never shot one with bullets in, but I could. And I
learned to do lots of things when I was working in that play West I
thought was real. It isn't like I thought. There's no picture stuff
in the real West, I guess; they don't do things that way. But--what I
want you to know is that if they're fighting you they'll have to fight
me, too.
"I don't mean movie stuff, honestly I don't. I'm in this thing now,
and you'll have to count me, same as you count Jim and Sorry. Won't
you please feel that I'm one more in the game, dad, and not just
another responsibility? I'll herd cattle, or do whatever there is to
do. And I'll keep my mouth shut, too. I can't stay here, day after
day, doing nothing but sweep and dust two rooms and fry potatoes and
bacon for you at night. Dad, I'll go _crazy_ if you don't let me into
your life!
"Dad, if you knew the stunts I've done in the last three years! It was
make-believe West, but I learned things just the same." She kissed him
on the unshaven cheek nearest her--and thought of the kisses she had
breathed upon the cheeks of story fathers with due care for the make-up
on her lips. Just because this was real, she kissed him again with the
frank vigour of a child.
"Dad," she said wheedlingly, "I think you might scare up something that
I can really ride. Yellowjacket is safe, but--but you have real live
horses on the ranch, haven't you? You must not go judging me by the
palms and the bay windows of the Casa Grande. That's where I've slept,
the last few years when I wasn't off on location--but it's just as
sensible to think I don't know anything else, as it would be for me to
think you can't do anything but skim milk and fry bacon and make
sour-dough bread, just because I've seen you do it!"
Brit laughed and patted her awkwardly on the back. "If you was a boy,
I'd set you up as a lawyer," he said with an attempt at playfulness.
"I kinda thought you could ride. I seen how you piled onto old
Yellowjacket and the way you held your reins. It runs in the blood, I
guess. I'll see what I can do in the way of a horse. Ole Yellowjacket
used to be a real rim-rider, but he's gitting old; gitting old--same as
me."
"You're not! You're just letting yourself _feel_ old. And am I one of
the outfit, dad?"
"I guess so--only there ain't going to be any of this hell-whoopin'
stuff, Raine. You can't travel these trails at a long lope with yore
hair flyin' out behind and--and all that damn foolishness. I've saw
'em in the movin' pitchers----"
Lorraine blushed, and was thankful that her dad had not watched her
work in that serial. For that matter, she hoped that Lone Morgan would
never stray into a movie where any of her pictures were being shown.
"I'm serious, dad. I don't want to make a show of myself. But if
you'll feel that I can be a help instead of a handicap, that's what I
want. And if it comes to fighting----"
Brit pushed her from him impatiently. "There yuh go--fight--fight--and
I told yuh there ain't any fighting going on. Nothing more'n a fight
to hang on and make a living. That means straight, hard work and
mindin' your own business. If you want to help at that----"
"I do," said Raine quietly, getting to her feet. Her legacy of
stubbornness set her lips firmly together. "That's exactly what I
mean. Good night, dad."
Brit answered her non-committally, apparently sunk already in his own
musings. But his lips drew in to suppress a smile when he saw, from
the corner of his eyes, that Lorraine was winding the alarm on the
cheap kitchen clock, and that she set the hand carefully and took the
clock with her to bed.