The next morning Bud hitched a team to the buckboard and drove up to the
house to get Pat and her mother. Jimmy held the team by the bits, while
the women got in.
“I’ll get yuh some shells in town, Smith,” said Bud. “You kinda stick
around here and take care of the place today. We’ll be back late, I
reckon.”
“Can I get you anything in town?” asked Pat.
Jimmy smiled and shook his head.
“Thankin’ ye very kindly, but I have need of nothin’, miss. All of ye
come back safe, which is enough bringin’, I think.”
Pat smiled softly, but Bud scowled and gathered up the lines. Mrs. Moore
looked gravely at Jimmy and flashed a sideways glance at Pat. Mrs. Moore
knew that Jimmy meant for Pat to come back safely. Bud knew this, too;
but his quick glance at Pat’s face gave him no assurance that she had or
had not understood Jimmy’s meaning.
Jimmy stepped away from the horses and swept off his hat as the
high-spirited broncos yanked the light vehicle past him and headed down
the dusty road.
He stood, hat in hand until they disappeared, and then walked swiftly to
the corral, where he selected a saddle, blanket and bridle. He took a
coiled lariat rope and went over to a corral, where several horses
browsed around over a scattering of hay.
“Ignorance of the lot makes me cast at beauty,” grinned Jimmy, shaking
out his loop.
The horses whirled and started circling the corral, kicking up a cloud
of dust. Jimmy turned slowly, swinging his loop. Suddenly he jerked the
rope forward and the loop sailed over the backs of two horses and
dropped over the head of a hammer-headed roan.
The roan plunged and reared, shaking its head like a hooked trout trying
to loosen the hook. Jimmy went slowly along the rope, talking softly to
the animal. The others bunched across the corral and snorted their
disfavor of such actions.
The coaxing voice seemed to drive the fear from the roan and it allowed
Jimmy to rub its muzzle.
“You’re a fine little animal, so ye are,” soothed Jimmy. “A fine bit o’
a horse; but I’d feel more satisfied if ye had saddle-marks.”
He led the animal outside and held up the saddle for its inspection. The
roan snorted in wonderment and Jimmy rubbed his chin. He looked back at
the other horses, but none of them showed any saddle-marks.
“Likely none of ye have been ridden,” mused Jimmy. “Well, roan, ye can’t
any more than dump me.”
He managed to get the bridle on, after much persuasion and main
strength, and then tied a handkerchief across its eyes. The roan only
flinched when the saddle was put on, but it arched its back under the
pull of the cinch.
Jimmy lost no time in preliminaries. He threw the reins over its neck,
swung into the saddle, settled himself and reached over, yanking off the
blind.
The removing of that handkerchief seemed to release a mighty power
within the roan. It whirled like a flash, sprang into the air and came
down, with all four feet bunched together, in a jarring crash, bounding
from there like a rabbit, reversing in mid-air and hitting the ground
with every muscle tensed.
Jimmy had swung sidewise in the saddle, hooked one foot almost under the
roan’s shoulder and threw all of his weight on the other foot, taking
the jar off his body to a great extent. The roan’s head seemed fastened
between its forelegs, but Jimmy made no effort to draw it up. He was
doing an exhibition ride, minus an audience.
The roan bawled like a calf, took several stiff-legged hops and began a
weaving buck, known as the “worm-fence.” Up past the ranch-house they
went and down along the fence, with the roan using every trick known to
outlaw buckers. But the rider still remained.
At the gate it whirled, rearing wildly, but Jimmy slapped it across the
head with his hat and it sprang ahead, throwing itself from side to side
in a desperate effort to shake the man loose. Jimmy threw himself
sidewise to escape smashing his leg against the corral fence, and horse
and rider went down in a heap of dust and broken poles.
Jimmy was unhurt and on his feet when the horse got up, and without a
moment’s hesitation he mounted again. The roan trembled and heaved from
the effort and fall, and Jimmy waited calmly for a continuation, which
did not come. He spoke to the roan, spurred it gently with his heels and
the animal walked away with him. Jimmy got off and opened the gate. He
expected the roan to buck again when he got on, but the roan was no
longer a bucker. It had used every trick in its repertoire—why repeat?
Jimmy found the roan hardly bridle-wise but willing to be taught.
“Fifteen months hasn’t hurt me for ridin’,” grinned Jimmy aloud, patting
the roan’s neck. “I might do better if I wore spurs; but spurs hurt.
Cuttin’ and slashin’ with sharp spurs is no square deal. Ye roan divil,
I hope ye appreciate that I gave ye an even chance.”
They crossed Leloo Creek and headed into the hills. Wild flowers
carpeted the ground, making the hills look as if they were covered with
giant Oriental rugs. The coulées were filled with cottonwood and poplar,
which added a fresh note of green, while the green-gray of the mesquite
made it a wonderland of color.
Up on the point of a bluff a coyote was busily engaged in remodeling
last year’s den and making it habitable for this year’s family. She saw
Jimmy and paused in her work to watch him pass. A big, gray badger
trundled out of his way and stopped to peer at him from the cover of a
granite outcropping.
He rode around the head of a draw, which was filled with trees and
brush. The roan pricked up its ears and slackened its pace, as a big,
black-tail doe trotted out of the brush and looked at them inquiringly.
“Good-morning, Mrs. Deer,” called Jimmy, and the doe nosed higher in the
air, sniffing cautiously for a moment and then moving away like a
shadow.
Jimmy rode to the top of the ridge and stopped.
Below him the rolling hills stretched far away to the banks of Bitter
River, which was the dividing-line between Thunder County and Silverbend
County. To the left, a mile or so away, was a peculiarly shaped rock
butte, like a giant platform. It was known as the Devil’s Rostrum, or
the Devil’s Pulpit. Jimmy looked at it and a smile of reminiscence came
across his face.
“Sure, that’s the place. Over fifteen months ago and it seems yesterday
that I met him on that ridge beyond. He told me he’d leave half the
money in a little cabin down the coulée below that tall cliff. I wonder
did he?” Jimmy wrinkled his nose from the smoke of his cigaret. “Bedad,
I’m no receiver of stolen goods, but I’ve a curiosity to see if the poor
divil kept his word.”
He rode straight toward the butte. A number of cattle had been caught on
that hillside in a blizzard and their bones, gnawed clean by the wolves
and coyotes, looked like clumps of strange plants. Here and there were
small bunches of cattle, wearing the Box M brand, their sides already
filling out with the luscious grass of Spring.
Jimmy rode past the big butte and swung to the left to the edge of a
deep, brush-filled coulée. He followed a deep cattle-track to the bottom
and came out into a small clearing, where a tiny cabin was hidden in the
trees. A small pole corral was built at the right-hand side of the
cabin, using one side of the cabin for part of the enclosure. The corral
was empty, but a saddle hung on a peg near the door.
“Somebody livin’ in it, from the looks of things,” reflected Jimmy as he
dismounted and tied his roan to the corral fence near the door.
No one answered his knock, but the door creaked at his touch, showing
that it was not fastened. He pushed it open and looked inside. It took
him some time to get his eyes accustomed to the dim light after the
bright sunlight. There was some one moving inside, and he discovered
that the somebody was on the floor, about midway of the room. A strong
odor of liquor pervaded the place.
* * * * *
He walked inside. The person on the floor appeared to be an Indian and
said Indian was just as drunk as a human being could possibly get. One
arm was lovingly twined around a demijohn.
A white man was sitting on the bed, braced against an extra roll of
bedding—a white man, his face was the color of wet clay, his eyes wild
with fever. Jimmy stared at him wonderingly. The wild look seemed to
leave the sick man’s eyes and he stared at Jimmy.
“Jimmy Devlin’s ghost!” he exclaimed in a weak whisper.
“Ye poor divil,” grunted Jimmy. “’T’is no ghost I am, Whitey Allen.”
“Alive?” gasped Whitey, and relapsed in a fit of coughing, which racked
his thin frame. Jimmy waited until he recovered.
“Aye—alive, Whitey, me lad. And ye never reached Arizona after all.
Hard, hard luck. Have ye been here all this time?”
Whitey Allen stared at the ceiling for a moment and nodded. Jimmy looked
down at the Indian, who was snoring contentedly, and stirred him with
his foot.
“And this has been takin’ care of ye, eh? Drunken Injun. Some white man,
with the soul of a coyote, has sold ye fire-water. ’T’is a shame, so it
is. Have ye no doctor, Whitey?”
Whitey Allen shook his head.
“No, I don’t need one.”
Jimmy nodded sadly. Whitey Allen had told him over fifteen months before
this that nothing but Arizona would save him from tuberculosis. He and
Jimmy had bunked together in the eastern part of the State. Jimmy had
drifted on and had not seen Whitey until one day a little later he met
him near the Devil’s Pulpit.
Haltingly he had told Jimmy of a train robbery in the county to the
east, across the Bitter River. He had robbed a train to get money enough
to go to Arizona to win back his health; but the sheriff was close on
his trail, and he knew the sheriff would win.
Jimmy’s heart went out to Whitey, and his impulsive Irish blood made him
offer himself as a sacrifice. He made Whitey trade horses with him,
which gave Jimmy a pinto of peculiar markings. Whitey had cried like a
baby over it all, and swore that he was going to leave half of the money
under the floor of that certain cabin in the coulée to the left of the
Pulpit, where Jimmy could find it. Jimmy led the sheriff a merry chase;
but was captured. He had no alibi.
He sat down on a broken chair and looked at Whitey. There was no
question in Jimmy’s mind about Whitey’s being in the last stages of the
disease. It seemed hard that he must pass out under these conditions. He
could imagine Whitey in that leaky little cabin during the terrible
Winter. No wonder the man was dying.
The stove was a mass of rust-eaten sheet-iron and looked as if it might
fall apart under the weight of a skillet. A small dry-goods box, nailed
against the wall, was used as a cupboard, and its visible contents would
hardly make a meal for one hungry man.
“Sure, we’ll have to get ye out of here, Whitey,” said Jimmy cheerfully.
“A drunken Injun is —— poor company for a sick man.”
Whitey shook his head.
“Lemme alone, Jimmy. I’m fine. Please don’t try to move me—please.”
“Well, may the divil fly away with ye!” grunted Jimmy. “I’d only do it
for your own good. Did ye know the judge gave me three years and the
State got tired of me in fifteen months? I’m out on parole.”
Whitey choked softly.
“I’m—sorry, Jimmy. Somebody got that money—the money I was leavin’ for
you.”
“Aw, to —— with the money! I would never take it, even if I did earn it
in that human corral.”
“I planted yours,” said Whitey painfully. “Under the floor, like I said,
but——”
“Forget it, Whitey. Tell me about yourself.”
“I’m here yet,” Whitey smiled sadly. “I hid out here for a while,
thinkin’ maybe they’d find me. I got worse and had to stay. The big
Injun took care of me. Thassall.”
“Where did he get the whisky, Whitey?”
“I dunno. Came in last night with the jug and drank himself pink.”
“And feeds ye on slumgullion, I suppose. Man, ye need milk and eggs and
nursin’.”
“Jimmy, will you promise me one thing?”
“I’d be hard-hearted as ——, if I didn’t. What is it?”
“Don’t tell anyone I’m here. I’ll get along.”
Jimmy studied Whitey for a while. It seemed strange that he preferred to
die alone. Human nature is a queer combination of desires, and Jimmy
knew this. Perhaps Whitey had a good reason for it. Disease plays queer
pranks with a man’s mind, and it might be that Whitey had an aversion to
seeing any one.
“You’re free, white and twenty-one,” said Jimmy slowly. “If ye desire it
that way, Whitey—God bless ye. But can’t I do nothin’ for ye?”
“Nothin’,” said Whitey shortly. “Just lemme alone.”
He coughed deeply and settled down on his pillow. Jimmy watched him for
a few minutes and went to the door. The drunken Indian snored harshly
and rolled over, still clutching the demijohn.
Jimmy untied the roan and vaulted into the saddle. He studied the cabin
for a while, rode around the open side of it and into the coulée, taking
a cattle-trail, which led out at the head of the coulée and on to the
ridge.
He had ridden perhaps two miles, sitting loosely in the saddle, deep in
thought. He wanted to help Whitey, but did not want to break his promise
to tell no one. He felt the roan throw up its head and slow its pace. He
glanced up and saw Jeff Garvin riding down the slope toward him.
Jimmy stopped and waited for Garvin to come up.
“Kinda warm,” remarked Garvin, shoving back his hat and wiping his brow
with his sleeve.
“Sure it is,” agreed Jimmy, turning in his saddle and looking back
toward the coulée, “I’ve been kinda lookin’ around and it seems that the
Winter did ruin a lot of good beef.”
Garvin nodded and squinted across the hills.
“Did yuh come up that brushy coulée?”
Jimmy nodded.
“Yes. I swung into it below that old cabin and came out at the head of
it.”
“Anybody livin’ in the cabin?”
“No. Wouldn’t be fit for anybody to live in.”
Garvin nodded as if just a trifle disappointed. Jimmy did not want
Garvin to go down there and find Whitey Allen and the drunken Indian.
“Been over to the Box M today?” asked Jimmy.
Garvin shook his head.
“Naw. I passed the bunch goin’ to town.” He yawned sleepily and relaxed
with a grin. “I wonder where in —— that pearl-handled gun is.”
Jimmy said nothing. If Garvin only knew it, that gun was hanging within
his reach right now; but the plain wood handles, stained dark by rubbing
with powdered pencil lead, bore little resemblance to those beautiful
pieces of pearl. Garvin eased himself sidewise in his saddle and
squinted at Jimmy.
“Pardner, where did you come from?”
Jimmy stared down at the ground thoughtfully for a few moments and then
grinned at Garvin.
“Do I look queer? Is there anything about me that seems different from
other folks? Do I wear strange raiment or cut my hair unlike other men?”
“Why ask all them questions?” grunted Garvin.
“Because folks are always askin’ me where I came from. What in
the —— has me last stoppin’ place got to do with you or any one else?”
“Strangers ain’t never very numerous around here,” replied Garvin
evenly, “and you kinda drifted in at a bad time.”
“Well,” Jimmy’s eyes twinkled, “well, should I go back and get a fresh
start? Or is it that you’ve found you arrested the wrong parties?”
Garvin glared at Jimmy for a moment, struggling to keep his temper, and
then,
“Which don’t tell me who you are or where you came from, pardner.”
“No,” softly, “and that’s only a part of it, sheriff.”
The smile had left Jimmy’s good-natured face, and his blue eyes seemed
to fade to a steel-gray. Garvin started to say something, but changed
his mind. He turned, as if to ride away.
“Talkin’ now might save yuh trouble.”
“Sure now, I never depend on me tongue to keep me out of a bit o’
trouble. Good afternoon.”
Jimmy shook up the roan and rode straight up the slope, while Garvin
rode along the side of the hill, heading back toward Oxbow.
“Now why did he speak of that little cabin?” reflected Jimmy. “I had to
lie to him about the place, but I’m sure the lie hurt no one. Poor
Whitey. Nursed by a drunken Injun. He needs good care and he needs good
eats. I’ve heard that eggs and milk is the proper grub. Hm-m-m! From the
looks of him he’d keep the chickens and the cows workin’ a day and night
shift.”
Jimmy rode slowly back toward the Box M, deep in his thoughts; letting
the roan take its own way.