AT CINNABAR JOE'S
Along toward the middle of the afternoon Cinnabar Joe laid down his
hammer and smilingly accepted the sandwich his wife held out to him.
"You sure don't figure on starvin' me none, Jennie," he grinned as he
bit generously into the thick morsel.
"Ranchin's some different from bartendin'--an' you're workin' awful
hard, Joe." She surveyed the half-completed stable with critical eye:
"Couple more weeks an' it'll be done!" she exclaimed in admiration, "I
didn't know you was so handy. Look over to the house."
Cinnabar looked: "Gee! Curtains in the window! Looks like a regular
outfit, now."
"Do you like 'em--honest? I didn't think you'd even notice they was
hung." With the pride of new proprietorship, her eyes travelled over the
tiny log cabin, the horse corral with its new peeled posts, and the
stable which still lacked the roof: "We ain't be'n here quite two
months, an' the best part is, we done it all ourselves. Why, Joe, I
can't hardly believe we've really got an outfit of our own--with horses
an' two hundred an' fifty head of cattle! It don't seem real. Seems
like I'm bound to wake up an hear Hank roarin' to git up an' git
breakfast. That's the way it ended so many times--my dream. I'm so sick
of hotels I hope I'll never see another one all my life!"
"You an' me both! It's the same with bartendin'. But you ain't a-goin'
to wake up. This here's _real_!"
"Oh, I hope we can make a go of it!" cried the girl, a momentary shadow
upon her face, "I hope nothin' happens----"
Her husband laid his hand affectionately upon her shoulder: "They ain't
nothin' goin' to happen," he reassured her, "we've got to make a go of
it! What with all both of us has be'n able to save, an' with the bank
stakin' us fer agin as much--they ain't no two ways about it--we've got
to make good."
"Who's that?" asked the girl, shading her eyes with her hand, and
peering toward the mouth of a coulee that gave into Red Sand Creek from
the direction of the bad lands. Cinnabar followed her gaze and both
watched a horseman who, from the shelter of a cutbank seemed to be
submitting the larger valley to a most careful scrutiny.
"One of them horse-thieves, I guess," ventured, the girl, in a tone of
disgust, "I wisht, Joe, you wouldn't have no truck with 'em."
"I don't have no dealin's with 'em, except to keep my mouth shut an'
haul their stuff out from town--same as all the other ranchers down in
here does. A man wouldn't last long down here that didn't--they'd put
him out of business. You don't need to fear I'll throw in with 'em. I
guess if a man can tend bar for six years an' stay straight--straight
enough so the bank ain't afraid to match his pile an' shove the money
out through the window to him--there ain't much chance he won't stay
straight ranchin'."
"It ain't that, Joe!" the girl hastened to assure him, "I never would
married you if I hadn't know'd you was square. I don't want nothin' to
do with them crooks--I've got a feelin' that, somehow, they'll throw it
into you."
"About the only ones there is around here is Cass Grimshaw's gang an'
outside of runnin' off horses, Cass Grimshaw's on the level--everyone
knows that."
"Well," replied the girl, doubtfully, "maybe they might be one
horse-thief like that--but a whole gang--if they was that square they
wouldn't be horse-thieves."
"What Cass says goes----"
"Look at comin', yonder!" interrupted Jennie, pointing to the lone
rider, "if it ain't that low-down Jack Purdy, I'll jump in the crick!"
At the mention of the name of Purdy, Cinnabar Joe started perceptibly.
His wife noticed the movement, slight as it was--noted also, in one
swift sidewise glance, that his face paled slightly under its new-found
tan, and that a furtive--almost a hunted look had crept into his eyes.
Did her husband fear this man, and if so--why? A sudden nameless fear
gripped her heart. She stepped close to Cinnabar Joe's side as though in
some unaccountable way he needed her protection, and together they
waited for the approaching rider. The man's horse splashed noisily into
the creek, lowered his head to drink, but the rider jerked viciously on
the reins so that the cruel spade bit pinked the foam at the animal's
lips. Spurring the horse up the bank, he stopped before them, grinning.
"'Lo Cinnabar! 'Lo, Jennie! Heard you'd located on Red Sand, an' thought
I'd run over an' look you up--bein' as we're neighbours."
"Neighbours!" cried the girl, in undisguised disgust, "Lord! I know'd
the bad lands was bad enough--but I didn't think they was that bad. I
thought you was plumb out of the country or dead, long before this!"
The man leered insolently: "Oh, you did, eh? Well, I ain't out of the
country--an' I ain't dead--by a hell of a ways! I guess Cinnabar
wouldn't sob none if I was dead. You don't seem tickled to death to see
an' old pal."
"Sure, you're welcome here, Jack. Anyone is. Anything I can do for you?"
The man seemed to pay no attention to the words, and swinging from the
saddle, threw an arm over the horn, and surveyed the outfit with a
sneering grin: "Saved up enough to start you an outfit of yer own, eh?
You ought to done pretty good tendin' bar for six years, with what you
got paid, an' what you could knock down. Go to it! I'm for you. The
better you do, the better I'll like it."
"What I've saved, I've earnt," replied Cinnabar evenly.
"Oh, sure--a man earns all he gits--no matter how he gits it. Even if
it's shootin' up his old pals an' grabbin' off the reward."
Cinnabar's face went a shade paler, but he made no reply and the other
turned to Jennie. "You go to the house--me an' Cinnabar wants to make
medicine."
"You go to the devil!" flashed the girl. "Who do you think you are
anyhow? Tryin' to order me around on my own ranch! If you've got
anything to say, just you go ahead an' spit it out--don't mind me."
"Kind of sassy, ain't you? If you was mine, I'd of took that out of you
before this--or I'd of broke you in two."
"If I was yourn!" cried the girl contemptuously, "if you was the last
man in the world, I'd of et wolf poison before I'd be'n seen on the
street with you. I've got your number. I didn't work in the hotel at
Wolf River as long as I did, not to be onto your curves. You're a nasty
dirty low-down skunk--an' that's the best can be said about you! Now, I
guess you know how you stand around here. Shoot off what you got to say,
an' then take your dirty hide off this ranch an' don't come back!"
"I guess Cinnabar won't say that," sneered the man, white with rage,
"you don't hear him orderin' me off the place, do you--an' you won't
neither. What I've got on him'll hold you for a while. You're holdin'
yer nose high--now. But, you wait--you'll pay fer them words you said
when the time comes--_an' you'll pay my way!_"
Jennie's face went suddenly white and Cinnabar Joe stepped forward, his
eyes narrowed to slits: "Shut up!" he said, evenly, "or I'll kill you."
Purdy glanced into the narrowed eyes of the ex-bartender, and his own
glance fell. Cinnabar Joe was a man to be reckoned with. Purdy had seen
that peculiar squint leap into the man's eyes once or twice before--and
each time a man had died--swiftly, and neatly. The horse-thief laughed,
uneasily: "I was only jokin'. What do I care what the women say? Come on
over here a piece, an' I'll tell you what I want. You asked me if there
was anything you could do."
"Say it here," answered Cinnabar without taking his eyes from the man's
face.
Purdy shrugged: "All right. But first let me tell you somethin' fer yer
own good. Don't kill me! I've got three pals not so far from here that's
in on--well, you know what. I told 'em the whole story--an' if anything
happens to me--up you go--see? An' if you try to double-cross me--up you
go, too. You git that, do you? Well, here's what you got to do. It ain't
much. I've got a boarder fer you. It's a woman. Keep her here fer a
week, an' don't let anyone know she's here. Then I'll come an' git her.
That's all!"
"Who is she, an' what you goin' to do with her?"
"That ain't none of yer damn business!" snapped Purdy, "an' mind you
don't try to bushwhack me, an' don't let no one know she's here, or
you'll spend the rest of your life in Deer Lodge--an' me an' Jennie'll
run the outfit----"
With a cry Jennie threw herself upon her husband who, unarmed, had
launched himself at Purdy. "Joe! Joe! He'll kill you! He's got his
guns!" she shrieked, and held on the tighter as Cinnabar struggled
blindly to free himself. Purdy vaulted into his saddle and dashed across
the creek. Upon the opposite side he jerked his horse to a stand, and
with a wave of his hand, indicated the coulee down which he had come:
"She's up there a piece on a cayuse tied to a tree. Go get her--she's
had a hard ride."
Cinnabar succeeded in freeing himself from his wife's grasp, and dashed
for the house. Purdy stopped speaking abruptly and spurring his horse
madly, whirled and dashed for the shelter of a cottonwood grove. As he
plunged into the thicket a gun cracked behind him, and a piece of bark
flew from the side of a tree not a foot from his head. "The damn fool! I
wonder if he knew I was lyin' about tellin' the others. He sure as hell
was shootin' to kill--an' he damn near called my bluff!"
Working out of the thicket into the mouth of a deep coulee, Purdy rode
rapidly into the bad lands.
Three or four miles from the hang-out of the Grimshaw gang, was a rocky
gorge that had become the clandestine meeting place of the four who
sought to break the yoke of Grimshaw's domination. Unlike the cave, the
place was not suited to withstand a siege, but a water-hole supplied
moisture for a considerable area of grass, and made a convenient place
to turn the horses loose while the conspirators lay among the rocks and
plotted the downfall of their chief. Purdy made straight for this gorge,
and found the other three waiting.
"Where in hell you be'n?" asked one, "we be'n here sence noon." Purdy
eyed the speaker with contempt: "Who wants to know?" he asked and
receiving no answer, continued, "where I be'n is my business. Why don't
you ask Cass where he's be'n, sometime? If you fellers are goin' to
follow my lead, I'll be boss--an' where I've be'n is my own business."
"That's right," assented one of the others, in a conciliating tone.
"Don't git to scrappin' amongst ourselves. What we wanted to tell you:
the Flyin' A's raid is off."
"Off!" cried Purdy, "what do you mean, off?"
"Cass told me this noon. The IX rodeo has worked down this side of the
mountains, an' it'll be a week before the slope's clear of riders."
Purdy broke into a torrent of curses. The Flying A horse raid, planned
for that very night, was to have been the end of Cass Grimshaw. He was
to have been potted by his own men--both Cass and his loyal henchman,
Bill.
After a few moments Purdy quieted down. He rolled a cigarette and as he
smoked his brows knitted into a frown. Finally he slapped his leg. "All
right, then--he'll take it where he gits it!" The others waited. "It's
this way," he explained, "we ain't got time to dope it all today--but be
here tomorrow noon. Tonight everything goes as usual--tomorrow night,
Cass Grimshaw goes to hell--an' it'll be the Purdy gang then, an' we
won't stop at horse-runnin' neither." The men looked from one to the
other, uneasily. "It's better this way anyhow," announced Purdy, "we'll
bump him off, an' collect the reward. I know a feller that'll collect
it--I've got somethin' on him--he's got to."
"We're all in the gang," muttered the man who had asked Purdy where he
had been, "looks like if you had somethin' on someone you'd let us all
in."
"Not by a damn sight! If I did, what would keep you from double-crossin'
me, an' goin' after him yerselves. All you got to do is be here tomorrow
noon--then we'll cut the cards to see who does the trick."
Grumbling dubiously, the men caught up their horses, and scattering
approached the hang-out from different directions. As Purdy rode he
scowled blackly, cursing venomously the heavens overhead, the earth
beneath, and all the inhabitants thereof. "I overplayed my hand when I
made Cinnabar sore," he muttered. "But he'll come around in a week.
Trouble is, I've took too much on. Cass an' Bill'll git theirn tomorrow
night, that'll give me time to git organized, an' horn the pilgrim out
of his five thousan', an' git it over with by the twentieth when old
McWhorter's due fer his lonesome jag, an' then fer three days I'll have
my own way with the girl--an' when I've had her fer three days--she'll
never go back!" A sudden thought struck him, and he pulled up and gazed
toward Red Sand while a devilish gleam played in his narrowed eyes.
"Gawd," he muttered, "drunk as he gits, the shack could burn to the
ground--it's every man fer hisself--might's well play safe. An' after
that comes Cinnabar's turn--an' another woman's goin' to pay fer bein'
free with her tongue. Then the Wolf River bank. Damn 'em!" he cried,
suddenly, "I'll clean 'em all! I'm smarter'n the whole mess of 'em. I'm
a killer! I'm the last of the loboes! Cass depended on friends, but
me--the name of Purdy'll chill their guts!"