THE MESSAGE ON THE SADDLE
The hours he spent in Yavapai that night were memorable ones for Bruce
Bayard. He rode the distance to town at a slow walk and arrived after
the sun had set. He had no appetite for food but, nevertheless, after
washing in the kitchen, he went into the hotel dining room and talked
absently to Nora.
It did not occur to him to mention what had happened that afternoon to
the girl. That had been a matter too purely personal to permit its
discussion with another. While he talked to her, his mind was wholly
occupied with thoughts other than those of which he spoke and he did not
see that the waitress was studying him carefully, reading what was
written on his face. Nora knew that Ann was gone; she knew that she had
taken with her a new conviction, a new courage, and the fact that Bayard
had left her at his ranch, probably with Ned Lytton, puzzled the girl.
Bruce was not certain that he had acted wisely. Many circumstances might
arise in which his presence at the ranch could be a determining factor.
At times he wondered vaguely if Lytton might not attempt to do his wife
violence, but always he comforted himself by assurance of her strength
of character, of her moral fiber, contrasting it with Ned's vacillating
nature.
"She'd take care of herself anywhere," he thought time after time.
When he had gone through with the formal routine of feeding himself he
went out to stroll about. He watched the train arrive and depart, he
talked absently with an Indian he knew and jested with the red man's
squaw. He bought a Los Angeles paper and could not center his mind on a
line of its printed pages. He walked aimlessly, finally entering the
saloon where a dozen were congregated.
"That piano of yours has got powerful lungs, ain't it?" he asked the
bartender, wincing, as the mechanical instrument banged out its measure.
"This here beer's so hot it tastes like medicine," he complained,
putting down his glass after his first swallow, and picking up the
bottle to look at it with a wry face.
"It's right off th' ice," the other assured.
"You can have th' rest of it for th' deservin' poor," he said and strode
out, while the others laughed after him.
Up and down the street, into the general store to exchange absent-minded
pleasantries with the proprietor's wife, across to the hotel where he
tried to sit quietly in a chair, back to the saloon; up and down, up and
down.
[Illustration: Down the main street of Yavapai]
A hundred yards from the Manzanita House was a corral and in it a score
of young horses were being held to await shipment. In the course of
his ambling, Bruce came to this bunch of animals and leaned against the
bars, poking a hand through and snapping his thumb encouragingly as the
ponies crowded against the far side and eyed him with suspicion. He
talked to them a time, then climbed the fence and perched on the top
pole, snapping his fingers and making coaxing sounds in futile effort to
tempt the horses to come to him; and all the time his mind was back at
the Circle A, wondering what had transpired under his roof, in his room,
that day.
Nora's voice startled him when it sounded so close behind, for he had
not heard her approach.
"Why, you scart me bad!" he said, with a laugh, letting himself down
beside her. "What you doin' out to-night?"
He pinched her cheek with his old familiarity, but under the duress of
his own thinking did not notice that she failed to respond in any way to
his pretended mood.
"I thought I'd like to walk a little an' get th' air," she said.
"An' ... tell you that I'm goin' away."
"Away, Nora?"
"Yes, I'm goin' to Prescott, Bruce."
He lifted his hat and scratched his ear and moved beside her as she
started walking along the road, now a dim tape under the mountain stars.
"Why, Nora, I thought you was a fixture here; what'll we do without
you?"
He did not know how that hurt her, how the thought that he _could_ do
without her hung about her heart like a sodden weight. She covered it
well, holding her voice steady, restraining the discouragement that
wanted to break into words, and the night kept secret with her the
pallor of her face.
"I guess you'll get along, Bruce; you done it before I come an' I guess
th' town'll keep on prosperin' after I leave. I ... I got a chance to go
into business."
"Why, that's fine, Sister."
"A lunch counter that I can get for two hundred; I've saved more 'n that
since ... since I come here. That'll be better than workin' for somebody
else an' I figure I'll make as much and maybe considerable more."
"That's fine!" he repeated. "Fine, Nora!"
In spite of the complexity of his thinking he found an interval of
respite and was truly glad for her.
"I ... I wanted to tell you before anybody else knew, 'cause I ... Well,
you made it possible. If you hadn't done this for me ... this here in
Yavapai ... I'd never been ..."
He laughed at her.
"Oh, yes you would, Nora. You had it in you. If I hadn't happened along
some one else would. What we're goin' to be, we're goin' to be, I
figure. I was only a lucky chance."
"Lucky," she repeated. "Lucky! God, Bruce, lucky for me!"
"Naw, lucky for me, Nora. Why, don't you know that every man likes to
have some woman dependin' on him? It's in us to want some female woman
lookin' to us for protection an' help. It tickled me to death to think I
was helpin' you, when, all the time, I knew down in my heart, I was only
an accident.''
"You can say that, Bruce, but you can't make me believe it."
They walked far, talking of the past, of her future, but not once did
the conversation touch on Ann Lytton. Bayard kept away from it because
of that privacy with which he had come to look on the affair, and the
girl knew that his presence there in town after Ann's departure for the
ranch could mean only that a crisis had been reached. With her woman's
heart, her intuition, she was confident of what the outcome would be.
And though she had given her all to help bring it about, she knew that
the sound of it in speech would precipitate that self-revelation which
she had avoided so long, at such cost.
"I'll see you again," she said, when they stood before the hotel and she
was ready to enter for the night. "I'll see you again before I go,
Bruce. And--I ... thank you ... thank you...."
She gripped his hand convulsively and lowered her head; then turned and
ran quickly up the steps, for she would not let him see the emotion, nor
let him hear uncertain words form on her lips.
In her last speech with him, Nora had lied; she had lied because she
knew that to tell him she had packed her trunk and would leave on the
morning train would bring thanks from him for what she had done for Ann
Lytton; and Nora could not have stood this. From the man downstairs she
had learned kindness, had learned that not all mistakes are sins, had
learned that there is a judgment above that which denounces or commends
by rule of thumb. He had set in her heart a desire to be possessed by
him, had fed it unconsciously, had led her on and on to dream and plan;
then, had unwittingly wrecked it. But he had made her too big, too fine,
too gentle, to let jealousy control her for long. She had weakened just
once, and that had served to set in Nora's heart a new resolve, a finer
purpose than had ever found a place there before. And, as she stumbled
up the narrow stairway, the tears scalding her cheeks, her soul was
glad, was light, was happy, for she knew true greatness.
Bayard roamed until after midnight; then went to his room in the hotel
and slept brokenly until dawn. In those hours he chilled with fear and
experienced flushes of temper, but behind it all he was resigned,
willing to wait. He had done his all, he had held himself strictly
within the bounds of justice as he conceived it, and beyond that he
could do no more.
The east had only commenced to silver when he rode out of town at a
brisk gallop. He did not realize what going back to his ranch meant
until he was actually on his way and then with every length of the road
traveled, his apprehensions rose. It was no business of his he argued,
what had transpired the day before; it was Ann's affair ... and her
husband's. Yet, if he had left her alone, unprotected, and Lytton had
done her harm, he knew that he could never escape reproaching himself,
and his suffering would be in proportion to hers. Then, of the many,
there was another disturbing possibility. Perhaps a complete
reconciliation had followed. Perhaps he would ride into his dooryard to
find Ann Lytton cooking breakfast for her husband, smiling and happy,
refusing to meet his gaze, ashamed of what had been between them.
He prodded his pony to greater speed with that thought.
The sun was not yet up when he pulled his swift-breathing horse to a
stop. The outer gate stood open, and, as he rode through, his face
clouded slightly with annoyance over the unusual occurrence, but when he
looked to the horse corral and saw that it, too, was open, and empty,
that Abe was gone, his annoyance became fear. He spurred the tired pony
across the yard and flung off before the house with eyes on that portion
of the kitchen which was visible through the door. Then, stopped, stood
still, and listened.
Not a sound except the breathing of his horse. The breeze had not yet
come up, no animal life was moving. An uncanny sense of desertion was
upon the place and for a moment Bayard knew real panic. What if some
violence....
"Lytton!" he called, cutting his half-formed, horrible thought short,
and stepped into the room.
No answer greeted him and, after listening a moment, he again shouted.
Then walked swiftly to the room where Ned Lytton had lived through those
weeks. He knocked, waited, flung open the door and grunted at the
emptiness which he found. One more room remained to be inspected--his
room--and he turned to the door which was almost closed. He rapped
lightly on the casing; louder, called for Lytton, grasped the knob and
entered.
The overturned table, broken lamp, the spreading stain of its oil, the
rumpled rugs yielded their mute suggestion, and he moved slowly about,
eyeing them, searching for other evidence, searching for something more
than the fact that a struggle had taken place, hoping to find it,
fearing to know.
He stopped suddenly, holding his head to one side as though listening to
catch a distant sound.
"Both saddle horses gone ... they're gone," he muttered to himself and
started from the room on a run.
He inspected the saddle rack under his wagonshed and saw that the third
saddle was missing, and then, with expert eyes, studied the ground for
evidence.
A trail, barely discernible in the multitude of hoof-marks, led through
to the outer gate, crossed the road and struck straight east across the
valley.
"That's Abe," he said excitedly to himself. "That was made late
yesterday."
He stood erect and looked into the far reaches of the lower valley
where the wreaths of mists in the hollows were turning to silver and
those without shelter becoming dispelled as the sun spread its first
warmth over the country.
"You've stolen my horse!" he said aloud, and evenly, as though he were
dispassionately charging some one before him with the misdeed. "You
stole my horse, but she ... was your woman!"
He straightened and lifted his head, moving it quickly from side to side
as he strove to identify a moving object far below him that had risen
suddenly into sight on one of the valley swells and disappeared again in
a wash. It was a horse, he knew, but whether it was a roamer of the
range or a beast bearing a rider, he could not tell. He waited anxiously
for its reappearance, again hoping and fearing.
"Huh! You're carryin' nobody," he muttered aloud as the speck again came
into view. "An' you sure are goin' some particular place!"
The animal was too far distant to be readily identified but about its
swing was a familiar something and, inspired by an idea, Bayard returned
to the house, emerged with a field glass and focused it on the
approaching horse. The animal was his sorrel stallion.
"Come on, Abe," he said aloud, putting down the binoculars with a hand
that trembled. "They've sent you on home, or you've got away.... But how
about th' party you carried off?"
He walked to the gate and stood uneasily awaiting the arrival of the
animal. As the sorrel came into sight from the nearest wash into which
he had disappeared he was moving at a deliberate trot, but when he made
out the figure of his waiting master he strode swifter, finally breaking
into a gallop and approaching at great speed, whinnering from time to
time.
The bridle reins were knotted securely about the horn. He had not
escaped; Abe had been sent home. He stopped before Bruce and nuzzled the
man's hands as they caressed his hot, soft nose.
"It looks as if they had trouble before they left, from th' way my room
is," the man said to the horse as he stroked his nose, "but I know right
well he'd never got you out of that corral alone an' never got you off
in that direction unless somebody'd helped him; she might make you mind
'cause she rode you once. If it wasn't for that ... I'd think she'd been
forced ... 'cause they must have had a racket...."
He led the horse through the gate and into the corral. There, he slipped
the bridle off, uncinched and dragged the saddle toward him. As the
polished, darkened seat turned to the bright sunlight, he saw that the
leather had been defaced and, indignation mounting, he leaned over to
inspect it. The resentment departed, a mingling of fear and triumph and
rage rose within him, for on the saddle had been scratched in hasty,
crude characters:
BOUND FOR MI
NE
HELP
No need to speculate as to the author of that message on the saddle.
That Ann had been forced by circumstances to do the work furtively was
as evident. And the combination of facts which rode uppermost in his
confused mentality was this. Ann Lytton was being taken to the Sunset
mine against her will; she had appealed to him for aid and, because of
that, he knew that she had chosen between the two, between her husband
and her honorable lover!
For a moment, mad, hot triumph filled him. He had done his best with the
ruin of a man he had set out to reconstruct; he had groomed him well,
conscientiously, giving him thorough care, great consideration, just to
satisfy his own moral sense; he had given him back to Ann at the cost of
intense suffering ... and it had not been enough for her; she was not
satisfied. Beside her husband, bound for her husband's mountain home,
she had found herself in her hour of need and had cried out to him for
help!
Bruce calculated swiftly as he stood there. Lytton's trail from the
ranch led straight eastward, toward the Sunset group. They had not
ridden the whole forty-five miles at one stretch. He was satisfied of
that. Obviously, they had stopped for the night and out in that country
toward which they had started was only one ranch that would not take
them miles out of their course. That was the home of Hi Boyd, a dozen
miles straight east, six miles south and east from Yavapai, thirty-three
miles from the Sunset group. By now they were making on, they could
finish their journey before night....
And then recurred a thought that Bruce had overlooked in those moments
of speculation, of quick thinking:
"Good God, Benny Lynch's waitin' for him ... with murder in his heart!"
he cried aloud, the horror at the remembrance so sharp, the meaning of
this new factor in the situation so portentous, that the words came from
his lips unconsciously. He stood beside the horse, staring down at the
message on the saddle again, bewildered, a feeling of helplessness
coming over him.
"I can't let that happen, Abe, I can't!" he said. "I drove him there....
He must have gone because ... He's found out she was here all along ...
he's blamed it on me.... He's crazy mad an' he's ridin' straight to his
end!... It would free her, but I can't let it happen ... not that
way ...
"It's up to you to get me to town," he cried as he reached for the
bridle. "Just to Yavapai ... that's all.... You're th' best horse in th'
southwest, but they've got too much of a start on you. We'll try
automobiles this once, Pardner!"
In an incredibly short time the saddle was on, cinch tight. He gathered
the reins, called to the sorrel and Abe, infected with his excitement,
wheeled for the gate, the man running by his side. As the animal rounded
into the road, Bruce vaulted into the saddle, pawed with his right foot
for the flopping stirrup and leaning low on Abe's neck, shouted into his
ears for speed.
Merely minutes transpired in that eight-mile race to Yavapai. Bayard's
idea was to hire the one automobile of which the town boasted, start
down the valley road that Lytton and Ann must follow to reach the mine,
overtake and turn them back, somehow, on some pretext. He could arrange
the device later; he could think of the significance of Ann's appeal to
him when the man between them was free from the danger of which Bayard
was aware; his whole thought now was to beat time, to reach town with
the least possible waste of seconds. The steel sinews, the leather
lungs, the great heart of the beast under him responded nobly to this
need. They stormed along the wagon tracks when they held straight,
thundered through the unmarked grass and over rocks when the highway
turned and twisted. Once, when they ran through a shallow wash and Abe
climbed the far side with a scramble, fire shot from his shoes and Bruce
cried,
"You're th' stallion shod with fire, boy!"
It was a splendid, unfaltering run, and, when the rider swung down
before the little corrugated iron building that housed Yavapai's motor
car, the stallion was black with water and his breath came and went with
the gasps of fatigue and nervous tension.
Bruce turned from his horse and stepped toward the open door of the
garage. A man was there, behind the car, looking dolefully down at an
array of grease covered parts that littered the floor.
"Jimmy, I want you to take me out on th' Valley road this mornin'. How
soon can we get away?"
"It won't be this mornin' or this afternoon, Bruce," the man said, with
a shake of his head. "I've got a busted differential."
"Can't it be fixed?"--misgiving in his voice.
"Not here. I have to send to Prescott for a new one. I'll be laid up a
couple of days anyhow."
Bayard did not answer. Just stood trying to face the situation calmly,
trying to figure his handicap.
"Is it awful important, Bruce?" the man asked, struck by the cowman's
attitude.
"I guess th' end of th' world's more important,"--as he turned away,
"but to me, an' compared to this, it's a small sized accident."
He walked slowly out into the street and paused to look calculatingly at
Abe. Then, turning abruptly, struck by a new possibility, he ran across
to the Manzanita House, entered the door, strode into the office, took
down the telephone receiver and rattled the hook impatiently.
"I want Hi Boyd's ranch," he said to the operator. Then, after a wait in
which he shifted from foot to foot and swore under his breath: "Hello
... Boyd's? Is this Hi Boyd? It is? ... Well Hi, this is Bruce Bayard
an' I've got to have a horse from you this mornin'...."
"A horse!" came the thin, distant exclamation over the wire. "Everybody
wants horses off me today...."
"But I've _got_ to have one, Hi! It's mighty important. Yours is th'
only ranch that's on my way--"
"... an' we let one get away this mornin'," the voice went on, not
pausing for Bruce's insistence, "'fore daylight an' left a lady who
spent th' night with us a foot. We had to go catch up another for 'em
an' Lytton--Ned Lytton, was th' man--only got on two hours ago ... three
hours late! No, they ain't a horse on th' place that'll ride."
"Can't you catch one for me?" Bruce persisted.
"How? Run him down on foot? If I was a young man like you, I might, but
now...."
Bayard slammed up the receiver and turned away, staring at the floor. He
walked into the street again, looking about almost wildly. One by one
the agencies that might prevent the impending catastrophe out yonder had
been rendered helpless. The automobile, the chance of getting a change
horse, his haste in riding to Yavapai and its consequent inroads made
upon Abe's strength.
"I'm playin' with a stacked deck!" he muttered, as he approached the
stallion. "There ain't another horse in this country equal to you even
after your mornin's work," he said, looking at the breathing, sweat
darkened creature. "I wouldn't ask you to do it for anybody else, Boy.
But ... won't you do it for her? She sent for me. Will you take me back?
It'll mean a lot to her, let alone what it means to me ... if I don't
stop him.
"It's thirty-five miles for us to make while they're doin' little more
'n twenty, for they've been traveling since dawn. Maybe it'll be your
last run ... It may break your heart.... How about it?"
In his desperation, something boyish came into his tone, his manner, and
he appealed to his horse as he would have pleaded with another human
being. The sorrel looked at him inquiringly, great intelligent eyes
unblinking, ears forward with attentiveness and, after a moment, the
white patch on his nose twitched and he moved closer against his master
as he gave a low little nicker.
"Is that your answer, Abe? Are you sayin' yes?" Bayard asked, and
unbuckled his chap belt. "Is it, old timer? You're ... it's all up to
you!" He kicked out of his chaps, flung them to the hotel porch,
mounted, reined the stallion about and high in the stirrups, a live,
flexible weight, rode out of town at a slow trot, holding the horse to
the gait that the wind which blew in from the big expanse of country
might cool him.