THE REVEREND'S STRATEGY
Throughout the day the sun beat into the canyon, its heat relieved by
rare breezes of brief duration. What wind did come raised swirls of
dust and rustled wilted foliage, for the country had become ash dry.
The cattle, most of them on their fourth waterless day, bawled
dismally, a thirsty chorus rising as the day aged. They did not eat;
they wandered rapidly about seeking moisture. Those spots of the creek
bed which showed damp above and below Cole's fence were tramped to
powder by uneasy hoofs and a narrow area outside the fence was cut to
fluff by the restless wanderings of the suffering steers.
As afternoon came on they abandoned their futile search for unguarded
drink and clung closer to the wire barrier, snuffing loudly as their
nostrils drank in the smell of water as greedily as their throats would
have swallowed the fluid itself. Their eyes became wider, wilder, and
the bawling was without cessation. Flanks pumped the hot air into their
bodies in rapid tempo and slaver hung from loose chops. The herd was in
desperate condition.
Now and then a big beefer would rush the fence as if to tear his way
through but the new wire and solid posts always flung them back. Again,
another would push his head tentatively between the strands and attempt
entrance by gentler methods, but always they were driven back either by
one of the HC riders or by Cole himself.
By the time the sun was half way to the horizon the steers were moving
in a compact mass back and forth along the fence, snuffing, crying,
sobbing in dry throats, bodies growing more gaunt hourly as frenzy
added its toll to physical suffering.
The bawling became a din. Big steers shook their heads and hooked at
one another groggily. The first one went down and could not rise alone;
the men "tailed" him up and worked him to shade, where he sank to his
side again, panting, drooling and silent.
"Damn an outfit like that!" growled Curtis, looking across the bunch to
Cole, who stood staring back.
"There's goin' to be hell a-poppin' here," commented one of the men.
"They're waitin' for trouble an' you can't prevent 'em havin' it--"
"Look at that!"
A half dozen steers, surging against the fence, put their combined
weight on a panel and the post gave with a snap.
Bobby ran forward, brandishing a club, and drove them back as they
floundered in the sagging wire, heedless of barbs, eyes protruding with
want of the drink that dilated nostrils told them was near.
After he had propped the post up again the nester shook his fist at
Curtis and shouted:
"I'll protect my property! You can protect yourn if you will. Th' next
critter that breaks my fence gits lead in his carcass!"
He slouched back to the cabin and came out a moment later with a rifle.
Seating himself on a stump he crossed his knees and with the weapon
across his lap sat waiting.
"We'll bunch 'em so we can make a show at holdin' 'em tonight," Curtis
said. "That'll save time in th' mornin' ... an' we'll need all our
time."
Forthwith he and the others began gathering the suffering stragglers in
a loose bunch.
The Reverend came riding across the flat before this was completed. His
face was serious and as he came close to the herd and saw the condition
of the cattle he shook his head apprehensively.
"I fear, brother, that by another day there'll be little strength in
those bodies to get 'em up to open water," he said to Curtis.
"It'll be the devil's own job for sure! It'll take twenty men to move
'em and if we don't lose half we'll be lucky.
"If that old cuss 'uld let 'em water once it'd be a cinch, but he's a
bad _hombre_; he won't. There's something back of this, Reverend."
Beal scratched his chin and blinked and looked across to where Cole
sat. One of his Mexicans also was armed and had taken up his position
further down the fence.
"So it would appear," he replied. "As Joshua said to Moses, 'There's a
noise of war in the camp.'
"I see a relationship between the smiting of my beloved brother and the
refusal of this outfit to grant water.
"Oh, another watcher!"
He indicated Pat Webb who evidently had gained the Cole ranch by a
circuitous route and had taken up his position within the fence, armed
with a rifle.
Night came on with a dry wind in the trees on the heights. Its draft
did not reach the Hole but the sound did and that uneasy, distant roar
served to intensify the distress of the cattle.
Beds were made on a knoll not far from the bunched steers and the
Reverend was the first to rest, while the others, singing, whistling,
slapping chaps with quirts rode round and round the herd keeping them
away from the fence to give the riflemen no opportunity to shoot.
Azariah did not sleep but rolled uneasily on his tarp watching the
bright, dry stars, muttering to himself now and then.
Once he got up and fussed about his blankets and Curtis, riding by,
stopped.
"No, I can't rest," the Reverend replied to his query. "I believe I
have lost one pen....
"By the way, brother, if these were your cattle how many head would you
give just to get them to water tonight?"
"I'd give several," Curtis answered bitterly. "Yes, I'd give a good
many and look at it as a good investment. Without water we're goin' to
make lots of feed for buzzards an' coyotes, tryin' to make up that
trail tomorrow!"
"A good many.... A good many," the clergyman muttered as Curtis rode
on. "She is for peace, but when she speaks, they are for war," he
paraphrased the Psalm.
"'They that war against thee shall be as nothing.'... An investment ...
a good investment...."
He sat hunched on his bed for some time, whispering over and over....
"A good investment ... investment...."
Then suddenly he rose and pawed about him for a dried bough of cedar
which he had cast aside to make his bed. With trembling fingers he
sought a match, struck and applied it.
The flame licked up the tinder and burst into a brilliant torch. The
bawling of the cattle cut off sharply. Whites of terrified eyes showed
for an instant and then vanished as heads were quickly turned away.
The herd stirred, like a concentrated mass, body crowding body; it
swayed forward, a rumbling of hoofs arose. And from the far side came
the shrill yipping of horsemen as they broke into a gallop and sought
to set the cattle milling.
Futile effort! Driven mad by thirst it would have required a much less
conspicuous disturbance than that flare of fire to start the wild rush.
With a roll of hoofs, a sickening, overwhelming sound, heads down,
crowded together into a knitted body of frightened strength the bunch
was in full stampede!
Down the far side rode Curtis, high in his stirrups, his revolver
spitting fire into the air. A big white steer charged straight at his
horse like a blinded thing and the animal carried his rider to
momentary safety with a hand's breath to spare.
On another flank of the herd another rider charged in and shouted and
shot and swung off. There was no time; there was no room! It was less
than a hundred yards to the fence and to be caught between its stout
strands and those charging heads meant terrible death. Curtis' warning
cry cut in above the fury of the flight as he doubled back toward
safety.
Within the fence were shouts. Figures sprang to outline in the
darkness. The first steer's shoulders struck the wire, the fence held,
threw him back and then, driven forward again by oncoming numbers the
creature went through, torn and raw, through a torn and tangled
barrier. There was a creaking strain of wire for rods, a snapping of
stout posts and then orange stabs out of the night.... Two ... four ...
five, and the sound of rifle shots pricked through the background of
heavier sounds.
A steer bawled once, its voice pitched high, and went down. Another
dropped beneath mincing hoofs without a sound. From their path ran the
riflemen, desperate in their fright, heedless of damage done property
or rights. Over, under and through the fence went the cattle, pouring
across the cleared land, crowding, snorting, gaining momentum with each
stride. On across the flat, on down the steep bank of the creek, on
into the water that sloshed about their knees....
And there, as quickly as it had come, their panic departed, for the
need of that water dissipated their fright. Noise of the flight
subsided and into the night rose the greedy sound of their guzzling as
the water which Cole had fenced and sought to hold was gulped down the
parched throats of HC cattle.
Curtis rode up at a gallop, drawing his horse to such a quick stop that
his hoofs scattered dirt over Azariah.
"What th' hell?" he began.
"I found it!" cried the Reverend in exultation, holding up a fountain
pen. "Must have dropped out when I took off my coat--"
"But look what you've done!" cried the other. "They knocked four steers
dead as the Populist party!"
Azariah looked up at him, the shrewdness in his face covered by
darkness, but his voice was guile itself.
"A small investment, brother, a good investment. Perhaps a parable is
writ this night.... A pillar of fire, a smiting of the rock?"
Curtis whistled lowly.
"Reverend, you planned it all out?"
"It is not given to me to plan; I am guided by the spirit of
righteousness! Besides, those who lack wisdom are the only ones who
divulge their innermost thoughts, brother. I found a way out of Egypt
for the cattle, as 't were. Remember, brother, the way of the Lord is
strength!"
They had not heard Bobby Cole running through the brush toward them but
as the Reverend stopped she stepped between him and Oliver's horse.
"So that's it!" she hissed. "So you're th' one to blame! I'll tell you
what I told your boss this mornin', that I'll run you out of the
country if it's th' last thing I do, you Bible talkin' rat!
"This ain't th' first thing I've got against you,"--darkly. "I might
've forgot th' other because she was to blame for it, but I've heard
what you just said an' I won't forget this! And don't think I'm th'
only one who'll keep it in mind!
"Why, you'll be run out of this country like a snake 'uld be chased out
of a cabin! Remember that!"
For a moment she stood confronting him in the darkness and though
features were not clearly distinguishable they could see by the poise
of her figure that those were no idle threats. Then she went as quickly
as she had come, leaving the Reverend scratching his chin and Curtis
whistling softly to himself.
"A woman possessed of the devil!" said Beal softly.
"Yeah. Or three or four," commented the other.
"Yesterday I sought to save her soul and tomorrow I must seek to save
my own skin!"
There was no more shooting because HC cattle were mingled with Cole's.
Curtis parlayed with the nester who made whining threats of a suit for
damages. When Curtis returned to the beds for the remainder of the
night the Reverend was not there.
"Dragged it for the ranch!" he chuckled.
So he thought. The Reverend had dragged it, but not for the HC or any
other nearby stopping place. Though Beal did not know all that
transpired to bring about the ruin of Jane Hunter he knew enough to
realize that he had made one determined enemy that night, that to make
one was to make many and that Bobby Cole's inference that he had
plunged himself into disfavor with others was no empty warning. Azariah
Beal was not a coward but he was discreet. The risk of remaining was
not justified by the end he might serve and now he sought sanctuary in
distance.
* * * * *
Tom Beck led the riders from the wagon into the Hole at dawn. Gathering
and moving the refreshed cattle up the trail was a difficult task but
it was accomplished without further loss, a fact which satisfied the
men. They reached the ranch on their way back to the round-up camp in
late afternoon.
News of the saving stampede had been carried ahead and Jane realized
that one difficulty had been surmounted and that the financial ruin
which confronted her yesterday was no more. However, removal of that
distraction allowed her mind to concentrate on the greater difficulty:
the breach which separated her from Tom Beck. Only one way seemed open:
to prevail upon the Reverend to explain matters, and that way was
closed when a passing cow-boy delivered her a note, written hastily on
rough paper. She read:
"The call has come and my feet are turned toward a far country.
"My arm has been lifted for you; though I am no longer in your presence
my prayers will continue to be lifted in your behalf.
"Respy.,
"A. BEAL."
Azariah had served the HC well. But for his strategy she might even
then be suffering from a loss which would doom the ranch. And yet he
could have served her infinitely better by staying on, by untangling
the snarl which circumstances had made in her affairs.
There was just one remaining course to follow, she told herself. This
was to go to Tom and explain everything. Then up rose her pride and
made denial. She could not do that! If his love would not bear up under
doubt, then she must keep her pride intact, for that was all she
possessed. Torn between desire to fling herself upon him and sob out
the whole story and to maintain her stand until he should be proven
wrong and come to her contrite, she dallied with the decision until the
riders had come and gone.
She watched Beck, riding at a trot down the road, looking neither to
the right nor left. She could not know that a similar struggle tortured
him. "Turn back!" one voice in his heart commanded. "Seek her out and
question and question until you know why; if it is the worst, if she
has been hiding a secret affection from you, beg her to turn from it,
to come to you; offer her your all, your pride, your life if need be.
She is all that living holds for you!"
And then that other, sterner self, which said over and over: "That
cannot be! If there is that in her heart which must be hidden from you,
draw back now and save all that is left to you: your pride!"
So pride held the one in her house and it led the other down Coyote
Creek, and each mile, each hour put between them multiplied the
difficulties, wore down the chance of reconciliation. For by such
simple, basic conflicts are loves ruined!