Luther Fox swung a long leg across his saddle horn and thus at ease
in his saddle, gazed at the rudely lettered sign nailed to the lone
cottonwood. A cold cigar jutted from the corner of his thin-lipped
mouth. The age-yellowed ivory butt of a long-barreled .45 poked
itself from beneath the long tail of his rusty black coat. He
removed the cigar from between his crooked teeth and sprayed the
sign with tobacco juice. One or two brown specks were added to the
already badly spotted white expanse of shirt front.
“Barring —— and high water,” he addressed his two roughly garbed,
heavily armed companions who had dismounted and squatted on the
ground, “that sign will come off that tree before sundown.”
“No more dead-line between Basset’s and the LF, eh, boss?”
Fox nodded. The corners of his mouth twitching. Then he pointed with
the butt of a home-made quirt to a small dust cloud, slowly
approaching from the direction of the Basset place.
“What do you make of it, boys? How many comin’?”
“Two. Two hossbackers. Nary steer.”
“That’ll be Basset and his sweet-tempered wife. We’re due to receive
a tongue lashing, boys. —— a man that can’t do business without
his —— cat of a woman tagging along. Killing’s too good an end for
such females.”
“I wonder where’s the cattle and them two waddies yuh hired, boss?”
“Quit the country, no doubt. I sent a man over here yesterday to see
’em. They’d pulled out and Basset was making no effort to gather the
few head uh stuff he has on his range. As a matter of fact, Basset’s
wife had the old fool penned off in the blacksmith shop.”
Fox smiled faintly. The two punchers laughed coarsely.
“Yuh aim tuh make a dicker fer the Basset iron, boss? Watch clost
that ol’ Hank don’t sluff the ol’ lady off on yuh along with the
brand.”
Hank and Ma Basset came on slowly, their horses scuffing up puffs of
yellow dust.
The old couple looked tired and worried. Ma, dressed in bib
overalls, flannel shirt, and an old slouch hat, filled her saddle to
the point overflowing. Her eyes were a bit red as if from recent
shedding of tears. Of the two, Hank looked the more downcast as they
approached the lone tree that marked the boundary line. Low on
Hank’s thigh swung a .45 in a weather-stained holster. Across Ma’s
saddle pommel rested a sawed-off shotgun.
“Looky here, Hank Basset, perk up. I don’t aim that Fox should see
us down in the mouth. Land sakes, can’t yuh scare up a grin of some
description to wear on yore face. You don’t see me sittin’ my hoss
like a dogie in a blizzard.”
At that moment her horse, an old flea-bitten gray, stumbled and went
to his knees, jolting the breath out of Ma as her saddle horn jabbed
her. Hank did his best to hide a grin. Ma, red-faced and gasping,
gave him an angry look.
“If that ain’t a cowpuncher for yuh! I do believe you’d laugh if I
was to be killed by this crow-bait of a hoss. Now what’s so comical?
What yuh grinnin’ at?”
“Yuh ’lowed I was tuh perk up, Ma. I’m perkin’.”
Hank’s hand, searching for tobacco, encountered Kipp’s sheriff
badge.
“Joe Kipp and the Ladd feller ’lowed they’d be here at noon today.
The sun lacks half a hour uh throwin’ the short shadder. We ain’t
licked yet.”
“If ary harm had come to Pete, I’d feel it in my bones, Hank. What
was it Joe Kipp said about that paper in his safe?”
“He ’lowed it ’ud be useful to us.”
“Huh! He mighta said more. Yonder’s Fox, lookin’ fer all the world
like a turkey buzzard, drat him. I’d like tuh give that old
skinflint a piece uh my mind. Set up straight, can’t yuh? Goodness,
a person ’ud think you was a hunchback. If them new galluses is too
tight, let ’em out a notch.”
The couple approached the tree. Fox, his long leg still crooked
across his saddle horn, lifted his hat with an air of mocking
gallantry.
“The dried up ol’ he school-marm,” muttered Ma Basset, freezing him
with a hard stare.
Fox’s head, bare as a billiard ball, disappeared beneath the
wide-brimmed black hat.
“I understood there was a bunch of cattle to be delivered here,
Basset,” he said as if surprised to see no herd. “My two boys are
bringing them, perhaps?”
“Perhaps,” snapped Ma Basset. “’Tain’t noon yet.”
“On such a beautiful Sabbath morning, we mortals should forget our
quarrels, Mrs. Basset. I come on an errand of peace. Ours should be
a relationship of neighborly friendship instead on enmity.”
His bony hand indicated Basset’s sign. “It is my wish that such
things should not exist, madam. In my pocket is your note. I would
gladly destroy that bit of paper and seal, in that manner, our bond
of mutual friendship. In return, I ask for something that is of
little value. Namely, the transfer of your iron into my name. It is
evident that but a handful of cattle in that iron exist. I am
offering to lift the burden of debt from you in return for a brand
that has no value.”
“_Why?_” snapped Ma Basset.
“That such ill feeling as is shown by yonder sign may be wiped away.
You will be taken care of. Moreover, I shall myself make a plea to
the governor of the State for an absolute pardon for your son. I
wish to prove to you that Luther Fox is not the scoundrel you would
have men think him to be.”
His bony thumbs hooked in the armholes of his grease-spotted
waistcoat, he attempted a yellow-fanged smile.
“A buzzard chatterin’ like a magpie,” was Ma Basset’s audible
comment to her husband.
Fox’s yellow cheeks took on a pinkish hue. His eyes glittered
venomously.
“We ain’t askin’ no compromise, Fox,” said Hank. “The deal goes as
she lays.”
“So be it.”
Fox bit off his words sharply. Pulling forth a huge watch, he held
it in the palm of his hand.
“You have exactly twenty-eight minutes to produce those cattle,
Basset.”
“And that’s a plenty, Luther Fox! Look yonder!” cried Ma Basset.
Out of a long draw came a moving mass of stock. The faint sound of
bawling cattle came to them. The brownish spot widened quickly,
taking form as the herd spread out across the prairie.
Fox went pasty white. The crooked smile on his thin lips vanished. A
man seeing a ghost could look no more startled.
“Something’s wrong as ——,” he muttered as his leg swung to catch the
ox-bow stirrup. Beads of moisture stood out on his cheeks. His
claw-like fingers shook as they wrapped about the ivory butt of the
low-hung .45. He gazed as if fascinated at the oncoming herd.
With those cattle came ruination and defeat. The absence of Kipp,
Tad and Shorty was now accounted for. Somehow, they had gotten into
the Pocket, killed or captured Black Jack and his men and were
bringing out the stolen herd. The swift vision of a prison cell made
him wince. He shut his eyes against it and his chin dropped to his
chest. When he looked up a moment later, the color had come back
into his lips. He turned to his two followers.
“You’ll find fresh horses at the corral in town. It’s a forty-hour
ride to the Canadian line. You’d better lose no time.”
The two men gazed at him for a moment, then whirled their horses and
were gone in a cloud of dust, without a word of parting. Fox now
turned to Hank Basset and his wife who acted like people who moved
in a dream, stupefied. With steady hand, Fox brought forth Hank
Basset’s note and slowly tore it to bits. The scraps of paper
fluttered to the ground.
“It would be better if you rode back towards your ranch, madam. I
bid you good day.”
Ma Basset hesitated, her eyes moving from Fox to her husband.
Something in Fox’s bearing silenced her usually ready tongue.
“Better drift, Ma,” mumbled Hank.
She turned her horse and rode away. The old horse, headed on the
homeward trail, voluntarily quickened his pace and she gave him
rein.
Hank licked his dry lips and stared at Fox who had taken the .45
from its holster and was spinning the cylinder, his eyes on a
solitary horseman who had quit the herd and was riding toward the
lone tree.
“That will be Joe Kipp,” said Fox, his voice flatly emotionless.
“For a man who has spent his life in the saddle, he sits a horse
badly.”
The white-handled gun went back in its holster. Then Fox rode to the
cottonwood and with an abrupt movement, jerked Hank Basset’s sign
from its place on the tree trunk.
“You’ll have no further need of it, Basset, and the thing was an
eyesore. The spelling was miserable. Should Kipp shoot better than
he rides, bury me on the LF side of the tree.”
Midway between the tree and the herd, Joe Kipp came on, his horse at
a running walk. Fox, riding to meet him, halted for a moment to call
over his shoulder to Hank.
“A man may be a scoundrel, Basset, but still not be a coward.”
Then he rode on.
Those that watched saw the two men ride toward each other. Saw the
gap between them lessen. Two puffs of white smoke appeared at
precisely the same instant. Both men swayed drunkenly in the saddle.
The horses, startled, leaped forward. The riders slipped to the
ground to lie quietly, but ten feet apart.
Tad was the first to reach the spot. He swung from his saddle to
bend over Kipp. Fox, a red smear oozing from the hole between his
eyes, lay face upward, his gun still clutched in his lifeless hand.
“Is Kipp dead?” panted Shorty, riding up.
Tad looked up, shaking his head. “Creased. He’ll come to directly.
Fox’s bullet done parted his hair. The sun must’a’ somehow sp’iled
the buzzard’s aim.”
Hank rode up, panting as if from a hard run.
“Toss me Kipp’s badge, Hank,” called Tad. “He’s done earned the
right tuh wear it.”
* * * * *
From Ma Basset’s kitchen came the savory odor of roast turkey,
baking pies and coffee.
In the front room, cotton covers had been removed from plush seated
chairs and the place buzzed with conversation, generously punctuated
by laughter. Holiday spirit prevailed.
Shorty Carroway, scrubbed, shaved, resplendent in a suit of store
clothes, was gradually becoming more red of cheek due to the
confines of a shining celluloid collar.
“That red tie uh yourn has slipped up under yore off ear, runt,”
confided Tad, also in holiday garb, in a voice that carried the
length of the room.
Shorty rescued the truant tie and grinned wickedly.
“Is it the style tuh wear one sock draggin’ low thataway when yuh
got low water shoes on, Ox? Swap yuh this here Los Cruces letter uh
Joe Kipp’s fer Pete Basset’s pardon paper. Dang me if I ever knowed
so many big words could be herded together on one hunk uh paper.
This judge gent in Los Cruces shore tells it scary. And them two
reward checks fer Fox and Black Jack, man, they runs into real
money. Joe ’lows the Black Jack reward goes tuh you.”
“Fer gosh sake, dry up,” muttered Tad. “Don’t go sp’ilin’ Joe’s
dinner, talkin’ about the breed. Where’n —— yore manners? And mind
yuh, act purty when Miz Basset sets yuh alongside thet school-marm
at the table.”
Shorty squirmed, his glance darting to an angular maiden lady across
the room. Tad chuckled softly.
Joe Kipp, exonerated from the Los Cruces killing and recently
returned from the border town, was in a corner with Pete Basset who
had that morning made his triumphant return from Deer Lodge.
Ma Basset and the school teacher were fluttering about the room
collecting vacant chairs and setting the table. The school teacher,
taking advantage of a lull in the operations, headed like a homing
pigeon for the vacant place on the setee alongside Shorty. The
little puncher grinned in a sickly fashion and swallowed hard.
“We’ll have a chance to finish that thrilling tale of yours now,
Mister Carroway,” she cooed.
Shorty, catching Hank’s eye, sent a look of desperate appeal that
might have brought results had not Tad interfered.
“If there’s anything Mister Carroway loves, it’s relatin’ them
hair-brained escapes uh hisn. Git him tuh tell yuh about the time he
stumbled over Lafe Tucker’s tame polecat in the dark, ma’am.”
Ma Basset, sensing Shorty’s agonized frame of mind, came to the
rescue.
“Hattie, if yuh don’t mind, will yuh put on the red napkins. I’m
gettin’ that hefty that my feet kills me when I’m on ’em long.”
She dropped into a chair and fanned herself with her apron.
Hattie reluctantly obeyed and Ma winked at Shorty. The little
puncher grinned his thanks.
Hank Basset, who had been hovering in the vicinity of the cupboard
where Ma’s bottle of snake-bite cure was concealed, caught Joe
Kipp’s eye and a meaning glance was exchanged.
“Ma,” said Hank, sniffing audibly, “ain’t them biscuits burnin’?”