JUSTICE AT HEART'S DESIRE
_The Story of a Sheriff and Some Bad Men; showing also a Day's Work,
and a Man's Medicine_
"Dad, you've been drinking!" burst out Constance as her father met her
at the door of Curly's house. She had heard footsteps, and hastened to
meet the visitor. Perhaps it was disappointment, perhaps indignation
with herself that she had listened, that she had waited, which caused
her to greet her parent with such asperity.
"You wrong me, daughter!" protested Mr. Ellsworth, solemnly; "only took
one or two little ones, to celebrate the saving of the twin. You've
made a great hit with those people over there. They'd all celebrate,
if there was anything to drink. I had to stock the Lone Star myself
out of my valise. They won't have anything in till Tom Osby comes.
"I say," he resumed, taking his daughter's arm with genial gallantry as
they stepped out into the sunlight together, "these people are not so
bad. They're warming up right along now. If you and I could stay here
awhile, we'd get along with 'em all right--better understanding all
around."
Her face brightened. "Then you don't give up the railroad?"
"No; by no means. I never give up a thing I want. Besides, I wouldn't
mind coming here to live for a while. The climate's glorious."
"You live here? You'd look well in a wide hat and a blue shirt,
wouldn't you, dad?"
"More irreverence! Of course I'd look well. And it's worth something
to eat the way I do here. I'm getting better every day. Why, they
tell me no one has died out here in a hundred years. A man can eat
anything from cactus to sole leather, and keep hearty. I saw a lot of
fellows over there just now, sitting flat on the ground in the sun out
in the middle of the street, eating dried beef and canned tomatoes, and
they looked so happy that I sat down and took a bite with them. They
are just travelling through,--sheriff's party from somewhere, going
somewhere after somebody."
"What's that, Mr. Ellsworth?" the woman from Kansas came out and
inquired; for she knew better than he what that meant. "Sheriff? Was
he a tall, slim man, longish mustache, sorter thin?"
Ellsworth nodded; the woman wiped her hands on her blue-checked apron.
Constance glanced at her serious face, and wondered.
"Then it's Ben Stillson," the woman from Kansas said, "the sheriff of
Blanco. He's after somebody. Did he summons any of our men along?"
"I don't know, madam," answered Ellsworth. The woman said no more; she
only watched and listened.
It was this posse, headed by the sheriff of Blanco, that Dan Anderson
and the Littlest Girl saw when they reached a point midway between
Uncle Jim Brothers's hotel and the post-office. The little group of
riders, dusty and travel-stained, had come at a steady trot down the
street. Stillson, tall, grim-featured, and bronzed, looked neither to
the right nor to the left. He stopped, and ordered his men to dismount
and eat. They swung out of their saddles without a word, loosening the
cinches to breathe their horses. The men of Heart's Desire began to
gather around them.
"What's up, Ben?" asked McKinney, the one most apt to be concerned; for
cow men had borne the brunt of outlawry in that land for more than a
generation. "Has Chacon come across from Arizona, or has the Kid broke
out again?"
The sheriff looked at him gravely. "The Kid's out," said he. "We had
him and two others at Seven Rivers, but he broke out four days ago. He
killed the jailer and a couple of Mexicans farther up the river.
There's four in his bunch now, and we've trailed them this far.
They're likely headed for Sumner. We dropped in here, across the
Patos, to get a couple of men or so. How are you fixed here?"
"Wait till I get a Winchester," said McKinney, briefly, and started
down the street.
"Whiteman," Doc Tomlinson volunteered, "you 'tend to my drug store
while I'm away, and if anybody wants any drugs, you go get 'em."
"You all hold on a minute," said Curly, hurrying forward, "while I run
over home and git saddled up." He did not see the Littlest Girl
approaching, but the sheriff did.
"Never mind, Curly," said the sheriff, quietly, pointing to her. "I
want one more man, a single man."
"You, Curly!" interrupted his spouse, "you stay right where you are.
You get some one else, Mr. Stillson. He's got a family, and besides,
he's _such_ a fool."
Curly flushed. "Was it _my_ fault I got married?" he began hotly.
"And them twins, was they mine, real? Now look here--" But the
sheriff shook his head. He looked at Dan Anderson inquiringly.
"Certainly I'll go," said he. "Wait till I get fixed."
"That's as many as I'll need," said Stillson. "Hurry up, all of you."
Dan Anderson hastened across the _arroyo_ to his house, first asking
Curly to get him a horse. Curly departed to his own home with the
Littlest Girl; so that Constance presently got fuller news of the
arrival of the sheriff's party, and learned also that Dan Anderson was
to join them.
"But, Curly," cried Constance, "isn't it dangerous? Won't some one get
hurt?" She winced. The steady flame of her own brave heart flickered
at this new terror.
"_Kin savvy_?" grinned Curly. "The Kid's gang shore'll fight. A good
many fellers has got hurt goin' after him. But what you goin' to do?
Let 'em steal all the cows they want, and kill everybody they feel
like?"
"That's work for the officers," insisted Constance.
"There ain't no police out here," Curly replied, "and not sherfs enough
to go around; so a feller sorter has to go when he's asked. They won't
let me, because I got twins--though they ain't mine. But, now, I've
got to take this here horse over to Dan Anderson." He mounted and rode
away.
It was Dan Anderson himself who presently came at a gallop across the
_arroyo_. A heavy revolver swung at his hip, a rifle rested in the
scabbard under his leg, and a coat was rolled behind his saddle,
plainsman fashion. Constance noted these details, but passed them in
her eagerness and pleasure that he should come at least to say good-by.
Something of the joy faded from her eyes as he approached. She had
seen his face wear this same expression before,--fierce, eager,
forgetful of all but a purpose.
He did not smile. He stooped from his saddle and grasped her hand. He
looked squarely into her eyes, but said no word of salutation or
farewell. He did not look back, as upon the instant, he whirled and
galloped away! For her there were to be yet more days of waiting; for
him the relief of action and of danger.
That afternoon Tom Osby drove into town from the northern trail. Mr.
Ellsworth welcomed him and his rude vehicle as the first feasible means
of getting back to Sky Top. By noon of the following day they were
well upon their way, leaving behind them problems enough unsolved, and
breaking touch with pending events which might cut short all problems
for at least one loyal heart. It was a sad and silent Constance who
looked back and said good-by to the rambling street of Heart's Desire,
lying in the sun empty, empty!
As for the sheriff of Blanco and his men, they trotted on steadily
toward the northeast, hour after hour. They crossed the Patos divide,
and a few miles beyond took up the trail of their quarry, at the point
where Stillson had earlier left it. This they followed rapidly,
crossing wide plains of sage brush and cactus throughout the day. They
slept in their saddle-blankets that night, and were up and off again by
dawn for the second day of steady travel. There were seven men in the
posse, three besides Stillson from the Seven Rivers country, employees
of the cow men on the Pecos,--slim, brown, thin-featured fellows, who
talked little either in the saddle or at the bivouac fire by night.
The second night out they spent by a water hole in the desert; and on
the morning of the third day they ran into their game, earlier than
they had expected. The sheriff, riding in advance, suddenly pulled up
at the crest of a low ridge which they were ascending, and came back
motioning to his men to remain under cover.
"That's the Piños Altos ranch house just ahead," he explained, "and
there's smoke coming out of it. Old Frazee's friendly enough with the
Kid, and more'n likely the bunch has stopped in there to get something
to eat. Hold on a little till I have a look." He took a pair of
field-glasses from his saddle, and crawling to the top of the ridge lay
examining the situation.
"It's them, all right," he said when he returned. "I know some of the
horses. It's the Kid and about three others. They are all saddled
up--probably stopped in to cook a meal. We'll get 'em sure. Now, all
of you hitch back here, and crawl around to the _arroyo_ below, there.
That'll put us within a hundred yards or so of the house."
Each man, dismounting, hitched his horse, then quietly ran over the
cylinder of his revolver, blew the dust out of the rear sight of his
Winchester, tested the magazine, and cleared the breech action. This
done, each crept to the place assigned to him. Dan Anderson found
himself moving mechanically, dully, with a strange absence of
excitement. He almost felt himself looker-on at what other men were
doing.
For some time Stillson lay behind a little bush at the edge of the
gully, peering critically at the house, from which came nothing to
indicate that their approach had been discovered. At length, without a
word, he slowly raised his short-barrelled rifle and fired. One of the
horses hitched to the beam above the door stumbled forward and sank
across the opening, blocking it. The bullet had caught it at the butt
of the ear, and it fell stone dead, its neck bent up by the shortened
rein.
In response, without a word of parley, a thin cloud of smoke gushed out
of the only window facing the attack. Puffs of sand arose along the
front of the _arroyo_, searching out each little bush top which might
possibly offer cover. Stillson heard a smothered spat and a short
sound, and turned his head quickly. He saw Jim Harbin, one of the boys
from the lower range, turn over with a sigh, and lie with arms spread
out. He had been shot straight through the neck. Dan Anderson, the
man nearest to him, drew him back. He would have raised the head of
the wounded man, but the choking warned him. Harbin lay out on his
back, looking up, his breath gurgling in his throat. "No use," he
whispered thickly. "Leave me alone. I've got to take my medicine."
In ten minutes he was dead.
The day's work went on. The sheriff fired three or four more
deliberate shots, but finally turned around. At each shot, the other
horse tied to the beam sprang back.
"Can't you hit it?" grinned McKinney.
"I don't want to kill the horse," said Stillson; "I know that horse,
and it's a good one. I want to turn it loose. Here you, Anderson, can
you see that rope from where you are? Shoot it off, if you can, close
up to the beam."
Dan Anderson, in spite of Stillson's hasty warning to keep down, rose
at full height at the edge of the cover, and took a deliberate off-hand
shot. They saw him whirl half around, and look down at his left arm;
but as he dropped lower, he rested his rifle on a bit of sage brush,
and fired once more. With a snort the horse, which had been pulling
back wildly on its lariat, now broke free and went off, saddled as it
was.
"Good shot!" commented the sheriff. "That'll about put 'em on foot.
What, did they get you?"
Dan Anderson drew back from the crest and rolled up his shirt-sleeve
above an arm now wet with blood. A bullet had cut through the upper
arm above the elbow.
"Serves you mighty near right," called McKinney to him, "standing up,
like a blamed fool! You suppose them fellers can't shoot, same as us?"
Doc Tomlinson crawled over to him and examined the hurt. "It's all
right," said he. "Bone ain't touched. Let me tie her up."
A half hour passed without further firing. Stillson edged around to
the point nearest the house. "Here you, Kid," he called out. "Come on
out. We've got you on foot, and you might as well give up."
A dirty rag was thrust out of a window at the end of a rifle-barrel.
"That you, Ben?" called a muffled voice from the adobe.
"You know it is, Kid. Drop it, and come on out. We've got you sure."
The day's work was over. Dan Anderson remembered afterward how matter
of fact and methodical it all had seemed. A few moments later a short,
dirty young man appeared at the door, crawling over the prostrate
horse. He held up his hands, grinning. He was followed by two others,
both chewing tobacco calmly. The sheriff ordered down his men to meet
them. McKinney unbuckled the belts. The captives seated themselves a
few feet apart on the ground.
"This all the men you've got?" asked the Kid.
The sheriff nodded. "You've killed Jim Harbin," he added, jerking a
thumb toward the _arroyo_.
"Why didn't he stay home, then?" said the Kid, peevishly. No one
seemed disposed again to mention an unpleasant subject.
"Where you goin' to take us?" the Kid inquired.
"Vegas. It's a United States warrant, and you go dead or alive, either
way you want."
"Oh, that's all right, Ben. We'll take the chance of stayin' alive a
while."
Stillson now appeared to experience his first concern in regard to his
casualties. "Doc," said he, "you take the ranch wagon here and carry
Jim back to the settlements. You go along, Anderson. Doc, you drive."
"You busted up our breakfast," said the Kid, in an aggrieved tone.
"Don't we eat?" He spoke complainingly. The day's work was thus
concluded.
It was a long ride back for Dan Anderson, lying part of the time
himself prone at the bottom of the wagon, too faint to sit with comfort
on the narrow, jolting seat. The long, muffled body of the dead man,
wrapped tightly in its blankets, at times rolled against him as the
wagon tilted, and he pushed it back gently. The day's work had been
savage, stern, and simple. The lesson of the landscape, the lesson of
life, came to him as he had never felt it before. He saw now how
little a thing is life, how easy to lay down--gayly, bitterly, lightly,
or quietly perhaps; but not cheaply. He remembered the last words of
the boy who now lay there, shrouded and silent,--"I've got to take my
medicine."
"It's not a question of being happy," thought Dan Anderson, "but of
doing your work, and taking your medicine."