MR. DALHART DECLARES
“ON OUR way, Sanchez!” commanded Nabours, breaking the tense silence
of the disheartened camp. “We’ve got to get back. The boys are holding
three or four bunches over thataway.”
“_Seguro_, Señor Jeem,” replied the old man. He nodded. Yet another
rider was coming in.
“That’s Dalhart. He ought to know something. We’ve got to have fresh
horses.”
“_Poco tiempo!_”
The keen ear of the old Mexican again served. Afar they heard a
tinkling. From behind a screening mesquite fringe showed the head of the
remuda, following a gray bell mare at a stiff trot. Back of the horses
rode Cinquo, his clothing stripped, his face bloody and pale. He got no
word of praise, nor asked one. The black bruises on his legs showed
through his ripped jeans.
“Well?” The trail boss turned to Dalhart, grimed and dust-covered, who
had brought a tin cup to the fire.
“We’ve got around a thousand head, maybe twelve hunderd. Del and two
boys are holding ’em on a flat this side the pecan bottoms—three mile,
I reckon. Ain’t it hell? They scattered like pa’tridges. I ain’t seen no
one else.”
“_Yo_, me an’ dos hombres!” began Sanchez, excited, pointing.
“Damn it, talk English, Sanchez!” interrupted Nabours savagely.
“_Seguro; muy bien, Señor Corporal_,” rejoined Sanchez. “I say, two man
and me, we got plenty _vacas_ round up. They send-a me for tobac’. We
got h’eight, seven hoonderd head, _piense qu’ si_. Most half-a da herd.”
“Not half yet. Well, Dalhart, I’ve got to ride the fan. Stay here and
watch things. We’ll make the gethering to this bed ground.”
“But who done that shooting anyway?” demanded Dalhart suddenly. “That’s
what started ’em.”
Nabours looked over his shoulder to where Taisie sat.
“Dalhart,” said he, “there’s funny business. The Rudabaugh gang is
follering us, nigh as I can tell. They allowed to stampede the herd and
then jump what was left of the camp.”
“But who shot?”
“I’d take my oath it was Dan McMasters, the man we sent out of our camp.
Well, he killed one of his own men.”
“The hell!”
“Yes, he did. Look yon!” The great birds now made a black blot on the
grass. “That’s one of the Rudabaugh men. McMasters killed him by
mistake. He was right in Miss Taisie’s camp.”
“Jim,” said the cow hunter at last, “that Austin gang don’t never mean
fer no Del Sol herd never to leave this country. Why?”
“For the same reason they want that Burleson Lockhart scrip. For the
same reason they killed Burleson Lockhart. Dalhart, them carpetbaggers
have got a big game on. All the state of Texas to steal—and they’re
going to steal it!
“And McMasters got away again! I thought he was our friend. We’re riding
his horses and drinking his coffee now. She don’t know that. Dalhart, ef
ever a girl needed a man to take care of her, yon’s one that does. One
man’s better’n twenty, with a woman. She needs just one—and she ain’t
got one.
“Well, I got to go back. Come Sanchez,” he concluded. “You’ll have to
stay here and look out for the camp, Dalhart. They might come back.
Shoot first!”
Left in charge, Mr. Dalhart employed his own methods. First he inquired
of the cook for hot water, got a tin pan of water on the base of the
wagon tongue and found a bit of yellow soap. Cleansing his dusty face
and hands the best he could, he employed the very catholic beneficences
of a split meal sack which the cook also used as a towel. Then he
prowled among the bed rolls. After certain rummagings, he presently
emerged clad in a brand-new pair of the light-colored trousers, with
heavy stripes of black, which then made Texan apotheosis of male
splendor. He even added a brilliant tie, which in good sooth represented
the heart hunger of Cinquo Centavos, and almost his last dime. Dalhart
was a ruthless man. What he found to his notion in the several war bags
he took, trusting to be able to explain.
Oiled and curled as best might be in a cow camp, with a final sweep into
better order of his strong sunburned beard, Mr. Dalhart at last walked
straight across to Taisie’s bivouac, whither she had withdrawn. Without
so much as by your leave, he ordered Taisie’s women to go on away.
“I’m top rod here just now, Miss Lockhart,” said he, “and I want to talk
with you a little while. This is my first chance.”
The girl looked at him. She had been in tears. Her nerves were going.
She was no longer the daring Taisie Lockhart, “_dulce ridentem . . .
dulce loquentem,_” like the Lalage of Horace of old, always ready to
chat and ready to laugh.
“Drive them away!” Her glance was toward the distant row of solemn black
birds, advancing, hopping staring.
Dalhart dropped her tent flap into a screen. He found a bundle and
seated himself, not invited.
“Miss Lockhart,” said he directly, “one way, I’m only one of your hands.
In Uvalde, you could find out who I am.”
“I suppose so. You’re on point? That means my foreman thinks you know
cows?”
“Yes. Now, Mr. Nabours and I been talking. We think we’ve been jumped by
the Sim Rudabaugh bunch, of Austin. They don’t ever aim to let this herd
git north, Miss Lockhart. They aim to break it up and git it headed
west.
“They’ve got their own surveyors out—away west. We seen four camps of
surveyors in west there this spring, where we was hunting strays.
They’re locatin’ range by the hundreds of sections—waste land nobody
has wanted. They’re scrippin’ it, ma’am. They want all the scrip they
can git, and they done got it most all.”
He spoke of certain things. In his mind were certain other things. His
bold eyes, virile, assertive, demanding, never left the alluring picture
that Taisie Lockhart made for any man. She remained languid,
indifferent.
“My father said Texas lands would go up. He was laughed at. You knew
him—my father?”
“No’m; I didn’t know him personal. But all Texas knowed Colonel Burleson
Lockhart fer a square man and a big man. This state needs him now; it
shore does. We’ve got to clean up Austin, or Austin’s goin’ to take all
Texas away from the Texans.
“Them folks don’t want you to git the first herd north, ma’am. They’ll
drive that theirselves when they git things all fixed fer hit.”
The girl buried her face in her hands again. Her shoulders trembled. The
night had left her much unnerved.
“Yes, Miss Taisie,” said the man’s voice, now gentle. “Yore paw didn’t
come back from up north. Sim Rudabaugh did. He ain’t like us. He’s a
heap smarter’n us Texans. He’s seed more and been around more. No
tellin’ who’s in his gang. It takes a lot of big men to swing as big a
deal as he’s got in mind. Now, there was Sher’f McMasters——”
“Don’t! Please don’t! And—what is it that brings you over here?”
“All right, I won’t. I was only goin’ to say, hit all works out fer to
prove the general scheme Jim Nabours and me both has told you
about—Rudabaugh! That man made his boast in Austin, ma’am, last year,
atter he come back from up north, he’d have the last Del Sol cow. More!
He said he was goin’ to ride up to Del Sol and knock on yore front
door!”
“What?” She flashed a sudden glance of wrath.
“That’s all. Rudabaugh played to break you first. Then, when you hadn’t
a way to turn—well——
“Miss Taisie Lockhart”—his voice now rang rather true, very
humble—“it’s bad, your lookout. You’ve got all of us, yes; but like Jim
said, twenty men ain’t the pertection of one, fer a woman.”
“But what is it that you mean?”
“Now, I got to talk straight. Would you choose to look up at me,
please?”
She did not raise her face.
“Well, I throwed in with this trail herd because I’d saw you! I couldn’t
turn back from goin’. I did allow that when we’d made yore stake for you
and put you on yore feet independent, with all Del Sol and every Texan
back of you, why, then—when I couldn’t take no advantage at all—then I
was goin’ to tell you I was goin’ to marry you. I thought by then you’d
be more used to seein’ me around.”
Silence. The ruddy crown of hair covered her hid face, reddened with
outraged blushes. She rose, started away. He was at her side.
“Miss Taisie, this raid has changed the whole world in one night. It’s
left you in danger. You don’t need twenty men! You need one! The trail’s
no place for you, even married. But there’s a church at Fort Worth, and
a Methodist preacher. We’ll be there afore long. That’s time for you to
think it over.”
Anastasie Lockhart broke into a sudden hysterical laughter.
“Is it so funny, ma’am?”
“Yes!” she rejoined. “Fort Worth—that’s what Jim advised, too. But
first he said Austin. And it—it was another man!”
“It was Del Williams! Did you tell him——”
“I’ve told him nothing! He has asked me nothing! That’s nothing to be
discussed by you or me at any time! That will do!”
“Well, I couldn’t help it—me lovin’ you the minute I saw you, and
follerin’ in because I couldn’t no ways help it; and you needin’ just
one such a man like me, and all—and all——”
His voice broke a bit under the blow his astonishing male vanity had
received. And who was she, an orphan, to hold herself so high, when here
was an honest man, a Texan, like himself?
Suddenly he reached out a lean brown hand. Her beauty was too much for
him. The girl shrank, caught a cupped hand against her temple, where lay
still the illicit kiss of the dark.
“No! No! You must not! No! I need some one, yes. I do! But I can’t——”
“I kin wait, Miss Taisie. I allowed to wait till we’d sold yore cows. I
just thought things had broke so maybe it’d be best if I didn’t wait.”
“Wait!” was all she could say.
Torn and unhappy, she bent her bright head once more. He was man enough
to go away. When he was gone she reflected that he had been man enough
to come.
And thereafter, in yet more wretched self-searching, she reasoned that,
after all, her fate now had cast her into a world where a woman’s range
of choice was very narrow. After all, who was she, to ask the
fulfillment of the old dream of human happiness? She sought comfort in
philosophy. It is poor comfort for a woman.