KATE RIDES
In strict point of fact, Laramie had left the room across the hall and
at that particular moment was sitting down for a late supper at Belle
Shockley's whither Sawdy and Lefever had dragged him from the hotel.
Carpy had come with them.
At the table--after Laramie had told part of his story--the talk,
genial to cheerfulness, was largely professional criticism of the shot
across the Crazy Woman. The technical disadvantages of shooting
uphill, the tendency to over-elevate for such shots, the difficulty of
catching the pace and speed of a horse, all supplied judicial
observations for Lefever and Sawdy, while Laramie--so nearly the
victim--leaving the topic to these Sleepy Cat gun pundits, conferred
with Carpy about the care of gunshot wounds; and protested against Flat
Nose George and the Museum of Horrors in the Doctor's office.
"But I want to tell you, boys," remarked the doctor, when the talk
turned on the discomfiture of the enemy group, "what Barb asked me
tonight--this is on the dead." The doctor looked around to include
Belle--who was standing with folded arms, her back against the
sideboard and listening to the conversation--in his injunction of
secrecy. "He came to me at the hotel. 'Doc,' says Barb, 'I want to
ask you a question. There's stories circulating around about Laramie's
getting shot this morning, on his way into town. Has Laramie been to
you to get fixed up, at all?'
"'Well, Barb,' I says, 'that's not really a fair question for me to
answer--you know that. But since you spoke about it, Jim was in awhile
ago----'
"'Was in, eh?'
"'For a few minutes----'
"'Hit?'
"'That I couldn't say. What he asked for, Barb, was a bottle of Perry
Davis' painkiller--said the rheumatiz was getting him to beat the
band.'"
Carpy paused: "'Rheumatiz!' says Barb. He didn't stop to swear--he
just bit his old cigar right square in two in the middle, dropped one
end on the floor and stamped on it." The Doctor leaned forward and
spoke to Laramie: "How's longhorn, Jim?"
Laramie looked troubled: "If it wasn't for dragging you into it, I'd
ask you to go out and see him."
"Jim, a doctor's place is where he's needed."
"I left a twenty dollar gold piece in your medicine chest for the stuff
I took."
"You go to hell!" The Doctor pulled a handful of money from his pocket
and threw a double eagle at Laramie. "There's your gold piece."
"Belle, look at them fellows," exclaimed Sawdy moodily, "pockets
loaded. I never had more than twenty dollars at one time in my life.
My mother told me to take care of the pennies and the dollars would
take care of themselves. The blamed dollars wouldn't do it. I took
care of the pennies. I've got 'em yet--that's all I have got. Jim,
I'll match you for that gold piece."
"Gamblers never have a cent," commented Belle darkly.
"That gold piece," explained Laramie, "is not my money, Harry. It's
Carpy's money and he'll keep it if I have to make him swallow it."
"That's not the question," declared Carpy. "Did you get what you
wanted?" Laramie told him he did. "And by the great Jehosaphat,"
added the doctor, "you bumped into Kate Doubleday!"
"What else did you expect?" retorted Laramie, not pleased at the
recollection.
Carpy, throwing back his head, laughed well: "After Kate Doubleday told
me she was going for the dressings herself, I says to myself, 'There'll
be two people in my house tonight--a man and a woman--I hope to God
they don't meet.'"
"Jim," intervened Belle, "you ought to get Abe Hawk to a hospital."
"He's got to get him to one," affirmed Lefever. "I've seen that man,"
he added emphatically, "I know."
"How's he going to do it," inquired Carpy, "without starting the fight
all over again?"
Lefever stuck to his ground: "Get him down to Sleepy Cat in the night,"
he insisted.
"Can he ride?" asked Sawdy.
"He may have to have help," said Laramie.
"There's a moon right now. They'd pick you off like rabbits," objected
Sawdy, "and they've got that whole trail patroled to the Crazy Woman.
They're watching this town like cats. You'll have to waste a lot of
ammunition to get Abe to a hospital."
"From all I hear," observed Carpy, "if Abe gets any more lead in him
you won't need to take him to the hospital. He'll be ready to head
straight for the undertaker's."
"We've got to wait either for a late moon or a rainy night; then we'll
get busy," suggested Lefever.
"He might die while you're waiting," interposed Carpy.
Lefever could not be subdued: "Not as quick as he'd die if Van Horn's
bunch caught sight of him on the road," he said sententiously. "We'll
get him down and he won't die, either."
"Well, pay for your supper, boys, and let's get away," said Carpy. "I
want some sleep."
But for Lefever and Sawdy there was little sleep that night. The
echoes of the "fatal" shot--almost fatal, as it proved, to the prestige
of the enemy--were being discussed pretty much everywhere in Sleepy Cat
and wherever men that night assembled in public places, Sawdy and
Lefever swaggered in and out at least once. The pair looked wise,
spoke obscurely, looked the crowd, large or small, over critically,
played an occasional restrained and brief finger-tattoo on the butts of
their bolstered guns and listened condescendingly to everyone that had
a theory to advance, a reminiscence to offer, or a propitiating drink
to suggest.
Wherever they could induce him to go, they dragged Laramie--at once as
an exhibit and a defi; but Laramie objected to the thoroughness with
which his companions essayed to cover the territory, and unfeelingly
withdrew from the party to go to bed. Sawdy and Company, undismayed by
the defection, continued to haunt the high places until the last
sympathizer with Van Horn and Company had been challenged and bullied
or silenced.
But the differing sympathies on the situation in Sleepy Cat were not to
be adjusted in a single night, either by force or persuasion. The
whole town took sides and the cattlemen found the most defenders. What
might be designated, but with modesty, as "big business" in Sleepy Cat
stood stubbornly, despite the violence of their methods, with Van Horn,
Doubleday and their friends; the interest of such business lay with the
men that bought the most supplies. The banks and the merchants were
thus pretty much aligned on one side. The surgeon of the town
professed neutrality--at least as regarded operations--for he was
needed to administer to both factions. Harry Tenison, as dealer of the
big game in town and owner of the big hotel, was of necessity neutral;
though men like himself and Carpy were rightly suspected of leaning
toward Laramie, if not even as far as toward Abe Hawk. The open
sympathizers of the Falling Wall men were among trainmen, liverymen,
the clerks, the barbers and bartenders, and those who could be usually
counted as "agin the government."
Meantime, the element of mystery in the still unclosed tragedy of the
upper country concerned the disappearance of Hawk; and this naturally
centered about Laramie. None but he knew to a certainty the fate of
the redoubtable old cowboy, so long a range favorite. And whenever
Laramie appeared in town, speculation at once revived every feature of
the situation, and Kate Doubleday when she came to Sleepy Cat, whether
she would or not, could not escape the talk concerning the Falling Wall
feud.
Loyalty to her own and the intense partizanship of her nature, combined
to urge her to sympathize with the fight of the range owners against
the Falling Wall men. But in this attitude, Belle Shockley was a trial
to Kate. Belle would not drag in the subject of the fight but she
never avoided it; and Kate, even against her inclination, seemed
impelled to speak of the subject with Belle. She instinctively felt
that Belle's sympathies were with the other side; and felt just as
strongly in her impulsiveness, that Belle should be set right about
rustlers and their friends--meaning always, by the latter, Jim Laramie.
Belle, stubborn but more contained, clung to her own views. Though she
rarely talked back, the attempt to assassinate Laramie had intensified
everyone's feelings, and for days only a spark on that subject was
needed to fire more than one Sleepy Cat powder magazine. One afternoon
rain caught Kate in at Belle's and kept her until almost dark from
starting for home, and one magazine did explode.
The two women were sitting on the porch watching the shower. McAlpin
on his way uptown from the barn, had stopped at Belle's a moment for
shelter.
"I'll tell you, Kate," said Belle, after listening as patiently as she
could to what Kate had to say about the Falling Wall fight and its
consequences, "I like you. I can't help liking you. But the only
reason you talk the way you do is because you haven't lived in this
country long. You don't know this country--you don't know the people."
McAlpin nodded strongly: "That's so, that's true."
"I, at least, know common honesty, I hope."
"But you don't know anything at all of what you are talking about,"
insisted Belle, "and if you think I'm ever going to agree with you that
it was right for Van Horn and your father and their friends to take a
bunch of Texas men up into the Falling Wall and shoot and burn men
because they're rustlers, you're very much mistaken. And I can tell
you the people of this country won't agree with you either, no matter
what some folks in this town may say to tickle your ears."
"Do you mean to say you stand up for thieves, too?" asked Kate, hotly.
McAlpin looked apprehensively out at the clouds. Belle twitched her
shoulders: "You needn't be so high and mighty about it," she retorted.
"No, I don't. And I don't stand up for burning men alive because they
brand mavericks. You talk very fierce--like everybody up your way.
But if Abe Hawk or Jim Laramie walked in here this minute, you wouldn't
agree to have them shot down. And don't you forget it, Jim Laramie
doesn't claim a hoof of anybody's cattle but his own."
Kate would not back down: "Why do they call him king of the rustlers?"
she demanded.
"King of the rustlers, nothing," echoed Belle in disgust. "That's
barroom talk. No decent man ever accused him of branding so much as a
horse hair that didn't belong to him."
"And his reputation is, he's not very slow when it comes to shooting,
either," declared Kate.
McAlpin thought it a time for oil on the waters! "You've got to make
allowances," he urged with dignity. "Ten years ago--less'n that,
even--they was all pretty quick on the trigger in this country. Jim
was a kid 'n' he had to travel with the bunch."
"And he was quicker 'n any of them," interposed Belle, defiantly,
"wasn't he, Mac?"
McAlpin was for moderation and better feeling:
"Well," he admitted gravely, "full as quick, I guess."
"It seems to me," observed Kate, still resentful, "as if men here are
pretty quick yet."
"Oh, no," interposed McAlpin at once; "oh, no, not special now'days.
More talk'n there used to be--heap more."
"Bring over my pony, Mr. McAlpin, will you?" asked Kate, very much
irritated.
McAlpin looked surprised: "You wouldn't be ridin' home tonight?"
"Yes," replied Kate, sharply, "I would."
As McAlpin started on his way she turned on Belle: "And you mustn't
forget, Belle, that vigilantes, no matter whether they do make mistakes
or go too far, have built this country up and made it safe to live in."
Belle's face took on a weariness: "Oh, no--not always safe to live
in--sometimes safe to make money in. There's nothing I'm so sick of
hearing as this vigilante stuff. The vigilante crowd are mostly big
thieves--the rustlers, little thieves--that's about all the difference
I can see."
"Well, is there any difference between being a rustler, and protecting
and being the friend of one?"
Belle's restraint broke: "You'd better set your own house in order
before you criticize me or Jim Laramie. He's never yet tried to
assassinate anybody."
"Neither has my father, nor the men that raided the Falling Wall."
"Don't you know," demanded Belle, indignantly, "that the men who raided
the Falling Wall are the men that tried to murder Laramie?"
"I don't believe it," said Kate, flatly. "Father doesn't believe
_any_body tried to murder him."
Belle's wrath bubbled over: "Your father's as deep in it as anybody."
She could have bitten her tongue off the instant she uttered the angry
words. But they were out.
Kate sprang to her feet. Even Belle, used to shocks and encounters,
was silenced by the look that met her. For a moment the angry girl did
not utter a word, but if her eyes were daggers, Belle would have been
transfixed. Kate's breast rose sharply and she spoke low and fast:
"How dare you accuse my father of such a thing?"
Belle, though cowed, was defiant: "I dare say just what I believe to be
true."
"What proof have you?"
"I don't need proof for what everyone knows."
"You say what is absolutely false." Kate's tranquil eyes were aflame;
she stood child, indeed, of her old father. Belle had more than once
doubted whether Kate _could_ be the daughter of such a man--she never
doubted it after that scene on the day of the rain. Barb himself would
have waited on his daughter's words. "You're glad to listen to the
stories of our enemies," she almost panted, "because they're your
friends; you're welcome to them. But my father's enemies are my
enemies and I know now where to place you."
White with anger as she was herself, Belle, older and more controlled,
tried to allay the storm she had raised: "I didn't meant to hurt you,
Kate," she protested, "you drove me too far."
"I'm glad I did," returned Kate, wickedly, as she stepped back into the
living-room, pinned on her hat and made ready as fast as possible to
go. "I know you in your true colors."
"Well, whether I'm right or wrong, you'll find my colors don't fade and
don't change."
A boy stood at the gate with Kate's pony.
The two women were again on the porch. Belle looked at the sky. The
rain had abated but the mountains were black. "Now, Kate, what are you
going to do?"
Kate had walked out and was indignantly throwing the lines over her
horse's neck. "I'm going home," she answered, as sharply as the words
could be spoken.
Belle crossed the sidewalk to her side: "This is a poor time of day for
a long ride. We've quarreled, I know, but don't try a mountain trail a
night like this. The rain isn't over yet."
"I'll be home before it starts again," returned Kate, springing into
the saddle. "I'm sick of this town and everybody in it."
So saying, she struck her horse with the lines and headed for the
mountains.