THE FUNERAL--AND AFTER
The funeral had been set for the following afternoon, but preparations
were going forward all morning. In spite of the brief notice that had
got abroad of Hawk's death, men from many directions were riding into
town that morning to help bury him. A reaction of sentiment concerning
the Falling Wall raid was making itself felt; its brutal ferocity was
being more openly criticized and less covertly denounced. Hawk's
personal popularity had never suffered among the cowboys and the cowboy
following. He had been known far and wide for open-handed generosity
and blunt truthfulness--and these were traits to silence or to soften
reprobation of his fitful and reckless disregard for the property
rights of the big companies. He was a freebooter with most of the
virtues and vices of his kind. But the crowd that morning in Sleepy
Cat was assembling to pay tribute to the man--however far gone wrong.
His virtues they were, no doubt, willing to bury with him; the memory
of his vices would serve some of them when they might need a lawless
precedent.
Up to the funeral hour the numerous bars of Sleepy Cat were points of
interest for the drinking men. In front of these, reminiscences of the
dead man held heated sway. Some stories pulled themselves together
through the stimulus of deep drinking, others gradually went to pieces
under its bewildering effects, but as long as a man could remember that
he was talking about Abe Hawk or the Falling Wall, his anecdotes were
tolerated.
Nor were all the men that had come to town to say good-by to Abe, lined
up at the bars. Because Tenison had insisted that it should, Hawk's
body lay during the morning at the Mountain House in the first big
sample room opening off the hotel office. All that the red-faced
undertaker could do to make it presentable in its surroundings had been
done at Harry Tenison's charge. Laramie's protests were ignored:
"You're a poor man, Jim," declared Tenison, "and you can't pay any
bills now for Abe. He thought more of you than he did of any man in
the world. But most of his money he left here with me, upstairs and
down. Abe was stiff-necked as hell, whether it was cards or cattle,
you know that. And it's only some of his money--not mine--I'm turning
back to him. That Dutchman," he added, referring with a contemptuous
oath to the unpopular undertaker of Sleepy Cat, "is a robber, anyhow.
The only way I'll ever get even with him is that he'll drink most of it
up again. I played pinochle with that bar-sinister chap," continued
Tenison, referring to the enemy by the short and ugly word, "all one
night, and couldn't get ten cents out of him--and he half-drunk at
that. What do you know about that?
"Jim," Tenison changed his tone and his rambling talk suddenly ceased,
"you've not told me rightly yet about Abe."
Laramie looked up: "Why, Harry," he said quietly, "I told you where I
found him that night--he got out of the creek at Pride's Crossing."
Tenison shook his head: "But what I want to know is what went on before
he got to Pride's Crossing."
"Well, I started with him that night for town."
"That's what you said before," objected Tenison with an impatient
gesture. "What you didn't say is what I want to hear."
"Harry, I won't try to give you a long line of talk. I can't tell it
all--and I don't want to try to fool you. There's another name in the
story that I don't feel I've got a right to bring in--that's all. Some
day you'll hear it."
Neither Lefever nor Sawdy could get any more out of Laramie. He showed
the strain of sleeplessness and anxiety. Sawdy kept the crowd away by
answering all questions himself--mostly with an air of reserve, backed
by intimations calculated to lead a man to believe he was really
hearing something, and counter-questions skilfully dropped into the
gravity of the occasion. Those who could not be put off by Sawdy were
turned over to Lefever, who could hypnotize a man by asking questions,
and send him away satisfied, but vacantly speculative as to whether he
was crazy or Lefever was.
To Lefever also were referred the men arranging the details of the
funeral. Not till two o'clock was the word given for the procession to
move from the Mountain House, but for two hours before that,
horsemen--peers of any in the world--dashed up and down Main Street
before keen-eyed spectators, on business if possible, but always on
display.
Stage drivers and barnmen from Calabasas and Thief River mingled with
cowboys from the Deep Creek country--for Hawk himself had, years
before, driven on the Spanish Sinks line. From the barn at Sleepy Cat
these men brought out and drafted the old Wells-Fargo stage coach that
Abe had driven on the first trip to the Thief River mines. Six of the
best horses in the barn were to pull it in the procession. These
horses were driven by the oldest man in service on the Calabasas run,
mounted on the near wheel horse with the driver's seat on the box empty
and covered with wreaths of flowers. Old-time Indians from the
Reservation who had known Hawk when he first went into the Falling Wall
country, were down to see him buried; they rode behind the cowboys.
At two o'clock the roundhouse whistle blew a long blast. It was taken
up by the engines in the yard and those of an overland train pulling
out; and the procession, long and picturesque, moved from the hotel.
Laramie, Tenison, Lefever and Sawdy rode abreast, behind the hearse,
and as the procession moved down Main Street, the cowboys chanted the
songs of the bunkhouse and the campfire, the range and the round-up.
"My God!" exclaimed Carpy when it was all over, "if Sleepy Cat could do
that much for a thief, what would it do for an honest man?" With Sawdy
and Lefever, the doctor sat at a table in the billiard room of the
Mountain House. Tenison and Laramie sat near them.
"Not what they did for Abe," averred John Lefever promptly, "and don't
you forget it. But I don't call Abe Hawk a thief--never. Abe was a
freebooter born out of time and place. He called himself a thief--he
wasn't one. He hadn't the first instincts of one--no secrecy, no dark
night stuff, no lying. He never denied a raid if he made one. And
never did worse when the big cattlemen protested, than to tell them to
go to hell. He had a bunch of old Barb's calves branded along with his
own one year: 'Well, you're the coolest rustler in the Falling Wall,' I
says to him. 'They're my share of Barb's spring drop,' was all he
said. You know he lent Barb all his savings one year--that was when he
used to save money, before his wife died. He never got a red cent of
it back, never even asked for it. But when he wanted money he'd drive
off some of Barb's steers. Yes, Abe stole cattle, I admit; yet I don't
call him a thief--not today, anyway," said John, raising his glass.
"Why, if Abe Hawk owed a man a hundred dollars he'd pay him if he had
to steal every cow in the Falling Wall to do it. But take a hoof from
a poor man!" he went on, freshened, "The poor men all used to run to
Abe when Dutch Henry or Stormy Gorman branded their calves. They'd
yell fire and murder. And Abe would make the blamed thieves drive
their calves back! You know that, Jim." Lefever between breaths threw
the appeal for confirmation across at Laramie who sat moodily listening
and trying without success to interest himself in a drink that stood
untouched before him.
Laramie made no response. "Have it your own way, John," nodded Carpy
tolerantly, "have it your own way. But whatever they say against old
Barb, the man ain't livin' that can say a word against his girl--not
while I'm in hearing. And I'll tell you, you could have knocked me
over with a feather when I seen her this afternoon and she bound to
ride in that procession behind Abe Hawk."
"What do you mean?" asked Lefever.
"I mean riding to the graveyard," insisted Carpy.
"What are you talking about?" demanded Lefever, to bring out the story.
"You never saw it."
"I'll tell you what I saw." Only those who knew Laramie well could
have told how keenly he was listening. "I drove down Hill Street,"
said the doctor, "just after the funeral started, and sat there, quiet,
to one side, waiting for it to pass; a doctor's got no business around
funerals. Right then, Kate Doubleday pulled up close to me on
horseback. She was just from the trail, that was sure; her horse
showed the pace and the girl was excited--I seen that when she spoke to
me. 'Doctor'--then she hesitated. 'Is that Abe Hawk's funeral?' 'It
is,' I says. She looked at it and kept looking at it. The tail-end of
the procession was passing Hill Street. I noticed the girl bite her
lip; she was as restless as her horse. 'Doctor,' she says, hesitating
just the same way the second time, 'do you think people would think it
awfully strange if I--rode to the cemetery with them?'
"I never was more dashed in my life. 'Well,' I says, 'I expect they
would, Kate.' 'I feel as if I ought to do it,' she says. 'Don't do it
for the fun of the thing, Kate. The boys wouldn't like that.' 'Oh,'
she says, looking at me mighty hard. 'I've got the best of reasons for
doing it.' 'Then,' says I, 'do it, no matter what they think or don't
think. That's what Abe Hawk would 'a' done!' 'I'm such a coward,' she
says, but I want to tell you there was fire in her words. 'Go ahead,'
says I. 'Doctor, will you ride with me?' 'Hell!' says I, 'I never
went to a funeral in my life.' 'Will you ride to this one with me? I
can't ride alone; all the rest are men.' 'Dog gone it! Come over to
the barn,' says I, 'till I get a horse.'
"That's the way it happened.
"When we got to the graveyard we kept back to one side. All the same,
she saw the whole thing. But just the minute the boys turned from the
grave, away we went down the hill lickety-cut. We took the back
streets till we struck the divide road, and she turned for home. When
we stopped there, she says: 'Doctor, tell me the truth: Did Abe Hawk
drown?' 'No,' I says, 'he didn't drown. I reckon he strained himself.
Anyway, one of his wounds opened up. The old man bled to death."
Laramie felt no inclination that night to go home. In his depression,
he could think only of Kate Doubleday and reflect that the years were
passing while he faced the future without an aim, and life without an
outlook.
It was not the first time this conviction had forced itself on him.
And it was getting harder and harder, he realized, to shake it off.
But tonight, talk served in some degree as an anodyne, and he sat with
the idlers late. The one bit of news that did stir him in his torpor
was that Kate Doubleday had had at least the feeling to appear at the
funeral of the man who, though rightly regarded as her father's enemy,
had, Laramie knew, let go his own life, without a thought, to save hers.
This was the last reflection on his mind before he went to sleep that
night. It was the first when he woke. Late in the morning he was
sitting in Belle Shockley's at breakfast when McAlpin walked in.
"Jim," exclaimed the excitable barn boss, "I got a word this morning
from the Falling Wall."
Laramie regarded him evenly, but did not speak till McAlpin looked
inquiringly toward Belle: "No secrets here, Mac," he said briefly.
"Probably couldn't keep 'em from a woman if you tried," returned
McAlpin, grinning. He pointed calmly toward the kitchen: "If we're all
alone here----"
"Go ahead," intervened Belle impatiently, "we are."
"Punk Budd brought the stage from the Reservation this morning. Coming
down the Turkey he met Van Horn. They had a bunch of Barb's boys with
them driving in some cattle."
"Whose cattle?"
"Punk says when he run into 'em they was roundin' up yours."
"Was Punk sober?" asked Laramie.
"He sure was," replied McAlpin.
Belle, with folded arms, stood in the archway immovable as a statue;
McAlpin sat in silence; Laramie, continuing his breakfast, looked only
at his plate. The silence grew heavy, but two of the three had no
reason to break it and the third did not choose to.
Laramie, at length, took up his coffee, and, drinking slowly, finished
the cup. Setting this down, he wiped his lips and looked at McAlpin.
"Much obliged, Mac," he said, laying down his napkin.
McAlpin regarded him inquiringly: "What you going to do about it, Jim?"
he demanded, when he saw Laramie would say no word.
Laramie pushed back his chair: "What would you do?"
McAlpin spoke seriously: "I'm askin' you."
"I can tell better after I know more about it, Mac."
The barn boss evidently thought Laramie was taking the news too
quietly. He was for violent measures but Laramie calmed him. "If
they've got any of my cattle, they won't run away," said he, "and they
won't blow up. They'll keep, and I'll get them back--every hoof. I'm
riding home this morning, anyway, so I'll be over after my horse in a
minute."
McAlpin went away somewhat disappointed. Laramie only laughed when he
talked it over with Belle: "So long as they don't burn my place, I can
stand it," he said, philosophically.
Nevertheless, he felt disturbed at McAlpin's news--not for its
substance so much as for what it might note in renewed warfare.
Getting his horse, he followed the railroad right of way out of town
and struck out upon open country toward the north. He had no intention
of taking the direct road home; that had long become dangerous, and he
rode along abandoned cattle trails. At times he struck, swiftly and
straight, across open country, at times disappeared completely in
favoring canyons, and emerging again, headed winding draws up to the
divide--any ground that carried him in his general direction was good
ground.
He tried always to be thinking just what the other fellow must be
thinking as to favorable points to pick a man off--the fellow patiently
waiting with a rifle day after day in ambush for him. And not having
gone home of late twice by the same route, he meant to keep the other
fellow continually guessing. Today, he was somewhat handicapped, in
that he was riding in broad daylight instead of in the dawn or in the
twilight when the uncertain light made it more difficult with the fine
sights of a Winchester or Savage to cover a distant man.
This hazard, however, called only for a little more precaution, which
Laramie did not begrudge to the pride of disappointing an enemy. At
points in his route where the main road could not well be avoided, he
rode faster and with quickened circumspection. The Double-draw bridge
he could not avoid without a long and difficult detour. Moreover,
there, or beyond, he might expect to intercept the raiding party, and
this was his business.
He did, however, approach the Double-draw bridge with an uncertainty
and a caution not reflected in the pace which he rode toward it; but
his horse was under close control and his rifle carefully in hand.
Despite his misgivings, no enemy was sighted. Only a flight of bank
swallows, disturbed by the footfalls of his horse, darted noisily from
their nests under the south bridge abutment and scattered twenty ways
in the sunshine. Spurring freely, as they flew away, Laramie galloped
briskly across the bottoms and up the hill. Skirting the long trail
toward home, he rode on without meeting a living soul or hearing the
unwelcome singing of a bullet.
In fact, things were too quiet; the silence and the absence of any sort
of life as he approached his ranch were a surprise. The few head of
cattle and horses he usually met, when riding home along the creek,
were nowhere to be seen. Evidently the raid had been made. To survey
the whole scene without exposing himself, Laramie rode out of the
tangle along the creek bottom and took the first draw that would bring
him out among the southern hills. As he emerged from the narrow gorge,
his eyes turned in the direction of the house. But where the house
should be he saw above the green field, only a black spot with little
patches of white smoke drifting lazily up from it into the still
sunshine.