A MARRIAGE SETTLEMENT
McCalmont was hid up at the _ranchita_ La Soledad, with a sentry out to
the south-west watching La Morita, a sentry out to the west to keep tab
on the Bisley trail, a sentry out to the north on the Grave City road,
and Buck Hennesy, his segundo, riding from point to point with feed and
water. When anything happened the sentries flashed a signal to Buck, who
warned the chief. At sunrise McCalmont had news of our raid on La
Morita, and that made him think for sure that the kids were rescued.
He'd been riding all night, so he got his eye down quick for a big
sleep. The storm rolled up, burst, and trailed off to the eastward; the
sun shone out, lifting white steam from the desert; then came the heat.
At two o'clock, away southward through the quivering haze, Buck sighted
the three-flash signal, which means "Help!" He threw back the two-flash,
"Coming."
So he and the chief loped out, taking a canteen of cold tea, which is
the proper medicine for thirst, and a led horse each, to bring the
youngsters in to the little ranche. By four o'clock they had Curly
bedded down in the shack, supposing herself to be a prairie-dog, and
wanting to know who'd come and stole her tail. McCalmont nursed her,
Buck went off to spoil the trail from the hill, and Jim squatted down on
the doorstep for a feed of pork and beans, with lashings of coffee.
The main outfit of the robbers was camped at Las Aguas, some miles to
the north-east, and three of them came in at dusk to get their supper
and relieve the sentries around La Soledad. They were heaps shy when
they saw what looked like a greaser _vaquero_ sitting in the doorway of
the cabin. One of them rode right at him.
"Here, you," he shouted. "Git out 'er here _pronto_! Vamoose!"
"_Poco tiempo_," says Jim.
"Who are you, anyways?"
"_Quien sabe?_"
"Wall, ye cayn't stay here, so ye'd best get absent." He pulled his gun
on Jim's feet. "Now jest you prance!"
Jim laughed at him.
"_Mañana_," he said. Then in English, "You bark a lot, my friend. Whose
dog are you?"
Then he heard McCalmont's slow, soft drawl. "I sure enjoy to see the
sire's grit show out in the young colt. Spoke like a man, Jim! And as to
you, Crazy Hoss, I want you to understand that if you don't learn
deportment I'll politely lam yo' haid, you, you double-dealing
foogitive, low-flung, sheep-herdin' son of a lop-eared thug! Hain't you
got no more sense than a toorist, you parboiled, cock-eyed, spavined,
broken-down, knock-kneed wreck o' bones? You----!"
With such genteel introductions McCalmont sure spouted burning wrath
into that robber, scorching holes until he lost his breath.
"The evil communications of this young polecat," says he to Jim, "is
shorely spoiling my manners. And now, you--you turtle-doves, you'll jest
get away out of here and cook your supper thar by the barn. You want to
be mighty quiet too, 'cause my Curly is lying in here wounded. Git over
now!"
The robbers trailed off grinning, while the chief sat down on the
doorstep next to Jim.
"The children make me peevish," he said, and began to roll a cigarette
in his fingers. "Wall, do you remember, Jim? I allowed we'd be better
friends when we met again."
Jim looked round sharp and sat there studying McCalmont. He didn't look
bad or dangerous, but just a middle-aged cattle-man of the old long-horn
desert breed. Our folks are rough and homely; we've got a hard name,
too, but we stay alive in a country which kills off all but the
fighters. McCalmont had a cool blue eye, humorous and kind, and grey
hair straggling down over a face that was tanned to leather. The
stiff-brimmed cowboy hat was jammed on the back of his head, the white
silk handkerchief hung loose about his shoulders. He wore a grey army
shirt, blue overalls, stuffed anyhow into his boots, and a loose belt of
cartridges, slinging the Colt revolver on his hip. Somehow the youngster
felt drawn to him, knowing he'd found a friend of the kind that lasts.
"And you were that sky-scout?" says he.
"A most unworthy shepherd! Jest you look at my sheep," says McCalmont.
Jim asked how long it was since they met that day on the range.
"It seems a year to you, eh, lad? That was six days ago, the way I
reckon time."
"So much has happened--sir--can it be less than a week? I was only a boy
then--and Curly----"
"My son has struck you serious."
"She has told me everything, sir."
"Yo' goin' to remember to speak of Curly as a boy. He is allooded to as
a boy, or I get hawstile. You understand that?"
"I understand."
"And now," says McCalmont, "we'll have that buckboard ready in case we
need to pull out."
There was a buckboard standing in the yard, the same being a four-wheel
dogtrap, with a springy floor of boards, easy for travel. Jim helped
McCalmont to stow some cases and a keg of water, fill sacks with sweet
range hay for Curly's bed, and then cover the whole with a canvas
ground-sheet.
"You think," says Jim, "that we'll be chased to-night?"
"I dunno, Jim, but it looks to me as that's how the herd is grazing."
When supper was ready they strayed across to the fire and joined issue
with beef, hot bread, and coffee, the same being taken serious without
waste of time or talk. We range-folk don't interrupt our teeth with
aimless discourse. By smoke-time Buck loped off in the dusk to find the
_remuda_ of ponies out at grass, and the boys had a cigarette while he
gathered, watered, and drove the ponies home. Then the team for the
buckboard was caught, harnessed, and tied up with a feed of corn; each
man roped and saddled his night horse; and Buck, with the three relief
men, rode out slow, curving away into the starlight.
McCalmont roped a sorrel mare for Jim, then found him a spare saddle, a
bridle, a blanket, belt, gun, and spurs.
"Now," says he, "jest bed yo'self down, but don't undress. Keep yo'
hawss to hand, sleep rapid, and in case of alarm jump quick. An outlaw's
bed, my son, ain't feathered for long sleeps."
Jim lay awake and watched until the day guard came loping in with Buck.
He saw them rope and saddle their remounts, catch their supper, bed
down, and smoke the final cigarette. It all felt homely and good to be
with cowboys again, to have his blanket on the dust, his horse and gun
beside him, to know he was free and moderately safe, to look up drowsy
at a great white sky of stars. Jim was a plainsman in those days sure
enough, content, range fashion, to have the whole earth for a bed, the
night for a bedroom, and the starry palace of the Great Spirit to
shelter him while he slept. Kings and emperors and such have to hole up
at night in mean quarters compared with that.
Somewhere out on the range McCalmont's guard-camp kept a sentry alert
through the night, and when Jim woke up he saw the day guard swarming
off in the grey of dawn to relieve them. He washed himself in the
horse-trough, and helped McCalmont to cook breakfast.
"Now don't you make too much fire," says the chief, "'cause the less
smoke we show the better for our health. We want no strangers projecting
around to pay us mawning visits."
"Colonel," says Jim, "how's Curly?"
"Right peart, and chirping for breakfast."
The boys came rolling in from night guard. "Now you, Crazy Hoss," says
McCalmont, "rope the day hawsses, and put the herd to grass befo' you
feed. You, Buck, is all secure?"
"Wall, boss, there's United States pony-soldiers, three hundred haid of
'em, comes trailing down out of the Mule Pass."
"Heading this way?"
"No, seh; they're pointing for La Morita."
"I see. It's because of the shockin' outrage yesterday on them pore
Mexican Guards at La Morita. I expaict that ole Mexico is up on its ear
for war, and they'll be sending their army to eat the United States.
Jest take yo' glasses, Buck, and see if that Mexican army is coming
along."
Buck rode to the nearest hill and looked over the top without showing
himself on the skyline; then he came sailing back, and rolled up to the
chief, all snorting.
"There's the dust of an army on the Fronteras trail."
"Them rival armies," McCalmont drawled, "will talk theyrselves into
fits, and the rival Governments will talk theyrselves into fits; and all
the newspapers will talk theyrselves into fits; then they'll agree that
La Morita was raided, and they'll agree that it was the acts of wicked
robbers, and they'll agree it was _me_. 'Spose we have our coffee."
All through the night McCalmont had been sitting up with Curly, treating
her wound to a course of cold wet bandages once in five minutes to
reduce the swelling. After breakfast he went back again to her side, and
his teeth were sure set hard, because he had made up his mind to dig for
the bullet, which caused her more pain than was needful. As for Jim, he
squatted on the doorstep outside, with time at last to think. His
affairs had been some hurried and precipitous in this one week, which
cost him his parents, his home, his business as master of a tribe of
cowboys, his friends, his prospects, his reputation as an honest man.
And now the whirlwind had dropped him on the doorstep of a 'dobe shack
to think the matter over quietly and have a look at himself. He was an
orphan now, poor as a wolf, hunted, desperate, herded with thieves. What
was the use of trying to earn an honest living when the first
respectable person he met would begin the conversation by shooting him
all to pieces?
Then he heard McCalmont calling him: "Say, can yo' lawdship oblige me
with the loan of a pin?"
His lordship! The poor chap remembered now that he was Viscount
Balshannon, Baron Blandon, and several different sorts of baronets.
"Yo' lawdship!"
"McCalmont," he howled, "you brute!"
Then he heard Curly telling her father to behave himself, and his mind
went off grazing again over the range of his troubles. There was that
Curly, the famous desperado, the fighting frontiersman, the man who had
saved his life--and all of a sudden he had to think of him--of her--as a
poor girl crazy with pain. Jim had to face a fact which had hit his very
soul, turned the world upside down, and left him wriggling. It was no
use being hostile or disappointed; he couldn't make believe he was
glad. Curly didn't feel like a chum or a partner now; he couldn't
imagine her as any sort of sister or friend. She just filled his life
until there was nothing else to care for on earth, and it made his bones
ache.
Then McCalmont began to work with some sort of surgical instruments,
probing her wound for the bullet. He heard her make little moans,
whimpers, and stopped his ears with his fingers. Then she screamed.
Jim was shaking all over, but with that scream he knew what had happened
to himself. He had fallen head over ears in love with that same Curly.
After a long time McCalmont came out of the shack and sat down alongside
of Jim. The robber was white as a ghost; he was trembling and gulping
for breath.
"Here," he cried, "you take this."
Jim took the thing in his hand--a flattened bullet, all torn around the
edges and streaked with blood.
For some time he just sat staring at that bullet, scared by his own
thoughts. "Captain," says he at last, "Curly's not dying?"
"Why, not to any great extent, my son." McCalmont lay back on a dirt
floor, and yawned. "He's sleeping a whole lot now, and if you'll stay
around in case he wakes, I'll take a few myself; I'm kinder tired."
The robber dropped off to sleep, and Jim sat watching beside him. At
noon the boys off duty in the yard called him to dinner, but McCalmont
slept far into the afternoon. Then of a sudden he started broad awake,
his hand on his gun, staring out at the blazing heat of the desert.
"That's all right," says he; "three hours' rest is enough for hawsses
and robbers, so I reckon I've took more'n my share."
"Curly's still sleeping," says Jim.
"I'll catch some lunch, then."
Jim watched him ranging about the yard, bread in one hand, meat in the
other, eating his dinner while he hustled his men to work. He kept three
young robbers busy until the camp gear was stowed for travel, and all
the litter was hid away out of sight. Then he made them bury the ashes
of the camp fire, and smooth over all the tracks until the ground looked
as though there had been no visitors for a week.
After that he brought a pencil and notebook for Jim.
"I want you to write," he said; "scrawl yo' worst, and put down all the
spellin' ignorant. Write:--'Dere Bill, I'm gawn with the buckboard for
grub. Back this even.'--B. Brown.' Yes, that will do."
He took the book from Jim, tore out the leaf, and hung it on the door
conspicuous.
"Thar's times," he said, "when sheriffs and marshals, and posses of
virtuous citizens gets out on the warpath in pursuit of robbers. They
comes pointing along mighty suspicious, and reads the tracks on the
ground, and notes the signs, and sniffs the little smells, and in they'r
ignorant way draws false concloosions. Meanwhile the robbers has
adjourned."
Jim's face was as long as a coffin. "Captain," says he, "I've been
thinking."
"I'm sorry yo're took bad, my son." The robber sat down beside him. "Let
me see yo' tongue."
"Don't laugh at me. Will you mind, Captain McCalmont--if--if I speak of
Curly--just this once--as--as a woman?"
"Turn yo' wolf loose, my son, I'm hearing."
"I love her, sir."
"Same here, Jim."
"Do you mind, though?"
"My boy, when I wanted to marry her mother, I jest up an' asked her."
"I'm not good enough for her."
"That's so, and yet I reckon Curly's been dead gentle with you-all. Why,
she sure sits on all our haids."
"I'm afraid she doesn't care for me yet."
"I expaict, Jim, that an eye-doctor is what you need."
"And you'll consent?"
"If Curly consents, on one condition. You get her safely out of this
country, you take her to civilised life, whar she can stay good, away
from us--thieves. Take her to the Old Country."
"To starve!"
"I'll see to that. I've left enough wealth with Chalkeye to give you a
start in life. He came down yesterday mawning to see you-all at La
Morita--you were out."
"Do you suppose," says Jim, getting hot, "that I'd take your money?"
"If you take my child, yo're not above taking my money, Lord
Balshannon!"
Jim pawed his gun--"I take no stolen money!"
"Yo're speaking too loud," says McCalmont, "come over by the corral."
He walked over to the bars of the corral, Jim following.
"And now," McCalmont's voice went softer than ever, "I may allude to the
fact that if any cur insults my daughter or me, there is apt to be some
unpleasantness."
"Don't you think," says Jim, his hand on his gun, "that we had better go
a little further off--so that Curly won't be disturbed when we fire?"
"Why, boy, air you proposin' to dispense yo' gun at me?"
"As you please! You called me a cur--and you'll eat your words or
fight!"
"And you only called me a thief? Wall, I shorely am for a fact, and
you're not a cur--no. I reckon I was some impulsive in saying that.
Come, we won't quar'l, for I like you a whole lot for yo' playing up
against me that-a-way. What are yo' plans?"
Jim was breathing hard and acting defiant still. "I want to join your
gang!"
"Which I accepts you glad, for I ain't refusing shelter to any hunted
man."
"And I may marry Curly?"
"Not if you join my outfit. None of my wolves are invited to offer theyr
paws in mar'iage with my Curly. Two or three of them young persons
proposed theyrselves, and found my gun a whole lot too contagious for
comfort."
Jim unbuckled his belt, and let it fall with holster and gun to the
ground.
"I cannot accept the loan of that gun," he said, "or any favour from
you. I've been hunted, I'm afoot, I'm unarmed, but now, by thunder! look
out for yourself, because I'm going to hunt. I shall rob you if I can;
I'm at war with you and every man on the stock range, until I've won
back my house, my lands, my cattle. Then I'll come for your daughter,
but I won't ask for her!"
McCalmont leaned his shoulder against the corral, and laughed at him.
"Wade in!" says he; "good luck, my boy. I mustn't ask you to divulge yo'
plans, but I'm heaps interested."
"My father told me, Captain McCalmont, that all the first Balshannon won
he got with the sword. Well, times are changed--we use revolvers now!"
"Only for robbery, my lad, and for murder. I thought as you do once, and
reckoned I'd get even with the world. I started with a lone gun, I sure
got even, but see the price I paid. My wife was--I cayn't talk of that.
My lil' son was shot. My daughter is herding with thieves--and she's the
only thing that I've got left on airth. Come, lad, if I can bear to part
with her, and give her up to you, cayn't you give up a little of yo'
fool pride and accept her dowry jest to save the child? Take her away to
whar she can stay good--I ask no more of you."
"You want me to run away from Ryan, and let him keep Holy Cross? You
want me to live in Ireland on a woman's money? You want to hire Lord
Balshannon, with stolen money, to keep your daughter?" Jim spat on the
ground. "If you want to give Curly to a filthy blackguard, why don't you
marry her to Ryan?"
"You use strong words, seh."
"And mean them!"
McCalmont lowered his eyes, and pawed in the dust with his foot. Just
for a moment he stood scratching the dust, then he looked up.
"Onced," he said, very quiet, "I aimed at being a gentleman. I beg yo'
pardon, seh."
"You are a gentleman," says Jim, "that's just the worst of it--you
understand things. What on earth makes you want to insult me?"
"It seems to me, Jim, that you might understand, more than you do, that
I'm aiming to be yo' friend. Yo're at war with this yere Ryan to get
back Holy Crawss, or a fair equivalent, eh, for what you've lost?"
"Go on, sir."
"I'm at war, too, with the breed of swine he belongs to. Would you be
satisfied if Ryan paid in cash for yo' home, yo' land, and yo' cattle?
You being an outlaw now, it wouldn't be healthy to live there to any
great extent. Will you take cash?"
"Or blood!"
"I have no speshul use fo' blood. I reckon I'd as soon bleed a polecat
as a Ryan, if I yearned for blood. What d'you reckon you could buy with
blood--sections of peace, chunks of joy? I'd take mine in cash."
"You'll help, sir?"
"For all young Ryan's worth, and then"--McCalmont laid his hands on
Jim's shoulders--"you'll take Curly home as yo' wife, eh, partner?"
"If she is willing, sir."
McCalmont's ears went back against his head, he lifted his nose to the
west, pointing up wind. There was a sound like the thud of raindrops on
dust, a soft pattering which came nearer and stronger. He loosed off
the long yell to rouse the three men who were resting by the barn, he
told Jim to pick up his gun and help, he jumped for the team horses and
led them to the buckboard.
The pattering had grown up out of the distance to a steady rush of
sound, the ground had begun to quiver, then to shake, then with a yell
of warning, Buck and his sentries came thundering in from the desert.