A DEFERRED RECKONING
Time had dealt kindly with the saloon of Mick Kennedy. A hundred
electric storms had left it unscathed. Prairie fires had passed it by.
Only the relentless sun and rain had fastened the mark of their
handiwork upon it and stained it until it was the color of the earth
itself. Within, man had performed a similar office. The same old
cottonwood bar stretched across the side of the room, taking up a third
of the available space; but no stranger would have called it cottonwood
now. It had become brown like oak from continuous saturation with
various colored liquids; and upon its surface, indelible record of the
years, were innumerable bruises and dents where heavy bottles and
glasses had made their impress under impulse of heavier hands. The
continuous deposit of tobacco smoke had darkened the ceiling, modulating
to a lighter tone on the walls. The place was even gloomier than before,
and immeasurably filthier under the accumulated grime of a dozen years.
Once in their history the battered tables had been recovered, but no one
would have guessed it now. The gritty decks of cards had been often
replaced, but from their appearance they might have been those with
which Tom Blair long ago bartered away his honor.
Time had left its impress also on bartender Mick. A generous sprinkling
of gray was in his hair; the single eye was redder and fiercer, seeming
by its blaze to have consumed the very lashes surrounding it; the cheeks
were sunken, the great jaw and chin prominent from the loss of teeth.
Otherwise Mick was not much changed. The hand which dealt out his wares,
which insisted on their payment to the last nickel, was as steady as of
yore. His words were as few, his control of the reckless and often
drunken frequenters was as perfect. He was the personified spirit of the
place--crafty, designing, relentless.
Bob Hoyt, the foreman, shambled into Mick's lair at the time of day when
the lights were burning and smoking on the circling shelf. He peered
through the haze of tobacco smoke at the patrons already present,
received a word from one and a stare from another, but from none an
invitation to join the circle.
Bob sidled up to the bar where Kennedy was impassively waiting. "Warmer
out," he advanced.
Mick made no comment. "Something?" he suggested.
Bob's colorless eyes blinked involuntarily. "Yes, a bit of rye."
Mick poured a very small drink into a whiskey glass, set it with another
of water before the customer, on a big card tacked upon the wall added a
fresh line to those already succeeding the other's name, and leaned his
elbows once more upon the bar.
Upon the floor of his mouth Bob Hoyt laid a foundation of water, over
this sent down the fiery liquor with a gulp, and followed the retreat
with the last of the water, unconsciously making a wry face.
Kennedy whisked the empty glasses through the doubtful contents of a
convenient pail, and set them dripping upon a perforated shelf. "Found
the horses yet?" he queried, in an undertone.
Bob shifted uncomfortably and searched for a place for his hands, but
finding none he let them hang awkwardly over the rail of the bar.
"No, not even a trail."
"Looked, have you?" The single searchlight turned unwinkingly upon the
other's face.
"Yes, I've been out all day. Made a circle of the places within forty
miles--Russel's of the Circle R, Stetson's of the 'XI,' Frazier's,
Rankin's--none of them have seen a sign of a stray."
"That settles it, then. Those horses were stolen." The red face with its
bristle of buff and gray came closer. "I didn't think they'd strayed.
The two best horses on a ranch don't wander off by chance; if they'd
been broncos it might have been different. It's the same thing as three
years ago; pretty nearly the same date too--early in January it was, you
remember!"
Bob's long head nodded confirmation. "Yes. We thought then they'd come
around all right in the next round up, but they didn't, and never have."
Kennedy stepped back, spread his hands palm down upon the bar, leaned
his full weight upon them, and gazed meditatively at the other occupants
of the room. A question was in his mind. Should he take these men into
his confidence and trust to their well-known method of dealing with
rustlers--a method very effective when successful in catching the
offender, but infinitely deficient in finesse--or depend wholly upon his
own ingenuity? He decided that in this instance the latter offered
little hope. His province was in dealing with people at close range.
"Boys,"--his voice was normal, but not a man in the room failed to give
attention,--"boys, line up! It's on the house."
Promptly the card games ceased. In one, the pot lay as it was, its
ownership undecided, in the centre of the table. The loungers' feet
dropped to the floor. An inebriate, half dozing in the corner, awoke.
Well they knew it was for no small reason that Mick interrupted their
diversions. Up they came--Grover of the far-away "XXX" ranch, who had
been here for two days now, and had lost the price of a small herd;
Gilbert of the "Lost Range," whose brand was a circle within a circle;
Stetson of the "XI," a short heavy-set man, with an immovable pugilist's
face, to-night, as usual, ahead of the game; Thompson, one-armed but
formidable, who drove the stage and kept the postoffice and inadequate
general store just across to the north of the saloon; McFadden, a wiry
little Scotchman with sandy whiskers, Rankin's nearest neighbor to the
south; a half-dozen lesser lights, in distinction from the big ranchers
called by their first names, "Buck" or "Pete" or "Bill" as the case
might be, mere cowmen employed at a salary. Elbow to elbow they leaned
upon the supporting bar, awaiting with interest the something they knew
Kennedy had to say.
Kennedy did not ask a single man what he would have. It was needless.
Silently he placed a glass before each, and starting a bottle of red
liquor at one end of the line, he watched it, as, steadily emptying, it
passed on down to the end.
"I never use it, you know," he explained, as, the preparation complete,
they looked at him expectantly.
"Take something else, then," pressed McFadden.
Mick poured out a glass of water and set it on the bar before him; but
not an observer smiled. They knew the man they were dealing with.
"All right, boys,"--McFadden's glass went up on a level with his eye,
and one and all the others followed the motion,--"all right, boys!
Here's to you, Kennedy!"--mouthing the last word as though it were a hot
pebble, and in unison the dozen odd hands led the way to their
respective owners' mouths. There was a momentary pause; then a musical
clinking, as the empty glasses returned to the board. Silence, expectant
silence, returned.
"Boys,"--Mick looked from face to face intimately,--"we've got work
ahead. Hoyt here reported this morning that two of the best horses on
the Big B were missing. He's made a forty-mile circuit to-day, and no
one has seen anything of them. You all know what that means."
Stetson turned to the foreman. "What time did you see them last, Hoyt?"
"About nine last evening."
"Sure?"
Bob's long head nodded emphatically. "Yes, one of the boys had the team
out mending fence in the afternoon, and when he was through he turned
them into the corral with the broncos. I'm sure they were there."
"I'm not surprised," commented Thompson, swinging on his single elbow to
face the others. "It's been some time now since we've had a necktie
party and it's bound to come. The wonder is it hasn't come before."
Gilbert and Grover, comparatively elderly men, said nothing, looked
nothing; but upon the faces of the half-dozen cowboys there appeared
distinct anticipation. The hunt of a "rustler" appealed to them as a
circus does to a small boy, as the prospect of a football game does to a
college student.
Meanwhile, McFadden had been thinking. One could always tell when this
process was taking place with the Scotchman, from his habit of tapping
his chest with his middle finger as though beating time to the movement
of his mental machinery.
"Got any plan, Kennedy?" he queried. "Whoever's done you has got a good
start by this time; but if we're going to do anything, there's no use in
giving him longer. How about it?"
Mick's single eye shifted as before, and went from face to face. "No, I
haven't; but I've got an idea." A pause. "How many of you boys remembers
Tom Blair?" he digressed.
"I do," said Grover.
"Same here." It was Gilbert of the Lost Range who spoke.
"I've heard of him," commented one of the cowboys.
"I guess we all have," added another.
Again Mick's eye, like a flashlight, passed from man to man.
"Well," he announced, "I may be wrong, but I've got reason to believe it
was Tom Blair who did the job last night, and that he's somewhere this
side the river right now."
For a moment there was silence, while the idea took root.
"I supposed he was dead long ago," remarked Stetson at last.
"So did I, until a month ago--until the last time I was in town stocking
up. I met a fellow there then from the country west of the river, and it
all came out. Blair's been stampin' that range for a year, and they're
suspicious of him. He disappears every now and then, and they think he
keeps in with a gang of rustlers who have their headquarters over in the
Johnson's Hole country in Wyoming. The fellow said he kept up
appearances by claiming he owned a ranch on this side--the Big B. That's
how we came to speak of him."
"Queer," commented Stetson, "that if it's Blair, he hasn't been around
before. It's been ten years now since he disappeared, hasn't it?"
"More than that," corrected Mick. "That's another reason I believe it's
him; that, and the fact that I didn't do nothin' the last time I was
held up. It must be one lone rustler who's operating or there'd be
more'n a couple of hosses missing. Then it must be some feller that
knows the Big B, and has a particular grudge against it, or why would
they have passed the Broken Kettle or the Lone Buffalo on the west?
Morris has a whole herd, and his main hoss sheds are in an old creek-bed
a mile away from the ranch-house. I tell you it's some feller who knows
this country and knows me."
"I believe you're right about him being this side of the river," broke
in Thompson. "When I was over after the mail two days ago there was
water running on the ice; and it's been warmer since. It must be wide
open in spots now. A man who knows the crossings might make it afoot,
but he couldn't take a hoss over."
Mick's lone eye burned more ominously than before. "Of course he can't.
He's run into a trap, and all we've got to do is to make a spread and
round him up. I'll bet a hundred to one we find him somewhere this side,
waiting for a freeze." Again the half-emptied bottle came from the shelf
and passed to the end of the line. "Have another whiskey on me, boys."
They silently drank. Then grim Stetson suggested that they drink
again--"to our success"; and cowboy Buck, not to be outdone, proposed
another toast--"to the necktie party--after." The big bottle, empty now,
dinned on the surface of the bar.
"By God! I hope we get him," flamed Grover. "He ought to be hung,
anyway. He killed his wife and burned up the body, they say, before he
left!"
"Someone must call for Rankin and Ben," suggested another, "Ben
particularly. He ought to be there at the finish. Lord knows he's got
grudge enough."
"We'll let him pull the trap," broke in Stetson grimly.
Of a sudden above the confusion there sounded a snarl, almost like the
cry of an animal. Surprised, for the moment silenced, the men turned in
the direction whence it had come.
"Rankin!" It was Mick Kennedy who spoke, but it was Mick transformed.
"Rankin!" The great veins of the bartender's neck swelled; the red face
congested until it became all but purple. "No! We won't go near him!
He'd put a stop to the whole thing. What we want is men, not cowards!"
A moment only the silence lasted. "All right," agreed Stetson. "Have
another, boys! We'll drop Rankin!"
Anew, louder than before, broke forth the confusion. The games of a
short time ago were forgotten. A heap of coin lay on the shelf behind
the bar where Mick, the banker, had placed it; but winner and loser
alike ignored its existence. The savage, ever so near the surface of
these rough frontiersmen, had taken complete possession of them. Drop
Rankin--forget civilization--ignore the slow practices of law and order!
"Come on!" someone yelled. "We're enough to do the business. To the
river!"
Instantly the crowd burst through the single front door. Momentarily
there followed a lull, while in the half darkness each rider found his
mount. Then sounded an "All ready!" from cowboy Buck, first in motion, a
straining of leather, a swish of quirts, a grunting of ponies as the
spurs dug into their flanks, a rush of leaping feet, a wild medley of
yells, and westward across the prairie, beneath the stars, there passed
a swiftly moving black shadow that grew momentarily lighter, and back
from which came a patter, patter, patter, that grew softer and softer;
until at last over the old saloon and its companion store fell silence
absolute.
It was 10:28 when they left Kennedy's place. It was 12:36 when, without
having for a moment stopped their long swinging gallop, they pulled up
at the "Lone Buffalo" ranch, twenty-five miles away, and the last ranch
before they reached the river. The house was dark and silent as the
grave at their approach; but it did not remain so long. The display of
fireworks with which they illumined the night would have done credit to
an Independence Day celebration. The yells which accompanied it were
hair-raising as the shrieks from a band of maniacs. Instantly lights
began to burn, and the proprietor himself, Grey--a long Southerner with
an imperial--came rushing to the door, a revolver in either hand.
But the visitors had not waited for him. With one impulse they had
ridden straight into the horse corral, had thrown off saddles and
bridles from their steaming mounts, and, every man for himself, had
chosen afresh from the ranch herd. Passing out in single-file through
the gate, they came upon Grey; but still they did not stop. The one word
"rustler" was sufficient password, and not five minutes from the time
they arrived they were again on the way, headed straight southwest for
their long ride to the river.
Hour after hour they forged ahead. The mustangs had long since puffed
themselves into their second wind, and, falling instinctively into their
steady swinging lope, they moved ahead like machines. The country grew
more and more rolling, even hilly. From between the tufts of buffalo
grass now and then protruded the white face of a rock. Over one such,
all but concealed in the darkness, Grover's horse stumbled, and with a
groan, the rancher beneath, fell flat to earth. By a seeming miracle the
man arose, but the horse did not, and an examination showed the jagged
edge of a fractured bone protruding through the hide at the shoulder.
There was but one thing to do. A revolver spoke its message of relief, a
hastily-cast lot fell to McFadden, and without a word he faced his own
mount back the way they had come, assisted Grover to a place behind him,
turned to wish the others good luck, and found himself already too late.
Where a minute ago they had been standing there was now but vacancy. The
night and the rolling ground had swallowed the avengers up as completely
as though they had never existed; and the Scotchman rode slowly back.
It was yet dark, but the eastern sky was reddening, when they reached
the chain of bluffs bordering the great river. They had made their plans
before, so that now without hesitating they split as though upon the
edge of a mighty wedge, half to the right, half to the left, each
division separating again into its individual members, until the whole,
like two giant hands whereof the cowboys, half a mile apart from each
other, were the fingers, moved forward until the end finger all but
touched the river itself.
Still there was no pause. The details had been worked out to a nicety.
They had bent far to the south, miles farther than any man aiming at the
Wyoming border would have gone, and now, having arrived at the barrier,
they wheeled north again. It was getting daylight, and cowboy Pete,--in
our simile the left little finger,--first to catch sight of the surface
of the stream, waved in triumph to the nearest rider on his right.
"We've got him, sure!" he yelled. "She's open in spots"; and though the
others could not hear, they understood the meaning, and the message went
on down the line.
On, on, more swiftly now, at a stiff gallop, for it was day, the riders
advanced. As they moved, first one rider and then another would
disappear, as a depression in the uneven country temporarily swallowed
them up--but only to reappear again over a prominent rise, still
galloping on. They watched each other closely now, searching the
surrounding country. They were nearing a region where they might expect
action at any moment,--the remains of a camp-fire, a clue to him they
sought,--for it was on a line directly west of the Big B ranch.
And they were not to be disappointed. Observing closely, Stetson, who
was nearest to Pete, saw the latter suddenly draw up his horse and come
to a full stop. At last the end had arrived--at last; and the rancher
turned to motion to his right. Only a moment the action took, but when
he shifted back he saw a sight which, stolid gambler as he was, sent a
thrill through his nerves, a mumbling curse to his lips. Coming toward
him, crazy-scared, bounding like an antelope, mane flying, stirrups
flapping, was the pony Pete had ridden, but now riderless. Of the cowboy
himself there was not a sign. Stetson had not heard a sound or caught a
motion. Nevertheless, he understood. Somewhere near, just to the west,
lay death, death in ambush; but he did not hesitate. Whatever his
faults, the man was no coward. A revolver in either hand, the reins in
his teeth, he spurred straight for the river.
It took him but a minute to cover the distance--a minute until, almost
by the rivers bank, he saw ahead on the brown earth the sprawling form
of a dead man. With a jerk he drew up alongside, and, the muzzles of big
revolvers following his eye, sent swiftly about him a sweeping glance.
Of a sudden, three hundred yards out, seemingly from the surface of the
river itself, he caught a tiny rising puff of smoke, heard
simultaneously a sound he knew so well,--the dull spattering impact of a
bullet,--realized that the pony beneath him was sinking, felt the shock
as his own body came to earth, and heard just over his head the singing
passage of a rifle-ball.
Unconscious profanity flowed from the rancher's lips in a stream; but
meanwhile his brain worked swiftly, and, freeing himself, he crawled
back hand over hand until a wave in the ground covered the river from
view; then springing to his feet he ran toward the others, approaching
now as fast as spurs would bring them, waving, shouting a warning as he
went. Within a minute they were all together listening to his story.
Within another, the rifles from off their saddles in their hands, the
ponies left in charge of lank Bob Hoyt, the eight others now remaining
moved back as Stetson had come: at first upright, then, crawling, hand
over hand until, peeping over the intervening ridge, they saw lying
before them the mingled ice patches and open running water of the
low-lying Missouri. Beside them at their left, very near, was the body
of Pete; but after a first glance and an added invective no man for the
present gave attention. He was dead, dead in his tracks, and their
affair was not with such, but with the quick.
At first they could see nothing which explained the mystery of death,
only the forbidding face of the great river; then gradually to one after
another there appeared tell-tale marks which linked together into clues.
"Ain't that a hoss-carcass?" It was cowboy Buck who spoke. "Look, a
hundred yards out, down stream."
Gilbert's swift glance caught the indicated object.
"Yes, and another beyond--farther down--amongst that ice-pack! Do you
see?"
"Where?" Mick Kennedy trained his one eye like a fieldpiece upon the
locality suggested. "Where? Yes! I see them now--both of them. Blair's
own horse, if he had one, is probably in there too, somewhere."
Meanwhile Stetson had been scrutinizing the spot on the river's face
from which had come the puff of smoke.
"Say, boys!" a ring as near excitement as was possible to one of his
temperament was in his voice. "Ain't that an island, that brown patch
out there, pretty well over to the other side? I believe it is."
The others followed his glance. Near the farther bank was a long
low-lying object, like a jam of broken ice-cakes, between which and them
the open water was flowing. At first they thought it was ice; then under
longer observation they knew better. They had seen too many other
formations of the kind in this shifting treacherous stream to be long
deceived. A flat sandy island it was, sure enough; and what they thought
was ice was driftwood.
Almost simultaneously from the eight there burst forth an exclamation, a
rumbling curse of comprehension. They understood it all now as plainly
as though their own eyes had seen the tragedy. Blair had reached the
river and, despite its rotten ice, had tried to cross. One by one the
horses had broken through, had been abandoned to their fate. He alone,
somehow, had managed to reach this sandy island, and he was there now,
intrenched behind the driftwood, waiting and watching.
In the brain of every cowboy there formed an unuttered curse. Their
impotence to go farther, to mete out retribution to this murderer of
their companion, came over them in a blind wave of fury. The sun, now
well above the horizon, shone warmly down upon them. They were in the
midst of an infrequent Winter thaw. The full current of the river was
between them and the desperado. It might be days, a week, before ice
would again form; yet, connecting the island with the western bank, it
was even now in place. Blair had but to wait until cover of night, and
depart in peace--on foot, to be sure, but in the course of days a man
could travel far afoot. Doubtless he realized all this. Doubtless he was
laughing at them now. The curses redoubled.
Stetson had been taking off his coat. He now draped it about his
rifle-stock, and placed his sombrero on top. "All ready, boys," he
cautioned, and raised it slowly into view.
Instantly from the centre of the driftwood heap there arose a tracing of
blue smoke. Simultaneously, irregular in outline as though punched by a
dull instrument, a jagged hole appeared in the felt of the hat.
As instantly, eight rifles on the bank began to play. The crackling of
their reports was like infantry, the sliding click of the ejecting
mechanism as continuous and regular as the stamp-stamp of many presses.
The smoke rose over their heads in a blue cloud. Far out on the river,
under impact of the bullets, splinters of the rotted driftwood leaped
high into the air. Now and then the open water in front splashed into
spray as a ball went amiss. Not until the rifle magazines were empty did
they cease, and then only to reload. Again and once again they repeated
the onslaught, until it would seem no object the size of a human being
upon the place where they aimed could by any possibility remain alive.
Then, and not until then, did silence return, did the dummy upon
Stetson's rifle again raise its head.
But this time there was no response. They waited a minute, two
minutes--tried the ruse again, and it was as before. Had they really hit
the man out there, as they hoped, or was he, conscious of a trick,
merely lying low? Who could tell? The uncertainty, the inaction, goaded
all that was reckless in cowboy Buck's nature, and he sprang to his
feet.
"I'm going out there if I have to walk on the bottom of the river!" he
blazed.
Instantly Stetson's hands were on his legs, pulling him, prostrate.
"Down, you fool!" he growled. "At the bottom of the river is where you'd
be quick enough." The speaker turned to the others. "One of us is done
for already. There's no use for the rest to risk our lives without a
show. We've either potted Blair or we haven't. There's nothing more to
be done now, anyway. We may as well go back."
For a moment there was a murmur of dissent, but it was short-lived. One
and all realized that what the rancher said was true. For the present at
least, nature was against them, on the side of the outlaw; and to combat
nature was useless. Another time--yes, there would surely be another
time; and grim faces grew grimmer at the thought. Another time it would
be different.
"Yes, we may as well go." It was Mick Kennedy who spoke. "We can't stay
here long, that's sure." He tossed his rifle over to Stetson. "Carry
that, will you?" and rising, regardless of danger, he walked over to
cowboy Pete, took the dead body in his arms, without a glance behind
him, stalked back to where the horses were waiting, laid his burden
almost tenderly across the shoulder of his own mustang, and mounted
behind. Coming up, the others, likewise in silence, got into their
saddles, not as at starting, with one bound, but heavily, by aid of
stirrups. Still in silence, Mick leading, the legs of dead Pete dangling
at the pony's shoulder, they faced east, and started moving slowly along
the backward trail.