Curly Part 9

CHAPTER VIII

IN THE NAME OF THE PEOPLE

It used to be a great sight down at Holy Cross when the _vaqueros_ came back from the round-up, serapes flapping in the wind, hats waving, guns popping, ponies tearing around, and eating up the ground. And then the house folk came swarming out to meet them, the little boys and dogs in a shouting heap, the girls bunched together and squealing, the young wives laughing, the old mothers, the tottering granddads, all plumb joyful to welcome the riders home. So they would mix up, crowd through the gates, and on the stable court to see a beef shot for the feast. Presently the little boys would come out in the dusk of the evening, bareback to herd the ponies through the pasture gate, and scamper back barefoot to the house in time for supper. All night long the lamps were alight in the great hall, the guitars a-strumming, and young feet dancing, and last, at the break of dawn, the chapel bell would call for early ma.s.s.

But this was the last home-coming for the folks at Holy Cross, and far away across the desert Jim's riders heard the bell--the minute bell tolling soft for the dead. The people met them at the gates, but all the boys uncovered, riding slow. No beef would be killed that night, no lights would s.h.i.+ne, no guitars would strum for the dance.

Inside the main gate Jim's servant took his horse, and the lad walked on with clas.h.i.+ng spurs to meet the old padre at the door of the dining-hall.

"Take off your spurs," said the priest, "come softly."

So he followed the padre across the bare, whitewashed dining-hall, and on along the cloister of the palm tree court. He heard the death-cry keening out of the shadows, the bell tolled, and he went on through the dark rooms, until he came to the senora, with women kneeling about the bed, and candles lighted at her head and feet.

The daybreak was bitter cold when Jim came out into the palm tree court, s.h.i.+vering while he watched the little, far-up clouds flushed with the dawn.

He felt that something was all wrong in the house, with the hollow echoes, every time he moved, cras.h.i.+ng back from out of the dark. Then in the black darkness of the rooms he saw a lighted candle moving, slow through the air.

"Who's there!" he shouted, and at that the light came straight at him with something grey behind. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Then he saw it was Sheriff Bryant.

"Easy, boy, easy!" says d.i.c.k in his slow Texan drawl; "I cal'late, Jim, we may as well have coffee, eh, boy?"

So he led Jim into the dining-hall, where he had cooked some coffee on the brazier. He set his candle down on the long table, and beside it a stick of sealing-wax and a bundle of tape.

"Why, sheriff," says Jim, "what do you want with these?"

"Take yo' coffee, son. It's cold this mawnin'."

Jim fell to sipping his coffee, while old d.i.c.k sat crouched down over the brazier.

"My old woman's been here this fortnight past," he said, "and I collected a doctor of sorts."

"You never sent for father, or for me."

"I had reasons, boy, good reasons. Jim, thar's trouble a-comin', and you've got to face it manful."

"Oh, speak out!"

"As I says to my ole woman only yesterday, I'd have loaned the money myself to yo' poh mother, only I don't have enough to lend to a dawg."

"What do you mean?"

"I couldn't turn the po' lady out of her home, so I got a stay of execution from the Court, to give her time to escape. She's done escaped now, and I got to act."

"Sheriff!"

"Yes, I'm sheriff, and I'd rather break a laig. But I'm the People's servant, Jim, and my awdehs is to seize this hull estate, in the name o'

the People."

"To seize this house!"

"To turn you and all yo' servants out of Holy Crawss, and put the People's seal on the front gate."

"Sheriff, you can't!"

"Boy, take this writ."

Jim took the paper, spread it out, and read--

"Jim," said the sheriff, "we must bury this lady first. Then you want to take the best hawss you've got, while I'm not looking, and ride to my home. Yo're mo' than welcome thar."

"Who's done this thing?"

"Yo' father's debts."

"Don't beat about the bush--who's done this thing?"

"George Ryan."

CHAPTER IX

WAR SIGNS

On Tuesday morning, after I headed Jim for Holy Cross, I had to stay over in Lordsburgh, finish my horse deal with the Lawson Cattle Company, then get my men back to Grave City by the evening train. I had only three cowboys, Monte, Custer, and Ute; nice children, too, when they were all asleep, but fresh that morning, full of dumb yearnings for trouble, and showing plentiful symptoms of being young. At breakfast-time I pointed out some items in the local scenery, a doctor's shambles, a hospital, a mortuary, and an adjacent graveyard.

"Now, you kids," says I, "you may be heap big tigers; but don't you get wild-catting around too numerous, because I ain't aiming to waste good money on yo' funerals."

They said they'd be fearful good, and might they have ten dollars apiece for the church offertory? They set off with three pure hearts, and thirty dollars.

Now I reckon there were twenty-five Flying W. riders owning the town that day, and they began politely by asking my boys if Chalkeye's squint was contagious, and whether that accounted for symptoms of mange in his ponies.

My boys were dead gentle, and softly answered that Lawson was the worst horse-thief in Arizona; that Lawson's foreman was three-parts negro and the rest polecat, and that Lawson's riders had red streaks around their poor throats because the hang-rope had failed to do them justice.

The Flying W. inquired if my three riders was a case of triplets, or only an unfortunate mistake. Then my boys produced their six-guns and allowed they'd been whelped savage, raised dangerous, and turned loose hostile--and I only arrived just in time to save them from being spoiled for further use on earth. I challenged the Flying W. to race their best pets against my "mangy" ponies, and both sides agreed to have a drink with me, instead of wasting mounted funeral pageants on such a one-horse town as little Lordsburgh.

So while I was playing nursemaid, herding all those kids, who should roll up the street but young Onate, of Holy Cross, on the dead run with a letter from Jim. The more kids, the worse trouble. Well, when I had swallowed Jim's letter, I fired off a batch of telegrams and soon had a wire back from the Albuquerque sheriff. "Will impound them cattle," says he, "pending advices from Bryant." So I sent Onate streaking after Bryant, and went on playing at nursemaid until I was plumb scared that I'd be sprouting a cap of ribbons. Anyway, I didn't have time to think until the evening train pulled into Grave City. By that time my three babies were dancing a fandango upon the roof of the car. When the train stopped I hauled them down by the legs, petted them some with my boot, and told them to go away home. They went, with a bet between them, which would be first at my ranch.

Just for the sake of peace and quietness I stayed that night in Grave City, and sat around next morning smoking long cigars while I made my poor brain think. There were points in Jim's letter, and facts I had picked up casual at Lordsburgh, and words of gossip dropped in the hotel; but to put them all together would have puzzled a large-sized judge. Still, by all the tracks, the signs, the signals, and the little smells, I reckoned that Mr. Ryan was mighty near reaching a crisis, and apt to break out sudden as dynamite. First, here was Sheriff Bryant with two deputies, his wife, and a medicine-man, camped down at Holy Cross.

Now Bryant would scarcely take deputy-sheriffs down there to nurse a sick lady. Had Holy Cross been seized at last for Balshannon's debts?

That smelt of Ryan.

Secondly, Jim had gone to heaps of trouble gathering all the breeding-stock of Holy Cross, for a party named Jabez Y. Stone to steal them convenient. Jabez Y. had once been a bar-tender in Ryan's hotel--so that smelt of Ryan, too.