Bred of the Desert Part 13

"Now we'll cut for deal."

Jim had been rocking back and forth easily on two legs of his stool. He now dropped forward squarely on the floor and nodded a.s.sent.

"Cut for deal," he said, quietly. "You!"

The game began. Glover, who evidently found interest in discussions, but none whatever in a game of cards, tilted back against the wall and began to talk, now that the argument was over.

"Zeke tells me," he began in a nasal voice, tamping the tobacco into the bowl of his pipe reflectively, "as how they's a bunch o' Injun renegades movin' south'ards off the reservation on a h.e.l.l-toot. I meant to speak of it afore, but forgot, as usual. Jim's talk here o' animals lovin'

each other that away reminds me." He lifted gray eyes to Johnson.

"Didn't Zeke say nothin' to you about that, neither?" he asked, evidently mindful of some other grave oversight on the part of "Zeke."

Johnson did not reply until after three or four rounds of the cards.

"Zeke told you a lot of things that hour you sat with him alone," he rejoined, with broad sarcasm. "Zeke must like you!"

"Mebbe," agreed Glover, accepting the remark with all seriousness. "He says as how Fort Wingate is out, and I remarks that sich a move about terminates the performance. He agrees with me--says fust squint them renegades gits at regular troops they'll hunt gopher-holes as places o'

ginerous salvation."

The others remained silent. The game was going decidedly against Jim. It had gone against him from the first--as he had known it would. Yet he continued to play, watchful of his opponent, keen to note any irregularities. Yet he had discovered nothing that might be interpreted as cheating. Still he was losing, and still, despite all beliefs to the contrary, he entertained hope, hope that he might win. If he did win, he told himself, Johnson was enough of a white man to accept the defeat and leave the horse where he was. Yet his chips were steadily dwindling; the cards persistently refused to come his way; only once thus far had he held a winning hand. But he played on, becoming ever more discouraged, until, suddenly awaking to an unexpectedly good hand, he opened the pot.

The raises followed back and forth swiftly, but he lost again. And now Johnson, as he mechanically drew the chips toward him, broke the silence.

"Zeke got you all worked up, didn't he?" he declared, turning his eyes upon Glover. "As for renegades," he went on, beginning to deal the cards again, "I've knowed 'em--hull droves of 'em--to stampede on the whistle of a rattler." Evidently he was returning to good humor.

Glover took his pipe from his mouth. "Renegades gits stirred up every jest so often," he observed. "I s'pose it's because of the way they feel about things. Being run offen the reservations thataway ain't nowise pleasant, to begin with, and then havin' to hang around the aidges for what grub their folks sees fit for to sneak out to 'em ought to make it jest that much more monotonous--kind of. Reckon I'd break out myself--like a man that eats pancakes a lot--under sich circ.u.mstances.

Zeke says this band--the latest gang to git sore--is a-headin' dead south. Talks like we might run agin trouble down there. More'n one brand, too--the police and the reg'lars all bein' out thataway. They're all out--Zeke says."

The others were absorbed in play, and so made no retort. Whereat Glover, with a reflective light in his eyes, continued:

"I've seen something myself," he went on, evidently mindful of Johnson's observation. "I've seen better men than Injuns stampede on less than rattlesnakes--and cover a heap more ground in a lot less shorter time.

What I'm talkin' about is skunks," he explained, to n.o.body in particular--"hydrophoby skunks--their bite. Why," he continued, warming to his subject and seemingly ignorant of its myths, "I once seen a man ride into San Mercial with his face that white it wouldn't 'a' showed a chalk mark! And he was holdin' up his thumb like it was pizen--which it was! And he was cuttin' for old Doc Struthers that fast his cayuse was sparkin' out of his ears. Bit by a hydrophoby skunk--yes, sirree. Got to the Doc's just in time, too! But he allus was lucky--the Doc! Money jest rolled into that party all the time. But some folks don't jest quite make it--horses gives out, or something. And if they ain't got the sand to shoot the finger off--"

A sudden shadow across the window checked him. He quietly reached for his gun. Also, Johnson lifted quick eyes to the window. And now Jim turned his head. Directly Glover rose to his feet; Johnson got up off his stool; Jim flung to the door. A moment they stood tense. Then Jim moved cautiously to the window. He gazed outside. As he did so his features relaxed. Presently he returned to the table.

"That horse," he explained, eyes twinkling.

The others returned to their places. All were visibly relieved. But Glover did not go on with his yarn. Lighting his pipe again, he fell to smoking in thoughtful silence.

Jim picked up his cards. He saw four kings. But he felt no elation.

Before him was a mere dribble of chips, and he knew that he could not hold out much longer. Johnson was coldly surveying his own cards, and after a studied moment opened the pot. Jim thrust forward half his small stack, followed by Johnson with a raise, whereupon Jim placed all he had upon the board. That closed the game. The other spread out his cards generously, and Jim, glancing listlessly at four aces, rose from the table. Turning to the window, he saw Pat still lingering near the shack.

He gazed at him a long moment in silence.

"He's yours," he said, finally, facing Johnson. "Reckon I'll go outside for a little air."

Outside, he made straight for Pat, removed the hobbles, led him into the grove. As the horse quenched his thirst, Jim sat down with his back against a tree and removed his hat.

"Sorry, old-timer," he began, quietly, "but it can't be helped. We--" He interrupted himself; shoved Pat away a step. "That's better," he went on, smiling. Then, as Pat looked puzzled, "On my foot--yes," he explained. "All of your own, too, of course!" he added. "But one of mine, too!" He was silent. "As I was remarking," he continued, after a moment, "we've got to beat him some other way. You're a likely horse."

He lowered his eyes thoughtfully. He did know of a way to beat Johnson.

That way was to mount Pat, ride hard for the open, and race it out against the little gray mounted by Johnson. But already he could see the vindictive and cursing Johnson in pursuit, discharging guns before him.

So the idea was hopeless, for he knew that Johnson even now was alert for some such move. But even if it were feasible, he realized that he never could rid himself of the man. Others had tried, as he well recalled--tried to break away from him for all time, with a result in no way to Johnson's credit. Two had never been seen again, which pointed grimly to the fact that Johnson lived up to his favorite maxim, which was that dead men tell no tales. Another was the case of that poor luckless devil who, through some mysterious workings of the law, having broken with Johnson, had been arrested and convicted of a crime long forgotten. But Jim knew, as others closely a.s.sociated with Johnson knew, that it was Johnson who indirectly had sent the unfortunate one to the penitentiary. So it required courage, a kind of unreasoning desperation, to quit the man and the life he led.

Suddenly Jim took a new hold upon himself. What, he began to ask himself, was getting into him? Why was he suddenly thinking of quitting Johnson? What would he do if he did quit him? To his kind all decent channels were closed for any but the exceptional man. But that wasn't it! Why was he arguing with himself along these lines? What was getting into him? He felt as if some good and powerful influence was come into his life! He had felt like this in Denver when a Salvation Army la.s.sie had approached him. But this wasn't Denver! Nor was there a woman! What was it, anyway? He could not decide.

He arose and laid his hand upon Pat's forelock.

"It's a regular case," he said, leading the horse out of the grove, "for something to turn up. It generally does, anyway," he concluded. "Don't it, Old Gravity?"

CHAPTER XVI

PAT TURNS THIEF

A week pa.s.sed before Pat knew of his change in masters. But that was not strange. Busily engaged in keeping himself alive on scant herbage, he took but little interest in anything else. Besides, his young friend continued to make much of him, talking in soothing tones and gently stroking his sides, and the little gray, holding herself faithfully near, also maintained quiet evidence of friendliness. So he had no reason to suspect change. But one morning, with camp broken, and saddle-bags flung out, and the window sealed over, and the door shut and barred, and the other horses bridled and saddled, there came to him in the person of the large man himself--a person he had instinctively disliked--the first sign of the change in his fortune.

The man approached, bridle on arm, to remove his hobbles. He remained motionless under this, and prepared also to accept the bridle quietly.

But in bridling him the man was rough to an extent he had never before known--forcing an oddly shaped bit against his tongue, and twisting and turning his sensitive ears as if these delicate organs were so much refractory leather or metal. Then came the saddle, and with it further torture. The forward belt was made snug, which he was accustomed to and expected; but when the rear girdle was cinched so tight that he found difficulty in breathing, he became nervous and wanted to protest. It was all very unusual, this rough handling, and he did not understand it. The effect of the tight cinch was peculiar, too. With the knot tied firmly, he felt girded as for some great undertaking, his whole nervous system seemed to center in his stomach, and all his wonted freedom and buoyancy seemed compressed and smothered. With all this, and the man in the saddle and spurring viciously, he realized grimly the change in masters.

They set out at a fox-trot, continuing their southwesterly direction. It was an unmarked course from the beginning, leading them steadily down into the Mogollon range, and, as before, Johnson was occupying the lead, with Jim next behind, and Glover bringing up the rear. And, as on the first leg of the journey, all rode in silence.

So Pat was in the lead, and while he found his new master half as heavy again as the other, he also found compensation for the increased weight in the position which he occupied. Not that he was proud to be in the lead; nothing from the beginning of this adventure had caused a thrill of either joy or pride. But he did find in his new place freedom from dust cast up by the heels of his companions, and he trotted along in contentment, to all outward appearances. But it was only an appearance of content. Within were mixed emotions. While he felt pleasure at being active again, while he was resigned in a way to his hunger pangs, and he was glad that his friends, the little gray and the young man, were still with him, yet against all this was a sense of revolt at the unnecessary tightness of the cinch, the hard hand on the reins, and the frequent touch of spur and heel and stirrup against his sides. Finally the feeling which began at that initial torture in bridling swelled with the consequent annoyances into approaching revolt. He became ugly and morose.

This soon revealed itself. He was crossing a wide arroyo. Without counting costs, grimly blind to the result, he burst out of the fox-trot into a canter. He held to this a thrilling moment, and then, finding himself keyed to greater exertions, abandoned the canter and broke into a sharp run. It was all done quickly, the changes of stride lapping almost within his own length, and his heart leaped and pounded with delight, for the change somehow relieved him.

But it was a mistake. Quickly as it was done, he found himself almost as quickly jerked up, swung viciously around, and his sides raked with ruthless spurs. He gasped a moment under the smarting fire of the spurs, then, as in the old days, reared in a towering rage. And this was a mistake. Too late he found the man's weight overbalancing him. He struggled to recover himself, plunged over backward, and down, striking the earth heavily. Hurriedly he regained his feet, but not so the man, not till the others sprang to his a.s.sistance. Then he realized what he had done, realized it fully as he caught the venomous gleam in the man's eyes and heard the storm of abuse volleying from his lips. Then, looking at the man, and listening to his raging outburst, he conjured up out of the dim past memories of the Mexican hostler and of that single encounter in the white corral. And now his fear for the man left him.

"I'll kill him! I'll shoot the horse!" roared Johnson, his face yellow underneath the tan. He reached toward his side-arms.

But he did not shoot. With his face white and drawn Jim strode to Pat's head, while Glover, quick to understand, played the solicitous attendant, a.s.sisting the limping Johnson into the saddle. And that closed the incident. Presently all were riding along again, with Johnson, wincing under internal distress, holding his reins more loosely than before.

But it was not without its good. As on that other occasion in the corral, Pat had learned something. He had measured a man, and he knew, and knew that the man knew, that he had come off victor. But it gave him no secret gratification. He continued to trot along, holding steadily to the gait, subtly aware of the slackened rein and of the wrenched and loosened girdle, until, with the coming of noon, the blessed relief from the weight of the man, the ill-fitting saddle, and the over-tight girth, came also an agreeable surprise. He was turned out to graze without hobble or tether, and for this consideration he felt faint glimmerings of respect for his new master. Making free at first with the other horses, he set off to enjoy to the full his new-found liberty.

But as he pursued ever farther the elusive vegetation in the joy of freedom, he presently awoke to his great distance from camp, and, indeed, from the other horses. Conscious of a sudden gripping loneliness and a certain apprehension, he began to retrace his way. As he did so, out of the silence came a nasty whirring sound, and suddenly he felt a rope settle over his head. Surprise, then anger, displaced his loneliness and apprehension; he jerked back to escape the rope. But it held fast. He braced his legs and began to pull steadily. But the harder he pulled the worse the rope choked him. Finally he ceased all effort and turned his eyes along the rope. At the far end stood the little mare, legs braced in the sand, and astride her, stolid and grim, and with eyes narrowed, the figure of the large man. At sight of him Pat began to pull again, more through ugliness now than desire to escape, until he found that he was dragging the little gray out of her stiffened hold. Then he slackened off. Also, as she wheeled back toward camp, he set out amiably after her. In camp he found his young friend scattering and deadening the coals of the camp-fire, and the little man making up the saddle-bags. This told him that the journey was to be resumed, and he stood quiet and peaceful as he was being bridled and saddled, and afterward he trotted along under the guidance of his master without show of anger or rebellion. Indeed, though the sun was hot, and the unmarked trail tedious, and the weight on his back heavier than ever, he felt less fretful and more contented than at any time since leaving the little ranch beside the river--possibly because of the thrill of his double encounter.

Ahead and on either hand the desert soon began to break and lift. As they went on the dunes grew to be hills and heights, growing, looming, closing in upon them. Now and again a clump of trees or a shoulder of rock or a stretch of foliage stepped out in relief against the brown of the landscape, revealing more than once ideal grazing-land. Also, as they penetrated deeper into this broken country, the sky overhead showed change. From a spotless blue it revealed tiny splotches of gray-white cloud scudding before upper currents. With the pa.s.sing hours these clouds became heavy, sullen, and threatening, until the sun, dipping into the west, sinking in a kind of hazy moisture, left the heavens completely overcast, cold and bleak and forbidding--a dense ma.s.s of cloud-banks down to the tip of ridge and range. And now came dusk, short and chill, and with it the slow ascent of a long grade, leading them up to a ridge, low and ragged, trailing away interminably to north and south in the gloom. Complete darkness found them deep among high hills.

The men drew rein beside a little stream. They watered the horses, and then, throwing off saddle-bags and gathering brush, they built a tiny fire. Glover appeared nervous and worried, and when the meal was ended turned to mount and be off again. But Johnson called him back. Johnson was seated on the ground, close beside Jim, and Glover sat down with them. Thus they waited, silent, reflective, watching, while about them pressed the close night, seeming by its touch to impart to them something of its solemnity. Off at one side the horses, bridled and saddled, waited also--watching and waiting, motionless, and over them all brooded a stillness that was mighty and portentous. Thus they waited for two hours, wrapped in profound silence, and then Johnson, after scanning the sky, rose and made for the horses. The others quickly followed him. Their trail led into a narrow defile. Up this winding way they rode, with Johnson in the lead, up and ever up, until they burst through a clump of brush at the top. There they drew rein and again waited, silent, reflective, watching. Presently Glover, with eyes turned eastward, uttered a grunt which meant relief.

The clouds in the eastern sky were breaking. Through the heavy banks came a faint glimmering of moonlight. At first but a hair-line, it widened out, reaching up and across the sky, developing steadily into the semblance of a frozen flash of heat lightning, until all the eastern heavens showed a s.h.i.+mmering expanse, broken here and there by black clouds sullenly holding their own, which flooded the underscudding desert in beautiful mottled gray-green coloring. Wider and wider the light spread, up and away on either hand, moving stealthily across the sky, until the sheen of it broke over the ridge itself, and then swept beyond to the west, laying bare a broad expanse of mesa dotted with gray-green specks that told of the presence of hundreds of cattle. And now the sullen clouds took to weaving, swaying under the pressure of upper-air currents, the specks below beginning to lift and fall with the motion of the clouds like bits of wreckage undulate on the sea. The air-drifts descended, came closer, fanning the cheeks of the men, rustling through the leaves which crowned the ridge, and breaking the heavy silence. The air-currents flicked the desert with their freight of swift-moving shadows, causing strange movement among the bits of wreckage--the cattle. It was a glorious march, lighting up the western expanse beneath and revealing a flat country, unbroken by dune or cleft as far as the eye could penetrate. So the light moved on, crowding before it sullen shadows which presently disappeared.

Johnson broke the stillness. "We'd better move along down," he said, and shook Pat's reins.

The horses began the long descent. As compared with the upward climb they made slow progress. Forced to feel their way, they moved always in halts and starts, over saplings, around bulging rocks, along narrow ledges, and at length gained the mesa, where the men drew rein. Johnson, sweeping his eyes coolly over the field of his campaign, began to give orders.

"Jim," he snapped, "cut in over there--that arroyo--and crowd 'em around to the south. Don't go too deep." Then, as Jim caught up his reins, "Glover, swing off this side--close in. We'll keep close in down to the line. Hop along!"

Pat remained standing. He turned his eyes after the little gray and her rider. He saw the pair swing up over a rise of ground at a gallop, dip from view into a hollow, and appear again on the level beyond. Across this they rode, speeding to the opposite slopes, then slackening as they ascended, making quietly among the nervous cattle, horses and riders moving with the easy certainty that told of much experience. Then he saw the head and shoulders of the young man above the surging herd, crowding a part of it slowly in his direction, to the right, to the left, forward and around, always making steadily toward him. It was interesting, and he continued to watch the cool steadiness of the man and the easy control of the horse, until he caught sight of the other, riding the opposite flank, but also crowding steadily toward him. He fell to watching this man, who, not so tall as Jim among the herd, but as quietly active, was also pressing to right and left and forward and around among the cattle, relentlessly cutting them out. Soon there was a general forward movement, the young man riding on the far side, the little man closing up the rear, and this brought the whole herd, some bellowing loudly, others in sullen silence, still others contentedly munching, directly opposite. Then he felt the p.r.i.c.k of spurs, and, throwing himself eagerly at the task, he galloped around behind the advancing cattle, falling into the position now abandoned by the little man, who cantered around and forward upon the left flank. It was exciting, and for a moment he thrilled. Then came the only interruption.