Curly Part 6

"Pore old--er chap, don't you know! And the lady?"

"Dying out down at the Hacienda. The padre sits with her."

"And the young chief?"

"Do you still hate him?"

"Why should I care?"

"Tell me on the dead-thieving Curly, you do care some what happens to Holy Cross? Don't you remember old Ryan inviting yo' wolves to eat up the Hacienda?"

"They had stewed Ryan for breakfast afterwards, and he sure squealed!"

"Yesterday I seen a bar keep' who belongs to Ryan go up against young Jim and rob him of a thousand dollars over a sure-thing horse race. Any day you'll see Ryan's hired robbers running the crooked faro and monte games where Balshannon is losing what's left of Holy Cross. Ryan hired the range wolves, and they went straight for his own throat, but now the town wolves are eating yo' best friends."

"The only friends I have excep' my gang," said Curly. "Why don't you shoot up them town scouts, and that Ryan?"

"My gun against a hundred, Curly? No. I tried to get these crooks run out of the city, but Ryan's too strong for me. If I shoot him up I'd only get lynched by his friends."

"Show me yo' cyards, old Chalkeye--let me see yo' play."

"I aim to turn the range wolves loose in Grave City."

"The range wolves is some fastidious, Chalkeye, and wants clean meat for their kill."

"You don't want to save your friends?"

"The boss wolf leads, not me, and he wants good meat. I must point to good meat, or he ain't hungry none."

"Ryan has lots of wealth."

"We ate some once, and he's got monotonous."

"How about his son, the millionaire?"

"My wolves would sh.o.r.ely enjoy a millionaire, but--shucks! We'll never get so much as a smell at him."

"Cayn't you suggest some plan for checking Ryan?"

"I'll think that over. I cal'late to spend some weeks in Grave City."

"Two thousand dollars dead or alive! Why, lad, you're crazy."

"When I'm disguised you'll never know it's me."

"Disguised? As how?"

"As a woman perhaps, or maybe as a man. I dunno yet."

I went to sniff the morning, and at the door found Curly's horse, loaded with an antelope lashed across the saddle.

"I shot you some meat fo' yo' camp," said Curly, throwing coffee into the boiling pot. "Now let's have breakfast."

I went out and caught some eggs, then we had breakfast.

CHAPTER VII

AT THE SIGN OF RYAN'S HAND

At the time of Curly's visit I was breaking in a bunch of fool ponies, and along in August sold them to the Lawson Cattle Company. Their Flying W. Outfit was forming up just then for the fall round-up, so by way of swift delivery I took my ponies down by rail to Lordsburgh. Their camp was beside the stock-yard, and the little old cow town was surely alive with their cowboys, stamping new boots around to get them used, shooting off their guns to show how good they felt, filling up with chocolate creams and pickles to while the time between meals, sampling the whisky, the games, and the druggist's sure-thing medicines, or racing ponies for trial along the street.

Now I reckon that the sight and smell of a horse comes more natural to me than anything else on earth, while the very dust from a horse race gets into my blood, and I can't come near the course without my head getting rattled. But from the first whiff of that town I caught the scent of something going wrong, for most of the stock-yard was full of cattle branded with a cross, and the Holy Cross _vaqueros_ were loading them into a train. Moreover, by many a sign I gathered fact on fact, that this delivery of Balshannon's cattle was out of the way of business, not a shipment of beef to the market, but a sale of breeding-stock, which meant nothing short of ruin. I strayed through that town feeling sick, refusing to drink with the punchers, or talk cow with the cattlemen, or take any interest in life. At the post office I met up with Jim, face to face, and he tried to pa.s.s by short-sighted.

"Boy," said I, as I grabbed him, "why for air you shamed?"

"Leave me go," he snarled.

"For why, son?"

"'Cause I'm shamed."

"Of yo'self?"

"Shamed of my father. Our breeding-stock is gone to pay his gambling debts."

"All of it?"

"What's left is offal. Now you leave me go!"

"Whar to?"

"To follow Balshannon's trail--drink, gambling, shame, death, and a good riddance."

"You'll come with me first," says I, "for an oyster stew and some bear sign. I ain't ate since sun-up."

He came with me for a stew and the doughnuts, which made him feel some better in his heart, and after that I close-herded him until the cattle were shipped, through the evening, through the night, and on to daybreak. Then I rounded up his greaser cowboys from various gambling joints, and pointed him and them for Holy Cross.

"Boy," says I at parting, "you've been at work on the range for long months now, and yo' mother is surely sick for the sight of yo' fool face. Go home."

"You old Chalkeye fraud," says he, with a grin as wide as the sunrise, "you're getting rid of me because you want to have a howling time on your lonesome, with all that money you got for your rotten ponies."

It was surely fine sight to see my Jim hit the trail, the silver fixings of his saddle and cowboy harness bright as stars, his teeth aflash, his eyes a-shining, as he stooped down to give me cheek at parting, and lit out with his tail up for home. His riders saluted me as their old chief in pa.s.sing, calling, "Buenas dias senor, adios!" Yes, they were good boys, with all their dark skin and their habit of missing the wash-time; light-built riders, with big, soft eyes always watchful, grave manners, gentle voices, gay laughter, and their beautiful Spanish talk like low thunder rolling. They were brave as lions, they were true as steel, and foolish only in the head, I reckon. So they pa.s.sed by me one by one, saluting with a lift of the cigarette, a glance of the eye, dressed gorgeous in dull gold leather, bright gold straw sombreros, rainbow-coloured serapes, spur and gun aflash, reins taut, and horses dancing, and were gone in a cloud of dust and glitter away across the desert. I was never to see them again.

It made me feel quite a piece wistful to think of Holy Cross down yonder beyond the rim of the far gra.s.s, for that house had been more than home to me, and that range was my pasture where I had grazed for twelve good years. I could just judge, too, how Jim was wanting for home swift, while the segundo, good old Juan Terrazas, would pray the young lord to spare the little horses. "'Tis sixty leagues, and these our horses are but children, senor."