Desert Conquest Part 32

The two hors.e.m.e.n were roughly dressed. Each wore a gun openly at his belt. One was large, sandy-haired, gray-eyed. The other was dark, quick, restless, shooting odd, darting glances from a pair of sinister black eyes.

"Is your name Dunne?" asked the first roughly.

"Dunne?" queried McHale, as if the name were strange to him. "Did you say Dunne, or Doane?"

"I said Dunne."

"Oh," McHale responded. "Lemme think. No, I guess not. I never used that name that I remember of. No, partner, my name ain't Dunne."

"We want Dunne. Where'll we find him?"

"Why, now," said McHale, "that's a right hard question. You might find him one place, and then again you mightn't. I reckon I wouldn't be misleading you none if I was to tell you you'd find him wherever he's at."

"You workin' for him?" the dark man put in quickly.

"I was, a minute ago. Now I got a job with an inquiry office. Anything else I can tell you?"

"No," said the dark man. "But you can tell Dunne that up to a minute ago he had a ---- ---- fool workin' for him!"

Dead silence while a watch could tick off ten seconds. Clyde scarcely breathed. At different times in her life she had heard noisy quarrels in city streets, quarrels big with oath and threat. This was different.

She experienced a sensation as though, even in the bright sunshine beneath the blue, unflecked summer sky where all was instinct with growth and health and life, she were watching a deathbed.

The two strangers sat motionless, their eyes on McHale, their right hands resting quietly by their waists. McHale stood equally still, facing them, his eyes narrowed down to slits, his left hand holding the lapel of his coat, his right hand, a half-smoked cigarette between the first and second fingers, on a level with his chin. He expelled a thin stream of smoke from his lungs, and spoke:

"I reckon you can tell him yourself. Here he come now."

The eyes of the first man never shifted. The other instantly looked over his shoulder. McHale laughed.

"You're an old-timer," he said to the gray-eyed man; "but him"--he jerked a contemptuous thumb at the second--"it's a wonder to me he ever growed up. Don't you do it no more, friend. Don't you never take your eyes off a man you've called a ---- ---- fool, or maybe the next thing they beholds is the Promised Land!"

But his words had not been intended as a ruse. Casey was riding over on his little gray mare to see who the strangers were, and what they wanted.

"This man tells me you're Dunne," said the gray-eyed man.

"That's correct," Casey admitted.

"My name is Dade; his name is Cross." He indicated his companion by a sidewise nod. "We've bought land from this here irrigation outfit. So have half a dozen other men, friends of ours. Now we can't get water."

"Well?"

"Well, the company puts it up that some of you fellows is to blame.

You've cut the ditches so they won't carry. We've come to tell you that this has got to stop."

"That's kind of you, anyway," Casey observed quietly. He and Dade eyed each other appraisingly.

"What I want to make plumb clear," said the latter, "is that this don't go no more. It's no good. You'll leave the ditches alone, or else----"

"Or else?" Casey suggested.

"Or else we'll make you," said Dade grimly. "We want water, and we'll have it."

"I wonder," said Casey, "if you are trying to hang a nice little bluff on me, Mr. Dade? Suppose, for instance, you have no land, and don't need any water."

"I can show you my deed."

"That's quite possible. All right, Mr. Dade. Is there anything more you want to say?"

"I reckon that's all," said Dade. "If you'll say that the ditches will be let alone there'll be no trouble; if not, there will be."

"What kind of trouble, Mr. Dade?"

"You'll see when it comes."

"Very well," said Casey. "Now, listen to me, Mr. Dade. You and your friend there and your whole outfit can go plumb. Get that? Every ranch here has water, and we're going to keep it. How we keep it is our own business. If you've bought land you may look to the company for water, and not to us. If you haven't bought land--if you're hired to come here to start something--why, let it start!"

He and Dade looked straight into each other's eyes in the silence that followed. Cross made a sudden movement.

"Be careful, partner!" McHale warned him in hard tones.

Once more Clyde, an involuntary listener, felt the presence of a crisis, the chill of fate impending. But, as before, it pa.s.sed.

"You're barking up the wrong tree," said Dade. "Nothing starts--now.

Better remember what I told you. Come on, Sam, we'll get going."

Clyde heard the trample of hoofs dying in the distance, and then McHale's voice:

"You run the bluff, but you took an awful chance. That there Cross come mighty close to making a break."

"Nervous kind?"

"Yep. He's apt to be too blamed soon. T'other one, Dade, is cold-drawn.

I judge he's bad. Ever hear of him?"

"No."

"Nor me," said McHale; "but he has the earmarks."

Casey's reply was lost as they turned away. Clyde waited until they were out of sight, and then descended. The morning adventure had given her food for thought. Until then she had been deceived by the smooth current of life at Chakchak. It had seemed an idyllic, carefree existence. Although she had known of the trouble, it had seemed far in the background; it was a skeleton which had not obtruded itself. Now, by accident, she had surprised it stalking abroad in the glare of day.

That afternoon she and Casey rode together. He was in his usual spirits, laughing, joking, full of whimsical good humour. But back of it she thought she detected a preoccupation. Occasionally he would be silent and his eyes would narrow as if he were working out some problem.

Far up beneath the shoulder of a b.u.t.te a little spring of delicious water bubbled from the gravelly soil, trickled a few hundred yards, and disappeared. It was hidden by willow and cottonwood, draped with greenery, an oasis. Here they dismounted, drank the sweet spring water, watered the horses, and rested. Clyde sat down, leaning against a convenient tree. Casey stretched himself against another, his hands clasped behind his head, a long, thin cigar clenched between his teeth.

Through the fragrant smoke he eyed his companion in lazy content, noting how the mottled sunlight, filtering through the leaves, touched her glorious hair to living, coppery gold.

"Did you ever have your picture painted?" he asked suddenly.

"Why, no," she replied. "Whatever made you think of that?"