The Last Straw

by Harold Titus

CHAPTER XVII

HIS FAITHFUL LITTLE PONY

In the days that followed you might have seen approaching from a distance a rider for the HC. Watching, you would have noticed that he stopped his horse, rode on, stopped again, rode on and stopped the third time. Had you not halted and repeated the performance he would not have come toward you and, on coming within eyesight, you might have seen him sitting with a hand on his holster, or rifle scabbard—for the deadlier weapons appeared—carelessly enough, outwardly, but latent with disaster. For war had been declared. Jane Hunter's men were ready for trouble, waiting for trouble, but it did not come at once for though Hepburn and Webb and their following hated Tom Beck for the man he was they respected him and gave heed to his warning to stay away from HC property ... or at least not to be seen thereabouts.

The war went on, but it was a silent, covert struggle, and though Beck suspected happenings, he could not know all that transpired.

For instance:

It was Webb who finally dropped the pliers and declared the job finished, standing back to survey the stout cedars which had been bound together with wire to form a gate for one of the numerous little blind draws that stabbed back into the parapet which surrounded Devil's Hole. In the recesses of that draw was the smallest amount of seeping water, enough, say, to keep young calves alive. From a distance of a hundred yards this barricade of tough boughs and steel strands would not be detected.

Again:

They came up from the mouth of the Hole after dusk had fallen, Bobby Cole and her father, the old horses drawing the wagon along the indistinct track which wound through the sage. They were tired and silent and finally the girl's head dropped to Cole's shoulder and she slept, with his arm about her, holding her close, his lids and mustache and shoulders drooping.

The wagon halted, hours later, before the blocked draw and, straddled upon their bodies, the girl liberated first one calf, then another, until six had been shoved from the tail gate into the hidden pen. Then they drove back toward their cabin.

"Why don't I think it's wrong to steal?" the girl asked soberly.

Alf shook his head. "It ain't ... for us...."

"But I've read that it is," she protested, scowling into the darkness. "I read it in a book, about a man that stole; that book said it was wrong. Why don't I think it's wrong?"

She turned her face to him and he looked down to see, under the starlight, her mouth pathetically drooping, her lips trembling, and the big brown eyes filled with perplexed tears.

"Why'm I so different from other folks? Maybe that's why I never had no friends...."

"It ain't wrong for you to steal from her," he said defensively.

The girl looked ahead again.

"No, it can't be. I hate her.... I like to steal from her. But why ain't it wrong for me if it's wrong for anybody else?"

"I've allus told you it was the thing to do. Ain't that enough?" he asked wearily....

"Did you see him this mornin'?"—as if to change the subject.

Bobby nodded her head.

"He was down. He hurt his hand; got it shut under Webb's window. He.... He stayed a long time."

Her voice was quite changed; rather soft and reverent. "I'm glad he did. When he's there I feel like I ain't so different ... not so awful different from other folks...."

Alf did not reply. The wagon chucked heavily on, the brush scratched the wagon bed, the horses plodded listlessly. Dawn came....

Another thing:

Far out to the north and west of the Gap in Devil's Hole was a natural reservoir, Cathedral Tank. Winter floods were stored there and long after surrounding miles of quickly growing grasses had become useless as range because of the lack of drink, this tank afforded water for the HC cattle. Late in the Spring, of course, it became scum covered and fetid but until the caked silt commenced to show on the boulder basin the cattle would cling there, saving higher range for later use. Then, in other years, they would drift up toward the Hole, graze through the Gap and water in the creek until the round-up caught and carried them into still higher country.

This spring the desert tank was of far greater importance than ever before. The Hole was closed to the HC unless rain fell, and the days were uniformly clear, so it was wisdom to delay the round-up until the tank was emptied, then shove the cattle straight past the mouth of the Hole and start them up country from the lower waters of Coyote Creek. Beck rode to the tank himself and arranged his plans in accordance with the water he found.

But after Beck had been there another horseman made the ride, leaving the timber at dusk, shacking along across the waste country in a straight line for the tank. Cattle, bedded for the night about the water hole, stirred themselves as he approached and dismounted, then stood nearby and watched a strange proceeding. The man found a crevice in the rock basin, scraped deeply into it with a clasp knife. Then he wedged in five sticks of dynamite with stones and, finally, rolled boulders over them.

He led his horse far back after the fuse had been spit, but even where he stood, outside the circle of steers, rock fell. After the explosion had died into the night he pulled at his mustache and regained his saddle rather deliberately, chuckling to himself.

The fact that a steer with a broken leg was bawling loudly and that another, its life torn out of its side, moaned softly in helplessness, did not impress him. He rode back as he had come.

There was little time for love making in the life of the HC foreman. More riders were necessary for the round-up and he was particular about the men he hired. The country had taken sides; rather, it was either openly behind Beck in his handicapped fight, though skeptical of his chances for winning or openly forecasting failure for him and Jane Hunter; and of the latter Tom had his doubts. Many of them were not neutral, he knew.

But he was with Jane when he could be although, since he had declared himself to Webb and Hepburn, he did not permit her to ride far from the ranch, even when with escort. He wanted her witness to no tragedy, and tragedy impended.

Of the motives of Webb, Hepburn, Cole and their following he had no doubts but there was one whose reasons were a mystery to him. He studied this long hours, when at work, when lying sleepless on his bunk and even when with Jane Hunter. Hilton was at Webb's and that was enough to brand him ... but how deeply? He hesitated to enlist her aid in the solution but when he had spent days puzzling to no result he said to her:

"Nothing about what you have been matters with me, but there's one thing I want to ask you."

"And that?"

He eyed her a speculative moment as they sat beside her desk, the yellow light on her yellow hair.

"What was this Hilton to you?"

She colored and dropped her gaze from his, picking at a book in her lap.

"That belongs to the past," she said, "and you've just said that the past doesn't matter. I had hoped you never would want to know because it touches a spot that isn't healed yet....

"There was a time," lifting her eyes to his, "when I had made up my mind to marry Dick Hilton."

He sat very quietly and his expression did not change.

"That would have been too bad, Jane," he said after a moment.

She nodded slowly in affirmation.

"I'd rather he wasn't in the country just now," he went on. "You wouldn't mind, would you, if I drove him out?"

She said quickly:

"You trust me, don't you?"

He smiled gently and looked at her with a light in his eyes that was almost humble.

"I've trusted you with my love. I want to do things for you. I'd like to drive this man out of your way."

He was reluctant to give his real reason because, by doing so, he would necessarily make her aware of the strength of the menace of which Hilton, he felt but could not prove, was a part. He still wanted to shield her from full realization of the force aligned against her.

She leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands folded.

"I wish he would go away, but I wouldn't want to see him driven. You see, there are things about me which you will never understand. Dick Hilton, for a man, was not far different from what I used to be, as a woman. Our impulses were quite similar. Since I feel that I have established my right to exist by trying to do something, to be somebody to ... walk alone, I've come to an appreciation of the thing that I used to be, and I pity the old Jane Hunter and all her kind. In spite of all that he has been, I pity Dick Hilton, Tom, and in that very fact I see an indication of strength of which I'm proud....

"You see, I like to think about myself now; that didn't used to be true.

"Last year I would have been deeply resentful toward Dick for what he has done, but now, after my natural anger has gone, I can only be sorry for him. That, I feel, is true strength.

"I am not bitter. I don't wish him harm. His environment is to blame for what he is and perhaps this country, the people he comes in contact with here, will do for him what they have done for me." Beck thought that this was an unconscious absurdity! "I begrudge him nothing. I only wish that he might come to see life as I have come to see it.

"If he could only see himself as he is! Why, he is intelligent, he has a good mind, he has been generous and kindly, and if he could only get set straight in his outlook I feel that I could call him my friend.

"Do you understand that?"

He shook his head, driving back the perplexity he felt.

"No, I don't understand that.... There's lots of things I'll never quite understand about you, I expect. That's one thing that made me love you; you interest me.

"I just thought maybe you'd like him out of the country."

"I can never be a dog in the manger," she replied. "What is good about this life I would share with my worst enemy, and gladly, because at one time I was my own worst enemy."

"You ... you don't think you'd ever want to see him again, Jane?" With that evidence of natural jealousy was a gentle reproach, a woe-begone expression which, being so groundless in fact, set Jane Hunter laughing.

"Silly!" she cried, throwing her arms about him.

"Look at me and read the answer!"

Beck laughed at himself then.

"Who wouldn't want you all to himself!" he whispered. "And who wouldn't believe in you!"

Beck stood a long time under the stars that night, the feel of her lips still on his, but an uncomfortable doubt in his heart. He was tolerant, as mountain men are tolerant, but he had been bred in a hard school; he had learned to weigh men and to discard those who were found wanting. He was not vindictive, but he took no chances. Placing his trust in those who had showed repeatedly that they were unworthy of trust was taking a chance and though Jane Hunter had done her best to make her reasoning carry, he could not comprehend.

Finally he said: "This ain't any compliment to her, wonderin' like this. It's her way and she sure's got a right to it!"

But he went to sleep unsatisfied.

Out at Cathedral Tank that night the cattle stood snuffing rather wonderingly. Two days before there had been water which reached their knees at the deepest place; today there was none. It had trickled through the scars the blast had torn in the basin. The bellies of some were a bit shrunken from lack of it and bodies of the steers that had been killed were bloated. One, even, had already furnished food to a coyote and a pair of vultures.

Three or four licked the last of the damp silt and then turned eastward and began the slow trek back toward Devil's Hole, where at this season they had gone since they had been calves.

The Reverend saw this scattered stringing of cattle and reported it to Beck. Tom looked up from the wheel of the chuck wagon which he was repairing and considered.

"They're early," he muttered. "I hadn't figured they'd leave before the end of the week.... That's bad...."

The next morning he and Two-Bits, the latter riding his beloved Nigger, with an extra horse carrying the tee-pee, bed and grub, clattered down the trail into the Hole and made through the brush for the Gap. They skirted the Cole ranch, eyeing the Mexicans who were at work clearing sage brush, and a mile further on halted their horses ... rode forward, halted again, rode forward ... stopped.

"It's McKee," Two-Bits said. "That's Webb's gray horse."

The other rider came on and they rode forward again, Beck's holster hitched a bit forward, thumb locked in his belt.

Two-Bits had been right and when McKee recognized them he averted his face as though he would ride past without speaking. But this was not to be for Beck stopped directly in his way and said:

"Sam, if it was anybody else I'd been shootin' long ago. I ain't got the heart to kill you. You recollect, don't you, what I told you and your crowd about driftin' into our territory?"

"This ain't your range," McKee grumbled. "This is Cole's."

His gray eyes met Beck's just once and fell off, showing helpless hate in their depths, the hate of the man who would give battle but who dares not, who is outraged by forces from without and by his own weakness.

"No need to argue," Beck replied, tolerance replaced by a snap in his tone. "You drag it for your own range, McKee, and don't you stop to look back."

Two-Bits was delighted at the hot flush which swept into the other's face. He loathed McKee and to see him under the dominion of a strong man like Beck appealed to him as immensely funny.

"An' if my brother was here he'd tell you about a woman that looked back an' turned to salt," he said. "But if you turn an' look back I'll bet two-bits you turn to somethin' worse!"

The other flashed one look at him, a look of long-standing hate, devoid of a measure of the fear which he evidenced for Beck. He rode on without a word and Two-Bits laughed aloud. McKee did not even look back.

At the Gap there was water, just enough for a man and his horses for a few days. The seep had stopped and the water was not fresh.

"I guess it'll do, though," Beck said. "It's mighty important we keep this stock out of the Hole, Two-Bits. That's why I brought a trustworthy man.

"Lord, they're stringin' up fast,"—staring out on the desert where the steers slowly ate their way to the mouth of the Hole. "Funny they're out of water so soon. If they get up in here,"—gesturing back through the Gap,—"there may be hell to pay."

He helped Two-Bits pitch his tee-pee and rode away.

Throughout that day the homely cow-boy met the drifting steers and turned them eastward, past the Hole toward the lower waters of Coyote Creek. They were reluctant to go for they knew that beyond the Gap lay water but Two-Bits slapped his chaps with rein ends and whooped and chased them until the van of the procession moved on in the desired direction.

He was up late at night and awoke early in the morning, riding up the Gap to turn back those that had stolen past in the night, then stationing himself in the shade of the parapet to await the others that came in increasing numbers.

Two-Bits did not see the gray horse picking its way along the heights above him. The gray's rider saw to it that he was not exposed. Nor could he know that the animal was picketed and that a man crawled over the rocks on his belly, shoving a rifle before him until, from a point that screened him well, he could look down into the Gap.

Steers strolled up and eyed the sentinel, lifting their noses to snuff, flinging heads about now and then to dislodge flies that their flicking tails could not reach. He would ride out toward them, shoving them down around the shoulder of the point toward the east, then return to head off others that took advantage of his absence to make a steal for the Gap.

As he worked, he sang:

"Ho, I'm a jolly cowboy, from Texas now I hail!
Give me my quirt and po-o-ony, I'm ready for the trail;
I love the rolling prairies, they're free from care an' strife!
Behind a herd of longhorns I'll journey all my life!"

His voice was unmusical, unlovely, but he sang with fervor, sang as conscientiously as he worked.

As he came and went the man above watched him, his gray eyes squinting in the glare of light, following now and then the barrel of the rifle, bringing the ivory sight to bear on the man's back, caressing the trigger with his finger. A dozen times he stiffened and held his breath and the finger twitched; and each time his body relaxed quickly and he cursed softly, rolling over on his side, impatient at his indecision.

A continued flush was on his cheeks and the light in his eyes was baleful, resolved, yet the lines of his mouth were weak and indecisive. Once, when Two-Bits' raucous voice reached him, he muttered aloud and stiffened again and squeezed the stock with his trigger hand ... then went limp.

Noon came and shadows commenced to spill into the gap from the westward. The steers that drifted up from the far reaches of wash-ribbed desert came faster, were more intent, more reluctant to be driven back. Two-Bits changed to his Nigger horse and drank from the water hole and rode yipping toward a big roan steer that advanced determinedly. The animal doubled and dodged but, shoulder against its rump, nipping viciously at the critter's back, Nigger aided his rider to success; then swung back.

Two-Bits' voice floated up as he stroked his horse's neck:

"Oh, I'm a Texas cowboy, lighthearted, brave an' free,
To roam the wide prairie is always joy to me.
My trusty little po-o-ony is my companion true
O'er creeks an' hills an' rivers he's sure to pull me through!"

From above a dull spat. In Two-Bits' ears an abrupt crunching as he was knocked forward and down and a dull, rending pain spread across his shoulders. He struck the ground with his face first and instinctively his hand started back toward his holster. The first movement was a whip, then became jerky, faltering, and when the fingers found the handle of his revolver they fumbled and could not close. He half raised himself on the other elbow, dragging his knees beneath his body slowly.

His mouth was filled with sand. His eyes were.... He did not know what ailed them, but he could not see. He felt dizzy and sick. He hitched himself upward another degree, striving to close those fingers on his revolver butt. It was a Herculean task, but the only necessary action that his groggy mind could recall. He gritted the sand between his teeth in the effort. He would draw! He would fight back! He wasn't gone ... yet ... wasn't ...

And then he collapsed, limp and flat on the ground, as an inert body will lie.

The fingers twitched convulsively; then were still. A stain seeped through his vest, dark in the sun. The breath slipped through his teeth slowly. The horse stood looking at him, nose low; then stepped closer and snuffed gently; looked rather resentfully at a steer trailing through the Gap unheeded, then snuffed again....

Up above a man was crawling back across the hot rocks to where a gray horse waited in the sun....

"I got him," he muttered feverishly as he covered the last distance at a run. "Now, by God, I'll get— ..."

Nigger stood there, switching at the flies which alighted on him. From time to time he snuffed and stamped; occasionally he peered far up the Hole or out onto the desert almost hopefully, watching distant objects with erect ears; then the ears would droop quickly and he would chew his bit and look back at his master with helpless eyes.

Cattle strayed back from the east where Two-Bits had sent them and entered the Hole, those which had once been driven away passing the prone figure and the watching horse on a trot, others with their noses in the air smelling water, heedless of else.

The shadows crept closer and deeper about Two-Bits. Overhead a buzzard wheeled, banking sharply, coming down lazily, then flapped upward and on. It was not yet his time!

The horse dozed fitfully, one hip slumped, waking now and then with a jerk, pricking his ears at the quiet figure as though he detected movement; then letting them droop again rather forlornly. Once he walked completely about his master, slowly, reins trailing and then stopped to nose the body gently as if to say:

"What is this, my friend? I'm only a horse and I don't understand; if I knew how to help you I would. Won't you tell me what to do? I'm waiting here just for that; to help you. But I'm only a horse..."

He plucked grass aimlessly and returned to stand above the man's body chewing abstractedly, stopping and holding his breath while he gazed down at the inanimate lump; then chewing again. Once he sighed deeply and the saddle creaked from the strain his inhalation put on the cinch.

For hours there had been no movement. Night stole down from the east, shrouding the desert in purple, softening the harsh distances, making them seem gentle and easy. Then from the still man came a sound, like a sigh that was choked off, and the hand which, hours before had groped haltingly for the revolver, stirred ever so slightly.

Nigger's ears went forward. He stepped gingerly about the body, keeping his fore feet close to it, swinging his hind parts in a big circle. He nickered softly, almost entreatingly, as if begging his master to speak, to make more movement; he nuzzled the body rather roughly, then stamped in impatience ... sighed again and slumped a hip, chewing on his bit....

Two-Bits was wet with dew when daylight came, but he had not stirred. The sun peered into the Gap and the drops of moisture, blinking back a brief interval, seemed to draw into his clothing and skin; the rays licked up the damp that had gathered in the hoof prints about the figure.

Nigger lifted his head high and whinnered shrilly at nothing at all. This was another day; there might be hope!

The flies came and lighted on the crusted stain on the vest and crawled down inside the shirt ... and after an aeon a sharp, white wire of consciousness commenced to glow in Two-Bits' blank mind. The one hand—the gun hand—twitched again and the fingers, puffed from their cramped position, stretched stiffly, resuming their struggle for the gun where it had left off yesterday.

One foot moved a trifle and a muffled cough sent a small spurt of dust from beneath the face pressed into it. Slowly the gun hand gave up its search and was still, gathering strength. The arm drew up along the man's side, the hand reached his face. Elbows pressed into the ground and with a moan Two-Bits tried to lift his body ... tried and failed and sank back, with his face turned away from the dirt.

Nigger blew loudly and shook his whole body and stared. The other horse came up and stared, too; then moved toward the water hole, the precious water, and drank deeply. Nigger watched him as though he, too, would drink. But he did not go; remained there, with the reins dangling among the flies. Now and then his nostrils twitched and fluttered; his ears quirked in constant query.

Noon, and another effort to rise. A muttered word this time and a squinting of the eyes that was not wholly witless.

Two-Bits shifted his position. He could see his tee-pee, his black kettle on the ashes, his water bucket ... his bucket ... water bucket ... water.... He worked his lips heavily. They were burned and cracked and his mouth was an insensate orifice....

After a time he commenced to crawl, moving an inch at a time, settling back, moaning. The crusted stain on his vest took on fresh life and the flies buzzed angrily when disturbed. His arms were of little use and he progressed by slow undulations of his limbs. Once he found a crack between two rocks with a toe and shoved himself forward a foot.

"Damn..." he muttered in feeble triumph.

A fevered glow came into his eyes. His breath quickened under the effort. He moaned more; rested less.

And behind, beside or before him went the excited Nigger. He muttered softly, as in encouragement, doing his best to put his hope into sounds. His heavy mane and forelock fell about his eyes, giving him a disheveled appearance, but he seemed to be trying to say:

"You're alive; you're alive! You can move after all; you can move! Let me help! Oh, pardner, let me help you!"

The horse pawed the earth desperately, sending stones and dirt scattering, dust drifting.

"Keep on!" he seemed to say. "Keep it up! I'm here; we'll get there somehow!"

Two-Bits gained shadows. The water was less than a hundred feet away. He moved his head from side to side in an agony of effort and threw one hand clumsily before him. It touched sage brush and after moments of struggle he clamped his fingers about the stalk and dragged himself on, gritting his teeth against the pain. He reached a little wash and tried to rise to his feet. He could not. He floundered in effort and rolled into it, crying lowly as his torso doubled limply and he sprawled on his back.

Nigger stood at the edge, snuffing, peering down. He kicked at a fly irritably and stepped down into the wash himself, nickering in tender query.

It took a long time for Two-Bits to roll over. He cried hoarsely from the hurt of the effort and the fevered light in his eyes mounted. His mouth was no longer without sensation. It and his throat stung and smarted. Their hurt was worse than the weight of suffering on his shoulders.... He wanted water as only a man whose life is in the balance can want water!

Somehow he crawled out of the wash. It was fifty feet to the hole now.... He cut it to twenty and lay gasping, trembling, burning, Nigger close beside him, first on one side, then the other, sometimes at his feet. Never, though, standing motionless in his path....

It was ten feet.... Then five. Lifting eye lids was a world of effort in itself. His mouth was open, breath sucking in the dust, but he could not close it. He made a hand's breadth and stopped. His limbs twitched spasmodically and drew up. He made a straining, strangling sound, gathering all the life that remained in his body. He rose on his elbows and on one knee. He swayed forward, he scrambled drunkenly. He pitched down and as he went he made one last, awkward attempt to push his own weight along. Then fell ... short.

The right hand half propped his body up. It slid slowly forward, impelled by the weight upon it alone, shoving light sand in its way.... Then went limp and extended.

The tip of his second finger just dented the surface of the water in the pool!

The horse switched his tail slowly, as if disconsolate at a waning hope.

"Hang it all," he might have thought. "Here I thought you were going to make it and you can't! I wish I knew how to help!"

He sighed again, this time as if in despair. He waited a long time before drinking himself as if hoping that his master would move. But the body was motionless ... utterly. The shallow, quick come and go of breath was not in evidence. Two-Bits had done all that he could do for himself....

Nigger moved to the lip of rock which held the water against the cliff. He snuffed, as if to tantalize himself and then plunged his nose into the place, guzzling greedily. Great gulps ran down his long throat, little shoots of water left his lips beside the bit and fell back. He breathed and drank and made great sounds in satisfying his thirst. He lifted his head and caught his breath and let it slip out in a sigh of satisfaction ... drank again.

Finally he was through and stepped back, holding his lips close, as horses will whose mouth contains one more swallow. Then he stared at Two-Bits and moved close to him and chewed instinctively on the bit, letting the water that he did not need spill from his mouth....

It fell squarely on the back of the man's neck, spattering on his hair, running down under his shirt, driving out the flies....

Two-Bits swam back again. A strength, a pleasing chill ran through him. He moved the one arm and the fingers slid on into the water. With a choking cry he wriggled forward and thrust his face into the pool.... After a long time he drew back and let his fevered forehead soak, breathing more easily through his mouth.

It was nearly sunset when he rolled over, slowly, painfully, weakly, but not as a man on the edge of death. He looked up at Nigger standing beside him, nose fluttering encouragement. Just above him a stirrup swung to and fro in a short arc.

"After a while ... a week or so, I can ... get hold of that ... mebby," the man said huskily.