A DEFERRED RECKONING
Time had dealt kindly with the saloon of Mick Kennedy. A hundred electric storms had left it unscathed. Prairie fires had passed it by. Only the relentless sun and rain had fastened the mark of their handiwork upon it and stained it until it was the color of the earth itself. Within, man had performed a similar office. The same old cottonwood bar stretched across the side of the room, taking up a third of the available space; but no stranger would have called it cottonwood now. It had become brown like oak from continuous saturation with various colored liquids; and upon its surface, indelible record of the years, were innumerable bruises and dents where heavy bottles and glasses had made their impress under impulse of heavier hands. The continuous deposit of tobacco smoke had darkened the ceiling, modulating to a lighter tone on the walls. The place was even gloomier than before, and immeasurably filthier under the accumulated grime of a dozen years. Once in their history the battered tables had been recovered, but no one would have guessed it now. The gritty decks of cards had been often replaced, but from their appearance they might have been those with which Tom Blair long ago bartered away his honor.
Time had left its impress also on bartender Mick. A generous sprinkling of gray was in his hair; the single eye was redder and fiercer, seeming by its blaze to have consumed the very lashes surrounding it; the cheeks were sunken, the great jaw and chin prominent from the loss of teeth. Otherwise Mick was not much changed. The hand which dealt out his wares, which insisted on their payment to the last nickel, was as steady as of yore. His words were as few, his control of the reckless and often drunken frequenters was as perfect. He was the personified spirit of the place—crafty, designing, relentless.
Bob Hoyt, the foreman, shambled into Mick's lair at the time of day when the lights were burning and smoking on the circling shelf. He peered through the haze of tobacco smoke at the patrons already present, received a word from one and a stare from another, but from none an invitation to join the circle.
Bob sidled up to the bar where Kennedy was impassively waiting. "Warmer out," he advanced.
Mick made no comment. "Something?" he suggested.
Bob's colorless eyes blinked involuntarily. "Yes, a bit of rye."
Mick poured a very small drink into a whiskey glass, set it with another of water before the customer, on a big card tacked upon the wall added a fresh line to those already succeeding the other's name, and leaned his elbows once more upon the bar.
Upon the floor of his mouth Bob Hoyt laid a foundation of water, over this sent down the fiery liquor with a gulp, and followed the retreat with the last of the water, unconsciously making a wry face.
Kennedy whisked the empty glasses through the doubtful contents of a convenient pail, and set them dripping upon a perforated shelf. "Found the horses yet?" he queried, in an undertone.
Bob shifted uncomfortably and searched for a place for his hands, but finding none he let them hang awkwardly over the rail of the bar.
"No, not even a trail."
"Looked, have you?" The single searchlight turned unwinkingly upon the other's face.
"Yes, I've been out all day. Made a circle of the places within forty miles—Russel's of the Circle R, Stetson's of the 'XI,' Frazier's, Rankin's—none of them have seen a sign of a stray."
"That settles it, then. Those horses were stolen." The red face with its bristle of buff and gray came closer. "I didn't think they'd strayed. The two best horses on a ranch don't wander off by chance; if they'd been broncos it might have been different. It's the same thing as three years ago; pretty nearly the same date too—early in January it was, you remember!"
Bob's long head nodded confirmation. "Yes. We thought then they'd come around all right in the next round up, but they didn't, and never have."
Kennedy stepped back, spread his hands palm down upon the bar, leaned his full weight upon them, and gazed meditatively at the other occupants of the room. A question was in his mind. Should he take these men into his confidence and trust to their well-known method of dealing with rustlers—a method very effective when successful in catching the offender, but infinitely deficient in finesse—or depend wholly upon his own ingenuity? He decided that in this instance the latter offered little hope. His province was in dealing with people at close range.
"Boys,"—his voice was normal, but not a man in the room failed to give attention,—"boys, line up! It's on the house."
Promptly the card games ceased. In one, the pot lay as it was, its ownership undecided, in the centre of the table. The loungers' feet dropped to the floor. An inebriate, half dozing in the corner, awoke. Well they knew it was for no small reason that Mick interrupted their diversions. Up they came—Grover of the far-away "XXX" ranch, who had been here for two days now, and had lost the price of a small herd; Gilbert of the "Lost Range," whose brand was a circle within a circle; Stetson of the "XI," a short heavy-set man, with an immovable pugilist's face, to-night, as usual, ahead of the game; Thompson, one-armed but formidable, who drove the stage and kept the postoffice and inadequate general store just across to the north of the saloon; McFadden, a wiry little Scotchman with sandy whiskers, Rankin's nearest neighbor to the south; a half-dozen lesser lights, in distinction from the big ranchers called by their first names, "Buck" or "Pete" or "Bill" as the case might be, mere cowmen employed at a salary. Elbow to elbow they leaned upon the supporting bar, awaiting with interest the something they knew Kennedy had to say.
Kennedy did not ask a single man what he would have. It was needless. Silently he placed a glass before each, and starting a bottle of red liquor at one end of the line, he watched it, as, steadily emptying, it passed on down to the end.
"I never use it, you know," he explained, as, the preparation complete, they looked at him expectantly.
"Take something else, then," pressed McFadden.
Mick poured out a glass of water and set it on the bar before him; but not an observer smiled. They knew the man they were dealing with.
"All right, boys,"—McFadden's glass went up on a level with his eye, and one and all the others followed the motion,—"all right, boys! Here's to you, Kennedy!"—mouthing the last word as though it were a hot pebble, and in unison the dozen odd hands led the way to their respective owners' mouths. There was a momentary pause; then a musical clinking, as the empty glasses returned to the board. Silence, expectant silence, returned.
"Boys,"—Mick looked from face to face intimately,—"we've got work ahead. Hoyt here reported this morning that two of the best horses on the Big B were missing. He's made a forty-mile circuit to-day, and no one has seen anything of them. You all know what that means."
Stetson turned to the foreman. "What time did you see them last, Hoyt?"
"About nine last evening."
"Sure?"
Bob's long head nodded emphatically. "Yes, one of the boys had the team out mending fence in the afternoon, and when he was through he turned them into the corral with the broncos. I'm sure they were there."
"I'm not surprised," commented Thompson, swinging on his single elbow to face the others. "It's been some time now since we've had a necktie party and it's bound to come. The wonder is it hasn't come before."
Gilbert and Grover, comparatively elderly men, said nothing, looked nothing; but upon the faces of the half-dozen cowboys there appeared distinct anticipation. The hunt of a "rustler" appealed to them as a circus does to a small boy, as the prospect of a football game does to a college student.
Meanwhile, McFadden had been thinking. One could always tell when this process was taking place with the Scotchman, from his habit of tapping his chest with his middle finger as though beating time to the movement of his mental machinery.
"Got any plan, Kennedy?" he queried. "Whoever's done you has got a good start by this time; but if we're going to do anything, there's no use in giving him longer. How about it?"
Mick's single eye shifted as before, and went from face to face. "No, I haven't; but I've got an idea." A pause. "How many of you boys remembers Tom Blair?" he digressed.
"I do," said Grover.
"Same here." It was Gilbert of the Lost Range who spoke.
"I've heard of him," commented one of the cowboys.
"I guess we all have," added another.
Again Mick's eye, like a flashlight, passed from man to man.
"Well," he announced, "I may be wrong, but I've got reason to believe it was Tom Blair who did the job last night, and that he's somewhere this side the river right now."
For a moment there was silence, while the idea took root.
"I supposed he was dead long ago," remarked Stetson at last.
"So did I, until a month ago—until the last time I was in town stocking up. I met a fellow there then from the country west of the river, and it all came out. Blair's been stampin' that range for a year, and they're suspicious of him. He disappears every now and then, and they think he keeps in with a gang of rustlers who have their headquarters over in the Johnson's Hole country in Wyoming. The fellow said he kept up appearances by claiming he owned a ranch on this side—the Big B. That's how we came to speak of him."
"Queer," commented Stetson, "that if it's Blair, he hasn't been around before. It's been ten years now since he disappeared, hasn't it?"
"More than that," corrected Mick. "That's another reason I believe it's him; that, and the fact that I didn't do nothin' the last time I was held up. It must be one lone rustler who's operating or there'd be more'n a couple of hosses missing. Then it must be some feller that knows the Big B, and has a particular grudge against it, or why would they have passed the Broken Kettle or the Lone Buffalo on the west? Morris has a whole herd, and his main hoss sheds are in an old creek-bed a mile away from the ranch-house. I tell you it's some feller who knows this country and knows me."
"I believe you're right about him being this side of the river," broke in Thompson. "When I was over after the mail two days ago there was water running on the ice; and it's been warmer since. It must be wide open in spots now. A man who knows the crossings might make it afoot, but he couldn't take a hoss over."
Mick's lone eye burned more ominously than before. "Of course he can't. He's run into a trap, and all we've got to do is to make a spread and round him up. I'll bet a hundred to one we find him somewhere this side, waiting for a freeze." Again the half-emptied bottle came from the shelf and passed to the end of the line. "Have another whiskey on me, boys."
They silently drank. Then grim Stetson suggested that they drink again—"to our success"; and cowboy Buck, not to be outdone, proposed another toast—"to the necktie party—after." The big bottle, empty now, dinned on the surface of the bar.
"By God! I hope we get him," flamed Grover. "He ought to be hung, anyway. He killed his wife and burned up the body, they say, before he left!"
"Someone must call for Rankin and Ben," suggested another, "Ben particularly. He ought to be there at the finish. Lord knows he's got grudge enough."
"We'll let him pull the trap," broke in Stetson grimly.
Of a sudden above the confusion there sounded a snarl, almost like the cry of an animal. Surprised, for the moment silenced, the men turned in the direction whence it had come.
"Rankin!" It was Mick Kennedy who spoke, but it was Mick transformed. "Rankin!" The great veins of the bartender's neck swelled; the red face congested until it became all but purple. "No! We won't go near him! He'd put a stop to the whole thing. What we want is men, not cowards!"
A moment only the silence lasted. "All right," agreed Stetson. "Have another, boys! We'll drop Rankin!"
Anew, louder than before, broke forth the confusion. The games of a short time ago were forgotten. A heap of coin lay on the shelf behind the bar where Mick, the banker, had placed it; but winner and loser alike ignored its existence. The savage, ever so near the surface of these rough frontiersmen, had taken complete possession of them. Drop Rankin—forget civilization—ignore the slow practices of law and order!
"Come on!" someone yelled. "We're enough to do the business. To the river!"
Instantly the crowd burst through the single front door. Momentarily there followed a lull, while in the half darkness each rider found his mount. Then sounded an "All ready!" from cowboy Buck, first in motion, a straining of leather, a swish of quirts, a grunting of ponies as the spurs dug into their flanks, a rush of leaping feet, a wild medley of yells, and westward across the prairie, beneath the stars, there passed a swiftly moving black shadow that grew momentarily lighter, and back from which came a patter, patter, patter, that grew softer and softer; until at last over the old saloon and its companion store fell silence absolute.
It was 10:28 when they left Kennedy's place. It was 12:36 when, without having for a moment stopped their long swinging gallop, they pulled up at the "Lone Buffalo" ranch, twenty-five miles away, and the last ranch before they reached the river. The house was dark and silent as the grave at their approach; but it did not remain so long. The display of fireworks with which they illumined the night would have done credit to an Independence Day celebration. The yells which accompanied it were hair-raising as the shrieks from a band of maniacs. Instantly lights began to burn, and the proprietor himself, Grey—a long Southerner with an imperial—came rushing to the door, a revolver in either hand.
But the visitors had not waited for him. With one impulse they had ridden straight into the horse corral, had thrown off saddles and bridles from their steaming mounts, and, every man for himself, had chosen afresh from the ranch herd. Passing out in single-file through the gate, they came upon Grey; but still they did not stop. The one word "rustler" was sufficient password, and not five minutes from the time they arrived they were again on the way, headed straight southwest for their long ride to the river.
Hour after hour they forged ahead. The mustangs had long since puffed themselves into their second wind, and, falling instinctively into their steady swinging lope, they moved ahead like machines. The country grew more and more rolling, even hilly. From between the tufts of buffalo grass now and then protruded the white face of a rock. Over one such, all but concealed in the darkness, Grover's horse stumbled, and with a groan, the rancher beneath, fell flat to earth. By a seeming miracle the man arose, but the horse did not, and an examination showed the jagged edge of a fractured bone protruding through the hide at the shoulder. There was but one thing to do. A revolver spoke its message of relief, a hastily-cast lot fell to McFadden, and without a word he faced his own mount back the way they had come, assisted Grover to a place behind him, turned to wish the others good luck, and found himself already too late. Where a minute ago they had been standing there was now but vacancy. The night and the rolling ground had swallowed the avengers up as completely as though they had never existed; and the Scotchman rode slowly back.
It was yet dark, but the eastern sky was reddening, when they reached the chain of bluffs bordering the great river. They had made their plans before, so that now without hesitating they split as though upon the edge of a mighty wedge, half to the right, half to the left, each division separating again into its individual members, until the whole, like two giant hands whereof the cowboys, half a mile apart from each other, were the fingers, moved forward until the end finger all but touched the river itself.
Still there was no pause. The details had been worked out to a nicety. They had bent far to the south, miles farther than any man aiming at the Wyoming border would have gone, and now, having arrived at the barrier, they wheeled north again. It was getting daylight, and cowboy Pete,—in our simile the left little finger,—first to catch sight of the surface of the stream, waved in triumph to the nearest rider on his right.
"We've got him, sure!" he yelled. "She's open in spots"; and though the others could not hear, they understood the meaning, and the message went on down the line.
On, on, more swiftly now, at a stiff gallop, for it was day, the riders advanced. As they moved, first one rider and then another would disappear, as a depression in the uneven country temporarily swallowed them up—but only to reappear again over a prominent rise, still galloping on. They watched each other closely now, searching the surrounding country. They were nearing a region where they might expect action at any moment,—the remains of a camp-fire, a clue to him they sought,—for it was on a line directly west of the Big B ranch.
And they were not to be disappointed. Observing closely, Stetson, who was nearest to Pete, saw the latter suddenly draw up his horse and come to a full stop. At last the end had arrived—at last; and the rancher turned to motion to his right. Only a moment the action took, but when he shifted back he saw a sight which, stolid gambler as he was, sent a thrill through his nerves, a mumbling curse to his lips. Coming toward him, crazy-scared, bounding like an antelope, mane flying, stirrups flapping, was the pony Pete had ridden, but now riderless. Of the cowboy himself there was not a sign. Stetson had not heard a sound or caught a motion. Nevertheless, he understood. Somewhere near, just to the west, lay death, death in ambush; but he did not hesitate. Whatever his faults, the man was no coward. A revolver in either hand, the reins in his teeth, he spurred straight for the river.
It took him but a minute to cover the distance—a minute until, almost by the rivers bank, he saw ahead on the brown earth the sprawling form of a dead man. With a jerk he drew up alongside, and, the muzzles of big revolvers following his eye, sent swiftly about him a sweeping glance. Of a sudden, three hundred yards out, seemingly from the surface of the river itself, he caught a tiny rising puff of smoke, heard simultaneously a sound he knew so well,—the dull spattering impact of a bullet,—realized that the pony beneath him was sinking, felt the shock as his own body came to earth, and heard just over his head the singing passage of a rifle-ball.
Unconscious profanity flowed from the rancher's lips in a stream; but meanwhile his brain worked swiftly, and, freeing himself, he crawled back hand over hand until a wave in the ground covered the river from view; then springing to his feet he ran toward the others, approaching now as fast as spurs would bring them, waving, shouting a warning as he went. Within a minute they were all together listening to his story. Within another, the rifles from off their saddles in their hands, the ponies left in charge of lank Bob Hoyt, the eight others now remaining moved back as Stetson had come: at first upright, then, crawling, hand over hand until, peeping over the intervening ridge, they saw lying before them the mingled ice patches and open running water of the low-lying Missouri. Beside them at their left, very near, was the body of Pete; but after a first glance and an added invective no man for the present gave attention. He was dead, dead in his tracks, and their affair was not with such, but with the quick.
At first they could see nothing which explained the mystery of death, only the forbidding face of the great river; then gradually to one after another there appeared tell-tale marks which linked together into clues.
"Ain't that a hoss-carcass?" It was cowboy Buck who spoke. "Look, a hundred yards out, down stream."
Gilbert's swift glance caught the indicated object.
"Yes, and another beyond—farther down—amongst that ice-pack! Do you see?"
"Where?" Mick Kennedy trained his one eye like a fieldpiece upon the locality suggested. "Where? Yes! I see them now—both of them. Blair's own horse, if he had one, is probably in there too, somewhere."
Meanwhile Stetson had been scrutinizing the spot on the river's face from which had come the puff of smoke.
"Say, boys!" a ring as near excitement as was possible to one of his temperament was in his voice. "Ain't that an island, that brown patch out there, pretty well over to the other side? I believe it is."
The others followed his glance. Near the farther bank was a long low-lying object, like a jam of broken ice-cakes, between which and them the open water was flowing. At first they thought it was ice; then under longer observation they knew better. They had seen too many other formations of the kind in this shifting treacherous stream to be long deceived. A flat sandy island it was, sure enough; and what they thought was ice was driftwood.
Almost simultaneously from the eight there burst forth an exclamation, a rumbling curse of comprehension. They understood it all now as plainly as though their own eyes had seen the tragedy. Blair had reached the river and, despite its rotten ice, had tried to cross. One by one the horses had broken through, had been abandoned to their fate. He alone, somehow, had managed to reach this sandy island, and he was there now, intrenched behind the driftwood, waiting and watching.
In the brain of every cowboy there formed an unuttered curse. Their impotence to go farther, to mete out retribution to this murderer of their companion, came over them in a blind wave of fury. The sun, now well above the horizon, shone warmly down upon them. They were in the midst of an infrequent Winter thaw. The full current of the river was between them and the desperado. It might be days, a week, before ice would again form; yet, connecting the island with the western bank, it was even now in place. Blair had but to wait until cover of night, and depart in peace—on foot, to be sure, but in the course of days a man could travel far afoot. Doubtless he realized all this. Doubtless he was laughing at them now. The curses redoubled.
Stetson had been taking off his coat. He now draped it about his rifle-stock, and placed his sombrero on top. "All ready, boys," he cautioned, and raised it slowly into view.
Instantly from the centre of the driftwood heap there arose a tracing of blue smoke. Simultaneously, irregular in outline as though punched by a dull instrument, a jagged hole appeared in the felt of the hat.
As instantly, eight rifles on the bank began to play. The crackling of their reports was like infantry, the sliding click of the ejecting mechanism as continuous and regular as the stamp-stamp of many presses. The smoke rose over their heads in a blue cloud. Far out on the river, under impact of the bullets, splinters of the rotted driftwood leaped high into the air. Now and then the open water in front splashed into spray as a ball went amiss. Not until the rifle magazines were empty did they cease, and then only to reload. Again and once again they repeated the onslaught, until it would seem no object the size of a human being upon the place where they aimed could by any possibility remain alive. Then, and not until then, did silence return, did the dummy upon Stetson's rifle again raise its head.
But this time there was no response. They waited a minute, two minutes—tried the ruse again, and it was as before. Had they really hit the man out there, as they hoped, or was he, conscious of a trick, merely lying low? Who could tell? The uncertainty, the inaction, goaded all that was reckless in cowboy Buck's nature, and he sprang to his feet.
"I'm going out there if I have to walk on the bottom of the river!" he blazed.
Instantly Stetson's hands were on his legs, pulling him, prostrate.
"Down, you fool!" he growled. "At the bottom of the river is where you'd be quick enough." The speaker turned to the others. "One of us is done for already. There's no use for the rest to risk our lives without a show. We've either potted Blair or we haven't. There's nothing more to be done now, anyway. We may as well go back."
For a moment there was a murmur of dissent, but it was short-lived. One and all realized that what the rancher said was true. For the present at least, nature was against them, on the side of the outlaw; and to combat nature was useless. Another time—yes, there would surely be another time; and grim faces grew grimmer at the thought. Another time it would be different.
"Yes, we may as well go." It was Mick Kennedy who spoke. "We can't stay here long, that's sure." He tossed his rifle over to Stetson. "Carry that, will you?" and rising, regardless of danger, he walked over to cowboy Pete, took the dead body in his arms, without a glance behind him, stalked back to where the horses were waiting, laid his burden almost tenderly across the shoulder of his own mustang, and mounted behind. Coming up, the others, likewise in silence, got into their saddles, not as at starting, with one bound, but heavily, by aid of stirrups. Still in silence, Mick leading, the legs of dead Pete dangling at the pony's shoulder, they faced east, and started moving slowly along the backward trail.