Chapter VI

The next morning Bud hitched a team to the buckboard and drove up to the house to get Pat and her mother. Jimmy held the team by the bits, while the women got in.

“I’ll get yuh some shells in town, Smith,” said Bud. “You kinda stick around here and take care of the place today. We’ll be back late, I reckon.”

“Can I get you anything in town?” asked Pat.

Jimmy smiled and shook his head.

“Thankin’ ye very kindly, but I have need of nothin’, miss. All of ye come back safe, which is enough bringin’, I think.”

Pat smiled softly, but Bud scowled and gathered up the lines. Mrs. Moore looked gravely at Jimmy and flashed a sideways glance at Pat. Mrs. Moore knew that Jimmy meant for Pat to come back safely. Bud knew this, too; but his quick glance at Pat’s face gave him no assurance that she had or had not understood Jimmy’s meaning.

Jimmy stepped away from the horses and swept off his hat as the high-spirited broncos yanked the light vehicle past him and headed down the dusty road.

He stood, hat in hand until they disappeared, and then walked swiftly to the corral, where he selected a saddle, blanket and bridle. He took a coiled lariat rope and went over to a corral, where several horses browsed around over a scattering of hay.

“Ignorance of the lot makes me cast at beauty,” grinned Jimmy, shaking out his loop.

The horses whirled and started circling the corral, kicking up a cloud of dust. Jimmy turned slowly, swinging his loop. Suddenly he jerked the rope forward and the loop sailed over the backs of two horses and dropped over the head of a hammer-headed roan.

The roan plunged and reared, shaking its head like a hooked trout trying to loosen the hook. Jimmy went slowly along the rope, talking softly to the animal. The others bunched across the corral and snorted their disfavor of such actions.

The coaxing voice seemed to drive the fear from the roan and it allowed Jimmy to rub its muzzle.

“You’re a fine little animal, so ye are,” soothed Jimmy. “A fine bit o’ a horse; but I’d feel more satisfied if ye had saddle-marks.”

He led the animal outside and held up the saddle for its inspection. The roan snorted in wonderment and Jimmy rubbed his chin. He looked back at the other horses, but none of them showed any saddle-marks.

“Likely none of ye have been ridden,” mused Jimmy. “Well, roan, ye can’t any more than dump me.”

He managed to get the bridle on, after much persuasion and main strength, and then tied a handkerchief across its eyes. The roan only flinched when the saddle was put on, but it arched its back under the pull of the cinch.

Jimmy lost no time in preliminaries. He threw the reins over its neck, swung into the saddle, settled himself and reached over, yanking off the blind.

The removing of that handkerchief seemed to release a mighty power within the roan. It whirled like a flash, sprang into the air and came down, with all four feet bunched together, in a jarring crash, bounding from there like a rabbit, reversing in mid-air and hitting the ground with every muscle tensed.

Jimmy had swung sidewise in the saddle, hooked one foot almost under the roan’s shoulder and threw all of his weight on the other foot, taking the jar off his body to a great extent. The roan’s head seemed fastened between its forelegs, but Jimmy made no effort to draw it up. He was doing an exhibition ride, minus an audience.

The roan bawled like a calf, took several stiff-legged hops and began a weaving buck, known as the “worm-fence.” Up past the ranch-house they went and down along the fence, with the roan using every trick known to outlaw buckers. But the rider still remained.

At the gate it whirled, rearing wildly, but Jimmy slapped it across the head with his hat and it sprang ahead, throwing itself from side to side in a desperate effort to shake the man loose. Jimmy threw himself sidewise to escape smashing his leg against the corral fence, and horse and rider went down in a heap of dust and broken poles.

Jimmy was unhurt and on his feet when the horse got up, and without a moment’s hesitation he mounted again. The roan trembled and heaved from the effort and fall, and Jimmy waited calmly for a continuation, which did not come. He spoke to the roan, spurred it gently with his heels and the animal walked away with him. Jimmy got off and opened the gate. He expected the roan to buck again when he got on, but the roan was no longer a bucker. It had used every trick in its repertoire—why repeat?

Jimmy found the roan hardly bridle-wise but willing to be taught.

“Fifteen months hasn’t hurt me for ridin’,” grinned Jimmy aloud, patting the roan’s neck. “I might do better if I wore spurs; but spurs hurt. Cuttin’ and slashin’ with sharp spurs is no square deal. Ye roan divil, I hope ye appreciate that I gave ye an even chance.”

They crossed Leloo Creek and headed into the hills. Wild flowers carpeted the ground, making the hills look as if they were covered with giant Oriental rugs. The coulées were filled with cottonwood and poplar, which added a fresh note of green, while the green-gray of the mesquite made it a wonderland of color.

Up on the point of a bluff a coyote was busily engaged in remodeling last year’s den and making it habitable for this year’s family. She saw Jimmy and paused in her work to watch him pass. A big, gray badger trundled out of his way and stopped to peer at him from the cover of a granite outcropping.

He rode around the head of a draw, which was filled with trees and brush. The roan pricked up its ears and slackened its pace, as a big, black-tail doe trotted out of the brush and looked at them inquiringly.

“Good-morning, Mrs. Deer,” called Jimmy, and the doe nosed higher in the air, sniffing cautiously for a moment and then moving away like a shadow.

Jimmy rode to the top of the ridge and stopped.

Below him the rolling hills stretched far away to the banks of Bitter River, which was the dividing-line between Thunder County and Silverbend County. To the left, a mile or so away, was a peculiarly shaped rock butte, like a giant platform. It was known as the Devil’s Rostrum, or the Devil’s Pulpit. Jimmy looked at it and a smile of reminiscence came across his face.

“Sure, that’s the place. Over fifteen months ago and it seems yesterday that I met him on that ridge beyond. He told me he’d leave half the money in a little cabin down the coulée below that tall cliff. I wonder did he?” Jimmy wrinkled his nose from the smoke of his cigaret. “Bedad, I’m no receiver of stolen goods, but I’ve a curiosity to see if the poor divil kept his word.”

He rode straight toward the butte. A number of cattle had been caught on that hillside in a blizzard and their bones, gnawed clean by the wolves and coyotes, looked like clumps of strange plants. Here and there were small bunches of cattle, wearing the Box M brand, their sides already filling out with the luscious grass of Spring.

Jimmy rode past the big butte and swung to the left to the edge of a deep, brush-filled coulée. He followed a deep cattle-track to the bottom and came out into a small clearing, where a tiny cabin was hidden in the trees. A small pole corral was built at the right-hand side of the cabin, using one side of the cabin for part of the enclosure. The corral was empty, but a saddle hung on a peg near the door.

“Somebody livin’ in it, from the looks of things,” reflected Jimmy as he dismounted and tied his roan to the corral fence near the door.

No one answered his knock, but the door creaked at his touch, showing that it was not fastened. He pushed it open and looked inside. It took him some time to get his eyes accustomed to the dim light after the bright sunlight. There was some one moving inside, and he discovered that the somebody was on the floor, about midway of the room. A strong odor of liquor pervaded the place.

* * * * *

He walked inside. The person on the floor appeared to be an Indian and said Indian was just as drunk as a human being could possibly get. One arm was lovingly twined around a demijohn.

A white man was sitting on the bed, braced against an extra roll of bedding—a white man, his face was the color of wet clay, his eyes wild with fever. Jimmy stared at him wonderingly. The wild look seemed to leave the sick man’s eyes and he stared at Jimmy.

“Jimmy Devlin’s ghost!” he exclaimed in a weak whisper.

“Ye poor divil,” grunted Jimmy. “’T’is no ghost I am, Whitey Allen.”

“Alive?” gasped Whitey, and relapsed in a fit of coughing, which racked his thin frame. Jimmy waited until he recovered.

“Aye—alive, Whitey, me lad. And ye never reached Arizona after all. Hard, hard luck. Have ye been here all this time?”

Whitey Allen stared at the ceiling for a moment and nodded. Jimmy looked down at the Indian, who was snoring contentedly, and stirred him with his foot.

“And this has been takin’ care of ye, eh? Drunken Injun. Some white man, with the soul of a coyote, has sold ye fire-water. ’T’is a shame, so it is. Have ye no doctor, Whitey?”

Whitey Allen shook his head.

“No, I don’t need one.”

Jimmy nodded sadly. Whitey Allen had told him over fifteen months before this that nothing but Arizona would save him from tuberculosis. He and Jimmy had bunked together in the eastern part of the State. Jimmy had drifted on and had not seen Whitey until one day a little later he met him near the Devil’s Pulpit.

Haltingly he had told Jimmy of a train robbery in the county to the east, across the Bitter River. He had robbed a train to get money enough to go to Arizona to win back his health; but the sheriff was close on his trail, and he knew the sheriff would win.

Jimmy’s heart went out to Whitey, and his impulsive Irish blood made him offer himself as a sacrifice. He made Whitey trade horses with him, which gave Jimmy a pinto of peculiar markings. Whitey had cried like a baby over it all, and swore that he was going to leave half of the money under the floor of that certain cabin in the coulée to the left of the Pulpit, where Jimmy could find it. Jimmy led the sheriff a merry chase; but was captured. He had no alibi.

He sat down on a broken chair and looked at Whitey. There was no question in Jimmy’s mind about Whitey’s being in the last stages of the disease. It seemed hard that he must pass out under these conditions. He could imagine Whitey in that leaky little cabin during the terrible Winter. No wonder the man was dying.

The stove was a mass of rust-eaten sheet-iron and looked as if it might fall apart under the weight of a skillet. A small dry-goods box, nailed against the wall, was used as a cupboard, and its visible contents would hardly make a meal for one hungry man.

“Sure, we’ll have to get ye out of here, Whitey,” said Jimmy cheerfully. “A drunken Injun is —— poor company for a sick man.”

Whitey shook his head.

“Lemme alone, Jimmy. I’m fine. Please don’t try to move me—please.”

“Well, may the divil fly away with ye!” grunted Jimmy. “I’d only do it for your own good. Did ye know the judge gave me three years and the State got tired of me in fifteen months? I’m out on parole.”

Whitey choked softly.

“I’m—sorry, Jimmy. Somebody got that money—the money I was leavin’ for you.”

“Aw, to —— with the money! I would never take it, even if I did earn it in that human corral.”

“I planted yours,” said Whitey painfully. “Under the floor, like I said, but——”

“Forget it, Whitey. Tell me about yourself.”

“I’m here yet,” Whitey smiled sadly. “I hid out here for a while, thinkin’ maybe they’d find me. I got worse and had to stay. The big Injun took care of me. Thassall.”

“Where did he get the whisky, Whitey?”

“I dunno. Came in last night with the jug and drank himself pink.”

“And feeds ye on slumgullion, I suppose. Man, ye need milk and eggs and nursin’.”

“Jimmy, will you promise me one thing?”

“I’d be hard-hearted as ——, if I didn’t. What is it?”

“Don’t tell anyone I’m here. I’ll get along.”

Jimmy studied Whitey for a while. It seemed strange that he preferred to die alone. Human nature is a queer combination of desires, and Jimmy knew this. Perhaps Whitey had a good reason for it. Disease plays queer pranks with a man’s mind, and it might be that Whitey had an aversion to seeing any one.

“You’re free, white and twenty-one,” said Jimmy slowly. “If ye desire it that way, Whitey—God bless ye. But can’t I do nothin’ for ye?”

“Nothin’,” said Whitey shortly. “Just lemme alone.”

He coughed deeply and settled down on his pillow. Jimmy watched him for a few minutes and went to the door. The drunken Indian snored harshly and rolled over, still clutching the demijohn.

Jimmy untied the roan and vaulted into the saddle. He studied the cabin for a while, rode around the open side of it and into the coulée, taking a cattle-trail, which led out at the head of the coulée and on to the ridge.

He had ridden perhaps two miles, sitting loosely in the saddle, deep in thought. He wanted to help Whitey, but did not want to break his promise to tell no one. He felt the roan throw up its head and slow its pace. He glanced up and saw Jeff Garvin riding down the slope toward him.

Jimmy stopped and waited for Garvin to come up.

“Kinda warm,” remarked Garvin, shoving back his hat and wiping his brow with his sleeve.

“Sure it is,” agreed Jimmy, turning in his saddle and looking back toward the coulée, “I’ve been kinda lookin’ around and it seems that the Winter did ruin a lot of good beef.”

Garvin nodded and squinted across the hills.

“Did yuh come up that brushy coulée?”

Jimmy nodded.

“Yes. I swung into it below that old cabin and came out at the head of it.”

“Anybody livin’ in the cabin?”

“No. Wouldn’t be fit for anybody to live in.”

Garvin nodded as if just a trifle disappointed. Jimmy did not want Garvin to go down there and find Whitey Allen and the drunken Indian.

“Been over to the Box M today?” asked Jimmy.

Garvin shook his head.

“Naw. I passed the bunch goin’ to town.” He yawned sleepily and relaxed with a grin. “I wonder where in —— that pearl-handled gun is.”

Jimmy said nothing. If Garvin only knew it, that gun was hanging within his reach right now; but the plain wood handles, stained dark by rubbing with powdered pencil lead, bore little resemblance to those beautiful pieces of pearl. Garvin eased himself sidewise in his saddle and squinted at Jimmy.

“Pardner, where did you come from?”

Jimmy stared down at the ground thoughtfully for a few moments and then grinned at Garvin.

“Do I look queer? Is there anything about me that seems different from other folks? Do I wear strange raiment or cut my hair unlike other men?”

“Why ask all them questions?” grunted Garvin.

“Because folks are always askin’ me where I came from. What in the —— has me last stoppin’ place got to do with you or any one else?”

“Strangers ain’t never very numerous around here,” replied Garvin evenly, “and you kinda drifted in at a bad time.”

“Well,” Jimmy’s eyes twinkled, “well, should I go back and get a fresh start? Or is it that you’ve found you arrested the wrong parties?”

Garvin glared at Jimmy for a moment, struggling to keep his temper, and then,

“Which don’t tell me who you are or where you came from, pardner.”

“No,” softly, “and that’s only a part of it, sheriff.”

The smile had left Jimmy’s good-natured face, and his blue eyes seemed to fade to a steel-gray. Garvin started to say something, but changed his mind. He turned, as if to ride away.

“Talkin’ now might save yuh trouble.”

“Sure now, I never depend on me tongue to keep me out of a bit o’ trouble. Good afternoon.”

Jimmy shook up the roan and rode straight up the slope, while Garvin rode along the side of the hill, heading back toward Oxbow.

“Now why did he speak of that little cabin?” reflected Jimmy. “I had to lie to him about the place, but I’m sure the lie hurt no one. Poor Whitey. Nursed by a drunken Injun. He needs good care and he needs good eats. I’ve heard that eggs and milk is the proper grub. Hm-m-m! From the looks of him he’d keep the chickens and the cows workin’ a day and night shift.”

Jimmy rode slowly back toward the Box M, deep in his thoughts; letting the roan take its own way.