Shoe-Bar Stratton
With the aid of Jessup and McCabe, Bemis was moved out into the moonlight, where Stratton made a careful examination of his wound. He found that the bullet had plowed through the fleshy part of the thigh, just missing the bone, and, barring chances of infection, it was not likely to be dangerous. He was readjusting Slim’s crude bandaging when he heard the beat of hoofs and out of the corner of one eye saw McCabe walk swiftly out to meet the returning punchers.
These halted about fifty feet away, and there was a brief exchange of words of which Buck could distinguish nothing. Presently two of the men dashed off in the direction of the ranch-house, while Lynch rode slowly forward and dismounted.
“How yuh feelin’?” he asked Bemis, adding with a touch of sarcasm in his voice, “I hear yuh got a reg’lar professional sawbones to look after yuh.”
“He acts like he knew what he was about,” returned Bemis briefly. “How yuh goin’ to get me home?”
“I’ve sent Butch an’ Flint after the wagon,” explained Lynch. “They’ll hustle all they can.”
“Did you catch sight of the rustlers?” asked Stratton suddenly.
The foreman flashed him a sudden not overfriendly glance.
“No,” he returned curtly, and turning on his heel led his horse over to where the others had gathered in the shadow of a rocky butte.
It was nearly an hour before the lumbering farm-wagon appeared. During the interval Buck sat beside the wounded man, smoking and exchanging occasional brief comments with Bud, who stayed close by. One or two of the others strolled up to ask about Bemis, but for the most part they remained in their little group, the intermittent glow of their cigarettes flickering in the darkness and the constant low murmur of their conversation wafted indistinguishably across the intervening space.
Their behavior piqued Buck’s curiosity tremendously. What were they talking about so continually? Where had the outlaws gone, and why hadn’t they been pursued further? Had the whole pursuit been merely in the nature of a bluff? And if so, whom had it been intended to deceive? These and a score of other questions passed through his mind as he sat there waiting, but when the dull rumble of the wagon started them all into activity, he had not succeeded in finding any really plausible answers.
The return trip was necessarily slow, and dawn was just breaking as they forded the creek and drove up to the bunk-house. They had barely come to a standstill when, to Buck’s surprise, the slim figure of Mary Thorne, bare-headed and clad in riding-clothes, appeared suddenly around the corner of the ranch-house and came swiftly toward them.
“Pedro told me,” she said briefly, pausing beside the wagon. “How is he?”
“Doin’ fine,” responded Lynch promptly. “It’s a clean wound an’ ought to heal in no time. Our new hand Green tied him up like a regular professional.”
His manner was almost fulsomely pleasant; Miss Thorne’s expression of anxiety relaxed.
“I’m so glad. You’d better bring him right up to the house; he’ll be more comfortable there.”
“That ain’t hardly necessary,” objected Lynch. “He’ll do all right here. We don’t want him to be a bother to yuh.”
“He won’t be,” retorted Miss Thorne with unexpected decision. “We’ve plenty of room, and Maria has a bed all ready. The bunk-house is no place for a sick man.”
During the brief colloquy Bemis, though perfectly conscious, made no comment whatever. But Buck, glancing toward him as he lay on the husk mattress behind the driver, surprised a fleeting but unmistakable expression of relief in his tanned face.
“He don’t want to stay in the bunk-house,” thought Stratton. “I don’t know as I blame him, neither. I wonder, though, if it’s because he figures on being more comfortable up there, or – ”
The unvoiced question ended with a shrug as Lynch, somewhat curt of manner, gave the order to move.
“Yuh don’t all of yuh have to come, neither,” he added quickly. “Butch an’ Slim an’ me can carry him in.”
Miss Thorne, who had already started toward the house, glanced over one shoulder. “If Green knows something about first aid, as you say, he’d better come too, I think.”
Buck glanced questioningly at the foreman, received a surly nod and dismounted, smiling inwardly. It amused him exceedingly to see the dictatorial Tex forced to take orders from this slip of a girl. Evidently she was not quite so pathetically helpless as he had supposed the afternoon before. He began to wonder how she did it, for Lynch struck him as a far from easy person to manage. He was still turning the question over in his mind when he received a shock which for the moment banished every other thought.
The wagon was backed up to the porch, and the four punchers, each taking a corner of the mattress, lifted Bemis out and carried him across the living-room and through a door on the further side which Miss Thorne held open. The room was light and airy, and Buck was conscious of a vague sense of familiarity, which he set down to his rather brief acquaintance with the place two years ago. But when Bemis had been undressed and put to bed and his wound thoroughly cleansed with antiseptic and freshly bandaged, Stratton, really looking about him for the first time, made an odd discovery.
It was his own room! He remembered perfectly choosing it and moving in his belongings the day before he left; and as he stared curiously around he could not see that a single one of them had been touched. There were his trunks just as they had come from Texas. His bureau stood between the windows, and on it lay a pair of brushes and the few odds and ends he had left there when he enlisted. A pair of chaps and a well-worn Stetson hung near the door, and he had just stepped over to make sure they were actually the ones he had left behind when Miss Thorne, who had been talking in the living-room with Lynch, appeared suddenly on the threshold.
As their glances met she drew herself up a little, and a curious expression came into her eyes. Her lips parted impulsively, but when, after a momentary hesitation, she spoke, Buck had an impression that something quite different had been on the tip of her tongue an instant before.
“He’d better have the doctor at once, don’t you think?” she said briefly.
Buck nodded. “Yes, ma’am, he ought. I’ve done the best I could, and the chances are he’ll get along all right; but a regular doctor ought to look him over as soon as possible.”
“I thought so. I’ve just told Tex to send a man to town at once and wire Dr. Blanchard, who lives about twelve miles up the line. It’ll take him three or four hours to ride over, but there’s no one nearer.”
“I wish you’d let me go,” said Stratton impulsively. “I’ve got to return the horse I borrowed and get blankets and some things I left at the store. There’s really nothing more I can do for Bemis by hanging around.”
Her brows crinkled doubtfully. “Well, if you’re sure – I suppose there’s no reason why you shouldn’t. Tell Tex I said you were to go. He’ll give you the directions. Only you’ll have to hurry.”
With a murmured word of thanks, Buck snatched up his hat and hastened into the living-room. As he passed the big table he was aware of a door at the farther end opening, but he did not turn his head. An instant later, as he was in the act of springing off the porch, he heard a woman’s voice behind him, soft, low, and a little shaken.
“What is it, Mary? What’s happened? You don’t mean to tell me that – that another man’s been shot.”
Buck’s eyes widened, but he did not pause. “That’s the aunt, I reckon,” he muttered, as he sped down the slope. His lips straightened. “Another! Holy cats! What the devil am I up against, anyhow? A murder syndicate?”
CHAPTER VIII
THE HOODOO OUTFIT
Pop Daggett hesitated and glanced uneasily toward the door.
“I warned yuh, didn’t I, the Shoe-Bar was a hoodoo outfit?” he evaded.
Stratton shook some tobacco into a cigarette-paper and jerked the draw-string with his teeth.
“Sure you did, but that’s not the question,” he persisted. “I asked you if any other punchers had met up with – accidents out there lately.”
The old man continued to cock an eye on the store entrance.
“Since yuh gotta know,” he answered in a lowered tone, “there was two. About three months ago Jed Terry was scoutin’ around back in the mountains, Lord knows what fur, an’ fell into a cañon an’ broke his skull. Four or five weeks arter that Sam Bennett was plugged through the chest down below Las Vegas.”
“Did Lynch happen to be with either of them?”
“No, sir-ee,” returned Daggett hastily. “An’ don’t yuh go blattin’ around I told yuh anythin’ about it. I ain’t one to gossip about my neighbors, more especially Tex Lynch. Them two deaths – Say, Tex ain’t in town with yuh, is he?”
“Not that I know of. He certainly didn’t come with me.”
“Huh! Wal, yuh never c’n tell with him. As I was sayin’, Terry’s death was pernounced a accident, an’ they allowed Bennett was plugged by one of them greaser rustlers I hear tell of. I ain’t sayin’ nothing to the contrary. All I’m tellin’ yuh is the Shoe-Bar ain’t a healthy outfit to work for, an’ this business about Rick Bemis proves it. I wouldn’t sign on with ’em, not for a hundred a month.”
Buck thrust the cigarette between his lips and felt for a match. “Still I’ve got a mind to stick it out a while,” he drawled. “Accidents come in threes, they say, so there won’t likely be another right soon. Well, I reckon I’d better be traveling. How long will it take that doctor man to get over?”
“Not much longer than ’t will yuh, if he was home when yuh telephoned,” answered Daggett. “The railroad takes a bend, an’ Harpswell ain’t more than a mile or two further from the Shoe-Bar than Paloma.”
Evidently Dr. Blanchard must have been at home, for Buck had just finished unsaddling and was coming away from the corral when he rode up. Stratton took his horse and answered his brief questions as to the accident, and then walked down to the bunk-house with his blankets, tarp, and other belongings. The place was empty, for it was after one o’clock and evidently the men had gone off somewhere directly after dinner. Indeed, Buck learned as much from Pedro when he went back to forage for something to eat.
“They go to move herd some place,” shrugged the Mexican. “W’ere, I don’ know.”
Stratton ate his meal of beef, bread, and warmed-over coffee in silence and then returned to the bunk-house, vaguely dissatisfied at the idle afternoon which stretched before him. Of course, Lynch had no way of knowing when he would get back from town, but it seemed to Buck that an up-and-doing foreman would have left word for him to join them when he did return.
“Unless, of course, he don’t want me around,” murmured Stratton. “Though for the life of me I can’t see what he gains by keeping me idle.”
Presently it occurred to him that this might be a good chance of pursuing some of the investigations he had planned. Since noticing the disreputable condition of the fence the afternoon of his arrival, he had kept his eyes open, and a number of other little signs had confirmed his suspicion that the ranch had very much gone to seed. Of course this might be merely the result of careless, slovenly methods on the part of the foreman, and possibly it did not extend to anything really radical. It would need a much wider, more general inspection to justify a definite conclusion, and Stratton decided he might as well do some of it this afternoon. On the plea of seeking Lynch and the other men, he could ride almost anywhere without exciting suspicion, and he at once left the bunk-house to carry out his plan. Just outside the door he met Dr. Blanchard.
“You made a good job of that dressing,” remarked the older man briefly. He was tall with a slight stoop, bearded, a little slovenly in dress, but with clear, level eyes and a capable manner. “Where’d you learn how?”
Stratton smiled. “Overseas. I was in the Transportation, and we had to know a little of everything, including first aid.”
“Hum,” grunted the doctor. “Well, the kid’s doing all right. I won’t have to come over again unless fever develops.”
As they walked back to the hitching-rack, he gave Buck a few directions about the care of the invalid. There followed a slight pause.
“You’re new here,” commented the doctor, untying his bridle-reins.
“Just came yesterday,” answered Stratton.
“Friend of Lynch?”
Buck’s lips twitched. “Not exactly,” he shrugged. “Miss Thorne hired me while he was in Paloma. I got a notion he was rather peevish about it. Reckon he prefers to pick his own hands.”
As the doctor swung into the saddle, his face momentarily lightened.
“Don’t let that worry you,” he said, a faint little twinkle in his eyes. “It isn’t good for anybody to have their own way all the time. Well, you know what to do about Bemis. If he shows any signs of fever, get hold of me right away.”
With a wave of his hand he rode off. Stratton’s glance followed him curiously. Had he really been pleased to find that the new hand was not a friend of Tex Lynch, or was the idea merely a product of Buck’s imagination?
Still pondering, he turned abruptly to find Pedro regarding him intently from the kitchen door. As their glances met, the Mexican’s lids drooped and his face smoothed swiftly into its usual indolent indifference; but he was not quite quick enough to hide entirely that first look of searching speculation mingled with not a little venom.
Stratton’s own expression was the perfection of studied self-control. He half smiled, and yawned in a realistically bored manner.
“You sure you don’t know where the bunch went?” he asked. “I’m getting dead sick of hanging around doing nothing.”
“They don’ say,” shrugged the Mexican. “I wash dishes an’ don’ see ’em go. Mebbe back soon.”
“Not if they’re moving a herd – I don’t think!” retorted Buck. “Guess I’ll ask Miss Thorne,” he added, struck by a sudden inspiration.
Without waiting for a reply, he walked briskly along the front of the house toward the further entrance. As he turned the corner he met the girl, booted, spurred, her face shaded becomingly by a wide-brimmed Stetson.
“I was just going to find you,” she said. “Rick wants to see you a minute.”
Stratton followed her into the living-room, where she paused and glanced back at him.
“You haven’t met my aunt, Mrs. Archer,” she said in her low, pleasant voice. “Auntie, this is Buck Green, our new hand.”
From a chair beside one of the west windows, there rose a little old lady at the sight of whom Buck’s eyes widened in astonishment. Just what he had expected Mrs. Archer to be he hardly knew, but certainly it wasn’t this dainty, delicate, Dresden-China person who came forward to greet him. Tiny she was, from her old-fashioned lace cap to the tips of her small, trim shoes. Her gown, of some soft gray stuff, with touches of old lace here and there, was modishly cut yet without any traces of exaggeration. Her abundant white hair was beautifully arranged, and her cheeks, amazingly soft and smooth, with scarcely a line in them, were faintly pink. A more utterly incongruous figure to find on an outlying Arizona ranch would be impossible to imagine, and Buck was hard put to refrain from showing his surprise.
“How do you do, Mr. Green?” she said in a soft agreeable voice, which Stratton recognized at once as the one he had overheard that morning. “My niece has told me how helpful you’ve been already.”
Buck took her outstretched hand gingerly, and looked down into her upturned face. Her eyes were blue, and very bright and eager, with scarcely a hint of age in them. For a brief moment they gazed steadily into his, searching, appraising, an underlying touch of wistful anxiety in their clear depths. Then a twinkle flashed into them and of a sudden Stratton felt that he liked her very much indeed.
“I’m mighty glad to meet you,” he said impulsively.
The smile spread from eyes to lips. “Thank you,” she replied. “I think I may say the same thing. I hope you’ll like it here well enough to stay.”
There was a faint accent on the last word. Buck noticed it, and after she had left them, saying she was going to rest a little, he wondered. Did she want him to remain merely because of the short-handed condition of the ranch, or was there a deeper reason? He glanced at Miss Thorne to find her regarding him with something of the same anxious scrutiny he had noticed in her aunt. Her gaze was instantly averted, and a faint flush tinged her cheeks, to be reflected an instant later in Stratton’s face.
“By the way,” he said hurriedly, annoyed at his embarrassment, “do you happen to know where the men are? I thought I’d hunt them up. There’s no sense in my hanging around all afternoon doing nothing.”
“They’re down at the south pasture,” she answered readily. “Tex thinks it will be better to move the cattle to where it won’t be so easy for those rustlers to get at them. I’m just going down there and we can ride together, if you like.” She turned toward the door. “When you’re through with Rick you’ll find me out at the corral.”
“Don’t you want me to saddle up for you?”
“Pedro will do that, thank you. Tell Rick if he wants anything while I’m gone all he has to do is to ring the bell beside his bed and Maria will answer it.”
She departed, and Buck walked briskly into the bedroom. Bemis lay in bed propped up with pillows and looking much better physically than he had done that morning. But his face was still strained, with that harassed, worried expression about the eyes which Stratton had noted before.
“Yuh saw Doc Blanchard, didn’t yuh?” he asked, as Buck sat down on the side of his bed. “What’d he say?”
“Why, that you were doing fine. Not a chance in a hundred, he said, of your having any trouble with the wound.”
“Oh, I know that. But when’d he say I’d be on my feet?”
Buck shrugged his shoulders. “He didn’t mention any particular time for that. I should think it would be two or three weeks, at least.”
“Hell!” The young fellow’s fingers twisted the coverlet nervously. “Don’t yuh believe I could – er – ride before that?” he added, almost pleadingly.
Stratton’s eyes widened. “Ride!” he repeated. “Where the deuce do you want to ride to?”
Bemis hesitated, a slow flush creeping into his tanned face. The glance he bent on Stratton was somewhat shamefaced.
“Anywhere,” he answered curtly, a touch of defiance in his tone. “You’ll say I’ve lost my nerve, an’ maybe I have. But after what’s happened around this joint lately, and especially last night – ”
He paused, glancing nervously toward the door. Buck’s expression had grown suddenly keen and eager.
“Well?” he urged. “What did happen, anyhow? I had my suspicions there was something queer about that business, but – You can trust me, old man.”
Bemis nodded, his dark eyes searching Stratton’s face. “I’ll take a chance,” he answered. “I got to. There ain’t nobody else. They’ve kept Bud away, and Miss Mary – Well, she’s all right, uh course, but Tex has got her buffaloed. She won’t believe nothin’ ag’in him. I told Bud I’d stay as long as he did, but – A man’s got to look after himself some. They ain’t likely to miss twice runnin’.”
“You mean to say – ”
Bemis stopped him with a cautious gesture. “Where’s that sneaking greaser?” he asked in a low tone, his eyes shifting nervously to the open door.
“Out saddling her horse.”
“Oh! Well, listen.” The young puncher’s voice sank almost to a whisper. “That sendin’ me down to Las Vegas was a plant; I’m shore of it. My orders was to sleep days an’ patrol around nights to get a line on who was after the cattle. I wasn’t awful keen about it, but still an’ all, I didn’t think they’d dare do what they tried to.”
“You mean there weren’t any rustlers at all?” put in Stratton impulsively.
“Shore there was, but they didn’t fire that shot that winged me. I’d just got sight of ’em four or five hundred yards away an’ was ridin’ along in the shadow tryin’ to edge close enough to size ’em up an’ mebbe pick off a couple. My cayuse was headin’ south, with the rustlers pretty near dead ahead, when I come to a patch of moonlight I had to cross. I pulled out considerable to ride around a spur just beyond, so when that shot came I was facin’ pretty near due east. The bullet hit me in the left leg, yuh recollect.”
Stratton’s eyes narrowed. “Then it must have been fired from the north – from the direction of the – ”
He broke off abruptly as Rick’s fingers gripped his wrist.
“Look!” breathed Bemis, in a voice that was scarcely audible.
He was staring over the low foot-board of the bed straight at the open door, and Buck swiftly followed the direction of his glance. For an instant he saw nothing. The doorway was quite empty, and he could not hear a sound. Then, of a sudden, his gaze swept on across the living-room and he caught his breath.
On the further wall, directly opposite the bedroom door, hung a long mirror in a tarnished gilded frame. It reflected not only the other side of the doorway but a portion of the wall on either side of it – reflected clearly, among other things, the stooping figure of a woman, her limp calico skirts dragged cautiously back in one skinny hand, her sharp, swarthy face bent slightly forward in an unmistakable attitude of listening.
CHAPTER IX
REVELATIONS
It was the Mexican woman, Maria. As Buck recognized her he rose quietly and moved swiftly toward the door. But if he had hoped to catch her unawares, he was disappointed. He had scarcely taken a step when, through the telltale mirror, he saw her straighten like a flash and move back with catlike swiftness toward the passage leading to the kitchen. When he reached the living-room she stood there calm and casual, with quite the air of one entering for the first time.
“Mees T’orne, she ask me see if Reek, he wan’ somet’ing,” she explained, with a flash of her white teeth.
“He doesn’t,” returned Buck shortly, eyeing the woman intently. “If he does, he’ll ring the bell.”
“Ver’ good,” she nodded. “I leave the door open to ’ear.”
With a nod and another smile she departed, and Buck heard her moving away along the passage. For a moment he was tempted to close and lock the door. Then he realized that even if she dared return to her eavesdropping, he would have ample warning by keeping an eye on the mirror, and so returned to Bemis.
“I hate that woman,” said Rick, when informed of her departure. “She’s always snoopin’ around, an’ so is her greaser husband. Down at the bunk-house it’s the same way, with Slim, an’ Flint Kreeger an’ the rest. I tell yuh, I’m dead sick of being spied on, an’ plotted against, an’ never knowin’ when yuh may get a knife in the back, or stop a bullet. I hate to leave Bud, but he’s so plumb set on – ”
“But what’s it all about?” put in Buck impatiently. “Can’t you tell a fellow, or don’t you know?”
Bemis flushed slightly at his tone. “I can tell yuh this much,” he retorted. “Tex don’t want them rustlers caught. He throws a clever bluff, an’ he’s pulled the wool over Miss Mary’s eyes, but for all that, he’s workin’ on their side. What kind of a foreman is it who’ll lose over a thousand head without stoppin’ the stealin’? It ain’t lack of brains, neither; Tex has got them a-plenty.”
“But Miss Thorne – ” protested Stratton, half-incredulously.
“I tell yuh, he’s got her buffaloed. She won’t believe a word against him. He was here in her dad’s time, an’ he’s played his cards mighty slick since then. She’s told yuh he can’t get men, mebbe? All rot, of course. He could get plenty of hands, but he don’t want ’em. What’s more, he’s done his best to get rid of me an’ Bud, an’ would of long ago, only Miss Mary won’t let him fire us.”
“But what in thunder’s his object?”
“So’s to have the place to himself, I reckon. He an’ those greasers in the kitchen, and the rest of the bunch, are as thick as thieves.”
“You mean he’d find it easier to get away with cattle if there wasn’t anybody around to keep tabs on him?”
Bemis hesitated. “I – I’m not sure,” he replied slowly. “Partly that, mebbe, but there’s somethin’ else. I’ve overheard things now an’ then I couldn’t make head or tail of, but they’re up to somethin’ – Yuh ain’t goin’, are yuh?”
Buck had risen. “Got to,” he shrugged. “Miss Thorne’s waiting for me to go down to the south pasture.”
Bemis raised up on his pillows. “Well, listen; keep what I said under yore hat, will yuh?”