Jim Gorman's Brand/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
He strolled leisurely through the office and sat in one of the rocking chairs in the big front window. Pres ently the Bradey car passed up the street. Gorman was not inclined to discount Bradey too heavily, but the man seemed less dangerous since the girl’s revelation. It was plain that he was to a certain extent under Moore’s thumb. That he did not entirely enjoy his position was shown, Gorman fancied, by Bradey’s drinking. It might be one of his vices, but the sheriff was inclined to fancy it a sign of weakness and of worry. Still, he did not mean to count him too cheaply. Unless he had the goods on him, he would have a hard job to outwit Bradey. He was not likely to indulge in the rough end of things. His methods were less crude than Moore’s, but his whole nature was warped, selfish, sinister.
Gorman’s face was not pleasant in its sternness as he watched the car pass. A man who would deliberately sell his ward—for the price of her own inheritance—deliver her to a half-breed villain like Moore was not to be described in adequate terms. Yet Gorman held a fancy in the back of his head that Bradey was not actually contemplating this thing, that he had placed himself in a position with Moore from which he hoped to extricate himself by the use of his wits and the temporary stalling of the man he styled his foreman.
Moore, Gorman was inclined to think, was suspicious of Bradey and had come to the B-in-a-box more from choice than invitation, intending to stick close to Bradey until division was made. The sight of the girl had aroused his crude desire for her.
After a few minutes of quiet smoking, Gorman walked down the street to the drug store where he made some purchases, then to the newspaper office where he borrowed an article from the foreman of the composing room under seal of secrecy.
“Reg’lar detective stuff, eh?” asked the latter in a confidential whisper.
“Something like that. I’ll let you folks have the story hot off the griddle.”
He was not sure that the paper would be in favor of printing the story he intended bringing about. They were inclined to favor Bradey, but this they could not ignore. If things worked out there would be few papers that would not run the details.
Time was a strong element and he left the mare at home, hiring his usual car and speed out to the Two-Bar, not forgetting to buy some things at the grocery store for the Jordans. The last thing he did before leaving town and closing his office, bereft of Pete, was to take the farm newspaper from the safe and the gun that Dave Lorton had loaned to Curly from his desk.
He found Bud Jarrett with two of his men working on repairs to his corral, getting ready for the branding after the fall round-up. Jarrett did not seem surprised to see him. Gorman surmised that the girl had managed to telephone.
“I’ve a notion Bradey’s gettin’ ready to play even with you for showin’ over to Jordan’s,” said the sheriff. “Likewise Moore.”
Jarrett nodded. Mary White had conveyed the warning to him, and, when he tried to dismiss it, being young, sure of his own powers to take care of himself and not willing to suggest to Mary any inability in that line, she, like a wise young woman, said nothing of her talk with the sheriff. Nor did Gorman intend to mention it.
“Bradey won’t try enny gunplay,” said Gorman. “He’s too slick. An’ Moore ain’t shootin’ right good these days. I’m ridin’ a hunch that they’ll try to drive off some of yore steers. They’ve got a brand-doctor with the outfit by the name of Dave Lorton. I’m acquainted more or less with the hombre an I know that’s his specialty. When you bought the ranch you bought in the brand ’thout thinkin’ of enny one fakin’ it. Bradey owns five ranches rolled inter one an’ also five brands: B-in-a-box, T-on-T, 9 U W, Lazy H an’ Circle D. Put a stem top and bottom to yore bars an’ you got the T on T. [Diagram: inverted letter T on T] Connect ’em up with one an’ you got the Lazy H. [Diagram: letter H, on it's side] Easy for Dave who blacksmiths his own irons to suit the job.
“I don’t claim Dave came here special for this, but he’s one of Moore’s crew an’ Moore’s bin runnin’ a ranch over the State line for Bradey. Looks to me as if they’ve closed that up, now Moore’s here as foreman.
“If you were to leave about thirty three-year olds somewheres handy near yore line fence, away from the rest of yore herd, as if you’d rounded ’em up for sale, why I wudn’t be surprised but what Bradey’s crowd wud annex ’em some dark night.”
“Neither wud I. What’s the idea, givin’ Bradey over two thousand dollars?”
“See if you don’t think it’s a good one. Have you got the steers?”
“I’ve got ’em. I was thinkin’ of makin’ a shipment enny way.”
“How many hands you got?”
“Cowhands?”
“Yep.”
“Five. Two here with me, two ridin’ fence an’ the other’s gentlin’ a colt.”
“Good.” Gorman suspected the gentled colt was later to become the property of Mary White. “Trust ’em to keep their mouths shet?”
“You bet. They ain’t feelin’ kindly to Bradey. Sore they weren’t in on the fuss at Jordan’s. Wanted to cuss me out when I came back with a sticky shirt and a skinned rib.”
“All right. Git the three that’s handy. Loan me a cowhawss an’ I’ll help. Got some place we can herd these steers while we rope an’ throw ’em that none of Bradey’s outfit cud look into? I’ve an idea they’re keepin’ an eye on yore place.”
“There’s a box cañon we cud put ’em into. Reg’lar hide out. But”
“I’ll explain. Come inter the house.”
When they emerged Jarrett regarded the sheriff with something like awe.
“How in time you come to think of that beats me?” he said.
“I didn’t think of it. Hombre that wrote the article thought of it.”
“It’s a whizzer. Let’s go.”
In five minutes the little cavalcade of five horsemen were loping to where Jarrett’s three-year olds were grazing. All of them had lariats and tie ropes. Gorman had traded his own Stetson for an ancient broadbrim that flopped over his face. He borrowed a gaudy neckerchief and, on a strange cowpony, it was not likely that he would be recognized even if some one were watching. And he was highly necessary at the ceremony that followed the roping and hog tieing of the indignant steers.
All five were experts—so were the horses—and, while no records were broken, no steer took longer than five minutes to overhaul and rope and tie ready for Gorman. There were twenty-six of them, fine animals worth seventy-five dollars each on the hoof, no small portion of Jarrett’s possessions. Divided by five men’s work the whole performance was over in an hour. Gorman’s part of it took less than two minutes to a beef. Nothing like it had ever before been witnessed on a range. The riders joked and laughed, but, when they saw the results, they turned their jests to whistles of surprise.
“It beats my time,” said a grizzled veteran. An’ me bin punchin’ cows fo’ thirty-six year an’ never noticed it. She’s a humdinger!”
They had roped off the narrow mouth of the cañon, but now they released and drove them to a corner of the line fence where there was good grazing and a spring, sure that they would not stray.
“There’s the bait,” said Gorman as they left them contentedly feeding. “If Bradey swallers it I’ve got him landed.”
“That scheme of yores wud sure be recommended by the Humane Society an’ the cranks what say how crewel it is to notch a ca’fs ears an’ brand a cow. The same kind that used to check-rein their drivin’ hawsses before they bought ’em flivvers,” said the old cow boy. “But I can’t see the bunch usin’ it at a round-up. Make a reg’lar pink tea of it. She’s sure a humdinger, though,” he concluded with a shake of his head. “An’ me punchin’ for thirty-six years! I wouldn’t have believed it if you hadn’t shown me.”
“I saw Bradey’s niece—as they call her—in town to-day,” Gorman said to Jarrett casually, when they were back at the ranch house. “She’s sure a mighty nice appearin’ gal. Reckon the hombre that gits her’ll have to step some to deserve her.”
Jarrett looked him straight in the eyes.
“That’s the way I feel about it, Gorman,” he said. “There’s on’y one like her.”
“I wudn’t be surprised, Bud. Let me know if ennything happens. But keep clear of the steers yorese’f. Good luck to you.”
He drove on to the Jordan cabin with the results of his afternoon’s work carefully stowed away. As an experiment it had been more startlingly successful than he had anticipated. There would be no need for further tests, but he intended to make some with the doctor as assistant. Suddenly he grinned to himself, remembering the tag of the telegram he had received from the commissioner regarding the B-in-a-box boundaries. The official had stated his intention of coming to Vacada within a day or so.
“That cinches it,” said Gorman aloud. “I’ll git him lined up with a demonstration. If Bradey only holds off from takin’ that bait for two or three days now we cudn’t ask for ennything prittier.”
Pete, recognizing the car, was outside the cabin to meet him.
“Things goin’ all right,” he said in answer to Gorman’s question. Right as they kin. The woman’s worryin’ erbout her man. Her kid’s gittin’ better, all over the cold except the snuffles now. The other kid’s a bear. So’s the sick one, I reckon when she’s O. K. They both got an idea I’m some sort of bumble-puppy you sent up for their amusement,” he grumbled, his eyes be lying his words. “Jake’s comin’ erlong. He ain’t got enny idea I’m a deputy. I took off my star when I’m handlin’ him—might git him feverish.”
"He ain’t under arrest, Pete.”
“Wal, I’m bettin’ he’s been doin’ things that might make him think he was, if he saw my badge. Talks some when he’s delirious. You patch ’em together an’ you sabe there’s bin a killin’ an’ he’s mixed up in it. He’s on’y a kid an’ it’s on his conscience though, when he’s conscious, he figgers it ain’t manly to have sich an article.
“Out of his fever now an’ through ravin’. But he’s worried becos the woman here is so good to him. Make what you kin out of that. Give him a few days an’ he’ll come clean to her, mebbe. Mebbe he won’t. That all sounds like I was ravin’, but, if you cud watch his eyes when she comes in to do somethin’ fo’ him, you’d see what I meant.
“Soon after he come-to he asks where he was. I told him he was in Jordan’s shack an’ Mrs. Jordan was givin’ up her bed to him so he cud be easy an’ git well in quick time. You shud have seen the way he looked then, chief. Like a dawg that’s done wrong an’ knows it an’ gits given a bone ’stead of a kick. Then he shoves his face in the piller an’ stays that way.”
“If he or the crowd he was with had killed Sam Jordan, that wud tie it up?” asked Gorman.
“It sure wud. That’s what I was figgerin’. I don’t think this kid did the shootin’, but he was mixed up in it an’ bein’ a kid, as I say, he ain’t hard all through.”
Gorman nodded. Here was endorsement of the hunch he had been riding ever since first Dave Lorton and then Bradey had shown such special interest in the gun he had taken from Curly. He went on into the cabin.
Mrs. Jordan met him, talking low.
“He’s sleeping inside,” she said.
“Got yore only bedroom? How are you makin’ out? I told Pete to bunk in the barn.”
“We are comfortable enough out here in the big room,” she said. “Sheriff, I want to ask you about my husband. When did he leave the money for those groceries and why didn’t he bring them back with him?”
“Suppose we sit down, marm,” suggested Gorman, his face grave. Both the children were playing outside in the sunshine with Pete, the deputy taking the role of a bucking bronco, an elephant, a railroad engine and an automobile with a swiftness of change that would have put the star jinni of the “Arabian Nights” to shame.
“I can’t place yore husband in Vacada,” he said. “You had enough on yore mind last time I saw you without enny more worry. But you got to face it. I sent up the stuff from the store, seein’ you were tied up here an’ cudn’t do yore own orderin’. Brought a few more things to-day. You kin pay me back for ’em some day, if you want to.”
He drew out the Colt with the pitted barrel and the rust spot on the muzzle and showed it to her.
“Know it?” he asked her. She took it and turned it about in her hands with her face turning chalky white. Then she put it on the table.
“It’s Sam’s gun,” she said, her face working. “He bought it second-handed and cheap because of that rust mark. They’ve murdered him.”
Suddenly her head went down on her arms on the table and her back shook with the sobs that racked her. Gorman looked at her in pitying silence that he knew would convey to her the fact that he believed she had spoken truly. He knew her kind—the Western frontiers-woman, fighting all odds beside her mate to make a home out of the wilderness for themselves and their children. True pioneers, true Americans, striking out for themselves and building up the country, battling poverty and the unkindly elements.
She would face her grief presently, take up the added burden bravely.
He left her and went into the inner room. Jake lay asleep. Despite his tan his face was pallid, dark pits under the eyes, the cheeks a little pinched. He was about the same age as the rider named Curly, lads both, easily led. The down on his cheeks showed soft in the sunlight. There was no look of the hardness in the sleeping face that it wore when the boy was awake and well, striving to live up to the favor of Moore, imagining himself a reckless, dare-devil buckaroo.