Doom Canyon/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V.
Strong left well ahead of the day that the Indian agent had said he would be at the little town, riding first to Socorro to file on his quarter section. He intended to give Hurley a share in the ranch, to let the vaqueros in on the profits, together with Maria. The cattle business in this section should soon make them all comparatively well off, if not rich. He still had in mind a talk with Edmonds about a beef contract, but he judged the time a little premature at present. The reservation deal might be profitably renewed.
Lobo was still absent, he learned, as he rode through Laguna on his way north, calling on Clayborne, who had sent the will off for probate. Edmonds also was out of town. Clayborne did not say where. Strong learned something about him from the man from whom he bought grain to carry on the trip.
“He's a good mixer, thet railroad chap,” said the other. “Don't say a heap, but he fits in an' he plays a dern good game of poker. I'm figgerin' on sellin' him a depot site. Laguna's goin' to boom, Strong, jest as soon as they start layin' steel, an' don't you forgit it. Say, there's a party ridin' north you might take along—cow waddie. Jest as well to have company. They say the 'Paches ain't takin' kindly to the reservation. Sojers busy roundin' 'em up every little while.”
It was good advice, and Strong looked up the puncher. If the man had quit his job he had hopes of persuading him to sign on with the Bar B. It turned out that he had a sister in Socorro and wanted to visit her for a spell, not having seen her for three years. But he promised Strong to work for him later, and the two rode together without sight of hostiles. From Socorro Strong rode down to Encinada alone, arriving a day ahead of the stage by taking trails rather than the road.
It was a hazardous trip if the Apaches were actually off reservation, but he saw nothing of them. The railroad would soon change the country, develop it. The Three Corners would soon be no longer outlaw land. It would be a long while before it was overcrowded, and that suited Strong. He did not hanker after too much civilization. Long before the dirt farmers started to encroach on the open range he would have made his pile, he figured, but even then he would not want to sit idle. He would be a cattleman all his days.
If he married—he supposed he would some day—it would have to be a girl whose spirit matched with his. There were not many of them in Three Corners. There had been Gardner's wife, whom he had never known. She seemed to have been the sort, by all accounts. Not so the cow waddie's sister at Socorro, who had entertained him royally enough, but who weighed two hundred pounds and was square as an Oregon-packed apple out of the corner of the box—a good sort, but not Strong's ideal of a helpmate. Not the kind who, according to Maria, would sweep him off his feet when she arrived.
There was a persistent rumor at Encinada that the Apaches were out, and that the cavalry were trying to round them up. The fact that Strong had seen no sign did not discount the report. It was the general opinion that they would haunt the road and perhaps molest the stage. When the latter became overdue—two hours, then four—premonition crystallized into certainty. Strong led a party, armed with rifles as well as their six-guns, to go out and meet it. It would be a strange stroke of fate if the Indians should massacre the agent appointed to look after their interests.
In that region all things were possible. The fierce Apaches did not take kindly to confinement and regulations, any more than wild bison to a fenced enclosure. The Indian agent, Larned, had the great excitement of his life, and immediately realized the serious nature of his duties.
They met the stage six miles out of Encinada, coming along with four horses instead of six, and one of them limping. There were arrows sticking in the coach, a passenger beside the driver had his arm bandaged. The driver himself was loud in his declamations.
“Here I go,” he said, “actin' relief for Bob Somers, because Bob's got a bile on the back of his neck, an' I have to run into this. One swing an' a wheeler plumb ruined. Then devils shot 'em full of arrers as a porkypine has quills an' I had to drive the pore devils at thet till they dropped. If I hadn't had this gent on the box an' two more fightin' passengers inside, we men would be splayed out on the stage wheels roastin' over slow ashes an' the li'le leddy—waal, it's plumb lucky for us those yeller-legged cavalry showed up when they did, I'm tellin' you.
“You've got a woman aboard?” asked Strong.
“Use yore eyes, pardner, like the rest of yore outfit. We've got a young leddy with the voice of a thrush an' the looks of an angel, who fit like three wild cats rolled in one. Thar's one passenger inside—three all told, inside fares—who toted a rifle, but he jest natcherully got seasick or somethin' when he heerd them 'Paches whoopin'. It ain't no love song at thet. Anyway, he gits so nervous he don't know one end of his weepon from the other.
“What does the gal do but grab it an' start shootin' out of the right-hand winder while the remainin' gent does the same on the left. An' the gal's the best shot of the two. Brought down one red devil nice as you ever see. Got him through the laig an' busted up the internals of his hawss same time.
“While I was tryin' to make the change with the hawsses this gent alongside of me gits his through the forearm. The gal keeps on a firin', cool as an iced cucumber—saves my life, you bet.
“Jest as it looked like it was wet clouds an' harps, with the red devils ridin' so thar wa'n't nothin' to shoot at but the hawss, circlin' in an' gittin' ready to rush, I thought I heard Gabriel's horn. It couldn't have sounded sweeter, an' it was almost my resurrection. I could feel my scalp liftin' when thet heavenly bugle blowed an' I saw them cavalry streakin' it.
“Off goes the 'Paches, knowin' they was wrong. Up comes the lieutenant, sweet as pie. Kin he help us, and kin we proceed under our own power? I reckon we kin an' he goes off after the troop, reluctant, on account of the gal.
“She never turned a ha'r. Usually they faint after it's all over. 'Stead of thet she cossets the gent who lost his nerve—railroad man by the name of Foster, he told me. This gent beside me is sellin' hams an' sichlike, an' he kin git my order for his brand any time. He ain't so much on shootin', but he's long on sand. So's the third inside fare. He fired as if he knowed how to handle a rifle, but he didn't hold ahead enough, I reckon.
“Mebbe”—the driver sank his voice to a harsh whisper—“mebbe he didn't want to kill 'em. He's the Indian agent. It's a prime joke on him, the way it lays. Him feedin' them Indians, showin' the squaws how to use a cook stove an' wipin' off the snoots of the papooses, teachin' the bucks their sums, an' comin' close to havin' the wards of the country make a fricassee out of him. He ain't seen the joke yit.
“It's a joke on me, too, first time I drive this line—an' the last. I ain't hankerin' for post-mortem notoriety none. You ain't got a drop of licker with you, have you? No? Then I'll git along toward the stop. It's dry work handlin' the ribbons with both hands full of crazy hawsses an' no chance to fire back at the devils thet's makin' a game out of who kin hit you first. They streaked one clean through my hat.”
He started up his horses, and Strong dropped back. He thought it best to leave the Indian agent alone for a while, until his ruffled dignity should subside somewhat. He felt a mild interest in the railroad man. It wasn't Edmonds, he was sure of that. Edmonds would have fought. But this one probably represented the other road. The two would be making a race of it to El Paso, and there were profitable contracts in the air.
As for the girl, she sounded interesting, but he discounted the driver's glowing description of her charms. She was likely the leather-faced wife of some old-timer who had handled a rifle many times before, used to going out to get her own deer when they needed meat, rather than bother to ask her husband to butcher a calf. Plucky enough.
He loped on without looking at the occupants of the coach, about which the rest of the escort buzzed. But, when the stage drew up at the Encinada road house, Strong gasped at sight of the girl who lightly jumped down and stood interestedly gazing about her.
It was the girl. Maria had been right. Strong's heart thumped hard and he felt the blood rushing to his head, leaving him a trifle dizzy, pounding in his finger tips.
She was in dark-blue gingham with a traveling cape of gray above it. She wore a cap with a frill like a cut-down sunbonnet, fitting closely to her well-shaped head, a stray lock or two of hair escaping in tendrils yellow as corn, golden as a sunset. Eyes that were almost purple, a nose straight, save just at the tip, where it tilted ever so slightly—adorably; a mouth like some kind of rare flower, softly scarlet, curving.
Swept off his feet—that was the expression. He stood there gawking like a fool, he fancied, unknowing the impression his six feet of lean straightness made, with the serious brown face beneath the wide sombrero, a man that no woman could look at without knowledge that here was a provider and protector, one who could be both grave and tender, a man still young, but who had been tempered by experience.
The girl looked up, and their glances met. She grew slowly a rosy red, and Strong gasped again. He wanted to talk to her, to meet her, but he felt infinitely awkward, conscious that he had been rude. He doffed his sombrero and walked away, busying himself with the cinch of his saddle until she had gone in, piqued at his attitude a little, but with the glow that had shown on her face growing deeper.
The Indian agent came to him, still upset by his experience, determined to see the new reservation better handled. They fell into talk, and the agent reiterated the statements about the girl's pluck. He did not mention her name, but said that she was booked for Laguna, a scrap of information that Strong was duly grateful for.
"I'm sorry for this railroad chap, Simpson,” said the agent. “He's the purchasing agent for the P. & S. W. If it ever gets out that he funked it, he'll have a hard time living it down. Seems he's got heart trouble, an' the shock brought on an attack. It wasn't faked. Do what you can for him, Bramley; it won't hurt you any to help let him down easy. They'll be buying beef before long. What sort of a proposition can you offer me?”
The mention of his partner's name came as a shock. He had imagined that Bramley knew the agent personally, but it appeared that the acquaintance came through a mutual friend who had recommended Bramley as a man to be relied upon. Strong was forced to explain. The agent was all commiseration.
“Ive got a shack here,” he said. “I haven't seen it yet, but it was all arranged for me. I shall use it as my office temporarily. It's furnished, I believe, and there's even a cook. I've got cigars and a bottle of good liquor with me. Come over there with me, Strong, and we'll talk this contract over. As a matter of fact, it isn't strictly a contract. There isn't time to get out bids for this first issue.
“Orders are to placate the tribesmen—I feel more like flaying them—and a beef issue is the first thing on the program. Washington says to treat them with all consideration. Not the consideration they deserve but under all circumstances. The colonel at the post is likely to get hell if he fires at one of them to-day. If he should kill one, they'd retire him. I wish, Strong, there had been some of our estimable committeemen who handle Indian affairs inside that coach to-day.
“Think of what they might have done to that glorious girl. Strong, she's not married. Coming out to live with a married sister, I understand, on a ranch near Laguna. If you don't grab her—you're not married, I hope?—you're next door to being an idiot.”
Strong let that go by. He didn't want to discuss such an intimate matter as marriage with her. It seemed impossible. She was infinitely dainty, beautiful. He was a coarse cow waddie, once removed by luck to be a ranch owner. Still, she had handled the rifle and hit her mark. She was of the West.
“She told me she was brought in Colorado,” went on the agent. “She knows how to ride, shoot, fish, hunt, and rope a steer. Strong, if I was single and twenty years younger, I'd go after her myself. Here's to her health, suh. Brave as she is beautiful. Back in Kentucky, where I hail from, she'd be the toast of the State. A heroine, as modest as a violet and as sweet as a rose.”
The agent had more than one bottle, and he was a convivial type, fond of following to the end his own lines of talk. It ended with Strong staying the the night with him, with business put off until the morning.
Then Strong got his order for two hundred head at thirty-five dollars a head, seven thousand dollars, of which over five thousand was profit, but which had been dearly paid for just the same. It would have set Bramley and he on their feet, he thought. For him alone it was more than sufficient capital to launch out on a big scale. And he knew that he had the agent's favor in the future.
But the glory of it all was tarnished. He had little satisfaction in the transaction now. That he was on the high road to fortune was certain. Maria, Hurley, and the vaqueros would profit by it, but Strong had no one to share it with. Unless—he thought of the girl—and the agent jested, accusing him of his actual thought, and he reddened.
“If she don't take you,” said the other, genial at the evening's end, mellowed by liquor and the satisfaction of having had an excellent listener to all he thought of the faults of the country and his own improvements thereon, “she don't know a man when she sees one. You get in with these railroads, sell 'em beef, and you'll be rich in five years. You've got something to offer a girl, suh. An' that counts with the best of 'em. Strong, I wish I was standing in your boots.”
When Strong turned in he was wondering if he could stand a chance. He resolved to try it.
The stage had gone on early in the morning, long before he could get the agent to let him go, settling the terms of the delivery and payment. Strong did not know whether he was relieved or not. He had debated whether or not he should go back in the stage, and had given up that idea from sheer shyness. But he resolved to meet her. If she was going on a ranch, that would be easy. He found himself building golden dreams as he finally started out early that afternoon.
The Apaches had been rounded up, the railroad man, whose name turned out to be Thompson, had stayed over at Encinada to recover, and the agent had introduced Strong to him. The man was upset, and Strong managed to put him at ease. Altogether it had been a great trip.
He could short-cut to the ranch by avoiding Laguna but he decided that he had some errands there—chewing tobacco for Hurley, for one thing. He would see if Clayborne had heard anything about the will and also find out what Edmonds knew about Thompson, if Edmonds was back. Clayborne had said that the latter expected to return by now.
And all the time Strong knew that his real reason for not going directly to the Bar B was the hope that he would see the girl again or at least learn her name and find out to what ranch she had gone. It was amazing, the difference just seeing one particular girl made to a man. Significant, he told himself, that this must be the one for him, if he was man enough to win her. The change in everything was inconceivable, as if he had been in darkness all this time and the light had suddenly been turned on.
Even his determination to avenge Bramley had been relegated to the immediate background—not shelved, not forgotten, but no longer assuming supreme, entire importance. There were other things now in life. And all because of the glimpse of a girl, one glance of her eyes. It was magic—that was the only word for it. Not many girls had such power. Not many girls were like her—none.