Jim Gorman's Brand/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V.
At twelve o’clock he mounted to the ladies’ parlor on the first floor of the Maverick Hotel, asking the clerk to see that they were not disturbed, after he learned that the girl was waiting for him.
He liked the looks of her at first sight, not so much for the trim figure and regular features as for the frankness of the hazel eyes and the firmness of her mouth, well shaped, full enough for affection but indicative of both good humor and steadfastness of will and purpose.
She looked at him closely and then smiled as she offered her hand.
“You look just as I expected you to,” she said. “I’ve seen you before, of course, and I’ve heard a lot of you, but it’s not like meeting any one.”
Jim Gorman, when not in action on their behalf, was diffident with the other sex. He was woman shy. To Vacada he was a hopeless bachelor. To himself he was a man who had met many women who were not the right ones for him, but who sometimes seemed to think so—and he had never yet met the one he was sure he wanted. Yet he made a gallant speech.
“You look to me like Bud Jarrett was a lucky man,” he said.
The girl colored, but did not lower her eyes.
“I hope he’ll always think so,” she said simply. Gorman liked the avowal. Here was the girl for Jarrett, surely. He warmed toward her.
“What can I do for you?” he asked. “I am a friend of Bud Jarrett. He did a fine thing to-day.”
“I must meet my friend soon,” she said. “Mr. Bradey may look for me there.” Her eyes thanked him for what he had said about her lover. “I hardly know what to tell you and what not to,” she went on. “I do not want to place myself in the position of being disloyal to my own, but there is no blood relationship between my uncle and myself. And—I expect to marry Bud Jarrett.”
“You play yore own hand, Miss White an’ make hearts trumps,” said Gorman. “You won’t go far wrong if you do that. I’m talkin’ from other people’s experience, but I’ve seen a heap of it. First an’ foremost, a man an’ a woman, when they’re sure of each other—I ain’t over handy at expressin’ myse’f at these sort of things, but you’ll git my meanin’—a man an’ a gal belong to each other. It’s their life ahead of the one that’s goin’ out, meanin’ their own generation. There’s not even blood ties in yore case. I ain’t figgerin’ you for disloyal. An’ I’m apologizin’ fo’ talkin’ in this way to you, as if I’d known you fo’ a long time.”
“It’s kind of you and I understand,” she said. “I’ve heard many things of you and I’ve always thought I’d like you for a friend. You say you are Bud’s. And he does not realize that my uncle, who is set against him, is really dangerous. He has a lot of power, a lot of influence, and I know that he means to try and separate us and also to do harm to Robert. All that he can. He pretends it is on account of Robert’s interference yesterday, but there are other reasons—and of course he was in the wrong himself there.
“He was not opposed to Robert in the beginning. Or he did not seem to be. But he has changed since that man Moore came, three months ago. I think that Moore has been employed by him some time, managing another ranch, in New Mexico. But sometimes he acts more like a partner. My uncle is my guardian. My mother left me fifty thousand dollars which comes to me when I am of age, fourteen months from now. Until then he has control of the investment. He has always given me a liberal allowance and he has made a great deal of money.
“But now—he seems to be indebted in some way to Moore. He has taken him into the ranch house to live. I hope I am democratic, but—Moore is coarse and I cannot understand why uncle gives him these liberties.
“Moore has tried to—make love to me. I suppose he calls it that. He pretends to want to marry me and uncle favors him. It seems impossible. I have not told Robert all of what happens—very little—he is hot tempered and there would be trouble. Moore brought several hands with him and they are a wild lot. The ranch is without discipline lately. I mean without any sort of ordinary regulations. They obey orders, but they do it—more as if they were all holding an interest as part owners than hired men. It’s hard for me to express myself. I’m not a snob, I’m a western girl—but there is too much license. It isn’t that they don’t treat me with respect—but you know how our riders usually treat a woman and these men are—not rude—but they look at me as if—as if there was some sort of joke between themselves. About their being hired.
“I am talking too long and, aside from what I wanted to see you about. Moore came home last night in an ugly mood. He had words with my uncle. I heard them threatening each other. Moore was savage at you for shooting him and my uncle told him to be careful. Moore said my uncle was making a fool of him.
“This was all before supper. When they came in to the table Moore was drunk. He wanted me to cut his meat up for him. He—he said I had better get used to it. I left the table. My uncle said something to him and he answered ‘I’ll handle her. She’ll gentle down when we get rid of that interfering fool.’
“Later on I went out—to meet—Bud. I dare not stay away long from the ranch house lately so he has been riding in, leaving his horse and meeting me in a little grove back of the house. There is a man named Dave Lorton who came with Moore, together with several other riders. He has been watching me. He is a gunman. I told Bud he must not risk coming on the ranch again. I was sure they would pick a quarrel with him and kill him.
“It is hard to explain, but the atmosphere lately is charged with something wrong—deadly. Moore grins at me in a way that is intolerable and uncle encourages him. It is growing impossible.”
"Why don’t you marry Bud? He’ll take care of you?”
“I am afraid. You haven’t heard everything. Bud told me what had happened at the Jordan place and how Moore had fired at him after threatening him. There are more than a hundred riders on the ranch. If I married Bud and lived on the Two-Bar they would do something desperate. Bud won’t run away—neither would I. Lately uncle has been drinking and when he does he is—he changes into something not quite human. He is strong-willed and it seems as if a devil took possession of him. Not raging, but cold and relentless. Sometimes I think he is afraid of Moore, in a way, but when he has been taking whisky I always think they are going to have a frightful quarrel.
“I made Bud leave early. When I went back I heard loud voices in the living room. There is a little slide where Pedro—he’s the house cook, puts the dishes through from the kitchen to his wife, Maria, who is the house keeper. There was no one in the kitchen. Pedro and Maria have a little cabin of their own and they were through for the day. So I listened.
"Your name was mentioned first. Moore wanted to know why uncle didn’t have you put out of office. He said that uncle had boasted of his owning the county and he said this was the time to show it. Uncle said that the only way to handle you was by smoothing things over and Moore said uncle was afraid of you, and that he wasn’t. He said you were only one man and it only needed one bullet.
“Uncle had been drinking. I saw the bottles and glasses through the little slide which I opened a little way.
“‘You leave the sheriff to me,’ he said. ‘It was a fool move to start anything in the county. We’ve cleaned up, or we can within a few weeks. This man Gorman is best left alone. I’ve done it, so far. This is my end of the deal and you’ll leave it to me.’
“They glared at each other and I thought there would be trouble right then, but Moore laughed and filled up his glass.
“‘All right,’ he said. ‘But you’re making a bad move in not getting him out of the way.’ I’m not pretending to repeat exactly what they said—only the general meaning of it.”
Gorman nodded. The girl was climbing in his opinion. Evidently she had been living under a strain that would have terrified most women, but she had kept not only her wits but her courage.
“‘I’m ready for the clean-up,’ said Moore, ‘after I’ve attended to two things. I want the girl and I’m going to get even with this lover of hers. I’d have got him out of the way to-day, but for that sheriff of yours interfering.’ ‘He can shoot too straight for you,’ said my uncle. ‘That’s another reason for you to leave him to me. As for Jarrett, your methods are too crude, Moore. I tell you you can’t put a man out of the way in this county and get away with it. There are other methods besides killing a man to get rid of him. Listen.’
“They lowered their voices while uncle did most of the talking. In a little while Moore laughed and pounded on the table.
“‘By God,’ he said, ‘you’ve got the brains, Bradey. I’ll take my hat off to you. We break him and add to our own pile. That suits me. I creased him in the ribs anyway.’
“That meant Bud, of course. ‘You can try your hand at Gorman,’ he went on, ‘but I’ll take a crack at that sharp-shootin’ sheriff before I quit the country. He’s dangerous, but this scheme of yours has got him whipped.’
“They had been almost ready to shoot each other before, but now they were close friends again. And they were both getting drunk—drunk enough, I mean, to bring all their viciousness out and to brag a little. Whisky doesn’t seem to affect them like it does some people. They can always walk and talk. It just makes them ugly.
“My uncle went to the telephone that goes to the bunk house and I heard him tell Dave Lorton to come over.
“Then Moore leaned over the table. His voice had changed. He seemed suspicious and inclined for trouble again.
“‘It’s understood I get the girl, without any damned nonsense,’ he said. ‘We’re splitting even and I’m not asking you for any accounting of her money. Fifty thousand dollars—and cheap at the price! She’s been acting up high and mighty with me lately, but I’ll get full value. Trust me for that. You’re not double crossing me there, Bradey.’
“My blood was cold and hot by turns, but you can imagine how I felt when my uncle laughed. ‘She’s the least of my worries, Moore,’ he said. ‘Glad to get her off my hands so long as it isn’t to Bud Jarrett. I’ll teach him to interfere in my affairs. As for the girl, she’s no kin of mine. She’s been a bit above herself with me for a long time. A taming will do her good. It will take her pride down a bit when she finds herself tied up to a breed.’ And he laughed until he began to choke. But he sobered up a little when he saw Moore’s face. I couldn’t, the way he sat, but it must have been angry.
“‘I want to tell you, King Bradey,’ he said, ‘that I’m prouder of my Cherokee blood than I am of the white that’s in me. If I’m a breed, I’m half again better than you are.’
“I was listening to my uncle practically selling me for fifty thousand dollars to a man who is half Cherokee Indian. Selling me for fifty thousand dollars! That is what it amounted to. I could hardly believe my ears, though, since Moore has been here, I have seen King Bradey in a new light. As if all the bad in him had worked out to the surface. I have never believed he really liked me. He has always been tolerant rather than kind with his smooth manner that I always felt was a mask.
“Of course they couldn’t marry me by force unless they drugged me and I should look out for that. But Moore would stick at nothing. He may be married.
“I only heard one thing more. That helped me. They talked about the time they expected to clean up. Bradey—I am not going to call him my uncle any longer—said that a man named Marshall would be out in the last part of September. It seemed that he is going to buy out the ranch and some cattle. The rest they will sell beforehand.
“‘I can wait till then,’ said Moore, ‘if the lady is willing to hold off.’
“I don’t know what I should have done. I had a mad desire to go in and face them, to tell them I had heard all they had said, but I saw that that would be playing into their hands. They might keep me a prisoner. Pedro and Maria would willingly be my jailers. She will not let me in the kitchen without my insisting on it. Pedro is even surlier. I have never been able to get along with them, since I came back from the East. And then I could not warn Bud or perhaps learn anything more of their plans.
“But I might have gone in, only I heard some one at the outside door of the kitchen. The men often came in that way and I knew this must be Dave Lorton. There was no light in there and I squeezed into a corner between a high cupboard and the wall. Dave came in and lit a match. My uncle heard him and called out to know who was there. Dave answered and Moore opened the door and came a little way into the kitchen. They did not see me, but Moore saw the light in the living room, through the slide and he came over and closed it. He passed so close to me I could smell the whisky on his breath. The light from the living room door threw the rest of the kitchen in deep shadow and he did not suspect anything. He closed the slide automatically, I think, without thinking much of what he did. He was chuckling to himself.
“‘We’ve got a job for you, Dave,’ he said and then they went in. I didn’t dare open the slide again after that, so I went up to my room and I got my gun. I don’t think Bradey knows I have one. It has been with me ever since.”
She reached inside the opening of her trim, mannish shirtwaist, and brought out a flat, businesslike automatic of small but quite efficient caliber. Gorman took it for a moment, looking it over and passed it back without comment.
“I don’t know why I never told him that I had it,” she went on. “I suppose at first I thought he would think me silly with foolish ideas about the West after my school. And afterward it must have been some sort of intuition that kept me from letting him know that I kept it and practiced with it when I went out riding. I am a pretty good shot. I can defend myself. I think that perhaps I never quite trusted him. I’ve often felt that I only knew the outside shell of him, polished up by himself to deceive. He always used to smile, but I don’t believe I ever read any real expression in his eyes.
“That’s all. Except that I am afraid. Bud won’t take the proper precautions.”
“Talked with him?” asked Gorman.
“No. I am afraid to use the telephone at the ranch. But I know that he will only laugh at me for being afraid.”
“How erbout yore own position—with Moore an’ King Bradey?”
“I am not goin’ to tell him about that. He thinks only that Moore pays me attentions which he knows are distasteful to me. But if I told him what I have told you he would make some hasty move and give them the chance they are looking for.”
“You don’t have to stay out to the ranch," he said. “Bradey can’t compel you to do that, even if he is yore guardian. Why not come in an’ stay with some one, the friend you are goin’ to lunch with?”
The girl shook her head, eyes steadfast, chin up and steady.
“No. There is no real danger to me for some weeks, until that buyer comes.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that.”
“I’ll take the risk—with this.” She held up the automatic before she put it away. “If I leave, I won’t be in a position to find out any more about their plans against Bud.”
“Jest what is it you wish me to do, Miss White?” asked Gorman. Her face fell.
“Why—I hardly know.” It was plain that she had expected the sheriff to show some signs of intended action. Instead he sat looking at her steadily, though his eyes held the admiration for her pluck that his brain registered. Here was a girl in a thousand—a wonderful prize for Bud Jarrett. Gorman was beginning to wonder whether Jarrett would prove properly appreciative.
“I have been seeing old things over again differently the last few weeks,” she said, “I remember that Bradey never talked details of his battle deals with me and shut off all interest I showed in them when I knew a herd had been sold or partly sold or new steers had arrived. And, whenever new steers did come, it was always in the night. I asked him about that once and he only said that night travel was better for the cattle. But I can recollect plainly that he looked at me suspiciously.
“I’ve seen some of the men who came with Moore, at various times. They brought in cattle. And there was always more or less of a jest between them whenever I’d happen to ask where the steers came from. They always had an answer ready, but they’d look at each other knowingly and I knew they grinned behind my back.”
She paused for a moment and Gorman continued to look at her inquiringly.
“Well?” he asked.
“King Bradey has made a good deal of money. I don’t believe he has done it honestly. I believe that Moore was a partner with him in stealing cattle, buying cattle that he knew were stolen, anyway. Moore might only have been his foreman on this ranch across the state line, but he intends to share the profits when they make their clean-up in November. That is my belief. I don’t know whether you agree with me or not—I suppose I haven’t got any thing really definite. But they have tried to injure the Jordans, Moore acting for Bradey there. You prevented them. I thought you might like to hear that they are up to other rascality and that you might feel it your duty to prevent it.”
For the first time she looked at Gorman uncertainly.
“If we should pin ennything on Bradey erbout handlin’ stolen cattle, you’re li’ble not to see much of yore fifty thousan’ dollars,” said the sheriff.
“They don’t intend me to get it in any case. And it makes no difference to me—or to Bud. He’d rather have me without any money. I know that King Bradey is unscrupulous, that Moore is worse. And I thought, as a friend of Bud’s, as you said you were just now, aside from being sheriff, that I might interest you.”
She got up from her chair, her manner a little stiff, her eyes hurt. Gorman stood in front of her and at the look on his face her own lightened.
“I told you I figgered Bud Jarrett was a lucky man,” he said. “I’m plumb sure of it now. If you were a man I’d say you were white all through an’ square on all six sides. I ain’t handy at changin’ that inter a feminine compliment. It’s barely possible Bud don’t appreciate you properly. If he don’t, an’ you ever find it out, you send for me. After I’ve buried him I’ll see if there’s a chance for me. That may not strike you as much of a compliment, but you’re the on’y woman I’ve ever gone that fur with—or wanted to.”
He said it all with a laugh, trying to lighten matters for the girl’s ease, but there was a quality in his gaze that told her he meant much that his words did not necessarily imply.
“You’re a real she-woman,” Gorman went on. “That’s he-man translated. You’re plucky an’ you’re smart as a lawyer an’ I don’t have to tell you you’re sure easy to look at. I’ll have a talk with Bud. You’ve told me enough to confirm what I’ve been beginnin’ to suspect erbout Bradey an’ what I know erbout Moore—that they’re a pair of rascals. But we haven’t got ennything on ’em, as yet. On’y the Jordan dispossession. Bud seemed to think I wud act on that, but I wanted to give ’em a longer picket rope an’ hope they’d trip up.
“I’ve got a few things aside from what you’ve told me an’ I’m goin’ to git busy. I thought I’d have to set a trap or two, long distance, but they’ve done it for themselves, or they’re goin’ to. Occur to you what they meant by breakin’ Bud an’ addin’ to their own pile at the same time?”
She shook her head.
“I suppose I’m stupid, but it doesn’t, unless they mean to try and get hold of the Two-Bar for themselves. I know they say Bradey controls the courts.”
“When he can fix it so the court kin save its own face. An’, if they’re goin’ to git out end of September, they ain’t got time for ennything of that sort, disputin’ title or claimin’ it after they disposed of Bud. What they’re after is to run off his cattle, fake the brand—Dave Lorton’s a wizard at that sort of thing—an’ I reckon he’s bin doin’ it for Moore and Bradey right erlong—an’ then laff at Bud. Not much of a trick to change Two-Bar into a Lazy-H, one of Bradey’s own brands.”
“Oh!” Her eyes widened with understanding. “Then you’ll tell Bud to ride herd or bring them in.”
“No. He ain’t got the feed to bring ’em in. Grass is gettin’ scarce an’ they want all they kin git of it right now. Ridin’ herd might, mean shootin’. They’ll have fifty men if they need it, to Bud’s four or five.
“They’ll be keepin’ tab on what he does with his steers from now on—if I’m right. It’s my scheme to bait that trap they’ve fixed for themselves with erbout thirty of Bud’s steers, left in a nice handy place for a run-off. Then we’ll let ’em do what they’ve a mind to.”
“But you said they would rebrand and laugh at us. And wouldn’t the cross bar on the H show fresh any way?”
“Not the way Dave’ll fix it—brandin’ with a blanket.”
“Then I don’t see”
Gorman’s eyes gleamed.
"It ain’t' supposed to be wisdom to tell a woman a secret,” he said. “But you've sure earned it an’, if you gave it away it wud spoil everything for Bud an’ you. Not that I’m afraid of yore doin’ it. I’ve got some illustrations up to my office demonstratin’ what I’m goin’ to tell you, but it won’t take a minnit to explain the way it works, if you’ve got the time.”
She looked at her wrist watch.
“I’m to meet my friend in ten minutes,” she said. “Please tell me.”
“It’s plumb funny no one ever thought of it before,” he commenced. “In a way it’s right in line with police work”
Her face glowed with understanding and approval when he had finished.
“I’ll introduce Bud to the idea this afternoon,” he said. “No tellin’ when they may start their tricks. Now I reckon you’d better go down first. Through the hall here and out at the ladies’ entrance. I’ll go through the office. Good-by.”