Sheep Limit/Chapter 23
Rawlins returned from Lost Cabin before noon, attended by the sheriff and coroner, the latter official bringing with him the identical set of sheepmen jurors that had served a few days previously over the first victim of the homesteader's war.
The coroner found a double job cut out for him this time. The raider who fell before Rawlins' rifle in that morning's battle was not dead, although shot through the body. He was a virile scoundrel, with the snake's tenacity of life in him, and if the coroner was disappointed in having the fellow as a subject for his official investigation, he was compensated by getting him as a patient. Peck had made a clean job of it. There was nothing left for the doctor side of the coroner to do in his case.
That was undoubtedly the most enthusiastic verdict ever returned by a coroner's jury in the Dry Wood country. It sounded much like a resolution by a chamber of commerce welcoming some new and important industry. The presence of these two handy men holding their own against great and vicious odds inside Senator Galloway's fence; that big band of sheep grazing peacefully, the morning's terrifying visitation quite forgotten, opened the gate of possibility to a new and prolific range.
They made short work of that inquest, passing jokes over the subject as he lay on his back in the spot where Peck's big gun had brought him down. They loaded him into the coroner's wagon and hauled him away like so much refuse, the wounded man beside him on no higher plane of respect or valuation. They were liegemen of the oppressor, brought low in their arrogance, and nobody was sorry for their plight.
As before, the sheriff had nothing but praise for Rawlins, enlarged this time to include Peck, whom he surveyed with a perplexed look of questioning surprise. There was something like reservation of credulity in his attitude toward Peck, as if somebody had told him a tale of being bitten by a sheep, and pointed out that one as the animal responsible for the unexampled assault. But he was a discreet sheriff, with complete control over his tongue, no matter what his thoughts. He cast his eye around the country in sheepmanly appraisement, evidently not without plans of his own.
Mrs. Peck's pride in her valiant and efficient husband was beyond all measure. Whatever Duke had done to build up the fortunes and consequence of the family before his unromantic end in the creek, it was reduced to a point in comparison with Peck's deeds. Peck had taken sheep beyond sheep limit; he had broken the oppressor's hand and battered down his will.
That was the way Mrs. Peck saw it, at least. Rawlins' part in the venture was not considered or, if taken into account at all, only as a minor force in the historic event of Peck's sweeping invasion. Even the sheep, which had stampeded Peck into this glorious eminence against his power and intention, were not given the smallest word of credit in her glowing praise.
After the coroner's business was settled and the official party had gone away, Mrs. Peck transferred her saddle to Graball's back and returned to the ranch to fetch up a wagon and supplies. She and Peck appeared to have come to a complete understanding during Rawlins' absence. Neither of them had any intention of taking the sheep out of that refreshing pasture. She was puffed up with the red arrogance of a conqueror; all her fears of the fence and its lawless defenders had dissolved. She had a fighting man in the family now, who had made his place in that land of dusty flocks.
Mrs. Peck had put in the morning skinning the sheep killed in the raid. They had found forty-three, Peck said. Several more were crippled so badly they would have to be killed. Cheap, Peck said, echoing his wife's declaration, Rawlins knew. That was a small price to pay for a pasture that would take care of their sheep shut out of the forest reservation by Government restriction, which permitted drovers to pasture but half the number of animals they had run in the reserves in past years.
"I'll order Tippie to bring 'em in," Peck announced, swelling around in the double importance of large proprietor and handy man with a gun.
They were at Rawlins' house, which Peck, from his grand air, appeared to think he had acquired by right of conquest along with the rest of the territory inside Galloway's fence. Rawlins was lying on his cot, feeling pretty well out of the game on account of the pain in his arm; Peck getting dinner ready. The biscuits of the morning had burned up in the oven, and Peck was concentrating his talents on the preparation of a new batch.
"How's your arm?" Peck inquired, turning suddenly from his mixture, hands in the flour, as if it had just struck him to inquire into the misfortunes of a man whose part in that historic encounter had been so unheroic and small.
"Pretty good, Peck."
"You look kind of white around the gills, Rawlins, you'd better take it kind of easy for a while. Leave 'em to me if they come back."
"I'll nearly have to, old man."
"Yeah, that'll be all right. Doctor say he'll have to take any bones out of you, or anything?"
"No, he says he can save my arm. Did you help skin the sheep?"
"Yeah. Me and the old lady thought we might as well save them hides—they're worth six bits apiece. I'll order Tippie to bury them dead ones when he comes, and kill off the cripples and skin 'em. Me and the old lady"
"Did you find that bullet in your pocket, Peck?"
Peck looked around again, leaning on his long bony arms, hands flat in the pan. His face was reproachful, his animated countenance under a cloud of displeasure. But he brightened up in a moment, making the dry, croaking sound in his throat that stood him for a laugh.
"It was there, all right, Rawlins," he confessed. "It was smashed as flat on one end as if it'd struck a rock."
"You old iron-bound scoundrel!" said Rawlins, expressive of admiration.
This cheered Peck up. He chuckled, the elbowjoint of his neck working up and down.
"You remember the divorce book Riley lent me, Rawlins? Yeah. The old lady tore it up after she banged me around with it a while, and throwed the pieces in the fire. It didn't burn, though, not much of it. When she was gone I picked out some of the importantest pieces of it. I doubled 'em up and put 'em in my pocket, savin' 'em to have something to read on more than I ever expected it'd ever do me any good in court. Them leaves made a wad two inches thick, I guess. Sleepin' on 'em, you know, and everything, pressed 'em as tight as if you'd put 'em through a steam pants-presser."
"Darned lucky thing for you, old feller."
"Wasn't it? I guess that pocket swung around in front of me when I was holdin' that old gun on 'em. The bullet got me right over my solar complexion. That's what knocked me out. If it hadn't been for them pieces of divorce book it 'd 'a' went clean through me."
"Well, I'll be darned!"
"Yeah. I know how a man in the ring feels when old Fitz puts one there on him, I tell you, Rawlins. It's one of them all-day-and-gone feelin's."
"It looked like all day for us, afl right. If your wife had been a few seconds later you and I'd be gettin' out of the boat on the other side of the river about now. She's a fine woman, Peck. Be good to her, now you've got things coming your way."
"That's where you're off, Rawlins; that's where you show you ain't experienced with 'em. I ain't goin' to ease off on her too dan quick. I'm goin' to camp right up here with that little bunch of stews till she comes up with all the cash money I want and gives me back my clothes. You can bet your neck I'm goin' to have a check book of my own, too, and a square break on all the profits of this game, if I hang around here. She's promised me."
"That's only reasonable. She can't expect to keep a man like you out on the range with a band of sheep, in the standing of a hired man around the place. You've shown her you can do some thinking. Keep it up."
"Yeah, and I've showed her I can do some shootin', too. That's what put a crimp in the old girl. That water-melon-faced man she had before me wouldn't fight a snake. I guess I'll show Tippie where he gits off at, too, the first time I see him."
"I believe I'd go kind of slow with Tippie, if I were you," Rawlins suggested, with friendly warning. "Tippie's a man of few words, but you might get a surprise if you stepped on his feet. Why not treat him just as if nothing had ever passed between you? Tippie's a valuable man; you'll need him to do the field work if you're going to sit in the office and think."
"I'll handle him in my own way, Rawlins."
"Go to it, then. I was just suggestin' something for your own profit."
"And if I ever ask him for the change again," Peck said ominously, "I'll git it, or I'll tell him to hit it up out of here."
"Well, you're the man of the family at present, anyhow. Don't let your tail-hold slip."
"You watch me, Rawlins."
Peck's mess of biscuits did not turn out very blithesomely. One of them would have served very well in place of the pages from the divorce book, Rawlins thought, finding them about as hard as oysters to open, especially with one hand.
"I guess I left out the bakin' powder, Rawlins," Peck explained, "and I guess maybe I forgot the salt."
"You got in the flour and water, anyhow, Peck. They're all right."
"I've et worse," Peck said, with a sort of vindictive exculpation for his culinary crime. "When I first tried my hand at makin' flopjakes on the range they was tougher than any sheep-hide you ever stuck a knife in. I used to read in story books how them hunters and cowboys cooked their bread by windin' a lump of dough on the end of a stick. Did you ever try it, Rawlins?"
"No, Peck."
"It don't work," said Peck solemnly. He looked across the table, flour on one wing of his moustache, a choking stare of seriousness in his big eyes. "It's a fake; it won't work. No man ever lived that could bake a piece of dough fit to eat on the end of a stick over a fire. It gits ashes on it, Rawlins, and mine got full of ants and bugs."
Peck's recollection of his experiments with a wad of dough on the end of a stick seemed to make him sad. He sat looking at his plate as if he saw the past marshaled for review under his eyes like phantoms in a crystal.
"Funny about that divorce book, too," he said, looking up quickly. "I'd been studyin' up on that book like a lawyer, thinkin' it was goin' to be the wedge I'd use one of these days to split me off from the old lady, but it works around the other way on in the end. It made me solid with her by savin' my life. If I'd 'a' been killed this morning, Rawlins, I believe she'd 'a' kicked me into my grave like a cat."
Rawlins shook his head in forceful denial, although he felt that Peck was not so very far off the truth, hollow instrument of understanding that he was.
"I think you've got her sized up wrong, Peck."
"No, I ain't," Peck declared hotly. "You never had her grab her hands in your moustache and try to bat your brains out agin a rock. But I'll forgive her for all her rough work and raw deals if she'll show me she's reformed enough to hand over a bale of that long-green. If she ain't, my first plan goes through. I'll sell them sheep and hit the breeze back to St. Joe. She's got to show me; she's got to hunt Riley up and give him back his job. If it hadn't been for Riley lendin' me that divorce book where'd I 'a' been right now? She'd 'a' been plantin' toadstools on my grave."
Peck went off to attend his sheep after dinner, his gun against his leg, no more troubled over having killed a man than if he had been doing that sort of thing right along. He seemed to take so much satisfaction out of the event, and enlarge himseif to such overspreading importance, that Rawlins wondered whether he was in the way of becoming a killer, as he had heard of trifling and insignificant men turning out in the old days of Dodge City, and other lawless towns of the Kansas frontier. Peck was like a sheep-dog that had tasted the blood of its flock. He would do to watch.
Mrs. Peck drove in when the sun was low, bringing supplies. She reported everything quiet at the fence, nobody in sight, no interference with her passage, which she had been ready to contest with any force, her courage had mounted so high. But she wore a worried look, in spite of her day's triumphs.
Peck was still afield with the sheep; they could hear him singing "After the Ball." He would be starting them to the bedding-ground soon, and was getting himself in tune for the melodious whooping with which he would round out the labors of the day.
Mrs. Peck got down from the high seat of the wagon, her eyebrows pulled together in a black knot. She looked at Rawlins, who had come to the door to greet her, as if she had something to say that concerned him; seemed to reconsider, going about her unloading silently.
"Ned, what do you think?" she said presently, turning to him abruptly. "Edith's run off!"
"Run off?" he repeated in amazement, his heart seeming to fall like a bucket in a well. "What in the world would she want to run off for?"
"You can search me! Unless it's a man. I think maybe she's been writin' to some more of them mail-order fellers, and one of 'em's coaxed her to run off and meet him."
"I don't think she'd do a thing like that."
"She left early this morning—Elmer come in, he said Al Clemmons saw her pass, headin' toward Jasper. She can't git there before to-morrow afternoon—I'll have plenty of time to go over to Albin Jacobsen's in the morning and telephone the sheriff to stop her. I wanted to ask you if you think I ought to, or just let her go her way."
"Let her go her way," Rawlins replied, resentful of Edith's treachery, as he felt the desertion to be. "If she wants to cut out and leave us that way, let her go. But why would she run away? She wouldn't have to do it, would she?"
"No, she's her own man now. But it looks mighty queer to me."
"It certainly does look queer."
"She didn't leave me no letter nor nothing, only that little note tellin' me Mr. Peck was up here."
"I'm pretty sure she's got something in view we don't understand, and I can't believe it's a man," Rawlins said, his generosity rising up to the girl's defence. "She'll probably be back in three or four days."
"I don't know what to do—I don't want to see her go wrong—but she's her own man."
"I don't believe I'd interfere in her plans, whatever they are," he advised. "If she's running off with—if she's just running off, that's her own business; you couldn't stop her if you wanted to. If she's just gone to Jasper to get some pretty clothes or a little hat, or something, she'd resent your interference, don't you think?"
Mrs. Peck looked off across the valley, on the farther rim of which Peck was beginning to raise his voice in the evening round-up of the sheep. She drew a big breath, as of inspirational relief, the perplexity of her brows relaxing, calm settling over her face.
"I'll ask Mr. Peck about it," she said.