The Bar-20 Three/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II
WELL-KNOWN STRANGERS
THE desert and a paling eastern sky. The penetrating cold of the dark hours was soon to die and give place to a punishing heat well above the hundred mark. Spectral agaves, flinging their tent-shaped crowns heaven-ward, seemed to spring bodily from the radiating circlet of spiny swords at their bases, their slender stems still lost in the weakening darkness. Pale spots near the ground showed where flower-massed yuccas thrust up, lancelike, from their slender, prickly leaves. Giant cacti, ghostly, bulky, indistinct, grotesque in their erect, parallel columns reached upward to a height seven times that of a tall man. They are the only growing things unmoved by winds. The sage, lost in the ground-hugging darkness, formed a dark carpet, mottled by lighter patches of sand. There were quick rustlings over the earth as swift lizards scurried hither and yon and a faint whirring told of some "side-winder" vibrating its rattles in emphatic warning against some encroachment. Tragedies were occurring in the sage, and the sudden squeak of a desert rat was its swan song.
In the east a silvery glow trembled above the horizon and to the magic of its touch silhouettes sprang suddenly from vague, blurred masses. The agave, known to most as the century plant, showed the delicate slenderness of its arrowy stem and marked its conical head with feathery detail. The flower-covered spikes of the Spanish bayonets became studies in ivory, with the black shadows on their thorny spikes deep as charcoal. The giant cacti, boldly thrown against the silver curtain, sprang from their joining bases like huge, thick telegraph poles of ebony, their thorns not yet clearly revealed. The squat sage, now resolved into tufted masses, might have been the purplish-leaden hollows of a great sea. The swift rustlings became swift movements and the "side-winder" uncoiled his graceful length to round a nearby sage bush. The quaking of a small lump of sand grew violent and a long, round snoot pushed up inquiringly, the cold, beady eyes peering forth as the veined lids parted, and a Gila monster sluggishly emerged, eager for the promised warmth. To the northeast a rugged spur of mountains flashed suddenly white along its saw-toothed edge, where persistent snows crowned each thrusting peak. A moment more, and dazzling heliographic signals flashed from the snowy caps, the first of all earthly things to catch the rays of the rising sun, as yet below the far horizon. On all sides as far as eye could pierce through the morning twilight not a leaf stirred, not a stem moved, but everywhere was rigidity, unreal, uncanny, even terrifying to an imaginative mind. But wait! Was there movement in the fogging dark of the north? Rhythmic, swaying movement, rising and falling, vague and mystical? And the ghostly silence of this griddle-void was broken by strange, alien sounds, magnified by contrast with the terror-inspiring silence. A soft creaking, as of gently protesting saddle leather, interspersed with the frequent and not unmusical tinkle of metal, sounded timidly, almost hesitatingly out of the dark along the ground.
Silver turned into pink, pink into gold, and gold into crimson in almost a breath, and long crimson ribbons became lavender high in the upper air, surely too beautiful to be a portent of evil and death. Yet the desert hush tightened, constricted, tensed as if waiting in rigid suspense for a lethal stroke. Almost without further warning a flaming, molten arc pushed up over the far horizon and grew with amazing bulk and swiftness, dispelling the chill of the night, destroying the beauty of the silhouettes, revealing the purple sage as a mangy, leaden coverlet, riddled and thin, squatting tightly against the tawny sand, across which had sprung with instant speed long, vague shadows from the base of every object which raised above the plain. The still air shuddered into a slow dance, waving and quivering, faster and faster like some mad dance of death, the rising heat waves distorting with their evil magic giant cacti until their fluted, thorny columns weaved like strange, slowly undulating snakes standing erect on curving tails. And in the distance but a few leagues off blazed the white mockery of the crystal snow, serene and secure on its lofty heights, a taunt far-flung to madden the heat-crazed brain of some swollen, clawing thing in distorted human form slowly dying on the baking sands.
The movement was there, for the sudden flare of light magically whisked it out of the void like a rabbit out of a conjurer's hat. Two men, browned, leather-skinned, erect, silent, and every line of them bespeaking reliance with a certainty not to be denied, were slowly riding southward. Their horses, typical of their cow-herding type, were loaded down with large canteens, and suggested itinerant water peddlers. Two gallons each they held, and there were four to the horse. One could imagine these men counted on taking daily baths—but they were only double-riveting a security against the hell-fires of thirst, which each of them had known intimately and too well. The first rider, as erect in his saddle as if he had just swung into it, had a face scored with a sorrow which only an iron will held back; his squinting eyes were cold and hard, and his hair, where it showed beneath the soiled, gray sombrero, was a sandy color, all of what was left of the flaming crimson of its youth. He rode doggedly without a glance to right or left, silent, sullen, inscrutable. When the glorious happiness of a man's life has gone out there is but little left, often even to a man of strength. Behind him rode his companion, five paces to the rear and exactly in his trail, but his wandering glances flashed far afield, searching, appraising, never still. Younger in years than his friend, and so very much younger in spirit, there was an air of nonchalant recklessness about him, occasionally swiftly mellowed by pity as his eyes rested on the man ahead. Now, glancing at the sun-cowed east, his desert cunning prompted him and he pushed forward, silently took the lead and rode to a thicket of mesquite, whose sensitive leaves, hung on delicate stems, gave the most cooling shade of any desert plant. Dismounting, he picketed his horse and then added a side-line hobble as double security against being left on foot on the scorching sands. Not satisfied with that, he unfastened the three full canteens, swiftly examined them for leaks and placed them under the bush. Six gallons of water, but if need should arise he would fight to the death for it. Out of the corner of his eye he watched his companion, who mechanically was doing the same thing. Red Connors yawned, drank sparingly and then, hesitating, grinned foolishly and fastened one end of his lariat to his wrist.
"That dessicated hunk of meanness don't leave this hombre afoot, not nohow," said Red, looking at his friend; but Hopalong only stared into the bush and made no reply.
Nothing abashed at his companion's silence, Red stretched out at full length under the scant shade, his Colt at his hand in case some Gila monster should be curious as to what flavor these men would reveal to an inquisitive bite. Red's ideas of Gilas were romantic and had no scientific warrant whatever. And it was possible that a "side-winder" might blunder his way.
"It's better than a lava desert, anyhow," he remarked as he settled down, having in mind the softness of the loose sand. "One whole day of hell-to-leather fryin', an' one more shiverin' night, an' this stretch of misery will be behind, but it shore saves a lot of ridin', it does. I'll bet I'm honin' for a swim in th' Rio Placer—an' I ain't carin' how much mud there is, neither. Ah, th' devil;" he growled in great disgust, slowly arising. " I done forgot to sprinkle them cayuses' insides. One apiece, they get, which is only insultin' 'em."
Hopalong tried to smile, arose and filled his hat, which his thirsty horse frantically emptied. When the canteen was also empty he went back to the sandy couch, to lay awake in the scorching heat, fighting back memories which tortured him near to madness, his mental torments making him apathetic to physical ones. And so dragged the weary, trying day until the cooling night let them go on again.
Three days later they rode into Gunsight, made careless inquiries and soon thereafter drew rein before the open door of the SV, unconscious of the excited conjectures rioting in the curious town.
Margaret Nelson went to the door, her brother trying to push past her, and looked wonderingly up at the two smiling strangers.
Red bowed and removed his hat with a flourish. "Mrs. Johnny?" he asked, and at the nodded assent smiled broadly. "My name's Red Connors, an' my friend is Hopalong Cassidy. He is th' very best friend yore fool husband ever had. We came down to make Johnny's life miserable for a little while, an' to give you a hand with his trainin', if you need it."
Margaret's breath came with a rush and she held out both hands with impulsive friendliness. "Oh!" she cried. "Come in. You must be tired and hungry—let Charley turn your horses into the corral."
Charley wriggled past the barrier and jumped for Hopalong, his shrill whoop of delighted welcome bringing a smile to the stern face of the mounted man. A swoop of the rider's arm, a writhing twist of the boy's body, coming a little too late to avoid the grip of that iron hand, and Charley shot up and landed in front of the pommel, where he exchanged grins at close range with his captor.
"I knowed you first look," asserted the boy as the grip was released. "My, but I've heard a lot about you! Yo're goin' to stay here, ain't you? I know where there's some black bear, up on th' hills—want to go huntin' with me?"
Hopalong's tense, wistful look broke into a smile, the first sincere, honest smile his face had known for a month. Gulping, he nodded, and turned to face his friend's wife. "Looks like I'm adopted," he said. "If you don't mind, Mrs. Johnny, Charley an' me will take care of th' cayuses while Red helps you fix up th' table." He reached out, grasped the bridle of Red's horse as its rider dismounted, and rode to the corral, Charley's excited chatter bringing an anxious smile to his sister, but a heartfelt, prayerful smile to Red Connors. He had great hopes.
Red paused just inside the door. " Mrs. Johnny," he said quietly, quickly, "I got to talk fast before Hoppy comes back. He lost his wife an' boy a month ago—fever—in four days. He's all broke up. Went loco a little, an' even came near shootin' me because I wouldn't let him go off by hisself. I've had one gosh-awful time with him, but finally managed to get him headed this way by talkin' about Johnny a-plenty. That got him, for th' kid allus was a sort of son to him. I'm figgerin' he'll be a lot better off down here on this south range for awhile. Even crossin' that blasted desert seemed to help—he loosened up his talk considerable since then. An' from th' way he grabbed that kid, I'm sayin' I'm right. Where is Johnny?"
"Oh!" Margaret's breathed exclamation did not need the sudden moisture in her eyes to interpret it, and in that instant Red Connors became her firm, unswerving friend. "We'll do our best—and I think he should stay here, always. And Johnny will be delighted to have him with us, and you, too—Red."
"Here he comes," warned her companion. "Where is Johnny? When will he get here?"
"Why, he took a herd down to Mesquite," she replied, smiling at Hopalong, who limped slowly into the room with Charley slung under his arm like a sack of flour. "He should be back any day now. And won't he be wild with delight when he finds you two boys here! You have no idea how he talks about you, even in his sleep—oh, if I were inclined to jealousy you might not be so welcome!"
"Ma'am," grinned Red, tickled as a boy with a new gun, "you don't never want to go an' get jealous of a couple of old horned toads like us—well, like Hoppy, anyhow. We'll sort of ride herd on him, too, every time he goes to town. Talk about revenge! Oh, you wait! So he went off an' left you all alone? Didn't he write about some trouble that was loose down here?"
"It was—but it's cleaned up. He didn't leave me in any danger—every man down here is our friend," Margaret replied, quick to sense the carefully hidden thought which had prompted his words, and to defend her husband.
"Well, two more won't hurt, nohow," grunted Red. "You say he ought to get here any day?"
"I'm spending more time at the south windows every day," she smiled. "I don't know what will happen to the housework if it lasts much longer!"
"South windows?" queried Hopalong, standing Charley on his head before letting loose of him. "Th' trail is west, ain't it?" he demanded, which caused Red to chuckle inwardly at how his friend was becoming observant again.
"The idea!" retorted Margaret. "Do you think my boy will care anything about any trail that leads roundabout? He'll leave the trail at the Triangle and come straight for this house! What are hills and brush and a miserable little creek to him, when he's coming home? I thought you knew my boy."
"We did, an' we do," laughed Red. "I'm bettin' yore way—I hope he's got a good horse—it'll be a dead one if it ain't."
"He's saving Pepper for the homestretch—if you know what that means!"
"Hey, Red," said Charley, slyly. "Yore gun works, don't it?"
"Shore thing. Why?"
"Well, mine don't," sighed the boy. "Wonder if yourn is too heavy, an' strong, for a boy like me to shoot? Bet it ain't."
Margaret's low reproof was lost in Red's burst of laughter, and again a smile crept to Hopalong's face, a smile full of heartache. This eager boy made his memories painfully alive.
"You an' me an' Hoppy will shore go out an' see," promised Red. "Mrs. Johnny will trust you with us, I bet. Hello! Here's somebody comin'," he announced, looking out of the door.
"That's my dad!" cried Charley, bolting from the house so as to be the first one to give his father the good news.
Arnold rode up laughing, dismounted and entered the house with an agility rare to him. And he was vastly relieved. "Well! Well! Well!" he shouted, shaking hands like a pump handle. "I saw you ride over the hill an' got here as fast as Lazy would bring me. Red an' Hopalong! Our household gods with us in the flesh! And that scalawag off seeing the sights of strange towns when his old friends come to visit him. I'm glad to see you boys! The place is yours. Red and Hopalong! I'm not a drinkin' man, but there are times when—follow me while Peggy gets supper!"
"Can I go with you, Dad?" demanded Charley.
"You help Peggy set the table."
"Huh! I don't care! Me an' Hoppy an' Red are goin' after bear, an' I'm goin' to use Red's gun."
"Seems to me, Charley," reproved Arnold, "that you are pretty familiar, for a boy; and especially on such short acquaintance. You might begin practicing the use of the word 'Mister.’"
"Or say 'Uncle Red' and 'Uncle Hopalong,’" suggested Margaret.
"‘Red' is my name, an' I'm shore 'Red' to him," defended that person.
"Which goes for me," spoke up his companion. "I'm Hopalong, or Hoppy to anybody in this family—though 'Uncle' suits me fine."
"Then we'll have a fair exchange," retorted Margaret, smiling. "The family circle calls me 'Margaret' or 'Peggy.’"
"If you want to rile her, call her Maggie," said Charley. "She goes right on th' prod!"
"I'm plumb peaceful," laughed Red, turning to follow his host. "You help Mrs.—Margaret, an' when I come back you an' me'll figger on goin' after bear as soon as we can."