The Trail Rider/Chapter 3
TEXAS worked his way round to where Sallie McCoy waited on her horse just inside the corral gate. The bow-legged man was talking with her, combing her horse's mane with his fingers.
"They'd just as well hand you the money right now, Miss Sallie," he said.
"You're too sure, Mr. Winch," she returned, laughing a little, all rosy through the faint brown of her face and neck.
Texas Hartwell drew a few slow steps nearer, something timid in his way, to hear again the vibrant music of her voice. What marvels the world held for him that day, he thought; what a vast amount of beauty and sensation it had been keeping from him here in this far-away place. First the one in velvet had taken away his breath, and now this one seemed to be calling the very heart out of his breast. In spite of his efforts to hold it anchored, he knew its peril was great.
"I don't know who this Wichita lady is," the man whom she had called Winch went on, "but I'll bet seven dollars to one she can't come in half a minute of you."
"I hope you didn't bet any money on me," she said, a bit reproachfully.
Yes, the other one was handsome, with a disdainful, haughty lift to her white chin, thought Texas, but this one was good. A man could look right down into her eyes, he'd bet, and see the bottom of her soul all white like pebbles in a spring.
"Didn't we?" Winch wanted to know, with a large discount in his tone. It was as much as if he had asked her how any gentleman could stand aside with money in his pocket and fail to hazard it in the honor of his community, and the heart and jewel of that community, and hope to hold his head up in the eyes of men again. It was a feeling in which Texas shared, and warmed with the generosity of it, his heart applauding the little bow-legged man.
Miss Sallie smiled down to Mr. Winch. Appreciation honestly bestowed, thought Texas. There was not the girl to go about throwing smiles away as if they were trifles to be had for the looking. A man might well leap to catch a smile like that, and put it away in his heart to keep, like a rare poem that has moved his soul.
Mr. Winch did not appear to suspend his breathing on account of it. Texas wondered why. On the other hand, Mr. Winch was doing some smiling himself, of a rather mirthless and sardonic kind, which lifted his great black mustache as a cat moves its lip before a spring. Peculiar teeth Mr. Winch had, slanting outward, giving his lips a bulge. They gave one the thought that he must have begun very early in his life gnawing, like a beaver, on some hard substance.
"We went the limit, Miss Sallie," he said, "and I've got just seven old bony dollars left that say Miss Fannie Goodnight, nor no other woman from Wichita or anywhere else, can come inside of thirty seconds of matchin' your time."
"I'd be sorry if any of you boys were to lose money on me. Maybe she'll beat me."
"Wait till she does," said Winch, in high confidence of security. "Well, here she comes, and sa-ay people! Look at that ani-mile!"
A bony red steer was passing from the cattle pen into the arena. It was so thin and flat that its ribs could have been counted at twenty yards. The creature was slow and spiritless, seemingly bowed under the weight of its great branching horns. It stopped a few rods beyond the gate and stood with its head down, as if its race had been run long ago and it hadn't the strength to carry it another hundred yards.
Sallie McCoy beheld the creature with amaze ment, a flush of indignation burning in her face.
"That thing wasn't in the corral!"
The girl who had made the next best record to Sallie shook her head.
"They drove it in from back there," she said. "It's not on the square—they're goin' to let her rope a ghost."
Texas Hartwell looked hard at the lean and lifeless, desiccated, mangy steer. He stood as if paralyzed by amazement, incredulity in every line of his solemn face. Presently he walked back to the judges, taking the ground in immense strides, like a man who was either very angry or very earnest.
"Gentle-men, you're not goin' to permit this, surely?" He spoke in what seemed a gentle protest. The judges looked down on him indifferently. "Why gentle-men, that thing ain't an animal—it's a dead carcass!"
"We're judges of this game, young man," the eldest of the trio said.
He was a man of congested face and bleached-linen whiteness of hair which told of alcoholic curing. His purple lips were thick, his teeth black and broken, his eyes rimmed with red. A little line of scraggy white brows marked sharply the aggravated redness of his skin.
Texas marked him well, in slow and silent look, as if gathering points of identification against the meeting of another day. The slow calm scrutiny nettled the man; he spoke sharply:
"We can take care of this without any of your help."
"I allow that, gentle-men," Texas yielded, respectfully, "but I tell you, sirs, I could stand off twenty feet and blow that pore old onery beast over with my breath! The young lady that just finished roped and hobbled one of the wildest animals I ever saw. I want to see her given a square deal, gentle-men; that's all I ask of you."
"Who in the Billy Hell are you?" the youngest of the judges sneered.
That sweeping flush which seemed the leaping pulse of his deepest emotion flooded the young man's face. He stood as if biting a nail, the hard muscles of his lean jaw swelling, holding himself in with an effort. His voice was steady and calm, soft and low, when he replied: "If it was necessary for you to know, to insure justice where justice is due, I could tell you, sir. I assure you that I'm as well known to you as to the young lady I'm speaking in behalf of, sir."
The man with the megaphone was announcing Miss Fannie Goodnight, of Wichita. Cheers greeted her name, but they were blurred by a questioning murmur, which broke into derisive calls here and there, and loud shrill questions from cowboy throats as to the family of the animal before them.
"You'll have to get out of here!" ordered the red-faced man.
"Clear out—get back over there!"
The youngest of the judges spurred forward, reined in short, brought his horse to its haunches two yards from where Texas stood. The lean, solemn cattleman did not give an inch, but looked the other such a challenge, eye to eye, as would have meant, under other circumstances, the slinging of guns. He turned slowly and went back to the corral gate, where Sallie McCoy was waiting, her face white, a shadow of terror in her sad brown eyes.
Winch looked at Texas curiously, but did not speak, for at that moment Fannie Goodnight started on her conquest of the apathetic steer. She was well mounted, and handled her long-legged horse with every evidence of much experience in the saddle.
As she rode into the field the steer lifted his sad head and trotted to the center, where he stood, entirely unmoved by the scene so widely different from the pastures of his youth. He displayed a little burst of kindling spirit when the velvet-clad beauty made a dash for him, her reata whirling over her head, even giving her a race round the enclosure that had in it a promise of surprise. The bony creature's unexpected nimbleness provoked laughter and cheers, and genuine expressions of admiration when he checked himself in full career, swerving and dodging like a dog.
It would have passed off very creditably for Miss Goodnight if she had been wise enough to know exactly when to put a stop to this play. But she worked the poor old steer at his tricks so long that she uncovered her hand.
"He's trained for it! I'll bet money she's been puttin' him through them tricks for the last six months, gettin' ready for it," said Winch.
"It looks like it," Texas admitted, more ashamed that a woman would stoop to such sharp practice than concerned over what now seemed the certain loss of the money that he had staked on Sallie McCoy.
A cowboy who had been perched on the fence near by came hurrying over to where Texas stood, pegging along in halting short steps on his ridiculous high heels. He was full of protest against this imposition, and mad to the backbone. But before he could express himself in words an irruption of cheers submerged him. Miss Goodnight had rounded her steer to the most conspicuous point of the arena, thrown her rope, brought him to the earth.
There the steer lay stretched as pacifically as if he had arranged himself for his afternoon nap, legs extended, head on the ground, the slack barely taken out of the rope. No dust was raised by struggling legs to cut off the view of Miss Goodnight's operations with her hobble. The steer allowed her to bind him with no more resistance than a pet dog.
There were cheers from a certain section of the grand stand where the young lady's partizans appeared to be gathered in force, laughter breaking against the hoarse masculine shouting in rising waves. Texas and Winch stood with watches out, Sallie McCoy on her horse near them so indignant over this dishonest trick that she looked as if she would fight a sack of wildcats.
Miss Goodnight stepped back from her conquest of the steer; the vociferous section of the grand stand lifted a louder cheer, with waving hats. But there was a significant silence in other parts of the crowd, a questioning quietude.
"You beat her anyhow—you beat her to a fare-you-well!" said Winch.
"By seventeen seconds," said Texas, looking up at her openly and boldly for the first time.
"Wait a minute—the judges—"
"Miss McCoy! I congratulate you! It was a magnificent victory, magnificently won!"
The speaker was a minister, beyond any mistake, short, round, half-bald, wholly jolly to see in spite of his somber coat. He came up hat in one hand, the other reaching out toward Sallie McCoy while still ten feet away, as if his heart went before him with the warm radiation of his sleek little body.
"The judges—" Sallie began once more, doubtfully.
The judges were approaching the grand stand. The young man who had ridden his horse at Hartwell took the megaphone from the announcer, rode forward from the others a little way.
"The judges—have the pleasure—of announcing—to you"—he spoke in a jerky, ringside delivery that told at once of his apprenticeship, no matter what his present trade—"the winner—of the ladies'—roping—contest. Miss Fannie Goodnight—wins the purse—and the honors—by two seconds—over—her nearest—competitor. I have the pleasure—of introducing—to you—Miss Fannie Goodnight—of Wichita—winner—of this event."
Cheers again from that conspicuous section of the grand stand. Miss Fannie Goodnight was on her horse, nodding her pretty head at her fervent friends. Now they came pouring down into the arena, while other people who had put money on the local favorite, perhaps, or perhaps out of a spirit of fairness, stood protesting to each other, comparing Records, facing angrily toward the judges. In this part of the spectators were many cowboys. These now began to draw together and move down into the arena.
At the announcement of the judges' decision, Hartwell saw Sallie McCoy's face grow white. He looked into the eyes of Winch and the cowboy, and saw there what they in turn read in his. As if given a command to march, they turned and bore down on the judges.
Already these smiling tricksters were receiving the congratulations and thanks of the clique of gamesters with whom they had arranged the plot for a big clean-up. Led by Texas, the three champions of Sallie McCoy pushed through the crowd. Texas stood before the young man who had made the announcement and laid hold of his bridle.
"I know it ain't goin' to do a bit of good to pro-test to this decision you've made—"
"Then shut your fly trap!" the young man advised.
"But I want to ex-press my sentiments to your faces," Texas continued, holding back his wrath as a just man does the drawing of his weapon. "I've been among thieves on the highways and byways of the world before to-day, but I never run into a gang that was as low to the ground as you!"
The fellow jerked his reins to throw off Hartwell's hand.
"That's about all you need to say, pardner!" he warned.
"It does about cover the case," said Winch.
"You robbed that girl, and I want to tell you a set of crows that'd do a trick like that'd rob a church!"
Texas flung the bridle reins from him with disdain, making the horse shy and rear. The rider leaned toward him, his face black with rage.
"A bunch of tin-horns like you—"
Words were too weak for him; he cast them aside, spurred his horse forward in a sudden bound, plainly determined to ride his accuser down and trample him.
The crowd fell back with sharp cries. Texas sprang to meet the plunging horse, caught it by the bit, held it while it reared and struck at him in the agony of its rowelled sides. The rider swung his quirt, bringing the heavy, leather-braided handle down on Hartwell's head.
Then followed, as quick as a man could sling a gun and fire, a thing such as no man in that crowd ever had seen before. The lean cowman threw a hand to the distracted horse's poll, while with the other he held the bit; forced the animal back to its haunches, its fore feet striking; twisted its neck and threw it, as neatly as if he had a rope on its leg.
The rider flung himself from the saddle as the horse fell, and struck the ground with his gun in his hand. There was only the length of the horse between them, and for a moment the bulk of the animal interposed as it struggled to its feet and galloped off. People cleared away from Hartwell like smoke before a wind, leaving him standing alone.
In the old gun-slinging days on the Arkansas Valley range there was but one thing to do when you drew your weapon, and that was to shoot. A draw for a bluff, a moment's hesitation—even the hairsbreadth shading of a moment—was a thing generally fatal to your future calculations. That was where the unhorsed judge fell into error. He stood for a heart-beat with the gun in his hand, as if he did not know the code.
Texas covered the ground between them in a leap. The revolver went off as the humiliated judge fell before the stranger's rush, adding to the confusion of the mixup that the dust and smoke made for a moment indistinct. When things cleared a little Texas had the gun. He threw it down and set his big foot on it, and met his opponent hand to hand as he scrambled from the ground.
The danger over, the crowd closed around the struggling men again, with cries of derision and encouragement, curses, offers to bet on the outcome. Hartwell had hold of the quirt which the fellow had managed, somehow, to sling to his wrist by its stout leather thong. With a wrench he broke the leather and stepped back with the short rawhide whip in his hand.
There was blood on the judge's face, his hat was trampled under foot, his garments were covered with dust. He stood panting and winded, so heavily overmatched that he seemed to realize the uselessness of renewing the squabble, and to be waiting for some way to open that would let him out of it.
Texas was pulling the slack up out of his sleeve, swinging his long arm like a man getting ready to put a shot. Before many had guessed his intention he had the judge by the neck, and began whipping him as one might beat a vicious dog.
Protests rose as the dust flew out of the fellow's shirt, as he struggled and squirmed and struck wild blows, some of which fell on the man who chastised him, more of which missed. Men who would have held off in an unequal fight with a gun on one side and none on the other, pressed in and reached out to put an end to the castigation.
That was the point, in the height of the confusion, the heat of the crowd's partizanship, the face of the threat against the stranger, that Winch, the bow-legged man, came to the front. He pushed himself into the little space that Texas kept clear by his whirlwind operations, his coat open, his hands on his guns. His elbows stuck out at a sharp angle, suggestive of steel springs holding them ready to flash those guns before a man could half bat an eye. He leaned forward a little, a peculiar eagerness in his thin face, an electric brightness in his eyes.
"Stand back, gentlemen, and let the law take its course!" said Winch, speaking very mildly, but in a voice that carried far even above the growl of the disgraced man's friends who were running to his support.
The crowd pressed back, the color dropping out of men's faces, whispers running from lip to lip like the ripple of wind over water. Nobody questioned the bow-legged man's authority, nobody put hand to a gun to defend the issue. Texas released his grip on the man's throat, gave him a parting blow in the face with his open hand, broke the whip and threw the pieces after him as he staggered away.
"Here," he called, picking up the gun, breaking it and ejecting the cartridges, "take this thing with you, you ornery houn'!"
In the confusion attending the fight the other two judges rode off and, it appeared also, the bookmakers who had profited by their crooked award had vanished as well. A clamoring crowd of cowboys and cattlemen was sweeping across the field looking for them, and others were hastily fetching their horses and loosening their ropes with unmistakable signs of hostility.
In the whirl of it Texas lost sight of Winch. Although he looked for him with the intention of thanking him for his timely support, the little bow-legged man could not be found. Turning to leave the field, he saw Sallie McCoy, who had ridden up near the place where he had lashed the dishonest judge with his own rawhide. There was something of gratitude and admiration in her face that thrilled him, and an elusive message in her clear brown eyes that warmed him to the marrow and made him proud. He touched his hat as he looked up into her face.
She bent her head a little in acknowledgment of the salute. A rich flood of color rushed over her face, and Texas was not sure, but he believed that she smiled just a little as she wheeled her horse and galloped away. It was as if she had waited there for that exchange of courtesies, as one who is incapable of smallness in either thought or deed stands by to give a word to another of the same spirit whom he never may meet on the world's long road again. It was an obligation of one brave spirit to another, and, being paid, there was no more to linger for.
Texas watched her as she rode away, and was standing gazing like a man in a dream at the dust that hung after she had passed from his sight beyond the corral gate, when Uncle Boley found him. The old man offered his hand, his blue eyes sparkling with satisfaction.
"You dusted that feller's hide, and you dusted it right!" he said. "It was worth all that gang crooked out of me to see that, and I ain't got no regrets, only that I roped you into it, Texas, and made you drop that roll you won."
"I'm richer a sight, sir, than I was two hours ago," Texas said. "I've got fifty dollars left. It's at your disposal, sir, to the last cent, if you can use it."
"You ain't under no obligations to me that moneycan pay, Texas."
"Thank you, sir; you're most generous. I was lookin' around for that little man that squared in here and held that crowd off while I was larrupin' that hide-bound houn'-dog. He seemed to get clean away. Do you know who he was?"
"Yes, that was Dee Winch, one of the nicest little fellers in this town. But I wouldn't thank Dee for what he done, if I was you. He's like me, he don't want anybody to thank him. When you meet him just shake hands with him and look him in the eyes and don't say nothin' at all. Dee he'll understand."
"Yes, sir. He seems to be a powerful nice little man."
"Dee is a nice little man, the nicest man, big or little, you'll meet in many a day. Yes, sir, Dee he's killed nineteen men around here in the past four years!"