Novel 1962 - High Lonesome (v5.0) (4 page)

A buckboard went by on the trail, flanked by two riders, but it did not stop, making fast time along the road to Obaro.

“Never figured you to have a family, Dave,” Dutch said, glancing at Lennie; “and she’s no youngster, either.”

“She’s been to school in Texas,” Spanyer replied proudly. “More than you and me can say.”

“You should find a place and roost, Dave. This is no time to be traveling—not with a girl along.”

“We’ll make it.” Then irritably, he added, “I figured on going into Obaro, but now I dasn’t…they might figure I was riding with you boys and I’d be on the run again.”

“Sorry.”

Considine went outside again, and Lennie watched him go, nettled that he had made no attempt to talk to her. She was very curious about him…he was so quiet, and sort of stern.

Spanyer looked after him. “Is he as good as they say?”

Dutch nodded. “Better…he’s as good as any of them ever were, Dave, and you know I’ve seen them all—Courtright, Allison, Hardin, Hickok, Stoudenmire, Pink Higgins, all of them.”

“Then why doesn’t he ride into Obaro and shoot it out with Runyon?”

“He could beat Runyon with guns and they both know it, but he wants to whip him with his hands because that’s the way they’ve always fought.”

“He’s crazy…plumb crazy.”

“They used to ride together. They were saddle partners.”

Spanyer shrugged. “Hell, man, that’s different.”

Considine stood alone near the corral. What was the matter with him? He could not recall feeling this way before, and it irritated him. There was a nameless restlessness on him, something for which he could not account.

Was it because he was so close to Obaro? Was it because Mary was not far away? Or was there something else in him which he did not know?

Recent rains promised water in the
tinajas
, the natural tanks in the rocks along the trail they would follow into Mexico. Honey Chavez would arrange for the horses to be waiting for them in the box canyon, and they could make the switch there and have a good running start. Long ago he had scouted that country in company with a Papago who knew the desert wells and the
tinajas
, and Considine had mapped those places in his mind.

Due south of the box canyon there were
tinajas
that should contain just enough water for their horses and themselves, and their visit would empty them; from there on a posse pursuing them would be waterless. But every mile would be alive with danger, for the Indians would be on the move.

However, leaving the chance of Indians out of it, the plan for the getaway was as close to fool-proof as any such plan could be.

He went over it again, considering every aspect. It was simple, and that was what he liked best of all. There was nothing that could go wrong. Chavez would have the horses there—he would personally see that he did—and if the escape from town was clean, the rest should work like a charm.

The problem of the town remained. Unless they could draw all the people away from the main street there would be small chance, for armed strangers riding into Obaro would arouse immediate suspicion. But he had an idea how he would manage that.

Honey Chavez should be back soon, and knowing Honey, Considine was sure he would have all the information they needed, for Chavez had long since proved himself an expert at this sort of thing.

Considine’s thoughts reverted to Mary. She had chosen wisely, even though he had hated her at the time. Pete had settled down. He was sheriff, but he was running a few cattle, too, and was becoming a man of some importance in Obaro and the surrounding country.

Mary was a tall, pale girl. She was blonde, she was intelligent, and she was lovely, yet somehow he had difficulty in remembering just what she looked like. He told himself that was nonsense, but the fact remained that his recollection of her was no longer distinct. Had he really been in love with her? Or was it merely that his pride was hurt that she jilted him for his friend?

Folks said time was a healer, but time was also a thief. It robbed a man of years, and robbed him of memories.

This would be his last ride in the night, his last run for the border. He was going to have that Mexican ranch; the others could do as they wished.

The wind skittered dried leaves along the ground, and he looked up quickly. There was a faint coolness on the wind…back in the hills there was a rumble of thunder.

Honey Chavez rode in an hour later when the sun had dropped below the horizon. Considine walked out to meet him, and took the heavy sack from his hands. Honey swung down and turned his back to the horse.

“Apaches killed two men and burned a place over east.” He glanced toward the store. “Who’s that inside?”

“Dave Spanyer and his daughter.”

“
Spanyer?
” Chavez looked at him quickly. “Is he with you?”

“He’s quit. He’s headed for California with his daughter.”

“This here is no time to travel with a female.”

“Well,” Considine said sharply, “what about it?”

“The mine has a pay roll at the bank—thirty thousand. There will be twice that much, all told.”

Thunder rolled, and a gust of wind whipped dust into a cloud. There was a brief spatter of rain, and both men started for the barn with the Chavez horse.

“To go into town we’ll need four horses that nobody knows. We’ll leave our own in the box canyon, and when we get to them we’ll turn yours loose.”

“Sounds all right.” Chavez stripped the saddle from his horse and placed it astride a sawhorse in an empty stall. “I saw Runyon. He looks fit.”

Leave it to Pete. He knew Considine would be coming back some day and knew they would settle it with their fists, so he was ready. Pete had always been ready, when it came to that. Considine remembered the time his own horse lost its footing on a narrow mountain trail and started over the edge. Pete Runyon’s rope had come out of nowhere and dropped over his shoulders just as he was going past the edge. It had been a quick bit of business.

Runyon had saved his life on other occasions, too, and Considine had done as much for him. It was nothing they ever talked about, except in joking, for it was all in the day’s work, and was accepted as such.

He could hear the soft laughter of Lennie Spanyer inside the store. She was talking to somebody—Hardy, probably. For a moment he felt a flash of jealousy, and it surprised him. He had not thought that seriously of any girl since Mary…not to say there had been no other girls. There had been a good many, most of them below the border, but he had been careful not to grow too concerned.

Rain came suddenly, and it came hard. The two men ran for the store and stopped on the porch, listening to the roar of the rain on the roof. It was a regular old-time gully-washer. This might complicate things a little if the rain lasted long enough to leave water along the trails.

From the dry earth there arose that strange odor he knew so well, that peculiar smell of long-parched earth when first touched by rain.

On the porch the two stood together, and after a minute Chavez said, “The stuff is there, all right, no question about it. When I went to the bank they were counting the gold into sacks.”

“Hear anything else?”

“I was curious…so I started talk about the fight between you and Runyon. That started an argument…everybody takes sides on that fight.”

“Did you mention my name?”

“No…I don’t think so.”

I
MIGHT HAVE been any cow-country general store at that hour, with rain on the roof and the Kiowa sitting at a table under a coal-oil lamp idly shuffling a pack of cards in his big brown hands. Dutch and Spanyer sat at one side on the counter, swapping stories of the old days.

Hardy cornered Chavez as the two men entered and went off in a corner, arguing with him.

They might have been any group of cowhands waiting for the rain to pass, but tomorrow there would be quick, fateful movements, a thunder of hoofs, perhaps the thunder of guns. Tomorrow they would be riding into Obaro, the town that was the nemesis of outlaws.

Considine watched, fascinated at the flowing, smooth movements of the Kiowa’s brown hands. The man was a marvel with cards.…The old scar on the half-breed’s face stood sharply clear under the lamp.

Spanyer turned to Chavez. “Owe you for supper.”

“That’s all right. You’re a friend of Dutch. You forget it.”

He took a package from the counter and handed it to Lennie.

“What the devil is that?” Spanyer demanded.

Chavez shrugged his fat shoulders. “A present from Hardy here.”

Spanyer’s lips thinned down, and he ripped open the package, exposing several folds of cloth Lennie had admired earlier. Abruptly he thrust the package back at Chavez, then he turned on Hardy.

“When my girl needs clothes, I’ll buy them. Your kind will throw a brand on anything you can. Stay away from her, you hear me?”

“Take it easy…old man.” Hardy’s tone was careless, and he underlined the “old man” with faint contempt.

Spanyer’s face stiffened. “Why, you dirty pup!”

Hardy’s hand dropped for his gun, but Dutch was too quick. He grabbed Hardy, then stepped between them, stopping the half-drawn gun.

Hardy wrenched at the hand, trying to tear free, but aware that Spanyer’s gun had come smoothly into position.

“He’s too fast for you, Hardy,” Dutch said. “Lay off!”

Hardy was suddenly very still. Over Dutch’s shoulder he looked into the slate-gray, icy eyes of the old man and saw no mercy there. Something within him seemed to shrink back. He was afraid of no man, but he knew death when he saw it. Only Dutch’s intervention had saved him. He had never seen a gun drawn so fast before—except by Considine.

“He didn’t mean any harm!” Lennie protested. “He was just trying to be nice.”

“Get over there to your room!” Spanyer gestured toward the building across the plaza.

Lennie’s face flushed, but she turned obediently. She walked out of the door, and Spanyer holstered his gun. His eyes went around their faces, coolly measuring them, and then he followed his daughter.

Hardy stood silent for several seconds, and his anger evaporated—his anger and his surprise.

“Thanks,” he said suddenly. “Thanks, Dutch.”

“Forget it,” Dutch said, then he added in a mild tone, “That’s a tough old man, so don’t think you’ve lost your grip. I’d never try him with a gun, I know that.”

The Kiowa shuffled the cards, the flutter of the deck the only sound in the stillness of the store. Dutch picked up his blankets and started across the plaza, and after a minute Hardy followed.

They were all tense, for the realization of tomorrow was upon them all.

Rolled in her blankets in the room with her father, Lennie stared wide-eyed and sleepless at the darkness above her. She was not thinking of the excitement of the near shooting, but of Considine.

She had never known a man like him—he was so quiet and self-contained, almost brooding. And, despite the fact that he was an outlaw, she knew her father respected him—and Dave Spanyer respected few men.

On the trail after their meeting at the spring in the old outlaw hide-out her father had warned her: “They ain’t no good, Lennie, and it’s a fool thing that Considine has in mind. They’ll get themselves killed, and nothing more.”

Restlessly, she turned over and tried to go to sleep. In spite of the rain it was still hot. Water dripped from the eaves outside, and the room smelled of soiled bedding and damp walls. She turned and twisted, and at last she sat up.

Her father was asleep, and she looked toward him in the darkness, feeling a vast pity for him. He tried so hard, but he knew so little of how to be tender or gentle with her. Yet it was in him to want to be gentle. Was Considine like that?

It was close in the tightly shut room, and she felt stifled. Rising with infinite care—even though her father slept more soundly in these days—she went to the door wearing only her flimsy shift. She glanced once more toward her father, and then eased open the door and stepped out on the long veranda.

After the hot, stuffy room the rain was cool and pleasant. She crossed the yard toward the stable, liking the feel of the mud between her toes, as she had when she was a little girl. Often when lonely she came to the horses, filled with the need to give affection and tenderness.

A flash of lightning revealed low, massive thunderheads above the mesa’s black rim. Somewhere above the storm clouds the moon was out, and a diffused grayness lay over the rainscape.

She walked to the barn and entered. The horses rolled their eyes at her, snorting gently in mock terror. She could see the white of their eyeballs in the vague light within the barn. She whispered to them and rubbed the neck of her mare.

The mare’s head bobbed suddenly, and Lennie turned swiftly to see Considine come through the curtain of rain and into the barn. She drew back against the stall’s side, frightened.

“You shouldn’t be out here at this hour, Lennie.” He spoke quietly, and her fears left her. “This is Apache country.”

“It was so hot and stuffy,” she said.

“I know…but you can never tell about Apaches. They don’t like to fight at night, but that doesn’t keep them from prowling.”

She had no words with which to respond, and she stood there, wanting to say something, to break down the wall between them, to let him see that she was a woman, to feel the tenderness she suspected lay within him. She had talked with few men, and those few were friends of her father’s, and older than she.

“I shouldn’t be talking to you,” he said gloomily. “I’m no kind of a man to talk to a girl like you.”

“I…I like you.”

She said it hesitantly, feeling herself blush at saying such a thing to a man she scarcely knew. It was the first time she had said that to any man, and she was very still inside herself with the wonder of it.

“I’m an outlaw.”

“I know.”

They stood together, facing each other, only a few feet apart, and on the roof above them the rain fell with a pleasant, soothing sound. The thunder had retreated sullenly into the canyons where it muttered and grumbled.