Over on the Dry Side (3 page)

Followin' that trail that day didn't look like good business, so I angled off through the trees, just getting myself out of harm's way. I wasn't no way eager for a shootin' over anything like that, but I didn't figure to back up, neither. So I worked my way up a slope, turned north and then west with the lay of the land and the trees, and suddenly I come out atop a mesa, riding down amongst some all-fired big ponderosas, scattered spruce and aspen. Coming down through some big old trees I come upon a cabin.

It set on a slab of solid rock with a big wide view of the whole country spread out in front. A body could see the Sleeping Ute, the great juttin' prow of Mesa Verde, and way afar off, the Abajo and La Sal mountains of Utah. Some trees growin' on the edge of the cliff kind of screened the cabin off, but a man with a good glass could of picked up ridin' men some distance away.

The builder had cut grooves in the solid rock and put in fitted squared-off timbers that were nigh two-foot through. They'd been fitted like they'd growed that way, and the roof was strongly built and solid.

I knocked on the door, expectin' no answer, and none came. So I lifted the latch and stepped in.

I got a surprise.

The place was empty. But the floor was swept clean, the hearth dusted, and everything spic an' span. There was a faint smell in the room that wasn't the smell of a closed-up place. It was a fresh, woodsy smell. And then I seen on a shelf behind me a pot with flowers in it and some sprigs of juniper.

The flowers wasn't two days old, and when I looked in the pot there was water for 'em.

There was no bedding. There were no clothes hung on the pegs along the wall, and no dishes for cookin' 'cept for a coffeepot.

Outside, there was a bench by the door, and the grass below it looked like somebody had been settin' there, time to time. That somebody could see our ranch right easy. It was miles away but the air was mountain clear, and you could see the ranch plain as day.

By now I was three miles or more from where I'd come up against the two trouble-hunters, and I'd followed no trail to get here. Yet I knew there must be a trail. Maybe more than one.

I scouted around the place, around the clearing. Now nobody ever said I couldn't read sign, and by the time I'd finished and set down on that bench I knowed a thing or two.

It was a girl or woman who come here, and she didn't come often, but when she did she set awhile. I found no tracks but hers…not even horse tracks.

She must have come by horse. She'd likely left it back in the brush somewheres. This was a deserted, lonely place, and it looked to me like the girl who come here liked to be alone.

Was it the selfsame girl who'd been to Chantry's place? I had me a feelin' it was. From here she could see the Chantry place clear.

Maybe, when she came here, she watched and got curious to see who was living on the Chantry place.

Maybe.

Whoever built this cabin had known what he was doin', anyway. The land sloped gently away in front of the cabin for a hundred yards, and where the grass ended against the trees there were some tall old pines that make it unlikely anybody could see the cabin from way down below, even with powerful glasses.

There was water. And beyond the pines the mountain fell clean away down through timber where no horse could go, nor a man climb up without a good struggle. Behind, there was forest that swelled up into the mountain. A trail could lead off somewhere right or left of that swell.

Suddenly I had me a idea. That woman had cleared up this place and left flowers. She liked the place and she liked it neat. I figgered to let her know somebody was about who liked what she had done. Who liked what she liked.

Under one eave of the house I found a small Indian pot. I taken it, rinsed it good, and half-filled it with water. Then I went down the slope and picked some flowers and put them in the water. This I left on the table where she'd be sure to see it.

Then I scouted for a trail to go back down and found one. It was a faint trail, but it had seen some use, time to time. First off, I looked for sign. Whatever there was seemed to be maybe a week old. I followed along, studying tracks. It was a horse that weighed no more than eight hundred pound, but with a nice, even pace. And the woman who rode that horse was small, 'cause I saw the hoof tracks when the horse was unmounted and after, and her weight didn't make hardly a single bit of difference.

Now I knew that trail led somewhere, and I had me a idea it led right to where those two men had come from, who braced me on the trail. So once I spotted the direction the trail taken, I moved into the timber and hightailed it for the Chantry place. To home.

Pa was out near the barn and he looked up when I come in. “First time you ever come home without meat, boy. What's the matter? Didn't you see nothin'?”

“Never got a good shot,” I said. “Next time it'll be different.”

“We got to have meat, son. I'll take a walk down the meadow, come sundown. Sometimes there's a deer feedin' down thataway.”

Chantry come out on the steps. He threw me a quick, hard look. He'd dusted off his black suit and polished his boots with a rag. He stood there on the steps, looking toward the mountains while I filled a bucket of water for the house. We all kept busy for a while, even Chantry, with his thoughts.

It was coming up to sundown now, and when Pa took his rifle and started off, Chantry just stood there watching him go. “He's a good man, your father is,” he said. “A real good man.”

“Yessir. We've had us some hard luck.”

“This is rough country,” Chantry replied. “I like what he's doing here.”

“He just plain fell in love with the place.…All the work that somebody else had done. He couldn't just go off an' leave it be.”

“I know.” Chantry looked at me again. “Now, boy, tell me what you saw today.”

“What I saw? I…” Well, I started to lie, but he was looking right straight into my eyes and smiling a little, and suddenly I didn't want to lie to him. So I told him the whole business from the start. Leaving out the flowers.

“You think she and those men came from the same outfit?”

“There ain't too many outfits around I know of. I think
maybe
it's the same outfit. She bein' a woman.…Maybe she's got different feelings.”

“That might be the reason. And sometimes an honest person gets roped into a setup they don't rightly know how to get clear of. What about that cabin? Anything strike you odd about it?”

“Yessir. I believe it was built by the same man who built this. The same kind of work.…Only that place up there is older. I think maybe he lived up there first and kept lookin' down on this flat country and decided to come down here and settle.”

“Might be right. Or maybe he just wanted two homes. One up high, one down below.” He looked at me again. “What's your name, boy?”

“Doban Kernohan. They call me Doby.”

“Irish.…Well, we come of the same stock, Doby. I'm Irish, too.…Mostly Irish. My family left the old country a long time ago, and an ancestor of mine went to Newfoundland, then to the Gaspé Peninsula. From there to here, it's a long story.”

“You got a first name, mister?”

“Owen. A name that is sometimes Irish, and sometimes Welsh, they tell me. Well, there's been a sight of changing of names, Doby, especially among the Irish.

“There was a time long ago when Irishmen were ordered by law to take an English name, and around about fourteen sixty-five, a time later, all those in four counties were to take the name of a town, a color, or a skill. Such as Sutton, Chester, Cork, or Kinsale for the town. Or the colors—any one they'd happen to choose. Or a trade, such as carpenter, smith, cook, or butler, to name just a few.

“And some of the Irish changed their names because there was a move against us. Many in my family were killed, and when my great-grandfather escaped to England he was advised never to tell his true name, but to take another…or he'd be hunted down. So he took the name Chantry, although how he came by it I do not know, unless he happened to see and like the name, invented it, or took it from some man he admired. In any event, the name has served us well, and we, I trust, have brought it no dishonor.”

“I know little Irish history,” I said.

“That's likely, Doby, but the thing to remember is that this is your country now. It's well to know about the land from which you came. There's pride in a heritage, but it's here you live. This is the land that gives you bread.

“Yet it's a good thing to know the ways of the old countries, too, and there's no shame in remembering. There's some as would have it a disgrace to be Irish.…You'll find places in eastern cities where they'll hire no man with an Irish look or an Irish name. A good many of those who come here are poor when they land, and nobody knows what lays behind them.

“Some are from families among the noblest on earth, and there's many another who's put a ‘Mac' or an ‘O' to his name to which he's not entitled. But a man is what he makes himself, no matter what the blood or barony that lays behind him.”

“What was your family name, Mr. Chantry, sir?”

“We'll not be talking of that, Doby. Three hundred years gone by and every child of the family has known the name. But not one has spoken it aloud. And so we shall not. Chantry is the name we've taken, and Chantry is the name we'll keep.”

“Did you come here to claim your brother's ranch? Pa says it's yours by right.”

“No, lad, I came not for that. There was another thought in my mind, though t'was my brother I wished to see. The ranch will be your Pa's and after him yours—but only to keep, and not to sell. I'll make a deed that way.…But I'll want living quarters here when I pass by, and I think I'll claim the cabin up there the mountains are holding for me.”

Something in my face drew his notice, for I was right worried, thinking of the girl. “What is it, boy? What's troubling you?” he asked.

“It's just the girl…the woman, sir. I believe she likes the mountain place. I believe she goes there to be alone. She left some flowers there…” I said.

“If she loves the place she can come when she wills, but give it up, I'll not.” Owen tapped his breast pocket. “I've a deed here to all the land you've claimed and more. Even the slope of the mountain is mine, and a bit beyond it, here and there.

“Four sections your father has claimed, and those four sections he can have. There's thirty more I'll keep for myself, for I've a love for this western land, and here I may stop one day after I've done some things that need doing.”

It was the most I'd heard him talk, and the most he did talk for many another day.

A
T DAYBREAK MY eyes opened to hear the echo of a rifle, and I came bolt upright and scared. Pa was puttin' on his pants and reaching for his gun.

But we couldn't see aught. Only that Chantry was gone and his horse was gone, too. But an hour later when he came in he had some nice cuts of venison wrapped in its own hide.

“Here's some meat,” he said. “I'll not be a drone, Kernohan.”

Chantry did his share of the woodcuttin' too, and he was a better than fair hand with an ax, cuttin' clean and sure and wasting no effort. Yet he stayed close to the house, spending most of his time on the porch with his glass in his hand to study the rise of the mountains.

Once I asked if I could look through it. “Yes,” he said, “but handle it gentle. There's not its like in the world, I'm thinking. It was made some time ago by a man in a country far from here. He was the greatest master of his craft, and the lenses of this scope he ground himself.”

It was astonishing the way the mountains leaped up at you. Far away as we were, you could almost reach out and touch the trees. I could even make out the cabin behind its trees, the bench at the door.

Was it that he was watching? I felt a pang of jealousy, then. Was he watching for her?

Chapter 3

I
T WAS LONELY country. When Chantry come along he brought some news. We'd heard nothing of what went on. Here and there a prospector worked in the hills, but they were shy of Indians and so kept out of sight, just comin' and goin' on the run.

South of us, in New Mexico, folks had told us there wasn't no white men at all, that those who come before us had just gone on through or left their hair in some Indian's wickiup.

Some had come, all right, as we had, but they'd not stayed and there was no record of their comings and goings. Pa found a rusted Patterson Colt once, down on a wash to the south of us. An' a couple of bones an' a few metal buttons, all that was left to show for somebody who tried to move into that country.

But there was Indians a-plenty, though a body saw mighty few of 'em. There were Utes to the north and around us, Navajos to the west and south, and Apaches east. Some friendly, some almighty mean and evil. Some just plain standoffish, wantin' to stay to themselves and not be bothered. Well, we didn't aim to bother them none.

“I never give 'em much thought,” Pa said. “No more'n I would a white stranger. They're folks. They got their ways, we got ours. If we cross, we'll talk it over or fight, whichever way they want it to be.”

Chantry agreed. “You can't talk about all Indians the same way, boy. Any time a man comes along and says ‘Indians' or ‘Mexicans' or ‘Englishmen' he's bound to be wrong. Each man is a person unto himself, and you'll find good, bad, and indifferent wherever you go.”

Didn't seem to me that Owen Chantry was taking any chances, though. When he put his pants on in the morning he also put on his gun belt and his gun. Most men put their hat on first. He put on that gun belt 'fore he drew on his boots.