Passin' Through (1985) (12 page)

"Are you riding that buckskin?"

"No, ma'am. I'm eatin' breakfast. Will you join me?"

"Did you ride the buckskin to town?"

"It was either that or walk and I never walk anywhere when I can get a horseback."

She was a right pretty girl and was the one I'd seen in town before. I had stood up when she spoke to me and now I said, "Ma'am? Won't you sit down? I can't sit whilst you're standin' an' my breakfast is gettin' cold."

She sat down, and I did, too. The woman who ran the place along with her husband, she came out and brought coffee. "Breakfast, miss?"

"No, thank you. I've already eaten."

She looked at me out of the prettiest blue eyes I'd seen in a month of Sundays and she said, "That horse belongs to me."

"He's a fine horse," I said.

"Is that all you have to say?"

"No, ma'am. Time to time I talk right smart. As a matter of fact I just rode him over from the ranch. I was figurin' on breakfast and maybe seein' you."

"Me?"

"Yes, ma'am. I saw you over here just the other day, and I thought then I'd surely like to see you again. I hadn't tried because I'm not much of a hand with women. I can handle a horse or cow, a pick or shovel, a single jack and drill steel, or a gun, but with women I don't do so good. Especially when they are as pretty as you."

"You're doing all right."

"Thank you, ma'am. I had an idea who you were. You're Janet Le Caudy."

Her eyes were cool. "Now how did you know that?"

"I got a mule that reads the past, present, and future," I said. "He told me who you were and that you owned half the ranch I've been workin' on."

She looked at me, a faint stir of amusement in her eyes. "I'd like to meet your mule. What else did he tell you?"

"That you had best be very careful around here. Several other people claim that ranch and one of them is Lew Paine."

"He's a relative by marriage but I've never met him."

"You're lucky. If I were you I'd avoid him."

"Do you work for that woman? The one who is living on the ranch?"

"There's two women. No, I don't exactly work for them although I've been fixin' up around. Do you know Reed Bell?"

"No, I don't believe I do."

"Kind of a square-built man? Wearin' city clothes? A brown suit, often. Thick mustache?"

"I've seen him around town."

"He's a Pink. I mean, a Pinkerton man, f a detective."

"So?"

"He's lookin' for some woman, a young woman."

"And you believe it might be me?"

"No, ma'am." I was embarrassed. "This woman would be about thirty, maybe thirty-five. You can't be more than twenty."

"I am nineteen, and I assure you, I haven't murdered anyone."

The woman came in and filled my cup. Janet Le Caudy looked up. "I believe I'll have a cup,too."

When she had her coffee and a swallow of it I said, "Ma'am? Being as you're part owner of that ranch, I'd like to clear something with you. There's a blue roan -"

"The Death Horse?"

I winced a mite. "Ma'am, others may call him that. I like that horse, and for work I've done about the place Mrs. Hollyrood gave me a bill of sale for the roan. Bein' you're half-owner, that bill of sale might not carry me far if you weren't happy with it. If that horse is left around here, somebody is goin' to shoot him. Lew Paine was about to when I stopped him. That's a fine animal, ma'am, an' we i like each other. Maybe it's because he's a loner like me."

"He is said to be a jinx." She studied me, and I saw her eyes go to my open shirt where the red scars of the rope burn still showed. "Aren't you afraid?"

"No, ma'am. That horse brought me to where you are."

She looked at me again, her eyes level and cool, but she seemed to ignore what I'd said. "Those women at the ranch? What are they like?"

Well, now? What were they like? I mulled that one over a mite. "Mrs. Hollyrood, she's an actress. Matty was with the show for a time, too, but I reckon she's new at it. Both of them conduct themselves like ladies. I never saw them anyplace but in the ranch house, and Mrs. Hollyrood -"

"Does she have a good figure?"

That embarrassed me a mite and Janet Le Caudy saw it. You see, I wasn't accustomed to talkin' about women's shapes, not with other women, at least. "I don't rightly know. She always wears a robe. You know, like a kimono or something. My guess would be" - and this was something I hadn't thought of before - "that she has a good figure."

"Gray hair, you said?"

"Yes, ma'am, but always beautifully combed. She keeps herself well and she's a handsome woman."

"Always combed?"

"Yes, ma'am, like she'd stepped out of a bandbox, as the saying is."

"And Matty?"

"A rarely beautiful young woman. Very cool. Smiles almost none at all. Only feature seems to move is her eyes, but I got an idea she listens, too. There's no scare in her. When one of Paine's friends rushed the house with a torch to burn them out, she shot him dead."

"Good for her. That's a beautifully built house. I'd not like to see it burned."

"She didn't waste no time. She just didn't say aye, yes, or no, she just threw down on him and she wasn't intending to miss."

"What did Mrs. Hollyrood say to that?"

"She never commented on it."

We sat quiet. Looking out the door I could see the shape of the mountain called Baldy, just opposite, beyond the trail that led up La Plata Canyon. The sky was marvelously blue, scattered with white clouds.

"They're planning to sell the ranch," I said.

She smiled. "They will find themselves in trouble. That ranch is almost all I have in the world, and I want it." She looked at me. "I want all of it. Uncle John wanted me to have it. He told me so several times."

"He told you so?"

"I have several letters he wrote to me."

And in my pocket I had a will that left it all to her. This shaped up like a women's fight and I couldn't see any way I could get anything but the worst of it because I stood right in the middle of it. All my good sense told me to get the roan and light out. I mean, to put some trail behind me. But that would mean I would have to leave where she was.

That stopped me cold in my thinkin'

tracks. Was I off my trail completely? All the sign showed trouble comin' and trouble that was none of mine. Was I going to get myself shot over a pair of blue eyes and some freckles across her nose? And what about Matty? Or Mrs. Hollyrood, who was plannin' on fixin' supper for me?

Settin' there across the table from her, I found myself not wantin' to pick up an' move. All my life I'd had trouble talkin' to womenfolks but I had no such trouble with her. Moreover, she was in trouble. But so were those other women, so just where did I stand? I had a will, but I had no idea what it meant. If Phillips had written a later will, this here one I had wasn't worth the paper it was written on.

"Ma'am? Was I you I'd walk careful. I don't have any idea what you're up against but I've a feelin' these folks can be right mean. That Lew Paine, now -"

"I know about him." She looked up at me. "I have a friend, too, a man who has offered to help me. He knows about situations and people like these. He should ride into town almost anytime now."

"An old friend?"

"No, as a matter of fact, I just met him. When he found out where I was going, he became interested, he said he had property out here and would help me. He thinks I should meet with Mrs. Hollyrood and settle it out of court. He suggested I ride out to the ranch with him."

Well, I got my back up. Was I jealous? What right had I to be? Nonetheless, I was suspicious. These strangers a person meets traveling . . . well, a body has to be careful.

"I'll be around," I said. "If you need me, call on me." Suddenly, I was even more suspicious. "This man you met? Is he a lawyer?"

"He's an Englishman. He is an adjuster for some estates in England and is accustomed to dealing with matters of this kind."

"Their laws are different than ours." Were my suspicions due to jealousy?

"He's a very distinguished man. His name is Charles Pelham Clinton, and he said he would be glad to speak for me. He has to be here anyway."

Well, maybe. But I made a vow to be around and keep my eyes open. Still, I admitted grudgingly, it could happen just that way. She was a mighty fetching girl, and a man who had to be here anyway - Well, why not? I'd have done it. In fact, I was offering to do what I could.

We talked some more and then she suddenly got up. "I must be going, Mister -?"

"They been callin' me Mr. Passin', for Passin' Through, which I usually am."