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Mavericks, a fiction by William MacLeod Raine |
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Chapter 4. "I'm A Rustler And A Thief, Am I?" |
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_ CHAPTER IV. "I'M A RUSTLER AND A THIEF, AM I?"
Phyllis took imperious control. "Get a coat on him, Jim," she ordered. At the same time she caught up the basin of bloodstained water and flung its contents through the open window. The torn linen and the stained handkerchief she tossed into a corner and covered with a gunny sack. "Not a word about the wound, Jim. Mr. Keller is here to help you do your assessment work, remember. And whatever I say, don't give me away." Yeager nodded. He had manoeuvred the wounded arm through the coat sleeve and was straightening out the shoulders. The nester's eyes were shining with excitement. Alone of the three, he was enjoying himself. "Remember now. Don't talk too much. Let me run this," the girl cautioned, and with that she stepped to the door, caught sight of her brother with a glad little cry of apparent relief, and ran swiftly to him. "Oh, Phil!" she almost sobbed, and the stress of her emotion was genuine enough, even if she dissembled as to the cause. The boy patted her dark hair gently. They were twins, without other near relatives except their father, and the tie between them was close. "What is it, Phyllie? Why didn't you stay where we left you?" "I was afraid for you. And I rode a little nearer. Then he came straight toward me--and I rode away. I could hear him crashing through the mesquite. When I reached the trail of Jim's mine, I followed it, for I knew he would be here." "Sure. Course she was scared. What woman wouldn't be? We oughtn't both to have left her. But there wasn't one chance in a thousand of his stumbling on the very spot where she was," said Healy. Phil gentled her with a caressing hand. "It's all right now, sis. Did you happen to see the fellow at all?" "Yes. At a distance." "I don't suppose you would know him," Healy said. She gave a strained little laugh. "I didn't wait to get a description of him. Didn't you boys recognize him?" After Phil's answer she breathed freer. "We did not get near enough, though Brill got two shots at him as he pulled out. He was going hell-for-leather and Brill missed both times." He lowered his voice and asked angrily: "What's _he_ doing here?" For Keller had followed Yeager from the cabin and was standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets. He wore no hat, and had the manner of one very much at home. "He's helping Jim with his assessment work," she answered in the same low tone. "It's too bad you lost the rustler. He must have broken for the hills." Healy's eyes had narrowed to slits. Now he murmured a question: "What about this man Keller? Was he here when you came, Phyl?" The girl turned to Yeager, who had sauntered up. "Didn't you say he came this morning, Jim?" Yeager's eyes were like a stone wall. "Yep. This mo'ning. I needed some husky guy to help me, so I got him." "Funny you had to get a fellow from Bear Creek to help you, Jim." "Are you looking for a job, Brill?" "No. Why?" "Because I ain't noticed any stampede this way among the boys to preempt this job. I take a man where I can find him, Brill, and I don't ask you to O.K. him." "I see you don't, Jim. The boys aren't going to like it very well, though." "Then they know what they can do about it," Yeager answered evenly, level eyes steadily on those of his critic. "What time did this nester get here, Jim?" broke in Phil. Yeager's opaque eyes passed from Healy to Sanderson. "It might have been about eight." "Then he couldn't be the man," the boy said to Healy, almost in a whisper. "What man?" Jim asked. "We ran on a rustler branding a C.O. calf. We got close enough to take a shot at him. Then he slid into some arroyo, and we lost him," Phil exclaimed. "How long ago was this?" asked Yeager. "About an hour since we first saw him. Beats all how he ever made his getaway. We were right after him when he gave us the slip." "Oh, he gave you the slip, did he?" "Dropped into some hole and pulled it in after him. These hills are built for hide and seek, looks like." "Notice the color of his horse?" "It was a roan, Jim. Something like that nester's." Phil nodded toward the animal Keller had ridden. All eyes focused hard on the horse with the white stockings. "What brand was he putting on the calf? That'll tell you who the man was." Phil and Healy looked at each other, and the latter laughed. "That's one on us. We didn't stay to look, but got right out for Mr. Rustler." "Did he kill the cow?" Phil nodded. "Then you'll find the calf still hanging around there unless he had a pal to drive it away." "That's right. We'll go back now and look. Ready, Phyl?" "Yes." She stepped to her horse, and swung to the saddle. Meanwhile Healy rode forward to the cabin. Through narrowed lids he looked down at the man standing in the doorway. "Give that message to your friends?" he demanded insolently. There are men who have to look at each other only once to know that there is born between them a perpetual hostility. Each of these men had felt it at the first shock of meeting eyes. They would feel it again as often as they looked at each other. "No," the nester answered. "Why not?" "I didn't care to. You may carry your own messages." "When I do I'll carry them with a gun." "Interesting if true." Keller's gaze passed derisively over him and dismissed the man. "And I hope when I come I'll meet Mr. Keller first." The nester's attention was focused indolently upon the hills. He seemed to have forgotten that the cattleman was in Arizona. Healy ripped out a sudden oath, drove the spurs in, and went down the trail with his broncho on the buck. Keller looked at Yeager and laughed, but that young man met him with a frosty eye. "I've got some questions to ask you, Mr. Keller," he said. "Unload 'em." Yeager led the way inside, offered his guest the chair, and sat down on the bed with his arms on the table which had been drawn close to it. "In the first place, I'll announce myself. I don't hold with rustlers or waddies. I'm a white man. That being understood, I want to know where we're at." "Meaning?" "Miss Phyllis unloads a story on me about you shooting yourself up accidental. Soon as I looked at you that looked fishy to me. You ain't that kind of a durn fool. Would you mind handing me a dipper of water? Thanks." Yeager tossed the water out of the window, and the dipper back into the pail. "I noticed you handed me that water with your right hand. Your gun is on your right side. Then how in Mexico, you being right-handed, did you manage to shoot yourself _in the right arm below the elbow?_" Keller laughed dryly, and offered no information. "Quite a Sherlock Holmes, ain't you?" "Hell, no! I got eyes in my head, though. Moreover, that bullet went in at right angles to your arm. How did you make out to do that?" "Sleight of hand," suggested the other. "No powder marks, either. And, lastly, it was, a rifle did it, not a revolver." "Anything more?" "Some. That side talk between you and Miss Phyllis wasn't over and above clear to me then. I _savez_ it now. She hates you like p'ison, but she's too tender-hearted to give you up. Ain't that it?" "That's it." "She lied for you to me. She lied again to Phil. So did I. Oh, we didn't lie in words, but it's the same thing. Now, I wouldn't lie to save my own skin. Why then should I for yours, and you a rustler and a thief?" "I'm a rustler and a thief, am I?" "Ain't you?" "Would you believe me if I said I wasn't?" Yeager debated an instant before he answered flatly, "No." "Then I won't say it." The wounded man tossed his answer off so flippantly that Yeager scowled at him. "Mr. Keller, you're a newcomer here. I wonder if you know what the Malpais country would be liable to do to a man caught rustling now." "I can guess." "Let me tell what I know and your life wouldn't be worth a plugged quarter." "Why didn't you tell?" Yeager brought his big fist down heavily on the table. "Because of Phyl Sanderson. That's why. She put it up to me, and I played her game. But I ain't sure I'm going to keep on playing it. I'm a Malpais man. My father has a ranch down there, and I've rode the range all my life. Why should I throw down my friends to save a rustler caught in the act?" "You've already tried and convicted me, I see." "The facts convict you, seh." "Your understanding of the facts, I reckon you mean." "I haven't noticed that you're giving me any chance to understand them different," Yeager cut back dryly. The nester took from his pocket a little pearl-handled knife, picked up a potato from a basket beside him, and began to whittle on it absently. He looked across the table at the man sitting on the bed, and debated a question in his mind. Was it best to confess the whole truth? Or should he keep his own counsel? "I see you've got Miss Sanderson's knife. Did you forget to return it?" Yeager made comment. For just an instant Keller's eye confessed amazement. "Miss Sanderson's knife! Why--how did you know it was hers?" he asked, gathering himself together lamely. "I ought to know, seeing as I gave it to her for a Christmas present. Sent to Denver for that knife, I did. Best lady's knife in the market, I'm told. Made in Sheffield, England." "Ye-es. It's sure a good knife. I'll ce'tainly return it next time I see her." "Funny she ever let you get away with it. She's some particular who she lends that knife to," Jim said proudly. Keller wiped the blade carefully, shut it, and put the knife back in his pocket. Nevertheless, he was worried in his mind. For what Yeager had told him changed wholly the problem before him. It suggested a possibility, even a probability, very distasteful to him. He was in trouble himself, and before he was through he expected to get others into deep water, too. But not Phyllis Sanderson--surely not this impulsive girl with the blue-black hair and dark, scornful eyes. Wherefore he decided to keep silent now and let Yeager do what he would. "I reckon, seh, you'll have to do your own guessing at the facts," he said gently. "Just as you say, Mr. Keller. I reckon if you had anything to say for yourself you would say it. Now, I'll do what talking I've got to do. You may stay here twenty-four hours. After that you may hit the trail for Bear Creek. I'm going down to Seven Mile to tell what I know." "That's all right. I'll go along and return the pocketknife." Yeager viewed him with stern disgust. "Don't make any mistake, seh. If you go down it's an even chance you'll never go back." "Sure. Life's full of chances. There's even a chance I'm not a rustler." "Then I'd advise you not to go down to Seven Mile with me. I'd hate to find out too late I'd helped hang the wrong man," Yeager dryly answered. _ |
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