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Sundown Slim, a novel by Henry Herbert Knibbs |
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Chapter 14. On The Trail To The Blue |
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_ CHAPTER XIV. ON THE TRAIL TO THE BLUE In the shade of the forest that edged the mesa, and just back of Fernando's camp, a Ranger trail cuts through a patch of quaking-asp and meanders through the heavy-timbered land toward the Blue range, a spruce-clad ridge of southern hills. Close to the trail two saddle horses were tied. Fadeaway, riding toward his home ranch on the "Blue," reined up, eyed the horses, and grinned. One of them was Chinook, the other Eleanor Loring's black-and-white pinto, Challenge. The cowboy bent in his saddle and peered through the aspens toward the sheep-camp. He saw Corliss and Nell Loring standing close together, evidently discussing something of more than usual import, for at that moment John Corliss had raised his broad Stetson as though bidding farewell to the girl, but she had caught his arm as he turned and was clinging to him. Her attitude was that of one supplicating, coaxing, imploring. Fadeaway, with a vicious twist to his mouth, spat. "The cattle business and the sheep business looks like they was goin' into partnership," he muttered. "Leave it to a woman to fool a man every time. And him pertendin' to be all for the long-horns!" He saw the girl turn from Corliss, bury her face in her arms, and lean against the tree beneath which they were standing. Fadeaway grinned. "Women are all crooked, when they want to be," he remarked,--"or any I ever knowed. If they can't work a guy by talkin' and lovin', then they take to cryin'." Just then Corliss stepped to the girl and put his hand on her shoulder. Again she turned to him. He took her hands and held them while he talked. Fadeaway could see her lips move, evidently in reply. He could not hear what was being said, as his horse was restless, fretting and stamping. The saddle creaked. Fadeaway jerked the horse up, and in the momentary silence he caught the word "love." "Makes me sick!" he said, spurring forward. "'Love,' eh? Well, mebby my little idea of puttin' Billy Corliss in wrong didn't work, but I'll hand Jack a jolt that'll make him think of somethin' else besides love, one of these fine mornin's!" And the cowboy rode on, out of tune with the peace and beauty of his surroundings, his whole being centered upon making trouble for a man who he knew in his heart wished him no ill, and in fact had all but forgotten him so far as considering him either as an enemy or a friend. Just as he was about to swing out to the open of the mesa near the edge of the canon, he came upon a Mexican boy asleep beneath the low branches of a spruce. Fadeaway glanced across the mesa and, as he had expected, saw a band of sheep grazing in the sunshine. His trail ran directly toward the sheep. Beyond lay the canon. He would not ride around a herd of sheep that blocked his trail, not if he knew it! As he drew nearer the sheep they bunched, forcing those ahead to move on. Fadeaway glanced back at the sleeping boy, then set spur to his horse and waved his sombrero. The sheep broke into a trot. He rode back and forth behind them forcing them toward the canon. He beat upon his rolled slicker with his quirt. The sound frenzied the sheep and they leaped forward. Lambs, trailing behind, called dolefully to the plunging ewes that trampled each other in their terror. Again the cowboy glanced back. No one was in sight. He wondered, for an instant, what had become of Fernando, for he knew it was Fernando's herd. He shortened rein and spurred his pony, making him rear. The sheep plunged ahead, those in front swerving as they came to the canon's brink. The crowding mass behind forced them on. Fadeaway reined up. A great gray wave rolled over the cliff and disappeared into the soundless chasm. A thousand feet below lay the mangled carcasses of some five hundred sheep and lambs. A scattered few of the band had turned and were trotting aimlessly along the edge of the mesa. They separated as the rider swept up. One terror-stricken lamb, bleating piteously, hesitated on the very edge of the chasm. Fadeaway swung his hat and laughed as the little creature reared and leaped out into space. There had been but little noise--an occasional frightened bleat, a drumming of hoofs on the mesa, and they were swept from sight. Fadeaway reined around and took a direct line for the nearest timber. Halfway across the open he saw the Mexican boy running toward him. He leaned forward in the saddle and hung his spurs in his pony's sides. A quick beat of hoofs and he was within the shadow of the forest. The next thing was to avoid pursuit. He changed his course and rode toward the heart of the forest. He would take an old and untraveled bridle-trail to the Blue. He was riding in a rocky hollow when he thought he heard the creak of saddle-leather. He glanced back. No one was following him. Farther on he stopped. He was certain that he had again heard the sound. As he topped the rise he saw Corliss riding toward him. The rancher had evidently swung from the Concho trail and was making his way directly toward the unused trail which Fadeaway rode. The cowboy became doubly alert. He shifted a little in the saddle, sitting straight, his right hand resting easily on his hip. Corliss drew rein and they faced each other. There was something about the rancher's grim, silent attitude that warned Fadeaway. Yet he grinned and waved a greeting. "How!" he said, as though he were meeting an old friend. Corliss nodded briefly. He sat gazing at Fadeaway with an unreadable expression. "Got the lock-jaw?" queried Fadeaway, his pretended heartiness vanishing. Corliss allowed himself to smile, a very little. "You better ride back with me," he said, quietly. Fadeaway laughed. "I'm takin' orders from the Blue, these days," he said. "Mebby you forgot." "No, I haven't." "And I'm headed for the Blue," continued the cowboy. "Goin' my way?" "You're on the wrong trail," asserted Corliss. "You've been riding the wrong trail ever since you left the Concho." "Uhuh. Well, I been keepin' clear of the sheep camps, at that." "Don't know about that," said Corliss, easily. Fadeaway was too shrewd to have recourse to his gun. He knew that Corliss was the quicker man, and he realized that, even should he get the better of a six-gun argument, the ultimate result would be outlawry and perhaps death. He wanted to get away from that steady, heart-searching gaze that held him. "Sheep business is lookin' up," he said, with an attempt at jocularity. "We'll ride back and have a talk with Loring," said Corliss. "Some one put a band of his sheep into the canon, not two hours ago. Maybe you know something about it." "Me? What you dreaming anyhow?" "I'm not. It looks like your work." "So you're tryin' to hang somethin' onto me, eh? Well, you want to call around early--you're late." "No, I'm the first one on the job. Did you stampede Loring's sheep?" "Did I stampede the love-makin'?" sneered Fadeaway. Corliss shortened rein and drew close to the cowboy. "Just explain that," he said. "Oh, I don' know. You the boss of creation?" Corliss's lips hardened. He let his quirt slip butt-first through his hand and grasped the lash. Fadeaway's hand slipped to his holster. Before he could pull his gun, Corliss swung the quirt. The blow caught Fadeaway just below the brim of his hat. He wavered and grabbed at the saddle-horn. As Corliss again swung his quirt, the cowboy jerked out his gun and brought it down on the rancher's head. Corliss dropped from the saddle. Fadeaway rode around and covered him. Corliss's hat lay a few feet from where he had fallen. Beneath his head a dark ooze spread a hand's-breadth on the trail. The cowboy dismounted and bent over him. "He's sportin' a dam' good hat," he said, "or that would 'a' fixed him. Guess he'll be good for a spell." Then he reached for his stirrup, mounted, and loped up the trail. Old Fernando, having excused himself on some pretext when Corliss rode into the camp that morning, returned to find Corliss gone and Nell Loring strangely grave and white. She nodded as he spoke to her and pointed toward the mesa. "Carlos--is out--looking for the sheep," she said, her lips trembling. "He says some one stampeded them--run them into the canon." Fernando called upon his saints and cursed himself for his negligence in leaving his son with the sheep. Nell Loring spoke to him quietly, assuring him that she understood why he had absented himself. "It's my fault, Fernando, not yours. The patron will want to know why you were away. You will tell him that John Corliss came to your camp; that you thought I wanted to talk with him alone. Then he will know that it was my fault. I'll tell him when I get back to the rancho." Fernando straightened his wizened frame. "Si! As the Senorita says, I shall do. But first I go to look. Perhaps the patron shall not know that the vaquero Corlees was here this morning. It is that I ask the Senorita to say nothing to the patron until I look. Is it that you will do this?" "What can you do?" she asked. "It is yet to know. Adios, Senorita. You will remember the old Fernando, perhaps?" "But you're coming back! Oh! it was terrible!" she cried. "I rode to the canon and looked down." Fernando meanwhile had been thinking rapidly. With quaint dignity he excused himself as he departed to catch up one of the burros, which he saddled and rode out to where his son was standing near the canon. The boy shrank from him as he accosted him. Fernando's deep-set eyes blazed forth the anger that his lips imprisoned. He sent the boy back to the camp. Then he picked up the tracks of a horseman on the mesa, followed them to the canon's brink, glanced down, shrugged his shoulders, and again took up the horseman's trail toward the forest. With the true instinct of the outlander, he reasoned that the horseman had headed for the old trail to the Blue, as the tracks led diagonally toward the south. Finally he realized that he could never overtake the rider by following the tracks, so he dismounted and tied his burro. He struck toward the canon. A mile above him there was a ford. He would wait there and see who came. He made his perilous way down a notch in the cliff, dropped slowly to the level of the stream, and followed it to the ford. He searched for tracks in the sun-baked mud. With a sigh of satisfaction, perhaps of anticipation, he stepped to a clump of cottonwoods down the stream and backed within them. Scarcely had he crossed himself and drawn his gun from its weather-blackened holster, when he heard the click of shod hoofs on the trail. He stiffened and his eyes gleamed as though he anticipated some pleasant prospect. The creases at the corners of his eyes deepened as he recognized in the rider the vaquero who had set the Concho dog upon his sheep some months before. He had a score to settle with that vaquero for having shot at him. He had another and larger score to settle with him for--no, he would not think of his beloved sheep mangled and dead at the bottom of the canon. That would anger him and make his hand unsteady. Fadeaway rode his horse into the ford and sat looking downstream as the horse drank. Just as he drew rein, the old herder imitated with perfect intonation the quavering bleat of a lamb calling to its mother. Fadeaway jerked straight in the saddle. A ball of smoke puffed from the cottonwoods. The cowboy doubled up and slid headforemost into the stream. The horse, startled by the lunge of its rider, leaped to the bank and raced up the trail. A diminishing echo ran along the canon walls and rolled away to distant, faint muttering. Old Fernando had paid his debt of vengeance. Leisurely he broke a twig from the cottonwoods, tore a strip from his bandanna, and cleaned his gun. Then he retraced his steps to the burro, mounted, and rode directly to his camp. After he had eaten he told his son to pack their few belongings. Then he again mounted the burro and rode toward the hacienda to face the fury of the patron. He had for a moment left the flock in charge of his son. He had returned to find all but a few of the sheep gone. He had tracked them to the canon brink. Ah! could the patron have seen them, lying mangled upon the rocks! It had been a long hard climb to the bottom of the canon, else he should have reported sooner. Some one had driven the sheep into the chasm. As to the man who did it, he knew nothing. There were tracks of a horse--that was all. He had come to report and receive his dismissal. Never again should he see the Senora Loring. He had been the patron's faithful servant for many years. He was disgraced, and would be dismissed for negligence. So he soliloquized as he rode, yet he was not altogether unhappy. He had avenged insult and the killing of his beloved sheep with one little crook of his finger; a thing that his patron, brave as he was, would not dare do. He would return to New Mexico. It was well! _ |
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