CHAPTER I.
DAWN, coming up beyond the Pecos, shone fairly on the wall of the range, turning the bare stone rosy, tingeing the trees bronze, bathing the plain in a vermillion wash, gilding the silver sage and lacy mesquite, touching the lonely, savage landscape with mystery. But the cleft of Doom Cañon showed dark and forbidding as a dead man's wound, a purple-black gash in the first tier of the cliffs that mounted in a broken mesa high against the sky.
Sheer were the walls of the cañon, seamed and pitted and worn but unscalable from the floor of the gorge where the sun never rested, or from the weather-bitten, eroded rims that leaned toward each other. North and south ran Doom Cañon, with twisting turns here and there, a corridor of grimness, of almost legendary horror.
Here, so runs the story, the fierce Apaches herded the more peaceful mesa dwellers, penning them for slaughter, leaving them scalped and mutilated, to furnish food for the sneaking coyotes and the greedy buzzards. Long years afterward prospectors, seeking gold, ventured into the gloomy recesses, climbing the masses of lava that blocked the entrance so that one seemed to descend into the gorge, and found a rushing, mysterious stream that gushed out of a cavern at the end of the great ravine, boiled along its length and, roaring and white with foam, rushed beneath the lava and disappeared again.
Esqueleto Creek they called it, for its banks were strewn with moldering, scattered teeth-gnawed skeletons. They brought no gold from Doom Cañon—they did not search for any—but emerged on to the plain, glad to be in the light and warmth of day again. Twice a day the sun bathes a part of each great wall, that is stained in fantastic hues with mineral solutions, that drips with oozing water and is patterned with lichens and weird fungus growths that look like cabalistic messages inscribed upon the cliffs. The stars shine down and are sometimes caught in glittering points upon the stream that comes boiling and roaring out of the resounding cavern and hurls itself darkly under the entrance ledges, but its inky, snaky coils never greet the warm kiss of the sun or the colder caress of the moon. It might be the Styx itself, and the cañon the lower court to Hades, or the fabled sacred river of Kublai Khan that ran:
"Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea.
No Indian ever entered there or came near the place. Even the reckless Apache, wandering from his reservation with his hand against that of all men, responsible for the massacre that named the gorge as the place of doom, gave it a wide berth.
It was marked for tragedy, a hall of death that Nature herself proclaimed taboo. Towering above Doom Cañon, boldly carved from the main mass of the great mesa by the wind, the rain, the frost and snow, stood Skull Knob, a semidetached bulk of white limestone. There were cavities in it where bushes grew and there was a ledge with stunted piñon and cedar upon it that gave to it eye sockets, nose and grinning jaws, even when the sun flared directly upon it.
And, always over the cañon, where surely few living things must stir or live, the buzzards hovered as if in memory of the great feast that was, perhaps, well within the recollection of those same ill-omened birds that, hour by hour, kept vigil, planing against the air currents in unceasing and apparently, profitless patrol.
Here was a desolate land where as yet the law had not come, a wild land where the renegades of three nations, the red man, the brown and the white, prowled and robbed and harried the hardy pioneers and prospectors who adventured in the half-desert region lying between the Rio Grande and the Pecos, carrying on a lawless traffic across the border. Doom Cañon, and its mesa formed part of the Organ Mountains in the Three Corners where Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico meet. It was a land of mirage and cactus, of yucca, greasewood and sage, of the puma, coyote, wolf and bear, of the tarantula, the Gila monster and the rattlesnake, the buzzard and the crow. It was a land of mirage and underground rivers, of the marvelous Seven Lost Cities of Cibola, of silver and gold, of thirst and torture, of hope and despair and death.
Yet there were grassy plains and fertile places and the rich surface of the land bid against what treasures might lie under it for the favor of the hardy pioneer, the cattleman, the rancher. Out on the plain, that looked so level and yet held valleys, prairies, and gullies, was the settlement of Laguna, twelve miles from Doom Cañon. It was naturally located beside what was almost a miracle—a fresh-water lake fed seemingly by springs, a lake that never failed in this country where the sun would evaporate a six-inch puddle in half that many hours; a deep lake of water that was hard but, compared to most of the alkaline surface basins, was as ginger ale to the Harlem River.
Clear Lake, it was called, and the town Laguna. The Apaches called it, for some reason, the Lake of the Dead. There were trout in it and other fish, and some day, when the railroad came down to parallel the valley of the Rio Grande, the lake would furnish the main incentive for a tourist resort. At present the collection of false-front shacks and adobes, of Mexican jacals, of saloons, dance halls, gambling rooms—the three usually combined in one—one or two general stores, two blacksmiths, sheds and corrals, was the first and last resort of all the scattering population—except the Apaches, not popular and supposed to be on their reservations, of the respectable few and the riffraff many. Ranchers and rustlers, gamblers and smugglers rubbed elbows at bar and game, danced with the same women in rough-and-ready fellowship that was ever hair-triggered.
Men wore guns, not for ornament but for use. The only ones who did not were the bartenders who were considered as neutral necessities under any and all conditions—these and Laguna's one undertaker, whose dead were furnished him.
Such the Three Corners. A place that might well be called the land that God forgot and with the devil's own nook in it—at Doom Cañon.
Men came to live in the cañon. How many none were sure, nor did they know all their names. Nor how they lived. It was not deemed a wise thing even in Three Corners to discuss the men of Doom Cañon. They might come to hear of it, for there were many who curried favor with them, or perhaps were in their pay. And they had harsh ways of settling scores.
Yet every man in Laguna believed that each of that band was not merely lawless but outlawed, that the nucleus had gradually been augmented by desperate men who fled from the results of some wild deed. They were a hard-bitten, swaggering, hard-drinking and swift-shooting lot and, when they came to Laguna, flinging gold on the counters and the layouts as if the pieces were copper cents, the night was theirs. Bullies some of them—cowards none, so far as physical fear was concerned. The girls dreaded their arrival. There were tales of favorites among them being carried off against their will. Tales of women who entered Doom Cañon and did not leave it; yet were no longer living, because they were no longer attractive. They were wild, unauthenticated tales, born in whispers among the girls themselves. Girls came and went in the Three Corners, even as men did, without heralding and without regrets or investigation. Human life was valued lightly where Nature set scores of traps for the taking of it. Love was laughed at.
The leader of the Doom Cañon men was the one the Mexican girls—and some of the men—called “El Lobo,” because of his cloudy, yellow eyes that made them silver when he turned them on them. They were the orbs of a caged wild beast, when the brute is at ease and looks toward but not at you; eyes that show no soul, that can light up under the stress of passion as if they were glass lenses for the devil's own lantern. Then the amber irises would clear and, as the eyes narrowed, you saw a glitter as of gun metal, the suggestion of a flame from hell. And if, said the girls—crossing themselves—he should chance to open them wide and look at you, you could sometimes see down through them as if they were windows of yellow glass, and there was the evil soul of the man mocking you.
Some of the breeds called him “El Halcon,” because of his hawklike, nose that curved out like the beak of a bird of prey—rapacious, gluttonous. Curved out and down a little, over lips that were narrow and cruel—what you could see of them for the mustaches—and the great black beard that served him in place of collar or necktie or neckerchief, laying on his chest in its silkiness, so well groomed it was apparently the man's one personal vanity, mingling with the shaggy hair that masked his chest, as it did his massive arms, and the powerful hands to their very finger nails.
A shirt of blue flannel, open at the breast, that looked as if he could not find one spacious enough for his wide shoulders and his great barrel of a chest. Trousers of dark stuff thrust into boots, belt and cartridge belt of black leather about lean hips, 'black leather holsters tied down low with latigo strips, black-butted guns of blue metal that matched the high lights in his beard and the hair he let grow long. Black somrebro, black temper when crossed and a black heart. He gave the name of Smith—Sam Smith—mockingly, as if to challenge you to say he lied and it was evident very early that he neither feared man nor devil.
He was a man who could hold all his emotions under control while his yellow eyes blazed with the deviltry he repressed until the moment he considered it best to unleash it. Many emotions were doubtless missing in him altogether and his followers were men after his own kidney, of his own stamp—a godless, reckless crowd.
As Three Corners was the land of no man, equally was it the land of no man's business. What one might do another might not inquire into—unless it personally concerned him and his affairs—without breaking the unwritten laws which were the only laws of the strange etiquette of the community. Collectively, Smith and his men ruled the roost. They were united, the rest were not, and therein lay the difference. The fact that they had chosen to live in Doom Cañon enhanced their mastery over the superstitious and uneducated, and most Laguna and of Three Corners consisted of either one or the other.
Every little while El Lobo and his pack would come riding into town to sling their chinking gold pieces free and wide, to insist upon making drunk every one within the cantina they visited or closing its doors to all but themselves. They were a source of revenue to Laguna and what they caused of annoyance was considered well offset by the profits to those who secured them.
There burst one night into the Tent, most popular of the cantinas, a man whose haggard face was stamped with grief and hate in the lines marked where the sweat had trailed down his face powdered with alkali. His staggering pony collapsed as he left the saddle. The man entered the room like a spent runner, his final effort so exhausting him that, as he turned, not to the bar but facing the big room with his back against it, he would have slid, like his pony, to the floor, but for the strong arm of a kindly rancher flung about him, holding him up. The man gabbled, making strange noises, his features distorted.
“Give him a snorter,” said the rancher. “Here, pardner, git this inside of ye an' then spill yore yarn.”
It was clear to all the room that something out of the ordinary had happened. There was that in the man's dramatic entrance, in his appearance, that told them that here was something more exciting even than the faro and poker they were playing. The fiery stuff trickled down the man's throat, the glass held there by the rancher who still supported him. A spasm twisted his face and he stood upright, as if summoning all his powers. Then, for the first time, some of those in the room recognized him as Gardner, a cowman lately settled in the Three Corners, famous in a degree because of the good-looking wife he had brought with him. Women who were both good looking and good were rarities.
“She's gone, boys! They've took her—those devils have took her! An' if there's a man here with the heart an' courage of a louse, he'll come with me to git her back. It—it may not be too late,” he faltered and then his voice mounted again to a harsh cry for vengeance. “If it is—if they've hurt a hair of her, I'll rip their black hearts out. I'll—I'll—ain't none of ye goin' to line up? Ain't none of ye human?” His last words gabbled toward incoherence, and his eyes showed glints of vacancy, grief, and despair. The furious exertions he had evidently been through, seemed to have partially crazed him.
“It was all set,” he muttered, as if to himself, while the nearest crowded him to listen, and some of those farther away turned back to their games, believing the man more or less mad; swerving aside the crowd that pushed in from the dance hall, headed by the curious girls who, swifter of intuition than the men, had already connected up the affair with trouble to Gardner's wife. Some of them, after their kind, secretly rejoiced at the misfortune that had come upon a virtuous woman.
“It was all set,” went on Gardner though it was plain that he no longer saw nor talked to any audience. “We come into town three days ago for some stuff from the store. She sittin' up beside me, pritty an' proud. She said she'd come down here with me. She said she wasn't afraid of a rough country, with me to take care of her. A prime job I did. I might have known when that black-bearded devil set his yeller eyes on her what he was thinkin' of. Follered us into the store, he did, an' kep' his eyes on her. Not thet I noticed it, busy with spendin' my money, but she did an' she told me about it afterward! 'It give me the creeps,' she said, after we got home. She wouldn't tell me until we did, knowin' my temper. 'He almost made me afraid, Jim,' she said, an' me holdin' her close in my arms an' talkin' big—like the pore damn fool I was.
“What happened? A hell of a racket in the middle of last night and me out, with her, plucky like she was, holdin' the lantern fo' me till I find the fence down an' half my stock gone. Cut wire it was. She wouldn't have me go out after them thet night. She wouldn't be left alone an' she couldn't come along. She was afraid an' so I stayed home to comfort her. Cattle didn't count along of her.
“Why she knowed right then an' wouldn't tell me; she was feared of 'Blackbeard' Smith' with them wolf's eyes of his, feared I'd go up agin' 'em for insultin' of her an' she'd be left alone for ever, with me shot. Damn them! Damn them, I say.”
Two of the younger girls broke into sobs, and a young man pushed his way into the front of the listeners, his eyes shining like points of steel, his tanned features set grimly.
“Go on, pardner,” he said. “What happened then?”
The haggard man lifted his eyes and they seemed to focus on the speaker with some faint light of hope.
“What happened then? I went out this mornin' to look fo' the cattle. The sign was plain. They'd been driven fast an' far. I didn't pick 'em up till an hour after noon in a live-oak ravine way beyond Doom Cañon, eatin', contented enough, with water an' grass. No one's driyin' off cattle thet way, pardner, not rustlers, jest to put 'em where they'd sure to be found.”
“I'm ridin' right with you, pardner,” said the younger man. “They wouldn't.”
“It was sundown time I get 'em back. Dark when I reach the house. No light thar. I was feelin' pritty perky, count I'd got the steers back, but thet brought me up all standin'. No light set for me, or in the kitchen where she used to work an' sing. I never come nigh the house but what I heard her singin' like a lark.
“Pardner, I knowed somethin' was wrong. It got me in the stummick, an' like a hand had gripped my heart. Thet's the way it gits ye when you love a woman right,
“She was gone. Plumb gone, pardner!” He spoke now as if he knew of but one listener, the grim-faced young rider. “Thar'd been a struggle. Thar was flour scattered about an' the tins on the flo'. She'd been makin' a cake fo' me—fo' me, pardner—an' they took her. Must have sneaked in on her an' she thought it was me. I used to sneak in sometimes an' put my hands over her eyes, jest to hear her say, 'It's you, Jim. You can't fool me.'
“Heavens, pardner, she ain't ever goin' to fool me again!” He broke off in a hoarse sob, pitiful to hear. Now all the room was quiet again, the click of chips had ceased, the bar stood idle and the musicians had come from their stand. The plain, unvarnished tale of human love and tragedy had gripped them.
“Go on pardner,” said the rider. “You read the sign?”
“It was dark—no moon. Jest the stars an' my lantern. I could see whar some one had carried her to the fence, right by the break I'd mended befo' I left in the mornin'. Then the devils had follered the trail of the steers. All mixed up it was. I never found it again. It ain't to be found. It left no sign on thet malpais but it leads to Doom Cañon. Thet's whar it leads, an' I'm lookin' fo' some men to go thar with me. If not, I'll go alone.”
“You ain't goin' alone, pardner,” said the other. “Not while I got a hawss an' a couple of guns. You eat anything sence breakfast?”
“Eat? What would I want to eat fo'?”
“You killed yore hawss, pardner. You're nigh done up yoreself. You got to eat. I'll loan you my second-string caballo but you want strength to fork it. You eat an' we'll git us a li'le posse together in the meantime.”
Gardner lurched forward, reeled, realizing his weakness. He caught at the other's forearm.
“You'll stay with me, pardner?”
“Of course. I ain't the only one. You go git somethin' in yore belly. You can't make war talk on an empty one.”
Gardner suffered himself to be led to the lunch counter that was a regular feature of the place and sat up on a stool before frijoles and coffee. The other, giving assurance that he was only going to get some men together, walked back through the dance hall to the big room and sensed immediately a neutral, if not a hostile attitude.
Ramon, owner of the Tent, was talking with his pardner, Sprague, who ran the games and provided the funds for the “bank,” a man whose light-blue eyes were so pale as to be almost colorless; cleanly shaven, shrewd of face.
“I didn't get your name, stranger,” he said suavely. “I take it you air a stranger in Laguna?”
“My name's Strong. I got here two days ago from Socorro. Thought thar might be a chance out here fo' a man who had three hawsses an' could ride 'em.”
“And a couple of guns,” said Sprague, glancing at the heavy Colt the other sported. “I reckon you could fit in.” Strong had vouchsafed considerable information for a newcomer to the Three Corners. “Only, you want to get acquainted a bit befo' you throw in too sudden. We're all mighty sorry fo' Gardner. He had a mighty sweet woman. But he ain't got no proof against the Doom Cañon outfit and you want to go easy when you buck them. They ain't rustlers, to begin with. Lobo Smith's got an eye for a pretty woman, so have all the rest of us, but that ain't sayin' we're runnin' off with her.
'This territory's a bit raw yet, I grant you, but there's small sense in trying to pull a half-cocked trigger. What's he got but a notion in his head and him half crazy? Just the same, chargin' a man with runnin' off with yo' wife is a thing a man ain't goin' to always take as a joke. Lobo Smith and his outfit ain't what you'd call easy jesters. If Gardner goes off to Doom Cañon—he can't get in, to begin with—an' making cracks that Lobo stole his wife he'll get into trouble, pronto an' plenty. Also them that goes with him. Gardner's all upset an' he's runnin' off at the head. Most likely it was Apaches. They've been gettin' out of hand of late.”
”If it was Injuns—even if they'd taken her off, which ain't likely—they'd have burned the shack an' they would sure have run off the rest of the stock.”
”Thet don't make it Smith. Use yore judgment, Strong.”
It was good advice, suavely enough delivered, but Strong sensed that the general sentiment backed Sprague's talk. They had been moved by Gardner's tale, more by his manner of telling it, perhaps, than by the story itself. They had listened to it largely as spectators might look and listen to something shown on a stage, without personal or real interest. And, when it came to the mention of the men of Doom Cañon all sympathy had seemed to vanish. Strong was young, halfway between his twenties and his thirties, but he had been reared in a hard school. He saw clearly enough that there was, as yet, no proof, and yet Gardner's tale had rung so true to his ears that he had developed a strenuous hunch it was correct, even to its suspicion concerning the perpetrators.
He had felt also a certain intolerance against Lobo Smith and his men, said to be living in this narrow cañon that was declared in the same breath to be unlivable, its floor largely occupied, even in times of drought, by Esqueleto Creek. The whole damned community, he told himself, cringed before the Doom Cañon gang. Still, there was no proof, so far. When he had aligned himself with Gardner he had expected to hear some more positive evidence. It was worse than foolish to ride up to the cañon at nightfall and try to force a passage which, all agreed, was well nigh impossible on a doubtful charge, a doubtful errand.
He stood there for a moment undecided, feeling that his sympathies had carried him a bit too far and too hastily, vexed at himself for lack of judgment yet secretly riding the hunch that told him that Gardner had spoken truly—and that this smooth-spoken gambler knew it—or suspected it.
Then Gardner came back from the lunch counter, where the beans had turned to ashes in his mouth, though he had swallowed a cup of coffee. That, or the telling of his tale, and the support of Strong, the prospect of more help, had given him a spurt of strength.
”Well,” he demanded, ”who's comin' along with me? What's wrong with 'em, pardner?” he continued to Strong. “Ain't they men? Air they jest a pack of lousy coyotes?”
His eyes glittered. The ultimate source of his energy was beyond doubt the supercharging of his tissues by the passions that had dispossessed his reason, imbued him with the one idea.
“They claim you ain't got no definite proof this Lobo Smith had anything to do with it,” said Strong slowly. ”You couldn't read sign to-night but I reckon we might do somethin' with it by daylight. I'm pritty fair at trailin' myself.”
“Daylight! If the woman you love—yore wife—was taken from you, overnight—would you wait till daylight? I tell you I know who done it. She read it in his eyes—lust an' the will to feed it. The eyes of a beast, she called 'em!”
Back of his high-pitched accusation there came the sound of galloping horses, a small troop coming fast with their hoofs thudding into the soft soil of the street. Then the clatter of men's feet on the wooden sidewalk, the clink of spurs, a loud laugh that provoked others. Gardner stood stock-still, his speech leaving him as he leaned a little forward at the hips, his nostrils spreading like those of a hound that catches the scent, his glittering eyes fixed.
All glances turned towards the door as it was flung open and Lobo Smith strode in with some twenty of his men crowding behind him, jesting and laughing. Smith's amber eyes swept the room, instantly focused on the figure of Gardner, his chin low on his great chest, as he gazed keenly at the shorter man, pressing down the glossy growth of black beard that lay there, catching the high lights from the oil lamps with their reflecting shades. Just for the fraction of a second the tableau held, then dissolved into action.
With a screaming oath Gardner drew his gun and fired as Sprague struck up his arm, chopping at the elbow almost in one motion. Lobo Smith's eyes turned to yellow flame as fire flashed from his six-guns and the roar of the discharge filled the room. From both hands he sent the unerring messengers of death. Gardner went staggering from the shock of successive bullets, spun about and fell like a length of chain with the last one in his back, two others already in his heart and one through his brain. The first had killed him, the rest had been fired too quickly for his lifeless body to fall before they struck it.
The reek of the powder smoke was sharp in their nostrils as they gazed from Smith, who stood with a grin on his lips that showed his white teeth flashing between beard and mustache, and a laugh of deviltry in his eyes, to Gardner, face down on the floor, his gun tossed away from him, blood beginning to trickle out down the slants of the worn planking. The thing that held them most was the diabolical but silent revelry of Smith, as if the taking of life was the rarest jest he could have perpetrated. It was true that he had received provocation, that he was justified on the face of it in sheer self-defense, but there was something inhuman about it, in the concentrated fire from two guns, the satanic mask of his face.
Strong's hands had shot down instinctively to the butts of his own weapons. Self-defense or not, he felt, as he saw Lobo Smith for the first time, that here was a murderer, a potential criminal who was a menace to honest men and decent women. Strong fingers gripped at his elbows long enough for reason to rule over primitive emotion. It was the friendly rancher who had kept Gardner from falling when he first came in, who had bought him the drink. Smith's eyes rested for a moment on Strong, baleful, the mirth erased from his face, leaving it bleak as the back of a blizzard.
“What's the idee of the shootin'?” he asked as his men clustered about him, hostile-eyed, curiously inactive, poised for trouble; while Ramon swiftly crossed himself and silently mumbled a blend of invocations and imprecations. Sprague spoke up. Strong fancied he saw a swift glance of understanding pass between him and Smith.
“Gardner's wife was stolen this evenin', somewheres round dark,” he said. “He got a notion you're responsible fo' the trick. We were tryin' to tell him he was crazy when you came in.”
Smith gave a short laugh.
“Crazy enough, I reckon. Put a hole through my hat. If it hadn't been fo' you, Sprague, I'd be where he is. Stole his woman? I'll say this about it. She was mighty easy to look at. But, if I stole a pritty woman around sundown, I'd be mighty apt to be keepin' her company, not running around town.”
There was a general laugh at this. Strong felt no inclination to join. He had seen sudden death before, many times, but there flashed across his mind the suggestion that if Lobo Smith had done this thing, had let his lust run away with his discretion and realized that he might well have gone too far, even for his overlord control of Three Corners, in the violation of ranch honor, he could have done no cleverer thing than come to town in this fashion, to make the ribald answer he had just pronounced—and to kill the husband.
He spoke up, facing Smith, whose lambent gaze had returned to him. Strong's thumbs were hooked lightly in his belt now, they had never strayed far from his gun butts. He heard the friendly whisper of the rancher but paid no attention to its warning to “stay out of this deal.”
“The man's dead,” he said. “Thet eases his worry but it don't help his wife none. Gardner was aimin' to git some men to try an' foller her up, an I was helpin' him. So fur we didn't git many offers. You interested at all?”
Steel-gray eyes and yellow ones met and their glances fenced for hushed moments without advantage. Then Lobo Smith showed his teeth again in his mockery of a smile.
“No, stranger, I ain't. You tryin' to take up Gardner's quarrel with me?” His right hand stroked his beard as he spoke, the tone smooth but deep, and the downward movement bringing his fingers almost within touch of the right-hand gun of the two he had restored to their holsters as swiftly as they had flashed out, once the four shots had been fired. Here was a challenge. The flames that played in Smith's eyes seemed to bring out a colder light in those of the younger man.
“I might, if I thought thar was a good reason fo' it,” he answered quietly.
Men held their breath, sure of impending tragedy. They began to shuffle back, treading on each others' toes, especially those behind Strong. He was conscious of one man standing ground beside him. And he was equally conscious of the silent, watchful gang behind Smith, tensely alert, hands poised. If Smith had put four bullets into Gardner, Strong felt that he might expect to be riddled from half a dozen guns if he even twitched his fingers towards his guns. He would get in a shot first—two perhaps—for his draw was as swift as Lobo Smith's, he told himself. But that would be all. He was standing on the brink of a self-dug grave into which he would fall without sympathy, a victim of “horning-in,” as a verdict. But, within him, there had flamed up a mounting hatred for the man he faced. It showed in his eyes and he knew it. It was the searing, dispising hatred of manhood for inhumanity, acid on false metal. He saw an uneasiness in the gaze of Smith though it did not blench.
“I'll tell you what I'll do, stranger,” said Lobo Smith while his hand stayed at the end of his glossy beard, “you cut sign on her trail an', damn me, if I don't help you go git her. Couldn't say fairer 'n thet, I reckon, after her husband took a shot at me!” He looked round at the crowd that rose to the roar of laughter from the men of Doom Cañon.
“I'll be somewhere's around town till breakfast,” went on Smith. “I reckon I crossed my luck here for to-night,” he added, looking down at the dead man. “We'll try it some other place, boys. I didn't git yore name, stranger.”
“It's Strong—Sam Strong.”
“Good name. I'll say this much fo' you, Strong. You've got yore nerve with yo' and it suits yore name. If you ever git up agin' it fo' a job, you come over to th' cañon. I might find room fo' you. Adios, Caballeros. Buenos noches.”
The men from Doom Cañon left the cantina, dividing their company so as to let Smith pass through first. There was again the sound of their booted feet and tinkling spurs, the creak of leather, the jingle of chains and the sound of galloping.
In the Tent men began to cash in their chips. The cappers alone kept playing. In the other end of it the musicians played but the girls were without partners. Two men picked up the body of Gardner, another mopped at the floor with cloths and water but, despite his efforts, there were stains on the floor, dyeing the boards—a hoodoo on the luck, even as Lobo Smith had said. Ramon fussed about, trying to hold the clients; Sprague cursed under his breath. The customers filed to the bar and drank deeply but without jollity and began to pass out, wondering why Smith had left without punishing the temerity of Strong. Some fancied that Strong had called the bluff of Smith's courage and hinted as much, but they were promptly laughed at.
“Any time Lobo talks smooth, he's thinkin' rough,” said one. “No, sir. First place this Strong's hands is plumb close an' handy to his guns. Closer than Smith could git with strokin' his beard. If his whiskers was two inches longer Strong would be mighty weak right this minute. Main thing is Smith was out to gamble. Killin' Gardner was forced on him an' it sp'iled his luck. You can't play across spilled blood an' expect to win when you've done the spillin' Any one'll tell you thet. He'll gamble jest the same, seein' he come inter town to do it. If he killed Strong it would copper all his bets sure. As it is his luck may swing back at midnight. Lacks a few minutes of thet now. Come on, let's go see whar' him an' his gang drifted in.”
“But he as good as asked this Strong to jine his gang. He ain't never done thet afore. None of us ever knew where his recruits come from—or when.”
“Hell! He said fo' him to come over to the cañon some time an' he might find room fo' him. He didn't say what in. Might be a hole in the ground!”
As the room emptied there came a whisper close to Sam Strong's ear, in a girl's voice, pregnant with warning.
“Don't go out alone!”
He turned swiftly to see the figure of the partner he had been dancing with, earlier in the evening, disappearing into the back room. He shrugged his shoulders. It was good advice but he did not quite see how he could carry it out very well. He was a stranger. He might go out with several others but they would promptly scatter at the first sign of trouble. He was a marked man from now on in Three Corners. It had not needed the whisper of the well-meaning girl—she was a nice little kid, who had not yet got as hardened, as her companions—to undeceive him as to Lobo Smith's ultimate intentions toward him.
In their conflict of glances he knew that, while he had not beaten down the other's guard, he had passed it once and made him wince. It would not be for given. As for the little dancer, he had treated her decently and not as if she should be considered common property, and she had responded accordingly. Doubtless she knew Smith's methods. Probably there would be a couple of that hard-bitten, swaggering gang out side to pick a quarrel with him or even kill him without excuse, save for such as they might make up if they were asked for one.
His two horses were in a corral shed up the street, close to the fonda where he slept and took his meals. To walk there with safety he would have to take the middle of the street or risk a sidewalk. Both were dangerous on a dark night like this, with enemies abroad. On the sidewalk he would be exposed to the ambush of the dozens of narrow ways between the shacks. In the street the space beneath the sidewalk offered fine cover for an assassin.
The rancher tapped him on the shoulder.
“Did I hear you say you were lookin' for a job, you an' yore two hawsses?”
“You sure did. An' my two guns.”
“I'm needin' a hand. An' you strike me as the sort to take along. You got a hawss outside?”
“No, I walked. Mine's down to the corral next to Vierra's fonda.”
“So's mine. You stayin' thar?”
“Yep.”
“Better ride out with me to my ranch to-night an' we'll talk things over. My name's Bramley. No brands registered yet in this neck of the woods but I call my outfit Bar B an' I'm brandin' thet way. I've taken up a section an' thar's fair feed on it, an' water. All the open range in the world next door. Hands are scarce down here. If you want to take up the section next to mine we could make some dicker, I reckon. I'm doin' well but I'm short on help. Them I do get extry, don't stay. This is a restless pais, close to the border. Folks hate to work steady. Better come along fo' the night anyway, an' talk it over.”
“It sounds good to me,” said Strong. “But I'm figgerin' they're li'ble to take a pot shot at me outside fo' presumin' to speak to Don Lobo Blackbeard. They might include you in the compliment.”
“I reckon not. I'll tell you why later.”
They reached the fonda unmolested, saddled up and rode away out of town over the silent plain, past the lake and along the course of the swift stream that was its only outlet. Strong left his second-string hors$ to be called for later.
“I figger it this way,” said Bramley. “If they do you in they'd either have to do the same with me or leave me as witness. Letting alone what we might do to them, Smith is smart enough to figger thet, if he killed you in my company, he'd be gittin' in deeper than he cares to right off the reel. This pais is gettin' settled, slow but sure. The cattlemen air comin' in. Cattle air cheap. Alfalfy grows fine where thar's water. Leave yore young stock on the range till they're close to sellin' age, bring in 'em fo' solid feed an' then drive to Santa Fe an' ship. Won't be long befo' the railroad'll be down here to join up Santa Fe an' El Paso, thet's a cinch. Thar'li be good prices for furnishin' beef to the railroad while it's buildin'. Thar's talk of two lines, one of 'em crossin' the Pecos at Santa Rosa. It'll give those of us who are down here a good start. Fenced land is better than range, so long as the Injuns air li'ble to go raidin', an' they will till the government, gits in an' licks 'em good an' hard an' makes a good Injun out of old Geronimo.
“Now, figger on. Cattlemen air solid citizens an' they stand fo' law an' order. Lobo Smith knows thet as fast as we do. I don't know what game he makes his money in—contrabandista of some sort, I'll wager—but I'm bettin' it ain't lawful. The funny thing of it is no one ever sees 'em leavin' Doom Cañon or goin' into it, 'cept they're on the way to Laguna or from it. An' the old-timers say only toads an' Gila monsters could live in that, anyway. Damp an' so narrer you can't turn yore hawss most places.
“He shot Gardner to-night after Gardner fired at him”
“He didn't have to shoot him,” put in Strong. “Gardner missed because he never had a chance to hit. Thar was a dozen ready to grab him or do what Sprague did the minute Lobo come in at the door. Sprague hit him back of his arm so hard it paralyzed him an' he could jest hold his gun—couldn't lift it. Why, Lobo grinned befo' he fired back. Plumb murder, I call it. I don't say he expected to find Gardner thar, but I'll say it was a prize play fo' him to put Gardner out of the way—an' he made it.”
“Twenty to testify Gardner tried to kill him. An' no one to testify to. The law ain't down this fur yet. But it's comin'.' You think Lobo got Gardner's woman an', comin' in to-night was a grand-stand play in case we cattlemen should git sore. Thar's nigh enough of us to make it hot fo' Lobo if we did an' he knows it. I don't know but what I agree with you but you got to have some proof to line any one up—jest as Sprague says—an' Heaven knows I ain't got any use for thet card flipper. He's too slick at his own game. Stands in with Lobo because he wins thet gang's money. He was plumb mad when Lobo went out on him to-night.
“Lobo's done nothing you kin pin to him thet's outside the law or public opinion. If the law gits after him it'll be the Federal government, to my mind. Public opinion's on his side because most of 'em air his sort in Three Corners. Our sort is driftin' in an' he'll go too far some day. There's lots of things blamed to the Apaches thet he knows somethin' about, to my mind. Lots of things happened thet folks figger he did, mebbe, but he's a good spender with his gang an' thet's what counts between the Pecos an' the Rio Grande these days. The border's a reg'lar magnet fo' every one who thinks he wants to be a bad man or who's done somethin' thet makes the line handy fo' him to be close to.”
Strong liked Bramley—liked the way he talked. Bramley had restrained him from acting rashly in the cantina, but it was Bramley who had stood beside him when the rest edged away. He was a Texan, with mustaches like a longhorn steer of his native State. He had come north into New Mexico, seeing the chance to buy Texas cattle cheap from the improvident Mexican rancheros who thought little more of the wild-ranging brutes than they did of the prairie dogs on their wide holdings. The water, the range and soil was better near Laguna, and it was that much nearer market. Moreover, the published survey routes of the oncoming railroads, making a grand junction of El Paso and thence running on west to California, gave almost as great an opportunity to a few enterprising American cattlemen to make a fortune as did the building of the Union Pacific.
Bramley was shrewd, older than Strong by some ten years, shrewd enough to see business openings where the younger man had not yet visualized them, older in experience. He was practically offering Strong a chance at a partnership when he spoke of the latter's taking up the next section to his own. Strong had no herd and little capital but he would have his chance to buy in the start of a herd, and he was duly obliged to Bramley for the opening.
“Lobo Smith ain't apt to bother us much,” Bramley went on. “Not as long as we don't cross his trail, an' we ain't likely to do thet 'cept in Laguna. We got to go in once in a while fo' supplies, but the Doom Cañon crowd air owls fo' daylight. I stayed over to-night hopin' to git me a hand an' I'm plumb glad I run across you. You an' me air goin' to be all-fired busy from now on. I got a chance to sell some agency beef fo' the new reservation. We round up the 'Paches from murderin' an' raidin' an' then they're wards of the nation. Feed 'em free fo' mo' devilment. Anyway, I'm goin' to take a chance on goin' inter Texas an' buyin' up a couple of hundred head. We'll have to cut 'em out ourselves an' hire a few Mexicans to bring 'em up with us. I've got a man I kin leave to run Bar B with the Mexican hands I have to git along with an', even if the agency deal fails through, we kin use the stock. It'll be a gamble an', if you've got any spare dinero an' want to git in on it, I'm agreeable. If we sell to the reservation that'll mo'n treble yore capital an' give you a good show. Mebbe we kin figger out some so't of a mutual deal right along.”
“You don't know much about me, Bramley,” said Strong. “I sure appreciate the chance to throw in. I've got a li'le over five hundred dollars. I won some of it last night. I started to lose to-night an' quit. But it ain't many who'd offer to let me in the way you have.”
“If you was me, Strong, tryin' to make a go of it down here, an' backed up fo' the lack of a man you kin leave in charge of things, you'd jump the same way I did. Thar ain't many white men down here, pardner—derned few squar' shooters. You kin ride, an' I reckon you kin shoot if needs be. Anyway you showed yourself willin' to-night. I told myself you'd do to take along when I saw you come out an' take up with pore Gardner.
“Here's whar we make a short cut. Crick curves here but swings round on my land. Goes through yore section too.”
“What's goin' to happen to Gardner's stock?” asked Strong. “It belongs to his wife while she's livin'. Reckon he's got some relatives. Soon as it's known he's dead some one's goin' to rustle all thet's loose. Likely he's got some hawsses up thet'll need waterin'. Thar's his stuff in the house. If she comes back”
“She ain't the sort thet comes back, Strong. I've talked with her once or twice. A fine woman, the right kind. Right back of her man, helpin' an' lovin' him. She didn't go willin' an' she won't stay willin'. But we got to do somethin' about his belongings. Thar ain't no law here to' settle those things unless we go to Santa Fe. We cattlemen have had a meetin' or two to sort of organize into an association fo' mutual protection. If we took charge of his stock an' goods as a body I reckon no one would question our right. I'll have a talk with the others and take up this Gardner's killin' at the same time. Don't know as we kin do anything, under the circumstances, but it won't do no harm fo' folks—includin' Lobo Smith an' his gang—to know we're standin' together. Some day Lobo'll let his rope trail too fur.”
“I've got a hunch thet I'll have a rumpus with him, some day,” said Strong thoughtfully. “I don't take to hatin' a man on first sight as a rule. I aim to be pacific unless I'm fussed with. But thet cuss makes the ha'r lift on the back of my neck. He affects me the same way a rattler does, or a centipede. I jest know he's wrong an' I ain't sure but what he ain't yeller, if you got him cornered. His kind an' Gila monsters makes me wonder why they git created.”
The ranch house of the Bar B was a long adobe building, tiled for roof, with a rough veranda, the windows shuttered but unglazed, the furnishings crude; but it was comfortable enough for busy bachelors of the range. There was a great fireplace where logs burned welcome in the chilly nights after sun down, and he had a jewel of a cook in the shape of an old Mexican woman, even if her dishes were highly seasoned. Two of her sons were employed as hands, with two more of the same type, and an elderly Texan who acted as foreman when Bramley was away.
Hurley was his name, and he was a grizzled old-timer with a limp from a leg broken by a wild mustang and never properly set. Slow and none too quick mentally, pestered with rheumatism that discounted his usefulness, Strong guessed that the old-timer had been brought up from Texas largely for ancient friendship's sake—which proved to be the case.
“He's got one prime qualification,” said Bramley. “He kin shoot the hind laig off'n a fly at thirty paces. His hand is still good. Most of his rheumatism is in his bad laig. His eyes ain't none too good fer distances, but I'm damned if powder smoke don't seem to cl'ar 'em!”
The cattle were true Texan stock, wide of horn, wild of eye and disposition—big rangy brutes that were untamed as bison. But they were beef, and the Mexican riders handled them well enough, riding like centaurs.
“We'll git us some thoroughbred sires, soon as we kin afford it, pardner,” Bramley declared.
The “we” sounded good to Strong. He said so. He was no longer a free rider, he was a cattleman, a member of the small association, with a stake in the country and a chance to become wealthy at no very distant date. There was much to be done on the ranch, much to be spent. Their capital was limited, as was their help. It was a life filled with risks and dangers but it was a life for which both of them were fitted, and they enjoyed it.
Filing for a quarter section had to be done at Socorro, where there was a government agent at regular times, and it was agreed that Strong should go there at the first opportunity. Also, when they had brought up their stock from Texas, Bramley proposed that he should go to Escondida to interview the Indian agent about the beef contract. Bramley spoke Spanish better than he did and could better control the hands, actually through old Maria, mother of two of them and aunt to the others, ruling them with a rod of iron but, of course, unable to superintend ranch affairs outside the house.
And Hurley, cramped with an attack of his rheumatism, was ever too slow and unable to furnish the unremitting superintendence that the short-handedness necessitated.
“Maria's a jewel,” said Bramley. “I don't trust every greaser, by a long shot, but she's faithful as an old dog an' he's got them buffaloed. They got to account to her fo' ev'ry time they take a drink of mescal or throw a pair of dice. We ain't so worse off, pardner. We'll make out. Couple of jacks now, mebbe, but we'll pair up as cattle kings by the time they run trains into Laguna.”
Five days later Bramley rode into town for supplies, giving Strong a chance to run the ranch. He came back early, bringing Strong's other horse, his face grave.
“They found Gardner's wife, Sam,” he said. It was “Sam” and “Hen” between them now. “She's goin' to be buried beside him. The cattlemen air goin' to attend in a body to-morrow. The thing's a plumb puzzle to me. They found her body floatin' in Lago Claro. Some says she must have committed suicide. They think she come back an' heard he was dead an' drowned herse'f. But thar ain't no one claims to have seen her an' Doc Williams 'lows she has been dead all of three or four days. Mebbe the springs thet feeds the lake kept her down. It seems funny all through an' the most curious thing is her body is bruised all over, nigh to a jelly, pore gal—head to foot. But the doc claims she was drowned first. It's a mystery to me.”
And a mystery it remained for many days.