CHAPTER XXIII
CINNABAR JOE TELLS A STORY
Before Cinnabar Joe could fire again at the fleeing Purdy, his wifereached the door of the cabin and knocked his gun-barrel up so that thebullet sped harmlessly into the air. "Don't! Don't Joe!" she screamed,"he said--there was others, an' they'd----"
"I don't care a damn what he said! If the others don't spill it, hewill. It ain't no use, an' I'd ruther git it over with."
Jennie noticed the dull hopelessness of the tone and her very soulseemed to die within her. "Oh, what is it, Joe?" she faltered, "what'sPurdy got on you? What you gone an' done? Tell me, Joe!" The man laidthe six-gun on the table and faced her with set lips. "Wait!" she criedbefore he could speak, "he said they was a woman--in the coulee. They'llbe plenty of time to tell me, after you've got her here. Hurry! He saidshe'd rode a long ways. Chances is she ain't had nothin' to eat all day.An' while you're gone I'll git things fixed for her." Even as shetalked, Jennie was busy at the stove, and without a word Cinnabar leftthe room, crossed the creek, and walked rapidly toward the mouth of thecoulee.
"It ain't no use," he repeated bitterly, "but, I'll git Purdy first--orhe'll git me!"
Back in the cabin Jennie completed her arrangements, and stepping to thedoor, stood with an arm against the jamb and allowed her eyes to travelslowly over the new horse corral and the unfinished stable. Joe's toolslay as he had left them when she had interrupted his work to give himthe sandwich. Her fists clenched and she bit her lip to keep back thetears. The wind rustled the curtain in the window and she caught herbreath in a great dry sob. "It _is_ all a dream. It was too good to betrue--oh--well." A horse splashed through the creek and she saw Cinnabarcoming toward her leading a blaze-faced buckskin. A woman was lashed inthe saddle, her feet secured by means of a rope that passed beneath thehorse's belly, her hands lashed to the horn, and her body held in placeby means of other strands of rope that passed from horn to cantle. Herhat was gone and she sagged limply forward, her disarranged hair fallingover her face to mingle with the mane of the horse. She looked like adead woman. Hastening to meet them, Jennie pushed aside the hair andpeered up into the white face: "My Lord!" she cried, "it's--it's her!"
Cinnabar stared: "Do you know her?" he asked in surprise.
"Know her! Of course I know her! It's the pilgrim's girl--that he shotPurdy over. An' a pity he didn't kill him! That Tex Benton, he got 'emacrost the bad lands--an' I heard they got married over in Timber City."
"Who Tex?"
"No, the pilgrim, of course! Get to work now an' cut them ropes an'don't stand 'round askin' fool questions. Carry her in an' lay her onthe bed, an' get the whisky, an' see if that water's boilin' an' pulloff her boots, an' stick some more wood in the stove, an' then you clearout till I get her ondressed an' in bed!" And be it to the everlastingcredit of Cinnabar Joe that he carried out these commands, each andseveral, in the order of their naming, and then he walked slowly towardthe stable and sat down upon the newly hewn sill and rolled a cigarette.His tools lay ready to his hand but he stared at them withoutenthusiasm. When the cigarette was finished he rolled another.
In the cabin Alice Endicott slowly opened her eyes. They swept the roomwildly and fixed upon Jennie's face with a look of horror. "There,deary, you're all right now," Jennie patted her cheek reassuringly:"You're all right," she repeated. "Don't you remember me--Jennie Dodds,that was? At the Wolf River Hotel?"
Alice's lips moved feebly: "It must have been a horrible dream--Ithought I was tied up--and I broke loose and saw Long Bill and when Itried to get away there stood that horrible Purdy--and he said--" sheclosed her eyes and shuddered.
"I guess it wasn't no dream, at that. Purdy brung you here. But you'resafe an' sound now, deary. Jest you wait till I feed you some of thissoup. I'll guarantee you ain't et this noon--an' prob'ly all day."Jennie moved to the stove and returned a moment later with a cup ofsteaming soup. Supporting her in a sitting posture, she doled out thehot liquid by spoonfuls. Several times during the process Aliceendeavoured to speak but each time Jennie soothed her to silence, andwhen the cup was finally emptied her eyes closed wearily and she sankback onto the pillow.
Presently her eyes opened: "Where--where is Tex?" she asked, in ascarcely audible tone. "Was he here, too?"
"Tex! You mean Tex Benton? Law! I don't know! He ain't be'n seen sencethat night back in Wolf River."
"He didn't drown--and he's--somewhere--after Purdy--" the voice trailedoff into silence and at the bedside Jennie waited until the regularbreathing told her that the girl had sunk into the deep sleep of utterexhaustion. Then, with a heavy heart, she turned and stepped from thecabin, closing the door softly behind her.
Out of the tail of his eye Cinnabar Joe saw his wife step from thedoorway. Rising, hastily from the sill he seized his hammer and began topound industriously upon a nail that had been driven home two daysbefore. And as he pounded, he whistled. He turned at the sound of hiswife's voice. She stood close beside him.
"Now, Joe Banks, don't you stand there an' whistle like a fool! Theyain't no more a whistle in your heart than they is in mine!" There was acatch in her voice, and she sank down upon the sill. The whistlingceased, and with rough tenderness Cinnabar laid a hand on her shoulder:
"It's tough on you, girl--after gittin' such a good start. When I toldyou awhile back that there couldn't nothin' happen, I overlooked onebet--Purdy."
"Oh, what is it, Joe? What's he got on you? Come, Joe, tell me all aboutit. I married you fer better or fer worse--I've took the better, an' I'dbe a poor sport if I couldn't take the worse. Even if I didn't love you,Joe, I'd stick. But I do love you--no matter what you've got into. Tellme all about it, an' we'll work it out--you an' me. You ain't be'nrustlin' horses, have you? An' the bank stakin' us 'cause they trustedus to make good! Oh, Joe--you ain't! Have you Joe?"
The fingers tightened reassuringly upon the woman's shoulder andreassuring were the words with which he answered the appeal of the eyesthat looked imploringly into his own:
"No, no, girl--not that. Not nothin' I've done sence--sence I growed up.I've played the game square sence then." The man seated himself besideher upon the sill: "It's a long story an' starts back, let's see, I wasseventeen then, an' now I'm twenty-six--nine years ago, it was, I wasworkin' over near Goldfield in a mine. Everything was wide open themdays an' I was jest a fool kid, spendin' my wages fast as I got 'em,same as all the rest of the miners.
"Out of the riff-raff that worked there in the mines was four men Ithrow'd in with. They'd drifted in from God knows where, an' they'd allbe'n cowpunchers, an' their talk run mostly to the open range. They wascounted hard in a camp that was made up of hard men, an' they kep'pretty much to theirselves. Somehow or other they kind of took a shineto me, an' it wasn't long till the five of us was thick as thieves. Whenwe'd be lickered up, makin' the rounds of the saloons, men would edgealong an' give us room at the bar. They didn't want none of our meat;although we never made no gun-play, they always figgered we would.
"Bein' a kid, that way, it made me feel mighty big an' important to bejammin' around with 'em. Lookin' back at it now, from my experience onthe other side of the bar, I know that if that bunch had drifted into aplace I was runnin' I'd spot how my guns laid under the bar so's I couldreach 'em without lookin', you bet!
"There was Old Pete Bradley, one-eyed, he was, an' he didn't have noteeth but false ones that clicked when he talked an' rattled when he et.An' Mike Hinch, with a foretop of thick black hair that hung down overhis eyes so it looked like he had to squinch down to see in under it.An' Scar Lamento, which he was a Dago or Spanish, an' had met up with anaccident that tore his mouth down one corner so's he always looked likehe was grinnin'. An' Wild Hoss Duffy. An' me. They wasn't none of 'emminers, an' they was always cussin' the mines an' wishin' they was backin the cow-country, so, come spring, we decided to beat it.
"Duffy, he know'd where there was a wild horse range up towards Idahoan' he wanted we should go up there an' hunt wild horses. Scar Lamento,he
claimed there was more in it to go to Mexico an' start a revolution,an' Old Pete, an' Mike Hinch, they had each of 'em some other idee. ButDuffy's horse range bein' nearest, we decided to tackle it first. Westarted out with a pack outfit--too little grub, an' too muchwhisky--an' hit up into the damnedest country of blazin' white flats an'dead mountains you ever heard tell of.
"To cut it short, we didn't get no wild horses. We was lucky to git outof there alive. We et the pack horses one by one, an' almost two monthslater we come out over in Idaho. We killed a beef an' spent a weekeatin' an' restin' up an' drinkin' real water, an' then we hit north. Wewas busted an' one evenin' we come to the railroad. A passenger trainwent by all lit up an' folks settin' inside takin' it easy. We pulledinto a patch of timber an' the four of 'em framed it up to hold up thenext train. I was scairt out of a year's growth but I stuck, an' theyleft me in the timber to hold the horses. After a while a train comealong an' they flagged her down an' there was a lot of shootin'--nobodyhurt, the boys was just shootin' to scare the folks. I didn't know that,though, an' believe me, I was scairt. I was jest gettin' ready to beatit, figgerin' that they'd all be'n killed, when here they come, an'they'd made a good haul, too. We rode all night an' skirted through themountains. Next mornin' we holed up. Old Pete, he said we'd divide thestuff up after we'd slep so we all turned in but Scar which we postedhim fer a lookout.
"It was plumb dark when I woke up--dark an' still. I laid there a whilethinkin' the others hadn't woke up yet. By an' by I got up an' huntedaround. They'd gone--pulled out on me! They hadn't even left me a horse.There I was, afoot, an' no tellin' how far from anywheres or whatdirection it laid. I learned, then, what it was to hate men. Fer a weekI tromped through them mountains follerin' cricks an' crossin' divides.I et berries an' what little stuff I could kill with rocks an' clubs. Ikilled a deer with my six-shooter an' laid around three days eatin' onit. At last I come to a ranch an' worked there a month an' then workedaround different places an' wound up in Cinnabar.
"I got a job drivin' dude wagons out of there an' Gardner, an' oneevenin' I was comin' down the trail with my dudes, nine of 'em--an' outsteps two men an' shoves six-guns in under my nose. I pulled up an' thenI got a good look at 'em. It was Old Pete Bradley, an' Wild Hoss Duffy!Old Pete had me covered an' Wild Hoss was goin' through my dudes. OldPete he recognized me about the same time I did him--an' he grinned. Henever grinned again! It was a fool thing to do, but I was jest akid--an' the dirt they'd done me was still fresh. I jerked out my gunan' begun shootin'. An' when I put it up Old Pete an' Wild Hoss wasdeader'n nits--an' I was so crazy mad that I'd jumped offen the seat an'was trompin' 'em into the trail. The dudes pulled me off, an' tuck up acollection an' give it to me, an' the company give me a reward, too. Therailroad an' the express company had rewards out but I didn't dast tryan' collect 'em, 'cause how was I supposed to know they was the onespulled the hold-up?
"Well, I got kind of notorious fer savin' the dudes an' I had a goodthing there until one day I seen a man hangin' around the depot. It wasMike Hinch--an' that night I blew. I worked around afterthat--cowpunchin', bartendin', minin' an' lots of other jobs, but Inever would stay long in a place--till I hit Wolf River an' seen you. Ifiggered if I had to make a stand it might's well be there as anywheresso I stayed. I know'd Mike Hinch was on my trail. It wasn't that I wasafraid of him--afraid he'd shoot me--'cause I'd took care to get so goodwith a six-gun, either handed, that he wouldn't stand no show. But, I'dlearnt my lesson--that crooked work don't pay. I wanted to be on thelevel, an' I was afraid that Mike would somehow tip me off fer thathold-up, to git even for me killin' Old Pete an' Wild Hoss." Cinnabarpaused and, his wife, who had been drinking in every word leaned towardhim eagerly:
"But, Purdy? How did Purdy git in on it?"
"I was comin' to that. A year ago, Purdy had a little job of dirty workhe wanted done an' he come to me to do it. I told him where to head inat an' then he sprung--what I've jest told you. I pulled my gun an'covered him, but--somehow I couldn't shoot him down in cold blood--noteven fer that. He'd left his guns off a purpose. Then he lit in an' toldhow he was ridin' along Big Dry an' found a man layin' there with hisback broke, which his horse had throw'd him off. Purdy seen he was allin an' while he stood lookin' at him the fellow got to mutterin' about ahold-up. Purdy fetched him some water an' the man--he was MikeHinch--begged him to give him his gun which had fell out of his reach,so he could put hisself out of misery. Purdy thought if he was ahold-up, he'd have a _cache_ somewheres, so he dickered with him,agreein' to pass him the gun if he'd tell where his _cache_ was. Mikesaid he didn't have no _cache_. He was headin' to Wolf River to hornsome money out of me to keep him from tippin' off the sheriff that I wasin on that hold-up. So Purdy give him his gun--an' he shot hisself, butbefore he died he told Purdy that he was the only one left of thegang--I'd bumped off two, an' Scar Lamento had got killed down inMexico." Cinnabar removed his hat and breathed deeply, "So now you'vegot it--straight. I'd ought to told you before--but, somehow--I kep'puttin' it off." He rose to his feet. "I'm goin' out an' git Purdy,now--I'd ought to done it long ago."
Jennie rose and laid a hand on his arm: "Jest one thing more, Joe? Thatlittle job of dirty work that Purdy wanted you to do--did you do it?"
Cinnabar grinned, "I did--an' I didn't. Ask Tex Benton--he knows."
"Tex Benton! That reminds me!" Jennie paused and pointed toward thecabin. "In there, she told me that Tex is huntin' Purdy. How it comesshe's keepin' cases on Tex--an' her married--is more'n I know. Butthat's what she said."
Cinnabar stared at her: "Tex huntin' Purdy!" he cried, "well, if he is,it's good-night Purdy! An' I'm right now on my way to help him. It meansI'll do time, but I'll back up Tex's play, an' between the two of uswe'll git him."
Jennie shook her head: "No, Joe--not that way."
"What do you mean 'not that way'?"
"It's like--murder----"
"Murder!" exclaimed Cinnabar, "it ain't no murder to kill a skunk likehim! He's got us right where he wants us. This is only the beginnin' ofwhat he'll do to us. If I don't come acrost with whatever he says--up Igo. An' if I do come acrost, up I go anyhow--he'll double-cross me jestto git me out of the way--an' where'll you be?"
"Listen, Joe," the woman had risen and stood facing him, "it ain't rightto go huntin' him that way. I don't know if I c'n make you see it--likeI do. You ain't a coward, Joe--you've always come through like a man.Everyone knows that. But if you go huntin' Purdy it would be because youwas afraid of him----"
"Afraid of him! I'll show you how much I'm----"
"I don't mean that way, Joe! I know you ain't afraid to shoot it outwith him. What I mean is, you're afraid to have him runnin' aroundloose--afraid that if he squeals, you'll do time. Now, it would bepretty clost to murder if you killed a man, no matter how ornery he is,jest to save your own hide----"
"But it ain't my own hide--it's you!"
"Now you're gittin' down to it. An' it ain't so much me right now, as itis that poor girl in there. There's two of us here that it's up to youto protect, an' the way to do it is to stay right here on the ranch tillhe comes for her----"
"But that'll be a week! In the meantime Purdy might tip me off."
"No chanct fer that. With Tex on his trail he ain't goin' to have notime for no tippin' off, an' he wouldn't anyway--not till he'd squeezedyou dry. It's like you said, this is only the beginin'! When he's goteverything he thinks he can git out of you, then he'll tip you off--an'not before. An' he's liable to show up here any minute--after her. WhenTex begins to crowd him, he's goin' to try to make a git-away, with her.An' when he comes you make him wade through lead to git to the house!There's two guns in there, an' we'll keep one loaded while you'rekeepin' the other one hot!"
"What if he gits away? If Tex don't git him--an' he don't come backhere?"
"He won't git away, but if he does, you're goin' to throw the saddle onyour cayuse an' ride to Wolf River, an' you're goin' to the bank an' gityour friends together an' tell 'em jest what you told me. Ev
ery manthere is your friend an' they'll see you through. They've know'd you fersix years--an' they'll know the same as I know that there ain't no sensein throwin' you in jail fer what happened there on the edge of thedesert. You done your time fer that when you was wanderin' through themmountains. You learnt your lesson then. An' it changed you from a foolkid that was headed straight to the devil into a square man. That's whatthe prisons are for--if they're any good--an' if the mountains done thejob first, why there ain't nothin' left fer the prison to do, is there?"
"Tex Benton's a friend of mine, I'd ought to be out there backin' up hisplay."
"You're backin' up his play better by stayin' here an protectin' thatwoman. He's trailin' Purdy to save her."
"But, even if we do git Purdy, there's the others--his pals."
Jennie sniffed contemptuously: "I thought so, too, at first. But cometo think it over you can't tell me he ever let anyone else in on this!That was a raw bluff to save his own hide. Why, his kind wouldn't trustone another nowheres with nothin'!"
Cinnabar removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. "Womenain't got no more education than what men has," he said, thoughtfully,"but sure as hell they can out-think 'em. I hope you're right all downthe line--an' I guess you are. Anyhow, you better be, 'cause I'm goin'to do it like you say." His eyes rested for a moment on the new cabin."But if you're wrong, an' back there in Wolf River they think the slateain't wiped clean, an' send me up, an' the little outfit goes to thedevil----"
His wife interrupted him: "Why, I'll get my old job back, an' wait foryou to git out, an' we'll start all over again."
Cinnabar reached out and gathered the girl into his arms: "Yes," heanswered, with his lips close to her ear, "an' either way, we'll know wedone the best we know'd how--an' that's all anyone can do."