Ernest Haycox - The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox

"What became of that letter?" she asked these two shiftless sons of the prairie. "I had it in my hands just a moment ago."

The gentlemen flinched, as if accused of stealing it. Wango, having a chew in his mouth, remained stolidly dumb. But Meems was a more versatile man and made a stab at intelligent conversation. "Was it—uh—important, ma'am?"

"You have no idea," said Eve mysteriously. "Now, I've got to find it." She turned to the door, cast a quick look around, and stopped half inside the opening to watch Denver; to her the street, dusty and sprawling and hot, had become suddenly eventful.

David Denver—Black Dave Denver—approached in comfortable idleness. He had his hat tipped back and his face turned toward Cal Steele who walked alongside and told some kind of a story with much gesturing of arm. Denver nodded, the somber gravity of his features lighting up. Rather wistfully the girl wished she knew the kind of a story Cal Steele related, for there were few people who could make Dave Denver smile. Steele, in fact, was almost the only man who had the power of lifting Denver out of those strange and darkly taciturn moods that so often descended upon him.

The two of them stopped. Al Niland came across to join in, and presently Steve Steers emerged from Grogan's Western Star. So the four of them drew together as they inevitably did when in the same neighborhood. Dissimilar in so many respects and sharply varied in personalities, there yet was some common quality that cemented a deep friendship between them. The girl often had wondered about it, and at this moment she puzzled over the problem again. Al Niland was a lawyer who liked to take poor men's cases and fight with an ironical energy. Steve Steers was a roving puncher who, though welcome on any ranch, preferred to ride free and solitary through the hills. Cal Steele owned a small outfit near Dave Denver's D Slash ranch, and of the group this man was the most brilliant, the most volatile, and the most prodigal of his energy and talents. They were all young, and they were all fighters. But the girl, seeking deeper reasons, knew some deeper trait was shared by them. They were restless, nonconforming men; each a strong individualist and without illusions. Dave Denver's streak of clear-sighted grimness could be found likewise in the others.

The girl sighed a little as she saw Denver's smile fade and his bold features settle. The others were grinning amiably at some wild tale told by Steve Steers; but Denver's moment of forgetfulness was past, and he reverted again to the stormy, unsettled side of his nature. The first hot sun of the young year reached nooning and flashed down on the shackling, paint blistered buildings of the town, on the pine false fronts, on the whitewashed 'dobe walls, on the stone turret of the courthouse, on the drawn curtains of the second-story windows. A dinner bell rang. Buck Meems was drawling at his partner.

"'S funny thing, Pete. Ev'body considers Denver a big man. You do, I do, ev'body does. But look at him standin' beside Al Niland, not an inch taller ner a pound heavier. Al ain't more'n five feet eleven, and he don't weigh a hunnerd-seventy on the hocks. See what I mean? Denver ain't rully a big man when yuh git him among others. It's only when he's off by hisself that he looks like a young house movin' down the street. Funny, ain't it, Pete?"

"I could die of laughin'," muttered the drowsing Wango. "Ever have him slap yuh on the back?"

"Nuh."

"Take a try sometime and see if they's anything humorous about that."

Buck Meems was not a man lightly to cast aside an idea. He pursued this one doggedly, his mind almost audibly creaking from the strain of unaccustomed thinking. "Reason he looms so big alone is because we sorter expect him to be big. Git my idee, Pete? I mean big things is done by big men in a big sorter way. Folla me?"

"I'm limpin' after yuh," admitted Pete.

"He's big," insisted Buck Meems, attempting to wring the last drop of significance from his thought, "because even though he ain't actually big nev'less he's big on account o' the big way he does big—"

"Gawd's sake," groaned Wango, "roll over and get it offen yore chest."

Meems, silenced, brooded darkly. "I bet," he finally announced, "that if somebody put a bullet in yore coco it'd rattle like a nickel in a tin cup. Le's eat."

"Why, thanks fer offerin' to pay my dinner," said Wango and rose instantly.

"Who said anything about—" exploded Meems and became conscious of the girl's presence. The two stalked past her into the hotel, and she heard the murmur of their argument floating back. Denver broke away from his friends and sauntered on, at which the rose color on Eve Leverage's cheeks began to deepen. She moved casually across the porch. Denver turned in and met her with a slow lift of his hat. The girl, who knew this man's temper better than he would ever realize, saw the small crinkling furrows of pleasure spring around his eyes, and because of that signal her chin lifted gayly.

"This is a Thursday," he mused in an even, drawling voice, "and what brings you to town during the middle of the week?"

"Dad had business, so I rode along with him. But," and she assumed a mock deference, "if you don't want me in Sundown I shall of course get right in the wagon and drive home."

"Not a good idea," he decided. "You were meant to be right on this spot at this minute to cheer a dull man on a dull day."

"The king speaks," sighed Eve, "and the poor maid trembles in fear. What is your will, my good and great lord?"

He put his head aside and scowled at her. "That," he reflected, "has all the earmarks of a muffled knock. Little girls ought to have more respect for age."

"Oh, my training has all been wrong, Mister Denver. But don't you think it's almost time for you to throw away the notion I'm still a little girl? You've been thinking that for ten years. People do grow."

He studied her with perfect gravity and over so long a period that she began to lose her cool ease of manner. This man could make a mask of his face, and one seldom knew if he were serious or if behind the ruggedly modeled features there lay a soft laugh.

"You might be surprised," he observed finally, "just how often I change my mind about you, Eve."

"Now that's interesting. Tell me more."

"Just like a woman. Do you ever eat?"

"I have been known to."

"Well, you look hungry right now, and I feel charitable."

"I shall eat a great deal and run up a big bill," she warned him. "And you must order a whole jar of pickles for me. I expect that of gentlemen who take me to dine."

"Pickles for a grown lady," agreed Dave Denver solemnly and followed her into the dining room. They took a table in one corner and watched a hungry Sundown citizenry file through the door. Denver's glance roamed across the room, and Eve, experiencing a queer twinge of feeling that was half pride and half jealousy, saw that one of the waitresses had abandoned the big table and was coming over. Somehow this man had the power of creating loyalty. Men spoke to him in passing by, spoke to him with that soft slurring courtesy of equal to equal. His three strong friends sauntered in; but though there was room at the table for them, they only nodded and passed on to another, giving him the privacy he seemed to desire. Colonel Fear Langdell paused a moment, bowed at Eve, and spoke quietly to Dave Denver. "Meeting of the Association at two, Dave." Denver nodded, and Langdell walked away, a thin, straight ramrod of a man, quite conscious of his power. Eve, eating with the unashamed vigor of youth, knew that it was not every man nor many men for whom Fear Langdell would take extra steps; and this thought brought out another. No matter what company Dave Denver was in, and no matter how quietly he sat back, the effect of his presence would be felt as it was in the dining room.