William MacLeod Raine - The Best Western Novels of William MacLeod Raine

“Didn't know it was Bannister? What difference WOULD that make?” she said impatiently.

Mac laughed. “What difference would it make, Judd?”

Morgan scowled, and the young man answered his own question. “We don't any of us go out of our way more'n a mile to cross Bannister's trail,” he drawled.

“Do you wear this for an ornament? Are you upholstered with hardware to catch the eyes of some girl?” she asked, touching with the end of her whip the revolver in the holster strapped to his chaps.

His serene, gay smile flashed at her. “Are y'u ordering me to go out and get Ned Bannister's scalp?”

“No, I am not,” she explained promptly. “What I am trying to discover is why you all seem to be afraid of one man. He is only a man, isn't he?”

A veil of ice seemed to fall over the boyish face and leave it chiseled marble. His unspeaking eyes rested on the swarthy foreman as he answered:

“I don't know what he is, ma'am. He may be one man, or he may be a hundred. What's more, I ain't particularly suffering to find out. Fact is, I haven't lost any Bannisters.”

The girl became aware that her foreman was looking at her with a wary silent vigilance sinister in its intensity.

“In short, you're like the rest of the people in this section. You're afraid.”

“Now y'u're shoutin', Miss Messiter. I sure am when it comes to shootin' off my mouth about Bannister.”

“And you, Mr. Morgan?”

It struck her that the young puncher waited with a curious interest for the answer of the foreman.

“Did it look like I was afraid this mawnin', ma'am?” he asked, with narrowed eyes.

“No, you all seemed brave enough then, when you had him eight to one.”

“I wasn't there,” hastily put in McWilliams. “I don't go gunning for my man without giving him a show.”

“I do,” retorted Morgan cruelly. “I'd go if we was fifty to one. We'd 'a' got him, too, if it hadn't been for Miss Messiter. 'Twas a chance we ain't likely to get again for a year.”

“It wasn't your fault you didn't kill him, Mr. Morgan,” she said, looking hard at him. “You may be interested to know that your last shot missed him only about six inches, and me about four.”

“I didn't know who you were,” he sullenly defended.

“I see. You only shoot at women when you don't know who they are.” She turned her back on him pointedly and addressed herself to McWilliams. “You can tell the men working on this ranch that I won't have any more such attacks on this man Bannister. I don't care what or who he is. I don't propose to have him murdered by my employees. Let the law take him and hang him. Do you hear?”

“I ce'tainly do, and the boys will get the word straight,” he replied.

“I take it since yuh are giving your orders through Mac, yuh don't need me any longer for your foreman,” bullied Morgan.

“You take it right, sir,” came her crisp reply. “McWilliams will be my foreman from to-day.”

The man's face, malignant and wolfish, suddenly lost its mask. That she would so promptly call his bluff was the last thing he had expected. “That's all right. I reckon yuh think yuh know your own business, but I'll put it to yuh straight. Long as yuh live you'll be sorry for this.”

And with that he wheeled away.

She turned to her new foreman and found him less radiant than she could have desired. “I'm right sorry y'u did that. I'm afraid y'u'll make trouble for yourself,” he said quietly.

“Why?”

“I don't know myself just why.” He hesitated before adding: “They say him and Bannister is thicker than they'd ought to be. It's a cinch that he's in cahoots somehow with that Shoshone bunch of bad men.”

“But—why, that's ridiculous. Only this morning he was trying to kill Bannister himself.”

“That's what I don't just savvy. There's a whole lot about that business I don't get next to. I guess Bannister is at the head of them. Everybody seems agreed about that. But the whole thing is a tangle of contradiction to me. I've milled it over a heap in my mind, too.”

“What are some of the contradictions?”

“Well, here's one right off the bat, as we used to say back in the States. Bannister is a great musician, they claim; fine singer, and all that. Now I happen to know he can't sing any more than a bellowing yearling.”

“How do you know?” she asked, her eyes shining with interest.

“Because I heard him try it. 'Twas one day last summer when I was out cutting trail of a bunch of strays down by Dead Cow Creek. The day was hot, and I lay down behind a cottonwood and dropped off to sleep. When I awakened it didn't take me longer'n an hour to discover what had woke me. Somebody on the other side of the creek was trying to sing. It was ce'tainly the limit. Pretty soon he come out of the brush and I seen it was Bannister.”

“You're sure it was Bannister?”

“If seeing is believing, I'm sure.”

“And was his singing really so bad?”

“I'd hate ever to hear worse.”

“Was he singing when you saw him?”

“No, he'd just quit. He caught sight of my pony grazing, and hunted cover real prompt.”

“Then it might have been another man singing in the thicket.”

“It might, but it wasn't. Y'u see, I'd followed him through the bush by his song, and he showed up the moment I expected him.”

“Still there might have been another man there singing.”

“One chance in a million,” he conceded.

A sudden hope flamed up like tow in her heart. Perhaps, after all, Ned Bannister was not the leader of the outlaws. Perhaps somebody else was masquerading in his name, using Bannister's unpopularity as a shield to cover his iniquities. Still, this was an unlikely hypothesis, she had to admit. For why should he allow his good name to be dragged in the dust without any effort to save it? On a sudden impulse the girl confided her doubt to McWilliams.

“You don't suppose there can be any mistake, do you? Somehow I can't think him as bad as they say. He looks awfully reckless, but one feels one could trust his face.”

“Same here,” agreed the new foreman. “First off when I saw him my think was, 'I'd like to have that man backing my play when I'm sitting in the game with Old Man Hard Luck reaching out for my blue chips.'”

“You don't think faces lie, do you?”

“I've seen them that did, but, gen'rally speaking, tongues are a heap likelier to get tangled with the truth. But I reckon there ain't any doubt about Bannister. He's known over all this Western country.”

The young woman sighed. “I'm afraid you're right.”

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“Heard tell yet of the dance over to Fraser's?”

He was a young man of a brick red countenance and he wore loosely round his neck the best polka dot silk handkerchief that could be bought in Gimlet Butte, also such gala attire as was usually reserved only for events of importance. Sitting his horse carelessly in the plainsman's indolent fashion, he asked his question of McWilliams in front of the Lazy D bunkhouse.

“Nope. When does the shindig come off?”

“Friday night. Big thing. Y'u want to be there. All y'u lads.”

“Mebbe some of us will ride over.”

He of the polka dot kerchief did not appear quite satisfied. His glance wandered toward the house, as it had been doing occasionally since the moment of his arrival.

“Y'u bet this dance is ace high, Mac. Fancy costumes and masks. Y'u can rent the costumes over to Slauson's for three per. Texas, he's going to call the dances. Music from Gimlet Butte. Y'u want to get it tucked away in your thinker that this dance ain't on the order of culls. No, sirree, it's cornfed.”