Ernest Haycox - Ernest Haycox - Ultimate Collection - Western Classics & Historical Novels

Studying this from all its angles he was interrupted a couple of hours later when a pair of riders dropped over the ridge and galloped down the slope toward him. Within fifty yards he recognized them to be from Trono's party and he stood up, suddenly wary. They whirled before the house and dismounted, each looking to the other until one took up the burden of explanation.

"It's like this," said the spokesman looking the new foreman squarely in the face. "We couldn't nowise break away from Trono here on the ranch. We ain't his kind, y'understan'? But a fella has got to watch his p's and q's. Bill an' me is square an' we like the JIB. So we sorter told Trono we was a-goin' to ride up in the pines to have a look-see. When the boys got out o' sight we come foggin' back here. If yuh need help we'd be right pleased to throw in. They'll be gunplay sooner or later, yuh bet."

Lilly worked his thumbs through his belt and stared at them with a mild, disbelieving countenance. "If you weren't Trono's men how does it come you worked under him?"

"Hell, a man's got to eat, ain't he? Now, amigo, let that ride. We didn't bust into this jes' cause we liked to be shot at. The old man was white to us. We been here a long time—before most o' those jaspers Trono hired on his own hook. Yu' see? Better make peace an' take what help yu' can get, which ain't goin' to be plenty, Trono'll scare cowhands away from here an' yu' ain't ble to turn this job by yoreself."

"Lads, it's too good to be a real yarn. I'm obliged but I don't hire on Tuesdays or Fridays. Just run back an' tell Trono it didn't work."

The pair looked mournfully disappointed. The spokesman shook his head and observed that you never could tell which way a red- head would jump and wasn't it a fact. "Amigo, what's bit yu'? Yu' asked for help an' now yu' won't take it. Tell a man!"

"I've changed my mind. It's goin to be a new deck. I'm obliged but the road out is over yonder—"

"They can stay."

It was Jill speaking. She had come from the house and stood with her back to the logs, tight-lipped and somber. "I know these men. Billy and Slim have always been good hands. My father spoke highly of them. Hang your saddles in the bunkhouse, boys, And thanks for coming."

The two made off, but not before Slim, the spokesman, had gravely assured Lilly he didn't hold anything against him for the refusal. "A man can't be too careful these days."

Lilly waited until they were well out of sight before speaking. "Ma'am, why do you suppose they come back? Don't you think they'd of stayed when I asked for 'em to choose between me and Trono? Their yarn is full of holes. They're Trono's men shore as shootin' an they'll only make trouble—of which we've got a-plenty right now."

She was bitter-eyed, resentful; and when he had finished she laid down the law to him in no uncertain terms. "Remember, you are the foreman. Nothing more. I told you I would do the firing. As for those two I know them better than you do. How is it that you, a complete stranger, insist that all this crew is untrustworthy? I might use the very same words to you."

He rubbed his hand slowly along the back of the chair, watching her as the anger seemed to mount. Perhaps he would have washed his hands of the affair then and there, have taken his horse and ridden over the ridge—if the saving grace of humor had not helped him. She was a spitfire and no mistake! But he knew, or thought he knew, what was behind those hard words. Her pride and her loyalty had been shaken by Jim Breck's confession of fault and in the after hours of tragedy when she was trying to rebuild something from the wreck, trying to regain her own self-respect, she had unconsciously laid the blame on the nearest man. Which happened to be himself. "She hates to have me see her humbled like this," he reflected. "She thinks I'm passin' judgment." Well, that would pass and she would be sorry for it. He could bear it. If she didn't change he would still stick until the trouble was averted and then pull freight. He hated a shrewish woman.

So he turned her accusation aside. "Well, if you think they're all right that settles the matter. Maybe I'm wrong. I've always been taught to be suspicious until I was shown otherwise. Now, ma'am, if you don't mind I'd like to see yore daddy's books. I've got to understand his business before I can start working."

She turned this over in her mind for some time and Lilly thought she was about to refuse him. "I guess you have a right to that," she admitted. "His office was at the end of the house. Look for yourself."

"Look for himself," he judged was going to be his motto on the JIB. Entering the old man's office—which was a bare room with only a great roll-topped desk and pine chair to relieve its emptiness—he sat down and tried to find his way through the mass of letters, catalogues and bills of lading. Everything was in confusion and according to the dates of the letters nothing had been filed for six months. The drawers and the pigeon holes were jammed full of unrelated things as if the old man, suddenly tired of seeing the top of the desk so cluttered, had swept it clear with his fist.

It grew dark long before Lilly had reduced anything to order or had found what he most wanted to find—the tallies of the spring roundup. Abandoning the job for the day he strolled to the porch. A light burned in the kitchen and he saw the girl bending over the stove; her white, strong arms moved swiftly and once as she turned Lilly thought she looked somewhat happier. She had forgotten for the moment the troubles of the day. Work did that, Lilly reflected, strolling across the yard. Many a time he had plunged headlong into any kind of labor to keep himself from thinking. Dusk fell across the land in gray, swirling waves, bringing with it a cool night breeze. There was a light in the bunkhouse and he heard one of the hands singing a doleful ditty about Sam Bass.

He moved by the corner of an Indian house and started toward the corrals. There was a slight, hissing sound to his rear and the crunch of a boot. He turned swiftly, arm dropping toward his gun; but he was too late to save himself. A loop fell over his shoulders and tautened with such a force that it threw him to the ground. In the dusk he heard a man breathing heavily, advancing on the run; and when the fellow stooped to take another hitch in the rope he saw it to be Slim the spokesman. Slim grunted his satisfaction. "Yu' damn rascal! I knew I'd ketch yu' if I waited long enough. Quit that squirmin' or I'll bust yu' to aitch! Hey, Billy—come on now. I done snared him!"

Slim was on his knee, one arm planted in Lilly's chest. Lilly bent upward and with one desperate wrench of his shoulders butted the puncher beneath the chin, throwing the man off balance. A stream of profanity followed, and though Lilly tried to pull his hands clear of the rope he failed. Slim's fist shot through the shadows and took Lilly in the temple. "Yu' damn fool, I could smash yu' fer that! Now git up an' travel to'rds the bunkhouse!"

"Here," said Lilly, "what kind of a game are you playin'? Just what's yore profit in this?"

Bill, who had joined Slim, chuckled. "You'll have to ask Trono that, amigo. Hey, Slim, it's the smokehouse we want. Yeah. All right, fella, back in there an' hold yore nose."

Lilly could not see where they were putting him. A door groaned and Slim's hand went rummaging through his pockets for knives and sundry weapons. The gunbelt dropped from his hip and he was shoved none too gently across the high sill of a shed no more than three feet square. Then the door closed and the hasp fell over a staple, to be locked. The two men, retreated speaking softly. By-and-by Lilly heard three shots near the main house. Three shots evenly spaced—the ancient signal of the range. Within ten minutes he heard many men riding into the yard. Trono had returned.