Rimrock Trail

"I don't remember the names. Blake took the record of them," said Keith sullenly.

"Then we'll have him in."

Sandy went to the door and hailed Sam and Mormon. They came to the office escorting Blake, whose fox-face moved from side to side with furtive eyes as if he smelled a trap.

"We want the list of the folks you unloaded Molly stock to," said Sandy.

Blake looked at his employer who sat glowering at his cigar end, licked his lips and said nothing.

"Speak up," said Sandy.

"There's a fine patch of prickly pear handy," suggested Sam. "Fine fo' restorin' the voice. Last time we chucked a tenderfoot in there they had to peel the shirt off of him in strips." He took the secretary by one elbow, Mormon by the other, both grinning behind his back as he shook with a sudden palsy in the belief that they meant their threat.

"Tell him, you damned fool!" grunted Keith.

"The stubs are in the car at Hereford depot," said Blake. "In the safe."

"Money there too? I suppose you cashed the checks?"

"I deposited them to my own account," said Keith. "Come on, let's get this over with since you are determined to throw away your own and your partners' good money, to say nothing of the girl's. She could bring suit against you, Bourke, with a good chance of winning."

He glanced hopefully at Mormon and Sam. They kept on grinning.

"Round up that chauffeur, Sam, will you?" asked. Sandy. "Tell him we're startin' fo' Herefo'd right off. You an' me can go over those accounts of Molly's same time we attend to the other business, Keith."

They went outside, Blake looking anxious and a trifle bewildered, Keith throwing away his cigar and lighting a new one, his face sullen with the rage he dammed. Kate Nicholson and Miranda Bailey were on the ranch-house veranda.

"Could I ask you to mail these letters, Mr. Keith? Two of Molly's and one of my own." Kate Nicholson advanced toward him, the letters in hand. With a spurt of fury Keith snatched at the letters and threw them on the ground.

"To hell with you!" he shouted, his face empurpled. "You're fired!" All of his polish stripped from him like peeling veneer, he appeared merely a coarse bully.

Sam came up the veranda in two jumps and a final leap that left him with his hands entwined in Keith's coat collar. He whirled that astounded person half around and slammed him up against the wall of the ranch-house, rumpled, gasping, with trembling hands that lifted before the menace of Sam's gun.

"I oughter shoot the tongue out of you befo' I put a slug through yore head," said Sam, standing in front of the promoter, tense as a jaguar couched for a spring, his eyes glittering, his voice packed with venom. "You git down on yo' knees, you ring-tailed skunk, an' apologize to this lady. Crook yo' knees, you stinkin' polecat, an' crawl. I'll make you lick her shoes. Down with you or I'll send you straight to judgment!"

"No, Sam, Mr. Manning – it isn't necessary," protested Kate Nicholson. "Please…"

Sam looked at her cold-eyed.

"This is my party," he said. "It'll do him good. I'll let him off lickin' yo' shoes, he might spile the leather. But he'll git them letters he chucked away, git 'em on all-fours, like the sneakin', slinkin', double-crossin' coyote he is. Crook yo' knees first an' apologize! I'll learn you a lesson right here an' now. You stay right where you are, Kate. Let him come to you."

Sam fired a shot and the promoter jumped galvanically as the bullet tore through the planking of the ranch-house between his trembling knees.

"I regret, Miss Nicholson," he commenced huskily, "that I let my temper get the better of me. I was greatly upset. In the matter of your services I was – er – doubtless hasty. It can be arranged."

He shrank at the tap of Sam's gun on his shoulder, wilting to his knees.

"She w'udn't work fo' you fo' the time it takes a rabbit to dodge a rattler," said Sam. "She never did work fo' you. It was Molly's money paid her. Kate's goin' to stay right here as long as she chooses an' I…"

Catching Kate Nicholson's gaze, the admiring look of a woman who has never before been championed, conscious of the fact that he had blurted out her Christian name and disclosed the secret of that touch of intimacy between them, Sam grew crimson through his tan. Kate Nicholson's face was rosy; both were embarrassed.

"Thank you, Mr. Manning," she said. "Please let him get up, and put away your pistol."

"Git up," said Sam, "an' go pick up them letters."

Keith, humiliated before his secretary and his chauffeur, the latter gazing wooden-faced but making no attempt at interference, gathered up the envelopes and presented them, with a bow, to the governess. He had recovered partial poise and his face was pale as wax, his eyes evil.

"I'll mail them, Miss Nicholson," said Sandy. "Let's go." He took Sam aside as the car swung round and up to the porch. "I'm obliged to you, Sam," he said. "It was sure comin' to him an' I've been havin' hard work to keep my hands off him. I've a notion he'll trail better now. If Brandon arrives befo' we git back, look out fo' him. Mormon'll help you entertain."

"Seguro," replied Sam. "Look at Keith. He looks like a rattler with his fangs pulled. I'll bet he c'ud spit bilin' vitriol right now."

"His cud ain't jest what he most fancies, this minute," said Sandy dryly. "Sorter bitter to chew an' hard to swaller. Sammy," Sandy's voice changed to affection, his eyes twinkled, "I didn't sabe you an' Miss Nicholson was so well acquainted."

Sam looked his partner in the eyes and used almost the same words for which he had just tamed Keith. But he said them with a smile.

"You go plumb to hell!"

Creel, president of the Hereford National Bank, a banker keen at a bargain, shot out his underlip when Keith, with Sandy in attendance, tendered him the money for all shares of the Molly Mine sold in Hereford, including his own.

"You say the mine has petered out?" he asked Keith, with palpable suspicion. Keith glanced swiftly at Sandy sitting across the table from him in the little directors' room back of the bank proper. Sandy sat sphinx-like. As if by accident, his hands were on his hips, the fingers resting on his gun butts. Keith did not actually fear gunplay, but he was not sure of what Sandy might do. Sam's bullet, that had undoubtedly been sped in grim earnest, had unnerved him. Sandy Bourke held the winning hand.

"That is the news from my superintendent," said Keith. "I wish I could doubt it. Under the circumstances, consulting with Mr. Bourke, who represents the majority stock, we concluded there was no other action for us to take but to recall the shares although the money had actually passed. Naturally, in the refunding, which I leave entirely to you, it would be wiser not to precipitate a general panic and to treat the matter with all possible secrecy."

"Humph!" Keith's suavity did not appear entirely to smooth down Creel's chagrin at losing what he had considered a good thing. He smelt a mouse somewhere. "There are only two reasons for repurchasing such stock," he said crisply. "The course you take is rarely honorable and suggests great credit. The second reason would be a strike of rich ore rather than a failure."

"I will guarantee the failure, Creel," said Sandy. "If, at any time, a strike is made in the Molly, I shall be glad to transfer to you personally the same amount of shares from my own holdin's. I'll put that in writin', if you prefer it."

"No," said Creel, "it ain't necessary." He glumly made the retransfer. Sandy viséed Keith's accounts and took Keith's check for the balance, placing it to a personal account for Molly. The check was on the Hereford Bank and it practically exhausted Keith's local resources.

As they left the bank a cowboy rode up on a flea-bitten roan that was lathered with sweat, sadly roweled and leg-weary. Astride of it was Wyatt, riding automatically his eyes wide-opened, red-rimmed, owlish with lack of sleep and overmuch bad liquor. Afoot he could hardly have navigated, in the saddle he seemed comparatively sober. He spurred over to the big machine as Sandy and Keith got in to return to the ranch, sweeping his sombrero low in an ironical bow.

"Evenin', gents," he greeted them, his voice husky, inclined to hiccough. "This here is one hell of a town, Bourke! They've took away my guns an' told me to be good, they're sellin' doughnuts an' buttermilk down to Regan's old joint, popcorn an' sody-water over to Pap Gleason's! Me, I tote my own licker an' they don't take that off 'n my hip. You don't want a good man out to the Three Star, Bourke?"

"I never saw a real good man the shape you're in, Wyatt. Sober up an' I'll talk to you."

Wyatt leaned from the saddle and held on to the side of the machine with one hand, his alcohol-varnished eyes boring into Sandy's with the fixity of drink-madness.

"Why in hell would I sober up?" he demanded. "Plimsoll, the lousy swine, he stole my gal, God blast him! He drove me off'n the Waterline, him an' the ones that hang with him. I'd like to see him hang. I'd like to see the eyes stickin' out of his head an' his tongue stickin' out of his lyin' jaws! I'm gettin' even with Jim Plimsoll fo' what he done to me." Wyatt's eyes suddenly ran over with tears of self-pity. "Blast him to hell!" he cried. "Watch my smoke!" He withdrew his hand and galloped up the street as Keith's car started.

The powerful engine made nothing of the few miles between Hereford and the Three Star and it was only mid-afternoon when they arrived. Molly and Donald Keith were still absent, there was no sign of Brandon. Sandy fancied that any wait would not be especially congenial to Keith, but the promoter was firm in his determination to take away his son from the ranch. While his resentment could find no outlet, it was plain that he and his were through with any one connected with the Three Star brand.

Acting without any thought of this, save as it simmered subconsciously, Sandy rejoiced that Molly would now stay. He intended to give her open choice – there was money enough left, aside from the capital used on the Three Star, to send her back east for a completion of education. Or to pay Miss Nicholson for remaining as educator. He surmised that Sam would persuade Kate Nicholson to stay in any event. Molly, returned, appeared so much the woman, that the question of further schooling seemed superfluous to Sandy. He felt that it would to her, especially after he had told her all that had occurred since morning. That she would approve he had no doubt. Molly was true blue as her eyes. Altogether, Sandy considered the petering out of the Molly Mine far from being a disaster. And, if Molly stayed west – for keeps – ?

Keith stayed in his car, smoking, ignoring the very existence of the ranch and its people. The afternoon wore on with the sun dropping gradually toward the last quarter of the day's march. At four o'clock one of the Three Star riders came in at a gallop, carrying double. Behind him, clinging tight, was Donald Keith, woebegone, almost exhausted, his trim riding clothes snagged and soiled, his shining puttees scuffed and scratched. He staggered as he slid out of the saddle and clung to the cantle, head sunk on arms until Sandy took him by the arm. Keith sprang from his car and came over. Sam and Mormon hurried up.

"What's this?" demanded Keith angrily, suspicion rife in his voice.

"I picked him up three mile' back, hoofin' it. He was headin' fo' Bitter Flats but he wanted the ranch," said the cowboy to Sandy, ignoring Keith. "We burned wind an' leather comin' in, seein' Jim Plimsoll an' some of his gang have made off with Miss Molly!"

"Where'd this happen?" demanded Sandy. "Sam, go git Pronto fo' me an' saddle up."

"That's the hell of it," said the rider. "The pore damn fool don't know. Plumb loco! Scared to death. Been wanderin' round sence afore noon."

Donald Keith sagged suddenly and Sandy picked the lad up in his arms. Weariness and fright, thirst, the changed altitude, had overtoiled his endurance. Sandy strode with him to the car and laid him on the cushions.

"Git some water," he ordered Keith. "We've got no licker on the ranch. Here's one of the times Prohibition an' me don't hitch."

Keith bent, opened a shallow drawer beneath the seat and produced a silver flask. He unscrewed the top and poured some liquor into it. It was Scotch whisky of a pre-war vintage. The aroma of the stuff dissolved in the rare air, vaguely scenting it. The nose of the wooden-faced chauffeur wrinkled. Sandy raised the boy's head and lifted the whisky to his pallid lips, gray as his face where the flesh matched the powdery alkali that covered it.

"Pinch his nose," he said to Keith. "He's breathin' regular. Stroke his throat soon as I git the stuff back of his teeth. So. Now then."

The cordial trickled down and Donald's eyes opened. Almost immediately color came back into his cheeks and lips and he tried to sit up. Sandy helped him.

"Now, sonny," he said. "Tell us about it. How'd this happen an' where? An' when, if you can place that?"

Donald nodded.

"Just a second," he whispered and closed his eyes. They were bright when he raised the lids again.

"Whisky got me going," he said. "I'd have given a whole lot for that flask two or three hours ago, Dad."

"Never mind the whisky, where did you leave Molly?" demanded Sandy.

"I don't know just where. I wasn't noticing just which way we rode. She did the leading. I don't know how I ever got back."

"Didn't she tell you where you were makin' fo'?"

"She didn't name it. It was a little lake in some cañon where Molly said there used to be beavers."

"Beaver Dam Cañon," said Sandy exultantly. "You left here 'bout seven. How fast did you trail?"

"We walked the horses most of the time. It was all up-hill. And I looked at my watch a little before it happened. It was a quarter of eleven. Molly said we'd be there by noon."

"Where were you then? What kind of a place? Near water?"

"We'd just crossed a stream."

"Willer Crick, runs out of Beaver Dam Lake. You c'udn't foller that up, 'count of the falls. Now, jest what happened?"

"We saw some men ahead of us. Molly wondered who they could be. Then they disappeared. We were riding in a pass and two of them showed again, coming out of the trees ahead of us. One of them, on a big black horse, held up his hand."

"Jim Plimsoll!"

"Yes. Molly recognized him and she spoke to him to get out of the trail. It was brush and cactus either side of us and we'd have had to crowd in. Grit was trailing us. Plimsoll wouldn't move. I heard more horses back of us and I turned to look. Two more men were coming up behind. They had rifles. So did the man with Plimsoll. He had a pistol under his vest. We couldn't go back very well and I could see from the way Plimsoll grinned that he was going to be nasty. Molly spurred Blaze on and cut at Plimsoll with her quirt. He grabbed her hand with his left. Grit sprang up at him and he got out his gun from the shoulder sling and shot him."

"Shot the dawg? Hit him?"

"Yes, in the leg. He fired at him again, but Grit got into the brush."

"Jest what were you doin' all the time?" Sandy knew the lad was a tenderfoot, knew he would have been small use on such an occasion, but the thought of Grit rising to the rescue, falling back shot, brought the taunt.

"The two men behind told me to throw up my hands," said young Keith, his face reddening. "What could I do?"

"Nothin', son. You c'udn't have done a thing. Go on."

"Plimsoll twisted Molly's wrist so that the quirt fell to the ground. The man who was with him tossed his rope over her and they twisted it round her arms. I had the muzzle of a rifle poked into my ribs. They made me get off my horse. And they made me walk back along the trail. They fired bullets each side of me and laughed at me when I dodged. They told me if I looked back they'd shoot my damned head off." Donald's eyes were filled with tears of self-pity and the remembrance of his helpless rage. "They kept firing at me until I'd passed the stream. I hid in the willows, but I couldn't see anything. I couldn't even see the men who had been firing at me.

"I didn't know what to do. I couldn't rescue Molly without a horse. I only had a revolver against their rifles and I'm not much of a shot. I tried to get back here but it was hard to find the way. I knew it was east but the sun was high and I wasn't sure which way the shadows lay. I was all in when your man found me."

"All right, my son. Keith, I'm goin' to borrow that flask of yores. Might need it."

He jumped from the car, flask in hand, and ran to the ranch-house. Kate Nicholson met him as he entered. "Has anything happened to Molly?" she gasped.

"That's what I'm goin' to find out," Sandy answered. "Mormon, git me my cartridge belt an' some extry shells fo' my rifle."

"I got to go git me my hawss," demurred Mormon who had followed him in. "Becos' I'm goin' on this trail."

"You can come erlong with Sam when the Brandon outfit shows. Or, if they don't show, you can bring erlong our own boys soon's they come in. But I'm hittin' this alone."

As he spoke he rummaged in a drawer and brought out the first-aid kit he always kept handy.

"You ain't takin' Sam?" asked Mormon, returning with the cartridge belt, Sandy's rifle and a box of shells. "I know you're goin' to ride hard an' fast, Sandy, but you got to go slow after you git tryin' to cut sign. Plimsoll's likely taken her over to the Waterline range country. They got a place over there somewhere they call the Hideout. It's where they hide their hawsses when they want 'em out of sight an' I reckon it's hard to find. I c'ud keep within' sight of you till you start cuttin' sign, Sandy, an' then catch up."

"Sam ain't comin'," said Sandy, filling his rifle magazine and breech, stowing away extra clips. "I'm goin' in alone. Mo'n one 'ud be likely to spoil sign, Mormon, mo'n one is likely to advertise we're comin'. They're liable to leave a lookout. Know we'll miss Molly some time. Figgered young Keith might git back some time. Plimsoll's clearin' out of the country an' I'm trailin' him clean through hell if I have to. Ef he's harmed Molly I'll stake him out with a green hide wrapped round him an' his eyelids sliced off. I'll sit in the shade an' watch him frizzle an' yell when the hide shrinks in the sun. This is my private play, Mormon. You an' Sam can back it up, but I'm handlin' the cards. I'll leave sign plain fo' you to foller from Willer Crick. They must have crossed at the ford below the big bend."

He left the room and they saw him covering the ground in a wolf trot to where Sam, astride his own favorite mount, held Pronto ready saddled. They saw Sam's protest, Sandy's vigorous overruling of it, and then Sandy was up-saddle and away at a brisk lope with Sam gazing after him disconsolately. Keith's car was turning for the trip to Hereford, spurning the dust of the Three Star Ranch forever – and not lamented.

"Ain't it jest plumb hell – beggin' yore pardon, marm – but that's what it is – plain hell!" cried Mormon. Tears of mortification were in his eyes, his voice was high-pitched and his chagrin was so much like that of an overgrown child that Kate Nicholson felt constrained to laugh despite the seriousness of the situation. "Me, I been punchin' cows, ridin' a hawss fo' a livin' fo' nigh thirty years," said Mormon. "I ain't what you'd call sooperannuated yit, if I am bald. I'm healthy as a woodchuck. But I'm so goldarned, hunky-chunky, hawg-fat I can't ride a hawss no mo' – not faster 'n a walk or further than two mile', fo' fear of breakin' his back. So I git left home to sit in a damn rockin' chair! Hell and damnation!"

"You're going to follow him, aren't you?"

"That was jest Sandy's way of lettin' me down easy. Sam'll go, but I'll stay to home. I'm goin' to give away my guns an' learn milkin'. Sandy's got about three hours of daylight. He'll go 'cross lots on the hawss, fur as he reckons the sign shows safe, an' no man can read sign better'n Sandy. Then he'll play snake an' he can beat an Indian at takin' cover. He'll drift over open country 'thout bein' spotted an', up there in the range, they'll never see, smell or hear him till he's on top of 'em an' his guns are doin' the talkin'. You ought to see him in action. I've done it. I've been in action with him, me an' Sam. Now all I'm good fo' is a close quarters ra'r an' tumble. He w'udn't take Sam erlong fo' fear of hurtin' my feelin's though even Sam 'ud be some handicap to Sandy on this trip of scoutin'.

"Sam can't take cover extra good, though he shoots middlin'. Sandy, he shoots like lightnin' fast an' straight."

"But there are four against him, at least."

"Fo' what?" asked Mormon with a look of scorn. "Plimsoll an' three of his cronies. Mebbe one or two mo' chucked in fo' good measure. What of it? Yeller, all of 'em, yeller as the belly of a Gila River pizen lizard. On'y way the odds 'ud be even w'ud be fo' them to git the drop on Sandy an' it can't be done. He's got his fightin' face on an' that means hands an' heart an' eyes an' brain an' every inch of him lined up to win. Sandy fights with his head an' he's got the heart to back it. Hell's bells, marm, beggin' yo' pardon ag'in, I ain't worryin' none erbout Sandy! I ain't seen him lose out yet. I'm cussin' about me– warmin' an armchair an' waddlin' round like a fall hawg."

Mormon slammed his hat on the floor and jumped on it and Miss Nicholson fled, a little reassured by Mormon's eulogy, anxious to talk it over with Sam.

Sandy, his eyes like the mica flakes that show in gray granite, his humorous mouth a stern line, little bunches of muscles at the junction of his jaws, held the pinto to a steady lope that ate up the ground, drifting straight and fast across country for the opening in the mesa that he had marked as the short-cut to the spot described by Donald Keith. Through gray sage and ferny mesquite Pronto moved, elastic of every sinew, springy of pastern, without fret or fuss though he had not been ridden for two days. Even as the man fitted the saddle, counterbalanced every supple movement of his steed, so Sandy's will dominated that of Pronto, making his mood his master's, telling him the occasion was one for best efforts with no place for wasted energy.

"We're goin' to cross a hard country, li'l' hawss," said Sandy. "But I figger we can make it. Got to make it, Pronto. An' we're sure goin' to. Doin' it fo' her."

Every now and then he talked his thoughts aloud, as the lonely rider will and, if the pinto could not understand, he listened with pricked ears.

"Grit must have been hurt pritty bad, I'm afraid. Still he might have trailed her 'stead of comin' back. Sun's gettin' to'ards the no'th."

He glanced at the luminary, slowly descending. "But the moon's up already an' she's full." He looked to where a wan plate of battered silver hung in the east. "We got some luck on our side, Pronto, after all.

"Wonder who the three were with Plimsoll? They've gone to the Hideout an' we got to find it, li'l' hawss. Some job, I reckon. But Plimsoll's goin' to be mighty sorry fo' himse'f befo' long."

As they neared the foot-hills of the range he lapsed to silence. He was taking chances, crossing country this fashion. He knew it fairly well, and he guessed at what lay behind the visible contours from the experience of years. Deep barrancas might crop up in their path, massed thickets of cactus that had to be ridden around for loss of time. The mesa, looking like a solid block of rock at a distance, was, he knew well, broken into tortuous ravines and cañons, eroded into wild thrusts of the mother rock, its central part eaten away by time and weather.

Part of the Three Star range, shared by two ranches, ran over the southern part of the mesa and it was close to its boundary fence that Sandy was heading. Then came the range of Plimsoll's Waterline, a rough country, unknown to Sandy, with scant food for many cattle, but sweet grass enough for a horse herd and containing pockets where the slicktails sometimes came.

Sandy struck the first rise. He was now a crucible filled with glowing white fury. Thoughts of what Plimsoll might achieve in insult and injury to Molly could not be kept out of his mind and they but added fuel. It was not Sandy Bourke of the Three Bar, riding his favorite pinto, but a desperate man on a horse infected with the same grim determination, a man with a face that, despite the fiery heat within, blazing from his eyes, would have chilled the blood of any meeting him.