Robber's Roost (1989) (36 page)

"Jim, I'll never pooh-pooh dough again," she replied, her eyes darkening.

"It's you who is not eating," he reproved. "Better eat and drink.

And go to bed soon. We will be leaving before daylight."

Every moment of that ride next day was a joy and a pang. It seemed as short as the preceding one had been long. Helen was gay, sad, thoughtful, and talkative by turns, but she did not infringe on the one subject that crucified Jim.

It chanced that as they surmounted the pass that led down into Star Ranch Valley, the sun was setting out of a glorious cloud-pageant over Wild Horse Mesa and the canyon brakes of the Dirty Devil. Jim judged of its beauty and profundity by the sudden silence it enjoined upon his companion. She never spoke another word until Jim halted the team in front of the ranch-house porch. "HOME!" she whispered, as if she had never expected to see it again.

At Jim's halloa Herrick came out on the porch. "By Jove! here you are!" was his greeting, as cool and unemotional as if they were returning from a day's visit to the village.

"Yes, Bernie, here I am--thanks to my gentleman escort," replied Helen.

Jim helped her out, while some cowboys came running, shouting to others below.

"I'll take the team down," Jim said, hurriedly.

"You come in," returned Herrick, as he gripped Jim's hand and gave him a searching glance. He kissed Helen and led her in, with his arm around her. Jim purposely lingered at the task of collecting Helen's worn and muddy luggage, and carried them in. Brother and sister stood with arms locked, and their gaze was hard to meet.

"Jim, you will have supper with us," she said. "I'll leave you and Bernie. . . . Oh, what will a tub and a change feel like!"

She gathered up her things and ran out of the living-room.

"Jim Wall, you bloody shooting cowboy!" ejaculated Herrick.

"That's not my right name," Jim made haste to reply.

"To hell with that, as you Westerners say. . . . Jim, come have a drink."

Herrick poured out red liquor with a hand that shook. They drank, and the rancher refilled the glasses.

"Helen hadn't time to tell me much," he said. "Hays kidnapped her for ransom. Took her to a hell hole down in the brakes. Robbers'

Roost she called it. Held her there captive--and she would have been degraded but for you. They fought among themselves--gambling with my money. Heeseman's crew found them. There was a battle.

In the end you killed Hays, and brought Helen back. . . . That's the gist of her story. But I want it in detail."

"I have all the money, almost to a dollar, Herrick," replied Jim.

The Englishman waived that as of little consequence, and urged Jim to a recital of the whole affair. At its conclusion Herrick said, hoarsely:

"Let's have another drink! Let's have two."

"As a rule I don't drink. But this is an exceptional occasion. . . .

To your good health, Herrick, and to your sister's happiness and well-being in Utah!"

Presently Herrick spoke with something of gravity. "Helen told me that I was to keep you at Star Ranch. I hope you won't let this Hays dTbGcle drive you away."

"It'll be impossible for me to stay," rejoined Jim, briefly. "But thanks for your kindness."

"I'll have you manage the ranch--give you an interest. Anything--"

"Please don't embarrass me further. I can't stay. . . . It's hard to confess--but I have had the gall, the absurd luck, to fall in love with your sister. I couldn't help it. . . . I want you to know, however, that it has turned me from the old outlaw life.

I'll go away and begin life over again."

"By Jove! So that's your trouble. Does Helen know?"

"Yes, I told her. It was after she asked me to come and stay at Star Ranch. Said she would never feel safe again unless I came.

So I had to tell her."

"Declare I don't blame her. I'd feel a little safer myself. That devil Hays left his trade-mark on me. Look here. . . . By thunder! Wall, it's a blooming mix. I understand you, and think you're a man to respect and like. Can't we get around the trouble somehow?"

"There is no way, Herrick."

"Helen has her own sweet will about everything. If she wants you to stay, you'll stay, that I can assure you. Is there any honorable reason why you ought not stay--outside of this unfortunate attachment to Helen?"

"I leave you to be judge of that," replied Jim, and briefly related the story of his life.

"Deuced interesting, by Jove! Let's drink to it."

"One more, then," laughed Jim, with a load off his mind. Somehow he had wanted to stand clear and fair in this Englishman's sight.

"Damn me, I like your West. I like you Westerners!" Herrick exploded. "Whatever Helen wants is quite right with me. . . . I can't conceive of her insisting on your staying here--unless there is hope for you."

"My God! That is wild, Herrick. _I_ can't conceive of such a thing. It wouldn't be fair to take her seriously--after the horror she's been through--and her intense gratefulness."

"Beyond me!--Let's have another drink."

Long Jim paced to and fro under the rustling pines that night, favoring the shadow because the stars somehow mocked him. Yet a sense of worthiness, almost happiness, abided with him for the first time in many years. Who was he to have had such an opportunity, not only to do good, but to lift himself out of the depths? His gratitude to chance, to life, to whatever had guided him, was intense.

The ordeal was over. It seemed scarcely likely that the Herricks would be subjected to another such raid. Such things as Hank Hays had evolved never happened twice in the same place. Jim felt it incumbent upon him to give Herrick some strong advice about running a ranch. For a moment Jim allowed himself the pleasure of dreaming over what a wonderful and paying ranch he could make it, had circumstances permitted him to accept Herrick's offer.

As for himself and his future, he had a singular optimism. He felt the meanest of labor could never detract from the glory and the dream of the thing that was his. Some men never lived at all; a few lived well or ill; it was given to one here and there to live some extraordinary experience that sufficed for all the remaining years.

The rangeland and the ranch-house were locked in slumber. Jim listened for the old familiar night sounds, but the only one was the song of the pines. That seemed everlasting. Pine needles, like aspen leaves, were never still. At length Jim repaired to the room assigned him by Herrick, and having extended his powers of mind and body to their limit he dropped into heavy slumber.

When he awakened it was the sense that during his sleep something vital had been decided for him. Star Ranch would see the last of him that day, if he had to walk away.

As he dressed, his thoughts dwelt upon Helen. Probably he would spend most of his waking hours with her in mind, from this day on.

But what a beautiful and incomprehensible woman! At supper she had appeared in a white gown, in which he did not know her, so lovely was she. Not a word, not a sign that the Robbers' Roost incident had ever transpired! How was it possible for any woman to hide emotions that still could not be effaced? But Jim paid mute tribute to the nerve and poise of these English. As soon as they learned the West they would fit into it, and by their character and work make it better.

Helen came in to breakfast attired in the riding-habit she had worn on that never-to-be-forgotten day of their last ride. She was cool, sweet, and her eyes were audacious. The thrill that enveloped Jim's frame seemed equivalent to a collapse of bone and muscle and structure.

"By Jove!" exclaimed Herrick. "If I were you, I'd never want to ride again."

After greeting her, Jim could only look his admiration and wonder.

"I am taking up my ranch life where it left off--with reservations from sad experience," replied Helen, as she took her seat.

"Bernie, we had to trade Jim's horse, Bay. What can he ride today?"

"He may take his choice. There are any number of good beasts."

"By the way, Jim, I told Tasker to follow us at once with our horses. I shall treasure that horse, Bay. A robber's horse! . . .

Tasker ought to be here soon, maybe tomorrow."

Jim felt the solid earth slipping from under his feet.

"I expected to leave today," he said, casually. "But I'll wait till tomorrow. Bay is a horse I hated to part with."

"So soon!" exclaimed Helen, with dark inscrutable eyes on him.

"You are home. All is well with you. . . . I must be on my way."

It seemed a forced, cold speech from a man inwardly burning.

"Bernie, could you not induce Jim to stay?" she queried.

Herrick waved a deprecatory hand and went on with his breakfast.

She smiled at Jim as if in explanation. "Bernie has consented to let me share his ranching enterprise. I'd like to see it pay--a reasonable interest, at least. And I have rather conceived the idea that it'd be difficult, if not impossible, without you."

"Not at all," replied Jim, constrainedly.

Presently she arose. "Come, let us ride. We can discuss it better in the saddle. . . . Bernie, will you come?"

"No, thank you. I want to stow away all that money Wall returned to me," rejoined Herrick, and as Jim followed Helen out, he called after them. "Jim, look out for kidnappers!"

"Whatever did he mean by that?" ejaculated Jim as they went down the steps of the porch.

Helen laughed. "Bernie is clumsy in humor. I rather think he meant I might try Hank Hays' way with you. . . . Jim, entirely aside from my wishes, my brother wants you to stay. He needs a man he can trust--one who can see through these riders--especially one who will be feared by those with reason to fear."

Jim could not find his tongue. He was vastly concerned with this ride. After it, would he be as strong as he was now? To be near her--

Barnes led the onslaught of ranch-hands upon Helen, and the welcome she received could not have been anything but gratifying. Helen replied to one and all, and ended with the simple statement, subtle as it was strong: "Hays made way with me to Robbers' Roost.

Heeseman trailed us. There was a fight, which wiped out all of Hays' gang and most of Heeseman's. Jim killed Hays and brought me home."

Barnes gave Jim such a glance as a man might receive once in his life. "All the time I knowed it! Shore all the time!"

He did not vouchsafe what he knew and perhaps from any point of view that was superfluous.

Soon Helen was mounted. "Barnes, we will not want the hounds or any attendants today. I cannot ride far or long."

Jim got on the horse Barnes saddled for him and followed Helen, who, to his surprise, took the road back up to the ranch-house.

Perhaps she had forgotten something. But when he turned the bend she was mounting the trail that led up the ridge. If there had been giants on huge steeds pulling Jim back, he still would have kept on. When they got up to the level ridge, among the pines, he trotted to catch up with her. But she kept a little ahead. Jim's thoughts locked around one astounding fact--this was the trail they had ridden down, after that encounter when he had kissed her.

Sight and hearing, his sense of all around him, seemed strangely intensified. The pines whispered, the rocks had a secret voice, the sky burned blue, the white clouds sailed, the black Henrys loomed above, and the purple-gray valley deepened its colors below.

There was as much presagement in the air as on the day he plunged down the slope into Robbers' Roost with the news that the enemy was upon them. But how vastly different!

Helen halted her horse under the very pine where they had stopped to listen to the hounds and cowboys racing up the ridge after the deer.

"My sense of direction seems to be all right," said Helen, turning to face him. But her flashing eyes and her pallor rendered her levity null.

"Helen, I fear it's better than your sense--of kindness, let me say. . . . Why did you bring me here?"

"Please look at my cinch," she replied, coolly.

Jim dismounted, more unsure of himself than ever in any of the many crucial moments of his career. He did not understand a woman. He could only take Helen literally.

Her saddle-cinch was all right, and he rather curtly told her so.

"Then--maybe it's my stirrup," she went on, lightly, as she removed her booted and spurred foot.

"Well, I can't SEE anything wrong with that, either. . . .

Helen. . . ."

Something thudded on the ground. Her gloves and her sombrero. But they surely had not fallen. She had flung them! A wave as irresistible as the force of the sea burst over him. But he looked up, outwardly cool. And as he did, her ungloved hand went to his shoulder.

"Nothing--the matter with--your stirrup," he said, huskily.

"No. After all, it's not my cinch--nor my stirrup. . . . Jim, could any of your Western girls have done better than this?"

"Than what?"

"Than fetching you here--to this place--where it happened."