Robber's Roost (1989) (12 page)

"Yeh. It ain't much on looks, but the grub's good an' beds clean."

"Fine. Now, Barnes, you and I are getting along. Do you give me any hunch on how to conduct myself?"

"Haw! Haw! Jim, you'll be looked over a heap, but nobody won't ask no questions. See you later."

Barnes drove off down the road, and Jim leisurely entered the lodging-house, which, it turned out, was run by a buxom woman, who made herself agreeable and certainly was not above making eyes at him. As far as any curiosity on her part was concerned, he might as well have lived there always. She was loquacious, and very shortly Jim gained the surprising information that no cattle herds had passed through Grand Junction this week.

After supper Jim strolled out to see the town. It was still daylight. The street appeared to be practically deserted. He went down one side and up the other, and crossing to the overland stage office he found the door locked. There was a sign, "Wells Fargo and Co.," on the front. Evidently this town was on the stage line from Denver to Salt Lake. The big store on the corner was open, however, and Jim went in. He bought some things and incidentally corroborated Herrick's statement as to the arrival of the stage next morning. Finally Jim wandered into a saloon.

To his surprise it was a large place, in which fully a score of men lounged at the bar or sat around as if waiting for something. Jim fitted this atmosphere. He felt at home in it and knew he gave that impression. And he had not been in there very long before he realized that well-armed strangers were really not strangers to that place and community. There were no drinking, hair-raising cowboys or any flashy gamblers or any drunkards. Some of those present had shifty eyes. A few were idle, tattered louts. For the most part, however, the occupants were dusty-booted men who did not radiate either civility or hostility. That suited Jim. He had expected just such a town.

He read an old newspaper that he found, and after he had exhausted its contents, he watched a card game, but at a respectable distance with other onlookers, and passed a quiet evening without learning anything.

That night he slept in a bed, the first time for so long he could not recall the last occasion, and the softness of it, or his nearing closer and closer to tomorrow's adventure, kept him awake till late. All this while he heard a roulette wheel, but he could not tell whence the sound came. Probably there was a gambling-hall above the saloon.

Awakening early, he got up and leisurely shaved and dressed, paying more than usual attention to his appearance. This occasioned him a bitter smile. Jim Wall, erstwhile cowboy, bank bandit, train- robber! What was he now? He could not define it. But he was there to escort an English girl fifty miles across the wilderness to Star Ranch. One thing he was sure of, and that was that it would be vastly better for Miss Herrick than if Hank Hays had been sent. Suddenly this fact struck Jim as singular. Was he any better than Hank Hays? He conceded that he was. Still, there had never been a time since his wild cowboy days that sight of a pretty girl or a handsome woman had not made his heart leap. But for long years he had avoided women, not because he was not hungry for them, but because he seldom saw one that did not rouse his disgust.

After breakfast he went out and found a boy to shine his high top- boots and brush his dark, worn suit and his black sombrero.

Presently, then, he encountered Barnes. "Howdy, boy! Did you have a nice time home?"

"Gee, I did!" the cowboy grinned. "I was with my gurl last night an' she wouldn't let me off."

"Right she was. Your sure look bright this morning."

"Wal, you look kinda spick an' span yourself, Jim," drawled Barnes.

"Funny how the idear of a gurl gets a feller."

"Funny? You mean terrible, my friend. A woman is as terrible as an army with banners."

"Gosh! who'd ever dreamed you had been inside a Bible?" exclaimed the cowboy.

"It's funny, though, how I happened to remember that. Now, Barnes, listen. This Miss Herrick might take me for an honest, decent fellow like you. But if I let that pass I'd be sailing under false colors. I don't do that. And as I can't very well tell her myself, you must."

"Tell her what?" queried Barnes, with a puzzled grin.

"You know . . . the kind of a man I am."

"I sort of like you myself. So if you want me to tell her anythin' you must say what."

"Well then, tell her about Herrick hiring all the desperadoes in Utah, and that I'm one of them. Make me out worse than Hays and Heeseman thrown together."

"Shore. That's easy. But what's the idear, Jim?"

"I wasn't always an outcast. . . . And I think it'd hurt me less if this girl was scared and repelled. If she took me for a real Westerner, you know, and talked and laughed--well, I'd go get powerfully drunk and probably shoot up Star Ranch. So you fix it for me, will you, Barnes?"

"Shore, I'll fix it," replied Barnes, with a sly glance at Jim.

"You jest give me a chanst when the stage rolls up. She's due now.

I'll run down an' drive the buckboard up."

But the stage did not show up for an hour--a long, nervous, dragging one for Jim Wall. Grand Junction was no different from other Western points remote from civilization--everybody turned out to see the stage come in. It was a gala occasion for the youngsters, of whom there was a surprising number. The women onlookers, Jim observed, rather hung in the background.

The four-horse stage came rolling up in a cloud of dust. The driver, a grizzled old frontiersman, brought it to a stop with a fine flourish, and he bawled out: "Grand Junction! Half hour fer lunch."

There were six passengers, two of them feminine. The last to leave the stage was a tall, veiled young woman, her lithe and erect figure incased in a long linen coat. She carried a small satchel.

Expectantly she looked around. Jim stepped before her, baring his head.

"Are you Miss Herrick?"

"Oh! Yes," she exclaimed, in relief.

"Your brother sent us to meet you," went on Jim, indicating Barnes, who stood to one side.

"He did not come!" The full, rich voice, with its foreign intonation, struck pleasantly upon Jim's ear.

"No. There's much work at Star Ranch. But it's perfectly all right, Miss Herrick. We will drive you safely over before dark."

Jim could not see clearly through the tan veil, but he discerned well enough that big eyes studied him.

"Didn't he send a letter or anything? How am I to know you men are employed by my brother?"

"I'm afraid you'll have to take my word," replied Jim, gravely.

"But, Barnes, here, he can prove his identity. He lives in Grand Junction, and of course there are responsible people who will vouch for him."

"Miss, the boss did send word," spoke up Barnes, touching his hat, and stepping closer, he added in a lower tone, "he told me last night you was to fetch what come by Wells Fargo."

"Then it is all right," she replied, apparently relieved. "My luggage is inside, on top, and tied on behind. The name is on every piece. Helen Herrick."

"I'll attend to the baggage, Miss Herrick," rejoined Jim.

"Meanwhile Barnes will show you where to eat. It might rest you to walk a little. We have an eight-hour drive."

"Thank you. I've been riding steadily for two weeks and I'm stiff."

Whereupon Jim set about collecting the pieces of baggage marked "Herrick." It appeared that the stage had been loaded down with them. Nineteen in all! Manifestly Miss Herrick had come to stay.

To find room for all of them in the buckboard was going to be a task. He set about this methodically, his mind at once busy and absent. By packing carefully under the seats, and on them, too, Jim got the bags all in. He went to the store and bought rope to tie some of them on securely. Wonder what she looks like, he thought! He had felt vaguely uncomfortable when she looked him over through that veil. His task completed, Jim stood beside the restless horses, waiting. And it seemed he was waiting for he knew not what.

Presently Barnes returned, wearing an excited grin. His eyes were important.

"Jim, I fixed it. I shore gave her an earful," he said.

"Did you? Much obliged, cowboy."

"She took off thet coat an' veil. Lordy! . . . Utah never seen the likes of her. Red lips, pink cheeks, hair like gold, an' eyes like violets! Jim, for a minnit I went plumb back on my gurl!

But, shucks! thet's crazy! She asked me to set at table. I did.

She's just as nice an' free as Herrick. It was while we was eatin' thet I had the chanst to tell her about the nootorious Jim Wall.

Mebbe I didn't spread it on. An' she looked--Gee! such eyes! She said, 'So Bernie Herrick sent a desperado to be my escort? How perfectly rippin'!' Honest, Jim, thet's what she said. So I shet up pronto. . . . When I jest come away she said she'd walk a little in the orchard an' after goin' into the Wells Fargo office she'd be ready."

"Have you double-crossed me?" queried Jim, suspicious of this boy.

"You were to make me out low-down."

"Jim, honest to Gawd, if thet gurl ain't scared to death of you she's a new one on me," declared Barnes. But there was fun and evasion in his keen hazel eyes. Somehow he had failed to follow instructions.

"I'll go in the Chink's here and get a bite to eat. You watch the horses."

Upon his return Jim espied Miss Herrick emerging from the yard of Mrs. Bowe's lodging-house. She carried the linen coat on her arm, and without it did not appear so tall. She had a wonderful step, a free, swinging, graceful stride, expressive of health and vitality.

She did not look slender, as in the long ulster, but superb, broad of shoulder. She wore a half-length coat over her brown dress. It had a collar of dark fur which presented vivid contrast to her exquisite complexion. The veil was tucked back and now permitted sight of a wave of shining golden hair. At a little distance her eyes looked like great, dark holes set in white. But as she approached Jim saw they were violet in hue, warm, beautiful, fearless.

"Are we ready to go?" she asked, gayly.

"Yes, if you have seen the Fargo people," replied Jim.

"I have it in my satchel," she returned, indicating the half-hidden receptacle under her linen coat.

Jim tried to interest himself in that satchel because he was in league with robbers, but it did not work. Suddenly he had a murderous desire to kill Hays. This girl--for she appeared a girl in vivid freshness of youth--seemed not in the least frightened, absolutely free from revulsion. Indeed, she was regarding him with undisguised interest and delight.

"Mr. Jim Wall, you're not in the least what my brother's letters have led me to believe," she said.

"Letters! Why, Herrick has not had time to write about me," exclaimed Jim, incredulously. "It takes long for a stage letter to go. . . . I've been at Star Ranch only a few days."

"Oh, he did not write about YOU, individually," she laughed. "But from his letters about bandits and desperadoes I had evolved a rather frightful conception."

"Thank you, Miss Herrick," he replied, gravely. "Don't trust appearances on our Western border. . . . Will you get up? We must be going."

And he attempted to assist her inside the back seat of the buckboard.

"If you are going to drive, I want to sit in front," she said, frankly.

With a bow he helped her up the high step, cursing inwardly at Hank Hays and Herrick and the inscrutable fate that had brought this about. For some way or other he was lost. He almost forgot to wait for Barnes, who was saying good-by to a red-cheeked, wide-eyed girl in the crowd. Barnes came running to leap into the buckboard, and then Jim got in. Owing to the way he had packed the baggage, there was not a great deal of room in the front seat. His heavy gun and sheath bumped against Miss Herrick.

"Rather tight quarters, with that gun there," he remarked, and swung the sheath round in his lap.

"Do you sleep in it?" she asked, quizzically.

"Yes. And never am dressed in the daytime till it's buckled on."

"What startling folk, you Western Americans!"

"Some of us are indeed startling. I hope you won't find us unpleasantly so," he replied and, loosening the reins, let the spirited team go. In a few moments the noise, dust, heat, and the staring populace of Grand Junction were far behind, and the red and black ranges lifted above the meadows and sage.

"Oh, glorious!" she cried, and gazed raptly ahead as the curving road brought into view a wonderful sweep of Utah.

Jim was hard put to it to keep the blacks from breaking out of a brisk trot. He thought grimly that he would have liked to let the team run off and kill them both. Far better that might be! Miss Herrick's photograph on her brother's desk fell infinitely short of doing her justice. It failed to give any hint of her color, of the vivid lips, of the glory and gleam of her hair, of the dancing, laughing violet eyes, of her pulsing vitality. Jim Wall felt the abundant life of this girl. It flowed out of her. It got into his veins. It heated his blood.

"The wind makes me cry," she said, merrily. "Or maybe it's because I'm so happy. You say we'll get to Star Ranch before dark?"