Robber's Roost (1989) (13 page)

"Surely."

"Oh, it's been such a long, slow, dusty, cramped journey," she exclaimed. "But now I want to see, to smell, to feel, to gloat."

"Miss Herrick, this is fine country. But tame compared with that all about the Henrys. You will see them when we top the next hill.

I've seen most of the West. And the canyon desert below Star Ranch is the wildest and most sublime of all the West, probably of the whole world."

"Indeed! You speak strongly, not to say surprisingly. It never occurred to me that a gunman--that is what you are, is it not?-- could have any appreciation of the wonder and beauty of nature."

"A common mistake, Miss Herrick," rejoined Jim. "Nature develops the men who spend their lonely, hard, bloody lives with her.

Mostly she makes them into boasts with self-preservation the only instinct, but it is conceivable that one now and then might develop the opposite way."

"You interest me," she replied, simply. "Tell me of this canyon desert and such men."

Jim talked for a full hour, inspired by her unflagging interest.

He described the magnificent reaches and escarpments ending in Wild Horse Mesa, and the unknown canyoned abyss between it and Navajo Mountain, and lastly the weird, ghastly brakes of the Dirty Devil.

"Ugh! how you make me shiver!" she ejaculated. "But it's wonderful. I'm sick of people, of fog, rain, dirt, cold, noise.

I'd like to get lost down in those red canyons."

Chapter
7

They came to a long level valley where the white road was like a floor, and the horses went like the wind. Wall's letting them out was unconscious: it was a release of his vagrant and startling imagination.

Here the English lady could not catch her breath enough to talk.

The tan veil was flying and so were some strands of her hair. She appeared to be a beautiful thing of porcelain and gold, animated by throbbing life.

What was going to be the effect of this extraordinary female upon the fierce men of this lonely region? Upon that swarthy Hank Hays!

Once in a long time, perhaps, his pale eyes alighted upon a fresh, red-cheeked, buxom girl, but for the most part, Jim knew, Hays never saw any but flat-chested, lanky-limbed, big-footed, and hard- handed women, whose faces were dark, coarse, weathered with skin dried in the wind. They wore overalls and boots, as often as feminine garments, and they were always married. Utah was still so wild and unsettled that the hags and camp-followers common to Wyoming had not arrived.

At last the horses had to be held in at the base of the longest ascent on the journey. Miss Herrick tucked her disheveled hair with the ends of the veil under her bonnet.

"What a run! I'm used to horses but not tearing along--with a vehicle like this," she said, breathlessly.

"Wait till one of these old drivers get a chance at you. I'm really no teamster."

"Are you a cowboy?"

"I used to be. And I still ride after cattle occasionally. But now I'm only a--a range-rider."

"What's the difference?"

"Well, a range-rider just travels from camp to camp."

"It must be a wonderful life. Like a gypsy's. I have been among the gypsies in Spain. But that can scarcely be the nature of your position on my brother's ranch."

"Didn't young Barnes tell you who and what I am?" queried Jim, turning to her.

"He talked like--like that babbling brook we just passed," returned the lady, with a musical laugh. "Much of it was Greek to me. But I grasped that you were a stranger to Utah--that you were from Wyoming, where you had killed many bad men, and that your mere reputation was enough out here to keep rustlers and desperadoes away from Star Ranch. Mr. Wall, you certainly are a hero in his eyes."

It did not take great perspicuity to grasp that Jim was not far from that in her eyes. He groaned in spirit.

"Miss Herrick, this young fellow is an awful liar," said Jim.

"How so? He seemed very frank and sincere to me. And he has such honest eyes. I don't know Westerners, as they call you folk, but what of that?"

"You are in for a terrible disillusion."

"Mr. Wall, you cannot quell my enthusiasm. I know I am going to love this wild, glorious country. I've lived in London most of my life. I got to hate the crowded streets, the mud, the clamor, the dark, cold rooms where you had to have a light at midday, and the endless, ever-hurrying throngs of people. There's a strain of primitive blood in me. One of my ancestors was a viking. I think another must have been an American Indian." Here her rich laughter rang out. "At any rate, I am going to indulge my wild strain. The red gods have always whispered to me. Even as a child I knew I was intended for something big, strange, extraordinary."

"I hardly understand you, Miss Herrick," returned Jim, in perplexity. "My education has been limited, except out in the open. I had some schooling, and I taught a country school before I was twenty. But I never saw anyone like you. So if I appear ignorant, please excuse it."

"On the contrary, Mr. Wall, you have impressed me as far above the average Westerner," the girl returned, kindly, but without a trace of condescension. "I've met numberless people on the way out.

Pioneers, farmers, ranchers, drivers, cowboys, and a good few that I couldn't place or learn from. But I talked with all of them.

You certainly do not need to apologize for yourself. . . . And you have been a school-teacher! That is something that I would never have attributed to you. And what else have you been?"

On the moment Jim was too stricken to take advantage of the opportunity to repel her once and for all. The astounding idea flashed over him that he did not want to repel her.

"A little of everything--Western I guess," he floundered. He felt her gaze.

"I see that you will not tell me about yourself," she went on.

"Pardon my inquisitiveness. But I must inform you that I expect to go into the ranching business with my brother. You will be working for me, then, as well."

"I hope you don't, Miss Herrick," he burst out, impulsively.

"Somebody must tell you. It oughtn't come from a--a--rider like me. But this Utah is no place for such a girl as you."

"What do you mean, Mr. Wall? That hardly seems a compliment to me.

I can work, and I want to. I shall adore this wild country. I tried to explain why. I can milk cows, bake bread, take care of horses. It doesn't follow just because I have money that I do not want to work."

"Miss Herrick, you didn't get my meaning," replied Jim, hastily, with strong feeling. "It is not you who couldn't fit in. You've convinced me you could. And that is the biggest compliment I could pay you. . . . I meant that you will not be able to live, and work, too, in Utah the way you want to. You absolutely cannot indulge that primitive strain you spoke of--not out here. You dare not ride around--or even leave the house. Even that--"

"For mercy's sake, why not?" she demanded, in astonishment.

"Because, young woman, you are too new, too strange, too lovely to risk yourself in sight of these Utah men. . . . Not all of them, nor a tenth of them. But SOME of them. And they are the men you would meet at Star Ranch."

His sudden intensity, perhaps as much as the content of his words, made her realize his sincerity, and that there was something amiss which her brother had failed to tell her.

"You cannot be serious."

"I swear it, Miss Herrick."

"But what of the vaunted chivalry of Westerners? England rings with the daring, the gallantry, of Americans on the frontier. I've read of Fremont, Kit Carson, Crook, and many others. And of the thousands who are unsung."

"That is true," he replied, his voice husky. "Thank God, I can say so. But you won't find THAT at Star Ranch."

"You say I am too new, strange--too, too lovely to risk--I understand you, of course. I must doubt it, despite your evident strong feeling. You may be playing a Western joke on me."

"I wish I was."

"My brother will know if there is anything in what you say."

"No! No!" burst out Jim, passionately. He was at the limit of patience with her and himself. What possessed him to talk this way? "Herrick doesn't know. He NEVER WILL know. He is English.

He can't see through a millstone with a hole in it.--Oh, don't misunderstand me. Herrick is a fine chap, generous, friendly, not the least stuck-up. But Utah is no place for an English gentleman and sportsman, any more than it is a fit place for his sister."

"That is for us to decide," she returned, coldly. "It is less disturbing than what you say against me having my fling. I shall ride, anywhere and everywhere. I've always ridden. I'd go mad not to get on a horse in this glorious country."

"I've done my best. I've told you," he said, curtly, as if he were also addressing his conscience.

"I thank you, Mr. Wall," she said, quick to catch the change in him. "No doubt you Western folk regard Bernie as eccentric. And I'm bound to admit his ranching idea--ripping as it is to us--must appear new and strange to you. So I'll compromise. If it's really dangerous for me to ride about alone, I will take you with me.

Not, however, that I'd be afraid to go alone. Then I would be perfectly safe, would I not?"

Wall flicked the reins.

"Look, Miss Herrick. We're on top at last. There's your country.

The black snow-capped mountains are the Henrys. We go through that gap--a pass--to Star Ranch. That purple space to the left--with the lines and streaks--that's the desert. Magnify its everything by ten thousand."

"Ah-h-h!" she had cried out, breathlessly.

Jim halted the horses and gazed himself, trying to see with this stranger's eyes. Her silence, after that one outbreak, was amply eloquent. But he got no satisfaction out of his own gazing. He had an instinctive desire to get on a horse and ride off alone into this wilderness. He had more--a presagement that it would not be long until the open wasteland claimed him again. For him the bursting of one of the Henry peaks in volcanic eruption would be no more startling than what would accrue from the advent of this white- faced, golden-haired woman.

Jim anticipated, presently, an outburst from Miss Herrick, but it was not forthcoming. He drove down the hill, and again put the blacks to keen gait on a level road, this time a straight white line across a longer valley. The warm sun had begun its descent from the zenith. Jim calculated that he would beat the time he had declared, and reach Star Ranch before sundown. Only one more hill to climb and that was the Pass, which was comparatively short on this side. He wished he could fly. The sister of Bernie Herrick had an unaccountable effect upon Jim. Bernie! The name suited Herrick, as that of Helen suited this girl. It was a fatal name for a pearly-skinned, blue-eyed, golden-haired beauty. Vague legend stirred in Jim Wall's memory.

Fast as he drove, it was yet not fast enough to escape from himself. Then when the wind tore off Miss Herrick's bonnet, he had to stop the iron-jawed blacks--no slight task--and get out and walk back. But the change seemed to soothe him somehow. He strode back with the flimsy headgear. Far from prepared was he, however, for sight of Miss Herrick bareheaded.

"Thank you," she said. "Too bad to make you get out and walk. But you drove so terribly fast. It's a wonder my clothes didn't follow my hat."

Jim made a light reply, he knew not what. To him the wonder was-- flashing like a flame from the darkness of his mind--that he did not turn the team off the road and drive down into the wilderness, never to let the gaze of another man rest upon this destroying woman.

In an hour more he had crossed the valley and again addressed a slope, where the slow gait of the horses gave Miss Herrick further opportunity to talk. He both dreaded and longed to hear that rich voice, so different from the few women's voices he recalled. But she surprised him again, this time by silence. She had been overpoweringly struck by the two hours' riding toward that gorgeous region of color and upheaval. Not until they got to the top of the Pass, when Jim pointed down the Star Ranch Valley, did she awaken out of her trance. Then during the hour and a half it took to reach the ranch Jim answered queries and explained what this and that was which caught her eye. Such wholly objective conversation was easy for Jim, and the time flew by.

When he drove past Heeseman's camp all that worthy outfit were at supper. The road passed within fifty feet of their chuck-wagon.

"What a ruffianly crew!" murmured Miss Herrick. "Who, pray, are these men?"

"Part of the outfit your brother hired to protect his cattle from rustlers," replied Jim. "Funny thing about that is they are rustlers themselves."

"Deliciously funny, though hardly so for Bernie. Does he know it?"

"Not to my knowledge. Heeseman--the leader of that gang--came on his own recommendation and got the job."

"I'll have the fun of telling Bernie. . . . Oh, what's that? . . .

What an enormous barn! All yellow. And a new one going up. Logs and logs--Look at the horses! I want to stop."

"No, Miss Herrick," he replied, grimly. "I'll drive you home safely or die in the attempt. . . . Don't look at this tall man we're coming to."