the Man from the Broken Hills (1975) (8 page)

He stopped, feet wide apart, his fists resting on his hips.

"That is Roger Balch?" I asked.

"Yes." I could sense that she wanted the dance to be over. It was not nattering, but I minded not at all, and knew how she felt.

"Why two guns?" I asked mildly.

She stiffened defensively. "He always wears them. He has enemies."

"He does? I hope those aren't for your father. He does not even carry a gun anymore, and he doesn't hire gunfighters."

She looked up at me suddenly. "What about you? I have heard you are a gunfighter?"

Now where had she heardthat ? "I've never hired out as a fighting man," I replied.

Something else had her attention. She looked up at me again. "What did you mean when you said my father did not wear a gun anymore? You spoke as if you had known him before."

"I merely assumed that before he lost his eyesight he had carried one. Most men do."

Fortunately, the music ended before she could ask any more questions, and I left her at the edge of the floor, near where her father sat. I was turning away when I was stopped. It was Roger Balch.

"You the man riding the MT horse?"

"I am."

"You want to come to work for Balch and Saddler?"

"I am working for Stirrup-Iron."

"I know that. I asked if you wanted to work for us. We pay fighting wages."

"Sorry. I like it where I am." I smiled. "And I am not a fighter. Just a cowhand."

Before he could say more, I strolled away from him and suddenly found myself face to face with Ann Timberly. She was all prepared for me to ask her to dance, and was ready to say no. It showed in every line of her. I looked at her, smiled, but I walked by her to China Benn.

"Miss Benn? I am Milo Talon. May I have this dance?"

She was a striking girl, vibrant and beautiful. Her eyes met mine and she was set to refuse. Then suddenly her manner changed. "Of course." She glanced over her shoulder. "Do you mind, Kurt?"

I got only a glance at the startled eyes of the big man, and then the music was playing. And China Benn could dance. She could really dance, and the musicians knew it. Suddenly the tempo changed to a Spanish dance, but I'd spent some time below the border in Sonora and Chihuahua, and liked dancing Spanish style. In a moment we had the floor to ourselves ... and she was good.

I caught one flashing glimpse of Ann Timberly, her lips tightly pressed with what I hoped was anger or irritation. When the dance ended, there was a round of applause and China looked up at me. "You dance beautifully, Mr. Talon. I did not think anyone here but Tony Fuentes could dance Mexican style so well."

"I used to ride down Sonora way."

"Well," she said, "evidently you did more than ride. Let's do it again later, shall we?"

Leaving her, I glanced across the room and met the eyes of the girl in the faded gingham dress. Turning in midstride, I walked over to her. "Would you dance? I am Milo Talon."

"I know who you are," she said quietly, rising with just a touch of awkwardness. "Thank you for asking me. I was afraid no one would."

"You're a stranger?"

"I live here, but I've never come to a dance before, and I can't stay much longer."

"No? That's too bad."

"I ... I have to get back. I am not supposed to be away."

"Where do you live?"

She ignored the question. "I just had to come! I wanted to see people, to hear the music!"

"Then I am glad you came."

She danced stiffly, holding herself with care, each step a little too careful. I did not think she had danced very much. "Did you come with your father?"

She looked at me quickly, as if to wonder if there might be some knowledge in the question. "No ... I came alone."

Every other girl here had come with someone, if not a man friend, then with her family or other girls, and there were no houses close by. "You'd better find somebody to take you home," I suggested. "It's very dark out there tonight."

She smiled. "I ride every night ... alone. I like the night. It is friendly to those who understand it."

I was surprised, and looked at her again. "You knew my name," I said then. "Not many here know it."

"I know more about you than any of them," she said quietly, "and if they knew who you really were they'd be astonished, all of them."

Suddenly, her manner changed. "Sometimes they seem so stupid to me! They are so pompous! So impressed with themselves! The major! He's really a nice man, I think, if he would drop that foolish title! He doesn't need it. Nor does she."

"Ann?"

She turned sharply and looked at me. "You know her?"

"We've met. I am afraid the meeting was not friendly."

She smiled, a little maliciously, yet I did not think there was any malice in her. "If they only knew who you were! Why, the Empty is larger than all their ranches! You run more cattle on your ranch than Balch and Saddler and the major combined!"

Now I was startled. "Now how did you know that? Who are you, anyway?"

"I am not going to tell you." She paused, and the music ended with us on the other side of the floor from where she had been. "It would mean nothing to you, anyway. I mean, you would not know the name."

"You aren't married?"

There was just a moment of hesitation. "No," she said then, "I am not." Then bitterly she said, "Nor likely to be."

Chapter
8

Fuentes drifted around the room. "Didn't know you knew our dances," he said. Then he said, more quietly, "Don't get too far away. There may be trouble."

Across the room, I saw Ben Roper walk over to stand near Danny Rolf. They were only a few steps from where Rossiter sat with Barby Ann. So far, Roger Balch had not approached her.

"What is it?"

Fuentes shrugged. "I don't know what nor where, but I've got a feeling."

My eyes swept the room. I knew nothing about Danny, but was not worried about either Fuentes or Roper. They would stand.

"On the boxes," I asked. "How do the bids usually run?"

"Ten dollars is mighty high. Mostly they start at a dollar, run up to three or five dollars. A five dollar bid will usually be high. I've only seen one go to ten ... and that's a lot of money. Nobody but Roger Balch can afford a price like that, or maybe the major."

"What about Balch himself?"

Fuentes smiled. "You joke, arnigo. Balch would not spend dollars on such a thing. He'll bid for a box, more than likely, but he will not go over three dollars."

"How about Ann Timberly's box?"

He glanced at me. "You are reckless, amigo. But it will bring three, probably as much as five."

"And China Benn?"

"The same."

"Tony?"

"Si?"

"The little one, the strange one. She came alone. She must go early, and she knows some things about me that nobody else knows ... nobody here, at least."

He glanced at her, then at me. "I have said it. I do not know her, nor did I see her come. She knows something about you? Maybe she comes from where you do?"

"No ... I know she does not. At least, she is no one I have ever known or known of. And there are no girls within fifty miles of our home ranch whom I do not know."

He chuckled. "I would place a bet upon that. You have a ranch, then?"

"We do ... my mother, my brother and I."

"Yet you are here?"

"There's a promised land somewhere beyond the mountain. I was born to look for it."

"I, also. But we will never find it, amigo."

"I hope not. I was born for the trail, not for the journey's end." I paused. "We were born to discover and to build, you and I, for the others who will come after us. They will live in a richer, sweeter land, but we will have made the trails. We go where the Indian goes, and the buffalo. We will ride far lands where the only companions are wind and rain and sun."

"You talk like a poet."

I smiled wryly. "Yes, and work like a dog, often enough, but it's the poetry that keeps us going. It's my blessing or my curse, according to the way you believe, to live with awareness.

"All of them," I gestured at the room, "are living poetry, living drama, living for the future, only they do not know it, they do not think of it that way. Most of them heard stories when they were youngsters, stories told by men who had been over the mountain or had dreamed of it, and those who did not hear the stories read them in books.

"I talked to an old gunfighter once who told me he'd been a farm boy in Iowa when one day a man on a fine black horse rode into the yard. A man wearing buckskins and a wide hat. The man had a rifle and a pistol, and he wanted only to stop long enough to water his horse.

"The gunfighter talked him into staying for supper and spending the night. And he listened to the stories the man told of Indians and buffalo, but mostly it was the land itself, the far mountains and the plains, with long grass blowing in the wind."

Fuentes nodded. "It was so with me also. My father would come down from the hills and tell us of the bears he saw, or the lions. He would ride in dusty and tired, his hands stiff from the rope or the branding iron, from twenty hours of work in a single day, but he had the smell of horses and woodsmoke about him. And one day he did not come back."

"You and me, Fuentes. Some day we will not come back."

"With him it was Apaches. When his ammunition was gone, he fought them with a knife. Years later I lived among them and they told me of him. They were singing songs of him, and how he died. It is the way of the Indian to respect a brave man."

"We talk very seriously, Fuentes. I think I will bid for a box."

"I, also. But be careful, my friend, and do not get too far away. I have a bad feeling about tonight."

Folks were beginning to come in from outside and gather on benches and chairs where they could see the small platform from which the boxes would be offered. We could see them all there, in neat piles, some of them decorated with paper bows, some tied with carefully hoarded colored string, and you can bet most of the boxes were intended for somebody special.

It was Ann Timberly's box I wanted, but she didn't want me to have it, and probably wouldn't talk to me if I got it. But there's more than one way of doing things, and I had my own ideas.

China Benn ... now there was a girl! But if I bid for her box I might tangle with Kurt Floyd, and on a night when the whole outfit might have trouble there was no time for private arguments. Anyway, I knew what I was going to do.

The bidding started. And from the first box it was animated. The first one to go was a buxom ranchwoman of forty-odd, her box going to an oldster, a onetime cowboy with legs like parentheses, his thin shoulders slightly stooped, but a wry twinkle in his eyes. He bought the box for a dollar and fifty cents. A second box went a moment later for two dollars, a third for seventy-five cents.

Often, other men deliberately avoided bidding, so that a certain man might buy a box at a price within his grasp. Others just as deliberately built up the price to tease some ambitious would-be lover, or somebody who'd be joshed about it later.

The auctioneer knew all the bidders, and usually knew which boxes they wanted, although there was much bidding just for amusement. I watched, enjoying it, until suddenly a box I was sure was Ann Timberly's box was put up. From the comments by the auctioneer I was doubly sure, so when he asked for bids, I bid twenty-five cents.

Ann stiffened as if struck, and for a moment there wasn't a sound. Then somebody countered with a bid of fifty cents and the moment was past, but our eyes met across the room. Her face was white, her chin lifted proudly, but the anger in her eyes was a joy to see. I should have been ashamed of myself, but I was remembering how she had tried to hit me with a quirt, and her arrogance.

The box went to Roger Balch for five dollars and fifty cents.

China Benn's box went up, and somebody opened the bidding at a dollar. I countered with two dollars, and saw Ann turn to look at me. I did not bid again, and China's box finally went to Kurt Floyd for four dollars, largely because nobody wanted to bid against him and run into trouble. I'd have done it, but I had other ideas.

There was that quiet little girl in the faded gingham dress. I had a notion nobody might bid for her box, and I could see she had that notion, too. She was edging a bit toward the door, wishing she had not even come, afraid of being embarrassed and having to eat her dinner alone. No doubt it took a lot of nerve to come alone, and it began to look like her nerve had just about petered out.

Her box came up. I knew it was hers by the frightened way she reacted and the sudden move she made toward the door. Nobody knew her, and that counted against her, and also the fact that so many of the cow-punchers present, despite their loud talk, were really very shy about meeting a new girl.

Finally the auctioneer, seeing there would be no bidding, opened the bid with one of his own. He bid fifty cents and I came up with a bid of a dollar. I saw her eyes turn to me, and she stopped moving toward the door. And then something happened.