'Firebrand' Trevison Part 13

Trevison dropped from n.i.g.g.e.r at the dooryard of Levins' cabin, and looked with a grim smile at Levins himself lying face downward across the saddle on his own pony. He had carried Levins out of the _Belmont_ and had thrown him, as he would have thrown a sack of meal, across the saddle, where he had lain during the four-mile ride, except during two short intervals in which Trevison had lifted him off and laid him flat on the ground, to rest. Trevison had meditated, not without a certain wry humor, upon the strength and the protracted potency of Manti's whiskey, for not once during his home-coming had Levins shown the slightest sign of returning consciousness. He was as slack as a meal sack now, as Trevison lifted him from the pony's back and let him slip gently to the ground at his feet. A few minutes later, Trevison was standing in the doorway of the cabin, his burden over his shoulder, the weak glare of light from within the cabin stabbing the blackness of the night and revealing him to the white-faced woman who had answered his summons.

Her astonishment had been of the mute, agonized kind; her eyes, hollow, eloquent with unspoken misery and resignation, would have told Trevison that this was not the first time, had he not known from personal observation. She stood watching, gulping, shame and mortification bringing patches of color into her cheeks, as Trevison carried Levins into a bedroom and laid him down, removing his boots. She was standing near the door when Trevison came out of the bedroom; she was facing the blackness of the desert night--a blacker future, unknowingly--and Trevison halted on the threshold of the bedroom door and set his teeth in sympathy. For the woman deserved better treatment. He had known her for several years--since the time when Levins, working for him, had brought her from a ranch on the other side of the Divide, announcing their marriage. It had been a different Levins, then, as it was a different wife who stood at the door now. She had faded; the inevitable metamorphosis wrought by neglect, worry and want, had left its husks--a wan, tired-looking woman of thirty who had only her hopes to nourish her soul. There were children, too--if that were any consolation. Trevison saw them as he glanced around the cabin. They were in another bed; through an archway he could see their chubby faces.

His lungs filled and his lips straightened.

But he grinned presently, in an effort to bring cheer into the cabin, reaching into a pocket and bringing out the money he had recovered for Levins.

"There are nearly a thousand dollars here. Two tin-horn gamblers tried to take it from Clay, but I headed them off. Tell Clay--"

Mrs. Levins' face whitened; it was more money than she had ever seen at one time.

"Clay's?" she interrupted, perplexedly. "Why, where--"

"I haven't the slightest idea--but he had it, they tried to take it away from him--it's here now--it belongs to you." He shoved it into her hands and stepped back, smiling at the stark wonder and joy in her eyes. He saw the joy vanish--concern and haunting worry came into her eyes.

"They told me that Clay shot--killed--a man yesterday. Is it true?" She cast a fearing look at the bed where the children lay.

"The d.a.m.ned fools!"

"Then it's true!" She covered her face with her hands, the money in them.

Then she took the hands away and looked at the money in them, loathingly.

"Do you think Clay--"

"No!" he said shortly, antic.i.p.ating. "That couldn't be. For the man Clay killed had this money on him. Clay accused him of picking his pocket. Clay gave the bartender in the _Plaza_ the number of each bill before he saw them after taking the bills out of the pickpocket's clothing. So it can't be as you feared."

She murmured incoherently and pressed both hands to her breast. He laughed and walked to the door.

"Well, you need it, you and the kiddies. I'm glad to have been of some service to you. Tell Clay he owes me something for cartage. If there is anything I can do for you and Clay and the kiddies I'd be only too glad."

"Nothing--now," said the woman, grat.i.tude s.h.i.+ning from her eyes, mingling with a worried gleam. "Oh!" she added, pa.s.sionately; "if Clay was only different! Can't you help him to be strong, Mr. Trevison? Like you? Can't you be with him more, to try to keep him straight for the sake of the children?"

"Clay's odd, lately," Trevison frowned. "He seems to have changed a lot.

I'll do what I can, of course." He stepped out of the door and then looked back, calling: "I'll put Clay's pony away. Good night." And the darkness closed around him.

Over at Blakeley's ranch, J. C. Benham had just finished an inspection of the interior and had sank into the depths of a comfortable chair facing his daughter. Blakeley and his wife had retired, the deal that would place the ranch in possession of Benham having been closed. J. C. gazed critically at his daughter.

"Like it here, eh?" he said. "Well, you look it." He shook a finger at her. "Agatha has been writing to me rather often, lately," he added. There followed no answer and J. C. went on, narrowing his eyes at the girl. "She tells me that this fellow who calls himself 'Brand' Trevison has proven himself a--shall we say, persistent?--escort on your trips of inspection around the ranch."

Rosalind's face slowly crimsoned.

"H'm," said Benham.

"I thought Corrigan--" he began. The girl's eyes chilled.

"H'm," said Benham, again.

CHAPTER XII

EXPOSED TO THE SUNLIGHT

It was a month before Trevison went to town, again. Only once during that time did he see Rosalind Benham, for the Blakeleys had vacated, and goods and servants had arrived from the East and needed attention. Rosalind presided at the Bar B ranchhouse, under Agatha's chaperonage, and she had invited Trevison to visit her whenever the mood struck him. He had been in the mood many times, but had found no opportunity, for the various activities of range work claimed his attention. After a critical survey of Manti and vicinity, J. C. had climbed aboard his private car to be whisked to New York, where he reported to his Board of Directors that Manti would one day be one of the greatest commercial centers of the West.

Vague rumors of a legal tangle involving the land around Manti had reached Trevison's ears, and this morning he had jumped on n.i.g.g.e.r, determined to run the rumors down. He made a wide swing, following the river, which took him miles from his own property and into the enormous basin which one day the engineers expected to convert into a mammoth lake from which the thirst of many dry acres of land was to be slaked; and halting n.i.g.g.e.r near the mouth of the gorge, watched the many laborers, directed by various grades of bosses, at work building the foundation of the dam. Later, he crossed the basin, followed the well-beaten trail up the slope to the level, and shortly he was in Hanrahan's saloon across the street from Braman's bank, listening to the plaint of Jim Lefingwell, the Circle Cross owner, whose ranch was east of town. Lefingwell was big, florid, and afflicted with perturbation that was almost painful. So exercised was he that he was at times almost incoherent.

"She's boomin', ain't she? Meanin' this man's town, of course. An' a man's got a right to cash in on a boom whenever he gits the chance. Well, I'd figgered to cash in. I ain't no hawg an' I got savvy enough to perceive without the aid of any d.a.m.n fortune-teller that cattle is done in this country--considered as the main question. I've got a thousand acres of land--which I paid for in spot cash to d.i.c.k Kessler about eight years ago.

If d.i.c.k was here he'd back me up in that. But he ain't here--the doggone fool went an' died about four years ago, leavin' me unprotected. Well, now, not digressin' any, I gits the idea that I'm goin' to unload consid'able of my thousand acres on the sufferin' fools that's yearnin' to come into this country an' work their heads off raisin' alfalfa an' hawgs, an' cabbages an' sons with Pick-a-dilly collars to be eddicated East an'

come back home some day an' lift the mortgage from the old homestead--which job they always falls down on--findin' it more to their likin' to mortgage their souls to buy jew'l'ry for fast wimmin. Well, not digressin' any, I run a-foul of a guy last week which was dead set on investin' in ten acres of my land, skirtin' one of the irrigation ditches which they're figgerin' on puttin' in. The price I wanted was a heap satisfyin' to the guy. But he suggests that before he forks over the coin we go down to the courthouse an' muss up the records to see if my t.i.tle is clear. Well, not digressin' any, she ain't! She ain't even nowheres clear a-tall--she ain't even there! She's wiped off, slick an' clean! There ain't a d.a.m.ned line to show that I ever bought my land from d.i.c.k Kessler, an' there ain't nothin' on no record to show that d.i.c.k Kessler ever owned it! What in h.e.l.l do you think of that?

"Now, not digressin' any," he went on as Trevison essayed to speak; "that ain't the worst of it. While I was in there, talkin' to Judge Lindman, this here big guy that you fit with--Corrigan--comes in. I gathers from the trend of his remarks that I never had a legal t.i.tle to my land--that it belongs to the guy which bought it from the Midland Company--which is him. Now what in h.e.l.l do you think of that?"

"I knew d.i.c.k Kessler," said Trevison, soberly. "He was honest."

"Square as a dollar!" violently affirmed Lefingwell.

"It's too bad," sympathized Trevison. "That places you in a mighty bad fix. If there's anything I can do for you, why--"

"Mr. 'Brand' Trevison?" said a voice at Trevison's elbow. Trevison turned, to see a short, heavily built man smiling mildly at him.

"I'm a deputy from Judge Lindman's court," announced the man. "I've got a summons for you. Saw you coming in here--saves me a trip to your place."

He shoved a paper into Trevison's hands, grinned, and went out. For an instant Trevison stood, looking after the man, wondering how, since the man was a stranger to him, he had recognized him--and then he opened the paper to discover that he was ordered to appear before Judge Lindman the following day to show cause why he should not be evicted from certain described property held unlawfully by him. The name, Jefferson Corrigan, appeared as plaintiff in the action.

Lefingwell was watching Trevison's face closely, and when he saw it whiten, he muttered, understandingly:

"You've got it, too, eh?"

"Yes." Trevison shoved the paper into a pocket. "Looks like you're not going to be skinned alone, Lefingwell. Well, so-long; I'll see you later."

He strode out, leaving Lefingwell slightly stunned over his abrupt leave-taking. A minute later he was in the squatty frame courthouse, towering above Judge Lindman, who had been seated at his desk and who had risen at his entrance.

Trevison shoved the summons under Lindman's nose.

"I just got this," he said. "What does it mean?"

"It is perfectly understandable," the Judge smiled with forced affability.

"The plaintiff, Mr. Jefferson Corrigan, is a claimant to the t.i.tle of the land now held by you."

"Corrigan can have no claim on my land; I bought it five years ago from old Buck Peters. He got it from a man named Taylor. Corrigan is bluffing."

The Judge coughed and dropped his gaze from the belligerent eyes of the young man. "That will be determined in court," he said. "The entire land transactions in this county, covering a period of twenty-five years, are recorded in that book." And the Judge indicated a ledger on his desk.

"I'll take a look at it." Trevison reached for the ledger, seized it, the Judge protesting, half-heartedly, though with the judicial dignity that had become habitual from long service in his profession.