The Last Straw Part 40

But he went to sleep unsatisfied.

Out at Cathedral Tank that night the cattle stood snuffing rather wonderingly. Two days before there had been water which reached their knees at the deepest place; today there was none. It had trickled through the scars the blast had torn in the basin. The bellies of some were a bit shrunken from lack of it and bodies of the steers that had been killed were bloated. One, even, had already furnished food to a coyote and a pair of vultures.

Three or four licked the last of the damp silt and then turned eastward and began the slow trek back toward Devil's Hole, where at this season they had gone since they had been calves.

The Reverend saw this scattered stringing of cattle and reported it to Beck. Tom looked up from the wheel of the chuck wagon which he was repairing and considered.

"They're early," he muttered. "I hadn't figured they'd leave before the end of the week.... That's bad...."

The next morning he and Two-Bits, the latter riding his beloved n.i.g.g.e.r, with an extra horse carrying the tee-pee, bed and grub, clattered down the trail into the Hole and made through the brush for the Gap. They skirted the Cole ranch, eyeing the Mexicans who were at work clearing sage brush, and a mile further on halted their horses ... rode forward, halted again, rode forward ... stopped.

"It's McKee," Two-Bits said. "That's Webb's gray horse."

The other rider came on and they rode forward again, Beck's holster hitched a bit forward, thumb locked in his belt.

Two-Bits had been right and when McKee recognized them he averted his face as though he would ride past without speaking. But this was not to be for Beck stopped directly in his way and said:

"Sam, if it was anybody else I'd been shootin' long ago. I ain't got the heart to kill you. You recollect, don't you, what I told you and your crowd about driftin' into our territory?"

"This ain't your range," McKee grumbled. "This is Cole's."

His gray eyes met Beck's just once and fell off, showing helpless hate in their depths, the hate of the man who would give battle but who dares not, who is outraged by forces from without and by his own weakness.

"No need to argue," Beck replied, tolerance replaced by a snap in his tone. "You drag it for your own range, McKee, and don't you stop to look back."

Two-Bits was delighted at the hot flush which swept into the other's face. He loathed McKee and to see him under the dominion of a strong man like Beck appealed to him as immensely funny.

"An' if my brother was here he'd tell you about a woman that looked back an' turned to salt," he said. "But if you turn an' look back I'll bet two-bits you turn to somethin' worse!"

The other flashed one look at him, a look of long-standing hate, devoid of a measure of the fear which he evidenced for Beck. He rode on without a word and Two-Bits laughed aloud. McKee did not even look back.

At the Gap there was water, just enough for a man and his horses for a few days. The seep had stopped and the water was not fresh.

"I guess it'll do, though," Beck said. "It's mighty important we keep this stock out of the Hole, Two-Bits. That's why I brought a trustworthy man.

"Lord, they're stringin' up fast,"--staring out on the desert where the steers slowly ate their way to the mouth of the Hole. "Funny they're out of water so soon. If they get up in here,"--gesturing back through the Gap,--"there may be h.e.l.l to pay."

He helped Two-Bits pitch his tee-pee and rode away.

Throughout that day the homely cow-boy met the drifting steers and turned them eastward, past the Hole toward the lower waters of Coyote Creek. They were reluctant to go for they knew that beyond the Gap lay water but Two-Bits slapped his chaps with rein ends and whooped and chased them until the van of the procession moved on in the desired direction.

He was up late at night and awoke early in the morning, riding up the Gap to turn back those that had stolen past in the night, then stationing himself in the shade of the parapet to await the others that came in increasing numbers.

Two-Bits did not see the gray horse picking its way along the heights above him. The gray's rider saw to it that he was not exposed. Nor could he know that the animal was picketed and that a man crawled over the rocks on his belly, shoving a rifle before him until, from a point that screened him well, he could look down into the Gap.

Steers strolled up and eyed the sentinel, lifting their noses to snuff, flinging heads about now and then to dislodge flies that their flicking tails could not reach. He would ride out toward them, shoving them down around the shoulder of the point toward the east, then return to head off others that took advantage of his absence to make a steal for the Gap.

As he worked, he sang:

"Ho, I'm a jolly _cow_boy, from Texas now I _hail!_ Give me my quirt and _po-o_-ony, I'm ready for the _trail_; I love the rolling _prai_ries, they're free from care an' _strife!_ Behind a herd of _long_horns I'll journey all my _life!_"

His voice was unmusical, unlovely, but he sang with fervor, sang as conscientiously as he worked.

As he came and went the man above watched him, his gray eyes squinting in the glare of light, following now and then the barrel of the rifle, bringing the ivory sight to bear on the man's back, caressing the trigger with his finger. A dozen times he stiffened and held his breath and the finger twitched; and each time his body relaxed quickly and he cursed softly, rolling over on his side, impatient at his indecision.

A continued flush was on his cheeks and the light in his eyes was baleful, resolved, yet the lines of his mouth were weak and indecisive.

Once, when Two-Bits' raucous voice reached him, he muttered aloud and stiffened again and squeezed the stock with his trigger hand ... then went limp.

Noon came and shadows commenced to spill into the gap from the westward. The steers that drifted up from the far reaches of wash-ribbed desert came faster, were more intent, more reluctant to be driven back. Two-Bits changed to his n.i.g.g.e.r horse and drank from the water hole and rode yipping toward a big roan steer that advanced determinedly. The animal doubled and dodged but, shoulder against its rump, nipping viciously at the critter's back, n.i.g.g.e.r aided his rider to success; then swung back.

Two-Bits' voice floated up as he stroked his horse's neck:

"Oh, I'm a Texas _cow_boy, lighthearted, brave an' _free_, To roam the wide _prai_rie is always joy to _me_.

My trusty little _po-o_-ony is my companion _true_ O'er creeks an' hills an' _riv_ers he's sure to pull me _through!_"

From above a dull spat. In Two-Bits' ears an abrupt crunching as he was knocked forward and down and a dull, rending pain spread across his shoulders. He struck the ground with his face first and instinctively his hand started back toward his holster. The first movement was a whip, then became jerky, faltering, and when the fingers found the handle of his revolver they fumbled and could not close. He half raised himself on the other elbow, dragging his knees beneath his body slowly.

His mouth was filled with sand. His eyes were.... He did not know what ailed them, but he could not see. He felt dizzy and sick. He hitched himself upward another degree, striving to close those fingers on his revolver b.u.t.t. It was a Herculean task, but the only necessary action that his groggy mind could recall. He gritted the sand between his teeth in the effort. He would draw! He would fight back! He wasn't gone ... yet ... wasn't ...

And then he collapsed, limp and flat on the ground, as an inert body will lie.

The fingers twitched convulsively; then were still. A stain seeped through his vest, dark in the sun. The breath slipped through his teeth slowly. The horse stood looking at him, nose low; then stepped closer and snuffed gently; looked rather resentfully at a steer trailing through the Gap unheeded, then snuffed again....

Up above a man was crawling back across the hot rocks to where a gray horse waited in the sun....

"I got him," he muttered feverishly as he covered the last distance at a run. "Now, by G.o.d, I'll get-- ..."

n.i.g.g.e.r stood there, switching at the flies which alighted on him. From time to time he snuffed and stamped; occasionally he peered far up the Hole or out onto the desert almost hopefully, watching distant objects with erect ears; then the ears would droop quickly and he would chew his bit and look back at his master with helpless eyes.

Cattle strayed back from the east where Two-Bits had sent them and entered the Hole, those which had once been driven away pa.s.sing the p.r.o.ne figure and the watching horse on a trot, others with their noses in the air smelling water, heedless of else.

The shadows crept closer and deeper about Two-Bits. Overhead a buzzard wheeled, banking sharply, coming down lazily, then flapped upward and on. It was not yet his time!

The horse dozed fitfully, one hip slumped, waking now and then with a jerk, p.r.i.c.king his ears at the quiet figure as though he detected movement; then letting them droop again rather forlornly. Once he walked completely about his master, slowly, reins trailing and then stopped to nose the body gently as if to say:

"What is this, my friend? I'm only a horse and I don't understand; if I knew how to help you I would. Won't you tell me what to do? I'm waiting here just for that; to help you. But I'm only a horse..."

He plucked gra.s.s aimlessly and returned to stand above the man's body chewing abstractedly, stopping and holding his breath while he gazed down at the inanimate lump; then chewing again. Once he sighed deeply and the saddle creaked from the strain his inhalation put on the cinch.

For hours there had been no movement. Night stole down from the east, shrouding the desert in purple, softening the harsh distances, making them seem gentle and easy. Then from the still man came a sound, like a sigh that was choked off, and the hand which, hours before had groped haltingly for the revolver, stirred ever so slightly.

n.i.g.g.e.r's ears went forward. He stepped gingerly about the body, keeping his fore feet close to it, swinging his hind parts in a big circle. He nickered softly, almost entreatingly, as if begging his master to speak, to make more movement; he nuzzled the body rather roughly, then stamped in impatience ... sighed again and slumped a hip, chewing on his bit....

Two-Bits was wet with dew when daylight came, but he had not stirred.

The sun peered into the Gap and the drops of moisture, blinking back a brief interval, seemed to draw into his clothing and skin; the rays licked up the damp that had gathered in the hoof prints about the figure.