LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

means he's getting old—and I hate to admit it. Fat cows, this year. How's Janet?"

      "Fine. I left her in town."

      "Damned pretty girl. Well, you're lucky, Clay. Mighty nice to have a youngster to ride the trail with, watchin' him grow and tellin' him what you know about things. I used to think that if I had a boy I'd sure show him the world. Hear the old owl hoot and listen to the cougar scrape his whiskers on the tent wall. Shake the frost off our blankets and ride the rim to see daylight come. I wish I had that boy."

      It was, Clay Morgan knew, a sore spot in this handsome, likable Lige White—that he had no son. It was on his mind a good deal and he often spoke of it whenever he thought of Janet; any child drew his attention and his charming smile. He was always praising Janet and always wanting to buy her candy in his large-handed way. He was a man who had to put his affections somewhere. Through the middle of his sweaty, dusty afternoon's work, Morgan thought about this intensely human streak in Lige White which seemed to find no outlet; then he remembered Mrs. White's set and calm expression and her quiet voice—and the misery of her eyes.

      Herendeen and his men cleared the Haycreek Hills of the last straggling stock; Gurd Grant cleaned up the edge of the Potholes and came in. Running W had scoured Fanolango Pass, and at twilight this day the job was done, the brands segregated and held in separate herds. After supper Morgan started Harry Jump back to the Mogul range with the Long Seven beef, and the Crowfoot and Running W cuts went away, lumbering shadows in the moonlight, the scrape of feet and the click of those long horns and the plaintive "Baw" of the last calf riding back through the night-still air.

      Dust and heat were gone and the campfire's flame, so still was this air, tapered upward to a blue-yellow, almost stationary point. Charley Hillhouse, who was wagon boss, said: "We'll move over and work the Antelope Plains tomorrow."

      The cook swore around the shadows, harnessing his team. Afterwards the mess wagon went bumping away on its four-hour ride, to be ready on the Antelope Plains by daybreak. Lying on his blanket, head athwart the seat of his saddle, Clay Morgan listened to the dry groaning of the wagon wheels fade into this enormous night. He rolled a cigarette and savored its keen smell. Stars crowded the sky; they washed that limitless sweep of black with a diamond-glitter, all down to the black horizon's edge, until they seemed to fall below the rim of a flat world. Here and there in the pine summits coyotes began to hark up their mourning plaint, "Ar-ar-oo-oo." Hillhouse and Clay Morgan and Lige White sat by the fire, their cheeks sharply, taciturnly graved by light and shadows; and men lay blanketed in the background, weary and relaxed and cradled by their inward thinking, Herendeen walked forward from the shadows to stand high above this sprawled group. He tossed a sage stem into the fire and watched the pale and heatless flame rise. He was across from Clay Morgan; his eyes searched the crowd. The edges of his vest fell away from the rounds of his shoulders and the deep stretch of his chest; his bigness was all in proportion, legs and arms and torso; it was a muscular bigness, a bigness of thick bones.

      Cap Vermilye was a Long Seven man, the oldest rider of the lot and the most prolific storyteller. He said now, from the background: "Reminds me of a time in the Staked Plains. This was in Seventy-eight—"

      Ben Herendeen broke in as if Cap Vermilye hadn't spoken.

      "Lige," he said, "I hear there's a new homesteader come to the spring Jim Spackman used to squat on."

      "I heard so," said Lige White.

      Cap Vermilye said no more and for a moment the silence was deep and different. A swift spark lighted Clay Morgan's resentment at Herendeen's intolerant interruption. He sat slowly up; he was near enough the fire to be seen. Charley Hillhouse turned his head suddenly to watch Morgan, a small crease of worry showing between his eyes.

      "We'll warn him out of there tomorrow," said Herendeen.

      But when he stopped talking Clay Morgan knew he wasn't finished. Herendeen's thoughts were on his face, for everybody to see. "Or maybe we've got some great big soul in this crowd whose heart bleeds for people like that. Seems to be a hell of a lot of charity around here lately."

      Morgan swayed forward to lift a burning sage stem from the fire; its oil-bright glow flickered against his cheeks, against his eyes. This silence held its waiting and its reserve. Morgan tossed the sage stem back into the fire, drawing a sharp glance from Charley Hillhouse. Lige White uncomfortably crossed his feet. Gurd Grant crouched by the blaze and revealed nothing on his scrupulously neutral face. Morgan relaxed gently on his shoulder blades and pillowed his head against the saddle. He said nothing but he saw the changing expression of Herendeen's cheeks. Herendeen had braced himself for trouble, he had maneuvered this talk around to make a break; but nothing happened and he stood a moment, uncertain and displeased, and afterwards walked away. He called back. "I'll see you tomorrow, Lige, You too, Gurd." Presently he left camp at a dead run.

      Rolled in the blanket, Morgan smoked the cigarette to its end. When he had finished, the fire was a vague glow of ashes and the night's cold had crept in from the sky.

      Instead of turning west to his own ranch, Herendeen traveled due south toward a low range of hills which separated Running W from Three Pines. An hour's ride brought him within sight of a far-shining light, which was the mark of a bomesteader's cabin against the hills; but when he came upon the homesteader's cabin, drifting into the heavy shadows at the base of these hills, a dog began to bark and suddenly the light died. He reined in before the cabin, feeling his contempt for the evident fear which had caused the homesteader to kill the light. They were all alike, these homesteaders, little men crawling as near the range as they dared, sticking their plows into the unplowed soil and slowly starving while the sun burnt up their crops and ruined the land ever afterward for graze. He could not tolerate this breed, or their sun-blackened wives, or their tow-headed children. They were aliens. They were no better than Indians. He sent his deep, blunt call at the shack. "Hey—come out here."

      They were talking, inside. A boy's voice said, "Pa, don't go." A woman was talking, quickly and with suppressed excitement. The door squealed open and somebody stood in its black square, speechless.

      "What are you doing here?" demanded Herendeen. "This place is on Lige White's range. We drove Jim Spackman away from it last year."

      "You Lige White?" said a man in a dim, drawn voice.

      "What the hell is that to you? My name's Herendeen and I asked you a question."

      "Oh," said the man. "I'm Jack Gale. I bought Jim Spackman's rights to this place."

      "He never had any rights to sell."

      "He built the house, Mr. Herendeen." Then the man added, quietly, "It's free land, ain't it? I understood it was. I also understood Mr. White wouldn't mind."

      Herendeen was nettled by the argument. "You damned nesters are all alike, trying to stand on this free-land business. You stick your plow into it and ruin it, and starve to death, and steal cattle to keep your kids alive, and move away. We're not in the game of providin' meat to nesters."

      "I'll make my way," said Gale, peaceably, "and I don't ask for nobody's beef. I want no trouble."

      "You got a fence around that spring?"

      "Yes," said Gale reluctantly.

      "Sure," grunted Herendeen. "Now you pull that fence down and you get out of this country by the end of the week."

      For a moment Gale didn't answer. His breath sighed into the darkness and his feet scraped the doorsill. Spring water, dropping down the hillside, bubbled across the yard. Then Gale said in a halting, softening tone: "I don't see why—"

      Herendeen said, "I don't want any argument. You hear?" Gale's wife called from the interior of the house. "Jack, come in here. Come in." Herendeen heard her run over the floor. She caught hold of her husband and these two were gently wrestling around the doorway with Gale saying, "Now, Allie, stop it—stop it." But she pulled him inside and slammed the door: A child, very young, began to cry in a thin, startled rhythm. Herendeen pushed his horse over the yard, bound away for his ranch. The foot of the horse struck a loose pail, and this racket excited the beast and set him into a quick pitching. Herendeen slashed his spurs into the horse and

Скачать книгу