Susy, A Story of the Plains - Bret Harte (ebook reader for pc and android txt) 📗

He had already amused himself on the way with a fanciful conception of the exaggerated account Jim had given of his exploits. But the bewildered girl shook her head.

“No, he didn’t tell us ANYTHING.”

Clarence was really alarmed. This unprecedented abstention of Hooker’s was portentous.

“He didn’t say anything but what I told you about law and order,” she went on; “but that same night we heard a good deal of talking and shouting in the cabin and around it. And the next day he was talking with father, and wanting to know how HE kept his land without trouble from outsiders.”

“And I said,” broke in Hopkins, “that I guessed folks didn’t bother a man with women folks around, and that I kalkilated that I wasn’t quite as notorious for fightin’ as he was.”

“And he said,” also interrupted Mrs. Hopkins, “and quite in his nat’ral way, too,—gloomy like, you remember, Cyrus,” appealingly to her husband,—“that that was his curse.”

The smile that flickered around Clarence’s mouth faded, however, as he caught sight of Phoebe’s pleading, interrogating eyes. It was really too bad. Whatever change had come over the rascal it was too evident that his previous belligerent personality had had its full effect upon the simple girl, and that, hereafter, one pair of honest eyes would be wistfully following him.

Perplexed and indignant, Clarence again closely questioned her as to the personnel of the trespassing party who had been seen once or twice since passing over the field. He had at last elicited enough information to identify one of them as Gilroy, the leader of the party that had invaded Robles rancho. His cheek flushed. Even if they had wished to take a theatrical and momentary revenge on Hooker for the passing treachery to them which they had just discovered, although such retaliation was only transitory, and they could not hold the land, it was an insult to Clarence himself, whose tenant Jim was, and subversive of all their legally acquired rights. He would confront this Gilroy at once; his half-wild encampment was only a few miles away, just over the boundaries of the Robles estate. Without stating his intention, he took leave of the Hopkins family with the cheerful assurance that he would probably return with some news of Hooker, and rode away.

The trail became more indistinct and unfrequented as it diverged from the main road, and presently lost itself in the slope towards the east. The horizon grew larger: there were faint bluish lines upon it which he knew were distant mountains; beyond this a still fainter white line—the Sierran snows. Presently he intersected a trail running south, and remarked that it crossed the highway behind him, where he had once met the two mysterious horsemen. They had evidently reached the terrace through the wild oats by that trail. A little farther on were a few groups of sheds and canvas tents in a bare and open space, with scattered cattle and horsemen, exactly like an encampment, or the gathering of a country fair. As Clarence rode down towards them he could see that his approach was instantly observed, and that a simultaneous movement was made as if to anticipate him. For the first time he realized the possible consequences of his visit, single-handed, but it was too late to retrace his steps. With a glance at his holster, he rode boldly forward to the nearest shed. A dozen men hovered near him, but something in his quiet, determined manner held them aloof. Gilroy was on the threshold in his shirtsleeves. A single look showed him that Clarence was alone, and with a careless gesture of his hand he warned away his own followers.

“You’ve got a sort of easy way of droppin’ in whar you ain’t invited, Brant,” he said with a grim smile, which was not, however, without a certain air of approval. “Got it from your father, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t believe HE ever thought it necessary to warn twenty men of the approach of ONE,” replied Clarence, in the same tone. “I had no time to stand on ceremony, for I have just come from Hooker’s quarter section at Fair Plains.”

Gilroy smiled again, and gazed abstractedly at the sky.

“You know as well as I do,” said Clarence, controlling his voice with an effort, “that what you have done there will have to be undone, if you wish to hold even those lawless men of yours together, or keep yourself and them from being run into the brush like highwaymen. I’ve no fear for that. Neither do I care to know what was your motive in doing it; but I can only tell you that if it was retaliation, I alone was and still am responsible for Hooker’s action at the rancho. I came here to know just what you have done with him, and, if necessary, to take his place.”

“You’re just a little too previous in your talk, I reckon, Brant,” returned Gilroy lazily, “and as to legality, I reckon we stand on the same level with yourself, just here. Beginnin’ with what you came for: as we don’t know where your Jim Hooker is, and as we ain’t done anythin’ to HIM, we don’t exackly see what we could do with YOU in his place. Ez to our motives,—well, we’ve got a good deal to say about THAT. We reckoned that he wasn’t exackly the kind of man we wanted for a neighbor. His pow’ful fightin’ style didn’t suit us peaceful folks, and we thought it rather worked agin this new ‘law and order’ racket to have such a man about, to say nuthin’ of it prejudicin’ quiet settlers. He had too many revolvers for one man to keep his eye on, and was altogether too much steeped in blood, so to speak, for ordinary washin’ and domestic purposes! His hull get up was too deathlike and clammy; so we persuaded him to leave. We just went there, all of us, and exhorted him. We stayed round there two days and nights, takin’ turns, talkin’ with him, nuthin’ more, only selecting subjects in his own style to please him, until he left! And then, as we didn’t see any use for his house there, we took it away. Them’s the cold facts, Brant,” he added, with a certain convincing indifference that left no room for doubt, “and you can stand by ‘em. Now, workin’ back to the first principle you laid down,—that we’ll have to UNDO what we’ve DONE,—we don’t agree with you, for we’ve taken a leaf outer your own book. We’ve got it here in black and white. We’ve got a bill o’ sale of Hooker’s house and possession, and we’re on the land in place of him,—AS YOUR TENANTS.” He reentered the shanty, took a piece of paper from a soap-box on the shell, and held it out to Clarence. “Here it is. It’s a fair and square deal, Brant. We gave him, as it says here, a hundred dollars for it! No humbuggin’, but the hard cash, by Jiminy! AND HE TOOK THE MONEY.”

The ring of truth in the man’s voice was as unmistakable as the signature in Jim’s own hand. Hooker had sold out! Clarence turned hastily away.

“We don’t know where he went,” continued Gilroy grimly, “but I reckon you ain’t over anxious to see him NOW. And I kin tell ye something to ease your mind,—he didn’t require much persuadin’. And I kin tell ye another, if ye ain’t above takin’ advice from folks that don’t pertend to give it,” he added, with the same curious look of interest in his face. “You’ve done well to get shut of him, and if you got shut of a few more of his kind that you trust to, you’d do better.”

As if to avoid noticing any angry reply from the young man, he reentered the cabin and shut the door behind him. Clarence felt the uselessness of further parley, and rode away.

But Gilroy’s Parthian arrow rankled as he rode. He was not greatly shocked at Jim’s defection, for he was always fully conscious of his vanity and weakness; but he was by no means certain that Jim’s extravagance and braggadocio, which he had found only amusing and, perhaps, even pathetic, might not be as provocative and prejudicial to others as Gilroy had said. But, like all sympathetic and unselfish natures, he sought to find some excuse for his old companion’s weakness in his own mistaken judgment. He had no business to bring poor Jim on the land, to subject his singular temperament to the temptations of such a life and such surroundings; he should never have made use of his services at the rancho. He had done him harm rather than good in his ill-advised, and, perhaps, SELFISH attempts to help him. I have said that Gilroy’s parting warning rankled in his breast, but not ignobly. It wounded the surface of his sensitive nature, but could not taint or corrupt the pure, wholesome blood of the gentleman beneath it. For in Gilroy’s warning he saw only his own shortcomings. A strange fatality had marked his friendships. He had been no help to Jim; he had brought no happiness to Susy or Mrs. Peyton, whose disagreement his visit seemed to have accented. Thinking over the mysterious attack upon himself, it now seemed to him possible that, in some obscure way, his presence at the rancho had precipitated the more serious attack on Peyton. If, as it had been said, there was some curse upon his inheritance from his father, he seemed to have made others share it with him. He was riding onward abstractedly, with his head sunk on his breast and his eyes fixed upon some vague point between his horse’s sensitive ears, when a sudden, intelligent, forward pricking of them startled him, and an apparition arose from the plain before him that seemed to sweep all other sense away.

It was the figure of a handsome young horseman as abstracted as himself, but evidently on better terms with his own personality. He was dark haired, sallow cheeked, and blue eyed,—the type of the old Spanish Californian. A burnt-out cigarette was in his mouth, and he was riding a roan mustang with the lazy grace of his race. But what arrested Clarence’s attention more than his picturesque person was the narrow, flexible, long coil of gray horsehair riata which hung from his saddle-bow, but whose knotted and silver-beaded terminating lash he was swirling idly in his narrow brown hand. Clarence knew and instantly recognized it as the ordinary fanciful appendage of a gentleman rider, used for tethering his horse on lonely plains, and always made the object of the most lavish expenditure of decoration and artistic skill. But he was as suddenly filled with a blind, unreasoning sense of repulsion and fury, and lifted his eyes to the man as he approached. What the stranger saw in Clarence’s blazing eyes no one but himself knew, for his own became fixed and staring; his sallow cheeks grew lanker and livid; his careless, jaunty bearing stiffened into rigidity, and swerving his horse to one side he suddenly passed Clarence at a furious gallop. The young American wheeled quickly, and for an instant his knees convulsively gripped the flanks of his horse to follow. But the next moment he recalled himself, and with an effort began to collect his thoughts. What was he intending to do, and for what reason! He had met hundreds of such horsemen before, and caparisoned and accoutred like this, even to the riata. And he certainly was not dressed like either of the mysterious horsemen whom he had overheard that moonlight evening. He looked back; the stranger had already slackened his pace, and was slowly disappearing. Clarence turned and rode on his way.

CHAPTER IX.