Valley of Outlaws Page 4

  So he studied the familiar spot, as I have said, with a perfect content, and then he drifted off to one side. He left the lights of the little town behind him, entered a little valley, and came presently through the trees of the grounds of a considerable ranch house. He listened carefully for a moment, and looked keenly about. Then boldly he rode from covert.

  Behind the ranch house, from their own quarters, the cowhands were raising a song; a dog slipped from the shadow of a brush patch, sniffed at the legs of Mr. Shawn’s horse and disappeared again, and Terence Shawn went on to the farther corner of the building.

  There he stooped from the saddle and looked in through the open kitchen window. A large Negress was waddling about the room, intent, apparently, on repairing the after-supper disorder, evidenced in the heaped pans that strewed the sink. She had a benevolent appearance, did the Negress, although he could not decide whether it was an inner content that made her so cheerful or simply a habitual and fixed expression of joy, which the constantly uptilted corners of her mouth gave her.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Where you talkin’ from?” said the Negress, lifting her head and surveying the ceiling. “Has you come down for ol’ Aunt Midget, angels?”

  “Hello,” said Shawn again.

  And now she located him. “Hello, man,” she said. “What you want?”

  “A great big slice out of that roast ham that you’ve got there on the warming shelf.”

  “Step right inside,” said the cook. “Step right inside and help yourself! I hope I ain’t turned no hungry creature from my door. Nor neither would Missus Bowen be wantin’ me to.”

  Shawn obeyed the invitation, literally stepping out of the stirrups and through the window.

  “You-all has been riding quite a piece,” said Aunt Midget. “Set down and shove your feet under that table.”

  “Everybody gone from home?” asked Shawn.

  “Everybody,” said Aunt Midget. “There ain’t scarcely anybody in callin’ distance of me except about ten of the boys in the bunkhouse. You hear ’em tunin’ up?” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder toward the window, through which poured the strains of hoarse and timeless music from the cowpunchers.

  Terence Shawn smiled. He could not help understanding this scarcely concealed reference to the cook’s guard so close at hand—in case Terence should turn out a robber.

  However, she made no pause for him to speak, but went blandly on in her good-natured, husky voice, informing him that the family had gone into Lister to attend a dance in the town dance and lecture hall.

  “And what be your business in this part of the world?” asked Aunt Midget, piling a new heap of chops on the plate before her guest.

  “I’ve been hearing a good deal about a bang-up sort of a horse around here,” he said. “I mean a horse that some greaser has got . . . a horse that anybody can have who can ride him.”

  “You mean Sky Pilot?” she asked. “I heard about him too. He’s as good as an epidemic to the doctors. He lays up a man a day, regular. And there’s nothin’ small and mean about him. No cracked ribs and bruises and dislocations, and such. When Sky Pilot gets busy, he finishes up. Busted hips is special with him”—Aunt Midget sighed—“and fractured skulls he is extra fond of doing. But slammin’ them on the ground so that there’s nothing left of them to patch is his main line. He’s a lovely horse, I can tell you. And you’d be comin’ down to ride him, young man. Is that it?”

  “A man can have a try,” he suggested. “There’s no harm in that, Aunt Midget.”

  “There ain’t,” she said. “You can no more than lose your life, and we’ve all got to die someday. Only it ain’t just the sort of a death that I’d be pickin’ you out to choose.”

  “No?” he said politely, swallowing a great draft of coffee. “How would you lay me out, Aunt Midget? How would you figure that I’d be trimmed up and put on the shelf?”

  She turned and looked down at him with a degree of penetration that gave her almost a disdainful look. “Guns,” said Aunt Midget at last.

  “Guns?” he cried. And he held up his hands.

  She nodded vigorously. “You’ve hardly ever seen such things, most likely,” she said, winking broadly.

  “I’m a quiet man,” he declared.

  “All the bad ones are,” she answered with a perfect assurance. “A fire that roars ain’t the fire that does the work. The fire that just gives a quiet little hiss . . . that’s the one that burns the bread in the oven and melts the top off of the stove.” She nodded her head again.

  Terence Shawn narrowed his eyes. “Suppose that you’re right?” he suggested. “What then?”

  “Oh, I’m right,” she assured him confidently.

  “You don’t seem scared, Aunt Midget,” he teased.

  “Scared?” she cried. “Scared of a man?” Her strong bass laughter boomed and flooded through the kitchen until the pans heaped in the sink trembled with the vibration.

  “I have swep’ out a whole roomful of ’em,” she said. “I have started forty of the wildest man-killers on the run with one ladle of soup in their faces.” And, as she spoke, she scooped out a dipperful from a great black pot at the rear of the stove and waved it in the air. Shawn shrank away with startled eyes. But she, without spilling so much as a drop, returned the ladle to the pot. She chuckled softly. “Scared?” she said. “I hope no man is ever goin’ to scare Aunt Midget. But, land . . . a little, narrow, wizened-up boy like you . . .!”

  Her laughter boomed again and Shawn flushed a little. He had a vague and boyish desire to announce himself in all the splendid dignity of his crimes and his daring deeds, but he restrained the impulse and smiled instead.

  “I won’t try,” he said. “I wanted to talk about a horse, and not about guns, Aunt Midget. Where could I find the Mexican?”

  “That José? I don’t know. You go down and ask for the meanest-lookin’ man in town, and the orneriest, and the worst, and that’s him. I don’t know where he lives.”

  “You never saw Sky Pilot bucking?”

  “I never saw him pitch one lick,” sighed the fat Negress. “Fact is, it ain’t no easy thing for me to go roamin’ around the country. When I tried to get into the buckboard the other day, the dog-gone’ step, it busted away under me. Everything, these days, is made for lightweights and skeletons. They don’t take no account of folks with a little substance to ’em!”

  Meanwhile Terence Shawn had risen to go.

  “Here, you!” called the cook. “Mister Outlaw, Mister Robber, Mister Horse Thief . . . whatever your name might be . . . you come back here and sit down and try some of this pudding. It’ll be good for what ails you.”

  Chapter Seven

  Comfortable, and at rest with himself and the world at large, Terence Shawn at last departed. Only with difficulty had he been able to press $1 into the great, moist hand of Aunt Midget, and now he jogged his refreshed horse softly through the night.

  And anyone, seeing into the mind of Shawn, might have had reason to believe that before the morning Aunt Midget might have cause to revise some of her opinions about the harmlessness of men. For an idea had come to Shawn, which, as it developed slowly, pleased him more and more as it stepped from shadow into the light of a fuller understanding and determination.

  He had come to Lister to ask about the horse and to hear an answer from a very special pair of lips, and although he had no doubt that he could learn what he wished from the first chance passer-by on the road, still he was inclined to persist in his first determination to take the reply from one only.

  And that one was none other than Kitty Bowen.

  She had rested in his mind ever since his last meeting with her. She was no classic beauty. Her mouth was too large, except when she smiled and dimpled. Her nose was too short, and it wrinkled absurdly out of sight when she laughed. But she was so finely made, so poised, so clear cut, that one could not but rejoice to look at her. Besides, the sound of her voice attracted one from
the first. You learned from it of her splendid womanliness, of the warmth of her heart, and, when you looked at her, you saw, not the slight imperfections, but the glorious whole of her.

  Ever since his meeting with her, the image of her had lain in the back of the outlaw’s mind. And now he had a foolish desire to hear of Sky Pilot through her, and her alone. He knew that it was a perverse and foolish desire, and yet he could not help being sure that he never would give up the effort to see her until he had fulfilled that desire.

  There was nothing in his mind to say to her, except to put the one question. No doubt she would think him as mad as this act deserved to be called, but, for some reason, what she thought of it hardly mattered. He merely wanted to be close enough to see her, to breathe of her presence, to taste the wine of a delightful personality, and then it would be easier to go back to the loneliness, the long rides, the deadly silence of the dark nights among the mountains or on the bare and dangerous face of the plains.

  So he came to his decision, although the reasons, as always, were vague, uncertain, unimportant. His resolution had gripped him almost before he knew it. Feeling the truth of that, he was not a little reminded of the ways of the habitual drunkard, drawn down the street by an inexplicable force, until at last the familiar saloon sign flares before him, and he turns with a guilty thrill through the familiar swinging doors and into the aroma of damp sawdust, of smoke, of pungent beer and whiskey. So young Terence Shawn was drawn on by an irresistible fate, knowing that danger lay ahead, yet rather prizing the adventure because of the thrill that was in it. And he went straight to the lecture hall.

  He knew all about the place. There had been a time when, with no shadow on his name and fame, he had walked freely into that big barn-like building, had presented his ticket for two, and, idling a moment at the door, had then drifted off into the dance. In those times he had looked all men in the face carelessly, cheerfully. He looked them in the face still, because he dared not do otherwise. He must search every eye to see where danger lurked.

  Opposite, and a little down the street, in the mouth of the dark alley that ran between Duncan’s Livery Stable and the Lucas Blacksmith Shop, he sat in the saddle and looked across to the dimly lighted doorway of the hall. The familiar knot was there of cowpunchers who had tired of the dance or could not find partners, and who therefore had come out here to look at the stars and guess about the weather and remark on the progress of various love affairs—old and new.

  They leaned against the hitching rack on their elbows. They leaned against the wall. They shifted to stare curiously at new arrivals. And suddenly Shawn was glad that he was not one of them. They had their world of people, but he had his world of the mountains.

  He looked back at them, dim and gigantic across the stars, and he would not have changed. This cheapness, this paltriness, this humdrum existence.

  Almost fiercely, he turned and jogged around the block and tethered his tired horse in the brush just behind the hall.

  Two or three young couples were out there, moving slowly, arms entwined, talking in low, tender tones. And even love seemed small, foolish, and petty to him.

  He stood in the starlight and considered the matter for another moment. In logic and in common sense, he had seen enough to convince him that the game was not worth the candle. She, after all, was like the rest. She was in there dancing, chattering, nodding, smiling incessantly, while the tired whine of the violins moaned through the air.

  No common sense in what he was about to do, either, but, as one who has put his hand to a task, he felt impelled to finish it. The sudden contempt he felt for all these people made him the more confident in going on with the scheme.

  So he returned boldly to the front of the building. In the darkness around the first corner he paused, and there he brushed himself carefully. He had only a handkerchief to work with, but then he knew where all the dust wrinkles were, and it was not the first time that he had made himself presentable without light or mirror.

  His chaps remained behind, hanging over the saddle horn, and it left him lighter and surer of foot for whatever emergency might occur.

  So he went forward and turned in through the doorway. There was only a casual turning of heads, he noted scornfully. Blind creatures not to recognize a danger in their midst.

  At the ticket window he was asked: “How many?”

  “One, please.”

  “That’ll be a dollar . . . You get your supper ticket inside.” And the hands tore off a ticket from the roll without a lift of the head to scan the face of this new patron.

  Then, behind him, Shawn heard a quiet voice among the idlers at the door: “Boys, that was Terence Shawn.”

  The ticket seller looked up hastily enough at that. His jaw fell and his eyes grew big. Both his brown, gnarled hands reached for the cash box. One of those brave fools and noble cowards, who die for their sense of duty, was this man.

  “It’s all right,” said Shawn. “I’m not on the warpath . . . unless I have to be.”

  Chapter Eight

  Before entering the building, Shawn turned and looked back, and he noted the narrowness of the passageway that opened upon the street. The single lamp that illumined it gave a dim and smoky light, yet it was decidedly bright enough to shoot by and he knew that, in case of a retreat, he could not come back this way.

  He went briskly on up the steps, which widened and opened above upon the spacious reception room in front of the dance hall. Smoking was not allowed here, but certain cleverly surreptitious smokers held their cigarettes in hollows of their hands, touched their lips only now and again with innocent fingers, and yet appeared to be faintly breathing cigarette smoke all the time. He, Terence Shawn, never had been one of these rule breakers, even in the days of his wildest boyhood, for he had scorned such petty misdeeds. That contempt that he had felt surging in him before, now rose and grew into a mastering passion.

  There were fully a dozen youths loitering here, and everyone of them appeared to know him on sight. They gaped at him and from one set of loosened fingers a cigarette dropped and was allowed to glow, unheeded, upon the floor. But Shawn went on through the wide doorway and entered the dance hall itself.

  Two dangerous situations had been met and now lay behind him. Some of those youngsters he had just passed appeared weak and vicious enough to shoot a man through the back, but he dared not turn to glance behind him. What shielded and supported him now, above all, was simply his own calm indifference to the circumstances in which he found himself.

  The dance was in full sway; the orchestra on the far platform had not exhausted its first energy; the violinist was profuse with trills, and the cornetist made his instrument tremble with grace notes, and the slide trombone still clowned vigorously through the most raggy passages. The floor throbbed underfoot; the very streamers and cross lines of bunting high above swayed and shook with the music and with the dance. And Terence Shawn looked into his own heart and marveled, for he was not moved.

  There had been a time when he had yearned for another sight of the familiar dance floor, more than for diamonds. That time was gone. Lister, from his fortified viewpoint, this evening, appeared no more than an ant hole, and all its people, rich and poor, were like ants, stirring busily here and there, working or playing, never idle—yet still cramped in that dark hole in the ground in spite of all of their activities.

  So thought Terence Shawn, as he stood at one side and watched the dancers go by. He thought that they seemed not really happy. Here and there he saw a jolly couple, recently become lovers, perhaps, and enthralled, still, by the marvels of one another. But the majority of the dancers were not happy. They had come because they hoped for a joy that they could not find, and they remained in the weary hope that something rare would happen, some touch of the heavenly fire descend, perhaps, before their eyes and set a human soul on fire.

  But presently he saw the two people in whom, for obvious reasons, he was most interested. One was the sheriff, the other
was the sheriff’s partner, Kitty Bowen.

  The regular concentric circles of the dancers began to diverge and fall into disorder now. Many of the couples had stopped dancing. Some hurried toward their chairs, ranged along the four walls; some huddled together in dense groups, the women gravitating to the inside of these groups, and the men remaining on the outer rims. And even those who continued to dance were turning their eyes, more and more, upon that slender young man who stood near the door, one hand upon his hip, only his head moving a little, as he swept the hall with his calm scrutiny.

  So, out of the maze, the sheriff suddenly came striding, Kitty Bowen at his side, toward Shawn.

  He was a fighting man. His jaw was set, and the muscles at the base of it were bulging, while his eyes glared. He would have come shooting, beyond a doubt, had it not been that Kitty Bowen was trying to keep up with him—and clutched his right arm to keep pace.

  “Terry Shawn,” rasped the sheriff, “I . . . ”

  “Hello, Sheriff,” interrupted Mr. Shawn pleasantly. “Now, I call it dog-gone’ kind of you to give up your dance to me, Sheriff. See you later, old fellow.”

  And he stepped forward and took Kitty Bowen in his arms. The sheriff, dazed, stretched out a detaining hand, but it slipped from the coat of Mr. Shawn, and there the dignitary of the law stood, crimson-faced and motionless. He realized that it must have seemed that when the rider appeared, he, the upholder of the law, had straightway brought a dancing partner to the criminal, and patted him kindly upon the shoulder, as the two danced away together.

  What could he do? The sheriff quite forgot his guns. The affair had been shifted to a plane on which he seemed powerless to think or to act.