When the first landmark, the lone clump of cottonwoods, came at length in sight, dark and blurred in the gentle rain, standing out perhaps a mile beyond the distant buildings, my whole weary body hailed the approach of repose. Saving the noon hour, I had been in the saddle since six, and now six was come round again. The ranch, my resting-place for this night, was a ruin--cabin, stable, and corral. Yet after the twelve hours of pushing on and on through silence, still to have silence, still to eat and go to sleep in it, perfectly fitted the mood of both my flesh and spirit. At noon, when for a while I had thrown off my long oilskin coat, merely the sight of the newspaper half crowded into my pocket had been a displeasing reminder of the railway, and cities, and affairs. But for its possible help to build fires, it would have come no farther with me. The great levels around me lay cooled and freed of dust by the wet weather, and full of sweet airs. Far in front the foot-hills rose through the rain, indefinite and mystic. I wanted no speech with any one, nor to be near human beings at all. I was steeped in a revery as of the primal earth; even thoughts themselves had almost ceased motion. To lie down with wild animals, with elk and deer, would have made my waking dream complete; and since such dream could not be, the cattle around the deserted buildings, mere dots as yet across separating space, were my proper companions for this evening.
To-morrow night I should probably be camping with the Virginian in the foot-hills. At his letter’s bidding I had come eastward across Idaho, abandoning my hunting in the Saw Tooth Range to make this journey with him back through the Tetons. It was a trail known to him, and not to many other honest men. Horse Thief Pass was the name his letter gave it. Business (he was always brief) would call him over there at this time. Returning, he must attend to certain matters in the Wind River country. There I could leave by stage for the railroad, or go on with him the whole way back to Sunk Creek. He designated for our meeting the forks of a certain little stream in the foot-hills which to-day’s ride had brought in sight. There would be no chance for him to receive an answer from me in the intervening time. If by a certain day--which was four days off still--I had not reached the forks, he would understand I had other plans. To me it was like living back in ages gone, this way of meeting my friend, this choice of a stream so far and lonely that its very course upon the maps was wrongly traced. And to leave behind all noise and mechanisms, and set out at ease, slowly, with one packhorse, into the wilderness, made me feel that the ancient earth was indeed my mother and that I had found her again after being lost among houses, customs, and restraints. I should arrive three days early at the forks--three days of margin seeming to me a wise precaution against delays unforeseen. If the Virginian were not there, good; I could fish and be happy. If he were there but not ready to start, good; I could still fish and be happy. And remembering my Eastern helplessness in the year when we had met first, I enjoyed thinking how I had come to be trusted. In those days I had not been allowed to go from the ranch for so much as an afternoon’s ride unless tied to him by a string, so to speak; now I was crossing unmapped spaces with no guidance. The man who could do this was scarce any longer a “tenderfoot.”
My vision, as I rode, took in serenely the dim foot-hills,--to-morrow’s goal,--and nearer in the vast wet plain the clump of cottonwoods, and still nearer my lodging for to-night with the dotted cattle round it. And now my horse neighed. I felt his gait freshen for the journey’s end, and leaning to pat his neck I noticed his ears no longer slack and inattentive, but pointing forward to where food and rest awaited both of us. Twice he neighed, impatiently and long; and as he quickened his gait still more, the packhorse did the same, and I realized that there was about me still a spice of the tenderfoot: those dots were not cattle; they were horses.
My horse had put me in the wrong. He had known his kind from afar, and was hastening to them. The plainsman’s eye was not yet mine; and I smiled a little as I rode. When was I going to know, as by instinct, the different look of horses and cattle across some two or three miles of plain?
These miles we finished soon. The buildings changed in their aspect as they grew to my approach, showing their desolation more clearly, and in some way bringing apprehension into my mood. And around them the horses, too, all standing with ears erect, watching me as I came--there was something about them; or was it the silence? For the silence which I had liked until now seemed suddenly to be made too great by the presence of the deserted buildings. And then the door of the stable opened, and men came out and stood, also watching me arrive. By the time I was dismounting more were there. It was senseless to feel as unpleasant as I did, and I strove to give to them a greeting that should sound easy. I told them that I hoped there was room for one more here to-night. Some of them had answered my greeting, but none of them answered this; and as I began to be sure that I recognized several of their strangely imperturbable faces, the Virginian came from the stable; and at that welcome sight my relief spoke out instantly.
“I am here, you see!”
“Yes, I do see.” I looked hard at him, for in his voice was the same strangeness that I felt in everything around me. But he was looking at his companions. “This gentleman is all right,” he told them.
“That may be,” said one whom I now knew that I had seen before at Sunk Creek; “but he was not due to-night.”
“Nor to-morrow,” said another.
“Nor yet the day after,” a third added.
The Virginian fell into his drawl. “None of you was ever early for anything, I presume.”
One retorted, laughing, “Oh, we’re not suspicioning you of complicity.”
And another, “Not even when we remember how thick you and Steve used to be.”
Whatever jokes they meant by this he did not receive as jokes. I saw something like a wince pass over his face, and a flush follow it. But he now spoke to me. “We expected to be through before this,” he began. “I’m right sorry you have come to-night. I know you’d have preferred to keep away.”
“We want him to explain himself,” put in one of the others. “If he satisfies us, he’s free to go away.”
“Free to go away!” I now exclaimed. But at the indulgence in their frontier smile I cooled down. “Gentlemen,” I said, “I don’t know why my movements interest you so much. It’s quite a compliment! May I get under shelter while I explain?”
No request could have been more natural, for the rain had now begun to fall in straight floods. Yet there was a pause before one of them said, “He might as well.”
The Virginian chose to say nothing more; but he walked beside me into the stable. Two men sat there together, and a third guarded them. At that sight I knew suddenly what I had stumbled upon; and on the impulse I murmured to the Virginian, “You’re hanging them to-morrow.”
He kept his silence.
“You may have three guesses,” said a man behind me.
But I did not need them. And in the recoil of my insight the clump of cottonwoods came into my mind, black and grim. No other trees high enough grew within ten miles. This, then, was the business that the Virginian’s letter had so curtly mentioned. My eyes went into all corners of the stable, but no other prisoners were here. I half expected to see Trampas, and I half feared to see Shorty; for poor stupid Shorty’s honesty had not been proof against frontier temptations, and he had fallen away from the company of his old friends. Often of late I had heard talk at Sunk Creek of breaking up a certain gang of horse and cattle thieves that stole in one Territory and sold in the next, and knew where to hide in the mountains between. And now it had come to the point; forces had been gathered, a long expedition made, and here they were, successful under the Virginian’s lead, but a little later than their calculations. And here was I, a little too early, and a witness in consequence. My presence seemed a simple thing to account for; but when I had thus accounted for it, one of them said with good nature:-- “So you find us here, and we find you here. Which is the most surprised, I wonder?”
“There’s no telling,” said I, keeping as amiable as I could; “nor any telling which objects the most.”
“Oh, there’s no objection here. You’re welcome to stay. But not welcome to go, I expect. He ain’t welcome to go, is he?”
By the answers that their faces gave him it was plain that I was not. “Not till we are through,” said one.
“He needn’t to see anything,”’ another added.
“Better sleep late to-morrow morning,” a third suggested to me.
I did not wish to stay here. I could have made some sort of camp apart from them before dark; but in the face of their needless caution I was helpless. I made no attempt to inquire what kind of spy they imagined I could be, what sort of rescue I could bring in this lonely country; my too early appearance seemed to be all that they looked at. And again my eyes sought the prisoners. Certainly there were only two. One was chewing tobacco, and talking now and then to his guard as if nothing were the matter. The other sat dull in silence, not moving his eyes; but his face worked, and I noticed how he continually moistened his dry lips. As I looked at these doomed prisoners, whose fate I was invited to sleep through to-morrow morning, the one who was chewing quietly nodded to me.
“You don’t remember me?” he said.
It was Steve! Steve of Medicine Bow! The pleasant Steve of my first evening in the West. Some change of beard had delayed my instant recognition of his face. Here he sat sentenced to die. A shock, chill and painful, deprived me of speech.
He had no such weak feelings. “Have yu’ been to Medicine Bow lately?” he inquired. “That’s getting to be quite a while ago.”
I assented. I should have liked to say something natural and kind, but words stuck against my will, and I stood awkward and ill at ease, noticing idly that the silent one wore a gray flannel shirt like mine. Steve looked me over, and saw in my pocket the newspaper which I had brought from the railroad and on which I had pencilled a few expenses. He asked me, Would I mind letting him have it for a while? And I gave it to him eagerly, begging him to keep it as long as he wanted. I was overeager in my embarrassment. “You need not return it at all,” I said; “those notes are nothing. Do keep it.”
He gave me a short glance and a smile. “Thank you,” he said; “I’ll not need it beyond to-morrow morning.” And he began to search through it. “Jake’s election is considered sure,” he said to his companion, who made no response. “Well, Fremont County owes it to Jake.” And I left him interested in the local news.
Dead men I have seen not a few times, even some lying pale and terrible after violent ends, and the edge of this wears off; but I hope I shall never again have to be in the company with men waiting to be killed. By this time to-morrow the gray flannel shirt would be buttoned round a corpse. Until what moment would Steve chew? Against such fancies as these I managed presently to barricade my mind, but I made a plea to be allowed to pass the night elsewhere, and I suggested the adjacent cabin. By their faces I saw that my words merely helped their distrust of me. The cabin leaked too much, they said; I would sleep drier here. One man gave it to me more directly: “If you figured on camping in this stable, what has changed your mind?” How could I tell them that I shrunk from any contact with what they were doing, although I knew that only so could justice be dealt in this country? Their wholesome frontier nerves knew nothing of such refinements.
But the Virginian understood part of it. “I am right sorry for your annoyance,” he said. And now I noticed he was under a constraint very different from the ease of the others.
After the twelve hours’ ride my bones were hungry for rest. I spread my blankets on some straw in a stall by myself and rolled up in them; yet I lay growing broader awake, every inch of weariness stricken from my excited senses. For a while they sat over their councils, whispering cautiously, so that I was made curious to hear them by not being able; was it the names of Trampas and Shorty that were once or twice spoken--I could not be sure. I heard the whisperers cease and separate. I heard their boots as they cast them off upon the ground. And I heard the breathing of slumber begin and grow in the interior silence. To one after one sleep came, but not to me. Outside, the dull fall of the rain beat evenly, and in some angle dripped the spouting pulses of a leak. Sometimes a cold air blew in, bearing with it the keen wet odor of the sage-brush. On hundreds of other nights this perfume had been my last waking remembrance; it had seemed to help drowsiness; and now I lay staring, thinking of this. Twice through the hours the thieves shifted their positions with clumsy sounds, exchanging muted words with their guard. So, often, had I heard other companions move and mutter in the darkness and lie down again. It was the very naturalness and usualness of every fact of the night,--the stable straw, the rain outside, my familiar blankets, the cool visits of the wind,--and with all this the thought of Steve chewing and the man in the gray flannel shirt, that made the hours unearthly and strung me tight with suspense. And at last I heard some one get up and begin to dress. In a little while I saw light suddenly through my closed eyelids, and then darkness shut again abruptly upon them. They had swung in a lantern and found me by mistake. I was the only one they did not wish to rouse. Moving and quiet talking set up around me, and they began to go out of the stable. At the gleams of new daylight which they let in my thoughts went to the clump of cottonwoods, and I lay still with hands and feet growing steadily cold. Now it was going to happen. I wondered how they would do it; one instance had been described to me by a witness, but that was done from a bridge, and there had been but a single victim. This morning, would one have to wait and see the other go through with it first?
The smell of smoke reached me, and next the rattle of tin dishes. Breakfast was something I had forgotten, and one of them was cooking it now in the dry shelter of the stable. He was alone, because the talking and the steps were outside the stable, and I could hear the sounds of horses being driven into the corral and saddled. Then I perceived that the coffee was ready, and almost immediately the cook called them. One came in, shutting the door behind him as he reentered, which the rest as they followed imitated; for at each opening of the door I saw the light of day leap into the stable and heard the louder sounds of the rain. Then the sound and the light would again be shut out, until some one at length spoke out bluntly, bidding the door be left open on account of the smoke. What were they hiding from? he asked. The runaways that had escaped? A laugh followed this sally, and the door was left open. Thus I learned that there had been more thieves than the two that were captured. It gave a little more ground for their suspicion about me and my anxiety to pass the night elsewhere. It cost nothing to detain me, and they were taking no chances, however remote.
The fresh air and the light now filled the stable, and I lay listening while their breakfast brought more talk from them. They were more at ease now than was I, who had nothing to do but carry out my role of slumber in the stall; they spoke in a friendly, ordinary way, as if this were like every other morning of the week to them. They addressed the prisoners with a sort of fraternal kindness, not bringing them pointedly into the conversation, nor yet pointedly leaving them out. I made out that they must all be sitting round the breakfast together, those who had to die and those who had to kill them. The Virginian I never heard speak. But I heard the voice of Steve; he discussed with his captors the sundry points of his capture.
“Do you remember a haystack?” he asked. “Away up the south fork of Gros Ventre?”
“That was Thursday afternoon,” said one of the captors. “There was a shower.”
“Yes. It rained. We had you fooled that time. I was laying on the ledge above to report your movements.”
Several of them laughed. “We thought you were over on Spread Creek then.”
“I figured you thought so by the trail you left after the stack. Saturday we watched you turn your back on us up Spread Creek. We were snug among the trees the other side of Snake River. That was another time we had you fooled.”
They laughed again at their own expense. I have heard men pick to pieces a hand of whist with more antagonism.
Steve continued: “Would we head for Idaho? Would we swing back over the Divide? You didn’t know which! And when we generalled you on to that band of horses you thought was the band you were hunting--ah, we were a strong combination!” He broke off with the first touch of bitterness I had felt in his words.
“Nothing is any stronger than its weakest point.” It was the Virginian who said this, and it was the first word he had spoken.
“Naturally,” said Steve. His tone in addressing the Virginian was so different, so curt, that I supposed he took the weakest point to mean himself. But the others now showed me that I was wrong in this explanation.
“That’s so,” one said. “Its weakest point is where a rope or a gang of men is going to break when the strain comes. And you was linked with a poor partner, Steve.”
“You’re right I was,” said the prisoner, back in his easy, casual voice.
“You ought to have got yourself separated from him, Steve.”
There was a pause. “Yes,” said the prisoner, moodily. “I’m sitting here because one of us blundered.” He cursed the blunderer. “Lighting his fool fire queered the whole deal,” he added. As he again heavily cursed the blunderer, the others murmured to each other various I told you so’s.
“You’d never have built that fire, Steve,” said one.
“I said that when we spied the smoke,” said another. “I said, ‘That’s none of Steve’s work, lighting fires and revealing to us their whereabouts.’”
It struck me that they were plying Steve with compliments.
“Pretty hard to have the fool get away and you get caught,” a third suggested. At this they seemed to wait. I felt something curious in all this last talk.
“Oh, did he get away?” said the prisoner, then.
Again they waited; and a new voice spoke huskily:-- “I built that fire, boys.” It was the prisoner in the gray flannel shirt.
“Too late, Ed,” they told him kindly. “You ain’t a good liar.”
“What makes you laugh, Steve?” said some one.
“Oh, the things I notice.”
“Meaning Ed was pretty slow in backing up your play? The joke is really on you, Steve. You’d ought never to have cursed the fire-builder if you wanted us to believe he was present. But we’d not have done much to Shorty, even if we had caught him. All he wants is to be scared good and hard, and he’ll go back into virtuousness, which is his nature when not travelling with Trampas.”
Steve’s voice sounded hard now. “You have caught Ed and me. That should satisfy you for one gather.”
“Well, we think different, Steve. Trampas escaping leaves this thing unfinished.”
“So Trampas escaped too, did he?” said the prisoner.
“Yes, Steve, Trampas escaped--this time; and Shorty with him--this time. We know it most as well as if we’d seen them go. And we’re glad Shorty is loose, for he’ll build another fire or do some other foolishness next time, and that’s the time we’ll get Trampas.”
Their talk drifted to other points, and I lay thinking of the skirmish that had played beneath the surface of their banter. Yes, the joke, as they put it, was on Steve. He had lost one point in the game to them. They were playing for names. He, being a chivalrous thief, was playing to hide names. They could only, among several likely confederates, guess Trampas and Shorty. So it had been a slip for him to curse the man who built the fire. At least, they so held it. For, they with subtlety reasoned, one curses the absent. And I agreed with them that Ed did not know how to lie well; he should have at once claimed the disgrace of having spoiled the expedition. If Shorty was the blunderer, then certainly Trampas was the other man; for the two were as inseparable as don and master. Trampas had enticed Shorty away from good, and trained him in evil. It now struck me that after his single remark the Virginian had been silent throughout their shrewd discussion.
It was the other prisoner that I heard them next address. “You don’t eat any breakfast, Ed.”
“Brace up, Ed. Look at Steve, how hardy he eats!”
But Ed, it seemed, wanted no breakfast. And the tin dishes rattled as they were gathered and taken to be packed.
“Drink this coffee, anyway,” another urged; “you’ll feel warmer.”
These words almost made it seem like my own execution. My whole body turned cold in company with the prisoner’s, and as if with a clank the situation tightened throughout my senses.
“I reckon if every one’s ready we’ll start.” It was the Virginian’s voice once more, and different from the rest. I heard them rise at his bidding, and I put the blanket over my head. I felt their tread as they walked out, passing my stall. The straw that was half under me and half out in the stable was stirred as by something heavy dragged or half lifted along over it. “Look out, you’re hurting Ed’s arm,” one said to another, as the steps with tangled sounds passed slowly out. I heard another among those who followed say, “Poor Ed couldn’t swallow his coffee.” Outside they began getting on their horses; and next their hoofs grew distant, until all was silence round the stable except the dull, even falling of the rain.
