Rim o' the World

Five miles out on the range she overtook the sheriff and Aleck Douglas riding to the round-up. Aleck Douglas seldom rode faster than a jogging trot, and the sheriff was not particularly eager for his encounter with Tom Lorrigan. For that matter, no sheriff had ever been eager to encounter a Lorrigan. The Lorrigan family had always been counted a hazard in the office of the sheriff, though of a truth the present generation had remained quiescent so far and the law had not heretofore reached its arm toward them.

The two men looked back, saw Belle coming and parted to let her pass. Belle yelled to her team and went by with never a glance toward either, and the two stared after her without a word until she had jounced down into a shallow draw and up the other side, the pintos never slowing their lope.

“Well, I’m darned!” ejaculated the sheriff. His name, by the way, was Perry. “I’ve heard tell of Belle Lorrigan drivin’ hell-whoopin’ over the country with a team of bronks, but I kinda thought they was stretching the truth. I guess not, though, if that’s a sample.”

“The woman hersel’ is no so bad. ’Tis the men folk that are black wi’ sin. Drinkin’, swearin’, gamblin’ thieves they be, and ’tis well they should be taught a lesson.” The Douglas head wagged self-righteously.

“Maybe it would be a good idea to go back and search the ranch now, while she’s gone.” The sheriff pulled up, considering. “I didn’t want any trouble with her; I never do quarrel with a woman if I can get around it any way. She’s a holy terror. I guess I’ll just ride back and take a look at them hides.”

Aleck Douglas eyed him sardonically, thinking perhaps of the black-edged bullet hole that showed plainly in the sheriff’s hat-crown.

“’Tis a deal safer wi’ the woman oot of the way,” he agreed drily.

The sheriff nodded and turned back.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE NAME

Tom Lorrigan may have seen bigger fusses made over smaller matters than the hide of a spotty yearlin’, but his boys never had.

No country is so isolated that gossip cannot find it out. The story of the spotted yearling went speeding through the country. Men made thin excuses to ride miles out of their way that they might air their opinions and hear some fresh bit of news, some conjecture that grew to a rumor and was finally repeated broadcast as truth. Children cringed and wept while necks were scrubbed relentlessly, for a fever of “visiting” attacked the women of the range. Miles they would travel to visit a neighbor. And there they talked and talked and talked, while the guest in neighborly fashion dried the dinner dishes for the hostess in hot, fly-infested kitchens.

Aleck Douglas, infuriated by the contemptuous attitude which Tom had taken toward him and his spotty yearling, and by his failure to find any incriminating evidence on the Devil’s Tooth ranch, swore to a good many suspicions which he called facts, and had Tom arrested. The sheriff had taken two deputies along with him, because he fully expected that the Lorrigans would “go on the warpath” as Belle had done. He was vastly astonished and somewhat chagrined when Tom gave a snort, handed over his gun, and turned to one of his boys.

“Al,” said Tom, “you go ahead with the round-up while I go in and fix this up. May take a few days–depends on the gait I can get ’em to travel. I’ll have to rustle me a lawyer, too. But you know what to do; keep ’er moving till I get back.”

Black Rim country talked and chortled and surmised, and wondered what made Tom so darned meek about it. They did not accuse him of any lack of nerve; being a Lorrigan, his nerve could scarcely be questioned. Opinion was about evenly divided. A few declared that Tom had something up his sleeve, and there would be a killing yet. Others insisted that Tom knew when he was backed into a corner. Old Scotty Douglas had him dead to rights, they said, and Tom knew better than to run on the rope. Men and women assumed the gift of prophecy, and all prophesied alike. Tom Lorrigan would go “over the road”; for how long they could only guess according to their secret hopes. Some predicted a fifteen-year term for Tom. Others thought that he might get off lightly–say with five or six years. They based their opinion on the fact that men have been sent to the penitentiary for fifteen years, there to repent of stealing a calf not yet past the age of prime veal. And it is not so long since men were hanged for stealing a horse; witness Tom’s brother, who would surely have been lynched had he not been shot. Witness also divers other Lorrigans whose careers had been shortened by their misdeeds.

Much of the talk was peddled to Tom and the boys under the guise of friendship. Having lived all of his life in the Black Rim country, Tom knew how much the friendship was worth, knew that the Black Rim folk had drawn together like a wolf pack, and were waiting only until he was down before they rushed in to rend him and his family. Old grudges were brought out and aired secretly. It would go hard with the Lorrigan family if Tom were found guilty. Although he sensed the covert malice behind the smiles men gave him, he would not yield one inch from his mocking disparagement of the whole affair. He laid down a law or two to his boys, and bade them hold their tongues and go their way and give no heed to the clacking.

“The show ain’t over till the curtain’s down for good,” he said, borrowing a phrase from Belle. “We got a long time yet to live in the Black Rim. We’ll be right here when the smoke lifts. Hang and rattle now, and keep your mouths shut. This here’s the law-sharp’s job. I’m payin’ him darn good money for it, too. When he’s through, then we’ll play. But mark this down in yore little red book, boys: The less yuh say right now, the stronger we can play the game when we’re ready.”

“If they do railroad yuh, dad, leave it to us. They’ll be a sorry looking bunch when we’re through,” said Lance, and meant every word of it.

“They won’t railroad me.” Tom snorted and laughed his contempt of the whole affair. “I ain’t ever used the law to fight with before–but shucks! When a scrap gets outside of gun range, one club’s about the same as another to me.”

Optimism is a good thing, but it does not altogether serve, as Tom discovered at the trial.

Evidence was produced which astonished him. For instance, an AJ man had seen him riding over by Squaw Butte, on the night after Douglas had accused him of stealing the spotted yearling. The AJ man seemed embarrassed at his sudden prominence in the case, and kept turning his big range hat round and round on one knee as he sat in the chair sacred to those who bore witness to the guilt or innocence of their fellow men in Black Rim country. He did not often look up, and when he did he swallowed convulsively, as though something stuck in his throat. But his story sounded matter-of-fact and honest.

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