The road wound ever upward through pines and spruce and several varieties of oak. Some of the latter were straight, some sprawling, all massive. Now and then a break in the timber revealed wooded hills beyond green pasture lands, and other hills covered with dense growths of buckhorn and manzanita. Poison oak grew everywhere, and, at this time of year – early spring – was most prolific, most beautiful in its dark rich green, most poisonous.

Occasionally the lone horseman crossed a riotous stream, plunging down from the snow-topped Sierras in the far distance. Rail fences, for the most part in a tumbledown condition, paralleled the dirt road here and there.

At long intervals they passed tall, old-fashioned ranch houses, with their accompanying stables, deciduous orchards and still dormant vineyards, wandering turkeys and mud-incrusted pigs. An air of decay and haphazard ambition pervaded all these evidences of the dwelling places of men.

"Well, Poche," remarked Oliver Drew, "it's been a long, hard trip, but we're getting close to home." The man spoke the word "home" with a touch of bitterness.

The rangy bay saddler slanted his left ear back at Oliver Drew and quickened his walking-trot.

"No, no!" laughed Oliver, tightening the reins. "All the more reason we should take it easy today, old horse. Don't you ever tire?"

For an hour Poche climbed steadily. Now he topped the summit of the miniature mountain, and Oliver stopped him to gaze down fifteen hundred feet into the timbered cañon of the American River. Even the cow-pony seemed enthralled with the grandeur of the scene – the wooded hills climbing shelf by shelf to the faraway mist-hung mountains; the green river winding its serpentine course far below. Far up the river a gold dredger was at work, the low rumble of its machinery carried on the soft morning breeze.

Half an hour later Poche ambled briskly into the little town of Halfmoon Flat, snuggled away in the pines and spruces, sunflecked, indolent, content. It suited Oliver's mood, this lazy old-fashioned Halfmoon Flat, with its one shady "business" street, its false-front, one-story shops and stores, redolent still of the glamorous days of '49.

He drew up before a saloon to inquire after the road he should take out of town to reach his destination. The loungers about the door of the place all proved to be French- or Spanish-Basque sheep herders; and their agglutinative language was as a closed book to the traveler. So he dropped the reins from Poche's neck and entered the dark, low-ceiled bar-room, with its many decorations of dusty deer antlers on fly-specked walls.

All was strangely quiet within. There were no patrons, no bartender behind the black, stained bar. He saw this white-aproned personage, however, a fat, wide, sandy-haired man, standing framed by the rear door, his back toward the front. Through a dirty rear window Oliver saw men in the back yard – silent, motionless men, with faces intent on something of captivating interest, some silent, muscle-tensing event.

With awakened wonder he walked to the fat bartender's back and looked out over his shoulder. Strange indeed was the scene that was revealed.

Perhaps twenty men were in an unfenced portion of the lot behind the saloon. Some of them had been pitching horseshoes, for two stood with the iron semicircles still in hand. Every man there gazed with silent intensity at two central figures, who furnished the drama.

The first, a squat, dark, slit-eyed man of about twenty-five, lazed in a big Western saddle on a lean roan horse. His left spurred heel stood straight out at right angles to the direction in which his horse faced. He hung in the saddle by the bend in his right leg, the foot out of the stirrup, the motionless man facing to the right, a leering grin on his face, half whimsical, half sardonic. That he was a fatalist was evidenced by every line on his swarthy, hairless face; for he looked sneering indifference into the wavering muzzle of a Colt .45, in the hand of the other actor in the pantomime. His own Colt lay passive against his hip. His right forearm rested across his thigh, the hand far from the butt of the weapon. A cigarette drooped lazily from his grinning lips. Yet for all his indifferent calm, there was in his glittering, Mongolic eyes an eagle watchfulness that bespoke the fires of hatred within him.

The dismounted man who had the drop on him was of another type. Tall, angular, countrified, he personified the popular conception of a Connecticut yankee. He boiled with silent rage as he stood, with long body bent forward, threatening the other with his enormous gun. Despite the present superiority of his position, there was something of pathos in his lean, bronzed face, something of a nature downtrodden, of the worm suddenly turned.

For seconds that seemed like ages the two statuesque figures confronted each other. Men breathed in short inhalations, as if fearful of breaking the spell. Then the threatened man in the saddle puffed out a cloud of cigarette smoke, and drawled sarcastically:

"Well, why don't you shoot, ol'-timer? You got the drop."

Complete indifference to his fate marked the squat man's tone and attitude. Only those small black eyes, gleaming like points of jet from under the lowered Chinamanlike lids, proclaimed that the other had better make a thorough piece of work of this thing that he had started.

The lank man found his tongue at the sound of the other's voice.

"Why don't I shoot, you coyote whelp! Why don't I shoot! You know why! Because they's a law in this land, that's why! I oughta kill ye, an' everybody here knows it, but I'd hang for it."

The man on the roan blew another puff of smoke. "You oughta thought o' that when you threw down on me," he lazily reminded the other. "You ain't got no license packin' a gun, pardner."

The expression that crossed his antagonist's face was one of torture, bafflement. It proved that he knew the mounted man had spoken truth. He was no killer. In a fit of rage he had drawn his weapon and got the drop on his enemy, only to shrink from the thought of taking a human life and from the consequences of such an act. But he essayed to bluster his way out of the situation in which his uncontrollable wrath had inveigled him.

"I can't shoot ye in cold blood!" he hotly cried. "I'm not the skunk that you are. I'm too much of a man. I'll let ye go this time. But mind me – if you or any o' your thievin' gang pesters me ag'in, I'll – I'll kill ye!"

"Better attend to that little business right now, pardner," came the fatalist's smooth admonition.

"Don't rile me too far!" fumed the other. "God knows I could kill ye an' never fear for the hereafter. But I'm a law-abidin' man, an'" – the six-shooter in his hand was wavering – "an' I'm a law-abidin' man," he repeated, floundering. "So this time I'll let ye – "

A fierce clatter of hoofs interrupted him. Down the street, across the board sidewalk, into the lot back of the saloon dashed a white horse, a black-haired girl astride in the saddle. She reined her horse to its haunches, scattering spectators right and left.

"Don't lower that gun!" she shrieked. "Shoot! Kill him!"

Her warning came too late. It may have been, even, that instead of a warning it was a knell. For a loud report sent the echoes galloping through the sleepy little town. The man on the ground, who had half lowered his gun as the girl raced in, threw up both hands, and went reeling about drunkenly. Another shot rang out. The squat man still lolled in his saddle, facing to the right. The gun that he had drawn in a flash when the other's indecision had reached a climax was levelled rigidly from his hip, the muzzle slowly following his staggering, twice-wounded enemy.

In horror the watchers gazed, silent. The stricken man reeled against the legs of the girl's horse, strove to clasp them. The animal snorted at the smell of blood and reared. His temporary support removed, the man collapsed, face downward, on the ground, turned over once, lay still.

The squat man slowly holstered his gun. Then the first sound to break the silence since the shots was his voice as he spoke to the girl.

"Much obliged, Jess'my," he said; then straightened in his saddle, spurred the roan, and dashed across the sidewalk to disappear around the corner of the building. A longdrawn, derisive "Hi-yi!" floated back, and the clatter of the roan's hoofbeats died away.

The girl had sprung from her mare and was bending over the fallen man. The others crowded about her now, all talking at once. She lifted a white, tragic face to them, a face so wildly beautiful that, even under the stress of the moment, Oliver Drew felt that sudden fierce pang of desire which the first startled sight of "the one woman" brings to a healthy, manly man.

"He's dead! I've killed him!" she cried.

"No, no, no, Miss Jessamy," protested a hoarse voice quickly. "You wasn't to blame."

"O' course not!" chorused a dozen.

"He'd 'a' lowered that gun," went on her first consoler. "He was backin' out when you come, Miss Jessamy. An' as sure as he'd took his gun off Digger Foss, Digger'd 'a' killed 'im. It was a fool business from the start, Miss Jessamy."

"Then why didn't some of you warn this man?" she flamed. "You cowards! Are you afraid of Digger Foss? Oh, I – "

"Now, looky-here, Miss Jessamy," soothed the spokesman, "bein' afraid o' Digger Foss ain't got anything to do with it. It wasn't our fight. We had no call to butt in. Men don't do that in a gun country, Miss Jessamy – you know that. This fella pulled on Digger, then lost his nerve. What you told 'im to do, Miss Jessamy, was right. Man ain't got no call to throw down on another one unless he intends to shoot. You know that, Miss Jessamy – you as much as said so."

For answer the girl burst into tears. She rose, and the silent men stood back for her. She mounted and rode away without another word, wiping fiercely at her eyes with a handkerchief.

Four men carried the dead man away. The rest, obviously in need of a stimulant, crowded in and up to the black bar. Oliver joined them. The weird sight that he had witnessed had left him weak and sick at the stomach.

Silently the fat, blond bartender set out whisky glasses, then looked hesitatingly at the stranger.

"Go ahead, Swede," encouraged a big fellow at Oliver's left. "He needs one, too. He saw it."

The bartender shrugged, thumped a glass toward Oliver, and broke the laws of the land.

"What was it all about?" Oliver, encouraged by this confidence, asked of the big, goodnatured man who had vouched for him on sight.

The other looked him over. "This fella Dodd," he said, "started something he couldn't finish – that's all. Dodd's had it in for Digger Foss and the Selden boys and some more of 'em for a year. Selden was runnin' cattle on Dodd's land, and Dodd claimed they cut fences to get 'em on. I don't know what all was between 'em. There's always bad blood between Old Man Selden and his boys and the rest o' the Poison Oakers, and somebody.

"Anyway," he went on, "this mornin' Henry Dodd comes in and gets the drop on Digger Foss, who's thick with the Seldens, and is one o' the Poison Oakers; and then Dodd ain't got the nerve to shoot. You saw what it cost him. Fill 'em up again, boys."

"I can't understand that girl," Oliver remarked. "Why, she rode in and told the man to shoot – to kill."

"And wasn't she right?"

"None of the rest of you did it, as she pointed out to you."

"No – men wouldn't do that, I reckon. But a woman's different. They butt in for what they think's right, regardless. But I look at it like this, pardner: Dodd's a grown man and is packin' a hip gun. Why's he packin' it if he don't mean to use it? Only a kid ought to be excused from flourishin' iron like he did. He was just lettin' off steam. But he picked the wrong man to relieve himself on. If he'd 'a' killed Digger, as Miss Jessamy told him to, maybe he'd a hung for it. But he'd a had a chance with a jury. Where if he took his gat offen Digger Foss, it was sure death. I knew it; all of us knew it. And I knew he was goin' to lower it after he'd painted pictures in the air with it and thought he'd convinced all of us he was a bad man, and all that. He'd never pulled the trigger, and Digger Foss knew it."

"Then if this Digger Foss knew he was only bluffing, he – why, he practically shot the man in cold blood!" cried Oliver.

"Not practically but ab-so-lutely. Digger knew he was within the law, as they say. While he knew Dodd wouldn't shoot, no prosecutin' attorney can prove that he knew it. Dodd had held a gun on him and threatened to kill 'im. When Digger gets the chance he takes it – makes his lightin' draw and kills Dodd. On the face of it it's self-defence, pure and simple, and Digger'll be acquitted. He'll be in tonight and give himself up to the constable. He knows just where he stands."

Oliver's informant tossed off his liquor.

"And Miss Jessamy knew all this – see?" he continued. "She savvies gunmen. She ought to, bein' a Selden. At least she calls herself a Selden, but her right name's Lomax. Old Man Selden married a widow, and this girl's her daughter. Well, she rides in and tells Dodd to shoot. She knew it was his life or Digger's, after he'd made that crack. But the poor fool! – Well, you saw what happened. Don't belong about here, do you, pardner?"

"I do now," Oliver returned. "I'm just moving in, as it were. I own forty acres down on Clinker Creek. I came in here to inquire the way, and stumbled onto this tragedy."

"On Clinker Creek! What forty?"

"It's called the Old Tabor Ivison Place."

"Heavens above! You own the Old Tabor Ivison Place?"

"So the recorder's office says – or ought to."

For fully ten seconds the big fellow faced Oliver, his blue eyes studying him carefully, appraisingly.

"Well, by thunder!" he muttered at last. "Tell me about it, pardner. My name's Damon Tamroy."

"Mine is Oliver Drew," said Oliver, offering his hand.

"Well, I'll be damned!" ejaculated Tamroy in a low voice, his eyes, wide with curiosity, devouring Oliver. "The Old Ivison Place!"

"You seem surprised."

"Surprised! Hump! Say – le'me tell you right here, pardner; don't you ever pull a gun on any o' the Poison Oakers and act like Henry Dodd did. Maybe it's well you saw what was pulled off today – if you'll only remember when you get down there on the Tabor Ivison Place."

CHAPTER II

PETER DREW'S LAST MESSAGE

"I'll take a seegar," Mr. Damon Tamroy replied in response to Oliver's invitation.

They lighted up and sat at a card-table against one wall of the gloomy saloon.

"You speak of this as a gun country," remarked Oliver.

"Well, it's at least got traditions," returned Mr. Tamroy, adding the unlettered man's apology for his little fanciful flight, "'as the fella says.' Like father like son, you know. The Seldens are gunmen. Old Adam Selden's dad was a 'Forty-niner; and Adam Selden – the Old Man Selden of today – was born right close to here when his dad was about twenty-five years old. Le's see – that makes Old Adam 'round about seventy. But he's spry and full o' pep, and one o' the best rifle shots in the country.

"He takes after the old man, who was a bad actor in the days o' 'Forty-nine, and his boys take after him. They're a bad outfit, takin' 'em all in all. The boys are Hurlock, Moffat, Bolar, and Winthrop – four of 'em. All gunmen. Then there's Jessamy Selden – the only girl – who ain't rightly a Selden at all. None o' the old man's blood in Jessamy, o' course. Mis' Selden – she was an Ivison before she married Lomax – Myrtle Ivison was her name – she's a fine lady. But she won't leave the old man for all his wickedness, and Miss Jessamy won't leave her mother. So there you are!"

"I see," said Oliver musingly, not at all displeased with the present subject of conversation.

"Now, here's this Digger Foss," Tamroy went on. "He's half-American, quarter-Chinaman, and quarter-Digger-Indian. The last's what gives him his name. There's a tribe o' Digger Indians close to here. He's killed two men and got away with it. Now he's added a third to his list, and likely he'll get away with that. The rest o' the Poison Oakers are Obed Pence, Ed Buchanan, Jay Muenster, and Chuck Allegan – ten in all."

"Just what are the Poison Oakers?" Oliver asked as Damon Tamroy paused reflectively.

"Well, anybody who lives in this country is called a Poison Oaker. You're one now. The woods about this country are full o' poison oak, and that's where we get the name. That's what outsiders call us. But when we ourselves speak of Poison Oakers we mean Old Man Selden's gang – him, his four sons, and the hombres I just mentioned – a regular old back-country gang o' rowdies, toughs, would-be bad men. You know what I mean.

"They just drifted together by natural instinct, I reckon. Old Man Selden shot a man up around Willow Twig, and come clean at the trial. Obed Pence is a thief, and did a stretch for cattle rustlin' here about three years ago. Chuck and Ed have both done something to make 'em eligible – knife fightin' at country dances, and the like. And the Selden boys are chips off the old block."

"But what is the gang's particular purpose?"

"Meanness, s'far's I c'n see! Just meanness! Old Man Selden owns a ranch down your way that you can get to only by a trail. No wheeled vehicle can get in. All the boys live there with him. Kind of a colony, for two o' the boys are married. The other Poison Oakers live here and there about the country, on ranches. Ambition don't worry none of 'em much. Old Man Selden's said to distil jackass brandy, but it's never been proved."

"Now about the Old Tabor Ivison Place?" said Oliver.

"Well, it's there yet, I reckon; but I ain't been down that way for years. Now and then a deer hunt leads me into Clinker Creek Cañon, but not often.

"It's a lonely, deserted place, and the road to it is fierce. Several families lived down in there thirty years ago; but the places have been abandoned long since, and all the folks gone God knows where. It's a pretty country if a fella likes trees and rocks and things, and wild and rough; but down in that cañon it's too cold for pears and such fruit – and that's about all we raise on these rocky hills.

"Old Tabor Ivison homesteaded your place. He's been dead matter o' fifteen years. Died down there. For years he'd lived there all by 'imself. Good old man. Asked for little in life – and got it.

"But for years now all that country's been abandoned. There's pretty good pickin's down in there; and Old Man Selden and some more o' the Poison Oakers have been runnin' cattle on all of it."

"I'm glad there's pasture," Oliver interposed.

"Oh, pasture's all right. But Selden's outfit has looked at that land as theirs for so long that you won't find it particularly congenial. You're bound to have trouble with the Poison Oakers, Mr. Drew, and I'd consider the land not worth it. Why, I can buy a thousan' acres down in there for two and a half an acre! You'll starve to death if you have to depend on that forty for a livin'. How come you to own the place?"

"My father willed it to me," Oliver replied.

"Your father?"

"Yes, Peter Drew. Have you ever heard of him?"

"No," returned Damon Tamroy. "I reckon he was here before my time. How'd he come by the place? I thought one o' the Ivison girls – Nancy – still owned it."

"I'm sure I can't tell you how Dad came to own it," Oliver made answer. "I haven't an abstract of title. I know, though, that Dad owned it for some time before his death."

"Well, well!" Damon Tamroy's eyes roved curiously over the young man once more. They steadied themselves on the silver-mounted Spanish spurs on Oliver's riding boots. "Travellin' horseback?" he wanted to know, and his look of puzzlement deepened.

"Yes," said Oliver a little bitterly. "I'm riding about all that I possess in this world, since you have pronounced the Old Tabor Ivison Place next to worthless." He grew thoughtful. "You're puzzled over me," he smiled at last. "Frankly, though, you're no more puzzled over me than I am over myself and my rather odd situation. I'm a man of mystery." He laughed. "I think I'll tell you all about it.

"As far back as I can remember, my home has been on a cow ranch in the southern part of the state. I can't remember my mother, who died when I was very young. I always thought my father wealthy until he died, two weeks ago, and his will was read to me. He had orange and lemon groves besides the cattle ranch, and was a stockholder in a substantial country bank. I was graduated at the State University, and went from there to France. Since, I've been resting up and sort of managing Dad's property.

"My father was a peculiar man, and was never overly confidential with me. He was uneducated, as the term is understood today – a rough-and-ready old Westerner who had made his strike and settled down to peaceful days – or so I always imagined. But two weeks ago he died suddenly from a stroke of apoplexy; and when his will was read to me I got a jolt from which I haven't yet recovered.

"The home ranch and the other real estate, together with all livestock and appurtenances – with one exception, which I shall mention later – were willed to the Catholic Church, to be handled as they saw fit. It seemed that there was little else to be disposed of. I was left five hundred dollars in cash, a saddle horse named Poche, a silver-mounted bridle and saddle and martingales, the old Spanish spurs you see on my feet, and the Old Tabor Ivison Place, in Chaparral County, of which I knew almost nothing. That was all – with the exception of the written instructions in my father's handwriting that were given me by his lawyers. Maybe you can throw some light on the matter, Mr. Tamroy. Would you care to hear my father's last message to me?"

Tamroy evinced his eagerness by scraping forward his chair.

Oliver took from a leather billbook a folded piece of paper. "I don't know that I ought to," he smiled, "but, after all, I'll never learn the mystery of it if I keep the matter from people about here. So here goes:

"'My dear son Oliver:

"'As you know perfectly well, I am an ignorant old Westerner. There is no use mincing matters in regard to this. When I was young I didn't have much of a chance to get an education; but when I grew up and married, and you was born, I said you'd never be allowed to grow up in ignorance like I did. So I tried to give you an education, and you didn't fail me.'

"'I did this for a double purpose, Oliver. I knew that I was going to die someday, and that then you'd have to settle a little matter that's bothered me since before you was born. For pretty near thirty years, Oliver, I've had a problem to fight; and I never knew how to settle the matter because I wasn't educated. So I let it rest and waited for you to grow up, and go through college. And now that's happened; and you're educated and fit to answer the question that's bothered me for nearly half my life. The answer is either Yes or No, and you've got to find out which is right.'

"'I'm leaving you Poche, the best cow horse in Southern California, my old silver-mounted saddle that's carried me thousands of miles, the martingales, and my old silver-mounted bridle, which same three things made me the envy of all the vaqueros of the Clinker Creek Country over thirty years ago, and my Spanish spurs that go along with the outfit. These things, Oliver, and five hundred dollars in Cash, and forty acres of land on Clinker Creek, in Chaparral county, called the Old Tabor Ivison Place.'

"'They are all you'll need to find the answer to the question that's bothered me for thirty years. Buckle on the spurs, throw the saddle on Poche, bridle him, put the five hundred dollars and the deed to the Old Tabor Ivison Place in your jeans, and hit the trail for Clinker Creek. Stay there till you know whether the answer is Yes or No. Then go to my lawyers and tell them which it is. And the God of your mother go with you!'

"'Your affectionate father,'

"'Peter Drew.'

"'In his seventy-third year.'"

Oliver folded the paper. Damon Tamroy only sat and stared at him.

1 2 3 4 >

На страницу:

Перейти

1 из 4