The Ramblin' Kid, Page 3

  CHAPTER III

  WHICH ONE'S WHICH

  Eagle Butte sprawled hot and thirsty under the melting sunshine ofmid-forenoon. It was not a prepossessing town. All told, no more thantwo hundred buildings were within its corporate limits. A giant mound,capped by a crown of crumbling, weather-tinted rock, rose abruptly atthe northern edge of the village and gave the place its name. CimarronRiver, sluggish and yellow, bounded the town on the south. The dominantnote of Eagle Butte was a pathetic mixture of regret for glories ofother days and clumsy ambition to assume the ways of a city. Strivinghard to be modern it succeeded only in being grotesque.

  The western plains are sprinkled with towns like that. Towns that once,in the time of the long-horn steer and the forty-four and the nerve tohandle both, were frankly unconventional. Touched later by the blackmagic of development, bringing brick buildings, prohibition, pictureshows, real-estate boosters, speculation and attendant evils or benefitsas one chooses to classify them, they became neither elemental norethical--mere gawky mimics of both.

  When western Texas was cow-country and nothing else Eagle Butte atleast was picturesque. Flickering lights, gay laughter--sometimes cursesand the sounds of revolver shots, of battles fought close and quick andto a finish--wheezy music, click of ivory chips, the clink of glasses,from old Bonanza's and similar rendezvous of hilarity lured to thedance, faro, roulette, the poker table or the hardwood polished bar.

  The Mecca it was in those days for cowboys weary with months on thewide-flung range.

  To-day Eagle Butte is modest, mild and super-subdued.

  A garage, cement built, squatty and low and painfully new, itswide-mouthed entrance guarded by a gasoline pump freshly painted andexceedingly red, stands at the eastern end of the single, broad,un-paved business street. All of the stores face one way--north--andlook sleepily across at the railroad track, the low-eaved, yellow, SantaFe station and the sunburnt sides of the butte beyond. Opposite thestation the old Occidental Hotel with its high porch, wide steps, narrowwindows, dingy weather-board sides and blackened roof, still stands toremind old-timers of the days of long ago.

  A city marshal, Tom Poole, a long, slim, Sandy-mustached Missourian,completes the picture of Eagle Butte. Regularly he meets the arrivingtrains and by the glistening three-inch nickel star pinned to his leftsuspender announces to the traveling world that here, on the one timewoolly Kiowa, law and order at last prevail. Odd times the marshal farmsa ten-acre truck patch close to the river at the southern edge of thetown. Pending the arrival of trains he divides his time between thefront steps of the old hotel and the Elite Amusement Parlor, EagleButte's single den of iniquity where pocket pool, billiards,solo--devilish dissipations these!--along with root beer, ginger ale,nut sundaes, soda-pop, milk shakes and similar enticements are served tothose, of reckless and untamed temperaments.

  From the open door of the pool hall the marshal saw a thin, black streakof smoke curling far out on the horizon--a dozen miles--northeast ofEagle Butte.

  "Seventeen's comin'," he remarked to the trio of idlers leaning againstthe side of the building; "guess I'd better go over an' see who's onher," moving as he spoke out into the sizzling glare of the almostdeserted street. Glancing toward the east his eyes fastened on a cloudof dust whirling rapidly along the road that came from the direction ofthe lower Cimarron.

  "Gosh, lookey yonder," he muttered, "that must be Old Heck drivin' hisnew automobile--th' darn fool is goin' to bust something some day,runnin' that car the way he does!"

  Walking quickly, to escape the heat, he crossed the street to thestation.

  Two minutes later the cloud of dust trailed a rakish, trim-lined,high-powered, purring Clagstone "Six" to a stop in front of theOccidental Hotel and Old Heck and Skinny Rawlins climbed glumly andstiffly from the front seat, after the thirty-minute, twenty-mile runfrom the Quarter Circle KT.

  Old Heck had his peculiarities. One of them was insistence for thebest--absolutely or nothing. The first pure-bred, hot-blood stallionsturned on the Kiowa range carried the Quarter Circle KT brand on theirleft shoulders. He wanted quality in his stock and spent thousands ofdollars importing bulls and stallions to get it. When the automobilecame it was the same. No jit for the erratic owner of the last biggenuine cow-ranch on the Cimarron. Consequently the beautiful car--a carfit for Fifth Avenue--standing now in front of the old hotel in EagleButte.

  The smoke on the northeastern sky-line was yet some miles away.

  The lanky marshal had reached the station.

  "It's a good thing there's prohibition in this town," Skinny muttered ashe stepped from the car and started brushing the dust from his coat;

  "Why?"

  "'Cause I'd go get drunk if there wasn't--. Wonder if a feller could getany boot-leg liquor?"

  "Better leave it alone," Old Heck warned, "that kind's worse than none.It don't make you drunk--just gives you the hysterical hydrophobia!'

  "Well, I'd drink anything in an emergency like this if I had it,"Skinny declared doggedly.

  "Train's comin'," Old Heck said shortly; "reckon we'd better go over tothe depot--"

  "Let's wait here till they get off first," Skinny said. "We can see themfrom where we are and kind of size 'em up and it won't be so sudden."

  "Maybe that would be better," Old Heck answered.

  A moment later Number Seventeen, west-bound Santa Fe passenger train,stopped at the yellow station. The rear cars were obscured from the viewof Skinny and Old Heck by freight sheds along the track. With theexception of the engine, baggage, mail and express cars, which werehidden by the depot, the rest of the train was in plain sight.

  A couple of men got off the day coach. These were followed by a gawky,weirdly dressed girl of uncertain age carrying an old-fashionedtelescope traveling bag. At sight of the girl Skinny caught his breathwith a gasp. Immediately following her was the tallest, homeliest womanhe had ever seen. Thin to the point of emaciation, a wide striped,ill-fitting dress of some cheap material accentuated the angular linesof her body. A tiny narrow-brimmed hat, bright green, with a whitefeather, dingy and soiled, sticking straight up at the back made hermore than ever a caricature. The woman also carried a bag. The twostepped up to the marshal, standing at the cornet: of the station,apparently asking him a question. He answered, pointing as he did toOld Heck and Skinny leaning silently against the side of their car. Thewoman and girl started toward them.

  Fascinated, the cow-men watched them approach.

  "My Gawd!" Old Heck hoarsely whispered, "that's them!"

  "Let's go!" Skinny exclaimed, sweat starting in unheeded beads on hisforehead. "Good lord, let's get in the car and go while we got achance!"

  Old Heck made a move as if to comply, then stopped. "Can't now," he saidgloomily, "it's too late!"

  As Old Heck turned the woman shrieked in a rasping voice:

  "Hey--hey you! Wait a minute!"

  The cow-men looked around and stared dumbly, dazedly, at her.

  "Can I get you to take me an' my daughter out to that construction campwhere they're buildin' a ditch or something?" she asked; "that policemansaid maybe we could get you to--" she continued. "I got a job cookin'out there an' Lize here is goin' to wait on table."

  Old Heck, still looking up in her eyes, with horror written on everyline of his face, his lips twitching till he could scarcely speak,finally managed to say:

  "Ain't--ain't you Ophelia?"

  "Ophelia? Ophelia who?" she asked, then before he could speak sheanswered his question: "Ophelia--huh! No, I ain't Ophelia! I'm MissusJasamine Swope an' a married woman an' you'd better not try to get freshor--"

  Simultaneous with Old Heck's question, Skinny, his eyes riveted on thedowdy girl, asked in a voice barely audible:

  "Are you--are you Carolyn June?"

  "No, I ain't Carolyn June," she snorted. "Come on, ma; let's go! Themtwo's crazy or white slavers or somethin'!"

  Expressing their scorn and disdain by the angry flirt of their skirts,the woman and girl whirled and walked
briskly away toward the garage atthe end of the street.

  "Praise th' heavens," Old Heck breathed fervently as he gazedspell-bound after the retreating pair, "it wasn't them!"

  "Carolyn June and the widow probably went back after all," Skinny saidwithout, looking around and with the barest trace of disappointment, nowthat the danger seemed past, in his voice. "Maybe they got to thinkingabout that telegram and decided not to come at last."

  "More than likely that was it," Old Heck answered.

  Steps sounded behind them. Skinny and Old Heck turned and again theyalmost fainted at what they saw. The marshal, a leather traveling bagin each hand, accompanied by two smartly dressed women, approached.

  "These ladies are huntin' for you," he said to Old Heck, dropping thebags and mopping his face with the sleeve of his shirt. "Guess they'resome kind of kin folks," he added.

  Concealed by the freight sheds Carolyn June Dixon and Ophelia Cobb hadstepped from the Pullman at the rear of the train, unseen by Old Heckand Skinny. Nor had either noticed, being engrossed with the couple thathad left than a moment before, the trio coming across from the station.

  As the cook and her daughter by their very homeliness had appalled andoverwhelmed them, these two, Ophelia and Carolyn June, by their exactlyopposite appearance stunned Old Heck and Skinny and rendered themspeechless with embarrassment. Both were silently thankful they hadshaved that morning and Skinny wondered if his face, like Old Heck's,was streaked with sweat and dust.

  For a moment the group studied one another.

  Carolyn June held the eyes of Skinny in mute and helpless admiration.Despite the heat of the blazing sun she looked fresh and dean andpleasant--wholly unsoiled by the marks of travel. A snow-white Panamahat, the brim sensibly wide, drooped over cheeks that were touched witha splash of tan that suggested much time in the open. An abundance ofhair, wonderfully soft and brown, showing the slightest glint of copperyred running it in vagrant strands, fluffed from under the hat. Theskirt of her traveling suit, some light substantial material, reachedthe span of a hand above the ankle. White shoes, silk stockings thatmatched and through which glowed the faint pink of firm, healthy, youngflesh, lent charm to the costume she wore. Her lips were red and moistand parted over teeth that were strong and white. A saucy upward tilt tothe nose, hinting that Carolyn June was a flirt; brown eyes that werelevel almost with Skinny's and that held in them a laugh and yet deepbelow the mirth something thoughtful, honest and unafraid, finished thewreck of the cowboy's susceptible heart. Trim and smooth was CarolynJune, suggesting to Skinny Rawlins a clean-bred filly of saddle strainthat has developed true to form.

  Old Heck gazed in equal awe at the more mature Ophelia.

  Somewhere near forty she may have been, cozily plump and solid. She hadgray-blue eyes that were steady and frank yet clearly accustomed tobeing obeyed. Her hair was a trifle darker in shade than the silky brownon the head of Carolyn June. She was dressed with immaculate neatnessand taste and carried that well-preserved assurance no woman in theworld save the American of mature development acquires.

  There was energy in every line of her body and Ophelia gave Old Heck,the embarrassed owner of the Quarter Circle KT, more thrills in that onemoment of silent scrutiny than he ever before had felt in the presenceof any woman.

  As they looked, Skinny and Old Heck instinctively, a bit awkwardlyperhaps, removed the Stetsons they wore on their heads.

  "Howdy-do!" Old Heck finally managed to say.

  Skinny gulped like an echo, another "Howdy-do!" in the direction ofCarolyn June.

  "I reckon you are Carolyn June and Missus Ophelia Cobb," Old Heckstammered "Which one of you is which?" unconsciously paying tribute tothe well preserved youthfulness of the widow.

  "Oh, Ophelia, beware!" Carolyn June laughed, not in the least offended;"the gay old rascal is at it already!"

  "He didn't mean nothing" Skinny interposed, sensing that Old Heck someway had made a blunder. "I guess you must be Carolyn June?" lookingquestioningly at the girl.

  "Excuse me," Old Heck said, "I'm your uncle, I suppose, and this isSkinny Rawlins--"

  "Howdy-do; I'm glad to meet you," Skinny muttered, reaching for the handCarolyn June frankly extended.

  "I'm glad, too," she replied candidly; "and this is Mrs. OpheliaCobb--just Ophelia--Uncle Josiah," Carolyn added, turning to Old Heckwho clumsily shook hands with the widow while his weather-tanned faceflushed a burning, uncomfortably red.

  "We was expecting you," he said, retaining life hold on her hand.

  "That was very kind," Ophelia murmured. "I am sure we are delighted tobe here."

  "Now I guess we are all acquainted," Carolyn June said with a littlelaugh. "It's easy for folks to get acquainted, isn't it?" turningsuddenly to Skinny.

  "Seems like it after they once get started," Skinny answered.

  "We'd better be heading for home I reckon," Old Heck said, releasing atlast the widow's hand and lifting the bags in the car. "Sing Pete willhave dinner ready by the time we get there."

  "We have some trunks," Carolyn June said, "can we take them with us?"

  "Yes," Old Heck replied, "get in, and we'll drive over to the depot andget them."

  With Carolyn June and Ophelia in the rear seat and Skinny and himself inthe front Old Heck drove the car across to the station and the trunkswere fastened with ropes on the hood of the engine and running-boards ofthe car.

  As they started away Carolyn June asked:

  "Which way now, Uncle Josiah?"

  "Out to the ranch."

  "Hadn't we better stop at the drug store," she asked soberly, "and getsome medicine?"

  "Medicine? Who for?" Old Heck inquired innocently.

  "Why, the patients, of course," Carolyn June answered with amischievous chuckle.

  "What patients?"

  "Out at the Quarter Circle KT where that epidemic of smallpox israging!" she answered sweetly.

  "That's all a mistake," Old Heck said hastily; "we thought is wassmallpox but it wasn't--"

  "No, everybody's got over it," Skinny added nervously; "they're allcured!"

  "Yes, they was just broke out with the heat and didn't have the smallpoxat all--" Old Heck explained.

  "Liars, both of them," Carolyn June said laughingly to Ophelia; "theyjust didn't want us to come!"

  "Very likely," Ophelia answered.

  "No, honest, we thought we had it," Old Heck stammered.

  "We were plumb uneasy for fear you wouldn't arrive," Skinny declared."After we found out it wasn't smallpox we were going to send a specialdelivery message and tell you it was all a misunderstanding and to comeanyhow!"

  "Shall we forgive them?" Carolyn June asked the widow.

  "Perhaps, this time--their first offense!"

  "I'll tell you," Carolyn June said, "well suspend sentence pending goodbehavior!"

  Skinny leaned close to Old Heck.

  "Stop a minute at the Golden Rule," he whispered; "I want to do somepersonal trading."

  "If it ain't important," Old Heck answered, "we oughtn't to take thetime. What do you want to buy?"

  "I want to get me a white shirt--"

  "Gosh," Old Heck exclaimed, "that bad already! What'll he be in week?"

  "Did you speak, Uncle Josiah?" Carolyn asked.

  "Huh--no, I--Skinny just thought I was going to hit a rock!" heanswered, and giving the engine more gas, he headed the car, at athirty-mile clip, toward the east and the Quarter Circle KT.

  The party rode in silence. The speed of the car and the fan of the warmwind against their faces made conversation difficult. A mile from EagleButte they crossed the long, low, iron-railed bridge over the CimarronRiver and climbed out on to the bench away from the bottom lands. Fromthat point on to the Quarter Circle KT the road followed the brow of thebench on the south side of the river. It was smooth and good.

  Carolyn June thrilled at the bigness of it all as they swept quicklypast the irrigated district close to the town and sped out on the openunfenced range. For mile
s the country was level with here and therearroyos cross-sectioning into the river valley. Long stretches with thebarest undulations made driving a joy and the winding road was a naturalspeedway. Scattered over the plain were dusters of mesquit and in thelow sags where moisture was near the surface patches of thorns. CarolynJune loved the width and breadth of the great range, strange and new toher. Here was freedom sweeping as the winds of heaven. Dimly, on thesouthern horizon she could see the blue outline of Sentinel Mountainstanding alone out on the plain. To the left green pasture-lands layalong the river. A narrow strip of cottonwood trees marked the curvingpath of the Cimarron. Beds of white quicksand, treacherous and fatal anddreaded by every rider of the open country could be seen, occasionally,through openings in the trees showing the bed of the river itself. Inthe distance behind them was Eagle Butte, towering above the town theyhad left a few brief moments before, and beyond that the CostejoMountains, rugged and massive and covered in part on their lower slopeswith blue-green thickets of pine. Across the river was a choppy sea ofsand-dunes stretching away to the north as far as sight could reach.Here and there a high-flung mound, smooth and oval or capped with ledgesof black, glistening rode broke the monotony of the view.

  Engrossed in the study of the almost primitive picture Carolyn Juneforgot the flight of time and the speed at which they were traveling.

  "Yonder's the ranch!" Skinny announced suddenly, turning half around inhis seat and pointing ahead and to the left toward the river.

  The valley widened till it was a mile or more across. The Cimarron swungsharply to the north and hugged the foot of the bench as if unwillingto spoil the meadowlands past which it flowed. In a greathalf-crescent--"Quarter Circle," Old Heck called it--the greenbasin-like area lay spread out before them. It was a half dozen miles inlength, reaching from the canyon gate at the upper end of the valleywhere the river turned abruptly northward, to the narrow gorge at thesouth through which it disappeared.

  A blue crane lazily flapped across the valley.

  "Seven thousand acres in the bottoms," Skinny volunteered.

  "Beautiful!" Carolyn breathed.

  "Splendid!" Ophelia exclaimed.

  Half-way down the valley, a quarter of a mile from the bench, thebuildings of the Quarter Circle KT clustered together in a group--thelow adobe house, bunk shack, stables, graineries. Out in the fields werehay yards with half-built stacks of alfalfa--over the tops of the stackswhite tarpaulins. In a pasture beyond the house were horses and cattle,perhaps a hundred head in all. Climbing the hills north of the riverwere a number of moving figures, dimly seen through the haze.

  "Are those cattle," Carolyn June asked, "those things across the river?"

  "Where?" Skinny inquired.

  "Over there, on the hills," pointing toward the objects.

  Old Heck glancing in the direction she indicated answered for Skinny:

  "That's Parker and the boys, going over to the North Springs--they'rechecking up on some yearlings we just turned across from this side ofthe range." Then, speaking to Skinny: "They've already had their dinnerand won't be in till supper-time--"

  "Are they cowboys?" Carolyn June asked.

  "I reckon," Old Heck responded.

  "Is Skinny one?" she inquired naively.

  "Sort of, I suppose," Old Heck chuckled while Skinny felt his facecoloring up with embarrassment, "but not a wild one."

  "Oh, who is that?" Carolyn June cried suddenly as a lone rider whirledout of the corral, around the stables, and his horse sprang into agallop straight down the valley toward the harrows at its lower end.

  "That," Skinny said after a quick glance, "oh, that's th' Ramblin'Kid--Where in thunder do you reckon the darned fool's going now?" headded to Old Heck.

  "Can't tell nothing about where he's going," Old Heck said. "He's liableto be heading for anywhere. What's he riding?" he asked without lookingup.

  "Captain Jack," Skinny replied. "Wonder if he ain't going over to BattleRidge to find out if it's so about them sheep coming in over there?"

  "Maybe," Old Heck grunted, "either that or else he's took a notion tohunt that Gold Dust maverick again"--referring to a strange, wonderfullybeautiful, outlaw filly that had appeared on the Kiowa range a yearbefore and tormented the riders by her almost fiendish cunning indodging corral or rope--"if he's riding Captain Jack that's probablywhat he's after."

  "Who is he, what's his real name?" Carolyn June asked with interest.

  "Just th' Ramblin' Kid, as far as I know," Old Heck answered.

  "Does he live at the Quarter Circle KT?" Carolyn June continuedcuriously as she studied the slender form rising and falling with thegraceful rhythm of his horse's motion--as if man and animal were asingle living, pulsing creature.

  "Off and on," Old Heck replied, "when he wants to he does and when hedon't he don't. He's a witch with horses and knows he's always got a jobif he wants it, and I reckon that makes him kind of undependable aboutstaying in any one place long at a time. That's why they call him th'Ramblin' Kid--he's liable to ramble any minute."

  The car curled down the narrow dugway off of the bench and a momentlater stopped at the gate in front of the ranch house of the QuarterCircle KT.

  "We're here," Skinny said, as Sing Pete, the Chinese cook, appeared atthe open door.

  "They've come, Sing Pete," Old Heck called, climbing out of the car;"this is them! Is dinner ready?"

  "All leady--waitee!" the Oriental answered, shuffling out to the car tohelp with the luggage and twisting and squirming as he kept bowing ingreeting.

  "This is great!" Carolyn June said, as she stepped on the long coolporch in front of the house and paused a moment before entering the opendoor, "--it's cool and pleasant, I'm going to like it," she added, asshe went into the big low-ceilinged room.

  The floor was bare of carpet but spotlessly clean; shades, but nocurtains, were over the windows; in the center stood a large flat-toppedreading table; at one end of the table was a Morris chair upholstered inbrown Spanish leather; a wolf-skin rug was thrown on the floor before anold-fashioned Mexican fire-place built into one corner of the room; inanother corner was a smaller table on which was a graphophone; a rockerand several chairs were set about the room and against the north wall;between two doors, evidently opening into twin bedrooms, was an uprightgrand piano--.

  "Oh, a piano!" Carolyn June exclaimed delightedly noticing theinstrument. "Who plays?"

  "Nobody," Old Heck answered foolishly, "I--I--well, what's the use oflying?--I bought it one day, before prohibition come, when I was drunkand just had it brought out because I didn't know what else to do withit--"

  "You funny old uncle!" Carolyn June laughed, "I love youalready.--Ophelia plays," she added.

  "Not so well or so much as Carolyn June," Ophelia said.

  "Maybe we'll have some music then some day; that ain't canned," Skinnysuggested eagerly.

  "You women can use them rooms," Old Heck said, referring to the doors oneach side of the piano. "Parker and me did have them but we've arrangedto sleep in the bunk-house while you are here."

  "Carolyn June and I need but one," Ophelia said, "it isn't fair to runyou out--"

  "You ain't running us," Old Heck answered, "we've talked it over andwould rather."

  After dinner Ophelia and Carolyn June spent their time in settlingthemselves in their rooms. A small bath closet connected the two--crudea bit and somewhat unfinished; but a hot tub, the water supplied from atank at the kitchen range, was enjoyed by both.

  Old Heck and Skinny helped with the trunks and then withdrew to thebunk-house.

  Old Heck shaved and Skinny put on a clean shirt.

  Skinny was not sure but this official love-making job was going to beinteresting work and Old Heck himself was uncertain whether to cuss orrejoice--sometimes he was almost sorry to-morrow would be Parker's dayto love and entertain Ophelia.