Who Wants to Live Forever?

  WHO WANTS TO LIVE FOREVER?

  by William MacLeod Raine

  Houghton Mifflin Company 1945

  Scanned and Proofed by RyokoWerx

  CHAPTER 1

  A Good Neighbor Reports

  DALE CAME OUT of the cool dark house to the wide veranda. The ranch headquarters were on a mesa overlooking the Soledad Valley, and the eyes of the girl swept terrain that was largely part of the Seven Up and Down spread.

  From the bluff upon which the house was set, the ground fell away sharply to the undulating floor of the valley through which the Soledad took its twisting way, a silver thread in the brown basin except where its banks were here and there green with cottonwoods and willows. For a dozen miles the eye could follow the river, to the huddled hills that concealed it before the plunge into Rabbit Ear Gorge. The Seven Up ran only to the park boundary. Beyond it lay the M K range.

  Though the day was still so young that shreds of mist lingered in the gulches opposite and long shadows lanced into the desert from projecting cliffs, shimmering heat waves danced above the baked plain. Sunlight streamed across the cholla and the sage. In the south pasture Seven Up riders, diminutive from distance, moved among the cattle they were working. Dale heard the click of the windmill back of the house and the bawling of yearlings shut up in a corral behind the stable.

  Incuriously her gaze rested on a small cloud of dust advancing up the road that led from the valley. It marked the approach of a rider. Not one of her men, she decided, as he drew nearer, and the bay gelding he was riding did not carry a Z on the right shoulder. He might be a drifter on the chuck line, though cowboys out of a job were few since the draft had reached out for ablebodied men.

  She recognized resentfully the man in the saddle. What was Hal Stevens doing inside her fences? Between the Seven Up and the M K was no friendliness.

  Stevens pulled up and took in the girl's slim grace with a leisurely regard that affronted Dale. Beneath the even tan of her cheeks a pink flush showed. It was vexatious to feel herself a source of mirth to one she so much disliked. On the rare occasions when they met, she was always at a disadvantage because he had a knack of putting a spur to her quick temper while remaining quite cool himself.

  'If you came to see Frawley,' she began coldly, 'he's probably in the south pasture.'

  'I came to see Miss Lovell,' he corrected cheerfully.

  'About what?' she demanded, chin up.

  He took his time to answer. It ran through the hinterland of his mind that this proud, lovely girl was worth seeing. She was wearing fresh white slacks and a jacket of the same material faced with blue. No spirited young racehorse could have been more fine of line than she, and the dark eyes that scorned him gave accent to a face beautifully modeled. The situation was to him piquantly amusing. She had inherited her father's enmity to the Stevens family and did not want him to have a moment's doubt of it.

  'I'm an ambassador of good will,' he explained.

  'If you have any business with me—'

  She broke off. It was not necessary to finish the sentence. The sharpness with which she spoke made it clear he was to say what was in his mind and go.

  'No business.' He eased the strong slender body in the saddle, letting the weight rest on a stirrup. 'Just putting into effect locally the Great White Father's good-neighbor policy. Unfortunately, I am the bearer of bad news.'

  It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that the sight of him was bad news, but she let him guess what she was thinking. It was eloquent in her stiff silence. She did not want to feed his derisive amusement by showing pique.

  'Your north fence was cut last night near Bull Creek,' he continued. 'Tracks show that a truck drove into the pasture and out again. The M K offers regrets and condolences.'

  The heat of anger whipped into her face. It was enough to learn that thieves had been busy again stealing her stuff without having to endure his mocking sympathy.

  'Good of you to let me know. Maybe you can tell where the truck went after it left and who is the owner of it.' In her words was the singing lash of a small whip, but he chose to ignore the innuendo.

  'Afraid I can't. All I can tell you is that some of your stock must have been stolen.'

  'You are sure of that?' she flung out.

  'By inference.' The grin on his face acknowledged the hit. 'The ground was soft where the wire was cut, and the tracks coming out were deeper than those going in. So I gathered the truck must have been loaded in the pasture.'

  'Clever of you, Mr. Stevens.'

  'An obvious deduction, Doctor Watson.'

  'You got the situation as clearly as if you had been there at the time.'

  He chuckled. 'Right on the chin, lady.'

  'It is fortunate for you that thieves never take your stock.'

  'Yes. The best way for a truck to get into the hills where my stock runs is by the road passing in front of my house. Too great a risk to take, going down by my front yard.'

  'That's one explanation,' she agreed stiffly.

  The white teeth in the brown face flashed to a sardonic smile. 'Another is that I would be foolish to rob myself.'

  He had put her in the wrong. She had no evidence that he was a rustler, though she had heard queer stories about his consorting with the lawless riff-raff who nested in the hills close to the big ranches. Stevens lived his own life, in the way he wanted.

  'You suggest that, not I,' she told him.

  'Oh, no! It is in your mind.' Mirth danced in his gray eyes. 'I'm a lowdown miscreant running off your beef. Might be a good idea for me to include in my next gather some of my own and howl to high heaven about my loss — as a red herring across the track.'

  'What you do is not important to me. But you might broadcast word to your friends that after this my riders will carry guns.'

  'My goodness! Just like the good old days. And if your boys catch me will they hang me to a tree as the Virginian did Steve?'

  Her stern young face refused to join in the jest with him.

  From the house a young man strolled. His resemblance to Dale was marked. He had her dark eyes and light, graceful figure, but the chin was less clean-cut and the mouth a little weak. Apparently he had just got up, for there was still a sleepy look on the handsome face. The night before he had been up late playing poker.

  He waved a hand at Stevens. 'Hello, Hal. What's new?'

  'Mr. Stevens rode in to tell us more of our cattle have been stolen while you and Jim slept,' his sister answered acidly. 'Very kind of him.'

  Frank Lovell had struck a match to light a cigarette. He held it in his hand, a startled look in his eyes, until it burned his fingers and he was forced to drop the stub. 'Anybody see who the fellows were?' he asked quickly.

  Stevens shook his head. 'Far as I know they made a clean getaway.'

  Young Lovell lit another match on the flap and cupped it in his hand. 'They are probably in New Mexico or Texas by this time,' he guessed, a surprising note of relief in his voice.

  'Or burning up rubber to get there,' the owner of the M K added.

  From the stable a big bowlegged man in chaps walked across to join them. Above a crook nose very light blue eyes were set a little too close in a brown leathery face. Jim Frawley, foreman of the Seven Up and Down, had the reputation of being a tough nut to crack. His gaze met and clashed with that of Stevens. These two did not like each other. There was no declared war between them, but both knew that some day trouble would flare up.

  'Hal says the rustlers have got to our stuff again,' Frank told the foreman sulkily. 'We sure look after our stock well. A neighbor even has to tell us when we have lost some.'

  Frawley flushed angrily. His stormy eyes faste
ned on Stevens. 'I'm listening,' he snapped. 'Where and when?'

  The M K man looked with bland insolence at his questioner and turned to Dale. 'Nice meeting you again, Miss Lovell, but there is no use asking me to stay longer. Got a date to see a man at Big Bridge. I really must go.' He gathered the reins, an ironic smile on his face. 'Hope you catch the thieves. Must be annoying to have them load up a truck from your herd so often. This is the third time, isn't it?'

  'You seem to know all about it,' Dale retorted. 'But we can do without your sympathy, Mr. Stevens. Give it to the robbers. They'll need it one of these days soon.'

  'If I meet the scalawags I'll tell them you are gunning for them. Maybe they'll lay off. Be seeing you, Frank.'

  Frawley's beefy face was purple with anger. He was not used to being ignored. 'Fellow, I asked you a question,' he blustered, blocking the way in front of the horse.

  Stevens did not explain that he did not answer questions put in that tone of voice. He said, with a cool, insulting drawl, 'I deal with principals, Mr. Frawley.'

  The foreman choked with rage. 'For two bits I'd drag you outa that saddle and break you in two.'

  The visitor spoke to Dale, polite inquiry in his voice. 'Have you two bits with you, Miss Lovell?'

  Frawley caught the bridle rein in his fist and jerked it. 'You can't pull that line of talk on me,' he cried.

  Hal Stevens did not argue the point. A spur touched the flank of his horse. It went into the air, and as it came down plunged forward. Its shoulder struck Frawley and flung him headlong.

  The rider turned in the saddle and waved a farewell to the Lovells.

  CHAPTER 2

  Boss of the Seven Up and Down

  FRAWLEY LEAPED to his feet and ran a few yards after the racing horse. He shook his fist in the air and broke into raucous curses. With them he interspersed threats.

  'That will do, Jim,' ordered Dale sharply. 'You can do your swearing in the stable when I'm not there.'

  The foreman turned to her furiously. 'He rode me down. The scalawag rode me down.'

  'He certainly did,' she answered. 'Don't you know better than to snatch at a man's reins when he starts to go?'

  Frank had private reasons for being glad to see Frawley humiliated. 'Funny to see him send you spinning,' he said.

  'Funny!' The foreman glared at him. 'Pleased you, did it? After the fellow wouldn't answer my question — treated me like I was the dirt under his feet.'

  'Next time you ask a question of Hal Stevens, you'd better make your voice real gentle and polite,' Frank suggested maliciously.

  'I'll get him if it's the last thing I ever do in the world,' stormed Frawley, and strode in a rage to the stable.

  Dale watched their visitor ride down the hill, a figure light in the saddle, flat-backed, strong. He was a man who went his own reckless, devil-may-care way, too careless or too proud to explain himself to those who criticized his manner of life. He might be a lawbreaker, as his father had been before him. Homer Stevens had started the M K spread more than fifty years ago when the ownership of cattle had been as much an adventure as a business. In those days cattle ranged far over a territory thinly populated, and it was easy to build up a herd by the overfree use of a running iron. Dale was not sure that Homer Stevens was a proved rustler, though he had been suspected by many. He had been a hard, tough citizen, one whom few cared to challenge. Her father, Frank Lovell, was one of the few. Bold and hot-tempered, he had spoken his mind. There had been a gun-fight, and both of them carried the bullet scars until the days of their deaths.

  Dale turned on her younger brother bitterly. 'Do you have to treat Hal Stevens like a friend?' she demanded. 'After the trouble we've had with the M K all these years, I should think loyalty to father's memory, if nothing else, would prevent it.'

  'What's the sense in keeping up an old feud that ought to have been dead a dozen years?' he asked sulkily. 'We've got to live and let live. Hal is all right. He came over here to tell us about the raid. Why can't we be neighborly too?'

  'He came to jeer at us,' she differed. 'And what do you mean he is all right? He let that killer Wall lie in the hills back of his place last year. They say he even fed him. Men with clean records don't shelter outlaws.'

  'Wall wasn't an outlaw. He was a friend of Hal who got in a jam. He was cleared later, with Hal's help.'

  'And I suppose the Black outfit are friends of his caught in a jam,' she suggested, with obvious sarcasm. 'They ride through his pastures to rustle our stock and he doesn't lift a hand to prevent them.'

  'Why should he — if they do — and you're not sure of it. Hal isn't sheriff of this county. They let his stuff alone. They're not barking his shins.'

  'You have a fine sense of a citizen's duty to the community!' she flung out. 'A man is honest — or he is a thief. You can't touch mud without being defiled.'

  Frank shrugged his shoulders. There was never any use in arguing with Dale. She was one of those persons who are always one hundred per cent right, he told himself bitterly. Her opinions were fixed, and she was usually hell-bent on having her own way. He had as much interest in the ranch as she had, but because he was three years younger Dale acted as if he was still a child. One of these days he was going to show her, though it was going to be difficult to get control of the Seven Up and Down, since their father's will had fixed it that she was to be sole manager until Frank was twenty-five. If she had any sense and would allow him more money to spend, he would not be in the trouble he now was.

  Dale walked back into the house to telephone Sheriff Elbert of the raid on their pasture. It would do no good. If, as was likely, the stock had been lifted about midnight, the thieves would have had eight or nine hours to reach safety. By this time they were probably holed-up in their hide-out. This might be two hundred miles away, or it might be in the next county if they were selling to a black market.

  Ever since her father had first settled here, rustling had been a problem. He had fought the thieves whenever they grew active. Some, he and the other cattlemen had sent to the penitentiary. A few had been shot down when caught. Others had been driven out of the district. As the country grew more settled, cattle-stealing became riskier and thefts decreased. But of late years it had again become prevalent. The rustlers no longer drove the bullocks into the hills, but hauled them away in trucks to an arranged market. A nest of the scoundrels lived in the hills on the outskirts of the Seven Up and Down. Dale had set her stubborn will in a resolve to clean them out.

  In this she realized her brother would be no help. Apparently he had in him none of the fighting tallow that had made his father a formidable opponent. A streak of softness ran through him, and already he was drinking too much. They were paying Jim Frawley to run the ranch, he had several times reminded her petulantly. It was a man's job. Why stick out her head and interfere? Dale had a different opinion. As long as she was boss of the Seven Up and Down, she meant to run it.

  CHAPTER 3

  A Tenderfoot Takes a Job

  AS HAL STEVENS jogged down to the main road there was a small smile of amusement on his sardonic face. He had made an enemy of Frawley, but that did not disturb him. He had made a good many in his life. His thoughts were of the young woman he had just left. The vividness of her youth and the hardness of her spirit were incongruous. Though she had evidently tried to restrain herself during their talk, she had a good deal of feminine ferocity in her make-up. No doubt she inherited the stiff dourness and the quick temper from her father. Frank Lovell, Senior, had been a tough hombre, stubborn and inflexible. The circumstances of her life had developed her brittle manner.

  Before she was out of her teens, a large cattle ranch had been turned over to her to handle. She must have soon discovered that plenty of crooks were out to do a pair of orphans. Hal chuckled. Most of those who had tried it had run into an unexpected flintiness.

  He was interested to see how she would cope with the recent outbreak of rustling. That an organized band was working stood out li
ke a bandaged thumb. With so much dude beef in Arizona now, he was a little surprised that the thieves were centering the attack on the Seven Up and Down. Newcomers from the East with money had been buying up cattle spreads and putting in patios, swimming pools, and expensive haciendas. The pastures of two of these had been raided, but the robbers had specialized in Lovell stuff. Of course they were supplying a black market.

  Hal could understand one reason for this. To the night-riding gentry the pastures of the Seven Up and Down must be a temptation because so many trails ran down from the hills to them. What puzzled Hal was the weakness of the defense the ranch had shown. Frawley knew cattle. He had worked with them all his life. The ways and methods of stock thieves were familiar to him. It was not strange that they had made one successful raid. On a big acreage such as the Lovells had, it was not possible to guard all vulnerable points every night. But three steals in a month, each with a clean getaway. Frawley ought to do better than that. One of the new dude outfits could not do any worse.

  From a rise Hal looked down at the flat where Big Bridge lay. The sun was high in the sky now and its rays beat down on a parched desert bounded by papier-mâché mountains gaunt and stark. Below him lay a street of flat-roofed adobe houses running parallel to the river, a thin trickling stream following the line of least resistance in a wide sandy wash. There were times when the river was a roaring torrent.

  He rode across the long narrow bridge, the slap of his horse's hoofs beating up from the planks of the floor. Powdered dust lay heavy on the street, and a thin haze of it floated in the air. Hal drew up at the hitchrack in front of the Rest Easy Saloon. Three horses already drowsed there. Two or three cars were in sight. A new expensive station wagon was parked a few yards lower down the road, the property of one of the new rich dude outfits.

  Hal tied and walked into the Rest Easy. He ordered a beer. While waiting for it, his glance swept the room. Three men were sitting at a table playing pitch. They stopped the game for a moment to watch him when he walked to the bar. He spoke to them and they answered his greeting. A fourth man stood alone at the end of the bar, a half-empty glass in front of him. He looked like an actor dressed for the part of a cowboy. The stranger was large, broad-shouldered, pink-cheeked. He wore high-heeled boots, brown range clothes, a big white sombrero, all of them a little too new.