The Fighting Edge, Page 5

  CHAPTER V

  JUNE ASKS QUESTIONS

  Houck, an unwelcome guest, stayed at the cabin on Piceance nearly twoweeks. His wooing was surely one of the strangest known. He fleered atJune, taunted her, rode over the girl's pride and sense of decorum, beatdown the defenses she set up, and filled her bosom with apprehension. Itwas impossible to score an advantage over his stolid strength andpachydermous insensibility.

  The trapper sweated blood. He neither liked nor trusted his guest, but hewas bound hand and foot. He must sit and watch the fellow moving to hisend, see the gains he made day by day, and offer no effective protest.For Houck at a word could send him back to the penitentiary and leaveJune alone in a world to which her life had been alien.

  Pete knew that the cowman was winning the campaign. His assumption thathe was an accepted suitor of June began to find its basis of fact. Thetruth could be read in the child's hunted eyes. She was still fighting,but the battle was a losing one.

  Perhaps this was the best way out of a bad situation, Tolliver foundhimself thinking. In his rough way Houck was fond of June. A blind mancould see that. Even though he was a wolf, there were moments when hiseyes were tender for her. He would provide well for a wife. If his littleCinderella could bring herself to like the man, there was always a chancethat love would follow. Jake always had the knack of fascinating women.He could be very attractive when he wished.

  On a happy morning not long since June had sung of her wings. She was ameadow-lark swooping over the hills to freedom, her throat throbbing withsongs of joy. Sometimes Pete, too, thought of her as a bird, but throughmany hours of anguished brooding he had come to know she was a fledglingwith broken wings. The penalty for the father's sins had fallen upon thechild. All her life she must be hampered by the environment hiswrongdoing had built up around them.

  Since the beginning of the world masterful men have drawn to them theeyes and thoughts of women. June was no exception. Among the hours whenshe hated Houck were increasing moments during which a naive wonder andadmiration filled her mind. She was primitive, elemental. A little tingleof delight thrilled her to know that this strong man wanted her and wouldfight to win what his heart craved. After all he was her first lover. Aqueer shame distressed the girl at the memory of his kisses, for throughall the anger, chagrin, and wounded pride had come to her the firstdirect realization of what sex meant. Her alarmed innocence pushed thisfrom her.

  Without scruple Houck used all the weapons at hand. There came a day whenhe skirted the edges of the secret.

  "What do you mean?" she demanded. "What is it you claim to know about Dadall so big?"

  He could see that June's eyes were not so bold as the words. They wincedfrom his even as she put the question.

  "Ask him."

  "What'll I ask? I wouldn't believe anything you told me about him. He'snot like you. He's good."

  "You don't have to believe me. Ask him if he ever knew any one calledPete Purdy. Ask him who Jasper Stuart was. An' where he lived whilst youwas stayin' with yore aunt at Rawlins."

  "I ain't afraid to," she retorted. "I'll do it right now."

  Houck was sprawled on a bench in front of the cabin. He grinnedimpudently. His manner was an exasperating challenge. Evidently he didnot believe she would.

  June turned and walked to the stable. The heavy brogans weighted down thelightness of her step. The shapeless clothes concealed the grace of theslim figure. But even so there was a vital energy in the way she moved.

  Tolliver was mending the broken teeth of a hay-rake and making a poor jobof it.

  June made a direct frontal attack. "Dad, did you ever know a man namedPete Purdy?"

  The rancher's lank, unshaven jaw fell. The blow had fallen at last. In away he had expected it. Yet his mind was too stunned to find any road ofescape.

  "Why, yes--yes, I--yes, honey," he faltered.

  "Who was he?"

  "Well, he was a--a cowpuncher, I reckon."

  "Who was Jasper Stuart, then?"

  An explanation could no longer be dodged or avoided. Houck had talked toomuch. Tolliver knew he must make a clean breast of it, and that his owndaughter would sit in judgment on him. Yet he hung back. The years offurtive silence still held him.

  "He was a fellow lived in Brown's Park."

  "What had you to do with him? Why did Jake Houck tell me to ask you abouthim?"

  "Oh, I reckon--"

  "And about where you lived while I was with Aunt Molly at Rawlins?" sherushed on.

  The poor fellow moistened his dry lips. "I--I'll tell you the wholestory, honey. Mebbe I'd ought to 'a' told you long ago. But someways--"He stopped, trying for a fresh start. "You'll despise yore old daddy. Yousure will. Well, you got a right to. I been a mighty bad father to you,June. Tha's a fact."

  She waited, dread-filled eyes on his.

  "Prob'ly I'd better start at the beginnin', don't you reckon? I never didhave any people to brag about. Father and mother died while I was a li'l'grasshopper. I was kinda farmed around, as you might say. Then I comeWest an' got to punchin' cows. Seems like, I got into a bad crowd. Theywas wild, an' they rustled more or less. In them days there was a goodmany sleepers an' mavericks on the range. I expect we used a running-ironright smart when we wasn't sure whose calf it was."

  He was trying to put the best face on the story. June could see that, andher heart hardened toward him. She ignored the hungry appeal for mercy inhis eyes.

  "You mean you stole cattle. Is that it?" She was willing to hurt herselfif she could give him pain. Had he not ruined her life?

  "Well, I--I--Yes, I reckon that's it. Our crowd picked up calves thatbelonged to the big outfits like the Diamond Slash. We drove 'em up toBrown's Park, an' later acrost the line to Wyoming or Utah."

  "Was Jake Houck one of your crowd?"

  Pete hesitated.

  She cut in, with a flare of childish ferocity. "I'm gonna know the truth.He's not protecting you any."

  "Yes. Jake was one of us. I met up with him right soon after I come toColorado."

  "And Purdy?"

  "Tha's the name I was passin' under. I'd worked back in Missouri for afellow of that name. They got to callin' me Pete Purdy, so I kinda let itgo. My father's name was Tolliver, though. I took it--after thetrouble."

  "What trouble?"

  "It come after I was married. I met yore maw at Rawlins. She was workin'at the railroad restaurant waitin' on table. For a coupla years we livedthere, an' I wish to God we'd never left. But Jake persuaded 'Lindy I'dought to take up land, so we moved back to the Park an' I preempted.Everything was all right at first. You was born, an' we was right happy.But Jake kep' a-pesterin' me to go in with him an' do some cattle runnin'on the quiet. There was money in it--pretty good money--an' yore maw wassick an' needed to go to Denver. Jake, he advanced the money, an' o'course I had to work in with him to pay it back. I was sorta driven toit, looks like."

  He stopped to mop a perspiring face with a bandanna. Tolliver was notenjoying himself.

  "You haven't told me yet what the trouble was," June said.

  "Well, this fellow Jas Stuart was a stock detective. He come down for theCattlemen's Association to find out who was doing the rustlin' in Brown'sPark. You see, the Park was a kind of a place where we holed up. Therewas timbered gulches in there where we could drift cattle in an' hide'em. Then there was the Hole-in-the-Wall. I expect you've heard of thattoo."

  "Did this Stuart find out who was doing the rustlin'?"

  "He was right smart an' overbearin'. Too much so for his own good. Someof the boys served notice on him he was liable to get dry-gulched if hedidn't take the trail back where he come from. But Jas was rightobstinate an' he had sand in his craw. I'll say that for him. Well, oneday he got word of a drive we was makin'. Him an' his deputies laid inwait for us. There was shooting an' my horse got killed. The othersescaped, but they nailed me. In the rookus Stuart had got killed. Theylaid it on me. Mebbe I did it. I was shooting like the rest. Anyhow, Iwas convicted an' got tw
enty years in the pen."

  "Twenty years," June echoed.

  "Three--four years later there was a jail break. I got into the hills an'made my getaway. Travelin' by night, I reached Rawlins. From there I camedown here with a freight outfit, an' I been here ever since."

  He stopped. His story was ended. June looked at the slouchy little manwith the weak mouth and the skim-milk, lost-dog eyes. He was so palpablywretched, so plainly the victim rather than the builder of his ownmisfortunes, that her generous heart went out warmly to him.

  With a little rush she had him in her arms. They wept together, his headheld tight against her immature bosom. It was the first time she had everknown him to break down, and she mothered him as women have from thebeginning of time.

  "You poor Daddy. Don't I know how it was? That Jake Houck was to blame.He led you into it an' left you to bear the blame," she crooned.

  "It ain't me. It's you I'm thinkin' of, honey. I done ruined yore life,looks like. I shut you off from meeting decent folks like other girls do.You ain't had no show."

  "Don't you worry about me, Dad. I'll be all right. What we've got tothink about is not to let it get out who you are. If it wasn't for thatbig bully up at the house--"

  She stopped, hopelessly unable to cope with the situation. Whenever shethought of Houck her mind came to an _impasse_. Every road of escape ittraveled was blocked by his jeering face, with the jutting jaw set inimplacable resolution.

  "It don't look like Jake would throw me down thataway," he bewailed. "Inever done him a meanness. I kep' my mouth shut when they got me an'wouldn't tell who was in with me. Tha's one reason they soaked me with solong a sentence. They was after Jake. They kep' at me to turn state'sevidence an' get a short term. But o' course I couldn't do that."

  "'Course not. An' now he turns on you like a coyote--after you stood byhim." A surge of indignation boiled up in her. "He's the very worst manever I knew--an' if he tries to do you any harm I'll--I'll settle withhim."

  Her father shook his unkempt head. "No, honey. I been learnin' for twelveyears that a man can't do wrong for to get out of a hole he's in. IfJake's mean enough to give me up, why, I reckon I'll have to stand thegaff."

  "No," denied June, a spark of flaming resolution in her shining eyes.