Blue Kingdom (23 page)

The cowpunchers around the performer began to laugh and cheer. They picked up the tune. They shouted and whistled it in unison. They beat their
hands together to give a stronger pulse to the rhythm. They swirled here and there. . . . Like moths around a flame, Beatrice could not help thinking, a flame that might singe and shrivel them to the heart, if it ever so much as touched them.

Then something moved nearby. It was Tankerton, who had remained rooted to the spot for a moment, watching the juggling and its effect upon his band. Now he went forward with a set jaw, and she knew what it meant. He was going to try conclusions with his new gang man upon the spot.

She called to him softly: “James!”

He wavered, then stopped, and came back to her. “What is it, Beatrice?” he asked, his eyes absently wandering beyond her.

“I know what you've got in mind,” she said.

“Well?”

“You're going to start for Dunmore now. You're going to fight him, James.”

He drew his glance down from the distance and centered it upon her. She saw that he was pale, although his eyes were as chilled steel.

“I can't have any man bullying you,” he said. “You've practically asked me to get rid of him.”

“With a gun?”

“Well, how else?”

She went closer to him. “I'd like to know what happened in Harper's hotel? What happened when you met him there.”

“I got in the first shot, if that's what you mean,” he said.

“And then what happened?”

“No matter, Beatrice. We became fast friends. At any rate, we shook hands. Nobody had received a scratch.”

“You missed? At close range like that?”

“It's a thing that I can't tell you about. I've said that before. You'll have to believe me, and, besides, that has nothing to do with this.”

“Oh, but it has,” she insisted. “If it weren't for that, I'd be glad to see you go at him.”

“Do you think he's my master?” he asked her.

“I think that he's not a man at all but a fiend,” she said, answering him indirectly. Then she added: “Look me straight in the eye, Jim. You know that you'd rather meet any three others at once than that single man. Come back with me. We'll take a walk. Don't jump over a cliff . . . don't run against a strong wall. There's no use in that.”

He hesitated, but then he turned obediently back with her. His head had fallen a little and he walked with short steps, like one who carries a burden.

A deep and mellow baying of dogs swelled out from the woods, immediately after, and Dunmore checked his whistle and his dance. The apples flowing down into his hands dropped gently into the pockets of his coat, except one, which he kept to munch, while he laughed and panted in acknowledgment of the congratulations of the men. They watched him with shining eyes. Such a fellow was a treasure, a guarantee that winter nights would not be dull, that long marches would have their lively moments, that the camp would not have to depend upon twice-told tales and poker to get through the idle hours.

“What's the hollering in the woods?” he asked of one.

“It's Furneaux. He's got the dogs,” said the other.

“What dogs?”

“Why, didn't the chief tell you? Ban Petersen's spent about a couple o' thousand bucks to get together a pack of bloodhounds. Listen to 'em comin'.”

Out of the trees they broke—three big, full-bodied bloodhounds, with trailing ears and noses that brushed close to the ground. Coming into the presence of the
men in the clearing, they halted as of one accord, and, while Furneaux unwound the leashes that were fastened to his saddlebow, the dogs stood close together and, with raised heads, began to howl. Their loose lips almost covered their mouths, and perhaps that was the reason that the sound seemed to be floating mellowly from a distance, from one direction and then from another, but not at all associated with the drawn-up bellies of the dogs. It was a doleful and yet a musical sound that made one of the men cry out suddenly: “For Pete's sake, stop them hounds!”

“Joe don't like 'em,” interpreted another. “You had 'em after you down Louisiana way, didn't you?”

“I had,” said Joe with a shudder. “Three days and nights I was out there in a swamp, and the yelling of the dogs was never out of my ears. Three dreary days, and three dreary nights. I'd ruther've died than go through it, if I'd known how long it'd take.”

Furneaux gave the leashes into the hands of Legges, and went off to put up his horse. “Watch that big fellow with the brindled mustache,” he told the doctor. “He wants to take off the leg of the young dog on the left, there.”

“Well, well, my pets,” said Legges. “Here you are at last, just where the sheriff wanted you to be. What a pity that Ban Petersen can't see them here, eh?”

The gangsters laughed. They surrounded the dogs and patted their heads. “They got enough jaw and jaw muscles,” said one of them. “They could choke you quick enough.”

“That's what good ol' Ban wanted 'em to do, all right. How did we get 'em, Doctor?”

“Why, when Petersen had collected these dogs, he came in on a trail that he knew . . . Dunmore's trail, I mean”—here he paused and waved a hand courteously at Dunmore—“and he started working through the hills with a big party. Forty men, some say. The men got along pretty well, but the dogs didn't seem to have any luck. They'd find bits of raw meat lying in their way in the grass, and they'd gobble up the meat and be taken sick almost immediately. There were eleven dogs in that high-priced pack . . . but before one day was over, there were only three.”

“Who handled the game?” asked one man curiously.

“Oh, some of Tankerton's good friends. I sent them down a little recipe last year for just such a case as this, and our friends remembered how to use it. When we heard how affairs were going, it occurred to Jim that we might some time need those dogs ourselves, so we sent down a message on the heliograph, and, as a result, some of the boys down there slipped in and pinched the last three of the dogs. They brought them up, and it's said that poor Ban is a little discouraged and thinks he may as well give up this latest expedition of his. Can you blame the poor man?”

The others whooped with laughter.

“That's organization,” remarked one scar-faced 'puncher. “That's what I call efficiency.”

“It is,” admitted the doctor modestly. “We try to take care of you boys. We try to block the punches that are started for you before they get close to your heads. I'm glad to see that you can appreciate it when you have the proofs under your eyes, now and then.”

A hand twitched at the sleeve of Dunmore, and he
looked down into the eyes of Jimmy Larren. Those eyes were dancing with excitement.

“Chief,” said the boy, “she wants to see you. She's mighty worked up, and she wants to see you.”

“Hello,” said Dunmore. “Who's this that wants to see me? You kind of surprise me, Jimmy.”

“Sure,” said the boy. “I reckoned that you wouldn't be able to guess her name.”

“Is she young or old?” asked Dunmore.

“Tolerable young,” said the boy, “but she knows the north side of a tree.”

“Whatcha mean by that, Jimmy?”

“I mean that she can find her way in the dark.”

“Like a cat, Jimmy?”

“Well, I'd say that she's got claws, anyway.”

“I'm wearing high boots,” said Dunmore.

“But you ain't got on glasses.”

“Well,” he said, “I'll try to take care of my eyes, too. Where am I to find her?”

“Back yonder near the spring.”

“Is the woods empty around her, Jimmy?”

“Why, tolerable empty, I'd say.”

“No Tankertons floatin' around?”

Jimmy grinned, and his eyes snapped. “I seen Tankerton go into his cabin, lookin' sort of serious and chewing one corner of his mouth like it was the butt of a cigar.”

Dunmore nodded. “I don't know why he should be so thoughtful, Jimmy,” he said. “Maybe the same thing that's making her think, too?”

“Maybe the same thing,” agreed the boy.

“Shall I go back and see her?”

“I dunno,” said Jimmy. “If you can stand it, maybe you'd better go.”

“Stand what?” said Dunmore. “I can usually stand anything that a girl has to say, Jimmy.”

“Aw, sure. Who couldn't?” asked Jimmy Larren. “What I mean to say is . . . can you stand it when they turn loose and cry?”

“Cry?” said Dunmore.

“Yep,” answered Jimmy. “Her eyes is lookin' sort of starry. What I mean is, she's got a tremblin' lip, too. And she's got a handkerchief in her hand. And she takes a pass at her lips with it, now and then, like she'd just swallered something that was burning all the way down.”

“Well,” said Dunmore, “maybe she has.”

“Yep,” said the boy, “she's on fire, all right, and she's ready to go
zip
, like a skyrocket. She'll bust up, and then she'll begin to cry. It's gonna be a pretty wet conversation, chief.”

“I'm wearin' a thick coat, if she wants to cry on my shoulder.”

“Humph,”
said Jimmy Larren. “I guess you know your own business, but I wouldn't be takin' chances as close as that.”

“What do you mean by close chances, Jimmy?”

“Why, it's like this. It ain't so hard to thumb your nose at the other kid when you got a fence between you an' him. But it makes a lot of difference when they ain't no fence at all between. Makes you feel kind of weak in the stummick.”

“I understand,” said Dunmore, “but I ain't going to thumb my nose at her.”

“What I mean to say is,” Jimmy said, “that I've mostly noticed a gent can be pretty strong and straight-standin' and sashay along and pay no attention to the women, but when they come close enough for him to get a whiff of the perfumes that they dab onto their hair, the man, he ain't got a chance. It's like he's been hit on the button. He gets on a fool look and leans his elbow on the air and starts staggerin', and sometimes, I guess, he don't never fetch up ag'in' nothin' solid to steady himself, until he finds himself all married and guaranteed to give her oats and stable room for as long as she wants to wear a feedbag. It seems sort of like that to me.”

Dunmore smiled appreciatively at the youngster. “D'you think that I'm going to get giddy around her, Jimmy?” he asked.

“Aw, you can handle yourself fine, chief,” said the boy. “But I've noticed you look pretty dizzy a couple of times when she went sailin' by, handin' out a smile to the clouds in the sky and turnin' up her nose at all the dogs and the men that she seen litterin' the ground around her feet.”

“Tell me, Jimmy. Don't you like her at all?” He strolled away with Larren, listening eagerly, anxiously, in spite of the careless smile that he maintained.

“She brought me up here,” said Jimmy. “I wouldn't never've knowed you, if it hadn't been for her.”

“That ain't a whole answer, Jimmy.”

“Sure, I know that it ain't. But I'd like to ask you, what good was Excuse Me, before she was broke and rode? What good was that there mare, chief?”

“Not much. She only busted necks. You mean that Beatrice is like Excuse Me?”

“Well,” said Jimmy Larren, “I dunno. All I gotta say is that you don't have to have a lantern to see her by. But all the same, she sort of scares me, like when the snow begins to slip, and you wanderin' along a thousand feet above nothin' at all.”

“Well,” said Dunmore, “you tell her that I'll come an' see her when I can, but I'm pretty busy, just now.”

Jimmy nodded with satisfaction. “Busy at what?” he asked.

“Why . . . eatin' apples, maybe,” said Dunmore.

At this, the boy burst into rippling laughter, and went off at a run, his shoulders still shaking. But Dunmore looked after him with a grave face.

He found her on the bank of the brook, just below the point where it bubbled up from the ground—where the music of its rising continually hung in the air. A pair of big pines dappled the place with shadow; great banks of ferns grew near to the water's edge. A little brown water-dog lay on a stone in midstream, and enjoyed a patch of yellow sunlight.

When the girl saw him, she threw up her head a little and waved to him joyfully.

Dunmore crossed the shallow water, stepping from stone to stone, wondering in what spot crafty Jimmy Larren was hidden to see and to hear everything.

She sat down on the top of a broad boulder and indicated that there was room beside her. Dunmore gravely took his place.

“I wanted to talk,” she said. “And I thought that there wasn't apt to be any better place for quiet than this.”

“Nope,” answered Dunmore. “It's a mighty quiet place, all right.”

“I've always liked to watch the water here,” she suggested, and she turned and smiled at him sympathetically.

A dizzy sweetness mounted to the brain of Dunmore, and the words of Jimmy Larren rang suddenly like a bell in his brain. He forced himself to look away at the water. “Aye,” he said at last, “this here water looks pretty peaceful. You wouldn't think that it ever got to ragin' and roarin' the way it does down yonder in the gorge. I mean, the one that we jumped this mornin'.” He did not look at her, but he could feel her start beside him.

“I'm afraid that you're going to hold that race against me,” she said finally. “Of course, you are. I was wrong ever to start it. I was wrong to risk so much on it. I don't mind the money . . . here it is.”

She held it out, and Dunmore looked at it with a sudden distaste.

“Why, miss,” he said, “the fact is that I ain't so much interested in the hard cash.”