Conagher (1969) (7 page)

Six months had gone by since Jaco b Teale had ridden away, and she foun d herself hard put to remember his features.

She remembered his square-shouldere d dignity, his quiet, somewhat stern manner; a nd whenever she thought of him sh e found herself feeling guilty that she di d not mourn him. But when she remembere d him now he was like a stranger.

The following day Charlie McClou d brought in the stage, and there were n o passengers, so he lingered, drinking coffe e with her.

Mrs. Teale
, he said abruptly , yo u ought to find yourself a man. You're to o fine a woman to go to waste out here lik e this .

Mr. Teale has only been gone si x months, Mr. McCloud. I think it is rathe r too soon to?

Nonsense
!
he interrupted .
Yo u know as well as I do that something'
s happened to him. Mrs. Teale, this here is a violent land, and I've helped bury two , three men whose names nobody knew . . .
i t happens all the time.

A man can get throwed by his hors e out there on the plains and he can die o f thirst before he can get anywhere. That'
s why they hang horse thieves, ma'am , because out here if you take a man's hors e you may have taken his life along with it.

It's a sight easier to die out here than t o live. It doesn't have to be Injuns o r outlaws. Now, you take your husband.

I've asked around, passed the word alon g the stage line for any information abou t him or his horse. Neither of them seems t o have been seen by anybody. I'd say tha t was pretty good evidence that they ra n into trouble somewhere together.

There was a flood on the Rio Grand e shortly after he left here, and heavy rain s over east of here, too. He may have tried t o swim a river or take a short cut acros s country somewhere. You'd better coun t yourself a widow, Mrs. Teale .

Perhaps you are right, Mr. McCloud.

I would not say it to anyone but a goo d friend, but I am lonely, and sometime s when we are alone here, I am frightened; b ut even if I was sure Mr. Teale was dead , I still would know of no one I'd b e interested in .

Well
, he said , you deserve yourself a good man, and I'd surely say I'd be th e last to advise you to latch onto the firs t saddle tramp who comes along. But yo u see, Mrs. Teale, the stage line . . . well , they want to put in their own station ou t west of here, four or five miles. I kno w you've been making a little off feeding us , but that time's about up, ma'am. I don'
t see how you're going to make it withou t the stages stopping here .

She had known it was corning, o f course. From the first, the stage compan y had planned to build their own place, an d she knew her small cabin was no t adequate.

This is all we have, Mr. McCloud, an d we must do the best we can. Mr. Teale ha d hoped to have a herd started by this time , but I've had no money to buy cattle .

Charlie McCloud put down his cup.

Mrs. Teale, I've got me an idea. There'
s a herd a-passin' through here, and whe n they come you should go talk to the trai l boss. Now, this here is a mixed herd, an d they've got some long, dry drives ahead , I'll bet you you could get some calves.

You'd have to wean 'em, most likely , but you've got that milk cow. No trail bos s likes to be bothered with calves, and wher e they don't have a wagon to carry 'em i n they just let 'em lay .

Suddenly his eyes began to twinkle.

Ma'am, I'll tell you what you do. Mak e up a big batch of them doughnuts. Th e average cow-poke would sell his soul for a doughnut. You make up a batch, have a couple of gallons of coffee handy, and yo u feed those cowboys and tell them if the y have any fresh-dropped calves you'd lik e to have them. They know those calve s aren't going to last out any desert crossing.

You're liable to pick up four or five, mayb e more .

She got up
.
Thanks, Mr. McCloud , for what you've told me. Thank you ver y much .

He rose, hesitating a moment .
Don'
t you be forgetting. You keep your eye ou t for a good man, and latch onto him.

There's a-plenty running around who ar e no good. You need you a good, stead y man .

Mr. McCloud, if I marry again it wil l be for love, and only for love. I don't car e what comes. A woman deserves som e happiness, Mr. McCloud, and I've ha d precious little, but I can't leave this place.

It is all we have .

She knew his advice was good, for sh e had already seen how hungry traveler s were for any kind of baking, and fo r doughnuts in particular. The cattle woul d be coming through soon and she was goin g to gamble all she had at hand on a chanc e of success.

With Ruthie helping, and Laba n gathering additional firewood, she went t o work to bake the doughnuts and prepar e for a cowboy invasion. As she worked sh e considered the future. If she could ge t several calves it would be a start, at least , and Bess would be dropping a calf befor e the winter was over.

Before the herd came in sight they coul d hear the cattle bawling, and the herd was a big one.

Two men riding point swung away fro m the herd as it prepared to bed down for th e night, and rode up to the cabin. Evie me t them at the door, with Ruthie and Laba n at her side.

The first was a lean, broad-shouldere d man with a walrus mustache, and th e second an older man, leaner still an d stooped in the shoulders.

Are you the lady who bakes the bea r sign ?

Bear sign
?
Evie was puzzled .
D
o you mean doughnuts ?

Yes'm, reckon I do. We heard tell yo u was the best all-fired doughnut maker thi s side of the Mississippi, and that you'd se t us up to doughnuts .

Come on in
, Evie said .
I've coffe e on .

The two men swung down and wen t inside, hats in hand. Both men wer e armed, both were dusty and tired-looking.

They seated themselves and she put out a tray of doughnuts and filled their cups.

After a few minutes of silent eating, th e first man looked up .
I am John Catlin , ma'am, and this gent here ridin' herd o n me is my uncle, Sam Catlin. We hear tel l how you'd like some calves .

I can't afford to buy them , Evi e confessed .
I'd heard that when you wer e driving a mixed herd calves could be a trouble. I thought perhaps you might hav e one or two that you want to be rid of .

That we do
, the younger Catlin said.

They'd never make it across the deser t anyway, and they'd be a trouble on th e drive. As a matter of fact, I've got six head , a week to three weeks old, and we've lost a couple back yonder that couldn't keep up.

Ma'am, we'd be pleased for you t o have them, but I'm afraid it will cost you.

We've got nine or ten hungry cowhand s just a-sawin' at the bit to get over here .

Send them, and you're welcome an y time, whether you have calves or not, a s long as the flour holds out .

An hour later she had five hungr y cowhands around the table, and the wa y the doughnuts vanished was something t o see, but they had brought with them si x calves, all white-face, and along with the m a cow.

She's a mite old , Catlin said , an d likely this here's her last calf. I doub t whether she'd make it over the desert, s o you're welcome .

Evie Teale stared at the cow. If it wa s more than five years old she was badl y mistaken, and it looked to be in excellen t shape, but she offered no comment beyon d her thanks. The following morning whe n the herd moved out, the chuck wago n stopped by the house to fill its barrels wit h fresh water.

It was not until they were gone tha t Ruthie came running into the cabin .
Ma!

Come look
!

On the doorstep was a hundred-poun d sack of flour, fifty pounds of sugar, a sac k of rice and one of beans, with a smal l package of dried fruit.

On top of them was a torn piece o f canvas on which somebody had written , With the thanks of the 2-C
.

The Two Bar C was gone, but the y would not be forgotten, and they had lef t behind them another legacy not lightly t o be dismissed. Where the herd had bedde d down there were cow chips enough fo r many a fire.

Evie Teale prepared for the next stage , and watched the sky. It was colder now , and the sky looked gray and lowering.

They must work hard to gather fuel for th e winter. It was surely on the way.

The wind was picking up, and th e tumbleweeds were starting to roll. Soo n they would be rolling off to the south i n unnumbered legions. She counted thos e she could see rolling.

. . . eight. . . nine . . . ten . . . eleven . . .
t welve ..
.

After that there was no use in counting , for they rolled away across the vast plai n like an army of skirmishersscattere d out, moving forward, pausing, and the n moving again.

I wonder where they go , Laban said , watching them.

I don't know, Laban. Maybe they jus t never stop. Maybe they just keep o n rolling forever .

They hang up against corrals sometimes , or fences .

There are not many fences out here , Ruthie said , but when we came West I saw a great bank of them against som e willows and cottonwoods . . . remember?

They were piled up as high as a house .

Again that night, when the childre n were asleep, Evie walked out in th e moonlight.

The plain was stark and lonely, the star s shone unbelievably bright wherever th e clouds broke for them to be seen. Th e wind whipped her skirt, and she saw on e of the silent riders of the wind roll by no t very far away.

Maybe ... off to the south somewher e . . . maybe there was somebody dow n there as lonely as she was, somebod y whose thoughts reached out into th e emptiness of the night, longing, yearning , alone.

CONN CONAGHER came dow n out of the Mogollons riding a linebac k dun. He had a healing sca r over his right ear and a drawn look abou t him that showed even under the thic k stubble of black beard. His blanket rol l was tied behind his saddle and two rifle s were tied across it. His own rifle was in it s scabbard.

The Horse Springs stage station looke d wind-blown and bleak when he rode in , huddled in his thin coat. He rode up to th e station warily, like a man expectin g trouble.

Two horses were tied at the hitchin g rail, both of them cow ponies wearin g Ladder Five brands.

Conn glanced at the brands an d muttered to his horse , Now, there's a rustler's brand if ever I saw one. A Ladde r Five will cover almost anything .

He tied his horse and went up the step s to the store's porch, then he opened th e door and stepped in. There was a fir e glowing in the stove, and three men sa t around it. The storekeeper was arrangin g stock on the shelves.

Conn went up to the stove and warme d his hands .
Cold out there , he cornmented.

Too cold
.

Makes a man wonder what he did wit h his summer's wages , Conn continued.

Don't know anybody around who i s looking for a hand, do you ?

Can't say I do .
The speaker was a square-built man in a buckskin jacket an d battered hat. He wore moccasins rathe r than boots.

The other two looked like hard cases.

Both were young, lean, and wiry, with a reckless cast to their features and a halftauntin g expression that Conagher ha d seen many times before. These men wer e trouble, and trouble was the last thing h e wanted right now.

He walked over to the counter .
Mister , he said , I am in a swapping mood. I want one of them sheepskin coats an d some gloves. Maybe a pair of Levis an d some .44 ca'tridges .

What have you got to swap? I usuall y do a cash-on-the-barrel-head business .

I've got a couple of Winchesters , Conagher said .
I'll get 'em .

He went out, untied the two rifles, an d brought them into the store .
They'l l stand cleaning , he said.

The storekeeper took them in his hands , turned them over, tried the action, an d looked down the barrel of each one.

Unusual thing
, he commented , a ma n wanting to swap off rifles, two of them .

They belonged to a pair of Indians , Conagher said .
They jumped me up i n the Mogollons. There were three of them.

We had quite a go-around there for a fe w minutes .

The man in buckskin commented , Three Apaches? You're lucky you've go t your hair .

Well, I seen a rabbit up ahead . . .
m aybe a hundred yards ahead. He wa s hoppin' along easy-like across the trai l when he suddenly took off back the way h e came, so I sort of figured there wa s something in the brush alongside the trai l that scared him.

If they were Indians they'd likely see n me, scouted ahead to lay for me, and likel y they were watching me now, so I pulled u p and got down and picked up my horse'
s hooflike it was giving me trouble.