the Drift Fence (1992) (37 page)

She kissed him, then, absorbed with the seriousness of it, rather than the sweetness of surrender.

"I reckon I'll let myself go, pronto, an' eat you up," she said.

Resting often, they packed the string of turkeys down through the forest, across the park, into camp. Somebody whooped, and there stood Bud and Curly, transfixed and staring. Neither came out of his trance until Jim and Molly halted under the cabin shed, breathing fast, and glad to lay down their burden.

"For the land's sake!" ejaculated Bud, which speech, considering his proclivity for profanity, merely attested to his mental aberration.

"Didn't I heah you boys talkin' aboot how Jim couldn't hit the side of a barn?" inquired Molly.

"Wal, I reckon you might of--sumthin' like," replied Curly. "He's a daid-centre shot."

"Ahuh. So it 'pears. But what you mean? At gurls' hearts or turkeys?"

"I reckon both," replied Molly, and she fled.

Much was made of the turkey-hunt at supper-time. It appeared apropos, inasmuch as the meal consisted of roast turkey, gravy, and mashed potatoes. Jim was really concerned over the gastronomic feats of the cowboys, especially of Bud and Curly. And the result of talk and supper was to inspire the two cowboys to get up before daylight to hunt for more wild turkeys. Molly and Jim left an hour after that, and returned with three fine birds before Curly and Bud got back. At length when they arrived, tired from much climbing on foot--which certainly was not their forte--empty-handed, with all kinds of excuses that implicated each other, they were allowed to talk some before being shown what Jim had bagged. Presently Jim directed their attention to the three fine gobblers hanging in bronze and purple splendour on the cabin wall.

"Dog-gone!" said Bud, sagging.

"Huh! Turkeys walked right in camp, so you could knock them over with a club?" queried Curly, snorting fire.

"Nope. I went out for half an hour."

"This heah mawnin'?"

"Yes, after you left. You'll observe they are all shot high up in the neck. I got them coming and going. Straight, you know."

Curly let out a feeble groan. Bud had submitted abjectly.

"Boys, I hope this will be a lesson to you," went on Jim, eloquently, impressive before all the listeners. "Don't go out with an old hunter, and when he kills birds claim you did it, and brag about your prowess!"

"Jim, was you on to us--aboot them two turks, the other mawnin'?" asked Curly, in misery.

"Yes, I've long known of your perfidy."

"Aw! Aw!" yelled Curly, in pain. "Bud, this much. Jim has dun fer us."

"Yes," ripped out his partner in shame, "but we can lay it to the root of all sorrow fer cowboys--a gurl!"

On the following day Slinger Dunn had improved so materially that Jim began to hope it would be safe to move him at the end of another week, perhaps sooner. That forced him to consider the coming situation. Mrs.

Dunn had been sent word by Boyd Flick that Molly was safe, and her brother mending favourably. Jim began to incline to a plan to take Molly also into town. The very good excuse of a wounded brother would suffice.

How about the Flagerstown feminine contingent when they scented this romance? Jim indulged in a gleeful laugh. Uncle Jim might be destined to have his heartfelt desire fulfilled long before he anticipated any hope of it. But Molly was so young--only sixteen!

Another more perturbing question, for the moment, was the continued failure of Hump and Uphill to appear. Probably they would show up soon with Jack and Cherry. Jim dismissed that, too, as something to be combated another and perhaps more favourable day.

Early in the afternoon he slipped off alone with one of the requisitioned rifles, but not to hunt. He wished to have a long, lonely walk in the forest. It turned out, however, that he did not go far, hardly out of range of Jeff's ringing axe on a dead aspen log.

He took a peep into the old log cabin where Hack Jocelyn had planned to hide Molly. It was full of debris, leaves, pine cones, woodmice, and insects. The place showed evidence of having once been lived in by human creatures. What had happened there? Perhaps once the very thing Jocelyn had wanted! Jim felt a haunting story in that lonely cabin.

Then he followed the draw, up under the spreading silver branches, to a spot where he simply had to stop. Frost had turned the aspens gold. The wondrous hue blazed against sky and forest. All the tranquil little glade appeared to have absorbed light from the aspen leaves, that quivered so delicately and silently, each separate one fluttering like a golden moth.

Jim sat down and gloated over these quaking aspens, and the towering pines and spruces. A hawk sailed across the blue opening above. A dreamy hum pervaded the forest. He did not wonder at a backwoodsman. Here was strange, full, strength-giving life. Molly Dunn seemed a composite of all that he saw and felt there.

Deep in his soul, now that he had time and place to face it, he thanked the God of chance, and the higher divinity to whom all events were subservient, for her love and her promise. The West had dealt harshly with him, yet made greater amends. He had served his apprenticeship under these fire-spirited cowboys; and he sensed more and yet more hardships, problems, pangs, of that elemental range life.

He had had his eye teeth cut. In the future he might hide his stern acceptance of labour and duty under a guise such as that of Curly Prentiss, if he could aspire to this prince of cowboys' mask. But recklessness and boyish desire for adventure for adventure's sake, carelessness and loss of temper, deliberate seeking of trouble--all these must not only be suppressed, but done away with. His responsibility had quadrupled.

Jim wrought over his many failings like a blacksmith hammering malleable iron. If he must build drift fences, he would do well to add something of Slinger Dunn to his conception of Curly Prentiss, in his intelligent acceptance of that which made a Westerner.

That was the clearest of his many hours of self-teaching.

Late afternoon found Jim descending the slope towards camp. He espied a curling column of blue smoke after he had smelled a camp fire.

Saddle-horses in camp, grazing with dragging bridles! He quickened his pace. Probably the cowboys had returned. He made sure of this when he saw Cherry's pinto horse hobbling up the park.

Approaching from behind the cabin, he could not see anyone until he turned the corner. But he had heard a merry voice and a deep laugh. There outside the cabin on a bench sat his uncle, holding Molly's hand. Jim was thunderstruck.

"Uncle!... Where'd you come from?" he exploded.

"Howdy, son! I rode in with Locke a while ago," replied Traft, his keen eyes sweeping Jim from head to toe. "I haven't been lonesome, as you see."

"I do see," replied Jim, and he could have shouted to the skies the good of what he saw. Molly did not look as if she wanted to run from Uncle Jim. A blush slowly rose under tearstained cheeks.

Traft exposed the back of Molly's little supple brown hand, on a finger of which the diamond sparkled, as if in gay and treacherous betrayal.

"Son, I see you've been goin' in debt for diamonds," drawled Traft.

"One. Has Molly--told you?" replied Jim, and it was his turn to blush.

"Wal, she only said you gave it to her."

Molly gently disengaged her hand. "If you'll excuse me I--I'll run beck to Arch," she said, shyly, and fled.

Traft looked up at Jim. "You pie-eatin', soft-spoken, hard-fisted Mizzourie son-of-a-gun!" he ejaculated.

"Yes?" returned Jim, hopefully.

"Doc Shields told me first of these doin's," went on the rancher.

"So Locke an' I hooked up the buckboard an' dragged a couple of saddle-horses along. We left the team at Keech's, where... But that'll wait. Curly told me the whole business. So did Bud. I had a little talk with Slinger. An' then I got hold of Molly... Jim, you've done it. Winnin' the Diamond was a real job, but nothin' to that girl. It took me a minute to fall in love with her myself, an' a whole hour to get the story out of her. Son, she's real Western stuff."

"I--I'm awful glad you like her--Uncle Jim," said Jim, and, weak in the knees, he sat down.

"So much for that. We can come back to it later... I've got tough news for you."

"Uncle, I can stand anything now," replied Jim, and indeed felt that he could.

"Hump Stevens is at Keech's, all shot up, but I reckon not so bad as Slinger," went on Traft. "I had him hauled to Flag. Up Frost got to town night before last, an' he's crippled. The darn fool reported to me before he went to a doctor."

"Oh! I'm more relieved than surprised. I was worried. Who shot them, uncle?"

"Up told me he an' Hump run plumb into some of the Hash Knife outfit, cuttin' your drift fence, an' there was a bit of a fight. Hump thinks he killed one of the gang. There was five of them, an' they rode off with one hangin' across a saddle. Then Up packed Hump across to Keech's an' come on in to town."

"Hash Knife outfit!" ejaculated Jim, thoughtfully. "The boys used to argue. Curly always said: 'Wait till the Cibeque falls down on the job.

Then see!...' Uncle, who and what is this Hash Knife outfit?"

"Humph! They're a heap, son. The Hash Knife used to be the king-pin cow outfit of Central Arizona. That was twenty years ago. Now, it's got the Cibeque beat to a frazzle for hard-nut hombres, exceptin' Slinger.

Old-timer named Jed Stone runnin' the Hash Knife. He used to ride for me, years ago. Killed one of the best foremen I ever had. An' I'd hate to say how many men he's shot since... Wal, Jed an' his bunch haven't any boss or ranch, or even a homestead. They ride from camp to camp, like Injuns, an' believe me they eat more beef than this Cibeque outfit stole."

"Their own beef or somebody else's?" asked Jim, gruffly.

"Haw! Haw! I'll tell that one on you, if I get hard up... Jim, listen to, the worst! The last nine miles of your drift fence is down. An' some of the aspen trees are fresh decorated with Jed's trade-mark, a plain old hash-knife cut in deep."

"Well, the nerve of him!"

"Jim, that outfit drinks six cups of coffee a meal, to keep their nerve quiet, Jed bragged to me once... Now you're up against a far worse crowd than the Cibeque. Old cowboys, gunmen rustlers!--Wal, you've still got up sixty miles or more of fence: An' that'll have to do for this year. Fact is, I'm more than satisfied. I'm darn proud of you, Jim."

"Thank you, Uncle. But soon as I see what's to be done about Slinger and--and Molly, we'll go right back to fence-building."

"No more till next spring, Jim. You don't savvy. That end of the Diamond is high, an' this storm spelled winter. The cattle had drifted off before this snow came."

"Snow!"

"Shore. Two feet at Tobe's Well now, an' deeper as you climb south. Tough luck, son, but don't ask too much. Mebbe Jed Stone will get his deserts this winter, though that's plumb too much to hope for."

"Aw! I put such store on finishing our drift fence before die snow flies," exclaimed Jim, poignantly.

"That was a dream, son. An' Locke an' I let you dream it... Listen! I've got an idee that may suit you, since Molly Dunn talked so hopefully about her brother. It seeems she thinks you had good influence on Slinger. Wal. follow it up. If you can get Slinger Dunn into the Diamond--why, you'll have it all over the Hash Knife.--Son, it's turnin' tricks like this that is genuine Western."

"I had that idea myself, Uncle! If I can only get him! Why. Molly would sing for joy."

"All right, then. Let's put our heads together. We've got to take Slinger to town, an' so we'll take Molly along. Then we'll send for her folks and keep them at the ranch. I wouldn't rush that kid into marryin', not before a year. She's backward, an' it'd be good for her to meet people, an'--"

"Great! Uncle, you're just the finest ever!" cried Jim. wildly fired with enthusiasm. "Molly could go to school, or at least have private lessons, and what could not that bright girl learn in six months?"

"You'll have some trouble talkin' Slinger into it, mebbe." went on Traft.

"I sat talkin' to him a little while. He's got one weakness shore, an' that's Molly. An' I'll gamble he has another--a ranch. Play these cards strong."

"Ranch?" queried Jim, eagerly.

"Shore. I happen to own the Yellow Jacket. It's a big, wild range, run down, with only a few thousand head of stock. I took it over on notes of Blodgett's not long ago. Some rustlin' down there. It's a fine winter range. Just the place for the Diamond this next six months. You talk up the Yellow Jacket to Dunn. Tell him you'll take him in with you as partner, or half shares, providin' he'll throw in with the Diamond.

That'll fetch him, unless you an' Molly have him figured wrong."

Jim got up, trembling, and put a strong hand on Traft's shoulder.

"Uncle Jim!... So this is one of the things that makes you a great Westerner? Oh, I've heard a lot!... I couldn't ask more in this world--than--"

But he choked over that utterance and rushed round the cabin to drop in upon Molly and Slinger. He was half sitting up and looked better, especially as one of the boys had shaved him, and his face had regained some of its clean tan. Jim swallowed hard and strove for calmness. He did not dare look at Molly, whose eyes he felt.