Valley Thieves (7 page)

Almost any other people in the world would have become rich with such a domain to exploit, but the Carys could not accumulate wealth so long as "Old Man" Cary lived. And he seemed to defy death like a stone. Time could crack and wear and seam and color him, but it could not rub him out.

Old Man Cary possessed a queer cross between faith in God and hatred of man. He refused to take ordinary precautions. He refused to build the big barns and feeding yards where a great herd of cattle could be sheltered when bad winters came along—and, of course, bad winters came pretty frequently at that altitude. But when the thermometer dropped toward zero and often dipped below it, Old Man Cary shrugged his shoulders and left everything to the will of God. That was why the big Cary herd would increase for half a dozen seasons and then half of it would be wiped out. The bones lay heaped, here and there. I saw a whole white windrow of them under the edge of a bluff against which hundreds and hundreds of beeves had been driven by a fierce blizzard and where they had stood until they froze. That had been many years before, but the same disaster had happened over and over again. And Old Man Cary always said that it was the will of God, and he would look around through his family to find out a recent sin which the Lord might be punishing.

There were plenty of sins to be found. A few of his descendants, like Dean Cary, had left the home preserve and founded homes here and there, but the majority of them preferred to remain in the land of their inheritance. They were all slaves of the old man's word, and he had plenty of words. He said when cattle could be driven to market, and that was the moment when they had to be taken out, no matter what the state of the market might be. He said when and how much timber should be felled for the winter store of wood. He named the creeks that could be fished and the ones where the stock must be allowed to accumulate. Now and then he would step down into more intimate details and invade the privacy of the home of one of his sons or grandsons, and the terrible old fellow was sure to leave scars wherever he struck.

It was, on the whole, a wild and easy life for his offspring, of course. They had plenty of beef and fish; they could dig vegetables out of the vegetable patch; their horses were a splendid big race of animals; they were all allowed to spend a share of the cash income on clothes and foolishness; plenty of moonshine whisky was made on the place, and for houses they built on crooked wings and sprawling additions to the great log cabin of the old man. On the whole, it was a life for wild Indians. The only modern improvements that the old man permitted were the big steel locks on the doors.

I thought of these things when I came down from the headwaters of the creek, along which I expected to find Clonmel, and Silver, and Taxi. I was thinking so busily about them that I ran into a whang of trouble. I rode around a bend of the stream and heard a voice croak at me, and saw a young Cary pointing his rifle at my head.

I don't think he was more than fifteen. His brown spindle shanks were only half covered by ragged overalls with half a pair of suspenders to hold them up. His shirt was a sun-faded rag of blue and white. His head stuck up like a big fist on a lean, sinewy forearm. But he was a Cary, all right. I could tell it by the black of his shaggy hair and by the black of his bright eyes.

I could tell it by something fiercely unrelenting in his manner, which made him seem eager to treat me as he would have treated a wolf or a deer. Men told strange tales of things that had happened up here beyond the law. This lad had bare feet and a fine new repeating rifle. That was what you would expect in a Cary. They were men who didn't know how to miss with a gun, whatever else they might miss in life.

"Who are you, stranger?" he asked.

"My name is Bill Avon," said I.

"What are you doing up here?" he asked.

"Looking for some cattle to buy," said I.

"Ain't the time of year we sell cows," said he. "You know that."

"No, I don't know that," said I.

"Why would you wanta buy cows here?"

"Because I've heard that they can be bought cheap."

"Where do you live?"

"Away over there between Blue Water and Belling Lake. I've got a ranch."

"Yeah?" said the boy.

He kept the rifle on me. There was no let-up in the fierce brightness of his eyes, the cruelty in them. Something kept pulling at his mouth, and it was not kindness that kept it twitching. Young people like to kill for the sake of killing, and this lad was not only young but he was a Cary.

The story was that no one was an acceptable member of the clan until he had killed his man. It was certain that all the young men left Cary Valley and journeyed here and there through the West. About half of them or more never came back. Those who returned wore scars, as a rule.

I have even heard it said that every single male in Cary Valley had killed his man. This I don't vouch for, but it's a common superstition among a lot of people who ought to know what they're talking about. No wonder my flesh was creeping more than a little as I faced this young savage.

He kept turning the idea of me in his mind like a bird on a spit.

"You go on with your hunting, and I'll ride on and see your folks," said I.

He grinned at me.

"You think I'm a fool. You're a fool for thinking so," said he.

"What's your name?" I asked him.

"Chuck," said he.

"Chuck," said I, "you ought not to look at a stranger as though he were a freak of nature or a snake. What's wrong about a fellow riding into your valley?"

"Nobody's asked here; nobody's wanted here; nobody but a fool or a crook would try to break in," said Chuck.

"All right, then," said I patiently. "If that's the way you people feel about it, I'll have to turn around and get out."

"Yeah. Go on and git," said Chuck.

I turned the horse, glad to be headed away from that young panther.

"Wait a minute!" he sang out.

I pulled the reins and turned my head.

"Maybe I'll take you on to the house," said he.

"That suits me," said I.

"Maybe it won't suit you so well when the old man gets through with you," said Chuck. "Ride along ahead of me, and don't try no funny business, or I'm goin' to lambast you."

I rode ahead of him and I didn't try any funny business. But I could hardly keep from chuckling when I thought of the trouble that lad had ahead of him if he kept right down this side of the creek. Taxi and Silver and Clonmel were all down there, somewhere, waiting for me. It would probably be quite a point in this lad's life, if he had a close look at the great Jim Silver.

We went a good mile down the creek before he called out to me to stop.

"There's a right good ford here," he said, "and we'll cross over to the other side of the creek."

That spoiled my plans. It was on the south side of the creek that I expected to meet my three friends.

"What's the matter with riding along here?" I asked him.

"I dunno," he said, "except that you come in on this trail, and maybe it'll be a pile better if we hit across on the other side and take
my
trail."

I was amazed as well as disappointed. The boy had the suspicions of a wild beast, and in this case they were justified.

I crossed the ford and he came along after me. The water got up as high as the knees of my horse, and once I figured on turning suddenly back at Chuck. But a glimpse of the bright black eyes and the lean, stern young face, and the way the rifle was constantly at the ready changed my mind for me.

I crossed that ford, and a moment later we were heading off on a trail among the trees, and leaving the little ravine of that creek far behind us.

I knew then that I was not destined to see Silver and the rest before I saw the inside of the Cary house. Thank Heaven, that was all I
did
know of what was lying ahead of me.

WE left the trees and entered the big central plain of the Cary Valley until we hit a maze of old and new trails that had been worn by cattle and horses, and then we came in sight of the Cary house, spilling out right and left behind its screen of trees.

I could see cattle dotting the plain, here and there, little single points, or whole smudges of red. They were feeding on the finest grama-grass, the best fodder in the world for horse or cow, I believe. The cows we passed were sleek as butter and filled right up round between the short ribs and the hip bones.

We got up along another creek that came white with speed down the farther slope of the valley, close to the Cary house, and around a bend we came upon a lot of women washing clothes. They were standing in the water or crouching like Indians along the rocks, soaking, and rubbing, and beating the clothes, and using mighty little soap. That, in the days of good washing machines and scrubbing boards, and when even half-wits ought to know that clothes need boiling before they are really clean at all.

But I didn't wonder very much at the primitive methods of that laundry, because what staggered me was the look of the women themselves. I had seen a Cary woman here and there, but never a group of them, and what a set they were! They were all handsome, in a way, but built on heroic lines, with plenty of bone in body and face. Some of the young girls who were down there helping with the work were quite beautiful; time had not yet filled them out to the full Cary measure.

Every solitary one of those women had black hair and eyes. It was said that one of Old Man Cary's mandates was that he would have no blondes in his valley.

These big women all turned around and stared at us as wild creatures and brutal savages do, gaping, some of them, and never shifting their eyes, and laughing, and pointing me out. To be frank, they frightened me more than any group of men could have done. I mean, there was such cruelty in their eyes and such strength in their hands that they looked capable of anything.

The trail took us up to the home grove and through the trees to the front of the house. It was the sort of thing you would expect, just a bare flat of beaten ground with a hitching rack here and another one there, and a stone-paved run of water that went close to the front door, where the horses could be conveniently given drink. A dozen small youngsters were rolling around, playing. They got up and looked at us. They stared, and pointed me out silently.

"Hey! Hey, somebody!" yelled Chuck.

A woman came to the nearest door and screened her eyes against the slanting rays of the sun. She was a huge woman, swarthy, sun-darkened.

"What you want, Chuck?" she asked. "Who you gone and got there?"

"Shut your mouth and go and tell the old man I wanta see him," said Chuck.

"Yeah? All right," said she, taking no offense at this rough talk.

I could gather from the specimen that the men occupied a position of dignity in the valley, perhaps from the moment when they could daub a rope on a cow or go out and shoot venison. Anyway, the woman left the door, and I heard her begin to bawl out:

"Hey, there, Grandpa! Hey, Grandpa!"

Her voice passed into the distance, but I could still hear it shrilling, several rooms away.

The children came up and stood close about us, staring, silent. Their eyes were as old as the eyes of any of the grown people—just as bright and just as cruel. I had a feeling that if their parents were all killed, the children would be able to live in the woods and forage well enough with tooth and nail.

My apprehension grew all the time I waited out there. And when I thought of Silver and Taxi and Clonmel, it was small comfort. They would never miss me. They would simply think that I had lost my heart and preferred, at the last moment, to remember Silver's invitation to go home and leave the rest of the business to better hands than mine. Even if the three of them wanted to help me, what could they do? What could anyone do? Three? It would need thirty to break into this fort where man and woman and child were capable of hard battle.

And if Silver was a superman, still the Carys were close to being supermen, also.

Suddenly I saw that this den of wild beasts ought to be broken up and the inhabitants scattered. The law had never taken a single step past the flat, stone faces of that circle of cliffs which fenced in the round of the plateau. It was time for it to appear.

I tried to talk to the boy. I said: "Chuck, do you fellows aim to bring in every stranger who happens to ride into the valley?"

"What would strangers be doin' up here?" he asked me brutally. "Nobody but a Cary has got no rights in this valley, I guess."

"So you put a gun on them and bring them in?"

He looked me slap in the eye, while his mouth twisted into a grin.

"Some of 'em won't be brung," he said. "Some of 'em would have to be left, I reckon."

Left dead, was what he meant. I needed no interpreter to tell me that much.

The big woman appeared in the doorway again.

"Take him around to the old man's room," she said. "He'll see him. Who is he, Chuck?"

"Calls himself Bill Avon and says he wants to buy cows. I dunno who he is," said Chuck.

To me he added: "Get off that hoss."

I dismounted, with the hollow eye of the rifle watching me with special care in case I should try any quick moves.

"Now march ahead of me," said Chuck.

He sent me around the side of the house and marched behind, and the silent, black-eyed children ran out ahead of me, turning and staring up at me over their shoulders, as children will when they march ahead of a band. There was no dignity of noise to this moment, but there was plenty of danger, and they wanted to see how I would take it. I was suddenly glad—gladder than I had ever been before in my life—that I was middle-aged, not at all imposing, and with a good record of long and honest work behind me.

When we turned the farther corner of the house, I saw a big vegetable garden stretching away to the next trees. Another runlet of water ran through it, and there were little mud embankments to contain the flood when it was poured on one patch or another. New green tops were pricking the black of the earth, here and there. I saw the dirty yellow of ripe onions, ready to be dug up; tomato vines were growing up on frames, and off in the distance there was a woman bending over a broad-bladed hoe. The flash of it seemed to strike right into me.