Crooked Trails and Straight Read online

  “Dad is doing something. I don’t know what it is. He had a meeting with a lot of cattlemen about it—— I don’t see how that boy can sit there on the fence laughing when any minute——”

  “Curly’s game as they make ’em. He’s a prince, too. I like that boy better every day.”

  “He doesn’t seem to me so——wild. But they say he’s awfully reckless.” She said it with a visible reluctance, as if she wanted him to deny the charge.

  “Sho! Curly needs explaining some. That’s all. Give a dog a bad name and hang him. That saying is as straight as the trail of a thirsty cow. The kid got off wrong foot first, and before he’d hardly took to shaving respectable folks were hunting the dictionary to find bad names to throw at him. He was a reprobate and no account. Citizens that differed on everything else was unanimous about that. Mothers kinder herded their young folks in a corral when he slung his smile their way.”

  “But why?” she persisted. “What had he done?”

  “Gambled his wages, and drank some, and, beat up Pete Schiff, and shot the lights out of the Legal Tender saloon. That’s about all at first.”

  “Wasn’t it enough?”

  “Most folks thought so. So when Curly bumped into them keep-off-the-grass signs parents put up for him he had to prove they were justified. That’s the way a kid acts. Half the bad men are only coltish cowpunchers gone wrong through rotten whiskey and luck breaking bad for them.”

  “Is Soapy that kind?” she asked, but not because she did not know the answer.

  “He’s the other kind, bad at the heart. But Curly was just a kid crazy with the heat when he made that fool play of rustling horses.”

  A lad made his way to them with a note. Kate read it and turned to Dick. Her eyes were shining happily.

  “I’ve got news from Dad. It’s all right. Soapy Stone has left town.”

  “Why?”

  “A dozen of the big cattlemen signed a note and sent it to Stone. They told him that if he touched Curly he would never leave town alive. He was given word to get out of town at once.”

  Maloney slapped his hand joyously on his thigh. “Fine! Might a-known Luck would find a way out. I tell you this thing has been worying me. Some of us wanted to take it off Curly’s hands, but he wouldn’t have it. He’s a man from the ground up, Curly is. But your father found a way to butt in all right. Soapy couldn’t stand out against the big ranchmen when they got together and meant business. He had to pull his freight.”

  “Let me tell him the good news, Dick,” she said, eagerly.

  “Sure. I’ll send him right up.”

  Bronzed almost to a coffee brown, with the lean lithe grace of youth garbed in the picturesque regalia of the vaquero, Flandrau was a taking enough picture to hold the roving eye of any girl. A good many centered upon him now, as he sauntered forward toward the Cullison box cool and easy and debonair. More than one pulse quickened at sight of him, for his gallantry, his peril and his boyishness combined to enwrap him in the atmosphere of romance. Few of the observers knew what a wary vigilance lay behind that careless manner.

  Kate gathered her skirts to make room for him beside her.

  “Have you heard? He has left town.”

  “Who?”

  “Soapy Stone. The cattlemen served notice on him to go. So he left.”

  A wave of relief swept over the young man. “That’s your father’s fine work.”

  “Isn’t it good?” Her eyes were shining with gladness.

  “I’m plumb satisfied,” he admitted. “I’m not hankering to shoot out my little difference with Soapy. He’s too handy with a six-gun.”

  “I’m so happy I don’t know what to do.”

  “I suppose now the hold-up will be put off. Did Sam and Blackwell go with him?”

  “No. He went alone.”

  “Have you seen Sam yet?”

  “No, but I’ve seen Laura London. She’s all the nice things you’ve said about her.”

  Curly grew enthusiastic, “Ain’t she the dandiest girl ever? She’s the right kind of a friend. And pretty—with that short crinkly hair the color of ripe nuts! You would not think one person could own so many dimples as she does when she laughs. It’s just like as if she had absorbed sunshine and was warming you up with her smile.”

  “I see she has made a friend of you.”

  “You bet she has.”

  Miss Cullison shot a swift slant glance at him. “If you’ll come back this afternoon you can meet her. I’m going to have all those dimples and all that sunshine here in the box with me.”

  “Maybe that will draw Sam to you.”

  “I’m hoping it will. But I’m afraid not. He avoids us. When they met he wouldn’t speak to Father.”

  “That’s the boy of it. Just the same he feels pretty bad about the quarrel. I reckon there’s nothing to do but keep an eye on him and be ready for Soapy’s move when he makes it.”

  “I’m so afraid something will happen to Sam.”

  “Now don’t you worry, Miss Kate. Sam is going to come out of this all right. We’ll find a way out for him yet.”

  Behind her smile the tears lay close. “You’re the best friend. How can we ever thank you for what you’re doing for Sam?”

  A steer had escaped from the corral and was galloping down the track in front of the grandstand with its tail up. The young man’s eyes followed the animal absently as he answered in a low voice.

  “Do you reckon I have forgot how a girl took a rope from my neck one night? Do you reckon I ever forget that?”

  “It was nothing. I just spoke to the boys.”

  “Or that I don’t remember how the man I had shot went bail for a rustler he did not know?”

  “Dick knew you. He told us about you.”

  “Could he tell you any good about me? Could he say anything except that I was a worthless no-’count——?”

  She put her hand on his arm and stopped him. “Don’t! I won’t have you say such things about yourself. You were just a boy in trouble.”

  “How many would have remembered that? But you did. You fought good for my life that night. I’ll pay my debt, part of it. The whole I never could pay.”

  His voice trembled in spite of the best he could do. Their eyes did not meet, but each felt the thrill of joy waves surging through their veins.

  The preliminaries in the rough riding contest took place that afternoon. Of the four who won the right to compete in the finals, two were Curly Flandrau and Dick Maloney. They went together to the Cullison box to get the applause due them.

  Kate Cullison had two guests with her. One was Laura London, the other he had never seen. She was a fair young woman with thick ropes of yellow hair coiled round her head. Deep-breasted and robust-loined, she had the rich coloring of the Scandinavian race and much of the slow grace peculiar to its women.

  The hostess pronounced their names. “Miss Anderson, this is Mr. Flandrau. Mr. Flandrau—Miss Anderson.”

  Curly glanced quickly at Kate Cullison, who nodded. This then was the sweetheart of poor Mac.

  Her eyes filled with tears as she took the young man’s hand. To his surprise Curly found his throat choking up. He could not say a word, but she understood the unspoken sympathy. They sat together in the back of the box.

  “I’d like to come and talk to you about—Mac. Can I come this evening, say?”

  “Please.”

  Kate gave them no more time for dwelling on the past.

  “You did ride so splendidly,” she told Curly.

  “No better than Dick did,” he protested.

  “I didn’t say any better than Dick. You both did fine.”

  “The judges will say you ride better. You’ve got first place cinched,” Maloney contributed.

  “Sho! Just because I cut up fancy didoes on a horse. Grandstand stunts are not riding. For straight stick-to-your-saddle work I know my boss, and his name is Dick Maloney.”

  “We’ll know to-morrow,” Laura London summed up.
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  As it turned out, Maloney was the better prophet. Curly won the first prize of five hundred dollars and the championship belt. Dick took second place.

  Saguache, already inclined to make a hero of the young rustler, went wild over his victory. He could have been chosen mayor that day if there had been an election. To do him justice, Curly kept his head remarkably well.

  “To be a human clothes pin ain’t so much,” he explained to Kate. “Just because a fellow can stick to the hurricane deck of a bronch without pulling leather whilst it’s making a milk shake out of him don’t prove that he has got any more brains or decency than the law allows. Say, ain’t this a peach of a mo’ning.”

  A party of young people were taking an early morning ride through the outskirts of the little city. Kate pulled her pony to a walk and glanced across at him. He had taken off his hat to catch the breeze, and the sun was picking out the golden lights in his curly brown hair. She found herself admiring the sure poise of the head, the flat straight back, the virile strength of him.

  It did not occur to her that she herself made a picture to delight the heart. The curves of her erect tiger-lithe young body were modeled by nature to perfection. Radiant with the sheer pleasure of life, happy as God’s sunshine, she was a creature vividly in tune with the glad morning.

  “Anyhow, I’m glad you won.”

  Their eyes met. A spark from his flashed deep into hers as a star falls through the heavens on a summer night. Each looked away. After one breathless full-pulsed moment she recovered herself.

  “Wouldn’t it be nice if——?”

  His gaze followed hers to two riders in front of them. One was Maloney, the other Myra Anderson. The sound of the girl’s laughter rippled back to them on the light breeze.

  Curly smiled. “Yes, that would be nice. The best I can say for her—and it’s a whole lot—is that I believe she’s good enough for Dick.”

  “And the best I can say for him is that he’s good enough for her,” the girl retorted promptly.

  “Then let’s hope——”

  “I can’t think of anything that would please me more.”

  He looked away into the burning sun on the edge of the horizon. “I can think of one thing that would please me more,” he murmured.

  She did not ask him what it was, nor did he volunteer an explanation. Perhaps it was from the rising sun her face had taken its swift glow of warm color.

  * * *

  PART II

  LUCK

  CHAPTER I

  AT THE ROUND UP CLUB

  A big game had been in progress all night at the Round Up Club. Now the garish light of day streamed through the windows, but the electric cluster still flung down its yellow glare upon the table. Behind the players were other smaller tables littered with cigars, discarded packs, and glasses full or empty. The men were in their shirt sleeves. Big broad-shouldered fellows they were, with the marks of the outdoors hard-riding West upon them. No longer young, they were still full of the vigor and energy of unflagging strength. From bronzed faces looked steady unwinking eyes with humorous creases around the corners, hard eyes that judged a man and his claims shrewdly and with good temper. Most of them had made good in the land, and their cattle fed upon a thousand hills.

  The least among them physically was Luck Cullison, yet he was their recognized leader. There was some innate quality in this man with the gray, steel-chilled eyes that marked him as first in whatever company he chose to frequent. A good friend and a good foe, men thought seriously before they opposed him. He had made himself a power in the Southwest because he was the type that goes the limit when aroused. Yet about him, too, there was the manner of a large amiability, of the easy tolerance characteristic of the West.

  While Alec Flandrau shuffled and dealt, the players relaxed. Cigars were relit, drinks ordered. Conversation reverted to the ordinary topics that interested Cattleland. The price of cows, the good rains, the time of the fall roundup, were touched upon.

  The door opened to let in a newcomer, a slim, graceful man much younger than the others present, and one whose costume and manner brought additional color into the picture. Flandrau, Senior, continued to shuffle without turning his head. Cullison also had his back to the door, but the man hung his broad-rimmed gray hat on the rack—beside an exactly similar one that belonged to the owner of the Circle C—and moved leisurely forward till he was within range of his vision.

  “Going to prove up soon on that Del Oro claim of yours, Luck?” asked Flandrau.

  He was now dealing, his eyes on the cards, so that he missed the embarrassment in the faces of those about him.

  “On Thursday, the first day the law allows,” Cullison answered quietly.

  Flandrau chuckled. “I reckon Cass Fendrick will be some sore.”

  “I expect.” Cullison’s gaze met coolly the black, wrathful eyes of the man who had just come in.

  “Sort of put a crimp in his notions when you took up the cañon draw,” Flandrau surmised.

  Something in the strained silence struck the dealer as unusual. He looked up, and showed a momentary confusion.

  “Didn’t know you were there, Cass. Looks like I put my foot in it sure that time. I ce’tainly thought you were an absentee,” he apologized.

  “Or you wouldn’t have been talking about me,” retorted Fendrick acidly. The words were flung at Flandrau, but plainly they were meant as a challenge for Cullison.

  A bearded man, the oldest in the party, cut in with good-natured reproof. “I shouldn’t wonder, Cass, but your name is liable to be mentioned just like that of any other man.”

  “Didn’t know you were in this, Yesler,” Fendrick drawled insolently.

  “Oh, well, I butted in,” the other laughed easily. He pushed a stack of chips toward the center of the table. “The pot’s open.”

  Fendrick, refused a quarrel, glared at the impassive face of Cullison, and passed to the rear room for a drink. His impudence needed fortifying, for he knew that since he had embarked in the sheep business he was not welcome at this club, that in fact certain members had suggested his name be dropped from the books. Before he returned to the poker table the drink he had ordered became three.

  The game was over and accounts were being straightened. Cullison was the heavy loser. All night he had been bucking hard luck. His bluffs had been called. The others had not come in against his strong hands. On a straight flush he had drawn down the ante and nothing more. To say the least, it was exasperating. But his face had showed no anger. He had played poker too many years, was too much a sport in the thorough-going frontier fashion, to wince when the luck broke badly for him.

  The settlement showed that the owner of the Circle C was twenty-five hundred dollars behind the game. He owed Mackenzie twelve hundred, Flandrau four hundred, and three hundred to Yesler.

  With Fendrick sitting in an easy chair just across the room, he found it a little difficult to say what otherwise would have been a matter of course.

  “My bank’s busted just now, boys. Have to ask you to let it stand for a few days. Say, till the end of the week.”

  Fendrick laughed behind the paper he was pretending to read. He knew quite well that Luck’s word was as good as his bond, but he chose to suggest a doubt.

  “Maybe you’ll explain the joke to us, Cass,” the owner of the Circle C said very quietly.

  “Oh, I was just laughing at the things I see, Luck,” returned the younger man with airy offense, his eyes on the printed sheet.

  “Meaning for instance?”

  “Just human nature. Any law against laughing?”

  Cullison turned his back on him. “See you on Thursday if that’s soon enough, boys.”

  “All the time you want, Luck. Let mine go till after the roundup if you’d rather,” Mackenzie suggested.

  “Thursday suits me.”

  Cullison rose and stretched. He had impressed his strong, dominant personality upon his clothes, from the high-heeled boots to the very wrinkle
s in the corduroy coat he was now putting on. He bad enemies, a good many of them, but his friends were legion.

  “Don’t hurry yourself.”

  “Oh, I’ll rustle the money, all right. Coming down to the hotel?” Luck was reaching for his hat, but turned toward his friends as he spoke.

  Without looking again at Fendrick, he led the way to the street.

  The young man left alone cursed softly to himself, and ordered another drink. He knew he was overdoing it, but the meeting with Cullison had annoyed him exceedingly. The men had never been friends, and of late years they had been leaders of hostile camps. Both of them could be overbearing, and there was scarcely a week but their interests overlapped. Luck was capable of great generosity, but he could be obstinate as the rock of Gibraltar when he chose. There had been differences about the ownership of calves, about straying cattle, about political matters. Finally had come open hostility. Cass leased from the forestry department the land upon which Cullison’s cattle had always run free of expense. Upon this he had put sheep, a thing in itself of great injury to the cattle interests. The stockmen had all been banded together in opposition to the forestry administration of the new régime, and Luck regarded Fendrick’s action as treachery to the common cause.

  He struck back hard. In Arizona the open range is valuable only so long as the water holes also are common property or a private supply available. The Circle C cattle and those of Fendrick came down from the range to the Del Oro to water at a point where the cañon walls opened to a spreading valley. This bit of meadow Luck homesteaded and fenced on the north side, thus cutting the cattle of his enemy from the river.

  Cass was furious. He promptly tore down the fence to let his cattle and sheep through. Cullison rebuilt it, put up a shack at a point which commanded the approach, and set a guard upon it day and night. Open warfare had ensued, and one of the sheepherders had been beaten because he persisted in crossing the dead line.

  Now Cullison was going to put the legal seal on the matter by making final proof on his homestead. Cass knew that if he did so it would practically put him out of business. He would be at the mercy of his foe, who could ruin him if he pleased. Luck would be in a position to dictate terms absolutely.