cairness rode at a walk round and round the crowding, snorting, restless herd of cattle that was gathered together in the pocket of the foot-hills under the night sky. there were five other cow-boys who also rode round and round, but they were each several hundred yards apart, and he was, to all intents, alone. now and then he quickened the gait of his bronco and headed off some long-horned steer or heifer, that forced itself out of the huddled, dark mass, making a break for freedom. but for the most part he rode heavily, lopsided in his saddle, resting both hands on the high pommel. he had had time to unlearn the neat horsemanship of the service, and to fall into the slouchy manner of the cow-boy, skilful but unscientific. it was a pitchy night, in spite of the stars, but in the distance, far off across the velvety roll of the hills, there was a forest fire on the top of a range of mountains. it glowed against the sky and lighted the pocket and the prairie below, making strange shadows among the cattle, or bringing into shining relief here and there a pair of mighty horns. a wind, dry and hot, blew down from the flames, and made the herd uneasy.
not far from where those flames were licking up into the heavens, cairness thought as he watched them, had[pg 162] been the circle k ranch. in among the herd, even now, were circle k cattle that had not yet been cut out. those six people of his own race had been all that was left to him of his youth. to be sure, he had seen little of them, but he had known that they were there, ready to receive him in the name of the home they had all left behind.
and since that gray dawn when he had picked his way through the ashes and charred logs, and had bent over the bodies of his friend and the dead mother and the two children, he had been possessed by a loathing that was almost physical repulsion for all indians. that was why he had left the stone cabin he had built for himself in the white mountains, forsaking it and the apaches who had been, in a way, his friends. but he had done it, too, with the feeling that now he had nowhere to lay his head; that he was driven from pillar to post, buffeted and chased; that he was cursed with the curse of the wanderer. if it had not been that he had an indefinite theory of his own concerning the kirby massacre, as it was known throughout the country, and that he meant to, some day, in some way, avenge it upon the whites who had abandoned them to their fate, he would have killed himself. he had been very near it once, and had sat on the edge of his bunk in the cabin with a revolver in his hand, thinking it all out for an entire evening, before deciding dispassionately against it. he was not desperate, merely utterly careless of life, which is much worse. desperation is at the most the keen agony of torture at the stake; but [pg 163]indifference toward all that is held by this world, or the next, is dying in a gradual vacuum.
he believed that he had no ties now, that friendships, the love of woman, and the kiss of children all had missed him, and that his, thenceforth, must be but vain regret. so far as he knew, felipa had gone away without ever having received his letter. the man he had intrusted it to had been killed in the aravaypa ca?on: that he was certain of; and it never entered his head that his papers might have fallen into other hands, and the note have finally been delivered to her. she was leading the sort of life that would most quickly put him entirely out of her mind. he was taking the washington papers, and he knew. she had gone away, not even sure that he had given her a thought since the night in the sierra blanca when black river had roared through the stillness, and they had been alone in all the wild world. what a weird, mysterious, unearthly scene it had been, quite outside the probabilities of anything he had imagined or contemplated for a single minute. he had never regretted it, though. he believed in impulses, particularly his own.
two steers, locking their horns, broke from the herd and swaying an instant so, separated and started side by side across the prairie. he settled in his saddle and put his cow-pony to a run, without any preliminary gait, going in a wide circle to head them back. running across the ground, thick with coyote and dog holes, was decidedly perilous; men had their necks[pg 164] broken in that way every few days; but it would not have mattered to him especially to have ended so. wherefore he did not, but drove the steers back to the herd safely. and then he returned to the monotonous sentry work and continued thinking of himself.
what had he done with four and thirty years, putting it at the very highest valuation? he had sunk so far below the standard of his youth that he would not be fit for his old companions, even if he had wanted to go back to them, which, except in certain fits of depression, he did not. his own mother cared very little what became of him. at christmas time she always sent him a letter, which reached him much later, as a rule, and he answered it. his brothers had forgotten him. his sister, of whom he had been very fond once, and for whom he had hoped a great deal, had married well enough and gone to london; but she, too, had forgotten him long since.
so much for his past. as for his present. his only friends were treacherous savages and some few settlers and cow-boys. they would none of them miss him if he were to be laid under a pile of stones with a board cross at his head anywhere by the roadside, in the plains or among the hills. some of them were honest men, some were desperadoes; none were his equals, not one understood the things that meant life to him. he had no abode, not so much as the coyote over there on the top of the little swell. he made his living in divers and uncertain ways. sometimes he sent pictures to the east, studies of the things about him.[pg 165] they sold well. sometimes he was a scout or a guide. sometimes he prospected and located claims with more or less good luck. sometimes he hired himself out as a cow-boy at round-ups, as he was doing now. on the whole, he was, from the financial standpoint, more of a success than from any other.
also he was in love with the wife of a man he liked and respected—and who trusted him. yet in spite of that, he had come near—so near that it made him cold to think about it—to following in the way of many frontiersmen and marrying a mexican. it had been when he had first learned that felipa landor had gone east for two years; and the mexican had been very young and very pretty, also very bad.
it was not a nice outlook. but he found it did not grow any better for the thought that felipa might have forgotten all about him, though that would unquestionably have been the best thing that could have happened for all concerned, from the standpoint of common sense. but there were two chances, of a sort, that made it worth while worrying along. one was that felipa might some day, in the working out of things, come into his life. the other was that he could ferret out the truth of the kirby massacre. love and revenge are mighty stimulants.
as for the kirby affair, there had been no hint of treachery in the published or verbal accounts of it. the ranch hands who had escaped had told a plain enough tale of having fled at the approach of the indians, vainly imploring the kirbys to do the same. it[pg 166] seemed that the most they could be accused of was cowardice. it had all been set forth in the papers with much circumstance and detail. but cairness doubted. he remembered their dogged ugliness, and that of the raw-boned texan woman.
that very day the doubt had attained the proportions of a certainty. the sight of a circle k cow had called up the subject of the massacre, and a cow-boy had said, "them are the property of bill lawton, i reckon."
cairness asked who bill lawton might be, and was told that he had been one of the kirby men, "big fellow with a big wife. if you was ever there, you'd ought to remember her. she was a venus and a cleopatrer rolled into one, you bet." the cow-boy was not devoid of lore for all his lowly station.
cairness did remember, but he did not see fit to say so.
a half dozen cow-boys came riding over from the camp of the outfit to relieve those on duty. cairness was worn out with close on eighteen hours in the saddle, tearing and darting over the hills and ravines, quick as the shadow from some buzzard high in the sky, scrambling over rocks, cutting, wheeling, chasing after fleet-footed, scrawny cattle. he went back to camp, and without so much as washing the caked dust and sweat from his face, rolled himself in a blanket and slept.
the round-up lasted several days longer, and then the men were paid off, and went their way. the way[pg 167] of most was toward tombstone, because the opportunities for a spree were particularly fine there. not because of these, but because the little parson lived there now, cairness went also. moreover, it was as good a place as another to learn more about the massacre. cow-boys coming from other round-ups and getting drunk might talk.
the famous mining town was two years old. it had ceased to be a "wind city" or even a canvas one, and was settling down to the dignity of adobe, or even boards, having come to stay. but it was far too new, too american, to have any of the picturesqueness of the mexican settlements of the country.
cairness tied his cow-pony to a post in front of a low calcimined adobe, and going across the patch of trodden earth knocked at the door. the little parson's own high voice called to him, and he went in.
the reverend taylor was tipped back in his chair with his feet upon the table, reading the tucson papers. he sprang up and put out his hand in a delighted welcome, his small face turning into a very chart of smiling seams and wrinkles.
but his left hand hung misshapen, and cairness saw that it did not bend at the wrist as he motioned to an empty soda-pop bottle and a glass on the table beside a saucer of fly-paper and water. "that's what i still take, you see," he said, "but i'll serve you better;" and he opened a drawer and brought out a big flask. "i reckon you've got a thirst on you this hot weather." he treated himself to a second bottle of the pop, and[pg 168] grew loquacious, as another man might have under the influence of stronger drink; and he talked so much about himself and so little about his guest that cairness wondered. presently the reason made itself manifest. it was the egotism of the lover. the reverend taylor was going to be married. he told cairness so with an expression of beatitude that answered to a blush, and pointed to a photograph on his mantel-shelf. "she ain't so pretty to look at," he confided, which was undoubtedly true, "nor yet so young. but i ain't neither, 'sfar as that goes. she's amiable. that's the great thing after all, for a wife. she's amiable."
cairness congratulated him with all solemnity, and asked if she were a widow. he was sure she must be, for the gallantry of the west in those days allowed no woman to pass maturity unwed.
but she was, it appeared, a maiden lady, straight from virginia. the reverend taylor was the first man she had ever loved. "it was right funny how it come about," he confided, self absorbed still. "her mother keeps the res'rant acrost the street where i take my meals (i used to have a greaser woman, but i got sick of frijoles and gorditas and chili and all that stuff), and after dinner every afternoon, she and me would put two saucers of fly-paper on a table and we would set and bet on which would catch the most flies before four o'clock. you ain't no idea how interestin' it got to be. the way we watched them flies was certainly intense. sometimes, i tell you, she'd get that excited she'd scream when they couldn't make up their minds to[pg 169] light. once her mother come runnin' in, thinkin' i was tryin' to kiss her." he beamed upon cairness, and accepted congratulations charmingly, sipping his soda-pop with quite a rakish little air. "what brought you here?" he remembered to ask, at length.
cairness told him that he had been in the 3 c round-up, and then went on to his point. "taylor, see here. i want to find out more about the kirby massacre. there is more to that than has appeared in print."
the minister nodded his head. "yes, i reckon there is," he agreed.
"you remember that woman," cairness went on, making and rolling adroitly a straw-paper cigarette, "the one who was cook on the ranch for so long? she could tell us what it is, and i'll bet on it."
the reverend taylor nodded again. "reckon she could. but—" he grabbed at a fly with one hand, and caught and crushed it in his palm with much dexterity, "but—she's lit out."
"so?" said cairness, with the appearance of stolidity he invariably assumed to cover disappointment or any sort of approach to emotion. "where's she gone to?"
taylor shrugged his shoulders. "quien sabe? can't prove it by me. just vamoosed. fell in love with a little terrier of a greaser half her size, and cleaned out. lawton was in here a day or two ago, lookin' for her and raisin' particular cain with whiskey and six-shooters—bawlin' about her all over the place."
[pg 170]
"is he here now?"
he had gone back.
cairness made another cigarette and considered. "i think i'll hire to him," he said, after a while.
"hire to him!" exclaimed taylor, "what for?"
"for the fun of it, and 'found.' can you give me a recommendation?"
the parson said that he could not. "lawton ain't any use for me. i guess it's because he remembers me, that's why. he'll remember you, too."
"no," said cairness, "he won't. i've met him since. that was a long time ago, and i was smooth shaven."
taylor smiled. cairness's small, brown mustache, curving up at the ends, was hardly a disguise. "there's a fellow here who could get you the job, though," he suggested. "fellow named stone. newspaper man, used to be in tucson. he seems to have some sort of pull with that lawton fellow."
"i know him," cairness said; "he used to be round san carlos when i was an enlisted man. he won't remember me, either. and you needn't necessarily mention that i was with landor in the san tomaso affair, or that i was a scout. he may know it, of course. and again, he may not."
he got up and went to the window, which was iron-barred, after the mexican fashion, and stood, with his hands run into his belt, looking down at a row of struggling, scraggly geraniums in tin cans. they were the most disheartening part of the whole disheartening prospect, within or without.
[pg 171]
the reverend taylor got his hat. it was still a silk one, but new, and without holes. they went over to the false front board structure which was stone's office. it appeared from the newspaper man's greeting that it was a case of the meeting of prominent citizens. taylor presented cairness, with the elegant, rhetorical flourishes he was capable of when he chose. "he is a friend of mine," he added, "and anything that you can do for him will be appreciated, you sabe?—" stone did understand, and taylor left them alone together.
they opened upon non-committal topics: the weather, which had been scorching and parched since april, and would continue so, in all probability, until september; the consequent condition of the crops, which was a figure of speech, for there were none, and never had been, deserving of the name; and then cairness, having plenty of time, brought it round to the troops. in the tirade that followed he recognized a good many of the sentiments, verbatim, of the articles in the tucson papers of the time of landor's scout. but he half shut his eyes and listened, pulling at the small, brown mustache. stone set him down, straightway, as an ass, or english, which was much the same thing.
cairness was still in his dust-grayed outfit, his hair was below where his collar would have been had he been wearing one, and his nose was on its way to at least the twentieth new skin that summer. in all his years of the frontier, he had never become too well tanned to burn. his appearance was not altogether reassuring, stone thought. he was not only an ass, he[pg 172] was also tough—the sort of a fellow with whom it was as well to remember that your six-shooter is beneath the last copy of your paper, on the desk at your elbow.
"i have never especially liked you," cairness decided, for his part, "and i can't say that you improve upon acquaintance, you know. you wrote those articles about landor, and that's one i owe you."
stone wore his oratory out after a time, and cairness closed his eyes rather more, to the end that he might look a yet greater ass, and said that he wanted to hire out as a cow-boy or ranch hand of some sort. "taylor told me you knew a fellow named lawton, i think it was. would he be wanting one now?" he took considerable satisfaction in his own histrionic ability, and lapsed into the phraseology of the job-hunter.
stone thought not. he had not heard lawton speak of needing help. but he wrote a very guarded note of recommendation, falling back into the editorial habit, and dashing it off under pressure. cairness, whose own writing was tiny and clear and black, and who covered whole sheets without apparent labor, but with lightning rapidity, watched and reflected that he spent an amount of time on the flourish of his signature that might have been employed to advantage in the attainment of legibility.
"i'm a busy man," said stone, "a very busy man, the busiest man in the territory."
no one in the territory was busy. the atmosphere was still too much that of the mexican possession; but cairness said it was undoubtedly so, and took his leave,[pg 173] clanking his spurs, heavy footed, and stooping his long form, in continuance of the r?le of ass. he knew well enough that he had been so summed up. it is a disadvantage the british citizen labors under in the west.
the next day he left for the circle k ranch. lawton did not appear to need help. but he fired a greaser, nevertheless, and took cairness on. he seemed to stand in as abject awe of stone's note as an arab might have stood of a bit of the black covering of the kaabah stone.
and cairness stayed with him, serving seven months, and seeking what he might discover. but he discovered nothing more than that the circle k ranch, for all that it might be the texan's in name, was stone's in point of fact, and that lawton's dread of that mighty man was very much greater than his hope of heaven.
the knowledge was slight and of no plain value; but it might be of use some day. life had taught cairness, amongst other things, that it usually proved so. he stored it away with the other gleanings of experience in his mental barns, and went in search of new adventures.
