The old man of the tribe was standing in front of a stone house built like a fort. Tall as his sons who stood beside him, he was straight as a lodge-pole pine.
To right and left, built back near the rock walls, were stables and other buildings. The hard-packed earth was swept clean, the horses were curried, and all the buildings were in good shape. Whatever else the Benaras family might be, they were workers.
The old man looked me over without expression. Then he took the pipe from his lean jaws. “Get down an’ set.”
Inside, the house was as neat as on the outside. The floors were freshly scrubbed, as was the table. Nor was there anything makeshift about it. The house and furniture had been put together by skillful hands, each article shaped with care and affection.
A stout, motherly-looking woman put out cups and poured coffee. A girl in a neat cotton dress brought home-baked bread and home-made butter to the table. Then she put out a pot of honey.
“Our own bees.” Old Bob Benaras stared from under shaggy brows. He looked like a patriarch right out of the Bible.
He watched me as I talked, smoking quietly. I ate a slice of bread, and did not spare the butter and honey. He watched with approval, and the girl brought a tall glass filled with creamy milk.
“We’ve some fat stock,” I told him, “but we can’t make a drive. What I would like is to trade the grown cattle to you, even up, for some of your young stuff.”
I drank half the milk and put the glass down. It had been cold, fresh-taken from a cave, no doubt.
“You can make your drive,” I went on, “and you can sell, so you will lose nothing. It would be right neighborly.”
He looked sharp at me when I used the word, and I knew at once it had been the right one. This fierce old man, independent and proud, respected family and neighbors.
“We’ll swap.” He knocked out his pipe. “My boys will help you round up and drive.”
“No need—no reason you should get involved in this fight.”
He turned those fierce blue eyes at me. “I’m buyin’ cows,” he said grimly. “Anybody who wants trouble over that can have it!”
“Now, Pa!” Mother Benaras smiled at me. “Pa figures he’s still a-feudin’.”
Benaras shook his head, buttering a slice of bread. “We’re beholden to no man, nor will we backwater for any man. Nick, you roust out and get Zeb. Then saddle up and ride with this man. You ride to his orders. Start no trouble, but back up for nobody. Understand?”
Nick turned and left the room, and Benaras turned to his wife.
“Ma, set up the table. We’ve a guest in the house.” He looked at me, searchingly. “You had trouble with Finder yet?”
So I told him how it began, of the talk in the stable, and of my meeting with Blackie later. I told that in few words, saying only, “Blackie braced me … waited for me with a drawn gun.”
That was all I told them. The boys exchanged looks, and the old man began to tamp tobacco in bis pipe.
“Had it comin’, that one. Jolly had trouble with him, figured to kill him soon or late.”
They needed no further explanation than that. A man waited for you with a gun in hand … it followed as the night the day that if you were alive the other man was not. It also followed that you must have got into action mighty fast.
It was a pleasant meal—great heaps of mashed potatoes, slabs of beef and venison, and several vegetables. All the boys were there, tall, lean, and alike except for years. And all were carbon copies of their hard-bitten old father.
Reluctantly, when the meal was over, I got up to leave. Old Bob Benaras walked with me to my horse. He put a hand on the animal and nodded.
“Know a man by his horse,” he said, “or his gun. Like to see ’em well chosen, well kept. You come over, son, you come over just any time. We don’t neighbor much, ain’t our sort of folks hereabouts. But you come along when you like.”
It was well after dark when we moved out, taking our time, and knowing each one of us, that we might run into trouble before we reached home. It was scarcely within the realm of possibility that my leave-taking had gone unobserved. Anxious as I was, I kept telling myself the old man had been on that ranch long before I appeared, that he could take care of himself.
Remembering the sign on the gate, I felt better. No man would willingly face that Spencer.
The moon came out, and the stars. The heat of the day vanished, as it always must in the desert where there is no growth to hold it, only the bare rocks and sand. The air was thin on the high mesa and we speeded up, anxious to be home.
Once, far off, we thought we heard a sound … Listening, we heard nothing.
At the gate I swung to open it, ready for a challenge.
Suddenly, Nick Benaras whispered, “Hold it!”
We froze, listening. We heard the sound of moving horses, and on the rim of the Wash, not fifty yards off, two riders appeared. We waited, rifles in our hands, but after a brief pause, apparently to listen, the two rode off toward town.
We rode through the gate and closed it. There was no challenge.
Zeb drew up sharply. “Nick!”
We stopped, waiting, listening.
“What is it, Zeb?”
“Smoke … I smell smoke.”
FIVE
Fear went through me like a hot blade. Slapping the spurs to my tired buckskin, I put the horse up the trail at a dead run, Nick and Zeb right behind me.
Then I saw the flicker of flames and, racing up, drew rein sharply.
The house was a charred ruin, with only a few flames still flickering. The barn was gone, the corrals had been pulled down.
“Ball!” I yelled it, panic rising in me. “Ball!”
And above the feeble sound of flames I heard a faint cry.
He was hidden in a niche of rock near the spring, and the miracle was that he had lived long enough to tell his story. Fairly riddled with bullets, his clothes were charred and his legs had been badly burned. It took only a glance to know the old man was dying … there was no chance, none at all.
Behind me I heard Nick’s sharp-drawn breath, and Zeb swore with bitter feeling.
Ball’s fierce old eyes pleaded with me. “Don’t … don’t let ’em git the place! Don’t… never!”
His eyes went beyond me to Nick and Zeb. “You witness. His now. I leave all I have to Matt … to Brennan. Never to sell! Never to give up!”
“Who was it?”
Down on my knees beside the old man, I came to realize the affection I’d had for him. Only a few days had we been together, but they had been good days, and there had been rare understanding between us. And he was going, shot down and left for dead in a burning house. For the first time I wanted to kill.
I wanted it so that my hands shook and my voice trembled. I wanted it so that the tears in my eyes were there as much from anger as from sorrow.
“Finder!” His voice was only a hoarse whisper. “Rollie Finder, he … was dressed like … you. I let him in, then … Strange thing … thought I saw Park.”
“Morgan Park?” I was incredulous.
His lips stirred, trying to shape words, but the words would not take form. He looked up at me, and he tried to smile … He died that way, lying there on the ground with the firelight flickering on his face, and a cold wind coming along from the hills.
“Did you hear him say that Park was among them?”
“Ain’t reasonable. He’s thick with the Maclarens.”
The light had been bad, Ball undoubtedly had been mistaken. Yet I made a mental reservation to check on Morgan Park’s whereabouts.
The fire burned low and the night moved in with more clouds, shutting out the stars and gathering rich and black in the canyons. Occasional sparks flew up, and there was the smell of smoke and charred wood.
A ranch had been given me, but I had lost a friend. The road before me now stretched long and lonely, a road I must walk with my gun in my hand.
Standing there in the darkness, I made a vow that if there was no law here to punish the Finders, and I knew no move would be made against them, I’d take the law in my own hand. Rollie would die and Jim would die, and every man who rode with them would live to rue that day.