Jonas held up his hands and looked at them. What had they done? Why had men tried to kill him? Why, even now, did they search for him? Had these hands killed? Oh had they been used for some good purpose? Were they the hands of a doctor, a lawyer, a laborer, a cowhand? Had they swung a hammer or an axe? That they were strong hands was obvious.
He leaned back and closed his eyes. He might never discover his identity. He might be shot by the first person he saw; and if he was forced into a fight, what would he do? What manner of man was he?
The blow on his skull had wiped clean the slate of memory, so why not pull out now? Why not go far, far away and begin anew?
Yet how did he know that some memory, now in his subconscious, might draw him right back to the scene of his trouble? How could he go far away when he did not know in which direction to go? His enemies might be anywhere. What he had to do now was find out who and what he was.
He got up, tugged on his boots, and stamped his feet into them. He belted on his gun and reached for his hat.
“Well,” Rimes said, “you’re no cowhand. A cowhand always puts his hat on first.”
Rimes threw off his blankets. “You go up on the lookout and see if you see anybody. I’ll put some breakfast together.”
It was bright and clear on the morning side of the mountain. He glanced across the valley, picked up a tiny cloud of dust, looked away and back again. It was still there, still coming.
Rimes came up to look. “It’ll take them an hour to get here,” he said, “the way they’ve got to come. Let’s hang on the feed bag.”
As they ate, Rimes explained. “Place we’re heading for is a ranch. Owned by a girl whose pa just died a while back. Her name is Fan Davidge. Her foreman is Arch Billings. They are good folks.”
“Running an outlaw hangout?”
“It’s a long story. It’s come to a place where they no longer can control it. Arch Billing is a fine man, but he’s no gun-hand.”
“Don’t they have a crew?”
“Only man left is an oldster. The outlaws do the ranch work, and do it almighty well.”
Together they gathered up, washed the frying pan and coffeepot, and stowed them away in the corner. By the time they reached the mountainside they could see a buckboard, only a mile or so off, and coming on now at a spanking trot
There were at least two people in the buckboard. Rimes studied it through his field glasses. “Fan Davidge is aboard. Leave her alone.”
“Is she somebody’s woman?”
“No… but she’s spoken for.”
“By whom?”
They had started down the slope and they went six paces before Rimes replied, “Ben Janish.”
“Is he the bull of the woods around here?”
“You bet your sweet life he is, and don’t you be forgetting it, not for a moment. He won’t be home right now, but Dave Cherry will be, and he’s nearly as bad. You cross them and you won’t last a minute.”
The man who called himself Jonas considered that. “I am somehow not worried,” he said after a moment. “I have searched myself and found no fear, but one thing I can tell you. I remember nothing, though, as I told you, I heard Ben Janish’s name mentioned.”
“So?”
“He was the man who shot me. He was hunting me.”
Rimes stared at him. “You mean Ben Janish shot at you and missed?”
“He didn’t miss. He just didn’t hit me dead center. Rimes, you’d better leave me here. I don’t know why Ben Janish wants me. I have no idea except that somebody must have paid him to kill me. Now I’d be a copper-riveted fool to ride right into his bailiwick, wouldn’t I?”
The buckboard clattered up over the rock-strewn desert and came to a halt opposite them. The dust drifted back and started to settle, and J. B. Rimes walked down, greeting Arch Billing. Jonas was not looking at Arch, but past him, at Fan Davidge.
“There’s little time,” Billing said. “Mount up, boys.”
“There’ll be just one of us, I – ” Rimes began.
“There will be two, Rimes. I am going along.”
Rimes glanced at him, and then at Fan. “Your funeral,” he said, and gestured toward the pile of blankets in the back of the buckboard. “Climb in, then. But you’d better be good with that gun.”
The buckboard started off, and they went at a fast trot. Obviously Billing did not wish to linger in the area. Their presence in such a lonely place would be difficult to explain, as far off a reasonable trail as they were.
After a few minutes, Runes asked, “Arch, is Ben in the valley?”
“No. He hasn’t been around for a couple of weeks. El Paso, I reckon.”
El Paso … Dean Cullane’s town.
The man who called himself Jonas, and who might be Dean Cullane, drew a blanket around his shoulders, for the wind was chill. He did not know who he was, nor where he was going, but now he knew why. He was going to the ranch because a girl lived there.
A girl named Fan … who had merely glanced at him.
He was a fool.
Chapter Three
His hand touched his face. He was unshaved, of course, but there was a strong jaw, high cheekbones. There was quite a lot of money in his pockets, from what source he had no idea, and there were the letters and the legal document which he had not had the privacy to examine.
The buckboard had started off across the valley, but when it reached a sandy wash it descended into it, and turned at right angles. The going was slower in the wash, but Jonas thought they could not be seen because of the high banks.
There was no talking. Each of the occupants of the buckboard seemed busy with his or her own thoughts, and it provided time for Jonas to assay his position.
He knew he was a hunted man, hunted either by the law or by some individual with power. The fact that Ben Janish, whom he assumed to be an outlaw and a gunman, had been hired to kill him made it seem doubtful that it was the law that was seeking him. That such a man as Ben Janish seemed to be had been hired to do it made him assume that he was known as a dangerous man.
He now had three days’ growth of beard on his face and letting it grow might be a good idea. It might help to conceal his features from people who knew him, at least until he knew them.
Several times they stopped to rest the horses, then went on. It was late afternoon when they drew up at a small seep and got down stiffly, stretching and brushing away some of the accumulated dust.
Arch Billing helped Fan Davidge down, and she went to a rock at the water’s edge and dipped up water in a small tin cup and drank.
Rimes began putting together a small fire, and then, taking the gear from the buckboard, he made coffee.
Jonas sat on a rock apart from the others. The air was cool, and shadows began to gather in the hollows along the face of the hills. He heard a quail call … a quail, or an Indian? There was no echo, no after-sound, and he knew it was no Indian.
How did he know that? Apparently it was only his name, his history, the actualities of his life that were missing. The, habits, the instincts, the ingrained reactions remained with him.
Fan Davidge glanced at him, faintly curious. Men usually wanted to talk to her, but this one held himself aloof. He had a sort of innate dignity, and he did not seem like the others.
He was lean, but broad-shouldered, and altogether puzzling, resembling perhaps a scholar more than a western man; when he moved it was with the grace of a cat.
She watched J. B. Nobody knew more of what was going on than Rimes did. He had offered no explanation except to say the man’s name was Jonas. Now he was crossing over to where Jonas was sitting.
Rimes spoke in a low tone, but the night was clear, and in the desert sound carries easily. She could just barely distinguish the words.
“If you want to light a shuck, I can get you a horse.”
“I’ll come along.”
“Look, if Janish is there – ”
“Then I’ll have some answers, won’t I?”
“Mister, I don’t know you, but I cotton to you. I don’t like to see you get your tail in a crack.”