Chapter XIX

And days passed, as days have a way of doing. That fine old trio from Canyon City, Evans and Hasbrook and Kibbee, had returned home well content after seeing the sign nailed to the tree in front of the Stag Horn. It was painted in big black letters on a pine board; you could read it across the street:

NOTICE

1. Steve Bordereau is on the run, wanted for murder and robbery.

2. Clark Murdo has been kicked out of town.

3. Men like them are invited to clear out of Sundown.

4. The jail door is busted. So no arrests will be made.

The town marshal was no longer in town. He went back straightway to his new ranch; he hired a couple of extra men and was busy from daylight to dark making improvements, building for the future, digging in for the winter. He said:

“I like this country. I’ve moved around enough. I’m here as long as I live.”

He looked over the old Harper ranch, one panhandle end of which cut in between his own place and the King Cannon spread, and found it utterly to his liking, with its rolling hills, its valley land and meadows, its water in plenty supplied by Sundown Creek weaving a glinting, laughing way across it. He opened negotiations with the absent owner, now enjoying the sunset of his life under a shade tree down in Yuma. And at times Jim Torrance, riding over these half-wild, half-tamed acres, met a slim, sweet, eager girl also riding, and they rode together through sunlight and shadow of days which were crisp and clean with October merging into November, and which were days never to be forgotten, subtly touched with green magic.

The Sam Peppers had returned home. Bill Yarbo had gone back to his own ragged mountain ranch. At the King Cannon ranch Sally Dawn, with an Indian woman as housekeeper and chaperon, had launched herself upon a brave campaign of starting life over. She knew that the chances were all against her; she dreaded the day when the old home would be hers no longer, gone, through the trickery of Steve Bordereau, into his hands or those of some consignee of his--anyhow, irretrievably gone from hers. Still, since she loved the place so and was so young and vital, there were times when her hopes were as strong and gay as a flock of bluebirds. Because of their insistence, she kept on a purely theoretical pay roll Curly Redmond and Dick Pardee and Dave Drennen. They, like Jim Torrance and his men, were rebuilding.

Days shortened; flurries of rain came and were blown away, leaving the freshly washed sky a wonderful blue; storms gathered and rumbled over the mountains and painted the heights a dazzling white which was to last until May, a good five or six months or longer; then the storm clouds went where all things go, and there were again still, chill, gloriously bright days, and nights that were velvet-black but sprinkled with frosty brilliants.

The Stag Horn still ran full blast. A young man, bloodless looking and thin and with the stamp of towns on him, came in one day and took the place over. He had bought it, lock, stock and barrel, from Steve Bordereau. Jim Torrance, news of this brought him by that carrier pigeon of a gossip, Sam Pepper, rode into Sundown and in his official capacity of town marshal had a heart-to-heart talk with Art Pilgrim, the new owner.

“Where’d you see Bordereau?” asked Torrance.

Art Pilgrim’s slim white hands went up to his hollow chest, his thumbs into the armholes of his flowered vest.

“Didn’t ever see him, Mr. Town Marshal,” he said.

“How come?” asked Torrance.

“Any business of yours?”

“Yes. You’re a new man here; if you’re on the up-and-up, you’ll last. If you’re a Bordereau kind of man, and if you’re kicking in with him, you won’t last.”

“I don’t know Bordereau. I never saw him. I don’t know anything about him except that he owned this place and made it pay big money. He knew about me the same way; I had my own saloon at Alamagordo. I had a chance to sell and sold. My business with Bordereau was done through a lawyer over there. That’s all I know.”

“Fair enough,” said Torrance, and got up to go. Over his shoulder he said: “If you’ve got a good strong safe here, you better keep your money in it. And you better go dig a hole somewhere and stick the safe in it and cover it over.”

“Now, what’s that mean?”

“So long,” said Torrance.

Sam Pepper, living so near Torrance, was in and out at all hours, his ear to the ground, his nose twitching to any breeze that might bear even a hint of something. A queer sort of friendship sprang up between the two; and a friendship also between Torrance and Lying Bill Yarbo who, like Sam, dropped in frequently. The three were sitting on Jim’s porch one evening, sampling fresh cider out of a jug that had been sent over that day from the King Cannon apple orchard, when Sam blurted out:

“Looky here, Jim! You keep hanging on to the idea that we ain’t seen the last of Steve Bordereau. What in tarnation makes you so sure?”

Torrance said promptly, “Bordereau is a gambler first, last and all the time, isn’t he?”

“Sure. He’s a lot of other things, killer and highwayman and all round crook, but the bottom of everything with him is that he’s a gambler. But what about it?”

“A gambler always loses,” said Torrance. “Ever notice?”

Both Sam and Bill thought that over in a silence broken only by gurglings now and then from the jug. They had known many a gambler in their time, and had known many a big-time gambler to get into big money.

“A gambler always loses,” said Torrance. “I’ve noticed. I’ve never known one of the breed yet to have enough money left to bury him when he died. It’s like this with Steve Bordereau. He’s made himself a bit of a stake, and when a gambler makes a stake, right away he’s got to double it; he can’t quit any more than a booze hound can stop lapping up his booze. He’s got Sally Dawn’s gold; he’s got what he made from his stick-ups at the Yellow Pine, the Mountain City and the Rocky. On top of that he got something out of Canyon City--but he’s not forgetting that that night I had fifty thousand dollars tied to my saddle strings, and it was his money--and he lost it. Think he’s going to let that go? Having played in luck all this time, as he’s got to figure it, think he’s going to quit? Give a man like that a winning streak at poker or faro or at the wheel, is he going to stop? The answer is, Hell no!”

“What about Murdo?” demanded Sam.

“That, I don’t know. I wanted him to get out of here alive, and he did. I hoped he’d know where to find Bordereau and would kick in with him. I hoped that they’d feel like maybe I owed ’em something, and that they’d drop in some time to collect. And, talking about gambling, I’ll bet either one of you two gents, or both of you, a forty dollar Stetson against a bottle of beer that inside of ten days or two weeks we have ’em, or anyhow Bordereau, with us. Maybe tonight or tomorrow night or the next.”

“Got a notion where he’s holing up, I suppose?” said Sam.

“No. Might be anywhere. Could be up in the hills yet; there’s not too much snow. Could be within half a dozen miles of Sundown all the time; could be a day’s ride away. Not any further than that, Sambo.”

“And you figure him to come down looking for you?” Sam sat back tighter against the wall, and stared off in all directions into the gathering dark and began rubbing his hands together as though to get them warm; well, the evenings did grow cold now.

“That’s the way I figure it,” said Torrance.

“How many men you suppose he’s got with him by now, Jim?” asked Bill Yarbo.

“Sam can tell you, Bill.”

“Me?” exclaimed Sam.

Torrance’s face looked stern in the flare of the match he lifted to his cigarette, yet there was a humorous quirk coming and going at the corner of his mouth.

“Sure,” he said. “You told me only a couple of days ago.”

“Me?” said Sam again. “You’re crazy, Jim.”

“You were saying how Sundown had been losing part of its population the last few weeks. You mentioned the names of several men who used to hang around the Stag Horn and who’ve gone on somewhere else lately--and you said ‘Good riddance, anyhow,’ seeing the sort they were!”

“Why, shoot me down!” gasped Sam. “I never thought of that! You mean all them boys has kicked in with Steve? Why, say! If you’re right he must have eight or ten or a dozen boys with him altogether.”

Torrance stood up to go inside. “Getting cold out here,” he said.

“But listen!” said Sam. “If Steve Bordereau’s got all those hell twisters with him-- Say, it’s quite a crowd! And what would he want so many for?”

“Maybe he’s figuring on a good sized job of work,” said Torrance. “Maybe he’s figuring on making his last play up here, then riding hell-for-leather somewhere else. Anyhow there’s not a bank inside a hundred miles that I haven’t sent word to that they better sleep with one eye open; and whenever the stage carries a fat money box they’re carrying two extra guards inside.”

Bill Yarbo said ponderously, “If you’re halfway right in your guess work, Jim, here’s this to chaw on: Steve can still dodge around in the mountains, what with the way the weather’s been, where a man’s as hard to find as a flea on a long-haired pup. But come one good storm that might blow along any day now, and he’d get himself plugged up where it would take some getting out. What I mean is, if he’s set, like you say you think he is, for another play, he’ll be making it right soon. It’ll be right soon or not any this year, Jim.”

“Right soon, Bill,” said Jim.

* * * * *

A new trail, weaving among the little hills, threading through the pines, came into being across the panhandle of the Harper place and connected Jim Torrance’s ranch with Sally Dawn’s. Tonight, since it was early when first Sam and then Bill rode away, Torrance rode that trail. He said to himself: “That was mighty good cider. I’ll just ride by and say thanks.”

But, about midway between his place and Sally Dawn’s, where the winding trail went over a gentle knoll among both pines and big oaks, he saw another rider coming to meet him. Wondering who it might be, he eased himself sideways in the saddle, his right hand on the cantle close to his hip. He was getting so he watched shadows of late; he had a feeling in his bones it might pay him to do so.

It was Sally Dawn, riding alone.

“Right here,” said Torrance where they met on the top of the knoll, “I’m going to build me my house--my real home. Think you’d like it?”

“This spot was made for a home,” said Sally Dawn. “It’s been waiting for it thousands and thousands of years. Poor little lonely hilltop!”

“I can pump water up out of the creek,” said Torrance. “I can pipe it here easy as downing a mug of cider. That was the best cider ever, Sally Dawn.”

“Funny we met here; I was sort of restless tonight. Know what I was going to do? You’ve never asked me to call on you, but I was doing it anyhow.”

“That’s great. Come ahead.”

“Well--no. As long as I’ve had my visit with you, as long as you’ve made your duty call--I love to ride at night.”

“I was coming over to thank you for the cider.-- Ever see a nice deep pool, all shady in summertime, on top of a hill like this?”

“They don’t grow that way, do they?”

“Big enough and deep enough for a swim. And ducks always waddling into it or out of it--”

“I know. White ducks with nice curly tails. And yellow bills and feet--they keep them so nice and clean, don’t they?”

“Look here,” said Torrance, “I don’t like your riding off alone like this after dark.”

“Mercy!” cried Sally Dawn. “Sounds like you’d lock me up in a dark closet and make me go to bed without any supper if I didn’t mind you!”

“It’s Steve Bordereau,” said Torrance in dead earnest. “He hasn’t finished down here. He’s got the toughest crowd with him that you could think of. They’re headed this way before long, and I know it. I wouldn’t want you running into them.”

It was too dark for them to see each other’s faces at all clearly, to capture any play of expression, but he did see the liquid flash of her eyes in the starlight as she turned slightly and lifted them to his.

“I don’t believe it,” she said presently. “He has gone for good. You have just thought about him so much and for so many years--”

“No. It isn’t that. He is coming back. I don’t know that he will come near you; but I don’t want to think of your running into that crowd alone. Not at night, off in the woods like this. Remember what you did to him once. Think he’s the sort to forget?”

They rode for an hour, well up to the benchland of the Harper place, and they stopped many times and looked off across the wide acreage, and he sketched for her his budding plans against the time when this was all his, when his ranch and hers had a common boundary line.

... And somehow, though nothing quite direct was said about it, both thought:

“Maybe someday the fence along that line will come down.”

* * * * *

By this time Jim Torrance had his bunk house fixed up so that his men, three of them now, ate and slept there. He himself, though no one knew, slept in the barn. He’d go to his house first, then after a while put out his light, lock up and betake himself to a loft over the stalls where his favorite horses were kept at night. It was his thought that Steve Bordereau, did his path ever lead him anywhere near the ranch in passing, might take off time to shoot a few finely bred horses, if he didn’t find it handy to drive them off.

Lights in the bunk house were out by nine or ten o’clock. Torrance had got into the habit of taking a nap in his own house; about two or three in the morning he saddled and went for a ride; when he got back he went to the barn for any more sleep he might have coming.

There were nights when a couple of hours of sleep were all that he got, all that he wanted. With every passing hour he felt surer and surer that not much longer did he have to wait; he thought the thing over from every possible angle, dead set against letting himself trick himself into the old pit of simply believing what he wanted to believe; he thought of all that he knew of Steve Bordereau, one way and another, and could see only the one logical conclusion--Bordereau was coming back, and soon.

If Bordereau struck Sundown, thought Torrance, he’d strike where most loot was to be had, and that was the Stag Horn where games ran high and where the house made money hand over fist. Wouldn’t Bordereau know all about that? And just where the money would be kept? And at just what hour to strike?

One day Sam Pepper came nosing in, and had hardly had a drink--Sam always favored a free drink--when he gave speech with the newest of Sundown news.

“I just seen a feller,” said Sam, “that I ain’t clapped my peepers on since Steve Bordereau played dead and buried pore old Doc Taylor. A feller named LeSarge, Jake LeSarge.”

“Jake LeSarge? Who’s he? Tell me about him.”

“I can tell you plenty!” said Sam, and did.

LeSarge, if you’d take his word for it, was tougher than the plank steaks they sold over to Joe’s Lunch Counter. Still a young feller, maybe twenty-three-four, he had hung around Sundown off and on for ten years. Always in trouble, always hell-raising. Quarrelsome. A cheap skate, a tin-horn, as crooked as a dog’s hind leg--and a sort of pet of Steve Bordereau’s. Two years ago he killed Larry McKibben, and Larry was an up-and-up boy, well liked. LeSarge had skipped out, stayed away six months or so, and had crept back under Bordereau’s wing. And a good many things were said of him that nobody could prove--not nice things.

“And he’s back,” said Sam. “Me, I was wondering, if Steve has a gang like you say, why Jake LeSarge ain’t one of ’em.”

Jim Torrance was more interested than Sam had hoped to find him.

“What’s this LeSarge doing in town now?” he asked. “Where’s he hanging out?”

“He’s hanging around the Stag Horn. He’s buying drinks, free with his money, which he ain’t always. I seen him making a play at the Señorita--Florinda, you know. Looked like he was stuck on her, trying to corner her, like maybe he’d like to go out and buy a dog collar that would fit that white neck of hers. Outside all that, he wasn’t doing much of anything I could see.”

Torrance tilted his chair back, his lean brown hands behind his head, his eyes, with a sort of vacant look in them, going up to the cross beams and smoky rafters above.

It was so long before he moved or spoke that Sam began to fidget. At last, however, he kicked his chair back and stood up.

“All right, Sam,” he said. “Thanks for the tip-off. And now-- Well, good night.”

“Hey!” cried Sam Pepper. But Jim Torrance was gone, off to the barn to saddle and ride. And Sam Pepper couldn’t even be sure what direction his ride was taking him, since Torrance cut straight across the road into the pines and might have gone anywhere.

So he had to yell after the departing figure: “Hey, Jim! Where are you going?”

And it just happened that this time Torrance answered him.

“Over to the King Cannon Ranch,” he said.

Only half a dozen words, not an outstanding word among them, but as things were to happen those six words were fateful.