The Virginian
XXX
A STABLE ON THE FLAT
When the first landmark, the lone clump of cottonwoods, came at length in
sight, dark and blurred in the gentle rain, standing out perhaps a mile beyond
the distant buildings, my whole weary body hailed the approach of repose. Saving
the noon hour, I had been in the saddle since six, and now six was come round
again. The ranch, my resting-place for this night, was a ruin—cabin, stable, and
corral. Yet after the twelve hours of pushing on and on through silence, still
to have silence, still to eat and go to sleep in it, perfectly fitted the mood
of both my flesh and spirit. At noon, when for a while I had thrown off my long
oilskin coat, merely the sight of the newspaper half crowded into my pocket had
been a displeasing reminder of the railway, and cities, and affairs. But for its
possible help to build fires, it would have come no farther with me. The great
levels around me lay cooled and freed of dust by the wet weather, and full of
sweet airs. Far in front the foot-hills rose through the rain, indefinite and
mystic. I wanted no speech with any one, nor to be near human beings at all. I
was steeped in a revery as of the primal earth; even thoughts themselves had
almost ceased motion. To lie down with wild animals, with elk and deer, would
have made my waking dream complete; and since such dream could not be, the
cattle around the deserted buildings, mere dots as yet across separating space,
were my proper companions for this evening.
To-morrow night I should probably be camping with the Virginian in the
foot-hills. At his letter's bidding I had come eastward across Idaho, abandoning
my hunting in the Saw Tooth Range to make this journey with him back through the
Tetons. It was a trail known to him, and not to many other honest men. Horse
Thief Pass was the name his letter gave it. Business (he was always brief) would
call him over there at this time. Returning, he must attend to certain matters
in the Wind River country. There I could leave by stage for the railroad, or go
on with him the whole way back to Sunk Creek. He designated for our meeting the
forks of a certain little stream in the foot-hills which to-day's ride had
brought in sight. There would be no chance for him to receive an answer from me
in the intervening time. If by a certain day—which was four days off still—I had
not reached the forks, he would understand I had other plans. To me it was like
living back in ages gone, this way of meeting my friend, this choice of a stream
so far and lonely that its very course upon the maps was wrongly traced. And to
leave behind all noise and mechanisms, and set out at ease, slowly, with one
packhorse, into the wilderness, made me feel that the ancient earth was indeed
my mother and that I had found her again after being lost among houses, customs,
and restraints. I should arrive three days early at the forks—three days of
margin seeming to me a wise precaution against delays unforeseen. If the
Virginian were not there, good; I could fish and be happy. If he were there but
not ready to start, good; I could still fish and be happy. And remembering my
Eastern helplessness in the year when we had met first, I enjoyed thinking how I
had come to be trusted. In those days I had not been allowed to go from the
ranch for so much as an afternoon's ride unless tied to him by a string, so to
speak; now I was crossing unmapped spaces with no guidance. The man who could do
this was scarce any longer a "tenderfoot."
My vision, as I rode, took in serenely the dim foot-hills,—to-morrow's
goal,—and nearer in the vast wet plain the clump of cottonwoods, and still
nearer my lodging for to-night with the dotted cattle round it. And now my horse
neighed. I felt his gait freshen for the journey's end, and leaning to pat his
neck I noticed his ears no longer slack and inattentive, but pointing forward to
where food and rest awaited both of us. Twice he neighed, impatiently and long;
and as he quickened his gait still more, the packhorse did the same, and I
realized that there was about me still a spice of the tenderfoot: those dots
were not cattle; they were horses.
My horse had put me in the wrong. He had known his kind from afar, and was
hastening to them. The plainsman's eye was not yet mine; and I smiled a little
as I rode. When was I going to know, as by instinct, the different look of
horses and cattle across some two or three miles of plain?
These miles we finished soon. The buildings changed in their aspect as they
grew to my approach, showing their desolation more clearly, and in some way
bringing apprehension into my mood. And around them the horses, too, all
standing with ears erect, watching me as I came—there was something about them;
or was it the silence? For the silence which I had liked until now seemed
suddenly to be made too great by the presence of the deserted buildings. And
then the door of the stable opened, and men came out and stood, also watching me
arrive. By the time I was dismounting more were there. It was senseless to feel
as unpleasant as I did, and I strove to give to them a greeting that should
sound easy. I told them that I hoped there was room for one more here to-night.
Some of them had answered my greeting, but none of them answered this; and as I
began to be sure that I recognized several of their strangely imperturbable
faces, the Virginian came from the stable; and at that welcome sight my relief
spoke out instantly.
"I am here, you see!"
"Yes, I do see." I looked hard at him, for in his voice was the same
strangeness that I felt in everything around me. But he was looking at his
companions. "This gentleman is all right," he told them.
"That may be," said one whom I now knew that I had seen before at Sunk Creek;
"but he was not due to-night."
"Nor to-morrow," said another.
"Nor yet the day after," a third added.
The Virginian fell into his drawl. "None of you was ever early for anything,
I presume."
One retorted, laughing, "Oh, we're not suspicioning you of complicity."
And another, "Not even when we remember how thick you and Steve used to be."
Whatever jokes they meant by this he did not receive as jokes. I saw
something like a wince pass over his face, and a flush follow it. But he now
spoke to me. "We expected to be through before this," he began. "I'm right sorry
you have come to-night. I know you'd have preferred to keep away."
"We want him to explain himself," put in one of the others. "If he satisfies
us, he's free to go away."
"Free to go away!" I now exclaimed. But at the indulgence in their frontier
smile I cooled down. "Gentlemen," I said, "I don't know why my movements
interest you so much. It's quite a compliment! May I get under shelter while I
explain?"
No request could have been more natural, for the rain had now begun to fall
in straight floods. Yet there was a pause before one of them said, "He might as
well."
The Virginian chose to say nothing more; but he walked beside me into the
stable. Two men sat there together, and a third guarded them. At that sight I
knew suddenly what I had stumbled upon; and on the impulse I murmured to the
Virginian, "You're hanging them to-morrow."
He kept his silence.
"You may have three guesses," said a man behind me.
But I did not need them. And in the recoil of my insight the clump of
cottonwoods came into my mind, black and grim. No other trees high enough grew
within ten miles. This, then, was the business that the Virginian's letter had
so curtly mentioned. My eyes went into all corners of the stable, but no other
prisoners were here. I half expected to see Trampas, and I half feared to see
Shorty; for poor stupid Shorty's honesty had not been proof against frontier
temptations, and he had fallen away from the company of his old friends. Often
of late I had heard talk at Sunk Creek of breaking up a certain gang of horse
and cattle thieves that stole in one Territory and sold in the next, and knew
where to hide in the mountains between. And now it had come to the point; forces
had been gathered, a long expedition made, and here they were, successful under
the Virginian's lead, but a little later than their calculations. And here was
I, a little too early, and a witness in consequence. My presence seemed a simple
thing to account for; but when I had thus accounted for it, one of them said
with good nature:— "So you find us here, and we find you here. Which is the most
surprised, I wonder?"
"There's no telling," said I, keeping as amiable as I could; "nor any telling
which objects the most."
"Oh, there's no objection here. You're welcome to stay. But not welcome to
go, I expect. He ain't welcome to go, is he?"
By the answers that their faces gave him it was plain that I was not. "Not
till we are through," said one.
"He needn't to see anything,"' another added.
"Better sleep late to-morrow morning," a third suggested to me.
I did not wish to stay here. I could have made some sort of camp apart from
them before dark; but in the face of their needless caution I was helpless. I
made no attempt to inquire what kind of spy they imagined I could be, what sort
of rescue I could bring in this lonely country; my too early appearance seemed
to be all that they looked at. And again my eyes sought the prisoners. Certainly
there were only two. One was chewing tobacco, and talking now and then to his
guard as if nothing were the matter. The other sat dull in silence, not moving
his eyes; but his face worked, and I noticed how he continually moistened his
dry lips. As I looked at these doomed prisoners, whose fate I was invited to
sleep through to-morrow morning, the one who was chewing quietly nodded to me.
"You don't remember me?" he said.
It was Steve! Steve of Medicine Bow! The pleasant Steve of my first evening
in the West. Some change of beard had delayed my instant recognition of his
face. Here he sat sentenced to die. A shock, chill and painful, deprived me of
speech.
He had no such weak feelings. "Have yu' been to Medicine Bow lately?" he
inquired. "That's getting to be quite a while ago."
I assented. I should have liked to say something natural and kind, but words
stuck against my will, and I stood awkward and ill at ease, noticing idly that
the silent one wore a gray flannel shirt like mine. Steve looked me over, and
saw in my pocket the newspaper which I had brought from the railroad and on
which I had pencilled a few expenses. He asked me, Would I mind letting him have
it for a while? And I gave it to him eagerly, begging him to keep it as long as
he wanted. I was overeager in my embarrassment. "You need not return it at all,"
I said; "those notes are nothing. Do keep it."
He gave me a short glance and a smile. "Thank you," he said; "I'll not need
it beyond to-morrow morning." And he began to search through it. "Jake's
election is considered sure," he said to his companion, who made no response.
"Well, Fremont County owes it to Jake." And I left him interested in the local
news.
Dead men I have seen not a few times, even some lying pale and terrible after
violent ends, and the edge of this wears off; but I hope I shall never again
have to be in the company with men waiting to be killed. By this time to-morrow
the gray flannel shirt would be buttoned round a corpse. Until what moment would
Steve chew? Against such fancies as these I managed presently to barricade my
mind, but I made a plea to be allowed to pass the night elsewhere, and I
suggested the adjacent cabin. By their faces I saw that my words merely helped
their distrust of me. The cabin leaked too much, they said; I would sleep drier
here. One man gave it to me more directly: "If you figured on camping in this
stable, what has changed your mind?" How could I tell them that I shrunk from
any contact with what they were doing, although I knew that only so could
justice be dealt in this country? Their wholesome frontier nerves knew nothing
of such refinements.
But the Virginian understood part of it. "I am right sorry for your
annoyance," he said. And now I noticed he was under a constraint very different
from the ease of the others.
After the twelve hours' ride my bones were hungry for rest. I spread my
blankets on some straw in a stall by myself and rolled up in them; yet I lay
growing broader awake, every inch of weariness stricken from my excited senses.
For a while they sat over their councils, whispering cautiously, so that I was
made curious to hear them by not being able; was it the names of Trampas and
Shorty that were once or twice spoken—I could not be sure. I heard the
whisperers cease and separate. I heard their boots as they cast them off upon
the ground. And I heard the breathing of slumber begin and grow in the interior
silence. To one after one sleep came, but not to me. Outside, the dull fall of
the rain beat evenly, and in some angle dripped the spouting pulses of a leak.
Sometimes a cold air blew in, bearing with it the keen wet odor of the
sage-brush. On hundreds of other nights this perfume had been my last waking
remembrance; it had seemed to help drowsiness; and now I lay staring, thinking
of this. Twice through the hours the thieves shifted their positions with clumsy
sounds, exchanging muted words with their guard. So, often, had I heard other
companions move and mutter in the darkness and lie down again. It was the very
naturalness and usualness of every fact of the night,—the stable straw, the rain
outside, my familiar blankets, the cool visits of the wind,—and with all this
the thought of Steve chewing and the man in the gray flannel shirt, that made
the hours unearthly and strung me tight with suspense. And at last I heard some
one get up and begin to dress. In a little while I saw light suddenly through my
closed eyelids, and then darkness shut again abruptly upon them. They had swung
in a lantern and found me by mistake. I was the only one they did not wish to
rouse. Moving and quiet talking set up around me, and they began to go out of
the stable. At the gleams of new daylight which they let in my thoughts went to
the clump of cottonwoods, and I lay still with hands and feet growing steadily
cold. Now it was going to happen. I wondered how they would do it; one instance
had been described to me by a witness, but that was done from a bridge, and
there had been but a single victim. This morning, would one have to wait and see
the other go through with it first?
The smell of smoke reached me, and next the rattle of tin dishes. Breakfast
was something I had forgotten, and one of them was cooking it now in the dry
shelter of the stable. He was alone, because the talking and the steps were
outside the stable, and I could hear the sounds of horses being driven into the
corral and saddled. Then I perceived that the coffee was ready, and almost
immediately the cook called them. One came in, shutting the door behind him as
he reentered, which the rest as they followed imitated; for at each opening of
the door I saw the light of day leap into the stable and heard the louder sounds
of the rain. Then the sound and the light would again be shut out, until some
one at length spoke out bluntly, bidding the door be left open on account of the
smoke. What were they hiding from? he asked. The runaways that had escaped? A
laugh followed this sally, and the door was left open. Thus I learned that there
had been more thieves than the two that were captured. It gave a little more
ground for their suspicion about me and my anxiety to pass the night elsewhere.
It cost nothing to detain me, and they were taking no chances, however remote.
The fresh air and the light now filled the stable, and I lay listening while
their breakfast brought more talk from them. They were more at ease now than was
I, who had nothing to do but carry out my role of slumber in the stall; they
spoke in a friendly, ordinary way, as if this were like every other morning of
the week to them. They addressed the prisoners with a sort of fraternal
kindness, not bringing them pointedly into the conversation, nor yet pointedly
leaving them out. I made out that they must all be sitting round the breakfast
together, those who had to die and those who had to kill them. The Virginian I
never heard speak. But I heard the voice of Steve; he discussed with his captors
the sundry points of his capture.
"Do you remember a haystack?" he asked. "Away up the south fork of Gros
Ventre?"
"That was Thursday afternoon," said one of the captors. "There was a shower."
"Yes. It rained. We had you fooled that time. I was laying on the ledge above
to report your movements."
Several of them laughed. "We thought you were over on Spread Creek then."
"I figured you thought so by the trail you left after the stack. Saturday we
watched you turn your back on us up Spread Creek. We were snug among the trees
the other side of Snake River. That was another time we had you fooled."
They laughed again at their own expense. I have heard men pick to pieces a
hand of whist with more antagonism.
Steve continued: "Would we head for Idaho? Would we swing back over the
Divide? You didn't know which! And when we generalled you on to that band of
horses you thought was the band you were hunting—ah, we were a strong
combination!" He broke off with the first touch of bitterness I had felt in his
words.
"Nothing is any stronger than its weakest point." It was the Virginian who
said this, and it was the first word he had spoken.
"Naturally," said Steve. His tone in addressing the Virginian was so
different, so curt, that I supposed he took the weakest point to mean himself.
But the others now showed me that I was wrong in this explanation.
"That's so," one said. "Its weakest point is where a rope or a gang of men is
going to break when the strain comes. And you was linked with a poor partner,
Steve."
"You're right I was," said the prisoner, back in his easy, casual voice.
"You ought to have got yourself separated from him, Steve."
There was a pause. "Yes," said the prisoner, moodily. "I'm sitting here
because one of us blundered." He cursed the blunderer. "Lighting his fool fire
queered the whole deal," he added. As he again heavily cursed the blunderer, the
others murmured to each other various I told you so's.
"You'd never have built that fire, Steve," said one.
"I said that when we spied the smoke," said another. "I said, 'That's none of
Steve's work, lighting fires and revealing to us their whereabouts.'"
It struck me that they were plying Steve with compliments.
"Pretty hard to have the fool get away and you get caught," a third
suggested. At this they seemed to wait. I felt something curious in all this
last talk.
"Oh, did he get away?" said the prisoner, then.
Again they waited; and a new voice spoke huskily:— "I built that fire, boys."
It was the prisoner in the gray flannel shirt.
"Too late, Ed," they told him kindly. "You ain't a good liar."
"What makes you laugh, Steve?" said some one.
"Oh, the things I notice."
"Meaning Ed was pretty slow in backing up your play? The joke is really on
you, Steve. You'd ought never to have cursed the fire-builder if you wanted us
to believe he was present. But we'd not have done much to Shorty, even if we had
caught him. All he wants is to be scared good and hard, and he'll go back into
virtuousness, which is his nature when not travelling with Trampas."
Steve's voice sounded hard now. "You have caught Ed and me. That should
satisfy you for one gather."
"Well, we think different, Steve. Trampas escaping leaves this thing
unfinished."
"So Trampas escaped too, did he?" said the prisoner.
"Yes, Steve, Trampas escaped—this time; and Shorty with him—this time. We
know it most as well as if we'd seen them go. And we're glad Shorty is loose,
for he'll build another fire or do some other foolishness next time, and that's
the time we'll get Trampas."
Their talk drifted to other points, and I lay thinking of the skirmish that
had played beneath the surface of their banter. Yes, the joke, as they put it,
was on Steve. He had lost one point in the game to them. They were playing for
names. He, being a chivalrous thief, was playing to hide names. They could only,
among several likely confederates, guess Trampas and Shorty. So it had been a
slip for him to curse the man who built the fire. At least, they so held it.
For, they with subtlety reasoned, one curses the absent. And I agreed with them
that Ed did not know how to lie well; he should have at once claimed the
disgrace of having spoiled the expedition. If Shorty was the blunderer, then
certainly Trampas was the other man; for the two were as inseparable as don and
master. Trampas had enticed Shorty away from good, and trained him in evil. It
now struck me that after his single remark the Virginian had been silent
throughout their shrewd discussion.
It was the other prisoner that I heard them next address. "You don't eat any
breakfast, Ed."
"Brace up, Ed. Look at Steve, how hardy he eats!"
But Ed, it seemed, wanted no breakfast. And the tin dishes rattled as they
were gathered and taken to be packed.
"Drink this coffee, anyway," another urged; "you'll feel warmer."
These words almost made it seem like my own execution. My whole body turned
cold in company with the prisoner's, and as if with a clank the situation
tightened throughout my senses.
"I reckon if every one's ready we'll start." It was the Virginian's voice
once more, and different from the rest. I heard them rise at his bidding, and I
put the blanket over my head. I felt their tread as they walked out, passing my
stall. The straw that was half under me and half out in the stable was stirred
as by something heavy dragged or half lifted along over it. "Look out, you're
hurting Ed's arm," one said to another, as the steps with tangled sounds passed
slowly out. I heard another among those who followed say, "Poor Ed couldn't
swallow his coffee." Outside they began getting on their horses; and next their
hoofs grew distant, until all was silence round the stable except the dull, even
falling of the rain.