Mavericks

Mavericks By William Macleod Raine

published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT, USA

established in 1974, offering over 14,000 books

Westerns by William MacLeod Raine:

A Daughter of Raasay

Wyoming

Brand Blotters

Ridgway of Montana

Bucky O'Connor

A Texas Ranger

The Vision Splendid

Crooked Trails and Straight

A Daughter of the Dons

The Pirate of Panama

The Highgrader

Steve Yeager

The Sheriff's Son

The Yukon Trail

A Man Four-Square

Oh, You Tex!

The Big-Town Round-Up

Gunsight Pass

Tangled Trails

Man-Size

The Fighting Edge

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First published in 1911

To My Mother

In vain men tell us time can alter Old loves, or make old memories falter.

Chapter I. Phyllis

Chapter II. The Nester

Chapter III. Caught Red-Handed

Chapter IV. I'm A Rustler And A Thief, Am I?

Chapter V. An Aider And Abettor

Chapter VI. A Good Friend

Chapter VII. A Shot From Ambush

Chapter VIII. Miss-Going-On-Eighteen

Chapter IX. Punishment

Chapter X. Into The Enemy's Country

Chapter XI. Tom Dixon

Chapter XII. The Escape

Chapter XIII. A Mistake

Chapter XIV. A Difference Of Opinion

Chapter XV. The Brand Blotter

Chapter XVI. A Waterspout

Chapter XVII. The Hold-Up

Chapter XVIII. Brill Healy Airs His Sentiments

Chapter XIX. The Roan With The White Stockings

Chapter XX. Yeager Rides To Noches

Chapter XXI. Breaking Down An Alibi

Chapter XXII. Surrender

Chapter XXIII. At The Rodeo

Chapter XXIV. Missing

Chapter XXV. Larry Tells A Bear Story

Chapter XXVI. The Man-Hunt

Chapter XXVII. The Round-Up

CHAPTER I. PHYLLIS

 Phyllis leaned against the door-jamb and looked down the long road which wound up from the valley and lost itself now and again in the land waves. Miles away she could see a little cloud of dust travelling behind the microscopic stage, which moved toward her almost as imperceptibly as the minute-hand of a clock. A bronco was descending the hill trail from the Flagstaff mine, and its rider announced his coming with song in a voice young and glad.

     "My love has breath o' roses,

      O' roses, o' roses,

     And cheeks like summer posies

     All fresh with morning dew,"

floated the words to her across the sunlit open.

If the girl heard, she heeded not. One might have guessed her a sullen, silent lass, and would have done her less than justice. For the storm in her eyes and the curl of the lip were born of a mood and not of habit. They had to do with the gay vocalist who drew his horse up in front of her and relaxed into the easy droop of the experienced rider at rest.

Don't see me, do you? he asked, smiling.

Her dark, level gaze came round and met his sunniness without response.

Yes, I see you, Tom Dixon.

And you don't think you see much then? he suggested lightly.

She gave him no other answer than the one he found in the rigor of her straight figure and the flash of her dark eyes.

Mad at me, Phyl? Crossing his arms on the pommel of the saddle he leaned toward her, half coaxing, half teasing.

The girl chose to ignore him and withdrew her gaze to the stage, still creeping antlike toward the hills.

     "My love has breath o' roses,

     O' roses, o' roses,"

he hummed audaciously, ready to catch her smile when it came.

It did not come. He thought he had never seen her carry her dusky good looks more scornfully. With a movement of impatience she brushed back a rebellious lock of blue-black hair from her temple.

Somebody's acting right foolish, he continued jauntily. It was all in fun, and in a game at that.

I wasn't playing, he heard, though the profile did not turn in the least toward him.

Well, I hated to let you stay a wall-flower.

I don't play kissing games any more, she informed him with dignity.

Sho, Phyl! I told you 'twas only in fun, he justified himself. A kiss ain't anything to make so much fuss over. You ain't the first girl that ever was kissed.

She glanced quickly at him, recalling stories she had heard of his boldness with girls. He had taken off his hat and the golden locks of the boy gleamed in the sunlight. Handsome he surely was, though a critic might have found weakness in the lower part of the face. Chin and mouth lacked firmness.

So I've been told, she answered tartly.

Jealous?

No, she exploded.

Slipping to the ground, he trailed his rein.

You don't need to depend on hearing, he said, moving toward her.

What do you mean? she flared.

You remember well enough--at the social down to Peterson's.

We were children then--or I was.

And you're not a kid now?

No, I'm not.

Here's congratulations, Miss Sanderson. You've put away childish things and now you have become a woman.

Angrily the girl struck down his outstretched hand.

After this, if a fellow should kiss you, it would be a crime, wouldn't it? he bantered.

Don't you dare try it, Tom Dixon, she flashed fiercely.

Hitherto he had usually thought of her as a school girl, even though she was teaching in the Willow's district. Now it came to him with what dignity and unconscious pride her head was poised, how little the home-made print could conceal the long, free lines of her figure, still slender with the immaturity of youth. Soon now the woman in her would awaken and would blossom abundantly as the spring poppies were doing on the mountain side. Her sullen sweetness was very close to him. The rapid rise and fall of her bosom, the underlying flush in her dusky cheeks, the childish pout of the full lips, all joined in the challenge of her words. Mostly it was pure boyishness, the impish desire to tease, that struck the audacious sparkle to his eyes, but there was, too, a masculine impulse he did not analyse.

So you won't be friends?

If he had gone about it the right way he might have found forgiveness easily enough. But this did not happen to be the right way.

No, I won't. And she gave him her profile again.

Then we might as well have something worth while to quarrel about, he said, and slipping his arm round her neck, he tilted her face toward him.

With a low cry she twisted free, pushing him from her.

Beneath the fierce glow of her eyes his laughter was dashed. He forgot his expected trivial triumph, for they flashed at him now no childish petulance, but the scorn of a woman, a scorn in the heat of which his vanity withered and the thing he had tried to do stood forth a bare insult.

How dare you! she gasped.

Straight up the stairs to her room she ran, turned the lock, and threw herself passionately on the bed. She hated him...hated him...hated him. Over and over again she told herself this, crying it into the pillows where she had hidden her hot cheeks. She would make him pay for this insult some day. She would find a way to trample on him, to make him eat dirt for this. Of course she would never speak to him again--never so long as she lived. He had insulted her grossly. Her turbulent Southern blood boiled with wrath. It was characteristic of the girl that she did not once think of taking her grievance to her hot-headed father or to her brother. She could pay her own debts without involving them. And it was in character, too, that she did not let the inner tumult interfere with her external duties.

As soon as she heard the stage breasting the hill, she was up from the bed as swift as a panther and at her dressing-table dabbing with a kerchief at the telltale eyes and cheeks. Before the passengers began streaming into the house for dinner she was her competent self, had already cast a supervising eye over Becky the cook and Manuel the waiter, to see that everything was in readiness, and behind the official cage had fallen to arranging the mail that had just come up from Noches on the stage.

From this point of vantage she could cast an occasional look into the dining-room to see that all was going well there. Once, glancing through the window, she saw Tom Dixon in conversation with a half-grown youngster in leathers, gauntlets, and spurs. A coin was changing hands from the older boy to the younger, and as soon as the delivery window was raised little Bud Tryon shuffled in to get the family mail and that of Tom. Also he pushed through the opening a folded paper evidently torn from a notebook.

This here is for you, Phyl, he explained.

She pushed it back. I'm too busy to read it.

It's from Tom, he further volunteered.

Is it?

She took the paper quietly but with a swift, repressed passion, tore it across, folded the pieces together, rent them again, and tossed the fragments through the window to the floor.

Do you want the mail for the Gordons, too, Mr. Purdy? she coolly asked the next in line over the tow head of Bud.

The boy grinned and ducked from his place through the door. Through the open window there drifted to her presently the sound of a smothered curse, followed by the rapid thud of a horse's hoofs. Phyllis did not look, but a wicked gleam came into her black eyes. As well as if she had seen him she beheld a picture of a sulky youth spurring home in dudgeon, a scowl of discontent on his handsome, boyish face. He had come down the mountain trail singing, but no music travelled with him on his return journey. Nor had she alone known this. Without deigning to notice it, she caught a wink and a nod from one vaquero to another. It was certain they would not forget to rub it in when next they met Master Tom. She promised herself, as she handed out newspapers and letters to the cowmen, sheep-herders, and miners who had ridden in to the stage station for their mail, to teach that young man his place.

I'll take a dollar's worth of two's.

Phyllis turned her head in the slow, disdainful fashion she had inherited from her Southern ancestors and without a word pushed the sheet of stamps through the window. That voice, with its hint of sardonic amusement, was like a trumpet call to battle.

Any mail for Buck Weaver?

No, she answered promptly without looking.

Sure?

Yes.

Couldn't be overlooking any, could you?

Her eyes met his with the rapier steel of hostility. He was mocking her, for his mail all came to Saguaro. The man was her father's enemy. He had no business here. His coming was of a piece with all the rest of his insolence. Phyllis hated him with the lusty healthy hatred of youth. She had her father's generosity and courage, his quick indignation against wrong and injustice, and banked within her much of his passionate lawlessness.

I know my business, sir.

Weaver turned from the window and came front to front with old Jim Sanderson. The burning black eyes of the Southerner, set in sockets of extraordinary depths, blazed from a grim, hostile face. Always when he felt ugliest Sanderson's drawl became more pronounced. His daughter, hearing now the slow, gentle voice, ran quickly round the counter and slipped an arm into that of her father.

This hyer is an unexpected pleasure, Mr. Weaver, he was saying. It's been quite some time since I've seen you all in my house before, makin' you'self at home so pleasantly. It's ce'tainly an honor, seh.

Don't get buck ague, Sanderson. I'm here because I'm here. That's reason a-plenty for me, Weaver told him contemptuously.

But not for me, seh. When you come into my house----

I didn't come into your house.

Why--why----

Father! implored the girl. It's a government post-office. He has a right here as long as he behaves.

H'm! the old fire-eater snorted. I'd be obliged just the same, Mr. Weaver, if you'd transact your business and then light a shuck.

Dad! the girl begged.

He patted her head awkwardly as it lay on his arm. Now don't you worry, honey. There ain't going to be any trouble--leastways none of my making. I ain't a-forgettin' my promise to you-all. But I ain't sittin' down whilst anybody tromples on me neither.

He wouldn't try to do that here, Phyllis reminded him.

Weaver laughed in grim irony. I'm surely much obliged to you for protecting me. And to the father he added carelessly: Keep your shirt on, Sanderson. I'm not trying to break into society. And when I do I reckon it won't be with a sheep outfit I'll trail.

With which parting shot he turned on his heel, arrogant and imperious to the last virile inch of him.

CHAPTER II. THE NESTER

 With the jingle of trailing spur Buck Weaver passed from the post-office to the porch, where public opinion was wont to formulate itself while waiting for the mail to be distributed. Here twice a week it had sat for many years, had heard evidence, passed judgment, condemned or acquitted. For at this store the Malpais country bought its ammunition, its tobacco, and its canned goods; and on this porch its opinions had sifted down to convictions. From this common meeting ground the gossip of Cattleland was scattered far and wide.

Weaver filled the doorway while he drew on his gauntlets. He was the owner of the Twin Star outfit, the biggest cattle company in that country. Nearly twenty years ago, while still a boy of eighteen, he had begun in a small way. The Malpais had been a wild and lawless place then, but in all the turbid days that followed Buck Weaver had held his own ruthlessly by adroit manipulation, shrewd sense, and implacable daring. Some outfits he had bought out; others he had driven away. Those that survived were at a respectable distance from him. Only the settlers in the hills remained to trouble him. He had come to be the big man of the district, dominating its social, business, and political activities.

What's this I hear about another settler up on Bear Creek? he asked curtly after he had gathered up his bridle and swung to the saddle.

That's the way Jim Budd's telling it, Mr. Weaver. Another nester homesteaded there, old Joe Yeager answered casually, chewing tobacco with a noncommittal air.

Fine! There'll soon be a right smart settlement up near the headwaters of the creeks, I shouldn't wonder. The cow business is getting to be a mighty profitable one when you don't own any, Buck said dryly.

The others laughed, but with small merriment. They were either small cattle owners themselves or range riders whose living depended on the business, and during the past two years a band of rustlers had operated so boldly as to have wiped out the profits of some of the ranchers. Most of them disliked Buck extremely for his overbearing ways. But they did not usually tell him so. On this particular subject, too, they joined hand with him.

You're dead right, Mr. Weaver. It ce'tainly must be stopped.

The man who spoke rolled a cigarette and lit it. Like the rest he was in the common garb of the plains. The broad-brimmed felt hat, the shiny leather chaps, the loosely knotted bandanna, were as much a matter of course as the hard-eyed, weather-beaten look that comes of life under an untempered sun. But Brill Healy claimed a distinction above his fellows. He was a black-haired, picturesque fellow, as supple as a panther, reckless and yet wary.

We'll have rustling as long as we have nesters, Brill, Buck told him.

If that's the case we'll serve notice on the nesters to get out, Healy replied.

Buck grinned. Indomitable fighter though he was, he had been unable to roll back the advancing tide of settlement. Here and there homesteaders had taken up land and had brought in small bunches of cattle. Most of these were honest men, others suspected rustlers. But Buck's fiat had not sufficed to keep them out. They had held stoutly to their own and--he suspected--a good deal more than their own. Calves had been branded secretly and cows killed or driven away.

Go to it, Brill, Weaver jeered. I'm wishing you all the luck in the world.

He touched his pony with the spur and swept up the road in a cloud of white dust.

Not till he had disappeared did conversation renew itself languidly, for Seven Mile Ranch was lying under the lethargy of a summery sun.

I expect Buck's got the right of it, volunteered a brawny youth known as Slim. All you got to do is to take up a claim near a couple of big outfits with easy brands, then keep your iron hot and industrious. There's sure money in being a nester.

Despite the soft drawl of his voice, he spoke with bitterness, as did the others. Every day the feeling was growing stronger that the rustling must be stopped if they were going to continue to run cattle. The thieves had operated with a boldness and a shrewdness that fairly outwitted the ranchers. Enough horses and cattle had been driven across the line to stock a respectable ranch. Not one of the established ranches had escaped heavy losses; so heavy, indeed, that the owners faced the option of going broke or of exterminating the rustlers. Once or twice the thieves had nearly been caught red-handed, but the leader of the outlaws had saved the men by the most daring strategy.

Healy, until lately foreman of the Twin Star outfit, had organized the ranchmen as a protective association. In this he had represented Weaver, himself not popular enough to cooeperate with the other ranchmen. Once Brill had led the pursuit of the rustlers and had come back furious from a long futile chase. For among the cattle being driven across to Sonora were five belonging to him.

Other charges also lay against the hill outlaws. A stage had been robbed with a gold shipment from the Diamond Nugget mine. A cattleman had been held up and relieved of two thousand dollars, just taken as part payment for a sale of beef steers. The sheriff of Noches County, while trying to arrest a rustler, had been shot dead in his tracks.

Brill Healy leaned forward, gathered the eyes of those present, and lowered his voice to a whisper. Boys, this thing has got to stop. I've sent for Bucky O'Connor. If anybody can run the coyotes to earth he can. Anyhow, that's the reputation he's got.

Yeager nodded. Good for you, Brill. He's ce'tainly got an A-one rep. as a cattle detective, and likewise as a man hunter. When is he coming?

He writes that he's got a job on hand that will keep him busy a couple of weeks, anyhow. After that we'll hear from him. I'm going to drop everything else, if necessary, and stay right with him on this job till he finishes it right, Healy promised.

Now you're shoutin', Brill. Here, too. It's money in our pocket to stop this thing right now, even if we pay big for it. No use jest sittin' around till we're stole blind, assented Slim.

It won't cost us anything. Buck, he pays the freight. The waddies have been hitting him right hard lately and he figures it will be up to him to clean them out. Course we expect help from you boys when we call on you.

Sure. We'll all be with you till the cows come home, Brill, nodded one little fellow called Purdy. He was looking at a dust patch rising from the Bear Creek trail, and slowly moving toward them. What's the name of this new nester, Jim?

Budd, by way of being a curiosity on the range, was a fat man with a big double chin. He was large as well as fat, and, by queer contrast, the voice that came from that mountain of flesh was a small falsetto scarce above a whisper.

Didn't hear his name. Had no talk with him. Hear he is called Keller, he said.

What's he look like?

You-all can see for yourself. This here's the gent rolling a tail this way.

The little cloud of dust had come nearer and disclosed as its source a rider on a rangy roan with four white-stockinged feet. Drawing up in front of the porch, the man swung himself easily from the saddle and glanced around.

Evening, gentlemen, he said pleasantly.

Some nodded grimly, some growled an acknowledgment of his greeting. But the lack of cordiality, the presence of hostility, could not be doubted. The young man stood at supple ease before them, one hand resting on his hip and the other on the saddle. He let his unabashed gaze travel from one to another, understood perfectly what those expressionless eyes of stone were telling him, and, with a little laugh of light derision, trailed debonairly into the store.

Any mail for Larrabie Keller? he inquired of the postmistress.

The girl at the window glanced incuriously at him and turned to look. When she pushed his letter through the grating he met for an instant a flash of dark eyes from a mobile face which the sun and superb health had painted to a harmony of gold and russet, with the soft glow of pink pushing through the tan. The unexpectedness of the picture magnetized his gaze. Admiration, frank and human, shone from the steel-gray eyes that had till now been only a mask. Beneath his steady look she flushed indignantly and withdrew from the window.

Convicted of rudeness, the last thing he had meant, Keller returned to the porch and leaned against the door jamb while he opened his letter. His appearance immediately sandbagged conversation. Stony eyes were focused upon him incuriously, with expressionless hostility.

He noted, however, an exception. Another had been added to the group, a lad of about eighteen, slim and swarthy, with the same dark look of pride he had seen on the face at the stamp window. It was easy to guess that they were brother