Conagher (1969) (17 page)

You want to see how weak? Reach fo r your gun .

No
, Parnell said practically , becaus e you've got just sand enough left i n you to kill me .

Conagher turned, reached for th e pommel, but never made it. He felt hi s knees giving way under him, grabbed at a stirrup, and it slipped through his fingers.

He hit the ground on his face and la y still.

For a long moment nobody moved. Pet e Casuse stared at Conagher, then looked a t Smoke briefly .
There lies a man , h e said, and then he glanced again at Parnell.

What was that town you were tellin' m e about? Was it Milestown ?

Up Montana way , Parnell said , an d I think that's a good idea .

He hesitated a moment, then threw bac k the blankets, sitting still until he was sur e Conagher was not going to move.

Fascinated but frightened. Curly Scot t was staring at the fallen man, and then h e looked at Smoke .
Are you going to kil l him ?

Kill him
?
Smoke Parnell turne d around sharply .
Kid, you don't kno w what you're sayin'. I may be an outlaw , but I never yet murdered anybody in col d blood, least of all an hombre. And there, a s my friend Casuse will agree, is an hombr e that is an hombre .

What are we going to do ?

Weme an' Petewe're ridin' back t o the outfit and we're going to pick up Kri s and Tile and we're heading for Montana.

We're ridin' north with the spring .

What about me
?
Scott protested.

You stay with him. When he's wel l enough to ride, take him back to Seabor n Tay. He's worth more to this country tha n that whole outfit. And while you're wit h him, kid, you watch him. If you ever get t o be half the man he is, you come back an d ride with me if you think you're still cu t out for an outlaw .

When they were gone. Curly Scot t stirred up the fire and started to drag th e unconscious man closer. Then, worried a t what he might do if he woke up, he jus t eased him onto a ground sheet, covere d him over with blankets, and sat down t o wait for daybreak.

Several times he turned to look at th e sleeping man. He was dirty and unshaven , and his clothes were worn and bloody, bu t there was something about him, even i n sleep, that spoke of what kind of a man h e was.

Conagher stirred restlessly, mutterin g something about the wind in the grass.

Tumbleweed . .
.
he murmured , rollin g like wheels . . . like wheels ..
.

The words made no sense to Scott, bu t then, when did words spoken in deliriu m ever make sense?

Chapter
14

TWO weeks after his return to th e ST, Conagher was riding, again. H
e A had wanted to go back to work afte r two days, but Tay would have none of it.

You lay up for a while. Get some rest.

Thing like that takes more out of a ma n than he knows .

Conagher mended a bridle, fixed th e hinges on the corral gate, sank some pos t holes for a fence around the kitche n garden, and generally kept busy.

He had lost a lot of blood and he ha d missed some meals, but such things wer e all in the day's work. He had never had i t easy, and did not expect to now. Johnn y McGivern had stayed on, and they ha d hired Curly Scott, whose sister had gon e on to California without ever seeing him.

March came to an end and April passed , and the grass was green from the sprin g rains, the prairies covered with wildflowers.

The stock was fat and lazy, an d Conagher rode wide, once even stoppin g by the Ladder Five, but the building s were deserted and still, and tumbleweed s were piled against the corral after th e spring winds.

Conagher swung the dun horse an d walked him over to look at the tumbleweeds.

Sure enough, there was somethin g grayish-white on one of them near th e bottom. Conagher pulled the tumbleweed s away until he could get at th e note.

It was an old note, and must have bee n written late in the fall. It could scarcely b e read, it was so faded.

It is very cold, and I am often alon e here. How I wish someone woul d come!

He read it and re-read it, then tucked i t away, folded in a little bundle with th e others. There was no accounting for wha t a lonely person would do; he knew that o f his own experience. He was often alone , and like all men who rode alone he ofte n talked to his horse. You got cabi n fever after a while when you live d alone, and you just had to talk, and thi s was a lonely woman somewhere away of f up north who needed to talk to somebody.

He prowled around the Ladder Five fo r a while. Nobody had been there for quite a while. In fact, they must have pulled ou t right after that time in the mountains. H
e had come out of it himself to find onl y young Scott with him, who had fixed hi m up some chow and they ate there togethe r until they rode back to the ST.

As he rode away he turned in the saddl e to look back. The Ladder Five was a goo d layout. Nobody owned it. Parnell and hi s outlaws had just squatted there, fixe d things up enough to get along, and staye d on.

The ranch lay in a small cove in the roc k wall of the mountain, with a few tree s behind it and a clump off to one side tha t would break the wind. The house wa s solid and there was a good supply of water.

The grass was green and the range lay ou t before it. Taken altogether, it was the sor t of place where an honest man could d o well by settling.

Several times during his ride back to th e ST headquarters, Conn took out the note s and read them over. They didn't say muc h when you came right down to it, but the y told of a lonely girl somewhere far off.

Likely she didn't see many folks, stuck ou t on the plains.

Conagher rode up to the bunk hous e and got down and began throwing hi s duflfel together.

Leggett came from the barn an d watched him without comment for a fe w minutes, and then he said , You lightin'
a shuck ?

Uh-huh
.

The Old Man will be some put out. H
e sets store by you .

He's a good man .

You better talk to him. He wants t o make you foreman. He told me so, and it'
s right he should. You saved his outfit fo r him .

I did my job
.

You done more. You done more tha n anybody could have expected .

Conagher straightened up .
Mister , when I hire on for a man, I ride for him. I ride for his outfit. If I don't like things I quit. I've got me a horse and a saddle an d there's a lot of country I ain't seen, bu t when a man hires me I figure he hires m y savvy and what all I can do .

You run those outlaws clean out of th e country .

Conagher shook his head .
I'd not sa y that. I just worried them to where it wasn'
t what you'd call comfortable for them.

Nobody likes to laze it around more tha n an outlaw, and you keep him stirred u p and he'll usually move. Well, I sort o f stirred them up .

When his blankets were rolled and hi s gear packed he went up to the house an d asked the cook for coffee. Seaborn Ta y came in and dropped into a chair .
How'
s the range look ?

Good. There was a good fall of sno w and most of it sank right in. No runoff t o speak of. I'd say, you'd a might y handsome year ahead .
He sipped hi s coffee .
Mr. Tay, I want to draw m y time .

Now see here, Conagher. You can'
t just up and leave a man that way. I nee d you. I was figurin' on you for foreman. I'
m not as spry as I should be, and like yo u maybe guessed, I've got a bad heart. I'l l give you a hundred a month .

Nope
.

Look, where are you going to find tha t much? You've been riskin' your neck fo r thirty a month and you deserve to ge t more. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give yo u a hundred a month and a ten per cen t share .

I want to ride north. I got business u p there .

Tay argued quietly, but Conaghe r merely sipped his coffee. The cook put a piece of pie before him, and he ate it.

Things work out, I may be back. Bu t I'll be back to lay claim to the Ladde r Five. I won't be workin' for you, but I'l l be your neighbor .

You got a girl somewhere? You gettin'
m arried ?

I can't say. I've never been married , and don't figure I'm the sort to stan d hitched .

Well, when it came to that, he didn'
t know. Somehow, when girling time cam e around he was always too backward, o r else he was off riding the range where yo u couldn't find a girl. Other men no bette r off than he was had found some pretty fin e women, here and yonder . . . and som e miserable ones, too. It kind of scared a man.

He was no youngster any more, and i t was no time to start building fancies, ye t when it came to that, why not?

Anybody could dream, and it seemed t o him that girl who'd been tying those note s to tumble weeds had been doing a sight o f dreaming. So he would just ride north , camp along the way, and kind of look th e country over. When he came to a lonel y cabin he'd find that girl, all right. H
e would know her anywhere.

It puzzled him how she lived, but h e decided she was the daughter of som e rancher, or maybe of a dirt farmer, o r even, perish the thought, a sheepman'
s daughter.

He finished his coffee, pocketed th e money Tay gave him without so much a s counting it, and went outside. Ta y followed him to the door.

Damn it, man
, he said , why do yo u have to go tomcattin' off across th e country? You could build yourself into a nice place here, and rightly a piece of it i s yours .

I'll be back some spring, follerin' th e wild geese , Conagher said, and swun g into the saddle. He lifted his hand t o Leggett and McGivern, alone in the bun k house now that Euston was gone, and h e rode away.

The grasslands looked greener in th e distance than they did close up. H
e guessed it was always that way.

IT was a fool thing he was starting out t o do. He was going to try to find the gir l who was writing those notes. It wa s foolish to try, because it was about a s impossible a task as a man ever set fo r himself, but it was doubly foolish becaus e what that girl was pining for was a youn g man, a man younger than Conn Conagher.

He looked at himself with no illusions.

He was a hard-grained man, a man wh o had lived a hard life, and no great beaut y to begin with. He carried scars, inside a s well as out, and about all he had left wa s some years of hard work and a boy's drea m of the girl he would find some day.

Oh, he had it, all right! Conaghe r considered himself with sour humor. H
e was a damn fool who should have outlive d all that nonsense years ago. Maybe it wa s the fault of having read too much o f Walter Scott while still not dry behind th e ears.

So here he was, riding north across th e plains looking for a will-o'-the-wisp. H
e checked out every piece of old tumblewee d he saw, but found no messages. H
e camped at night wherever he could find a good place.

When a week had gone by withou t finding a single message, he rode off th e plains and headed toward the Plaza.

There, in Callahan's, he met Charli e McCloud.

I'll buy the drinks , McCloud offered.

No, that's block and tackle whiskey.

You take a drink, and then you walk a block and you'll tackle anything. I'
m going to sit with you and have a beer .

From what Smoke Parnell says, yo u don't need whiskey. You'll just tackl e anything, any time .

You've seen him ?

I saw him when he was pullin' hi s freight for Montana. He said a decen t outlaw couldn't make a livin' with yo u around .

He's a tough man .

McCloud glanced at him .
Didn't I se e you with a blanket roll behind you r saddle? Are you drifting again ?

I've got tumbleweed fever .

You too
?

What d'you mean, me too ?

Seems to me half the cowhands in th e country are hunting tumbleweeds thes e days. Somebody found a note tied to one , and that started it .

Conagher felt a swell of irritation withi n him .
Note? What kind of a note ?

From some girl up north at least , she's probably up north. She's bee n writing little notes or poetry or somethin g and tying them to tumbleweeds. Just goe s to show what happens when you're to o long alone .

How do you know she's alone ?

The notes sound like it. The cowhand s over east of here are makin' bets o n whether she's short and fat, tall an d skinny, a blond or a brunette .

She's probably got a husband who'
s broader across the shoulders than he i s between the eyes , Conagher said dryly.

They better leave it lay .