Rimrock Trail by Joseph Allan Dunn (best novel books to read .TXT) 📕

"Won't offend me none ef it is," said Mormon. "I'm hungrier'n a spring b'ar an' all our stuff's oveh with Mirandy Bailey."

"She's sure one thoughtful lady," said Sam. "What you got, Ed?" he queried as the gangling youth came up.

"Beans, camp-bread an' coffee. Aunt Mirandy, she 'lowed you-all might not want to leave the claim so she sent this over to bide you through. You been havin' some trouble, ain't you?" he asked, his eyes gleaming with interest. "We heard somethin' that sounded like shots an' Mr. Westlake saw the first bunch go away. He said you waved to him it was all right. Aunt, she 'lowed you c'ud look out fo' yourselves. Then the second bunch come erlong."

"Jest wishin' us luck, son," said Sandy. "How's everything with you?"

"I bet it warn't good luck they was wishin'," grinned Ed, squatting down on his haunches and rolling a cigarette. "We're gettin' on fine. Got some dandy claims, I reckon. One for maw an' one fo' father, right alongside Aunt Mirandy's an' mine. It 'ud be great if we sh'ud all strike it rich, to once, w'udn't it?"

"Great!" agreed Sandy, munching beans with gusto. "Don't you think you ought to be gettin' back, 'case some one might take a notion to them claims of yores? 'Pears to me it's up to you, Ed, to protect yore aunt. Westlake can't stick around with you all the time. He's got his business to attend to."

Young Ed straightened.

"I'll look out for her all right," he said. "But you don't know Aunt Mirandy over well or you'd know she can do her own protectin'. You bet she can. 'Sides, the men who've got claims nigh us come over an' told her they'd see she wasn't interfered with none. Said they'd heard some bully had sworn at her an' the real miners in camp warn't goin' to stand anything like that. Nor no claim-jumpin'. They're goin' to organize, they say. Git up a Vigilance Committee."

"Good!" said Sandy. "That means the decent element aims to run things. We'll help 'em. It'll be easier with Plimsoll out of camp."

"Figger he'll go?" asked Sam.

"I w'udn't be surprised if he listened to the small voice of reason," answered Sandy. "You tell yore aunt we're much obliged fo' the grub, Ed. One of us'll be over afteh a bit an' tote our things across. We'll camp here fo' a bit an' sit tight. I'd do the same, if I was you, Ed, spite of yore friends. I don't doubt fo' a minute but what yore aunt is plumb capable of lookin' out for herself, but you see, she's a woman an' yo're a man, an' it's you folks'll be lookin' to."

The lad flushed with pride under the hand that Sandy set in chummy fashion on his shoulder.

"I'll do that," he said, and, picking up the emptied utensils he had brought he started off down and across the gulch.

"No sense in encouragin' him to hang around us," said Sandy. "There's apt to be fireworks round here most any time between now an' ter-morrer mo'nin'. Plimsoll'll shack erlong about sun-up—providin' he ain't able to call the tuhn on us befo'. Mormon, if you'll go git our blankets an' outfit, Sam an' me'll fix up those bu'sted guy ropes an' shift the tent."

"You don't aim fo' us to sleep in it, do you?" asked Mormon.

"Don't believe we'd rest well if we tackled it. But it mightn't be a bad scheme if we give the gen'ral idee that we are sleepin' in it. I put a lantern in the car when we stahted. Fetch that erlong too, will you, Mormon?"

It was late afternoon before Mormon reappeared, bearing a camp outfit, part of which was carried by Westlake. Sandy and Sam had repitched the tent on fairly level ground of the valley bottom. The claim boundaries ran to within fifty yards of the little creek named Flivver and the tent-pins were set almost on the border-line. The ground was sparsely covered with scrub grass, shrubs and willows, the space about the tent clear of anything higher than clumps of bushes and sage.

Mormon's eye brows went up at the location with which Sandy and Sam, seated cross-legged on the ground, one smoking, the other draining low harmonies through his mouth organ, appeared perfectly satisfied.

"Why on the flat?" asked Mormon. "There's a heap of cover round here where they might snake up afteh dahk an' sling anythin' they minded to at us, from lead to giant powdeh!"

"Wal," drawled Sandy, flicking the ash from his cigarette, "it's handy to watch, fo' one thing, an' yore right about that coveh, Mormon. That's why we chose it. Sam an' me had a heap of trouble pickin' out this place. Finally we found jest what we wanted, didn't we, Sam?"

"Sure did."

Mormon set down his load and took off his hat to scratch his head perplexedly. Then his face lightened as he looked up-hill.

"You figger on settin' the lantern in here afteh dahk," he said. "An' watchin' the fun from the tunnel."

"Pritty close, Mormon. Come inside, you an' Westlake, an' I'll show you suthin'."

They followed him into the tent and came out again laughing.

"No matteh what happens," said Sandy, "an' I'm hopin' fo' the worst, it ain't our tent. You been up to the main street this afternoon, Westlake?"

"Yes. There's a lot of talk loose about the trouble between you and Plimsoll's crowd. Factions for both sides and a lot of onlookers who are neutral and just waiting for the excitement. I saw Roaring Russell but he passed me up. He might not have known me. He was pretty well drunk. He's talking big about taking you apart, Mr. Peters. He claims to have been a champion wrestler at one time."

"You don't say so," said Mormon. "Me, I was the champeen wrastler of the Cow Belt, one time. Had the belt to prove it till I lost it at draw poker. I've got hawg fat sence then, but I don't believe I've softened any. An' the booze he's tuckin' away is mighty pore stuff fo' trainin'. But I ain't long on walkin'," he added. "B'lieve I'll sit me down a spell. I'll make fire an' git supper if you want to take Westlake up to the tunnel."

Westlake carefully inspected the tunnel, the float and the contents of the dump.

"I wouldn't wonder if Casey was running this as a drift to follow a good lead," he pronounced. "It looks better to me than any part of the camp I've inspected. I'll assay these samples for you, if you've no objection. I've got a lot of orders back at my shack already. My customers told me that they'd put a flea in Russell's ear that the camp assayer was not to be interfered with, so there is some value in an education, you see."

Sandy nodded. "You pack a gun?" he asked.

"No. I've got one, but I don't carry it. My practise with firearms has been with larger calibers."

"War?" asked Sandy.

"Yes. I was in the artillery. Is there anything else I can do? Get you some supplies? I'm coming back to have supper with Miss Bailey and her nephew."

"Not a thing," said Sandy. "Much obliged." He watched the engineer swing away.

"There's a good man for you," he said to Sam. "Well set up and able to handle himself. I like his ways first-rate."

"Me, too," said Sam. "He'd make a good match fo' Molly, when she comes back with her eddication, w'udn't he?"

Sandy stopped in his stride suddenly, so that Sam halted and regarded him curiously.

"Twist yo' foot?" he asked. "High heels is all right fo' stirrups but they're tough on hill climbin'."

"No. I was jest thinkin'. Nothin' that amounts to shucks. Gettin' dahk. We better git outside of our supper an' sneak up to the tunnel soon's it gits dusk enough to light the lantern."

The lantern, turned down, dimly illumined the tent and revealed the figures of three men seated about some sort of rough table. The flap was drawn and fastened. Occasionally a figure moved slightly. No passer-by would have guessed that the three partners were ensconced in the black mouth of the tunnel, ramparted by the dump heap, watching for developments they were fairly sure would start with darkness. Every little while Sandy twitched a line that was attached to a clumsy but effective rocker he had contrived beneath one of the dummies they had built from the stuff that Plimsoll had not reclaimed.

"Don't want to work the blamed thing too much," he said. "Might bu'st it. It's on'y the one figger but I'll be derned if it don't look natcherul."

After which they all relapsed into silence, restrained from smoking for fear of a telltale spark or casual fragrance carried by the wind. It was a dark night, the hillsides stood blurry against a blue-black sky in which the stars glittered like metal points but failed to shed much light. Later, much later, toward morning, a moon would rise.

Here and there on the slopes bright spots or glows of fire marked the occupied claim-sites. From the camp itself there came a murmur that sometimes swelled louder under the dull flare that hung over the lower end of the valley; reflection and diffusion from the gasoline lights and acetylene flares used by the owners of the eating-houses, the bars and gambling shacks, all open for business during miners' hours, which meant two shifts, of night and day.

From the mouth of the tunnel the three watched the march of the stars, the wheel of the Big Dipper around its pivot, the North Star; marking time by the sidereal clock of the heavens, each with a variant emotion.

Mormon shifted his position more frequently than the others. None of them was especially comfortable, but Mormon wanted to keep as limber as possible, he was afraid of stiffening up, thinking always of his challenge to Roaring Russell. Slow to anger, Mormon, when his rage mounted was slow of statement. What he said he meant. The insult to Miranda Bailey while under his escort chafed him as a saddle chafes a galled horse. It had to be wiped out at the earliest moment and, singularly enough, the spinster was not particularly prominent in the matter. It was not a personal question; the insult had been offered to womanhood, and Mormon was ever its champion and its victim.

Sam, cut off from tobacco and melody, bunkered down with his back against a frame timber and looked at the tall lean figure of Sandy silhouetted against the stars, wondering why Sandy had stopped so abruptly when the names of Westlake and Molly Casey had been coupled. It wasn't like Sandy to move or halt without definite purpose, Sam reasoned. "I suppose he figgers Molly too much of a kid," he told himself. "If these claims pan out she'll be rich. Likewise, so will we." His thoughts shifted to dreams of what he would do when they were wealthy. Very far beyond the purchase of an elaborate saddle and outfit, a horse or two he coveted, the finest harmonica to be bought, he did not go. That Sandy might have felt a tinge of jealousy toward young Westlake was furthest from his conjectures.

As for Sandy, he had lost his mental orientation. Something had happened, something was happening within him and he could not tell the process nor name it. He was as a man who goes out into the darkness amid rooms and passages with which he considers himself familiar and suddenly—there comes a door where should be space, or space where there should be a window—and he is lost, his senses betray him, for the moment he is completely