The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains
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;