The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains
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.
XXXI. THE COTTONWOODS
I do not know how long I stayed there alone. It was the Virginian who
came back, and as he stood at the foot of my blankets his eye, after
meeting mine full for a moment, turned aside. I had never seen him
look as he did now, not even in Pitchstone Canyon when we came upon the
bodies of Hank and his wife. Until this moment we had found no chance of
speaking together, except in the presence of others.
“Seems to be raining still,” I began after a little.
“Yes. It’s a wet spell.”
He stared out of the door, smoothing his mustache.
It was again I that spoke. “What time is it?”
He brooded over his watch. “Twelve minutes to seven.”
I rose and stood drawing on my clothes.
“The fire’s out,” said he; and he assembled some new sticks over the
ashes. Presently he looked round with a cup.
“Never mind that for me,” I said.
“We’ve a long ride,” he suggested.
“I know. I’ve crackers in my pocket.”
My boots being pulled on, I walked to the door and watched the clouds.
“They seem as if they might lift,” I said. And I took out my watch.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“A quarter of--it’s run down.”
While I wound it he seemed to be consulting his own.
“Well?” I inquired.
“Ten minutes past seven.”
As I was setting my watch he slowly said:
“Steve wound his all regular. I had to night-guard him till two.” His
speech was like that of one in a trance: so, at least, it sounds in my
memory to-day.
Again I looked at the weather and the rainy immensity of the plain. The
foot-hills eastward where we were going were a soft yellow. Over the
gray-green sage-brush moved shapeless places of light--not yet the
uncovered sunlight, but spots where the storm was wearing thin; and
wandering streams of warmth passed by slowly in the surrounding air.
As I watched the clouds and the earth, my eyes chanced to fall on the
distant clump of cottonwoods. Vapors from the enfeebled storm floated
round them, and they were indeed far away; but I came inside and began
rolling up my blankets.
“You will not change your mind?” said the Virginian by the fire. “It is
thirty-five miles.”