Kitty picked up her crocheting and began to ply her steel hook. There was silence between them. Sam puffed on his pipe and was content.

  After a time a frown creased Kitty’s brow. Her crochet needle started going slower and slower while she stared thoughtfully across the room. She broke the silence between them by asking:

  “What was it you said about the teacher’s uncle, Sam?”

  “Huh?” He took his pipe out of his mouth and looked at Kitty. “What’s that?”

  “You were asleep,” she accused him.

  “Nope. I was sorta dreamin’, mebby. Seems like the pipe smoke makes pictures when you set an’ jest let it come out easy.”

  “I asked you about the schoolteacher’s uncle.”

  “Mr. Deever? What about him?”

  “Remember when I was telling you about Mrs. Jenkins just after dinner? I told you about the mockingbird she thinks is the reincarnation of her husband.”

  Sam nodded and chuckled. “Ol’ Tod Jenkins! If he had his pick of what shape he’d come back in, ’twouldn’t be no mockin’bird, I’ll tell you that.”

  “And I told you she had someone out in her buggy when she stopped by this morning,” Kitty went on.

  “Feller that was goin’ to tell her what ol’ Tod sings about so early in the mornin’,” Sam chuckled again. “Now that’d be somethin’. I’d shore admire to hear that.”

  “And you said you supposed it was probably the schoolteacher’s uncle,” Kitty continued patiently. “Do you remember saying that?”

  “Shore. You said it was some feller from Denver. Made me think about Deever—him bein’ so stuck on religion an’ all.”

  “Is that the only reason you had for thinking it was Mr. Deever, Sam?”

  Sam shrugged. “I guess I did hear in town that Deever’d been makin’ up to the widder at church. Don’ know how true it is. But there ain’t many strange fellers from Denver that’d be giving the widder lessons in some newfangled religion about dead people turnin’ into mockn’birds.”

  Kitty’s frown deepened. She began to ply her needle swiftly again, but her lips tightened and it was evident that her thoughts were far away, and not pleasant.

  Before Sam could settle back to the dreamy pleasure of making pictures out of his tobacco smoke, she asked him:

  “Would you mind terribly hitching up a team and driving us over to the Jenkins ranch?”

  Sam said, “No.” But he looked at her curiously. “Changed yore mind about things? Yo’re not goin’ to start believin’ that mockin’bird is ol’ Tod Jenkins, are you?”

  Kitty said, “No.” Her face had that hard, pinched look again. She put her crocheting aside and stood up. “But I want to drive over to Mrs. Jenkins’ right now.”

  Sam said, “Shore, honey.” He didn’t understand Kitty, but he was determined to humor her. “I’ll get a team hooked up right away.”

  “I’ll change my dress and be ready to go as soon as you are,” Kitty told him. “I’d like to get there before Mr. Deever leaves.”

  14

  Kitty came hurrying out of the front door when Sam drove up in the buggy. He cramped the wheels and jumped down to help her in, but Kitty stepped up into the seat unassisted before he could take her arm. She said sharply, “Let’s not waste any time getting there.”

  Sam got back up beside her and let the eager team out into a fast trot while he studied his wife curiously out of the corner of his eye.

  Kitty was obviously under a tremendous tension. Her gloved hands were folded tightly in her lap and she sat erect with her slim shoulders squared. Her chin was lifted and she stared straight ahead.

  Sam said dubiously, “Yo’re in a mighty rush all of a sudden, honey. You reckon it’s good fer you to get excited like this?”

  Kitty didn’t relax. She said, “I want to get to the Jenkins ranch before Mr. Deever leaves.”

  “It ain’t so far,” Sam encouraged her. “Uh—why did you decide all of a sudden that you wanta see him so bad?”

  Kitty shivered a little. She tightened her lips and said, “Please don’t ask me, Sam. I want to do what’s right. I’ve got to find out.” Her voice trailed off irresolutely.

  “Shore,” Sam said. “I ain’t meanin’ to pry into yore reasons, honey.” He shook out the lines to urge the team into a faster trot. He reckoned it was something to do with having a baby. He’d heard that all women got queer ideas at a time like that. And the thing to do was to humor them and not ask many questions. If Kitty had decided she wanted to fly to the moon he would have tried to arrange the trip.

  “Sometimes,” Kitty told him after a little time, “a person doesn’t know what’s right and what’s wrong.” She shivered again. “It’s terrible not to know where your loyalty lies.”

  Sam didn’t know what she was talking about. It sounded like pure gibberish to him. It seemed like that short visit from the Denver schoolteacher had set her off. Everything had been all right until then. But he hoped, by golly, that Kitty wasn’t going to get a crazy religious streak like believing old Tod Jenkins had turned himself into a mockingbird. That would be too much. He wondered if Sally Stevens would be able to advise him. Sally was a mother, but he couldn’t recollect Pat ever telling about Sally acting this way.

  They rounded a turn and saw a little ball of dust rapidly riding down the road toward them. He felt Kitty stiffen in the seat beside him when they got close enough to see it was a surrey that was approaching. He squinted ahead and muttered, “Looks like one of the widder’s teams.”

  Kitty said, “Slow up a little. If it’s Mrs. Jenkins driving him back to town—”

  “It ain’t,” Sam told her. “Two men in the front seat. Looks like Jud Brinlow drivin’. More’n likely he’s takin’ Deever back.” He slowed his own team, and after a moment nodded confidently.

  “That’s who it is, shore enough. That dressed-up feller ridin’ with Jud is Deever. You want I should stop ’em?”

  Kitty said, “No. We’ll go on to see Mrs. Jenkins.”

  Sam let his team out into a faster trot and pulled them to the right to give the Jenkins surrey room to pass. He waved to Jud Brinlow as they passed, and he saw the frock-coated Mr. Deever turn to stare at them with his mouth open as though he wanted to speak but didn’t know what to say.

  When they were back in the ruts, Sam turned to look at Kitty again. Her face was quite white and she looked angry. He said lamely, “That was Deever, awright. He don’t look like a feller that believes in ghosts.”

  Kitty shook her head but she didn’t say anything more. It was only a couple of more miles to the Jenkins ranch, and Sam’s fast-trotting team ate the distance up rapidly. He stopped at the hitching rail outside the front gate and tied the team, then asked Kitty awkwardly, “You want I should go in with you or would you rather I’d stay outside?”

  Kitty looked at him in surprise. “I want you to come in with me, of course.” She put her hand on his arm and her gloved fingers tightened until they hurt. “I want you to hear all of this, Sam. I want you to help me.”

  Sam said, “Shore. I dunno what it’s all about, but I’ll be right with you.”

  They went up a dirt walk to the front door and Sam knocked loudly.

  The door opened after a time and the widow Jenkins’ wrinkled face peered out at them. Her features spread out in a smile when she saw who it was.

  “Why Mr. and Miz Sloan! Come right on in. I’m so glad you did come but it’s terrible you’re too late to meet Mr. Deever. We had such a miraculous demonstration! Do come in.”

  The shades were tightly drawn in her living room and the air was hot and stifling, filled with a heavy, cloying odor that got into Sam’s lungs and choked them when he followed Kitty inside.

  When he sputtered for breath, Mrs. Jenkins explained brightly, “It’s the incense, Mr. Sloan. You’ll get used to it. Mr. Deever brought it with him. It’s called Balm of Gilead and it makes the vibrations right.”

  Sam got out his bandanna and coughed into it, muttering apologetically that he reckoned his vibrations weren’t quite up to the smell yet. He groped around in the semi-darkness and sat in a rawhide-seated rocking chair, but Kitty remained standing near the door. She said:

  “I want to know what Mr. Deever has been doing, Myra.”

  “He’s wonderful,” Mrs. Jenkins told her ecstatically. “So understanding. And he knows all about the sacred Rule of Twelve. He can quote from it almost like he’d wrote it himself.”

  “He probably did,” said Kitty angrily.

  “What say?” Mrs. Jenkins blinked and stretched out her long neck.

  Kitty said, “I didn’t mean to interrupt you. What do you mean about the Rule of Twelve?”

  “It’s getting your body in tune with the infinite. A series of lessons I got in a pamphlet from Denver. It tells how to create a mood, sort of, that puts one’s physical body in communication with the things that aren’t. It’s what I wanted you to learn about, my dear. If you’d only got here sooner—”

  “I’m sorry we didn’t,” said Kitty. “What about the mockingbird?”

  “That’s the most wonderful manifestation of all. Mr. Deever was just thrilled with it. He says I must be terribly psychic. He never heard of it coming so fast and clear before.”

  “What?”

  “Messages from the Beyond. From Tod. Don’t you see? Tod’s worrying about me running this big ranch all by myself. He knows I’m not capable of it. He wants I should marry again. Bless his heart. I never knowed he cared so much when he was here on earth.”

  Overcome with emotion, Mrs. Jenkins got out a handkerchief and sobbed in it.

  Kitty said, “Stop crying in your handkerchief and tell me exactly what Mr. Deever said.”

  Sam looked at her in surprise. He’d never heard Kitty’s voice so hard and clear. She sounded like she was mad clear through. He didn’t see why she was mad at Mrs. Jenkins. Looked to him like the old lady was more to be pitied. He started to remonstrate with Kitty but she silenced him with a fierce gesture. “Go on,” she told Mrs. Jenkins. “I want to know what kind of an act Dan Deever is putting on with you.”

  “He’s helping me to understand Tod’s messages. I can’t understand them. I’m not tuned in good enough yet, though goodness knows I haven’t missed a one of the exercises—deep breathing and all. But he says I mustn’t be “impatient. The Inner Secrets will be revealed to me when my vibrations are right.”

  “In the meantime, he tells you what Tod wants you to do.”

  Mrs. Jenkins nodded happily. “Isn’t it wonderful for him to come along just when my need is so great? If ’twasn’t for him I’d just have thought the mockingbird was just a mockingbird. I’d never have fancied poor Tod would come back thataway.”

  “Shore sounds funny to me too,” Sam put in cheerfully. “Now if he’d grabbed onto the shape of a jackass an’ come back a-brayin’ it’d be more like Tod.”

  Kitty stamped her foot angrily. She said, “I’m trying to find out exactly what Mr. Deever told you Tod wants you to do.”

  “It’s not too clear. Not yet. I told him how the song comes every morning just at dawn. And that’s a sure sign Tod don’t hold with me staying a widow no longer. He knows that it ain’t blessed to live alone and he knows it ain’t good in the sight of the Lord for a woman to run a big ranch like this. He wants I should find a man I can trust and then deed it over to him—for eternal happiness.”

  Kitty said, “I see.” She sounded depressed now, uncertain of herself. She told her husband, “I think we’d bettter go now.”

  “Do come back,” Mrs. Jenkins urged them. “I hope you’ll come back when Mr. Deever’s here. He promised to come again next Saturday and be here in the morning to hear Tod sing himself. Then he’ll know better, don’t you see, what Tod’s telling me.”

  Kitty said flatly, “I see just exactly what he’s up to.” She wrenched the door open and marched out. Sam got up and followed her. He felt that he ought to apologize to Mrs. Jenkins for their abrupt departure, but Kitty was already going down the path to the buggy, and he hurried after her.

  He helped her in and then turned to take off his hat and wave it at the shrunken figure of the widow who stood in the doorway watching them go.

  He climbed in and wheeled the horses about, then chided Kitty, “You ornt’t’ve flew off the handle like that, hon. If it pleases her to listen to sech foolishment I reckon it ain’t gonna do no harm.”

  “Harm?” Kitty cried fiercely. “It’s terrible, Sam. I feel so sorry for her.”

  “I dunno as I do. Folks like her need somethin’ like that to make life int’restin’.”

  “But don’t you see what he’s doing?” Kitty wailed.

  “I reckon he’s got a screw loose same as her.”

  “But he hasn’t, Sam. Dan Deever is smart. And he’s cruel. He’s getting her all worked up by a fake religion to where she’ll marry him and deed the ranch over. Don’t you see?”

  Sam said gently, “Looks to me like yo’re doin’ a lot of guessin’, honey.”

  “It isn’t guesswork,” she told him fiercely. “I know Dan Deever. I know how he works. He’s been doing this for years, Sam. Getting money from widows and people who don’t know any better by pretending to be religious.”

  Sam shook his head and looked puzzled. “You mean Miss Dawson’s uncle? He’s a crook?”

  “He isn’t her uncle,” Kitty said scornfully. “He’s just pretending that too.”

  Sam shook his head in amazement. “You mean she’s in with him on it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Kitty twisted her hands together. “I promised her I wouldn’t tell. But I won’t let him do that to Mrs. Jenkins.”

  “Are you sure about Deever?” Sam asked. “Plumb-certain sure?”

  “There’s no mistake about him,” she told him dully. “I recognized him when he passed in the buggy.”

  “You knew him back in Denver, huh?”

  “Yes. Everyone knew Dan Deever. He must have been arrested a dozen times for things like this. But Judge Prink always managed to get him off.”

  “Jedge Prink, huh?”

  “Yes. I haven’t told anybody this, Sam, because I thought it was only fair to wait and see how things worked out. But Judge Prink was one of the crookedest lawyers in Denver. He always won his cases—bribing a jury or something like that.”

  Sam expelled a long breath. “How about a feller named Crane?” he demanded.

  “Gilbert Crane? He’s another one I knew back in the old days. What about him, Sam?”

  “Nothin’,” said Sam grimly. “’Ceptin’ that he moved onto the K Bar ranch not long ago. Takin’ it right out from under Ezry’s nose when Ezry had spoke to Jedge Prink for it special.”

  “I knew some man had taken it over but I didn’t know his name.” Kitty gripped Sam’s arm. “Gilbert Crane isn’t a rancher. He’s a horse trader who used to hang around Denver. I know the judge got him out of one or two crooked deals too.”

  “How about a feller named Gut-Luck Lasher—an’ a gambler name of Windy Rivers?” Sam asked excitedly.

  But Kitty shook her head. “I don’t know them. Who are they?”

  Sam told her concisely all he knew. And he told her about Pat and the vague suspicions he had confided the preceding night. “Looks like Pat was right,” he ended, “only Pat didn’t even know about this Denver feller. What about Miss Dawson?” he went on sharply. “You know her too?”

  Kitty nodded wearily. “We worked together in Denver. She’s no more a schoolteacher than I am, Sam. She used to sing around cheap saloons.”

  “No good, huh?”

  Kitty’s chin lifted. “Connie was all right. I always liked her; As far as I know she was on the square. That’s why I didn’t say anything to you and Mr. Fleming when I saw her today. I know how it is when you get stuck in a rut that way. No decent man will look at you.”

  “I looked at you,” Sam reminded her soberly.

  “But you’re one man in a million. Most men think a dancehall entertainer can’t be decent. They won’t think of marrying her.”

  Sam nodded uncomfortably. “I reckon that is so, awright.”

  “What are we going to do, Sam? We’ve got to stop Dan Deever from twisting Mrs. Jenkins around his finger.”

  “Yep,” Sam agreed soberly. “I reckon we had ought to do somethin’. Bes’ thing, it looks like, is to tell Pat the whole truth. He’s sheriff. He had ought to know about Jedge Prink, anyway.”

  “I know it. I should have told him before. I warned Connie today,” Kitty went on, “that I wouldn’t keep still if I thought someone in Powder Valley was going to get hurt. That’s why I wanted to drive over to the Jenkins ranch—to find out exactly what Dan Deever was up to.”

  “That was bein’ fair enough,” Sam assured her. “I reckon I’ll mosey out to the Lazy Mare tonight an’ tell Pat jest how things stand. He’ll know what to do.”

  They had no more than reached the Pony Express station when a horse and rider came galloping up from the northeast. The rider was George Williams, one of the hands at the Lazy Mare. He flung himself off his lathered mount just as Sam pulled up the team, and panted, “Miz Stevens sent me riding for you, Sam.”

  “What’s the trouble?”

  “Plenty. Dock’s gone an’ Miz Stevens is plumb worried sick. Pat and Ezra have been out trailin’ him since daylight but they ain’t come back yet.”

  “Dock’s gone? You mean he’s lost?”

  “I dunno rightly. He ain’t to home. An’ I know Pat an’ Ezra went out after him at daylight.”

  “Wait a minute,” Sam said sharply. He turned to Kitty who had been listening silently, and explained, “Mebby I know somethin’ about that. I heard Crane from the K Bar talkin’ to the jedge las’ night when they didn’t know I was listenin’. An’ Crane was mad an’ said somethin’ about if they’d left the boy alone they would of been better off.”

  “Oh Sam! Do you suppose they’ve kidnaped Dock?”

  “I dunno.” Sam whirled away from the buggy and yelled, “Jeff! Saddle the fastest an’ freshest hawse in the corral an’ buckle my saddle gun on.” He turned toward the house.