CHAPTER II

  Chuckaluck and Twister watched her until she was lost to distance and to darkness. “Makes a man feel sorta old,” he said feelingly.

  “Reckon yo’re old ’nough tuh be her pappy,” Twister granted, a hint of humour in his voice.

  “What’s two o’ batches like us doin’ talkin’ aboot bein’ somebuddy’s pappy? We done left our chances ’way back yonduh.”

  “There’ll mebbe a dance-hall in Marfa an’ we can shake a leg with some purty gals,” Twister offered hopefully, but his words rang hollow and his partner’s only response was a sour grunt.

  Half an hour later they were leaving the plains and following a little-used path that twisted steeply upward along the mountainside. Twister sat erect, his roan a half-length ahead. Chuckaluck slumped in the saddle, both men leaving the reins slack to allow the tired horses to pick their footing up the rough trail.

  Twister turned to look back at his partner. “Reckon Marfa mus’ lay right on t’other side of that next ridge. Thuh sign at thuh turn-off said foah miles tuh go.”

  Chuckaluck glanced at the moonlit pine-crested ridge ahead with moody disinterest. “When we top over it there’ll be ’nother’n ahead just a little higher. Yuh reckon this here’s shore ’nough a short cut to Marfa.”

  “Said so on thuh sign.”

  “This trail’s growed over like it ain’t been travelled on fo’ weeks,” Chuckaluck protested.

  “Feller in thuh s’loon at Fo’t Davis tol’ us las’ night it wasn’ much used by folks hereaboots account of it’s so steep up and down,” Twister reminded him. “But it cuts off ten miles from goin’ ’round, so I’d say it’s wuth it.”

  Chuckaluck shrugged his heavy sloping shoulders and reached inside his shirt for his harmonica. He always let Twister take the lead and make the decisions … in all minor things. It was less trouble than endless arguments, and they had remained staunch friends and partners for many years by operating on that basis.

  He fitted his lips lovingly over the instrument and the strains of Where is My Wandering Boy To-night floated plaintively into the quiet loneliness. Twister gently encouraged his roan to a faster pace up the last steep climb where, from its crest, he confidently expected to see the village of Marfa spread out on the plain below.

  Chuckaluck had gotten his wandering boy home and was swinging into the unhappy air of Just a Gambler’s Darling when Twister reined his roan up at the crest of the final ridge.

  When Chuckaluck reined up beside him the music stopped abruptly and he said scathingly, “Marfa? Is that thuh bright lights an’ dens of ’niquity where we’re figurin’ on havin’ us a gay ol’ time tuh-night?” He pointed disgustedly to a lone cabin huddled beneath a clump of junipers against a sheer cliff a couple of hundred feet away.

  Twister didn’t bother to reply. His eyes were alert and questioning and suspicious as he glared at the moonlit scene. It appeared to be a sort of blind alley into which the trail led. There was a wide triangular mesa hemmed in on two sides by forbidding cliffs, at the apex of which was the cabin.

  Most inexplicable and worrisome was the fact that the short cut to Marfa seemed to end here. There was nowhere it could go unless there was a tunnel through one of the sheer rock walls that angled off to the rim of the mesa on either side.

  Twister tipped his dusty Stetson back and scratched his head. “Do yuh see what I think I see?”

  “I dunno what yuh think yuh see, Mister Malone,” he answered bitterly, “but if there’s a road on tuh anywheres I’m a-thinkin’ we’ll have tuh sprout us some wings afore we can travel it.”

  “Settin’ here lookin’ ain’t gettin’ us no forwarder,” Twister said flatly, touched blunt spurs lightly to his roan’s heaving sides and went forward along the trail, searching keenly on either side for a path that would turn off and take them on to Marfa.

  The meadow was covered with lush grass and a small stream meandered through the centre of it, evidently fed by a mountain spring behind the cottage. There was no light in the cabin, and a thick, brooding, and unnatural silence hung over the small mesa.

  “I don’t like none o’ this a-tall,” muttered Chuckaluck as they approached the cabin. “Somethin’ spooky aboot it. Yuh reckon they ain’t nobuddy lives here?”

  “I reckon we done took thuh wrong road back yonder somewhere,” Twister said bitterly as he reined up ten feet from the cabin. “Thuh trail stops right here an’ that’s fo’ shore. Halloo!” he shouted. “Anybuddy tuh home?”

  His voice echoed back from the cliffs and died away. There was no other response. The door of the cabin stood invitingly open, but no one appeared at the door to welcome the weary riders.

  “’Tain’t but a couple miles back tuh thuh main road,” Chuckaluck suggested.

  “An’ then fo’teen miles thuh long way ’round tuh Marfa,” Twister reminded him. “Le’s go inside an’ take a look-see. Mebbe the feller’ll be back purty soon, an’ it’s a cinch anybuddy livin’ by hisself up here’ll be glad tuh have comp’ny.” He stepped lithely from the saddle and ground-tied his horse.

  Chuckaluck heaved himself slowly from the buckskin’s back feeling a reluctance which he could not analyze. The crunch of Twister’s boots and the rattle of his spurs sounded loud in the eerie silence as he stalked to the open door.

  He pounded hard on the door frame, craning his long neck to peer inside and call into the darkness, “Halloo in there! Anybuddy tuh home?”

  Chuckaluck came up and stood beside him. “Mus’ be dead if they are. Strike a match an’ see what’s what. If there ain’t no beds or victuals, we mought’s well staht ridin’ back,” he said sourly.

  Twister was sniffing the air, his head thrust inside the doorway. “Smells fresh lived in,” he declared. “Been a wood fire here.” He struck a match on the seat of his pants and held the wavering light above his head and stepped inside.

  The flare showed a room about fifteen feet square with bright rugs on the pine floor, a couple of rocking chairs, two straight chairs with cowhide bottoms, and two tables. The polished chimney of a kerosene lamp on one of the tables reflected the flame. Twister hurried over, lifted the chimney and held the dying match to the wick. Yellow light shed a soft glow over the room.

  From the doorway Chuchaluck gave a low whistle. “A woman fixed up this room,” he declared. “Cuhtains on thuh winders an’ all. An’ there’s a kid lives here, shore’s yo’re bawn. Lookit there.” He pointed to a rag doll lying near the door.

  “Looks like she jus’ stepped out a minut ago,” Twister said uncertainly. “But dang it, Chuckaluck, we didn’ meet nobuddy on thuh trail comin’ up … an’ there ain’t no place else anybuddy can go.”

  Curiosity spurred Chuckaluck to action. “Bring on thuh lamp,” he directed Twister, and went on ahead of him. “C’mon an’ foller me with thuh light. Mebbe she’s sick or hurt bad.” He opened a door and entered a bedroom.

  There was a four-poster bed in one corner with a pieced-silk quilt covering it. There were tanned coyote hides on the floor at strategic points, and a pine dresser with comb and brush lying on a crocheted doily. There was a large trunk in one corner and a closet in the other. Chuckaluck lifted the trunk top and saw that it was full of wearing apparel, then went on to the closet and opened the door. Feminine apparel hung from nails in the wall.

  Twister watched him in silence until Chuckaluck got down on his all-fours and looked under the bed. Then he said in a hoarse whisper, “What yuh thinkin’, Chuckaluck?”

  “I ain’t thinkin’,” snapped his partner. “Not yet I ain’t.” He got up and waddled swiftly through the doorway, and Twister followed, holding the lamp high, to another closed door.

  Chuckaluck flung it open. Here was a smaller bedroom with a home-made child’s crib, a child’s rocker and a small straight chair beside a miniature table. Small garments hung over the foot of the crib, and there was a low chest of drawers filled with a child’s clothes.

  “By dammie,” growled Chuckaluck, “they ain’t moved out or gone off on a trip lessen they got a whole lots o’ clothes. Shore is funny, though.” His round blue eyes were puzzled and worried.

  “Then I reckon they’ll be a-comin’ ’long purty soon,” said Twister. “What yuh lookin’ so fretted aboot?”

  “Reckon yo’re right, Twister,” his partner said carelessly. He turned his worried eyes away from Twister, and wondered why he had conjured up such a sizable hunch that something was wrong in the cheerful, well-kept mountain cabin.

  Twister gloomily followed him on to the kitchen. When Chuckaluck opened the door both men stood very still, looking everywhere except at each other. The table was set for one adult and a helping of food was on the plate. The place setting of silver was of a heavy, expensive pattern. A high chair was pulled up close and a dish of mashed food was on the service board beside a silver drinking cup. None of the silver had been used, and it was apparent that the food had not been touched.

  Chuckaluck went to the table and felt the serving dishes. The food was cold, but when he turned to the stove and felt the pots, the food was warm. He picked up a cap-lifter and moved one of the caps from the stove. Coals glowed in the bottom of the grate when he stirred the top ashes with the poker.

  He stood staring for a moment, pushing his hat back and scratching his sunbleached, dishevelled hair, then wagged his head slowly from side to side.

  Watching him narrowly, Twister demanded, “What yuh thinkin’ now?”

  “I was thinkin’ it’s aboot time fo’ whoevah cooked up these here victuals tuh c’mon an’ eat ’em … iffen they can.” His roving eyes caught sight of a lantern hanging on a nail near the rear kitchen door. He took it down and lit it and opened the door. “C’mon. We’ll have us a look-see out back. Yuh can do some mo’ hollerin’ for ’em whilst I look ’round.”

  Twister set the lamp down and followed him out, wandering in the shadows and calling loud halloos and receiving only hollow echoes in response. Chuckaluck inspected the springhouse by lantern light and found no sign of a human being.

  On the way to the corral he walked slowly, searching the ground for fresh footprints and peering into the moonlit distance. Neither were there hoofmarks along the path to the corral gate. There were no animals in the stalls and no indication that stock had been penned up on the mesa for months, despite an abundance of hay for feed.

  Walking hastily back toward the light in the kitchen window, Chuckaluck yelled abruptly, “Hush up bellerin’. That echo ain’t comin’ down tuh eat none o’ that fresh-cooked dinnah.”

  “Reckon I’ll go back an’ eat some of it m’se’f,” Twister yelled back. “I’ll put some wood in thuh stove an’ wahm it up again.”

  Chuckaluck continued the search, swinging the lantern out so the ring of light cut into the shadows on both sides of the house, then followed the rim of the mesa back in a curve across the trail leading up, and all the way to the cliff that formed the third side of the triangle, stopping to call an anxious halloo now and then, and listening intently before moving on again with an angry shout at the echoes taunting him from the cliffs beyond.

  He ended the search at the front door where the horses waited. After debating the proprieties for a moment he led them both to the corral where he unsaddled them and turned them into the barbed wire enclosure. He found a pitchfork in the feed shed and pitched hay over the fence to them, and returned to the house, going in through the front door.

  Twister had brought the lamp back to the living-room after lighting another one in a wall bracket above the stove. He hurried in from the kitchen when he heard Chuckaluck’s footsteps.

  Chuckaluck was staring at a roll of yarn and two knitting needles in a half-finished child’s sweater. “More’n more I don’ like this set-up a-tall,” he said moodily. “Damn if I can figger it out any way yuh look at it, Twister.”

  “I ain’t kickin’.” He was wearing a large apron with dainty red and white checks and a wide ruffle around the skirt. “Plenty tuh eat a’ready cooked an’ coffee an’ flour an’ side meat. Shore is nice an’ cozy.”

  Chuckaluck’s face twisted with dour displeasure. “Ain’t yuh got no feelin’s?” he stormed. “It don’t make sense nohow. No lady that’s a nice housekeeper like this un ups an’ wa’ks out leavin’ her dinner not et an’ her knittin’ ha’f done an’ thuh front door open.”

  “Shore it’s sorta funny,” Twister agreed amiably, “but wimmin’s all thuh time doin’ things that look plumb crazy to a man.”

  “Are yuh forgettin’ we was ridin’ a short-cut to Marfa when we ended up here?” Chuckaluck demanded.

  Twister blinked at him uncertainly. “Reckon that had slipped m’mind … sorta. Mebbe there’s another trail leadin’ off ’roun’ thuh mountain.”

  “But there ain’t.” Chuckaluck glared at him fiercely. “I been all ’round with a lantern an’ this here is the end of thuh road.”

  “Quien sabe?” said Twister vaguely. “What’s it mattuh if we got off on thuh wrong trail? Soon’s I get thuh grub hot I mean tuh show m’belly my th’oat ain’t been cut.”

  “Hush,” Chuckaluck said in a low, tense voice, “an’ listen.”

  “Two hawses comin’ up thuh trail,” Twister said. “Yuh reckon thuh lady’ll let us stay fo’ supper if I wash up the dishes.”

  “If it’s thuh lady,” said Chuckaluck with curt pessimism. “Me, I sorta don’ think a young-un the right size tuh set in that high chair ain’t straddlin’ one of them hawses. Fact is,” he went on ominously, “I got me a feelin’ in m’guts we’re due fo’ a spell o’ trouble. Them hawses’s bein’ hard pushed up that hill. Get yore gun loose in thuh holster, an’ fo’ onct in yore life let me do thuh tawkin’.”

  “Shore.” Twister narrowed his grey eyes suspiciously at the tone in his partner’s voice. “Who yuh think’s comin’?”

  “I dunno,” snapped Chuckaluck, “but things don’ look right tuh me. Shore as a gun’ll shoot, some-thin’ has happened to whoever lives here, an’ us bein’ strangers, who’s gonna believe us when we say we jus’ rode up an’ found things like this?” He waddled to the door and listened, then turned back to Twister and went on decisively:

  “I got a good idee. I’ll step outside in thuh dark by thuh house ’till we can find out what’s what. Don’t tell ’em I’m here ’til we find out where we stand. I’ll be listenin’, an’ thataway I can step in with a gun from behind if things looks real bad.”

  “Fust thing, yuh bettuh get yorself outen that doorway,” Twister warned. “In thuh light they can see that hulk o’ yo’rn a mile off.”

  Chuckaluck stepped back and waddled at a rapid pace toward the kitchen door, leaving his scarred-faced partner standing indecisively in the centre of the sitting-room attired in a woman’s apron while the fast-ridden horses galloped toward the cabin.

  CHAPTER III

  Twister walked to the door and stood just inside, back-lighted by the lamplight, as the two riders reined up outside. One of them was out of the saddle by the time his horse stopped and he strode forward into the rectangle of light streaming through the doorway.

  He was young and thin and sun-browned and his piercing black eyes glittered beneath the brim of a black Stetson. He wore a black sateen shirt and Levis, but no gunbelt. He stopped and stared at Twister in amazement, then demanded, “Who are you and what the devil are you doing here? Where’s Lucy?”

  “I dunno,” Twister drawled in answer to his final question. “I been lookin’ ever’wheres tryin’ tuh fin’ somebuddy.”

  “Damn it, man! Don’t stand there jabbering like an idiot. Get out of my way.” He pushed past the lanky intruder and entered the room calling loudly, “Lucy! It’s me … Jerry.”

  An older man had dismounted and was advancing slowly. He was a big, solid man with a good-natured florid face and shrewd eyes. His tan shirt, of heavy serviceable material, was open at the neck and he wore a gun on each hip, sagging low in open holsters from crossed cartridge belts. A silver sheriff’s star was pinned on his shirt and he stepped into the room with an air of authority.

  He looked Twister over with some curiosity but without animus, nodded and said, “Howdy, stranger,” in a matter-of-fact voice.

  The younger man hurled himself into the room after making a search of the house. “Lucy’s not here,” he panted to the sheriff. “Neither her nor Bobbie. But it looks like this yahoo has moved right in and settled down for keeps. Where are they?” he demanded savagely. “What’s the idea of a fresh-cooked dinner in the kitchen with their plates helped and neither one of ’em here to eat it? Are they hiding outside?” His frantic eyes glared at the apron Twister was wearing, and he whirled to the sheriff. “I reckon, by God! it’s time I was getting home.”

  “Take it easy, Jerry,” counselled the sheriff. “Let this man have his say. You know where Missus Kirk an’ her little boy are?” he asked Twister quietly.

  “I dunno,” Twister said desperately. “If yuh’ll gimme a minute I’ll tell yuh all I know. I rode up here not more’n ha’f hour ago. Headin’ t’wards Marfa, I thought. Ever’thing was jus’ like it is now ’ceptin’ it was dahk.” He gestured around the room. “Front door open, dinner settin’ on thuh table jus’ like ’tis now. Nobuddy here a-tall. I stahted up a fire from coals in thuh stove an’ figured on wahmin’ up thuh supper. I kep’ ’spectin’ whoever lived here tuh come in any minute.”

  “He’s lying,” said Jerry Kirk angrily. “Why would ’Lucy leave here? Where would she go? By God, Sheriff, I’m not goin’ to stand for this. This galoot has done something to my wife and boy, an’ I mean to fix him for it.” He darted to the sheriff as he spoke and his right hand dipped down to close over the butt of the sheriff’s left-hand gun, jerking it from its holster.

  The sheriff knocked his arm down with surprising agility. “That won’t help, Jerry. Not even if what you say is true.” He wrenched the gun away from the slighter man and pushed him back. “Sit down,” he commanded, “and let’s get this straight. An’ you better give me yore gun … butt first,” he added quietly to Twister.