PART I
CURLY
CHAPTER I
FOLLOWING A CROOKED TRAIL
Across Dry Valley a dust cloud had been moving for hours. It rolled into Saguache at the brisk heels of a bunch of horses just about the time the town was settling itself to supper. At the intersection of Main and La Junta streets the cloud was churned to a greater volume and density. From out of the heart of it cantered a rider, who swung his pony as on a half dollar, and deflected the remuda toward Chunn’s corral.
The rider was in the broad-rimmed felt hat, the gray shirt, the plain leather chaps of a vaquero. The alkali dust of Arizona lay thick on every exposed inch of him, but youth bloomed inextinguishably through the grime. As he swept forward with a whoop to turn the lead horses it rang in his voice, announced itself in his carriage, was apparent in the modeling of his slim, hard body. Under other conditions he might have been a college freshman for age, but the competent confidence of manhood sat easily on his broad shoulders. He was already a graduate of that school of experience which always holds open session on the baked desert. Curly Flandrau had more than once looked into the chill eyes of death.
The leaders of the herd dribbled into the corral through the open gate, and the others crowded on their heels. Three more riders followed Curly into the enclosure. Upon them, too, the desert had sifted its white coat. The stained withers of the animals they rode told of long, steady travel. One of them, a red-haired young fellow of about the same age as Curly, swung stiffly from the saddle.
“Me for a square meal first off,” he gave out promptly.
“Not till we’ve finished this business, Mac. We’ll put a deal right through if Warren’s here,” decided a third member of the party. He was a tough-looking customer of nearly fifty. From out of his leathery sun-and-wind beaten face, hard eyes looked without expression. “Bad Bill” Cranston he was called, and the man looked as if he had earned his sobriquet.
“And what if he ain’t here?” snarled the fourth. “Are you aiming to sit down and wait for him?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Bad Bill answered. “Curly, want to ride up to the hotel and ask if Mr. Dave Warren is there? Bring him right down if he is.”
“And say, young fellow, don’t shout all over the place what your business is with him,” ordered the previous speaker sulkily. Lute Blackwell, a squat heavily muscled man of forty, had the manner of a bully. Unless his shifty eyes lied he was both cruel and vindictive.
Curly’s gaze traveled over him leisurely. Not a muscle in the boyish face moved, but in the voice one might have guessed an amused contempt. “All right. I won’t, since you mention it, Lute.”
The young man cantered up the dusty street toward the hotel. Blackwell trailed toward the windmill pump.
“Thought you’d fixed it with this Warren to be right on the spot so’s we could unload on him prompt,” he grumbled at Cranston without looking toward the latter.
“I didn’t promise he’d be hanging round your neck soon as you hit town,” Cranston retorted coolly. “Keep your shirt on, Lute. No use getting in a sweat.”
The owner of the corral sauntered from the stable and glanced over the bunch of horses milling around.
“Been traveling some,” he suggested to Bad Bill.
“A few. Seen anything of a man named Warren about town to-day?”
“He’s been down here se-ve-re-al times. Said he was looking for a party with stock to sell. Might you be the outfit he’s expecting?”
“We might.” Bad Bill took the drinking cup from Blackwell and drained it. “I reckon the dust was caked in my throat an inch deep.”
“Drive all the way from the Bar Double M?” asked the keeper of the corral, his eyes on the brand stamped on the flank of a pony circling past.
“Yep.”
Bad Bill turned away and began to unsaddle. He did not intend to volunteer any information, though on the other hand he did not want to stir suspicion by making a mystery for gossips to chew on.
“Looks like you been hitting the road at a right lively gait.”
Mac cut in. “Shoulder of my bronc’s chafed from the saddle. Got anything that’ll heal it?”
“You bet I have.” The man hurried into the stable and the redheaded cowpuncher winked across the back of his horse at Bill.
The keeper of the stable and the young man were still busy doctoring the sore when Curly arrived with Warren. The buyer was a roundbodied man with black gimlet eyes that saw much he never told. The bargain he drove was a hard one, but it did not take long to come to terms at about one-third the value of the string he was purchasing. Very likely he had his suspicions, but he did not voice them. No doubt they cut a figure in the price. He let it be understood that he was a supply agent for the rebels in Mexico. Before the bills were warm in the pockets of the sellers, his vaqueros were mounted and were moving the remuda toward the border.
Curly and Mac helped them get started. As they rode back to the corral a young man came out from the stable. Flandrau forgot that there were reasons why he wanted just now to be a stranger in the land with his identity not advertised. He let out a shout.
“Oh you, Slats Davis!”
“Hello, Curly! How are things a-comin’?”
“Fine. When did you blow in to Saguache? Ain’t you off your run some?”
They had ridden the range together and had frolicked around on a dozen boyish larks. Their ways had suited each other and they had been a good deal more than casual bunkies. To put it mildly the meeting was likely to prove embarrassing.
“Came down to see about getting some cows for the old man from the Fiddleback outfit,” Davis explained. “Didn’t expect to bump into friends ’way down here. You riding for the Bar Double M?”
There was a momentary silence. Curly’s vigilant eyes met those of his old side partner. What did Slats know? Had he been in the stable while the remuda was still in the corral?