Chapter XVII
Roy Improves the Shining Hours
The tender spring burnt into crisp summer. Lean hill cattle that hadroughed through the winter storms lost their shaggy look and began tofill out. For there had been early rains and the bunch grass wassucculent this year.
Roy went about learning his new business with an energy that delightedhis partner. He was eager to learn and was not too proud to askquestions. The range conditions, the breeding of cattle, andtransportation problems were all studied by him. Within a month or twohe had become a fair horseman and could rope a steer inexpertly.
Dingwell threw out a suggestion one day in his characteristic casualmanner. The two men were riding a line fence and Roy had just missed ashot at a rabbit.
"Better learn to shoot, son. Take an hour off every day and practice.You hadn't ought to have missed that cottontail. What you want is tofire accurately, just as soon as yore gun jumps to the shoulder. I canteach you a wrinkle or two with a six-gun. Then every time you see arattler, take a crack at it. Keep in form. _You might need to bend agun one of these days_."
His partner understood what that last veiled allusion meant. The weekshad slipped away since the fracas in front of the Silver Dollar. Theenemy had made no move. But cowpunchers returning to the ranch fromtown reported that both Meldrum and Charlton had sworn revenge. It wasan even bet that either one of them would shoot on sight.
Beaudry took Dave's advice. Every day he rode out to a wash andcarried with him a rifle and a revolver. He practiced for rapidity aswell as accuracy. He learned how to fire from the hip, how to empty arevolver in less than two seconds, how to shoot lying down, and how tohit a mark either from above or below.
The young man never went to town alone. He stuck close to the ranch.The first weeks had been full of stark terror lest he might find one ofhis enemies waiting for him behind a clump of prickly pear or hidden inthe mesquite of some lonely wash. He was past that stage, but hisnerves were still jumpy. It was impossible for him to forget that atleast three men were deadly enemies of his and would stamp out his lifeas they would that of a wolf. Each morning he wakened with a littleshock of dread. At night he breathed relief for a few hours of safety.
Meanwhile Dave watched him with an indolent carelessness of manner thatmasked his sympathy. If it had been possible, he would have taken theburden on his own broad, competent shoulders. But this was not inDingwell's code. He had been brought up in that outdoor school of theWest where a man has to game out his own feuds. As the cattleman sawit, Roy had to go through now just as his father had done seventeenyears before.
In town one day Dave met Pat Ryan and had a talk with him over dinner.A remark made by the little cowpuncher surprised his friend. Dingwelllooked at him with narrowed, inquiring eyes.
The Irishman nodded. "Ye thought you were the only one that knew it?Well, I'm on, too, Dave."
"That's not what I hear everywhere else, Pat," answered the cattleman,still studying the other. "Go down the street and mention the same ofRoyal Beaudry--ask any one if he is game. What will you get for areply?"
Without the least hesitation Ryan spoke out. "You'll hear that he'sgot more guts than any man in Washington County--that he doesn't knowwhat fear is. Then likely you'll be told it's natural enough, sincehe's the son of Jack Beaudry, the fighting sheriff. Ever-rybodybelieves that excipt you and me, Dave. We know better."
"What do we know, Pat?"
"We know that the bye is up against a man-size job and is scared stiff."
"Hmp! Was he scared when he licked a dozen men at the Silver Dollarand laid out for repairs three of the best fighters in New Mexico?"
"You're shouting right he was, Dave. No man alive could 'a' done it ifhe hadn't been crazy with fright."
Dingwell laughed. "Hope I'm that way, then, when I get into my nexttight place." He added after a moment: "The trouble with the boy isthat he has too much imagination. He makes his own private little hellbeforehand."
"I reckon he never learned to ride herd on his fears."
"Jack Beaudry told me about him onc't. The kid was born after hismother had been worrying herself sick about Jack. She never could tellwhen he'd be brought home dead. Well, Roy inherited fear. I'venoticed that when a sidewinder rattles, he jumps. Same way, when anyone comes up and surprises him. It's what you might callconstitootional with him."
"Yep. That's how I've got it figured. But--" Pat hesitated andlooked meditatively out of the window.
"All right. Onload yore mind. Gimme the run of the pen just as yorethoughts happen," suggested the cattleman.
"Well, I'm thinking--that he's been lucky, Dave. But soon as Tighe'stools guess what we know, something's going to happen to Beaudry. He'sgot them buffaloed now. But Charlton and Meldrum ain't going to quit.Can you tell me how your frind will stand the acid next time hell pops?"
Dave shook his head. "I cannot. That's just what is worrying me.There are men that have to be lashed on by ridicule to stand the gaff.But Roy is not like that. I reckon he's all the time flogging himselflike the _penitentes_. He's sick with shame because he can't go outgrinning to meet his troubles. . . . There ain't a thing I can do forhim. He's got to play out his hand alone."
"Sure he has, and if the luck breaks right, I wouldn't put it past himto cash in a winner. He's gamer than most of us because he won't quiteven when the divvle of terror is riding his back."
"Another point in his favor is that he learns easily. When he firstcame out to the Lazy Double D, he was afraid of horses. He has gotover that. Give him another month and he'll be a pretty fair shot. Uptill the time he struck this country, Roy had lived a soft city life.He's beginning to toughen. The things that scare a man are those thatare mysteries to him. Any kid will fight his own brother because heknows all about him, but he's plumb shy about tackling a strange boy.Well, that's how it is with Roy. He has got the notion that Meldrumand Charlton are terrors, but now he has licked them onc't, he won'tfigure them out as so bad."
"He didn't exactly lick them in a stand-up fight, Dave."
"No, he just knocked them down and tromped on them and put them out ofbusiness," agreed Dingwell dryly.
The eyes of the little Irishman twinkled. "Brad Charlton is giving itout that it was an accident."
"That's what I'd call it, too, if I was Brad," assented the cattlemanwith a grin. "But if we could persuade Roy to put over about one moreaccident like that, I reckon Huerfano Park would let him alone."
"While Jess Tighe is living?"
Dingwell fell grave. "I'd forgotten Tighe. No, I expect the kid hadbetter keep his weather eye peeled as long as that castor-oil smile ofJess is working."