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Meadowlark Basin

<h2>CHAPTER FOUR</h2> <h3>BUD</h3> Dust lay deep in the trail and spurted up in little clouds from under the tired feet of Bud Larkin's sweat-streaked sorrel. Smoky Ford squatted as always with her board shacks huddled about her one street and the rear windows staring stupidly at the hills beyond the swift-flowing river hidden behind the willows and the steep bank. The afternoon was half gone and the mid-July wind was hot and dry, and Bud had been in the saddle since early morning. He rode up to the hitch-rail in front of the Elkhorn saloon and dismounted, wondering a little at the crowd uproariously filling the place. Moving a bit stiffly, he went inside, the big rowels of his spurs making a pleasant br-br-brr on the boards, the chains clinking faintly under the arch of his high-heeled boots as he walked. The whole of his high gray hat, the brim turned back and skewered to the crown with a cameo pin filched from the neck of a pretty girl whom he had kissed on the mouth for her laughing resistance, looked as if it were afloat on a troubled sea of felt as he pushed through the noisy crowd and up to the bar, his thoughts all of beer cold and foaming in the glass. The cameo pin and the pretty girl were forgotten, the smoldering eyes under his straight brown brows held no vision of gentle dalliance, though Bud was a good-looking young devil of twenty-two who gave blithe greeting to Romance when he met her on the lonely trails. His mouth, given easily to smiles that troubled the dreams of many a range girl, was grim now and dusty in the corners as he waited thirstily for the tall glass mug ribbed on the outside and spilling foam over the top; took one long swallow when the busy bartender pushed the glass toward him, and turned, elbowing his way to an empty table against the wall where he could sit down and rest himself and take his time over the refreshment. Negligent greeting he gave to one or two whose eyes he met, but for the most of them he had no thought. It was not his kind of a crowd, being composed largely of the town drifters and a few from the neighboring ranches. The cause of their foregathering was not far to seek. Steve Godfrey was present and deeply engaged in letting his world know that he was having one of his sprees—during which he was wont to proclaim loudly that he was prying off the lid, taking the town apart, painting her red; whatever trite phrase came first to his loose lips. On such occasions he lacked neither friends nor an audience. "Ev-rybody dance!" Steve was shouting drunkenly, his face turned toward the doorway where a man was entering whose back bore certain scars, they said, which Lark could best explain; Palmer, whose silent enmity was felt by the Meadowlark even though he had as yet made no open move against them, "Lock the door! 'S my saloon—bought 'er for the next two hours! Drink 'er dry, boys, and ev-rybody dance!" Palmer laughed sourly and shut the inner door with a bang, pushing the bolt across. There was a general stampede for the bar, behind which Steve Godfrey was pulling down bottles with both hands and laughing wide-mouthed as they were snatched from him. Bud's lip curled. A young fellow at the next table was sketching rapidly in a notebook, glancing up after each pencil stroke to catch fresh glimpses of some face in the crowd. Bud lifted his beer, took a sip and set down the mug, watching sidelong the careless, swift work of his neighbor. A stranger in the town, Bud tagged him. A tenderfoot, judging by the newness of his riding clothes, the softness of his hands, the town pallor of his face. He looked up and smiled faintly with that wistfulness of the lonely soul begging silently for friendship, and Bud's scornful young mouth relaxed into a grin. "Great stuff—all new to me, though," the young man confided, nodding toward the massed backs before him. "Crazy bunch of booze-fighters," Bud condemned the crowd tersely. "Say, whyn't you up here drinkin' with the rest?" Steve Godfrey, standing on a keg behind the bar, bawled angrily at the artist. "You, I mean, over there by the wall. What's the matter with you? Sick at the stummick?" "Why, no. Thank you just the same, but I don't drink liquor." "Don't, ay?" Steve scowled and spat into a corner. "Well, if you don't drink, dammit, you'll dance!" Bud moved his slim body sidewise so that his gun hung handily within reach of his fingers. The young man shrugged his shoulders, closed his notebook and put it away with the pencil. The crowd had swung round and was staring and waiting to see what would happen next. "I don't mind dancing for you," smiled the artist, "but I can't dance without music, you know." "Can't, ay?" Steve was happy now, bullying some one who would not fight back. "Say! you git up and dance to this!" The stranger looked at the gun in Steve's hand, glanced into Steve's eyes and stifled a yawn. "You know very well that's impossible," he said patiently. "I've always said that this dancing to the music of a six-shooter is a fake, invented by some Eastern author for melodramatic effect. I still believe you got the idea out of some book. I wouldn't mind dancing for you, but you couldn't possibly beat time with that gun. Six shots, and I'd have to stop and wait while you reloaded. The thing isn't practical. If any one here could furnish some real music—" "I have a mouth-harp, though you may not call that real music," Bud announced unexpectedly, and finished his beer with one long swallow. It amused young Bud to see the stupid indecision on the face of Steve Godfrey, who lacked the wit to handle an old range joke when it chanced to take a new turn. "Good!" The young man smiled frankly. "Clear a space over there by the door, will you?" He looked inquiringly at Bud. "What can you play?" "I can play anything you can dance," Bud grinned reply, well pleased with the small diversion. "How about a good old buck-and-wing?" "All right, buck-and-wing it is." The stranger nodded, cast another glance toward that non-plused bully, Steve Godfrey, who stood on the keg with the gun sagging in his hand and his mouth half open, and took his place in the center of the makeshift stage. Bud shot him a puzzled glance not unmixed with a certain tolerant contempt. The young fellow's manner gave no hint of fear, so why should he dance at the bidding of a drunken bully? Bud did not like to think that the tenderfoot had seized the first excuse for showing off before so sorry an audience. However, the motive was no business of Bud's. He polished the harmonica on his sleeve, moistened his boyish lips that turned so easily to smiles, cupped his hands around the little instrument so dear to the heart of a cowboy and swung into a jig tune. Sitting on the edge of the table with his head tilted to one side, eyes half closed and watching the dancer while a well-made riding boot tapped the beat of the measures on the rough board floor, Bud never knew the picture he made. The dancer's eyes studied the lines of his clean young face and throat, the tilt of his hat with the cameo brooch pinning back the broad brim, the slim, muscular body and straight legs; studied and recorded each curve and line in a photographic memory. And he could dance the while! Smoky Ford had never seen anything like it. Hornpipe and highland fling he did, never taking his eyes off Bud, but mechanically fitting the steps to each tune as it was played. Even the free whisky was forgotten as the crowd pressed close to watch him. Then Bud awoke to the fact that his lips were getting sore from rubbing across the reeds, that time was passing and that he had urgent business in another part of town. Fifteen minutes or more had been spent when he had thought to drink a glass of beer and go on. He put away his mouth-harp and started for the door. "Hey! Come back here with that music!" Steve Godfrey shouted arrogantly. "Where the hell you goin'?" "Where did you get the crazy notion you could give orders to me?" Bud flung contemptuously over his shoulder as he slid back the bolt. "You stay where you're at! That door stays shut till I give the word to open it!" Steve was off the keg and plowing toward him through the crowd. "You'll stay shut a heap longer," flared Bud, and gave Steve an uppercut that sent his teeth into his tongue and jarred him cruelly. Behind Steve a lean face leered at Bud; the face of Palmer, who was edging forward as if he meant to take a hand. The key had been turned in the lock and removed—by Palmer, Bud would have sworn. The knowing look in his eyes betrayed that much. Steve was coming at him again, gun in hand and mouthing threats; but the stranger who had danced managed to hook an agile foot between his legs and throw Steve so hard that he bounced. Then he swung a chair, and the crowd backed. Bud opened the door by the simple expedient of shooting the lock off it, and went out with belled nostrils like a bull buffalo on the rampage. The strange youth followed close behind, the chair still held aloft and ready for a charge. "Come on, Lightfoot," Bud snorted. "That bunch fights mostly with their mouths." A little farther down the street his temper cooled to the point where further speech came easily. "Darned chumps! I guess I quit rather suddenly, but it wasn't because I was tired of watching you dance. You're a dandy. But I have to get into the bank, and it's about closing-up time. I just happened to think of it." "I'd danced quite long enough. I wanted to leave and meant to the first chance," the stranger dubbed Lightfoot confessed. "I guess they're a pretty tough lot in there; but I want to get acquainted, and I knew they'd probably enjoy my dancing and feel more friendly toward me. I'm anxious to shake down into the community and be considered just one of you." "Are you classing me with that bunch back there?" Bud gave him a studying look. "No-o—I meant the whole country, when I spoke. I'm a stranger here, and it seems pretty hard to get acquainted." He shook his head ruefully. "Now, I'm afraid I've only made matters worse, fighting like that." "That wasn't a fight. They've gone back to lapping up free booze by now, and don't remember anything about it. Dirty sneaks, most of them are, and the less you shake down and be considered just one of them the better." He went up the steps of the little, private bank at the end of the street, rattled the door knob, frowned at the green-shaded windows and looked at his watch. "Three minutes to three, and I'm two minutes fast," he commented. "They've no business locking up ahead of time. I've just got to get in, that's all there is about it." "There's a side door," the stranger suggested, and Bud gave a nod of assent and led the way around the corner of the building. A man with a packhorse was riding out from the open lot behind the bank, going toward the river at a shacking trot. Bud gave him a casual glance, turned to the bank door and discovered that it was locked also, an unusual circumstance at that hour. He gave the door a kick or two by way of protest. "This is one hell of a town!" he snorted. "Let's take a look at the back windows. The cashier surely must be inside, and I'll raise him—if I have to take the darn bank apart." "I'm afraid I'm partly to blame," apologized the stranger. "I didn't know you were in a hurry." "I quit in time. The bank doesn't close until three, and a fellow can always get in the side door any time within an hour after that. It's got no business to be locked up like a jail this time of day." They were inspecting the windows in the rear and saw that they were all closed in spite of the July heat. "Lightfoot, don't ever tell me you're living here because you like the place, or I'm liable to think you're crazy." "Lightfoot" grinned. "I'm here because my sister and I liked the name on the map. It seemed to be located right in the heart of the cattle country, where dramatic incident and local color should be at their best. Our name isn't Lightfoot, though. I don't understand how you got the idea it was. My name is Brunelle. I'm Lawrence Brunelle and my sister's name is Margaret; Marge and Lawrie we're always called. We've been here only a week." "That's a week longer than I'd want to stay," Bud declared. "You picked about the meanest place in Montana when you chose Smoky Ford. I wish to thunder I knew where that cashier went. He doesn't drink, so it's of no use looking in the saloons. Say, if I stand on the door knob and get a squint over the curtain, could you hold my legs and steady me? The darn knob might bust." He stooped to unbuckle his spurs. "I tell you, Lightfoot, there's something wrong about this bank being closed up tight as a drum a good hour sooner than it should be." With the ease of any other young broncho fighter he mounted the door knob, balanced there on the ball of one foot and bent to peer in through the three-inch space above the green shade that had been pulled down over the glass panel in the door. An awkward position, but he did not keep it long. When he dropped and faced Brunelle his eyes were wide and black with excitement. "He's dead in there, Lightfoot! The whole top of his head is caved in, and the vault door's wide open!" Spurs and crumpled gloves in one hand, Bud led the way across the street and down several doors to where James Delkin, the bank's president, ran a livery stable—he being a banker in name only, as is the way of village banks that cater to the local trade and find few customers, though these may carry rather large accounts. Delkin was swearing at his hostler when the two arrived, but he gave over that pastime long enough to hear the news. His face went tallow white. "I told you first, Mr. Delkin. The rest of the town is boozing in the Elkhorn, and no one knows what has happened. I hate to push my private business into this, but it's a long ride to the Meadowlark, and Lark sent in a check to be cashed. Fifteen hundred dollars, it is. Will this murder make any difference?" "Difference?" Delkin slowed his tottering run to stare at Bud. "If the vault's cleaned out, you can't get fifteen cents! My God, man, the bank will be broke!" "Oh, say!" Brunelle's voice held panic. "My sister and I brought all our money with us and banked it here, just last week!" Delkin was nervously trying to fit a key into the lock of the side door, and he did not seem to hear. They pushed in together, Bud thoughtfully closing the door behind them with the idea of staving off the excitement that would follow hard on the heels of the town's enlightenment. Delkin lunged through the partition door, rushed to the open vault, gave one look and turned to the grewsome figure lying asprawl on the floor. He looked at the shelf behind the cashier's window, at the pulled-out, empty drawer beneath and slumped into a chair, his whole form seeming to have shrunk and aged perceptibly. "Charlie dead," he wailed, "and the bank cleaned out—ruined! My God, what can I do?" "Do?" Bud's eyes snapped. "Get after the gang that did it! You can get the money back if you pull yourself together. They can't eat it, and—the way Charlie looks, I'd say this happened not more than half an hour ago." He turned to Brunelle, the cameo brooch looking oddly out of place above his hard eyes and grim mouth. "You raise the town, Lightfoot, and I'll fork my horse and get after that pack outfit we saw leaving here as we came around the corner." "You think he did this?" Brunelle looked startled. "One man couldn't, could he?" "One man could have seen the gang leave here," Bud retorted impatiently. "Delkin, you stay here. Lightfoot will send some one." He whirled and was gone, running lightly down to where his horse was tied in front of the Elkhorn saloon, from which still rolled the uproar of boisterous celebration of nothing. <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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