 CHAPTER ONE OF THE COURT This is a LibriVox recording. Well, LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. THE COURT by B. M. Bauer CHAPTER ONE. LITTLE FISH Court Creek flowed sluggishly between willows, which sagged none too gracefully across its deeper pools, or languished beside the rocky stretches that were bone dry from July to October, with a narrow channel in the center where what water there was hurried along to the pools below. For a mile or more, where the land lay fairly level in a platter-like valley set in the lower hills, the mud that rimmed the pools was scored deep with the tracks of the T.J. Up and Down Cattle, as the double monogram of Hunter and Johnson was called. A hard brand to work, a cattleman would tell you. Yet the T.J. Up and Down Herd never seemed to increase beyond a niggardly three hundred or so, though the Court Ranch was older than its lordly neighbors. The Sawtooth Cattle Company, who numbered their cattle by tens of thousands, and whose riders must have strings of fifteen horses apiece to keep them going, older too than many a modest ranch that had flourished awhile and had finished his line camps of the Sawtooth when the Sawtooth bought ranch and brand for a lump sum that looked big to the rancher, who immediately departed to make himself a new home elsewhere. Older than others, which had somehow gone to pieces when the rancher died, or went to the penitentiary under the stigma of a long sentence as a cattle thief, there were many such, for the Sawtooth, powerful and stern against outlawry, tolerated no pilfering from their thousands. Unless you have the more careful you are with your possessions, Hunter and Johnson owned exactly a section and a half of land, and for a mile and a half, Court Creek was fenced upon either side. They hired two men, cut what hay they could from a field which they irrigated, fed their cattle through the cold weather, watched them zealously through the summer, and managed to ship enough beef each fall to pay their grocery bill and their men's wages, and have a balance sufficient to buy what clothes they needed, and perhaps pay a doctor if one of them fell ill, which frequently happened since Britt was becoming a prey to rheumatism that sometimes kept him in bed, and Frank occasionally indulged himself in a gallon or so of bad whiskey, and suffered afterward from a badly deranged digestion. Their house was a two-room log cabin, built when logs were easier to get than lumber, but the cabin contained two rooms was the result of circumstances rather than design. Britt had hauled from the mountainside logs long and logs short, and it had seemed a shame to cut the long ones any shorter. Later, when the outside world had crept a little closer to their wilderness, as go where you will, the outside world has a way of doing, he had built a lean-to shed against the cabin from what lumber there was left after building a cow shed against the long barn. In the early days Britt had had a wife and two children, but the wife could not endure the loneliness of the ranch, nor the inconvenience of living in a two-room log cabin. She was continually worrying over rattlesnakes and diphtheria and pneumonia, and begging Britt to sell out and live in town. She had married him because he was a cowboy, and because he was a nimble dancer, and rode gallantly with silver-shanked spurs, a jingle on his heels, and a snakeskin band around his hat, and because a ranch away out on Court Creek had sounded exactly like a story in a book. Adventure, picturesqueness, even romance, are recognized and appreciated only at a distance. Mrs. Hunter lost the perspective of romance and adventure, and shed tears because there was sufficient mineral in the water to yellow her weeks washing, and for various other causes, which she had never foreseen, and to which she refused to resign herself. Came a time when she delivered a shrill-voiced, tear-blurred ultimatum to Britt. Either he must sell out and move to town, or she would take the children and leave him. Of towns, Britt knew nothing except the post office, saloon, cheap restaurant side, and a barbershop where a fellow could get a shave and haircut before he went to see his girl. Britt could not imagine himself actually living day after day in a town. Three or four days had always been his limit. It was in a restaurant that he first met his wife. He had stayed three days when he had meant to finish his business in one, because there was an awfully nice girl waiting on tables in the palace, and because there was going to be a dance on Saturday night, and he wanted his acquaintance with her to develop to the point where he might ask her to go with him and be reasonably certain of a favorable answer. Britt would not sell his ranch. In this, Frank Johnson, an old-time friend and neighbor who had taken all the land the government would allow one man to hold, and whose lines joined Britt's profanely upheld him, they had planned to run cattle together, had their brand already recorded, and had scraped together enough money to buy a dozen young cows. Luckily, Britt had proven up on his homestead so that when the irate Mrs. Hunter deserted him, she did not jeopardize his right to the land. Britt was philosophical, thinking that a year or so of town life would be a cure. If he missed the children, he was free from tears and nagging complaints so that his content balanced his loneliness. Frank proved up and came down to live with him, and the partnership began to wear into permanency. Share and share alike, they lived and worked and wrangled together like brothers. For months, Britt's wife was too angry and spiteful to write. Then she wrote acrimoniously, reminding Britt of his duty to his children. Royal was old enough for school and needed clothes. She was slaving for them as she had never thought to slave when Britt promised to honor and protect her, but the fact remained that he was their father, even if he did not act like one. She needed at least ten dollars. Britt showed the letter to Frank, and the two talked it over solemnly while they sat on inverted feed buckets beside the stable, facing the unearthly beauty of a cloud-piled Idaho sunset. They did not feel that they could afford to sell a cow, and two-year-old steers were out of the question. They decided to sell an unbroken cult that a cow puncher fancied. In a week, Britt wrote a brief matter-of-fact letter to many and enclosed a much-worn ten-dollar banknote. With the two dollars and a half, which remained of his share of the sale, Britt sent to a mail order house for a Mackinac coat and felt cheated afterwards because the coat was not wind and waterproof as advertised in the catalog. More months passed, and Britt received by a registered mail a notice that he was being sued for a divorce on the grounds of non-support. He felt hurt because, as he pointed out to Frank, he was perfectly willing to support many and the kids if they came back where he could have a chance. He wrote this painstakingly to the lawyer and received no reply. Later he learned from many that she had freed herself from him and that she was keeping borders and asking no odds of him. To comment once to the end of Britt's matrimonial affairs, he heard from the children once in a year, perhaps, after they were old enough to write. He did not send them money because he seemed never to have any money to send and because they did not ask for any. Dumbly he sensed, as their handwriting and their spelling improved, that his children were growing up. But when he thought of them, they seemed remote, prattling youngsters who many was forever worrying over and who seemed to have been always under the heels of his horse or under the wheels of his wagon or playing with the pitchfork or wandering off into the sage while he and their distracted mother searched for them. For a long while, how many years Britt could not remember, they had been living in Los Angeles, prospering too, Britt understood. The girl, Lorraine, many had wanted fancy names for the kids and Britt apologized whenever he spoke with them, which was seldom. Lorraine had written that Mama has an apartment house. That had sounded prosperous, even at the beginning. And as the years passed and their address remained the same, Britt became fixed in the belief that the Casa Grande was all at its name implied and perhaps more. Many must be getting rich. She had a picture of the place on the stationery, which Lorraine used when she wrote him. There were two palm trees in front with bay windows behind them and pillars. Britt used to study these magnificences and thank God that many was doing so well. He could never have given her a home like that. Britt sometimes added that he had never been cut out for a married man anyway. Old-timers forgot that Britt had ever been married and latecomers never heard of it. To all intents, the owners of the court outfit were old bachelors who kept pretty much to themselves, went to town only when they needed supplies, rode old narrow fork saddles, and grinned scornfully at swell forks and bucking-rolls, and listened to all the arranged gossip without adding so much as an opinion. They never talked politics, nor told which candidates received their two votes. They kept the same two men season after season, leathery old range hands with eyes that saw whatever came within their field of vision, and with the gift of silence, which is rare. If you know anything at all about cattlemen, you will know that the court was a poor man's ranch when I tell you that Hunter and Johnson milked three cows and made butter, fed a few pigs on the skim milk, and the alfalfa stalks, which the saddle horses and the cows disdain to eat, kept a flock of chickens and sold what butter and eggs and pork they did not need for themselves. Cattlemen seldom do that. More often they buy milk in small tin cans, butter in squares, and do without eggs. Four of a kind were the men of the T.J. up and down, and even Bill Warfield, president and general manager of the Sawtooth Cattle Company, and of the Federal Reclamation Company, and several other companies, state senator and general benefactor of the Sawtooth country. Even the great Bill Warfield looked at his hat to the owners of the court when he met them and spoke of them as the finest specimens of our old fast vanishing type of range men. Senator Warfield himself represented the modern type of range men and was proud of his progressiveness. Never a scheme for the country's development was hatched, but you would find Senator Warfield closely allied with it, his voice the deciding one when policies in progress were being discussed. As to the Sawtooth, 40,000 acres comprise their holdings under patents, deeds, and long-time leases from the government. On other 20,000 acres they had access to through the grace of the owners, and there was forest reserve grazing besides, which the Sawtooth could have if it chose to pay the nominal rental sum. The court ranch was almost surrounded by Sawtooth land of one sort or another, though there was scant grazing in the early spring on the sagebrush wilderness to the south. This needed Court Creek for accessible water, and Court Creek, save where it ran through Cutbank Hills, was fenced within the section and a half of the TJ up and down. So there they were, small fish making shift to live precariously with other small fish in a pool where big fish swam lazily. If one small fish now and then disappeared from the mysterious abruptness, the other small fish would perhaps scurry here and there for a time, but few would leave the pool for the safe shallows beyond. This is a tale of the little fishes. End of Chapter 1, Recording by Tom Penn Chapter 2 of the Court by B. M. Bauer This lever box recording us in the public domain Chapter 2, The Enchantment of Long Distance The hunter always maintained that she was a western girl. If she reached the point of furnishing details she would tell you that she had ridden horses from the time that she could walk, and that her father was a cattle king of Idaho whose cattle fed upon a thousand hills. When she was 12, she told her playmates exciting tales about rattlesnakes. When she was 15, she sat breathless in the movies and watched picturesque horsemen careering up and down and around the thousand hills and believed in her heart that half the western pictures were taken on or near her father's ranch. She seemed to remember certain landmarks and would point them out to her companions and whisper a desultory lecture on the cattle industry as illustrated by the picture. She was much inclined to criticism of the costuming and the acting. At 18, she knew definitely that she hated the very name Casa Grande. She hated the narrow, half-lighted hallway with its tree where no one ever hung a hat and the seat beneath where no one ever sat down. She hated the row of key and mailboxes on the wall with the bell buttons above each apartment number. She hated the jangling of the hall telephone, the scurrying to answer, the prodding of whichever bell button would summon the tenant asked for by the caller. She hated the meek little Filipino boy who swept that ugly hall every morning. She hated the scrubby palms in front. She hated the pillars where the paint was peeling badly. She hated the conflicting odors that seeped into the atmosphere at certain hours of the day. She hated the three old maids on the third floor and the frowsy woman on the first who sat on the front steps in her soiled breakfast cap and bungalow apron. She hated the nervous tenant who occupied the apartment just over her mother's three room and bath and pounded with a broom handle on the floor when Lorraine practiced overtime on chromatic scales. At 18, Lorraine managed somehow to obtain work in a western picture and, being unusually pretty, she so far distinguished herself that she was given a small part in the next production. Her glorious duty it was to ride madly through a little cow town set to the post office where the sheriff's posse lounged conspicuously and there pull her horse to an abrupt stand and point excitedly to the distant hills. Also she danced quite close to the camera in the typical cowboy dance which was a feature of this particular production. Lorraine thereby earned enough money to buy her fall suit and coat and cheap furs and learned to ride a horse at a gallop and to dance what passed in pictures as a square dance. At 19 years of age, Lorraine Hunter, daughter of old Brit Hunter of the T.J. Up and Down became a real range-bred girl with a real Stetson hat of her own, a green corduroy riding skirt, a gray flannel shirt, brilliant neckerchief, boots and spurs. A third picture it gave her further practice in riding a real horse, albeit an extremely docile animal called Mouse with good reason. She became known on the lot as a real cattle king's daughter though she did not know the name of her father's brand and in all her life had seen no herd larger than the 30 head of team cattle which were chased past the camera again and again to make them look like 10,000 and which were so thoroughly camera broke that they stopped when they were out of the scene, turned and were ready to repeat the performance at lib. Had she lived her life on the court ranch she would have known a great deal more about horseback riding and cattle and range dances. She would have known a great deal less about the romance of the West, however and she would probably never have seen a sheriff's posse riding 20 strong and bunched like birdshot when it leaves the muzzle of the gun. Indeed, I am very sure she would not. Killings such as her father heard of with his lips drawn tight and the cord standing out on the sides of a skinny neck, she would have considered the grim tragedies they were without once thinking of the picture value of the crime. As it was, her West was filled with men who died suddenly in gobs of red paint and girls who rode loose haired and panting with hand held over the heart hurrying for the doctors and cowboys and parsons and such. She had seen many a man whip pistol from holster and dare a mob with lips drawn back in a wolfish grin over his white, even teeth and kidnappings were the inevitable accompaniment of youth and beauty. Lorraine learned rapidly. In three years she thrilled to a more blood-curdling adventure than all the bad men in all the West could have furnished had they lived to be old and worked hard at being bad all their lives. In that third year she worked her way enthusiastically through a 16-episode movie serial called The Terror of the Range. She was past mistress of romance by that time. She knew her West. It was just after The Terror of the Range was finished that a great revulsion in the management of this particular company stopped production with a stunning completeness that left actors and actresses feeling very much as if the studio roof had fallen upon them. Lorraine's West vanished. The little cow town set was being torn down to make room for something else quite different. The cowboys appeared in tailored suits and drifted away. Lorraine went home to the Casa Grande hating it more than ever she had hated it in her life. Someone upstairs was frying liver and onions which was in defiance of Rule 4 which mentioned cabbage, onions and fried fish as undesirable food stuffs. Outside the palm leaves were dripping in the night fog that had swept soggily in from the ocean. Her mother was trying to collect a gas bill from the dressmaker down the hall who protested shrilly that she distinctly remembered having paid that gas bill once and had no intention of paying it twice. Lorraine opened the door marked Landlady and closed it with a slam intended to remind her mother that bickering in the hall were less desirable than the odor of fried onions. She had often spoken to her mother about the vulgarity of arguing in public with the tenants but her mother never seemed to see things as Lorraine saw them. In the apartment sat a man who had been too frequent a visitor and Lorraine judged him. He was an oldish man with the lines of failure in his face and on his lean form the sprightly clothing of youth. He had been a reporter was still he maintained but Lorraine suspected shrewdly that he scarcely made a living for himself and that he was home hunting in more ways than one when he came to visit her mother. The affair had progressed as it would appear. He greeted her with a fatherly hello kitty and would have kissed her had Lorraine not evaded him skillfully. Her mother came in then and complained intimately to the man and declared that the dressmaker wouldn't have to pay that bill or have her gas turned off. He offered sympathy assistance in turning off the gas and a kiss which was perfectly audible to Lorraine in the next room. The affair had indeed progressed. Lorraine do you know you've got a new papa? Her mother called out in the peculiar chirpy tone she used when she was exuberantly happy. I knew you'd be surprised. I am Lorraine agreed pulling aside the cheap green porters and looked in upon the two. Her tone was unenthusiastic. A superfluous gift of doubtful value. I did not feel the need of a papa. Thank you. If you want him for a husband mother that's entirely your own affair. I hope you'll be very happy. The kid don't want a papa. Husbands are what means the most in her young life. Shuckled the grin restraining his bride when she would have risen from his knee. I hope you'll both be very happy indeed. said Lorraine gravely. Now you won't mind mother when I tell you that I am going to Dad's ranch in Idaho. I really meant it for a vacation but since you won't be alone I may stay with Dad permanently. I'm leaving tomorrow or the next day just as soon as I can pack my trunk and get a Pullman birth. She did not wait to see the relief in her mother's face contradicting the expostulations on her lips. She went out to the telephone in the hall remembered suddenly that her business would be overheard by half the tenants and decided to use the public telephone in a hotel further down the street. Her decision to go to her dad had been born with the words on her lips but it was a lusty full voiced young decision and it was growing at an amazing rate. Of course she would go to her dad in Idaho. It was astonished that the idea had never before crystallized into action. Why should she feed her imagination upon a mimic west when the great glorious real west was there? What if her dad had not written a word for more than a year? He must be alive. They would surely have heard of his death for she and Royal were his sole heirs and his partner would have their address. She walked fast and arrived at the telephone booth so breathless that she was compelled to wait a few minutes before she could call her number. She inquired about trains and rates to Echo Idaho. Echo Idaho. While she waited for the information clerk to look it up the very words conjured visions of wide horizons and clean winds and high adventure. If she pictured Echo Idaho in a replica of the set used in the movie serial Can You Wonder? If she saw herself the beloved queen of her father's cowboys dashing into Echo Idaho on a crimply main Bronco that pirouetted Gailey before the post office while handsome young men in chaps and spurs in Big Four Stetsons watched her yearningly she was merely living mentally in the west that she knew. From that beatific vision Lorraine floated into others more entrancing all the hair breath escapes of the heroine of the movie serial were hers adapted by her native logic to fit within the bounds of possibility. Though I must admit they bulged here and there and threatened to overlap and to encroach upon the impossible. Her father's vast herds grazed sleek and wild and longhorned and prone to stampede Gallop the Lorraine of Lorraine's dreams on horses surefooted and swift. With her Gallop strong men whose faces lemmed the features of her favorite western lead that for all her three years of intermittent intimacy with a disillusioning world of mimicry her dreams were pure romance proved that Lorraine had still the unclouded innocence of her girlhood unspoiled. End of Chapter 2 Recording by Tom Penn Chapter 3 of The Quirk by B. M. Bauer This labor box recording is in the public domain. Chapter 3 Reality is weighed and found wanting still dreaming her dreams still featuring herself as the star of many adventures Lorraine followed the breakman out of the dusty day coach and down the car steps to the platform of the place called Echo Idaho. I can only guess at what she expected to find there in the person of a cattle king father but whatever it was she did not find it. No father of any type whatever came forward to claim her. Her western experience she looked about her for a taxi or at least a streetcar even in the wilds of western melodrama one could hear the clang of streetcar gongs warning careless autos off the track. After the train had hooted and gone on around an absolutely uninteresting low hill of yellow barrenness dotted with stunted sage it was the silence that first impressed Lorraine as agreeably. Echo Idaho was a very poor imitation of all the western sets she had ever seen. True it had the straggling row of square fronted one-story buildings with hitch rails but the signs painted across the fronts were absolutely common. Any director she had ever obeyed would have sent for his assistant director and would have used language which a lady must not listen to. Behind the store and the post office and the blacksmith shop on the brow of the low hill around whose point the train had disappeared were houses with bay windows and porches absolutely out of keeping with the west. So far as Lorraine could see there was not a log cabin in the whole place. The hitch rails were empty and there was not a cowboy in sight. Before the post office the Turing car stood with its running boards loaded with canvas covered suitcases. Three goggled, sun-burned women in ugly khaki suits were disconsolently drinking soda water from bottles without straws and a goggled, red-faced, angry looking man was jerking impatiently at the hood of the machine. Lorraine in her suitcase apparently excited no interest whatever in Echo Idaho. The station agent was carrying two boxes of oranges and a crate of California cabbages in Out of the Sun and a limp individual in blue gingham shirt and dirty overalls had shouldered the mail sack and was making his way across the dusty, rut-scored street to the post office. Two questions and two brief answers convinced her that the station agent did not know Britain Hunter which was strange unless this happened to be a very new agent. Lorraine left him to his cabbages and followed the man with the mail sack. At the post office the anemic clerk came forward eyeing her with admiring curiosity. Lorraine had seen anemic young men all her life and the last three years had made her perfectly familiar with that look in a young man's eyes. She met it with impatient disfavor, founded chiefly upon the young man's need of a decent haircut, a less flowery tie and a tailored suit. When he confessed that he did not know Mr. Britain Hunter by sight he ceased to exist so far as Lorraine was concerned. She decided that he also was new to the place and therefore perfectly useless to her. The postmaster himself Lorraine was cheered by his spectacles, his shirt sleeves and his chin whiskers that made him look the part was better informed. He too eyed her curiously when she said my father, Mr. Britain Hunter but he made no comment on the relationship. He gave her a telegram and a letter from the general delivery. The telegram she suspected was the one she had sent to her dad announcing the date of her arrival. The postmaster advised her to get a livery rig to drive out to the ranch since it might be a week or two before anyone came in from the court. Lorraine thanked him graciously and departed for the livery stable. The man in charge there chewed tobacco meditatively and told her that his teams were all out. If she was a mind to await over a day or two he said he might maybe be able to make the trip. Lorraine took a long look at what she indicated as the hotel. I think I'll walk she said calmly. Walk! The stable man stopped chewing and stared at her. It's some considerable of a walk. It's all a 18 mile. I don't know, maybe 20 time you get to the house. I have frequently walked 25 or 30 miles. I am a member of the Sierra Club in Los Angeles. It's a place of less than 20 miles. If you will kindly tell me which road I must take there she is. The man stated flatly and pointed across the railroad track to where a sandy road drew a yellowish line through the sage evidently making for the hills showing hazely violet in the distance. Those hills formed the only break in the monotonous gray landscape and Lorraine was glad that her journey would take her close to them. Thank you so much. She said coldly and returned to the station. In the small laboratory of the depot waiting room she exchanged her slippers for a pair of moderately low healed shoes which she had at the last minute of packing tucked into her suitcase put a few extra articles into her rather smart travel bag left the suitcase in the telegraph office and started. The question which she asked of Echo Idaho which was flatter and more insipid than the drinking water in the tin cooler in the waiting room. The station agent stood with his hands on his hips and watched her cross the track and start down the road pardonably astonished to see a young woman walk down a road that led only to the hills 20 miles away carrying her luggage exactly as if her trip was a matter of a block or two at most. The bag was rather heavy and as she went on it became heavier. She meant to carry it slung across her shoulder on a stick as soon as she was well away from the prying eyes of Echo's inhabitants. Later, if she felt tired she could easily hide it behind a bush along the road and send one of her father's cowboys after it. The road was very dusty and carried wind-blown traces of automobile tires. Someone would surely overtake her and give her a ride before she walked very far. For the first half hour she believed that she was walking on level ground but when she looked back there was no sign of any town behind her. Echo had disappeared as completely as if it had been swallowed. Even the unseemly bay windowed houses on the hill had gone under. After another half hour and saw only the grey sage stretching all around her the hills looked farther away than when she started. Still, that beaten road must lead somewhere. Two hours later she began to wonder why this particular road should be so unending and so empty. Never in her life before had she walked for two hours without seeming to get anywhere without seeing any living human. Both shoulders were sore from the weight of the bag on the stick. But the sage bushes looked so exactly alike that she feared she could not describe the particular spot where the cowboys would find her bag. Wherefore she carried it still. She was beginning to change hands very often when the wind came. Just where or how that wind sprang up she did not know. She was whooping across the sage and flinging up clouds of dust from the road. To Lorraine, softened by years of Southern California weather it seemed to blow straight off an ice field. It was so cold. After an interminable time which measured three hours on her watch she came to an abrupt descent into a creek bed down the middle of which the creek itself was flowing swiftly. After the road forked a rough little used trail keeping on up the creek the better traveled road crossing and climbing the farther bank. Lorraine scarcely hesitated before she chose the main trail which crossed the creek. From the creek the trail she followed kept climbing until Lorraine wondered if there would ever be a top. The wind whipped her narrow skirts and impeded her. Tugged at her hat she then watered her eyes but she kept on doggedly disgustedly the west which she had seen through the glamour of swift-blooded romance sinking lower and lower in her estimation. Nothing but jackrabbits and the little twittery birds moved through the sage though she watched hungrily for horsemen. Quite suddenly the gray landscape glowed with a palpitating radiance unreal, beautiful beyond expression. She stopped turned to face the west and stared awestruck at one of those flaming sunsets which makes the desert land seem but a gateway into the ineffable glory beyond the earth. That the high piled gorgeous cloud bank presaged a thunderstorm she never guessed. And that a thunderstorm may be a deadly terrifying peril she never had quite believed. Her mother had told of people being struck by lightning but Lorraine could not associate lightning with death especially in the west where men usually died by shooting lynching or by pitching over a cliff. The wind hushed as suddenly as it had whooped worn by the twinkling lights far behind her lights which must be the small part at last visible of Echo, Idaho Lorraine went on. She had been walking steadily for four hours and she must surely have come near twenty miles. If she ever reached the top of the hill she believed that she would see her father's ranch just beyond. The afterglow had deepened to dusk when she came at last to the highest point of that long grade. Far ahead loomed a cluster of square black objects which must be the ranch buildings of the court and Lorraine's spirits lightened a little. What a surprise her father and all his cowboys would have when she walked in upon them. It was almost worth the walk she told herself hearteningly. She hoped that dad had a good cook. He would wear a flower sack apron naturally and would be tall and lean or else very fat. He would be a comedy character but she hoped he would not be the grouchy kind which though very funny when he rampages around on the screen might be rather uncomfortable to meet when one is tired and hungry and out of sorts. But of course the crankiest of comedy cooks would be decently civil to her. Men always were except directors who are paid for their incivility. A hollow into which she walked in complete darkness and in silence saved the gurgling of another stream hid from sight the shadowy semblance of houses and barns and sheds. Their disappearance slumped her spirits again for without them she was no more than a solitary speck in the vast loneliness. Their actual nearness could not comfort her. She was seized with a reasonless panicky fear that by the time she crossed the stream and climbed the hill beyond there where she had seen them. She was lifting her skirts to wade the creek when the click of hooves striking against rocks sent her scurrying to cover in a senseless fear. I learned this act from the jack rabbits. She rallied herself shakily when she was safely hidden behind a sage bush whose pungency made her horribly afraid that she might sneeze which would be too ridiculous. Son of dad's cowboy probably, but still they may be bandits. If they were bandits they could scarcely be out banditting for the two horsemen were talking in ordinary conversational tones as they rode leisurely down to the Ford. When they passed Lorraine the horse nursed her shyed against the other and was sworn at parenthetically for a fool. Against the skyline Lorraine saw the rider's form bulk, ungraceful, reminding her of an actor who she knew and did not like. It was that resemblance perhaps which held her quiet instead of following her first impulse to speak to them and asked them to carry her grip to the house. The horses stopped with their four feet in the water and drooped heads to drink thirstily. The riders continued their conversation. And as I says time and again they ain't big enough to outfit and the quicker they get out the less lead they'll carry under their hides when they do go. What they want to try and hang on for beats me why it's like setting into a poker game with a 5 cent piece they ain't got my sympathy I ain't got any use for a damn fool. No way you look at it. Well there's the TJ they've been here a long while and they ain't packing any lead and they ain't getting out. Well say let me tell you something the TJ'll get theirs and get it right. Drink all night would ya? He swore long and fluently at his horse spurred him through the shallows and the two rode on up the hill their voices still mangled in a dussel-tory argument with now and then an oath rising clearly above the jumble of words they may have been law-abiding citizens riding home to families that were waiting supper for them but Lorraine crept out from behind her sage-bush, sneezing and thanking her imitation of the jackrabbits whoever they were she was not sorry she had let them ride on they might be her father's men and they might have been very polite and chivalrous to her with their voices and their manner of speaking had been rough and it is one thing Lorraine reflected to mingle with made up villains even to be waylaid and kidnapped and tied to trees and threatened with death but it is quite different to a cost rough-speaking men in the dark when you know that they are not being rough to suit the director of the scene she was so absorbed in trying to construct a range war or something equally thrilling from the scrap of conversation she had heard that she reached the hilltop in what seemed a very few minutes of climbing the sky was becoming overcast already the stars to the west were blotted out and the absolute stillness of the atmosphere frightened her more than the big dark wilderness itself it seemed to her exactly as though the earth was holding its breath and waiting for something terrible to happen the vague bulk of buildings was still some distance ahead and when a rumble like the deepest note of a pipe organ began to fill the air Lorraine thrust her grip under a bush and began to run her soggy shoes squashing unpleasantly on the rough places in the road Lorraine had seen many stage storms and had thrilled ecstatically to the mimic lightning knowing just how it was made but when that huge blackness behind and to the left of her began to open and show a terrible brilliance within and to close abruptly leaving the world ink black she was terrified she wanted to hide as she had hidden from those two men but from that stupendous monster a real thunderstorm sagebrush formed no protection whatever she must reach the substantial shelter of buildings the comforting presence of men and women and as she ran she wept aloud like a child and called for her father the deep rumble grew louder nearer the revealed brilliance became swift sword thrusts of blinding light that seemed to stab deep the earth Lorraine ran awkwardly for her hands over her ears crying out at each lightning flash her voice drowned in the thunder that followed it close then as she neared the somber group of buildings the clouds above them split with a terrific rending crash and the whole place stood pitilessly revealed to her as if a spotlight had been turned on Lorraine stood aghast the buildings were not buildings at all they were rocks great black forbidding boulders standing there on a narrow ridge with a diabolic likeness to houses the human mind is wonderfully resilient but readjustment comes slowly after a shock dumbly refusing to admit the significance of what she had seen Lorraine went forward not until she had reached and had touched the first grotesque caricature of habitation did she wholly grasp the fact that she was lost and that shelter might be miles away she then looked at the orderly group of boulders as the lightning intermittently revealed them she saw where the road ran on between two square faced rocks she would have to follow the road for after all it must lead somewhere to her father's ranch probably she wondered irrelevantly why her mother had never mentioned those queer rocks and she wondered vaguely if any of them had caves or ledges where she was safe from the lightning she was on the point of stepping out into the road again when a horseman rode into sight between the two rocks in the same instant of his appearance she heard the unmistakable crack of a gun saw the rider jerk backward in the saddle throw up one hand and then the darkness dropped between them Lorraine crouched behind a juniper bush close against the rock and waited the next flash came within a half minute it showed a man at the horse's head holding it by the bridle the horse was rearing Lorraine tried to scream that the man on the ground would be trampled but something went wrong with her voice so that she could only whisper when the light came again the man who had been shot was not altogether on the ground the other working swiftly had thrust the injured man's foot Lorraine saw him stand back and lift his court to slash the horse across the rump even through the crash of thunder Lorraine heard the horse go past her down the hill galloping furiously when she could see again she glimpsed him running while something bounced along the ground beside him she saw the other man with a dry branch in his hand dragging it across the road where it ran between the two rocks and then Lorraine Hunter hardened to the side of crimes committed for picture values only realized sickeningly that she had just looked upon a real murder the cold blooded killing of a man she felt very sick queer little red sparks squirmed and danced before her eyes she crumpled down quietly behind the juniper bush and did not know when the rain came though it drenched her in the first two or three minutes of downpour End of Chapter 3 Recording by Tom Penn Chapter 4 of The Court by B. M. Bauer This Libor Vox recording is in the public domain Chapter 4 She's a good girl and she ain't crazy when the sun has been up just long enough to take the before dawn chill from the air without having swallowed all the diamonds that spangled bush and twig and brass blade after a night's soaking rain it is good to ride over the hills of Idaho and feel oneself a king and never mind the crown of the scepter Lone Morgan riding early to the sawtooth to see the foreman about getting a man for a few days to help replace a bridge carried 50 yards downstream by a local cloudburst would not have changed places with a millionaire the horsey road was the horsey loved the horsey talked to like a pal when they were by themselves the ridge gave him a wide outlook to the four corners of the earth far to the north the sawtooth range showed blue the nearer mountains pansy purple where the pine tree stood the foothills shaded delicately where a canyon swept down to the plain to the south was the sagebrush a soft gray green carpet under the sun the sky was blue the clouds were handfuls of clean cotton floating lazily of the night's storm remained no trace save slippery mud when his horse struck a patch of clay which was not often in the packed sand still wet and soggy from the beating rain rock city showed black and inhospitable even in the sunlight the rock walls rose sheer the roofs slanted rakeishly the signs scratched on the rock by facetious riders were pointless and inane Lone picked his way through the crooked defile that was marked main street on the corner of the first huge boulder and came abruptly into the road here he turned north and shook his horse into a trot a hundred yards or so down the slope beyond rock city he pulled up short with a what the hell that did not sound profane but merely amazed in the sodden road were the unmistakable footprints of a woman Lone did not hesitate in naming the sex for the wet sand held the imprint cleanly daintily too shapely for a boy too small for anyone but a child or a woman with little feet and with the point of the toes proclaiming the fashion of the towns Lone guessed at once that she was a town girl a stranger probably and that she had passed since the rain which meant since daylight he swung his horse and rode back wondering where she could have spent the night halfway through rock city the footprints ended abruptly and Lone turned back riding down the trail at a lope she couldn't have gone far he reasoned and if she had been out all night in the rain with no better shelter than rock city afforded she would need help and lots of it and pretty darn quick he added to John Doe which was the ambiguous name of his horse half a mile further on he overtook her rather he sighted her in the trail saw her duck in amongst the rocks and scattered brush of a small ravine and spurred after her it was precarious footing for his horse when he left the road but John Doe was accustomed to that he jumped boulders shied around buckthorn crashed through sagebrush and so brought the girl to bay against a wet bank where she stood shivering the terror in her face and her wide eyes would have made her famous in the movies it made Lone afraid she was crazy Lone swung off and went up to her guardedly not knowing just what an insane woman might do when cornered there now I'm not going to hurt you at all he sued I guess maybe you're lost what made you run away from me when you saw me coming Lorraine continued to stare at him I'm going to the ranch if you'd like a ride I'll lend you my horse he'll be gentle if I lead him it's a ride smart walk from here Lone smiled meaning to reassure her are you the man I saw shoot that man and then fasten him to the stirrup of the saddle so the horse dragged him down the road if you are I, I no, oh no Lone said gently I just now came from home better let me take you in to the ranch I was going to the ranch did you see him shoot that man and make the horse drag him make the horse he slashed that horse with the court and he went tearing down the road dragging it it was horrible yes yes we'll fix him you come and get on John Doe and let me take you to the ranch come on you're wet as a duck pup that man was just riding along I saw him when it lightened and he shot him can't you do something yes yes there after him right now here just put your foot in the stirrup I'll help you up why you're soaked perseveringly Lone urged her to the horse you're soaking wet he exclaimed again it rained she muttered confusedly I thought it was the ranch but they were rocks just rocks did you see him shoot that man why why it shouldn't be allowed he ought to be arrested right away I'd have called a policeman but isn't thunder and lightning just perfectly awful in that horse going down the road dragging you'd better get someone to double for me in this scene she said irrelevantly I I don't know this horse and if he starts running the boys might not catch him in time it isn't safe is it it's safe Lone pityingly you won't be dragged you just get on and ride and I'll lead him John Doe's gentle as a dog just straight riding Lorraine considered the matter gravely well but I saw a man dragged once he'd been shot first it was awful I'll bet it was how'd you come to be walking so far Lorraine looked at him suspiciously Lone thought her eyes were the most wonderful eyes and the most terrible that he had ever seen almond shaped they were the irises a clear dark gray the eyeballs blue white like a healthy babies that was the wonder of them what their glassy shine made them terrible her lids lifted in a sudden stare you're not the man are you I I think he was taller than you and his hat was brown he's a brute a beast to shoot a man just riding along it rained she added plaintively my bag is back there somewhere under a bush I think I could find the bush it was where a rabbit was sitting but he's probably gone by this time a rabbit she told him impressively wouldn't sit out in the rain all night would he he'd get wet and a rabbit would feel hard when he was wet such thick fur he never would get dried out where do they go when it rains they have holes in the ground don't they yes sure they do I'll show you one down the road here little piece come on it ain't far to see a rabbit hole in the ground Lorraine consented to mountain ride while alone walked beside her agreeing with everything she said that needed agreement when she had gone a few rods however she began to call him Charlie and to criticize the direction of the picture they should not she declared mixed murders and thunderstorms in the same scene while the storm effect was perfectly wonderful she thought it rather detracted from the killing she did not believe in lumping big stuff together like that why not have the killing done by moonlight and use the storm when the murder was getting away or something like that and as for taking them out on location and making all these storm scenes without telling them in advance so that they could have dry clothes afterwards she thought it a perfect outrage if it were not for spoiling the picture she would quit she asserted indignantly she thought the director had better go back to driving a laundry wagon which was probably where he came from Lone agreed with her even though he did not know what she was talking about he walked as fast as he could but even so he could not travel the six miles to the ranch very quickly he could see that the girl was burning up with fever and he could hear her voice growing husky could hear too the painful laboring of her breath when she was not mumbling incoherent nonsense she was laughing hoarsely at the plight she was in and after that she would hold both hands to her chest in moan in a way that made Lone grind his teeth when he lifted her off the horse whispering things no one could understand three cow punchers came running and hindered him a good deal in carrying her into the house and the foreman's wife ran excitedly from one room to the other asking questions and demanding that someone do something we're pretty sick she may be dying for all you know while you stand there gomping like fool hens she was out all night Lorraine got lost somehow she said she was coming here so I brought her on she's down with a cold mrs. Hawkins better take off them wet clothes and foot-hot blankets around her and I pelted her something on her chest I reckon Lone turned to the door stopped to roll a cigarette and watched mrs. Hawkins hurrying to Lorraine with a whiskey toddy the cook had mixed for her but that's awful good for a cold like she's got he volunteered practically she's out of her head or she was when I found her but I reckon that's mostly scare from being lost all night give her a good sweat why don't ya he reached the doorstep and then turned back to add she left a grip back somewhere along the road I'll go hunt it up I reckon he mounted John Doe to the corral where two or three riders were killing time on various pretexts while they waited for details of Lone's adventure delirious young women of the silk stocking class did not arrive at the saw-teeth every morning and it was rumored already amongst the men that she was some looker which naturally whetted their interest in her oh bet it's one of Bob's girls come trailing him up maybe another of them heart-bottom cases of Bob's hazard-pop ridgers who read nothing unless it was printed on pink paper and who refused to believe that any good could come out of a city ain't that right Lone ain't she a heart-bottom girl of Bob's from the saddle Lone stared down impassively at Pop and Pop's companions but I don't know a thing about her he stated emphatically she said she was coming to the ranch and she was scared of the thunder and lightning that's every word I sense I could get out of her she ain't altogether ignorant she knows how to climb on a horse anyway and she kicked about having to ride sideways on account of her skirts she was plumb out of her head and talk wild but she handled her reins like a rider and she never mentioned Bob or anybody else except in some fellow she calls Charlie she thought I was him but she only talked to me friendly she didn't pull any love talk at all Charlie Pop ruminated over a fresh quid of tobacco Charlie maybe Bob he sticks himself to a different name now and then there ain't any Charlie except Charlie worder she wouldn't mean him do you suppose Charlie Warner say Pop she ain't no squaw you see Loni sit sterling remonstrated if I can read brands lone testified she's no girl of Bob's she's a good honest girl and she ain't crazy and no good honest girl who is not crazy could possibly be a girl of mine is that the idea lone lone turned unhurriedly and looked at young Bob Warfield standing in the stable door with his hands on his trousers pockets and his pipe in his mouth that ain't the argument Pop here was wondering if she was another heart-ballon girl of yours lone grinned unabashedly I don't know such a hell of a lot about heart-ballon ladies Bob millionaire I'm just making a guess at their brand and it ain't the brand this little lady carries Bob removed one hand from his pocket and culled the bowl of his pipe if she's a woman she's a heart-bomber if she gets the chance they all are down deep in their tricky hearts there isn't a woman on earth it won't sell a man's soul out of his body if she happens to think it's worth her while and she can get away with it but don't for any sake call her my heart-bomber that was Pop drawled lone it don't strike me as being any subject for you fellas to make remarks about anyway he advised Pop firmly she's a right nice little girl and she's pretty darn sick he touched John Doe with the spurs and rode away stopping at the foreman's gate to finish his business with Hawkins he was a conscientious young man and since he had charge of Elk Spring Camp he set its interest above his own which was more than some of the saw-tooth men would have done in his place having reported the damage to the bridge and made his suggestions about the repairs he touched up John Doe again and loped away on a purely personal matter which had to do with finding the bag which the girl had told him was under a bush where a rabbit had been sitting if she had not been so very sick Lon would have laughed at her naive method of identifying the spot but he was too sorry for her to be amused at the vagaries of her sick brain he did not believe anything she had said except that she had been coming to the ranch and had left her bag under a bush beside the road it should not be difficult to find it if he followed the road and watched closely for bushes on either side until he reached the place where he had first sighted her Lon rode swiftly anxious to be through with the business and go his way but when he came upon her footprints again he pulled up and held John Doe to a walk scanning each bush in Boulder as he passed it seemed probable that she had left the grip at Rock City where she must have spent the night she had spoken of being deceived into thinking the place was the sawtooth ranch until she had come into it and found it just rocks then he reasoned the storm had broken and her fright had held her there when daylight came she had either forgotten the bag or had left it deliberately at Rock City then Lon stopped to examine the base of every rock even riding around those nearest the road the girl he guessed shrewdly had not wandered off the main highway else she would not have been able to find it again Rock City was confusing unless one was perfectly familiar with its curious winding lanes it was when he was riding slowly around the Boulder marked Palace Hotel rates reasonable then he came upon the place where a horse had stood on the side best sheltered from the storm deep hoof marks closely overlapping an overturned stone here and there gave proof enough and the rain beaten soil that blurred the hoof prints farthest from the rock told him more loaned back the way dismounted and stepping carefully went close he could see no reason why a horse should have stood there with his head toward the road ten feet away unless his rider were waiting for something or someone there were other boulders near which offered more shelter from rain next to rock he discovered a boot track evidently made when the rider dismounted he thought of the wild statement of the girl about seeing someone shoot a man and wondered briefly if there could be a basis of truth in what she said but the road showed no sign of a struggle while there were here in their footprints half washed out with the rain loaned back to his horse and rode on still looking for the bag his search was thorough and being a keen eyed young man he discovered the place where Lorraine had crouched down by a rock she must have stayed there all night for the scuff soil was dry where her body had rested and her purse caught in the Jennifer bush close by was soddened with rain a poor little kid he muttered and with a sudden impulse he turned and looked toward the rock behind which the horse had stood help had been that close and she had not known it unless if anything happened there last night she could have seen it from here he decided and immediately put the thought away from him but nothing happened he added unless maybe she saw him ride out and go on down the road she was out of her head and just imagined things he slipped the soaked purse into his coat pocket remounted and rode on slowly looking for the grip and half believing she had not been carrying one but had dreamed it just as she had dreamed that a man had been shot he rode past the bag without seeing it for Lorraine had thrusted far back under a stocky bush whose scraggly branches nearly touched the ground so it came at last to the creek swollen with the night's storm so that it was swift and dangerous Lone was turning back when John Dove grew up his head stared up the creek for a moment and went aid shrilly Lone stood in the stirrups and looked a blaze faced horse was standing a short rifle shot away bridled and with an empty saddle whether he was tired or not Lone could not tell at that distance but he knew the horse by its banged forelock and its white face in sore ears and he knew the owner of the horse he rode toward it slowly oh you rattle-headed fool he admonished when the horse snorted and backed the stepper to as he approached he saw the bridle-rains dangling broken where the horse had stepped on them in running broke loose and run off again he said as he took down the rope and widened the loop I'll bet Thurman would sell you for a bent nickel this morning the horse squatted and jumped when he cast the loop and then stood quivering and snorting while Lone dismounted and started toward him ten steps from the horse Lone stopped short, staring for down in the bushes on the farther side half lay, half hung the limp form of a man End of Chapter 4 Recording by Tom Penn Chapter 5 of The Court by B. M. Bauer This lemur box recording is in the public domain Chapter 5 A Death by Accident Lone Morgan was a Virginian by birth though few of his acquaintances knew it Lone never talked of himself except as his personal history touched a common interest with his fellows but until he was 17 he had lived very close to the center of one of the deadliest feuds of the Blue Ridge that he had been neutral was merely an accident of birth perhaps and that he had not become involved in the quarrel that raged among his neighbors was the direct result of a genius for holding his tongue he had attended the funerals of men shot down in their own door yards he had witnessed the trials of the killers he had grown up with a settled conviction that other men's quarrels did not concern him so long as he was not directly involved and that what did not concern him he had no right to discuss if he stood aside and let violence stalk by unhindered he was merely doing what he had been taught to do from the time he could walk mind your own business and let other folks do the same had been the family slogan in Lone's home there had been nothing in Lone's later life to convince him that minding his own business was not a very good habit it had grown to be second nature and it had made him a good man for the Sawtooth cattle company to have on its payroll just now Lone was stirred beyond his usual death of emotion and it was not altogether the sight of Fred Thurman's battered body that unnerved him he wanted to believe that Thurman's death was purely an accident the accident it appeared but Lorraine and the telltale hoof prints by the rock compelled him to believe that it was not an accident he knew that if he examined carefully enough Fred Thurman's body he would find the mark of a bullet he was tempted to look and yet he did not want to know it was no business of his it would be foolish to let it become his business he's too dead to care now how it happened and it would only stir up trouble he finally decided and turned his eyes away he pulled the twisted foot from the stirrup left the body where it lay and led the blaze-faced horse to a tree and tied it securely he took off his coat and spread it over the head and shoulders of the dead man waited the edges with rocks and rode away halfway up the hill he left the road and took a narrow trail through the sage a shortcut that would save him a couple of miles the trail crossed the ridge half a mile beyond Rock City dipping into the lower end of the small gulch where he had overtaken the girl the place recalled with fresh vividness her first words to him are you the man I saw shoot that man and then fasten him to the stirrup lone shivered and threw away that cigarette he had just lighted my god that girl mustn't tell that to anyone else he exclaimed apprehensively no matter who she is or what she is she mustn't tell that hello who you talking to I heard somebody talking the bushes parted above a low rocky ledge and a face peered out smiling good humoredly lone started a little and pulled up hello swan I was just telling this horse of mine all I was going to do to him say you're a chancy bird swan yelling from the brush like that some folks would have taken a shot at you didn't they hit me sure swan observed letting himself down into the trail he too was wet from his hat crown to his shoes that squelched when he landed lightly on his toes anybody would be ashamed to shoot at a mark as large as I am I'd say they're poor shooters and he added irrelevantly as he held up a grayish pelt I got that coyote I've been chasing for two weeks he was sure smart he had me guessing but I made him guess some maybe he guessed wrong this time lone's eyes narrowed while I looked swan over he must have been out all night he said you're crazier about hunting than I am wet bushes swan corrected carelessly I've been tramping since daylight it's my work to hunt like it's your work to ride he had swung into the trail ahead of John Doe and was walking with long strides the tallest, straightest limberest young sweet in all the country he had the bluest eyes the reddest smile the healthiest color the sunniest hair and disposition the sawtooth country had seen for many a day he had homesteaded an 80-acre claim on the south side of Bear Top and had by that means gained possession of two living springs and the only accessible portion of Wilder Creek were across the meadow called Skyline before it plunged into a gulch too narrow for a cattle to water with any safety the sawtooth cattle company had for years covered that 80-acre patch of government land never dreaming that anyone would ever file on it the farmer was there and had his log cabin roofed in ready for the door and windows before the sawtooth discovered his presence now nearly a year afterwards he was accepted in a tolerant half friendly spirit he had not objected to the sawtooth cattle which still watered at Skyline Meadow he was a government hunter and he had killed many coyotes and lynx and even a mountain lion or two sometimes what the sawtooth meant to do about the swede but so far the sawtooth seemed inclined to do nothing at all evidently thinking his war on animal pests more than a tone for his effrontery in taking Skyline as a homestead when he had proven up on his claim they would probably buy him out and have the water still well what do you know Swan turned his head to inquire abruptly you're pretty quiet Lone roused himself Fred Thurman's been dragged to death by that damn flighty horse of his he said I found him in the brush this side of Granite Creek had his foot caught in the stirrup I thought I'd best leave him there till the coroner can view him Swan stopped short in the trail and turned facing Lone last night my dog Yak lines to go out he went out and sat in a place where he looks down on the valley anyhow for half an hour I said then that somebody in the valley has died that dog is something queer about it he knows things I'm going to the sawtooth Lone told him I can telephone to the coroner from there anybody at Thurman's place do you know Swan took his head and started again on the winding steep trail I don't hunt over that way for maybe a week that's too bad he's killed I like Fred Thurman he's a fine man you bet he was said Lone soberly it's a damn shame he had to go like that Swan glanced back at him studied Lone's face for an instant and turned into a tributary gully over water-worn rocks here I leave you he volunteered as Lone came abreast of him a coyote's crossed up there and I maybe find his tracks I could maybe go do chores for a Fred Thurman if nobody there should I do that? what you say Lone you might drift around by there if it ain't too much out of your way and see if he's got a man on the ranch Lone suggested but you better not touch anything in the house Swan corner's likely a point somebody to look around and see if he's got any folks to send his stuff to just feed any stock that's kept up if nobody's there alright Swan agreed readily I'll do that Lone goodbye Lone nodded and watched him climb the steep slope of the Gulch on the side toward Thurman's ranch Swan climbed swiftly seeming to take no thought of where he put his feet yet never once slipping or slowing in two minutes he was out of sight and Lone rode on mootily trying not to think of Fred Thurman trying to shut from his mind the things that wild-eyed horse-voiced girl had told him Lone you mind your own business he advised himself once you don't know anything that's going to do anyone any good and what you don't know there's no good guessing but that girl she mustn't talk like that of Swan he scarcely gave a thought after the suite had disappeared yet Swan was worth a thought or two even from a man who was bent on mining his own business Swan had no sooner climbed the Gulch toward Thurman's claim then he proceeded to descend rather carefully to the bottom again walk along on the rocks for some distance and climbed to the ridge whose farther slope led down to Granite Creek he did not follow the trail but struck straight across an outcropping ledge ascended to Granite Creek and strode along next to the hill where the soil was gravelly in barren when he had gone some distance he sat down and took from under his coat huge crudely made moccasins of coyote skin these he pulled on over his shoes tied them around his ankles and went on still keeping close under the hill he reached the place where Fred Thurman lay stood well away from the body and studied every detail closely then stepping carefully on trampled brush and rocks he approached in cautiously lifted Lone's coat it was not a pretty sight but Swann's interest held him there for perhaps ten minutes his eyes leaving the body only when the blaze-faced horse moved then Swann would look up quickly at the horse seeing reassured when he saw that the animal was not watching anything at a distance and returned to his curious task finally he drew the coat back over the head and shoulders placed each stone exactly as he had found it and went up to the horse examining the saddle rather closely after that he retreated as carefully as he had approached when he had gone half a mile or so upstream he found a place where he could wash his hands without wetting his moccasins returned to the rocky hillside and took off the clumsy foot gear and stowed them away under his coat then with long strides that covered the ground as fast as a horse could do without loping Swann headed as straight as might be for the Thurman Ranch About noon Swann approached the crowd of men and a few women who stood at a little distance and whispered together with their faces averted from the body around which the men stood grouped the news had spread as such news will even in a country so sparsely settled as the sawtooth Swann counted forty men who did not bother with the women Frit Thurman had been known to every one of them someone had spread a piece of canvas over the corpse and Swann did not go very near the blaze faced horse had been led further away and tied to a cottonwood where someone had thrown down a bundle of hay the sawtooth country was rather punctilious in its duty toward the law and it was generally believed that the coroner would want to see the horse that had caused the tragedy half an hour after Swann arrived the coroner came in a machine and with him came the sheriff the coroner an important little man examined the body the horse and the saddle and there was the usual formula of swearing in a jury the inquest was rather short since there was only one witness to testify and Lone merely told how he had discovered the horse there by the creek and the body had not been moved from where he found it Swann went over to where Lone anxious to get away from the place was untieing his horse after the jury had officially named the death an accident I guess those horses could be turned loose he began without prelude what do you think Lone I've been to Thurman's ranch and I don't find anybody some horses in a corral and pigs in a pen chickens I guess Thurman was living alone should I tell the coroner that I don't know Lone replied shortly you might speak to the sheriff I reckon he's the man to take charge of things it's bad business getting killed Swann said vaguely it makes me feel damn sorry when I go to that ranch there's the horses waiting for a breakfast and Thurman he's dead over here can't feed his pigs and his chickens there's a white cat over there that comes to meet me and rubs my leg and purrs like it's lonesome that's a nice ranch he's got too now what become of that ranch what do you think Lone how should I know Lone scowled at him from the saddle and rode away leaving Swann standing there staring after him he turned away to find the sheriff and almost collided with Brett Hunter who was glancing speculatively from him to Lone Morgan Swann stopped and put out his hand to shake Lone says I should tell the sheriff I could look after Fred Thurman's ranch what you think Mr. Hunter good idea I guess somebody'll have to they can't he checked himself you got a horse maybe I got legs Swann returned leconically they don't get scared Mr. Hunter and maybe it killed me of some time you could tell the sheriff I'm a government hunter and honest man I take good care of things you could do that please sure said Brett and rode over to where the sheriff was standing the sheriff listened nodded back into Swann he settled up the estate and found his heirs if he's got any but you look after things what's your name Volmar how you spell it oh's where you in as deputy good lord you're a husky son of a gun the sheriff's eyes went up to Swann's hat crown and ascended to his shoulders and lingered there admiringly for a moment traveled down his flat hard his straight legs I'll bet you could put up some fight if you had to he commented Swann grinned good humoredly glanced conscience-stricken at the covered figure on the ground and straightened his face decorously I could lick ya good he admitted in a stage whisper I'm a son of a gun alright only I don't never get mad at somebody Brett Hunter smiled at that and it was so like Swann Volmar but when they were halfway to Thurman's ranch Brett on horseback and Swann striding easily along beside him leading the blaze-faced horse he glanced down at Swann's face and wondered if Swann had not lied a little what's on your mind Swann he asked abruptly Swann started and he looked up at him glanced at the empty hills on either side on the trail Mr. Hunter you've been longer in the country than I have been you've seen some good riding I bet maybe you see some men rides backwards on a horse Brett looked at him uncomprehendingly backwards Swann let up the blaze-faced horse and pointed to the right stirrup Spurs would scratch like that if you jerk your foot maybe you're a good rider Mr. Hunter don't tell, that's a right stirrup ain't it for Thurman he's got his left foot twisted around all broke from jerking in his stirrup left foot in right stirrup he pushed back his hat and rumpled his yellow hair looking up into Britt's face inquiringly left foot in right stirrup is riding backwards that's a damn good rider to ride like that what you think Mr. Hunter End of Chapter 5 Recording by Tom Penn Chapter 6 of The Court by B. M. Baller This Leaver Vox recording is in the public domain Chapter 6 Lone Advises Silence Twice in the next week Lone found an excuse for riding over to the sawtooth During his first visit the foreman's wife told him that the young lady was still too sick to talk much The second time he went Pop Bridgers spied him first and cackled over his coming to see the girl Lone grinned and dissembled as best he could knowing that Pop Bridgers fed his imagination upon denials and arguments and remonstrants and was likely to build gossip that might spread beyond the sawtooth wherefore he did not go near the foreman's house that day but contented himself with gathering from Pop's talk that the girl was still there After that he rode here and there wherever he would be likely to meet a sawtooth rider and so at last he came upon Al Woodruff loping along the crest of Juniper Ridge Al at first displayed no intention of stopping but pulled up when he saw John Doe slowing down significantly Lone would have preferred to chat with someone else for this was a sharp-eyed sharp-tongued man but Al Woodruff stayed at the ranch and would know all the news and even though he might give it an ill-natured twist Lone would at least know what was going on Al hailed him with a laughing epithet Say, you sure enough played hell all around bringing Britt Hunter a girl to the sawtooth He began, chuckling as if he had some secret joke Where'd you pick her up, Lone? She claimed you found her at Rock City Is that right? No, it ain't right Lone denied promptly his dark eyes meeting Al's glance steadily I found her in that gulch away this side She was in amongst the rocks where she was trying to keep out of the rain Britt Hunter's girl, is she? She told me she was going to the sawtooth She'd have made it too if it hadn't been for the storm She got as far as the gulch and the lightning scared her from going any further He offered Al his tobacco sack and fumbled for a match I never knew Britt Hunter had a girl Nor me Al said and sifted tobacco into a cigarette paper Bob, who drove her over there yesterday took him close to all day to make the trip and Bob he claims to hate women So would I got stung for $50,000 She ain't that kind She's a nice girl far as I could tell She got, well, alright did she? Yeah, only she was still coughing some when she left the ranch She liked to have had pneumonia, I guess Queer Al, she claims she's spent the night in Rock City, ain't it? No Lone answered judiciously Well, is it so queer? She never realized how far she'd walked I reckon she was plum crazy when I found her You couldn't take any stock in what she said Say You didn't see that bay I was halter breaking, did you Al? He jumped the fence and got away on me the day before yesterday I like to catch him up again You make a good horse Al had not seen the bay and the talk tapered off desultorily to a final so long see ya later Lone roamed on careful not to look back So, she was Brit Hunter's girl Lone whistled softly to himself while he studied this new angle of the problem for a problem he was beginning to consider it She was Brit Hunter's girl and she had told them at the saw-teeth that she had spent the night at Rock City How much else she had told? How much she remembered of what she had told him? He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a round leather purse with a chain handle It was soiled and shrunken with its wedding and the clasp had flecks of rust upon it What it contained Lone did not know Virginia had taught him that a man must not be curious about the personal belongings of a woman Now he turned the purse over tried to rub out the stiffness of the leather and smiled a little as he dropped it back into his pocket I got my calling card he said softly to John Doe I reckon I had the right hunch when I didn't turn it over to Mrs. Hawkins I'll ask her again about that grip she said she hid under a bush I never heard about any of the boys finding it His thoughts returned to Al Woodruff and stopped there Determined still to attend strictly to his own affairs His thoughts persisted in playing truant and in straying to a subject he much preferred not to think of at all Why should Al Woodruff be interested in the exact spot where Brent Hunter's daughter had spent the night of the storm? Why should Lone instinctively discount her statement and lie wholeheartedly about it? If Al catches me up in that he'll think I know a lot and I don't know or else He halted his thoughts there for that too was a forbidden subject Forbidden subjects are like other forbidden things they have a way of making themselves very conspicuous Lone was heading for the court ranch by the most direct route fearing perhaps that if he waited he would lose his nerve to not go at all yet it was important that he should go he must return the girl's purse The most direct route to the court took him down Juniper Ridge and across Granite Creek near the Thurman Ranch Indeed if he followed the trail up Granite Creek and across the hilly country to a court creek he must pass within 50 yards of the Thurman cabin Lone's time was limited to the direct route rather than reluctantly he did not want to be reminded too sharply of Fred Thurman as a man who had lived his life in his own way and had died so horribly Well he didn't have it coming to him but it's done and over with now so it's no use thinking about it he reflected when the roofs of the Thurman Ranch buildings began to show now and then through the thin ranks of the cottonwoods in the creek but his face sobered as he rode along it seemed to him that the sleepy little meadows the quiet murmuring of the creek even the soft rustling of the cottonwood leaves breathed a new loneliness an emptiness where the man who had called this place home who had clung to it in the face of opposition that was growing into open warfare had lived and had left life suddenly Lone knew in his heart it might be of no use to think about it but the vivid memory of Fred Thurman was with him when he rode up the trail to the stable and the small corrals he had to think whether he would or no at the corral he came unexpectedly inside of the suite he grinned a guileless welcome and came toward him so that Lone could not ride on unless he would advertise his dislike John Doe plainly glad to find an excuse to stop slowed and came to where Swan waited by the gate well, golly, this is lonesome here Swan complained heaving a great sigh that judge don't get busy pretty quick I may be jumping my job Lone what you think you believe in ghosts nah, what's on your chest, Swan? Lone slipped sideways in the saddle, resting his muscles you been seeing things no I don't be seeing things Lone but sometimes I've been like I feel something he stared at Lone questioningly what you think Lone? if you be sitting down eating your supper maybe and you feel something say words in your brain like you know something talks to you and then quits Lone gave Swan a long measuring look and Swan laughed uneasily that sounds crazy but it's true what something tells me in my brain I go and look and by golly it's there just like the words tell me Lone straightened in the saddle you better come clean Swan and tell the whole thing what was it no talking circles what words did you feel in your brain in spite of himself Lone felt as he had when the girl had talked to him and called him Charlie Swan closed the gate behind him with steady hands his lips were pressed firmly together as if he had definitely made up his mind to something Lone was impressed somehow with Swan's perfect control of his speech, his thoughts his actions but he was puzzled rather than anything else and when Swan turned to facing him Lone's bewilderment did not lessen I tell you it's when I'm sitting down to eat my supper I'm just reaching out my hand like this to get my coffee and something says in my head it's a lie I don't ride backwards go look at my saddle there's blood and that's all it's like the words go far away I can't hear any more so I eat my supper and then I get the lantern and I go look you come with me Lone, I show you without a word Lone dismounted and followed Swan into a small shed beside the stable where a worn stock saddle hung suspended from a cross piece a rawhide string looped over the horn Lone did not ask who's saddle it was nor did Swan name the owner there was no need Swan took the saddle and swung it around so that the right side was toward them it was what is called a full-stamped saddle with the popular Wild Rose design on Skirts and Cantal much hard use and occasional oilings had darkened the leather to a rich red brown marred with old scars and scratches in the stains of many storms blood is hard to find all night Swan observed, speaking low as one does in the presence of death but if somebody is bleeding and falls off a horse slow and catches hold of things and tries like hell to hang on he lifted the small flap that covered the ascent ring and revealed a reddish flaked stain flagmatically he wedded his fingertip on his tongue rubbed the stain and held up his finger for long to see that's a damn funny place for blood when a man is dragged on the ground he commented dryly and something else is damn funny long he lifted the wooden stirrup and touched with his finger the rail marks that is on the front part he said I could swear in court that Fred's left foot was twisted that's damn funny long I don't see a man ride backwards much Lone turned on him and struck the stirrup from his hand I think you better forget it he said fiercely he's dead he can't help him any too he stopped and pulled himself together Swan you take a fool's advice and don't tell anybody else about feeling words talking your head they'll have you in the bug house at Blackfoot sure as you live he looked at the saddle hesitated looked again at Swan who was watching him that blood most likely got there when Fred was packing that deer in from the hills and marks on them old oxbow stirrups don't mean a damn thing with the need of a new pair maybe he forced a laugh and stepped outside the shed just shows you Swan that imagination being alone all the time can raise cane with a fellow you want to watch yourself Swan followed him out closing the door carefully behind him by golly I'm watching out now he ascended thoughtfully you don't tell anybody Lone no I won't tell anybody and I'd advise you not to Lone repeated grimly just keep those thoughts out of your head Swan your bad medicine he met at John Doe and rode away his eyes downcast his court slapping absently the weeds along the trail it was not his business and yet Lone shook himself together and put John Doe into a lope he had warned Swan and he could do no more halfway to the court he met Lorraine riding along the trail she would have passed him by recognition but Lone lifted his hat and stopped Lorraine looked at him rode on a few steps and turned did you wish to speak about something she asked impersonally Lone felt the flush in his cheeks which angered him to the point of speaking curtly yes up in your purse where you dropped at that night you was lost I was bringing it over to you my name's Morgan I'm the man that found you and took you into the ranch oh Lorraine looked at him steadily you're the one that called Lone wonder feeling good toward me I'm Lone Morgan I went back to find your grip you said you left it under a bush but the world's plum full of bushes I found your purse though thank you so much I must have been an awful nuisance but I was so scared and things were terribly mixed in my mind I didn't even have sense enough to tell you what ranch I was trying to find did I? so you took me to the wrong one and I was a week there before I found it out and then they were perfectly lovely about it and brought me home she turned the purse over and over in her hands looking at it without much interest she seemed in no hurry to ride on with Lone Courage where's something I'd like to say he began groping for words that would make his meaning plain without telling too much I hope you won't mind my telling you you were kind of out of your head when I found you and you said something about seeing a man shot and oh Lorraine looked up at him looked through him he thought in the eyes of hers then I did tell I just wanted to say Lone interrupted her but I knew all the time it was just a nightmare I never mentioned it to anybody and you'll forget all about it I hope you didn't tell anyone else did ya he looked up at her again and found her studying him curiously you're not the man I saw you said as if she were satisfying herself on that point I've wondered since but I was sure too that I had seen it why mustn't I tell anyone Lone did not reply at once the girl's eyes were disconcertingly direct her voice and her manner disturbed him with their judicial calmness so at variance with the wildness he remembered it's hard to explain he said it last you're strange to this country and you don't know all the ins and outs of things it wouldn't do any good to you or anybody else and it might do a lot of harm his eyes nicked her face with a wistful glance you don't know me I really haven't got any right to ask or expect you to trust me but I wish you would to the extent of forgetting that you saw or thought you saw anything that night in rock city Lorraine shivered and covered her eyes swiftly with one hand his words had brought back too sharply that scene but she shook off the emotion and faced him again I saw a man murdered she cried I wasn't sure afterwards sometimes I thought I had dreamed it but I was sure I saw it I saw the horse go by running and you want me to keep still about that what harm could it do to tell perhaps it's true perhaps I did see it all I might think you were trying to cover up something only you're not the man I saw or thought I saw no of course I'm not you dream the whole thing and the way you talked to me was so wild folks would say you're crazy if they heard you tell it you're a stranger here miss hunter and your father is not as popular in this country as he might be he's got enemies that would be glad of that chance to stir up trouble for him you just dreamed all that I'm asking you to forget a bad dream that's all and not go telling it to other folk for some time Lorraine did not answer the horses conversed with sundry nose rubbings nibbled idly at convenient brush tips and wondered no doubt why their riders were so silent Lone tried to think of some stronger argument some appeal that would reach the girl without frightening her or causing her to distrust him but he did not know what more he could say without telling her what must not be told just how would it make trouble for my father Lorraine asked at last I can't believe you'd ask me to help cover up a crime but it seems hard to believe that a nightmare would cause any great commotion and why is my father unpopular well you don't know this country Lone parried inexpertly it's all right in some ways and in some ways it could be a lot improved folks haven't got much to talk about they go around gabbing their heads off about every little thing and adding on to it until you can't recognize your own remarks after they've been peddled for a week you may be seen places like that oh yes Lorraine's eyes lighted with a smile take a movie studio for instance yes well you being a stranger you would get all the worst of it I just thought I'd tell you I'd hate to see you misunderstood by folks around here I feel kind of responsible for you I'm the one that found you Lorraine's eyes twinkled well I'm glad to know one person in the country who doesn't gabble his head off you haven't answered any of my questions and you've made me feel as though you found a dangerous wild woman that morning it isn't very flattering but I think you're honest anyway Lone smiled for the first time and she found his smile pleasant I'm no angel named modestly most folks think I could be improved on a whole lot but I'm honest in one way I'm thinking about what's best for you this time I'm terribly grateful Lorraine left I shall take great care not to go all around the country telling people my dreams I can see that it wouldn't make me awfully popular then she sobered Mr. Morgan that was a horrible kind of nightmare why even last night I woke up shivering just imagining it all over again it was sure horrible the way you talked about it Lone assured her it's because you were sick I reckon I wish you'd tell me as close as you can or you left that grip of yours you said it was under a bush where a rabbit was sitting I'd like to find that grip but I'm afraid that rabbit is done moved oh Mr. Warfield and I have found it thank you the rabbit had moved but I sort of remembered how the road had looked along there and we hunted until we discovered the place that has driven in after my other luggage today and I believe I must be getting home Lone was only out for a little ride she thanked him again for the trouble he had taken and rode away Lone turned off the trail and picking his way around rough outcroppings of rock and across unexpected little gullies headed straight for the Ford across Granite Creek at home Britt Hutter's girl, he was thinking was even nicer than he had pictured her and that she could believe the nightmare was a vast relief End of Chapter 6 Recording by Tom Penn