Passin' Through (1985) Read online

  How could such a woman exist in such a place without a man? There was so much man’s work to be done on this kind of outfit, and I’d seen enough tying up my horse to know it needed doing.

  “Ma’am? I think I’d better tell you. There may be some men lookin’ for me. If they come, I’ll go out to meet them. No use you gettin’ involved.”

  “A posse?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I killed a man.”

  Her expression did not change. “So did I.”

  If she was interested in my reaction she offered no sign of it, but went to the stove and began dishing up something that smelled mighty good. It was stew, and she brought a heaping plate to the table. Taking up a fork, I started to eat, then stopped suddenly, looking at my food.

  For the first time, she smiled. “I did not poison him.”

  “It wasn’t that. I was waiting for you.”

  “Don’t. I eat very little.”

  “It was a fair shooting,” I said.

  She offered no comment but filled two cups with coffee and placed one before me. She seated herself across the table and took her cup in both hands, looking across it at me.

  “You said you were a drifter.”

  “I was working for an outfit in the Nation and decided to move west. I prospected some up around Hite.”

  “How did you find this place?”

  “It wasn’t me, it was my horse. You see, they’d taken me out to hang me, and when I got away there was only the horse they hung me from. They just sort of left it standin’. Well, I took out astraddle that horse an’ that horse just naturally brung me here.”

  Her features tightened with shock. She clutched the edge of the table with both hands, her knuckles white. “Not … ? Not a blue roan?”

  “Yes, ma’am, and a mighty fine -”

  “My God!” she whispered. “Oh, my God!”

  Chapter Two

  There was silence in the room with only the hiss of steam from the teakettle. A stick dropped in the potbellied stove.

  “It was a shock. I thought that horse was gone, gone for good.”

  “He’s a good horse, ma’am, a mighty fine horse, and he seemed to know where he was going.”

  “He was coming home.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Horses like their home. There’s a few of them won’t come home if given a chance, even if they’ve been treated bad.”

  She put down her cup. Her face was strained and her eyes had a haunted look. “You see, the man I killed was riding that horse.”

  “Sorry to bring bad memories. Ma’am, I’ll ride him right out of here, if you want. Ride him so far you’ll not see him again.”

  “He isn’t my horse. He belongs to the lady who owns this place. To Mrs. Holly rood.”

  “You’re not the owner?”

  For a moment there was bitterness in her expression. “I own nothing, I have nothing.” She looked straight at me. “I was a drifter, too. She took me in, and I’ve tried to help.”

  “How many hands you got?”

  “We’re alone here. There was nobody on the ranch when we came, and Mrs. Hollyrood hired a cowboy. He used to be a soldier, a very hardworking man.”

  “He quit you?”

  “He rode into town on Robin. That’s the horse you are riding, and he was killed, shot down in a gunfight by a man named Houston Burrows.” She looked straight into my eyes. “I believe he was deliberately tricked into a fight and killed. Mrs. Hollyrood does not believe it.” She paused and then added, “For a woman who has been around as much as she has, she is quite naive. She believes the best of everybody. That’s her trouble.”

  “She hasn’t had the ranch long, then?”

  “Mrs. Holly rood is an actress, and she has been an actress since she was a baby. Her parents were in a traveling company before the War and she with them. Mostly they played the South, and then the War came on. She married Mr. Hollyrood, and he enlisted in the Confederate cavalry. He rode with Jeb Stuart for a time and was killed at Gettysburg.”

  It was pleasant sitting there in the quiet kitchen, with sunlight coming through the windows. The kitchen was spotless.

  “You’ll need a couple of riders,” I said, “and one should be handy with tools. I noticed a lot of fixin’ up that needed doin’.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” She refilled our cups. “We’ve only been here a few weeks. You see, Mrs. Hollyrood inherited the ranch from an admirer, a Mr. Phillips.”

  “She was married to him?”

  “No, they were just friends.” She looked at me quickly. “And I don’t mean lovers. Mr. Phillips was a lonely man and he saw something in her that appealed to him. They had dinner one night after a show and talked. After that he followed the show and they would meet and talk, go for long walks, and just spend time together. He told her if anything happened to him she would have the ranch.

  “You know how those things are. Men, even the nicest of them, make promises simply because they want to be friendly, with no intention of deceiving, just making conversation. So she did not take him seriously. She was not a rancher and was not interested in ranching.

  “They exchanged letters. It was company for her, too, and it can be lonely on the road. Then he was killed, gored by a steer, we heard. And he had done what he promised, left his ranch to her.

  “The time was right. The company had fallen on bad times. There had been crop failures in some of the northern states and of course the South after the War was poverty-stricken. Our manager absconded with the money and we were all left with nothing.

  “Well, almost nothing. Mrs. Hollyrood had saved a little and I’d managed to put by a few dollars, so we came out here.”

  She puzzled me, this young, lovely woman did. She looked fragile, yet I had an idea she was anything but that. She was almost too beautiful, the sort of beauty that can make a man uncomfortable.

  “Did you say you were an actress, also?”

  “Not a very good one. I’d been with the company only a few weeks when it closed, but Mrs. Hollyrood had been helpful and I had nowhere to go, so she suggested I come west with her.”

  The house was better built than most western houses which ranchers threw together hastily for shelter, and with little thought for comfort or convenience. That sort of thing came later, when they were established, and this country was new. The first settlers had just begun coming into the area ten years before, and the Utes weren’t happy about it.

  A door opened suddenly and a pretty, gray-haired woman came into the room. She had quick, intelligent eyes that took me in at a glance.

  “I heard voices.”

  “Sorry, ma’am. Didn’t mean to disturb you. I’m just passin’ through.” I’d gotten up in a hurry, my napkin in my left hand.

  “Sit down, please. It isn’t often we have visitors.”

  She seated herself at the head of the table and I sat down. The younger woman went to the stove for the coffeepot. “You’re Passin’ Through? What an interesting name!”

  That made me smile, something I hadn’t done much lately.

  “It ain’t exactly a name, ma’am. It’s a condition. Now I find the horse I’m ridin’ belongs to you.”

  “He’s riding Robin,” the girl said.

  “Oh, no!” Shocked, she turned to me. “You mustn’t, you know. He’s a Death Horse. Even the Indians know it. Wherever he goes, somebody is killed.”

  “If folks want to get themselves killed there’s no use blamin’ the horse. That’s a mighty fine animal, ma’am.”

  “Mr. Phillips told me about him before I ever came west. It started when they first threw him to brand. Two men disputed the ownership and fought over it. Both of them were killed, so one of the cowboys took a running iron and branded the colt with a death’s-head, skull and crossbones.

  “Almost a year later some Utes tried to steal him, and two of them were killed as well as a hand who tried to fight them off.”

  “Any other horses stolen?”

  “A dozen,
I believe.”

  “No death’s-heads on them? They were there, too, ma’am. No use givin’ the horse a bad name.”

  “Mr. Phillips said the Utes didn’t like the brand and turned the horse loose. He came back, or started to. There was a man in town caught him up and rode him out here. I think he was sent to try to frighten us away. He was drinking heavily and he ordered us out of the house. We did not go, of course, and he threatened to burn us out.

  “We ordered him off the place, but he swore at us, lit a torch, and started for the house, riding Robin. Matty shot him.”

  “I did not want to, but he was drunk and crazy. I was frightened.”

  “You did the right thing,” I sipped coffee. “Any trouble with the law?”

  “The sheriff came out, and that man was still lying there, the burned-out torch close to his hand. He was within six feet of the house.”

  The stew she had given me was finished so I refilled my cup. To tell the truth I didn’t want to leave. I was a lone-riding man and this here was the first time I’d put my feet under a real table in a home since … well, since longer than I liked to recall.

  “That riggin’ belong to the dead man?”

  “No, it belonged to McCarron, the hand we hired who was killed by Houston Burrows. Every time we try to hire anybody he frightens them off. After all, they have no loyalty to us. Not many men want to take a job when it means a fight.”

  “Seems like a lot of shootin’ goin’ on. Is it always like that?”

  “Oh, no! There’s very little, actually.”

  “You’ve a mighty fine place, ma’am. You’re lucky to have it.”

  “It is nice. Mr. Phillips knew I’d been dreaming of a place of my own. You don’t know what it’s like on the road. You see, I knew nothing else from the time I was a small child, and I always dreamed of having a place of my own where I could just stop. Where I could grow things, belong to something.”

  “Well, you’ve got a place now. Handled right, you should make yourself a nice living.”

  “I’m afraid not, Mr. Passin’. We can’t do the work by ourselves. I can ride and so can Matty, but we just don’t know what to do.”

  Well, I shifted in my chair. I took up my cup, then put it down. “Ma’am? If you’d like I could sort of stay on. I mean I could stay for a while, get the place into shape for you.”

  “Oh? Would you? I think -!”

  “Matty,” Mrs. Hollyrood said, “you can’t ask him to take the risk. There’s that awful Burrows man, and -”

  “You don’t need to worry about him,” I said. “He’ll not be botherin’ you no more.”

  “How can you be sure? He’s a mean, cruel man, and he’s very dangerous.”

  “He might have been, ma’am, but he ain’t dangerous no more. I killed him.”

  You could have heard a leaf fall. There was a moment when we heard a magpie scratchin’ around outside, and the blue roan stomped in the dust.

  Mrs. Hollyrood was looking at me. “You said you killed him?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I was sort of passin’ through town, an’ stopped for a drink and something to eat, and he picked trouble with me. He was fixin’ to kill me, ma’am, just because he wanted to kill somebody.

  I was a stranger, just -”

  ” ‘Passin’ through’?”

  “Yes’m. I was hot, tired, and hungry. All I wanted was a quick drink, a meal, a bath, and a place to sleep. I wasn’t huntin’ trouble but he was thinkin’ himself a big, bad man and just had to prove it.”

  “But you could have been killed!”

  “Not by him, ma’am. Where I been, his kind are two for a dollar. If they set in a corner an’ keep quiet nobody pays ‘em much mind. He wouldn’t make a pimple on a tough man’s neck. How big a man is depends on how big a territory he’s in.”

  I put down my cup. “Ma’am? If I’m to stay on I’d better get busy. Comin’ in I noticed the gate was busted, hangin’ on one hinge.”

  Getting up I said, “How many head of cattle you got, ma’am? And how many horses?”

  “I don’t really know. Mr. Phillips kept accounts. If you like I can -”

  “Later, ma’am.”

  Outside the air was cool. I looked up and my eyes swept the long ridge, beginning in a sort of peak topped by ponderosa pine and ending in a rock that sort of stood off by itself, a fine sweep of country. Below the peak there was a forest of aspen. There was a big old barn and a granary opposite, and the road that led past the house disappeared down the valley. It was a good piece of country of which I knew nothing at all.

  Matty came to the door. “It’s late. McCarron slept in the granary there. I see you have no bedding, and -”

  “I’ll make do, ma’am. I been doin’ it all my life.”

  “There will be breakfast in the morning. Please come when you get up.”

  That made me smile. “Ma’am, I never slept past daylight in my life, and mostly I’m up long before.”

  “Come when you’re ready,” she repeated, “breakfast will be ready.”

  Stripping the gear off the roan, I turned him into the corral and put out some hay for him and a bait of corn in a bucket. Whilst he was eating I curried him some. He was a good horse and he’d carried me far and fast.

  Currying that horse gave me time to consider. It looked to me like Mrs. Hollyrood and Matty were in a peck of trouble. Seemed like somebody wanted them off this place, but maybe I was jumping the gun. Maybe it was just happenstance that McCarron got himself killed and that other man threatened to burn them out.

  Houston Burrows had picked a fight with McCarron and killed him, but maybe it was simply that Burrows was a trouble hunter. There was one in every town, and it was usually strangers they picked on, strangers or somebody they knew they could handle. The trouble with a stranger is that you never know who you’ve challenged, and there were all kinds of men driftin’ western country, men like Chris Madsen, the Oklahoma marshal, who had served his time in the French Foreign Legion before coming to America.

  There was a lantern hangin’ inside the door of what was called the granary and I lit it and looked around. There was half of the place given over to sacks of oats and a bin of unshelled corn on one side, and beyond a partition there was a bunk, a chair, and a small table with a washstand. The bunk was made up army-style, a clean white sheet and a blanket drawn tight and tucked in. Some clothes hung on the wall on homemade hangers and the floor was swept. This would be a tough act to follow.

  There was a tub made from a barrel sawed in half. I’d seen it standing in the granary side so I got it out, filled it half-full with water, and bathed. Believe me, it felt mighty good after the long ride I’d been on. Meanwhile I thought of my two horses and gear left behind when I left town after bein’ hung. Nobody had seen me leave them, and they’d hold the horses for a while and might not even find my gear, yet I’d no wish to go back and risk hangin’.

  The bed felt good, but tired as I was I could have slept on a bed of logs. The morning was gray before my eyes opened and I crawled out of bed, dressed, then made the bed as carefully as I’d found it.

  There was light from the kitchen, but first off I took a careful look around. The big old barn loomed dark and ominous. Come daylight I’d walk over and give it some attention. The blue roan walked over to the fence when I came by and I leaned on the top bar and talked to him.

  “We both got a bad name,” I spoke softly, scratching his neck, “only I earned mine, an’ you just happened to be around.

  When we leave here we’ll go together, you an’ me.”

  Turning toward the house, I stopped and put my hand up to my jaw. Three days’ growth of beard … I walked back inside and shaved into the rectangle of mirror held against the doorpost by four nails. Only then did I cross to the house.

  The door opened at once. “You’re late,” Matty said.

  “I had to go back and shave.” My fingers went to my jaw. “Out in the hills a man can forget.”

 
“You shouldn’t.” Her look was cool, appraising. “You’re a good-looking man.”

  Me? I was astonished, and embarrassed. Somehow I’d never thought of my looks, one way or the other.

  Chapter Three

  It was warm and comfortable in the kitchen. Crossing to a chair at the table, I put my hat on the floor close at hand. There were two coal-oil lamps on the walls with reflectors behind them, and there was a glow from the kitchen range.

  “Do you like oatmeal, Mr. Passin,?,, “I do, ma’am, and bacon, too.” I had seen her slicing it into the frying pan.

  She was busy at the stove, then dished up the oatmeal for me. “We have a cow,” she added, “a milk cow.”

  Milk cows weren’t common in range country, but this here was different, being a mixed lot of country. They ran cattle here, and higher in the mountains, sheep. Mostly it was mining country.

  “My name isn’t Passin’ Through,” I said, “that was Mrs. Hollyrood’s joke.”

  “You did not tell us your name, and one of the things we have learned out here is not to ask a man’s name or where he is from,” Matty said. “To us you are Mr. Passin’ until you decide to tell us something else.”

  Well, I didn’t know her name, either, when it came to that, and I was not asking questions. Besides, what does a name mean? Nothing, until a man makes it mean something.

  The oatmeal was good but I was taking my time. It had been a long time since I’d set down in such a pleasant place to eat, and served up by such a woman. Come to that, I’d never known anyone like her, nor anyone near as beautiful. When it comes to asking questions, she was not the sort you’d ask.

  “That posse hasn’t appeared.”

  “No, ma’am, an’ I’m not real anxious they should.”

  “Will you run?”

  Now I didn’t like the sound of that. No man wants a woman to think he’d run, and when it came to that, I’d run as far as I intended to go.

  “No, ma’am. If I see ‘em in time I’ll go hole up in the hills yonder. I wouldn’t want to have no lead flyin’ around you womenfolks.”

  “These walls are thick. They are squared logs, Mr. Passin’, and if a person were to stay away from windows there would not be too much to worry about.”