Twin Guns (4 page)

The old man laughed. "Maria shows good taste, Kirby. First me, then you." They all laughed.

"Manuel, you're the weather oracle. How long is this going to last?"

The reply came grimly. "Only two-three times before have I seen such a blizzard so early. They lasted four days. Muddy lost many cows. This is going to be one bad winter."

"Well, let's die with full stomachs. Hope you have plenty chuck in the pantry, Maria. Hate to have to eat up everything tonight."

Her answer was lost in a blast of wind and snow from the door. They helped Josh free the rope from about his waist and shut the door. His face was red, and snow was frozen in his eyelashes, although the trip from the bunkhouse was but a few paces. With typical understatement he said, "This here's a real norther, and gettin' worse all the time. Wouldn't have tried to make it even with a rope and the boys on the other end, except I got news. One of the boys came in from town before the weather broke with some news I knew you'd want to hear."

Once again Kirby felt the chill fingers of premonition. "Bad news?" he asked.

Josh grimaced. "Reckon so. Bill has sold some more cows. Way I figure, he sold about two hundred head more than he should have left out of the split." He stopped as Kirby made an involuntary movement, then went on, "Our boy talked to the buyer. Said they was all recent re-branded. And they're long gone now, shipped out of Galeyville five days ago. Can't check on 'em now, not in this blizzard."

Kirby stared at Josh with unseeing eyes. "Don't guess it'll be necessary. Reckon we know all we need to know." He took a deep breath.

"Soon as the weather breaks, we ride to Lazy B."

"Yeah. Reckon we have to," growled Josh. He watched with real pain in his eyes as Kirby left the kitchen and walked slowly down the hall toward his room, supper forgotten.

They did not make the ride to Lazy B. For the weather did not break. Or rather the break was of such short duration that it was not really a break at all. When the weak sunshine fell it was as if the yellow light was only offered briefly to light up the havoc wreaked upon the country by winter's first angry blasts. Then the dismally familiar gray clouds once again closed down and another blizzard howled across the range.

Every man on Wagon was needed to haul hay to the half-starved cattle. They could no longer paw through the snow to reach the grass beneath, because a few hours' thaw would melt the surface of the snow only to have it freeze into a hard crust by a drop in temperature. This, topped by additional snow, made it virtually impossible for even the wise range cattle to find the forage beneath; the few mouthfuls of dry grass required to sustain life.

Cattle in the breaks fared better than those caught in the open. All were gaunt and tired when and if they managed to drift to the feeding corrals. Josh ordered hay sledded out to the places where it was needed most. This measure saved many, but the draws and cutbacks held many bloated bodies, stiff legs pointing skyward.

Josh was even more anxious than Kirby about the safety of their brand. "This is the first time I can ever remember trying to make an estimate of winter kill before winter is really here," he told his boss. "We ain't nowhere near covered the range, but we've lost five percent of the critters near headquarters." Two additional blizzards followed swiftly on the snowy heels of the first, and it was more than a month before there was any real break.

In a way, Kirby was grateful for the weather. He worked, along with the other hands, from first light to pitch dark. There was so much to be done and so little time. The strange weather had made them afraid that the brief periods when the sun shone would not suffice for all the chores to be accomplished… afraid to get too far from headquarters for fear of being caught by another storm.

There was hay to be hauled, the horses to be cared for. Even the chore of breaking drinking holes in the Clear was a thing to be repeated as soon as the last hole was chopped. The supply of firewood for the cookshed, ranch and bunkhouse needed constant replenishing. Kirby practically lived in the kitchen with Maria and Manuel. This saved the fuel that would have been used to heat the rest of the house. He allowed Manuel to build a fire in his bedroom only late in the afternoon to drive out the damp, and he slept under a mountain of blankets topped by a buffalo robe, too tired to know when he was cold. Temperatures below zero were the rule… the exception came when the reading was above freezing.

Maria constantly doctored frostbite among the bunkhouse gang, and one puncher was hurriedly sledded in to Streeter after his horse fell and he walked five miles in a growing storm.

Kirby thus scarcely had time to think of the problems that would come with spring. Dog tired, his face blistered by cold, aching in every muscle, he would stuff down the hot food Maria always had ready, then fall into bed in a stupor until she roused him to begin another grueling day.

During one of the longer periods of good weather, the crew dared to ride far out on Wagon graze to drive in every animal they could find that hadn't already drifted back to the feeding corrals or had turned his back to the wind and let it carry him to far distant range. For the most part, then, rnuch of Wagon's great herd was fairly close to hay, for which Josh was grateful. "Sure hated to send riders twenty or thirty miles out," he said. "Even with line cabins to fall back on, they were taking a chance. Might not find 'em till spring… if ever."

Once the cows were within working distance, another problem arose: feed. Haystacks that had seemed so ample in the fall diminished alarmingly. Josh began to issue feed almost in starvation rations, and the sound of cattle bellowing in hunger irritated nerves already drawn thin by hard, cold, seemingly unrewarded work. When Kirby asked, Josh told him, "We'll have enough to last till spring provided we get a thaw so they can get at river bottom grass. Otherwise we'll have to haul it in… if we can buy it. But remember, there'll be others in the same fix. By spring there won't be a piece of hay on this entire range."

Supplies were running low for all hands, and Kirby and Josh were already preparing for a trip to town, when the news came. Storm clouds had sailed away to gather over the distant mountain peaks when a rider pulled into the yard. They had to thaw him out in the kitchen with whiskey and coffee before he could deliver his message.

"Doc Williams sent me," he finally told them. "Said to tell you Miss Bryant is bad sick. Pneumonia, Doc said. Took cold tryin' to carry wood for the schoolhouse, and yesterday she took a turn for the worse. Doc's been tryin' to get word to you for a week. Today's the first time anyone wanted to risk the ride. Doc says mebbe you'd better hurry!"

Kirby was already racing for the barn, Josh at his heels. As they rode back through the kitchen yard, he stopped and told Maria: "If you're not afraid to risk it, I'll have the boys fix up the sleigh. A couple of 'em can ride with you, and you'll be pretty safe even if the weather changes."

She gave him an angry look. Her voice held hurt as she turned away for her things. "Tell her I'll be there as soon as the sleigh can make it." She closed the door.

"Should have known better," Kirby said. "She loves Jen like a daughter." He walloped the black gelding with the end of the reins, and they loped from the yard, muddy snow flying. But they need not have hurried. Nor did Maria, who arrived in a remarkably short time, considering that the only trail consisted of tracks broken by their horses earlier.

Doc Williams' face was drawn and grave when they reached the white cottage. "She's in a coma," he told them. "There's nothing I can do now. Not much anyone can do but wait."

He led them into the room where Jen lay in a stupor. Kirby felt terror strike through him as he took in her white, sunken cheeks and tired, shallow breathing. He winced when she occasionally gasped for breath, the cruel sound cutting him like a knife. Only her hair, falling like a shaft of evening sunlight on the pillow, held the brightness of the Jen he loved.

Maria came into the room as he was standing there. "Can't you do something, Maria?" he begged, turning to her blindly as he had so often when a little boy. "You must do something." He begged for the relief her swift sure hands had always brought from pain and sickness.

"You go now, boy," she answered gently. "Maria and Doc will try to make her well. We'll call you if there is a change."

He joined Josh in the diminutive living room. In only a few moments the confinement of the tiny parlor began nagging at his nerves. Then Doc came into the room. "I don't look for any change for hours," he said. "Why don't you boys go on over to the Nugget? It's the only place open, I reckon. I'll send for you if there's the slightest change; at least you'll have room to stretch your legs."

Josh spoke for the first time since entering the cottage. Typically, he was blunt and to the point, asking the question Kirby had been afraid to venture. "Is she going to pull through, Doc?" His lips were white as he awaited the answer, and Kirby held his breath.

"I don't know," came the slow reply. "I never know about pneumonia; no doctor does. Maybe some day medical science will hold the answer." He sighed. "She has a chance, because she's in the hands of the greatest healer of all. He sometimes succeeds where I fail." There were tears in his tired eyes. "That's all I can say now."

Oddly enough, it was Kirby who comforted the doctor. "Together you'll pull her through, Doc," he said. "He'll be working on your side." He patted the doc's shoulder. "We'll be at the Nugget. Call us when there's a change."

Joe was alone in the saloon. The poker table was dusty, chairs upended over others. Sawdust put down days before was still unmarked by boot tracks.

"Business has been shot, boys," he told them, after making anxious inquiry about Jen's condition. "No one can get in off the range, even when the weather breaks. There's lots of thirsty cowpunchers that can't be spared because they're getting ready for another blizzard. My only customers are Streeter men, and they don't spend much money. Times are goin' to be tough come spring." He hesitated, then went on, "My best customers are your brother and Hub Dawes. Bill's sold most of his herd, so he don't have critters to worry about, and Dawes never seems to work anyhow."

Kirby laid his glance on Josh, who looked away, afraid of what his boss might read in his eyes.

"Didn't mean nothin' by that," Joe said hastily. "Glad to have even a couple of customers."

Their vigil went on slowly, hour after hour. Joe brought a bottle and glasses and joined them for a while at a table. His conversation soon petered out, and he returned to puttering around behind the bar. Now and then a couple of men would stop for a quick beer or a jolt of redeye, but most of them were townsmen unknown to the pair at the table.

Several times Kirby found himself unable to sit still and got up to stride the length of the room, his footsteps muffled by the sawdust. Once Josh got up and left the saloon without a word. When he returned, he shook his head at the unasked question. "No change," he murmured.

The short winter afternoon wore away, and twilight's purple shadows crept in through the big front window. Joe lighted one kerosene lamp above the bar. "Can't afford to light up the whole place," he mumbled apologetically. "Don't need much light when there's no customers." He went into the rear and returned in a little while with a battered pot of coffee. "It's a mite strong," he admitted, as he poured brew black and strong enough to float a ten-penny nail. "The restaurant's closed, but say the word, and I'll try to scare up some sowbelly and beans."

Kirby shook his head. "Reckon we don't feel much like eating now," he replied. "Thanks for the coffee; it helps."

The afternoon and evening passed with scarcely an interruption. When the summons came it was something of an anticlimax. Bill and Hub Dawes stamped into the saloon, laughing at some joke of their own. At first they did not see Kirby and Josh at the table. Bill gave a start and was about to say something when the door was thrown open and a boy burst into the room. Kirby knew he was the son of the woman who was nursing Jen. He was getting to his feet when the boy told them excitedly, "Doc says for you to hurry!"

Without a glance at the pair at the bar, they ran from the saloon, leaving their coats behind in their haste.

Doc met them at the door. "I think the crisis is coming," he told them. "If she pulls through the next hour, she'll have a chance. Thought you should be here." They followed him into the sick room. Jen had once again slipped into a coma. The doctor shook his head. "She was conscious a few moments ago."

Jen was restlessly tossing her head from side to side on the damp pillow. Occasionally she gave a little cry. Her hands, thin to the point of transparency, clutched at the bedclothes. Maria bathed her feverish forehead with a cold cloth. She looked up and met Kirby's anxious gaze, and then her eyes shifted to someone standing at his side. Her face showed shock, and he took a look around. Bill was standing there, hat in hand, his face pale beneath the ever-present stubble of beard. "I didn't even know she was sick," he murmured, conscious of Kirby's scrutiny.

Kirby knew an instant's violent rage. Then he mused: In his way, he loves her, too. He has a right to be here. He pulled his eyes back to Jen's face. She was fully conscious, he could see at a glance. Her eyes were bright with fever, but he could see that she knew the people in the room… the doctor, Maria, and standing in silence at the foot of her bed, Bill and himself. Her glance moved back and forth. "Kirby," she whispered. "Bill…" Bill moved impulsively, and her eyes widened, closed, and then opened again to look at Kirby. Something like a smile touched her wan lips, and she held up a thin, trembling hand for an instant. "Kirby," she said aloud. With one long step he was at her side, dropping his long shape on his knees. Once again a fleeting smile crossed her lips as he slipped an arm about her shoulders under the pillow and laid his cheek against hers. She closed her eyes, whispering once again, "Kirby."