Peruna Pulls His Freight

When Jack closed the door behind him to follow and find Dick Lane and bring him back to the woman who, the restorer believed, loved him, Echo Payson realized the supremacy over her soul her pure ideals, her lofty sense of justice of its tenement, the woman’s body that fair but fragile fabric which trembled responsive to the wild wind of emotional desire, and the seismic shock of the passion of sex. Ever since Jack had revealed to her his jealousy of Dick Lane, she knew that he was living on a lower moral and spiritual plane than herself, and that no longer could she look up to him as the strong protector, the nobler being than herself that had been her girlish ideal of a husband. Instead of this, another love sprang instantly into her heart, that of the stronger soul for the weaker, like to the feeling of the mother toward the child. The moral side of her desire toward Jack now became fixed in the purpose to lift him up to her own level.

Now that he had gone from her on a mission that was fulfilling this very purpose of regeneration, although she had not sent him upon it for his own sake, but her own Echo knew that, after all, she was a woman. She loved Jack Payson with the unreasoning and unrestrained passion that sways even the highest of her sex. By the balance of natural law she was lowering herself to meet him as he was coming up in the moral scale, and thus preparing for herself and her husband a happy union of a mutual understanding of weaknesses held in common. Were Echo to remain always on the heights and Jack in the valley, sooner or later a cloud would have separated them, a ghostly miasma rising from the grave of Dick Lane, whom Echo would have idealized as the nobler man.

She very sensibly took refuge from these perplexing problems by jumping into the active life of the ranch.

Faithfully she tried to perform all that she thought Jack would have done. Her father and mother wanted her to come back to her old home until he returned. There she would have more company and fewer memories of Jack surrounding her. Each offer, each suggestion was kindly but firmly put aside. When Jack returned she must be the first to welcome him, the first to greet him at his threshold, whether it was broad daylight or in the silent watches of the night. From her lips he must learn he had been forgiven; she alone must tell him how much she loved him, and that together they must go through life until the last round-up.

Echo and her father, who was looking after his own cattle on the round-up, rode up to the chuck-wagon, after Parenthesis and Sage-brush crossed the valley to mete out justice to Peruna and fight out any attempts at a rescue.

Dismounting, Echo walked wearily to the fire and sat down on a box. Bravely though she tried to conceal it, the strain was beginning to tell upon her. The tears would come at times, despite her efforts to fight them off. The burden was so heavy for her young shoulders to bear.

A note from Slim, written at Fort Grant, with a lead-pencil, on a sheet of manila paper, told her briefly that he was going into the Lava Beds with the troops as the Apaches were out. Dick and Jack, he wrote, were somewhere in the Lava Beds, and he would bring them back with him. She dared not let herself think of the Apaches and the horrors of their cruelties.

“Better let me get you somethin’ to eat,” said her father, returning from picketing the horses.

Echo smiled wanly at her father’s solicitude. “I am not hungry, Dad.”

Jim seated himself by the fire. He recognized his helplessness in this trouble. There was nothing he could do. If one of the boys was what Allen would have called it, “down on his luck,” he would have asked him to have a drink, but with Josephine and the girls he was at his wit’s end. The sufferings of his loved daughter cut deeply into his big heart.

“You been in the saddle since sunup,” he said. “You hain’t had nuthin’ to eat since breakfast I don’t see what keeps you alive.”

“Hope, Dad, hope. It is what we women live upon. Some cherish it all their lives, and never reap a harvest. I watch the sun leap over the edge of the world at dawn, and hope that before it sinks behind the western hills the man I love will come home to my heart. Oh, Dad, I’m not myself! I haven’t been myself since the day I sent him away my heart isn’t here. It’s out in the desert behind yon mountains with Jack.”

“Thar, thar, don’t take on so, honey.”

Kneeling beside her father, she laid her head on his lap, as she did in childhood when overwhelmed with the little troubles of the hour. Looking into his eyes, she sighed: “Oh, Dad, it’s all so tangled. I haven’t known a peaceful moment since he went away. I’ve sent him away into God knows what unfriendly lands, perhaps never to return never to know how much I loved him.”

Patting her head, as if she were a tired child, he said: “It’ll all come out right in the end. You can’t never tell from the sody-card what’s in hock at the bottom of the deck.”

Further confidences between father and daughter were interrupted by the boys of the round-up dashing up to the wagon, with Peruna in the midst of the group. Peruna had been disarmed. Dragging the prisoner from his bronco, they led him before Allen, who had risen from his seat.

“What’s all this, boys?” asked the ranchman.

Sage-brush, as foreman, explained: “This yere’s Peruna of the Lazy K outfit.”

Allen looked at the prisoner, who maintained a sullen silence. “What’s he been doin’?”

“Mostly everything, but Fresno caught red-handed brandin’ one of our yearlin’s,” cried Sage-brush.

“It’s a lie!” broke in Peruna, glancing doggedly from one to another of his guards. He knew death was the penalty of the crime of which he stood accused. He felt that a stout denial would gain him time, and that Buck and his outfit might come up and save him.

“Polite your conversation in the presence of a lady,” cried Parenthesis, nodding toward Echo.

“That calf was follerin’ my cow,” answered Peruna sullenly.

“It was follerin’ one of our longhorned Texas cows with the Sweetwater brand spread all over her,” shouted Show Low, moving menacingly toward the cowering Peruna.

“Fresno he calls him,” continued Sage-brush, taking up the story; “an’ this yere Peruna drinking bad turns loose his battery and wings Fresno some bad then little Billie Nicker comes along, and Peruna plugs him solid.”

Poor Billie had been Show Low’s bunkie on many a long drive. That veteran now paid this last tribute to his friend. “Billie, who ain’t never done no harm to no one ”

“He reached for his gun ” began Peruna. Sage-brush would not let him finish his lame defense.

“You shet up!” he cried. “We don’t want your kind on this range, an’ the quicker that’s published the quicker we’ll get shet of ye. We’re goin’ to take the law in our own hands now come on, boys.”

Two of the boys seized Peruna, dragging him toward his horse. Echo halted them, however, with the query: “What are you going to do with this man?”

“Take him down to the creek and hang him to that big cottonwood ” cried Show Low savagely.

Before Echo could answer, Peruna demanded a hearing. “Hol’ on a minute, I got something to say about that!”

“Out with it,” growled Sage-brush.

“Las’ time there was an affair at that cottonwood the rope broke, an’ the hoss-thief dropped into the creek, swum acrost, and got away.”

Sage-brush glared grimly at Peruna. “Well, we’ll see that the rope don’t break with you.”

In all seriousness Peruna replied: “I hope so. I can’t swim.”

Polly, glancing down the valley, saw Buck McKee with a half-dozen of his outfit, riding furiously to the rescue of Peruna.

“Look out, boys, here comes Buck McKee now!” she shouted.

Unconsciously the men laid their hands on their guns and assumed offensive attitudes.

Allen cried sharply: “Keep your hands off your guns, boys. One bad break means the starting of a lot of trouble.”

Buck and his band threw themselves off their horses, ranging themselves opposite Sage-brush the Sweetwater boys.

Swaggering up to Sage-brush, the half-breed insolently demanded: “Who’s the boss of this yere Payson outfit?”

“I reckon you are talkin’ to him now,” coolly replied the foreman.

“You’ve got one of my boys over here,” bellowed Buck, adding with the implied threat: “an’ we’ve come for him.”

Sage-brush was not bluffed by Buck’s insolence or his swaggering manners. “I reckon you can’t have him just yet.”

“What’s he been doing?” demanded Buck.

“He killed Billie Nicker that’s one thing.”

“Self-defense,” loftily replied Buck. “He was ‘tendin’ to his own business when your two men come up and begin pickin’ on him.”

Bursting with anger, Parenthesis strode up to Buck, and shouted: “He was brandin’ one of our yearlin’s, that’s what his business was.”

Sage-brush suggested, in addition: “Perhaps you mean that brandin’ other folks’ cattle is the reg’lar business of the Lazy K outfit.”

“Anythin’ with hide and no mark is Lazy K to you all ” growled Show Low.

“Your goin’ strong on reg’lar proceedin’s, I see,” said Buck to Sage-brush. “You ain’t sheriff of this yere county, air you?”

“That’s jest it. Somebody’s got to act sooner or later, an’ if there ain’t no reg’lar law, we’ll go back to the old times, an’ make our own.”

The Sweetwater outfit assented unanimously to Sage-brush’s declaration of freedom from outlaw rule in the county.

“You’re a fine lot to set up as law-abidin’ citizens ” sneered Buck.

“Workin’ for a man that had to hop the country to keep clear of the rope,” interjected Peruna, who, heartened up by the advent of McKee, began pouring oil on a smoldering fire.

Sage-brush turned savagely upon him: “That’ll do for you.”

Echo walked hastily to Sage-brush’s side. She felt her presence might help to avoid the outbreak which she saw could not long be avoided.

Peruna had lost control of tongue and discretion by this time.

“You’ll never see him back in this section again. You all know where he is across the line in Mexico why, she’s fixin’ to make a clean-up now, an’ sell out and join him!”

Sage-brush reached for his gun, but Echo restrained him.

“You ” he cried.

Buck turned angrily on Peruna. “You keep your mouth shet,” he shouted.

Peruna subsided at his boss’ command, mumbling: “There ain’t no female can pull the forelock over my eyes.”

“Take care,” warningly called Buck.

Peruna fired up again, regardless of consequences. “Why, I see through her game. She’s glad to get rid of him, so’s she can play up to her ranch boss, Handsome Charley there.”

Buck had to act instantly to preserve his supremacy over his men.

Before any of the Sweetwater outfit could reach Peruna’s side, or pull a gun to resent the insult, Buck was on top of him. With a blow full in the mouth, he knocked him sprawling. Echo had seized Sage-brush’s hand, preventing him from firing. The other men moved as if to kick Peruna as he lay prostrate.

“Let him alone. He’s goin’ to ask the lady’s pardon,” snarled Buck, covering him with his gun.

Peruna raised himself on one arm.

“No, I’ll be ” he began.

Buck bent over him, speaking in a low tone, tensely and quickly. “Quick! I don’t want to have to kill you. You damn’ fool, don’t you see what I’m playin’ fer?”

“He ain’t fit to live!” shouted Show Low.

Buck turned on the cowboy. It was his fight, and he was going to handle it in his own fashion.

“Lem me handle this case,” he interrupted. “Ther’ ain’t no man can travel in my outfit and insult a woman you ask her pardon right smart.”

Peruna struggled to his feet. Buck commanded:

“On your knees.”

A glance at Buck showed Peruna how deadly in earnest he was. Reluctantly he sank to his knees.

“I didn’t mean what I said. I hope you will excuse me ” he whined.

“That’s enough. Now git up. Pull your freight,” Buck ordered.

“By God, no!” interposed Sage-brush.

The cowboys seized Peruna.

Buck saw that his bluff at bossing the situation was called. He turned appealingly to Echo, and rapidly fabricated a moving tale about Peruna’s heroic rescue of himself from drowning in the Gila River. “An I swore I would do as much fer him some day. Now I perpose that we all give him a kick, an’ let him go; let him have two hours’ start, after which the game-laws will be out on him.”

Sage-brush cried out against the plan, but Echo was moved by McKee’s appeal for his comrade, and, speaking low and beseechingly to Sage-brush, said: “It will save a range-war that we can’t afford to have till Jack and Slim get back.” Sage-brush finally assented.

“Two hours’ start. Well, he’ll have to go some, if he gets away. Kick him and let him go,” he commanded.

Echo turned away.

The cowboys who held Peruna threw him to the ground, and every man of the Allen and Payson ranches gave him a vicious kick, Show Low putting in an extra one for his murdered bunkie. Last of all, McKee approached the prostrate man, and made the mistake which was to cost him his life by booting Peruna cruelly. The man was a stupid fellow by nature, and what wits he had were addled by the habit he had acquired of consuming patent-medicines containing alcohol, morphin, and other stimulating and stupefying drugs. He was as revengeful as stupid, and could have forgiven McKee’s putting the rope around his neck more easily than Buck’s joining in the humiliation which saved his life.

Rising from the ground and trembling with anger, Peruna turned on the half-breed, saying: “I’ll square this deal, Buck McKee.”

“Losin’ vallyble time, Peruna. Git!” was all that his former boss deigned to answer.

Peruna limped over to his horse, which Parenthesis had been holding in custody, mounted it, and rode off at a lope for the river ford. He crossed it in sight of the Sweetwater outfit, and disappeared behind the riverbank. Here he dismounted, and, picking a small branch of cactus, put it under his horse’s tail. The poor beast clapped the tail against it, and, with a scream, set off on a wild gallop across the mesa. Peruna hobbled up the river a mile or so, half-waded, half-swam, to the other side, and entered an arroyo, whose course led back near the camp of the Sweetwater outfit. He had been disarmed by the cowboys of his revolver, but not of his knife.

After Peruna had been visited with his punishment, Echo retraced her steps.

Bowing to her, hat in hand, Buck made his apologies. “Ma’am, I’m plumb sorry. My mother was a Cherokee squaw, but I’m white in some spots. If you’ll let your ranch boss come along with us, we’ll settle this brandin’-business right now.”

Sage-brush did not care to accept the offer, but Echo ordered him to go with the Lazy K outfit. Seeing it was useless to argue with her, he said: “Come on, boys.”

Ere they had ridden out of sight, Echo sank, exhausted, on the seat by the fire. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

Polly played the rôle of comforter.

“Don’t mind ’em,” she said. “Better come to the ranch with me. You’re all tuckered out. You’ve been runnin’ this ranch fer a month like a man.”

“I’ll take your advice, Polly, and ride home. Tell Dad I want him, will you?”