Jean Meets One Crisis And Confronts Another
: Jean Of The Lazy A"Well, say! This is like seeing you walk out of that picture that's
running at the Teatro Palacia. You sure are making a hit with those
moving-pictures; made me feel like I'd met somebody from home to stroll
in there and see you and Lite come riding up, large as life. How is
Lite, anyway?"
If Art Osgood felt any embarrassment over meeting her, he certainly
gave no sign of it. He sat down on the railin
and looked as though he was preparing for a real soul-feast of
reminiscent gossip. "Just get in?" he asked, by way of opening wider
the channel of talk. He lighted a cigarette and flipped the match down
into the street. "I've been here three or four months. I'm part of
the Mexican revolution, though I don't reckon I look it. We been
keeping things pretty well stirred up, down this way. You looking for
picture dope? Lubin folks are copping all kinds of good stuff here.
You ain't with them, are you?"
Jean braced herself against slipping into easy conversation with this
man who seemed so friendly and unsuspicious and so conscience-free.
Killing a man, she thought, evidently did not seem to him a matter of
any moment; perhaps because he had since then become a professional
killer of men. After planning exactly how she should meet any
contingency that might arise, she found herself baffled. She had not
expected to meet this attitude. She was not prepared to meet it. She
had taken it for granted that Art Osgood would shun a meeting; that she
would have to force him to face her. And here he was, sitting on the
porch rail and swinging one spurred and booted foot, smiling at her and
talking, in high spirits over the meeting--or a genius at acting. She
eyed him uncertainly, trying to adjust herself to this emergency.
Art came to a pause and looked at her inquiringly. "What's the matter?"
he demanded. "You called me up here--and I sure was tickled to death
to come, all right!--and now you stand there looking like I was a kid
that had been caught whispering, and must be kept after school. I know
the symptoms, believe me! You're sore about something I've said. What,
don't you like to have anybody talk about you being a movie-queen? You
sure are all of that. You've got a license to be proud of yourself.
Or maybe you didn't know you was speaking to a Mexican soldier, or
something like that." He made a move to rise. "Ex-cuse ME, if I've
said something I hadn't ought. I'll beat it, while the beating's good."
"No, you won't. You'll stay right where you are." His frank acceptance
of her hostile attitude steadied Jean. "Do you think I came all the
way down here just to say hello?"
"Search me." Art studied her curiously. "I never could keep track of
what you thought and what you meant, and I guess you haven't grown any
easier to read since I saw you last. I'll be darned if I know what you
came for; but it's a cinch you didn't come just to be riding on the
cars."
"No," drawled Jean, watching him. "I didn't. I came after you."
Art Osgood stared, while his cheeks darkened with the flush of
confusion. He laughed a little. "I sure wish that was the truth," he
said. "Jean, you never would have to go very far after any man with
two eyes in his head. Don't rub it in."
"I did," said Jean calmly. "I came after you. I'd have found you if I
had to hunt all through Mexico and fight both armies for you."
"Jean!" There was a queer, pleading note in Art's voice. "I wish I
could believe that, but I can't. I ain't a fool."
"Yes, you are." Jean contradicted him pitilessly. "You were a fool
when you thought you could go away and no one think you knew anything
at all about--Johnny Croft."
Art's fingers had been picking at a loose splinter on the wooden rail
whereon he sat. He looked down at it, jerked it loose with a sharp
twist, and began snapping off little bits with his thumb and
forefinger. In a minute he looked up at Jean, and his eyes were
different. They were not hostile; they were merely cold and watchful
and questioning.
"Well?"
"Well, somebody did think so. I've thought so for three years, and so
I'm here." Jean found that her breath was coming fast, and that as she
leaned back against a post and gripped the rail on either side, her
arms were quivering like the legs of a frightened horse. Still, her
voice had sounded calm enough.
Art Osgood sat with his shoulders drooped forward a little, and
painstakingly snipped off tiny bits of the splinter. After a short
silence, he turned his head and looked at her again.
"I shouldn't think you'd want to stir up that trouble after all this
while," he said. "But women are queer. I can't see, myself, why you'd
want to bother hunting me up on account of--that."
Jean weighed his words, his look, his manner, and got no clue at all to
what was going on back of his eyes. On the surface, he was just a
tanned, fairly good-looking young man who has been reluctantly drawn
into an unpleasant subject.
"Well, I did consider it worth while bothering to hunt you up," she
told him flatly. "If you don't think it's important, you at least
won't object to going back with me?"
Again his glance went to her face, plainly startled. "Go back with
you?" he repeated. "What for?"
"Well--" Jean still had some trouble with her breath and to keep her
quiet, smooth drawl, "let's make it a woman's reason. Because."
Art's face settled to a certain hardness that still was not hostile.
"Becauses don't go," he said. "Not with a girl like you; they might
with some. What do you want me to go back for?"
"Well, I want you to go because I want to clear things up, about Johnny
Croft. It's time--it was cleared up."
Art regarded her fixedly. "Well, I don't see yet what's back of that
first BECAUSE," he sparred. "There's nothing I can do to clear up
anything."
"Art, don't lie to me about it. I know--"
"What do you know?" Art's eyes never left her face, now. They seemed
to be boring into her brain. Jean began to feel a certain confusion.
To be sure, she had never had any experience whatever with fugitive
murderers; but no one would ever expect one to act like this. A little
more, she thought resentfully, and he would be making her feel as if
she were the guilty person. She straightened herself and stared back
at him.
"I know you left because you--you didn't want to stay and face-things.
I--I have felt as if I could kill you, almost, for what you have done.
I--I don't see how you can SIT there and--and look at me that way."
She stopped and braced herself. "I don't want to argue about it. I
came here to make you go back and face things. It's--horrible--" She
was thinking of her father then, and she could not go on.
"Jean, you're all wrong. I don't know what idea you've got, but you
may as well get one or two things straight. Maybe you do feel like
killing me; but I don't know what for. I haven't the slightest notion
of going back; there's nothing I could clear up, if I did go."
Jean looked at him dumbly. She supposed she should have to force him
to go, after all. Of course, you couldn't expect that a man who had
committed a crime will admit it to the first questioner; you couldn't
expect him to go back willingly and face the penalty. She would have to
use her gun; perhaps even call on Lite, since Lite had followed her.
She might have felt easier in her mind had she seen how Lite was
standing just within the glass-paneled door behind the dimity curtain,
listening to every word, and watching every expression on Art Osgood's
face. Lite's hand, also, was close to his gun, to be perfectly sure of
Jean's safety. But he had no intention of spoiling her feeling of
independence if he could help it. He had lots of faith in Jean.
"What has cropped up, anyway?" Art asked her curiously, as if he had
been puzzling over her reasons for being there. "I thought that affair
was settled long ago, when it happened. I thought it was all straight
sailing--"
"To send an innocent man to prison for it? Do you call that straight
sailing?" Jean's eyes had in them now a flash of anger that steadied
her.
"What innocent man?" Art threw away the stub of the splinter and sat
up straight. "I never knew any innocent man--"
"Oh! You didn't know?"
"All I know," said Art, with a certain swiftness of speech that was a
new element in his manner, "I'm dead willing to tell you. I knew
Johnny had been around knocking the outfit, and making some threats,
and saying things he had no business to say. I never did have any use
for him, just because he was so mouthy. I wasn't surprised to
hear--how it ended up."
"To hear! You weren't there, when it happened?" Jean was watching him
for some betraying emotion, some sign that she had struck home. She
got a quick, sharp glance from him, as if he were trying to guess just
how much she knew.
"Why should I have been there? The last time I was ever at the Lazy
A," he stated distinctly, "was the day before I left. I didn't go any
farther than the gate then. I had a letter for your father, and I met
him at the gate and gave it to him."
"A letter for dad?" It was not much, but it was better than nothing.
Jean thought she might lead him on to something more.
"Yes! A note, or a letter. Carl sent me over with it."
"Carl? What was it about? I never heard--"
"I never read it. Ask your dad what it was about, why don't you? I
don't reckon it was anything particular."
"Maybe it was, though." Jean was turning crafty. She would pretend to
be interested in the letter, and trip Art somehow when he was off his
guard. "Are you sure that it was the day before--you left?"
"Yes." Some high talk in the street caught his attention, and Art
turned and looked down. Jean caught at the chance to study his averted
face, but she could not read innocence or guilt there. Art, she
decided, was not as transparent as she had always believed him to be.
He turned back and met her look. "I know it was the day before. Why?"
"Oh, I wondered. Dad didn't say-- What did he do with it--the letter?"
"He opened it and read it." A smile of amused understanding of her
finesse curled Art's lips. "And he stuck it in the pocket of his chaps
and went on to wherever he was going." His eyes challenged her
impishly.
"And it was from Uncle Carl, you say?"
Art hesitated, and the smile left his lips. "It--it was from Carl,
yes. Why?"
"Oh, I just wondered." Jean was wondering why he had stopped smiling,
all at once, and why he hesitated. Was he afraid he was going to
contradict himself about the day or the errand? Or was he afraid she
would ask her Uncle Carl, and find that there was no letter?
"Why don't you ask your dad, if you are so anxious to know all about
it?" Art demanded abruptly. "Anyway, that's the last time I was ever
over there."
"Ask dad!" Jean's anger flamed out suddenly. "Art Osgood, when I think
of dad, I wonder why I don't shoot you! I wonder how you dare sit
there and look me in the face. Ask dad! Dad, who is paying with his
life and all that's worth while in life, for that murder that you
deny--"
"What's that? Paying how?" Art leaned toward her; and now his face
was hard and hostile, and so were his eyes.
"Paying! You know how he is paying! Paying in Deer Lodge
penitentiary--"
"Who? YOUR FATHER?" Had Art been ready to spring at her and catch her
by the throat, he would not have looked much different.
"My father!" Jean's voice broke upon the word. "And you--" She did
not attempt to finish the charge.
Art sat looking at her with a queer intensity. "Your father!" he
repeated. "Aleck! I never knew that, Jean. Take my word, I never
knew that!" He seemed to be thinking pretty fast. "Where's Carl at?"
he asked irrelevantly.
"Uncle Carl? He's home, running both ranches. I--I never could make
Uncle Carl see that you must have been the one."
"Been the one that shot Crofty, you mean?" Art gave a short laugh. He
got up and stood in front of her. "Thanks, awfully. Good reason why
he couldn't see it! He knows well enough I didn't do it. He knows--who
did." He bit his lips then, as if he feared that he had said too much.
"Uncle Carl knows? Then why doesn't he tell? It wasn't dad!" Jean
took a defiant step toward him. "Art Osgood, if you dare say it was
dad, I--I'll kill you!"
Art smiled at her with a brief lightening of his eyes. "I believe you
would, at that," he said soberly. "But it wasn't your dad, Jean."
"Who was it?"
"I--don't--know."
"You do! You do know, Art Osgood! And you ran off; and they gave dad
eight years--"
Art spoke one word under his breath, and that word was profane. "I
don't see how that could be," he said after a minute.
Jean did not answer. She was biting her lips to keep back the tears.
She felt that somehow she had failed; that Art Osgood was slipping
through her fingers, in spite of the fact that he did not seem to fear
her or to oppose her except in the final accusation. It was the lack
of opposition, that lack of fear, that baffled her so. Art, she felt
dimly, must be very sure of his own position; was it because he was so
close to the Mexican line? Jean glanced desperately that way. It was
very close. She could see the features of the Mexican soldiers lounging
before the cantina over there; through the lighted window of the
customhouse she could see a dark-faced officer bending over a littered
desk. The guard over there spoke to a friend, and she could hear the
words he said.
Jean thought swiftly. She must not let Art Osgood go back across that
street. She could cover him with her gun--Art knew how well she could
use it!--and she would call for an American officer and have him
arrested. Or, Lite was somewhere below; she would call for Lite, and
he could go and get an officer and a warrant.
"How soon you going back?" Art asked abruptly, as though he had been
pondering a problem and had reached the solution. "I'll have to get a
leave of absence, or go down on the books as a deserter; and I wouldn't
want that. I can get it, all right. I'll go back with you and
straighten this thing out, if it's the way you say it is. I sure
didn't know they'd pulled your dad for it, Jean."
This, coming so close upon the heels of her own decision, set Jean all
at sea again. She looked at him doubtfully.
"I thought you said you didn't know, and you wouldn't go back."
Art grinned sardonically. "I'll lie any time to help a friend," he
admitted frankly. "What I do draw the line at is lying to help some
cowardly cuss double-cross a man. Your father got the double-cross; I
don't stand for anything like that. Not a-tall!" He heaved a sigh of
nervous relaxation, for the last half hour had been keyed rather high
for them both, and pulled his hat down on his head.
"Say, Jean! Want to go across with me and meet the general? You can
make my talk a whole lot stronger by telling what you came for. I'll
get leave, all right, then. And you'll know for sure that I'm playing
straight. You see that two-story 'dobe about half-way down the
block,--the one with the Mexican flag over it?" He pointed. "There's
where he is. Want to go over?"
"Any objections to taking me along with you?" This was Lite, coming
nonchalantly toward them from the doorway. Lite was still perfectly
willing to let Jean manage this affair in her own way, but that did not
mean that he would not continue to watch over her. Lite was much like a
man who lets a small boy believe he is driving a skittish team all
alone. Jean believed that she was acting alone in this, as in
everything else. She had yet to learn that Lite had for three years
been always at hand, ready to take the lines if the team proved too
fractious for her.
Art turned and put out his hand. "Why, hello, Lite! Sure, you can
come along; glad to have you." He eyed Lite questioningly. "I'll
gamble you've heard all we've been talking about," he said. "That
would be you, all right! So you don't need any wising up. Come on; I
want to catch the chief before he goes off somewhere."
To see the three of them go down the stairs and out upon the street and
across it into Mexico,--which to Jean seemed very queer,--you would
never dream of the quest that had brought them together down here on
the border. Even Jean was smiling, in a tired, anxious way. She
walked close to Lite and never once asked him how he came to be there,
or why. She was glad that he was there. She was glad to shift the
whole matter to his broad shoulders now, and let him take the lead.
They had a real Mexican dinner in a queer little adobe place where Art
advised them quite seriously never to come alone. They had thick soup
with a strange flavor, and Art talked with the waiter in Mexican
dialect that made Jean glad indeed to feel Lite's elbow touching hers,
and to know that although Lite's hand rested idly on his knee, it was
only one second from his weapon. She had no definite suspicion of Art
Osgood, but all the same she was thankful that she was not there alone
with him among all these dark, sharp-eyed Mexicans with their
atmosphere of latent treachery.
Lite ate mostly with his left hand. Jean noticed that. It was the
only sign of watchfulness that he betrayed, unless one added the fact
that he had chosen a seat which brought his back against an adobe wall
and his face toward Art and the room, with Jean beside him. That might
have been pure chance, and it might not. But Art was evidently playing
fair.
A little later they came back to the Casa del Sonora, and Jean went up
to her room feeling that a great burden had been lifted from her
shoulders. Lite and Art Osgood were out on the veranda, gossiping of
the range, and in Art's pocket was a month's leave of absence from his
duties. Once she heard Lite laugh, and she stood with one hand full of
hairpins and the other holding the brush and listened, and smiled a
little. It all sounded very companionable, very care-free,--not in the
least as though they were about to clear up an old wrong.
She got into bed and thumped the hard pillow into a little nest for her
tired head, and listened languidly to the familiar voices that came to
her mingled with confused noises of the street. Lite was on guard; he
would not lose his caution just because Art seemed friendly and
helpfully inclined, and had meant no treachery over in that queer
restaurant. Lite would not be easily tricked. So she presently fell
asleep.
More
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It was a January night when Joan, her rough head almost in the ashes, had read "Isabella and the Pot of Basil" by the light of flames. It was in March, a gray, still afternoon, when, looking through Prosper's bookcase, she came upon the tale again... John Craven's Method
Mr. John Craven could not be said to take his school-teaching seriously; and indeed, any one looking at his face would hardly expect him to take anything seriously, and certainly those who in his college days followed and courted and kept pace wit... John Gale's Hour
It was a heathenish time of night to arouse the girl, thought Burrell, as he left the barracks, but he must allay these fears that were besetting him, he must see Necia at once. The low, drifting clouds obscured what star-glow there was in the hea... Johnny Arrives
Meanwhile Hopalong and Red quarrelled petulantly and damned the erring Johnny with enthusiastic abandon, while Dent smiled at them and joked; but his efforts at levity made little impression on the irate pair. Red, true to his word, had turned up at... Johnny Learns Something
For several weeks after Hopalong got back to the ranch, full of interesting stories and minus the grouch, things went on in a way placid enough for the most peacefully inclined individual that ever sat a saddle. And then trouble drifted down from th... Johnson's Old Woman
It was growing dark, and the Sonora trail was becoming more indistinct before me at every step. The difficulty had increased over the grassy slope, where the overflow from some smaller watercourse above had worn a number of diverging gullies so li... Jones On Cougars
The mountain lion, or cougar, of our Rocky Mountain region, is nothing more nor less than the panther. He is a little different in shape, color and size, which vary according to his environment. The panther of the Rockies is usually light, taking th... Jose Sanchez Swears An Oath
On this same evening a scene of no little significance was taking place at Las Palmas. Ed Austin was entertaining callers, and these were none other than Tad Lewis and Adolfo Urbina. The progress of events during the last few days had shaped thi... Juan Valdez Scores
The first thing Bucky did after leaving the two young women was to go down in person with one of the guards to the cell of David Henderson. The occupant of the cell was asleep, but he woke up when the two men entered. "Who is it?" he demanded. ... Judd Morgan Passes
Gimlet Butte devoted the night of the Fourth to a high old time. The roping and the other sports were to be on the morrow, and meanwhile the night hours were filled with exuberance. The cowboy's spree comes only once in several months, but when it d... Judge Ellsworth Exacts A Promise
On his way to the Lewis ranch Dave Law had a struggle with himself. He had earned a reputation as a man of violent temper, and the time was not long past when a fraction of the insult Ed Austin had offered him would have provoked a vigorous count... Judson's Joke
Barton Rufford, ex-distiller of illicit whiskey in the Tennessee mountains, ex-welsher turned informer and betraying his neighbor law-breakers to the United States revenue officers, ex-everything which made his continued stay in the Cumberlands im... June Asks Questions
Houck, an unwelcome guest, stayed at the cabin on Piceance nearly two weeks. His wooing was surely one of the strangest known. He fleered at June, taunted her, rode over the girl's pride and sense of decorum, beat down the defenses she set up, and... June Discovers A New World
Blister had not overstated the case to Bob when he told him that June had been having the time of her life getting well. She had been a lonely little thing, of small importance in a country very busy on its own affairs. The sense of inferiority ha... June Is Glad
June turned away from the crowd surrounding the dead mad dog and walked into the hotel. The eyes of more than one man followed the slim, graceful figure admiringly. Much water had run down the Rio Blanco since the days when she had been the Cinder... June Prays
When June turned away from her husband of an hour she abandoned hope. She had been like a child lost in the forest. A gleam of light from a window had cheered her for a moment, but it had flickered out and left her in the darkness. In one sense... Just One Thing After Another
A gray clarity of the air told that daylight was near. The skyline retreated, the hills came out of the duskiness like a photograph in the developer tray. Irish dipped down the steep slope into Antelope Coulee, cursing the sprinkle of new shacks tha... Justice In The Saddle
It was an hour after the usual time when we bedded down the cattle. The wagon had overtaken us about sunset, and the cook's fire piloted us into a camp fully two miles to the right of the trail. A change of horses was awaiting us, and after a hasty ... Justice Vs Law
Impatience, intolerable and vicious, gripped Trevison as he rode homeward after his haunting vigil at Manti. The law seemed to him to be like a house with many doors, around and through which one could play hide and seek indefinitely, with no poss... Kangarooed
Lovell and his attorneys joined the cavalcade which returned to the post, while we continued on south, fording the Missouri above Forrest's camp. The two recovered beeves were recognized by their ranch brands as belonging in Bee County, thus identif... Kate Uses Her Quirt
Red-headed Bob Cullison finished making the diamond hitch and proudly called his cousin Kate to inspect the packhorse. "You never saw the hitch thrown better, sis," he bragged, boy-like. "Uncle Luck says I do it well as he can." "It's fine, B... Keep A-comin' Red Haid
When the rangers and the militia stampeded after the Indian scout, Dud Hollister was examining the hoof of his mount. He swung instantly to the saddle and touched his pony with the spur. It shot across the mesa on the outskirts of the troop. Not i... Keith's Masterful Wooing
Keith faced toward home, with Redcloud following at his heels like a pet dog. For some reason, which he did not try to analyze, he was feeling light of heart--as though something very nice had happened to him. It might have been the unexpected cle... Kidnapped
As a lake ripples beneath a summer breeze, so Mesa was stirred from its usual languor by the visit of Simon West. For the little Arizona town was dreaming dreams. Its imagination had been aroused; and it saw itself no longer a sleepy cow camp in t... Kidnapped
Barbara Morgan had yielded to the fever of impatience which had afflicted her during the latter days of Harlan's absence from the Rancho Seco. She had been impatient ever since she had been forced to stay close to the house by Harlan's orders; but... King Hol
There is a very general and very erroneous impression that alcohol builds the mood of a man; as a matter of fact it merely makes his temper of the moment fast--the man who takes his first drink with a smile ends in uproarious laughter, and he who fr...