The Lone Star Ranger
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Zane Grey >> The Lone Star Ranger
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Presently a tall man, with a drooping, sandy mustache,
leisurely detached himself from the crowd.
"Howdy, stranger," he said.
The stranger had bent over to loosen the cinches; he
straightened up and nodded. Then: "I'm thirsty!"
That brought a broad smile to faces. It was characteristic
greeting. One and all trooped after the stranger into the
hotel. It was a dark, ill-smelling barn of a place, with a bar
as high as a short man's head. A bartender with a scarred face
was serving drinks.
"Line up, gents," said the stranger.
They piled over one another to get to the bar, with coarse
jests and oaths and laughter. None of them noted that the
stranger did not appear so thirsty as he had claimed to be. In
fact, though he went through the motions, he did not drink at
all.
"My name's Jim Fletcher," said the tall man with the drooping,
sandy mustache. He spoke laconically, nevertheless there was a
tone that showed he expected to be known. Something went with
that name. The stranger did not appear to be impressed.
"My name might be Blazes, but it ain't," he replied. "What do
you call this burg?"
"Stranger, this heah me-tropoles bears the handle Ord. Is thet
new to you?"
He leaned back against the bar, and now his little yellow eyes,
clear as crystal, flawless as a hawk's, fixed on the stranger.
Other men crowded close, forming a circle, curious, ready to be
friendly or otherwise, according to how the tall interrogator
marked the new-comer.
"Sure, Ord's a little strange to me. Off the railroad some,
ain't it? Funny trails hereabouts."
"How fur was you goin'?"
"I reckon I was goin' as far as I could," replied the stranger,
with a hard laugh.
His reply had subtle reaction on that listening circle. Some of
the men exchanged glances. Fletcher stroked his drooping
mustache, seemed thoughtful, but lost something of that
piercing scrutiny.
"Wal, Ord's the jumpin'-off place," he said, presently. "Sure
you've heerd of the Big Bend country?"
"I sure have, an' was makin' tracks fer it," replied the
stranger.
Fletcher turned toward a man in the outer edge of the group.
"Knell, come in heah."
This individual elbowed his way in and was seen to be scarcely
more than a boy, almost pale beside those bronzed men, with a
long, expressionless face, thin and sharp.
"Knell, this heah's--" Fletcher wheeled to the stranger.
"What'd you call yourself?"
"I'd hate to mention what I've been callin' myself lately."
This sally fetched another laugh. The stranger appeared cool,
careless, indifferent. Perhaps he knew, as the others present
knew, that this show of Fletcher's, this pretense of
introduction, was merely talk while he was looked over.
Knell stepped up, and it was easy to see, from the way Fletcher
relinquished his part in the situation, that a man greater than
he had appeared upon the scene.
"Any business here?" he queried, curtly. When he spoke his
expressionless face was in strange contrast with the ring, the
quality, the cruelty of his voice. This voice betrayed an
absence of humor, of friendliness, of heart.
"Nope," replied the stranger.
"Know anybody hereabouts?"
"Nary one."
"Jest ridin' through?"
"Yep."
"Slopin' fer back country, eh?"
There came a pause. The stranger appeared to grow a little
resentful and drew himself up disdainfully.
"Wal, considerin' you-all seem so damn friendly an' oncurious
down here in this Big Bend country, I don't mind sayin' yes--I
am in on the dodge," he replied, with deliberate sarcasm.
"From west of Ord--out El Paso way, mebbe?"
"Sure."
"A-huh! Thet so?" Knell's words cut the air, stilled the room.
"You're from way down the river. Thet's what they say down
there--'on the dodge.' . . . Stranger, you're a liar!"
With swift clink of spur and thump of boot the crowd split,
leaving Knell and the stranger in the center.
Wild breed of that ilk never made a mistake in judging a man's
nerve. Knell had cut out with the trenchant call, and stood
ready. The stranger suddenly lost his every semblance to the
rough and easy character before manifest in him. He became
bronze. That situation seemed familiar to him. His eyes held a
singular piercing light that danced like a compass-needle.
"Sure I lied," he said; "so I ain't takin' offense at the way
you called me. I'm lookin' to make friends, not enemies. You
don't strike me as one of them four-flushes, achin' to kill
somebody. But if you are--go ahead an' open the ball.... You
see, I never throw a gun on them fellers till they go fer
theirs."
Knell coolly eyed his antagonist, his strange face not changing
in the least. Yet somehow it was evident in his look that here
was metal which rang differently from what he had expected.
Invited to start a fight or withdraw, as he chose, Knell proved
himself big in the manner characteristic of only the genuine
gunman.
"Stranger, I pass," he said, and, turning to the bar, he
ordered liquor.
The tension relaxed, the silence broke, the men filled up the
gap; the incident seemed closed. Jim Fletcher attached himself
to the stranger, and now both respect and friendliness tempered
his asperity.
"Wal, fer want of a better handle I'll call you Dodge," he
said.
"Dodge's as good as any.... Gents, line up again--an' if you
can't be friendly, be careful!"
Such was Buck Duane's debut in the little outlaw hamlet of Ord.
Duane had been three months out of the Nueces country. At El
Paso he bought the finest horse he could find, and, armed and
otherwise outfitted to suit him, he had taken to unknown
trails. Leisurely he rode from town to town, village to
village, ranch to ranch, fitting his talk and his occupation to
the impression he wanted to make upon different people whom he
met. He was in turn a cowboy, a rancher, a cattleman, a stock-
buyer, a boomer, a land-hunter; and long before he reached the
wild and inhospitable Ord he had acted the part of an outlaw,
drifting into new territory. He passed on leisurely because he
wanted to learn the lay of the country, the location of
villages and ranches, the work, habit, gossip, pleasures, and
fears of the people with whom he came in contact. The one
subject most impelling to him--outlaws--he never mentioned; but
by talking all around it, sifting the old ranch and cattle
story, he acquired a knowledge calculated to aid his plot. In
this game time was of no moment; if necessary he would take
years to accomplish his task. The stupendous and perilous
nature of it showed in the slow, wary preparation. When he
heard Fletcher's name and faced Knell he knew he had reached
the place he sought. Ord was a hamlet on the fringe of the
grazing country, of doubtful honesty, from which, surely,
winding trails led down into that free and never-disturbed
paradise of outlaws--the Big Bend.
Duane made himself agreeable, yet not too much so, to Fletcher
and several other men disposed to talk and drink and eat; and
then, after having a care for his horse, he rode out of town a
couple of miles to a grove he had marked, and there, well
hidden, he prepared to spend the night. This proceeding served
a double purpose--he was safer, and the habit would look well
in the eyes of outlaws, who would be more inclined to see in
him the lone-wolf fugitive.
Long since Duane had fought out a battle with himself, won a
hard-earned victory. His outer life, the action, was much the
same as it had been; but the inner life had tremendously
changed. He could never become a happy man, he could never
shake utterly those haunting phantoms that had once been his
despair and madness; but he had assumed a task impossible for
any man save one like him, he had felt the meaning of it grow
strangely and wonderfully, and through that flourished up
consciousness of how passionately he now clung to this thing
which would blot out his former infamy. The iron fetters no
more threatened his hands; the iron door no more haunted his
dreams. He never forgot that he was free. Strangely, too, along
with this feeling of new manhood there gathered the force of
imperious desire to run these chief outlaws to their dooms. He
never called them outlaws--but rustlers, thieves, robbers,
murderers, criminals. He sensed the growth of a relentless
driving passion, and sometimes he feared that, more than the
newly acquired zeal and pride in this ranger service, it was
the old, terrible inherited killing instinct lifting its
hydra-head in new guise. But of that he could not be sure. He
dreaded the thought. He could only wait.
Another aspect of the change in Duane, neither passionate nor
driving, yet not improbably even more potent of new
significance to life, was the imperceptible return of an old
love of nature dead during his outlaw days.
For years a horse had been only a machine of locomotion, to
carry him from place to place, to beat and spur and goad
mercilessly in flight; now this giant black, with his splendid
head, was a companion, a friend, a brother, a loved thing,
guarded jealously, fed and trained and ridden with an intense
appreciation of his great speed and endurance. For years the
daytime, with its birth of sunrise on through long hours to the
ruddy close, had been used for sleep or rest in some rocky hole
or willow brake or deserted hut, had been hated because it
augmented danger of pursuit, because it drove the fugitive to
lonely, wretched hiding; now the dawn was a greeting, a promise
of another day to ride, to plan, to remember, and sun, wind,
cloud, rain, sky--all were joys to him, somehow speaking his
freedom. For years the night had been a black space, during
which he had to ride unseen along the endless trails, to peer
with cat-eyes through gloom for the moving shape that ever
pursued him; now the twilight and the dusk and the shadows of
grove and canon darkened into night with its train of stars,
and brought him calm reflection of the day's happenings, of the
morrow's possibilities, perhaps a sad, brief procession of the
old phantoms, then sleep. For years canons and valleys and
mountains had been looked at as retreats that might be dark and
wild enough to hide even an outlaw; now he saw these features
of the great desert with something of the eyes of the boy who
had once burned for adventure and life among them.
This night a wonderful afterglow lingered long in the west, and
against the golden-red of clear sky the bold, black head of
Mount Ord reared itself aloft, beautiful but aloof, sinister
yet calling. Small wonder that Duane gazed in fascination upon
the peak! Somewhere deep in its corrugated sides or lost in a
rugged canon was hidden the secret stronghold of the master
outlaw Cheseldine. All down along the ride from El Paso Duane
had heard of Cheseldine, of his band, his fearful deeds, his
cunning, his widely separated raids, of his flitting here and
there like a Jack-o'-lantern; but never a word of his den,
never a word of his appearance.
Next morning Duane did not return to Ord. He struck off to the
north, riding down a rough, slow-descending road that appeared
to have been used occasionally for cattle-driving. As he had
ridden in from the west, this northern direction led him into
totally unfamiliar country. While he passed on, however, he
exercised such keen observation that in the future he would
know whatever might be of service to him if he chanced that way
again.
The rough, wild, brush-covered slope down from the foothills
gradually leveled out into plain, a magnificent grazing
country, upon which till noon of that day Duane did not see a
herd of cattle or a ranch. About that time he made out smoke
from the railroad, and after a couple of hours' riding he
entered a town which inquiry discovered to be Bradford. It was
the largest town he had visited since Marfa, and he calculated
must have a thousand or fifteen hundred inhabitants, not
including Mexicans. He decided this would be a good place for
him to hold up for a while, being the nearest town to Ord, only
forty miles away. So he hitched his horse in front of a store
and leisurely set about studying Bradford.
It was after dark, however, that Duane verified his suspicions
concerning Bradford. The town was awake after dark, and there
was one long row of saloons, dance-halls, gambling-resorts in
full blast. Duane visited them all, and was surprised to see
wildness and license equal to that of the old river camp of
Bland's in its palmiest days. Here it was forced upon him that
the farther west one traveled along the river the sparser the
respectable settlements, the more numerous the hard characters,
and in consequence the greater the element of lawlessness.
Duane returned to his lodging-house with the conviction that
MacNelly's task of cleaning up the Big Bend country was a
stupendous one. Yet, he reflected, a company of intrepid and
quick-shooting rangers could have soon cleaned up this
Bradford.
The innkeeper had one other guest that night, a long
black-coated and wide-sombreroed Texan who reminded Duane of
his grandfather. This man had penetrating eyes, a courtly
manner, and an unmistakable leaning toward companionship and
mint-juleps. The gentleman introduced himself as Colonel Webb,
of Marfa, and took it as a matter of course that Duane made no
comment about himself.
"Sir, it's all one to me," he said, blandly, waving his hand.
"I have traveled. Texas is free, and this frontier is one where
it's healthier and just as friendly for a man to have no
curiosity about his companion. You might be Cheseldine, of the
Big Bend, or you might be Judge Little, of El Paso-it's all one
to me. I enjoy drinking with you anyway."
Duane thanked him, conscious of a reserve and dignity that he
could not have felt or pretended three months before. And then,
as always, he was a good listener. Colonel Webb told, among
other things, that he had come out to the Big Bend to look over
the affairs of a deceased brother who had been a rancher and a
sheriff of one of the towns, Fairdale by name.
"Found no affairs, no ranch, not even his grave," said Colonel
Webb. "And I tell you, sir, if hell's any tougher than this
Fairdale I don't want to expiate my sins there."
"Fairdale.... I imagine sheriffs have a hard row to hoe out
here," replied Duane, trying not to appear curious.
The Colonel swore lustily.
"My brother was the only honest sheriff Fairdale ever had. It
was wonderful how long he lasted. But he had nerve, he could
throw a gun, and he was on the square. Then he was wise enough
to confine his work to offenders of his own town and
neighborhood. He let the riding outlaws alone, else he wouldn't
have lasted at all.... What this frontier needs, sir, is about
six companies of Texas Rangers."
Duane was aware of the Colonel's close scrutiny.
"Do you know anything about the service?" he asked.
"I used to. Ten years ago when I lived in San Antonio. A fine
body of men, sir, and the salvation of Texas."
"Governor Stone doesn't entertain that opinion," said Duane.
Here Colonel Webb exploded. Manifestly the governor was not his
choice for a chief executive of the great state. He talked
politics for a while, and of the vast territory west of the
Pecos that seemed never to get a benefit from Austin. He talked
enough for Duane to realize that here was just the kind of
intelligent, well-informed, honest citizen that he had been
trying to meet. He exerted himself thereafter to be agreeable
and interesting; and he saw presently that here was an
opportunity to make a valuable acquaintance, if not a friend.
"I'm a stranger in these parts," said Duane, finally. "What is
this outlaw situation you speak of?"
"It's damnable, sir, and unbelievable. Not rustling any more,
but just wholesale herd-stealing, in which some big cattlemen,
supposed to be honest, are equally guilty with the outlaws. On
this border, you know, the rustler has always been able to
steal cattle in any numbers. But to get rid of big
bunches--that's the hard job. The gang operating between here
and Valentine evidently have not this trouble. Nobody knows
where the stolen stock goes. But I'm not alone in my opinion
that most of it goes to several big stockmen. They ship to San
Antonio, Austin, New Orleans, also to El Paso. If you travel
the stock-road between here and Marfa and Valentine you'll see
dead cattle all along the line and stray cattle out in the
scrub. The herds have been driven fast and far, and stragglers
are not rounded up."
"Wholesale business, eh?" remarked Duane. "Who are
these--er--big stock-buyers?"
Colonel Webb seemed a little startled at the abrupt query. He
bent his penetrating gaze upon Duane and thoughtfully stroked
his pointed beard.
"Names, of course, I'll not mention. Opinions are one thing,
direct accusation another. This is not a healthy country for
the informer."
When it came to the outlaws themselves Colonel Webb was
disposed to talk freely. Duane could not judge whether the
Colonel had a hobby of that subject or the outlaws were so
striking in personality and deed that any man would know all
about them. The great name along the river was Cheseldine, but
it seemed to be a name detached from an individual. No person
of veracity known to Colonel Webb had ever seen Cheseldine, and
those who claimed that doubtful honor varied so diversely in
descriptions of the chief that they confused the reality and
lent to the outlaw only further mystery. Strange to say of an
outlaw leader, as there was no one w;ho could identify him, so
there was no one who could prove he had actually killed a man.
Blood flowed like water over the Big Bend country, and it was
Cheseldine who spilled it. Yet the fact remained there were no
eye-witnesses to connect any individual called Cheseldine with
these deeds of violence. But in striking contrast to this
mystery was the person, character, and cold-blooded action
of Poggin and Knell, the chief's lieutenants. They were
familiar figures in all the towns within two hundred miles of
Bradford. Knell had a record, but as gunman with an incredible
list of victims Poggin was supreme. If Poggin had a friend no
one ever heard of him. There were a hundred stories of his
nerve, his wonderful speed with a gun, his passion for
gambling, his love of a horse--his cold, implacable, inhuman
wiping out of his path any man that crossed it.
"Cheseldine is a name, a terrible name," said Colonel Webb.
"Sometimes I wonder if he's not only a name. In that case where
does the brains of this gang come from? No; there must be a
master craftsman behind this border pillage; a master capable
of handling those terrors Poggin and Knell. Of all the
thousands of outlaws developed by western Texas in the last
twenty years these three are the greatest. In southern Texas,
down between the Pecos and the Nueces, there have been and are
still many bad men. But I doubt if any outlaw there, possibly
excepting Buck Duane, ever equaled Poggin. You've heard of this
Duane?"
"Yes, a little," replied Duane, quietly. "I'm from southern
Texas. Buck Duane then is known out here?"
"Why, man, where isn't his name known?" returned Colonel Webb.
"I've kept track of his record as I have all the others. Of
course, Duane, being a lone outlaw, is somewhat of a mystery
also, but not like Cheseldine. Out here there have drifted many
stories of Duane, horrible some of them. But despite them a
sort of romance clings to that Nueces outlaw. He's killed three
great outlaw leaders, I believe--Bland, Hardin, and the other I
forgot. Hardin was known in the Big Bend, had friends there.
Bland had a hard name at Del Rio."
"Then this man Duane enjoys rather an unusual repute west of
the Pecos?" inquired Duane.
"He's considered more of an enemy to his kind than to honest
men. I understand Duane had many friends, that whole counties
swear by him--secretly, of course, for he's a hunted outlaw
with rewards on his head. His fame in this country appears to
hang on his matchless gun-play and his enmity toward outlaw
chiefs. I've heard many a rancher say: 'I wish to God that Buck
Duane would drift out here! I'd give a hundred pesos to see him
and Poggin meet.' It's a singular thing, stranger, how jealous
these great outlaws are of each other."
"Yes, indeed, all about them is singular," replied Duane. "Has
Cheseldine's gang been busy lately?"
"No. This section has been free of rustling for months, though
there's unexplained movements of stock. Probably all the stock
that's being shipped now was rustled long ago. Cheseldine works
over a wide section, too wide for news to travel inside of
weeks. Then sometimes he's not heard of at all for a spell.
These lulls are pretty surely indicative of a big storm sooner
or later. And Cheseldine's deals, as they grow fewer and
farther between, certainly get bigger, more daring. There are
some people who think Cheseldine had nothing to do with the
bank-robberies and train-holdups during the last few years in
this country. But that's poor reasoning. The jobs have been too
well done, too surely covered, to be the work of greasers or
ordinary outlaws."
"What's your view of the outlook? How's all this going to wind
up? Will the outlaw ever be driven out?" asked Duane.
"Never. There will always be outlaws along the Rio Grande. All
the armies in the world couldn't comb the wild brakes of that
fifteen hundred miles of river. But the sway of the outlaw,
such as is enjoyed by these great leaders, will sooner or later
be past. The criminal element flock to the Southwest. But not
so thick and fast as the pioneers. Besides, the outlaws kill
themselves, and the ranchers are slowly rising in wrath, if not
in action. That will come soon. If they only had a leader to
start the fight! But that will come. There's talk of
Vigilantes, the same hat were organized in California and are
now in force in Idaho. So far it's only talk. But the time will
come. And the days of Cheseldine and Poggin are numbered."
Duane went to bed that night exceedingly thoughtful. The long
trail was growing hot. This voluble colonel had given him new
ideas. It came to Duane in surprise that he was famous along
the upper Rio Grande. Assuredly he would not long be able to
conceal his identity. He had no doubt that he would soon meet
the chiefs of this clever and bold rustling gang. He could not
decide whether he would be safer unknown or known. In the
latter case his one chance lay in the fatality connected with
his name, in his power to look it and act it. Duane had never
dreamed of any sleuth-hound tendency in his nature, but now he
felt something like one. Above all others his mind fixed on
Poggin--Poggin the brute, the executor of Cheseldine's will,
but mostly upon Poggin the gunman. This in itself was a warning
to Duane. He felt terrible forces at work within him. There was
the stern and indomitable resolve to make MacNelly's boast good
to the governor of the state--to break up Cheseldine's gang.
Yet this was not in Duane's mind before a strange grim and
deadly instinct--which he had to drive away for fear he would
find in it a passion to kill Poggin, not for the state, nor for
his word to MacNelly, but for himself. Had his father's blood
and the hard years made Duane the kind of man who instinctively
wanted to meet Poggin? He was sworn to MacNelly's service, and
he fought himself to keep that, and that only, in his mind.
Duane ascertained that Fairdale was situated two days' ride
from Bradford toward the north. There was a stage which made
the journey twice a week.
Next morning Duane mounted his horse and headed for Fairdale.
He rode leisurely, as he wanted to learn all he could about the
country. There were few ranches. The farther he traveled the
better grazing he encountered, and, strange to note, the fewer
herds of cattle.
It was just sunset when he made out a cluster of adobe houses
that marked the half-way point between Bradford and Fairdale.
Here, Duane had learned, was stationed a comfortable inn for
wayfarers.
When he drew up before the inn the landlord and his family and
a number of loungers greeted him laconically.
"Beat the stage in, hey?" remarked one.
"There she comes now," said another. "Joel shore is drivin'
to-night."
Far down the road Duane saw a cloud of dust and horses and a
lumbering coach. When he had looked after the needs of his
horse he returned to the group before the inn. They awaited the
stage with that interest common to isolated people. Presently
it rolled up, a large mud-bespattered and dusty vehicle,
littered with baggage on top and tied on behind. A number of
passengers alighted, three of whom excited Duane's interest.
One was a tall, dark, striking-looking man, and the other two
were ladies, wearing long gray ulsters and veils. Duane heard
the proprietor of the inn address the man as Colonel
Longstreth, and as the party entered the inn Duane's quick ears
caught a few words which acquainted him with the fact that
Longstreth was the Mayor of Fairdale.
Duane passed inside himself to learn that supper would soon be
ready. At table he found himself opposite the three who had
attracted his attention.
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