_ CHAPTER IV. JUSTICE
Dawn bared the smouldering evidence of that dastardly attack. The stable and the lean-to, where Annersley had stored his buckboard and a few farm implements when winter came, the corral fence, the haystack, were feathery ashes, which the wind stirred occasionally as a raw red sun shoved up from behind the eastern hills. The chicken-coop, near the cabin, had not been touched by the fire. Young Pete, who had fallen asleep through sheer exhaustion, was awakened by the cackling of the hens. He jumped up. It was time to let those chickens out. Strange that his pop had not called him! He rubbed his eyes, started suddenly as he realized that he was dressed--and then he remembered . . .
He trembled, fearful of what he would see when he stepped into the other room. "Pop!" he whispered. The hens cackled loudly. From somewhere in the far blue came the faint whistle of a hawk. A board creaked under his foot and he all but cried out. He stole to the window, scrambled over the sill, and dropped to the ground. Through habit he let the chickens out. They rushed from the coop and spread over the yard, scratching and clucking happily. Pete was surprised that the chickens should go about their business so casually. They did not seem to care that his pop had been killed.
He was back to the cabin before he realized what he was doing. From the doorway he saw that still form shrouded in the familiar old gray blanket. Something urged him to lift a corner of the blanket and look--something stronger held him back. He tip-toed to the kitchen and began building a fire. "Pop would be gettin' breakfast," he whispered. Pete fried bacon and made coffee. He ate hurriedly, occasionally turning his head to glance at that still figure beneath the blanket. Then he washed the dishes and put them carefully away, as his pop would have done. That helped to occupy his mind, but his most difficult task was still before him. He dared not stay in the cabin--and yet he felt that he was a coward if he should leave. Paradoxically he reasoned that if his pop were alive, he would know what to do. Pete knew of only one thing to do--and that was to go to Concho and tell the sheriff what had happened. Trying his best to ignore the gray blanket, he picked up all the cartridges he could find, and the two rifles, and backed from the room. He felt ashamed of the fear that drove him from the cabin. He did not want his pop to think that he was a coward. Partners always "stuck," and yet he was running away. "Good-bye, pop," he quavered. He choked and sobbed, but no tears came. He turned and went to look for the horses.
Then he remembered that the corral fence was burned, that there had been no horses there when he went to let the chickens out. He followed horse-tracks to the edge of the timber and then turned back. The horses had been stampeded by the flames and the shooting. Pete knew that they might be miles from the cabin. He cut across the mesa to the trail and trudged down toward Concho. His eyes burned and his throat ached. The rifles grew heavy, but he would not leave them. It was significant that Pete thought of taking nothing else from the cabin, neither clothing, food, nor the money that he knew to be in Annersley's wallet in the bedroom. The sun burned down upon his unprotected head, but he did not feel it. He felt nothing save the burning ache in his throat and a hope that the sheriff would arrest the men who had killed his pop. He had great faith in the sheriff, who, as Annersley had told him, was the law. The law punished evildoers. The men who had killed pop would be hung--Pete was sure of that!
Hatless, burning with fever and thirst, he arrived at the store in Concho late in the afternoon. A friendly cowboy from the low country joshed him about his warlike appearance. Young Pete was too exhausted to retort. He marched into the store, told the storekeeper what had happened, and asked for the sheriff. The storekeeper saw that there was something gravely wrong with Pete. His face was flushed and his eyes altogether too bright. He insisted on going at once to the sheriff's office.
"Now, you set down and rest. Just stay right here and keep your eye on things out front--and I'll go get the sheriff." And the storekeeper coaxed and soothed Pete into giving up his rifles. Promising to return at once, the storekeeper set out on his errand, shaking his head gravely. Annersley had been a good man, a man who commanded affection and respect from most persons. And now the T-Bar-T men "had got him." The storekeeper was not half so surprised as he was grieved. He had had an idea that something like this might happen. It was a cattle country, and Annersley had been the only homesteader within miles of Concho. "I wonder just how much of this the sheriff knows already," he soliloquized. "It's mighty tough on the kid."
When Sheriff Sutton and the storekeeper entered the store they found Young Pete in a stupor from which he did not awaken for many hours. He was put to bed and a doctor summoned from a distant town. It would have been useless, even brutal, to have questioned Pete, so the sheriff simply took the two rifles and the cartridges to his office, with what information the storekeeper could give him. The sheriff, who had always respected Annersley, was sorry that this thing had happened. Yet he was not sorry that Young Pete could give no evidence. The cattlemen would have time to pretty well cover up their tracks. Annersley had known the risks he was running when he took up the land. The sheriff told his own conscience that "it was just plain suicide." His conscience, being the better man, told him that it was "just plain murder." The sheriff knew--and yet what could he do without evidence, except visit the scene of the shooting, hold a post-mortem, and wait until Young Pete was well enough to talk?
One thing puzzled Sheriff Sutton. Both rifles had been used. So the boy had taken a hand in the fight? Several shots must have been fired, for Annersley was not a man to suffer such an outrage in silence. And the boy was known to be a good shot. Yet there had been no news of anyone having been wounded among the raiders. Sutton was preparing to ride to the Blue and investigate when a T-Bar-T man loped up and dismounted. They talked a minute or two. Then the cowboy rode out of town. The sheriff was no longer puzzled about the two rifles having been used. The cowboy had told him that two of the T-Bar-T men had been killed. That in each instance a thirty-thirty, soft-nosed slug had done the business. Annersley's rifle was an old forty-eighty-two, shooting a solid lead bullet.
When Sheriff Button arrived at the cabin he found the empty shells on the floor, noted the holes in the window, and read the story of the raid plainly. "Annersley shot to scare 'em off--but the kid shot to kill," he argued. "And dam' if I blame him."
Later, when Young Pete was able to talk, he was questioned by the sheriff. He told of the raid, of the burning of the outbuildings, and how Annersley had been killed. When questioned as to his own share in the proceedings, Pete refused to answer. When shown the two guns and asked which was his, he invariably replied, "Both of 'em," nor could he be made to answer otherwise. Finally Sheriff Sutton gave it up, partly because of public opinion, which was in open sympathy with Young Pete, and partly because he feared that in case arrests were made, and Pete were called as a witness, the boy would tell in court more than he had thus far divulged. The sheriff thought that Pete was able to identify one or more of the men who had entered the cabin, if he cared to do so. As it was, Young Pete was crafty. Already he distrusted the sheriff's sincerity. Then, the fact that two of the T-Bar-T men had been killed rather quieted the public mind, which expressed itself as pretty well satisfied that old man Annersley's account was squared. He or the boy had "got" two of the enemy. In fact, it was more or less of a joke on the T-Bar-T outfit--they should have known better.
An inquest decided that Annersley had come to his death at the hands of parties unknown. The matter was eventually shunted to one of the many legal sidings along the single-track law that operated in that vicinity. Annersley's effects were sold at auction and the proceeds used to bury him. His homestead reverted to the Government, there being no legal heir. Young Pete was again homeless, save for the kindness of the storekeeper, who set him to work helping about the place.
In a few months Pete was seemingly over his grief, but he never gave up the hope that some day he would find the man who had killed his pop. In cow-camp and sheep-camp, in town and on the range, he had often heard reiterated that unwritten law of the outlands: "If a man tried to get you--run or fight. But if a man kills your friend or your kin--get him." A law perhaps not as definitely worded in the retailing of incident or example, but as obvious nevertheless as was the necessity to live up to it or suffer the ever-lasting scorn of one's fellows.
Some nine or ten months after the inquest Young Pete disappeared. No one knew where he had gone, and eventually he was more or less forgotten by the folk of Concho. But two men never forgot him--the storekeeper and the sheriff. One of them hoped that the boy might come back some day. He had grown fond of Pete. The other hoped that he would not come back.
Meanwhile the T-Bar-T herds grazed over Annersley's homestead. The fence had been torn down, cattle wallowed in the mud of the water-hole, and drifted about the place until little remained as evidence of the old man's patient toil save the cabin. That Young Pete should again return to the cabin and there unexpectedly meet Gary was undreamed of as a possibility by either of them; yet fate had planned this very thing--"otherwise," argues the Fatalist, "how could it have happened?" _