Grey Twin Sombreros

1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5183-1192-5
Verlag: Krill Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 349 Seiten

Zane Grey (1872 - 1939) was an American author best known for writing Western novels, with his most famous being Riders of the Purple Sage. That work is widely considered the greatest Western ever written, and Grey remains one of the most famous authors of the genre. Grey also wrote many other novels on fishing and baseball.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Grey, Zane

Leseproben

CHAPTER I
.................. THE SUN HUNG GOLD AND red above the saw-toothed, snow-tipped ramparts of the Colorado Rockies. On a bluff across the sunset-flushed Purgatory River a group of Indians sat their mustangs watching the slow, winding course of a railroad train climbing toward the foothills. Five years had passed since first the iron trail and smoke devil had crossed out of Kansas to the slopes of Colorado; and still the Indians watched and wondered, doubtful of the future, fearful of this clattering whistling monster on wheels that might spell doom to the red man. Had they not seen train after train loaded with buffalo hides steam eastward across the plains? A lithe rider, dusty and worn, mounted on a superb bay horse, halted on the south side of the river to watch the Indians. “Utes, I reckon,” he said, answering to the habit of soliloquy that loneliness had fostered in him. “Like the Kiowas they shore die hard. Doggone me if I don’t feel sorry for them! The beaver an’ the buffalo aboot gone! The white man rangin’ with his cattle wherever grass grows!... Wal, Reddies, if yu air wise, yu’ll go way back in some mountain valley an’ stay there.” The rumble of the railroad train died away and the black snakelike string of cars wound out of sight between bold gray bluffs. A moment longer the Indians lingered, their lean and wild shapes silhouetted against the sky, then they wheeled their ragged mustangs and disappeared in red dust clouds over the ridge. “Wal, come to think aboot it,” mused the lone rider, “they’re not so bad off as me.... No money. No job. No home.... Ridin’ a grub line, an’ half starved. Nothin’ but a hawse an’ a gun.” Brazos Keene’s usual cool and reckless insouciance had suffered a blight. The outcast state he had bitterly avowed was far from new to him. It had been his fate for years to ride the trails from cow camp to ranch, from one cattle town to another. He could not stay long in one place. Always he had been driven. Wherefore the sadness of the hour scarcely had its source in this cowboy wandering. He put a slow hand inside his open vest to draw forth a thick letter, its fresh whiteness marred by fingerprints and sundry soiled spots. He had wept over that letter. Marveling again, with a ghost of the shock which had first attended sight of that beautiful handwriting, he reread the postmark and the address. Lincoln, New Mexico, May 3, 1880. Mr. Brazos Keene, Latimer, Colorado, ? Two-bar X Ranch. The Latimer postmark read a day later. “My Gawd, but this heah railroad can fetch a man trouble pronto,” he complained, and swallowing a lump in his throat he stuck the letter back. “What in the hell made me go into thet post office for? Old cowboy habit! Always lookin’ for letters thet never came. I wish to Gawd this one had been like all the others.... But aw no!... Holly Ripple remembers me—has still the old faith in me... An’ she named her boy Brazos—after me. Aw! thet hurts somethin’ sweet an’ turrible! Shore as I’m forkin’ this hawse heah thet’ll be bad for me... or mebbe good!” Lost in memory Brazos saw the green river brawling between its gray banks where the willows had a reddish tinge not all from the sunset. A brace of wild ducks winged swift flight over the water; coyotes watched the rider from the slope opposite; the willows shook with the movement of deer or cattle working down to the river; far across the valley on a rising slope black horses showed against the gray. The cold keen air, the fresh odor of the swollen river, the faint color along the brush-lined banks told that the time was early spring. Beyond the Purgatory the land climbed in level benches row on row, always higher and rougher, leading to the gray-ledged ridges, and these in turn to the shaggy foothills that ended abruptly in the mountain wall of slate cliffs and russet slopes and black belts above which the snow crown gleamed white and rose. “Only five years!” mused the rider, with unseeing eyes on the west. “Five years since I rode along heah down the old trail from Don Carlos’ Rancho... An’ what have I done with my life?” A savage shake of his head was Brazos’ answer to that disturbing query as also it was a passionate repudiation of memory. It had been his wont in dark hours like this to seek oblivion in the bottle. But with that letter heavy against his heart, with the past vivid and stingingly sweet on him, with the indisputable proof that Holly Ripple’s faith in him would never die, he could not be so base, so treacherous. Not in the hour of his remorse and shame! If he could destroy the letter and forget... but that was vain and futile. Brazos rode on down the river trail toward Las Animas. He did not know how far it was in to town. His horse was lame and weary. This stretch along the Purgatory was not prolific of cow camps; nevertheless, Brazos hoped to run into one before nightfall. The sun set, a nipping wind blew down from the heights, the winding river lost its glow of rose to shade dark and steely under the high banks opposite. A coyote wailed out its piercing mournful cry. “Purgatory, huh?” muttered Brazos, somberly. “Wal, the son-of-a-gun Spaniard thet named this heah creek shore hit it plumb center. Purgatory? River of Lost Souls!... Doggone if thet doesn’t fit me proper. I’m shore a ridin’ fool—a gone goslin’—a lost soul!” The trail worked up from the river to an intersection with a road. In the gathering darkness, Brazos’ quick eye caught sight of three horsemen riding out from a clump of dead trees which only partly obscured a dark cabin. The riders wheeled back apparently thinking Brazos had not seen them. “Ump-umm,” muttered Brazos to himself. “Yu gotta be cuter’n thet, my bocos.... Now, I just wonder what’n hell kind of a move yu call thet.” All the instincts and faculties of a range rider had been remarkably magnified in Brazos Keene. He reined his horse some rods before passing in front of that clump of trees. Brazos heard a sibilant hissing “hold thar!” and a sound that seemed like a gloved hand slapped on metal. A hoarse voice, thick tongued from liquor, rasped low. Then came a young high-pitched answer: “But Bard, I’m not risking....” The violent gloved hand cut that speech short. To Brazos the name that had been mentioned sounded like Bard, but it might have been Bart or even Brad. “Hey, riders,” called Brazos, curtly. “I seen yu before yu seen me.” After a moment of silence, Brazos heard the word “Texan” whispered significantly. Then one of the three rode out. “What if you did, stranger?” he asked. “Nothin’. I just wanted yu to know all riders ain’t blind an’ deaf.” Brazos’ interrogator halted just so far away that his features were indistinguishable. But Brazos registered the deep matured voice, the sloping shoulders, the bull neck. “Thar’s been some holdups along hyar lately,” he said. “Ahuh. An’ thet’s why yu acted so queer?” “Queer?” “Shore. I said queer.” “Playin’ safe, stranger.” “Yeah?—Wal, if yu took me for a bandit yu’re way off.” “Glad to hear thet.—An’ who might you be?” “I’m a grub-line ridin’ cowboy. I’m tired an’ hungry, an’ my hawse is lame.” “Whar you from?” “Texas.” “Hell! A deaf man could tell thet. Whar you ridin’ from?” “Montana. Straight as a crow flies.” “An’ whar you makin’ for?” “Mister, if I wasn’t hungry an’ tired I wouldn’t like yore pert questions. I’m not goin’ anywhere in particular. How far to Las Animas?” “All night drill fer a tired hoss.” “Any cow camp near?” “Nope. Nearest ranch is Twin Sombreros, three miles from town.” “Excuse me for askin’,” went on Brazos, with sarcasm, “but do yu fellars belong to an ootfit thet’ll feed a hungry cowpuncher?” “My boss hasn’t any use fer grub-line riders.” “Yu don’t say. Wal, I reckon I don’t eat. Small matter. But would yu tell me if there’s any grass heahaboots for my hawse?” “Good grass right hyar, stranger. An’ you can bunk in the old cabin thar.” “Thanks,” returned Brazos, dryly. The burly rider turned to his silent companions, just discernible in the gloom. “Come on, men. If we’re makin’ Lamar tonight we got to rustle.” The couple joined him and they rode by Brazos too swiftly for him to distinguish anything. They took to the north, soon passing out of sight. Brazos kept staring in the direction they had gone. The thing that struck him on the moment was the fact of his insatiable curiosity. These three riders had not...