Over on the Dry Side Read online

  “No, not close. He didn’t confide in me.” The smell of coffee reached them.

  Chantry leaned back and looked out through the open door at the way the sunlight fell through the aspen leaves. “Nor me either,” he said. “After he got back from Mexico, he was a silent man.”

  She turned around to him. “Yes, he was,” she said. “And also a gentle man.”

  “Mac Mowatt has surmised…as others must have…that a treasure of gold was buried here, or somewhere about it.…But that is purely their speculation. Nothing of the kind is certain.”

  He smiled again, and the girl was amazed at the way his face became warm and bright. He was a man, she knew suddenly, who rarely smiled.

  “Value is a matter of personal attitude,” he said. “What is very valuable to one man may be utterly useless to another. Your outfit thinks it must be gems or gold.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Look,” he said quietly, “none of us can know for sure. My brother was a man of letters, an explorer, a scholar, a man of inquisitive mind. To him, the most valuable thing would be a book, an ancient manuscript, a clue to some historical revelation.”

  “A book! Just think of that!” She was amazed. She stared at him. “Why, those men out there would go mad with disgust! They’d never believe it. They’d never accept it. All this effort for something not made of gold?”

  “They have a faith,” he said. “They’re believers, the men of your family. They live with that one idea in mind—to find a treasure that probably doesn’t exist. But you could never convince them of its nonexistence.”

  “You truly don’t believe there’s gold?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll have to drink from the same cup,” she said.

  “Charming!” He smiled again. “It will be a privilege.”

  She indicated the flowers in one of the pots. “Did you leave those?”

  “No. I thought you put them there.” Suddenly he chuckled. “Doby…I’ll bet it was Doby.”

  “He must be the young man living with his father in Clive’s house below. I’ve seen them from here.”

  “That’s right. He’s Kernohan’s son…They’ve moved in on Clive’s place. Doby’s the one who whipped one of your boys.”

  She made a face. “That was Wiley. I never liked him. Nor Ollie Fenelon, either.”

  “Are they kin of yours?”

  “Wiley isn’t.”

  “I think Doby’s dreaming about you,” Chantry said. “He found this place, and he wasn’t at all happy I was coming up here. He wants you left alone.”

  “I believe I like Doby.”

  “He’s sixteen, and lonesome. I know how he’s feeling because I’ve felt it myself. I used to dream about a golden-haired princess I could rescue from all kinds of danger.”

  “But you don’t anymore?”

  He smiled, looking across the room into her eyes. “A man never stops dreaming. I like Doby. He’s a good lad. He’s got a father who works hard even when the odds are against him.”

  She refilled the cup and handed it to him. “They’ll kill you, you know, all those men. There are too many of them.”

  “We all must die. Sooner or later. But I don’t think I’ll make it easy for them. How many are there?”

  “Fifteen to twenty. Some of them come and go.”

  “Where do you fit in?”

  “Mac Mowatt is my stepfather. My mother is dead. I am Marny Fox…I am told our name was Shannach until the English made us change it.”

  “They’re a bad lot out there, you know.”

  “Some of them are bad,” she spoke with heat, “and some of them are not. Some are simply loyal to Mac Mowatt. Oh, there’s bad ones among them, but Frank is fine. He’s Mac’s oldest son. If it hadn’t been for Frank…” She hestitated. “Frank is different. He’d prefer to be ranching somewhere. He’s a good man, a solid man, but he’s loyal to his father.…And he’s been like a father to me.”

  They sat silently then, listening to the soft rustle of the aspen leaves. Chantry emptied the cup and handed it back and Marny refilled it from the coffeepot on the hearth. He knelt beside the fire and added a few sticks to the coals. The day was waning and she must leave soon.…There was always danger—the danger of discovery—if she stayed long.

  “It’s damned foolishness,” he said irritably. “Nobody even knows what’s actually here.

  “Two men rode north out of Mexico. One Chantry. One Mowatt. They had something with them that Clive considered valuable. The two men wintered here, and then Mowatt…or so one story goes…died here. Some say he was killed.

  “And some say that started the bad feeling. Some say it began when Mowatt was accused of deserting Clive. It’s all long ago. Over the years the story has grown to include a vast treasure. And men have died for believing it.”

  “But you don’t believe it?”

  He shook his head. “Marny, I just simply don’t know. But Clive was akin to us all in his interests, which were intellectual, historical…what you will.

  “Some of us have done well with money—damned well in some cases—but more by accident than intention. So I simply believe that Clive found something of historical interest…something immensely valuable to him.”

  “Wouldn’t Mowatt have known it?”

  “Possibly…but possibly not. Possibly he couldn’t even read. There are still many who can’t. Clive was a linguist.”

  “So?”

  “He might have been bringing back proof of some fancy of his. From Mexico. And how much could two men carry? They were riding Apache country. How ‘vast’ could the treasure have been?”

  Chantry stood up. “You’d best be getting back, and so had I.”

  She gathered up a few things and went to her horse. “You’re going to move in here?”

  “Soon.”

  “They’ll find it, Mr. Chantry. And they’ll also find you.”

  “Call me Owen.” He smiled easily. “You won’t tell them, then?”

  “No…I owe them nothing. Perhaps I owe Mac Mowatt a little. And Frank. Frank’s looked after me since I was a little girl.”

  “Your mother married Mac Mowatt?”

  “Yes. He was much older than she, though she already had me. My real father was an army officer. Mac had known him. Mac met my mother when he came by the house to see my father, not knowing he was dead.”

  She swung into the saddle. “Be careful, Owen. There’s no nonsense about them, and some are a bad, bad lot. In their minds there is a treasure, and in their minds they’ve already split it among them. They’ll kill you as quickly as they killed Clive.”

  He watched her ride away and then walked back to his own horse. He brought the black in close to the house and then he went inside. It was dark there now, shadowed and still. He took a stick and spread the coals a bit, pouring the last of the coffee on them.

  Then he stood up and looked slowly around. Something was hidden here, something he must find.

  He believed in no treasure. But find it he must or he would never be free and it was freedom—and this place—that he wanted.

  If he could live here, sit outside on that bench with a few books, watch the sun set over Utah and…he would ask for no more.

  Well, he might not have to be alone. For the first time, he even considered that.

  Chapter 6

  *

  ALL THE DAY long I waited for Chantry to get back. Pa seen I was restless, and a couple of times he stopped to say something but he didn’t. It was away after dark before we heard his horse come clip-clopping into the yard. He hallooed the house, then he rode on to the barn to put up his black.

  Pa had left some bacon an’ side meat on the table, but he only ate a mite. “I had a little something in the hills,” he said.

  Now I knew he taken nothin’ with him, so’s he must have been fed. Was it her he got his food from?

  “Did you find the place?” Pa asked.

  “I spent most of the afternoon
up there,” said Chantry quietly. “And I can see why Doby was impressed. My brother had a love for this country.”

  “Wonder how come he got clear up there?” Pa said. “It ain’t a likely place.”

  “Prob’ly hunting meat,” I said.

  “Or searching.…” Chantry said.

  Well, then I looked at him, and so did pa. “You mean he might have knowed somethin’ was up there?” I asked him.

  “My brother was a man who knew much about a lot of things. He had a gift for languages. Let him hear one…or so I was told…and inside a few days he’d be speaking it. I think when he came north he rode to a place he’d been told to find. I don’t think it was accidental.”

  “But why?” I insisted.

  He shrugged. “Sometimes a man just wants to know what happened and how.” He paused. “You know, Doby, this is Ute country, with Navajos west and south of here. But even they never saw this country until about the year one thousand, when they came down from the north.

  “They were migrants then, as we are now. They came, they conquered whoever was here, and they settled down. Just a few miles east of here the Utes will tell you there are ghost houses along the sides of the mesas.* No white man has seen them, but I believe the Indians.

  “Who built those houses? Where did they come from? How long have they been there? Who was here first? Did the builders invent the structures they built? Or were they drawing on memories of other houses somewhere else?”

  “You got a awful lot of questions,” I grumbled, “but no answers.”

  He smiled. “That’s the charm of such questions, Doby. Sometimes it’s a joy just to try to find the answers. Whether you ever do, or not.”

  Pa taken the coffee to the table and I set there just itching to ask Chantry if he seen her, for he surely wasn’t going to tell ’less I did ask. Made me mad, the way he set there eatin’ and talking about nothin’ that mattered. Finally, I couldn’t wait no longer.

  “Did you see her? That girl?”

  “I did. I did even more.”

  “You mean you talked to her?”

  “For an hour or so. Had a bite of lunch with her. Like a picnic.”

  Chantry looked up at me, his eyes calm: Maybe there was just a mite of laughter in ’em, too. “Her name is Marny.”

  “Is she kin to them?”

  “No blood-kin. She’s old Mac Mowatt’s step-daughter.”

  Well, you should have seen Pa’s head come up then. He turned straight round on Chantry. “You mean…you mean them were Mac Mowatt’s men?”

  “They were.”

  Pa looked like a ghost stepped on his grave. “Mac Mowatt.…That’s a bloody outfit, Chantry. I’d no notion they were even in the country.”

  “Do you know them?”

  “I know ’em. I knowed ’em years back, ’fore the war. They were a tough bunch then, but ever since the war they been a mean, man-killing crew. Ever since Strawn and Freka tied up with ’em.”

  “The big man was Ollie Fenelon. The fellow you whipped, Doby, is named Wiley.”

  “What’s she like?” I asked him of a sudden. I wasn’t payin’ no mind to what he said about Mowatt and them. Or what Pa said. I was thinkin’ of that girl.

  “She isn’t blonde…no golden hair and blue eyes, Doby. I’m afraid that part didn’t pan out.”

  “She…ugly?” I asked, desperately.

  “No. She’s very beautiful.…Very. She’s about five foot four, with auburn hair and greenish eyes. Good complexion. Her name is Marny Fox, and she’s Irish.”

  “How…how old is she?”

  “She’s an old woman, Doby. Why, she must be every bit of twenty!”

  Twenty…four years older ’n me.

  Four years! That was a lot, a whole lot. But I had to protest. “That ain’t no old woman!” I said.

  There was more talk. And finally I went to my room and turned in, but I lay there quite a while. The outlines of my dream had already grown kind of misty like. Twenty years old.…Lots of married women weren’t that old. Still, she was pretty. Maybe even beautiful.

  Right then I made up my mind. I was going to see for myself. I hadn’t seen no woman in more’n a year.

  Looked like I’d have to be mighty careful. From the way Pa acted, Mac Mowatt must be something fierce. And I’d heard talk of Strawn, myself. An’ he was a killer sure enough.

  When he was in Kansas there was talk of him. He’d killed a man around Abilene, and another on a cattle drive. You heard a lotta stories of such men in them days. Talk went up and down the trails. There wasn’t no newspapers, but where a man stopped there was always somebody with a story to tell. There was talk of trails, gunfighters, Indians and the like, along with talk of wild horses like the famous white pacing stallion. That was a story ever’body heard, in sev’ral different accounts. And stories of mean steers, even the length of their horns, and of horseback rides men had taken.

  Them western horses, mustang stock, were tough and wild. When they run the rough country on their own they’d travel days to water, graze far out from the holes they knew best, and range back to ’em ever’ now and then for a drink.

  Herds them days was big…hundreds of horses runnin’ together, maybe sometimes thousands, and some fine stock among ’em. That surely couldn’t last. Horse-hunters was always weedin’ out the best breedin’ stock for themselves.

  Next day, I give some serious study to Owen Chantry. He was a hard man who’d rode some rough trails, and he shaped up like trouble. Still, the day he nailed that gent’s hand he could have killed him…an’ some would say he should.

  I said it. He looked at me sharply. “I should have, Doby. I’m just a damn fool sometimes. I should have killed him. Because somebody will sure enough have it to do.”

  Then when we were alone outside, he said, “That was a nice thing you did, Doby. Leaving the flowers.”

  Well, I blushed. I never figured him knowing anying about it. “I found the pot, an’…well. I figured she was a lonely woman.…”

  “It was a nice thing to do.” He paused a moment, looking westward across the wild, broken land. “When you ride, Doby, make sure you carry a gun and keep your eyes open. That’s a bad outfit up there.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  He shot me a glance. “You think otherwise?”

  “Maybe they’ll get friendly, like.…They’re her folks.”

  “They’re not blood-kin.”

  “Ain’t no matter. I ain’t anxious to shoot nobody.”

  He just looked at me again and walked away to the end of the porch. All I could think of was riding to the mountains again. I was wishful of meeting up with that woman…that girl. I wanted to see for myself.

  We didn’t have much to say, come breakfast. Chantry talked with Pa about bringin’ some good cattle into the country. On the dry side of the mountains like we were, there wasn’t much water, but still, there was enough so cattle could drink, and the forage was pretty good stock feed.

  Same time I was thinkin’ of that girl I was also thinkin’ of that golden treasure Chantry had told us Mowatt believed was there. Owen Chantry took it light, but maybe he was just tryin’ to talk us out of lookin’. Somebody’d gone to a whole lot of trouble if it was just a little thing. Didn’t make sense to me that a growed-up man would set that much store by anything but gold or jewels, like.

  Seemed to me a mighty silly thing that a man would risk his life to save a little old book, maybe nobody but a schoolmarm would put a value on. There just had to be gold up yonder.

  A thought came to me, but I put it quick away. A thought that maybe my dream was replacing the golden-haired girl with a golden treasure of coins and such. But I paid no mind to the thought. I’d not even seen that girl yet, and I’d not believe Chantry ’til I did.

  Right that minute I didn’t care much for him. He was a sharp, hard man, I figgered, with reasons of his own for what he done. And seen close up that black suit of his was worn on the cuffs, and the boots he po
lished nigh ever’ night, they were far from new.

  Not that Pa and me had better. But he set himself up so high.

  “What was her name?” I asked him again. I recalled her name. It was a dream name that was downright pretty.

  “Marny Fox. She’s Irish, Doby,” he said, “or part Irish. They don’t much like the Irish back east. Too many of us were poor when we came. But this is a good land and we will earn a place for ourselves.”

  “I heard Pa speak of how hard it was. Why do folks have to be like that, Mr. Chantry?”

  “It’s the way of the world. Across the sea, every man has a place he fills, and it’s a hard and long thing to break free from it.

  “We have to earn our place, Doby, just like all the others. There’s no special sun that shines on any man, regardless of religion, philosophy, or the color of his skin. There’s no reason why any man should expect a special dispensation from pope or president. In this country, more than any other, you have to make your mark. You’re not going to be treated like something special until you are.

  “Some men become outlaws. They can’t make a living honestly, so they try to do it by force and strength. But everything is against them, and they cannot win.”

  “A man has to have some schoolin’,” I said.

  “It helps. Every book is a school in itself. Each one can teach you something. But you can learn a lot by observation. The most skillful trader I ever knew, a man who started as a pack-peddler—he was Irish, too—became a mighty big man in business, and he couldn’t write his own name until he was over forty.

  “By the time he was fifty he could speak four languages and write as good a letter as any man.…He was a wealthy man before he was able to write.”

  “If you know so much, why ain’t you done better?” I demanded, rudely. “I don’t see you sportin’ no pocketful of gold, an’ you’re out here at the bobtail end of creation with nothin’ but a horse.”

  He looked at me and his eyes were almighty cold. “I haven’t done well, Doby, because I’ve been following a will-o’-the-wisp. Someday I’ll find out what it really was.” He paused a moment. “Your comment is just. I know what can be done, but I haven’t done it. Perhaps there were too many rivers I wanted to cross, too many canyons I hadn’t followed, too many towns with dusty streets down which I hadn’t ridden.