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In the valley, trees lined the banks of the streams, and on the higher mountains the forest crept down almost to the edge of the valley. It was lovely land, well-watered and rich. Here, with what he knew, he could carry on the work that old George Baca had begun. He could do what Michael Latch might have done. And he might even do it better.
There was danger, but when had he not known danger? And these people at the ranch were good people, honest people. If he did no more than keep Seever and his lawless crowd away, it would be adequate reason for taking the dead man’s place. Yet he knew he was only finding excuses for something that might be entirely wrong.
The guns he wore meant something, too. The girl and Costa had recognized them, and so had Seever. What significance had they?
He was in deep water here. Every remark he made must be guarded, also making sure that he did not unconsciously fall into western idiom. And even though they had not seen him before, they would have memories or knowledge in common. He must watch for any trap.
CHAPTER THREE: The Interloper
A movement behind Jed Asbury made him turn. In the gathering dusk he saw Carol. He could hear Costa whistling as he walked toward the corrals.
“You like it?” Carol gestured toward the valley.
“It’s splendid!” he said. “I reckon I never seen—saw anything prettier.”
She glanced up at him, but said nothing. Then after they had stood there for a few minutes, she said:
“Somehow you’re different than I expected.”
“I am?” He was careful, waiting for her to say more.
“Yes, you’re much more assured than I’d ever expected Mike Latch to be. Mike was quiet, Uncle George used to say. Read a lot, but didn’t get around much. That was why you startled me by the way you handled Walt Seever.”
He scarcely knew what to say. He shrugged finally.
“A man grows older,” he said. “And coming West, to a new life, makes a man more sure of himself.”
She noticed the book in his pocket.
“What’s the book?” she asked curiously.
It was the battered copy of Plutarch he had found in the wagon. He drew it from his pocket and showed it to her. He was on safe ground here, for inside the book was inscribed, “To Michael, from Uncle George.”
“It was a favorite of his,” Carol said. “Uncle George used to say that next to the Bible more great men had read Plutarch than any other book.”
“I like it,” Jed agreed. “I’ve been reading it nights.”
He turned to face her more directly. “Carol, what do you think Walt Seever will do?”
“Try to kill you, or have you killed,” she said honestly. She gestured toward the guns. “You had better learn to use those.”
“I can, a little,” he admitted.
He did not dare admit how well he could use them. A man did not come by such skill as his in a few weeks. It would be better to retain such knowledge until time to display it. “Seever has counted on having this place, hasn’t he?”
“He has made a good many plans, and a good deal of big talk.” She glanced up at him again. “You know, Walt was no blood relation of Uncle George. Walt Seever was the son of a woman of the gold camps who married George Baca’s half-brother.”
“I see.” Actually, Jed decided, Walt’s claim was scarcely better than his own. He added tentatively, “I know from the letters that Uncle George wanted me to have the estate, but never having seen my uncle, or not within any reasonable time, I feel like an outsider. I am afraid I may be doing wrong to take a ranch that has been the work of other people. Perhaps Walt has more right than I have. Perhaps he is not as bad as you believe and I may be doing wrong to assert my claim.” He was aware of her searching gaze. When she spoke it was deliberately, and as though she had reached some decision.
“Michael, I don’t know you. But you would have to be very bad indeed, to be as dangerous and as evil as Walt Seever. I would say that no matter what the circumstances, you should stay and see this through.”
Was there a hint that she might know more than she was implying? No, it was only natural that he should be looking for suspicion behind every bush. But he had to do that, to keep from being trapped.
“However,” Carol went on, “it is only fair to warn you that you have let yourself in for more than you bargained for. Uncle George understood what you would be facing, for he knew the viciousness of Walt Seever. He was doubtful if you were strong enough and clever enough to defeat Walt. So I must warn you, Michael Latch, that if you do stay, and I believe you should, you will probably be killed.”
He smiled into the darkness. Since his early boyhood he had lived in proximity to death. He was not foolhardy nor reckless, for a truly brave man was never reckless. Yet he knew that he could skirt the ragged edge of death, if need be, as he had in the past.
He was an interloper here. He was stealing, and there was no other way to look at it. Yet the man whose place he had taken was dead, and perhaps he could carry on, taking that man’s place, making this ranch safe for the people who loved it. Then after a while, he could step out and leave the ranch to this girl.
He turned very slowly. “I’m tired,” he said. “I’ve been riding hard, and I think I’ll go to bed. But I’m going to stay. . . .”
Jed Asbury was fast asleep when Carol went into the long dining room and stood looking at Tony Costa. Without him, what would she have done? He had been with her father for thirty years, and was past fifty now, but he was as erect and slender as a young man. And he was shrewd.
Costa looked up as she walked to where he sat drinking coffee by the light of a candle.
“Well, senorita,” he said, “for better or worse, it is begun. What do you think now?”
“He told me, after I warned him of what to expect, that he was staying.”
Costa studied the coffee in his cup. “You are not afraid?” he asked finally.
“No,” she said honestly. Her decision had been made out there in the darkness. “He faced Walt Seever, and that was enough for me. I think anything is to be preferred to Seever.”
“Si.” Costa’s agreement was positive. “Senorita, did you notice his hands when he faced Seever? They were ready, carolita, to draw. This man has used the gun before. He is a strong man, carolita!”
“I think you are right. He is a strong man. . . .”
For two days nothing happened from the direction of town. Walt Seever and his hard-bitten companions might have vanished from the earth, but on the Rancho Casa Grande much was happening, and Tony Costa was whistling most of the time.
Jed Asbury’s formal education was slight but he knew men, and how to lead them, to get the results he wanted and he had practical knowledge.
He got up at five the morning after his conference with Carol, and when she awakened, old Maria, the cook, hastened to tell her that the senor was hard at work in the office. The door was open a crack, and when she came by she saw Jed, his curly hair on end, deep in the accounts of the ranch. Pi
He ate a hurried breakfast and at eight o’clock was in the saddle. He ate his other meals at one of the line camps in the mountains, and rode in after dark.
In two days he spent twenty hours in the saddle.
On the third day he called Costa to the office, and asked Maria to request the presence of Carol. Puzzled and curious, she joined them.
Jed wore a white shirt, the black broadcloth trousers, and the silver guns. His face seemed to have hardened in those past two days, but when he smiled, it lighted up.
“You have been here longer than I,” he said to Carol, “and are in a sense, a partner.” Before she could speak he turned on Costa. “And you have been foreman here. I want you to remain foreman. However, I asked you both to be here because I am making some changes.”