American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, American
Tappan tracked the thieves to Globe. There he learned they had gone
to Phoenix--three men and one woman. Tappan had money on his person.
He bought horse and saddle, and, setting out for Phoenix, he let his
passion to kill grow with the miles and hours. At Phoenix he learned
Beam had cashed the gold--twelve thousand dollars. So much of a
fortune! Tappan’s fury grew. The gang separated here. Beam and his
wife took stage for Tucson. Tappan had no trouble in trailing their
movements.
Gambling dives and inns and freighting posts and stage drivers told
the story of the Beams and their ill-gotten gold. They went on to
California, down into Tappan’s country, to Yuma, and El Cajon, and San
Diego. Here Tappan lost track of the woman. He could not find that
she had left San Diego, nor any trace of her there. But Jake Beam had
killed a Mexican in a brawl and had fled across the line.
Tappan gave up for the time being the chase of Beam, and bent his
efforts to find the woman. He had no resentment toward Madge. He only
loved her. All that winter he searched San Diego. He made of himself a
peddler as a ruse to visit houses. But he never found a trace of her.
In the spring he wandered back to Yuma, raking over the old clues, and
so on back to Tucson and Phoenix.
This year of dream and love and passion and despair and hate made
Tappan old. His great strength and endurance were not yet impaired, but
something of his spirit had died out of him.
One day he remembered Jenet. “My burro!” he soliloquized. “I had
forgotten her.... Jenet!”
Then it seemed a thousand impulses merged in one drove him to face the
long road toward the Rim Rock country. To remember Jenet was to grow
doubtful. Of course she would be gone. Stolen or dead or wandered off!
But then who could tell what Jenet might do? Tappan was both called and
driven. He was a poor wanderer again. His outfit was a pack he carried
on his shoulder. But while he could walk he would keep on until he
found that last camp where he had deserted Jenet.
October was coloring the canyon slopes when he reached the shadow of
the great wall of yellow rock. The cabin where the Beams had lived--or
had claimed they lived--was a fallen ruin, crushed by snow. Tappan saw
other signs of a severe winter and heavy snowfall. No horse or cattle
tracks showed in the trails.
To his amaze his camp was much as he had left it. The stone fireplace,
the iron pots, appeared to be in the same places. The boxes that had
held his supplies were lying here and there. And his canvas tarpaulin,
little the worse for wear of the elements, lay on the ground under the
pine where he had slept. If any man had visited this camp in a year he
had left no sign of it.
Suddenly Tappan espied a hoof track in the dust. A small track--almost
oval in shape--fresh! Tappan thrilled through all his being.
“Jenet’s track, so help me God!” he murmured.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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