GRAY DAWN

Penelope was thundered from sleep a little before daybreak. She stretched lazily, yawned deeply, then blinked her eyes wide open as jagged lightning flooded her bedroom with white light. She leaped from bed as thunder cracked again, and hurried to the open window. Wind whipped her brown hair and dashed cool rain against her tanned face. Her nightgown of flimsy stuff was blown tightly about her slender form.

Penny watched the storm and loved it. She hoped it would continue after daybreak, when she planned a ride—her first since returning from the East—on her favorite horse. She was radiant, vital, filled with a zest for living. She was happiest when alone in the saddle, wind and rain in her face and hair, matching her endurance against the fury of the elements.

She had often mused that perhaps her reason for loving the thunder was that it was the one thing that her Uncle Bryant could not argue with, or dictate to.

Thunder Mountain! She hadn't ridden there for years. If she could slip away from relatives this morning, she was going to seek the trail she'd known so long ago. The fact that this was forbidden territory merely added to the fun of riding there. It made her feel quite daring to defy a mandate of her uncle.

She lighted a lamp and glanced at a clock on the dresser. It was far too early for anyone to be stirring in the house, but at least she could dress and be ready for a quick breakfast.

She looked longingly at the trim riding habit she had brought back from the East. "Fancy doo-dads" Uncle Bryant had called the clothes. "No use starting the day with a row," she mused, and she dressed to conform with her stern old uncle's tastes. Plain clothes, made for good, hard wear. Her hair was brushed back tight and would remain so until she was out of Uncle Bryant's view, when it would be loosed to blow, and breathe cool, wet air.

It was still dark outside when she finished dressing and glanced at herself in the mirror. She was amused at the unattractive outfit. It would have been quite suitable, she reflected, for Mort's wife, Rebecca, to wear, if Rebecca ever rode a horse. She blew out the lamp, and sat by the window to watch the storm and wait for the sounds of people moving in other parts of the house. The rain fell steadily, with a promise to continue for quite some time.

The sound of water on the roof was pleasant to Penny, but the steady rhythm was broken by a man's voice. The voice was a blending of bass and discord, the voice of her cousin, Vince.

Vince Cavendish was the runt of the family. About one hundred pounds of concentrated ill will; a small package of frustrated manhood, who tried to make himself heard and observed by the mere power of his bellow. His jet-black, wiry hair was usually cropped short, so it bristled on his small head like stubble in a hayfield when the mowers have passed. His face when shaved was blue in cast, but it was more often unshaved and bristling. Vince was puny, with narrow shoulders and a narrower mind. As usual, he was arguing. Penny guessed from the outline of the men that it was Mort to whom Vince talked. Lightning, a moment later, proved her guess correct. The two were right beneath her window, sheltered from the rain by overhanging eaves.

Mort was the sort of man who would have liked to bear the weight of the world on shoulders unsuited to support the burden of a household. Much larger than Vince, he listened to his brother in the detached sort of way one waits for a kettle to boil. More accurately, in this case, Mort was waiting for Vince to stop boiling.

Penny was accustomed to arguments between the brothers, her cousins. "I'd give my favorite eyetooth," she thought, "to see Mort knock the runt down, but that's too much to hope for." She didn't know what the row was all about, she didn't especially care. Vince could pick a fight over the most trivial of subjects. She did, however, wonder why those two were out so early in the morning.

"Yuh gotta keep her in hand, I tell yuh," bellowed Vince.

"Might be a mare or a cow he's talking about," mused Penny, "or even a sow."

"They ain't none of us can handle her, if you can't, an' so it's up tuh you. I said all I aim tuh say on the subject, an' I'll act the next time that damn wife of yores breaks bounds, Mort!"

"Gosh!" said Penny to herself. "I was wrong on all counts; it's Mort's wife he's talking about. I wonder why Mort doesn't spank the little weasel."

Penny could think of nothing more incongruous than poor, mouselike, negative Rebecca breaking bounds, especially with so many small hands on her apron strings. Equally incongruous was the idea of Mort's being unable to handle Becky. Becky was a living example of a woman who had failed miserably to live up to the heroic name given her by romantic parents.

Yet, Vince had made flat statements, and there was Mort agreeing with them. "I'll see that she don't pull no more stunts like that last," he promised. "I was pretty sore about that, an' I let her know it. I reckon after what I said an' done she'll think a good many times before she tries tuh interfere with my affairs again."

"And mine!" snarled Vince. "If it was only yore affairs I wouldn't give a damn, but when she starts mixin' intuh my affairs I won't stand fer it."

"She won't no more. She's had a lesson she won't fergit."

Penny couldn't suppress a shudder at the thought of the punishment probably inflicted upon Mort's wife. A bully who dared not defy another man, Mort was almost sadistic in the way he treated Rebecca.

"Now that that's settled," said Mort, "how soon is Rangoon due here?"

"Any time now," Vince replied.

Rangoon was one of several cowhands who had come to the Basin during Penny's absence to replace the men she had known. All the newcomers seemed to have a common surliness of manner, an unwholesome look about them, a furtiveness that Penny didn't like. She could think of no reason why her cousins should be out in the rain before daybreak to meet one of the hired hands.

She drew a chair to the window and sat down to eavesdrop without the slightest feeling of compunction. She rested her arms on the windowsill and her head on her forearms. Her stockinged feet were boyishly wide apart.

Mort and Vince grumbled in low tones about the weather while they waited for Rangoon. Presently the dark-faced cowhand appeared in the gathering dawn.

"Have any trouble?" asked Mort.

"Naw," replied Rangoon, "we didn't have no trouble, but it took time tuh git back here in the dark an' the rain."

"You might've come back last night," said Vince.

"Better this way," said Rangoon. "Everything's fixed. Six men come an' we got all six. That's that. We'll have tuh keep a close check an' see that there ain't others comin' tuh learn what's happened when them six don't return."

"If any others come," Mort stated softly, "we'll know about it an' take care of them."

Rangoon gazed steadily at Mort. "You," he said, after a pause, "better give that wife of yores a lesson."

"He's goin' tuh!" promised Vince. Then the three men moved away, and Penny saw them disappear beyond the corner of a building.

For some time she sat at the window with her thoughts. Ever since her return, she had been bothered by an unexplainable apprehension. The Basin, which had been her home for many years, had always been a happy place despite her surly uncle and her cousins. Now the air of the place was changed. Bryant's surliness had trebled. On several occasions he had spoken sharply, even to Penny—a thing he'd never done before. At times the girl felt quite unwelcome in the only home she knew.

She pulled on her boots, still wondering what the three men were talking about. Her thoughts were punctuated by a period in the form of a soft rap on her bedroom door. Soft as it was, the rap was so unexpected that it startled Penny.

Whoever had rapped had tried to do so as silently, as secretly perhaps, as possible, and Penny opened the door in the same cautious manner. Rebecca Cavendish, the wife of Mort and mother of too many children, made her appearance, stepping into the room nervously, quickly, with birdlike motions, and closing the door behind her.

Penny had always felt sorry for Rebecca. She understood the woman better than did any of the men. Becky always reminded Penny of a scarecrow in faded calico. What curves and grace Rebecca might have had were mental. Penny felt sure that her mind, in spite of years of hard treatment, had retained a womanly softness and a wistful desire for gracious living. She was a woman who, in the midst of plenty, lived like a slave; a woman whose mate turned to her only in passion, whose children looked to her only in hunger. Her eyes were jet, but dulled. They reminded Penny of the sharp eyes of an eagle, grown discouraged by long years of beating strong wings against the stronger bars of a cage. Rebecca's hair was black, without a trace of gray to complement the many wrinkles on her thin, high-cheekboned face.

Rebecca opened the door again, glanced quickly into the hall, then stepped back.

"Wasn't seen, I guess," she said.

"Is something wrong, Becky?" asked Penny.

It was the first time Becky had been in her room, and one of the few times she'd been in Uncle Bryant's big house.

"I've got tuh be special careful," whispered the woman in a husky voice. "Bryant never did get over me marryin' Mort, an' Mort'd beat me tuh within a inch of my life if he was tuh catch me here."

At a loss, Penny said, "Sit down, won't you, Becky?"

Rebecca shuffled across the floor, sat on one edge of the bed, and motioned with a clawlike hand for Penny to sit beside her.

"What I got tuh tell," she began when Penny was seated, "won't take me long. You must've seen that things around here's changed aplenty since you left fer school."

"Things have changed a lot," said Penny, "but the people have changed a lot more. There used to be a dandy lot of cowhands around here, but they're all gone. I don't like the looks of the new men."

Becky nodded quickly. "Just so," she said. "That's why I'm here. I've come to tell you to clear out."

"Clear out!" echoed Penny. "You mean leave the Basin?"

"That's just what I mean. It don't matter how you get out, just get. An' the sooner the better. There's things goin' on around here that ain't healthy. Things you'll be happier an' better fer not knowin' about. Now don't ask no questions, just git!"

Penny at first thought that torment and torture had addled the poor brain of her visitor. There was a burning sincerity in Becky's eyes.

"Now take it easy, Becky," she said softly. "I'm sure things aren't that bad." Penny felt she wasn't convincing, but her main purpose was to calm and reassure the nervous woman. "Uncle Bryant wouldn't tolerate anything that wasn't right. You know that as well as I do."

"Bryant don't know the goin's-on around here these days. He don't even know who's workin' here no more."

Penny laughed softly despite a feeling of misgiving.

"That's silly," she said. "There isn't a thing that goes on in the Basin that Uncle Bryant doesn't know about." She recalled the talk of a few minutes ago, when the men were beneath her window, and wondered if her statement was accurate. "Tell me some more, Becky."

Anger rose in Becky's eyes. "Don't believe me, eh?" She rose to her feet. "Yuh don't believe me because the shack where I live is away t'other side of the corral, an' yuh can't hear the sounds when Mort takes me in hand. Yuh didn't hear it t'other night. Oh, I ain't sayin' it's somethin' new fer him tuh raise a hand tuh me; he's done it till it's commonplace, but never like t'other night!"

Unexpectedly, Rebecca clawed at the shoulder of her flimsy dress and ripped it away from her bare, bony arm.

"Look!" she cried.

Livid lines glowed angrily across the arm, the shoulder, and as much of the woman's back as Penny could see. The skin in several places had been broken and was beginning to heal.

"Mort, the damn skunk, done that with a lash," Rebecca said. "You know why?"

Penny, speechless at the exhibition, shook her head. Rebecca brushed a vagrant lock of hair off her damp forehead.

"I'll tell yuh why," she went on. "It's because I didn't stay in the house one evenin' after dark. The night was hot an' stuffy an' I wanted a breath o' fresh air. I sat by the cottonwoods, south of our house. I didn't mean tuh follow Mort there an' listen tuh what him an' Vince was sayin'. I didn't even know them two was there. I couldn't help hearin' some of what—" Becky broke off sharply as if she had already said more than she intended to. Quickly she continued, "I—I mean, I didn't hear nothin' much." Penny knew the woman lied. Such intensity could never have risen from hearing "nothin' much."

"Mort an' Vince catched me there," the woman said. "Mort sent me tuh the house while he talked some more with Vince. Then Vince rid away an' was gone fer a couple of days. When Mort come in he beat me worse'n I ever been beat before. He told me if I let on that I knowed what was talked about, he'd kill me! He would, too!"

"Sit down again, Becky," said Penny as quietly as she could.

"Ain't goin' tuh," replied the woman as she pulled her torn dress back in place with fumbling fingers. "You allus been kind tuh me an' that's why I snuck in here tuh warn yuh. Yuh c'n take my warnin' an' clear out while they's the chance, or yuh c'n say I'm an addle-headed fool an' stay here!" She moved toward the door. "I'm tellin' yuh though, if yuh stay till Bryant's dead you'll be willin' tuh swap places with any soul from hell!"

"Wait, Becky."

"I cain't. It's too risky. If Mort knowed I was here he'd kill me, an' I ain't usin' the word 'kill' as a figger o' speech."

"But Mort is your husband," said Penelope. She hoped to continue the conversation and learn more of what was said in the cottonwoods. "I thought you loved Mort."

"Love him?" spat the woman. "I hate the dirty cur more'n a hoss hates snakes. That's why I go on livin' here. It'd make him happy to see me clear out, but I ain't goin' tuh do it. I'll outlive Bryant, an' I'll outlive Mort, an' then my young 'uns will come intuh their share of this ranch. I'll make him pay fer the way he's treated me an' his own young 'uns."

"Tell me," said Penny softly, "what were Vince and Mort talking about, the other night in the cottonwoods?"

"About Bryant's eyes an' how easy it was tuh—" Becky broke off sharply. She gazed at Penny for a moment. Her voice grew harder, more firm. "I didn't hear," she said.

A sudden draft blew through the room. Penny saw the billowing window shades, then saw Rebecca with mortal terror in her face. Penny followed her stare. Mort Cavendish stood in the doorway. Thunder boomed outside the window.

Mort's face was expressionless. For fully a minute no one spoke to break the tableau. Becky assumed a look of defiance and waited for Mort to be the first to speak. When he did so, his voice was toneless, and quite soft.

"It's about time for you to be gettin' breakfast for the kids," he told Rebecca. To Penny he said, "Uncle Bryant is at the table; are you coming?"

Penny nodded.

Mort stood aside so his wife could pass. She moved down the hall without a backward glance.

Mort said, "I'll see you later, Becky," and Penny caught the threat that the words implied.