Kitabı oku: «Silver and Gold: A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp», sayfa 10
CHAPTER XX
JUMPERS AND TENORS
They led Denver away as if he were a child, for the revulsion from his anger had left him weak; but Chatwourth, the killer, was carried back to town with his head lolling forward like a dead man’s. The smash of the stone had caught him full on the forehead, which sloped back like the skull of a panther; and the blood, oozing down from his lacerated scalp, made him look more murderous than ever. But his hard, fighting jaw was hanging slack now and his dangerous eyes were closed; and the miners, while they carried him with a proper show of solicitude, chuckled and muttered among themselves. In a way which was nothing short of miraculous Denver Russell had walked in on Murray’s boss jumper and knocked him on the head with a rock–and the shot which Chatwourth had fired in return had never so much as touched him.
They put Chatwourth in an automobile and sent him over to Murray’s camp; and then with broad smiles they gathered about Denver and took turns in slapping him on the back. He was a wonder, a terror, a proper fighting fool, the kind that would charge into hell itself with nothing but a bucket of water; and would he mind, when he felt a little stronger, just walking with them to their claims? Just a little, friendly jaunt, as one friend with another; but if Murray’s hired junipers saw him coming up the trail that was all that would be required. They would go, and be quick about it, for they had been watching from afar and had seen what happened to Dave–but Denver brushed them aside and went up to his cave where he could be by himself and think.
If he had ever doubted the virtue of Mother Trigedgo’s prophecy he put the unworthy thought behind him. He knew it now, knew it absolutely–every word of the prophecy was true. He had staked his life to prove the blackest line of it, and Chatwourth’s bullet had been turned aside. No, the silver treasure was his, and the golden treasure also, and no man but his best friend could kill him; but the beautiful artist with whom he had fallen in love–would she now confer her hand upon another? He had come back to Pinal to set the prophecy at defiance and ask her to be his dearest friend; but now, well, perhaps it would be just as well to stick to the letter of his horoscope. “Beware how you reveal your affections,” it said–and he had been rushing back to tell her! And besides, she had met his advances despitefully, and practically called him a coward. Denver brushed off the dust from his shiny phonograph and put on the “Anvil Chorus.”
The next morning, early, he was up at his mine, with Chatwourth’s gun slung low on his leg; and while he remained there, to defend it against all comers, he held an impromptu reception. There was a rush of miners, to look at the mine and inspect the specimens of copper; and then shoestring promoters began to arrive, with proposals to stock the property. The Professor came up, his eyes staring and resentful; and old Bunker, overflowing with good humor; and at last, when nobody else was there, Drusilla walked by on the trail. She glanced up at him hopefully; then, finding no response, she heaved a great sigh and turned up his path to have it over and done with.
“Well,” she said, “I suppose you despise me, but I’m sorry–that’s all I can say. And now that I know all about your horoscope I don’t blame you for treating me so rudely. That is, I don’t blame you so much. But don’t you think, Denver, when you went away and left me, you might have written back? We’d always been such friends.”
She checked herself at the word, then smiled a sad smile and waited to hear what he would say. And Denver, in turn, checked what was on his lips and responded with a solemn nod. It had come to him suddenly to rise up and clasp her hands and whisper that he’d take a chance on it, yet–that is, if they could still be friends–but the significance of the prophecy had been proved only yesterday, and miracles can happen both ways. The same fate, the same destiny, which had fended off the bullet when Chatwourth had aimed at his heart, might turn the merest accident to the opposite purpose and make Drusilla his unwilling slayer.
“Yes,” he said, apropos of nothing, “you see now how I’m fixed. Don’t dare to have any friends.”
“No, but Denver,” she pouted, “you might say you were sorry–that’s different from being friends. But after we’d been so–oh, do you believe all that? Do you believe you’ll be killed by your dearest friend, and that nobody else can harm you? Because that, you know, is just superstition; it’s just like the ancient Greeks when they consulted the oracle, and the Indians, and Italians and such people. But educated people─”
“What’s the matter with the Greeks?” spoke up Denver contentiously. “Do you mean to say they were ignorant? Well, I talked with an old-timer–he was a Professor in some university–and he said it would take us a thousand years before we even caught up with them. Do you think that I’m superstitious? Well, listen to this, now; here’s one that he told me, and it comes from a famous Greek play. There was a woman back in Greece that was like Mother Trigedgo, and she prophesied, before a man was born, that he’d kill his own father and marry his own mother. What do you think of that, now? His father was a king and didn’t want to kill him, so when he was born he pierced his feet and put him out on a cliff to die. But a shepherd came along and found this baby and named him Edipus, which means swelled feet; and when the kid grew up he was walking along a narrow pass when he met his father in disguise. They got into a quarrel over who should turn out and Epidus killed his father. Then he went on to the city where his mother was queen and there was a big bird, the Sphinx, that used to come there regular and ask those folks a riddle: What is it that is four-footed, three-footed and two-footed? And every time when they failed to give the answer the Sphinx would take one of them to eat. Well, the queen had said that whoever guessed that riddle could be king and have her for his wife, and Epidus guessed the answer. It’s a man, you see, that crawls when he is a baby, stands on two legs when he’s grown and walks with a cane when he is old. Epidus married the queen, but when he found out what he’d done he went mad and put his own eyes out. But don’t you see he couldn’t escape it.”
“No, but listen,” she smiled, “that was just a legend, and the Greeks made it into a play. It was just like the German stories of Thor and the Norse gods that Wagner used in his operas. They’re wonderful, and all that, but folks don’t take them seriously. They’re just–why, they’re fairy tales.”
“Well, all right,” grumbled Denver, “I expect you think I am crazy, but what about Mother Trigedgo? Didn’t she send me over here to find this mine? And wasn’t it right where she told me? Doesn’t it lie within the shadow of a place of death, and wasn’t the gold added to it?”
“Why, no!” exclaimed Drusilla, “did you find the gold, too? I thought─”
“That referred to the copper,” answered Denver soberly. “It was your father that gave me the tip. When I first came over here I was inquiring for gold, because I knew I had to make a choice; but he pointed out to me that these horoscopes are symbolical and that the golden treasure might be copper. It looks a whole lot like gold, you know; and now just look what happened! I chose the silver, see–I chose the right treasure–and when I drifted in, this vein of chalcopyrites appeared and was added to the silver. It followed along in the hanging wall until the whole formation dipped and then─”
“Oh, I don’t care about that!” burst out Drusilla fretfully, “it’s easy to explain anything, afterwards! But of course if you think more of gold and silver than you do of having me for a friend─”
“But I don’t,” interposed Denver, gently taking her hand. “Sit down here and let’s talk this over.”
“Well,” sighed Drusilla and then, winking back the tears, she sank down in the shade beside him.
“I don’t want you to think,” went on Denver tenderly, without weighing very carefully what he said, “I don’t want you to think I don’t like you, because–say, if you’ll kiss me, I’ll take a chance.”
“Oh–would you?” she beamed her eyes big with wonder, “would you take a chance on my killing you?”
“If it struck me dead!” declared Denver gallantly, but she did not yield the kiss.
“No,” she said, “I don’t believe in kisses–have you kissed other girls before? And besides, I just wanted to be friends again, the way we were before.”
“Well, I guess you don’t want to be friends very bad,” observed Denver with a disgruntled smile. “When do you expect to start for the East?”
“Pretty soon,” she answered. “Will you be sorry?”
Denver shrugged his shoulders and began snapping pebbles at an ant.
“Sure,” he said and she drew away from him.
“You won’t!” she burst out resentfully.
“Yes, I’ll be sorry,” he repeated, “but it won’t make much difference–I don’t expect to last very long. I’ve always had a pardner, some feller to ramble around with and borrow all my money when he was broke, and I’m getting awful lonesome without one. Sooner or later, I reckon, I’ll pick up another one and the crazy danged fool will kill me. Drop a timber hook on my head or some stunt like that–I wish I’d never seen old Mother Trigedgo! What you don’t know never hurt anyone; but now, by grab, I’m afraid of every man I throw in with. For the time being, at least, he’s the best friend I’ve got; and–oh, what’s the use, anyway, it’ll get you, sooner or later–I might as well go out like a sport.”
“You were awful brave,” she murmured admiringly, “when you fought with Mr. Chatwourth yesterday. Weren’t you honestly afraid he would kill you?”
“No, I wasn’t!” declared Denver. “He didn’t look bad to me–don’t now and never did–and as long as the cards are coming my way I don’t let no alleged bad-man run it over me. Here’s the gun that I took away from him.”
“Yes, I noticed it,” she said. “But when he comes back for it are you going to give it up?”
“Sure,” answered Denver, “just show me a rock-pile and I’ll run him out of town like a rabbit.”
“And you fought him with rocks!” she said half to herself, “I wish I were as brave as that.”
“Well, it’s all in your mind,” expounded Denver. “Some people are afraid to crack an egg but I’m game to try anything once.”
“So am I!” she defended looking him boldly in the eye but he shook his head and smiled.
“Nope,” he said, “you don’t believe in kisses. But I was willing to take a chance on getting killed.”
“No,” she said, “a kiss means more than that. It means–well, it means that you love someone.”
“It means what you want it to mean,” he corrected. “Don’t you have to kiss the tenor in these operas?”
“Well that’s different,” she responded blushing. “That’s why I’m afraid I’ll never succeed! Of course we’re taught to do stage kisses, but somehow I can’t bring myself to it. But oh, I do so love to sing! I like it all, except just that part of it–and the singers are not all nice men. Some of them just make a business of flattering pretty girls and offering to get them a hearing. That’s why some girls succeed and get such big parts–they have an understanding with someone that can use his influence with the directors. They don’t take the best singers and actors at all, it’s all done by intrigue and money. Oh, I wish some real nice man would start a new company and invite me to take a part. I’ve heard one was being organized–a traveling company that will sing in all the big cities–and I’ve written to my music teacher about it. But if I don’t get some position my money will all be gone in no time and then–well, what will I do?”
She looked at him bravely and he saw in her eyes the calmness that goes with desperation.
“You write to me,” he said, “and I’ll send you the last dollar I’ve got.”
“No, I didn’t mean that,” she replied, “I can earn my living at something. But father and mother have spent all their money in training me to be a great singer and I just can’t bear to disappoint them. It’s cost ten thousand dollars to bring me where I am, and this five hundred dollars is nothing. Why the great vocal teachers, who can use their influence to get their pupils a hearing, charge ten dollars for a half-hour lesson; and if I don’t go to them then every door is closed–unless I’m willing to pay the price.”
“Well, I take it all back then,” spoke up Denver at last, “there are different kinds of bravery. But you go on back there and do your best and maybe we can make a raise. I’ll just take my gun and go up to your father’s claims and jump out that bunch of bad-men─”
“No! No, Denver!” she broke in very earnestly, “I don’t want you to do that again. I heard last night that Dave said he would get you–and if he did, why then I’d be to blame. You’d be doing it for me, and if one of those men killed you–well, it would be just the same as me.”
“Nope!” denied Denver, “there was no figure of speech about that. It said: ‘at the hands of your dearest friend.’ These jumpers ain’t my friends and never was–come on, let’s take a chance. I’ll run ’em off the claims if your father will give you half of ’em, and then you can turn around and sell out for cash and go back to New York like a queen. You stand off the tenors and I’ll stand off the jumpers; and then, perhaps–but we won’t talk about that now. Come on, will you shake hands on the deal?”
She looked at him questioningly, his powerful hand reached out to help her, the old, boyish laughter in his eyes, and then she smiled back as bravely.
“All right,” she said, “but you’ll have to be careful–because now I’m your dearest friend.”
“I’m game,” he cried, “and you don’t have to kiss me either. But if some Dago tenor─”
“No,” she promised looking up at him wistfully. “I’ll–I’ll save the kiss for you.”
CHAPTER XXI
BROKE AGAIN
The industry of four jumpers, digging in like gophers on the best of Bunker Hill’s claims, was brought to an abrupt termination by the appearance of one man with a gun. He came on unconcernedly, Dave’s six-shooter at his hip and the strength of a lion in his stride; and the first of the gun-men, after looking him over, jumped out of his hole and made off. Denver tore down his notice and posted the old one, with a copy of his original affidavit that the annual work had been done; and when he toiled up to the remaining three claims the jumpers had fled before him. They knew him all too well, and the gun at his hip; and they counted it no disgrace to give way before the man who had conquered Dave Chatwourth with rocks. So Denver changed the notices and came back laughing and Bunker Hill made over the claims.
“Denver,” he said clasping him warmly by the hand, “I swow, you’re the best danged friend I’ve got. For the last time, now, will you come to dinner?”
“Sure,” grinned Denver, “but cut out that ‘friend’ talk. It makes me kind of nervous.”
“I’ll do it!” promised Bunker, “I’ll do anything you ask me. You saved my bacon on them claims. That snooping Dutch Professor tipped them jumpers off that I’d promised my wife not to shoot, but I guess when they see you come rambling up the gulch they begin to feel like Davey Crockett’s coon.
“‘Don’t shoot, Davey,’ he says, ‘I know you’ll get me.’ And he came right down off the limb.” Old Bunker laughed uproariously and slapped Denver on the back, after which he took him over to the house and announced a guest for dinner.
“Sit down, boy, sit down,” he insisted hospitably as Denver spoke of going home to dress, “you’re company just the way you are. As Lord Chesterfield says: ‘A clean shirt is half of full dress.’ And a pair of overalls, I reckon, is the rest of it. Say, did you hear what Murray said when we took Dave over there, looking like something that the cat had brought in?
“‘My Gawd,’ he says, ‘what has happened to the mine?’
“That was something like a deacon that I worked for one time when he was fixing to paint his barn. He slung a ladder on an old, rotten rope and sent me up on it to work and about half an hour afterwards the rope gave way and dropped me, ladder and all, to the ground. The deacon was at the house when he heard the crash and he came running with his coat-tails straight out.
“‘Goodness gracious!’ he hollered, ‘did you spill the paint?’
“‘No,’ I says, ‘but I will!’ And I kicked all his paint-cans over.
“Well, old Murray is like that deacon; you touch his pocket and you touch his heart–he’s always thinking about money. He’d been planning for months to slip in and jump these claims and here you come along and do the assessment work and knock him out of five of ’em. The boys say he’s sure got blood in his eye and is cussing you out a blue streak. That’s a nice gun you got off of Dave–how many notches has it got on the butt? Only three, eh? Well, say, if he ever sends over to ask for it I’ve got another one that I’ll loan you. You want to go heeled, understand? Murray’s busy right now bossing those three shifts of miners that are driving that adit tunnel, but when he gets the time he’ll leave his glass eye on a fence post and come over to see what we’re doing. Didn’t you ever hear about Murray’s glass eye?
“Well, they say he lost his good one looking for a dollar that he dropped; but here’s the big joke about the fence-post. He got his start down in the valley, raising alfalfa and feeding stock, and he always hired Indians whenever he could because they spent all their time-checks at the store. A Mexican or a white man might hold out a few dollars, or spend the whole wad for booze; but Indians are barred from getting drunk and they’ve only got one use for money. Yes, they believe it was made to spend, not to bury alongside of some fence-post. And speaking of fence-posts brings me back to the point–Old Murray had a bunch of big, lazy Apaches working by the day cleaning out a ditch. He was down there at daylight and watched ’em like a hawk, but every time he’d go into town the whole bunch would sit down for a talk. Well, he had to go to town so one day he called ’em up and made ’em a little talk.
“‘Boys,’ he says, ‘I’ve got to go to town but I’m going to watch you, all the same. Sure thing, now,’ he says, ‘you can laugh all you want to, but I’ll see everything that you do.’ Then he took out his glass eye and set it on a fence-post where it looked right down the ditch, and started off for town. You know these Apaches–superstitious as hell–they got in and worked like niggers. Kinder scared ’em, you see, ain’t used to glass eyes; but there was one old boy that was foxy. He dropped down in the ditch where the eye wouldn’t see him and crept up behind that fence-post like a snake, and then he picked up an empty tin can and slapped it down over the eye. There was a boy over at the ranch that saw the whole business and he says them Indians never did a lick of work till they saw Bible-Back’s dust down the road. Pretty slick, eh, for an Indian? And some people will try to tell you that the untutored savage can’t think.
“Well, that’s the kind of an hombre that we’re up against–he’d skin a flea for his hide and taller. As old Spud Murphy used to say, he’d rob a poor tumble-bug of his ball of manure and put him on the wrong road home. He’s mean, and it sure hurt his feelings to have you hop in and win back your mine. And knocking Dave on the head took the pip out of these other jumpers–I’m looking for the whole bunch to fade.”
“Well, they might as well,” said Denver, “because their claims are not worth fighting for and there’s a Miners’ Committee going to call on ’em. I’m going along myself in an advisory capacity, and my advice will be to beat it. And if you’ll take a tip from me you’ll hire a couple of miners and put them to work on your claims.”
“I’ll do it to-morrow,” agreed Bunker enthusiastically. “I’ve got a couple of nibbles from some real mining men–not some of these little, one-candle power promoters but the kind that pay with certified checks–and if I can open up those claims and just get a color of copper I’m fixed, boy, that’s all there is to it. Come on now, let’s go in to dinner.”
The memory of that dinner, and of the music that followed it, remained long in Denver’s mind; and later in the evening, when the lights were low and her parents had gone to their rest, Drusilla sang the “Barcarolle” from Hoffmann. She sang it very softly, so as not to disturb them, but the look in her eyes recalled something to Denver and as he was leaving he asked her a question. It was not if she loved him, for that would be unfair and might spoil an otherwise perfect evening; but he had been wondering as he listened whether she had not seen him that first time–when he had slipped down and listened from the shadows.
And when he asked her she smiled up at him tremulously and nodded her head very slowly; and then she whispered that she had always loved him for it, just for listening and going away. She had been downcast that night but his presence had been a comfort–it had persuaded her at last that she could sing. She had sung the “Barcarolle” again, on that other night, when he had stepped out so boldly from the shadows; but it was the first time that she loved him for it, when he was still a total stranger and had come just to hear her sing. There was more that she said to him and when he had to go she smiled again and gave him her hand, but he did not suggest a kiss. She was keeping that for him, until she had been to New York and run the gauntlet of the tenors.
This was the high spot in Denver’s life, when he had stood upon Parnassus and beheld everything that was good and beautiful; but in the morning he put on his old digging clothes again and went to work in the mine. He had seen her and it was enough; now to break out the ore and win her for his own. For he was poor, and she was poor, and how could she succeed without money? But if he could open up his mine and block out a great ore body then her claims and Bunker’s, that touched it on both sides, would take on a speculative value. They could be sold for cash and she could go East in style, to take lessons from the ten-dollar teacher who had influence with directors and impresarios. Denver put in a round of holes and blasted his way into the mountain; but as he came out in the evening, dirty and grimed and pale from powder sickness, Drusilla paled too and almost shrank away. She had strolled up before, only to hear the clank of his steel and the muffled thud of his blows; and now as she stood waiting, attired as daintily as a bride, the dream-hero of her memories was banished. He was a miner again, a sweaty, toiling animal, dead to all the finer things of life; but if Denver read her thoughts he did not notice, for he remembered what Mother Trigedgo had told him.
Two weeks passed by and Labor Day came near, when all the hardy miners foregathered in Globe and Miami and engaged in the sports of their kind. A circular came to Denver, announcing the drilling contests and giving his name as one of the contestants; then a personal letter from the Committee on Arrangements, requesting him to send in his entry; and at last there came a messenger, a good hard-rock man named Owen, to suggest that they go in together. But Denver was driving himself to the limit, blasting out ore that grew richer each day; and at thought of Bible-Back Murray, waiting to pounce upon his mine, he sent back a reluctant refusal. Yet they published his name, with the partner’s place left vacant, and advertised that he would participate; for on the Fourth of July, with Slogger Meacham for a partner, he had won the title of champion.
The decision to go was forced upon him suddenly on the day before the event, though he had almost lost track of time. Every morning at day-break he had been up and cooking, after breakfast he had gone to the mine; and, between mucking out the tunnel and putting in new shots, the weeks had passed like days. But when he went to Bunker on the eighth of September and asked for a little more powder Bunker took him to the powder-house and showed him a space where the boxes of dynamite had been. Then he took him behind the counter and showed him the money-till and Denver awoke from his dream.
In spite of the stampede and the activity all about them the whole Pinal district was not producing a cent, and would not for months to come. Every dollar that was spent there had to come in from the outside, and the men who held the claims were all poor. Even after driving off the jumpers and regaining their lost claims the majority had gone home after merely scratching up their old dumps in a vain pretense at doing the assessment work.
The promoters were not buying, they were simply taking options and waiting on Murray’s tunnel; and until he drove in and actually tapped the copper ore there would be no steady boom. He had organized a company and was selling a world of stock, even using it to pay off his men: and it was whispered about that his strike was a fake, for he still refused to exhibit the drill cores. But whether his strike was a bona fide discovery or merely a ruse to sell stock, the fact could not be blinked that Denver and Bunker Hill had reached the end of their rope. They were broke again and Denver set out for Globe, leaving Bunker to hold down his claim.
