Kitabı oku: «Stepsons of Light», sayfa 7

VIII

 
“Look on my face. My name is Might-Have-Been —
I am also called No-More, Too-Late, Farewell.”
 

– Credit Lost.

“It is a hard world,” sighed Charlie See. “Life is first one thing and then it is a broom factory.”

They made a gay cavalcade of laughter and shining life, those four young people. They had been to show Charlie over the gristmill and the broom factory, new jewels in Garfield’s crown, and now they turned from deed to dream, rode merry for a glimpsing of to-morrow, where Hobby Lull planned a conquest more lasting than Cæsar’s. Their way led now beyond the mother ditch to lands yet unredeemed, which in the years to come would lie under a high ditch yet to be. So they said and thought. But what in truth they rode forth for to see was east of the sun and west of the moon – not to be told here. Where youth rides with youth under a singing sky the chronicle should be broad-spaced between the lines; a double story, word and silence. To what far-off divine event we move, there shall be no rapture keener than hoping time in unspoiled youth.

The embankments of the mother ditch were head-high to them as they rode. They paused on the high bridge between the desert and the sown. Behind lay the broad and level clearings, orchard, kempt steading and alfalfa; a step beyond was the raw wilderness, the yucca and the sand, dark mesquite in hummocks and mottes and clumps, a brown winding belt between the mother ditch and the first low bench land. The air came brisk and sweet; it rippled the fields to undulant shimmer of flashing purple and green and gold.

“Your ’cequia madre is sure brimful this evenin’,” remarked the guest.

“Always is – when we don’t need it. In dry weather she gets pretty low enough,” said Hobby. “Colorado people get the first whack at the water, and New Mexico takes what is left. Never high water here except at flood time. Fix that different some day. We got to fight flood and drought now, one down, another come on. Some day we’ll save the flood water. Sure! No floods, no drought. Easy as lying! Vamonos!”

The road followed the curving ditch; their voices were tuned to lipping water and the drone of bees. Lull pointed out the lines where his high ditch was to run at the base of the bench land, with flume at gully and cañon steeps. As eye and mapping hand turned toward Redgate a man came down Redgate road to meet them; a man on a Maltese horse. He rode briskly, poised, sure-swaying as ever bird on bough. Charlie See warmed to the lithe youth of him.

“There, fellow citizens,” he said, “there is what I’d call a good rider!”

As the good rider came abreast he swept off his hat. His eyes were merry; he nodded greeting and shook back a mop of blackest hair. The sun had looked upon him. He checked the blue horse in his stride – not to stop, but to slow him; he spoke to Lull in passing.

“Garfield post office?” He jerked a thumb toward the bridge; for indeed, seen across the ramparts of the ditch, there was small distinction between visible Garfield and the scattered farmsteads. “This way?”

“Yes.”

“Just across the bridge,” added Lyn. The story scorns to suppress the truth – she smiled her dimpliest.

“Thanks,” said the stranger; and then, as he came abreast of Charlie See: “And the road to Hillsboro? Back this way – or straight on?”

“Straight through. Take the right hand at the post office – straight to the ford. You’ll have to swim, I reckon.”

“Yes,” said the stranger indifferently. He was well beyond See and Edith Harkey now, and the blue horse came back into the road and into his reaching stride. “Thanks.” The stranger looked back with the last word; at the same time Miss Dyer turned her head. They smiled.

“And they turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt!” said Mr. Lull bitterly.

“He had such smiling eyes,” urged Lyn.

“Ruin and destruction! See! Edith! Spread out – head her off!” Hobby grabbed Lyn’s bridle rein and led his captive away at a triumphant trot.

They turned aside to inspect the doubtful passage where the future ditch must clamber and twist to cross Deadman; Hobby Lull explained, defended, expounded; he bristled with estimates, alternative levels and acre costs; here was the inevitable way, but yonder there was a choosing; at that long gray point, miles away, the ditch must leave the river to gain the needed grades. He sparkled with irresistible enthusiasm, he overbore opposition.

“Look here, folks!” said Hobby. “See those thunder-heads? It’s clouding up fast. It’s going to rain and there’s not a man in town can stop it. I aimed to take you up and show you the place we picked to make the ditch head, but I judge we best go home. We can see the ditch head another day.”

“Now was I convinced or only persuaded?” Charlie See made the grumbling demand of Edith as they set their faces homeward.

Yet he was secretly impressed; he paused by jungle and sandy swale or ribbed and gullied slope for admiration of orchards unplanted and friendly homesteads yet to be; he drew rein by a pear thicket and peered half enviously into its thorny impenetrable keeps.

“Who lives there, Edith? That’s the best place we’ve seen. Big fine house and all, but it looks comfortable and homey, just the same – mighty pleasant and friendly. And them old-fashioned flower beds are right quaint.”

“Hollyhocks,” she breathed; “and marigolds, and four o’clocks. An old-fashioned woman lives here.”

Charlie’s voice grew wistful. “I might have had a place like this just as well as not – if I’d only had sense enough to hear and hark. Hobby Lull brought me out here and put me wise, years ago, but I wouldn’t listen. There was a bunch of us. Hobby and – and – now who else was it? It was a merry crowd, I can remember that. Hobby did all the talking – but who were the others? And have they forgotten too? It was a long time ago, before the big ditch. Oh, dear! I do wish I could remember who was with me!”

His voice trailed off to silence and a sigh that was only half assumed.

“You make it seem very real,” she said, unconscious of her answering deeper sigh.

“Real. It is real! Look there – and there – and there!”

“That is all Hobby’s work,” said Edith as her eyes followed his pointing finger, and saw there what he saw – the city of his vision, the courts and palaces of love. “He has the builder’s mind.”

“Yes. It is a great gift.” It was said ungrudgingly. “I wish I had it. That way lies happiness. Me – I am a spectator.”

She shook her reins to go, with a last look at his phantom farmlands. “‘An’ I ’a stubb’d Thurnaby waäste.’ That’s what they’ll put on Hobby’s tombstone.”

She lifted up her eyes from the waste places and the seeming, and let them rest on the glowing mesas beyond the river and the long dim ridges of misty mountain beyond and over all; and saw them in the light that never was on sea or land. The heart of the good warm boisterous earth called to kindred clay, “and turned her sweet blood into wine.”

Shy happiness tinged her pale cheek with color, a tint of wild rose and sea-shell delicacy, faint and all unnoted; he was half inattentive to her as she rode beside him, glowing in her splendid spring, a noble temple of life, a sanctuary ready for clean sacrifice.

“Yes. Hobby, he’s all right. Him and his likes, they put up the brains and take the risks and do the work. But after it’s all done some of these austere men we read about, they’ll ooze in and gather the crops.”

“He doesn’t miss much worth having. What may be weighed and counted and stolen and piled in heaps – oh, yes, Hobby Lull may miss that. Not real things, like laughter and joy and – and love, Charlie.”

Charlie See turned his head toward Redgate. She read his thought; in her face the glow of life faded behind the white skin. But he did not see it; nor the thread of pain in her eyes. In his thought she was linked with Adam Forbes, and at her word he smiled to think of his friend, and looked up to Redgate where, even then, “Nicanor lay dead in his harness.”

Pete Harkey’s buckboard stood by the platform in front of the little store, and the young people waited there for him and his marketing.

“Mail day?” asked Charlie.

“Nope. To-morrow is the big day.”

“We used to get it three times a week,” said Lyn. “Now it’s only twice.”

“When I was a boy,” said See thoughtfully, “I always wanted to rob a stage, just once. Somehow or other I never got round to it.” His brow clouded.

“Why, Mr. See!”

“Charlie,” said Mr. See. “Well, you needn’t be shocked. Society is very unevenly divided between the criminal and the non-criminal classes.”

“That,” said Edith, “might be called a spiral remark. Would it be impertinent to ask you to specify?”

“Not at all. Superfluous. See for yourself. Old Sobersides, here – you might give him the benefit of the doubt – he’s so durned practical. But Adam and me, Uncle Dan and your Dad – there’s no doubt about us, I’m afraid. It’s right quaint to see how proud those old roosters are of the lurid past. When one of ’em gets on the peck, all you got to do is to start relatin’ how wild they used to be, and they’ll be eatin’ out of your hand in no time. They ought to be ashamed of themselves – silly old donkeys!”

“How about the women?” asked Lyn.

“I’ve never been able to make a guess. But there’s so few of you out here at the world’s end, that you don’t count for much, either way.”

“Lyn realizes that,” said Hobby. “Here at the ragged edge of things she knows that the men outnumber the women five to one. So she tries to make up for it. She is a friendly soul.”

Miss Lyn Dyer ignored this little speech and harked back to the last observation of Charlie See. “So you did manage to notice that, did you? I’m surprised. They’ve amused me for years – Uncle Dan and Uncle Pete; how mean they were, the wild old days and the chimes at midnight! But a girl – oh, dear me, how very different! No hoydens need apply! A notably unwild boy is reproached as a sissy and regarded with suspicion, but a girl must not even play at being wild. ‘Prunes, prisms and potatoes!’ Podsnap! Pecksniff! Turveydrop and Company! Doesn’t anyone ever realize that it might be a tame business never to be wild at all?”

“’Tis better to be wild and weep – ”

“Now, Hobby Lull, you hush up! The answer is, No. Catechism. A man expects from his womankind a scrupulous decorum which he is far too broad-minded to require from himself or his mates – charitable soul! Laughter and applause. Cries of ‘That’s true!’ – Anything more grossly unfair – ”

Rub-a-dub! Rub-a-dub! Rub-a-dub!

Three men thundered over the ’cequia bridge. At the first drum of furious hoofs See wheeled his horse sharply.

“What’s that? Trouble!” The three horsemen swooped from the bridge, pounding on the beaten road. “Trouble, sure!”

“You two girls light out of this! Ride!” said Lull. He spurred to the open door of the store. “Pete!” he called, and turned back.

“Adam?” said Charlie. “Something wrong up Redgate way. Adam’s there, and no one else that we know of.”

“I’m afraid so. Horse fell on him maybe – dynamite or something. Here they come. Big Ed and Jody Weir. I don’t know the third man.”

The horsemen were upon them. “Murder!” cried Caney. “Adam Forbes has been murdered! Up in Redgate. The murderer came this way. We trailed him to the bridge. His horse had lost a shoe.”

“Adam Forbes!”

“Who is to tell Edith?” said Charlie See, under his breath.

“Someone’s going to hang for this. When we found him – I never had such a shock in my life!” said Jody Weir. “Shot from behind – three times. The powder burned his shirt. Adam never had a chance. Cold-blooded murder. Adam was holding fast to his rifle, wrong side up, just as he pulled it from the scabbard. That man came through here.”

“Or stopped here,” amended Caney. “Might have been a Garfield man, of course. I’ve heard that Forbes was tol’able arbitrary.”

“We met a stranger coming down from Redgate, something like an hour and a half ago,” said Hobby. “But if he had just killed a man, I’ll eat my hat. That man was feeling fine. Only a boy, too. Someone else did it, I guess.”

“And he’d been riding slow. No sweat on his horse,” added Charlie.

“Couldn’t have been anyone else. There wasn’t any other tracks, except the tracks of Adam’s horse. They turned off south as soon as he got out of the mouth of the cañon.”

“How’d you know it was Adam’s horse?” This was Pete Harkey, at the open door.

“Saw where the bridle reins dragged. Say! Any you fellows comin’ with us? That man killed Forbes, I tell you – and we’re goin’ after him. Only about two hours till dark – two and a half at most – and a rain coming up. This is no time for talking. We can talk on the road.”

“Anybody stay with Adam?” asked Pete.

“No. There was just the three of us. We came full chisel after the murderer, hard as we could ride. Come on – get some of your men together – let’s ride,” said Caney impatiently. “Get a wiggle on, can’t you? Let’s find out which way he went and what he looked like. He came here. No chance for mistake. The body was still warm.”

“I saw him! I saw him!” cackled the storekeeper. “Little man, smaller than Charlie – and young. About twenty. Came in after you all left,” he said, addressing Lull. “Mailed a letter. Ridin’ a blue horse, he was – a grullo. That the man you met?”

“Yes. But riding a blue horse doesn’t prove that a man has done murder. Nor yet mailing a letter. Or being young. We knew that man went through Garfield. That’s nothing new. He told us he was going on to Hillsboro.”

“That was a blind, I reckon. He can turn always back, soon as he gets out of sight,” said Hales.

“He went that way,” piped the storekeeper. “Mailed a letter here, bought a shoe and tacked it on his horse. I fished round to find out who he was, but he put me off. Finally I asked him, p’int-blank. ‘You didn’t say what your name was,’ says I. ‘No,’ says he, ‘I didn’t.’ And off he went, laughing, impydent as hell!”

“Did you notice the brand on his horse?” asked Charlie. “He passed on our right-hand side, so we didn’t see it.”

“No, I didn’t. He took the Greenhorn road, and he was ridin’ middlin’ slow.”

“If you had used your mouth less and your eyes more, you might have something to tell us,” sneered Hales.

“Little man on a grullo horse – that’s enough for us – we’re goin’!” snapped Caney. “Say, you fellers make me plumb sick! The murderer’s getting away, and all you do is blat. We’re goin’, and we’re goin’ now!”

“Something tells me you won’t,” said Pete Harkey.

He had mysteriously acquired a shotgun from his buckboard, and he cocked both hammers with the word. “Not till we talk a little. According to your tell, the killing was done in Sierra County. That’s my county, and we figure we are plenty competent to skin our own skunks. Also, we want one good long look before we leap. You three are the only men who can tell us anything, and we want to know what you know, so we’ll not lose time or make mistakes. We can’t afford to shoot so as to hit if it’s a deer and miss if it’s a mule. You fellers are excited. What you need is a head. I’ll be head.

“You just calm down a little. I’ll be getting a posse together to go back and look into this. You can be fixing to give us some idea what’s happened. After that, these two boys can go with you. They’ve seen this stranger and they’ll know him on a fresh horse. All you three know about his looks is a blue horse. I’m going up where Adam was killed. Where was it? Don’t be nervous about this gun. I never shot a man accidentally in my life. Where was Adam killed?”

“In Redgate. Near the upper end. We was looking – ”

“That’s enough. You wait till I send for some friends of mine.” Pete raised his voice. “Girls! Ride over here! Now you folks keep still till the girls get away. Toad Hales, is it? I’ve seen you before, Mr. Hales… Edith, you go to the mill and tell Jerome I want him. Lyn, you go to Chuck Barefoot’s and tell him to get Jim-Ike-Jones and come here and be quick about it. Then you girls go home.”

“What is it, Uncle Pete? Adam?” said Lyn, with a quivering lip.

“Yes, dear. Go on, now.”

“Dead?”

“Murdered!”

“Adam!”

Both girls cried the name in an agony of horror and pity. Edith bent to her horse’s mane; and Lyn rode straight to Hobby Lull.

“Oh, Hobby! Be careful – come back to me!” She raised her lips to his. He took her in his arms and kissed her; she clung to him, shaken with sobbing. “Oh, poor Adam!” She cried. “Poor Adam!”

Charlie See turned away. For one heart beat of flinching his haunted soul looked from his eyes; then with a gray courage, he set his lips to silence. If his face was bleak – why not, for Adam, his friend?

And Edith Harkey, on her sad errand, envied the happy dead. She, alone of them all, had seen that stricken face.

“Lyn, you go on,” said Pete. “Get Barefoot. Then go home and find out where your Uncle Dan is, and send him along just as fast as ever God’ll let him come.”

He turned back to the men.

“Now, then, you fellows! Begin at the beginning. Hales, you didn’t know Adam, so you won’t be so bad broke up as the others. Suppose you tell us what you know. Wait a minute. Sam, you be saddling up a horse for me. Now, Mr. Hales?”

“We were looking out for that gang of saddle thieves. Went up ’Pache Cañon. Along in the park we saw tracks where two shod horses turned down into Redgate, and we followed them up. One of ’em had been chasing a bunch of cattle – or so we thought, though we didn’t notice that part very close, having no particular reason for it then. We’d looked through two-three bunches of cattle ourselves earlier, for Jody’s stuff.”

“Yes, and you had breakfast, likely – but what do I care? You get on with your story.”

“Say, old man,” said Hales in some exasperation, “if you don’t want this man caught, I’m satisfied. It’s nothing to me. I didn’t know Forbes. If you want this friend of yours to get away, I’m willing to get down and stay all night. You’re pretty overbearing with your little old shotgun.”

He made as if to dismount.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” said Pete mildly. “Look at your friends, first. They’re just as overborne as you are, likely – but you notice they are not making any complaints. They know me, you see. They know how Adam Forbes stood in Garfield, and what kind of folks live in Garfield; and they know that whoever killed Adam is in trouble up to his neck. You mustn’t mind our little ways. However, as the witness is peeved, we’ll try another. Jody, speak up and tell us.”

“You act like we was under suspicion,” sneered Hales.

“Sure, you’re under suspicion! What do you expect? Everybody’s under suspicion till we find the right man. I’m going to send word up and down to hold all strangers. That part is all right. Hello, Jerome! You missed most of the evidence! I’ll tell you about it as we go up.”

“Now why the little gun?” said Jerome Martin, tranquilly.

“Been holding an election. Now, Jody – your little piece.”

“There’s not much to tell. We found Adam’s body a little ways down the cañon, maybe a quarter or a little more; and just this side of it we found where a yearling had been branded, or a big calf; ashes still warm. Looks just like this fellow had been stealing one of Adam’s calves, and Adam caught him at it.”

“But you said Adam was shot in the back at close range,” objected Charlie. “Adam Forbes wouldn’t turn his back to any man, under those circumstances. That won’t work.”

“Yes, we thought of that,” said Caney. “More likely he saw Adam coming and killed him before he got to the calf – pretending to be friendly. Anyhow, Adam’s horse went off down the cañon, and the other man went down the cañon, and we came after him. Oh, yes! His horse lost a shoe, as we told you before – the murderer’s. Must have lost it chasing that calf. Tracks didn’t show it in the soft ground in the park, anyhow – though we didn’t look very close till we found Adam. But after he left Adam’s body his tracks showed one shoe gone. That’s all. Adam’s horse bore off to the left. He had a larger foot than the other, and we could see where the bridle dragged.”

“I’ll send someone to find him. You didn’t hear any shots?”

“Oh, no – we just thought maybe we’d meet up with some puncher ridin’ the range, and ask him had he seen any strangers. This gang of saddle thieves – ”

“Yes, I know about them. Thankee, gentlemen. You can ride now. If you catch your man beyond the river you might as well take him on to Hillsboro. Be mighty sure to remember not to forget to be particular to take this young man alive. We want to hang the man that killed Adam Forbes. That’s all.”

“Here, I want some cartridges,” said Hobby. He leaped off and jingled into the store. “Hi, Sam! Get me a box of forty-fives,” he called. Then to Harkey, in a guarded voice: “Pete, this looks fishy as hell! Those ashes were warm, they said. Look what time it is now – half past four. The way they were riding, this bunch made it from Redgate in half an hour. We met this stranger near two hours ago. That don’t hold together. If the stranger man built that fire, the ashes would have been cold when Caney’s bunch found them. And they say there are no other tracks. Wrong – all wrong!”

“And all the rest of it. Son, I didn’t miss a bet. Neither did Charlie See. He looked hard at me. Save your breath. Say nothing and see everything. You do your part and I’ll do mine. I’ll know more before dark if it don’t rain and rub out the tracks. Our Father which is in Garfield hates a lie, and he’s fixed up this here solar system so there is no safe place in it for a lie. Sh-h! Here comes Caney!” He raised his voice. “What the devil do you need of more men? Five to one – what more do you want?”

“Well, but we may lose track of him and want to spread out to look and ask, while some of us go on – ”

“Where can I find drinking water?” asked Caney.

“Back there,” said Pete, pointing. Then, to Hobby: “Well, pick up someone in Arrey, then, or on the way. I want the men round here to go with me and look round before it gets dark. Say, Sam – you send someone up with a wagon to bring Adam back, will you? I’m off – me and Jerome. Tell Jones and Barefoot to come right on. Take care of my team for me.”

He went out on the platform. Lull and Caney followed.

“Well, so long, you fellows,” said Pete. “Send word back if you find your man. Because there’s going to be a lot of irritated strangers when we start to picking them up.”

“We had some plunder – grub and a blanket apiece tied behind our saddles, and we dumped it, to ride light, where we found Adam – just kept our slickers,” said Caney. “Have ’em bring ’em in, will you, Harkey?”

“Sure,” said Pete.