The Exile of The Lariat/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII
THE GOVERNOR ELECT
HUGH’S return to Fort Sioux was uneventful. He landed there late in the afternoon of the next day and went directly to The Lariat. The storm had not been heavy in the canyon nor had it been bad on the plains above, but word had come that in the great altitudes of the ranges to the south it had been a terrible affair. The telephone wire to Indian Wells and Lone Spring was down and so Hugh received an exceedingly warm welcome from Johnny Parnell, Red Wolf and Principal Jones, who were keeping shop.
It was while Hugh was trying to explain just why he had made only a fifteen-minute speech at Lone Spring that young Jimmie Heckle came in, obviously big with news.
“Thought while I was waiting for the snows to melt I’d come in and report, Mr. Stewart,” he said, resting a wet riding boot against the stove. “Say, I’m digging up that fossil you told me about, above the creek bed. He’s lying on his side, sixty feet long. I got the head out fine. It’s all covered with kind of big warts. The rest of the backbone was busted into a million pieces, but the legs and tail, O boy! They’d give anybody the jim-jams. The hip bones”
“Wait a minute, Jimmie!” exclaimed Hugh. “I thought you promised me that you’d only locate and not dig up the fossils. I told you the digging was an expert’s job.”
“I’ve done a fine job!” protested Jimmie, not without an injured note in his young voice.
“What did you do with the broken parts of the backbone?” asked Hugh.
“I dumped those over the edge of the mesa. But the whole bones are all there.”
Hugh groaned. “What’s wrong with that?” demanded Jimmie. “It’s a wonderful fossil.”
“Who told you that?” demanded Hugh.
“Mr. Grafton, but don’t you let on you know he did.”
“Grafton!” exclaimed Johnny Parnell and Principal Jones.
“Yes, he was interested when I told him about fossils that time I brought Mr. Stewart in. He’s been out with me two or three times. He really located this bird. But I’ve done all the work.”
Jimmie lighted a cigarette defiantly.
Hugh took a turn up and down the room and came back to put a sinewy hand on the youngster’s shoulder.
“Jimmie, old man, you’re a good scout, and I’m obliged to you. But will you promise not to touch that fossil again until I tell you to?”
“Sure, I will promise.” Jimmie’s self-respect was immediately restored by the petitioning note in Hugh’s voice. “I took some pictures of it and I’ll send ’em to you when they’re done. Real close-ups, so you can see the skull and some petrified skin, like Grafton told me to.”
“Thanks, old man,” returned Hugh.
“That’s all right!” Jimmie rebuttoned his short leather rider’s coat. “I’m going over to the Indian Massacre for supper. Anybody join me?”
“I might later,” said Johnny Parnell.
“I’ll wait for you in the office!” Jimmie strode out, banging the door behind him.
The three men stared at each other. “What’s the great idea?” demanded Johnny. “They’d better hobble that kid or he’ll run himself to death.”
“They’ll lose me a perfectly good dinosaur if they keep it up,” said Hugh. “I suppose that fool of a Grafton thinks he’s going to bribe me with the handsome gift of an alleged fossil discovery!”
“I’m going out to pump young Jimmie dry,” exclaimed Johnny. He disappeared abruptly.
“Lord, I’d like to go out and see that job!” Hugh turned to Principal Jones with a smile.
The old man nodded. “Tempts you, doesn’t it, Hughie?”
“Yes. You can’t dream how much! If it weren’t for” He jerked himself together. “Let’s go to the Chinaman’s for supper. I can’t stand the thought of Jimmie’s gab, tonight.”
Jones looked at Hugh keenly, but said nothing.
When Hugh returned from supper, he found Johnny Parnell standing before the stove. He did not greet Hugh, but walked very deliberately over to the door and locked it.
“What’s the matter, Johnny?” asked Hugh.
Johnny’s ruddy face was set. “I don’t want to be interrupted by the women folks. Hughie, you will recall that Jimmie took Grafton back to the horse ranch with him and that Grafton was there when they brought in Miriam Page from her night on the ledge.”
Hugh, in his old place against the counter while he lighted his pipe, nodded.
“Jimmie says that they knew each other and had a long talk together.”
“What of it?” grunted Hugh, while his fingers tightened on his pipe bowl.
“I don’t know what of it, Hughie. But I feel badly about what I picked out of Jimmie. He was in the stable while Grafton and Miss Page talked in the corral. He doesn’t seem to have paid a lot of attention to what they said. But Grafton was reporting to her about some sessions he’d had with old Whitson. And Jimmie said she was evidently some one Grafton had to report to.”
Hugh stared at Johnny Parnell until the silence became, for Johnny, at least, unendurable.
“What of it, now, Hughie?”
Still Hugh did not answer. A dozen aspects of Miriam passed through his mind. Miriam in the launch, Miriam in the cave, Miriam in the saddle, Miriam grave, gay, girlish, mature, but always Miriam the idealist, urging him on to fine achievement. And yet—and yet—vague queries about her business side, queries that never had become suspicions now projected themselves clearly into his thought. She was ambitious—inordinately ambitious—for power—for prestige. She Furious with himself for the thought, Hugh exclaimed tensely:
“Johnny, your suspicions are infamous—inconceivable!”
“I knew you’d feel like that. But, Hughie, if she is working with the Eastern Electric while apparently all for you, there’s some kind of a double-cross waiting for you, and I ain’t going to rest till I get to the bottom of it. Hughie, aside from caring for her, do you trust her? A man can love a woman, every hair of her head, without trusting her.”
“I couldn’t!” replied Hugh. “I trust Miriam Page as I would my own mother.”
Johnny took a turn or two up and down the room, pausing after a moment in front of Hugh.
“You remember you sort of blackmailed me into coming in with you, Hughie, and that I made a break about Pink which you didn’t follow up.”
“Yes,” Hugh replied.
“Haven’t you ever thought it was funny Pink let you alone after you’d kicked him out of The Lariat?”
“To tell the truth, Johnny, I never gave him much thought. He is small fry in this big game.”
“Well, I’ll tell you why he’s let you alone. I’ve been blackmailing him—about the cave matter. Now, didn’t you ever wonder how Pink ever got in with the Eastern Electric Corporation?”
“Yes, I remember at first, we all did. Then it seemed to me natural enough that they should have used him as they did.”
“Perhaps it was,” agreed Johnny. “I don’t know anything to the contrary. But do you recall that when Miss Page and Jessie returned from Heckle’s last spring, Pink, he goes up to Miss Page and calls her partner and asks her if she worried about results. Now, wasn’t that a darned funny thing for Pink to do?”
“I don’t know that it was,” replied Hugh, carefully.
“All right! Maybe it wasn’t darned funny. But at least it showed that Pink felt he knew her pretty well. Now, have you got the nerve to let me call Pink in here and blackmail him into telling us what he knows, if anything?”
He watched Hugh with an anxiety he did not attempt to disguise.
“God knows, Hughie, I don’t want to add to your troubles, but we’ve got to know the truth about this, old man. Let’s find out what we really are up against.”
“I’m perfectly willing for you to pump Pink,” said Hugh, slowly refilling his pipe.
Johnny strode out of the shop. During his absence Hugh sat with his unlighted pipe in his hand, staring fixedly at the stove. When the cowman came in, trailing Pink behind him, Hugh hastily struck a match and sat down, motioning the two others to seats before the stove.
“Now what?” said Pink.
“You remember that little party in the cave, Pink?” asked Johnny. “The little matter of the gray stallion?”
Pink stared at Johnny truculently.
“Do you?” shouted the cowman with sudden exasperation.
“I ain't saying. This isn’t a court of justice.”
“It sure ain’t,” roared Johnny. “You know what it is. Do you remember the cave and the gray stallion?”
“Yes,” replied Pink “Don’t get so het up, Johnny.”
“Well, I am het up. Now, listen, Pink! So far Hughie has no information about those matters. And I don’t plan to give him any if you’ll come through on something else. How did you get in touch with the Eastern Electric Corporation?”
“If I tell that, I lose the rest of my fee,” replied Pink, promptly.
“No, you won’t. No one will ever know from Hughie or me.”
“I wouldn’t trust you.” Pink shook his head firmly.
“Then Hughie gets facts from me about the cave.”
Pink turned purple. The river roared endlessly. Some one outside gave a Sioux war whoop, followed by laughter.
“If I do tell,” said Pink, at last, “will you both swear not to give me away?”
“I will,” replied Johnny.
“I will,” said Hugh in a low voice.
“Well, I can trust you both, even if we are enemies. It was Miriam Page got me into it. Hang it, I just as soon get even with her for what she’s done to Jessie! Jess is my only child, even if we don’t get along. She got me in.”
“When?” demanded Johnny, huskily.
“On her first trip out here. I can tell you just how it was.” Pink repeated the conversation that had taken place in the office of the Indian Massacre.
Hugh did not move. When Pink had finished, Johnny said abruptly, “That’s all, Pink! You can beat it now.”
“I ain’t going to beat it right away. I want Hugh to apologize for kicking me.”
Johnny gazed at Pink as though he was beholding a madman. “You poor locoed fool,” he roared. “Get, while the getting is good!”
Pink snorted and stared at Hugh. But Hugh heard nothing, saw nothing. Pink, with, for him, rare discretion, left without further speech. Johnny turned to stare in his turn at Hugh, this time with his good-natured face working.
“I just want to say one thing, Hughie, that worries me nights, and when I see other things like this pressing on you and how hard you take things that don’t mean anything to other folks. I mean, I was awful drunk, and it was entirely accidental my being at the cave, and I don’t think I did anything, though that bum of a Pink claims I did.”
Hugh looked up. “Don’t worry about it, Johnny.” He paused and with great effort focused his thought on the cowman. “Don’t worry about that, Johnny, but for God’s sake, tell me the truth. Are you playing straight with me now? I mean—what I mean is, have I one person I can think of that isn’t using me. We—that is you and I were almost born together.”
“I’m your honest-to-God friend, Hughie, old timer.”
“Do you believe she did it, Johnny?”
“I know she did. Don't fight against it, Hughie. Let it soak in, wallow in it, and then get the best of it. No woman is worth it, Hughie. Except Jessie.”
Hugh sat with his pipe in his teeth, staring at the wall. Johnny watched him anxiously. But for five minutes the Gray Stallion did not stir. Then he suddenly emptied the pipe, put it deliberately into his pocket and slowly twisted his long hands together with such passion that Johnny heard the bones crack. Assured then that conviction had struck home, but with infinite compassion in his blue eyes, the cowman went softly out.
And once more, Hugh was alone in The Lariat with a crisis of the soul.
The cost of growth! Dear God, the cost! The twisting, tearing agony of the sloughing away of this muddy vestment of personal desire that so closely hems us in. The infinite pain of learning that happiness and content cannot go hand in hand. World pain this, common to human thought, and Hugh was undergoing it to the uttermost. But superimposed upon this was an agony that was the very peak of suffering. Miriam! Miriam! The gay, the lovely, the fine! Miriam who urged him on to fight for the Children’s Code. Miriam, who understood him as no other human being did. Miriam, who was worth sacrificing Jessie for, who was pure and disinterested in motive Miriam, the lovely.
God in heaven, there was no such Miriam!
Love that comes with youth is ecstasy. It is wine, flooding the veins, thrilling the heart, tinting the world with rose. And like the exhilaration of wine, its lift and urge must go, its poignant rapture ebb, leaving youth none the worse for its visit. But love that comes with middle age is not wine. It becomes the very heart’s blood and may not go without leaving a ghastly blank behind it.
The hours slipped by Hugh till dawn. Then he rose wearily from his chair and made up a light pack for a camping trip. He left The Lariat just as the sun came up. He saddled Fossil, tied the pack behind him, mounted and rode slowly through the quiet town toward the bridge.
Marten, coming out of his tent, yawning, called to him: “Where to, Gray Stallion?”
“I’m off for a rest, Marten. Tell anybody who asks that I’m camping with Fred and Red Wolf up above the cave. But tell ’em not to follow me.”
Marten eyed Hugh’s face curiously and nodded. But as he watched the sagging figure in the saddle he shook his head and started out to look for Johnny Parnell.
Hugh had no dramatic purpose in view. But he felt utterly broken and he felt, he told himself, that he could no longer carry on the fight for the governorship. The demands of the week before election were not to be faced.
But Hugh was not to reach the camp above the cave. For at noon he met Fred and Red Wolf, trekking homeward, through the fast melting snow.
“Thought we’d come in for a while and get some news,” explained Fred. “Anything wrong, Hughie?”
“I need a rest,” replied Hugh. He eyed the sheep wagon and the horses. “How are you off for grub, boys? Got a few days’ supply?”
“Sure!” answered Fred.
“Come along over under Big Fang. There’s a fossil there that I want to look at.”
Red Wolf grinned with satisfaction and turned the mule.
They followed Hugh steadily until the sinking sun warned Fred not to temporize longer with Hugh’s mood.
“Hughie!” he roared, “these horses are tired and hungry and so are we. Turn into that draw to your right.”
To Fred’s surprise, Hugh obeyed without protest. He sat in his saddle waiting while the sheep wagon rattled up and came to rest in the lee of a sand dune. Nor did he attempt to dismount when the team had been unhitched and was munching oats at the tailboard of the sheep wagon. Fred, grubbing up sage-brush for the evening fire, returned Red Wolf’s troubled glance with a shake of his head. Red Wolf walked slowly over to the silent, drooping figure on Fossil, and laying a bronze hand on his knee, said softly:
“Better let Fossil eat, huh, Hughie?”
Hugh started. “Yes! Of course, Red Wolf. Though he can’t be very hungry. I just took him out of the corral.”
“Then you better get off of him, Hughie.”
Hugh obediently swung out of the saddle and stood with eyes on the afterglow while the Indian led Fossil to the rear of the wagon.
“Come inside, Hughie!” called Fred. “I’ll have grub in no time.”
“I’ll wait here, Fred. Don’t let me be a trouble. I’m just tired. Glad to get back to you fellows.”
“That’s good. You stay out here. Stars heap good for tired head,” said Red Wolf.
They left him alone then until supper was ready, though Red Wolf, seemingly engrossed in supplying Fred with fuel for the hungry little stove, did not permit the prowling figure to escape his vision for a moment.
The supper was rather an extra effort on Fred’s part, pancakes and stewed tomatoes being added to the usual rabbit stew. Hugh made an effort to talk, but after a moment Fred began a long, rambling account of his experiences as a turquoise miner, and when he paused Red Wolf told a tale of a buffalo hunt in which his father had taken valiant part. The two stories lasted until the meal was finished.
“Now take your pipe over on the bunk, Hughie,” said Fred, “while Red Wolf and I clean up this mess of dishes.”
“I’d rather go outside, Fred.”
“Too cold for star-gazing. Do what you’re told for once, Hughie.”
Hugh sat down on the edge of the bunk and lighted his pipe. No one spoke until Red Wolf and Fred were established on the lockers beside the stove.
Then Fred said, “Looks to me like getting to be governor hardly paid, Hughie. I don’t like your looks.”
“I’m tired,” said Hugh.
“Old Sioux Tract, it ain’t big enough pay for that.” Red Wolf rolled a cigarette deftly.
“I’ll be all right after a rest with you two. I ought never to have left you. Never.”
A long pause, then Fred said: “Well, us three old timers has wintered and summered together till we’re closer than the marriage tie. You can get rid of most anything easier than you can get rid of us. Tell us what happened, Hughie. You want somebody killed or anything like that?”
Hugh smiled and shook his head. Red Wolf, who had been studying Hugh’s face keenly, asked suddenly: “Your wife, she all right? She no make you trouble?”
“She’s all right,” answered Hugh.
“That other one,” insisted the Indian, softly. “She all right?”
Hugh’s face twitched. He looked up at his two friends with a desperate sort of appeal for understanding in his eyes.
“She’s the one that got the Eastern Electric Corporation in here. At Pink Morgan’s suggestion. She wanted to force me away from this work.”
Astounded silence in the sheep wagon. Outside the great rush of night winds. After a long time, Red Wolf said, “White women like squaws. Never take one that has brain. Make trouble. Fool woman makes best wife.”
“Don’t dally with any of ’em, is my motto,” grunted Fred. “I hope she dies, the Jizebel. Hughie, let ’em all go to the devil. You come back to your work.”
“Yes, Fred,” replied Hugh slowly, “I’ve come back.”
This was all the reference made to Hugh’s trouble during his stay. The next morning the outfit was on its way soon after sun-up and a day later made camp at the foot of the low mesa on whose top rested the remains of Jimmie’s dinosaur. Ten minutes after the camp was made, Hugh was absorbed in the study of the fossil fragments which littered the creek bed at the base of the mesa.
All the rest of the day he worked over the tyrannosaurus, conscious that only through this particular labor could he hope to ease the mental strain that lay on his brain like a burning hand. And that night he slept.
They were grubstaked only for a week, but Hugh found that they could save much of the fossil in that time. Red Wolf and Fred, weary as they were after their prolonged trip afield, were delighted to see him finding relief and plunged into the heavy task with enthusiasm.
Young Jimmie Heckle appeared on the third day, with Grafton in tow. Both their faces expressed profound astonishment as they rounded the base of the mesa and came upon the camp. Hugh, tape measure in hand, returned Grafton’s look of half-embarrassed surprise with one of half-concealed contempt.
“Well, you put it all over, didn’t you, Grafton?” he said. “All but the main point. The dam at Thumb Butte is still unbuilt.”
Grafton looked from Hugh to the fossil fragments smeared now with plaster of paris and said, “We’ll begin on that before another six months is over.”
Hugh shrugged his shoulders and turned away.
Grafton stared at the tall, lean figure, with the face worn by thought and the head sagging with the first suggestion of defeat, and he followed impulsively after Hugh to say:
“Stewart, through it all I’ve believed that what I’ve done was a good thing for you.”
The look of contempt on Hugh’s face deepened. But he had reached the limit of sensation. He had suffered all that he could suffer, had been as angry as it was within him to feel. Since Miriam had been false, why waste energy on hating Grafton? All the others who had injured Hugh had been diminished to nothingness by Miriam’s treachery. Again he shrugged his shoulders, and walking deliberately over to his horse, he said to Red Wolf:
“I’ll go on up and take a look at that outcropping you sighted this morning.”
And he was gone, leaving Grafton to stare stupidly after him.
Hugh rode slowly around the base of Big Fang, surveyed the outcropping, then sat looking thoughtfully up the long valley that stretched southward. Sitting thus he saw perhaps five miles away a tiny moving speck on the floor of the valley. He lifted his field glasses and studied the speck until it disappeared. Then he slowly turned Fossil campward.
The visitors had gone when he reached camp. The men were holding supper for him. They both looked at him anxiously, but Hugh’s face was less worn than it had been.
“Did Jimmie seem impressed favorably or otherwise by the work we’ve been doing?” asked Hugh.
“Well, he opined that there was a lot of drudging connected with science that he didn’t care about,” replied Fred. “What was the result of your prospecting trip this afternoon, Hughie?”
Suddenly Hugh laughed. “Red Wolf,” he said, “do you remember an old corral you and I made fifteen years ago to herd wild horses in, up Big Fang canyon?”
The Indian nodded. “Up on old hay ranch.”
“Yes,” Hugh went on. “That old trapper Loomis homesteaded it once. It was too far from anywhere to be worth anything in the old days. But automobiles will open this section up. Well, anyhow, I’ll bet Pink Morgan has got hold of it and is starting his famous horse ranch. Red Wolf, I’ll bet you a hundred dollars that if you work your way up there quietly you’ll find that Pink has started his stud with the gray stallion. I saw Pink sneaking along a coyote trail in that direction a little while ago.”
Fred jumped excitedly to his feet. “Let’s go up there tonight!”
Hugh shook his head. “No, that’s Red Wolf’s job and had better be undertaken after we break camp.”
Red Wolf nodded, his eyes twinkling, and the three of them grinned at one another.
A few days later Johnny Parnell appeared. When Johnny’s Ford slid into the camp, Hugh, in khaki, was still engrossed in sorting the broken pieces of vertebræ that young Jimmie had tossed over the mesa edge. His face startled the cowman. He looked five years older and his eyes were too bright.
“Hello, Johnny!” he called. “What Jimmie did to this set of vertebræ!”
Johnny strolled slowly over to look at the fossil remains. He stood, scowling, for a moment, then turned back to Hugh.
“You’d better come home with me tonight, old man,” said Johnny.
“Not on your life, Johnny!” exclaimed Hugh. “I’ll not leave here until I’ve made this dinosaur safe from Jimmie and his kind.” Then he paused, and when he spoke there was a note in his voice that twisted Johnny’s heart.
“Johnny, I can’t go back till I’ve straightened out my life.”
The cowman put his hand on Hugh’s shoulder “Old timer,” he said, as softly as his great voice would permit, “you’ll have to go back. The Eastern Electric Corporation says you have in the last week broken the terms of Bookie’s will and are no longer the owner of the Old Sioux Tract. Miriam Page is at the Indian Massacre. And, Hughie, yesterday they elected you governor of Wyoming!”
Hugh rose slowly to his full height, staring at Johnny with consternation and unbelief struggling in his face.
“What brought Miriam to Wyoming?” he asked, finally.
“I don’t know,” replied Johnny. “Jessie might be able to tell you. She and the lady have had several sessions. Hell sure has been popping this week. I’m afraid they’ve got you on the Old Sioux Tract, Hughie.”
“Running for the governorship was exactly the sort of thing Uncle Bookie wanted to come from his will!” exclaimed Hugh.
“But you apparently chucked everything to return to your dinosaur!” Johnny jerked a contemptuous thumb toward the recumbent giant. “Lord, Hughie, were you off your head?”
Hugh did not reply He looked from the fossil fragments at his feet northward, where lay the Old Sioux Tract. He was now bereft, indeed! He stood so long in silence that Fred and Red Wolf, looming uneasily in the offing, finally beckoned to Johnny, who followed them behind the sheep wagon for consultation.
Hugh did not want to see Miriam. Miriam, as he had known her, was buried now with Uncle Bookie and his mother. The woman who had manipulated the preposterous scheme that had made him governor was a stranger to him. As for the governorship! He gave a sardonic laugh!
Johnny, returning from the fruitless consultation, found Hugh still staring at the northern horizon.
“Are you going to let the old Tract go without a struggle?” asked the cowman, bitterly. “Wouldn’t think it of you, Hughie, after seeing you in action for the past year. Running away, by hooky, because they hit you below the belt! Are you the same guy that flew through the blizzard to carry the medicine to Big Elijah’s boy? Hughie, I’m ashamed of you!”
Hugh looked at his old friend curiously. Where, indeed, was the man who had flown through that terrible storm to keep a speaking date? Was he dead, too, with the other dead in whom he had had faith? What was there left in life to keep him alive?
He went back, reluctantly, to those hours in the blizzard. Why had he kept on when he might have alighted at Indian Wells? What was it that had earned him the overwhelming plaudits of the Mormons? He had not phrased the answer before, but he knew it well enough. Nothing appeals more strongly to the human mind than the quality of steadfastness. Loyalty in a peculiarly independent and virile form was a marked characteristic of Hugh. The sudden consciousness that this quality was his brought for the first time in a week a sense of warmth into his heart. “Steel true and blade straight,” Miriam once had quoted to him. “The great Artificer made my mate.” Here his heart sank.
Steel true! He! To whom? To what? To Bookie? To Jessie? To Mrs. Ellis? To Wyoming? To himself? Heaven help him! The answer to every query was, No! His tired eyes turned from the far orange reaches of the northward plains to Johnny Parnell, standing before him in an agony of apprehension.
Loyalty. To the land that had bred him. Was that not after all the only and ultimate reason left him for living?
Hugh turned to Fred and Red Wolf. “Can you boys finish off this job for me?” he asked.
“Sure can, Governor,” replied Fred, clearing his throat, something like moisture gleaming in his eyes. He could not know what had been passing in Hugh’s mind, but the mental struggle had been too obvious not to be deeply painful to his old friend.
“Then I’ll go back with you, Johnny,” said Hugh.
Johnny heaved a stentorian sigh and strode over, spurs tinkling, to crank the Ford.
It was late in the evening when they reached Fort Sioux. Hugh slipped quietly into The Lariat to clean up before he should be discovered. But he had only closed the door when Principal Jones burst into the shop. He was followed by Billy Chamberlain.
“Look here, Governor!” shouted Billy. “What’s the great idea? Aren’t your old friends good for a share, now you’ve gone up in the world?”
Hugh stood silent for a moment, his eyes on Billy’s shameless face. Then he smiled. “All right, Billy!” holding out his hand. The barber took it with enthusiasm.
“Feeling O. K. again, Governor? Darn shame you had to turn sick the last week. But I guess it was just as well. We put you over stronger with the talk about your sacrifice to the cause.”
Principal Jones winked at Hugh over Billy’s head. “There is a crowd gathering, Hughie. Feel up to it?”
Hugh nodded. “How about Bookie’s will, Principal? Has anything been done, actually?”
“Didn’t Johnny tell you?” asked the school man.
Hugh shook his head.
Jones turned to Billy. “Go out and tell that crowd that the Governor will be along in a quarter of an hour. And keep folks out of here.” Then, as the door slammed after the barber, he said, carefully, “Hughie, my boy, they got to the judge, evidently. They say the Sioux Tract was sold yesterday. We didn’t know who the purchaser was.”
Hugh whitened beneath his tan. “The thing must be grossly illegal.”
The school man shook his head slowly. “You haven’t devoted yourself to The Lariat, Hughie. We all know that you’ve done exactly what Bookie hoped the will would make you do. But the will doesn’t say so. And you have broken the literal terms.”
“I shall fight it with every ounce there is in me!” ejaculated Hugh. “This is the reason for Billy Chamberlain’s crowd coming through, eh?”
“I suppose so,” replied Principal Jones. “Although some of it is the lick-spittle reaction that was to have been expected.”
There were cheers outside The Lariat. Hugh moved slowly toward the door. The school man followed him with an anxious face. “Sure you feel up to speaking this evening, Hughie?”
“Don’t worry about me, Principal,” replied Hugh, grimly, pausing with his hand on the door to look at his old friend. “I needed exactly this to restore me to full fighting trim.” Then he turned the lock and went out. And cheers, torchlights and beaming faces absorbed him.
It was midnight when Miriam found him alone in The Lariat. He was standing at the rear window contemplating the moonlight on the ice-laden river. She walked the length of the room and stood beside him, waiting.
Hugh looked at her. She was wearing beaver furs. They made her beauty more pronounced than ever, her perfect grooming more noticeable, her ultra-sophistication more obvious.
“Hughie,” she said, “let’s talk it all out.”
“No,” replied Hugh.
She drew a quick breath. “But, Hugh, you must not condemn me unheard. That’s not justice.”
“Very well. Is it you who brought the Eastern Electric Corporation to Fort Sioux?”
“Yes, but let me tell you what my motive was.”
“I know what your motive was. Did you make Pink Morgan your partner?”
“Not partner, Hughie. No! My tool.” Miriam smiled ruefully.
“And did you force the sale of the Old Sioux Tract?”
“No, Hughie! No! I had nothing to do with that.”
Hugh gave her a keen look. The old faith was indeed corrupted. He did not believe her.
She understood the look and her eyes filled with sudden fear. “Hughie! It was for your own good! Your own fulfillment! I did the rest, but truly I had no part in that sale. Things got out of hand. I came out here to stop it. But too late. And Jessie told me that you knew about her father and me. Johnny Parnell had told her. So I stayed on to explain to you. I knew that my presence could not stop the landslide for you.”
Hugh, arms folded, jaw line prominent in the combined moonlight and lamp light, did not speak. Miriam laid her warm, delicate hand against his cheek.
“Hugh!”
The old thrill rose to her touch, but his mind refused to follow. He moved a little away from her.
“Don’t you realize, Miriam, what you’ve done to me?”
“I’ve made you governor of Wyoming,” she answered quickly.
Hugh groaned. “But the cost, Miriam! The cost.”
“The cost doesn’t matter,” she replied. “I’ve given you to the world. Who’s counting cost!”
“I am,” said Hugh, grimly. “You were crooked with me, Miriam.”
“No! Not that ugly word, Hughie! Please! You were like a little child that had to be developed by indirection. Surely you understand that much, my dearest. O Hugh, don’t look so! Your face breaks my heart!”
She threw her arms about him, laying her cheek to his. For a moment the sweetness of her had its way with him. He felt his body relax against hers. But instantly, as though it was a body belonging to some one else, he recalled it. And put her from him with a gesture that was none the less firm for its sadness.
“You are not the woman to whom I gave my love,” he said.
She moved away from him, lifting her chin with hurt pride.
“I have made my last advance, Hugh. You must make the next one yourself.”
“You don’t see, Miriam, that it’s hopeless? That you’ve killed the thing I loved? I suppose you don’t. Whatever in you made it possible for you to manipulate my life as you have, makes it impossible for you to understand what you’ve done to me. And I did love you, very, very much.”
Miriam stared at him, consternation, unbelief, indignation and finally tragic suspicion following one another in quick succession across her expressive face.
“Hugh! Hugh! You wouldn’t, you couldn’t wreck our two lives for that! Why, think what I’ve done for you! You are governor of the state. You may become anything you will, now.”
“But you were crooked with me,” insisted Hugh. “Those wonderful letters you wrote me. Marvels of duplicity. Your attitude toward my work, all the sympathy and quick perception. A crooked pose. And your often repeated request that no matter what came I’d believe in your love. Miriam, you’ve shattered me.”
Her pride and dignity deserted her. “Hugh! Hugh! I did it because I love you so. I adore you. You know I do.”
“You did it because you are ambitious and unscrupulous,” said Hugh, heavily. “Let’s end the scene, Miriam. I can’t stand much more. This past week has been hell.”
“End the scene? But we can’t end it. You are mine, Hugh, mine!”
The ultra-sophistication dropped from her like a cloak and it was the primal woman who hurled herself against Hugh, beating at his chest with her fists.
“Mine!” she screamed. “No other woman’s. Mine! Do you hear me, Hugh? I’ll never let you go. I’ll live with you in that terrible dinosaur cave if need be. But I’ll never let you go.”
Hugh clasped her fists in his long hands, his face pale, his lips stiff. “Listen to me!” he said, his low voice carrying above her hysteria. “Listen!”
She had begun to sob terribly.
“Listen to me, Miriam!”
With a convulsive effort, she stilled her sobs and he went on. “You were in love with a man whom you could put and keep in a place of pomp and power. I’m not that man. I belong to the plains. And I shall return to them.”
“I love you, you, you! Hugh Stewart. The man!” She burst forth “And you belong to me. Always.”
“Listen to me, Miriam. No woman can possess me who can't possess my soul as well as my body.”
“You are mine, soul and body, as I am yours,” she sobbed. “I shall never let you go!”
The sweat beaded Hugh's forehead.
It was on this picture that Jessie opened the door. She came slowly down the room. Hugh looked up at her Miriam went on sobbing.
Jessie in her riding clothes, tall, ruddy, her presence breathing a curiously palpable self-control, stood for a long moment in the lamp glow before she spoke.
“After all,” she said, finally, “I am your wife. As such, I’m the keeper of your reputation. I’ve kept hands off of everything else, as you asked me to. But unless you actually divorce me, I shall no longer tolerate Miss Page's presence in this clandestine kind of thing. You haven’t any private rights any more, Hughie. You belong to the state.”
At Jessie’s first word, Miriam whirled about, tear-stained face turned resentfully toward Jessie’s. Before Miriam could speak, Jessie raised her hand.
“One moment! The situation is intolerable enough without adding a woman’s quarrel to it. I don’t know how much there is between you and Hughie, Miss Page. I do know that you are going to keep away from him now that he is governor. That is, until he divorces me.”
“The crowd has left the hotel by now,” said Hugh, suddenly. “Let me take you over there, Miriam.”
“Thank you, I prefer to go alone,” returned Miriam, dully.
She drew her furs high around her throat and left The Lariat. Hugh opened and closed the door for her. Then leaned wearily against the counter, his eyes on Jessie.
“I know that you’re very tired,” she said slowly. “I’ve not the least desire to start a scene at this hour of the night, Hughie. Only, as I said, I’m not able to endure the thing any longer. My patience is exhausted.”
“I’m not particularly tired.” Hugh shrugged his shoulders. “That is, no more tired than I’ve been right along. Jessie, have you understood from the first what Miriam Page was doing with me?”
Jessie’s long, strong fingers clenched on the back of the chair before her. Her blue eyes, those far-seeing, shadowed, patient eyes, were violet now with some emotion Hugh made no attempt to fathom.
“Hugh,” she said finally, “I’ve been enduring some punishment since Uncle Bookie’s death Magpie and I—well, we’ve ridden a good many miles on these plains, taking our medicine as it was measured out to us. Magpie isn’t the half-trained bronco he was. He’s been spur-broken these last months. I’ve brought him in day after day with his flanks bloody. And God, He knows that the flanks of my soul have been bloody, too. I hate Miriam Page. But I’m not wasting time on her. I’ve been finding out why Jessie Stewart has been a failure. And because I’ve been such a failure, I’ve nothing to say about Miriam Page. I’d been such a rotten wife, it was only a question of time anyhow when some woman would get in on my neglected preserves. I hate her so much that I’m afraid to let my mind dwell on her. You’ll never get another word out of me about her, Hughie.”
“I’ve been taking punishment myself, Jessie.”
“Yes, Hughie?”
“I’m not the man you are coming to be, Jess. I’m an empty shell.”
Jessie eyed him keenly. Hugh went on heavily: ”I know all of Miriam’s part in the Thumb Butte matter. That’s ended. I shall not see her again.”
Jessie paled. Her eyes flashed with tears, but she did not speak.
“No woman,” Hugh said slowly, “can ever get under my skin again. That’s done with, thank God. But,” with sudden fire, “they’ll never build the dam at Thumb Butte. Not while I’m governor of this state or after I’m returned to my work. Mark it, Jessie.”
“I’ll mark it, Hughie I’ll mark it all.” She turned the collar of her riding coat up around her ears. “If Miriam Page turns your enemy, she’ll stop at nothing. It’s very cold tonight. Good night, Governor!”
“Good night, Jessie.”
He opened and closed the door for her as he had for Miriam, then went to bed.