The Trail Rider/Chapter 15
HARTWELL was not without offers of employment next day. Malvina wanted to put him in as night clerk in her office, a place created out of her generosity for the sole purpose of offering it to him. Not that a night clerk was not needed in the Woodbine Hotel, indeed, for people came in at all hours, many of them boisterous, more of them sullen and red-eyed and mean from liquor and losses at the gambling joints.
But Texas refused it with grateful expressions, only to be waited on a little while later by Jud Springer, the gambler whose house had been closed by the mayor's one-sided application of his own law. Springer had come back with three quick-handed friends behind him, and was planning to reopen his place that night. He wanted to put Texas in as chief of his squad, and offered big inducements in in the remunerative way.
This offer Texas also was obliged to put behind him, with such modest discount of his competency as to lift him to the pinnacle of the gambler's respect. He had no intention of taking sides with any faction in Cottonwood, nor of arranging himself against the law, farcical as it might be.
It was a question with him what to do, indeed. His money would soon waste away, even at the very moderate rate for lodging and board which Malvina had made in his case. Something would have to be set going shortly.
He could not leave there to seek employment, for he had passed his word to Winch. That appointment was an obligation. To run away from it would be equal to the repudiation of debt. It would follow a man, and cling to him like a taint; he never could lift up his head in honorable company again.
So there he would stay until Dee Winch came, and this matter was finished for all time. There would be no other way of easing the strain of listening, as wearing on a man to bear as a contracted muscle for which there was no relief. One way or another their meeting in the streets of Cottonwood would end this thing.
He was resentful in his mental attitude toward Winch. A man had no right arbitrarily to throw another under the necessity of defending his life on any such groundless pretext. It appeared to him that it was a forced excuse for Winch to ease for another week or month the blood thirst that had fallen on him like some unholy disease. He did not want to kill Winch; in his heart there was not one shadow against the man that would justify the thought. But he was determined fully to act according to Uncle Boley's advice. If Winch should beat him to his gun when they met, he would have to move faster than a snake.
It was late in the afternoon of the day after his arrival at Cottonwood from the range that Hartwell met Sallie McCoy at Uncle Boley's shop. She was just leaving; the old man had quit his bench to attend her with ceremonious courtesy to the door.
"Talk of the devil!" said Uncle Boley.
"Oh, Uncle Boley!" she protested, while a warm, soft flush drowned her face, and a smile leaped in her eyes like the fire of a home-hearth as she gave Hartwell her hand.
"I mighty proud to see you, Miss McCoy."
Hartwell bent over her hand in his quaint, old cavalier way. He was not wearing his long coat that day; the great heavy revolver that Ed McCoy had carried to his death hung on his thigh like a sword.
"Well, if he ain't the devil he's blood related to him, accordin' to these cow-men around here," Uncle Boley said.
"You surely would think so, sir."
"Not all of us—even cow-men," she assured him, laving him for a moment in the cool of her clear brown eyes.
"You are a host on my side, Miss McCoy."
"Yes, and you're a stoppin' my door up so the air can't blow in on me," Uncle Boley complained, with a great comical exaggeration of injury and pretense of suffocation. "Git out of here and do your talkin' and passin' compliments, you two young sky-looters!"
He shooed them out like chickens, chuckling in his beard, and watched them as they went off together in the slant sunlight of the autumn day.
Sallie was on her way to gather goldenrod, she said, to adorn her room at school. It grew abundantly by the roadside everywhere, but it was better just out of town, away from the dust of wheels and hoofs. Yes, he might go if he wished; he would be useful to help carry it, for she meant to gather a great deal, oh, an immense amount of it, indeed.
The world was full of gold that day, of black-eyed Susans wearing bonnets of it, of sunflowers blooming late, destined to fall before the frost, and goldenrod in banks and wide stretches over the wild meadowlands. For it is the way of nature on the Kansas plains to send springtime white-garlanded, like a bride, and autumn splendid in a golden cope, like a luxurious bishop come to give benediction on the summer labors of men.
They worked like gleaners in the ancient fields, freighting themselves with flowers, and what the moonlight had begun that night when they sat under the cottonwood at Duncan's ranch, the gold of this autumn evening brought to completion and welded so fast into his heart that Texas knew it never could come away. He must prepare the ways of life thenceforward for two; the road leading away from Cottonwood seemed so remote that his feet never would find it any more.
There was a great deal to be said, a good many sighs to be spent on both sides, about the business of gathering two armfuls of goldenrod, it seemed. Perhaps hearts out of which sentiment had dried, such as florists' hearts, would not have found it a long task nor a particular one in that field of abundant bloom, but it was nearing sundown when Sallie and Hartwell turned their faces again toward the town. The schoolhouse was on the way to Sallie's home, and there they were to leave the flowers. Early in the morning she would go and arrange them along the bleak walls of her room.
Never before in his life had Texas Hartwell gone carrying a sheaf of yellow flowers beside a lady. It was a rare day, indeed, an occasion of great pride. Children came smiling to greet their teacher, little girls skipped beside her, turning up adoring eyes. There was room for all of them in her heart, along with him, Hartwell knew; room indeed for the whole world without crowding him and causing him one jealous pain.
"There's Mr. Stroud," said Sallie, as they approached the schoolhouse, "the principal of our school—my boss. I'd like you to meet him."
"I'll be proud to," Texas declared.
Stroud was locking the front door of the whitepainted, churchlike building in which he presided over the mental discipline of Cottonwood's youth. Hartwell saw that he was a tall, harsh-jointed man, surly of look, ram-faced, a dusting of white in his heavy, rough black hair. He looked around at them as he put the key in his pocket, a frown on his sour face, turned, and hurried off the other way, giving Sallie no chance to present her friend.
"He doesn't seem to be inclined to make my acquaintance, Miss Sallie," said Hartwell, feeling the cut deeply.
"Mr. Stroud is a peculiar man," she excused, flushing in humiliation for the necessity of making apology for the schoolmaster's boorish behavior.
"It galls a man to be in public disfavor to the depth that I have fallen, Miss Sallie; it hurts like saw-grass on the naked skin."
"I know it does, Mr. Hartwell, but as long as—some of us believe in you, and your conscience is clear, you can hold your head up in spite of their prejudice."
"As long as you believe in me, Miss Sallie, I can feel the clouds scrape my hair."
He waited outside while she unlocked the door and left her burden of blooms in her room, and not until he had parted from her at her own gate was he conscious again of the listening strain for the unheard footfall at his back. That phantom had left him for a little while in what seemed to him her holy presence. Now it had returned in aggravation, as if to impress upon him the fatuity of planning any felicitous thing for his future days.
There could be no peace, there could be no planning, indeed, until the day of reckoning between him and Dee Winch. Until that day he must walk with his life in pawn, with no right to love and inspire love, no right to plan and build and hope like other men. With his faculties centered on the invisible thing behind him, ready to wheel and fire at the first sound of that threatening step, he must walk the earth a listening man.
Moodily he walked the streets after supper that evening, turning in his mind many things. His heart urged him to the presence of Sallie McCoy, where he knew he should find welcome and the comfort of faith, but his honor held him back.
Crowds which seemed to have sprung from the ground like grasshoppers were out, the din of the musicians in the two rival dance halls was shrieking into the night. All was animation, with the flush of the night's first potations on the cheeks of men who would grow ugly and quarrelsome as the accumulated poison struck deeper and the polluted night wore on.
Texas wondered how many men among them walked with their trailing shadows like him on the streets of Cottonwood that night. Many were there who had taken human life, against whom accounts remained to be balanced by law or kindred or friend. And there was growing at that hour trouble which probably would result in more shooting and slaying before many days.
Jud Springer had defied the mayor and opened his place, with an imported band which, in volume of sound at least, was ahead of anything that Cottonwood had ever heard. Business was going to his doors, for the lights were bright, and the shoulders of women gleamed under them like insidious flowers.
Hartwell wondered what had become of Fannie Goodnight, the glimpse of those half-naked women having brought her sharply into his mind. There must have been a good deal of that kind of life in Fannie Goodnight's experience, he believed, for the sight of those women immediately to suggest her. Whether she had put it behind her and opened a new account, of course he did not know. One way or another she seemed to have put something between her and her past, or the worst of her past.
He felt that he owed Fannie a friendly turn if it ever should come his way to pay it, for he was convinced that the good in her had moved her to warn him that night at the peril of hard usage for herself. He doubted if they should ever meet again, for it was likely that those who had used her to entrap him had sent her away from that country, distrustful of her for any future employment in their schemes.
Mrs. Goodloe was in the hotel office knitting a necktie of scarlet silk when he returned from his aimless rambling. She held the finished portion of it up to Hartwell's view and admiration.
"It's for Ollie's birthday," she said. "Do you think it'll become him?"
"It will make him look like a prince, ma'am," he assured her, with entire gravity.
Mentally he pictured the flaming adornment over Mr. Noggle's pea-green shirt, beneath his salmonlike, shallow chin. He surely would be a figure to fascinate the female eye when he stepped out arrayed in that ardent example of his mother-in-law's art.
"Ollie's a good boy, he treats Malvina like a perfect lady. She never knew what it was to have a man that'd take his hat off to her when he meets her in the street, just like she didn't belong to him, till she married Mr. Noggle."
Mrs. Goodloe was so touched by the courteous behavior of the barber that her voice shook with tenderness. Texas understood very well what such consideration meant to women whose lives had been as barren as Mrs. Goodloe's and Malvina's. His respect for the barber rose a little, in spite of his trade.
"Mr. Noggle is a gentleman, ma'am. Any man could tell that the minute he met him in the road."
"Yes, he is, Mr. Hartwell. He ain't much of a man for a fight, I don't reckon, till he's crowded to it, but all men ain't alike that way. You take Zeb Smith; he was always ready to knock somebody down, specially his wife. He never laid a hand on me, though, the ornery old houn'!"
"I'll just bet you a purty he never, ma'am!"
"No, and if he had I'd 'a' scalded him to the bone! I'd 'a' put a spider in his coffee if he'd 'a' been my old man, long before he ever took that cowardly sneak off to the Nation."
"He sure deserved two of 'em, ma'am. That man's got a breachy eye."
"He's as sneaky as a snake."
"I'll bet a purty he is."
"If you had all the horses together that man's stole they'd load a car."
"You don't tell me!"
"Yes, and cattle, too."
"Cattle, ma'am!"
"Millions of 'em. If he got a year for ever' one of 'em he'd be in the pen when Gabr'l blows his horn. Did you know he come sneaking around here as soon as he heard you'd left?"
"No ma'am, I didn't hear of it. Did he do any damage?"
"He didn't come here to the house, but he's back in town, workin' for Johnnie Mackey."
"What might that old scoun'rel be doin' for Mackey, ma'am?"
"Bouncerin'. He goes on at ten or 'leven and works till the crowds clear out. They don't know him very well here now, for this was only a new starter of a town when he left, and most of them fellers has come in since. He looks fierce, and he's mean. I guess he'll hold the job. Zeb's trick is to hit a man when he ain't expectin' it and lay him out—that's his way."
"He sure is a mean-lookin' man, ma'am."
"Yes, and Ollie's so nervous over him bein' in town he don't hardly dare to go to and from the shop. He's been thinkin' of movin' down here to the hotel, but it wouldn't be as good. He'd lose trade by it, for he's centered where he is, and I tell him to buckle a gun on him and stick to it."
"That's the right advice, ma'am."
But advice which would profit Ollie Noggle nothing, and Texas knew it very well. He could imagine the barber's discomfort with that old sandstone savage hanging in the background like a threat.
"I and Malvina—we was just a talkin' a little while ago and sayin' that it would be a good thing for Ollie if him and you was to go pardners in the shop."
"Me, ma'am? Why, I never barbered nothin' in my life but a mule!"
"Not to do barberin', I don't mean, but just to kind of stay around and draw the line for Smith, and walk to and from the shop with Ollie."
"I can do that without bein' a pardner, ma'am, if it would help Ollie any, and I'd be proud."
"It would—it'd be the biggest help a man ever give another. That poor boy's up there at the shop right now, late as it is, waitin' for me or Malvina to come after him, and I'll bet he's sweatin' and trimblin' in every limb. Malvina's afraid to go over after him alone for fear of runnin' acrost Zeb, and both of us can't leave here. If this keeps on I'll load up a gun and drive that scalawag away from here myself!"
"I'll go right up to the shop, ma'am, and fetch him home."
Texas had to hurry out of her presence, her volley of thanks at his back for the provocation of laughter was greater that minute than at any time since he came to Cottonwood. In his imagination he could see Noggle's long narrow face at the door of his little shop, the sweat of his anxiety like the distillation of his precious ambergris on his brow.
It was a terrible thing for a man to be a coward like that, especially when the subject of his aversion Was so unworthy as Zeb Smith. Still, it was a pity that Smith, the old ruffian, should be allowed to give the simple-hearted Malvina so much distress. The old rooster ought to be run out of town, and Texas had half a mind to go to him and serve notice. But that would be putting himself up before the public in the light of a bad man, and it was a distinction that he did not court.
Noggle was a greatly relieved man when Texas stepped into his shop. He was so grateful that he capered about in light little prancings for his hat, his seersucker coat, his umbrella, and his gloves. Noggle never appeared on the street, by night or by day, without his gloves, if not on his hands, then held elegantly in one of them as if he had just taken them off.
Now, as he walked beside Texas, turning fearful glances this way and that for the terrible form of Zeb Smith, he made a very fashionable figure indeed, for all his fear. His hat was small and soft, of a dove-gray, pinched together at the crown like a tomato can that had been run over by a wagon wheel. It sat high on his curly hair, a little to one side, leaving free an abundant fluffy lock of that adornment to fall upon his left eyebrow. His trousers were light, and tight on his long, thin legs; perfume floated after him; his very presence proclaimed his trade.
In a little while he put aside his fear, for he was as simple in his trust as he was poor in valor, and walked beside Texas with the confidence of a child whose mother has come to convoy it home from school through the perils of street barbarians. Their way led past Johnnie Mackey's wide-open door. There was no other route to the hotel, except one that would have been roundabout, dark, and undignified to follow. Noggle seemed to have a sort of desperate satisfaction in passing the lair of his enemy.
Zeb Smith was standing in the door. Noggle did not see him among all who came and went through that gaping portal until it was too late to draw back, although Texas had picked him out from afar. He must have looked as big as a church steeple to the barber, whose eyes began to grow as his jaw fell and his breath came short.
"There he is, there he is!" he whispered, shrinking behind his conductor. "You got your gun? Yes, oh, yes—you got it!"
Noggle sighed in the assurance and relief that the sight of the gun gave him, and Texas took him by the arm with firm grasp to hold him abreast and marched him so close up to Zeb Smith he could smell him. Smith came out to the sidewalk and glared fiercely on them as they passed under the bright lights.
"Huh! hired a nurse!" he scoffed.
Texas felt Noggle's flesh tremble under the sound of the rough taunting voice. Noggle could not have framed a word if his life depended on it, for his tongue was frozen against his teeth with fear, but Texas let go of his arm, turned and gave Smith a look that drove him like a kicked dog to the shelter of his door. His cur's courage returned to him there; he stood calling insults after them which drew laughter from the loungers at hand.
When they turned the corner the barber's breath began to go down as far as his first vest button again. He drew out his perfumed handkerchief from his breast pocket—where a corner of it was always displayed in the refinement of fashion and the elegance of taste of which Noggle was the great exemplar—and wiped away the sweat of his agonizing fear.
"That feller'll go too fur one of these days!" he said.
"I think he's gone too far already," Texas allowed. "You could whip that man with one hand if you'd sail into him—why, I tell you he'd run so fast you never would be able to overtake him between here and the Nation."
Noggle looked back, and around him, to make certain that Smith had not followed nor cut across and headed them off.
"I'll do it, too! If I could ever git him in the shop for a shave I'd cut his throat clean down to his backbone!"
"I don't think he'll put his head in a trap thataway. You buy yourself a gun, and you wear it when you step out; then you march up to that man and slap his jaw and spraddle all over him like old folks. He'll beat time hittin' a streak out of this town, and I'll bet you a purty he will."
Noggle didn't warm up to the suggestion. Texas could see through him all around the edges; he hadn't any more heat in him than a hickory shad. He felt sorry for Malvina, for he knew that if there was any fighting to be done in that family she would have to do it, and he believed she would do it if it came to pass where Zeb Smith ever ruffled a curl of Ollie's small, brainless head.
Ollie entered the hotel by a side door, and in his gratitude drew Texas in after him, where both of them were almost enveloped in Malvina's grateful embrace. Texas avoided her arms only by a quick withdrawal into the background, leaving the barber to bear it all alone.
Malvina cried a little, and declared that she thought he had been killed, which gave Ollie a lead for the announcement of his bloody intentions in regard to Zeb Smith. Malvina's cheeks paled on hearing this, and she clung to her new husband with trembling hands, for she knew that he was a sheep in his heart and a rabbit in his soul, but he was kind to her, and took off his hat when he met her on the street.
As for Texas, the valor of the barber in the house was not so diverting that moment as it might have been but for a circumstance that drew his attention toward the office, partly seen through the open door. A man had entered and saluted Mrs. Goodloe with friendly word, and was now selecting a cigar from the offering out of the showcase supporting the bell. His voice came into the room distinctly, and it was one that Texas would have known out of all the tumult of the earth.
There could not be two men afflicted with that same, nosy, metallic, whanging voice. The man at the showcase was the one who had cursed Fannie Goodnight, and taunted him as he lay bound in the Texans' rawhide that night beside his supper fire.
Texas stepped to the door for a look at the man's face, but he had his cigar, and was going out to the street. He hastened to Mrs. Goodloe, eager in manner and voice, inquiring who her customer was.
"Why, that was Henry Stott, the banker. I thought you'd met Henry."
"I believe I have," said Texas grimly.
He stepped to the office door and looked after the banker as he passed down the street, the smoke of his cigar trailing after him. He was safe, he was anchored there, he wouldn't get away. And to-morrow there would be a reckoning between them.
So Stott was playing a double game against the cattlemen of that range. Doubtless the past three or four years of prosperity there had made loans slow, and the income from interest was not as brisk as it should have been. To make things merrier, Stott had gone back to his old trade of importing southern cattle, buying them with the funds of his depositors whose herds were now in peril.
If the cattlemen could be convinced of Stott's hand in bringing this danger to their herds, it would be all day with the banker's future schemes in that country. He would be a lucky man, indeed, if he didn't stretch a lariat on somebody's up-ended wagon-tongue.
In the morning, Texas determined, his first business would be to hire a horse and ride to Duncan's, and lay the matter before the president of the Cattle Raisers' Association. For there could be no mistaking Stott; there could not be two men in the world, indeed, affected with voices such as his, and especially not in the small compass of Cottonwood and its tributary range.
But why wait for morning to go to Duncan's? The thought took hold of him with the eagerness of fire in dry grass. The desire to vindicate himself, and stand clean in the eyes of the men who had trusted him, was in his throat like a thirst. Duncan would return to Cottonwood with him; they could be there by the time Stott opened the bank in the morning.
Within half an hour Hartwell was on his way to Duncan's ranch, the cool night wind in his hot face as he galloped with free rein over the old cattle trail that led back into his native land.