The Trail Rider/Chapter 17
MRS. McCOY received Texas in subdued severity. She was a tall, dark woman, proud and handsome, an aristocrat in every line of her body, every tradition of her past. She was as strangely out of place in Cottonwood as a fine vase would have been on Malvina Noggle's shelf among the thick, chipped china at the green hotel. But not more aristocratic, nor high and mighty in her bearing, that evening than Texas Hartwell, indeed. He had not come to that house as a penitent or a culprit seeking exculpation, but as a gentleman who was sure of himself, across whose conscience not a shadow fell. He came as a champion, to give his earnest pledge that he would see the wrongs righted for both Sallie and himself before he left that town.
This he hastened to tell Mrs. McCoy, standing in the hall, where his features were clouded in the light of the candle that she carried. She stood very erect and dignified, and heard him through his brief and earnest introduction without comment.
"Step inside, sir; I will light the lamp," she said, indicating the open door of the living-room, the candle lifted shoulder-high as she studied his solemn face. She said no more until she had regulated the flame of the reading-lamp, which stood among disordered piles of books on the big library table as if a castle of them had fallen to ruin there.
"Miss McCoy cannot be seen, sir."
She seated herself, her face turned partly to the light, and looked across at Texas, unfriendly, hard, censorious.
"I am sorry, ma'am; I wished—"
"She is sick, the doctor has just left her side. She is crushed, Mr. Hartwell; her heart is broken by this great disgrace you have brought on her. You have brought it most thoughtlessly, sir, whether you are innocent or guilty of the charges which men lay to your door."
"Mrs. McCoy, ma'am—"
"A gentleman, sir, even a guilty one, would have thought twice before compromising a girl as young and unsophisticated as my daughter, by appearing in public at her side."
Hartwell was so deeply moved by her arraignment, soft-spoken, but cutting, and doubly cutting from the very refinement of her pose and speech, that he rose to his feet. He stood, tall and judicial before her, his somber coat well suited to the severe lines of his harsh, honest face.
"Ma'am, I don't feel any mortification for the part I took in Miss McCoy's innocent trip to the hay-meadow after flowers, ma'am. I don't feel anything but resentment for the narrow view these pore, ornery people have taken, ma'am, for she could walk by my side for a thousand years and never have cause to blush or turn her face away."
"A Tittle thought beforehand would have been much better than a great deal of declamation afterwards, Mr. Hartwell. You are a disgraced man in this community, sir; you are charged with the betrayal of a sacred trust, and you have not refuted it."
"I'll do it, ma'am, to the satisfaction of everybody. I came here to-night to tell you-all about something that I've found out, ma'am."
"Your private affairs are of no interest to my daughter or to me, sir."
"Since I have been the cause of so much distress—"
"The kindest thing you can do, sir, will be to leave Cottonwood at once, and carry your unfortunate taint with you."
"I can't leave under a taint, Mrs. McCoy. I have matters to adjust here when a certain man returns."
Texas spoke so earnestly, his face was so stern, that she looked up at him with a quick and frightened start.
"Killing men, Mr. Hartwell, never will clear you of the charge that stands against you, nor wipe away the disgrace that has come to this house through you. For Heaven's sake, go—leave Cottonwood—without making any more trouble!"
Texas was hurt to the marrow by her unwillingness to believe him, by her harping on the one string of his taint, and the sorrow that had come from it to her door. He felt that there was no use in going into the matter of Henry Stott's connection with his unfortunate entanglement, no profit in remaining there another minute in fruitless attempt to place himself in a more favorable light. Perhaps if Sallie had been there it would have been different. But Sallie was tossing that moment on her bed, burning in the fever of the first shame that ever had come into her life.
"You are a man of violence, Mr. Hartwell, you came into my daughter's notice by a violent deed. What can an outcast man, such as your doings in this country have made you, hope to gain by further violence? Surely not vindication!"
"It's guilty folks that talk of vindication, mainly, ma'am. I want justice."
"And my poor daughter—who will give her justice?"
"I thought of waitin' on the school-board, or at least a part of them, ma'am."
The proposal alarmed Mrs. McCoy. She exclaimed sharply against it, starting to her feet, confronting him with panic in her eyes.
"It would only make it worse! No, no! The kindest deed you can do will be to leave Cottonwood at once."
"If I could bring peace back to Miss McCoy by going, ma'am—"
"We might be able to fix matters up—I might get her place back for her, if you were out of the way."
Texas stood a little while, his head bowed, the weight of his contemplation heavy upon him.
"But I can't leave for a few days," he said, his voice scarcely above his breath, as if he communed with himself. Then frankly to her: "I'll not promise you to leave, Mrs. McCoy, proud as I'd be to oblige you. I've set out to clear myself before these cattlemen, and I'm a going to do it. When it's done, and you folks get your eyes open and see me right, I'll bid you fare-you-well."
"It was an unfortunate wind that blew you here."
"Ma'am, it was so. If it wasn't for Uncle Boley—"
"That poor, simple old man! Do you want to ruin him, too—don't you know he must suffer ruin if you keep on hanging around him?"
"I've discussed that with him, ma'am. His heart's too big for the little house he lives in, ma'am; he's a gentleman from the ground up."
"Don't bring disaster to him in his old age, then. His business will suffer the minute the cattlemen hear he's standing up for you, the poor old simpleton!"
"Good night, ma'am," said Texas shortly, starting for the door.
He was affronted by her interpretation of Uncle Boley's loyalty to him. Simpleton, indeed! If she could have seen that old man's face when he came back from Stott's bank—but it was useless to burn himself out with such thoughts. He stopped in the hall and faced her solemnly.
"Mrs. McCoy, you'd have been further disgraced through me if it hadn't been for Uncle Boley," he said.
"Sir?"
"It was at Uncle Boley's hint that I waited till after dark to come here and see you and try to fetch a little comfort and cheer to you and Miss McCoy, ma'am. If it hadn't been for him I'd 'a' rushed off up here in broad daylight. And I never was a man that shunned the light of day before in my life. I'll seek you no more, and trouble you no more. If there's any seekin' to be done, ma'am, it will come from the other side."
"If either my daughter or I need you, Mr. Hartwell, we'll call you," said she, with polite contempt. She opened the door. "Good-night, sir, and good-by."
Texas left that house with a feeling that he never had carried away from a house before in his life—a feeling of chastisement, of blame. Truly, he was an outcast in Cottonwood and the Arkansas Valley range, hopeless of ever setting things right. Perhaps it would be best for everybody but himself if he would leave Cottonwood at once, as Mrs. McCoy had suggested.
With him out of the way the sky would clear immediately for Sallie. Her discharge had been a stroke by Stott to get him out of the country, and doubtless the hint had been conveyed to her mother that all would be forgotten if he would leave Cottonwood, never to return. Stott was uncomfortable with him there. It had been Stott's intention to leave him bound in the thicket by Clear Creek until he perished, and he never had expected to see him back in Cottonwood with his dangerous secret.
And there was Uncle Boley, defiant, bold, courting the displeasure of his patrons every hour. Mrs. McCoy had spoken truly; his hanging on under the protection of the old man would mean the ruin of his business. All considered, perhaps it would be the bravest, the wisest, and the best thing to do to pick up and leave that night.
But the story of his treason would follow him as far as men rode after cattle, along with the disgrace of having fled under Dee Winch's threat. He might leave present trouble, and clear the atmosphere for those behind him, but he would walk out into deeper disgrace himself. He would be like a man with an untried indictment against him on some hideous charge, the knowledge of which would cause men to shun him like a leper.
He was all but isolated by his trouble, and his final conclusion was, as he pondered the situation, that running away would not brighten his surroundings. It bore on him with oppression, like an old sorrow, or a family wrong which honor demanded him to avenge, but some insuperable obstacle made impossible to effect. Added to this was the melancholy that had steeped him like a fog since the message came from Winch. There was a brand on him, and a taint which the wind carried abroad. He was a listening man.
It was in such bitterness of mind that he came past Ollie Noggle's shop, and crossed the barber's way as he turned from locking his front door. It was a late and quiet hour for the business block of Cottonwood, and the street was empty at that moment, but Noggle looked round him with what appeared to be an apprehensive sweep before speaking to Hartwell, who had paused waiting the barber's approach.
Hartwell thought he was exploring around for sight of his dreaded enemy, Zeb Smith. Noggle, he noticed, was armed with a revolver that looked rather small in comparison with his length of limb. He kept putting back the skirt of his seersucker coat to show the weapon, which had a mother-ofpearl handle, and was slung in a holster of patent leather.
"Hi're y'u?" said Noggle, still turning his look up and down the street, an air of abstraction and uneasiness about him altogether strange.
"Middlin'," Texas replied. "Was you headin' for home?"
"Ye-es," allowed the barber, standing with his revolver showing under the street light, looking this way and that, his mind plainly not on his answer.
"I'm headin' down that di-rection," said Texas.
Noggle did not make any move to fall in for the march to Malvina's embrace. He stood teetering on his long legs like some kind of insect stuck in glue, watching around him with an air of suspicion and fear that spoke little for his confidence in his gun.
"Well, I tell you, Hartwell," said he, "I was just a thinkin', you know, that maybe you'd better go on ahead, or let me go on ahead, you know. You know, you ain't in very good standin' here in Cottonwood, Hartwell, and it's apt to hurt my business to be seen out with you, you know."
He hummed and hawed a good deal in getting it out, and shifted from leg to leg like an embarrassed schoolgirl. Texas felt the blood come hot into his face, and his scorn for this chicken-headed shaver of gritty chins knocking at his teeth for utterance. He held himself in with an effort, and managed to speak without a tremor, although he flavored his words with a dash of contempt which was lost on Noggle as completely as a drop of his perfume would have been overwhelmed in a barrel of tar.
"I wouldn't take a shave away from you for a million dollars, or more," Texas said. "I'll go ahead, for I'm in a hurry to go to bed. It'll count more for you to have folks think you're chasin' me than that I'm a chasin' you."
"All right, Hartwell. A man's got to look out for number one, you know, specially if he's got a wife dependin' on him."
Hartwell did not feel that he could be trusted to make comment on that plea. He hurried off toward the hotel, where he was in earnest conversation with Malvina when Noggle came grinning in at the office door.
"Was somebody sayin' you'd hurt my business if you stayed on here at the hotel, Mr. Hartwell?" Malvina demanded, rather severely, at that moment.
Noggle stopped when the words hit him, and jerked back like a foolish horse rearing against the halter; The animated triumph which suffused his narrow face over the feat of threading alone the perils of the streets faded out of him, leaving him the color of a boiled ear of corn.
"No, ma'am; nobody was sayin' that in so many words, ma'am," Texas replied; "but takin' the events of the day to base my judgment on, it might turn out thataway."
"Wait till it does," said she, with firm and lofty finality.
"I think it will be the wisest thing for me to pack out of here, and bring no trouble to your door, Mrs. Noggle," Texas maintained. "I seem to leave a trail of bad luck behind me, and you-all have been so kind to me here I'd rather cut my arm off than cause you to lose a dollar."
Malvina was behind the counter, her round white arms resting on the showcase, her round, freckled face as full of softness and good-nature as a human countenance could contain. Noggles came up and cleared his throat.
"I expect if he wants to leave, Malvina, you'd better let him," he suggested.
"What's bitin' you?" said Malvina, not even turning her eyes in her husband's direction.
Texas could not forbear landing one little dig, one little barb of discomfort, in Noggle's perfumed hide.
"Even your husband is afraid to be seen on the street with me any more," said he.
Malvina turned to Noggle now with fire in her eyes.
"Oh, he is, is he?"
"If it would hurt his business, ma'am, what might my stoppin' here in the ho—tel do to yours?"
Malvina took her arms down from the showcase, and came round from behind the counter. The color was gone out of her face, and her eyes were very bright.
"Mr. Hartwell, maybe there are some people in the world little enough to put business above gratitude," said she, never turning an eye toward her wilted, shifting husband; "but I'm not one of that kind."
She faced Noggle, burning him with a look that made him squirm.
"Maybe you're afraid to be seen on the street with Mr. Hartwell, but I ain't! I ain't afraid to be seen anywhere with him; I'd go to—"
"Well, Malvina, a man's got to think of his business, you know."
"Yes, and I'd let him have room and board in this house if the last cow-man on the range turned from the door on account of it, and I'd tell 'em all to go straight to hell!"
"Well, Malvina, you know—"
"I'd give him my last dollar if he wanted it, and if that wasn't enough I'd go out and borrow more! As far as I'm concerned they can all go straight—"
"So would I!" said Mrs. Goodloe, coming into the dining-room door, her arms red from dishwater, her apron wet from the splashings of it.
"The trouble with people in this town is they don't know a man when they see one," Malvina declared; "that's what the trouble with these rundowns is!"
Texas took off his hat and gave Malvina his hand.
"Ma'am, I'm proud to know you!" he said. He stepped over to Mrs. Goodloe and shook hands with her. "And you, too, ma'am—I'm proud to know you both."
Noggle stood rubbing the back of his hand across his big mustache, no doubt feeling something like an outsider in the midst of his own family. He was well enough broken-in already to offer no further comment. All he did was stretch hugely, gape amazingly, and take off his little dove-gray hat and try to look unconcerned as became a valiant man with a thirty-two caliber pistol at his belt.
"Gosh! I'm as tired as a wet dog," he said.
"You better go to bed, then," said Malvina, at no pains to cover her displeasure with her new mate.
Noggle acted on the suggestion at once, heaving himself off up-stairs on his long, ostrich legs, his light trousers making quite an elegant showing as they flickered between the balusters. Malvina shifted the register, and dusted the place where it had lain with her apron, saying nothing until Noggle's feet had sounded along the uncarpeted hall overhead and come to silence.
"There was a man here lookin' for you a little while before you came in, Mr. Hartwell," she said.
"Did you know who he was?"
"No, he was a stranger to me—a little dark man off of the range somewhere. Well, I don't know all of 'em—new ones is comin' in all the time. He said he'd be back."
"I'll set outside by the door and wait for him, thank you, ma'am."
"Don't you mention it," returned Malvina with such stress of earnestness that it was almost a threat. "Wouldn't you like a cup of coffee and a piece of pie?"
"Thank you, ma'am, most kindly, but I'm so full of trouble I ain't got room for anything else. I don't feel like I want to eat again for seven or eight years."
"It'll all come out right—don't you worry over it, Mr. Hartwell."
"For my own part I can carry it; but look what I've brought on Miss Sallie McCoy, ma'am."
Malvina was wiping the showcase with her apron now, her head behind it, her face hidden.
"You was up there to see them this evening, wasn't you?"
"Yes, I called in on 'em for a minute."
"I heard they had the doctor for Sallie."
"So her mother told me, ma'am."
"It's a shame the way the school-board treated that girl! But it's nothing to get sick over—she knows she wasn't hurt nor spoilt by bein' seen walkin' along the street with you. It's foolish, plumb foolish!"
"But knowin' he's to blame for trouble like that is as draggin' on a man as a broken leg, ma'am. When did that man say he'd be back?"
"In a little while, he said."
"I'll set out in the cool of the night and wait for him, and thank you most generous for all your kindness to a footless stranger like me, ma'am."
Texas went out and sat on the bench along the hotel wall. There was a little space between the sidewalk and the building, and he sat in the shadow where he could see readily but be seen indistinctly. He was troubled over this stranger's presence in Cottonwood, for he believed it must be some messenger from Winch with a fresh taunt and defiance, or from Duncan, bearing word that would add to his unrest.