Hidden Creek Part 23

There was that in his voice when he said this that touched Sheila's heart, profoundly. This restless, violent young adventurer, homeless, foot-loose, without discipline or duty, had turned to her in his trouble as instinctively as though she had been his mother. This, because she had once served him. Something stirred in Sheila's heart.

"And then," Hilliard went on, "I was going to get down to Arizona. But when I heard you were coming over into Hidden Creek, it seemed like foolishness to cut myself off from the country by running away from nothing. Of course there are ways to prove my ident.i.ty with those fellows. It only means putting up with a few days of pen." He gave a sigh. "But you can understand, ma'am, that this isn't just the horse that will give you quietest entrance into Rusty and that I'm not just one of the First Citizens."

"But," said Sheila, "if they see you riding in with me, they certainly won't shoot."

He laughed admiringly. "You're game!" he said. "But, Miss Arundel, they're not likely to do any more shooting. It's not a man riding into Rusty that they're after. It's a man riding out of Rusty. They'll know I'm coming to give myself up."

"I'll just stay here," said Sheila firmly.

"I can't let you."

"I'm too tired to walk. I'm too sleepy. It'll be all right."

"Then I'll walk." He pulled in his horse, but at the instant stiffened in his saddle and wheeled about on the road. A rattle of galloping hoofs struck the ground behind them; two riders wheeled and stopped. One drew close and held out his hand.

"Say, stranger, shake," he said. "We've been kickin' up the dust to beg your pardon. We got the real rustler this mornin' shortly after you left.

I'm plumb disgusted and disheartened with young Tommins for losin' his head an' shootin' off his gun. He's a dern fool, that kid, a regular tenderfoot. Nothin' won't ever cure him short of growin' up. Come from Chicago, anyway. One of them Eastern towns. I see he got you, too."

"Winged me," smiled Hilliard. "Well, I'm right pleased I won't have to spend another night in your pen."

"You're entered for drinks. The sheriff stands 'em." Here he bowed to Sheila, removing his hat.

"This lady"--Hilliard performed the introduction--"lost her horse on The Hill. She's aiming to stop at Rusty for to-night."

The man who had spoken turned to his silent companion. "Ride ahead, Shorty, why don't you?" he said indignantly, "and tell Mrs. Lander there's a lady that'll want to sleep in Number Five."

The other horseman, after a swift, searching look at Sheila, said "Sure," in a very mild, almost cooing, voice and was off. It looked to Sheila like a runaway. But the men showed no concern.

They jogged companionably on their way. Fifteen minutes later they crossed a bridge and pulled up before a picket fence and a gate.

They were in Rusty.

CHAPTER III

JOURNEY'S END

The social life of Rusty, already complicated by the necessity it was under to atone for a mistake, was almost unbearably discomposed by the arrival of a strange lady. This was no light matter, be it understood.

Hidden Creek was not a resort for ladies: and so signal an event as the appearance of a lady, a young lady, a pretty young lady, demanded considerable effort. But Rusty had five minutes for preparation. By the time Hilliard rode up to Lander's gate a representative group of citizens had gathered there. One contingent took charge of Hilliard--married men, a little unwilling, and a few even more reluctant elders, and led him to the bowl of reparation which was to wash away all memory of his wrongs.

The others, far the larger group, escorted Sheila up the twelve feet of board walk to the porch of hospitality filled by the ma.s.sive person of Mrs. Lander. On that brief walk Sheila was fathered, brothered, grandfathered, husbanded, and befriended and on the porch, all in the person of Mrs. Lander, she was mothered, sistered, and grandmothered. Up the stairs to Number Five she was "eased"--there is no other word to express the process--and down again she was eased to supper, where in a daze of fatigue she ate with surprising relish tough fried meat and large wet potatoes, a bowl of raw canned tomatoes and a huge piece of heavy-crusted preserved-peach pie. She also drank, with no effect upon her drowsiness, an enormous thick cupful of strong coffee, slightly tempered by canned milk. She sat at the foot of the long table, opposite Mr. Lander, a fat, sly-looking man whose eyes twinkled with a look of mysterious inner amus.e.m.e.nt, caused, probably, by astonishment at his own respectability. He had behind him a career of unprecedented villainy, and that he should end here at Rusty as the solid and well-considered keeper of the roadhouse was, no doubt, a perpetual tickle to his consciousness.

Down either side of the table were silent and impressive figures busy with their food. Courteous and quiet they were and beautifully uninquiring, except in the matter of her supplies. The yellow lamplight shone on brown bearded and brown clean-shaven faces, rugged and strong and clean-cut. These bared throats and thickly thatched heads, these faces, lighted by extraordinary, far-seeing brilliant, brooding eyes, reminded Sheila of a master's painting of The Last Supper--so did their coa.r.s.e clothing melt into the gold-brown shadows of the room and so did their hands and throats and faces pick themselves out in mellow lights and darknesses.

After the meal she dragged herself upstairs to Number Five, made scant use of nicked basin, spoutless pitcher, and rough clean towel, blew out her little shadeless lamp, and crept in under an immense, elephantine, grateful weight of blankets and patchwork quilts, none too fresh, probably, though the sheet blankets were evidently newly washed. Of muslin sheeting there was none. The pillow was flat and musty. Sheila cuddled into it as though it had been a mother's shoulder. That instant she was asleep. Once in the night she woke. A dream waked her. It seemed to her that a great white flower had blossomed in the window of her room and that in the heart of it was d.i.c.kie's face, tender and as pale as a petal. It drew near to her and bent over her wistfully. She held out her arms with a piteous longing to comfort his wistfulness and woke. Her face was wet with the mystery of dream tears. The flower dwindled to a small white moon standing high in the upper pane of one of the uncurtained windows. The room was full of eager mountain air. She could hear a water-wheel turning with a soft splash in the stream below. There was no other sound. The room smelt of snowy heights and brilliant stars. She breathed deep and, quite as though she had breathed a narcotic, slept suddenly again. This, before any memory of Hudson burned her consciousness.

The next morning she found that her journey had been carefully arranged.

Thatcher had come and gone. The responsibility for her further progress had been shifted to the shoulders of a teamster, whose bearded face, except for the immense humor and gallantry of his gray eyes, was startlingly like one of Albrecht Durer's apostles. Her bundle was in his wagon, half of his front seat was cushioned for her. After breakfast she was again escorted down the board walk to the gate. Mrs. Lander fastened a huge bunch of sweet peas to her coat and kissed her cheek. Sheila bade innumerable good-byes, expressed innumerable thanks. For Hilliard's absence Rusty offered its apologies. They said that he had been much entertained and, after the hurt he had suffered to his wrist, late sleep was a necessity. Sheila understood. The bowl of reparation had been emptied to its last atoning dregs. She mounted to the side of "Saint Mark," she bowed and smiled, made promises, gave thanks again, and waved herself out of Rusty at last. She had never felt so flattered and so warmed at heart.

"I'm agoin'," quoth Saint Mark, "right clost to Miss Blake's. If we don't overtake her--and that hoss of hers sure travels wonderful fast, somethin' wonderful, yes, ma'am, by G.o.d--excuse me, lady--it's sure surprisin' the way that skinny little hoss of hers will travel--why, I c'n take you acrost the ford. There ain't no way of gettin' into Miss Blake's exceptin' by the ford. And then I c'n take my team back to the road. From the ford it's a quarter-mile walk to Miss Blake's house. You c'n cache your bundle and she'll likely get it for you in the mornin'.

We had ought to be there by sundown. Her trail from the ford's clear enough. I'm a-takin' this lumber to the Gover'ment bridge forty mile up.

Yes, by G.o.d--excuse _me_, lady--it's agoin' to be jest a dandy bridge until the river takes it out next spring, by G.o.d--you'll have to excuse me again, lady."

He seemed rather mournfully surprised by the frequent need for these apologies. "It was my raisin', lady," he explained. "My father was a Methody preacher. Yes'm, he sure was, by G.o.d, yes--excuse me again, lady.

He was always a-prayin'. It kinder got me into bad habits. Yes, ma'am.

Those words you learn when you're a kid they do stick in your mind. By G.o.d, yes, they do--excuse _me_, lady. That's why I run away. I couldn't stand so much prayin' all the time. And bein' licked when I wasn't bein'

prayed at. He sure licked me, that dern son of a--Oh, by G.o.d, lady, you'll just hev to excuse me, please." He wiped his forehead. "I reckon I better keep still."

Sheila struggled, then gave way to mirth. Her companion, after a doubtful look, relaxed into his wide, bearded smile. After that matters were on an easy footing between them and the "excuse me, lady," was, for the most part, left to her understanding.

They drifted like a lurching vessel through the long crystal day. Never before this journey into Hidden Creek had time meant anything to Sheila but a series of incidents, occupations, or emotions; now first she understood the Greek impersonation of the dancing hours. She had watched the varying faces the day turns to those who fold their hands and still their minds to watch its progress. She had seen the gradual heightening of brilliance from dawn to noon, and then the fading-out from that high, white-hot glare, through gold and rose and salmon and purple, to the ashy lavenders of twilight and so into gray and the metallic, glittering coldness of the mountain night. It was the purple hour when she said good-bye to Saint Mark on the far side of a swift and perilous ford. She was left standing in the shadow of a near-by mountain-side while he rode away into the still golden expanse of valley beyond the leafy course of the stream. Hidden Creek had narrowed and deepened. It ran past Sheila now with a loud clapping and knocking at its cobbled bed and with an over-current of noisy murmurs. The hurrying water was purple, with flecks of lavender and gold. The trees on its banks were topped with emerald fire where they caught the light of the sun. The trail to Miss Blake's ranch ran along the river on the edge of a forest of pines. At this hour they looked like a wall into which some magic permitted the wanderer to walk interminably. Sheila was glad that she did not have to make use of this wizard invitation. She "cached" her bundle, as Saint Mark had advised, in a thicket near the stream and walked resolutely forward along the trail. Not even when her pony had left her on The Hill had she felt so desolate or so afraid.

She could not understand why she was here on her way to the ranch of this strange woman. She felt astonished by her loneliness, by her rashness, by the dreadful lack in her life of all the usual protections. Was youth meant so to venture itself? This was what young men had done since the beginning of time. She thought of Hilliard. His life must have been just such a series of disconnected experiments. Danger was in the very pattern of such freedom. But she was a girl, _only_ a girl as the familiar phrase expresses it--a seventeen-year-old girl. She was reminded of a pathetic and familiar line, "A woman naturally born to fears ..." A wholesome reaction to pride followed and, suddenly, an amusing memory of Miss Blake, of her corduroy trousers stuffed into boots, of her broad, strong body, her square face with its firm lips and masterful red-brown eyes; a very heartening memory for such a moment. Here was a woman that had adventured without fear and had quite evidently met with no disaster.

Sheila came to a little tumbling tributary and crossed it on a log. On the farther side the trail broadened, grew more distinct; through an opening in tall, gray, misty cottonwoods she saw the corner of a log house. At the same instant a dreadful tumult broke out. The sound sent Sheila's blood in a slapping wave back upon her heart. All of her body turned cold. She was fastened by stone feet to the ground. It was the laughter of a mob of d.a.m.ned souls, an inhuman, despairing mockery of G.o.d. It tore the quiet evening into shreds of fear. This house was a madhouse holding revelry. No--of course, they were wolves, a pack of wolves. Then, with a warmth of returning circulation, Sheila remembered Miss Blake's dogs, the descendants of the wolf-dog that had littered on the body of a dead man. Quarter-wolf, was it? These voices had no hint of the homely barking of a watchdog, the friend of man's loneliness! But Sheila braced her courage. Miss Blake made good use of her pack. They pulled her sled, winters, in Hidden Creek. They must then be partly civilized by service. If only--she smiled a desperate smile at the uncertainty--they didn't tear her to pieces when she came out from the shelter of the trees. There was very great courage in Sheila's short, lonely march through the little grove of cottonwood trees. She was as white as the mountain columbine. She walked slowly and held her head high. She had taken up a stone for comfort.

At the end of the trees she saw a house, a three-sided, one-storied building of logs very pleasantly set in a circle of aspen trees, backed by taller firs, toppling over which stood a great sharp crest of rocky ledges, nine thousand feet high, edged with the fire of sunset. At one side of the house eight big dogs were leaping at the ends of their chains. They were tied to trees or to small kennels at the foot of trees. And, G.o.d be thanked! Sheila let fall her stone--they were _all_ tied.

The door at the end of the nearest wing of the house opened and Miss Blake stood on the threshold and held up her hands. At sight of her the dogs stopped their howling instantly and cringed on their bellies or sat yawning on their bushy haunches. Miss Blake's resonant, deep voice seemed to pounce upon Sheila above the chatter of the stream which, running about three sides of the glade, was now, at the silence of the dogs, incessantly audible.

"Well, if it isn't the little barmaid!" cried Miss Blake, and advanced, wiping her hand on a white ap.r.o.n tied absurdly over the corduroy trousers and cowboy boots. "Well, if you aren't as welcome as the flowers in May! So you thought you'd leave the street-lamps and come take a look at the stars?"

They met and Sheila took the strong, square hand. She was afflicted by a sudden dizziness.

"That's it," she faltered; "this time I thought I'd try--the stars."

With that she fell against Miss Blake and felt, just before she dropped into blackness, that she had been saved by firm arms from falling to the ground.

CHAPTER IV

BEASTS

The city rippled into light. It bloomed, blossom on blossom, like some enchanted jungle under the heavy summer sky. d.i.c.kie sat on a bench in Washington Square. He sat forward, his hands hanging between his knees, his lips parted, and he watched the night. It seemed to him that it was filled with the clamor of iron-throated beasts running to and fro after their prey. The heat was a humid, solid, breathless weight--a heat unknown to Millings. d.i.c.kie wore his threadbare blue serge suit. It felt like a garment of lead.

There were other people on the benches--limp and sodden outlines. d.i.c.kie had glanced at them and had glanced away. He did not want to think that he looked like one of these--half-crushed insects,--bruised into immobility. A bus swept round the corner and moved with a sort of topheavy, tipsy dignity under the white arch. It was loaded with humanity, its top black with heads. "It ain't a crowd," thought d.i.c.kie; "it's a swarm." His eyes followed the ragged sky-line. "Why is it so horrible?" he asked himself--"horrible and beautiful and sort of poisonous--it plumb scares a fellow--" A diminished moon, battered and dim like a trodden silver coin, stood up above him. By tilting his head he could look directly at it through an opening in the dusty, electric-brightened boughs. The stars were pin-p.r.i.c.ks here and there in the dense sky. The city flaunted its easy splendor triumphantly before their pallid insignificance. Tarnished purities, forgotten ecstasies, burned-out inspirations--so the city shouted raucously to its faded firmament.

d.i.c.kie's fingers slid into his pocket. The moon had reminded him of his one remaining dime. He might have bought a night's lodging with it, but after one experience of such lodgings he preferred his present quarters.

In d.i.c.kie's mind there was no a.s.sociation of shame or ignominy with a night spent under the sky. But fear and ignominy tainted and clung to his memory of that other night. He had saved his dime deliberately, going hungry rather than admit to himself that he was absolutely at the end of his resources. To-morrow he would not especially need that dime.

He had a job. He would begin to draw pay. In his own phrasing he would "buy him a square meal and rent him a room somewhere." Upon these two prospects his brain fastened with a leech-like persistency. And yet above anything he had faced in his life he dreaded the job and the room.

The inspiration of his flight, the impulse that had sped him out of Millings like a fire-tipped arrow, that determination to find Sheila, to rehabilitate himself in her esteem, to serve her, to make a fresh start, had fallen from him like a dead flame. The arrow-flight was spent. He had not found Sheila. He had no way of finding her. She was not at her old address. Her father's friend, the Mr. Hazeldean that had brought Sylvester to Marcus's studio, knew nothing of her. Mrs. Halligan, her former landlady, knew nothing of her. d.i.c.kie, having summoned Mrs.

Halligan to her doorsill, had looked past her up the narrow, steep staircase. "Did she live away up there?" he had asked. "Yes, sorr. And 't was a climb for the poor little crayture, but there was days when she'd come down it like a burrd to meet her Pa." d.i.c.kie had faltered, white and empty-hearted, before the kindly Irishwoman who remembered so vividly Sheila's downward, winged rush of welcome. For several hours after his visit to the studio building he had wandered aimlessly about, then his hunger had bitten at him and he had begun to look for work. It was not difficult to find. A small restaurant displayed a need of waiters. d.i.c.kie applied. He had often "helped out" in that capacity, as in most others, at The Aura. He cited his experience, referred to Mr.

Hazeldean, and was engaged. The pay seemed to him sufficient to maintain life. So much for that! Then he went to his bench and watched the day pant itself into the night. His loneliness was a pitiful thing; his utter lack of hope or inspiration was a terrible thing.