The Mesa Trail Part 14

Thady Shea sat and stared into the fire. He did not take the hint to retail his story. He was suddenly thinking.

Memory worked within him. "It ain't lack of ambition that makes folks mis'able and unsatisfied; it's lack o' purpose!" Mrs. Crump had said those words, and they had been burned into Shea's brain. Purpose, indeed! What purpose now lay ahead, except the vague desire to rehabilitate himself? To become a vagrant with this tramp printer-why, this would be to shake off all the shackles of purpose! Yet, what else was there to do? What could be done, except to evade the law which by this time must be seeking him?

His head drooped. Was some higher Power extending its hand against him, closing every avenue of escape from his old drifting existence, forcing him back into vagrancy? His eyes widened under the thought. The thought staggered him. Then, slowly, his mouth tightened, his wide lips drew firmly clenched. A flush of fever darkened his high cheekbones.

Very well; he would go on fighting! For once the superst.i.tious nature of the man was borne down by his inward anger, was borne down by the impotent feeling that he was a p.a.w.n in Destiny's game; he rebelled against it. He rebelled against everything.

"By heaven, I'll _make_ a purpose!" he mentally vowed. "I'll look for one-find one-fight for one!"

Even as the words rose in him, he choked down a vague feeling that they were false and erroneous, a feeling that this purpose could not be sought, but must seek him out, must come to him of itself. Yet he choked down the feeling, repulsed it. He reiterated his mental vow, fiercely insistent upon it.

All this while the ancient had been droning something about the beauties of the old flat-bed presses, and the goshly-gorfulness of machine printing. Now Shea became aware of a more personal note in the droning.

"If I was you," and the ancient chuckled in his dirty white beard, transfixing Thady Shea with his one bright-blue eye, "if I was you, I'd grow whiskers!

"They's places and places I can't never go no more without these here whiskers. Yes, they is! I'm a sinful man an' proud of it; mebbe ye think I'm old, but I can show you young fellers a thing or two, he, he! Grow whiskers, Thady. You can take 'em with ye to go a-sinning, and then go back over the same trail without 'em, and n.o.body the wiser!"

Shea's gorge rose. He suddenly saw Dad Griffith as the latter really was-a foul old man, a worthless wastrel of humanity, seemingly dead to all higher things. He grew afraid for himself; he was vaguely alarmed, as though he had touched some slimy, crawling thing in the darkness. He came to his feet with an impellent desire to crush this unholy man like a toad, to flee into the night, to lie under the stars and seek clearance for his troubles. However, he did none of these things. Shea reached for his pipe, filled it, lighted it with an ember from the fire.

Here he got a new sensation-the tang and sweetness of an ember-lighted pipe!

"Let's be moving," said Thady Shea, crisply. "It's a fine night."

An hour later they were plodding along, sharing the load of provisions.

Thady Shea was quite aware that something was wrong with him in the body, but he felt no definite pain. It was an errant "something" which he could not place, and which he was too uplifted in spirit to heed.

The night wore on. With every step, Thady Shea was learning from the lore of Dad Griffith. He was learning the worldly wise lore of the roads-to walk with straight feet, to carry his body uphill on bended knees, to take the high side of a wet trail. The ancient talked continually, eternally. The ancient seemed to like Thady Shea immensely.

Some time after midnight they left the road by a faint and unknown trail, followed it until they were weary, and then camped. Griffith had a pair of tattered blankets. Thady Shea refused to share them; he slept in his clothes. When he wakened at sunrise his head was heavy with fever. A mile distant the ancient descried a creek, and they moved over to it for the day. Thady Shea felt peculiar, and detailed his symptoms, whereupon the ancient produced a tattered little case of leather. He opened the case and disclosed three vials.

"All the med'cine a man needs, I claim," he declared. "Middle one's quinine; right's physic; left's physic again, only more so. Take your choice, one or all!"

"Give me the more so," said Thady, who felt miserable in the extreme.

The ancient began to look alarmed. His one intensely blue eye shone with an uneasy light. His continual talk became querulous. After a time he forced Thady Shea to continue their progress; the trail, said he, must lead them to a ranch. Groaning, Shea protested; but presently he yielded to the urgings of Griffith. The two men followed the trail.

There was a man named Fred Ross, who had homesteaded a canon in the hills beyond the Datils. Thus far unmarried, although he had his hopes, he lived alone; a hard, rough man, kindly at heart, redly wrinkled of face, and keenly alert of eye, he shot beaver and turkey when the forest rangers were not around, and fared well. Indeed, he was wont to say that he was the last man in the United States to know the taste of that succulent morsel, a beaver's tail.

Fred Ross was plowing on the flat behind his shack when he observed the approach of a tattered old man who moved in trembling haste. Having no liking for tramps, Ross set his hands on his hips and met the visitor with a vigilant eye.

"Well?" he snapped. "Who in time are _you_?"

"Don't matter 'bout me, mister," said the other, agitatedly pawing a long and dirty white beard. "A friend o' mine is down the canon a ways, plumb petered out. He was took sick last night-I reckon he's got a touch o' fever. D'you s'pose you could let him lay somewheres-mebbe in that cowshed yonder?"

"You be d.a.m.ned, you old fool," said Ross, harshly. "I ain't got no room for sick men in my shed-which ain't no cowshed, neither. Where is he?"

"He-he give out by them trees," faltered Dad Griffith, backing away. "I got a little money, mister--"

"You be blistered, you an' your money!" roared Ross. "I don't want no tramps around here, savvy? I got trouble of my own. Let's have a look at this friend o' yours-if you-all are tryin' any skin game on _me_, look out!"

He strode forward, and Dad Griffith fluttered away. After him strode Ross. Ten minutes later they came to the gaunt figure of Thady Shea lying beneath some scrub oaks and muttering faintly. Ross leaned over him then straightened up and faced the ancient.

"You-on your way!" he said, roughly, "I'll take care o' this feller, but I don't aim to keep two of ye."

"Devil take ye, I don't want none of ye!" quavered Griffith in querulous anger. "I'm goin' to Magdalena to get me a job; you tell him so when he can travel, ye goshly-gorful old ranch hand!"

Disdaining a response, Ross stooped; after some effort, he got Thady Shea in the "fireman's grip" and staggered erect, the delirious man still muttering. He turned and walked toward his shack, striding heavily under the burden. Dad Griffith hesitated, then wagged his beard-he did not deem it wise to follow.

"Hey!" he lifted his voice after the departing rancher. "You be good to him, hear me? Mind my words, if ye ain't good to him I'll-I'll come back and burn ye out some night!"

Ross paid no heed but strode on out of sight. Dad Griffith shook his fist in senile rage, then slowly, and with a sigh, turned about and started in the opposite direction.

The shack which Ross had built, antic.i.p.ating matrimony, was a two-room affair with a lean-to kitchen. Grunting beneath his load, Ross stooped into the house and deposited Thady Shea upon an iron bed.

Ross came erect, panting, and stared down at Shea's fever-flushed features. He scratched his head, as though in perplexity, and his eyes were suddenly very kindly.

"Poor devil!" he said, being a man who talked much to himself. "Poor devil! Got a real good face, too. What in time can I do? The car's broke down and there's no doctor closer'n Magdalena anyhow. Well, I never knowed whiskey to fail curin' any trouble, and I guess a bit o' quinine will help out. Thank the Lord I got whiskey to burn!"

He went to a cupboard in the corner and drew forth a wicker demijohn, a new demijohn, a demijohn that hung heavy in his hand. Upon the chair beside the bed he put a big crockery cup, thick and heavy. He poured whiskey into it; he filled it nearly to the brim with raw red liquor; a ray of sunlight fell upon the cup and made it seem filled with rich thin blood.

"Just for a starter," murmured Ross. "Now the quinine."

The hours pa.s.sed, and darkness fell. Ross went out to stable and bed down his team. He came back, ate, resumed his vigil.

Ross was starkly amazed by his muttering patient. Cup upon cup of whiskey and quinine he poured down the gaunt man's throat; the man drank it like water, avidly, without visible effect. He seemed to soak up the raw red liquid as a sponge soaks up water. It seeped down his throat and was gone.

"My Lord!" exclaimed Ross at last, awed despite himself. "The man ain't human!"

Thady Shea was human; although invisible, the effect was there. Through the hours of darkness his sonorous voice rose and filled the shack. He spoke of things past the understanding of the watching Ross. He used strange names-names like Ophelia or Rosalind or Desdemona; at times pa.s.sion shook his voice, a fury of resonant pa.s.sion; at times his words trembled with grief, his rolling words quavered and surged with a vehemently agonized utterance, until the listening Ross felt a vague ache wrenched into his own throat.

About midnight, Thady Shea fell asleep. It was a deep, full slumber, a slumber of stertorous breathing, a sound and absolute slumber, a drunken slumber. Thady Shea lay motionless except for his deeply heaving chest.

His hands, face, and body were glistening wet, were wet with perspiration that streamed from him, were wet with salty sweat oozing from his fever-baked flesh. Fred Ross turned out the lamp and climbed into a bunk in the corner.

"That ends it," he said, drowsily. "He'll sweat out the fever and sleep off the whiskey, and wake up cured. Can't beat whiskey! Cures everything!"

Upon the following morning Ross returned from his ch.o.r.es to find Thady Shea still l.u.s.tily snoring, the fever gone. He got breakfast and departed to his work, leaving the coffee ready to hand. From time to time he came in from the nearer end of the flat to inspect his patient.

He was a big man, a rough-tongued man, a deep-hearted man.

Thady Shea wakened to an uncomfortable sensation. He dimly and vaguely recognized the sensation; he was bewildered and frightened by it. He had felt that uncomfortable sensation many times in his life, always on the morning after a night spent with the jorum.

He tried to sit up, and succeeded, only to close his eyes before a blinding wave of pain. A headache? It went with the other symptoms, of course. He had no remembrance of drinking. Indeed, he had a fierce remembrance of having meant never to drink again. Where was he and how had he come here? His last memory was of trees, and the ancient helping him as he sank down. He looked around; the strange room bewildered him.

He was maddeningly conscious that his body, his soul, his whole being, was a soaked and impregnated thing, soaked and impregnated with whiskey.

His body cried out for more whiskey, his soul writhed within him for more whiskey. His haggard gaze fell upon a cup, on a chair at his bedside. He reached out and picked up the cup. It was half full of bitter whiskey, and a bottle of powdered quinine explained the bitterness.

Even then, Shea hesitated. He hesitated, but he could not resist. No living man could have resisted the fearful outcry of body and soul upon such an awakening. It was no mere craving. It was a tumultuous, riotous, lawless eagerness-a fierceness for whiskey, an awful tormenting pa.s.sion for whiskey such as he had never before known. That was because of the flood that had seeped and soaked through his whole being. The raw red liquor like thin blood had permeated all his body tissues and nerves, as water permeates the sun-dried earth, leaving it not the hard white earth but the brown soft mud. The earth dries again and cracks open, calling avidly for more water. So with Thady Shea's body and soul.

He drank gulpingly, until the cup was empty. He sat down the cup; it was a heavy cup of thick crockery. His nostrils quivered to the smell of coffee. He began to take in his surroundings, to realize them, to appraise them. He began to understand that he must have been drunk.

Drunk! Who was responsible?