The Sheriff of Badger Part 16

The days sped by and Hetty received a wire from Lafe, who was now in Cananea.

"No luck," it ran. "He's doubled back on me. Hope to pick up trail here."

But what transpired in Cananea deserves a place to itself. Even now Hetty does not like to hear any reference to the subject, and Lafe will eye her uneasily if it be mentioned.

CHAPTER XVII

JOHNSON MEETS A FRIEND OF HETTY'S

Should a man clutch at an imaginary wire that eludes him up the wall beside his bed, and take to raving and prayer, it raises a doubt as to recent conduct and habits. Hughie MacFarlane, rancher, age thirty-seven years, did all this and many other disagreeable things, and then died.

A considerable number of his acquaintances wagged their heads and remarked that the world would survive the loss--it was noticeable that those who had partaken most freely of Hughie's bounty were foremost in this line of epitaph. Others declaimed the plat.i.tude of the mealy-mouthed, that MacFarlane had been a big-hearted fellow, his own worst enemy. Within a week after the funeral, n.o.body in Cananea thought much about him one way or the other, and certain lapses in his notions of enjoyment were forgotten, for where there is no jury of public opinion, men grow tolerant of human frailty, and then lax. That is our way on the Border.

So everybody promptly forgot Hughie--all except a flame-headed girl at the Hotel Carmen, who sniffed a great deal when she leaned over your shoulder to put the steak and vegetables on the table, and whose voice was wet when she inquired whether you preferred your eggs straight up or over. She was not one to tempt a man to boldness, and none had ever found her desirable; but once, on his way from the bar to the dining-room, Hughie had given her a rough, laughing embrace. That was all, on my honor; but Molly remembered and worshiped the unregenerate creature, according to her nature. Finally she became such a nuisance, with her red eyes and general dampness of face, that the proprietor discharged Molly.

"Hughie was a fine feller when he first came here," Lafe Johnson remarked, in reference to this episode, "but he got to talking Mexican too good."

With which dark a.s.sertion he reared his feet to the rail of the Hotel Carmen veranda and lazily watched the hacks careen past down the hill.

Three weeks had elapsed since he started on the bandit's trail and he was apparently farther behind him than on the night Moffatt fled. After two days of close pursuit, during which Moffatt had twice doubled back, the sheriff had been able to obtain nothing better than rumors. These he followed up obstinately, and at last they led him to Cananea, where he rested, awaiting developments.

It was Sunday, and the cabs were doing a rushing business. Gentlemen of white skin, gentlemen of olive and brown, crowded into them and departed with an air of elation. Presently two cabs moved by at a parade pace.

Both were loaded to the axles with bull-fighters in tawdry velvet trappings. The matador, a person who perspired like a pat of b.u.t.ter on a warm day, doffed his hat unceasingly to admiring friends on the sidewalk. It was very hot and the time was noon.

"I hope that fat one gets horned," said Johnson, comfortably, to his neighbor. "What? You going to the fight? I can't stand to see them ol'

hosses ripped. Say, it beats me how white women can go there and sit through it. They chew gum all over the grand stand, too, them women do.

If my girl--if I had a woman--"

Incoming guests cut Mr. Johnson off. They arrived off the 10.10 train--two drummers, and a lank individual, very tanned, and stiff in his clothes, who proved to be a mining engineer about to start on a prospecting trip, and a woman. She was plump and had brown hair, and her dress was of deepest mourning. That much Lafe noted as she stepped from the cab, and he took his feet down and removed the cigar from his mouth.

She rustled up the steps and hurried inside without bestowing more than a flurried glance on the loungers.

Johnson was still resting there an hour later, meditating, when the landlord came out and held the screen open with a fine show of courtesy.

"Say, Lafe, I want you to shake hands with Mrs. MacFarlane," said the Hotel Carmen man. "This here lady's Hughie's wife. She wants to go out to the ranch. Mr. Johnson's sheriff of Badger, ma'am. It's like you've heard of him."

"I'll be right glad to look after you, ma'am," Johnson said soberly, shoving his chair forward.

Mrs. MacFarlane smiled in a manner curiously shy for a widow of thirty, and murmured something to the effect that she knew Mr. Johnson had been a friend of her Hugh's. This was not strictly true, but Lafe would not have denied it to her for a herd of graded stuff. He leaned against the railing and waited patiently to learn her wishes. She had come to claim Hughie's estate and to make certain that his--grave--here she started to cry soundlessly into a handkerchief--received proper care. All this was very painful and Johnson stirred restlessly. Whenever Mrs. MacFarlane made reference to her late husband, it was always as her "boy," and the tone was one of such restrained adoration that Lafe experienced a sinking feeling beneath his vest. Listening to her--she was decently reserved and her talk escaped in s.n.a.t.c.hes--he gathered that Hughie had been a great and n.o.ble man, which was an estimate of Hughie that never would have occurred to any of his acquaintances.

"The feller must have had a heap of good in him somewhere, Buf'lo," he told Shortredge that night. Jim was now engaged in the slaughtering business in Cananea. "A man can't make a woman like her care that a-way else."

"I don't know about that, Lafe. I don't know about that. I ain't so sh.o.r.e," said his friend. "It's most amazing how they kin forget everything when he's gone. They only remember li'l' things he done for 'em; things what a feller might do for a yallow dawg."

The trip across the mountains was a full day's drive, and Johnson was to call for Mrs. MacFarlane at dawn with a buckboard and a mule team. She kept him waiting forty minutes, but he pa.s.sed the time patiently, recalling that a certain female in Badger was wont to do the same thing.

This recollection brought a grin to his countenance, and may have been responsible for the solicitous manner with which he seated Mrs.

MacFarlane in the vehicle. They set out at the sober gait suited to a wearing drive. The landlord, after watching them for a while, remarked thoughtfully to the barkeeper that he hoped they would find everything all right.

"Hughie ought for to have told us he was married," he said slowly. "Yes.

He ought. I sure hope they'll find everything all right. She's an almighty fine woman."

The almighty fine woman settled back against the stiff leather seat and looked at the bleak wastes they were threading. Johnson eased his mules down the slopes, taking rare heed of the going. Ordinarily she would have been in terror of the perils of this climb-and-drop road, but the driver appeared to entertain no doubts and merely clucked at the hybrids or abused them in emotionless harangues. It must have begotten confidence, for she gave no more than the tiniest squeak when they shot abruptly from a shelf of rock and sped downward at a gallop, the buckboard leaping off rocks and ruts and banging at the mules' legs.

There was a sharp curve at the bottom of the descent, and for a wild moment Mrs. MacFarlane wondered if it were possible he perceived this.

"The brake's done bust," said Lafe, as though the matter were scarcely worth mention.

They took the curve on two wheels, sending sand and pebbles in all directions, and he pulled the team to a halt. Then he got out, handing the reins to her, for which she beamed on him. Johnson repaired the brakes with a bit of wood and some rope, and they went forward again.

"I done told ol' Biggerstaff that this brake was no good," he said.

"I'd mention it to him again," Mrs. MacFarlane suggested mildly.

He was very grateful, too, because she forbore to grab at the reins more than once in dangerous spots. The sparkling air and the stern beauty of the mountain country they entered seemed to soothe her. Soon she was chatting vivaciously, but when the sun climbed to his strength, her lids drooped. The talk became broken and lazily intimate. Suddenly Mrs.

MacFarlane sat up with a gasp.

"Why, I've just remembered. How on earth did I ever forget it? Hetty Ferrier!"

The widow p.r.o.nounced Hetty's name as a magician would a talisman. Lafe went very red in the face and asked in a constrained voice whether she knew that lady.

"Know her? I guess I do. Why, Hetty and my young sister were playmates.

She used to live where I come from. We heard from her and she told us--"

Mrs. MacFarlane did not state what Hetty had told them, but settled herself to study Lafe, with the privileged frankness conferred by her information. He bore the scrutiny well, giving all his attention to the mules, but he was thankful for the b.u.mps that distracted the widow and made her clutch his elbow to avoid being thrown out.

"Isn't it funny I shouldn't have thought about you and her before? It's a small world, isn't it? Of course she told me you were sheriff of Badger. You're a very lucky man, Mr. Johnson," she said.

Lafe could find no words for the moment. At last: "You see, ma'am, her and me are fixing to get married."

"Huh!" said the widow. "Did you think I didn't know that? How is Hetty?"

"She's fine, thanks."

"I don't need to ask if she's happy?"

"Happy as the dealer in a big jackpot," said the sheriff, much pleased.

The widow appeared to comprehend.

They drew near the ranch in late afternoon. The light is of a peculiar, velvety yellow then, and the mountains grow purple along their bases; farther up there are deep blue blurs; and the ragged rims show black against a glow. The widow exclaimed in rapture; then, apparently remembering her bereavement, a.s.sumed a look of sadness; and she made the last few miles of the journey in a gentle melancholy.

n.o.body appeared to welcome them. A tipsy Mexican lolled in a chair on the veranda, and another was making music for him on a guitar. From time to time the man in the rocker would nod approval and command a fresh tune. Near the corrals, about twenty natives were hi-yi-ing at the breaking of a horse.

When the majordomo perceived the buckboard, he put down his cup reluctantly, placed the bottle beside the leg of the chair and came to meet them. Lafe saw at once that a fortnight of authority and freedom from restraint had played havoc with the man. Nevertheless, he greeted them suavely, and when he learned who the pa.s.senger was, cried an order over his shoulder. Three or four men ran to take the mules.

"Aren't there any whites on the place?" asked Mrs. MacFarlane uneasily.

"Hughie, he done fired them all. Pete Harris used to be boss here, but him and Hughie had words over something, and Pete got his time."