THE EAGLE’S WING
By B. M. Bower
Good Indian
Lonesome Land
The Ranch at the Wolverine
The Flying U’s Last Stand
The Heritage of the Sioux
Starr, of the Desert
Cabin Fever
Skyrider
Rim o’ The World
The Quirt
Cow-Country
Casey Ryan
The Trail of the White Mule
The Voice at Johnnywater
The Parowan Bonanza
The Eagle’s Wing
[Illustration: The man in the distance ducked out of sight amongst the
bowlders.]
THE EAGLE’S WING
A STORY OF THE COLORADO
BY B. M. BOWER
WITH FRONTISPIECE BY FRANK TENNEY JOHNSON
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1924
Copyright, 1924,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
All rights reserved
Published February, 1924
Printed in the United States of America
To the American Eagle,
fighting always the Vultures of the earth;
whose protective wing extends even into the
desert lands; whose shadow has fallen upon
the great river, this story of the Colorado is
loyally inscribed.
B. M. B.
CONTENTS
I. King, of the Mounted
II. Johnny Buffalo Bears Another Message
III. “My Heart is Dead”
IV. Rawley Reads the Bible
V. A City Forsaken
VI. Trails Meet
VII. Nevada
VIII. “Him That is--Mine Enemy”
IX. “A Pleasant Trip to You!”
X. A Family Tree
XI. Rawley Thinks Things Out
XII. Rawley Plays the Game
XIII. The Colorado
XIV. The Vulture Screams
XV. The Land of Splendid Dreams
XVI. Rawley Investigates
XVII. Changed Relations
XVIII. The Johnny Buffalo Uprising
XIX. The Eagle Strikes
XX. Nevada Analyzes
XXI. The Truth About Riches
XXII. Greater Than Gold
XXIII. The Eagle Looks Upon a Great River
XXIV. Anita
XXV. The Eagle and the Vulture
XXVI. “Take This Fighting Squaw Away!”
XXVII. “You Tell Hoover I Said So!”
XXVIII. The Vulture Makes Terms with the Eagle
XXIX. Fate Has Decreed
XXX. Dawn and the River
XXXI. The Vulture Feasts
XXXII. Another Rescue
XXXIII. The Eagle’s Wing
THE EAGLE’S WING
CHAPTER ONE
KING, OF THE MOUNTED
On the wide south porch of the house where he had been born, Rawley King sat
smoking his pipe in the dusk heavy with the scent of a thousand roses. The
fragrant serenity of the great, laurel-hedged yard of the King homestead was
charming after the hot, empty spaces of the desert. Even the somber west wing
of the brooding old house seemed wrapped in the peace that enfolds lives
moving gently through long, uneventful months and years. The smoke of his pipe
billowed lazily upward in the perfumed air; incense burned by the prodigal son
upon the home altar after his wanderings.
The old Indian, Johnny Buffalo, came walking straight as an arrow across the
strip of grass beside the syringa bushes that banked the west wing. Rawley
straightened and stared, the bowl of his pipe sagging to the palm of his hand.
As far back as he could remember, none had ever crossed that space of clipped
grass to hold speech with the Kings. But now Johnny Buffalo walked steadily
forward and halted beside the porch.
“Your grandfather say you come,” he announced calmly and turned back to the
somber west wing.
Sheer amazement held Rawley motionless for a moment. Until the Indian spoke to
him he had almost forgotten the strangeness of that hidden, remote life of his
grandfather. From the time he could toddle, Rawley had been taught that he
must not go near the west wing of the house or approach the brooding old man
in the wheel chair. As for the Indian who served his grandfather, Rawley had
been too much afraid of him to attempt any friendly overtures. There had been
vague hints that Grandfather King was not quite right in his mind; that a
brooding melancholy held him, and that he would suffer no one but his Indian
servant near him. Now, after nearly thirty years of studied aloofness, his
grandfather had summoned him.
The Indian was waiting in the shadowed west porch when Rawley tardily arrived
at the steps. He turned without speaking and opened the door, waiting for
Rawley to pass. Still dumb with astonishment, a bit awed, Rawley crossed the
threshold and for the first time in his life stood in the presence of his
grandfather.
A powerful figure the old man must have been in his youth. Old age had shrunk
him, had sagged his shoulders and dried the flesh upon his bones; but years
could not hide the breadth of those shoulders or change the length of those
arms. His eyes were piercingly blue and his lips were firm under the drooping
white mustache. His snow-white hair was heavy and lay upon his shoulders in
natural waves that made it seem heavier than it really was,--just so he had
probably worn it in the old, old days on the frontier. His eyebrows were
domineering and jet black, and the whole rugged countenance betrayed the
savage strength of the spirit that dwelt back of his eyes. But the great,
gaunt body stopped short at the knees, and the gray blanket smoothed over his
lap could not hide the tragic mutilation; nor could the great mustache conceal
the bitter lines around his mouth.
“Back from Arizona, hey?” he launched abruptly at Rawley, and his voice was
grim as his face.
Rawley started. Perhaps he expected a cracked, senile tone; it would have
fitted better the tradition of the old man’s mental weakness.
“Just got back to-day, Grandfather.” Instinctively Rawley swung to a
matter-of-fact manner, warding off his embarrassment over the amazing
interview.
“Mining expert, hey? Know your business?”
“Well enough to be paid for working at it,” grinned Rawley, trying
unsuccessfully to keep his eyes from straying curiously around the room filled
with ancient trophies of a soldier’s life half a century before.
“Not much like your father! I’ll bet he couldn’t have told you the meaning of
the words. Damned milksop. Bank clerk! Not a drop of King blood in his
body--far as looks and actions went. Guess he thought gold grew on bushes,
stamped with the date of the harvest!”
“I remember him vaguely. He never seemed well or strong,” Rawley defended his
dead father.
“Never had the King make-up. Only weakling the Kings ever produced--and he had
to be _my_ son! Take a look at that picture on the bureau. That’s what I mean
by King blood. Johnny, give him the picture.”
The Indian moved silently to a high chest of drawers against the farther wall
and lifted from it an enlarged, framed photograph, evidently copied from an
earlier crude effort of some pioneer in the art. He placed it reverently in
Rawley’s hands and retreated to a respectful distance.
“Taken before I started out with Moorehead’s expedition in ’59. Six feet two
in my bare feet, and not an ounce of soft flesh in my body. Not a man in the
company I couldn’t throw. Johnny could tell you.” A note of pride had crept
into the old man’s voice.
“I can see it, Grandfather. I--I’d give anything to have been with you in
those days. Lord, what a physique!”
The fierce old eyes sparkled. The bony fingers gripped the arms of the wheel
chair like steel claws.
“That’s the King blood. Give me two legs and I’d be a King yet, old as I
am--instead of a hunk of meat in a wheel chair.”
“It’s the spirit that counts, Grandfather,” Rawley observed hearteningly, his
eyes still on the picture but lifting now to the old man’s face. “The
picture’s like you yet.”
The old man grunted doubtfully, his eyes fixed sharply upon Rawley’s face. His
fingers drummed restlessly upon the arm of his chair, as if he were seeing in
the young man his own care-free youth, and was yearning over it in secret.
Indeed, as he stood there in the light of the old-fashioned lamp, Rawley King
might have been mistaken for the original of the picture with the costume set
fifty years ahead.
“Johnny, get the box.” Grandfather King spoke without taking his eyes off
Rawley.
The old Indian slipped away. In a moment he returned with a square metal box
which he placed on the old man’s knees. Rawley found himself wondering what
his mother would say when he told her that Grandfather King had sent for him,
was actually talking to him, giving him a glimpse of that sealed past of his.
He watched his grandfather fit a key into the lock of the metal box.
“You’re a King, thank God. I’ve watched you grow. Six feet and over, and no
water in _your_ blood, by the looks. You’re like I was at your age. Johnny
knows. He can remember how I looked when I had two legs. Here. You take
these--they’re yours, and all the good you can get out of them. Read ’em both.
Read ’em till you get the good that’s in ’em. If you’re a King, you’ll do it.”
He held out two worn little books. Rawley took them, eyeing them queerly. One
was a Bible, the old-fashioned, leather-bound pocket size edition, with a
metal clasp. The other book was smaller; a diary, evidently, with a leather
band going around, the end slipping under a flap to hold it secure.
“I will--you bet!” Rawley made his voice as hearty as his puzzlement would
permit. “Thanks, Grandfather.”
“I meant ’em for your father--but he wasn’t the man to get anything out of ’em
worth while. A milksop--wore spectacles before he wore pants! His idea of
success was to shove money out to other people through a grated window. Paugh!
When he told me that was his ambition, I came near burning the books. Johnny
could tell you. He stopped me--only time in his life he ever stuck his foot
through the wheel of my chair and anchored me out of reach of the fire. Out of
reach of my guns, too, or I’d have killed him maybe! Johnny said, ‘You wait.
Maybe more Kings come--like Grandfather.’
“So I did wait, and after a while I could watch you grow--all King. I could
tell by the set of your shoulders and the tone of your voice and the way you
went straight at anything you wanted. So there’s your legacy, boy, from King,
of the Mounted. Ask any of the old veterans who King, of the Mounted, was! You
read those books.” He lifted a bony finger and pointed. “There’s a lot in that
Bible--if you read it careful.”
“You bet, Grandfather!” Rawley undid the clasp and opened the book politely.
The old man twisted his lips into a sardonic smile. His eyes gleamed, indigo
blue, under his shaggy black brows. Then, as if reminded of something
forgotten, he dipped into the box, fumbled a bit and held out his hand to
Rawley.
“You’re a mining expert; maybe you can tell me where I picked them up.” His
eyes bored into Rawley’s face.
Rawley bent his head over the three nuggets of gold. He weighed them in his
hand, turned them to the light of the lamp which Johnny Buffalo had lifted
from the table and held close.
“Greenhorns think that gold is gold,” Rawley grinned at last. “And so it
is--but you left a little rock sticking to this one, Grandfather. So I’ll
guess Nevada.”
“Hunh!” The old man’s eyes sparkled. “What part?”
Rawley glanced up at him with the endearing King smile. “Say, I’m liable to
fall down on that! But I reckon King, of the Mounted, will put me flat against
the wall before he quits, anyway. So--well, how about Searchlight?”
“Hunh! I guess you know your job.” The old man smiled back at him, a glimmer
of that same endearing quality in the smile and the eyes. He waved back the
gold when Rawley would have returned it. “Keep it--you’ve earned it. No use to
me any more.” He settled deeper into the chair and gave a great sigh as his
head dropped back against the cushions. “Fifty years ago I picked ’em up--and
I’ve lived to see a King turn them over twice in his hand and tell me within a
few miles of where I got them. That shows what I mean by King blood. Fifty
years ago! It’s a long time to live like a hunk of meat. I’m seventy-nine--”
“Get out! You’d have to prove it, Grandfather. That’s a good ten years more
than you look.”
“Don’t lie to me, boy.” But King, of the Mounted, failed to look censorious.
“You read that Bible. Remember, that’s the legacy old King, of the Mounted,
leaves to the next King in line. It don’t lie, boy. Read it faithful and heed
what it says, and some day you’ll say the old man wasn’t so crazy after all.”
“Why, Grandfather,--”
But the old man waved him away with a peremptory gesture. Johnny Buffalo
glided to the door, opened it and held it so, waiting with the inscrutable
calm of his race.
“Well, good night, Grandfather. I’m--glad to have had this little talk. And I
hope it won’t be the last. I always wanted to pioneer, and I’ve always felt as
if I’d like to talk over those times--”
Rawley was finding it rather difficult even yet to bridge the silence of a
lifetime.
“You grew up thinking I was crazy, most likely. Easy to say the old man’s
touched in the head--when they don’t want to bother with a cripple. You’re a
King. Maybe you can guess what it means to be a hulk in a wheel chair. And the
Kings never ran after anybody; nor the Rawlinses, your grandmother’s people.
Two good names--glad you carry ’em both. If you live up to ’em both you’ll go
far. Take care of those two books, boy. Remember what I said--they’re your
legacy from King, of the Mounted. Good night.”
The old man snapped out the last two words in a tone of finality and reached
for his pipe. Johnny Buffalo opened the door an inch wider. Rawley obeyed the
unspoken hint and straightway found himself outside, with the door closed
behind him. He waited, listening, loth to go. Now that the feud was broken, he
tingled with the desire to know more about his grandfather, more about those
wonderful old fighting frontier days, more about King, of the Mounted.
“Crazy? I should say not!” Rawley muttered as he made his way slowly across
the strip of grass by the syringas. “I only hope my brain will be as keen as
Grandfather’s when I am his age.”
He stood for a few minutes breathing deep the night air saturated with
perfume. Then, with the spell of his grandfather’s vivid personality strong
upon him, he went in to where his mother sat gently rocking beside a
rose-shaded lamp, looking over a late magazine.
“I’ve just been having a talk with Grandfather,” Rawley announced bluntly,
sitting down opposite his mother and studying her as if she were a stranger to
him. Indeed, those few minutes spent in the west wing had dealt a sharp blow
to his unquestioning faith in his mother. Mrs. King dropped the magazine and
opened her lips--artificially red--and gave a faint gasp.
“Grandfather’s mind is as clear as yours or mine,” Rawley stated
challengingly. “A bit old-fashioned, maybe--a man couldn’t live in a wheel
chair for fifty years or so, shut away from all companionship as he has been,
and keep his ideas right up to the minute. If you ask me, I’ll say he’d make a
corking old pal. Full of pep--or would be if he weren’t crippled. It’s a
darned shame I never busted through the feud before. Why, fifty years ago he
was all through Nevada--think of that! I’d give ten years of my life to have
lived when he did, right at his elbow.”
He felt the sag in his pockets then and brought out the two little books.
“I always thought, Mother, that Grandfather King was a particularly wicked old
party. Well, that’s all wrong--same as the idea that he’s weak in the head. He
gave me this Bible, and made me promise to read it. He said--”
“_Bible?_” Rawley’s mother sat up sharply, and her mouth remained open, ready
for further words which her mind seemed unable to formulate.
“You bet. He said if I read it faithfully and got all the good out of it there
is in it, I’d thank him the rest of my life--or something like that. He meant
it, too.”
“Why, Rawley King! Your grandfather has always been an atheist of the worst
type! I’ve heard your father tell how he used to hear your grandfather
blaspheme and curse God by the hour for making him a cripple. When he was a
little boy--your father, I mean--he was deeply impressed by your grandmother
asking every prayer-meeting night for the prayers of the church to soften her
husband’s heart and turn his thoughts toward God. Your father has told me how
he used to go home afterwards and watch to see if your grandfather’s heart was
softened. But it never was--he got wickeder, if possible, and swore horribly
at everything, nearly. Your father said he nearly lost faith in prayer. But he
believed that the congregation never prayed as it should. I wouldn’t believe,
Rawley, that your grandfather would have a Bible near him. Are you sure?”
“Here it is,” Rawley assured her, grinning. “He said it was my legacy from
him.”
“Well, that proves to my mind he’s crazy,” his mother said grimly. “Your
father always felt that Grandfather King had sinned against the Holy Ghost and
_couldn’t_ repent. Anyway,” she added resentfully, “that’s about all you’ll
ever get from him. When he deeded this place to your father for a wedding
present--that was a little while after your grandmother died--he reserved the
west wing for himself as long as he lived. It’s in the deed that he’s not to
be interfered with or molested. When he dies, the west wing becomes a part of
this property--which is mine, of course. He lives on his pension, which just
about keeps him and that awful old Indian. Of course the pension stops when he
dies. So he was right about the legacy, at least. But I’ll bet he put a curse
on the Bible before he gave it to you. It would be just like him.”
Rawley shook his head dissentingly. “It’s darned hard to sit in a wheel chair
for fifty years,” he remarked somewhat irrelevantly. “I’d cuss things some,
myself, I reckon.” And he added abruptly, “Say, Grandfather’s got the bluest
eyes, Mother, I ever saw in a man’s head. I thought eyes faded with old age.
Did you ever notice his eyes, Mother?”
His mother laughed unpleasantly. “Your Grandfather King never gave me any
inducement to get close enough to see his eyes. Seeing him on the porch of the
west wing is enough for me.”
“He laid a good deal of stress upon his past,” said Rawley. “I suppose because
he hasn’t any present--and darned little future, I’m afraid. He gave me some
nuggets. Would you like a nugget ring, Mother?”
His mother glanced at the nuggets and pushed away Rawley’s hand that held them
cupped in the palm.
“No, I wouldn’t. Not if your Grandfather King had anything to do with it. He’s
been like a poison plant in the yard ever since I came here, Rawley; like
poison ivy, that you’re careful not to go near. I don’t want to touch anything
belonging to him--and I hope I’m not a vindictive woman, either.”
Rawley was rolling the nuggets in his hand, staring at them abstractedly.
“It’s queer--the whole thing,” he said finally. “I feel a sort of leaning
toward Grandfather. It was something in his eyes. You know, Mother, it must be
darned tough to have both legs chopped off at the knees when you’re a young
husky over six feet in your socks and full of pep. I--believe I can understand
Grandfather King. ‘A hunk of meat in a wheel chair’--that’s what he called
himself. And those amazing blue eyes of his--”
His mother glanced curiously into his face. “They can’t be any bluer than
yours, Rawley,” she observed.
Rawley looked up from the nuggets, his forehead wrinkled with surprise.
“Oh, do you think that, Mother?” He stood up suddenly, still shaking the
nuggets with a dull clink in his hand. “Well, I hope Grandfather’s passed on a
few more of his traits to me. There’s a few of them I’m going to need,” he
said drily and kissed his mother good night.
CHAPTER TWO
JOHNNY BUFFALO BEARS ANOTHER MESSAGE
In his room, Rawley switched on the light and slid into the big chair by the
table. Not to his mother could he confess how deeply those few minutes with
Grandfather King had stirred him. In spite of her attitude toward the silent
feud that had endured for nearly thirty years, he was conscious of the dull
ache of remorse. Without meaning to judge his parents or to criticize their
manner of handling a difficult situation, Rawley felt that night that he had
been guilty of a great wrong toward his grandfather. He at least should have
ignored the invisible wall that stood between the west wing and the rest of
the house. He was a King; he should not have permitted that reasonless silence
to endure through all these years.
As a matter of fact, Rawley’s life since he was twelve had been spent mostly
away from home. First, a military academy in the suburbs of St. Louis, with
the long hiking trips featured by the school through the summer vacations;
after that, college,--with a special course in mineralogy. Since then, field
work had claimed most of his time. Home had therefore been merely a place
pleasantly tucked away in his memory, with a visit to his mother now and then
between jobs.
The first twelve years of his life had thoroughly accustomed Rawley to the
sight of the fierce old man with long hair and his legs cut off at his knees,
who sometimes appeared in a wheel chair on a porch of the west wing, attended
by an Indian who looked savage enough to scalp a little boy if he ventured too
close; a ferocious Indian who scowled and wore his hair parted from forehead
to neck and braided in two long braids over his shoulder, and who padded
stealthily about the place in beautifully beaded moccasins and fringed
buckskin leggings.
Nevertheless, there had been times, as he grew older, when Rawley had been
tempted to invade the west wing and find out for himself just how bitterly his
grandfather clung to the feud. It hurt him to think now of the old man’s
isolation and of the interesting companionship he had cheated himself out of
enjoying.
He pulled the two old books from his pocket, handling them as if they were the
precious things his grandfather seemed to consider them. The Bible he opened
first, undoing the old-fashioned clasp with his thumb and opening the book at
the flyleaf. The inscription there was faded yet distinct on the yellowed
paper. The sloping, careful handwriting of Rawley’s great-grandmother sending
King, of the Mounted, forth upon his dangerous missions armed with the Word of
God,--and hoping prayerfully, no doubt, that he would read and heed its
precepts.
To my beloved son,
George Walter King,
from his
Affectionate Mother.
The date thrilled Rawley, aged twenty-six: 1858 was the year his
great-grandmother had inscribed in the book. To Rawley it seemed almost as
remote as the Stamp Act or the Mexican War. The thought that Grandfather King,
away back in 1858, had been old enough to join the Missouri Mounted
Volunteers--even to have been made a sergeant in his company and to make for
himself a reputation as an Indian fighter--gave the old man a new dignity in
the eyes of his grandson. It seemed strange that Grandfather King was still
alive and could talk of those days.
The book itself was strangely contradictory in appearance. While the outside
was worn and scuffed as if with much usage, the inside crackled faintly a
protest against unaccustomed handling. The yellowed leaves clung together in
layers which Rawley must carefully separate. Now and then a line or two showed
faint penciled underscores; otherwise the book did not look as if it had been
opened for many, many years. Nowhere was it thumbed and soiled by the frequent
reading of a man living under canvas or the open sky.
“Looks to me like the old boy has simply passed the buck,” Rawley grinned.
“Maybe he felt as if some one in the family ought to read it. His mother had
it all marked for him, too; wanted to give him a good start-off, maybe. No,
sir, the old book itself is pinning it onto King, of the Mounted! Mother must
be right, after all, and Grandfather never had enough religion to talk about.
But he sure gave me a Sunday-school talk; funny how a book can stand up and
call you a liar.”
He smiled as he closed the book, whimsically shaking his head over the joke.
Then, just to make sure that his guess was correct, Rawley opened the Bible
again. No, there could be no mistake. Crackly new on the inside--though
yellowed with age--badly worn on the outside, the book itself proclaimed the
story of long carrying and little reading. The evidence against the sincerity
of the old man’s pious admonitions was conclusive. Rawley laid the Bible down
for a further consideration and took up the worn old diary.
Here, too, Grandfather King had betrayed a certain lack of sincerity. Reading
the faded entries, Rawley decided that King, of the Mounted, must have been an
impetuous youth who had learned caution with the years. Dates, arrivals,
departures,--these remained. Incidents, however, had for the most part been
neatly sliced out with a knife. And with a stubborn disregard for the opinion
of later readers the stubs of the pages elided had been left to tell of the
deliberate mutilation of the record. So Rawley read perfunctorily the dry
record of obscure scouting trips, and the names of commanders long since dead
and remembered only in the records.
Rawley learned that his grandfather had taken part in the making of much
frontier history. He spoke of Captain Hunt in a matter-of-fact way and
mentioned the date on which a certain Captain Hendley had been killed by
Indians somewhere near Las Vegas, in Nevada. On the next page Rawley found
this gruesome paragraph:
From a young Indian captured in the battle of last week, I learned the
secret of the devilish poisoned arrows, which are black. The black
arrows are poisoned in this manner, he tells me, and since I have
befriended him in many small ways I do not doubt his word. To procure
the poison, an animal is slain and the liver removed. A captured
rattlesnake is then induced to strike the liver again and again,
injecting all of its poison into the meat. The arrow-points are
afterwards rubbed in the putrid mass and left to dry. Needless to say,
a wound touched by this poison and decayed meat surely causes death.
The young Indian tells me that a certain desert plant has been
successfully used as an antidote, but he did not tell me the name of
the plant. He declared that he did not know, that only the doctors of
his tribe know that secret.
I think he lied. He was willing to tell me the horrid means of making
the poison. But is too cunning to let me know the antidote. So the
tobacco I’ve given him is after all wasted. The information merely
increases my dread of the black arrows. Rattlesnake venom and putrid
liver--paugh! I shall--
A page was missing. Followed several pages of brief entries, with long lapses
of time between. Then came a page which gave a glimpse into that colorful
life:
June, 1866. On board the “Esmeralda.” Arrived at El Dorado
(_Deuteronomy_, 2:36) to-day. This is the first boat up the river.
The Scriptural reference had been inserted in very small writing above the
name of the place. Evidently Grandfather King had been reading some Bible, if
not the one his mother had given him.
A town has sprung up in the wilderness since I was here last, cursing
the heat and stinging gnats in ’59. A stamp mill stands at the river’s
edge and houses are scattered all up and down the river, while a ferry
crosses to the other shore. A crowd came down to the landing for their
mail and to see what strangers were on the boat. As yet I do not know
whether our company will be stationed here or at Fort Callville, a few
miles up the canyon. The Indians are quiet, they say. Too quiet, some
of the miners think. On the edge of the crowd I saw a young squaw--or
perhaps she is Spanish. She has the velvet eyes and the dark rose
blooming in her cheeks, which speaks of Spanish blood. By God, she’s
beautiful! Not more than sixteen and graceful as a fairy. I leaned
over the rail--
Several pages were cut from the book just there, and Rawley swore to himself.
When one is twenty-six one resents any interruption in a romance. The next
entry read:
July 4th. Great doings at the fort to-day, with barbeque, wrestling,
target practice and gambling. Miners and Indians came out of the hills
to celebrate the holiday. In the wrestling matches I easily held my
own, as in the sharp-shooting. Anita received my message and was
here--el gusto de mi corazon. What a damned pity she’s not white! But
she’s more Spanish than Indian, with her proud little ways and her
light heart. Jess Cramer tried again to come between us, and there was
a fight not down on the program. They carried him to the hospital. A
little more and I’d have broken his back, the surgeon said. If he
looks at her again--
More elision just when the interest was keenest. Rawley wanted to know more
about Anita--“the joy of my heart”, as Grandfather had set it down in Spanish.
The next page, however, whetted Rawley’s curiosity a bit more:
July 15th. To-morrow we march to Las Vegas to meet a party of emigrants
and guard them to San Bernardino. The Indians are unsettled and traveling
is not safe. A miner was murdered and scalped within ten miles of the fort
the other day. No mi alebro--Anita wept and clung to me when I told her we
had marching orders. Dulce corazon--God, how I wish she was white! But in
any case I could not take her with me. I shall return in a month’s time--
August. In hospital, after a hellish trip in a wagon with other wounded.
Mohave Indians attacked our wagon train, one hundred miles northeast of
here, on the desert. While leading a charge afoot against the Indians I
was shot through both legs. Gangrene set in before we could reach this
place, and the doctor will not promise the speedy recovery I desire.
My Indian boy, Johnny Buffalo, refuses to leave my side. He hates all
other whites. On the desert I picked him up half dead with thirst, and set
him before me on the saddle because he feared the wagons. I judge him to
be about ten. If I live, I shall keep the boy with me and train him for my
body-servant. A faithful Indian is better than a watch-dog--
A lapse of several months intervened before the next entry. Then a brief
record, which told of the closing of one romance and the beginning of another:
November 15th. This day I married Mary Jane Rawlins. Was able to stand
during the ceremony, supported by two crutches. My Indian boy slipped
away from the others and stood close behind me during the service, one
hand clutching tightly my coat-tail. Mary has courage, to wish to
marry a man likely to be a cripple the rest of his days.
Nothing further was recorded for several years; four, to be exact. Then:
Returned to-day from hospital. After all this suffering, both legs were
taken off above the knee. The poison had spread to the joints. What a pity
it was not my neck.
On the next page was one grim line:
December 4th, 1889. My wife, Mary Rawlins King, was buried to-day.
That ended the diary. In a memorandum pocket just inside the cover, a folded
paper lay snug and flat. Rawley drew it forth eagerly and held it close to the
lamp. His face clouded then with disappointment, for nothing was written on
the paper save a list of Bible references.
So that was the legacy. An old diary just interesting enough to be
tantalizing, with half the pages cut out; Bible references probably given to
King, of the Mounted, by his mother. And a worn old Bible that had never been
read. Rawley stacked the books one upon the other and leaned back in his
chair, staring at them meditatively while he filled his pipe. He took three
puffs before he laughed silently.
“He was a speedy old bird, I’ll say that much for him,” he told himself. “I’ll
bet those pages he cut out fairly sizzled. And I’ll bet he cut them out about
the time he married Grandmother. Also, I think he left one or two pages by
mistake. Well, I’ll say he lived! As long as he had two good legs under him he
was up and coming. I don’t suppose there’s a chance in the world of getting
him to talk about Anita. ‘_El gusto de mi corazon_--’ There’s nothing like the
Spanish for love-making words. And that was in July--and he married
Grandmother in November. Poor little half-breed girl who should have been
white! But then, I reckon he’d have gone back to her if he could. But they
sent him home--crippled for life. You can’t blame Grandfather, after all. And
I notice he mentioned the fact that Grandmother wanted to marry him. Sorry for
the handsome young soldier on crutches, but it’s darned hard on Anita, just
the same. And I don’t suppose he could even get word to her.”
He smoked the pipe out, his thoughts gone a-questing into the long ago, where
the black arrows were dipped in loathsome poison, and young Indian girls had
the fire and grace of the Spaniards.
“She’d be old, too, by now--if she’s alive,” he thought, as he knocked the
ashes from his pipe and yawned. “I wonder if she ever forgot. And I wonder if
Grandfather ever thinks of her now. He does, I’ll bet. Those terrible, blue
eyes! They _couldn’t_ forget.”
He went to bed, his imagination still held to the days of the fighting old
frontier; still building adventures and romances for the dashing, blue-eyed
King, of the Mounted.
He was dreaming of an Indian fight when a sharp tapping on his window woke him
to gray dawn. He sprang out of bed, still knuckling the sleep out of his eyes,
and saw Johnny Buffalo standing close to the open screen. The Indian raised a
hand.
“You come quick. Your grandfather is dead.”
CHAPTER THREE
“MY HEART IS DEAD”
It was the evening after the funeral, and Rawley was sitting again on the
porch, staring out gloomily over a cold pipe into the yard. His grandfather’s
death had hit him a harder blow than he would have thought possible. The shock
of it, coming close on the heels of his first keen realization that
Grandfather King was a vivid personality, left him numbed with a sense of
loss.
His mother’s evident relief at the removal of an unpleasant problem chilled
and irritated him. Her calm assumption that the Indian must also be removed
from the place, now that his master was gone, seemed to Rawley almost like
sacrilege. The place belonged to his mother only by right of his grandfather’s
generosity. To rob the Indian of a home he had enjoyed since boyhood was
unthinkable.
He turned his head and glanced toward the west wing, his eyes following his
thoughts. A dimly outlined figure stood erect upon the porch of the west wing.
Pity gripped Rawley by the throat; pity and half-conscious admiration. Even
the greatest grief of his life could not bow the shoulders of Johnny Buffalo.
With no definite purpose, drawn only by the kinship of their loss, Rawley
rose, crossed the grass plot by the syringas and sat down on the top step of
the west porch.
Johnny Buffalo stood with his arms folded, the fringe on his buckskin sleeves
whipping gently in the soft breeze that rose when the sun went down. He was
staring straight out at nothing,--the nothingness that epitomized his future.
Rawley slanted a glance up at him and began thoughtfully refilling his pipe.
By his silence he was unconsciously bringing himself close to the soul of the
Indian, the traditions of whose race forbade hasty speech.
Half a pipe Rawley smoked, staring meditatively into the dusk. In that time
Johnny Buffalo had moved no more than if he were a statue of brown stone. Then
Rawley tipped his head sidewise and looked up at him.
“Sit down, Johnny. I want to talk.”
“Talk is useless when the heart is dead,” said Johnny Buffalo after a long
pause. But he came down two steps and seated himself, straight-backed, head
up, beside Rawley.
“The man I love is cold. His spirit has gone. So I am left cold, and my heart
is dead. I shall wait--and be glad when my body is dead.”
Rawley felt a sharp constriction in his throat. For one moment he almost hated
his mother who would drive this stricken old man out into a world he did not
know. A gun against his temple would be kinder. He drew a long breath.
“Would you like to wait here, where he lived?” Intuitively he crystallized his
thoughts into the briefest words possible to express his meaning.
Johnny Buffalo shook his head slowly, with a decisiveness that could not be
questioned. He folded his arms again across his grief-laden breast.
“It is your mother’s. In the fields I can wait for death, which is my friend.
I shall walk toward the land of my people. When death finds me I shall smile.”
Rawley turned this over in his mind, seeking some point where argument might
break down bitter resolution.
“Cowards wait for death when life grows hard,” he said at last. “The brave man
meets life and faces sorrow because he is brave and will overcome. The brave
man fights death which is an enemy. He does not run away from life and welcome
his enemy. My grandfather found life very hard. For fifty years my grandfather
faced it because his spirit was strong.”
“Your grandfather’s spirit was strong. His body was broken. My body is strong.
My spirit is broken. Can a strong body live with a broken spirit inside?”
Rawley had to smoke over this for a while. Johnny Buffalo, he conceded
privately, was no man’s fool. Rawley tried to put himself in the Indian’s
place and discover, if he could, something that would make life worth the
living.
“Your people are scattered,” he said quietly. “Few are left. The Mohaves are a
broken tribe.”
“The Mohaves are not my people,” the Indian corrected him calmly. “I am
Pahute. In the mountains along the river you call the Colorado, my people
lived and hunted--and fought. My uncle was the chief, and I was proud. One day
my mother beat me with a stick. I took my bow and my arrows and some dried
meat, and that night I left my people, for I was angry and ashamed. With my
bow I had killed two mountain sheep. With my bow I had hidden in the rocks and
had wounded a white man who was digging in the hillside. I thought I was a
warrior and not to be beaten by a squaw.
“The great thirst found me as I was walking toward the mountains where all my
life I had seen the sun go down. With my bow and arrow I could get meat, but I
could not get water. All my life I had lived near the river. The great thirst
I did not know.
“I fell in the sand. When I awoke, water was in my mouth. I looked, and I was
lying in the arms of a white man. He was big and strong and very handsome. He
was Sergeant King. Your grandfather. I looked into his eyes and I was not
afraid. There was no hate in my heart for him, but all other whites I hated.
He lifted me and carried me in his arms and laid me in a wagon with white
women and children. I hated them. I was weak from the thirst and from much
walking, but I bit deep into the arm of a woman who put her hand on me.
“There was much yelling in that wagon. The woman struck me many times. A horse
came galloping. Your grandfather lifted me out of the wagon and put me on the
horse with him. So we rode together in one saddle. I loved him.
“The Mohaves attacked the whites when we had gone many days. My sergeant left
me with his horse by the wagons. He crept behind bushes and killed many. He
was a great warrior and I was proud when his gun brought death to a Mohave. I
watched him, for I loved him. When I saw him fall from his knees and lie on
his face in the sand, I jumped from the horse and went creeping through the
brush. He was not dead. I took his gun and killed Mohaves. Pretty soon my
sergeant looked at me and smiled while I killed. When there were no more
Mohaves, the captain came. They put my sergeant in a wagon and I sat beside
him. I gave him water, I gave him food. With my fists I beat back those who
would take from me the joy of serving him.
“A long time he was sick in the town we entered. I was with him. Every day and
every night he could open his eyes and see that I was with him.”
The sonorous voice ceased its monotone and the Indian sat silent, staring into
the past. After a while he turned his head and looked full at Rawley.
“I was a boy when he took me. Now I am an old man. Since he took me there has
been no night when my sergeant could call and get no answer. There has been no
day when my sergeant could look and could not see me. Now my sergeant is gone.
My heart is gone with him.”
Enthralled by the picture vividly painted with bold strokes by the Indian,
Rawley sat hunched over his pipe, cuddling the cooling bowl in his fingers.
“Your sergeant was my grandfather. At the last I loved him, too. I am a King.
I need you.” His tone stamped the lie as truth. Later he would find some way
of making it the truth, he thought.
Johnny Buffalo eyed him sharply in the deepening dusk.
“You have read the book?” he asked after a minute. “If you have read, then I
will go with you. The spirit of my sergeant will go. My heart may live again.”
“What book?” Rawley’s eyes widened.
“Your grandfather gave you the book. Your grandfather commanded that you
read.” Reproach was in the voice of Johnny Buffalo.
“I have read the diary--the book where he wrote of his travels. Do you mean
that book?”
Johnny Buffalo gave a grunt that was pure Indian and signified disgust.
Rawley frowned over the puzzle and his very evident defection. It must be the
Bible that was meant, he decided. But he could see no reason why he should
read the Bible and then go somewhere. Still, the thing seemed to have pulled
Johnny Buffalo out of his slough of despond, and that was what Rawley had been
working for.
“If you mean the Bible,” he said tentatively, “I read it a little, that
night.”
Johnny Buffalo peered at him. “Read that book more. Your grandfather commanded
that you should read. I heard the promise you gave. You said, ‘You bet.’ It
was a promise to obey your grandfather.”
“I mean to keep the promise,” Rawley replied defensively. “I haven’t had time.
Things have been pretty much upset since that night.”
The Indian meditated. “You read,” he admonished after due deliberation. “Your
grandfather never talked to make words. I think he would have told you more.
But his spirit went. I will stay in a tent by the river. When you have read,
you come. We will talk more when you have read.”
Rawley felt the dismissal under the words. He offered the Indian money, which
was refused by a gesture. Then, conscious of a certain vague excitement in the
back of his mind, he went back to his own part of the house.
CHAPTER FOUR
RAWLEY READS THE BIBLE
In his room again, Rawley unlocked his desk and got the two books which were
his “legacy.” He was young, and for all his technical training the spirit of
romance called to his youth. There was something particularly important,
something urgent in the admonition that he should read the Scriptures.
Rawley’s training was all against vague speculations. Your mining engineer
fights guesswork at every stage of his profession.
He sat down with the books in his hand and began to reason the thing out
cold-bloodedly, as if it were a problem in mineral formations. He undid the
clasp of the Bible, opened it and looked through all the leaves, seeking for
some hidden paper. He spent half an hour in the search and discovered nothing.
There was no message, then, hidden in the Bible. His grandfather must have
meant the actual reading of the text itself.
Then he remembered the paper filled with references, hidden in the pocket of
the diary. There might be something significant in that, he thought. He opened
the diary, took out the paper and glanced down the list of references. They
were scattered all through the book and there were sixty-four of them.
He opened the Bible again and began to look for the first one--I Kings, 20:3.
The leaves stuck together, they turned in groups, they seemed determined that
he should not find I Kings anywhere in the book. Daniel, Joshua, Jeremiah,
Zechariah and Esther he peered into; there didn’t seem to be any Kings.
He muttered a word frequently found in the Bible, laid the book down and went
to the living room, to the big, embossed Family Bible that had his birth date
in it and the date of his father’s death; and pictures at which he had been
permitted to look on Sunday afternoons if he were a good boy. His mother had
gone out to some meeting or other. He had the room to himself and he could
read at his leisure.
It struck him immediately that this Bible had not been much read either. But
the leaves were thick enough to turn singly, the print was large, and if I
Kings were present he felt that he had some chance of finding it. With pencil
and paper beside him, and with the list of references in one hand, he
therefore set himself methodically to the task. And he was twenty-six, and the
blood of the adventurous Kings beat strongly in his veins. So when he had
found the book and the chapter which headed the list, he ran his finger down
the half-column to the third verse; and this is what he read:
Thy silver and thy gold is mine; thy wives also and thy children, even
the goodliest, are mine.
Rawley was conscious of a slight chill of disappointment when he had written
it down in his fine, beautifully exact, draftsman’s handwriting. But he went
doggedly to work on the next reference nevertheless:
_Psalms_, 73:7. Their eyes stand out with fatness; they have more than
heart could wish.
This was no more promising, but he had promised to read, and this seemed to
him the most practical method of getting at his grandfather’s secret purpose
and thoughts. So he settled himself down to an evening’s hard labor with book
and paper.
He was just finishing the work when he heard his mother’s footsteps on the
porch. Rather guiltily he closed the Bible and folded his notes, so that his
mother, coming into the room, found Rawley standing before a large window,
thoughtfully gazing out into the dark while he stuffed tobacco in his pipe.
His mother was a religious woman and a member of the church, but she took her
religion according to certain fixed rules. Reading the Bible casually,
apparently for entertainment, would have required an explanation,--and Rawley
did not want to explain, least of all to his mother.
He listened with perfunctory interest to her account of the evening’s
edifications (a Swedish missionary having lectured in his own tongue, with an
interpreter) and escaped when he could to his room. He wanted to be alone
where he could try and guess the riddle his grandfather had placed before him.
That there was a message of some kind hidden away in the Scriptural
quotations, Rawley felt absolutely certain. In the first place, they did not
seem to him such passages as a devout person would cherish for the comfort
they held. Moreover, certain verses had been repeated, although the text
itself did not seem to justify such emphasis. Precious metals, and journeyings
into rough country, he decided, was the dominant note of the citations and the
net result was confusing to say the least. If his grandfather really intended
that he should discover any meaning in the jumble, he should have furnished a
key, Rawley told himself disgustedly, some time after midnight, when he had
read the quotations over and over until his head ached and they seemed more
meaningless than at first.
But his grandfather had told him emphatically that there was a lot in the
Bible, if he read it carefully enough. There might have been in the statement
no meaning deeper than an old man’s whim, but Rawley could not bring himself
to believe it. Somewhere in those verses a secret lay hidden, and Rawley did
not mean to give up until he had solved the problem.
At daylight the next morning Rawley awoke with what he considered an
inspiration. He swung out of bed and with his bathrobe over his shoulders made
a stealthy pilgrimage into the old-fashioned library where the conventional
aggregation of “works” were to be found in leather-bound sets. Squatting on
his haunches, he inspected a certain dim corner filled with fiction of the
type commonly accepted as standard. He chose a volume and returned to bed,
leaving one of his heelless slippers behind him in his absorption in the
mystery.
He crawled back into bed and read Poe’s “Gold Bug” before breakfast, giving
particular attention to the elucidation of the cipher contained in the story.
The general effect of this research work was not illuminating. Poe’s cipher
had been worked out with numbers, whereas Grandfather King had carelessly
muffled his meaning in many words; unless the book, chapter and verse numbers
were intended to convey the message in cipher similar to Poe’s.
This possibility struck Rawley in the middle of his shaving. He could not wait
to put the theory to the test, but hastily wiped the razor, and the lather
from one side of his face, opened his grandfather’s old Bible at the index and
began setting down the number of each book above its name in the reference
list. Thus, I Kings, 20:3 became the numerals 11-20-3.
He was eagerly at work at this when his mother called him to breakfast. His
mother was a woman who worked industriously at being cultured. She had a
secret ambition to be called behind her back a brilliant conversationalist.
Breakfast, therefore, was always an uncomfortable meal for Rawley whenever his
mother had attended some instructive gathering the evening before.
While he ate his first muffin, Rawley listened to a foggy interpretation of
the Swedish lecturer’s ideas upon universal brotherhood. Rather, he sat quiet
while his mother talked. Then he interrupted her shockingly.
“Say, Mother, do you know whether Grandfather ever read Poe?”