A LOAD OF BUCKSHOT
Since he had turned back, far out on the desert, and braved the storm to
inspect the Paymaster Mine, Wiley Holman had met nothing but disaster;
but as he lay on the ground with one leg full of buckshot he blamed it
all on the Widow. Without warning or justification, without even giving
him a chance, she had sneaked up and potted him like a rabbit; and now,
as men came running to witness his shame, she gloried in her badness.
"Aha-ah!" she jeered, coming back to stand over him and Wiley reached
for a stone.
"You old she-cat," he burst out, "you say another word to me and I'll
bounce this rock off your head!"
He groaned and dropped the rock to take his leg in both hands, and then
Virginia rushed to the rescue.
"How badly are you hurt?" she asked, kneeling down beside him, but he
jerked ungraciously away.
"Go away and leave me alone!" he shouted to the world at large and the
Widow took the hint to withdraw. Then in a series of frenzied curses
Wiley stripped off his puttee and felt of his injured leg. It was wet
with blood and two shot-holes in his shin-bone were giving him the most
exquisite pain; the rest were just flesh-wounds where the buckshot had
pierced his leggings and imbedded themselves in the muscles. He looked
them over hastily by the light of a flashing lantern and then he rose up
from the ground.
"Gimme that gun for a crutch!" he demanded of the Widow; and Mrs. Huff,
who had been surveying her work with awe, passed over the shotgun in
silence. "All right, now," he went on, turning to Death Valley Charley,
who had been patiently holding his lantern, "just show me the trail and
I'll get out of camp before some crazy dastard ups and kills me."
"That was Stiff Neck George," observed Charley mysteriously. "He's
guarding the Paymaster for Blount."
"Who--that fellow that was after me?" burst out Wiley in a passion as he
hobbled off down the trail. "What the hell was he trying to do? The
whole rotten mine isn't worth stealing from anybody. What's the matter
with you people--are you crazy?"
"Well, that's all right!" returned the Widow from the darkness. "You
can't sneak in and jump _my_ mine!"
"_Your_ mine, you old tarrier!" yelled Wiley furiously. "You'd
better go to town and look it up. The whole danged works is mine--I
bought it in for taxes!"
"You--what?" cried the Widow, brushing Virginia and Charley aside and
halting him in the trail. "You bought the Paymaster for _taxes_!"
"Yes, for taxes," answered Wiley, "and got stung at that! Gimme
eighty-three dollars and forty-one cents and you can have it back,
with costs. But now listen, you old battle-ax; I've taken enough off
of you. You went up on my property when I was making an inspection of
it and made an attempt on my life; and if I hear a peep out of you,
from this time on, I'll go down and swear out a warrant."
"I didn't aim to kill you," defended the Widow, weakly. "I just tried to
shoot you in the leg."
"Well, you did it," returned Wiley, and, pushing; her aside, he limped
on down the trail. The Widow followed meekly, talking in low tones with
her daughter, and at last Virginia came up beside him.
"Take him right to our house," she said to Charley, "and I'll nurse him
until he gets well."
"No, you take me to the Holman house!" directed Wiley, obstinately. "I
guess we've got a house of our own."
"Well, suit yourself," she murmured, and fell back to the rear while
Wiley went hobbling on. At every step he jabbed the muzzle of the
shotgun vindictively into the ground, but as he reached the flat and met
a posse of citizens, he submitted to being carried on a door. The first
pain had passed and a deadly numbness seemed to take the place of its
bite; but as he moved his stiffened muscles, which were beginning to
ache and throb, he realized that he was badly hurt. With a leg like that
he could not drive out across the desert, seventy-four long miles to
Vegas; nor would he, on the other hand, find the best of accommodations
in the deserted house of his father. It had been a great home in its
day, but that day was past, and the water connections too, and somebody
must be handy to wait on him.
"Say," he said, turning to Death Valley Charley, "have you got a house
here in town? Well, take me to it and I'll pay you well, and for
anything else that you do."
"It won't cost you nothing," answered Charley quickly. "I used to know
your father."
"Well, you knew a good man then," replied Wiley grimly, but Death Valley
did not respond. The Widow Huff was listening behind; and besides, he
had his doubts.
"I'll run on ahead," said Charley noncommittally, and when Wiley arrived
a canvas cot was waiting for him, fully equipped except for the sheets.
Virginia came in later with a pair on her arm, and after a look at
Charley's greasy blankets Wiley allowed her to spread them on the bed.
Then, as Death Valley laid a grimy paw on his leg and began to pick out
the shot Wiley jerked away and asked Virginia impatiently if she didn't
have a little carbolic.
"Aw, he'll be all right," protested Charley cheerfully, as Virginia
pushed him aside; "them buckshot won't hurt him much, nohow. Jest put on
some pine pitch and a chew of tobacco and he'll fall off to sleep like a
child."
He stood blinking helplessly as Virginia heated some water and poured in
a teaspoonful of carbolic, then as she bathed the wounds and picked out
the last shot, Charley placed a disc on his phonograph.
"Does he want some music?" he inquired of Heine, who was sitting up and
begging, but Virginia put down her foot. "No, Charley," she said with a
forbidding frown, "you go ask mother for a needle and thread."
"He's kind of crazy to-night," she whispered to Wiley, when Death Valley
was safely out of sight, "you'd better come over to the house."
"Huh, I guess we're all crazy," answered Wiley, laughing shortly. "I can
stand it--but how does he act?"
"Oh, he hears things--and gets messages--and talks about Death Valley.
He got lost over there, three years ago last August, and the heat kind
of cooked his brains. He heard your automobile, when you came back
to-night--that's why mother and all the rest of them went over to the
mine to get you. I'm sorry she shot you up."
"Well, don't you care," he said reassuringly. "But she sure overplayed
her hand."
"Yes, she did," acknowledged Virginia, trying not to quarrel with her
patient, "but, of course, she didn't know about that tax sale."
"Well, she knows it now," he answered pointedly, and when Charley came
back they were silent. Virginia bandaged up his wound and slipped away
and then Wiley lay back and sighed. There had been a time when he and
Virginia had been friends, but now the fat was in the fire. It was her
fighting mother, of course, and their quarrel about the Paymaster; but
behind it all there was the old question between their fathers, and he
knew that his father was right. He had not rigged the stock market, he
had not cheated Colonel Huff, and he had not tried to get back the mine.
That was a scheme of his own, put on foot on his own initiative--and
brought to nothing by the Widow. He had hoped to win over Virginia and
effect a reconciliation, but that hole in his leg told him all too well
that the Widow could never be fooled. And, since she could not be
placated, nor bought off, nor bluffed, there was nothing to do but quit.
The world was large and there were other Virginias, as well as other
Paymasters--only it seemed such a futile waste. He sighed again and then
Death Valley Charley burst out into a cackling laugh.
"I heard you," he said, "I heard you coming--away up there in the pass.
Chuh, chuh, chuh, chud, chud, chud, chud; and I told Virginny you was
coming."
"Yes, I heard about it," answered Wiley sourly, "and then you told the
Widow."
"Oh, no, I didn't!" exulted Charley. "She'd've killed you, sure as
shooting. I just told Virginny, that's all."
"Oh!" observed Wiley, and lay so still that Charley regarded him
intently. His eyes were blue and staring like a newborn babe's, but
behind their look of childlike innocence there lurked a crafty smile.
"I told her," went on Charley, "that you was coming to git her and take
her away in your auto. She's a nice girl, Virginny, and never rode in
one of them things--I never thought you'd try to steal her mine."
"I did not!" denied Wiley, but Death Valley only smiled and waved the
matter aside.
"Never mind," he said, "they're all crazy, anyhow. They get that way
every north wind. I'm here to take care of them--the Colonel asked me
to, and keep people from stealing his mine. It's electricity that does
it--it's about us everywhere--and that's what makes 'em crazy; but
electricity is my servant; I bend it to my will; that's how I come to
hear you. I heard you coming back, away out on the desert, and I knowed
your heart wasn't right. You was coming back to rob the Colonel of his
mine; and the Colonel, he saved my life once. He ain't dead, you know,
he's over across Death Valley in them mountains they call the Ube-Hebes.
Yes, I was lost on the desert and he followed my tracks and found me,
running wild through the sand-hills; and then Virginia and Mrs. Huff,
they looked after me until my health returned."
"You can hear pretty well, then," suggested Wiley diplomatically. "You
must know everything that goes on."
"It's the electricity!" declared Charley. "It's about us everywhere, and
that's what makes them crazy. All these desert rats are crazy, it's the
electric storms that does it--Nevada is a great state for winds. But
when they comes a sandstorm, and Mrs. Huff she wraps up her head, I feel
the power coming on. I can hear far away and then I can hear close--I
make the electricity my slave. But the rest, they go crazy; they have
headaches and megrims, and Mrs. Huff she always wants to fight; but I'm
here to take care of 'em--the Colonel asked me to, so you keep away from
that mine."
"Oh, sure," responded Wiley, "I won't bother the mine. As soon as I'm
well I'll go home."
"No, you stay," returned Charley, becoming suddenly confidential.
"I'll show you a mountain of gold. It's over across Death Valley, in
the Ube-Hebes; the Colonel is over there now."
"Is that so?" inquired Wiley, and Charley looked at him strangely, as if
dazed.
"Aw, no; of course not!" he burst out angrily. "I forgot--the Colonel is
dead. You Heine; come over here, sir."
Heine crept up unwillingly and Charley slapped him. "Now--shut up!" he
admonished and went off into crazy mutterings.
"What's that?" he cried, rousing up suddenly to listen, and a savage
look replaced the blank stare. "Can't you hear him?" he asked. "It's
Stiff Neck George--he's coming up the alley to kill you. Here, take my
gun; and when he opens the door you fill him full of holes!"
Wiley listened intently, then he reached for the heavy pistol and sat
up, watching the door. The wind soughed and howled and rattled at the
windows, over which Charley had stretched heavy blankets, and it seemed
to his startled imagination that someone was groping at the door. The
memory of the skulking form that had followed him rose up with the
distinctness of a vision and at a knock on the door he cocked his pistol
and beckoned Death Valley to one side.
"Come in!" he called, but as the door swung open it was Virginia who
stood facing his gun.
"O--oh!" she screamed, and then she flushed angrily as Charley began to
laugh.
"Well, laugh then, you fool," she said to Wiley, "and when you're
through, just look at this that we found!"
She held up the ore-bag that Wiley had lost and strode dramatically in.
"Look at that!" she cried, and strewing the white quartz on the table
she pointed her finger in his face. "You stole my specimen!" she cried
accusingly. "That's why you came back for more. But you give it back to
me--I want it this minute. I see you're honest--like your father!"
She spat it out venomously, more venomously than was needful, for he
was already fumbling for the rock; and when he gave it back he smiled
over-scornfully and his lower lip mounted up.
"All right," he said, "you don't have to holler for it. You're getting
to be just like your mother."
"I'm not!" she denied, but after looking at him a minute she burst into
tears and fled.