ALL CRAZY
The wind was still blowing when Wiley was awakened by the cold of the
October morning. In the house all was dark, on account of the blankets
which Death Valley had nailed over the windows, but outside he could
hear the thump of an axe and the whining yelp of a dog. Then Charley
came in, his arms full of wood, and lit a roaring fire in the stove.
Wiley dozed off again, for his leg had pained him and kept him awake
half the night, and when he woke up it was to the strains of music and
the mournful howls of Heine.
"Ah, you are so confectionate!" exclaimed Charley in honeyed tones and
laughed and patted him on the back. "Don't you like the fiddle, Heine?
Well, listen to this now; the sweetest song of all."
He stopped the rasping phonograph to put on another record and when
Heine heard "Listen to the Mocking-bird" he barked and leapt with joy.
Wiley listened for awhile, then he stirred in bed and at last he tried
to get up; but his leg was very stiff and old Charley was oblivious, so
he sank back and waited impatiently. Heine sat upon the floor before the
largest of three phonographs, which ground out the Mocking-bird with
variations; and each time he heard the whistled notes of the bird he
rolled his eyes on Charley with a soulful, beseeching glance. The
evening before, when his master had cuffed him, Wiley had considered
Heine badly abused; but now as the concert promised to drag on
indefinitely he was forced to amend his opinion.
"Say," he spoke up at last, in a pause between records, "what's the
chance of getting something to eat?"
"Yes, there's plenty," answered Charley, and went on with his frolic
until Wiley rose up in disgust. He had heated some water, besides
tearing down a blanket and letting the daylight in, when there came a
hurried knock at the door and the Widow appeared with his breakfast. She
avoided his eyes, but her manner was ingratiating and she supplied the
conversation herself.
"Good morning!" she smiled,--"Charley, stop that awful racket and let
Heine go out for his scraps. Well, I brought you your
breakfast--Virginia isn't feeling very well--and I hope you're going
to be all right. No, get right back into bed and I'll prop you up with
pillows; Charley's got a hundred or so. I declare, it's a question
which can grab the most; old Charley or Stiff Neck George. Every time
anyone moves out--and sometimes when they don't--you'll see those two
ghouls hanging around; and the minute they're gone, well, you never
saw anything like it, the way they will fight for the loot. Charley's
got a whole room filled up with bedding, and stoves and tables and
chairs; and George--he's vicious--he takes nearly everything and piles
it up down in his warehouse. It isn't his, of course, but----"
"He hauls it off in a wheelbarrow," broke in Charley, virtuously. "He
don't care what he does. They was a widow woman here whose daughter got
sick and she had to go out for a week, and when she came back----"
"Yes, her whole house was looted--he carried off even her
sewing-machine!"
"And a deep line of wheelbarrow tracks," added Charley, unctuously,
"leading from her house right down to his. She nailed up all her windows
before she went, but he----"
"Yes, he broke in," supplied the Widow. "He's a desperate character
and everybody is afraid of him, so he can do whatever he pleases; but
you bet your life he can't run it over me--I filled him up with
buckshot twice. Oh--that is--er--did you ever hear how he got his head
twisted? Well, go right ahead now and eat up your toast. I asked him
one time--that was before we'd had our trouble--what was the cause of
his head being to one side. He looks, you know, for all the world like
he was watching for a good kick from behind; but he tried to appear
pathetic and told me a long story about saving a mother and her child
in a flood. And when it was all over, according to him, he fell down
in a faint in the mud; but the best accounts I get say he was dead
drunk in the gutter and woke up with his head on one side."
She ended with a sniff and Wiley glanced at Charley, but he was staring
blankly away.
"I don't like that man," spoke up Charley at last, "he kicked my dog,
one time."
"And he bootlegs something awful," added the Widow, desperately, for
fear that the chatter would lag. "There doesn't a day go by but some
drunken Piute comes whooping up the road, and that bunch of
Shooshonnies----"
"Yes, he sells to the bucks," observed Death Valley, slyly. "They're no
good--they get drunk and tell. But you can trust the squaws--I had one
here yesterday----"
"You what?" shrieked the Widow, and Charley looked up startled, then
rose and whistled to his dog.
"Go lay down!" he commanded and slapped him till he yelped, after which
he slipped fearfully away.
"The very idea!" exclaimed the Widow frigidly and then she glanced at
Wiley.
"Mr. Holman," she began, "I came out here to talk business--there's
nothing round-the-corner about me. Now what about this tax sale, and
what does Blount mean by allowing you to buy it in for nothing?"
"Well, I don't know," answered Wiley. "He refused to pay the taxes, so I
bought in the property myself."
"Yes, but what does he _mean_?"
The Widow's voice rose to the old quarrelsome, nagging pitch, and Wiley
winced as if he had been stabbed.
"You'll have to ask _him_, Mrs. Huff, to find out for sure; but to
a man with one leg it looks like this. Whatever you can say about him,
Samuel J. is a business man, and I think he decided that, as a business
investment, the Paymaster wasn't worth eighty-three, forty-one.
Otherwise he would have bought it himself."
"Unless, of course," added the Widow scornfully, "there was some
understanding between you."
"Oh, yes, sure," returned Wiley, and went on with his eating with a
wearied, enduring sigh.
"Well, I declare," exclaimed the Widow, after thinking it over,
"sometimes I get so discouraged with the whole darned business you could
buy me out for a cent!"
She waited for a response, but Wiley showed no interest, so she went on
with her general complaint.
"First, it was the Colonel, with his gambling and drinking and inviting
the whole town to his house; and then your father, or whoever it was,
started all this stock market fuss; and from that time it's gone from
bad to worse until I haven't a dollar to my name. I was brought up to be
a lady--and so was Virginia--and now we're keeping a restaurant!"
Wiley pulled down his lip in masterful silence and set the breakfast
tray aside. It was nothing to him what the Widow Huff suffered--she had
brought it all on herself. And whenever she was ready to write to his
father she could receive her ten cents a share. That would keep her as a
lady for several years to come, if she had as many shares as she
claimed; but there was nothing to his mind so flat, stale and
unprofitable as a further discussion of the Paymaster. Indeed, with one
leg wound up in a bandage, it might easily prove disastrous. So he
looked away and, after a minute, the Widow again took up her plaint.
"Of course," she said, "I'm not a business woman, and I may have made
some mistakes; but it doesn't seem right that Virginia's future should
be ruined, just because of this foolish family quarrel. The Colonel is
dead now and doesn't have to be considered; so--well, after thinking it
over, and all the rest of it, I think I'll accept your offer."
"Which offer?" demanded Wiley, suddenly startled from his ennui, and the
Widow regarded him sternly.
"Why, your offer to buy my stock--that paper you drew up for me. Here it
is, and I'm willing to sign it."
She drew out the paper and Wiley read it silently, then rolled it into a
ball and chucked it into the corner.
"No," he said, "that offer doesn't hold. I didn't know you then."
"Well, you know me now!" she flashed back resentfully, "and you'd better
come through with that money. I've taken enough off of you and your
father without standing for any more of your gall. Now you write me out
a check for twenty thousand dollars and here's my two hundred thousand
shares. I know you're robbing me but I simply can't endure it--I can't
stay here a single day longer!"
She burst into angry tears as he shook his head and regarded her with
steady eyes.
"No," he said, "you can't do business that way. I haven't got twenty
thousand dollars."
"But--you offered it to me! You wrote out this paper and put it right
under my eyes----"
"No," he said, "I never offered you twenty thousand--I offered to take
an option at that price. I wanted to see that mine, and I wanted to see
it peaceably, and I thought I could do it that way; but that piece of
paper simply gave me the option of buying the stock if I wanted to."
"Well, you wanted to buy the stock--you were crazy to get hold of
it--and now, when I'm willing, you won't take it!"
"No, that's right," agreed Wiley, leaning back against his pillow. "And
now, what are you going to do about it?"
"I'm going to kill you!" shrieked the Widow in a frenzy. "I'm going to
_make_ you take it! I declare, it seems like every single soul is
against me--and me a poor helpless woman!"
She sank back in a chair and began to sob hysterically and Wiley looked
about for the old shotgun. It was far too short, but it had served once
as a crutch, and in a pinch it must serve him again. Keno was no place
for him, he saw that very plainly, and it was better to risk the long
drive across the desert than to stay with this weeping virago. If she
didn't kill him then she would kill him later, and he was powerless to
strike back in defense. She would take advantage of every immunity of
her sex to obtain her own way in the end. He located the gun--it was
down behind his bed where he had dropped it when they helped him in--but
as he was fishing it up the door burst open and Virginia stood looking
at her mother. Behind her appeared Death Valley Charley, his eyes
blinking fearfully; but at sight of the Widow he ducked around the
corner while Virginia came resolutely in.
"Oh, mother!" she burst out in a pleading, reproachful voice, "can't you
see that Wiley is sick? Well, what's the use of creating a scene when
it's likely to make him worse?"
"I don't care!" wailed the Widow. "I hope he dies. I wish I'd killed
him--I do!"
"You do not!" returned Virginia, and shook her reprovingly. "I declare,
I wonder what poor father would think if he heard how we'd treated a
guest. Now you go back to the house and don't you come out again until
Mr. Holman sends for you."
"You shut up!" burst out the Widow, pushing her brusquely aside. "I
guess I know what I'm about. But I'll fool you," she cried, whirling
about on Wiley as she started towards the door. "I'll sell my stock to
Blount!"
She paused for the effect but Wiley did not answer and she returned to
pursue her advantage.
"I know you!" she announced. "You and old Honest John--you're trying to
steal my mine. But I'm going to fool you, I'm going right down to Vegas
and sell every share to Blount!"
"Well, go to it," returned Wiley after a long, defiant silence, "and I
hope you stick him a-plenty!"
"Why, what's the matter?" inquired the Widow, brushing Virginia away
again and swaggering up to his bed. "I thought you and Blount were good
friends."
"Yeh, guess again," replied Wiley grimly. "I'll tell him the mine shows
up fine."
"Well, it does!" she asserted. "The Colonel said it wasn't scratched.
And didn't you steal that piece of quartz from Virginia? Oh, you gave it
back, eh? Well, how did it assay? I know you found _something_
pretty good!"
"How could I give it back, if I'd had it assayed?" asked Wiley with
compelling calm.
"Well what _did_ you come back for?" demanded the Widow,
triumphantly. "You must have figured to win somewhere."
"Yes, I did," sighed Wiley, "but I was badly mistaken. All I want now is
to get out of town."
"Well, how about your father? That offer he made me! Has he backed out
on that, too?"
"No, he hasn't," answered Wiley, "my father keeps his word. You can get
your money any time."
"Well, of all the crazy crooked deals," the Widow began to rave, and
then Wiley grabbed for the shotgun.
"It may be crazy!" he shouted savagely, "but believe me, it isn't
crooked. My father never did a crooked thing in his life, and you know
it as well as I do; and if it wasn't that you're such a crook
yourself----"
"Wiley Holman!" raged the Widow, but he rose up on his crutch and
shouldered his way out the door.
"You're crazy!" he yelled, "the whole danged town's crazy. All except
old Charley and me."
He jerked his head and winked at Charley as he hobbled towards the
street and Death Valley nodded gravely. There was a long, hateful
silence; then the great motor roared out and the white racer rushed away
across the desert.
"Well, I don't care!" declared the Widow as she gazed after his dust and
when the stage went out that day it took a lady passenger to Vegas.