THE ROAD TO G-STRING
SO the end of Joshua Cole’s quest was at hand. Up there somewhere in
the mountains was Madge Mundy--“Shanty” Madge, as California Bill had
called her. He wondered, as he worked that afternoon, what she would
be like. He knew why they called her Shanty Madge, for he remembered
all that she had told him about “gypo” men and “shanty” men, as small
contractors were called on the railroad grade, and since leaving his
home town he had worked in several camps, so that he was familiar with
the vernacular. She would be over eighteen now, and he tried to picture
her at such an age. But always his mind presented the photograph of a
pretty little girl with expressive Oriental-topaz eyes, and red-gold
hair streaming down her back, with skin the color of the mythical
Indian girl who saved John Smith’s life.
And Bloodmop Mundy was dead. Aside from Beaver Clegg, Joshua had known
no other man friend, and he had warmed instinctively to the bluff,
rough-and-ready gypo man. Would Mrs. Mundy remember him? He had liked
Mrs. Mundy, and now, with the experience of years to aid him, he was
able to look back and wonder at her serenity and her strange devotion
to a man of Bloodmop Mundy’s type.
Joshua was unpresentable. His clothes were frayed and his hair needed
trimming. His shoes, too, were relics; and altogether he made a
disreputable-looking figure. He must work at the camp of Demarest,
Spruce and Tillou, he told himself, until he had earned enough money
to buy respectable clothes before seeking Madge. And the thought of
seeking her filled his heart with dread. She might remember him, but
that would be about all. Surely, since she had grown up a hundred men
had made love to her. Was she still interested in the stars?
Another train rolled into Spur, carrying the third section of Demarest,
Spruce and Tillou’s outfit, before they were ready to take up the long,
tiresome trip to the mountains. But on the third day after Joshua’s
coming the first six-horse team moved out ahead of a wagonload of
tents, and one by one others fell in behind it until the long train,
stretched out over the desert, was more than a mile in length.
Joshua rode with California Bill, who drove six big slick mules hitched
to a tremendous load of baled alfalfa. They had a place midway in
the train. The wagons rumbled over the bridge that crossed the river
flowing through the town, ascended a sharp grade hacked in a rocky
butte, and reached a level plateau beyond. Here, far as the eye could
see, stretched the sandy desert, bare in spots, but for the most part
covered sparsely with sage and greasewood. Jack-rabbits loped off
down the avenues between the breast-high plants, bronze-green in the
brilliant sunlight. A coyote stared at them, ears erect, then vanished.
Here grew a clump of stately yuccas, that mysterious tree of the desert
with swords for leaves and a trunk as pithy as a cornstalk. There
in the mirage-steeped distance a desert whirlwind traveled along, a
funnel-shaped pillar of sand and dust that scarce seemed to move, but
which in reality was sweeping along at dizzying speed. Dust clouds
arose from the wagon train and hung in the air. The dust was filled
with alkali, and it stung the lips and the eyes and made men frequently
seek the desert water-bags that hung handy on every wagon.
California Bill lolled on his high seat and smoked brown-paper
cigarettes. Somehow, Joshua thought, his bearded lips and his mature
years called for a corn-cob pipe, but Bill was too strongly Western for
that.
They talked of many things, and as Joshua’s confidence in the man grew
firmer he told the strange story of his life, omitting nothing. From
time to time, as he listened, California Bill sagely nodded his head,
as if all matters in the universe were understood by him.
“Well, Tony,” he remarked, as Joshua came to a pause and looked off
over the desert with unseeing gray-blue eyes, “you’ve had enough
experience to make a man out of you, and I guess it’s done it.”
“Don’t call me Tony,” objected Joshua. “That name calls up memories
that are not all pleasant.”
“I was just thinkin’,” said Bill. “Seems to me that name’s kinda
appropriate. It set you apart from the other kids in the House of
Refuge--seems--and it meant somethin’. If I was you, I’d take that name
just to kinda spit in the face of Old Lady Fate. D’ye get what I mean?
S’pose, f’r instance, that an hombre was to peddle me a salted mine
and went away chucklin’ in his sleeve. Then s’pose that mine was to
unexpectedly show a big pay streak, and make me rich. Now ye get me.
Joshua ain’t any kind of a name for a jasper like you, anyway. When ye
get to be a big astronomer, which ye will some day, Joshua’ll be plumb
_hi-yu-skookum_--which is Cayuse Indian for ‘mighty fine’--but out here
on the desert an’ in the mountains Tony sounds more sociable. Le’s make
it Tony. Tony Cole--that’s _muy bueno_. But ten years from now Dr.
Joshua Cole will be the proper caper. Ye must ’a’ learned a lot from
that ole Clegg party, Tony.”
“He taught me all that I know,” Joshua replied.
“I’d like to ’a’ met that man,” said California Bill. “I cottoned to
him the minute you began to tell about ’im. I like ugly men. Somehow er
nuther they seem the most dependable.”
“I heard something about you yesterday,” Joshua told him. “They tell
me you were once deputy sheriff of one of the northern counties in
California.”
“Did they? Huh! Yes, I puttered around a bit at that job.”
“And I was told, too, that you are without fear--that you are a deadly
gunman and have half a dozen bullet holes in your body.”
“Shucks, now! Who’s been talkin’ behind my back?”
“A man who lives at Spur told me. Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“That you are fearless?”
“Course it ain’t true. No man is fearless. Why, I’ve heard my own teeth
rattlin’ like seed in a pod many a time. Look away over yonder at the
mountains, Tony. See that deep scar? That’s Caldron Cañon--hottest
place anywhere about here. An’ to the left of it is Buttonhook
Bend, where they usta hold up the mail stage for G-string. Old
road--abandoned now. And ahead, if ye’ll stand up, ye c’n see a square
o’ green on the desert. Looks like an emerald in the middle of a khaki
blanket, don’t it? That’s Box-R Ranch. Artesian wells--the only water
between here and Wild Woman Springs. We’ll camp there.”
“Have you ever killed a man, Bill?” Joshua persisted.
“Who, me? Reminds me of ole Seth Spicer, that usta be up in Mendocino
County in the big-timber belt. Fella ast ’im how many bear he’d killed.
‘When?’ says Seth. ‘Why, in yer life?’ says the fella. ‘In my _whole_
life?’ says Seth. ‘Why, son, ye don’t expect me to recollect that, do
ye? But I remember killin’ forty-seven one winter.’ But it ain’t as
bad as that with me, Tony. I plugged a couple er more, I guess, in
my time. But I don’t like to think about it. I’m powerful peaceful,
me. That’s why I quit dep’ty-sheriffin’--don’t like to be packin’ a
gat and smokin’ up the scenery any too well. That’s what I call plumb
_cultus_--which, seein’ ye’re an Easterner, means ‘very bad.’ I like
hosses an’ mules an’ trees an’ rocks--seems. Now tell me somethin’ more
about Mars an’ the moon. I never get sick o’ that stuff. Is ole Mars
inhabited, d’ye think?”
They camped at Box-R Ranch in the middle of the afternoon, and were
away again before the sun was up. Next afternoon found the crawling
worm that was the wagon train at Wild Woman Springs, which for years
had been nothing but a watering station on the road to G-string, but
which, since the coming of the nomad laborers, had become a frontier
village boasting eleven houses. Every house was built of new, resinous
pine and corrugated iron, and all sheltered gambling devices, rude
bars, restaurant counters, bunks for the exhausted, and floors upon
which to dance with the highly painted female denizens of the dives.
Here were Scotty’s Place, The Palace Dance Hall, The Gem, Poker
Dan’s, The Midway, Shoestring Charley’s, Cowboy Mary’s Place, The
Forget-me-not, and others with names as suggestive and picturesque.
A mile or more from Wild Woman Springs the outfit next morning left
the desert and began the sharp ascent into the abrupt mountains. They
reached Yucca Flat at noon, where they camped, and at two o’clock they
entered upon the new road to G-string which had robbed California Bill
of his six-up express and made of him a six-mule freighter.
There was one more night’s camp before they crawled to the summit,
which took place in the middle of the following morning. For hours the
air had been growing cooler. All the majestic bleakness of the desert
had passed and now friendly pines and tinkling streams and lofty,
distant peaks greeted the tired travelers. Then they wound down into a
level mountain valley where gleamed a tranquil lake.
“Stirrup Lake,” Bill named it. “An’ the mountain over there that looks
down on it is Saddle Mountain. G-string is at the foot of it, but we
don’t go that way. We’ll lead ’round the lake on the east and follow
the south shore. See those peaks over there to the west? That’s where
we’re headin’ for--that’s where the railroad’s comin’ through the
mountains. Shanty Madge is there.”
He looked quickly with his keen, slate-colored eyes at his companion,
the dense black brows lifted inquiringly.
“So ye knew Madge when she was a kid, hey?” he asked. “Eleven, did ye
say?”
“Yes,” said Joshua, and he felt the heat growing in his face.
“Well, she’s over eighteen now, I guess. She’s good f’r the eyes. I’ve
seen a lotta women handlin’ men’s jobs in the West, Tony, but none
just like Shanty Madge. She’s different--there’s that confoun’ handy
word again! But Madge is educated--they say her mother was a wizard
at bringin’ her up--an’ she ain’t like any female pioneer that I ever
knew before. She’s a good scout and all that, democratic an’ free, but
she’s--well, confoun’ that word!--she’s different. Figger it out f’r
yerself. D’ye think ye’re in love with her, son?”
California Bill’s abruptness was often disconcerting. Joshua’s face
went red as fire, and his eyes failed to meet the freighter’s.
“Excuse me, Tony,” Bill said gently. “I’m always shootin’ from the
pocket--seems. But I know what brung ye out here--just that an’ nothin’
else. Shut up like ye was in that there he-convent, seein’ no girls,
ye just kep’ on thinkin’ of the little girl ye met in the gypo camp,
an’ when ye broke corral ye loped for her. But I wanta tell ye, son,
that Madge is what ye might call a grown woman now--though at that
she’s only a kid--and she’s a mighty much admired skirt. Why, young
Montgomery, son of the big Montgomery of Montgomery and Applegate,
big contractors, is after Madge hot an’ heavy. I ain’t meanin’ to
discourage ye, Tony--but right now ye’re only a tramp, an’-- Well,
figger it out f’r yerself.”
“I’m not going to see her until I’ve earned enough money to buy
some decent clothes,” Joshua told California Bill. “I’m a pretty
good powderman--it’s the only thing that appeals to me in railroad
construction.”
“That comes o’ yer scientific mind,” said Bill.
“I suppose so,” Joshua agreed. “But the best of it is that a good
powderman has a chance to get somewhere, it seems to me, and I’m going
to try for a foreman’s job as soon as a chance offers.”
“Ye’re pretty young.”
“I realize that. But I’m confident that I can get something before very
long. The outfit is as yet short of men--there ought to be a chance for
me. Well, until I get on my feet, anyway, I won’t see Madge.”
“She’s used to tramps enough,” mused Bill. “But that ain’t sayin’
she’ll fall in love with one. I’m bettin’ on ye, though, Tony. Don’t
get discouraged. An’ whatever ye do, don’t give up astronomy. That’s
what ye’ve set yer heart on, an’ that’s what ye know best. Get on yer
feet, make up to Shanty Madge, make her love ye, an’ then get outa here
an’ go on with yer studies. If Madge is what I think she is, she’d say
the same. An’ she’ll wait f’r ye, too. That is, that’s the way I’m
bettin’. You’ll win, Tony--it’s in yer eye. Ye been through hell, an’
ye come out of it rarin’ an’ prancin’ an’ gnawin’ yer bit. Ye’re a
fightin’ fool--my money’s on ye, son! Now here we go ’round the east
end o’ the lake. Come three o’clock we’ll be there, an’ then--”
“Then I’ll begin my life,” said Joshua.
California Bill sighed deeply and looked away over Stirrup Lake toward
Saddle Mountain, red in the sunlight. “Then ye’ll begin,” he muttered
softly. “Lord! Lord! What must it be like to be young and talkin’ about
beginnin’!”