STORM CLOUDS
A dispirited creature made its way down to the Setons' house that same
evening. Big Brother Bill felt there was not one single clear thought
in his troubled head, at least, not one worth thinking. He was
weighted down by a hazy conception of the position of things, in a
manner that came near to destroying the very root of his optimism.
One or two things settled upon his mind much in the manner of mental
vampires. He knew that Charlie was threatened, and he knew that
Charlie knew it, and made no attempt to protect himself. He knew that
Charlie was also scared--frightened out of all control of himself in a
manner that was absurdly contradictory. He knew that he was now at the
saloon for the purpose of drowning his hopeless feelings in the
maddening spirit O'Brien dispensed. He knew that his own baggage had
at last arrived from Heaven only knew where, and he wished it hadn't,
for it left him feeling even more burdened than ever with the
responsibilities of the pestilential valley. He knew that he was
beginning to hate the police, and Fyles, almost as much as Charlie
did. He knew that if prevailing conditions weren't careful he would
lose his temper with them, and make things hot for somebody or
something. But, more than all else, he knew that Helen Seton was more
than worth all the worry and anxiety he was enduring.
In consequence of all this he arrayed himself in a light tweed suit, a
clean, boiled shirt and collar, a tie, that might well have startled
the natives of his home city, and a panama hat which he felt was
necessary to improve the tropical appearance of his burnt and
perspiring features, and hastened to Helen's presence for comfort and
support.
The girl had been waiting for him. She looked the picture of
diaphanous coolness in the shade of the house, lounging in an old
wicker chair, with its fellow, empty, drawn up beside her. There were
no feminine eyes to witness her little schemes, and Bill?--why, Bill
was delighted beyond words that she was there, also the empty chair,
also, that, as he believed, while she was wholly unconscious of the
fact, the girl's attitude and costume were the most innocently
pleasing things he had ever beheld with his two big, blue,
appreciative eyes.
He promptly told her so.
"Say, Hel," he cried, "you don't mind me calling you 'Hel,' do
you?--you see, everything delightful seems to be associated with
'Hell' nowadays. If you could see yourself and the dandy picture
you make you'd kind of understand how I feel just about now."
The girl smiled her delight.
"Maybe I do understand," she said. "You see, I don't always sit around
in this sort of fancy frock. Then, no girl of sense musses herself
into an awkward pose when six foot odd of manhood's getting around her
way. No, no Big Brother Bill. That chair didn't get there by itself.
Two carefully manicured hands put it there, after their owner had
satisfied herself that her mirror hadn't made a mistake, and that she
was looking quite her most attractive. You see, you'd promised to come
to see me this evening, and--well, I'm woman enough to be very
pleased. That's all."
Bill's sun-scorched face deepened its ruddy hue with youthful delight.
"Say, you did all this for--for me?"
Helen laughed.
"Why, yes, and told you the various details to be appreciated, because
I was scared to death you wouldn't get them right."
Bill sat himself down, and set the chair creaking as he turned it
about facing her. He held out his hands.
"I haven't seen the manicuring racket right, yet," he laughed.
Helen stretched out her two hands toward him for inspection. He
promptly seized them in his, and pretended to examine them.
"The prettiest, softest, jolliest----"
But the girl snatched them away.
"That's not inspection. That's----"
"Sure it's not," retorted Bill easily. "It's true."
"And absurd."
"What--the truth?"
Bill's blue eyes were widely inquiring.
"Sometimes."
The smile died out of the man's eyes, and his big face became doleful.
"Yes, I s'pose it is."
Helen set up.
"What's gone wrong--now? What truth is--absurd?" she demanded.
The man shrugged.
"Oh, everything. Say, have you ever heard of a disease of the--the
brain called 'partly hatched'?"
The girl's eyes twinkled.
"I don't kind of remember it."
"No, I don't s'pose you do. I don't think anybody ever has it but me.
I've got it bad. This valley's given it me, and--and if it isn't
careful it's going to get fatal."
Helen looked around at him in pretended sympathy.
"What's the symptoms? Nothing outward? I mean that tie--that's not a
symptom, is it?"
Bill shook his head. He was smiling, but beneath his smile there was a
certain seriousness.
"No. There's no outward signs--yet. I got it through thinking too--too
young. You see, I've done so much thinking in the last week. If it had
been spread over, say six months, the hatching might have got fixed
right. But it's been too quick, and things have got addled. You see,
if a hen turned on too much pressure of heat her eggs would get
fried--or addled. That's how my brain is. It's addled."
Helen nodded with a great show of seriousness which the twitching
corners of her pretty mouth belied.
"I always thought you'd got a trouble back of your--head. But you'd
best tell me. You see, I don't get enough pressure of thinking to
hatch anything. Maybe between us we can fix your mental eggs right."
Bill's big eyes lit with relief and hope.
"That's bright of you. You surely are the cutest girl ever. You must
have got a heap of brain to spare."
Helen could no longer restrain her laughter.
"It's mostly all--spare. Now, then, tell me all your troubles."
The great creature at her side looked doubtful and puzzled.
"I don't know just where to begin. There's such a heap, and I've
worried thinking about it, till--till----"
Helen sat up and propped her chin in her hands with her elbows on her
knees.
"When you don't know where to begin just start with the first thought
in your head, and--and--ramble."
Bill brightened up.
"Sure that's best?"
"Sure."
The man sighed in relief.
"That's made a heap of difference," he cried. Then he took a
handkerchief from his pocket, removed his panama and mopped his
forehead. He gave a big gulp in the midst of the process, and spoke as
though he were defying an enemy. "Will you marry me?" he demanded, and
sat up glaring at her, with his hat and handkerchief poised in either
hand.
The girl gave him a quick look. Then she flung herself back in her
chair and laughed.
"We--we are talking of troubles," she protested.
Bill replaced his hat, and restored his handkerchief to its pocket.
"Troubles? Troubles? Isn't that trouble enough to start with?
It's--it's the root of it all," he declared. "I'm--I'm just crazy
about you. And every time I try to think about Charlie and the police,
and--and the scallywags of the valley, I--I find you mixed up with it
all, and get so tangled up that I don't know where I am, or--or why.
Say, have you ever been crazy about anybody? Some feller, for
instance? It's the worst worrying muddle ever happened. First you're
pleased--then you cuss them. Then you sort of sit dreaming all sorts
of fool things that haven't any sense at all. Then you want to make
rhymes and things about eyes, and flowers, and moons, and feet, and
laces and bits. You feel all over that everything else has got no
sense to it, and is just so much waste of time thinking about it. You
sort of feel that all men are fools but yourself, and other females
aren't women, but just images. You sort of get the notion the world's
on a pivot, and that pivot's just yourself, and if you weren't there
there'd be a bust up, and most everything would get chasing glory, and
you don't care a darn, anyway, if they did. Say, when you get clean
crazy about anybody, same as I am about you, you find yourself hating
everybody that comes near them. You get notions that every man is
conspiring to tell the girl what a perfect fool you are, that they're
worrying to boost you right out with her. You hate her, because you
think she thinks you are a simpleton, and can't see your good points,
which are so obvious to yourself. You hate yourself, you hate life,
you hate the sunlight and the trees, and your food, and--and
everything. And you wouldn't have things different, or stop making
such a fool of yourself, no--not if hell froze over. Will--will you
marry me?"
Helen's humor suddenly burst the bonds of all restraint. She sat there
laughing until she nearly choked.
Bill waited with a patience that seemed inexhaustible. Then, as the
girl's mirth began to lessen, he put his question again with dogged
persistence.
"Will you marry me?"
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Of all the----"
"Will you marry me?" the man persisted, his great face flushing.
Helen abruptly sobered. The masterful tone somehow sent a delighted
thrill through her nerves.
She nodded.
"Of course I will. I--intended to from the first moment I saw your
big, funny face with Stanley----"
"You mean that, Hel? You really--meant to marry me? You did?"
The man's happy excitement was something not easily to be forgotten.
He sprang from his chair, reached out his powerful hands, caught the
girl about the waist, and picked her up in his arms as he might have
picked up a child. His great bear-like hug was a monstrous thing to
endure, but Helen was more than willing to endure it, as also his
kisses, which he rained upon her happy, laughing face.
But the girl's sense of the fitness of things soon came to her rescue.
The ridiculousness, the undignified figure she must appear, held in
her great lover's arms, set her struggling to free herself, and, in a
few moments, he set her once more upon her feet, and stood laughing
down into her blushing face.
"Say," he cried, with a great laugh, "I don't care a cuss if my brains
never hatch out. You're going to be my wife. You, the girl I'm crazy
to death about. Fyles and all the rest can go hang. Gee!"
Helen looked up at him. Then she smoothed out her ruffled frock, and
patted her hair into its place.
"Well," she cried, with a happy laugh, "I've heard some queer
proposals from the boys of this valley when they were drunk, but for a
sober, educated man, I think you've made the funniest proposal that
any one ever listened to. Oh, Bill, Bill, you've done a foolish thing.
I'm a shameless man-hunter. I came out west to find a husband, and
I've found one. I wanted to marry you all along. I meant to marry
you."
Bill's laugh rang out in a great guffaw.
"Bully!" he cried. "What's the use of marrying a girl who doesn't want
to marry you?"
"But she ought to pretend--at first."
"Not on your life. No pretense for me, Hel. Give me the girl who's
honest enough to love me, and let me know it."
"Bill! How--dare you? How dare you say I loved you and told you so?
I've--I've a good mind not to marry----Say, Bill, you are a--joke.
Now, sit right down, and tell me all about those--those other things
worrying you."
In a moment a shadow crossed the man's cheerful face. But he
obediently resumed his seat, and somehow, when Helen sat down, their
chairs were as close together as their manufacturer had made possible.
"It's Charlie--Charlie, and the police," said Bill, in a despondent
tone. "And Kate, too. I don't know. Say, Hel, what's--what's going to
happen? Fyles is hot after Charlie. Charlie don't care a curse. But
there's something scaring him that bad he's nearly crazy. Then there's
Kate. He saw Kate talking to Fyles, and he got madder than--hell. And
now he's gone off to O'Brien's, and it don't even take any thinking to
guess what for. I tell you he's so queer I can't do a thing with him.
I'm not smart enough. I could just break him in my two hands if I took
hold of him to keep him home and out of trouble, but what's the use?
He's crazy about Kate, he's crazy about drink, he's crazy about
everything, but keeping clear of the law. That's what I came to tell
you about--that, and to fix up about getting married."
The man's words left a momentary dilemma in the girl's mind. For a
moment she was at a loss how to answer him. It seemed impossible to
accept seriously his tale of anxiety and worry, and yet----. The same
tale from any other would have seemed different. But coming from Bill,
and just when she was so full of an almost childish happiness at the
thought that this great creature loved her, and wanted to marry her,
it took her some moments to reduce herself to a condition of judicial
calm, sufficient to obtain the full significance of his anxious
complaint.
When at last she spoke her eyes were serious, so serious that Bill
wondered at it. He had never seen them like that before.
"It's dreadful," she said in a low tone. "Dreadful."
Bill jumped at the word.
"Dreadful? My God, it's awful when you think he's my brother, and--and
Kate's your sister. I can't see ahead. I can't see where things
are--are drifting. That's the devil of it. I wish to goodness they'd
given me less beef and more brain," he finished up helplessly.
Helen displayed no inclination to laugh. Somehow now that this simple
man was here, now that the responsibility of him had devolved upon
her, a delightful feeling of gentle motherliness toward him rose up in
her heart, and made her yearn to help him. It was becoming quite easy
to take him seriously.
"P'r'aps it's a good thing you've got all that--beef. P'r'aps it's for
the best, you're so--so strong, and so ready to help. You can't see
ahead. Neither can I. Maybe no one can, but--Fyles. Suppose you and
I were standing at the foot of a cliff--a big, high cliff, very
dangerous, very dreadful, and some one we both loved was climbing its
face, and we saw them reach a point where it looked impossible to go
on, or turn back. What could we do? I'll tell you. We could remain
standing there looking on, praying to Providence that they might get
through, and holding ourselves ready to bear a hand when opportunity
offered, and, failing that, do our utmost to _break their fall_."
Bill's appreciation suddenly illuminated his ingenuous face.
"Say," he cried admiringly. "You've hit it. Sure, we can't climb up
and help. It would mean disaster to both, with no one left to help.
Say, I'm glad I'm big and strong. That's it, we'll stand--by. You'll
think, and I'll do what you tell me. By Jing! That's made everything
different. We'll stand by, and break their fall. I could never have
thought of that--I couldn't, sure."
It was Helen's turn to display enthusiasm. It was an enthusiasm
inspired by her lover's acceptance of her suggestion.
"But we're not going to just watch and watch and do nothing. We must
keep on Fyles's trail. We must keep close behind Charlie, and when we
see the fall coming on we must be ready to thrust out a hand. You
never know, we may beat the whole game in spite of Charlie. We may be
able to save him in spite of himself. No harm must come to Kate
through him. I can't see where it can come, except--that he is mad
about her, and she is mad about--some one else."
"Fyles?" Bill hazarded.
Helen looked around at him in amused admiration. She nodded.
"You're getting too clever for me. You will be thinking for us both
soon."
Bill denied the accusation enthusiastically.
"Never," he exclaimed. And after that he drifted into a lover's
rhapsody of his own inferiority and unworthiness.
Thus, for a while, the more serious cares were set aside for that
brief lover's paradise when two people find their focus filled to
overflowing with that precious Self, which we are told always to deny.
Fortunately human nature does not readily yield to such behests, and
so life is not robbed of its mainspring, and the whole machinery of
human nature is not reduced to a chaotic bundle of useless wheels.
For all Helen's boasted scheming, for all Bill's lack of brilliancy,
these two were just a pair of simple creatures, loyal and honest, and
deeply in love. So they dallied as all true lovers must dally with
those first precious moments which a Divine Providence permits to flow
in full tide but once in a lifetime.
* * * * *
Charlie Bryant was standing at the bar of O'Brien's saloon. One hand
rested on the edge of the counter as though to steady himself. His
eyes were bloodshot, a strange pallor left his features ghastly, and
the combination imparted a subtle appearance of terror which the
shrewd saloonkeeper interpreted in his own fashion as he unfolded his
information, and its deductions.
The bar was quite empty otherwise, and the opportunity had been too
good for O'Brien to miss.
"Say, I was mighty glad to get them kegs the other night safely. But
I'm takin' no more chances. It'll see me through for awhile," he said,
as he refilled Charlie's glass at his own expense. "There's a big play
coming right now, and, if you'll take advice, you'll lie low--desprit
low."
"You mean Fyles--as usual," said Charlie thickly. Then he added as an
afterthought: "To hell with Fyles, and all his damned red-coats."
O'Brien's quick eyes surveyed his half-drunken customer with a shrewd,
contemptuous speculation.
"That sounds like bluff. Hot air never yet beat the p'lice. It needs a
darnation clear head, and big acts, to best Fyles. A half-soused bluff
ain't worth hell room."
Charlie appeared to take no umbrage. His bloodshot eyes were still
fixed upon O'Brien's hard face as he raised his glass with a shaking
hand and drained it.
"I don't need to bluff with no one around worth bluffing," he said,
setting the empty glass down on the counter.
O'Brien's response was to fold his arms aggressively, and lean forward
upon the counter, peering into the delicate, pale face before him.
"See here," he cried, "a fellow mostly bluffs when he's scared, or
he's in a corner--like a rat. See? Now it's to my interest to see
Fyles beat clean out of Rocky Springs. It's that set me gassin'. Get
me? So just keep easy, and take what I got to hand out. I'm wise to
the game. It's my business to keep wise. Those two crooks of yours,
Pete and Nick, were in this morning, and I heard 'em talkin'. Then I
got 'em yarning to me. They've got every move Fyles is making dead
right. They're smartish guys, and I feel they're too smart for you by
a sight. If things go their way you're safe. If there's a chance of
trouble for them you're up against it."
Charlie licked his dry lips as the saloonkeeper paused. Then he
replaced the sodden end of his cigarette between them. But he remained
silent.
"I've warned you of them boys before," O'Brien went on. "But that's by
the way. Now, see here, Fyles has got your play. The boys know that,
and in turn have got his play. Fyles knows that to-morrow night you're
running in a big cargo of liquor. The only thing he don't know is
where you cache it. Anyways, he's got a big force of boys around, and
Rocky Springs'll have a complete chain of patrols around it, to-morrow
night. Each man's got a signal, and when that signal's given it means
he's located the cargo. Then the others'll crowd in, and your gang's
to be overwhelmed. Get it? You'll all be taken--red-handed. I'm
guessin' you know all this all right, all right, and I'm only telling
it so you can get the rest clear. How you and your boys get these
things I'm not guessing. It's smart. But here's the bad stuff. It's my
way to watch folks and draw 'em when I want to get wise. I drew them
boys. They're reckonin' things are getting hot for 'emselves. They're
scared. They're reckonin' the game's played out, and ain't worth hell
room, with Fyles smelling around. Those boys'll put you away to Fyles,
if they see the pinch coming. And that's where my interests come in.
They'll put you away sure as death."
If O'Brien were looking for the effect of his solemn warning he was
disappointed. Charlie's expression remained unchanged. The ghastly
white of his features suggested fear, but it was not added to by so
much as a flicker of an eyelid.
"That all?" he asked, with a deliberate pause between the words to
obtain clear diction.
O'Brien shrugged, but his eyes snapped angrily at this lack of
appreciation.
"Ain't it enough? Say," his manner had become almost threatening, "I'm
not doing things for hoss-play. The folks around can build any old
church to ease their souls and make a show. Rocky Springs ain't the
end of all things for me. I'm out after the stuff. I'll soothe my soul
with dollars. That's why I'm around telling you, because your game's
the thing that's to give 'em to me. When your game's played I hit the
trail, but as long as you make good Rocky Springs is for me. If you
can't handle your proposition right then I quit you."
Charlie suddenly shifted his position, and leaned his body against
the counter. The saloonkeeper looked for that sign which was to
re-establish his confidence. It was not forthcoming. For a moment
the half-drunken man leaned his head upon one hand, and his face
was turned from the other behind the bar.
O'Brien became impatient.
"Wal?" he demanded.
His persistence was rewarded at last. But it was rewarded with a shock
which left him startled beyond retort.
Charlie suddenly brought a clenched fist down upon the counter with a
force that set the glasses ringing.
"Fyles!" he cried fiercely, "Fyles! It's always Fyles! God's truth, am
I never to hear, or see, the last of him? Say, you know. You think you
know. But you don't. Damn you, you don't!"
Before the astonished saloonkeeper could recover himself and formulate
the angry retort which rose to his lips, Charlie staggered out of the
place.