Mary V Selmer was a young woman of quick impulses, a complete disdain
for consequences as yet unseen, and a disposition to have her own way,
to override obstacles man-made or sent by fate to thwart her desires.
Ask any man on the Rolling R Ranch, where Mary V was born; they will
bear witness that this is true.
Mary V had fired the first gun in the battle of wills. She had told
Johnny Jewel that she would expect him to fly straight to the ranch--if
Johnny loved her. Mary V did not mean to seem dictatorial; she merely
wanted Johnny to come back to the Rolling R, and she took what seemed
to her to be the surest means of bringing him. So, serenely sure of
Johnny's love, she had no misgivings when the sun went down and those
wonderful, opal tints of the afterglow filled all the sky.
Johnny would be hungry, of course. She wheedled Bedelia, the cook,
into letting her keep the veal roast hot in the oven of the gasoline
range. She herself spread one of mommie's cherished lunch cloths on
Bedelia's little square table in the kitchen alcove, where she and
Johnny could be alone while he ate. She dipped generously into the
newest preserves and filled a glass dish full for him. She raided the
great refrigerator, closing her eyes to the morrow's reckoning. Johnny
would be hungry, Johnny was a sort of prodigal, and the fatted calf
should be killed figuratively and the ring placed upon his finger.
She told her mommie and her dad that Johnny was coming, and that
everything was all right, and Johnny would be sensible and settle down
now, because he was not going to enlist after all. She kissed them
both and flew back to the kitchen because she had thought of something
else that Johnny would like to eat.
This, you must understand, was while Johnny was feeding Bland,--and
himself,--in "Red's Quick Lunch", and worrying because Bland tactlessly
chose such expensive fare as T-bone steak and French fried. She was
out on the porch, watching the sky toward Tucson and looking rather
wistful, while Johnny was generously sorting out clothes for Bland and
insisting upon the bath and the change before Bland should sleep in
Johnny's bed. Mary V, you will observe, had no telepathic sense at all.
She watched while dark came and brought its star canopy,--and did not
bring Johnny. Long after she saw the rim of hills draw back into vague
shadows, she remained on the porch and listened for the hum of the
airplane speeding toward her. He would come, of course; he loved her.
Johnny did love her more than he had ever loved any one in his life,
but a man's love is not like a woman's love, they say.
"He must have had some trouble with his motor," Mary V observed
optimistically to her sleepy parents, when their early bedtime arrived.
"I'm going to leave the lights all on, so he'll see where to land. It
will be tremendously exciting to hear him come buzzing up in the dark.
It'll sound exactly like an air raid--only he won't have any bombs to
drop."
"He'll have himself to drop," her mother tactlessly pointed out. "I
guess he won't do much flying around in the dark, Mary V. Not if he's
got sense enough to come in when it rains. You go to bed, and don't be
setting out there in the mosquitoes. They're thick, to-night."
"Well, for gracious sake, mom! It's perfectly easy to fly at night.
Over in France they _always_--"
"It's the lightin' I'm talking about," her mother interrupted with that
terrible logic that insists upon stating unpleasant truths, "And this
ain't France, Mary V. You go on to bed. I'm going to turn out the
lights."
"And have him bump right into the house? A person would think you
wanted Johnny to smash himself all to pieces again! And it isn't going
to cost anything so terrible to leave the lights on for another little
minute, mom! A few cents' worth of gas will run the dynamo--"
"For land's sake, Mary V, don't go into a tantrum just at bedtime.
Who's talking about cost? Your father can't sleep with all the lights
turned on in the house, and neither can I. And it ain't a particle of
use for you to sit up and wait for Johnny; he won't come to-night, and
you needn't look for him."
Mary V did not want to hear a statement of that kind, even if it were a
mere argumentative flourish on the part of a selfish, unsympathetic
parent who would jeopardize a person's life rather than annoy herself
with a light or two burning. Mary V immediately had what her mother
called a tantrum. That is, she began to cry and to declaim
unreasonably that no one cared whether Johnny smashed himself all to
pieces in the dark--that perhaps certain persons wished that Johnny
would fall and be killed, just so they could sleep!
Her mother may have been weak in discipline, but now that Mary V was
spoiled to the extent of having tantrums, she proved herself a
sensible, level-headed sort of woman. She went away to her bed quite
unmoved by the tears and self-pity, and left Mary V alone.
"You turn out all the lights except the porch light, Mary V," Old
Sudden himself commanded from his bedroom door. "I guess if he comes,
one light will be as good as a dozen. You better do as your mother
tells you. The kid's got more sense than to tackle flying from Tucson
after sundown. If I thought he didn't have, I'd kick him off the
ranch!"
This perfectly heartless statement served to distract Mary V's mind
from her mother's lack of feeling. She obediently turned out the
lights,--all the lights, since they meant to kill Johnny in cold
blood!--and wept anew upon the darkened porch, while swarms of
mosquitoes hummed just without the screen, sending a slim scout through
now and then to torment Mary V, who spatted her chiffon-covered arms
viciously and wished that she were dead, since no one had any feelings
or any heart or any conscience on that ranch.
It was midnight before healthy youth demanded sleep and dulled her
half-feigned agonies of self-pity. It was morning before she began to
feel really uneasy about Johnny. After her tantrum she slept late, so
that when she awoke it was past time for Johnny's arrival, supposing he
had started at sunrise, which she now admitted to herself was the most
sensible time for the flight. Eight o'clock--and he must have started,
else he would have called her up on the 'phone and told her he was not
coming. For that matter, he would have called up the night before if
he had not meant to do as she wanted him to do. Of course, Johnny was
awfully stubborn sometimes, and he might have waited until morning,
just to worry her. But he would have called up if he hadn't intended
to come. A little thing like hanging up her receiver would not bother
him, she argued, and a little obstacle like long-distance toll never
occurred to Mary V, whose idea of poverty was vague indeed.
He must have started this morning, at the latest. And he should have
been here before now. To make sure that he had not come while she
slept Mary V went to a window overlooking the open space between the
house and corrals. It was empty, but to make doubly sure she asked
Bedelia. For answer, Bedelia threatened to quit, declaring shrilly
that she would not work where nothing was safe under lock and key, and
a girl might work her fingers to the bone putting up jell for spoiled,
ungrateful, meddlesome Matties to waste, and so forth and so on.
Mary V wisely withdrew from the kitchen without having her question
answered. She asked no more questions of any one. In silk kimono and
Indian moccasins, one of her pet incongruities, she forthwith explored
the yard down by the corrals which the bunk house had hidden from her
view. There was no sign of Johnny Jewel's airplane anywhere. Mary V
was thorough, even to the point of looking for tracks of the little
wheels, but at last she was convinced, and returned to the porch to
digest the ominous fact of Johnny's failure to arrive.
He must have started,--she would not admit the possibility that he had
deliberately ignored her ultimatum,--but she would make sure. So she
called Tucson on the telephone and was presently in conversation with
the clerk at Johnny's hotel.
Hotel clerks are usually quite positive that they know what they are
supposed to know about their guests. This clerk interviewed somebody
while Mary V held the line, and later returned to assure her that Mr.
Jewel had been seen leaving the lobby the night before, and had not
returned. A strange young gentleman had occupied Mr. Jewel's room.
No, Mr. Jewel had not been seen since last evening. The clerk was
positive, but since Mary V's voice was young and feminine, he permitted
her to hold the line while he called the night clerk to the 'phone.
The result was disheartening. Mr. Jewel had brought in a young man,
and later had left the hotel. The young man had gone out very early
and neither had returned. Could he do anything else for her?
Mary V thanked him coldly and hung up the receiver, mentally calling
the clerk names that were not flattering. Why in the world did he keep
harping on that one fact that Johnny had gone out and had not come
back? Why didn't he know where Johnny had gone? What, for gracious
sake, was a hotel clerk for, if not to tell a person what she wanted to
know? The strange young man who had slept in Johnny's room meant
nothing at all to Mary V just then.
She had a dislike of creating unnecessary excitement, but it did seem
as though something ought to be done about Johnny. All her faith was
pinned to the fact that he had let her final word stand uncontradicted;
he had not told her he would not come. She went outside and stared for
awhile in the direction of Tucson, turning with a little start when her
mother spoke just behind her.
"Did Johnny tell you he was coming, Mary V?"
"My goodness, mom! Of _course_, he--well, it was just the same as
saying he would. I told him he had to come and I'd expect him, and he
didn't say he wouldn't. Why, for gracious sake, do you suppose I went
and fixed his din--dinner--?" Mary V gulped down a sob she had not
suspected was present.
"Well, there, now, don't cry about it. You'll have plenty better
reasons to cry after you're married to him. Seems to me the boy's
changed considerable, if he comes and goes at the crook of your finger,
Mary V. Johnny's most as stubborn as you be, if I'm any judge. If I
was in your place, Mary V, I'd 'phone and find out if he's started,
before I commenced crying because he was late."
"I did 'phone. And he wasn't at the hotel--"
"Land sakes, child, I heard you! You might as well have asked what the
weather was like. If I was you I'd ask if his airplane is there. If
it is, there's no sense in you straining your eyes looking for it. If
it ain't, he's likely on the way somewhere. But from what I heard of
your talk last night, and from what I know about Johnny--"
"For pity's _sake_, mom! If you listened in--"
"There now, Mary V, you shouldn't object to your own mother overhearing
anything you've got to say. And if you expect me to clap my hands over
my cars and start on a long lope across the desert the minute you begin
to 'phone--"
Mary V laughed and gave her mother a bear-hug. Mommie was a plump
matron, and the idea of her loping across the desert with her hands
over her ears was funny. "You do have tremendously sensible ideas,
mommie, though you simply do not understand Johnny as I do. I am
perfectly positive that he would not disappoint me. However, I'll just
make sure when he started. I'm so afraid of some horrible accident--"
"Well, you 'phone first, before you begin to borrow trouble," her
mother advised her shrewdly. "I know if you had laid down the law to
me the way you did to Johnny, I'd stay away if it was the last thing I
did on earth. And Johnny--"
Mary V called Tucson again, and mommie subsided so as not to interrupt.
There was a delay while the hotel clerk obligingly sent a boy over to
where Johnny kept his airplane. While she waited for his ring, Mary V
went restlessly out to watch the sky toward Tucson. Half an hour
slipped away. Mary V was just declaring pettishly that she could walk
to Tucson and find out, while she waited for that idiotic clerk, when
he called her. Mary V listened, hung up the receiver with trembling
fingers, and went to find her mother in the kitchen.
"Mommie, the plane is gone, and they are almost sure he went last
night, because he was seen going that way after he left the hotel. So
he did start, just as I told him to do--and something awful has
happened to him--and where's dad?"
Mary V's father, whom men for some unaccountable reason called "Sudden"
when he was not present, crawled out from under the rear end of his
battered touring car when Mary V's moccasins and the fluttering hem of
blue kimono moved within his range of vision. Sudden's face was
smudged with black grease and the dust of the desert, and in his hand
was a crescent wrench worn shiny where it had nipped nuts and bolts.
"You musta done some fancy driving the other day," he greeted his
anxious-faced daughter. "Didn't you know you was sliding a wheel every
time you threw on the brake? Wonder to me is you didn't skid off a
grade somewhere!" He hitched himself into a new and uncomfortable pose
and set the wrench on a nut, screwing his well-fed face into an
agonized grimace while he put his full strength into the turn. "If I
could find a man that I'd trust my life with on these roads, I'd have
me a chauffeur," he grumbled for the millionth time. "That reformed
blacksmith musta welded these nuts on to the bolts," he added, and
muttered something savage when the wrench slipped and he barked a
knuckle. "Well, what yuh want? Go ahead and have it, or do it--only
don't stand watching me when I'm trying to--" He gritted his teeth,
threw the wrench away and picked up another. "Go ask your mother," he
exclaimed. "Tell her I'll let you if she will."
At another time Mary V would have deeply resented the implication that
she never approached her dad save when she wanted something; or more
likely she would have stated her want before her dad had time to speak.
Just now she was hopefully watching a buzzard that sailed on
outstretched, rigid wings, high in the sky. It seemed to be circling
toward the ranch, and it looked like an airplane flying very high.
Mary V's heart forgot to beat while she watched it. But the buzzard
sighted something, flapped its wings and went off in another direction,
and the girl winced as though some one had dropped a leaden weight on
her chest.
"Dad!" The voice did not sound like Mary V's, and her father ducked his
head out where he could look up at her with startled attention. "We
must have the car--and all the boys--and get out and find Johnny.
He--he started in his airplane, to come to the ranch. And they haven't
seen him since last night, and--and you know what happened at Sinkhole!"
Sudden got heavily to his feet and stood looking down at her, his
whimsical mouth slack with dismay. But he pulled himself together and
took the dominant, cool initiative which was so much a part of his
nature.
"You say he started last night. How do you know?"
"The hotel clerk--I 'phoned--oh, don't start cross-questioning, dad! I
_know_! His plane is gone, and--he should have been here last night!
He was alone, and--oh, get the boys and start them out! There isn't a
minute--he may be dead somewhere--or hurt--"
"Now, now, we'll only bungle things by getting excited, Mary V. I'll
send the cook after the boys while I fix this brake and fill up the gas
tank. You go get some clothes on, and tell your mother to get the
emergency box ready, in case he's hurt. And if you can be calm enough,
you 'phone to Tucson to the sheriff, and tell him to send out a party
from that end, and work this way. Tell them to scatter out, but keep
the general airline to the ranch. We'll start in from here. And for
Lord's sake, baby, don't look like that! We'll find him--and the
chances are he's all right; maybe landed for some little repair or
something. Now hurry along, if you expect to go with me, because I
won't wait a minute."
Mary V looked at her dad, standing there grease-smudged and calm and
capable, and half the terror went out of her eyes to leave room for
hope. Her dad had such a way of gathering up the threads of logic and
drawing them firmly into coherent action--just as a skilled driver
would take the slack reins of a runaway team and pull them down to a
steady pace. It seemed to her that Johnny Jewel was half found before
ever her dad laid down the wrench and began unscrewing the cap of the
gas tank.
Like a fluttering bluebird she flew back to the house to do his
bidding. Excited she was, and worried, and more than ever inclined to
exclamation points and unfinished sentences; but she was no longer
panic-stricken. She was the Mary V who would move heaven and earth and
slosh all the water out of our five oceans in her headlong
determination to do what she had set out to do.
In two minutes she had her mother and Bedelia rushing around like
scared hens, trying to collect the things she wanted to take for
Johnny's comfort and welfare. In three she was bullying the
long-distance operator. In five she was laying down the law to the
sheriff, just as though he were one of her father's cowpunchers.
"Get all the men you can," she commanded, when she had reached the
details, "and scatter them like a round-up. You know how, of course.
And keep them within sight of each other, and make them keep watch in
every hollow and wash and high brush--because an airplane might not
show up very plainly if it's all smashed. And 'phone to all the places
down this way, and make all the men you can get out and help. It's
tremendously important that you find Mr. Jewel immediately, because he
may be badly hurt. My father will give a thousand dollars to the man
who finds him. You tell that to every one, Mr. Sheriff, will you,
please? And say that the Rolling R will pay well for the time of those
who aren't lucky enough to win the reward. We will pay every man
twenty-five dollars that goes out. And have an automobile follow you,
with a doctor in it, to take care of John--Mr. Jewel, when he is found.
We will start all our riders out from here, and ride until we meet you.
Now hurry! Don't stop for a lot of red tape and orders and things--get
right out on the trail. And don't forget the thousand dollars reward."
Just when the sheriff was saying "Aw right--goo'by," Mary V thought of
something else.
"Be sure and have every man carry an extra canteen for Mr. Jewel.
Injured men are always tremendously thirsty. And don't forget that
every man will get twenty-five dollars, and the man that finds him--"
The sheriff had hung up, which was rude of him. Mary V had several
other little suggestions to make--but men never do want to be told
anything, especially by a woman. Mary V was glad she had not been
permitted to say that the sheriff would of course receive an especially
attractive reward. He could go without, now, just for his smartness.
The Rolling R boys, hastily summoned by the cook who had galloped off
without removing his flour-sack apron, came racing in and saddled fresh
mounts. In a surprisingly short time they were filling canteens and
gathering in a restive circle around the big touring car where the boss
sat behind the wheel, and Mary V, fidgeting on the seat beside him, was
telling them all for gracious sake to hurry up and get started, and not
fool around until dark.
Bill Hayden got his orders, leaning down from his horse so that Mary
V's impatient young voice should not submerge her father's in Bill's
big, sun-peeled ears. "All right--better scatter out right now, soon
as we git past the fence. You foller along about in the middle." He
wheeled and was gone, overtaking the boys who were already starting for
the gate, which little Curley held open until the last man should pass.
Sudden stepped on the starter, the big car began to gurgle. The search
was on. A hundred men were presently combing the desert land and
looking for an airplane that had not flown that way--just because
Johnny Jewel was true to his supreme purpose in life. And just because
Johnny's whole heart and soul were set upon repaying a conscience debt
to Mary V's father, Mary V herself was innocently saddling his
conscience with a still greater debt. For that is the way Fate loves
to set us playing at cross-purposes with each other.