JANET AND MARY
In a region as sparsely settled by white people as San Mateo and its
adjoining counties there were not, as Janet put it, more than a dozen
Johnson families. In fact, there were but two, she learned from her
father: one at Bowenville, the small railroad town of three hundred
people, a merchant with a wife and four little children; the other a
rancher on Terry Creek, whose wife was dead and who had one child, a
girl of sixteen or seventeen years of age.
"I may be away at dinner time, so don't wait for me," she told her
father next morning. "I'm going out in the country a few miles--and
you know my car! If you'd just let me squeeze some of these patients
who never pay, you could have a new car yourself."
"Mine's all right," he smiled.
"But mine isn't. Look at it. You gave it to me only because you
scorned to ride in it any longer yourself. It would do for me, you
said, but you prance around in a bright shiny one yourself. I blush at
the row mine makes; sounds like a boiler factory; I drive only along
side streets. If the patients would pay what they owe, I could ride
like a lady instead of a slinking magpie."
The doctor leaned back in his chair and laughed (they were at
breakfast) and remarked that old friends were best.
"Don't call my asthmatic tin beast a friend; we're bitter enemies,"
said she.
It carried her to Terry Creek about noon, however, safely enough,
whither she went with a firm resolution that crushed a certain
embarrassment and anxiety. Suppose these people resented her
inquiries.
She placed the bearded, tanned rancher at once, when she saw him
working on a piece of harness before the door as she drove up. She had
seen him in town at different times. She once had stopped here, too,
several years previous when accompanying her father, who had been
called to dress the rancher's injured hand. The girl could not have
been over twelve or thirteen then, a shabby, awkward girl wearing a
braid who came out to gaze shyly at her sitting in the car.
Johnson arose from the ground and approached as she alighted, while
the girl's head popped into sight at the door.
"I'm Dr. Hosmer's daughter, Janet," she stated, putting out her hand
and smiling. "I've come to see you on a matter. Shall we go into the
house?"
With curiosity sharing a vague hostility in his bearing he led her in,
where his daughter was setting the table. Janet also told the girl who
she was. At once dismay and startlement greeted the announcement. But
she invited Janet to be seated, she herself withdrawing to a spot by
the stove.
No need for Janet to beat about the bush with her errand.
"Mr. Johnson," she said, "I've come to you and your daughter for a
little help if you can give it." That seemed the best way to break
down their reserve, an appeal rather than simply blunt questions--and
what was it if not an appeal? "What I have to say is just among the
three of us and I know it will go no farther. You're acquainted with
my father; he's respected by every one."
"He is," Johnson stated, nodding.
"The situation is this, to speak plainly: last night I heard something
that has caused me to come to you for information; I'm engaged to Ed
Sorenson, and in a moment of anger he denounced Mr. Weir, the engineer
at the dam, for having told me a false story--lies--about him and your
daughter."
Janet perceived the quick, troubled look exchanged by man and girl.
"Mr. Weir has never mentioned your daughter's name in my hearing; I
think him incapable of discussing any one maliciously. He's very
careful of what he says. I consider him a very honorable man. At any
rate, he said nothing of what Ed Sorenson suggested, and if the latter
himself hadn't spoken of the thing I should have had no inkling that
there had been anything justifying an inquiry on my part. There may
not be. But why should he imagine Mr. Weir had told me 'lies' linking
him and your daughter?"
"I know Weir--and I know Ed Sorenson, too," was the rancher's grim
rejoinder.
"This is a disagreeable subject, I know. But I'm not here out of mere
curiosity, but a desire to learn if something has been concealed from
me by Ed Sorenson that I should be informed of. His manner, his words,
the whole incident has filled me with doubts. See, I'm trusting you
absolutely." And she extended a hand in a gesture bespeaking
sincerity.
Johnson peered at her in silence from under shaggy brows.
"I ask myself why Mr. Sorenson took it for granted that the engineer
had been telling me false stories and if there was any ground for such
fears," she went on. "He had nothing to be afraid of, no matter what
might be said, if he had done nothing unworthy. I can't imagine Mr.
Weir, for instance, being alarmed in that way."
"They're telling plenty of lies about him, for that matter, but I
guess it doesn't worry him any," Johnson said.
"What I ask you touches a delicate subject, perhaps," Janet continued,
reluctantly. "You may feel that I'm pushing in where I'm not
concerned. But if Mr. Sorenson has done anything discreditable--if he
has acted in a way to make me ashamed when I know, then it becomes a
matter affecting my happiness too. I would never marry a man who had
done something dishonorable, for if I did so knowingly I should be
dishonored and dishonorable as well."
Johnson suddenly thrust a brown forefinger at her.
"Do you want to know what Sorenson did?" he demanded, wrathfully.
Janet gripped her hands together. "Yes."
"You'll not go spreading it all around the country? But I guess you
won't as long as it would make you out a fool too. I'll not have
Mary's name dragged about in a lot of gossip."
"I assure you I shall remain silent, for her sake and my own."
"All right, I'll tell you. You're too good a girl--any decent girl
is--to marry Ed Sorenson. He met Mary at a dance last spring in town
where she went with some friends of ours, and made love to her but
wouldn't let her tell me or any one. We don't get to town so very
often; she never knew he was engaged to marry you, there never
happening to be any mention of it to her. Then he got her to go to
Bowenville one day awhile ago, under promise to marry her there--Mary
is only sixteen, a little girl yet. To me, anyway."
Janet felt the working of his love in those simple words. Felt it but
half-consciously, though, for her own soul was stifling at Ed
Sorenson's revealed infamy.
"When he got her there, he told her they would have to go away farther
to be married--to Los Angeles." Again his finger came up, this time to
be shaken at her like a hammer. "He never intended to marry her; he
planned to get her there, ruin her, and cast her off. That's the sort
of man you're going to marry!"
"I remember he expected to be away for a couple of weeks--a business
trip, he said. But afterwards he explained that it hadn't been
necessary to go."
"A business trip! Yes, the dirty kind of business he likes. And if it
hadn't been that Weir heard him explaining to Mary that she must go on
and interfered--there in the restaurant--Ed Sorenson might have
succeeded. Mary trusted him, thought he was straight. But he's
crooked, crooked as his old man. When Weir told him to his face what
he thought of his tricks, he let it out he was engaged to you. Didn't
mean to, of course. Weir said he would stay right with them and see
that they got married next day before a minister, then Sorenson
snapped out he was to marry you. That opened Mary's eyes, that and his
refusing to go before a preacher as the engineer demanded. So Weir
brought her home to me.
"And that isn't all I know," he snarled. "Mexicans and cowboys and
others have talked--women don't hear these things--how he's had to
pay Mexicans hush-money for girls of theirs he's wronged. But what do
people care? He's rich, he's old man Sorenson's boy; everything's kept
quiet; and he goes around as big as life." With a muttered oath he
turned away, his lips shut hard and his beard sticking out savagely.
He came back to her again.
"The young one gets it from the old one," he exclaimed. "Bad crooked
blood in both of them. I know. I've been here ever since I was a boy
and remember things Sorenson believes every one has forgotten, I know
how he got his start, how he and the rest of his bunch cleaned out
Dent of his ranch and cattle gambling and then killed him when he
discovered they had used marked cards, how at the same time they
robbed another man----"
Janet struggled to her feet. She had covered her eyes and bowed her
head before the torrent of his vehemence.
"No more, I want to hear no more," she gasped. "Let me go home. I'm
sick."
"It all makes me sick, too," he answered. "Sick and sore, both. But
it's the truth. I'm sorry if it's been a bad pill to swallow, but it's
the God's truth, girl. I'm sorry it couldn't be any other way, but I
wouldn't see you marry that scoundrel if I lost a hand stopping you.
Mary felt sick at first, too; she's over it now. You'll not feel bad
long. Better stay for dinner with us."
"I couldn't swallow a bite. Thank you for your kindness in asking
me--and for telling me what I wanted to know, too. Father never knew,
or he would have warned me. People saw I was engaged to Ed Sorenson
and would say nothing to father, of course. I shall always count you
as one of my best friends, Mr. Johnson. And you too, Mary; you must
come down and stay with me sometime, for I imagine you get lonely
here. No, another day I'll remain to dinner--and I want to be alone
now."
They pressed her no further, seeing her wretchedness of spirit. But
they walked with her to the car and shook hands with her when she was
in and urged her to come again.
When she had disappeared in the aspens among which the trail led, Mary
said to her father:
"You said they killed a man named Dent."
"They did. I saw the killing."
"And nothing was ever done about it?"
"No. Nobody but me knew of the happening and I'd of had a bullet
through my heart if I'd talked. I might yet even now, so see that you
keep your mouth shut."
"You told her."
"I was mad, so mad I could say anything. But she isn't the kind to
repeat the story; I'm not afraid on that score. She's clean strain all
through."
"Did you know the man whom Sorenson and the others killed?" Mary
questioned, in some awe.
"I knew of him, but I was only a lad then. I saw it all through the
back door of Vorse's saloon where it happened, but I've never breathed
about it to a soul. I didn't want to be murdered some dark night.
Those four men would see that the job was done quick even now, I'm
saying, if they were on to the fact. I know 'em, if nobody else
does."
Mary's skin crawled with prickles of fear.
"They must be awful bad."
"They were devils then, and I don't think they've changed to angels
to-day, though they try to appear decent. I know 'em; I know what
they'll do once they start. You can't make sheep out of wolves just by
giving 'em a fleece."
"You said they robbed another man at the same time they killed that
Dent."
"Yes; and it only goes to show the hellish crooks they are. It was
another man in the saloon. He was drunk. They made him believe he had
killed Dent. Then said they'd help him to get away if he gave them his
property. He was a rich fellow who had come out from the east and gone
to ranching, a tenderfoot. They took his stuff and he skipped the
country with his wife. That was the last of him, and I reckon he
believes to this day that he's a murderer. And that's how they got the
start of their wealth, or a big part of it, Sorenson and Vorse and the
other two. They've got the San Mateo Cattle Company, with fifty
thousand head of steers, and ten or twenty bands of sheeps and
ranches, and the bank, and all the rest, and they walk around like
honest men. But they're thieves and murderers, Mary, thieves and
murderers! I'd rather be the man I am, poor and with nothing but this
little mortgaged piece of ground and my few cattle, than them, who
robbed Dent and killed him and then robbed and drove out Weir."
"Was that the other man's name?"
"Yes."
"That's funny. The same as the man who brought me home."
"There are lots of Weirs, like the Johnsons."
"Not so many, I guess. Maybe they're related. Did the man who skipped
have any children?"
"No. None I ever heard of, though I didn't know much about him. Just
him and his wife, I think."
Johnson had perceived no resemblance between the engineer and the
vanished man of whom he spoke. As for that, however, he had no clear
recollection of the elder Weir's face; he was but twelve years old at
the time of the dramatic event, thirty years before.
"Now, come along and eat," he said. "And remember! Not a word of this
to a soul."
Meanwhile Janet Hosmer was driving slowly down the canyon, oblivious
that opportunity to unlock the whole mystery had been hers, never
dreaming that she had just missed by the slenderest margin what Steele
Weir would have given the world to know.
For an instant Fate had placed the key in her hand. She knew it not;
it was withdrawn again and the door remained closed and locked while
the threads of Destiny continued to be spun.