JOHNSON MEETS A FRIEND OF HETTY'S
Should a man clutch at an imaginary wire that eludes him up the wall
beside his bed, and take to raving and prayer, it raises a doubt as to
recent conduct and habits. Hughie MacFarlane, rancher, age thirty-seven
years, did all this and many other disagreeable things, and then died.
A considerable number of his acquaintances wagged their heads and
remarked that the world would survive the loss--it was noticeable that
those who had partaken most freely of Hughie's bounty were foremost in
this line of epitaph. Others declaimed the platitude of the
mealy-mouthed, that MacFarlane had been a big-hearted fellow, his own
worst enemy. Within a week after the funeral, nobody in Cananea thought
much about him one way or the other, and certain lapses in his notions
of enjoyment were forgotten, for where there is no jury of public
opinion, men grow tolerant of human frailty, and then lax. That is our
way on the Border.
So everybody promptly forgot Hughie--all except a flame-headed girl at
the Hotel Carmen, who sniffed a great deal when she leaned over your
shoulder to put the steak and vegetables on the table, and whose voice
was wet when she inquired whether you preferred your eggs straight up or
over. She was not one to tempt a man to boldness, and none had ever
found her desirable; but once, on his way from the bar to the
dining-room, Hughie had given her a rough, laughing embrace. That was
all, on my honor; but Molly remembered and worshiped the unregenerate
creature, according to her nature. Finally she became such a nuisance,
with her red eyes and general dampness of face, that the proprietor
discharged Molly.
"Hughie was a fine feller when he first came here," Lafe Johnson
remarked, in reference to this episode, "but he got to talking Mexican
too good."
With which dark assertion he reared his feet to the rail of the Hotel
Carmen veranda and lazily watched the hacks careen past down the hill.
Three weeks had elapsed since he started on the bandit's trail and he
was apparently farther behind him than on the night Moffatt fled. After
two days of close pursuit, during which Moffatt had twice doubled back,
the sheriff had been able to obtain nothing better than rumors. These he
followed up obstinately, and at last they led him to Cananea, where he
rested, awaiting developments.
It was Sunday, and the cabs were doing a rushing business. Gentlemen of
white skin, gentlemen of olive and brown, crowded into them and departed
with an air of elation. Presently two cabs moved by at a parade pace.
Both were loaded to the axles with bull-fighters in tawdry velvet
trappings. The matador, a person who perspired like a pat of butter on a
warm day, doffed his hat unceasingly to admiring friends on the
sidewalk. It was very hot and the time was noon.
"I hope that fat one gets horned," said Johnson, comfortably, to his
neighbor. "What? You going to the fight? I can't stand to see them ol'
hosses ripped. Say, it beats me how white women can go there and sit
through it. They chew gum all over the grand stand, too, them women do.
If my girl--if I had a woman--"
Incoming guests cut Mr. Johnson off. They arrived off the 10.10
train--two drummers, and a lank individual, very tanned, and stiff in
his clothes, who proved to be a mining engineer about to start on a
prospecting trip, and a woman. She was plump and had brown hair, and her
dress was of deepest mourning. That much Lafe noted as she stepped from
the cab, and he took his feet down and removed the cigar from his mouth.
She rustled up the steps and hurried inside without bestowing more than
a flurried glance on the loungers.
Johnson was still resting there an hour later, meditating, when the
landlord came out and held the screen open with a fine show of courtesy.
"Say, Lafe, I want you to shake hands with Mrs. MacFarlane," said the
Hotel Carmen man. "This here lady's Hughie's wife. She wants to go out
to the ranch. Mr. Johnson's sheriff of Badger, ma'am. It's like you've
heard of him."
"I'll be right glad to look after you, ma'am," Johnson said soberly,
shoving his chair forward.
Mrs. MacFarlane smiled in a manner curiously shy for a widow of thirty,
and murmured something to the effect that she knew Mr. Johnson had been
a friend of her Hugh's. This was not strictly true, but Lafe would not
have denied it to her for a herd of graded stuff. He leaned against the
railing and waited patiently to learn her wishes. She had come to claim
Hughie's estate and to make certain that his--grave--here she started to
cry soundlessly into a handkerchief--received proper care. All this was
very painful and Johnson stirred restlessly. Whenever Mrs. MacFarlane
made reference to her late husband, it was always as her "boy," and the
tone was one of such restrained adoration that Lafe experienced a
sinking feeling beneath his vest. Listening to her--she was decently
reserved and her talk escaped in snatches--he gathered that Hughie had
been a great and noble man, which was an estimate of Hughie that never
would have occurred to any of his acquaintances.
"The feller must have had a heap of good in him somewhere, Buf'lo," he
told Shortredge that night. Jim was now engaged in the slaughtering
business in Cananea. "A man can't make a woman like her care that a-way
else."
"I don't know about that, Lafe. I don't know about that. I ain't so
shore," said his friend. "It's most amazing how they kin forget
everything when he's gone. They only remember li'l' things he done for
'em; things what a feller might do for a yallow dawg."
The trip across the mountains was a full day's drive, and Johnson was to
call for Mrs. MacFarlane at dawn with a buckboard and a mule team. She
kept him waiting forty minutes, but he passed the time patiently,
recalling that a certain female in Badger was wont to do the same thing.
This recollection brought a grin to his countenance, and may have been
responsible for the solicitous manner with which he seated Mrs.
MacFarlane in the vehicle. They set out at the sober gait suited to a
wearing drive. The landlord, after watching them for a while, remarked
thoughtfully to the barkeeper that he hoped they would find everything
all right.
"Hughie ought for to have told us he was married," he said slowly. "Yes.
He ought. I sure hope they'll find everything all right. She's an
almighty fine woman."
The almighty fine woman settled back against the stiff leather seat and
looked at the bleak wastes they were threading. Johnson eased his mules
down the slopes, taking rare heed of the going. Ordinarily she would
have been in terror of the perils of this climb-and-drop road, but the
driver appeared to entertain no doubts and merely clucked at the
hybrids or abused them in emotionless harangues. It must have begotten
confidence, for she gave no more than the tiniest squeak when they shot
abruptly from a shelf of rock and sped downward at a gallop, the
buckboard leaping off rocks and ruts and banging at the mules' legs.
There was a sharp curve at the bottom of the descent, and for a wild
moment Mrs. MacFarlane wondered if it were possible he perceived this.
"The brake's done bust," said Lafe, as though the matter were scarcely
worth mention.
They took the curve on two wheels, sending sand and pebbles in all
directions, and he pulled the team to a halt. Then he got out, handing
the reins to her, for which she beamed on him. Johnson repaired the
brakes with a bit of wood and some rope, and they went forward again.
"I done told ol' Biggerstaff that this brake was no good," he said.
"I'd mention it to him again," Mrs. MacFarlane suggested mildly.
He was very grateful, too, because she forbore to grab at the reins more
than once in dangerous spots. The sparkling air and the stern beauty of
the mountain country they entered seemed to soothe her. Soon she was
chatting vivaciously, but when the sun climbed to his strength, her lids
drooped. The talk became broken and lazily intimate. Suddenly Mrs.
MacFarlane sat up with a gasp.
"Why, I've just remembered. How on earth did I ever forget it? Hetty
Ferrier!"
The widow pronounced Hetty's name as a magician would a talisman. Lafe
went very red in the face and asked in a constrained voice whether she
knew that lady.
"Know her? I guess I do. Why, Hetty and my young sister were playmates.
She used to live where I come from. We heard from her and she told us--"
Mrs. MacFarlane did not state what Hetty had told them, but settled
herself to study Lafe, with the privileged frankness conferred by her
information. He bore the scrutiny well, giving all his attention to the
mules, but he was thankful for the bumps that distracted the widow and
made her clutch his elbow to avoid being thrown out.
"Isn't it funny I shouldn't have thought about you and her before? It's
a small world, isn't it? Of course she told me you were sheriff of
Badger. You're a very lucky man, Mr. Johnson," she said.
Lafe could find no words for the moment. At last: "You see, ma'am, her
and me are fixing to get married."
"Huh!" said the widow. "Did you think I didn't know that? How is Hetty?"
"She's fine, thanks."
"I don't need to ask if she's happy?"
"Happy as the dealer in a big jackpot," said the sheriff, much pleased.
The widow appeared to comprehend.
They drew near the ranch in late afternoon. The light is of a peculiar,
velvety yellow then, and the mountains grow purple along their bases;
farther up there are deep blue blurs; and the ragged rims show black
against a glow. The widow exclaimed in rapture; then, apparently
remembering her bereavement, assumed a look of sadness; and she made the
last few miles of the journey in a gentle melancholy.
Nobody appeared to welcome them. A tipsy Mexican lolled in a chair on
the veranda, and another was making music for him on a guitar. From time
to time the man in the rocker would nod approval and command a fresh
tune. Near the corrals, about twenty natives were hi-yi-ing at the
breaking of a horse.
When the majordomo perceived the buckboard, he put down his cup
reluctantly, placed the bottle beside the leg of the chair and came to
meet them. Lafe saw at once that a fortnight of authority and freedom
from restraint had played havoc with the man. Nevertheless, he greeted
them suavely, and when he learned who the passenger was, cried an order
over his shoulder. Three or four men ran to take the mules.
"Aren't there any whites on the place?" asked Mrs. MacFarlane uneasily.
"Hughie, he done fired them all. Pete Harris used to be boss here, but
him and Hughie had words over something, and Pete got his time."
Johnson did not consider it necessary to add that the veteran Pete's
antipathy to all-native labor had been responsible for this rupture with
MacFarlane, and that the vaquero playing the guitar still held his job,
although Pete had incontinently discharged him months before. Nor did he
mention that the man with the guitar had a sister. As to that, he had
heard nothing but rumors, and he was never inclined to believe half of
what he heard.
Hughie's old servant, Salazar, waited on the two at supper. He had a
shrewd notion that Lafe was the lady's admirer, with an eye to the
property; but what booted it? All through the meal he watched Mrs.
MacFarlane stolidly and addressed her as "Senorita," which was a brainy
proceeding. However, he told Paula in the kitchen that she was Hughie's
wife and a ravishingly beautiful woman. The girl received the
intelligence with somber calm.
Twice she came out on to the veranda where they sat afterwards--once to
fill the water bag; again, to draw from it. Mrs. MacFarlane asked who
she was, her age, and where her mother was. She obtained evasive
answers, but was too abstracted to give thought to what might have
troubled her at any other time.
"She's so pretty--so awfully pretty. Are they all as beautiful as that?"
"No-oo. I should say not. Paula, she's got most of 'em hiding out in
the long grass," said Lafe, without enthusiasm.
There is a quality about a southwest night that saddens, or elevates
above all petty trouble, according to temperament and conditions of
health. Moreover, it can make everyday worries seem trivial, which
surely is a God-given thing. As the languid dust thickened, Mrs.
MacFarlane grew depressed. The silence became longer and her replies
punctilious. Soon she bade him good-night. The drive had made her very
sleepy, she said. Johnson started down to the Mexican quarters. A dance
was in progress there, and it was impossible to say to what lengths the
revelers might go unless convinced that authority slept under
headquarters' roof.
As he stepped down, he became aware that someone leaned against a
shade-tree in the yard. It was Paula, and she was watching Mrs.
MacFarlane's lighted window.