After all, he was not Lance. "You can't have it!" she said. "I won't
let you take it. I'm raising money to pay you for it, and I intend to
keep it." She reached for her purse, but Tom restrained her with a
gesture.
"It ain't for sale," he said, with that hateful smile that always made
her wonder just what lay behind it. "I own it, and I ain't thinking of
selling. Here's the shipping bill and the guarantee and all; I brought
'em along to show you, in case you got curious about whose piano it
is. You see the number on the bill--86945. You'll find it tallies with
the number in the case, if you want to look. Pete, Ed, John, take it
and load it in the wagon."
"Well, now, see here! This is an outrage! How much is the darn thing
worth, anyway? This crowd is not going to stand by and see a raw deal
like this pulled off." It was the Pocatello dentist, and he was very
much excited.
"You saw a raw deal, and stood for it, when you saw the Lorrigans
cold-shouldered out of the dance," Belle flashed at him. "We've stood
for a lot, but this went a little beyond our limit."
"We're not going to stand for anything like this, you know!" Another
man--also from Lava--shouldered his way up to them.
"Git outa the way, or you'll git tromped on!" cried Pete over his
shoulder as he backed, embracing the piano and groping for handholds.
The Lava man gripped Pete, trying to pull him away. Pete kicked back
viciously with a spurred heel. The Lava man yelled and retreated,
limping.
Just how it happened, no two men or women afterward agreed in the
telling. But somehow the merrymakers, who were merry no longer, went
back and back until they were packed solidly at the sides and near
the door, a few squeezing through it when they were lucky enough to
find room. Behind them came four of the Devil's Tooth men with
six-shooters, looking the crowd coldly in the eyes. Behind these came
the piano, propelled by those whom Tom had named with the tone of
authority.
The crowd squeezed closer against the wall as the piano went past
them. There was not so much noise and confusion as one would expect.
Then, at the last, slim, overworked, round-shouldered Mother Douglas,
who had done little save pray and weep and work and scold all her
life, walked up and slapped Belle full on the cheek.
"Ye painted Jezebel!" she cried, her eyes burning. "Long have I wanted
to smack ye for your wickedness and the brazen ways of ye--ye painted
Jezebel!"
Blind, dazed with anger, Belle struck back.
"Don't you touch my mother! Shame on you! Shame on you all! I didna
ask you for your favors, for any gifts--and you gave them and then you
come and take them--" This was the voice of Mary Hope, shrill with
rage.
"You gave a dance in a house built for you by the Lorrigans, on
Lorrigan land, and you danced to the music of a Lorrigan piano--and
the Lorrigans were not good enough to be asked to come! Get outa my
way, Hope Douglas--and take your mother with you. Call _me_ a painted
Jezebel, will she?"
The piano was outside, being loaded into the wagon, where Riley sat on
the seat, chewing tobacco grimly and expectorating copiously, without
regard for those who came close. Outside there was also much clamor of
voices. A lantern held high by a Devil's Tooth man who had a gun in
the other, lighted the platform and the wagon beside it.
At the last, Tom Lorrigan himself went back after the stool, and the
room silenced so that his footsteps sounded loud on the empty floor.
He looked at Mary Hope, looked at her mother, looked at the huddled,
whispering women, the gaping children. He swung out of his course and
slipped one arm around Belle and so led her outside, the stool
swinging by one leg in the other hand.
"A painted Jezebel!" Belle said under her breath when they were
outside the ring of light. "My God, Tom, think of that!"
Mary Hope had never in her life suffered such humiliation. It seemed
to her that she stood disgraced before the whole world, that there was
no spot wherein she might hide her shame. Her mother was weeping
hysterically because she had been "slappit by the painted Jezebel" and
because Aleck was not there to avenge her. The Pocatello and Lava
crowd seemed on the point of leaving, and were talking very fast in
undertones that made Mary Hope feel that they were talking about her.
The rattle of the Lorrigan wagon hauling the piano away, the click of
the horses' feet as the Devil's Tooth riders convoyed the instrument,
made her wince, and want to put her palms over her ears to shut out
the sound of it.
But she was Scotch, and a Douglas. There was no weak fiber that would
let her slump before this emergency. She went back to the little
platform, stood beside the desk that held the globe and the
dictionary and a can of flowers, and rapped loudly with the ruler from
the Pocatello hardware store. By degrees the room ceased buzzing with
excited talk, the shuffling feet stood still.
"I am very sorry," said Mary Hope clearly, "that your pleasure
has--has been interrupted. It seems there has been a misunderstanding
about the piano. I thought that I could buy it for the school, and for
that reason I gave this dance. But it seems--that--I'm terribly sorry
the dance has been spoiled for you, and if the gentlemen who bought
tickets will please step this way, I will return your money."
She had to clench her teeth to keep her lips from trembling. Her hands
shook so that she could scarcely open her handbag. But her purpose
never faltered, her eyes were blue and sparkling when she looked out
over the crowd. She waited. Feet scuffled the bare floor, voices
whispered, but no man came toward her.
"I want to return your money," she said sharply, "because without the
piano I suppose you will not want to dance, and--"
"Aw, the dickens!" cried a big, good-natured cowpuncher with a
sun-peeled nose and twinkly gray eyes. "I guess we all have danced
plenty without no piano music. There's mouth harps in this crowd, and
there's a fiddle. Git yore pardners for a square dance!" And under his
breath, to his immediate masculine neighbors he added: "To hell with
the Lorrigans and their piano!"
Mary Hope could have hugged that cowpuncher who hastily seized her
hand and swung her into place as the first couple in the first set.
When the three sets were formed he called the dance figures in a
sonorous tone that swept out through the open windows and reached the
ears of the Lorrigans as they rode away.
"_Honor_ yore pardner--and the lady on your _left!_
_Join_ eight hands, an' a-circle to the _left!_
Break an _Indian_ trail home in the Indian _style_, with the
lady in the _lead!_
Swing the lady _behind_ you once in a while!--
The lady _behind_ you once in a while!--
_Now_ your pardner, and go hog _wild!_"
The fiddle and two mouth harps were scarcely heard above the rhythmic
stamping of feet, the loud chant of the caller, who swung Mary Hope
clear of the floor whenever he put his arm around her.
"A--_second_ couple out, and a-cir-cle _four!_
_Lay_-dees do ce _do!_
_You_ swing me, an' I'll swing _you_--
And _we'll_ all dance in the same ole _shoe!_
"_Same_ four on to the _next!_--dance the ocean _wave!_
The _same_ ole boys, the _same_ ole trail,
_Watch_ that possum walk the _rail!_
_Cir_-cle six, and a-do ce _do!_
Swing, _every_ one swing, and a--promenade _home!_"
"_Who_ wants a piano? Couldn't hear it if yuh' had it!" he cried,
while the twelve couples paused breathless. Then he wiped his face
frankly and thoroughly with his handkerchief, caught Mary Hope's hand
in his, lifted his voice again in his contagious sing-song:
"_Cir_-cle eight, till you get straight!
_Swing_ them ladies, like swingin' on a _gate!_
_Left_ foot up, and-a-right foot _down_--
_Make_ that big foot jar the _ground!_
Prom-e-_nade!_
_Swing_ yore corner, if you ain't too _slow!_
_Now_ yore pardner, and around you _go!_
For the--_last_ time--and a-_long_ time--
_You_ know where, and a-I don't _care!_"
The dance was saved by the big cowpuncher with the peeling nose and
the twinkly gray eyes. Mary Hope had never seen him before that day,
but whenever she looked at him a lump came in her throat, a warm rush
of sheer gratitude thrilled her. She did not learn his name--two or
three men called him Burt, but he seemed to be a stranger in the
country. Burt saved her dance and kept things moving until the sky
was streaked with red and birds were twittering outside in the
cottonwoods.
She wanted to thank him, to tell him a little of her gratitude. But
when she went to look for him afterwards he was gone, and no one
seemed to know just where he belonged. Which was strange, when you
consider that in the Black Rim country every one knows everybody.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
PEDDLED RUMORS
In the smoking compartment of a Pullman car that rocked westward from
Pocatello two days after the Fourth, Lance sprawled his big body on a
long seat, his head joggling against the dusty window, his mind
sleepily recalling, round by round, a certain prize fight that had
held him in Reno over the Fourth and had cost him some money and much
disgust. The clicking of the car trucks directly underneath, the
whirring of the electric fan over his head, the reek of tobacco smoke
seemed to him to last for hours, seemed likely to go on forever. Above
it all, rising stridently now and then in a disagreeable monotone, the
harsh, faintly snarling voice of a man on the opposite seat blended
unpleasantly with his dozing discomfort. For a long time the man had
been talking, and Lance had been aware of a grating quality of the
voice, that yet seemed humorous in its utterances, since his two
listeners laughed frequently and made brief, profane comment that
encouraged the talker to go on. Finally, as he slowly returned from
the hazy borderland of slumber, Lance became indifferently aware of
the man's words.
From under the peak of his plaid traveling cap Lance lifted his
eyelids the length of his black lashes, measured the men with a
half-minute survey and closed his eyes again. The face matched the
voice. A harsh face, with bold blue eyes, black eyebrows that met over
his nose, a mouth slightly prominent, hard and tilted downward at the
corners. Over the harshness like a veil was spread a sardonic kind of
humor that gave attraction to the man's personality. In the monotone
of his voice was threaded a certain dry wit that gave point to his
observations. He was an automobile salesman, it appeared, and his
headquarters were in Ogden, and he was going through to Shoshone on
business connected with a delayed shipment of cars. But he was
talking, when Lance first awoke to his monologue, of the sagebrush
country through which the fast mail was reeling drunkenly, making up
time that had been lost because of a washout that had held the train
for an hour while two section crews sweated over a broken culvert.
"--And by gosh! the funniest thing I ever saw happened right up here
in a stretch of country they call the Black Rim. If I was a story
writer, I sure would write it up. Talk about the West being
tame!--why, I can take you right now, within a few hours' ride, to
where men ride with guns on 'em just as much as they wear their pants.
Only reason they ain't all killed off, I reckon, is because they
_all_ pack guns.
"Hard-boiled? Say, there's a bunch up there that's never been curried
below the knees--and never will be. They pulled off a stunt the Fourth
that I'll bet ain't ever been duplicated anywhere on earth, and never
will be. I was in Pocatello, and I went on up with the crowd from
there, and got in on the show. And sa-ay, it was some show!
"They've got a feud up there that's rock-bottomed as any feud you ever
heard of in Kentucky. It's been going on for years, and it'll keep
going on till the old folks all die off or move away--or land in the
pen. Hasn't been a killing in there for years, but that's because
they're all so damn tough they know if one starts shooting it'll
spread like a prairie fire through dry grass.
"There's an outfit in there--the Devil's Tooth outfit. Far back as the
country was settled--well, they say the first Lorrigan went up in
there to get away from the draft in the Civil War, and headed a gang
of outlaws that shot and hung more white men and Injuns than any
outfit in the State--and that's going some.
"They were killers from the first draw. Other settlers went in, and
had to knuckle under. The Devil's Tooth gang had the Black Rim in its
fist. Father to son--they handed down the disposition--I could tell
yuh from here to Boise yarns about that outfit.
"Now, of course, things have tamed down. As I say, there hasn't been a
Devil's Tooth killing for years. But it's there, you know--it's in the
blood. It's all under the surface. They're a good-hearted bunch, but
it'll take about four generations to live down the reputation they've
got, if they all turned Methodist preachers. And," the grating voice
paused for a minute, so that one caught the full significance of his
hint, "if all yuh hear is true, religion ain't struck the Devil's
Tooth yet. It ain't my business to peddle rumors, and the time's past
when you can hang a man on suspicion--but if you read about the
Devil's Tooth outfit some time in the paper, remember I said it's
brewing. The present Tom Lorrigan ain't spending _all_ his time
driving his cows to water. He was hauled up a few years ago, on a
charge of rustling. An old Scotchman had him arrested. Tom was
cleared--he had the best lawyer in the West--brought him from Boise,
where they need good lawyers!--and got off clear. And since then he's
been laying low. That's the one mistake he's made, in my opinion. He
never did a damn thing, never tried to kill the Scotchman, never acted
up at all. And when you think of the breed of cats he is you'll see
yourself that the Black Rim is setting on a volcano.
"Tom Lorrigan has got more men working for him than any outfit in that
country. He runs his own round-up and won't have a rep--that's a
representative--from any other outfit in his camp. His own men haze
outside stock off his range. He's getting rich. He ships more cattle,
more horses than anybody in the country. He don't have any truck with
any of his neighbors, and his men don't. They're outside men, mostly.
There ain't a thing anybody can swear to--there ain't a thing said out
loud about the Devil's Tooth. But it's hinted and it's whispered.
"So all this preamble prepares you for the funniest thing I ever saw
pulled. But I guess I'm about the only one who saw how funny it was. I
know the Black Rim don't seem to see the joke, and I know the Devil's
Tooth don't.
"You see, it's so big and neighbors are so far apart that there ain't
any school district, and a few kids were getting school age, and no
place to send 'em. So a couple of families got together and hired the
daughter of this old Scotchman to teach school. I ain't calling her by
name--she's a nice kid, and a nervy kid, and I can see where she
thought she was doing the right thing.
"Well, she taught in a tumble-down little shack for a while, and one
day this Tom Lorrigan come along, and saw how the girl and the kids
were sitting there half froze, and he hazed 'em all home. Broke up the
school. Being a Lorrigan, all he'd have to do would be to tell 'em to
git--but it made a little stir, all right. The schoolma'am, she went
right back the next morning and started in again. Like shooing a
setting hen off her nest, it was.
"Well, next thing they knew, the Devil's Tooth had built a schoolhouse
and said nothing about it. Tom's a big-hearted cuss--I know
Tom--tried to sell him a car, last fall. Darn near made it stick, too.
I figured that Tom Lorrigan was maybe ashamed of busting up the
school and making talk, so he put up a regular schoolhouse. Then one
of his boys had been away to college--only one of the outfit that
ever went beyond the Rim, as far as I know--and he gave a dance; a
regular house-warming.
"Well, I wasn't at that dance. I wish I had been. They packed in
whisky by the barrel. Everybody got drunk, and everybody got to
fighting. This young rooster from college licked a dozen or so, and
then took the schoolma'am and drove clear to Jumpoff with her, and
licked everybody in town before he left. Sa-ay, it musta been some
dance, all right!
"Then--here comes the funny part. Everybody was all stirred up over
the Lorrigans' dance, and right in the middle of the powwow, blest if
the Lorrigans didn't buy a brand new piano and haul it to the
schoolhouse. They say it was the college youth, that was stuck on the
schoolma'am. Well, everybody out that way got to talking and
gossiping--you know how it goes--until the schoolma'am, just to settle
the talk, goes and gives a dance to raise money to pay for the piano.
She's all right--I don't think for a minute she's anything but
_right_--and it might have been old Tom himself that bought the piano.
Anyway, she went and sent invitations all around, two dollars per
invite, and got a big crowd. Had a picnic in the grove, and everything
was lovely.
"But sa-ay! She forgot to invite the Lorrigans! Everybody in the
country there, except the Devil's Tooth outfit. I figure that she was
afraid they might rough things up a little--and maybe she didn't like
to ask them to pay for something they'd already paid for--but anyway,
just when the dance was going good, here came the whole Devil's Tooth
outfit with a four-horse team, and I'm darned if they didn't walk
right in there, in the middle of a dance, take the piano stool right
out from under the schoolma'am, and haul the piano home! They--"
A loud guffaw from his friends halted the narrative there. Before the
teller of the tale went on, Lance pulled his cap down over his eyes,
got up and walked out and stood on the platform.
"They hauled the piano _home!_" He scowled out at the reeling line of
telegraph posts. "They--hauled--that piano--home!"
He lighted a cigar, took two puffs and threw the thing out over the
rail. "She didn't ask the Lorrigans--to her party. And dad--"
He whirled and went back into the smoking compartment. He wanted to
hear more. The seat he had occupied was still empty and he settled
into it, his cap pulled over his eyes, a magazine before his face. The
others paid no attention. The harsh-voiced man was still talking.
"Well, they can't go on forever. They're bound to slip up, soon or
late. And now, of course, there's a line-up against them. It's in the
blood and I don't reckon they can change--but the country's changing.
I know of one man that's in there now, working in the dark, trying to
get the goods--but of course, it's not my business to peddle that kind
of stuff. I was tickled about the piano, though. The schoolma'am was
game. She offered to give us back our two dollars per, but of course
nobody was piker enough to take her up on it. We went ahead and had
the dance with harmonicas and a fiddle, and made out all right. Looks
to me like the schoolma'am's all to the good. She's got the dance
money--"
It was of no use. Lance found he could not listen to that man talking
about Mary Hope. To strike the man on his fish-like, hard-lipped mouth
would only make matters worse, so he once more left the compartment
and stood in the open doorway of the vestibule just beyond. The train,
slowing to a stop at a tank station, jarred to a standstill. In the
compartment behind him the man's voice sounded loud and raucous now
that the mechanical noises had ceased.
"Well, I never knew it to fail--what's in the blood will come out.
They've lived there for three generations now. They're killers,
thieves at heart--human birds of prey, and it don't matter if it is
all under the surface. I say it's _there_."
At that moment, Lance had the hunger to kill, to stop forever the
harsh voice that talked on and on of the Lorrigans and their ingrained
badness. He stepped outside, slamming the door shut behind him. The
voice, fainter now, could still be heard. He swung down to the
cinders, stood there staring ahead at the long train, counting the
cars, watching the fireman run with his oil can and climb into the
engine cab. He could no longer hear the voice, but he felt that he
must forget it or go back and kill the man who owned it.
In the car ahead a little girl leaned out of the window, her curls
whipping across her face. Jubilantly she waved her hand at him,
shrilled a sweet, "Hello-oh. Where _you_ goin'? I'm goin' to my
grandma's house!"
The rigor left Lance's jaw. He smiled, showing his teeth, saw that a
brakeman was down inspecting a hot box on the forward truck of that
car, and walked along to the window where the little girl leaned and
waited, waving two sticky hands at him to hurry.
"Hello, baby. I know a grandma that's going to be mighty happy, before
long," he said, standing just under the window and looking up at her.
"D'you know my gran'ma? S'e lives in a green house an' s'e's got
five--hundred baby kittens for me to see! An' I'm goin' to bring one
home wis me--but I _do'no_ which one. D'you like yellow kittens, or
litty gray kittens, or black ones?"
Gravely Lance studied the matter, his eyebrows pulled together, his
mouth wearing the expression which had disturbed Mary Hope when he
came to mend the lock on her door.
"I'd take--now, if your grandma has one that's all spotted, you might
take that, couldn't you? Then some days you'd love the yellow spots,
and some days you'd love the black spots, and some days--"
"Ooh! And I could call it _all_ the nice names I want to call it!" The
little girl pressed her hands together rapturously. "When my kitty's
got its yellow-spotty day, I'll call him Goldy, and when--"
The engine bell clanged warning, the wheels began slowly to turn.
"Ooh! You'll get left and have to walk!" cried the little girl, in
big-eyed alarm.
"All right, baby--you take the spotted one!" Lance called over his
shoulder as he ran. He was smiling when he swung up the steps. No
longer did he feel that he must kill the harsh-voiced man.
He went forward to his own section, sat down and stared out of the
window. As the memory of the little girl faded he drifted into
gloomily reviewing the things he had heard said of his family. Were
they really pariahs among their kind? Outlawed because of the blood
that flowed in their veins?
Away in the back of his mind, pushed there because the thought was not
pleasant, and because thinking could not make it pleasant, had been
the knowledge that he was returning to a life with which he no longer
seemed to be quite in tune. Two weeks had served to show him that he
had somehow drifted away from his father and Duke and Al, that he had
somehow come to look at life differently. He did not believe in the
harsh man's theory of their outlawry; yet he felt a reluctance toward
meeting again their silent measurement of himself, their intangible
aloofness.
The harsh-voiced man had dragged it all to the surface, roughly
sketching for the delectation of his friends the very things which
Lance had been deliberately covering from his own eyes. He had done
more. He had told things that made Lance wince. To humiliate Mary Hope
before the whole Black Rim, as they had done, to take away the piano
which he had wanted her to have--for that Lance could have throttled
his dad. It was like Tom to do it. Lance could not doubt that he had
done it. He could picture the whole wretchedly cheap retaliation for
the slight which Mary Hope had given them, and the picture tormented
him, made him writhe mentally. But he could picture also Mary Hope's
prim disapproval of them all, her deliberate omission of the Lorrigans
from her list of invited guests, and toward that picture he felt a
keen resentment.
The whole thing maddened him. The more, because he was in a sense
responsible for it all. Just because he had not wanted that lonely
look to cloud the blue eyes of her, just because he had not wanted her
to be unhappy in her isolation, he had somehow brought to the surface
all those boorish qualities which he had begun to hate in his family.
"Cheap--cheap as dirt!" he gritted once, and he included them all in
the denunciation.