DE SPAIN WORRIES
They parted that evening under the shadow of Music Mountain. Nan
believed she could at least win her Uncle Duke over from any effort of
Gale's to coerce her. Her influence over her uncle had never yet
failed, and she was firm in the conviction she could gain him to her
side, since he had everything to win and nothing to lose by siding
against Gale, whom he disliked and distrusted, anyway.
For de Spain there was manifestly nothing to do but doubtfully to let
Nan try out her influence. They agreed to meet in Calabasas just as
soon as Nan could get away. She hoped, she told him, to bring good
news. De Spain arranged his business to wait at Calabasas for her, and
was there, after two days, doing little but waiting and listening to
McAlpin's stories about the fire and surmises as to strange men that
lurked in and about the place. But de Spain, knowing Jeffries was
making an independent investigation into the affair, gave no heed to
McAlpin's suspicions.
To get away from the barn boss, de Spain took refuge in riding. The
season was drawing on toward winter, and rain clouds drifting at
intervals down from the mountains made the saddle a less dependable
escape from the monotony of Calabasas. Several days passed with no
sight of Nan and no word from her. De Spain, as the hours and days
went by, scanned the horizon with increasing solicitude. When he woke
on the sixth morning, he was resolved to send a scout into the Gap to
learn what he could of the situation. The long silence, de Spain knew,
portended nothing good. And the vexing feature of his predicament was
that he had at hand no trustworthy spy to despatch for information; to
secure one would be a matter of delay. He was schooled, however, to
making use of such material as he had at hand, and when he had made up
his mind, he sent to the stable for Bull Page.
The shambling barn man, summoned gruffly by McAlpin, hesitated as he
appeared at the office door and seemed to regard the situation with
suspicion. He looked at de Spain tentatively, as if ready either for
the discharge with which he was daily threatened or for a renewal of
his earlier, friendly relations with the man who had been queer enough
to make a place for him. De Spain set Bull down before him in the
stuffy little office.
"Bull," he began with apparent frankness, "I want to know how you like
your job."
Wiping his mouth guardedly with his hand to play for time and as an
introduction to a carefully worded reply, Bull parried. "Mr. de Spain,
I want to ask you just one fair question."
"Go ahead, Bull."
Bull plunged promptly into the suspicion uppermost in his mind. "Has
that slat-eyed, flat-headed, sun-sapped sneak of a Scotchman been
complaining of my work? _That_, Mr. de Spain," emphasized Bull,
leaning forward, "is what I want to know first--is it a fair
question?"
"Bull," returned de Spain with corresponding and ceremonial emphasis,
"it is a fair question between man and man. I admit it; it is a fair
question. And I answer, no, Bull. McAlpin has had nothing on the face
of the desert to do with my sending for you. And I add this because I
know you want to hear it: he says he couldn't complain of your work,
because you never do any."
"That man," persisted Bull, reinforced by the hearty tone and not
clearly catching the drift of the very last words, "drinks more liquor
than I do."
"He must be some tank, Bull."
"And I don't hide it, Mr. de Spain."
"You'd have to crawl under Music Mountain to do that. What I want to
know is, do you like your job?"
On this point it was impossible to get an expression from Bull. He
felt convinced that de Spain was pressing for an answer only as a
preliminary to his discharge. "No matter," interposed the latter,
cutting Bull's ramblings short, "drop it, Bull. I want you to do
something for me, and I'll pay for it."
Bull, with a palsied smile and a deep, quavering note of gratitude,
put up his shaky hand. "Say what. That's all. I've been paid."
"You know you're a sot, Bull."
Bull nodded. "I know it."
"A disgrace to the Maker whose image you were made in."
Bull started, but seemed, on reflection, to consider this a point on
which he need not commit himself.
"Still, I believe there's a man in you yet. Something, at any rate,
you couldn't completely kill with whiskey, Bull--what?"
Bull lifted his weak and watery eyes. His whiskey-seamed face
brightened into the ghost of a smile. "What I'm going to ask you to
do," continued de Spain, "is a man's job. You can get into the Gap
without trouble. You are the only man I can put my hand on just now,
that can. I want you to ride over this morning and hang out around
Duke Morgan's place till you can get a chance to see Miss Nan----"
At the mention of her name, Bull shook his head a moment in
affirmative approval. "She's a queen!" he exclaimed with admiring but
pungent expletives. "A queen!"
"I think so, Bull. But she is in troublesome circumstances. You know
Nan and I----"
Bull winked in many ways.
"And her Uncle Duke is making us trouble, Bull. I want you to find
her, speak with her, and bring word to me as to what the situation is.
That doesn't mean you're to get drunk over there--in fact, I don't
think anybody over there would give you a drink----"
"Don't believe they would."
"And you are to ride back here with what you can find out just as
quick, after you get into the clear, as a horse will bring you."
Bull passed his hand over his mouth with a show of resolution. It
indicated that he was pulling himself together. Within half an hour he
was on his way to the Gap.
For de Spain hours never dragged as did the hours between his starting
and the setting of the sun that night without his return. And the sun
set behind Music Mountain in a drift of heavy clouds that brought
rain. All evening it fell steadily. At eleven o'clock de Spain had
given up hope of seeing his emissary before morning and was sitting
alone before the stove in the office when he heard the sound of hoofs.
In another moment Bull Page stood at the door.
He was a sorry sight. Soaked to the skin by the steady downpour; rain
dripping intermittently from his frayed hat, his ragged beard, and
tattered coat; shaking with the cold as if gripped by an ague, Bull,
picking his staggering steps to the fire, and sinking in a heap into a
chair, symbolized the uttermost tribute of manhood to the ravages of
whiskey. He was not drunk. He had not even been drinking; but his
vitality was gone. He tried to speak. It was impossible. His tongue
would not frame words, nor his throat utter them. He could only look
helplessly at de Spain as de Spain hastily made him stand up on his
shaking knees, threw a big blanket around him, sat him down, kicked
open the stove drafts, and called to McAlpin for more whiskey to
steady the wreck of it crouching over the fire.
McAlpin after considerable and reluctant search produced a bottle, and
unwilling, for more reasons than one, to trust it to Bull's uncertain
possession, brought a dipper. Bull held the dipper while de Spain
poured. McAlpin, behind the stove, hopped first on one foot and then
on the other as de Spain recklessly continued to pour. When the liquor
half filled the cup, McAlpin put out unmistakable distress signals,
but Bull, watching the brown stream, his eyes galvanized at the sight,
held fast to the handle and made no sign to stop. "Bull!" thundered
the barn boss with an emphatic word. "That is Elpaso's bottle. What
are you dreaming of, man? Mr. de Spain, you'll kill him. Don't ye see
he can't tell ye to stop?"
Bull, with the last flickering spark of vitality still left within
him, looked steadily up and winked at de Spain. McAlpin, outraged,
stamped out of the room. Steadying the dipper in both hands, Bull with
an effort passed one hand at the final moment preliminarily over his
mouth, and, raising the bowl, emptied it. The poison electrified him
into utterance. "I seen her," he declared, holding his chin well down
and in, and speaking in a pardonably proud throat.
"Good, Bull!"
"They've got things tied up for fair over there." He spoke slowly and
brokenly. "I never got inside the house till after supper. Toward
night I helped Pardaloe put up the stock. He let me into the kitchen
after my coaxing for a cup of coffee--he's an ornery, cold-blooded
guy, that Pardaloe. Old Duke and Sassoon think the sun rises and sets
on the top of his head--funny, ain't it?"
De Spain made no comment. "Whilst I was drinking my coffee----"
"Who gave it to you?"
"Old Bunny, the Mex. Pardaloe goes out to the bunk-house; I sits down
to my supper, alone, with Bunny at the stove. All of a sudden who
comes a-trippin' in from the front of the house but Nan. I jumped up
as strong as I could, but I was too cold and stiff to jump up real
strong. She seen me, but didn't pay no attention. I dropped my spoon
on the floor. It didn't do no good, neither, so I pushed a hot plate
of ham gravy off the table. It hit the dog 'n' he jumped like kingdom
come. Old Bunny sails into me, Nan a-watchin', and while Mex was
pickin' up and cleanin' up, I sneaks over to the stove and winks at
Nan. Say, you oughter seen her look mad at me. She was hot, but I kept
a-winkin' and I says to her kind of husky-like: 'Got any letters for
Calabasas to-night?' Say, she looked at me as if she'd bore holes into
me, but I stood right up and glared back at the little girl. 'Come
from there this mornin',' says I, low, 'going back to-night. Some one
waiting there for news.'
"By jing! Just as I got the words out o' my mouth who comes
a-stalking in but Gale Morgan. The minute he seen me, he lit on me to
beat the band--called me everything he could lay his tongue to. I let
on I was drunk, but that didn't help. He ordered me off the premises.
'N' the worst of it was, Nan chimed right in and began to scold Bunny
for lettin' me in--and leaves the room, quick-like. Bunny put it on
Pardaloe, and she and Gale had it, and b'jing, Gale put me out--said
he'd pepper me. But wait till I tell y' how she fooled him. It was
rainin' like hell, 'n' it looked as if I was booked for a ride through
it and hadn't half drunk my second cup of coffee at that. I starts for
the barn, when some one in the dark on the porch grabs my arm, spins
me around like a top, throws a flasher up into my face, and there was
Nan. 'Bull,' she says, 'I'm sorry. I don't want to see you ride out in
this with nothing to eat; come this way quick.'
"She took me down cellar from the outside, under the kitchen. When
Gale goes out again she flings up the trap-door, speaks to Mex, pulls
all the kitchen shades down, locks the doors, and I sets down on the
trap-door steps 'n' eats a pipin' hot supper; say! Well, I reckon I
drank a couple o' quarts of coffee. 'Bull,' she says, 'I never done
you no harm, did I?' 'Never,' says I, 'and I never done you none,
neither, did I? And what's more, I never will do you none.' Then I up
and told her. 'Tell him,' says she, 'I can't get hold of a horse, nor
a pen, nor a piece of paper--I can't leave the house but what I am
watched every minute. They keep track of me day and night. Tell him,'
she says, 'I can protect myself; they think they'll break me--make me
do what they want me to--marry--but they can't break me, and I'll
never do it--tell him that.'
"'But,' says I, 'that ain't the whole case, Miss Nan. What he'll ask
me, when he's borin' through me with _his_ eyes like the way you're
borin' me through with yours, is: When will you see him--when will he
see you?'
"She looked worrit for a minit. Then she looks around, grabs up the
cover of an empty 'bacco box and a fork and begins a-writing inside."
Bull, with as much of a smile as he could call into life from his
broken nerves, opened up his blanket, drew carefully from an inside
coat pocket an oilskin package, unwrapped from it the flat, square top
of a tin tobacco box on which Nan had scratched a message, and handed
it triumphantly to de Spain.
He read her words eagerly:
"Wait; don't have trouble. I can stand anything better than bloodshed,
Henry. Be patient."
While de Spain, standing close to the lantern, deciphered the brief
note, Bull, wrapping his blanket about him with the air of one whose
responsibility is well ended, held out his hands toward the blazing
stove. De Spain went over the words one by one, and the letters again
and again. It was, after all their months of ardent meetings, the
first written message he had ever had from Nan. He flamed angrily at
the news that she was prisoner in her own home. But there was much to
weigh in her etched words, much to think about concerning her
feelings--not alone concerning his own.
He dropped into his chair and, oblivious for a moment of his
companion's presence, stared into the fire. When he started from his
revery Bull was asleep. De Spain picked him up, carried him in his
blanket over to a cot, cut the wet rags off him, and, rolling him in a
second blanket, walked out into the barn and ordered up a team and
light wagon for Sleepy Cat. The rain fell all night.