"Your man Shea is settin' in my car yonder," said Mrs. Crump.
Heedless of the glaring sun, she picked up her pipe and disposed her
giant frame for converse. From narrowed lids the sheriff eyed the lanky,
up-drawn figure of Shea, which he now noticed for the first time. Then
he produced the "makings" and proceeded to roll a cigarette.
"Glad you picked him up," said he. "I'll take him back with me."
"No, ye won't," retorted Mrs. Crump, calmly. "You'll not touch him, Sam
Tracy."
"He's a thief and a drunkard and a hobo," said the sheriff.
"If they wasn't no drinks to be had in heaven, I reckon hell would be
majority choice," quoth the lady. "When it comes to that, I've seen you
and Crump so paralyzed you couldn't talk. There was that night down to
Magdalena when the railroad spur was finished and they held a
celebration----"
The sheriff grinned. "No need to argue further along them lines, ma'am.
You win!"
"I reckon I do, Sam. Besides, you ain't got no authority over in this
county. You can run a bluff on ignorant hoboes an' greasers, but not on
Mehitabel Crump! Your authority quit quite a ways back. Thady Shea only
stole because he was starving, which I'd do the same in his place. I
picked him up here and I'm goin' to keep him."
"You always was soft-hearted," reflected Tracy. "Now you got him, what's
your programme?"
Mrs. Crump refilled and lighted her corncob with deliberation, then made
response:
"Sam, I'm sure in a thunderin' bad pinch. Damned good luck it ain't
worse, as Crump used to say at times. You know I ain't no legal shark,
huh? Well, three weeks ago I had a blamed good hole in the hills, until
Abel Dorales come along and located just below me. Then in rides old
Sandy Mackintavers and offers a thousand even for my hole, saying that
Abel had located the thrown apex of my claim----"
"The apex law don't obtain here," put in Tracy.
"I know it; but who's goin' to argue with Mackintavers? If it wasn't
that, it'd be somethin' worse. Anyhow, he offered to compromise and so
on."
The sheriff nodded. "I see how you come to have the flivver," he
observed, drily.
"Yas, ye do!" Mrs. Crump's response was raw-edged. "If you was the kind
o' man you used to be, ye'd up and give them jumpers a hemp necktie! But
now ye play politics, Sam Tracy, and ye lick the boots o' Sandy
Mackintavers----"
"That's enough, Mis' Crump!" broke in the sheriff, icily. "I don't blame
ye for feelin' sore, but the likes of us can't fight Mackintavers in the
courts. We ain't slick enough! And Dorales is a Mormon-bred greaser,
than which the devil ain't never fathered a worse combination. Now, Mis'
Crump, you show me the least excuse for doin' it legally, and I'll pump
them two men full o' lead any day! I'm only surprised that you didn't do
it."
"I did." A smile of grim satisfaction wreathed the lady's firm lips.
"First I took Sandy's money, then I lets fly. They was several hired
greasers with Dorales, and I reckon I got two-three; ain't right sure. I
only got Abel glancingly, and when I threw down on Sandy his arms was
both elevated for safety. All I could decently do was to nick his ear
so's he'd remember me."
"You didn't kill Dorales?"
"Afraid not." Mrs. Crump sadly shook her head. "I didn't wait to inquire
none, but it looked like I'd only blooded his shoulder and he was layin'
low to plug me in the back, so I belted him over the head with the butt,
and slid for home."
The sheriff, astounded, emitted a long whistle. "Whew-w!" he said,
slowly. "Say, whereabouts did all this happen?"
"Down the Mogollons. Over Arizony way."
"Why didn't ye go west into Arizony, then? After that doin's this state
will be too hot to hold ye----"
"Oh, Sandy won't go to law over the shootin'. It'd make him look too
ridic'lous."
The sheriff threw back his head and laughed with all the uproarious
abandon of a man who laughs seldom but well.
"Best look out for yourself," he cautioned. "That there Dorales will be
on your trail till hell freezes over, ma'am! I sure would admire to see
you in action on that crowd!"
"You'll see me in action when that there car gets movin' again," she
retorted. "She bucks like a range hoss and kicks to beat hell--why, I
couldn't hardly keep the saddle!"
The sheriff arose and went to the dust-white flivver. He adjusted the
spark, cranked, and for a moment listened to the engine before killing
it. Then he threw back the hood, and, under the sombre eyes of Thady
Shea, worked in silence. At length he finished his task, started the
engine again, and with a nod of satisfaction shut it off.
"Thought mebbe so," he stated, rejoining the lady. "Your spark plugs was
fouled. Well, ma'am, what can I be doin' for you?"
"Ye might send me a wire in care of Coravel Tio whenever ye get a line
on Dorales or Mackintavers. I'm fixing to meet them again."
"How come?" demanded the sheriff in surprise.
Mrs. Crump gestured with her pipe toward the flivver.
"I got a sack of ore in there that I found in the lava beds or
thereabouts. I suspicions it's one o' these new-fangled things nobody
give a whoop for in the old days, but that draws down the money now. If
it is, then you can lay that Sandy will hear I've found it, and he'll be
after me to jump the claim."
"He sure does keep a line on prospectors," reflected the sheriff. "And
skins 'em, too, mostly. But he does it legal."
"Yep. If this here stuff is any good, Sam, they's going to be some smoke
'fore he gets his paws on it! Where you goin' from here? Back to
Albuquerque?"
"Nope. I got some business up at the capital."
"Will ye tote that ore sack and a letter up to Coravel Tio for me--and
do it strictly under your hat?"
"You bet I will, ma'am!"
Mrs. Crump unstrapped the burlap sack. With the sheriff's pencil and
paper she settled down to write a letter. The process was obviously
painful and laborious, but at length it was finished. The sheriff shook
hands, picked up the sack, and turned to his car. Mrs Crump had already
restored him his revolver.
"Take good care of yourself, ma'am--and your hobo! Adios."
Mrs. Crump watched the trail of dust disappear in the direction of Santa
Fe, then she turned to the flivver and looked up at Thady Shea.
"They's a new corncob laying in back somewheres. You can have it, Thady.
Get out here and settle down for a spell o' talk. If ye act real good
I'll give ye a drink."
"I don't want any," came Shea's muffled voice as he leaned back in
search of the pipe.
"That's a lie. You're fair shaking for liquor and a drop will brace ye
up."
Shea procured the pipe, filled and lighted, and promptly assumed, as a
garment, his usual histrionic pose. The gulp of liquor which Mrs. Crump
carefully measured out sent a thin thread of colour into his gaunt,
unshaven cheeks.
"Madam, I owe you all," he announced sonorously. "I have not missed the
heart of things set forth in this your discourse to the sheriff's ear,
and I have gathered that your need is great for the strong arms of
friends, the counsel wise----"
"You got it," cut in Mrs. Crump, curtly. "The p'int is, Thady, where do
you come in? Listen here, now! I got a good eye for men; ye ain't much
account as ye stand, but ye got the makin's. Now cut out the booze and
I'll take ye for partner, savvy? What's more, I'll spend a couple o'
weeks attending to it that ye _do_ cut out the booze! I sure need a
partner who ain't liable to sell me out to them heathen. Can ye down the
booze, or not?"
Something in her tone cut through the man's posturing like a knife. As a
matter of fact, he was miserable in spirit; his soul quivered nakedly
before him, and he was ashamed. For a space he did not answer, but
stared at the far mountains. The strong tragedy of his face was
accentuated and deepened into utter bitterness.
What Mrs. Crump had only vaguely and darkly seen Thady Shea observed
clearly and with wonder; yet, just as she missed the more mystical side
of it, he missed the more practical side. More diverse creatures wearing
human semblance could scarce have been found than these twain, here met
upon a desert upland of New Mexico--the woman, a self-reliant
mountaineer and prospector who knew only her own little world, the man a
drunkard, a broken-down "hamfatter," who knew all the outside world
which had rejected him. They had come together from different spheres.
As he sat there staring, he mentally and for the last time reviewed the
life that lay behind him; before him uprose all the contemptuous years,
the sad wreckage of high hopes and tinsel glories, the hard and wretched
fact of liquor. He would shut it out of his mind forever, after to-day,
he thought. He would live in the present only, from day to day. He would
try a new life--and let the dead bury their dead!
He turned to Mrs. Crump, his sad and earnest eyes looking oddly cynical.
"I do not think it humanly possible that I can resist liquor," he said,
gravely. "I am frank with you. It were easy to swear that I would pluck
out drowned honour by the roots--but, madam, I think that this morning I
am weary of swearing. I have tried to abstain, and I cannot. Always it
is the first week or two of torture that downs me----
"You're showin' sense, now," said the lady. "Want to try it or not?"
He rose in the car and attempted a bow in his showy and pitiful manner.
In this bow, however, was an element of grace, the more pronounced by
its sharp contrast to his gaunt, sombre aspect.
"Madam, I am deeply sensible of the compliment you pay me. Yet, in
picking from the gutter a drunken failure, are you wise? I am entirely
ignorant of prospecting and----"
"Don't worry none. Ye'll learn that quick enough."
Again Thaddeus bowed. "But, madam, I understand that prospectors go off
into the desert places and live. In justice to yourself, do you not
think that your enemies might seize viciously upon the least excuse for
misinterpretation of character----"
For the first time Shea saw Mehitabel Crump gripped in anger. He paused,
aghast.
Her gigantic form quivered with rage then stiffened into towering wrath.
Her tanned, age-touched features suddenly hardened into sentient bronze
from which her blue eyes blazed forth terribly, jewelled indices of an
indomitable and quick-flaming spirit within.
"Thady Shea, it's well for you them words come from an honest heart,"
said she, with a slow and grim emphasis. "They ain't no one goin' to say
a word agin' me, except them for what I don't give a tinker's dam; and
if one o' them dasts to say it in my hearin', chain lightnin' is goin'
to strike quick and sudden! This here territory--state, I mean--knows
Mehitabel Crump and has knowed her for some years back. Paste that in
your hat, Thady Shea!"
As some dread lioness hears in dreams the horns and shouts of hunters,
and starting erect with bristling front mutters her low and terrible
growl of challenge, so Mehitabel Crump defiantly faced Thaddeus.
He, poor soul, inwardly cursed his too-nimble tongue, and shrank visibly
from the spectacle of wrath. Before the hurt and amazed eyes of him Mrs.
Crump suddenly abandoned her righteous attitude. Having palpably
overawed him, she now felt ashamed of herself.
"There, buck up," she brusquely ordered.
"Tell me, now! If I answer for it that ye stay sober a couple o' weeks
or so, will ye make the fight?"
"Yes." Hope fought against despair in Shea's voice; he knew his own
weakness well.
"All right. Let's go, then!"
"We're going to Santa Fe?"
Mrs. Crump advanced to the front of the flivver, and seized the crank.
Then she paused, her blue eyes striking up over the radiator at Shea.
"No, I ain't goin' to Santy Fe; neither are you! We're goin' to the most
man-forsaken spot they is in all the world, I reckon. We got grub, and
everything else can wait a couple o' weeks or so. Accordin' to the Good
Book, Providence was mighty rushed about creation, but I ain't in no
special hurry about makin' a man of you----"
Her words were drowned in the engine's roar. Thaddeus Roscius Shea made
himself as small as possible; Mrs. Crump crowded in under the wheel, the
car swaying to her weight, and they leaped forward.
In silence she drove, pushing the flivver with a speed and abandon which
left Shea clinging desperately to his seat. Twenty minutes later an
intersecting road made its appearance; Mrs. Crump left the highway and
followed this road due north for a couple of miles. There, coming to an
east-and-west road which was decidedly rough, she headed west.
"This here's the trail to Cochiti pueblo," she announced, enigmatically.
Four miles of this, and she struck an even worse road that headed
northwest. Shea's eyes opened as they progressed. Never in all his life
had he encountered such grotesque country as this which now lay on every
hand as though evoked by magic--utter desolation of huge rock masses,
blistered and calcined by ancient fires, eroded into strange spires and
pinnacles of weird formation. To the north towered Dome Rock with its
adjacent crater. No sign of life was anywhere in evidence.
Shea was helplessly gripped by the personality of the woman beside him.
Mentally he was overborne and awed; physically he was sick--not ill, but
downright sick, possibly due to the sparse gulps of liquor which he had
downed, possibly to the glaring sun. He cared not whether he lived or
died. He felt that this day had brought him to the end of his rope, and
that nothing more could matter.
"Getting into the lava beds," observed Mrs. Crump, cheerfully. Shea
understood her words only dimly. "This here Henry sure does go pokin'
where you'd think nothin' short of a mule could live! The trail peters
out a bit farther, then we got to hoof it over to the Rio Grande and
make camp."
Poor Shea shivered. The frightful desolation of the scene horrified him.
He had never been an outdoor man. His had ever been the weakness, the
dependency of the sheltered and civilized being. Contact with this
strangely primitive woman frightened him. He felt like babbling in his
terror, begging to be taken back and allowed to resume his place among
the swine. Here was something new, awful, incredible! But he held his
peace.
Had he been able to look a few miles ahead; had he foreseen what lay
before him in that camp in White Rock Canon, a place which in grandeur
and inaccessibility rivalled the great canon of the Colorado; had he
known that he was about to tread a trail which few white men had ever
followed--in short, had he understood what Mehitabel Crump's plan held
in store for him, he would at that moment have yielded up the ghost,
cheerfully!
At last, reaching a sheer incline where boulders larger than the car
itself filled all the trail and rendered further progress impossible,
Mrs. Crump killed her engine and set her brakes hard.
"I guess Henry can lay here all his life and never be stole," she said,
with a sigh of relaxation. "Well, Thady, here we are! D'you know what?
It ain't lack of ambition that makes folks mis'able and unsatisfied;
it's lack o' purpose. Now, I aim to teach ye some purpose, Thady. Look
at me! I been prospectin' all my life, and still goin' strong, just
because I got a definite object ahead--to strike it rich somewheres!
"Well, climb down. We got to rig up some grub into packs, hoof it to the
nearest canoncito, and reach the Rio Grande. It's less'n two mile in a
straight line to water, but twenty 'fore we gets there, if we gets there
a-tall. Come on, limber up!"
Thaddeus Roscius Shea groaned inaudibly--but limbered up.