Over the rough table Fred Ross delivered himself.
"Something about you I like, Thady Shea," he said, level-eyed. "The old
man who fetched you here told me your name. Don't know anything more
about you. Didn't know whiskey was bad for you; anyway, it cured the
fever. First I knew about you was in yonder, when you talked. Damn good
thing for you, pardner! Savvy? Yes.
"Tell you somethin'. I used to be range rider--a puncher, savvy? Forty a
month. No future. Never mind the details, but it come to me that if I
didn't get somethin' to work for, I might's well quit livin'. So I took
up this here quarter section and started in. It cost me dear, I'm
tellin' you!
"I sweat blood over every inch o' this here land. Folks said it was no
good. I put up this shack, put it up right. I set in to raise crops. I
put my body into it. I put my heart into it. I put my livin' eternal
soul into it--and by the Lord I'm goin' to win! I had somethin' to work
for, that's all."
Ross leaned back. The flame died from his eyes. He surveyed Thady Shea
critically, appraisingly, generously.
"When I heard what you said, in yonder," he pursued, "I seen all of a
sudden that you were a man like me. Savvy? Yes. I don't blame you, now,
for lamming me over the ear like you done. My Lord! Ain't I talked to
God like you done in there? Ain't things come up to rip the very guts
out o' my soul? Well, it's like that with all folks, I guess, only it
comes different. Savvy? Yes. I gave you whiskey, and I was a damn fool.
That's all."
Ross rose and began to clatter dishes into the dishpan. Thady Shea rose
and went to the doorway. He stood there, looking up the east-running
canon toward the morning sun. He did not see the half-plowed flat, he
did not see the horses and plow; he did not see the pinon trees and the
trickle of water. Tears were in his eyes. For one blazing moment he had
seen into the soul of Fred Ross, the iron soul, the gentle soul, the
brave soul of Fred Ross.
Suddenly he turned about, feeling upon his shoulder the hand of the
other man.
"Shea, you asked a while ago if there wasn't no help. Well, maybe there
is--if you want it. Do you?"
"Yes," said Thady Shea, huskily.
Upon the following morning he started in to work; he was a bit weak, but
he insisted upon working. He dared not do without working. He began to
clear another flat farther up the canon, ridding it of brush and scrub
oak and pinons.
As he worked, Thady Shea thought much of that wicker demijohn, back in
the cupboard of the shack. Once, when he came in to luncheon ahead of
Ross, he opened the cupboard. He looked at the clean wicker demijohn,
the new demijohn, the demijohn which hung so heavily and lovingly to the
hand; as he looked, a sunbeam struck the glass behind the woven wicker
and made it seem filled with rich thin blood. Thady Shea shivered--and
shut the door. But he could not shut that demijohn from his thoughts.
He prayed, every hour he worked, that Ross would hide away that
demijohn. He said nothing to Ross about it; he felt vaguely ashamed to
let Ross know of his struggles with himself. He shrank from revealing
how he was tempted.
Days passed. Twice, now, Thady Shea had come in from work merely to open
that door and look at the demijohn. The first time, he had forced
himself to be content with the look. The second time he hefted it; then
he reached for the cork, trembling--but just then the step of Ross
approached, and Shea replaced the demijohn. He knew that he had been
saturated with liquor, that in his involuntary carouse his body had
seeped up the whiskey as the thirsty earth seeps up water. The craving
was there, the wicked craving of the cracked earth for water.
Terrible were the first few nights. Despite weariness, sleep would not
come. On tiptoe Thady Shea would sneak out of the shack, out into the
bitter cold night, out under the white, cold stars. He would stride up
and down the cold earth until the chill ate into his bones; then,
shivering, he would tiptoe back and roll up in his blankets, thinking
how a drink would warm him.
As the days passed, he worked harder. He slaved until, at darkness, he
would nod over his pipe. He did not shave, remembering the words of the
ancient, and his gaunt face became filled and strengthened by an
iron-gray beard.
All the while he cursed his aimlessness, his lack of purpose. He was
looking out, beyond the present; he was looking over the horizon. He was
thinking of Mrs. Crump. He prayed under a sweat-soaked brow that some
great flaming purpose would come into his life. The word "purpose" had
become to him a creed, a mania.
He did not realize, except very dimly, that for him life had already
centred upon one immediate and tremendous purpose: to avoid, to shrink
from, that clean wicker demijohn in the corner cupboard! Unawares, the
purpose had come to him.
And then, upon a day, Fred Ross patched the broken flivver and went to
Datil for grub. Thady Shea was left alone, alone with the ranch, alone
with the pinon trees and the horses, alone with the shack, alone with
the corner cupboard and the clean wicker demijohn. Fred Ross did not
seem to perceive any danger in leaving Shea thus alone.
Fred Ross reached the store at Datil about noon, after a long pull.
Datil lay on the highway, where lordly Packards and lowly Fords wended
east and west, between California and St Louis. Datil was nothing more
than a frame store-hotel-post office. In the rear of the long building
were sheds, relics of the days when the far ranchers came in on
horseback, of the days when burros and bearded prospectors and
unrestricted Indians roused talk of great and blood-stirring events.
A mixed company lunched that day in the long dining room. Ross was too
late for the first table, and he stood waiting in the adjoining room,
smoking by the huge cobbled fireplace, talking with other men who had
drifted along too late for the first serving.
The talk struck upon Thady Shea and the huge joke of which Abel Dorales
had been the victim. Ross listened and said nothing, as was his wont. He
heard that Thady Shea had skipped the country; had, at any rate, not
been found--must have gone over the Arizona line.
"Too bad," commented a sturdy rancher from Quemado way. "He must ha'
been a right strapping guy, eh? And what he done down to Zacaton, when
Ben Aimes give him a drink--say, ain't ye heard 'bout that? It's sure
rich!"
The speaker recounted, with many added elaborations and details, the
story of Thady Shea and his axe helve. Fred Ross listened in silence.
Fred Ross thought of that heavy white crockery cup; reflectively, he
rubbed his head above his ear, and grinned to himself. He was not the
only one who had suffered for giving Thady Shea a drink, then!
When the talk turned upon reprisals, Fred Ross listened with more
attention. Charges had been sworn out against Shea, it appeared; they
had been sworn out by that fool Aimes, but had later been withdrawn.
Abel Dorales had seen to it that they had been withdrawn. Abel Dorales
had come to Magdalena; there he had half killed three drunken miners who
had ventured to taunt him, and for the same reason he had taken a
blacksnake to a sheepman. Abel Dorales had given out that he, and he
alone, intended to deal with Thady Shea whenever the latter was found.
It was a personal matter, outside the law. This attitude met with
general approval.
"Not so bad!" reflected Fred Ross, as he passed in to his meal. "Not so
bad! The law ain't after him, anyhow. Now, if he's let that demijohn
alone to-day, I reckon he's all right. Pretty tough on him, maybe, to
leave him alone, but----"
The ins and outs of the business transaction attempted by Dorales, the
transaction concerning Number Sixteen, had, of course, not been made
public. But the general gist of the matter was an open secret. The joke
on Dorales was huge, and was immensely appreciated.
The meal over, Ross went out to his car in order to get his tobacco. He
idly observed that alongside his own flivver had been run another, a
dust-white flivver with new tires. He paid no attention to it until he
was drawn by the sound of a voice which he instantly recognized. He
stood quiet, listening, looking toward the two figures on the far side
of the dust-white flivver; they did not see him at all.
"No'm," said the voice which Ross had recognized. "No'm, I couldn't get
no work to Magdalena. Things is in a goshly-gorful state in the printing
business! I done walked here, aiming to make for Saint Johns, over the
Arizony line. Seein's you're headed that way, ma'am, if ye could give me
a lift----"
"Walked here, did ye?" cut in a voice strange to Ross. "Had any
vittles?"
"Not to speak of, ma'am. I'm busted."
"Well, you trot right in alongside o' me. Hurry up, now--ain't got much
time to waste. My land, of all the fool men--and at your age! Hurry up."
The two figures departed toward the stirrup-high open flooring that
formed a porch the length of the frame building. One was the figure of
Dad Griffith. The other was the figure of a very large woman, harsh of
features; she was clad in ragged but neat khaki, and beneath her chin
were tied the strings of an old black bonnet. Against her wrinkled
features glowed two bright-blue eyes with the brilliancy of living
jewels, giving the lie to their surrounding tokens of age. She was
unknown to Fred Ross.
Filling his pipe, the homesteader sought out the store, and, with
inevitable delays, set to work making his purchases. This was an
occupation demanding ceremony. Other men were here on the same errand,
and there was gossip of crops, land, and war to be swapped. This was the
forum of the countryside, the agora of the scattered ranches.
Thus it happened that by the time Ross went to his car with an armload
of supplies old Dad Griffith had finished his meal and was lounging on
the steps of the stirrup-high porch. He started up at sight of Ross, who
paid no attention to him, and followed the rancher out to the car.
"Hey!" he exclaimed, eagerly. "Where's that there partner of mine?"
Ross dumped his purchases into the car and turned. He desired only to be
rid of this parasite, to be rid of him for good and all--and to rid
Thady Shea of him.
"He's where you left him, old-timer--and where you're not wanted."
"Is--is he all right?"
"Sure. I fed him whiskey until he got well. He's there now with a
demijohn. I never seen a man able to swallow more red licker than that
partner of yours! But you needn't go showing your nose around there,
savvy? He's workin' for me and you're not wanted."
"You go to hell!" spluttered the wrathful ancient. "You goshly-gorful
old ranch hand! That's what you are!"
Ross laughed, swung about to his flivver, and cranked up. He turned the
car and vanished amid a trail of dust, leaving the ancient to sputter
senile threats and curses. He accounted himself well rid of that old
vagabond, in which he was quite right.
It was late in the afternoon when Ross got home; the trail to his canon
from the county road was wretchedly rough. As he drove, he began to
blame himself for having left Thady Shea all alone, throughout the day
from sunrise to sunset, with that wicker demijohn. He began to think
that he had stacked the cards too heavily. He began to think that his
desire to test Thady Shea had been a mite too strong.
He drove up to the shed, seeing no sign of his guest. The house, too,
was deserted. Ross went straight to the corner cupboard and jerked open
the door. The clean wicker demijohn was gone. It was not in the house.
"Hell's bells!" quoth Ross, savagely.
He strode outside and scanned the vicinity. Nothing was in sight. The
team was gone. He walked up the canon, seeing that the lower flat was
empty of life. At the turn he came in sight of the upper flat, and
paused.
The team was there; Thady Shea had been plowing. Thady Shea was there,
too, but he was not plowing. He was standing at one corner of the flat
beside a pile of brush. He was lifting something in his hand. It was the
wicker demijohn. He set it on his arm and laid the mouth to his lips.
Ross could see him drink, gulpingly. He drank long, avidly, until Ross
swore in blank amazement that a man could drink thus; he drank as the
sun-cracked earth drinks water.
Ross strode forward. Thady Shea turned to meet him.
"Hello, Ross! I was just knocking off work for the day. Drink?"
Ross took the demijohn. He looked at Thady Shea with hard, bitter cold
eyes. His eyes softened as he remembered his misgivings. After all, was
it not his own fault? He lifted the demijohn on his arm and laid the
mouth to his lips.
"Hell!" He spluttered in stark surprise. He stared at the demijohn,
stared at the smiling Thady Shea. "Hell! I thought----"
Thady Shea laughed. It was a deep, sonorous laugh.
"I couldn't stand it, Ross," he said. "That cursed jug was too much for
me. So I emptied out the whiskey and filled it with water, and went to
work. I'm sorry about the whiskey--I'll pay you back."
"Damn the whiskey!" roared Fred Ross, delightedly, and wiped his lips.
"Come on back to the shack and let's eat!"
For the first time in long days, the two men talked over their meal.
They talked of the world outside, talked of ranch gossip, talked of the
war and the government and the high price of wool. Ross meant to run
some sheep up at the head of the canon, and discoursed on the project at
length. Not until their pipes were going, and the red afterglow was
shrouding the fading day, did he mention what he had learned at Datil.
"Heard something over to the hotel," he mentioned, casually. "They were
talking about you. It appears that Abel Dorales has called off the
sheriff and withdrawn all charges agin' you. He's lookin' for you his
own self, I hear. Makin' it a personal matter."
Thady Shea drew a deep breath. Nothing to fear from the law, then! The
more personal menace of Abel Dorales he did not consider at all.
"I'll tell you what happened--if you don't mind," he said, diffidently.
It was the first time, since that day when he had felled Ross with the
cup, that personalities had been touched upon between them.
He told his story. Ross made no comment whatever; in that story he
perceived that Thady Shea was a queer, impulsive child, a man whose fear
and reason were overruled by his impulses, a man whose primitive soul
arose in a lonely grandeur of sincerity, of absolute and wonderful
sincerity. Ross felt awed, as a man feels awed when confronted by the
mystery of a child's soul.
The name of Mehitabel Crump meant nothing to the rancher; he had perhaps
heard of her in past years, but had forgotten her name. When Thady Shea
fell silent, Ross knocked the dottle from his pipe and filled it anew.
"You watch out for Dorales," he said. "I know him. He's bad med'cine."
"So everyone says," returned Shea, gravely serious. "I hadn't found it
so."
Ross seemed to discern humour in this, and chuckled. "Think ye'll stay
here, Shea? Glad to have ye."
"Unless something turns up--yes. I--well, I haven't found that purpose
we spoke about once. I'm trying hard. I'm trying to find it, to make it
come, to figure out what I must do. Yet I seem all helpless,
bewildered----"
"I never heard of any one puttin' a rush label on Providence, not with
any success to mention," said Ross, dryly. "You're lookin' so hard for
something that you can't find it. You're too damn serious. About sixty,
ain't ye? Well, at sixty you're goin' through what ye should ha' gone
through at thirty or less. Limber up your joints an' take it easier,
pardner. Wait for what turns up, an' remember God ain't dealing from a
cold deck."
Here was wisdom, and Thady Shea tried to accept it.
Upon the following afternoon Thady Shea was laboriously plowing the
upper flat. Down at the shack, Fred Ross was cleaning house. He was
cleaning house in his own simple and thorough fashion. He took
everything outside in the sun. Then he set to work with a bucket of suds
and a broom, and scrubbed the walls, floor, and ceiling; he was figuring
on papering the walls a little later. The result of this cleaning was
damp but satisfactory.
Having returned most of his belongings to their proper places, Ross was
engaged in fitting together the iron bed. He heard the grinding roar of
a car coming up the canon trail in low gear, and went to the doorway. A
dust-white flivver was approaching. As he watched, it came up to the
shed and halted. There was but one person in the car.
From the dust-white flivver alighted a tall, large woman clad in old but
neat khaki, upon her head a black bonnet. With surprise, Ross recognized
her; it was the woman whom he had seen at Datil the previous day. It was
the woman who had bought Dad Griffith a meal, and who, presumably, had
given the ancient a lift toward the Arizona line.
She approached the doorway and transfixed Ross with keen, glittering
blue eyes. Her look was one of unmistakable truculence, of hostility.
"Your name Ross?" she demanded.
"It is, ma'am," he meekly answered. "Will----"
"My name's Mehitabel Crump, with a Mrs. for a handle," she stated. "You
got a man by the name o' Shea workin' here?"
"Yes'm," said Ross, staring. So this was the Mrs. Crump of whom Shea had
spoken! "Yes'm. Will ye come in? I'll go right up the canon and fetch
him----"
"You shut up," she snapped, harshly. "I aim to do my own fetchin', and I
aim to have a word with you here and now, stranger. I hear you been
keepin' Thady Shea filled up with booze."
Ross was staggered, not only by the amazing appearance of this woman
here, but by her direct attack. She meant business, savage business, and
showed it.
Those last words, however, suggested an explanation to Ross. On the
previous day he had given the ancient an "earful" about Thady Shea and
the whiskey. This woman, who now turned out to be Shea's friend Mrs.
Crump, had given the ancient a ride westward. The connection was too
obvious to miss.
"You got all that dope from old Griffith, eh?" he said. "I was at Datil
yesterday and seen you there. If I ever see that old fool Griffith
again, I'll poke a bullet through him!"
"Then you ain't real liable to do it," said Mrs. Crump, grimly. "If that
old vagabone told me the truth, I aim to put you where you won't give
whiskey to no more men. Now, hombre, speak up real soft and sudden! Did
you give Thady Shea whiskey--or not?"
In the blue eyes of Mrs. Crump was a look which Ross had not seen since
the days of his boyhood. Even then he had seen it only once or twice,
before the "killers" of the old days were put under sod. Knowing what
caused that look, Ross laughed--but he laughed to himself.
"Well," he responded, gravely, "in a way it is true, ma'am. I sure did
fill Shea with red licker, filled him plumb to the brim. And when I went
to Datil yesterday, there was a jug two thirds full o' licker in that
cupboard. When I come home las' night, ma'am, there wasn't a single drop
o' whiskey left. For a fact."
Try as he might, he could not keep the twinkle from his eye. That
twinkle was something Mrs. Crump could not understand; it bade her go
slow, be cautious. She knew her type of man animal, and that twinkle
gave her covert warning not to make a fool of herself.
"I'm goin' to see him," she declared, after compressing her lips and
eying Fred Ross suspiciously. "If you've made a soak out o' him, pilgrim
Ross, I'm coming right back here and perforate you without no further
warning. That goes as it lays--so ile up your gun."
She turned about and strode away, up the canon. Once she glanced back,
to see Ross standing where she had left him, and upon his face was a
wide grin.