THE MAN OF MYSTERY
The cold that dried the new-fallen snow to powder sent the mercury down
until it broke all records.
While the improvident did, indeed, wonder what they had done with their
summer wages, the thrifty contemplated their piles of wood and their
winter vegetables with a strong feeling of satisfaction.
Speaking colloquially, the Toomeys were "ga'nted considerably," and in
their usual state of semistarvation, but were in no immediate danger of
freezing, owing to the fact that Toomey had succeeded in exchanging a
mounted deer head for four tons of local coal mined from a "surface
blossom," which was being exploited by the _Grit_ as one of the
country's resources.
Vastly delighted with his bargain, until he discovered that he no sooner
had arrived from the coalhouse with a bucket of coal than it was
necessary for him to make a return trip with a bucket of ashes, Toomey
now hurled anathemas upon the embryo coal baron. It was not empty
verbiage when he asserted that, by spring, at the rate he was wearing a
trench to the ash can, nothing but the top of his head would be visible.
Mrs. Toomey, however, was grateful, for she felt that if there was one
thing worse than being hungry it was being cold, so she stoked the
kitchen range with a free hand and luxuriated in the warmth though it
necessitated frequent trips outside in Toomey's absence.
Mrs. Toomey was returning from the ash can when she saw Mormon Joe
going into his shack on the diagonal corner. She slackened her trot to a
walk and watched while he unlocked the door, as though to read from his
back something of his intentions in regard to the loan Kate had promised
so confidently.
It had seemed too good to be realized, so she had not told Jap of their
meeting. She must not count on it, however--she had been disappointed so
often that she dreaded the feeling. Ugh! What frightful cold! Mrs.
Toomey ran into the house and forgot the incident.
Later in the afternoon Toomey came home in high spirits.
"They got in!" he announced. "I hardly thought they'd start, such
weather. It's twenty-five below now and getting colder."
"Who?" inquired Mrs. Toomey, absently.
"The show people."
"Oh, did they?"
"Might as well take it in, mightn't we?" in feigned indifference.
"How can we? It's a dollar a ticket, isn't it?"
For answer he produced two strips of pink pasteboard from his waistcoat
pocket.
"Jap?" wonderingly.
"Yes'm."
"Where did you get the money?"
"I raised it."
"But how?"
He hesitated, looking sheepish.
"On the range."
Mrs. Toomey sat down weakly.
"The cook stove! You mortgaged it?"
"I had to give some security, hadn't I?" he demanded with asperity.
"Who to?"
"Teeters. I got five dollars."
Mrs. Toomey found it convenient to go into the pantry until she had
regained control of her feelings.
It was twenty-eight degrees below zero when the doors of the Opera House
were opened to permit the citizens of Prouty to hear the World Renowned
Swiss Bell Ringers and Yodlers.
The weather proved to be no deterrent to a community hungry for
entertainment, and they swarmed from all directions, bundled to
shapelessness, like Esquimaux headed for a central igloo. Infants in
arms and the bedridden in wheel chairs, helped to fill the Opera House
to its capacity, emptying the streets and houses for a time as
completely as an exodus.
While the best people, among whom were the Toomeys, occupied the several
rows of reserved chairs and smiled tolerantly upon the efforts of the
performers, and the proletariat stamped and whistled through its teeth
and cracked peanuts, a man muffled to the ears by the high collar of a
mackinaw coat, his face further concealed by the visor of a cap and
ear-laps, rode to the top of the bench, drew rein and looked down upon
the lights of Prouty.
It was not a night one would select for traveling on horseback, unless
his business was urgent. However, the man's seemed to be of this nature,
for he rode behind a large signboard which advertised the wares of the
Prouty Emporium, dismounted, tied his horse to the prop that held the
signboard upright, and with a show of haste took a coil of rope from his
saddlehorn, an axe--the head of which was wrapped in gunny sacking--and
a gun that swung in loops of saddle thongs at an angle to fit
comfortably in the bend of the rider's knee.
He did not follow the road, but took a shorter cut straight down the
steep side of the bench to the nearest alley, through which he ran as
noiselessly as a coyote. He ran until he came to Main Street, which the
alley bisected. In the shade of the Security State Bank he peered around
the corner and listened. The street was deserted, not even a dog or
prowling cat was visible the entire length of it.
The man crossed it hurriedly, looking up and down and over his shoulder
furtively, like some cautious animal which fears itself followed. In the
protection of the alley he ran again until he came to Mormon Joe's
tar-paper shack setting square and ugly in the middle of the lot--an
eyesore to the neighbors.
The door was locked, but it was the work of a second to tear off the
axe-head's covering and pry it open. He stepped inside and closed the
door quietly. Lighting the candle he took from his pocket, with his hand
he shielded the flame from the one window, and looked about with a
glance that took in every detail of the shack's arrangement.
A single iron bedstead extended into the room and a soogan and two
blankets, thin and ragged from service, were heaped in the middle. There
was no pillow, and a hard cotton pad constituted the mattress. An empty
whiskey bottle stood by the head of the bed.
A small pine table that at most might have cost a couple of dollars set
against the wall by the window. The starch box that served as a chair
was shoved under the table, and another box in the corner did duty as a
washstand. There was a cake of soap and a tin basin upon the latter and
a grimy hand towel hung close by from a spike driven into the unplaned
boards. Facing the door was a sheet-iron camp stove, rusty and
overflowing with ashes. The rickety, ill-fitting pipe was secured with
the inevitable baling wire.
After his swift survey, the man stepped to the washstand and let a few
drops of melted candle grease drip upon one corner. In this he held the
candle until it hardened in place. Then he went to work with the
businesslike swiftness of skill and experience.
He laid the shotgun on the stove and untwisted the baling wire which
held the stovepipe, giving a grunt of satisfaction when he found the
wire was longer than he had anticipated. He stooped and gathered some
kindling that was under the stove, singled out two or three sticks that
suited him, and then he laid them across the top of the stove and rested
the barrel of the shotgun upon them. After all was complete, he stepped
back against the door and squinted, gauging the elevation. It was to his
satisfaction. With supple wrist and quick movements he uncoiled the
small cotton rope he had brought with him and took two turns around the
trigger of the shotgun. The rest of the rope he passed around a rod in
the foot of the bed, which gave a direct back pull on the trigger, and
thence he carried it over the upper hinge of the door, which opened
inward, and finally down to the knob and back again to the foot of the
bed, where he secured it.
All was executed without a superfluous movement, and a panther could not
have been more noiseless. But the man was breathing heavily when he had
finished, as hard as though he had been exercising violently. He stepped
to the washstand to blow out the candle, but before he did so he gave a
final rapid survey of his work. His eyes glittered with sinister
satisfaction. Evidently it suited him. He held his numbed fingers over
the flame of the candle to warm them before he extinguished it.
Reaching for the axe, he pried the window from its casing and set it
quietly against the wall. He leaned the axe beside it and cursed under
his breath when he tore a button from his mackinaw as he squeezed
through the narrow opening. He dropped lightly to the ground and,
crouching, ran for the alley. Where it crossed Main Street he stopped
and listened, then peered around the corner of the White Hand Laundry.
The street was still empty.
While he stood, the sound of laughter came faintly from the Opera House.
His heart was pounding under his mackinaw. On the other side of the
street red and violet lights were shining through the frosted windows of
"Doc" Fussel's drug store. They looked warm and alluring, and he
hesitated.
A whinny pierced the stillness. It was his horse pawing with cold and
impatience behind the signboard. He looked up at the indistinct black
object on the bench, then back wistfully at the red and violet lights of
the drug store. He had an intense desire to be near some one--some one
who was going carelessly about his usual occupation.
He crossed over and went into the little apothecary. The clerk was
sitting on the back of his neck with his feet to a counter listening to
the phonograph. "Has anybody here seen Kelly?" the machine screeched as
the stranger entered. The clerk got up and went to the tobacco counter.
"Hell of a night," he observed, languidly.
"Some chilly," replied the stranger, indicating the brand he wanted.
"It'll be close to forty below before morning," passing out the tobacco.
"Everybody's gone to the show but me," plaintively.
"A drug clerk might as well be a dog chained up in a kennel." He stopped
the phonograph and changed the needle.
The stranger sat down beside the stove and placed his feet on the nickel
railing. He left the collar of his mackinaw turned up, but untied his
ear-laps. They looked rather foolish, dangling. His eyes were shadowed
by the visor of his cap, so that really only his nose and cheek bones
were visible. He glanced at the big clock on the wall frequently, and at
intervals wiped the palms of his hands on the knees of his corduroy
trousers as though to remove the moisture.
The clerk was putting on "When the Springtime Comes, Gentle Annie" when
the opening door let in a breath from the Arctic and a tall person
wearing new overalls, a coat of fleece-lined canvas and a peak-crowned
Stetson. He had a scarf wound about his neck after the fashion of
sheepherders.
"Hello, Bowers! Sober?" inquired the clerk, casually.
"Kinda. What you playin'?"
The clerk told him.
"Got a piece called 'The Yella Rose o' Texas Beats the Belles o'
Tennessee'?"
"Never heard of it."
"Got--'Whur the Silver Colorady Wends its Way'?"
The clerk replied in the negative.
"Why don't you git some good music?"
"Why aren't you at the show?"
"Too contrary, I reckon. When I'm out in the hills I'm a hankerin' to
see somebody. When I git in town I want to git away from everybody. I'm
goin' out to-morrow."
"Where you going?"
"Hired out to Mormon Joe this evenin'."
The stranger stirred slightly.
"I'll look around a little--I don't want nothin'," said Bowers.
"Help yourself," replied the clerk, amiably, so the sheepherder stared
at the baubles of cut glass on the shelf with a pleased expression and
hung over the counter where the rings, watches and bracelets glittered.
Then he examined a string of sponges carefully--sponges always
interested him--they suggested picturesque scenery and adventures. He
lingered over the toilet articles, sniffing the soaps and smelling at
the bottles of perfume, trying those whose names he especially fancied
on the end of his nose by rubbing it with the glass stopper. Then he sat
down on the other side of the stove from the stranger and spelled out
the queer names on the jars of drugs, speculating as to their contents
and uses. He never yet had exhausted the possibilities of a drug store
as a means of entertainment.
A few minutes after ten the advance guard came from the Opera
House--laughing. The World's Greatest Prestidigitator had dropped the
egg which he intended taking from the ear of Governor Sudds where it had
broken into the ample lap of Mrs. Vernon Wentz of the White Hand
Laundry. The cold, however, promptly put a quietus upon their merriment
and they scuttled past, bent on getting out of it as quickly as
possible.
There were two customers for cigars, and the Toomeys. Toomey bought
chocolates while Mrs. Toomey held her hands to the stove and shivered.
"Come on, Dell." Toomey's glance as he took the candy included the
stranger.
"How're you?" he nodded carelessly.
They were to be the last, apparently, for when their footsteps died away
the street again grew silent.
The clerk planted his feet on the nickel railing and stared at the stove
gloomily.
"I'd have to keep this store open till half-past 'leven if I was dyin',"
he grumbled.
"But you ain't," said Bowers, cheerfully.
Bowers smelled strongly of sheep, once the heat warmed his clothing. On
the other side of the clerk the odor of smoke and bear grease emanated
from the stranger. The clerk moved his chair back from the stove and
advised the latter:
"Your soles is fryin'."
He seemed not to hear him, for his eyes were upon the clock creeping
close to eleven, and he watched the swaying pendulum as though it
fascinated him. There was no conversation, and each sat thinking his own
thoughts until the stranger suddenly pulled down the side of his collar
and listened. The clerk eyed him with disfavor. The squeaking of
footsteps in the dry snow was heard distinctly. The stranger got up
leisurely and went out with a grunt that was intended for "good
evening."
"Sociable cuss," Bowers commented ironically.
"Smelt like an Injun tepee," said the clerk, sourly.
"It's a wonder to me fellers don't notice theirselves," Bowers observed.
"But they never seem to."
A weaving figure was making its way down the middle of Main Street. A
thick-coated collie followed closely. The swaying figure looked like a
drunken gnome in its clumsy coat and peak-crowned hat in the cold
steel-blue starlight. It stopped uncertainly at the alley, then went on
to the end of the block and turned the corner.
The Toomeys had lost no time in retiring after the entertainment, for
the house, upon their return, was like a refrigerator. Almost instantly
Toomey was slumbering tranquilly, but Mrs. Toomey had symptoms which she
recognized as presaging hours of wakefulness. The unwonted excitement of
being out in the evening had much to do with her restlessness, but
chiefly it came from thinking of the cook stove. Of course she could see
the force of Jap's argument as to the necessity of keeping up
appearances by being seen in public places and spending money as though
there was more where that came from, yet she wondered if it really
deceived anybody.
And supposing Teeters foreclosed the mortgage! It seemed as though they
were slipping week by week, day by day, deeper into the black depths at
the bottom of which was actual beggary. Her nervousness increased as her
imagination painted darker and darker pictures until she longed to
scream for the relief it would have afforded her. The single hope was
Mormon Joe's Kate and her promise, and that was too fantastic and
farfetched to dare count on. It was not logical to suppose that a man
whom Jap had quarreled with and insulted would come to their rescue even
if he could afford to do so, which she doubted.
How still it was--the eloquent stillness of terrible cold! The town was
soundless. Chickens humped in their feathers were freezing on their
roosts, horses and cows tied in their stalls were suffering, and, as
always, she visualized the desolate white stretches where hungry
coyotes, gaunt and vigilant, padded along the ridges, and horses and
cattle, turned out to shift for themselves, huddled shivering in the
gulches and under the willows.
She knew from the snapping and cracking of lumber and metal about the
house that it was growing colder, and she drew the covers closer. Oh,
what a country to live in! Whatever was to become of them! Her teeth
chattered.
She thought she heard footsteps and raised her head slightly to listen.
Faint at first, they were coming nearer. Whoever was out a night like
this, she could not imagine. The person was walking in the middle of the
road and his progress was uneven, stopping sometimes altogether, then
going forward. Abreast the house the sound of heels grinding in the snow
that was dry as powder was like the scrunching and squealing of the
steel tire of a wagon in bitter weather.
They passed, grew fainter, finally stopped altogether. Mrs. Toomey moved
closer to her husband. There was comfort in the nearness of a human
being.
A shot! Her heart jumped--her nerves twanged with the shock of it. "That
hit something!" The thought was almost simultaneous. The sound was more
like an explosion--deadened, muffled somewhat--as of a charge fired into
a bale of hay or cotton. For the space of a dozen heartbeats she lay
with her mouth open, breathless in the deathly silence of the frozen
night.
A scream! It must have reached the sky. Piercing, agonized--the agony of
a man screaming with his mouth wide open--screaming without restraint,
in animal-like unconsciousness of what he was doing.
"Jap!" She clutched his arm and shook him.
The screams kept coming, blood curdling, as if they would split the
throat, tear it, and horrible with suffering.
"Jap!" She sat up and shook his shoulder violently.
"Wha's the matter?" he asked, sleepily.
"Did you hear that shot? Listen!"
"Some drunk," he mumbled.
"He's hurt, I tell you! Hear him!"
"Drug store's open."
"Oughtn't you to go to him?"
"Lemme be--can't you?" He again breathed heavily.
The screams kept coming, but each a little fainter. Either the man was
moving on or the pain was lessening. Mrs. Toomey's heart continued to
thump as she lay rigid, listening. She wanted to get up and look through
the window, but the floor was cold and she could not remember exactly
where she had left her slippers. Anyway, somebody else would go to him.
It was a relief, though, when he stopped screaming.
Others whom the cries of agony awakened applied the same reasoning to
the situation, with minor variations. "Tinhorn" in particular was
disturbed because of their nearness. He raised his head from under a
mound of blankets and frowned into the darkness as he wondered if, as
Prouty's newly elected mayor, he would be criticized should he fail to
go out and investigate. He was so warm and comfortable!
"Guess I'd better get up, Mamma."
His wife gripped him as if he was struggling violently, although his
Honor was lying motionless as an alligator.
"You shan't--you'll get pneumonia and leave me and the children without
any insurance! You've no right to take chances. Let somebody else go
that hasn't any future."
There was that side to it.
"Some hobo most like." The future statesman turned over. "Tuck my back
in, Mamma."
Mr. Sudds was awakened, and his first impulse was to rush to the man's
assistance, but he was not sure where to find matches, and it took him
such an unconscionable time to dress that by the time he got there--
Scales was restrained by the arms of his fragile wife who threatened
hysterics if he left her. Between love and duty Mr. Scales did not
hesitate with the thermometer at forty below zero, and the knowledge
that loss of sleep unfitted him for business.
So Mormon Joe, screaming in his agony, staggered up the alley, leaving a
crimson trail behind him, the sheep dog following like a shadow. He had
nearly reached Main Street when he lurched, groped for a support, then
fell to his knees. The hot drops turned to red globules in the snow as
he kept crawling, gasping, "Oh, God! Won't somebody come to me?" The dog
walked beside him as he dragged himself along, perplexed and wondering
at this whim of his master's.
Mormon Joe was leaning against the side of the White Hand Laundry, his
head fallen forward, when Bowers and the drug clerk got to him. The
collie was licking his face for attention, but the warm caressing
hand--now red and sticky--was lying in the snow, limp and unresponsive.
Mormon Joe had "gone over"--dying as he had lived--a man of mystery.