THE GIRL WHO GLANCED BACK
At the crossroads in the valley stood the local jail, or "coop," as it
was more descriptively called. Unpainted, isolated, its solitary
ugliness lacked even the squalid dignity commonly associated with the
word "jail." The sun pelted down upon its bleached, unshaded roof and
sides. The burning air ran over its warped shingles like a kind of
colorless fire.
The boy Collie, half-dreaming in the suffocating heat of the place,
started to his feet as the door swung open. He had heard horses coming.
They had stopped. He could hardly realize that the sunlight was swimming
through the close dusk of the place. But the girl of Moonstone Cañon,
reining Boyar round, was real, and she smiled and nodded a greeting.
"This is Mr. Stone, my uncle," she said. "He wants to talk with you."
With a glance that noted each unlovely detail of the place, the broken
iron bed, the cracked pitcher, and the unspeakable blankets, Louise
touched her pony and was gone.
Collie rubbed his eyes, blinking in the sun as he stood gazing after
her.
Walter Stone, standing near the doorway, noted the lad's clear, healthy
skin, his well-shaped head with its tumble of wavy black hair, and the
luminous dark eyes. He felt an instant sympathy for the boy, a sympathy
that he masked with a business-like brusqueness. "Well, young man?"
"Yes, sir."
"Come outside. It's vile in there."
Stone led his pony to the north side of the "coop."
Collie followed.
Away to the west he saw the hazy peaks. A lake of burning air pulsed
above the flat, hot floor of the valley. Over there lay the hills and
the shade and the road.... Somewhere beyond was Overland, his friend,
penniless, hunted, hungry....
"She brung you?" queried the boy.
"Yes. I have seen Tenlow, the sheriff. He is willing to let you go at my
request. What do you intend doing, now that you are free?"
"I don' know. Find Red, I guess."
Walter Stone nodded. "What then?"
"Oh, stick it out with Red. They'll be after him sure now. Red's my
pal."
"What has he done to get the police after him?"
"Nothin'. It's the bunch."
"The bunch?"
"Uhuh. Them guys out on the Mojave. But say, are you workin' me to get
next to Red and get him pinched again?"
"No. You don't have to answer me. This man Red is nothing to me, one way
or the other. He took Miss Lacharme's pony, but she has overlooked that.
I thought, perhaps, you might care to explain your position. Perhaps you
had rather not. You may go now if you wish."
"Is that straight?"
"Yes."
For several tense seconds the lad gazed at his questioner. Finally his
gaze shifted to the hills. "I guess you're straight," he said presently.
"I guess she wouldn't have you for a relation if you wasn't straight."
The elder man laughed. "That's right--she wouldn't, young man."
"How's the sheriff guy?" asked the boy.
"He's getting along well enough. What made you ask?"
"Oh, nothin'. I hate to see any guy get hurt."
"I'm glad to hear you say that. I begin to think you are a bigger man
than he is."
"Me?" And Collie flushed, misunderstanding the other's drift. "I guess
you're kiddin'."
"No, I mean it. Mr. Tenlow still seemed pretty hot about your share in
this--er--enterprise. You seem to have no hard feelings against him."
"Huh! He shouldn't to be sore at _me_. I didn't spur no horse onto him
and ride him down like a dog. I guess Red would 'a' killed him if he'd
seen it. Say, nobody got Red, did they?"
"I haven't heard of it. How did this man Red come to pick you up? You're
pretty young to be tramping."
"Cross your heart you ain't tryin' to queer Red? You ain't tryin' to put
the Injun sign on us, are you?"
"No. I have heard all about the Mojave affair--the prospector that died
on the track--and the arrest of Overland Red at Barstow. You told my
niece that this Overland Red was 'square.' How did you come to be mixed
up in it?"
"I guess I'll have to tell you the whole thing, straight. Red always
said that to tell the truth was just as good as lyin', because nobody
would believe us, anyway. And if a fella gets caught tellin' the truth,
why, he's that much to the good."
"Well, I shall try and believe you this time," said Stone. "Miss
Lacharme thinks you're honest."
"A guy couldn't lie to her!" said the boy.
"Then just consider me her representative," said Stone, smiling.
Collie squatted in the meager shade of the "coop."
Walter Stone, dropping the pony's reins, came and sat beside the lad.
There was something in the older man's presence, an unspoken assurance
of comradeship and sincerity that annulled the boy's tendency to
reticence about himself. He began hesitatingly, "My dad was a drinkin'
man. Ma died, and he got worse at it. I was a kid and didn't care, for
he never done nothin' to me. We lived back East, over a pawnbroker's on
Main Street. One day pa come home with a timetable. He sat up 'most all
night readin' it. Every time I woke up, he was readin' it and talkin' to
himself. That was after ma died.
"In the mornin', when I was gettin' dressed, he come over and says to
take the needle he had and stick it through the timetable anywhere. I
was scared he was goin' to have the jimmies. But I took the needle--it
had black thread in it--and stuck it through the timetable. He opened
the page and laughed awful loud and queer. Albuquerque was where the
needle went in. He couldn't say the name right, but he kept lookin' at
it.
"Then he went out and was gone all day and all night. When he come back
he showed me a whole wad of money. I says, 'Where did you get it?' He
got mad and tells me to shut up.
"That day we got on a train. I says, 'Where are we goin'?' and he says
to never mind, and did I want some peanuts.
"We kept ridin' and ridin' in the same car, and eatin' bananas and
san'wiches and sleepin' settin' up at nights. I was just about sick when
we come to Albuquerque. You see, that was where the needle went through
the timetable, and dad said we would get off there. He got awful drunk
that night.
"Next day he said he was goin' to quit liquor and make a fresh start. I
knowed he wouldn't, 'cause he always said that next mornin'. But I guess
he tried to quit. I don't know.
"One night he didn't come back to the room where we was stayin' upstairs
over the saloon. They found him 'way down the track next day, all cut to
pieces by the train."
The boy paused, reached forward, and plucked a withered stem of grass
which he wound round and round his finger.
Walter Stone sat looking across the valley.
"I guess his money was all gone," resumed the boy. "Anyhow, 'bout a year
after, Overland Red comes along. He comes to the saloon where I was
stayin',--they give me a job cleanin' out every day,--and he got to
talkin' a lot of stuff about scenery and livin' the simple life, and all
that guff. The bartender got to jawin' with him, and I laughed, and the
bartender hits me a lick side the head. Red, he hits the bartender a
lick side of _his_ head--and the bartender don't get up right away.
'I'll learn him to hit kids,' said Red. 'If you learn him to hit 'em as
hard as that,' I says to Red, 'then it will be all off with me the next
time.'
"Does he hit you very often?' said Red.
"Whenever he feels like it,' I told him.
"Red laughed and said to come on. I was sick of there, so I run away
with Red. We tried it on a freight and got put off. Red had some water
in a canteen he swiped. It was lucky for us he did. We kept walkin' and
goin' nights, and mebby ridin' on freights in the daytime if we could.
One day, a long time after that, we was crossin' the desert again. We
got put off a freight that time, too. We was walkin' along when we found
a guy layin' beside the track. Red said he wasn't dead, but was dyin'.
We give him some water. Then he kind of come to and wanted to drink it
all. Red said, 'No.' Then the guy got kind of crazy. He got up and
grabbed Red. I was scared.
"Red, he passed me the canteen and told me to keep it away from the guy
because more water would kill him. Then the guy went for Red. 'He's
dyin' on his feet,' said Red. 'It's his last flash.' And he tried to
hold the guy quiet, talkin' decent to him all the time. They was
staggerin' around when the guy tripped backwards over the rail. His head
hit on the other rail and Red fell on top of him. Anyway, the guy was
dead."
Walter Stone shifted his position, turning to gaze at the boy's white
face. "Yes--go on," he said quietly.
"Red was for searchin' the guy, but I says to come on before we got
caught. Red, he laughed kind of queer, and asked me, 'Caught at what?'
Then I said, 'I dunno,' but I was scared.
"Anyway, he went through the dead guy's clothes and found some papers
and old letters and a little leather bag with a whole lot of gold-dust
in it. Red said mebby five hundred dollars!"
"Gold-dust?"
"Uhuh! Then Red _was_ scared. He buried the bag and the papers 'way out
in the sand and made a mark on the ties to find it by."
"Did you find out the dead man's name?" asked Stone, glancing curiously
at the boy.
"Nope. We just beat it for the next station. I was feelin' sick. I give
out, and Red, he lugged me to the next water-tank. He was pourin' water
on me when the Limited come along and stopped, and _she_ throwed the
rose to us. Red told me about it after. You wouldn't go back on a pal
like that, would you?"
"No, I don't know that I should."
"That's me!" said the boy. "Then they went to work and pinched us at
Barstow. Said we killed the guy because his head was smashed in where he
hit the rails. They tried to make Red say that he robbed the guy after
killin' him. But Red told everything, except he didn't tell about the
letters and the gold-dust. They tried to make me say it, but I dassent.
I knowed they would fix Red sure if I did, and he told me not to tell
about the gold if they did pinch us."
"They let you go--after the police examination. Then how is it that the
authorities are after you again?"
"It's the bunch," replied the boy. "Them guys out there knowed the dead
guy had a mine or a ledge or somethin' where he got the gold. Nobody was
wise to where. They told at the jail how he used to come in once in a
while and send his dust to Los Angeles by the express company. All them
guys like the sheriff and the station agent and all the people in that
town are workin' tryin' to find out where the gold come from. They think
because Red and me is tramps that they can make us tell and arrest us
whenever they like. But even Red don't know, unless it's in the papers
he hid in the sand."
"That sounds like a pretty straight story," said Stone. "So you intend
to stick to this man Red?"
"Sure! Would you quit him now, when they're after him worst?"
"They will get him finally."
"Mebby. But Red's pretty slick at a getaway. If they do pinch him again,
that's where I come in. I'm the only witness and the only friend he's
got."
"Of course. But don't you see, my boy, that your way of living is so
much against you that you couldn't really help him? A man's naked word
is worth just what his friends and neighbors will allow him for it, and
no more."
"But ain't a guy got no rights in this country?"
"Certainly he has. But he has to prove that he is entitled to them, by
his way of living."
"Then he's got to go to church, and work, and live decent, or he don't
get a square deal, hey?"
"But why shouldn't he do that much?"
Collie did not answer. Instead, he inspected his questioner critically
from head to foot. "I guess you're right," he said finally. "I've heard
folks talk like that before, but I never took no stock. They kind of
said it because they knowed it. I guess you say it because you mean it."
"Of course I do," said Stone heartily. "Well, here comes my niece with
the mail. See! Over there is El Camino Real, running north. My ranch is
up _there_, in the hills. My foreman's name is Williams. If you should
ask him for work, I believe he might give you something to do. I heard
him say he needed a man, not long ago."
Walter Stone cinched up the saddle and mounted his pony. The boy's eyes
shone as he gazed at the strong, soldierly figure. Ah, to look like
that, and ride a horse like that!
Boyar, the black pony, clattered up and stopped. "Hello, folks!" said
Louise, purposely including the boy in her greeting.
Collie flushed happily. Then a bitterness grew in his heart as he
thought of his friend Overland, hunted from town to town by the same law
that protected these people--an unjust law that they observed and
fostered.
"Well?" said Stone.
Collie's gaze was on the ground. "I don' know," he muttered. "I don'
know."
"Well, good luck to you!" And the ponies swung into that philosophical
lope of the Western horse who knows his journey's length.
The figures of the riders grew smaller. Still the boy stood in the road,
watching them. Undecided, he gazed. Then came an answer to his stubborn
self-questioning. Louise glanced back--glanced back for an instant in
mute sympathy with his loneliness.
Slowly the boy turned and entered the jail. He folded his coat over his
arm, stepped outside, and closed the door.
Before him stretched the hot gray level of El Camino Real, the road to
the beyond. From it branched a narrower road, reaching up into the
southern hills,--on, up to the mysterious Moonstone Cañon with its
singing stream and its gracious shade. Somewhere beyond, higher, and in
the shadowy fastness of the great ranges lay the Moonstone Ranch ... her
home.
"I guess, steppin' up smart, I'll be there just about in time for
supper," said the boy. And whistling cheerily, he set his feet toward
the south and the Moonstone Trail.