TEMPTATION AT HEART'S DESIRE
_Showing how Paradise was lost through the Strange Performance of a
Craven Adam_
The hotel of Uncle Jim Brothers, to which Dan Anderson led Mr.
Ellsworth, was a long, low adobe, earthen roofed. The window-panes
were very small, where any still remained. The interior of the hotel
consisted of a long dining room, a kitchen, a room where Uncle Jim
slept, and a very few other rooms, guest chambers where any man might
rest if very weary from one cause or another. The front door was
always open. The hotel of Uncle Jim Brothers, not being civilized but
utterly barbaric, was anchorage for the Dead Broke, in a way both
hotel and bank.
There was in Heart's Desire, at least before this coming of Eastern
Capital, only three hundred dollars in the total and combined
circulating medium. That was all the money there was. No one could
be richer than three hundred dollars, for that was the limit of all
wealth, as was very well known. To many this may seem a restricting
and narrowing feature; but, as a matter of fact, three hundred dollars
is not only plenty of money for one man to have, but it is plenty for
a whole town to have, as any man of Heart's Desire could have told you.
A stranger dropping into that hostelry, and taking a glance behind the
front door, might have thought that he was in an armory or some place
devoted to the sale of firearms. There were many nails driven into
the wooden window-facings, the door-jambs, and elsewhere, and all
these nails held specimens of weapons. Excellent weapons they were,
too, as good and smooth-running six-shooters as ever came out of
Colt's factory; and Winchesters which, if they showed fore-ends
bruised by saddle-tree and stocks dented by rough use among the hills,
none the less were very clean about the barrels and the locks. At
times there were dozens of these guns and rifles to be seen on the
wall at Uncle Jim's hotel. The visible supply fluctuated somewhat.
Any observer of industrial economics might have discovered it to move
up or down in unison with the current amount visible of the
circulating medium.
Uncle Jim never asked cash or security of any man. If a man paid,
very well. If he did not pay, it would have been unkind to ask him,
for assuredly he would have paid if he could, as Uncle Jim very well
knew. And if he could not pay, none the less he needed to eat, as
Uncle Jim also knew very well. There were no printed rules or
regulations in Uncle Jim's hotel. There was no hotel register. There
were no questions ever asked. Uncle Jim felt that his mission, his
duty, was to feed men. For the rest, he often had to do his own
cooking, for Mexicans are very undependable; and if a man is busy in
the kitchen, how can he attend to the desk? Indeed, there was no
desk. The front door was always open, the tables were always spread.
That any man should take advantage of this state of affairs was
something never dreamed in Heart's Desire. Yet one day a sensitive
young man, fresh from the States, who had blundered, God knows how,
down into Heart's Desire, and who was at that time reduced to a blue
shirt, a pair of overalls, one law book, one six-shooter, and one
dime, slipped into the hotel of Uncle Jim Brothers, since by that time
he was very hungry. He sat on the edge of the bench and dared not ask
for food; yet his eyes spoke clearly enough for Uncle Jim. The latter
said naught, but presently returned with a large beefsteak which
actually sputtered and frizzled with butter, a thing undreamed! "Get
'round this," said Uncle Jim, "and you'll feel better." The young man
"got 'round" the beefsteak. Perhaps it was the feeling about the
butter, which of itself was a thing unusual. At any rate, as he went
out, he quietly hung up his six-shooter behind the door. This act
meant, of course, that for the time he was legally dead; he no longer
existed. The six-shooter hung there for nearly four months, and Uncle
Jim said nothing of pay, and the meals were regular and good. The
intention of every man in that little valley to do "about what was
right" was silently and fully evidenced. That a man would give up his
gun was proof enough of that. So this became the custom of the place,
the unwritten law. When by any chance a man got hold of enough of the
three hundred dollars to settle his bill with Uncle Jim, he walked in,
handed over the cash, and without comment of his own or of any one
else, took down his gun from behind the door, and then walked off down
the street with his head and his chest much higher in the air. It is
astonishing how much business, how much safe and valid business, can
be done in a community with three hundred dollars and a good general
supply of six-shooters.
On this particular day in question, thanks to certain pernicious
activity of Johnny Hudgens, junior partner at the Lone Star, on the
night previous, nearly all the six-shooters of Heart's Desire were
hanging behind the door of Uncle Jim Brothers, pending the arrival of
better days. The financial situation stood thus: Johnny Hudgens had
all the three hundred dollars, and Uncle Jim Brothers had all the
guns. Temporarily, male Heart's Desire did not exist.
Certainly, there could have been no time more unhappy than this to
display the charms of the community to the critical eyes of the man
who--as the rapid word spread to all--had come to look into the
gold-mines on Baxter side of the valley, and the new coal-fields up
Patos way; and who, moreover, so said swift rumor, was the real head
and front of the railroad heading northward from El Paso! Humiliated,
Heart's Desire stepped aside and let its chosen representative, Dan
Anderson, do the talking.
"I didn't know you had a militia company here, Mr. Anderson," said
Ellsworth, as they entered Uncle Jim's hotel. "Lately organized?" He
swept an inquiring hand toward the array behind the door.
"That? Oh, that's not the arsenal," replied Dan Anderson; "that's the
clearing-house. If a man's broke, he just hangs up his gun, you know.
I don't know that I can just explain everything in this country to you
right at once, sir. You see, it's different. Now, out here, a
six-shooter is part of a man's clothes. That's why the fellows stay
out. They're ashamed--don't feel properly dressed, you know."
"Not much law and order, eh?"
"Not much law, but plenty of order, and not the least pretence about
it."
"The courts--"
"No courts at all, or at least within sixty miles. Why, we haven't
even a town organization--not a town officer. There was never even a
town-site plat filed."
Mr. Ellsworth turned on him suddenly. "Where's your titles?" he asked.
"We haven't needed any, so far. Now that you've come, with talk of a
railroad and all that--"
"Oh, well, you know, that's just talk. I'm not responsible for that."
"I hope you like canned tomatoes," said Dan Anderson, "or, if you
don't, that you're very fond of beefsteak. There won't be much else
till Tom Osby gets back from Las Vegas with a load of freight. Tom
Osby's our common carrier. I hope the new railroad will do as well."
Mr. Ellsworth was a gentleman, and a very hungry one, so there was no
quarrel over the tomatoes, which were Special XXX, nor over the
beefsteak, which might have been worse. An hour later he went out on
the street with his host, whose conduct thus far, he was forced to
admit, had been irreproachable. They strolled up the rambling street,
past many straggling buildings, and at length paused before the little
building, made of sun-dried brick, and plastered with mud, where Dan
Anderson had his residence and his law office.
"You'll excuse me, Mr. Ellsworth," said that young gentleman, "for
bringing you here, but the truth is I thought you might be thirsty and
might get poisoned. You have to do these things gradually, till you
get immune. Now, under my bed, I've got a bottle which never has been
opened and which ought to be safe. I don't bother corks a great deal,
only when we are welcoming distinguished guests."
"It's just a little soon after dinner," demurred Ellsworth, "but,
ahem! That dust--yes, I believe I will."
There was a dignity about Dan Anderson now which left Ellsworth
distinctly uncomfortable. The latter felt himself in some fashion at
a disadvantage before this penniless adventurer, this young man whom
once he had not cared to have as a regular visitor at his own home
back in the far-off East.
"You don't mean to tell me, young man," he spoke after a long period
of silence, "that this is the way you live?"
"Certainly," said Dan Anderson. "I know I'm extravagant. I don't
need a place as good as this, but I always was sort of sensuous, you
know." Ellsworth looked at him without any comprehension, from him to
the bed with blankets, and the bare table. "Come in," said Dan
Anderson, "and sit down. Better sit on the chair, I reckon. One leg
of the bed is sort of dicky."
"So this is the way you live?" repeated Ellsworth to Dan Anderson, who
was now on his hands and knees and searching under the bed. "Now,
about my daughter--is there any hotel--are there any women?"
"Three, from Kansas," said Dan Anderson. "That is, three real ones.
All the female earth, Mr. Ellsworth, comes from Kansas, same as all
the baled hay. Oh, yes, here she is!"
He had been speaking with his voice somewhat muffled under the bed,
but now emerged, bearing a dusty bottle in his hand.
Mr. Ellsworth looked at him a bit keenly; for, after all, he was not a
bad judge of men. "How long has that bottle been there?" asked he,
abruptly.
"Oh, a couple of years, maybe."
"And you've never opened it?"
"No, why should I? You hadn't come yet. Of course, I knew you'd be
along some day. I kept it to drink to your very good health, Mr.
Ellsworth--the health of the man who told me not to come around his
house--told me I was an unsettled ne'er-do-well, and not suitable
company for his--why, I don't think I have any corkscrew at all." His
voice was slow, but harder now in quality.
Ellsworth sat on the chair, the bottle in his hand hanging between his
knees. He looked at Dan Anderson steadily. "You've got me guessing
in a good many ways," he said; "I don't know why you came here--"
"No?"
"Nor how you live, nor what encouragement or prospects you find here.
For instance, about how much did you make last year in your business?"
"My law practice? Oh, you mean down at the county-seat? There is no
law court here. How much did the boys pay me?"
"Yes."
"Two hundred and sixty-eight dollars and seventy-five cents."
"What?"
"Oh, I know it's a heap of money; but I made it."
"Enough for tobacco money!"
"Sir," said Dan Anderson, "more. I ate frequent. Why, sir, did you
ever stop to think that our total circulating medium here is only
three hundred dollars? I had almost all of it one time or another.
Now, not doubting your intentions in the least, did you ever come that
near to corralling the whole visible supply of cash in your own town?
Moreover, I am attorney for the men who own the coal-mines. I'm the
lawyer for both the gold mills. We've got one or two mines here, and
I'm in. Besides, I've just got the law business from Pitzer Chisum,
down on the Seven Rivers, He's got maybe a hundred thousand head of
cattle. Now, I'm going to rob Pitzer, because he needs it. He's got
money scandalous."
Mr. Ellsworth put the bottle down on the floor, and sat up on the
chair with his hands in his pockets, wondering. "But why?" he
demanded sternly, "why? What are you doing out here? Why have you
thrown away your life? Come--you're a bright young man, and you--"
"Friend," said Dan Anderson, with a sudden cold quality in his voice,
"I think that'll about do. I am no brighter than I was a few years
ago."
"But this is no place to live."
"Why isn't it? It takes a man to live here. Do you reckon you could
qualify?" The older man raised his head with a snort, but Dan
Anderson stood looking at him calmly. "Now let me tell you one
thing," said he. "If you heard of our coal-mines here through me, at
least I didn't ask you to come out here, and I didn't ask you to bring
anybody along with you. I've played fair with you. You don't come
here to do me any favor, do you?"
"Oh, well,"--began the other.
"Then you think there might be something here, after all?"
"What is there here?"
"A very great deal. There's just as much here as there is anywhere
else in the world."
Mr. Ellsworth arose and stepped to the door. For a moment he stood
looking out at the twilight. He turned suddenly to the young man.
"I'll tell you," said he. "There's something to you--I don't know
what. Drop all this. Come on back. I'll think it over--I'll give
you a place in my office."
"You'd give me _what_? Did you ever stop to think that you can't
give me _anything_?"
Surprise sat on his visitor's face. "_Nada_!" cried Dan Anderson.
"Me go back there and work on a salary for you? Me check my immortal
soul on your hat-rack? Me live scared of my life, like all the rest
of the slaves in that infernal system of living, that hell? If I
should do that, I'd be giving you some license for the opinion of me
you once expressed, before you really knew me."
"But what have you got out here?" repeated the other, stupidly.
Dan Anderson made no answer, except a sweep of his hand to the
mountains, and an unconscious swell of the broad chest beneath his
blue shirt.
"What made you come?" insisted Mr. Ellsworth, feeling around for the
neck of the bottle, which had been forgotten.
"You know almighty well why I came. But let that go. Let's say I
came for the express purpose of handling your local interests when you
buy our coal-mines and try to get a railroad somewhere near our valley
if you have luck later. I'm going to be your kind and loving partner
in that deal, and I'll soak you the limit in everything I do for you.
You watch me. I'm going to stay here, and I'm going to work all I
want to. When I don't want to, there isn't any living mortal soul
that's going to crack a whip over me and tell me I've got to."
"Things seem rather strange," began Mr. Ellsworth. "You talk as
though I were obliged to put money into these mines."
"Of course you will. You can't help it. You never saw a better
opportunity for investment in all your life. But now let me tell you
another thing, which I oughtn't to tell you if I served you right.
You go slow while you're here. There is plenty of gold in this
valley. There isn't a fellow in this settlement who hasn't got a
quart glass fruit-jar full of gold nuggets and dust under his bed, and
who isn't just waiting and pining to show it to some stranger like
yourself. You're Glad Tidings in this town. You couldn't walk
to-morrow if you took all the free samples of solid gold the boys
would offer you. You'd get dizzy looking down prospect holes. You
wouldn't know where you were; and when you came to; you'd own about
fifty gold-mines, with all the dips, spurs, and angles, and all the
variations of the magnetic needle to wit and aforesaid. Now, I
oughtn't to take care of you. I don't owe you a thing on earth. But
because you brought--well, because--anyhow, I'm _going_ to take care
of you, while you're here, and see that you get a square deal."
"By the way, my daughter--" said Mr. Ellsworth, sitting up uneasily.
"Never mind," said Dan Anderson, gently. "Miss Constance is all
right. They'll take care of her just as well as I'll take care of
you. Everybody will be more sociable by about noon to-morrow. The
whole town's scared yet."
"I don't see anything very terrible about me," said Mr. Ellsworth.
"Oh, it isn't _you_," said Dan Anderson, calmly. "Nobody's afraid of
_you_. It's your daughter--it's the woman. Don't you reckon Adam
was about the scaredest thing in the wide, wide world about the time
old Ma Eve set up her bakeshop under the spreading fig tree? I don't
know that I make myself right plain--you see, it's sort of funny here.
We aren't used to women any more."
"Oh, well, now, my dear sir, you see, my daughter--"
"I know all about her," said Dan Anderson, sharply.
"I don't doubt she thought I was a mere trifler. She couldn't
understand that it isn't right for a man to stick to anything until
he's found the right thing to stick to. I don't blame her the least
bit in the world. She could only see what I _wasn't_ doing. I knew
what I was _going_ to do, and I know it now." There was a gravity
and certainty about Dan Anderson now that went through the
self-consciousness of the man before him. Ellsworth looked at him
intently. "We'll be here for a day or so," said he, "and meantime, it
will seem a little strange for my daughter, I suppose--"
"You don't need to tell me about anything," said Dan Anderson. "Of
course, her coming is a little inopportune. You see, Mr. Ellsworth,
the morning stars are inopportune, and the sunrise every day, and the
dew of heaven."
Ellsworth looked at him half in terror, and in his discomfort murmured
something about going to look up his daughter.
"Now, that's mighty kind of you," said Dan Anderson. "But I know the
way over there alone, and after I have taken you back to Uncle Jim's,
I am going over there--alone. Wait till I get my coat. I don't wear
it very often, but we'll just show you that we can dress up for the
evening here, the same as they do in the States."
As Dan Anderson, his head bent down and his hands in his pockets,
crossed the _arroyo_ alone, he met Curly coming the other way.
Curly's brow was wrinkled, though he expressed a certain consciousness
of the importance of his position in society at the time.
"Say, man," said he, jerking his thumb toward the house, "that new
girl is the absolute limit. She dropped in just like we'd been
expectin' her. I was some scared; but _she's_ just _folks_!"
Dan Anderson hardly heard him. He passed on into the house, where he
had long ago made himself easily at home with the women of the place.
It was a half hour later that he spoke directly to the girl. "I was
just thinking," said he, "that after all the dust and heat and
everything you might like to walk, for just a minute or so, over to
our city park. Foliage, you know; avenues, flowers; sweetness and
light."
She looked at the man quietly, as if she failed to understand the
half-cynical bitterness, the half-wistfulness in his voice, yet she
rose and joined him. All human beings in Heart's Desire that evening
fell in with the plans of Dan Anderson without cavil and without
possible resistance.
A short distance up the _arroyo_, toward the old abandoned stamp
mill, there was a two-inch pipe of water which came down from the
Patos spring, far up on the mountain side. At the end of this pipe,
where the water was now going to waste, the Littlest Girl from Kansas
had taken in charge the precious flow, and proposed a tiny garden of
her own. Here there were divers shrubs, among these a single rose
bush, now blossomless. Dan Anderson broke off a leafy twig or so, and
handed them to Constance, who pinned them on her breast.
"This is our park," said he, very gravely; "I hope you have enjoyed
your stroll along the boulevard. I hope, also, that the entertainment
of the cow gentleman was not displeasing."
"Not a word!" she answered, her cheek flushing; "you shall not rail at
them. These people are genuine."
"I'm not apologizing," he said quickly; "there are just a few things a
fellow learns out here. One is not to apologize; and another is not
to beg. Sit down." There were two white boulders beside which the
trickle of water rippled. Obeying him, she seated herself. Presently
Dan Anderson settled himself upon the other, and for a time they sat
in silence. The purple shadows had long ago deepened into half
darkness, and as they looked up above the long, slow curve of old
Carrizo, there rose the burnished silver of the wondrous moon of
Heart's Desire. The bare and barren valley was softened and glorified
into a strange, half-ghostly beauty. The earth has few scenes more
beautiful than Heart's Desire at moonlight. These two sat and gazed
for a time.
"And so this is your world!" the girl spoke at length, more to herself
than to him.
"Yes," he replied almost savagely, sweeping his hand toward the
mountain-rimmed horizon. "Yes, it's mine."
"It is very beautiful," she murmured softly.
"Yes," said Dan Anderson, "it's beautiful. Some time there'll be a
man who'll learn something in such a place as this. I don't know but
I've learned a little bit myself in the last few years."
"The years!" she whispered to herself.
"It seems forever," said he. "The time when a fellow's taking his
medicine always seems long, I reckon, I have almost forgotten my life
of five years ago--almost, except a part of it. It's been another
world here. Nothing matters much, does it?"
Whether there was now bitterness or softness in his speech she could
not tell, but she found no reproach for herself in word or tone.
"Look," said she at length, pointing down at the valley of Heart's
Desire, now bathed in the full flood of the unveiled moonlight.
"Look! It is unspeakable."
He looked at her face instead. "I've seen you right here," he said,
"right at this very place, a thousand times. It's Eden. It's the
Garden. It's the Beginning."
"It is the world," she whispered vaguely.
"Yes, yes--" Words burst from his lips beyond his power to control.
"It is Eden, it is Paradise, but a vacant Eden, a Paradise incomplete.
Constance--"
The girl felt herself shiver at this sound of a voice which all too
often these past five years had come to her unbidden when she found
moments of self-communion in her own restless and dissatisfied life.
Walls had not shut it out, music had not drowned it, gayety had not
served to banish it. She had heard it in her subjective soul ofttimes
when the shadows fell and the firelight flickered. Now, beneath a
limitless sky, under a strange radiance, in a wild primeval world--in
this Eden which they two alone occupied--she heard him, the man whom
in her heart she loved, speaking to her once more in very person, and
speaking that very thought which was in her own heart that hour. Her
bosom rose tumultuously, her throat fluttered. Instinctively she
would have fled, but a hand on her shoulder pressed her back as she
would have arisen, and she obeyed--as she had always obeyed him--as
she always would.
"Paradise unfinished--" he whispered, his face close to hers. "You
know what it is that's missing."
Ah! could not a woman also know the longing, the vacancy, the solitude
of an Eden incomplete! She turned to him trembling, her lips half
open, as though to welcome a long-hoped-for draught of happiness.
Alas! it was not happiness, but misery that came; for Constance
Ellsworth now got taste of those bitter waters of life which are
withheld from none. There was a sound of a distant shout--the chance
call of some drunken reveller--far down the street, a tawdry,
unimportant incident, but enough to break a spell, to destroy an
illusion, to awaken a conscience for a man, if that phrase be just.
Dan Anderson turned to look down the long street of Heart's Desire.
It was as though the physical act restored him to another realm,
another mental world. He started, and half shivered as his hand
dropped to his side. His face showed haggard even in the moonlight.
"My God! what am I saying?" he murmured to himself.
Then presently he drew himself up, smiling bitterly. "Some prominent
citizens of the place enjoying themselves," he said and nodded toward
the street. "Don't you think you'd like Heart's Desire?"
The moment of Eve--the woman's moment--the instant for her happiness
was past and gone! The light of the moon lay ghostly over all the
world, but there was no radiance, no joy nor comfort in it now.
The girl herself was silent. She sat looking out over the street
below, instinctively following Dan Anderson's gaze. Voices came to
them, clamorous, strident, coarse. There lay revealed all that was
crude, all that was savage, all that was unlovable and impossible of
Heart's Desire. It had been a dream, but it was a man's dream in
which he had lived. For a woman--for her--for this sweet girl of a
gentler world, that dream could be nothing else than hideous. "Be
just! Be fair!" Dan Anderson's soul demanded of him; and as best he
saw justice and fairness to the woman he loved he answered for himself.
"Come," said the girl, gently, rousing herself from the lassitude
which suddenly assailed her, "we must go in."
His face was averted as he walked beside her. There was no word that
he could say. Accord being gone from all the universe, he could not
know that in her heart, humbled and shamed as it was, she understood
and in some part forgave.
"It has been very beautiful to-night," she said, as he turned back at
length from the door of Curly's house.
Choking, he left her. As he stumbled blindly back, over the
_arroyo_, there crossed on the heavens the long red line of a
shooting star. Dully he watched it, and for him it was the flaming
sword barring the gates of Eden.
Hours later--for sleep was not for him--Dan Anderson stood waiting for
the sun to rise over old Carrizo. Far off, along the pathway of the
morn, lay his former home, the States, the East, the fight, the
combat, and the grovelling. "No, not for me; not there!" he said,
conviction coming to him once more.
He turned then and glanced down the single street of Heart's Desire, a
street as straggling and purposeless as his own misdirected life--a
wavering lane through the poor habitations of a Land of Oblivion.
Longer he looked, and stronger the conviction grew. "No, no," he
said, clenching his hand; "not here for her--not here!"