"Look on my face. My name is Might-Have-Been--
I am also called No-More, Too-Late, Farewell."
--_Credit Lost._
"It is a hard world," sighed Charlie See. "Life is first one thing and
then it is a broom factory."
They made a gay cavalcade of laughter and shining life, those four
young people. They had been to show Charlie over the gristmill and the
broom factory, new jewels in Garfield's crown, and now they turned
from deed to dream, rode merry for a glimpsing of to-morrow, where
Hobby Lull planned a conquest more lasting than Caesar's. Their way led
now beyond the mother ditch to lands yet unredeemed, which in the
years to come would lie under a high ditch yet to be. So they said and
thought. But what in truth they rode forth for to see was east of the
sun and west of the moon--not to be told here. Where youth rides with
youth under a singing sky the chronicle should be broad-spaced between
the lines; a double story, word and silence. To what far-off divine
event we move, there shall be no rapture keener than hoping time in
unspoiled youth.
The embankments of the mother ditch were head-high to them as they
rode. They paused on the high bridge between the desert and the sown.
Behind lay the broad and level clearings, orchard, kempt steading and
alfalfa; a step beyond was the raw wilderness, the yucca and the sand,
dark mesquite in hummocks and mottes and clumps, a brown winding belt
between the mother ditch and the first low bench land. The air came
brisk and sweet; it rippled the fields to undulant shimmer of flashing
purple and green and gold.
"Your _'cequia madre_ is sure brimful this evenin'," remarked the
guest.
"Always is--when we don't need it. In dry weather she gets pretty low
enough," said Hobby. "Colorado people get the first whack at the
water, and New Mexico takes what is left. Never high water here except
at flood time. Fix that different some day. We got to fight flood and
drought now, one down, another come on. Some day we'll save the flood
water. Sure! No floods, no drought. Easy as lying! _Vamonos!_"
The road followed the curving ditch; their voices were tuned to
lipping water and the drone of bees. Lull pointed out the lines where
his high ditch was to run at the base of the bench land, with flume at
gully and canyon steeps. As eye and mapping hand turned toward Redgate
a man came down Redgate road to meet them; a man on a Maltese horse.
He rode briskly, poised, sure-swaying as ever bird on bough. Charlie
See warmed to the lithe youth of him.
"There, fellow citizens," he said, "there is what I'd call a good
rider!"
As the good rider came abreast he swept off his hat. His eyes were
merry; he nodded greeting and shook back a mop of blackest hair. The
sun had looked upon him. He checked the blue horse in his stride--not
to stop, but to slow him; he spoke to Lull in passing.
"Garfield post office?" He jerked a thumb toward the bridge; for
indeed, seen across the ramparts of the ditch, there was small
distinction between visible Garfield and the scattered farmsteads.
"This way?"
"Yes."
"Just across the bridge," added Lyn. The story scorns to suppress the
truth--she smiled her dimpliest.
"Thanks," said the stranger; and then, as he came abreast of Charlie
See: "And the road to Hillsboro? Back this way--or straight on?"
"Straight through. Take the right hand at the post office--straight to
the ford. You'll have to swim, I reckon."
"Yes," said the stranger indifferently. He was well beyond See and
Edith Harkey now, and the blue horse came back into the road and into
his reaching stride. "Thanks." The stranger looked back with the last
word; at the same time Miss Dyer turned her head. They smiled.
"And they turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt!" said Mr. Lull
bitterly.
"He had such smiling eyes," urged Lyn.
"Ruin and destruction! See! Edith! Spread out--head her off!" Hobby
grabbed Lyn's bridle rein and led his captive away at a triumphant
trot.
They turned aside to inspect the doubtful passage where the future
ditch must clamber and twist to cross Deadman; Hobby Lull explained,
defended, expounded; he bristled with estimates, alternative levels
and acre costs; here was the inevitable way, but yonder there was a
choosing; at that long gray point, miles away, the ditch must leave
the river to gain the needed grades. He sparkled with irresistible
enthusiasm, he overbore opposition.
"Look here, folks!" said Hobby. "See those thunder-heads? It's
clouding up fast. It's going to rain and there's not a man in town can
stop it. I aimed to take you up and show you the place we picked to
make the ditch head, but I judge we best go home. We can see the ditch
head another day."
"Now was I convinced or only persuaded?" Charlie See made the
grumbling demand of Edith as they set their faces homeward.
Yet he was secretly impressed; he paused by jungle and sandy swale
or ribbed and gullied slope for admiration of orchards unplanted
and friendly homesteads yet to be; he drew rein by a pear thicket
and peered half enviously into its thorny impenetrable keeps.
"Who lives there, Edith? That's the best place we've seen. Big
fine house and all, but it looks comfortable and homey, just the
same--mighty pleasant and friendly. And them old-fashioned flower
beds are right quaint."
"Hollyhocks," she breathed; "and marigolds, and four o'clocks. An
old-fashioned woman lives here."
Charlie's voice grew wistful. "I might have had a place like this just
as well as not--if I'd only had sense enough to hear and hark. Hobby
Lull brought me out here and put me wise, years ago, but I wouldn't
listen. There was a bunch of us. Hobby and--and--now who else was
it? It was a merry crowd, I can remember that. Hobby did all the
talking--but who were the others? And have they forgotten too? It was
a long time ago, before the big ditch. Oh, dear! I do wish I could
remember who was with me!"
His voice trailed off to silence and a sigh that was only half
assumed.
"You make it seem very real," she said, unconscious of her answering
deeper sigh.
"Real. It is real! Look there--and there--and there!"
"That is all Hobby's work," said Edith as her eyes followed his
pointing finger, and saw there what he saw--the city of his vision,
the courts and palaces of love. "He has the builder's mind."
"Yes. It is a great gift." It was said ungrudgingly. "I wish I had it.
That way lies happiness. Me--I am a spectator."
She shook her reins to go, with a last look at his phantom farmlands.
"'An' I 'a stubb'd Thurnaby waaeste.' That's what they'll put on
Hobby's tombstone."
She lifted up her eyes from the waste places and the seeming, and let
them rest on the glowing mesas beyond the river and the long dim
ridges of misty mountain beyond and over all; and saw them in the
light that never was on sea or land. The heart of the good warm
boisterous earth called to kindred clay, "and turned her sweet blood
into wine."
Shy happiness tinged her pale cheek with color, a tint of wild rose
and sea-shell delicacy, faint and all unnoted; he was half inattentive
to her as she rode beside him, glowing in her splendid spring, a noble
temple of life, a sanctuary ready for clean sacrifice.
"Yes. Hobby, he's all right. Him and his likes, they put up the brains
and take the risks and do the work. But after it's all done some of
these austere men we read about, they'll ooze in and gather the
crops."
"He doesn't miss much worth having. What may be weighed and counted
and stolen and piled in heaps--oh, yes, Hobby Lull may miss that. Not
real things, like laughter and joy and--and love, Charlie."
Charlie See turned his head toward Redgate. She read his thought; in
her face the glow of life faded behind the white skin. But he did not
see it; nor the thread of pain in her eyes. In his thought she was
linked with Adam Forbes, and at her word he smiled to think of his
friend, and looked up to Redgate where, even then, "Nicanor lay dead
in his harness."
* * * * *
Pete Harkey's buckboard stood by the platform in front of the little
store, and the young people waited there for him and his marketing.
"Mail day?" asked Charlie.
"Nope. To-morrow is the big day."
"We used to get it three times a week," said Lyn. "Now it's only
twice."
"When I was a boy," said See thoughtfully, "I always wanted to rob a
stage, just once. Somehow or other I never got round to it." His brow
clouded.
"Why, Mr. See!"
"Charlie," said Mr. See. "Well, you needn't be shocked. Society is
very unevenly divided between the criminal and the non-criminal
classes."
"That," said Edith, "might be called a spiral remark. Would it be
impertinent to ask you to specify?"
"Not at all. Superfluous. See for yourself. Old Sobersides, here--you
might give him the benefit of the doubt--he's so durned practical. But
Adam and me, Uncle Dan and your Dad--there's no doubt about us, I'm
afraid. It's right quaint to see how proud those old roosters are of
the lurid past. When one of 'em gets on the peck, all you got to do is
to start relatin' how wild they used to be, and they'll be eatin' out
of your hand in no time. They ought to be ashamed of themselves--silly
old donkeys!"
"How about the women?" asked Lyn.
"I've never been able to make a guess. But there's so few of you out
here at the world's end, that you don't count for much, either way."
"Lyn realizes that," said Hobby. "Here at the ragged edge of things
she knows that the men outnumber the women five to one. So she tries
to make up for it. She is a friendly soul."
Miss Lyn Dyer ignored this little speech and harked back to the last
observation of Charlie See. "So you did manage to notice that, did
you? I'm surprised. They've amused me for years--Uncle Dan and Uncle
Pete; how mean they were, the wild old days and the chimes at
midnight! But a girl--oh, dear me, how very different! No hoydens need
apply! A notably unwild boy is reproached as a sissy and regarded with
suspicion, but a girl must not even play at being wild. 'Prunes,
prisms and potatoes!' Podsnap! Pecksniff! Turveydrop and Company!
Doesn't anyone ever realize that it might be a tame business never to
be wild at all?"
"'Tis better to be wild and weep--"
"Now, Hobby Lull, you hush up! The answer is, No. Catechism. A man
expects from his womankind a scrupulous decorum which he is far too
broad-minded to require from himself or his mates--charitable soul!
Laughter and applause. Cries of 'That's true!'--Anything more grossly
unfair--"
_Rub-a-dub! Rub-a-dub! Rub-a-dub!_
Three men thundered over the _'cequia_ bridge. At the first drum of
furious hoofs See wheeled his horse sharply.
"What's that? Trouble!" The three horsemen swooped from the bridge,
pounding on the beaten road. "Trouble, sure!"
"You two girls light out of this! Ride!" said Lull. He spurred to the
open door of the store. "Pete!" he called, and turned back.
"Adam?" said Charlie. "Something wrong up Redgate way. Adam's there,
and no one else that we know of."
"I'm afraid so. Horse fell on him maybe--dynamite or something. Here
they come. Big Ed and Jody Weir. I don't know the third man."
The horsemen were upon them. "Murder!" cried Caney. "Adam Forbes has
been murdered! Up in Redgate. The murderer came this way. We trailed
him to the bridge. His horse had lost a shoe."
"Adam Forbes!"
"Who is to tell Edith?" said Charlie See, under his breath.
"Someone's going to hang for this. When we found him--I never had such
a shock in my life!" said Jody Weir. "Shot from behind--three times.
The powder burned his shirt. Adam never had a chance. Cold-blooded
murder. Adam was holding fast to his rifle, wrong side up, just as he
pulled it from the scabbard. That man came through here."
"Or stopped here," amended Caney. "Might have been a Garfield man, of
course. I've heard that Forbes was tol'able arbitrary."
"We met a stranger coming down from Redgate, something like an hour
and a half ago," said Hobby. "But if he had just killed a man, I'll
eat my hat. That man was feeling fine. Only a boy, too. Someone else
did it, I guess."
"And he'd been riding slow. No sweat on his horse," added Charlie.
"Couldn't have been anyone else. There wasn't any other tracks, except
the tracks of Adam's horse. They turned off south as soon as he got
out of the mouth of the canyon."
"How'd you know it was Adam's horse?" This was Pete Harkey, at the
open door.
"Saw where the bridle reins dragged. Say! Any you fellows comin' with
us? That man killed Forbes, I tell you--and we're goin' after him.
Only about two hours till dark--two and a half at most--and a rain
coming up. This is no time for talking. We can talk on the road."
"Anybody stay with Adam?" asked Pete.
"No. There was just the three of us. We came full chisel after the
murderer, hard as we could ride. Come on--get some of your men
together--let's ride," said Caney impatiently. "Get a wiggle on, can't
you? Let's find out which way he went and what he looked like. He came
here. No chance for mistake. The body was still warm."
"I saw him! I saw him!" cackled the storekeeper. "Little man, smaller
than Charlie--and young. About twenty. Came in after you all left," he
said, addressing Lull. "Mailed a letter. Ridin' a blue horse, he
was--a _grullo_. That the man you met?"
"Yes. But riding a blue horse doesn't prove that a man has done
murder. Nor yet mailing a letter. Or being young. We knew that man
went through Garfield. That's nothing new. He told us he was going on
to Hillsboro."
"That was a blind, I reckon. He can turn always back, soon as he gets
out of sight," said Hales.
"He went that way," piped the storekeeper. "Mailed a letter here,
bought a shoe and tacked it on his horse. I fished round to find out
who he was, but he put me off. Finally I asked him, p'int-blank. 'You
didn't say what your name was,' says I. 'No,' says he, 'I didn't.' And
off he went, laughing, impydent as hell!"
"Did you notice the brand on his horse?" asked Charlie. "He passed on
our right-hand side, so we didn't see it."
"No, I didn't. He took the Greenhorn road, and he was ridin' middlin'
slow."
"If you had used your mouth less and your eyes more, you might have
something to tell us," sneered Hales.
"Little man on a _grullo_ horse--that's enough for us--we're goin'!"
snapped Caney. "Say, you fellers make me plumb sick! The murderer's
getting away, and all you do is blat. We're goin', and we're goin'
now!"
"Something tells me you won't," said Pete Harkey.
He had mysteriously acquired a shotgun from his buckboard, and he
cocked both hammers with the word. "Not till we talk a little.
According to your tell, the killing was done in Sierra County. That's
my county, and we figure we are plenty competent to skin our own
skunks. Also, we want one good long look before we leap. You three are
the only men who can tell us anything, and we want to know what you
know, so we'll not lose time or make mistakes. We can't afford to
shoot so as to hit if it's a deer and miss if it's a mule. You fellers
are excited. What you need is a head. I'll be head.
"You just calm down a little. I'll be getting a posse together to go
back and look into this. You can be fixing to give us some idea what's
happened. After that, these two boys can go with you. They've seen
this stranger and they'll know him on a fresh horse. All you three
know about his looks is a blue horse. I'm going up where Adam was
killed. Where was it? Don't be nervous about this gun. I never shot a
man accidentally in my life. Where was Adam killed?"
"In Redgate. Near the upper end. We was looking--"
"That's enough. You wait till I send for some friends of mine." Pete
raised his voice. "Girls! Ride over here! Now you folks keep still
till the girls get away. Toad Hales, is it? I've seen you before, Mr.
Hales.... Edith, you go to the mill and tell Jerome I want him. Lyn,
you go to Chuck Barefoot's and tell him to get Jim-Ike-Jones and come
here and be quick about it. Then you girls go home."
"What is it, Uncle Pete? Adam?" said Lyn, with a quivering lip.
"Yes, dear. Go on, now."
"Dead?"
"Murdered!"
"Adam!"
Both girls cried the name in an agony of horror and pity. Edith bent
to her horse's mane; and Lyn rode straight to Hobby Lull.
"Oh, Hobby! Be careful--come back to me!" She raised her lips to his.
He took her in his arms and kissed her; she clung to him, shaken with
sobbing. "Oh, poor Adam!" She cried. "Poor Adam!"
Charlie See turned away. For one heart beat of flinching his haunted
soul looked from his eyes; then with a gray courage, he set his lips
to silence. If his face was bleak--why not, for Adam, his friend?
And Edith Harkey, on her sad errand, envied the happy dead. She, alone
of them all, had seen that stricken face.
"Lyn, you go on," said Pete. "Get Barefoot. Then go home and find out
where your Uncle Dan is, and send him along just as fast as ever
God'll let him come."
He turned back to the men.
"Now, then, you fellows! Begin at the beginning. Hales, you didn't
know Adam, so you won't be so bad broke up as the others. Suppose you
tell us what you know. Wait a minute. Sam, you be saddling up a horse
for me. Now, Mr. Hales?"
"We were looking out for that gang of saddle thieves. Went up 'Pache
Canyon. Along in the park we saw tracks where two shod horses turned
down into Redgate, and we followed them up. One of 'em had been
chasing a bunch of cattle--or so we thought, though we didn't notice
that part very close, having no particular reason for it then. We'd
looked through two-three bunches of cattle ourselves earlier, for
Jody's stuff."
"Yes, and you had breakfast, likely--but what do I care? You get on
with your story."
"Say, old man," said Hales in some exasperation, "if you don't want
this man caught, I'm satisfied. It's nothing to me. I didn't know
Forbes. If you want this friend of yours to get away, I'm willing to
get down and stay all night. You're pretty overbearing with your
little old shotgun."
He made as if to dismount.
"Oh, I wouldn't do that," said Pete mildly. "Look at your friends,
first. They're just as overborne as you are, likely--but you notice
they are not making any complaints. They know me, you see. They know
how Adam Forbes stood in Garfield, and what kind of folks live in
Garfield; and they know that whoever killed Adam is in trouble up to
his neck. You mustn't mind our little ways. However, as the witness
is peeved, we'll try another. Jody, speak up and tell us."
"You act like we was under suspicion," sneered Hales.
"Sure, you're under suspicion! What do you expect? Everybody's under
suspicion till we find the right man. I'm going to send word up and
down to hold all strangers. That part is all right. Hello, Jerome! You
missed most of the evidence! I'll tell you about it as we go up."
"Now why the little gun?" said Jerome Martin, tranquilly.
"Been holding an election. Now, Jody--your little piece."
"There's not much to tell. We found Adam's body a little ways down the
canyon, maybe a quarter or a little more; and just this side of it we
found where a yearling had been branded, or a big calf; ashes still
warm. Looks just like this fellow had been stealing one of Adam's
calves, and Adam caught him at it."
"But you said Adam was shot in the back at close range," objected
Charlie. "Adam Forbes wouldn't turn his back to any man, under those
circumstances. That won't work."
"Yes, we thought of that," said Caney. "More likely he saw Adam coming
and killed him before he got to the calf--pretending to be friendly.
Anyhow, Adam's horse went off down the canyon, and the other man went
down the canyon, and we came after him. Oh, yes! His horse lost a shoe,
as we told you before--the murderer's. Must have lost it chasing
that calf. Tracks didn't show it in the soft ground in the park,
anyhow--though we didn't look very close till we found Adam. But
after he left Adam's body his tracks showed one shoe gone. That's
all. Adam's horse bore off to the left. He had a larger foot than
the other, and we could see where the bridle dragged."
"I'll send someone to find him. You didn't hear any shots?"
"Oh, no--we just thought maybe we'd meet up with some puncher ridin'
the range, and ask him had he seen any strangers. This gang of saddle
thieves--"
"Yes, I know about them. Thankee, gentlemen. You can ride now. If you
catch your man beyond the river you might as well take him on to
Hillsboro. Be mighty sure to remember not to forget to be particular
to take this young man alive. We want to hang the man that killed Adam
Forbes. That's all."
"Here, I want some cartridges," said Hobby. He leaped off and jingled
into the store. "Hi, Sam! Get me a box of forty-fives," he called.
Then to Harkey, in a guarded voice: "Pete, this looks fishy as hell!
Those ashes were warm, they said. Look what time it is now--half past
four. The way they were riding, this bunch made it from Redgate in
half an hour. We met this stranger near two hours ago. That don't hold
together. If the stranger man built that fire, the ashes would have
been cold when Caney's bunch found them. And they say there are no
other tracks. Wrong--all wrong!"
"And all the rest of it. Son, I didn't miss a bet. Neither did Charlie
See. He looked hard at me. Save your breath. Say nothing and see
everything. You do your part and I'll do mine. I'll know more before
dark if it don't rain and rub out the tracks. Our Father which is in
Garfield hates a lie, and he's fixed up this here solar system so
there is no safe place in it for a lie. Sh-h! Here comes Caney!" He
raised his voice. "What the devil do you need of more men? Five to
one--what more do you want?"
"Well, but we may lose track of him and want to spread out to look and
ask, while some of us go on--"
"Where can I find drinking water?" asked Caney.
"Back there," said Pete, pointing. Then, to Hobby: "Well, pick up
someone in Arrey, then, or on the way. I want the men round here to go
with me and look round before it gets dark. Say, Sam--you send someone
up with a wagon to bring Adam back, will you? I'm off--me and Jerome.
Tell Jones and Barefoot to come right on. Take care of my team for
me."
He went out on the platform. Lull and Caney followed.
"Well, so long, you fellows," said Pete. "Send word back if you find
your man. Because there's going to be a lot of irritated strangers
when we start to picking them up."
"We had some plunder--grub and a blanket apiece tied behind our
saddles, and we dumped it, to ride light, where we found Adam--just
kept our slickers," said Caney. "Have 'em bring 'em in, will you,
Harkey?"
"Sure," said Pete.