This was not what Cairness wanted either. He persisted in the silence. A
prolonged silence will sometimes have much the same effect as solitary
confinement. It will force speech against the speaker's own will.
Mrs. Lawton gritted her teeth at him as though she would have rejoiced
greatly to have had his neck between them. By and by she started once
more. "Bill jest told him about it--like a goldarned fool."
"That," said Cairness, cheerfully, "is more like it. Go on."
"That's all."
"Begging your pardon, it's not all."
"What the devil do you want to know, then?"
He considered. "Let me see. For instance, when did Lawton tell him, and
why, and exactly what?"
"You don't say!" she mocked. "You want the earth and some sun and moon
and stars, don't you, though? Well, then, Bill told him about a week
afterward. And he told him because Stone had another hold on him (it
ain't any of your business what that was, I reckon), and bullied it out
of him (Bill ain't got any more backbone than a rattler), and promised
to lend him money to set up for hisself on the Circle K Ranch. Want to
know anything else?" she sneered.
"Several things, thanks. You haven't told me yet what version of it your
husband gave to Stone." Cairness was a little anxious. It was succeed
or fail right here.
"Told him the truth, more idjit he."
"I didn't ask you that," he reminded her calmly. "I asked what he told."
"Say!" she apostrophized.
"Yes?"
"You're English, I reckon, ain't you?"
"Yes, and you don't like the English, I know that perfectly."
"You're right, I don't. You're as thick-headed as all the rest of them."
"Thanks. But you started out to tell me what Lawton told Stone."
"He told him the truth, I tell you: that when we heard the Apaches were
coming, we lit out and drove out the stock from the corrals. I don't
recollect his words."
So that was it! It took all the self-command that thirty-five varied
years had taught him not to rise up and knock her head against the sharp
rocks. But he lay quite still, and presently he said: "That is near
enough for my purposes, thank you. But I would be interested to know, if
you don't mind, what you had against a helpless woman and those two poor
little babies. I wouldn't have supposed that a woman lived who could
have been such a fiend as all that."
The woman launched off into a torrent of vituperation and vile language
that surprised even Cairness, whose ears were well seasoned.
"Shut up!" he commanded, jumping to his feet. "You killed her and you
ought to be burned at the stake for it, but you shall not talk about her
like that, you devilish old crone."
She glared at him, but she stopped short nevertheless, and, flinging
down the stone she had been holding, stood up also. "All right, then.
You've done with me, I reckon. Now suppose you let me go back to the
camp."
He turned and walked beside her. "Don't you believe I know all that I
want to. I've only just begun. So that scoundrel knew the whole
murderous story, and went on writing lies in his papers and covering
you, when you ought to have been hung to the nearest tree, did he?--and
for the excellent reason that he wanted to make use of your husband! I
worked on the Circle K Ranch and on that other one over in New Mexico,
which is supposed to be Lawton's, and it didn't take me long to find out
that Stone was the real boss."
"He's got Bill right under his thumb," she sneered at her weak spouse.
They clambered up the mountain side, back to the camp, and Cairness
escorted her to the tepee in silence. Then he left her. "Don't try to
run away again," he advised. "You can't get far." He started off and
turned back. "Speaking of running away, where's the Greaser you lit out
with?"
She replied, with still more violent relapse into foul-tongued abuse,
that he had gone off with a woman of his own people. "Got me down into
this hell of a country and took every quartillo I had and then
skedaddled."
Cairness smiled. There was, it appeared, a small supply of poetic
justice still left in the scheme of things to be meted out. "And then
the Apache came down and bore you off like a helpless lamb," he said.
"If I'd been the Apache I'd have made it several sorts of Hades for you,
but I'd have scalped you afterward. You'd corrupt even a Chiricahua
squaw. However, I'm glad you lived until I got you." And he left her.
But he kept a close watch upon her then and during all the hard, tedious
march back to the States, when the troops and the scouts had to drag
their steps to meet the strength of the women and children; when the
rations gave out because there were some four hundred Indians to be
provided for, when the command ate mescal root, digging it up from the
ground and baking it; and when the presence of a horde of filthy savages
made the White-man suffer many things not to be put in print.
But they were returning victorious. The Chiricahuas were subdued. The
hazard had turned well. There would be peace; the San Carlos Agency,
breeding-grounds of all ills, would be turned over to military
supervision. The general who had succeeded--if he had failed it would
have been such a very different story--would have power to give his
promise to the Apaches and to see that it was kept. The experiment of
honesty and of giving the devil his due would have a fair trial. The
voices that had cried loudest abuse after the quiet soldier who,
undisturbed, went so calmly on his way, doing the thing which seemed to
him right, were silenced; and the soldier himself came back into his own
land, crossing the border with his herds and his tribes behind him.
There was no flourish of trumpets; no couriers were sent in advance to
herald that the all but impossible had been accomplished.
On a fine Sunday morning in June the triumphant general rode into a
supply camp twelve miles north of the line, and spoke to the officer in
command. "Nice morning, Colonel," he said. And then his quick eyes spied
the most desirable thing in all the camp. It was a tin wash basin set on
a potato box. The triumphant general dismounted, and washed his face.