RIMROCK'S BIG DAY
The white heat of midsummer settled down on the desert and the
rattlesnakes and Gila monsters holed up. As in the frozen East they
hibernated in winter to escape the grip of the cold, so in sun-cursed
Papagueria, where the Tecolotes lie, they crawled as deep to get away
from the heat. But in the Geronimo jail with its dead, fetid air,
Rimrock Jones learned to envy the snakes. Out on the stark desert,
where the men laid the track, the hot steel burned everything it
touched; but the air was clean and in the nights, when he suffocated,
they lay cool and looked up at the stars. They did a man's work and
drew their pay; he lay in the heat and waited.
Then the first cool days came and the Tecolote Mining Company resumed
its work in feverish haste. An overplus of freight was jammed in the
yards; the construction gangs laid track day and night; and from the
end of the line, which crept forward each day, the freight wagons
hauled supplies to the mine. There was a world of work, back and forth
on the road; and in Tecolote and Gunsight as well. A magnificent
hotel, with the offices of the Company, was springing up across the
street from the Gunsight; at the mine there were warehouses and a
company store and quarters for the men on the flats where Rimrock had
once pitched his tent. But the man who built them was Abercrombie
Jepson--the master hand was slack.
It had killed a man and for that offense Rimrock Jones must wait on the
law. There was no bail for him, for he had made a threat and then
killed his man as he fled. And he would not deny it, nor listen to any
lawyer; so he lay there till the circuit court convened. All through
the slow inferno of that endless summer he had cursed the law's delay;
but it held him, regardless, until the calm-eyed judge returned for the
fall term of court. The jail was full to the last noisome cell-room
and, caught with the rest, was Rimrock.
Yet if Rimrock had suffered there had been compensation--Mary Fortune
had written him every day. He knew everything that Jepson was doing;
and he knew a little more about her. But only a little; there was
something about her that balked him a thousand times. She eluded him,
she escaped him, she ignored his hot words; she was his friend, and yet
only so far. She did not approve of what he was doing, and she had
taken him at his word. He had asked her, once, not to interfere in his
case; and from that day she kept her hands off.
The day of the trial came and Hassayamp Hicks, with L. W. and a host of
friends, went to Geronimo to cheer Rimrock by their presence. The
papers came back full of the account of the case, but Mary Fortune did
not appear in court. Even when the great day came when Rimrock was to
make his appeal to the jury she remained in her office in Gunsight--and
then came the telegram: "Acquitted!"
He had been right then, after all; he knew his own people! But then,
there were other things, too. Mary Fortune was not so innocent that
she had not noticed the strong interest which the newspapers had taken
in his case. They had hailed him, in those last days, the first
citizen of Geronimo County; and first citizens, as we know, are seldom
hanged. The wonderful development of the Tecolote Mining Company had
been heralded, month after month; and the name Rimrock Jones was always
spoken with a reverence never given to criminals. He was the man with
the vision, the big man of a big country, the man whose touch brought
forth gold. And now he had won; his man-killing had been justified;
and he was coming back--to see her.
She knew it. She even knew what he would hasten to say the first
moment he found her alone. He was simple, in those matters; which made
it all the more necessary to have the answer thought out in advance.
But was life as simple as he insisted upon making it? Was every one
either good or bad, and everything right or wrong? She doubted it, and
the answer was somewhere in there. That he was a great man, she
agreed. In his crude, forceful way he had succeeded where most men
would have failed; but was he not, after all, a great, thoughtless
giant who went fighting his way through life, snatching up what he
wanted most? And because his eyes were upon her, because she had come
in his way, was that any reason why the traditions of her life should
fall down and give way to his?
Even when the answer is "no" that is not any reason why a woman should
not appear at her best. Mary Fortune met the train in an afternoon
dress that had made an enemy of every woman in town. She had a friend
in New York who picked them out for her, since her salary had become
what it was. A great crowd was present--the whole populace of Gunsight
was waiting to see their hero come home--and as the train rolled in and
Rimrock dropped off, in the excitement she found tears in her eyes.
But then, that was nothing; Woo Chong, the restaurant Chinaman, was
weeping all over the place; and Old Hassayamp Hicks, hobbling off
through the crowd, wiped his eyes and sobbed, unashamed. And then
Rimrock seized her by both her hands and made her walk with him back to
the hotel!
It was no time for discipline, that night; Rimrock was feeling too
happy and gay. He would shake hands with a Mexican with equal
enthusiasm, or a Chinaman, or a laborer off the railroad. They were
all his friends, whether he knew them or not, and he called on the
whole town to celebrate. The Mexican string band that had met him at
the train was chartered forthwith for the night, Woo Chong had an order
to bring all the grub in town and feed it to the crowd at the hotel;
but Hassayamp Hicks refused to take any man's money, he claimed that
the drinks were on him. And so, with the band playing "Paloma" on the
veranda and refreshments served free to the town, Rimrock Jones came
back, the first citizen of Gunsight, and took up his life with a bang.
He stood in the rotunda of the Hotel Tecolote and gazed admiringly at
the striped marble pillars that he had ordered at great expense, and
his answer was always the same.
"Why, sure not! I knowed that jury wouldn't convict. I picked them
myself by the look in their eye, and every man had to be ten years in
the Territory. A fine bunch of men--every one of 'em square--they can
have anything I've got. That's me! You know Rimrock! He never
forgets his friends! And he don't forget his enemies, either!"
And then came the cheers, the shouts of his friends. The only enemy he
had was dead.
Mary Fortune had a room on the second floor of the hotel--one of the
nicest of them all, now that the painters and paperhangers had finally
left--and she came down late in an evening gown. The marble steps,
which Rimrock had insisted upon having, led up and then turned to both
sides and as she came down, smiling, with her ear-'phone left off and
her hair in a glorious coil, Rimrock paused and his eyes grew big.
"By Joe, like that Queen picture!" he burst out impulsively and went
bounding to meet her half way. And Mary Fortune heard him, in spite of
her deafness; and understood--he meant the Empress Louise. He had seen
that picture of the beloved Empress tripping daintily down the stairs
and, for all she knew, those expensive marble steps might have been
built to give point to the compliment.
"You sure look the part!" he said in her ear as he gallantly escorted
her down. "And say, this hotel! Ain't it simply elegant? We'll show
those Gunsight folks who's who!"
"They're consumed with envy!" she answered, smiling. "I mean the
women, of course. I heard one of them say, just before I moved over,
that you'd built it here just to spite them."
"That's right!" laughed Rimrock--"hello there, Porfilio--I built it
just to make 'em look cheap. By grab, I'm an Injun and I won't soon
forget the way they used to pass me by on the street. But now it's
different--my name is Mister, and that's one bunch I never will know."
"They know _me_, now," she suggested slyly, "but I'm afraid I'm part
Indian, too."
"You're right!" he said as he guided her through the crowd and led the
way out into the street. "Let's walk up and down--I don't dare to go
out alone, or the boys will all get me drunk. But that's right," he
went on, "I've been thinking it over--you can forgive, but you never
forget."
"Well, perhaps so," she replied, "but I don't spend much of my time in
planning out some elaborate revenge. Now those marble steps--do you
know what Mr. Stoddard said when he came out to inspect the mine?"
"No, and what's more, I don't care," answered Rimrock lightly. "I'm
fixed so I don't have to care. Mr. Stoddard is all right--he's a nice
able provider, but we're running this mine, ourselves."
He squeezed her hand where she had slipped it through his arm and
looked down with a triumphant smile.
"We, Us and Company!" he went on unctuously, "fifty-one per cent. of
the stock!"
"Does Stoddard know that?" she asked him suddenly, looking up to read
the words from his lips. "I noticed when he was here he treated me
very politely, whereas Mr. Jepson didn't fare nearly so well."
"You bet he knows it," answered Rimrock explosively. "And Jepson will
know it, too. The first thing I do will be to get rid of our dummy and
make you a Director in the Company. I'm going to take charge here and
your one per cent. of stock entitles you to a bona-fide place on the
Board."
"Well, I'd think that over first," she advised after a silence,
"because I foresee we sha'n't always agree. And if it's a dummy you
want you'd better keep Mr. Buckbee. I'm fully capable of voting you
down."
"No, I'll take a chance on it," he went on, smiling amiably. "All I
ask is that you let me know. If you want to buck me, why, that's your
privilege--you get a vote with me and Stoddard."
"Well, we'll talk that over," she said, laughing indulgently, "when
you're not feeling so trustful and gay. This is one of those times
I've heard you tell about when you feel like walking the wires. The
morning after will be much more appropriate for considering an affair
of this kind."
"No, I mean it!" he declared and then his face reddened. He had used
that phrase before, and always at an unfortunate time. "Let's go back
to the hotel," he burst out abruptly, "these boys are painting the town
right."
They turned back down the street, where drunken revellers hailed their
hero with cheers as he passed, and as they entered the hotel Rimrock
carried her on till they had mounted to the ladies' balcony. This was
located in the gallery where the ladies of the hotel could look down
without being observed and for the space of an hour Rimrock leaned over
the railing and gazed at the crowded rotunda. And as he gazed he
talked, speaking close in her ear since he knew she had left off her
'phone; and all the time, as the people thinned and dwindled, he strove
to win her over to his mood.
He was, as she had said, in one of those expansive moods when his
thoughts were lofty and grand. He opened up his heart and disclosed
hopes and ambitions never before suspected by her; and as she listened
it became apparent that she, Mary Fortune, was somehow involved in them
all. Yet she let him talk on, for his presence was like wine to her,
and his dreams as he told them seemed true. There was the trip to
Europe--he alluded to it very tactfully--but he did not speak as if it
were to be made alone.
And then he spoke of his plans for the Tecolote, and further conquests
that would startle the world. There was Mexico, a vast treasure-house,
barely scratched by the prospector; his star would soon lead him there.
All he needed was patience, to wait the short time till the Tecolote
began to pour out its ore. He asked her minutely of Jepson and his
work and of her interview with the great Whitney H. Stoddard, and then
he struck the stone rail with his knotted fist and told what would have
to be done. And then at last, as the lights grew dim, he spoke of his
long days in jail and how he had looked each day for her letter, which
had never failed to come. His voice broke a little as he told of the
trial and then he reached out and took her hand.
"I've learned from you," he said, leaning closer so she could hear him,
"I've learned to understand. And you like me; now, don't you? You
can't tell me different because I can see it right there in your eye?"
She looked away, but she nodded her head, and her hand still lay quiet
in his.
"Yes, I like you," she said. "I can't help but like you--but let's not
say any more. Aren't you happy enough without always having
things--can't you wait for some things in this world?"
"Yes, I can," he said. "I can wait for everything--the money, the
success and all--but I can't wait for you! No, that's asking too much!"
He drew her towards him and his strong arm swept about her, but she
straightened rebelliously in his clutch.
"Remember!" she warned and his arm relaxed though his breath was still
hot on her cheek. "Now I must be going," she said, rising swiftly.
"Good-night, Rimrock! I'm glad you're here!"
"Don't I get a kiss?" he demanded hoarsely as his hand reached again.
"Come on," he pleaded. "Didn't I turn you loose? You kissed me
once--in jail!"
"But you're free now, Rimrock, and--that makes a difference. You must
learn to wait, and be friends."
"Oh--hell!" he burst out as she flitted away from him. But she was
deaf--she turned back and smiled.