A HOUSE OF REFUGE
Looking back upon the whole discussion between the du Chesnay and Ryan
families, I see myself sitting around meek and patient, shy, timid,
cautious, and fearfully good, and yet I got all the blame. Of course, I
ought to have shot old man Ryan, just as an early precaution, so it's
best to own up that I was all in the wrong for dallying. But after that,
there was the massacre of the leading Grave City felons; I got the
blame. Next came the hunting and escape of Curly and Jim; I got the
blame. Furthermore, there was the flight of Curly and Jim from La Morita
prison, followed by business transactions with the Frontier Guards; I
got the blame. And, moreover, there was the sliding out of Curly, Jim,
and the robbers from Cocky Brown's ranche at La Soledad, with certain
vain pursuits by a posse of citizens; I got the blame. Lastly, there was
the stealing of all the horses and a millionaire out of Grave City; I
got the blame. Whatever happened, I always got the blame. It's plumb
ridiculous.
Now, taking this last case, what ground is there for supposing that I
helped McCalmont's robbers? My movements all that night were innocent
and unobtrusive travels. When Dog-gone Hawkins went off with his
tenderfoot posse to hunt ghosts, I naturally slid out for home. So I met
up with McCalmont, took charge of Cocky Brown's old buckboard, and
delivered Curly at the back door of my cousins, the Misses Jameson.
These ladies had to hear a whole lot which was pretty near true about
poor Curly, and that consumed some time. Afterwards they got scared all
to fits by rushes of horsemen, dynamite explosions, and such diverting
incidents, ending with the arrival of Shorty Broach to have his prickles
pulled. Through this disturbance I hid up with Curly in a cellar, and
when there was peace drove off alone, with my saddled horse tied behind
the buckboard. After an hour's search, I found the old Coeur d'Alene
Mine shaft, and tipped the buckboard in, turning the team horses loose
to graze their way back to La Soledad. My duties being all performed, I
rode back just before dawn to my own home pasture at Las Salinas. There
is the whole annals of a virtuous night, and yet these Grave City idiots
defamed my character, which it makes me sick.
There's a habit which I caught from the old patrone at Holy Cross, the
same being to have a cold bath. Our Arizona water is mostly too rich for
bathing, being made of mud, cow-dung, alkali, and snakes; but at Las
Salinas I owned a little spring, quite good for washing and such
emergencies. After my bath I felt skittish, a whole lot younger than
usual, full of aching memories about getting no supper last night, and
pleased all to pieces to hear the breakfast-howl. These symptoms being
observed, Custer proposed at once that I pay up the overdue wages, and
Ute backed his play, grinning ugly. As for Monte, he was chipped in the
face with a recent bullet, and squatted heaps thoughtful over his pork
and beans.
"So you-all wants yo' pay?"
They agreed that they did, and Custer passed me the biggest cup for my
coffee.
"All right, you tigers," says I, "after this grub-pile we'll cyclone
into town and catch what I've got in the bank."
"I ain't no tiger this time," says Ute. "Why, yesterday I just rode up
street to collect my washing, and the weather was a lot too prevalent."
"Rain?" says I. "You shorely didn't have rain!"
"Wall, it splashed up the dust all around me, it did that," says Ute,
"but I sorter mistook it for bullets."
Then those boys allowed that we was getting some unpopular in town, but
they had a gnawing awful pain in their pants pockets, and nothing would
cure that but wages. They were sure good boys, and it made me ache
inside to see them want.
"You boys," says I, "spose you collect these here wages yo'selves and
make yo're own settlement?"
"As how?" this Ute inquires, his homely face twisting around into
strange new species of grins.
"Why, you-all knows every hawss I got, and has yo' notions of value.
Jest you whirl right in, boys, and take what's coming to you in hawsses
instead of cash. Pay yo'selves liberal, and I'll sign the bills."
"Shame!" says Monte. "D'ye think we'd take yo' pets?"
In the end we agreed to go into partnership, the which we did, for those
boys were as good as brothers from the moment I got into trouble. Monte
is my partner still.
Now, in course of these details, while we sat smoking cigarettes around
the door of the cabin, we saw a sort of dust-cloud come rolling along
out of the city.
"Which reminds me," says Ute, "that the Grave City stranglers was
proposing yesterday to come and hold a social gathering here. Mr.
Davies, they's aiming to hang you some."
We rolled the rain-barrels into the house, we toted bales of hay for
barricades, and led our saddle-horses into cover; then put in the rest
of our time filling the water-butts. In all we had forty minutes to
prepare for our guests, but wanted a whole lot more.
"You, Chalkeye," says young Monte in his thoughtful way, "you can talk
the hind leg off a mule. Spose you make big war medicine to these here
strangers until we're ready."
Custer had got joyful, as he always did when there was trouble coming,
making little yelps of bliss.
"Don't talk them off the range," says he, "or we'll get no fight."
Ute, he lay low, saying nothing, but he sure grinned volumes while he
whirled in with his axe, cutting twelve loopholes through the 'dobe
walls. I told Custer to break a hole in the roof and get up there quick,
because the parapet had rain-spouts most convenient for shooting. Monte
was laying out the ammunition, I was spreading wet blankets over the hay
barricade in the front doorway, and then the Vigilance Committee came
slanting down for battle.
Seeing that Grave City was shy of horseflesh that morning, these people
had done their best with thirty head, using them to haul waggons and
buckboards full of men. Only the chairman was in the saddle, he being
old Mutiny Robertson, who wanted to buy my ranche and not to burn it. I
ought to mention that this gentleman was a Cherokee Indian by birth, a
white man by nature, and some time a robber himself. He knew what sort
of lightning had struck Grave City during the night, but his feelings
did him credit and kept his mouth shut. As chief of the Vigilantes he
had to go against all his natural instincts, but still he acted hostile
and looked dangerous, leading his men until he came up against my door.
"You, Chalkeye!" he shouted.
I put up my head behind the barricade in the doorway.
"Wall," says I, "this compliment, gentlemen, throws my tail high with
pride. Put yo' hawsses in the barn while I fix the breakfast."
"These barricades," says Mutiny, "is intended hawspitable--eh,
Chalkeye?"
"Which," says I, "they're raised in celebration of my thirty-third
birthday as a token of innocent joy."
"Seems to me," he responds, "that this yere day is apt to be remembered
hereaways as the anniversary of yo' quitting out of from this mortal
life."
"These predictions of yours," says I "is rude."
"You're due to die some, right now"--he poked his gun. "Come out!"
"I remarks," says I, "on general principles that you all has come to
mourn at the wrong funeral. My obsequies is postponed indefinite."
"Now, Chalkeye," says he, "it's no use arguing, so you want to come out
like a man. We're full prepared to give you a decent turn-off, and a
handsome funeral."
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, gentlemen, but I has other engagements,
and this is my busy day."
I listened to my boys getting ready. "Keep them amused," says Monte;
"we need three more loopholes."
"If you don't come out," says Mutiny, "there's going to be trouble,
'cause we're gettin' tired."
"Wall, Mutiny, I'd shorely admire to know some trifling details first,
'cause you've aroused my interest in this yere celebration. Why for is
my neck so much in need of stretching?"
"This yere is frivolous argument," says he; "we-all is here to hang you,
not to waste time in debates."
"You has my sympathy," says I, "and I shares yo' poignant feelings about
not wasting time. What's the use of a necktie social without an
appropriate victim? Now thar's young Mose Bowles beside you--which I
don't like the look of his neck, the same being much too short for a
stand-off collar. What's the matter with hanging Moses Bowles?"
"Come out," says Mose, "or we'll burn your den, you horse-thief!"
"Bein' possessed of genius, Moses, you'll now proceed to set my 'dobe
home in flames. The glare of yo' fierce eye is enough to burn brick
walls."
A bullet whizzed past my ear, and I got mad.
"Ready!" yelled Monte. "Give the word, and we fire."
"And now," says I, "you innocent pilgrims, you've given me heaps of time
to get my twelve men ready. You've got three men in yo' posse who could
hit a house from inside, the rest being as gun-shy as a school of girls.
I've got a bullet-proof fort with the twelve best shots in Arizona, and
if you don't get absent quick I'll splash yo' blood as high as the
clouds. I give you two minutes to get out of range."
The weaker men began to rabbit, the best of them saw a whole row of
loopholes with projecting guns, the leaders were holding a council of
war.
"One minute!" says I, then turned to shout to my garrison. "Men on the
roof, pick out the leaders to kill when I give the word! Men on the
right, shoot all hawsses you can, or them reptiles is due to escape! Men
on the left, attend to Mutiny! Ninety seconds! Ninety-five seconds!"
Half the Grave City crowd was stampeding for the waggons, the rest were
scared of getting left afoot.
"One hundred seconds!" Mutiny's counsellors were breaking for cover.
"One hundred'n five! ten--ten more seconds----" Mutiny turned and
bolted. "One--two--three--when I give the word--ready--Fire!"
We sprinkled the tails of the Stranglers until there was nothing to see
but smoke and dust. Nobody stayed to get hurt.
My cousins the two Misses Jameson admit right free and candid that my
past life is plumb deplorable, that my present example would corrupt
the morals of a penitentiary, and that my future state is due to be
disagreeable in a place too hot to be mentioned. They remark that my
face is homely enough to scare cats, that my manners and customs are
horrid, that my remarks are a whole lot inaccurate, and that most of my
property is stolen goods. At the same time, they say that I'm nice, and
there I agree with them. My face may not amount to being pretty, my
virtues haven't reached the level of bigotry, but I feel in my bones
that I'm a sure nice man. Being nice, I aim to be liked, I hunger for
popularity, and that is just where I blame the Grave City Stranglers.
I've been misunderstood, I've not been appreciated, but why should I be
taken out and lynched? It's plumb ridiculous!
Now I don't claim that I had any mission to reform the morals of the
Vigilance Committee--which they have none--or to correct their views,
the same being a whole lot steeped in error; neither would it be right
for me to encourage them in the evil work of stretching my neck on a
rope, or to lead them into the temptation of shooting me any more. When
one gets disliked and discouraged by the hostile acts of mean people,
one needs to have presence of mind and plenty absence of body. Wherefore
I did right in rounding up all my livestock, and quitting a locality
where my peace of mind was disturbed with ropes, gunfire, and other evil
communications. I took my riders and my herd away north, to where we
could graze peaceful and virtuous amid the untroubled solitudes of the
Superstitious Mountains.
There was work to do, a drive of a hundred and seventy miles with
slow-moving stock, then scouting for water and feed on the new pasture,
a permanent camp to make, and much besides which filled up four good
weeks. Afterwards I tracked a mountain sheep up to the bare heights,
where all the rock was glazed with lightning, and the desert lay below
me. I sat on my tail to think, feeling lonesome then, looking east
toward Texas and wondering if my poor old mother was still alive.
Westward the sun was setting, and that way lay the great Pacific Ocean,
bigger than all the plains, where the ships rode herd upon their drove
of whales--I wanted to see that too. But then I looked south-east, the
way I had come, through valleys of scrub and cactus; there, somewheres
beyond the hills, was my little ranch, and all the good pasture away to
Holy Cross. My heart was crying inside me, but I didn't know what I
wanted until I thought of Curly. Sure enough I wanted her most of all.
Next morning I told all my boys good-bye, and streaked off to go see
Curly. I rode till dusk and camped with Texas Bob, a friend of mine who
told me I was sure enough idiot for getting outlawed. Next evening I
came to the house where my cousins lived, and crept in the dusk to
scratch at their back door.
I found Miss Blossom Jameson all in a bustle as usual, which looked
mighty natural. She was in the backyard feeding supper to her horse, and
that poor victim leaned up against the fence to groan. There were
cornstalks in it, cabbage-leaves, lettuce-leaves, tea-leaves, and some
relics of ham and eggs.
"Now jest you sail right in, Mr. Hawss, and don't act wasteful, or
you'll go without!"
Mr. Horse took a snuff at the mess, then backed away disgusted.
"Well, if that don't beat all! Now, you Hawss, you don't want to eat the
flower-beds, or you'll get murdered!"
Mr. Horse turned his back and sulked.
"There! That's what I call a mean spirit, and I'm goin' to lock you up,
you and your supper, till one of the two gets eaten--I don't care
which!" So the lady chased Mr. Horse into the barn, and threw the
pig-feed in after him. "I'll larn you to know what's good," says she,
and slammed the door on his tail.
"Well!"--she stood with her back to the door, and threw up her nose at
the sight of me--"I du wonder," says she, "that you dare to show yo'
wicked face!"
I allowed that my good face was getting a bit mended since our last
encounter. "How's my kid?" says I.
"Yo' savage, you mean. Now don't you say you've brought pet tigers this
time, or tame dragons, 'cause I'll have no more strays at all."
"I've got a roan hawss here who's run a hundred miles since daybreak."
"Bring him in, then."
"He says he's a vegetarian, and cayn't eat ham and eggs."
"I don't care," says Miss Blossom; "we killed our pig to-day, and the
slops has just got to be eaten. Waste is ruin."
"My hawss says he'll eat the slops, ma'am, if he can have a drink of
whisky along with supper."
"Huh! so you want your vile debaucheries in spite of all I've told you
against drink. Well, I 'spose you'll have it."
She ran off to fetch the liquor, which gave me time to bury her salad in
the manure heap, and get a decent feed of cornstalks down from the loft.
Then I used the whisky to rub down my weary horse, the same being
medicine both for man and beast. I had some myself, while Miss Blossom
stood by, talking of wicked waste, and how Curly had been neglected.
"Why, she's mo' like a man than a girl!"
"'Spose, ma'am," says I, "that you'd been working in a stable and got
shot, then run into gaol, and pulled out through a hole in the wall, and
doctored by a robber, and chased around the hills----"
"My habits are set," says Miss Blossom, "so I cayn't suppose any such
thing. But that wig of Curly's, that skirt, those--now did yo' robber
baron steal those things off a scarecrow, or did they grow by
themselves?"
Then she grabbed my hands. "Thar," says she, "that's off my mind, so
don't look worried. The dear little soul, she's the bravest, sweetest
thing--and the way she bore all that pain! Why, you or any other man
would have set around cursing all day and groaning all night, but
Curly--why, she never even whimpered. Now I ask you, is it possible she
shot those two men? I cayn't believe a word, so it's no use your
talking."
"Was Miss Pansy very much scart with Curly's talk?"
"Miss Pansy, my good man, is a fool, although I say it. Of all the
romantic nonsense and sentimental--but thar, she writes poetry, my dear,
and that accounts for her. Why, if I hadn't locked her up in her room,
that woman would have sent off a poem, all about lady outlaws, to the
New York _Sunday Companion_. I burned the stuff, and she had to go off
in hysterics. Shucks! She puts Curly off to sleep every night with her
fool poems--and such trash! Now there she is, with her glue-glue harp
singing to Curly. If she don't beat cats! You listen."
Away off in the house I could hear Miss Pansy's thin little voice and
glue-glue harp; I thought it sounded fine.
"Lost, stole, or strayed on Tuesday night,
The finder tries to hide it--
A woman's heart--he has no right,
For there's a Love inside it.
"The owner fears 'twas snatched away,
But this is a reminder,
That she is quite prepared to pay
One half, with thanks, to finder."
Miss Blossom led me to the house. "You come right into the
settin'-room," says she, "and keep yo' tearing spurs off my new carpet."
I did my best about the spurs, but it would take an Indian scout to find
a safe trail across that parlour floor, the same being cluttered up with
little fool tables. These same tables were of different breeds,
three-legged, two-legged, one-legged, tumble-over, all-to-pieces,
trip-you-up, and smash-the-crockery, so it was a sure treat to watch
Miss Pansy curving around without the slightest accident. Her paws were
folded in front, her tail came swishing behind, her head came pecking
along hen-fashion, and her smile was sweet enough to give me toothache.
"Oh," she bubbled, "I'm so glad you didn't get lynched by those horrid
men who never wash themselves, or think of serious things; and it's so
nice to see you looking so brown with that beautiful cherry silk
kerchief round yo' neck, and the wonderful leather leggings, and that
dreadful revolver, so picturesque, so----"
"You're making a fool of yo'self," says Miss Blossom, "and the man wants
feeding. Picturesque! Bosh! Shoo!" She chased Miss Pansy out of the
room.
As to Curly, she lay on the sofa kicking high with joy. "Chalkeye," she
howled, "you ole hoss-thief, keep yo' tearin' spurs off my new cyarpet.
You picturesque, beautiful, leather-faced, cock-eyed robber! 'Ware
tables, or they'll bite yo' laigs! Oh, gimme yo' paw to shake, and throw
me a cigarette. Look out--that chair's goin' to buck!"
I sat on the edge of the chair, and grabbed her hand while she called me
all sorts of pet names. Then it seems that Miss Pansy broke loose from
Miss Blossom, and came surging back, for she heard the pet names, and
shrieked--
"Oh! oh! Stop! What frightful language! Oh, please, if you're a
lady--remember! Oh, Misteh Davies, you mustn't let her smoke!"
"Curly," says I, "you're shot, and you got to be good in a small voice,
or----"
"Good," says Curly; "I'm a wolf. I come from Bitter Creek. The higher
up, the worse the waters, and I'm from the source, and it's my night to
how-w-l. Yow-ow-ow!"
"Well," Miss Pansy shrieked, "I call it disgraceful, so there!"
"I don't care," says Curly. "I won't be good in a small voice, and I'll
call this dear ole hoss-thief all the names I please. Why, Chalkeye and
me punched cows at Holy Cross! Say, Chalkeye, d'you remember when I
stuck burrs in under yo' saddle, and you got pitched to glory? Why,
that's the very old hat I shot full of holes, and oh, I do enjoy to see
you so much, you dear ole villain!"
Then Miss Blossom dragged Miss Pansy away to cook supper, and Curly
settled down with her little paw in my fist.
"My habits," says she, "is a sure scandal, and I ain't got no more
manners nor a bear. My language ain't becoming to a young gentlewoman,
and my eating would disgrace a pinto hawss. They cayn't refawm me a lil'
bit, and when I tries to set up on my tail, and look pretty, they tell
me rebukes for crossin' my laigs like a cowboy. Oh, take me away, ole
Chalkeye, take me away to the range and the camps, to feel the
night-frosts agin, to sleep with the stars, to see the sun come up, to
ride in the heat. This roof sets down on me at night. I cayn't see for
walls; I cayn't get air to breathe. These ladies has roped me, and
thrown me, tied down for branding, ears in the dust. Oh, take me away
from this!"
"When that bandage is off yo' arm I'll take you, Curly."
"Not till then?"
She had scarcely strength yet to travel, and yet if she fretted like
this at being shut up in a house, would she ever get well at all?
When I reflect what Curly looked like then it makes me wonder what sort
of raging lunatic I had been to leave her in that house. By way of
disguise she had a wig all sideways, and female clothes which she'd
never learned to wear. They made her look like a man. Her skin had the
desert tan; she moved and talked like a cowboy. But most of all, her
eyes gave her dead away--the steel-blue eyes of a scout, more used to
gun-fights than to needlework, which bored right through me. Only a
frontiersman has eyes like that; only the outlaw has the haunted look
which comes with slaying of men, and Curly was branded that way beyond
mistake.
This poor child was wanted as McCalmont's son, hunted like a wild beast,
with a price on her head for murder and for robbery under arms. And yet
she was a woman!
"Say, Curly," I asked, "what has these ladies done to account for yo'
being here in theyr home?"
She reached to a table, and gave me cuttings from the _Weekly Obituary_.
I fell to reading these:--
The burial of Buck Hennesy at La Soledad.
Dog-gone Hawkins' report of not finding robbers.
The rescue of McCalmont's prisoners out of the Jim Crow shaft, and the
story of the posse which tracked the robbers north until the signs
scattered out all over the country and every trace was lost.
The attempt of the Stranglers to lynch a horse-thief at Las Salinas, the
same being me.
Then came a paragraph about a young lady staying at the home of the
Misses Jameson.
"We are informed that Miss Hilda Jameson, of Norfolk, Va., arrived
last week on a visit to her aunts, the Misses Jameson. We regret to
hear that on her journey westward this young lady met with an
unfortunate accident, being severely bruised on the arm by the fall
of a valise out of an upper bunk in the sleeping-car. This bruise
has developed a formidable abscess, which the Misses Jameson are
treating by the peculiar methods of Christian Science, of which
craze they are well-known exponents. For our part we would suggest
the calling in of a doctor; but as these ladies are way-up experts
at nursing, we trust that their efforts will be successful, and
that in a few days more we shall see the young lady around,
enjoying all the pleasures of Grave City society. In the meantime
Miss Blossom Jameson wishes us to say that the patient needs
absolute quiet, and friends are requested not to call at the house
until further notice."
"As to the pleasures of Grave City sassiety," says Curly, "I'm plumb fed
up already. 'Spose they dream that I'll go back to shoveling manure in
that stable?"
I asked her if there had been any visitors at the house.
"They came every day to inquire, and Miss Blossom insulted them regular
in the front yard. Now they've quit."
"But nobody saw these ladies meeting a guest at the train."
"No, but you should hear Miss Blossom telling lies out thar in the yard!
She's surely an artist."
"Curly," says I, "pull that wig straight, and hide up that scar on yo'
brow. Cayn't you even pretend to act like a lady?"
"Like a woman, you mean."
"You're not safe--you'll be seen by some gossip through the window.
You'd ought to hole up in the bedroom."
"And choke? I'd as lief get choked with a rope."
"Think of the risk!"
"I reckon a little excitement keeps me from feelin' dull. Now don't you
look so solemn--with yo' eye like a poached aig, or I'll throw my wig at
you-all. Say, Chalkeye, d'you cal'late the Lawd made them two old ladies
vicious?"
"Why for?"
"Looks to me 'sif they was bawn broke in, and raised gentle, with lil'
lace caps on they'r haids, and mittens on they'r pasterns. I been
thinking fearful hard, tryin' to just imagine Miss Pansy bad; spose she
was to kick, or strike, or rair up, or buck, or pitch, or sunfish around
to kill! And Miss Blossom, she only makes-believe to be dangerous to
hide up her soft ole heart. Are real ladies all like that?"
"Well, usual they don't bite."
"I was raised wild"--Curly lay back tired--"my tribe are the young
wolves, and I reckon when the Lawd was serving out goodness, He was sort
of 'shamed lest we'd claim our share. He must be plumb busy, too, with
His own people telling Him they'r prayers. Why, these two ladies
requires whole heaps of attention. I allow theyr souls must have got out
of order a lot, 'cause they has to put in enough supplications to save a
whole cow camp entire. They're so plumb talkative that a-way that I
cayn't get a prayer in edgeways."
She was getting tired and sleepy, so I sat quiet, watching. Then
somebody came outside, hammering the front door, and I pulled my gun to
be ready in case of trouble.