THE BEACON LIGHT
Out of the Wyoming Bad Lands--orange, turquoise-green, and murky blue, of
outlandish ridges, of streaked rock, of sudden, twisted cañons, a country
like a dream of the far side of the moon--rode Cosme Hilliard in a
choking cloud of alkali dust. He rode down Crazy Woman's Hill toward the
sagebrush flat, where, in a half-circle of cloudless, snow-streaked
mountains, lay the town of Millings on its rapid glacier river.
Hilliard's black hair was powdered with dust; his olive face was gray;
dust lay thick in the folds of his neck-handkerchief; his pony matched
the gray-white road and plodded wearily, coughing and tossing his head in
misery from the nose-flies, the horse-flies, the mosquitoes, a swarm of
small, tormenting presences. His rider seemed to be charmed into
patience, and yet his aquiline face was not the face of a patient man. It
was young in a keen, hard fashion; the mouth and eyes were those of a
Spanish-American mother, golden eyes and a mouth originally beautiful,
soft, and cruel, which had been tightened and straightened by a man's
will and experience. It had been used so often for careless, humorous
smiling that the cruelty had been almost worked out of it. Almost, not
altogether. His mother's blood kept its talons on him. He was Latin and
dangerous to look at, for all the big white Anglo-Saxon teeth, the slow,
slack, Western American carriage, the guarded and amused expression of
the golden eyes. Here was a bundle of racial contradictions, not yet
welded, not yet attuned. Perhaps the one consistent, the one solvent,
expression was that of alert restlessness. Cosme Hilliard was not happy,
was not content, but he was eternally entertained. He was not uplifted by
the hopeful illusions proper to his age, but he loved adventure. It was a
bitter face, bitter and impatient and unschooled. It seemed to laugh, to
expect the worst from life, and not to care greatly if the worst should
come. But for such minor matters of dust and thirst and weariness, he had
patience. Physically the young man was hard and well-schooled. He rode
like a cowboy and carried a cowboy's rope tied to his saddle. And the
rope looked as though it had been used.
Millings, that seemed so close below there through the clear, high
atmosphere, was far to reach. The sun had slipped down like a thin,
bright coin back of an iron rock before the traveler rode into the town.
His pony shied wearily at an automobile and tried to make up his mind to
buck, but a light pressure of the spur and a smiling word was enough to
change his mind.
"Don't be a fool, Dusty! You know it's not worth the trouble. Remember
that fifty miles you've come to-day!"
The occupants of the motor snapped a camera and hummed away. They had no
prevision of being stuck halfway up Crazy Woman's Hill with no water
within fifteen miles, or they wouldn't have exclaimed so gayly at the
beauty and picturesqueness of the tired cowboy.
"He looks like a movie hero, doesn't he?" said a girl.
"No, ma'am," protested the Western driver, who had been a chauffeur only
for a fortnight and knew considerably less about the insides of his Ford
than he did about the insides of Hilliard's cow-pony. "He ain't no show.
He's the real thing. Seems like you dudes got things kinder twisted.
Things ain't like shows. Shows is sometimes like things."
"The real thing" certainly behaved as the real thing would. He rode
straight to the nearest saloon and swung out of his saddle. He licked the
dust off his lips, looked wistfully at the swinging door, and turned back
to his pony.
"You first, Dusty--damn you!" and led the stumbling beast into the yard
of The Aura. In an hour or more he came back. He had dined at the hotel
and he had bathed. His naturally vivid coloring glowed under the
street-light. He was shaved and brushed and sleek. He pushed quickly
through the swinging doors of the bar and stepped into the saloon. It
was truly a famous bar--The Aura--and it deserved its fame. It shone
bright and cool and polished. There was a cheerful clink of glasses, a
subdued, comfortable sound of talk. Men drank at the bar, and drank and
played cards at the small tables. A giant in a white apron stood to
serve the newcomer.
Hilliard ordered his drink, sipped it leisurely, then wandered off to a
near-by table. There he stood, watching the game. Not long after, he
accepted an invitation and joined the players. From then till midnight he
was oblivious of everything but the magic squares of pasteboard, the
shifting pile of dirty silver at his elbow, the faces--vacant, clever, or
rascally--of his opponents. But at about midnight, trouble came. For some
time Hilliard had been subconsciously irritated by the divided attention
of a player opposite to him across the table. This man, with a long, thin
face, was constantly squinting past Cosme's shoulder, squinting and
leering and stretching his great full-lipped mouth into a queer
half-smile. At last, abruptly, the irritation came to consciousness and
Cosme threw an angry glance over his own shoulder.
Beside the giant who had served him his drink a girl stood: a thin,
straight girl in black and white who held herself so still that she
seemed painted there against the mirror on the wall. Her hands rested on
her slight hips, the fine, pointed, ringless fingers white against the
black stuff of her dress. Her neck, too, was white and her face, the pure
unpowdered whiteness of childhood. Her chin was lifted, her lips laid
together, her eyes, brilliant and clear, of no definite color, looked
through her surroundings. She was very young, not more than seventeen.
The mere presence of a girl was startling enough. Barmaids are unknown to
the experience of the average cowboy. But this girl was trebly startling.
For her face was rare. It was not Western, not even American. It was a
fine-drawn, finished, Old-World face, with long, arched eyebrows, large
lids, shadowed eyes, nostrils a little pinched, a sad and tender mouth.
It was a face whose lines might have followed the pencil of
Botticelli--those little hollows in the cheeks, that slight exaggeration
of the pointed chin, that silky, rippling brown hair. There was no touch
of artifice; it was an unpainted young face; hair brushed and knotted
simply; the very carriage of the body was alien; supple, unconscious,
restrained.
Cosme Hilliard's look lasted for a minute. Returning to his opponent it
met an ugly grimace. He flushed and the game went on.
But the incident had roused Hilliard's antagonism. He disliked that
man with the grimacing mouth. He began to watch him. An hour or two
later Cosme's thin, dark hand shot across the table and gripped the
fellow's wrist.
"Caught you that time, you tin-horn," he said quietly.
Instantly, almost before the speech was out, the giant in the apron had
hurled himself across the room and gripped the cheat, who stood, a hand
arrested on its way to his pocket, snarling helplessly. But the other
players, his fellow sheep-herders, fell away from Hilliard dangerously.
"No shootin'," said the giant harshly. "No shoot-in' in The Aura. It
ain't allowed."
"No callin' names either," growled the prisoner. "Me and my friends would
like to settle with the youthful stranger."
"Settle with him, then, but somewheres else. No fightin' in The Aura."
There was an acquiescent murmur from the other table and the sheep-herder
gave in. He exchanged a look with his friends, and Carthy, seeing them
disposed to return quietly to the game, left them and took up his usual
position behind the bar. The barmaid moved a little closer to his elbow.
Hilliard noticed that her eyes had widened in her pale face. He made a
brief, contemptuous excuse to his opponents, settled his account with
them, and strolled over to the bar. From Carthy he ordered another drink.
He saw the girl's eyes studying the hand he put out for his glass and he
smiled a little to himself. When she looked up he was ready with his
golden eyes to catch her glance. Both pairs of eyes smiled. She came a
step toward him.
"I believe I've heard of you, miss," he said.
A delicate pink stained her face and throat and he wondered if she could
possibly be shy.
"Some fellows I met over in the Big Horn country lately told me to look
you up if I came to Millings. They said something about Hudson's Queen.
It's the Hudson Hotel isn't it?--"
A puzzled, rather worried look crept into her eyes, but she avoided his
question. "You were working in the Big Horn country? I hoped you were
from Hidden Creek."
"I'm on my way there," he said. "I know that country well. You come from
over there?"
"No." She smiled faintly. "But"--and here her breast lifted on a deep,
spasmodic sigh--"some day I'm going there."
"It's not like any other country," he said, turning his glass in his
supple fingers. "It's wonderful. But wild and lonesome. You wouldn't be
caring for it--not for longer than a sunny day or two, I reckon."
He used the native phrases with sure familiarity, and yet in his speaking
of them there was something unfamiliar. Evidently she was puzzled by him,
and Cosme was not sorry that he had so roused her curiosity. He was very
curious himself, so much so that he had forgotten the explosive moment of
a few short minutes back.
The occupants of the second table pushed away their chairs and came over
to the bar. For a while the barmaid was busy, making their change,
answering their jests, bidding them good-night. It was, "Well,
good-night, Miss Arundel, and thank you."
"See you next Saturday, Miss Arundel, if I'm alive--"
Hilliard drummed on the counter with his fingertips and frowned. His
puzzled eyes wove a pattern of inquiry from the men to the girl and back.
One of them, a ruddy-faced, town boy, lingered. He had had a drop too
much of The Aura's hospitality. He rested rather top-heavily against the
bar and stretched out his hand.
"Aren't you going to say me a real good-night, Miss Sheila," he besought,
and a tipsy dimple cut itself into his cheek.
"Do go home, Jim," murmured the barmaid. "You've broken your promise
again. It's two o'clock."
He made great ox-eyes at her, his hand still begging, its blunt fingers
curled upward like a thirsty cup.
His face was emptied of everything but its desire.
It was perfectly evident that "Miss Sheila" was tormented by the look, by
the eyes, by the hand, by the very presence of the boy. She pressed her
lips tight, drew her fine arched brows together, and twisted her fingers.
"I'll go home," he asserted obstinately, "when you tell me a proper
goo'-night--not before."
Her eyes glittered. "Shall I tell Carthy to turn you out, Jim?"
He smiled triumphantly. "Uh," said he, "your watch-dog went out.
Dickie called him to answer the telephone. Now, will you tell me
good-night, Sheila?"
Cosme hoped that the girl would glance at him for help, he had his long
steel muscles braced; but, after a moment's thought--"And she can think.
She's as cool as she's shy," commented the observer--she put her hand on
Jim's. He grabbed it, pressed his lips upon it.
"Goo'-night," he said, "Goo'-night. I'll go now." He swaggered out as
though she had given him a rose.
The barmaid put her hand beneath her apron and rubbed it. Cosme laughed a
little at the quaint action.
"Do they give you lots of trouble, Miss Arundel?" he asked her
sympathetically.
She looked at him. But her attitude was not so simple and friendly as it
had been. Evidently her little conflict with Jim had jarred her humor.
She looked distressed, angry. Cosme felt that, unfairly enough, she
lumped him with The Enemy. He wondered pitifully if she had given The
Enemy its name, if her experience had given her the knowledge of such
names. He had a vision of the pretty, delicate little thing standing
there night after night as though divided by the bar from prowling
beasts. And yet she was known over the whole wide, wild country as
"Hudson's Queen." Her crystal, childlike look must be one of those
extraordinary survivals, a piteous sort of accident. Cosme called himself
a sentimentalist. Spurred by this reaction against his more romantic
tendencies, he leaned forward. He too was going to ask the barmaid for a
good-night or a greeting or a good-bye. His hand was out, when he saw her
face stiffen, her lips open to an "Oh!" of warning or of fear. He wheeled
and flung up his arm against a hurricane of blows.
His late opponents had decided to take advantage of Carthy's absence, and
inflict chastisement prompt and merciless upon the "youthful stranger."
If it had not been for that small frightened "Oh" Cosme would have been
down at once.
With that moment's advantage he fought like a tiger, his golden eyes
ablaze. Swift and dangerous anger was one of his gifts. He was against
the wall, he was torn from it. One of his opponents staggered across the
room and fell, another crumpled up against the bar. Hilliard wheeled and
jabbed, plunged, was down, was up, bleeding and laughing. He was whirled
this way and that, the men from whom he had struck himself free recovered
themselves, closed in upon him. A blow between the eyes half stunned him,
another on his mouth silenced his laughter. The room was getting blurred.
He was forced back against the bar, fighting, but not effectively. The
snarling laughter was not his now, but that of the cheat.
Something gave way behind him; it was as if the bar, against which he was
bent backwards, had melted to him and hardened against his foes. For an
instant he was free from blows and tearing hands. He saw that a door in
the bar had opened and shut. There was a small pressure on his arm, a
pressure which he blindly obeyed. In front of him another door opened,
and closed. He heard the shooting of a bolt. He was in the dark. The
small pressure, cold through the torn silk sleeve of his white shirt,
continued to urge him swiftly along a passage. He was allowed to rest an
instant against a wall. A light was turned on with a little click above
his head. He found himself at the end of the open hallway. Before him lay
the brilliant velvet night.
Hilliard pressed his hands upon his eyes trying to clear his vision. He
felt sick and giddy. The little barmaid's face, all terrified and urgent
eyes, danced up and down.
"Don't waste any time!" she said. "Get out of Millings! Where's
your pony?"
At that he looked at her and smiled.
"I'm not leaving Millings till to-morrow," he said uncertainly with
wounded lips. "Don't look like that, girl. I'm not much hurt, If I'm not
mistaken, your watch-dog is back and very much on his job. I reckon that
our friends will leave Millings considerably before I do."
In fact, behind them at the end of the passage there was a sort of roar.
Carthy had returned to avenge The Aura.
"You're sure you're not hurt? You're sure they won't try to hurt
you again?"
He shook his head. "Not they..." He stood looking at her and the mist
slowly cleared, his vision of her steadied. "Shall I see you to-morrow?"
She drew back from him a little. "No," she said. "I sleep all the
morning. And, afterwards, I don't see any one except a few old friends. I
go riding..."
He puckered his eyelids inquiringly. Then, with a sudden reckless fling
of his shoulders, he put out his hand boldly and caught her small pointed
chin in his palm. He bent down his head.
She stood there quite still and white, looking straight up into his face.
The exquisite smoothness of her little cool chin photographed itself upon
his memory. As he bent down closer to the grave and tender lips, he was
suddenly, unaccountably frightened and ashamed. His hand dropped, sought
for her small limp hand. His lips shifted from their course and went
lower, just brushing her fingers.
"I beg your pardon," he said confusedly. He was painfully embarrassed,
stammered, "I--I wanted to thank you. Good-bye..."
She said good-bye in the smallest sweet voice he had ever heard. It
followed his memory like some weary, pitiful little ghost.