Justin Wingate, Ranchman

by John Harvey Whitson

  CHAPTER V

  HARKNESS AND THE SEER

  Harkness and Clayton had come to Denver; Clayton to "hold up thehands" of Justin, guessing what he would be called on to encounter,and Harkness to see the "sights" in this time of political turmoil.The cowboys were virtually in a state of revolt. It was not possiblethat it could be otherwise. When Harkness, enraged and resentful, ledthem in that rebellion against Ben Davison, ranch discipline wasdestroyed and he lost control of them himself. Not that he now cared.The impulse which led him to strike Ben to the earth by the ranchhouse door had guided him since. He knew that the restraining hand ofFogg, who had present interests to serve, alone checked the wrath ofPhilip Davison. He, and all the other cowboys, must go, as soon asthis thing was settled. Nothing else was possible, when such a man asPhilip Davison was to be dealt with.

  Harkness met Justin on the street in front of the hotel and madestraight for him. It was not a bee-line, for Harkness was comfortablyintoxicated. He had the cowboy failing. Though he never touched liquorwhile on the ranch and duty demanded sobriety, he could not resist thetemptation to drink with a friend or an acquaintance when he was inthe city. He greeted Justin with hilarious familiarity, and the scentof the liquor mingling with the scent of cinnamon drops Justin foundalmost overpowering.

  "Shake!" he cried, reeling as he took Justin's hand. "Justin, I'm yerfriend! Don't you never fergit it, I'm yer friend! And there ain't nostrings on you! Understand--there ain't--no--strings--on--you! Wefellers elected you 'cause we like you, and 'cause we couldn't votefor Ben Davison. 'To hell with Ben Davison,' says I to the boys,--'tohell with him; he took my wife's horse and left her and Helen to burnto death in that fire! I'll see him damned 'fore--'fore I'll vote ferhim!' And so I would, Justin; an' we--we (hic) voted f'r--fer you,see! We voted fer you. Davison's goin' to d'scharge me an' I know it,but let him. I don't haf to be cowboy, I don't. Let him d'scharge(hic) and damn to him! Let him d'scharge. But you go right ahead an'do as you want to. You're honest, an' you're all right, an' we'rebackin' you."

  When Fogg appeared--he had not yet abandoned hope of Justin--Harknessswayed up to him pugnaciously. He had never liked Fogg, and he likedhim less now. Fogg's oiliness sickened the cowboy stomach.

  "Fogg," he blustered, "Justin's my friend, see! And there ain't nostrings on him. He's honest, an' we're backin' him. You want to hearmy sentiments? 'To hell with Ben Davison!' Them's my sentiments, an' Iain't 'shamed of 'em. Davison's goin' to d'scharge me an' I know it.Le'm d'scharge. Who keers f'r d'scharge? I don't haf to be cowboy, Idon't. But you treat Justin right. You've got to treat (hic) treat himright, fer he's my friend, see!"

  Fogg protested that he had never contemplated treating Justin in anyother way, and that Justin was his good friend as well as Harkness's.

  Wandering about Denver that day, "staring like a locoed steer," as heafterward expressed it, Harkness came to a stand in front of a doorwayand looked at a man who had emerged therefrom. The man was WilliamSanders, but he passed on without observing Harkness.

  "What's he doin' up here?" Harkness queried, as he watched thefamiliar figure disappear in the crowd.

  Sanders had gone, and to get an answer to his question Harkness staredat the doorway, and the building, a somewhat imposing edifice ofbrick, situated on one of the principal streets. It was given over tooffices of various kinds, he judged; but what fixed his eye was a signwith a painted index-hand pointing to it.

  "Madame Manton, Seer, Fortune teller, Palmist, and Clairvoyant.Fortune telling and astrology. The past and the future revealed. Lostarticles found, dreams interpreted, lovers re-united."

  There was a statement below this, in much smaller letters, settingforth that Madame Manton, who was a seventh daughter of a seventhdaughter and from birth gifted with miraculous second-sight, had justreturned to America after a prolonged stay in European capitals,during which she had achieved marvellous successes and had beenconsulted on important matters by the crowned heads.

  Harkness did not know whether to connect the egress of William Sandersfrom that doorway with this fortune teller or not, but the vagaries ofhis intellectual condition impelled him to enter. Following thedirection of the pointing hand, he was soon climbing a stairway whichled to the door of this professed mistress of the black arts. Hereanother sign, with even more emphatic statements, greeted him. On thisdoor Harkness hammered lustily.

  "Come in!" said a voice.

  Harkness tried the knob with fumbling fingers, then set his massiveshoulders to the panel, and was fairly precipitated into the roomwhere a rosy half-light glowed from a red lamp, and the sunlight,showing through heavy red curtains, conjured queer shadows in thecorners. At the farther end of the room sat a woman. She was robed inred, and her chair was red. A reddish veil hid her face. But the handshe extended was small and white, and flashed the fire of diamonds.

  Harkness was so taken aback that he was almost on the point of boltingfrom the room. But that would have savored of a lack of courage, andhis drink-buoyed mind resented the imputation. He would not run, evenfrom a red fortune teller. Seeing a chair by the door he dropped intoit, stared at the woman, and not knowing what else to do took out hisred handkerchief to mop his red face. The odor of cinnamon dropsfloating out from it combined with that of the whiskey and filled theroom.

  "If you will be kind enough to close the door!" said the woman.

  She was looking at him intently. He closed the door, and dropped backinto the chair. He crossed his legs nervously, then uncrossed them,wiped his face again with the scented handkerchief, and finally stuckhis big hands into his big pockets to get rid of them. He was dressedin half cowboy garb, and it began to dawn on him that he was "cuttinga pretty figure," sitting there with that fortune teller.

  "I suppose you'd like to have your fortune told?" she questioned.

  "I dunno 'bout that!" he protested, his big hands burrowing deep intohis pockets. "I seen a feller come from this way, and I kinder p'intedmy toes in the same direction. Mebbe you was tellin' his fortune?"

  "No one has been here for more than an hour."

  "Then I reckon I was mistook. Do you make up these here fortunes outof your own head, or how?"

  "I tell whatever is to be told."

  "Fer coin?"

  "Yes, for coin. Even a fortune teller must live. Put five dollars onthat tray beside you and I will begin."

  "If you can tag me, I'll make it ten!"

  Harkness put a crisp five dollar bill on the tray. If she had said tenhe would have placed that there. Liquor made him generous.

  "You do not believe in fortunes?"

  "Not any, lady. I stumbled into this game, and I'm simply playin' itfer the fun of it, same's I used to go into a game of cards with BenDavison, when I knowed good and well he'd skin me. I'm goin' upag'inst your game, lady, and payin' before the game begins. It's cutout fer me to lose, but I'll double the bet and lose it willin' if youcan put your finger on me an' tell me whatever about myself. I don'treckon you can do it."

  A low laugh of amusement came from behind the veil.

  "You might as well put down the other five dollars now, to save youthe trouble of doing it later."

  Then she leaned forward and stared at him so intently that he feltalmost nervous. There was something uncanny in that rigid stare, andin the strained tones of her voice, when she spoke after prolongedsilence. He fancied he could see her glowing eyes through the mesh ofthe veil.

  "Your last name begins with an H. Let me see! It is something likeHearing. No, it can't be that! It's Hark--Hark--Harkening. No, thatcan't be. I can't get it; but I didn't promise to tell names. Thereare a great many cattle where you live. Yes, and you are married.That's strange, for not many cowboys are married. You have a littlegirl."

  She put her hand to her head, and was silent a moment.

  "That's very queer. The name of your little girl, her first name,begins with an H." She uttered a little inarticulate cry. "And, oh,dear, she seems to be surrounded by fire; flames are on all sides
ofher, and smoke! And she is frightened."

  Harkness started from his chair.

  "She ain't in any fire now?"

  The woman dropped back with a sigh.

  "No, not now," she admitted; "that is past. I am telling you thingsyou know about, so that you will see that I have the power I claim.Some one, some one on horseback, is saving her from that fire."

  "And a certain cuss is skedaddlin' without liftin' a finger to helpher!" said Harkness grimly. "Put that in the picture, fer I ain'tfergittin' it."

  The disclosures which followed astonished the intoxicated cowboy. Hecould not have revealed them more clearly himself. The fortune tellertook excursions into the future too, in a way to please him; and, asshe could tell the past so well, he was glad to believe in herglittering portrayals of delights to come.

  Altogether Harkness was bewildered to the point of stupefaction. Hewas sure he had never seen this woman nor she him, and her knowledgeproduced in him a half-frightened sensation. Though he alwaysresolutely denied it to himself and to others, he was deeplysuperstitious. If he began to sing as soon as he rose in the morning,he tried to dissipate the bad luck that foretold by singing the wordsbackward. If he chanced to observe the new moon for the first timeover his left shoulder, he turned round in his tracks three times andlooked at it over his right. If he saw a pin on the floor with itspoint toward him he picked it up, for that was a sign of good luck.And he had such a collection of cast-off horseshoes he could havestarted a shoeing shop on short notice.

  Harkness was so well satisfied with the fortune teller that when sheconcluded he dropped the second five dollar bill on the tray.

  "You're as welcome to it, lady, as if it was water," he declared."Five dollars won't count even a little bit when I come into thefortune you p'inted out to me. You're a silver-plated seer from thefront counties. You'll find Dicky Carroll jumpin' into this redboodoir the first time he hits Denver. I'll tell him about you, andit'll set him wild."

  Then he plunged down the stairway, fully convinced that he hadreceived the full worth of his money, not at all knowing that he hadimparted much more information than he had received.

  When he was gone the woman leaned back in her red chair and laugheduntil the tears came into her eyes. She laid aside the reddish veil,thus revealing the features of Sibyl Dudley, and wiped away the tearswith a filmy handkerchief.

  Then she began to make an estimate of the value of the information shehad received from this intoxicated cowboy, and from William Sanders.It was considerable. She had formed many of her statements so craftilythat they were questions, and she had made these men talk aboutthemselves and their affairs in really garrulous fashion.

  When a little time had elapsed she ventured into the street, in anentirely different garb and veiled more heavily. Walking across thestreet she hailed a cab, and was driven home, halting however at acorner to purchase copies of the latest Denver papers. At home shebegan to absorb their contents.

  Sibyl Dudley's finances were at a low ebb. Mr. Plimpton, the stockbroker, had met a reverse of fortune, and criminal proceedings beinghinted by men he had fleeced, he had gone into exile. Where he wasSibyl did not know, and if she had known he could not have helped her,for he had now no money. With debts thickening about her, and no newadmirer with a plethoric bank account yet appearing, she was beingdriven to desperate extremities. To tide over this day of evil fortuneshe had, carefully veiled that no one might know her, become MadameManton.

  All these years she had kept Mary Jasper with her. Her attitude towardMary may be thought singular. Yet to Sibyl it was entirely natural.She had plucked and worn this fair flower at first that it might addto her attractiveness, as she would have plucked a wild rose to tuckin her corsage on some gay evening when she desired to accentuate herphysical attractions in the eyes of men. But the utter simplicity andguilelessness which Mary had worn through all as a protecting armorhad touched some hidden spring in this woman's heart, so that she cameat last to cherish a brave desire to stand well in the opinion of thispure girl and maintain firmly her position on that pinnacle ofsupposed goodness and kindness where Mary had established her. Henceher charities were continued by and by, not to create that innerwarmth of which she had spoken, but that Mary might believe her to becharitable. And if any good angel could have done so great a thing asto pull her from that miry clay in which her feet were set Mary Jasperwould, all unconsciously, have accomplished even that. Sibyl Dudley,driven back upon herself, had to have some one who could love andrespect her; for in spite of all she was a woman, and love wasstarving in her heart.

  But she was not courageous enough to be honest; and, having readthrough the papers, she sat thinking and planning how she might winmoney enough to continue her present fight against adversecircumstances. She could not confess to Mary that she was not rich,that she was a pretender, and vile and degraded. No, she could not dothat. But to keep up her pretensions she must have money. Fortunetelling was an odious and precarious calling. She was sinking deeperinto debt. She must have money.

  Putting away the papers and going to her mirror she scanned herappearance. In spite of her strenuous fight, Time had the slow-movingyears with him, and they bit into heart and face like acid. Shebrought forth her rouge and her pencils. They had long worked wondersand her slender fingers had not lost their cunning. She was an artistin paint though she never touched brush to canvas.

  When Mary came in Sibyl was singing in a light-hearted way andthrusting bits of cake to her canary between the bars of its gildedcage.