The One-Way Trail: A story of the cattle country

by Ridgwell Cullum

  CHAPTER XII

  THE QUEST OF PETER BLUNT

  The crisp air of summer early morning, so fragrant, so invigorating,eddied across the plains, wafting new life to the lungs, and increasedvigor to jaded muscles. The sun was lifting above the horizon,bringing with it that expansion to the mind which only those whoselives are passed in the open, and whose waking hours are such asNature intended, may know.

  The rustling grass, long, lean at the waving tops, but rich andsucculent in its undergrowth, spoke of awakening life, obeying thatlaw which man, in his superiority, sets aside to suit his ownartificial pleasures. The sparkling morning haze shrouding thefoot-hills was lifting, yielding a vision of natural beautyunsurpassed at any other time of the day. The earth was good--it wasclean, wholesome, purified by the long restful hours of night, andready to yield, as ever, those benefits to animal life which Nature sogenerously showers upon an ungrateful world.

  Peter Blunt straightened up from his camp-fire which he had just setgoing. He stretched his great frame and drank in the nectar of the airin deep gulps. The impish figure of Elia sat on a box to windward ofthe fire, watching his companion with calm eyes. He was enjoyinghimself as he had rarely ever enjoyed himself. He was free from thetrammels of his sister's loving, guiding hand--trammels which wereever irksome to him, and which, somewhere inside him, he despised as abondage to which his sex had no right to submit. He was with hisfriend Peter, helping him in his never-ending quest for gold. Huntingfor gold. It sounded good in the boy's ears. Gold. Everybody dreamedof gold; everybody sought it--even his sister. But this--this was anew life.

  There were Peter's tools, there was their camp, there was the work inprocess. There was his own little A tent, which Peter insisted that heshould sleep in, while, for himself, he required only the starry skyas a roofing, and good thick blankets, to prevent the heat going outof his body while he slept. Yes; the boy was happy in his own curiousway. He was living on "sow-belly" and "hardtack," and extras in theway of "canned truck," and none of the good things which his sisterhad ever made for him had tasted half so sweet as the rough cooking ofthis wholesome food by Peter. Something like happiness was his justnow; but he regretted that it could only last until his sisterreturned to Barnriff. The boy's interest in the coming day's work nowinspired his words.

  "We go on with this sinking?" he inquired; and there was a boyishpride in the use of the plural.

  Peter nodded. His eyes were watching the fire, to see that it playedno trick on him.

  "Yep, laddie," he said, in his kindly way. "We've got a bully prospecthere. We'll see it through after we've had breakfast. Sleepy?"

  Elia returned him an unsmiling negative. Smiling was apparentlyunnatural to him. The lack of it and the lack of expression in hiseyes, except when stirred by terror, showed something of the warp ofhis mind.

  "You aren't damp, or--or anything? There's a heap of dew around." Theman was throwing strips of "sow-belly" into the pan, and the coffeewater was already set upon the flaming wood.

  "You needn't to worry 'bout them things for me, Peter," Elia declaredpeevishly. "Wimmin folks are like that, an' it sure makes me sick."

  The other laughed good-naturedly as he took a couple of handfuls ofthe "hardtack" out of a sack.

  "You'd be a man only they won't let you, eh? You've the grit, laddie,there's no denying."

  The boy felt pleased. Peter understood him. He liked Peter, onlysometimes he wished the man wasn't so big and strong. Why wasn't hehump-backed with a bent neck and a "game" leg? Why wasn't he afraid ofthings? Then he never remembered seeing Peter hurt anything, and heloved to hurt. He felt as if he'd like to thrust a burning brand onPeter's hand while he was cooking, and see if he was afraid of thehurt, the same as he would be. Then his mind came back to things ofthe moment. This gold prospecting interested him more than anythingelse.

  "How far are we from Barnriff?" he asked abruptly.

  "Twenty odd miles west. Why?"

  "I was kind o' wonderin'. Seems we've been headin' clear thro' ferBarnriff since we started from way back there on the head waters. Wesunk nine holes, hain't we? Say, if we keep right on we'll hitBarnriff on this line?"

  "Sure." The man's blue eyes were watching the boy's face interestedly.

  "You found the color o' gold, an' the ledge o' quartz in each o' themholes, ain't you?"

  "Yep."

  "Well, if we keep on, an' we find right along, we're goin' to findsome around Barnriff."

  "Good, laddie," Peter replied, approving his obvious reasoning. "I'mworking on those old Indian yarns, and, according to them, Barnriffmust be set right on a mighty rich gold mine."

  The calm eyes of the boy brightened. Barnriff on a gold mine!

  "An' when you find it?"

  Peter's eyes dropped before the other's inquiring gaze. That was thequestion always before him, but it did not apply to material gold. Andwhen he should find it, what then? Simply his quest would have closedat another chapter. His work for the moment would be finished; and hewould once more have to set out on a fresh quest to appease hisrestless soul. He shook his head.

  "We haven't found it yet," he said.

  "But when you do?" the boy persisted.

  Peter handed him his plate and his coffee, and sat down to his ownbreakfast. But the boy insisted on an answer.

  "Yes?"

  "Well, laddie, it's kind of tough answering that. I can't rightly tellyou."

  "But a gold mine. Gee! You'll be like a Noo York millionaire, withdollars an' dollars to blow in at the saloon."

  Again Peter shook his head. His face seemed suddenly to have grownold. His eyes seemed to lack their wonted lustre. He sighed.

  "I don't want the dollars," he said. "I've got dollars enough; so manythat I hate 'em."

  Elia gaped at him.

  "You got dollars in heaps?" he almost gasped. "Then why are youlookin' for more?"

  Peter buried his face in a large pannikin of coffee, and when itemerged the questioning eyes were still upon him.

  "Folks guess you're cranked on gold, an' need it bad," the puzzled boywent on. "They reckon you're foolish, too, allus lookin' around whereyou don't need, 'cause there ain't any there. I've heerd fellers sayyou're crazy."

  Peter laughed right out.

  "Maybe they're right," he said, lighting his pipe.

  But Elia shook his head shrewdly.

  "You ain't crazy. I'd sure know it. Same as I know when a feller'sbad--like Will Henderson. But say, Peter," he went on persuasively,"I'd be real glad fer you to tell me 'bout that gold. What you'd do,an' why? I'm real quick understanding things. It kind o' seems to meyou're good. You don't never scare me like most folks. I can't seeright why----"

  "Here, laddie"--Peter leaned his head back on his two locked hands,and propped himself against the pack saddle--"don't you worry yourhead with those things. But I'll tell you something, if you're quickunderstanding. Maybe, if other folks heard it--grown folks--they'dsure say I was crazy. But you're right, I'm not crazy, only--onlymaybe tired of things a bit. It's not gold I'm looking for--that is,in a way. I'm looking for something that all the gold in the worldcan't buy."

  His tone became reflective. He was talking to the boy, but histhoughts seemed suddenly to have drifted miles away, lost in acontemplation of something which belonged to the soul in him alone. Hewas like a man who sees a picture in his mind which absorbs his wholeattention, and drifts him into channels of thought which belong to hissolitary moments.

  "I'm looking for it day in day out, weeks and years. Sometimes I thinkI find it, and then it's gone again. Sometimes I think it don't exist;then again I'm sure it does. Yes, there've been moments when I knowI've found it, but it gets out of my hand so quick I can't rightlybelieve I've ever had it. I go on looking, on and on, and I'll go onto my dying day, I s'pose. Other folks are doing much the same, Iguess, but they don't know they're doing it, and they're the luckierfor it. What's the use, anyway--and yet, I s'pose, we must all workout our little share in the scheme of thing
s. Seems to me we've allgot our little 'piece' to say, all got our little bit to do. And we'vejust got to go on doing it to the end. Sometimes it's hard, sometimesit's so mighty easy it sets you wondering. Ah, psha!"

  Then he roused out of his mood, and addressed himself more definitelyto the boy.

  "You see, laddie, I don't belong to this country. But I stay righthere till I've searched all I know, and so done my 'piece.' Then I'llup stakes and move on. You see, it's no use going back where I belong,because what I'm looking for don't exist there. Maybe I'll never findwhat I'm looking for--that is to keep and hold it. Maybe, as I say,I'll get it in driblets, and it'll fly away again. It don't muchmatter. Meanwhile I find gold--in those places folks don't guess it'sany use looking. Do you get my meaning?"

  The quizzical smile that accompanied his final question was verygentle, and revealed something of the soul of the man.

  Elia didn't answer for some moments. He was trying to straighten outthe threads of light which his twisted mind perceived. Finally heshook his head. And when he spoke his words showed only too plainlyhow little he was interested in the other's meaning, and how much hiscupidity was stirred.

  "And that gold--in Barnriff? When you've found it?"

  Peter laughed to think that he had expected the boy to understand him.How could he--at his age?

  "I'll give it to you, laddie--all of it."

  "Gee!"

  Elia's cold eyes lit with sudden greed.

  "But you'd best say nothing to the folks," Peter added slyly. "Don'tlet 'em know we're looking for anything."

  "Sure," cried the boy quickly, with a cunning painful to behold."They'd steal it. Will Henderson would."

  Peter thought for a moment, and relit his pipe, which had gone outwhile he was talking.

  "You don't like Will, laddie," he said presently, and so blunderedinto the midst of the boy's greedy reverie.

  "I hate him!"

  Any joy that the thought of the promised gold might have given himsuddenly died out of the dwarf's vindictive heart, and in its placewas a raging storm of hatred. Such savage passion was his dominatingfeature. At the best there was little that was gentle in him.

  "You hate him because of that night--about the chickens?"

  But no answer was forthcoming. Peter waited, and then went on.

  "There's something else, eh?"

  But the eyes of the boy were fixed upon the now smouldering fire, norcould the other draw them. So he went on.

  "Will's your sister's husband now. Sort of your--brother. Yoursister's been desperate good to you. You've had everything she couldgive you, and mind, she's had to work for it--hard. She loves you sobad, she'd hate to see you hurt your little finger--she's mighty goodto you. Gee, I wish I had such a sister. Well, now she's got ahusband, and she loves him bad, too. I was wondering if you'd everthought how bad she'd feel if she knew you two were at loggerheads?You've never thought, have you? Say, laddie, it would break her up theback. It would surely. She'd feel she'd done you a harm--and that initself is sufficient--and she'd feel she was upsetting Will. Andbetween the two she'd be most unhappy. Say, can't you like him? Can'tyou make up your mind to get on with him right when he comes back?Can't you, laddie?"

  The boy's eyes suddenly lifted from the fire, and the storm was stillin them.

  "I hate him!" he snarled like a fierce beast.

  "I'm sorry--real sorry."

  "Don't you go fer to be sorry," cried the boy, with that strangequickening of all that was evil in him. "I tell you Will's bad. He'sbad, an' he sure don't need to be, 'cause it's in him to be good. Heain't like me, I guess. I'm bad 'cause I'm made bad. I don't neverthink good. I can't. I hate--hate--allus hate. That's how I'm made,see? Will ain't like that. He's made good, but he's bad because he'drather be bad. He's married my sister because she's a fool, an' can'tsee where Jim Thorpe's a better man. Jim Thorpe wanted to marry her.He never said, but I can see. An' she'd have married him, on'y ferWill comin' along. She was kind o' struck on Jim like, an' then Willbutts in, an' he's younger, an' better lookin', an' so she marrieshim. An'--an' I hate him!"

  "But your sister? What's poor Eve going to do with you always hatingWill? She'll get no happiness, laddie, and you'd rather see her happy.Say, if you can't help hating Will, sure you can hide it. You needn'tto run foul of him. You go your way, and he can go his. Do you knowI'm pretty sure he'll try and do right by you, because of Eve----"

  "Say, Peter, you're foolish." The boy had calmed, and now spoke with ashrewd decision that was curiously convincing. "Will'll go his way,and Eve won't figger wuth a cent with him. I know. Eve'll jest have togit her toes right on the mark, same as me. He's a devil, and I know.Will'll make Eve hate herself, same as he'll make me. Say, an' I'lltell you this, Eve'll hev to work for him as well as me. I know. I cansee. You can't tell me of Will, nor of nobody that's bad--'cause I kensee into 'em. I'm bad, an' I ken see into folks who 're bad."

  There was no argument against such an attitude as the boy took.Besides, Peter began to understand. Here was an unique study inpsychology. The boy either fancied he possessed--or did possess--suchunusual powers of observation that they almost amounted to theprophetic, where that which was bad was concerned. He saw Will in alight in which no one else saw him, although already he, Peter, andJim had witnessed unpleasant dashes of that side of the man'scharacter which Elia seemed to read like an open book. However, hecould not abandon his task yet, but he changed his tactics.

  "Maybe you're right, laddie," he said. "I was thinking of poor Eve. Iwas wondering if you wouldn't like to try and make her happy, seeingshe's always been so good to you. I do believe you'd rather she washappy."

  The boy nodded his head, and an impish light crept into his eyes.

  "And you're going to try and make her--happy?"

  Peter was smiling with simple eager hope. The impish light deepened inthe boy's eyes.

  "Maybe," he said. "Guess I'll do what I ken. When Will treats me fairI'll treat him fair. I can't do a heap of work, seein' I'm as I am,but if he wants me to do things I'll do 'em--if he treats me fair.I'll do what I ken, but I hate him. Maybe you're guessin' that'll bemakin' things fair for Eve. You best guess agin." Then the impishlight left his eyes, and they became quite serious again. "Say, tellme some more 'bout that gold?"

  But Peter laughed and shook his head.

  "Time enough, laddie," he said, pleased with the result of his firstessay on behalf of peace between Elia and Will. "You're going to getthat gold when we find it, sure, so come right along and let's get towork--and find it."