The Heart of Canyon Pass

by Thomas K. Holmes

  CHAPTER XXVIII--CATASTROPHE

  No more snow or ice had followed that first sharp, furious blizzard; butwith the higher temperature had come heavy rainstorms which the nativesdeclared were quite unseasonable. The rivers were bank full. The lowerend of Main Street was washed by the water from both Forks. Severalfamilies had been obliged to move into the higher part of the town.

  But the flood had not driven Mother Tubbs and her little family out oftheir home. The wise old woman did not know just why Nell Blossom sangno more at the dance hall; but in her mind she knew that "suthin' wasworkin' on that gal." Meanwhile she proceeded to "work on" Sam as usual.

  Rocking on her back porch with the vista of dreary yards under her eye,but the rugged beauties of the Topaz Range in the distance, shephilosophized as usual on all things both spiritual and mundane. Sam waspottering about a broken table that she had convinced him he must mendbefore he left the premises for a stroll into the town, it beingSaturday afternoon.

  "I must say, too, that it seems as peaceful as Sunday back inMissouri--or pretty near," Mother Tubbs observed. "Things is changed yerein Canyon Pass. Ye must admit it, Sam."

  "Drat it!" snarled her husband, sucking a thumb he had just smashed withhis hammer. "I admit it all right. The Pass is gettin' plumb wuthless tolive in. Psalm singin', and preachin', and singin' meetings, and sech.Huh! Parson wants me to come to Bible class."

  After all he said it with some pride. Sam had, as he expressed it, "asneakin' likin'" for the parson. But he was determined not to show thatthis was so before Mother Tubbs.

  "Ain't you glad to live less like a savage--more decent and civilizedlike--than you useter, Sam Tubbs?" demanded the old woman.

  "I was satisfied as I was," grunted her husband. "I ain't one o' themthat's always wantin' change and somethin' new. If I had been, I'dpicked me a new woman before now."

  "The pickin' ain't very good in Canyon Pass," rejoined Mother Tubbscomplacently. "Them that's got husbands don't want to exchange. 'Twouldbe like jumpin' out of the skillet onto the coals. Them women that ain'tgot nary man are well content, I reckon, to get on without one if you,Sam Tubbs, are the only hope they got."

  "Huh!"

  Nell's sweet, clear voice floated down from the upper chamber. Inaccents that caressed, she sang an old song which she had found in BettyHunt's music, arranged for solo use.

  "Hear that child, Sam!" whispered the old woman, wiping her eyes whenthe pleading verse was finished. "Ain't that heaven-born?"

  "Huh!" said Sam, but in truth a little doubtfully. "I never consideredour Nell as bein' pertic'lar angelic. No ma'am! Not before."

  "She's as good as any angel," declared Mother Tubbs with conviction."Only she's flighty. Or useter be. And if she'd just go and sing themsongs at meetin', Canyon Pass would learn for once just what goodsingin' is."

  "I dunno but you're right, old woman," said Sam softly, as the voicefrom above took up the song again. "I've heard Nell Blossom sing many atime before; but it never so sort o' caught in muh cogs as that songdoes. But she can't sing them kind o' tunes in Colorado Brown's or theGrub Stake."

  "Hush, Sam! Don't mention it!" whispered his wife. "I hope to the Lordshe won't never hafter work in them places again."

  "Huh! How's she going to live?" asked the startled Sam.

  "You leave it to Parson Hunt," declared Mother Tubbs in the samesecretive way, "and Nell Blossom won't never no more hafter sing for herlivin'."

  Sam stared. His bald head flushed as his eyes began to twinkle and theknowing grin wreathed his sunken lips. He suddenly burst into a cackleof delight.

  "D'ye mean it? The parson? By mighty! So he's willin' to go the way ofall flesh, is he? Nell needn't work no more for her livin' if she don'twant?"

  "You poor fool," scornfully said his wife, holding up one of hisenormous blue yarn socks with a gaping hole in the heel, "if the parsonis as hard on his socks as you are, Sam Tubbs, Nell will have her workcut out for her--sure as sure!"

  It was the very next night that Nell Blossom sang for the first time atthe Canyon Pass church service. She had been twice to morning servicebefore this, coming in alone, refusing to sit near Mother Tubbs orBetty, and remaining silent even through the hymns. In truth, she hadnever learned those hymns that chanced to be given out on thoseoccasions. Rosabell Pickett did yeoman's service at the badly tunedpiano; but her own voice had the sweetness of a crow with the carryingpower of that same non-soothing bird. Rosabell kept the hymns going; butsometimes Hunt could have wished for even Miss Pelter of the DitsonCorners' choir to carry the air!

  As has been said, the Sunday evening service at Tolley's old shack wasnot so formal as the morning session. Hunt tried in the evening to leadthe singing himself. He had managed through the summer to teach theyoung folks several of the newer and more sprightly songs out of thecollection he had brought with him from the East. Some of the rougheryoung men who filled the rear benches in the evening were glad to make anoise with something besides their heavy boots, and they "went in" forthe singing with gusto.

  On this evening Nell came in with Mother Tubbs and Sam, but she sat downon the front bench between Betty and Rosabell Pickett. She handed somesheets of music to Rosabell, and Betty recognized them with a flush ofpleasure. It was plain that the accompanist had been prepared for Nell'snew move.

  "Do you think Mr. Hunt would let me sing a song?" whispered Nell toBetty.

  "Let you!" returned Betty eagerly. "He'll love you for it."

  Perhaps the emphatic statement was made by the parson's sister withoutthought of how it sounded. Nell's flower-like face warmed to a flushthat spread from the collar of her blouse to the waving tendrils of hairunder her hat brim. She hid her face quickly from Betty. The latter,perhaps somewhat wickedly, enjoyed the other girl's confusion. Her hearthad suddenly expanded to Nell and her brother Ford. If she saw nohappiness ahead of her in life, Betty Hunt had begun to hope that theReverend Willett Ford Hunt and the Canyon Pass blossom would realize allthe happiness that a loving pair could compass.

  With a whisper and a head shake Betty informed the parson of what hemight expect from Nell at this meeting. Her presence had already filledHunt's heart with singing. Now, before his talk to the congregation--itwas not a sermon--he smiled at Nell and sat down while she sang the songshe had prepared and that had so stirred the hearts of Mother Tubbs andSam the day before.

  Rosabell Pickett for once got the spirit of the composition. She playedthe accompaniment softly, and she slurred over the sour notes of the oldpiano. When Nell stood up a hush of expectancy fell upon thecongregation. Even the boot-scrapings from the back benches weresilenced.

  Never had Canyon Pass heard Nell Blossom sing so sweetly. The girl'stones fairly gripped the heart-strings of her hearers and wrung them.The tears rolled down good old Mother Tubbs' face. Sam sat beside her,looking straight ahead more like a gargoyle than ever, afraid to winkfor fear the salt drops would carom from his bony cheeks. Steve Siebertin his corner, and Andy McCann in his--as far apart as the width of theroom would allow--looked like their burros, carved out of desert rock.Nothing seemed to move those old fellows. But the rest of thecongregation--even the roughnecks on the back seats--were subdued when thesong was done.

  After the service Hunt apprehended a new note in the manner and speechof his flock. He scarcely realized that his own talk had been morespiritual than usual because of the emotion roused within him by Nell'ssong. There was a hush over the room. The noisy fellows went out ontiptoe. Voices were subdued. For almost the first time the atmosphere ofthis rough room where they "held meetings" had become that of a realhouse of worship.

  "Steve Siebert is right," the parson told himself not without gravity."It is time that I should show my own respect beyond peradventure forthe religion I preach. Betty must shake the mothballs out of that coat."

  * * * * *

  Lizard Dan tooled his six mules across the East Fork. The water was morethan waist deep, and the beasts swam for
part of the way, and the insidepassengers sat on the small of their backs with their boots up on thecross-straps. The driver urged the team with voice and whip up the muddyrise to the Wild Rose. His desert-stained face was full of wrinkles ofexcitement. Joe Hurley, who chanced to be lingering at the door of thehotel, spied the emotion in the bus-driver's countenance.

  "What's got you, old-timer?" asked the mining man, strolling down to thestep below the driver. "Something on the road over from Crescent Citybite you?"

  "I got bit all right," growled Lizard Dan. He stooped to put his tobaccostained lips close to Joe's ear. "The sheriff of Cactus County rode overon the seat with me. Yeppy! And he dropped off back yonder to talk toSheriff Blaney."

  "Something doing?"

  "Youbetcha! The Cactus County sheriff was tellin' me. He's been after aguy that turned a trick last summer--fore part of the summer in fact--'wayout beyond Hoskins. He was some pretty shrewd short-card tin-horn, ifyou ask me."

  "A gambler? Anybody know him?" asked Joe quite idly.

  "I didn't get his name. The sheriff was pumpin' me a lot about who wasnew--if any--in Canyon Pass. I told him," and Dan grinned widely, "that'bout the newest citizens we had yere was Parson Hunt and his sister."

  "You're some little josher, aren't you, Dan?" said Joe, grimly. "Whathad the feller done?"

  "The one the sheriff's after? Cleaned out a sheep camp with marked cardsand then made his get-a-way under a gun. Cool as the devil! Shot one ofthose sheepticks--I mean to say, a shepherd. Never did have much use forsheep men----"

  "Me neither," admitted Hurley.

  "But they are ha'f human--leastways, that's how I look at 'em," pursuedLizard Dan. "They should have their chance. Marked cards and a gun is noway to win their spondulicks. No, sir."

  "What makes the Cactus County officer think the sharper came this way?"

  "Says he and a posse follered him to the Canyon County line, up yonder,'long back in the summer. They figgered he'd gone Lamberton way, so theyswayed off and didn't come yere. Now something new has come up about thefeller, I take it, and the Cactus County sheriff has come yere to getBlaney to help comb this part of the territory. I told him we didn'thave no loose gamblers yere. They all got jobs and have held 'em sometime."

  "Tolley is always picking up new hombres," said Hurley thoughtfully. "Ican't keep run of all the scabby customers he brings in here."

  "But not card-sharps," said Lizard Dan, shaking his head. "He ain't gota new dealer in a dog's age. You wouldn't count Dick Beckworth one. It'sjust like he's always been yere."

  He waddled away with the mail sacks and his large-bore gun. Hurley foundhimself suddenly startled by an entirely uncalled-for thought. Surelynothing Lizard Dan had said should have inspired this:

  Dick Beckworth had been away from Canyon Pass from the early springtimeuntil recently. He had ridden in from the wilderness on the occasion ofthe first blizzard. Where had the gambler been during the months he wasmissed at the Grub Stake?

  Hurley was half tempted to go to the Grub Stake and make an inquiry ortwo, but since that notable night when Steve Siebert had held up Tolleyand his gang, Joe had seldom been inside the place. He did, however,wander along the now quiet street toward the honkytonk.

  It was drawing toward evening, and a drizzle of rain, which hadthreatened all day, swept across the West Fork and muffled the townalmost instantly as in a gray blanket. The roar of Runaway River in thecanyon blew back into Joe's ears and made him deaf to most other sounds.

  But as he crossed the mouth of the alley beside Tolley's place he hearda sharp "Hist!" He turned to look. A girl, wrapped in a flutteringcloak, stood there, dimly revealed in the thicker darkness of the alley.

  "Well, what do you want?" demanded the mining man.

  "Mr. Hurley!"

  "Great saltpeter! what's the matter, Rosy?"

  "Hush! Shet your yawp!" warned the piano player. "Want to get me intotrouble?"

  "Not a bit. What's up?"

  "I don't know. But it's something--something bad."

  "Bad? About whom?"

  "Parson Hunt and his sister Betty."

  "Betty Hunt?" muttered the mining man with an emphasis that would havetold a woman of much less discernment than Rosabell Pickett all that wasnecessary.

  "Yeppy. You like her, Joe Hurley. You want to look out for her. Somebodyhas got to. That Dick Beckworth----"

  "Dick the Devil?"

  "You said it! He's got something on her."

  "He's got something on Betty Hunt? Never!"

  "No use layin' your hand on your gun butt. It needs something besidesthat. When fire's touched to the end of the fuse, no use tryin' to stampon the ashes. It is burning toward the powder barrel. The thing'sstarted. Dick's told it about her----"

  "Told what?" asked Hurley, almost shaking the girl.

  "That she was married back East, long before she come out here, and isposing here as an unmarried woman. He says he knows the man that wasmarried to her."

  Hurley was stricken dumb for the moment. Yet recovery was swift. Hestammered:

  "She--she might. It's no crime. She--she might have got a divorce andtaken her maiden name again, if it's true. But I wouldn't take Dick theDevil's word as to the color of the blue sky."

  "He's got a paper to prove it. I seen him show it to Boss Tolley. I runto get you. I saw you at the Wild Rose. I figger you are the one to tellthe parson."

  "And who's to tell Betty?" Joe inquired. "I--I----"

  "Oh! What's that?" exclaimed Rosabell, shrinking away. "I--I thought itwas thunder."

  A muttering sound grew in Hurley's hearing, but he paid little attentionto it at first. Was it this Betty had meant all the time, when she hadkept him at arm's length? When she had told him that there was somebodyback East who, at least, had her promise?

  Then the air quaked as though there had been a volcanic upheaval withinthe immediate district of Canyon Pass. Rosabell shrieked and ran backinto the gloom, disappearing toward the rear door of the Grub Stake. Joeran out into the street, seeing other men coming from the shops andsaloons.

  His gaze by chance was turned upon the wagon track down the slope beyondthe West Fork. He saw a flaming patch of white there. It came down thewagon track with terrific speed. In a moment he realized that it was awhite pony and rider.

  Lashing the steed the rider forced it into the West Fork. The animal hadto swim for it. It seemed as though the stream had filled terrificallywithin the last few minutes.

  Out of the flood scrambled the pony. It was not until then that anybodyrecognized Nell Blossom and her cream-colored mount. She urged the horseup into the town and they heard her clear voice rising above the sullenthunder of the three rivers:

  "The Overhang! The Overhang! It's down--it's filled the canyon! RunawayRiver is stoppered like with a cork in the neck of a bottle. The floodis coming!"