The Water Hole

by Zane Grey

  “Peaches, you ain’t got a whole lot of anythin’ on,” Snitch remarked fervidly.

  Black Dick surveyed her with the appraising eyes of a connoisseur.

  “Wal, sweetie, I reckon if you had a dime hid on you, I could see it,” he concluded with finality.

  Twelve

  “Say, you’re gettin’ too big a kid fer sech short dresses,” Black Dick observed disapprovingly to Cherry.

  “We were caught in the rain and my clothes shrunk,” explained Cherry.

  “Reckon you’re about sixteen years old, hain’t you?”

  “Oh, I’m a little more than that.” Cherry dimpled, very much pleased.

  “How much?”

  “Several years.”

  “Humph! No one would take you fer a grown girl. I’m afeared your mother hain’t brought you up right…lettin’ you run around with your fat knees all bare.”

  “Fat? They’re not fat,” retorted Cherry, promptly insulted.

  “Excuse me. Wal, they’re bare. You can’t deny that. An’ after I give your ma a lecture, I’ll give you one,” concluded Black Dick. “Snitch,” he said to his lieutenant, “you go diggin’ around an’ see if thar’s anythin’ more wuth takin’.”

  Thereupon he confronted the dejected and crushed Mrs. Sarland. “Look ahyar, lady,” he began, “your gurl says she’s eighteen years old. An’ I’m tellin’ you she hain’t been brought up decent. Wearin’ sech clothes out hyar in the desert. Why, it ain’t respectable. An’ it ain’t safe, neither. You might meet up with some hombres thet was not gennelmen like me an’ Snitch.”

  Mrs. Sarland was spurred out of her apathy into a wrathful astonishment that rendered her mute.

  Black Dick evidently saw that he had made a profound impression. “I took her fer a kid, like them I see in town, wearin’ white cotton socks thet leave their legs bare,” he said. “An’ hyar she’s of age. There ought to be somethin’ done about it. You ought to be ashamed of yourself to let your dautter run around like thet.”

  “My daughter?” burst out Mrs. Sarland furiously. “That flapper! Not much! She’s no kin of mine.”

  “Excoose me, lady. I had a hunch she was sister to this dude you’ve got with you,” Black Dick returned coolly. “Come to think aboot it I might have knowed from her looks.”

  Snitch approached at this moment, carrying sundry articles he had taken from Mrs. Sarland’s saddle. One of them was a light handbag, which Black Dick promptly turned inside out. It contained gloves, handkerchief, powder puff, cosmetics and like articles, and also a magazine with a highly colored front page. The robber kept this and returned the other things.

  “Snitch, you poke around some more,” he said laconically, and turned to Cherry. She, from her perch on the packs, had expected this and prepared herself with sad face and tearful eyes.

  “Wot’s your name?” he asked.

  “Cherry.”

  “Kind of suits you somehow…Wot you cryin’ aboot?”

  “I’m very scared and unhappy.”

  “Scared? Of me?”

  “Oh no. I’m not afraid of you. I think you’re a real man. But these people have kidnaped me…to get money out of my father.”

  “Ah-huh. Wot’d this fellar Heftral pretend he was me fer?” Black Dick asked, growing more and more curious.

  “I suppose to intimidate me. But he wasn’t a bit like you.”

  “So thet old bird is a kidnaper?” mused Black Dick darkly. “An’ Heftral’s been roped in the deal. Wal, this is funny. And, say, Miss Cherry’s not a flapper?”

  “A flapper is a young chicken just trying its wings,” Cherry said.

  “Shore. I ain’t so dumb as I look. But the old lady there called you a flapper, an’ the way she said it struck me more’n that.”

  “Indeed it is,” Cherry responded feelingly. “Flapper is a name given us young girls by nasty, jealous people. They say a flapper is not good…that she swears, flirts, drinks, smokes…and worse. That she’s to blame for the indecent style of clothes these days…which is a lie…that she won’t obey her parents or go to church or be satisfied with one husband…or…or anything.”

  “Wal, I’ll be dog-goned,” Black Dick said with sympathy and disdain. Cherry was tremendously delighted to observe that Heftral was listening. “Shore are a lot of mean people. Now I’m only an old desert pack rat, snoopin’ round when I get broke, but I could see you was a nice girl. I was jest throwed off a little by your dress bein’ so short.”

  “Thank you, Mister Black Dick,” said Cherry, thinking that never had she received more sincere approval.

  “Wal, we’ll see wot can be did with this old hen,” said the robber. Then he happened to notice Heftral sitting there as if he had not a friend in the world.

  “Say, Heftral, my Navvy friends tipped me off aboot these pickin’s. And what were you up to? Don’t you reckon it’s dangerous pretendin’ to be me? There are men who’d shoot at you fer it.”

  “I never thought of that at the time,” Heftral returned, lowering his voice. “The honest truth is I was just in fun. And I’m not so sure it was all my idea.”

  Then they got their heads together and conversed in such low tones that Cherry could not hear any more.

  “Boss, there ain’t any more stuff worth hevin’, onless it’s the grub,” announced Snitch, coming up. “Some orful fancy eats.”

  “Well, I’ve a grand idee,” said Black Dick, slapping his knee, and he winked one of his great bold black eyes at Cherry. “We’re goin’ to have aristocracy cook for us.”

  Whereupon he approached Mrs. Sarland with a slow rolling step, his sombrero cocked on one side of his head, his right thumb in the armhole of his vest, and his left hand holding onto the magazine.

  “Lady,” said Dick grandly, “you’re goin’ to be honored by cookin’ a meal fer Black Dick. An’ if you don’t do your best, I’ll feel it my boundin’ duty to tote you off an’ larn you how.”

  Mrs. Sarland fell back with horror in her face.

  “I like my wimmen with spunk,” went on the desperado. “Could you larn to cuss, an’ toss off a drink, an’ kick me in the shins?”

  “Merciful heavens…no!”

  “Wal, then, you cook an’ Whitepants hyar can be cookee. Rustle up some firewood…An’ now, sister, waddle along. An’ mebbe I’ll let you off.”

  “Beast!” Mrs. Sarland screamed, and she ran toward the campfire.

  “Cook dinner then, you two!” yelled Dick. “An’ don’t be all day aboot it.”

  Cherry had observed that these men, despite the earlier action of robbing the party, and their later antics, took occasion now and then to gaze up and down the cañon. The younger one, Snitch, was particularly keen. These outlaws expected someone to come along or else were just habitually cautious and watchful.

  Black Dick and Snitch sat down close together, with the magazine on the former’s knees. They had the air of guilty gleeful schoolboys about to partake in a thrilling and forbidden act. They made a picture Cherry would never forget, and reminded her of the mischievous cowboys. All these natives of Arizona had some inimitable Western quality, the keynote of which was fun.

  Dick’s huge dirty hands turned the pages, until suddenly they froze, then the bent heads grew absorbed.

  “Jerusalem!” ejaculated Dick.

  “Ain’t she a looker!” exclaimed his comrade raptly.

  They turned a page and giggled. Then Black Dick looked up, swept the immediate horizon, and, happening to see Cherry, he waved a hand, as if to tell her to go away far back somewhere and leave them to their joy. Dick turned another page, and they whispered argumentatively. Another page brought a loud gasp from Snitch and something that sounded very much like an oath from Black Dick. Then they were as petrified.

  “My Gord!” finally burst out Dick. “Snitch, do you see wot I see?” />
  “I’m lookin’ at thet lady in the Garden of Eden,” Snitch replied, breathing heavily.

  “She hain’t got a damn’ thing on,” Dick said in consternation. “Say, this must be gettin’ to be an orful world.”

  “Wonder who tooked thet picture,” returned Snitch. “It had to be tooked by a fotoggrapher.”

  “It says so…an’ a man at thet. Shore I wouldn’t been him fer a million dollars.”

  “I’d tooked thet picture fer nuthin’,” said Snitch.

  Black Dick continued turning the pages, very slowly, as if he expected one of them to explode and blow them to bits.

  “Wal, hyar’s somebody with clothes on…sech as they are,” he observed presently.

  “Actress. Not so bad, huh? You’d get a hunch there ain’t any men in New Yoork.”

  “Men don’t cut much ice nowheres,” Dick said shrewdly. “When Eve got thick with thet big snake, they fixed it so men did all the work, or become tramps like us, or went to jail.”

  “Dick, it ain’t so long ago when the pictures we seen …most on them cigarette cairds…was wimmen in tights,” Snitch said reminiscently.

  “Shore, but it’s longer’n you think. You can bet there ain’t nothin’ like that these days. The world is goin’ to hell.”

  “Hold on,” interposed Snitch, halting Dick’s too impetuous hand. “Heah’s a nice picture.”

  “Nice? Snitch, you was brought up iggnorant. Thet ain’t nice. Can’t you see it’s two girls in a room? They’re half undressed an’ smokin’ cigarettes. Turrible fetchin’, but shore not nice.”

  “Read what it says.”

  Black Dick took time to go over the page cautiously before he committed himself. Finally, tracing with a big finger, he began haltingly. “Clara (between dances). ‘Mabel…why…did…you…stop…wearing…corsets?’

  “Mabel. ‘I…had…a couple…of complaints.’

  Black Dick looked up at Snitch, and Snitch returned the glance, then went back to the page. “What you make of that?”

  “Complaints? Somebody didn’t like them corsets of Mabel’s.”

  “Wal, supposin’ he didn’t?”

  Switch jerked up, scintillating with sudden brilliance. “Don’t you savvy? It says ‘between dances.’ They was a dance. Har! Har! Har!”

  “Wal, the durned hussy,” Dick exclaimed, exasperated. “Switch, this hyar all ain’t so damned funny. Thet’s the furst readin’ I’ve did since the war. Wal, time changes everythin’…But, Snitch, we ain’t so bad off. Shore, we’re often hungry an’ oftener broke waitin’ fer a chanct like this, an’ we’re dirty an’ unshaved, with a few sheriffs lookin’ fer us…but I’m damned if I’d change places with any of them people…even thet pho-toggrapher. Would you?”

  “Nary time, Dick. Give me a hoss an’ the open country,” replied Snitch, rising to take a look up and down the cañon. Black Dick’s ox eyes rolled and set under a rugged frown. Evidently in the magazine he had been confronted with a mysterious and perplexing world.

  Cherry decided about this time that this desert rat several sheriffs were looking for was not half a bad fellow.

  Presently Mrs. Sarland called them to the meal she had been forced to prepare. She was very red and there was a black smudge on her nose, but she faced them with confidence. Snitch let out a whoop and alighted on the ground with his legs tucked under him—a marvelous performance considering the long spurs. Black Dick surveyed the white tablecloth spread upon the tarpaulin and the varied assortment of cooked and uncooked food.

  “Wal, if I ain’t dreamin’ now, I’ll have a nightmare soon,” he said, and squatted down. Snitch had already begun to eat. Dick, observing that he had not unfolded his napkin, took it up and handed it to him.

  “Wot’s…thet?” Snitch asked with his mouth full.

  “You ignorramus. Sometimes I wonder if your mother wasn’t a cow…”

  “Wal, I never had indigestion or colic, but I’m goin’ through hyar if it kills me.”

  Cherry had seen hungry cowboys eat, to her amazement and delight, but they could not hold a candle to these outlawed riders of the range. Their gastronomic feats were bewildering, even alarming to see. Not a shadow of doubt was there that Mrs. Sarland had served concoctions cunningly devised and mixed to make these men ill, if not poison them outright. Sandwiches, cakes, sardines, cheese, olives, pickles, jam, crackers, disappeared alike with hot biscuits, ham, potatoes, and baked beans. When they had absolutely cleaned the platter, Black Dick arose and quaintly doffed his sombrero to Mrs. Sarland.

  “Madam, you may be a disreputable person, but you shore can hand out the grub,” he said.

  Snitch had arisen, also, but his attention was on the far break of the cañon, where clouds of dust appeared to be rising. “Look at that, pard,” he said.

  “Ah-huh. Get up high somewheres, so you can see,” returned Dick, and strode toward the horses that had strayed to the cedars. When he led them back, Snitch had come down from the ledge.

  “Bunch of cowpunchers ridin’ up the cañon,” he announced.

  “Wal, we seen ’em furst,” his comrade said, mounting. Then he surveyed the expectant group before him. “Madam, I reckon I’ll never survive thet dinner you spread. Heftral, if you ain’t in fer a necktie party, I don’t know cowpunchers. Miss Cherry, so long an’ good luck to you. Chaun-cey, if we ever meet again, I’m gonna shoot at them white pants.”

  He rode away. Snitch, swinging to the saddle, flashed his red face in a devilish grin at Cherry.

  “Good bye, Peaches!” he called meaningly. “I’d shore love to see more of you.”

  Spurring his horse, he soon caught up with Black Dick. Together they rode into the cedars and disappeared up the cañon.

  “Thank God, they’re gone!” Mrs. Sarland cried, sinking in a heap. “Gone with every dollar…every diamond I possessed! Chauncey Sarland, you will rue this day.”

  Cherry had been realizing the return of strong feeling. It did not easily gain possession of her at once. There was a contest in her mind, which went down before memory. The cowboys were coming. And that recalled the bitter shame and humiliation Heftral had heaped upon her. She positively writhed at recollection of the spanking he had administered. Something sharp and stinging had attached itself to that memory. The farther away from it she got, the more bitter and mocking it returned. How impossible to forgive or forget! The anger within her was like a hot knot of nerves suddenly exposed. She hated him, and the emotions that had developed since were as if they had never been.

  “Mister Heftral, the cowboys are coming,” she said significantly, turning to him.

  “So I heard,” he replied curtly. He looked hard and he was slightly pale. Perhaps he appreciated more than she what he was in for. Cherry was disappointed that he did not appeal to her. But she would only have mocked him and perhaps he knew that.

  The dust clouds approached, rolling up out of the cedars. Crack of iron-shod hoof on rock, the crash of brush, and rolling of stones were certainly musical sounds to Cherry. There was something else, too, but what she could not divine. She knew her heart beat fast. When Wess rode out of the cedars, at the head of the cowboys, it gave a spasmodic leap and then seemed to stand still. How strange a thought accompanied that. She wished they had not come. They did not appear to be a rollicking troupe of gay cowboys; they were grim men. It was very unusual for these cowboys to be silent.

  Wess halted his horse some little distance off, and his companions closed in behind. His hawk eyes had taken in the Sarlands. Cherry noted what a start this gave him. She heard them speaking low. Then Wess dismounted, gun in hand. That gave Cherry a shock. This lout of a cowboy, who she could twist around her little finger, seemed another and a vastly different person. They all slid off their horses.

  “Reckon Heftral’s got a gun, but he won’t throw it,” said Wess. “Wait till I…see who t
hese people are.”

  He strode over to confront Mrs. Sarland and Chauncey.

  “Who are you people?” he asked bluntly.

  “I am Missus Percival Sarland, of New York, and this is my son Chauncey,” she replied with dignity.

  “How did you get heah?”

  “We employed an Indian guide.”

  “How long have you been heah?”

  “It seems a long time, but in fact it is only a couple of days.”

  “What’d you come for?”

  “We used to be friends of Miss Winters,” returned Mrs. Sarland significantly. “We heard at the post she was out here, so we came…to my bitter regret and shame.”

  “Who else has been here?”

  “Two miserable thieving wretches,” burst out Mrs. Sarland. “Black Dick and his man. They robbed us.”

  “Reckon they saw us an’ made off pronto?” went on Wess, his keen eyes on the ground.

  “They just left…with all I had,” wailed Mrs. Sarland.

  “You’re lucky to get off so easy,” Wess said curtly. “You found Miss Winters an’ Heftral alone?”

  “Very much alone,” the woman replied scornfully. “He had kidnaped her.”

  “That’s what she says,” interposed Chauncey with sarcasm.

  “Ah-huh. I savvy,” Wess replied fiercely. “You’re intimatin’ Miss Winters might have come willin’?”

  Chauncey was about to reply, when one of the cowboys, whose back was turned and who Cherry could not recognize, slapped him so hard that he fell off the rock backward.

  “Wal, you better keep your mouth shet about it,” Wess said with a wide sweep of arm shoving the belligerent cowboy back. “Thet shore won’t save Heftral.”

  “Oh, this awful West!” screamed Mrs. Sarland. “You’re all alike. Cowboys…robbers…traders…Indians…scientists! You’re a mob of deceiving bloody villains.”

  “Madam, I reckon it ain’t goin’ to be pleasant around heah. You an’ your dandy Jim better leave pronto.”

  “Leave! Where and how? That man drove our guide away. We can’t saddle and pack horses, and much less find our way out of this hellish hole.”