by Zane Grey
Only approval greeted his words. Howard, it appeared, had business in Big Run and would make the trip with them; Carr judged that it was time for him to be clearing out, and his way led through Big Run. So they hurried through breakfast and started.
Tod Barstow handled the reins of the four mules; beside him on the high, rocking seat, sat Longstreet. During his sojourn on the ranch he had acquired a big bright-red bandana handkerchief which now was knotted loosely about his sun-reddened throat; the former crease in his big hat had given place to a tall peak: he wore a pair of leather wrist-cuffs which he had purchased from Barbee. Barstow grunted and turned the grunt into a shrill yell directed at his mules; they knew his voice and jammed their necks deep into their collars, taking the road at a run. Longstreet, taken unawares, bounced and came dangerously near toppling off the seat. Then with both hands he clung to the iron guard-rod at the back of the seat and took his joy out of a new mode of travel.
Helen had elected to go on horseback. Howard had brought out for her a pretty little mare, coal-black and slender-limbed, but sufficiently gentle. Barbee, who had been watching, suddenly set his toe in his own stirrup and went up into the saddle, racing on to overtake and pass the wagon. Howard and Carr glanced swiftly at each other; then their eyes went to the girl. Howard helped her to mount and reined in at her right, Carr dropped into place at her left, and so, the three abreast, they followed Barbee.
They rode slowly, and now Howard, now Carr, told her of the points of interest along the trail. When they crossed the lower end of the valley and came to the top of the gentle slope extending along its eastern edge, Helen made a discovery. All these latter days she had thought of the desert as behind her, lying all to the westward. Now she understood how the ranch was aptly named Desert Valley; it was a freak, an oasis, a fertile valley with desert lands to east as well as west, and to north and south. When they had ridden down the far slope of the hills they were once more upon the edges of the solitudes of sand-sweep and sand-ridge and cactus and mesquite and utter drought. Every step their horses took carried them further into a land of arid menace; at the end of the first hour it was difficult to imagine green water-fields only a handful of miles away.
‘It’s just the water that makes the difference,’ Howard told her. ‘Isn’t it, John?’ Carr nodded. ‘If a man could get water to put on this land that is burning our horses’ fetlocks off right now, he’d have all the crops and stock range he wanted. Why, the bigger part of Desert Valley was like this before John took hold of it; he developed the water, and I’ve gone on with his work, and look what we’ve got now!’
‘That makes your ranch all the more wonderful!’ cried Helen.
Howard’s eyes glowed; she noted that they always did when he spoke thus of Desert Valley or when she bespoke her hearty approval of his choice. Something prompted her to turn swiftly to Carr; his head was down; he was frowning at the horn of his saddle; Helen, not devoid of either intuition or tact, changed the conversation. But not before she noted that Howard, too, had looked toward his friend.
Big Run huddled among tall cottonwoods in a shallow hollow. It was blessed with several clear, pure springs, its only blessing. It was self-sufficient, impudent. About it on all sides was the sweep of grey desert; in the shade of its cottonwoods, along its thicket of willows, was a modicum of greenness and coolness; its ugly houses like toads squatting in the shade had an air of jeering at the wastes of sand and scrub. The place was old in years and iniquity. The amazing thing connected with it was that its water could remain pure; one would have thought that through the years even the deathless springs would have been contaminated. Long ago it had been a Hopi camp; in their tongue it was called the ‘Half-Way between Here and There.’ Later a handful of treacherous devils from below the border had swooped down into the cottonwood hollow. They had dissipated the Indian group, for the sake of robbery and murder. They had squatted by the water-holes, prototypes of the crooked buildings which now recalled them; they had builded the town by the simple device of driving Indian labourers to the task. White men subsequently had come, men of the restless foot, lone prospectors, cattlemen. They had lodged briefly at the hotel which necessity had called into being, had played cards in the adobe of ‘Tonio Moraga, had quarrelled with the surly southerners, had now and then shot their way out into the clear starlit night or had known the cruel bite of steel, and in any case had left Big Run as they had found it—a town oddly American in nothing whatever save its name, which had come whence and how no man knew.
First into town that morning rode Yellow Barbee; with no urge to linger and a definite destination ahead, he always rode hard, his hat far back, his blue eyes shining. He sent his lean roan on the run down the crooked street among the crooked houses; he scattered a handful of dirty ducks flopping and scuttling out of his way; he drew after him a noisy barking of dogs, startled out of their sleep in the shade; he brought his horse up with a sharp jerk of the reins before the blue-and-white sign of the saloon; he was half out of the saddle when a glimpse of something down the street altered his intention in a flash; he wheeled his horse, and, with one stirrup flying wildly, his big hat in his hand, his eyes on fire, he went racing back down the street and again stopped with a jerk. This time the sign before him spelled hotel. Leaving his horse to pant and fight flies, Yellow Barbee strode in at the open door.
Next came in due time Tod Barstow and the mule team and Longstreet. They clattered along in clouds of high-puffed dust, harness jingling. Barstow swung his leaders skilfully and narrowly around the broken corners of old adobes and slammed on his brake before the store, that is to say, half-way between saloon and hotel. He climbed down, Longstreet after him.
Finally came the loiterers, Helen and Carr and Howard. They noted Barbee’s roan at its hitching-rail; further they glimpsed through a thirsty-looking dusty vine—that which Barbee had glimpsed before them. Some one wearing cool, laundered white was out upon the side porch; Barbee’s voice, young and eager, low yet vibrant, bespoke Barbee’s proximity to the Someone.
‘The widow.’ said Carr. He looked at Howard. ‘I’ll bet you a hat it’s Mrs. Murray, Al.’
It was vaguely impressed upon Helen that a significance less casual than the light words themselves lay in Carr’s remark. She, too, looked at Howard. There was a frown in his eyes. Slowly, as his look met hers, a flush spread in his cheeks. Carr saw it and laughed amusedly.
‘Look out, Al,’ he chuckled. ‘She’ll get you yet.’
Now Howard laughed with him and the flush subsided.
‘John thinks he’s a great little josher, Miss Helen,’ he said lightly. ‘No doubt you’ll meet Mrs. Murray at lunch; you just watch the way she looks at John Carr!—there’s the professor waiting for us. John, I’ll lay you a bet of another hat!’
‘Well?’ asked Carr.
‘I’ll bet you Jim Courtot has turned up again.’
But Longstreet had sighted them and was out in the road calling to them, and Carr made no answer.
CHAPTER VII
Waiting for Moonrise
For upward of two hours Longstreet and Helen were at the store, making their purchases. Carr said good-bye, promising to look them up at their camp at the ridge by the time they should be ready for callers; he shook hands warmly with the professor, and for a moment stood over Helen, looking steadily into her eyes. She returned his regard frankly and friendlily, but in the end flushed a little. When Carr went out, Howard, saying that he would be back presently, went out with him.
‘Two bang-up, square-shooting gents!’ cried Longstreet warmly. Helen turned upon him in amazement.
‘Papa!’ she gasped. ‘Where on earth did you get that sort of talk?’
Longstreet smiled brightly.
‘Haven’t I told you, my dear.’ he explained, ‘that when in Rome one should learn from the Romans?’
He led the way to t
he counter. It was heaped high with all sorts of merchandise, dry goods and groceries, and hardware—anything the purchaser might desire from ham and bacon and tinned goods to shirts and overalls, spurs and guns. Behind it stood the proprietor, a slant-eyed, thievish-looking Mexican, while behind him were his untidy shelves—a further jumble of commodities. He looked his approval at the girl, his professional interest at the father.
Longstreet frankly turned out the contents of his purse upon the counter, his ready way of computing their resources and judging the proper cash outlay for the present. The slant eyes grew narrower with speculation.
‘One hundred and eighty-odd dollars,’ he computed approximately. ‘We’ll spend about a hundred with you to-day, my friend.’
‘Bueno, señor,’ agreed the Mexican. And he waved to his shelves.
Helen, who knew only too well her father’s carelessness in money matters, was not satisfied with an approximate estimate of their resources. She counted carefully.
‘You should have had nearer two hundred dollars, pops,’ she told him gently. ‘Have you felt in all your pockets? I am afraid that you have lost a five or ten-dollar piece.’
He evaded. ‘It’s of no moment.’ he said hastily. ‘A few bucks one way or the other won’t plug a hole in a ‘dobe wall. And this hombre is waiting.’
This time Helen did not even gasp. Something had occurred to work havoc with her father’s accustomed fine academic speech. This smacked, she thought, of the influence of Barbee.
But soon she forgot this and with it the discrepancy in cash; she had begun to purchase, to barter with the storekeeper, to fairly revel in delights of camp preparations. For, after all, life was not all seriousness, and here, offering itself for the morrow, was a rare lark. A spice of recklessness entered the moment; the dollars went skipping across the counter, and packages and boxes came heaped up in their places.
Howard looked in on them once; they did not see him. He went his way, and still Longstreet made new suggestions and Helen and the Mexican bargained. The first coolness of the late afternoon was stirring, the broad sun had gone down, leaving the land in soft, grateful shadow, something over a hundred dollars had been spent, when with a sigh Helen put the residue of the family fortune into the old purse, and the purse, though reluctantly, into her father’s pocket. She did not want to hurt his feelings now; but she really thought that once they were settled in their new home, she ought to employ some tactful method of acquiring custody.
They went down the dusty street arm in arm and in gay spirits. Tod Barstow had driven off to a stable somewhere; the goods were to be called for to-morrow morning; now they could go down to the hotel, to the chairs on the shady porch, and then to dinner. And, thought Helen, with more than a flicker of interest, she would see the ‘widow.’
As though she were awaiting them, Mrs. Murray was on the porch. With her was Barbee, who rose promptly and elaborately performed the ceremony of introduction.
‘Mr. Longstreet,’ he said formally, ‘shake hands with my friend, Mrs. Murray. Miss Longstreet, make you acquainted with my friend, Mrs. Murray.’
Mrs. Murray shook hands with them both, exclaiming brightly at her delight. Then, as they all sat down, she and Helen considered each other. Oddly, Helen had known all along that she would not like Mrs. Murray; now, and after the first probing glance, she was prepared for downright dislike. Longstreet, on the other hand, was obviously very favourably impressed. Nor without more than a little to be said on his side of the question. The woman was young, petite, dark and unusually pretty. Her teeth flashed in engaging smiles, her eyes were large and quick and bright; she was all vivacity; her glance could be at one moment limpid, humid, haunting, and at the moment hold a gleam and sparkle of mirth. Even Helen could find no fault with her little travelling suit.
Plain to be read by anyone with a claim to eyesight was Yellow Barbee’s devotion; equally plainly decipherable, thought Helen, was the fact of Mrs. Murray’s amusement at Barbee’s infatuation. It meant nothing to her; she was playing with him as, no doubt, she had played with many another susceptible youngster. Helen was sure she read that in the eyes which the young woman turned now and then upon the languishing young cowboy.
Presently Alan Howard put in his appearance, freshly shaven and shorn, and they all went in together to supper. Helen was unaffectedly glad to see him; she had seen all that she cared to see of Mrs. Murray and something more than that of Barbee. Howard greeted Mrs. Murray casually; she cried a friendly, ‘Oh, hello, Al!’ and he stepped to Helen’s side. Barbee hastened to place his big palm under Mrs. Murray’s elbow and steered her, after the approved fashion of the community, in to the table. She allowed him the liberty; but while Barbee’s eyes devoured her face, Helen managed to mark that the ‘widow’ was studying Alan Howard.
At table Alan and Helen found a variety of subjects to interest them; Mrs. Murray stared at them a moment, then shrugged her plump shoulders and made Barbee transcendently happy and miserable by turns; Longstreet ate his dried beef stew abstractedly. Barbee and Mrs. Murray, who finished first, excused themselves and went back to the gathering dusk of the porch, whence her light laughter came now and then trilling back into the dining-room.
‘Who is she?’ asked Helen, her eyes full upon Howard’s.
‘Mrs. Murray?’ He shrugged. ‘That is all I know of her; or that anyone I know knows of her. I don’t fancy,’ he added coolly, ‘that you will like her.’
‘I don’t,’ the girl announced briefly.
‘Mind you,’ he hurried to continue, ‘I don’t know a blessed thing against her. I just meant that I didn’t think her your kind.’
‘Thank you,’ Helen replied, accepting the statement as a satisfactory compliment. He laughed. Then he looked toward the professor, whose thoughts were plainly a thousand miles away.
‘I’ve caught an inspiration,’ he said softly.
‘What is it?’ smiled Helen.
There’ll be a moon in two or three hours. At best the accommodations here are bad; rooms stuffy and close and hot. If you are not too tired——-’
He saw that she understood what he meant, and further that she gave her glad acceptance.
‘It will be fun!’ she told him. He even detected a something of eagerness in her tone; he had already thought that it would be just he and she this time—they two alone riding together out through the glorious night, chaperoned only by the knowledge that somewhere in the distance behind them the wagon jolted along. He wondered if she, too, had thought of this?
When the three at table finished and went out into the cool of the porch they found only empty chairs; a half-silhouette showed where Barbee leaned against a pepper tree by the roadside. Helen settled herself comfortably, wandering if Mrs. Murray had re-entered the hotel by some side door or if she had business elsewhere. Howard made the suggestion of the return to Desert Valley. Longstreet hesitated, then objected, saying that by now the store would be closed and that the wagon was still to be loaded.
‘Tod Barstow will be up at the saloon, probably looking for a game of cribbage,’ said Howard. ‘It will take me about three shakes to locate him. The store will be open; old Mexican Pete lives in the back. I’ll have Tod hitch up at the first peep of the moon; he can load your stuff on in twenty minutes.’
Helen added her voice to Alan’s. Longstreet’s eyes travelled out to the listless figure against the pepper tree. At the moment Barbee’s silhouette disengaged itself from the tree’s shadowy trunk and started up the road.
‘All right,’ said Longstreet. ‘But you needn’t trouble about looking up Barstow; I’d enjoy the walk. If you and Helen will wait here, I’ll see that the wagon is ready about moonrise.’ And as though he had just remembered an important engagement, he hurried away.
They saw him overtake Barbee; they heard his cheerful voice, and then a surly rejoinder
from the boy. Then, far across the sky, a star fell and their eyes went to it together and they fell silent. When the brief silence was gone, and they talked in lowered voices, they had both forgotten Longstreet and Barbee. And, for one, Alan Howard was in no haste for the rising moon.
CHAPTER VIII
Poker and the Scientific Mind
Barbee, as he himself would have expressed it, was soured on life. At least for the moment, and after all that is about all that life is, the instant that it is passing. When Longstreet called to him he grunted in disgust. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and spat out the cold stump of his cigarette. It was Barbee’s natural way to swing along with his hat far back, so that he might see the stars. Now his hat brim was dragged low, and for Barbee the stars were only less remote and frigid than a certain fickle woman.
‘I say, Barbee,’ called the professor a second time.
Barbee slumped on without turning, but growled over his shoulder:
‘Can’t you leave a man alone?’
Longstreet doubted his ears; the boy had been so friendly. He tried hurriedly and in vain to recall some trifle in which perhaps, being misunderstood, he had offended. During his mental uncertainty the natural physical hesitancy had resulted in Barbee’s gaining a lead of a dozen steps. Hence when a white figure flitted out from the shadows to the boy’s side, Longstreet was not near enough to hear the whispered words; the soft trill of a laugh he caught, to be sure, and immediately recognized as Mrs. Murray’s. Then she had drawn away from Barbee, called good night and passed on to the hotel, so close to Longstreet that her skirts brushed him. Barbee stood still watching her until she disappeared under the porch vines. Longstreet came on to his side then. They fell into step and again Barbee was swaggering with his old buoyancy; again his hat was far back, and his eyes were on the stars.
