Acres of Unrest (19 page)

Of one thing in the world Mr. Jarvin was sure—that Soapy, the mulatto, was the incarnation of all that was wicked in the world, of all that was hard and self-centered. But this speech seemed to indicate an almost superstitious respect for the will and the opinion of big Peter Hale. It was most strange to Jarvin. He could not make it out. As the panting mustangs came to a halt, he could distinctly hear the flints in the roadway ringing under the volleying hoofs of that approaching mob of destroyers.

“Get out of that buckboard!” came the order of Peter.

Jarvin started—as though a gun had been pointed at him—and he obeyed. Soapy was already on the ground, and Peter herded them back to the edge of the bridge.

“He’s going to hold us up,” murmured Jarvin with a groan at the ear of Soapy. “He’s going to hold us here under his guns and then turn us over to that lynching gang…to pay for his own sweet hide.”

“Shut up!” snarled Soapy. “You’re drunk.” And he faced his master in silence, turning his massive shoulders upon Mr. Jarvin.

“Now,” Peter said with a maddening deliberation, “it’s plain that we can’t ride away from those fellows. Since we can’t ride away from them, we’ve
got to stop them. The only place where we can stop them and insure our escape is at this bridge.”

“Hold ’em at the bridge. Sure, the three of us could hold them all night!” cried the cheerful Soapy.

“And be shot to pieces when the morning came?” put in Jarvin. “You’re talking a fine brand of sense, Hale.”

Said Peter: “This is our only chance. We stop them at the bridge, or we’re dead men. Now let’s see if the bridge won’t do a little work for us.”

“What the devil are you talking about, Hale?”

Even Soapy was staring at his master now, bewildered and rather frightened.

“Come down under the bridge with me,” Peter stated, and swung himself down in the lead.

They followed. By the slanting moonshine, they could see that the bridge rested, at this end, on two massive boulders.

“Now,” Peter explained, “we roll away one of those boulders and let the bridge slide into the river…or else we hang before morning. Is that clear?”

They looked at Peter, raising their heads, and looked back down the moon-whitened strip of road at the approaching shadows, and then they laid their hands upon the boulder. They were three mighty men, to be sure, but the time-lodged and rugged weight of that great stone merely shuddered under their effort.

There was a snarl from Soapy. “Lemme get under there and get my back ag’in’ that stone,” he said. He lay flat, his feet against the bank, his legs bunched slightly, his heavy shoulders against the stone.

“Now!” said Soapy.

As they tugged in unison, at the first strain he drove his great feet deep into the soft dirt. There
they found firm grip. Then all the might of his body gradually came into play—not suddenly, for he was not one to bring all his forces to their highest development in a single effort—but little by little his power increased. The rugged face of the stone was grinding through his shoulder muscles and cutting against the bone, and they could hear him groaning with his agony, but still he heaved relentlessly. The other two, inspired by his patient might, redoubled their efforts.

The stone trembled; there was a slight sliding, and suddenly it bulged straight out from its socket, hurtling down the slope. It barely missed Peter; it brushed past Jarvin. And the bridge sloped and settled with a jar on this side, seemingly straight down upon the prostrate form of the mulatto, while the great rock leaped from the edge of the bank, crashed against the farther rock wall, and then fell with rebounding thunders, until it raised a mighty crashing in the water beneath, and they saw a white leaping of the foam where it had struck.

But Soapy?

“He’s done!” cried Jarvin. “And good riddance. You and me, Pete, my lad.”

But Peter held him to the work. Their united strength budged that edge of the fallen bridge a little. And forth from the darkness crawled Soapy, snarling and gasping: “I think there was a spider that dropped down my throat. Gimme a drink, Jarvin.”

“We have something else to do besides drinking, Soapy,” said Peter. “We wanted your hand to start the bridge sliding. Look there. All the planks that fastened it have been torn loose by that fall…now heave together.”

Together they heaved with a will. The bridge strained with a great groaning, then it slid forward, and Peter, losing his foothold, dropped fairly into its path. He had no chance to raise himself, and the sliding, ponderous mass of the bridge would have swept him straight into the dizzy void of the cafton. But there was a stronger hand than his own that reached for him and plucked him lightly out to safety.

Soapy chuckled. “Bridges, they ain’t afraid even of you, Mister Hale.”

So Peter, with his hand fixed in a kindly grip upon the bulging shoulder muscles of Soapy, watched the bridge stagger and then slide past the edge of the ravine. With a great tearing and rending sound, the farther side of the bridge tore loose from its anchorage and kicked high in the air. Then the whole ruin shot down toward the stream.

The three of them hurried back to their horses. But there was no hurry. Three jumps of the horses brought them into the screening shadows of some low-growing trees, and, as they jogged up the hillside, they could look back and see the dark mass of the riders raging up and down the brink of the ravine. There were no means of crossing. No horse could ever have lived, going down that rigid-faced cliff.

All the pursuers could do was to wheel away, with a yell of hate and rage, and speed toward the nearest bridge, many a long mile away—or perhaps to some closer crossing. They would never catch the fugitives on this night—that much was perfectly certain. By the time their racing horses had completed the circuit, the three would be far,
far away—toward the mine and the safety that awaited them there.

It was a jovial journey for both, but not for Peter. All the way, with his head bowed, he listened vaguely to the stream of wild language and of thundering praises that issued in his honor from the lips of the pair. As Soapy diligently pointed out, both Jarvin and he had been more than once saved during this expedition by the might of their new ally.

Toward morning, Jarvin dozed on the seat. He wakened in the gray of the dawn with a start. “Hey, Peter!”

Peter Hale rode closer to the wagon.

“Peter, I dreamed that I was fighting off snakes…and your hand reached down…a thousand miles out of nothing…and yanked me back to safety. Peter, bless you, what would have happened to me without you?”

It needed no answer, and Peter did not attempt one. So they journeyed on. In the middle of the morning they made a halt to rest the staggering horses and to sleep themselves. It was late in the afternoon before they reached the mine.

Telegraph and telephone had done their work, in the meantime.

They found a tall, spare-bodied, man walking up and down in front of Jarvin’s shack. And they found a grinning, excited group of miners waiting and watching.

“It’s Will Nast!” Jarvin gasped when he saw the stranger.

“What does he want here?”

But Will Nast was not in an ugly humor, apparently. He waved his hand to them most cheerfully, and
then stood with his hand dropped on his hip, while the wind fanned his coat open and showed the sparkling face of his sheriffs badge beneath.

“Well, boys,” he said, “it was a pretty good party, eh?”

They nodded to him in silence and waited like pupils before a teacher.

“As for you, Soapy, I s’pose that you’ll be heading for the regular prize ring before long. Matter of fact, I’ve often wondered why you didn’t land there before. Easier money than this in the ring, Soapy…and not so crooked, either.”

Soapy grunted and stepped back—highly pleased to be dismissed in this fashion.

“Jarvin,” said the sheriff, “you cardsharper and sneaking rat…you miserable low hulk and scoundrel, I’ve been hoping that the time would come when I could get my hands on you, with any fair excuse. When the first reports of this mess came in, I thought that the time had surely come.

“But it seems that I was wrong. All wrong. There are no dead men back there, after all. You’re only a shade more famous. And there are only a few more shadows connected with you…a few more suspicions that you’ve been cheating at cards, eh?”

He turned his back on Mike Jarvin—a most daring thing was that, considering what he had just said. But Mike Jarvin was one who never struck in the day—when there were witnesses standing by. Although his face swelled and turned purple, he did not budge his hand.

“Now,” the sheriff said to Peter, “I think that it’s time for you to go back home with me, Peter Hale. What do you think?”

“I have a working agreement with Mister Jarvin,” said Peter. “Are you willing to let me go, Jarvin?”

Jarvin snapped his fingers high above his head with a brutal laugh. “Let you go? Say, Nast, when did you ever hear of Mike Jarvin throwing a handful of diamonds into the sea? And what’s diamonds to me, compared with Hale. Will you tell me that?”

Said the sheriff: “Ah, Pete, what the devil has come over you? Why did you do it?”

“I’ll tell you in one word,” said Peter. “It’s a thing that would land me behind the bars, Sheriff.”

The keen eye of Will Nast sharpened and shone. “Is it really as bad as that?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ve heard enough. But walk along here with me. I’ve some things to tell you about your father.”

The screen door of the McNair house slammed loudly as Charles Hale stepped out onto the front verandah. There sat Mr. McNair, with his chair tilted back against the wall and his heels hooked over a lower rung. He did not turn his head, but he said: “Well, Charlie, you had some luck, today?”

“Ah, sir,” said Charlie, “how did you guess that?”

“I see that you’re full of talk,” said McNair. “So go ahead.”

“Why, sir, she’s set the day.”

“Who?”

“Ruth, Mister McNair.”

“You don’t tell me!” said the father, and while he yawned, his eyes wandered carelessly over the face and form of his prospective son-in-law.

“Yes,” said Charles. “If it meets with your approval…for next Friday.”

“Quick, ain’t she, once she sets her mind on a thing?”

Charles coughed. “Unless you have objections.”

“Me? Why should I have objections? I don’t have to marry you.”

Charles, very red, fell silent. He said at last: “I’ll be going along, then.”

“So long, Charlie.”

“But,” Charles said, turning suddenly back, “it’s
wonderful that she should have changed her mind so suddenly when…” He paused.

“When you thought she was setting herself to marry Peter, eh?”

“Why…,” began Charles.

“I’ll tell you,” said the rancher, “your cousin has gone and got himself so famous that she’s proud to marry into his family. I guess that’s the reason for her change of mind. Eh?”

“As a matter of fact,” Charles said, “I presumed…I mean, I guessed…”

“That Peter had shut himself out of the picture by raising so much deviltry over at Lawson Creek? Is that what you thought?”

“You might know, sir.”

“I know a little about my girl,” said McNair. “But I don’t know that she’s so measly and mean as to turn down a he-man just because he’s proved that he can fight better on wooden legs than most folks can on their own pins.”

Charles, abashed, withdrew straightway, for he felt, somehow, that this was not his day to draw pleasant speeches from the father of Ruth. He mounted his horse, and, as he rode up the road, he encountered Ross Hale riding hard toward him. They drew rein with a jerk.

“Is there any news with you, Charlie?” his uncle asked wearily, his eyes turning impatiently forward to the McNair house.

“Not much,” said Charles, “except that I’m to marry Ruth on Friday.”

He rode on, smiling at the white face of Ross Hale. The latter remained for a moment, stunned. Then he let his horse wander slowly on until it paused automatically at the McNair hitching rack.

“You got a touch of sun, Ross?” sang out McNair.

Ross dismounted and went to the verandah.

“Now what’s on your mind?” asked McNair. “I hear that you been thinking of buying the Weston forty acres next to your back land?”

“I was thinking about that, maybe.” Ross Hale sighed. “Matter of fact…” He fell again into his sad daydream.

“Set down and rest yourself,” said the rancher gently.

But Hale did not appear to understand.

Said McNair, still in the same, soothing tone: “Have you been hearing any news, Ross?”

“No news. He stays up yonder.” He turned his eyes toward the blue hills and squinted through the heat waves, while his hand slowly drew a letter from his pocket.

“That’s from Peter, then?”

“Yes, it’s from my Peter.”

“He’s making out pretty well, then?”

“He says that he’s feeling fit.”

The heavy silence fell between them again. Mr. McNair stirred in his seat. “Perhaps it’s Ruth that you want?”

Hale started. “Matter of fact, I do.”

“Ring the bell and send on of the Negroes for her.”

So Ruth Hale rang the bell, and still, like a man standing in a dream, he gave his message to the servant. There was a little pause, and, after a minute, feet hurrying on the stairs inside—and then a drawling voice: “Miss Ruth…she says that she’s mighty sorry…she’s got a terrible headache. Can’t even stand up. Would you give me a message for her?”

“Hey!” yelled McNair.

The servant jumped. “Yes, Mister McNair?”

“Go up and fetch down that fool girl, will you? I want her, y’understand?”

Footsteps scurried away inside the house.

“Why,” said Hale, “I ain’t wanting to drag down Ruth if she’s sick, old man.”

“Don’t you talk foolish, Ross. Set down and rest yourself. Have a chew? No? You still keep to them cigarettes, eh? I tell you what I got against cigarettes. So dirty. Always spilling tobacco dust all over a man while he smokes. A good, clean chew…that’s what I take to. I been watching that hawk, over yonder, hanging over the Mitchell chicken yard. Ain’t it a pretty thing, Ross, the way that it sails up ag’in’ the wind?”

There was no answer from Ross Hale. Still like a stricken man he turned his worn face toward the distant blueness of the hills and where their lower ranges turned brown as they advanced nearer. There his gaze fastened, and he sighed again.

Other footfalls sounded, and then the screen door
creaked
.

“Did you send for me, Dad? Hello, Mister Hale. How’s things over your way?”

“Fair,” Ross Hale, looking blankly at her.

“A terrible headache…,” began the girl faintly.

“Shut up that fool clatter, Ruth, will you?” broke in her father. “Here’s the dad of the mightiest heman and two-gun fighter that’s been in the range for a long time. Here he’s given you the honor of coming over to call on you, and you let a headache stand between you and a talk with him? You fetch him into the house and give him a cup of coffee, and set him down where it’s cool. He’s got something
terrible important to say to you, and terrible private, too.”

There was nothing left for the girl to do. She ushered Ross Hale into the dim coolness of the parlor and obediently brought him a cup of coffee. But he let it steam, unregarded, on the table beside his chair. The letter was still in his hand.

“Is it something about that letter?” Ruth asked a last.

“Ah?” murmured the other. “Letter? Well, well…” His mind drifted away again and returned to him with: “I been seeing Charles…” He paused and looked wistfully at her.

“Yes,” Ruth McNair said, coloring a little.

“Why,” said Ross Hale, “Charlie is a right fine boy.”

He was silent again, and suddenly Ruth stood up and slipped into a chair close beside his chair. She took his great, gnarled hand in both of her tender ones.

“You didn’t come all the way over here to talk about Charles, I think.”

“Why, honey, no, I didn’t. But you see…” He stumbled again and paused to search the brightness of her eyes and to wonder at the tears in them. “Now, the truth of it is that I once had hopes. No matter about what. I’ve come over here, wondering if you’d help me, Ruth?”

“Yes,” she said, “with all my heart!”

“Would you tell me, first…was it that affair over to the creek?”

She nodded, and looked down. But then she forced herself to meet his gaze.

“Oh, I understand,” said Ross Hale. “The things that he done there would be enough to scare any girl”

“If he would write to me,” she broke out. “If he’d give me any explanation…but just to go away…and suddenly begin to go rushing around the country with that beast, that Jarvin. Oh, Uncle Ross, how could I stand it? Sitting here at home…and not knowing…and eating my heart out.”

“Ah, yes,” said the rancher. “That’s it. Eating the heart out. Good heavens, how lonesome a house can be. Worse than a grave, a lot. There was a time when I was sorry for the dead folks. But that was when I was young. But speaking about Peter, you know, there’s no power that I got over him. I’ve wrote and I’ve wrote. And back comes the answers, always gentle and nice.” He paused again.

“Yes?” whispered the girl.

“Well, sir,” murmured the father, “it’s a funny thing, what a bad hand he writes…and him a college graduate. With honors, you know. You look here how bad he writes down this address.” He showed the envelope.

“Yes,” gasped Ruth. “Oh…” And she burst into a flood of tears.