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"His blazing black eyes stared into the gaze of Ross"]
THE MESA TRAIL
BYH. BEDFORD-JONES
GARDEN CITY -- NEW YORKDOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY1920
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BYDOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OFTRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
COPYRIGHT, 1919,BY STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
CONTENTS
- CHAPTER I--THE MAN WHO HAD BEEN - CHAPTER II--THADY SHEA ENCOUNTERS PURPOSE - CHAPTER III--CORAVEL TIO ENJOYS A BUSY MORNING - CHAPTER IV--MRS. CRUMP HEADS SOUTHWEST - CHAPTER V--THE AMBITION OF MACKINTAVERS - CHAPTER VI--THADY SHEA SMELLS WHISKEY - CHAPTER VII--THADY SHEA HAS A VISITOR - CHAPTER VIII--DORALES GOES TO TOWN - CHAPTER IX--THE WICKER DEMIJOHN - CHAPTER X--MRS. CRUMP SAYS SOMETHING - CHAPTER XI--THADY SHEA DISCOVERS A PURPOSE - CHAPTER XII--THE STONE GODS VANISH - CHAPTER XIII--THADY SHEA STARTS HOME - CHAPTER XIV--DORALES KILLS - CHAPTER XV--MACKINTAVERS MAKES FRIENDS - CHAPTER XVI--DORALES POSTS NOTICES - CHAPTER XVII--DORALES RUNS AWAY
CHAPTER I--THE MAN WHO HAD BEEN
A ribbon of winding road leads northeast from the pueblo of Domingo andthe snaky Bajada hill where gray rocks lie thickly; it is a yellowishribbon of road, sweeping over the gigantic mesa toward Santa Fe and thesweetly glowing Blood of Christ peaks--great peaks of green spearinginto the sky, white-crested, and tipped with blood at sunset.
Along this ribbon of dusty yellow road was crawling a flivver. It wascrawling slowly, in a jerky series of advances and pauses; as it creptalong its intermittent course, the woman who sat behind the wheel wascursing her iron steed in a thorough and heartfelt manner.
Both in flivver and woman was that which fired curious interest. Therear of the car was piled high with boxes and luggage; certain of theboxes were marked "Explosives--Handle With Care!" Prominent among thisfreight was a burlap sack tied about the neck and firmly roped to one ofthe top supports of the car.
The woman was garbed in ragged but neat khaki. From beneath the edges ofan old-fashioned bonnet, tied beneath the chin, protruded wisps ofgrayish hair, like an aureole of silver. The woman herself was ofstrikingly large frame and great in girth; her arms, bare to the elbows,were huge in size. Yet this giantess was not unhealthily fat. Hardenedby toil, her hands were gripped carefully upon the steering wheel asthough she were in some fear of wrenching it asunder in an unguardedmoment.
Her features were large, sun-darkened, creased and seamed withcrow's-feet that betokened long exposure to wind and weather. Ever andanon she drew, with manifest enjoyment, at an old brown corncob pipe.Above her firm lips and beak-like nose a pair of blue eyes struck outgaily and keenly at the world; eyes of a piercing, intense blue, whosebrilliancy, as of living jewels, gave the lie to their surroundingtokens of toil and age.
"Drat it!" she burst forth, after a new bucking endeavour on the part ofthe car. "If I was to shoot this damned thing through the innards, maybeshe'd quit sunfishin' on me! I'm goin' to sell her to Santy Fe sure'sshooting; I'll get me a pair o' mules and a wagon, then I'll know whatI'm doing. Dunno how come I ever was roped into buying this herecontraption----"
She suddenly halted her observations. Laying aside her pipe and peeringout from the side of the dusty windshield, her keen eyes narrowed uponthe road ahead.
Against that yellowish ribbon, with its bordering emptiness of mesquite,greasewood, and sage, there was nothing moving; but squarely in thecentre of the road showed up a dark, motionless blotch. It was thefigure of a man lying as though asleep. No man would or could lie asleepin the middle of this road, however, under the withering blaze of thedownpouring New Mexico sun.
Suddenly the fitful flivver coughed under more gas; it roared, bucked,darted ahead, bucked again, and a dozen yards from the prostrate man itwent leaping forward as though impelled by vindictive spite to run overthe motionless figure. The woman swore savagely. She seemedinexperienced as a chauffeuse; only by a hair's breadth did she manageto avoid the man, and then she stopped the car.
Her great size became more apparent as she alighted. Standing, she gazeddown at the man, then leaned forward and turned the unfortunate vagrantupon his back. The body was listless to her hand, the head lolled idly.
"Hm!" said the woman, reflectively. "Ain't drunk. Ain't hurt. Hm!"
She reached into the car and produced a whiskey flask, then sat down inthe dust and took upon her ample lap the head of the senseless man. Asudden deftness became manifest in her motions, an unguessed tendernessrelieved the harshness of her features.
"This here is breakin' the law," she ruminated, pouring liquor betweenthe lips of the vagrant, "but it ain't the first time Mehitabel Crumphas broke laws to help some poor devil! Hm! Looks to me like he ain't etfor quite a spell."
With increasing interest she surveyed the slowly reviving stranger.
He was fully as lank as she was stout, and must have stood a good sixfoot two in height. His clothes were tattered remnants of once soberblack. Long locks of iron-gray hair hung about his ears. His featureswere careworn and haggard, yet in them lingered some indefinablesuggestion of fine lines and deeply carven strength. Had Mehitabel Crumpever viewed Sir Henry Irving--which she had not--she might have guesseda few things about her "find."
Suddenly the eyes, the intensely black eyes, of the man opened. So didhis lips.
"Angels and ministers of grace!" His voice, although faint, was touchedwith a deep intonation, a roundness of the vowels, a clarity of accent."As I do live and breathe, it is the kiss of lordly Bacchus which dothwelcome me!"
"Take it calm," advised Mehitabel Crump, pityingly. "You'll have yourright sense pretty soon. Many's the time I've seen Crump keeled over,and come to with his mind awandering. Jest take it calm, pilgrim. I'llhave a bite o' cornbread----"
She lowered his head to the dust, rose, and went to the flivver.Presently she returned with a slab of cold cornbread divided by bacon,and a desert water bottle.
"Heaps o' lunch in the car." She aided the gaunt one to sit up, and heclutched at the food feverishly. "My land! Ain't et real frequentlately, have ye?"
The man, his mouth full, shook his head dumbly. About his eyes was abrilliancy which told of sheer starvation. To the full as worldly wiseas any person in broad New Mexico, the woman asked no questions as yet;she procured from the car a basket which contained the remainder of herluncheon, and set forth the contents.
"Figgered I might get held up 'fore reaching Santy Fe. If it warn't thatdratted car, it sure would be something else, which same it is. Damnedgood luck it ain't worse, as Crump used to say when Providence wentagin' him."
She observed that the stranger ate ravenously, but drank sparingly. Notthirst had downed him, but starvation.
He seemed startled at her disconcertingly frank manner of speech. Sheput him down as something better than an ordinary hobo; an out-of-luckEasterner, possibly a lunger. He was fifty or so; with decent clothes, ashave, and a haircut, he might be a striking-looking fellow, shedecided. Although he had a hard mouth, what Mehitabel Crump had learnedto know as a whiskey mouth, it was steady lipped.
"You sure played in tough luck comin' this road," she said, musingly."So did I. Ain't nothing between here and Santy Fe 'cept Injuns,greasers, and rattlers, any one of which is worse'n the other two. Theserocks is playin' hell with my tires and the old Henry is coughin' fit tobust her innards. If I find the feller who sold her to me, I'd sure layhim one over the ear!"
Her simple meal finished, she began to stuff her corncob pipe. The man,still eating wolfishly, watched her with fascinated eyes. She gazed outat the snowy, sun-flooded Sangre de Cristo peaks and continued hersoliloquy.
When it suited her, Mehitabel Crump could be very garrulous;and when it suited her, she could be as taciturn as the mountainsthemselves.
"I ain't surprised at nothing no more, not these days. No, sir! When Ifirst come to this country you knowed just what ye had to reckon agin'.They was Injuns to fight, greasers to work devilment, claim jumpers torob ye, and such. But now the Injuns is all towerist peddlers, thegreasers is called 'natives' and runs the courts an' legislature, andgun toting ain't popular. A lone woman gets skinned plumb legal, when inthe old days it would ha' been suicide to rob a female. Yes pilgrim, setright in at what's left, and don't bother to talk yet a spell."
She touched a match to her pipe, broke the match, tossed it away.
"If Crump hadn't blowed up with a dry fuse in a shaft we was sinkingover in the Mogollons, where we was prospecting at the time, he'd beplumb astonished at the changes. Yes, and I bet he'd swear to see medriving one of them contraptions yonder! Poor Crump, I never had theheart to dig him up, though it was a right smart prospect we wasworkin'. But somehow I couldn't never work that claim, with him still init that-a-way. I won't need the money, neither, if I've got hold of----"
She paused. Her gaze went to the devouring stranger. Abruptly shechanged the subject.
"You don't look like you was much more'n a poor, innercent pilgrimwithout any brains to mention. Yet, stranger, I'd gamble that we'd stackup high in morals agin' such old-timers as Abel Dorales, him what's halfgreaser and half Mormon, or old Sandy Mackintavers, what come straightfrom Scotland to Arizony and made a forchin in thirty years of thieving!Yes, I reckon ye've got a streak of real pay dirt in ye, stranger. Andif I can't tell what breed o' cattle a man is by jest looking at him,it's a queer thing! I've knowed 'em all."
The complimented pilgrim bolted the last scrap of food in sight, raisedthe canvas bag to his lips, and drank. Sighing, he wiped his lips withthe frayed cuff of his sleeve. Then he disentangled his long legs androse. One hand upon his heart, the other flourished magnificently, hemade a bow that was the piteous ghost of a perished grandeur.
"Madam!" His voice rang out firmly now, a deep and sonorous bass."Madam, I thank you! In me you behold one who has received the plauditsof thousands, one who has bowed to the thunderous acclaim of----"
"What d'ye say your name was?" snapped Mehitabel Crump. Her voice wassuddenly acid, her blue eyes ice. The other was manifestly disconcertedby her change of front.
"Madam, I am familiarly known as Thaddeus Roscius Shea. Under the moreimposing title of Montalembert I have made known to thousands theaspiring genius of the immortal Avonian bard. I avow it, madam--I am aThespian! I suit the action to the word, the word to the action----"
"Huh!" cut in his audience with a ruthless lack of awe. "Huh! Neverheard of them Thespians, but likely it's a new Mormon sect. I knowed aman of your name down to Silver City twelve year back; this Thady Sheawas a good fightin' man, with one eye and a harelip. Glad to meet ye,pilgrim! I'm Mehitabel Crump, with Mrs. for a handle."
Something in her manner seemed mightily to embarrass Mr. Shea, but hetook a fresh start and set forth to conquer the difficulty.
"Madam, a Thespian is of no religious persuasion, but one who treads theboards and who wears the buskin of Thespis. You behold in me the firsttragedian of the age. My _Hamlet_, madam, has been praised by discerningcritics from Medicine Hat to Jersey City. The accursed moving pictureshave ruined my art."
"Oh! It's usually whiskey or woman," said Mrs. Crump, her eyes ominous."So you're a stage actor, eh? Then that explains it."
"Explains, madam? Explains what?" faltered Shea, sensing a gatheringstorm.
"Your damn foolishness. Shake it off, ye poor hobo! I no sooner hands yea bit o' kindness than it swells ye up like a balloon. Now, don't youget gay with _me_, savvy? Don't come none o' that high-falutin' talkwith me, or by hell I'll paralyze ye! I did think for a minute that yehad the makin's of a man, but I apologize."
The blue eyes turned away. Had Shea been able to see them, he might haveread in them a look that did not correspond to Mrs. Crump's spoken word.But he did not see them.
He turned away from the woman. The carven lines of his face deepened,aged, as from him was rent the veil of his posturing. A weary andhopeless sadness welled in his eyes; the sadness of one who beholdsaround him the wreckage of all his little world, brought down to ruin byhis own faults. When he spoke, it was with the same sonorous voice, yetlacking the fine rolling accent.
"You are right, Mrs. Crump, you are right. God help me! I, who was oncea man, am now less than the very dust. Your harshness is justified. Atthis time yesterday, madam, I was a wretched drunken fool, spoutinglines of rhetoric in Albuquerque."
"I'm surprised at that," said Mrs. Crump. "How'd ye get the liquor,since this here state an' nation ain't particularly wet no more? And howye got here from Albuquerque I don't figger."
"It is simply told." From the miserable Shea was stripped the lastvestige of his punctured pose. "Twenty years ago my young wife died, andI started upon the whiskey trail; it has led me--here. Yesterday I cameinto Albuquerque, starving. At the railroad station, amidsome--er--confusion, I encountered a company of those motion picture menwho dare to call themselves actors. So far was my pride broken that Ibegged of them help in the name and memory of The Profession."
Shea emphatically capitalized these last two words.
"They took me aboard their train," he pursued, "and I was given drink.Some controversy arose, I know not how; I found myself ignominiouslyejected from the train. I walked, not knowing nor caring whither. Nor isthat all, madam. I am a fugitive from justice!"
"Broke jail?" queried Mrs. Crump, betraying signs of interest.
"No, madam. In Albuquerque I was starving and desperate. I--I stolefruit and--sandwiches--from a railroad stand."
His voice failed. He turned away, staring at the snowy peaks as thoughawaiting a verdict.
"Pretty low-down and worthless, ain't ye?" Mrs. Crump checked herselfsuddenly, glancing at the yellow ribbon of road over which she had sorecently come. A flying cloud of dust gave notice of the approach of alarge automobile.
Suddenly rising, Mrs. Crump knocked out her pipe, then caught Shea bythe shoulder. Her hand swung him about as though he were a child. Hiseyes widened in surprise upon meeting the warm regard in her face, thesteady and sympathetic smile upon her lips.
"Thady," she said, bluntly, "how old are ye?"
"Fifty-eight," he mumbled in astonishment.
"Huh! Two year older'n me. Made a mess of your life, ain't ye? Don'tknow as I blame ye none, Thady. When Crump passed out, I come nearthrowin' up the sponge; but I got to fightin' and I been fightin' eversince, and here I am! Now, Thady, you got strength and you got guts; Ican see it in your eye. All ye need is backbone. Why don't ye buck up?"
"I've tried," he faltered, controlled by her personality. "It's nouse----"
"You go get in that car." Mrs. Crump glanced again at the approachingautomobile, then half flung the gaunt Shea toward her dust-whiteflivver. "Get in and don't say a word, savvy? One thing about you, yecan be trusted--which is more'n can be said for some skunks in this herecountry! Get in, now, and leave me palaver with Sheriff Tracy."
Shea, shivering at mention of the sheriff, jack-knifed his length uponthe car's front seat.
From some mysterious recess of her ample person Mrs. Crump produced animmense old-fashioned revolver, which she began to burnish with seemingabsorption. The big automobile slowed up. It halted a few feet behindthe flivver, and a hearty hail came forth.
"By jingoes, if it ain't Mis' Crump! Hello, old-timer--ain't seen you inages!"
From the car sprang a hale and vigorous man who advanced with handextended.
"I kind o' thought it was you, Sam Tracy," said Mrs. Crump. "Thought Irecognized that there car o' yours. How's the folks?"
"All fine. And you? But I needn't ask--why, you grow younger everymonth----"
"See here! What ye doin' over in this county, Sam? Why don't ye get backto Bernalillo
where ye belong?"
The sheriff waved his hand.
"Going to Santy Fe. I'm looking up a fellow who came this way fromAlbuquerque--a hobo and sneak thief name o' Shea. Where ye been keepin'yourself, ma'am? It don't seem like the same old state not to see yefrom time to time."
"Sam Tracy," observed Mrs. Crump with a look of severity, "I've knowedyou more years than I care to reckon up. And you know me, I guess! Now,Sam, I sure hate to do it--but I got to. Stick up your hands, Sam, anddo it damn sudden!"
The muzzle of her revolver poked the astounded sheriff in the stomach.For a moment he gazed into her shrewd blue eyes, then slowly elevatedhis hands.
"Are you crazy, ma'am?" he demanded.
She removed his holstered weapon, then lowered her own and shook herhead.
"Nope. I'm heap sane right here and now. Set down and smoke whilst Iexplain."