The Forbidden Trail by Honoré Willsie (best selling autobiographies .txt) 📖

CHAPTER XV RABBIT TAIL'S GANG

The dust storm died down almost as rapidly as it had risen. By four o'clock the three were on their way home across the strange sea of sand. They had reached the home range before Roger said to Charley,

"By Jove, you never did show me the Indian writing! What do you mean by such subterfuge? Couldn't you think of any other way to entice a man for a stroll?"

"There were inscriptions all around you!" exclaimed Charley. "You were leaning against the drawing of a horse, all the afternoon. Where were your eyes?"

"That portion of them not blinded by sand was on you, my dear."

"Tut! Tut! Don't try freshman blarney on me, Roger! I'm getting too old for it. Besides one man doesn't blarney another."

Roger looked at Charley quickly. "Hum!" he said, "I'm not at all sure but what you're totally feminine and that I'm a fool."

"Here's the home trail," said Charley. "I hope they haven't worried about us."

Elsa was waiting supper for them and the look of relief on her face as they came in at the door told the story of the day's anxiety.

"Gustav and I have been frantic!" she said. "You poor things! Where did the storm catch you?" Then without waiting for an answer she went on. "We kept the pump going off and on all day. In fact just as steadily as the Lemon would let us, which was not very steadily, you can be sure. But I'm so afraid that the second field is gone. The sand was not so bad this time but the heat was frightful. I don't see how anything green could stand up against those heat blasts. The thermometer here in the adobe was 118° at five o'clock this afternoon."

Charley pulled off her hat and sank into a chair. "Well," she sighed, "why worry! Seems to me I've had all the troubles known to women and I'm not going to let the mere loss of the family fortune ruin an otherwise perfect day."

Elsa looked at the two sharply. But Charley went on serenely. "I've been drowned in sand. I've been bullied and baked and burned, I've been——"

"Good gracious, Els, feed her! She's delirious with hunger!" said Roger.

"Well, of course," exclaimed Elsa, "if the owner of that magnificent alfalfa crop——"

She was interrupted by a cheerful call from Gustav who was in the corral.

"Hello, Dick! Hello! How vas the leg?"

Elsa set the coffee pot hastily on the table. The smile left Charley's face as Dick came slowly over the porch and paused just within the door.

"Well," he said huskily, "the bad egg is back."

"How's the leg?" asked Roger, stiffly.

"All right except for a little lameness. I'll sit down though, if you don't mind."

Dick sank wearily into a chair and there was a moment's silence. Roger could not have believed it possible for a human being to have changed as had Dick in less than a month. His ruddy brown hair was sprinkled with gray. He was thin, and his usually round face was sunken of cheek with heavy lines showing around his eyes and at the corners of the mouth.

"Supper's just ready," said Elsa. "You must be hungry, Dick." Dick pulled himself slowly out of his chair.

"Charley," he said, "and all the rest of you, I've just a few things I want to tell you before I try to pick up the old threads. Nothing you folks can say or do to show how you despise me can hurt me. I'm too low in my own opinion—At first, that afternoon Roger brought Felicia home, I made up my mind to kill myself. The only thing that kept me from it was realizing that Charley couldn't stand much more without losing her mind."

He paused to look at Charley, but she only gazed at him silently in return and he went on.

"When I went into Archer's Springs, I hadn't the slightest intention of ever coming back here. But lying there on the flat of my back, I came to the conclusion that the one way to help Charley endure what's happened would be to have it make a man of me. Then perhaps in the years to come, she would grow to think of Felicia as if she were thinking of the ordinary death of a lovely little child and not with the hell of remorse she's having now. As for me, I'll always have that remorse. That's common justice. But there's no reason why Charley should have it.

"I guess that's about all, except this. For two weeks I've gone over every afternoon to the saloon and sat there for two or three hours. And the sight and smell of the booze for the first time in my life made me want to vomit."

Dick paused again, trembling visibly and staring at Charley.

"I'm sorry, Dick," she said, her lips stiff, yet quivering. "I'm going to try to care for you again. But I don't know whether I can or not. Every night when I go to bed I see first your face that night all red and bloated and distorted, then Felicia's, the way Roger and I found her. I—I've got lots to forget, Dick."

"God knows you have, Charley. But you're going to give me one more trial, aren't you? Please, Charley!"

"Try if you want to, Dick. I don't seem to care, one way or the other."

Dick's head dropped to his chest. With a little inarticulate cry, Elsa ran across the room and pulling Dick's head over to rest on her soft breast, she kissed him on the forehead.

"I care, Dicky!" she cried. "I care! It's my whole life whether you make good or not."

Dick lifted his agonized face and stared into Elsa's tear wet eyes. A slow, twisted smile touched his lips.

"Oh, Elsa! Oh, Elsa!" he breathed. "I think you've saved my soul alive!" He turned his face against her and Elsa, clasping the gray-touched head to her, looked at the others fiercely.

"Now, who hurts Dick, hurts me!"

Roger dropped his hand on Charley's shoulder. "Then look to it that he never hurts Charley again," he said sternly.

There was a silence, broken by Gustav, who came into the kitchen with the milk pail.

"Elsa, make me the pans ready!" he called.

"Coming, Gustav," answered Elsa in her normal voice. "The rest of you sit down to supper. Gustav and I won't be a minute."

"Better wash up, Roger," said Charley. "Dick, your room is ready for you!" and she disappeared into her own bedroom.

When they finally sat down to the belated supper, Roger began at once to tell of the crop conditions and of the call on old Rabbit Tail.

"Let's see, this is Friday and he promises the gang here on Monday. I think we'd better get busy to-morrow and make the drill connections on the old Lemon. What do you think of the whole scheme, Dick?"

"I think it's perfect!" exclaimed Dick.

"Perfect if my engine works," said Roger. "But even if it doesn't, you'll still have the old Lemon and a real well. So I'll have done you no harm."

"Have you got to dismantle that condenser to move it?" asked Dick.

"Pretty thoroughly, I'm afraid. But if the Indians are any good at all—"

"If Rabbit Tail brings his pet gang," said Dick "there'll be four first class machinists in it, trained at Carlisle. Fellows who work only when they please, but Lord, they are wonders. I saw them put up an oil engine once that had been badly smashed en route. It was a poem, I tell you."

"Heaven send them then!" exclaimed Roger. "If they put this thing over for us, I'll pay for it in cold cash as soon as I get it."

"Rabbit Tail won't take money for this deal," said Charley.

"The others will, but they won't ask for it." Dick filled his pipe, and pushed his coffee cup away with a little smile for Elsa.

"My debts are getting so large now," mused Roger, "that I can begin to take a sort of pride in them. Gustav, as Dick's home now, will you come down to the Plant in the morning?"

And at Gustav's nod Roger made his adieux and went home to bed.

Monday dawned with the usual promise of merciless heat. It seemed as if the torrid days of late summer were harder to bear than July had been. Though there was an occasional dust storm, the air was quiet except for the little gusts of burning wind. These gusts were too transitory to carry a sand storm. But all day long, tall spirals of sand, like water spouts, whirled across the desert. One struck Dick's corral, during his absence, ripped off the roof of the tool house and overturned the watering trough. Several days later, one brought up against the condenser and after knocking off the thatch, collapsed, deluging the apparatus with sand. There was something uncanny about these gigantic figures, whirling suddenly across the desert, now viciously ripping up a cholla or a Joshua tree, now collapsing ridiculously against a rock.

It was now too, that thunderstorms were occasionally heard in the distant western ranges, though rain seemed forever denied to the desert valleys. But on the Sunday noon before Rabbit Tail's gang was to arrive, the impossible happened. Roger and Gustav were eating their monotonous lunch of corned beef and canned brown bread when a curious roar broke the desert silence. As the two men looked at each other questioningly, there was a deafening crash and a huge deluge of water smashed down on the cook tent. The sun-baked canvas was like a sieve and in a moment both men were saturated.

"A cloud burst!" exclaimed Roger, grinning fatuously at the delicious sensation of wet clothing and skin.

"Gott, vat a country!" cried Gustav.

Roger's grin