Under Handicap

by Jackson Gregory

  CHAPTER II

  Indian Creek stood lonely and isolated in the flat, treeless,sun-smitten desert. Only in the south was the unbroken flatnessrelieved by a low-lying ridge of barren brown hills, their sides cutas by erosion into steep, stratified cliffs. Even these bleak hillslooked to be twenty miles away, and were in reality fifty. Beyondthem, softened and blurred by the distance, was a blue-gray line wherethe mountains were.

  "Of all the wretched holes in the world!" fumed Hapgood.

  But Conniston didn't hear him. The girl had stepped down from thetrain, and, without casting a glance behind her, walked swiftly acrossthe wriggling thing which stood for a street in Indian Creek. Therewas a saloon with a long hitching-pole in front of it, to which acouple of saddle-horses were tied, and a buckboard with two frettingtwo-year-olds in dust-covered harness. A man, a swarthy half-breed,with hair and eyes and long, pointed mustaches of inky blackness, wason the seat, handling the jerking reins. He called a soft "_Adios,compadre_" to the man lounging in the doorway, and swung his colts outinto the road, making a sweeping half-circle, bringing them to arestless halt, pawing and fighting their bits, at the girl's side.While with one brown hand he held them back, with the other he sweptoff his wide, black hat.

  "How do, Mess!" he cried, softly, his teeth flashing a white greeting.

  She answered him with a "Hello, Joe!" as she climbed to his side.

  Joe loosened his reins a very little, called sharply to his horses,and in a whirlwind of dust the buckboard made an amazingly sharp turnand shot rattling down the road and out toward the mountains in thesouth.

  "And now what?" grinned Hapgood, maliciously. "Even your country girlhas gone!"

  Greek Conniston gazed a moment after the flying buckboard, a vague,wavering, unreal thing, through the dust of its own making, and,hiding his disappointment under a shrug, turned to Hapgood.

  "Now for a hotel somewhere, if the place has one. Come on, Roger.We're in for it now, so let's make the best of it."

  Carrying his suit-case, he strode off toward the saloon, Rogerfollowing silently. The lanky, sunburned individual in the doorwaywatched their approach idly for a moment and then turned his lazy eyesto a cow and calf trudging past toward the watering-trough.

  "Hello, friend!" called Conniston.

  The lanky individual drew his eyes from the cow and calf, bestowed along look and a fleeting nod upon the two strangers, and turned againtoward the trough, little impressed, little interested in theEasterners.

  "I say!" went on Conniston, brusquely. "Where'll a man get a roomhere?"

  "Down to the hotel."

  "So you do have a hotel? Where is it?"

  The lazy individual ducked his head toward the east end of thestreet, cast a last look at the cow and calf, and, turning, went backinto the saloon.

  "Nice sort of people," grunted Hapgood.

  Conniston laughed. "Buck up, Roger," he grinned, his own spurt ofirritation lost in his enjoyment of Hapgood's greater bitterness."It's different, anyhow, isn't it? Come on. Let's see what the hotellooks like."

  The hotel was a saloon with a long bar at the front, a little roomjust off, containing a couple of tables covered with red oil-cloth.Beyond were half a dozen six-by-six rooms separated from one anotherby partitions rising to within two feet of the unceiled roof. Theproprietor, busy with some local friends in the card-room, saw the twoyoung men come in and yelled, lustily:

  "Mary!"

  Mary, a stout and comfortable-looking woman, appeared from thekitchen, wiping her hands upon her blue apron, and with a sharp glanceat the newcomers bobbed her head at them and said, briefly, "Howdy."

  Conniston took off his hat and came into the bar-room. Roger, with acareless glance at the woman, came in without taking off his hat anddropped into one of the rickety chairs against the wall. And there hesat until Conniston had negotiated for two rooms for the night. Thenhe got jerkily to his feet and stalked after his friend and theirhostess to the back of the house. A moment later he and Conniston,left alone, sat upon their two beds and stared at each other throughthe doorway connecting their rooms. Conniston studied the bare floors,the bare walls of rough, unplaned twelve-inch boards set upright withcracks between them ranging from a quarter of an inch to an inch inwidth, and, rumpling up his hair, sat back and grinned into Hapgood'swoebegone face. And Hapgood after the same examination and a sight ofthe rough beds covered with patchwork comforters, groaned aloud.

  "Maybe it's funny," he muttered. "But if it is, I don't see it."

  "What are you going to do about it?" chuckled Conniston. "You can'tfling out and go to the rival hotel, because there isn't any! Youcan't sleep outdoors very well. And you can't catch a train until atrain comes. Which, I believe, will be sometime to-morrow morning."

  It was already late afternoon. That day Roger Hapgood got no fartherthan the bar-room at the front of the house. There he sat in one ofthe rickety chairs, brooding, sullen, and silent, smoking cigarettes,drinking high-balls, and cursing the whole God-forsaken West. Andthere Conniston left him.

  In spite of his naturally buoyant spirits, in spite of the fact thathe knew he had only to swing upon the next train which came through,Conniston felt suddenly depressed. The silence was a tangible thingalmost, and he felt shut out from the world, lost to his kind,marooned upon a bleak, inhospitable island in an ocean of sand. Thefew men whom he met upon the sun-baked street eyed him with anindifference which was worse than actual hostility. When he spoke theynodded briefly and passed on. It was clear that if he looked upon themas aliens, they looked upon him as a being with whom and whose classthey had nothing in common, no desire to have anything in common. Fora moment his good nature died down before a flash of anger that thesebeings, with little, circumscribed existences, should feel andmanifest toward him the same degree of contempt that he, a visitorfrom a higher plane of life, experienced toward them. But in GreekConniston good humor was a habit, and it returned as he assuredhimself that what these desert-dwellers felt was worth only hisamusement.

  At the store he bought some tobacco for his pipe and engaged thestorekeeper in trifling conversation. The talk was desultory and forthe most part led nowhere. But the little, brown, wizened old man,contemplatively chewing his tobacco like a gentle cow ruminating overher cud, answered what scattering questions Conniston put to him. Theyoung man learned that the town took its name from the stream whichcrept rather than ran through it to spread out on the thirsty sands afew miles to the north, where it was absorbed by them. That the creekcame from the hills to the south, and from the mountains beyond them.When one crossed the brown hills he came to the Half Moon country andinto a land of many wide-reaching cattle-ranges.

  "I saw a team drive out that way after the train came in," saidConniston, carelessly. "Headed for one of the cattle-ranges, Isuppose?"

  The old man spat and nodded, wiping his scanty gray beard with hishand.

  "That was Joe from the Half Moon. Took the ol' man's girl out."

  "I did see a young lady with him. She lives out there?"

  "Uh-uh." The old man got up to wait upon a customer, a cowboy, from theloose, shaggy black "chaps," the knotted neck handkerchief, theclanking spurs and heavy, black-handled Colt revolver at his hip. Hebought large quantities of smoking-tobacco and brown cigarette-papers,"swapped the news" with the storekeeper, and clanked his way across tothe saloon. He did not appear to have seen Conniston.

  "The girl's father run a cattle-range out there?"

  "Uh-uh. The Half Moon an' three or four smaller ranges. He's old manCrawford--p'r'aps you've heard on him?"

  Conniston shook his head, suppressing a smile.

  "I don't think I have. Far out to his place?"

  "Oh, it ain't bad. Let's see. It's fifty mile to the hills, an' he'sabout forty mile fu'ther on." He stopped for a brief mentalcalculation. "That makes it about ninety mile, huh?"

  "How does a man get out there? A narrow-gauge running from somewherealong the main line?"

  "Darn narrow, stranger.
You can walk if you're strong for that kind ofexercise. Mos' folks rides. Goin' out?"

  "It's rather a long walk," Conniston evaded. And shortly afterward,hearing a clanging bell up the street in the direction of the hotel,he strolled away to his dinner.

  He found Hapgood scowling into his high-ball glass and dragged himaway to the little dining-room. Both the tables were set. At one ofthem the cowboy whom he had seen at the store was already eating withtwo of his companions. Conniston and Hapgood were shown to the othertable by the stout Mary. Hapgood cast one glance at the stew andcoarse-looking bread put before him, and pushed his plate away.Conniston, who had had fewer high-balls and more fresh air, actuallyenjoyed his meal. The men at the other table glanced across at themonce and seemed to take no further interest.

  Hapgood waited, bored and conventional, until Conniston had finished,and then the two went back into the bar-room. The sun had gone down,leaving in the west flaring banners of brilliant, changing colors. Theheat of the day had gone with the setting of the sun, a little lost,wandering breeze springing up and telling of the fresh coolness of thecoming night. And it was still day, a day softened into a graytwilight which hung like a misty veil over the desert.

  From the card-room came the voices of the proprietor and the men withwhom he was still playing. They had not stopped for their supper,would not think of eating for hours to come.

  "If you feel like excitement--" began Conniston, jerking his head inthe direction of the card-room.

  Hapgood interrupted shortly. "No, thanks. I've got a magazine in mysuit-case. I suppose I'll sit up reading it until morning, for Icertainly am not going to crawl into that cursed bed! And in themorning--"

  "Well? In the morning?"

  "Thank God there's a train due then!"

  Conniston left him and went out into the twilight. He passed by thestore, by the saloon, along the short, dusty street, and out into thedry fields beyond. He followed the road for perhaps a half-mile andthen turned away to a little mound of earth rising gently from theflatness about it. And there he threw himself upon the ground and lethis eyes wander to the south and the faint, dark line which showed himwhere the hills were being drawn into the embrace of the nightshadows.

  The utter loneliness of this barren world rested heavy upon hisgregarious spirit. Sitting with his back to Indian Creek, he could seeno moving, living thing in all the monotony of wide-reachinglandscape. He was enjoying a new sensation, feeling vague, restlessthoughts surge up within him which were so vague, so elusive as to behardly grasped. At first it was only the loneliness, the isolation anddesolation of the thing which appalled him. Then slowly into thatfeeling there entered something which was a kind of awe, almost anactual fear. A man, a man like young Greek Conniston, was a smallmatter out here; the desert a great, unmerciful, unrelenting God.

  First loneliness, then awe tinged with a vague fear, and thensomething which Conniston had never felt before in his life. A great,deep admiration, a respect, a soul-troubling yearning toward the verything from which his city-trained senses shrank. He was experiencingwhat the men who live upon its rim or deep in its heart are never freefrom feeling. For all men fear the desert; and when they know it theyhate it, and even then the magic of it, brewed in the eternalstillness, falls upon them, and though they draw back and curse it,they love it! The desert calls, and he who hears must heed the call.It calls with a voice which talks to his soul. It calls with the dimlure of half-dreamed things. It beckons with the wavering streamers ofgold and crimson light thrown across the low horizon at sunrise andsunset.

  Greek Conniston was not an introspective man. His life, the life of arich man's son, had left little room for self-examination of mood andpurpose and character. He had done well enough during his four yearsin the university, not because he was ambitious, but simply becausehe was not a fool and found a mild satisfaction in passing hisexaminations. Nature had cast him in a generous physical mold, and hehad aided nature on diamond and gridiron. He had taken his place insociety, had driven his car and ridden his horses. He had through itall spent the money which came in a steady stream from the amplecoffers of William Conniston, Senior. His had been a busy life, a lifefilled with dinners and dances and theaters and races. He had not hadtime to think. And certainly he had not had need to think.

  But now, under the calm gaze of the desert, he found himself turninghis thoughts inward. He had been driven out of his father's house. Hehad been called a dawdler and a trifler and a do-nothing. He had beentold by a stern old man who was a _man_ that he was a disgrace to hisname. He had never done anything but dance and smoke and drink andmake pretty speeches which were polite lies and which were accepted assuch. And now a minor note, as thin as a low-toned human voice heardfaintly through the deep music of a cathedral organ, something seemedto call to him telling him again of these things.

  The darkening line where the far-away hills in the south were draggeddeeper and deeper into the night drew his wandering thoughts away fromhimself and sent them skimming after the girl he had seen that day.Somewhere out there she was moving across the desert, plunged into theinnermost circle of the grim solitude. He remembered her eyes and thelook he had seen in them. He could see her again as she jerked in herplunging horse, as she caught the step of the swiftly moving train.The desert had called her; and she, purposeful, strong, as clean ofsoul, he felt, as she was of body, had answered the call. With thecompelling desire to know her springing full-grown from his firstswift interest in her, his fancies, touched by the subtle magic of thedesert, showed her to him out yonder with the dusk and the silenceabout her. He got to his feet and stood staring into the gatheringgloom as though he would make out across the flat miles the flyingbuckboard.

  "After all," he told himself, with a restless, half-reckless littlelaugh, "why not?"

  He turned and went back toward the town. On his way he overtook a boy,a little fellow of eight or nine, driving a milk-cow ahead of him. Hefound him the shy, wordless child he had expected, but chatted withhim none the less, and by the time they had reached the first of thescattered buildings the boy had thawed a little and responded toConniston's talk. After the brief, somewhat uncomfortable lonesomenessof a moment ago Conniston found himself glad of any company. And uponleaving the boy at a tumbled-down house a bit farther on he found ahalf-dollar in his pocket and proffered it.

  "Here, Johnny," he said, smiling. "This is for some candy."

  The boy put his hands behind his back. "My name's William," he said,with a quiet, odd dignity. "An' I don't take money off'n no one 'lessI work for it!"

  "My name's William, too, my boy," Conniston answered, much amused;"but you and I have very different ideas about taking money!"

  "Proud little cuss," he told himself, as he strode on along thestreet. "Wonder who taught him that?"

  Here and there in the dull dome above him the stars were beginning tocome out. On either hand the pale-yellow rays from kerosene-lampsstraggled through windows and doors, making restless shadowsunderfoot. From the door of the saloon the brightest light crept outinto the night. And with it came men's voices. Having a desire forcompanionship, and not craving that of Hapgood in his present mood,Conniston stepped in at the low door, and, going to the bar, calledfor a glass of beer. There were half a dozen men, among whom herecognized the proprietor of the "hotel" and the men with whom he hadbeen playing cards, and also the cowboys who had eaten at the othertable. In the center of the room, under a big nickeled swinging-lamp,a man was dealing faro while the others standing or sitting about himmade their bets. A glance told Conniston that the hotel man wasplaying heavily, his chips and gold stacked high in front of him.

  "The strange part of it," he thought, as he watched the bartender openhis bottle of beer, "is where they get so much money! Do they make itout of sand?"

  He invited the bartender to drink with him, chatted a moment, and thenstrolled over to the table. The dealer, a thick-set, fat-fingered,grave-eyed man who moved like a piece of machinery, glanced up at himand back t
o his game. There was no "lookout." A man whom he had notseen before, deft-fingered and alert, was keeping cases. Theproprietor of the hotel, the three cowboys, and one other man wereplaying.

  Familiar with the greater number of common ways of separating oneselffrom his money, Conniston was no stranger to the ways of faro. Hewatched the fat fingers of the banker as they slipped card after cardfrom the box, and smiled to himself at the fellow's slowness. Andbefore half a dozen plays were made his smile was succeeded by alittle shock of surprise. It certainly did not do to judge people outhere in a flash and by external signs. What seemed awkwardness amoment ago was now perfected, automatic skill.

  The hotel man won and lost, his face always inscrutable, tiltedsidewise as he closed one eye against the up-curling smoke from thecigar which he turned round and round between his pursed lips. He hadin front of him a stack of ten or twelve twenty-dollar gold pieceswhich his fingers continually moved and shifted, breaking them intoseveral smaller stacks, bringing them together again, slipping oneover another, gathering them into one stack, breaking them down again,so that the golden disks gave out the low musical clink which rose atall times faint and clear through the few short-spoken words. Andmeanwhile his eyes never left the table and the box.

  At the end of the sixth deal he coppered his bet and leaned back tolight a fresh cigar. He stood already a hundred dollars to the good.One of the cowboys was winning, having taken in something like twentyor thirty dollars since Conniston came in. The other two were playingrecklessly and with little skill, and were losing steadily. The fifthman contented himself with small bets.

  Presently the younger of the two cowboys, the fellow whom Connistonhad seen at the store in the afternoon, shoved his last two dollarsand a half onto the table, lost, and got to his feet, shrugging hisshoulders.

  "Cleaned," he grunted, laconically. "Gimme a drink, Smiley."

  He went to the bar with one lingering look behind him. And in anotherplay or two his companion followed him.

  "No kind of luck, Jimmie," he said to the first to be "cleaned.""Ain't it sure enough hell how steady a man can lose?"

  "Bein' as my luck took a day off six months ago an' ain't showed upyet," retorted Jimmie, "I guess I'd ought to had sense to leaveinves'ments like the bank alone. Only I ain't got the gumption. An'I'm always figgerin' it's about time for my luck to git over hervacation an' come back to work. How much did you drop, Bart?"

  "Forty bucks," returned Bart, reaching for the whisky-bottle. "Whichsame forty was all I had. Here's how."

  "How," repeated his companion.

  "I'm laying you a bet," said Conniston, quietly, coming toward themfrom the table.

  Jimmie put down his glass, stared reminiscently at it for a moment,and then, lifting his eyebrows, turned to Conniston. "Evenin',stranger. You might have made a remark?"

  "If your luck has been working for other people for six months it's mybet that it's on the way home to you right now! I don't mean anyoffense, and I am not sure of your customs out here. But I'll stakeyou to five dollars and take half what you win."

  Jimmie grinned and put out his hand. "Which I call darn good custom,East _or_ West!"

  For a few minutes it looked as though Conniston's money were going toretrieve the cowboy's losses. Jimmie had already twenty dollars infront of him. And then a gambler's "hunch," a staking of everything onone play, and Jimmie sat back with nothing to do but roll a cigarette.

  "I might have giv' back your fiver a minute ago, but now--"

  He ended by licking his brown cigarette-paper together. But his creditwas good with the bartender, and Conniston and Bart joined him inhaving a drink.

  "It looks like my luck had started back toward the home corrals allright," said Jimmie, with a meditative smile. "Only she wasn't strongenough to make it all the way. She got weak in the knees an' went tosleep on the road. Now, if I had a fist full of money--" He sighed therest into his glass.

  "If the stranger," put in Bart, studying his own brown paper andtobacco-sack, "has got any more money he wants to--"

  Conniston laughed. "Much obliged. I think I'll quit with fiveto-night."

  Suddenly Jimmie got another of his "hunches." He cast a swift,apprising glance at Conniston, and then, tugging Bart's sleeve, drewhim to the door. Conniston could hear their voices outside, and,although he could not catch their words, he knew from the tone thatJimmie was urging, while Bart demurred. They came back and had anotherdrink at the bartender's invitation, after which they stepped to thetable and watched the play for five minutes.

  "I'd 'a' won twice runnin'," grunted Jimmie. "We ought to make a try."

  Bart hesitated, watched another play, and said, shortly: "Go to it.If you can put it across I'm with you."

  Whereupon Jimmie returned to Conniston and made him a proposition. Andten minutes later, when Conniston went smiling back to the hotel,Jimmie and Bart were playing again, each with a hundred dollars infront of him.