CHAPTER XIX
THE SENTINEL
There appeared in the light of the hotel door for a moment the figuresof struggling men, followed by the sound of feet in flight down thesteps, and somebody mounting a horse in haste at the hotelhitching-rack. Whoever this was rode away at a hard gallop.
Lambert knew that the battle was over, and as he came to thehitching-rack he saw that Taterleg's horse was still there. So he hadnot fled. Several voices sounded from the porch in excited talk, amongthem Taterleg's, proving that he was sound and untouched.
His uneasiness gone, Lambert stood a little while in front, well out inthe dark, trying to pick up what was being said, but with little result,for people were arriving with noise of heavy boots to learn the cause ofthe disturbance.
Taterleg held the floor for a little while, his voice severe as if helaid down the law. Alta replied in what appeared to be indignantprotest, then fell to crying. There was a picture of her in the door amoment being led inside by her mother, blubbering into her hands. Thedoor slammed after them, and Taterleg was heard to say in loud, firmvoice:
"Don't approach me, I tell you! I'd hit a blind woman as quick as Iwould a one-armed man!"
Lambert felt that this was the place to interfere. He called Taterleg.
"All right, Duke; I'm a-comin'," Taterleg answered.
The door opened, revealing the one-armed proprietor entering the house;revealing a group of men and women, bare-headed, as they had rushed tothe hotel at the sound of the shooting; revealing Taterleg coming downthe steps, his box of chewing gum under his arm.
Wood fastened the door back in its accustomed anchorage. His neighborsclosed round where he stood explaining the affair, his stump of armlifting and pointing in the expressionless gestures common to a man thusmaimed.
"Are you hurt?" Lambert inquired.
"No, I ain't hurt none, Duke."
Taterleg got aboard of his horse with nothing more asked of him orvolunteered on his part. They had not proceeded far when his indignationbroke bounds.
"I ain't hurt, but I'm swinged like a fool miller moth in a lampchimley," he complained.
"Who was that shootin' around so darned careless?"
"Jedlick, dern him!"
"It's a wonder he didn't kill somebody upstairs somewhere."
"First shot he hit a box of t'backer back of Wood's counter. I don'tknow what he hit the second time, but it wasn't me."
"He hit the side of the store."
Taterleg rode along in silence a little way. "Well, that was purty goodfor him," he said.
"Who was that hopped a horse like he was goin' for the doctor, and toreoff?"
"Jedlick, dern him!"
Lambert allowed the matter to rest at that, knowing that neither of themhad been hurt. Taterleg would come to the telling of it before long,not being built so that he could hold a piece of news like that withoutsuffering great discomfort.
"I'm through with that bunch down there," he said in the tone of deep,disgustful renunciation. "I never was led on and soaked that way beforein my life. No, I ain't hurt, Duke, but it ain't no fault of that girl Iain't. She done all she could to kill me off."
"Who started it?"
"Well, I'll give it to you straight, Duke, from the first word, and youcan judge for yourself what kind of a woman that girl's goin' to turnout to be. I never would 'a' believed she'd 'a' throwed a man that way,but you can't read 'em, Duke; no man can read 'em."
"I guess that's right," Lambert allowed, wondering how far he had readin certain dark eyes which seemed as innocent as a child's.
"It's past the power of any man to do it. Well, you know, I went overthere with my fresh box of gum, all of the fruit flavors you can name,and me and her we set out on the porch gabbin' and samplin' that gum.She never was so leanin' and lovin' before, settin' up so clost to meyou couldn't 'a' put a sheet of writin' paper between us. Shucks!"
"Rubbin' the paint off, Taterleg. You ought 'a' took the tip that shewas about done with you."
"You're right; I would 'a' if I'd 'a' had as much brains as a ant. Well,she told me Jedlick was layin' for me, and begged me not to hurt him,for she didn't want to see me go to jail on account of a feller likehim. She talked to me like a Dutch uncle, and put her head so clost Icould feel them bangs a ticklin' my ear. But that's done with; she cantickle all the ears she wants to tickle, but she'll never tickle mine nomore. And all the time she was talkin' to me like that, where do youreckon that Jedlick feller was at?"
"In the saloon, I guess, firin' up."
"No, he wasn't, Duke. He was settin' right in that _ho_-tel, with hisold flat feet under the table, shovelin' in pie. He come out pickin' histeeth purty soon, standin' there by the door, dern him, like he ownedthe dump. Well, he may, for all I know. Alta she inched away from me,and she says to him: 'Mr. Jedlick, come over here and shake hands withMr. Wilson.'
"'Yes,' he says, 'I'll shake insect powder on his grave!'
"'I see you doin' it,' I says, 'you long-hungry and half-full! If youever make a pass at me you'll swaller wind so fast you'll bust.' Well,he begun to shuffle and prance and cut up like a boy makin' faces, andthere's where Alta she ducked in through the parlor winder. 'Don't hurthim, Mr. Jedlick,' she says; 'please don't hurt him!'
"'I'll chaw him up as fine as cat hair and blow him out through myteeth,' Jedlick told her. And there's where I started after that feller.He was standin' in front of the door all the time, where he could duckinside if he saw me comin', and I guess he would 'a' ducked if Woodhadn't 'a' been there. When he saw Wood, old Jedlick pulled his gun.
"I slung down on him time enough to blow him in two, and pulled on mytrigger, not aimin' to hurt the old sooner, only to snap a bulletbetween his toes, but she wouldn't work. Old Jedlick he was so rattledat the sight of that gun in my hand he banged loose, slap through thewinder into that box of plug back of the counter. I pulled on her andpulled on her, but she wouldn't snap, and I was yankin' at the hammer tocock her when he tore loose with that second shot. That's when I foundout what the matter was with that old gun of mine."
Taterleg was so moved at this passage that he seemed to run out ofwords. He rode along in silence until they reached the top of the hill,and the house on the mesa stood before them, dark and lonesome. Then hepulled out his gun and handed it across to the Duke.
"Run your thumb over the hammer of that gun, Duke," he said.
"Well! What in the world--it feels like chewin' gum, Taterleg."
"It is chewin' gum, Duke. A wad of it as big as my fist gluin' down thehammer of that gun. That girl put it on there, Duke. She knew Jedlickwouldn't have no more show before me, man to man, than a rabbit. Shedone me that trick, Duke; she wanted to kill me off."
"There wasn't no joke about that, old feller," the Duke said seriously,grateful that the girl's trick had not resulted in any greater damageto his friend than the shock to his dignity and simple heart.
"Yes, and it was my own gum. That's the worst part of it, Duke; shewasn't even usin' his gum, dang her melts!"
"She must have favored Jedlick pretty strong to go that far."
"Well, if she wants him after what she's saw of him, she can take him. Iclinched him before he could waste any more ammunition, and twisted hisgun away from him. I jolted him a couple of jolts with my fist, and hebroke and run. You seen him hop his horse."
"What did you do with his gun?"
"I walked over to the winder where that girl was lookin' out to seeJedlick wipe up the porch with me, and I handed her the gun, and I says:'Give this to Mr. Jedlick with my regards,' I says, 'and tell him if hewants any more to send me word.' Well, she come out, and I called her onwhat she done to my gun. She swore she didn't mean it for nothin' but ajoke. I said if that was her idear of a joke, the quicker we parted thesooner. She began to bawl, and the old man and old woman put in, andI'd 'a' slapped that feller, Duke, if he'd 'a' had two arms on him. Butyou can't slap a half of a man."
"I guess that's right."
"I wal
ked up to that girl, and I said: 'You've chawed the last wad of mygum you'll ever plaster up ag'in' your old lean jawbone. You may be somefigger in Glendora,' I says, 'but anywheres else you wouldn't cut nomore ice than a cracker.' Wood he took it up ag'in. That's when I comeaway."
"It looks like it's all off between you and Alta now."
"Broke off, short up to the handle. Serves a feller right for bein' afool. I might 'a' knowed when she wanted me to shave my mustache off shedidn't have no more heart in her than a fish."
"That was askin' a lot of a man, sure as the world."
"No man can look two ways at once without somebody puttin' somethingdown his back, Duke."
"Referrin' to the lady in Wyoming. Sure."
"She was white. She says: 'Mr. Wilson, I'll always think of you as agentleman.' Them was her last words, Duke."
They were walking their horses past the house, which was dark, carefulnot to wake Vesta. But their care went for nothing; she was not in bed.Around the turn of the long porch they saw her standing in themoonlight, looking across the river into the lonely night. It seemed asif she stood in communion with distant places, to which she sent herlonging out of a bondage that she could not flee.
"She looks lonesome," Taterleg said. "Well, I ain't a-goin' to go andpet and console her. I'm done takin' chances."
Lambert understood as never before how melancholy that life must be forher. She turned as they passed, her face clear in the bright moonlight.Taterleg swept off his hat with the grand air that took him so far withthe ladies, Lambert saluting with less extravagance.
Vesta waved her hand in acknowledgment, turning again to her watchingover the vast, empty land, as if she waited the coming of somebody whowould quicken her life with the cheer that it wanted so sadly that calmsummer night.
Lambert felt an unusual restlessness that night--no mood over him forhis bed. It seemed, in truth, that a man would be wasting valuable hoursof life by locking his senses up in sleep. He put his horse away, satedwith the comedy of Taterleg's adventure, and not caring to pursue itfurther. To get away from the discussion of it that he knew Taterlegwould keep going as long as there was an ear open to hear him, he walkedto the near-by hilltop to view the land under this translating spell.
This was the hilltop from which he had ridden down to interfere betweenVesta and Nick Hargus. With that adventure he had opened his account oftrouble in the Bad Lands, an account that was growing day by day, thefinal balancing of which he could not foresee.
From where he stood, the house was dark and lonely as an abandonedhabitation. It seemed, indeed, that bright and full of youthful light asVesta Philbrook was, she was only one warm candle in the gloom of thisgreat and melancholy monument of her father's misspent hopes. Beforeshe could warm it into life and cheerfulness, it would encroach upon herwith its chilling gloom, like an insidious cold drift of sand,smothering her beauty, burying her quick heart away from the world forwhich it longed, for evermore.
It would need the noise of little feet across those broad, empty,lonesome porches to wake the old house; the shouting and laughter andgleam of merry eyes that childhood brings into this world's gloom, todrive away the shadows that draped it like a mist. Perhaps Vesta stoodthere tonight sending her soul out in a call to someone for whom shelonged, these comfortable, natural, womanly hopes in her own good heart.
He sighed, wishing her well of such hope if she had it, and forgot herin a moment as his eyes picked up a light far across the hills. Now ittwinkled brightly, now it wavered and died, as if its beam was all tooweak to hold to the continued effort of projecting itself so far. Thatmust be the Kerr ranch; no other habitation lay in that direction.Perhaps in the light of that lamp somebody was sitting, bending a darkhead in pensive tenderness with a thought of him.
He stood with his pleasant fancy, his dream around him like a cloak. Allthe trouble that was in the world for him that hour was near the earth,like the precipitation of settling waters. Over it he gazed, superior toits ugly murk, careless of whether it might rise to befoul the clearcurrent of his hopes, or sink and settle to obscure his dreams no more.
There was a sound of falling shale on the slope, following thedisturbance of a quick foot. Vesta was coming. Unseen and unheardthrough the insulation of his thoughts, she had approached within tenrods of him before he saw her, the moonlight on her fair face, gloriousin her uncovered hair.
The Duke Of Chimney Butte Page 19