CHAPTER XXIX
There are times when torture of the body heals the suffering of themind, and times when mental agony blots out physical pain. But thereare other times when the two run together. It was so with Bob as theytoiled doggedly through that long night across the desert toward theriver. He kept his course by the North Star, and lost little distanceby getting off the compass. It was just daylight when they reached theriver. The stream was bank full--midsummer is high water for theColorado--and was very muddy. But its water was more beautiful thanjasper seas to those four men.
After they had drunk and cooled themselves in it, they crawled under aclump of willows beside the road to rest through the day. Bob had juststretched out on his back and covered his face with a handkerchief,ready to sleep, when a chuck-chuck and a grinding noise came down theroad. He was up instantly, and so were the three Mexicans.
"A machine!" they exclaimed. Relief! They would not have to walk thatother twenty miles.
The deep chug of the engine indicated a powerful machine pullingheavily. It was coming rather slowly. The road was hidden by miles ofrank wild hemp; but directly the machine came round a curve.
It was a motor truck loaded high with cotton bales!
Bob's heart beat quick. They were in time to save at least part of it,after all.
The captain bristled. Here was work to do, authority to display. Hestepped into the middle of the road, put his hand on his gun, and gavea ringing call to halt.
The Mexican driver came to a sudden stop. He knew _el capitan_. Andwhatever faults may be attributed to the governor of Baja California,all admits he is a governor. When he speaks in person or by messengerthere is never any hesitancy about obedience.
The captain read his orders to the chauffeur and commanded him to turnround. The four climbed on, and the truck started back.
The driver told them that only two trucks had gone on ahead; sixteenwere behind, with Senor Jenkins on the last, and each truck carriedtwenty bales of cotton.
They stopped the next truck when they met it, and then waited until allseventeen were backed up the road.
Reedy Jenkins leaped from the rear one, nervous and violent of temper,swore, and hurried forward to see what was the trouble. To hisunutterable wrath he saw the end truck headed about.
"What the hell! you damned greasers." But then he quit. Something waswrong here. He strode forward angrily.
"Rogeen, get off that truck and do it damn quick."
"I'm getting off," said Bob. With a quick leap he landed in the roadand went straight for Reedy. The secretary and the captain followed.
"I have a writ of attachment here," said Bob, bringing out the paperissued by the governor, "for your cotton in favour of Ah Sing. I havefurther orders from the governor to deliver the cotton to the compresson the American side and sell it in the open market.
"Captain," Bob turned to the officer, "order the drivers to turn back.You ride on the front one with the driver, and I'll ride on the backone with my kind friend Senor Jenkins."
That night after Bob Rogeen had left her with the telegram ImogeneChandler was too wrought up to sleep. And the longer she thought ofit, the more determined she became to take action herself. She hadsome faith that the telegram would bring results, but not much faiththat those results would come in time to save their crop. While Bobwas riding through the days and nights, fighting for them, she and theother ranchers were doing nothing but watch their cotton burn for water.
About eleven o'clock Imogene went to the corral and bridled and saddleda horse. With the bridle reins in her left hand and her revolver inher right, she galloped off north toward Rogeen's ranch to consult NoahEzekiel.
A mile up the road she met Noah riding south.
"What's the matter? Your dad not sick?" He was much astonished to seeher riding out at this time of night.
"No," replied the girl, "it is our cotton that is sick. And I'm goingafter a doctor. Noah, I want you to go with me and show me where thosewater gates are. I'm going to have water or fight. They wouldn'tshoot a woman."
"Oh, wouldn't they?" said Noah. "That shows how naturally scarce ofinformation you are.
"No," said the hill billy determinedly but with a current of tendernessin his tone, "you ain't goin' to the water gates; you are goin' back toyour ranch. You are just naturally sweet enough to gentle a horse, butyou ain't cut out to fight Mexicans."
She had turned her horse round and was riding beside him back towardher ranch.
"Now, listen here," said Noah as he saw signs of rebellion in the swingof her body and the grip on her revolver, "you go home and get your dadand your Chinaman ready. There's goin' to be water in them ditchesbefore daylight or there will be one less hill billy in this vale oftears."
During these fervid days Noah Ezekiel had not been asleep, althoughmuch of the time he looked as though he were on the verge of it. Hehad had his eye on both ranches--the Chandlers' and the Red Butte.Twice he had cautiously reconnoitred the full length of the waterditches.
At a point on the Valley Irrigation Company's big canal, about sevenmiles below the intake from the Colorado River, two diverting ditchesbranched off; the larger of these furnished the main water supply ofthe Mexican side of the valley, the smaller was the Dillenbeck system.
At these gates the Valley Company kept water keepers and guards day andnight. As the Dillenbeck Company were merely private consumers, waterwas turned into this canal only on their orders, and charged for by thethousand feet.
Four miles below where this canal began to branch to the variousranches it supplied was the Dillenbeck water station. It was thekeeper in charge here who ordered water from the main canal and whoopened the sluice gates and apportioned it to the various ranches.
Noah Ezekiel on his reconnoitring discovered two things: The nightwater keeper had been reenforced by a Mexican guard; and besidesMadrigal, the Mexican Jew, usually spent the night with these two.Expecting trouble, a company of twenty Mexican special guards wascamped a quarter of a mile down the canal, in easy calling distance.These guards, while authorized by the comandante, were hired and paidby Reedy Jenkins. It was their duty to patrol the canal above andbelow by the main water gates and be ready at all times to repulse anythreatened attack.
Noah Ezekiel had been approached several times by infuriated rancherswith suggestions that they organize a mob. But American ranchers weretoo few and unpopular to make mobs highly hopeful. An attack on theseguards would bring on a conflict with the whole Mexican garrison atMexicali, consisting of several hundred well-trained troops. NoahEzekiel advised strongly against this. Noah was opposed to strife ofany kind. But he had been doing a little plotting of his own.
He knew the Red Owl employed a number of boosters for the games--menwho went from table to table and gambled with the house's money. Thepsychology of gambling is like the psychology of anything else--thelivelier the game the more there are who want to get into it. The jobof the booster is to stimulate business by gambling freely himself.These boosters are paid four dollars a day; and the ordinary Mexican,if given his choice between being secretary of state and a booster atthe Red Owl, would pick the Owl every time.
After a reasonable wait to see if water was coming in by the dueprocess of law and growing doubtful about it, Noah Ezekiel had beguncarefully laying plans.
That morning he had gone to the Red Owl and had a secret session withJack the Ace of Diamonds, one of the game keepers. Jack and the hillbilly had become good friends, and Jack was more than willing toaccommodate a friend.
"Now, Ace," said Noah, "the idea is like this: This afternoon you senda Mexican out to that camp on the Dillenbeck canal with the informationthat the Owl wants to hire about eleven good boosters to begin work attwelve o'clock to-night; and have the messenger casually but secretlygive each of them a slip of paper that is dead sure to get him one ofthe jobs.
"And," Noah grinned, "you give every one of 'em that applies a job fortwo days--a
s a treat on me. You can fix it with the boss."
"Sure," grinned Jack, "I'll fix it." And a Mexican messenger had beendispatched on the spot.
Noah sat at the ranch shack as dark came on and counted them as theywent by down the road. As he guessed, the officer would get awayfirst, and the rest begin to drop away from camp one or two at a timesoon after dark. By eleven o'clock he had counted seventeen: and thenNoah saddled his horse. When he had met Imogene, he had thought shewas another Mexican, but he was not alarmed at one or even three.
A little before one o'clock Noah tied his horse to a cottonwood tree ahalf mile below the Dillenbeck water gates.
He skirted through the fields round the deserted guard camp. Hiscaution was not necessary, not a Mexican soldier was left. He grinnedto think of the boosters about now in the Red Owl. Two hundred yardsfrom the little open shack that served as office and home for the waterkeeper Noah took off his shoes and left his hat, and slipped toward thelight. In his hands, muzzle forward, was the double-barrelledshotgun--the riot gun sure to hit its mark at close range that Bob hadgot for him with which to guard the Chandler ranch.
CHAPTER XXX
Noah, bent low, slipped forward in utter silence--more silence thannecessary. The American water keeper, Madrigal, and the Mexican guardwere too profoundly busy with a crap game on the floor under thelantern to be disturbed by the mere breaking of a twig.
But all at once from out the night came a drawling voice:
"Brethren, let's raise our hands." Three pairs of eyes leaped up fromthe dice and looked into the muzzle of the most vicious shotgun theyhad ever seen--not ten feet away. Six hands went up without a word.
"Stand up," was the next drawling command. "Turn your backs." Noahflung two small ropes at their feet.
"You," he ordered Madrigal, "tie the Mex's hands behind him--and standhim over by the wall."
"Whitey," he ordered the water keeper when that was done, "tie theHebrew's hands and feet and set him down over by the wall, facing thisway.
"Now," Noah again commanded the water keeper, "go to the telephone andorder the water turned in. Tell 'em we are dry--that all the troubleis settled, and to shoot the water down banks full, right away, quick."
The water keeper was shaking as though with the ague. He knew dangerwhen he saw it and he was perfectly sure he saw it.
He went to the telephone and called the keeper at the Valley IrrigationCompany's office. As he started to speak Madrigal stirred on the flooras though trying to get up.
Still keeping the water keeper covered with the shotgun, Noah lookedround at Madrigal and drawled:
"If I was you, Hebrew, I'd keep sayin' over that parable which reads:'Once there was a Mexican who was shot in the stomach with half a pintof buckshot; and in hell he lifted up his eyes and said, "FatherAbraham, send me a drop of water." And Father Abraham says, "Not adrop. Ain't you the man that helped burn up the Imperial Valley?Hell's too good for you, but it's all we've got."'"
The telephone message was given.
"It sounded all right," said Noah to the water keeper. "Sit down overthere and be comfortable, while we wait and see; and keep your eye onthe muzzle of the gun. It is the only way to keep it from smokin'."
Forty minutes passed. Noah's eyes were on his prisoners, but his earskept listening. Fifty minutes, then he heard a loud woosh--almost aroar. The water was coming!
"Now let's go out and open up all gates," ordered Noah. The waterkeeper obeyed.
"For the time being," drawled Noah, "you can lie down out there in theopen beside the canal and take a nap. Shootin' craps has been sort ofhard on your nerves. I'll look after the water for a spell."
About nine o'clock at night Imogene Chandler came in from the cottonfield.
Out there in the dim starlight stretched the long rows of cotton,erect, green, luxuriant. The water had come in time. It had flowedinto their ditches at four o'clock the morning after Noah Ezekielpassed. They had been ready for it. For three days it had flowedabundantly, and all their fields were watered.
Imogene lifted her face to the wind. She loved the desert again. Andyet there was restlessness in her movements; even in the stillness herears strained to catch some other sound than the soft rustle of thewind.
Nothing had happened to him of course or she would have heard. But shehad watched for him that first night after the water was turned in; thenext night she was expecting him, and last night she felt sure he wouldcome. If he did not come tonight---- Maybe something had happened,maybe he had been shot by some of Jenkins' hired assassins? Fear,which really had been hovering about for three days, but put off by herfaith in Bob's utter competence to take care of himself, swooped downon her suddenly. Her throat grew dry, her heart beat like a frightenedbird's, she whirled and started to run for the house. She would startin search at once.
Then came the sound that her ears had been straining for--the chuck,chuck of his little machine.
She dropped down on the bench under the arrowwood shelter and letherself go. But the sobs were over, her eyes dry, her lips smiling, ashe came across the yard in the dusk with a dark bulk under his arms.
He had brought his fiddle. She did not stir from the bench. She feltutterly, blissfully relaxed. Her arm lay loosely along the back of thebench, her head dropped slightly forward, the wind still stirring herhair.
"Hello." That was her only greeting. But the tone of it went throughhim like a soft breath of wind in the woods following a lull in thestorm.
"Hello," and that was his only reply as he sat down on the bench besideher, the fiddle across his knees.
Her arm lying lazily along the back of the bench was almost touchinghim; but he had not noticed it, and she left it there.
"I don't hardly know where to begin," Bob said directly, and laughed totry to cover up his emotions. He knew that no matter where he began henever could put in words the horror of the night when the ghost ofutter defeat and failure walked with him over that terrible desert; noryet the great upsweep of triumph that engulfed him when he reached thewater gates the next day and learned that Noah Ezekiel and adouble-barrelled shotgun had saved the crops three days before--his andall the rest.
To feel one moment that he was in debt for life, beaten and wrecked,and the next to know he would be worth in three months at least ahundred thousand dollars! No, he could not put that in words; so hemerely twanged softly the violin strings with his thumb, and remarkedcasually:
"Well, I got the money."
"What money?" Still the girl did not stir. She was so blissfullylethargic, and she was not thinking at all of money or cotton.
"For poor old Ah Sing, and for Jim Crill. I seized Reedy's cotton thismorning and sold it this afternoon. Got $410,000 for the cotton andthe seed. But Jenkins was in deeper than we knew. He's gambled awayfifty thousand or so. After I'd paid up all his debts, including theduty, there was only $25,000 left for Reedy. And Mrs. Barnett camedown on me like a squawking hen, demanding that. Said Reedy hadpromised it to her for getting the loans from her uncle. But Reedydenied it."
"What did you do?" asked Imogene as he paused. "I compromised--toldReedy I was entitled to that much for commission and damages, but thatI'd give it to him provided he and Mrs. Barnett married. They did."
Imogene laughed, a rich warm laugh in which there was no sting ofrevenge, only humour for human faults. This was such a good world, andsuch a beautiful desert!
Bob did not think of anything more to tell of his exploits. Somehowhis mind would not stay on them. Instead, he looked up at the starsand sighed with deep content, then put the fiddle to his shoulder andraised the bow.
When he finished he turned to look down at her, and in that moment feltthe touch of her arm at his back. She was very still; he was not surewhether she was crying or smiling.
"Do you know what it said?" he asked, huskily.
"Y-e-s," she answered, softly, "but I want to hear it in words, too."
He sl
ipped his arm round her and drew her to him. "You wonderfuldarling," he said, kissing her, "you'll hear it a million times inwords."
THE END
The Desert Fiddler Page 29