The Desert Fiddler

by Hamby, William H

  The more he thought of it, the more anxious he was to get hold of something he could manage himself. Of course, the idea of farming a five-thousand-acre ranch without capital was merely a pipe dream; but still, if Benson was losing money and wanted to get loose from his lease—it might be possible.

  Reedy Jenkins' office was upstairs and on a back street. It had an outside stairway, one of those affairs that cling to an outer brick wall and end in a little iron platform. The only sign on the door was:

  REEDY JENKINS,

  Cotton.

  It did not explain whether Mr. Jenkins raised cotton, bought it, sold it, ginned it, or merely thought about it. The office was so located that in a morally crusading town, where caution was necessary, it would have suggested nocturnal poker. But as it was not necessary for a poker game in Calexico to be so modestly retiring, Reedy's choice of an office must be attributed solely to his love of quiet and unostentation.

  As Bob turned up the side street, two people were coming down the iron stairway—one a dry, thin man who looked as though he might be the relict of some dead language, wearing a stiff hat and a black alpaca coat; the other, a girl of more than medium height, who took the narrow steps with a sort of spring without even touching the iron rail with her hand, and her eyes were looking out across the town.

  "I beg your pardon," Bob met them at the foot of the stairs, "but can you tell me if Mr. Jenkins is in?"

  It was the girl who turned to answer, and at one look Bob saw she was more than interesting—soft light hair, inquisitive eyes, an intuitive mouth—nothing dry or attenuated about her.

  "Yes," she replied, with a slight twist of the mouth, "Mr. Jenkins is in. Have you a lease to sell?"

  "No."

  "Then go on up," she said, and turned across the street following the spindle-legged man who was unhitching two horses.

  "Blooming sunflowers!" exclaimed Bob, his heart taking a quick twist as she walked away, "as sure as I'm a foot high, that's the girl who stood in the doorway that night."

  As Bob entered the office Jenkins sat tipped back in a swivel chair, his left arm resting on his desk, the right free as though it had been gesturing. Reedy had rather large eyes, a plump, smooth face that was two shades redder than pink and one shade pinker than red. He always looked as though he had just shaved, and a long wisp of very black hair dangled diagonally across the corner of his forehead, such as one often sees on the storm-tossed head of an impassioned orator who is talking for the audience and working for himself.

  "Sit down." He waved Bob to a chair. "I've been wanting to have a talk with you—got a proposition for you."

  CHAPTER III

  Reedy Jenkins lighted a very good cigar and sat studying Rogeen with a leisurely air. Bob was a good salesman and began at once: "Understand you have been buying up leases, and I came up to sell you some farm machinery."

  Reedy took the cigar from his wide mouth and laughed at the joke. "I don't raise cotton, I leave that to Chinamen—I raise prices. I'm not a farmer but a financier."

  Then returning the cigar to the corner of his mouth he remarked with a pink judicialness:

  "I should say you have a way with the ladies."

  Bob blushed. "I never discovered it, if I have."

  "I have, myself." Reedy bit the end of his cigar and nodded with a doggish appreciation of his own fascination. "But I'm too busy just now to use it."

  "Rogeen"—Reedy laid the smoking cigar on some papers on his desk and faced Bob—"I've had my eye on you for some time. I am buying up leases across the line. I need a good man to work over there. What is Dayton paying you?"

  "Twenty a week." Bob was surprised at the turn of the conversation.

  "I'll give you a hundred and fifty a month to start, and there'll be a fine chance for promotion."

  "What am I to do?" inquired Bob.

  "Here is the whole thing in an eggshell. No doubt you are acquainted with the situation over the line. You know, excepting one or two big concessions, no Americans own land on the Mexican side. The land is all farmed under leases and sub-leases. If a Chink or a Jap or a wandering American hayseed wants to open up a patch of the desert, he takes a five-year lease. As it costs him from ten to twenty dollars an acre to clear off the mesquite, level the sand hummocks, and get his ditches ready for water, he pays only one dollar rent the first year, two dollars the second, and so on.

  "Now"—Reedy picked up his cigar, puffed a time or two, and looked speculatively over Bob's head—"if a fellow wants to speculate on the Mexican side, he doesn't deal in land; he buys and sells leases. That is my business. Of course, once in a while I take over a crop that is planted or partly raised, because I have to do it to get the lease. But you can say on general principles I'm about as much interested in farming as a ground hog is in Easter.

  "The price of cotton has been low, and for various and sundry other reasons"—Reedy squinted his large eyes a little mysteriously—"a lot of the ranchers over there after getting their land in good shape have got cold feet and are willing to sell leases that have three or four years yet to run for nearly nothing.

  "I'm acquiring a bunch of them and am going to make a fortune out of them. One of these days the price of cotton will take a jump, and I'll be subleasing ten thousand acres of land at ten dollars an acre that cost me three.

  "Now what I want you for"—he brought his attention down squarely to Rogeen—"is to buy leases for me—I'll give you a list of what I want and the prices I'll pay. If you get a lease for less, I'll give you half the rake-off in addition to your wages."

  Bob thought fast. This looked like a fine opportunity; perhaps he was worth more as a buyer than as a salesman.

  "I'll have a try at it," he said. "But I won't sign up for any length of time until I see how it goes."

  "That suits me," Reedy assented readily. His one fear had been that Bob might want a term contract.

  "I'll see Dayton," Bob arose, "and let you know how soon he can let me off."

  Dayton liked Bob and hated to lose him, but was one of those employers who prefer to suffer some inconvenience or loss rather than stand in the way of a young man's advancement.

  "A hundred and fifty dollars a month is more than I can pay, Rogeen," he said. "You'd better take it. Begin at once. I'll get Jim Moody in your place."

  At one o'clock Bob was back at Jenkins' office and reported ready for work.

  Reedy reached in his desk for the map on which all the ranches below the line were carefully marked.

  "The ranches I want to get first are along the Dillenbeck Canal. It is a private water system, and the water costs more; but the land is rich enough to make up the difference.

  "The first one I want you to tackle is here"—he made a cross with his pencil—"Belongs to a little dried-up old geezer named Chandler. He is ready to sell; talk to the girl. Five hundred is my top price for their lease and equipment."

  As Bob went down the outside stairway he passed a Mexican going up—a Mexican with features that suggested some one of his immediate forefathers was probably a Hebrew. Rogeen recognized him—his name was Madrigal; and he remembered that someone had told him that the Mexican was in the secret service over the line, or rather that he was an unofficial bearer of official information from some shady Mexican officials to some shady American concerns.

  When the Mexican entered the office, Reedy got up and closed the door. Then he took the map again from a drawer and opened it out on the desk.

  "I'll get Benson's lease this week." Reedy put his pencil on the Red Butte Ranch. "And these," he pointed to smaller squares along the Dillenbeck Canal, "are the ones I have marked for early annexation. How many of them have you seen?"

  "Thes, and thes, and thes." Madrigal pointed off three ranches.

  "I've sent the new man down to see Chandler," said Reedy. "He's the sort that can win over that girl. I must have that ranch. It is one of the best of the small ranches."

  "Si, si." Madrigal grinned, and smoothed up his b
lack pompadoured hair. "Eet will be easy. I gave them big scare about the duty on cotton next fall."

  "And then my friend who manages the Dillenbeck system gave them another about the price of water this summer," smiled Reedy. "But"—he frowned—"if the girl should continue obstinate, and they refuse to sell?"

  "Then I'll attend to the señorita"—the Mexican put his hand on his heart and bowed gallantly—"the ladies are easy for Señor Madrigal."

  "Yes," said Reedy, shutting his wide mouth determinedly, "and if he fails, I'll 'tend to Rogeen."

  CHAPTER IV

  It was a little after sundown when Bob rode up to the Chandler ranch. The girl was out under the cottonwood trees by the irrigation canal gathering up dry sticks for stove wood. He hitched his horse and went to her.

  "Good evening," he said.

  "Where is your fiddle?" There was a faint twist of amusement at the corner of her mouth.

  "How did you know?"

  "Guessed it," she replied, with a little lift of the eyebrows; and then stooped to pick up the armful of dry sticks she had gathered.

  "Let me have them." He stepped forward to take the wood.

  "Why should you?" she said, without offering to relinquish them. "I prefer to carry my own sticks—then I don't have to build fires for other people." He laughed, and followed her up the path toward the shack.

  "Let us sit down here." She led the way to a homemade bench in the open. "Daddy has had a hard day and has gone to bed, and I don't want to disturb him. He's very tired and has been upset over this lease business."

  That was an opening, but before he could take advantage of it she abruptly changed the conversation:

  "But you haven't told me why you didn't bring your fiddle this time. I'd love to hear it on a night like this." Dusk was coming swiftly and the stars had begun to glimmer.

  "Oh, I don't carry it round as a business," he answered. "Fact is, until the other night I had not played it but twice in eight years."

  "Why?" She turned to him with curious interest.

  "It hasn't usually brought me good luck."

  "What happened the other two times?"

  Jenkins and Lolita awed by Percy's fiddling.

  He looked off at the very bright star in the west and smiled with whimsical ruefulness. "I love music—that is, what I call music. When I was in the Ozarks I fiddled a lot, but discovered it did not bring me what I wanted, so I went to work. I got a job in a bank at Oakville; was to begin work Monday. I was powerful proud of that job, and had got a new suit of clothes and went to town Saturday. That night there was a dance, and they asked me to play for it." He stopped to chuckle, but still a little regretfully. "My playing certainly made a hit. Sunday morning a preacher lambasted the dance, and called me the special messenger of the devil. My job was with a pillar of his church. I didn't go to work Monday morning. It's a queer world; that preacher was the father of Noah Ezekiel Foster, who is now working for Benson."

  She was looking out at the west, smiling; the desert wind pushed the hair back from her forehead. "And the other time you played?"

  "That was up at Blindon, Colorado." He showed some reluctance to go ahead.

  "Yes?"

  "An old doctor and his daughter came to the camp to invest. I overheard them in the next room at the boarding house, and knew a gang of sharks was selling them a fake mine. I tried to attract their attention through the partition by playing a fool popular song—'If you tell him yes; you are sure to cry, by and by.'"

  "Did you make them understand?" She had locked her hands round her knees and leaned interestedly toward him.

  "Yes—and also the gang. The camp made up money to pay the undertaker to bury me next day. I still have the receipt."

  "You have had a lot of experience," she said with a touch of envy.

  "More than the wisdom I have gathered justifies, I fear," he replied.

  "Experiences are interesting," she observed. "I haven't had many, but I'm beginning. Daddy was professor of Sanskrit in a little one-horse denominational college back in the hog-feeding belt of the Middle West. Heavens!" she spoke with sudden fierceness, "can you imagine anything more useless than teaching Sanskrit? His salary was two hundred dollars a year less than the janitor's. I hated being poor; and I hated worse the dry rot of that little faculty circle. The deadly seriousness of their piffling, pedantic talk about fine-spun scholastic points that were not interesting nor useful a thousand years ago, and much less now that they are absolutely dead. I hated being prim and pretentious. I could not stand it any longer, and made Daddy resign and go somewhere to plant something. We came out here and I thought I saw a fortune in cotton.

  "Daddy's worked like a galley slave getting this field in; he's done the work of two men. With one Chinaman's help part of the time he's got in a hundred and sixty acres of cotton. We've put through two hot summers here; and spent every dollar we got for our household goods and his life insurance. And now"—she was frowning in the dark—"we are warned to get out."

  "Who warned you?" Bob asked quickly.

  "A Mexican named Madrigal. He has been right friendly to us; and warned us last week that the Mexican Government is going to raise the duty on cotton so high this fall that it will take all the profit. He advises us to sell our lease for anything we can get."

  "Have you had an offer?"

  "Yes," she shrugged in the dusk and spoke with bitter weariness, "a sort of an offer. Mr. Jenkins offered us $500. Daddy wanted to take it, but I objected. I guess, though, it is better than nothing."

  Bob stood up, his muscles fairly knotted. He understood in a flash why the Mexican Jew was going to Jenkins' office. They were stampeding the small ranchers out of the country, and virtually stealing their leases. The stars ran together in an angry blur. He felt a swelling of the throat. It was lucky he was miles away from Reedy Jenkins.

  "Don't take it!" he said with vehemence.

  Reedy Jenkins had just opened his office next morning and sat down at the desk to read his mail when Bob Rogeen walked in. Reedy looked up from a letter and asked greedily:

  "Did you get it?"

  "No." There was something ominous in Rogeen's tone.

  "Couldn't you persuade them to sell?" Jenkins was openly vexed.

  "I persuaded them not to." Bob's hands opened and shut as though they would like to get hold of something. "I don't care for this job. I'm done."

  "What's the idea?" There was a little sneer in Jenkins' tone. "Decided you would go back to the old job selling pots and pans?"

  "No," and Bob's brown eyes, almost black now, looked straight into Reedy's flushed, insolent face, "I'm going across the line to raise cotton."

  Reedy's wide mouth opened in a contemptuous sneer.

  "It's rather hot over there for rabbits."

  "Yes," Bob's lips closed warningly, "and it may become oppressive for wolves."

  Their eyes met defiantly for a moment, and each knew the other understood—and it meant a fight.

  CHAPTER V

  Bob had never known a resolution before. He thought he had, but he knew now that all the rest compared to what he felt as he left Reedy Jenkins' office were as dead cornstalks to iron rods.

  One night nearly nine years ago, when returning through the hills with his fiddle under his arm, he had stopped at the door of his cabin and looked up at the stars. The boisterous fun of an hour ago had all faded out, leaving him dissatisfied and lonesome. He was shabbily dressed, not a dollar in his pocket—not a thing in the world his own but that fiddle—and he knew he was no genius with that. He was not getting on in the world; he was not making anything of himself. It was then that the first big resolution came to him: He would quit this fooling and go to work; he would win in this game of life. Since then in the main he had stuck to that resolution. He had not knowingly passed any opportunity by; certainly he had dodged nothing because it was hard. He had won a little here, and lost there, always hoping, always tackling the new job with new pluck. Yet these efforts had bee
n simple; somebody had offered him a job and he tried to make good at it—and usually had. But to win now, and win big as he was determined to do, he must have a job of his own; and he would have to create that job, organize it, equip it.

  "What I'll make it with—or just how—I don't know. But by all the gods of the desert I'm going to win right here—in spite of the thermometer, the devil, and Reedy Jenkins."

  To raise cotton one must have a lease, tools, teams, provisions—all of which costs money; and he had just $167.35. But if that girl and her Sanskrit father could get in a cotton crop, he could. It was not too late. Cotton might be planted in the Imperial Valley even up to the last of May. He would get a field already prepared if he could; if not, then he would prepare it.

  And a man with a good lease and a good reputation could usually borrow some money on which to raise a crop. Bob's mind again came back to the Red Butte Ranch. It was so big that it almost swamped his imagination, but if he was going to do big things he must think big. If he could possibly sublease that ranch from Benson. But it would take $100,000 to finance a five-thousand-acre cotton crop. Then he thought of Jim Crill, the old man of the Texas oil fields who was looking for investments.

  It was daring enough to seem almost fantastic, but Bob quickened his step and turned toward the depot. He could yet catch the morning train for Los Angeles.

  But he passed Benson on the way. The same morning Bob called at the Los Angeles office Benson went to Reedy Jenkins in Calexico.

  The Red Butte lease had three years to run. Benson began by offering the lease and all the equipment for $40,000. He had spent more than $90,000 on it.

  Reedy pushed back the long black lock of hair from his forehead, shook his head lugubriously, and grew pessimistically oratorical. Things were very unsettled over the line: there was talk of increased Mexican duty on cotton, of a raise in water rates; the price of cotton was down; ranchers were coming out instead of going in; no sale at all for leases. He himself had not had an offer for a lease in two months.