The Uphill Climb

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER XII

  At Hand-Grips with the Demon

  Mose was mad. He was flinging tinware about the kitchen with a finedisregard of the din or the dents, and whenever the blue cat venturedout from under the stove, he kicked at it viciously. He was mad at Ford;and when a man gets mad at his foreman--without knowing that the foremanhas been instructed to bear with his faults and keep him on the pay-rollat any price--he must, if he be the cook, have recourse to kicking catsand banging dishes about, since he dare not kick the foreman. For inlate November "jobs" are not at all plentiful in the range land, andeven an angry cook must keep his job or face the world-old economicproblem of food, clothing, and shelter.

  But if he dared not speak his mind plainly to Ford, he was not averse topouring his woes into the first sympathetic ear that came his way. Ithappened that upon this occasion the ear arrived speedily upon the headof Dick Thomas.

  "Matter, Mose?" he queried, sidestepping the cat, which gave a long leapstraight for the door, when it opened. "Cat been licking the butteragain?"

  Mose grunted and slammed three pie tins into a cupboard with such forcethat two of them bounced out and rolled across the floor. One camewithin reach of his foot, and he kicked it into the wood-box, and sworeat it while it was on the way. "And I wisht it was Ford Campbellhimself, the snoopin', stingy, kitchen-grannying, booze-fightin',son-of-a-sour-dough bannock!" he finished prayerfully.

  "He surely hasn't tried to mix in here, and meddle with you?" Dickasked, helping himself to a piece of pie. You know the tone; it had justthat inflection of surprised sympathy which makes you tell your troubleswithout that reservation which a more neutral listener wouldunconsciously impel.

  I am not going to give Mose's version, because he warped the story tomake it fit his own indignation, and did not do Ford justice. This,then, is the exact truth:

  Ford chanced to be walking up along the edge of the gully which ran pastthe bunk-house, and into which empty cans and other garbage were thrown.Sometimes a can fell short, so that all the gully edge was liberallydecorated with a gay assortment of canners' labels. Just as he had comeup, Mose had opened the kitchen door and thrown out a cream can, whichhad fallen in front of Ford and trickled a white stream upon the frozenground. Ford had stooped and picked up the can, had shaken it, and heardthe slosh which told of waste. He had investigated further, and decidedthat throwing out a cream can before it was quite empty was not anaccident with Mose, but might be termed a habit. He had taken Exhibit Ato the kitchen, but had laughed while he spoke of it. And these were hisexact words:

  "Lordy me, Mose! Somebody's liable to come here and get rich off us, ifwe don't look out. He'll gather up the cream cans you throw into thediscard and start a dairy on the leavings." Then he had set the candown on the water bench beside the door and gone away.

  "I've been cookin' for cow-camps ever since I got my knee stiffened upso's't I couldn't ride--and that's sixteen year ago last Fourth--andit's the first time I ever had any darned foreman go snoopin' around myback door to see if I scrape out the cans clean!" Mose seated himselfupon a corner of the table with the stiff leg for a brace and the goodone swinging free, and folded his bare arms upon his heaving chest.

  "And that ain't all, Dick," he went on aggrievedly. "He went and cutdown the order I give him for grub. That's something Ches neverdone--not with me, anyway. Asked me--asked me, what I wanted with somuch choc'late. And I wanted boiled cider for m' mince-meat, and nevergot it. And brandy, too--only I didn't put that down on the list; Iknowed better than to write it out. But I give Jim money--out uh my ownpocket!--to git some with, and he never done it. Said Ford told himp'tic'ler not to bring out nothin' any nearer drinkable than lemonextract! I've got a darned good mind," he added somberly, "to fire thehull works into the gully. He don't belong on no cow ranch. Where he'doughta be is runnin' the W.C.T.U. So darned afraid of a pint uhbrandy--"

  "If I was dead sure your brains wouldn't get to leaking out your mouth,"Dick began guardedly, "I might put you wise to something." He took adrink of water, opened the door that he might throw out what remained inthe dipper, and made sure that no one was near the bunk-house before heclosed the door again. Mose watched him interestedly.

  "You know me, Dick--I never do tell all I know," he hinted heavily.

  "Well," Dick stood with his hand upon the door-knob and a sly grin uponhis face, "I ain't saying a word about anything. Only--if you mighthappen to want some--eggs--for your mince pies, you might look goodunder the southeast corner of the third haystack, counting from the bigcorral. I believe there's a--nest--there."

  "The deuce!" Mose brightened understandingly and drummed with hisfingers upon his bare, dough-caked forearm. "Do yuh know who--er--whathen laid 'em there?"

  "I do," said Dick with a rising inflection. "The head he-hen uh theflock. But if I was going to hunt eggs, I'd take down a chiny egg andleave it in the nest, Mose."

  "But I ain't got--" Mose caught Dick's pale glance resting with whatmight be considered some significance upon the vinegar jug, and hestopped short. "That wouldn't work," he commented vaguely.

  "Well, I've got to be going. Boss might can me if he caught me loafingaround here, eating pie when I ought to be working. Ford's a finefellow, don't you think?" He grinned and went out, and immediatelyreturned, complaining that he never could stand socks with a hole in thetoe, and he guessed he'd have to hunt through his war-bag for a goodpair.

  Mose, as need scarcely be explained, went immediately to the stable tohunt eggs; and Dick, in the next room, smiled to himself when he heardthe door slam behind him. Dick did not change his socks just then; hewent first into the kitchen and busied himself there, and he continuedto smile to himself. Later he went out and met Ford, who was ridingmoodily up from the river field.

  "Say, I'm going to be an interfering kind of a cuss, and put you next tosomething," he began, with just the right degree of hesitation in hismanner. "It ain't any of my business, but--" He stopped and lighted acigarette. "If you'll come up to the bunk-house, I'll show you somethingfunny!"

  Ford dismounted in silence, led his horse into the stable, and withoutwaiting to unsaddle, followed Dick.

  "We've got to hurry, before Mose gets back from hunting eggs," Dickremarked, by way of explaining the long strides he took. "And of courseI'm taking it for granted, Ford, that you won't say anything. I kindathought you ought to know, maybe--but I'd never say a word if I didn'tfeel pretty sure you'd keep it behind your teeth."

  "Well--I'm waiting to see what it is," Ford replied non-committally.

  Dick opened the kitchen door, and led Ford through that into thebunk-room. "You wait here--I'm afraid Mose might come back," he said,and went into the kitchen. When he returned he had a gallon jug in hishand. He was still smiling.

  "I went to mix me up some soda-water for heartburn," he said, "and whenI picked up this jug, Mose took it out of my hand and said it was boiledcider, that he'd got for mince-meat. So when he went out, I took ataste. Here: You sample it yourself, Ford. If that's boiled cider, Iwouldn't mind having a barrel!"

  Ford took the jug, pulled the cork, and sniffed at the opening. He didnot say anything, but he looked up at Dick significantly.

  "Taste it once!" urged Dick innocently. "I'd just like to have you seethe brand of slow poison a fool like Mose will pour down him."

  Ford hesitated, sniffed, started to set down the jug, then lifted it andtook a swallow.

  "That isn't as bad as some I've seen," he pronounced evenly, shoving inthe cork. "Nor as good," he added conservatively. "I wonder where he gotit."

  "Search me--oh, by jiminy, here he comes! I'm going to take a scoot,Ford. Don't give me away, will you? And if I was you, I wouldn't sayanything to Mose--I know that old devil pretty well. He'll keep mightyquiet about it himself--unless you jump him about it. Then he'll roararound to everybody he sees, and claim it was a plant."

  He slid stealthily through the outer door, and Ford saw him run downinto the gully and disappear, while Mose was yet hal
f-way from thestable.

  Ford sat on the edge of a bunk and looked at the jug beside him. If Dickhad deliberately planned to tempt him, he had chosen the time well; andif he had not done it deliberately, there must have been a malignantspirit abroad that day.

  For twenty-four hours Ford had been more than usually restless andmoody. Even Buddy had noticed that, and complained that Ford was crossand wouldn't talk to him; whereupon Mrs. Kate had scolded Josephine andaccused her of being responsible for his gloom and silence. SinceJosephine's conscience sustained the charge, she resented the accusationand proceeded deliberately to add to its justice; which did not makeFord any the happier, you may be sure. For when a man reaches thatmental state which causes him to carry a girl's ribbon folded carefullyinto the most secret compartment of his pocketbook, and to avoid thegirl herself and yet feel like committing assault and battery withintent to kill, because some other man occasionally rides with her foran hour or two, he is extremely sensitive to averted glances and chillytones and monosyllabic conversation.

  Since the day before, when she had ridden as far as the stage road withDick, when he went to the line-camp, Ford had been fighting the desireto saddle a horse and ride to town; and the thing that lured himtownward confronted him now in that gray stone jug with the brown neckand handle.

  He lifted the jug, shook it tentatively, pulled out the cork with a jerkthat was savage, and looked around the room for some place where hemight empty the contents and have done with temptation; but there was noreceptacle but the stove, so he started to the door with it, meaning topour it on the ground. Mose just then shambled past the window, and Fordsat down to wait until the cook was safe in the kitchen. And all thewhile the cork was out of that jug, so that the fumes of the whisky rosemaddeningly to his nostrils, and the little that he had swallowedwhipped the thirst-devil to a fury of desire.

  In the kitchen, Mose rattled pans and hummed a raucous tune under hisbreath, and presently he started again for the stable. Dick, desultorilybracing a leaning post of one of the corrals, saw him coming andgrinned. He glanced toward the bunk-house, where Ford still lingered,and the grin grew broader. After that he went all around the corral withhis hammer and bucket of nails, tightening poles and braces and,incidentally, keeping an eye upon the bunk-house; and while he worked,he whistled and smiled by turns. Dick was in an unusually cheerful moodthat day.

  Mose came shuffling up behind him and stood with his stiff leg thrustforward and his hands rolled up in his apron. Dick could see that he hadsomething clasped tightly under the wrappings.

  "Say, that he-hen--she laid twice in the same place!" Mose announcedconfidentially. "Got 'em both--for m'mince pies!" He waggled his head,winked twice with his left eye, and went back to the bunk-house.

  Still Ford did not appear. Josephine came, however, in riding skirt andgray hat and gauntlets, treading lightly down the path that lay all in ayellow glow which was not so much sunlight as that mellow haze which wecall Indian Summer. She looked in at the stable, and then came straightover to Dick. There was, when Josephine was her natural self, somethingvery direct and honest about all her movements, as if she disdained allfeminine subterfuges and took always the straight, open trail to herobject.

  "Do you know where Mr. Campbell is, Dick?" she asked him, and added noexplanation of her desire to know.

  "I do," said Dick, with the rising inflection which was his habit, whenthe words were used for a bait to catch another question.

  "Well, where is he, then?"

  Dick straightened up and smiled down upon her queerly. "Count ten beforeyou ask me that again," he parried, "because maybe you'd rather notknow."

  Josephine lifted her chin and gave him that straight, measuring starewhich had so annoyed Ford the first time he had seen her. "I havecounted," she said calmly after a pause. "Where is Mr. Campbell,please?"--and the "please" pushed Dick to the very edge of her favor, itwas so coldly formal.

  "Well, if you're sure you counted straight, the last time I saw him hewas in the bunk-house."

  "Well?" The tone of her demanded more.

  "He was in the bunk-house--sitting close up to a gallon jug of whisky."His eyelids flickered. "He's there yet--but I wouldn't swear to thegallon--"

  "Thank you very much." This time her tone pushed him over the edge andinto the depths of her disapproval. "I was sure I could depend uponyou--to tell!"

  "What else could I do, when you asked?"

  But she had her back to him, and was walking away up the path, and ifshe heard, she did not trouble to answer. But in spite of her manner,Dick smiled, and brought the hammer down against a post with such forcethat he splintered the handle.

  "Something's going to drop on this ranch, pretty quick," he prophesied,looking down at the useless tool in his hand. "And if I wanted to nameit, I'd call it Ford." He glanced up the path to where Josephine waswalking straight to the west door of the bunk-house, and laughed sourly."Well, she needn't take my word for it if she don't want to, I guess,"he muttered. "Nothing like heading off a critter--or a woman--in time!"

  Josephine did not hesitate upon the doorstep. She opened the door andwent in, and shut the door behind her before the echo of her step haddied. Ford was lying as he had lain once before, upon a bunk, with hisface hidden in his folded arms. He did not hear her--at any rate he didnot know who it was, for he did not lift his head or stir.

  Josephine looked at the jug upon the floor beside him, bent and liftedit very gently from the floor; tilted it to the window so that she couldlook into it, tilted her nose at the odor, and very, very gently put itback where she had found it. Then she stood and looked down at Ford withher eyebrows pinched together.

  She did not move, after that, and she certainly did not speak, but herpresence for all that became manifest to him. He lifted his head andstared at her over an elbow; and his eyes were heavy with trouble, andhis mouth was set in lines of bitterness.

  "Did you want me for something?" he asked, when he saw that she was notgoing to speak first.

  She shook her head. "Is it--pretty steep?" she ventured after a moment,and glanced down at the jug.

  He looked puzzled at first, but when his own glance followed hers, heunderstood. He stared up at her somberly before he let his head dropback upon his arms, so that his face was once more hidden.

  "You've never been in bell, I suppose," he told her, and his voice wasdull and tired. After a minute he looked up at her impatiently. "Is itfun to stand and watch a man--What do you want, anyway? It doesn'tmatter--to you."

  "Are you sure?" she retorted sharply. "And--suppose it doesn't. I haveKate to think of, at least."

  He gave a little laugh that came nearer being a snort. "Oh, if that'sall, you needn't worry. I'm not quite that far gone, thank you!"

  "I was thinking of the ranch, and of her ideals, and her blind trust inyou, and of the effect on the men," she explained impatiently.

  He was silent a moment. "I'm thinking of myself!" he told her grimlythen.

  "And--don't you ever--think of me?" She set her teeth sharply togetherafter the words were out, and watched him, breathing quickly.

  Ford sprang up from the bunk and faced her with stern questioning inhis eyes, but she only flushed a little under his scrutiny. Her eyes, henoticed, were clear and steady, and they had in them something of thatcourage which fears but will not flinch.

  "I don't want to think of you!" he said, lowering his voiceunconsciously. "For the last month I've tried mighty hard not to thinkof you. And if you want to know why--I'm married!"

  She leaned back against the door and stared up at him with wideningpupils. Ford looked down and struck the jug with his toe. "That thing,"he said slowly, "I've got to fight alone. I don't know which is going tocome out winner, me or the booze. I--don't--know." He lifted his headand looked at her. "What did you come in here for?" he asked bluntly.

  She caught her breath, but she would not dodge. Ford loved her for that."Dick told me--and I was--I wanted to--well, help. I thought Imight--someti
mes when the climb is too steep, a hand will keep onefrom--slipping."

  "What made you want to help? You don't even like me." His tone was flatand unemotional, but she did not seem able to meet his eyes. So shelooked down at the jug.

  "Dick said--but the jug is full practically. I don't understand how--"

  "It isn't as full as it ought to be; it lacks one swallow." He eyed itqueerly. "I wish I knew how much it would lack by dark," he said.

  She threw out an impulsive hand. "Oh, but you must make up your mind!You mustn't temporize like that, or wonder--or--"

  "This," he interrupted rather flippantly, "is something little girlscan't understand. They'd better not try. This isn't a woman's problem,to be solved by argument. It's a man's fight!"

  "But if you would just make up your mind, you could win."

  "Could I?" His tone was amusedly skeptical, but his eyes were stillsomber.

  "Even a woman," she said impatiently, "knows that is not the way to wina fight--to send for the enemy and give him all your weapons, and a planof the fortifications, and the password; when you know there's no mercyto be hoped for!"

  He smiled at her simile, and at her earnestness also, perhaps; but thatblack gloom remained, looking out of his eyes.

  "What made you send for it? A whole gallon!"

  "I didn't send for it. That jug belongs to Mose," he told her simply."Dick told me Mose had it; rather, Dick went into the kitchen and gotit, and turned it over to me." In spite of the words, he did not giveone the impression that he was defending himself; he was merely offeringan explanation because she seemed to demand one.

  "Dick got it and turned it over to you!" Her forehead wrinkled againinto vertical lines. She studied him frowningly. "Will you give it tome?" she asked directly.

  Ford folded his arms and scowled down at the jug. "No," he refused atlast, "I won't. If booze is going to be the boss of me I want to knowit. And I can't know it too quick."

  "But--you're only human, Ford!"

  "Sure. But I'm kinda hoping I'm a man, too." His eyes lightened alittle while they rested upon her.

  "But you've got the poison of it--it's like a traitor in your fort,ready to open the door. You can't do it! I--oh, you'll never understandwhy, but I can't let you risk it. You've got to let me help; give it tome, Ford!"

  "No, You go on to the house, and don't bother about me. You can'thelp--nobody can. It's up to me."

  She struck her hands together in a nervous rage. "You want to keep itbecause you want to drink it! If you didn't want it, you'd hate to benear it. You'd want some one to take it away. You just want to getdrunk, and be a beast. You--you--oh--you don't know what you're doing,or how much it means! You don't know!" Her hands went up suddenly andcovered her face.

  Ford walked the length of the room away from her, turned and came backuntil he faced her where she stood leaning against the door, with herface still hidden behind her palms. He reached out his arms to her,hesitated, and drew them back.

  "I wish you'd go," he said. "There are some things harder to fight thanwhisky. You only make it worse."

  "I'll go when you give me that." She flung a hand out toward the jug.

  "You'll go anyway!" He took her by the arm, quietly pulled her away fromthe door, opened it, and then closed it while, for just a breath or two,he held her tightly clasped in his arms. Very gently, after that, hepushed her out upon the doorstep and shut the door behind her. The lockclicked a hint which she could not fail to hear and understand. Hewaited until he heard her walk away, sat down with the air of a man whois very, very weary, rested his elbows upon his knees, and with hishands clasped loosely together, he glowered at the jug on the floor.Then the soul of Ford Campbell went deep down into the pit where all thedevils dwell.