by B. M. Bower
“Nothing like sticking together, Mister,” called the lady cheerfully, and he heard her laughter above the churn of their motors.
“Say, ain’t your carburetor all off?” Casey leaned out to call back to the husband. “You’re smokin’ back there like wet wood.”
The man immediately stopped the motor and looked behind him.
Casey muttered something under his breath when he climbed out. He looked at his own car standing hub deep in red mud and reached for the solacing plug of chewing tobacco. Then he thought of the lady and withdrew his hand empty.
“We’re certainly going to stick together, Mister,” she repeated her witticism, and Casey grinned foolishly.
“She’ll dry up in a few hours, with this hot sun,” he observed hearteningly. “We’ll have to pile brush in, I guess.” His glance went back to the tiny island and to his double row of tracks. He looked at the man.
“Jack, dear, you might go help the gentleman get some brush,” the lady suggested sweetly.
“This ain’t my act,” Jack dear objected. “I just about broke my spine trying to heave the car outa the mud when we first stuck. Say, I wish there was a beanery of some kind in walking distance. Honest, I’ll be dead of starvation in another hour. What’s the chance of a bite, Hon?”
Contempt surged through Casey. Deep in his soul he pitied her for being tied to such an insect. Immediately he was glad that she had spirit enough to put the little runt in his place.
“You would wait to buy supplies in Rhyolite, remember,” she reminded her husband calmly. “I guess you’ll have to wait till you get there. I’ve got one piece of bread saved for Junior. You and I go hungry—and cheer up, old dear; you’re used to it!”
“I’ve got grub,” Casey volunteered hospitably. “Didn’t stop to eat yet. I’ll pack the stuff back there to dry ground and boil some coffee and fry some bacon.” He looked at the woman and was rewarded by a smile so brilliant that Casey was dazzled.
“You certainly are a godsend,” she called after him, as he turned away to his own car. “It just happens that we’re out of everything. It’s so hard to keep anything on hand when you’re traveling in this country, with towns so far apart. You just run short before you know it.”
Casey thought that the very scarcity of towns compelled one to avoid running short of food, but he did not say anything. He waded back to the island with a full load of provisions and cooking utensils, and in three minutes he was squinting against the smoke of a camp-fire while he poured water from a canteen into his blackened coffee pot.
“Coffee! Jack, dear, can you believe your nose!” chirped the woman presently behind Casey. “Junior, darling, just smell the bacon! Isn’t he a nice gentleman? Go give him a kiss like a little man.”
Casey didn’t want any kiss—at least from Junior. Junior was six years old, and his face was dirty and his eyes were old, old eyes, but brown like his father’s. He had the pinched, hungry look which Casey had seen only amongst starving Indians, and after he had kissed Casey perfunctorily he snatched the piece of raw bacon which Casey had just sliced off, and tore at it with his teeth like a hungry pup.
Casey affected not to notice, and busied himself with the fire while the woman reproved Junior half-heartedly in an undertone, and laughed stagily and remarked upon the number of hours since they had breakfasted.
Casey tried not to watch them eat, but in spite of himself he thought of a prospector whom he had rescued last summer after a five-day fast. These people ate more than the prospector had eaten, and their eyes followed greedily every mouthful which Casey took, as if they grudged him the food. Wherefore Casey did not take as many mouthfuls as he would have liked.
“This desert air certainly does put an edge on one’s appetite,” the woman smiled, while she blew across her fourth cup of coffee to cool it, and between breaths bit into a huge bacon sandwich, which Casey could not help knowing was her third. “Jack, dear, isn’t this coffee delicious!”
“Mah-mal Do we have to p-pay that there g-godsend? C-can you p-pay for more b-bacon for me, mah-ma?” Junior licked his fingers and twitched a fold of his mother’s soiled skirt.
“Sure, give him more bacon! All he wants. I’ll fry another skillet full,” Casey spoke hurriedly, getting out the piece which he had packed away in the bag.
“He’s used to these hold-up joints where they charge you forty cents for a greasy plate,” the man explained, speaking with his mouth full. “Eat all yuh want, Junior. This is a barbecue and no collection took up to pay the speaker of the day.”
“We certainly appreciate your kindness, Mister,” the woman put in graciously, holding out her cup. “What we’d have done, stuck here in the mud with no provisions and no town within miles, heaven only knows. Was you kidding us,” she added, with a betrayal of more real anxiety than she intended, “when you said Rhyolite is a dead one? We looked it up on the map, and it was marked like a town. We’re making all the little towns that the road shows mostly miss. We give a fine show, Mister. It’s been played on all the best time in the country—we took it abroad before the war and made real good money with it. But we just wanted to see the country, you know—after doing the cont’nent and all the like of that. So we thought we’d travel independent and make all the small towns—”
“The movie trust is what put vodeville on the bum,” the man interrupted. “We used to play the best time only. We got a first-class act. One that ought to draw down good money anywhere, and would draw down good money, if the movie trust—”
“And then we like to be independent, and go where we like and get off the railroad for a spell. Freedom is the breath of life to he and I. We’d rather have it kinda rough now and then to be free and independent—”
“I’ve g-got a b-bunny, a-and it f-fell in the g-grease box a-and we c-can’t wash it off, a-and h-he’s asleep now. C-can I g-give my b-bunny some b-bacon, Mister G-godsend?”
The woman laughed, and Jack dear laughed, and Casey himself grinned sheepishly. Casey did not want to be called a godsend, and he hated the term “Mister” when applied to himself. All his life he had been plain Casey Ryan and proud of it, and his face was very red when he confessed that there was no more bacon. He had not expected to feed a family when he left camp that morning, but had taken rations for himself only.
Junior whined and insisted that he wanted b-bacon for his b-bunny, and the man hushed him querulously and asked Casey what the chances were for getting under way. Casey repacked a lightened bag, emptied the coffee grounds, shouldered his canteen and waded back to the cars and to the problem of red mud with an unbelievable quality of tenacity.
The man followed and asked him if he happened to have any smoking tobacco, afterwards he begged a cigarette paper, and then a match. “The dog-gone helpless, starved bunch!” Casey muttered, while he dug out the wheels of his Ford, and knew that his own haste must wait upon the need of these three human beings whom he had never seen until an hour ago, of whose very existence he had been in ignorance, and who would probably contribute nothing whatever to his own welfare or happiness, however much he might contribute to theirs.
I do not say that Casey soliloquised in this manner while he was sweating there in the mud under hot midday. He did think that now he would no doubt miss the night train to Los Angeles, and that he would not, after all, be purchasing glad raiment and a luxurious car on the morrow. He regretted that, but he did not see how he could help it. He was Casey Ryan, and his heart was soft to suffering even though a little of the spell cast by the woman’s blue eyes and her golden hair had dimmed for him.
He still thought her a beautiful woman who was terribly mismated, but he felt vaguely that women with beautiful golden hair should not drink their coffee aloud, or calmly turn up the bottom of their skirts that they might use the underside of the hem for a napkin after eating bacon. I do not like to mention this; Casey did not like to think of it, either. It was with reluctance that he reflected upon the different standard imposed by sex.
A man, for instance, might wipe his fingers on his pants and look the world straight in the eye,—but dog-gone it, when a lady’s a lady, she ought to be a lady.
Later Casey forgot for a time the incident of the luncheon on Red Lake. With infinite labor and much patience he finally extricated himself and the show people, with no assistance from them save encouragement. He towed them to dry land, untied and put away his rope and then discovered that he had not the heart to drive on at his usual hurtling pace and leave them to follow. There was an ominous stutter in their motor, for one thing, and Casey knew of a stiffish hill a few miles this side of Rhyolite, so he forced himself to set a slow pace which they could easily follow.
CHAPTER VII
It was full sundown when they reached Rhyolite, which was not a town but a camp beside a spring, usually deserted. Three years before, a mine had built the camp for the accommodation of the truck drivers who hauled ore to Lund and were sometimes unable to make the trip in one day. Casey, having adapted his speed to that of the decrepit car of the show people, was thankful that they arrived at all. He still had a little flour and coffee and salt, and he hoped there was enough grease left on the bacon paper to grease the skillet so that bannocks would not stick to the pan. He also hoped that his flour would hold out under the onslaught of their appetites.
But Casey was lucky. A half dozen cowboys were camped there with a pack outfit, meaning to ride the canyons next day for cattle. They were cooking supper, and they had “beefed a critter” that had broken a leg that afternoon running among rocks. Casey shuffled his responsibility and watched, in complete content, while the show people gorged on broiled yearling steaks. (I dislike to use the word gorge where a lady’s appetite is involved, but that is the word which Casey thought of first.)
Later, the show people very amiably consented to entertain their hosts. It was then that Casey was once more blinded by the brilliance of the lady and forgot certain little blemishes that had seemed to him quite pronounced. The cowboys obligingly built a bonfire before the tent, into which the couple retired to set their stage and tune their instruments. Casey lay back on a cowboy’s rolled bed with his knees crossed, his hands clasped behind his thinning hair, and smoked and watched the first pale stars come out while he listened to the pleasant twang of banjos in the tuning.
It was great. The sale of his silver claim to the men from Tonopah, the check safely pinned in his pocket, the future which he had planned for himself swam hazily through his mind. He was fed to repletion, he was rich, he had been kind to those in need. He was a man to be envied, and he told himself so.
Then the tent flaps were lifted and a dazzling, golden-haired creature in a filmy white evening gown to which the firelight was kind stood there smiling, a banjo in her hands. Casey gave a grunt and sat up, blinking. She sang, looking at him frequently. At the encore, which was livened by a clog danced to hidden music, she surely blew a kiss in the direction of Casey, who gulped and looked around at the others self-consciously, and blushed hotly.
In truth, it was a very good show which the two gave there in the tent; much better than the easiest going optimist would expect. When it was over to the last twang of a banjo string, Casey took off his hat, emptied into it what silver he had in his pockets and set the hat in the fireglow. Without a word the cowboys followed his example, turning pockets inside out to prove they could give no more.
Casey spread his bed apart from the others that night, and lay for a long while smoking and looking up at the stars and dreaming again his dream; only now the golden-haired creature who leaned back upon the deep cushions of his speedy blue car, was not a vague bloodless vision, but a real person with nice teeth and a red-lipped smile, who called him Mister in a tone he thought like music. Now his dream lady sang to him, talked to him,—I consider it rather pathetic that Casey’s dream always halted just short of meal time, and that he never pictured her sitting across the table from him in some expensive café, although Casey was rather fond of café lights and music and service and food.
Next morning the glamor remained, although the lady was once more the unkempt woman of yesterday. The three seemed to look upon Casey still as a godsend. They had talked with some of the men and had decided to turn back to Vegas, which was a bigger town than Lund and therefore likely to produce better crowds. They even contemplated a three-night stand, which would make possible some very urgent repairs to their car. Casey demurred, although he could not deny the necessity for repairs. It was a longer trail to Vegas and a rougher trail. Moreover, he himself was on his way to Lund.
“You go to Lund,” he urged, “and you can stay there four nights if you want to, and give shows. And I’ll take yuh on up to Pinnacle in my car while yours is gettin’ fixed, and you can give a show there. You’d draw a big crowd. I’d make it a point to tell folks you give a fine show. And I’ll git yuh good rates at the garage where I do business. You don’t want nothin’ of Vegas. Lund’s the place you want to hit fer.”
“There’s a lot to that,” the foreman of the cowboys agreed. “If Casey’s willin’ to back you up, you better hit straight for Lund. Everybody there knows Casey Ryan. He drove stage from Pinnacle to Lund for two years and never killed anybody, though he did come close to it now and again. I’ve saw strong men that rode with Casey and said they never felt right afterwards. Casey, he’s a dog-gone good driver, but he used to be kinda hard on passengers. He done more to promote heart failure in them two towns than all the altitude they can pile up. But nobody’s going to hold that against a good show that comes there. I heard there ain’t been a show stop off in Lund for over a year. You’ll have to beat ’em away from the door, I bet.” Wherefore the Barrymores—that was the name they called themselves, though I am inclined to doubt their legal right to it—the Barrymores altered their booking and went with Casey to Lund.
They were not fools, by the way. Their car was much more disreputable than you would believe a car could be and turn a wheel, and the Barrymores recognized the handicap of its appearance. They camped well out of sight of town, therefore, and let Casey drive in alone.
Casey found that the westbound train had already gone, which gave him a full twenty-four hours in Lund, even though he discounted his promise to see the Barrymores through. There was a train, to be sure, that passed through Lund in the middle of the night; but that was the De Luxe, standard and drawing-room sleepers, and disdained stopping to pick up plebeian local passengers.
So Casey must spend twenty-four hours in Lund, there to greet men who hailed him joyously at the top of their voices while they were yet afar off, and thumped him painfully upon the shoulders when they came within reach of him. You may not grasp the full significance of this, unless you have known old and popular stage drivers, soft of heart and hard of fist. Then remember that Casey had spent months on end alone in the wilderness, working like a lashed slave from sunrise to dark, trying to wrest a fortune from a certain mountain side. Remember how an enforced isolation, coupled with rough fare and hard work, will breed a craving for lights and laughter and the speech of friends. Remember that, and don’t overlook the twenty-five thousand dollar check that Casey had pinned safe within his pocket.
Casey had unthinkingly tossed his last dime into his hat for the show people at Rhyolite. He had not even skinned the coyote, whose hide would have been worth ten or fifteen dollars, as hides go. In the stress of pulling out of the mud at Red Lake, he had forgot all about the dead animal in his tonneau until his nose reminded him next morning that it was there. Then he had hauled it out by the tail and thrown it away. He was broke, except that he had that check in his pocket.
Of course it was easy enough for Casey to get money. He went to the store that sold everything from mining tools to green perfume bottles tied with narrow pink ribbon. The man who owned that store also owned the bank next door, and a little place down the street which was called laconically The Club. One way or another, Dwyer managed to feel the money of every man who came into Lund and stopped ther
e for a space. He was an honest man, too,— or as honest as is practicable for a man in business.
Dwyer was tickled to see Casey again. Casey was a good fellow, and he never needed his memory jogged when he owed a man. He paid before he was asked to pay, and that was enough to make any merchant love him. He watched Casey unpin his vest pocket and remove the check, and he was not too eager to inspect it.
“Good? Surest thing you know. Want it cashed, or applied to your old checking account? It’s open yet, with a dollar and sixty-seven cents to your credit, I believe. I’ll take care of it, though it’s after banking hours.”
Casey was foolish. “I’ll take a couple of hundred, if it’s handy, and a check book. I guess you can fix it so I can get what money I want in Los. I’m goin’ to have one hell of a time when I git there. I’ve earned it.”
Dwyer laughed while he inked a pen for Casey’s endorsement. “Hop to it, Casey. Glad you made good. But you’d better let me put part of that in a savings account, so you can’t check it out. You know, Casey—remember your weak point.”
“Aw—that’s all right! Don’t you worry none about Casey Ryan! Casey’ll take care of himself—he’s had too many jolts to want another one. Say, gimme a pair of them socks before you go in the bank. I’ll pay yuh,” he grinned, “when yuh come back with some money. Ain’t got a cent on me, Dwyer. Give it all away. Twelve dollars and something. Down to twenty-five thousand dollars and my Ford auty-mo-bile—and Bill’s goin’ to buy that off me as soon as he looks her over to see what’s busted and what ain’t.”
Dwyer laughed again as he unlocked the door behind the overalls and jumpers and disappeared into his bank. Presently he returned with a receipted duplicate deposit slip for twenty-four thousand eight hundred dollars, a little, flat check book and two hundred dollars in worn bank notes. “You ought to be independent for the rest of your life, Casey. This is a fine start for any man,” he said.