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Fighting Shepherdess, The

<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> <h3>THE MAN OF MYSTERY</h3></div> The cold that dried the new-fallen snow to powder sent the mercury down until it broke all records. While the improvident did, indeed, wonder what they had done with their summer wages, the thrifty contemplated their piles of wood and their winter vegetables with a strong feeling of satisfaction. Speaking colloquially, the Toomeys were “ga'nted considerably,” and in their usual state of semistarvation, but were in no immediate danger of freezing, owing to the fact that Toomey had succeeded in exchanging a mounted deer head for four tons of local coal mined from a “surface blossom,” which was being exploited by the Grit as one of the country’s resources. Vastly delighted with his bargain, until he discovered that he no sooner had arrived from the coalhouse with a bucket of coal than it was necessary for him to make a return trip with a bucket of ashes, Toomey now hurled anathemas upon the embryo coal baron. It was not empty verbiage when he asserted that, by spring, at the rate he was wearing a trench to the ash can, nothing but the top of his head would be visible. Mrs. Toomey, however, was grateful, for she felt that if there was one thing worse than being hungry it was being cold, so she stoked the kitchen range with a free hand and luxuriated in the warmth though it necessitated frequent trips outside in Toomey’s absence. Mrs. Toomey was returning from the ash can when she saw Mormon Joe going into his shack on the diagonal corner. She slackened her trot to a walk and watched while he unlocked the door, as though to read from his back something of his intentions in regard to the loan Kate had promised so confidently. It had seemed too good to be realized, so she had not told Jap of their meeting. She must not count on it, however—she had been disappointed so often that she dreaded the feeling. Ugh! What frightful cold! Mrs. Toomey ran into the house and forgot the incident. Later in the afternoon Toomey came home in high spirits. “They got in!” he announced. “I hardly thought they’d start, such weather. It’s twenty-five below now and getting colder.” “Who?” inquired Mrs. Toomey, absently. “The show people.” “Oh, did they?” “Might as well take it in, mightn’t we?” in feigned indifference. “How can we? It’s a dollar a ticket, isn’t it?” For answer he produced two strips of pink pasteboard from his waistcoat pocket. “Jap?” wonderingly. “Yes’m.” “Where did you get the money?” “I raised it.” “But how?” He hesitated, looking sheepish. “On the range.” Mrs. Toomey sat down weakly. “The cook stove! You mortgaged it?” “I had to give some security, hadn’t I?” he demanded with asperity. “Who to?” “Teeters. I got five dollars.” Mrs. Toomey found it convenient to go into the pantry until she had regained control of her feelings. It was twenty-eight degrees below zero when the doors of the Opera House were opened to permit the citizens of Prouty to hear the World Renowned Swiss Bell Ringers and Yodlers. The weather proved to be no deterrent to a community hungry for entertainment, and they swarmed from all directions, bundled to shapelessness, like Esquimaux headed for a central igloo. Infants in arms and the bedridden in wheel chairs, helped to fill the Opera House to its capacity, emptying the streets and houses for a time as completely as an exodus. While the best people, among whom were the Toomeys, occupied the several rows of reserved chairs and smiled tolerantly upon the efforts of the performers, and the proletariat stamped and whistled through its teeth and cracked peanuts, a man muffled to the ears by the high collar of a mackinaw coat, his face further concealed by the visor of a cap and ear-laps, rode to the top of the bench, drew rein and looked down upon the lights of Prouty. It was not a night one would select for traveling on horseback, unless his business was urgent. However, the man’s seemed to be of this nature, for he rode behind a large signboard which advertised the wares of the Prouty Emporium, dismounted, tied his horse to the prop that held the signboard upright, and with a show of haste took a coil of rope from his saddlehorn, an axe—the head of which was wrapped in gunny sacking—and a gun that swung in loops of saddle thongs at an angle to fit comfortably in the bend of the rider’s knee. He did not follow the road, but took a shorter cut straight down the steep side of the bench to the nearest alley, through which he ran as noiselessly as a coyote. He ran until he came to Main Street, which the alley bisected. In the shade of the Security State Bank he peered around the corner and listened. The street was deserted, not even a dog or prowling cat was visible the entire length of it. The man crossed it hurriedly, looking up and down and over his shoulder furtively, like some cautious animal which fears itself followed. In the protection of the alley he ran again until he came to Mormon Joe’s tar-paper shack setting square and ugly in the middle of the lot—an eyesore to the neighbors. The door was locked, but it was the work of a second to tear off the axe-head’s covering and pry it open. He stepped inside and closed the door quietly. Lighting the candle he took from his pocket, with his hand he shielded the flame from the one window, and looked about with a glance that took in every detail of the shack’s arrangement. A single iron bedstead extended into the room and a soogan and two blankets, thin and ragged from service, were heaped in the middle. There was no pillow, and a hard cotton pad constituted the mattress. An empty whiskey bottle stood by the head of the bed. A small pine table that at most might have cost a couple of dollars set against the wall by the window. The starch box that served as a chair was shoved under the table, and another box in the corner did duty as a washstand. There was a cake of soap and a tin basin upon the latter and a grimy hand towel hung close by from a spike driven into the unplaned boards. Facing the door was a sheet-iron camp stove, rusty and overflowing with ashes. The rickety, ill-fitting pipe was secured with the inevitable baling wire. After his swift survey, the man stepped to the washstand and let a few drops of melted candle grease drip upon one corner. In this he held the candle until it hardened in place. Then he went to work with the businesslike swiftness of skill and experience. He laid the shotgun on the stove and untwisted the baling wire which held the stovepipe, giving a grunt of satisfaction when he found the wire was longer than he had anticipated. He stooped and gathered some kindling that was under the stove, singled out two or three sticks that suited him, and then he laid them across the top of the stove and rested the barrel of the shotgun upon them. After all was complete, he stepped back against the door and squinted, gauging the elevation. It was to his satisfaction. With supple wrist and quick movements he uncoiled the small cotton rope he had brought with him and took two turns around the trigger of the shotgun. The rest of the rope he passed around a rod in the foot of the bed, which gave a direct back pull on the trigger, and thence he carried it over the upper hinge of the door, which opened inward, and finally down to the knob and back again to the foot of the bed, where he secured it. All was executed without a superfluous movement, and a panther could not have been more noiseless. But the man was breathing heavily when he had finished, as hard as though he had been exercising violently. He stepped to the washstand to blow out the candle, but before he did so he gave a final rapid survey of his work. His eyes glittered with sinister satisfaction. Evidently it suited him. He held his numbed fingers over the flame of the candle to warm them before he extinguished it. Reaching for the axe, he pried the window from its casing and set it quietly against the wall. He leaned the axe beside it and cursed under his breath when he tore a button from his mackinaw as he squeezed through the narrow opening. He dropped lightly to the ground and, crouching, ran for the alley. Where it crossed Main Street he stopped and listened, then peered around the corner of the White Hand Laundry. The street was still empty. While he stood, the sound of laughter came faintly from the Opera House. His heart was pounding under his mackinaw. On the other side of the street red and violet lights were shining through the frosted windows of “Doc” Fussel’s drug store. They looked warm and alluring, and he hesitated. A whinny pierced the stillness. It was his horse pawing with cold and impatience behind the signboard. He looked up at the indistinct black object on the bench, then back wistfully at the red and violet lights of the drug store. He had an intense desire to be near some one—some one who was going carelessly about his usual occupation. He crossed over and went into the little apothecary. The clerk was sitting on the back of his neck with his feet to a counter listening to the phonograph. “Has anybody here seen Kelly?” the machine screeched as the stranger entered. The clerk got up and went to the tobacco counter. “Hell of a night,” he observed, languidly. “Some chilly,” replied the stranger, indicating the brand he wanted. “It’ll be close to forty below before morning,” passing out the tobacco. “Everybody’s gone to the show but me,” plaintively. “A drug clerk might as well be a dog chained up in a kennel.” He stopped the phonograph and changed the needle. The stranger sat down beside the stove and placed his feet on the nickel railing. He left the collar of his mackinaw turned up, but untied his ear-laps. They looked rather foolish, dangling. His eyes were shadowed by the visor of his cap, so that really only his nose and cheek bones were visible. He glanced at the big clock on the wall frequently, and at intervals wiped the palms of his hands on the knees of his corduroy trousers as though to remove the moisture. The clerk was putting on “When the Springtime Comes, Gentle Annie” when the opening door let in a breath from the Arctic and a tall person wearing new overalls, a coat of fleece-lined canvas and a peak-crowned Stetson. He had a scarf wound about his neck after the fashion of sheepherders. “Hello, Bowers! Sober?” inquired the clerk, casually. “Kinda. What you playin’?” The clerk told him. “Got a piece called 'The Yella Rose o’ Texas Beats the Belles o’ Tennessee'?” “Never heard of it.” “Got—'Whur the Silver Colorady Wends its Way'?” The clerk replied in the negative. “Why don’t you git some good music?” “Why aren’t you at the show?” “Too contrary, I reckon. When I’m out in the hills I’m a hankerin’ to see somebody. When I git in town I want to git away from everybody. I’m goin’ out to-morrow.” “Where you going?” “Hired out to Mormon Joe this evenin’.” The stranger stirred slightly. “I’ll look around a little—I don’t want nothin’,” said Bowers. “Help yourself,” replied the clerk, amiably, so the sheepherder stared at the baubles of cut glass on the shelf with a pleased expression and hung over the counter where the rings, watches and bracelets glittered. Then he examined a string of sponges carefully—sponges always interested him—they suggested picturesque scenery and adventures. He lingered over the toilet articles, sniffing the soaps and smelling at the bottles of perfume, trying those whose names he especially fancied on the end of his nose by rubbing it with the glass stopper. Then he sat down on the other side of the stove from the stranger and spelled out the queer names on the jars of drugs, speculating as to their contents and uses. He never yet had exhausted the possibilities of a drug store as a means of entertainment. A few minutes after ten the advance guard came from the Opera House—laughing. The World’s Greatest Prestidigitator had dropped the egg which he intended taking from the ear of Governor Sudds where it had broken into the ample lap of Mrs. Vernon Wentz of the White Hand Laundry. The cold, however, promptly put a quietus upon their merriment and they scuttled past, bent on getting out of it as quickly as possible. There were two customers for cigars, and the Toomeys. Toomey bought chocolates while Mrs. Toomey held her hands to the stove and shivered. “Come on, Dell.” Toomey’s glance as he took the candy included the stranger. “How’re you?” he nodded carelessly. They were to be the last, apparently, for when their footsteps died away the street again grew silent. The clerk planted his feet on the nickel railing and stared at the stove gloomily. “I’d have to keep this store open till half-past 'leven if I was dyin’,” he grumbled. “But you ain’t,” said Bowers, cheerfully. Bowers smelled strongly of sheep, once the heat warmed his clothing. On the other side of the clerk the odor of smoke and bear grease emanated from the stranger. The clerk moved his chair back from the stove and advised the latter: “Your soles is fryin’.” He seemed not to hear him, for his eyes were upon the clock creeping close to eleven, and he watched the swaying pendulum as though it fascinated him. There was no conversation, and each sat thinking his own thoughts until the stranger suddenly pulled down the side of his collar and listened. The clerk eyed him with disfavor. The squeaking of footsteps in the dry snow was heard distinctly. The stranger got up leisurely and went out with a grunt that was intended for “good evening.” “Sociable cuss,” Bowers commented ironically. “Smelt like an Injun tepee,” said the clerk, sourly. “It’s a wonder to me fellers don’t notice theirselves,” Bowers observed. “But they never seem to.” A weaving figure was making its way down the middle of Main Street. A thick-coated collie followed closely. The swaying figure looked like a drunken gnome in its clumsy coat and peak-crowned hat in the cold steel-blue starlight. It stopped uncertainly at the alley, then went on to the end of the block and turned the corner. The Toomeys had lost no time in retiring after the entertainment, for the house, upon their return, was like a refrigerator. Almost instantly Toomey was slumbering tranquilly, but Mrs. Toomey had symptoms which she recognized as presaging hours of wakefulness. The unwonted excitement of being out in the evening had much to do with her restlessness, but chiefly it came from thinking of the cook stove. Of course she could see the force of Jap’s argument as to the necessity of keeping up appearances by being seen in public places and spending money as though there was more where that came from, yet she wondered if it really deceived anybody. And supposing Teeters foreclosed the mortgage! It seemed as though they were slipping week by week, day by day, deeper into the black depths at the bottom of which was actual beggary. Her nervousness increased as her imagination painted darker and darker pictures until she longed to scream for the relief it would have afforded her. The single hope was Mormon Joe’s Kate and her promise, and that was too fantastic and farfetched to dare count on. It was not logical to suppose that a man whom Jap had quarreled with and insulted would come to their rescue even if he could afford to do so, which she doubted. How still it was—the eloquent stillness of terrible cold! The town was soundless. Chickens humped in their feathers were freezing on their roosts, horses and cows tied in their stalls were suffering, and, as always, she visualized the desolate white stretches where hungry coyotes, gaunt and vigilant, padded along the ridges, and horses and cattle, turned out to shift for themselves, huddled shivering in the gulches and under the willows. She knew from the snapping and cracking of lumber and metal about the house that it was growing colder, and she drew the covers closer. Oh, what a country to live in! Whatever was to become of them! Her teeth chattered. She thought she heard footsteps and raised her head slightly to listen. Faint at first, they were coming nearer. Whoever was out a night like this, she could not imagine. The person was walking in the middle of the road and his progress was uneven, stopping sometimes altogether, then going forward. Abreast the house the sound of heels grinding in the snow that was dry as powder was like the scrunching and squealing of the steel tire of a wagon in bitter weather. They passed, grew fainter, finally stopped altogether. Mrs. Toomey moved closer to her husband. There was comfort in the nearness of a human being. A shot! Her heart jumped—her nerves twanged with the shock of it. “That hit something!” The thought was almost simultaneous. The sound was more like an explosion—deadened, muffled somewhat—as of a charge fired into a bale of hay or cotton. For the space of a dozen heartbeats she lay with her mouth open, breathless in the deathly silence of the frozen night. A scream! It must have reached the sky. Piercing, agonized—the agony of a man screaming with his mouth wide open—screaming without restraint, in animal-like unconsciousness of what he was doing. “Jap!” She clutched his arm and shook him. The screams kept coming, blood curdling, as if they would split the throat, tear it, and horrible with suffering. “Jap!” She sat up and shook his shoulder violently. “Wha’s the matter?” he asked, sleepily. “Did you hear that shot? Listen!” “Some drunk,” he mumbled. “He’s hurt, I tell you! Hear him!” “Drug store’s open.” “Oughtn’t you to go to him?” “Lemme be—can’t you?” He again breathed heavily. The screams kept coming, but each a little fainter. Either the man was moving on or the pain was lessening. Mrs. Toomey’s heart continued to thump as she lay rigid, listening. She wanted to get up and look through the window, but the floor was cold and she could not remember exactly where she had left her slippers. Anyway, somebody else would go to him. It was a relief, though, when he stopped screaming. Others whom the cries of agony awakened applied the same reasoning to the situation, with minor variations. “Tinhorn” in particular was disturbed because of their nearness. He raised his head from under a mound of blankets and frowned into the darkness as he wondered if, as Prouty’s newly elected mayor, he would be criticized should he fail to go out and investigate. He was so warm and comfortable! “Guess I’d better get up, Mamma.” His wife gripped him as if he was struggling violently, although his Honor was lying motionless as an alligator. “You shan’t—you’ll get pneumonia and leave me and the children without any insurance! You’ve no right to take chances. Let somebody else go that hasn’t any future.” There was that side to it. “Some hobo most like.” The future statesman turned over. “Tuck my back in, Mamma.” Mr. Sudds was awakened, and his first impulse was to rush to the man’s assistance, but he was not sure where to find matches, and it took him such an unconscionable time to dress that by the time he got there— Scales was restrained by the arms of his fragile wife who threatened hysterics if he left her. Between love and duty Mr. Scales did not hesitate with the thermometer at forty below zero, and the knowledge that loss of sleep unfitted him for business. So Mormon Joe, screaming in his agony, staggered up the alley, leaving a crimson trail behind him, the sheep dog following like a shadow. He had nearly reached Main Street when he lurched, groped for a support, then fell to his knees. The hot drops turned to red globules in the snow as he kept crawling, gasping, “Oh, God! Won’t somebody come to me?” The dog walked beside him as he dragged himself along, perplexed and wondering at this whim of his master’s. Mormon Joe was leaning against the side of the White Hand Laundry, his head fallen forward, when Bowers and the drug clerk got to him. The collie was licking his face for attention, but the warm caressing hand—now red and sticky—was lying in the snow, limp and unresponsive. Mormon Joe had “gone over”—dying as he had lived—a man of mystery. <hr class='major' /> <div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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