Hidden Creek - Katharine Newlin Burt
Sheila stirred angrily. "I can't see why it's amusing."
He sobered at once. "Well, ma'am, maybe it isn't. No, I reckon it isn't.
How long will you stay?"
Sheila gave a big, sobbing sigh. "I don't know. If she likes me and if
I'm happy, I'll stay there always." She added with a queer, dazed
realization of the truth: "I've nowhere else to go."
"Haven't you any--folks?" he asked.
"No."
"Got tired of Millings?"
"Yes--very."
"I don't blame you! It's not much of a town. You'll like Hidden Creek.
And Miss Blake's ranch is a mighty pretty place, lonesome but wonderfully
pretty. Right on a bend of the creek, 'way up the valley, close under the
mountains. But can you stand loneliness, Miss--What _is_ your name?"
There were curious breaks in his manner of a Western cowboy, breaks that
startled Sheila like little echoes from her life abroad and in the East.
There was a quickness of voice and manner, an impatience, a hot and
nervous something, and his voice and accent suggested training. The
abrupt question, for instance, was not in the least characteristic of a
Westerner.
"My name is Sheila Arundel. I don't know yours either."
"Do you come from the East?"
"Yes. From New York." He gave an infinitesimal jerk. "But I've lived
abroad nearly all my life. I think it would be politer if you would
answer my question now."
She felt that he controlled an anxious breath. "My name is Hilliard," he
said, and he pronounced the name with a queer bitter accent as though the
taste of it was unpleasant to his tongue. "Cosme Hilliard. Don't you
think it's a--_nice_ name?"
For half a second she was silent; then she spoke with careful
unconsciousness. "Yes. Very nice and very unusual. Hilliard is an English
name, isn't it? Where did the Cosme come from?"
It was well done, so well that she felt a certain tightening of his body
relax and his voice sounded fuller. "That's Spanish. I've some Spanish
blood. Here's Buffin's ranch. We're getting down."
Sheila was remembering vividly; Sylvester had come into her compartment.
She could see the rolling Nebraskan country slipping by the window of the
train. She could see his sallow fingers folding the paper so that she
could conveniently read a paragraph. She remembered his gentle, pensive
speech. "Ain't it funny, though, those things happen in the slums and
they happen in the smart set, but they don't happen near so often to just
middling folks like you and me! Don't it sound like a Tenderloin tale,
though, South American wife and American husband and her getting jealous
and up and shooting him? Money sure makes love popular. Now, if it had
been poor folks, why, they'd have hardly missed a day's work, but just
because these Hilliards have got spondulix they'll run a paragraph about
'em in the papers for a month."--Sheila began to make comparisons: a
South American wife and an American husband, and here, this young man
with the Spanish-American name and the Spanish-Saxon physique, and a
voice that showed training and faltered over the pronouncing of the
"Hilliard" as though he expected it to be too well remembered. Had there
been some mention in the paper of a son?--a son in the West?--a son under
a cloud of some sort? But--she checked her spinning of romance--this
youth was too genuine a cowboy, the way he rode, the way he moved, held
himself, his phrases, his turn of speech! With all that wealth behind him
how had he been allowed to grow up like this? No, her notion was
unreasonable, almost impossible. Although dismissed, it hung about her
mental presentment of him, however, like a rather baleful aura, not
without fascination to a seventeen-year-old imagination. So busy was she
with her fabrications that several miles of road slipped by unnoticed.
There came a strange confusion in her thoughts. It seemed to her that she
was arguing the Hilliard case with some one. Then with a horrible start
she saw that the face of her opponent was Sylvester's and she pushed it
violently away....
"Don't you go to sleep," said Hilliard softly, laughing a little. "You
might fall off."
"I--I was asleep," Sheila confessed, in confusion at discovering that her
head had dropped against him. "How dark it's getting! We're in the
valley, aren't we?"
"Yes, ma'am, we're most there." He hesitated. "Miss Arundel, I think I'd
best let you get down just before we get to Rusty."
"Get down? Why?"
He cleared his throat, half-turning to her. In the dusky twilight, that
was now very nearly darkness, his face was troubled and ashamed, like the
face of a boy who tries to make little of a scrape. "Well, ma'am,
yesterday, the folks in Rusty kind of lost their heads. They had a bad
case of Sherlock Holmes. I bought a horse up the valley from a chap who
was all-fired anxious to sell him, and before I knew it I was playing the
title part in a man-hunt. It seems that I was riding one of a string this
chap had rustled from several of the natives. They knew the horse and
that was enough for their nervous system. They had never set eyes on me
before and they wouldn't take my word for my blameless past. They told me
to keep my story for trial when they took me over to the court. Meanwhile
they gave me a free lodging in their pen. Miss Arundel--" Hilliard
dropped his ironic tone and spoke in a low, tense voice of child-like
horror. His face stiffened and paled. "That was awful. To be locked in.
Not to be able to get fresh breath in your lungs. Not to be able to go
where you please, when you please. I can't tell you what it's like ... I
can't stand it! I can't stand a minute of it! I was in that pen six
hours. I felt I'd go loco if I was there all night. I guess I am a kind
of fool. I broke jail early in the morning and caught up the sheriff's
horse. They got a shot or two at me, hit my wrist, but I made my getaway.
This horse is not much on looks, but he sure can get over the sagebrush.
I was coming over to see you."
There was that in his voice when he said this that touched Sheila's
heart, profoundly. This restless, violent young adventurer, homeless,
foot-loose, without discipline or duty, had turned to her in his trouble
as instinctively as though she had been his mother. This, because she had
once served him. Something stirred in Sheila's heart.
"And then," Hilliard went on, "I was going to get down to Arizona. But
when I heard you were coming over into Hidden Creek, it seemed like
foolishness to cut myself off from the country by running away from
nothing. Of course there are ways to prove my identity with those
fellows. It only means putting up with a few days of pen." He gave a
sigh. "But you can understand, ma'am, that this isn't just the horse that
will give you quietest entrance into Rusty and that I'm not just one of
the First Citizens."
"But," said Sheila, "if they see you riding in with me, they certainly
won't shoot."
He laughed admiringly. "You're game!" he said. "But, Miss Arundel,
they're not likely to do any more shooting. It's not a man riding into
Rusty that they're after. It's a man riding out of Rusty. They'll know
I'm coming to give myself up."
"I'll just stay here," said Sheila firmly.
"I can't let you."
"I'm too tired to walk. I'm too sleepy. It'll be all right."
"Then I'll walk." He pulled in his horse, but at the instant stiffened in
his saddle and wheeled about on the road. A rattle of galloping hoofs
struck the ground behind them; two riders wheeled and stopped. One drew
close and held out his hand.
"Say, stranger, shake," he said. "We've been kickin' up the dust to beg
your pardon. We got the real rustler this mornin' shortly after you left.
I'm plumb disgusted and disheartened with young Tommins for losin' his
head an' shootin' off his gun. He's a dern fool, that kid, a regular
tenderfoot. Nothin' won't ever cure him short of growin' up. Come from
Chicago, anyway. One of them Eastern towns. I see he got you, too."
"Winged me," smiled Hilliard. "Well, I'm right pleased I won't have to
spend another night in your pen."
"You're entered for drinks. The sheriff stands 'em." Here he bowed to
Sheila, removing his hat.
"This lady"--Hilliard performed the introduction--"lost her horse on The
Hill. She's aiming to stop at Rusty for to-night."
The man who had spoken turned to his silent companion. "Ride ahead,
Shorty, why don't you?" he said indignantly, "and tell Mrs. Lander
there's a lady that'll want to sleep in Number Five."
The other horseman, after a swift, searching look at Sheila, said
"Sure," in a very mild, almost cooing, voice and was off. It looked to
Sheila like a runaway. But the men showed no concern.
They jogged companionably on their way. Fifteen minutes later they
crossed a bridge and pulled up before a picket fence and a gate.
They were in Rusty.
CHAPTER III
JOURNEY'S END
The social life of Rusty, already complicated by the necessity it was
under to atone for a mistake, was almost unbearably discomposed by the
arrival of a strange lady. This was no light matter, be it understood.
Hidden Creek was not a resort for ladies: and so signal an event as the
appearance of a lady, a young lady, a pretty young lady, demanded
considerable effort. But Rusty had five minutes for preparation. By the
time Hilliard rode up to Lander's gate a representative group of citizens
had gathered there. One contingent took charge of Hilliard--married men,
a little unwilling, and a few even more reluctant elders, and led him to
the bowl of reparation which was to wash away all memory of his wrongs.
The others, far the larger group, escorted Sheila up the twelve feet of
board walk to the porch of hospitality filled by the massive person of
Mrs. Lander. On that brief walk Sheila was fathered, brothered,
grandfathered, husbanded, and befriended and on the porch, all in the
person of Mrs. Lander, she was mothered, sistered, and grandmothered. Up
the stairs to Number Five she was "eased"--there is no other word to
express the process--and down again she was eased to supper, where in a
daze of fatigue she ate with surprising relish tough fried meat and
large wet potatoes, a bowl of raw canned tomatoes and a huge piece of
heavy-crusted preserved-peach pie. She also drank, with no effect upon
her drowsiness, an enormous thick cupful of strong coffee, slightly
tempered by canned milk. She sat at the foot of the long table, opposite
Mr. Lander, a fat, sly-looking man whose eyes twinkled with a look of
mysterious inner amusement, caused, probably, by astonishment at his own
respectability. He had behind him a career of unprecedented villainy, and
that he should end here at Rusty as the solid and well-considered keeper
of the roadhouse was, no doubt, a perpetual tickle to his consciousness.
Down either side of the table were silent and impressive figures busy
with their food. Courteous and quiet they were and beautifully
uninquiring, except in the matter of her supplies. The yellow lamplight
shone on brown bearded and brown clean-shaven faces, rugged and strong
and clean-cut. These bared throats and thickly thatched heads, these
faces, lighted by extraordinary, far-seeing brilliant, brooding eyes,
reminded Sheila of a master's painting of The Last Supper--so did their
coarse clothing melt into the gold-brown shadows of the room and so did
their hands and throats and faces pick themselves out in mellow lights
and darknesses.
After the meal she dragged herself upstairs to Number Five, made scant
use of nicked basin, spoutless pitcher, and rough clean towel, blew out
her little shadeless lamp, and crept in under an immense, elephantine,
grateful weight of blankets and patchwork quilts, none too fresh,
probably, though the sheet blankets were evidently newly washed. Of
muslin sheeting there was none. The pillow was flat and musty. Sheila
cuddled into it as though it had been a mother's shoulder. That instant
she was asleep. Once in the night she woke. A dream waked her. It seemed
to her that a great white flower had blossomed in the window of her room
and that in the heart of it was Dickie's face, tender and as pale as a
petal. It drew near to her and bent over her wistfully. She held out her
arms with a piteous longing to comfort his wistfulness and woke. Her face
was wet with the mystery of dream tears. The flower dwindled to a small
white moon standing high in the upper pane of one of the uncurtained
windows. The room was full of eager mountain air. She could hear a
water-wheel turning with a soft splash in the stream below. There was no
other sound. The room smelt of snowy heights and brilliant stars. She
breathed deep and, quite as though she had breathed a narcotic, slept
suddenly again. This, before any memory of Hudson burned her
consciousness.
The next morning she found that her journey had been carefully arranged.
Thatcher had come and gone. The responsibility for her further progress
had been shifted to the shoulders of a teamster, whose bearded face,
except for the immense humor and gallantry of his gray eyes, was
startlingly like one of Albrecht Duerer's apostles. Her bundle was in his
wagon, half of his front seat was cushioned for her. After breakfast she
was again escorted down the board walk to the gate. Mrs. Lander fastened
a huge bunch of sweet peas to her coat and kissed her cheek. Sheila bade
innumerable good-byes, expressed innumerable thanks. For Hilliard's
absence Rusty offered its apologies. They said that he had been much
entertained and, after the hurt he had suffered to his wrist, late sleep
was a necessity. Sheila understood. The bowl of reparation had been
emptied to its last atoning dregs. She mounted to the side of "Saint
Mark," she bowed and smiled, made promises, gave thanks again, and waved
herself out of Rusty at last. She had never felt so flattered and so
warmed at heart.
"I'm agoin'," quoth Saint Mark, "right clost to Miss Blake's. If we don't
overtake her--and that hoss of hers sure travels wonderful fast,
somethin' wonderful, yes, ma'am, by God--excuse me, lady--it's sure
surprisin' the way that skinny little hoss of hers will travel--why, I
c'n take you acrost the ford. There ain't no way of gettin' into Miss
Blake's exceptin' by the ford. And then I c'n take my team back to the
road. From the ford it's a quarter-mile walk to Miss Blake's house. You
c'n cache your bundle and she'll likely get it for you in the mornin'.
We had ought to be there by sundown. Her trail from the ford's clear
enough. I'm a-takin' this lumber to the Gover'ment bridge forty mile up.
Yes, by God--excuse _me_, lady--it's agoin' to be jest a dandy bridge
until the river takes it out next spring, by God--you'll have to excuse
me again, lady."
He seemed rather mournfully surprised by the frequent need for these
apologies. "It was my raisin', lady," he explained. "My father was a
Methody preacher. Yes'm, he sure was, by God, yes--excuse me again, lady.
He was always a-prayin'. It kinder got me into bad habits. Yes, ma'am.
Those words you learn when you're a kid they do stick in your mind. By
God, yes, they do--excuse _me_, lady. That's why I run away. I couldn't
stand so much prayin' all the time. And bein' licked when I wasn't bein'
prayed at. He sure licked me, that dern son of a--Oh, by God, lady,
you'll just hev to excuse me, please." He wiped his forehead. "I reckon I
better keep still."
Sheila struggled, then gave way to mirth. Her companion, after a doubtful
look, relaxed into his wide, bearded smile. After that matters were on an
easy footing between them and the "excuse me, lady," was, for the most
part, left to her understanding.
They drifted like a lurching vessel through the long crystal day. Never
before this journey into Hidden Creek had time meant anything to Sheila
but a series of incidents, occupations, or emotions; now first she
understood the Greek impersonation of the dancing hours. She had watched
the varying faces the day turns to those who fold their hands and still
their minds to watch its progress. She had seen the gradual heightening
of brilliance from dawn to noon, and then the fading-out from that high,
white-hot glare, through gold and rose and salmon and purple, to the ashy
lavenders of twilight and so into gray and the metallic, glittering
coldness of the mountain night. It was the purple hour when she said
good-bye to Saint Mark on the far side of a swift and perilous ford. She
was left standing in the shadow of a near-by mountain-side while he rode
away into the still golden expanse of valley beyond the leafy course of
the stream. Hidden Creek had narrowed and deepened. It ran past Sheila
now with a loud clapping and knocking at its cobbled bed and with an
over-current of noisy murmurs. The hurrying water was purple, with flecks
of lavender and gold. The trees on its banks were topped with emerald
fire where they caught the light of the sun. The trail to Miss Blake's
ranch ran along the river on the edge of a forest of pines. At this hour
they looked like a wall into which some magic permitted the wanderer to
walk interminably. Sheila was glad that she did not have to make use of
this wizard invitation. She "cached" her bundle, as Saint Mark had
advised, in a thicket near the stream and walked resolutely forward
along the trail. Not even when her pony had left her on The Hill had she
felt so desolate or so afraid.
She could not understand why she was here on her way to the ranch of this
strange woman. She felt astonished by her loneliness, by her rashness, by
the dreadful lack in her life of all the usual protections. Was youth
meant so to venture itself? This was what young men had done since the
beginning of time. She thought of Hilliard. His life must have been just
such a series of disconnected experiments. Danger was in the very pattern
of such freedom. But she was a girl, _only_ a girl as the familiar phrase
expresses it--a seventeen-year-old girl. She was reminded of a pathetic
and familiar line, "A woman naturally born to fears ..." A wholesome
reaction to pride followed and, suddenly, an amusing memory of Miss
Blake, of her corduroy trousers stuffed into boots, of her broad, strong
body, her square face with its firm lips and masterful red-brown eyes; a
very heartening memory for such a moment. Here was a woman that had
adventured without fear and had quite evidently met with no disaster.
Sheila came to a little tumbling tributary and crossed it on a log. On
the farther side the trail broadened, grew more distinct; through an
opening in tall, gray, misty cottonwoods she saw the corner of a log
house. At the same instant a dreadful tumult broke out. The sound sent
Sheila's blood in a slapping wave back upon her heart. All of her body
turned cold. She was fastened by stone feet to the ground. It was the
laughter of a mob of damned souls, an inhuman, despairing mockery of
God. It tore the quiet evening into shreds of fear. This house was a
madhouse holding revelry. No--of course, they were wolves, a pack of
wolves. Then, with a warmth of returning circulation, Sheila remembered
Miss Blake's dogs, the descendants of the wolf-dog that had littered on
the body of a dead man. Quarter-wolf, was it? These voices had no hint
of the homely barking of a watchdog, the friend of man's loneliness! But
Sheila braced her courage. Miss Blake made good use of her pack. They
pulled her sled, winters, in Hidden Creek. They must then be partly
civilized by service. If only--she smiled a desperate smile at the
uncertainty--they didn't tear her to pieces when she came out from the
shelter of the trees. There was very great courage in Sheila's short,
lonely march through the little grove of cottonwood trees. She was as
white as the mountain columbine. She walked slowly and held her head
high. She had taken up a stone for comfort.
At the end of the trees she saw a house, a three-sided, one-storied
building of logs very pleasantly set in a circle of aspen trees,
backed by taller firs, toppling over which stood a great sharp crest
of rocky ledges, nine thousand feet high, edged with the fire of
sunset. At one side of the house eight big dogs were leaping at the
ends of their chains. They were tied to trees or to small kennels at
the foot of trees. And, God be thanked! Sheila let fall her
stone--they were _all_ tied.
The door at the end of the nearest wing of the house opened and Miss
Blake stood on the threshold and held up her hands. At sight of her the
dogs stopped their howling instantly and cringed on their bellies or sat
yawning on their bushy haunches. Miss Blake's resonant, deep voice seemed
to pounce upon Sheila above the chatter of the stream which, running
about three sides of the glade, was now, at the silence of the dogs,
incessantly audible.
"Well, if it isn't the little barmaid!" cried Miss Blake, and advanced,
wiping her hand on a white apron tied absurdly over the corduroy
trousers and cowboy boots. "Well, if you aren't as welcome as the
flowers in May! So you thought you'd leave the street-lamps and come
take a look at the stars?"
They met and Sheila took the strong, square hand. She was afflicted by a
sudden dizziness.
"That's it," she faltered; "this time I thought I'd try--the stars."
With that she fell against Miss Blake and felt, just before she dropped
into blackness, that she had been saved by firm arms from falling to
the ground.
CHAPTER IV
BEASTS
The city rippled into light. It bloomed, blossom on blossom, like some
enchanted jungle under the heavy summer sky. Dickie sat on a bench in
Washington Square. He sat forward, his hands hanging between his knees,
his lips parted, and he watched the night. It seemed to him that it was
filled with the clamor of iron-throated beasts running to and fro after
their prey. The heat was a humid, solid, breathless weight--a heat
unknown to Millings. Dickie wore his threadbare blue serge suit. It felt
like a garment of lead.
There were other people on the benches--limp and sodden outlines. Dickie
had glanced at them and had glanced away. He did not want to think that
he looked like one of these--half-crushed insects,--bruised into
immobility. A bus swept round the corner and moved with a sort of
topheavy, tipsy dignity under the white arch. It was loaded with
humanity, its top black with heads. "It ain't a crowd," thought Dickie;
"it's a swarm." His eyes followed the ragged sky-line. "Why is it so
horrible?" he asked himself--"horrible and beautiful and sort of
poisonous--it plumb scares a fellow--" A diminished moon, battered and
dim like a trodden silver coin, stood up above him. By tilting his head
he could look directly at it through an opening in the dusty,
electric-brightened boughs. The stars were pin-pricks here and there in
the dense sky. The city flaunted its easy splendor triumphantly before
their pallid insignificance. Tarnished purities, forgotten ecstasies,
burned-out inspirations--so the city shouted raucously to its faded
firmament.
Dickie's fingers slid into his pocket. The moon had reminded him of his
one remaining dime. He might have bought a night's lodging with it, but
after one experience of such lodgings he preferred his present quarters.
In Dickie's mind there was no association of shame or ignominy with a
night spent under the sky. But fear and ignominy tainted and clung to
his memory of that other night. He had saved his dime deliberately,
going hungry rather than admit to himself that he was absolutely at the
end of his resources. To-morrow he would not especially need that dime.
He had a job. He would begin to draw pay. In his own phrasing he would
"buy him a square meal and rent him a room somewhere." Upon these two
prospects his brain fastened with a leech-like persistency. And yet
above anything he had faced in his life he dreaded the job and the room.
The inspiration of his flight, the impulse that had sped him out of
Millings like a fire-tipped arrow, that determination to find Sheila, to
rehabilitate himself in her esteem, to serve her, to make a fresh start,
had fallen from him like a dead flame. The arrow-flight was spent. He
had not found Sheila. He had no way of finding her. She was not at her
old address. Her father's friend, the Mr. Hazeldean that had brought
Sylvester to Marcus's studio, knew nothing of her. Mrs. Halligan, her
former landlady, knew nothing of her. Dickie, having summoned Mrs.
Halligan to her doorsill, had looked past her up the narrow, steep
staircase. "Did she live away up there?" he had asked. "Yes, sorr. And
't was a climb for the poor little crayture, but there was days when
she'd come down it like a burrd to meet her Pa." Dickie had faltered,
white and empty-hearted, before the kindly Irishwoman who remembered so
vividly Sheila's downward, winged rush of welcome. For several hours
after his visit to the studio building he had wandered aimlessly about,
then his hunger had bitten at him and he had begun to look for work. It
was not difficult to find. A small restaurant displayed a need of
waiters. Dickie applied. He had often "helped out" in that capacity, as
in most others, at The Aura. He cited his experience, referred to Mr.
Hazeldean, and was engaged. The pay seemed to him sufficient to maintain
life. So much for that! Then he went to his bench and watched the day
pant itself into the night. His loneliness was a pitiful thing; his
utter lack of hope or inspiration was a terrible thing.