The Sheriff of Badger Part 17

Johnson did not consider it necessary to add that the veteran Pete's antipathy to all-native labor had been responsible for this rupture with MacFarlane, and that the vaquero playing the guitar still held his job, although Pete had incontinently discharged him months before. Nor did he mention that the man with the guitar had a sister. As to that, he had heard nothing but rumors, and he was never inclined to believe half of what he heard.

Hughie's old servant, Salazar, waited on the two at supper. He had a shrewd notion that Lafe was the lady's admirer, with an eye to the property; but what booted it? All through the meal he watched Mrs.

MacFarlane stolidly and addressed her as "Senorita," which was a brainy proceeding. However, he told Paula in the kitchen that she was Hughie's wife and a ravis.h.i.+ngly beautiful woman. The girl received the intelligence with somber calm.

Twice she came out on to the veranda where they sat afterwards--once to fill the water bag; again, to draw from it. Mrs. MacFarlane asked who she was, her age, and where her mother was. She obtained evasive answers, but was too abstracted to give thought to what might have troubled her at any other time.

"She's so pretty--so awfully pretty. Are they all as beautiful as that?"

"No-oo. I should say not. Paula, she's got most of 'em hiding out in the long gra.s.s," said Lafe, without enthusiasm.

There is a quality about a southwest night that saddens, or elevates above all petty trouble, according to temperament and conditions of health. Moreover, it can make everyday worries seem trivial, which surely is a G.o.d-given thing. As the languid dust thickened, Mrs.

MacFarlane grew depressed. The silence became longer and her replies punctilious. Soon she bade him good-night. The drive had made her very sleepy, she said. Johnson started down to the Mexican quarters. A dance was in progress there, and it was impossible to say to what lengths the revelers might go unless convinced that authority slept under headquarters' roof.

As he stepped down, he became aware that someone leaned against a shade-tree in the yard. It was Paula, and she was watching Mrs.

MacFarlane's lighted window.

CHAPTER XVIII

A SACRIFICE AND ITS PUNISHMENT

Salazar was not on hand at breakfast, having contracted a sickness in the head during a dispute at the ball. Paula brought in the dishes. She fixed her solemn, round eyes on Mrs. MacFarlane and Johnson could read a questioning in their limpid steadiness. Once she spoke sharply. He gave a curt answer and appeared perturbed.

"What does she want?" asked Hughie's widow.

"Nothing, ma'am. It ain't anything."

"She looks angry," Mrs. MacFarlane persisted.

"No-oo. She says the toast is burned. That's all."

"Nonsense. The toast's delicious," said the widow.

They went on with the meal. Hanging above the sideboard was a portrait of Hughie. It was a wretched thing in crayon, framed in wide gilt of sumptuous design, but the drawing had been a gift to MacFarlane from a friend in the cow business, and accordingly he had allotted it a place of honor. The widow saw this at breakfast for the first time. Hughie's face wore a simper, but the likeness must have recalled him in tender moods, for two large tears gathered on her cheeks and slid slowly downward.

Paula, entering with fried eggs, noted the direction of her gaze and saw, also, the tears splash on the widow's plate. Mrs. MacFarlane was extracting a handkerchief from her sleeve and she smiled wanly at the girl to intimate that the matter of the toast really did not weigh in the least. It was kindly meant, but Paula failed altogether to understand. She dropped the platter and began to jabber. It is of no importance what she said. At her first words Johnson jumped up, but she pushed him back into his seat and cried names at Hughie's widow it was lucky that good lady knew not the meaning of. She crooked her fingers under Mrs. MacFarlane's nose, and when the widow tried, in her astonishment and indignation, to rise from the table, Paula seized a plate. Lafe pinned her arms. There was a tremendous to-do for a few minutes, with Paula shrilling and tugging.

After the first shock, the widow regarded the girl's struggles without apprehension. Lafe contrived to drag Paula from the room. In the kitchen, her access of rage evaporated swiftly, and she sobbed, her face buried in her arms against the wall. Johnson returned, panting.

"Now," Mrs. MacFarlane said steadily, "I want to know what this means."

This was natural enough, and Lafe had been thinking faster than he had ever thought in his life. He began an elaborate dissertation on standards along the Border--how different they were to those back east.

It was in his mind to persuade the widow that men were apt to depart from the charted paths when removed from the compelling force of an established moral sentiment. That would give him a chance to lead up to Hughie's backsliding by easy stages.

Such was his plan. It might have worked smoothly with any other woman, or done by a man of readier wit. But as he looked into Mrs. MacFarlane's face, the affair a.s.sumed a different aspect to Lafe. He could not tear down the image of Hughie she had builded and kneeled to during eleven years. There came a tremor in his voice and his speech trailed off into weak incoherencies. He paused, braced himself and started again.

"That's better," said Mrs. MacFarlane, very white, and deadly quiet.

"That sounds more manly."

Once squared away to his task, Johnson did it well. He showed an amazing apt.i.tude for lying. Looking the outraged widow straight in the eye, he lied--lied gloriously--so that, as she heard him, Mrs. MacFarlane gradually shrank back. She appeared to expand and grow taller in her contempt--to Lafe she seemed to fill the room--but when he deftly added a picturesque touch about Paula deluding herself with the suspicion that Mrs. MacFarlane and himself were much too friendly--he told her this with a savage zest--the widow exclaimed, "The very idea! Oh, the creature!"

"And you were Hughie's friend?" she remarked when he had ended. Of course, that was the monstrous side of this affair.

"Well, you see, ma'am, him and me--"

"And Hetty Ferrier!"

Now, Lafe had forgotten Hetty in all this. Had Mrs. MacFarlane been a wiser woman, she might have read a different story from his eyes in that instant.

"It's my duty to tell her, Mr. Johnson," Mrs. MacFarlane went on, sustained by that sense of moral obligation which overtakes us all in dealing with our friends' private affairs.

"It ain't right, ma'am," said Lafe. "It ain't proper that a girl should hear such things."

"Ho, indeed!" the widow sniffed. "It isn't, hey? We'll see about that. I suppose Hetty's a baby? And let a sweet girl like her marry a man like you?"

"You aim to tell her, Miz MacFarlane?"

"I certainly shall."

"Wait. Hold on a minute," he begged.

"There's nothing you can say, Mr. Johnson. I won't listen. Good-by. It won't be necessary for you to drive me back. I will get Salazar. No, I don't want to hear anything more. I won't listen. I've heard too much already. That will do, please. Let me by."

She swept past him as though marching on a citadel, and Johnson withdrew, limp and wretched. Indeed, he looked and felt, at the moment, the thing Mrs. MacFarlane thought he was. There obtains a notion that an innocent man's innocence will s.h.i.+ne from his face like the sun breaking through clouds. It is a comfortable thought. The facts, however, are that he is very likely to show much bewilderment under sudden accusation, whereas the hardy scoundrel will summon up the most blighting wrath when brought face to face with his misdoings.

Hughie's widow retired to her room, where, with a photograph of Hughie on the table in front of her, she had a long cry. Then she sat down and wrote to Hetty Ferrier, lest she be swerved from her high purpose by subsequent happenings, or neglect it through bad memory. Salazar received orders to hitch the team to take her back to town, and the majordomo promised that Paula would be sent back to her mother, who lived on the far side of Tepitate. Her conscience serene, Mrs.

MacFarlane gave the majordomo some money for the girl, which the majordomo pocketed against a holiday in the city. As he intended to marry Paula some day, it may be that he regarded this as dowry and consequently his own. Then the widow drove back to the Hotel Carmen, and a week later boarded the train for the homeward journey.

CHAPTER XIX

BUFFALO JIM GIVES WISE COUNSEL

Johnson departed the ranch like a sneak-thief, keeping well off the trail for fear he should be overtaken by Mrs. MacFarlane and further humiliated by a blank stare. He wanted to take counsel of Buffalo Jim, who now lived in Cananea, as I have said, among drying hides and the fresh carca.s.ses of steers. If you follow a road out of this city--the wood haulers use it, for the most part, with their laden burros--you will descend a mesa by wide sweeps and run slap against a slaughter house. There are corrals and stables also, and a thousand carrion crows will acknowledge your coming by a reluctant lifting of wings. Here Lafe's friend resided and slew thirty head daily for beef. Perhaps his occupation contributed to the study of human problems--killing things is a serious business--at any rate, Buffalo really knew all that a man may know in this life.

He took an extremely pessimistic view of Johnson's prospects. Of course, the girl would believe Mrs. MacFarlane. That was only natural. A woman might stick to a man through every crime in the calendar against his fellow men, and still hold faith in him; but when another woman entered into the plot, it was time for a new deal; he was as good as done for, then. Thus spake Buffalo Jim. He advised Lafe, however, to write Hetty without delay. By so doing, he might forestall the widow and prepare the young lady.

"It'll sort of give the widow woman your dust," he explained, "and then she's liable to make a bad throw."

Accordingly, Johnson went to the Hotel Carmen and sat himself down at a desk in a corner. He chose some neatly ruled paper and dipped the pen; everything in due order. After that he coughed and consumed some minutes in staring fixedly at the blank sheets. He had no heart for this task.

Resolute in all the crises of his man's life, this was beyond him.

Then he began to write, the pen scratching and sputtering over the page.