Bunch Grass Part 17

"Hard times are making you rich," said Ajax.

"My G.o.d!" he exclaimed pa.s.sionately, "have I not been poor long enough? Have I not seen my wife and children suffering for want of proper food and clothing? If prosperity is coming my way, boys, I've paid the price for it, and don't you forget it."

His eyes were suffused with tears, and Ajax took note of it. My brother told me later that so tender a husband and father was a.s.suredly no cattle-thief.

Upon Christmas Day we sat at meat for nearly two hours. Mrs. Doctor Tapper, the wife of the stout dentist of San Miguelito, was present.

Of the three Misses Skenk she had made the best match--from a worldly point of view. She wore diamonds; she kept two hired girls; she entertained on a handsome scale, and never failed to invite her less fortunate sisters to her large and select parties--she was, in a word, a most superior person, and a devout church-member. To this lady Ajax made himself mightily agreeable.

"Now really," said she, "I do wish the doctor was here. He does so dearly love badinage. That, and bridgework, is his forte."

"And why isn't he here?" demanded my brother.

"He's hunting our bay mare. It broke out of the barn this morning. I told him that I wouldn't disappoint Alviry for an ark full of bay mares. I knew she would count on me to help her entertain you gentlemen."

"I hope your husband will find his mare," said Ajax. "We lost fifteen fat steers once, but we never found them."

"That's so," observed Mr. Swiggart. "And I wore myself out a-hunting 'em. They was stolen--sure."

"The wickedness of some folk pa.s.ses my understanding," remarked Mrs.

Tapper. "Well, we're told that the triumphing of the wicked is short, but--good Land!--Job never lived in this State."

"He'd been more to home in New England," said Laban slily. The Skenks were from Ma.s.sachusetts, the Swiggarts from Illinois.

"There's a pit digged for such," continued Mrs. Tapper, ignoring the interruption, "a pit full o' brimstone and fire. Yes, sister, I will take one more slice of the ham. I never ate sweeter meat. Eastern, I presume, my dear?"

"No, sister. Laban cured that ham. Pork-packing was his trade back east."

Laban added: "Boys, I hope ye like that ham. I've a reason for asking."

We a.s.sured our host that the ham was superlatively good. Mince and pumpkin pies followed, coffee, then grace. As we rose from the table, Laban said pleasantly, "Boys, here are some imported cigars. We'll smoke outside."

Having, so to speak, soaped the ways, Mr. Swiggart launched his "proposition." He wished to pack bacon. Hogs, he pointed out, were selling at two cents a pound; bacon and hams at twelve and fifteen cents. We had some two hundred and fifty hogs ready for market. These Laban wanted to buy on credit. He proposed to turn them into lard, hams, and bacon, to sell the same to local merchants (thereby saving cost of transportation), and to divide the profits with us after the original price of the hogs was paid. This seemed a one-sided bargain.

He was to do all the work; we should, in any case, get the market price for the hogs, while the profits were to be divided. However, our host explained that we took all the risk. If the bacon spoiled he would not agree to pay us a cent. With the taste of that famous ham in our mouths, this contingency seemed sufficiently remote; and we said as much.

"Well, I could rob ye right and left. Ye've got to trust me, and there's a saying: 'To trust is to bust.'"

He was so candid in explaining the many ways by which an unscrupulous man might take advantage of two ignorant Britons, that Ajax, not relis.h.i.+ng the personal flavour of the talk, rose and strolled across to the branding-corral. When he returned he was unusually silent, and, riding home, he said thoughtfully: "I saw Laban's brand this afternoon. It is 81, and the 8 is the same size as our S. His ear-mark is a crop, which obliterates our swallow-fork. Queer--eh?"

"Not at all," I replied indignantly. "It's a social crime to eat, as you did to-day, three large helpings of turkey, and then----"

"Bos.h.!.+" he interrupted. "If Laban is an honest man, no harm has been done. If he stole our steers--and, mind you, I don't say he did--three slices off the breast of a turkey will hardly offset my interest in five tons of beef. As for this packing scheme, it sounds promising; but we lack figures. To-morrow we will drive into San Lorenzo, and talk to the Children of Israel. If Ikey Rosenbaum says that bacon is likely to rise or stay where it is, we will accept Laban's proposition."

The following morning we started early. The short cut to San Lorenzo lay through the Swiggart claim, and the road pa.s.sed within a few yards of the house. We saw Mrs. Swiggart on the verandah, and offered to execute any commissions that she cared to entrust to two bachelors. In reply she said that she hated to ask favours, but--if we were going to town in a two-seater, would we be so very kind as to bring back her mother, Mrs. Skenk, who was ailing, and in need of a change.

"Gran'ma's hard on the springs," observed Euphemia, Mrs. Swiggart's youngest girl, "but she'll tell you more stories than you can shake a stick at; not 'bout fairies, Mr. Ajax, but reel folks." We a.s.sured Mrs. Swiggart that we should esteem it a pleasure to give her mother a lift. Ajax had met the old lady at a church social some six months before, and, finding her a bonanza of gossip, had extracted some rich and curious ore.

In San Lorenzo we duly found Isaac Rosenbaum, who proved an optimist on the subject of bacon. Indeed, he chattered so glibly of rising prices and better times that the packing scheme was immediately referred to his mature judgment; and he not only recommended it heartily, but offered to handle our "stuff" on commission, or to buy it outright if it proved marketable. According to Ikey the conjunction "if" could not be ignored. Packing bacon beneath the sunny skies of Southern California was a speculation, he said. Swiggart, he added, ought to know what good hams were, for he bought the very best Eastern brand.

"What!" we cried simultaneously, "does Mr. Swiggart _buy_ hams?"

Yes; it seemed that only a few days previously Laban had carefully selected the choicest ham in the store.

Ajax clutched my arm, and we fled.

"We have convicted the wretch," he said presently.

"The _wretches_," I amended.

The use of the plural smote him in the face.

"This is awful," he groaned. "Why, when you were away last summer, and I broke my leg, she nursed me like a mother."

"Women throw such sops to a barking conscience."

I was positive now that Laban had stolen the steers, and that his wife was privy to the theft. The lie about the ham had been doubtless concocted for purposes of plunder. The kindness and hospitality of our neighbours had been, after all, but a snare for tenderfeet.

We found Mrs. Skenk--whom we had seen on arrival--sitting on her front porch, satchel in hand, patiently awaiting us. Ajax helped her to mount--no light task, for she was a very heavy and enfeebled woman. I drove. As we trotted down the long straggling street our pa.s.senger spoke with feeling of the changes that had taken place in the old mission town.

"I've lived here thirty years. Twenty mighty hard ones as a married woman; and ten tol'able easy ones as a widder. Mr. Skenk was a saintly man, but tryin' to live with on account o' deefness and the azmy. I never see a chicken took with the gapes but I think o' Abram Skenk.

Yes, Mr. Ajax, my daughters was all born here, 'ceptin' Alviry. She was born in Ma.s.sachusetts. It did make a difference to the child. As a little girl she kep' herself to herself. And though I'd rather cut out my tongue than say a single word against Laban Swiggart, I do feel that he'd no business to pick the best in the basket. Favourite? No, sir; but I've said, many a time, that if Alviry went to her long home, I could not tarry here. Most women feel that way about the first-born.

I've told Alviry to her face as she'd ought to have said 'No' to Laban Swiggart. Oh, the suffering that dear child has endured! It did seem till lately as if horse-tradin', cattle-raisin', and the butcher business was industries against which the Lord had set his face. Sairy married an undertaker; Samanthy _couldn't_ refuse Doctor Tapper.

And, rain or s.h.i.+ne, folks must have teeth if they want to eat the steaks they sell in Californy, and likewise they must have caskets when their time comes. Yes, Alviry does take after me, Mr. Ajax.

You're reel clever to say so. She ain't a talker, but brainy. You've seen her wax flowers? Yes; and the sh.e.l.l table with 'Bless our Home'

on it, in pink cowries? Mercy sakes! There's a big storm a'comin' up."

The rain began to fall as she spoke; at first lightly, then more heavily as we began to cross the mountains. Long before we came to the Salinas River it was pouring down in torrents--an inch of water to the hour.

"It's a cloud-burst," said Mrs. Skenk, from beneath a prehistoric umbrella. "This'll flush the creeks good."

I whipped up the horses, thinking of the Salinas and its treacherous waters. In California, when the ground is well sodden, a very small storm will create a very big freshet. At such times most rivers are dangerous to ford on account of quicksands.

"I'll guess we'll make it," observed the old lady. "I've crossed when it was bilin' from bank to bank. I mind me when Jim Tarburt was drowned: No 'count, Jim. He'd no more sense than a yaller dog. 'Twas a big streak o' luck for his wife and babies, for Susannah Tarburt married old man Hopping, and when he died the very next year she was left rich. Then there was that pore thin school-marm, Ireen Bunker.

She--"

And Mrs. Skenk continued with a catalogue, long as that of the s.h.i.+ps in the _Iliad_, of travellers who, in fording the Salinas, had crossed that other grim river which flows for ever between time and eternity. We had reached the banks before she had drained her memory of those who had perished.

"'Tis bilin'," she muttered, as she peered up and down the yellow, foam-speckled torrent that roared defiance at us; "but, good Land! we can't go around now. Keep the horses' noses upstream, young man, and use your whip."

We plunged in.

What followed took place quickly. In mid-stream the near horse floundered into a quicksand and fell, swinging round the pole, and with it the off horse. I lashed the poor struggling beasts unmercifully, but the wagon settled slowly down--inch by inch. Death grinned us in the teeth. Then I heard Mrs. Skenk say, quite collectedly: "'Tis my fault, and my weight." Then Ajax roared out: "For G.o.d's sake, sit down, ma'am, sit down. SIT DOWN!" he screamed, his voice shrill above the bellowing, booming waters. A crash behind told me that he had flung her back into her seat. At the same moment the near horse found a footing; there was a mighty pull from both the terrified animals, the harness held, and the danger was over. When we reached the bank I looked round. Mrs. Skenk was smiling; Ajax was white as chalk.

"She w-w-would have s-s-sacrificed her l-l-life," he stammered. "If I hadn't grabbed her, she would be dead this minute."

"I reckon that's so," a.s.sented our pa.s.senger. "I took a notion to jump. My weight and fool advice was like to cost three lives. Better one, thinks I, than three. You saved my life, Mr. Ajax. Yes, you did.

Alviry, I reckon, will thank you."

The rest of the journey was accomplished in silence. We drove up to the Swiggarts' house, and both Laban and his wife expressed great surprise at seeing us.