The Forbidden Trail Part 42

"I have to mean it," insisted Charley wearily, "after seeing you that time with Gustav."

"I'm not like d.i.c.k!" shouted Roger. "I wouldn't touch a woman or a child!"

"How do you know you wouldn't?" asked Charley.

A sudden burning recollection of the little boy who had struck his mother's hand from his shoulder flashed through Roger's mind. He groaned and dropped his head. Charley did not speak and for some moments Roger did not move. Then he came over to the couch and said quietly:

"I'll not hurt d.i.c.k. Where did he get the cologne, Charley?"

"He must have found it in Elsa's room. I didn't know she had it, or I'd have put it away. And now, every one will know! Oh, Roger, must they all know?"

"I don't see how it can be helped. But you can be sure none of us will say more than has to be said. Charley, I'm going to get Peter and take you down to the Plant for the night. You need absolute rest and quiet and you can't get it so near d.i.c.k."

"And d.i.c.k?"

"d.i.c.k must fend for himself in the tool shack. I'll put a canteen of water and a blanket in there and by morning he'll be ready for conversation."

"But he won't be. Drink makes him terribly sick. His stomach is very bad. That's why I always say it's stomach trouble. He ought to be taken care of to-night."

"He'll stay where he is and by himself," said Roger, grimly. "When I have a temper fit the next time, you can do the same by me. Lord, I'm glad Elsa is here! You lie quiet while I go milk."

When he had put the milk away he found that Charley had braided her hair but was still very white and shaken. d.i.c.k's shouts and curses floated in at the open door. Roger tied the little bundle of night things she had made up to the saddle and helped her to mount. She swayed dizzily and he put a strong, steadying arm about her. They made their way very slowly and Roger heaved a sigh of relief when they were finally beyond ear shot of poor d.i.c.k.

Elsa met them a short distance from the camp. "h.e.l.lo, Charley," she said. "Felicia has just fallen asleep."

Roger nodded and at the living-tent door, helped Charley from the saddle. "Get this patient to sleep too, Elsa, if you can."

Elsa's eyes filled with tears as she looked at Charley. "You poor dear,"

she said, "come and let me take care of you."

One touch of a woman's sympathy, after her starved years, was too much for Charley. She burst into deep drawn sobs. Elsa, motioning Roger away, put her arm about the girl and led her into the tent.

Roger paced up and down in the sand for a while, listening to the low despairing sobs from the tent. Then he unsaddled Peter and put a huge bottle of water to heat. He had heard somewhere that women took great comfort in a cup of tea.

Roger pa.s.sed rather a restless night. He had put Elsa's cot which she never had used, in the living tent so that Elsa could be close to her two patients, and himself put in the night in Gustav's shack which was built against the kitchen tent.

It was early July and the summer's heat was at its height. Three times between midnight and dawn Roger scratched a match and looked at the thermometer. It never registered below 118. Even the night wind did not rise. The silence of the desert was complete as though torridity had overwhelmed every other aspect of nature. The stars were magnificent and for an hour or so, hoping to find the air outside cooler, Roger put a blanket on the work bench near the condenser and lay there, his face to the sky.

He wanted to keep his mind fastened lucidly on his engine problem, but he found it impossible to put away the events of the day. d.i.c.k's b.e.s.t.i.a.l voice, Charley's white, proud face, little Felicia's clinging arms, Charley's sobs from the living tent and her bitter words concerning his temper. These words he pondered unwillingly for some time, following with his eye the constellations of the Great Bear. Finally he rolled on his face with a groan. Perhaps she was right. G.o.d knew though that he'd fought the red demon within him. After a time he rolled back. Felicia had not wakened for her supper. She had slept straight through. It was a great pity, he thought, that she should have seen d.i.c.k drunk, that she should have seen him knock Charley down. He wondered if there were any way he could make her forget it. Then with a deep flush in the starlight he wished to G.o.d she had not seen him lose his temper like a fool.

Felicia! tender, high strung little Felicia!

At last when the stars were growing dim, Roger fell asleep. He rose at sunrise, and went up to the ranch. d.i.c.k was lying on the adobe floor of the tent house, evidently very sick and very cross.

"How'd I come in here? Send Charley to me!" he snarled.

"I will, like thunder, you drunken b.u.m! You did your best to beat up both of your sisters. I'm going to keep them at the Sun Plant until some new arrangement can be made. The best I can do for you is to leave this door open. Fend for yourself, hang you!" And Roger walked off to do the milking.

When he had finished milking he glanced in at the open door of the tool house. d.i.c.k lay where Roger had left him, staring with eyes of feverish agony at the roof above his head. Roger, without a word, went back to the plant. To his relief, Felicia appeared at the breakfast table, very hungry and quite herself. But Charley was not able to get up. It seemed as if the long years of strain had culminated in yesterday's events, and that Charley had no will-power left.

The girl lay on Ernest's cot, the tent flap lifted beside her, with no apparent desire save to stare at the desert dancing in heat waves against the sky. What thoughts were pa.s.sing behind those quiet brown eyes, no one knew.

It was mid-morning when Roger went in to see her. He pulled a box up beside the cot. "Well, old dear," he said. "How is the head?"

Charley smiled. "Sore and aching, but better than during the night. I am so tired and that's very unusual. I'm always so strong."

Roger nodded. "It was a bad knock, to leave you senseless for half an hour. I suspect you ought to take pretty good care of yourself for several days. I've been talking with Elsa and she thinks you ought to stay here for a few days. And I do too. Don't worry about d.i.c.k. I saw him this morning and he'll be himself by sundown. And I've promised Elsa I won't see him again until after she does."

Charley eyed Roger's long brown face as if taking in the full significance of all he had said. Then she gave a little sigh of relief.

"If I could rest here in this peaceful tent, just for a day or two."

"The tent's all right at night, but I've moved Gustav's cot into the engine house, and I'm going to help you over there. It's ten degrees cooler than here. Elsa and Felicia are established there and I won't disturb you for I'm drawing, which act is noiseless."

In a dim corner of the adobe engine house in Gustav's cot Charley spent the day. Elsa, when she was not playing housekeeper sat beside her with her sewing and Felicia visited between the cot and Roger's drawing board.

Once when Charley seemed to be in an uneasy sleep, Felicia asked Roger, "Is Charley very sick?"

"Not really sick at all, chicken. She's just tired. She's worked too hard for you and d.i.c.k."

Felicia stared at him with her innocent, speculative gaze so like Charley's, yet so unlike.

"Can't we live here with you, instead of up at the ranch, Roger? I know Charley would like it better."

"You can stay and make us a visit, anyhow. Then we'll see."

At sunset, after the dishes were finished and Charley had moved back to the living tent for the night, Elsa went up to the ranch house. She was gone a long time. Charley was dozing and Felicia asleep. Roger prowled up and down the camp closely followed by Peter until he could bear the suspense no longer. A sudden fear that d.i.c.k might have discovered more liquor somewhere started him along the ranch trail. He met Elsa just as the afterglow disappeared and the parching night came down like a star dotted curtain. She came trudging through the sand as if she were tired.

"It does seem as if I'd wilt with the heat," she exclaimed. "You needn't have worried about me, Roger. d.i.c.k came back with me till we saw you."

"He did, huh! Then he's neither drunk nor dead?"

"Rog! Don't say such awful things about the poor fellow."

"Poor fellow! You didn't see Charley lying on the floor as I did. Well, what has he to say for himself?"

"He's in an awful state of mind. He was trying to cook some supper when I got there. He'd succeeded in milking. When he saw me, he gasped. 'Is Charley sick?' and dropped the kettle of water he was lifting."

"I told him just what you had seen and what an exhausted state Charley's nerves seemed to be in. He just stood and took it looking like a sick cat. When I had finished he asked what you had said and I told him and he sort of groaned, 'You women should have let Roger beat me to death.

Why did you interfere?' Poor d.i.c.k!"

Elsa drew a long breath and was silent for a moment before she began again. "He's in a most awful frame of mind. He's like a man who knows he has fits of insanity and feels perfectly helpless to prevent them. He cried and cried while he told me how he had fought drink. I never knew any one could suffer so. He's much more to be pitied than Charley."

"Huh! Women!" grunted Roger. "Why, he's just the usual thing in drunks, you little ninny. What's he going to do?"

"Well, I want Charley to give him one more chance."

"I thought so! Well, he doesn't get it."