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Curly

<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> <h3>THE SAVING OF CURLY</h3> Miss Blossom was at the front door having great arguments with a man. "If you got baby carriages to sell," says she, "I claim to be a spinster, and if it's lightning-rods, I don't hold with obstructing Providence. If it's insurance, or books, or pianolas, or dress patterns, or mowing machines, you'd better just go home. I'm proof against agents of all sorts, I'm not at home to visitors, and I don't feed tramps. Thar now, you just clear out." "'Scuse me, ma'am, I——" "No, you mayn't." "Allow me to introduce——" "No you don't. You come to the wrong house for that." "Wall, I'm blessed if——" "Yo're much more apt to get bit by my dawg, 'cause yo' breath smells of liquor, and I'm engaged." "Glad to hear it, ma'am. I congratulate the happy gentleman you've chosen." "Well, of all the impudence!" "That's what my wife says—impudence. Will the dawg bite if I inquire for Misteh Curly McCalmont?" My blood went to ice, and I reckon Miss Blossom collapsed a whole lot to judge by the bang where she lit. "Wall, since yo're so kind, ma'am, I'll just step in." I heard him step in. "This way!" the lady was gasping for breath. "The dining-room? Wall, now, this is shorely the purtiest room, and I do just admire to see sech flowers!" Miss Blossom came cat-foot to shut the parlour door, and I heard no more. Curly was changing the cartridges in her revolver, as she always did every evening. "Scared?" she inquired, sort of sarcastic about the nose. "Shut yo' haid. D'you want to be captured?" "It would be a sort of relief from being so lady-like." Then a big gust of laughter shook the house, and I knew that Miss Blossom's guest was the whitest man on the stock-range, Sheriff Bryant. Naturally I had to go and see old Dick, so I told Curly to keep good, quit the parlour, crossed the passage, and walked right into the dining-room, one hand on my gun and the other thrown up for peace. Dick played up in the Indian sign talk: "Long time between drinks." "Thirsty land," says my hand. "Now may I inquire?" says Miss Blossom. "Wall, ma'am"—old Dick cocked his grey eye sideways—"this Chalkeye person remarked that he languished for some whisky, upon which I rebuked him for projecting his drunken ambitions into a lady's presence." The way he subdued Miss Blossom was plenty wondrous, for she lit out to find him the bottle. "Sheriff," says I, as we shook hands, "yo' servant, seh." "I left the sheriff part of me in my own pastures." Dick wrung my hand limp. "I don't aim to ride herd on the local criminals heah, so the hatchet is buried, and the chiefs get nose-paint. Miss Blossom, ma'am, we only aspire to drink to the toast of beauty." He filled up generous. "I look towards you, ma'am." "I du despise a flatterer," says Miss Blossom, but I saw her blush. "Wall, to resume," said Dick, "this lady's guest, Miss Hilda Jameson, of Norfolk, in old Virginie, is entitled to her own habits. She is wounded most unfortunate all day, but all night she's entitled to bulge around in a free country studying moonlight effects." "She's due to be whipped," says Miss Blossom, mighty wrathful. "On scenes of domestic bliss it is not my purpose, ma'am, to intrude. I only allude to the fact that this young lady was pervading Main Street late last night, happy and innocent, in a gale of wind, which it blew off her hat." "Good gracious!" "Yes, ma'am; and naturally the hat being pinned, her hair was blown off too." "It blew off!" "Perhaps, ma'am, this ha'r doesn't fit, and the best thing would be to shoot the party who made—the ornament. The young lady, of co'se, was in no way to blame if it flew down the street and she after it. I rise to observe that Deputy-Marshal Pedersen, being a modest man, was shocked most dreadful, and——" "Oh! Oh!" Miss Blossom went white as the tablecloth. "Go on," said I, "let's know the worst at once." "And he couldn't stay to help the young lady, 'cause he was running to catch the midnight train." "Thank goodness!" "Yes, ma'am, he was due in Lordsburgh this mawning to collect a hoss-thief." "And nobody else saw the wig?" "No, ma'am, only Pedersen. He came whirling down on me this mawning at Lordsburgh with dreams and visions about a robber chasing a wig, and a lady holed up in yo' home, and the same being disguised as a woman, but really a man, and wanting two thousand dollars daid or alive for the wig which its name was Curly. He seemed a heap confused and unreliable." "This Pedersen man," says Miss Blossom, "is coming here to arrest her—I mean him! Oh, what's the use of talking! Speak, man! Speak!" "Deputy-Marshal Pedersen, ma'am, is now in prison." "Arrested!" "Why, sheriff," says I, "what has he done to get arrested?" "I dunno." Dick shook his grey head mournful. "I forget. I had to exceed my authority a whole lot, so the first thing I thought of was 'bigamy and confusion of mind.' I reckon I'll have to apologise, and he's a low-flung crawler to beg pardon to." "You'll have to let him out?" "I shorely will; meanwhile he's thinking of all his sins, and he certainly looks like a Mormon. He never combs his ha'r. But then, you see, I had to keep his paws off these honourable ladies until I could bring some sort of warning heah. Besides if this pusson with a wig is really pore Curly McCalmont, I feel that I done right." "What makes you think that, Bryant?" "Wall, I happen to know that them witnesses in the Ryan inquest here was bribed to swear away the life of old Balshannon's son. The hull blamed business stinks of perjury. I may be wrong, you one-eyed fraud, but when Curly punched cows with you at Holy Crawss I sort of hungered for him. You see, my missus and me couldn't compass a son of our own, and we just wanted Curly. When he quit out from you-all, we tried to catch him, but he broke away. Then came the big shooting-match, six weeks ago, and it broke my ole woman's heart. Thar was the lady gawn daid, and Balshannon quits out in the gun smoke, and you and the two youngsters outlawed for trying to save him. That's how I reads the signs on this big war-trail, and being only a crazy old plainsman, I takes the weaker side." He reached out his paw. "Put her thar, you one-eyed hoss-thief, and you'll know that there's one official in this hull corrupt and filthy outfit who cares for justice more'n he cares for law." With warrants out against me on various charges, and the Grave City Stranglers yearning to make me a corpse, I had come on this visit feeling plenty bashful, so it was good to have a genuine county sheriff acting chaperon. The ladies gave us a great sufficiency of supper, and then we made Curly swear faithfully not to go hunting wigs in the moonlit streets. Afterwards the ladies went to roost, and we two men, having tracked out to tend the horses, made down our beds in the barn loft. Next morning my natural modesty, and certain remarks from the sheriff, made me hide up out of sight, but Bryant went to town and did my shopping. He bought me an iron-grey gelding, which I'd always longed to steal, because he was much too good for the tenderfoot doctor who owned him. It shocked my frugal mind to pay a hundred dollars cash, but Bryant was liberal with my money, and the horse was worth a hundred and fifty, anyhow. He got me a second-handed saddle, snaffle, rope, blanket, a dandy pair of shaps (leather armour for the legs), spurs, belt, shirt, overalls, boots, sombrero, and all cowboy fixings. If I was to take young Curly back to Robbers' Roost, she needed a proper trousseau, specially being due to meet Jim. I hate to put up dull particulars, but I ought to mention that Mutiny Robertson had located a good showing of silver, the second east extension of the Contention Mine, on my land at Las Salinas. That is why for he put up six thousand dollars cash for my water-spring, fencing, and adobe house, getting clear title to the land which held his mineral rights. It grieves me to think of Mutiny grabbing all his present wealth because I couldn't hold down that place without being lynched. Such is the fruits of getting unpopular, and I might preach a plenty improving sermon on the uncertainties of business, the immorality of being found out, the depravity of things in general, the cussedness of fate. Mutiny waited sly, while I plunged around conspicuous, so now he's rich, setting a good example, while I'm as poor as a fox. What with my bank deposit and the sale of my home, Dick brought me back nine thousand dollars in cash. Likewise I had in my warbags the money which McCalmont had trusted to my care for Curly's dowry. I gave Dick charge of all this wealth, taking only a thousand dollars for present expenses, and stuffed the same in the treasure-belt which I carry next my skin. These proceedings were a comfort to me, for I'm here to remark, and ready to back my statements with money, arguments, or guns, that the handling of wealth is more encouraging to the heart than such lonesome games as the pursuit of virtue. Besides the plunder and Curly's trousseau, Dick brought me chocolate creams, a new breed of rim-fire cigars just strong enough to buck, a quart of pickles, and some medicine for our thirst. The old drunkard knows what is good, and before supper we sat in the barn with these comforts talking business. It needs such surroundings of luxury to get my thoughts down to any manner of business, for I hold that office work is adapted to town sharps only, and not to men. Bryant and I had the misfortune to be named in Lord Balshannon's will as his executors, to ride herd on his Jim until such time as the colt could run alone. In this business my co-robber had taken action already, annexing the trainload of breeding cattle which had been stolen by Jabez Y. Stone. These cattle were sold by auction, and Dick held the money, swearing that nobody else but Jim should get so much as a smell. With regard to Holy Cross, Dick, as sheriff, had seized the old hacienda, and the same must be sold to pay Balshannon's debts to the Ryan estate. It seems that Michael Ryan claimed this plunder, and that Jim, the natural heir, had stolen Michael. "Thar it stands," says Dick, who has a legal mind, "until Jim skins his meat." That set me thinking of Michael. He was not likely to be special fat after his ride with the robbers. "I doubt," says Bryant, "that so shorely as Jim does the skinning, that Ryan duck ain't got a tail feather left." With these remarks he slanted away back to town, having agreed to sup with the City Marshal. As for me, I lay in the corn-shucks full of dim wonderings about that Pedersen person cramped in the cooler at Lordsburg on Bryant's charge of "bigamy and confusion of mind." The question was, would he stay put? The arrangement made with Pedersen was only temporary, not permanent like a proper funeral. Moreover, in his place I should have felt mournful and ill used. I should have put up objections and struggles to find my way out. Suppose this person escaped, or got loosed by his lawyer, or sent Curly's address to the Grave City police? I was afflicted with doubts about said Pedersen, and my mind began to gloat on the joys of absence. So I saddled the horses, got ready for the warpath, and watching until it was dark enough, made a break for the back door of the house, carrying Curly's outfit. To judge by the clatter in the house, something had happened, and when I broke in on the ladies, I found them having hysterics over their copy of the Weekly Obituary. I slung the cowboy gear to Curly, and bade her change herself quick because we must hit the trail. On that the clatter got to a crisis, as it does in a hen-roost in the case of fox. Miss Blossom called me all the names she could think of; Miss Pansy sobbed at having to part with her little private robber; Miss Curly whirled in telling the news in the paper. All of them wanted to talk, so I surely played fox to that hen-roost, chasing Miss Pansy out to pack us a lunch for the trail, grabbing the paper from Curly, and scaring Miss Blossom with bad words until she got tame enough to attend to business. She took Curly into the bedroom, and there was a sort of lull, while I got my ears to work at the back door. It's a true fact that I have a sort of sense which warns me if danger is coming. It makes my hands tingle as if they were full of prickles, and my heart beats loud, so I can scarcely hear. That minute I stood at the back door felt like whole hours of waiting, so that I wanted to howl. Close by me in the kitchen Miss Pansy was sobbing about the bad words she had heard, and through the mosquito netting I could hear Miss Blossom oppressing Curly while she changed her clothes. I folded the newspaper and jammed it into my pocket, studied the lay of the stable door to see how quick I could get the horses out, and pulled my gun loose for war. Away towards the town I could hear the rumble of wheels half a mile, coming on rapid. "Miss Pansy!" I called. She quit crying. "This Curly's in danger," says I. "Brace up; act brave, and when this waggon stops at the door, meet the men who try to break in. Tell them you're not to home, and give 'em some Christian Science." She went quite cool to wait by the front door, and now I could see the dust of a waggon come up against the afterglow in the sky. "Miss Blossom," I called, "roll Curly out through that window just as she is. Quick!" "Oh, but——" "Curly," I shouted, "come out!" "Coming!" "Fix that bed, Miss Blossom; lay in it with Curly's wig, and prepare to play daid!" Curly came tumbling through the mosquito bar in the window, dropped on her feet like a cat. "Horses!" I whispered, and she ran, her spurs clattering outrageous along the gravel-path. The waggon had pulled up to the front gate, somebody shouted, I heard Miss Pansy screeching like a cougar, and a man came surging past the side of the house, lifting his gun to draw a bead on Curly as she ran. I jumped behind, felled him with my gun-butt, and bolted. What with Miss Pansy's shrieks, and the shouting of men, the clatter had got to be a whole disturbance, rousing a quiet neighborhood. As I ran I could hear Miss Blossom calling, "Go 'way, you rude men! Scat!" It seemed to me that time was worth a million dollars a second while I held the back gate by the stable, and Curly rode through with the horses straight on to the open range. As I swung to the saddle, I heard the house door battered in with a crash of breaking glass. "Hold on," said Curly, reining in her horse, "I was forgettin'." The searchers were swarming through the house, and for my part I was full content to depart without telling them any good-bye. "You're scart," says Curly. "You coward! You stay heah!" Then feeling for blood with her spurs, she sailed at full gallop along the outer side of the garden fence. At the first shot from the yard she ducked, throwing herself until she hung Indian fashion along the off side of her horse. A bullet trimmed my back hair as I followed, gun flames blazed from the back porch and the windows, as we shot past the house. The bullets were singing all round us, our horses were crazy with fright, but then we swung round the end of the garden fence, running full tilt against the standing team of horses which the police had left in the road. The shock stampeded them, but Curly swerved clear of their rush, rolled back into the saddle, raced abreast, and shot both horses down. A minute more, and the firing died away behind us, for we were racing neck-and-neck across the desert. Curly had left the police to follow afoot, but now she began to weaken, for, because she had played the man, she broke down and sobbed—a woman. We had been running maybe two hours when we pulled up on the top of a hill to rest our horses. Far down to southward the electric lights in the city made a silver haze of small specks glistening as though a scrap of sky had fallen there. High in the south Orion rode guard upon the star herds, and the night was so still that we were scared to speak. I wanted to smoke, but on a night like that the striking of a match may be seen for miles around, so I took a bite at my plug and ate tobacco instead. Then as Curly and I sat on a rock together listening, I heard a bear cough because his nose got dusty, grubbing for ants; a coyote was singing the hunger-song, and miles away to the east a ranche dog answered him. Then Curly's horse scrunched up a tuft of grass, and my beast pawing, startled a rattlesnake. The little woman beside me whispered then— "Shorely the Lawd makes His big medicine for us, for snakes and robbers, wolves and b'ars. Only the folk down tha cayn't see Him, 'cause they got electric lights instead of stars." "Which them two pore ladies," says I, "gets gun-flame by way of lamps to cheer them up to-night." "I hate to think how we-all stirred theyr peace. Still, Bryant has stroked theyr fur by now," she sighed. "Them visitors rumpled me too, and all my brussles is pointing the wrong way still." "D'you reckon, Curly," I asked, "that the City Marshal is hoping to trail us by starlight?" "Not to hurt," she yawned, "'cept maybe he's got smell-dogs guidin' his posse. Yes, I remember a while back the Marshal bought a team of blood-hounds." She didn't seem to take much interest, so I proposed that we roll our tails. "I see his lantern," said Curly; "thar it is agin. We got a ten-mile start." I saw the glimmer then. "Come on," said I. "Poco tiempo," says Curly. "I'm fearful sorry for them pore ladies yondeh." I dragged her away, and we rode on, throwing the miles astern. Every two hours or so Curly would give the horses a rest and a taste of grass—a trick she had learned from Indians, which kept them fresh for a trail. The night was cold, with a little "lazy wind," as Curly called it, too tired to go round, so it went right through us. Just before dawn we crossed a clay flat holding a slough of mud, and found it hard with frost. "When water goes to sleep with cold," says Curly, "a smell-dog's nose ain't goin' to guide his laigs. This frost is due to send the posse home." "At dawn they'll see our tracks." Dawn broke, and we were rising a slope of sand-drift, with acres of naked rock ahead of us. "Haw!" said Curly, leading me to the left until we entered the rock field. "Gee," she called, and we crossed the rocks to the right. "Follow the rocks—shy wide of any sand." I followed for a mile, until a little hill shut off the route we had come by. "Dismount," she said, and I stepped down by the edge of the sands. She made me take the saddle blankets, the oilskin coats, and a serape (Mexican blanket), and make a pathway of them across the sand, on which she rode, leading my horse, while I renewed the track in front of her for a couple of hundred feet. So we left horse sign on the sand which looked a whole fortnight old. Then, gathering the clothes, I mounted, and we curved away among sandhills for half an hour, sailing along at a lope until we came to a patch of gramma grass. "Let the hawsses graze," said Curly, and sat side-saddle, resting while she smoked a cigarette. I did the same, and the tracks we left now were those of grazing horses, not those of travellers. Then I resaddled, and all set, we rode off again to the north. The frost had spoiled our scent; the blanket play and grazing play had sure discouraged trackers. "Curly," says I, "you heap big Injun!" "I lil' small robber," she answered, "givin' away trade secrets." A few miles northward we circled up beyond a ridge of hills, to a good look-out point. From there we could see the Marshal's posse small as ants in the distance, ranging around on the rock flat, from whence they presently crawled off south, looking a lot subdued. Then I unsaddled, while Curly killed out a few centipedes, scorpions, rattlers, and other local vermin, to make our sleep comfy under the rocks. At noon, when the heat awoke us, we rode on to Texas Bob's big spring, reaching his camp by sundown. There we made up for lost meals by taking in four at once. Mrs. Bob gave us jerked beef, spiced bread and coffee; her wild range kids rubbed down our horses, watered them and fed; the old gentleman himself poured in his best advice until Curly crept off to sleep. As for me, I felt good, sitting there in the hut of cactus sticks watching the gold grass slowly change to grey, and great big stars come out above the hills. The long hair lay like silver around the old man's shoulders; the white beard, pointed short, wagged over his deerskin shirt; his kind eyes wrinkled with fun, and all his words were wisdom absolute. I reckon he's the wisest man in all the southern desert, and when I told him the things I ought not to have done, he showed me better how to act in future. "Stealin' a womern," says he, "is different from stealin' hawsses. You can make the hawsses forget theyr home range in a month, but a womern will sure break fences to quit back to the man she wants. This Curly will run to her mate, and whar they graze there ain't room for you in the pasture. The good Book says: 'No man shall put them asunder,' and the rules of Right and Wrong ain't got exceptions. Don't you try to steal Curly." In all my life I never needed a friend so much as I did that night, but when Curly and I hit the trail the old scout reached me his hand. "Put her right thar, Chalkeye," says he; "it's mighty hard at times to stick to the rules of the game. It's so easy to go crooked that it takes a man to play straight—and you'll play straight. Adios!" All night my mind was at ease, and when day broke again we were into the Superstitious Mountains. So I led Curly down towards Echo Spring, and gave the long yell to my boys where they lay in camp. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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