CHAPTER XVII
He made the trip almost half a day sooner than he had promised and wentstraight up to Injun Jim's camp with his load. He was whistling all theway up the canyon to the tepee; but then he stopped.
Inside the hut was the sound of wailing. Casey tried not to guess whatthat meant. He tied William and went to the door of the tepee.
The young squaw came from within and stood just before the opening,regarding Casey with that maddening, Indian immobility so characteristicof the race. She did not speak, though Casey waited for fully two minutes;nor did she move aside to let him go in. Casey grinned disarmingly.
"Me ketchum heap jam for Injun Jim. Heap silk shirts. Me go tellum," hesaid.
"Are those they?" the young squaw inquired calmly, and pointed to William.Casey jumped. Any man would, hearing that impeccable sentence issue fromthe lips of a squaw with a blanket over her head.
"Uh-huh," he gulped.
"My father is dead. He died yesterday from eating too much pickles thatyou gave him. I should like to have what you have brought to give him. Ishould thank you for the silk shirts. I can fix them so that I can wearthem. I will talk to you pretty soon about that gold mine. I know where itis. I have helped my father bring the gold away. My father would not tellyou if you gave him all the jam and all the silk in the world. My fatherwas awful mean. I thought he would maybe kill you and that is why Ilistened beside the tepee. I wished to protect you because I know that youare a good man. Will you give me the silk shirts and the jam?"
She smiled then, and Casey saw that she had a gold tooth in front, whichfurther demonstrated how civilized she was.
"You will excuse the way I am dressed. I have to dress so that I wouldplease my father. He was very mean with me all the time. He did not likeme because I have gone to school and got a fine educating. He wanted me tobe Indian. But I knew that my father is a chief and that makes me justwhat you would say a princess, and I wished to learn how to be educatelike all white ladies. So I took some gold from my father's mine and Ispent the money for going to school. My name," she added impressively, "isLucy Lily. What is your name?"
"Mr.--Casey Ryan," he stuttered, floundering in the mental backwash leftby this flood of amazing eloquence.
"I like that name. I think I will have you for my friend. Do not talk tomy mother, Hahnaga. She is crazy. She tells lies all the time about me.She does not like me because I have went to school and got a fineeducating. She is mad all the time when she sees that I am not like her.Now you give me the silks. I will put on a pretty dress. My father is deadnow and I can do what I wish to do; I am not afraid of my mother. Mymother does not know where to find the gold mine. I am the only one whoknows."
Casey is a simple soul, too trustful by far. He was embarrassed by thearch smile which Lucy Lily gave him, and he wished vaguely that she wasthe blanket squaw she looked to be. But it never occurred to Casey thatthere might be a wily purpose behind her words. He unpacked William andgave her the things he had brought for Injun Jim, and returned with hiscamp outfit to the spring to think things over while he boiled himself apot of coffee and fried bacon.
Lucy Lily appeared like an unwarranted vision before him. Indeed, Caseylikened her coming to a nightmare. Casey no longer wondered why Injun Jiminsisted upon Indian dress for Lucy Lily.
Now she wore a red silk skirt much spotted with camp grease. Athree-cornered tear in the side had been sewed with long stitches andcoarse white thread, and even Casey was outraged by the un-workmanlikejob. She had on one of the silk shirts, which happened to be striped inmany shades, none of which harmonized with the basic color of the skirt.She also wore two cheap necklaces whose luster had long since faded, andher hair was coiled on top of her head and adorned with three combscontaining many white glass settings. Her face was powdered thickly to thepoint of her jaws, with very red cheekbones and very red lips. She woreonce-white slippers with French heels much run over at the side and dirtywhite silk stockings with great holes in the heels. I must add that theshirt was too narrow in the bust, so that her arms bulged and there weregaping spaces between the buttons. And for a belt she wore a wide blueribbon very much creased and soiled, as if she had used it for a longwhile as a hair bow.
She sat down upon a rock and watched Casey distractedly bungle hiscooking. She must have had a great deal of initiative for a squaw, for sheplunged straight into the subject which most nearly concerned Casey, andshe was frank to the point of appalling him with her bluntness. Casey is arather case-hardened bachelor, but I suspect that Lucy Lily scared himfrom the beginning.
"Do you like me when I have pretty dress on?" she inquired, smoothing thered silk complacently over her knees.
Casey swears that he told her it didn't make a darn bit of difference tohim what she wore. If that is the truth, Lucy Lily must have been verystupid or very persistent, for she went on blandly stating her plans andher dearest wish.
"That gold mine I am keeping for my husband," she announced. "It is apresent for a wedding gift for my man. I shall not marry an Indian man. Iam too pretty and I have a gold mine, and I will marry a white man.Indians don't know what money is good for. I want to live in a town andwear silk dresses all the time every day and ride in a red automobile andhave lots of rings and go to shows. Have you got lots of money?"
I don't know what Casey told her. He says he swore he hadn't a nickel tohis name.
"I think you have got lots of money. I think perhaps you are rich. I don'tsee white men walk in the desert with silk shirts and have lots of jam andpickles if they are not rich. I think you want that gold mine awful bad.You gave Jim lots of jam so he would tell you. White men want lots of moremoney when they have got lots of money. It is like that in shows. If a manis poor he don't care. If a man is rich he is hunting all the time formore money and killing people. So I think you are like them rich mans inshows."
Casey told her again that he was poor; but she couldn't have believedhim,--not in the face of all the silk and sweets he had displayed.
"I am awful glad Jim is dead. Now you have gave me the things. We will goto Tonopah and you will buy a red automobile and we will ride in it. Andyou will buy me lots of silk and rings. I shall be a lady like a princessin a show."
"Your mother has got something to say about that gold mine," Casey blurteddesperately. "It's hers by rights. She'd have to go fifty-fifty on it.She's got it coming, and I never cheated anybody yet. I ain't going tocommence on an old squaw."
"She is a big fool. What you think Hahnaga want of money? The agent hegives her blankets and tea and flour. If you give Hahnaga silk, I will beawful mad. She is old. She will die pretty quick."
"Well," said Casey, "I dunno as any of us has got any cinch on living.And if there's a gold mine in the family, she sure has got to have an evenbreak. What about old Jim? Buried him yet?"
"He is in the tepee. I think Hahnaga will dig a grave. I don't care. Iwill go with you, and we will find the gold mine. Then you will buy me--"
"I'll buy you nothin'!" Casey's tone was emphatic.
Lucy Lily looked at him steadily. "Before we go for the gold mine we willgo to Tonopah and get marriage, and you will give me a gold ring on myfinger. Then I will show you where is gold so much you will have money tobuy the world full of things." She smiled at him, showing her gold tooth."I like you for my man," she said. "I am awful pretty. I have lots offellows. I could marry lots of other white mans, but I will marry you."
"Like hell you will!" snorted Casey, and began to wipe out his frying panand empty his coffeepot and make other preparations for instant packing."Like hell you'll marry me! Think I'd marry a squaw--?"
"Then I will not tell you where is the gold! Then I hate you and I willfix you good! You want that gold mine awful bad. You will have to marry mebefore I tell you."
Casey straightened and looked at her, his frying pan in one hand, hiscoffeepot in the other. "Say, I never asked you about the darn mine, didI? I done my talkin' to Injun Jim. It's you that butted in here on this
deal. Seein' he's dead, I'll talk to his squaw and make a deal with her,mebby." He looked her over measuringly. "Princess--hunh! I'll tell yuh inplain American what you are, if yuh don't git outa here. I may want a goldmine, all right, but I sure don't want it that bad. Git when I tell yuh togit!"
A squaw with no education would have got forthwith. But Lucy Lily hadlearned to be like white ladies,--or so she said. She screamed at him inEnglish, in Piute, and chose words in each that no princess should employto express her emotions. Her loud denunciations followed Casey to thetepee, where he stopped and offered his services to Hahnaga as undertaker.
She accepted stolidly and together they buried Injun Jim, using his bestblanket and not much ceremony. Casey did not know the Piute customs wellenough to follow them, and his version of the white man's funeral servicewas simple in the extreme. Hahnaga, however, brought two bottles ofpickles and one jar of preserves which had outlasted Injun Jim's appetite,and put them in the grave with him, together with his knife and an oldrifle and his pipe.
To dig a grave and afterwards heap the dirt symmetrically over a discardedbody takes a little time, no matter how cursory is the proceeding. Caseyceased to hear Lucy Lily's raucous voice and so thought that she hadsettled down. He misjudged the red princess. He discovered that when hewent back to where William had stood.
He no longer stood there. He was gone, pack and all, and once more Caseystood equipped for desert journeying with shirt, overalls, shoes andsocks, and his old Stetson, and with half a plug of tobacco, a pipe and afew matches in his pocket. On the bush where William had been tied a pieceof paper was impaled and fluttered in the wind. Casey jerked it off andread the even, carefully formed script,--and swore.
"_Dear Sir:_ I am going to Tonopah. If you try to come I will tell thesherf to coming and see Jim and put you in jail. I will tell the judge youkilled him and the sherf will put you in jail and hung you. Those are fineshirts. I will wear them silk. As ever your friend, Yours truly, LUCY LILY."
Casey sat down on a rock to think it over. The squaw was moving aboutwithin the hut, collecting the pitifully few belongings which Lucy Lilyhad disdained to steal. An Indian does not like to stay where one hasdied.
Casey could overtake Lucy Lily, if he walked fast and did not stop whendark fell, but he did not want to overtake her. He was not alarmed at herthreat of the sheriff, but he did not want to see her again or hear her orthink of her.
So Casey tore up the note and went and begged a little food from Hahnaga;then he broached the subject of the gold mine. The squaw listened, lookingat him with dull black eyes and a face like a stamped-leather portrait ofan Indian. She shook her head and pointed down the gulch.
"No find gol', bad girl. I think killum my mans. I dunno. No fin' gol'--Jim he no tellum. No tellum me, no tellum Lucy, no tellum nobody. I think,all time Jim hide." She made a gesture as of one covering something withdirt. "Lucy all time try for fin' gol'. Jim he no likeum. Lucy my sistergirl. Bad. No good. All time heap mean. All time tellum heap big lie soIndian no likeum. One time take monee, go 'way off. School for write. Comeback for fin' gol', make Jim tellum. Jim sick long time. Jim no tellum.Jim all time mad for Lucy. Las' night--talk mean--mebby fight--Jim he diequick. Lucy say killum me, I tell.
"Now me go my brother. Walk two day. Give you grub--no got many grub. Youtakeum gol' you fin'. Me no care. No want. You don' give Lucy. Lucy badgirl all time. No fin' gol'--Jim he no tellum. I dunno."
That left Casey exactly where he had been before he found Injun Jim. Therewas no getting around it; the squaw repeated her statements twice, whichCasey thought was probably more talking that she had done before in thecourse of six months. She impressed Casey as being truthful. She reallydid not know any more about Injun Jim's mine than did Casey. Or perhaps alittle more, because she knew, poor thing, just how drunk Jim could get onthe whisky they gave him for the gold. He used to beat her terribly whenhe came to camp drunk. Casey learned that much, though it didn't help himany.
Hahnaga did not seem to think that anything need be done about the mannerof Jim's death. She said he was heap sick and would die anyway, or words--not many--to that effect. Casey decided to go on and mind his ownbusiness. He did not see why, he said, the county of Nye should be let infor a lot of expense on Injun Jim's account, even if Jim had been killed.And as for punishing Lucy Lily, he was perfectly willing that it should bedone, only he did not want to do it. I have always believed that Casey wasafraid she might possibly marry him in spite of himself if she were in hisimmediate neighborhood long enough.
They made themselves each a small pack of food and what was more vital,water, and went their different ways. Hahnaga struck off to the west, toher brother at the end of Forty-Mile Canyon. At least, that was where shesaid her brother mostly camped. Casey retraced his steps for the secondtime to the camp of the tenderfeet. Loco Canyon, Casey calls the place,claiming it by right of discovery.
Now I don't see, and possibly you won't see, either, what the devil'slantern had to do with Casey's bad luck. Casey maintains rather stubbornlythat it had a great deal to do with it. First, he says, it got him all offthe trail following it, and was almost the death of him and William. Next,he declares that it drove him to Lucy Lily and had fully intended that heshould be tied up to her. Then he suspects that it had something to dowith Injun Jim's dying just when he did, and he has another count or twoagainst the lantern and will tell you them, and back them with muchargument, if you nag him into it.
It taught him things, he says. And once, after we had talked the matterover and had fallen into silence, he broke out with a sentence I havenever forgotten, nor the tone in which he said it, nor the way he glaredinto the fire, his pipe in his hand where he always had it when he wasextremely in earnest.
"The three darndest, orneriest, damndest things on earth," said Casey, asif he were intoning a text, "is a Ford, or a goat, or an Injun. You canask anybody yuh like if that ain't so."