CHAPTER IV
Being Casey Ryan, tough as hickory and wont to drive headlong to hisdestination, Casey did not remain in town to loiter a half a day and sleepa night and drive back the next day, as most desert dwellers did. Hehurried through with his business, filled up with gas and oil, loaded onan extra can of each, strapped his box of dynamite upon the seat besidehim where he could keep an eye on it--just as if that would do any good ifthe tricky stuff meant to blow up!--and started back at three in theafternoon. He would be half the night getting to camp, even though he wasCasey Ryan and drove a mean Ford. But he would be there, ready to startwork at sunrise. A man who is going to marry a widow with two children hadbest hurry up and strike every streak of rich ore he has in his claim,thought Casey.
All that afternoon, though the wind blew hot in his face, Casey drilledacross the desert, meeting never a living thing, overtaking none. All thatafternoon a yellow dust cloud swirled rapidly along the rough desert road,vainly trying to keep up with Casey who made it. In Yucca Pass he had tostop and fill motor and radiator with oil and water, and just as he toppedthe summit a front tire popped like a pistol.
Casey killed the engine and got out a bit stiffly, pried off a chew oftobacco and gazed pensively at Barren Butte that held Lucky Lode, wherethe widow was cooking supper at that moment. Casey wished practically thathe was there and could sit down to some of her culinary achievements.
"I sure would like to flop m'lip over one of her biscuits right now," hesaid aloud. "If I do strike it, I wonder will she git too high-toned tocook?"
His eyes went to Furnace Lake, lying smooth and pale yellow in thesaucerlike basin between Barren Butte and the foothills of Starvation. Inthe soft light of the afterglow it seemed to smile at him with a glint ofmalice, like the treacherous thing it was. For Furnace Lake istreacherous. The Big Earthquake (America knows only one Big Earthquake,that which rocked San Francisco so disastrously) had split Furnace Lakehalfway across, leaving an ugly crevice ten feet wide at the narrowestpoint and eighty feet deep, men said. Time and passing storms had partlyfilled the gash, but it was there, ugly, ominous, a warning to all men totrust the lake not at all. Little cracks radiated from the big gash hereand there, and the cattle men rode often that way, though not often enoughto save their cattle from falling in.
By day the lake shimmered deceptively with mirages that painted it bluewith the likeness of water, Then a lone clump of greasewood stood up talland proclaimed itself a ship lying idle on a glassy expanse of water soblue, so cool, so clear, one could not wonder that thirsty travelers wentmad sometimes with the false lure of it.
Just now the lake looked exactly like any lake at dusk, with the far shoreline reflected along its edge; and Casey's thought went beyond, to hisclaim on Starvation. Being tired and hungry, he pictured wistfully a cabinthere, and a light in the window when he went chuckling up the long mesain the dark, and the widow inside with hot coffee and supper waiting forhim. Just as soon as he struck "shipping values" that picture would bereal, said Casey to himself; and he opened his tool box and set to workchanging the tire.
By the time he had finished it was dark, and Casey had yet a long fortymiles between himself and his sour-dough can. He cranked the engine,switched on the electric headlights, and went tearing down thefifteen-mile incline to the lake.
"She c'n see the lights, and she'll know I ain't hangin' out in townlappin' up whisky," he told himself as he drove. "She'll know it's CaseyRyan comin' home--know it the way them lights are slippin' over thecountry. Ain't another man on the desert can put a car over the trail likethis! You ask anybody."
Pleased with himself and his reputation, urged by hunger and the desire tomake good on his claim so that he might have the little home heinstinctively craved, Casey pulled the gas lever down another eighth of aninch--when he was already using more than he should--and nearly bouncedhis dynamite off the seat when he lurched over a sandy hummock and down onto the smooth floor of the lake.
It was five miles across that lake from rim to rim and taking a straightline, as Casey did, well above the crevice. In all that distance there isnot a stick, or a stone, or a bush to mark the way. Not even a trail,since Casey was the only man who traveled it, and Casey never made trackstwice in the same place, but drove down upon it, picked himself a landmarkon the opposite side and steered for it exactly as one steers a boat. Themarks he left behind him were no more than pencil marks drawn upon a sheetof buff wrapping paper. Unless the lake was wet with one of those sporadicdesert rains, you couldn't make any impression on the cement-like surface.
And when the lake was wet, you stuck where you were until wind and sundried it for you. Wherefore Casey plunged out upon five miles of blank,baked clay with neither road, chart nor compass to guide him. It was thefirst time he had ever crossed at night, and a blanket of thin, highclouds hid the stars.
Casey thought nothing much of that,--being Casey Ryan. He had before himthe dim--very dim--outline of Starvation, and being perfectly sober, hesteered a straight course, and made sure he was well away from the upperend of the crevice, and pulled the gas lever down another notch.
The little handful of engine roared beautifully and shook the car with thevibration. Casey heaved a sigh of weariness mingled with content that theway was smooth and he need not look for chuck holes for a few minutes, atany rate. He settled back, and his fingers relaxed on the wheel. I thinkhe dozed, though Casey swears he did not.
Suddenly he leaned forward, stared hard, leaned out and stared, listenedwith an ear cocked toward the engine. He turned and looked behind, thenstared ahead again.
"By _gosh_, I bet both hubs is busted!" he ejaculated under his breath,--Furnace Lake subdues one somehow. "She's runnin' like a wolf--but sheain't goin'!"
He waited for a minute longer, trifling with the gas, staring andlistening. The car was shaking with the throb of the motor, but Caseycould feel no forward motion. "Settin' here burnin' gas like a 'lectionbonfire--she sure _would_ think I'm drunk if she knowed it," Caseymuttered, and straddled over the side of the car to the running board.
"I wish--to--_hell_ I hadn't promised her not to cuss!" he gritted, andwith one hand still on the wheel, Casey shut off the gas and stepped down.
He stepped down upon a surface sliding beneath him at the rate of close toforty miles an hour. The Ford went on, spinning away from him in a widecircle, since Casey had unconsciously turned the wheel to the left as helet go. The blow of meeting the hard clay stunned him just at first, andhe had rolled over a couple of times before he began to regain his senses.
He lifted himself groggily to his knees and looked for the car, saw itbearing down upon him from the direction whence he had come. Before he hadtime to wonder much at the phenomenon, it was upon him, over with a lurch,and gone again.
Casey was tough, and he never knew when he was whipped. He crawled up tohis knees again, saw the same Ford coming at him with dimming headlightsfrom the same direction it had taken before, made a wild grab for it, wasknocked down and run over again. You may not believe that, but Casey hadthe bruises to prove it.
On the third round the Ford had slowed to a walk, figuratively speaking.Casey was pretty dizzy, and he thought his back was broken, but he was madclear through. He caught the Ford by its fender, hung on, clutchingfrantically for a better hold, was dragged a little distance so and then,as its speed slackened to a gentle forward roll, he made shift to getaboard and give the engine gas before it had quite stopped. Which he toldhimself was lucky, because he couldn't have cranked the thing to save hislife.
By sheer dogged nerve he drove to camp, drank cold coffee left from hisearly breakfast, and decided that the bite of a Ford, while it ispoisonous, is not necessarily fatal unless it attacks one in a vital spot.
Casey could not drill a hole, he could not swing a pick; for two days helimped groaning around camp and confined his activities to cooking hismeals. Frequently he would look at the Ford and shake his head. There wassomething uncanny about it.
"
She sure has got it in for me," he mused. "You can't blame her forrunnin' off when I dropped the reins and stepped out. But that don'taccount for the way she come _at_ me, and the way she _got_ me everycircle she made. That's human. It's dog-_gone_ human! I've cussed her alot, and I've done things to her--like that syrup I poured into her--anddog-gone her, she's been layin' low and watchin' her chance all thiswhile. Fords, I believe, are about as human as horses, and I've knowedhorses I believe coulda talked if their tongues was split. Ask anybody.That there car _knowed_!"
The third day after the attack Casey was still too sore to work, but hemanaged to crank the Ford--eyeing it curiously the while, and withrespect, too--and started down the mesa and up over the ridge and on downto the lake. He was still studying the matter incredulously, stillwondering if Fords can think. He wanted to tell the widow about it and gether opinion. The widow was a smart woman. A little touchy on the liquorquestion, maybe, but smart. You ask anybody.
Lucky Lode greeted him with dropped jaws and wide staring eyes, whichpuzzled Casey until the foreman, grasping his shoulder--which made Caseywince and break a promise--explained their astonishment. They had, asCasey expected, seen his lights when he came off the summit from YuccaPass. By the speed they traveled, Lucky Lode knew that Casey and no otherwas at the steering wheel, even before he took to the lake.
"And then," said the foreman, "we saw your lights go round and round in acircle, and disappear--"
"They didn't," Casey cut in trenchantly. "They went dim because I wastaking her slow, being about all in."
The foreman grinned. "We thought you'd drove into the crevice, and we wentdown with lanterns and hunted the full length of it. We never found a signof you or the car--"
"'Cause I was over in camp, or thereabouts," interpolated Casey drily. "Iwish you'd of come on over. I sure needed help."
"We figured you was pretty well lit up, to circle around like that. I'vebeen down since, by daylight, and so have some of the boys, looking intothat crevice. But we gave it up, finally."
Then Casey, because he liked a joke even when it was on himself, told theforeman and his men what had happened to him. He did not exaggerate themishap; the truth was sufficiently wild.
They whooped with glee. Every one laughs at the unusual misfortunes ofothers, and this was unusual. They stood around the Ford and talked to it,and whooped again. "You sure must have had so-ome jag, Casey," they toldhim exuberantly.
"I was sober," Casey testified earnestly. "I'll swear I hadn't a drop ofanything worse than lemon soda, and that was before I left town."Whereupon they whooped the louder, bent double, some of them with mirth.
"Say! If I was drunk that night, I'd say so," Casey exploded finally."What the hell--what's the matter with you rabbits? You think Casey Ryanhas got to the point where he's scared to tell what he done and all hedone? Lemme tell yuh, anything Casey does he ain't afraid to _tell_ about!Lyin' is something I never was scared bad enough to do. You ask anybody."
"There's the widow," said the foreman, wiping his eyes.
Casey turned and looked, but the widow was not in sight. The foreman, hejudged, was speaking figuratively. He swung back glaring.
"You think I'm scared to tell her what happened? She'll know I was soberif I say I was sober. She ain't as big a fool--" He did not want to fight,although he was aching to lick every man of them. But for one thing, hewas too sore and lame, and then, the widow would not like it.
With his neck very stiff, Casey limped down to the house and tried to tellthe widow. But the widow was a woman, and she was hurt because Casey,since he was alive and not in the crevice, had not come straight tocomfort her, but had lingered up there talking and laughing with the men.The widow had taken Casey's part when the others said he must have beendrunk. She had maintained, red-lidded and trembly of voice, that somethinghad gone wrong with Casey's car so that he couldn't steer it. Such thingshappened, she knew.
Well, Casey told the widow the truth, and the widow's face hardened whileshe listened. She had permitted him to kiss her when he came in, but nowshe moved away from him. She did not call him dear boy, nor even Caseydear. She waited until he had reached the point that puzzled him, thepoint of a Ford's degree of intelligence. Then her lips thinned before sheopened them.
"And what," she asked coldly, "had you been drinking, Mr. Ryan?"
"Me? One bottle of lemon soda before I left town, and I left town at threeo'clock in the afternoon. I swear--"
"You need not swear, Mr. Ryan." The widow folded her hands and regardedhim sternly, though her voice was still politely soft. "After I had toldyou repeatedly that my little ones should ever be guarded from a drinkingfather; after you had solemnly promised me that you would never again putglass to your lips, or swallow a drop of whisky; after that very morningrenewing your pledge--"
"Well, I kept it," Casey said, his face a shade paler under its usualfrank red. "I swear to Gawd I was sober."
"You need not lie," said the widow, "and add to your misdeeds. You weredrunk. No man in his senses would imagine what you imagine, or do what youdid. I wish you to understand, Mr. Ryan, that I shall not marry you. Icould not trust you out of my sight."
"I--was--_sober_!" cried Casey, measuring his words. Very nearly shoutingthem, in fact.
The widow turned pointedly away and began to stir something on the stove,and did not look at him.
Casey went out, climbed the hill to his Ford, cranked it and wentlarruping down the hill, out on the lake and, when he had traversed halfits length, turned and steered a straight course across it. Where tracingsof wheels described a wide circle he stopped and regarded them intently.Then he began to swear, at nothing in particular, but with a heartyenjoyment of the phrases he intoned.
"Casey, you sure as hell have had one close call," he remarked, when hecould think of nothing new and devilish to say. "You mighta run along, andrun along, till you got _married_ to her. Whadda I want a wife for,anyway? Sour-dough biscuits tastes pretty good, and Casey sure can make'em!" He got out his pipe, filled it and crammed down the tobacco, found amatch and leaned back, smoking with relish, one leg thrown over the wheel.
"A man's best friend is his Ford," he exclaimed. "You can ask anybody." Hegrinned, and blew a lot of smoke, and gave the wheel an affectionatelittle twist.