Frank stretched, felt the stiff weariness in his body. But he was elated at the sunshine and at the memory of work well and grimly done. He saw no one about; he sat down on the wooden step of the hospital and smoked a cigarette. He had learned to “roll his own” expertly. He felt the sun on his shoulders and head and new courage in himself. The wind rose a little, blowing into his face sweetly.
In a few minutes he would go into the kitchen of the hospital and begin to prepare breakfast before the arrival of the mountain women who cooked for the patients. A ham had arrived yesterday, and there was newly ground coffee and a bowl of fresh eggs. A farmer would soon bring some rich milk. Wade, apparently, was still asleep.
Then Frank heard his friend’s booted footsteps, and Wade pushed open the door, yawning. He sat down beside Frank, rubbed his eyes, yawned again. Frank rolled a cigarette for him, and the two young men sat in weary and contented silence, staring up the road towards the church. Now they saw a few bent and bedraggled figures moving towards the open door of the church, and the bells clanged more excitedly.
“Well,” said Wade, “the enemy has arrived. But we have won the fight.” He had not yet shaved; his dark beard made his pale face almost white in the sun. “I suppose you’ll be going back into the hills now, Frank.”
“Yes. I’ve got to see what the boys are doing. When I’m out of their sight they lie down on the job. Funny none of them ever came down to see me.”
Wade smoked, then stared thoughtfully at the tip of his cigarette. “Why don’t you go home now, Frank? Somehow, I don’t think the Cunninghams will ever make your fortune. They are too—too easy, perhaps. Besides, I think you’ve learned enough about the mountains and these people.”
“I didn’t come to learn,” Frank reminded him, coldly. “I came to make money.”
Wade raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry. But I don’t think you’ll make it here. I don’t think you’ll ever make it by any sudden swift stroke of fortune. You aren’t the kind. Go home. Work. Learn. Study. Start to write again.”
Frank made an impatient gesture. Now he was all uneasiness. He stood up. “I’ll get breakfast. Then I’ll go back to the cabin. The boys ought to have the well going in full swing again, if they haven’t, decided to hibernate. They showed symptoms of it just before I left.”
Wade was silent. He looked up at his friend, saw his pale emaciation. His dark chestnut hair had not been cut for a long time, and it had grown thickly above his ears and even down his neck. There were hollows under his blue eyes, his nose had sharpened, and it seemed that he had aged. Wade said: “You look like the devil. Go back there and sleep for three days. I don’t want to thank you,” he added, with a smile.
Frank wanted to say impulsively: “I did it for you, damn you! Just for you!” But he held back the words. He did not want to see the kind aloofness in Wade’s eyes again, the reserved embarrassment. So he merely reached down and pushed Wade’s shoulder in affectionate roughness.
They were joined a moment later by Peter, tousled, warm and yawning. He stood near them, his denim trousers pushed into hip boots, his blue shirt open at the throat, his blond hair grown too long, and a golden fuzz on his broad and healthy face. Unlike Wade, he always wore a broad leather belt with a revolver stuck in it. The belt sagged at his lean waist. He had all the appearance of a brawny adventurer, and little drops of moisture were always collecting on his pink skin, no matter what the weather. Frank could not repress his natural admiration for Peter, and he greeted him with pleasure.
Peter waved his hand at the church. “So, they’re here, eh? But we got in our licks first, didn’t we? Let them rave of hell-fire now; the folks are full of antitoxins, anyway. Wish there was an antitoxin for Bible-madness.”
“Wish we could discover an antitoxin or vaccine for all the sins of the world,” said Wade, half seriously.
“Then you’d have a damn dull world!” exclaimed Peter vigorously. He accepted a cigarette from Frank. His manner was warmer this morning. “Say, Frank, you did a grand job for us. I can tell you now that I couldn’t believe it when I first saw you in there, scratching and stabbing like all hell.”
“Why not?”
“Well, you didn’t seem the kind.” He smiled at Frank with high good humor. But he stood close to Wade’s shoulder.
Frank’s mouth tightened. “You shouldn’t be so hasty in your judgments,” he said. “How can you tell about anybody?”
He went into the kitchen and started breakfast. He could see the top of Peter’s fair head through the screen of the door. He heard Wade’s low voice and Peter’s quick, rough answer. But he could not hear the words. He was depressed and uneasy, and decided that he hated Peter, who would never accept him.
Later, at breakfast, Wade informed him that Peter was leaving in May for Salt Lake City, and his marriage. “Pete won’t be coming back, but I am going to stay until we are replaced by our Church. We’ve been here a long time now and are going to be recalled.”
“What will happen to this community?” asked Frank, sick at the thought of never seeing his friend again.
“Oh, the Church will send out competent men. The missionary society is very active.”
Wade and Peter began to talk with nostalgic pleasure of their home and their family. They forgot Frank. He accepted this grimly. He was nothing to them. They would remember him with gratitude and with pleasant words, and then they would think of him less and less until his very name was forgotten. He was only part of Benton, only a small part of the struggling years in this desolate place. But he would never forget them. When he was middle-aged, or very old, he would remember Wade’s dark lean face and Peter’s sunlike smile and pink moist skin. That was, he thought, because I have never had anything, really, and they have always been rich in everything.
They were forgetting him now. They talked about their father and their mother, the farm a cousin had purchased. They talked about the women they loved, and to whom they would soon return. They talked about the members of their Church and their old friends. Frank envisioned their home life, contented, agreeable, upper middle-class and satisfying. More and more, Frank felt his homelessness and friendlessness. He would return to Bison eventually, but there would be no one there who cared to see him or wanted him. While he struggled for a bare existence in hopeless insecurity, these two young men would advance in material wealth and in the respect and affection of their home community, married to pretty, serene women, and bringing up happy, healthy children in the love of God and in the safety of peace and adequate money. In their hearts, they had already left Benton. Their quiet eyes were turned west, and the light of a western sun shone on their faces. Let me go with you! Let me be with you always! cried Frank’s lonely heart. But the two brothers were laughing over a family joke.
Later, Wade lent him his own mule for his return to the hills. “One of the boys can bring it back tomorrow when he comes for supplies,” he said.
Frank rode into the hills, winding carefully around holes in the mud roads. As he left Benton, the wind grew cooler and fresher, and the smell of pine was almost overpowering. The hills rose before him, fell behind him, in green and shining silence. Occasionally, he saw oil wells, pumping steadily, but no living creature. Here and there, in the fold of a valley, lay a log cabin or a tiny gray farmhouse, but insofar as Frank could see, they were abandoned. The sun grew warmer on his shoulders and head; leaves rustled in the wind. The red mountain mud stuck to the hoofs of the mule and they came up with a sucking sound. Occasionally a bird called, and another answered.
After an hour, he saw the familiar little cleft and the log cabin where he lived with the Cunninghams. No smoke rose from the chimney. He saw the beams of the oil well nearby, but no one was near it. Damn their souls! They were probably still asleep in the cabin, which they had most likely turned into a shambles.
It was a lost land, and the gray logs of the cabin reminded Frank of an old man sleeping in the sun. He hitched the mule to one of the posts which suppo
rted the roof of the “stoop,” and clattered on the planks to the door. He made an unnecessary noise, as if attempting to start life in all this golden silence.
The rough door was closed, and Frank impatiently pushed it open with a loud creaking. He called out: “What the hell! Are you still asleep?”
No one answered. He stood on the threshold of the dark room, stupefied and incredulous. The cots were tumbled; the floor was filthy, covered with grease spots, mud and old magazines. The stove stood in black and rusty abandonment. Broken dishes were scattered near it, and on its top lay a cold skillet half filled with dirty grease. The guns were gone from above the mantelpiece, and the hearth below was filled with trash. There was no sign of any clothing but his own, hung on pegs near the windows. The ancient battered trunk stood in its corner, and on its lid had been tossed a heap of rags and a couple of coffee-stained cups.
It took Frank only an instant to realize that the Cunninghams had fled and were not coming back. There was a furtive air in the smelly cabin, a secretiveness in the dusty corners. Frank, his heart beating wildly, ran to the trunk. His trembling fingers could hardly open the lid. Then he caught his breath with passionate relief. His “city” clothing was still there and his bag of money. He snatched up the latter, and then he felt sick. It was very light. He tore upon the string; a few bills tumbled out, and his father’s naturalization certificate. There was also a folded slip of yellow paper. Now his hands were shaking violently. He blinked his eyes, which had acquired a misty film. He unfolded the paper, held it to the light, and read:
“Don’t be mad, Frank. But there isn’t any oil in these goddamn hills, and we’ve run out of money. No use staying here. We made up our minds. We heard from some friends that there’s lots of oil around Bowling Green, and so we’re going there. Reckon we ought to have told you about it, but there wasn’t time. So we borrowed your money to set ourselves up in Bowling Green, where there’s lots of money to be made, and we’ve left you one hundred dollars so you can come down there to us, when you get back here. When you come to Bowling Green, get in touch with Si Bellowes. Everybody knows him down there. He’ll tell you where we’ve set up. We’ll be waiting for you. P.S. Maybe this is a rotten trick, but you was busy down there with Wade O’Leary, and we’re only borrowing the money. We’ll pay you six per cent on it. Come on down. You can really make a fortune around Bowling Green. It’s a real oil town, not like this son of a bitch of a hole.”
CHAPTER 54
Wade read the note, and his expression darkened with trouble. He looked at Frank’s young and frenzied face, at the suffused eyes and mouth shaking with rage and terror.
“Well! That’s a damned shame,” said Peter. “I always had an idea they were no-account fellers, but I never thought they’d do anything like this.”
“What shall I do? What shall I do?” stammered Frank, in despair. He actually wrung his hands, then clenched them. “My money! I’ve worked a year for that money. It—it—isn’t right, for them to get away with this! What can I do? Can I have them arrested? I want to see the bastards in jail. I want my money!”
He was frantic. He looked desperately at Wade, who still did not speak, then turned to Peter. Instinctively, he felt warm indignation and anger in the younger brother, and he caught Peter by the arm. “Can’t I stop them? Isn’t there any police? What about the sheriff?”
The three were standing outside the hospital in the noon sunshine. Frank had raced down to Benton again, whipping Wade’s philosophical mule frenziedly. His shouts had brought the brothers outside. They saw he was almost beside himself.
“Let’s talk this over,” said Peter, and there was more personal warmth in his bluff voice than Frank had ever heard before. He glanced at his brother, whose black brows were drawn together. “No use getting too excited just now. You say the cabin looks as if they hadn’t been there for about two weeks? You came down here about three weeks ago, wasn’t it? They must have taken advantage of the chance to skip out with your money. Wade, what about the sheriff, or the police in Paintsville?”
Wade pushed back his soft black hat from his forehead. “You can’t exactly accuse them of stealing, in a legal sense, I’m afraid. Frank was their partner. The brothers pooled all their money, and I suppose you could say that a partner should do the same. I don’t know; I’m not a lawyer. They’ve told you where they are going, and how to get in touch with them, Frank. Morally, I suppose, you could call them thieves. The point is that we must find out whether they are in Bowling Green. If they are, they didn’t really steal the money—technically; though I suppose the police would be interested. But if they are not in Bowling Green, then you can prosecute them.”
He was alarmed at Frank’s gray face and twitching mouth, at the wild glare in his raging eyes. He turned abruptly, after a glance at Peter, went into the laboratory and returned with a glass of water and a white capsule. He held them out to Frank, but the young man struck the glass from Wade’s hand.
“My money!” he cried brokenly, turning from one man to the other. “My fifteen hundred dollars! I worked for it in this cursed place, tearing my damn guts out! I—I wasn’t alive here! I just worked, so I could get out! And now it’s gone, and you say it isn’t—isn’t—stealing!” His voice dwindled, and he began to tremble violently. “Fifteen hundred dollars doesn’t mean anything to you. To me, it was my life!”
He was young, and they saw that in his anguish he was about to burst nnto tears.
“Wait a minute, please,” said Wade gently. He glanced at Peter again. “We haven’t much cash on hand, Frank. How much have you, Peter? Fifty dollars. I have about that, too. Look here, Frank, we’ll—lend—you this hundred dollars. Go down to Paintsville and see the sheriff there. The fellow here isn’t any good; he’s drunk on moonshine all the time. Stay in Paintsville until they can find the Cunninghams in Bowling Green. Now try to calm yourself. I have a feeling you’ll get the money back—”
He pushed the small roll of bills into Frank’s hand. Frank stood there and stared at them dumbly. He tried to speak. Peter put his hand on his shoulder.
“I know it’s rotten, Frank. But, as Wade says, I guess you’ll find the Cunninghams. Whether they have any money left or not, I don’t know. Equipment costs money, and they’ve already spent it, probably. But you can take a lien on the machinery, or something, and force them to pay you back bit by bit. Maybe he’d better do down to Bowling Green and not wait in Paintsville?” he added, to Wade.
Wade nodded. He took Frank’s arm in his firm hand. “You’d better not go back to the cabin, except for your clothes. I’ll send one of the boys up for them. You stay here with us for a couple of days. There’s a telephone in the general store, and I’ll call the police in Bowling Green tomorrow. In the meantime, you’d better try to calm down. You’ve had enough, I think. We’ll see what the chief of police in Bowling Green says.”
“That’s right!” exclaimed Peter. “You can’t do anything until tomorrow. I’ve got some hot coffee on the stove, and you’d better have some.”
The agonized tears were choking Frank. He pushed the money into his shirt pocket. He fumbled, his hands shaking. “You don’t know what that money meant to me!” he said, over and over, in a breaking voice. “How can I go anywhere, get away from here, without it!” He could hardly see, and his words were full of hate. “This damned, stinking hole! I’m a prisoner here! I’ll never escape; I’ll go insane!”
“We’ll see what the Bowling Green police say tomorrow,” repeated Wade compassionately. He hesitated. “Look here, maybe you’d better go home in a couple of days. We can give you our personal check. Then, when the Cunninghams repay you, you can repay us. How would that be?”
“But—but they may have skipped the country!” Frank stammered. His painful breathing was slower, however, and his voice was quieter. “Then I’d just owe you the money, and it would take me years to repay you.”
Wade shrugged and smiled. “We can wait. How about that coffee, Pete?”
>
They heard a hail and paused on the steps of the hospital. A young man, neatly dressed in brown tweeds and brown leggings, and riding a handsome mare, galloped up, raising a cloud of golden dust. He swung himself down from the horse, and with outstretched hands ran up to Wade. “Hi! How are you, Wade! And Peter? Gosh, am I glad to see you two!”
“Bobby!” exclaimed Wade with pleasure, grasping the young man’s hand. “When did you get back here?”
“I’ve been home for a week, but I couldn’t come down on Benton before. How about riding back with me, both of you, and eating with Dad and me today? I’ve got a million things to tell you.”
Still holding the stranger’s hand, Wade turned to Frank, to whose ashen face a little color was returning. “Frank, this is Bobby Gratwick. You remember we visited his father last October?”
“How do you do,” Frank stammered, still trembling slightly. He recognized Bobby Gratwick from the photograph he had seen in the elder Gratwick’s cabin. His cold damp hand was grasped by a thin dry one, equally cold. After a very fleeting glance Bobby indifferently released him. His attention was all focussed on Wade. He had the mountaineer’s high light voice, but not his drawl; he spoke excitedly, almost in a feminine manner.
Frank was beginning to feel a reaction from his desperate emotions. He felt sick and weak, and wanted to sit down. The O’Learys had momentarily forgotten him and his embarrassing problem and were engrossed in laughing and in talking to Bobby Gratwick. Frank felt a violent dislike for Bobby, which probably sprang from his unwelcome intrusion upon the scene. He hated the pale and mobile face, the soft mop of fair hair, the intense blue eyes and too flexible mouth. It was a God-damn girl’s face! Too pretty for—words! Why the hell did he have to come now? He and his leggings and his sleek mare and his monopolization of the O’Learys! Frank felt a hot and unreasonable hatred for the O’Learys, who had temporarily abandoned him, and his old resentment against Peter and his slighter and newer resentment against Wade, came back in full force. They could so easily forget him, and turn to this elegant girlish creature; perhaps they were glad of the interruption. Perhaps they were hoping Frank had forgotten the offer of the check. There was no one a fellow could trust or turn to for help. Frank’s shaken youth, wounded and desperate, made him glare at Bobby Gratwick and want to kick him savagely. It made him want to kick Wade and Peter, also, and curse them, because they had shut him out and were so engrossed with their old friend.