CHAPTER VIII
THE MAN OF MYSTERY
The cold that dried the new-fallen snow to powder sent the mercury downuntil it broke all records.
While the improvident did, indeed, wonder what they had done with theirsummer wages, the thrifty contemplated their piles of wood and theirwinter vegetables with a strong feeling of satisfaction.
Speaking colloquially, the Toomeys were "ga'nted considerably," and intheir usual state of semistarvation, but were in no immediate danger offreezing, owing to the fact that Toomey had succeeded in exchanging amounted deer head for four tons of local coal mined from a "surfaceblossom," which was being exploited by the _Grit_ as one of thecountry's resources.
Vastly delighted with his bargain, until he discovered that he no soonerhad arrived from the coalhouse with a bucket of coal than it wasnecessary for him to make a return trip with a bucket of ashes, Toomeynow hurled anathemas upon the embryo coal baron. It was not emptyverbiage when he asserted that, by spring, at the rate he was wearing atrench to the ash can, nothing but the top of his head would be visible.
Mrs. Toomey, however, was grateful, for she felt that if there was onething worse than being hungry it was being cold, so she stoked thekitchen range with a free hand and luxuriated in the warmth though itnecessitated frequent trips outside in Toomey's absence.
Mrs. Toomey was returning from the ash can when she saw Mormon Joegoing into his shack on the diagonal corner. She slackened her trot to awalk and watched while he unlocked the door, as though to read from hisback something of his intentions in regard to the loan Kate had promisedso confidently.
It had seemed too good to be realized, so she had not told Jap of theirmeeting. She must not count on it, however--she had been disappointed sooften that she dreaded the feeling. Ugh! What frightful cold! Mrs.Toomey ran into the house and forgot the incident.
Later in the afternoon Toomey came home in high spirits.
"They got in!" he announced. "I hardly thought they'd start, suchweather. It's twenty-five below now and getting colder."
"Who?" inquired Mrs. Toomey, absently.
"The show people."
"Oh, did they?"
"Might as well take it in, mightn't we?" in feigned indifference.
"How can we? It's a dollar a ticket, isn't it?"
For answer he produced two strips of pink pasteboard from his waistcoatpocket.
"Jap?" wonderingly.
"Yes'm."
"Where did you get the money?"
"I raised it."
"But how?"
He hesitated, looking sheepish.
"On the range."
Mrs. Toomey sat down weakly.
"The cook stove! You mortgaged it?"
"I had to give some security, hadn't I?" he demanded with asperity.
"Who to?"
"Teeters. I got five dollars."
Mrs. Toomey found it convenient to go into the pantry until she hadregained control of her feelings.
It was twenty-eight degrees below zero when the doors of the Opera Housewere opened to permit the citizens of Prouty to hear the World RenownedSwiss Bell Ringers and Yodlers.
The weather proved to be no deterrent to a community hungry forentertainment, and they swarmed from all directions, bundled toshapelessness, like Esquimaux headed for a central igloo. Infants inarms and the bedridden in wheel chairs, helped to fill the Opera Houseto its capacity, emptying the streets and houses for a time ascompletely as an exodus.
While the best people, among whom were the Toomeys, occupied the severalrows of reserved chairs and smiled tolerantly upon the efforts of theperformers, and the proletariat stamped and whistled through its teethand cracked peanuts, a man muffled to the ears by the high collar of amackinaw coat, his face further concealed by the visor of a cap andear-laps, rode to the top of the bench, drew rein and looked down uponthe lights of Prouty.
It was not a night one would select for traveling on horseback, unlesshis business was urgent. However, the man's seemed to be of this nature,for he rode behind a large signboard which advertised the wares of theProuty Emporium, dismounted, tied his horse to the prop that held thesignboard upright, and with a show of haste took a coil of rope from hissaddlehorn, an axe--the head of which was wrapped in gunny sacking--anda gun that swung in loops of saddle thongs at an angle to fitcomfortably in the bend of the rider's knee.
He did not follow the road, but took a shorter cut straight down thesteep side of the bench to the nearest alley, through which he ran asnoiselessly as a coyote. He ran until he came to Main Street, which thealley bisected. In the shade of the Security State Bank he peered aroundthe corner and listened. The street was deserted, not even a dog orprowling cat was visible the entire length of it.
The man crossed it hurriedly, looking up and down and over his shoulderfurtively, like some cautious animal which fears itself followed. In theprotection of the alley he ran again until he came to Mormon Joe'star-paper shack setting square and ugly in the middle of the lot--aneyesore to the neighbors.
The door was locked, but it was the work of a second to tear off theaxe-head's covering and pry it open. He stepped inside and closed thedoor quietly. Lighting the candle he took from his pocket, with his handhe shielded the flame from the one window, and looked about with aglance that took in every detail of the shack's arrangement.
A single iron bedstead extended into the room and a soogan and twoblankets, thin and ragged from service, were heaped in the middle. Therewas no pillow, and a hard cotton pad constituted the mattress. An emptywhiskey bottle stood by the head of the bed.
A small pine table that at most might have cost a couple of dollars setagainst the wall by the window. The starch box that served as a chairwas shoved under the table, and another box in the corner did duty as awashstand. There was a cake of soap and a tin basin upon the latter anda grimy hand towel hung close by from a spike driven into the unplanedboards. Facing the door was a sheet-iron camp stove, rusty andoverflowing with ashes. The rickety, ill-fitting pipe was secured withthe inevitable baling wire.
After his swift survey, the man stepped to the washstand and let a fewdrops of melted candle grease drip upon one corner. In this he held thecandle until it hardened in place. Then he went to work with thebusinesslike swiftness of skill and experience.
He laid the shotgun on the stove and untwisted the baling wire whichheld the stovepipe, giving a grunt of satisfaction when he found thewire was longer than he had anticipated. He stooped and gathered somekindling that was under the stove, singled out two or three sticks thatsuited him, and then he laid them across the top of the stove and restedthe barrel of the shotgun upon them. After all was complete, he steppedback against the door and squinted, gauging the elevation. It was to hissatisfaction. With supple wrist and quick movements he uncoiled thesmall cotton rope he had brought with him and took two turns around thetrigger of the shotgun. The rest of the rope he passed around a rod inthe foot of the bed, which gave a direct back pull on the trigger, andthence he carried it over the upper hinge of the door, which openedinward, and finally down to the knob and back again to the foot of thebed, where he secured it.
All was executed without a superfluous movement, and a panther could nothave been more noiseless. But the man was breathing heavily when he hadfinished, as hard as though he had been exercising violently. He steppedto the washstand to blow out the candle, but before he did so he gave afinal rapid survey of his work. His eyes glittered with sinistersatisfaction. Evidently it suited him. He held his numbed fingers overthe flame of the candle to warm them before he extinguished it.
Reaching for the axe, he pried the window from its casing and set itquietly against the wall. He leaned the axe beside it and cursed underhis breath when he tore a button from his mackinaw as he squeezedthrough the narrow opening. He dropped lightly to the ground and,crouching, ran for the alley. Where it crossed Main Street he stoppedand listened, then peered around the corner of the White Hand Laundry.The street was still empty.
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While he stood, the sound of laughter came faintly from the Opera House.His heart was pounding under his mackinaw. On the other side of thestreet red and violet lights were shining through the frosted windows of"Doc" Fussel's drug store. They looked warm and alluring, and hehesitated.
A whinny pierced the stillness. It was his horse pawing with cold andimpatience behind the signboard. He looked up at the indistinct blackobject on the bench, then back wistfully at the red and violet lights ofthe drug store. He had an intense desire to be near some one--some onewho was going carelessly about his usual occupation.
He crossed over and went into the little apothecary. The clerk wassitting on the back of his neck with his feet to a counter listening tothe phonograph. "Has anybody here seen Kelly?" the machine screeched asthe stranger entered. The clerk got up and went to the tobacco counter.
"Hell of a night," he observed, languidly.
"Some chilly," replied the stranger, indicating the brand he wanted.
"It'll be close to forty below before morning," passing out the tobacco.
"Everybody's gone to the show but me," plaintively.
"A drug clerk might as well be a dog chained up in a kennel." He stoppedthe phonograph and changed the needle.
The stranger sat down beside the stove and placed his feet on the nickelrailing. He left the collar of his mackinaw turned up, but untied hisear-laps. They looked rather foolish, dangling. His eyes were shadowedby the visor of his cap, so that really only his nose and cheek boneswere visible. He glanced at the big clock on the wall frequently, and atintervals wiped the palms of his hands on the knees of his corduroytrousers as though to remove the moisture.
The clerk was putting on "When the Springtime Comes, Gentle Annie" whenthe opening door let in a breath from the Arctic and a tall personwearing new overalls, a coat of fleece-lined canvas and a peak-crownedStetson. He had a scarf wound about his neck after the fashion ofsheepherders.
"Hello, Bowers! Sober?" inquired the clerk, casually.
"Kinda. What you playin'?"
The clerk told him.
"Got a piece called 'The Yella Rose o' Texas Beats the Belles o'Tennessee'?"
"Never heard of it."
"Got--'Whur the Silver Colorady Wends its Way'?"
The clerk replied in the negative.
"Why don't you git some good music?"
"Why aren't you at the show?"
"Too contrary, I reckon. When I'm out in the hills I'm a hankerin' tosee somebody. When I git in town I want to git away from everybody. I'mgoin' out to-morrow."
"Where you going?"
"Hired out to Mormon Joe this evenin'."
The stranger stirred slightly.
"I'll look around a little--I don't want nothin'," said Bowers.
"Help yourself," replied the clerk, amiably, so the sheepherder staredat the baubles of cut glass on the shelf with a pleased expression andhung over the counter where the rings, watches and bracelets glittered.Then he examined a string of sponges carefully--sponges alwaysinterested him--they suggested picturesque scenery and adventures. Helingered over the toilet articles, sniffing the soaps and smelling atthe bottles of perfume, trying those whose names he especially fanciedon the end of his nose by rubbing it with the glass stopper. Then he satdown on the other side of the stove from the stranger and spelled outthe queer names on the jars of drugs, speculating as to their contentsand uses. He never yet had exhausted the possibilities of a drug storeas a means of entertainment.
A few minutes after ten the advance guard came from the OperaHouse--laughing. The World's Greatest Prestidigitator had dropped theegg which he intended taking from the ear of Governor Sudds where it hadbroken into the ample lap of Mrs. Vernon Wentz of the White HandLaundry. The cold, however, promptly put a quietus upon their merrimentand they scuttled past, bent on getting out of it as quickly aspossible.
There were two customers for cigars, and the Toomeys. Toomey boughtchocolates while Mrs. Toomey held her hands to the stove and shivered.
"Come on, Dell." Toomey's glance as he took the candy included thestranger.
"How're you?" he nodded carelessly.
They were to be the last, apparently, for when their footsteps died awaythe street again grew silent.
The clerk planted his feet on the nickel railing and stared at the stovegloomily.
"I'd have to keep this store open till half-past 'leven if I was dyin',"he grumbled.
"But you ain't," said Bowers, cheerfully.
Bowers smelled strongly of sheep, once the heat warmed his clothing. Onthe other side of the clerk the odor of smoke and bear grease emanatedfrom the stranger. The clerk moved his chair back from the stove andadvised the latter:
"Your soles is fryin'."
He seemed not to hear him, for his eyes were upon the clock creepingclose to eleven, and he watched the swaying pendulum as though itfascinated him. There was no conversation, and each sat thinking his ownthoughts until the stranger suddenly pulled down the side of his collarand listened. The clerk eyed him with disfavor. The squeaking offootsteps in the dry snow was heard distinctly. The stranger got upleisurely and went out with a grunt that was intended for "goodevening."
"Sociable cuss," Bowers commented ironically.
"Smelt like an Injun tepee," said the clerk, sourly.
"It's a wonder to me fellers don't notice theirselves," Bowers observed."But they never seem to."
A weaving figure was making its way down the middle of Main Street. Athick-coated collie followed closely. The swaying figure looked like adrunken gnome in its clumsy coat and peak-crowned hat in the coldsteel-blue starlight. It stopped uncertainly at the alley, then went onto the end of the block and turned the corner.
The Toomeys had lost no time in retiring after the entertainment, forthe house, upon their return, was like a refrigerator. Almost instantlyToomey was slumbering tranquilly, but Mrs. Toomey had symptoms which sherecognized as presaging hours of wakefulness. The unwonted excitement ofbeing out in the evening had much to do with her restlessness, butchiefly it came from thinking of the cook stove. Of course she could seethe force of Jap's argument as to the necessity of keeping upappearances by being seen in public places and spending money as thoughthere was more where that came from, yet she wondered if it reallydeceived anybody.
And supposing Teeters foreclosed the mortgage! It seemed as though theywere slipping week by week, day by day, deeper into the black depths atthe bottom of which was actual beggary. Her nervousness increased as herimagination painted darker and darker pictures until she longed toscream for the relief it would have afforded her. The single hope wasMormon Joe's Kate and her promise, and that was too fantastic andfarfetched to dare count on. It was not logical to suppose that a manwhom Jap had quarreled with and insulted would come to their rescue evenif he could afford to do so, which she doubted.
How still it was--the eloquent stillness of terrible cold! The town wassoundless. Chickens humped in their feathers were freezing on theirroosts, horses and cows tied in their stalls were suffering, and, asalways, she visualized the desolate white stretches where hungrycoyotes, gaunt and vigilant, padded along the ridges, and horses andcattle, turned out to shift for themselves, huddled shivering in thegulches and under the willows.
She knew from the snapping and cracking of lumber and metal about thehouse that it was growing colder, and she drew the covers closer. Oh,what a country to live in! Whatever was to become of them! Her teethchattered.
She thought she heard footsteps and raised her head slightly to listen.Faint at first, they were coming nearer. Whoever was out a night likethis, she could not imagine. The person was walking in the middle of theroad and his progress was uneven, stopping sometimes altogether, thengoing forward. Abreast the house the sound of heels grinding in the snowthat was dry as powder was like the scrunching and squealing of thesteel tire of a wagon in bitter weather.
They passed, grew fainter, finally stopped altogether. Mrs. Toomey movedcloser to her husband. The
re was comfort in the nearness of a humanbeing.
A shot! Her heart jumped--her nerves twanged with the shock of it. "Thathit something!" The thought was almost simultaneous. The sound was morelike an explosion--deadened, muffled somewhat--as of a charge fired intoa bale of hay or cotton. For the space of a dozen heartbeats she laywith her mouth open, breathless in the deathly silence of the frozennight.
A scream! It must have reached the sky. Piercing, agonized--the agony ofa man screaming with his mouth wide open--screaming without restraint,in animal-like unconsciousness of what he was doing.
"Jap!" She clutched his arm and shook him.
The screams kept coming, blood curdling, as if they would split thethroat, tear it, and horrible with suffering.
"Jap!" She sat up and shook his shoulder violently.
"Wha's the matter?" he asked, sleepily.
"Did you hear that shot? Listen!"
"Some drunk," he mumbled.
"He's hurt, I tell you! Hear him!"
"Drug store's open."
"Oughtn't you to go to him?"
"Lemme be--can't you?" He again breathed heavily.
The screams kept coming, but each a little fainter. Either the man wasmoving on or the pain was lessening. Mrs. Toomey's heart continued tothump as she lay rigid, listening. She wanted to get up and look throughthe window, but the floor was cold and she could not remember exactlywhere she had left her slippers. Anyway, somebody else would go to him.It was a relief, though, when he stopped screaming.
Others whom the cries of agony awakened applied the same reasoning tothe situation, with minor variations. "Tinhorn" in particular wasdisturbed because of their nearness. He raised his head from under amound of blankets and frowned into the darkness as he wondered if, asProuty's newly elected mayor, he would be criticized should he fail togo out and investigate. He was so warm and comfortable!
"Guess I'd better get up, Mamma."
His wife gripped him as if he was struggling violently, although hisHonor was lying motionless as an alligator.
"You shan't--you'll get pneumonia and leave me and the children withoutany insurance! You've no right to take chances. Let somebody else gothat hasn't any future."
There was that side to it.
"Some hobo most like." The future statesman turned over. "Tuck my backin, Mamma."
Mr. Sudds was awakened, and his first impulse was to rush to the man'sassistance, but he was not sure where to find matches, and it took himsuch an unconscionable time to dress that by the time he got there--
Scales was restrained by the arms of his fragile wife who threatenedhysterics if he left her. Between love and duty Mr. Scales did nothesitate with the thermometer at forty below zero, and the knowledgethat loss of sleep unfitted him for business.
So Mormon Joe, screaming in his agony, staggered up the alley, leaving acrimson trail behind him, the sheep dog following like a shadow. He hadnearly reached Main Street when he lurched, groped for a support, thenfell to his knees. The hot drops turned to red globules in the snow ashe kept crawling, gasping, "Oh, God! Won't somebody come to me?" The dogwalked beside him as he dragged himself along, perplexed and wonderingat this whim of his master's.
Mormon Joe was leaning against the side of the White Hand Laundry, hishead fallen forward, when Bowers and the drug clerk got to him. Thecollie was licking his face for attention, but the warm caressinghand--now red and sticky--was lying in the snow, limp and unresponsive.
Mormon Joe had "gone over"--dying as he had lived--a man of mystery.