Peaceful Returns
:
Good Indian
That afternoon when the four-thirty-five rushed in from the parched
desert and slid to a panting halt beside the station platform, Peaceful
Hart emerged from the smoker, descended quietly to the blistering
planks, and nodded through the open window to Miss Georgie at her
instrument taking train orders.
Behind him perspired Baumberger, purple from the heat and the beer with
which he had sought to allay the
discomfort of that searing sunlight.
"Howdy, Miss Georgie?" he wheezed, as he passed the window. "Ever see
such hot weather in your life? I never did."
Miss Georgie glanced at him while her fingers rattled her key, and it
struck her that Baumberger had lost a good deal of his oily amiability
since she saw him last. He looked more flabby and loose-lipped than
ever, and his leering eyes were streaked plainly with the red veins
which told of heavy drinking. She gave him a nod cool enough to lower
the thermometer several degrees, and scribbled away upon the yellow pad
under her hand as if Baumberger had sunk into the oblivion her temper
wished for him. She looked up immediately, however, and leaned forward
so that she could see Peaceful just turning to go down the steps.
"Oh, Mr. Hart! Will you wait a minute?" she called clearly above the
puffing of the engine. "I've something for you here. Soon as I get this
train out--" She saw him stop and turn back to the office, and let it go
at that for the present.
"I sure have got my nerve," she observed mentally when the conductor
had signaled the engineer and swung up the steps of the smoker, and the
wheels were beginning to clank. All she had for Peaceful Hart in that
office was anxiety over his troubles. "Just held him up to pry into his
private affairs," she put it bluntly to herself. But she smiled at him
brightly, and waited until Baumberger had gone lumbering with rather
uncertain steps to the store, where he puffed up the steps and sat
heavily down in the shade where Pete Hamilton was resting after the
excitement of the past thirty-six hours.
"I lied to you, Mr. Hart," she confessed, engagingly. "I haven't a thing
for you except a lot of questions, and I simply must ask them or die.
I'm not just curious, you know. I'm horribly anxious. Won't you take the
seat of honor, please? The ranch won't run off if you aren't there for
a few minutes after you had expected to be. I've been waiting to have a
little talk with you, and I simply couldn't let the opportunity go by."
She talked fast, but she was thinking faster, and wondering if this
calm, white-bearded old man thought her a meddlesome fool.
"There's time enough, and it ain't worth much right now," Peaceful said,
sitting down in the beribboned rocker and stroking his beard in his
deliberate fashion. "It seems to be getting the fashion to be anxious,"
he drawled, and waited placidly for her to speak.
"You just about swear by old Baumberger, don't you?" she began
presently, fiddling with her lead pencil and going straight to the heart
of what she wanted to say.
"Well, I dunno. I've kinda learned to fight shy of swearing by anybody,
Miss Georgie." His mild blue eyes settled attentively upon her flushed
face.
"That's some encouragement, anyhow," she sighed. "Because he's the
biggest old blackguard in Idaho and more treacherous than any Indian
ever could be if he tried. I just thought I'd tell you, in case you
didn't know it. I'm certain as I can be of anything, that he's at the
bottom of this placer-claim fraud, and he's just digging your ranch out
from under your feet while he wheedles you into thinking he's looking
after your interests. I'll bet you never got an injunction against those
eight men," she hazarded, leaning toward him with her eyes sparkling as
the subject absorbed all her thoughts. "I'll bet anything he kept you
fiddling around until those fellows all filed on their claims. And now
it's got to go till the case is finally settled in court, because they
are technically within their rights in making lawful improvements on
their claims.
"Grant," she said, and her voice nearly betrayed her when she spoke
his name, "was sure they faked the gold samples they must have used in
filing. We both were sure of it. He and the boys tried to catch them at
some crooked work, but the nights have been too dark, for one thing, and
they were always on the watch, and went up to Shoshone in couples, and
there was no telling which two meant to sneak off next. So they have all
filed, I suppose. I know the whole eight have been up--"
"Yes, they've all filed--twenty acres apiece--the best part of the
ranch. There's a forty runs up over the bluff; the lower line takes
in the house and barn and down into the garden where the man they call
Stanley run his line through the strawberry patch. That forty's mine
yet. It's part uh the homestead. The meadowland is most all included.
That was a preemption claim." Peaceful spoke slowly, and there was a
note of discouragement in his voice which it hurt Miss Georgie to hear.
"Well, they've got to prove that those claims of theirs are lawful, you
know. And if you've got your patent for the homestead--you have got
a patent, haven't you?" Something in his face made her fling in the
question.
"Y-es--or I thought I had one," he answered dryly. "It seems now there's
a flaw in it, and it's got to go back to Washington and be rectified. It
ain't legal till that's been done."
Miss Georgie half rose from her chair, and dropped back despairingly.
"Who found that mistake?" she demanded. "Baumberger?"
"Y-es, Baumberger. He thought we better go over all the papers
ourselves, so the other side couldn't spring anything on us unawares,
and there was one paper that hadn't been made out right. So it had to be
fixed, of course. Baumberger was real put out about it."
"Oh, of course!" Miss Georgie went to the window to make sure of the
gentleman's whereabouts. He was still sitting upon the store porch, and
he was just in the act of lifting a tall, glass mug of beer to his gross
mouth when she looked over at him. "Pig!" she gritted under her breath.
"It's a pity he doesn't drink himself to death." She turned and faced
Peaceful anxiously.
"You spoke a while ago as if you didn't trust him implicitly," she
said. "I firmly believe he hired those eight men to file on your land. I
believe he also hired Saunders to watch Grant, for some reason--perhaps
because Grant has shown his hostility from the first. Did you know
Saunders--or someone--has been shooting at Grant from the top of
the bluff for--well, ever since you left? The last shot clipped his
hat-brim. Then Saunders was shot--or shot himself, according to the
inquest--and there has been no more rifle practice with Grant for the
target."
"N-no, I hadn't heard about that." Peaceful pulled hard at his beard so
that his lips were drawn slightly apart. "I don't mind telling yuh," he
added slowly, "that I've got another lawyer working on the case--Black.
He hates Baumberger, and he'd like to git something on him. I don't
want Baumberger should know anything about it, though. He takes it for
granted I swallow whole everything he says and does--but I don't. Not by
a long shot. Black'll ferret out any crooked work."
"He's a dandy if he catches Baumberger," Miss Georgie averred, gloomily.
"I tried a little detective work on my own account. I hadn't any right;
it was about the cipher messages Saunders used to send and receive
so often before your place was jumped. I was dead sure it was old
Baumberger at the other end, and I--well, I struck up a mild sort of
flirtation with the operator at Shoshone." She smiled deprecatingly at
Peaceful.
"I wanted to find out--and I did by writing a nice letter or two;
we have to be pretty cute about what we send over the wires," she
explained, "though we do talk back and forth quite a lot, too. There was
a news-agent and cigar man--you know that kind of joint, where they
sell paper novels and magazines and tobacco and such--getting Saunders'
messages. Jim Wakely is his name. He told the operator that he and
Saunders were just practicing; they were going to be detectives, he
said, and rigged up a cipher that they were learning together so they
wouldn't need any codebook. Pretty thin that--but you can't prove it
wasn't the truth. I managed to find out that Baumberger buys cigars and
papers of Jim Wakely sometimes; not always, though."
Miss Georgie laughed ruefully, and patted her pompadour absent-mindedly.
"So all I got out of that," she finished, "was a correspondence I could
very well do without. I've been trying to quarrel with that operator
ever since, but he's so darned easy-tempered!" She went and looked out
of the window again uneasily.
"He's guzzling beer over there, and from the look of him he's had a good
deal more than he needs already," she informed Peaceful. "He'll burst
if he keeps on. I suppose I shouldn't keep you any longer--he's looking
this way pretty often, I notice; nothing but the beer-keg holds him, I
imagine. And when he empties that--" She shrugged her shoulders, and sat
down facing Hart.
"Maybe you could bribe Jim Wakely into giving something away," she
suggested. "I'd sure like to see Baumberger stub his toe in this deal!
Or maybe you could get around one of those eight beauties you've got
camping down on your ranch--but there isn't much chance of that; he
probably took good care to pick clams for that job. And Saunders," she
added slowly, "is eternally silent. Well, I hope in mercy you'll be able
to catch him napping, Mr. Hart."
Peaceful rose stiffly,--and took up his hat from where he had laid it on
the table.
"I ain't as hopeful as I was a week ago," he admitted mildly. "Put if
there's any justice left in the courts, I'll save the old ranch. My wife
and I worked hard to make it what it is, and my boys call it home. We
can't save it by anything but law. Fightin' would only make a bad
matter worse. I'm obliged to yuh, Miss Georgie, for taking such an
interest--and I'll tell Black about Jim Wakely."
"Don't build any hopes on Jim," she warned. "He probably doesn't know
anything except that he sent and received messages he couldn't read any
sense into."
"Well--there's always a way out, if we can find it. Come down and see
us some time. We still got a house to invite our friends to." He smiled
drearily at her, gave a little, old-fashioned bow, and went over to
join Baumberger--and to ask Pete Hamilton for the use of his team and
buckboard.
Miss Georgie, keeping an uneasy vigil over everything that moved in the
barren portion of Hartley which her window commanded, saw Pete get up
and start listlessly toward the stable; saw Peaceful sit down to wait;
and then Pete drove up with the rig, and they started for the ranch.
She turned with a startled movement to the office door, because she felt
that she was being watched.
"How, Hagar, and Viney, and Lucy," she greeted languidly when she saw
the three squaws sidle closer, and reached for a bag of candy for them.
Hagar's greasy paw stretched out greedily for the gift, and placed it in
jealous hiding beneath her blanket, but she did not turn to go, as
she most frequently did after getting what she came for. Instead, she
waddled boldly into the office, her eyes searching cunningly every
corner of the little room. Viney and Lucy remained outside, passively
waiting. Hagar twitched at something under her blanket, and held out her
hand again; this time it was not empty.
"Ketchum sagebrush," she announced laconically. "Mebbyso yo' like for
buy?"
Miss Georgie stared fixedly at the hand, and said nothing. Hagar drew it
under her blanket, held it fumbling there, and thrust it forth again.
"Ketchum where ketchum hair," she said, and her wicked old eyes twinkled
with malice. "Mebbyso yo' like for buy?"
Miss Georgie still stared, and said nothing. Her under lip was caught
tightly between her teeth by now, and her eyebrows were pulled close
together.
"Ketchum much track, same place," said Hagar grimly. "Good Injun makeum
track all same boot. Seeum Good Injun creep, creep in bushes, all time
Man-that-coughs be heap kill. Yo' buy hair, buy knife, mebbyso me no
tell me seeum Good Injun. Me tell, Good Injun go for jail; mebbyso
killum rope." She made a horrible gesture of hanging by the neck.
Afterward she grinned still more horribly. "Ketchum plenty mo' dolla, me
no tell, mebbyso."
Miss Georgie felt blindly for her chair, and when she touched it she
backed and sank into it rather heavily. She looked white and sick, and
Hagar eyed her gloatingly.
"Yo' no like for Good Injun be killum rope," she chuckled. "Yo' all time
thinkum heap bueno. Mebbyso yo' love. Yo' buy? Yo' payum much dolla?"
Miss Georgie passed a hand slowly over her eyes. She felt numb, and she
could not think, and she must think. A shuffling sound at the door made
her drop her hand and look up, but there was nothing to lighten her
oppressive sense of danger to Grant. Another squaw had appeared, was
all. A young squaw, with bright-red ribbons braided into her shining
black hair, and great, sad eyes brightening the dull copper tint of her
face.
"You no be 'fraid," she murmured shyly to Miss Georgie, and stopped
where she was just inside the door. "You no be sad. No trouble come Good
Injun. I friend."
Hagar turned, and snarled at her in short, barking words which Miss
Georgie could not understand. The young squaw folded her arms inside her
bright, plaid shawl, and listened with an indifference bordering closely
on contempt, one would judge from her masklike face. Hagar turned from
berating her, and thrust out her chin at Miss Georgie.
"I go. Sun go 'way, mebbyso I come. Mebbyso yo' heart bad. Me ketchum
much dolla yo', me no tellum, mebbyso. No ketchum, me tell sheriff mans
Good Injun all time killum Man-that-coughs." Turning, she waddled out,
jabbing viciously at the young squaw with her elbow as she passed, and
spitting out some sort of threat or command--Miss Georgie could not tell
which.
The young squaw lingered, still gazing shyly at Miss Georgie.
"You no be 'fraid," she repeated softly. "I friend. I take care. No
trouble come Good Injun. I no let come. You no be sad." She smiled
wistfully, and was gone, as silently as moved her shadow before her on
the cinders.
Miss Georgie stood by the window with her fingernails making little red
half-moons in her palms, and watched the three squaws pad out of sight
on the narrow trail to their camp, with the young squaw following after,
until only a black head could be seen bobbing over the brow of the hill.
When even that was gone, she turned from the window, and stood for a
long minute with her hands pressed tightly over her face. She was
trying to think, but instead she found herself listening intently to the
monotonous "Ah-h-CHUCK! ah-h-CHUCK!" of the steam pump down the track,
and to the spasmodic clicking of an order from the dispatcher to the
passenger train two stations to the west.
When the train was cleared and the wires idle, she went suddenly to the
table, laid her fingers purposefully upon the key, and called up her
chief. It was another two hours' leave of absence she asked for "on
urgent business." She got it, seasoned with a sarcastic reminder that
her business was supposed to be with the railroad company, and that she
would do well to cultivate exactness of expression and a taste for her
duties in the office.
She was putting on her hat even while she listened to the message, and
she astonished the man at the other end by making no retort
whatever. She almost ran to the store, and she did not ask Pete for a
saddle-horse; she just threw her office key at him, and told him she was
going to take his bay, and she was at the stable before he closed the
mouth he had opened in amazement at her whirlwind departure.