The Mesa Trail Part 2

"Yas, ye do!" Mrs. Crump's response was raw-edged. "If you was the kind o' man you used to be, ye'd up and give them jumpers a hemp necktie! But now ye play politics, Sam Tracy, and ye lick the boots o' Sandy Mackintavers--"

"That's enough, Mis' Crump!" broke in the sheriff, icily. "I don't blame ye for feelin' sore, but the likes of us can't fight Mackintavers in the courts. We ain't slick enough! And Dorales is a Mormon-bred greaser, than which the devil ain't never fathered a worse combination. Now, Mis'

Crump, you show me the least excuse for doin' it legally, and I'll pump them two men full o' lead any day! I'm only surprised that you didn't do it."

"I did." A smile of grim satisfaction wreathed the lady's firm lips.

"First I took Sandy's money, then I lets fly. They was several hired greasers with Dorales, and I reckon I got two-three; ain't right sure. I only got Abel glancingly, and when I threw down on Sandy his arms was both elevated for safety. All I could decently do was to nick his ear so's he'd remember me."

"You didn't kill Dorales?"

"Afraid not." Mrs. Crump sadly shook her head. "I didn't wait to inquire none, but it looked like I'd only blooded his shoulder and he was layin'

low to plug me in the back, so I belted him over the head with the b.u.t.t, and slid for home."

The sheriff, astounded, emitted a long whistle. "Whew-w!" he said, slowly. "Say, whereabouts did all this happen?"

"Down the Mogollons. Over Arizony way."

"Why didn't ye go west into Arizony, then? After that doin's this state will be too hot to hold ye--"

"Oh, Sandy won't go to law over the shootin'. It'd make him look too ridic'lous."

The sheriff threw back his head and laughed with all the uproarious abandon of a man who laughs seldom but well.

"Best look out for yourself," he cautioned. "That there Dorales will be on your trail till h.e.l.l freezes over, ma'am! I sure would admire to see you in action on that crowd!"

"You'll see me in action when that there car gets movin' again," she retorted. "She bucks like a range hoss and kicks to beat h.e.l.l-why, I couldn't hardly keep the saddle!"

The sheriff arose and went to the dust-white flivver. He adjusted the spark, cranked, and for a moment listened to the engine before killing it. Then he threw back the hood, and, under the sombre eyes of Thady Shea, worked in silence. At length he finished his task, started the engine again, and with a nod of satisfaction shut it off.

"Thought mebbe so," he stated, rejoining the lady. "Your spark plugs was fouled. Well, ma'am, what can I be doin' for you?"

"Ye might send me a wire in care of Coravel Tio whenever ye get a line on Dorales or Mackintavers. I'm fixing to meet them again."

"How come?" demanded the sheriff in surprise.

Mrs. Crump gestured with her pipe toward the flivver.

"I got a sack of ore in there that I found in the lava beds or thereabouts. I suspicions it's one o' these new-fangled things n.o.body give a whoop for in the old days, but that draws down the money now. If it is, then you can lay that Sandy will hear I've found it, and he'll be after me to jump the claim."

"He sure does keep a line on prospectors," reflected the sheriff. "And skins 'em, too, mostly. But he does it legal."

"Yep. If this here stuff is any good, Sam, they's going to be some smoke 'fore he gets his paws on it! Where you goin' from here? Back to Albuquerque?"

"Nope. I got some business up at the capital."

"Will ye tote that ore sack and a letter up to Coravel Tio for me-and do it strictly under your hat?"

"You bet I will, ma'am!"

Mrs. Crump unstrapped the burlap sack. With the sheriff's pencil and paper she settled down to write a letter. The process was obviously painful and laborious, but at length it was finished. The sheriff shook hands, picked up the sack, and turned to his car. Mrs Crump had already restored him his revolver.

"Take good care of yourself, ma'am-and your hobo! Adios."

Mrs. Crump watched the trail of dust disappear in the direction of Santa Fe, then she turned to the flivver and looked up at Thady Shea.

"They's a new corncob laying in back somewheres. You can have it, Thady.

Get out here and settle down for a spell o' talk. If ye act real good I'll give ye a drink."

"I don't want any," came Shea's m.u.f.fled voice as he leaned back in search of the pipe.

"That's a lie. You're fair shaking for liquor and a drop will brace ye up."

Shea procured the pipe, filled and lighted, and promptly a.s.sumed, as a garment, his usual histrionic pose. The gulp of liquor which Mrs. Crump carefully measured out sent a thin thread of colour into his gaunt, unshaven cheeks.

"Madam, I owe you all," he announced sonorously. "I have not missed the heart of things set forth in this your discourse to the sheriff's ear, and I have gathered that your need is great for the strong arms of friends, the counsel wise--"

"You got it," cut in Mrs. Crump, curtly. "The p'int is, Thady, where do you come in? Listen here, now! I got a good eye for men; ye ain't much account as ye stand, but ye got the makin's. Now cut out the booze and I'll take ye for partner, savvy? What's more, I'll spend a couple o'

weeks attending to it that ye _do_ cut out the booze! I sure need a partner who ain't liable to sell me out to them heathen. Can ye down the booze, or not?"

Something in her tone cut through the man's posturing like a knife. As a matter of fact, he was miserable in spirit; his soul quivered nakedly before him, and he was ashamed. For a s.p.a.ce he did not answer, but stared at the far mountains. The strong tragedy of his face was accentuated and deepened into utter bitterness.

What Mrs. Crump had only vaguely and darkly seen Thady Shea observed clearly and with wonder; yet, just as she missed the more mystical side of it, he missed the more practical side. More diverse creatures wearing human semblance could scarce have been found than these twain, here met upon a desert upland of New Mexico-the woman, a self-reliant mountaineer and prospector who knew only her own little world, the man a drunkard, a broken-down "hamfatter," who knew all the outside world which had rejected him. They had come together from different spheres.

As he sat there staring, he mentally and for the last time reviewed the life that lay behind him; before him uprose all the contemptuous years, the sad wreckage of high hopes and tinsel glories, the hard and wretched fact of liquor. He would shut it out of his mind forever, after to-day, he thought. He would live in the present only, from day to day. He would try a new life-and let the dead bury their dead!

He turned to Mrs. Crump, his sad and earnest eyes looking oddly cynical.

"I do not think it humanly possible that I can resist liquor," he said, gravely. "I am frank with you. It were easy to swear that I would pluck out drowned honour by the roots-but, madam, I think that this morning I am weary of swearing. I have tried to abstain, and I cannot. Always it is the first week or two of torture that downs me--

"You're showin' sense, now," said the lady. "Want to try it or not?"

He rose in the car and attempted a bow in his showy and pitiful manner.

In this bow, however, was an element of grace, the more p.r.o.nounced by its sharp contrast to his gaunt, sombre aspect.

"Madam, I am deeply sensible of the compliment you pay me. Yet, in picking from the gutter a drunken failure, are you wise? I am entirely ignorant of prospecting and--"

"Don't worry none. Ye'll learn that quick enough."

Again Thaddeus bowed. "But, madam, I understand that prospectors go off into the desert places and live. In justice to yourself, do you not think that your enemies might seize viciously upon the least excuse for misinterpretation of character--"

For the first time Shea saw Mehitabel Crump gripped in anger. He paused, aghast.

Her gigantic form quivered with rage then stiffened into towering wrath.

Her tanned, age-touched features suddenly hardened into sentient bronze from which her blue eyes blazed forth terribly, jewelled indices of an indomitable and quick-flaming spirit within.

"Thady Shea, it's well for you them words come from an honest heart,"

said she, with a slow and grim emphasis. "They ain't no one goin' to say a word agin' me, except them for what I don't give a tinker's dam; and if one o' them dasts to say it in my hearin', chain lightnin' is goin'

to strike quick and sudden! This here territory-state, I mean-knows Mehitabel Crump and has knowed her for some years back. Paste that in your hat, Thady Shea!"