CHAPTER IV
MUSIC HATH CHARMS
"Won't you gentlemen come in?"
The figures of the horsemen seemed to stiffen. The girl's voice may have touched tradition, perhaps a memory. It was eloquent of gentility, it bespoke no alarm at this sudden intrusion in a place whose unusual privacy they had so rudely broken. Then they shifted uneasily. Sheridan could see the roll of their eyes towards each other in uneasy inquiry. The girl had scored. And he had a conviction that her manner would have been much the same if he and Red had not arrived. Admiration of her glowed within him.
Hollister spoke, his voice hoarse with the whisky he had drunk, impudent in its self-assertion.
"We'll do that. Light, boys. Better hitch your hawses to the trees." She did not offer the hospitality of the shed, Sheridan noted.
Mary Burrows received them with reserved cordiality that suggested an explanation of their visit was expected as they filed clumsily up the steps and trailed behind her into the big room. Thora followed and Sheridan and Jackson closed the file. The men were still too sheepish, most of them, to have noticed the men from Circle S. Only Hollister leered at them evilly, with his tongue set in his cheek. Sheridan itched to punch it back into place. Then the rest saw them, some with frowns, others with pure-half-drunken amazement. Sheridan sized them up. Two or three of them he did not know. But they were all palpably of the same kidney, loafers on the work of their women or the money of strangers, gained by any trickery.
"I see you've comp'ny, Miss," said Hollister, swaggering forward with a show of ease. "We didn't know you was acquainted round here. Figgered you'd be kind of lonesome."
"So you came up to cheer us up a bit. That was nice of you. Won't you sit down? I'm afraid some of you will have to sit on the floor."
She smiled at them as they clumsily disposed of themselves. Hollister sat astride a chair, gazing belligerently at Sheridan and Red, who paid no attention. She did not show surprise at their having discovered the way in.
"I wonder if you're not hungry after your ride?" she asked, her manner confidently perfect. "Mr. Jackson does not seem to have a good opinion of doughnuts but I am going to change it. One good thing about them, plates are not necessary, but you'll have to drink your coffee out of odds and ends."
They made a ludicrous picture as they sat, some of them crosslegged on the boards, dumb, goggling at the girl, at the great figure of Thora, pouring from the big kettle as if it weighed no more than a teapot. As each man thumbed his doughnut, reached up for his cup of coffee, served in tin and porcelain, they had a ridiculous resemblance to a children's picnic. And they seemed to feel it, to be held in amaze at the way the situation had been changed. They had come prepared to bluster, to demand music from the fiddle, to dance, to play boisterous tricks, and here they were, subdued by a Circe who fed them doughnuts. But they ate them, they broke bread in the house, they unconsciously assimilated the canons of such hospitality—and they eagerly devoured the cookies. Hollister shuffled a little in his chair, trying for some phrase that should show him master of the affair but he could not shake off an undefinable uneasiness. Neither Sheridan nor Jackson had noticed him by word but both sat, evidently welcome guests, and there was a quiet menace in the way they had shifted their guns so that they lay on their thighs while they munched at their doughnuts, a menace repeated in the cold gleam in their eyes. Hollister had never forgotten the demonstration of Sheridan's shooting. He saw both men were packing an extra gun. He remembered Jackson's boast of left-handedness. He had a premonition that he could not start anything that would not finish suddenly and disastrously to himself, first of all. And he had lost his grip over the men who had galloped so recklessly across the meadows on their "chivaree." There would be another laugh on him, and there had been too many laughs of late. He was a bully and his leadership had to be asserted by a bully's methods. The men had no keen liking for him, he was well aware of that.
He viewed Jackson with a special enmity, guessing that the cowboy must have in some way got wind of their trip while he was in town. He knew nothing of the meeting with Juanita. But Red stolidly outstared him over his doughnut.
A chorus of praise arose when the crock was emptied.
"Thora will make you some more another time," promised the girl. "I hope we shall all be friends and neighbors."
"Ain't you two gels afeared to stay up here alone?" asked a man. "We nigh run into a lion on the way up."
"Tell them about the lion, Thora."
Thora grinned. Her teeth were as good as those of Mary Burrows, only larger, suggestive of vigorous mastication.
"One lion he bane come snoopin' around," she said. "Last night it was. You want you should know what I did to heem?"
With dramatic appreciation of what she was about to do, she went through the doorway to the room from which she had produced the kettle. They gaped at her returning, dragging, well off the floor, her grasp in the scruff of its neck, an enormous brownish-yellow body with underparts of dirty white and a gray face that snarled and showed its fangs in the stiff mask of death. Without an effort she lifted it full length with one arm and exhibited it before she flung it on the planks among the astonished, deeply impressed group.
"I think be git tired of mountain sheep, mebbe. Mebbe he smell those doughnuts. Annyway, I shoot him, back of the ear."
They bent over to examine the bullet-hole, fingering it, looking at her as they might have gazed at an actual Amazon.
"Mebbe that other one come along," she said. "Then I shoot heem, too. I think that flesh bane not much good, but that skeen, he make a pritty good rug. I set heem where it bane cool while I figger out best way to skeen heem."
"I'll skin him for you, Miss, if you'll give me a sharp knife," said the man, who had spoken of hearing the lion. "I'm a dab at that."
"All right." She picked up the great cat once more without effort and bore it off to the outer room where the volunteer skinner followed her.
"Where'd you learn to shoot, Miss—or Marm?" queried Hollister as Thora came back, leaving the door open after handing the man a lantern. "We figgered you was tenderfeet."
"Shoot? Any one can shoot if they got a good eye an' a steady hand. I can do anything a man can do," replied Thora with absolute statement.
"I believe you," said Jackson, quietly. Thora gave him a friendly look and turned again to Hollister. Her instinct recognized in him the really "bad man" of the crowd, aside from what Sheridan had suggested.
"You bane pritty strong?" she asked. "Did you ever try thees?"
She set her arm down on the table close to where he sat, extending it in a straight line from elbow to wrist, opening her fingers to a clutch. The men recognized the challenge and applauded.
"Bet she kin put you down, Hollister! You ain't game to try!"
Hollister scowled but he could not avoid the test. Mary Burrows looked a trifle anxious but Thora's blood was up. And there was a method back of the sport she proposed.
Hollister was not wearing a coat. He rolled up his sleeve from his hairy, corded arm, displaying muscles that might be a little flabby from drink and lack of exercise but which showed powerfully. The little frown on the girl's face deepened and Sheridan felt apprehensive that Thora might go down to defeat. A small thing might turn the tide. To pass the affair off without disturbance was the prime thing. Hollister, triumphant, might prove difficult to handle with gloves.
But he gasped when Thora rolled back the sleeve of her sweater. Her skin was startlingly fair above the sunburn of the wrist. It did not have the pearly quality of Mary Burrows'; it was like the arm of a marble statue brought to life. It had symmetry denied a man's but there were few men who would not have been proud of the packs of muscle that swelled and rippled in smooth sheathes as she flexed and unflexed them.
"You must not lift up from the table," she warned, as Hollister adjusted himself in his chair and then set his brown, furry forearm up against hers in vivid contrast, elbow to elbow, thumb locking thumb, four fingers clasped over four. He set out all his strength in a sudden burst. Thora's arm rippled, the muscles stood out, the veins showed but it did not budge. Once she relaxed her hand and let it flip backwards swiftly, regaining the pose instantly.
Then the rippling muscles tensed, seemed to grow. Her face was placid, she did not seem to be putting out especial effort, but the hushed, intent lookers-on saw Hollister's features congest with blood as he strained against the woman's steady force. Swollen veins showed in his forehead and neck, sweat began to form in beads and his arm faltered, swayed, then went slowly down until the back of his hand was fairly on the table. A roar of laughter went up as he sat there, discomfited, hate in his face, his hand half creeping to his belt.
"Anny one else?" asked Thora. Sheridan watched Hollister like a cat. The man was temporarily beside himself with rage and wounded pride. The jeers of his fellows were goading him to desperation.
Mary Burrows got Sheridan's eye and nodded. She got up and walked out between Hollister and the others.
"There are no more doughnuts," she said, "but there is plenty of coffee. I'll serve you while Thora gives you some music."
Jackson nearly shoved Sheridan from his chair by the lunge he gave him in his ribs.
"Ten you owe me, old-timer," he whispered.
It seemed incongruous, impossible, that the hands that had felled trees, killed the puma, set down Hollister, made the doughnuts, could produce such music as they had heard coming over the meadow. Even yet Sheridan was in doubt. The girl was letting Thora show off. But, as the big woman took up the instrument, he noticed how well-shaped were her fingers and how lissome. She cuddled the fiddle under her clean-cut chin, couched on her bosom, that had been undisturbed throughout her feat with Hollister, and turned a key, picking lightly at the strings. The man who had been skinning the puma came in. He had missed Hollister's defeat, and, chagrined at his lack of knowledge of the laughter, had hurried to finish his job.
"You've got a fine skin, there," he said. "Eight foot from snoot to tail-tip, or I'm a liar."
They hushed him down and Thora, taking up her bow, began to play.
There were folk-songs at first, lilting melodies some of them, others plaintive, all with the human note throbbing from the strings. That they were unfamiliar with them made no difference; they reached their hearts and they sat silent, enthralled. Thora played with no fireworks of execution, no great technique, but her ear was precise and, these things that she loved, she phrased beautifully.
She had them half-jigging finally to a dance, nodding their heads and tapping with their feet, as amiably, innocently delighted as children at a puppet show. Save for Hollister, who froze his face into a sneer. At last she put down the violin amid protest.
"Do you know 'Money Musk,' marm?" asked one of them. The size of Thora seemed to make it imperative for them to address her as if she were a matron. She looked puzzled.
"Not by name, I think," said Mary Burrows. "But she will remember it. It goes this way, Thora."
And she began to whistle, pursing up her mouth slightly, almost without movement of the lips, emitting fluty bird-notes. Thora took up the fiddle and began to accompany her with softened chords. "Money Musk" glided into a "Dixie" of piccolo and muted drums and then the girl began to whistle something that Sheridan fancied was improvisation, at least her own. Thora followed her with due repression.
It was the cooing of doves, the music of a brook, or buds in spring branches. The sweet, pure tone soared shrill and infinitely clear; it softened, dropped, died away—and left them staring, under the spell. Mary Burrows herself broke the silence.
"It's your turn now," she suggested.
Embarrassment thickened, nudges were exchanged.
"Red sings a little," said Sheridan mischievously.
"I do not. I got a voice like a crow."
There were calls for Spike, insistent, not to be silenced. An elongated, pock-marked ruffian got up, arms akimbo, seemingly not at all loath to air his accomplishment. An Adam's apple slithered up and down in his throat as he sang, his voice lugubrious as the howl of a coyote on a wet night. But to his companions it was as the voice of Caruso and they reveled in the chorus.
Come along, boys, an' listen ter my tale,
I'll tell you of my troubles on the old Panhandle Trail.
Comi ti yi, yuppi ya, yuppi ya.
Comi ti yi, yuppi, yuppi ya.
I started on the train October twenty-third,
I started up the trail with the Two-Bar herd.
And then the rollicking, reckless swing of the chorus. There were not more than three or four actual riders among them, but they were all from the Cow Country, after all.
Comi ti yi, yuppi ya, yuppi ya.
Comi ti yi, yuppi, yuppi ya.
I woke up in the mornin' on the ol' Panhandle Trail,
Rope in my hand an' a cow by the tail.
My hawss throwed me off at the crick called Mud,
My hawss throwed me off round the Two-Bar herd.
Last time I seen him he was goin' cross the level,
A kickin' up his heels an' a runnin' like the devil.
It's cloudy in the west, it's a lookin' like rain.
An' I've left my derned old slicker in th' waggin again.
No chaps an' no slicker an' a pourin' down rain,
I'm a son of a coyote if I night-herd again.
Foot in the stirrup an' hand on the horn,
The finest lookin' cowboy that ever was born.
Stray in the herd an' the boss said kill it.
So I shot him in the rump an' he landed in the skillet.
We rounded 'em up an' put 'em on the cars.
An' that was the end of the old Two-Bars.
The chorus, pounded out, left them flushed and proud of themselves as Mary Burrows thanked them.
"Thora will play once more before you go," she said. "I'm sorry we didn't have more doughnuts." She whispered to Thora. Some of the men had stood and reached for their hats. It was marvellous the way the two women had handled them, thought Sheridan. They were leaving meek as lambs and well satisfied. Except Hollister, who was palpably in the discard of this deal.
No matter how deep a man may get into a mucky rut, there are certain psychological reactions that may be counted upon. Some playwrights know them. To many they seem crude, the sentimental touches in a melodrama that bring down the gallery, the applause that comes from North and South when "Dixie" is played.
Thora played "Home, Sweet Home." It touched some spring, almost of reverence, revived unblighted childhoods, and it did more, it subtly invested the loghouse in the hollow of the mountain with a real sanctity. When Thora dropped her bow the men began to file towards the door in silence broken only by a "Thank you, marm an' miss, for a pleasant evenin'." Sheridan and Jackson remained a little, waiting for Hollister. He made no bow, no show of courtesy but went out into the night with a sneer.
"You were wonderful," said Sheridan to Mary Burrows.
"You two gave us a very comforting assurance," she answered. "They were not very hard to handle, after all. Except that one man, the one who just went out."
"He can be handled. We are going to ride with them, Red and myself. To see them safely off the premises. You'll let me make that gate for the tunnel, won't you?"
She looked at him without speaking and nodded. The lack of words was, to Sheridan, an expression of confidence.
"We'll bring it along, or the materials for it, when we make our bread-and-butter call," he said.
"Your coffee-and-doughnut call, you mean." She laughed and gave him her hand. "Thank you again. We shall hope to see you soon."
"What's that bread-an'-butter bis'ness?" asked Red as they got their horses from the shed.
"A social convention, Red, seldom used west of the Mississippi, save in cities."
"Humph! Pretty social convention here tonight, at that. 'Member what I said about 'Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast'? She worked—outside of Hollister. He's jest plain skunk, that hombre. I've got a hunch that idee of yours about the gate is a good one."
"We'll come over some morning with a wagon and fix it, Red. Come on."
They pressed blunt rowels to their horses' flanks and soon caught up with the rest. There was a good deal of chaff going on as they rode down the terraces to the tunnel but Sheridan did not hear anything lacking in respect or admiration. Hollister was silent. At the tunnel he went first, spraying the way with an electric torch he had brought from Metzal. The others trailed closely, Sheridan and Red in the rear. They were with the cavalcade, but not of it.
Out of the mountain, riding towards Pioche Gap, they let the horses stretch to a gallop. On the wagon road they slowed down. Hollister began to make remarks that brought laughter from those nearest to him, laughter of a kind that Sheridan did not fancy. He and Red pressed in closer to the leader who was trying to regain prestige. He noticed them, turning in his saddle, and raised his voice.
"Coffee—coffee and doughnuts! Hell!" he said in derision, up-ending the flask he had carried and flinging it crashing on the rocks of the stream. There had been more or less drinking going on since they had left the upland meadow.
"Didn't you like them doughnuts?" asked Jackson quietly. "I noticed you took two."
"Jest to make sure how punk they was. What's it to you?"
"I'm sorry you don't like doughnuts, Hollister. Becoz I'm aimin' to git a dozen, not the kind we eat tonight, but a dozen from Pioche. The staler they are the better. And I aim to feed 'em to you, one at a time, 'thout coffee, or water, an' between each you can tell me jest how much better was the ones you had fed you tonight, you ungrateful swine."
It was a challenge and an insult. There was small reason to think it a mere threat without purpose behind it. Red's voice, light enough, but unusually distinct, precluded that. Hollister glanced at him, seemingly undecided whether to take issue immediately. Drink was mounting in him but he was the type that goes into action better after a wordy skirmish.
"An' what'll I be doin' all that time?" he asked.
"Four-flushin', as usual," answered Red.
Hollister laughed but his laugh was drowned by the rest. He had not yet recovered his partisans. They were becoming more their normal selves with each sup of liquor but they were still ready to laugh at Hollister, not wait to laugh with him. He glanced uncertainly at Jackson, then at Sheridan, who was close to him on the opposite side from Red. Their eyes were blank, their faces unmoved, stony. Why had they always managed to get the better of him? So far.
He called for a drink from a comrade who had not finished his share of the stuff that Vasquez had sold them. It added to the rising flood of resentment within him, gave him more assurance. Under cover of returning the flask, he pushed ahead of the two men from the Circle S. Soon they would come to the Metzal end of the Gap and the party would split.
"The big one," said Hollister, after still another borrowed aid to bravado, "ought to be in a side-show. She's a reg'lar freak. Still, the two of 'em might do a sister-act in vodeville. Fiddlin' an' whistlin'. The little 'un wouldn't look so bad in tights. I was noticin'"
The sorrel mare felt the prick of sudden spurs, sharper than usual. With the roan, she leaped forward, shouldering aside a rider who was forced into the creek, swearing, but stopping his curses at the sight of Sheridan's face, eager to listen and to see—not to mix in. Hollister found himself jammed in, sandwiched between the roan and the sorrel; he felt the knee of Sheridan against the hollow of his own, the same on Jackson's side. For all the fire of the whisky he was suddenly a little chill.
"Hollister," said Sheridan, "you are a parasite, a predatory parasite. I'll translate that into a word of one syllable so you can't mistake what I mean. You're a louse. You live in dirt and, when you happen to be where it is clean, you show up all the stronger for the vermin you are. You mention those ladies again, here, anywhere, at any time or place where I may hear of it, and you'll do no more talking."
"Some of yore fancy gun-play, eh?" Hollister strove to hold his voice at the right note of jeering repartee.
"If I ever come to settling matters with you, Hollister, I hope it will not be with my gun. I'd prefer to handle you."
"That same goin' double," interjected Jackson.
"You're brave, two to one, ain't you?"
"It isn't two to one, Hollister," went on Sheridan. "There isn't a cowman on my ranch, on all the mesa, but is backing me in this, once they knew of it. We are getting tired of your sort on Chico Mesa, Hollister. Some day we may start in to clean house. But this is between you and me, right now. You keep a polite tongue in your head or—" he caught at the reins as Hollister tried to get ahead. Red copying his action on the other side, holding the brute curbed—"you remember what you did to that red and white heifer, Hollister? I'll do the same to you. Keep the names of those women free of your mouth or I'll slit that slimy tongue of yours."
He relinquished the reins. They had come out of the Gap. Jackson prodded Hollister's mount with his own spur. It shot ahead and he and Sheridan turned off across the mesa towards the Circle S. The crowd from Metzal rode in silence. That threat of Sheridan's had carried conviction. And they let Hollister ride a little apart, as if they were not anxious to be too closely identified with him.