CHAPTER IX
NANCY FLEET'S WINDFALL
Jessamy Selden stood before the cheap soft-wood dresser in her bedroom, in a wing of the old log house, and completed the braiding of the two long, thick strands of cold-black hair. Then in the cozy little sitting room, which adjoined the bedroom and was hers alone, she slipped on her morocco-top riding boots and buckled spur straps over her insteps.
The sun had not yet climbed the wooded ridges beyond Poison Oak Ranch. The night before the girl had prepared a cold breakfast for herself; and with this wrapped in paper she left the sitting room by its outside door and ran to the corral. The family was at breakfast in the vast room. Hurlock's and Winthrop's families were likewise engaged in their respective houses. So no one was about to disturb or even see Jessamy as she hastily threw the saddle on White Ann, leaped into it, and rode away.
When she had left the clearing, and the noise of rapid hoofbeats would not be heard, she lifted the mare into a gallop. At this reckless speed they swung into the trail and plunged hazardously down the mountainside along the serpentine trail. They forded the river, took the trail on the other side, and raced madly up it until compassion for her labouring mount forced the rider to rein in. Now she ate her breakfast of cold baked apple and cold fried mush in the saddle as the mare clambered upward.
At sunrise they topped the ridge and took up the lope again toward the headwaters of Clinker Creek. Long before she reached it Jessamy saw a bay horse and its rider at rest, with the early sunlight playing on the flashing silver of the famous saddle and bridle of Oliver Drew.
"Let's go!" she cried merrily as White Ann, convinced that some devilment was afoot, cavorted and humped her back and shied from side to side while she bore down swiftly on the waiting pair.
For answer Oliver Drew pressed his calves against Poche's ribs, and the bay leaped to White Ann's side with a snort that showed he had caught the spirit of the coming adventure, whatever it might prove to be. At a gallop they swung into the county road, Poche producing a challenging metallic rattle by rolling the wheel of his halfbreed bit with his tongue, straining at the reins, and bidding the equally defiant white to do that of which "angels could do no more."
"Good morning!" cried Oliver. "What's the rush?"
"Old Man Selden is riding to Aunt Nancy's today," she shouted back. "Good morning!"
"Oh! In that case, if that white crowbait you're riding hadn't already come three miles, we'd find out whether she can run. She's telling the world she can."
Jessamy made a face at him and, leaning forward, caressed the mare's smooth neck. White Ann evidently considered this a sign of abetment, for she plunged and reared and cast fiery looks of scorn at her pseudo rival.
"There, there, honey!" soothed the girl. "We could leave that old flea-bitten relic so far behind it would be cruelty to animals to do it. Just wait till we're coming back, after we've rested and have an even chance; for I really believe the man wants to be fair."
Oliver's eyes were filled with her as her strong, sinewy figure followed every unexpected movement of the plunging mare as if a magnet held her in the saddle. The dew of the morning was on her lips; the flush of it on her cheeks. Her long black braids whipped about in the wind like streamers from the gown of a classic dancer. The picture she made was the most engrossing one he had ever looked on.
They slowed to a walk after a mile of it.
"Well," said Jessamy, "I delivered your letter."
"Yes? Go on. That's a good start."
"It created quite a scene. Old Adam simply won't – can't – believe that you own the Old Ivison Place. So that's why he's fogging it up to Aunt Nancy's today. I think we'll be an hour ahead of him, though, and can be at the reservation by the time he reaches the house."
"Is he angry?"
"Ever try to convince a wasp that you have more right on earth than he has?" Her white teeth gleamed against the background of red lips and sunburned skin.
"Well?"
"He says that, whether you own the place or not, you'll have to leave."
"M'm-m! That's serious talk. In some places I've visited it would be called fighting talk."
"Number this place among them, Mr. Drew," she said soberly, turning her dark, serious eyes upon him.
"But I didn't come up here to fight!"
"Neither did the President of the United States take his seat in Washington to fight," she pointed out, keeping that level glance fixed on his face.
"Oh, as to that," mused Oliver after a thoughtful pause, "I guess I can fight. They didn't send me back from France as entirely useless. But it strikes me as a very stupid proceeding. Look here, Miss Selden – how many acres of grass does your step – er – Old Man Selden run cows on for the summer grazing? – how many acres in the Clinker Creek Country, in short?"
Jessamy pursed her lips. "Perhaps four thousand," she decided after thought.
"Uh-huh. And on my forty there's about fifteen acres, all told, that represents grass land. The rest is timber and chaparral. Now, fifteen acres added to four thousand makes four thousand fifteen acres. The addition would take care of perhaps five additional animals for the three months or more that his stock remains in that locality. Do you mean to tell me that Adam Selden would attempt to run a man out of the country for that?"
She closed her eyes and nodded her head slowly up and down in a childlike fashion that always amused him. It meant "Just that!"
He gave a short laugh of unbelief.
"Listen," she cautioned: "Don't make the fatal mistake of taking this matter too lightly, Mr. Drew."
"But heavens!" he cried. "A man who would attempt to dispossess another for such a slight gain as that would rob a blind beggar of the pennies in his cup! I've had a short interview with Old Man Selden. Corrupt he may be, but he struck me as an old sinner who would be corrupt on a big scale. I couldn't think of the masterful old reprobate I talked with as a piker."
Jessamy locked a leg about her saddle horn. "You've got him about right," she informed her companion. "One simply is obliged to think of him as big in many ways."
Oliver's leg now crooked itself toward her, and he slouched down comfortably. "Say," he said, "I don't get you at all."
"Don't get me?" She was not looking at him now.
"No, I don't. One moment you said he would put the skids under me for the slight benefit from my fifteen acres of grass. Next moment you maintain that he is not a piker."
"Yes."
Oliver rolled a cigarette. Not until it was alight did he say:
"Well, you haven't explained yet."
She was silent, her eyes on the glittering snow of the far-off Sierras. For the first time since he had met her he found her strangely at a loss for words. And had her direct gaze faltered? Were her eyes evading his? And was the rich colour of her skin a trifle heightened, or was it the glow from the sun, ever reddening as it climbed its ancient ladder in the sky?
She turned to him then – suddenly. There was in her eyes a look partly of amusement, partly of chagrin, partly of shame.
"I can't answer you," she stated simply. "I blundered, that's all. Opened my mouth and put my foot in it."
"But can't you tell me how you did that even?"
"I talk too much," was her explanation. "Like poor old Henry Dodd, I went too far on dangerous ground."
Oliver tilted his Stetson over one eye and scratched the nape of his neck. "I pass," he said.
"That reminds me," was her quick return, "I sat in at a dandy game of draw last night. There was – "
"Wh-what!"
"And now I have both feet in my mouth," she cried. "And you'll have to admit that comes under the heading, 'Some Stunt.' I thought I saw a chance to brilliantly change the subject, but I see that I'm worse off than before. For now you're not only mystified but terribly shocked."
He gave this thirty seconds of study.
"I'll have to admit that you jolted me," he laughed, his face a little redder. "I'm not accustomed to hearing young ladies say, 'I sat in at a dandy little game of draw' – just like that. But I'm sure I went too far when I showed surprise."
"And what's your final opinion on the matter?" She was amused – Not worried, not defiant.
"Well, I – I don't just know. I've never given such a matter a great deal of thought."
"Do so now, please."
Obediently he tried as they rode along.
"One thing certain," he said at last, "it's your own business."
"Oh, you haven't thought at all! Keep on."
A minute later he asked: "Do you like to play poker?"
"Yes."
"For – er – money?"
"'For – er – money.' What d'ye suppose – crochet needles?"
Then he took up his studies once more.
Finally he roused himself, removed his leg from the horn, and straightened in the saddle.
"Settled at last!" she cried. "And the answer is…?"
"The answer is, I don't give a whoop if you do."
"You approve, then?"
"Of everything you do."
"Well, I don't approve of that," she told him. "I don't, and I do. But listen here: One of the few quotations that I think I spout accurately is 'When in Rome do as the Romans do.' I'm 'way off there in the hills. I'm a pretty lonely person, as I once before informed you. Yet I'm a gregarious creature. We have no piano, few books – not even a phonograph. Bolar Selden squeezes a North-Sea piano – in other words an accordion. Of late years accordion playing has been elevated to a place among the arts; but if you could hear Bolar you'd be convinced that he hasn't kept pace with progress. He plays 'The Cowboy's Lament' and something about 'Says the wee-do to the law-yer, O spare my only che-ild!' Ugh! He gives me the jim-jams.
"So the one and only indoor pastime of Seldenvilla is draw poker. Now, if you were in my place, would you be a piker and a spoilsport and a pink little prude, or would you be human and take out a stack?"
"I understand," he told her. "I think I'd take out a stack."
"And besides," she added mischievously, "I won nine dollars and thirty cents last night."
"That makes it right and proper," he chuckled. "But we've wandered far afield. Why did you say that Selden would try to run me off my toy ranch in one breath, and that he is wicked only in a big way in the next?"
"I'd prefer to quarrel over poker playing," she said. "Please, I blundered – and I can't answer that question. But maybe you'll learn the answer to it today. We'll see. Be patient."
"But I'll not learn from you direct."
"I'm afraid not."
"I think I understand – partly," he said after another intermission. "It must be that there's another – a bigger – reason why he wants me out of Clinker Creek Cañon."
"You've guessed it. I may as well own up to that much. But I can't tell you more – now. Don't ask me to."
After this there was nothing for the man to do but to keep silent on the subject. So they talked of other things till their horses jogged into Calamity Gap.
Here was a town as picturesque as Halfmoon Flat, and wrapped in the same traditions. Jessamy's Aunt Nancy Fleet lived in a little shake-covered cottage on the hillside, overlooking the drowsy hamlet and the railroad tracks.
It appeared that all of the Ivison girls had been unfortunate in marrying short-lived men. Nancy Fleet was a widow, and two other sisters besides Jessamy's mother had likewise lost husbands.
Nancy Fleet was a still comely woman of sixty, with snow-white hair and Jessamy's black eyes. She greeted her niece joyously, and soon the three were seated in her stuffy little parlour.
Oliver opened up the topic that had brought him there. Mrs. Fleet, after stating that she did so because he was Oliver Drew, readily made answer to his questions.
Yes, she had sold the Old Ivison Place to a Mr. Peter Drew something like fifteen years before. She had never met him till he called on her, and no one else at Calamity Gap had known anything about him.
He told that he had made inquiry concerning her, and that this had resulted in his becoming satisfied that she was a woman who would keep her word and might be trusted implicitly. This being so, he told her that he would relieve her of the Old Ivison Place, if she would agree to keep silent regarding the transfer until he or his son had assured her that secrecy was no longer necessary. For her consideration of his wishes in this connection he told her that he was willing to pay a good price for the land.
As there seemed to be no rascality coupled with the request, she gave consent. For years she had been trying to dispose of the property for five hundred dollars. Now Peter Drew fairly took her breath away by offering twenty-five hundred. He could well afford to pay this amount, he claimed, and was willing to do so to gain her co-operation in the matter of secrecy. She had accepted. The transfer of the property was made under the seal of a notary public at the county seat, and the money was promptly paid.
Then Peter Drew had gone away with his deed, and for fifteen years she had made the inhabitants of the country think that she still owned the Old Ivison Place simply by saying nothing to the contrary. She had been told to accept any rentals that she might be able to derive from it – to use it as her own. For several years Peter Drew had regularly forwarded her a bank draft to cover the taxes. Then Adam Selden had offered to pay the taxes for the use of the land, and she had written Peter Drew to that effect and told him to send no more tax money until further notice. Since that date she had heard no more from the mysterious purchaser of the land.
She was surprised to learn that the transfer had at last been recorded, but could throw no light whatever on the proceedings.
She took a motherly interest in Oliver because of his father, whose generosity had greatly benefited her. In fact, she said, she couldn't for the life of her tell how she'd got along without that money.
"And whatever shall I say, dearie, when Adam Selden comes to me today?" she asked her niece. "I'm afraid of the man – just afraid of him."
"Pooh!" Jessamy deprecated. "He's only a man. Oliver Drew's coming, and the fact that the transfer has at last been placed on record leaves you free to tell all you know. So just tell Old Adam what you've told Mr. Drew, and say you know nothing more about it. But whatever else you say, don't cheep that we've been here, Auntie."
"Well, I hope and trust he'll believe me," she sighed as she showed her callers out.
"Now," said Jessamy, as they remounted, "we'll ride away and be at the reservation by the time Old Adam arrives here. What do you think of your mystery by now, Mr. Drew?"
"It grows deeper and deeper," Oliver mused.
CHAPTER X
JESSAMY'S HUMMINGBIRD
A steep, tall mountain, heavily wooded, reared itself above the Indian reservation. A creek tumbled over the boulders in the mountainside and raced through the village of huts; and the combined millions of all the irrigation and power companies in the West could not have bought a drop of its water until Uncle Sam's charges had finished with it and set it free again.
It was a picturesque spot. Huge liveoaks, centuries old, sprawled over the cabins. Tiny gardens dotted the sunny land. Horses and dogs were anything but scarce, and up the mountainside goats and burros browsed off the chaparral. Wrinkled old squaws washed clothes at the creekside, or pounded last season's acorns into bellota– the native dish – in mortars hollowed in solid stone. Some made earthen ollas of red clay; some weaved baskets. Over all hung that weird, indescribable odour which only Indians or their much-handled belongings can produce.
"This is peace," smiled Oliver to Jessamy, as their horses leaped the stream side by side and cantered toward the cluster of dark, squat huts. "What do they call this reservation?"
"It is named after an age-old dweller in our midst whom, since you are a Westerner, you must have often met."
"Who is that?"
"Mr. Rattlesnake."
"Oh, certainly. I've met him on many occasions – mostly to his sorrow, I fancy. Rattlesnake Reservation, eh?"
"Well, that would be it in English. But in the Pauba tongue Mr. Rattlesnake becomes Showut Poche-daka."
"What's that!" Oliver turned quickly in his saddle to find her dark wide eyes fixed on him intently. "Say that again, please."
"Showut Poche-daka," she repeated slowly.
"M'm-m! Strikes me as something of a coincidence – a part of that name."
"Showut is one word," she said, still watching him. "Poche and daka are two words hyphenated."
"And how do the English-speaking people spell the second word, Poche?" he asked.
"P-o-c-h-e," she spelled distinctly. "Long o, accent on the first syllable."
Oliver reined in. "Stop a second," he ordered crisply. "Why, that's the way my horse's name is spelled. Say, that's funny!"
"Is your trail growing plainer?"
He looked at her earnestly. "Look here," he said bluntly. "I distinctly remember telling you the other day that my horse's name is Poche. Didn't you connect it with the name of the reservation at the time?"
"I did."
He looked at her in silence. "You did, eh?" he remarked finally. "I don't even know what my horse's name means. Dad bought him while I was away at college. I understood the horse was named that when Dad got hold of him, and that he merely hadn't changed it. Now, I won't say that Dad told me as much outright, but I gathered that impression somehow. I knew it was an Indian name, but had no idea of the meaning."
"Literally Poche means bob-tailed – short-tailed. That's why it occurs in the title of our friend Mr. Rattlesnake. While your Poche-horse is not bob-tailed, his tail is rather heavy and short, you'll admit. Has nothing of the length and graceful sweep of White Ann's tail, if you'll pardon me."
"You can't lead me into joshing just now, young lady. Answer this: Why didn't you tell me, when I told you my caballo's name, that you knew what it meant? Most everybody asks me what it means when I tell 'em his name; but you did not even show surprise over the oddity of it – and I wondered. And before, when you spoke of this tribe of Indians, you called them the Paubas."
"Certainly I showed no surprise, for I am familiar with the word poche and have just proved that I know its meaning. And I'm not very clever at simulating an emotion that I don't feel. I didn't tell you, moreover, because I wanted you to find out for yourself. I thought you'd do so here. Yes – and I deliberately called these people the Paubas. They are Paubas – a branch of the Pauba tribe."
"I thought you were to help me," he grumbled. "You're adding to the mystery, it seems to me."
"Not at all. I'm showing you the trail. You must follow it yourself. Knowing the country, I see bits here and there that tell me where to go to help you out. Poche's name is one of them. Keep your eyes and ears open while I'm steering you around."
"All right," he agreed after a pause. "Lead on!"
"Then we'll make a call on Chupurosa Hatchinguish," she proposed. "Chupurosa means hummingbird, as you doubtless know, since it is Spanish. And if my Chupurosa isn't a bird and also a hummer, I never hope to see one."
Oliver's riding outfit created a sensation as the two entered the village. Faces appeared in doorways. Squat, dark men, their black-felt hats invariably two sizes too large, came from nowhere, it seemed, to gaze silently. Dogs barked. Women ceased their simple activities and chattered noisily to one another.
Jessamy reined in before a black low door presently, and left the saddle. Oliver followed her. Through a profusion of morning-glories the girl led the way to the door and knocked.
From within came a guttural response, and, with a smile at her companion, she passed through the entrance.
It was so dark within that for a little Oliver, coming from the bright sunlight, could see almost nothing. Then the light filtering in through the vines that covered the hut grew brighter.
The floor was of earth, beaten brick-hard by the padding of tough bare feet. In the centre was a fireplace – little more than a circle of blackened stones – from which the smoke was sucked out through a hole in the roof, presumably after it had considerately asphyxiated the occupants of the dwelling. Red earthenware and beautifully woven baskets represented the household utensils. There were a few old splint-bottom chairs, a pack-saddle hanging on the wall, a bed of green willow boughs in one corner.
These simple items he noticed later, and one by one. For the time being his interested attention was demanded by the figure that sat humped over the fire, smoking a black clay pipe.
Chupurosa Hatchinguish, headman of the Showut Poche-dakas and a prominent figure in the fiestas and yearly councils of the Pauba tribes, was a treasure for anthropologists. Years beyond the ken of most human beings had wrought their fabric in his face. It was cross-hatched, tattooed, pitted, knurled, and wrinkled till one was reminded of the surface of some strange, intricately veined leaf killed and mummified by the frost. From this crunched-leather frame two little jet-black eyes blazed out with the unquenched fires of youth and all the wisdom in the world. A black felt hat, set straight on his iron-grey hair and almost touching ears and eyebrows, faded-blue overalls, and a dingy flannel shirt completed his garb, as he wore nothing on his feet.
"Hello, my Hummingbird!" Jessamy cried merrily in the Spanish tongue.
Chupurosa seemed not to be the stoic, "How-Ugh!" sort of Indian with which fiction has made the world familiar. All the tragedy and unsolvable mystery of his race was written in his face, but he could smile and laugh and talk, and seemed to enjoy life hugely.
His leathery face now parted in a grin, and, though he did not rise, he extended a rawhide hand and made his callers welcome. Then he waved them to seats.
Much as any other human being would do, he politely inquired after the girl's health and that of her family. Asked as to his own, he shook his head and made a rheumatic grimace.
"I've brought a friend to see you, Chupurosa," said Jessamy at last, as, for some reason or other, she had not yet exactly introduced Oliver.
Chupurosa looked at the man inquiringly and waited.
"This is Oliver Drew," said the girl in what Oliver thought were unnatural, rather tense tones. He saw Jessamy's lips part slightly after his name, and that she was watching the old man intently.
Chupurosa nodded in an exaggerated way, and extended a hand, though the two had already gone through the handshake formality. Oliver arose and did his part again, then stood a bit awkwardly before their host.
He heard a half-sigh escape the girl. "Señor Drew has not been in our country long," she informed the old man. "He comes from the southern part of the state – from San Bernardino County."
Again the exaggerated nodding on the part of Chupurosa.
Then there was a pause, which the girl at length broke —
"Did you catch the name, Chupurosa? Oliver Drew."
Chupurosa politely but haltingly repeated it, and grinned accommodatingly.
Jessamy tried again. "Do you know a piece of land down in Clinker Creek Cañon that is called the Old Ivison Place, Chupurosa?"
His nod this time was thoughtful.
"Señor Drew now owns that, and lives there," she added.
Both Jessamy and Oliver were watching him keenly. It seemed to Oliver that there was the faintest suggestion of dilation of the eye-pupils as this last bit of information was imparted. Still, it may have meant nothing.
The Indian crumbled natural-leaf with heel of hand and palm, and refilled his terrible pipe.
"Any friend of yours is welcome to this country and to my hospitality," he said.
"Señor Drew rode all the way up here horseback," the girl pushed on. "You like good horses, Chupurosa. Señor Drew has a fine one. His name is Poche."
For the fraction of a second the match that Oliver had handed Chupurosa stood stationary on its trip to the tobacco in his pipe. Chupurosa nodded in his slow way again, and the match completed its mission and fell between the blackened stones.
"And you like saddles and bridles, too, I know. You should see Señor Drew's equipment, Chupurosa."
Several thoughtful puffs. Then —
"Is it here, Señorita?"
"Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "Will you go out and look at it?"
This time the headman puffed for nearly a minute; then suddenly he rose with surprising briskness.
"I will look at this horse called Poche," he announced, and stalked out ahead of them.
A number of Indians, old and young, had gathered about the horses outside the little gate. They were silent but for a low, seemingly guarded word to one another now and then. Every black eye there was fixed on the gorgeous saddle and bridle of Poche in awe and admiration.
Then came Chupurosa, tall, dignified as the distant mountain peaks, and they backed off instantly. At his heels were Oliver and the girl, whose cheeks now glowed like sunset clouds and whose eyes spoke volumes.
Thrice in absolute silence the headman walked round the horse. Completing the third trip, he stepped to Poche's head and stood attentively looking at the left-hand concha with its glistening stone. Then Chupurosa lifted his hands, slipped the chased-silver keeper that held the throatlatch in place, and let the throatlatch drop. Both hands grasped the cheekstrap near the brow-band, and turned this part of the bridle inside out.
Oliver felt a slight trembling, it was all so weird, so portentous. He almost knew that the jet eyes were searching for the "B" chiselled into the silver on the inside of the concha, knew positively by the quick dilation of the pupils when they found it.
At once the old man released the bridle and readjusted the throatlatch. He turned to them then, and silently motioned toward the hut. Jessamy cast a triumphant glance at Oliver as they followed him inside.
To Oliver's surprise he closed the door after them. Then, though it was now so dark inside that Oliver could scarce see at all, Chupurosa stood directly before him and looked him up and down.
He spoke now in the melodious Spanish.
"Señor," he asked, "is there in the middle of your body, on the left side, the scar of a wound like a man's eye?"
Oliver caught his breath. "Yes," he replied. "I brought it back from France. A bayonet wound."
Up and down went the iron-grey head of the sage. "I have never seen the weapon nor the sort of wound it makes," he informed Oliver gravely. "Take off your shirt."
"Oh, Chupu-ro-sa!" screamed Jessamy as she threw open the door and slammed it after her.