Shadow Mountain

“Oh, he hears things–and gets messages–and talks about Death Valley. He got lost over there, three years ago last August, and the heat kind of cooked his brains. He heard your automobile, when you came back to-night–that’s why mother and all the rest of them went over to the mine to get you. I’m sorry she shot you up.”

“Well, don’t you care,” he said reassuringly. “But she sure overplayed her hand.”

“Yes, she did,” acknowledged Virginia, trying not to quarrel with her patient, “but, of course, she didn’t know about that tax sale.”

“Well, she knows it now,” he answered pointedly, and when Charley came back they were silent. Virginia bandaged up his wound and slipped away and then Wiley lay back and sighed. There had been a time when he and Virginia had been friends, but now the fat was in the fire. It was her fighting mother, of course, and their quarrel about the Paymaster; but behind it all there was the old question between their fathers, and he knew that his father was right. He had not rigged the stock market, he had not cheated Colonel Huff, and he had not tried to get back the mine. That was a scheme of his own, put on foot on his own initiative–and brought to nothing by the Widow. He had hoped to win over Virginia and effect a reconciliation, but that hole in his leg told him all too well that the Widow could never be fooled. And, since she could not be placated, nor bought off, nor bluffed, there was nothing to do but quit. The world was large and there were other Virginias, as well as other Paymasters–only it seemed such a futile waste. He sighed again and then Death Valley Charley burst out into a cackling laugh.

“I heard you,” he said, “I heard you coming–away up there in the pass. Chuh, chuh, chuh, chud, chud, chud, chud; and I told Virginny you was coming.”

“Yes, I heard about it,” answered Wiley sourly, “and then you told the Widow.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t!” exulted Charley. “She’d’ve killed you, sure as shooting. I just told Virginny, that’s all.”

“Oh!” observed Wiley, and lay so still that Charley regarded him intently. His eyes were blue and staring like a newborn babe’s, but behind their look of childlike innocence there lurked a crafty smile.

“I told her,” went on Charley, “that you was coming to git her and take her away in your auto. She’s a nice girl, Virginny, and never rode in one of them things–I never thought you’d try to steal her mine.”

“I did not!” denied Wiley, but Death Valley only smiled and waved the matter aside.

“Never mind,” he said, “they’re all crazy, anyhow. They get that way every north wind. I’m here to take care of them–the Colonel asked me to, and keep people from stealing his mine. It’s electricity that does it–it’s about us everywhere–and that’s what makes ’em crazy; but electricity is my servant; I bend it to my will; that’s how I come to hear you. I heard you coming back, away out on the desert, and I knowed your heart wasn’t right. You was coming back to rob the Colonel of his mine; and the Colonel, he saved my life once. He ain’t dead, you know, he’s over across Death Valley in them mountains they call the Ube-Hebes. Yes, I was lost on the desert and he followed my tracks and found me, running wild through the sand-hills; and then Virginia and Mrs. Huff, they looked after me until my health returned.”

“You can hear pretty well, then,” suggested Wiley diplomatically. “You must know everything that goes on.”

“It’s the electricity!” declared Charley. “It’s about us everywhere, and that’s what makes them crazy. All these desert rats are crazy, it’s the electric storms that does it–Nevada is a great state for winds. But when they comes a sandstorm, and Mrs. Huff she wraps up her head, I feel the power coming on. I can hear far away and then I can hear close–I make the electricity my slave. But the rest, they go crazy; they have headaches and megrims, and Mrs. Huff she always wants to fight; but I’m here to take care of ’em–the Colonel asked me to, so you keep away from that mine.”

“Oh, sure,” responded Wiley, “I won’t bother the mine. As soon as I’m well I’ll go home.”

“No, you stay,” returned Charley, becoming suddenly confidential. “I’ll show you a mountain of gold. It’s over across Death Valley, in the Ube-Hebes; the Colonel is over there now.”

“Is that so?” inquired Wiley, and Charley looked at him strangely, as if dazed.

“Aw, no; of course not!” he burst out angrily. “I forgot–the Colonel is dead. You Heine; come over here, sir.”

Heine crept up unwillingly and Charley slapped him. “Now–shut up!” he admonished and went off into crazy mutterings.

“What’s that?” he cried, rousing up suddenly to listen, and a savage look replaced the blank stare. “Can’t you hear him?” he asked. “It’s Stiff Neck George–he’s coming up the alley to kill you. Here, take my gun; and when he opens the door you fill him full of holes!”

Wiley listened intently, then he reached for the heavy pistol and sat up, watching the door. The wind soughed and howled and rattled at the windows, over which Charley had stretched heavy blankets, and it seemed to his startled imagination that someone was groping at the door. The memory of the skulking form that had followed him rose up with the distinctness of a vision and at a knock on the door he cocked his pistol and beckoned Death Valley to one side.

“Come in!” he called, but as the door swung open it was Virginia who stood facing his gun.

“O–oh!” she screamed, and then she flushed angrily as Charley began to laugh.

“Well, laugh then, you fool,” she said to Wiley, “and when you’re through, just look at this that we found!”

She held up the ore-bag that Wiley had lost and strode dramatically in. “Look at that!” she cried, and strewing the white quartz on the table she pointed her finger in his face. “You stole my specimen!” she cried accusingly. “That’s why you came back for more. But you give it back to me–I want it this minute. I see you’re honest–like your father!”

She spat it out venomously, more venomously than was needful, for he was already fumbling for the rock; and when he gave it back he smiled over-scornfully and his lower lip mounted up.

“All right,” he said, “you don’t have to holler for it. You’re getting to be just like your mother.”

“I’m not!” she denied, but after looking at him a minute she burst into tears and fled.

CHAPTER VI

All Crazy

The wind was still blowing when Wiley was awakened by the cold of the October morning. In the house all was dark, on account of the blankets which Death Valley had nailed over the windows, but outside he could hear the thump of an axe and the whining yelp of a dog. Then Charley came in, his arms full of wood, and lit a roaring fire in the stove. Wiley dozed off again, for his leg had pained him and kept him awake half the night, and when he woke up it was to the strains of music and the mournful howls of Heine.

“Ah, you are so confectionate!” exclaimed Charley in honeyed tones and laughed and patted him on the back. “Don’t you like the fiddle, Heine? Well, listen to this now; the sweetest song of all.”

He stopped the rasping phonograph to put on another record and when Heine heard “Listen to the Mocking-bird” he barked and leapt with joy. Wiley listened for awhile, then he stirred in bed and at last he tried to get up; but his leg was very stiff and old Charley was oblivious, so he sank back and waited impatiently. Heine sat upon the floor before the largest of three phonographs, which ground out the Mocking-bird with variations; and each time he heard the whistled notes of the bird he rolled his eyes on Charley with a soulful, beseeching glance. The evening before, when his master had cuffed him, Wiley had considered Heine badly abused; but now as the concert promised to drag on indefinitely he was forced to amend his opinion.

“Say,” he spoke up at last, in a pause between records, “what’s the chance of getting something to eat?”

“Yes, there’s plenty,” answered Charley, and went on with his frolic until Wiley rose up in disgust. He had heated some water, besides tearing down a blanket and letting the daylight in, when there came a hurried knock at the door and the Widow appeared with his breakfast. She avoided his eyes, but her manner was ingratiating and she supplied the conversation herself.

“Good morning!” she smiled,–“Charley, stop that awful racket and let Heine go out for his scraps. Well, I brought you your breakfast–Virginia isn’t feeling very well–and I hope you’re going to be all right. No, get right back into bed and I’ll prop you up with pillows; Charley’s got a hundred or so. I declare, it’s a question which can grab the most; old Charley or Stiff Neck George. Every time anyone moves out–and sometimes when they don’t–you’ll see those two ghouls hanging around; and the minute they’re gone, well, you never saw anything like it, the way they will fight for the loot. Charley’s got a whole room filled up with bedding, and stoves and tables and chairs; and George–he’s vicious–he takes nearly everything and piles it up down in his warehouse. It isn’t his, of course, but─”

“He hauls it off in a wheelbarrow,” broke in Charley, virtuously. “He don’t care what he does. They was a widow woman here whose daughter got sick and she had to go out for a week, and when she came back─”

“Yes, her whole house was looted–he carried off even her sewing-machine!”

“And a deep line of wheelbarrow tracks,” added Charley, unctuously, “leading from her house right down to his. She nailed up all her windows before she went, but he─”

“Yes, he broke in,” supplied the Widow. “He’s a desperate character and everybody is afraid of him, so he can do whatever he pleases; but you bet your life he can’t run it over me–I filled him up with buckshot twice. Oh–that is–er–did you ever hear how he got his head twisted? Well, go right ahead now and eat up your toast. I asked him one time–that was before we’d had our trouble–what was the cause of his head being to one side. He looks, you know, for all the world like he was watching for a good kick from behind; but he tried to appear pathetic and told me a long story about saving a mother and her child in a flood. And when it was all over, according to him, he fell down in a faint in the mud; but the best accounts I get say he was dead drunk in the gutter and woke up with his head on one side.”

She ended with a sniff and Wiley glanced at Charley, but he was staring blankly away.

“I don’t like that man,” spoke up Charley at last, “he kicked my dog, one time.”

“And he bootlegs something awful,” added the Widow, desperately, for fear that the chatter would lag. “There doesn’t a day go by but some drunken Piute comes whooping up the road, and that bunch of Shooshonnies─”

“Yes, he sells to the bucks,” observed Death Valley, slyly. “They’re no good–they get drunk and tell. But you can trust the squaws–I had one here yesterday─”

“You what?” shrieked the Widow, and Charley looked up startled, then rose and whistled to his dog.

“Go lay down!” he commanded and slapped him till he yelped, after which he slipped fearfully away.

“The very idea!” exclaimed the Widow frigidly and then she glanced at Wiley.

“Mr. Holman,” she began, “I came out here to talk business–there’s nothing round-the-corner about me. Now what about this tax sale, and what does Blount mean by allowing you to buy it in for nothing?”

“Well, I don’t know,” answered Wiley. “He refused to pay the taxes, so I bought in the property myself.”

“Yes, but what does he mean?”

The Widow’s voice rose to the old quarrelsome, nagging pitch, and Wiley winced as if he had been stabbed.