Читать книгу The Mine with the Iron Door - Harold Bell Wright - Страница 5

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“Marta is bound to know, when she stops to think about it, that she jest can’t have two fathers.”

THE house in the Cañon of Gold where the Pardners and their girl lived was little more than a cabin of rough, unpainted boards. But there was a wide porch overrun with vines, and a vegetable garden with flowers. Beyond the garden there was a rude barn or shelter, built as the Indians build, of sahuaro poles and mud, with a small corra made of thorny ocotillo, and the place as a whole was roughly inclosed by an old fence of mesquite posts and barbed wire. On every side the mountains rose—ridge and dome and peak—into the sky, and night and day, through summer droughts and winter rains, the cañon creek murmured or sang or roared on its way from the woodsy heart of the Catalinas to lose itself in the sandy wastes of the desert below. The little mine where the Pardners worked was across the creek a hundred yards or more from the kitchen door.

It was that time of the year when, if the rain gods of the Indians have been kind, the deserts and mountains of Arizona riot in a blaze of color. On the mountain sides, silvery white Apache plumes and graceful wands of brilliant scarlet mallow were nodding amid the lilac of the loco-weed, while, in every glade and damp depression, the gold of the buck-bean shone in settings of brightest green. And on the cañon floor, the pink white bloom of cañon anemone, with yellow primroses and whispering bells, made points and patches of light in the shadow of the rocky walls.

It is not enough to say that the Pardners’ girl fully justified the Lizard’s somewhat qualified admiration. There was something more—something that neither the Lizard nor his kind could appreciate. She was rather boyish, perhaps, as girls reared in the healthful out-of-door atmosphere are apt to be, but it was a dainty boyishness—if sturdy—that in no way marred the exquisite feminine qualities of her beauty. Her hair and eyes were dark, and her cheeks richly colored with good health and sunshine; and she looked at one with a disconcerting combination of innocence and frankness which, together with the charm of her sex, was certain to fix the attention of any mere male, whatever his station in life or previous condition of servitude. In short, the strangeness of Marta Hillgrove’s relationship to the grizzled old Pardners, with the mystery of her real parentage, was not at all needed to make her the talk of the country side. She was the kind of a girl that both men and women instinctively discuss, though for quite different reasons.

Bob Hill put his empty coffee cup down that Saturday morning with a long breath of satisfaction, and felt for the pipe and the sack of tobacco in his shirt pocket.

“Thar’s nothin’ to it, daughter,” he remarked—his faded blue eyes twinkling and his leathery, wrinkled, old face beaming with pride and love—“if Mother Burton learns you any more cookin’, Thad an’ me will founder ourselves sure. I’m here to maintain that one whiff of a breakfast like that would make one of them Egypt mummies claw himself right out of his pyramid.”

Thad Grove grunted a scornful, pessimistic, protesting grunt and rubbed the top of his totally bald head with aggressive vigor.

“She ain’t your daughter, Bob Hill—not this week. It’s my turn to be daddy an’ you know it. You’re allus a-tryin’ to gouge me out of my rights.”

Marta’s laughter was as unaffected as the song of the cardinal that at that moment was waking the cañon echoes. Patting Thad’s arm affectionately, she said:

“Make him play fair, daddy, make him play fair. I’ll back you up every time he tries to cheat.”

“By smoke!” ejaculated Bob. “I clean disremembered what day it was to-day. But to-morrer is another week an’ she’ll be mine all right then.” He glared at Thad triumphantly. “I tell you, Pardner, jest a-thinkin’ of me goin’ to be daddy to a gal like her makes me all set up. I’ve sure got a feelin’ that to-morrer is the day we’ll dig clean through to our bonanza.”

“Huh,” retorted Thad. “I got a feelin’ we ain’t goin’ to dig into no bonanza to-morrer, nor nothin else.”

“Why not?” demanded Bob.

“’Cause to-morrer is Sunday, ain’t it? Holy Cats! but you’re a-gettin’ loonier and loonier. If you keep on a-dyin’ at the top you won’t be fit to be daddy to nobody. I’ll jest up an’ git myself app’inted guardian for my off weeks—that’s what I’ll do.”

“I may be a-dyin’ at the top,” returned Bob, “but, by smoke, I ain’t coverin’ no alkali flat under my hat like you be. As for us workin’ Sundays—I know we ain’t allowed, in general, but it’s a plumb sin if we can’t—jest for to-morrer—with me all set like I am.”

He looked at Marta appealingly.

“Whatever my gal says goes,” said Thad.

Bob continued persuasively:

“You see, honey, I’ve got it all figgered out that when we git in about three feet further than we’ll make to-day we’re bound to uncover our everlastin’ fortunes. You want us all to be rich, don’t you?”

“It’s no use,” said the girl firmly. “You both know well enough that I will not permit you to break the Sabbath. Saint Jimmy’s mother says it is no way for Christians to do, and that settles it. Anything that Mother Burton says is wrong is wrong. You both consider yourselves Christians, don’t you?”

“You’re dead right, daughter,” said Thad, with an air of gentle complacency. “I hadn’t a mite of a notion to work on Sunday myself. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was much of a Christian but”—he glared at his pardner—“it’s a cinch I’m no Zulu. As for anybody that intimates we got a chance to uncover a fortune anywhere in that hole out there, between the dump and China—wal, I’d hate to tell you what sort of a Christian I think he is.”

Bob grinned cheerfully.

“Mebby I ain’t so much of a Christian neither,” he agreed, “but if I’d a-been that old Pharaoh what built them pyramids——”

The girl interrupted:

“Now, there you go again. That’s the second time. What in the world started you to talking about Egypt and pyramids and Pharaoh and mummies and things like that?”

“Oh, I jest happened to take a peek into one of them books that Saint Jimmy got us to buy for you, that’s all,” returned the old-timer, with a sly wink at the smiling girl. “An’ anyway, it seems like I ought to know somethin’ about mummies by this time, after livin’ as long as I have with that there.” He pointed a long, gnarled finger at his pardner. “Egypt or Arizona, livin’ or dead, it’s all the same, I reckon. A mummy’s a mummy wherever you find it.”

Thad rubbed his bald head with deliberate care.

“Daughter, does Mother Burton’s brand of Christianity say anything about what a man should do to his enemies?”

“Indeed it does,” returned the girl. “It says we must love our enemies and forgive them.”

“All right—all right—an’ what does it say about lovin’ an’ forgivin’ your friends, heh?”

“Why—nothing, I guess.”

“Course it don’t,” cried the old prospector in shrill triumph.

“Course it don’t. An’ do you know why? I’ll tell you why. It’s because it’s so doggone easy to forgive an enemy compared to what it is to forgive a friend, that’s why. The Good Book knows ’tain’t necessary to say nothin’ about friends, ’cause it’s jest as nateral and virtuous to hate a friend as ’tis to love an enemy—that’s what I’m a-meanin’.”

Marta was not in the least disturbed over this exchange of courtesies by her two fathers. Rising from the table, she laughingly remarked that if they were not too busy they might saddle her horse, as she must go to Oracle for supplies. Whereupon the Pardners went to the barn, leaving their girl free to clear away the breakfast things, wash the dishes, and finish her morning housework.

It was an unwritten law of the partnership that the particular father of the week should stand obligated to the parental responsibilities of the position. It was by no means the least of his duties that he must endure the criticisms of the other upon the way he was “bringing up” his daughter. It seems scarcely necessary to add that criticism was never wanting and that it was never without directness and point. To compensate for this burden of responsibility, the parent was permitted to say “my gal” while the critic, by the rules of the game, must invariably say “that gal of yourn.”

While Thad the father was currying his daughter’s horse, Nugget—a bright little pinto—Bob squatted comfortably on his heels, his back against the wall of the barn.

“Pardner,” he said, as one who speaks after mature deliberation, “I ain’t meanin’ to mix none in your family affairs, but as a friend I’m a-feelin’ constrained to remark that you ain’t doin’ right by that gal of yourn nohow.”

Marta’s father was making a careful examination of the pinto’s off forefoot and seemed not to hear.

Bob continued:

“Anybody can see that she comes mighty nigh bein’ grown up. First thing you know somebody’ll make her understand all to once that she’s a woman, and then——”

Thad dropped the pinto’s foot and glared at his pardner over the horse’s back.

“Then what?”

“Then she’ll be wantin’ to know things. An’—it might be too late to tell her.”

“You mean that I ought to tell my gal what we know about her?” demanded Marta’s father. “Is that what you’re tryin’ to say?”

“You guessed it, Pardner,” returned the critical one cheerfully. “It’s time that your gal knowed about herself. Bein’ her daddy, it’s up to you to tell her.”

The other exploded:

“Which is exactly what I tried all last week to tell you, when you was her daddy, you blamed old numskull, an’ you wouldn’t near listen to me. A healthy father you are. When it’s your daughter that ought to be told, you can’t even whisper, but when she’s mine you can yell your fool head off tellin’ me what I ought to do. Besides, you said yourself that we don’t actually know enough to tell her anything.”

“But that was last week, you see,” returned Bob calmly. “You was doin’ the talkin’ then—now I’m tellin’ you.”

When Thad, without replying, fell to rubbing Nugget’s glossy hide with such energy that the little horse squirmed like a schoolboy undergoing maternal inspection, Bob continued:

“Marta is bound to know, when she stops to think about it, that she jest can’t have two fathers. It’s plumb unnateral, even for two such daddies as she’s got. So far she ain’t give it much thought. She’s sort of growed up with the idea an’ accepted things as young folks do—up to a certain time, that is. My point is, that from now on her time is liable to come any day. Right now, if she thinks of it at all she jest smiles an’ plays the game with us, but that’s ’cause she’s mostly kid yet. You wait ’til the woman in her is woke up—right there she’ll quit playin’ an’ somethin’ is due to happen. You ain’t doin’ right by your daughter, Thad, not to tell her—you sure ain’t.”

Thad Grove faced his old pardner miserably. “I know you’re right, Bob. Marta ought to be told what we know about her. I can see that it’ll look mighty bad to her some day if she ain’t. But, hang darn it, it’s jest like you said last week—we don’t know enough for me to tell her anything. If I was to tell her what little we do know, it would look a heap sight worse to her than it possibly can with her not bein’ told anything, like she is now. The way I figger, if the gal don’t know nothin’, she’s got a chance to ride over it; but if she knows the little that we know she’ll be plumb ruined.”

“I don’t reckon it’s near so bad as that, Pardner,” said the other soothingly. “I’m here to tell you that there ain’t nothin’ could ruin that gal of yourn.”

At this, the fire of old Thad’s soul flared up anew.

“Is that so?” he returned in a voice of withering scorn. “Is that so? Well, I’m a tellin’ you that you can ruin anybody.”

“Saint Jimmy, for instance?” retorted Bob with sarcasm.

“Yes, Saint Jimmy. You can’t tell what sort of a scoundrel Saint Jimmy would a-been if he hadn’t happened to a-turned sick. There’s many a man in the pen, right now, jest on account of havin’ too much good health.”

“I reckon you’re speakin’ gospel for once,” agreed Bob reluctantly. Then, as if he had not forgotten his critical privileges, he added: “But there’s something else you ought to tell your gal—something that the best authorities all agree ought to be told every gal by somebody—an’ bein’ as you’re her father, an’ she ain’t never had no real ma, why—it would look like it was up to you.”

“What’s that?” demanded Thad suspiciously.

“That’s what they call love,” returned the other gently. “Growin’ up like Marta has, with jest us two old, dried-up, desert rats, she don’t know no more about love an’ its consequences than—than—nothin’.”

Marta’s father dropped his brush and kicked it viciously across the stable. Nugget danced with excitement.

“Love! Holy Cats! What fool notion’ll take you next? You don’t need to worry none. Some feller will happen along some day an’ tell her more about love in a minute than you’ve ever knowed in all your life.”

“That’s jest it,” returned the other. “Some feller is bound to tell her, jest like you say. He’ll slip up on her quiet like, when she ain’t suspicionin’ nothin’, an’ break it to her sudden ’fore she knows where she’s at. That’s how them consequences happen. An’ that’s why she ought to know beforehand, so’s she can be watchin’ out.”

Thad was rubbing his bald head seeking, apparently, for an answer sufficiently crushing, when a clear call came from the house.

“Daddy—Oh, Daddy, I am ready.”

With frantic haste, the Pardners, working together as if they had never had a difference, saddled and bridled the pinto. Together they led the little horse to the house.

When the girl was in the saddle, she looked down into their upturned faces with such an expression of girlish affection and womanly thoughtfulness that the two old men grinned with sheepish delight and pride.

“You will find your dinner all ready for you,” she said, while Nugget tossed his head, impatient to be off. “It is on the table, covered with a cloth. I’ll be home in time for supper. Adios.” She lifted the bridle rein and the pinto loped away.

The Pardners stood watching while she opened and closed the gate, cowboy fashion, without dismounting. With a wave of her hand she rode on up the cañon while the two old men followed her with their eyes until she passed from sight around a turn in the cañon wall.

Thad spoke slowly:

“You’re plumb right, Bob. The gal has mighty nigh growed into a woman, ain’t she? It don’t seem more’n a month or two neither, does it?”

“It sure don’t,” returned the other softly. “An’ ain’t she a wonder, Thad—ain’t she jest a nateral-born wonder?”

“She’s all of that,” agreed Thad, “an’ then some. It plumb scares me though, when I think of her findin’ out about herself an’ her all educated up by Saint Jimmy an’ his mother like she is. Holy Cats, Bob! What’ll we do?”

“She’s bound to know some day,” said Bob.

“She’s bound to, sure,” echoed Thad with a groan. “But my God a’mighty ain’t either of us got nerve to tell her now. If she hadn’t been goin’ to school to Saint Jimmy these last five years—I mean if she was like she would a-been with jest me an’ you to bring her up, it might not a-mattered. But now—now it’s goin’ to be plain hell for her when she finds out.”

Bob murmured softly:

“Won’t even let us work on Sundays ’cause it ain’t the right way for Christians like us to do. We’d ought to a-told long ago, that’s what we ought to a-done.”

“Sure, we ought to told her,” cried Thad, “jest like we’d ought to done a lot of things we ain’t. But mournin’ over what ought to been done ain’t payin’ us nothin’. What’re we goin’ to do, that’s what we got to figger out. The gal’s got to be told.”

“Yes,” returned Bob. “An’ she’s got to be told ’fore some sneakin’ varmint beats us to it an’ tells her for true what me an’ you are only suspicionin’. How’ll you ever do it?”

“How’ll I ever do it?” shrilled Thad. “Holy Cats! I can’t—How’ll you ever do it yourself?”

Bob answered helplessly:

“I can’t neither—an’ by smoke, I won’t.”

“She’s got to be told,” insisted Thad.

“She sure has,” said Bob.