Читать книгу The Ancient Highway - James Oliver Curwood - Страница 5

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Clifton rose and stretched himself as Bim wagged his tail and contorted his loosely jointed body in greeting. It was at least an hour after his usual waking time. The sun was above the horizon, the birds were wide awake, and he heard the rattle of wagon wheels up the road and a distant voice calling cattle. He was pleased as he laid a friendly hand on Bim's homely head and looked about him. He could not remember a more restful night or a more interesting one and he was filled with a deep appreciation of the thoughtfulness which had inspired the dog's early visit. That was the way with dogs. They never forgot a courtesy. And that was one of the many reasons why he loved them more than all men and respected them more than most.

Dreams were remarkable things, he told himself, as the sun began finding its way in under the trees. For over there, as surely as he lived, was the very spot where the Indian maiden who had turned into a white girl had knelt at his mother's feet, and down that path which led toward the gate she had backed away from him at last, taunting him with her laughter. For a moment he almost fancied he could see Red Jacket's footprints in the bare patch of earth where he had stooped to fill his hand with dirt.

His vision went no farther. At the foot of the spruce tree his eyes fell upon a huddled, crumpled figure which he instantly recognized as Joe. The boy had fallen asleep with his back against the tree and had drooped forward until his head rested between his knees. His ragged hat had rolled away from him and his pale, thin hands were filled with the brown needles as if he had clutched at them in his last moment of wakefulness. There was something pathetically and tragically forlorn about him—in the droop of his slight shoulders, the raggedness of the wretched clothing that covered him, the brown thinness of his legs, the way his thick blond hair fell over his naked knees.

The smile that had been on Clifton's lips died away and the humor in his eyes lost itself in a gathering cloud. He drew nearer and looked down. On the back of the boy's bared neck was a black and blue mark, and one of the sleeves of his waist was torn to the shoulder. For half a minute Clifton made no effort to draw in a deep breath.

Then he saw something else. A little behind the boy, partly hidden by the tree, was a bundle. It was made up of burlaps tied with binder-twine, and through this twine was thrust a stick. Beside the bundle lay the oldest and queerest wreck of a gun that Clifton had ever seen—and he had been through the war. It was a muzzle-loading shotgun of ancient date. Its cracked stock was bound with wire; its one-time hammer had been replaced by a "zulu" slugger; its ramrod was a willow stick, and the sight-bead had been knocked from its end. Clifton picked it up, and the instrument of death wobbled loosely in his hands. Near the foot of the tree was a four-ounce bottle partly filled with shot and another containing powder.

The smile came back into Clifton's face.

Bim growled.

"I'm not going to steal it, you old fossil. Shut up!"

He replaced the gun on the ground as the boy slowly stirred himself to wakefulness. A little at a time, Joe sat up. He opened his eyes and blinked and rubbed them with the backs of two soiled hands. In this first moment out of sleep his face appeared strangely wan and frail. Life, it seemed, and not the joy of living struggled back into him.

Then he saw Clifton standing over him.

He climbed to his feet and his face flashed suddenly with last night's comradely smile.

"Good mornin'!"

"Good morning, Joe. When did you come?"

"I dunno. It wasn't light yet. Bim found where you was. We're goin' with you!"

"You're—what?"

"Goin' with you," repeated Joe confidently. "We told old Tooker last night and he gave us a heck of a whalin', didn't 'e, Bim?"

"Pinched your neck, too, didn't he?"

Joe nodded. "We'd better hurry," he urged. "If Tooker ever found us here—"

"Maybe that's him coming up the road," suggested Clifton. "Is it?"

A stifled breath came from the boy, as if his heart had suddenly skipped a beat or two. He looked from the road up at Clifton, and in his blue eyes was a terror which made Clifton's fingers slowly clench while the smile remained on his lips.

"That's him! It's Tooker! And he's after me!"

He made a grab for his gun, but Clifton's hand drew him back.

"Wait here, Joe," he commanded. "Stand right out in the open so that Tooker can't help seeing you."

"He sees us now!" gasped Joe. "He's coming toward the gate—"

"And that's where I'm going to meet him—right at the gate," reassured Clifton. "You stay here."

He measured his time and distance so that he had a moment in which to observe Tooker as he covered the last few steps between the road and the gate. He had seen ugly men but Tooker was one of the ugliest that had ever confronted his eyes. In the first place he was disgustingly dirty, even at a distance, and Clifton hated dirty people. His repellent face bristled with a reddish stubble of beard and one cheek was padded with an enormous quid of tobacco. His big body was clumsy and slouching; his eyes had the mean littleness of a pig's, and in one hand—as one might expect of a creature of this kind—he carried a heavy stick, shiny from use and quite suited to murderous assault in the dark.

Clifton was amazed. By what curious sociological argument had the people of the district allowed a beast of this kind to hold an abusive authority over a boy like Joe?

He had a way of smiling when he was ready to kill. He pulled a lone cigar out of his pocket and offered it to the man.

"Tooker, I believe?"

"Yes, I'm Tooker." The man accepted the cigar, looked at it, and flung it on the ground. "Who the devil are you, and what you doing with that brat?"

"Tut, tut, Mr. Tooker," soothed Clifton. "I'm merely a wandering officer of the law on a hunt for moonshiners. Incidentally, my name is Brant, and yesterday in Brantford Town I repurchased the old Brant homestead, which includes in its domain a nice bit of swamp known as Bumble's Hollow; and as I shall soon return to this place to live I want my property to have a clean reputation. And if it wasn't for Joe, my nephew—"

"Your—"

"My nephew, Tooker. If it wasn't for him and the disgrace it would be to the family I'd take you to jail this minute!"

Tobacco juice was leaking from Tooker's inanimate jaw.

"He's been squealin'—lying to you?"

"Nothing of the sort. We just happened to meet. I was coming to see you about him this morning. You see, I made myself his uncle last night, and today I'm taking him on to Montreal—and beyond."

He was no longer smiling, and as he advanced a step toward Tooker the other backed away. Clifton had put a hand into a pocket, and now—instead of something more dangerous—he drew out a wallet.

"I'm going to give you two things," he said. "First, the cleanest two hundred dollars you ever had in those unwashed hands of yours, Tooker. Here it is. Ten twenties so new you could hear them crackle if your ears were clean. That's for taking care of Joe so well."

The money was in Tooker's hands. An understanding gleam shot into his eyes as he pocketed it, and in the same moment he stooped and picked up the discarded cigar.

"That's right. It's a good one," approved Clifton.

He had measured his man correctly. Tooker was a pinch-fist skinflint, a coward, and quite easily subdued. He was, Clifton thought, the kind of human reptile whose eyesight is keenest in the dark.

"And the other thing I am going to give you is some advice, and it isn't bad like your moonshine, Tooker," he continued. "I'm going to leave my evidence with the authorities up at Brantford. I'll ask them to have a little mercy on you this time, for Joe's sake—and Bim's. My advice is to buy three or four cows with the money you have. And now we must leave you. I think we shall be back in about a year, and if you haven't acquired the habit of washing yourself and living like an honest man by that time—why, God help you, Tooker!"

And as Clifton returned to Joe and packed his blanket he sang blithely,

"At night I'd hear across the Bow the tom-tom

and the wail begun,

Which told Papoose had ceased to breathe,

about the setting of the sun."

The road claimed them again. This time the glory of the rising sun was in their faces.

For a space after they had started, Joe did not speak. He carried the burlap bundle over his shoulder and in his hand was the wreck of a gun. In his eyes was a light which day or night had never found there before.

When the curve in the road shut out the cemetery behind them, he asked, in a voice filled with worshipful awe, "How did you know all that?"

"All of what, Joe?"

"About old Tooker."

Clifton laughed. In his eyes, too, was a different look from that which sunset had left in them.

"I guessed it, just plumb guessed it from what you told me about Bumble's Hollow. Good Lord, I'm more likely to go to jail myself than to send Tooker there!"

"For taking me?"

"No, not for that. Remember, I'm your uncle, Joe. Tooker will stick to that story, for he wouldn't dare confess that he sold you—and he thinks too much of the money I've given him to tell the truth. You see, this uncle business saves you from being a runaway and me from being a kidnaper—which means a man who steals kids. I need a family, anyway. And now, by Jove, I've got one in you and Bim! I feel quite important. Let's see what you have in that bundle."

They stopped, and Joe untied his pack so that its contents lay exposed at the side of the road. There was a small matter of clothing, ragged and soiled, an old pair of shoes, half of an automobile tube, a monkey-wrench, hammer and nails, and a stuffed owl.

Clifton regarded Joe's possessions with serious eyes.

"What's the automobile tube for?"

"Sling-shots."

"And the monkey-wrench?"

"That—an' the hammer? Them's tools."

"And the owl?"

"That's for good luck. Carry an owl an' you can see in the dark."

"Oh!"

Clifton looked about.

"We're going on a big adventure, Joe, and these things won't help us. We must hide them somewhere. Behind that old log in the fence corner, for instance."

Joe picked up his gun and held it so tightly that his small hands grew bloodless.

"Not this!"

"No, you may take the gun."

They were soon traveling eastward again.

"You see, Joe, you are no longer a boy," Clifton explained. "You're a man. You're an adventurer yourself now, and we must outfit you like one. Does that gun work?"

"You mean does it shoot?"

"Yes."

"It does—sometimes. It's kinda slow-going, though. An' it blows powder in your face, but I don't mind that. She's good an' stout, with all this wire. Want to shoot it?"

"Not just now."

Straight to town Clifton led the way. In a restaurant reeking with the aromas of coffee and pork chops and fried potatoes they had breakfast, and Bim ate his fill of scraps in the kitchen. Then Joe was fitted out in a khaki suit, walking shoes, a Boy Scout hat and knapsack, handkerchiefs, shirts and a necktie. After that Clifton wrote a letter to Tooker, and when it was finished and mailed he hunted up a certain old minister in the town and sat with him in private conference for an hour. When he left he knew more about twelve-year-old Joseph Hood than Joe knew about himself.

Once more on their way they passed the little road which led down to the Indian church and settlement. Joe eyed it a bit wistfully.

"Was that a fib, too—about you buying Bumble's Holler?" he asked.

"No, that was the truth," said Clifton. "It's ours, Joe, every last leg of its eighty acres—the spring, the old house, the woods, everything. Some day we're coming back and will build another house near the old one."

"An' we'll leave the old chimney for the swallows."

"Every stone of it."

During this first day Joe proved himself a veteran at walking. And it seemed to him a thousand automobiles whizzed past them every hour. More frequently than before Clifton was offered the courtesy of rides, for the tall man, the slight boy and the gaunt dog traveling side by side were an unusual combination on the highway.

It was late in the afternoon, with the city of Hamilton half a dozen miles away, when a swiftly moving and luxurious sedan came up behind them. As it passed a man in the rear seat gave a sudden exclamation and turned to look behind. A cloud of dust shut out his vision, and with a word of apology he turned to the other occupants of the car.

"If it wasn't for the absurdity of the thing I would say I know that man," he said. "His resemblance to a remarkable person I once knew is almost shocking!"

"He had a pleasant face, and smiled at us as we passed. Why should the resemblance be shocking?" asked a girl who sat beside him.

"Because—under other circumstances I would swear that I saw him for the last time two years ago on the Yangtze Kiang, where he was in charge of the Chinese government's reforestation project. He had twenty-five million trees to plant. Six months later he was killed by natives north of Haipoong, in Indo-China. I feel as if I had looked upon a dead man, and one for whom I held a strange affection."

"Please stop the car!" commanded the girl.

The gentleman's bronzed face flushed slightly.

"Don't!" he entreated. "It is highly absurd. The man I am thinking of was a Princess Pat, and we came out of Belgium together. We were both laughing maniacs, and after the war he took to wandering. I heard from him occasionally. He said something or other was shot out of him—he couldn't just understand what—and that it was impossible for him to settle down to his old profession of forestry. He called himself an intermigrant—wanted to be constantly on the move. I called him the Walking Man. But he is dead now, shot up everlastingly north of Haipoong, the records have it. He gave a queer reason for not coming home."

The car had stopped. Behind it a cloud of dust drifted away with the wind.

"What was his reason?" the girl asked.

"He was afraid he would kill a certain man if he returned."

"They have left the road and are crossing a field."

"Of course," nodded the prematurely old man at her side. "Undoubtedly a farmer and his boy. Let us go on. And please pardon me for bringing about an interruption of this kind."

And the car continued on its way.

"Do farmers have such nice eyes?" asked the girl. And then: "What was the other man's name, Colonel Denis?"

"Brant—Clifton Brant," replied the Colonel. "He was somewhere in the woods of upper Quebec when the war broke out. He had made quite an unusual reputation as a forester, and was slated for an important post with the government at that time. I think his father had concessions there."

The girl was silent for a moment. Then in a low voice she said for the Colonel alone: "That terrible war seems to have happened only yesterday, yet it was ten years ago. I was a little girl then, and I kissed the men as they marched away."

"Yes, only yesterday," he nodded, "and with some of us it will always remain that near."

Clifton was following a creek into the green seclusion of a rolling wood-lot. Out of sight of the road he found a pool from which the water ran in a series of ripples that made a cooling, musical sound.

"Supper—and a bath," he announced. "The bath first, Joe. Strip—while I get out soap and towels. And scrub Bim while you're in. He's almost as dirty as old Tooker."

He stood guard while Joe spent twenty minutes in the water, then Joe took his turn, and fresh and cool from their purgation of dust and grime they began the preparation of supper. Tonight it was beefsteak, milk-fed and two years old the butcher had said, and when it was over Clifton leaned in contentment with his back against a tree. He noticed, too, that this one day had seemed to take much of the thinness and whiteness from the boy's face, and the restless and hunted look from his eyes.

"A fine place to sleep," he observed. "There is nothing like the open air to produce health, wealth and wisdom, Joe. Always remember that, and live up to it. If you do, and cultivate a sense of humor at the same time, you are sure to die happy. But you must see the funny things. If you don't you're a goner. God had to have His jokes when He was making the world. He intended there should be a lot of laughter, so you want to laugh. Why, you're funny, Joe—so is Bim, and so am I, and so is everybody else."

Joe sat cross-legged, with Bim squatted at his side, and both regarded Clifton with eager eyes. They were splendid listeners, and Clifton chuckled his appreciation as he lighted his pipe and held out at arm's length a newspaper which he had purchased in the last town.

"Here it is—the humor of life right on the front page," he went on, enjoying his monologue. "Picture of a girl with a million-dollar pair of legs! They're the funniest of all, Joe—women, I mean. They're shockingly funny—all except our mothers. You must remember that mothers are never funny—our own, I mean, though the other fellow's mother may be deucedly funny. If ours bobs her hair it is all right; she is beautiful still. If our mother wants to carry about some kind of metal in the lobes of her ears it is perfectly proper for her to do it, for you mustn't see anything that isn't nice and beautiful about her. Now over on the next page—here we have it again!—something to laugh at if it doesn't bring on nausea first—a bobbed-haired Venus who is the millionth 'most beautiful girl in America.'"

"What's a Venus," interrupted Joe.

"A Venus is a woman."

"With short hair?"

"Not necessarily. She may have either short or long hair. But if she's a Venus with bobbed hair run for your life, particularly when you get a little older. Why, Joe, if there was only one woman on earth and she had bobbed hair I wouldn't marry her! I wouldn't marry her anyway, but the bobbed hair would make a certainty of it in case I got sick and weakened."

"It must be awful," suggested Joe.

"It is. Bobbed hair and million-dollar legs—they go together. Now—going back to the front page—"

As Joe waited he saw a strange change in the man. The lines in Clifton's face suddenly tightened and a staring directness took the place of the humor in his eyes. His body stiffened. He forgot Joe and Bim and slowly crumpled the paper until it was a mass in his hands. He rose to his feet and Joe got up with him, a little frightened.

Then Clifton took notice of the boy again, but this time the smile which came to his lips was a hard and terrible one which Joe had not seen before.

"And sometimes there are things which are not so funny," he said, as much to himself as to Joe. "For instance, I have just read that the man from whom I am to collect a million dollars sails from Montreal for Europe next Thursday. This is Tuesday. So we can't sleep here tonight, Joe. We have no time to lose."

Joe was bewildered by the strangeness and swiftness with which events happened after that. For the first time Clifton deliberately halted a car and asked for a ride. At Hamilton he hired another car and they were off for Toronto. A little later the rush and roar and electrical glare of the big city engulfed them. Joe clutched his gun and held so tightly to the string attached to Bim that it cut a crease in his hand. He was fascinated and appalled, held speechless and almost powerless to move, and Clifton placed an arm about his thin shoulders to give him confidence. Brantford had been the hub of activity and excitement in Joe's little world; Toronto with its hundreds of thousands was a monster of life and sound that at times made his heart stop beating.

They came to a building of colossal size about which hundreds of automobiles were moving like restless bees, and here their own car stopped and Clifton hurried him out and dragged him along so fast that he was compelled to trot at his side to keep up. They stopped at a window, then raced through a gate, and almost as it began to move they were boarding a train. Bim was hiccoughing and his eyes were bulging. A five-dollar bill placed him in charge of the porter.

That night with its dizzy swaying and incessant roar of wheels was a nightmare in Joe's life. The next day they arrived in Montreal.

Clifton found writing material at the station, and for half an hour he was busy while Joe sat watchfully quiet, holding to Bim. Then he used a telephone to find if a certain Benedict Aldous was in town. Aldous's housekeeper assured him that he was, whereupon Clifton pinned the letter he had written in the pocket of Joe's khaki coat.

"I'm sending you to a friend of mine," he explained, "and you must give him this letter at once. He will take good care of you and Bim. I will come to you sometime tonight, or tomorrow. Probably tonight. I'm going to send my dunnage with you. You aren't afraid, are you, Joe?"

"Not very, I guess. Why don't you come now?"

"I have some business to attend to."

"Is it the million dollars?"

"You've hit it, Joe. It's the million dollars."

He loaded them into a taxicab and gave the driver written instructions.

"Good-by!"

As far as his eyes could follow them he saw Joe's pale face looking back through the window.

For the first time in hours he drew a deep breath of relief. No matter what happened now Joe would be properly cared for. Benedict Aldous would see to that. He felt himself at least temporarily freed from a peculiarly embarrassing responsibility, and he found his good humor returning as he began to picture the Englishman's profound amazement when Joe presented himself with his letter.

He wondered if Aldous was as odd and thin and altogether lovable as in the old days when they had tramped India and Turkestan together. Of course he would be. It would be rather difficult to change him. But his blasé anatomy would receive a thrill when he learned that his old tramping companion and the savior of his soul and freedom in the Simla Hills was alive and in town.

Curiously, as he went up the street, Clifton thought of the vampish little blonde widow who had almost "got" Benedict during his convalescence from a fever. Maybe she was still hating him for smuggling Aldous away by force; maybe she had married again; maybe she was dead. Anyway, Aldous would always love him for the part he had played in his salvation. The world was a funny place to live in, filled with funny things and people! And especially the people, monumental egoists on two legs. They were never tired of playing out their trivial little comedies and tragedies, with absurd convictions of their importance.

Personally he was in the same boat himself. He was going to play a part of his own tonight. If possible he would make of it a comedy-drama instead of a drab and tiresome tragedy. There should be something to smile at even in the death of a man like Ivan Hurd, president and majority owner of the vast interests of the Hurd-Foy Paper and Pulp Company. At least he hoped there would be the saving grace of a touch of humor about it.

It was four o'clock by his watch when he came to the corner where the Hurd-Foy offices had been before the war. A new building had taken the place of the old one. Its size and massiveness were emblematic of power and wealth, and carved in stone over the arched entrance were the words Hurd-Foy Building. Clifton smiled at them cryptically. Here again was humor if one were of the disposition to look at it in that way.

He went in, and ascended by means of an elevator to the floor occupied by the Hurd-Foy offices. It was a quarter after four o'clock then.

His ears were greeted by the metallic clicking of typewriters, and he noted that a small army of employees were assembled on this floor. He took his time. The sumptuousness of the place interested him. He passed a mirror, and looking into it he wondered if Ivan Hurd would recognize him. The war had made quite a change in him. Ten years had increased it.

It was half-past four when he inquired if Ivan Hurd was in.

"He is busy. Will you wait?"

"No," said Clifton. He scribbled a few lines on a pad of paper. "Please take this to him. It is urgent."

The girl returned shortly. There was a clock on the wall, and Clifton made note of the fact that it was twenty-five minutes of five when she led the way for him to Ivan Hurd's office. She left him with a friendly smile. Something in Clifton's eyes invited her attention.

He passed in, and as the door closed behind him he turned and locked it. Even in this act he did not hurry or make an attempt to conceal his intention. He knew the man seated at the big walnut desk at the end of the room was watching him, and he had conceived a mental picture of his astonishment before he faced him. Casually he surveyed the room. It was very large, entirely done in walnut or mahogany, with a heavy rose-taupe rug on the floor. At its farther end was a smaller door sufficiently ajar to give Clifton a glimpse of a lounge, and he tabulated it instantly as Ivan Hurd's rest room—and empty.

Hurd had turned so that he sat facing his visitor. He was a big man. The hands that gripped the arms of his chair were pudgy and large. His face and head were round, heavy, immense, throwing back to his German ancestors. His shoulders, trained down properly, would have expressed enormous strength. His eyes were light blue and steely with anger as Clifton tossed his hat carelessly upon a table, in the center of which stood a tall vase filled with flowers. In Hurd's mouth was a cigar. It was a mouth supported by a chin that might have been hewn out of granite. The man's age did not exceed Clifton's by more than a year or two.

"What did you do to that door?" he demanded.

"I locked it," said Clifton.

He sat down, with the long directors' table between him and Hurd. In the same movement he produced an automatic pistol and leveled it at the other's breast.

"Don't get up and don't make a sound that can be heard beyond that door," he warned. "Your one chance of remaining alive another half-hour depends upon the utter isolation of us two. I have traveled twenty thousand miles to keep myself from killing you, and now that nature is having her way I'm not going to make a mess of the job by doing it in business hours."

A deadly light was in Clifton's eyes. His voice was low but trembled with a dangerous thrill.

"Who are you, and what in God's name do you want?"

Ivan Hurd was not a coward. He leaned forward, demanding an answer. The flush was leaving his face. It was turning white.

"You don't know me?"

"No."

"Never saw me before?"

"No."

For the longest quarter-minute in Ivan Hurd's life Clifton's eyes remained steadily on his face.

"I think you believe you are telling the truth," he said then. "I am quite sure you are—or you would sweat instead of turning a little pale." He waited a moment, and then added: "I am the dead man of Haipoong come to life. I am Clifton Brant."