3stalwarts (100 page)

Dan carried Henderson on down the towpath to the store. A buckboard stood in the light, which also picked out the wet and glistening rumps of the team. The horses stood quietly, but they looked fresh.

“I’ll bet he didn’t founder ‘em trying to get here,” said Solomon.

They barged into the store. Spinning was standing straddle-legged, his back to the stove. The bat-eared man still regarded his glass, and Murphy was whittling a chew from a plug of Hammer Brand. All three started, and Murphy and the bat-eared man got to their feet.

“What in hell?” said Murphy.

“That’s what I’d like to know,” said the bat-eared man.

“It’s Henderson,” said Dan, easing him down on the counter and rolling him over on his back.

“We found him down in Riddle’s house,” said Solomon. “He must have gone down there alone. Calash shot him, I reckon.”

“What in glory was he doing down there?” demanded Spinning, with a bluster in his voice. He bent forward, suddenly. “Why, it’s the horse trader. What was he doing down there?”

“He got shot,” said Fortune Friendly.

The bat-eared man bent over Henderson’s stout stomach and poked his coat open to look at his waistcoat.

“It’s the truth,” he said solemnly.

Henderson’s face was pasty white.

“Is he dead?” asked the sheriff.

“No.”

“That’s a blessing,” said Murphy; “we won’t have to dig a hole for him, anyhow.”

“It’s damned funny,” said the sheriff, taking off his hat. “I got a letter from the Department of Justice man that was working on the job. He wanted me up here with a rig at eight tonight. I threw a tire coming into Boonville and it took three hours to get it on again. Gol! If it hadn’t been for that we might have got him.”

“Gol!” echoed Fortune. “I guess you might. There wasn’t no other rig in town, I suppose.”

Spinning flushed.

“Hold your jaw, old man. You’re a bad character. I’ll take you in with me if you don’t shut up.”

“Now, now!”

Mrs. Gurget came rushing in, the rain streaming down her cheeks. In one hand she carried a bottle of whiskey, in the other a towel wrapped round some strips of clean linen. Molly was at her heels, and Dan instinctively moved toward her. Her hair was soaked through, and dark, and tight curls were stuck to her forehead. She gave him a glance, and smiled to see how bright his eyes were. He was still panting from his heavy load and he kept stretching his shoulders to ease the stiffness out of them.

Mrs. Gurget bustled over to the wounded man.

“Heat some water, dearie,” she said to Molly.

“I’ll get some. The kettle’s full.”

Murphy disappeared into the kitchen.

“Shall I get the old woman?” he asked, as he came back with the kettle.

“No,” said Mrs. Gurget, shaking a spray of drops from her hair. “I don’t want to be hindered. You men go and set somewheres and leave him to me and Molly.”

They took their seats round the stove, and Spinning transferred his attention from Molly to the inside of his hat.

“I got a letter from Jones, telling me to meet the Department of Justice man here at eight. Here it is.” He pulled a damp envelope out from the sweatband. “I wonder who the hell he is and where he is now.”

Dan pointed his thumb in the direction of the counter.

“That’s him there.”

Spinning swore.

“I don’t believe it.”

“It’s him,” Dan repeated.

“That’s a fact,” said Fortune.

“I don’t believe it,” said the sheriff, angrily. “Why, that feller’s been along with me a dozen times. He’s just a horse trader. I told him all about this Department man, and told him just what I thought about this Department man. He didn’t say nothing. Calash had stole his horse. That’s what he was after.”

They looked back to the counter. Mrs. Gurget handled the fat man as if he were nothing at all. She had pulled off his waistcoat and shirt and was bathing the wound in his side. Then she rolled him on his back.

“Come out clean,” she said. “It’ll lay him up quite a spell, but I don’t think it’s done a lot of damage. He’d ought to see a doctor, though, as quick as I’ve bandaged him.”

“I’ll take him back,” said the sheriff, “as soon as I’ve found this Department man.”

“It’s him.”

Spinning glared angrily at Dan.

“My,” Mrs. Gurget said to Molly who was helping her, “you’re real handy bandaging a man. I got too many thumbs to do it proper. Get a dry shirt, Mr. Murphy. And don’t tell Mrs. Murphy. She’d have a hollering fright. They always come easy to her.”

She forced some more whiskey down the man’s throat.

“There. Now you can see he’s the man.”

Dan pointed to a suspender strap that fell off the counter, swung, and bumped against it with a smart rap.

The sheriff took it in his hand and his face became crimson.

“The son of a bitch!”

“It’s all right,” Fortune said. “He can’t hear you.”

They bundled him up in blankets, put him in the wagon, and the sheriff, still swearing, drove rapidly off toward Boonville.

Potatoes for Rome

Next day the Sarsey Sal pulled out of Boonville, leaving the Nancy to go up the feeder after her load of potatoes. Even in those days Boonville potatoes were favorably known in the New York markets and fetched a high price.

The fat woman stood on the steersman’s deck wrapped up in a great cloth coat, the collar turned up at the back of her neck. It was a man’s coat, so that her bulges came all in the wrong places. The wind blew the tails down against her barrel-like legs; and when she lifted her arm to wave to the Sarsey Sal the back puckered between her shoulders and crept up into a small hump.

She had waked that morning in a panic, wondering if the dye in her hair would hold after the wetting it had got. But, once she saw it in her mirror as red as a carrot, her relief had expanded into uproarious humor. With Molly to keep her company, she had joked all the way to Boonville, old jokes that Molly could hardly follow. But just before they parted Mrs. Gurget said, “He’s a good lad, Molly, dearie. Stick to him. It ain’t often a girl gets such a fine-looking man.”

Now, as she looked back at the Sarsey Sal drawing out of the basin, she let out a gusty sigh. “Young. Ain’t they pretty? They go good together —same height, same color, a matched pair. He’s heavier-built, but that ain’t no more’n right.”

She looked ahead to where Solomon walked behind his mules, pulling reflectively at his pipe, the smoke popping past his ears.

“Ain’t you going to wave good-bye, Sol?” she called.

He turned round, took off his cap, and the sun glanced on his high bald poll. Mrs. Gurget smiled to herself.

“A matched pair,” she repeated, to herself. Then she saw that the Sarsey Sal was drawing away out of sight round the hill, Molly and Dan standing together on the stern, and Molly waved, but her face was turned away to Dan’s.

“Young,” said Mrs. Gurget again, in a low voice; and then she snorted and began singing the weaver’s song in her full hearty voice.

“They’re real nice, I think,” Molly was saying to Dan.

“Yeanh,” said Dan. “They was good to me.”

The bays had pulled clear of the docks with their sharp stride, and be-hind them Fortune Friendly was tramping along the towpath, the broad brim of his hat curling up behind. Now and then he threw a glance over his shoulder at the river valley they were leaving; but with a little shake he set it forward again, a grin on his smooth face.

“I’ll be glad to be getting back,” Molly said to Dan. “I don’t like it up here.”

He said nothing, but kept his eyes on the towline. She watched his big hands on the rudder sweep, and turned her eyes to the hard high line of his cheek— brick-red from the sun and wind. His blue eyes squinted against the sunlight on the water. But they were bright and eager. She thought he looked happy. Standing beside him, she swayed a little to let her shoulder touch his.

“Aren’t you glad to be getting back?” she asked.

“Yeanh.”

He glanced sidewise at her for an instant. The collar of his shirt rolled up against her face, and her hair, whipped forward by the wind, caught here and there on the rough blue wool.

They swung southward, heading for the Lansing Kill.

“I come onto the canal, to Boonville,” he reminded her.

She slid a hand inside his arm. He was remembering his strangeness; she could see the half -timid look on his face.

“You belong on it now,” she said.

“Yeanh.”

“You’ve got a boat and team, and you’ve got quite a lot of money, Dan.”

“Yeanh.”

He was staring ahead along the towpath, Fortune treading in the shadows of the team. The trees were coming bare, only the beeches carrying their bright rust of leaves.

A boat was creeping up heavily against the current. The driver’s whip cracked and hissed, the mules were lathered. Fortune slowed the bays and Dan swung the Sarsey Sal to the far side of the canal. The steersman of the other boat shot a squirt of tobacco juice through the reflection of a win-dow and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

“Say!” he said. “Heard the news?”

“What is it?” Molly asked.

“This Calash laid out a marshal up to Denley. Just missed his lung. I seen him in Western. He looked bad.”

“Yeanh.”

“Funny you didn’t hear about it. I guess Spinning took him out too fast. I’d seen the feller before, but I’d never guessed he was a marshal. Little fat feller. His head was rolling all over his shoulders like an old apple in a wind. He sure looked bad.”

He got his jaw going and spat again.

“Seen anything of this Calash?”

“No,” said Dan.

“Most likely not,” agreed the other. “He’s cleared out. They say he’s back on the main ditch. They’d ought to get him. Folks is beginning to talk.”

“That’s right,” said his driver. He stung the mules, and they lurched ahead into their collars. The boats drew apart.

“So he got away again,” said Molly.

“Yeanh,” said Dan. He was remembering now how he had first seen Calash on the Boonville docks, talking to Jotham Klore; and how he and Solomon and Hector Berry had had a glimpse of the man riding down the Lansing Kill. He would be riding ahead somewhere now.

“They won’t get him this winter,” said Molly. “It was that little fat man who could have caught him. I felt sorry for him lying there in the store. I really did. Now he’s out of it, it’ll be just luck to catch him.”

“Yeanh.”

“You’re glad he got away.”

He kept his eyes on the team, and Fortune walking with his hands in his pockets.

“Yeanh.”

“Then I’m glad, too.”

She stepped round in front of him, so that he had to look at her.

“I don’t see why you like him. You don’t have anything to do with him, do you, Dan?”

“No.”

“I can’t see why you like him, then. He’s a bad man all through; he’s got to be, or they wouldn’t be after him.”

Dan was silent.

“Everybody says so.”

“Yeanh.”

“Why do you like him, Dan?”

He avoided her eyes.

“Just because he helped you out in Hennessy’s? He wanted you to help him, that’s why he did it.”

“Maybe,” said Dan. “I don’t know.”

He let his eyes meet hers, with their bright frank look. To her he seemed a little bit ashamed.

“Why do you like him, Dan?”

“I don’t know, Molly. I seen him there in Boonville talking with Klore, and then later. He done a couple of things for me. He put me back on my boat in Utica.” Dan was breathing hard.

“Yes,” she said.

“He’s been all along the canal. I’ve seen him everywhere I’ve been to.” He talked awkwardly. “He helped me out twice, like I tell you. You seen him fix Klore.”

A slight frown wrinkled her forehead. Then she smiled.

“I don’t care,” she said. “If you like him, I’ll like him. I won’t say anything.”

She turned and went below, leaving Dan puzzled and uncomfortable. How could he explain to her? Or to himself, for that matter? Why should he have to? He didn’t see. It wasn’t the man’s clothes, or his fine way of talking. Anyway, Dan knew he was a criminal. There had been a lot of talk round the docks in Boonville. People were on the watch for him now. He would stand a small chance up in this country. Dan had seen him first on the Boonville docks,— Uberfrau’s,— and he had made no move to stop him. He was a stranger; so was Gentleman Joe. He had never seen his face, even. Yet he felt a definite friendliness for him, as if in some way they were both involved together. … He could not explain. He wished he could see the man’s face and talk to him… .

At Westernville a man came out of Han Yerry’s Hotel and signaled them in to the dock.

“Sorry to stop you,” he said. “We’re looking over every down-boat.”

He pulled open his coat and showed a badge.

“Can’t tell where to expect this Calash.”

“He ain’t here,” said Molly.

The man gave her an admiring grin.

“I don’t doubt it, girl. I’m acting on orders.”

He went over the Sarsey Sal quickly but thoroughly. There were not many places to look.

“Where’re you bound for?” he asked Dan.

“Potatoes for Rome. Hauling for Butterfield.”

“All right. Sorry to bother. You’ve got a nice boat.”

He gave Molly another admiring glance and went ashore.

On the dock Fortune was talking to an old man fishing for sunfish.

“Not any luck,” the old man said, gumming a pinch of snuff. “It’s getting too cold nights for fish to bite good. The worms is dozy. It’s the winter coming. See there!”

Overhead, a line of geese pricked the sky.

Getting up a Party

It was Friday morning in Utica. The Sarsey Sal lay tied up beside the Wheaden dock, which was now, as Solomon called it, a Butterfield proposition.

“It’d be a good place for us to tie up at for the winter, Dan. Though I guess probably Lucy ‘11 want to be farther downtown.”

The little man was sitting on the side gang of the Sarsey Sal, his thin bow legs hanging into the pit.

“I guess we’ll tie up here,” Dan said. “Molly likes it all right, and I’ll be stabling the teams in the barn back.”

“Put your grease on upwards,” Solomon said suddenly. “Then rub it down.”