3stalwarts (83 page)

The door opened and Dan sat up and put his feet on the floor.

The young woman was tall and strapping, so much he could see while she paused against the light of the barroom. She wore a red dress and a red hat, from under which a few wisps of light brown hair escaped as though protesting against an unaccustomed confinement. She presented a rather blowsy-looking figure, unaccountably attractive in its blowsiness, with something fresh about it.

When she made out Dan’s position, the young woman closed the door behind her and came forward in the unnatural darkness.

“I hope you’ll pardon me disturbing you,” she said in a strong, clear voice.

Dan felt stuffy and uncomfortable, and wished she had not closed the door.

“You see,” she went on, sitting on the circular bed beside him, “I’ve got to wait for my boater, and I don’t like to wait in the bar; and Luke said you was a quiet-looking man, so I come in here.”

“I don’t mind,” said Dan awkwardly. “My name’s Dan’l Harrow.”

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Molly Larkins.”

“Pleased, mam.”

A knothole in the boards over the window sent a finger of light against her cheek, so that her profile was outlined to Dan in warm sunlight. She had a wide mouth, with full, decisive lips pressed firmly together, and an expressive chin, well rounded. She had compelling hands, long-fingered, which squeezed the handle of a long bag she held on her knees until they took on the shape of a capable pair of fists. Altogether, she did not belong in the musty darkness of the saloon; even there it seemed the daylight had stolen in to mark her. She should have been handling a rudder sweep instead of her little bag, or swinging a scythe.

“It’s a weary place to wait in,” she remarked.

“Yeanh,” said Dan, trying to guess her age. He had instantly taken a liking to her, for her straightforward manner had put him at ease.

“Be you a-working on the canal, Mr. Harrow?”

It was the first time anyone had put “mister” in front of his name, and he involuntarily checked the “mam” on his tongue.

“No,” he replied. “I’m waiting for Mr. Wilson, to get a job with.”

She nodded.

“Yes. I know him. Julius W. Hauling for the Troy-Michigan Six Day.”

“He’s hauling down to Albany,” said Dan. “I’d like to get a job with him.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to go there.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I don’t like it.”

“You been on the canal long?” Dan asked, after a short silence.

She turned her head toward him, and as the light traveled over her eyes Dan saw that they were deep blue.

“Gracious, yes! I was born on a boat. Dad was a captain for the Old Utica Long and Short Haul Line. After I was thirteen I done the cooking for him. He died when I was fifteen and since then I’ve been working mostly on the canal. I ain’t got no recollection of Ma. Once a missioner society got a-hold of me and I took a job working in the ladies’ ward of the State Asylum. It’s pretty slow work for me and I quit on them. I guess Dad left a bit of Hell in me. He was a big man and never licked. I remember when he fought the Buffalo Bully in Rochester Arcade and licked him after one hour. There was so many people watching I couldn’t see till a man let me stand on his shoulders. Pa give me a hiding afterwards for yelling when he got knocked down. He said it wasn’t right for a lady.”

She glanced down at her hands.

“I learned to take care of myself pretty good. So I get along. If I don’t like the man I hire out with I just quit him and get myself another job through Lucy Cashdollar’s agency.”

“Yeanh?”

“Yeanh, hers is best. Bentley’s Bar. In Utica. Guess I’ll spend a time with her next week.”

“Sick of your job?” asked Dan, suddenly.

“Kind of. He’s a sort of bully. I don’t have much rest from him. He’s hard to handle. But he’s an easy spender and he’s got good innards for fighting,” she added, a note of pride in her voice.

“I seen him in Boonville, if it’s Jotham Klore.”

“Yeanh. Did you come down ahead of us?”

“Yeanh. I used to live up above Boonville.”

“Is that right?”

Dan began trying to guess her age again; the subject attracted him singularly. Back in Tug Hill country he was considered ahead of his years in figuring a horse’s age, and A-l in the cow line. Yes, he could judge a cow into the right year nine times out of ten. But this was something else, try-ing to figure a girl’s age; there was less to go by; you could not use your hands, for one thing.

He could not see much of her except her outline in that dark room; coloring could not help him there. But she had walked with a straight back; there was no sag in her. And she had good solid curves in her figure, and as she sat by him her tight dress showed no softness. He could not see her feet, either, and that was a point he always liked to go by. He put a lot of stock in feet. But she walked like a filly, plenty of lift, and her weight well under her, no forward splurge at the knees. She was tight in front; she looked sound. He called her twenty-two.

“Well,” said Molly Larkins suddenly, “now you’re done, what do you make of me?”

“Fair, pretty fair,” Dan said, still in his professional mood, “a good buy if the price was right.”

She burst out laughing, tilting her head and looking out at him from half -closed eyes. She had a good whole-souled laugh, pitched low, with no hoarseness.

“Well,” she said, “the price is twelve dollars a month, in case you want to know.”

“Fair enough,” Dan said. “If I ever get a boat I’ll remember that.”

She gave him a quick, square glance; and then smiled slowly.

“You haven’t looked at my teeth, you know. How old did you make me out?”

“Nineteen,” he replied, giving her laugh the benefit of one less year, and her vanity, in a moment of inspiration, the benefit of two.

“Eighteen,” she said.

“Jeepers!” he said, ruefully. “I need practice in your line.”

Molly laughed again.

“Now I’ll guess yours.”

“Yeanh?”

“You’re nineteen. What’s more, you’re new on a canal.”

He gazed at her admiringly.

“You’re pretty good, ain’t you?”

“It’s a thing you get to learn, in my trade. It’s a part of the job.”

They sat together without speaking for a while, listening to the voices beyond the door, and to the angry buzz of a bluebottle fly against the windowpanes.

“Are you planning to keep on driving?” she asked Dan.

“Yeanh. For a while, I reckon. I’d like to have my own boat.”

“Who would you haul for?”

“I guess you can pick up hauling.”

“Probably could,” said Molly; “but still, you ain’t any idea how many people is working on the Erie. Last year they figgered there was twenty-five thousand— men and women and driver boys working on the main ditch.”

“Jeepers!” breathed Dan.

“It probably seems a queer place,” Molly said, “until you get used to it. People live by different notions there. They’re law-abiding by state law; but they’ve got their own ideas on how to live. The missioners call ‘em bad, but I guess a moral is a kind of figure for personal ciphering. Canawlers would say the missioner was unhealthy; he’s letting his mind get rid of what his body should get rid of according to nature.”

“Who told you that?” Dan asked.

“Friend of mine. An old feller. He used to be a minister himself, and he goes in for ministering now to make money to live with when he needs it.”

More people had entered the barroom. The voices of Mr. Henderson and the sheriff were no longer distinguishable. Then a loud hoarse voice sounded close to the panel; the man was addressing the bartender. “Seen my cook, Luke?” “Inside,” said the keep. And a hand fell on the door handle. Molly Larkins suddenly stood up. “He’s feeling hostile,” she said to Dan in a low voice. “Don’t mind his talk.”

The door swung open and banged shut behind Jotham Klore. For an instant he stood with his back to it, his pale eyes peering into the gloom of the room.

“Come along, Moll,” he said, “we ain’t any time to lose.”

He stopped speaking and came forward a step or two, and saw Dan.

“Say! How long’ve you been here, Moll?”

“You kept me waiting a good half hour, Jotham,” she said, coolly. “So you needn’t talk nasty.”

“I’ll talk as I damn please. He’d better pick up his bag and get out of here. If he wants to argue, I’m a pretty good hand myself. I won’t have no man monkeying with my cook.”

“It’s none of your business, anyway.”

“What do you think I’m paying you for?”

“I’m no slave. I’ll do as I please. I don’t have to look hard to get a job.”

“You shut up!”

He came over and grabbed Dan by the collar of his shirt.

“Are you going to get out?”

Dan’s right hand shot up and his arm straightened; he heard a sudden crack, and felt a shoot of pain run into his hand and wrist. Klore’s knees sagged, and his hand fell away from Dan’s collar. Molly gave a low cry, deep-toned, with a note of pleasure.

“Quick! Hit him again.”

But Dan stood back upon his heels; he hadn’t thought of hitting him at all; he was completely surprised.

“Quick!” cried Molly, as Klore sucked in his breath whistlingly, his teeth showing white in his black beard.

“Oh, shucks!” she said, and turned away, as if to avoid an unpleasant sight.

“All right,” growled Klore. “Try and do it again.”

All at once, Dan remembered the grin on the face of the boater in the Lansing Kill, and he felt weak. He wanted to say he would go, but he couldn’t force the words past his teeth; and he knew anyway that it wouldn’t have done any good. Then he heard an exclamation from Molly.

At the same instant he became aware of a fourth person in the room, he heard a thud, and Jotham Klore’s hands leaped past his face and he fell forward limp into Dan’s arms.

“Look at the door, both of you.”

A man, holding a revolver in his right hand, was standing with his back to the faint stripe of light that came through the window boarding; but a menacing coldness in his tone made Dan fix his gaze on the door. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that the girl stared as rigidly as he.

“He was set to butter and fry you, young man,” said the stranger, al-most friendly; then his voice harshened.

“Who was in the bar?” he asked Molly.

“The sheriff,” she said, “and Luke and another man. I think his name was Henderson.”

“Him!” The man grunted.

“Listen,” he said to Dan. “I’ve just done you a turn; now you can do me one. Go out and get that man Henderson out of the bar for a minute. I’ve got to get out of here and he’s watching out the back window.”

“What’ll I tell him?”

“Figure it out for yourself. Only don’t start anything funny. I’m watching through the back door of this room; I’ll be able to see clean into the bar.”

“I’ll tell him I seen you coming down the Lansing Kill.”

“How do you know that?”

“I can make a guess who you are.”

“Don’t try. I’m getting out of this room. How about you, young woman? Will you keep shut five minutes?”

“Surely,” Molly said. “I’ll keep a conversation going with Jotham.”

“All right.”

They heard him leaving the room, and a gentle draft told them that he had opened the back door. They dragged Klore to one side, out of sight of the door.

“He must’ve been in here all the while,” said Molly in a low voice.

“I guess that’s right.”

“Are you going to do what he said?”

“I guess so,” said Dan. “I guess it’s the right thing to do this time.”

“If you raised a holler now you’d have enough to buy your boat with, and more besides.”

“Yeanh,” said Dan, “maybe I would.”

“He couldn’t stop you now.”

“I guess he ought to have a chance.”

“All right. If you ain’t going to say nothing, I won’t. You’d better be going out. Good-bye, Mr. Harrow.”

She held out her hand. When he took it he found it hard and warm, filling his palm.

“Pleased to have met you,” he said awkwardly, and he went into the bar, closing the door behind him.

Several men stood at the bar, and over in a corner the sheriff was sitting with the horse dealer, Henderson. Dan walked over to them. Both looked up.

“Cripus!” exclaimed the fat man. “It’s the lad I saw in Boonville.”

“Yeanh,” said Dan. “I wanted to tell you something about your horse, Mr. Henderson.”

Henderson drew his cigar from his lips and they followed it out, pursing themselves in their silent whistle. He glanced round him quickly.

“Say!” he exclaimed. “We might as well step outside.”

“Yeanh,” said the sheriff.

The three of them went out into the street.

“What is it, young man?”

“I seen a horse just like yourn coming down through the Lansing Kill yesterday noon.”

“Who was you with?”

“Solomon Tinkle and Hector Berry.”

Sheriff Spinning nodded his head. “That’s right. I seen you at the Five Combines.”

“We knew he’d come down. You didn’t get a good sight of him?” asked Henderson.

“No,” said Dan. “He was quite a ways off.”

“Shucks. That ain’t no news. I can’t do nothing till I know what he looks like,” the sheriff complained. “He might be any long-legged feller I hadn’t seen before. Why, he could be right here in Hennessy’s for all I’d know.”

“Thanks, anyhow,” Henderson said to Dan. “Let me know, or Spinning here, if you see him again.”

“All right,” said Dan.

He walked back into the saloon with them. As he entered, he saw Julius Wilson approaching him.

“That’s the young man,” said the bartender.

“What do you want?” asked Wilson.

“I heard you was looking for a driver.”

“I am. What’s your name?”

“Dan Harrow.”

“Done any driving?”

“Some.”

“Who with?”

“Mr. Hector Berry.”

“That seedless raisin?”

“Yeanh,” said Dan, with a grin.

“Well, I’ll give eleven a month driver’s wages. But I’ll only hire you in to Albany. I’ll give you one-fifty for the trip.” “It’s right by me.” “Come along with me,” said Mr. Wilson.

The Line Boat, Xerxes