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Tonio, Son of the Sierras: A Story of the Apache War, a novel by Charles King |
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Chapter 20 |
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_ CHAPTER XX It was then lacking nearly an hour of tattoo. Already the arriving couriers, their mission executed, their wearied horses turned over to willing hands at stables, their hunger appeased at the troop kitchen, and the pent-up hankering for beer still unassuaged, were "filling up" at the expense of their fellows at the store, and wistfully looking on at the game. Munoz, the ever-ready; Dago, the still demoralized, and one or two of their burro-bred community, were settled at monte, Dago and Munoz eying each other like gladiators, and already a table had started at stud poker, that might readily develop into "draw." The barkeeper was a busy man, and had been given the tip to keep sober or lose the last hold he had on his job. The bookkeeper had for a few days past moved in silence about the premises, avoiding the common room as he would a lazaretto, avoiding even his kind. For most of the week he had been utterly unlike himself--strange, nervous, restless, starting at sudden sounds, abrupt in speech and manner, occasionally springing to the door and stepping forth into the sunlight, wandering about with hanging head and hands in pocket, coming back and slamming into his seat as though at odds with all creation, striving desperately to concentrate his thoughts on the columns of figures, and failing wretchedly. "Case is all broke up," said Craney, "and damned if I know why. Last week he was the most popular man in Yavapai, or all Arizona for that matter." What Craney and his partner mortally feared was that Case would take to drinking again, with pay-day close at hand--the time of all others Case had never yet failed them, the time of all others when breach of faith could mean nothing short of breach of all business relations. But up to nine P.M. this night of prospective relaxation Case had been a stalwart. The test was yet to come. It was still half an hour of tattoo when old Bucketts came into Bentley's quarters and found that skilled practitioner replacing the bandages and sling on his patient's shoulder. The tidings brought by the couriers and given out by Archer had long since been digested. Bucketts had something new. "Doc," said he, "if you have anything to say or send to Stannard, now's your chance." "Don't call me 'Doc'!" snapped Bentley. "If there's anything I hate it's this curtailing of titles as though they were too good for the man that bears them. One of these days you'll get your double bars, if you don't die of over-eating, and then how will you like it to be called 'cap'? How'd you like me to call you 'Buck' now? Who's going to Stannard?" "Pass the 'buck,'" said the quartermaster sententiously. "I apologize. But Willett starts at day-break--takes a sergeant, six men and a pack outfit--thought you'd like to know. Leaves us with mighty few cavalry, now that Malloy and his people are still out." "What keeps them?" asked Harris, looking up from Bentley's busy hands. "I never heard what they were after." "You never will," said Bucketts, "unless they stumble on it by accident," then colored under the look of surprise, almost of reproof, in the younger officer's face. It was not good that a post commander's instructions to his men at arms should be slightingly spoken of by one of his staff, and Bentley knew it; but Bucketts was already mentally kicking against those very instructions. Now he stood abashed and awkward. That Willett should be going seemed to Harris of small matter--a matter of course. He wished himself again in Willett's place. "How soon can you let me be going?" he asked Bentley. "We could have had you out by this time if you'd only quit fretting," was the gruff reply. "Well, I suppose Willett's glad of a chance to join his chief?" he said interrogatively, though never looking up. "Not unless looks belie him," was the answer. Bentley bent lower over his work. "No--physical hindrance that I know of," said he suggestively. "It's financial, I take it," said Bucketts sturdily. "Our investigator finds it--expensive--here at Almy." So the sore was rankling still, and that luckless order had hurt no one so much as him who bore it, and so those who might have been his friends were taking a certain malicious comfort in his discomfiture. It was not Willett's fault that he had come thus handicapped, but one thing added to another had made him the disliked of men. Was it in compensation for this that he stood so beloved of women? Then Bucketts, having thus relieved himself, ventured again a glance at Harris, and the younger soldier's eyes were on his, searching, questioning. It was for Bucketts to explain, and he did it thus: "Excuse me, Mr. Harris; I am not over-partial to this distinguished classmate of yours, and, to put it flatly, I'm no more his friend that he is yours. I'll say good-night." Whereupon this blunt official turned and quit the room, colliding at the door with an entering form, that of Strong, whose impact added to the quartermaster's distemper, for Strong was in a hurry, and half-savage mood. "Doctor," said he, bolting in, with scant apology to his staggered fellow staff officer, "Craney wants to know if you're coming down to-night. He's worried a bit about Case." "What's the matter with Case?" asked Bentley, barely looking up from the final tie of the sling, while Harris settled back in his chair. "That's what he wants to ask you. I don't know, except he says Case hasn't slept for six nights, and he'll be wild as a hawk when the paymaster gets here; wants you to give him something to make him sleep, I believe. I told him I'd tell you, and now the general's shooting off his quill at the office. Hope you're better, Harris. Good-night." "Reckon I'll have to go down awhile, anyhow. Harris, what Bucketts said was true, though he oughtn't to have said it. Willett has been playing late these last two nights, with Watts, principally, but Craney says he seemed oddly anxious to get Case into the game, and Case wouldn't play--wouldn't stay about the place while Willett was there--wouldn't have anything to do with him. Willett has lost quite a lot, I'm told, and now he's ordered off." Harris was still silent. He had no love for Willett, at best. He had had in their cadet days more reasons than one for his dislike. He had far more reason now, yet never dreamed of still another--that report to department head-quarters. But Willett was his classmate, and, outwardly, they were friends. Bentley and, in fact, all the officers at Almy were new-found acquaintances, well as some few were known to him by reputation. Still, it came to him something of a shock that Hal Willett should no sooner seem well enough to be about than he should turn directly from her good-night words--her kiss, perhaps--to the gambling table and its probable accompaniments. It boded ill for the happiness of that sweet girl's future, and as Harris sat brooding, Bentley, unheard, unnoted, slipped away, and presently, with brisk step and buoyant mien, Hal Willett himself came bounding in. Barely ten minutes ago Bucketts had given the impression that he seemed dejected, dispirited, yet Willett now was confidence and energy personified. "Hefty, old boy, how much cash have you got in hand? I want three hundred dollars." There was no answer for a moment. Well as Harris thought he knew Willett, this was a surprise. "What for?" were the exact words of the response, and neither in tone nor manner were there encouragement. "I've got to pull out at dawn, I suppose you've heard, and I shouldn't like to leave I.O.U.'s--here!" And now the cheery confidence seemed evaporating. Willett's face was shading. "Won't you sit down?" asked Harris reflectively. "I'd like to know something about--this." "There isn't time, Harris. I'm in a hole, so to speak. I hate to bother you, but I'd rather come to a classmate and old friend, who is in position, as I know, to help out, than give these fellows a chance to talk. Probably they've been talking already, and you've heard," and now, with something like a resumption of the old familiar manner of their boy days at the Point, Willett settled on the broad, flat arm of the reclining chair and threw his own arm, long and muscular, over the back. There had come to be a saying in the gray battalion, when Willett was seen strolling with a comrade, his arm caressingly encircling him, "Well, Willett's doing the bunco act again." Possibly it was the instinctive shrinking of the wounded shoulder; certain it was that Harris drew perceptibly away, and Willett noticed it. "I didn't hurt you, did I?" said he. "It's rather touchy yet," was the answer. "Well, say, Hefty, here's the situation. You don't play, so you won't appreciate, maybe, and I only play once in a good while, but they rung in a brace game on me. That fellow Case is no better'n a professional, and you saw for yourself here what a cad he could be. He got my money that Saturday night and Sunday, and since then, like the cad he is, has refused to play it out--give me a chance to get it back----" "Do you play with cads?" interrupted Harris. "Not when I know it--to start with," answered Willett, flushing and beginning to draw away. Obviously the affectionate and confidential method was a failure. "But when a man's got your money, cad or no cad, you want it back." "And Case has your three hundred dollars?" "Just about. Then I owe Craney and Watts quite a lot. I lost a hundred in cash in the first place. I never saw such luck in all my life! And now, instead of going back to Prescott, I've got to skip for the war-path. Watts says the money he gave me in chips he owes to others who were in the game at one time or other, and he needs currency, not I.O.U.'s. Looks like a regular combine, doesn't it?" "You couldn't expect to win--everything there was in sight," said Harris quietly. Willett flushed again. He had slipped from the broad arm to the narrow camp chair recently occupied by the doctor. Harris was displaying unexpected resistance. Willett had been accustomed to speedier surrender to his advances. "It's more on that account than any other I hate to leave here with these things hanging over me," he answered moodily. Then, by way of expediting matters, "Time's mighty short--short as I am--and Watts says you have a stack of greenbacks in the safe." Again silence a moment. Then Harris turned fully upon his visitor and spoke deliberately. "You ask me to do what I declared three years ago I never would do, and that I have refused to do ever since--loan a man money with which to gamble or pay gambling debts. I need this money, Willett, to send home. I've been saving and sending home ever since I joined, but that's not why I won't play--and don't drink." "Oh, we know how virtuous you are!" began Willett, with something like a sneer, but was checked with sudden, startling force. Harris almost sprang from his chair. "None of that, Willett!" he cried, his voice harsh with anger. "Your ways and mine are wide apart, but I'll stand no sneering. You come to me for help and you're going to get it, not because you scoff at my views, but in spite of it; not for your sake, but that of the old Academy. You and I are the only West Pointers at this post, bar the dear old general. You and I are classmates, and I know you, and don't believe in you, but the money's yours for the asking. You say you come to me as an old friend, and I have never had faith in your friendship. I know how other men's and some women's names have suffered at your hands, and I don't know what you may have done to mine, but----" and now Harris was on his feet, standing over Willett--sitting there gripping the frail arms of a canvas-covered straddle-box, and looking up into the elder soldier's--the junior officer's--face in amaze. Never before had Willett been so braved by man or woman--"But your name shall be protected for just two reasons--and protected just so long as you can show you're worth it. But--Willett, I'm not preaching on drink or gambling now. There's another thing you've got to stop--or I'm done with you." And then Harris himself stopped short. "I don't know what you mean," began Willett, shifting uneasily. "You do know what I mean! You've only to go back to your graduating June, when you were spooning day and night over a society flirt there at the hotel--a married woman at that--and your mantel-shelf was stacked high with unopened, unanswered letters from the poor girl you were engaged to. You were, Willett, in sight of God and man, so don't deny it! And she was telegraphing to me in pity to say was Harold sick--or what. She broke with you, of course, after you broke her heart. And you've been at that sort of thing ever since, unless the Division of the Pacific is a nest of liars--oh, bosh! I don't count Case, though it's like enough he told the truth. But now, Willett, you're here! and--what have we to expect at Almy?" "Damn my past all you like, Harris. No man's more ashamed of it than I, but don't damn my future!" And now Willett was on his feet, his eyes snapping, his face aflame. "I was never so earnest in my life. [Small comfort that! thought Harris.] I never knew before what it was to be utterly in earnest. Stop it! Why, man, where have I--or you--ever known a girl like her? Stop it! Oh, here, Hefty, I can't talk as I feel. You must see how different this is--how much this means to me! The man doesn't deserve to live that--that could be untrue to a girl like that?" "That's--sound enough," said poor Hefty. "But how long will you hold to it?" "So long as I live, Harris," was the solemn, the surprising answer. "God knows I mean it," and Willett held forth his hand. And Willett believed he meant it--firmly, solemnly believed he meant it, and his handsome face was never handsomer, never more eloquent of love, repentance, determination to do a man's manful part in furtherance of his devotion than at this moment when, in the dimly lighted, scantily furnished, low-ceilinged little room, these two men of different mould, these classmates of the nation's soldier school, stood and looked into each other's eyes, and slowly Harris began to stretch forth his left hand, then, stopping suddenly, slipped the right forearm from its broad white sling, steadied the elbow with his left, and slowly turned the thin, feeble fingers to meet the warm clasp of that before him. "It's one of 'Tonio's tricks," said he. "Mano recto, mano cierto. Stick to that, Willett, and, by God, I'll stand by you in spite of everything I've ever thought or heard. Steady!" Somebody was at the door. Harris saw and checked the effusive thanks on Willett's lips. "What's that about 'Tonio?" said a ringing voice, as a "blouse" and buttons followed the blue sleeve into the field of vision, and the adjutant came slowly in. "Queer! D'you know I was thinking of him that very minute. Signal fire out south-east! Some Indians want to talk and afraid to come in. Turner's gone out with a squad to sample 'em. Willett, how soon are you coming over? The general's got the despatches ready." "Right away, if you like! What's it now?" "Ten twenty," said Strong, with a squint at his watch. "There's no hurry. He's writing personals now, and Bentley's just up from the store. There's news in of some kind from McDowell way, and Munoz and Sanchez have jumped the game and quit. You'll probably have 'Patchie guides after all, Willett. Going down to the store after awhile?" "For a moment, perhaps, after I've said good-night at the general's," answered Willett, anxious now to end the business and be away. But in came Bentley. "Get back to the office, Strong," said he; "the general wants you; Turner's in and says there's no one near the fire, no one to answer. All they found was this. The general thought you might understand it, Harris. It lay on a rock by the fire." He held forth a single feather, gray and white, tied with a bit of pink tape to a scrap of cardboard, torn from some cartridge case and folded over. Within, roughly traced in paint, were two figures--a 3 and a 2. "It means, 'Tonio," said Harris simply, "and he wants to talk. What has happened that he should be afraid to come in--here?" Willett heard and knew and would have stayed, but the doctor for once looked embarrassed, and Strong signalled Willet to come with him. "I'll be back presently, Hefty," said Willett significantly, and vanished. Even then Bentley faltered. "I'll let the general answer that," said he. "How can 'Tonio be summoned in?" "Only as I did, at the Peak, and on honor that he may go," was the answer. "Unless--I can go out to him." "You can't--to-night, anyhow! Is there no one else he'll meet who can understand him?" "Only one American--Case." "Humph!" was the answer, with a shrug and a keen, inquiring look in the doctor's eyes. "I've shown it to Case, and he says 'Tonio has only one object in life now, in or out of the post, and that is to square accounts with Willett, who was ass enough to strike him. This from Case, mind you, who, I believe, hates Willett himself. I've just got him stowed away for the night. Had to take him out of earshot of the store and put him in limbo at Craney's shack, where he can't hear what's going on. I gave him a dose that would flatten out St. Vitus himself. There'll be no budging Case this night unless--but that isn't likely." "Then I need to go and see the general," said Harris. "Then the general will come to see you--here. My word for it," said Bentley, and went his way. It was then nearly eleven. Five minutes later Willett, with relieved heart and elastic step, was hastening back to the general's quarters where sweet, yet tearful, welcome awaited him. An hour later he stepped forth into the starlight, turning to kiss his hand and wave silent good-night to a slender, shadowy form at the doorway, under the shelter of the gallery. Something in its pathetic droop and distress called him once again to her side, and with fond, clasping arms he drew the sobbing girl to his heart and pressed kiss after kiss upon the upturned, tear-wet little face. "Try to sleep, my darling!" he murmured. "Mother will wake you at four, and we'll have a moment before I go!" "Mother won't have to wake me!" she cried, clinging to him the while. "Oh, Harold, if you only had not--to meet 'Tonio again!" "No fear of 'Tonio, sweetheart," he answered. "Now, go I must!" And so, with her kiss upon his lips, he left her to be led by loving mother hands to her little white room, and to her humble prayers, and the love-guarded pillow, where, lying wide-awake, still an hour later, she heard the shot and stifled scream that called a garrison to arms. _ |
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