CHAPTER XXVIII
“YOU’LL COME BACK TO SPYGLASS MOUNTAIN”
WINNIE THE WEEPER was not the least attractive of the girls who were attached to The Golden Eagle at Ragtown for the purpose of separating the railroad stiffs from their hard-earned money. She was dark-eyed and dark-haired and of a good figure. She danced well, and was able to put up a painted pout that made men part with their money and believe themselves in luck. When the pout failed, she had the gift of causing tears to spurt from her dark eyes, and then men longed to make her smile once more, and only money could make her smile. Hence “Winnie the Weeper” was the underworld “monaker” of Slim Wolfgang’s girl.
It was evening, three days after Cole of Spyglass Mountain had hauled his load of lumber to the homesteads and set to work with nails and hammer. The stage reached Ragtown, and Winnie left her place behind the chair of Slim Wolfgang in The Golden Eagle, where she had been watching a desultory game of stud between Slim and one of his cappers. The revel of the night was not yet on, and Slim had asked her--ordered her, rather--to see if any mail had come for them on the stage.
She left The Golden Eagle and passed along the street toward The Silver Dollar, a few doors distant. The darting glances of several stiffs lounging about the doorways followed her as she tripped along, singing softly. For The Weeper was a “dresser,” and she carried herself with pride. There was about her, also, an air of “something better,” even though she did chew gum too rapidly.
In five minutes she was back in The Golden Eagle and handing Slim a dirty letter.
Slim laid his cards on the table, and, without excusing himself to his dummy antagonist at stud, tore open the envelope and frowned in puzzlement at the contents.
Then he spoke shortly to his capper.
“Deal ’em out, Johnny,” he said. “I’ll send Nick in to cap for youse. C’mon, Win; I wanta show youse sumpin.”
Dutifully the girl followed him out, and they walked together to the tent through which Joshua Cole had chased The Whimperer.
Inside they sat down on the bed.
“Read dat, will youse?” offered the gambler, and angrily thrust the letter into Winnie’s hand.
She read as follows:
“SLIM WOLFGANG:
“SIR. i have quit you slim as your a no good sun of a gun an somday im going to get you for the roten way you treted me. I saw cole an told him all i know about you an the son of a gun was tight an would not give me anything much to beet it on. just the same slim he told me something that youd like to know mity well. You wont cetch me because im gone from you old timer. But if you want to know what i got from cole you send twenty five dollars to me in the care of mother duffy at the oakland bar in sacermento. then ill slip you what i know. goodby you big stiff. ill get you somday.
“THE WHIMPERER.”
The envelope was postmarked “Spur, California,” and the date was the day before.
“Well, for the love of Mike!” gasped Winnie the Weeper. “What’re you goin’ to do about it, Slim?”
Slim rested his cadaverous chin in one bony hand and meditatively ran the long nicotine-stained fingers of the other hand up and down over the six golden buttons on his billiard-top vest.
“Aw,” he husked finally, “he’s tryin’ to string me. Maybe he played stool pigeon to Cole, all right, but he don’t know nuttin’ to tell. I was too wise to let um know anyt’ing--see? But what would Cole be tellin’ him that would be any use to me, kid?”
“I don’t know,” mused the girl. “Looks to me like the big stiff’s got somethin’ to peddle, Slim. He didn’t make any promises--none o’ this big honest-to-God business. Just said ‘lay ’er down,’ like he meant business. I’d take a chance, Slim. You threw the fear of Christ into that tramp, and he wouldn’t dare double-cross you by holdin’ out on you after you’d sent the jack. He’ll remember how easy you located him before. And what’s twenty-five--to us?”
Slim Wolfgang’s thin sandy eyebrows drew lower, and his leering, gangster’s face was not good to see. “I gotta take a chance,” he decided finally. “So you get a money-order, kid, an’ do like dat dam’ ---- says. He’s got me; an’, as youse said, wot’s twenty-five? Slip us a kiss, now, kid, an’ I’ll be gettin’ back to de game. Dey oughta be driftin’ in pretty soon. Oh, hell, I’d like to beat it outa here after next payday!”
“Here, too,” sighed Winnie. “God, I got more jack than I ever saw before, an’ it’s goin’ to waste in this rotten hole. Say, if we was in N’ York, Slim--”
“Yes, I know--I’ve heard dat spiel before. But we ain’t dere, an’ we can’t go dere till dis business is off me han’s. Beat it, now, an’ send dat jack like De Whimperer says. An’ if he’s tryin’ to make a sucker outa me, by God he’d better ramble some!”
Ten days later Winnie the Weeper and Slim held between them a dirty scrap of paper, on which was penciled:
“cole told me he was going east to see what it was al about that i told him about.
“THE WHIMPERER.”
“Goin’ East, is he? Goin’ East, hey!” growled Slim, as the girl looked expectantly up into his pale-blue eyes. “Well, he’ll not go East, take it from me, kid! Now I know wot to do. An’ I’ll do it, too! But no East for us, Win, until spring--that settles that. I was thinkin’ maybe Tony was settled over dere on his claim an’ you an’ me could beat it as soon as winter set in an’ take a chance. But De Whimperer has spilt de beans--an’ now Tony’s t’inkin’ he’ll beat it East. Oh, wait’ll I get me mitts on De Whimperer!”
“You--you won’t kill Cole, then, Slim? That means you won’t, don’t it? Slim, I--I don’t like that kinda business. I may be a sportin’ girl and a crook, and all that, but I couldn’t stand to have you bump that guy off.”
“No, I won’t bump um,” Slim promised. “But if I don’t it means we gotta winter it out here in these dam’ mountains, Win. An’ stay clear up till the fifteent’ of June.”
“I guess I’d rather do that, Slim,” she told him, “than have you bump a guy off. But, God, I’m sick o’ this hick country!”
“All right, kiddo--youse’re de doctor. But Cole won’t go East--take dat from me! I know how to stop um!”
* * * * *
Shanty Madge was adorable in overalls and a carpenter’s apron with nail pockets in it. And on the right leg of her overalls was a stout band of self material, as the garment advertisers would say, in which to hang her hammer when she used a saw or other tool. The hammer hung pretty low and was bothersomely heavy, but Madge used the strap religiously. But she told Joshua in confidence that pins tasted better in the mouth than nails.
It is to be feared that the true reason for the repeatedly hammered thumbnail of Cole of Spyglass Mountain was not due to awkwardness but to the captivating companionship of his helper.
Fall was manifest in the air. Fleecy clouds hung over the mountains, and there was an exhilarating nip in the kiss of the wind from Stirrup Lake. Frost covered the ground of mornings, and Joshua was afraid to accept the dare of Shanty Madge to touch his tongue to the steel of the tools. Wild ducks were circling high over the lake, for the water grasses were full ripe now and drew mallards and canvasbacks and pintails from afar. Old Man Winter was not far distant, and they worked early and late to outmaneuver him.
They completed the cabin and the stable of the Mundys first. Then they went at Joshua’s cabin at the foot of Spyglass Mountain. The work was kept back by Joshua’s having to leave and haul more building materials, and on one trip in he found that his telescope had arrived by freight. The thousand pounds that it represented, when added to a load of lumber, made the lumber content of that load pretty light. But Cole of Spyglass Mountain was a boy with a new toy. Nothing would do but that he should uncrate his treasure and set it up on its pedestal in his half-completed cabin, which served very well as an observatory then because the roof was not yet on.
Madge was as enthusiastic as he was, and after a hard day’s work with saw and hammer she was not too tired to spend hours of the night with Joshua looking at the heavenly bodies, crowing with delight.
It was a wonderful telescope. The tube was approximately ten feet long, and the pedestal was of iron. There was a clock attachment which automatically moved the instrument so that it would follow a stellar body across the sky without the attention of the operator. There was a finder, of course, and once the image was settled upon Joshua had nothing to do but give his every faculty to observation.
Winter was almost upon them by the time Joshua’s cabin and stable were up. Then Joshua hauled lumber and metal roofing for his observatory. This he was obliged to leave at the foot of Spyglass Mountain while he worked at the continuation of his trail to the summit.
Madge had decided to put a team at work clearing the sagebrush--dragging it down with a length of railroad steel which she had used for like purposes on the grade. Then, too, there was the winter’s wood to be cut and hauled. And before the spring drive of the Box-R cattle into the mountains, the homesteads must be fenced. It seemed that there were a million things that should be done at once in order to gain time, but Madge discarded all of them and helped Joshua build his trail.
No amount of argument on his part would change her mind. One look at the marvels of the skies through the new telescope seemed to have fevered her with the desire to get the materials for building the observatory to the top of Spyglass Mountain at the earliest possible date. So Joshua compromised with her, and they felled trees and hauled them to the cabins during the crisp mornings and hacked at the trail to the top of Spyglass Mountain during the mellow afternoons.
They made the trail no wider than necessary for a tandem team to pull a narrow sled up the steep side. The mountain rose so abruptly from the gentle slope above the lake that they were obliged to switch back and forth, make hairpin curves and buttonhook bends, and twist in and out about great gaunt rocks and clusters of scrubby piñon pines. Spyglass Mountain was perhaps a thousand feet above the level of the lake, and a bench mark that Joshua had discovered hidden away in the sage showed that the lake was about six thousand seven hundred and fifty feet above the sea. So the telescope, when installed for work on the summit, would be at an altitude of approximately seven thousand seven hundred and fifty feet. The mountain was bleak and rugged and dry, for it overlooked the desert and was under the influence of the desert rather than the moister country on the coast side of the range. It was a huge, steep pile of rocks and red-quartz outcroppings, with low piñons, sage, a few junipers, and an occasional yucca palm to tone down its grimness, and render its coloring contrasty when the sun so willed. But to Cole of Spyglass Mountain it was the most wonderful spot on earth!
Snow was flying before the trail had been completed, but this did not deter the workers. They were nearing the summit now, where the snow did not lie in drifts as it did down by the lake. Then, the high winds which arose drove it from the top and sides in fleecy puffs. This aided the work, but it worried Joshua. An observer cannot expect “good seeing” when the atmosphere is disturbed by gales. But the high winds, he had been told, were usually confined to the winter months in that locality, so the young astronomer was by turns elated and depressed.
Joshua had given up all thought of going East to try and solve the mystery of Felix Wolfgang’s long-distance persecution. He had been impulsive when he informed The Whimperer that he would do so, knowing when he spoke that it would be folly for him to leave the mountains when so many things demanded his immediate attention. Besides, he would not have left Madge and her mother to prepare for the coming of a mountain winter with no man about to help them. Most of their neighbor homesteaders had left the country as soon as the skies showed blustery clouds and squalls began to scurry over the lake. And the three had only a speaking acquaintance with the few who had resolved to brave the winter through. He was too busy, even, to give Felix Wolfgang much thought--too happy with Shanty Madge in daylight hours, and with the precious telescope, dimly outlined in a corner of the cabin, through moonlit nights.
Late one afternoon they finished the trail, laid down their picks and shovels, and stood side by side looking down on the wind-swept desert four thousand feet below them, stretching away in three directions, an awe-inspiring sight under the mystic spell of the fleeting winter afternoon.
“Isn’t it glorious!” Madge exclaimed. “I feel like a bird. Like an eagle. If I had wings that I could lift, and could soar away over that tantalizing yellow waste, away over those calico buttes far to the east that seem to be calling me, I--I-- Well, I’d just lift ’em and soar, that’s all.”
“And where would you end?” asked Cole of Spyglass Mountain softly.
“I’d never end, I guess. I’d keep on soaring forever.”
“And never come back to Spyglass Mountain?”
“Well, when I wanted to rest and lay my plans for another soar, perhaps.”
“I’d be here waiting for you,” he told her significantly.
“Would you? Keeper of my home port of the skies? If I could soar away, east and west and north and south, I think I’d like to keep this pinnacle in mind. I would become confused, perhaps, and lose my bearings. Then I could turn and head for Spyglass Mountain again, which seems to me to overlook the earth and sky. And you’d be here to correct my course for me and point out where I had missed the way. Then I’d rearrange my ruffled feathers and try once more; and you’d watch me through your telescope until I’d be only a tiny speck a thousand miles away. Oh, this is silly, isn’t it?”
“Madge,” he said, and his tone trembled, “I want you never to forget what you’ve just said. It isn’t silly. If Spyglass Mountain turns out to be the ideal place for astronomical observations, I shall always be here--always, that is, as human beings speak of always in connection with their brief lives. You may soar away--something tells me that you will. But remember--I’ll always be here waiting for your return.
“Dear girl, you don’t want money--you don’t want life, as most folks speak of life. You were born for the outdoors, for the freedom that it offers. You have never tasted the artificialities of life in the cities, and therefore you think you want to. But if you go you’ll come back as straight as the crow flies--back to the mountains and the deserts and the places where quiet reigns. It’s born in you, and you can’t escape it. You’ll come back to Spyglass Mountain!”
“How do you know that, Joshua?”
“It’s easily explained: Never have I heard from you a murmur of discontent over the solitude of these vast mountains. Like myself, you are one who can be alone for days at a time, with the bleak peaks about you or the mocking sandy wastes of the desert, and be content with only them and your thoughts for company. We are rare, Madge. Such an unanswering solitude as would drive many people insane, we thrive on. I say we are rare. I mean that a man and a woman who both possess that quality rarely meet each other and--and fall in love. That is--I mean, of course-- Well, I love _you_; I’ve told you so. And you should forget everything else and let yourself love me. You can’t afford to take chances by letting yourself love another man, who might take you to the cities, where you imagine you want to go. For as sure as spring follows winter Spyglass Mountain will call you back. And then--if _he_ doesn’t want to come?
“What if a night on the desert, with the moaning of the wind in the greasewood bushes and the half-mournful, half-mocking laugh of the coyote, strikes terror to his heart? What if the constant roar of a waterfall gets on his nerves instead of soothing him to sleep, as it would soothe you and me? And _you_ must have these things. So one of you must sacrifice to the very core of your being--and that means a life of suffering and discontent for the one who is biggest of heart and gives in to the other. And that one, Shanty Madge, will be you.”
“And how do you know that, O sage?”
“Listen: Because those who are born to the open spaces, those who love the unanswering solitudes and are at peace with God and Mother Earth--they are always the ones who make the sacrifice. Because their souls are big like the mountains--their vision is wide like the desert--their courage is like the rocks--their hearts are kind and sheltering like the trees. Yes--like the trees! The great-hearted trees that shelter men for ages, and then go down before man’s ax with one long groan of anguish, surrendering everything!”
With her bare head bowed, and the winter wind whipping her crinkly bronze-gold hair, the little gypo queen stood listening. And in her eyes, as she lifted them to his, a miragelike moisture gleamed. She took his hand.
“Let’s go down, my poet-astronomer,” she said. “We must get a good sleep to-night and be up early. It will be a long, hard job to sled the lumber for our observatory to the top of Spyglass Mountain.”