War Comes to the Big Bend Page 8

  “Fight! Would I?” burst out Lenore with a passionate little cry.

  “Good! Now you’re talkin’!” exclaimed her father.

  “I’ll find out about this Nash . . . if you’ll let me,” declared Lenore, as if inspired.

  “How? What do you mean, girl?”

  “I’ll encourage him. I’ll make him think I’m a wishy-washy moonstruck girl, smitten with him. All’s fair in war! If he means ill by my father . . .”

  Anderson muttered low under his breath and his big hand snapped hard at the nodding goldenrod.

  “For my sake . . . to help me . . . you’d encourage Nash . . . flirt with him a little . . . find out all you could?”

  “Yes, I would!” she cried deliberately. But she wanted to cover her face with her hands. She trembled slightly, then grew cold, with a sickening disgust at this strange, new, uprising self.

  “Wait a minute before you say too much,” went on Anderson. “You’re my best-beloved child, my Lenore, the lass I’ve been so proud of all my life. I’d spill blood to avenge an insult to you. . . But, Lenore, we’ve entered upon a terrible war. People out here, especially the women, don’t realize it yet. But you must realize it. When I said good bye to Jim, my son, I . . . I felt I’d never look upon his face again! I gave him up. I could have held him back . . . got an exemption for him. But, no, by God! I gave him up . . . to make safety and happiness and prosperity for . . . say, your children, an’ Rose’s, an’ Kathleen’s . . . I’m workin’ now for the future. So must every loyal man an’ every loyal woman. We love our own country. An’ I ask you to see as I see the terrible danger to that country. Think of you an’ Rose an’ Kathleen bein’ treated like those poor Belgian girls. Well, you’d get that an’ worse if the Germans won this war. An’ the point is, for us to win, every last one of us must fight, sacrifice to that end, an’ hang together.”

  Anderson paused huskily and swallowed hard while he looked away across the fields. Lenore felt herself drawn by an irresistible power. The west wind rustled through the waving wheat. She heard the whir of the threshers. Yet all seemed unreal. Her father’s passion had made this place another world.

  “So much for that,” resumed Anderson. “I’m goin’ to do my best. An’ I may make blunders. I’ll play the game as it’s dealt out to me. Lord knows I feel all in the dark. But it’s the nature of the effort, the spirit, that’ll count. I’m goin’ to save most of the wheat on my ranches. An’ bein’ a Westerner who can see ahead, I know there’s goin’ to be blood spilled . . . I’d give a lot to know who sent this Nash spyin’ on me. I’m satisfied now he’s an agent, a spy, a plotter for a gang that’s marked me. I can’t prove it yet, but I feel it. Maybe nothin’ worthwhile . . . the trouble . . . will be found out from him. But I don’t figure that way. I say play their own game an’ take a chance . . . If you encouraged Nash, you’d probably find out all about him. The worst of it is could you be slick enough? Could a girl as fine an’ square an’ high-spirited as you ever double-cross a man, even a scoundrel like Nash? I reckon you could, considerin’ the motive. Women are wonderful . . . Well, if you can fool him, make him think he’s a winner, flatter him till he swells up like a toad, promise to elope with him, be curious, jealous, make him tell where he goes, who he meets, show his letters, all without ever sufferin’ his hand on you, I’ll give my consent. I’d think more of you for it. Now the question is, can you do it?”

  “Yes,” whispered Lenore.

  “Good!” exploded Anderson in a great relief. Then he began to mop his wet face. He arose, showing the weight of heavy guns in his pockets, and he gazed across the wheat fields. “That wheat’ll be ripe in a week. It sure looks fine. . . Lenore, you ride back home now. Don’t let Jake pump you. He’s powerful curious. An’ I’ll go give these IWWs a first dose of Anderson.” He turned away without looking at her, and he hesitated, bending over to pluck a stem of goldenrod.

  “Lass . . . you’re . . . you’re like your mother,” he said unsteadily. “An’ she helped me win out durin’ my struggle here. You’re brave an’ you’re big.”

  Lenore wanted to say something, to show her feeling, to make her task seem lighter, but she could not speak.

  “We’re pards now . . . with no secrets,” he continued with a different note in his voice. “An’ I want you to know that it ain’t likely Nash or Glidden will get out of this country alive.”

  Chapter Seven

  Three days later, Lenore accompanied her father on the ride to the Big Bend country. She sat in the back seat of the car with Jake—an arrangement very gratifying to the cowboy, but received with ill-concealed displeasure by the driver, Nash. They had arranged to start at sunrise, and it became manifest that Nash had expected Lenore to sit beside him all during the long ride. It was her father, however, who took the front seat, and behind Nash’s back he had slyly winked at Lenore, as if to compliment her on the evident success of their deep plot. Lenore, at the first opportunity that presented, shot Nash a warning glance that was sincere enough. Jake had begun to use keen eyes, and there was no telling what he might do.

  The morning was cool, sweet, fresh, with a red sun presaging a hot day. The big car hummed like a droning bee and seemed to cover the miles as if by magic. Lenore sat with face uncovered, enjoying the breeze and the endless colorful scene flashing by, listening to Jake’s amusing comments, and trying to keep back thought of what discovery might await her before the end of this day.

  Once across the Snake River, they struck the gradual ascent, and here the temperature began to mount and the dust to fly. Lenore drew her veils close, and, leaning comfortably back, she resigned herself to wait and to endure.

  By the flight of a crow it was about a hundred miles from Anderson’s ranch to Wheeler, but by the roundabout roads necessary to take the distance was a great deal longer. Lenore was well aware when they got up on the desert, and the time came when she thought she would suffocate. There appeared to be intolerable hours in which no one spoke and only the hum and creak of the machine throbbed in her ears. She could not see through her veils and did not part them until a stop was made at Wheeler.

  Her father got out, sputtering and gasping, shaking the dust in clouds from his long linen coat. Jake, who always said he lived on dust and heat, averred it was not exactly a regular fine day. Lenore looked out, trying to get a breath of air. Nash busied himself with the hot engine.

  The little country town appeared dead, and buried under dust. There was not a person in sight or a sound to be heard. The sky resembled molten lead, with a blazing center too bright for the gaze of man.

  Anderson and Jake went into the little hotel to get some refreshments. Lenore preferred to stay in the car, saying she wanted only a cool drink. The moment the two men were out of sight Nash straightened up to gaze darkly and hungrily at Lenore.

  “This’s as good a chance as we’ll get,” he said in an eager, hurried whisper.

  “For what?” asked Lenore, aghast.

  “To run off,” he replied huskily.

  Lenore had proceeded so cleverly to carry out her scheme that in three days Nash had begun to implore and demand that she elope with him. He had been so much of a fool. But she as yet had found out but little about him. His right name was Ruenke. He was a socialist. He had plenty of money and hinted of mysterious sources for more.

  At this Lenore hid her face, and, while she fell back in pretended distress, she really wanted to laugh. She had learned something new in these few days, and that was to hate.

  “Oh, no-no,” she murmured. “I . . . I can’t think of that . . . yet.”

  “But why not?” he demanded in shrill violence. His gloved hand clenched on the tool he held.

  “Mother has been so unhappy . . . with my brother Jim . . . off to the war. I . . . I just couldn’t . . . now. Harry, you must give me time. It’s all so . . . so sudden. Please wait.”

  Nash appeared divided between two emotions. Lenore watched him from behind her parted veil. She had been
astonished to find out that, side-by-side with her intense disgust and shame at the part she was playing, there was a strong, keen, passionate interest in it, owing to the fact that, though she could prove little against this man, her woman’s intuition had sensed his secret deadly antagonism toward her father. By little significant mannerisms and revelations he had more and more betrayed the German in him. She saw it in his overbearing conceit, his almost instant assumption that he was her master. At first Lenore feared him, but, as she learned to hate him, she lost her fear. She had never been alone with him except under such circumstances as this, and she had decided she would not be.

  “Wait?” he was expostulating. “But it’s going to get hot for me.”

  “Oh . . . what do you mean?” she begged. “You frighten me.”

  “Lenore, the IWW will have hard sledding in this wheat country. I belong to that. I told you. But the union is run differently this summer. And I’ve got work to do . . . that I don’t like since I fell in love with you. Come, run off with me and I’ll give it up.”

  Lenore trembled at this admission. She appeared to be close upon further discovery. “How wildly you talk!” she exclaimed. “I hardly know you. You frighten me with your mysterious talk . . . Have . . . a . . . a little consideration for me.”

  Nash strode back to lean into the car. Behind his huge goggles his eyes gleamed. His gloved hand closed hard on her arm. “It is sudden. It’s got to be sudden,” he said in fierce undertone. “You must trust me.”

  “I will. But you must confide in me,” she replied earnestly. “I’m not quite a fool. You’re rushing me . . . too . . . too . . .”

  Suddenly he released her, threw up his hand, then quickly stepped back to the front of the car. Jake stood in the door of the hotel. He had seen that action of Nash’s. Then Anderson appeared, followed by a boy carrying a glass of water for Lenore. They approached the car, Jake sauntering last, with his curious gaze on Nash.

  “Go in an’ get a bite an’ a drink,” said Anderson to the driver. “An’ hurry.”

  Nash obeyed. Jake’s eyes never left him until he entered the door. Then Jake stepped in beside Lenore. “Thet water’s wet, anyhow,” he drawled.

  “We’ll get a good cold drink at Dorn’s,” said Anderson. “Lass, how are you makin’ it?”

  “Fine,” she replied, smiling.

  “So I seen,” significantly added Jake with a piercing glance at her.

  Lenore realized then that she would have to confide in Jake or run the risk of having violence done to Nash. So she nodded wisely at the cowboy and winked mischievously, and, taking advantage of Anderson’s entering the car, she whispered in Jake’s ear: “I’m finding out things. Tell you . . . later.”

  The cowboy looked anything but convinced, and he glanced with narrowed eyes at Nash as that worthy hurried back to the car.

  It seemed to Lenore then that with a lurch and a leap the car left Wheeler behind in a cloud of dust. The air was furnace-hot, oppressive, and exceedingly dry. Lenore’s lips smarted so that she continually moistened them. On all sides stretched dreary parched wheat fields. Anderson shook his head sadly. Jake said: “Ain’t thet too bad? Not half growed, an’ sure too late now.”

  Near at hand Lenore saw the short immature dirty-whitish wheat, and she realized that it was ruined.

  “It’s been gettin’ worse, Jake,” remarked Anderson. “Most of this won’t be cut at all. An’ what is cut won’t yield seedlings. I see a yellow patch here an’ there on the north slopes, but for the most part the Big Bend’s a failure.”

  “Father, you remember Dorn’s section, that promised so well?” asked Lenore.

  “Yes. But it promised only in case of rain. I look for the worst,” replied Anderson regretfully.

  “It looks like storm clouds over there,” said Lenore, pointing far ahead. Through the drifting veils of heat, far across the bare, dreamy hills of fallow and the blasted fields of wheat, stood up some huge white columnar clouds, a vivid contrast to the coppery sky.

  “By George, there’s a thunderhead!” exclaimed Anderson. “Jake, what do you make of that?”

  “Looks good to me,” replied Jake, who was always hopeful.

  Lenore bore the hot wind and the fine, choking dust without covering her face. She wanted to see all the hills and valleys of this desert of wheat. Her heart beat a little faster as, looking across that waste on waste of heroic labor, she realized she was nearing the end of a ride that might be momentous for her. The very aspect of that wide, treeless expanse, with all its overwhelming meaning, seemed to make her a stronger and more thoughtful girl. If those endless wheat fields were indeed ruined, what a pity, what a tragedy! Not only would young Dorn be ruined, but perhaps many other toiling farmers. Somehow Lenore felt no hopeless certainty of ruin for the young man in whom she was interested.

  “There, on that slope,” spoke up Anderson, pointing to a field that was yellow in contrast to the surrounding gray field. “There’s a half-section of fair wheat.”

  But such tinges of harvest gold were not many in half a dozen miles of dreary hills. Where are the beautiful shadows in the wheat? wondered Lenore. Not a breath of wind appeared to stir across those fields.

  As the car neared the top of a hill, the road curved into another, and Lenore saw a dusty flash of another car passing on ahead.

  Suddenly Jake leaned forward. “Boss, I seen somethin’ throwed out of thet car . . . into the wheat,” he said.

  “What? Mebbe it was a bottle,” replied Anderson, peering ahead.

  “Nope. Sure wasn’t thet . . . There! I seen it again. Watch, boss.”

  Lenore strained her eyes and felt a stir of her pulses. Jake’s voice was perturbing. Was it strange that Nash slowed up a little where there was no apparent need? Then Lenore saw a hand flash out of the side of the car ahead and throw a small, glinting object into the wheat.

  “There! Seen it again,” said Jake.

  “I saw! Jake, mark that spot . . . Nash, slow down!” yelled Anderson.

  Lenore gathered from the look of her father and the cowboy that something was amiss, but she could not guess what it might be. Nash bent sullenly at his task of driving.

  “I reckon about here,” said Jake, waving his hand.

  “Stop here,” ordered Anderson, and, as the car came to a halt, he got out, followed by Jake.

  “Wal, I marked it by thet rock,” declared the cowboy.

  “So did I,” responded Anderson. “Let’s get over the fence an’ find what it was they threw in there.”

  Jake rested a lean hand on a post and vaulted the fence. But Anderson had to climb laboriously and painfully over the barbed-wire obstruction. Lenore marveled at his silence and his persistence. Anderson hated wire fences. Presently he got over, and then he divided his time between searching in the wheat and peering after the strange car that was drawing far away.

  Lenore saw Jake pick up something and scrutinize it.

  “I’ll be dog-goned,” he muttered. Then he approached Anderson. “What is thet?”

  “Jake, you can lambaste me if I ever saw the likes,” replied Anderson. “But it looks bad. Let’s rustle after that car.”

  As Anderson clambered into his seat once more, he looked dark and grim. “Catch that car ahead,” he tersely ordered Nash. Whereupon the driver began to go through his usual motions in starting. “Lenore, what do you make of this?” queried Anderson, turning to show her a small cake of some gray substance, soft and wet to the touch.

  “I don’t know what it is,” replied Lenore wonderingly. “Do you?”

  “No. An’ I’d give a lot . . . Say, Nash, hurry. Overhaul that car.”

  Anderson turned to see why his order had not been obeyed. He looked angry. Nash made hurried motions. The car trembled, the machinery began to whir—then came a tremendous buzzing roar, a violent shaking of the car, followed by sharp explosions, and silence.

  “You stripped the gears!” shouted Anderson, with the red fading out of his face
.

  “No, but something’s wrong,” replied Nash. He got out to examine the engine.

  Anderson manifestly controlled strong feeling. Lenore saw Jake’s hand go to her father’s shoulder. “Boss,” he whispered, “we can’t ketch thet car now.” Anderson resigned himself, averted his face so that he could not see Nash, who was tinkering with the engine. Lenore believed then that Nash had deliberately stalled the engine or disordered something, so as to permit the escape of the strange car ahead. She saw it turn off the long, straight road ahead and disappear to the right. After some minutes’ delay Nash resumed his seat and started the car once more.

  From the top of the next hill Lenore saw the Dorn farm and home. All the wheat looked parched. She remembered, however, that the section of promising grain lay on the north slope, and therefore out of sight from where she was.

  “Looks as bad as any,” said Anderson. “Good bye to my money.”

  Lenore shut her eyes and thought of herself, her inward state. She seemed calm, and glad to have that first part of the journey almost ended. Her motive in coming was not now the impelling thing that had actuated her.

  When next the car slowed down, she heard her father say: “Drive in by the house.”

  Then Lenore, opening her eyes, saw the gate, the trim little orchard with its scant shade, the gray old weather-beaten house that she remembered so well. The big porch looked inviting, as it was shady and held an old rocking chair and a bench with blue cushions. A door stood wide open. No one appeared to be on the premises.

  “Nash, blow your horn an’ then hunt around for somebody,” said Anderson. “Come, get out, Lenore. You must be half dead.”

  “Oh, no. Only half dust and half fire,” replied Lenore, laughing, as she stepped out. What a relief to get rid of coat, veils, bonnet, and to sit on a shady porch where a faint breeze blew. Just at that instant she heard a low, distant rumbling. Thunder! It thrilled her. Jake brought her a cold, refreshing drink, and she sent him back after another. She wet her handkerchief and bathed her hot face. It was indeed very comfortable here after that long hot ride.