CHAPTER VTHE SUMMONS
Later on in the morning the Colonel waked from a few hours of uneasy slumber. He had thrown himself dressed on his bed and dropped into a sleep from which he had been roused by the morning sounds of Foleys. The lethargy and depression of the night of memories clung heavily to him, and as he dressed he decided that he would leave the camp that morning, sending word to Cusack the lawyer that he would let the matter of the squatter rest for a few days.
As he left the dining-room after breakfast, he was accosted by a stable-man, who informed him that Kit Carson was inclined to “go tender” on one of his front feet. The man did not know when the Colonel intended leaving, but if it was that day he would advise him to “wait over a spell” and let Kit “rest up.” Nearly a hundred and forty miles in thirty-six hours—especially with the sun so hot at midday, was a pretty serious proposition even for Kit Carson.
The Colonel stood silent for a moment looking at the man from under frowning brows. It would be possible for him to take one of Forsythe’s horses,ride to Milton, and there get the Stockton stage. Forsythe’s boy could ride Kit back to Sacramento when his front foot ceased to be tender. But after all, what was the use of running from the situation? There it was, to be thought out and dealt with. It was Fate that had lamed the never tired or disabled Kit just at this juncture.
With a word to the man that he would stay over till the horse was in proper condition, he passed through the hall and along the balcony to the side which flanked the dining-room. Its boarded length was deserted, with, before each window, a social gathering of chairs as they had been arranged by on-lookers during last night’s revel. A long line of locust trees, their foliage motionless in the warm air, grew between the hotel fence and the road, throwing the balcony in a scented shade.
Between their trunks the Colonel could survey the main street of Foleys, already wrapped in its morning state of somnolence, its unstirred dust beaten upon by a relentless blaze of sun. Under the covered sidewalk a shirt-sleeved figure now and then passed with loitering step, or a sun-bonneted woman picked her way through the dust. The male population of the camp was, for the most part, gathered in detached groups which marked the doorways of saloons. Each member of a group occupied a wooden arm-chair, had his heels raised high on a hitching bar, his hat well down on his nose, while a spiral of smoke issued from beneath the brim. Now and then some one spoke and the Colonel could see theheads under the tilted hats slowly turning to survey the speaker. At intervals, however, a word was passed of sudden, energizing import. It roused the group which rose as a man and filed into the saloon. When they emerged, they seated themselves, the silence resettled, and all appeared to drowse. The one being who defied the soporific effect of the hour was an unseen player on the French horn who beguiled the morning stillness with variations of the melody,When this Cruel War is Over.
The Colonel, smoking his morning cigar, surveyed the outlook with the unseeing eyes of extreme preoccupation. He did not even notice the presence of the saddled horse which a stable-man had led up to the gate just below where he sat. Some louder admonition of the man’s to the fretting animal finally caught his ear and his fixed eyes fell on it.
It was a stately creature, satin-flanked and slender-legged, stamping and shaking its long mane in its impatience. The neat pack of the traveler was tied behind the saddle.
“Whose horse is that, Tom?” said the Colonel, knowing its type strange to Foleys. “Didn’t the Gracey boys go back last night?”
“Yes. The whole Buckeye Belle outfit rode back at three. This is Jerry Barclay’s horse. He’s goin’ on this morning to Thompson’s Flat. Barclay rid him up from Stockton—won’t take no livery horse. Has this one sent up on the boat.”
As the man spoke the Colonel heard a quick step on the balcony behind him, and the owner of thehorse came around the corner, smiling, handsome, debonair in his loose-fitting clothes, long riding boots and wide-brimmed hat.
“Morning, Colonel,” he said; “I see the tropical calm of Foleys is affecting you. Take example by me—off for twenty miles across country to Thompson’s Flat.”
He ran down the steps and out into the road. There, standing in the dust putting on his gloves, he let a quick, investigating eye run over his horse.
“I intended starting at sun-up,” he said, “and then they went and forgot to wake me. Now I have to ride twenty miles over roads a foot deep in dust and under a sun as hot as a smelting furnace.”
“Shouldn’t have been so dissipated last night,” said the Colonel. “What time did you get to bed?”
The young man, who was adjusting his stirrup, turned round.
“Oh, that was the dearest little girl last night. Where’d you find her? And how did a girl like that ever grow up in a God-forsaken spot like Foleys?”
He vaulted into the saddle not waiting for an answer. Then as his horse, curvetting and backing in a last ecstasy of impatience, churned up a cloud of dust, he called,
“I’m quite fascinated. Going to stop over on my way back. Give May or April or June or whatever her name is, my love.Hasta mañana, old man!”
The horse, at length liberated, plunged forward and dashed up the road, the soft diminishing thud of its hoofs for a moment filling the silence. Thestable-man slouched lazily off, and the Colonel was once more left to his cigar and his meditations.
These were soon as deeply engrossing as ever. With his eyes looking down the sun-steeped street he was not aware of a blue-clothed feminine figure which came into view along the highway upon which the balcony fronted. At first she walked quickly in a blaze of sun, then crossed the road, charily holding up her skirt, and approached in the shadow of the locusts. She wore a blue-and-white cotton dress, a sun-burnt straw hat, trimmed with a blue ribbon, and as she drew near was revealed to be a young girl in the end of her teens, large, finely-shaped, and erect.
Walking on the outside of the fence she eyed the Colonel for a scrutinizing moment, then stopping at the gate, opened it with a slight click, and stood hesitating. He heard the sound, looked up, and met her eyes—blue and inquiring—fixed gravely on him. She had a firmly-modeled, handsome face, full of rich, youthful tints and mellow curves. Her straw hat sent a clean wash of shade to just below her nose. Under this, in the blinding steadiness of the sunlight, her mouth and chin, the former large and with strongly curved lips, looked as smooth and fresh as portions of a ripe fruit. There was hesitation but no embarrassment in her attitude. Even at this first glance one might guess that this was a young woman devoid of self-consciousness and not readily embarrassed.
“Are you Colonel Parrish?” she said in a rather loud, clear voice.
He rose, throwing away his cigar, and replied with an affirmative that he tried not to make astonished.
She ascended the steps, again hesitated, and then held out a sun-burnt hand.
“I’m glad I found you,” she said, as he released it. “I thought perhaps you might have gone on to the Buckeye Belle. Everybody goes there now. My name is Allen, Rosamund Allen. You met my sister June last night.”
“Oh,” murmured the Colonel, and then he gave a weak, “Of course. Sit down.”
He was glad of the moment’s respite that getting her a chair and placing it gave him. She was the second daughter. In that first glance of startled investigation he had seen no particular likeness to either parent. This girl would not tear his heart by looking at him with her mother’s eyes.
“I—I—enjoyed meeting your sister last night,” he said as they found themselves seated facing each other. “She—she—” He did not know what to say. He wondered why the girl had come. Had some one sent her?
She looked at him with her clear, calm eyes, cool and interested. She was unquestionably handsomer than her sister. A year or two younger he guessed, though much larger, a typical Californian in her downy bloom of skin and fullness of contour. Her simple dress had been designed with taste and set with a grace that was imparted more by the beautiful lines of the body it covered than any particular skill in its fashioning. There was the same neatness and care of detail in her humble adornments thathe had noticed in her sister’s—the ineradicable daintiness of the woman whose forebears have lived delicately.
“June had such a good time last night,” she said with an air of volubility. “At first she said it was dreadful. Hardly any one asked her to dance, and she didn’t see how she could wait for father, who was going to call for her at twelve. And then you came and introduced those gentlemen to her. After that she had the loveliest time. She didn’t want to go at all when father came. She made him wait till two!”
“I’m glad she enjoyed it. It was pretty dull for her at first. She didn’t want to dance with the kind of men that were there. I was glad to introduce Rion Gracey to her. He’s more or less of a neighbor of yours, according to foot-hill distances.”
The Colonel was fencing, watching the girl and wondering why she had come. She had the air of settling down to a leisurely, enjoyable gossip.
“Yes. We never met him before. It’s funny, because they’ve been here over a year; up at the Buckeye Belle, of course. But then, they ride in here all the time. I’ve often seen both the Graceys riding past our place. The road in from there goes by our land. You know where that is?—the long strip back there—” waving her hand in the direction of the Colonel’s disputed acres—“where the tall pines are, and—”
She stopped, crimsoning to her hair. She had evidently suddenly realized to whom she was so glibly talking. There was no question but that she wasembarrassed now. She bent her burning face down and began to make little pleats in her dress with her sun-burnt fingers.
“I know, I know,” said the Colonel, exceedingly embarrassed himself, “right back there. Yes, of course. On the road that goes to Thompson’s Flat. By the way, I hope your sister’s dress wasn’t seriously damaged last night. The dye coming off the flowers, I mean.”
The girl heaved a breath of relief and tilted her head to one side regarding the pleats she had made from a different view point. For her age and environment her aplomb was remarkable.
“Yes, I’m afraid it’s very badly marked. They were such cheap flowers. Mother thinks we can arrange something with rosettes.”
She ceased her pleating, raised her head fully, and looked at him.
“Mother was so pleased and so astonished when she heard from June about meeting you. She used to know you well, she said—a long time ago, before she was married.”
Her eyes looked innocently and gravely into his. There was no concealment in them. She was speaking frankly and honestly. Now the Colonel knew she had been sent. He braced himself for her coming words.
“Yes, I knew your mother,” he said, hearing his voice sound husky. “But, as you say, it was a long time ago.”
“Mother got quite excited when she heard it was you. You know she’s not well and the least thingupsets her. She couldn’t believe it at first. Then she wondered if you wouldn’t come up and see her and sent me down to ask you.”
Alice had sent her. After twenty-one years Alice had sent this message for him! And it was all so natural and simple—a moment that sometimes, in hours of melancholy brooding, he had thought of, and always seen fraught with tragic passion. He bent to pick up a locust blossom that a wandering zephyr had wafted along the balcony floor. For a moment he made no answer. He could not trust his voice. The girl continued, not noticing his silence.
“She doesn’t see many people. She’s sick, you know; June said she told you. And then there’s not many people round here for her to see. I suppose you’ll find her changed if you haven’t seen her since she was married. She’s changed a good deal lately, poor mother!”
She gave a sigh and looked away from him. The Colonel answered quickly:
“Oh, yes, I’ll come, I’ll come.”
His visitor did not seem to notice anything unusual in his manner of accepting the invitation of an old friend. The trouble of her mother’s changed condition was uppermost in her mind.
“I dare say you won’t know it’s the same person. But don’t let her see that. We want her to be bright and cheerful, and if people look surprised when they see her it makes her think she’s worse—” She looked anxiously at him, but his face was averted. There was a slight pause and then she said in a low voice:
“Mother has consumption, Colonel Parrish.”
This time he turned and stared straight at her. Her eyes, full of sad meaning, were fixed on him. The other daughter’s remarks had led him to suppose that Alice was suffering from some temporary illness. Now he knew that she was dying.
“It was Virginia City that did it,” the girl continued. “She wasn’t strong for years. A long time ago in Downieville our brother, younger than we were, died, and father always thought she never got over that. But in Virginia there were such hard winters and those awful winds blew so! We were there for two years before we came here; and she had pneumonia and after that she didn’t get well. But we stayed on there, for father had some work in the assay office, and though everything cost a terrible price, it was better than what he got in the mines over here.”
The Colonel was half turned from her in his chair. She could see his profile with the shaggy brows drawn over his eyes.
“She doctored there for a long time, and everything cost so much money! Then one day, one of the doctors told father she’d never get well if she stayed in that climate. ‘Take her to California, to the foot-hills where the air’s hot and dry,’ he said, ‘that’s the only chance you’ve got.’ So we sold everything and left Virginia and came over here. We tried several places, but some of them didn’t seem to suit her, and in others they asked too high rents. We had hardly anything left. And then we just came here and settled on that—on our—on your—” She came to astammering stop and then ended desperately—“in that empty cottage over there.”
The Colonel rose and walked to the balcony rail. He stood for a moment with his back toward her, then slowly wheeled and approached her. She had risen and was looking at him with a perplexed expression.
“That’s all right,” he said, taking her hand. “I’ll be up this afternoon. Will between four and five do?”
She considered as a town lady might whose day was full of engagements. She was, in fact, speculating as to whether she and her sister would be free from the domestic tasks which filled their waking hours.
“Yes,” she said, nodding, “that’ll be a very good time. Mother rests and we—we are busy in the early part of the afternoon.”
She held out her hand to him, and as he walked down the steps beside her to the gate, again expressed her pleasure at having found him.
“June told me what you looked like,” she said over the gate, eying him thoughtfully as if she intended giving June her opinion of the stranger’s appearance. “So I knew if you were anywhere round I’d find you.”
She smiled a last good-by and turned away to the walk under the locusts. The Colonel went back to his seat on the balcony. He lit a fresh cigar and sat there smoking till Mitty came to summon him to the midday dinner.