CHAPTER XVIITHE DRAGON TAKES A HAND
THE company’s automobile honked outside. Hardin frowned across the table at his wife. “You’re surely not going such a night as this?”
Gerty gave one of her light, elusive shrugs. No need to answer Tom when he was in one of his black moods. This was the first word he had spoken since he had entered the tent. She had warned Innes by a lifted eyebrow—they must be careful not to provoke him. Something had gone wrong at the office, of course! How much longer could she stand his humors, these ghastly silent dinners?
“The river on a rampage, and we go for a drive!” jeered Hardin.
The flood was not serious—yet! Tom loved to cry “Wolf!” No one was alarmed in town—Patton, Mrs. Youngberg, would have told her. Of course, one never knew what that dreadful river would do next, but if one had to wait always to see what the river’s next prank would be, one would never get anywhere!
Innes was leaving the table. “Well, I suppose I should be lashing on my hat!” Gerty’s pretty lips hardened as the girl left the tent. These Hardins always loved to spoil her enjoyment. They would like her to be a nun, a cloistered nun!
At the opening of the door, the wind tore the pictures from the piano, wrenching the faded green mandarin skirt which Gerty had brought from San Francisco. Her sketches were flung to the floor. Gerty ran into her room, shutting herself in against further argument. Tom fastened the outer door, replacing the sketches that stood for the sum and height of his wife’s several flights, her separate career.
He was still staring through them, when his wife came back into the room, powdered and heavily veiled against the wind. A heavy winter ulster covered the new mull gown which she had not worn at supper, though Innes could have helped her with the hooks! But there was always so much talk about everything!
They had to face the gale as the machine swept down the wind-crazed street. “Never saw such a blow in all the time I’ve been here,” yelled Wooster over his wheel to Hardin.
“Where’s Mr. MacLean?” Gerty leaned over from the back seat where she had been huddling. She felt awkwardly conscious of not having invited Wooster. She did not have any other reason for excluding him, except that she did not meet him at the other houses. Still, if Rickard were not coming—they would be short a man.
“He had some work to finish—he asked me to take out the machine,” called Wooster without turning. The dust was blinding him.
“He’s probably coming later!” cried Gerty to Innes, and then she huddled in her corner again. It was easier not to talk; one had to scream to be heard.
It was too bad to have a night like this! And all her work—Tom and his sister would have it go for nothing! She was made of stubborner stuff than that. Life hadbeen dealing out mean hands to her, but she would not drop out of the game, acknowledge herself beaten—luck would turn, she would get better cards. To-night she was tired. It had been a hard scrambling day. Several times she could have cried. Sam was so stupid, she could not make him understand where he was to leave things at the hotel—if anything happened to those shades, or to that salad!
In the hall of the Desert Hotel, the party was assembling. Mr. and Mrs. Blinn were already the center of a group, flinging matrimonial volleys. Innes could hear Blinn’s loud voice as she entered the door: “That was before we were married. Now, it’s very different. That’s what matrimony does.” Every one knew they covered their devotion with chronic jeers. She steered toward another corner where the Wilsons held court.
“Too bad, isn’t it?” Mrs. Youngberg advanced toward Gerty, who was looking for Rickard. She did not like to ask if he had come.
Howard Blinn broke off to greet his hostess. “You saved our lives by being a little late,” he exclaimed. “Our dinner was late. It’s always late, since the Improvement Club was organized!”
Mrs. Hardin’s roving eye scoured the hall. Rickard was not there. Patton called her from the desk. Some one wanted her at the telephone. It was Rickard, of course, at the office; to say he had been detained. The fear which had been chilling her passed by.
It was not Rickard on the wire, but Mrs. Hatfield, loquacious and coquettish. She urged a frightful neuralgia, and hoped that she was not putting her hostess to any inconvenience at this last moment. She wanted to prolong the conversation—had the guests all come?Were theyreallygoing? Then she must be getting old, for a night like this dismayed her! Gerty felt her good night was rudely abrupt. But was she to stand there gabbling all night, her guests waiting?
She prayed that Rickard would be there when she returned. What a travesty if the guest of honor should disappoint her! Though he was not among the different groups, her confidence in his punctiliousness reassured her. She must hold them a little longer. She flitted gaily from one standing group to another; she outtalked the jolly Blinns. Her eyes constantly questioned the clock.
“How long are you going to wait for Mrs. Hatfield?” Her husband came up, protesting.
“Mrs. Hatfield,” she explained distantly, “is not coming. We are waiting for Mr. Rickard.”
“He didn’t come in on that train; he’s at the Heading.” Hardin added something about trouble at the intake, but Gerty did not heed. Tom had known and had not told her when there was yet time to call it off!
“A pretty time to tell me!” Had he been looking at her, he would have been left no illusions. Her blue eyes flashed hate.
“I did not know it until we got here. There was a message from MacLean at the desk, waiting.”
MacLean was not there, either!
“Quarreling?” cried Blinn, drawing nearer. “I must separate husband and wife. Depend upon me to take your part, Mrs. Hardin.”
A heroic smile answered him. A joke, that!
“We are all ready,” she cried. “Mrs. Hatfield and Mr. Rickard can not come.” Not for worlds would she give in to her desire to call the whole grim affair off; letthem think she was disappointed, not she. Though the world blew away, she would go.
She found herself distributing slips of mangled quotations. The white slips went to the women; the green bits of pasteboard to the men. She held a certain green card in her glove: “Leads on to fortune.” Rickard might come dashing in at the last moment, the ideal man’s way; a special, perhaps; it did not seem credible that he would deliberately stay away without sending her word.
“I’ve drawn my own wife!” cried Blinn, with exaggerated ruefulness.
Youngberg was moving through the groups. He could not find his half-quotation. “Who has the rest of this?” he was demanding.
Gerty read it over his shoulder. “Gang aft a-gley. Oh, the best laid schemes. That’s Miss Wilson.”
In a burst of laughter, the company discovered then that the guest of honor was also absent. Mrs. Hardin hurried them out to the waiting buggies.
When she had seated the chattering crowd, Gerty discovered that Tom had drawn Mrs. Hatfield, and was planning a desertion. Blankly, they faced each other. “Well, let’s get it over.” His words sounded brutal to his wife, whose nerves were flayed by the day’s vexations. Drearily, they drove together down the flying street. The wind was at their backs, but it tore at their hats, pulled at their tempers. Their eyes were full of street dust. Through the gloom, they could see the two finished words gleaming from the plate-glass windows of the bank: “The Desert.” Even dull imaginations could get that prophecy—the town blotted out by flying sand; The Desert come again into its own.
A flash of light as they were leaving town brightened the thick dust-clouds. “What was that?” cried Gerty. She was ready for any calamity now. “Not lightning?” Again, the queer light flashed across the obscured sky. Tom roused himself to growl that he hadn’t seen anything. And the dreary farce went on.
Innes’ partner was young Sutcliffe, the English zanjero. He was in the quicksand of a comparison between English and American women, Innes mischievously coaxing him into deeper waters, when there was a blockade of buggies ahead of them.
“The A B C ranch,” cried Innes, peering through the veil of dust at the queer unreal outlines of fences and trees. “It’s our first stop.”
“Oh, I say, that’s too bad,” began Sutcliffe. Innes was already on the road, her skirts whipped by the wind into clinging drapery.
Gerty’s party found itself disorganized. Partners were trying to find or lose each other. “Get in here!” Innes heard the voice of Estrada behind her. He had a top buggy. She hailed a refuge.
“Splendid!” she cried. “What a relief!” Climbing in, she said: “I hope this isn’t upsetting Gerty’s arrangement.”
“Arrangement! Look at them!” The women were hastening out of the dust swirl into any haven that offered. With little screams of dismay, they ran like rabbits to cover.
Gerty found herself with Blinn. At the next stop, there was a block of buggies. “No use changing again!” She acknowledged herself beaten. “Let’s go on. What are they stopping for?” Dismal farce it all was!
She was pushing back her disheartened curls whenthe beat of horses’ hoofs back of them brought the blood back into her wind-chilled cheeks. “Rickard!” she thought. “He must have come in a special!” The gloom suddenly disgorged MacLean.
“Hardin! Where is he?”
“What’s up?” yelled Blinn. “Is it the river?” MacLean’s face answered him. His ranch scoured again—“God Almighty!”
“The river!” screamed the women. The men were surrounding MacLean, whose horse was prancing as if with the importance of having carried a Revere. “The levee!” called MacLean. “Where’s Hardin?” He spurred his mare toward Hardin, who was blacker than Napoleon at Austerlitz.
“You’re needed. They’re all needed.” The other voices broke in, the men pressing up. This threatened them all. Blinn’s ranch lay in the ravaged sixth district. Nothing would save him. Youngberg belonged to Water Company Number One; their ditches would go. Hollister and Wilson, of the Palo Verde, saw ruin ahead of them. Each man was visualizing the mad onward sweep of that destroying power. Like ghosts, the women huddled in the dust-blown road.
“Where is it now?” demanded Blinn.
“It’s here, right on us. You’re all needed at the levee,” bawled MacLean.
The levee! There was a dash for buggies, a scraping of wheels, the whinnying of frightened horses. Some one recalled the flashes of light they had seen on leaving town. “What were those lights—signals?”
“From the water-tower.” MacLean’s voice split the wind. “The wires are all down between the Crossing and the towns. Coronel was on the tower—he got thesignal from the Heading—he’s been there each night for a week!” This was a great night—for his chief, Rickard!
Gerty Hardin caught the thrill of his hero-worship. How splendid, how triumphant!
Innes found herself in her brother’s buggy. His horse, under the whip, dashed forward. Suddenly he pulled it back on its haunches, narrowly averting a jam. “Where’s MacLean?”
The boy rode back. “Who’s calling me?”
“Give me your horse,” demanded Hardin. “You take my sister home.”
Gerty Hardin’s party was torn like a bow of useless finery. Facing the wind now, no one could talk; no one wanted to talk. Each was threshing out his own thoughts; personal ruin stared them in the face. Every man was remembering that reckless exposed cut of Hardin’s; pinning their hope to that ridiculed levee. The horses broke into a reckless gallop, the buggies lurching wildly as they dodged one another. The axles creaked and strained. The wind tore away the hats of the women, rent their pretty chiffon veils.
The dusty road was peopled with dark formless shapes. The signals had spread the alarm; the desert world was flocking to the gorge of the New River, to the levee. Gerty was swept past the stores which had gaped at her in the morning. Coulter’s was deserted. At Fred Eggers’, a candle flickered behind a green curtain. Gerty could see the half finished sign on the plate-glass windows of the bank. “The Desert” shone wanly at her.
The women were dumped without ceremony on the sidewalk, under the screened bird-cage of the Desert Hotel. Shivering, her pretty teeth chattering, Gerty Hardin ushered them into the deserted hall. The Chinesecook snored away his vigil in an armchair by the open fire. The men had rushed away to the levee.
“Women must wait,” Gerty’s laugh was hysterical. “We can do no good down there.” She threw herself, conscious of heroineship, into the ordeal of her spoilt entertainment.
It was always an incoherent dream to Innes Hardin, that wild ride homeward, the lurching scraping buggies, the apprehensive silence, this huddling of women like scared rabbits around a table that had else been gay. The women’s teeth shivered over the ices. Their faces looked ghastly by the light shed by Gerty’s green shades. She wished she were at the levee. She simply must go to the levee. “I’m going to get a wrap,” she threw to Gerty as she passed. “I left it in the hall.”
She stole through the deserted office, past the white and silver soda fountain, and out into the speeding blur of the night. Formless shapes, soft footed, passed her. As she sped past the French windows of the dining-room she could get a view of the shattered party. The candles were glittering; some overzealous maid had lighted them when the table was carried into the dining-room. No others could be found. The Chinese cook was that instant entering with a large lamp backed by a tin reflector. Mrs. Youngberg was huddled in her fur cape. A sight to laugh over, when it became a memory! The eyes of several of the women were visualizing ruin, Mrs. Blinn among them. The others wore sleepy masks.
Innes made a dive into the darkness. There was a dim outline of hastening figures in front of her. She could hear some one breathing heavily by her side. They kept apace, stumbling, occasionally, the moving gloombetraying their feet. A man came running back toward the town. “It’s cutting back!” He cried. “Nothing but the levee will save the towns!”
The levee!
The harsh breathing followed her. As they passed the wretched hut of a Mexican gambler, a sputtering light shone out. Innes looked back. She saw the wrinkled face of Coronel, who had left his water-tower. His black coarse hair was streaming in the wind, his mouth, ajar, was expressionless, though the fulfilment of the Great Prophecy was at hand. Beneath the cheek-splotches of green and red paint rested a curious dignity. The Indian was to come again into his own.
What was his own, she questioned, as her feet stumbled over loosened boarding, a ditch crossing she had not seen. More corn, perhaps more fiery stuff to wash down the corn! More white man’s money in the brown man’s pocket—that, his happiness. Why should he not thank the gods? His gods were speaking! For when the waters of the great river ran back to the desert, the long ago outraged gods were no longer angry. The towns might go, but the great Indian gods were showing their good will!
She joined a group at the levee, winding her veil over mouth and forehead. Dark shapes swayed near her. The wind was making havoc of the mad waters rushing down from the channel. The noise of wind and waters was appalling. Strange loud voices came through the din, of Indians, Mexicans; guttural sounds. Men ran past her, carrying shovels, pulling sacks of sand; lanterns, blown dim, flashed their pale light on her chilled cheeks.
Not even the levee, she knew then, would save the towns. This was the end.