The Exile of The Lariat/Chapter 5

IRIAM rode old Lemon Skin back to the ranch the next morning and a day later Jessie appeared in The Lariat. Hugh was alone. She strode to the rear window and stood strongly silhouetted against the light.

“Hughie,” she said abruptly, “what’s going on between you and Miriam Page?”

“Have you asked Miriam?” Hugh thrust his cigarette away and leaned against the counter.

“Yes, and she sent me to you.”

“How did you come to ask her such a question?” asked Hugh, white to the lips.

“Don’t stall with me, Hughie!” exclaimed his wife.

“I’ve a right to ask you that,” insisted Hugh.

“I knew when I came into The Lariat the day she arrived in Fort Sioux that I’d interrupted a scene. It was thick in the air. And you have a very honest face, besides. She has all the earmarks of a person very much in love. And so have you. It’s all intangible but unmistakable. Yesterday she deliberately started in to tell me what sort of a man she thought you to be. And I asked her point blank if she was in love with you. She refused to reply. Told me to come to you. Here I am.”

Hugh stood very straight and looked at Jessie squarely. “Jessie, you haven’t cared for me for at least five years. I want you to give me my freedom.”

“That’s masculine, putting it over on me! Does that mean that you are in love with Miriam Page?”

“Yes, Jessie, it does.”

Jessie, her fine color blanched, did not speak for a long time. She leaned heavily against the casement, her lower lip caught between her teeth.

“You are asking too much, Hughie.”

“It’s not as if you cared. You’ve held me in contempt for years. Why mince matters? You’ll be relieved to be rid of me, Jessie. Be honest! Give us both our freedom.”

“I’ll not give it to you, Hugh. Never.”

“Then I shall take it.”

“Don’t be silly! She’s not big enough for you, Hughie. She’s clever, but not big.”

“She’s much too big for me.”

Jessie gave a sardonic laugh; then she said with a sudden tragic conviction in her deep voice: “Nobody is big enough for you but me, and I’ve wasted my chance. But Miriam Page shall not have you while I live.”

“How are you going to prevent it?” asked Hugh.

“I don’t know.”

Hugh, startled by the depth of pain in Jessie’s voice, looked at her with unusual attention. There was a new expression in her lips. They were no longer indifferent.

“Jessie,” he repeated, “you know you haven’t cared about me for years. Be fair about this and be kind.”

Jessie stared at him with wide eyes, and repeated, wonderingly, “Be fair! Be kind! God in heaven!” and she swung out of The Lariat and mounted Magpie without stopping to see her mother.

Hugh, much perturbed, paced the floor. He had a sudden sense of sadness for Jessie. But after all, he felt that cold justice was on his side. Jessie had never been a wife to him in any full sense of the word. It was not fair of her now to be resentful and vindictive. He was glad that afternoon to take a long ride with Miriam and recover his sense of sureness. Miriam was more fascinating at this period than poor Jessie ever had dreamed of being. She was in love for the only time in her life, in love with all the ardor of a highly trained, primitively passionate mind. Small wonder that the hours passed with her drugged Hugh with happiness.

The days of Miriam’s vacation passed all too quickly. She was obliged to return to Boston early in June. Her actual leaving was prosaic enough, as most leavings are. She spent the night before her departure at the Indian Massacre. Hugh met her at the rickety porch and carried her suitcase over to the station, and looked up into her face for a long, hungry moment as she stood on the observation platform of the train. Then he replaced his hat and turned away, for he could bear no more.

He needed now, as never before, to turn to his work. The Lariat was haunted by memories of Miriam, and the hours, which now bore no hope of seeing her, hung doubly heavy on his hands. As if to add to his discomfort, Fred, as the summer dragged on, reported findings on the Old Sioux Tract that confirmed Hugh’s conviction that here was one of the greatest fossil fields ever discovered. He chafed and fumed and wrote long letters to Miriam, and the days passed, as such days will. In mid-summer a group of young Cheyenne cub engineers did some survey work up the river, the perennial search for a dam site that always so hugely amused the citizens of Fort Sioux. It was the tenth survey, Billy Chamberlain said, that had been made in six years.

In the early fall the convention of women’s clubs was held in Fort Sioux, and Mrs. Morgan was elected president of the State Federation, to the immense amusement and pride of the town. Mrs. Morgan always had been looked upon with antagonism and determined contempt by the men of Fort Sioux. But now, after all, she was the acknowledged leader of the women of the State, each of these women the possessor of a perfectly good vote. There might be more to Mrs. Morgan than the men had been realizing, and the ban of contempt might well be lifted as adroitly as possible. At least, this was the idea expressed by Principal Jones one evening in The Lariat. He and Hugh were smoking while Chamberlain, Fred Allward and Pink Morgan chewed.

“Come across now, Pink!” said the barber. “Ain’t you proud of the Missis? She sure has done more for Fort Sioux than you’ll ever do!”

Pink jerked his shoulders. “Ain’t it queer,” he grunted, “that nobody can’t pay my wife a compliment without twisting it round so as to insult me. But you folks wait! Something is going to break in this neighborhood before long that’ll make all you folks begin to say, ‘I knew him when—’ about me.”

“What’s the general nature of the event, Pink?” asked Hugh. “How’ll we recognize it?”

“I guess you’ll recognize it when you see me starting the finest horse ranch in the West with the profits. And do you know what I’m going to do with that all-hecked Indian Massacre? I’m going to pour a barrel of oil on it and burn it up. And never try to collect the insurance, either.”

“You’ll give the Missis notice so she can get out, I hope, Pink,” suggested Fred Allward.

“Well—I never burned a woman up—yet,” snorted Pink. “Keep on sniggering, folks! You’ll talk different to me before long.”

It was on a glorious day in early September that Charles C. Grafton registered at the Indian Massacre. He was a man of late middle age, small as to build, with a good-looking, smooth-shaven, round face from which peered out a pair of remarkably keen gray eyes. He arrived at noon, met Hugh at dinner, and followed him back to The Lariat. They smoked together for some time, with a mutual sense of liking, Grafton asking casual questions about the town and its environs. They were interrupted by Fred Allward, who slumped into a chair and said, “Doggone it, Hughie, that Creetashus, as you call it, up there on the Old Sioux Tract is simply lousy with bones. Can’t you salve your conscience enough just to ride up there once and let me show you something?”

“What have you turned up now, Fred?” asked Hugh, eagerly.

“The damnedest looking bird you ever heard of or seen. Must be twenty-five feet long. Got a bill like a duck, I swear he has. No sight for a drinking man, Hughie!”

“What kind of prospecting is this?” exclaimed Grafton with a laugh.

Fred favored the newcomer with a cool glance. “Well, stranger,” he replied, “I’ll swap you sight unseen. You tell me what your kind of prospecting is and I’ll explain mine to you.”

“Right you are, old chap,” agreed Grafton “I’m out here to make plans for the building of a dam at Thumb Butte. I’m sort of a cross between an engineer and a real estate man.”

“The hell you are!” said Fred slowly.

Hugh, who had been leaning against the counter, straightened his long legs suddenly. “You say to ‘make plans’? Just how much does that mean, if you please, Mr. Grafton?”

“Well,” replied Grafton, slowly, “it means that the Eastern Electric Corporation of Chicago will begin next spring on a three-million-dollar water-power project at Fort Sioux. We have control of all the land necessary except such portions of the Old Sioux Tract as will be flooded. That’s what I wanted to see you about.”

“Has your company a charter for building the dam?” asked Hugh, stiffly.

“That’s pending in Cheyenne now. There’s no doubt but what we’ll get it. A mere matter of form. Great thing for Fort Sioux, isn’t it?”

Neither Hugh nor Fred spoke for a moment, then Hugh asked another question.

“What is this Eastern Electric Corporation?”

“A Chicago concern organized to swing big deals like this. Backed by plenty of money.”

Silence again with only the rush of the river beneath the window. Then Fred asked a question.

“How’d you get control of the land you wanted?”

“Your fellow townsman, Mr. Morgan, got the options on that, this summer. What’s the trouble? I supposed you’d be wild with delight out here.”

“The thing can’t go on,” said Hugh, tersely.

Grafton’s face showed honest surprise. “And why not?”

“Because I won’t allow it. I’ll block it by refusing to part with any of the Old Sioux Tract.”

“Of course, it could be condemned,” suggested Grafton. “But we mustn’t let it come to that. Look here, Mr. Stewart, I liked you on sight. Suppose you tell me why you’re receiving the news this way.”

Hugh walked to the rear window, twisted his long, sinewy hands together, returned to his position against the counter and lighted a cigarette.

“There’s nothing personal in my attitude, Mr. Grafton. I can put it to you in a few words. I’m a paleontologist. The Old Sioux Tract is one of the greatest fossil fields of history. It cannot be flooded.”

“Ah! I understand! But only about half of the tract would be covered by the water, Mr. Stewart.”

“But unfortunately, that half is the invaluable portion. I cannot let the plans go on, Mr. Grafton.”

Fred chewed rapidly and swallowed convulsively. Grafton studied Hugh’s face with concentrated interest. Hugh’s long jaw, now white beneath the ears, did not escape his observation.

“But, my dear chap, you can’t believe that we could consider seriously giving up such a project as this, for the sake of museum specimens, however rare they might be!”

“I don’t think you’d consider it voluntarily, no! I’m merely warning you that I shall force you to do so,” replied Hugh.

“But how? Have you private means, Mr. Stewart?”

“I don’t know how I shall fight it,” said Hugh, miserably but none the less sternly. “I shall use whatever property I have, if that becomes necessary.”

“I’ll put my little old Arizona turquoise prospect in,” said Fred suddenly. “And I’ll volunteer to shoot the first surveyor that puts foot on the Old Sioux Tract.”

Grafton laughed. “Good lord, friends, this isn’t frontier days!”

“You’ll think it’s a Sioux outbreak before me and Hughie gets through fighting.” Fred was grinning, but there was no humor in his eyes.

“Well! Well!” exclaimed Grafton. “I had no idea I’d run up against a snag like this. I wonder who else in the town is going to receive me at the point of a gun.”

“No one,” Hugh’s low voice was bitter. “Fred and I will fight alone. The rest of Fort Sioux will receive you with a kiss.”

“Good! Now listen, old man! Remember, we’ve agreed there is to be nothing personal in this.”

“If I agreed to that I was a fool,” said Hugh. “You are planning to blot out an invaluable record of time—unearthing and preserving such records is my life work. It’s going to be a very personal fight with me.”

“O in that way, yes! I understand,” said Grafton. “But,” here he rose and shook hands with Hugh, “I like you, just the same.”

“I’m afraid you may not feel the same way when I’m through,” returned Hugh with a twisted smile.

“Yes, I shall!” Grafton’s voice was sincere and a little amused. He lighted a fresh cigarette, nodded at Fred, and left the book shop.

Hugh and Fred stared at each other. Fred cleared his throat. “He ain’t a false alarm. It’s a real fire this time, Hughie.”

“What the devil can I do, Fred? I bluffed as hard as I could, but I honestly don’t know which way to turn.”

“If Bookie was here now,” groaned Fred, “he’d know exactly who to see and what wires to pull.”

Hugh bit his lip, thoughtfully. He himself knew not a moneyed man nor a politician of weight in the state. “How could I possibly have foreseen,” he exclaimed, irritably, “that I’d ever have to fight this kind of a thing?”

“How about these geology friends of yours down east and everywhere?” asked Fred.

“I’ll write them at once. But they’re all poor, of course.”

“Well, there’s your Miss Page. She’s in a bank. Make her get you some money. By the jumping heck, a woman ought to do a man a little real good once in a while!”

“If you think I’d get money from a woman, Fred, you don’t know me, that’s all. But I will write her for advice.”

“Advice, hell! What you want is enough money to go up to Cheyenne and buy the Public Utilities Commission with. Come down to earth, Hughie!”

“You talk like a crook, Fred. If I didn’t know you were so blamed honest you bend backward, I’d throw you out the rear window.” Hugh was smiling but his voice was deeply troubled.

“I never had no good reason for not being honest till now,” ejaculated Fred. “Well, I’ll go over and see what Billy Chamberlain has to say about this. You don’t want I should keep my mouth shut, do you?”

Hugh shook his head and Fred departed, almost at a run, for the barber shop.

Within two hours the entire town was buzzing with excitement. The Lariat sold more books, most of them second hand, to be sure, than on any previous day in its history—the necessity for making the purchase was deeply deplored by those who had actually decided to take the drastic step, but, as a matter of fact, while Fort Sioux maintained the same amused and contemptuous attitude toward Hugh’s work that it did toward Mrs. Morgan’s, there were not half a dozen persons in the town who possessed the courage to walk into The Lariat, apropos of nothing, and inquire into Hugh’s personal affairs. So even those who already owned several books cast discretion to the winds and paid actual money into the cash register that never in all Bookie’s lonely days had rung so frequently and so gayly.

Hugh was outwardly quite serene, and not a single purchaser of a book felt repaid for his or her extravagance.

“Yes, I think I’ll have to refuse to sell the Old Sioux Tract,” was his invariable formula. “Yes, I’ll fight them the best I know how. No, I wouldn’t want to ask Miss Page for money.” This, always accompanied by his twisted and appealing smile, took the sting out of the purchaser’s disappointment but left him or her none the less empty of gossip.

Hugh, in fact, as the afternoon wore on, was torn more and more between anger and despair. It was very evident that Fort Sioux considered him a fool and, like Grafton, had not the slightest intention of taking his declaration of war seriously. This latter attitude had the wholesome effect finally of submerging his despair in a sense of bitter protest against Fort Sioux’s stupidity and lack of loyalty, and when he went to supper he was in a fighting mood.

Pink, Grafton and Mrs. Morgan were at the table when Hugh sat down. He evidently had been under discussion, and a silence fell while he served himself from the general platter. It was Mrs. Morgan, who had not volunteered a remark to Hugh for many months, who spoke first.

“Well, Hughie, how are you going to meet this trouble?”

“I guess I can meet it standing,” replied Hugh.

“Why in thunder should you fight it?” demanded Pink. “My God, here’s the whole of Wyoming waiting for power, and you think you can throw a few rotten stone birds in the wheels and stop it. I always liked you, Hughie, and I’ve stood with you against the women, but here’s where we part company if you’re going to make this kind of a fool of yourself.”

“Just how do you come in on this, Pink?” asked Hugh, his low voice quickened with anger.

“That’s all right. You nor nobody else’ll ever know how I horned in. But I’m in, hoof to horns. I’ve been ‘Mrs. Morgan’s husband’ in this man’s town as long as I’ll ever be. You’ve been howling for ten years about your work and how nobody dassent stop it. Well, this is my work and they ain’t anybody in Wyoming big enough to stop that dam being put up.”

Hugh shrugged his shoulders. Grafton’s keen gaze did not leave Hugh’s face for some moments. He had listened all the afternoon to humorous comments from the town on the subject of Hugh’s idiocy in regard to stone birds, but Grafton knew faces. And he knew that while Hugh’s broad forehead and eyes, set deeply and far apart, were the eyes of a dreamer, his jaw was the jaw of a man who once roused would never stop. It was evident to Grafton that the Eastern Electric Corporation had put a harsh hand on Hugh’s one sensitive side, on the one thing in life that could give his long jaw just the set it wore now. And while he was not at all uneasy, Grafton thought it quite necessary that Hugh be pacified. In order to do this, he proposed to understand more clearly Hugh’s angle on paleontology.

“You took your training in geology at the State University?” he asked, genially.

“Yes,” replied Hugh, taking a second cup of coffee from his mother-in-law, whose eyes never had been more observing.

“Mighty interesting work. My experience as an engineer makes me appreciate it. I’m a University of Chicago man myself. I remember that when I was a cub we ran on some interesting fossil remains in the Red River country. But folks didn’t know as much about dinosaurs in those days as they do now. It’s got to be quite an art to unbed the specimens, hasn’t it?”

“Yes,” replied Hugh.

“How do you go about it?” asked Grafton.

“There’s some information about that in a pamphlet I can loan you,” said Hugh, “if you care to study the matter.”

“Thanks I’ll be over to get it. Who wrote it?”

“I did,” answered Hugh.

“I didn’t know you ever had anything published, Hughie!” exclaimed Mrs. Morgan.

“You didn’t want to know if it concerned fossils, did you?” asked Hugh.

“Doggone it, Stewart!” cried Grafton suddenly, “I don’t want to be classed with the rest of these boneheads out here that can’t appreciate your work. But what can I do? You know well enough that your position is foolish. Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, are full of fossils.”

“The Sioux Tract,” said Hugh, “will, in my judgment, open up a hitherto unknown era to us. I can’t afford to gamble on what other fields may produce.”

“Well, doggone it, get the fossils out of there before we begin, then,” cried Grafton.

“Give me fifty to a hundred years and unlimited money and I’ll do what I can,” agreed Hugh.

Grafton groaned comically and subsided. Mrs. Morgan darted in quickly.

“I, for one, don’t like to be classed as a bonehead, Mr. Grafton.”

“Sorry, madam, but I’m going to say flatly that this whole town is boneheaded about your son-in-law. Doggone it, he’s the only thing that gives this section of Wyoming any claim to be on the map.”

“I’ve never belittled Hughie,” asserted Mrs. Morgan. “On the contrary, the reason he doesn’t like me is because I’ve always said he had the makings of a big man in him and was throwing himself away on fossils.”

“You evidently don’t understand what he’s been doing, Mrs. Morgan,” said Grafton.

Hugh crushed his paper napkin, excused himself and returned to The Lariat. He locked the door, and sitting down at Bookie’s battered old desk, he wrote the day’s story to Miriam. He was sealing the envelope when some one knocked vigorously. He dropped the letter and opened the door. It was Mrs. Morgan.

“I’d like to come in and talk to you, Hughie,” she said with an unwonted tentative note in her voice.

Hugh did not move aside for her to enter. “Not about Jessie,” his voice holding a warning.

“Not about Jessie,” she agreed. “About an idea I have concerning the Old Sioux Tract.”

Hugh slowly swung the door wide, and after locking it again, seated himself opposite his mother-in-law. She did not look her years, in the lamp light. She wore a neat dark linen suit and her slender figure was as alert in the chair as a child’s. Her dark eyes were brilliant. Hugh, wrapped in his anxiety and his usual antagonism to her, did not notice that her throat was quivering as if the moment held great potentialities for her of hope or fear or both.

“When I say that I’m not going to talk to you about Jessie, Hughie, I mean it,” she said. “But that does not mean that I’m not half heart-broken over the mess you and she are making of things. But you’ll have to work it out, both of you, your own way. Now—don’t jerk away. It’s bad manners, if it’s nothing else. Hugh, what do you know about state politics?”

“Nothing,” answered Hugh, “and frankly, I’m realizing for the first time that Uncle Bookie had a better idea of using The Lariat than I realized.”

Mrs. Morgan nodded. “I hoped you’d come to it. This state, Hughie, is in a queer condition. Theoretically, of course, there isn’t such a thing as the woman’s vote, out here. As a matter of fact, the men are doing their unconscious best to form one by their attitude toward the Children’s Code Bill the federation was lobbying for all last winter. When the legislature killed that bill they gave birth to a woman’s party. It won’t be good politics to try to bring the Children’s Code up for another year or two. And the person that jumps in now, with something for the women to focus their bitterness on and fight for, will have a force behind them that the men will find hard to beat. Hugh, I want you to let the women of Wyoming help you to fight for the Old Sioux Tract.”

Hugh looked at his mother-in-law suspiciously. “What’s back of it, Mrs. Morgan? You know as well as I do that the women aren’t going to substitute my ‘damned stone birds’ for children.”

“If you’ll agree,” said Mrs. Morgan, carefully, “to get out and tell the women’s clubs and church organizations what the Old Sioux Tract means to you and the world; if you’ll do it under my guidance and as intensively as I direct, the Public Service Commission won’t grant that charter.”

“And you will have launched me in state politics!” exclaimed Hugh. “Mrs. Morgan, you are a clever woman.”

“Not clever enough to have shown my daughter how to save her marriage,” returned Mrs. Morgan, quickly, a sudden moisture in the brightness of her eyes, as she watched Hugh’s tense face.

“You agreed not to bring up that matter,” protested Hugh.

“And yet, I have every right in the world to speak to you about it, Hugh,” insisted his mother-in-law. “I can’t get rid of the feeling that with all your boasting about loving the truth, you are very unfair to me. You are wrecking my daughter’s life. You won’t let me utter a protest.”

Hugh looked at her clearly. “Mrs. Morgan, you know Jessie doesn’t care for me.”

“I don’t know anything of the kind. I never did understand her. Anyhow, caring has very little to do with married life. If only the people who loved each other stayed married, about one marriage in a hundred would survive.”

“Good Lord!” ejaculated Hugh. “Even I am not as disillusioned as that.”

“You’re not as old as I. Pshaw! Why, you know that Pink and I don’t care a straw about each other! We stay together simply because I think it’s right. And I certainly don’t think you have any right to cast Jessie off. She doesn’t deserve it. And a divorce is an awful thing, any way you put it.”

“A divorce is a clean, surgical cut that heals a mistake,” replied Hugh. “A person as lacking in sentiment as you, certainly should see that even about her own daughter.”

“Ah, but this is not a mistake!” exclaimed his mother-in-law “It’s only lack of adjustment. However, I’ve said my say. You’ve been unexpectedly patient with me and I’ll try not to interfere again. What is your answer to my political proposition, Hugh?”

“How can there be but one answer?” asked Hugh, bitterly. “But when I enter the fight, Mrs. Morgan, I warn you that I shall show no quarter to family or to any other human being whom I discover is trying to block or manipulate me.”

“I hope you’ll live up to that warning, Hughie,” said his mother-in-law, enigmatically. “The first thing we are going to do, Hugh, is to take on that airplane the government is giving up.”

“What has an airplane got to do with this fight?” demanded Hugh. “Don’t try to make a circus of me, Mrs. Morgan!”

The little woman sat forward in her favorite attitude on the edge of her chair. “Let’s settle this matter. Do you understand politics, Hughie?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Hughie, I began life at twelve washing dishes on the Clover Bar ranch. I’m now the leading woman citizen of Wyoming. I did it by having a natural instinct for playing politics.”

“I suppose you did,” admitted Hugh, reluctant admiration in his voice.

“Then we’re that far along!” Mrs. Morgan nodded. “Now, Hughie, if you will just agree to put yourself entirely in my hands, we’ll save the Old Sioux Tract.”

“I’ll play the game you’ve outlined, but I shall insist on discussing details with you. Hanged if I’ll stand for cheap methods.”

Mrs. Morgan studied first Hugh’s face, then the stove, then her own capable hands. After a moment of this she darted a quick glance again at her son-in-law.

“Very well, Hughie. The airplane, because it is very modern and really efficient and expeditious. I want you to buy it. You can get it for the price of a jitney, I am told. If you haven’t the cash, Jessie will buy it.”

“Jessie?” queried Hugh in astonishment.

“Yes, Jessie. Old Auntie Gretchen has died at last, and she left Jessie quite a sum of money. I promised Jessie I wouldn’t say how much.”

“I’m mighty glad for Jessie,” said Hugh, heartily; “but I want it understood that Jess isn’t to contribute one cent to this campaign.”

“Why not?” demanded Mrs. Morgan.

“All these years,” the old bitterness was in Hugh’s voice, “Jessie has refused to help me. It’s too late now.”

“My heavens!” exclaimed his mother-in-law, “what a fool you are! Will you buy it yourself?”

Hugh took a thoughtful turn up and down the room. “I have a few thousand dollars in the bank at Cheyenne. I will place this at your disposal if you think it best. I have complete confidence in your acumen as far as managing such a fund is concerned.”

Mrs. Morgan flushed, but said quietly: “Thank you, Hughie. Now, then, the first thing is to call a meeting of the Conservation Committee of the State Federation. After that, we’ll have a session of the Committee of women who handled the Children’s Code. We’ll pay the car-fares. We’ll hold the meetings here in The Lariat. It has a lot of Bookie in it and is getting a lot of you,” glancing quickly at the fossil specimens that now packed the empty book shelves. “Women feel atmosphere much quicker than men.” She rose, head in air. “This is the biggest evening’s work of my life, Hughie. Good night.”

Hugh looked at her half humorously, half puzzled. “Good night!” he said, with a one-sided smile.