The Marriage of Meldrum Strange/Chapter 3

MMONY sat smoking and smiling to himself, but he was dreadfully afraid. The smile was hard at the corners. No woman feared for her child, or fought on occasion more shiftingly for it, than he for that forest. His heart was in it. He would have said his soul was in it, too. Several times he had had to counter-sap and mine against the assault of British capitalists. This American was likely to be more resourceful, that was all. He knew the blindness of the money-giant, and its cruelty; its over-riding tactics, and the almost insignificance of ordinary honesty opposed to it.

He had not told Meldrum Strange that nearly all the mother-trees were teak. He had not dared. But Strange would find that out. And he had a notion that it would be better to inform a wolf that there were lambs in a certain valley.

True, Strange was supposed to have retired from the ranks of industry. But there are said-to-be-tamed wolves. Who trusts them? King, Grim, Ramsden were as good men as there are. But so is fire good, until employed by an incendiary. Strange’s eleventh hour resolution to reform the world by the weight of his maneuvered money was only wolf-eat-wolf at best; to judge from Charley’s and Jeff Ramsden’s accounts, the again-to-be-protected people had preferred to protect themselves in the ancient way from uninvited interference.

Strange was bitter with ingrowing disappointment. Nothing in the circumstances was likelier, thought Ommony, than that in the twinkling of an eye, his new internationally interwoven system of bureaus of impertinent information should be changed into the thousand fanged heads of an industrial monster. A wolf is a wolf. A man who is afraid imagines things.

In one sense Ommony’s mood was mischievous. It amused him to see a “money baron” stripped of his pretensions, naked, as it were, to an observing eye. In less than a month he thought he could have fun with Meldrum Strange—quiet fun, that would do Strange no harm, possibly some good, and certainly amuse himself, But fear for his forest overcame all other emotions.

He knew how sensitive the Government would be to suggestions. Already one of the main planks of the revolutionary agitators’ platform was the British Government’s alleged neglect of Indian industry. The Western disease of exploitation for exploitation’s sake had its spores in, and was spreading. Big Business had its eye on three hundred millions of possible “wage-earners.” The first thing to go would be the trees. They always go first.

You may much more safely bum a decent fellow’s house and take his money than undo the work he has laid his hand to. Whatever is indecent in him comes to the surface then. There was a change in Ommony’s eye. His teeth bit deeper into the notch on the horn mouthpiece of his pipe, and Diana, dumb but all-observing, came closer to lay a shaggy head on his knee and wonder what next?

Ommony did not move when he heard a rifle-shot. He was surprized that Meldrum Strange should have gone so far in so few minutes, but supposed the man’s enthusiasm for the chase, or his rage at having missed, was making a fool of him. Now, no doubt, he was shooting at rustling undergrowth. Next, he would lose himself. But there was more than one jungli on the job to hunt him back, and it would be rather amusing afterwards to compare Strange’s version of it all with theirs. A man who is lost in the jungle, too, imagines things.

Ten minutes later he did not even look up when Diana pricked her ears, and he heard Jeff Ramsden’s unmistakable heavy footsteps clambering the look-out rock. He was not afraid of anything Jeff might do, without Strange to persuade him and direct.

“Sorry, old man,” said Jeff from behind him, leaning on a rifle, “I’ve made a bloomer. Charley and I found what we supposed were leopard tracks and followed them to about half a mile from here. I fired at a glimpse in the thicket. Hit a tiger, and he got away into the undergrowth. Charley’s watching the place, and I came to make my peace with you.”

Ommony got to his feet.

“Did you call the dogs off?”

“Yes. They’re tied up beside Charley.”

“We’ll go get the tiger. Where did you hit him?”

“It looked like a rib-shot.”

“Did you see Strange?”

“No.”

They strode down the track together, where the wheel-marks came to an end and the fire-lane took advantage of rock on which nothing would grow—then plunged out of that wide opening into a narrow lane made by wild elephants and kept from growing up again by Ommony’s patrol; out of that into a maze of criss-cross tracks, along which Jeff led with a hunter’s instinct; at last into a natural clearing entered by a dozen trails, near the end of one of which Charley sat on a fallen tree beside the two dogs.

“No sound of him,” said Charley. “But the dogs seem to think he’s in there.”

Something Charley said after that made Jeff laugh, and the deep note boomed along a glade.

“Hey! Where are you?” shouted another voice, and Ommony chuckled.

From about a hundred yards away there came a noise greater than that of ten tigers, as a heavy man thrust his way against dry branches.

“Better rescue him, hadn’t I?” asked Jeff.

“He’s in safe hands.”

“Send Diana.”

“No, he’d think she was a wild beast and shoot her. I’ll manage it.”

Ommony put two fingers to his teeth and whistled. Within the minute a jungli appeared in an opening and stood waiting without any visible emotion. Ommony spoke words unintelligible to the others and the jungli disappeared.

“Is he in there, Di?” said Ommony, and the staghound began nosing, but not growling, near the edges of the thicket, into which Jeff and Charley agreed the tiger had escaped. Diana barked once, and looked puzzled, but continued not to growl at all.

“He’s in there. I think he’s dead,” said Ommony.

“Shall we try?” asked Charley, from the depths of inexperience.

“No. Wait.”

Strange emerged into the opening, pushed by one jungli, pulled by another.

“These savages are tearing me to pieces!” he objected. “Why are you here? I thought you were to wait for me on the look-out rock.”

“We think there’s a dead tiger,” Charley piped up.

The intention was good. He meant to draw Strange’s irritation away from Ommony toward himself. He did banish the irritation. Strange’s face suddenly shone with triumph. He left off fingering his torn jacket.

“I told you I hit him!” he said, thrusting out his chin at Ommony.”

“Yes, you did say so.”

Ommony turned his back to hide a grin, winked at the other two, and began peering into the undergrowth. Jeff took twenty strides down the track behind him, picked up an empty brass shell, and obliterated traces of his own heels in the leaf-mold. Ommony sent a jungli up a sar-tree, to crawl along an overhanging branch and peer downward. The 'jungli' said two words. Ommony answered. The jungli broke off dead wood and dropped it—spoke again.

“All right,” said Ommony. “Dogs in first.”

SO DIANA led the way, with the other two yelping at her heels. The junglis hacked along behind them with the knives that were their only badge of office. In five minutes Ommony was counting the whiskers and claws of a male tiger, lest the men who would have to take the pelt off should add to their private store of talismans against the devils of the forest.

“There!” said Strange. “You said I’d kill him if I hit him from that angle.”

That was Strange’s measure of concession, magnanimous for sake of the proprieties. His voice was an unrighteous crow, and Ommony, with his finger in the bullet-hole, making note of the angle of impact, said nothing. Jeff gathered up the carcass and carried it out into the clearing, while the junglis clucked in amazement, because it takes four of them to carry a grown tiger, on a pole; and only Ommony observed how carefully Jeff laid the carcass down. Strange might otherwise have seen the hole through which the bullet emerged, after tearing straight across from rib to rib, behind the heart—out of a rifle nearly on a level with the tiger, broadside-to.

“Huh! My first tiger! Hu-humm!”

It was meant there should be others to follow this one. Acquisitiveness had its claws in. To Meldrum Strange there was no such thing as enough of anything he liked. Now he would no longer have to be satisfied to smile contemptuously at club-members, who donated big-game trophies to decorate the rooms—with their names underneath on neat brass plates—he would be one of them. After all, he wasn’t only a millionaire, he was a human being who had missed a lot of fun he was entitled to.

“You asked me to stay a month, I think?”

“Yes, at least a month,” said Ommony.

“I will.”

Three faces changed. Jeff’s and Charley’s fell; they had been confident that Strange would cut his visit short, and had hoped to be left behind him for a few days. Ommony’s rose like a barometer. His enemy had delivered himself into his hand.

“The forest is yours,” he said delightedly, but added, “for a month then,” by way of afterthought.

“It’ll suit me,” Strange announced pompously. “Do my health good. And I needn’t waste time, seeing I’ve Ramsden with me. Have you horses, Mr. Ommony?”

Jeff’s face fell lower yet. He shook his head at Ommony from behind Strange’s back. But Ommony could not deny he had three horses in the stable.

“Good. If you’ll lend me two horses, and a few of your savages to show the way, I can ride about with Ramsden and we’ll have a good look at this forest of yours. Something might come of it.”

Ommony did not care. He never did doubt Destiny when Destiny dealt him the joker. He trod homeward with a lighter step, enduring Strange’s arrogance without a twinge, indifferent to the fact that the other two were gloomy.

“And as for Charley,” Strange said suddenly, “I’ll send him home.” Perhaps some memory of how Charley had attached himself revived resentment. “You’re not cut out for this kind of thing,” he said over his shoulder. “You’d better return to New York on the next ship. I’ll give you an order on the New York office for your pay.”

“Can you beat that?” asked Charley in an overtone to the world at large.

“Keep you from bumming about India. Go home, and go to work!” Strange snorted.

Jeff’s terrific grip on Charley’s shoulder saved a hot retort, Jeff having notions of his own, and the rest of the walk home was made in silence, Strange being awkwardly aware of a great storm brewing behind him. But he was set on his purpose now. No argument from Jeff or any one was going to move him one iota. Charley should go home. Jeff and he would ride about the forest, appraising it, and killing big game. He strode up the steps of Ommony’s bungalow as if he owned the place, and Jeff intercepted Ommony.

“D’you care if I’m in there alone with him first for a minute or two?” Jeff asked.

“Very much. I object!”

“I want a minute’s talk with him. If he answers back, I’ll thrash him. He may have the tiger, but he can’t treat Charley that way, and keep me. I’m through with the brute.”

“One minute,” said Ommony. “Just how far are you and I friends?”

Jeff hesitated, looking straight into Ommony’s eyes. Each knew the other for a man worth trusting, but the big man’s anger had risen until the veins on his forehead swelled.

“This isn’t the first time Strange has made a beast of himself in front of me,” he said, with that slow, deliberate impressiveness that argues will behind the words. “It’s the last!”

“After all, I’m host. Why not leave this job to me?” said Ommony.

“Oh, if you put it that way, I’ll go now. You may tell him I’m through and will call on him later.”

“Charley’s going to stay,” said Ommony.

“How can he?”

“He’s my guest.”

“Then Strange will go.”

“Not if you stay.”

“What’s the use?”

“You see this forest? Strange has made up his mind to cut down every tree in it. I’m alone against him. I want your backing. I want you to help me keep him here occupied, until I have time to upset his plan.”

“Hmmm! He won’t listen to me if I argue against it,” said Jeff. “He’s mule-headed.”

“Precisely. Then argue for it. Stay here and help me.”

“I’m on the brute’s pay-roll,” Jeff objected.

“All right, give him his money’s worth. Show him what the forest would be worth to an exploiter.”

“Let me take him by the neck and throw him into the first train leaving for Bombay!”

“The worst thing you could do,” said Ommony. “You’d rouse all the monster in him. If he couldn’t ruin you”

“He can’t. I’m independent, thank the Lord!”

“—he’d make me deputy and have revenge on me. He’d have to vent his spleen on something, so he’d steal or buy a concession and make this place a howling wilderness.”

“I think he would,” Jeff answered. “Would it break you?”

“Oh, no. I’ve saved a competence. But look.” He took Jeff’s arm and turned him toward the fairest view of nursed and well-loved timber. “Perhaps a hundred years from now”

Jeff nodded.

“Yes. I’ve seen him at it. I’ve exploited for him; but that was gold and silver—you can take them any time. All right, Ommony.”

THEY did not shake hands. An understanding that was much too deep and elemental for surface expression had made them partners. Both men were conscious of a pact that might involve immeasurable consequences. The law of hospitality, that says a guest may not be allowed to betray himself; the law of loyalty, that grants the same grace to the employer; Jeff’s habit of open dealing, and Ommony’s of absolute reliance on a Destiny he trusted, were all in danger and both men knew it.

They had pledged themselves to the lesser of two evils, for lack of an obvious third course, and neither liked it, but both were resolute. Jeff strode away to the stables to let his anger cool, there being something about horses that comforts and restores the self-control of out-door men. Ommony looked for Charley, and found him packing his camera in the improvised dark-room.

“You’ll stay, of course,” he said, abruptly, divining instantly that Charley would not.

“You bet! I’ll stay away from him. If this wasn’t your house”

“But it is,” said Ommony.

“I’d lick him first! Maybe I can’t, but I’d treat myself to the attempt.”

“I’d have to protect him, of course.”

“Sure. I’ve no quarrel with you.”

“What’s your plan, then?”

“Nothing. Pull out of here, and then think. Lend me your rig to the station, soon as I get this stuff packed. If I see him again there’ll be trouble.”

“Have you money?”

“Not much. But I’ll take no more of his.”

“Let me help out.”

“Thanks. No. I’ve enough to get to Delhi. Zelmira’s there. Maybe she’ll finance a scheme for”

Ommony whistled softly, so that Diana, close at heel, became alert for the unforeseen. She knew that signal of her master’s changing mood.

“Why, what’s up?” asked Charley.

“The flag,” said Ommony. “It’s nailed up. Any port in a storm, and any friend in. Tell me: to what extent do you feel beholden to your late employer?”

“From now on? Nix! He’s mud for all of me.”

“So if Madame Poulakis should ask you for news of Strange’s whereabouts, you’d”

“Tell her he’s not fit to run with. Gee! What a woman like her can see in him”

“Isn’t that her affair?” asked Ommony.

“Maybe. It’s mine to tell her what I think, and I will if she freezes me for it.”

“But you’ll tell her where he is?”

“Maybe—if she wants to know, after I’m through knocking him.”

“Let me pay your fare to Delhi!”

Charley made a hand-spring to the work-bench, and sat there looking at Ommony with those sky-bright eyes that read vague nuances between the light and shadow.

“What’s up?” he asked again. “I’d do a lot to help you.”

“Is Madame Poulakis clever?”

“As blazes! Only dumb thing about her is she wants Strange. Cave-man stuff, I reckon.”

“Well: suppose you warn her against Strange”

“I’ll do that sure, first thing! What then?”

“If she persists after that; would you give her a message from me, as an absolute stranger?”

“I’ll tell her anything you say.”

“Say this: That Strange contemplates using his money and influence to grab this forest, and she can have me for ally on sole condition that she helps me to prevent that, by using her influence with Strange.”

“If, as and when!” said Charley. “Sure. I get you. If that’s his game, why don’t you go straight to headquarters and spike it?”

“Daren’t. If I should leave here Strange would jump to the right conclusion. Knowledge that I was opposing him would only make him keener, and he can beat us all with his money and hidden influence. He could buy some politicians and the native press—pull strings—and have the forest. This fight has got to be personal, between Meldrum Strange and me. I’m looking for allies.”

“I’m one,” said Charley.

“Let’s hope she’ll be another.”

“Yes. But listen here,” said Charley. “I reserve the right to warn her first. I’m going to tell her what I think of Strange, and why.”

“Agreed.”

“I’ll warn her he’s no good, and that if she ever gets him she’ll regret it from the minute they sign up. I’ll rub it in good, with illustrations and a lecture on the side, and give her a day and a night to think it over. After that, if she’s still nuts on him, I’ll tell her I know she’s crazy, and chip in.”

“Satisfactory to me,” said Ommony.

“What’ll I tell her to do, though?”

“Leave that to her. Tell her she can count on me to help her, but on what terms, and say we’ve only got thirty days to win or lose in. Now, let me provide you with money.”

“No. I’ve enough for the present.”

“Have lunch before you go, then. There’s no train till two o’clock.”

“No. Put up some eats for me. Send ’em to the station. I’ll wait there. If I see Strange again I’ll hurt him. Say—turn round—look through the door! D’you see that line of light down the edge of a monkey on the big tree over to the left? Look at him move now! Can you beat it?”