Heart's Desire Part 9

"It has been very beautiful to-night," she said, as he turned back at length from the door of Curly's house.

Choking, he left her. As he stumbled blindly back, over the _arroyo_, there crossed on the heavens the long red line of a shooting star. Dully he watched it, and for him it was the flaming sword barring the gates of Eden.

Hours later--for sleep was not for him--Dan Anderson stood waiting for the sun to rise over old Carrizo. Far off, along the pathway of the morn, lay his former home, the States, the East, the fight, the combat, and the grovelling. "No, not for me; not there!" he said, conviction coming to him once more.

He turned then and glanced down the single street of Heart's Desire, a street as straggling and purposeless as his own misdirected life--a wavering lane through the poor habitations of a Land of Oblivion.

Longer he looked, and stronger the conviction grew. "No, no," he said, clenching his hand; "not here for her--not here!"

CHAPTER VIII

THE CORPORATION AT HEART'S DESIRE

_This being the Story of a Parrot, Certain Twins, and a Pair of Candy Legs_

Time wore on at Heart's Desire, uncalendared and unclocked. The sun rose, pa.s.sed through a sky impenetrably blue, and sank behind Baxter Peak at evening. These were the main events of the day. All men had apparently long ago forgotten the departure of the stage-coach that had borne away at one voyaging both Eve and Eastern Capital. Eve had gone forever, as she supposed, although Capital secretly knew full well that it, at least, was coming back again.

The population s.h.i.+fted and changed, coming and going, as was the wont of the land, but none questioned the man booted and spurred who rode out of town or who came into town. Of late, however, certain booted and bearded men wandered afoot over the mountain sides, doing strange things with strange instruments. A railroad was about to cross the country somewhere. Grave and moody, Heart's Desire sat in the sun, and for two months did not mention the subject which weighed upon its mind.

Curly broke the silence one morning at a plebiscite of four men who gathered to bask near Whiteman's corral.

"I hit the trail of them surveyors," said he, "other side of Lone Mountain, day before yestiday. They've got a line of pegs drove in the ground. Looks like they was afraid their old railroad was goin' to git lost from 'em, unless they picketed it out right strong."

Reproachful eyes were turned on Curly, but he went on.

"It's goin' to run right between Carrizoso ranch and the mouth of our canon," said he. "You'll have to cross it every time you come to town, McKinney. When she gits to runnin' right free and general, there'll be a double row of cow corpses from here to Santa Rosa. What this here new railroad is a-goin' to do to your English stockholders, Mac, is a deep and abidin' plenty."

McKinney made no reply, but looked stolidly out across the valley.

"Them fellers come up into town for tobacco, Doc." Curly threw out the suggestion cheerfully.

"Tobacco ain't _drugs_," said Doc Tomlinson, annoyed. He was sensitive about allusions to his stock of drugs, which had been imported some years before, and under a misapprehension as to Heart's Desire's future.

"We might shoot up the surveyors," said Curly, tentatively. But Dan Anderson shook his head.

"That's the worst of it," he answered, "We might shoot any one of us here, and the world wouldn't care. But if we shot even a leg off one of the least of these, them States folks would never rest content. For me, I'm goin' in with the railroad. Looks like I'd have to be corporation counsel."

"Well, I reckon we won't have to drive our cows quite so far to market," apologized McKinney, striving to see the silver lining.

"Oh, drop it," snapped Doc Tomlinson. "I might as well say I could get in my drugs easier. Cows can walk; and as for importin' things, everybody knows that Tom Osby can haul in everything that's needed in this valley."

The members of the plebiscite fell silent for a time, willing to wait for Tom Osby's arrival, whenever that might be.

"Now, we ain't downtrod none in this country," finally began Doc Tomlinson, who had made political speeches in Kansas.

"Is _any_body?" asked Curly, who had never lived anywhere but on the free range.

"We've had three squares a day," said McKinney. "This country's just as good as the States."

"States!" cried Dan Anderson. "We've got a state of our own, or did have, right here, the Free State of Heart's Desire. But it ain't good enough for us. We want to hitch our little wagon to the star of progress. I reckon we oughtn't to holler if the star travels some fast. It was ours, the Free State of Heart's Desire! And we--well--"

"Well," said Curly, ruminatingly, "I don't see as ole Carrizo is frettin' any about these here things." He glanced up at the big mountain whose shadow lay athwart the valley. Dan Anderson gazed thither as well. McKinney sat looking quietly up the street.

"No use frettin' about it, anyhow," said he, in his matter-of-fact way.

"And as to Tom Osby, fellers, I'll bet a plug of tobacco that's him pullin' in at the head of town right now."

"Just like I said," exclaimed Doc Tomlinson. "He's good enough railroad for any one, and he's safe! I wonder what did he bring this time."

What Tom Osby brought this time, besides sundry merchandise for Whiteman the Jew, was a parrot and a pair of twins. Neither of these specialties had ever before been seen in Heart's Desire.

"Twins!" exclaimed Dan Anderson, when the facts were divulged, "and a parrot!"

Tom Osby, after making known the full nature of his cargo, discharged divers boxes, bales, and other packages at the store of Whiteman the Jew. The parrot was not disposed to wait for the close of these formalities. From under the white cover of the wagon there came sounds of profane speech. Tom Osby paused and filled his pipe. "Him?" said he, jerking his head toward the cover, as he scratched a match on the side of the wagon seat. "He's a sh.o.r.e peach. Talked to me all the way from Vegas down."

"Quork!" said the parrot. "Look out! Look out! Brrrrrrrr--awk--awk!

Quork!"

"I told you so," said Tom.

"Oh, dang it, I'm tired!" continued the bird.

"This," remarked Dan Anderson, "seems to be a cultivated gentleman.

But how about the twins? Where are they? And might we--er--ask whose are they?"

"Them?" said Tom. "Why, they're for Curly. They're asleep down under the seat here. Now, between the parrot and them twins, my trip down ain't been any lonesome to speak of."

All eyes were turned on Curly, the newly wedded cow puncher, who blushed a bright brick red to the roots of his hair. "Wh--where did they come from?" stammered he.

"I presume, Curly," said Dan Anderson, gravely, "like enough they came from somewhere over on the Brazos, your earlier home. Why didn't you tell us you were a married man?"

"I ain't--I never was!" cried Curly, hotly. "I never did have no twins nowhere. Where'd you git 'em, Tom?"

The freighter threw his leg across the seat. "Oh, they're yours all right, I reckon, Curly," said he. "Mother's dead. No relations. They come from Kansas, where all the twins comes from. I found 'em waitin'

up there in Vegas, billed through to you. Both dead broke, both plumb happy, and airy one of 'em worth its weight in gold. Its name is Susabella and Aryann, or somethin' like that. Shall I wake it up?

It's both alike."

"Now, why, my woman's folks," began Curly, "up there in Kansas--I reckon maybe _that's_ how it happened! She had a sister done married a Baptis' preacher, onct. Say, now, I bet a horse that's right how this here happened. Say, they was so pore they didn't have enough to eat."

"Letter come with 'em," said Tom, taking out a handful of tobacco from his pocket with the missive. "I reckon, that explains it, I wouldn't take a thousand dollars for 'em if they was mine. Here, you kids, get out of there and come and see the nice gentlemen. Here they are, fellers."

He haled forth from beneath the wagon cover two solemn-eyed and sleepy little girls, perhaps five years of age, and of so close a personal resemblance to each other as impressed all as uncanny. The four men stepped to the wagon side, and in silence gazed at the curly-headed pair, who looked back, equally silent, upon the strange group confronting them. At length the twins buried their faces in Tom Osby's overalls.

"Look here, friend," said Tom Osby to Curly, with asperity, "if you don't want these here twins, why, I'll take 'em off your hands mighty d.a.m.n quick. They're corral broke and right well gentled now, half good stock anyway, and is due to be right free steppers. If you don't want 'em, they're mine for the board bill."

But Curly stepped up and laid an awkward hand on the head of each of the twins. "Fellers," said he, "I ain't got a whole lot of experience in this here twin game, but this goes. These here twins is mine. This is some sudden, but I expect it'll tickle the little woman about half to death. I reckon I can get enough for 'em all to eat, somehow."

McKinney looked at him with anger in his gaze. "I told you, Curly," he reminded the cow puncher with undue emphasis, "that you was drawin' ten extry from day before yestiday. I reckon the stockholders can stand that."