The Heritage of the Hills Part 17

This done, she sat back and regarded her patient complacently.

"Just take it easy," she counselled. "And, whatever you do, don't worry.

You won't know you were bitten in an hour. Sip that whisky now and then.

It won't kill the poison, as some folks seem to believe, but it will make you light-hearted and you'll forget to worry. That's the part it plays in a case like this. Now if I can trust you to keep quiet and serene, I'll seek revenge."

He nodded weakly.

She arose, and presently again came that sickening _whir-r-r-r-r-r_ miscalled a rattle, followed immediately by a vicious _thud-thud-thud_.

"There, you horrid creature!" he heard in a low, triumphant tone. "You thought I was afraid of you, did you? Bring total collapse on all your fict.i.tious traditions and bite before you rattle, will you! _Requiescat in pace_, Mr. Showut Poche-daka!"

Half an hour afterward Oliver Drew was on his feet, but he staggered drunkenly. To this day he is not just sure whether he was intoxicated or raving from the effects of the snakebite. Anyway, as Jessamy took hold of him to steady him, his reason left him, and he swept her into his arms and kissed her lips time and again, though she struggled valiantly to free herself.

Ultimately she ducked under his arms and sprang away from him backward, her face crimson, her bosom heaving.

"Sit down again!" she ordered chokingly. "Shame on you, to take advantage of me like that!"

"Won't sit down!" he babbled, reaching about for her blindly. "I love you an' I'm gonta have you!"

"You're out of your head! Sit down again! Please, now." Her tone changed to a soothing note. "You're--I'm afraid you're drunk."

He was groping for her, staggering toward a threatening outcropping of rock. With a rapid leap she closed in on him unexpectedly, heaved desperately to the right and left, and threw him flat on his back. Then she scrambled on top of his knees as he strove to rise again.

"Now, looky-here, mister," she warned, "you've gone just about far enough! In a second I'll get that bee-smoker and put you out of business. Please--please, now, be good!"

He seemed partially stunned by the fall, for he lay now without a move, eyes closed, his mind wandering dreamily. And thus he lay for half an hour longer, when he suddenly raised his head and looked at her, still propped up on his knees, with eyes that were sane.

"Golly!" he breathed.

"Golly is right," she agreed drolly. "Were you drunk or crazy?"

"Both, I guess. I'm--mighty sorry." His face was red as fire.

"Do you wish to get up?"

"If you please."

He stood on his feet. He was still weak and pale and dizzy.

"Heavens! That liquor!" he panted. "What is it? Where did you get it?"

"At home. Old Adam gave me the flask over a year ago. It's only whisky.

I always carry a flask for just such an emergency as this. And I never go a step out of the house in the summer without my snakebite kit.

n.o.body ought to in the West."

He shook his head. "That's not whisky," he said. "I'm not exactly a stranger to the taste of whisky. That's brimstone!"

"I was told it was whisky," she replied. "I know nothing about whisky.

I've never even tasted it."

He held the flask to the sun, but it was leather-covered and no light shone through. He unscrewed the metal cap and poured some of the liquor into it.

It was colourless as water.

"Moons.h.i.+ne!" he cried. "And I know now why the flow from my spring was cut off. A still calls for running water!"

"You may be right," she said without excitement. "You will remember that I told you there is another reason besides Selden's covetousness of your gra.s.s land why you are wanted out of the Clinker Creek Country."

CHAPTER XII

THE POISON OAKERS RIDE

A red-headed, red-breasted male linnet sat on the topmost branch of the old, gnarled liveoak near Oliver's window and tried to burst his throat to the accompaniment of Oliver's typewriter. When the keys ceased their clicking the singer finished a bar and waited, till once more the dicelike rattle encouraged him to another ecstatic burst of melody.

"Well, I like to be accommodating," remarked Oliver, leaning back from his machine, "but I can't accompany you all day; and it happens that I'm through right now."

He surveyed the last typewritten sheet of his ma.n.u.script on the cleaning of springs for the enlarging of their flow; but, the article completed, his mind was no longer engrossed by it.

Other and bigger matters claimed his thoughts, and he sat in the soft spring air wondering about old Chupurosa Hatchinguish and his strange behaviour on seeing the gem-mounted _conchas_ stamped with the letter B.

When Oliver had stripped off his s.h.i.+rt in the hut that day the scar that a German bayonet had left in his side had carefully been examined by the ancient chief. Oliver fancied there had been a strange new look in his inscrutable eyes as he silently motioned for him to put on his s.h.i.+rt again. He had made no comment whatever, though, and said nothing at all until the young man had finished dressing. Then he had stepped to the door and opened it, rather impolitely suggesting that his guest's presence in the hut was no longer necessary. As Oliver pa.s.sed out he had spoken:

"When next the moon is full," he said, "the Showut Poche-dakas will observe the Fiesta de Santa Maria de Refugio, as taught them years ago by the padres who came from Spain. Then will the Showut Poche-dakas dance the fire dance, which is according to the laws laid down by the wise men of their ancestors. Ride here to the Fiesta de Santa Maria de Refugio on the first night that the moon is full. _Adios, amigo!_"

That was all; and Oliver had pa.s.sed out into the bright sunlight and found Jessamy Selden.

The two had talked over the circ.u.mstances often since that day, but neither could throw any light on the matter. But the first night of the full moon was not far distant now, and Oliver and the girl were awaiting it impatiently. Oliver felt that at the fiesta he would in some way gain an inkling of the mysterious question that had puzzled his father for thirty years, and which eventually had brought his son into this country to find out whether its answer was Yes or No.

Oliver tilted back his chair and lighted his briar pipe. Out in the liveoak tree the linnet waited, head on one side, chirping plaintively occasionally, for the renewed clicking of the typewriter keys. But Oliver's thoughts were far from his work.

That burning, colourless liquor that had so fiercely fired his brain was undoubtedly moons.h.i.+ne--and redistilled at that, no doubt. Jessamy had told him further that she had not so much as unscrewed the cap since old Adam had given her the flask, at her request, and had had no idea that the flask had not contained amber-coloured whisky. Was this in reality the reason why the Poison Oakers wished him to be gone? Had they been distilling moons.h.i.+ne whisky down at Sulphur Spring to supply the blind pigs controlled by the prosecuting attorney at the county seat? And had his inadvertent shutting off of Sulphur Spring's supply of water stopped their illicit activities? They had known, perhaps, that eventually he would discover that his own spring had been choked by some one and would rectify the condition. Whereupon Sulphur Spring would cease to flow and automatically cut off one of their sources of revenue. Oliver decided to look for Sulphur Spring at his earliest opportunity.

His brows came together as he recalled the episode on the hill, when either the fiery raw liquor or the poison from the diamond-back's fangs--or both--had deprived him of his senses.

He remembered perfectly what he had said--what he had done. He had heard sometime that a man always tells the truth when he is drunk. But had he been drunk, or rabid from the hypodermic injections of Showut Poche-daka? Or, again--both? One thing he knew--that he thrilled yet at remembrance of those satin lips which he had pressed again and again.

Had he told the truth? Had he said that day what he would not have revealed for anything--at that time?

His brows contracted more and more, and a grim smile twitched his lips.

His teeth gripped the amber stem of his pipe. Had he told the truth?

He rose suddenly and went through a boyish practice that had clung to him to the years of his young manhood. He stalked to the cheap rectangular mirror on the wall and gazed at his wavy reflection in the flawed gla.s.s. Blue eye into blue eye he gazed, and once more asked the question:

"Did I tell the truth when I said I loved her?"