The Mesa Trail Part 23

As Thady Shea gazed upon those seven stone G.o.ds which sat in the dust and grinned stonily back at him, various things suggested themselves to his fertile brain. Seven of them-and seven was beyond question a lucky number! Then, fate had undoubtedly placed them in his hand and had removed any clew to their former owners. Luck had come to him, and if he threw the luck away because of a little bother involved in carrying it-well, that would be an ill thing to do!

Out of his subconscious self evolved a curious idea, a remembrance. What did these things represent? He dimly remembered something about the seven heavenly virtues and the seven deadly sins. The vague thought stirred him. These images were ugly enough to represent the seven sins-or the seven virtues. He must keep them at all costs; in the manner of their coming was something fated, something that appealed to all the latent superst.i.tion within him. He dared not refuse these talismen!

So he replaced them in the suitcase and took up his road anew.

It was a rough road that called to him. It was a long and lonely road, a road that took him out of human ken and into the heart of the high hills.

He swung along at a good four-mile clip, his long legs fast covering the ground. He had never before this day been actually among the mountains, and he liked their friendly, forested faces. The rough trail denoted very little usage, yet this absence of all humanity did not oppress Thady Shea. He felt gloriously independent, free!

About noon he was following Beaver Creek through a rough and rugged canon. Here he lunched, with a silver-black pool of water foaming and bubbling fifty feet below him; a pool that foamed green and silver with sunlight and bubbled with black shadows. Over on the opposite wall of the canon was a broken line of masonry, half hiding a niche in the rock where once had lived and died the cliff dwellers. It was a spot to remember. It was a place that stirred the deep things in a man's soul, that caused him to think upon the mysteries, the flas.h.i.+ng glimpses of occult things. About that place there lingered a sense of the futility of man, a sense of the gorgeously foaming and bubbling eternity of the Creator. Thady Shea was glad that he had seen that place.

Afterward, he halted for a smoke, this time beside the stream itself, farther along the canon. Thady Shea had never been a boy-until to-day.

At ten years he had been an accomplished actor, a child marvel, drunken and drugged with the unhealthy atmosphere of the stage. But now-now! The alt.i.tude was high, and he was drunk as with fine wine. He waded in the stony creek, he even thought of fis.h.i.+ng with a bent pin on a string; but he had neither pin nor string. He enjoyed a truant hour. Then he went on his way anew, vowing inwardly that some day he would return to this little bubbling creek and the winding canon amid the mountains.

Despite the alt.i.tude, weariness had left him, and he carried the seven stone G.o.ds without feeling their weight. Deeper and lonelier grew his trail, the mountains folding him in upon every side. He began to feel the infinity of distance. He was a mere tiny atom here among these great solitudes. His insignificance was borne home upon him, mellowing all his spirit.

In this chastened mood he came, suddenly and without warning, upon the tragic shack of the sheep-herder.

It was a shack of logs and hewn timbers, a rough little shack, a tragic little shack. Upon one wall was fastened a faded paper, a permit issued by the forest ranger to cut these same timbers. In the sun by the doorway sat a little brown, half-naked baby, perhaps a year of age, whimpering and chewing upon a strip of raw white bacon. There was no one else visible. Over the place, tainting the clear high air, hung a fearful odour of mortality; an odour of tragic suggestion, an odour of blood and liquor.

Seeing no one about except the baby, who stopped whimpering at sight of him, Thady Shea advanced to the doorway. He glanced inside. As he did so, cold and awful horror stiffened upon him. Even to his tyro's eye the story was plain to read.

Upon the bare earthen floor, just inside the door, sat the sheep-herder.

The effluvia of his garments told eloquently his profession. Between his outstretched feet lay a cheap revolver. His swarthy, brutal face, the face of a Mexican, the face of a barbarian drawn from mingled Indian and b.a.s.t.a.r.d Spanish blood, was sunken upon his chest. He was breathing stertorously, horribly. He was drunk, stupefied with liquor. Upon the floor beneath his hand had fallen an empty bottle which stank of the vilest mescal.

Only a few feet distant, sprawled under one wall of the room, was the body of a woman, a brown native woman. She had been upon her knees beneath a little crucifix. She had fallen partly forward, partly sideways; a cotton garment had been torn from her left shoulder and breast, as though in some last agony. Beneath the left breast, black with flies, a pool of black blood was coagulating. She had not been dead a long time; an hour or two, no more.

Thady Shea took a step backward. He put one hand to his eyes, as if to shut from his vision that sordid and horrible scene. For a moment he stood thus, his brain in riotous turmoil; then he started violently as a hand touched his arm.

"h.e.l.lo, stranger! I been looking for you!"

Shea stared at the man who had just dismounted from a pony; a white man, grave and steady of eye. Something in the horror-smitten face of Shea drew an exclamation from this other man.

"Here-what's the matter?"

"In there. Look!" Thady Shea motioned to the doorway.

The other man, the forest ranger who had come from the lookout station on Indian Peaks, quickly strode forward. His figure filled the doorway for a long moment. He stood there silently, gazing in upon that tragic shack, reading every detail with skilled eyes. At last he turned and rejoined Thady Shea, who was staring down at the baby.

"You built a fire early this morning on the old trail up from the Tularosa Road?" The ranger gave his name and office. "H'm-m. Know anything about the fire laws?"

"Fire laws? No," Shea was disturbed and wondering. "Why? Shouldn't I have built any fire?"

"Not that kind-not a big h.e.l.l-roarer. No harm done, I reckon; I stamped out your fire. But see to it that you don't do it again. Here's a copy of the laws."

He extended a card. Shea pocketed it with a helpless gesture, and looked again at the doorway of the shack. The ranger caught his look, and nodded.

"I guess you'd just found 'em, eh? It's a h.e.l.l of a note. This fellow Garcia, with his wife and kid, came up from Mexico; refugees. He's been herding some sheep; some that the Y Ranch got a permit to run in a big box canon last winter-and he's not a bad sort when he's sober. But now-well, there's no doubt about him now. He'll be a good greaser in two-three weeks, when the drop's sprung. Suppose I got to take him in; h.e.l.l of a note! You ain't been inside?"

Thady Shea shuddered. "No," he answered. He looked down at the baby. The baby looked up at him, removed the strip of white bacon from her mouth, and smiled.

"It's a girl!" said Thady Shea in surprise and awe.

The ranger gave him a curious look, then took out his notebook and pencil.

"Name and where from, if you please," he said. "We'll likely have to come and take down your testimony later on."

Thady Shea gave his name, and gave as well as he was able the location of Mrs. Crump's mine. The ranger once more eyed him, but this time with a new air.

"h.e.l.l! I've heard o' you, Shea. Partners with Mrs. Crump, eh? That's a pretty good recommend. Where you goin' from here?"

"To the mine. I believe that by following this creek I'll get into the right territory sooner or later. I know how to reach the mine from Zacaton City, but from this direction I'm not so sure."

Thady Shea was badly off. He was thoroughly shaken by the fearful scene within the tragic shack. It had unnerved him, and he wanted a drink with avid and terrible longing. The ranger observed it.

"I ain't offering you any drinks, Shea," he said, drily. "Heard a few things about what happens to folks that offer you drinks. Still, I always do carry a drop for emergencies, and I have a notion that you need a sip mighty bad."

Thady Shea forced a grim smile. "Thanks. But-the need will have to be greater than it is now, my friend. You think I can reach the mine to-night?"

"No. Some time to-morrow, most likely. Now listen close and I'll give you directions where to leave this canon, or else you'll come out clear down on the Gila!"

Having gleaned a fairly precise knowledge of the location of Number Sixteen, the ranger proceeded to give Thady Shea an accurate mental map of the trails, backed up by a rough drawing. Then he entered the shack, carried out the murderer, and bound the man on his pony like a sack of flour.

"What the devil will become o' the kid?" he queried. "Come on, Shea, let's get the poor woman buried. That baby, now-d'you suppose you could wait here until I send back for her? I can't handle the greaser and the baby, too."

Thady Shea did not respond at once. He seemed oblivious of the question; but as a matter of fact, he was deep in thought.

The two men together dug a grave and decently interred the poor murdered woman. Over the mound Thady Shea intoned a fragmentary burial service.

What he lacked in words he made up in rolling phrases culled from other sources than the prayer book, and in a deeply sincere manner which sat upon him with stately dignity.

They returned to the front of the shack, where the ranger rolled a cigarette with studied care, and returned to his perplexity.

"What about this here kid, now? These folks haven't any kin this side the border, and these greasers don't give a whoop for babies anyhow; too common. This Garcia is the one that deserves my close and personal attention until he gets shoved into the kind o' h.e.l.l he's bound for-which won't be very long. Of course, the kid can go to some orphanage or the State will take care of her. She's a smilin' little cuss!"

Thady Shea fingered his s.h.a.ggy, gray-black beard.

"If there's a razor around the place, I think I'll shave," he uttered, thoughtfully. His words drew a look of frowning surprise from the ranger, so utterly at variance with the subject did they seem. "Yes, I think I'll shave."

"Why, friend, I've been thinking about that infant," pursued Shea. "You know Mrs. Crump, I gather? I think she would care for the little one.

I'll take care of the child on the journey there; I imagine we can get along. I-er-I don't mind saying that-er-there is a whimsey born of infancy's fond smiles which warms the kindlier soul within a man."

He broke off, quite at a loss for further words. But the ranger understood, and smiled to himself.

"That suits me, Shea. You'll be at the mine, eh? May call on you later in regard to the evidence here. Yes, that's a good plan. Let's see if we can chase up a razor, now."

The ranger disappeared inside the tragic shack.

Upward of two hours later a new Thady Shea was continuing his journey; the tragic shack was far lost to view in the wilderness behind him.