The Duke Of Chimney Butte Page 5

  CHAPTER V

  FEET UPON THE ROAD

  "I always thought I'd go out West, but somehow I never got around toit," Taterleg said. "How far do you aim to go, Duke?"

  "As far as the notion takes me, I guess."

  It was about a month after the race that this talk between Taterleg andthe Duke took place, on a calm afternoon in a camp far from the site ofthat one into which the peddler of cutlery had trundled his disabledbicycle a year before. The Duke had put off his calfskin vest, theweather being too hot for it. Even Taterleg had made sacrifices toappearance in favor of comfort, his piratical corduroys being replacedby overalls.

  The Duke had quit his job, moved by the desire to travel on and see theworld, he said. He said no word to any man about the motive behind thatdesire, very naturally, for he was not the kind of a man who opened thedoor of his heart. But to himself he confessed the hunger for anunknown face, for the lure of an onward-beckoning hand which he was nolonger able to ignore.

  Since that day she had strained over the brass railing of the car tohold him in her sight until the curtain of dust intervened, he had felther call urging him into the West, the strength of her beckoning handdrawing him the way she had gone, to search the world for her and findher on some full and glorious day.

  "Was you aimin' to sell Whetstone and go on the train, Duke?"

  "No, I'm not goin' to sell him yet a while."

  The Duke was not a talkative man on any occasion, and now he sat insilence watching the cook kneading out a batch of bread, his thoughts athousand miles away.

  Where, indeed, would the journey that he was shaping in his intentionthat minute carry him? Somewhere along the railroad between there andPuget Sound the beckoning lady had left the train; somewhere on thatlong road between mountain and sea she was waiting for him to come.

  Taterleg stood his loaves in the sun to rise for the oven, making aconsiderable rattling about the stove as he put in the fire. A silencefell.

  Lambert was waiting for his horse to rest a few hours, and, waiting, hesent his dreams ahead of him where his feet could not follow save byweary roads and slow.

  Between Misery and the end of that railroad at the western sea therewere many villages, a few cities. A passenger might alight from theChicago flier at any of them, and be absorbed in the vastness like adrop of water in the desert plain. How was he to know where she had leftthe train, or whither she had turned afterward, or journeyed, or whereshe lodged now? It seemed beyond finding out. Assuredly it was a tasktoo great for the life of youth, so evanescent in the score of time,even though so long and heavy to those impatient dreamers who drawthemselves onward by its golden chain to the cold, harsh facts of age.

  It was a foolish quest, a hopeless one. So reason said. Romance andyouth, and the longing that he could not define, rose to confute thissober argument, flushed and eager, violet scent blowing before.

  Who could tell? and perhaps; rash speculations, faint promises. Theworld was not so broad that two might never meet in it whose ways hadtouched for one heart-throb and sundered again in a sigh. All his lifehe had been hearing that it was a small place, after all was said.Perhaps, and who can tell? And so, galloping onward in the free leash ofhis ardent dreams.

  "When was you aimin' to start, Duke?" Taterleg inquired, after a silenceso long that Lambert had forgotten he was there.

  "In about another hour."

  "I wasn't tryin' to hurry you off, Duke. My reason for askin' you wasbecause I thought maybe I might be able to go along with you a piece ofthe way, if you don't object to my kind of company."

  "Why, you're not goin' to jump the job, are you?"

  "Yes, I've been thinkin' it over, and I've made up my mind to draw mytime tonight. If you'll put off goin' till mornin', I'll start withyou. We can travel together till our roads branch, anyhow."

  "I'll be glad to wait for you, old feller. I didn't know--which way----"

  "Wyoming," said Taterleg, sighing. "It's come back on me ag'in."

  "Well, a feller has to rove and ramble, I guess."

  Taterleg sighed, looking off westward with dreamy eyes. "Yes, if he'sgot a girl pullin' on his heart," said he.

  The Duke started as if he had been accused, his secret read, his soullaid bare; he felt the blood burn in his face, and mount to his eyeslike a drift of smoke. But Taterleg was unconscious of this suddenembarrassment, this flash of panic for the thing which the Duke believedlay so deep in his heart no man could ever find it out and laugh at itor make gay over the scented romance. Taterleg was still looking off ina general direction that was westward, a little south of west.

  "She's in Wyoming," said Taterleg; "a lady I used to rush out in GreatBend, Kansas, a long time ago."

  "Oh," said the Duke, relieved and interested. "How long ago was that?"

  "Over four years," sighed Taterleg, as if it might have been a quarterof a century.

  "Not so very long, Taterleg."

  "Yes, but a lot of fellers can court a girl in four years, Duke."

  The Duke thought it over a spell. "Yes, I reckon they can," he allowed."Don't she ever write to you?"

  "I guess I'm more to blame than she is on that, Duke. She _did_ write,but I was kind of sour and dropped her. It's hard to git away from,though; it's a-comin' over me ag'in. I might 'a' been married andsettled down with that girl now, me and her a-runnin' a oyster parlor insome good little railroad town, if it hadn't 'a' been for a Welshmanname of Elwood. He was a stonecutter, that Elwood feller was, Duke,workin' on bridge 'butments on the Santa Fe. That feller told her I wasmarried and had four children; he come between us and bust us up."

  "Wasn't he onery!" said the Duke, feelingly.

  "I was chef in the hotel where that girl worked waitin' table, drawin'down good money, and savin' it, too. But that derned Welshman got aroundher and she growed cold. When she left Great Bend she went to Wyoming totake a job--Lander was the town she wrote from, I can put my finger onit in the map with my eyes shut. I met her when she was leavin' for thedepot, draggin' along with her grip and no Welshman in a mile of her togive her a hand. I went up and tipped my hat, but I never smiled, Duke,for I was sour over the way that girl she'd treated me. I just took holdof that grip and carried it to the depot for her and tipped my hat toher once more. 'You're a gentleman, whatever they say of you, Mr.Wilson,' she said."

  "_She_ did?"

  "She did, Duke. 'You're a gentleman, Mr. Wilson, whatever they say ofyou,' she said. Them was her words, Duke. 'Farewell to _you_,' I said,distant and high-mighty, for I was hurt, Duke--I was hurt right down tothe bone."

  "I bet you was, old feller."

  "'Farewell to _you_,' I says, and the tears come in her eyes, and shesays to me--wipin' 'em on a han'kerchief I give her, nothing anyWelshman ever done for her, and you can bank on that Duke--she says tome: 'I'll always think of you as a gentleman, Mr. Wilson.' I wasn't ontowhat that Welshman told her then; I didn't know the straight of it tillshe wrote and told me after she got to Wyoming."

  "It was too bad, old feller."

  "Wasn't it hell? I was so sore when she wrote, the way she'd believedthat little sawed-off snorter with rock dust in his hair, I neveranswered that letter for a long time. Well, I got another letter fromher about a year after that. She was still in the same place, doin'well. Her name was Nettie Morrison."

  "Maybe it is yet, Taterleg."

  "Maybe. I've been a-thinkin' I'd go out there and look her up, and ifshe ain't married, me and her we might let bygones _be_ bygones andhitch. I could open a oyster parlor out there on the dough I've savedup; I'd dish 'em up and she'd wait on the table and take in the money.We'd do well, Duke."

  "I _bet_ you would."

  "I got the last letter she wrote--I'll let you see it, Duke."

  Taterleg made a rummaging in the chuck wagon, coming out presently withthe letter. He stood contemplating it with tender eye.

  "Some writer, ain't she, Duke?"

  "She sure is a fine writer, Taterleg--writes like a schoolma'am."


  "She can talk like one, too. See--'Lander, Wyo.' It's a little townabout as big as my hat, from the looks of it on the map, standin' awayoff up there alone. I could go to it with my eyes shut, straight as abee."

  "Why don't you write to her, Taterleg?" The Duke could scarcely keepback a smile, so diverting he found this affair of the Welshman, thewaitress, and the cook. More comedy than romance, he thought, Taterlegon one side of the fence, that girl on the other.

  "I've been a-squarin' off to write," Taterleg replied, "but I don't seemto git the time." He opened his vest to put the letter away close to hisheart, it seemed, that it might remind him of his intention and squarehim quite around to the task. But there was no pocket on the sidecovering his heart. Taterleg put the letter next his lung as thenearest approach to that sentimental portion of his anatomy, and sighedlong and loud as he buttoned his garment.

  "You said you'd put off goin' till mornin', Duke?"

  "Sure I will."

  "I'll throw my things in a sack and be ready to hit the breeze with youafter breakfast. I can write back to the boss for my time."

  * * * * *

  Morning found them on the road together, the sun at their backs.Taterleg was as brilliant as a humming-bird, even to his belt andscabbard, which had a great many silver tacks driven into them,repeating the letters LW in great characters and small. He said theletters were the initials of his name.

  "Lawrence?" the Duke ventured to inquire.

  Taterleg looked round him with great caution before answering, althoughthey were at least fifteen miles from camp, and farther than that fromthe next human habitation. He lowered his voice, rubbing his handreflectively along the glittering ornaments of his belt.

  "Lovelace," he said.

  "Not a bad name."

  "It ain't no name for a cook," Taterleg said, almost vindictively."You're the first man I ever told it to, and I'll ask you not to pass iton. I used to go by the name of Larry before they called me Taterleg. Igot that name out here in the Bad Lands; it suits _me_, all right."

  "It's a queer kind of a name to call a man by. How did they come to giveit to you?"

  "Well, sir, I give myself that name, you might say, when you come tofigger it down to cases. I was breakin' a horse when I first come outhere four years ago, headin' at that time for Wyoming. He throwed me.When I didn't hop him ag'in, the boys come over to see if I was busted.When they asked me if I was hurt, I says, 'He snapped my dern old leglike a 'tater.' And from that day on they called me Taterleg. Yes, and Iguess I'd 'a' been in Wyoming now, maybe with a oyster parlor and awife, if it hadn't been for that blame horse." He paused reminiscently;then he said:

  "Where was you aimin' to camp tonight, Duke?"

  "Where does the flier stop after it passes Misery, going west?"

  "It stops for water at Glendora, about fifty or fifty-five miles west,sometimes. I've heard 'em say if a feller buys a ticket for there inChicago, it'll let him off. But I don't guess it stops there regular.Why, Duke? Was you aimin' to take the flier there?"

  "No. We'll stop there tonight, then, if your horse can make it."

  "Make it! If he can't I'll eat him raw. He's made seventy-five many atime before today."

  So they fared on that first day, in friendly converse. At sunset theydrew up on a mesa, high above the treeless, broken country through whichthey had been riding all day, and saw Glendora in the valley below them.

  "There she is," said Taterleg. "I wonder what we're goin' to run intodown, there?"