there was peace and harmony in the home of the reverend taylor. an air of neatness and prosperity was about his four-room adobe house. the mocking-bird that hung in a willow cage against the white wall, by the door, whistled sweet mimicry of the cheep of the little chickens in the back yard, and hopped to and fro and up and down on his perches, pecking at the red chili between the bars. from the corner of his eyes he could peek into the window, and it was bright with potted geraniums, white as the wall, or red as the chili, or pink as the little crumpled palm that patted against the glass to him.
he whistled more cheerily yet when he saw that small hand. he was a tame mocking-bird, and he had learned to eat dead flies from it. that was one of the greatest treats of his highly satisfactory life. the hand left the window and presently waved from the doorway.
the reverend taylor stood there with his son in his arms. the mocking-bird trilled out a laugh to the evening air. it was irresistible, so droll that even a bird must know it,—the likeness between the little father and the little son. there was the same big head and the big ears and the big eyes and the body[pg 247] that was too small for them all, a little, thin body, active and quivering with energy. there were the very same wrinkles about the baby's lids, crinkles of good humor and kindly tolerance, and the very same tufts of hair running the wrong way and sticking out at the temples.
the tufts were fuzzy yellow instead of gray, and the miniature face had not yet grown tanned and hard with the wind and the sun, but those were mere details. the general effect was perfect. there was no mistaking that the lively fraction of humanity in the reverend taylor's arms was the little reverend. that was the only name he went by, though he had been christened properly on the day he was six months old, joshua for his father and randolph for his mother, in memory of virginia, and her own long maidenhood. she was herself a randolph, and she wanted the fact perpetuated. but in tombstone, joshua randolph taylor was simply the little reverend.
the little reverend was the first thing on earth to his father. for the wife had made that step in advance, which is yet a step in descent in a woman's life, when she becomes to her husband less herself than the mother of his child.
the reverend taylor grabbed at a fly and caught it in his palm. he had become very expert at this, to his wife's admiration and his son's keen delight. it was because the little reverend liked to see him do it, and derived so much elfish enjoyment from the trick, that he had perfected himself in it. he gave the[pg 248] crushed fly to the baby, and held him up to feed the bird. the bird put its head through the bars and pecked with its whiskered bill, and the little reverend gurgled joyfully, his small face wrinkling up in a way which was really not pretty, but which his father thought the most engaging expression in the world.
the puppy which had been born the same day as the little reverend, a beast half coyote, half shepherd, and wholly hideous, came and sat itself down beside them on the sill, looked up with its tongue hanging out to one side, and smiled widely. the beaming good nature of the two reverends was infectious. the baby squealed gleefully, and kicked until it was set down on the doorstep to pat the dog.
presently the nurse came, a big, fat mexican woman, with all her people's love of children showing on her moon face as she put out her arms. she had been with the taylors since before the baby's birth, and she had more of its affection than the mother.
the little reverend understood only spanish, and his few words, pronounced with a precision altogether in keeping with his appearance, were spanish ones. the old nurse murmured softly, as she took him up, "quieres leche hombrecito, quieres cenar? el chuchu tiene hambre tambien. vamos á ver mamá."
the little reverend was not to be blandished. he was willing to go because it was his supper time and he knew it, but the big-eyed look of understanding he turned up to the gentle, fat face said plainly enough that he was too wise a creature to be wheedled. he [pg 249]submitted to be carried in, but he cast a regretful glance at the "chuchu," which sat still in the doorway, and at his father, who was watching the line of flying ants making their way, a stream of red bodies and sizzing white wings, out of the window and across the street.
they had been doing that for three days. they came down the chimney, made across the floor in a line that never changed direction, nor straggled, nor lessened, up the wall and out a crack in the window. they did no harm, but followed blindly on in the path the first one had taken. and the minister had said they should not be smoked back or thwarted.
the little reverend had been much interested in them also. he had sat for several hours sucking an empty spool, and observing them narrowly, in perfect silence. his father had great hopes of him as a naturalist.
finally the minister raised his eyes and looked down the street. it was almost empty, save for two men in high-heeled top boots and sombreros who sat in chairs tilted back against the post-office wall, meditating in mutual silence. the only sounds were the rattling of dishes over in his mother-in-law's restaurant across the street, and the sleepy cheeping of the little chickens in his own back yard, as they cuddled under their mother's wing.
the reverend taylor was about to go to the coops and close them for the night, when he saw a man and a woman on horseback coming up the street. the woman was bending forward and swaying in her saddle. he stood still and watched. the red sunset[pg 250] blaze was in his face so that he could not see plainly until they were quite near. then he knew that it was cairness and—yes, beyond a doubt—bill lawton's runaway wife.
they halted in front of him, and the woman swayed again, so much that he ran to her side. but she righted herself fiercely. cairness was dismounted and was beside her, too, in an instant. he lifted her from the horse, pulled her down, more or less; she was much too ungainly to handle with any grace.
"may i take her in?" he said, nodding toward the open door.
"surely," said the minister, "surely." there might have been men who would have remembered that mrs. lawton was a tough woman, even for a mining town, and who would in the names of their own wives have refused to let her cross the threshold of their homes. but he saw that she was ill, and he did not so much as hesitate.
cairness put his arm around the big angular shoulders and helped her into the sitting room. she dropped down upon the sofa, and sat there, her head hanging, but in sullenness, not humility.
mrs. taylor came to the dining-room door and looked in. "can i do anything?" she asked.
"come in," said her husband. he was pouring out a drink of whiskey.
she came and stood watching, asking no questions, while the woman on the sofa gulped down the raw whiskey and gave back the glass.
[pg 251]
cairness had gone out to hitch the horses. when he came in he spoke to mrs. lawton, as one possessed of authority. he told her to lie down if she wanted to. "with your leave, mrs. taylor?" he added. mrs. taylor was already beside her, fussing kindly and being met with scant courtesy.
cairness took the reverend taylor to the door. "you know that is bill lawton's wife?" he said.
taylor nodded.
"the one who sloped with the greaser?"
the parson nodded again.
"do you object to taking her into your house for a short time?"
the reverend taylor did not object.
"and your wife?"
"she will shrink, i guess, at first," he admitted. "women who ain't seen much of life kind of think they ought to draw aside their skirts, and all that. they were taught copy-book morals about touching pitch, i reckon,"—he was wise concerning women now—"and it takes a good deal of hard experience to teach them that it ain't so. but she'll take my word for it."
"she is ill, you see?"
the parson had seen.
"she may be ill some time. would it be asking too much of you to look after her?" the bachelor showed in that.
taylor realized from the benedict's greater knowledge that it was asking a great deal, but still not[pg 252] too much. he assured cairness that she should be cared for.
"she was a captive among the chiricahuas up in the sierra madre. she's had a hard time of it. that and the return march have been too much for her."
the parson expressed pity—and felt it, which is more.
"yes," cairness said, "of course it's hard luck, but she's deserved it all, and more too. you may as well know the whole thing now. it's only fair. she and her husband were the cause of the kirby massacre. drove off the stock from the corrals and left them no escape."
his teeth set. the little man gasped audibly. "good god!" he said, "i—" he stopped.
"i rather thought that might be too much for even you," said cairness.
"no, no; it's a good deal, but it ain't too much. not that it could be more, very well," he added, and he glanced furtively at the woman within, who had stretched out on the lounge with her face to the wall. mrs. taylor was fanning her.
"you will still keep her then?" cairness wished to know.
he would still keep her, yes. but he did not see that it would be in the least necessary to tell his wife the whole of the woman's iniquity. it took quite all his courage, after they had gotten her safely in bed, to remind her that this was the same woman who had gone off with the mexican.
[pg 253]
mrs. taylor folded her hands in her lap, and simply looked at him.
"well?" said he, questioningly, setting his mouth. it answered to the duellist's "on guard!" she had seen him set his mouth before, and she knew that it meant that he was not to be opposed. nevertheless there was a principle involved now. it must be fought for. and it would be the first fight of their marriage, too. as he had told cairness once, she was very amiable.
"well," she answered, "i think you have done an unspeakable thing, that is all."
"such as—"
"to have brought an abandoned woman into our home."
"if her presence blackens the walls, we will have them whitewashed."
but she was not to be turned off with levity. it was a serious matter, involving consequences of the sternest sort. mrs. taylor was of the class of minds which holds that just such laxities as this strike at the root of society. "it is not a joke, joshua. she pollutes our home."
"are you afraid she will contaminate me?" he asked. he was peering at her over the top of a newspaper.
she denied the idea emphatically.
"baby, then?"
equally absurd.
"or the nurse?"
it was too foolish to answer.
[pg 254]
"then," said the reverend taylor, laying down the paper, "you must be scared for yourself."
"never!" she declared; it was merely because she could not breathe the same air with that creature.
"i wonder, my dear, what sort of air you breathed in your mother's restaurant at meal times?"
mrs. taylor was silent. her pop blue eyes shifted.
"trouble is," he went on evenly, "trouble is, that, like most women, you've been brought up to take copy-book sentiments about touchin' pitch, and all that, literal. you don't stop to remember that to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man. if she can't do you any harm spiritually, she certainly ain't got the strength to do it physically. i can't say as i'd like to have her about the place all the time unless she was going to reform,—and i don't take much stock in change of heart, with her sort,—because she wouldn't be a pleasant companion, and it ain't well to countenance vice. but while she's sick, and it will oblige cairness, she can have the shelter of my manta. you think so too, now, don't you?" he soothed.
but she was not sure that she thought so. she wanted to know why the woman could not be sent to the hotel, and he explained that cairness wished a very close watch kept on her until she was able to be up. curiosity got the better of outraged virtue then. "why?" she asked, and leaned forward eagerly.
but the reverend taylor's lips set again, and he shrugged his narrow shoulders. "i'm not certain myself," he said shortly.
[pg 255]
an eminent student of the sex has somewhere said that women are like monkeys, in that they are imitative. the comparison goes further. there is a certain inability in a monkey to follow out a train of thought, or of action, to its conclusion, which is shared by the major part of womankind. it is a feminine characteristic to spend life and much energy on side issues. the lady forgot almost all about her original premise. she wished especially to know that which no power upon earth would induce her lord to tell.
he took up his paper again. "he ain't told me the whole thing yet," he said.
she wished to hear as much as he had confided.
the reverend taylor shook his head. "i may tell you sometime, but not now. in the meanwhile i'm sure you think we had better keep mrs. lawton here, don't you now?"
she did not. she would as lief touch a toad.
"ain't it funny how narrow-minded some good women can be, though?" he speculated, looking at her very much as he was in the habit of looking at his specimens. and he quoted slowly, as if he were saying over the names and family characteristics of a specimen.
"'and though i bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though i give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.' i wonder how many women who have lived up to every word of the decalogue have made it all profitless for want of a little charity?"
she asked, with the flat virginia accent of the vowels,[pg 256] if he would like her to go and embrace the woman, and request her to make their home henceforth her own.
"no," he said, "i wouldn't like you to, and she wouldn't want it, i reckon." he dropped back into his usual speech. "she ain't any repentant sinner, by a good deal. but as cairness wants me to keep an eye on her, and as she's sick, i wish you to let her stay in the house, and not to make a rumpus about it. if you really don't like to go near her, though," he finished, "i'll tell you what i'll do, i'll take her in her food myself, and nurse can clean out her room."
perhaps the scripture texts had taught their lesson, or perhaps there yet lingered a hope of learning that which her husband would not tell. anyway, for the week which the woman lay on the cot in the little whitewashed chamber, which had no outlet save through the sitting room where some one was always on guard night and day, mrs. taylor served her with a good enough grace.
when she was able to be up, cairness went in to see her. she was sitting on a chair, and looking sulkily out of the window. "you got me jailed all right," she sneered, "ain't you?" and she motioned to the grating of iron.
"you can go whenever you like now," cairness told her. she demanded to know where she was to go to, and he answered that that was not his affair, but that he would suggest a safe distance. "somebody else getting hold of the truth of the kirby business mightn't be so easy on you as i am."
[pg 257]
"how do i know you're done with me yet?" she snapped.
he told her that she didn't know it, because he was not; and then he explained to her. "what i want of you now is for you to come over with taylor and me to see stone."
she jumped to her feet. "i ain't going to do it."
"yes," he assured her unmoved, "you are. at least you are going to do that, or go to jail."
"what do you want me to say to stone?"
"nothing much," he told her. he and taylor could take care of the talking. her part would be just to stand by and pay attention.
"and after that?"
"after that, as i said before, you may go."
he suggested that the sooner she felt that she could go the better, as she had been a good deal of a burden to the taylors.
she laughed scornfully. "it ain't me that asked them to take me in," she said; "i'm as glad to go as they are to have me." she wore a calico wrapper that cairness had bought for her, and other garments that had been gathered together in the town. now she put a battered sombrero on her head, and told him she was ready.
he and the parson followed her out of the house. she had not cared to say good-by to mrs. taylor, and she glared at the little reverend, who balanced himself on his uncertain small feet and clutched at a chair, watching her with his precocious eyes and an expression combined of his mother's virtuous disapproval[pg 258] and his father's contemplative scrutiny, the while the tufts of his hair stood out stiffly.
the reverend taylor and cairness had managed, with a good deal of adroitness, to keep the identity of their patient a secret. stone was consequently not at all prepared to have her stride in upon him. but he was not a man to be caught exhibiting emotions. the surprise which he showed and expressed was of a perfectly frank and civil, even of a somewhat pleased, sort. he called her "my dear madam," and placed a chair for her. she sat in it under protest. he kept up the social aspect of it all for quite five minutes, but sociability implies conversation, and cairness and the minister were silent. so was the woman—rigidly.
when all his phrases were quite used up, stone changed the key. what could be done for mr. taylor? mr. taylor motioned with his usual urbanity that the burden of speech lay with cairness. what could he do for mr. cairness, then?
"well," said cairness, twisting at the small mustache, and levelling his eyes straight as the barrels of a shot-gun—and they gave the journalist a little of the same sensation—"i think, mr. stone, that you can get out of the country within the next three days."
stone did not understand. he believed that he missed mr. cairness's meaning. "i don't think you do," said cairness; "but i'll make it plainer, anyway. i want you to get out of the country, for the country's good, you know, and for your own. and i give you[pg 259] three days to do it in, because i don't wish to hurry you to an inconvenient extent."
stone laughed and inquired if he were joking, or just crazy.
"neither," drawled cairness. "but mrs. lawton, here, has been good enough to tell me that you have known the exact truth about the kirby massacre ever since a week after its occurrence, and yet you have shielded the criminals and lied in the papers. then, too," he went on, "though there is no real proof against you, and you undoubtedly did handle it very well, i know that it was you that set lawton on to try and bribe for the beef contract. you see your friends are unsafe, mr. stone, and i have been around yours and lawton's ranches enough to have picked up a few damaging facts."
"always supposing you have," interposed stone, hooking his thumbs in his sleeve holes and tipping back his chair, "always supposing you have, what could you do with the facts?"
"well," drawled cairness again,—he had learned the value of the word in playing the yankee game of bluff,—"with those about the beef contract and those about the kirby massacre, also a few i gathered around san carlos (you may not be aware that i have been about that reservation off and on for ten years), with those facts i could put you in the penitentiary, perhaps, even with an arizona jury; but at any rate i could get you tarred and feathered or lynched in about a day. or failing all those, i could shoot you myself.[pg 260] and a jury would acquit me, you know, if any one were ever to take the trouble to bring it before one, which is doubtful, i think."
stone glanced at the lawton woman. she was grinning mirthlessly at his discomfiture. "what have you been stuffing this fellow here with?" he asked her contemptuously.
"just what he's dishin' up to you now," she told him.
"it's a lot of infernal lies, and you know it." but she only shook her head and laughed again, shortly.
stone made a very creditable fight. a man does not throw up the results of years of work without a strong protest. he treated it lightly, at first, then seriously. then he threatened. "i've got a good deal of power myself," he told cairness angrily; "i can roast you in the press so that you can't hold up your head."
"i don't believe you can," cairness said; "but you might try it, if it will give you any pleasure. only you must make haste, because you've got to get out in three days."
"i can shoot, myself, when it comes to that," suggested stone.
cairness said that he would of course have to take chances on that. "you might kill me, or i might kill you. i'm a pretty fair shot. however, it wouldn't pay you to kill me, upon the whole, and you must take everything into consideration." he was still twisting the curled end of his small mustache and half closing his eyes in the way that stone had long since set down[pg 261] as asinine. "my friend mr. taylor would still be alive. and if you were to hurt him,—he's a very popular man,—it might be bad for your standing in the community. it wouldn't hurt me to kill you, particularly, on the other hand. you are not so popular anyway, and i haven't very much to lose."
then the journalist tried entreaty. he had a wife and children.
cairness reminded him that kirby had had a wife and children, too.
"well, i didn't kill them, did i?" he whined.
"not exactly, no. but you were an accessory after the fact."
"why are you so all-fired anxious to vindicate the law?" he dropped easily into phrases.
cairness assured him that he was not. "it is not my mission on earth to straighten out the territories, heaven be praised. this is purely a personal matter, entirely so. you may call it revenge, if you like. lawton's in jail all safe, as you know. i got him there, and if he gets out anyway, i'll put him back again on this count."
mrs. lawton started forward in her chair. "what's he in for now? ain't it for this?" she demanded.
"for destruction of government property," cairness told her, and there was just the faintest twinkle between his lids. "i didn't know all these interesting details about the kirbys until you told me, mrs. lawton."
she sat with her jaw hanging, staring at him, baffled,[pg 262] and he went on. "i've got lawton jailed, as i was saying. i'll have you out of the country in three days, and as for mrs. lawton, i'll keep an eye on her. i'll know where she is, in case i need her at any time. but i'm not fighting women."
he stood up. "i'll see you off inside of three days then, stone," he said amicably.
"where do you want me to go?" he almost moaned, and finished with an oath.
"anywhere you like, my dear chap, so that it's neither in arizona or new mexico. i want to stop here myself, and the place isn't big enough for us both. you'll be a valuable acquisition to any community, and you can turn your talent to showing up the life here. you are right on the inside track. now i won't ask you to promise to go. but i'll be round to see that you do."
he held the door open for the texan woman and the parson to go out. then he followed, closing it behind him.
two days later stone left the town. he took the train for california, and his wife and children went with him. he was a rich man by many an evil means, and it was no real hardship that had been worked him, as cairness well knew.
the lawton woman had heard of an officer's family at grant, which was in need of a cook, and had gone there.
"and now," said the reverend taylor, fingering the lock of hair over the little reverend's right ear,[pg 263] as that wise little owl considered with uncertain approval a whistle rattle cairness had bought for him, "and now what are you going to do?"
cairness stood up, ran his hands into his pockets, and going over to the window looked down at the geraniums as he had done once, long before.
"i am going back to my ranch on the reservation," he said measuredly.
"cairness," said the parson, fixing his eyes upon the back of the bent head, as if they were trying to see through into the impenetrable brain beneath, "are you going to spend the rest of your life at this sort of thing?"
"i don't know," cairness answered, with a lightness that was anything but cheering.
"you are too good for it."
"i am certainly not good enough for anything else." he began to whistle, but it was not a success, and he stopped.
"see here," insisted taylor; "turn round here and answer me." cairness continued to stand with his head down, looking at the geraniums. the parson was wiser than his wife in that he knew when it was of no use to insist. "what's keeping you around here, anyway? you ought to have gotten out when you left the service—and you half meant to then. what is it?"
cairness raised his shoulders. "my mines," he said, after a while. the reverend taylor did not believe that, but he let it go.
"well," he said more easily, "you've accomplished the thing you set out to do, anyway."
"one thing," muttered cairness.
"eh?" the parson was not sure he had heard.
"just nothing," cairness laughed shortly, and breaking off one of the treasured geranium blossoms, stuck it in a buttonhole of his flannel shirt.
"i heard you," said the little man; "what's the other?"—"oh, i dare say i'll fail on that," he answered indifferently, and taking up his sombrero went out to saddle his horse.
