Starr, of the Desert Read online

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  STARR, OF THE DESERT

  BY B.M. BOWER

  AUTHOR OF CHIP OF THE FLYING U, ETC.

  1917

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  I A COMMONPLACE MAN WAS PETER

  II IN WHICH PETER DISCOVERS A WAY OUT

  III VIC SHOULD WORRY

  IV STARR WOULD LIKE TO KNOW

  V A GREASE SPOT IN THE SAND

  VI "DARN SUCH A COUNTRY!"

  VII MOONLIGHT, A MAN AND A SONG

  VIII HOLMAN SOMMERS, SCIENTIST

  IX PAT, A NICE DOGGUMS

  X THE TRAIL OF SILVERTOWN CORDS

  XI THE WIND BLOWS MANY STRAWS

  XII STARR FINDS SOMETHING IN A SECRET ROOM

  XIII HELEN MAY SIGHS FOR ROMANCE

  XIV A SHOT FROM THE PINNACLE

  XV HELEN MAY UNDERSTANDS

  XVI STARR SEES TOO LITTLE OR TOO MUCH

  XVII "IS HE THEN DEAD--MY SON?"

  XVIII A PAGE OF WRITING

  XIX HOLMAN SOMMERS TURNS PROPHET

  XX STARR DISCOVERS THINGS

  XXI THROUGH THE OPEN SKYLIGHT

  XXII STARR TAKES ANOTHER PRISONER

  STARR, OF THE DESERT

  CHAPTER ONE

  A COMMONPLACE MAN WAS PETER

  Daffodils were selling at two bits a dozen in the flower stand beside theNew Era Drug Store. Therefore Peter Stevenson knew that winter was over,and that the weather would probably "settle." There would be the springfogs, of course--and fog did not agree with Helen May since that lastspell of grippe. Peter decided that he would stop and see the doctoragain, and ask him what he thought of a bungalow out against the hillsbehind Hollywood; something cheap, of course--and within the five-centlimit on the street cars; something with a sleeping porch that openedupon a pleasanter outlook than your neighbor's back yard. If Helen Maywould then form the habit of riding to and from town on the open end ofthe cars, that would help considerably; in fact, the longer the ride thebetter it would be for Helen May. The air was sweet and clean out theretoward the hills. It would be better for Vic, too. It would break upthat daily habit of going out to see "the boys" as soon as he hadswallowed his dinner.

  Peter finished refilling the prescription on which he was working, andwent out to see if he were needed in front. He sold a lip-stick to apert miss who from sheer instinct made eyes at him, and he wished thatHelen May had such plump cheeks--though he thanked God she had not thegirl's sophisticated eyes. (Yes, a bungalow out there against the hillsought to do a lot for Helen May.) He glanced up at the great clock andunconsciously compared his cheap watch with it, saw that in ten minuteshe would be free for the day, and bethought him to telephone the doctorand make sure of the appointment. He knew that Helen May had seen thedoctor at noon, since she had given Peter her word that she would go,and since she never broke a promise. He would find out just what thedoctor thought.

  When he returned from the 'phone, a fat woman wanted peroxide, and shewas quite sure the bottle he offered was smaller than the last two-bitbottle she had bought. Peter very kindly and patiently discussed thematter with her, and smiled and bowed politely when she finally decidedto try another place. His kidneys were hurting him again. He wondered ifHelen May would remember that he must not eat heavy meats, and would getsomething else for their dinner.

  He glanced again at the clock. He had four minutes yet to serve. Hewondered why the doctor had seemed so eager to see him. He had a vaguefeeling of uneasiness, though the doctor had not spoken more than a dozenwords. At six he went behind the mirrored partition and got his topcoatand hat; said good night to such clerks as came in his way, and went outand bought a dozen daffodils from the Greek flower-vendor. All day he hadbeen arguing with himself because of this small extravagance whichtempted him, but now that it was settled and the flowers were in hishand, he was glad that he had bought them. Helen May loved all growingthings. He set off briskly in spite of his aching back, thinking howHelen May would hover over the flowers rapturously even while she scoldedhim for his extravagance.

  Half an hour later, when he turned to leave the doctor's office, he leftthe daffodils lying forgotten on a chair until the doctor called himback and gave them to him with a keen glance that had in it a good dealof sympathy.

  "You're almost as bad off yourself, old man," he said bluntly. "I wantto watch those kidneys of yours. Come in to-morrow or next day and letme look you over. Or Sunday will do, if you aren't working then. Idon't like your color. Here, wait a minute. I'll give you aprescription. You'd better stop and fill it before you go home. Take thefirst dose before you eat--and come in Sunday. Man, you don't want toneglect yourself. You--"

  "Then you don't think Hollywood--?" Peter took the daffodils and beganabsently crumpling the waxed paper around them. His eyes, when he lookedinto the doctor's face, were very wistful and very, very tired.

  "Hollywood!" The doctor snorted. "One lung's already badly affected, Itell you. What she's got to have is high, dry air--like Arizona or NewMexico or Colorado. And right out in the open--live like an Injun fora year or two. Radical change of climate--change of living. Anotheryear of office work will kill her." He stopped and eyed Peterpityingly. "Predisposition--and then the grippe--her mother went thatway, didn't she?"

  "Yes," Peter replied, flat-toned and patient. "Yes, she went--that way."

  "Well, you know what it means. Get her out of here just as quick aspossible, and you'll probably save her. Helen May's a girl worth saving."

  "Yes," Peter replied flatly, as before. "Yes--she's worth saving."

  "You bet! Well, you do that. And don't put off coming here Sunday. Anddon't forget to fill that prescription and take it till I see you again."

  Peter smiled politely, and went down the hall to the elevator, and laidhis finger on the bell, and waited until the steel cage paused to lethim in. He walked out and up Third Street and waited on the corner ofHill until the car he wanted stopped on the corner to let a few morepassengers squeeze on. Peter found a foothold on the back platform andsomething to hang to, and adapted himself to the press of people aroundhim, protecting as best he could the daffodils with the fine, greenstuff that went with them and that straggled out and away from thepaper. Whenever human eyes met his with a light of recognition, Peterwould smile and bow, and the eyes would smile back. But he never knewwho owned the eyes, or even that he was performing one of the littlecourtesies of life.

  All he knew was that Helen May was going the way her mother had gone, andthat the only way to prevent her going that way was to take her to NewMexico or Colorado or Arizona; and she was worth saving--even the doctorhad been struck with her worth; and a bungalow out against the hillswouldn't do at all, not even with a sleeping porch and the open-air rideback and forth every day. Radical change she must have. Arizona or NewMexico or--the moon, which seemed not much more remote or inaccessible.

  When his street was called he edged out to the steps and climbed down,wondering how the doctor expected a man with Peter's salary to act uponhis advice. "You do that!" said the doctor, and left Peter to discover,if he could, how it was to be done without money; in other words, hadblandly required Peter to perform a modern miracle.

  Helen May was listlessly setting the table when he arrived. He went up toher for the customary little peck on the cheek which passes for a kissamong relatives, and Helen May waved him off with a half smile that wasunlike her customary cheerfulness.

  "I've quit kissing," she said. "It's unsanitary."


  "What did the doctor tell you, Babe? You went to see him, didn't you?"Peter managed a smile--business policy had made smiling a habit--while heunwound the paper from around the daffodils.

  "Dad, I've told you and _told_ you not to buy flowers! Oh, golly, aren'tthey beautiful! But you mustn't. I'm going to get my salary cut, on thefirst. They say business doesn't warrant my present plutocratic income.Five a week less, Bob said it would be. That'll pull the company back toa profit-sharing basis, of course!"

  "Lots of folks are losing their jobs altogether," Peter reminded herapathetically. "What did the doctor say about your cough, Babe?"

  "Oh, he told me to quit working. Why is it doctors never have any brainsabout such things? Charge a person two dollars or so for telling him todo what's impossible. What does he think I am--a movie queen?"

  She turned away from his faded, anxious eyes that hurt her with theirrealization of his helplessness. There was a red spot on eithercheek--the rose of dread which her father had watched heart-sinkingly. "Iknow what he _thinks_ is the matter," she added defiantly. "But thatdoesn't make it so. It's just the grippe hanging on. I've felt a lotbetter since the weather cleared up. It's those raw winds--and half thetime they haven't had the steam on at all in the mornings, and the officeis like an ice-box till the sun warms it."

  "Vic home yet?" Peter abandoned the subject for one not much morecheerful. Vic, fifteen and fully absorbed in his own activities, was moreand more becoming a sore subject between the two.

  "No. I called up Ed's mother just before you came, but he hadn'tbeen there. She thought Ed was over here with Vic. I don't knowwhere else to ask."

  "Did you try the gym?"

  "No. He won't go there any more. They got after him for something hedid--broke a window somehow. There's no use fussing, dad. He'll come whenhe's hungry enough. He's broke, so he can't eat down town."

  Peter sighed and went away to brush his thin, graying hair carefully overhis bald spot, while Helen May brewed the tea and made final preparationsfor dinner. The daffodils she arranged with little caressing pulls andpats in a tall, slim vase of plain glass, and placed the vase in thecenter of the table, just as Peter knew she would do.

  "Oh, but you're sweet!" she said, and stooped with her face close abovethem. "I wish I could lie down in a whole big patch of you and just lookat the sky and at you nodding and perking all around me--and not do aliving thing all day but just lie there and soak in blue and gold andsweet smells and silence."

  Peter, coming to the open doorway, turned and tiptoed back as though hehad intruded upon some secret, and stood irresolutely smoothing his hairdown with the flat of his hand until she called him to come and eat. Shewas cheerful as ever while she served him scrupulously. She smiled at himnow and then, tilting her head because the daffodils stood between them.She said no more about the doctor's advice, or the problem of poverty.She did not cough, and the movements of her thin, well-shaped hands weresure and swift. More than once she made a pause while she pulled adaffodil toward her and gazed adoringly into its yellow cup.

  Peter might have been reassured, were it not for the telltale flush onher cheeks and the unnatural shine in her eyes. As it was, everyfascinating little whimsy of hers stabbed him afresh with the pain of herneed and of his helplessness. Arizona or New Mexico or Colorado, thedoctor had said; and Peter knew that it must be so. And he with hisdruggist's salary and his pitiful two hundred dollars in the savingsbank! And with the druggist's salary stopping automatically the moment hestopped reporting for duty! Peter was neither an atheist nor a socialist,yet he was close to cursing his God and his country whenever Helen Maysmiled at him around the dozen daffodils.

  "Your insurance is due the tenth, dad," she remarked irrelevantly whenthey had reached the dessert stage of cream puffs from the delicatessennearest Helen May's work. "Why don't you cut it down? It's sinful, theamount of money we've paid out for insurance. You need a new suit thisspring. And the difference--"

  "I don't see what's wrong with this suit," Peter objected, throwing outhis scrawny chest and glancing down his front with a prejudiced eye,refusing to see any shabbiness. "A little cleaning and pressing, maybe--"

  "A little suit of that new gray everybody's wearing these days, youmean," she amended relentlessly. "Don't argue, dad. You've _got_ to havea suit. And that old insurance--"

  "Jitneys are getting thicker every day," Peter contended in feeble jest."A man needs to be well insured in this town. There's Vic--if anythinghappened, he's got to be educated just the same. And by the endowmentplan, in twelve years more I'll have a nice little lump. It's--on accountof the endowment, Babe. I don't want to sell drugs all my life."

  "Just the same, you're going to have a new suit." Helen May retrenchedherself behind the declaration. "And it's going to be gray. And a grayhat with a dove-colored band and the bow in the back. And tan shoes," sheadded implacably, daintily lifting the roof off her cream puff to see howgenerous had been the filling.

  "Who? Me?" Vic launched himself in among them and slid spinelessly intohis chair as only a lanky boy can slide. "Happy thought! Only I'll havebottle green for mine. A fellow stepped on my roof this afternoon, so--"

  "You'll wear a cap then--or go bareheaded and claim it's to make yourhair grow." Helen May regarded him coldly. "Lots of fellows do. You don'tget a single new dud before the fourth, Vic Stevenson."

  "Oh, don't I?" Vic drawled with much sarcasm, and pulled two dollars fromhis trousers pocket, displaying them with lofty triumph. "I get a new hatto-morrow, Miss Stingy."

  "Vic, where did you get that money?" Helen May's eyes flamed to thebattle. "Have you been staying out of school and hanging around thosepicture studios?"

  "Yup--at two dollars per hang," Vic mouthed, spearing a stuffed greenpepper dexterously. "Fifty rehearsals for two one-minute scenes ofhonorable college gangs honorably hailing the hee-ro. Waugh! Where'd youget these things--or did the cat bring it in? Stuffed with laundry soap,if you ask me. Why don't you try that new place on Spring?"

  "Vic Stevenson!" Helen May began in true sisterly disapprobation. "Isthat getting you anywhere in your studies? A few more days out ofschool, and--"

  Peter's thoughts turned inward. He did not even hear the half playful,half angry dispute between these two. Vic was a heady youth, much givento rebelling against the authority of Helen May who bullied or wheedledas her mood and the emergency might impel, as sisters do the world over.Peter was thinking of his two hundred dollars saved against disaster; anda third of that to go for life insurance on the tenth, which was just onerow down on the calendar; and Helen May going the way her mother hadgone--unless she lived out of doors "like an Indian" in Arizonaor--Peter's mind refused to name again the remote, inaccessible placeswhere Helen May might evade the penalty of being the child of her motherand of poverty.

  Gray hat for Peter or bottle-green hat for Vic--what did it matter ifneither of them ever again owned a hat, if Helen May must stay here inthe city and face the doom that had been pronounced upon her? What didanything matter, if Babe died and left him plodding along alone? Vic didnot occur to him consolingly. Vic was a responsibility; a comfort he wasnot. Like many men, Peter could not seem to understand his son half aswell as he understood his daughter. He could not see why Vic shouldfrivol away his time; why he should have all those funny little conceitsand airs of youth; why he should lord it over Helen May who was every dayproving her efficiency and her strength of character anew. If Helen Maywent the way her mother had gone, Peter felt that he would be alone, andthat life would be quite bare and bleak and empty of every incentivetoward bearing the little daily burdens of existence.

  He got up with his hand going instinctively to his back to ease the achethere, and went out upon the porch and stood looking drearily down uponthe asphalted street, where the white paths of speeding automobilesslashed the dusk like runaway sunbeams on a frolic. Then the streetlights winked and sputtered and began to glow with white brilliance.

  Arizona or New Mexico or Colorado! Peter knew
what the doctor had inmind. Vast plains, unpeopled, pure, immutable in their calm; stars thatcame down at night and hung just over your head, making the darknessalive with their bright presence; a little cottage hunched against ahill, a candle winking cheerily through the window at the stars; thecries of night birds, the drone of insects, the distant howling of acoyote; far away on the boundary of your possessions, a fence of barbedwire stretching through a hollow and up over a hill; distance and quietand calm, be it day or night. And Helen May coming through the sunlight,riding a gentle-eyed pony; Helen May with her deep-gold hair tousled inthe wind, and with health dancing in her eyes that were the color of aripe chestnut, odd contrast to her hair; Helen May with the little redspots gone from her cheek bones, and with tanned skin and freckles on hernose and a laugh on her lips, coming up at a gallop with the sun behindher, and something more; with sickness behind her and the drudgery ofeight hours in an office, and poverty and unhappiness. And Vic--yes, Vicin overalls and a straw hat, growing up to be the strong man he neverwould be in the city.

  Like many another commonplace man of the towns, for all his colorlessways and his thinning hair and his struggle against poverty, Peter wassomething of a dreamer. And like all the rest of us who build our dreamsout of wishes and hopes and maybes, Peter had not a single fact to use inhis foundation. Arizona, New Mexico or Colorado--to Peter they were butsymbols of all those dear unattainable things he longed for. And that helonged for them, not for himself but for another who was very dear tohim, only made the longing keener and more tragic.