Casey Ryan Read online

  CHAPTER X

  Cars came and cars went, in heat and dust and some tribulation. In a monthCasey had seen the color of every State license plate in the Union, andsome from Canada and Mexico. From Needles way they came, searching theirsouls for words to tell Casey what they thought of it as far as they hadgone. And Casey would squint up at them from under the rim of his greasyold Stetson and grin his Irish grin.

  "Cheer up, the worst is yet to come," he would chant, with never a qualmat the staleness of the slogan. "How yuh fixed for water? Better fill upyour canteens--yuh don't wanta git caught out between here and Ludlow witha boilin' radiator and not water enough. Got oil enough? Juan, you lookand see. Can't afford to run low on oil, stranger. No, ma'am, there ain'tany other road--and if there was another road it'd be worse than what thisone is. No, ma'am, you ain't liable to git off'n the road. You can't.You'd git stuck in the sand 'fore you'd went the length of your car."

  He would walk around them and look at their tires, his hands on his hipsperhaps and his mouth damped shut in deep cogitation.

  "What kinda shape is your extras in?" he would presently inquire. "She's atough one, from here on to the next stop. You got a hind tire here thatain't goin' to last yuh five miles up the road." He would kick the tirewhose character he was blackening. "Better lay in a supply of blow-outpatches, unless you're a mind to invest in a new casing." Very often hewould sell a tire or two, complete with new tubes, before the car movedon.

  Casey never did things halfway, and Bill had impressed certain things deepon his mind. He was working with Bill's money and he obeyed Bill'scommands. He never took a check or a promise for his pay, and he neveronce let his Irish temper get beyond his teeth or his blackened fingertips. Which is doing remarkably well for Casey Ryan, as you would admit ifyou knew him.

  At the last moment, when the driver was settling himself behind the wheel,Casey would square his conscience for whatever strain the demands ofbusiness had put upon it. "Wait and take a good drink uh cold water beforeyuh start out," he would say, and disappear. He knew that the car wouldwait. The man or woman never lived who refused a drink of cold water onthe desert in summer. Casey would return with a pale green glass waterpitcher and a pale green glass. He would grin at their exclamations, andpour for them water that was actually cold and came from the coolest waterbag inside. Those of you who have never traveled across the desert willnot really understand the effect this would have. Those who have will knowexactly what was said of Casey as that car moved out once more into theglaring sun and the hot wind and the choking dust.

  Casey always kept one cold water bag and one in process of cooling, and hewould charge as much as he thought they would pay and be called a finefellow afterwards. He knew that. He had lived in dry, hot places before,and he was conscientiously trying to please the public and also make moneyfor Bill, who had befriended him. You are not to jump to the conclusion,however, that Casey systematically robbed the public. He did not. He aidedthe public, helped the public across a rather bad stretch of country, andsaw to it that the public paid for the assistance.

  Casey saw all sorts and sizes of cars pass to and fro, and most of themstopped at his door, for gas or for water or oil, or perhaps merely toinquire inanely if they were on the right road to Needles or to LosAngeles, as the case might be. Any fool, thought Casey, would know withoutasking, since there was no other road, and since the one road was signedconscientiously every mile or two. But he always grinned good-naturedlyand told them what they wanted him to tell them, and if they shifted moneyinto his palm for any reason whatever he brought out his green glasspitcher and his green glass tumbler and gave them a drink all around andwished them luck.

  There were strip-down Fords that tried to look like sixes, and there weresix-cylinder cars that labored harder than Fords. There were limousines,sedans, sport cars,--and they all carried suitcases and canvas rolls andbundles draped over the hoods, on the fenders and piled high on therunning boards.

  Sometimes he would find it necessary to remove a thousand pounds or so ofill-wrapped bedding from the back of a tonneau before he could get at thegas tank to fill it, but Casey never grumbled. He merely retied theluggage with a packer's hitch that would take the greenhorn through hiswhole vocabulary before he untied it that night, and he would add two bitsto the price of the gas because his time belonged to Bill, and Billexpected Casey's time to be paid for by the public.

  One day when it was so hot that even Casey was limp and pale from theheat, and the proprietor of the Oasis had forsaken the strip of shade onhis porch and had chased his dog out of the dirt hollow it had scratchedunder the house and had crawled under there himself, a party pulled slowlyup to the garage and stopped. Casey was inside sitting on the ground andletting the most recently filled water bag drip down the back of his neck.He shouted to Juan, but Juan had gone somewhere to find himself a coolspot for his siesta, so Casey got slowly to his feet and went out to meetTrouble, sopping his wet hair against the back of his head with the flatof his hand before he put on his hat. He squinted into the sunshine andstraightway squared himself for business.

  This was a two-ton truck fitted for camping. A tall, lean man whoseoveralls hung wide from his suspenders and did not seem to touch hisperson anywhere, climbed out and stood looking at the bare rims of twowheels, as if he had at that moment discovered them.

  "Thinkin' about the price uh tires, stranger?" Casey grinned cheerfully."It's lucky I got your size, at that. Fabrics and cords--and thedifference in price is more'n made up in wear. Run yer car inside outa thesun whilst I change yer grief into joy."

  "I teen havin' hard luck all along," the man complained listlessly."Geewhillikens, but it shore does cost to travel!"

  Casey should have been warned by that. Bill would have smelled a purselean as the man himself and would have shied a little. But Casey couldmeet Trouble every morning after breakfast and yet fail to recognize heruntil she had him by the collar.

  "You ask anybody if it don't!" he agreed sympathetically, mentally goingover his rack of tires, not quite sure that he had four in that size, buthoping that he had five and that he could persuade the man to invest. Hesurely needed rubber, thought Casey, as he scrutinized the two casings onthe car. He stood aside while the man backed, turned a wide half-circleand drove into the grateful shade of the garage. It seemed cool in thereafter the blistering sunlight, unless one glanced at Casey's thermometerwhich declared a hundred and nineteen with its inexorable red line.

  "Whatcha got there? Goats?" Casey's eyes had left the wheels of the trucksand dwelt upon a trailer penned round and filled with uneasy animals.

  "Yeah. Twelve, not countin' the little fellers. And m'wife an' six youngones all told. Makes quite a drag on the ole boat. Knocks thunder outatires, too. You say you got my size? We-ell, I guess I got to have 'em,cost er no cost."

  "Sure you got to have 'em. It's worse ahead than what you been over, an'if I was you I'd shoe 'er all round before I hit that lava stretch upahead here. You could keep them two fer extras in case of accident. Mightgit some wear outa them when yuh strike good roads again, but they shorewon't go far in these rocks. You ask anybody."

  "We-ell--I guess mebby I better--I don't see how I'm goin' to git alongany other way, but--"

  Casey had gone to find where Juan had cached himself and to pluck thatapathetic youth from slumber and set him to work. Four casings and tubesfor a two-ton truck run into money, as Casey was telling himselfcomplacently. He had not yet sold any tires for a two-ton truck, and hehad just two fabrics and two cords, in trade vernacular. He paid nofurther attention to the man, since there would be no bickering. When aman has only two badly chewed tires, and four wheels, argument issuperfluous.

  So Casey mildly kicked Juan awake and after the garage jack, and himselfwheeled out his four great pneumatic tires, and with his jackknife slitthe wound paper covering, and wondered what it was that smelled sounpleasant. A goat bleated plaintively to remind him of their presence.Another goat carried on the theme, and
the chorus swelled quaveringly andheld to certain minor notes. Within the closed truck a small childwhimpered and then began to cry definitely at the top of its voice.

  Casey looked up from bending over the fourth tire wrapping. "Better letyour folks git out and rest awhile," he invited hospitably. "It's goin' totake a little time to put these tires on. I got some cold water backthere--help yourself."

  "Well, I'd kinda like to water them goats," the man observed diffidently."They ain't had a drop sence early yest-day mornin'. You got water here,ain't yuh? An' they might graze around a mite whilst we're here. Travelin'like this, I try to kinda give 'em a chanct when we stop along the road.It's been an awful trip. We come clear from Wyoming. How far is it fromhere to San Jose, Californy?"

  Casey had in the first week learned that it is not wise for a garage manto confess that he does not know distances. People always asked him howfar it was to some place of which he had never heard, and he had learnedto name figures at random very convincingly. He named now what seemed tohim a sufficient number, and the man said "Gosh!" and went back to letdown the end gate of the trailer and release the goats. "You said you gotwater for 'em?" he asked, his tone putting the question in the form ofboth statement and request.

  When you are selling four thirty-six-sixes, two of them cords, to a man,you can't be stingy with a barrel of water, even if it does cost fiftycents. Casey told Juan to go borrow a tub next door and show the man wherethe water barrel stood. Juan, squatted on his heels while he languidlypumped the jack handle up and down, and seeming pleased than otherwisewhen the jack slipped and tilted so that he must lower it and begin allover again, got languidly to his bare feet and lounged off obediently.According to Juan's simple philosophy, to obey was better than to dodgehammers, pliers or monkey wrenches, since Casey's aim was direct and therewas usually considerable force of hard, prospector's muscle behind it.

  Juan was gone a long while, long enough to walk slowly to the station ofPatmos and back again, but he returned with the tub, and the incessantbleating of the goats stilled intermittently while they drank. By thistime Casey had forgotten the goats, even with the noise of them fillinghis ears.

  Casey was down on his knees hammering dents out of the rim of a frontwheel so that the new tire could go on. Four of the six offspring crowdedaround him, getting in the way of Casey's hammer and asking questionswhich no man could answer and remain normal. Casey had, while he unwrappedthe casings, made a mental reduction in the price. Even Bill would throwoff a little, he told himself, on a sale like this. Mentally he haddeducted twenty-five dollars from the grand total, but before he had thatrim straightened he said to himself that he'd be darned if he discountedmore than twenty.

  "Humbolt an' Greeley, you git away from there an' git out here an' gitthese goats a-grazin'," the lean customer called sharply from the rear ofthe garage. Humbolt and Greeley hastily proceeded to git, which left twounkempt young girls standing there at Casey's elbow so that he could notexpectorate where he pleased, or swear at all. Wherefore Casey wasappreciably handicapped in his work, and he wished that he were away outin the hills digging into the side of a gulch somewhere, sun-blistered,broke, more than half starving on short rations and with rheumatism in hisright shoulder and a bunion giving him a limp in the left foot. He couldstill be happy--

  "_What_ yuh doin' that for?" the shrillest voice repeated three timesrapidly, with a sniffle now and then by way of punctuation.

  "To make little girls ask questions," grunted Casey, glancing around himfor the snub-nosed, double-headed, four-pound hammer which he calledaffectionately by the name Maud. The biggest girl had Maud. She had turnedit upright on its handle and was sitting on the head of it. When Caseyreached for it and got it, without apology or warning, the girl sprawledbackward and howled.

  "Porshea, you git up from there! _Shame_ on yuh!" A shrill woman voice,very much like the younger voices except that it was worn rough andquerulous with age and many hardships, called down from the truck. Caseylooked up, startled, and tried to remember just what he had said beforethe girls appeared to silence him. The woman was very large both in heightand in bulk, and she was heaving herself out of the truck in a way thatreminded Casey oddly of a disgruntled hippopotamus he had once watchedcoming out of its tank at a circus. Casey moved modestly away and did notlook, after that first glance. A truck, you will please understand, is nota touring car, and ladies who have passed the two-hundred-pound notch onthe scales should remain up there and call for a step-ladder.

  She descended, and the jack slipped and let the car down with a six-inchlurch. Casey is remarkably quick in his motions. He turned, jumped threefeet and caught the lady's full weight in his arms as she was fallingtoward him. Probably he would have caught it anyway, but then there wouldhave been little left of Casey, and his troubles would have been finishedinstead of being just begun.

  He had just straightened the jack and was beginning to lift the bare wheeloff the ground again when the fifth offspring descended. Casey thoughtagain of the hippopotamus in its infancy. The fifth was perhaps fifteen,but she had apparently reached her full growth, which was very nearly thatof her mother. She had also reached the age of self-consciousness, and shesimpered at Casey when he assisted her to alight.

  Casey was not bashful, nor was he over-fastidious; men who have lived longin the wilderness are not, as a rule. Still, he had his little whims, andhe failed to react to the young lady's smile. His pale blue eyes were keento observe details and even Casey did not approve of "high-water marks" onfeminine beauty.

  Well, that brought the whole family to view save the youngest who hadevidently dropped asleep and was left in the truck. Casey went to work onthe wheel again, after directing mother and daughter to the desert waterbag which swung suspended from ropes in the rear of the garage.

  Ten minutes later a dusty limousine stopped for gas and oil, and Caseyleft his work to wait upon them. There was a very good-looking girldriving, and the man beside her was undoubtedly only her father, and Caseywas humanly anxious to be remembered pleasantly when they drove on. Heasked them to wait and have a drink of cold water, and was deeplyhumiliated to find that both water bags were empty,--the overgrown girlhaving used the last to wash her face. Casey didn't like her any thebetter for that, or for having accentuated the high-water mark, or forforcing him to apologize to the pretty driver of the limousine.

  He refilled the water bags and remarked pointedly that it would take anhour for the water to cool in them and that they must be left alone in themeantime. He did not look at the girl, but from the tail of his eye he sawher pull a contemptuous grimace at him when she thought his back safelyturned.

  Wherefore Casey finished the putting on of the fourth tire pretty well uptoward the boiling point in temper and in blood. I have not mentioned halfthe disagreeable trifles that nagged at him during the interval,--hisaudience, for instance, that hovered so close that he could not get upwithout colliding with one of them, so full of aimless talk that hemislaid tools in his distraction. Juan was a pest and Casey thoughtmalevolently how he would kill him when the job was finished. Juan wentaround like one in a trance, his heavy-lidded, opaque eyes following everymovement of the girl, which kept her younger sisters giggling. But evenwith interruptions and practically no assistance the truck stood at lastwith four good tires on its wheels, and Casey wiped a perspiring face andlet down the jack, thankful that the job was done; thinking, too, that tendollars would be a big reduction on the price. He had to count his time,you see.

  "Well, how much does it come to, mister?" the lord of the flock askeddolefully, when Casey called him in and told him that he could go at anytime now.

  Casey told him, and made the price only five dollars lower than the fullamount, just because he hated to see men walk around loose in their pants,with their stomachs sagged in as though they never were fed a square mealin their lives.

  "It's a pile uh money to pay out for rubber that's goin' to be chewed offon these here danged rocks," sighed the man.


  Casey grunted and began collecting his tools, rescuing the best hammer hehad from one of the girls. "I wisht it was all profit," he said. "Or evena quarter of it. I'm sellin' 'em close as I can an' git paid fer my timeputtin' 'em on."

  "Oh, I ain't kickin' about the price. I'm satisfied with that." Menusually are, you notice, when they want credit. "Now I tell yuh. I ain'tgot that much money with me--"

  Casey spat and pointed his thumb toward a sign which he had nailed up justthe day before, thinking that it would save both himself and his customerssome embarrassment. The sign, except that the letters were not even, waslike this:

  "CHECKS MUST BE CASHED BY THE ONER OR THEY AIN'T CASHED"

  The lean man read and looked at Casey humbly. "Well, I ain't never wrote acheck in my life. Now I tell yuh. I ain't got the money to pay for thesetires, but I tell yuh what I'll do; I'm goin' on up to my brother--he'sgot a prune orchard a little ways out from San Jose, an' he's well fixed.Now I'll write out an order on my brother, fer him to send you the money.He's good fer it, an' he'll do it. I'm goin' on up to help him work hisplace on shares, so I c'n straighten up with him when I get--"

  Casey had picked up the jack again and was regretfully but firmlyadjusting it under the front axle. "That ain't the first good prospect Iever had pinch out on me," he observed, trying to be cheerful over it. Hecould even grin while he squinted up at the lean man.

  "Well, now, you can't hardly refuse to trust a man in my fix!"

  "Think I can't?" Casey was working the jack handle rapidly and the wordscame in jerks. "You stand there and watch me." He spun the wheel free andreached for his socket wrench. "I wisht you'd spoke your piece before Iset these dam nuts so tight," he added.

  The lean man turned and looked inquiringly at his wife. "Ain't I honest,maw, and don't I pay my debts? An' ain't my brother Joe honest, an' don'the pay _his_ debts? Would you think the man lived, maw, that would set aman with a fambly afoot out on the desert like this?"

  "Nev' mind, now, paw. Give him time to think what it means, an' he won't.He's got a heart."

  The baby awoke and cried then, and Casey's heart squirmed in his chest.But he thought of Bill and stiffened his business nerve.

  "I got a heart; sure I've got a heart. You ask anybody if Casey's got aheart. But I also got a pardner."

  "Your pardner's likely gen'l'man enough to trust us, if you ain't," mawsaid sharply.

  "Yes, ma'am, he is. But he's got these tires to pay fer on the first ofthe month. It ain't a case uh not trustin'; it's a case of git the moneyor keep the tires. I wisht you had the money--she shore is a good bunch uhrubber I let yuh try on."

  They wrangled with him while he removed the tires he had so painstakinglyadjusted, but Casey was firm. He had to be. There is no heart in therubber trust; merely a business office that employs very efficientbookkeepers, who are paid to see that others pay. He removed the newtires; that was his duty to Bill. By then it was five o'clock when allgood mechanics throw down their pliers and begin to shed their coveralls.

  Casey was his own man after five o'clock. He rolled the tattered tires outinto the sunlight, let out the air and yanked them from their rims. "Comeon here and help, and I'll patch up your old tires so you c'n go on," heoffered good-naturedly, in spite of the things the woman had said to him."The tire don't live that Casey can't patch if it comes to a showdown."

  Before he was through with them he had donated four blow-out patches tothe cause, and about five hours of hard labor. The Smith family--yes, theywere of the tribe of Smith--were camped outside and quarrelingincessantly. The goats, held in spasmodic restraint by Humbolt and Greeleyand a little spotted dog which Casey had overlooked in his firstinventory, were blatting inconsequently in the sage behind the garage.Casey cooked a belated supper and hoped that the outfit would get an earlystart, and that their tires would hold until they reached Ludlow, atleast. "Though I ain't got nothin' against Ludlow," he added to himselfwhile he poured his coffee.

  "Maw wants to know if you got any coffee you kin lend," the shrill voiceof Portia sounded unexpectedly at his elbow. Casey jumped,--an indicationthat his nerves had been unstrung.

  "Lend? Hunh! Tell 'er I give her a cupful." Then, because Casey hadstreaks of wisdom, he closed the doors of the garage and locked them fromthe inside. Cars might come and honk as long as they liked; Casey wasgoing to have his sleep.

  Very early he was awakened by the bleating, the barking, the crying andthe wrangling of the Smiths. He pulled his tarp over his ears, hot as itwas, to shut out the sound. After a long while he heard the stutter of thetruck motor getting warmed up. There was a clamor of voices, a bleating ofgoats, the barking of the spotted dog, and the truck moved off.

  "Thank Gawd!" muttered Casey, and went to sleep again.