The Uphill Climb Page 4

  CHAPTER IV

  Reaction

  Even when a man consistently takes Life in twenty-four-hour doses andlikes those doses full-flavored with the joys of this earth, there areintervals when the soul of him is sick, and Life becomes a nauseousprogression of bleak futility. He may, in his revulsion against it,attempt to end it all; he may, in sheer disgust of it, take his dosesstronger than ever before, as if he would once for all choke to deaththat part of him which is fine enough to rebel against it; he may evenforswear, in melancholy penitence, that which has served to give itflavor, and vow him vows of abstemiousness at which the grosser part ofhim chuckles ironically; or, he may blindly follow the first errantimpulse for change of environment, in the half-formed hope that newscenes may, without further effort on his part, serve to make of him anew man--a man for whom he can feel some respect.

  Ford did none of these things, however. The soul-sick incentive wasthere, and if he had been a little less of a reasoning animal and alittle less sophisticated, he would probably have forsworn strong drinkjust as he forswore all responsibility for his inadvertent marriage. Hisreason and his experience saved him from cluttering his conscience withbroken vows, although he did yield to the impulse of change to theextent of leaving Sunset while yet the inhabitants were fortifyingthemselves for the ardors of the day with breakfast and some wildprophecies concerning Ford's next outbreak.

  Apprehension over Bill's immediate future was popular amongst hisfriends, Ford's sardonic reference to manslaughter and bounty beingrepeated often enough in Bill's presence to keep that peace-lovinggentleman in a state of trepidation which he sought to hide behind vaguewarnings.

  "He better think twicet before he comes bothering around me, by hokey!"Bill would mutter darkly. "I've stood a hull lot from Ford; I like 'im,when he's himself. But I've stood about as much as a man can be expectedto stand. And he better look out! That's all I got to say--he betterlook out!" Bill himself, it may be observed incidentally, spent thegreater portion of that day in "looking out." He was careful not to sitdown with his back to a door, for instance, and was keenly interestedwhen a knob turned beneath unseen fingers, and plainly relieved whenanother than Ford entered his presence. Bill's mustache was nearlypulled from its roots, that day--but that is not important to the story,which has to do with Ford Campbell, sometime the possessor of a neatlegacy in coin, later a rider of the cattle ranges, last presidinggenius over the poker table in Scotty's back room in Sunset, always animportant factor--and too often a disturbing element--in any communityupon which he chose to bestow his dynamic presence.

  Scotty hoped that Ford would show up for business when the lamps werelighted, that night. There had been some delicacy on the part of Ford'sacquaintances that day in the matter of calling upon him at the shack.They believed--and hoped--that Ford was "sleeping it off," and there wasa unanimous reluctance to disturb his slumbers. Sandy, indulging himselfin the matter of undisturbed spinal tremors over "The Haunted Chamber,"had not left shelter, save when the more insistent shiverings of chilledflesh recalled him from his pleasurable nerve-crimplings and drove himforth to the woodpile. So that it was not until evening was welladvanced that Sunset learned that Ford was no longer a potential menacewithin its meager boundaries. Bill took a long breath, observedmeaningly that "He'd _better_ go--whilst his credit's good, by hokey!"and for the first time that day sat down with his back toward an outerdoor.

  Ford was not worrying about Sunset half as much as Sunset was worryingabout him. He was at that moment playing pinochle half-heartedly with ahospitable sheep-herder, under the impression that, since his host hadfrankly and profanely professed a revulsion against solitaire and acorresponding hunger for pinochle, his duty as a guest lay insatisfying that hunger. He played apathetically, overlooked severalmelts he might have made, and so lost three games in succession to thegleeful herder, who had needed the diversion almost as much as he neededa hair-cut.

  His sense of social responsibility being eased thereby, Ford took hisheadache and his dull disgust with life to the wall side of the herder'sfrowsy bunk, and straightway forgot both in heavy slumber, leaving tothe morrow any definite plan for the near future--the far future beingas little considered as death and what is said to lie beyond.

  That day had done for him all he asked of it. It had put him thirtymiles and more from Sunset, against which he felt a resentment which itlittle deserved; of a truth it was as inoffensive a hamlet as any inthat region, and its sudden, overweening desire for a jail was but alegitimate impulse toward self-preservation. The fault was Ford's, inharassing the men of Sunset into action. But several times that day, andagain while he was pulling the stale-odored blankets snugly about hisears, Ford anathematized the place as "a damned, rotten hole," and wasas nearly thankful as his mood would permit, when he remembered that itlay far behind him and was likely to be farther before his journeyingswere done.

  Sleep held him until daylight seeped in through the one dingy window.Ford awoke to the acrid smell of scorched bacon, thought at first thatSandy was once more demonstrating his inefficiency as a cook, and whenhe remembered that Sandy's name was printed smudgily upon that page ofhis life which he had lately turned down as a blotted, unlearned lessonis pushed behind an unwilling schoolboy, he began to consider seriouslyhis next step.

  Outside, the sheep were blatting stridently their demand for breakfast.The herder bolted coffee and coarse food until he was filled, and wentaway to his dreary day's work, telling Ford to make himself at home, andflinging back a hope of further triumphs in pinochle, that night.

  Ford washed the dishes, straightened the blankets in the bunk, sweptthe grimy floor as well as he could with the stub of broom he found,filled the wood-box and then, being face to face with his day and theproblem it held, rolled a cigarette, and smoked it in deep meditation.

  He wanted to get away from town, and poker games, and whisky, and thetumult it brewed. Something within him hungered for clean, wind-sweptreaches and the sane laughter of men, and Ford was accustomed to doing,or at least trying to do, the thing he wanted to do. He was not gettinginto the wilderness because of any inward struggle toward right living,but because he was sick of town and the sordid life he had lived there.

  Somewhere, back toward the rim of mountains which showed a faint violetagainst the sky to the east, he owned a friend; and that friend owned astock ranch which, Ford judged, must be of goodly extent; two weeksbefore, hearing somehow that Ford Campbell was running a poker game inSunset, the friend had written and asked him to come and take charge ofhis "outfit," on the plea that, his foreman having died, he wasburdened with many cares and in urgent need of help.

  Ford, giving the herder's frying-pan a last wipe with the dish-cloth,laughed at the thought of taking the responsibility offered him in thatletter. It occurred to him, however, that the Double Cross (which wasthe brand-name of Mason's ranch) might be a pleasant place to visit. Itwas long since he had seen Ches--and there had been a time when one bedheld the two of them through many a long, weary night; when onefrying-pan cooked the scanty food they shared between them. And therehad been a season of grinding days and anxious, black nights between,when the one problem, to Ford, consisted of getting Ches Mason out ofthe wild land where they wandered, and getting him out alive. Theproblem Ford solved and at the solution men wondered. Afterward they haddrifted apart, but the memory of those months would hold them togetherwith a bond which not even time could break--a bond which would pulltaut whenever they met.

  Ford set down the frying-pan and went to the door and looked out. Achinook had blown up in the night, and although the wind was chill, thesnow had disappeared, save where drifts clung to the hollows, shrinkingand turning black beneath the sweeping gusts; sodden masses which gaveto the prairie a dreary aspect of bleak discomfort. But Ford was wellpleased at the sight of the brown, beaten grasses. Impulse was hardeningto decision while he stared across the empty land toward the violet rimof hills; a decision to ride over to the Double Cross, and tell ChesMason to his fa
ce that he was a chump, and have a smoke with the oldTurk, anyway. Ches had married, since that vividly remembered time whenadventure changed to hardship and hazard and walked hand in hand withthem through the wild places. Ford wondered fleetingly if matrimony hadchanged old Ches; probably not--at least, not in those essentialman-traits which appeal to men. Ford suddenly hungered for the man'shearty voice, where kindly humor lurked always, and for a grip of hishand.

  It was like him to forget all about the herder and the promise ofpinochle that night. He went eagerly to the decrepit little shed whichhoused Rambler, his long-legged, flea-bitten gray; saddled himpurposefully and rode away toward the violet hills at the trail-trotwhich eats up the miles with the least effort.

  That night, although he slept in a hamlet which called itself a town,his purpose kept firm hold of him, and he rode away at a decent hour thenext morning,--and he rode sober. He kept his face toward the hills, andhe did not trouble himself with any useless analysis of his unusualtemperateness. He was going to blow in to the Double Cross some timebefore he slept that night, and have a talk with Ches. He had a pint offairly good whisky in his pocket, in case he felt the need of a littleon the way, and beyond those two satisfactory certainties he did notattempt to reason. They were significant, in a way, to a man with atendency toward introspection; but Ford was interested in actualitiesand never stopped to wonder why he bought a pint, rather than a quart,or why, with Ches Mason in his mind, he declined to "set in" to thepoker game which was running to tempting jackpots, the night before; orwhy he took one glass of wine before he mounted Rambler and let it go atthat. He never once dreamed that the memory of cheerful, steady-goingChes influenced him toward starting on his friendly pilgrimage the FordCampbell whom Mason had known eight years before; a very different FordCampbell, be it said, from the one who had caused a whole town tobreathe freer for his absence.

  Of his wife Ford had thought less often and less uncomfortably since heleft the town wherein had occurred the untoward incident of hismarriage. He was not unaccustomed to doing foolish things when he wasdrunk, and as a rule he made it a point to ignore them afterwards. Hismysterious, matrimonial accident was beginning to seem less of a realcatastrophe than before, and the anticipation of meeting Ches Mason wasrapidly taking precedence of all else in his mind.

  So, with almost his normal degree of careless equanimity, he faced againthe rim of hills--nearer they were now, with a deeper tinge that wasalmost purple where the shadows lined them here and there. Somewhere outthat way lay the Double Cross ranch. Forty miles, one man told him itwas; another, forty-three. At best it was far enough for the shorteneddaylight of one fall day to cover the journey. Ford threw away the stubof his after-breakfast cigarette and swung into the trail at a lope.