Casey Ryan Page 6

  CHAPTER VI

  "Stuck," diagnosed Casey in one word, as he caught sight of the groupahead. He tucked his dream into the back of his mind while he pulled downthe gas lever a couple of notches and lunged along the muddy ruts thatled straight away from the safe line of sagebrush and out upon theplatter-like red expanse.

  The Ford grunted and lugged down to a steady pull, but Casey drove as hehad driven his six horses on a steep grade in the old days, coaxing everyounce of power into action. He juggled with spark and gas and somehow kepther going, and finally stopped with nice judgment on a small island ofharder clay within shouting distance of the car ahead. He killed theengine then and stepped down, and went picking his way carefully out toit, his heavy shoes speedily collecting great pancakes of mud that clunglike glue.

  "Stuck, hey? You oughta kept in the ruts, no matter if they arewater-logged. You never want to turn outa the road on one of these lakebeds, huntin' dry ground. If it's wet in the road, you can bank on sinkin'in to the hocks the minute you turn out." He carefully removed the mudpancakes from his shoes by scraping them across the hub of the stalled carand edged back to stand with his arms on his hips while he surveyed thefull plight of them.

  "She sure is bogged down a-plenty," he observed, grinning sympathetically.

  "Could you hitch on your car, Mister, and pull us out?" This was a woman'svoice, and it thrilled Casey, woman hungry as he was.

  Casey put up a hand to his mouth and surreptitiously removed a chew oftobacco almost fresh. With some effort he pulled his feet closer together,and he lifted his old Stetson and reset it at a consciously rakish angle.He glanced at the car, behind it and in front, coming back to thedepressed male individual before him. "Yes, ma'am, I'll get you out, allright. Sure, I will."

  "We've been stalled here for an hour or more," volunteered the depressedone. "We was right behind the storm. Looked a sorry chance that anybodywould come along for the next week or so."

  "Mister, you're a godsend, if ever there was one. I'd write your name onthe roster of saints in my prayer book, if I ever said prayers and had aprayer book and a pencil and knew what name to write."

  "Casey Ryan. Don't you worry, ma'am. We'll get you outa here in no time."Casey grinned and craned his neck. Looking lower this time, he saw a pairof feet which did not seem to belong to that voice, though they wereundoubtedly feminine. Still, red mud will work miracles of disfigurement,and Casey was an optimist by nature.

  "My wife is trying out a new comedy line," the man observed unemotionally."Trouble is it never gets over, out front. If she ever did get it acrossthe footlights, I could raise the price of admission and get away with it.How far is it to Rhyolite?"

  "Rhyolite? Twenty or twenty-five miles, mebby." Casey gave him aninquiring look.

  "Can we get there in time to paper the town and hire a hall to show in,Mister?" Casey saw the mud-caked feet move laboriously toward the rear ofthe car.

  "Yes, ma'am, I guess you can. There ain't any town, though, and it ain'tgot any hall in it, nor anybody to go to a show."

  The woman laughed. "That's like my prayer book. Well, Jack, you certainlyhave got a powerful eye, but you've been trying to Svengali this out-fitout of the mud for an hour, and I haven't seen it move an inch, so far.Let's just try something else."

  "A prayer outa your prayer book, maybe," her husband retorted, nottroubling to move or turn his head.

  Casey blinked and looked again. The woman who appeared from the fartherside of the car might have been the creature of his dream, so far as herface, her hair and her voice went. Her hair was yellow, unmistakablyyellow. Her eyes were bluer than Casey's own, and she had nice teeth andshowed them in a red-lipped smile. A more sophisticated man would haveknown that the powder on her nose was freshly applied, and that her reasonfor remaining so long hidden from his sight while she talked to him wasrevealed in the moist color on her lips and the fresh bloom on her cheeks.Casey was not sophisticated. He thought she was a beautiful woman andasked no questions of her make-up box.

  "Mister, you certainly are a godsend!" she gushed again when she facedhim. "I'd call you a direct answer to prayer, only I haven't been praying.I've been trying to tell Jack that the shovel is not packed under thebanjos, as he thinks it was, but was left back at our last camp where hewas trying to dig water out of a wet spot. Jack, dear, perhaps thegentleman has got a shovel in his car. Ain't it a real gag, Mister, usbeing stuck out here in a dry lake?"

  Casey touched his hat and grinned and tried not to look at her too long.Husbands of beautiful young women are frequently jealous, and Casey knewhis place and meant to keep it.

  All the way back to his car Casey studied the peculiar features of themeeting. He had been thinking about yellow-haired women--well! But ofcourse, she was married, and therefore not to be thought of save as acoincidence; still, Casey rather regretted the existence of Jack dear, andbegan to wonder why good-looking women always picked such dried-up littlerunts for husbands. "Show actors by the talk," he mused. "I wonder now ifshe don't sing, mebby?"

  He started the car and forged out to them, making the last few rods in lowgear and knowing how risky it was to stop. They were rather helpless, hehad to admit, and did all the standing around while Casey did all thework. But he shoveled the rear wheels out, waded back to the tiny islandof solid ground and gathered an armful of brush, which he crowded in frontof the wheels, covering himself with mud thereby; then he tied the towrope he carried for emergencies like this, waded to the Ford, cranked andtrusted the rest to luck. The Ford moved slowly ahead until the ropebetween the two cars tightened, then spun her wheels and proceeded to digherself in where she stood. The other car, shaking with the tremor of itsown engine, ruthlessly ground the sagebrush into the mud and stood upon itroaring and spluttering furiously.

  "Nothing like sticking together, Mister," called the lady cheerfully, andhe heard her laughter above the churn of their motors.

  "Say, ain't your carburetor all off?" Casey leaned out to call back to thehusband. "You're smokin' back there like wet wood."

  The man immediately stopped the motor and looked behind him.

  Casey muttered something under his breath when he climbed out. He lookedat his own car standing hub deep in red mud and reached for the solacingplug of chewing tobacco. Then he thought of the lady and withdrew his handempty.

  "We're certainly going to stick together, Mister," she repeated herwitticism, and Casey grinned foolishly.

  "She'll dry up in a few hours, with this hot sun," he observedhearteningly. "We'll have to pile brush in, I guess." His glance went backto the tiny island and to his double row of tracks. He looked at the man.

  "Jack, dear, you might go help the gentleman get some brush," the ladysuggested sweetly.

  "This ain't my act," Jack dear objected. "I just about broke my spinetrying to heave the car outa the mud when we first stuck. Say, I wishthere was a beanery of some kind in walking distance. Honest, I'll be deadof starvation in another hour. What's the chance of a bite, Hon?"

  Contempt surged through Casey. Deep in his soul he pitied her for beingtied to such an insect. Immediately he was glad that she had spirit enoughto put the little runt in his place.

  "You _would_ wait to buy supplies in Rhyolite, remember," she reminded herhusband calmly. "I guess you'll have to wait till you get there. I've gotone piece of bread saved for Junior. You and I go hungry--and cheer up,old dear; you're used to it!"

  "I've got grub," Casey volunteered hospitably. "Didn't stop to eat yet.I'll pack the stuff back there to dry ground and boil some coffee and frysome bacon." He looked at the woman and was rewarded by a smile sobrilliant that Casey was dazzled.

  "You certainly are a godsend," she called after him, as he turned away tohis own car. "It just happens that we're out of everything. It's so hardto keep anything on hand when you're traveling in this country, with townsso far apart. You just run short before you know it."

  Casey thought that the very scarcity of towns compelled one to avoidrunning s
hort of food, but he did not say anything. He waded back to theisland with a full load of provisions and cooking utensils, and in threeminutes he was squinting against the smoke of a camp-fire while he pouredwater from a canteen into his blackened coffee pot.

  "Coffee! Jack, dear, can you believe your nose!" chirped the womanpresently behind Casey. "Junior, darling, just smell the bacon! Isn't he anice gentleman? Go give him a kiss like a little man."

  Casey didn't want any kiss--at least from Junior. Junior was six yearsold, and his face was dirty and his eyes were old, old eyes, but brownlike his father's. He had the pinched, hungry look which Casey had seenonly amongst starving Indians, and after he had kissed Casey perfunctorilyhe snatched the piece of raw bacon which Casey had just sliced off, andtore at it with his teeth like a hungry pup.

  Casey affected not to notice, and busied himself with the fire while thewoman reproved Junior half-heartedly in an undertone, and laughed stagilyand remarked upon the number of hours since they had breakfasted.

  Casey tried not to watch them eat, but in spite of himself he thought of aprospector whom he had rescued last summer after a five-day fast. Thesepeople ate more than the prospector had eaten, and their eyes followedgreedily every mouthful which Casey took, as if they grudged him the food.Wherefore Casey did not take as many mouthfuls as he would have liked.

  "This desert air certainly does put an edge on one's appetite," the womansmiled, while she blew across her fourth cup of coffee to cool it, andbetween breaths bit into a huge bacon sandwich, which Casey could not helpknowing was her third. "Jack, dear, isn't this coffee delicious!"

  "Mah-mal Do we have to p-pay that there g-godsend? C-can you p-pay formore b-bacon for me, mah-ma?" Junior licked his fingers and twitched afold of his mother's soiled skirt.

  "Sure, give him more bacon! All he wants. I'll fry another skillet full,"Casey spoke hurriedly, getting out the piece which he had packed away inthe bag.

  "He's used to these hold-up joints where they charge you forty cents for agreasy plate," the man explained, speaking with his mouth full. "Eat allyuh want, Junior. This is a barbecue and no collection took up to pay thespeaker of the day."

  "We certainly appreciate your kindness, Mister," the woman put ingraciously, holding out her cup. "What we'd have done, stuck here in themud with no provisions and no town within miles, heaven only knows. Wasyou kidding us," she added, with a betrayal of more real anxiety than sheintended, "when you said Rhyolite is a dead one? We looked it up on themap, and it was marked like a town. We're making all the little towns thatthe road shows mostly miss. We give a fine show, Mister. It's been playedon all the best time in the country--we took it abroad before the war andmade real good money with it. But we just wanted to see the country, youknow--after doing the cont'nent and all the like of that. So we thoughtwe'd travel independent and make all the small towns--"

  "The movie trust is what put vodeville on the bum," the man interrupted."We used to play the best time only. We got a first-class act. One thatought to draw down good money anywhere, and would draw down good money, ifthe movie trust--"

  "And then we like to be independent, and go where we like and get off therailroad for a spell. Freedom is the breath of life to he and I. We'drather have it kinda rough now and then to be free and independent--"

  "I've g-got a b-bunny, a-and it f-fell in the g-grease box a-and wec-can't wash it off, a-and h-he's asleep now. C-can I g-give my b-bunnysome b-bacon, Mister G-godsend?"

  The woman laughed, and Jack dear laughed, and Casey himself grinnedsheepishly. Casey did not want to be called a godsend, and he hated theterm "Mister" when applied to himself. All his life he had been plainCasey Ryan and proud of it, and his face was very red when he confessedthat there was no more bacon. He had not expected to feed a family when heleft camp that morning, but had taken rations for himself only.

  Junior whined and insisted that he wanted b-bacon for his b-bunny, and theman hushed him querulously and asked Casey what the chances were forgetting under way. Casey repacked a lightened bag, emptied the coffeegrounds, shouldered his canteen and waded back to the cars and to theproblem of red mud with an unbelievable quality of tenacity.

  The man followed and asked him if he happened to have any smoking tobacco,afterwards he begged a cigarette paper, and then a match. "The dog-gonehelpless, starved bunch!" Casey muttered, while he dug out the wheels ofhis Ford, and knew that his own haste must wait upon the need of thesethree human beings whom he had never seen until an hour ago, of whose veryexistence he had been in ignorance, and who would probably contributenothing whatever to his own welfare or happiness, however much he mightcontribute to theirs.

  I do not say that Casey soliloquised in this manner while he was sweatingthere in the mud under hot midday. He did think that now he would no doubtmiss the night train to Los Angeles, and that he would not, after all, bepurchasing glad raiment and a luxurious car on the morrow. He regrettedthat, but he did not see how he could help it. He was Casey Ryan, and hisheart was soft to suffering even though a little of the spell cast by thewoman's blue eyes and her golden hair had dimmed for him.

  He still thought her a beautiful woman who was terribly mismated, but hefelt vaguely that women with beautiful golden hair should not drink theircoffee aloud, or calmly turn up the bottom of their skirts that they mightuse the underside of the hem for a napkin after eating bacon. I do notlike to mention this; Casey did not like to think of it, either. It waswith reluctance that he reflected upon the different standard imposed bysex. A man, for instance, might wipe his fingers on his pants and look theworld straight in the eye,--but dog-gone it, when a lady's a lady, sheought to _be_ a lady.

  Later Casey forgot for a time the incident of the luncheon on Red Lake.With infinite labor and much patience he finally extricated himself andthe show people, with no assistance from them save encouragement. He towedthem to dry land, untied and put away his rope and then discovered that hehad not the heart to drive on at his usual hurtling pace and leave them tofollow. There was an ominous stutter in their motor, for one thing, andCasey knew of a stiffish hill a few miles this side of Rhyolite, so heforced himself to set a slow pace which they could easily follow.