Heart's Desire by Emerson Hough (comprehension books .TXT) 📕

"Sometimes I think you're loco," said Tom Osby, slowly; "then again I think you ain't, quite. The man who allows he's any better than this country don't belong here; but I didn't think you ever did."

"No!" cried Dan Anderson. "Don't ever say that of me."

"Of course, I know folks is different," went on Tom Osby, presently. "They come from different places, and have lived different ways. Me, I come from Georgy. I never did have much chanct for edication, along of the war breakin' out. My folks was in the fightin' some; and so I drifted here,"

"You came from Georgia?" asked Dan Anderson. "I was born farther north. I had a little schooling, but the only schooling I ever had in all my life that was worth while, I got right here in Heart's Desire. The only real friends I ever had are here.

"Now," he went on, "it's because I feel that way, and because you're going to punch your freight team more than a hundred miles south next week to see if you can get a look at that 'Annie Laurie' woman—it's because of those things that I want to help you if I can. And that's the truth—or something resemblin' it, maybe.

"Now listen, Tom. Madame Donatelli is no Dago, and she's not dead. She was a Georgia girl herself—Alice Strowbridge was her name, and she had naturally a wonderful voice. She went to Paris and Italy to study long before I came out West. She first sang in Milan, and her appearance was a big success. She's made thousands and thousands of dollars."

"About how old is she?" asked Tom Osby. "I should think about thirty-five," said Dan Anderson. "That is, countin' years, and not experience."

"I'm just about forty-five," said Tom, "countin' both."

"Well, she came from Georgia—"

"And so did I," observed Tom Osby, casually.

Dan Anderson was troubled. His horizon was wider than Tom Osby's.

"It's far, Tom," said he; "it's very far."

"I everidge about twenty mile a day," said Tom, not wholly understanding. "I can make it in less'n a week."

"Tom," cried Dan Anderson, "don't!"

But Tom Osby only trod half a pace closer, in that vague, never formulated, never admitted friendship of one man for another in a country which held real men.

"Do you know, Dan," said he, "if I could just onct in my life hear that there song right out—herself singin', words and all—fiddles, like enough; maybe a pianny, too—if I could just hear that! If I could just hear—that!"

"Tom!"

They wandered on a way silently before the freighter spoke. "There is some folks," said he, "that has to do things for keeps, for the rest of the folks that can't do things for keeps. Some fellers has to just drive teams, or run a ore bucket, or play the cards, or something else common and useful—world's sort of fixed up that way, I reckon. But folks that can do things for keeps—I reckon they're right proud, like."

"Not if they really do the things that keep. That sort ain't proud," said Dan Anderson.

"Now, I can just see her a-settin' there," went on the freighter. "It sounded like there was fiddles, and horns, and piannys all around."

"She was maybe standin' up."

"She was a-settin' there," said Tom Osby, frowning; "right there at the pianny herself. Can't you see her? Don't you ever sort of imagine things yourself, man?"

"God forbid!" said Dan Anderson. "No, I can't imagine things. That's fatal—I try to forget things."

"Well," said Tom Osby, "I reckon I've been imaginin' things. Now, there she's settin', right at the pianny, and sort of lettin' her fingers run up and down—"

"Tra-la-loo-loo, loo-loo-la-la?" said Dan Anderson.

"Sure. That's just it. Tra-la-la-loo, loo-la-la-la, up and down the whole shootin' match. And she sings! Now what does she sing? That song about Gingerbread? That Mobile song? No, not none. It's 'Annie Laurie' she sings, man, it's 'Annie Laurie'! Now, I freighted to El Paso before the railroad, and I know them boys. They'll tear up the house."

"She'll be wearin' black lace and diamonds," said Dan Anderson, irrelevantly; "and when she breathes she'll swell up like a toy balloon. She'll bat her eyes. They got to do those things."

"Man," said Tom Osby, "there's times when I don't like you."

"Well, then, cut out the lace. I'll even leave off the diamonds."

"She's settin' right there," said Tom Osby, wagging his forefinger, "and she's dressed in white—"

"With a blue sash—"

"Sure! And she sings! And it's 'Annie Laurie'! And because I want my own share of things that's for keeps, though I ain't one of the sort that can do things for keeps, why, I want—why, you see—"

"Yes, Tom," said Dan Anderson, gently, "I see. Now, as you said, it's only a few days' drive, after all. I'm goin' along with you. There's watermelons near there—"

"You are loco!"

"Not yet," said his friend. "I only meant to point out that the best melons these embalmed Greasers raise in their little tablecloth farmin' operations is right down there in the valley at the foot of the Sacramentos. Now, you may have noticed that sometimes a fellow ought to cover up his tracks. What's to hinder you and me just takin' a little pasear down in toward the Sacramentos, on the southeast side, after a load of melons? They're better than cactus for the boys here. That's straight merchandisin', and, besides, it's Art. And—well, I think that's the best way.

"We don't all of us always get our share, Tom," resumed Dan Anderson; "we don't always get our share of the things that are for keeps; but it's the right of every man to try. Every once in a while, by just tryin' and pluggin' along on the dead square, a fellow gets something which turns out in the clean-up to be the sort that was for keeps, after all, even if it wasn't just what he thought he wanted."

"Then you'll go along?"

"Si, amigo! Yes, I'll go along."

They parted, Dan Anderson to seek his own lonely adobe. There he closed the door, as though he feared intrusion. The old restlessness coming over him, he paced up and down the narrow, cagelike room. Presently he approached a tiny mirror that hung upon the wall, and stood looking into it intently. "Fool!" he muttered. "Liar, and fool, and coward—you, you! You'll take care of Tom, will you? But who'll take care of you?"

He seated himself on the blanketed bed, and picked up the newspaper which he had brought home with him. He gazed long and steadily at it before he tore it across and flung it on the floor. It held more news than he had given to Tom Osby. In brief, there was a paragraph which announced the arrival in town of Mr. John Ellsworth, President of the new A. P. and S. E. Railway, his legal counsel, Mr. Porter Barkley, also of New York, and Miss Constance Ellsworth. This party was bound for Sky Top, where business of importance would in all likelihood be transacted, as Mr. Ellsworth expected to meet there the engineers on the location of the road.

"I ought not to go," said Dan Anderson to himself, over and over again. "I must not go . . . But I'm going!"

Many miles of sand and silence lay between Heart's Desire and Sky Top, by the winding trail over the high plateau and in among the foot-hills of the Sacramentos. The silence was unbroken by any music from the "heavenly maid," which lay disused beneath the wagon seat; nor did the two occupants of Tom Osby's freight wagon often emerge from the reticence habitual in a land where spaces were vast, men infrequent, and mountains ever looking down. The team of gnarled gray horses kept on their steady walk, hour after hour, and day after day; and bivouac after bivouac lay behind them, marked by the rude heap of brush piled up at night as an excuse for shelter against the wind or by the tiny circle of ashes where had been a small but sufficient fire. At last the line of the bivouacs ended, far up toward the crest of the heavily timbered Sacramentos, after a weary climb through miles of mountain cañons.

"We'll stop at the lowest spring," said Tom Osby, who knew the country of old. "That'll leave us a half mile or so from where they've built their fool log hotel. It beats the dickens how these States folks, that lives in cities, is always tryin' to imertate some other way of livin'. Why didn't they build it out of boards? They've got a saw-mill, blame 'em, and they're cuttin' off all the timber in these mountings; but they got to have logs to build their house with. Folks that builds real log houses, and not toys, does it because they ain't got no boards. But these States folks always was singerler."

By this time Tom Osby was unhitching and feeding his team, and throwing out the blanket rolls upon the ground. "Go easy on the 'Annie Laurie' machine there," called out Dan Anderson, hearing a suspicious rattling of brass against the wagon box. But his companion heeded him little, casting the phonograph at the foot of a tree, where the great horn swung wide, disconsolately.

"A imertation," said Tom, "is like I was just sayin'. It ain't the real thing.

"Now look here, friend," he went on a moment later, "you've got to do like you said you would. Of course, I know melons don't grow up here in the pine mountains, even if they was ripe yet; but you said you was comin' along to see fair play, and you got to do it."

Dan Anderson looked at him queerly. "Wait," said he; "it'll be night before long. Then you go on up to the house, and prospect around a little. If you get scared, come back, and I'll—I'll take care of you. I'll be around here somewhere, so you needn't be afraid to go right on in alone, you know. Tell her you know her preserved songs, and liked them so much you just had to come down here. Tell her about the watermelons. Tell her—"

"You're actin' a leetle nervous your own self, man," said Tom Osby, keenly. "But you watch Papa. I been married four times, or maybe five, so what's a woman here or there to me? What is there to any woman to scare a feller, anyway?"

"I'm damned if I know!" replied Dan Andersen;—"there isn't—of course there isn't, of course not. You're perfectly safe. Why, just go right on up. Have your sand along!"

"Sure," said Tom Osby. "All right; I'll just mosey along up the trail after a while."

And after a while he did depart, alone, leaving Dan Anderson sitting on the wagon tongue. "You come up after a while, Dan," he called back. "If you don't hear nothing from me, you'd better stroll along up and view the remains."

Madame Alicia Donatelli paced up and down the long room in the somewhat dismal hotel building which constituted the main edifice of Sky Top. She was in effect a prisoner. El Paso seemed like a dream, San Francisco a figment of the brain, and New York a wholly imaginary spot upon some undiscovered planet, lost in the nebulous universe of space. She trod the uneven floor as some creature caged, on her face that which boded no good to the next comer, whoever he might be.

The next comer was Signer Peruchini, the tenor. Unhappy Peruchini! He started back from the ominous