The Trail of the White Mule, Page 2

  CHAPTER TWO

  Casey Ryan knew his desert. Also, from long and not so happyexperience, he knew Fords, or thought he did. He made the mistake,however, of buying a nearly new one and asking it to accomplish thework of a twin six from the moment he got behind the wheel.

  He was fortunate in buying a demonstrator's car with a hundred miles orso to its credit. He arrived in Barstow before the proprietor of asupply store had gone to bed--for which he was grateful to the Ford. Heloaded up there with such necessities for desert prospecting as he hadnot waited to buy in Los Angeles, turned short off the main highwaywhere traffic officers might be summoned by telephone to lie in waitfor him, and took the steeper and less used trail north. He was stillmad and talking bitterly to himself in an undertone while hedrove--telling the new Ford what he thought of city rules and cityways, and driving it as no Ford was ever meant by its maker to bedriven.

  The country north of Barstow is not to be taken casually in the middleof a dark night, even by Casey Ryan and a Ford. The roads, once youare well away from help, are all pretty much alike, and all bad. Andalthough the white, diamond-shaped signs of a beneficent automobileclub are posted here and there, where wrong turnings are most likely toprove disastrous to travelers, Casey Ryan was in the mood to lick anyman who pointed out a sign to him. He did see one or two in spite ofhimself and gave a grunt of contempt. So, where he should have turnedto the east (his intention being to reach Nevada by way of Silver Lake)he continued traveling north and didn't know it.

  Driving across the desert on a dark night is confusing to the mostobservant wayfarer. On either side, beyond the light of the car,illusory forest stands for mile upon mile. Up hill or down or acrossthe level it is the same--a narrow, winding trail through dimly seenwoods. The most familiar road grows strange; the miles are longer; youdrive through mystery and silence and the world around you is aformless void.

  Dawn and a gorgeous sunrise painted out the woods and revealed barrenhilltops which Casey did not know. Because he did not know them, heguessed shrewdly that he was on his way to the wilderness of mountainsand sand which lies west of Death Valley. Small chance he had ofhearing the shop whistles blow in Las Vegas at noon, as he had expected.

  He was telling himself that he didn't care where he went, when the car,laboring more and more reluctantly up a long, sandy hill, suddenlystopped. In Casey's heart was a thrill at the sheer luxury of stoppingin the middle of the road without having some thick-necked cop stridetoward him bawling insults. That he was obliged to stop, and that ahill uptilted before him, and the sand was a foot deep outside the rutsfailed to impress him with foreboding. He gloried in his freedom andthought not at all of the Ford.

  He climbed stiffly out, squinted at the sky line, which was jagged, andat his immediate surroundings, which were barren and lonely andsoothing to his soul that hungered for these things. Great, gaunt"Joshua" trees stood in grotesque groups all up and down the narrowvalley, hiding the way he had come from the way he would go. It was asif the desert had purposely dropped a curtain before his past and wouldshow him none of his future. Whereat Casey Ryan grinned, took a chew oftobacco and was himself again.

  "If they wanta come pinch me here, I'll meet 'em man to man. Back intown no man's got a show. They pile in four deep and gang a feller.Out here it's lick er git licked. They can all go t' thunder. Tahellwith town!"

  The odor of coffee boiling in a new pot which the sagebrush fire wasfast blackening; the salty, smoky smell of bacon frying in a new fryingpan that turned bluish with the heat; the sizzle of bannock batterpoured into hot grease--these things made the smiling mouth of CaseyRyan water with desire.

  "Hell!" said Casey, breathing deep when, stomach full and resentmenttoward the past blurred by satisfaction with his present, he filled hispipe and fingered his vest pocket for a match. "Gas stoves can't cooknothin' so there's any taste to it. That there's the first real mealI've et in six months. Light a match and turn on the gas and call thata fire! Hunh! Good old sage er greasewood fer Casey Ryan, from hereon!"

  He laid back against the sandy sidehill, tilted his hat over his eyesand crossed his legs luxuriously. He was in no hurry to continue hisjourney. Now that he and the desert were alone together, haste andCasey Ryan held nothing in common. For awhile he watched a Joshua palmthat looked oddly like a giant man with one arm hanging loose at itsside and another pointing fixedly at a distant, black-capped buttestanding aloof from its fellows. Casey was tired after his night onthe trail. Easy living in town had softened his muscles and slowed alittle that untiring energy which had balked at no hardship. He wasdrowsy, and his brain stopped thinking logically and slipped intohalf-waking fancy.

  The Joshua seemed to move, to lift its arm and point more imperativelytoward the peak. Its ungainly head seemed to turn and nod at Casey.What did the darned thing want? Casey would go when he, got good andready. Perhaps he would go that way, and perhaps he would not. Righthere was good enough for Casey Ryan at present; and you could askanybody if he were the man to follow another man's pointing, much lessa Joshua tree.

  Battering rain woke Casey some hours later and drove him to the shelterof the Ford. Thunder and lightning came with the rain, and a bellowingwind that rocked the car and threatened once or twice to overturn it.With some trouble Casey managed to button down the curtains and sathuddled on the front seat, watching through a streaming windshield thebuffeted wilderness. He was glad he had not unloaded his outfit;gladder still that the storm had not struck which he was traveling.Down the trail toward him a small river galloped, washing deep gullieswhere the wheels of his car offered obstruction to its boisterousness.

  "She's a tough one," grinned Casey, in spite of the chattering of histeeth. "Looks like all the water in the world is bein' poured downthis pass. Keeps on, I'll have to gouge out a couple of Joshuays an'turn the old Ford into a boat--but Casey'll keep agoin'!"

  Until inky dark it rained like the deluge. Casey remained perched inhis one-man ark and tried hard to enjoy himself and his hard-wonfreedom. He stabbed open a can of condensed milk, poured it into acup, and drank it and ate what was left of his breakfast bannock, whichhe had fortunately put away in the car out of the reach of a hill ofindustrious red ants.

  He thought vaguely of cranking the car and going on, but gave up thenotion. One sidehill, he decided, was as good as another sidehill forthe present.

  That night Casey slept fitfully in the car and discovered that even awall bed in a despised apartment house may be more comfortable than thefront seat of a Ford. His bones ached by morning, and he was hungryenough to eat raw bacon and relish it. But the sun was fighting throughthe piled clouds and shone cheerfully upon the draggled pass, and Caseyboiled coffee and fried bacon and bannock beside the trail, and for alittle while was happy again.

  From breakfast until noon he was busy as a beaver repairing the washoutbeneath the car and on to the top of the hill. She was going to have toget down and dig in her toes to make it, he told the Ford, when at lasthe heaved pick and shovel into the tonneau, packed in his cookingoutfit and made ready to crank up.

  From then until supper time he wore a trail around the car, looking tosee what was wrong and why he could not crank. He removedhootin'-annies and dingbats (using Casey's mechanical terms) lookedthem over dissatisfiedly, and put them back without having done them nygood whatever. Sometimes they were returned to a different place, Iimagine, since I know too well how impartial Casey is with themechanical parts of a Ford.

  He made camp there that night, pitching his little tent in the trailfor pure cussedness, and defying aloud a traveling world to make himmove until he got good and ready. He might have saved his vocabulary,for the road was impassable before him and behind; and had Caseymanaged to start the car, he could not have driven a mile in eitherdirection.

  Since he did not know that, the next day he painstakingly cleaned thespark plugs and tried again to crank the Ford; couldn't, and removedmore hootin'-annies and dingbats than he had
touched the day before.That night he once more pitched his tent in the trail, hoping in hisheart that some one would drive along and dispute his right to campthere; when he would lick the doggone cuss.

  On the fourth day, after a long, fatiguing session with the vitals of aFord that refused to be cranked, Casey was busy gathering brush, forhis supper fire when Fate came walking up' the trail. Fate appears inmany forms. In this instance it assumed the shape of a packed burrothat poked its nose around a group of Joshuas, stopped abruptly andbacked precipitately into another burro which swung out of the trailand went careening awkwardly down the slope. The stampeding burro hadnot seen the Ford at all, but accepted the testimony of its leader thatsomething was radically wrong with the trail ahead. His pack bumpedagainst the yuccas as he went; after him lurched a large man, heavy tothe point of fatness, yelling hoarse threats and incoherentobjurgations.

  Casey threw down his armful of dead brush and went after the lead burrowhich was blazing itself a trail in an entirely different direction.The lead burro had four large canteens strapped outside its pack, andCasey was growing so short of water that he had begun to debateseriously the question of draining the radiator on the morrow.

  I don't suppose many of you would believe the innate cussedness of aburro when it wants to be that way. Casey hazed this one to the hillsand back down the trail for half a mile before he rushed it into aclump of greasewood and sneaked up on it when it thought itself hiddenfrom all mortal eyes. After that he dug heels into the sand and hungon. Memory resurrected for his need certain choice phrases coined intimes of stress for the ears of burros alone. Luxury and civilizationand fifty-five thousand dollars and a wife were as if they had neverbeen. He was Casey Ryan, the prospector, fighting a stubborn donkeyall over a desert slope. He led it conquered back to the Ford, tied itto a wheel and lifted off the four canteens, gratified with theirweight and hoping there were more on the other burro. He had quiteforgotten that he had meant to lick the first man he saw, and grinnedwhen the fat man came toiling back with the other animal.

  By the time their coffee was boiled and their bacon fried, each oneknew the other's past history and tentative plans for the future,censored and glossed somewhat by the teller but received withoutquestion or criticism.

  The fat man's name was Barney Oakes, and he had heard of Casey Ryan andwas glad to meet him. Though Casey had never heard of Barney Oakes, hediscovered that they both knew Bill Masters, the garage man at Lund;and further gossip revealed the amazing fact that Barney Oakes had oncebeen the husband of the woman whom Casey had very nearly married, thewidow who cooked for the Lucky Lode.

  "Boy, you're sure lucky she turned loose on yuh before yuh went an'married her!" Barney congratulated Casey, slapping his great thigh andlaughing loudly. "She shore is handy with her tongue--that old girl.Ever hear a sawmill workin' overtime? That's her--rippin' through knotsan' never blowin' the whistle fer quittin' time. I never knowed a mancould have as many faults as what she used t' name over fer me." Hedrained his cup and sighed with great content. "At that, I stayed withher seven months and fourteen days," he boasted. "I admit, two of themmonths I was laid up with a busted ankle an' shoulder blade. Tunnelcaved in on me."

  They talked late that night and were comrades, brothers, partners shareand share alike before they slept. Next morning Casey tried again tostart the Ford; couldn't; and yielded to Barney's argument that burroswere better than a car for prospectin' in that rough country. Theyoverhauled Casey's outfit, took all the grub and as much else as theburros could carry and debated seriously what point in the Panamintsthey should aim for.

  "Where's that there Joshuay tree pointin' to?" Casey asked finally."She's the biggest and oldest in the bunch, and ever since I've beenhere she's looked like she's got somethin' on 'er mind. Whadda yuhthink, Barney?"

  Barney walked around the yucca, stood behind the extended arm, squintedat the sharp-peaked butte with the black capping, toward which thegaunt tree seemed to point. He spat out a stale quid of tobacco andtook a fresh one, squinted again toward the butte and looked at Casey.

  "She's country I never prospected in, back in there. I've folleredpoorer advice than a Joshuay. Le's try it a whirl."

  Thus it came to pass that Casey Ryan forsook his Ford for a strangepartner with two burros and a clouded past, and fared forth across thebarren foothills with no better guidance than the rigid, outstretchedlimb of a great, gaunt Joshua tree.