Read Ebook: You Ask Anybody by Bower B M

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Ebook has 113 lines and 11864 words, and 3 pages

"I'd ruther have a horse down with glanders," he admitted when Bill finally washed the grease off his hands and forearms and rolled down his sleeves. "But Casey Ryan's game to try anything once, and most things the second and third time. You ask anybody. Gimme all the hootin'-annies that's liable to wear out, Bill, and a load uh tires and patches, and Casey'll come back and hand yuh a diamond big as your fist, some day. Casey Ryan's goin' out to see what he can see. If he meets up with Miss Fortune, he'll tame her, Bill. And this little Ford autymobil is goin' to eat outa my hand, this summer. I don't give a cuss if she does git sore and ram her spark plugs into her carburetor now and ag'in. She'll know who's boss, Bill."

Taking that point of view and keeping it, Casey managed very well. Whenever anything went wrong that his vocabulary and a monkey wrench could not mend, Casey sat down on the shadiest running board and conned the Instruction Book which Bill handed him at the last minute. Other times he treated the Ford exactly as he would treat a burro, with satisfactory results.

Away out on the high mesas that are much like the desert below, except that the nights are cool and the wind is not fanned out of a furnace, Casey fought sand and brush and rocks and found a trail now and then which he followed thankfully, and so came at last to a short range of mountains whose name matched well their sinister stare. The Ghost Mountains had always been reputed rich in mineral and malevolent in their attitude toward man and beast. Even the Joshua trees stood afar off and lifted grotesque arms defensively. But Casey was not easily daunted, and eerie places held for him no meaning save the purely material one. If he could find water and the rich vein of ore he dreamed of, then Casey would be happy in spite of snakes, tarantulas, and sinister stories of the place.

Water he found, not too far up a gulch. So he pitched his tent within carrying distance from the spring, thanked the god of mechanics that an automobile neither eats nor drinks when it does not work, and set out to find his fortune.

Now this is not a story of Casey's quest for gold. It's a love story, if you please. Until the lady entered Casey's orbit there was no logical reason for telling you, nor for stating that the Ford autymobil played the part of Fate--and played erratically.

Casey knew there was a mining camp on the high slope of Furnace Butte. He knew the name of the camp, which was Lucky Lode, and he knew the foreman there--knew him from long ago in the days when Casey was what he himself called wild. In reaching Ghost Mountains Casey had driven for fifteen miles within plain sight of Lucky Lode. But gas is precious when you are a hundred miles from a garage, and since business did not take him there Casey did not drive up the five-mile slope to the Lucky Lode just to shake hands with the foreman and swap a yarn or two. Instead, he headed down on to the bleached, bleak oval of Furnace Lake and forged across it straight as he could drive toward Ghost Mountain.

But the next time Casey made the trip--needing supplies, powder, fuse, caps, and so on--Fate took him by the ear and led him to the lady. This is how Fate did it--and I will say it was an original idea.

Casey had a gallon sirup can in the car, which he used for extra oil for the engine. Having an appetite for sour-dough biscuits and sirup, he had also a gallon can of sirup in the car. It was a terrifically hot day, and the wind that blew full against Casey's left cheek as he drove, burned where it struck. Casey was afraid he was running short of water, and a Ford comes first, as every man knows, so that Casey was parched pretty thoroughly, inside and out. Within a mile of the lake he stopped, took an unsatisfying sip from his big canteen and emptied the rest of the water into the radiator. Then he replenished the oil in the motor generously, cranked and went bumping along down the trail worn rough with the trucks from Lucky Lode.

For a little way he bumped along the trail, then the motor began to labor and, although Casey pulled the gas lever down as far as it would go, the car slowed and stopped dead in the road. It was after an hour of fruitless monkey-wrenching and swearing and sweating that Casey began to suspect something. He examined both cans, "hefted" them, smelled and even tasted the one half empty, and decided that Ford autymobils did not require two quarts of sirup at one dose. He thought that a little sirup ought not make much difference, but half a gallon was probably too much.

He put in more oil on top of the sirup, but he could not even move the crank, much less "turn 'er over." He did not know what to do. So long as a man can wind the crank of a Ford he seems able to keep alive his hopes. Casey could not crank, wherefore he knew himself beaten even while he heaved and lifted and swore, and strained every muscle in his back. He got so desperately wrathful that he lifted the car perceptibly off its right front wheel with every heave, but he felt as if he were trying to lift a bowlder.

It was past supper time at Lucky Lode when Casey arrived, staggering a little with exhaustion both mental and physical. His eyes were bloodshot with the hot wind, his face was purple from the same wind, his lips were dry and rough. I cannot blame the men at Lucky Lode for a sudden thirst when they saw him coming, and a hope that he still had a little left. And when he told them that he had filled his engine with sirup instead of oil, what would any one think?

Their unjust suspicions would not have worried Casey in the least, had Lucky Lode not possessed a lady cook who was a lady. She was a widow with two children, and she had the children with her and held herself aloof from the men in a manner befitting a lady. Casey was hungry and thirsty and tired and, as much as was possible to his nature, disgusted with life in general. The widow gave him a smile of sympathy which went straight to his heart; and hot biscuits and coffee and beans cooked the way he liked them best. These went straight to ease the gnawing emptiness of his stomach--and being a man who took his emotions at their face value, he jumped to the conclusion that it was the lady whose presence gave him the glow.

Casey stayed that night and the next day and the next at Lucky Lode. The foreman helped him tow the sweetened car up the hill to the machine shop where they could get at it, and Casey worked until night trying to remove the dingbats from the hootin'-annies--otherwise the pistons from the cylinders. The foreman showed him what to do, and Casey did it, using a "double jack" and a lot of energy.

Before he left the Lucky Lode Casey knew exactly what sirup will do to a Ford if applied internally, and the widow had promised to marry him if he would stop drinking and smoking and swearing. Casey took the drinking pledge quite cheerfully for her sake, since he had not been drunk in ten years on account of having seen a big yellow snake with a green head on the occasion of his last carouse. He promised to stop smoking, glad that the widow neglected to mention chewing tobacco which was his everyday comfort. As for the swearing, he told her he would do his best, and that he would taste the oil hereafter before he fed it to the Ford.

"But Casey, if you leave whisky alone you won't need to taste the oil," the widow told him. Whereat Casey grinned feebly and explained for the tenth time that he had not been drinking. She did not contradict him. She seemed a wise woman, after a fashion.

Casey drove back to his camp at Ghost Mountain, happy and a little scared. Why, after all these years of careless freedom he should precipitate himself into matrimony with a woman he had known only casually for two days, puzzled him a little.

"Well, a man gits to feelin' like he wants to settle down when he's crowdin' fifty," he explained his recklessness to the Ford as it hummed away over Furnace Lake which was flat as a floor and dry as a bleached bone--and much the same color. "Any man feels the want of a home as he gits older. And Casey's the man that will try anything once. You ask anybody." He took out his pipe, looked at it, bethought him of his promise and put it away again, substituting a chew of tobacco as large as his cheek would hold without prying his mouth open. "G'long, there! You got your belly full of oil--shake your feet and show you're alive!"

After that, Casey spent every Sunday at Lucky Lode. He liked the widow better and better. Only he wished she would take it for granted that when Casey Ryan made a promise, Casey Ryan would keep it. "I've got so now I can bark a knuckle with m'single jack when I'm puttin' down a hole, and say, 'Oh, dear!' and let it go at that," he boasted to her on the second Sunday. "I'll bet there ain't another man in the State of Nevada could do that."

"Sure as hell I'll keep my promise!" Casey assured her headily. It had been close to twenty years since he had been called dear boy, at least to his face. He had kissed the woman full on the lips before he saw that a frown sat upon her forehead like a section of that ridgy cardboard they wrap bottles in.

"Casey, you swore!"

"Swore? Me?"

"I only hope," sighed the widow, "that your other promise won't be broken as easily as that one. Remember, Casey, I cannot and I will not marry a drinking man!"

Casey looked at her dubiously.

"Oh, I've heard awful tales of you, Casey, dear! The boys talk at the table, and they seem to think it's awful funny to tell about your fighting and drinking and playing cards for money. But I think it's perfectly awful. You must stop drinking, Casey, dear. I could never forgive myself, if I set before my innocent little ones the example of a husband who drank."

"You won't," said Casey. "Not if you marry me, you won't." Then he changed the subject, beginning to talk of his prospect over on Ghost Mountain. The widow liked to hear him tell about finding a pocket of ore that went seventy ounces in silver and one and seven-tenths ounces in gold, and how he expected any day to get down into the main body of ore and find it a "contact" vein. It all sounded very convincing and as if Casey Ryan were in a fair way to become a rich man.

The next time Casey saw the widow he was on his way to town for more powder, his whole box of "giant" having gone off with a tremendous bang the night before in one of those abrupt hailstorms that come so unexpectedly in the mountain country. Casey had worked until dark, and was dog tired and had left the box standing uncovered beside the dugout where he kept it. He suspected that a hailstone had played a joke on him, but his chief emotion was one of self-congratulation because he had prudently stored the dynamite around a shoulder of the ca?on where he camped.

When he told the widow about it, and pointed out how lucky he was, she looked very grave. It was a very careless thing to do, she said. Casey admitted that it was. A man who handled dynamite ought to shun liquor above all things, she went on; and Casey agreed restively. He had not felt any inclination to imbibe until that minute, when the Irish rose up hotly within him.

Casey assured her solemnly that he had not, and drove off down the hill vaguely aware that he was not so content with life as he had been. "Damn that sirup!" he exploded once, quite as abruptly as had the giant powder. After that he chewed tobacco and drove in broody silence.

Being Casey Ryan, tough as hickory and wont to drive headlong to his destination, Casey did not remain in town to loiter a half day and sleep a night and drive back the next day, as most desert dwellers did. He hurried through with his business, filled up with gas and oil, loaded on an extra can of each, strapped his box of dynamite upon the seat beside him where he could keep an eye on it--just as if that would do any good if the tricky stuff meant to blow up!--and started back at three in the afternoon. He would be half the night getting to camp, even though he was Casey Ryan and drove a wicked Ford. But he would be there, ready to start to work at sunrise. A man who is going to marry a widow with two children had best hurry up and strike every streak of rich ore he has in his claim, thought Casey.

All that afternoon, though the wind blew hot in his face, Casey drilled across the desert, meeting never a living thing, overtaking none. All that afternoon a yellow dust cloud swirled rapidly along the rough desert road, vainly trying to keep up with Casey who made it. In Yucca Pass he had to stop and fill motor and radiator with oil and water, and just as he topped the summit a front tire popped like a pistol.

Casey killed the engine and got out stiffly, bit off a chew of tobacco, and gazed pensively at Furnace Mountain that held Lucky Lode, where the widow was cooking supper at that moment.

"I sure would like to flop m' lip over one of her biscuits, right now," he said aloud. "If I do strike it, I wonder will she git too high-toned to cook?"

His eyes went to Furnace Lake lying smooth and pale yellow in the saucerlike basin between Furnace and Ghost Mountains. In the soft light of the afterglow it seemed to smile at him with a glint of malice like the treacherous thing it was. For Furnace Lake is treacherous. The big earthquake--America knows only one big earthquake, that which rocked San Francisco so disastrously--had split Furnace Lake halfway across, leaving an ugly crevice ten feet wide at the narrowest point and eighty feet deep, men said. Time and the passing storms had partly filled the gash, but it was there, ugly, ominous, a warning to all men to trust the lake not at all. Little cracks radiated from the big gash here and there, and the cattle men rode often that way, and sometimes not often enough to save their cattle from falling in.

"She c'n see the lights, and she'll know I ain't hangin' out in town lappin' up whisky," he told himself as he drove. "She'll know it's Casey Ryan comin' home--know it the way them lights are slippin' over the country. Ain't another man on the desert can put a car over the trail like this."

Pleased with himself and the reputation he had made, urged by hunger and the desire to make good on his claim, so that he might have the little home he instinctively craved, Casey pulled the gas lever down another eighth of an inch--when he was already using more than he should--and nearly bounced his dynamite off the seat when he lurched over a sandy hummock and down onto the smooth floor of the lake.

It was five miles across that lake from rim to rim, taking a straight line, as Casey did, well above the crevice. In all that distance there is not a stick, nor a stone, nor a bush to mark the way. Not even a trail, since Casey was the only man who traveled it, and Casey never made tracks twice in the same place, but drove down upon it, picked himself a landmark on the opposite side, and steered for it exactly as one steers a boat. The marks he left behind him were no more than pencil marks drawn upon a sheet of yellow paper. Unless the lake was wet with one of those sporadic desert rains, you couldn't make any impression on the cementlike surface. If the lake was wet you stuck where you were. Wherefore Casey plunged out upon five miles of blank, baked clay with neither road, chart, nor compass to guide him. It was the first time he had ever crossed at night, and a blanket of thin, high clouds hid the stars.

The little handful of engine roared beautifully and shook the car with the vibration. Casey heaved a sigh of weariness mingled with content that the way was smooth and he need not look for chuck holes for a few minutes, at any rate. He settled back, and his fingers relaxed on the wheel.

Suddenly he leaned forward, stared hard, leaned out and stared, listened with an ear turned toward the engine. He turned and looked behind, then stared ahead again.

He waited for a minute longer, trifling with the gas, staring and listening. The car was shaking with the throb of the motor, but there was no forward lunge, nothing whatever but vibration of the engine. "Set-tin' here burnin' gas like a 'lection bonfire--she sure would think I'm drunk if she knew about it," Casey muttered, and straddled over the side of the car to the running board.

He lifted himself groggily to his knees and looked for the car, saw it bearing down upon him from the direction whence he had come. Before he had time to wonder much at the phenomenon it was upon him, over him with a lurch, and gone again.

Casey was tough, and he never knew when he was whipped. He crawled up to his knees again, saw the same Ford coming at him with dimming headlights from the same direction it had taken before, made a wild clutch, was knocked down and run over again. You may not believe that, but Casey had the bruises to prove it.

On the third round the Ford had slowed to a walk, figuratively speaking. Casey was pretty groggy, and he thought his back was broken, but he was mad clear through. He caught the Ford by its fender, hung on, clutching frantically for a better hold, was dragged a little distance so, and then, its speed slackened to a gentle, forward roll, he made shift to get aboard and give it the gas before the engine had quite stopped. Which he told himself was lucky, because he couldn't have cranked the thing to save his life.

Casey could not drill a hole, he could not swing a pick. For two days he limped painfully and confined his activities to cooking his meals. Frequently he would look at the Ford speculatively and shake his head. There was something uncanny about it.

The third day after the attack Casey was still too sore to work, but he managed to crank the Ford--eying it curiously the while, and with respect, too--and started down the mesa and up over the ridge and on down to the lake. He was still studying the matter, still wondering if Fords can think. He wanted to tell the widow about it, and get her opinion. The widow was a smart woman. A little touchy on the liquor question, maybe, but smart. You ask anybody.

Lucky Lode greeted him with dropped jaws and wide-staring eyes, which puzzled Casey until the foreman, grasping his shoulder--which made Casey wince and break a promise--explained their astonishment.

"And then," said the foreman, "we saw your lights go round and round in a circle, and disappear--"

"They didn't," Casey cut in trenchantly. "They went dim because I was taking her slow, being about all in."

The foreman grinned. "We thought you'd drove into the crevice, and we went down with lanterns and hunted the full length of it. We never found a sign of you or the car."

"'Cause I was over in camp, or thereabout," supplied Casey dryly. "I wish you'd of come on over. I sure needed help."

"We figured you was pretty well lit up, to circle around like that. I've been down since, by daylight, and so have some of the boys, looking into that crevice. But we gave it up, finally."

Then Casey, because he liked a joke even when it was on himself, told the foreman and his men what had happened to him. He did not exaggerate the mishap; the truth was sufficiently wild. They whooped with glee. Every one laughs at the unusual misfortunes of others, and this was unusual. They stood around the Ford and talked to it, and whooped again. "You sure must have had so-ome jag, Casey," they told him exuberantly.

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