Six Feet Four.
by Jackson Gregory.
CHAPTER I
THE STORM
All day long, from an hour before the pale dawn until now after the thick dark, the storm had raged through the mountains. Before midday it had grown dark in the canons. In the driving blast of the wind many a tall pine had snapped, broken at last after long valiant years of victorious buffeting with the seasons, while countless tossing branches had been riven away from the parent boles and hurled far out in all directions. Through the narrow canons the wet wind went shrieking fearsomely, driving the slant rain like countless thin spears of glistening steel.
At the wan daybreak the sound filling the air was one of many-voiced but subdued tumult, like the faraway growling of fierce, hungry, imprisoned beasts. As the sodden hours dragged by the noises everywhere increased steadily, so that before noon the whole of the wilderness seemed to be shouting; narrow creek beds were filled with gushing, muddy water; the trees on the mountainsides shook and snapped and creaked and hissed to the hissing of the racing wind; at intervals the thunder echoing ominously added its boom to the general uproar. Not for a score of years and upward had such a storm visited the mountains in the vicinity of the old road house in Big Pine Flat.
Night, as though it had leaped upon the back of the storm and had ridden hitherward on the wings of the wind all impatience to defy the laws of daylight, was in truth mistress of the mountains a full hour or more before the invisible sun"s allotted time of setting. In the storm-smitten, lonely building at the foot of the rocky slope, shivering as though with the cold, rocking crazily as though in startled fear at each gust, the roaring log fire in the open fireplace made an uncertain twilight and innumerable ghostlike shadows. The wind whistling down the chimney, making that eerie sound known locally as the voice of William Henry, came and went fitfully. Poke Drury, the cheerful, one-legged keeper of the road house, swung back and forth up and down on his one crutch, whistling blithely with his guest of the chimney and lighting the last of his coal oil lamps and candles.
"She"s a Lu-lu bird, all right," acknowledged Poke Drury. He swung across his long "general room" to the fireplace, balanced on his crutch while he shifted and kicked at a fallen burning log with his one boot, and then hooked his elbows on his mantel. His very black, smiling eyes took cheerful stock of his guests whom the storm had brought him. They were many, more than had ever at one time honoured the Big Pine road house. And still others were coming.
"If Hap Smith ain"t forgot how to sling a four horse team through the dark, huh?" continued the landlord as he placed still another candle at the south window.
In architectural design Poke Drury"s road house was as simple an affair as Poke Drury himself. There was but one story: the whole front of the house facing the country road was devoted to the "general room." Here was a bar, occupying the far end. Then there were two or three rude pine tables, oil-cloth covered. The chairs were plentiful and all of the rawhide bottom species, austere looking, but comfortable enough. And, at the other end of the barn like chamber was the long dining table.
Beyond it a door leading to the kitchen at the back of the house. Next to the kitchen the family bed room where Poke Drury and his dreary looking spouse slept. Adjoining this was the one spare bed room, with a couple of broken legged cots and a wash-stand without any bowl or pitcher. If one wished to lave his hands and face or comb his hair let him step out on the back porch under the shoulder of the mountain and utilize the road house toilet facilities there: they were a tin basin, a water pipe leading from a spring and a broken comb stuck after the fashion of the country in the long hairs of the ox"s tail nailed to the porch post.
"You gents is sure right welcome," the one-legged proprietor went on, having paused a moment to listen to the wind howling through the narrow pa.s.s and battling at his door and windows. "I got plenty to eat an"
more"n plenty to drink, same as usual. But when it comes to sleepin", well, you got to make floors an" chairs an" tables do. You see this here little shower has filled me all up. The Lew Yates place up the river got itself pretty well washed out; Lew"s young wife an" ol" mother-in-law,"
and Poke"s voice was properly modified, "got scared clean to pieces. Not bein" used to our ways out here," he added brightly. "Any way they"ve got the spare bed room. An" my room an" Ma"s ... well, Ma"s got a real bad cold an" she"s camped there for the night. But, shucks, boys, what"s the odds, when there"s fire in the fire place an" grub in the grub box an" as fine a line of licker as you can find any place I know of. An" a deck or two of cards an" the bones to rattle for them that"s anxious to make or break quick ... Hap Smith _ought_ to been here before now. You wouldn"t suppose...."
He broke off and looked at those of the faces which had been turned his way. His thought was plain to read, at least for those who understood recent local conditions. Hap Smith had been driving the stage over the mountains for only something less than three weeks; which is to say since the violent taking off of his predecessor, Bill Varney.
Before any one spoke the dozen men in the room had had ample time to consider this suggestion. One or two of them glanced up at the clock swinging its pendulum over the chimney piece. Then they went on with what they were doing, glancing through old newspapers, dealing at cards, smoking or just sitting and staring at nothing in particular.
"The last week has put lots of water in all the cricks," offered old man Adams from his place by the fire. "Then with this cloud-bust an"
downpour today, it ain"t real nice travellin". That would be about all that"s holdin" Hap up. An" I"m tellin" you why: Did you ever hear a man tell of a stick-up party on a night like this? No, sir! These here stick-up gents got more sense than that; they"d be settin" nice an" snug an" dry like us fellers, right now."
As usual, old man Adams had stated a theory with emphasis and utterly without any previous reflection, being a positive soul, but never a brilliant. And, again quite as usual, a theory stated was naturally to be combated with more or less violence. Out of the innocent enough statement there grew a long, devious argument. An argument which was at its height and evincing no signs of ever getting anywhere at all, when from the night without came the rattle of wheels, the jingle of harness chains and Hap Smith"s voice shouting out the tidings of his tardy arrival.
The front door was flung open, lamps and candles and log fire all danced in the sudden draft and some of the flickering flames went out, and the first one of Hap Smith"s belated pa.s.sengers, a young girl, was fairly blown into the room. She, like the rest, was drenched and as she hastened across the floor to the welcome fire trailed rain water from her cape and dress. But her eyes were sparkling, her cheeks rosy with the rude wooing of the outside night. After her, stamping noisily, glad of the light and warmth and a prospect of food and drink, came Hap Smith"s other pa.s.sengers, four booted men from the mines and the cattle country.
To the last man of them in the road house they gave her their immediate and exclusive attention. Briefly suspended were all such operations as smoking, drinking, newspaper reading or card playing. They looked at her gravely, speculatively and with frankly unhidden interest. One man who had laid a wet coat aside donned it again swiftly and surrept.i.tiously.
Another in awkward fashion, as she pa.s.sed close to him, half rose and then sank back into his chair. Still others merely narrowed the gaze that was bent upon her steadily.
She went straight to the fireplace, threw off her wraps and extended her hands to the blaze. So for a moment she stood, her shoulders stirring to the shiver which ran down her whole body. Then she turned her head a little and for the first time took in all of the rude appointments of the room.
"Oh!" she gasped. "I...."
"It"s all right, Miss," said Poke Drury, swinging toward her, his hand lifted as though to stop one in full flight. "You see ... just that end there is the bar room," he explained nodding at her rea.s.suringly. "The middle of the room here is the ... the parlour; an" down at that end, where the long table is, that"s the dinin" room. I ain"t ever got aroun" to the part.i.tions yet, but I"m goin" to some day. An" ... Ahem!"
He had said it all and, all things considered, had done rather well with an impossible job. The clearing of the throat and a glare to go with it were not for the startled girl but for that part of the room where the bar and card tables were being used.
"Oh," said the girl again. And then, turning her back upon the bar and so allowing the firelight to add to the sparkle of her eyes and the flush on her cheeks, "Of course. One mustn"t expect everything. And please don"t ask the gentlemen to ... to stop whatever they are doing on my account. I"m quite warm now." She smiled brightly at her host and shivered again.
"May I go right to my room?"
In the days when Poke Drury"s road house stood lone and aloof from the world in Big Pine Flat, very little of the world from which such as Poke Drury had retreated had ever peered into these mountain-bound fastnesses; certainly less than few women of the type of this girl had ever come here in the memory of the men who now, some boldly and some shyly, regarded her drying herself and seeking warmth in front of the blazing fire. True, at the time there were in the house three others of her s.e.x. But they were ... different.
"May I go right to my room?" she repeated as the landlord stood gaping at her rather foolishly. She imagined that he had not heard, being a little deaf ... or that, possibly, the poor chap was a trifle slow witted. And again she smiled on him kindly and again he noted the shiver bespeaking both chill and fatigue.
But to Poke Drury there had come an inspiration. Not much of one, perhaps, yet he quickly availed himself of it. Hanging in a dusty corner near the long dining table, was an old and long disused guest"s book, the official road house register. Drury"s wandering eye lighted upon it.
"If you"ll sign up, Miss," he suggested, "I"ll go have Ma get your room ready."
And away he scurried on his crutch, casting a last look over his shoulder at his ruder male guests.
The girl went hastily as directed and sat down at the table, her back to the room. The book she lifted down from its hanging place; there was a stub of pencil tied to the string. She took it stiffly into her fingers and wrote, "Winifred Waverly." Her pencil in the s.p.a.ce reserved for the signer"s home town, she hesitated. Only briefly, however. With a little shrug, she completed the legend, inscribing swiftly, "Hill"s Corners."
Then she sat still, feeling that many eyes were upon her and waited the return of the road house keeper. When finally he came back into the room, his slow hesitating gait and puckered face gave her a suspicion of the truth.
"I"m downright sorry, Miss," he began lamely. "Ma"s got somethin" ... bad cold or pneumonia ... an" she won"t budge. There"s only one more bed room an" Lew Yates"s wife has got one cot an Lew"s mother-in-law has got the other. An" _they_ won"t budge. An" ..."
He ended there abruptly.
"I see," said the girl wearily. "There isn"t any place for me."
"Unless," offered Drury without enthusiasm and equally without expectation of his offer being of any great value, "you"d care to crawl in with Ma ..."
"No, thank you!" said Miss Waverly hastily. "I can sit up somewhere; after all it won"t be long until morning and we start on again. Or, if I might have a blanket to throw down in a corner ..."
Again Poke Drury left her abruptly. She sat still at the table, without turning, again conscious of many eyes steadily on her. Presently from an adjoining room came Drury"s voice, subdued to a low mutter. Then a woman"s voice, snapping and querrulous. And a moment later the return of Drury, his haste savouring somewhat of flight from the connubial chamber, but certain spoils of victory with him; from his arm trailed a crazy-quilt which it was perfectly clear he had s.n.a.t.c.hed from his wife"s bed.
He led the way to the kitchen, stuck a candle in a bottle on the table, spread the quilt on the floor in the corner, made a veritable ceremony of fastening the back door and left her. The girl shivered and went slowly to her uninviting couch.
Poke Drury, in his big general room again, stood staring with troubled face at the other men. With common consent and to the last man of them they had already tiptoed to the register and were seeking to inform themselves as to the name and habitat of the prettiest girl who had ever found herself within the four walls of Poke Drury"s road house.
"Nice name," offered old man Adams whose curiosity had kept stride with his years and who, lacking all youthful hesitation, had been first to get to the book. "Kind of stylish soundin". But, Hill"s Corners?" He shook his head. "I ain"t been to the Corners for a right smart spell, but I didn"t know such as _her_ lived there."
"They don"t," growled the heavy set man who had s.n.a.t.c.hed the register from old man Adams" fingers. "An" I been there recent. Only last week.
The Corners ain"t so all-fired big as a female like her is goin" to be livin" there an" it not be knowed all over."
Poke Drury descended upon them, jerked the book away and with a screwed up face and many gestures toward the kitchen recalled to them that a flimsy part.i.tion, though it may shut out the vision, is hardly to be counted on to stop the pa.s.sage of an unguarded voice.
"Step down this way, gents," he said tactfully. "Where the bar is. Bein"
it"s a right winterish sort of night I don"t reckon a little drop o"
kindness would go bad, huh? Name your poison, gents. It"s on me."
In her corner just beyond the flimsy part.i.tion, Winifred Waverly, of Hill"s Corners or elsewhere, drew the many coloured patch work quilt about her and shivered again.
CHAPTER II