Evening Star Newspaper, May 4, 1930, Page 102

12 Night Near, No Help in Sight, and Lee Faced the Facts—One Bullet for Himself and One for Eileen. ROM a distance the stage-station looked like a cubical boulder, a little larger than the granite fragments which strewed the summit of the 2 hill. Here, where the arid mountain range came to an abrupt ending like a promon- tory falling to the sea, it nestled under naked cliffs, a flat-roofed building, fashioned from ragged lumps of rock. The road climbed to it from a sun-baked plain, where mesquite thickets gave a false green promise, and descended from it to another level waste, where alkall patches glared at the hot sky. Like the savage land- scape of which it seemed a part, the station revealed no sign of life; it held no promise of life to come. Yet on this Summer afternoon, when the breeze which rustled in the clumps of bear-grass was like the gush of air from a furnace, various visitors were drawing nea® with various projects in mind. Far up in the recesses of the granite outcrop it was silent. There was not even the tinkle of a falling pebble. This was because the arts of approach and ambush were to the Apaches as a part of the day’s work, small details care- fully acquired, one by one, from boyhood, per- fected with the same painstaking practice which a good artisan bestows upon the learning of his trade. They had left their horses behind them on the ridge. They were coming down the face of the promontory on their bellies, hugging the rocks as closely as so many squirming rattle- snakes. When a warrior had attained one bit of cover, he seemed to sink into the earth; he remained motionless, blending into the sur- roundings until he had picked the next clump of Spanish bayonet or bear grass. So they came on with the infinite patience of their race, to whom the taking of a chance in battle was a sin. They were naked to their loin cloths and their hide moccasins; fillets of dingy cloth bound their frowsy black hair. The sun above them poured its flaying rays upon their bare bodies; the rocks beneath them gave forth heat waves like an enormous stove. They crawled, unhurried, now a few feet, now lying still. Their beady eyes roved over the wide landscape, taking in the little cubical building. They knew the station- keeper was inside. Their hopes were rising high as they thought upon the joys of massacre and loot awaiting them down there. . . . Where the sunbaked talus of the hillside mounted toward the steep escarpments of the living granite, the man called the Kettle lurked. The blazing heat had brought an unhealthy mottle to his pursy cheeks; his obese body was a discordant presence among these wild sur- roundings. The very beard which should have carried a suggestion of dignity was offensive. Of personality, raiment and accouterments, the only article in good order was the six-shooter hanging by his thigh. The name by which he went was a tribute to his ignobility. Where he was known, men spoke it with contempt. And now the knowl- edge extended over three eardinal points of the compass; east, north and west. The south alone remained open, and Mexico was one brief day’s ride away. But a ride means at least a horse, and preferably a saddle is included; and Kettle’s last departure had been too abrupt to allow attention to such details. The exit had been made from the Army post some 10 miles east- ward. Here an inquisitive colonel had discov- ered that the government ammunition, for which the Kettle was surreptitiously bartering whisky to thirsty privates, was being sold to renegade Apaches. Take it all in all, the fugitive considered himself in luck to be on foot. The stage-station lay 100 yards or so below him. There were horses in the corral. There was sure to be some plunder in the little build- ing. Kettle lifted his head above the boulder; in that moment he looked like nothing so much as an oversized vulture. . . . A buckboard emerged from the mesquite thickets where the western flats ended and the long grade to the stage-station began. The wiry little mules slackened from their swing- ing trot to a brisk dogged walk. In spite of the heat and dust and the rough miles be- hind her, Eileen was sitting with an uncom- promising erectness; her head was back. She was what one would all a slip of & girl, but there was that in The way she held her lips and in the darkness of her eyes—gray eyes, they were. but they seemed almost black now—which magnified her presence. it would ‘have needed such a seasoned connoisseur of the emotions as a married member of her sex to discover the pain which was hidden under that angry hauteur. THB mining camp whence she had driven L was tucked away in a canyon some 10 miles back. On the center table in the living room of the superintendent’s cottage—where her sister, whose guest she had been these past three months, vould be sute to find it—a note lay. HE A T ——————— pe—— “Molly dear, - just for a change,” the.note said, “I'm going to Tombstone to visit the Lawtons. I'll leave the buckboard at the sta- tion, where you can send a man after it; and I'll take the stage.” That this would not explain in the slightest, its author knew full well; but after several more elaborate attempts, she had left it in the full assurance that, at any rate, she would be be- vond reach of questions by the time it was read. Now she was gazing straight ahead where the boulders and - the wind-distorted yuccas cast stark shadows on the arid earth, and she was reviewing the real explanation, which was some 16 hours old. When one is young and high of spirit and inexperienced in the games of give and take, a lovers' quarrel is no joke. It can rankle with increasing bitterness for several times 16 hours. And this was the first issue that had arisen between Eileen and Lee SHattuck to mar the glamour of their courtship during these months. Three times a week he had been coming; 20 miles to her and 20 back. And the intervals between his visits were seeming longer every week. The two were looking forward to the days when there would be none of those inter- vals—when life would be one uninterrupted courtship. That is to say, they had been look- ing forward thus until last evening. In the first place that had been a sultry eve- ning—a rarity in Southeastern Arizona—an evening to set one’s nerves on edge. As it went on, the thunderstorm, which was brewing some- where back in the range, failed to arrive. And Ed Sampson, who had long since arrived, failed to depart. Ed tended the stage station for a living, and for his own delectation he played an accordion. This he had brought along. Aside from a fixed belief that others found no abomination in his attempts toward music, his more potent characteristics included sandy " hair, carefully slicked down, a rasping voice and a’thick-skinned amiability. And Lee was there. He had been there nearly two hours before Ed took 'his accordion beneath his arm and started back for the stage station. One of the things—so Eileen had told her sister—which had made her fall in love with Lee was the constant disposition of his lips to curve into a smile. But during those two hours the disposition had not betrayed itself. Re- turning from the front door, where she had done her best to speed the departing guest, she managed to muster a weary smile of her own. It had met with no respense. “f didn’t notice you were in such a hurry for him to go.” Now, as the buckboard rattled on up the grade, she was hearing his soft drawl again. But she was not hearing her own retort. “Please don't be stupid.” Those were the words. And as has been said, the air was sticky, hot. “Of co'se, if I'd known you was such a music lover—" Thinking back on that, she felt again the fiush of hot anger; but it failed to remind her of the reply which it had begotten. “Really, he plays pretty well, and I'm quite fond of him!” Perversity had prompted this, and the conviction that it served Lee right. HUS it had begun. And for a half hour it had gone on, to climax with Lee, standing in the doorway, his hat in his hand, looking a good two inches taller than usual; his eyes bleak, his young face set, and his voice very uiet. ” “That being the case, Il not bother you any more. I've been thinking for some time of California. Tomorrow I'm pulling out.” “It’s not a bad idea.” She remembered that last speech of hers. She remembered it with a cold feeling in her heart, as if the world had of a sudden reversed its movement and started turning the wrong way. But she was not sarry for what had hap- pened. It was a good thing. She told herself this twice while the buckboard was ascending the long grade. Yes, there was no doubt about it; she was lucky to have found out Lee Shat- tuck. Last evening, after his departure, she had waited expecting to hear the rasp of his spur on the veranda again. His failure to re- turn and patch it up had fully revealed the extent of his unreasoning jealously. Well, she was free of him. The mules stopped of their own accord. She found herself before the stage station. Ed Sampson was coming to the door. She held her chin higher and smiled at him . . . Down on the mesquite flat the road wound through patches of glaring sunlight and checkered shadow. The tall thickets gave brief vistas of dusty ruts hedged in by thorny stems, covered at times by a ceiling of fretied green- ery. The stage station and the long grade leading to it were invisible. But the fresh wheel tracks gave vivid evidence of the buck- board’s passing. Ordinarily Lee would have read this testimony, together with the imprints of the mules’ small hoofs, thereby to draw his own deductions. This, however, was an extraor- dinary day in his young life. Long habit kept his pony to the running walk. The reins lay slack. The rider remained heed- less of the gait. His hat was pulled far down; the eyes beneath its wide rim were bleak. What did surroundings matter when the world had ceased to be worth while? He, too, had left a note. A tenpenny nail spiked it to the door of the pine board shack, where his partner would be sure to find it, re- turning from the San Pedro on the morrow. “I'm pulling out for California. Sick of the weather, and I want a little change. Will write about the cows.” Which, as Lee thoroughly understood, was not going to deceive any one; but a man’s dignity demands some excuse other than the true one at a time like this. As to his share of the cattle, why Bill could sell them for whatever the buyers offered; Lee didn't care. As a mater of fact, he didn’'t care anything about anything else, either. . Just why he had picked California as a destination he had no idea. The name had come into his mind, and he had spoken it. And having done so, he was going to make THE SUNDAY STAR, WAS M*B U S H zzm 4 Thrilling Story of Romance Their beady eyes roved over the wide landscape, taking in the little cubical b was inside. Their hopes were rising high as they thought upon the joys ¢ good, of course. Anyhow, it might as well be California. It is altogether probable that no westbound tourist ever looked forward to that delectable land with less enthusiasm than his. It was the past that occupied his thoughts, rather than the future. Last evening—— “I'm quite fond of him.” He could hear her saying it now, with that new note in her voice, a note which maddened him. And the knowledge that she was de- liberately trying to hurt him, when she said it, failed to mitigate the hot flare of his jealousy. “Flirting,” he told himself as he rode on. “Well, I reckon she likes that sort of thing. And she can have Ed Sampson to amuse her- self with now.” T kept recurring most often was his final pronouncement, on departing—that she should never see him again. With those words he had removed the solid earth from beneath his own feet. It was appalling. Yet it had to come. It was inevitable. And it was a good thing. Yes, it was a good thing. She had revealed herself to him—the lack of her love for him. Horse and rider emerged from the mesquite thickets, and the long climb began among. the ragged yuccas and the glaring rocks. California—and the sooner he got there, the better. Lee pulled up before the stage station and dismounted. Leaving his horse to stand with dangling reins, he turned, and facing the open door, he saw Eileen within. With the sight of her there came to him a sudden longing. The ugly memories departed before it. To go straight to her, to tell her that he was sorry, to bridge this gulf which had opened between them—with that in his mind he started toward the threshold. And the first step revealed Ed Sampson. Eileen was sitting in the old chair of which the station boasted, and Ed was standing at her shoulder. He was hovering over her, so utterly engrossed in her that he had failed to hear the pony’s approach or Lee’s step outside the door- way. And she was smiling up into his face. Then this intention which had come to Lee departed; and with it went the tender longing. At that moment Eileen turned her head, to dis- cover him there, frowning down upon the two Kettle was standing just outside the entrance, with his leveled revolver in his hand. A cold cruelty shone in his eyes.