The Octopus, Frank Norris [books you need to read txt] 📗

know my duty, Mr. Derrick.”

Then Gethings turned about, and seeing Delaney close at hand, addressed an unheard remark to him. The cow-puncher replied curtly and the words seemed to anger Gethings. He made a gesture, pointing back to the ditch, showing the intrenched Leaguers to the posse. Delaney appeared to communicate the news that the Leaguers were on hand and prepared to resist, to the other members of the party. They all looked toward the ditch and plainly saw the ranchers there, standing to their arms.

But meanwhile Ruggles had addressed himself more directly to Magnus, and between the two an angry discussion was going forward. Once even Harran heard his father exclaim:

“The statement is a lie and no one knows it better than yourself.”

“Here,” growled Annixter to Dabney, who stood next him in the ditch, “those fellows are getting too close. Look at them edging up. Don’t Magnus see that?”

The other members of the marshal’s force had come forward from their places behind the buggy and were spread out across the road. Some of them were gathered about Magnus, Garnett, and Gethings; and some were talking together, looking and pointing towards the ditch. Whether acting upon signal or not, the Leaguers in the ditch could not tell, but it was certain that one or two of the posse had moved considerably forward. Besides this, Delaney had now placed his horse between Magnus and the ditch, and two others riding up from the rear had followed his example. The posse surrounded the three ranchers, and by now, everybody was talking at once.

“Look here,” Harran called to Annixter, “this won’t do. I don’t like the looks of this thing. They all seem to be edging up, and before we know it they may take the Governor and the other men prisoners.”

“They ought to come back,” declared Annixter.

“Somebody ought to tell them that those fellows are creeping up.”

By now, the angry argument between the Governor and Ruggles had become more heated than ever. Their voices were raised; now and then they made furious gestures.

“They ought to come back,” cried Osterman. “We couldn’t shoot now if anything should happen, for fear of hitting them.”

“Well, it sounds as though something were going to happen pretty soon.”

They could hear Gethings and Delaney wrangling furiously; another deputy joined in.

“I’m going to call the Governor back,” exclaimed Annixter, suddenly clambering out of the ditch. “No, no,” cried Osterman, “keep in the ditch. They can’t drive us out if we keep here.”

Hooven and Harran, who had instinctively followed Annixter, hesitated at Osterman’s words and the three halted irresolutely on the road before the ditch, their weapons in their hands.

“Governor,” shouted Harran, “come on back. You can’t do anything.”

Still the wrangle continued, and one of the deputies, advancing a little from out the group, cried out:

“Keep back there! Keep back there, you!”

“Go to hell, will you?” shouted Harran on the instant. “You’re on my land.”

“Oh, come back here, Harran,” called Osterman. “That ain’t going to do any good.”

“There—listen,” suddenly exclaimed Harran. “The Governor is calling us. Come on; I’m going.”

Osterman got out of the ditch and came forward, catching Harran by the arm and pulling him back.

“He didn’t call. Don’t get excited. You’ll ruin everything. Get back into the ditch again.”

But Cutter, Phelps, and the old man Dabney, misunderstanding what was happening, and seeing Osterman leave the ditch, had followed his example. All the Leaguers were now out of the ditch, and a little way down the road, Hooven, Osterman, Annixter, and Harran in front, Dabney, Phelps, and Cutter coming up from behind.

“Keep back, you,” cried the deputy again.

In the group around S. Behrman’s buggy, Gethings and Delaney were yet quarrelling, and the angry debate between Magnus, Garnett, and the marshal still continued.

Till this moment, the real estate broker, Christian, had taken no part in the argument, but had kept himself in the rear of the buggy. Now, however, he pushed forward. There was but little room for him to pass, and, as he rode by the buggy, his horse scraped his flank against the hub of the wheel. The animal recoiled sharply, and, striking against Garnett, threw him to the ground. Delaney’s horse stood between the buggy and the Leaguers gathered on the road in front of the ditch; the incident, indistinctly seen by them, was misinterpreted.

Garnett had not yet risen when Hooven raised a great shout:

“HOCH, DER KAISER! HOCH, DER VATERLAND!”

With the words, he dropped to one knee, and sighting his rifle carefully, fired into the group of men around the buggy.

Instantly the revolvers and rifles seemed to go off of themselves. Both sides, deputies and Leaguers, opened fire simultaneously. At first, it was nothing but a confused roar of explosions; then the roar lapsed to an irregular, quick succession of reports, shot leaping after shot; then a moment’s silence, and, last of all, regular as clock-ticks, three shots at exact intervals. Then stillness.

Delaney, shot through the stomach, slid down from his horse, and, on his hands and knees, crawled from the road into the standing wheat. Christian fell backward from the saddle toward the buggy, and hung suspended in that position, his head and shoulders on the wheel, one stiff leg still across his saddle. Hooven, in attempting to rise from his kneeling position, received a rifle ball squarely in the throat, and rolled forward upon his face. Old Broderson, crying out, “Oh, they’ve shot me, boys,” staggered sideways, his head bent, his hands rigid at his sides, and fell into the ditch. Osterman, blood running from his mouth and nose, turned about and walked back. Presley helped him across the irrigating ditch and Osterman laid himself down, his head on his folded arms. Harran Derrick dropped where he stood, turning over on his face, and lay motionless, groaning terribly, a pool of blood forming under his stomach. The old man Dabney, silent as ever, received his death, speechless. He fell to his knees, got up again, fell once more, and died without a word. Annixter, instantly killed, fell his length to the ground, and lay without movement, just as he had fallen, one arm across his face.

 

VII

 

On their way to Derrick’s ranch house, Hilma and Mrs. Derrick heard the sounds of distant firing.

“Stop!” cried Hilma, laying her hand upon young Vacca’s arm. “Stop the horses. Listen, what was that?”

The carryall came to a halt and from far away across the rustling wheat came the faint rattle of rifles and revolvers.

“Say,” cried Vacca, rolling his eyes, “oh, say, they’re fighting over there.”

Mrs. Derrick put her hands over her face.

“Fighting,” she cried, “oh, oh, it’s terrible. Magnus is there— and Harran.”

“Where do you think it is?” demanded Hilma. “That’s over toward Hooven’s.”

“I’m going. Turn back. Drive to Hooven’s, quick.”

“Better not, Mrs. Annixter,” protested the young man. “Mr. Annixter said we were to go to Derrick’s. Better keep away from Hooven’s if there’s trouble there. We wouldn’t get there till it’s all over, anyhow.”

“Yes, yes, let’s go home,” cried Mrs. Derrick, “I’m afraid. Oh, Hilma, I’m afraid.”

“Come with me to Hooven’s then.”

“There, where they are fighting? Oh, I couldn’t. I—I can’t. It would be all over before we got there as Vacca says.”

“Sure,” repeated young Vacca.

“Drive to Hooven’s,” commanded Hilma. “If you won’t, I’ll walk there.” She threw off the lap-robes, preparing to descend. “And you,” she exclaimed, turning to Mrs. Derrick, “how CAN you—when Harran and your husband may be—may—are in danger.”

Grumbling, Vacca turned the carryall about and drove across the open fields till he reached the road to Guadalajara, just below the Mission.

“Hurry!” cried Hilma.

The horses started forward under the touch of the whip. The ranch houses of Quien Sabe came in sight.

“Do you want to stop at the house?” inquired Vacca over his shoulder.

“No, no; oh, go faster—make the horses run.”

They dashed through the houses of the Home ranch.

“Oh, oh,” cried Hilma suddenly, “look, look there. Look what they have done.”

Vacca pulled the horses up, for the road in front of Annixter’s house was blocked.

A vast, confused heap of household effects was there—chairs, sofas, pictures, fixtures, lamps. Hilma’s little home had been gutted; everything had been taken from it and ruthlessly flung out upon the road, everything that she and her husband had bought during that wonderful week after their marriage. Here was the white enamelled “set” of the bedroom furniture, the three chairs, washstand and bureau,—the bureau drawers falling out, spilling their contents into the dust; there were the white wool rugs of the sitting-room, the flower stand, with its pots all broken, its flowers wilting; the cracked goldfish globe, the fishes already dead; the rocking chair, the sewing machine, the great round table of yellow oak, the lamp with its deep shade of crinkly red tissue paper, the pretty tinted photographs that had hung on the wall—the choir boys with beautiful eyes, the pensive young girls in pink gowns—the pieces of wood carving that represented quails and ducks, and, last of all, its curtains of crisp, clean muslin, cruelly torn and crushed—the bed, the wonderful canopied bed so brave and gay, of which Hilma had been so proud, thrust out there into the common road, torn from its place, from the discreet intimacy of her bridal chamber, violated, profaned, flung out into the dust and garish sunshine for all men to stare at, a mockery and a shame.

To Hilma it was as though something of herself, of her person, had been thus exposed and degraded; all that she held sacred pilloried, gibbeted, and exhibited to the world’s derision. Tears of anguish sprang to her eyes, a red flame of outraged modesty overspread her face.

“Oh,” she cried, a sob catching her throat, “oh, how could they do it?” But other fears intruded; other greater terrors impended.

“Go on,” she cried to Vacca, “go on quickly.”

But Vacca would go no further. He had seen what had escaped Hilma’s attention, two men, deputies, no doubt, on the porch of the ranch house. They held possession there, and the evidence of the presence of the enemy in this raid upon Quien Sabe had daunted him.

“No, SIR,” he declared, getting out of the carryall, “I ain’t going to take you anywhere where you’re liable to get hurt. Besides, the road’s blocked by all this stuff. You can’t get the team by.”

Hilma sprang from the carryall.

“Come,” she said to Mrs. Derrick.

The older woman, trembling, hesitating, faint with dread, obeyed, and Hilma, picking her way through and around the wreck of her home, set off by the trail towards the Long Trestle and Hooven’s.

When she arrived, she found the road in front of the German’s house, and, indeed, all the surrounding yard, crowded with people. An overturned buggy lay on the side of the road in the distance, its horses in a tangle of harness, held by two or three men. She saw Caraher’s buckboard under the live oak and near it a second buggy which she recognised as belonging to a doctor in Guadalajara.

“Oh, what has happened; oh, what has happened?” moaned Mrs. Derrick.

“Come,” repeated Hilma. The young girl took her by the hand and together they pushed their way through the crowd of men and women and entered the yard.

The throng gave way before the two women, parting to right and left without a word.

“Presley,” cried Mrs. Derrick, as she caught sight of him in the doorway of the house, “oh, Presley, what has happened? Is Harran safe? Is Magnus safe? Where are they?”

“Don’t go in, Mrs. Derrick,” said Presley, coming forward, “don’t go in.”

“Where is my husband?” demanded Hilma.

Presley turned away and steadied himself against