Lin McLean - Owen Wister (read after TXT) 📗

starve here in the road, I guess,” spoke the image, with the suddenness of a miracle. I think we all jumped, and I know that Lin did. The image continued: “Some folks and their money are soon parted”—she meant me; her searching tones came straight at me; I was sure from the first that she knew all about me and my unfavorable opinion of her—“but it ain’t going to be you this time, Lin McLean. Ged ap!” This last was to the horse, I maintain, though the Governor says the husband immediately started off on a run.

At any rate, they were gone to their hotel, and Ogden was seated on some railroad ties, exclaiming: “Oh, I like Wyoming! I am certainly glad I came.”

“That’s who she is!” said the Governor, remembering Mrs. McLean all at once. “I know her. She used to be at Sidney. She’s got another husband somewhere. She’s one of the boys. Oh, that’s nothing in this country!” he continued to the amazed Ogden, who had ejaculated “Bigamy!” “Lots of them marry, live together awhile, get tired and quit, travel, catch on to a new man, marry him, get tired and quit, travel, catch on—”

“One moment, I beg,” said Ogden, adjusting his glasses. “What does the law—”

“Law?” said the Governor. “Look at that place!” He swept his hand towards the vast plains and the mountains. “Ninety-five thousand square miles of that, and sixty thousand people in it. We haven’t got policemen yet on top of the Rocky Mountains.”

“I see,” said the New-Yorker. “But—but—well let A and B represent first and second husbands, and X represent the woman. Now, does A know about B? or does B know about A? And what do they do about it?”

“Can’t say,” the Governor answered, jovially. “Can’t generalize. Depends on heaps of things— love—money— Did you go to college? Well, let A minus X equal B plus X, then if A and B get squared—”

“Oh, come to lunch,” I said. “Barker, do you really know the first husband is alive?”

“Wasn’t dead last winter.” And Barker gave us the particulars. Miss Katie Peck had not served long in the restaurant before she was wooed and won by a man who had been a ranch cook, a sheep-herder, a bartender, a freight hand, and was then hauling poles for the government. During his necessary absences from home she, too, went out-of-doors. This he often discovered, and would beat her, and she would then also beat him. After the beatings one of them would always leave the other forever. Thus was Sidney kept in small-talk until Mrs. Lusk one day really did not come back. “Lusk,” said the Governor, finishing his story, “cried around the saloons for a couple of days, and then went on hauling poles for the government, till at last he said he’d heard of a better job south, and next we knew of him he was round Leavenworth. Lusk was a pretty poor bird. Owes me ten dollars.”

“Well,” I said, “none of us ever knew about him when she came to stay with Mrs. Taylor on Bear Creek. She was Miss Peck when Lin made her Mrs. McLean.”

“You’ll notice,” said the Governor, “how she has got him under in three weeks. Old hand, you see.”

“Poor Lin!” I said.

“Lucky, I call him,” said the Governor. “He can quit her.”

“Supposing McLean does not want to quit her?”

“She’s educating him to want to right now, and I think he’ll learn pretty quick. I guess Mr. Lin’s romance wasn’t very ideal this trip. Hello! here comes Jode. Jode, won’t you lunch with us? Mr. Ogden, of New York, Mr. Jode. Mr. Jode is our signal-service officer, Mr. Ogden.” The Governor’s eyes were sparkling hilariously, and he winked at me.

“Gentlemen, good-morning. Mr. Ogden, I am honored to make your acquaintance,” said the signal-service officer.

“Jode, when is it going to rain?” said the Governor, anxiously.

Now Jode is the most extraordinarily solemn man I have ever known. He has the solemnity of all science, added to the unspeakable weight of representing five of the oldest families in South Carolina. The Jodes themselves were not old in South Carolina, but immensely so in—I think he told me it was Long Island. His name is Poinsett Middleton Manigault Jode. He used to weigh a hundred and twenty-eight pounds then, but his health has strengthened in that climate. His clothes were black; his face was white, with black eyes sharp as a pin; he had the shape of a spout— the same narrow size all the way down—and his voice was as dry and light as an egg-shell. In his first days at Cheyenne he had constantly challenged large cowboys for taking familiarities with his dignity, and they, after one moment’s bewilderment, had concocted apologies that entirely met his exactions, and gave them much satisfaction also. Nobody would have hurt Jode for the world. In time he came to see that Wyoming was a game invented after his book of rules was published, and he looked on, but could not play the game. He had fallen, along with other incongruities, into the roaring Western hotch-pot, and he passed his careful, precise days with barometers and weather-charts.

He answered the Governor with official and South Carolina impressiveness. “There is no indication of diminution of the prevailing pressure,” he said.

“Well, that’s what I thought,” said the joyous Governor, “so I’m going to whoop her up.”

“What do you expect to whoop up, sir?”

“Atmosphere, and all that,” said the Governor. “Whole business has got to get a move on. I’ve sent for a rain-maker.”

“Governor, you are certainly a wag, sir,” said Jode, who enjoyed Barker as some people enjoy a symphony, without understanding it. But after we had reached the club and were lunching, and Jode realized that a letter had actually been written telling Hilbrun to come and bring his showers with him, the punctilious signal-service officer stated his position. “Have your joke, sir,” he said, waving a thin, clean hand, “but I decline to meet him.”

“Hilbrun?” said the Governor, staring.

“If that’s his name—yes, sir. As a member of the Weather Bureau and the Meteorological Society I can have nothing to do with the fellow.”

“Glory!” said the Governor. “Well, I suppose not. I see your point, Jode. I’ll be careful to keep you apart. As a member of the College of Physicians I’ve felt that way about homeopathy and the faith-cure. All very well if patients will call ‘em in, but can’t meet ‘em in consultation. But three months’ drought annually, Jode! It’s slow—too slow. The Western people feel that this conservative method the Zodiac does its business by is out of date.”

“I am quite serious, sir,” said Jode. “And let me express my gratification that you do see my point.” So we changed the subject.

Our weather scheme did not at first greatly move the public. Beyond those who made up the purse, few of our acquaintances expressed curiosity about Hilbrun, and next afternoon Lin McLean told me in the street that he was disgusted with Cheyenne’s coldness toward the enterprise. “But the boys would fly right at it and stay with it if the roundup was near town, you bet,” said he.

He was walking alone. “How’s Mrs. McLean to-day?” I inquired.

“She’s well,” said Lin, turning his eye from mine. “Who’s your friend all bugged up in English clothes?”

“About as good a man as you,” said I, “and more cautious.”

“Him and his eye-glasses!” said the sceptical puncher, still looking away from me and surveying Ogden, who was approaching with the Governor. That excellent man, still at long range, broke out smiling till his teeth shone, and he waved a yellow paper at us.

“Telegram from Hilbrun,” he shouted; “be here tomorrow”; and he hastened up.

“Says he wants a cart at the depot, and a small building where he can be private,” added Ogden. “Great, isn’t it?”

“You bet!” said Lin, brightening. The New Yorker’s urbane but obvious excitement mollified Mr. McLean. “Ever seen rain made, Mr. Ogden?” said he.

“Never. Have you?”

Lin had not. Ogden offered him a cigar, which the puncher pronounced excellent, and we all agreed to see Hilbrun arrive.

“We’re going to show the telegram to Jode,” said the Governor; and he and Ogden departed on this mission to the signal service.

“Well, I must be getting along myself,” said Lin; but he continued walking slowly with me. “Where’re yu’ bound?” he said.

“Nowhere in particular,” said I. And we paced the board sidewalks a little more.

“You’re going to meet the train tomorrow?” said he.

“The train? Oh yes. Hilbrun’s. Tomorrow. You’ll be there?”

“Yes, I’ll be there. It’s sure been a dry spell, ain’t it?”

“Yes. Just like last year. In fact, like all the years.”

“Yes. I’ve never saw it rain any to speak of in summer. I expect it’s the rule. Don’t you?”

“I shouldn’t wonder.”

“I don’t guess any man knows enough to break such a rule. Do you?”

“No. But it’ll be fun to see him try.”

“Sure fun! Well, I must be getting along. See yu’ tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow, Lin.”

He left me at a corner, and I stood watching his tall, depressed figure. A hundred yards down the street he turned, and seeing me looking after him, pretended he had not turned; and then I took my steps toward the club, telling myself that I had been something of a skunk; for I had inquired for Mrs. McLean in a certain tone, and I had hinted to Lin that he had lacked caution; and this was nothing but a way of saying “I told you so” to the man that is down. Down Lin certainly was, although it had not come so home to me until our little walk together just now along the boards.

At the club I found the Governor teaching Ogden a Cheyenne specialty—a particular drink, the Allston cocktail. “It’s the bitters that does the trick,” he was saying, but saw me and called out: “You ought to have been with us and seen Jode. I showed him the telegram, you know. He read it through, and just handed it back to me, and went on monkeying with his anemometer. Ever seen his instruments? Every fresh jigger they get out he sends for. Well, he monkeyed away, and wouldn’t say a word, so I said, ‘You understand, Jode, this telegram comes from Hilbrun.’ And Jode, he quit his anemometer and said, ‘I make no doubt, sir, that your despatch is genuwine.’ Oh, South Carolina’s indignant at me!” And the Governor slapped his knee. “Why, he’s so set against Hilbrun,” he continued, “I guess if he knew of something he could explode to stop rain he’d let her fly!”

“No, he wouldn’t,” said I. “He’d not consider that honorable.”

“That’s so,” the Governor assented. “Jode’ll play fair.”

It was thus we had come to look at our enterprise—a game between a well-established, respectable weather bureau and an upstart charlatan. And it was the charlatan had our sympathy—as all charlatans, whether religious, military, medical, political, or what not, have with the average American. We met him at the station. That is, Ogden, McLean, and I; and the Governor, being engaged, sent (unofficially) his secretary and the requested cart. Lin was anxious to see what would be put in the cart, and I was curious about how a rain-maker would look. But he turned out an unassuming, quiet man in blue serge, with a face you could not remember afterwards, and a few civil, ordinary remarks. He even said it was a hot day, as if he had no relations with the weather; and what he put into the cart were only two packing-boxes of no special significance to the eye. He desired no lodging at the hotel, but to