5
"Jake, Jake!" Judge Stone whispered in my ear, looking anxiously around, "have you seen the governor in the last half or three-quarters of an hour?"
"He hain't been in here," I said, jerking away from him.
"Sure?" he persisted. "I've looked everywhere except in his office where he put the money--and that's locked."
I broke away from him and went out. I had no desire to see Governor Wade or any one else. I wanted to be alone. I had seen Virginia kissed by Bob Wade--and they were still singing that sickish play in there. They would be kissing and kissing all the rest of the night. She to be kissed in this way, and I had been so careful of her, when I was all alone with her for days, and would have given my right hand for a kiss! It was terrible. I walked back and forth in the yard, and then came up on the porch and sat down on a bench, so as to hear the play-singing. They were singing The Gay Balonza-Man, now. I started up once to walk home, but I thought that Judge Stone was paying me wages for guarding the county's money, and turned to go back where I could watch the games, lured by a sort of fascination to see how many times Virginia would allow herself to be kissed. A woman came out of the house, and in passing saw and recognized me. It was Mrs. Bliven. She dropped down on the bench.
"My God!" she sobbed. "I'll go crazy! I'll kill myself!"
I sat down again on the bench. She had been so happy a few minutes ago, to all appearances, that I was astonished; but after waiting quite a while I could think of nothing to say to her. So I turned my face away for fear that she might see what I felt must show in it.
"You're in trouble, too," she said. "You babies! My God, how I'd like to change places with you! Did you see him kissing them?"
"Who?" I asked.
"My man," she cried. "Bliven. You know how it is, with us. You're the only one that knows about me--about us--Jake. I've been scared to death for fear you'd tell ever since I found you were coming here to live; and I dasn't tell him--he don't know you know. And now I almost wish you would tell--put it in Dick McGill's paper. He wants somebody else already. A woman that's done as I have--he can throw me away like an old shoe! But I want you to promise me that if he ever shelves me you'll let the world know. Did you see him hugging them girls? He's getting ready to shelve me, I tell you!"
I sat for some time thinking this matter over. Finally I spoke, and she seemed surprised, as if she had forgotten I was there.
"I'll tell you what I'll do," said I. "I won't tell on you just because you think you want me to. What would happen if everything in the lives of us folks out here was to be told, especially as it would be told in Dick McGill's paper? But if you ever find out for sure that he is going to--going to--to shelve you, why, come to me, and I'll go to him. I think he would be a skunk to--to shelve you. And I don't see that--that--that he--was any more fairce to hug and kiss than--than some others. Than you!"
"Or you," said she, sort of snickering through her tears.
"I hated it!" I said.
"So did I," said she.
"Maybe Doc did, too," I suggested.
"No," she replied, after a while. "I'll tell you, Jake, I'll hold you to your promise. Sometime I may come to you or send for you. May I?"
"Any time," I answered, and she went in, seeming quite cheered up. I suppose she needed that blow-off, like an engine too full of steam. I wonder if it was wrong to feel for her? But it must be remembered that I had very little religious bringing up.
Well, the party came to an end presently, and Judge Stone came out and holloed for me to bring the team. When I drove up to the door he asked me in a low tone to come and help carry the money out. The governor unlocked his office, and then the safe, and took out the bag, which he handed to Judge Stone.
"Heavy as ever," said the judge. "Catch hold here, Jake, and help me carry it."
"A heavy responsibility at least," said the governor. The governor's hired people of whom he had always a large force had not taken part in the proceedings of the party, but most of them were gathered about as we took our departure. They were to a great extent the younger men among the settlers, and the governor in later times never got tired of saying how much he had done for the early settlers in giving them employment.
N.V. Creede in answering him in campaigns always said that if he gave the boys work, they gave the governor labor in return, and at a dollar a day it seemed to him that the governor was the one who was under obligations to them. It is a curious thing that people who receive money are supposed to be under obligations to those who pay it, no matter what the deal may be. We say "thank you" to the man who pays us for a day's wages; but why, if the work is worth the money?
Well, as I looked about among the governor's working people, as I have said, I saw a head taller than the rest, the big form of Pitt Bushyager. He was looking at me with that daredevil smile of his, the handsomest man there, with his curling brown mustache and goatee; and nodded at me as the judge got into the carriage in the back seat with Mrs. Stone, and Virginia came up in her pretty pink silk, with the Paisley shawl around her shoulders, to be helped up into the front seat with me. The satchel of money was placed under the seat where the judge could feel it with his feet.
We drove off in that silence which comes with the drowsiness that follows excitement, especially along toward morning. The night was dark and still. Virginia's presence reminded me of those days of happiness wher we drove into Iowa alone together; but I was not happy I had lived with this girl in my dreams ever since, and now I faced the wrench of giving her up; for I repeated in my own mind over and over again that she would never think of me with such big bugs as Bob Wade shining around her.
The Judge and Mrs. Stone were talking together now, and I heard references to the money. Then I began to turn over in my slow mind the fact, known to me alone, that there was a man at the Wade farm who was one of a band of thieves, and who knew about our having the money. If he really was connected with the Bunker boys, what was more likely than that he had ways of passing the word along to some of them who might be waiting to rob us on our way home? But the crime that I was sure had been committed back along the road the spring before had been horse-stealing. I wondered whether or not the business of outlawry was not specialized, so that some stole horses, others robbed banks, others were highwaymen, and the like.
All this time Virginia seemed to be snuggling up a little closer. Maybe Pitt Bushyager and his brothers were just plain horse-thieves, and nothing else. Perhaps they were just hired to help drive in the horses; but why, then, did Pitt have two animals in Monterey Centre when I saw him there the morning I arrived?