The Full of the Moon/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII
Arrested
"Honey-Dumplin', you forgot yoah lunch! You-all can't ride all day 'thout a snack."
Ben made a wry face underneath his horse as he reached for the latigo.
"I'll get it," he replied, but Edith ran from the house with the parcel.
"I know you hate that horrible name, Ben," Edith said apologetically, "but she's bound that she's goin' to be a mother to you and I can't stop her."
"Don't try," Ben smiled down upon her as he straightened, "you're so darned nice to me, Edie, that I could even stand 'Blessed Angel' and 'Lovie' for your sake."
His words and smile made her glow.
Life had been so different, so much happier since Ben came, even with the periods of acute suffering when he rode to Las Rubertas. But these occasions had been few, and his stay brief after they learned the urgent necessity of watchfulness; upon the range.
Blakely had gone, and Ben was giving his latigo a final tug when two horsemen galloped briskly out of the bosque and drew rein at the stockade gate.
Ben recognized in them the sheriff of the county and a deputy.
"Howdy," he nodded.
"Glad to see you're saddled up."
Ben's eyes widened.
"What for?"
"Reckon I'll have to ask you to take a little ride with me, Ben."
Ben's jaw dropped.
"Me?"
The sheriff fumbled in an inner pocket.
"This here paper 'll refresh your memory more'n likely." He owed his nomination and election to Spiser and was therefore pleased to serve him.
Ben listened dumfounded while the sheriff read the warrant charging him with altering the L.X. brand on a two-year-old steer to Blakely's and his own.
"It's a lie!" flared Ben.
"You might as well wag along to Hopedale peaceable," advised the officer, "because we've come to git you."
Ben's face blanched. It was useless to protest bis innocence or to resist. He knew he might as well go.
"Wait till I get my coat."
"Somebody's come to offer you a job, honey-dump"
"A steady one," Ben answered laconically, "I'm arrested."
The sound which voiced Mrs. Blakely's surprise and grief resembled the siren whistle on a factory.
"Looks like we're breakin' up a nest of somethin'," observed the deputy when the little Blakelys took up the wail in different keys.
"Ben!" Edith laid her trembling hand upon his arm.
"Rustlin'," he exclaimed scornfully. "Spiser's ribbed it up on me."
"What can we do?" she asked, white to the lips.
He shook his head.
"I ain't got much show in a deal like this." He hesitated an instant: "I wish you'd ride to Las Rubertas and tell 'em—tell her—I didn't do it. Good-by—good-by, Edie." He turned on his heel.
"I'm ready," he said curtly to the waiting officers, and sprang into the saddle.
So Ben was placed in the stone edifice in Hopedale known locally as the "cooler," and Fritz Poth contributed two soogans toward softening the slats in the bunk, while the citizens of Hopedale came singly and collectively to lighten the hours of his duress by conversation through the grating at the small window of the jail.
The formality of a preliminary hearing was dispensed with by Judge "Bill" Thompson, who owed his seat upon the bench largely to the fact that otherwise he would have become a town charge.
When the judge arrived at a certain stage of inebriety, midway between the mellowness of a few drinks and the total loss of his faculties, he acquired a preternatural loftiness of bearing which combined in his own bulky person all the dignity of the supreme court.
Fritz Poth had learned to a nicety the exact moment at which to "flag" the judge on court days, and when the signal fell Hopedale was as dry as Death Valley so far as his honor was concerned.
The acquaintanceship of Judge Bill Thompson and Henry T. Spiser was of long standing, belonging to a period in the past of each to which neither referred.
As soon as Nan received the message Ben had sent, she ran white-faced and trembling to Riley's door. In the first shock of it she did not attempt to conceal her agitation and deep concern. The extent to which she was stirred by the news of Ben's arrest startled Bob. It convinced him more than anything else of the hopelessness of his cause—more even than her own words.
It was inconceivable to Bob that a girl like Nan could be seriously attached to Ben who, in spite of his many admirable qualities, lacked fineness. He had stubbornly refused to admit, in the face of the evidence to the contrary, that her interest in the cowboy was more than a caprice, an ephemeral fancy to which a girl of Nan's temperament might be subject, but at last he was convinced of its sincerity. Mésalliances were occurring everyday to confound society. Evidently this was to be one of them.
"Do you think it's serious?" She studied his face anxiously.
"I don't know, Nan."
"But," she demanded indignantly, "you don't believe it?"
Bob shook his head.
"No; I don't believe it. Ben is honest. It's either a mistake or a conspiracy."
"It's dreadful—to be arrested—in jail! It sounds so disgraceful—and common. You read about people who commit arson and bigamy and murder, but somehow it doesn't seem real to you—you would never meet such people in a thousand years—and then when you really know somebody that's been arrested and put in jail why, it seems too terribly shocking for words, even when he's innocent."
"It's not a pleasant thing for you to be mixed up in, Nan," he answered gravely.
"You'll do all you can for him, won't you, Bob?" she pleaded.
"Yes," he answered quietly, "I'll do all I can for him—and for you. I don't know how much I can do. Conditions are peculiar out here and I've a notion that Justice is not a conspicuous figure in the local courts but you can count on me to the extent of my ability and resources."
"You've been so good to me, and patient," she said gratefully. "I don't know what I would do without you." Then colored at the pained look in his eyes and added vehemently to cover her confusion: "It's Spiser behind it all. I know it—I'm sure of it."
"More than likely," he agreed. "If it is, he may win, but before we're done he'll find victory more expensive than defeat, for we'll fight him through every court."