The Voice at Johnnywater

“Oh, Monty Girard! Gary is up here somewhere! I heard him!”

CHAPTER ONEPATRICIA ENTERTAINS

The telephone bell was shrilling insistent summons in his apartment when Gary pushed open the hall door thirty feet away. Even though he took long steps, he hoped the nagging jingle would cease before he could reach the ’phone. But the bell kept ringing, being an automatic telephone, dependent upon no perfunctory Central for the persistency of its call. Gary was tired, and from his neck to his waist his skin was painted a coppery bronze which, having been applied at six-thirty that morning, was now itching horribly as the grease paint dried. He did not feel like talking to any one; but he unlocked his door, jerked down the receiver and barked a surly greeting into the mouthpiece of the ’phone. Almost immediately the wrinkles on his forehead slid down into smoothness.

“Oh, how-do, Gary! I was just wondering if you had changed your apartments or something,” called the girl whom he hoped some day to marry. “Did you just get in?”

“No-o—certainly not! I’ve been having a fit on the floor! Say, I heard you ringing the ’phone a block away. Every tenant in the joint is lined up on the sidewalk, watching for the Black Maria or the ambulance; they don’t know which. But I recognized your ring. What’s on your mind, Girlie?”

“Not a thing in the world but a new shell comb. If I’d known you were so terrifically cross this evening, I wouldn’t have a lovely dinner all waiting and a great big surprise for you afterwards. Now I won’t tell you what it is. And, furthermore, I shall not give you even a hint of what you’re going to eat when you get here. But I should think a man who could recognize a certain telephone ring a block away might smell fried chicken and strawberry shortcake clear across the city—with oodles of butter under the strawberries, and double cream——”

“Oh-h, boy!” Gary brightened and smacked his lips into the mouthpiece, just as any normal young man would do. Then, recalling his physical discomfort, he hedged a little.

“Will it keep? I’m in a starving condition as usual—but listen, Pat; I’m a savage under my shirt. Just got in from location away up in Topanga Cañon, and I never stopped to get off anything but the rainbow on my cheeks and my feathered war bonnet. Had a heck of a day—I’ll tell the world! You know, honey; painted warriors hurtling down the cliff shooting poisoned arrows at the hapless emigrants—that kind of hokum. Big Chief Eagle Eye has been hurtling and whooping war whoops since ten o’clock this morning. Dinner’ll have to wait while I take a bath and clean up a little. I look like a bum and that’s a fact. Say, listen, honey——”

“Aw, take that mush off the line. Ha-ang up!” Some impatient neighboring tenant with a bad temper was evidently cutting in.

“Aw, go lead yourself out by the ear!” Gary retorted sharply. “Say, Pat!” His voice softened to the wooing note of the young male human. “Best I can do, honey, it’ll be forty minutes. That’s giving me ten minutes to look like a white man again. You know it’ll take me thirty minutes to ride out there——”

“You could walk, you bum, whilst you’re tellin’ her about it. Get off the line! There ought to be a law against billy-cooin’ over the ’phone——”

“Seddown! You’re rockin’ the boat!” Gary flung back spiritedly. “Better make it forty-five, Girlie. It may take me five minutes to lick this cheap heavy on the third floor that’s tryin’ to put on a comedy act.”

“Say, one more crack like that an’ I’ll be down to your place an’ save yuh some valuable time. It’ll take me about two seconds to knock yuh cold!” The harsh male voice interrupted eagerly.

“Are you there, Pat?”

“Right here, Gary. How did that get into a respectable house, dear? You ought to call the janitor.” The girl he hoped to marry had spirit and could assuredly hold her own in a wicked city. “Take your time, Gary boy. But remember, I’ve the biggest surprise in your life waiting for you out here. Something wonderful!”

It is astonishing how a woman can pronounce a few simple words so that they sound like a hallelujah chorus of angels. Gary thrilled to her voice, in spite of an intensely practical nature. Patricia went on, after an impressive pause.

“Never mind that noise in the ’phone, Gary. It’s just some mechanical deficiency caused by using cheap material. Never mind the grease paint, either. You—you won’t always have to smear around in it—partner!”

While he hurried to make himself presentable, Gary’s thoughts dwelt upon that word “partner” and the lingering sweetness of Patricia’s tone. Patricia Connolly was not a feather-brained creature who would repeat parrotlike whatever phrase she happened to have heard and fancied. She did not run to second-hand superlatives. When she told Gary that she had a wonderful surprise for him, she would not, for instance, mean that she had done her hair in a new fashion or had bought a new record for the phonograph. And she had never before called him partner in any tone whatever. Gary would have remembered it if she had.

“What the heck is she going to spring on me now?” he kept wondering during the hour that intervened between the ’phone call and his entrance into the scrap of bungalow in a bepalmed court where Patricia had her milk and her mail delivered to the tiny front porch.

The extra fifteen minutes had not been spent in whipping the harsh-voiced tenant on the third floor; indeed, Gary had forgotten all about him the moment he hung up the receiver. One simply cannot annihilate all the men one abuses in the course of a day’s strained living in Los Angeles or any other over-full city. Gary had been delayed first by the tenacity of the grease paint on his person, and after that by the heavy traffic on the street cars. Two cars had gone whanging past him packed solidly with peevish human beings and with men and boys clinging to every protuberance on the outside. When the third car stopped to let a clinging passenger drop off—shaking down his cuffs and flexing his cramped fingers—Gary had darted in like a hornet, seized toe-hold and finger-hold and hung on.

And so, fifteen minutes late, he arrived at Patricia’s door and was let into Paradise and delectable odors and the presence of Patricia, who looked as though Christmas had come unexpectedly and she was waiting until the candles were lighted on the tree so she could present Gary with a million dollars. Her honest sweetness and her adorable little way of mothering Gary—though she was fours years younger—tingled with an air of holding back with difficulty the news of some amazing good fortune.

Patricia shared the bungalow with a trained nurse who was usually absent on a “case”, so that Patricia was practically independent and alone. Most girls of twenty couldn’t have done it and kept their mental balance; but Patricia was herself under any and all conditions, and it did not seem strange for her to be living alone the greater part of the time. Freedom, to her, spelled neither license nor loneliness; she lived as though her mother were always in the next room. Patricia felt sometimes that her mother was closer, very close beside her. It made her happier to feel so, but never had it made her feel ashamed.

She had evolved the dinner in this manner: while her boss was keeping her waiting until he had refreshed his memory of a certain special price on alfalfa molasses and oil cakes, etc., etc., in carload and half-carload lots, Patricia had jotted down in good shorthand, “chicken, about two pounds with yellow legs and a limber wishbone or nothing doing; cost a dollar, I expect—is Gary worth it? I’ll say he is. God love ums. Strawberries, two boxes—Hood Rivers, if possible—try the City Market. Celery—if there’s any that looks decent; if not, then artichokes or asparagus—Gary likes asparagus best—says he eats artichokes because it’s fun—Dear Sir:—In response to your favor of the 17th inst.,—” and so on.

Some girls would have quoted asparagus in carload lots, transcribing from such notes, and would have put alfalfa molasses on the dinner menu; but not Patricia.

On her way home from the office in the dusty, humming barn of a building that housed the grain milling company which supported her in return for faithful service rendered, Patricia shopped at the big City Market where the sales people all had tired eyes and mechanical smiles, and a general air of hopelessly endeavoring to please every one so that no harassed marketers would complain to the manager. Patricia made her purchases as painless to the sales girl as possible, knowing too well what that strained smile meant. The great market buzzed like a bee-tree when you strike its trunk with a club.

She bought a manila paper shopping bag, but her packages overflowed the bag, so that she carried the two boxes of strawberries in her hand, and worried all the way home for fear the string would break; and held the warm tea biscuits under her arm, protecting them as anxiously as a hen protects her covered chicks. By prodding with her elbows and bracing her feet against the swaying crush, and giving now and then a haughty stare, Patricia achieved the miracle of arriving at Rose Court with her full menu and only one yellow leg of the chicken protruding stiffly from its wrappings.

She dumped her armload on the table in the kitchenette and rushed out again to buy flowers from the vendor who was chanting his wares half a block away. She was tingling all over with nerve weariness, yet she could smile brightly at the Greek so that he went on with a little glow of friendliness toward the world. At the rose-arched entrance to the Court she tilted her wrist, looked at her watch and said, “Good Lord! That late?” and dashed up to her door like a maiden pursued.

Yet here she was at seven, in a cool little pansy-tinted voile, dainty and serene as any young hostess in Westmoreland Place half a mile away. Even the strawberry stain on her finger tips could easily be mistaken for the new fad in manicuring. Can you wonder that Gary forgot every disagreeable thing he ever knew—including frowsy, unhomelike bachelor quarters, crowded street cars, all the petty aches and ills of movie work—when he unfolded his napkin and looked across the table at Patricia?

“Coffee now, or with dessert? Gary, don’t you dare look question marks at me! I can’t have your mind distracted with food while I’m telling you the most wonderful thing in the world. Moreover, this dinner deserves a little appreciation.” Patricia’s lips trembled, but only because she was tired and excited and happy. Her happiness would have been quite apparent to a blind man.

I do not mean to hint that Patricia deliberately fed Gary to repletion with the things he liked best, before imparting her won-derful surprise. She had frequently cooked nice little dinners for him when there was nothing surprising to follow. But it is a fact that when she had stacked the dishes neatly away for a later washing, and returned the dining table to its ordinary library-table guise, Gary looked as if nothing on earth could disturb him. Mental, emotional and physical content permeated the atmosphere of his immediate neighborhood. Patricia sat down and laid her arms upon the table, and studied Gary, biting her lips to hide their quiver.

CHAPTER TWOPATRICIA EXPLAINS

Womanlike, Patricia began in a somewhat roundabout fashion and in a tone not far from cajolery.

“Gary! You do know all about ranch life and raising cattle and hay and horses and so on, don’t you?”

Gary was lighting a cigarette. If he had learned the “picture value” of holding a pose, he was at least unconscious of his deliberation in waving out the match flame before he replied. His was a profile very effective in close-ups against the firelight. Holding a pose comes to be second nature to an actor who has to do those things for a living.

“Dad would rather feature the so-on stuff. Subtitle, father saying, ‘You ain’t much on raisin’ cattle but you’re shore an expert at raisin’ hell!’ Cut back to son on horse at gate, gazing wistfully toward house. Sighs. Turns away. Iris out, son riding away into dusk. Why?”

“Fathers are like that. Of course you know all about those things. You were raised on a ranch. Have you landed that contract with Mills yet, to play Western leads?”

“Not yet—Mills is waiting for his chief to come on from New York. He’s due here about the First. I was talking with Mills to-day, and he says he’s morally certain they’ll give me a company of my own and put on Western Features. You know what that would mean, Pat—a year’s contract for me. And we could get married——”

“Yes, never mind that, since you haven’t landed it.” Patricia drew in her breath. “Well, you know what I think of the movie game; we’ve thrashed that all out, times enough. I simply can’t see my husband making movie love to various and sundry females who sob and smile and smirk at him for so many dollars per. We’ll skip that. Also my conviction that the movies are lowering—cheapening to any full-sized man. Smirking and frowning before a camera, and making mushy love for kids on the front seats to stamp and whistle at—well, never mind; we won’t go into that at this time.

“You know, Gary. I just love you to be Western; but I want you to be real Western—my own range hero. Not cheap, movie make-believe. I want you to get out and live the West. I can close my eyes and see you on a cattle ranch, riding out at dawn after your own cattle—doing your part in increasing the world’s production of food—being something big and really worth while!”

“Can you? You’re a good little seer, Pat. Golly, grandma! I wish I’d saved half of that shortcake to eat after a while. Now I’m so full I can’t swallow a mouthful of smoke. What’s the surprise, kid? Don’t hold the suspense till the interest flags—that’s bad business. Makes the story drag.”

“Why, I’m telling you, Gary!” Patricia opened her eyes at him in a way that would have brought any movie queen a raise in salary. “It’s just that you’re going to have a chance to live up to what’s really in you. You’re going to manage a cattle ranch, dear. Not a real big one—yet. But you’ll have the fun of seeing it grow.”

“Oh-ah-h—I’ll have the fun—er-r—all right, Pat, I give it up.” Gary settled back again with his head against the cushion “Tell us the joke. My brain’s leather to-night; had a heck of a day.”

“The joke? Why, the joke is—well, just that you don’t get it! I knew you wouldn’t, just at first. Think, Gary! Just close your eyes and think of miles and miles of open range and no fences, and herds of cattle roaming free. Picture a home ranch against the mountains, in a cañon called—let’s play it’s called Johnnywater. Are you doing it?”

“Uh-huh. I’m thinking——” But he sounded drowsy, as if he would be asleep presently if he continued holding his eyes shut. “Open range and cattle roaming free—there ain’t no such animal.”

“That’s where the big surprise comes in, Gary. Listen. This is the most important thing that ever happened to either of us. I—I can hardly talk about it, it’s so perfectly wonderful. You’d never guess in a million years. But I—well, read these papers, Gary boy—I’ll explain them afterwards.”

Gary opened his eyes somewhat reluctantly, smiled endearingly at the flushed Patricia and accepted two legal-looking documents which she proffered with what might almost have been termed a flourish. He glanced at them somewhat indifferently, glanced again, gave Patricia a startled look, and sat up as if some one had prodded him unexpectedly in the back. He read both papers through frowningly, unconsciously registering consternation. When he had finished, he stared blankly at Patricia for a full minute.

“Pat Connolly, what the heck is this trick deed? I can’t feature it. I don’t get it! What’s the big idea?”

“That’s just a deed, Gary. The cattle and the brand and the water right to Johnnywater Spring, and the squatter’s right to the pasturage and improvements are all included—as you would have seen if you had read it carefully. The other paper is the water right, that he got from the State. Besides that, I have the affidavits of two men who swear that William Waddell legally owned one hundred head of cattle and the funny X brand, and that everything is all straight to the best of their knowledge and belief.

“I insisted upon the affidavits being furnished, since I couldn’t afford to make a trip away up there myself. It’s all right, Gary. I could send them all to jail for perjury and things of that sort if they have lied about it.”

Patricia pressed her palms hard upon the table and gave a subdued little squeal of sheer ecstasy.

“Just think of it, Gary! After almost despairing of ever being able to have a ranch of our own, so that you could ride around and really manage things, instead of pretending it in pictures, Fate gave me this wonderful chance!

“I was working up our mailing list, and ran across an ad in the Tonopah paper, of this place for sale. The ‘Free grazing and water rights in open range country’ caught my eye first. And the price was cheap—scandalously cheap for a stock ranch. I answered the ad right away—that was over a month ago, Gary. I’ve kept it a secret, because I hate arguments so, and I knew you’d argue against it. Any, anyway,” she added naïvely, “you’ve been away on location so I couldn’t tell you.

“That country is all unsurveyed for miles and miles and miles. Mr. Waddell writes that there are absolutely no grazing restrictions whatever, and that even their saddle and work horses run loose the year around. He says the winters are open——”

That last bit of information was delivered somewhat doubtfully. Patricia had lived in Southern California since she was a tiny tot and did not know exactly what an “open” winter meant.

“It’s scarcely settled at all, and there are no sheep in the country. I knew that would be important, so I asked, particularly. It’s in a part of the country that has been overlooked, Mr. Waddell says, just because it’s quite a long way from the railroad. I never dreamed there was any unsurveyed country left in America. Did you, Gary?”

Gary had slumped down in the big chair and was smoking his cigarette with thoughtful deliberation. His eyes veiled themselves before Patricia’s glowing enthusiasm.

“Death Valley is unsurveyed,” he observed grimly.

“I’m not talking about Death Valley,” Patricia retorted impatiently. “I mean cattle range. I’ve been corresponding with Mr. Waddell for a month, so I have all the facts.”

“All the facts, kid?” Gary was no fool. He was serious enough now, and the muscles along his jaw were hardening a little. His director would have been tickled with that expression for a close-up of slow-growing anger.

“The only country left unsurveyed to-day is desert that would starve a horn toad to death in a week. Some one has put one over on you, Pat. Where does he live? If you’ve paid him any money yet, I’ll have to go and get it back for you. You’ve bought a gold brick, Pat.”