Octopus — Book I, Chapter 6, Part 2
As Annixter came to the door of the barn to shout abuse at the distraught Chinese cook who was cutting up lemons in the kitchen, he caught sight of Presley and Vanamee and hailed them.
“Hello, Pres,” he called.
“Come over here and see how she looks;” he indicated the barn with a movement of his head.
“Well, we're getting ready for you tonight,” he went on as the two friends came up.
“But how we are going to get straightened out by eight o'clock I don't know.
Would you believe that pip Caraher is short of lemons--at this last minute and I told him I'd want three cases of 'em as much as a month ago, and here, just when I want a good lively saddle horse to get around on, somebody hikes the buckskin out the corral.
STOLE her, by jingo.
I'll have the law on that thief if it breaks me--and a sixty-dollar saddle 'n' head-stall gone with her; and only about half the number of Jap lanterns that I ordered have shown up and not candles enough for those.
It's enough to make a dog sick.
There's nothing done that you don't do yourself, unless you stand over these loafers with a club.
I'm sick of the whole business--and I've lost my hat; wish to God I'd never dreamed of givin' this rotten fool dance.
Clutter the whole place up with a lot of feemales.
I sure did lose my presence of mind when I got THAT idea.
” Then, ignoring the fact that it was he, himself, who had called the young men to him, he added: “Well, this is my busy day.
Sorry I can't stop and talk to you longer.
” He shouted a last imprecation at the Chinaman and turned back into the barn.
Presley and Vanamee went on, but Annixter, as he crossed the floor of the barn, all but collided with Hilma Tree, who came out from one of the stalls, a box of candles in her arms.
Gasping out an apology, Annixter reentered the harness room, closing the door behind him, and forgetting all the responsibility of the moment, lit a cigar and sat down in one of the hired chairs, his hands in his pockets, his feet on the table, frowning thoughtfully through the blue smoke.
Annixter was at last driven to confess to himself that he could not get the thought of Hilma Tree out of his mind.
Finally she had “got a hold on him.
” The thing that of all others he most dreaded had happened.
A
feemale girl had got a hold on him, and now there was no longer for him any such thing as peace of mind.
The idea of the young woman was with him continually.
He went to bed with it; he got up with it.
At every moment of the day he was pestered with it.
It interfered with his work, got mixed up in his business.
What a miserable confession for a man to make; a fine way to waste his time.
Was it possible that only the other day he had stood in front of the music store in Bonneville and seriously considered making Hilma a present of a music-box?
Even now, the very thought of it made him flush with shame, and this after she had told him plainly that she did not like him.
He was running after her--he, Annixter!
He ripped out a furious oath, striking the table with his boot heel.
Again and again he had resolved to put the whole affair from out his mind.
Once he had been able to do so, but of late it was becoming harder and harder with every successive day.
He had only to close his eyes to see her as plain as if she stood before him; he saw her in a glory of sunlight that set a fine tinted lustre of pale carnation and gold on the silken sheen of her white skin, her hair sparkled with it, her thick, strong neck, sloping to her shoulders with beautiful, full curves, seemed to radiate the light; her eyes, brown, wide, innocent in expression, disclosing the full disc of the pupil upon the slightest provocation, flashed in this sunlight like diamonds.
Annixter was all bewildered.
With the exception of the timid little creature in the glove-cleaning establishment in Sacramento, he had had no acquaintance with any woman.
His world was harsh, crude, a world of men only--men who were to be combatted, opposed--his hand was against nearly every one of them.
Women he distrusted with the instinctive distrust of the overgrown schoolboy.
Now, at length, a young woman had come into his life.
Promptly he was struck with discomfiture, annoyed almost beyond endurance, harassed, bedevilled, excited, made angry and exasperated.
He was suspicious of the woman, yet desired her, totally ignorant of how to approach her, hating the sex, yet drawn to the individual, confusing the two emotions, sometimes even hating Hilma as a result of this confusion, but at all times disturbed, vexed, irritated beyond power of expression.
At length, Annixter cast his cigar from him and plunged again into the work of the day.
The afternoon wore to evening, to the accompaniment of wearying and clamorous endeavour.
In some unexplained fashion, the labour of putting the great barn in readiness for the dance was accomplished; the last bolt of cambric was hung in place from the rafters.
The last evergreen tree was nailed to the joists of the walls; the last lantern hung, the last nail driven into the musicians' platform.
The sun set.
There was a great scurry to have supper and dress.
Annixter, last of all the other workers, left the barn in the dusk of twilight.
He was alone; he had a saw under one arm, a bag of tools was in his hand.
He was in his shirt sleeves and carried his coat over his shoulder; a hammer was thrust into one of his hip pockets.
He was in execrable temper.
The day's work had fagged him out.
He had not been able to find his hat.
“And the buckskin with sixty dollars' worth of saddle gone, too,” he groaned.
“Oh, ain't it sweet?
” At his house, Mrs. Tree had set out a cold supper for him, the inevitable dish of prunes serving as dessert.
After supper Annixter bathed and dressed.
He decided at the last moment to wear his usual town-going suit, a sack suit of black, made by a Bonneville tailor.
But his hat was gone.
There were other hats he might have worn, but because this particular one was lost he fretted about it all through his dressing and then decided to have one more look around the barn for it.
For over a quarter of an hour he pottered about the barn, going from stall to stall, rummaging the harness room and feed room, all to no purpose.
At last he came out again upon the main floor, definitely giving up the search, looking about him to see if everything was in order.
The festoons of Japanese lanterns in and around the barn were not yet lighted, but some half-dozen lamps, with great, tin reflectors, that hung against the walls, were burning low.
A dull half light pervaded the vast interior, hollow, echoing, leaving the corners and roof thick with impenetrable black shadows.
The barn faced the west and through the open sliding doors was streaming a single bright bar from the after-glow, incongruous and out of all harmony with the dull flare of the kerosene lamps.
As Annixter glanced about him, he saw a figure step briskly out of the shadows of one corner of the building, pause for the fraction of one instant in the bar of light, then, at sight of him, dart back again.
There was a sound of hurried footsteps.
Annixter, with recollections of the stolen buckskin in his mind, cried out sharply: “Who's there?
” There was no answer.
In a second his pistol was in his hand.
“Who's there?
Quick, speak up or I'll shoot.
” “No, no, no, don't shoot,” cried an answering voice.
“Oh, be careful.
It's I--Hilma Tree.
” Annixter slid the pistol into his pocket with a great qualm of apprehension.
He came forward and met Hilma in the doorway.
“Good Lord,” he murmured, “that sure did give me a start.
If I HAD shot----” Hilma stood abashed and confused before him.
She was dressed in a white organdie frock of the most rigorous simplicity and wore neither flower nor ornament.
The severity of her dress made her look even larger than usual, and even as it was her eyes were on a level with Annixter's. There was a certain fascination in the contradiction of stature and character of Hilma--a great girl, half-child as yet, but tall as a man for all that.
There was a moment's awkward silence, then Hilma explained: “I--I came back to look for my hat.
I thought I left it here this afternoon.
” “And I was looking for my hat,” cried Annixter.
“Funny enough, hey?
” They laughed at this as heartily as children might have done.
The constraint of the situation was a little relaxed and Annixter, with sudden directness, glanced sharply at the young woman and demanded: “Well, Miss Hilma, hate me as much as ever?
” “Oh, no, sir,” she answered, “I never said I hated you.
” “Well,--dislike me, then; I know you said that.
” “I--I disliked what you did--TRIED to do.
It made me angry and it hurt me.
I shouldn't have said what I did that time, but it was your fault.
” “You mean you shouldn't have said you didn't like me?
” asked Annixter.
“Why?
” “Well, well,--I don't--I don't DISlike anybody,” admitted Hilma.
“Then I can take it that you don't dislike ME?
Is that it?
” “I don't dislike anybody,” persisted Hilma.
“Well, I asked you more than that, didn't I?
” queried Annixter uneasily.
“I asked you to like me, remember, the other day.
I'm asking you that again, now.
I want you to like me.
” Hilma lifted her eyes inquiringly to his.
In her words was an unmistakable ring of absolute sincerity.
Innocently she inquired: “Why?
” Annixter was struck speechless.
In the face of such candour, such perfect ingenuousness, he was at a loss for any words.
“Well--well,” he stammered, “well--I don't know,” he suddenly burst out.
“That is,” he went on, groping for his wits, “I can't quite say why.
” The idea of a colossal lie occurred to him, a thing actually royal.
“I like to have the people who are around me like me,” he declared.
“I--I like to be popular, understand?
Yes, that's it,” he continued, more reassured.
“I don't like the idea of any one disliking me.
That's the way I am.
It's my nature.
” “Oh, then,” returned Hilma, “you needn't bother.
No, I don't dislike you.
” “Well, that's good,” declared Annixter judicially.
“That's good.
But hold on,” he interrupted, “I'm forgetting.
It's not enough to not dislike me.
I want you to like me.
How about THAT?
” Hilma paused for a moment, glancing vaguely out of the doorway toward the lighted window of the dairy-house, her head tilted.
“I don't know that I ever thought about that,” she said.
“Well, think about it now,” insisted Annixter.
“But I never thought about liking anybody particularly,” she observed.
“It's because I like everybody, don't you see?
” “Well, you've got to like some people more than other people,” hazarded Annixter, “and I want to be one of those 'some people,' savvy?
Good Lord, I don't know how to say these fool things.
I talk like a galoot when I get talking to feemale girls and I can't lay my tongue to anything that sounds right.
It isn't my nature.
And look here, I lied when I said I liked to have people like me--to be popular.
Rot!
I don't care a curse about people's opinions of me.
But there's a few people that are more to me than most others--that chap Presley, for instance--and those people I DO want to have like me.
What they think counts.
Pshaw!
I know I've got enemies; piles of them.
I could name you half a dozen men right now that are naturally itching to take a shot at me.
How about this ranch?
Don't I know, can't I hear the men growling oaths under their breath after I've gone by?
And in business ways, too,” he went on, speaking half to himself, “in Bonneville and all over the county there's not a man of them wouldn't howl for joy if they got a chance to down Buck Annixter.
Think I care?
Why, I LIKE it.
I run my ranch to suit myself and I play my game my own way.
I'm a 'driver,' I know it, and a 'bully,' too.
Oh, I know what they call me--'a brute beast, with a twist in my temper that would rile up a new-born lamb,' and I'm 'crusty' and 'pig-headed' and 'obstinate.'
They say all that, but they've got to say, too, that I'm cleverer than any man-jack in the running.
There's nobody can get ahead of me.
” His eyes snapped.
“Let 'em grind their teeth.
They can't 'down' me.
When I shut my fist there's not one of them can open it.
No, not with a CHISEL.
” He turned to Hilma again.
“Well, when a man's hated as much as that, it stands to reason, don't it, Miss Hilma, that the few friends he has got he wants to keep?
I'm not such an entire swine to the people that know me best--that jackass, Presley, for instance.
I'd put my hand in the fire to do him a real service.
Sometimes I get kind of lonesome; wonder if you would understand?
It's my fault, but there's not a horse about the place that don't lay his ears back when I get on him; there's not a dog don't put his tail between his legs as soon as I come near him.
The cayuse isn't foaled yet here on Quien Sabe that can throw me, nor the dog whelped that would dare show his teeth at me.
I kick that Irish setter every time I see him--but wonder what I'd do, though, if he didn't slink so much, if he wagged his tail and was glad to see me?
So it all comes to this: I'd like to have you--well, sort of feel that I was a good friend of yours and like me because of it.
” The flame in the lamp on the wall in front of Hilma stretched upward tall and thin and began to smoke.
She went over to where the lamp hung and, standing on tip-toe, lowered the wick.
As she reached her hand up, Annixter noted how the sombre, lurid red of the lamp made a warm reflection on her smooth, round arm.
“Do you understand?
” he queried.
“Yes, why, yes,” she answered, turning around.
“It's very good of you to want to be a friend of mine.
I didn't think so, though, when you tried to kiss me.
But maybe it's all right since you've explained things.
You see I'm different from you.
I like everybody to like me and I like to like everybody.
It makes one so much happier.
You wouldn't believe it, but you ought to try it, sir, just to see.
It's so good to be good to people and to have people good to you.
And everybody has always been so good to me.
Mamma and papa, of course, and Billy, the stableman, and Montalegre, the Portugee foreman, and the Chinese cook, even, and Mr. Delaney--only he went away--and Mrs. Vacca and her little----” “Delaney, hey?
” demanded Annixter abruptly.
“You and he were pretty good friends, were you?
” “Oh, yes,” she answered.
“He was just as GOOD to me.
Every day in the summer time he used to ride over to the Seed ranch back of the Mission and bring me a great armful of flowers, the prettiest things, and I used to pretend to pay him for them with dollars made of cheese that I cut out of the cheese with a biscuit cutter.
It was such fun.
We were the best of friends.
” “There's another lamp smoking,” growled Annixter.
“Turn it down, will you?
--and see that somebody sweeps this floor here.
It's all littered up with pine needles.
I've got a lot to do.
Good-bye.
” “Good-bye, sir.
” Annixter returned to the ranch house, his teeth clenched, enraged, his face flushed.
“Ah,” he muttered, “Delaney, hey?
Throwing it up to me that I fired him.
” His teeth gripped together more fiercely than ever.
“The best of friends, hey?
By God, I'll have that girl yet.
I'll show that cow-puncher.
Ain't I her employer, her boss?
I'll show her--and Delaney, too.
It would be easy enough--and then Delaney can have her--if he wants her--after me.
” An evil light flashing from under his scowl, spread over his face.
The male instincts of possession, unreasoned, treacherous, oblique, came twisting to the surface.
All the lower nature of the man, ignorant of women, racked at one and the same time with enmity and desire, roused itself like a hideous and abominable beast.
And at the same moment, Hilma returned to her house, humming to herself as she walked, her white dress glowing with a shimmer of faint saffron light in the last ray of the after-glow.
A little after half-past seven, the first carry-all, bearing the druggist of Bonneville and his women-folk, arrived in front of the new barn.
Immediately afterward an express wagon loaded down with a swarming family of Spanish-Mexicans, gorgeous in red and yellow colours, followed.
Billy, the stableman, and his assistant took charge of the teams, unchecking the horses and hitching them to a fence back of the barn.
Then Caraher, the saloon-keeper, in “derby” hat, “Prince Albert” coat, pointed yellow shoes and inevitable red necktie, drove into the yard on his buckboard, the delayed box of lemons under the seat.
It looked as if the whole array of invited guests was to arrive in one unbroken procession, but for a long half-hour nobody else appeared.
Annixter and Caraher withdrew to the harness room and promptly involved themselves in a wrangle as to the make-up of the famous punch.
From time to time their voices could be heard uplifted in clamorous argument.
“Two quarts and a half and a cupful of chartreuse.
” “Rot, rot, I know better.
Champagne straight and a dash of brandy.
” The druggist's wife and sister retired to the feed room, where a bureau with a swinging mirror had been placed for the convenience of the women.
The druggist stood awkwardly outside the door of the feed room, his coat collar turned up against the draughts that drifted through the barn, his face troubled, debating anxiously as to the propriety of putting on his gloves.
The Spanish-Mexican family, a father, mother and five children and sister-in-law, sat rigid on the edges of the hired chairs, silent, constrained, their eyes lowered, their elbows in at their sides, glancing furtively from under their eyebrows at the decorations or watching with intense absorption young Vacca, son of one of the division superintendents, who wore a checked coat and white thread gloves and who paced up and down the length of the barn, frowning, very important, whittling a wax candle over the floor to make it slippery for dancing.
The musicians arrived, the City Band of Bonneville--Annixter having managed to offend the leader of the “Dirigo” Club orchestra, at the very last moment, to such a point that he had refused his services.
These members of the City Band repaired at once to their platform in the corner.
At every instant they laughed uproariously among themselves, joshing one of their number, a Frenchman, whom they called “Skeezicks.
” Their hilarity reverberated in a hollow, metallic roll among the rafters overhead.
The druggist observed to young Vacca as he passed by that he thought them pretty fresh, just the same.
“I'm busy, I'm very busy,” returned the young man, continuing on his way, still frowning and paring the stump of candle.
“Two quarts 'n' a half.
Two quarts 'n' a half.
”
