XVI
“Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!” You read this inflaming sentiment on posters and banners and on little white buttons pinned to coat lapels or dress fronts. There were other buttons and pennants bearing the likeness of an elderly gentleman with a mild face disguised behind a martial white mustache; and thousands of male children born within the United States in 1898 grew up under the slight handicap of the christened name of Dewey. The Oklahoma Wigwam bristled with new words: Manila Bay—Hobson—Philippines. Throughout the Southwest sombreros suddenly became dust-colored army hats with broad, flat brims and peaked crowns. People who, if they had thought of Spain at all, saw it in the romantic terms of the early Southwest explorers—Coronado, De Soto, Moscoso—and, with admiration for these intrepid and mistaken seekers after gold, now were told that they must hate Spain and the Spanish and kill as many little brown men living in the place called the Philippines as possible. This was done as dutifully as could be, but with less than complete enthusiasm.
Rough Riders! That was another matter. Here was something that the Oklahoma country knew and understood—tall, lean, hard young men who had practically been born with a horse under them and a gun in hand; riders, hunters, dead shots; sunburned, keen eyed, daredevil. Their uniforms, worn with a swagger, had about them a dashing something that the other regiments lacked. Their hat crowns were dented, not peaked, and the brims were turned romantically up at one side and caught with the insignia of the Regiment—the crossed sabers. And their lieutenant-colonel and leader was that energetic, toothy young fellow who was making something of a stir in New York State—Roosevelt, his name was. Theodore Roosevelt.
Osage was shaken by chills and fever; the hot spasms of patriotism, the cold rigors of virtue. One day the good wives of the community would have a meeting at which they arranged for a home-cooked supper, with coffee, to be served to this or that regiment. Their features would soften with sentiment, their bosoms heave with patriotic pride. Next day, eyes narrowed, lips forming a straight line, they met to condemn Dixie Lee and her ilk, and to discuss ways and means for ridding the town of their contaminating presence.
The existence of this woman in the town had always been a festering sore to Sabra. Dixie Lee, the saloons that still lined Pawhuska Avenue, the gambling houses, all the paraphernalia of vice, were anathema lumped together in the minds of the redoubtable sunbonnets. A new political group had sprung up, ostensibly on the platform of civic virtue. In reality they were tired of seeing all the plums dropping into the laps of the early-day crew, made up of such strong-arm politicians as had been the first to shake the Territorial tree. In the righteous ladies of the Wyatt type they saw their chance for a strong ally. The saloons and the gamblers were too firmly intrenched to be moved by the reform element: they had tried it. Sabra had been urged to help. In the columns of the Oklahoma Wigwam she had unwisely essayed to conduct a campaign against Wick Mongold’s saloon, in whose particularly lawless back room it was known that the young boys of the community were in the habit of meeting. With Cim’s future in mind (and as an excuse) she wrote a stirring editorial in which she said bold things about shielding criminals and protecting the Flower of our Southwest’s Manhood. Two days later a passerby at seven in the morning saw brisk flames licking the foundations of the Oklahoma Wigwam office and the Cravat dwelling behind it. The whole had been nicely soaked in coal oil. But for the chance passerby, Sabra, Cim, Donna, newspaper plant, and house would have been charred beyond recognition. As the town fire protection was still of the scantiest, the alarmed neighbors beat out the fire with blankets wet in the nearby horse trough. It was learned that a Mexican had been hired to do the job for twenty dollars. Mongold skipped out.
After an interval reform turned its attention to that always vulnerable objective known then as the Scarlet Woman. Here it met with less opposition. Almost five years after Yancey’s departure it looked very much as though Dixie Lee and her fine brick house and her plumed and parasoled girls would soon be routed by the spiritual broom sticks and sunbonnets of the purity squad.
It was characteristic that at this moment in Osage’s history, when the town was torn, now by martial music, now by the call of civic virtue, Yancey Cravat should have chosen to come riding home; and not that alone, but to come riding home in pull panoply of war, more dashing, more romantic, more mysterious than on the day he had ridden away.
It was eight o’clock in the morning. The case of Dixie Lee (on the charge of disorderly conduct) was due to come up at ten in the local court. Sabra had been at her desk in the Wigwam office since seven. One ear was cocked for the sounds that came from the house; the other was intent on Jesse Rickey’s erratic comings and goings in the printing shop just next the office.
“Cim! Cim Cravat! Will you stop teasing Donna and eat your breakfast. Miss Swisher’s report said you were late three times last month, and all because you dawdle while you dress, you dawdle over breakfast, you dawdle—Jesse! Oh, Jesse! The Dixie Lee case will be our news lead. Hold two columns open. …”
Horse’s hoofs at a gallop, stopping spectacularly in front of the Wigwam office in a whirl of dust. A quick, light step. That step! But it couldn’t be. Sabra sprang to her feet, one hand at her breast, one hand on the desk, to steady herself. He strode into the office. For five years she had pictured him returning to her in dramatic fashion;
