Cow Country

B >> B. M. Bower >> Cow Country

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

CHAPTER TEN: BUD MEETS THE WOMAN

A woman was stooping at the woodpile, filling her arms with
crooked sticks of rough-barked sage. From the color of her
hair Bud knew that she was not Honey, and that she was
therefore a stranger to him. But he swung off the path and
went over to her as naturally as he would go to pick up a
baby that had fallen.

"I'll carry that in for you," he said, and put out his hand
to help her to her feet.

Before he touched her she was on her feet and looking at him.
Bud could not remember afterwards that she had done anything
else; he seemed to have seen only her eyes, and into them and
beyond them to a soul that somehow made his heart tremble.

What she said, what he answered, was of no moment. He could
not have told afterwards what it was. He stooped and filled
his arms with wood, and walked ahead of her up the pathway to
the kitchen door, and stopped when she flitted past him to
show him where the wood-box stood. He was conscious then of
her slenderness and of the lightness of her steps. He dropped
the wood into the box behind the stove on which kettles were
steaming. There was the smell of chicken stewing, and the
odor of fresh-baked pies.

She smiled up at him and offered him a crisp, warn cookie
with sugared top, and he saw her eyes again and felt the same
tremor at his heart. He pulled himself together and smiled
back at her, thanked her and went out, stumbling a little on
the doorstep, the cookie untasted in his fingers.

He walked down to the corral and began fumbling at his pack,
his thoughts hushed before the revelation that had come to
him.

"Her hands--her poor, little, red hands!" he said in a
whisper as the memory of them came suddenly. But it was her
eyes that he was seeing with his mind; her eyes, and what lay
deep within. They troubled him, shook him, made him want to
use his man-strength against something that was hurting her.
He did not know what it could be; he did not know that there
was anything--but oddly the memory of his mother's white face
back in the long ago, and of her tone when she said, "Oh,
God, please!" came back and fitted themselves to the look in
this woman's eyes.

Bud sat down on his canvas-wrapped bed and lifted his hat to
rumple his hair and then smooth it again, as was his habit
when worried. He looked at the cookie, and because he was
hungry he ate it with a foolish feeling that he was being
sentimental as the very devil, thinking how her hands had
touched it. He rolled and smoked a cigarette afterwards, and
wondered who she was and whether she was married, and what
her first name was.

A quiet smoke will bring a fellow to his senses sometimes
when nothing else will, and Bud managed, by smoking two
cigarettes in rapid succession, to restore himself to some
degree of sanity.

"Funny how she made me think of mother, back when I was a kid
coming up from Texas," he mused. "Mother'd like her." It was
the first time he had ever thought just that about a girl. "She's
no relation to Honey," he added. "I'd bet a horse on that." He
recalled how white and soft were Honey's hands, and he swore a
little. "Wouldn't hurt her to get out there in the kitchen and
help with the cooking," he criticised. Then suddenly he laughed.
"Shucks a'mighty, as Pop says! with those two girls on the ranch
I'll gamble Dave Truman has a full crew of men that are plumb
willing to work for their board!"

The stage came, and Bud turned to it relievedly. After that,
here came Dave Truman on a deep-cheated roan. Bud knew him by
his resemblance to the old man, who came shuffling bent-
backed from the machine-shed as Dave passed.

Pop beckoned, and Dave reined his horse that way and stopped
at the shed door. The two talked for a minute and Dave rode
on, passing Bud with a curt nod. Pop came over to where Bud
stood leaning against the corral.

"How are you feeling, dad?" Bud grinned absently.

"Purty stiff an' sore, boy--my rheumatics is bad to-day." Pop
winked solemnly. "I spoke to Dave about you wantin' a job,
and I guess likely Dave'll put you on. They's plenty to do--
hayin' comin' on and all that." He lowered his voice
mysteriously, though there was no man save Bud within a
hundred feet of him. "Don't ye go 'n talk horses--not yet.
Don't let on like yore interested much. I'll tell yuh when to
take 'em up."

The men came riding in from the hayfield, some in wagons, two
astride harnessed work-horses, and one long-legged fellow in
chaps on a mower, driving a sweaty team that still had life
enough to jump sidewise when they spied Bud's pack by the
corral. The stage driver sauntered up and spoke to the men.
Bud went over and began to help unhitch the team from the
mower, and the driver eyed him sharply while he grinned his
greeting across the backs of the horses.

"Pop says you're looking for work," Dave Truman observed,
coming up. "Well, if you ain't scared of it, I'll stake yuh
to a hayfork after dinner. Where yuh from?"

"Just right now, I'm from the Muleshoe. Bud Birnie's my name.
I was telling dad why I quit."

"Tell me," Dave directed briefly. "Pop ain't as reliable as
he used to be. He'd never get it out straight."

"I quit," said Bud, "by special request." He pulled off his
gloves carefully and held up his puffed knuckles. "I got that
on Dirk Tracy."

The driver of the mower shot a quick, meaning glance at Dave,
and laughed shortly. Dave grinned a little, but he did not
ask what had been the trouble, as Bud had half expected him
to do. Apparently Dave felt that he had received all the
information he needed, for his next remark had to do with the
heat. The day was a "weather breeder", he declared, and he
was glad to have another man to put at the hauling.

An iron triangle beside the kitchen door clamored then, and
Bud, looking quickly, saw the slim little woman with the big,
troubled eyes striking the iron bar vigorously. Dave glanced
at his watch and led the way to the house, the hay crew
hurrying after him.

Fourteen men sat down to a long table with a great shuffling
of feet and scraping of benches, and immediately began a
voracious attack upon the heaped platters of chicken and
dumplings and the bowls of vegetables. Bud found a place at
the end where he could look into the kitchen, and his eyes
went that way as often as they dared, following the swift
motions of the little woman who poured coffee and filled
empty dishes and said never a word to anyone.

He was on the point of believing her a daughter of the house
when a square-jawed man of thirty, or thereabout, who sat at
Bud's right hand, called her to him as he might have called
his dog, by snapping his fingers.

She came and stood beside Bud while the man spoke to her in
an arrogant undertone.

"Marian, I told yuh I wanted tea for dinner after this.
D'you bring me coffee on purpose, just to be onery? I thought
I told yuh to straighten up and quit that sulkin'. I ain't
going to have folks think----"

"Oh, be quiet! Shame on you, before everyone!" she whispered
fiercely while she lifted the cup and saucer.

Bud went hot all over. He did not look up when she returned
presently with a cup of tea, but he felt her presence
poignantly, as he had never before sensed the presence of a
woman. When he was able to swallow his wrath and meet calmly
the glances of these strangers he turned his head casually
and looked the man over.

Her husband, he guessed the fellow to be. No other
relationship could account for that tone of proprietorship,
and there was no physical resemblance between the two. A mean
devil, Bud called him mentally, with a narrow forehead, eyes
set too far apart and the mouth of a brute. Someone spoke to
the man, calling him Lew, and he answered with rough good
humor, repeating a stale witticism and laughing at it just as
though he had not heard others say it a hundred times.

Bud looked at him again and hated him, but he did not glance
again at the little woman named Marian; for his own peace of
mind he did not dare. He thought that he knew now what it was
he had seen in the depth of her eyes, but there seemed to be
nothing that he could do to help.

That evening after supper Honey Krause called to him when he
was starting down to the bunk-house with the other men. What
she said was that she still had his guitar and mandolin, and
that they needed exercise. What she looked was the challenge
of a born coquette. In the kitchen dishes were rattling, but
after they were washed there would be a little leisure,
perhaps, for the kitchen drudge. Bud's impulse to make his
sore hands an excuse for refusing evaporated. It might not be
wise to place himself deliberately in the way of getting a
hurt--but youth never did stop to consult a sage before
following the lure of a woman's eyes.

He called back to Honey that those instruments ought to have
been put in the hayfield, where there was more exercise than
the men could use. "You boys ought to come and see me safe
through with it," he added to the loitering group around him.
"I'm afraid of women."

They laughed and two or three went with him. Lew went on to
the corral and presently appeared on horseback, riding up to
the kitchen and leaving his horse standing at the corner
while he went inside and talked to the woman he had called
Marian.

Bud was carrying his guitar outside, where it was cooler,
when he heard the fellow's arrogant voice. The dishes ceased
rattling for a minute, and there was a sharp exclamation,
stifled but unmistakable. Involuntarily Bud made a movement
in that direction, when Honey's voice stopped him with a
subdued laugh.

"That's only Lew and Mary Ann," she explained carelessly. "They
have a spat every time they come within gunshot of each other."

The lean fellow who had driven the mower, and whose name was
Jerry Myers, edged carelessly close to Bud and gave him a
nudge with his elbow, and a glance from under his eyebrows by
way of emphasis. He turned his head slightly, saw that Honey
had gone into the house, and muttered just above a whisper,
"Don't see or hear anything. It's all the help you can give
her. And for Lord's sake don't let on to Honey like you--give
a cuss whether it rains or not, so long 's it don't pour too
hard the night of the dance."

Bud looked up at the darkening sky speculatively, and tried
not to hear the voices in the kitchen, one of which was
brutally harsh while the other told of hate and fear
suppressed under gentle forbearance. The harsh voice was
almost continuous, the other infrequent, reluctant to speak
at all. Bud wanted to go in and smash his guitar over the
fellow's head, but Jerry's warning held him. There were other
ways, however, to help; if he must not drive off the
tormentor, then he would call him away. He ignored his
bruised knuckles and plucked the guitar strings as if he held
a grudge against them, and then began to sing the first song
that came into his mind--one that started in a rollicky
fashion.

Men came straggling up from the bunk-house before he had
finished the first chorus, and squatted on their heels to
listen, their cigarettes glowing like red fingertips in the
dusk. But the voice in the kitchen talked on. Bud tried
another--one of those old-time favorites, a "laughing coon"
song, though he felt little enough in the mood for it. In the
middle of the first laugh he heard the kitchen door slam, and
Lew's footsteps coming around the corner. He listened until
the song was done, then mounted and rode away, Bud's laugh
following him triumphantly--though Lew could not have guessed
its meaning.

Bud sang for two hours expectantly, but Marian did not
appear, and Bud went off to the bunk-house feeling that his
attempt to hearten her had been a failure. Of Honey he did
not think at all, except to wonder if the two women were
related in any way, and to feel that if they were Marian was
to be pitied. At that point Jerry overtook him and asked for
a match, which gave him an excuse to hold Bud behind the
others.

"Honey like to have caught me, to-night," Jerry observed
guardedly. "I had to think quick. I'll tell you the lay of
the land, Bud, seeing you're a stranger here. Marian's man,
Lew, he's a damned bully and somebody is going to draw a fine
bead on him some day when he ain't looking. But he stands in,
so the less yuh take notice the better. Marian, she's a fine
little woman that minds her own business, but she's getting a
cold deck slipped into the game right along. Honey's jealous
of her and afraid somebody'll give her a pleasant look. Lew's
jealous, and he watches her like a cat watches a mouse "It's
caught and wants to play with. Between the two of 'em Marian
has a real nice time of it. I'm wising you up so you won't
hand her any more misery by trying to take her part. Us boys
have learned to keep our mouths shut."

"Glad you told me," Bud muttered. "Otherwise----"

"Exactly," Jerry agreed understandingly. "Otherwise any of us
would."

He stopped and then spoke in a different tone. "If Lew stays
off the ranch long enough, maybe you'll get to hear her sing.
Wow-ee, but that lady has sure got the meadow-larks whipped!
But look out for Honey, old-timer."

Bud laughed unmirthfully. "Looks to me as if you aren't crazy
over Honey," he ventured. "What has she done to you?"

"Her?" Jerry inspected his cigarette, listened to the whisper
of prudence in his ear, and turned away. "Forget it. I never
said a word." He swept the whole subject from him with a
comprehensive gesture, and snorted. "I'm gettin' as bad as
Pop," he grinned. "But lemme tell yuh something. Honey Krause
runs more 'n the post-office."

CHAPTER ELEVEN: GUILE AGAINST THE WILY

Bud liked to have his life run along accustomed lines with a
more or less perfect balance of work and play, friendships
and enmities. He had grown up with the belief that any
mystery is merely a synonym for menace. He had learned to be
wary of known enemies such as Indians and outlaws, and to
trust implicitly his friends. To feel now, without apparent
cause, that his friends might be enemies in disguise, was a
new experience that harried him.

He had come to Little Lost on Tuesday, straight from the
Muleshoe where his presence was no longer desired for some
reason not yet satisfactorily explained to him. You know what
happened on Tuesday. That night the land crouched under a
terrific electric storm, with crackling swords of white death
dazzling from inky black clouds, and ear-splitting thunder
close on the heels of it. Bud had known such storms all his
life, yet on this night he was uneasy, vaguely disturbed. He
caught himself wondering if Lew Morris's wife was frightened,
and the realization that he was worrying about her fear
worried him more than ever and held him awake long after the
fury of the storm had passed.

Next day, when he came in at noon, there was Hen, from the
Muleshoe, waiting for dinner before he rode back with the
mail. Hen's jaw dropped when he saw Bud riding on a Little
Lost hay-wagon, and his eyes bulged with what Bud believed
was consternation. All through the meal Bud had caught Hen
eyeing him miserably, and looking stealthily from him to the
others. No one paid any attention, and for that Bud was
rather thankful; he did not want the Little Lost fellows to
think that perhaps he had done something which he knew would
hang him if it were discovered, which, he decided, was the
mildest interpretation a keen observer would be apt to make
of Hen's behavior.

When he went out, Hen was at his heels, trying to say
something in his futile, tongue-tied gobble. Bud stopped and
looked at him tolerantly. "Hen, "It's no use--you might as
well be talking Chinese, for all I know. If it's important,
write it down or I'll never know what's on your mind."

He pulled a note-book and a pencil from his vest-pocket and
gave them to Hen, who looked at him dumbly, worked his Adam's
apple violently and retreated to his horse, fumbled the mail
which was tied in the bottom of a flour sack for safe
keeping, sought a sheltered place where he could sit down,
remained there a few minutes, and then returned to his horse
He beckoned to Bud, who was watching him curiously; and when
Bud went over to him said something unintelligible and handed
back the note-book, motioning for caution when Bud would have
opened the book at once.

So Bud thanked him gravely, but with a twinkle in his eyes,
and waited until Hen had gone and he was alone before he read
the message. It was mysterious enough, certainly. Hen had
written in a fine, cramped, uneven hand:

"You bee carful. bern this up& and dent let on like you no
anything but i warn you be shure bern this up."

Bud tore out the page and burned it as requested, and since
he was not enlightened by the warning he obeyed Hen's
instructions and did not "let on." But he could not help
wondering, and was unconsciously prepared to observe little
things which ordinarily would have passed unnoticed.

At the dance on Friday night, for instance, there was a good
deal of drinking and mighty little hilarity. Bud had been
accustomed to loud talk and much horseplay outside among the
men on such occasions, and even a fight or two would be
accepted as a matter of course. But though several quart
bottles were passed around during the night and thrown away
empty into the bushes, the men went in and danced and came
out again immediately to converse confidentially in small
groups, or to smoke without much speech. The men of Burroback
Valley were not running true to form.

The women were much like all the women of cow-country: mothers
with small children who early became cross and sleepy and
were hushed under shawls on the most convenient bed, a piece
of cake in their hands; mothers whose faces were lined too
soon with work and ill-health, and with untidy hair that
became untidier as the dance progressed. There were
daughters--shy and giggling to hide their shyness--Bud knew
their type very well and made friends with them easily, and
immediately became the centre of a clamoring audience after
he had sung a song or two.

There was Honey, with her inscrutable half smile and her
veiled eyes, condescending to graciousness and quite plainly
assuming a proprietary air toward Bud, whom she put through
whatever musical paces pleased her fancy. Bud, I may say, was
extremely tractable. When Honey said sing, Bud sang; when she
said play, Bud sat down to the piano and played until she
asked him to do something else. It was all very pleasant for
Honey--and Bud ultimately won his point--Honey decided to
extend her graciousness a little.

Why hadn't Bud danced with Marian? He must go right away and
ask her to dance. Just because Lew was gone, Marian need not
be slighted--and besides, there were other fellows who might
want a little of Honey's time.

So Bud went away and found Marian in the pantry, cutting
cakes while the coffee boiled, and asked her to dance. Marian
was too tired, and' she had not the time to spare; wherefore
Bud helped himself to a knife and proceeded to cut cakes with
geometrical precision, and ate all the crumbs. With his hands
busy, he found the courage to talk to her a little. He made
Marian laugh out loud and it was the first time he had ever
heard her do that.

Marian disclosed a sense of humor, and even teased Bud a
little about Honey. But her teasing lacked that edge of
bitterness which Bud had half expected in retaliation for
Honey's little air of superiority.

"Your precision in cutting cakes is very much like your
accurate fingering of the piano," she observed irrelevantly,
surveying his work with her lips pursed. "A pair of calipers
would prove every piece exactly, the same width; and even
when you play a Meditation? I'm sure the metronome would
waggle in perfect unison with your tempo. I wonder--" She
glanced up at him speculatively. "--I wonder if you think
with such mathematical precision. Do you always find that two
and two make four?"

"You mean, have I any imagination whatever?" Bud looked away
from her eyes--toward the uncurtained, high little window. A
face appeared there, as if a tall man had glanced in as he
was passing by and halted for a second to look. Bud's eyes
met full the eyes of the man outside, who tilted his head
backward in a significant movement and passed on. Marian
turned her head and caught the signal, looked at Bud quickly,
a little flush creeping into her cheeks.

"I hope you have a little imagination," she said, lowering
her voice instinctively. "It doesn't require much to see that
Jerry is right. The conventions are strictly observed at
Little Lost--in the kitchen, at least," she added, under her
breath, with a flash of resentment. "Run along--and the next
time Honey asks you to play the piano, will you please play
Lotusblume? And when you have thrown open the prison windows
with that, will you play Schubert's Ave Maria--the way you
play it--to send a breath of cool night air in?"

She put out the tips of her fingers and pressed them lightly
against Bud's shoulder, turning toward the door. Bud started,
stepped into the kitchen, wheeled about and stood regarding
her with a stubborn look in his eyes.

"I might kick the door down, too," he said. "I don't like
prisons nohow."

"No-just a window, thank you," she laughed.

Bud thought the laugh did not go very deep. "Jerry wants to
talk to you. He's the whitest of the lot, if you can call
that--" she stopped abruptly, put out a hand to the door,
gave him a moment to look into her deep, troubled eyes, and
closed the door gently but inexorably in his face.

Jerry was standing at the corner of the house smoking
negligently. He waited until Bud had come close alongside
him, then led the way slowly down the path to the corrals.

"I thought I heard the horses fighting," he remarked. "There
was a noise down this way."

"Is that why you called me outside?" asked Bud, who scorned
subterfuge.

"Yeah. I saw you wasn't dancing or singing or playing the
piano--and I knew Honey'd likely be looking you up to do one
or the other, in a minute. She sure likes you, Bud. She
don't, everybody that comes along."

Bud did not want to discuss Honey, wherefore he made no
reply, and they walked along in silence, the cool, heavy
darkness grateful after the oil lamps and the heat of crowded
rooms. As they neared the corrals a stable door creaked open
and shut, yet there was no wind. Jerry halted, one hand going
to Bud's arm. They stood for a minute, and heard the swish of
the bushes behind the corral, as if a horse were passing
through. Jerry turned back, leading Bud by the arm. They were
fifty feet away and the bushes were still again before Jerry
spoke guardedly.

"I guess I made a mistake. There wasn't nothing," he said,
and dropped Bud's arm."

Bud stopped. "There was a man riding off in the brush," he
said bluntly, "and all the folks that came to the dance rode
in through the front gate. I reckon I'll just take a look
where I left my saddle, anyway."

"That might have been some loose stock," Jerry argued, but
Bud went back, wondering a little at Jerry's manner.

The saddle was all right, and so was everything else, so far
as Bud could determine in the dark, but he was not satisfied.
He thought he understood Jerry's reason for bringing him down
to the corrals, but he could not understand Jerry's attitude
toward an incident which any man would have called
suspicious.

Bud quietly counted noses when he returned to the house and
found that supper was being served, but he could not recall
any man who was missing now. Every guest and every man on the
ranch was present except old Pop, who had a little shack to
himself and went to bed at dark every night.

Bud was mystified, and he hated mysteries. Moreover, he was
working for Dave Truman, and whatever might concern Little
Lost concerned him also. But the men had begun to talk openly
of their various "running horses", and to exchange jibes and
boasts and to bet a little on Sunday's races. Bud wanted to
miss nothing of that, and Jerry's indifference to the
incident at the stable served to reassure him for the time
being. He edged close to the group where the talk was
loudest, and listened.

A man they called Jeff was trying to jeer his neighbors into
betting against a horse called Skeeter, and was finding them
too cautious for his liking. He laughed and, happening to
catch Bud's eyes upon him, strode forward with an empty tin
cup in his hand and slapped Bud friendliwise on the shoulder.

"Why, I bet this singin' kid, that don't know wha I got ner
what you fellers has got, ain't scared to take, a chance. Are
yuh, kid? What d' yuh think of this pikin' bunch here that
has seen Skeeter come in second and third more times 'n what
he beat, and yet is afraid to take a chance on rosin' two
bits? Whatd' yuh think of 'em? Ain't they an onery bunch?"

"I suppose they hate to lose," Bud grinned.

"That's it--money 's more to 'em than the sport of kings,
which is runnin' horses. This bunch, kid belly-ached till
Dave took his horse Boise outa the game, and now, by gosh,
they're backin' up from my Skeeter, that has been beat more
times than he won.'

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15