Lonesome Land Read online

  CHAPTER XV. A COMPACT

  The blackened prairie was fast hiding the mark of its fire torture under acloak of tender new grass, vividly green as a freshly watered, well-keptlawn. Meadow larks hopped here and there, searching long for a shelterednesting place, and missing the weeds where they were wont to sway andswell their yellow breasts and sing at the sun. They sang just as happily,however, on their short, low flights over the levels, or sitting upon gray,half-buried boulders upon some barren hilltop. Spring had come with lavishwarmth. The smoke of burning ranges, the bleak winter with its sweepingstorms of snow and wind, were pushed info the past, half forgotten in thisnew heaven and new earth, when men were glad simply because they werealive.

  On a still, Sunday morning--that day which, when work does not press, isset apart in the range land for slight errands, attention to one's personalaffairs, and to the pursuit of pleasure--Kent jogged placidly down the longhill into Cold Spring Coulee and pulled up at the familiar little unpaintedhouse of rough boards, with its incongruously dainty curtains at thewindows and its tiny yard, green and scrupulously clean.

  The cat with white spots on its sides was washing its face on the kitchendoorstep. Val was kneeling beside the front porch, painstakingly stringingwhite grocery twine upon nails, which she drove into the rough posts with asmall rock. The primitive trellis which resulted was obviously intendedfor the future encouragement of the sweet-pea plants just unfolding theirsecond clusters of leaves an inch above ground. She did not see Kent atfirst, and he sat quiet in the saddle, watching her with a flicker ofamusement in his eyes; but in a moment she struck her finger and sprang upwith a sharp little cry, throwing the rock from her.

  "Didn't you know that was going to happen, sooner or later?" Kent inquired,and so made known his presence.

  "Oh--how do you do?" She came smiling down to the gate, holding the hurtfinger tightly clasped in the other hand. "How comes it you are riding thisway? Our trail is all growing up to grass, so few ever travel it."

  "We're all hard-working folks these days. Where's Man?"

  "Manley is down to the river, I think." She rested both arms upon thegatepost and regarded him with her steady eyes. "If you can wait, he willbe back soon. He only went to see if the river is fordable. He thinks twoor three of our horses are on the other side, and he'd like to get them.The river has been too high, but it's lowering rather fast. Won't you comein?" She was pleasant, she was unusually friendly, but Kent felt vaguelythat, somehow, she was different.

  He had not seen her for three months. Just after Christmas he had met herand Manley in town, when he was about to leave for a visit to his people inNebraska. He had returned only a week or so before, and, if the truth wereknown, he was not displeased at the errand which brought him this way. Hedismounted, and when she moved away from the gate he opened it and went in.

  "Well," he began lightly, when he was seated upon the floor of the porchand she was back at her trellis, "and how's the world been using you? Hadany more calamities while I've been gone?"

  She busied herself with tying together two pieces of string, so that thewhole would reach to a certain nail driven higher than her head. She stoodwith both hands uplifted, and her face, and her eyes; she did not reply forso long that Kent began to wonder if she had heard him. There was no reasonwhy he should watch her so intently, or why he should want to get up andpush back the one lock of hair which seemed always in rebellion and alwaysfalling across her temple by itself.

  He was drifting into a dreamy wonder that all women with yellow-brown hairshould not be given yellow-brown eyes also, and to wishing vaguely that itmight be his luck to meet one some time--one who was not married--when shelooked down at him quite unexpectedly. He was startled, and half ashamed,and afraid that she might not like what he, had been thinking.

  She was staring straight into his eyes, and he knew that she was thinkingof something that affected her a good deal.

  "Unless it's a calamity to discover that the world is--what it is, andpeople in it are--what they are, and that you have been a blind idiot. Isthat a calamity, Mr. Cowboy? Or is it a blessing? I've been wondering."

  Kent discovered, when he started to speak, that he had run short of breath."I reckon that depends on how the discovery pans out," he ventured, aftera moment. He was not looking at her then. For some reason, unexplained tohimself, he felt that it wasn't right for him to look at her; nor wise; norquite pleasant in its effect. He did not know exactly what she meant, buthe knew very well that she meant something more than to make conversation.

  "That," she said, and gave a little sigh--"that takes so long--don'tyou know? The panning out, as you call it. It's hard to see things veryclearly, and to make a decision that you know is going to stand the test,and then--just sit down and fold your hands, because some sordid, pettylittle reason absolutely prevents your doing anything. I hate waitingfor anything. Don't you? When I want to do a thing, I want to do itimmediately. These sweet-peas--now I've fixed the trellis for them to climbupon, I resent it because they don't take hold right now. Nasty littlethings--two inches high, when they should be two yards, and all coveredwith beautiful blossoms."

  "Little woman, listen here," he said. "You're playing hardluck, and I know it"]

  "Not the last of April," he qualified. "Give 'em a fair chance, can't you?They'll make it, all right; things take time."

  She laughed surrenderingly, and came and sat down upon the porch near him,and tapped a slipper toe nervously upon the soft, green sod.

  "Time! Yes--" She threw back her head and smiled at him brightly--andappealingly, it seemed to Kent. "You remember what you told me once--aboutsheep-herders and _such_ going crazy out here? The _such_ is sometimesready to agree with you." She turned her head with a quick impatience."Such is learning to ride a horse," she informed him airily. "Such does iton the sly--and she fell off once and skinned her elbow, and she--well,Such hasn't any sidesaddle--but she's learning, 'by granny!'"

  Kent laughed unsteadily, and looked sidelong at her with eyes alight. Shematched the glance for just about one second, and turned her eyes away witha certain consciousness that gave Kent a savage delight. Of a truth, shewas different! She was human, she was intolerably alluring. She was not theprim, perfectly well-bred young woman he had met at the train. LonesomeLand was doing its work. She was beginning to think as an individual--as awoman; not merely as a member of conventional society.

  "Such is beginning to be the proper stuff--'by granny," he told her softly.

  He was afraid his tone had offended her. She rose, and her color flared andfaded. She leaned slightly against the post beside her, and, with a handthrown up and half shielding her face, she stared out across the coulee tothe hill beyond.

  "Did you--I feel like a fool for talking like this, but one sometimesclutches at the least glimmer of sympathy and--and understanding, andspeaks what should be kept bottled up inside, I suppose. But I've beenbottled up for so _long_--" She struck her free hand suddenly against herlips, as if she would apply physical force to keep them from losing allself-control. When she spoke again, her voice was calmer. "Did you ever getto the point, Mr. Cowboy, where you--you dug right down to the bottom ofthings, and found that you must do something or go mad--and there wasn't athing you could do? Did you ever?" She did not turn toward him, but kepther eyes to the hills. When he did not answer, however, she swung her headslowly and looked down at him, where he sat almost at her feet.

  Kent was leaning forward, studying the gashes he had cut in the sod withhis spurs. His brows were knitted close.

  "I kinda think I'm getting there pretty fast," he owned gravely when hefelt her gaze upon him. "Why?"

  "Oh--because you can understand how one must speak sometimes. Ever since Icame, you have been--I don't know--different. At first I didn't like you atall; but I could see you were different. Since then--well, you have now andthen said something that made me see one could speak to you, and you wouldunderstand. So I--" She broke off suddenly and laughed an apology. "A
m Iboring you dreadfully? One grows so self-centered living alone. If youaren't interested--"

  "I am." Kent was obliged to clear his throat to get those two words out."Go on. Say all you want to say."

  She laughed again wearily. "Lately," she confessed nervously, "I've takento telling my thoughts to the cat. It's perfectly safe, but, after all, itisn't quite satisfying." She stopped again, and stood silent for a moment.

  "It's because I am alone, day after day, week in and week out," she wenton. "In a way, I don't mind it--under the circumstances I prefer to bealone, really. I mean, I wouldn't want any of my people near me. But onehas too much time to think. I tell you this because I feel I ought to letyou know that you were right that time; I don't suppose you even rememberit! But I do. Once last fall--the first time you came to the ranch--youknow, the time I met you at the spring, you seemed to see that this big,lonesome country was a little too much for me. I resented it then. I didn'twant any one to tell me what I refused to admit to myself. I was trying sohard to like it--it seemed my only hope, you see. But now I'll tell you youwere right.

  "Sometimes I feel very wicked about it. Sometimes I don't care. Andsometimes I--I feel I shall go crazy if I can't talk to some one. Nobodycomes here, except Polycarp Jenks. The only woman I know really well inthe country is Arline Hawley. She's good as gold, but--she's intenselypractical; you can't tell her your troubles--not unless they're concreteand have to do with your physical well-being. Arline lacks imagination."She laughed again shortly.

  "I don't know why I'm taking it for granted you don't," she said. "Youthink I'm talking pore nonsense, don't you, Mr. Cowboy?" She turned fulltoward him, and her yellow-brown eyes challenged him, begged him forsympathy and understanding, held him at bay--but most of all they set hisblood pounding sullenly in his veins. He got unsteadily to his feet.

  "You seem to pass up a lot of things that count, or you wouldn't say that,"he reminded her huskily. "That night in town, just after the fire, forinstance. And here, that same afternoon. I tried to jolly you out offeeling bad, both those times; but you know I understood. You know damn'_well_ I understood! And you know I was sorry. And if you don't know, I'ddo anything on God's green earth--" He turned sharply away from her andstood kicking savagely backward at a clod with his rowel. Then he felther hand touch his arm, and started. After that he stood perfectly still,except that he quivered like a frightened horse.

  "Oh, it doesn't mean much to you--you have your life, and you're a man, andcan do things when you want to. But I do so need a friend! Just somebodywho understands, to whom I can talk when that is the only thing will keepme sane. You saved my life once, so I feel--no, I don't mean that. It isn'tbecause of anything you did; it's just that I feel I can talk to you morefreely than to any one I know. I don't mean whine. I hope I'm not a whiner.If I've blundered, I'm willing to--to take my medicine, as you would say.But if I can feel that somewhere in this big, empty country just one personwill always feel kindly toward me, and wish me well, and be sorry for wewhen I--when I'm miserable, and--" She could not go on. She pressed herlips together tightly, and winked back the tears.

  Kent faced about and laid both his hands upon her shoulders. His face wasvery tender and rather sad, and if she had only understood as well as hedid--. But she did not.

  "Little woman, listen here," he said. "You're playing hard luck, and I knowit; maybe I don't know just how hard--but maybe I can kinda give a guess.If you'll think of me as your friend--your pal, and if you'll always tellyourself that your pal is going to stand by you, no matter what comes,why--all right." He caught his breath.

  She smiled up at him, honestly pleased, wholly without guile--and whollyblind. "I'd rather have such a friend, just now, than anything I know,except--. But if your sweetheart should object--could you--"

  His fingers gripped her shoulders tighter for just a second, and he let hergo. "I guess that part'll be all right," he rejoined in a tone she couldnot quite fathom. "I never had one in m' life."

  "Why, you poor thing!" She stood back and tilted her head at him. "Youpoor--_pal_. I'll have to see about that immediately. Every young man wantsa sweetheart--at least, all the young men I ever knew wanted one, and--"

  "And I'll gamble they all wanted the same one," he hinted wickedly, feelinghimself unreasonably happy over something he could not quite put intowords, even if he had dared.

  "Oh, no. Hardly ever the same one, luckily. Do you know--pal, I've quiteforgotten what it was all about--the unburdening of my soul, I mean. Afterall, I think I must have been just lonesome. The country is just as big,but it isn't quite so--so _empty_, you see. Aren't you awfully vain, to seehow you have peopled it with your friendship?" She clasped her hands behindher and regarded him speculatively. "I hope, Mr. Cowboy, you're in earnestabout this," she observed doubtfully. "I hope you have imagination enoughto see it isn't silly, because if I suspected you weren't playing fair,and would go away and laugh at me, I'd--scratch--you." She nodded her headslowly at him. "I've always been told that, with tiger eyes, you find thedisposition of a tiger. So if you don't mean it, you'd better let me knowat once."

  Kent brought the color into her cheeks with his steady gaze. "I was justgetting scared _you_ didn't mean it," he averred. "If my pal goes back onme--why, Lord help her!"

  She took a slow, deep breath. "How is it you men ratify a solemnagreement?" she puzzled. "Oh, yes." With a pretty impulse she held out herright hand, half grave, half playful. "Shake on it, pal!"

  Kent took her hand and pressed it as hard as he dared. "You're going to bea dandy little chum," he predicted gamely. "But let me tell you right now,if you ever get up on your stilts with me, there's going to be all kinds oftrouble. You call me Kent--that is," he qualified, with a little, unsteadylaugh, "when there ain't any one around to get shocked."

  "I suppose this _isn't_ quite conventional," she conceded, as if thethought had just then occurred to her. "But, thank goodness, out here therearen't any conventions. Every one lives as every one sees fit. It isn't thebest thing for some people," she added drearily. "Some people have tobe bolstered up by conventions, or they can't help miring in their ownweaknesses. But we don't; and as long as we understand--" She looked to himfor confirmation.

  "As long as we understand, why, it ain't anybody's business but our own,"he declared steadily.

  She seemed relieved of some lingering doubt. "That's exactly it. I don'tknow why I should deny myself a friend, just because that friend happens tobe a man, and I happen to be--married. I never did have much patience withthe rule that a man must either be perfectly indifferent, or else makelove. I'm so glad you--understand. So that's all settled," she finishedbriskly, "and I find that, as I said, it isn't at all necessary for me tounburden my soul."

  They stood quiet for a moment, their thoughts too intangible for speech.

  "Come inside, won't you?" she invited at last, coming back to everydaymatters. "Of course you're hungry--or you ought to be. You daren't run awayfrom my cooking this time, Mr. Cowboy. Manley will be back soon, I think. Imust get some lunch ready."

  Kent replied that he would stay outside and smoke, so she left him with afleeting smile, infinitely friendly and confiding and glad. He turned andlooked after her soberly, gave a great sigh, and reached mechanically forhis tobacco and papers; thoughtfully rolled a cigarette, lighted it, andheld the match until it burned quite down to his thumb and fingers. "Pals!"he said just under his breath, for the mere sound of the word. "Allright--pals it is, then."

  He smoked slowly, listening to her moving about in the house. Her stepscame nearer. He turned to look.

  "What was it you wanted to see Manley about?" she asked him from thedoorway. "I just happened to wonder what it could be."

  "Well, the Wishbone needs men, and sent me over to tell him he can go towork. The wagons are going to start to-morrow. He'll want to gather hiscattle up, and of course we know about how he's fixed--for saddle horsesand the like. He can work for the outfit and draw wages, and get his cattlethrown back on thi
s range and his calves branded besides. Get paid fordoing what he'll have to do anyhow, you see."

  "I see." Val pushed back the rebellious lock of hair. "Of course yousuggested the idea to the Wishbone. You're always doing something--"

  "The outfit is short-handed," he reiterated. "They need him. They ain'tstraining a point to do Man a favor--don't you ever think it! Well--he'scoming," he broke off, and started to the gate.

  Manley clattered up, vociferously glad to greet him. Kent, at his urgentinvitation, led his horse to the stable and turned him into the corral,unsaddled and unbridled him so that he could eat. Also, he told his errand.Manley interrupted the conversation to produce a bottle of whisky from acunningly concealed hole in the depleted haystack, and insisted that Kentshould take a drink. Kent waved it off, and Manley drew the cork and heldthe bottle to his own lips.

  As he stood there, with his face uplifted while the yellow liquor gurgleddown his throat, Kent watched him with a curiously detached interest. Sothat's how Manley had kept his vow! he was thinking, with an impersonalcontempt. Four good swallows--Kent counted them.

  "You're hitting it pretty strong, Man, for a fellow that swore off lastfall," he commented aloud.

  Manley took down the bottle, gave a sigh of pure, animal satisfaction, andpushed the cork in with an unconsciously regretful movement.

  "A fellow's got to get something out of life," he defended peevishly. "I'vehad pretty hard luck--it's enough to drive a fellow to most any kind ofrelief. Burnt out, last fall--cattle scattered and calves running the rangeall winter--I haven't got stock enough to stand that sort of a deal, Kent.No telling where I stand now on the cattle question. I did have close to ahundred head--and three of my best geldings are missing--a poor man can'tstand luck like that. I'm in debt too--and when you've got an iceberg inthe house--when a man's own wife don't stand by him--when he can't getany sympathy from the very one that ought to--but, then, I hope I'm agentleman; I don't make any kick against _her_--my domestic affairs aremy own affairs. Sure. But when your wife freezes up solid--" He held thebottle up and looked at it. "Best friend I've got," he finished, with awhining note in his voice.

  Kent turned away disgusted. Manley had coarsened. He had "slopped down"just when he should have braced up and caught the fighting spirit--thespirit that fights and overcomes obstacles. With a tightening of his chest,he thought of his "pal," tied for life to this whining drunkard. No wondershe felt the need of a friend!

  "Well, are you going out with the Wishbone?" he asked tersely, jerking histhoughts back to his errand. "If you are, you'll need to go over thereto-night--the wagons start out to-morrow. Maybe you better ride around byPolly's place and have him come over here, once in a while, to look afterthings. You can't leave your wife alone without somebody to kinda keep aneye out for her, you know. Polycarp ain't going to ride this spring; he'sgot rheumatism, or some darned thing. But he can chop what wood she'llneed, and go to town for her once in a while, and make sure she's allright. You better leave your gentlest horse here for her to use, too. Shecan't be left afoot out here."

  Manley was taking another long swallow from the bottle, but he heard.

  "Why, sure--I never thought about that. I guess maybe I _had_ better getPolycarp. But Val could make out all right alone. Why, she's held it downhere for a week at a time--last winter, when I'd forgot to come home"--hewinked shamelessly--"or a storm would come up so I couldn't get home. Valisn't like some fool women, I'll say that much for her. She don't carewhether I'm around or not; fact is, sometimes I think she's better pleasedwhen I'm gone. But you're right--I'll see Polycarp and have him come overonce in a while. Sure. Glad you spoke of it. You always had a great headfor thinking about other people, Kent. You ought to get married."

  "No, thanks," Kent scowled. "I haven't got any grudge against women.The world's full of men ready and willing to give 'em a taste of pure,unadulterated hell."

  Manley stared at him stupidly, and then laughed doubtfully, as if he feltcertain of having, by his dullness, missed the point of a very good joke.

  After that the time was filled with the preparations for Manley's absence.Kent did what he could to help, and Val went calmly about the house,packing the few necessary personal belongings which might be stuffed into a"war bag" and used during round-up. Beyond an occasional glance of friendlyunderstanding, she seemed to have forgotten the compact she had made withKent.

  But when they were ready to ride away, Kent purposely left his gloves lyingupon the couch, and remembered them only after Manley was in the saddle.So he went back, and Val followed him into the room. He wanted to saysomething--he did not quite know what--something that would bring them alittle closer together, and keep them so; something that would make herthink of him often and kindly. He picked up his gloves and held out hishand to her--and then a diffidence seized his tongue. There was nothing hedared say. All the eloquence, all the tenderness, was in his eyes.

  "Well--good-by, pal. Be good to yourself," he said simply.

  Val smiled up at him tremulously. "Good-by, my one friend. Don't--don't gethurt!"

  Their clasp tightened, their hands dropped apart rather limply. Kent wentout and got upon his horse, and rode away beside Manley, and talked of therange and of the round-up and of cattle and a dozen other things whichinterest men. But all the while one exultant thought kept reiteratingitself in his mind: "She never said that much to _him!_ She never said thatmuch to _him!_"