Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 1086
“Prettiest bit of hossflesh I’ve seen in ten years,” said Sue fervently. “Like the mustangs we used to see in Arizona. Navajo ponies, black as coal, with white manes an’ tails. Or Piute pintos with moon eyes!...Say, boy, what’s the idear fetchin’ him heah?”
The lad appeared to be about sixteen, a tanned, ragged youngster whose face was familiar. He smiled at Sue, but did not answer her.
“Whose horse? Why did you bring him here?” cried Martha Ann. “Oh, he’s adorable!...Whom does he belong to? Where’d he come from?”
“Wind River Valley. Colorado sire. Them Colorado folks breed the bloodinest hosses in the West,” replied the lad enthusiastically.
“He’s the most beautiful pony in the whole world. Oh Sue, I never dreamed of such a horse. I’ll buy him if I have to pawn all my jewelry. Boy, is he for sale?”
“I reckon not. You see he couldn’t have been bought at all ‘cept the girl who rode him died, an’ her folks couldn’t bear to see him around.”
“But who owns him now?...Sue, I’ll have him — if I have to — marry his owner.”
“What’s his name?” asked the more practical Sue. “Buckskin.”
“Who owns him?” almost shrieked Martha Ann. “Wal, accordin’ to my boss, Stanley, he was bought fer another girl,” replied the boy.
“Who? What’s he doing out here? Some one of those town girls showing him off — to make me miserable!”
“Name is Martha Ann Dixon.”
“Me!” called Martha faintly, and sat down on the kitchen bench.
“For the land’s sake!...Some of thet Jim Fenner’s work. Martha, he was shore actin’ queer before he left...Boy, who sent him?”
“My boss, Mr. Stanley.”
“An’ how come?”
“Wal, all I know is thet Jim Fenner picked Buckskin out of a thousand haid an’ sent him by cowboys with some other hosses. Buck arrived yestiddy, an’ the saddle this mawnin’. So my boss sent me right out. Buck shore hated bein’ led out by an old Ford, but he acted decent. He’s shore a dandy pony.”
“For — me?” gasped Martha, rising with bells ringing in her ears. “Boy, if this is a joke — I’ll murder you.”
“Fact, Miss. Look heah, yore name’s on the tag.” He stepped to the car nearby and lifting out a large package wrapped in brown paper he deposited it on the ground before Martha. “There.”
“It’s my name, all right,” cried Martha incredulously. “Oh, dear, I am going loco, too...But, Sue, I always believed in fairies. I never stopped playing with dolls...I never grew up. This is a dream and I’m Alice in Wonderland.”
“Lass, it ‘pears to be true thet Jim sent the mustang an’ this package,” said Sue. “He’s made some kind of a deal or trade. Mebbe gone deep in debt. You was always wantin’ a nice hoss so bad. Wal, he’s shore done it up brown...Boy, help me open this pack.”
Timidly Martha Ann took the halter, and then recalling Jim’s advice never to be afraid of a horse she drew closer to Buckskin, her heart in her throat, and put a slow gentle hand on his neck. He threw up his head spiritedly and his fine dark eyes seemed to say: “Well, who are you? And what are you going to do about me?”
He pranced a little, until Martha drew him down, and he trembled under her hands, and finally surrendered to her soft voice and caressing fingers. When at length he rubbed his nose against her, then Martha gave way completely to her rapture. “Oh, you darling horse! Oh, you Buckskin! I adore you!”
“For the land’s sake!” ejaculated Sue for the third time. “Martha, look heah! There’s been a holdup, or a fire. This is all Mexican stuff, an’ the finest ever.”
“Oh, Lordy! What is it all?” asked Martha Ann, and gaped helplessly at what appeared to be a pile of shiny black, silver ornamented leather.
“Double-cinch saddle with tapadoros, bridle, spurs. All silver-mounted. An’ two Mexican saddle blankets.”
“Simply gorgeous!...But, Sue—”
“Shore. I’m stumped. Must have cost a lot of money. Finest of Mexican stuff. Been used some, which makes it all the better.”
“Where’d he get the money?” faltered Martha Ann. “Gawd only knows!”
Just then Andrew came striding across the road, his dark eyes alight, a smile on his usually stern face.
“What’s doing?...Glory! What a pony!...And black saddle, bridle...Martha, have you gone back to one of your old tricks?”
“Andrew, don’t make fun of me now,” she wailed. “Is it true? Do you see what I see?”
“Well, I see a wonderful little mustang and the swellest saddle and trappings I ever laid my eyes on.”
“Where did Jim get them?”
“Let’s look...Saddle marked Yaeger, El Paso, Yaeger? He’s the most famous saddle maker in the West...So Jim sent these? Well, I’ll say that’s fine. Martha, I’m tickled for you.” His dark eyes shed a warm light upon her and his voice was rich with pleasure.
She tried to transfix him with accusing eyes, though at that moment she would have forgiven her worst enemy. “Andrew, did you lend Jim the money?”
“Me!...Absolutely not, child!...But don’t distress yourself with where Jim got these gifts. Be happy with them.”
“Happy, when we are so hard up!”
“Martha, to me this seems like a sign of better days to come. Let’s take it that way...Go change to your riding togs. I’ll saddle the mustang for you.”
Martha rushed to her room in a state bordering between tears and rapture. “He was glad!” she whispered, as her hands flung things about. “I have never seen him look so glad.” And the hot blood flooded her cheeks.
When she emerged from the house presently, Buckskin stood there saddled and bridled, with a bit of the bright saddle blanket showing. For anyone who loved a horse he was perfect.
“Don’t stand staring. A horse is for riding,” cried Andrew. “I wonder if he’ll give you the flying mount...Well, I’m a son of a gun! Martha, he’s kneeling for you.”
To Martha’s amazement and glee, Buckskin bent a knee and let her step into the saddle.
“A horse that’ll do that will never pitch. Put him through his paces, Martha.”
She rode off into the grassy open pasture. The rest was pure enchantment.
That night, as usual, after dark Martha Ann slipped out of her room, careful not to let Sue or her Uncle hear her. A cold wind blew off the range, and she needed her warm coat. The stars were all out, though there was no moon. Keen-eyed and vigilant she crossed the open to the river bank, and glided along the rim in the shadow of the trees. A pale gleam of water shone out of the darkness. The few remaining dead leaves whispered. Wild dogs of the range, as she called the coyotes, were making the welkin ring. For several nights she had been keeping this stealthy vigil, but tonight there seemed a subtle difference, and it must have had to do with the happiness Jim Fenner’s gift had given her. That glorious ride had left her spent, rapturous. She was too happy, too strangely happy. For days and days Andrew had slowly drawn away, aloof, stern of lip, sad of eye, a lonely young man, a victim of his own pride, and of his firm decision, that if there were to be any change in the impasse between them, she would have to make the first move.
Martha stole like a stalking Indian under the tree whose branches brushed Andrew’s cabin. Unseen, making no more sound than a cat, she glided to the wall and felt for the little peephole she had poked through a chink between the logs. The peephole had been made in the tenant’s absence. Martha’s heart always beat high during this act, her blood raced and her mind whirled between fear and delight. But before undertaking this nightly spying, she had been careful to ascertain just about when she might expect him to be sitting before his fire. So far she had succumbed to this temptation without suffering any embarrassment for her temerity. But trepidation always attended the moment that she glued her eye to the little peephole. More than once she had doubted the propriety of what she was doing, butas she certainly meant to marry Andrew eventually it would not matter so terribly — . But that was always as far as she got and she always was hard put to it to stifle a giggle.
Andrew on this occasion sat in his accustomed place, in the light of the fire, his head bowed, his somber, piercing eyes upon the fire. How handsome, how chastened he looked! That bitter cynical line had left his lips. He was greatly mellowed. His face in this unguarded moment seemed infinitely sad. Martha Ann was jealous of the fire. What did he see in those flickering flames? Did the face of that vile Connie shine there, or the fair faces of other women he had known? But Andrew’s eyes did not see the fire or the past. Had she but known, it was her own lovely face that he was seeing in those flames.
Martha tore herself away and silently walked through the frosty grass, back to the line of trees, and so across the open to the house and her room. She did not light either her fire or her lamp this night. She did not want to see her face. She knew that she was caught in her own toils. Undressing, she murmured her prayers and hastily got into bed to lie there with wide open eyes. And over again she repeated the same nightly refrain.
Andrew loved her. He was breaking his heart over her. The wrong he had done her in his judgment long had been atoned for. She knew beyond any passionate denial, any scornful needs of her pride and vanity, that he now knew her to be true. He had wanted to marry her believing her untrue to what he held the best in womanhood. And she had hated him for it. She had told him the truth, and from that very moment had recognized her real self.
The shame, the smart, the indignation he had caused her had eased away, as night after night she had witnessed his silently endured pain. But still she had not been satisfied. She wanted proof, proof of his misery, of his yearning, of his love. It had been unutterably sweet, this nightly vigil, this intimacy with him in his unguarded hours. The thing had taken a terrible hold on her. She had reproached herself, fought with her conscience, only to go back the next night to watch him brood over his lonely fire.
Martha Ann this last night was certain that she was being a spiteful, revengeful little cat. But she would have her due. And a voice whispered to her conscience, the greater his reward must be. That thought recurring oftener in these days, always filled Martha Ann with shame. She was lost as deeply as Andrew, though she would not face it. She would not have had his courage. The thing which consumed her now, and always denied the still, small voice, or froze the warm sweet tide, was the needful all-satisfying proof of Andrew’s worship of her, of his will to renounce what his heart was not ready to renounce. She had to go on. She must watch him again and again, though she flayed herself, she must see more and more how he wanted her. And when the time came when she saw that he would have reached the end of his endurance — then — then — then.
“Then!” Martha whispered into her pillow. That night, as on every other night since she had begun this last mad prank, obeying this imperious need to look upon the forlorn face of the man she loved, she cried herself to sleep.
About noon on the following day Martha Ann was coming from the corral, which she had already visited three times to feel and pat and talk to Buckskin, when she saw a great cloud of dust up along the river road. She halted, nonplused. It could not be a storm for there was no wind. Then a low thunder of trampling hoofs and the bawling of a herd of cattle smote her ears.
“Of all things! Look what’s coming,” she cried, and mounted like a squirrel to the top bar of the corral fence. There she perched in the thrilled expectation of her first sight of a great range herd after the fall roundup. “Uncle Nick! Sue! Oh, Andy, where are you?”
Bligh heard her and ran out into the road, where he threw up his hands in excitement, and stood for a moment as if transfixed. Martha’s shout was drowned in the oncoming uproar. Bligh ran to take refuge in the doorway of the house. Sue appeared from the kitchen to peer about as one bewildered. When she located the moving wall of dust she turned frantically as if to warn Martha. She ran to Bligh, and he pointed to where Martha was sitting astride the high corral fence.
The forefront of that herd appeared to be a mass of red and white cattle, of legs and horns moving through the rolling dust. It was not a stampede, as Martha had imagined, but the steady drive of a great herd, rendered frightful by the road and bawl, and the cloud of yellow dust that swept onward with them. Like a cataract the left flank spilled over the river bank, the center came on squarely across the wide space comprising road and pasture, and the right, split by the house, sheered off across the range. Soon all the space between the house and Andrew’s cabin was filled with bawling moving cattle. There were hundreds, thousands, Martha thought, steers and cows and yearlings and calves, a great herd on its way to the range.
It enveloped the ranch buildings and swallowed them up in the yellow dust pall, and rolled on past Martha Ann, leaving her excited and a little frightened, and choked and blinded by the dust. She kept her seat on the high fence, coughing, fanning herself with her handkerchief. The herd swept on and began to spread out over the range. The dust cloud blew away.
Then Martha Ann espied an odd, high-boarded wagon, drawn by two teams, and flanking the chuck wagon were five dusty riders on dusty tired horses. They dismounted before the house. The wagon stopped. The five men lined up before Mr. Bligh and shook hands. They talked. Bligh made gestures unusual for him. Sue ran in one door and out the other, wringing her apron, like one completely confused. Then Martha was startled to see four of the men turn to look in her direction, and then stalk toward her.
“Good heavens! What can these cowboys want?” she asked herself. “Where’s Andrew?...Oh, well, let ’em come!”
Something about their leisurely arrogant bowlegged gait roused Martha’s ire. They walked as if they knew that she could not help finding them irresistible. In fact they were, only she did not want them to know how she felt. As they approached she observed that they were older than the cowboys she had been accustomed to, a matured, rough, hard-bitten quartet. Moreover, they were dust-grimed from long riding. The one on the left was the tallest cowboy Martha had ever seen. He fairly towered over his companions and his sombrero was so huge that it made him look top-heavy. The one on the right was the shortest and oddest-looking cowboy that had ever come into Martha’s view. He was so bowlegged that he never could have stopped a pig in a lane!
The pint-sized cowboy removed his sombrero with a sweep, to disclose a round red face, with black streaks of dust and sweat running down it, and the boldest, merriest, most mischievous eyes Martha Ann had ever looked into.
“Mawnin’” he said. “Air you Miss Martha Ann Dixon?”
“I guess I am,” replied Martha dubiously.
“Mister Bligh said fer us to interduce ourselves to you,” went on the cowboy pompously. “Thet tall member of us Four Muskeeters is Tully Sloane.”
The tallest cowboy promptly bared his head which was almost minus hair and shone like a polished nut. His face was thin and weathered, like Cordovan leather. He was so tall that his face was on a level with her knee. Martha liked his smile, but did not trust it. He had very clear, gray eyes that appeared to twinkle as he looked up at her.
“Howdy, Miss. I shore am glad to meet you,” he drawled, and stuck out a hand as wide as a board.
“Thank you. I return the compliment,” replied Martha, and gave over her hand to have it squeezed until she could have screamed.
“An’ this hyar is our lady killer an’ sport, Cash Tanner,” went on the spokesman. And he indicated a handsome florid-faced man of at least forty years, large of frame, with a huge bow-shaped mustache and big ox-like brown eyes under bushy eyebrows.
“Miss Dixon, how do you do,” replied this worthy in a deep, cavernous voice. “Don’t pay no attention to Bandy. When you get to know me, wal—”
“An’ lady, this heah is Sylvester Hay. He’s shy — a Burl dodger from Montana,” interrupted the short one, this time indicating a slim, superbly built cowboy, the youngest of the four, fair-haired and blue-eyed, with smooth unlined face just now betraying considerable embarrassment. He appeared to choke over his acknowledgment of the introduction. Martha Ann murmured her pleasure.
“An’ I’m Bandy Wheelock,” concluded the little man, grandiloquently, transfixing her with his merry, impudent eyes.
“Welcome to the ranch! How’ do. And now what am I supposed to do?” said Martha Ann, divided between a desire to glare at him and to shout with mirth.
“Wal, fust off we gotta get acquainted,” declared Bandy.
“That will be — lovely,” replied Martha. “Lady, air you free?” inquired the deep-voiced one. “Free! I hope so. What do you mean?”
“Fancy-free an’ unattached. ‘Cause if you air—”
“Miss Dixon, I ain’t so pertickler,” interposed Tully Sloane. “An’ I’m gettin’ my bid in pronto fer the dance thet’s goin’ to be give us soon.”
“Thank you. I’ll consider your invitation,” rejoined Martha gravely.
“Wal, he was correct,” said Bandy critically, running his bold gaze over Martha and back to her face. “She’s the doggonedest, purtiest gurl I ever see.”
Martha Ann blushed. This was being a little too sincere.
“May I inquire who has been flattering me?”
“Why, Jim, of course.”
“Jim? Jim who?”
“Who else but Jim Fenner. He shore had us all het-up over you, Miss Martha.”
“Jim Fenner! Do you know him?” cried Martha.
“Wal, I should sniggle we do.”
“Where is he?”
“He come with us. Didn’t you see him?”
“Where you from?” she asked weakly.
“Arizony. All of us ‘cept Syl used to ride fer Jim, when he was foreman of the Hash Knife. But when thet outfit got shot up we scattered. Shore is a happy reunion fer us old timers.”
“Arizona!” gasped Martha. “And this — cattle herd?”
“Wal, lady, we regret to state thet this stock ain’t from Arizony. Jim picked ’em up down on the Medicine Bow, meanwhiles sendin’ fer us to come pronto. We didn’t let no dust collect.”
