Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 1204
By the time he had put Umpqua away it was dark, the store was closed, and bright light shone from Nels’ window and door. A drowsy breeze blew in from the range, moved down by the cooler air on high. Frogs were croaking in the lake. Lance washed his grimy hands and face before he went in.
“Jest in time, son. Come in an’ get it,” said Nels, cheerily.
“Pard, what say to a swim in the lake after supper? She’s bank full already,” suggested Starr.
“Okay by me. But, boy! that water is cold.”
“An’ you from Oregon!”
It turned out to be warmer water than Lance was used to at home, and he enjoyed the bath. On the way back he realized that Ren had something on his mind. Lance clapped him on the back.
“What’s on your chest, buddy?”
“It’s Bonita.”
“Say, Ren, I was surprised at what you admitted to Danny. I had no idea you were serious. I’m sorry, old man.”
“You like Bonita?”
“I’ll say. She’s some kid.”
“Pard, did you kiss and hug her?”
“Ren! Have a heart. Would you expect me to tell?”
“Wal, in my case, yes. You see, pard, I want you to help me win thet kid. I cain’t do it alone.”
“Okay. Yes I did — a little. But it was no cinch. And I liked her the better. She’s a charming girl, Ren. I honestly think she’d make a swell little wife. But there are a lot of guys who’re after her, and not all of them with your good intentions.”
“Some of them Mexican vaqueros.”
“Yes. But town fellows, too. And I’m suspicious of them. I’ve a hunch some of them might know something about that rustling.”
“My hunch, too. We’ll find out. An’ pard — listen! If you’ll help me with this black-eyed little girl I’ll shore play yore game with yore proud Majesty.”
“My God! — Ren, have you gone nutty?”
“Nope. I’m cool as a cucumber right this heah minnit.”
“But man! Me aspire to that...”
“Why, hell, yes. Pard, I seen her look at you thet day, an’ if she’s not stuck on you — mebbe unknowin’ to herself — then I am nutty an’ what hev you?”
“You are — Ren — you are,” replied Lance, frantically. “I’ll make that Bonita kid think you’re a prince. But, pard, forget your pipe dream about the other.”
“Faint heart never won fair lady,” returned Starr, lightly.
That night Lance had a dream of a cherub-faced cowboy leading him along flower-strewn trails to a bower where a goddess with golden hair awaited him with white arms extended. At breakfast he was silly enough to tell Ren and Nels about that dream.
“Dreams come true, sometimes,” declared Ren, stoutly. “Hey, Nels?”
“Shore they do. An’ this one of Lance’s has a pertickler bearin’ heah,” observed Nels, without glancing at Lance.
“Yeah? And how d’you figure that?” asked Lance, scornfully.
Nels and Ren both laughed and Lance’s face crimsoned. Luckily at that juncture a message came from Stewart requesting the cowboys to come up to the house, not dressed in their Sunday clothes.
“That means work. And it’s Sunday!” complained Lance, honestly and fearfully divided between bliss and panic.
“Aw, you know you’re piflicated,” replied Starr, cryptically.
“I am — sure, but what is piflicated?”
“Wal, as I remember from past mournful experiences, it’s a kinda prolapsus of the gizzard. Heart trouble, pard.”
Upon ascending to the ranch house the cowboys, with Nels accompanying them, found a busy and excited household. Front porch and part of the patio were packed with crates, bales, boxes, trunks, packages. Stewart, in his shirt sleeves, apparently in a trance, was helping the beaming Danny Mains carry furniture into the house. Mrs. Stewart, flushed and radiant, was bustling about with the servants. Bonita was there, red-lipped and pretty, her arms full of linens. And Madge, in slacks and a backless waist, cool and sweet and smiling, evidently was boss.
She put Lance and Ren to opening crates. For a couple of hours they worked diligently at this job, and after they had unpacked everything, they carried boards and boxes and burlap and paper out to be hauled away on the morrow. The next job was to move things into the patio rooms. Lance observed that these were light, high-ceiled rooms, with colored adobe walls, and shiny floors. He had a glimpse of Madge’s rooms, and was reminded of some of the luxurious motion-picture sets he had seen in Hollywood.
At noon they had lunch on the patio porch, and it was a merry occasion. Lance, looking at Mrs. Stewart, no longer wondered how Madge had come by her beauty. She was a western girl, but her mother’s eastern breeding and distinction had been augmented in her. Lance had to admit that parents and daughter made a delightful trio, and also that the girl’s singular zest and enthusiasm motivated them.
After luncheon everybody worked harder than ever. Nels was wearing his long spurs, that stuck in dangerously as he knelt to hold a pillow in his teeth and slide it down into a slip. Nevertheless in housekeeping matters, Nels proved serious and efficient. Madge presently gave Starr and Bonita tasks to perform together, while Stewart carried and unrolled rugs and his wife oversaw his disposition of them, and the moving of furniture. Lance propounded the question as to whether he had naturally gravitated to tasks with Madge or she had arranged it that way. But the time came when he no longer doubted. That fixed his distant exterior, but it added more and more to the tumult within.
The tasks she set him, and completed with him, would never be remembered. As the minutes sped by he seemed hardly conscious of anything besides her presence — her intense and zestful activity, her requests and suggestions, and her talk in between, the intimacy that she seemed not to notice but which he felt so subtly, the play of her lovely features and the changing expressions in her violet eyes, her laugh, her smile, her grace, her disheveled golden hair falling over her face to be brushed back with a beautiful hand.
And at last, how it came about he could not say, they had finished all present tasks, and she was offering him a cigarette.
“No thanks,” he said, easily.
“Don’t you smoke?”
“Sure. Once in a while.”
“Lance, you’re one swell assistant. I think I’ll promote you, if...”
“To what?”
“Oh, major-domo or gigolo — or just cavalier.”
“It’ll be all I can do to make good as a cowboy. That is — here!”
“How modest and cool you are! I’d like it, if I could be sure you were sincere. You don’t ring true, darling.”
He had no reply for that. They had come out into the patio, and Lance was walking slowly toward the back, with apparent composure and the respectful demeanor of a cowboy toward the boss’s daughter. She walked with him, cigarette in hand. Somewhere near by Starr and Bonita were quarreling, but Madge gave no sign she heard them. Lance felt that he must escape at once, or he would betray what he knew not. Yet the bitter paradox was that another self of him longed to linger there.
“Oh, I forgot. There’s a nice room at that end of the patio. I want you to have it.”
“But, I — thank you, Miss Stewart. I have my bunkhouse lodgings.”
“Yes. I peeped in there one day while you were out. Nels showed me. Rotten for even a cowboy. And you’re a gentleman, Lance.”
“Thanks again. But I’m satisfied down there.”
“I expect you to help entertain my guests.”
“What!” He was tremendously surprised, and could say no more.
“Why should you be so surprised? Because you’ve been rude to me and I’ve been selfish? — That’s nothing. We can give, and take it, too.... These boys and girls will be tenderfeet. I must have some real western he-man around on occasions — especially where my horses are concerned. I’d like to trust you with that job.”
“But your father wants Ren and me to ride the range, build and dig and what not.”
“So Dad told me. Ren can attend to that with the vaqueros. I want you.”
“Are you giving me an order?”
“I am inviting you — asking you to be a friend — a good sport,” she retorted, her eyes flashing.
“You are very — kind. But in that case I must refuse.”
“Don’t you like me?” she demanded, incredulously.
“Miss Stewart, that is a personal matter,” he replied, looking straight ahead.
“You do like me,” she asserted.
“If you put it that way, I’m afraid I must be rude again. You are mistaken,” he rejoined, and his voice sounded curiously strange to his throbbing ears. But he was telling the truth. He did not like Madge Stewart because he loved her. The silence grew almost unbearable. He steeled himself against sarcasm, anger, wounded vanity. When they reached the wide green-bordered exit from the patio, when she stopped, he simply had to look at her. The last thing he expected was to see her eyes brimming with tears. She looked by him, out over the slope to the range. Her wide eyes were softly blurred, dark with pain.
“Lance, I can take it,” she said, presently, and lifted her cigarette to her lips. It had gone out. “Have you a match?” He produced one, struck and held it for her, and she blew a cloud of smoke, with apparent unintention, into his face. When the blue cloud cleared away he could not have believed she could possibly have looked hurt.
“Anyone can start something. But it takes a real sport to finish.”
Did she refer to an affair with him or the acquisition of his horse, or was it the passionate pride of a woman in herself? He answered by saying that he feared he, at least, had undertaken something he could never finish, and bidding her good night he left her. On the way down he took a short cut off the back road into a trail, and lingered on a secluded spot, from which he could see the flaming range on fire with sunset. The critical hour of his life had struck. He loved this girl, and the emotion seemed a coalescing of all his former fancies and loves, magnified into an incredible passion too great to understand or hate or resist. It did not require to be brooded over and analyzed and made certain. Like an avalanche it fell upon him. It was too terrible in its fatality, too transporting in its bliss, too great to be ashamed of. But it must be his secret. He swore he would die before he would let this man hunter and love taster, who like a savage princess exacted homage, this frail, spoiled, lovely creature know that he loved her.
Before dusk settled down thickly, Lance had fought out the battle, losing in his surrender to the catastrophe that had overtaken him, but victor over his weakness. Nevertheless he realized anew that he should straddle Umpqua and ride away before another day dawned. As he was not big enough to do that he did not blind himself to the peril that played and led him on.
No matter how troubled and hopeless he felt when he lay down at night, when morning dawned, with all the exquisite freshness and sweetness of this country, and the golden light over the range, he seemed to be transformed, renewed, to be glad of life and youth, and the nameless hope that beckoned him on.
Returning from his tasks at the corrals he found Madge and Nels puttering around her car. She wore a blue hat, blue gown, blue gloves — everywhere she appeared as blue as her eyes.
“Heah, son, come an’ help,” called Nels. “I don’t know a darn thing aboot these enjines.”
Madge’s look of annoyance vanished as Lance strode up to the car.
“What’s the matter?”
“The damn thing won’t start,” she said, smiling.
“You have a mechanic here. Cars are Starr’s specialty.”
“He’s gone. Will you oblige me?”
Lance leisurely lifted the hood of the engine, to see at a glance what was wrong, and in a moment adjusted it.
“How easy for you!” she flashed. “I’m terribly grateful.... Won’t you ride in to town with me?”
“What for?”
“Well, it might go on the blink again.”
“Not a chance.”
“All right. Then — just for the ride,” she returned.
Lance returned her look with a feeling that he knew he was the only man on earth who could have refused her and who must suffer the anguish of despair because he had done so.
“I’m sorry, Miss Stewart. I’ve no time. Your father relies on me for certain things. And I’m glad to relieve him of many labors — if I can’t of worries.”
“Noble of you, big boy!... Strike a match for me. I have my gloves on,” she rejoined, and leaned over the door with the cigarette between her lips. Lance had to step close, and he executed her request, but to save his life he could not have stilled the quiver of his hand as he held the match. She could not have seen it, however, for her unfathomable eyes were fastened upon his face. Then, with a merry good-by to him and Nels, she drove away. Not until she had gone down the slope did Lance realize he had watched her. Evidently Nels had done the same.
“Wal, son, she’s kinda set on disturbin’ you,” he drawled.
“Nels, I’ll never last here,” he replied, poignantly.
“Shore you will. We all like you, cowboy, an thet applies to Majesty Stewart, too.”
“Hell no!” ejaculated Lance, borrowing Starr’s expressive language.
“Sidway, I’ve knowed thet girl since she was borned,” declared Nels. “You don’t figger her atall. You made her mad at you fust off. I reckon thet was good, if you’re as nutty aboot her as Starr swears you air.”
“Nels, did he tell you that? I’ll sock him, by thunder! — Isn’t there anything or anybody on this ranch but that girl?”
“Wal, she seems to be the center of things, whirlin’ them like a dust devil.”
All day long Lance glanced up from this and that task to see if there was a car raising the dust down on the valley road. Nevertheless he accomplished three days’ work in one, so strenuously did he apply himself. When he went in to supper, Starr sat there, owl-eyed and pretending innocence. His entrance evidently disrupted some kind of a eulogy Nels was delivering to Stewart.
“Sidway, I’ve got to hand it to you,” said the rancher, warmly. “You’re a glutton for work.”
“I don’t hate work, sir.”
Starr sat up in mild reproof. “Heah, you queer duck from Oregon, you aint no hawg fer eatin’, I’ll tell you thet. An’ if you keep on doin’ ten greasers’ work on an empty stummick you’ll be an angel in heaven.”
“Been off my feed lately,” Lance admitted, after the laugh subsided.
“Sidway, are you any good at figures?” asked Stewart. “My accounts are in a tangle. I never was any good at them. Nels can’t add two and two to make four. And Starr never went to school.”
“Aw, Boss! The hell I didn’t. I can read an’ write some.”
“Stewart, your daughter can, I’ll bet. It must have cost you a lot to educate her. Why not make her your bookkeeper?”
“I wouldn’t have Madge see what a poor businessman I am for anything.... Can you straighten out my accounts for me?”
“Be glad to, Boss. I had a course in bookkeeping. I’m not so hot at it, but ordinary figures are not beyond me.”
“Nels, I’ll bet our new range hand is hot all around,” interposed Starr.
“Ren, he started well. But any fool can start. It’s stickin’ to the finish that counts.”
The cowman’s lazy drawl of humor recalled Madge’s subtle expression of the very same thought.
“Shall I come up right away?” asked Lance.
“No. I’ll fetch the books down. I had to hide them from Madge. She came home full of the Old Nick. She’d be curious, and maybe offended, if she found out about it.”
When Stewart was gone, Ren stared solemnly at Lance. “Pard, did you get thet? Full of the Old Nick!”
“Are you going to begin again?” burst out Lance. “You’re most as bad as Nels. Give me a rest about Madge Stewart.”
“Rest! You cain’t have a rest. Never again so long as you live! Thet’s what Bonita did to me, only not anyways so bad.... Pard, I smelled hard likker on Majesty’s breath!”
“Yeah? When did she come home?”
“Couple hours ago. She was sweeter’n a basket of roses. But I got a scent like a wolf’s.”
“What of that? She drinks. All these college girls drink. It’s nothing. No more than cigarettes.”
“Shore. I read the magazines an’ go to the movies. But, pard, it’s different in Majesty’s case. It worries me an’ Nels.”
“And why? You’re wasting your time.”
“Son,” interposed Nels, gravely. “Gene Stewart was the hardest drinkin’ cowboy on this range. He was a drunkard. For ten years he swore off. Thet was on account of Madeline. Then he drank again — oncet in a long while — an’ he does now. When he said Majesty come home full of the Old Nick, me an’ Ben hed the same idee. Did he mean drink? An’ is he afeared his girl has inherited his weakness for strong likker?”
“Oh, fellows, the boss didn’t mean that,” expostulated Lance. “I’m sure he didn’t. He just meant mischief.... My God, that’d be a tough spot for Stewart! He’s one grand guy.”
“Wal, you said it. Pard, if she asked you to ride in town with her how’n hell did you keep from it?”
“I’ve got a job and a sense of responsibility. Besides, she just wants to make a — a chump out of me.”
“Son, don’t you let her,” declared Nels.
“Wal, I hope to Gawd you can keep from it,” added Ren, fervently. “Say, Sid, there’ll be high jinks goin’ on if them girls air the least like Majesty. Comin’ day after tomorrow.”
“Lord help us!”
“Son, it shore looks like you’d hev to be the Lord. Fer all of us air under her thumb,” said Nels, so very earnestly that Lance could not laugh.
“That’s telling me, Nels,” replied Lance, and went to his own room. He stumbled over something soft, then ran into a chair that had not been there in the morning. He could not locate his table. Even in the pitch blackness the room felt different and smelled differently.
