Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 1209
“Darling, compose yourself and get to sleep,” begged Allie, tenderly.
“I’m dead tired. But sleep! What’ll I do when I wake up?”
“You mean about him?”
“Of course.”
“Why be just the same as if nothing had happened.”
“You callous woman!... Allie — I think — I guess...” faltered Madge, finally weakening to tears... “I’m licked.... I’m afraid — he’ll go — away!”
* * * * *
Golden sunlight streaming in at Madge’s window seemed inconsistent with the gray gloomy void she wanted to believe was her lot. Allie had gone out in her dressing gown to fetch some coffee and toast. Madge’s foot felt stiff, but it was not going to incapacitate her in the least. What she wanted most right at that moment was to be down at the corrals. Would Lance be such a coward as that — to run off for fear she would betray him? What kind of girls had he known anyway? She would not have hurt him in her father’s estimation for anything in the world. She was consumed with a desire to see Sidway this morning. To see if the monster resembled in any degree her conception! He should be haggard, drawn, after a sleepless night, burdened by guilt, unable to look anyone in the eye.
Allie returned, escorted by a bevy of bright-eyed girls, all of whom had been in the kitchen.
“Lazy girl! It’s ten o’clock,” said Maramee, whose sweet face appeared so gay and happy that Madge wondered at the credulity of human nature. They all came in, their colorful print dresses bright around Madge’s bed.
“Where are Dixie and Bu?” asked Madge.
“Horse mad. Dixie loves to sit on the corral fence and Bu is crazy to ride everything.”
“She’ll get piled up,” declared Madge, severely.
“Humph! Bu’s been piled up, as you call it. But she picks herself up and yelps for more. The cowboys get some kick out of her.”
After a little Madge inquired for the boys. Gone, hours before, off on a hiking trip!
“Not really?” ejaculated Madge, her cup halted halfway to her lips. “Not Barg and... and...”
“Yes, Barg,” declared Maramee, happily. “He poked his head in my window and tossed wild roses on my face, to awaken me. Whispered he’d rather have stayed home with me. Oh, he was darling.”
“To be sure. Barg’s a darling, all right....” Madge was interrupted by the arrival of Dixie Conn, flushed and breathless, no doubt from a climb up the hill.
“Majesty, I thought you were indisposed or something. You just look stunning,” said the southern girl.
“Yeah? Thanks, Dix. But you’re looking through rose-colored spectacles.... Where’s Bu?”
“Madge — Girls! That outsider has shown us up. She’s dishonored the fair name of our sorority.”
“Oh, for the love of Mike — what now?”
“Bu is riding Umpqua right this minute. You know we all tried to coax Sidway to let us ride him. Same as Majesty tried to buy him. Nothing doing! And now she’s down there having a swell time on that grand horse. The cowboy is teaching Bu to jump over logs and ditches, and what have you? Was I jealous? All the same I had to hand it to Bu. She looked great. How’d she ever put that over with Sidway?”
“I’ve a hunch and I’m going to try it,” said Selma Thorne, subtly.
“Say, don’t imagine I let any grass grow under my feet,” declared Dixie. “I went up to the cowboy, raved about his horse and complimented Bu. Then I said, with all I’ve got, old dears, ‘Lance, I’d almost sell my soul to ride Umpqua!’ He said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I can’t read your mind. Umpqua loves girls. I’d be only too happy to put you up on him. Hang around, till Beulah is through.’ I wasn’t dressed for riding as you see, so I asked if I might go down early tomorrow. Then he looked troubled. I hadn’t noticed that. Why, he looked just wretched. And he said: ‘Yes, by all means, if I’m here. But I expect Miss Stewart to fire me this morning!’... Majesty, darling, what has he done now? But no matter, don’t fire Sidway.”
And then the other girls burst into a chorus of appeals and conjectures and wisecracks that fairly infuriated Madge. She flung pillows at them. “Beat it, you pack of imps! I must have been bughouse to invite you over here.... Get out! — No! I’m — not — going — to — fire — Lance Sidway! Go climb on his neck and then on his precious Umpqua for all I care. That’d be the way to get there. But I’d die first.”
They fled in a fiendish clamor and Madge hid her face in her pillow. It was a bad moment. There were many impetuses toward a magnificent fury, which she viewed with her mind, one after another. But she could not surrender to the one thing that had crushed her — the perfectly inconsequential and natural circumstance of Lance putting Bu Allen up on his horse. The absurdity of her childish pique gradually faded in the stern realization that her happiness, her future, and the welfare of her dear parents, so fatefully bound up in her, were at stake. Well might it be too late! But she would humble herself, crucify her selfish imperious side, absolutely refuse catastrophe. If she had been half as nice to Sidway as Bu Allen had been she would not now be in such extremity.
Madge prostrated herself before her love, which was to betray her pride and spirit. It was too great a thing to deny any longer. But by surrendering she gained some aspect of the wit and self-control she needed at this trying time. Three betrothals among her guests attested to the success of their sojourn at her ranch. That Beulah and Elwell would make a go of it there was no reasonable doubt. Madge decided to shorten and intensify the remaining stages of their entertainment and center her energies upon the trip into the mountains and the dance she had long planned.
This decision would change for her, and therefore her guests, the idle languor of the summer days. To that end, an hour after she left her room, she approached her parents, finding them in her mother’s room. Evidently Madge had interrupted a serious talk, and having changed the direction of her mind she looked at them penetratingly, conscious of her neglect this exciting summer.
“Darlings, am I intruding?” she asked, halting in the doorway.
Her mother’s sweet response and the light that her presence always brought upon her father’s dark face assured Madge of her welcome, and that indeed she had been remiss.
“Mom, you can hide trouble, but Dad can’t,” said Madge, going to them, and she found that this was not a new thought, only one put aside because it hurt. An unaccountable aloofness, arising from her shame, kept her from sliding upon the arm of Stewart’s chair. When had she done that? How little she had seen of him for a month and more! His reserve betrayed it.
“Has my crowd gotten on your nerves?” she asked.
“They have been somewhat trying,” replied Mrs. Stewart, with a smile. “But that was only because of our difficulty in adjusting ourselves to excitement and mirth and — well, the life they brought with them. I like them all, Madge. Your favorite Allie is mine, too. And the boys are fine. I’m glad you had them all here.”
“Dad?” queried Madge, poignantly.
“After they’re gone, I’ll tell you, lass,” replied her father, then hastily: “Oh, I like them all right. I just mean I must get hold of myself.”
“Yeah? I’m afraid I’m answered.... Has Rollie Stevens been nagging you about me?”
“No. That young man steers a little clear of me. But he has approached Madeline.”
“He has told me he wanted to marry you, darling. Three separate times. And has taken occasion to tell about the Stevens, their position, wealth, and all that. Very correct and a fine young fellow. But, Madge, he wouldn’t care to live out here.”
“I’ll tell the world he wouldn’t,” retorted Madge, with a laugh. “And I wouldn’t have him if he would. So skip that, Mom.”
“Madge, then — so you intend to stay home — a while?” asked Stewart, a little huskily, gazing away from her out of the window.
“Dad!” If she had followed her swift impulse it would have been to throw her arms around his neck. But she could not do it. Her intuition grasped something strange here. “I’m going to pack this crowd off sooner than I had expected. And after that I’m going to stay home for good.”
It was her mother Madge looked at, and she divined that whatever had been her thoughtless failings and deplorable shortcomings, they had never changed that faithful heart. If she had lost her father, through the years of absence, and his inability to understand her when she did come back, she divined that would not be a permanent estrangement, because she was kind and loving, and if she made amends for her wildness and settled down to a real love of him, and her future at the ranch, all would be well. Her quiet talks with Nels, too few and far between, had played no small part in the awakening of her conscience. Yet remorseful as she felt, her temper would admit of no reason that she knew why she should arraign herself at these odd moments. It was on account of that cowboy, and because she had been so unaccountably a prey to love for him. She had always known she must love some man with all her being, desperately, once and for good and she had always been looking for him. That might account somewhat for her endless interests.
“Dad, what’s on your mind?” asked Madge, after this flashing pageant of thought had left her composed, once more in a way to win back her old confidence. “Nels told me you were worrying over money troubles.”
“The gabby old woman!” ejaculated Stewart, impatiently.
“Don’t be angry with Nels. I coaxed it out of him. I’ve intended to go at him again — but I’ve been so busy with these friends. Besides, Dad, I’ve troubles of my own.”
“You have? No one would guess it. You are the happiest, gayest, most thoughtless of all these young people.”
“On the surface. But never mind my trouble now. It’s going to keep.... What I’d like to know is — when my friends are gone will you tell me everything and let me help? For five years I’ve spent money like a drunken sailor. It’s begun to frighten me a little, Dad, if I thought... if I found out I’d been a spendthrift while you and Mom had.... Oh, I’d hate that so inexpressibly.”
To Madge’s amaze Stewart abruptly took her in his arms and clasped her so closely that she could not breathe. And over her he said to her mother. “Madeline, Nels knows our girl better than we do.” Then he kissed her hair, her cheek, and rushed out.
“Mom!” she cried, going to her mother. “What have I done?... Is it?... Oh!”
“Darling, your conscience and your heart have spoken,” replied her mother, earnestly. “I knew they would. I have never doubted. It is no small thing for a rich and popular girl to return from college, from a great city, to the old-fashioned life of a ranch. Don’t distress yourself further now. Devote yourself to your friends. When they are gone we’ll face our problems. You have eliminated the only one that concerned me.”
“Mother! Whether or not I loved you — and my home?... I’ll never forgive myself.”
“What is it you girls say? ‘Skip it!’... Madge, you will not accept young Stevens?”
Madge did not need to avert her eyes, because they were blind with tears. “No, Mom. I like Rollie, and I’ve played with him. He has done the same with other girls while courting me. Rollie is a playboy. He couldn’t stand this lonely range. But I can, Mother!... And I want a handsome brute who will beat me!”
“The latter is inconceivable,” returned her mother, mildly. “I hope no such contingency arises. I do not want to see the ranch blown to bits or be shaken by some cataclysm.”
“You overrate me, darling. I’m a very meek little girl this morning.”
“You are certainly strange.”
Madge’s original idea had been to ask her father’s advice about taking her guests to the wild fastness up in the Peloncillo Hills, famous as a stronghold of the great Apache chief, Cochise. Before her school days Madge had ridden to this place with her father and the cowboys. She had never forgotten it, and it had been one of her cherished hopes to give her friends a camping trip there. For some inexplicable reason she found that she was cooling on the project, but she was too stubborn and fearful to analyze the cause. To abandon the trip after having exalted it continually for weeks did not quite suit Madge. She would have welcomed a reasonable excuse for not going, and as she considered the plans, that idea amplified. If she remembered correctly the ride up to Cochise’s stronghold was long and arduous, and not for tenderfeet. That very fact had been an incentive. She had vowed that her friends would get one experience of the real thing.
Whereupon Madge, feeling that there was safety for her in numbers, filled her car full of girls and drove down to the store. Nels was there, chipper as a grasshopper, and ready to sell the girls anything from cigarettes to calico. Three separate times Madge’s contingent of friends had bought the store out, to Nels’ joy.
“Where are the cowboys?” asked Madge.
“Lance is diggin’ postholes. An’ thet’s a job he hates as turrible as any other cowboy. Ren says every time Lance does somethin’ awful he goes oot an’ digs postholes.”
“Sort of a penance?”
“Must be. I seen Ren aboot somewheres a minnit ago. I’ll yell fer him.”
It developed that Ren was very easy to locate and soon stood, sombrero in hand, his sunburned face beaming, before Madge and her friends.
“Mawning, cowboy. Where’s your side partner?”
“Wal, Miss Majesty, he’s drunk or crazy or somethin’,” replied Ren, with a grin. “Woke me up before daylight, an’ heah’s what he said, kinda loud an’ ringin’. ‘ren, I’m goin’ out to dig postholes fer thet new fence. If anybody about heah wants to hang me or hawsewhip me, I’ll be out there. Savvy?’”
“How very thoughtful of him,” remarked Madge, resisting a deep vibration that was more than thrill. “What’s he — done now?”
“Dog-gone if I know. But it musta been turrible. I says ‘Lance, you think you’re funny?’ An’ he says ‘About as funny as death!’ An’ he stamps off, without any grub. Why, he’s worryin’ pore Nels to death.”
“How would you and Sidway like to do me a great favor?”
“Job or jest fun?”
“It’ll be a job. No fun at all! I want you to truck your horses as far as you can from town toward the Peloncillo Hills. Find the old trail up to Cochise’s stronghold, and fetch me a report on it and the camp site.”
“I’d like it swell, Miss Majesty, an’ I reckon Lance would about pass out to get away fer a spell. But, excuse me, what’s the big idee? I was huntin’ deer up there last fall. I can tell you most anythin’.”
“Ren, be very serious now. Think of my friends. Is that trip going to be a safe and comfortable one for them?” And Madge gave Starr a look that had passed from her to him on former occasions. Ren suddenly looked blank and dropped his head.
“Hell no! it’s neither one or the other. But thet’s why it’d be grand.” Ren hated to abandon the idea.
“I’m a little afraid of it. You see, Ren, I was sixteen when I made it first, had been riding horses all summer and I was fit.”
The girls burst out into bitter lamentations. “What’re we if not fit?... Haven’t we been riding horses all summer? — Madge, we don’t care a damn how hard it’d be. At that, we can beat the boys.” One and all they put up arguments hard for the kindhearted Madge to withstand. When they were out of breath, Bu Allen contributed calmly: “Lance told me it’s a lousy trip.”
“Lousy! What’s he mean by that?” returned Madge, on fire in an instant despite the fact that Sidway’s inelegant remark was in line with her designs.
“Did I ask him that? He told me a lot of terrible stuff. Said we were all too weak-kneed and soft-bottomed. That’s just what he said, the bum. He thinks we’re a lot of swell kids, but no good for the West. And that goes for you, Majesty.”
“I am quite aware in what poor opinion Sidway holds me,” rejoined Madge, cool once more, and her contrariness was such that now she felt a mounting desire to go and show him how soft-bottomed she was. “Ren, you take Sidway, and leave at once. Find out all about the trail and Cochise’s stronghold. Good and bad. Then upon your return you will report to me and all the crowd, after which we’ll vote to decide whether to go or not.”
“Very wal, Miss Majesty, I’m on my way,” replied Ren.
“Madge, you’re a whiz! Of course, we’re on to you. But we think this investigation will make the trip irresistible.”
“At least it’d be upon your own heads,” warned Madge, then calling Ren back she met him halfway, to ask: “Will you let me know if this plan is acceptable to Sidway?”
Ren regarded her, comically dumfounded. Madge averted her face slightly to go on: “You see, Ren, he may leave any minute. The more I — I need him the more contrary he grows.” She managed that demurely, but she was not smiling. Starr’s tanned face brightened.
“Miss Majesty, between you an’ me we know Lance is daid plumb nutty, an’ what it’s all about. Fer a time there I kind of feared you wasn’t on to him. Wal, I am an’ so is Nels. If you don’t believe me go to Nels. Shore I’m a pore pard to double-cross Lance this way. He’d kill me if he ever found out.”
“Found out what, Ren?” queried Madge, cool and sweet, mistress of herself again, but there was an incredible and unbelievable tumult within her being.
“Thet I give him away.... Majesty, Lance is a turrible bluff. He brags about ridin’ away. Wal, up to this time he hasn’t been able to. He’s been mad an’ wild, but he jest cain’t leave.”
“You surprise me, Ren.... And why?” went on Madge, unable to resist these precious and unreliable words from Lance’s friend.
“Wal, you gotta figger thet out fer yourself. An’ if you cain’t, why go to Nels. I’ve talked too much. Thet son-of-a-gun has eyes like gimlets when he’s close an’ telescopes when he’s far. He might be seein’ us right now. Anyway all he does is watch fer you, Majesty.”
“Ren! What on earth for?”
“It’s not because you’re nice to look at.... I’ve peeped through a crack in the wall between our rooms — an’ seen him porin’ an’ sighin’ over a picture. He acted like a man who couldn’t help lookin’ when he hated to. Thet picture is one of you, Majesty, fer I sneaked in an’ took a peep. He keeps it under a book in his table drawer. Now don’t ask me no more. I feel pretty yellow. But I’d never give him away onless fer my hunch thet you like Lance a little. Don’t you?”
