Knights of the Range, page 15
“Miss Holly, I’ve been anxious to see you,” began McCoy.
“Yes? What about?”
“Well, several things, all important, and all hangin’ together. Do you recollect that little offer I made you last year?”
“Offer? I’m afraid I’ve forgotten.”
“Flatterin’.—I asked you to marry me.”
“Oh, that! Pray excuse me, Mr. McCoy. I thought that was over.”
“No doubt. But I’m makin’ it again. Third an’ last time. They say a third time is the charm. How about it, Holly?”
“My answer is the same. Thanks for the honor you would do me—but no.”
“Why not?” he asked, rather arrogantly.
“The main reason a woman refuses a man is because she doesn’t love him.”
“Holly, there are reasons why you’d do well to waive that.”
“Indeed. And what are they?”
“This range is changin.’ You’re runnin’ thirty thousand head ——”
“Fifty thousand, Mr. McCoy,” corrected Holly; and in that very moment her woman’s intuition placed this cattleman in the same category as Sutherland.
“So many? Well, your man Britt never was any good at countin’ either or grades. But no matter. This range is in for some long tough drill with rustlers. Your outfit has a bad name. This man Frayne is an outlaw—a notorious gunman. Britt picked him out of a band of ——”
“Wrong again, Mr. McCoy. I picked him.”
“You did? I’m surprised…. When cattle-stealin’ gets bad Frayne an’ some more of your disreputable outfit are goin’ to be suspected. I am your nearest neighbor. Our cattle run together, at least most of my ten thousand head ——”
“Mr. McCoy, you have a little less than five thousand branded stock on this range.”
“Sure, a lot of mine hasn’t had the iron yet,” he added, hastily. “I’ve been short of riders. But now I’ve got the best outfit on this range. If you throwed in with me we’d be too strong for any combination of rustlers. An’ my outfit would give yours a respectable name. We’d dominate the range. This Chisum bunch—they’re footloose. Slaughter has got somethin’ up his sleeve. He made me a proposition, which I won’t consider till I get your answer.”
“You are threatening me,” returned Holly, and stopped dancing on the spot, which happened to be just outside of an alcove where Britt and Frayne stood talking with Doane.
“Not at all,” protested McCoy, nettled and uneasy. “I’m just talkin’ sense…. What’s your answer?”
“No.”
“Very well. You may regret it.”
“Never,” rejoined Holly, spiritedly, in a voice that carried to her men. “Mr. McCoy, I shall back my disreputable outfit, as you called it, to the very limit. Throw in with Russ Slaughter, as you threatened. That has a suspicious slant—just as suspicious as your hint that some of my men are dishonest…. Mr. McCoy, I resent your blackguarding my men. You force me to break for the first time my father’s law of hospitality…. Please leave my house!”
Stunned, his heavy visage gray in hue, McCoy gave Holly a baleful look and strode through the dancers like a jostling bull. The music ceased. Holly moved to confront Britt. Outwardly calm, burning within, she gave Britt her hands, but she looked into Frayne’s impenetrable face.
“Good Gawd, Holly!” ejaculated Britt. “We heahed you. What possessed you to lace it into McCoy thet way?”
“Rage.”
“Wal, shore. You needn’t tell us thet. You’re as white as I never seen anythin’. An’ yore eyes, lass!”
“Can I speak before Mr. Doane?”
“Shore. Doane is my friend as he was yore Dad’s.”
“Renn—McCoy insulted you,” said Holly, with a passion that made her thoughtless. Frayne made no reply. “He tried to strengthen his offer of marriage by claiming that you and others of my men were crooked. He hinted of a big secret rustler combination for whose deals my outfit would be blamed. He said throwing my outfit in with his would give mine respectability.”
“What was thet aboot Russ Slaughter?” queried Britt, sharply.
“McCoy said he’d consider throwing in with Slaughter—if I refused his offer.”
Britt stroked his chin gravely, while his keen eyes went from Doane to Frayne.
“Oh, I lost my temper,” cried Holly, beginning to see something seriously amiss.
“Lass, I shore couldn’t have answered McCoy better, an’ neither could Frayne heah—unless he’d flashed a gun…. Renn, back me, will you? Holly is upset.”
“Miss Ripple, you could not have handled the situation better,” replied Frayne, with respect and admiration. “But tell us. How did you make that tight-jawed cattleman give himself away?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t do anything…. Let me think. He smelled of whiskey. He tried to hug me. He began at once to make his proposal. He was excited.”
“Plumb easy,” concluded Britt, with a wry smile. “Doane, keep this under yore sombrero. But think a heap. An’ keep close tab on everythin’ over yore way…. Holly, I’ll leave you with Renn.”
To be left thus with Frayne would have been disturbing enough to Holly, even if she had not been profoundly moved. Besides Frayne’s eyes pierced her.
“Like father, like daughter. If I could only have known him—ridden for him years ago! … Miss Holly, it’s easy to understand why you are what you are.”
His flattery was impersonal. But any praise from this man, with the fine allusion to the father she had worshipped, would have affected Holly then. A dreamy, seductive Spanish waltz suddenly thrummed from the guitars. Holly drew Frayne out of the alcove.
“This is our dance,” she said, and swayed into his arms. He could not see her face, which was hidden on his breast, nor her heart, which was more of a traitor. She did not care if he did feel it throb. She did not know nor care whether he danced well or ill. All Holly felt then was his strong clasp, under which she sank to the irresistible sweetness of this trance. Sooner or later it lost dominance over her mind, and she awakened to the subtlety and allurement which she had sworn to practice upon this man.
“Are you enjoying yourself?”
“I am now.”
“Didn’t Conchita—amuse you?”
“She did more.”
“Did you hold her as—closely as you are holding me?”
“I beg your pardon. I didn’t realize…. Yes, I must have. Conchita has a way of dancing you off your feet and out of your head.”
“Have I not that, Señor?”
“No doubt, to these boys with sage-brush in their heads, instead of brains.”
“But not to you?”
“No.”
“If it had not been for your one and only compliment—a moment ago—my birthday party would be spoiled.”
“Must you chatter such party nonsense?—Be sincere, Holly, or be quiet.”
She was quiet for a few rounds among the whirling couples. Then all too soon the waltz ended.
“You are pale—dizzy,” he said, solicitously, as he released her. “It is long past midnight. You have danced steadily.”
“That will be the last. And I had to steal it!—You would not have asked me. You alone!”
“Santone did not ask you. Nor Mason, nor Jackson, nor the Southards. Why do you persist in expecting more from me?”
“Let us go out a few moments,” she replied, and led him into the patio. Dancers and strollers were numerous along the wide porch, and every bench had its couple, but at the lower end, where the patio opened into the garden, there was the seclusion Holly desired.
“Is this garden walled in?” asked Frayne, peering into the gloom of foliage.
“Yes. You can enter only from the patio. Why?”
“Miss Holly, has it not occurred to you that some of your guests are thieves, outlaws, rustlers? You are surrounded by men who hate your cowboys—who would stop at nothing…. It astonishes me—your nerve or your blindness, I don’t know which. A splendid tribute to you, this turn-out. But I disapprove of this free-for-all hospitality. It will lead to annoyance to you, or more. Yet you seem not to see it. You are a grand lady on this range. Still in my opinion to laugh, talk, dance—flirt under such circumstances is most unwise.”
“Renn, I want to be happy,” she explained, poignantly.
They walked on in silence, out into the garden, down a moonlit, rose-scented path. Their slow footsteps gave forth no sound. At a curve in the path Holly heard a familiar voice, and she halted. Above it sounded the sensuous melody of a Spanish love-song from somewhere beyond.
“What has leetle Conchita done that her beeg señor ees no more sweet—he has no kees, or hug for her tonight? … No!”
Holly would have recognized that pleading voice without its self betrayal, and she turned to leave when Frayne detained her. “Hold on,” he whispered in her ear. “I’d like to hear some more.”
“But Renn!” whispered Holly, in expostulation. “It’s not nice—to listen.”
“I reckon not. But wouldn’t you like to?”
Holly’s “no” was not a miracle of truth, but it would have actuated her had not Frayne put his arm around her waist, which made it impossible for her to move, even without the slight restraint.
“Connie, you’re no good,” drawled Brazos. “You’re like all the rest of them.”
“Ah no, señor! You theenk bad of Conchita when her heart beet only for her magneeficente Brazos.”
“I’ll bet you let Frayne hug an’ kiss yu.”
“Frayne?—That so-cold Señor, who no speek Spanish—who dance so steefly…. Si Señor, he hug Conchita, but he not know it. An’ he never think of kees. He no love Conchita!”
“You black-eyed kitten! If you lie to me!”
“Conchita no lie ———”
“Come heah,” replied Brazos, masterfully. A low soft murmur ended in a succession of audible kisses. “Dog-gone-yu, Connie. If you didn’t cock yore eye at every cowboy on this range, I reckon I’d marry yu.”
Frayne lifted Holly clear of the ground and carried her noiselessly back up the path for some distance before he let her down. Then he drew her on to the arched, vine-covered entrance to the patio.
“Risky, sneaking on Brazos that way,” he remarked. He relaxed from his tenseness. His face changed magically and grew convulsed with mirth. “Gosh, if I could only—tell the outfit!”
“Don’t you dare,” broke out Holly, loyally, though she sensed a queer burning within.
“I won’t. But, Holly, wasn’t it—rich?—The jealous son-of-a-gun! Sore at poor me.—Why, honest, the girl almost fooled me. She said the same things to me. She rubbed her cheek against mine—her lips. She got her hair in my eyes. She just melted in my arms.”
“But you hugged her!” exclaimed Holly, with all a schoolgirl’s senselessness.
“Good heaven! Of course I did. I’m human. And that little Mexican lass is devastating. But no more! I’m on to her now. The darned little hussy! She’s as much of a devil as Brazos…. Holly, didn’t you nearly burst?”
“Yes, but not with mirth.”
“What do you mean?” he queried, changing.
“Renn, I was jealous.”
“No! Not really?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“But just because … Brazos is your favorite cowboy, I know…. You wouldn’t be seriously jealous of that pretty Mexican?”
“Not on his account,” replied Holly, with a significance wholly lost upon Frayne. He threw off something in relief. What had suddenly clouded his mind? Holly grasped it. He knew Brazos as she did not know him, and his perplexity, his obvious consternation had undoubtedly come from the impossibility of telling her. Britt had once informed her that cowboys did not possess morals, a sweeping statement which Holly had disbelieved. She grew perturbed, and struggled against an insidious reasoning that Frayne held her innocence sacred.
“Take me in,” she said, worn out with physical and mental strain. The stars burned white and remorselessly down upon her. That Mexican with his love-song! The music thrummed and throbbed; and the great house seemed riotous with mirth and sound. Holly had had enough. She clung to Frayne’s arm through the gay bright rooms to her own door, which she opened.
“Good night, Caballero,” she said, softly, holding out her hand.
“Holly, let me apologize.”
“For what?—Your not wanting to dance with me?”
“No. That absurd misunderstanding—about your jealousy.”
Holly smiled her forgiveness, and denied herself little in one fleeting glance before she closed her door.
Chapter Eight
HOLLY awoke late and lay thinking. The golden sun sifted through the vines over her window, spreading lace-like shadows and bright spots upon her bed. In broad daylight she could not retrieve the thoughts and feelings under which she had strained last night. It seemed impossible to give credence to some of them. What had she done—what had she said? Nothing compared to that which she had determined upon! Would she ever be able to cultivate the beguilement of Conchita Velasquez?
She passed from a vague and unsatisfactory review of her experience and conduct for the evening to an impersonal contemplation of her birthday party. It had undoubtedly been a huge success. There had been no fights, so far as she knew. But she never knew half that went on. Frayne’s sombre intimation that the gay and sumptuous party had been held over a powder-magazine had been a warning she must heed in the future. How easily her house could be made the scene of as bloody a fight as had ever occurred among cowboys!
When her next birthday rolled around Holly would break her father’s rule, to the extent that only those who received invitations could be present. It might be wise, also, to close her house at once to strangers. Lascelles and Taylor had virtually forced her to remain a prisoner in her room. The good old tranquil days of southern hospitality and Spanish atmosphere were gone forever. The era of the settler and the rancher had begun.
Holly had her breakfast, sitting up in bed, listening to the chatter of the Mexican maids, who pronounced her party una fiesta grande. Many of her guests had departed early. And some had never gone to sleep at all. They lived thirty, forty, sixty and even a hundred miles away, which meant long drives and dark camps before they reached their homes. This was a fact about the range that Holly deplored. She had visited San Marcos, but the towns farther west, Lincoln, Fort Sumner and Fort Union, Santa Fe, Taos and Las Vegas, she had never seen. Britt did not approve of Holly riding in stage coaches.
“My party is past—maybe the last one,” said Holly, to herself, as she slipped out of bed. “Now what? I haven’t a thing to do. There are many things I ought to do…. One that I can’t—I can’t…. But I shall!”
She had peeped out of her window, down upon the grassy pastures, the wide green and gray stretch to the line of cottonwoods, and around to the corrals and the cabins. That was never a lonely scene, but this morning it appeared even more than yesterday active and colorful with horses, Indians, riders, wagons and buck-boards on the move. The scene in front of the bunk-house decided Holly at once to go down. Cowboys on foot and on horseback, to the number of a hundred or more, excited her curiosity. Her boys must be up to something. She hesitated a moment, checked by a thought, but as it appeared to be a friendly gathering Holly hurriedly donned her riding outfit, and quirt in hand she ran out. She did not inquire into her eagerness, her keen scent of the warm, sage-laden air, her mounting thrill at the purple range, with its thousands of cattle. She did not inquire into the unusual precipitancy of her blood, the sense of youth and life and happiness, the joy of unplumbed anticipations. Holly’s thought, as she ran down the path, was a rebellious one that Britt was not going to hold her in any longer.
When Holly emerged from the trees she saw mounted riders and cowboys on foot in groups beyond the cabins. She recognized some of her own boys at the far end of the long bunk-house porch. As their backs were turned they did not see her. Holly gained the door, which was open, and from which issued a voice she knew.
“Aw, hell, Cap, don’t tell me nothin’,” Brazos said, harshly.
“But I do tell you. Frayne’s hunch is to watch Talman,” rejoined Britt, sharply.
Holly knocked on the door with the handle of her quirt.
“May I come in?”
“Thet you, Holly? … Yes, come in, now you’re heah. I’m shore glad Jose cleaned up this messy place.”
Holly went in to meet Britt, who for once did not brighten at sight of her. Brazos slipped off the table to greet her. But his moody face broke to the smile it always wore for her.
“Mawnin’, Lady. Yu shore look top-notch after yore all night fandango.”
“Brazos, I’m sorry I can’t return the compliment.”
Britt interposed nervously, if not testily: “Holly, what’d you bob down heah for? You go right back to the house.”
She laughed at him. “Who are you talking to? … What’s going on?”
“Wal, thet Slaughter ootfit sent word they had a hawse they’d bet no cowboy of yores could ride. I reckon it’ll delay range-ridin’ fer the time bein’.”
“I hope you’ll disprove that. Have they ever heard of Jackson?”
“Shore not, Holly, else they wouldnt’ be so gay.”
“Too good to miss,” interposed Brazos. “We’ll lead them on an’ win every dollar they got.”
“Britt, what is this I heard you tell Brazos, as I got to the door?”
“What? … Aw, nothin’ much. I forget,” returned the Texan, coolly. But he did not deceive Holly.
“Will you tell me, Brazos?”
“Shore. I’d tell yu anythin’, if I remembered. But I cain’t keep track of my own talk, let alone Britt’s.”
“Call Frayne,” returned Holly, shortly.
They stared at her.
“Do you hear me? Call him, or I shall go out after him.”
Britt went to the door and halloed for Frayne. Brazos gave Holly a cool scrutinizing glance. She smiled back at him, not so coolly, but with an intelligence he must have grasped. Quick, heavy steps sounded on the porch.
