Bruce of the Circle A Part 27

lost in thought and Ann, stooping before the shelves, turned her face to watch him covertly. This was the explanation of the Bruce Bayard she knew and loved; she now understood. This was why he had drawn her to him so easily. He was rough of manner, of speech, but behind it all was thought, intelligence; not that alone, but the intelligence of an intrinsically fine mind. For an unschooled man to accomplish what he had accomplished was beyond her experience.

"I liked them," he said, touching some volumes of Owen Wister. "Lord, he sure knows cowboys an' such. He wrote a story about 'n _hombre_ called Jones, Specimen Jones, that makes me sore from laughin' every time I read it. It's about Arizona an' naturally hits me.

"That's why I like that picture. It's my country, too." He pointed to a print of Remington's "Fight for The Water Hole."

"That's th' way it looks--heat an' color an' distance," he said. "But when a thing's painted like that, you get more 'n th' looks. You get taste an' smell an' th' feeling. I get thirsty an' hot an' desperate every time I look at that picture very long....

"This Cousin Jack, Kipling," he resumed, turning back to the books, "he wrote a poem about what a man ought to be before he considers himself a man that says all there is to say on th' subject. Nothin' new in what he wrote, but he's corraled all th' ideas anybody's ever thought about.

It's fine--"

"But who is that?" she broke in, walking closer to the photograph of a young woman, too eager to see the whole of this room to pause long over any one thing.

He smiled in embarra.s.sment.

"My sister, ma'am."

"Your sister!"

"Yeah. You see, I never had any folks. Nearest thing to ancestors I know about was a lot of bent steel an' burnin' railroad cars. Old Tim picked me out of a wreck when I was a baby, an' we never found out nothin'

about me." He rubbed the back of one hand on his hip. "I... It ain't nice, knowin' you don't belong to n.o.body, so I picked out my family,"--smiling again.

"I was in Phoenix once an' I saw that lady's picture in front of a photograph gallery. It was early mornin' an' I was on my way to th'

train comin' north. I busted th' gla.s.s of th' show case an' took it. I left a five-dollar gold piece there so th' photographer wouldn't mind, an' I guess th' lady, if she knew, wouldn't care so awful much. n.o.body ever seen her here but Tim an' me. I respect her a lot, like I would my sister. You expect she would mind, ma'am?"

"I think she would be very much pleased," Ann said, soberly.

"An' that up there's my mother," he said, after their gazes had clung a moment.

"Whistler's 'Mother'!"

"Yes, he painted it; but she's th' one I'd like to have for my mother, if I could picked her out. She looks like a good mother, don't she? I thought so when I got that ... with a San Francisco newspaper."

Ann did not trust herself to speak or to look at him.

"Your father?" she asked after a moment.

"Oh, I had one. Tim. He was my daddy. He did all any father could for me. No, ma'am, I wouldn't pick out n.o.body to take Tim's place. He brought me up. But if I was to have uncles, I'd like them."

He moved across the room to where prints of Lincoln and Lee were tacked to the wall.

"But, they were enemies!" Ann objected.

"Sure, I know it. But they both thought somethin' an' stuck by it an'

fought it out. Lincoln believed one way, Lee another; they both stood by their principles an' that's all that counts. Out here we have cattlemen an' sheepmen. I'm in cattle an' lots of times I've felt like gunnin' for th' fellers who were tryin' to sheep me, but then I'd stop an' think that maybe there was somethin' to be said on their side.

"I'd sure liked to have men for uncles who could believe in a thing as hard as they believed!"

A pause followed and he looked about the room again calculatingly; then started as though he had forgotten something.

"But what I brought you in here for was to tell you that this is yours, to do what you want with ... you ..."

His words brought them back to the situation they confronted and an embarra.s.sed silence followed.

"I don't feel right, driving you out like this," Ann protested, at length.

"But don't you understand? n.o.body's ever been in here, but Tim, who's dead, an' you. You're th' first person I've ever asked to stay in here.

I'd like it ... to think you'd been in here ... stayin'.... It's you who 're doin' th' favor...."

He ended in a lowered tone and was so intent, so keen in his desire that Ann looked on him with a queer little feeling of misgiving. Every now and then she had encountered those phases of him for which she could not account, which made her doubt and, for the instant, fear him. But, after she had searched his face and found there nothing but the sincere concern for her welfare, she knew that his motive was of the highest, that he thought only of her, and she answered,

"Why, I'll be glad to stay here, in your room."

He turned and walked into the kitchen, swinging one hand.

"I'll be driftin'," he said, when she followed, forcing himself to a brusque manner which disarmed her.

"You ask Ned to water th' horses. I'm ridin' th' pinto to town. I'll be back to-morrow sometime."

He put on his hat and started for the door resolutely. Then halted.

"If anything should happen," he began, attempting a casual tone. But he could not remain casual, nor could he finish his sentence. He stammered and flushed and his gaze dropped. "Nothin' will ... to you," he finished.

With that he was gone, leading her borrowed horse back to town at her request. From a point half a mile distant he looked back. She was still in the doorway and when he halted his pony he saw a flicker of white as she waved a handkerchief at him. He lifted his hat in salute; then rode on, with a heart that was heavy and cold.

"Th' finest woman that G.o.d ever gave a body," he said, "an' I've given her over to th' only man that walks th' earth who wouldn't try to appreciate her!"

CHAPTER XV

HER LORD AND MASTER

Ann watched him go, an apprehensive mood coming upon her. He shacked off on the pinto horse while Abe, left alone in the corral, trotted about and nickered and pawed to show his displeasure at being left behind. For a long time the girl stood there, not moving, breathing slowly; then she looked about her, turned and walked into Bruce's room, roamed around, examining the books, the pictures, the furniture, touching things with her finger tips gently, lovingly, hearing his voice again as it told her of them. For her each article in that room now held a particular interest. She stared at the photograph of the girl he had selected as a sister, at Whistler's fine, capped old lady, opened the "French Revolution" and riffled the leaves he had thumbed and soiled and torn, and laughed deep in her throat as she saw the curtains hanging irregularly from their six-penny nails ... laughed, though her eyes were damp.

A step sounded in the kitchen and the woman became rigid as she listened.

"... hotter ..."

Just the one word of the muttered sentence was distinguishable, but she knew it was not Bayard's voice; knew, then, whose it must be.

Very quietly she walked to the doorway of the bedroom and stood there.

Ned Lytton had halted a step from the kitchen entry and was wiping his face with a black silk kerchief. He completed the operation, removed his hat, tossed it to a chair, unb.u.t.toned the neck of his shirt ... and ceased all movements.

For each the wordless, soundless period that followed seemed to be an age. The woman looked at the man with a slight feeling of giddiness, a sensation that was at once relief and horror, for he was as her worst fears would have it; his face, in spite of his weeks of good living, was the color of suet, purple sacks under the eyes, lips hard and cruel, and from chin to brow were the indelible marks of wasting, of debauchery.

"Ann!" he exclaimed.