Rimrock Trail Part 35

Some of them were invited into the car for a private talk. It is certain that cigars were handed round and it was hinted that some private stock had found its way upon the car. When, three hours later, the big machine with Sims the chauffeur, imperturbable as ever, at the wheel, departed with the promoter and his heir, the name of Keith was, for a time at least, a household word in Hereford.

There was not much spoken between Molly and Sandy on the way back to the ranch. She seemed content to breathe in deep the herb-scented air and gaze at the mountains.

Sandy, riding a little to one side, a little back of her, so that he could see her better without appearing to stare, echoed, for the time, her happiness. It seemed to him as if this ride had been dreamed of by him, long ago, as if he had always known this was to happen, the gallop, side by side, the wind in their faces, their gaze toward the range, he and a woman who was all the world to him. Even the dog, leaping beside them as they loped, ranging when the pinto and the bay broke to a breathing walk, belonged in that picture. It was, he told himself, as if a boy had long cherished an ill.u.s.tration seen in a book and, suddenly, the beloved picture had become real and he a part of it.

This was Molly, the girl, who had sworn when she told them of her father's death. He could recall the tone of the words at will.

"The d.a.m.ned road jest slid out from under. He didn't have a h.e.l.l-chance!"

Molly, who had put arms about his neck and kissed him good-by when she went to school--how long ago that seemed--and said, "Sandy, I don't want to go, but I'll be game."

Game! Sandy looked at the supple strength of her, so subtly knit in curves of graciousness, alert and upright in the new saddle, Panama hat in one hand, the better to get the wind full in her face, her cheeks flushed with the caress of it, the thick brown braids fluffing here and there;--she was the essence of gameness. He had quoted _Lasca_ to her once--a line or two. More came to him now.

To ride with me and forever ride, From San Saba's sh.o.r.e to Valacca's tide.

Molly, who had told him, the first time the woman-look had come into her eyes, "Yo're sure a white man. I'll git even with you some time if I work the bones of my fingers through the flesh fo' you. Thanks don't 'mount to a d.a.m.n 'thout somethin' back of them 'em. I'll come through."

That Molly, and yet another Molly, swiftly maturing, with all life opening up before her to wider horizons than would have been hers if she had stayed back west.

I want free life and I want free air, And I sigh for the canter after the cattle, The crack of whips like shots in battle, The melee of horns and hoofs and heads.

p.r.o.nto's hoofs beat out the cantering rhythm of the poem.

That wars and wrangles and scatters and spreads, The green beneath and the blue above, And dash and danger and life and----

He had stopped the quotation there before. Now he finished the stanza,

----and life and love And Lasca!

Only it was Molly! The knowledge swept over Sandy and left him tingling.

Love came to him, the first, clean white flame of first love, burning like a lamp in the heart of a man. It was for this, he knew, that he had been woman-shy, that he had cherished his own thought of womanhood as something so rare a thought might tarnish it. First love, shorn of boy fallacies, strong, irresistible, protective, pa.s.sionate. He closed his eyes and, for the first time in his life, touched leather, gripping the horn of his saddle as if he would squeeze it to a pulp.

Game and dainty, tender, true, a girl-woman, partner--what a partner she would make, western-bred...!

He checked himself there. She was western born but, what had the transplanting done? Would she ever now be satisfied with western ways?

She would come to him, Sandy knew that. Whatever he asked her she would not refuse. But would that be fair to her? And he did not want her to come to him out of grat.i.tude. He wanted her nature to fuse with his.

Swiftly maturing as she had done, out of the ruggedness of her early years, she was still young in Sandy's eyes.

It seemed no time since he had taken her from her saddle and carried her, a tired heartsore child, in his arms. She must have a fair chance to see if the East, with all it could offer her of amus.e.m.e.nt and interest, would not outbid the claims of the West. He must wait and watch and hold himself in hand though his love and his knowledge of it thrilled through him, charging him as if with an electric current that strove to close all gaps between him and Molly, struggling ever, in mind and body, to complete the circle.

Molly reined up Blaze and turned in her saddle toward him, her eyes sparkling, the color of lupines damp with the dew of dawn. Their eyes met, the glance held, welded. For a moment the circuit was formed, polarity effected. For a moment Sandy looked deep and then Molly's eyes hazed with tenderness, with a yearning that made Sandy's heart constrict, that warned him his emotions were getting beyond control, his own eyes betraying him. He summoned his will. His face hardened to the effort, his eyes steeled. Molly's face flushed rose, from the line of her white linen riding stock up to her hair, then it paled, her eyes seemed to hold surprise, then hurt. Their expression changed, Sandy could not read it now as long lashes veiled them. He spoke with an effort, his voice sounded strange to himself, phonographic.

"How's the saddle?" he heard himself asking.

"It's wonderful. I'm not going to begin to thank you for it, now, Sandy."

"Glad to be back?"

She shook her head at him.

"No words for that, Sandy." Her eyes crinkled at him, with a hint of mischief, the old Molly looking out. "If you want to find that out, just you watch my smoke," she said, and set her heels sharply to the flanks of her mount. The astonished Blaze responded with a snort and a leap and cut loose his speed, Sandy after them on the pinto.

They got to the ranch ahead of the flivver by a scant margin. Miranda Bailey inducted Molly and her chaperon governess into the quarters she had helped prepare for them, Molly giving little cries of delight at the improvements she saw down-stairs. Miranda came down first and joined the partners.

"Molly is certainly sweet," she said. "She's grown into a woman an'

she's grown away from the old Molly. Can't say as how she's affected none an' her speech an' manners is sure fine. That gel's natcherally got a grand disposition.

"The Nicholson person--her first name is Clarice--is well-meanin'

enough. She ain't shif'less, but she ain't what you'd call practical. I reckon she does fine in teachin' Molly some things, but she'd be plumb wasted out West. She never saw a churn an' she'd likely die of thirst before she'd ever learn how to milk a cow. She's like the rest of 'em back East, I imagine, goes fine so long as folks can be hired to do everything fo' you. I'll say she never washed out anything bigger than a hankychif or cooked a thing larger'n an egg. An' she c'udn't boss a sick lizard. But she's easy to git along with, I suppose."

There was a certain complacency about the spinster's summing up of the Amenable Nicholson that made Sam wink covertly at Sandy, watching Mormon at the same time. Sam was convinced that, despite the handicap of a third wife, present whereabouts unknown, Miranda had made up her mind to marry Mormon and regarded all other women as possible rivals.

"That Donald is a good-lookin' lad," went on Miranda. "It must take him an awful waste of time to fix his clothes every time he puts 'em on. I don't know how smart he is inside, but he's got some of them movin'-picture heroes beat on appearance. I'm wonderin' what Molly thinks about him. As for his father, he's smart enough inside an' out.

But he talks too much like a politician to suit me. I'm mighty glad we got cash for our claims. Keith's too slick an' smooth an' smilin' to suit me. So long as he had lots he'd give you some to help the game erlong but, when the grazin' gits short, he'll hog the range or quit it.

That's my opinion. Or ruther, it ain't my opinion, for I ain't done a heap of thinkin' on it, it's the way I feel. Some apples sets my teeth on aidge before I know it, some victuals riles my stomach jest to mention 'em. I never c'ud abear castor-ile, jest the mention of it makes me squirmy. Keith affects me that way, on'y in my mind, well as in the pit of my stomach."

It was a lengthy diatribe from Miranda Bailey, accustomed as they were to hear her state opinions freely. The trio at Three Star had universally come to respect her decisions and also her intuitions and none of them had felt especially cordial toward Keith as a man, though they considered him good in his profession.

"The writer, Kiplin'," said Sandy, "wrote a poem about East an' West, sayin' that never the two c'ud meet. I reckon he meant White Man an'

Yeller Man but, seems to me, sometimes they do breed mighty different east an' west of the Mississippi. The man in New York is sure a heap different from the man in Denver or San Francisco or Phoenix. Out here we reckon a man is square till we find him out different an', back East, they figger he's a crook till he proves he ain't--which is apt to be some job. I don't cotton to Keith myse'f, because he ain't my kind of a hombre. He don't talk my talk, or think my line of thought, any mo' than he wears the same clothes or does the same work. Give him a cow pony or strand me alongside one of them stock-market tickers an' we'd both look foolish. I'm playin' him as square till I find he ain't. Ef he tries to flamjigger Molly out of anything that's comin' to her by rights, why, I reckon that's one time the West an' East is goin' to meet--an' mebbe lap over a bit. So fur, he's put money in our pockets. Here's Molly...."

"I'm goin' home," said Miranda, as the girl entered the room. "I've got you started an' I'll run over once in a while to see how Pedro is makin'

out."

She said good-by to Molly, who had swiftly changed out of her riding clothes into a gown that looked simple enough to Sandy, though he sensed there were touches about it that differentiated it from anything turned out locally. With the dress she looked more womanly, older, than in the boyish breeches. Miss Nicholson had made some changes also, but she had a chameleon-like faculty of blending with the background that preserved her alike from being criticized or conspicuous. As she shook hands with Miranda the two presented marked contrasts. Miranda was twentieth-century-western, of equal rights and equal enterprise; Miss Nicholson mid-Victorian, with no more use for a vote than for one of Sandy's guns. Yet likable.

"I'm going to Daddy's grave," said Molly, when Miranda had flivvered off. "I wish the three of you would come there to me in about ten minutes. Miss Nicholson, everybody's at home here. Please do anything you want to, nothing you don't want to. She rides, Sandy. And rides well. Can you get up a horse for her to-morrow?"

Miss Nicholson's face flushed, the suggestion of a high-light came into her mild eyes.

"I used to ride a good deal," she said. "But I have no saddle, no habit, and I am afraid--" She hesitated looking at them in embarra.s.sment.

"Nicky, dear, you must learn to ride western fashion. With divided skirts, if you like. We can get you a khaki outfit in Hereford."

"I should like to try it," said Miss Nicholson, her face still flaming, the high-light quite apparent.

"Up to you, Sam," said Sandy. "I sh'ud think the blue roan w'ud suit."

"I'll have her gentled to a divvy-skirt this time ter-morrer," said Sam gallantly. "You've got pluck, marm--I mean, miss--an' once you've forked a saddle, you'll never ride otherwise."

Miss Nicholson gasped at Sam's metaphor and Mormon kicked him on the shin.

"What's the idea?" he demanded after Molly had gone out and Miss Nicholson had ensconced herself on the veranda with a book.

"You're plumb indelicut. You ought to be ashamed of yorese'f. You got to be careful round females, Sam Mannin', with yore expressions. Speshully one like this Nicholson party. She's a lady."

"Who in h.e.l.l said she ain't?" demanded Sam. "Me--I guess I know how to treat a lady, well as the nex' man. I don't notice you ever made a grand success of it with yore three-strikes-an'-out."

Mormon disdained to reply. They went outside and, at the end of the ten minutes, walked together toward the cottonwoods. Grit was lying on the grave, and they saw Molly kneeling by the little railing. They advanced silently over the turf and stood in a group about her with their hats off and their heads bowed. Grit made no move and Molly did not look up for two or three minutes. Then she greeted them with a smile. There were no tear-signs on her face though her eyes were moist.