The Flockmaster of Poison Creek Part 21

CHAPTER XIV

THE LONESOMENESS

"He's got the lonesomeness," said Dad, "and I tell you, John, when that gits a hold of a man he ain't responsible. It's the same as shuttin' a man up in jail to break him off of booze--say, he'll claw the rocks out of the wall with his finger nails to git out where he can take a snort."

"I never had the lonesomeness, so I don't know, but there's something the matter with the kid."

"Yes, I see him tearin' around the country ridin' the head off of that horse, never lookin' where he's goin' any more than a bat. He's been clean over to Four Corners after the mail twice this week. A feller must want a letter purty bad when he'll go to all that fuss for it."

"I'm afraid it's going to be hard for him; he hasn't any more than bitten into his three years yet; he don't really know how they taste."

"It'll break him; he'll go all to pieces, I tell you John. When the lonesomeness takes a hold of a feller that way something pops in his head after a while; then he either puts a bullet through his heart or settles down and gits fat. That feller ain't got it in him to put on loco fat."

Dad had slicked himself up pretty well that day before cutting across the range for a chat with Mackenzie. His operations with the sheep-shears on his fuzzy whiskers had not been uniform, probably due to the lack of a mirror. Dad trusted to the feel of it when he had no water by to look into and guide his hand, and this time he had cut close to the skin in several places, displaying his native color beneath the beard. But whatever he lacked in his chin-hedge he made up for in careful arrangement of his truly beautiful hair.

There was a sniff of perfume about him, a nosegay of wild flowers pinned in the pocket of his shirt. Mackenzie marveled over these refinements in the old man's everyday appearance, but left it to his own time and way to tell what plans or expectations prompted them.

"Hector Hall showed up?"

"No."

"Reid wouldn't make any more than a snap and a swaller out of that feller, I guess. But it ain't good for a man like him to start out killin'; it goes to his liver too quick and drives him mooney."

"I don't suppose it's very healthy for any man, Dad."

"You said it! I've went fifty miles around a range to skip a feller that was lookin' for my skelp, and I'd go a thousand before I'd crowd a fight. I never was much on the fight, and runnin' sheep took what little was in me out a long time ago."

Dad got out his red box of corn-husk cigarettes, offering it silently to Mackenzie, who shook his head, knowing very well that Dad did it to observe conventions rather than out of a desire to have him help himself. The stock of Mexican smokes was running low; Dad had spoken of it only the day before, and his feet were itching for the road to the border, he said.

"Well, he's got a name and a fame in this country he can travel on,"

said Dad.

Which was true enough. Mackenzie's fight with Swan Carlson had taken second place, his reputation as a fighting man in the sheeplands had paled almost to nothing, after Reid's swift-handed dealing with Matt Hall. The fame of his exploit ran through the country, fixing his place in it at once, for Matt Hall was known as a man who had the strength of seven in his long, gorilla arms.

Hector Hall, brother of the slain man, seemed to accept the tragedy with a sorrowful resignation in which no shadow of revenge appeared.

He let it be known that Matt had been irresponsible at times, given to night-prowlings and outbreaks of violence of strange and fantastic forms. How much truth there was in this excuse for the dead man, Hector alone knew. But no matter for his pa.s.sivity, Mackenzie did not trust him. He made a requisition on Tim Sullivan at once for revolvers for himself and Reid, which Tim delegated the young man to go to Four Corners and buy.

"Well, I come over to see if you'll lend Reid to me three or four days while I make a trip to town," said Dad. "I've got a little business over there to tend to I've been puttin' off for more than a month."

"Yes, if it's all right with Tim you can have him. What's up, getting married?"

"Kind of arrangin', John, kind of arrangin'. There's a widow-lady over at Four Corners I used to rush that needs a man to help her with her sheep. A man might as well marry a sheep ranch as work on one, I reckon."

"It's a shorter cut, anyhow. When do you want Reid?"

"I was aimin' to rack out this evenin', John."

"I'll send him over this afternoon. I don't know where he is, but he'll be back for dinner."

Dad went away well satisfied and full of cheer, Mackenzie marveling over his marital complexities as he watched him go. Together with Rabbit, and the Mexican woman down El Paso way whom John had mentioned, but of whom Dad never had spoken, and no telling how many more scattered around the country, Dad seemed to be laying the groundwork for a lively roundup one of his days. He said he'd been marrying women off and on for forty years. His easy plan seemed to be just to take one that pleased his capricious temper wherever he found her, without regard to former obligations.

Mackenzie grinned. He did not believe any man was so obscure as to be able to escape many wives. Dad seemed to be a dry-land sailor, with a wife in every town he ever had made in his life. Mackenzie understood about Mexican marriages. If they were priest marriages, they were counted good; if they were merely justice of the peace ones they were subject to wide and elastic infringement on both sides. Probably Indian marriages were similar. Surely Dad was old enough to know what he was about.

Reid came to camp at noontime, and prepared dinner in his quick and handy way. Mackenzie did not take up the question of his acting as relief for Dad while the old scout went off to push his arrangements for marrying a sheep ranch, seeing that Reid was depressed and down-spirited and in no pleasant mood.

They were almost independent of the camp-mover, owing to their light equipment, which they could carry with them from day to day as the sheep ranged. Supplies were all they needed from the wagon, which came around to them twice a week. After dinner Reid began packing up for the daily move, moody and silent, cigarette dangling on his lip.

"It's a one-h.e.l.l of a life!" said he, looking up from the last knot in the rope about the bundle of tent.

"Have you soured on it already, Earl?"

Reid sat on the bundle of tent, a cloud on his face, hat drawn almost to the bridge of his nose, scowling out over the sheep range as if he would curse it to a greater barrenness.

"Three years of this, and what'll I be? h.e.l.l! I can't even find that other Hall."

"Have you been out looking for him?"

"That big Swede over there was tellin' me he's put me down in his book for a killin'. I thought I'd give him a chance to get it over with if he meant it."

"Has Carlson been over?"

"No, I rode over there the other evening. Say, is that the woman you found chained up when you struck this country?"

"She's the one."

Mackenzie looked at Reid curiously as he answered. There was something of quick eagerness in the young man's inquiry, a sudden light of a new interest in his face, in sharp contrast with the black mood of a moment before.

"She looks like an Ibsen heroine," said Reid. "Take that woman out of this country and dress her right, and she'd be a queen."

"You'd better keep away from there," said Mackenzie, dryly.

"Oh, I guess I can take care of Swan if you could," Reid returned, with a certain easy insolence, jerking his hip to hitch his gun around in suggestive movement.

Mackenzie dropped the matter without more words, seeing too plainly the humor of the youth. Maybe Dad had diagnosed his ailment aright, but to Mackenzie it appeared something more than plain lonesomeness.

The notoriety attending the killing of Matt Hall had not been good for Reid. He wanted more of it, and a bigger audience, a wider field.

If this was a taste of the adventure of the West's past romantic times, Mackenzie felt that he was lucky he had come too late to share it. His own affair with Swan Carlson had been sordid enough, but this unlucky embroilment in which Reid had killed a man was a plain misfortune to the hero of the fight. He told Reid of Dad's request.

"You go and run his sheep for him," Reid suggested. "It'll take you a little nearer Joan."

This he added as with studied sneer, his face flushing darkly, his thin mouth twisted in an ugly grin.

Mackenzie pa.s.sed it, but not without the hurt of the unkind stab showing in his face. It was so entirely unjustified as to be cruel, for Mackenzie was not in Reid's way even to the extent of one lurking, selfish thought. Since Reid had saved his life from Matt Hall's murderous hands, Mackenzie had withdrawn even his most remote hope in regard to Joan. Before that he had spun his thread of dreams, quite honestly, and with intent that he would not have denied, but since, not at all.

He owed Reid too much to cross him with Joan; he stepped aside, denying himself a thought of her save only in relation of teacher and pupil, trying to convince himself that it was better in the end for Joan. Reid had all the advantage of him in prospects; he could lift up the curtain on his day and show Joan the splendors of a world that a schoolmaster could point out only from afar. Mackenzie seemed to ignore the youth's suggestion that he go and tend Dad's flock.