The Flockmaster of Poison Creek Part 33

"It wouldn't be that way, Dad--can't you see I don't care for him? If I cared, he wouldn't have to have any money, and you wouldn't have to argue with me, to make me marry him."

"It's that stubborn you are!" said Tim, his softness freezing over in a breath.

"Let's not talk about it, Dad," she pleaded, turning to him, the tears undried on her cheeks, the sorrow of the years he had made slow and heavy for her in her eyes.

"It must be talked about, it must be settled, now and for good, Joan.

I have plans for you, I have great plans, Joan."

"I don't want to change it now, I'm satisfied with the arrangement we've made on the sheep, Dad. Let me go on like I have been, studying my lessons and looking after the sheep with Charley. I'm satisfied the way it is."

"I've planned better things for you, Joan, better from this day forward, and more to your heart. Mackenzie is all well enough for teachin' a little school of childer, but he's not deep enough to be over the likes of you, Joan. I'm thinkin' I'll send you to Cheyenne to the sisters' college at the openin' of the term; very soon now, you'll be makin' ready for leavin' at once."

"I don't want to go," said Joan, coldly.

"There you'd be taught the true speech of a lady, and the twist of the tongue on French, and the nice little things you've missed here among the sheep, Joan darlin', and that neither me nor your mother nor John Mackenzie--good lad that he is, though mistaken at times, woeful mistaken in his judgment of men--can't give you, gerrel."

"No, I'll stay here and work my way out with the sheep," said she.

Tim was standing at her side, a bit behind her, and she turned a little more as she denied him, her head so high she might have been listening to the stars. He looked at her with a deep flush coming into his brown face, a frown narrowing his shrewd eyes.

"Ain't you that stubborn, now!" he said.

"Yes, I am," said Joan.

"Then," said Tim, firing up, the ashes of deceit blowing from the fire of his purpose at once, "you'll take what I offer or leave what you've got! I'll have no more shyin' and shillyin' out of you, and me with my word pa.s.sed to old Malcolm Reid."

Joan wheeled round, her face white, fright in her eyes.

"You mean the sheep?" she asked.

"I mean the sheep--just that an' no less. Do as I'll have you do, and go on to school to be put in polish for the wife of a gentleman, or give up the flock and the interest I allowed you in the increase, and go home and sc.r.a.pe the pots and pans!"

"You'd never do that, Dad--you'd never break your word with me, after all I've gone through for you, and take my lambs away from me!"

"I would, just so," said Tim. But he did not have the courage to look her in the face as he said it, turning away like a stubborn man who had no cause beneath his feet, but who meant to be stubborn and unjust against it all.

"I don't believe it!" she said.

"I will so, Joan."

"Your word to Malcolm Reid means a whole lot to you, but your word to me means nothing!" Joan spoke in bitterness, her voice vibrating with pa.s.sion.

"It isn't the same," he defended weakly.

"No, you can rob your daughter----"

"Silence! I'll not have it!" Tim could look at her now, having a reason, as he saw it. There was a solid footing to his pretense at last.

"It's a cheap way to get a thousand lambs," said she.

"Then I've got 'em cheap!" said Tim, red in his fury. "You'll flout me and mock me and throw my offers for your good in my face, and speak disrespectful----"

"I spoke the truth, no word but the----"

"I'll have no more out o' ye! It's home you go, and it's there you'll stay till you can trim your tongue and bend your mind to obey my word!"

"You've got no right to take my sheep; you went into a contract with me, you ought to respect it as much as your word to anybody!"

"You have no sheep, you had none. Home you'll go, this minute, and leave the sheep."

"I hope they'll die, every one of them!"

"Silence, ye! Get on that horse and go home, and I'll be there after you to tend to your case, my lady! I'll have none of this chargin' me to thievery out of the mouth of one of my childer--I'll have none of it!"

"Maybe you've got a better name for it--you and old man Reid!" Joan scorned, her face still white with the cold, deep anger of her wrong.

"I'll tame you, or I'll break your heart!" said Tim, doubly angry because the charge she made struck deep. He glowered at her, mumbling and growling as if considering immediate chastis.e.m.e.nt.

Joan said no more, but her hand trembled, her limbs were weak under her weight with the collapse of all her hopes, as she untied and mounted her horse. The ruin of her foundations left her in a daze, to which the surging, throbbing of a sense of deep, humiliating, shameful wrong, added the obscuration of senses, the confusion of understanding. She rode to the top of the hill, and there the recollection of Mackenzie came to her like the sharp concern for a treasure left behind.

She reined in after crossing the hilltop, and debated a little while on what course to pursue. But only for a little while. Always she had obeyed her father, under injunctions feeling and unfeeling, just and unjust. He was not watching to see that she obeyed him now, knowing well that she would do as he had commanded.

With bent head, this first trouble and sorrow of her life upon her, and with the full understanding in her heart that all which had pa.s.sed before this day was nothing but the skimming of light shadows across her way, Joan rode homeward. A mile, and the drooping shoulders stiffened; the bent head lifted; Joan looked about her at the sun making the sheeplands glad. A mile, and the short breath of anger died out of her panting lungs, the long, deep inspiration of restored balance in its place; the pale shade left her cold cheeks, where the warm blood came again.

Joan, drawing new hope from the thoughts which came winging to her, looked abroad over the sunlit sheeplands, and smiled.

CHAPTER XXII

PHANTOMS OF FEVER

"That was ten or twelve days ago," Dad explained, when Mackenzie found himself blinking understandingly at the sunlight through the open end of the sheep-wagon one morning. "You was chawed and beat up till you was hangin' together by threads."

Mackenzie was as weak as a young mouse. He closed his eyes and lay thinking back over those days of delirium through which a gleam of understanding fell only once in a while. Dad evidently believed that he was well now, from his manner and speech, although Mackenzie knew that if his life depended on rising and walking from the wagon he would not be able to redeem it at the price.

"I seem to remember a woman around me a good deal," he said, not trusting himself to look at Dad. "It wasn't--was it----?"

Mackenzie felt his face flush, and cursed his weakness, but he could not p.r.o.nounce the name that filled his heart.

"Yes, it was Rabbit," said Dad, catching him up without the slightest understanding of his stammering. "She's been stickin' to you night and day. I tell you, John, them Indians can't be beat doctorin' a man up when he's been chawed up by a animal."

"I want to thank her," Mackenzie said, feeling his heart swing very low indeed.

"You won't see much of her now since you've come to your head, I reckon she'll be pa.s.sin' you over to me to look after. She's shy that way. Yes, sir, any time I git bit up by man or beast, or shot up or knifed, I'll take Rabbit ahead of any doctor you can find. Them Indians they know the secrets of it. I wouldn't be afraid to stand and let a rattlesnake bite me till it fainted if Rabbit was around. She can cure it."

But Mackenzie knew from the odor of his bandages that Rabbit was not depending on her Indian knowledge in his case, or not entirely so.