CHAPTER XIV
THE SHERIFF ENSNARED
Evidently the feminine portion of the population did not agree with him.One was openly hostile--a Mrs. Garland. But she may not have beenunprejudiced, for her maiden name had been Grace Hawes. For somereason--not unconnected with her manner of arrival in Badger--themarried women fought shy of Hetty and kept their daughters rigidlyaloof. She perceived this quickly enough--long before the men remarkedit--and accepted it as she did everything else, with a species ofpassive disdain.
"What for do you let these here fellers get off them bum jokes?" saidLafe suddenly, one day at dinner. He was in high dudgeon. The sheriffwas a regular boarder at the Fashion now, but seldom did he offer a wordto the waitress, or she one to him.
"If it amuses them, let 'em do it. It don't hurt me," she said,unruffled.
"Yes it does, too, hurt you. Say, you'd ought to wear a high collar."
"You mind your own business," Hetty cried hotly and flushed to the tipsof her ears.
The white, white column of her neck was always bare, for she knew itsbeauty full as well as did anybody else and wore her dress cut lowaccordingly; and Mr. Johnson had noted with consuming rage that it heldthe rapt gaze of the diners. Indeed, she was a strapping, fine woman.Black hair, heavy black eye-brows, blue eyes and a dazzling skin--theymade an unusual combination. Hetty carried herself fearlessly erect. Herfigure was full but supple, and she walked as if her body heldinexhaustible reserves of strength.
He said no more then, but later broke out with the stunning declarationthat waiting on table was no fit job for a lady--not with a lot of lazyloafers round, especially. His proposition was that she get out of theFashion and go to live with the Widow Brown, who was a nice, respectablewoman, and would be company for her. And the sheriff would see that shegot a job of some sort. Or perhaps she would like to go on a visit toMrs. Floyd, whose husband owned the Lazy L range. He would secure her aninvitation.
"You're awful kind, aren't you?" she said. "You make me think of Bessieand her fellow, you do."
Lafe intimated that these individuals were unknown to him, but he fainwould hear more.
"Why, this fellow of Bessie's--Bess worked next to me at the store--hewanted to reform her, he said--Bess was really too fly."
"Well? Why shouldn't he?"
"Huh! Reform her!" said Miss Ferrier. "He only wanted to keep everybodyelse away."
"She's tough." Lafe assured himself of this again and again as he wenthome. "She's mighty tough; yes, sir. Else she couldn't talk that away.And them friends of hers. A city's a rotten place."
Of course, he, too, asked her to go riding. She thanked him, butrefused.
"I'll treat you proper," he said.
"You can bank on it you will. But I won't go. No, thanks."
A silver heart he purchased for her, together with an enormously longchain, was returned without a syllable of explanation, although the giftwas dispatched anonymously. The sheriff was much chagrined. Hetty didher task above criticism when he was at table, but all efforts toestablish a friendlier footing met with rebuffs.
"I'll be doggoned if you ain't nicer to these here other fellers thanyou are to me," said Lafe, after a fortnight of this.
"Why shouldn't I be?"
"Why shouldn't--? I swan I don't know."
The admission was wrung from him slowly, and he appeared to be deep inthought during the remainder of the meal. His manner thenceforward tookon a grave, distant politeness that Hetty found peculiarly galling.Meanwhile, the world wagged on about as usual.
One day he listened with a very bad grace to certain compliments paid bya puncher to Hetty. He considered them to be in execrable taste,probably because her badinage in reply lacked its usual sting. Hefrowned sullenly, and Mr. Johnson's reputation was such that this surlydemeanor greatly disconcerted her admirer, much to Hetty's annoyance.The sheriff lingered after the others had risen from the table.
"I'll find out right now," he said determinedly.
Hetty happened to lean over his shoulder to remove some dishes. With adexterous twist, he pinioned her arms and kissed her full on the mouth.She was quite passive under it, gazing steadily into his eyes when hepaused.
"Well, I hope you enjoyed yourself," was all she said.
"I ain't complaining," he answered thickly. Yet he released her.
A bad week followed for Lafe. He was irascible, quick to snap up a word,which was foreign to him. So insulting was his behavior that thelandlord of the Fashion feared he would have to shoot Lafe some day whenhe caught him without a gun.
The sheriff occupied a two-roomed frame shack on the edge of town. Itwas a cheerless hole of a place. His barn, where he kept his threehorses, was inviting by comparison. Often of nights he paced the barefloor of the bedroom, and more than once the faint dawn was whiteningthe windows, and the cocks of all Badger were lustily heralding thesun, before he threw himself down to sleep. One evening he deposited hislantern on a chair and sat down in another beside it, and in thathalf-light tried to reason out the whole problem. About midnight hethrew away his cigarette and prepared for bed.
"Well," he said, ruffling the sheet with his toes, "I give in. She maybe worse'n ol' Dutch Annie, but I've got to have her. That's all thereis to that."
He sought Hetty next evening after her work was done at the Fashion. Shewas standing in the rear doorway of the annex.
"I want you to marry me," he began.
"You do, do you? I suppose you think you're doing something mighty fineto ask me, don't you?" A slight color rose in her cheeks.
"Never mind what I think. I can't do without you. It must be love, Ireckon, though it ain't what I thought that was. But I want you to marryme, anyhow. Will you?"
"No, I won't," she said.
"Yes, you will, too."
"I wouldn't marry you, Lafe Johnson, if you were the last man on top ofearth." She turned indoors.
The sheriff went home, very quiet indeed.
The Sheriff of Badger: A Tale of the Southwest Borderland Page 14
