The Price of the Prairie: A Story of Kansas

by Margaret Hill McCarter

  CHAPTER IV

  IN THE PRAIRIE TWILIGHT

  The spacious prairie is helper to a spacious life. Big thoughts are nurtured here, with little friction.

  --QUAYLE.

  By the time I was fifteen I was almost as tall and broad-shouldered asmy father. Boy-like, I was prodigal of my bounding vigor, which had nottempered down to the strength of my mature manhood. It was well for methat a sobering responsibility fell on me early, else I might havesquandered my resources of endurance, and in place of this sturdystory-teller whose sixty years sit lightly on him, there would have beenonly a ripple in the sod of the curly mesquite on the Plains and alittle heap of dead dust, turned to the inert earth again. The Westgrows large men, as it grows strong, beautiful women; and I know thatthe boys and girls then differed only in surroundings and opportunityfrom the boys and girls of Springvale to-day. Life is finer in itsappointments now; but I doubt if it is any more free or happy than itwas in those days when we went to oyster suppers and school exhibitionsup in the Red Range neighborhood. Among us there was the closestcompanionship, as there needs must be in a lonely and spacious land.What can these lads and lasses of to-day know of a youth nurtured in theatmosphere of peril and uncertainty such as every one of us knew inthose years of border strife and civil war? Sometimes up here, when Isee the gay automobile parties spinning out upon the paved street andover that broad highway miles and miles to the west, I remember the timewhen we rode our Indian ponies thither, and the whole prairie was ourboulevard.

  Marjie could ride without bridle or saddle, and she sat a horse like acattle queen. The four Anderson children were wholesome andgood-natured, as they were good scholars, and they were good riders.They were all tow-headed and they all lisped, and Bud was the mosthopeless case among them. Flaxen-haired, baby-faced youngster that hewas, he was the very first in all our crowd to learn to drop on the sideof his pony and ride like a Comanche. O'mie and I also succeeded inlearning that trick; Tell Mapleson broke a collar-bone, attempting it;and Jim Conlow, as O'mie said, "knocked the 'possum' aff his mug thryin'to achave the art." He fractured the bones of his nose, making his facea degree more homely than it was before. Then there were the Mead boysto be counted on everywhere. Dave went West years ago, made his fortune,and then began to traffic with the Orient. His name is better known inHong-Kong now than it is in Springvale. He never married, and it used tobe said that a young girl's grave up in the Red Range graveyard held allhis hope and love. I do not know; for he left home the year I came up toTopeka to enlist, and Springvale was like the bitter waters of Marah tomy spirit. But that comes later.

  Bill Mead married Bessie Anderson, and the seven little tow-headedMeads, stair-stepping down the years, played with the third generationhere as we used to play in the years gone by. Bill is president of thebank on the corner where the old Whately store stood and is ashare-holder in several big Kansas City concerns. Bessie lost her rosycheeks years ago, but she has her seven children; the youngest of them,Phil, named for me, will graduate from the Kansas University this year.Lettie Conlow was always on the uncertain list with us. No Conlow coulddo much with a horse except to put shoes under it. It was a trick ofhers to lag behind and call to me to tighten a girth, while Marjie racedon with Dave Mead or Tell Mapleson. Tell liked Lettie, and it rasped myspirit to be made the object of her preference and his jealousy. Oncewhen we were alone his anger boiled hot, and he shook his fist at me andcried:

  "You mean pup! You want to take my girl from me. I can lick you, and I'mgoing to do it."

  I was bigger than Tell, and he knew my strength.

  "I wish to goodness you would," I said. "I'd rather be licked than tohave a girl I don't care for always smiling at me."

  Tell's face fell, and he grinned sheepishly.

  "Don't you really care for Lettie, Phil? She says you like BessAnderson."

  Was that a trick of Lettie's to put Marjie out of my thought, Iwondered, or did she really know my heart? I distrusted Lettie. She wasso like her black-eyed father. But I had guarded my own feelings, andthe boys and girls had not guessed what Marjie was to me.

  It was about this time that Father Le Claire, a French priest who hadbeen a missionary in the Southwest, began to come and go aboutSpringvale. His work lay mostly with the Osages farther down the Neosho,but he labored much among the Kaws. He was a kindly-spirited man,reserved, but gentle and courteous ever, and he was very fond ofchildren. He was always in town on annuity days, when the tribes came upfor their quarterly stipend from the Government. Mapleson was the Indianagent. The "Last Chance," unable to compete with its commercial rival,the Whately house, had now a drug store in the front, a harness shop inthe rear and a saloon in the cellar. It was to this "Last Chance" thatthe Indians came for their money; and it was Father Le Claire whopiloted many of them out to the trails leading southward and startedthem on the way to their villages, sober and possessed of theirGovernment allowance or its equivalent in honest merchandise.

  From the first visit the good priest took to Jean Pahusca, and he helpedto save the young brave from many a murdering spell.

  To O'mie and myself, however, remained the resolve to drive him fromSpringvale; for, boylike, we watched him more closely than the men did,and we knew him better. He was not the only one of our town who dranktoo freely. Four decades ago the law was not the righteous force it isto-day, and we looked upon many sights which our children, thank Heaven,never see in Kansas.

  "Keep out of that Redskin's way when he's drunk," was Cam Gentry'sadvice to us. "You know he'd scalp his grandmother if he could get holdof her then."

  We kept out of his way, but we bided our time.

  Father Le Claire had another favorite in Springvale, and that was O'mie.He said little to the Irish orphan lad, but there sprang up a sort ofunderstanding between the two. Whenever he was in town, O'mie was notfar away from him; and the boy, frank and confidential in everythingelse, grew strangely silent when we talked of the priest. I spoke ofthis to my father one day. He looked keenly at me and said quietly:

  "You would make a good lawyer, Phil, you seem to know what a lawyer mustknow; that is, what people think as well as what they say."

  "I don't quite understand, father," I replied.

  "Then you won't make a good lawyer. It's the understanding that makesthe lawyer," and he changed the subject.

  My mind was not greatly disturbed over O'mie, however. I was young andneither I nor my companions were troubled by anything but the realitiesof the day. Limited as we were by circumstances in this new West, wemade the most of our surroundings and of one another. How much theprairies meant to us, as they unrolled their springtime glory! From thenoonday blue of the sky overhead to the deep verdure of the land below,there ranged every dainty tint of changeful coloring. Nature lavishedher wealth of loveliness here, that the dream of the New Jerusalem mightnot seem a mere phantasy of the poet disciple who walked with the Christand was called of Him "The Beloved."

  The prairies were beautiful to me at any hour, but most of all I lovedthem in the long summer evenings when the burst of sunset splendor haddeepened into twilight. Then the afterglow softened to that purpleloveliness indescribably rare and sweet, wreathed round by graycloudfolds melting into exquisite pink, the last far echo of thedaylight's glory. It is said that any land is beautiful to us only byassociation. Was it the light heart of my boyhood, and my merrycomrades, and most of all, the little girl who was ever in my thoughts,that gave grandeur to these prairies and filled my memory with picturesno artist could ever color on canvas? I cannot say, for all these havelarge places in my mind's treasury.

  From early spring to late October it was a part of each day's duty forthe youngsters of Springvale to go in the evening after the cows thatranged on the open west. We went together, of course, and, of course, werode our ponies. Sometimes we went far and hunted long before we foundthe cattle. The tenderest grasses grew along the draws, and these oftenformed a deep wrinkle on the surface where our whole herd was hiddenuntil we ca
me to the very edge of the depression. Sometimes the herd wasscattered, and every one must be rounded up and headed toward townbefore we left the prairie. And then we loitered on the homeward way andsang as only brave, free-spirited boys and girls can sing. And theprairie caught our songs and sent them rippling far and far over itsclear, wide spaces.

  As the twilight deepened, we drew nearer together, for comradeship meantprotection. Some years before, a boy had been stolen out on theseprairies one day by a band of Kiowas, and that night the mother drownedherself in the Neosho above town. Her home had been in a little stonecabin round the north bend of the river. It was in the sheltered drawjust below where the one lone cottonwood tree made a landmark on thePlains--a deserted habitation now, and said to be haunted by the spiritof the unhappy mother. The child's father, a handsome French Canadian,had turned Plainsman and gone to the Southwest and had not been heard ofafterwards. While we had small grounds for fear, we kept our ponies in alittle group coming in side by side on the home stretch. All the purpleshadows of those sweet summer twilights are blended with the memories ofthose happy care-free hours.

  In the long summer days the cows ranged wider to the west, and wewandered farther in our evening jaunts and lingered later in thefragrant draws where the sweet grasses were starred with many brilliantblossoms. That is how we happened to be away out on the northwestprairie that evening when Jean Pahusca found us, the evening when O'mieread my secret in my tell-tale face. Even to-day a storm cloud in thenorthwest with the sunset flaming against its jagged edges recalls thatscene. The cattle had all been headed homeward, and we were racing ourponies down the long slope to the south. On the right the draw, watchedover by the big cottonwood, breaks through the height and finds its wayto the Neosho. The watershed between the river and Fingal's Creek ishere only a high swell, and straight toward the west it is level as afloor.

  The air of a hot afternoon had begun to ripple in cool little wavesagainst our faces. All the glory of the midsummer day was ending inthe grandeur of a crimson sunset shaded northward by that threateningthundercloud. With our ponies lined up for one more race we were just onthe point of starting, when a whoop, a savage yell, and Jean Pahuscarose above the edge of the draw behind us and dashed toward us headlong.We knew he was drunk, for since Father Le Claire's coming among us hehad come to be a sort of gentleman Indian when he was sober; and wecaught the naked gleam of the short sharp knife he always wore in aleather sheath at his belt. We were thrown into confusion, and someponies became unmanageable at once. It is the way of their breed to turntraitor with the least sign of the rider's fear. At Jean's second whoopthere was a stampede. Marjie's pony gave a leap and started off at fullgallop toward the level west. Hers was the swiftest horse of all, butthe Indian coming at an angle had the advantage of space, and he singledher out in a moment. Her hair hung down in two heavy braids, and as shegave one frightened glance backward I saw her catch them both in onehand and draw them over her shoulder as if to save them from thescalping knife.

  My pony leaped to follow her but my quick eye caught the short angle ofthe Indian's advantage. I turned, white and anguish-stricken, toward mycompanions. Then it was that I heard O'mie's low words:

  "Bedad, Phil, an' that's how it is wid ye, is it? Then we've got to killthat Injun, just for grandeur."

  His voice set a mighty force tingling in every nerve. The thrill of thatmoment is mine after all these years, for in that instant I was bornagain. I believe no terror nor any torture could have stayed me then,and death would have seemed sublime if only I could have flung myselfbetween the girl and this drink-crazed creature seeking in hisirresponsible madness to take her life. It was not alone that this wasMarjie, and there swept over me the full realization of what she meantto me. Something greater than my own love and life leaped into beingwithin me. It was the swift, unworded comprehension of a woman's worth,of the sacredness of her life, and her divine right to the protection ofher virtue; a comprehension of the beauty and blessing of the Americanhome, of the obedient daughter, the loving wife, the Madonna mother, ofall that these mean as the very foundation rock of our nation's strengthand honor. It swept my soul like a cleansing fire. The words for thiscame later, but the force of it swayed my understanding in thatinstant's crisis. Some boys grow into manhood as the years roll along,and some leap into it at a single bound. It was a boy, Phil Baronet, whowent out after the cows that careless summer day so like all the othersummer days before it. It was a man, Philip Baronet, who followed themhome that dark night, fearing neither the roar of the angry storm cloudthat threshed in fury above us, nor any human being, though he werefilled with the rage of madness.

  At O'mie's word I dashed after Marjie. Behind me came Bud Anderson andDave Mead, followed by every other boy and girl. O'mie rode beside me,and not one of us thought of himself. It was all done in a flash, and Imarvel that I tell its mental processes as if they were a song sung inlong-metre time. But it is all so clear to me. I can see the fieryradiance of that sky blotted by the two riders before me. I can hear thecrash of the ponies' feet, and I can even feel the sweep of wind out ofthat storm-cloud turning the white under-side of the big cottonwood'sleaves uppermost and cutting cold now against the hot air. And thenthere rises up that ripple of ground made by the ring of the Osage'stepee in the years gone by. Marjie deftly swerved her pony to the southand skirted that little ridge of ground with a graceful curve, as thoughthis were a mere racing game and not a life-and-death ride. Jean's horseplunged at the tepee ring, leaped to the little hollow beyond it,stumbled and fell, and, pellmell, like a stampede of cattle, we wereupon him.

  I never could understand how Dave Mead headed the crowd back and keptthe whole mass from piling up on the fallen Indian and those nearest tohim. Nor do I understand why some of us were not crushed or kicked outof life in that _melee_ of ponies and riders struggling madly together.What I do know is that Bud Anderson, who was not thrown from his horse,caught Jean's pony by the bridle and dragged it clear of the mass. Itwas O'mie's quick hand that wrested that murderous knife from theIndian's grasp, and it was my strong arm that held him with a grip ofiron. The shock sobered him instantly. He struggled a moment, and thenthe cunning that always deceived us gained control. The Indian spiritvanished, and with something masterful in his manner he relaxed alleffort. Lifting his eyes to mine with no trace of resentment in theirimpenetrable depths, he said evenly:

  "Let me go. I was drunk. I was fool."

  "Let him go, Phil. He did act kinder drunk," Bill Mead urged, and Iloosed my hold. I knew instinctively that we were safe now, as I knewalso that this submission of Jean Pahusca's must be paid for later withheavy interest by somebody.

  "Here'th your horth; s'pothe you thkite," lisped Bud Anderson.

  Jean sprang upon his pony and dashed off. We watched him ride away downthe long slope. In a few moments another horseman joined him, and theytook the trail toward the Kaw reservation. It was Father Le Claireriding with the Indian into the gathering shadows of the south.

  I turned to Marjie standing beside me. Her big brown eyes were luminouswith tears, and her face was as white as my mother's face was on the daythe sea left its burden on the Rockport sands. It was hate that madeJean Pahusca veil his countenance for me a moment before. Something ofwhich hate can never know made me look down at her calmly. O'mie's handwas on my shoulder and his eyes were on us both. There was a quaintapproval in his glance toward me. He knew the self-control I neededthen.

  "Phil saved you, Marjie," Mary Gentry exclaimed.

  "No, he saved Jean," put in Lettie.

  "And O'mie saved Phil," Bess Anderson urged. "Just grabbed that knife intime."

  "Well, I thaved mythelf," Bud piped in.

  He never could find any heroism in himself who, more than any other boyamong us, had a record for pulling drowning boys out of the Deep Hole bythe Hermit's Cave, and killing rattlesnakes in the cliff's crevices,and daring the dark when the border ruffians were hiding aboutSpringvale.

  An angry growl of thunder
gave us warning of the coming storm. In ourlong race home before its wrath, in the dense darkness wrapping thelandscape, we could only trust to the ponies to keep the way. Marjierode close by my side that night, and more than once my hand found hersin the darkness to assure her of protection. O'mie, bless his red head!crowded Lettie to the far side of the group, keeping Tell on the otherside of her.

  When I climbed the hill on Cliff Street that night I turned by thebushes and caught the gleam of Marjie's light. I gave the whistling callwe had kept for our signal these years, and I saw the light waver as agood-night signal.

  That night I could not sleep. The storm lasted for hours, and the rainswept in sheets across the landscape. The darkness was intense, and themidsummer heat of the day was lost in the chill of that drouth-breakingtorrent. After midnight I went to my father's room. He had not retired,but was sitting by the window against which the rain beat heavily. Thelight burned low, and his fine face was dimly outlined in the shadows. Isat down beside his knee as I was wont to do in childhood.

  "Father," I began hesitatingly, "Father, do you still love my mother?Could you care for anybody else? Does a man ever--" I could not saymore. Something so like tears was coming into my voice that my cheeksgrew hot.

  My father's hand rested gently on my head, his fingers stroking theripples of my hair. White as it is now, it was dark and wavy then, as mymother's had been. It was the admiration of the women and girls, whichadmiration always annoyed and embarrassed me. In and out of those setwaves above my forehead his fingers passed caressingly. He knew theheart of a boy, and he sat silent there, letting me feel that I couldtell him anything.

  "Have you come to the cross-roads, Phil?" he asked gently. "I wasthinking of you as I sat here. Maybe that brought you in. Your boyhoodmust give way to manhood soon. These times of civil war changeconditions for our children," he mused to himself, rather than spoke tome. "We expect a call to the front soon, Phil. When I am gone, I wantyou to do a man's part in Springvale. You are only a boy, I know, butyou have a man's strength, my son."

  "And a man's spirit, too," I cried, springing up and standing erectbefore him. "Let me go with you, Father."

  "No, Phil, you must stay here and help to protect these homes, just aswe men must go out to fight for them. To the American people war doesn'tmean glory nor conquest. It means safety and freedom, and these beginand end in the homes of our land."

  The impulse wakened on the prairie that evening at the sight of Marjie'speril leaped up again within me.

  "I'll do my best. But tell me, Father," I had dropped down beside himagain, "do you still love my mother? Does a man love the same womanalways?"

  Few boys of my age would have asked such a question of a man. My fathertook both of my hands into his own strong hands and in the dim light hesearched my face with his keen eyes.

  "Men differ in their natures, my boy. Even fathers and sons do notalways think alike. I can speak only for myself. Do I love the woman whogave you birth? Oh, Phil!"

  No need for him to say more. Over his face there swept an expression oftenderness such as I have never seen save as at long intervals I havecaught it on the face of a sweet-browed mother bending above a sleepingbabe. I rose up before him, and stooping, I kissed his forehead. It wasa sacred hour, and I went out from his presence with a new bond bindingus together who had been companions all my days. My dreams when I fellasleep at last were all of Marjie, and through them all her need for aprotector was mingled with a still greater need for my guardianship. Itcame from two women who were strangers to me, whose faces I had neverseen before.