The Price of the Prairie: A Story of Kansas

by Margaret Hill McCarter

  CHAPTER VI

  WHEN THE HEART BEATS YOUNG

  A patch of green sod 'neath the trees brown and bare, A smell of fresh mould on the mild southern air, A twitter of bird song, a flutter, a call, And though the clouds lower, and threaten and fall-- There's Spring in my heart!

  --BERTA ALEXANDER GARVEY.

  When the prairies blossomed again, and the Kansas springtime was in itsdaintiest green, when a blur of pink was on the few young orchards inthe Neosho Valley, and the cottonwoods in the draws were putting forththeir glittering tender leaves--in that sweetest time of all the year, anew joy came to me. Most girls married at sixteen in those days, andwere grandmothers at thirty-five. Marjie was no longer a child. Nosweeter blossom of young womanhood ever graced the West. All Springvaleloved her, except Lettie Conlow. And Cam Gentry summed it all up in hisown quaint way, brave old Cam fighting all the battles of the war overagain on the veranda of the Cambridge House, since his defective rangeof vision kept him from the volunteer service. Watching Marjie comingdown the street one spring morning Cam declared solemnly:

  "The War's done decided, an' the Union has won. A land that can growgirls like Marjory Whately's got the favorin' smile of the Almighty uponit."

  For us that season all the world was gay and all the skies wereopal-hued, and we almost forgot sometimes that there could be sorrow anddarkness and danger. Most of all we forgot about an alien down in theHermit's Cave, "a good Indian" turned bad in one brief hour. Dear arethe memories of that springtide. Many a glorious April have I seen inthis land of sunshine, but none has ever seemed quite like that one tome. Nor waving yellow wheat, nor purple alfalfa bloom, nor ramparts ofdark green corn on well-tilled land can hold for me one-half the beautyof the windswept springtime prairie. No sweet odor of new-ploughedground can rival the fragrance of the wild grasses in their waving seasof verdure.

  We were coming home from Red Range late one April day, where we had goneto a last-day-of-school affair. The boys and girls did not ride in agroup now, but broke up into twos and twos sauntering slowly homeward.The tender pink and green of the landscape with the April sunset tintingin the sky overhead, and all the far south and west stretching away intolimitless waves of misty green blending into the amethyst of the world'sfar bound, gave setting for young hearts beating in tune with the year'syoung beauty.

  Tell Mapleson and Lettie had been with Marjie and me for a time, but atlast Tell had led Lettie far away. When we reached the draw beyond thebig cottonwood where Jean Pahusca threw us into such disorder on thatAugust evening the year before, we found a rank profusion of springblossoms. Leading our ponies by the bridle rein we lingered long in thefragrant draw, gathering flowers and playing like two children amongthem. At length Marjie sat down on the sloping ground and deftly woveinto a wreath the little pink blooms of some frail wild flower.

  "Come, Phil," she cried, "come, crown me Queen of May here in April!"

  I was as tall then as I am now, and Marjie at her full height came onlyto my shoulder. I stooped to lay that dainty string of blossoms aboveher brow. They fell into place in her wavy hair and nestled there,making a picture only memory can keep. The air was very sweet and thewhole prairie about the little draw was still and dewy. The purpletwilight, shot through with sunset coloring, made an exquisite gloryoverhead, and far beyond us. It is all sacred to me even now, thismoment in Love's young dream. I put both my hands gently against herfair round cheeks and looked down her into her brown eyes.

  "Oh, Marjie," I said softly, and kissed her red lips just once.

  She said never a word while we stood for a moment, a moment we neverforgot. The day's last gleam of gold swept about us, and the ripple of abird's song in the draw beyond the bend fell upon the ear. An instantlater both ponies gave a sudden start. We caught their bridle reins, andlooked for the cause. Nothing was in sight.

  "It must have been a rattlesnake in that tall grass, Phil," Marjieexclaimed. "The ponies don't like snakes, and they don't care forflowers."

  "There are no snakes here, Marjie. This is the garden of Eden withoutthe Serpent," I said gayly.

  All the homeward way was a dream of joy. We forgot there was a CivilWar; that this was a land of aching hearts and dreary homes, andbloodshed and suffering and danger and hate. We were young, it was Aprilon the prairies, and we had kissed each other in the pink-wreathedshadows of the twilight. Oh, it was good to live!

  The next morning O'mie came grinning up the hill.

  "Say, Phil, ye know I cut the chape Neosho crowd last evening up to RidRange fur that black-eyed little Irish girl they call Kathleen. So Icame home afterwhoile behind you, not carin' to contaminate meself widsuch a common set after me pleasant company at Rid Range."

  "Well, we managed to pull through without you, O'mie, but don't let ithappen again. It's too hard on the girls to be deprived of yourpresence. Do be more considerate of us, my lord."

  O'mie grinned more broadly than ever.

  "Well, I see a sight worth waitin' fur on my homeward jaunt in thegloamin'."

  "What was it, a rattlesnake?"

  "Yes, begorra, it was just that, an' worse. You remember the draw thisside of the big cottonwood, the one where the 'good Injun' come at uslast August, the time he got knocked sober at the old tepee ring?"

  I gave a start and my cheeks grew hot. O'mie pretended not to notice me.

  "Well," he went on, "just as I came beyont that ring on this side anddips down toward the draw where Jean come from when he was aimin' tohang a certain curly brown-haired scalp--"

  A thrill of horror went through me at the picture.

  "Ye needn't shiver. Injuns do that; even little golden curls frombabies' heads. You an' me may live to see it, an' kill the Injun thatdoes it, yit. Now kape quiet. In this draw aforesaid, just like a ridgranite gravestone sat a rid granite Injun, 'a good Injun,' mind you. Inhis hands was trailin' a broken wreath of pink blossoms, an' near as anInjun can, an' a Frenchman can't, he was lovin' 'em fondly. Myappearance, unannounced by me footman, disconcerted him extramely. Herose up an' he looked a mile tall. They moved some clouds over a littlefur his head up there," pointing toward the deep blue April sky wherewhite cumulus clouds were heaped, "an' his eyes was one blisterin'grief, an' blazin' hate. He walks off proud an' erect, but some like awounded bird too. But mostly and importantly, remember, and renew yourwatchfulness. It's hate an' a bad Injun now. Mark my words. The 'goodInjun' went out last night wid the witherin' of them pink flowers lyin'limp in his cruel brown hands."

  "But whose flower wreath could it have been?" I asked carelessly.

  "O, phwat difference! Just some silly girl braided 'em up to look sweetfor some silly boy. An' maybe he kissed her fur it. I dunno. Annyhow shelost this bauble, an' looking round I found it on the little knoll wheremaybe she sat to do her flower wreathin'."

  He held up an old-fashioned double silver scarf-pin, the two pins heldtogether by a short silver chain, such as shawls were fastened with inthose days. Marjie had had the pin in the light scarf she carried on herarm. It must have slipped out when she laid the scarf beside her and satdown to make the wreath. I took the pin from O'mie's hand, my mind clearnow as to what had frightened the ponies. A new anxiety grew up fromthat moment. The "good Indian" was passing. And yet I was young andjoyously happy that day, and I did not feel the presence of danger then.

  The early May rains following that April were such as we had never knownin Kansas before. The Neosho became bank-full; then it spread out overthe bottom lands, flooding the wooded valley, creeping up and up towardsthe bluffs. It raced in a torrent now, and the song of its rippling overstony ways was changed to the roar of many waters, rushing headlong downthe valley. On the south of us Fingal's Creek was impassable. Everydraw was brimming over, and the smaller streams became rivers. All thesestreams found their way to the Neosho and gave it impetus todestroy--which it did, tearing out great oaks and sending them swirlingand plunging, in its swiftest currents. It found the soft, uncertainplaces underneath its bu
rden of waters and with its millions of unseenhands it digged and scooped and shaped the thing anew. When at last thewaters were all gone down toward the sea and our own beautiful river wasitself again, singing its happy song on sunny sands and in purpleshadows, the valley contour was much changed. To the boys who had knownit, foot by foot, the differences would have been most marked.Especially would we have noted the change about the Hermit's Cave, hadnot that Maytime brought its burden of strife to us all.

  That was the black year of the Civil War, with Murfreesboro,Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chattanooga and Chickamauga all on itsrecord. Here in Kansas the minor tragedies are lost in the great horrorof the Quantrill raid at Lawrence. But the constant menace of danger,and the strain of the thousand ties binding us to those from every partof the North who had gone out to battle, filled every day with its owncare. When the news of Chancellorsville reached us, Cam Gentry sat onthe tavern veranda and wept.

  "An' to think of me, strong, an' able, an' longin' to fight for theUnion, shut out because I can only see so far."

  "But Uncle Cam," Dr. Hemingway urged, "Stonewall Jackson was killed byhis own men just when victory was lost to us. You might do the samething,--kill some man the country needs. And I believe, too, you arekept here for a purpose. Who knows how soon we may need strong men inthis town, men who can do the short-range work? The Lord can use us all,and your place is here. Isn't that true, Brother Dodd?"

  I was one of the group on the veranda steps that evening where the menwere gathered in eager discussion of the news of the great Union loss atChancellorsville, brought that afternoon by the stage from Topeka. Iglanced across at Dodd, pastor of the Methodist Church South. A small,secretive, unsatisfactory man, he seemed to dole out the gospelgrudgingly always, and never to any outside his own denomination.

  He made no reply and Dr. Hemingway went on: "We have Philip here, andI'd count on him and his crowd against the worst set of outlaws thatever rode across the border. Yet they need your head, Uncle Cam,although their arms are strong."

  He patted my shoulder kindly.

  "We need you, too," he continued, "to keep us cheered up. When the Lordsays to some of us, 'So far shalt thou see, and no farther,' he may giveto that same brother the power to scatter sunshine far and wide. Oh, weneed you, Brother Gentry, to make us laugh if for nothing else."

  Uncle Cam chuckled. He was built for chuckling, and we all laughed withhim, except Mr. Dodd. I caught a sneer on his face in the moment.

  Presently Father Le Claire and Jean Pahusca joined the group. I had notseen the latter since the day of O'mie's warning. Indian as he was, Icould see a change in his impassive face. It made me turn cold, me, towhom fear was a stranger. Father Le Claire, too, was not like himself.Self-possessed always, with his native French grace and his inwardspiritual calm, this evening he seemed to be holding himself by amighty grip, rather than by that habitual self-mastery that kept hislife in poise.

  I tell these impressions as a man, and I analyze them as a man, but, boyas I was, I felt them then with keenest power. Again the likeness ofIndian and priest possessed me, but raised no query within me. In form,in gait and especially in the shape of the head and the black hair abouttheir square foreheads they were as like as father and son. Just once Icaught Jean's eye. The eye of a rattlesnake would have been morefriendly. O'mie was right. The "good Indian" had vanished. What had comein his stead I was soon to know. But withal I could but admire the finephysique of this giant.

  While the men were still full of the Union disaster, two horsemen cameriding up to the tavern oak. Their horses were dripping wet. They hadcome up the trail from the southwest, where the draws were barelyfordable. Strangers excited no comment in a town on the frontier. Thetrail was always full of them coming and going. We hardly noted that forten days Springvale had not been without them.

  "Come in, gentlemen," called Cam. "Here, Dollie, take care of thesefriends. O'mie, take their horses."

  They passed inside and the talk outside went eagerly on.

  "Father Le Claire, how do the Injuns feel about this fracas now?"inquired Tell Mapleson.

  The priest spoke carefully.

  "We always counsel peace. You know we do not belong to either faction."

  His smile was irresistible, and the most partisan of us could notdislike him that he spoke for neither North nor South.

  "But," Tell persisted, "how do the Injuns themselves feel?"

  Tell seemed to have lost his usual insight, else he could have seen thatquick, shrewd, penetrating glance of the good Father's reading himthrough and through.

  "I have just come from the Mission," he said. "The Osages are alwaysloyal to the Union. The Verdigris River was too high for me to hear fromthe villages in the southwest."

  Tell was listening eagerly. So also were the two strangers who stood inthe doorway now. If the priest noted this he gave no sign. Mr. Doddspoke here for the first time.

  "Well," he said in his pious intonation, "if the Osages are loyal, thatclears Jean here. He's an Osage, isn't he?"

  Jean made no reply; neither did Le Claire, and Tell Mapleson turnedcasually to the strangers, engaging them in conversation.

  "We shall want our horses at four sharp in the morning," one of the twocame out to say to Cam. "We have a long hard day before us."

  "At your service," answered Cam. "O'mie, take the order in your head."

  "Is that the biggest hostler you've got?" looking contemptuously atlittle O'mie standing beside me. "If you Kansas folks weren't suchdamned abolitionists you'd have some able-bodied niggers to do your workright."

  O'mie winked at me and gave a low whistle. Neither the wink nor thewhistle was lost on the speaker, who frowned darkly at the boy.

  Cam squinted up at the men good-naturedly. "Them horses dangerous?" heasked.

  "Yes, they are," the stranger replied. "Can we have a room downstairs?We want to go to bed early. We have had a hard day."

  "You can begin to say your 'Now I lay me' right away in here if youlike," and the landlord led the way into a room off the veranda. One ofthe two lingered outside in conversation with Mapleson for a brief time.

  "Come, go home with me, O'mie," I said later, when the crowd began tothin out.

  "Not me," he responded. "Didn't ye hear, 'four A. M. sharp'? It's meflat on me bed till the dewy morn an' three-thirty av it. Them's vicioushorses. An' they'll be to curry clane airly. Phil," he added in a lowervoice, "this town's a little overrun wid strangers wid no partic'larbusiness av their own, an' we don't need 'em in ours. For one privatecitizen, I don't like it. The biggest one of them two men in there'snamed Yeager, an' he's been here three toimes lately, stayin' only a fewhours each toime."

  O'mie looked so little to me this evening! I had hardly noted how theother boys had outgrown him.

  "You're not very big for a horseman after all, my son, but you're gritclear through. You may do something yet the big fellows couldn't do," Isaid affectionately.

  He was Irish to the bone, and never could entirely master his brogue,but we had no social caste lines, and Springvale took him at face value,knowing his worth.

  At Marjie's gate I stopped to make sure everything was all right.Somehow when I knew the Indian was in town I could never feel safe forher. She hurried out in response to my call.

  "I'm so glad to see you to-night, Phil," she said, a little tremulously."I wish father were here. Do you think he is safe?"

  She was leaning on the gate, looking eagerly into my eyes. The shadowsof the May twilight were deepening around us, and Marjie's white facelooked never so sweet to me as now, in her dependence on my assurance.

  "I'm sure Mr. Whately is all right. It is the bad news that gets herefirst. I'm so glad our folks weren't at Chancellorsville."

  "But they may be in as dreadful a battle soon. Oh, Phil, I'm so--what?lonesome and afraid to-night. I wish father could come home."

  It was not like Marjie, who had been a dear brave girl, always cheeringher dependent mother and hopefully expecting
the best. To-night thereswept over me anew that sense of the duty every man owes to the home. Itwas an intense feeling then. Later it was branded with fire into myconsciousness. I put one of my big hands over her little white hand onthe gate.

  "Marjie," I said gently, "I promised your father I would let no harmcome to you. Don't be afraid, little girl. You can trust me. Until hecomes back I will take care of you."

  The twilight was sweet and dewy and still. About the house the shadowswere darkening. I opened the gate, and drawing her hand through my arm,I went up the walk with her.

  "Is that the lilac that is so fragrant?" I caught a faint perfume in theair.

  "Yes," sadly, "what there is of it." And then she laughed a little."That miserable O'mie came up here the day after we went to Red Rangeand persuaded mother to cut it all down except one straight stick of abush. He told her it was dying, and that it needed pruning, and I don'tknow what. And you know mother. I was over at the Anderson's, and when Icame home the whole clump was gone. I dreamed the other night thatsomebody was hiding in there. It was all dead in the middle. Do youremember when we played hide-and-seek in there?"

  "I never forget anything you do, Marjie," I answered; "but I'm glad thebushes are thinned out."

  She broke off some plumes of the perfumy blossoms.

  "Take those to Aunt Candace. Tell her I sent them. Don't let her thinkyou stole them," she was herself now, and her fear was gone.

  "May I take something else to Aunt Candace, too, Marjie?"

  "What else?" She looked up innocently into my face. We were at thedoor-step now.

  "A good-night kiss, Marjie."

  "I'll see her myself about that," she replied mischievously butconfusedly, pushing me away. I knew her cheek was flushed as my own, andI caught her hand and held it fast.

  "Good-night, Phil." That sweet voice of hers I could not disobey. In amoment I was gone, happy and young and confident. I could have foughtthe whole Confederate army for the sake of this girl left in my care--myvery own guardianship.