by Zane Grey
“Well, I’m not ashamed of it,” declared Ernest stoutly.
“You should be–after the way you treated me. The more I think of that the angrier I get.”
“I apologized to you and tried to explain.”
“To be shore you did, and that’d have made it less–less unforgivable–if I could trust you. Iowa, I believe you are trifling with my young affections.”
Her eyes were full of mischief, and laughter, too, which robbed her remark of its seriousness. Ernest had the wit to laugh in her face.
“Your young affections! Golly, that’s a good one.”
“What do you mean, sir?” she demanded, instantly suspicious and proud. “I’ll have you know there’s a vast difference between the mooing of a lot of cowboys and my affections.”
“I hope so. Well, anyway, I didn’t moo at you,” he returned, with a glance as full of mischief as hers had been.
“You bet you didn’t, you Iowa rail splitter. Look heah!” She rolled up the loose sleeve of her jacket to expose a beautiful arm, round and firm, the opal whiteness of which was marred by black and blue marks. “You did that!”
“No! . . . Oh, I couldn’t have been that rough,” he protested. “You’ve got me mixed up with some other–”
“Ernest Howard! Say you don’t mean that–you can’t believe it!” Her words, passionate and ringing as they were, did not convince Ernest, because somehow he had convinced himself that everything she said was insincere. But her eyes convinced him this time. They were big, wrathful, indignant.
“I’m sorry–I don’t believe it,” replied Ernest hastily.
“You’re the only cowboy who’d dare insult me,” she declared, her lips trembling. “That’s what I get for–for not fighting you.... You believe any cowboy can take liberties with me.”
“I did,” said Ernest deliberately, his eyes meeting hers.
“Yet you asked me to marry you,” she went on, in wonder and scorn. “Shore I should think you wouldn’t want a girl who’d been that free with other men.”
“I wouldn’t. But I could forgive you and forget it.”
“Well sir, you’re as mistaken aboot me as I was aboot you,” she retorted.
“What’d you take me for, Miss Hepford?” he asked gravely. “That meeting of ours in Holbrook you’re referring to, I know.”
“I took you for a tenderfoot country jake, masquerading as a cowboy.”
“And you were perfectly right.”
“Well, anyway, you’re frank aboot it,” she rejoined, and again she betrayed her increasing interest in him. And again this strange man from Iowa had won a round. It required no great perspicacity for anyone to see that Anne had been little used to cowboys of any cultivation. “What did you take me for, that day?”
“A wonderful western girl, frank and democratic, free as the winds of her ranges, sincere as she was beautiful.”
“Humph! You shore didn’t show any of that opinion. . . . And after you got to Red Rock–to see things going on–to heah these towhaids talk–what’d you take me for then?”
“An insatiable coquette! Vain as a peacock! Dead set to make every male in sight crawl at her feet! Not particular about preserving her charms for the one lover who might come to awaken the best in her!... A lovely thoroughbred who didn’t need to be brazen and calculating to make men kneel! ... A young woman going wrong!”
While Ernest delivered this scathing speech he saw the wave of scarlet rising from neck to temple, and blazing green eyes transfixing him.
“I’ll never forgive you. I hate the very sight of you,” she cried, and leaping up almost inarticulate with fury, and graceful as a panther, she ran into the house.
So agitated was Ernest that he took the wrong way round the ranch house, thus doubling the distance back to the corrals, where the wagon would be waiting. That was just as well, for he would avoid meeting the cowboys. He did not care to be seen just then. His heart was throbbing in his breast. His face was wet with perspiration and clammily cold, yet his blood felt on fire. His anger had gotten the better of his good sense. How furious Anne had been–and how beautiful in her fury! Never forgive him–hate him! If looks could have killed he would not now be striding there under the pines. Well, now he had told her the truth, and now he had come to the end of his little romance. He tried to persuade himself that he was glad. But it was a sorry persuasion.
Ernest reached the big wagon and mounted to the high seat, where he unwound the reins from the brake. Nebraskie came running, with the awkward gait of a bowlegged cowboy unused to such exertion.
“Heah’s my letter, pard,” he said, handing a soiled envelope up. “Give it to Dais on your way out an’ fetch her a box of candy on your way in. Savvy, old man?”
“Sure do. I’ll put some good words in for you, too, Nebraskie.”
“Good.–Say, you look kinda pale round the gills. Ahuh, I’m on. Jest seen Anne!–Cheer up, pard. There are other fish in the sea if we don’t land her. Redhaired ones, too. Good luck, an’ rustle back.”
The five miles up the valley to where the Brooks’ road branched off passed all too quickly for Ernest, so full was his mind, so varied and bewildering his thoughts. Before he reached the end of the lane he espied Daisy, who, at sight of him, came bounding across the yard. Ernest halted to hide the letter behind his back. What a pretty little thing she was! Her eyes, like those of a fawn, dark, soft, velvety, just now eager instead of melancholy, were altogether lovely.
“Hello, Iowa. I saw you coming,” she said brightly. “Going to town?”
“Yes, Dais, and I’ve got something for you. Guess what.”
“I’m a poor guesser.”
“It’s an important letter from Nebraskie. What’ll you give for it?”
“What do you want?”
“Well, I couldn’t possibly take less than a kiss. Would the letter be worth that to you?”
“I reckon, considering the messenger,” she replied with a blush. Daisy, too, then had a little of coquetry in her.
“Thanks,” said Ernest, with a gay laugh, as he delivered the letter. “I’ll collect my toll after I see Nebraskie.”
“You’ll never get it then,’ she returned, just as gaily. “Goodby, Iowa.”
He plodded down the lane and from his wagon seat espied Daisy sitting on the fence. She waved the letter. Ernest waved back. “Sweet kid. And she cares for Nebraskie–the lucky son-of-a-gun. But she would have let me kiss her! Doggone the womenl They’re beyond me, too!”
11
SELBY drove until dusk and halted at a grove of cedars where there were grass and water. It was the habit of teamsters and cattlemen, driving to town, to stop at convenient ranches along the road. The latch string was always out. But Ernest preferred to be alone; he did not want to talk the small talk of the range. If he had been given double the time it would not have been long enough for him to think. No other young man, he felt sure, ever before had found himself in such a baffling, heartbreaking yet exciting predicament.
He unhitched the team and fed the horses their grain. His next task was to start a little fire, and then to open the pack Siebert had instructed the cook to put in the wagon. The result was that he ate an ample supper and fared very satisfactorily indeed. Shortly afterward he unrolled his bed in the wagon, but he was not yet ready to go to sleep.
Darkness had settled down over the desert and it was very still. The air had not yet cooled off. Ernest sat down before his little fire of cedar sticks. He liked this being alone, on his own responsibility as a common teamster. “Any Iowa farmer should be able to drive a team of bosses,” Siebert had remarked. The smell of cedar smoke was pleasant, but it was irritating to the eyes. As he sat there, listening to the tinkle of water over stones and the occasional thump of a hoof, presently there came a sighing through the cedars. His little fire was fanned red and sparks flew. The warm drowsy air appeared to rise and in its place came a cool wind out of the hills. Climbing into the wagon box Ernest pulled off his boo
ts and stretched on his bed. The whole canopy of sky above was a glittering spiderweb of stars.
He tried to put off sleep as long as he could, but at last he succumbed to it. When he awakened the sky was gray-blue and vacant. He seemed to have slept only a moment. He sat up. The east was ruddy low down along the black-knobbed horizon. The cool freshness and fragrance of the desert air was the most exhilarating thing he had ever experienced. The problems that had harassed him last night seemed to have faded away. Life was rich, sweet, promising. The West seemed to unfold around him, new, glorious, all-sufficing. He leaped out to his tasks.
About midday on the third day out from Red Rock Ernest drove into town, and found with help of inquiry the store where he was to purchase what Siebert had sent him for. The wagon was soon loaded. Then Ernest drove back to the corrals on the outskirts, unhitched, watered and fed the horses, after which tasks he repaired to town again.
His next move was to call upon the lawyer Smith, who received him with great interest. They had an hour’s colloquy, the upshot of which was that Smith agreed to write to Ernest’s lawyer back home, and instruct him to send an urgent request to Hepford for a report of all cattle sales up to date, and of all other necessary details important to the new owner, who would soon be out to take over the ranch.
After that decision, Ernest, feeling at once elated, and yet strangely regretful, went to the hotel where he wrote some necessary letters to his people at home, who would assuredly be wondering what had become of him. And he was careful to instruct them to address him as Ernest Howard for the present How curious that would make them!
Then he sallied forth to make Anne’s purchases. In the envelope there were forty dollars in paper money, and a formidable list of articles, the dry goods part of which made Ernest’s hair stand up. Perhaps he could find a girl clerk who would understand. And what puzzled him most was the last item on the list, if such it could be called. Below the last written word Anne had left a space, then a well-defined dash, and opposite it a question mark.
“What the dickens did she mean by that?” he asked himself.
After a little Ernest correlated those thought-provoking marks with Anne’s reply when he had asked her if there was anything more he could do for her. “Well, is there? You’re going to town.” What a very significant reply. Transparent as crystal! He laughed. But she had written the list and made her remark before he had offended her so grievously. Nevertheless he would comply with her desires, in spite of the fact that she now cordially hated him.
Of all the embarrassing jobs Ernest had ever had imposed upon him this one of Anne’s was the worst. He had an armful of bundles before he got to the dry goods store, and there, of course, his luck was to be accosted by a wholesome-looking, flaxen-haired western girl, who immediately took him for what he was– a tenderfoot. Her eyes betrayed her convictions. The first hour was the worst. This western girl clerk did not exactly make fun of him, and when friends of hers dropped in she was decent-enough not to give her customer away, but all the same she was deriving an immense amount of amusement from the situation. Finally Ernest grew desperate. He asked: “Is there a dance in town tonight?”
“I–I don’t know,” she replied, surprised.
“I’m sorry. I’d sure like to ask you to go. Reckon I’ve seen all the girls in town, but you’re the prettiest.”
She blushed furiously, and from that moment Ernest had the better of the situation. When he paid the bill and gathered up the additional bundles the girl roguishly said: “There is a dance Saturday night.”
“Gosh, I’m sorry I can’t be here,” he replied, and went out, satisfied that he had turned the tables. He carried his load out to the wagon and stowed the packages carefully under the seat. Then he hurried back to finish his purchases. Anne’s money was all gone: indeed he had been compelled to use some of his own to pay for what she had ordered. Nebraskie had never thought to give Ernest any for the candy he was to buy for Daisy. In the third store Ernest found two enormous boxes of chocolates, wrapped in fancy colored paper and tied with scarlet ribbons. He bought them both, had them carefully wrapped, and treading on air he carried these back to the wagon and stowed them away with the other things, all of which he covered with a canvas.
It was not yet late in the afternoon. He had accomplished his duties fairly speedily, all things considered. So he decided to walk up town, and around a little, have supper there, and then drive out after sundown.
At the corner Ernest encountered two cowboys about his age, and they greeted him with the friendly loquaciousness of the range.
“Teamster for Hepford of Red Rock. I’m driving out tonight,” said Ernest, accounting for himself.
“Punch any cows?”
“I’ve been punching at ’em, but haven’t hit any yet.”
“Nasty outfit down there, so I’ve heerd. Rider named Hyslip, cock of the walk,” spoke up the second cowboy. “He’s from Texas. Thet’s where I hail from, too.”
Ernest was interested then, and he sat down with the cowboys, talking freely himself, and asking casual questions in turn. He tried to find out something about Hyslip’s past.
“Wal, stranger, you’d learn somethin’ aboot Hyslip if you’d run down to Milford, or the Brazos, an ast any range riders down theah,” replied the Texan, somewhat curtly.
Ernest was learning that inquisitiveness was risky. He walked up town with these boys, but left them when they entered a saloon. Then he strolled about and talked with whom he could. He overheard a scrap of conversation between two rugged visitors, evidently cattlemen, one in a buckboard and the other on horseback. They had halted to greet each other opposite where Ernest happened to be walking along the sidewalk. He stopped and leaned against a post.
“I get forty-eight a head, on the hoof,” the horseman was saying.
“Best price this year. Cattle goin’ up, at thet rate,” said the other.
“Fall roundup ought to fetch good money. An’ it will if the pesky rustlers don’t beat us to it.”
“Thet so? Wal, there ain’t much stealin’ up our way. For thet matter there ain’t much stock, which may account fer it. Right smart drift of cattle over in the Blues, I heerd. Some rustlin’, too.”
“Fine grazin’ country down there. Wal, good day, Sam. Remember me to your folks.”
The two ranchers separated, going in opposite directions. Ernest leaned thoughtfully against the post. He was a rancher and he was losing stock. Rustlers had to be considered. It was a risk of cattle raising. But the term rustlers always confused him. They were cattle thieves, to put it baldly. Still he had gathered that some rustlers were cattlemen, operating ranches; others were individual cowboys, stealing from their employers; a few were out-and-out robbers, roving the ranges, raiding in a small way here and there. He wondered if Hepford could be called a rustler, but he decided not. That worthy was a shrewd, calculating, long-armed thief. He vowed he would set his heel down long before the proposed October drive could be accomplished. Then he remembered Anne. If he brought her father to justice, would that not disgrace, if not ruin her?
The thought militated against Ernest’s present state of vague enjoyment. He decided to bring his lounging about town to an end. Returning to the corral he caught his horses, watered them at the trough, hitched up and drove out of town, just as dusk was falling. The road was down hill, enabling him to travel four or five miles an hour. He placed a goodly number behind him before he made camp for the night. Next day he drove fourteen hours, with a couple of rests, but as the road was bad his mileage did not mount up considerably. The following day, early in the afternoon, from the top of the long hill that looked off into beautiful Red Rock Valley he espied a buckboard, drawn by black horses he knew, coming toward him.
The first thought that flashed into Ernest’s mind was disconcerting. Hepford would be absent from the ranch and he could see Anne alone. Instantly he discarded the idea. He should not, he would not, he did not want to see Anne alone. Then he muttered t
o himself in disgust: “Bah! I don’t know my own mind two minutes running.”
He halted the team at a wide place in the road to let Hepford drive by. The rancher’s driver was a Mexican lad, who at a word from his employer, reined in the horses.
“Hello, Howard. You’re making a quick trip. Siebert didn’t expect you until late tomorrow,” said Hepford, with an appraising look at the team. Ernest was glad that the animals showed they had not been driven too fast.
“I didn’t stay long in town, sir. And I’ve been coming easy, camping wherever I happened to be. Driving early and late.”
“Any mail for me?”
“No, sir. I was instructed to call only for Miss Anne’s mail,” replied Ernest.
“Quite right. And you’d better rustle along with it.”
Selby’s reply was drowned by the pounding hoofs of the spirited blacks and the crunching of gravel. Away Hepford sped, leaving Ernest prey again to the insidious temptation which confronted him when he returned to Red Rock.
The thoughts of Anne were so persistent and persuasive that he drove by the Brooks’ lane before he remembered that he had a package for Daisy. He halted the team, wound the reins round the brake handle, and securing the box of candy, he jumped off the wagon and strode down the lane toward Daisy’s ranch house.
Again his thoughts were pleasant. He would try the same trick, hiding behind his back what he had fetched, and demand the same toll. He was not so very sure now that he would not only exact it but collect it, too.
Someone had left the bars of the gate down. Ernest’s quick eye espied fresh horseshoe tracks in the sand. A rider had gone in there not many hours before, and he had not come out. Perhaps it had been Nebraskie. Then down by the brook, in a clump of cedars, Ernest saw a white pinto mustang. He could have recognized that calico-marked pony a mile away. Dude Hyslip’s!
Ernest did not like this at all. He hastened his stride but gone were his former pleasant anticipations. Daisy, no doubt, was in no wise to blame, but he would have to take her to task about it anyhow. She had no business trusting herself alone with that handsome deceiving scoundrel!
