The Fighting Shepherdess

by Lockhart, Caroline

  “We’re in luck to catch them home at this hour,” said Teeters, as they heard a faint tinkle from the corrals on the other side of the creek. “They’ve got the sheep inside—must be cuttin’ out. Yes,” as they forded and drew closer, “there’s Kate at the dodge gate.”

  The corral was a crude affair, built at the minimum of expense, of crooked cottonwood poles, willow sticks and brush interlaced. It was divided into three sections, with a chute running from the larger division into two smaller ones.

  Kate was standing at the “dodge gate” at the end of the chute separating the sheep as they came through by throwing the gate to and fro, thus sending each into the division in which it belonged. It was work which required intense concentration, a trained eye and quick brain, and even Disston and Teeters, who knew nothing of sheep, could appreciate the remarkable skill with which the girl performed the task.

  “Let ’em come, Uncle Joe!” she called in her clear confident voice.

  Mormon Joe flapped a grain sack over the backs of the sheep and having started a leader the rest went through the chute on the run.

  When the last one was through Kate’s aching arm dropped limply to her side and she called in a tired but jubilant voice:

  “I don’t believe I’ve made a single mistake this time.”

  Mormon Joe’s expression was not too friendly when he saw strangers but it changed upon recognizing Teeters.

  “Maybe you don’t remember this here gent,” said that person, indicating Disston with his thumb after he and Mormon Joe had shaken hands. “He’s growed about four feet since you saw him.”

  “I remember him very well.” Mormon Joe’s tone and manner had the suavity and polish which was so at variance with his general appearance.

  Hughie, leaving Teeters and Mormon Joe to a conversation which did not interest him, rode up to see Kate at closer range.

  Busy in one of the pens, the girl was still unaware of visitors, so he had had ample opportunity to observe her before she saw him.

  She, too, had grown since their meeting, being now as tall and straight and slim as an Olympian runner. Her hair swung in a thick fair braid far below her waist as she darted hither and thither in pursuit of a lamb. The man’s blue flannel shirt she wore was faded and the ragged sleeves had been cut off at the elbow for convenience. Her short skirt was of stiff blue denim and a pair of coarse brown and white cotton stockings showed between the hem and the tops of boys’ shoes which disguised the slenderness of her feet. Yet, withal, she was graceful as she ran and somehow managed to look picturesque.

  The boy’s face was an odd mixture of expressions as he watched her—amusement, astonishment, disapproval, and grudging admiration all in one.

  Finally, catching the lamb by the hind leg she threw it by a twist acquired through much practice and buckled a bell around its neck.

  As she turned it loose and straightened up, she saw Disston. When he smiled she knew him instantly and the color rose in her face as she walked towards him, suddenly conscious of her clothes and grimy hands. She was soon at her ease, however, and when he told her his errand the radiance that leaped into her face startled him.

  “Would I like to go?” she cried joyously. “There’s nothing I can think of that I would like better. I’ve never been to a dance in all my life. I’ve never been anywhere. It’s so good of you to ask me!”

  “It’s good of you to go with me,” he said awkwardly, shamed by her gratitude, remembering the wager.

  “But I don’t know how to dance,” she said almost tearfully.

  “You don’t?” incredulously. He had thought every girl in the world knew how to dance. “Never mind,” he assured her, “I can teach you in a few lessons.”

  So it was settled, and they talked of other things, laughing merrily, frequently, while Mormon Joe and Teeters discussed with some gravity the fact that it had been several months since the latter had been able to get his wages from Toomey.

  “I think he’s workin’ on borried capital and they’re shuttin’ down on him,” Teeters conjectured. “His 'Old Man,'” he nodded toward Hughie, “has got consider'ble tied up in the Outfit, I’ve an idea. Anyhow, if I git beat out of my money after the way Toomey’s high-toned it over me—” He cast a significant look at a fist with particularly prominent knuckles.

  “You hang on a while,” Mormon Joe cautioned. “You may be boss of the Scissor Outfit yet—stranger things have been waiting around the corner.”

  Teeters shifted his weight in the saddle.

  “Say,” he confessed in some embarrassment, “a sperrit told me somethin’ like that only day 'fore yisterday. I was settin’ in a circle over to Mis’ Taylor’s and an Injun chief named ‘Starlight’ spelled out on the table that all kinds of honor and worldly power was comin’ to me. It makes me feel cur'ous, hearin’ you say it—like they was somethin’ in it.”

  Mormon Joe smiled quizzically but made no comment; perhaps he suspected that the privilege of touching fingers with Miss Maggie Taylor while waiting for the spirits to “take holt” had as much to do with Teeters' interest in the unseen world as the messages he received from it. He asked:

  “You remember what I said at the Boosters’ Club the other night?”

  “I ain’t apt to fergit it anyways soon,” replied Teeters, dryly, “seein’ as ‘Tinhorn’ riz and put it to a vote as to whether they should tar and feather you or jest naturally freeze you out.”

  “The truth is acid,” he laughed. “It’s a fact though, Teeters, that this country’s chief asset is its climate, and,” with his quizzical smile, “this Scissor Outfit would make a fine dude-ranch.”

  Kate did not tell Mormon Joe of her invitation until the sheep were bedded for the night, the supper dishes out of the way and they were sitting, as was their custom, on two boxes watching the stars and talking while Mormon Joe smoked his pipe.

  “Our company this morning made me forget to tell you how well you handled the gate; it was a clean cut.” Mormon Joe added in obvious pride, “You’re the best sheepman in the country, Katie, bar none.”

  “Then I wish you’d listen to me and buy some of those Rambouillets and grade up our herd.”

  “We’re doing all right,” he returned, indifferently.

  “Anybody would know you didn’t like sheep.”

  “They’re a means to an end; they keep me in the hills out of mischief and furnish a living for us both.”

  “I wonder that you haven’t more ambition, Uncle Joe.”

  “That died and was buried long ago. The little that I have left is for you. I want you to have the benefit of what I have learned from books and life; I want you to be happy—I can’t say that I’m interested in anything beyond that.”

  She threw him a kiss.

  “You’re too good to be true almost.” Then, with a quite inexplicable diffidence she faltered, “Uncle Joe, that—that boy asked me to go to a dance.”

  He turned his head quickly and asked with a sharp note in his voice:

  “Where?”

  “In Prouty.”

  “Do you want to go?”

  “I can’t tell you how much!” she cried eagerly. “I can hardly believe it is me—I—invited to a dance. I’ve never been out in the evening in all my life. I don’t know a single woman and may be I’ll never have such a chance again to get acquainted and make friends.”

  “I didn’t know that you had been lonely, Katie,” he said after a silence.

  “Just sometimes,” she admitted.

  “You said you didn’t want to go to Prouty again because the children bleated at you the last time you were in.”

  “But that was long ago—a year—they wouldn’t do that now—they’re older, and, besides, there are others who have sheep. We’re not the only ones any more. But,” with a quaver in her voice, “don’t you want me to go, Uncle Joe?”

  “I don’t want you to put yourself in a position to get hurt.”

  “What—what would anybody hurt me for?”
she asked, wide-eyed.

  His answer to the question was a shrug. Then, as though to himself, “They may be bigger than I give them credit for.”

  He had not refused to let her go, but he had chilled her enthusiasm somewhat so they were silent for a time, each occupied with his own thoughts.

  As Mormon Joe, with his hands clasped about his knee, his pipe dead in his mouth, sat motionless in the starlight, he ceased to be conscious of the beauty of the night, of the air that touched his face, soft and cool as the caress of a gentle woman, of the moist sweet odors of bursting buds and tender shoots—he was thinking only that the child who had run into his arms for safety had come to be the center of the universe to him. He could not imagine life without her. He had mended her manners, corrected her speech, bought her books of study to which she had diligently applied herself in the long hours while she herded sheep, and nothing else in life had given him so much pleasure as to watch her mind develop and her taste improve.

  Anybody that would hurt her! Instinctively his hands clenched. Aloud he said:

  “Go to your party, Katie, and I hope with all my heart it will be everything you anticipate.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER IV

  DISILLUSIONMENT

  It was the most ambitious affair that had been attempted in Prouty—this function at the Prouty House. The printed invitations had made a deep impression; besides, wild rumors were flying about as to the elaborate costumes that were to be worn by the socially prominent.

  It was whispered that Mrs. Abram Pantin, wife of the wealthy capitalist from Keokuk, now “settled in their midst,” was to be seen in electric blue silk with real lace collar and cuffs; while Mrs. Sudds, wife of a near-governor, who had moved to Prouty from another part of the state, was to appear in her lansdowne wedding dress. Mrs. Myron Neifkins, too, if report could be believed, was to be gowned in peach-blow satin worked in French knots.

  He was a dull clod indeed who could not feel the tremors in the air that momentous Saturday and by night there was not tying space at any hitching rack.

  If the ball loomed so large to the townfolks, it may be assumed that Kate’s anticipation was no less. As a matter of fact, she could scarcely sleep for thinking of it. She did not know much about God—Mormon Joe was not religious—but she felt vaguely that she must have Him to thank for this wonderful happiness. It was the most important happening since she had run, terrified, from home that black night three years ago.

  There had not been a night since Hughie had given her the invitation that she had not lain awake for hours staring at the stars with a smile on her lips as she visualized situations. She saw herself dividing dances as belles did in books, taking her part in lively conversations, the center of merry groups. Oh, no, life would never be the same again; she was certain of it.

  Hughie had kept his word and ridden over several times to teach her the steps, and they had practised them on the hard-trodden ground in front of the cook tent, where the dust could be kept down by frequent sprinkling. If the waltz and the polka and schottische sent her blood racing under such adverse conditions, what must it be like on a real floor with real music, she asked herself ecstatically. These dancing lessons were provocative of much merriment and teasing from the Toomeys. While Hugh did not resent it or defend Kate, he did not join in their ridicule of her. She was “green,” he could not deny that, yet not in the sense the Toomeys meant. Naïve, ingenuous, he felt were better words. She knew nothing of social usages, and she was without a suspicion of the coquetry that he looked for in girls before they had begun to do up their hair. She spoke with startling frankness upon subjects which he had been taught were taboo. He admired and was accustomed to soft, helpless, clinging femininity, and it grated upon him to see Kate at the woodpile swinging an axe in a matter-of-fact way.

  “It’s because there’s no one else around,” he told himself, to explain the eagerness with which he rode over while he was teaching Kate to dance.

  The boy was intelligent enough to recognize the fact that, however unschooled Kate might be in the things that counted in the outside world, she was not ignorant when it came to those within her ken. She knew the habits and peculiarities of wild animals and insects, every characteristic of sheep, and she was a nearly unfailing weather prophet through her interpretation of the meaning of wind and sky and clouds. Her knowledge of botany was a constant surprise to him, for she seemed to know the name and use of the tiniest plant that grew upon the range.

  But, after all, he demanded of himself, what did a girl want to know such things for? He would have liked better to see her in the shade with an embroidery hoop.

  * * *

  Restraining their trembling haste, yet fearing that they might miss something, the initiated townfolks managed to stay away from the Prouty House until the fashionably late hour of eight, but the simpler rural guests having eaten at six were ready and holding down the chairs in the office before “the music” had arrived. There was a flutter of puzzled inquiry among the Early Birds when Mrs. Abram Pantin, Mrs. Sudds and Mrs. Myron Neifkins with an air of conscious importance stationed themselves in a row at the door opening into the dining room, which was now being noisily cleared of tables and chairs.

  Mrs. Pantin, as gossip had surmised, wore electric blue with collar and cuffs of lace that presumably was real, while angular Mrs. Sudds looked chaste, if somewhat like a windmill in repose, in her bridal gown. Mrs. Neifkins, too, came up to expectations in her peach-blow satin.

  For a while the ladies of the receiving line found their position somewhat of a sinecure, for nobody knew what they were standing there for until Mrs. Rufus Webb, the wife of Prouty’s new haberdasher, arrived. Mrs. Webb had been called home to her dying mother’s bedside, but fortunately had been able to return from her sad errand in time for the function at the Prouty House. When she laid aside her wrap it was observed that she had gone into red.

  Kate was an unconscionable time in dressing, Hugh thought, as he waited in the office, considering that the flour sack tied behind her saddle had seemed to contain her wardrobe easily enough.

  His attention was focused upon Mrs. Neifkins, whom he had last seen in a wrapper and slat sunbonnet, when a lull in the hubbub that became a hush caused him to look up. His eyes followed the gaze of every other pair of eyes to the head of the stairs that came down from the floor above into the office. He saw Kate—dreadful as to clothes as a caricature or a comic valentine! She had a wreath of red paper roses in her hair and a chain of them reached from one shoulder nearly to the hem of her skirt on the other side. The dress itself was made without regard to the prevailing mode and of the three-cent-a-yard bunting bought by sheepmen by the bolt to be used for flags to scare off coyotes in lambing time. The body of the dress was blue, trimmed with the same material in red. The sleeves were elbow length, and she wore black mitts. But the crowning horror, unless it was the wreath, was the string of red wild-rose seed pods around her neck.

  Kate had cut out her gown without a pattern and with no mirror to guide her, the skirt was several inches shorter behind than in front, and a miscalculation put the gathers chiefly in one spot.

  She was not recognized at first, for her visits to Prouty had been made at too long intervals for her to be known save by a few. Then, quickly—“Mormon Joe’s Kate!” was whispered behind hands and passed from mouth to mouth.

  The girl’s eager glowing face was the one redeeming thing of her appearance. Half way down the stairs she stopped involuntarily and looked with an expression of wondering inquiry into the many staring eyes focused upon herself. Then a titter, nearly inaudible at first, grew into a general snicker throughout the room.

  They were laughing at her! There was no mistake about that. Kate shrank back as though she had been struck; while the radiance faded from her face, and it turned as white as the wall at her back.

  What was the matter? What had she done? Wasn’t she all right? she asked herself, while her heart gave a great throb of fear. S
he gripped the bannister while her panic-stricken eyes sought Hughie in the crowded office. Where was he? Did he mean to leave her alone? It seemed minutes that she stood there, though it was only one at most.

  In spite of his worldly air and social ease, Disston was only a boy after all, with a boy’s keen sensitiveness to ridicule, and this ordeal was something outside the experience of his nineteen years. The worst he had expected was that she would be frumpish, or old-fashioned, or commonplace like these other women standing about, but it had not occurred to him that she might be conspicuously grotesque.

  There was a moment of uncertainty which seemed as long to the boy as it did to Kate, and then the chivalry of his good southern blood responded gallantly to the appeal in her eyes. His dark face was dyed with the blood that rushed to the roots of his hair, and his forehead was damp with the moisture of embarrassment, but he rose from his seat and went to meet her with a welcoming smile.

  “Oh, Hughie!” she gasped tremulously in gratitude and relief as she ran rather than walked down the remaining stairs.

  The grinning crowd parted to let them pass as, self-conscious and stiffly erect, they walked the length of the office towards the dining room. Figuratively speaking, Prouty stood on tip-toe to see what sort of reception they would meet from the receiving line. It was tacitly understood that lesser social lights would take their cue from them.

  Of its kind, it was as thrilling a moment as Prouty had experienced. Mrs. Myron Neifkins had recognized Kate immediately and passed the word along to Mrs. Pantin who, although a comparative stranger, had been properly supplied with information as to the community’s undesirables. “Mormon Joe’s Kate,” the daughter of the notorious Jezebel of the Sand Coulee Roadhouse, naturally was included in the list.

  Hugh, who had met these ladies previously and found them as amiable as any one could wish—particularly Mrs. Pantin, who had regarded him as somebody to cultivate because of his connection with the exclusive Toomeys of the Scissor Ranch—now had something of the sensation of a person who had stepped into the frigid atmosphere of a cold storage plant.