by Dean Owen
Mormon tiptoed heavily out on the creaking porch with a husky, “Hush!”
“What fo’?”
“Molly’s asleep. ’Sisted on waitin’ up for you.”
“Well, we’re here, ain’t we?” demanded Sam. “Me, I got a scrape in my arm an’ some son of a wolf spiled my saddle. Sandy, he sorter evened up fo’ it.”
“Bleedin’?” asked Mormon.
“Nope. Tied my bandanner round it. Cold air fixed it. Shucks, it ain’t nuthin’! Sandy’s got a green kale plaster fo’ it. Come to think of it, I got ninety bucks myse’f.”
“You won?”
“Did we win? Wait till we show you.”
Molly met them as they went in, her eyes wide open, all sleep banished.
“Was it a luck-piece?” she demanded.
Sandy produced the package of bills, divided it, shoved over part.
“Your half,” he said. “Five thousand bucks. Bu’sted the bank. An’ here’s the ’riginal bet.” He showed the gold eagle, put it into her palm.
“Served me, now you take it,” he said. “I’ll git you a chain fo’ it. It’s sure a mascot—same as you are—the Mascot of the Three Star.”
She looked up, her eyes, cloudy with wonder at the sight of the money, shining at her new title. They rested on Sam’s arm, bandaged with the bandanna.
“There’s been shootin’,” she said. “You’re hit. Oh!”
“More of a miss than a hit,” replied Sam.
Molly turned to Sandy. Anxiety, affection, something stronger that stirred him deeply, showed now in her gaze.
“You hurt?”
“Didn’t hardly muss a ha’r of my head. Jest a li’l’ excitement.”
“Tell me all about it.”
Sandy gave her a condensed and somewhat expurgated account to which she listened with her face aglow.
“I wisht I’d been there to see it,” she said as he finished.
“It warn’t jest the time nor place fo’ a young lady,” said Sandy. “Main p’int is we got the money for yo’ eddication, like we planned.”
The light faded from her face.
“Air you so dead set for me to go away?” she asked.
“See here, Molly.” Sandy leaned forward in his chair, talking earnestly. “You’ve got the makin’ of a mighty fine woman in you. An’ paht of you is yore dad an’ paht yore maw. Sabe? They handed you on down an’, if you make the most of yo’se’f, you make the most of them. Me, I’ve allus been trubbled with the saddle-itch an’ I’ve wanted the out-of-doors. A chap writ a poem that hits me once. It stahts in,
“I want free life an’ I want free air,
An’ I sigh fo’ the canter afteh the cattle,
The crack of whips like shots in battle;
The melly of horns an’ hoofs an’ heads
That wars an’ wrangles an’ scatters an’ spreads,
The green beneath an’ the blue above,
An’ dash an’ danger an’ life.…
“Somethin’ like that. I mayn’t have got it jest right, but that’s me. The chap that wrote that might have writ pahts of it jest fo’ me. He sure knew what he was writin’ erbout. It’s called In Texas, Down by the Rio Grande. I’ve been there. Arizony ain’t much differunt.”
“It’s called Lasca,” put in Sam. “I seen it in the movies. Had the po’try strung all through it. It was a love story. This Lasca, she—”
Mormon put a heavy foot over Sam’s and he subsided.
“So you see I lost out on a heap,” said Sandy. “An’ I’m a man. I can git erlong with less. But fo’ a gel, learnin’s a grand thing. An’ there’s the big cities, an’ theaters, fine clothes an’ fine manners. Like livin’ in another world.”
“Where they wear suits like Sam’s spiketail,” said Mormon. “I mind me when I was to Chicago with a train of steers one time, the tall buildin’s was higher than cañon cliffs. On’y full breath I drawed was down on the lake front where they was a free picter show in a museum. Reg’lar storm there was out on the lake; big waves. Wind like to curl my tongue back down my throat an’ choke me.”
“Who’s hornin’ in now?” asked Sam. “Go on, Sandy.”
“But,” said Molly, wide-eyed, “that’s the life I like. I mean out here. I don’t want to be different.”
“Shucks,” said Sandy. “You won’t be. Jest polished up. Skin slicked up, hair fixed to the style, nails trimmed an’ shined. Culchured. Inside you’ll be yore real self. You can’t take the gold out of a bit of ore any more than you can change iron pyrites inter the reel stuff. But, if the gold’s goin’ to be put into proper circulation, it’s got to be refined. Sabe?”
“I ain’t refined, I reckon,” said Molly with a sigh. “I don’t know as I want to be. I can allus come back, can’t I?”
“You sure can.”
“An’ there’s Dad. He’s where he wanted to be. I w’udn’t want to go away from him.”
“He’d want you to make this trip, sure,” said Sandy. “An’ that settles it. You go off to bed an’ dream on it. We got to figger out where you go an’ that’ll take some time an’ thinkin’. I’m some tired myse’f. I’ve been out of trainin’ lately fo’ excitement. Sam, I’m goin’ to soak that place on yore arm with iodine. Good night, Molly.”
She got up immediately, went to Mormon and to Sam and gravely shook hands, thanking them.
“You-all are damned good to me,” she said. Opposite Sandy she hesitated, then threw her arms round his neck and kissed him before she ran from the room, with Grit leaping after her. Sandy’s bronzed face glowed like reflecting copper.
“Some folks git all the luck,” said Mormon.
“There you go,” bantered Sam, stripping his arm for the iodine. “You been married three times, reg’lar magnet fo’ the wimmin, an’ you grudge Sandy pay fo’ what he done. Me, I helped, but I ain’t grudgin’ him. Though I sure envy him.”
“Yes, you helped an’ left me to home to count fingers.”
“Shucks! You matched for it, didn’t you? An’ didn’t you have yore li’l’ session with Plimsoll all to yorese’f. What’s eatin’ you? You want to be a five-ringed circus all to yorese’f an’ have all the fun. Ef that stuff heals like it smahts, Sandy, I’ll say I’m cured now.”
“It don’t amount to much, Sam,” said Sandy. “Yore flesh allus closed up quick. What you goin’ to do with yore ninety dollars?”
“I thought of buyin’ me a new saddle. Mine’s spiled. Couldn’t trust that tree fo’ ropin’ now. But I figger I’ll buy me a fine travelin’ bag fo’ Molly. Loan me yore catalogue, Mormon, so’s I can choose one.”
So, bantering one another, they bunked in.
CHAPTER VI
PASO CABRAS
They did not make butter on the Three Star.
Since the arrival of Molly an unwilling and refractory cow had been brought in from the range and half forced, half coaxed to give the fresh milk that Mormon insisted the girl needed. Until then evaporated milk had suited all hands. But butter—to go with hot cakes and sage-honey—was an imperative need for the riders. Riders demanded the best quality in the “found” part of their wages and the three partners supplied it. The butter came over weekly from the Bailey ranch to be kept under the spring cover for cooling. Usually the gangling young Ed Bailey brought it over in the crotchety flivver. When Sandy saw the sparsely fleshed figure of Miranda Bailey seated by the driver he winced in spirit. This second visitation looked like mere curiosity and gossip and offset the opinion he had begun to form of the spinster—that she was sound underneath her angularities and mannerisms.
It was twilight. The three partners and Molly were on the ranch-house porch after supper, and there was no escape. Sam slid his harmonica into his pocket silently and Mormon groaned aloud as the rattlebang car chugged up and was braked, shaking all over unt
il the engine was shut off. Ed Bailey crossed his legs and rolled his cigarette. No one at the Three Star had ever seen him alight from the car, Mormon insisted he ate and slept in it. Miranda nodded at the three partners, who rose as she came up the steps.
“You sure need some new clothes, child,” she said to Molly. “You got to have ’em. I heard you was shot,” she went on to Sam. “That sling ain’t right. You should have it fixed so yore wrist is higher’n yore elbow. Who’s tendin’ it?”
“It’s healin’ fine,” said Sam. “I’m pure-blooded an’ my flesh allus heals quick.”
Miranda sniffed.
“I reckon prohibition helps some,” she retorted. “Now then, I come on business. Sandy Bourke, you ain’t any of you the legal guardian of that child, air you?”
“Nothin’ illegal in what we’re doin’, I reckon.”
“I didn’t ask you that. You-all ain’t got papers?”
With the question she wriggled her eyebrows, shifted her glance and generally twisted her features in what Sandy interpreted plainly enough as a suggestion that Molly should be eliminated from the talk. He did not agree with the spinster. It was Molly’s prime affair and he knew that she would resent being treated too childishly in regard to her own concerns. Sandy had gentled too many high-spirited fillies and colts not to have found out that methods that apply to well-bred quadrupeds are generally coefficient with humans. He shook his head slightly at Miss Bailey’s signaling.
“Jest what’s the idea?” he asked. “Some one figgerin’ on makin’ her stay at the Three Star unpleasant? Fur as jest gossip is concerned, it don’t have any weight with none of us an’ there ain’t no sense in mentionin’ it.”
“’Pears you ain’t givin’ me over an’ above credit for sense,” said Miranda, a bit grimly. “This ain’t gossip. Ef you’re bound the gel is to sit in with her elders I’ll go right ahead. I got a lot of chores to do yet, deliverin’ butter, an’ the car’s actin’ up uncertain. Here ’tis. I got it direct from my brother who’s heard the talk that’s goin’ round. You’ve run foul of Jim Plimsoll—or he foul of you, which is more likely. Plimsoll an’ Eke Jordan, the sheriff, are like two peas in a pod. The sheriff’s got the inside of local politicks, so fur. When we wimmen git to votin’ this fall things is goin’ to be different. Right now, he’s in. He an’ the courts of this county are all striped the same way. Reg’lar zebras. Penitentiary pattern ’ud match their skins. Mebbe some of ’em ought to be wearin’ it.
“Now for the meat of the nut. They’re figgerin’ on gettin’ control of the gel away from you-all. They’ll use argymints for the general public that she’s too young to be keepin’ house for three unmarried men, leastwise three men who ain’t livin’ with their wives.” She looked pointedly at Mormon. “They’ll rouse up opinion enough for a change. They’d like to app’int a guardian of their own kidney. Mebbe we can block that if one of us comes out an’ offers to take her. I’d be glad to, for one, an’ do the right thing by her.”
Molly walked over to Sandy’s chair and stood behind it, her eyes widening, her breath beginning to come quickly.
“There’s some talk about her father’s claims over to Dynamite lookin’ up. Party of easterners over that way lately, nosin’ around to find out owners, lookin’ up assessment work an’ so on. Talk of a boom. I reckon Plimsoll’s twigged that. Lawyer Feeder, who run for state senator an’ whose record’s none too dainty, is in cahoots with Jordan an’ Plimsoll. Ed heard they figger on goin’ before Judge Vanniman, one of their crowd, to get an order of court. She’s a minor. They can git her away from you. If we crowd them too hard for them to app’int one of their own ring—an’ they’re figgerin’ on Plimsoll, he claimin’ to be her father’s partner—they’ll likely have her put in some institution. An’ it’s goin’ to be done right sudden. I w’udn’t wonder, from all I hear, but what they’re over here ter-morrer with a court order. An’ you can’t fight the courts ’s long as they’re in authority, the way you fought Jim Plimsoll.”
Molly stepped out, eyes flashing, fists clenched, talking passionately. “I won’t go with ’em. I’ll run away. They can’t take me. Jim Plimsoll is a damned liar. You won’t let ’em take me?” She turned to Sandy, her arms stretched in appeal.
“No, Molly, I won’t. Will we, boys?”
“You can bet everything you got an’ ever hope to own we won’t,” said Sam.
“That goes for me,” echoed Mormon, but he scratched his fringe of hair in some perplexity.
“Talk don’t beat an order of the court,” said Miranda Bailey. “Mebbe I seem sort of vinegary to you, child, but I’m not a bad sort. My brother Ed has got somethin’ to say in this community an’ I’m likely to control a few votes this fall myself. I figger if you came home with me today we c’ud manage to git you placed with us. There’s been tattle about you stoppin’ here. You’re fifteen—an’.…”
“Some folks is jest plumb rotten,” flared Molly. “I’m no kid. I…oh, if Dad was alive!”
Sandy stood up and slid an arm about her shaking shoulders. She wheeled and buried her head on his shoulder, sobbing.
“We’re powerful obliged to you, Miss Bailey, for what you told us,” said Sandy. “I’m right sure you’d give Molly a fine home, but we got other plans an’ we aim to carry ’em out. Plimsoll’s a skunk an’ I’ll block his game about the mines ef they amount to anything. Molly’s goin’ east for her eddication. She’s got plenty money to git the best that’s goin’ an’ she’s goin’ to have it.”
“Then you better git her ’cross the county line before many hours are over.” Miranda Bailey recognized something better than mere decision in Sandy’s voice, she was not the leading suffragist of the county for lack of brains. But there was true regret in her voice as she went on. “I’m sorry she don’t cotton to the idee of comin’ over to our place. A woman needs a woman’s company.” At the diplomatic concession to her maturity Molly gave the spinster a mollified glance. Miss Bailey climbed into the machine.
“You aim on takin’ her out of the county to the railroad ter-morrer?” she asked. “What school is she goin’ to?”
“We ain’t settled all the details,” said Sandy. “But we’ll do that all right. We’ll git ready soon’s we can. Meantime, we’ll keep our eyes peeled ter-morrer against any order from Hereford.”
“Want to use this car? I’ll bring it over early. Ed can drive it.”
The gangling youth for the first time showed an intelligent interest in anything outside of his cigarette.
“Fo’ time’s sake, aunt,” he said, “’twouldn’t be no manner of good if it come down to a runnin’ chase. Nearest depot’s fifty mile’ across the county line. Racin’ this car ag’in’ the sheriff’s ’ud be like matchin’ a flea ag’in’ a grasshopper. Dern it, she’s balked ag’in.” He wrestled with the crank, conquered it and the machine shivered like a hunting dog while his aunt adjusted spark and gas. She nodded to him to start and they moved off, Miranda waving a farewell as she called out, “Good luck!”
“Some sport!” announced Sam. “That’s the kind of woman you sh’ud have married, Mormon.”
Molly, excited now, demanded audience.
“When do we start?” she asked eagerly. “Will you wait till they come out from Hereford?”
“I got to think out things a bit, Molly,” said Sandy. “I figger we’ll git a start on ’em, ef you can git ready. In the mornin’.”
“I haven’t got much to take.”
“We’ll buy you an outfit.”
“Horseback?”
Sandy looked at her with puckered eyes.
“Can’t tell you what I ain’t sure of myse’f,” he drawled. “One thing is sure, you got to tuhn in an’ git a good rest. Ef we slide out it won’t be all a pleasure trip. I reckon Plimsoll means business. An’ he’s sure got the county machinery behind him right now.”
“I
can take Grit?”
“W’udn’t want to leave us somethin’ to remember you by?” asked Sandy. “Somethin’ to help make sure you’ll come back?”
“I’d allus come back, to visit Dad,” she said. “But Grit…? I don’t want to leave Grit.”
“It ’ud be a hard trip fo’ him this way, Molly. I ain’t sure about the regulations at them schools. I reckon the best way w’ud be fo’ you to make arrangements fo’ him to come on afteh you git there.”
Molly regarded Sandy soberly, her fingers twining through the dog’s mane.
“You’d be good to him—same as you air to me? Oh, I’m jest plumb mean to ask you that. I know you w’ud. He’s goin’ to be jest as lonesome as me for a bit, ain’t you, Grit? He allus slep’ with me, cuddlin’ up, an’—” She gulped, straightened.
“Good night,” she said. “Come, Grit.”
The three men sat silent for a moment or two after she left.
“She’s sure a stem-winder,” said Mormon presently. “How you goin’ to fix to git her away, Sandy? Plimsoll’ll be hotter’n a bug on a hot griddle.”
“I got a plan warmin’ up,” said Sandy. “Nearest to the county line is west through the Cabezas Range. Only two gaps, Paso Cabras, an’ the Bolsa.”
“But the Bolsa.…” started Sam.
Sandy checked him.
“I know. Listen! I aim to git to the railroad an’ then me an’ Molly’ll make for New Mexico.”
“Huh!”
“You guessed it, Mormon. For the Pecos River an’ Boville an’ the Redding Ranch. I reckon Barbara Redding’ll handle the thing. She’ll git Molly her outfit an’ she’ll know all about the right schools.”
