“I know that now,” she said. “Pa told me. I should have known, but all I could think of was that you didn’t like my dinner or you didn’t like me or something.”
“Ruth,” he said, “I love you.”
He had not intended to say it, but the words came out of him without conscious thought, perhaps driven by the fear that he might lose her. Perhaps he’d never had her, and a man couldn’t lose something he’d never had, but she had been angry at him because he hadn’t returned after that Sunday last fall, and he couldn’t let her think it was due to anything she had done or said or that she was in any way to blame.
So he said the words he had not intended to say at this time, and he was not prepared for the effect it had upon her. She rose and, bending over him, kissed him on the lips. Then she fled from the room, and he was alone with only the whitewashed walls of the room for company, and the memory of her kiss.
After that, Mrs. Bolton took care of Mark; she told him that Ruth had returned to the Circle J. A few days later two wounded men from the battle at Silver Creek were brought in, one from Company L and one from Company G, and Mark heard the story of how Bernard had surprised the Indians on the Sunday morning after he’d left the fort and had beaten them. They had fled northward toward the John Day country, the war chief, Egan, badly wounded.
General Howard arrived at the fort with his staff and went on to help Bernard. Nolan’s volunteers returned, and Bronco came at once to see Mark. He stood looking down at Mark, dirty, stubble-faced, big, and straight-backed, and proud of himself and what he had done.
“We sure gave ’em hell, boy,” he said. “They had us outnumbered ’bout ten to one, looked to me like, but we whipped ’em. Wish you could have had some of the fun.”
“Yeah, so do I,” Mark said.
“How do you feel?” Bronco asked.
“Terrible,” Mark said. “I won’t be doing any work for a while, I guess.”
“We’ll get it done,” Bronco assured him. “I’m going to hire some hands. Runyan’s promised to send his carpenters in a few days, and I’m going to get the lumber hauled right away. Things will quiet down now, and we’ll get some work done.”
He stood twirling his hat in his hands, awkward and uncertain about what to say, then he blurted: “Missus Bolton, she says the Jackson girl told her she was taking you to her place soon as you can travel.”
“I guess so,” Mark said. “I won’t be any good on the Cross Seven for a long time. Just be in your way.”
Bronco cleared his throat. “You sweet on the girl?”
Mark resented the question. It was none of Bronco’s business. But Mark had neither the strength nor desire to argue, so he said—“Yes.”—and let it go at that.
“Don’t blame you,” Bronco said. “She’s as purty as a new red-wheeled buggy. Marry her, boy, and fetch her to Cross Seven. We’ll be proud of the spread and proud of her. We’ll do some entertaining soon as we get squared around. With Jacob Smith backing us, we’ll have Runyan and Nolan and Ardell coming to us. You’ll see.”
Then Bronco shook his head and grinned. “By God, Mark, you look like hell. Take it easy. You hear?”
He nodded, clapped his hat on his head, and strode out.
Dave Nolan dropped in to see Mark, and later in the day Matt Ardell came. For some reason Mark liked this fat man with the scraggly beard and squeaky voice better than either Runyan or Nolan.
“Tell me about Bronco,” Mark said. “He’s not one to brag.”
“He had plenty of reason to brag,” Ardell said. “He just kind of took over, and damned if Nolan didn’t let him. We were with Robbins’s scouts, you know, supposed to get upstream from the Indian camp and start the ruckus. We done it, all right, with Bronco leading us along with Nolan. The soldiers came in on the other side, and all hell started to pop, the bugle tooting and the guns going off, and them red bastards half naked and fighting like they was old Nick hisself.”
Ardell laughed. “Never seen nothing like it and I hope I never do again. Egan and Robbins tied into each other, and Egan got wounded. More’n once. Bronco gave him one bullet anyhow. He was all over the place, Bronco was. We went piling through the camp twice. Hard to tell how many the Indians lost, but it was considerable.”
Ardell paused and scratched the bald spot on his head. “The next day the cavalry got on the Indians’ tail. We figured they didn’t need us no more, so we came back. Funny thing. Bronco was riding in front with Nolan, or ahead of him part of the time, and anybody watching would have figured he was the big cheese.”
Mark had told himself it would be like that. From now on everybody in the country would hear about Bronco Curtis, perhaps even Jacob Smith a thousand miles away.
“Sorry you’re laid up like this,” Ardell said. “I was talking to Missus Bolton. She said Gentry gave you a bad one. He was no good. We knew it and told him to leave the country, but nobody ever got around to making it stick.”
He got up, giving his trousers a tug upward, but they immediately slipped back below his round belly. “Son,” Ardell said, “you’re Bronco’s friend, and that’s good. A man needs friends. Trouble is Bronco don’t want to take time to grow. We all oughta take a little time, just for other men to watch it happen if there ain’t no other reason. Maybe you can slow him up, huh? Be good for him if you could.”
“I’ll try,” Mark said, thinking how close Ardell had come to saying the same thing Herb Jackson had said.
The next day the settlers and cowmen were gone, leaving only the wounded and a skeleton force in the fort. Mark resented his weakness and fought with his impatience as he fought with Mrs. Bolton, who spent most of her time with him, but it was July before she let him go in an ambulance to the Circle J, weak and thin and constantly tired and very conscious of the fact that he owed his life to Mrs. Bolton.
Later, through the hot days of July, he realized he owed a debt to Ruth and her father, too, and he was depressed by the knowledge that life was filled with obligations and a man couldn’t live long enough to repay them. Then he wondered if Bronco was ever aware that he owed anything to anybody. Mark doubted that he was, for Bronco Curtis was the kind of man who wove the pattern of his own destiny.
Chapter Fourteen
Through the weeks that Mark stayed at the Circle J, his relationship with Ruth was one of restraint on his part and of disappointment on hers. At least he sensed that was her feeling, for he often caught her looking at him when his attention had been fixed on something else. Then when she knew he was looking at her, she would glance away quickly, but he always felt he caught a look of expectancy in her face, as if she hoped he would tell her again that he loved her.
But he couldn’t. He had told her once when he had not intended to, but now, mired down by physical weakness, he realized what poor husband material he was. He wasn’t sure whether he was boy or man; he wasn’t sure whether he could count on any of the promises Bronco Curtis had made. So he remained silent.
He regained his strength slowly, doing a few chores at first, working in the garden or helping Jackson with his hay. Once his side tore open and started to bleed again. Worried, Ruth insisted that he go back to bed. She stopped the bleeding with cobwebs and told him hotly that he never would get well if he drove himself the way he had been.
“The doctor did a poor job,” Jackson said, “but it’s what you can expect from a poor doctor.”
“I’m not built to enjoy being an invalid,” Mark said. “I’ve been sponging off you folks too long now.”
They were sitting on the front porch at dusk, the haying finished and Herb Jackson feeling that his work was caught up for the first time since the Indian trouble.
Ruth said—“Sponging.”—as if it were an ugly word. “Oh, Mark, you fool.” She flounced into the house, and they heard her banging dishes in the kitchen.
Jackson laughed softly as he filled his pipe. “By nature youth is impatient,” he said, “and Ruth is very young.” He lighted his pipe and pulled on
it, then took it out of his mouth. “The crossing from youth to manhood or womanhood is a trying time in any human being’s life. It’s filled with danger and sometimes with suffering, and there is invariably a feeling that time drags and the waiting will never pass.”
He glanced at Mark, who sat beside him. “You know, many grown people never make the crossing, even though they believe they have. They never think or feel like adults, or take an adult’s responsibility. I think the test is whether a man learns to act by his own standards of morality or whether he simply follows someone else’s. I suspect that is why men join the Army. They can quit thinking for themselves. All they have to do is to follow orders.”
Mark was silent, for he knew what Jackson was driving at. He was asking, in his kindly, indirect way, whether Mark had reached the place where he could strike out on his own, or whether he would return to the Cross Seven and pick up with Bronco Curtis where he had left off. Mark wasn’t sure himself, but he had thought about it and knew he wasn’t ready yet to come to a decision.
“I told Ruth once that I loved her,” Mark said. “I still do. I always will, but I don’t have anything. I can’t ask her to marry me, Herb.”
Jackson stared across the valley, the far rims lost in the twilight. He said: “You haven’t made the crossing yet, and I’m not sure Ruth has. You’re like a hothouse plant that was suddenly transplanted into a world of hot sunny days and frosty nights. It’s to your credit that you have survived as well as you have. You’ll make the crossing, but not until you’ve made your own decision about Bronco Curtis and how you feel about him.”
“You forget something,” Mark said. “I owe my life to him.” Silence then, except for the raucous cry of some night bird wheeling across the sky. Jackson cradled the pipe in his hand, still staring at the horizon that was being brought closer by the night.
Finally Jackson said: “Mark, you will disagree with me, but I have a belief that it is not a man’s deeds that are important. Rather, it is the motive behind the deed. True, Curtis saved your life when this Red Malone would undoubtedly have killed you, but you don’t know why he did it. Certainly not from any affection for you, because he hardly knew you. Someday you will understand his motive, and then you will know what to do.”
Ruth came out of the house. She sat down beside Mark and took his hand. She said: “I’m sorry about my temper. I’ve got plenty of it. I just didn’t want to hear you talking about sponging off us.”
After that they talked about the Indian war and how the Paiutes had been driven north and Egan murdered by an Umatilla, who cut off his head and hands and brought them to the Army camp. And of the new town, Scott City, which had been started on the Agency road a few miles southwest of Camp Sherman, and about the big herd Jacob Smith had sent north to Cross Seven range and the fine house Bronco Curtis had built.
“It’s like I told you once before about Curtis,” Jackson said. “Here’s a young man in a hurry. When Ruth and I came here, I loved this country. It was big and open and the way God gave it to man. A lot of families could have made a living here, but it wasn’t to be that way, not with the cowmen here. Runyan, Nolan, and Ardell, and then Curtis. As they build up their herds, they need more grass, and, as they need more grass, they push at us who are on the fringe of their range. In time there will be more killings, just as Orry Andrews was killed. What most of us respect as law means nothing to them.”
His voice was filled with bitterness, as it always was when he spoke of Andrews. Now he said with even more bitterness: “I’m a tortured soul. I never knew what it was to live in hell until Curtis came. Now I can’t forget that I must bring Curtis to justice, but I don’t know how to do it. I tell myself I should hide in the timber and murder Curtis the way he killed Orry, but I can’t do it. Someday I’ll ride to Cañon City and tell the sheriff, even though I know it won’t do any good.”
“Don’t, Pa,” Ruth said softly. “You just make yourself suffer.”
“I know, I know,” he said, “but how can I help it?”
Mark didn’t answer. Neither did Ruth. There was no answer, and both of them knew it.
As soon as Mark was strong enough, he began cutting the winter’s supply of wood. His side hurt, but it didn’t tear open again. In spite of Ruth’s protests, he kept at it, working a little longer each day. Sometimes Jackson helped him, but on other days he left after breakfast and was gone all day, giving neither Ruth nor Mark any hint where he was going. Mark was convinced he was searching for Orry Andrews’s grave. Finding the skeleton of the horse had not been enough.
“Can’t you keep Herb at home?” Mark asked Ruth. “If he doesn’t stay off Cross Seven range, Bronco will kill him.”
She shook her head, her face filled with misery. “Nothing I can do. Nothing anyone can do, once Pa gets his head set.”
Mark knew she was right, so he said nothing to Jackson until one evening when he came home with a bullet hole in the crown of his hat, a shallow scalp wound, and a headache. Mark couldn’t remain silent any longer. He burst out: “Herb, you’re going to get yourself killed. Stay off Cross Seven range.”
“I wish I could, but I can’t,” Jackson said.
“Who shot you?”
“I don’t know. I’d just topped a ridge when someone cut loose at me from down in the timber. He fired three times and the third one tagged me.” He put a hand on Mark’s shoulder. “Promise me something. If I don’t come back someday, will you look out for Ruth?”
Mark nodded, his eyes on the man’s worried face. “You know I will, Herb.”
“That makes me feel better.” Jackson dropped his hand and turned away. “You think I’m crazy, and maybe I am, but if law is to be anything more than theory to me, and if friendship is anything more than a whim, then I’ve got to see that Curtis pays for Orry’s murder.”
After that Mark wondered if Jackson actually sought death and would welcome it. As he had said, he was a tortured soul. Bringing Bronco to justice had become an obsession with Jackson; he was a machine set to do something, and he could not help himself.
Mark had his own problem, and he thought about it a great deal. He couldn’t stay here. Sooner or later he must return to Cross Seven. Neither Jackson nor Ruth would understand, but it was something he had to do. Bronco had made a promise of partnership, and it was the only chance Mark had of coming to Ruth with anything except empty hands. Still, he didn’t want to go, and he kept putting it off until a Sunday afternoon in September when a rider coming from the Cross Seven turned off the Agency road and came up the slope to the Jackson house.
Mark was sitting on the front porch with Ruth and Jackson, dinner finished, the dishes washed and dried. Mark saw Jackson stiffen, his hands clutching the arms of his rocking chair. “Know him, Herb?” Mark asked.
“I’ve seen him in Scott City,” Jackson said. “He’s Curtis’s segundo. Came north with the Smith herd, I’ve been told.”
Mark went into the house, buckled his gun belt around him, and returned to the porch. He was standing on the ground in front of the house when the rider reined up and lifted his hat to Ruth, then said—“Howdy.”—to Jackson, and nodded at Mark.
Jackson said—“Howdy.”—and waited, giving the man no invitation to step down. He was a small, knot-headed man, his face weather-bronzed, his expression one of controlled hostility. He wore a gun, but he showed no intention of using it. He folded his hands over the saddle horn, his gaze moving from Jackson to Mark as if sizing them up. He had not come for trouble, Mark thought, and so relaxed.
“My name’s Gene Flagler,” the man said. “I ride for Cross Seven. You’re Herb Jackson?”
“I’m Jackson.” Jackson rose and stepped off the porch. “Anything I can do for you?”
“I took a shot at you the other day,” Flagler said. “You had orders to stay off Cross Seven range. Next time I’ll aim an inch or two lower. But that ain’t what I came for. Next year Jacob Smith will send another herd north. Cross Seven will need more grass, so
we’ll be pushing over the hills. Bronco will buy you out if you want to sell.”
It was a threat as well as an offer, but, if Jackson realized it, he gave no sign. He said: “I’m not selling.”
Flagler shrugged. “Your choice.” He looked at Mark. “You’re the Kelton kid, I reckon. Bronco says to come home.”
Mark hesitated, feeling Jackson’s and Ruth’s eyes on him, and sensing Flagler’s indifference. But Mark had no doubt about what this was. Bronco Curtis could not come to Circle J himself, so he had sent Flagler. Mark’s choice was clear. He could go now or make a complete break with Bronco. But he couldn’t leave Bronco. Not yet, anyway.
“I’ll be there,” Mark said, and heard Ruth gasp behind him.
Flagler nodded. “I’ll tell Bronco,” he said, and rode away.
When Mark turned to Ruth, she was staring at him as if she could not believe what she had heard. He went to her and took her hands. He said: “Someday I’m going to ask you to marry me, but I’ve got to have something before I do.”
“You think you’ll get it from Bronco Curtis?” she demanded.
“We’re partners,” Mark said.
“You mean he called you that.” Her lips curled in disdain. “You worked for him almost a year, and he never gave you anything.”
“He was getting started,” Mark said. “He didn’t have any money for himself or me.”
“He had money to gamble at the fort,” she said, “and money to buy whiskey, but none to pay you.”
Mark glanced at Jackson, who nodded. “I heard it during the Indian trouble. Missus Bolton had heard it, too. She told Ruth.”
Bronco was older, Mark thought, and maybe he had to have a little entertainment. Besides, it was Bronco’s money. Mark said: “I’ve got to go.”
“Go ahead,” she said. “I don’t care. Just don’t come back. I’ve waited and waited, but I’m not going to keep on waiting.”
She tried to break free from his grasp, but he held her and made her face him. “I’ll come back, and I’ve got a right to ask you to wait a little longer. Don’t marry anyone else.”
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