For the Brand

by Ralph Compton

  “I’m not all that admirable, ma’am,” Willis said. Evidently Elfie had not mentioned anything about the line shack.

  “None of us are to ourselves except for those who can’t stop lookin’ into every mirror they pass. I never saw much to admire about myself—at least, from the age of ten on.”

  Willis drifted back in time to when he was ten, to when he had dreamed of one day being a stagecoach driver or a patent-medicine salesman. Boys that age sure were silly. “Kids don’t know much,” he said.

  “They know when they are treated differently from everyone else. They know when they are outcasts.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Don’t you ever feel like an outcast—as if your leg sets you apart from everyone else?”

  “It does set me apart, ma’am,” Willis said, struggling to control his temper. “There are things I can’t do that other people can. I’m not an outcast so much as I am less than I should be.”

  “ ‘Less than I should be,’ ” Laurella Hendershot repeated. “That about sums up most of my life.”

  Willis suspected she was looking at him, waiting for him to say something, so he responded, “You’re about to buy your own ranch. Your life can’t have been all that rotten.”

  “If you only knew,” Hendershot said quietly. “And only part of the purchase money is my money. My parents are helpin’ out with the rest. They’re against me movin’ so far from home but it’s for the best for everyone—me most of all.” She paused. “But to get back to why I admire you, would you like to know the most important reason?”

  “Sure,” Willis said.

  “Stop the buckboard.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Stop the buckboard. I don’t want you veerin’ off the road and wreckin’. I’ve had that effect.”

  Completely confused, Willis did as she requested. “What difference does stoppin’ make?”

  “I want to show you why I admire you how you have handled your leg,” Laurella Hendershot said. She took a deep breath and lifted her veil.

  Chapter 11

  Willis had never been struck speechless before. He had been confused a lot, as he was until the woman from Texas lifted her veil. He had often been stumped by things that other people seemed to savvy. But he had never been as astonished as he was at that moment, so astonished his mouth fell open and a bewildering array of emotions buffeted him like the strong winds before a thunderstorm.

  Laurella Hendershot sat completely still, her eyes slightly averted, apparently waiting for him to say something. Her hands were folded in her lap, her fingers clenched so tightly her knuckles were white. When he did not say anything, she said, “Well? What do you think?”

  Willis didn’t know what to think so he blurted, “How?”

  “When I was ten I was out ridin’ with my mother and a rattler spooked my mare. I was thrown off. Before I could get out of the way, the mare kicked at the rattler and hit me.”

  “Dear Lord,” Willis breathed.

  “Repulsive, aren’t I?”

  “No, not at all,” Willis said, and fought down a shudder. “Half your face is right pretty.”

  And it was. The right half of Laurella Hendershot’s face was smooth and unblemished, the right half of her mouth full as ripe cherries, her right cheek as round as a walnut, her eye a striking shade of blue. The left half of her face, however, was something that would give children nightmares and make adults queasy. Her left cheek had been caved in by the mare’s hoof, leaving a sunken hollow laced with lines, as if the skin had partially withered and died. The left half of her mouth was grotesquely twisted, the left half of her lips flattened as thin as a flapjack. Her nose had a crook in it. Her left eye, as a result of the hollow where her cheek had been, drooped lower than her right eye.

  The effect was shocking: as beautiful as could be on the right, as horrible as could be on the left. Willis blinked and tore his gaze away and frantically sought to collect his wits. “When you were ten, you say?”

  Laurella Hendershot lowered the veil. Her chin dipped and she nodded. “My whole life was changed from that day on. I didn’t know it at first. I was so young, I thought things would go on as they had before.”

  Willis had to clear his throat to say, “They didn’t?”

  “Little girls are treated special. Their parents fawn over them. Other folks treat them as princesses. I was used to that—used to smiles and praise and love. So when I started to notice the new looks, it was like being stabbed in the heart.”

  “The looks?”

  “It was in their eyes. Deep down in their depths, they thought I was hideous.” When Willis went to comment, she held up her hand. “No. Don’t make excuses for them. You weren’t there. You didn’t experience it.” Now she was the one who had to cough. “People I had known since I was old enough to toddle, people I thought loved me with a love that was boundless, looked at me as if I were their worst imaginin’ come to life.”

  “You’re bein’ too harsh,” Willis said. “You were little. Naturally you would think that.”

  “Not harsh enough. I wasn’t so young I couldn’t tell the difference between how they looked at me before I was thrown and how they looked at me after. To them I wasn’t the same girl. Not even to my mother. Before the accident she called me Sunshine all the time. It was her nickname for me. After the accident, she never did.”

  “People get hurt in accidents every day,” Willis said absently.

  “But people do not get disfigured every day,” Laurella Hendershot replied. “People do not lose the use of their legs every day.”

  Glancing at his knee, Willis was silent.

  “You know what I went through, what it did to me.” The veil turned away from him. “I wanted to curl up and die. I must have cried myself to sleep every night for a year. I broke the mirror in my room and the mirror in the parlor and told my parents if they replaced the mirrors, I would break the new mirrors as well. When people came to visit, I refused to go down to see them. I wanted nothing to do with anyone. For years I was left pretty much to myself. Oh, my mother and father made it a point to spend as much time as they could with me, but I wouldn’t hardly talk to them, and when they would suggest we go do this or that, I always said no. I refused to go to school. They were mad, but I couldn’t take the looks and the teasin’. Girls who had been my best friends wanted nothin’ to do with me. They couldn’t stand bein’ near me. A few boys took to callin’ me the Monster.”

  “Damn them,” Willis said, and quickly amended, “Sorry about my language, ma’am.”

  “Call me Laurella. Please.”

  “All right. But only if you call me Will.”

  “Do you understand now why I admire you? Like me, you’ve been afflicted. But you’ve gotten on with your life. You haven’t let it change you.”

  Willis thought of the line shack and was ashamed. “You’re makin’ me out to be more than I am.”

  Laurella did not seem to hear him. “I couldn’t go anywhere without people pointin’ and whisperin’. Word about me spread. Everyone in Texas must have heard about the pretty girl who turned ugly. It go so, I started wearin’ veils, even around the house.” She paused. “Perhaps now you can also understand why I want to buy a ranch in Wyomin’ Territory. No one here has heard of me. The only ones who know about my face are the Tylers, and now you. I can start a whole new life for myself.”

  “You’re fixin’ to wear that veil outdoors the rest of your days?”

  Laurella turned back toward him. “Of course. Indoors, mostly, too. If I don’t, the same thing that happened in Texas will happen here.”

  “Thank you for confidin’ in me.” It struck Willis that she must think he was special, to share her secret, and then it struck him that she thought he was special because of his knee, because he had been permanently scarred just like she had. They shared a bond no one else did. Somehow that made him feel all warm inside.

  “It wasn’t easy,” Luarella said. “In fact, it was about
the hardest thing I’ve had to do and I’ve had to do a lot of hard things.”

  Willis picked up the reins, lowered them, then picked them up again. “Should we keep goin’ or sit here and talk?”

  “I’d rather sit a bit if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.” Willis stared at the blue sky sprinkled with puffy white clouds and at nearby cattle grazing contentedly. Then he said, “I was luckier than you, Laurella. I didn’t get hurt until I was a lot older.”

  “Yes, you were luckier.”

  “And you’re right. I know how you felt. Like you, I wanted nothin’ to do with the world. But this past week has made me see that life ain’t much worth livin’ if we hide from it.”

  “That’s quite poetical,” Laurella said.

  “I wasn’t tryin’ to be.”

  “You’re scrupulously honest. I admire that, too.”

  Willis was glad when Laurella stopped talking because the more she talked, the more confounded he became. Yet when a couple of minutes had gone by, he grew nervous with her silence and said, “So.”

  “So,” Laurella said.

  “Should we keep goin’ now?”

  The veil was fixed on him for a while before Laurella said, “Yes, I suppose we better. Thank you.”

  Willis got the buckboard rolling, but more slowly. He was in no hurry. The sun on his skin, the wind in his face, the thud of hooves, the creak of the seat—he was noticing things he had not noticed earlier.

  From under the seat, Laurella produced a handbag, and from the handbag, she produced a tally book and a pencil. “May I ask you a few questions, Will?”

  “Ask whatever you want,” Willis said, his skin growing warmer.

  “If you had the wherewithal, would you buy the Bar T?”

  “In a heartbeat,” Willis said. “It’s a fine ranch, ma’am. I mean, Laurella. Grass, water, timber—the Bar T has all you could want.”

  “Any of the cattle diseased?”

  Willis glanced sharply at her. “That’s near an insult. Abe takes pride in his cows. He takes pride in everything he does, everything he has. There hasn’t ever been a sick cow here. I’d swear it on a stack of Bibles.”

  “Any Indian trouble?”

  “Back in the beginnin’,” Willis said. “The Blackfeet stole some horses. The Bannocks helped themselves to some cows. But none of the hands ever lost their scalps. Abe is on real good terms with the Shoshones. One winter he sent ten beeves to their chief when the tribe was goin’ hungry on account of the snow and cold.”

  “Much in the way of predator problems?”

  “Oh, a griz kills a cow every blue moon or so. There’s a mountain lion with a hungry tooth for horseflesh but I aim to settle with him myself. And a while back we had a wolf that thought it had the right to help itself to our calves but Abe brought in a hunter who turned it into a wolfskin rug.”

  “How about rustlers?”

  “Every place has them, I reckon,” Willis hedged, as Elfie wanted him to do, but he did not like it. He did not like it one little bit.

  “Have any ever bothered the Bar T?”

  Willis stared straight ahead. He dared not look at her veil. “About ten years ago there were a couple of brand blotters who reckoned the Bar T had too many cows and decided they should have the extras. They were sneakin’ south with thirty head when we caught up with ’em and held a lynchin’ bee. We left ’em lookin’ up through the cottonwood leaves as a warnin’ to anyone else tempted to use a runnin’ iron on our cattle.”

  “My father had to do the same five or six times before the rustlers in our neck of the woods decided it was healthier to change climates.”

  Laurella asked more questions, impressing Willis with her knowledge of ranching and cattle. He answered each query as honestly as he was able. But he could not stop thinking about the one he had not answered honestly.

  They came to the southeast end of the home valley and Laurella asked if he would swing west and follow the tree line around to the ranch buildings.

  “It will be rough. We’ll be bouncin’ and up and down until our—” Willis stopped. He had almost said “backsides are raw.”

  “I don’t mind. I’m not fragile. I don’t break easy.”

  Willis cut overland, slowing the team so the seat would not jounce as much. Laurella counted cows and marked her tally book. They were halfway along the return loop when she closed the tally book and said, “Why don’t we stop a while?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  A convenient patch of shade beckoned. Willis brought the buckboard in close to the trees, carefully got down, and came around to help Laurella. Only she had climbed down herself and stood with her hands on her hips and her back arched. He quickly looked away from her bosom.

  “It’s so beautiful here,” Laurella said. “Those are the Tetons way off to the west, aren’t they?”

  “Sure are. Some days you can see them better. It’s hazy today.”

  “Why haven’t you ever married, Will?”

  “Ma’am?” Willis blurted.

  “You heard me. I’m curious. Are you one of those bachelors who refuses to say I do? Or is it something else?”

  “I never gave it much thought,” Willis said, his skin prickling as if he had a heat rash. Pulling at his collar, he limped closer to the trees. A shadow crawled across the ground toward him from the rear and a warm hand pressed his arm.

  “I’m sorry. Have I embarrassed you?”

  “No.”

  “You’re a terrible liar. I shouldn’t have been so forward. It’s just that we have so much in common.” Laurella removed her hand and came around so she faced him. “My social graces are not what they should be.”

  “You are as fine as fine can be,” Willis said.

  “Not in every respect.” Laurella raised a finger and touched her veil. “But it’s awful kind of you to lie for my sake.”

  If lies made him kind, Willis thought, then he was the kindest person on the planet right then. “You don’t give yourself enough credit.”

  “To the contrary,” Laurella said. “I refuse to kid myself. All I need do is look in a mirror to disabuse myself of the notion of—”

  “The notion of what?”

  “Nothin’. Silly female chatter. Pay me no mind, Will. Sometimes my feelin’s get the better of me.” Laurella toyed with a button on the front of her dress. “Frankly, I surprise myself. I haven’t talked so openly with a man, any man, ever.”

  “Well,” Willis said, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

  Laurella looked up at the clouds. Her chin was visible, the half that was perfect and the half that resembled lined leather. “The sky isn’t the same here. It seems higher. Like there’s more of it.”

  “Maybe there is,” Willis said, unable to take his gaze off her chin. He did the next moment, though, when a figure stepped from behind a pine with a pair of pistols pointed at them. In pure instinct Willis grabbed Laurella and swung her behind him. “You!” he exclaimed.

  Laurella’s fingernails bit into his arm. “Who is he?”

  “Isn’t this sweet?” the Flour Sack Kid said. “A lunkhead and his lady.”

  “What do you want?” Laurella demadned. “If it’s money you’re after, I don’t have any with me.”

  “Stifle yourself, woman.” The green eyes under the flour sack were fixed on Willis. “All I’m after is the pleasure of your company.”

  “Lay a hand on me and I’ll have every man in the territory after you,” Laurella vowed. “This might not be Texas but abusin’ a woman is as vile as can be.”

  “Good Lord,” the Kid said. “You think awful highly of yourself, don’t you? You must be pretty under that silly veil. Why don’t you show me?”

  “I’ll be damned if I will.”

  “Such language,” the Flour Sack Kid said, and thumbed back the hammers on his black-handled revolvers. “You’ll show me or I’ll shoot your friend here in his good leg.”

  “No,” Wil
lis said.

  “Stay out of this. She’s the one who got snippy.”

  “No,” Willis repeated.

  Laurella started to step in front of him but Willis held her back. “I don’t want him to shoot you, Will.”

  “He won’t.”

  The Kid snickered. “Don’t be too sure, lunkhead.”

  “Stop callin’ me that.”

  “The veil,” the Kid said to Laurella. “Or have the lunkhead do it for you. Either way, I’m entitled.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Willis said.

  “Don’t you have that backward, lunkhead?” The Flour Sack Kid wagged a pistol at the veil. “Today would be nice.”

  “You don’t want to see me.”

  “The hat, lady.”

  “Really, you don’t.”

  To Willis the Kid said, “Ever notice how talkin’ to a woman is like talkin’ to a wall?” Then, to Laurella, he said, “Did I hear you say you’re from Texas? Don’t they have desperadoes down there? Or does everyone walk around with a flour sack over his head? When a man wearin’ a sack and wavin’ pistols threatens to shoot you, you should believe him.”

  “You threatened to shoot me,” Willis said.

  Laurella balled her fists. “I hate you,” she told the Kid. “If I had a pistol of my own, I would be the one doin’ the shootin’.” Both her arms rose and she removed her hat with a sharp, defiant gesture. “There. Happy now?”

  “Good God.” The Flour Sack Kid took a step back. His pistols drooped and his green eyes widened. “You’re—”

  Willis hit him. He took a quick limping step and planted his right fist about where the Kid’s jaw should be. His knuckles connected solidly and the Kid tottered and fell onto his back. Drawing his Colt, Willis said, “I hate you, too.”

  The Flour Sack Kid rose on his elbows. “No, you don’t.” He made no attempt to aim his pistols or even to lift them. “You only think you do.”

  “Shoot him,” Laurella said.

  As much as Willis yearned to, he didn’t.

  “Bloodthirsty fillies, these Texas gals,” the Kid declared. “Does she want to chop off my fingers and toes for keepsakes?”

  “Take his guns.”