by Max Brand
They found an orchestra, tired but enduring, supported by certain quantities of whiskey and unlimited applause. They found a big barn floor polished with wax, ground in by a bale of hay drawn across it by volunteers earlier in the day. There were bunting streamers stretched across the rafters, Japanese lanterns burning dimly, low down, lamps bracketed against the walls, and a thin haze of cigarette smoke that seemed to grow thicker as it mounted toward the shadows of the loft. They found a gay crowd, moreover, that made up for the shaky music, the dimness of the lights. For those who had worked so hard to get here refused resolutely to have a bad time. They found, moreover, at this dance, a king of the ball, named Richard Kinkaid, and a queen, also, who was Marian Lane, as a matter of course.
They found one stirring bit of gossip, as well, that somehow seemed to reach every ear, male and female, the instant a newcomer entered the hall.
“Dick Kinkaid’s taken a tumble at last.”
“How come?”
“Watch him and Marian Lane. Look at his grin. He ain’t smiled for seven years, they say. Looks like his face’ll crack tonight.”
They looked with awe and with delight, for the thing undoubtedly was true. The great Kinkaid at last showed one touching human strain.
He was an Ajax of the mountains, lofty, nobly made. He was no boy, but well over thirty, and with a dozen years of big achievements behind him. The weight of their accomplishment showed upon him, but that was not the shadow that lay on his face. For he was one of those who, it seems, are forever on the frontier of the world, loving trouble for its own poisonous sake and hunting danger as lovers hunt for their beloved.
There are ever two classes of these men — those who carelessly defy the law and make their own rules of living, and there are those more cautious spirits, though equally grim, who exercise their strength in defense of the law. But both classes have at heart the same overmastering desire — the desire for combat.
Richard Kinkaid was of the second class. But all men, whether good or evil-doers, found it equally hard to look into that dark, stern face, for his eye was always quick, and with or without his will, it was forever looking for only one thing — offense.
It was hardly a wonder that women had meant nothing to Richard Kinkaid. His life was lived among men, his battles were, of course, with them, and where his fights were, there was his heart, also.
Tonight, however, the unexpected blow had fallen, and he, looking down at Marian Lane, as many another man had looked, suddenly began to wonder if that delicate and doll-like face could be lighted by any real emotion, and if those wide, childish eyes could begin to have a woman’s meaning.
So he found himself talking, and she listened. He spoke of the only thing he knew — his battles, his rides, his conquests. He was not vainglorious, but, in speaking to her, it seemed to Richard Kinkaid that he retasted the fierceness of the fighting, that all drab commonplace disappeared, that the rides on staggering horses through snow, through iron mountain passes in the wind and rain, through the blasting heat of the desert now were glorified.
The frown that made the crease between his eyes relaxed. And Kinkaid began to smile, for she, also, was smiling up at him, speaking very little, but listening, listening, and seeming to drink deep of all he said.
What could he do, then, but talk? And as he talked it seemed to the manhunter that he had invested some of his pains and some of his glories in her. He danced a little stiffly, clumsily. Then, several times, he sat out with her and told her why he had come to this place — because even if his coming were known, certain men for whom he was looking, might perhaps appear here, drawn by the irresistible lure of pleasure, and hoping somehow that he would forget. He laughed a little as he said this, and the ring of iron was in his voice again, as when he spoke of his wars.
Now and then he left her, shamed into it by the furtive circle of youths who perpetually lingered near, unwilling to draw down his anger by an interruption, but delighted at the sight of Marian Lane. The instant he withdrew, partly with sadness and partly with contemptuous pleasure, he noted how they closed around her — dogs, after the wolf had stalked away.
Once, lofty in the distance of a corner, he overlooked her in the crowd of suitors for a dance, and he told himself that one of these would have her at last. But, oh, the pity of it, when she was meant to be the wife of a man. No wonder that her face was blank and her eyes brightly empty when she talked with such as these.
It was late in the evening. Rather it was early morning, when the next interruption came with the entry of a new excitement. It sent a buzz around the hall, and the murmur came even to the ears of big Richard Kinkaid, as he stood talking with Colonel Hope, old, gentle, chivalrous, famous from the Indian wars.
“What are they all talking about?” asked Kinkaid. “Who are they looking at?”
He himself had been occupying the forefront of attention up to this moment, but it never occurred to Kinkaid that he was jealous of such notoriety. He would have said that he was above such a thing. However, it is undoubtedly true that from the very first instant he felt a pinching of the heart as the colonel answered.
“By my stars, I didn’t expect to see him here. This is a greater surprise than your coming, even. Because you’ve showed yourself at these places before, Kinkaid. But, unless I’m seeing dreams, that young fellow yonder...that one who has just come in...d’you see him?”
“No,” Kinkaid said untruly.
“Look again. You can’t mistake him. Rather tall...not huge like you. But tall, with a pale face. That’s the man of Moose Creek.”
“Are they raising men in Moose Creek these days?” Kinkaid asked with his usual half-suppressed sneer.
The colonel did not appear to understand the slur. He went on enthusiastically: “By George, that fellow has the real steel in him. He’s the one who took young Charlie Nash...good lad but wild...and took his gun away from him...dodged bullets to do it, mind you...confoundedly heroic. Took his gun away, laid him out, took him home, and sobered him up...made his peace with the sheriff...made Charlie his fast friend for life. Confoundedly fine, I call that. A fellow in ten million. Why, Kinkaid, they love that lad in Moose Creek! I don’t blame them. I wish we had him in our section of the country.”
Kinkaid, in fact, had noted this newcomer the first instant he entered the room. He followed him now as he passed across the floor. A dance began, a tag dance. The man of Moose Creek was dancing, his lady remaining safely in his arms, untouched by any hand.
Yes, even as they would have avoided offending Kinkaid himself, so they avoided this other, this slighter, this younger man, this unknown.
“What’s his name?”
“Duval.”
“I never heard of him before,” Kinkaid said bluntly.
“Then you’ve been out of touch with this section for a good many weeks,” the colonel commented with equal frankness. “We’ve been talking about nothing else. Graceful couple, aren’t they?”
Kinkaid looked at the girl, and his heart leaped amazingly, and then fell like a stone. For it was Marian Lane in the arms of Duval, and truly they made a graceful couple. His own heavy strength was suddenly a mantle of lead that he would have cast off, if he could, to be light, to be free, to be a part of the dance, as was this young man.
They came closer. As she had looked up into the face of big Kinkaid, so now he vowed she was looking up to Duval, except that now she talked, and the man listened, and laughed frankly with her, and seemed at ease beyond imagination.
Kinkaid would have been far more interested, if he could have heard their conversation, for Marian Lane was saying: “And the letter was delightful, except...you need not have written slang, I saw your books in your house.”
“Then there’s one more weight off my mind, and soon we can talk freely. As friends, even?”
“How long were you waiting there outside the window?”
“Not long. I merely went up for a glance.”
“But suppose that I’d gone down in the dark and mailed the letter?”
“Poor Eleanor would never have had it. I was waiting in the lower store.”
“How did you get in?”
“I can’t confess. I may have to come again. But I knew you wouldn’t go out.”
“Did you?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“Why?”
“You were afraid. I saw from the size of your eyes that you were frightened of the man outside your door.”
“As if there was one there.”
“There was, for a time.”
She shuddered in his arms.
“Yes,” he explained. “I thought you deserved a little suffering. So, I came up the stairs at one time and stood for a while, breathing rather hard from the climb. That was early in the evening when I suspected that you might really go out as soon as you’d written the letter.”
She drew a quick, deep breath. “You didn’t want me to go then?”
“I should have had to meet you in the dark. I didn’t want to frighten you as badly as that. Simply give you waking nightmares for a little while.”
“Why couldn’t you have robbed the post office, as you did later?”
“Because the postmistress was up playing cards with a crony. I’d made sure of that before.”
“But when the day came....”
“Yes, then I climbed up again and looked in time to see you confide the secret to LORNA DOONE. Poor Lorna! She never would have approved of such an evening, do you think?”
“Even Lorna would have wanted to know who is Duval.”
“A poor farmer who works hard.”
“But he’s something else.”
“Nothing that has harmed you.”
“Who is Duval?”
“Have you made a fight out of it? Will you never give in?” he asked her.
“I don’t think that I can. I want to know.”
“Suppose I start prying into Marian Lane?”
“Oh, I’m open as the day. The whole range knows everything about me.”
“About beautiful Marian Lane, hard-working Marian Lane, gentle Marian Lane, cold-eyed Marian Lane. But there is another side, I suspect.”
“What other side?”
“They never have seen her with ghosts in her eyes, as I have. They never have watched her slip like a graceful little cat at night across the roof of Pete’s Place. What would they say to that? What would all the honest boys say?”
“That I am a seeker after truth, if they only knew.”
“Truth is fire,” he said. “It burns many hands, even calloused ones. I’ve come here tonight to beg for a truce. You see that I don’t stand on pride. I beg for forgiveness, and forgetfulness. I’ve come all this distance to see you and ask you to be a friend, instead of an enemy. Do you believe that?”
“In part,” she answered. “And was it also in part to see Dick Kinkaid, the manhunter? I’m sorry the dance is over. That’s where I want to sit...over in that corner....”
It was Kinkaid’s corner, and toward it he took her, realizing that the appeal had gone unanswered and that it was indeed war to the knife. But now he was before Kinkaid. He could hear the last words on the lips of excellent Colonel Hope — and they were something about that ghoul of a man, Larry Jude.
Then he stood before Kinkaid, and a great hand of iron closed over his with unnecessary force, until he raised his head.
So, for the first time, each looked into the eyes of the other steadily, remorselessly, never giving way, until a longer pause would have called attention upon them.
They separated, but each was absent-minded, thoughtful, one of Kinkaid, and one of Duval, though the colonel, in his gentle way, was striving to make cheerful conversation between them.
The next dance started. And away went Marian Lane in the arms of the great Kinkaid. She was talking to him now as eagerly as he to her.
“You know this Duval pretty well?” he asked her.
“I don’t know him at all,” she said. “But he’s wonderful, isn’t he?”
“Humph!” grunted Kinkaid.
“And how I should like to know who Duval really is,” she said.
“Would you?” answered Kinkaid. “Then I’ll tell you that you’re going to, and going to hear the facts from me. He’s got an eye in his head for one thing.”
But the last words were nothing more than a mumble, intended for his own ears alone.
Chapter Sixteen
The cream of a country dance is always the last of it, when the older people who give it sanction and dignity have gone home, and the orchestra has played itself into some degree of abandon, and the crowd that is left is thinking of nothing but the joy of motion.
Pretty Marian Lane was still there, as though she had no store to open in the morning. Strange to say, big Kinkaid also lingered, and the late dancers almost forgot to look at him with awe. It was almost as remarkable a thing that Duval was also present.
He was everywhere.
He danced only that once with Marian Lane. After that, he was interested in every girl present, as it seemed, for he danced with each in turn, and between dances he appeared to discover great charm in round-backed old grandmothers who sat along the wall as chaperons. He talked everywhere, not overflowing with talk, but simply with that keen and attentive interest that made each companion certain that Duval came to her with eagerness, and left her with regret.
He was not with the women alone, but also in the anteroom — once reserved for saddles and such gear in the days of the barn’s real usefulness — where he found the men between dances hastily smoking cigarettes. He lounged and talked with these. He walked up and down with young Charlie Nash, arm in arm, and Charlie was obviously proud of this distinction that was given him. He submitted, also, to a good deal of bantering upon the obvious pleasure that he was getting from the dance.
“He wants somebody at his stove besides a man to cook,” said a cheerful cowpuncher, “and so he’s come out here to find somebody. He’s a dog-goned practical man, ain’t you, Duval? I was the same way, once. I was the same way, and I went out to collect myself a wife. I got myself all engaged up to a fine girl that wasn’t either wind-broke or spavined. She was sound, and her best point was her teeth...I mean they was the most to see. I give her a ring that I was keeping for a friend of mine, and the next Sunday I go to call on her and she throws the ring at my eye and don’t miss it. It appeared that I was a mine owner and a dog-goned rich one, that night I danced with her...and when she learned that I was a low-down ornery cowpuncher, it riled her a good deal, the time she’d wasted on me. She had a fist that would’ve looked good on the handle of a fryin’ pan, or carryin’ a five-gallon bucket of clabber to the pigs, or pitchin’ winter feed to the weeds off the stack. But when she tried to put that fist on the end of my chin, I turned around and run for it, and she nigh caught me at the gate except that I jumped, and so I got away with everything except a part of my clothes. When you go to get yourself a woman, Duval, you take my advice and practice up a mite on jumpin’. But why ain’t you ever come out before?”
Duval explained that he would have been pleased enough to do so. But he had to work. The farm was young. It needed infinite care. But he at last had a great idea. He was going to raise asparagus and make a fortune in this manner.
They listened to him with their eyes upon the floor. It was not the first extravagant scheme he had hatched. Once, he was going to buy lean young cattle from the southern drives as they came north toward the grasslands in the summer and put them in sheds to be fattened.
When he was asked what he would feed them, he assured everyone gravely that he had just learned that cattle loved cabbages, and that he had a scheme for raising cabbage on his farm, and such tons of it that he co
uld afford to buy the cows and make them fat from the crop. He was hardly dissuaded from this foolish notion, when he decided to put in an apple orchard, pointing out that one tree might produce fifty bushels of Winesap apples, and at $2 a bushel, with very little cost of care except for spraying and plowing, he would be able to make, literally, thousands of dollars a year. From this, also, he was persuaded, largely by Charlie Nash, who pointed out that he would have to wait forty years for apple trees to grow to a fifty-bushel size, and finally by Simon Wilbur, who proved that apple trees would not grow at all in that soil.
Now, he had struck asparagus, and the cowpunchers bit their lips to keep from smiling, until Duval heard the orchestra begin and hurried off to find a partner.
“Look at him,” said hard-handed Murphy of the Salmon Tail outfit. “There he goes, the straight-standin’est, square-shootin’est, most out-gamin’est man in the range, bar none...the smartest, keenest, brightest, wisest, patient-est, hard-workin’est man, too. Yet he’s got so dog-goned little sense about business that one of these here days we’re gonna see that place auctioned off for debt, and poor old Duval will be there as bright and cheerful as ever, smilin’ at everybody, and never lettin’ anyone see that he’s eatin’ his heart as he watches the stuff being auctioned off.”
“Shut up!” said Charlie Nash. “Ain’t I been thinking nothing but that same thing these here last weeks?”
“How does he keep goin’, Charlie? He ain’t made a cent out of that fool farm, and he’s spendin’ all the time at a terrible rate.”
“I dunno,” Charlie admitted. “But he told me once about a terrible fine evening that he had at roulette up Montana way, before he quit the T Bar place. And I reckon that’s why he’s still flush. Spending his capital on you and me and all the other boys, and never complaining because he doesn’t get anything back. Why, boys, may heaven send Duval a woman with a business head that’ll take charge of him.”
Murphy laughed, and others joined him.
“Who’ll take charge of Duval?” they asked. And Charlie Nash agreed with them, half sadly and half with a fierce pride.
