by B. M. Bower
He sprinkled water lavishly upon her face, bethought him of a possible whisky flask in the haystack, and ran every step of the way there and back. He found a discarded bottle with a very little left in it, and forced the liquor down her throat.
“That’ll fetch ye if anything will—he-he!” he mumbled, tittering from sheer excitement. Beyond a very natural desire to do what he could for her, he was extremely anxious to bring her to her senses, so that he could hear what had happened, and how it had happened.
“Betche Man got jealous of her’n Kenneth—by granny, I betche that’s how it come about—hey? Feelin’ better, Mis’ Fleetwood?”
Val had opened her eyes and was looking at him rather stupidly. There was a bruise upon her head, as well as upon her throat. She had been stunned, and her wits came back slowly. When she recognized Polycarp, she tried ineffectually to sit up.
“I—he—is—he—gone?” Her voice was husky, her speech labored.
“Man, you mean? He’s gone, yes. Don’t you be afeared—not whilst I’m here, by granny! How came it he done this to ye?”
Val was still staring at him bewilderedly. Polycarp repeated his question three times before the blank look left her eyes.
“I—turned the calf—out—the cow—came and—claimed it—Manley—” She lifted her hand as if it were very, very heavy, and fumbled at her throat. “Manley—when I told him—he was a—thief—” She dropped her hand wearily to her side and closed her eyes, as if the sight of Polycarp’s face, so close to hers and so insatiably curious and eager and cunning, was more than she could bear.
“Go away,” she commanded, after a minute or two. “I’m—all right. It’s nothing. I fell. It was—the heat. Thank you—so much—” She opened her eyes and saw him there still. She looked at him gravely, speculatively. She waved her hand toward the bedroom. “Get me my hand glass—in there on the dresser,” she said.
When he had tiptoed in and got it for her, she lifted it up slowly, with both hands, until she could see her throat. There were distinct, telltale marks upon the tender flesh—unmistakable finger prints. She shivered and dropped the glass to the floor. But she stared steadily up at Polycarp, and after a moment she spoke with a certain fierceness.
“Polycarp Jenks, don’t ever tell—about those marks. I—I don’t want any one to know. When—after a while—I want to think first—perhaps you can help me. Go away now—not away from the ranch, but—let me think. I’m all right—or I will be. Please go.”
Polycarp recognized that tone, however it might be hoarsened by bruised muscles and the shock of what she had suffered. He recognized also that look in her eyes; he had always obeyed that look and that tone—he obeyed them now, though with visible reluctance. He sat down in the kitchen to wait, and while he waited he chewed tobacco incessantly, and ruminated upon the mystery which lay behind the few words Val had first spoken, before she realized just what it was she was saying.
After a long, long while—so long that even Polycarp’s patience was feeling the strain—Val opened the door and stood leaning weakly against the casing. Her throat was swathed in a piece of white silk.
“I wish, Polycarp, you’d get the team and hitch it to the light rig,” she said. “I want to go to town, and I don’t feel able to drive. Can you take me in? Can you spare the time?”
“Why, certainly, I c’n take you in, Mis’ Fleetwood. I was jest thinkn’ it wa’n’t safe for you out here—”
“It is perfectly safe,” Val interrupted chillingly. “I am going because I Want to see Arline Hawley.” She raised her hand to the bandage. “I have a sore throat,” she stated, staring hard at him. Then, with one of her impulsive changes, she smiled wistfully.
“You’ll be my friend, Polycarp, won’t you?” she pleaded. “I can trust you, I know, with my—secret. It is a secret—it must be a secret! I’ll tell you the truth, Polycarp. It was Manley—he had been drinking again. He—we had a quarrel—about something. He didn’t know what he was doing—he didn’t mean to hurt me. But I fell—I struck my head; see, there is a great lump there.” She pushed back her hair to show him the place. “So it’s a secret—just between you and me, Polycarp Jenks!”
“Why, certainly, Mis’ Fleetwood; don’t you be the least mite oneasy; I’m your friend—I always have been. A feller ain’t to be held responsible when he’s drinkin’—by granny, that’s a fact, he ain’t.”
“No,” Val agreed laconically, “I suppose not. Let us go, then, as soon as we can, please. I’ll stay overnight with Mrs. Hawley, and you can bring me back tomorrow, can’t you? And you’ll remember not to mention—anything, won’t you, Polycarp?”
Polycarp stood very straight and dignified.
“I hope, Mis’ Fleetwood, you can always depend on Polycarp Jenks,” he replied virtuously. “Your secret is safe with me.”
Val smiled—somewhat doubtfully, it is true—and let him go. “Maybe it is—I hope so,” she sighed, as she turned away to dress for the trip.
All through that long ride to town, Polycarp talked and talked and talked. He made surmises and waited openly to hear them confirmed or denied; he gave her advice; he told her everything he had ever heard about Manley, or had seen or knew from some other source; everything, that is, save what was good. The sums he had lost at poker, or had borrowed; the debts he owed to the merchants; the reputation he had for “talking big and doing little;” the trouble he had had with this man and that man; and what he did not know for a certainty he guessed at, and so kept the subject alive.
True, Val did not speak at all, except when he asked her how she felt. Then she would reply dully, “Pretty well, thank you, Polycarp.” Invariably those were the words she used. Whenever he stole a furtive, sidelong glance at her, she was staring straight ahead at the great, undulating prairie with the brown ribbon, which was the trail, thrown carelessly across to the sky line.
Polycarp suspected that she did not see anything—she just stared with her eyes, while her thoughts were somewhere else. He was not even sure that she heard what he was saying. He thought she must be pretty sick, she was so pale, and she had such wide, purple rings under her eyes. Also, he rather resented her desire to keep her trouble a secret; he favored telling everybody, and organizing a party to go out and run Man Fleetwood out of the country, as the very mildest rebuke which the outraged community could give and remain self-respecting. He even fell silent daring the last three or four miles, while he dwelt longingly upon the keen pleasure there would be in leading such an expedition.
“You’ll remember, Polycarp, not to speak of this?” Val urged abruptly when he drew up before the Hawley Hotel. “Not a hint, you know until—until I give you permission. You promised.”
“Oh, certainly, Mis’ Fleetwood. Certainly. Don’t you be a mite oneasy.” But the tone of Polycarp was dejected in the extreme.
“And please be ready to drive me back in the morning. I should like to be at the ranch by noon, at the latest.” With that she left him and went into the hotel.
CHAPTER XXII
A FRIEND IN NEED
“And so,” Val finished, rather apathetically, pushing back the fallen lock of hair, “it has come to that. I can’t remain here and keep any shred of self-respect. All my life I’ve been taught to believe divorce a terrible thing—a crime, almost; now I think it is sometimes a crime not to be divorced. For months I have been coming slowly to a decision, so this is really not as sudden as it may seem to you. It is humiliating to be compelled to borrow money—but I would much rather ask you than any of my own people. My pride is going to suffer enough when I meet them, as it is; I can’t let them know just how miserable and sordid a failure—”
Arline gave an inarticulate snort, bent her scrawny body nearly double, and reached frankly into her stocking. She fumbled there a moment and straightened triumphantly, grasping a flat, buckskin bag.
“I’d feel like shakin’ you if you went to anybody else but me,” she declared, untying the bag. “I know what men is�
��Lord knows I see enough of ’em and their meanness—and if I can help a woman outa the clutches of one, I’m tickled to death to git the chancet. I ain’t sayin’ they’re all of ’em bad—I c’n afford to give the devil his due and still say that men is the limit. The good ones is so durn scarce it ain’t one woman in fifty lucky enough to git one. All I blame you for is stayin’ with him as long as you have. I’d of quit long ago; I was beginnin’ to think you never would come to your senses. But you had to fight that thing out for yourself; every woman has to.
“I’m glad you’ve woke up to the fact that Man Fleetwood didn’t git a deed to you, body and soul, when he married you; you’ve been actin’ as if you thought he had. And I’m glad you’ve got sense enough to pull outa the game when you know the best you can expect is the worst of it. There ain’t no hope for Man Fleetwood; I seen that when he went back to drinkin’ again after you was burnt out. I did think that would steady him down, but he ain’t the kind that braces up when trouble hits him—he’s the sort that stays down ruther than go to the trouble of gittin’ up. He’s hopeless now as a rotten egg, and has been for the last year. Here; you take the hull works, and if you need more, I can easy git it for you by sendin’ in to the bank.”
“Oh, but this is too much!” Val protested when she had counted the money. “You’re so good—but really and truly, I won’t need half—”
Arline pushed away the proffered money impatiently. “How’n time are you goin’ to tell how much you’ll need? Lemme tell you, Val Peyson—I ain’t goin’ to call you by his name no more, the dirty cur!—I’ve been packin’ that money in my stockin’ for six months, jest so’st to have it handy when you wanted it. Divorces cost more’n marriage licenses, as you’ll find out when you git started. And—”
“You—why, the idea!” Val pursed her lips with something like her old spirit. “How could you know I’d need to borrow money? I didn’t know it myself, even. I—”
“Well, I c’n see through a wall when there’s a knothole in it,” paraphrased Arline calmly. “You may not know it, but you’ve been gittin’ your back-East notions knocked outa you pretty fast the last year or so. It was all a question of what kinda stuff you was made of underneath. You c’n put a polish on most anything, so I couldn’t tell, right at first, what there was to you. But you’re all right—I’ve seen that a long time back; and so I knowed durn well you’d be wantin’ money to pull loose with. It takes money, though I know it ain’t polite to say much about real dollars ’n’ cents. You’ll likely use every cent of that before you’re through with the deal—and remember, there’s a lot more growin’ on the same bush, if you need it. It’s only waitin’ to be picked.”
Val stared, found her eyes blurring so that she could not see, and with a sudden, impulsive movement leaned over and put her arms around Arline, unkempt, scrawny, and wholly unlovely though she was.
“Arline, you’re an angel of goodness!” she cried brokenly. “You’re the best friend I ever had in my life—I’ve had many who petted me and flattered me—but you—you do things! I’m ashamed—because I haven’t loved you every minute since I first saw you. I judged you—I mean—oh, you’re pure, shining gold inside, instead of—”
“Oh, git out!” Arline was compelled to gulp twice before she could say even that much. “I don’t shine nowhere—inside er out. I know that well enough. I never had no chancet to shine. It’s always been wore off with hard knocks. But I like shiny folks all right—when they’re fine clear through, and—”
“Arline—dear, I do love you. I always shall. I—”
Arline loosened her clasp and jumped up precipitately.
“Git out!” she repeated bashfully. “If you git me to cryin’, Val Peyson, I’ll wish you was in Halifax. You go to bed, ’n’ go to sleep, er I’ll—” She almost ran from the room. Outside, she stopped in a darkened corner of the hallway and stood for some minutes with her checked gingham apron pressed tightly over her face, and several times she sniffed audibly. When she finally returned to the kitchen her nose was pink, her eyelids were pink, and she was extremely petulant when she caught Minnie eying her curiously.
Val had refused to eat any supper, and, beyond telling Arline that she had decided to leave Manley and return to her mother in Fern Hill, she had not explained anything very clearly—her colorless face, for instance, nor her tightly swathed throat, nor the very noticeable bruise upon her temple.
Arline had not asked a single question. Now, however, she spent some time fixing a tray with the daintiest food she knew and could procure, and took it upstairs with a certain diffidence in her manner and a rare tenderness in her faded, worldly-wise eyes.
“You got to eat, you know,” she reminded Val gently. “You’re bucking up ag’inst the hardest part of the trail, and grub’s a necessity. Take it like you would medicine—unless your throat’s too sore. I see you got it all tied up.”
Val raised her hands in a swift alarm and clasped her throat as if she feared Arline would remove the bandages.
“Oh, it’s not sore—that is, it is sore—I mean not very much,” she stammered betrayingly.
Arline set down the tray upon the dresser and faced Val grimly.
“I never asked you any questions, did I?” she demanded. “But you act for all the world as if—do you want me to give a guess about that tied-up neck, and that black’n’blue lump on your forehead? I never asked any questions—I didn’t need to. Man Fleetwood’s been maulin’ you abound. I was kinda afraid he’d git to that point some day when he got mad enough; he’s just the brand to beat up a woman. But if it took a beatin’ to bring you to the quitting point, I’m glad he done it. Only,” she added darkly, “he better keep outa my reach; I’m jest in the humor to claw him up some if I should git close enough. And if I happened to forget I’m a lady, I’d sure bawl him out, and the bigger crowd heard me the better. Now, you eat this—and don’t get the idee you can cover up any meanness of Man Fleetwood’s; not from me, anyhow. I know men better’n you do; you couldn’t tell me nothing about ’em that would su’prise me the least bit. I’m only thankful he didn’t murder you in cold blood. Are you going to eat?”
“Not if you keep on reminding me of such h-horrid things,” wailed Val, and sobbed into her pillow. “It’s bad enough to—to have him ch-choke me without having you t-talk about it all the time!”
“Now, honey, don’t you waste no tears on a brute like him—he ain’t w-worth it!” Arline was on her bony knees beside the bed, crying with sympathy and self-reproach.
So, in truly feminine fashion, the two wept their way back to the solid ground of everyday living. Before they reached that desirable state of composure, however, Val told her everything—within certain limits set not by caution, but rather by her woman’s instinct. She did not, for instance, say much about Kent, though she regretted openly that Polycarp knew so much about it.
“Hope never needed no newspaper so long as Polycarp lives here,” Arline grumbled when Val was sitting up again and trying to eat Arline’s toast, and jelly made of buffalo berries, and sipping the tea which had gone cold. “But if I can round him up in time, I’ll try and git him to keep his mouth shet. I’ll scare the liver outa him some way. But if he caught onto that calf deal—” She shook her head doubtfully. “The worst of it is, Fred’s in town, and he’s always pumpin’ Polycarp dry, jest to find out all that’s goin’ on. You go to bed, and I’ll see if I can find out whether they’re together. If they are—but you needn’t to worry none. I reckon I’m a match for the both of ’em. Why, I’d dope their coffee and send ’em both to sleep till Man got outa the country, if I had to!”
She stood with her hands upon her angular hips and glared at Val.
“I sure would do that, very thing—for you,” she reiterated solemnly, “I don’t purtend I’d do it for Man—but I would for you. But it’s likely Kent has fixed things up so they can’t git nothing on Man if they try. He would if he said he would; that there’s one feller that’s on the s
quare. You go to bed now, whilst I go on a still hunt of my own. I’ll come and tell you if there’s anything to tell.”
It was easy enough to make the promise, but keeping it was so difficult that she yielded to the temptation of going to bed and letting Val sleep in peace; which she could not have done if she had known that Polycarp Jenks and Fred De Garmo left town on horseback within an hour after Polycarp had entered it, and that they told no man their errand.
Over behind Brinberg’s store, Polycarp had told Fred all he knew, all he suspected, and all he believed would come to pass. “Strictly on the quiet,” of course—he reminded Fred of that, over and over, because he had promised Mrs. Fleetwood that he would not mention it.
“But, by granny,” he apologized, “I didn’t like the idee of keepin’ a thing like that from you; it would kinda look as if I was standin’ in on the deal, which I ain’t. Nobody can’t accuse me of rustlin’, no matter what else I might do; you know that, Fred.”
“Sure, I know you’re honest, anyway,” Fred responded quite sincerely.
“Well, I considered it my duty to tell you. I’ve kinda had my suspicions all fall, that there was somethin’ scaly goin’ on at Cold Spring. Looked to me like Man had too blamed many calves missed by spring round-up—for the size of his herd. I dunno, of course, jest where he gits ’em—you’ll have to find that out. But he’s brung twelve er fourteen to the ranch, two er three at a time. And what she said when she first come to—told me right out, by granny, ’at Man choked her because she called ’im a thief, and somethin’ about a cow comin’ an’ claimin’ her calf, and her turnin’ it out. That oughta be might’ nigh all the evidence you need, Fred, if you find it. She don’t know she said it, but she wouldn’t of told it, by granny, if it wasn’t so—now would she?”
“And you say all this happened today?” Fred pondered for a minute. “That’s queer, because I almost caught a fellow last night doing some funny work on a calf. A Wishbone cow it was, and her calf fresh burned—a barred-out brand, by thunder! If it was today, I’d, say Man found it and blotched the brand. I wish now I’d hazed them over to the Double Diamond and corralled ’em, like I had a mind to. But we can find them, easy enough. But that was last night, and you say this big setting came off today; you sure, Polly?”
