The Ranch at the Wolverine

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER IV

  "OLD DAME FORTUNE'S USED ME FOR A FOOTBALL"

  Ward Warren sat before the fireplace with a cigarette long gone cold inhis fingers and stared into the blaze until the blaze died tobright-glowing coals, and the coals filmed and shrank down into the bedof ashes. Billy Louise had spoken to him twice, and he had notanswered. She had swept all around him, and he had shifted his feetout of her way, and later his chair, like a man in his sleep who turnsfrom an unaccustomed light or draws the covers over shoulders growingchilled, without any real consciousness of what he does. Billy Louiseput away the broom, hung the dustpan on its nail behind the door, andstood looking at Ward curiously and with some resentment; this was notthe first time he had gone into fits of abstraction as deep as hisabsorption in the books he read so hungrily. He had been at theWolverine a month, and they were pretty well acquainted by now andinclined to friendliness when Ward threw off his moodiness and his airof holding himself ready for some affront which he seemed to expect.But for all that the distrust never quite left his eyes, and there weretimes like this when he was absolutely oblivious to her presence.

  Billy Louise suddenly lost patience. She stooped and picked up a bitof bark the size of her thumb and threw it at Ward, with a little,vexed twist of her lips. She had a fine accuracy of aim--she hit himon the nape of the neck, just where his hair came down in a queerlittle curly "cow-lick" in the middle.

  Ward jumped up and whirled, and when he faced Billy Louise he had a gungripped in the fingers that had held the cigarette so loosely. In hiseyes was the glare which a man turns upon his deadliest enemy, perhaps,but seldom indeed upon a girl. So they faced each other, while BillyLouise backed against the wall and took two sharp breaths.

  Ward relaxed; a shamed flush reddened his whole face. He shoved thegun back inside the belt of his trousers--Billy Louise had neverdreamed that he carried any weapon save his haughty aloofness ofmanner--and with a little snort of self-disgust dropped back into thechair. He did not stare again into the fire, however; he folded hisarms upon the high chairback and laid his face down upon them, like awoman who is hurt to the point of tears and yet will not weep. Hisbooted feet were thrust toward the dying coals, his whole attitudespoke of utter desolation--of a loneliness beyond words.

  Billy Louise set her teeth hard together to keep back the tears ofsympathy. Suffering of any sort always wrung the tender heart of her.But suffering like this--never in her life had she seen anything likeit. She had seen her father angry, discouraged, morose. She had seenmen fight. She had soothed her mother's grief, which expressed itselfin tears and lamentations. But this hidden hurt, this stoicalsuffering that she had seen often and often in Ward's eyes and thatsent his head down now upon his arms-- She went to him and laid hertwo hands on his shoulders without even thinking that this was thefirst time she had ever touched him.

  "Don't!" she said, half whispering so that she would not waken hermother, in bed with an attack of lumbago. "I--I didn't know. Ward,listen to me! Whatever it is, can't you tell me? You--I'm yourfriend. Don't look as if you--you hadn't a friend on earth!"

  Still he did not move or give any sign that he heard. Billy Louise hadno thought of coquetry. Her heart ached with pity and a longing tohelp him. She slid one hand up and pinched his ear, just as she wouldplayfully tweak the ear of a child.

  "Ward, you mustn't. I've seen you think and think and look as if youhadn't a friend on earth. You mustn't. I suppose you've got lots offriends who'd stand by you through anything. Anyway, you've got me,and--I understand all about it." She whispered those last words, andher heart thumped heavily with trepidation after she had spoken.

  Ward raised his head, caught one of her hands and held it fast while helooked deep into her eyes. He was searching, questioning, measuring,and he was doing it without uttering a word. The plummet droppedstraight into the clear, sweet depths of her soul. If it did not reachthe bottom, he was satisfied with the soundings he took. He drew adeep breath and gave her hand a little squeeze and let it go.

  "Did I scare you? I'm sorry," he said, speaking in a hushed tonebecause of the woman in the next room. "I was thinking about a man Imay meet some day; and if I do meet him, the chances are I'll kill him.I--didn't--I forgot where I was--" He threw out a hand in a gesturethat amply completed explanation and apology and fumbled in his pocketfor tobacco and papers. Abstractedly he began the making of acigarette.

  Billy Louise put wood on the fire, pulled up a square, calico-paddedstool, and sat down. She waited, and she had the wisdom to wait incomplete silence.

  Ward leaned forward with a twig in his hand, got it ablaze, and lightedhis cigarette. He did not look at Billy Louise until he had taken awhiff or two. Then he stared at her for a full minute, and ended byflipping the charred twig playfully into her lap, and laughing a littlebecause she jumped.

  "What made you catch your breath when I told my name that night Icame?" he asked quizzically, but with a tensity behind the lightness ofhis tone and behind the little smile in his eyes as well. "Where hadyou ever heard of me before?"

  Billy Louise gasped again, sent a lightning-thought into the future,and answered more casually than she had hoped she could.

  "When I was a kid I ran across the name--somewhere--and I used it toplay with--"

  "Yes?"

  "You know--I was always making believe different things. I never hadanyone to play with in my life, so I had a pretend-girl, named Minervy.And I had you. I used to have you rescue us from Indians and things,but mostly you were a road-agent or a robber, and when you weren'tholding me or Minervy for ransom, I was generally leading you over somemost ungodly trails, saving you from posses and things. I used," saidBilly Louise, forcing a laugh, "to have some wild old times with you,believe me! So when you told your name, why--it was just like--youknow; it was exactly like having a doll come to life!"

  He eyed her fixedly until she tingled with nervousness.

  "Yes--and what about--understanding all about it? Do you?" He drew inhis under lip, let it go, and drew it again between his teeth, while hefrowned at her thoughtfully. "Do you understand all about it?" heinsisted, leaning toward her and never once taking that boring gazefrom her face.

  "I--well, I--do--some of it anyway." Billy Louise lifted a handspasmodically to her throat. This was digging deeper into the agoniesof life than she had ever gone before. "What was in the paper," shewhispered later, as if his eyes were drawing it from her by force.

  "What was that? What did it say?"

  "I--I--what difference does it make, what it said?" Billy Louiseturned imploring eyes upon him. Her breath was coming fast and uneven."It doesn't matter--to me--in the least. It--didn't say much.I--can't tell exactly--" She was growing white around the mouth. Thehorror of being compelled to say, out loud--and to him!

  "I didn't know there was a woman in the world like you," Ward saidirrelevantly and looked into the fire. "I thought women were just softthings a man had to take care of and carry along through life, a deadweight when they weren't worse. I never knew a woman could be afriend--the kind of friend a man can be." He threw his cigarette intothe fire and watched the paper shrivel swiftly and the tobacco turninto a thin, blue smoke-spiral.

  "Life's a queer thing," he said, taking a different angle. "I startedout with big notions about the things I'd do. Maybe I started wrong,but for a kid with nobody to point the trail for him, I don't think Idid so worse--till old Dame Fortune spotted me in the crowd andproceeded to use me for a football." He leaned an elbow on one kneeand stared hard at a burning brand that was getting ready to fall andsend up a stream of sparks. Then he turned his head quite unexpectedlyand looked at Billy Louise. "What was it you read?" he asked abruptly.

  "I--don't like to--say it," she whispered unsteadily.

  "Well, you needn't. I'll say it for you, when I come to it. There's alot before that."

  Ward Warren had never before opened his soul to any human; notcompletely. Pe
rhaps, sitting that evening in the deepening dusk, withthe firelight lighting swiftly the brooding face of the girl andafterward veiling it softly with shadows, perhaps even then there weredesolate places in his life which his words did not touch. But so muchas a man may put into words, Ward told her; more, a great deal more,than he would ever tell to any other woman as long as he lived. Moreperhaps than he would ever tell to any man. And in it all there was noword of love. It was of what lay behind him that he talked. The low,even murmur of his voice was broken by long, brooding silences, whenthe two stared into the shifting flames and saw there the things hiswords had conjured. Sometimes the eyes of Billy Louise were soft withsympathy. Sometimes they were wide and held the light of horror.Once, with a small sob that had no tears, she reached out and clutchedhis arm. "Oh, don't!" she gasped. "Don't go on telling--I--I can'tbear to listen to that!"

  "It isn't nice for a woman to listen to, I guess," Ward gritted. "Iknow it was hell to stand, but--" He was silent so long after that,and his eyes grew so intent and so somber while he stared, that BillyLouise pulled at his sleeve to recall him.

  "Skip that part and tell me--"

  Ward took up the story and told her much; more than she had everdreamed could be. I can't repeat any of it; what he said was for BillyLouise to know and none other.

  It was late when she finally rose from the stool and lighted the lampbecause her mother woke and called to her. Ward went out to turn thehorses into the stable and fasten the door. He should have shelteredthem two hours before. Billy Louise should long ago have made tea andtoast for her mother, for that matter. But when life's big, bitterproblems confront one, little things are usually forgotten.

  They came back to everyday realities, though the spell which Ward'simpulsive unburdening had woven still wrapped them in that closecompanionship of complete understanding. They played checkers for anhour or so and then went to bed. Billy Louise lay in a wakingnightmare because of all the hard things she had heard about life.Ward stared up into the dark and could not lose himself in sleep,because he had opened the door upon the evil places in his memory andlet out all the trooping devils that lived there.

  After that, though there was never any word of love between them, BillyLouise, with the sure instinct of a woman innately pure, watchedunobtrusively for signs of those fits of bitter brooding; watched anddrove them off with various weapons of her own. Sometimes shecheerfully declared that she was bored to death, and wasn't Ward justdying for a game of "rob casino"? Sometimes she simply teased him intoretaliation. Frequently she insisted that he repeat the things he hadlearned by heart, of poetry or humorous prose, for his memory wasalmost uncanny in its tenacity. She discovered quite early, and byaccident, that she had only to shake her head in a certain way anddeclaim: "Ah, Tam, noo, Tam, thou'lt get thy faring--In hell they'llroast thee like a herring,"--she had only to say that to make him laughand repeat the whole of _Tam O'Shanter's Ride_ with a perfectlydevilish zest for poor Tam's misfortunes, and an accent which made hersuspect who were his ancestors.

  Billy Louise meant only to wean him from his bitterness against Life,and to convince him, by a somewhat roundabout method since at heart shewas scared to death of his aloofness, that he was not "old ladyFortune's football" as he sometimes pessimistically declared. Atthirteen she had mixed him with her dreams and led him by difficulttrails to safety from the imaginary enemies that pursued him. Atnineteen she unconsciously mixed him with her life and led him--moresurely than in her dreams, and by a far more difficult trail, had sheonly known it--safe away from the devils of memory and a distrust oflife that pursued him more relentlessly than any human foe.

  She only meant to wean him from pessimism and rebuild within him ahealthy appetite for life. If she did more than that, she did not knowit then; for Ward Warren had learned, along with other hard lessons,the art of keeping his thoughts locked safely away, and of using hisface as a mask to hide even the doorway to his real self. Only hiseyes turned traitors sometimes when he looked at Billy Louise; thoughshe, being a somewhat self-centered young person, never quite read whatthey tried to betray.

  She took him up the canyon and showed him her cave and Minervy's. Andshe had the doubtful satisfaction of seeing him doubled over thesaddle-horn in a paroxysm of laughter when she led him to thehistorical washout and recounted the feat of the dead Indians withwhich he had made a safe passing for her.

  "Well, they did it in history," she defended at last, her cheeks redderthan was perfectly normal. "I read about it--at Waterloo when the Dukeof Wellington--wasn't it? You needn't laugh as if it couldn't be done.It was that sunken-road business put it into my head in the firstplace; and I think you ought to feel flattered."

  "I do," gasped Ward, wiping his eyes. "Say, I was some bandit, wasn'tI, William Louisa?"

  Billy Louise looked at him sidewise. "No, you weren't any bandit atall--then. You were a kind scout, that time. I was here, allsurrounded by Indians and saying the Lord's prayer with my hair alldown my back like mommie's Rock of Ages picture--will you shut uplaughing?--and you came riding up that draw over there on a big, blackhorse named Sultan (You needn't snort; I still think Sultan's a dandyname for a horse!). And you hollered to me to get behind that rock,over there. And I quit at 'Forgive us our debts'--daddy always had somany!--and hiked for the rock. And you commenced shooting-- Oh, I'mnot going to tell you a single other pretend!" She sulked then, whichwas quite as diverting as the most hair-raising "pretend" she had evertold him and held Ward's attention unflaggingly until they were halfway home.

  "Sing the _Chisholm Trail_," she commanded, when her temper wassunshiny again. This had been a particularly moody day for Ward, andBilly Louise felt that extra effort was required to rout thememory-devils. "Daddy knew a little of it, and old Jake Summers usedto sing more, but I never did hear it all."

  "Ladies don't, as a general thing," Ward replied, biting his lips.

  "Why? I know there's about forty verses, and some of them are kind ofsweary ones; but go ahead and sing it. I don't mind damn now and then."

  This sublime innocence was also diverting, even to a man haunted by thedevils of memory. Ward's lips twitched, and a flush warmed hischeek-bones at the mere thought of singing it all in her presence."I'll sing all of _Sam Bass_, if you like," he temporized, with a grin.

  "Oh, I hate _Sam Bass_! We had a Dutchman working for us when I wasjust a kid, and he was forever bawling out: 'Sa-am Pass was porn inInjiany, it was-s hiss natiff ho-o-ome!'"

  Billy Louise was a pretty good mimic. She had Ward doubled over thehorn again and shouting so that the canyon walls roared echoes forthree full minutes. "I've always wanted to hear the _Chisholm Trail_.I know how it was sung from Mexico north on the old cattle-trails, andhow every ambitious puncher who had enough imagination and could make arhyme, added a verse or so, till it's really a--a classic of thecow-camps."

  "Ye-es--it sure is all that." Ward eyed her furtively.

  "And with that memory of yours, I simply know that you can sing everysingle word of it," Billy Louise went on pitilessly--and innocently."You're a cowpuncher yourself, and you must have heard it all, at onetime and another; and I don't believe you ever forgot a thing in yourlife." She caught her breath there, conscience-stricken, and addedhastily and imperiously, "So go on--begin at the beginning and sing itall. I'll keep tab and see if you sing forty verses." And sheprompted coaxingly:

  "Come along, boys, and listen to my tale, I'll tell you of my troubles on the old Chisholm trail, Coma ti yi--"

  and nodded her head approvingly when Ward took up the ditty where sheleft off and sang it with the rollicking enthusiasm which only a manwho has soothed restless cattle on a stormy night can put into thedoggerel.

  He did not sing the whole forty verses, for good and sufficient reasonsbest known to punchers themselves. But, with swift, shamed skipping ofcertain lines and some hasty revisions, he actually did sing thirty,and Billy Louise was so engrossed that she forgot to count them
andnever suspected the omissions; for some of the verses were quite"sweary" enough to account for his hesitation.

  The singing of those thirty verses brought a reminiscent mood upon thesinger. For the rest of the way, which they rode at a walk, Ward satvery much upon one side of the saddle, with his body facing BillyLouise and his foot dangling free of the stirrup, and told her tales oftrail-herds, and the cow-camps, and of funny things that had happenedon the range. His "I remember one time" opened the door to a morefascinating world than Billy Louise's dream-world, because this otherworld was real.

  So, from pure accident, she hit upon the most effective of all weaponswith which to fight the memory-devils. She led Ward to remembering thepleasanter parts of his past life and to telling her of them.

  When spring came at last, and he rode regretfully back to his claim onMill Greek, he was not at all the morose Ward Warren who had riddendown to the Wolverine that stormy night in January. The distrust hadleft his eyes, and that guarded remoteness was gone from his manner.He thought and he planned as other men thought and planned, and lookedinto the future eagerly, and dreamed dreams of his own; dreams thatbrought the hidden smile often to his lips and his eyes.

  Still, the thing those dreams were built upon was yet locked tight inhis heart, and not even Billy Louise, whose instinct was so keen and sosure in all things else, knew anything of them or of the bright-huedhope they were built upon. Fortune's football was making ready tofight desperately to become captain of the game, that he might besomething more to Billy Louise.