The Ranch at the Wolverine

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER XXVII

  MARTHY

  Billy Louise led the way down the gorge, through the meadow, and alongthe orchard to the little gate. The Cove seemed empty and ratherforlorn, with the wind creeping up the river and rattling the drybranches of the naked fruit trees. Not much more than twenty-fourhours had slid into the past since Billy Louise had galloped away fromthe place, yet she felt vaguely that life had taken a big stride heresince she last saw it. Nothing was changed, though, as far as shecould see. A few cattle fed in the meadow next the river, a fatteninghog lifted himself from his bed of straw and grunted at them as theypassed. A few chickens were hunting fishworms in the thawed places ofthe garden, and a yellow cat ran creepingly along the top rail of thenearest corral, crouched there with digging claws and pounced down intoa flock of snowbirds. A drift of dead apple leaves stirred uneasilybeside the footpath through the berry bushes. Billy Louise startednervously and glanced over her shoulder at Seabeck. For some reasonshe wanted the comfort of his presence. She waited until he came up toher--tall, straight like a soldier, and silent as the Cove itself.

  "I'm--scared," said Billy Louise. She did not smile either when shesaid it. "I--hate empty-feeling places. I'm--afraid of emptiness."

  "Yet you are always riding alone in the hills." Seabeck looked down ather with a puzzled expression in his eyes.

  "The hills aren't empty," she told him impatiently. "They're just bigand quiet. This is--" She flung out a hand and did not try to find aword for what she felt.

  "Shall I go first? I thought you would rather--"

  "I would." Billy Louise pulled herself together, angry at her suddenimpulse to run, as she had run from Ward's quiet cabin. She rememberedthat unreasoning panic--was it really only yesterday?--and wentsteadily up the path and across the little ditch which Marthy had dug.Why must sordid trouble and dull misery hang over a beauty-spot likethis? she thought resentfully.

  She stopped for a minute on the doorstep, hesitating before she openedthe door. Behind her, Seabeck drew close as if he would shield herfrom something; perhaps he, too, felt the deadly quiet and emptiness ofthe place.

  Billy Louise opened the door and stepped into the kitchen. She stoppedand stood still, so that her slim figure would have hidden the interiorfrom the eyes of Seabeck had he not been so tall. As it was, shebarred his way so that he must stand on the step outside.

  By the kitchen table, with her elbows on the soiled oilcloth, satMarthy. Her uncombed hair hung in wisps about her head; her hard oldface was lined and gray, her hard eyes dull with brooding. BillyLouise, staring at her from the doorway, knew that Marthy had beensitting like that for a long, long time.

  She went over to her diffidently. Hesitatingly she laid her gauntletedhand on Marthy's stooped shoulder. She did not say anything. Marthydid not move under her touch, except to turn her dull glance uponSeabeck, standing there on the doorstep.

  "C'm in," she said stolidly. "What'd yuh come fer?"

  "Miss MacDonald will perhaps explain--"

  "She ain't got nothin' to explain," said hard old Marthy with grimfinality. "I'll do what explainin's to be done. C'm in. Don't standthere like a stump. And shut the door. It's cold as a barn here,anyway."

  "Oh, Marthy!" cried Billy Louise, with the sound of tears in her voice.

  "Don't oh Marthy me," said the harsh voice flatly. "I don't want noMarthyin' nor no sympathy. Well, old man, you're here to colleck, Is'pose. Take what's in sight; 'tain't none of it yourn, far's I know,but anything you claim you kin have, fer all me. I've lived honest allmy days an' worked fer what I got. I've harbored thieves in my old ageand trusted them that wa'n't fit to be trusted. I've allus paid mydebts, Seabeck. I'm willin' to pay now fer bein' a fool."

  "W-where's Charlie?" Billy Louise leaned and whispered the question.

  "I d'no, and I don't care. He's pulled out--him an' that breed. I'llhave t' pay yuh for seven growed cattle I never seen till yist'day,Seabeck. You can set yer own price on 'em. I ain't sure, but I've gotan idee they was shot las' night an' dumped in the river. You c'n setyer price. I've got rheumatiz so bad I couldn't go 'n' put a stop tonothin'--but--"

  "Oh, Marthy!" Billy Louise was shivering and crying now. "Marthy!Don't be so--so hard. It was all Charlie--"

  "Yes," said Marthy harshly, "it was all Charlie. He was a thief, an' Iwas sech a simple-minded old fool I never knowed what he was. I lethim go ahead, an' I set in the house with a white apurn tied on me an'thought I was havin' an easy time. I set here and let him rob myneighbors that I ain't never harmed er cheated out of a cent, andsoon's he thought he was found out, he--left ole Marthy to look afterherself. Never so much as fed the hogs or done the milkin' first!Looky here, Seabeck! You'll git paid back, an' I'll take your figgersfer what I owe, but if you git after Charlie, I'll--kill yuh. You let'im go, I'm the one he hurt most--and I ain't goin'--" She laid herfrowsy old head on her arms, like one who is utterly crushed and dumb.

  "Oh, Marthy!" Billy Louise knelt and threw her arms around Marthy'sshoulders.

  "You've got to come and lie down, Marthy," said Billy Louise, after along, unbroken silence.

  "Mr. Seabeck, if you'll start a fire, I'll make some tea for her.Come, Marthy--just to please me. Do it for Billy Louise, Marthy."

  The old woman rose stiffly, and with a feebleness that seemed utterlyforeign to her usual energy, permitted Billy Louise to lead her fromthe kitchen. In the sitting-room that Charlie had built and furnishedfor her, Marthy lay and stared around her with that same dull apathyshe had shown from the first. Only once did she manifest any realemotion, and that was when Billy Louise came in with some tea and toast.

  "You take all them books outa them shelves an' burn 'em up," shecommanded. "An' you take them two pictures off'n that shelf, of himan' her, an' bring 'em t' me."

  Billy Louise set the toast and tea down on a chair and brought thepictures. She did not say a word, but she looked a little scared andher eyes were very big, just as they had been when Ward mistook her forBuck Olney and so let her see into another one of the dark places oflife. It seemed to Billy Louise that she was being compelled to lookinto a good many dark places, lately.

  Marthy took the two photographs and looked at the first with hatred."The Jezebel! She won't git to run it over ole Marthy," she mutteredwith sullen triumph and twisted the cardboard spitefully in her gnarledold fingers. "She can't come here an' take all I've got an' never giveme a thankye for it. I'm shet uh her, anyway." She twisted again andyet again, till the picture was a handful of ragged scraps ofcardboard. Then she raised herself to an elbow and flung the fragmentsfar from her and lay down again with glum satisfaction.

  Her fingers touched the other picture, which had slid to the couch.Mechanically she picked it up and held it so that the light from thewindow struck it full. This was Charlie's face--Charlie with thefalsely frank smile in his eyes, and with his lips curved as they didwhen he was just going to say, "Now, Aunt Martha!" in tender protestagainst her too eager industry.

  Marthy's chin began to quiver while she looked. Her lips sagged withthe pull of her aching heart. For the third time in her life BillyLouise saw big, slow tears gather in Marthy's hard blue eyes and slidedown the leathery seams in her cheeks. Billy Louise looked, found hervision blurring with her own tears, and turned and tiptoed from theroom.

  Seabeck was gone somewhere on his horse. Billy Louise guessed shrewdlythat he was down in the meadows, looking over the cattle and trying toestimate the extent of the thievery. She put Blue in the stable andfed him, with that half-mechanical habit of attending to the needs ofone's mount which becomes second nature to the range-bred. She wouldnot go on to the Wolverine; that needed no decision; she accepted it atonce as a fact. Marthy needed her now more than anyone. More eventhan Ward, though Billy Louise hated to think of him up there alone andpractically helpless. But Marthy must have her to-night. Marthy wasfacing her bitterest sorrow since Minervy died, and Marthy was old
.Ward, Billy Louise reminded herself sternly, was not old, and he wasfacing happiness--so far as he or anyone knew. She wanted very much tobe with Ward, but she could not delude her conscience into believingthat he needed her more than did Marthy.

  Seabeck returned after awhile, and Billy Louise, who was watching fromthe doorway, met him at the little gate as he was coming up to thehouse.

  "Well, how bad is it, Mr. Seabeck?" she asked sharply, just because shefelt the imperative need of facts--she who had struggled so long in thequicksands of suspicion and doubts and fears and suspense.

  "Hmm-mm--how bad is it--in the house?" he countered. "The real crimehas been committed there, it seems to me. A few head of cattle, moreor less, don't count for much against the broken heart of an old woman."

  "Oh!" Billy Louise, her hands clenched upon the gate, stared upwide-eyed into his face. And this was the real Seabeck, whom she hadknown impersonally all her life! This was the real man of him, whomshe had never known; a flawless diamond of a soul behind those brightblue eyes and that pointed, graying beard; poet, philosopher, gentlemanto the bone. "Oh! You saw that, too! And they're your cattle thatwere stolen! You saw it--oh, you're--you're--"

  "Hmm-mm--a human being, I hope, Miss MacDonald, as well as a merecattleman. How is the old lady?"

  "Crying," said Billy Louise, with brief directness. "Crying over thepicture of that--swine. Think of his running off and leaving her hereall alone--and not even doing the chores first!" (Here, you must know,was broken an unwritten law of the ranch.) "And Marthy's gotrheumatism, too, so she can hardly walk--"

  "I'll attend to the chores, Miss MacDonald." Seabeck's lips quirkedunder the fingers that pulled at his whiskers. "You say--over hispicture?"

  "Yes, over his picture!" Billy Louise spoke with a suppressed fury."With that honest look in his eyes--oh, I could kill him!"

  "Hmm-mm--it does seem a pity that one can't. But if she can cry--"

  "I see. You believe too that tears are a necessary kind of weaknessfor a woman, like smoking tobacco is for a man--or swearing. Well, Ican just tell you, Mr. Seabeck, that some tears pull the very soul outof a person; they're the red-hot pinchers of the torture-chamber oflife, Mr. Seabeck. Every single, slow tear that Marthy sheds right nowis taking that much away from her life. Why, she--she idolizedthat--that devil. She hadn't much that was lovable in poor old Jase;he was just her husband; he wasn't even a real man. And she never hadany children to love, except a little girl that died. And she's workedhere and scrimped and saved till she got just fairly comfortable, andthen Charlie Fox came and patted her on the back and called her a gamelittle lady, and poor old Marthy just poured out all the love and allthe trust she had in her, on him! And she's old, and she had starvedall her life for a little love--a little affection and a few kindwords. I don't suppose Jase kissed her once in twenty years; Icouldn't imagine him getting up steam enough to kiss anybody! AndCharlie petted her and did little things for her that nobody had everdone in her life. It meant a whole lot to Marthy to have a man takethe water bucket away from her and give her a little hug and tell hershe mustn't think of carrying water; oh, you're a man, and I don'tsuppose you can realize; I didn't myself, till lately--" Billy Louiseblushed and then twisted her lips, wondering if love had taught her allthis.

  "And so Marthy just leaned more and more on him and let him take careof her and pet her; and she never once dreamed he was doing anythingcrooked. I thought she did, I know, Mr. Seabeck. I thought she was init, too; but I see now that Marthy has been living the woman in her,these last two years; she'd never had a chance before. And now to havehim--to know he's just a common thief and to have him go off and leaveher--Mr. Seabeck, I'd be willing to bet all I've got that Marthy wouldhave forgiven his stealing cattle, if he had just stayed. She'd havedone anything on earth for him; and the bigger the sacrifice she madefor him, the more she would have loved him; women are like that. Butto have him go off--and--leave her--and not bother his head about whathappened to her, just so he got out of it--Mr. Seabeck, that's going tokill Marthy. It's going to kill her by inches."

  "I--see," he assented, looking thoughtfully at the flushed face andbig, shining eyes of Billy Louise. (I wonder if Seabeck was notthinking how he had known Billy Louise impersonally all her life andyet had never met the real Billy Louise until to-day!)

  "And yet," she added bitterly, "she's going to protect him if it takesevery cent she's managed to rake together these last thirty years. Youheard what she told you. She said she'd kill you if you hurt Charlie.She'd try it, too."

  "Hmm-mm, yes! My life has been threatened several times to-day."Seabeck looked at her with eyes a-twinkle, and Billy Louise blushed tothe crown of her Stetson hat. "Do you think, Miss MacDonald, she wouldfeel like talking business for a few minutes?"

  "Oh, yes; if she's like me, she'll want to get the agony over with."Billy Louise turned with a twitch of the shoulders. She felt chilled,somehow. She had not quite expected that Seabeck would want to talkabout his stolen stock at all. She had rather taken it for grantedthat he would let that subject lie quiet for awhile. Oh, well, he wasa cattleman, after all.

  Marthy did not attempt to rise when Seabeck followed Billy Louise intothe sitting-room. She caught up her apron and wiped her eyes and hernose, however, and she also slid Charlie's picture under the cheapcushion. After that she faced Seabeck with harsh composure and waitedfor the settlement.

  "Hm-mm! I have been looking over the cattle," he began, sitting on theedge of a chair and turning his black hat absently round and round bythe brim. "You--mm-mm--you tell me there were seven head of grownstock--"

  "That they shot and throwed in the river, with the brands cut out,"interpolated Marthy stolidly. "I heard 'em say that's how they wouldgit rid of 'em, an' I heard 'em shootin' down there."

  "Hmm-mm, yes! Do you know just what--"

  "Five dry cows 'n' two steers--long two-year-oles, I jedged 'em to be."Marthy was certainly prompt enough and explicit enough. And her lipswere grim, and her faded blue eyes hard and steady upon the face ofSeabeck.

  "Hmm-mm--yes! I find also," he went on in his somewhat precise voicethat had earned him the nickname of "Deacon" among his punchers, "thatthere are more young stock vented and rebranded than I--er--sold yournephew. Fourteen head, to be exact. With the cattle you tell me whichwere--mm-m--disposed of last night, that would make twenty-one head ofstock for which--mm-mm--I take it you are willing to pay."

  "I ain't got the money now," Marthy stated, too apathetic to be eitherdefiant or placating. "You c'n fix up the papers t' suit yerself.I'll sign anything yuh want."

  "Hmm-mm--yes! A note covering the amount, with legal rate of interest,will be--quite satisfactory, Mrs. Meilke. I shall make a lump sum atthe going price for mixed stock. If you have a blank note, I--"

  "You kin look in that desk over there," permitted Marthy. "If yuhdon't find any there, there ain't none nowhere."

  Seabeck did not find any blank notes. He found an eloquent confusionof jumbled letters and accounts and papers, and guessed that the ownerhad done some hasty sorting and straightening of his affairs. Hesighed, and his blue eyes hardened for a minute. Then Billy Louisemoved from the door and went over to kneel comfortingly beside Marthy,and Seabeck looked at the two and sighed again, though his eyes were nolonger stern. He pulled a sheet of paper toward him and wrote steadilyin a prim, upright chirography that had never a flourish anywhere, butcarefully crossed t's and carefully dotted i's and punctuation marks ofbeautiful exactness.

  "You will please sign here, Mrs. Meilke," he said calmly, coming overto them with the sheet of paper laid smoothly upon a last-year'sbest-seller and with Charlie's fountain pen in his other hand. "And ifMiss MacDonald will also sign, as an endorser, I think I can safely doaway with any mortgage or other legal security."

  Billy Louise stood up and gave him one look--which Seabeck did notappreciate, because he did not see it.

  "I'd ruther give a mortgage," Marth
y said uneasily, sitting up suddenlyand looking from one to the other. "I don't want Billy Louise to gittangled up in my troubles. She's got plenty of her own. Her maw'sjust died, Mr. Seabeck. And I'll bet there was a hospital 'n' doctor'sbill bigger 'n this cattle note, to be paid. I don't want to pile on--"

  "Now, Marthy, you be still. I'm perfectly willing to sign this notewith you. If it will satisfy Mr. Seabeck, I'm sure it's the very leastwe can do--or--expect." Billy Louise, bless her heart, was trying veryhard to be grateful to Seabeck in spite of the slump he had suffered inher estimation.

  "Well, I'll want your written word that yuh won't prosycute Charlie norhelp nobody else prosycute him," stipulated Marthy, with suddenshrewdness. "If me 'n Billy Louise signs this note, we'll pay it; andwe want some pertection from you, fer Charlie."

  "Hmm-mm--I see!" He turned and went back to the littered desk andwrote carefully again upon another sheet of paper. "I think this willbe quite satisfactory," he said, and handed the paper to Marthy.

  "Git my specs, Billy Louise--off 'n the shelf over there," she said,and read the paper laboriously, her lips forming the letters of everyword which contained more than one syllable. Marthy, remember, was aplainswoman born and bred.

  "I guess that'll do," she pronounced at last, pushing the spectacles upon her lined forehead. "You read it, Billy Louise, 'n' see what yuhthink."

  "I think it's all right, Marthy," said Billy Louise, after she had readthe document twice. "It's a bill of sale; and it also wipes the slateclean of any possible--I think Mr. Seabeck is very c-clever."

  Whereupon Marthy signed the note, with a spluttering of the abused penin her stiffened old fingers and a great twisting of her grim mouth asshe formed the capitals. Then Billy Louise wrote her name with a fine,schoolgirl ease and a little curl on the end of the last d. Seabecktook the paper from the tips of Billy Louise's supercilious fingers,returned with it to the desk for a blotter, hunted an envelope, foldedthe note carefully, and laid it away inside.

  "I believe that is all, Mrs. Meilke. I hope you will suffer no furtheruneasiness on account of your--nephew."

  "I'm liable t' suffer some gittin' that five hundred dollars paid up,"Marthy returned with some acerbity. "I'm much obleeged to yuh, Mr.Seabeck, fer bein' so easy on us. If yuh hadn't drug Billy Louise intoit, I'd say yer too good to be human."

  "Hmm-mm--not at all," Seabeck stammered deprecatingly and left the roomwith what haste his natural dignity would permit.

  That ended the Seabeck part of the whole sordid affair, except that heremained for another hour, doing chores and making everything snug forthe night. Also he filled the kitchen woodbox as high as he could pilethe sticks and brought water to last overnight--since Charlie's plan topipe water into the cabin had remained a beautiful plan and nothingmore. Billy Louise thanked Seabeck, when he was ready to go.

  "I knew you were square, and you're really big-souled, too. I'llremember it always, Mr. Seabeck."

  "Will you?" Seabeck looked down at her, with his hand upon the latch."Even if you are put in a position where you must pay that note--youwill still-- Hm-mm! I see. Before I go, Miss MacDonald, I shouldlike your permission to send a man down here to look after things."

  "No, you mustn't." Billy Louise spoke with prompt decision. "Marthymight think you were--you see, it wouldn't do. I'll see about gettinga man. If you will take this note up and leave it in the mail-box forme, John Pringle will come up to-morrow. We'll manage all right."

  "You're quite right. But, Miss MacDonald, there is something else.I--er--should like to give you a little--wedding gift, since youhonored me with the news of your approaching--mm-m--marriage. As anold neighbor, and one of your most sincere admirers, who would feelgreatly honored by your friendship, I--should like to have you acceptthis--" He held something out to Billy Louise and pulled open the doorfor instant escape. "Good night, Miss MacDonald. I think it willstorm." Then he was gone, hurrying down the narrow path with longstrides, his tall figure bent to the wind, his coat napping around hislean legs.

  Billy Louise closed the door and her half-open mouth and let down herlifted eyelids. Standing with her back against the wall, she turnedthat something--an envelope--over twice, then tore off the end andpulled out the contents. It was the note she and Marthy had signed nolonger than an hour ago, and written large across the face of it werethe words: "Paid, Samuel Seabeck."

  "The--old--darling!" said Billy Louise under her breath and wentstraight in to show it to Marthy.