Lonesome Land

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER IV. THE "SHIVAREE"

  Kent jerked open the stable door, led in his horses, turned them into theirstalls, and removed the saddles with quick, nervous movements which toldplainly how angry he was.

  "I'll get myself all excited trying to do her a favor again--I don'tthink!" he growled in the ear of Michael, his gray gelding. "Think of megetting let down on my face like that! By a woman!"

  He felt along the wall in the intense darkness until his fingers toucheda lantern, took it down from the nail where it hung, and lighted it. Hecarried it farther down the rude passage between the stalls, hung it highupon another nail, and turned to the great oats box, from within which camea vigorous thumping and the sound of muttered cursing.

  Kent was not in the mood to see the humor of anything in particular. Had heknown anything about Pandora's box he might have drawn a comparison veryneatly while he stood scowling down at the oats box, for certainly he waslikely to release trouble in plenty when he unfastened that lid. He felt ofthe gun swinging at his hip, just to assure himself that it was thereand ready for business in case Fred wanted to shoot, and rapped with hisknuckles upon the box, producing instant silence within.

  "Don't make so much noise in there," he advised grimly, "not unless youwant the whole town to know where you are, and have 'em give you the laugh.And, listen here: I ain't apologizing for what I done, but, all the same,I'm sorry I did it. It wasn't any use. I'd rather be shut up in an oats boxall night than get let down like I was--and I'm telling you this so as tostart us off even. If you want to fight about it when you come out, allright; you're the doctor. But I'm just as sorry as you are it happened.I lay down my hand right here. I hope you shivaree Man and his wife--andshivaree 'em good. I hope you bust the town wide open."

  "Why this sudden change of heart?" came muffled from within.

  "Ah--that's my own business. Well, I don't like you a little bit, and youknow it; but I'll tell you, just to give you a fair show. I wanted to keepMan sober, and I tried to get him and his wife out of town before thatshivaree of yours was pulled off. But the lady wouldn't have it that way.I got let right down on my face, and I'm done. Now you know just where Istand. Maybe I'm a fool for telling you, but I seem to be in the businessto-night. Come on out."

  He unfastened the big iron hasp, which was showing signs of the strain putupon it, and stepped back watchfully. The thick, oaken lid was pushed up,and Fred De Garmo, rather dusty and disheveled and purple from theclose atmosphere of the box and from anger as well, came up like ajack-in-the-box and glared at Kent. When he had stepped out upon the stablefloor, however, he smiled rather unpleasantly.

  He was jeered unmercifully by Fred De Garmo and his crowd]

  "If you've told the truth," he said maliciously, "I guess the lady haspretty near evened things up. If you haven't--if I don't find them both atthe hotel--well--Anyway," he added, with an ominous inflection, "there'llbe other days to settle this in!"

  "Why, sure. Help yourself, Fred," Kent retorted cheerfully, and stood wherehe was until Fred had gone out. Then he turned and closed the box. "Betweenthat yellow-eyed dame and the chump that went and left this box wide openfor me to tip Fred into," he soliloquized, while he took down the lantern,and so sent the shadows dancing weirdly about him, "I've got a bunch oftrouble mixed up, for fair. I wish the son of a gun would fight it out now,and be done with it; but no, that ain't Fred. He'd a heap rather wait andlet it draw interest!"

  Over in the hotel the "yellow-eyed dame" was doing her unsophisticated bestto meet the situation gracefully, and to realize certain vague and ratherromantic dreams of her life out West. She meant to be very gracious, forone thing, and to win the chivalrous friendship of every man who came toparticipate in the rude congratulations that had been planned. Just howshe meant to do this she did not know--except that the graciousness wouldcertainly prove a very important factor.

  "I'm going to remain downstairs," she told Manley, when they reached thehotel. It was the first sentence she had spoken since he overtook her. "I'mso glad, dear," she added diplomatically, "that you decided to stay. I wantto see that funny landlady now, please, and get her to serve coffee andcake to our guests in the parlor. I wish I might have had one of my trunksbrought over here; I should like to wear a pretty gown." She glanced downat her tailored suit with true feminine dissatisfaction. "But everythingwas so--so confused, with your being late, and sick--is your head better,dear?"

  Manley, in very few words, assured her that it was. Manley was strugglingwith his inner self, trying to answer one very important question, and toanswer it truthfully: Could he meet "the boys," do his part among them, andstill remain sober? That seemed to be the only course open to him now, andhe knew himself just well enough to doubt his own strength. But if Kentwould help him--He felt an immediate necessity to find Kent.

  "You'll find Mrs. Hawley somewhere around," he said hurriedly. "I've got tosee Kent--"

  "Oh, Manley! Don't have anything to do with that horrid cowboy! He'snot--nice. He--he swore, when he must have known I could hear him; and hewas swearing about _me_, Manley. Didn't you hear him?" She stood in thedoorway and clung to his arm.

  "No," lied Manley. "You must have been mistaken, sweetheart."

  "Oh, I wasn't; I heard him quite plainly." She must have thought it aterrible thing, for she almost whispered the last words, and she releasedhim with much reluctance. It seemed to her that Manley was in danger offalling among low associates, and that she must protect him in spite ofhimself. It failed to occur to her that Manley had been exposed to thatdanger for three years, without any protection whatever.

  She was thankful, when he came to her later in the parlor, to learn fromhim that he had not held any speech with Kent. That was some comfort--andshe felt that she needed a little comforting, just then. Her consultationwith Arline had been rather unsatisfactory. Arline had told her bluntlythat "the bunch" didn't want any coffee and cake. Whisky and cigars, saidArline, without so much as a blush, was what appealed to them fellows. IfManley handed it out liberal enough, they wouldn't bother his bride. Verylikely, Arline had assured her, she wouldn't see one of them. That, on thewhole, had been rather discouraging. How was she to show herself a graciouslady, forsooth, if no one came near her? But she kept these thingsjealously tucked away in the remotest corner of her own mind, and managedto look the relief she did not feel.

  And, after all, the _charivari_, as is apt to be the case when the plansare laid so carefully, proved a very tame affair. Valeria, sitting ratherdismally in the parlor with Mrs. Hawley for company, at midnight heard abanging of tin cans somewhere outside, a fitful popping of six-shooters,and an abortive attempt at a procession coming up the street. But the linesseemed to waver and then break utterly at the first saloon, where drink wasto be had for the asking and Manley Fleetwood was pledged to pay, and therattle of cans was all but drowned in the shouts of laughter and talk whichcame from the "office," across the hall. For where is the pleasure or theprofit in _charivaring_ a bridal couple which stays up and waits quiteopenly for the clamor?

  "Is it always so noisy here at night?" asked Valeria faintly when Mrs.Hawley had insisted upon her lying down upon the uncomfortable sofa.

  "Well, no--unless a round-up pulls in, or there's a dance, or it'sChristmas, or something. It's liable to keep up till two or three o'clock,so the sooner you git used to it, the better off you'll be. I'm going toleave you here, and go to bed--unless you want to go upstairs yourself.Only it'll be noisier than ever up in your room, for it's right over theoffice, and the way sound travels up is something fierce. Don't you beafraid--I'll lock this door, and if your husband wants to come in he cancome through the dining room." She looked at Valeria and hesitated beforeshe spoke the next sentence. "And don't you worry a bit over him, neither.My old man was in the kitchen a minute ago, when I was out there, and hesays Man ain't drinking a drop to-night. He's keeping as straight as--"

  Valeria sat up suddenly, quite scandalized. "Oh--why, of course Manleywouldn't drink with th
em! Why--who ever heard of such a thing? The idea!"She stared reproachfully at her hostess.

  "Oh, sure! I didn't say such a thing was liable to happen. I just thoughtyou might be--worrying--they're making so much racket in there," stammeredArline.

  "Indeed, no. I'm not at all worried, thank you. And please don't let mekeep you up any longer, Mrs. Hawley. I am quite comfortable--mentally andphysically, I assure you. Good night."

  Not even Mrs. Hawley could remain after that. She went out and closed thedoor carefully behind her, without even finding voice enough to returnValeria's sweetly modulated good night.

  "She's got a whole lot to learn," she relieved her feelings somewhat bymuttering as she mounted the stairs.

  What it cost Manley Fleetwood to abstain absolutely and without even thecompromise of "soft" drinks that night, who can say? Three years of freeliving in Montana had lowered his standard of morality without giving himthat rugged strength of mind which makes a man master of himself first ofall. He had that day lain, drunken and sleeping, when he should have beenat his mental and physical best to meet the girl who would marry him. Itwas that very defection, perhaps, which kept him sober in the midst of histaunting fellows. Now that Valeria was actually here, and was his wife, hewas possessed by the desire to make some sacrifice by which he might provehis penitence. At any cost he would spare her pain and humiliation, he toldhimself.

  He did it, and he did it under difficulty. He was denied the moral supportof Kent Burnett, for Kent was sulking over his slight, and would havenothing to say to him. He was jeered unmercifully by Fred De Garmo and hiscrowd. He was "baptized" by some drunken reveler, so that the stench ofspilled whisky filled his nostrils and tortured him the night through.He was urged, he was bullied, he was ridiculed. His head throbbed, hiseyeballs burned. But through it all he stayed among them because he fearedthat if he left them and went to Val, some drunken fool might follow himand shock her with his inebriety. He stayed, and he stayed sober. Val washis wife. She trusted him, and she was ignorant of his sins. If he went toher staggering and babbling incoherent foolishness, he knew it would breakher heart.

  When the sky was at last showing faint dawn tints and the clamor had wornitself out perforce--because even the leaders were, after all, but men, andthere was a limit to their endurance--Manley entered the parlor, haggardenough, it is true, and bearing with him the stale odor of cigars longsince smoked, and of the baptism of bad whisky, but also with the airof conscious rectitude which sits so comically upon a man unused to thefeeling of virtue.

  As is so often the case when one fights alone the good fight and manages towin, he was chagrined to find himself immediately put upon the defensive.Val, as she speedily demonstrated, declined to look upon him as a hero, oras being particularly virtuous. She considered herself rather neglected andabused. She believed that he had stayed away because he was angry with heron account of her refusal to leave town, and she thought that was ratherbrutal of him. Also, her head ached from tears and lack of sleep, and shehated the town, the hotel--almost she hated Manley himself.

  Manley felt the rebuff of her chilling silence when he came in, and whenshe twitched herself loose from his embrace he came near regretting hisextreme virtue. He spent ten minutes trying to explain, without telling allof the truth, and he felt his good opinion of himself slipping from himbefore her inexorable disfavor.

  "Well, I don't blame you for not liking the town, Val," he said at last,rather desperately. "But you mustn't judge the whole country by it. You'lllike the ranch, dear. You'll feel as if you were in another world--"

  "I hope so," Val interrupted quellingly.

  "We'll drive out there just as soon as we have breakfast." He laid his handdiffidently upon her tumbled hair. "I _had_ to stay out there with thosefellows. I didn't want to--"

  "I don't want any breakfast," said Val, getting up and going over to thewindow--it would seem to avoid his caress. "The odor of that dining room isenough to make one fast forever." She lifted the grimy lace curtain withher finger tips and looked disconsolately out upon the street. "It's just adirty, squalid little hamlet. I don't suppose the streets have beencleaned or the garbage removed from the back yards since the place wasfirst--founded." She laughed shortly at the idea of "founding" a wretchedvillage like that, but she had no other word at hand.

  "_Arline_," she remarked, in a tone of drawling recklessness. "Arlineswears. Did you know it? I suppose, of course, you do. She said somethingthat struck me as being shockingly true. She said I'm 'sure having a hellof a honeymoon.'" Then she bit her lips hard, because her eyelids werestinging with the tears she refused to shed in his presence.

  "Oh, Val!" From the sofa Manley stared contritely at her back. She mustfeel terrible, he thought, to bring herself to repeat that sentence--Val,so icily pure in her thoughts and her speech.

  Val was blinking her tawny eyes--like the eyes of a lion in color--at thestreet. Not for the world would she let him see that she wanted to cry! Afigure, blurred to indistinctness, appealed in a doorway nearly opposite,stood for a moment looking up at the reddened sky, and came across thestreet. As the tears were beaten back she saw and recognized him, with acurl of the lip.

  "Here comes your cowboy friend--from a saloon, of course." Her voicewas lazily contemptuous. "Only his presence in the street was needed tocomplete the picture of desolation. He has been in a fight, judging fromhis face. It is all bruised and skinned, and one eye is swollen--ugh! Myguide, my adviser--is it possible, Manley, that you couldn't find a _nice_man to meet me at the train?" She turned from the disagreeable sight ofKent and faced her husband. "Are all the men like that? And are all thewomen like--Arline?"

  Manley looked at her dumbly from the sofa. Would Val ever come tounderstand the place, and the people, he was wondering.

  She laughed suddenly. "I'm beginning to feel very sorry for Walt," she saidirrelevantly, pointing to the easel and the expressionless crayon portraitstaring out from the gilt frame. "He has to stay in this room always. AndI believe another two hours would drive me hopelessly insane." The wordcaught her attention. "Hope!" she laughed ironically. "What imbecile everthought of hope in the same breath with this place? What they really oughtto do is paint that 'Abandon-hope' admonition across the whole front of thedepot!"

  Manley, because he had lifted his head too suddenly and so sent white-hotirons of pain clashing through his brain, turned sullen. "If you hate it asbad as all that," he said, "why, there'll be a train for the East in abouttwo hours."

  Val stiffened perceptibly, though the petulance in her face changed tosomething wistful. "Do you mean--do you want me to go?" she asked verycalmly.

  Manley pressed his fingers hard against his temples. "You know I don't. Iwant you to stay and like the country, and be happy. But--the way you havebeen talking makes it seem--a-ah!" He dropped his tortured head upon hishands and did not trouble to finish what he had intended to say. Nervousstrain, lack of sleep, and a headache to begin with, were taking heavy tollof him. He could not argue with her; he could not do anything except wishhe were dead, or that his head would stop aching.

  Val took one of her unexpected changes of mood. She went up and laid hercold fingers lightly upon his temples, where she could see the bloodbeating savagely in the swollen veins. "What a little beast I am!" shemurmured contritely. "Shall I get you some coffee, dear? Or some headachetablets, or--You know a cold cloth helped you last evening. Lie down for alittle while. There's no hurry about starting, is there? I--I don't hatethe place so awfully, Manley. I'm just cross because I couldn't sleep forthe noise. Here's a cushion, dear. I think it's stuffed with scrap iron,for there doesn't seem to be anything soft about it except the invitationto 'slumber sweetly,' in red and green silk; but anything is better thanthe head of that sofa in its natural state."

  She arranged the cushion to her own liking, if not to his, and when itwas done she bent down impulsively and kissed him on the cheek, blushingvividly the while.

  "I won't be nasty and cross any more," she prom
ised. "Now, I'm going tointerview Arline. I hear dishes rattling somewhere; perhaps I can get a cupof real coffee for you." At the door she shook her finger at him playfully."Don't you dare stir off that sofa while I'm gone," she admonished. "And,remember, we're not going to leave town until your head stops aching--notif we stay here a week!"

  She insisted upon bringing him coffee and toast upon a tray--a battered oldtray, purloined for that purpose from the saloon, if she had only knownit--and she informed him, with a pretty, domestic pride, that she had madethe toast herself.

  "Arline was going to lay slices of bread on top of the stove," sheexplained. "She said she always makes toast that way, and no one could tellthe difference! I never heard of such a thing--did you, Manley? But I'vebeen attending a cooking school ever since you left Fern Hill. I didn'ttell you--I wanted it for a surprise. I could have done better with thetoast before a wood fire--I think poor Arline was nearly distracted at theway I poked coals down from the grate; but she didn't say anything. Isn'tit funny, to have cream in cans! I don't suppose it ever saw a cow--do you?The coffee's pretty bad, isn't it? But wait until we get home! I can makelovely coffee--if you'll get me a percolator. You will, won't you? And Ilearned now to make the most delicious fruit salad, just before I left. Acousin of Mrs. Forman's taught me how. Could you drink another cup, dear?"

  Manley could not, and she deplored the poor quality, although shegenerously absolved Arline from blame, because there seemed so much to doin that kitchen. She refused to take any breakfast herself, telling himgayly that the odor in the kitchen was both food and drink.

  Because he understood a little of her loathing for the place, Manley liedheroically about his headache, so that within an hour they were leavingtown, with the two great trunks roped securely to the buckboard behind theseat, and with Val's suitcase placed flat in the front, where she couldrest her feet upon it. Val was so happy at the prospect of getting awayfrom the town that she actually threw a kiss in the direction of Arline,standing with her frowsy head, her dough-spotted apron, and her tired facein the parlor door.

  Her mood changed immediately, however, for she had no more than turned fromwaving her hand at Arline, when they met Kent, riding slowly up the streetwith his hat tilted over the eye most swollen. Without a doubt he had seenher waving and smiling, and so he must have observed the instant cooling ofher manner. He nodded to Manley and lifted his hat while he looked at herfull; and Val, in the arrogant pride of virtuous young womanhood, let hergolden-brown eyes dwell impersonally upon his face; let her white, roundchin dip half an inch downward, and then looked past him as if he were apost by the roadside. Afterwards she smiled maliciously when she saw, witha swift, sidelong glance, how he scowled and spurred unnecessarily his graygelding.