Lonesome Land

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER XVIII. VAL'S DISCOVERY

  With a blood-red sun at his back and a rosy tinge upon all the hills beforehim, Manley rode slowly down the western rim of Cold Spring Coulee, drivingfive rebellious calves that had escaped the branding iron in the spring.Though they were not easily driven in any given direction, he wassingularly patient with them, and refrained from bellowing epithets andadmonitions, as might have been expected. When he was almost down the hill,he saw Val standing in the kitchen door, shading her eyes with her handsthat she might watch his approach.

  "Open the corral gate!" he shouted to her, in the tone of command. "Andstand back where you can head 'em off if they start up the coulee!"

  Val replied by doing as she was told; she was not in the habit of wastingwords upon Manley; they seemed always to precipitate an unpleasantdiscussion of some sort, as if he took it for granted she disapproved ofall he did or said, and was always upon the defensive.

  The calves came on, lumbering awkwardly in a half-hearted gallop, as ifthey had very little energy left. Their tongues protruded, their mouthsdribbled a lathery foam, and their rough, sweaty hides told Val of the longchase--for she was wiser in the ways of the range land than she had been.She stood back, gently waving her ruffled white apron at them, and whenthey dodged into the corral, rolling eyes at her, she ran up and slammedthe gate shut upon them, looped the chain around the post, and dropped theiron hook into a link to fasten it. Manley galloped up, threw himself offhis panting horse, and began to unsaddle.

  "Get some wood and start a fire, and put the iron in, Val," he told herbrusquely.

  Val looked at him quickly. "Now? Supper's all ready, Manley. There's nohurry about branding them, is there?" And she added: "Dear me! The round-upmust have just skimmed the top off this range last spring. You've had tobrand a lot of calves that were missed."

  "What the devil is it to you?" he demanded roughly. "I want that fire,madam, and I want it _now_. I rather think I knew when I want to brandwithout asking your advice."

  Val curved her lips scornfully, shrugged and obeyed She was used to thatsort of thing, and she did not mind very much. He had brutalized bydegrees, and by degrees she had hardened. He could rouse no feeling now butcontempt.

  "If you'll kindly wait until I put back the supper," she said coldly. "Isuppose in your zeal one need not sacrifice your food; you're still ratherparticular about that. I observe."

  Manley was leading his horse to the stable, and, though he answeredsomething, the words were no more than a surly mumble.

  "He's been drinking again," Val decided dispassionately, on the way to thehouse. "I suppose he carried a bottle in his pocket--and emptied it."

  She was not long; there was a penalty of profane reproach attached todelay, however slight, when Manley was in that mood. She had the fire goingand the VP iron heating by the time he had stabled and fed his horse, andhad driven the calves into the smaller pen. He drove a big, line-backedheifer into a corner, roped and tied her down with surprising dexterity,and turned impatiently.

  "Come! Isn't that iron ready yet?"

  Val, on the other side of the fence, drew it out and inspected itindifferently.

  "It is not, Mr. Fleetwood. If you are in a very great hurry, why not applyyour temper to it--and a few choice remarks?"

  "Oh, don't try to be sarcastic--it's too pathetic. Kick a little life intothat fire."

  "Yes, sir--thank you, sir." Val could be rather exasperating when shechose. She always could be sure of making Manley silently furious whenshe adopted that tone of respectful servility--as employed by butlers andfootmen upon the stage. Her mimicry, be it said, was very good.

  "'Ere it is, sir----thank you, sir--'ope I 'aven't kept you wyting, sir,"she announced, after he had fumed for two minutes inside the corral, andshe had cynically hummed her way quite through the hymn which begins "Blestbe the tie that binds." She passed the white-hot iron deftly through therails to him, and fixed the fire for another heating.

  Really, she was not thinking of Manley at all, nor of his mood, nor of hisbrutal coarseness. She was thinking of the rebuilt typewriter, advertisedas being exactly as good as a new one, and scandalously cheap, for whichshe had sold her watch to Arline Hawley to get money to buy. She wascounting mentally the days since she had sent the money order, and wasthinking it should come that week surely.

  She was also planning to seize upon the opportunity afforded by Manley'snext absence for a day from the ranch, and drive to Hope on the chance ofgetting the machine. Only--she wished she could be sure whether Kent wouldbe coming soon. She did not want to miss seeing him; she decided to soundPolycarp Jenks the next time he came. Polycarp would know, of course,whether the Wishbone outfit was in from round-up. Polycarp always kneweverything that had been done, or was intended, among the neighbors.

  Manley passed the ill-smelling iron back to her, and she put it in thefire, quite mechanically. It was not the first time, nor the second, thatshe had been called upon to help brand. She could heat an iron as quicklyand evenly as most men, though Manley had never troubled to tell her so.

  Five times she heated the iron, and heard, with an inward quiver of pityand disgust, the spasmodic blat of the calf in the pen when the VP wentsearing into the hide on its ribs. She did not see why they must be brandedthat evening, in particular, but it was as well to have it done with. Also,if Manley meant to wean them, she would have to see that they were fed andwatered, she supposed. That would make her trip to town a hurried one, ifshe went at all; she would have to go and come the same day, and ArlineHawley would scold and beg her to stay, and call her a fool.

  "Now, how about that supper?" asked Manley, when they were through, and theair was clearing a little from the smoke and the smell of burned hair.

  "I really don't know--I smelled the potatoes burning some time ago. I'llsee, however." She brushed her hands with her handkerchief, pushed back thelock of hair that was always falling across her temple, and, because shewas really offended by Manley's attitude and tone, she sang softly all theway to the house, merely to conceal from him the fact that he could moveher even to irritation. Her best weapon, she had discovered long ago, wasabsolute indifference--the indifference which overlooked his presence andwas deaf to his recriminations.

  She completed her preparations for his supper, made sure that nothing waslacking and that the tea was just right, placed his chair in position,filled the water glass beside his plate, set the tea-pot where he couldreach it handily, and went into the living room and closed the doorbetween. In the past year, filed as it had been with her literary ambitionsand endeavors, she had neglected her music; but she took her violin fromthe box, hunted the cake of resin, tuned the strings, and, when she heardhim come into the kitchen and sit down at the table, seated herself uponthe front doorstep and began to play.

  There was one bit of music which Manley thoroughly detested. That was the"Traumerei." Therefore, she played the "Traumerei" slowly--as it should,of course, be played--with full value given to all the pensive, long-drawnnotes, and with a finale positively creepy in its dreamy wistfulness. Val,as has been stated, could be very exasperating when she chose.

  In the kitchen there was the subdued rattle of dishes, unbroken andunhurried. Val went on playing, but she forgot that she had begun in ahalf-conscious desire to annoy her husband. She stared dreamily at the hillwhich shut out the world to the east, and yielded to a mood of loneliness;of longing, in the abstract, for all the pleasant things she was missing inthis life which she had chosen in her ignorance.

  When Manley flung open the inner door, she gave a stifled exclamation; shehad forgotten all about Manley.

  "By all the big and little gods of Greece!" he swore angrily. "Calvesbawling their heads off in the corral, and you squalling that whiny stuffyou call music in the house--home's sure a hell of a happy place! I'm goingto town. You don't want to leave the place till I come back--I want thosecalves looked after." He seemed to consider something mentally, and thenadded:

  "If
I'm not back before they quit bawling, you can turn 'em down in theriver field with the rest. You know when they're weaned and ready to settledown. Don't feed 'em too much hay, like you did that other bunch; just give'em what they need; you don't have to pile the corral full. And don't keep'em shut up an hour longer than necessary."

  Val nodded her head to show that she heard, and went on playing. There wasseldom any pretense of good feeling between them now. She tuned the violinto minor, and poised the bow over the strings, in some doubt as to hermemory of a serenade she wanted to try next.

  "Shall I have Polycarp take the team and haul up some wood from the river?"she asked carelessly. "We're nearly out again."

  "Oh, _I_ don't care--if he happens along." He turned and went out, hismind turning eagerly to the town and what it could give him in the way ofpleasure.

  Val, still sitting in the doorway, saw him ride away up the grade anddisappear over the brow of the hill. The dusk was settling softly upon theland, so that his figure was but a vague shape. She was alone again; sherather liked being alone, now that she had no longer a blind, unreasoningterror of the empty land. She had her thoughts and her work; the presenceof Manley was merely an unpleasant interruption to both.

  Some time in the night she heard the lowing of a cow somewhere near. Shewondered dreamily what it could be doing in the coulee, and went to sleepagain. The five calves were all bawling in a chorus of complaint againsttheir forced separation from their mothers, and the deeper, throaty tonesof the cow mingled not inharmoniously with the sound.

  Range cattle were not permitted in the coulee, and when by chance theyfound a broken panel in the fence and strayed down there, Val drove themout; afoot, usually, with shouts and badly aimed stones to accelerate theirlumbering pace.

  After she had eaten her breakfast in the morning she went out toinvestigate. Beyond the corral, her nose thrust close against the rails,a cow was bawling dismally. Inside, in much the same position, its tailwaving a violent signal of its owner's distress, a calf was clamoringhysterically for its mother and its mother's milk.

  Val sympathized with them both; but the cow did not belong in the coulee,and she gathered two or three small stones and went around where she couldfrighten her away from the fence without, however, exposing herself toorecklessly to her uncertain temper. Cows at weaning time did sometimesobject to being driven from their calves.

  "Shoo! Go on away from there!" Val raised a stone and poised itthreateningly.

  The cow turned and regarded her, wild-eyed. It backed a step or two,evidently uncertain of its next move.

  "Go on away!" Val was just on the point of throwing the rock, when shedropped it unheeded to the ground and stared. "Why, you--you--why--the_idea!_" She turned slowly white. Certain things must filter to theunderstanding through amazement and disbelief; it took Val a minute or twoto grasp the significance of what she saw. By the time she did grasp it,her knees were beading weakly beneath the weight of her body. She put outa groping hand and caught at the corner of the corral to keep herself fromfalling. And she stared and stared.

  "It--oh, surely not!" she whispered, protesting against her understanding.She gave a little sob that had no immediate relation to tears."Surely--_surely_--not!" It was of no use; understanding came, and cameclearly, pitilessly. Many things--trifles, all of them--to which she hadgiven no thought at the time, or which she had forgotten immediately, cameback to her of their own accord; things she tried _not_ to remember.

  The cow stared at her for a minute, and, when she made no hostile move,turned its attention back to its bereavement. Once again it thrustits moist muzzle between two rails, gave a preliminary, vibrant_mmm--mmmmm--m_, and then, with a spasmodic heaving of ribs and of flank,burst into a long-drawn _baww--aw--aw--aw_, which rose rapidly in atremulous crescendo and died to a throaty rumbling.

  Val started nervously, though her eyes were fixed upon the cow and she knewthe sound was coming. It served, however, to release her from the spell ofhorror which had gripped her. She was still white, and when she moved shefelt intolerably heavy, so that her feet dragged; but she was no longerdazed. She went slowly around to the gate, reached up wearily and undid thechain fastening, opened the gate slightly, and went in.

  Four of the calves were huddled together for mutual comfort in a corner.They were blatting indefatigably. Val went over to where the fifth onestill stood beside the fence, as near the cow as it could get, and threwa small stone, that bounced off the calf's rump. The calf jumped and ranaimlessly before her until it reached the half-open gate, when it dodgedout, as if it could scarcely believe its own good fortune. Before Val couldfollow it outside, it was nuzzling rapturously its mother, and the cow wascontorting her body so that she could caress her offspring with her tongue,while she rumbled her satisfaction.

  Val closed and fastened the gate carefully, and went back to where the cowstill lingered. With her lips drawn to a thin, colorless line, she droveher across the coulee and up the hill, the calf gamboling close alongside.When they had gone out of sight, up on the level, Val turned back and wentslowly to the house. She stood for a minute staring stupidly at it and atthe coulee, went in and gazed around her with that blankness which followsa great mental shock. After a minute she shivered, threw up her handsbefore her face, and dropped, a pitiful, sorrowing heap of quiveringrebellion, upon the couch.