The Golden Woman: A Story of the Montana Hills

by Ridgwell Cullum

  CHAPTER VII

  A SIMPLE MANHOOD

  All thought of Beasley Melford quickly became lost in feelings of adeeper and stronger nature as Buck passed out into the open. His wasnot a nature to dwell unnecessarily upon the clashings of every-daylife. Such pinpricks were generally superficial, to be brushed asideand treated without undue consideration until such time as someresulting fester might gather and drastic action become necessary. Thefester had not yet gathered, therefore he set his quarrel aside forthe time when he could give it his undivided attention.

  As he strode away the world seemed very wide to Buck. So wide, indeed,that he had no idea of its limits, nor any desire to seek them. Hepreferred that his eyes should dwell only upon those things whichpresented themselves before a plain, wholesome vision. He had nodesire to peer into the tainted recesses of any other life than thatwhich he had always known. And in his outlook was to be witnessed thecareful guidance of his friend, the Padre. Nor was his capacitystunted thereby, nor his strong manhood. On the contrary, it left himwith a great reserve of power to fight his little battle of thewilderness.

  Yet surely such a nature as his should have been dangerously open todisaster. The guilelessness resulting from such a simplicity of lifeought surely to have fitted him for a headlong rush into the pitfallswhich are ever awaiting the unwary. This might have been so in a manof less strength, less reckless purpose. Therein lay his greatestsafeguard. His was the strength, the courage, the resource of a mindtrained in the hard school of the battle for existence in thewilderness, where, without subtlety, without fear, he walked overwhatever path life offered him, ready to meet every obstruction, everydisaster, with invincible courage.

  It was through this very attitude that his threat against BeasleyMelford was not to be treated lightly. His comrades understood it.Beasley himself knew it. Buck had assured him that he would shoot himdown like a dog if he offended against the unwritten laws ofinstinctive chivalry as he understood them, and he would do it withoutany compunction or fear of consequences.

  A woman's fame to him was something too sacred to be lightly treated,something quite above the mere consideration of life and death. Thelatter was an ethical proposition which afforded him, where a highprinciple was in the balance against it, no qualms whatsoever. It wasthe inevitable result of his harsh training in the life that was his.The hot, rich blood of strong manhood ran in his veins, but it was thehot blood tempered with honesty and courage, and without one singletaint of meanness.

  As he passed down the river bank, beyond which the racing watersflowed a veritable torrent, he saw the camp women moving about outsidetheir huts. He saw them wringing out their rain-drenched garments.Thus he knew that the storm had served their miserable homes badly,and he felt sorry for them.

  For the most part they were heavy, frowsy creatures, slatternly anduncouth. They came generally from the dregs of frontier cities, orwere the sweepings of the open country, gleaned in the debauchedmoments of the men who protected them. Nor, as his eyes wandered intheir direction, was it possible to help a comparison between them andthe burden of delicate womanhood he held in his arms, a comparisonwhich found them painfully wanting.

  He passed on under the bold scrutiny of those feminine eyes, but theyleft him quite unconscious. His thoughts had drifted into a wonderfuldreamland of his own, a dreamland such as he had never visited before,an unsuspected dreamland whose beauties could never again hold him asthey did now.

  The sparkling sunlight which had so swiftly followed in the wake ofthe storm, lapping up the moisture of the drenching earth with itsfiery tongue, shed a radiance over the familiar landscape, so that itrevealed new and unsuspected beauties to his wondering eyes. How cameit that the world, his world, looked so fair? The distant hills, thosehills which had always thrilled his heart with the sombre note oftheir magnificence, those hills which he had known since his earliestchildhood, with their black, awe-inspiring forests, they were somehowdifferent, so different.

  He traced the purple ridges step by step till they became a blurred,gray monotony of tone fading away until it lost itself in theglittering white of the snowcaps. Everything he beheld in a new light.No longer did those hills represent the battle-ground where he and thePadre fought out their meagre existence. They had suddenly become onevast and beautiful garden where life became idyllic, where existencechanged to one long joy. The torrents had shrunk to gentle streams,babbling their wonderful way through a fairy-land of scented gardens.The old forceful tearing of a course through the granite hearts of thehills was a thought of some long-forgotten age far back in the dimrecesses of memory. The gloom of the darkling forests, too, had passedinto the sunlit parks of delight. The rugged canyons had given placeto verdant valleys of succulent pasture. The very snows themselves,those stupendous, changeless barriers, suggested nothing so much asthe white plains of perfect life.

  The old harsh lines of life had passed, and the sternness of theendless battle had given way to an unaccountable joy.

  Every point that his delighted eyes dwelt upon was tinged withsomething of the beatitude that stirred his senses. Every step he tookwas something of an unreality. And every whispering sound in thescented world through which he was passing found an echo of music inhis dreaming soul.

  Contact with the yielding burden lying so passive in his strong armsfilled him with a rapture such as he had never known. The thought ofsex was still far from his mind, and only was the manhood in himyielding to the contact, and teaching him through the senses thatwhich his upbringing had sternly denied him.

  He gazed down upon the wonderful pale beauty of the girl's face. Hesaw the rich parted lips between which shone the ivory of her perfect,even teeth. The hair, so rich and flowing, dancing with glitteringbeams of golden light, as, stirring beneath the breath of themountains, it caught the reflection of a perfect sun.

  How beautiful she was. How delicate. The wonderful, almost transparentskin. He could trace the tangle of small blue veins like a fairy webthrough which flowed the precious life that was hers. And hereyes--those great, full, round pupils hidden beneath the veil of herdeeply-fringed lids! But he turned quickly from them, for he knew thatthe moment she awoke his dream must pass into a memory.

  His gaze wandered to the swanlike roundness of her white throat, tothe gaping shirt-waist, where the delicate lace and tiny ribbon peepedout at him. It was all so wonderful, so marvelous. And she was in hisarms--she, this beautiful stranger. Yet somehow she did not seem likea stranger. To his inflamed fancy she seemed to have lain in his armsall his life, all her life. No, she was no stranger. He felt that shebelonged to him, she was part of himself, his very life.

  Still she slept on. He suddenly found himself moving with greatercaution, and he knew he was dreading the moment when some foolishstumble of his should bring her back to that life which he feared yetlonged to behold. He longed for the delight of watching the play ofemotions upon her lovely features, to hear her speak and laugh, and towatch her smile. He feared, for he knew that with her waking thosedelicious moments would be lost to him forever.

  So he dreamed on. In his inmost soul he knew he was dreaming, and, inhis reckless fashion, he desired the dream to remain unending. He sawthe old fur fort no longer the uncouth shelter of two lonely lives,but a home made beautiful by a presence such as he had never dreamedof, a presence that shed beauty upon all that came under the spell ofits influence. He pictured the warmth of delight which must be theman's who lived in such an atmosphere.

  His muscles thrilled at the thought of what a man might do under suchan inspiration. To what might he not aspire? To what heights might henot soar? Success must be his. No disaster could come--

  The girl stirred in his arms. He distinctly felt the movement, andlooked down into her face with sudden apprehension. But his anxietywas swiftly dispelled, and a tender smile at once replaced the look inhis dark eyes. No, she had not yet awakened, and so he was content.

  But the incident had brought him realization. His arms were stiff
andcramped, and he must rest them. Strong man that he was he had beenwholly unaware of the distance he had carried her.

  He gently laid her upon the grass and looked about him. Then it wasthat wonder crept into his eyes. He was at the ford of the creek, morethan two miles from the camp, and on the hither bank, where the roadentered the water, a spring cart lay overturned and broken, with theteam of horses lying head down, buried beneath the turbulent waters asthey raced on down with the flood.

  Now he understood the full meaning of her presence in the camp. Hisquick eyes took in every detail, and at once her coming was explained.He turned back in the direction whence he had come, and his mind flewto the distance of the ford from the camp. She had bravely faced astruggle over two miles of a trail quite unknown to her when the worststorm he had ever known was at its height. His eyes came back to theface of the unconscious girl in even greater admiration.

  "Not only beautiful but----"

  He turned away to the wreck, for there were still things he wished toknow. And as he glanced about him he became more fully aware of thehavoc of the storm. Even in the brilliant sunshine the whole prospectlooked woefully jaded. Everywhere the signs told their pitiful tale.All along the river bank the torn and shattered pines droopeddismally. Even as he stood there great tree trunks and limbs of treeswere washed down on the flood before his eyes. The banks were stillpouring with the drainings of the hills and adding their quota to theswelling torrent.

  But the overturned spring cart held most interest just now, and hemoved over to it. The vehicle was a complete wreck, so complete,indeed, that he wondered how the girl had escaped without injury. Twotrunks lay near by, evidently thrown out by the force of the upset,and it pleased him to think that they had been saved to their owner.He examined them closely. Yes, the contents were probably untouched bythe water. But what was this? The initials on the lid were "J. S." Thegirl's name was Rest. At least so Mrs. Ransford had stated. Hewondered. Then his wonder passed. These were very likely trunksborrowed for the journey. He remembered that the Padre had a leathergrip with other initials than his own upon it.

  Where was the teamster? He looked out at the racing waters, and thequestion answered itself. Then he turned quickly to the girl. Poorsoul, he thought, her coming to the farm had been one series ofdisasters. So, with an added tenderness, he stooped and lifted hergently in his arms and proceeded on his way.

  At last he came to the farm, which only that morning he had so eagerlyavoided. And his feelings were not at all unpleasant as he saw againthe familiar buildings. The rambling house he had known so longinspired him with a fresh joy at the thought of its new occupant. Heremembered how it had grown from a log cabin, just such as the huts ofthe gold-seekers, and how, with joy and pride, he and the Padre hadadded to it and reconstructed as the years went by. He remembered thetime when he had planted the first wild cucumber, which afterwardbecame an annual function and never failed to cover the deep verandawith each passing year. There, too, was the cabbage patch crowded witha wealth of vegetables. And he remembered how careful he had been toselect a southern aspect for it. The small barns, the hog-pens, wherehe could even now hear the grunting swine grumbling their hours away.The corrals, two, across the creek, reached by a log bridge of theirown construction. Then, close by stood the nearly empty hay corrals,waiting for this year's crop. No, the sight of these things had noregrets for him now. It was a pleasant thought that it was all soorderly and flourishing, since this girl was its future mistress.

  He reached the veranda before his approach was realized by thefarm-wife within. Then, as his footsteps resounded on the roughsurface of the flooring of split logs, Mrs. Ransford came bustling outof the parlor door.

  "Sakes on me!" she cried, as she beheld the burden in her visitor'sarms. "If it ain't Miss Rest all dead an' done!" Her red hands went upin the air with such a comical tragedy, and her big eyes performedsuch a wide revolution in their fat, sunburnt setting that Buckhalf-feared an utter collapse. So he hurriedly sought to reassureher, and offered a smiling encouragement.

  "I allow she's mostly done, but I guess she's not dead," he saidquickly.

  The old woman heaved a tragic sigh.

  "My! but you made me turn right over, as the sayin' is. You shouldha' bin more careful, an' me with my heart too, an' all. The doctortold me as I was never to have no shock to speak of. They might setup hem--hemoritch or suthin' o' the heart, what might bring onsing--sing--I know it was suthin' to do with singin', which means I'dnever live to see another storm like we just had, not if it sure comeon this minit----"

  "I'm real sorry, ma'm," said Buck, smiling quietly at the old woman'svolubility, but deliberately cutting it short. "I mean about the shockracket. Y' see she needs fixin' right, an' I guess it's up to you togit busy, while I go an' haul her trunks up from the creek."

  Again the woman's eyes opened and rolled.

  "What they doin' in the creek?" she demanded with sudden heat. "Whoput 'em ther'? Some scallawag, I'll gamble. An' you standin' by seein'it done, as you might say. I never did see sech a place, nor sechfolk. To think o' that pore gal a-settin' watchin' her trunks bein'pushed into the creek by a lot o' loafin' bums o' miners, an' no onehonest enough, nor man enough to raise a hand to--to----"

  "With respec', ma'm, you're talkin' a heap o' foolishness," cried Buckimpatiently, his anxiety for the girl overcoming his deference for theother's sex. "If you'll show me the lady's room I'll carry her rightinto it an' set her on her bed, an'----"

  "Mercy alive, what's the world a-comin' to!" cried the indignantfarm-wife. "Me let the likes o' you into the gal's bedroom! You? Guessyou need seein' to by the State, as the sayin' is. I never heard thelike of it. Never. An' she jest a slip of a young gal, too, an' all."

  But Buck's patience was quite exhausted, and, without a moment'shesitation, he brushed the well-meaning but voluble woman aside andcarried the girl into the house. He needed no guidance here. He knewwhich was the best bedroom and walked straight into it. There he laidthe girl upon an old chintz-covered settee, so that her wet clothesmight be removed before she was placed into the neat white bed waitingfor her. And the clacking tongue of Ma Ransford pursued his everymovement.

  "It's an insult," she cried angrily. "An insult to me an' mine, as youmight say. Me, who's raised two daughters an' one son, all of 'emdead, more's the pity. First you drown the gal an' her baggage, an'then you git carryin' her around, an' walkin' into her virgin bedroomwithout no by your leave, nor nuthin'."

  But Buck quite ignored her protests. He felt it was useless toexplain. So he turned back and gave his final instructions from thedoorway.

  "You jest get her right to bed, ma'm, an' dose her," he said amiably."I'd guess you best give her hot flannels an' poultices an' thingswhile I go fetch her trunks. After that I'll send off to Bay Creek ferthe doctor. He ain't much, but he's better than the hoss doctor ferwomenfolk. Guess I'll git back right away."

  But the irate farm-wife, her round eyes blazing, slammed the door inhis face as she flung her final word after him.

  "You'll git back nuthin'," she cried furiously. "You let me git youback here agin an' you'll sure find a sort o' first-class hell runnin'around, an' you won't need no hot flannels nor poultices to ke'p youfrom freezin' stone cold."

  Then, with perfect calmness and astonishing skill, she flung herselfto the task of caring for her mistress in that practical, femininefashion which, though he may appreciate, no man has ever yet quiteunderstood.