The Fighting Shepherdess

by Caroline Lockhart

  CHAPTER VII

  THE BLOOD OF JEZEBEL

  The prognostication made by the citizens of Prouty that it was "gettin'ready for somethin'" seemed about to be verified out on the sheep rangetwenty miles distant, for at five o'clock one afternoon the wind stoppedas suddenly as it had arisen and heavy snow clouds came out of thenortheast with incredible swiftness.

  Mormon Joe walked to the door of the cook tent and swept the darkeninghills with anxious eyes. Kate should have been back long before this. Healways had a dread of her horse falling on her and hurting her too badlyto get back. That was about all there was to fear in summer time, butto-night there was the coming storm.

  Kate's sense of direction was remarkable, but the most experiencedplainsman would be apt to lose himself in these foothills, with the snowfalling thick and the night so black he could not see his hand beforehis face.

  Mormon Joe shook his head and turned back to his task of peelingpotatoes. While he worked he reproached himself that he had not huntedthose horses himself; but she had been so insistent upon going. She didnot mind the wind, she had said, but then she did not "mind" anything,when it came to that. What would have been hardships for another weremerely adventures to her.

  At any rate, Kate was more comfortable now than she had been the yearbefore. He smiled a little as he recalled her delight in the sheepwagon which he had given her to be her own quarters. He had had toborrow the money at the bank in addition to what he already had borrowedfor running expenses, but his circumstances justified it. He was gettingahead, not with phenomenal rapidity, but satisfactorily. With theleases, and the land he owned, he was building the future upon asubstantial foundation. A few years more of economy and attention tobusiness and he could give Kate the advantages he wished. He listened,got up from the condensed-milk box upon which he sat and walked to theentrance of the tent once more. He strained his ears, but death itselfwas not more still than the opaque night.

  Kate had left immediately after breakfast, and since the horses had onlya few hours' start and would probably feed as they went, she hadexpected to be back by noon.

  Kate was exceedingly resourceful--she knew what to do if caught out, heassured himself, unless she had been hurt. It was this thought that gavehim a curious stillness at his heart. What would life be without hernow? With the knife in his hand he stopped as he turned inside andstared at the potatoes on the box. He never had thought of thatbefore--it left him aghast.

  The girl had twined herself into every fiber of his nature from the timeshe had come to him as a child. She was identified with every hope.Humph! He knew well enough what the answer would be if anything happenedto Kate. He would shoot the chutes, again--quick. It was she who hadawakened his ambition and kept him tolerably straight. Without her?Humph!

  He stoked the sheet-iron camp stove, put the potatoes to boil, cut chopsenough for two and laid the table with the steel knives and forks andtin plates. Then he set out a tin of molasses and the sour-dough bread,after which there was nothing to do but wait for the potatoes to boil,and for Kate.

  He was trying the potatoes with a fork when he raised his head sharply.He was sure he heard the rattle of rocks. A faint whoop followed.

  "Thank God!" He breathed the ejaculation fervently, yet he said merelyas he stood in the entrance puffing his pipe as she rode up, "Got 'em, Isee, Katie!"

  "Sure. Don't I always get what I go after?" Then, with a tired laugh,"I'm disappointed; I thought you would be worried about me."

  He smiled quizzically.

  "I don't know why you'd think that."

  "I'll know better next time," she replied good-humoredly, as she swungdown with obvious weariness.

  "There won't be any next time," he replied abruptly, "at least not atthis season of the year."

  "Oh, but I'm glad I went," she interposed hastily.

  As Mormon Joe unwrapped the lead-rope from the saddle horn and took thehorses away to picket, he wondered what wonderful adventure she wouldhave to relate, for she seemed able to extract entertainment from nearlyanything. By the time he returned she had removed her hat, gloves andspurs, washed her dust-streaked face, smoothed her hair, slipped on anenveloping apron over her riding clothes and had the chops frying.

  The sight warmed his heart as he paused for a moment outside the circleof light which came through the entrance.

  He had seen the same thing often before, but it never had impressed himparticularly. Her presence in the canvas tent made the differencebetween home and a mere shelter. The small crumbs of bread he had castupon the water were indeed coming back to him.

  "I've ridden over forty miles since morning," she chattered, while heflung the snow flakes from his hat brim and brushed them from hisshoulders. "The wind blew the horses' tracks out so I couldn't followthem. I never caught sight of them until just this side of Prouty. Youcan sit down, Uncle Joe--everything's ready."

  They talked of the coming snowstorm, and the advisability of holding thesheep on the bed-ground if it should be a bad one; of the trip to townthat he was contemplating; of the coyote that was bothering and thepossibility of trapping him. There was no dearth of topics of mutualinterest. Nevertheless, Mormon Joe knew that she was holding somethingin reserve and wondered at this reticence. It came finally when they hadfinished and still lingered at the table.

  "Who do you suppose I met to-day when I was hunting horses?"

  "Teeters?" Mormon Joe was tearing a leaf from his book of cigarettepapers.

  "Guess again."

  He shook his head.

  "Can't imagine."

  She announced impressively:

  "Mrs. Toomey!"

  He was distributing tobacco from the sack upon the crease in the paperwith exactitude. He made no comment, so Kate said with increasedemphasis:

  "She was crying!"

  Still he was silent, and she demanded:

  "Aren't you surprised?"

  She looked crestfallen, so he asked obligingly:

  "Where did all of this happen?"

  "In a draw a couple of miles this side of Prouty, where I found thehorses. They had gone there to get out of the wind and it was by only achance that I rode down into it.

  "She was in the bottom, huddled against a rock, and didn't see me untilI was nearly on her. I thought she was sick--she looked terrible."

  "And was she?"

  "No--she was worried."

  "Naturally. Any woman would be who married Toomey."

  "About money."

  "Indeed." His tone and smile were ironic.

  Kate, a trifle disconcerted, continued:

  "He's had bad luck."

  "He's had the best opportunities of any man who's come into thecountry."

  "Anyway," she faltered, "they haven't a penny except when they sellsomething."

  He shrugged a shoulder, then asked teasingly:

  "Well--what were you thinking of doing about it?"

  "I said--I promised," she blurted it out bluntly, "that we'd loan themmoney."

  "What!" incredulously.

  "I did, Uncle Joe."

  He answered with a frown of annoyance:

  "You exceeded your authority, Katie."

  "But you will, won't you?" she pleaded. "You've never refused meanything that I really wanted badly, and I've never asked much, have I?"

  "No, girl, you haven't," he replied gently. "And there's hardly anythingyou could ask, within reason, that wouldn't be granted."

  "But they only need five hundred until he gets into something. You couldlet them have that, couldn't you?"

  His face and eyes hardened.

  "I could, but I won't," he replied curtly.

  When Prouty was in its infancy, certain citizens had been misled byMormon Joe's mild eyes, low voice and quiet manner. His easy-goingexterior concealed an incredible hardness upon occasions, but this wasKate's first knowledge of it. He never had displayed the slightestauthority. In any difference, when he had not yielded to hergood-naturedly, they had argued it out as tho
ugh they were in realitypartners. At another time she would have been wounded by his brusquerefusal, but to-night it angered her. Because of her intense eagernessand confidence that she had only to ask him, it came as the keenest ofdisappointments. This together with her fatigue combined to produce adisplay of temper as unusual in her as Mormon Joe's own attitude.

  "But I promised!" she cried, impatiently. "And you've told me I mustalways keep my promise, 'if it takes the hide'!"

  "You exceeded your authority," he reiterated. "You've no right topromise what doesn't belong to you."

  "Then it's all 'talk' about our being partners," she said, sneeringly."You don't mean a word of it."

  "You shan't make a fool of yourself, Katie, if I can help it," heretorted.

  "Because you don't care for friends, you don't want me to have any!" sheflung at him hotly.

  He was silent a long time, thinking, while she waited angrily, then heresponded quietly and with obvious effort:

  "That's where you're mistaken, Katie. If I have one regret it is that inthe past I have not more deliberately cultivated the friendship of truemen and gentle women when I have had the opportunity. It doesn't makemuch difference whether they are brilliant or rich or successful, ifonly they are true-hearted. Loyalty is the great attribute--but," and heshrugged a shoulder, "it is my judgment that you will not find it inthat quarter."

  "You're prejudiced."

  "It is my privilege to have an opinion," he replied coldly.

  "We were going to be friends--Mrs. Toomey and I--we shook hands on it!"Tears of angry disappointment were close to the surface.

  He replied, doggedly:

  "If you have to buy your friendships, Katie, you'd better keep yourmoney."

  The speech stung her. She glared at him across the narrow table, and, inthe moment, each had a sense of unreality. The quarrel was like a boltfrom the blue, as startling and unexpected--as most quarrels are--thebitterest and most lasting. Then she sprang to her feet and hurled ataunt at him some Imp of Darkness must have suggested:

  "You're jealous!" She stamped a foot at him. "That's the real reason.You're jealous of everybody that would be friends with me! You'rejealous of Hughie. You didn't like his coming here and you don't likehis writing to me! I _hate_ you--I won't stay any longer!" It was theblood of Jezebel of the Sand Coulee talking, and there was the look ofher mother on the girl's face, in her reckless, uncontrolled fury.

  Mormon Joe winced, exactly as though she had struck him. He sat quitestill while the color faded, leaving his face bloodless. Kate never hadknown anything like the white rage it depicted. Persons at the SandCoulee who lost their temper cursed volubly and loudly, and threatenedor made bodily attacks upon the cause of it. In spite of herself sheshrank a little as he, too, got up slowly and faced her. She didn't knowhim at all--this man who first threw his cigarette away carefully, asthough he were in a drawing room and must regard the ashes--he was apersonality from an environment with which she was unfamiliar. Then, asthough she were his equal in years, experience and intelligence, hespoke to her in a tone that was cool and impersonal, yet which wentslash! slash! slash! like the fine, deep, quick cut of a razor.

  "I had no notion that you entertained any such feeling towards me. It issomething in the nature of a--er--revelation. You are quite right aboutleaving. Upon second thought, you are quite right abouteverything--right to keep your promise to Mrs. Toomey, since you gaveit, right in your assertion that I am jealous. I am--but not in thesense in which you mean it.

  "I have been jealous of your dignity--of the respect that is due you. Ihave resented keenly any attempt to belittle you. That is why Disstonwas not welcome when he came to see you. It is the reason why I have notshown a pleasure I did not feel in his writing you!"

  "What do you mean?" she demanded.

  "I mean that he took you to that dance on a wager--a bet--to prove thathe had the courage. To make a spectacle of you--for a story with whichto regale his friends and laugh over."

  She groped for the edge of the table.

  "Who told you?"

  "Toomey."

  "I don't believe it!"

  "Teeters verified it."

  She sat down on the box from which she had risen.

  Unmoved by the blow he had dealt her, he continued:

  "You went to that dance against my wishes. What I expected to happendid happen, though you did not choose to tell me.

  "In my descent through various strata of society I have learnedsomething of types and of human nature. In protesting, my only thoughtwas to save you pain and disappointment--as in this instance--butexperience, it seems, is the only teacher.

  "To-morrow I am going to Prouty, hire a herder to do your work andmortgage the outfit for half its value. It will be yours to use as itpleases you. You have earned it. Then," with a gesture of finality, "thedoor is open to you. I want you to go where you will be happy."

  With his usual deliberation of movement he put on his hat and went outto change the horses on picket, while Kate, stunned by the incrediblecrisis and the revelation concerning Hugh Disston, sat where she haddropped, staring at the agate-ware platter upon which the mutton greasewas hardening.

  It was Mormon Joe's invariable custom to help her with the dishes, buthe did not return, so she arose, finally, and set the food awayautomatically, with the unseeing look of a hypnotic subject. She washedthe dishes and dried them, trying to realize that she would be leavingthis shortly--that there would be a last time in the immediate future.Her anger was lost in grief and amazement. There was something soimplacable, so steel-like in Mormon Joe's hardness that it did not occurto her to plead with him for forgiveness. And Hughie! She told herselfthat she could not turn to a traitor for help or sympathy. She blew outthe lantern, tied the tent flap behind her, and ran through the fastfalling snow to her wagon.

  Kate dozed towards morning after a sleepless night of wretchedness andwas awakened by a horse's whinny. Listening a moment, she sprang outand looked through the upper half of the door which opened on hinges. Itwas a white world that she saw, with some four inches of snow on thelevel, though the fall had ceased and it was colder. Mormon Joe, dressedwarmly in leather "chaps" and sheep-lined coat, was riding away on oneof the work horses.

  Never since they had been together had he gone to Prouty without someword of farewell--careless and casual, but unfailing. Nor could sheremember when he had not turned in the saddle and waved at her beforethey lost sight of each other altogether. This time she waited vainly.He went without looking behind him, while she stood in the cold watchinghis peaked high-crowned hat bobbing through the giant sagebrush until itvanished. She had thrust out a hand to detain him--to call afterhim--and had withdrawn it. Her pride would not yet permit her to act asher heart prompted.