by Zane Grey
“I know his horse’s gait.”
Miss Stockwell looked out along the front of the house and then down the road to the corral. She saw a horseman leaning over to open the corral gate. When he straightened up she recognized Cal. His face was bloody. And there was yellow dirt on his blue jumper.
“Oh dear!” she cried, startled.
Georgiana jumped up, and running to the window peered out. She could not, however, see what Mary had seen, because Cal’s back was turned and the high corral fence obstructed the view.
“What’s the matter?” she queried.
“Cal’s face was all bloody,” replied the teacher, in dismay.
“Was that all?” returned Georgiana, apparently without any particular interest. And returning to the table she began to pick at things. But her former appetite and pleasure appeared wanting. A little frown puckered her smooth brow, and her eyes shadowed thoughtfully. Mary divined that Georgiana was more interested than she cared to admit.
“Wonder if he’ll come in,” she mused, presently.
“He certainly will not,” declared Mary. “Don’t you know the boy better than that?”
“Know Cal Thurman? I know him frontward and backward,” answered Georgiana, scornfully.
Miss Stockwell then began her own lunch without comment, yet she kept a covert eye upon her sister. Georgiana seemed to be silent so as to listen the better. What she expected, however, failed to materialize. Presently she rose to go to the back door, which was open, and she looked out.
“Cal,” she called, instantly. No answer! “Cal! . . . Oh, I see you. What’s happened?”
“Aw, nothin’ much,” came the surly answer from the yard.
“You’re all bloody,” cried Georgiana.
“Nope. You can’t see straight. This’s only wet Tonto mud.”
“Say, bo, you can’t kid me,” called the girl, derisively. “What’s happened?”
“I just ran into somethin’.”
“Tell me!” ordered Georgiana, impatiently. Then, as he did not answer, she stepped out upon the porch. “Cal, please come here.”
“What you want?” he growled.
“If you don’t come here I’ll come out there,” she threatened.
Here Mary stepped to the doorway herself, and espied the young man now coming up to the porch. He held a blood-stained scarf to his cheek.
“You’re a pretty-looking sight, I don’t think,” went on Georgiana as he mounted the steps. “Cal Thurman, you’ve been fighting again!”
“Is that all you wanted to say?” he inquired, sarcastically, as he confronted her with troubled face and eyes of fire.
“I’ll say a mouthful presently,” she replied as she reached up to pull his hand and scarf away from his cheek. The action disclosed a rather ugly cut from which blood was oozing. “Oh, that’s dreadful, Cal. So close to your eye! Let me bathe and bandage it for you.”
She flew into the house with more of excited concern than Mary had ever seen in her before.
“Cal, have you been fighting again?” queried Mary, gravely.
“You ought to see the other fellow,” laughed Cal, grimly.
“Who?”
“Never mind, teacher. But I didn’t get licked.”
Before Mary could question Cal further, Georgiana returned with her hands full of things, most noticeably a basin of water and a towel. Carefully they then bathed Cal’s wound, which turned out to be a painful but superficial one, and endeavored to bandage it. But Cal objected to being half blindfolded, so they managed to dress it with cotton and adhesive tape. Whereupon Georgiana drew back and surveyed him with proprietary interest.
“Cal, did you lick him?” she asked, very curiously.
“Reckon it was fifty-fifty this time,” returned Cal, grimly.
“Who?”
“What’s that to you, Georgiana?” asked Cal.
“I know. I can read your mind, Cal Thurman.”
“Well, if you can, you sure look surprisin’ cheerful an’ sweet,” he said, with sarcasm.
That reply, or something Mary was not able to guess, rather took the pertness out of Miss Georgiana. She seemed at a loss for words. Then suddenly she had one of her bewildering changes and this time she became appealing.
“Cal, come in and see the wonderful lunch I got — all by myself. There’s plenty for you, too. — Won’t you — just to please me? See how I really can do some useful work! . . . Oh, wash those bloody, dirty hands — and let me brush you off. Looks as if you rolled in the road.”
Presently she got him indoors and to the table, where Mary joined them. Georgiana did the serving, but she had grown quiet. Mary felt the need of easing this situation and she talked. Cal lost his sullenness and the air of grim satisfaction he had worn and slowly responded to Georgiana’s charm. Mary imagined it a sort of burned-child-dreading-the-fire process Cal was going through. And indeed he kept dignity enough to make Mary certain that he was not a fool, however great his subjugation. It was her opinion that Georgiana did not make the progress of which she had boasted, and presently she divined that Georgiana saw she knew it. This apparently was gall and wormwood to the young lady. The arrival of some of the Thurmans broke up an amusing and rather embarrassing situation for Mary.
Later Cal, manifestly having watched for an opportunity, approached the teacher when she was walking alone in the yard.
“Come out with me a little — away from everybody,” he begged.
“Why, surely, Cal — but won’t Georgie be jealous?”
“Don’t, for God’s sake, tease me now. You’re the only friend I have, except Tuck, an’ I can’t tell him everythin’.”
Mary felt the boy’s agitation and kept silent and avoided looking at him. They walked up the dusty road to where it curved round a knoll and passed a wide, gravelly, shallow canyon that opened into the valley. This was an attractive place, a kind of shady lane, clean and fragrant, leading up into the foothills. The walnut trees were coloring yellow, making a golden shade under the branches. Big white checkered juniper trees with green piny foliage and purple berries spread long rugged limbs, and live-oak trees added their thick clumps of brush to the canopy of shade. Sunset was not far away, and its golden shafts pierced down through the leaves.
“Teacher, are you on my side?” asked Cal, at last.
“You mean in your — your trouble with Georgie?”
“Yes. I never spoke out to you before,” he went on, breathing hard. “I wanted to wait. I thought I would get over it.... But I grew worse. An’ today I fought a fellow who — who said somethin’ about Georgie.”
“Yes?” queried Miss Stockwell, quietly, turning to look at Cal. He was pale, earnest, somber.
“I — I can’t tell you what he said,” hurriedly went on Cal. “That doesn’t matter. Only it — I couldn’t stand it.”
“Cal, aren’t you taking Georgie too seriously?”
“Reckon I am. But I can’t help that. I don’t know what’s happened to me, but it has happened.... Will you be on my side, teacher?”
“Indeed I will, Cal,” she replied, feelingly, with a hand going to his shoulder.
“Thanks. That’ll help a lot,” he said, huskily.
“What do you want of me?”
“Lord! I don’t know. Reckon just to feel you understand — so I can talk to you. I’m afraid to have you tell Georgie that — that the way she does — with the boys — is goin’ to raise hell here in the Tonto. I’m afraid. She’s so darn clever. She’ll know I’ve been talkin’ to you.”
“Cal, I gave her that very talk today,” returned Miss Stockwell, earnestly. “And I told her straight out that she could not go on with her flirting.”
“Flirting.... You said that word once before.... An’ what did she say?”
“She laughed in my face, made light of my accusation, and simply could not see anything dangerous in you Tonto boys.”
“She calls us boobs,” he rejoined. “She said if there were hay in the To
nto we’d be hayseeds.”
“Oh! — Cal, I’m just as helpless as you are,” cried the teacher. “I’m worse off. I have to take care of her. I have to stand it. I have to go on praying and hoping. She’s — she’s a little devil. But she’s my sister, and, Cal, I love her.... You can turn your back on her any day. I’d not blame you if you did.”
“Can I, though? I’ve done it, but no use. That’s the wrong way.... Tell me, teacher, tell me the right way with Georgie.”
“Cal, I don’t know — unless you go back on her. That’s what fetches most girls.”
“Reckon it’d never fetch Georgiana May. Besides, I can’t go back on her. I can bluff it, but she knows. It doesn’t work. Then that makes her worse.... Honest, teacher, these three weeks have been three years to me.”
“Cal, have you made up your mind that you must go on trying to make Georgie like you?”
“Teacher, she does like me,” he replied, quickly. “I know. That’s the hell of it. I feel somethin’ I can’t explain.”
“Well, must you go on trying to make her like you more?”
“Reckon that’s just about where I am now.”
“Well, then, you’ve made a decision,” responded the teacher. “Live up to it. Do your best. I fear Georgie isn’t worth it. I’m afraid you’re in for bitter disappointment. But if you must go on, why, do it with all your heart. You’re in earnest, Cal, which is more than any of these other fellows are. Don’t be ashamed of that. Don’t mind their tormenting — the tricks and jokes. Faint heart never won fair lady.”
He had listened ponderingly, with bent head, and his strong brown fingers breaking a twig he held. When she ceased he looked up, and the trouble left his dark eyes in a smile.
“My mind was workin’ it out a little that way,” he said. “Today I persuaded father to let me homestead the Rock Spring Mesa.”
“Cal — you don’t mean it!”
“Reckon I do. An’ tomorrow, maybe tonight — if these boobs give me a chance — I’ll tell Georgiana. Wonder what she will say.”
“She will laugh, of course, and make all kinds of fun of you. But I shouldn’t let it bother me.”
“Teacher, nothin’ is goin’ to bother me after this but the one thing I’m afraid of.”
“And what’s that?” demanded Miss Stockwell, suddenly tense.
Again he lowered his dark head, and this time crushed the twig in a sudden powerful clasp.
“If Georgie keeps up her — her flirtin’ — as you called it — there’s goin’ to be hell. We don’t savvy that. There are girls here who make eyes an’ hold hands an’ kiss — that sort of fun, you know. It’s natural, I reckon, an’ it often leads to courtin’. But that’s not what Georgie does. She called that ‘kindergarten stuff’.”
Miss Stockwell had no reply for this. She was striving to be ready for anything.
“Teacher, I looked in the dictionary to see what flirtin’ meant,” went on Cal, deadly earnest. “It said ‘triflin’ at love!’ . . . That says a lot an’ it comes somewhere near Georgie’s way. But it doesn’t hit it square. Reckon it’s beyond me yet. But I know this sure — if she keeps it up there’ll be blood spilled.”
“Oh, Cal — dear wild boy — what are you saying?” implored Miss Stockwell. It was sorrow rather than shock that actuated her. In fact she was not shocked.
“I’m sayin’ a lot, I know,” he concluded, “an’ I feel better for it. If I only dared tell Enoch! . . . Let’s go back now, teacher. I’m thankin’ you for your promise to be on my side.”
CHAPTER VII
CAL TOOK THE lecture from Tuck Merry with meekness. He realized he had been too ambitious and had relied too soon upon the dearly earned experience Tuck was daily giving him.
“Buddy, you would have licked that guy all to pieces if you hadn’t lost your temper and forgot,” Merry said. “Soon as he poked you one on the beak and hurt you why, you blew up. At that, you gave him as good as he gave you. But I was not satisfied. You forgot the hooks I’ve been trying to teach you. It doesn’t make any difference how hard anyone hits you or where — you just take it and smile.”
“Aw, Tuck, that’s impossible,” burst out Cal. “How can you smile when you’re hurt awful? Why, whenever you give me what you call the ‘nose jab’ or the ‘tooth rattler’ or the ‘belly zam’ I’m ready to scream an’ commit murder.”
“Buddy, I don’t care how it hurts — you’ve got to hide it,” went on Tuck. “Whenever a guy sees or thinks he can’t hurt you then he’s licked. But you’re doing fair and I’ll back you presently against any of these boys. You’ve got some punch, believe me, and soon as you learn to place it where you want, and get your footwork better, you’ll lick the stuffings out of Tim or Wess.”
“Tuck, it’ll only be fun to lick them,” said Cal, with a grim laugh. “But I might as well tell you I’m layin’ for Bid Hatfield.”
“Buddy, I had you figured,” returned Tuck, seriously. “That guy has twenty pounds of weight on you, which is too much handicap when the other fellow can scrap. He’s older, too. Hatfield strikes me as being a bad customer in a rough and tumble. You see, he’d never stand up and fight. And I’m doubtful about your holding him off. Better let me spoil his handsome mug.”
“Tuck, I’m goin’ to try, just the moment you let me,” returned Cal. “I never see him but he sneers or says somethin’. An’ then if I can’t do it, you’ll have to.”
“I’m a-rarin’ to go, as Wess says,” replied Tuck. “Here I’ve been for over three weeks with a million chances to take a smack at one of these Arizona riders. My natural good disposition is apt to sour presently if you don’t tip me the wink.”
They had been out at their secret coverts in the brush where they kept the boxing-gloves and sand-bag and where they repaired every day or so for Cal’s instructions. From the very first Tuck had been pleased with the way Cal could thump the swinging heavy sack of sand. But his pupil took rather slowly to the feints and dodges and tricks of boxing. Cal wanted to wade right in and swing wildly, and when he did this, Tuck would halt him with some swift and painful blows.
They parted at the gate of the orchard, Tuck wending his way down the lane toward the sawmill, while Cal thoughtfully proceeded on to the pasture to get one of his horses. All the horses except his had been driven to the corrals, and it so happened that the first one he could catch was his pinto Blazes. Of late he had taken more of a liking to this rather wild little bronco, for the reason, no doubt, that Georgiana May Stockwell had preferred Blazes to any other of the Thurman stock. Blazes was really too spirited and dangerous for any girl new to the ranges. This fact, however, had made Georgiana all the more determined to ride him. She had tried twice. The first time she had succeeded so well that she was elated, but the second time Blazes had bucked her off. Cal had vowed he would not let her try again, and, strangely, this was not so much because he feared she would be hurt, as because he got an amazing degree of satisfaction out of the fact that she had taken to coaxing him. More than that, Blazes had suddenly leaped into peculiar favor with the boys. Before Georgiana’s advent he could not have sold Blazes or traded him for the meanest mustang on the ranch. As it was now, Cal was always receiving flattering offers for Blazes.
Upon approaching the high corral fence, he was amazed and somewhat disconcerted to espy Georgiana astride the top-most pole. She wore her riding-suit and an old sombrero and a red scarf around her neck. One glance at her made him aware that she was waylaying him. His heart quickened, and then it sank. For three days, ever since he had come home with the cut on his face and she had bathed it, she had been bewilderingly nice and friendly and sweet. This demeanor had roused him to meet her with apparent indifference and aloofness, but he was not true to his real feelings, and he was afraid she would discover it.
“Howdy, Cal,” she drawled. “I reckon you shore read my mind this mawnin’.”
“That so? Well, I did it without thinkin’,” he replied, and he halted before her. To
save his life he could not have passed by her, perched upon the fence, a picture that at once thrilled him and gave him a pang. Not only did she appear in one of her sweetest moods, but she had more than usually a scarcely hidden eagerness. She wanted more than to have fun with him.
“Cal, you’re a peach to fetch Blazes for me to ride,” she said, with a dazzling smile.
“But I haven’t done anythin’ of the kind,” he rejoined, bluntly.
“Aren’t you going to Tonto Canyon?” she asked.
“Who told you?”
“Your dad. He told me he was sending you to see if there were any cattle ranging the ridges on this side. He knew I was crazy to see the Tonto and he said I could go.”
“Oh, he did! Well, I reckon that doesn’t make any difference to me,” replied Cal, eying her coolly. The prospect of taking her on the long hard ride to the Tonto was indeed an alluring one. It startled him with its subtle charm. But he feared it. Yet he could only weakly resist it, and knew he would never do it in the end.
“Cal, please take me,” she begged.
“No, I won’t,” he replied, turning away from those blue eyes. Whenever she pleaded so, he felt that he ought to do anything for her, and that he wanted to more than all else in the world. But he had a bitter distrust of the soft blue warmth of her gaze. No such glance had been only for him!
“Oh, Cal, why not?”
“It’s a long hard ride, an’ not for a tenderfoot.”
“But I’ll always be a tenderfoot if you don’t roughen me up,” she protested.
Cal was not deaf to the subtle content of this speech, and he had a miserable consciousness that, whether it was true or not, it possessed some strange power to hold him.
“Georgiana, can’t you be on the level?” he asked, plaintively.
“Why, Cal, I am on the level.”
“You only want to ride Blazes. If it weren’t for that, you’d have some of the other boys take you to the Tonto — an’ make a rider out of you.”
“Cal, I’d rather ride with you or go anywhere if — if you’d only — —”