by Zane Grey
“You riders will all be daid on your feet,” came the reply.
“Wal, shore you’ll never dance us down, Angie,” replied Boyd.
And all the boys riding down the road from their labors encountered some such banterings and challenges. This main social event of the season called families from all over that section of the country. They would start out early in the morning, so as to be at the school-house in time to get dinner before the dancing began.
When Mary went out to watch the October sunset, she saw Pan Handle Ames and Arizona, with clean-shaven shiny faces, and dressed in their best, sitting on the porch. They appeared to be overcome by mirth.
“What’s so funny, boys?” asked Mary.
“Aw — we just seen Lock Thurman comin’ back leadin’ the hoss he thought his gurl was goin’ to ride,” replied Pan Handle.
“She’s gone to the dance with another fellar,” added Arizona, in positive joy.
“An’ Lock’s face was as long as a mescal pole,” continued Pan Handle. “Lock’s orful sweet on Milly. An’ she’d promised to go to this dance with him.”
“Why then did she not?” inquired the teacher, curiously.
“Wal, all Lock knowed was that he was too slow gettin’ there, an’ she went with Bid Hatfield.”
“No!”
“She shore did, an’ if thet doesn’t cause a real fight, I’ll swallow my spurs,” replied Arizona.
“But — what’s so funny?” asked Mary. “I think Milly’s treating Lock that way is too bad. And prospects of a fight are not fun.”
“Aw, now, Miss Mary,” expostulated Arizona, “Lock is orful stuck on himself an’ he said he had Milly eatin’ out of his hand. An’ shore prospects of a fight is fun. It’s more’n fun, considerin’ that Hatfield fellar. ‘Cause somebody has got to lick him powerful good. Besides, it wouldn’t be a regular dance if some gurl didn’t jilt some fellar an’ if there wasn’t a fight.”
“Huh! Strikes me there’s a-goin’ to be two fights,” interposed Pan Handle. “Tuck Merry has asked Ollie Thurman, an’ she’s a-goin’ with him. Lord! but Abe Turner will be a-rarin’ tonight. Looks like Ollie’s on the fence now between Abe an’ Tuck.”
“I ain’t got no gurl to take, but I wouldn’t miss this heah dance fer a million dollars,” observed Arizona, complacently.
“You’re mischievous boys,” said Mary Stockwell.
“Wal, teacher,” drawled Arizona, with a mysterious gleam of fun in his eyes, “there’s some round heah who’s sweet on you.”
“Oh — indeed!” replied Mary, somewhat surprised into confusion. She felt herself blushing, and turned away rather quickly, to walk out into the yard. When she got out to the fence, she was quite conscious of a heightened pulse.
“These boys!” she soliloquized. “How full of deviltry! Yet I like them.”
This magnificent sunset might have been made for Mary’s particular benefit. October had brought more vivid colors to the hills and more beautiful cloud effects in the skies. A dusky purple veil lay low in the notches between the high, rounded knolls, and above them the golden light of sunset spread vast and wide behind the clouds of rose. Sunsets here seemed different from those she remembered in other places. A richness of color and light mantled the whole of this Tonto country. But that was not all the glamour of the sunset. Mary could not catch the illusiveness of it. Many things entered into the sweetness and beauty of her feelings just then. The air was cool, and it bore a dry, odorous tang of the forest. Always the encompassing hills of brush and pine projected their presence into every sensation. It was Arizona land — quite different from any other. She had come to love it. And the Tonto Basin was the wildest of Arizona lands. She tried to put into thought just what that meant. Wide spaces of unsettled country, standing on end, deep-fissured and pointing its mesa ruins into the clouds, bare, gray, grassy ridges and hills of soft bright green and the great slopes of dark pine, the rugged bronze canyons and the rushing streams, the ledges of red rock standing out and the yellow crags against the foliage of spruce, wild birds and wild animals everywhere, seen on the way to school and back, the slashes in the forests these pioneer people called ranches, and lastly the stalwart, sturdy boys, simple and kindly yet rugged and hard as the wilderness that had developed them — all these in Mary Stockwell’s thoughts could not wholly explain the fullness of her appreciation.
That night, Georgiana was in one of her dangerous moods. Judging from the expression of Cal’s face at the supper table, he and Georgiana had quarreled about something. As a result, Georgiana was aggravatingly slow in dressing for the dance, and held up the party that was going in Enoch’s car. Mary was amused at the impatience of the boys to be off, but she was a little concerned over Georgiana. The girl was no longer in fun. She had been hurt, or she had grown tired of dissimulation, or she had begun to change for the worse. Mary feared the last.
Presently, Georgiana emerged from her little room, gorgeously and scantily arrayed, with more powder and paint on her face than Mary had ever seen yet. But for this false acceleration of color she would have looked beautiful. Her eyes, however, did not need counterfeit. They were dark and flashing and full of the devil.
“Well, dear, if you want to create a sensation at this dance, you’ll have your wish,” said Mary, soberly. “But I’m afraid it’ll not be the kind of sensation you like.”
“Bunk!” exclaimed Georgiana. “Men are all alike — at home in New York, or in darkest Africa — or the Tonto Basin.”
“Georgiana, you think men want to see a girl look — as you do?” inquired Mary, incredulously.
“I don’t think. I know.... My sweet sister, there are some things you’ll never learn. Believe me . . .”
She was interrupted by a knock on the door. Mary opened it to disclose Cal standing there.
“Hello, Cal! Come in,” she said.
“No, thanks,” he replied as he stood on the threshold. The light shone on his face. It was pale and troubled, almost stern. Mary thought he looked singularly handsome. He wore a dark suit that lent a marked contrast to his usual rough rider’s garb.
His keen gaze swept over Georgiana from head to foot, and to Mary it held a singular expression.
“Then — I’m not goin’ to take — you?” he declared, bluntly.
“Not to this dance, or any dance, or any place,” she replied, cuttingly.
“Who’s goin’ to take you tonight?” he queried, stiffly.
“That’s none of your business, but if you’re aching to know — I’m going with Tim,” she replied.
“Tim!” ejaculated Cal.
“Yes —— Tim!” she retorted, stung by his surprise or something not clear to Mary. Georgiana had never gone anywhere with Tim Matthews.
“You sure are hard up,” rejoined Cal, with sarcasm. “But I’m sayin’ — if Tim kicks on that dress — you might get Bid Hatfield to take you.”
“Tim is a gentleman,” retorted Georgiana. “And Bid Hatfield knows how to act like one, which is more than I can say for some people.”
“Reckon — you’ll dance with Hatfield?” queried Cal, as if compelled to voice a question he hated.
“Will I?” Her counter-query was a tantalizing defiant assurance.
It brought the blood to Cal’s pale face.
“Georgie,” he began, in an earnestness that excluded jealousy, “I know you despise me an’ you have no use for any of us Thurmans, but you love your sister — an’ for her sake don’t dance with Hatfield — an’ don’t try those new dances you’re been teachin’ some of the boys an’ girls.”
“Come and watch me,” said Georgiana, deliberately. There was a red spot in each of her cheeks that was not all paint.
“I’ll not be there,” returned Cal, and turning on his heel he strode off the porch into the darkness.
Mary closed the door. “Georgie, I thought you and Cal had been such good friends lately.”
“We were. That’s what makes me so sore. I thought I ha
d him canned.”
“Poor Cal! What has he done now?”
“Done? He jumped me today because I was teaching some new dance steps. And just after dinner he told me if I wore this white dress he wouldn’t take me to the dance. Of all the nerve! Why, the fool is getting bossy! . . . So I asked Tim.”
“Well, Cal is young and hot-tempered and jealous, I know. But, Georgie, he certainly has been thoughtful of our interests. We’re strangers to this country. You’ve done some silly things. Perhaps Cal has kept you from some real break.”
“Oh, Mary, to give the devil his due — Cal has been nice. I did like him. I’m not a liar. But I can’t stand this ownership stuff, and believe me I’ll show him tonight.”
“He’ll not be there,” replied Mary.
“You know a lot about men, sis, I don’t think. Cal couldn’t be kept away from this dance.”
“There! Enoch is honking his horn again. Let us hurry! You must bundle up warm. These nights are cold. — I — almost wish this dance was over.”
“Mary, it’s a great life if you don’t weaken,” returned Georgiana.
Outside the yard in the road, the big car was full of merry Thurmans, all of whom, except Enoch, were crowded into the back seats.
“Georgie, you pile in back with that outfit,” directed Enoch, “an’, Mary, you come in front with me.”
Georgiana peered into the dark mass that filled the back of the car and plainly did not like the idea.
“Let me ride in front, too,” she said.
“Not room,” replied Enoch, in his dry, authoritative tone. “See that pile of cakes an’ pies on the seat. Mary will shore have all she can do to keep them from joltin’ off. We’re late, an’ I’m a-goin’ to smoke up this old wagon.”
“You shore air,” drawled his father. “Thar’s them young folks up at the school-house a-waitin’ fer me to make the music. I’m a fiddlin’ fool an’ never was late before.”
“Pile in, Georgie,” called Enoch.
“There’s no place,” replied Georgiana. “I’ll muss my dress.”
“Wal, mussin’ won’t hurt it none,” said Tim. “You can set on my lap.”
“Is that so?” retorted Georgiana in the tone Mary well knew argued ill for whom it was intended. Tim’s remark had struck this young lady just a little unfavorably. And Mary decided it had not been the invitation to sit on his lap that had offended, but the rather satirical allusion to the crumpling of her dress. Georgiana crowded into the car, to find a seat upon the ample lap of Mrs. Thurman.
Mary found she had just room to squeeze in between Enoch and the enormous and overloaded basket of pies and cakes.
“Thet’s where Tim hawg-tied himself,” whispered Enoch to Mary. “He’s been layin’ for a chance, an’ when he got it, he had to step in his own loop. Funny, isn’t it?”
Mary laughed her acquiescence. Sometimes the shrewdness of these Arizonians struck her forcibly.
“Everybody heah?” asked Enoch, as he started the engine.
“Reckon all but Cal,” replied his father. “He ain’t goin’.”
“Shore Cal will be there,” said Enoch, with a chuckle. “Wal, let’s leave some dust behind.”
Enoch manifestly meant to make up for lost time. Along the level bottom-land of the valley he drove so fast that Mary was thrilled and frightened at once. The bright lights sent round rays ahead along the yellow winding road, with its fences of upright poles and borders of brush. Coyotes and skunks and rabbits crossed the bright flare. The foliage of the trees took on a rich green hue, the juniper berries shone like diamonds, and the smooth branches of manzanita burned red in the light. The night air was now penetratingly cold, and the dark-blue sky wonderful with its myriads of stars. The time came when Enoch had to drive slowly and carefully over rocky washes and round steep bends. The ten occupants of the back seats kept up a continual merriment.
“Mary, tell me what ailed Cal,” asked Enoch, in a low voice. “I never saw him like he was tonight.”
She told him briefly, and did not spare Georgiana.
“I’m worried aboot him,” went on Enoch. “Shore this will never do. You understand, don’t you, Mary?”
“I think so,” replied Mary.
“Wal, I always felt you understood us. An’ you’ve been a world of good. Cal’s the best of all the Thurmans. An’ I reckon your teachin’ him two years had a lot to do with that. Father an’ mother feel as I do — we owe you a lot, Mary.”
“Oh no! You owe me nothing,” murmured Mary, surprised and quickened at the singular warmth of his low voice.
“Wal, we won’t argue. But we ain’t blind to your influence on your school. We never had anyone like you. Our poor kids, comin’ from all over this rough country, took school as a hard dose. But they like you an’ they learn fast. It’s a good work you’re doin’, Mary Stockwell.”
“Thank you, Enoch.... I — I can only say I’m glad you think so — and that it’s a work I love.”
“Wal, do you intend goin’ on teachin’ our kids?”
“Surely. Just as long as you will have me.”
“An’ you’re not gettin’ homesick for the East — an’ all you had there?”
“No, indeed.”
“You reckon you want to stay on in Arizona?”
“Yes. I love it.”
“Wal, that’s fine,” he went on, and for once his Texas drawl held a note of eagerness. “If you feel that way, Mary, an’ want to go on teachin’ our children, you must like us Tonto folks.”
“Indeed — I do,” returned Mary.
“We’re just plain pioneer folk an’ pretty rough,” he said.
“Well, if that is so, I guess I must have some pioneer blood in me,” returned Mary, rather nervously. Enoch’s tone stirred her. There was something back of his kindly, earnest statements. She felt him leading up to it. And her heart began to beat quickly. Was this ride to explain the strange glamour that had haunted her during the sunset hour? Something was going to happen. She stole a side look at Enoch. It was impossible to see him distinctly, but he appeared as calm and steady as usual, and he drove the car over bad places very carefully.
“Mary,” he began, after a long silence. “I reckon I’ve been in love with you since you first came heah. But I never had no hope till lately. An’ now I’m bold enough to ask if you’ll marry me.”
He did not ask her if she realized what a rancher’s wife must be in that hard country. Somehow the omission, and the simplicity of his proposal, seemed a compliment to Mary. Was she as big as he believed? However that might be, she knew she was happier than she had ever been in her life.
“Yes, Enoch, I — I will marry you,” she said, softly.
His right hand dropped off the wheel and groped for hers. Mary met it halfway. Through her glove she felt the ruggedness and strength and hardness of it as he clasped hers close.
“Wal, shore I reckoned this heah dance was goin’ to be a happy one for me,” he said.
So Mary found herself trying to realize the sudden change of the direction of her life. Her pulses were throbbing and her nerves tingling. Something warm and full and hopeful swelled her heart. After all, her little romance had not been a dream. Her secret love for this stalwart scion of a pioneer people had no longer to be held as something of which she dare not think. She was grateful for the wonderful opportunity to be a woman and a helper. She had found her place.
Enoch held her hand tightly and managed the wheel with the other. Behind them, the merry crowd grew merrier as time passed. Henry Thurman hummed one of his fiddling tunes. Everybody, except Georgiana, seemed gay. Mary, in that moment of happiness, did not forget the wayward and willful little sister; and somehow she felt that as Enoch’s betrothed she might have a stronger influence.
The car at last reached a level forest-land, where the great dark pines loomed magnificently over the lonely road. On each side was the dense gloom of the woods. In front the white lights cast an enchantment far ahead along the
winding road, down the aisles between the big brown trees, and across the heads of ravines. How wild it was! This was the road Mary traveled twice every day, to the school-house and back, and never had it seemed so strange. It meant more to her now. Soon it would lead to her own home.
Deeper into the dark forest the car penetrated, climbed a long hill, and hummed along a winding level, at last to plunge down into what appeared a bottomless canyon. Enoch was not exactly reckless, but he was not exactly careful, either.
“Hang on to the pommel,” he called out, heartily.
Mary heard the rush and roar of water, and looked up from her task of saving the pies and cakes to see that the car was plunging down a steep grade into Tonto Creek. It struck the water with a great splash. Everybody shouted their pleasure. These people were no more afraid of a car than a horse. Considerable water must have splashed into the car, judging from remarks tendered Enoch.
“He ought to be driving a water-wagon,” remarked Georgiana, who evidently was one who had been splashed.
Enoch drove a little faster, if anything, and that last mile through the black forest of huge pines was made in short order. Ahead, the blackness gave way to a yellow flare, and soon a huge camp fire shone brightly. It stood at the edge of the school-house clearing. A crowd of young people and children were grouped around it, and every one of them was eating ice-cream. A stalwart youth, wearing a red scarf, was ladling it out from the first of a row of freezers. Manifestly the directors of this social event meant to furnish enough refreshment.
The advent of the Thurman car created an uproar. The crowd yelled its delight at the arrival of the chief factor in the evening’s entertainment — the old fiddler. Young people poured out of the school-house. A number of horses were hitched along the edge of the clearing, and the noise frightened some of them. One began to buck. Half a dozen boys ran to hold him down. But he broke his halter and bolted down the road.
The merry young people hustled Henry Thurman into the school-house. Mary found she was being led by Enoch, who at the same time was trying to protect the basket of pies. Mary lost sight of Georgiana.
The inside of the school-house was familiar enough to Mary, yet tonight it seemed to have meaning and picturesque significance. The whitewashed walls had in places been covered with colored prints from newspapers and magazines. The light, furnished by a small lamp at each end of the room, was so dim that Mary found it difficult to recognize anyone. All the desks had been removed. A line of benches and chairs and boxes ran along the walls round the room. In one corner was a stove, behind which sat a group of women with babies in their arms. Children ran everywhere, squealing, laughing, crying out their particular pleasure in this annual event.