by Zane Grey
“Flirting! How dare you?” she blazed.
She appeared lovely to Clint then, most marvelously desirable and unattainable, her face as pale as a pearl, her eyes black and passionate with fire. He saw what his cantankerous mood had led him into, and it rendered him both soul-sick and miserably wrathful.
“Well, wasn’t you?” he demanded.
“If you think so I wouldn’t deign to deny,” she returned, her chin up.
“Weren’t you lookin’ up sweet in his face, all one lovely smile, as if you were dyin’ to have him see you thought he—”
“I certainly was not,” she interrupted, when he floundered to an inglorious break.
“I saw you,” reiterated Clint.
“Clint Belmet, do you mean you honestly believe I was flirting with that soldier?” she asked, hurriedly, a blush staining her pale face.
“I reckon I do,” he rejoined, stubborn even in his fright.
“Very well, I shall tell you the facts,” she said, scornfully. “I met Lieutenant Clayborn here in the store. He was kind enough to buy me a box of candy. He put it in my hands. Could I drop it on the floor? I didn’t ask it and I didn’t want it from him. But I’ve lived with a fine family since you knew me. I’ve had training. And I hope I’m a lady. So I had to take the candy and thank him.... And if I was smiling up sweet at him — that was because he congratulated me on my engagement to you. He’d heard Mr. Maxwell announce it. And he said you had made a name for yourself on the frontier and were a fine chap.... There! That’s why I smiled so sweetly — you wild buffalo-hunter!”
“Aw, May!” cried Clint, in poignant shame and grief.
But it did not affect her. Turning her back, she started to leave him. Clint caught her, and in low voice begged her forgiveness.
“Why, certainly,” she replied, in an icy tone which implied she did not grant anything of the kind.
“Listen,” he began, hurriedly, plucking at her sleeve, which she withdrew. “Maxwell got me all excited — crazy for joy over somethin’ I — I can’t tell you now. Then I run into Uncle Jim an’ he had bad news. Besides, I’m afraid he’d been drinkin’.... So when I saw you I was upset an’ I — I thought—”
“You told me,” she interrupted. “You thought I was flirting. Well, Mr. Buff Belmet, no girl in this world was ever farther from being untrue than I.... But the next time you see me with him or — or Lee Murdock, you look out!”
“Oh my Lord!... May, don’t say that,” implored Clint.
“I shall flirt most outrageously with — with anyone.”
“It’ll kill me,” whispered Clint, doubling up as if he had again been pierced by the blade of jealousy.
“Pooh! I’d like to see just what you would do,” she retorted, doubtful eyes dark on him.
“Do! I’ll do somebody harm,” flashed Clint, anger again rising out of the chaos of his feelings.
“You would?” she queried, with the subtlety of woman in her gaze.
“Yes, I would. We’re on the frontier now. An’ you’re my girl.”
“I was,” she said, almost sadly.
“My God! May, you — you won’t go back on me?” She softened at his importunity, though her spirit still ran high.
“No, I wouldn’t jilt you,” she replied, slowly. “But you need a lesson.”
“I’ve had enough.”
“You need a real one. You called me a flirt — absolutely without the slightest reason.... And I’ve l — loved you so dearly. If you knew how the young men in Texas ran after me, you’d be ashamed.”
“I don’t want to know. I’m ashamed enough right now.”
“Ashamed! You just look big and flustered — and want your own way,” she replied, with disdain. “I’m disappointed in you. And hurt. It may be a good while until we — we can be married.... Every time any young man looks at me — are you going to act like you did, and then rave?”
“I reckon I am,” returned Clint, frankly.
“Oh, we’ll have a lovely engagement!” she laughed. “Lovely or not, it’ll be only one kind,” said Clint. “I suppose I can’t keep other fellows from lookin’ at you — you’re so turrible pretty.”
“Am I?” she cried, with the delight of a child. “You never said so before.”
“Give me a chance, will you? I’ve had only a few hours with you.... But you’re my girl an’ I’m sure not goin’ to have you makin’ eyes at any man.”
“Indeed?... Just what do you mean by making eyes?”
“Well, the way you was lookin’ up at that West Pointer.”
“Clint, can’t you distinguish between the natural function of a girl’s eyes — and deliberate coquetry?”
“Reckon I can’t, when they’re both natural.”
“Meaning I’m a coquette?” she asked, demurely.
“I don’t mean just that,” replied Clint, hastily. “Truth is, I hardly know what I do mean. You’re the first an’ only girl I ever had... an’ my friend Maxwell said, ‘You can never tell what a woman will do.’”
“Buff, you take that to heart,” replied May, and certain it was she seemed to be trying to suppress merriment.
“But what can I believe?” protested Clint, in despair.
“Believe what you like,” she returned, in proud finality, and left him.
Clint simply could not bring himself to answer further impulse, which was to follow her at any cost. If he did, it would only incur her added displeasure. He had already made her the target for gossip of freighters and soldiers, and perhaps even the Indians like Lone Wolf ridiculed him.
While his will was strong he went to his shack and threw himself in a corner on his blankets. He let himself go then, and it was a sorry hour. He might be nearly six feet tall and look like a man, but he knew where a girl and love were concerned he was the merest boy in experience.
When he had beaten himself into some semblance of humility and sense he faced the thing squarely. All in a day he had discovered himself. He loved this brighteyed girl with all his heart and soul. But she seemed quite a stranger. For that matter, he did not know any girls, and had not exchanged even ordinary conversation with one for years. And May was the only one he had ever really liked since childhood. She had not only changed. She had grown bewilderingly in charm, education, wit, and character. Very far above him she seemed. “You wild buffalo-hunter!” She had called him that, partly in fun and exasperation, perhaps, yet she had struck deeply. Never before had he been ashamed of the nickname Buff; never had he felt the overland freighter to be common, vulgar, on a par with the greasy trapper and the squawman hunter. He had imagined the overland freighter to be a big-hearted, strong, and enduring trail-maker for the pioneer. These Southern people May had lived and associated with came from the best blood of the South. She had been a bright little girl at ten years, and six years of school and association had made her a young lady of quality. He wondered if she would do for this crude raw West. But his loyalty gave him assurance she would. Not, however, for the like of him! It crucified him to confess that bitter fact.
And yet he knew she cared for him, or for the boy she had met by the brook that day long ago and to whom she had affianced herself on a prairie schooner crossing the Great Plains. Perhaps the romance of it had lingered with her, grown with her as she changed and developed, had reached its fruition in the wonder and joy of meeting him again, only to collapse when he failed to measure up to her girlish ideal. She had expected too much of a boy, whose parents were dead, who had no schooling, no home except the camp fire.
Clint thought it all out. He had been a jealous boor. She was a lovely, adorable little lady, whom he had treated shabbily. She had given him her kisses — the memory of which made him rock to and fro, weak and blind, with tumultuous heart — and for that he should have gone down on his knees in gratitude and worship. Instead, he had doubted her, insulted her. Well for her, indeed, that his true colors had come out under stress. Alas for him that he was no fit mate for her!
&nbs
p; In his simplicity Clint could see only that she had built a dream around him, which upon reality had burst like a bubble. He took solemn though immature cognizance of her love, and believed it no slight thing. But he was not worthy of it and would only fail to keep it. His pride, a trait he had not known he possessed, had bled to death.
There came a shuffling of heavy boots outside his door, then a knock. He got up to open it. Couch stood there, gloomy and haggard, fire in his eye, but sober. “Buff, I been huntin’ everywhere for you,” he said. “Uncle Jim, I — I felt bad, an’ thought I’d lay down a bit.”
“Hope you ain’t sick?”
“Yes, I was.... Had a row with my girl.”
“Wal, it ain’t surprisin’. I seen her awhile ago with that lootenant, an’ just now with Murdock. She’s a dainty lass, an’ you can’t blame the fellars. Buff, that girl will raise the very hell on the frontier.”
“Ahuh! She’s raised a little for me already,” replied Clint, grimly.
“Wal, don’t take it too serious. She’s young an’ she’s excited. I’d bet on her bein’ good, Buff.”
“Thanks, uncle,” said Clint, huskily.
“While I’m thinkin’ about it I want to tell you this fellar Murdock sticks in my craw somehow. I’ve run across him somewheres, or heard about him. An’ it ain’t to his credit. But I swear I can’t place him. I’ve been worried an’ thick. It’ll come to me, though.”
“It’s nothin’ to me. Hope that isn’t what you hunted me up for?”
“Lord! I wish it was. Buff, I just didn’t dare lose out on the Aull contract. I’ve signed. The men are packin’ like mad. We leave tomorrow before sunup.”
“Without a troop escort?”
“Hell, yes! There ain’t a soldier to be had.”
“How many wagons?”
“Hundred an’ eight, so far. Mebbe there’ll be more.
But at best only a small caravan. Kit Carson is here. He swore an’ said, ‘Don’t go!’ An’ I told him I had to. An’ then he said, ‘Wal, you’re not goin’ to take that boy Buff.’”
“‘Pears Carson an’ Maxwell are a lot concerned about me, uncle.”
“Wal, they cottoned to you, Buff. You’re a likable lad. Maxwell never had no children. Carson has a half-breed son.”
“They’re both wonderful men. I look up to them. But I’m afraid it’s only a dream — my wantin’ to be like them.”
“Buff, you’d make a great plainsman. An’ that reminds me what I was huntin’ you for. Reckon I was cross an’ short with you today. I’m sorry. I’ve come now to say you can stay here with Maxwell an’ give up the overland freightin’. Maxwell will give you a job. I’ll turn over your money to him. You can marry the little girl. She’s a high-steppin’ filly an’ thoroughbred, but maybe you can manage her. You’d have to get over your softness, though, an’ be pretty much of a man. Wal, you can do it.... God knows, Clint, I’ll miss you, aside from needin’ you powerful bad. I never had no son of my own. An’ you’d grown like one.... An’ I’m too fond of you to stand in the way of your happiness.... An’ that’s all, Buff.”
“Uncle Jim, I’ll go — with you,” replied Clint, his voice breaking, and he turned away.
“What!” ejaculated Couch.
“I’ll be there, ready to drive out, at daybreak.”
“Buff, you’re not goin’ back on the old man?”
“I should say not.”
“But the little girl, Buff. Are you playin’ fair with her?”
“Uncle, May is too high-class for me — an’ highsteppin’, as you said,” rejoined Clint.
“See here now, you Buff—”
Clint interrupted him hotly and for the first time in their years of intimacy swore roundly at him. Couch expelled a hard breath, as if he had been struck, then beat a hasty retreat.
The die seemed cast for Clint and there could be no backsliding. His heart beat like a muffled drum, as if compressed by pangs within. A lofty exaltation vied with a grim resignation. Black despair haunted the fringe of his mind. But that was only his softness. He would show Uncle Jim. And again mocking words returned, “You wild buffalo-hunter!”
Hurriedly packing his belongings, he carried them round back of the ranch house, and by a cut across the pasture he reached Couch’s camp, where he deposited them. The men were packing like beavers, too busy and excited to take note of him. Indians watched the proceedings with interest and speculation. The camp fires were burning. Clint was amazed to see sunset at hand.
No time like the present! He would call at the Clements’ camp to say good-by. And as he hurried through the cottonwoods he decided he would send word to Maxwell, thanking him for his hospitality and bidding him farewell. What would that kindly rancher think of him? And the great Kit Carson! He dared not risk seeing them. Perhaps in years to come, if he escaped the fate of most plainsmen, he would tell them how and why he had failed to live up to their hopes.
Dagget’s camp was on the other side of the narrow valley, at the upper end, and nearer Maxwell’s ranch house. Camps were scattered picturesquely under the cottonwoods. Wagons were standing everywhere. A freighter directed Clint to Clement’s camp. He had seen it only by moonlight, but presently he remembered the site, more by its isolation than anything else.
The sun was setting gold in the pass between the ranges, and to the east the gray obscurity hung like a pall over the void where the overland trail wound down into the Great Plains.
Sight of the high freight wagon under the huge cottonwood, where May and he had spent such ecstatic hours — was it only last night? — thrilled and cut Clint alternately.
He saw and smelled wood smoke. The several tents and wagons were grouped among willows and young cottonwoods. Clint strode round a thicket to encounter Clement and his wife at the camp fire. Clint had interrupted a colloquy, to judge by their sudden start, but he was quick to observe that he was more than welcome.
“Where’ve you been all day?” asked Clement, offering his hand and giving Clint a close scrutiny.
“Lad, it’s about time you got here,” declared Mrs. Clement, nodding her head significantly.
“I’ve had a — a bad day,” replied Clint, coming to the point at once, hard though it was. “Uncle Jim Couch is packin’ to leave at daybreak.... An’ I’m goin’ with him.”
“Oh no!” cried Mrs. Clement, and then she too searched his face, which, as always, betrayed him.
“I saw Maxwell today. He had a good deal to say aboot you,” said Clement, quietly. “Shore he had no idea you were leavin’ us heah.... Somethin’ has happened.”
“Yes, it has. I’m sorry,” replied Clint, helplessly responding to their concern and regret, and he smiled as if that might help them to divine his trouble.
“It’s May. The little vixen!” declared Mrs. Clement, turning to her husband. “Hall, I told you something was amiss. Gallivanting around all day with Tom, Dick, and Harry — when only last night her engagement was announced!”
“Please don’t blame her, Mrs. Clement,” begged Clint, hastily. “I — I offended her — insulted her — fell far short of her — her expectations.”
“Humph!” ejaculated Mrs. Clement.
“Where is May?” queried Clint, nervously.”’I just want to tell her I’m sorry an’ say — good-by.”
“Son, I’d wait a little while,” returned Clement, easy and cool, after the manner of Texans. “Sit down and let’s talk.”
“No, I’ve got to get it over.”
“Clint, she has been parading up and down here with Murdock for an hour or more,” said Clement. “And I had a hunch she was expecting you. But you came down this way. It’s just aboot a bad time for you to run into her, for any reason. She has been on the rampage today. I never knew her to be this way. I don’t like Lee Murdock. And I told her, as her engagement to you was known, she should not spend any more time with Murdock. She nearly took my head off. Whew!”
“Reckon that makes it easier,” replied Clint. “
I’m thankin’ you both for your good feelin’ toward me.... Good-by. I won’t be seein’ you again.”
He left them standing dismayed and aghast, and hurried away toward a gleam of white and gold that shone through a break in the willows. When he cleared the edge of thicket he saw that the white was May’s dress, and the gold the last glow of the setting sun.
She sat on the wagon tongue of the big freighter, and beside her stood Murdock, leaning attentively over her. Clint instantly divined that May had seen him all the time. The very lines of her graceful form seemed instinct with combat. The spot was well screened from the other camps by a circle of trees and thickets.
Some emotion deep and hot mocked the black, sickening despair with which Clint strode toward May. What a hideous falsehood somewhere! Was it in him? How unreal the picture of her sitting there! She had done precisely what she had threatened. Perhaps she had rather liked being driven to teach him a lesson.
Clint halted before her, bareheaded, without confusion or embarrassment. Before he spoke she read that in his bearing and face which she had not expected. It afforded Clint a melancholy gratification.
He looked straight down into her dark eyes, that mirrored the gold glamour of the glade, that changed, widened, dilated under his.
“Beg pardon, Miss Bell,” he began, as cool and drawling as any Texan she had ever met. “I’ve no wish to interrupt your flirtin’, but I’m leavin’ on the overland trail at dawn, an’ want to say good-by.”
She arose, suddenly, her face white as her dress.
“OH, CLINT!... NO! NO!”
How the divining love and repentance of her appeal might have softened Clint never transpired, for Murdock gave him a stinging slap in the face.
Clint did not flinch. That second blow from this source was welcome.
“You shore are a wild buffalo-hunter, callin’ a lady a flirt,” Murdock boomed, with sudden robust voice that indicated his pleasure in this opportunity. He expressed as much satisfaction as disgust. Nevertheless, Texan though he was, he underrated Clint.
“Murdock, do you happen to have a gun on you?” queried Clint, fiercely.