by Zane Grey
“These boys air all crazy about you.”
“I hadn’t noticed it, Jim...Are you sure you haven’t been eating some of that Arizona loco weed you told me about?”
“Hosses an’ cattle eat loco, my child. I may be smokin’ my pipe at thet. But I reckon Andrew Bonnin’ is as deep in love with you, lass, as a man ever falls.”
“Jim!”
“Wal, you needn’t bark at me like thet...An’ go red — an’ then white — as you air now. You know it, don’t you?”
“No,” whispered Martha, averting her face.
“Haven’t boys an’ men, too, been fallin’ in love with you, ever since you put on long dresses?”
“No.”
“Ain’t thet Texas Jack cowboy who rode out here Sunday — ain’t he in love with you?”
“Cowboy-taffy,” replied Martha Ann tremulously, striving against the rising tide within her breast.
“Ridic’lous, lass. Thet’s yore own word. I’ve heerd it often. Ridic’lous!...I don’t know about you, girl. You’re a deep youngster. You’re honest as daylight, mostly. But I can’t figger you, in this partic’lar. I’m afraid you’re—”
“Jim Fenner, if you side with my parents, my relatives — and a lot of old fogies — and An-Andrew Bonning — I’ll never speak to you again,” cried Martha Ann, the tears coming into her eyes.
“All right. Thet settles thet,” said Fenner placatingly. “From now on I’m takin’ you on yore word. I’m on yore side, Martha. An’ thet means Sue, too. If we two old Westerners can’t understand, we shore can trust an’ sympathize an’ love. I reckon it ain’t been so easy fer you back home, or anywheres. You ought to have been a boy. An’ instead you’re the sweetest girl thet ever was born to vex men. It’s tough, honey. When a girl can’t lift her eyes or smile without some fool feller thinkin’ she wants him to grab her — wal, thet’s shore tough.”
“It’s just exactly what happens, Jim,” she replied brokenly. “It was that way at home...And it’s almost as bad here.”
“Martha, did Andrew do thet?”
“No, not he.”
“Wal, thet’s somethin’ to his credit. I can’t see Andrew makin’ game of a girl.”
“Bah! He’d be no different from any of them — if he believed he was the only one.”
“Are you shore, lass?”
“Well, no. But I’ve met boys like that. Boys who want a girl all to themselves — and hate her if she looks at someone else. I was fed up on all of them.”
“Listen, Martha. You’ve got Andy figgered wrong,” continued Jim earnestly. “He ain’t what he lets on to be. An’ at thet I don’t savvy what he is pretendin’. Sue says she always feels funny when he sets a chair fer her, or stands up when she comes in — things like thet thet women notice. But he is somebody.”
“At the rodeo they called him a prize fighter,” said Martha with a queer little laugh.
“Wal, he shore was a whirlwind. I ain’t got over tinglin’ over thet fight yet...No, Andrew Bonnin’ ain’t no common sort. Whatever druv him out here it wasn’t anythin’ crooked. All my life I’ve dealt with men who have things to hide. Andy hasn’t anythin’. But he’s awful sad an’ quiet.”
“Some woman,” ventured Martha Ann, with a twinge of jealousy.
“Some girl!...Martha, when you first come here Andy was pretty hard on you. I called him fer it, an’ he’s never mentioned it again. I reckon he still thinks the same about your hikin’ out here alone. I didn’t use to blame Andy. I used to think myself thet thet was the foolest stunt any girl ever tried. But I see it different now. The rest of us air wrong. Thet idee was natural an’ innocent, ‘cause it was you.”
Martha Ann laid her head against Jim’s shoulder. “Jim, you’d have made a swell Daddy,” she sighed.
“Not too late yet, by jingo!...But don’t upset me, lass. I’m in turrible earnest. I feel like — like one of them wise fellars who settles the fates of nations...No matter how Andy disapproved of you — or what he thought you was — it still didn’t keep him from fallin’ in love with you. An’ grow wuss an’ wuss as time goes on.”
“What makes — you think — he — he — ?”
“Wal, Sue seen it first. An’ believe me, Martha, thet woman never is wrong...An’ after I was put wise I watched Andy an’ I’ve seen a hundred proofs of it.”
“Give me just one, I dare you,” said the girl, color mounting in her cheeks.
“Wal, let me see. It’s darn hard to pick jest one out...Do you remember the day yore hoss piled you up on the sand down here?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know what it all was about till afterward. But when Andrew went back for your boot I happened to be ridin’ along the bank an’ I seen him get off an’ pick somethin’ up, an’ set down on the sand to hold the thing in his hand, an’ look mighty fond at it. I swear it looked thet way to me. Course it was most dusk an’ I’m a sentimental old cuss. But he sat there like a Navajo watchin’ the sunset. Somethin’ pathetic an’ lonely about the way he looked off over the range. So I didn’t call. Later I asked him where he’d been, an’ then he told me about goin’ after yore lost boot...Now, lass, is thet convincin’?”
“Not at all! You certainly have an imagination, Jim...Tell me something else.”
“Wal, the way he beat up Smoky Reed,” ventured Fenner.
“No. He meant to do that anyhow.”
“The rodeo dance, then. He never seen any other girl but you — let alone danced with one. An’ the girls was certainly layin’ fer him. A blind man could have seen thet.”
“It might be taken as testimony,” she replied ponderingly. “But it would never convince me. You lose, Jim, unless you have a better one — out of those hundred proofs.” And she drew back from his shoulder to regard him demurely.
“Wal, he shore watches fer you all the time, an’ you couldn’t pop yore head up anywhere on this blasted range but he’d see it.”
“Masculine curiosity and his obsession to boss some woman. No more,” proclaimed Martha.
“Sue says it’s somethin’ she can feel in Andy, whenever you come near.”
“But I don’t feel it.”
“Then you’re jest not flesh an’ blood...Martha, I tell you I know he’s fallen for you. An’ I shore feel low-down to double cross him this way. But I gotta do it. ‘Cause you might up an’ do somethin’ jest fer spite. So I’ll tell you. Andy carries a little round picture of you in a frame. I seen him lookin’ at somethin’, an’ when I come into camp he slipped it back pronto in his breast pocket. After supper he went to washin’ in the creek, an’ I sneaked to his clothes an’ fished thet picture out of his shirt pocket. It shore was a sweet picture.”
“Oh! the — the...I missed that picture on the day we went to the rodeo. I drove...He had my bag in his lap. It dropped out or he sneaked it.”
“Wal, is thet any proof?”
“Jim, that’s very strange indeed — if he took it and kept it and looked at it just to see what a bad girl looks like...Still I couldn’t be sure.”
“Do you want to be shore?” he demanded suddenly, as if he now had her at his mercy.
“Jim!...You — I — Oh, yes!” She cried, and her composure seemed about to leave her.
“I seen him kiss thet little picture,” cried Jim triumphantly.
“You’re lying, Jim Fenner!...He didn’t — he couldn’t. Not Andrew.”
“I swear to Gawd I seen him.”
“You’re cruel, Jim. You’ve tormented me for weeks. But today you’re a positive fiend.”
“Ain’t you glad I told you?” he asked chuckling. “Go away!”
“Shore, I’ll mosey along,” he replied, getting up stiffly. “But you haven’t tole me yet if you’ll stay here with yore uncle an’ see it through.”
“I shall see it through, Jim,” she replied simply.
“Wal, if thet ain’t fine. I reckoned you would. You can go home on a visit some day — or have yore folks visit you.
It’ll all turn out right in the end.”
“Go away!” cried Martha Ann. “Or I’ll — kiss you!”
“Wal, as I don’t want thet big gazabo to lambaste me one I reckon I’d better make tracks.”
Martha Ann leaned back against the tree. She would stay and see it through! Both sadness and rapture pervaded her soul. By what strange steps had she finally found her niche in life. Tomorrow she would ride and ride, far away and up the purple slope, to some lonely spot where only the wilderness could witness her joy.
The sun was sinking gold and red behind the Rockies. The river traced its winding, green-bordered course out to fade in the ruddy haze of the range. Great clouds of rose and pearl piled to the zenith, stately and serene. Like a sea, the sagebrush rolled and heaved as far as the scalloped hills.
No living creature crossed Martha Ann’s vision. How lonely were the vast spaces! They had been like that forever or, remembering her geology, for the millions of years since the icecap of the north had receded. What was there here so restful to her soul, so like some place she had known before she was even born? The peace that was in her heart had something to do, too, with what Jim had told her about a man’s strange behavior with a misplaced locket.
At that moment a lone horseman appeared, far out in the sage, a black spot becoming gradually perceptible of movement. He gave life to the scene. All it needed! But it gave infinitely more to Martha Ann, who pressed her hands tightly to her bosom, and watched and watched with slowly dimming eyes.
It was toward noon of the following day, and for hours Martha Ann had been alternately trotting and walking her horse up the endless purple slope. She had never before dared to ride so far alone. But this day she knew that she had to find solitude. How easy to think things out in the saddle, riding alone over the range, with the wind whipping in her face, the sun bright and warm, the loneliness calling!
She was heading for the Antelope Hills and they now loomed close. She would wait, she would hold herself in, she would postpone this battle between her two selves until she had found an ideal spot where no other woman creature had ever poured out her innermost heart before.
Soon she was riding among a grove of trees. It was dry and sweet there among these scattered trees where the sage mingled with silver grass and golden flowers. When she looked back down the long slope she was thrilled by the splendor of the descent, sloping to the distant thread of the river and the dot that was the ranch.
At last she felt that she could ride no longer. She had come upon a kind of bowl of silver grass, surrounded by straggling trees, a lonely, isolated glade, hidden from all eyes except those of the eagles, and shining there, peaceful and tranquil, an altar for her abnegation. For she would never rise from this lonely vigil the same wild, intolerant, proud and selfish girl.
Martha tied her horse in the fringe of trees, and chose a low-spreading one under which to rest. A thick fragrant brown carpet of tiny needles covered the ground. Her tree was some species of pine. She gathered a lapful of the little spears, and let them run through her cupped hands.
She found herself loath to give up feeling, seeing, smelling this lonesome covert for the thoughts that she knew she had to straighten out. She had her first intimation of how wonderful it would be never to think at all. Only to use her senses! Perhaps it was that inherited instinct that had lured her to Wyoming. Who could understand who had never felt that enchantment?
And presently Martha Ann lay back on the bed of pine needles and let her thoughts roam. “So he stole my picture!...Darling! — Oh, if you do love me — how terribly I shall make you suffer before I prove that I’m not what you believe I am...And if you don’t I shall — be what you believe I...Oh, no! no! — I shall only die!”
A sudden sound interrupted the girl’s bittersweet reverie. It was a sound which at first she could not define. Alarmed, Martha sat up trembling. The thumping sound grew louder. Hoofs! Her horse had broken away. No, the pounding came from the opposite side of the little amphitheater. Crashings among the trees preceded the shrill bawl of a calf. A cow stumbled through an opening between the trees and behind it galloped a calf. Then something yellow and snaky shot from behind the green, to loop round the calf and jerk it off its feet. In the next instant a horse appeared whose rider was bending low to escape the branches. He pulled his horse back on its haunches and leaped off, to throw the calf down and kneel upon it.
Martha Ann crouched there, her terror of the unknown changing to the terror of an act whose significance she vaguely guessed. When the rider arose to toss his sombrero aside and wipe his sweaty face, he exposed a flaming mop of red hair. But Martha had recognized the lithe form of Texas Jack even before he revealed the telltale hair.
“Bawl an’ be damned, you ornery little cuss. You’re a maverick now. An’ you git oot of heah.” He picked up a rock to fling it at the cow. She lowered her head and threatened him, but another rock, well directed struck her with a resounding thump. Martha Ann’s wide eyes glimpsed the N.B. brand on the flank of the cow. The distracted beast went as far as the edge of the open and continued to bawl.
Texas broke some dead branches off the nearest tree. These he placed on the ground near the calf. He struck a match and started a fire. Picking up his sombrero he fanned the fire until it roared. Then he slipped something from under the flap of his saddle — a thin curved tool. Martha had seen its like — a running iron, Jim had called it — a thing to burn brands on stock. Texas placed an end of the iron in the fire and began again to fan the flames with his hat. They roared as if blown by a bellows.
Suddenly he bent down, and seizing the iron he ran to the calf, and knelt to apply it to its trembling red flank. The calf bawled lustily. Martha heard a sizzle, another and another. She saw smoke arise, and then she smelled burning hair. The smell of it sickened her.
But nausea, fright, and all her other feelings yielded precedence to righteous wrath. Texas Jack was branding her uncle’s calf. He was a thief — a rustler. She had caught him red-handed in the very act.
Quickly Martha Ann rose to brush aside the branches that had screened her and to step into the open.
Texas heard her step and his flaming head shot up like that of a frightened deer. Suddenly he wheeled and whipped out a gun in one single action. At any other time, Martha might have recoiled from his fierce face, but now she kept right on, indifferent to his menacing posture, and to the gun held low and level.
“Wal, fer Gawd’s sake!” he burst out, astounded and visibly relieved.
Martha Ann kept on until the bound calf lay at her feet. On its flank had been branded a double X, the lines of which shone raw and bright in its hide.
“McCall’s brand!” she ejaculated in amazement, and then she faced the cowboy. “Texas Jack, you have burned McCall’s brand on one of my uncle’s calves.”
“Caught with the goods,” replied Texas, and flipping up his gun he caught it by the butt, to return it to his belt. He seemed cool, laconic, devil-may-care, but the paleness that had not disappeared, and the quivering pinpoints in his blue eyes, told Martha that he was not altogether invulnerable.
“You calf thief, you paid rustler, you low-down thieving cowboy,” she blazed, with eyes before which he quailed. “You ride for one man and steal for another. You come to my uncle’s house. You eat and drink there, accepting his hospitality, and my friendship...Oh, you despicable vermin. You coward, liar, cheat!...You brag of being a Texan — you wouldn’t insult a girl — bah! You’re worse than Smoky Reed. At least he doesn’t sail under false colors.”
“Martha, doggone it, I’m not so low-down as all thet,” he expostulated, his face now scarlet, his eyes shamed and appealing. “You’re a tenderfoot. You jest cain’t savvy the West. All cattlemen brand mavericks, when they happen on them. It ain’t exactly stealin’ .”
“A maverick is a calf without a mother,” flashed Martha. “There’s this calf’s mother. And she’s got an N.B. brand on her.”
“Wal, if you split hairs ov
er it — I reckon I’m a rustler,” he said, and kneeling beside the calf he released it. Then, when it had scrambled up to bawl and run he sat down in the grass. He took out a little tobacco pouch, and rolled himself a cigarette with steady fingers.
“Texas, I’m simply shocked. I’m terribly disappointed. Only last Sunday you told me you loved me.”
“Wal, I did an’ I do. What’s thet got to do with this job? I swear to Gawd it was my last — this deal with McCall. But I was in it before I ever seen you. He owes me money. He even threatens to give me away. I had to go on with it, thet’s all.”
“But, Texas, if you’re a rustler you just can’t make honest love to a decent girl,” declared Martha.
“Shore it was honest love, I was goin’ to ask you to marry me.”
“Oh! To think I — liked you — and I might even have fallen in love with you!”
“Wal, you didn’t act much like it,” growled Texas, and took a long pull on his cigarette. “An’ don’t roast me no more. I cain’t stand it from you.”
“Have you no shame? Can you sit there and make excuses for this piece of crooked work? Deliberately ruining my uncle, who’s old and poor! Oh, you’re a fine Texan.”
“Say, my little spitfire, I’ll clap a hand over yore pretty trap in a minnit, if you don’t shet it. If I wasn’t a gentleman an’ a Texan, I’d do what Smoky would do, or any other free-lance rider on this range.”
“And what is that?”
“I’d pack you off in the hills an’ keep you there,” he replied with sullen passion.
“Texas, you couldn’t do a cowardly thing like that!” she returned hurriedly, not so sure as she pretended to be. The cowboy looked like a man at bay.
“No, I couldn’t do that. An’ you can bet yore sweet little self thet it’s only because I am a Texan. An’ what’n hell air you doin’ way oot heah? Suppose it’d been Smoky, or half a dozen hombres I could name, you damn little fool! Haven’t you got no sense at all? You gallivant oot west alone in a pair of short pants an’ now you come ridin’ into the foothills all by yoreself.”