XIV
INTO THE SHADOW OF THE HILLS
The first thing Michail Lafond did in pursuance of his newdetermination was to visit the Spotted Tail reservation in order toreclaim the girl henceforth to be known as Molly Lafond.
No one knows why he had followed out his first impulse to preserve herlife and bring her up. After a time, however, she came to symbolize,in his half-mystical perception of such things, the first cause of allthat had happened. Personally he liked her because she was such afree, independent, fiery little creature. He liked to talk to her andbe ordered about by her. He liked also to watch the graceful, decisivemovements of her lithe young body and the sparkle of her hair. Shelooked a good deal like her mother.
He even listened with what would appear to be close sympathy to hercomplaints of the agent's wife and the life to be led at a reservation.She and the agent's wife never did get on well. The latter was astern, commonplace, fat woman without sympathy. And the life! Therewere no men, nothing but Indians. All you could do was to read all dayand all the evening, or ride straight out in any given direction thatled nowhere. Michail Lafond, in his semi-annual visits, was inclinedto agree with her and even to pity her a little. His personal likingswere on the surface, and had nothing whatever to do with the deeps ofhis nature.
Just as the surest way of satisfying his thirst for revenge upon BillyKnapp was to deprive the man of his reputation and his property, so hehad determined to make of Molly a dance-hall girl, like Colorado Jenny.It would deprive her of virtue and good name, the things a woman holdsmost dear. He also felt keenly, in his instinctive dramatic sense, thefitness of throwing this fine-fibred daughter of a nobler race to thehungry passions, of watching her reversion little by little to thebrute type; but a formulation of it never came to the surface of hismind. And yet, I must repeat, there was in one sense nothing personalin this. Lafond felt no aversion to the girl herself. He took nopleasure in the thought of cursing her or beating her, as might a manseeking a hotter revenge. It was just cold, malignant, calculatinghate of something in opposition to him, which she symbolized.
This intellectual form of hatred is a peculiar characteristic ofhalf-breeds.
When Lafond suggested to Molly that she should leave the agency andtake up her residence with him in Copper Creek, she assented verygladly, for she felt her present life insupportable. The day before,she and Mrs. Sweeney, the agent's wife, had come into violent collision.
"Where was you yesterday afternoon?" Mrs. Sweeney had asked, as Mollycame into the kitchen.
It was before breakfast, so Molly shrugged an impatient shoulder.
"Riding," she replied briefly.
"Riding where?" insisted Mrs. Sweeney with heavy persistency.
"Over west."
"See anybody?"
"No."
"Sure?"
"Yes."
The old lady wound her hands in her apron and fixed her charge severelywith her eye.
"Strange how blind some folks is," she went on after a moment. "Now, Iwas indoors washing an' I see that young sergeant over there scoutin''round."
The words were simple; the tone was not.
"What do you mean?" cried Molly sharply. "Do you mean to say I wasriding with him?"
Mrs. Sweeney wagged her head with aggravating sagacity.
"Nobody needn't put on no shoe that don't fit 'em," she said, andsighed with the air of a martyr who has discovered all and isdisappointed.
Molly knew that her question had been justified by the woman'sinsinuation, that she had put on no shoe, and that if there were amartyr in the room it was not the agent's wife. Thereupon she saidthings excitedly. The agent's wife assumed an injured placidity, thanwhich there is nothing more aggravating. Finally Molly flounced out ofthe room.
The agent's wife, being utterly in the wrong, sulked after the mannerof women for the rest of the day, and had to be sued for forgiveness.
And yet next day, when Molly and the half-breed drove away, Mrs.Sweeney remembered that the girl had been with them nearly fifteenyears, and wept; and the agent booted a trespassing Indian from hisoffice with unwonted energy.
Molly, on the other hand, was as happy as a lark. Every man knows thethrill of anticipation when he stows the gun case under the seat andinduces the pointer to curl up in the straw, just as every woman knowsthe delight of an entrance to a room which her presence brightens morethan any other's. Molly experienced the same thrill, the same delight.She had the instincts of the coquette; the confidence of inexperience;the false ideals of a knowledge drawn from books and speculation; andher heart had not yet awakened her conscience. She looked forward toher own power over men, for she was intelligent, and realized theextent both of her charms and of her knowledge. The latter was notinextensive, for in her reading she had enjoyed the overwhelmingadvantage of heredity. Heredity is a little scheme by which, to agreat extent, one recognizes knowledge, instead of acquiring it.
They drove along for some distance without speaking. The girl was toohappy and the half-breed too preoccupied to talk.
"Mike," she commanded suddenly after a time, "quit that smoking. Idon't like it."
The half-breed hesitated, narrowing his brow, and looking straightahead. Then he silently knocked the ashes from his pipe and slipped itinto his pocket. Molly's eyes flashed with triumphant amusement. Thegame had begun. After a time the sun sank into the dark hills, and thegreat shadow of Harney crept out of them.
The wagon rattled down a short incline to the broad, shallow bed of theCheyenne. Molly turned it aside into a little grass plat.
"We'll camp here to-night," she announced.
"There is better water two mile further, on the trail, on Fall River,"said Lafond, without moving.
"I said we'd camp here!" repeated the girl sharply.
The half-breed descended and began to unharness the horses.
The Westerners Page 14