by Zane Grey
“Excuse me, miss,” said Mrs. Linn, embarrassed. “You see your father looks so strong…”
“It isn’t his body that’s weak, Missus Linn,” Cherry interrupted. “It’s his mind.”
Here Stephen came to the rescue, as Cherry remembered he had always done in New York.
“Missus Linn, it’s not a question of ill health for anybody,” he explained. “Mister Winters was an old friend of my father’s. I met him in New York. He wanted to come out West and get Miss Cherry as far away from civilization as possible, to…”
“I’ll say he’s done it,” interrupted Cherry. “It must be a real knockout to live here if you’re crazy about miles of nothing but sand, rocks, and sky, and you’ve committed some crime or other and want to hide.”
Mrs. Linn tried to control her amazement.
“Mister Winters, your rooms are not quite ready. Please wait here a little…Pa, see that them lazy cowboys fetch in the baggage.”
“Stephen, where are the boys, anyhow?” Linn asked as his spouse bustled out.
“They were lounging in the shade when the car came up. Then they disappeared like jack rabbits in the sage. Sure they’re going to be funny. I’ll help you find them.”
“Folks, make yourselves comfortable,” invited Linn, and left the room with the archaeologist.
Mr. Winters sauntered over to Cherry and gazed disapprovingly down upon her.
“Cherry, I don’t mind you calling me crazy or poking fun at me. But please don’t extend that to my young friend, Heftral. His father was the finest man I ever knew, and Stephen is pretty much like him…Cherry, you’ll have to put your best foot forward if you want to appear well to Stephen Heftral. He’s not likely to see the sophisticated type with a microscope out here. In New York he had you buffaloed. You couldn’t like him because you didn’t understand him.”
“Darling Father,” Cherry replied, smiling tantalizingly up at him. “Your name may be Elijah, but you’re no prophet. I liked your young friend well enough to let him alone. But that was in New York where there are a million men. I don’t know about out here. Probably he’ll bore me to extinction. Can’t you see he’s as dry as the dust of this desert? He’s living two thousand years behind the times. Fancy digging in the earth for things of the past. Well, he might dig up a jeweled corncob pipe and discover there were glamour girls in the old Aztec days.”
“Cherry, you’re nothing if not incorrigible,” returned Winters in despair.
“Dad, I’m your daughter. I don’t know whether you’ve brought me up poorly or I’ve neglected you. But the fact is all our educators and scientists claim the parents of the present generation are responsible for our demerits.”
“Cherry, I’m responsible for your conduct out here, at all events,” Winters declared forcefully.
“Oh, you are! Well, my dearest Dad, I’m here all right…or else I’ve been drinking.”
“Cherry, there’ll be no more of this drinking business.”
“Dad, you’ve got me figured wrong. I admit my crowd hit the booze pretty strong. But I never drank. Honest, Dad.”
“Cherry, I don’t know whether to believe you or not. But I’ve seen you smoke.”
“Oh, well, that’s different. Smoking isn’t very clean, but it’s a fashionable vice, and restful at least.”
“How about all your men?” Winters queried, evidently emboldened for the minute. “Lord! When I think of the men you’ve made idiots! Take that last one…the young Valentino who brags of being engaged to you.”
Cherry laughed merrily. “Dad, do you think that’s nice? Chauncey Sarland is just too sweet for words…also he dances divinely.”
“Sarland is a slick little article. Like his social ladder-climbing mama. But I’ll see that he doesn’t dance or climb into your inheritance.”
“To think you separated me from him!” Cherry cried, pretending tragic pathos.
A slim young Indian girl entered. She was dark and pretty. “Meester, you room ees ready.”
“Thank you,” said Winters, picking up his coat and hat. “Cherry, you’ve got me right. I did separate you from Sarland. Also from a lot of other fortune-hunters. That’s why you’re out in this desert for a spell. Except for Linn and Heftral, who you can’t flirt with, there’s not a man within a hundred miles.”
Cherry eyed her retreating parent, and replied demurely: “Yes, kind, sweet, thoughtful Father.”
Winters went out with the Indian maid, and at the same moment a young man entered the other door, carrying a valise in each hand. He had a ruddy face, and was carelessly dressed in striped woolen shirt, overalls, and top boots. He wore a big dusty sombrero. When he spotted Cherry his eyes popped wide open and he dropped one valise, then the other.
“Was you addressin’ me, miss?” he asked ecstatically.
“Not then. I was speaking to my father. He just left the room…You…sort of took me by surprise.”
“Shore, you tuk my wind.”
“Do you live here?” Cherry asked with interest, thinking: This trading post might not turn out so badly after all.
“Shore do,” replied the young man, grinning.
“Are you Missus Linn’s son?”
“Naw. Jest a plain no-good cowboy.”
“My very first cowboy,” murmured Cherry.
“Aw, miss, I’m shore honored. I’ll be yore…yore first anythin’. Ain’t you the Winters girl we’re expectin’?”
“Yes, I’m Cherry Winters.”
“An’ I’m Mojave. The boys call me that after the Mojave Desert which ain’t got no beginnin’ or end.”
As Cherry broke into laughter another young man entered, also carrying a grip in each hand. He was overdressed, like a motion-picture cowboy, and he had a swarthy, dark face. He gave Cherry a warm smile.
“Cowboy, reckon you can put them bags down an’ get back for more,” blandly said Mojave.
“Buenos días, señorita,” greeted this one, dropping the bags and sweeping the floor with his sombrero.
Cherry was quick to see that Mojave suddenly remembered to remove his own wide headgear.
“Same to you,” replied Cherry, smiling as teasingly as possible.
“Miss Winters, this here’s Lorenzo,” Mojave said apologetically. “He’s a Mexican. He seen a Western movie once an’ ain’t never got over it. He’s been dressed up all day waitin’ for you.”
“I’m tremendously flattered,” returned Cherry.
“Mees, thees are your bags I carry. I peeck them out weeth your name on.”
“Now there, Buffalo Bill, you mustn’t flatter me any more,” Cherry replied coquettishly.
“Oh, mees! Señor Buffalo Beel you call me. I have seen heem in the movies.”
Here he drew two guns with an exaggerated motion-picture-drama style. “A-ha! Veelian! Een my power at las’! A-ha! Your time ees come. I keel you!”
He brandished both guns in Cherry’s face. In alarm she slipped off the window seat to dodge behind a table.
“Lorenzo, you locoed cowpuncher, get on the job!” Mojave ordered forcibly. “Wess is comin’.”
Lorenzo evidently had respect for Mojave. Hurriedly sheathing his guns and picking up his sombrero, he recovered the two valises.
Meanwhile Cherry emerged from behind the table.
“Mees, Lorenzo will act for you again,” he announced grandly.
“Ye-es. Thanks. But please make it some place where I can dodge,” replied Cherry.
Lorenzo left the room, and Mojave, taking up his load, turned to Cherry.
“Miss Winters, don’t trust Lorenzo, or any of these other hombres. An’ perticular, don’t ride their horses. You’ll shore get throwed an’ mebbe killed. But my pet horse is shore gentle. I’ll take you ridin’ tomorrow.”
“I’d love to go with you,” returned Cherry.
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Then Mojave made swift tracks after Lorenzo, just in time to escape being seen by a third cowboy, who entered from outside, carrying a trunk as if it had been a feather. He set it down. He was bareheaded, a blond young man, not bad-looking, in size alone guaranteed to command respect. And his costume struck a balance between that of Lorenzo and Mojave.
Cherry gazed at him and exclaimed: “Well, Tarzan in cowboy boots, no less!”
Wess stared, then walked in a circle to see who she meant. But as there was no other man present he seemed to divine the truth, and approached her straightaway.
“Wal, for gawd’s sake,” he broke out in slow sepulchral tones.
“Oh, yes, indeed, it’s you I mean,” Cherry returned, all smiles. “I’ll bet when your horse is tired you pick him up and carry him right home.”
“Wal, for gawd’s sake!” ejaculated Wess exactly as before.
“Are there any more verses to that song?”
“Wal…for gawd’s sake!”
“Third and last, I hope.”
“First time I ever seen an angel or heered one talk,” he declared.
“Please don’t call me an angel. Angels are good. I’m not. I’m wild. That’s why I’ve been dragged out West. Ask Dad, he knows. Say, that reminds me. I’m dying for a smoke. Dad’s old-fashioned and I don’t carry them when he’s around. Could you give me a cigarette?”
Wess merely stared.
“Please, handsome boy. Just one little cigarette.”
“Ain’t got nothin’ but the makin’s,” he finally ejaculated.
“Thanks. That’ll do,” Cherry replied, receiving the little tobacco pouch he handed her.
It fascinated Wess to see Cherry roll her own. He was so absorbed that he failed to note the entrance of a fourth cowboy, who was burdened with hatboxes and more grips. He was the handsomest of the lot. With his fine intent eyes straight ahead, not noticing Cherry, he crossed the room and went into the hallway. Cherry had watched him pass in a surprise that grew into pique. He had never looked once at her. He would have to pay for that slight.
“Wal! Yore shore some pert little dogie,” Wess remarked, lighting a match for her.
“Dogie? Say, Mister Cowboy, explain what you mean.”
“A dogie is a calf or a colt that ain’t got no mother.”
“Where did you learn anything about me?” Cherry asked, a bit wary.
“Shore any kid with a ma couldn’t ever roll a cigarette an’ smoke it like you do.”
“Indeed. Wess, are you a desert preacher?” queried Cherry distantly.
“Sorry, miss. Shore didn’t mean to hurt yore feelin’s. But it kind of got me…seein’ you smoke like thet. Yore so damn’…’scuse me, I mean yore so shore pretty that it goes ag’in’ my grain to see you up to dance-hall tricks.”
“You don’t like women to smoke?” Cherry returned curiously.
“Perticular, I don’t like to see you smokin’.”
“Then I won’t,” Cherry decided, and, walking to the fireplace, she threw the cigarette down.
“Jes…jes ’cause I don’t like you to smoke?” Wess ejaculated rapturously.
“Jes ’cause you don’t like me to.”
“An’ you’ll forgive me fer talkin’ like I did?”
“Surely.”
“I’m askin’ you to prove thet.”
“How?”
“Go ridin’ with me tomorrow,” Wess suggested breathlessly. “You can ride my pet hoss. He’s shore gentle. You don’t wanna ride any of these hombres’ horses. You might get throwed an’ hurt. They’re shore mean.”
“I’d love to go with you,” Cherry responded dreamily.
At this moment the handsome cowboy returned, and was again crossing the room, straight-eyed and hurried, when Wess hailed him. “Rustle now, you cowboy. Fetch them bags in.”
Cherry had taken a few steps forward. The cowboy glided around the table to avoid encountering her, and then bolted out of the room.
“Well, I never!” exclaimed Cherry. “You’d think I was Medusa. He didn’t see me…He simply didn’t see me! Who is he?”
“Thet’s Zoroaster. Mormon cowpuncher. Fine fellar, but awful scared of women. Ain’t never seen any but Mormon girls. He’ll never look at you.”
“Oh, he won’t,” replied Cherry with a threat in her voice.
“Shore not. An’ don’t you ever talk to him. He’d like as not drop dead. Last year a girl from the East asked him to dance, an’ he run right out of the hall. Didn’t show up for a week.”
“It’s an awful chance to take, but that boy needs reforming,” declared Cherry.
Wess stared at her a moment before he took to his defense. “Wal, for gawd’s sake!”
Mojave came in with a sly grin on his ruddy face. “Wess, Mister Linn is askin’ fer you,” he said.
“Where?” Wess asked in both doubt and disgust.
“He’s gone out to the post and wants you pronto.”
Wess went out grumbling and Mojave approached Cherry with evident profound satisfaction.
“Looks like you’re goin’ to be as popular as stickin’ paper with flies,” he said meaningly.
“Mojave, after flies take to flypaper they struggle to get away. That’s not a pretty compliment.”
“Say! Did you know you called me Mojave?” he asked in amazement.
Cherry feigned surprise. “Did I?” Then she was electrified at the entrance of still another cowboy.
“’S-s-scuse me, f-f-folks, w-w-w-where’s Wess?”
“Tay-Tay, he’s gone to the post an’ I wish you wouldn’t…”
“Like h-h-hell he has,” interrupted Tay-Tay.
“Linn is lookin’ fer him.”
“L-l-last I saw of Linn he was runnin’ the car in the shed.”
“Good. Then he won’t be right back an’ Wess’ll have to find him.”
Cherry stood fascinated by Tay-Tay’s struggle with words.
“B-b-b-bad I’d say. For you an’ Wess. The cows are yore job, an’ yore both locoed b-by this d-d-dame. It’s g-g-goner rain like hell!”
Cherry turned to Mojave. “Perhaps you b-b-better go…Well, I hope to die if I’m not stuttering too.”
Here Lorenzo, filling the doorway, struck a dramatic pose and fixed sentimental eyes on Cherry.
“Por ultimo. Señorita mía,” he said eloquently.
“Too many languages around here for me,” returned Cherry.
“Here’s Lorenzo to give a hand. I was jest tellin’ Miss Winters how you could ride. An’ she’s shore ailin’ to see you round up the cows.”
Lorenzo’s look of fiery pride slowly changed to one of suspicion, and Tay-Tay stared from him to Mojave. The next thing to happen was Wess shoving Lorenzo into the room and stalking after him, to transfix Mojave with menacing eyes.
“Wal, for gawd’s sake! So you was jest gettin’ me out of the way. Said Linn was lookin’ for me. Wal, cowboy, he ain’t.”
“Don’t you accuse me of no sneakin’ trick,” replied Mojave, flaring up.
“Linn was askin’ fer you. He’s plumb forgot. He’s gettin’ absent-minded, you know. Ask Tay-Tay here if Linn didn’t send him lookin’ fer you to fetch in the cows.”
“S-s-smatter with you, Mojave?” retorted Tay-Tay. “L-L-Linn didn’t send me nowhere. I c-c-came fer myself.”
“Tay-Tay, yore tongue’s not only more tied since you seen Miss Winters, but yore mind is wuss,” complained Mojave.
Then followed a silence that Cherry hugely enjoyed. What a time she was going to have. Wouldn’t she turn the tables on her tricky father? Mojave backed away from the threatening Wess. The other boys edged nearer to Cherry, who thought it wise to retreat to the window seat. The suspense of the moment was broken by the entrance of Zoroaster, who swung two pairs of boxing glov
es in his hands. Behind him entered the Indian maid.
“Mees, your room ees ready,” she announced, and retired.
Cherry was in no hurry to follow. Something might happen here too good to miss.
“Thar you are!” announced Zoroaster, indicating Tay-Tay.
He might be a Mormon, but he is certainly good to look at, decided Cherry.
“W-w-what y-y-you w-w-want me for?” Tay-Tay stuttered rebelliously.
“Yore time’s come. I’ve been layin’ fer you. An’ right now we can have it out,” returned the grim Mormon.
“W-w-why right now more’n another time?” asked Tay-Tay.
“Wal,” spoke up Wess, “I reckon a blind man could see thet. Lope on outdoors, Tay-Tay, an’ get yours.”
Lorenzo showed his white teeth in a gleaming smile. “Geeve the gloves to Wess an’ Mojave. They’re lookeen for trouble.”
“It’s me who’s lookin’ fer trouble, an’, after I’m through with Tay-Tay, I’ll take any of you on. Savvy?”
“B-b-but if I w-w-want to q-q-quit in the m-m-middle of a round, I won’t be able to say s-s-s-stop,” replied Tay-Tay.
“Aw, yore jest plain backin’ out before this lady…Wal, who of you will put them on?”
Zoroaster looked from one to the other. They all appeared to have become absent-minded.
Cherry had an inspiration, and rose, radiant, from the window seat. “I will, Mister Zoroaster,” she said.
The Mormon cowboy’s face turned redder than his hair. He was dumbfounded, and plainly fought to keep from running. But Cherry’s smile chained him. If she saw in the boxing bout an opportunity to get acquainted with Zoroaster, he evidently saw one to outdo the other zealous suitors for her favor. Awkwardly he thrust a pair of gloves at her.
“All right, miss. You’re shore showin’ these hombres up. But I’ll be careful not to hurt you.”
Cherry was athletic and, as it happened, was the best boxer in her club. Pretending unfamiliarity with boxing gloves, she begged someone to help her put them on.
All save Wess rushed to her assistance. He stared, open-mouthed, and finally ejaculated: “Wal, for gawd’s sake!”