by Zane Grey
He had said nothing to her of his determination to go, for he had wavered in it from day to day, finding it hard to tear himself away from that bleak land that he had come to love, as he never had loved the country which claimed him by birth. He had been called on in this place to fight for a man’s station in it; he had trampled a refuge of safety for the defenseless among its thorns.
Vesta had said nothing further of her own plans, but they took it for granted that she would be leaving, now that the last of the cattle were sold. Ananias had told them that she was putting things away in the house, getting ready to close most of it up.
“I don’t blame you for leavin’,” said Taterleg, returning to the original thread of discussion, “it’ll be as lonesome as sin up there at the ranch with Vesta gone away. When she’s there she fills that place up like the music of a band.”
“She sure does, Taterleg.”
“Old Ananias’ll have a soft time of it, eatin’ chicken and rabbit all winter, nothing to do but milk them couple of cows, no boss to keep her eye on him in a thousand miles.”
“He’s one that’ll never want to leave.”
“Well, it’s a good place for a man,” Taterleg sighed, “if he ain’t got nothin’ else to look ahead to. I kind o’ hate to leave myself, but at my age, you know, Duke, a man’s got to begin to think of marryin’ and settlin’ down and fixin’ him up a home, as I’ve said before.”
“Many a time before, old feller, so many times I’ve got it down by heart.”
Taterleg looked at him again with that queer turning of the eyes, which he could accomplish with the facility of a fish, and rode on in silence a little way after chiding him in that manner.
“Well, it won’t do you no harm,” he said.
“No,” sighed the Duke, “not a bit of harm.”
Taterleg chuckled as he rode along, hummed a tune, laughed again in his dry, clicking way, deep down in his throat.
“I met Alta the other day when I was down in Glendora,” he said.
“Did you make up?”
“Make up! That girl looks to me like a tin cup by the side of a silver shavin’ mug now, Duke. Compare that girl to Nettie, and she wouldn’t take the leather medal. She says: ‘Good morning, Mr. Wilson,’ she says, and I turned my head quick, like I was lookin’ around for him, and never kep’ a-lettin’ on like I knew she meant me.”
“That was kind of rough treatment for a lady, Taterleg.”
“It would be for a lady, but for that girl it ain’t. It’s what’s comin’ to her, and what I’ll hand her ag’in, if she ever’s got the gall to speak to me.”
The Duke had no further comment on Taterleg’s rules of conduct. They went along in silence a little way, but that was a state that Taterleg could not long endure.
“Well, I’ll soon be in the oyster parlor up to the bellyband,” he said, full of the cheer of his prospect. “Nettie’s got the place picked out and nailed down—I sent her the money to pay the rent. I’ll be handin’ out stews with a slice of pickle on the side of the dish before another week goes by, Duke.”
“What are you goin’ to make oysters out of in Wyoming?” the Duke inquired wonderingly.
“Make ’em out of? Oysters, of course. What do you reckon?”
“There never was an oyster within a thousand miles of Wyoming, Taterleg. They wouldn’t keep to ship that far, much less till you’d used ’em up.”
“Cove oysters, Duke, cove oysters,” corrected Taterleg gently. “You couldn’t hire a cowman to eat any other kind, you couldn’t put one of them slick fresh fellers down him with a pair of tongs.”
“Well, I guess you know, old feller.”
Taterleg fell into a reverie, from which he started presently with a vehement exclamation of profanity.
“If she’s got bangs, I’ll make her cut ’em off!” he said.
“Who cut ’em off?” Lambert asked, viewing this outburst of feeling in surprise.
“Nettie! I don’t want no bangs around me to remind me of that snipe-legged Alta Wood. Bangs may be all right for fellers with music boxes in their watches, but they don’t go with me no more.”
“I didn’t see Jedlick around the ranch up there; what do you suppose become of him?”
“Well, from what the boys told me, if he’s still a-goin’ like he was when they seen him last, he must be up around Medicine Hat by now.”
“It was a sin the way you threw a scare into that man, Taterleg.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t lay him out on a board, dern him!”
“Yes, but you might as well let him have Alta.”
“He can come back and take her any time he wants her, Duke.”
The Duke seemed to reflect this simple exposition of Jedlick’s present case.
“Yes, I guess that’s so,” he said.
For a mile or more there was no sound but the even swing of their horses’ hoofs as they beat in the long, easy gallop which they could hold for a day without a break. Then Lambert:
“Plannin’ to leave tonight, are you Taterleg?”
“All set for leavin’, Duke.”
On again, the frost-powdered grass brittle under the horses’ feet.
“I think I’ll pull out tonight, too.”
“Why, I thought you was goin’ to stay till Vesta left, Duke?”
“Changed my mind.”
“Don’t you reckon Vesta she’ll be a little put out if you leave the ranch after she’d figgered on you to stay and pick up and gain and be stout and hearty to go in the sheep business next spring?”
“I hope not.”
“Yeh, but I bet she will. Do you reckon she’ll ever come back to the ranch any more when she goes away?”
“What?” said Lambert, starting as if he had been asleep.
“Vesta; do you reckon she’ll ever come back any more?”
“Well,” slowly, thoughtfully, “there’s no tellin’, Taterleg.”
“She’s got a stockin’ full of money now, and nobody dependin’ on her. She’s just as likely as not to marry some lawyer or some other shark that’s after her dough.”
“Yes, she may.”
“No, I don’t reckon much she’ll ever come back. She ain’t got nothing to look back to here but hard times and shootin’ scrapes—nobody to ’sociate with and wear low-neckid dresses like women with money want to.”
“Not much chance for it here—you’re right.”
“You’d ’a’ had it nice and quiet there with them sheep if you’d ’a’ been able to go pardners with Vesta like you planned, old Nick Hargus in the pen and the rest of them fellers cleaned out.”
“Yes, I guess there’ll be peace around the ranch for some time to come.”
“Well, you made the peace around there, Duke; if it hadn’t ’a’ been for you they’d ’a’ broke Vesta up and run her out by now.”
“You had as much to do with bringin’ them to time as I did, Taterleg.”
“Me? Look me over, Duke; feel of my hide. Do you see any knife scars in me, or feel any bullet holes anywhere? I never done nothing but ride along that fence, hopin’ for a somebody to start something. They never done it.”
“They knew you too well, old feller.”
“Knowed _me_!” said Taterleg. “Huh!”
On again in quiet, Glendora in sight when they topped a hill. Taterleg seemed to be thinking deeply; his face was sentimentally serious.
“Purty girl,” he said in a pleasant vein of musing.
“Which one?”
“Vesta. I like ’em with a little more of a figger, a little thicker in some places and wider in others, but she’s trim and she’s tasty, and her heart’s pure gold.”
“You’re right it is, Taterleg,” Lambert agreed, keeping
his eyes straight ahead as they rode on.
“You’re aimin’ to come back in the spring and go pardners with her on the sheep deal, ain’t you, Duke?”
“I don’t expect I’ll ever come back, Taterleg.”
“Well,” said Taterleg abstractedly, “I don’t know.”
They rode past the station, the bullet-scarred rain barrel behind which Tom Hargus took shelter in the great battle still standing in its place, and past the saloon, the hitching-rack empty before it, for this was the round-up season—nobody was in town.
“There’s that slab-sided, spider-legged Alta Wood standin’ out on the porch,” said Taterleg disgustedly, falling behind Lambert, reining around on the other side to put him between the lady and himself.
“You’d better stop and bid her good-bye,” Lambert suggested.
Taterleg pulled his hat over his eyes to shut out the sight of her, turned his head, ignoring her greeting. When they were safely past he cast a cautious look behind.
“I guess that settled _her_ hash!” he said. “Yes, and I’d like to wad a handful of chewin’ gum in them old bangs before I leave this man’s town!”
“You’ve broken her chance for a happy married life with Jedlick, Taterleg. Your heart’s as hard as a bone.”
“The worst luck I can wish her is that Jedlick’ll come back,” he said, turning to look at her as he spoke. Alta waved her hand.
“She’s a forgivin’ little soul, anyway,” Lambert said.
“Forgivin’! ‘Don’t hurt him, Mr. Jedlick,’ she says, ‘don’t hurt him!’ Huh! I had to build a fire under that old gun of mine to melt the chawin’ wax off of her. I wouldn’t give that girl a job washin’ dishes in the oyster parlor if she was to travel from here to Wyoming on her knees.”
So they arrived at the ranch from their last expedition together. Lambert gave Taterleg his horse to take to the barn, while he stopped in to deliver Pat Sullivan’s check to Vesta and straighten up the final business, and tell her good-bye.
CHAPTER XXVII
EMOLUMENTS AND REWARDS
Lambert took off his hat at the door and smoothed his hair with his palm, tightened up his necktie, looked himself over from chest to toes. He drew a deep breath then, like a man fortifying himself for a trial that called for the best that was in him to come forward. He knocked on the door.
He was wearing a brown duck coat with a sheepskin collar, the wool of which had been dyed a mottled saffron, and corduroy breeches as roomy of leg as Taterleg’s state pair. These were laced within the tall boots which he had bought in Chicago, and in which he took a singular pride on account of their novelty on the range.
It was not a very handsome outfit, but there was a rugged picturesqueness in it that the pistol belt and chafed scabbard enhanced, and he carried it like a man who was not ashamed of it, and graced it by the worth that it contained.
The Duke’s hair had grown long; shears had not touched his head since his fight with Kerr’s men. Jim Wilder’s old scar was blue on his thin cheek that day, for the wind had been cold to face. He was so solemn and severe as he stood waiting at the door that it would seem to be a triumph to make him smile.
Vesta came to the door herself, with such promptness that seemed to tell she must have been near it from the moment his foot fell on the porch.
“I’ve come to settle up with you on our last deal, Vesta,” he said.
She took him to the room in which they always transacted business, which was a library in fact as well as name. It had been Philbrook’s office in his day. Lambert once had expressed his admiration for the room, a long and narrow chamber with antlers on the walls above the bookcases, a broad fireplace flanked by leaded casement windows. It was furnished with deep leather chairs and a great, dark oak table, which looked as if it had stood in some English manor in the days of other kings. The windows looked out upon the river.
A pleasant place on a winter night, Lambert thought, with a log fire on the dogs, somebody sitting near enough that one could reach out and find her hand without turning his eyes from the book, the last warm touch to crown the comfort of his happy hour.
“You mean our latest deal, not our last, I hope, Duke,” she said, sitting at the table, with him at the head of it like a baron returned to his fireside after a foray in the field.
“I’m afraid it will be our last; there’s nothing left to sell but the fence.”
She glanced at him with relief in her eyes, a quick smile coming happily to her lips. He was busy with the account of calves and grown stock which he had drawn from his wallet, the check lying by his hand. His face taken as an index to it, there was not much lightness in his heart. Soon he had acquitted himself of his stewardship and given the check into her hand. Then he rose to leave her. For a moment he stood silent, as if turning his thoughts.
“I’m going away,” he said, looking out of the window down upon the tops of the naked cottonwoods along the river.
Just around the corner of the table she was standing, half facing him, looking at him with what seemed almost compassionate tenderness, so sympathetic were her eyes. She touched his hand where it lay with fingers on his hat-brim.
“Is it so hard for you to forget her, Duke?”
He looked at her frankly, no deceit in his eyes, but a mild surprise to hear her chide him so.
“If I could forget of her what no forgiving soul should remember, I’d feel more like a man,” he said.
“I thought—I thought—” she stammered, bending her head, her voice soft and low, “you were grieving for her, Duke. Forgive me.”
“Taterleg is leaving tonight,” he said, overlooking her soft appeal. “I thought I’d go at the same time.”
“It will be so lonesome here on the ranch without you, Duke—lonesome as it never was lonesome before.”
“Even if there was anything I could do around the ranch any longer, with the cattle all gone and nobody left to cut the fence, I wouldn’t be any use, dodging in for every blizzard that came along, as the doctor says I must.”
“I’ve come to depend on you as I never depended on anybody in my life.”
“And I couldn’t do that, you know, any more than I’d be content to lie around doing nothing.”
“You’ve been square with me on everything, from the biggest to the least. I never knew before what it was to lie down in security and get up in peace. You’ve fought and suffered for me here in a measure far in excess of anything that common loyalty demanded of you, and I’ve given you nothing in return. It will be like losing my right hand, Duke, to see you go.”
“Taterleg’s going to Wyoming to marry a girl he used to know back in Kansas. We can travel together part of the way.”
“If it hadn’t been for you they’d have robbed me of everything by now—killed me, maybe—for I couldn’t have fought them alone, and there was no other help.”
“I thought maybe in California an old half-invalid might pick up and get some blood put into him again.”
“You came out of the desert, as if God sent you, when my load was heavier than I could bear. It will be like losing my right eye, Duke, to see you go.”
“A man that’s a fool for only a little while, even, is bound to leave false impressions and misunderstandings of himself, no matter how wide his own eyes have been opened, or how long. So I’ve resigned my job on the ranch here with you, Vesta, and I’m going away.”
“There’s no misunderstanding, Duke—it’s all clear to me now. When I look in your eyes and hear you speak I know you better than you know yourself. It will be like losing the whole world to have you go!”
“A man couldn’t sit around and eat out of a woman’s hand in idleness and ever respect himself any more. My work’s finished—”
“All I’ve got is yours—you saved it to me, you brought it home
.”
“The world expects a man that hasn’t got anything to go out and make it before he turns around and looks—before he lets his tongue betray his heart and maybe be misunderstood by those he holds most dear.”
“It’s none of the world’s business—there isn’t any world but ours!”
“I thought with you gone away, Vesta, and the house dark nights, and me not hearing you around any more, it would be so lonesome and bleak here for an old half-invalid—”
“I wasn’t going, I couldn’t have been driven away! I’d have stayed as long as you stayed, till you found—till you knew! Oh, it will tear—tear—my heart—my heart out of—my breast—to see you go!”
* * * *
Taterleg was singing his old-time steamboat song when Lambert went down to the bunkhouse an hour before sunset. There was an aroma of coffee mingling with the strain:
Oh, I bet my money on a bob-tailed hoss,
An’ a hoo-dah, an’ a hoo-dah;
I bet my money on a bob-tailed hoss,
An’ a hoo-dah bet on the bay.
Lambert smiled, standing beside the door until Taterleg had finished. Taterleg came out with his few possessions in a bran sack, giving Lambert a questioning look up and down.
“It took you a long time to settle up,” he said.
“Yes. There was considerable to dispose of and settle,” Lambert replied.
“Well, we’ll have to be hittin’ the breeze for the depot in a little while. Are you ready?”
“No. Changed my mind; I’m going to stay.”
“Goin’ in pardners with Vesta?”
“Pardners.”
[1] Fice—dog
RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE, by Zane Grey
Orioginally published in 1912
CHAPTER I
LASSITER