The Collected Westerns of William MacLeod Raine: 21 Novels in One Volume

by Unknown

  "I'm goin' to the kitchen to jack up Johnnie so he won't lay down on his job," he told her cheerily. "You take yore time and get into these dry clothes. We'll not disturb you till you knock. After that we'll feed you some chuck. You want to brag on Johnnie's cookin'. He thinks he's it when it comes to monkeyin' 'round a stove."

  When her timid knock came her host brought in a steaming cup. "You drink this. It'll warm you good."

  "What is it?" she asked shyly.

  "Medicine," he smiled. "Doctor's orders."

  While she sipped the toddy Johnnie brought from the kitchen a tray upon which were tea, fried potatoes, ham, eggs, and buttered toast.

  The girl ate ravenously. It was an easy guess that she had not before tasted food that day.

  Clay kept up a flow of talk, mostly about Johnnie's culinary triumphs. Meanwhile he made up a bed on the couch.

  Once she looked up at him, her throat swollen with emotion. "You're good."

  "Sho! We been needin' a li'l' sister to brace up our manners for us. It's lucky for us I found you. Now I expect you're tired and sleepy. We fixed up yore bed in here because it's warmer. You'll be able to make out with it all right. The springs are good." Clay left her with a cheerful smile. "Turn out the light before you go to bed, Miss Colorado. Sleep tight. And don't you worry. You're back with old home folks again now, you know."

  They heard her moving about for a time. Presently came silence. Tired out from tramping the streets with out food and drowsy from the toddy she had taken, Kitty fell into deep sleep undisturbed by troubled dreams.

  The cattleman knew he had found her in the nick of time. She had told him that she had no money, no room in which to sleep, no prospect of work. Everything she had except the clothes on her back had been pawned to buy food and lodgings. But she was young and resilient. When she got back home to the country where she belonged, time would obliterate from her mind the experiences of which she had been the victim.

  It was past midday when Kitty woke. She heard a tuneless voice in the kitchen lifted up in a doleful song:

  "There's hard times on old Bitter Creek That never can be beat. It was root hog or die Under every wagon sheet. We cleared up all the Indians, Drank all the alkali, And it's whack the cattle on, boys-- Root hog or die."

  Kitty found her clothes dry. After she dressed she opened the door that led to the kitchen. Johnnie was near the end of another stanza of his sad song:

  "Oh, I'm goin' home Bull-whackin' for to spurn; I ain't got a nickel, And I don't give a dern. 'T is when I meet a pretty girl, You bet I will or try, I'll make her my little wife-- Root hog--"

  He broke off embarrassed. "Did I wake you-all, ma'am, with my fool singin'? I'm right sorry if I did."

  "You didn't." Kitty, clinging shyly to the side of the doorway, tried to gain confidence from his unease. "I was already awake. Is it a range song you were singing?"

  "Yes'm. Cattle range, not kitchen range."

  A wan little smile greeted his joke. The effect on Johnnie himself was more pronounced. It gave him confidence in his ability to meet the situation. He had not known before that he was a wit and the discovery of it tickled his self-esteem.

  "'Course we didn't really clean up no Indians nor drink all the alkali. Tha's jes' in the song, as you might say." He began to bustle about in preparation for her breakfast.

  "Please don't trouble. I'll eat what you've got cooked," she begged.

  "It's no trouble, ma'am. If the's a thing on earth I enjoy doin' it's sure cookin'. Do you like yore aigs sunny side up or turned?"

  "Either way. Whichever you like, Mr. Green."

  "You're eatin' them," Johnnie reminded her with a grin.

  "On one side, then, please. Mr. Lindsay says you're a fine cook."

  "Sho! I'm no great shakes. Clay he jes' brags on me."

  "Lemme eat here in the kitchen. Then you won't have to set the table in the other room," she said.

  The puncher's instinct was to make a spread on the dining-table for her, but it came to him with a flash of insight that it would be wise to let her eat in the kitchen. She would feel more as though she belonged and was not a guest of an hour.

  While she ate he waited on her solicitously. Inside, he was a river of tears for her, but with it went a good deal of awe. Even now, wan-eyed and hollow-cheeked, she was attractive. In Johnnie's lonesome life he had never before felt so close to a girl as he did to this one. Moreover, for the first time he felt master of the situation. It was his business to put their guest at her ease. That was what Clay had told him to do before he left.

  "You're the doctor, ma'am. You'll eat where you say."

  "I--I don't like to be so much bother to you," she said again. "Maybe I can go away this afternoon."

  "No, ma'am, we won't have that a-tall," broke in the range-rider in alarm. "We're plumb tickled to have you here. Clay he feels thataway too."

  "I could keep house for you while I stay," she suggested timidly. "I know how to cook--and the place does need cleaning."

  "Sure it does. Say, wha's the matter with you bein' Clay's sister, jes' got in last night on the train? Tha's the story we'll put up to the landlord if you'll gimme the word."

  "I never had a brother, but if I'd had one I'd 'a' wanted him to be like Mr. Lindsay," she told his friend.

  "Say, ain't he a go-getter?" cried Johnnie eagerly. "Clay's sure one straight-up son-of-a-gun. You'd ought to 'a' seen how he busted New York open to find you."

  "Did he?"

  Johnnie told the story of the search with special emphasis on the night Clay broke into three houses in answer to her advertisement.

  "I never wrote it. I never thought of that. It must have been--"

  "It was that scalawag Durand, y'betcha. I ain't still wearin' my pinfeathers none. Tha's who it was. I'm not liable to forget him. He knocked me hell-west and silly whilst I wasn't lookin'. He was sore because Clay had fixed his clock proper."

  "So you've fought on account of me too. I'm sorry." There was a little break in her voice. "I s'pose you hate me for--for bein' the way I am. I know I hate myself." She choked on the food she was eating.

  Johnnie, much distressed, put down the coffee-pot and fluttered near. "Don't you take on, ma'am. I wisht I could tell you how pleased we-all are to he'p you. I hope you'll stay with us right along. I sure do. You'd be right welcome," he concluded bashfully.

  "I've got no place to go, except back home--and I've got no folks there but a second cousin. She doesn't want me. I don't know what to do. If I had a woman friend--some one to tell me what was best--"

  Johnnie slapped his hand on his knee, struck by a sudden inspiration. "Say! Y'betcha, by jollies, I've got 'er--the very one! You're damn--you're sure whistlin'. We got a lady friend, Clay and me, the finest little pilgrim in New York. She's sure there when the gong strikes. You'd love her. I'll fix it for you--right away. I got to go to her house this afternoon an' do some chores. I'll bet she comes right over to see you."

  Kitty was doubtful. She did not want to take any strange young women into her confidence until she had seen them. More than one good Pharisee had burned her face with a look of scornful contempt in the past weeks.

  "Maybe we better wait and speak to Mr. Lindsay about it," she said.

  "No, ma'am, you don't know Miss Beatrice. She's the best friend." He passed her the eggs and a confidence at the same time. "Why, I shouldn't wonder but what she and Clay might get married one o' these days. He thinks a lot of her."

  "Oh." Kitty knew just a little more of human nature than the puncher. "Then I wouldn't tell her about me if I was you. She wouldn't like my bein' here."

  "Sho! You don't know Miss Beatrice. She grades 'way up. I'll bet she likes you fine."

  When Johnnie left to go to work that afternoon he took with him a resolution to lay the whole case before Beatrice Whitford. She would fix things all right. No need for anybody to worry after she took a hand and began to run things. If there was one person on earth Johnnie could bank on without
fail it was his little boss.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  BEATRICE GIVES AN OPTION

  It was not until Johnnie had laid the case before Miss Whitford and restated it under the impression that she could not have understood that his confidence ebbed. Even then he felt that he must have bungled it in the telling and began to marshal his facts a third time. He had expected an eager interest, a quick enthusiasm. Instead, he found in his young mistress a spirit beyond his understanding. Her manner had a touch of cool disdain, almost of contempt, while she listened to his tale. This was not at all in the picture he had planned.

  She asked no questions and made no comments. What he had to tell met with chill silence. Johnnie's guileless narrative had made clear to her that Clay had brought Kitty home about midnight, had mixed a drink for her, and had given her his own clothes to replace her wet ones. Somehow the cattleman's robe, pajamas, and bedroom slippers obtruded unduly from his friend's story. Even the Runt felt this. He began to perceive himself a helpless medium of wrong impressions. When he tried to explain he made matters worse.

  "I suppose you know that when the manager of your apartment house finds out she's there he'll send her packing." So Beatrice summed up when she spoke at last.

  "No, ma'am, I reckon not. You see we done told him she is Clay's sister jes' got in from the West," the puncher explained.

  "Oh, I see." The girl's lip curled and her clean-cut chin lifted a trifle. "You don't seem to have overlooked anything. No, I don't think I care to have anything to do with your arrangements."

  "She's an awful pretty cute little thing," the puncher added, hoping to modify her judgment.

  "Indeed!"

  Beatrice turned and walked swiftly into the house. A pulse of anger was beating in her soft throat. She felt a sense of outrage. To Clay Lindsay she had given herself generously in spirit. She had risked something in introducing him to her friends. They might have laughed at him for his slight social lapses. They might have rejected him for his lack of background. They had done neither. He was so genuinely a man that he had won his way instantly. In this City of Bluff, as O. Henry dubs New York, his simplicity had rung true as steel. Still, she had taken a chance and felt she deserved some recognition of it on his part. This he had never given. He had based their friendship on equality simply. She liked it in him, though her vanity had resented it a little. But this was different. She was still young enough, still so little a woman of the world, that she set a rigid standard which she expected her friends to meet. She had believed in Clay, and now he was failing her.

  Pacing up and down her room, little fists clenched, her soul in passionate turmoil, Beatrice went over it all again as she had done through a sleepless night. She had given him so much, and he had seemed to give her even more. Hours filled with a keen-edged delight jumped to her memory, hours that had carried her away from the falseness of social fribble to clean, wind-swept, open spaces of the mind. And after this--after he had tacitly recognized her claim on him--he had insulted her before her friends by deserting his guests to go off with this hussy he had been spending weeks to search for.

  Now his little henchman had the imbecility to ask her help while this girl was living at Clay Lindsay's apartment, passing herself off as his sister, and proposing to stay there ostensibly as the housekeeper. She felt degraded, humiliated, she told herself. Not for a moment did she admit, perhaps she did not know, that an insane jealousy was flooding her being, that her indignation was based on personal as well as moral grounds.

  Something primitive stirred in her--a flare of feminine ferocity. She felt hot to the touch, an active volcano ready for eruption. If only she could get a chance to strike back in a way that would hurt, to wound him as deeply as he had her!

  Pat to her desire came the opportunity. Clay's card was brought in to her by Jenkins.

  "Tell Mr. Lindsay I'll see him in a few minutes," she told the man.

  The few minutes stretched to a long quarter of an hour before she descended. To the outward eye at least Miss Whitford looked a woman of the world, sheathed in a plate armor of conventionality. As soon as his eyes fell on her Clay knew that this pale, slim girl in the close-fitting gown was a stranger to him. Her eyes, star-bright and burning like live coals, warned him that the friend whose youth had run out so eagerly to meet his was hidden deep in her to-day.

  "I reckon I owe you and Mr. Whitford an apology," he said. "No need to tell you how I happened to leave last night. I expect you know."

  "I know why you left--yes."

  "I'd like to explain it to you so you'll understand."

  "Why take the trouble? I think I understand." She spoke in an even, schooled voice that set him at a distance.

  "Still, I want you to know how I feel."

  "Is that important? I see what you do. That is enough. Your friend Mr. Green has carefully brought me the details I didn't know."

  Clay flushed. Her clear voice carried an edge of scorn. "You mustn't judge by appearances. I know you wouldn't be unfair. I had to take her home and look after her."

  "I don't quite see why--unless, of course, you wanted to," the girl answered, tapping the arm of her chair with impatient finger-tips, eyes on the clock. "But of course it isn't necessary I should see."

  Her cavalier treatment of him did not affect the gentle imperturbability of the Westerner.

  "Because I'm a white man, because she's a little girl who came from my country and can't hold her own here, because she was sick and chilled and starving. Do you see now?"

  "No, but it doesn't matter. I'm not the keeper of your conscience, Mr. Lindsay," she countered, with hard lightness.

  "You're judging me just the same."

  Her eyes attacked him. "Am I?"

  "Yes." The level gaze of the man met hers calmly. "What have I done that you don't like?"

  She lost some of her debonair insolence that expressed itself in indifference.

  "I'd ask that if I were you," she cried scornfully. "Can you tell me that this--friend of yours--is a good girl?"

  "I think so. She's been up against it. Whatever she may have done she's been forced to do."

  "Excuses," she murmured.

  "If you'd ever known what it was to be starving--"

  Her smoldering anger broke into a flame. "Good of you to compare me with her! That's the last straw!"

  "I'm not comparing you. I'm merely saying that you can't judge her. How could you, when your life has been so different?"

  "Thank Heaven for that."

  "If you'd let me bring her here to see you--"

  "No, thanks."

  "You're unjust."

  "You think so?"

  "And unkind. That's not like the little friend I've come to--like so much."

  "You're kind enough for two, Mr. Lindsay. She really doesn't need another friend so long as she has you," she retorted with a flash of contemptuous eyes. "In New York we're not used to being so kind to people of her sort."

  Clay lifted a hand. "Stop right there, Miss Beatrice. You don't want to say anything you'll be sorry for."

  "I'll say this," she cut back. "The men I know wouldn't invite a woman to their rooms at midnight and pass her off as their sister--and then expect people to know her. They would be kinder to themselves--and to their own reputations."

  She was striking out savagely, relentlessly, in spite of the better judgment that whispered restraint. She wanted desperately to hurt him, as he had hurt her, even though she had to behave badly to do it.

  "Will you tell me what else there was to do? Where could I have taken her at that time of night? Are reputable hotels open at midnight to lone women, wet and ragged, who come without baggage either alone or escorted by a man?"

  "I'm not telling you what you ought to have done, Mr. Lindsay," she answered with a touch of hauteur. "But since you ask me--why couldn't you have given her money and let her find a place for herself?"

  "Because that wouldn't have saved her."

  "Oh, wouldn't it?" she
retorted dryly.

  He walked over to the fireplace and put an elbow on the corner of the mantel. The blood leaped in the veins of the girl as she looked at him, a man strong as tested steel, quiet and forceful, carrying his splendid body with the sinuous grace that comes only from perfectly synchronized muscles. At that moment she hated him because she could not put him in the wrong.

  "Lemme tell you a story, Miss Beatrice," he said presently. "Mebbe it'll show you what I mean. I was runnin' cattle in the Galiuros five years ago and I got caught in a storm 'way up in the hills. When it rains in my part of Arizona, which ain't often, it sure does come down in sheets. The clay below the rubble on the slopes got slick as ice. My hawss, a young one, slipped and fell on me, clawed back to its feet, and bolted. Well, there I was with my laig busted, forty miles from even a whistlin' post in the desert, gettin' wetter and colder every blessed minute. Heaps of times in my life I've felt more comfortable than I did right then. I was hogtied to that shale ledge with my broken ankle, as you might say. And the weather and my game laig and things generally kept gettin' no better right along hour after hour.