She headed Blue down the slope and as straight for the Big Hill as she could go. She would go and make Ward tell her what he had been doing; not that she had any doubt herself that it was perfectly all right, whatever it was, but she felt that she had a right to demand facts, so that she could feel more sure of her ground. And there would be more questions; Billy Louise was bright enough to see thus far into the future. Unless the rustlers were caught, there would be questions asked about this silent stranger who kept his trail apart from his fellows and whose prosperity was out of proportion with his opportunities. Why, even Billy Louise herself had been curious over that prosperity, without being in the slightest degree suspicious. Other people had not her faith in him; and they were not blind. They would wonder --
There was no trail that way, and the ridges were steep and the canyons circuitous. But Blue was a good horse, with plenty of stamina and much experience. He carried his lady safely, and he carried her willingly. Even her impatience could find no fault with the manner in which he climbed steep pitches, slid down slopes as steep, jumped narrow washouts, and picked his way through thickets of quaking aspens or over wide stretches of shale rock and lava beds. He was wet to his ears when finally he shuffled into Ward's trail up the creek bottom; but he breathed evenly, and he carried his head high and perked his ears knowingly forward when the corral and haystack came into view around a sharp bend. He splashed both front feet into the creek just before the cabin and stopped to drink while Billy Louise stared at the silent place.
By the tracks along the creek trail she knew that Ward had come home, and she urged Blue across the ford and up the bank to the cabin. She slid off and went in boldly to hide her inward embarrassment -- and she found nothing but emptiness there.
Billy Louise did not take long to investigate. The coffee-pot was still warm on the stove when she laid her palm against it, and she immediately poured herself a cup of coffee. A plate and a cup on the table indicated that Ward had eaten a hurried meal and had not taken time to clear away the litter. Billy Louise ate what was left, and mechanically she washed the dishes and made everything neat before she went down to look for Rattler. She had thought that Ward was out somewhere about the place and would return very soon, probably. Blue she had left standing in plain sight before the cabin, so that Ward would see him and know she was there -- a fact which she regretted.
While she was washing dishes and sweeping, she had been trying to think of some excuse for her presence there. It was going to be awkward, her coming there on his heels, one might say. She remembered for the first time her statement that she had to help mommie and so could not take the time to ride even a mile with him! Being a young person whose chief amusement had always been her "pretends," she began unconsciously building an imaginary conversation between them, like this:
Ward would come out of the stable -- or somewhere -- see Blue and hurry up to the house. Billy Louise would be standing with her back to him, putting the dishes into neat little piles in the cupboard perhaps; anyway, doing something like that. Ward would stop in the doorway and say -- well, there were several possible greetings, but Billy Louise chose his "'Lo, Bill!" as being the most probable. And then he would come up and take her in his arms. (Oh, she was human, and she was a woman, and she was twenty. And Ward had established a precedent, remember, and Billy Louise had not objected to any great extent.) And -- and -- (I 'm going to tell on Billy Louise. She wiped a knife for at least five minutes without knowing what she was doing, and she stared at a sunny spot on the floor where a sunbeam came in through a crack in the wall, and she smiled absently, and her cheeks were quite a bit redder than usual.)
"I didn't expect to see you here, Wilhemina-mine."
"Oh, I was just riding around, and I came over to see how you dig dollars out of wolf-dens. You said you 'd show me."
The trouble with the conversation began right there. Ward would be sure to remind her of the condition he had made, to tell her how he dug dollars out of wolf-dens when she was through wanting to be just friends. That put it up to Billy Louise to say she would be engaged and marry him; and Billy Louise was not ready to say that or be that. Her woman-soul hung back from that decisive point. She would not shut the door upon her freedom and all those evansecent bubbles which we try to carry with us into maturity. Billy Louise did not put it that way, of course. She only reiterated again and again: "I like you, but I don't want to marry anybody. I don't want to be engaged."
Well, that would probable settle Ward's telling her about digging dollars out of wolf-dens or anything else. He had a wide streak of stubbornness; no one could see the set of his chin when he was in a certain mood and doubt that. Billy Louise began to wish she had not come. She began to fell quite certain that Ward would be surprised and disgusted when he found her there, and would look at her with that faint curl of the lip and that fainter lift of the nostril above it, which made her go hot all over with the scorn in them. She had seen him look that way once or twice, and in spite of herself she began to picture his face with that expression.
Billy Louise was on the point of riding away a good deal more hastily than she had come, in the hope that Ward would not discover her there. Then her own stubbornness came uppermost, and she told herself that she had a perfect right to ride wherever she pleased, and that if Ward didn't like it, he could do the other thing.
She went to the door and stood looking out for a minute, wondering where he was. She turned back and stared around the room, which somehow held the imprint of his personality in spite of its rough simplicity.
There was a little window behind the bunk, and beside that a shelf filled with books and smoking material and matches. She knew by the very arrangement of that shelf and window that Ward liked to lie there on the bunk and read while the light lasted. Well, he was not there now, at any rate. She went over and looked at the titles of the books, though she had examined them with interest only yesterday. There was Burns; and she knew why it was he could repeat Tam O'Shanter so readily with never a moment's hesitation. There were two volumes of Scott -- Lady of the Lake and other poems, much thumbed and with a cigarette burn on the front cover, and Kenilworth. There were several books of Kipling's, mostly verses, and beside it Morgan's Ancient Society, with the corners broken, and a fine-print volume of Shakespeare's plays. Then there was a pile of magazines and beyond them a stack of books whose subjects varied from Balzac to strange, scientific-sounding names. At the other end of the shelf, within easy reach from one lying upon the bunk, was a cigar-box full of smoking tobacco, a half-dozen books of cigarette papers, and several blocks of the small, evil-smelling matches which men of the outdoors carry for their compact form and slow, steady blaze.
At the head of the bed hung a flour-sack half full of some hard, lumpy stuff which Billy Louise had not noticed before. She felt the bag tentatively, could not guess its contents, and finally took it down and untied it. Within were irregular scraps and strips of stuff hard as bone -- a puzzle still to one unfamiliar with the frontier. Billy Louise pulled out a little piece, nibbled a corner, and pronounced, "M-mm! Jerky! I 'm going to swipe some of that," which she proceeded to do, to the extent of filling her pocket. For to those who have learned to like it, jerked venison is quite as desirable as milk chocolate or any other nibbly tid-bit.
The opposite wall had sacks of flour stacked against it, and boxes of staple canned goods, such as corn and tomatoes and milk and peaches. A box of canned peaches stood at the head of the bed, and upon that a case of tomatoes. Ward used them for a table and set the lantern there when he wanted to read in bed. "He 's got a pretty good supply of grub," was the verdict of Billy Louise, sizing up the assortment while she nibbled at the piece of jerky. "I wonder where he is, anyway?" And a moment later: "He ought n't to hang his best clothes up like that; they'll be all wrinkled when he wants to put them on."
She went over and disposed of the best clothes to her liking, and shook out the dust. She had to own to herself that for a bachelor Ward was
very orderly, though he did let his trousers hang down over the flour-sacks in a way to whiten their hems. She hung them in a different place.
But where was Ward? Billy Louise bethought her that Blue deserved something to eat after that hard ride, and led him down to the stable. There was no sign of Rattler, and Billy Louise wondered anew at Ward's absence. It did not seem consistent with his haste to leave the Wolverine and his frequent assertion that he must get to work. From the stable door she could look over practically the whole creek-bottom within his fence, and she could see the broad sweep of the hills on either side. On her way back to the cabin, she tried to track Rattler, but there were several stock-trails leading in different directions, and the soil was too dry to leave any distinguishing marks.
She waited for an hour or two, sitting in the doorway, nibbling jerky and trying to read a magazine. Then she found a stub of pencil, tore out an advertising page which had a wide margin, wrote: "I don't think you 're a bit nice. Why don't you stay home when a fellow comes to see you?" This she folded neatly and put in the cigar-box of tobacco over Ward's pillow. It never once occurred to her that Ward, when he found the note, would believe she had placed it there the day before, and would never guess by its text that she had made a second trip to his claim.
She resaddled Blue and rode away more depressed than ever, because her depression was now mixed with a disappointment keener than she would have cared to acknowledge, even to herself.
CHAPTER XIII
The Corral In The Canyon
WHERE the creek trail crossed the Big Hill and then swung to the left that it might follow the easy slopes of Cedar Creek, Blue turned off to the right of his own accord, as if he took it for granted that his lady would return the way she had come. His lady had not thought anything about it, but after a brief hesitation she decided that Blue should have his way; after all, it would simplify her explanations of the long ride if she came home by way of the canyon. She could say that she had ridden farther out into the hills than usual, which was true enough.
Billy Louise did not own such a breeder of blues as a lazy liver, her nerves were in fine working order, and her digestion was perfect; and it is a well-known fact that a trouble must be born of reality rather than imagination, if it would ride far behind the cantle. Billy Louise was late, and already the shadows lay like long draperies upon the hills she faced: long, purple cloaks ruffed with golden yellow and patterned with indigo patches, which were the pines, and splotches of dark green, which were the thickets of alder and quaking aspens. She could n't feel depressed for very long, and before she had climbed over the first rugged ridge that reached out like a crooked finger into the narrow valley, she was humming under her breath and riding with the reins dropped loose upon Blue's neck, so that he went where the way pleased him best. Before she was down that ridge and beginning to climb the next, she was singing softly a song her mother had taught her long ago, when she was seven or so:
"The years creep slowly by, Lorena, The snow is on the grass again; The sun 's low down the sky, Lorena -- " Blue gathered himself together and jumped a washout three feet across and goodness knows how deep and jarred that melancholy melody quite out of Billy Louise's mind. When she had settled herself again to the slow climb, she broke out with what she called Ward's Come-all-ye, and with a twinkle of eye and both dimples showing deep, went on with a very slight interruption in her singing.
"'Oh, a ten-dollar hoss and a forty-dollar saddle' -- that 's you Blue. You don't amount to nothing nohow, doing jackrabbit stunts like that when I 'm not looking! 'Coma ti yi youpy, youpy-a.'" She watched a cloud shadow sweep like a great bird over a sunny slope and murmured while she watched: "Cloud-boats sailing sunny seas -- is that original, or have I cribbed it from some honest-to-goodness poet? Blue, if fate had n't made a cowpuncher of me, I 'd be chewing up lead-pencils trying to find a rhyme for alfalfa, maybe. And where would you be, you old skate? If the Louise of me had been developed at the expense of the Billy of me, and I 'd taken to making battenburg doilies with butterflies in the corners, and embroidering corset covers till I put my eyes out, and writing poetry on Sundays when mommie would n't let me sew. I wonder if Ward -- maybe he'd have liked me better if I'd lived up to the Louise and cut out the Billy part. I 'd be home, right now, asking mommie whether I should use soda or baking-powder to make my muffins with -- Oh, gracious!" She leaned over and caught a handful of Blue's slatey mane and tousled it, till he laid his ears flat on his head and flipped his nose around to show her that his teeth were bared to the gums. Billy Louise laughed and gave another yank.
"You wish I were an embroidering young lady, do you? Aw, where would you be, if you did n't have me to devil the life out of you? Well, why don't you take a chunk out of me, then? Don't be an old bluffer, Blue. If you want to eat me, why, go to it; only you don't. You're just a-bluffing. You like to be tousled and you know it; else why do you tag me all over the place when I don't want you? Huh? That 's to pay you back for jumping that washout when I wasn't looking." A twitch of the mane here brought Blue's head around again with all his teeth showing. "And this is for jarring that lovely, weepy song out of me. You know you hate it; you always do lay back your ears when I sing that, but -- oh, all right -- when I sing, then. But you 've got to stand for it. I 've been an indigo bag all day long, and I 'm going to sing if I want to. Fate made me a lady cowpunch instead of a poet-ess, and you can't stop me from singing when I feel it in my system."
She began again with the "Ten-dollar hoss and forty-dollar saddle," and sang as much of the old trail song as she had ever heard and could remember, substituting milder expletives now and then and laughing at herself for doing it, because a self-confessed "lady cowpunch" is after all hedged about by certain limitations in the matter of both speech and conduct. She did not sing it all, but she sang enough to last over a mile of rough going, and she did not have to repeat many verses to do it.
Blue, because she still left the reins loose, chose his own trail, which was easier than that which they had taken in the forenoon, but more roundabout. Billy Louise, observing how he avoided rocky patches and went considerably out of his way to keep his feet on soft soil, stopped in the middle of a "Coma ti yi" to ask him solicitously if he were getting tender-footed; and promised him a few days off, in the pasture. Thereafter she encouraged the roundabout progress, even though she knew it would keep them in the hills until dusk; for she was foolishly careful of Blue, however much she might tease him and call him names.
Quite suddenly, just at sundown, her cheerful journeying was interrupted in a most unexpected manner. She was dreaming along a flat-bottomed canyon, looking for an easy way across, when Blue threw up his head, listened with his ears thrust forward, and sniffed with widened nostrils. From his manner, almost anything might lie ahead of them. And because certain of the possibilities would call for quick action if any of them became a certainty, Billy Louise twisted her gun-belt around so that her six-shooter swung within easy reach of her hand. With her fingers she made sure that the gun was loose in its holster and kicked Blue mildly as a hint to go on and see what it was all about.
Blue went forward, stepping easily on the soft side hill. In rough country, whatever you want to see is nearly always around a sharp bend; you read it so in the stories and books of travels, and when you ride out in the hills, you find it so in reality. Billy Louise rode for three or four minutes before she received any inkling of what lay ahead, though Blue's behavior during that interval had served to reassure her somewhat. He was interested still in what lay just out of sight beyond a shoulder of the hill, but he did not appear to be in the least alarmed. Therefore, Billy Louise knew it could n't be a bear, at any rate.
They came to the point of the hill's shoulder, and Billy Louise tightened the reins instinctively while she stared at what lay revealed beneath. The head of the gulch was blocked with a corral -- small, high, hidden from view on all sides save where she stood, by the jagged walls of rock and heavy aspen thickets beyond.
The corral was but the setting for what Billy Louise stared at so unbelievingly. A horseman had ridden out of the corral just as she came into sight, had turned a sharp corner, and had disappeared by riding up the same slope she occupied, but farther along, and in a shallow depression which hid him completely after that one brief glimpse.
Of course, the gulch was dusky with deep shadows, and she had had only a glimpse. But the horse was a dark bay, and the rider was slim and tall and wore a gray hat. The heart of Billy Louise paused a moment from its steady beating and then sank heavily under a great weight. She was range-born and range-bred. She had sat wide-eyed on her daddy's knees and heard him tell of losses in cattle and horses and of corrals found hidden away in strange places and of unknown riders who disappeared mysteriously into the hills. She had heard of these things; they were a part of the stage setting for wild dramas of the West.
B M Bower - Wolverine Page 15