by B. M. Bower
Rare as were Dill’s efforts at joking, even this failed to bring more than a slight smile to the face of Charming Billy Boyle. He was trying to look upon it all as a mere incident, a business matter, pure and simple, but he could not. While he rode the wide open reaches, there rode with him the keen realization that it was the end. For him the old life on the range was dead—for had not Dill made him see it so? And did not every raw-red fencepost proclaim anew its death? For every hill and every coulée he buried something of his past and wept secretly beside the grave. For every whiff of breakfast that mingled with the smell of clean air in the morning came a pang of homesickness for what would soon be only a memory.
He was at heart a dreamer—was Charming Billy Boyle; perhaps an idealist—possibly a sentimentalist. He had never tried to find a name for the side of his life that struck deepest. He knew that the ripple of a meadow-lark swinging on a weed against the sunrise, with diamond-sparkles all on the grass around, gripped him and hurt him vaguely with its very sweetness. He knew that he loved to sit alone and look away to a far skyline and day-dream. He had always known that, for it had been as much a part of his life as sleeping.
So now it was as if a real, tangible shadow lay on the range. He could see it always lengthening before him, and always he must ride within its shade. After a while it would grow quite black, and the range and the cattle and the riding over hills and into coulées untamed would all be blotted out; dead and buried deep in the past, and with the careless, plodding feet of the plowman trampling unthinkingly upon the grave. It was a tragedy to Charming Billy Boyle; it was as if the range-land were a woman he loved well, and as if civilization were the despoiler, against whom he had no means of defense.
All this—and besides, Flora. He had not spoken to her for two months. He had not seen her even, save for a passing glimpse now and then at a distance. He had not named her to any man, or asked how she did—and yet there had not been an hour when he had not longed for her. She had told him she would marry the Pilgrim (she had not said that, but Billy in his rage had so understood her) and that he could not stop her. He wouldn’t try to stop her. But he would one day settle with the Pilgrim—settle to the full. And he wanted her—wanted her!
They had taken the third herd in to Brown, and were back on the range; Billy meaning to make a last sweep around the outer edges and gather in what was left—the stragglers that had been missed before. There would not be many, he knew from experience; probably not more than a hundred or two all told, even with Billy anxious to make the count as large as possible.
He was thinking about it uneasily and staring out across the wide coulée to the red tumble of clouds, that had strange purples and grays and dainty violet shades here and there. Down at the creek Dill was trying to get a trout or two more before it grew too dark for them to rise to the raw beef he was swishing through the riffle, and an impulse to have the worst over at once and be done drove Billy down to interrupt.
“Yuh won’t get any more there,” he said, by way of making speech.
“I just then had a bite, William,” reproved Dill, and swung the bait in a wide circle for another awkward cast. He was a persistent soul, was Dill, when once he got started in a given direction.
Billy, dodging the red morsel of meat, sat down on a grassy hummock. “Aw, come and set down, Dilly,” he urged wearily. “I want to tell yuh something.”
“If it’s about the cook being out of evaporated cream, William, I have already been informed twice. Ah-h! I almost had one then!”
“Aw, thunder! yuh think I’m worrying over canned cream? What I want to say may not be more important, but when yuh get fishing enough I’ll say it anyhow.” He watched Dill moodily, and then lifted his eyes to stare at the gorgeous sky—as though there would be no more sunsets when the range-life was gone, and he must needs fill well his memory for the barren years ahead.
When Dill flopped a six-inch trout against his ear, so steeped was he in bitterness that he merely said, “Aw, hell!” wearily and hunched farther along on the hummock.
“I really beg your pardon, William. From the vicious strike he made, I was convinced that he weighed at least half a pound, and exerted more muscular force than was quite necessary. When one hasn’t a reel it is impossible to play them properly, and it is the first quick pull that one must depend upon. I’m very sorry—”
“Sure. Don’t mention it, Dilly. Say, how many cattle have yuh got receipts for, to date—if it ain’t too much trouble?”
“No trouble at all, William. I have an excellent memory for figures. Four thousand, three hundred and fifteen. Ah-h! See how instinct inspires him to flop always toward the water! Did you ever—”
“Well, yes, I’ve saw a fish flop toward the water once or twicet before now. It sure is a great sight, Dilly!” He did not understand Dill these days, and wondered a good deal at his manifest indifference to business cares. It never occurred to him that Dill, knowing quite well how hard the trouble pressed upon his foreman, was only trying in his awkward way to lighten it by not seeming to think it worth worrying over.
“I hate to mention trifles at such a time, Dilly, but I thought maybe yuh ought to know that we won’t be able to scare up more than a couple uh hundred more cattle, best we can do. We’re bound to fall a lot short uh what I estimated—and I ain’t saying nothing about the fine job uh guessing I done! If we bring the total up to forty-five hundred, we’ll do well.”
Dill took plenty of time to wind the line around his willow pole. “To use your own expressive phraseology, William,” he said, when he had quite finished and had laid the pole down on the bank, “that will leave me in one hell-of-a-hole!”
“That’s what I thought,” Billy returned apathetically.
“Well, I must take these up to the cook.” Dill held up the four fish he had caught. “I’ll think the matter over, William, and I thank you for telling me. Of course you will go on and gather what there are.”
“Sure,” agreed Billy tonelessly, and followed Dill back to camp and went to bed.
At daybreak it was raining, and Billy after the manner of cowboys slept late; for there would be no riding until the weather cleared, and there being no herd to hold, there would be none working save the horse-wrangler, the night-hawk and cook. It was the cook who handed him a folded paper and a sealed envelope when he did finally appear for a cup of coffee. “Dill-pickle left ’em for yuh,” he said.
Billy read the note—just a few lines, with a frown of puzzlement.
Dear William: Business compels my absence for a time. I hope you will go on with your plans exactly as if I were with you. I am leaving a power-of-attorney which will enable you to turn over the stock and transact any other business that may demand immediate attention, in case I am detained.
Yours truly,
Alexander P. Dill
It was queer, but Billy did not waste much time in wondering. He rounded up the last of the Double-Cranks, drove them to Brown’s place and turned them over, with the home ranch, the horses, and camp outfit—“made a clean sweep uh the whole damn’, hoodooed works,” was the way he afterward put it. He had expected that Dill would be there to attend to the last legal forms, but there was no sign of him or from him. He had been seen to take the eastbound train at Tower, and the rest was left to guessing.
“He must uh known them two-hundred odd wouldn’t square the deal,” argued Billy loyally to himself. “So uh course he’ll come back and fix it up. But what I’m to do about payin’ off the boys gets me.” For two hours he worried, mentally in the dark. Then he hit upon an expedient that pleased him. He told Brown he would need to keep a few of the saddle-horses for a few days, and he sent the boys—those of them who did not transfer their valuable services to Brown upon the asking—over to the Bridger place to wait there until further orders.
Also, he rode reluctantly to the Double-Crank ranch, wondering, as he had often done in the past few weeks, what would become of Flora and Mama Joy. So far as he knew, the
y had not heard a word as to whether Bridger was alive or dead, and if they had friends or family to whom they might turn, he had never heard either mention them. If Dill had been there he would have left it to him; but Dill was gone, and there was no knowing when he would be back, and it devolved upon Billy to make some arrangements for the women, or at the least offer his services—and it was, under the circumstances, quite the most unpleasant duty thus far laid upon him.
He knew they had been left there at the ranch when round-up started, because Dill had said something about leaving a gentle horse or two for them to ride. Whether they were still there he did not know, although he could easily have asked Spikes, who had been given charge of the ranch while Dill was away on the range. He supposed the Pilgrim would be hanging around, as usual—not that it made much difference, though, except that he hated the thought of a disagreeable scene before the women.
He rode slowly up to the corral gate, turned his horse inside and fastened the chain just as he had done a thousand times before—only this would be the last time. His tired eyes went from one familiar object to another, listlessly aware of the regret he should feel but too utterly wearied of sorrow to feel much of anything. No one seemed to be about, and the whole place had an atmosphere of desolation that almost stirred him to a heartache—almost.
He went on to the house. There were some signs of life there, and some sound. In the very doorway he met old Bridger himself, but he could not even feel much surprise at seeing him there. He said hello, and when he saw the other’s hand stretching out to meet him, he clasped it indifferently. Behind her husband, Mama Joy flashed at him a look he did not try to interpret—of a truth it was rather complex, with a little of several emotions—and he lifted his hat a half-inch from his forehead in deference to her sex. Flora, he thanked God dully, he did not see at all.
He stayed perhaps ten minutes listening impersonally to Bridger, who talked loudly and enthusiastically of his plans. At the time they did not seem to concern him at all, though they involved taking Flora and Mama Joy away to Seattle to spend the winter, and in the spring moving them on to some place in the North—a place that sounded strange in the ears of Billy, and was straightway forgotten.
After that he went to his room and packed what few things he wanted; and they were not many, because in his present mood nothing mattered and nothing seemed to him of much value—not even life. He was more careful of Dill’s belongings, and packed everything he could find that was his. They were not scattered, for Dill was a methodical man and kept things in their places instinctively.
He paused over but one object—“The Essays of Elia,” which had somehow fallen behind a trunk. Standing there in the middle of Dill’s room, he turned the little blue book absently in his hand. There was dust upon the other side, and he wiped it off, manlike, with a sweep of his forearm. He looked at the trunk; he had just locked it with much straining of muscles and he hated to open it again. He looked at the book again. He seemed to see Dill slumped loosely down in the old rocker, a slippered foot dangling before him, reading solemnly from this same little blue book, the day he came to tell him about the ditch, and that he must lease all the land he could—the day when the shadow of passing first touched the range-land. At least, the day when he had first seen it there. He turned a few leaves thoughtfully, heard Flora’s voice asking a question in the kitchen, and thrust the book hastily into his pocket. “Dilly’ll want it, I expect,” he muttered. He glanced quickly, comprehensively around him to make sure that he had missed nothing, turned toward the open front door and went out hurriedly, because he thought he heard a woman’s step in the dining room and he did not want to see anybody, not even Flora—least of all, Flora!
“I’ll send a rig out from town for the stuff that’s ours,” he called back to Bridger, who came to the kitchen door and called after him that he better wait and have some supper. “You’ll be here till tomorrow or next day; it ain’t likely I’ll be back; yuh say Dill settled up with the—women, so—there’s nothing left to do.”
If he had known—but how could he know that Flora was watching him wistfully from the front porch, when he never once looked toward the house after he reached the stable?
CHAPTER XXII
Settled In Full
On a lonely part of the trail to town—queerly, it was when he was rounding the low, barren hill where he and Dill had first met—he took out his brand-book and went over the situation. It was Barney he rode, and Barney could be trusted to pace along decorously with the reins twisted twice around the saddle-horn, so Billy gave no thought to his horse but put his whole mind on the figures. He was not much used to these things; beyond keeping tally of the stock at branding and shipping time and putting down what details of his business he dared not trust to memory, a pencil was strange to his fingers. But the legal phrases in the paper left by Dill and signed by the cook and night-hawk as witnesses gave him a heavy sense of responsibility that everything should be settled exactly right. So now he went over the figures slowly, adding them from the top down and from the bottom up, to make sure he had the totals correct. He wished they were wrong; they might then be not quite so depressing.
“Lemme see, now. I turned over 4,523 head uh stock, all told (hell of a fine job uh guessing I done! Me saying there’d be over six thousand!) That made $94,983. And accordin’ to old Brown—and I guess he had it framed up correct—Dilly owes him $2,217 yet, instead uh coming out with enough to start some other business. It’s sure queer, the way figures always come out little when yuh want ’em big, and big when yuh want ’em little! Them debts now—they could stand a lot uh shavin’ down. Twelve thousand dollars and interest, to the bank—I can’t do a darn thing about them twelve thousand. If Dilly hadn’t gone and made a cast-iron agreement I coulda held old Brown up for a few thousand more, on account uh the increase in saddle-stock. I’d worked that bunch up till it sure was a dandy lot uh hosses—but what yuh going to do?”
He stared dispiritedly out across the brown prairie. “I’d oughta put Dilly next to that, only I never thought about it at the time, and I was so dead sure the range-stuff—And there’s the men, got to have their money right away quick, so’s they can hurry up and blow it in! If Dilly ain’t back tonight, or I don’t hear from him, I reckon I’ll have to draw m’ little old wad out uh the bank and pay the sons-uh-guns. I sure ain’t going to need it to buy dishes and rocking chairs and pictures—and I was going t’ git her a piano—oh, hell!”
He still rode slowly, after that, but he did not bother over the figures that stood for Dilly’s debts. He sat humped over the saddle-horn like an old man and stared at the trail and at the forefeet of Barney coming down pluck, pluck with leisurely regularity in the dust. Just so was Charming Billy Boyle trampling down the dreams that had been so sweet in the dreaming, and leveling ruthlessly the very foundations of the fair castle he had builded in the air for Dill and himself—and one other, with the fairest, highest, most secret chambers for that Other. And as he rode, the face of him was worn and the blue eyes of him sombre and dull; and his mouth, that had lost utterly the humorous, care-free quirk at the corners, was bitter, and straight, and hard.
He had started out with such naïve assurance to succeed, and—he had failed so utterly, so hopelessly, with not even a spectacular crash to make the failing picturesque. He had done the best that was in him, and even now that it was over he could not quite understand how everything, everything could go like that; how the Double-Crank and Flora—how the range, even, had slipped from him. And now Dill was gone, too, and he did not even know where, or if he would ever come back.
He would pay the men; he had, with a surprising thrift, saved nearly a thousand dollars in the bank at Tower. That, to be sure, was when he had Flora to save for; since then he had not had time or opportunity to spend it foolishly. It would take nearly every dollar; the way he had figured it, he would have just twenty-three dollars left for himself—and he would have the little bunch of horses he had in his
prosperity acquired for the pure love of owning a good horse. He would sell the horses, except Barney and one to pack his bed, and he would drift—drift just as do the range-cattle when a blizzard strikes them in the open. Billy felt like a stray. His range was gone—gone utterly. He would roll his bed and drift; and perhaps, somewhere, he could find a stretch of earth as God had left it, unscarred by fence and plow, undefiled by cabbages and sugar-beets (Brown’s new settlers were going strong on sugar-beets).
“Well, it’s all over but the shouting,” he summed up grimly when Hardup came in sight. “I’ll pay off the men and turn ’em loose—all but Jim. Somebody’s got to stay with the Bridger place till Dilly shows up, seeing that’s all he’s got left after the clean-up. The rest uh the debts can wait. Brown’s mortgage ain’t due yet” (Billy had his own way of looking at financial matters) “and the old Siwash ain’t got any kick comin’ if he never gets another cent out uh Dilly. The bank ain’t got the cards to call Dilly now, for his note ain’t due till near Christmas. So I reckon all I got to do after I pay the boys is take m’ little old twenty-three plunks, and my hosses—if I can’t sell ’em right off—and pull out for God-knows-where-and-I-don’t-care-a-damn!”
* * * *
Charming Billy Boyle had done all that he had planned to do, except that he had not yet pulled out for the place he had named picturesquely for himself. Much as at the beginning, he was leaning heavily upon the bar in the Hardup Saloon, and his hat was pushed back on his head; but he was not hilarious to the point of singing about “the young thing,” and he was not, to any appreciable extent, enjoying himself. He was merely adding what he considered the proper finishing touch to his calamities. He was spinning silver dollars, one by one, across the bar to the man with the near-white apron, and he was endeavoring to get the worth of them down his throat. To be sure, he was being assisted, now and then, by several acquaintances; but considering the fact that a man’s stomach has certain well-defined limitations, he was doing very well, indeed.