by B. M. Bower
He was getting circles under his eyes, two new creases had appeared on each side of his whimsical lips, and a permanent line was forming between his eyebrows; but he had not opened the jug, and it had been in his possession thirty-six hours. Thirty-six hours is not long, to be sure, when life runs smoothly with slight incidents to emphasize the figures on the dial, but it may seem long to the poor devil on the rack.
Just now Ford was trying to forget that a gallon of whisky stood in the right-hand corner of his closet, behind a pair of half-worn riding-boots that pinched his instep so that he seldom wore them, and that he had only to take the jug out from behind the boots, pull the cork, and lift the jug to his lips—
He caught himself leaning forward and staring at the closet door until his eyes ached with the strain. He drew back and passed his hand over his forehead; it ached, and he wanted to think about what he ought to do with Dick. He did not like to discharge him without first consulting Mrs. Kate, for he knew that Ches Mason was in the habit of talking things over with her, and since Mason was gone, she had assumed an air of latent authority. But Mrs. Kate had looked at him with such reproachful eyes, that day at dinner, and her voice had sounded so squeezed and unnatural, that he had felt too far removed from her for any discussion whatever to take place between them.
Besides, he knew he could prove absolutely nothing against Dick, if Dick were disposed toward flat denial. He might suspect—but the facts showed Ford the aggressor, and Mose also. What if Mrs. Kate declined to believe that Dick had put that jug of whisky in the kitchen, and had afterward given it to Ford? Ford had no means of knowing just what tale Dick had told her, but he did know that Mrs. Kate eyed him doubtfully, and that her conversation was forced and her manner constrained.
And Josephine was worse. Josephine had not spoken to him all that day. At breakfast she had not been present, and at dinner she had kept her eyes upon her plate and had nothing to say to any one.
He wished Mason was home, so that he could leave. It wouldn’t matter then, he tried to believe, what he did. He even dwelt upon the desire of Mason’s return to the extent of calculating, with his eyes upon the fancy calendar on the wall opposite, the exact time of his absence. Ten days—there was no hope of release for another month, at least, and Ford sighed unconsciously when he thought of it; for although a month is not long, there was Josephine refusing to look at him, and there was Dick—and there was the jug in the closet.
As to Josephine, there was no help for it; he could not avoid her without making the avoidance plain to all observers, and Ford was proud. As to Dick, he would not send him off without some proof that he had broken an unwritten law of the Double Cross and brought whisky to the ranch; and of that he had no proof. As to his suspicions—well, he considered that Dick had almost paid the penalty for having roused them, and the matter would have to rest where it was; for Ford was just. As to the jug, he could empty it upon the ground and be done with that particular form of torture. But he felt sure that Josephine was secretly “keeping cases” on the jug; and Ford was stubborn.
That night Ford did not respond to the tinkle of the tea bell. His head ached abominably, and he did not want to see Josephine’s averted face opposite him at the table. He lay still upon the bed where he had finally thrown himself, and let the bell tinkle until it was tired.
They sent Buddy in to see why he did not come. Buddy looked at him with the round, curious eyes of precocious childhood and went back and reported that Ford wasn’t asleep, but was just lying there mad. Ford heard the shrill little voice innocently maligning him, and swore to himself; but, he did not move for all that. He lay thinking and fighting discouragement and thirst, while little table sounds came through the partition and made a clicking accompaniment to his thoughts.
If he were free, he was wondering between spells of temptation, would it do any good? Would Josephine care? There was no answer to that, or if there was he did not know what it was.
After awhile the two women began talking; he judged that Buddy had left them, because it was sheer madness to speak so freely before him. At first he paid no attention to what they were saying, beyond a grudging joy in the sound of Josephine’s voice. It had come to that, with Ford! But when he heard his name spoken, and by her, he lifted shamelessly to an elbow and listened, glad that the walls were so thin, and that those who dwell in thin-partitioned houses are prone to forget that the other rooms may not be quite empty. They two spent most of their waking hours alone together, and habit breeds carelessness always.
“Do you suppose he’s drunk?” Mrs. Kate asked, and her voice was full of uneasiness. “Chester says he’s terrible when he gets started. I was sure he was perfectly safe! I just can’t stand it to have him like this. Dick told me he’s drinking a little all the time, and there’s no telling when he’ll break out, and—Oh, I think it’s perfectly terrible!”
“Hsh-sh,” warned Josephine.
“He went out, quite a while ago. I heard him,” said Mrs. Kate, with rash certainty. “He hasn’t been like himself since that day he fought Dick. He must be—”
“But how could he?” Josephine’s voice interrupted sharply. “That jug he’s got is full yet.”
Ford could imagine Mrs. Kate shaking her head with the wisdom born of matrimony.
“Don’t you suppose he could keep putting in water?” she asked pityingly. Ford almost choked when he heard that!
“I don’t believe he would.” Josephine’s tone was dubious. “It doesn’t seem to me that a man would do that; he’d think he was just spoiling what was left. That,” she declared with a flash of inspiration, “is what a woman would do. And a man always does something different!” There was a pathetic note in the last sentence, which struck Ford oddly.
“Don’t think you know men, my dear, until you’ve been married to one for eight years or so,” said Mrs. Kate patronizingly. “When you’ve been—”
“Oh, for mercy’s sake, do you think they’re all alike?” Josephine’s voice was tart and impatient. “I know enough about men to know they’re all different. You can’t judge one by another. And I don’t believe that Ford is drinking at all. He’s just—”
“Just what?—since you know so well!” Mrs. Kate was growing ironical.
“He’s trying not to—and worrying.” Her voice lowered until it took love to hear it. Ford did hear, and his breath came fast. He did not catch Mrs. Kate’s reply; he was not in love with Mrs. Kate, and he was engaged in letting the words of Josephine sink into his very soul, and in telling himself over and over that she understood. It seemed to him a miracle of intuition, that she should sense the fight he was making; and since he felt that way about it, it was just as well he did not know that Jim Felton sensed it quite as keenly as Josephine—and with a far greater understanding of how bitter a fight it was, and for that reason a deeper sympathy.
“I wish Chester was here!” wailed Mrs. Kate, across the glow of his exultant thoughts. “I’m afraid to say anything to him myself, he’s so morose. It’s a shame, because he’s so splendid when he’s—himself.”
“He’s as much himself now as ever he was,” Josephine defended hotly. “When he’s drinking he’s altogether—”
“You never saw him drunk,” Mrs. Kate pointed to the weak spot in Josephine’s defense of him. “Dick says—”
“Oh, do you believe everything Dick says? A week ago you were bitter against Dick and all enthusiasm for Ford.”
“You were flirting with Dick then, and you’d hardly treat Ford decently. And Ford hadn’t gone to drink—”
“Will you hush?” There were tears of anger in Josephine’s voice. “He isn’t, I tell you!”
“What does he keep that jug in the closet for? And every few hours he comes up to the house and goes into his room—and he never did that before. And have you noticed his eyes? He’ll scarcely talk any more, and he just pretends to eat. At dinner today he scarcely touched a thing! It’s a sure sign, Phenie.”
Ford was growin
g tired of that sort of thing. It dimmed the radiance of Josephine’s belief in him, to have Mrs. Kate so sure of his weakness. He got up from the bed as quietly as he could and left the house. He was even more thoughtful, after that, but not quite so gloomy—if one cared enough for his moods to make a fine distinction.
Have you ever observed the fact that many of life’s grimmest battles and deepest tragedies scarce ripple the surface of trivial things? We are always rubbing elbows with the big issues and never knowing anything about it. Certainly no one at the Double Cross guessed what was always in the mind of the foreman. Jim thought he was “sore” because of Dick. Dick thought Ford was jealous of him, and trying to think of some scheme to “play even,” without coming to open war. Mrs. Kate was positive, in her purely feminine mind—which was a very good mind, understand, but somewhat inadequate when brought to bear upon the big problems of life—that Ford was tippling in secret. Josephine thought—just what she said, probably, upon the chill day when she calmly asked Ford at the breakfast table if he would let her go with him.
Ford had casually remarked, in answer to a diffident question from Mrs. Kate, that he was going to ride out on Long Ridge and see if any stock was drifting back toward the ranch. He hadn’t sent any one over that way for several days. Ford, be it said, had announced his intention deliberately, moved by a vague, unreasoning impulse.
“Can I go?” teased Buddy, from sheer force of habit; no one ever mentioned going anywhere, but Buddy shot that question into the conversation.
“No, you can’t. You can’t, with that cold,” his mother vetoed promptly, and Buddy, whimpering over his hot cakes, knew well the futility of argument, when Mrs. Kate used that tone of finality.
“Will you let me go?” Josephine asked unexpectedly, and looked straight at Ford. But though her glance was direct, it was unreadable, and Ford mentally threw up his hands after one good look at her, and tried not to betray the fact that this was what he had wanted, but had not hoped for.
“Sure, you can go,” he said, with deceitful brevity. Josephine had not spoken to him all the day before, except to say good-morning when he came in to his breakfast. Ford made no attempt to understand her, any more. He was carefully giving her the lead, as he would have explained it, and was merely following suit until he got a chance to trump; but he was beginning to have a discouraged feeling that the game was hers, and that he might as well lay down his hand and be done with it. Which, when he brought the simile back to practical affairs, meant that he was thinking seriously of leaving the ranch and the country just as soon as Mason returned.
He was thinking of trying the Argentine Republic for awhile, if he could sell the land which he had rashly bought while he was getting rid of his inheritance.
She did not offer any excuse for the request, as most women would have done. Neither did she thank him, with lips or with eyes, for his ready consent. She seemed distrait—preoccupied, as if she, also, were considering some weighty question.
Ford pushed back his chair, watching her furtively. She rose with Kate, and glanced toward the window.
“I suppose I shall need my heaviest sweater,” she remarked practically, and as if the whole affair were too commonplace for discussion. “It does look threatening. How soon will you want to start?” This without looking toward Ford at all.
“Right away, if that suits you.” Ford was still watchful, as if he had not quite given up hope of reading her meaning.
She told him she would be ready by the time he had saddled, and she appeared in the stable door while he was cinching the saddle on the horse he meant to ride.
“I hope you haven’t given me Dude,” she said unemotionally. “He’s supposed to be gentle—but he bucked me off that day I sprained my ankle, and all the excuse he had was that a rabbit jumped out from a bush almost under his nose. I’ve lost faith in him since. Oh—it’s Hooligan, is it? I’m glad of that; Hooligan’s a dear—and he has the easiest gallop of any horse on the ranch. Have you tried him yet, Ford?”
The heart of Ford lifted in his chest at her tone and her words, along toward the last. He forgot the chill of her voice in the beginning, and he dwelt greedily upon the fact that once more she had called him Ford. But his joy died suddenly when he led his horse out and discovered that Dick and Jim Felton were coming down the path, within easy hearing of her. Ford did not know women very well, but most men are born with a rudimentary understanding of them. He suspected that her intimacy of tone was meant for Dick’s benefit; and when they had ridden three or four miles and her share of the conversation during that time had consisted of “yes” twice, “no” three times, and one “indeed,” he was sure of it.
So Ford began to wonder why she came at all—unless that, also, was meant to discipline Dick—and his own mood became a silent one. He did not, he told himself indignantly, much relish being used as a club to beat some other man into good behavior.
They rode almost to Long Ridge before Ford discovered that Josephine was stealing glances at his face whenever she thought he was not looking, and that the glances were questioning, and might almost be called timid. He waited until he was sure he was not mistaken, and then turned his head unexpectedly, and smiled into her startled eyes.
“What is it?” he asked, still smiling at her. “I won’t bite. Say it, why don’t you?”
She bit her lips and looked away.
“I wanted to ask something—ask you to do something,” she said, after a minute. And then hurriedly, as if she feared her courage might ebb and leave her stranded, “I wish you’d give me that—jug!”
Sheer surprise held Ford silent, staring at her.
“I don’t ask many favors—I wish you’d grant just that one. I wouldn’t ask another.”
“What do you want of it?”
“Oh—” she stopped, then plunged on recklessly. “It’s getting on my nerves so! And if you gave it to me, you wouldn’t have to fight the temptation—”
“Why wouldn’t I? There’s plenty more where that came from,” he reminded her.
“But it wouldn’t be right where you could get it any time the craving came. Won’t you let me take it?” He had never before heard that tone from her; but he fought down the thrill of it and held himself rigidly calm.
“Oh, I don’t know—the jug’s doing all right, where it is,” he evaded; what he wanted most was to get at her real object, and, man-like, to know beyond doubt whether she really cared.
“But you don’t—you never touch it,” she urged. “I know, because—well, because every day I look into it! I suppose you’ll say I have no right, that it’s spying, or something. But I don’t care for that. And I can see that it’s worrying you dreadfully. And if you don’t drink any of it, why won’t you let me have it?”
“If I don’t drink it; what difference does it make who has it?” he countered.
“I’m afraid there’ll be a time when you’ll yield, just because you are blue and discouraged—or something; whatever mood it is that makes the temptation hardest to resist. I know myself that things are harder to endure some days than they are others.” She stopped and looked at him in that enigmatical way she had. “You may not know it—but I’ve been staying here just to see whether you fail or succeed. I thought I understood a little of why you came, and I—I stayed.” She leaned and twisted a wisp of Hooligan’s mane nervously, and Ford noticed how the color came and went in the cheek nearest him.
“I—oh, it’s awfully hard to say what I want to say, and not have it sound different,” she began again, without looking at him. “But if you don’t understand what I mean—” Her teeth clicked suggestively.
Ford leaned to her. “Say it anyway and take a chance,” he urged, and his voice was like a kiss, whether he knew it or not. He did know that she caught her breath at the words or the tone, and that the color flamed a deeper tint in her cheek and then faded to a faint glow.
“What I mean is that I appreciate the way you have acted all along. I—it wasn’t an
easy situation to meet, and you have met it like a man—and a gentleman. I was afraid of you at first, and I misunderstood you completely. I’m ashamed to confess it, but it’s true. And I want to see you make good in this thing you have attempted; and if there’s anything on earth that I can do to help you, I want you to let me do it. You will, won’t you?” She looked at him then with clear, honest eyes. “It’s my way of wanting to thank you for—for not taking any advantage, or trying to, of—your—position that night.”
Ford’s own cheeks went hot. “I thought you knew all along that I wasn’t a cur, at least,” he said harshly. “I never knew before that you had any reason to be afraid of me, that night. If I’d known that—but I thought you just didn’t like me, and let it go at that. And what I said I meant. You needn’t feel that you have anything to thank me for; I haven’t done a thing that deserves thanks—or fear either, for that matter.”
“I thought you understood, when I left—”
“I didn’t worry much about it, one way or the other,” he cut in. “I hunted around for you, of course, and when I saw you’d pulled out for good, I went over the hill and camped. I didn’t get the note till next morning; and I don’t know,” he added, with a brief smile, “as that did much toward making me understand. You just said to wait till some one came after me. Well, I didn’t wait.” He laughed and leaned toward her again. “Now there seems a chance of our being—pretty good friends,” he said, in the caressing tone he had used before, and of which he was utterly unconscious, “we won’t quarrel about that night, will we? You got home all right, and so did I. We’ll forget all about it. Won’t we?” He laid a hand on the horn of her saddle so that they rode close together, and tried futilely to read what was in her face, since she did not speak.