The Flockmaster of Poison Creek

by Ogden, George W

  “No, I didn’t do anything to him––more than jam my gun in his neck. He got away with thirty sheep more than belonged to him, though––I found it out when I counted ours. I guess I was over there after them when Dad was lookin’ for me today.”

  “You brought them back?” Joan leaned again, her hand on his arm, where it remained a little spell, as she looked her admiration into his face.

  “Nothing to it,” said Reid, modestly, laughing again in his grating harsh way of vast experience, and scorn for the things which move the heart.

  “It’s a good deal, I think,” said she. “But,” thoughtfully, “I don’t see what made him drop his gun.”

  “You can search me,” said Reid, in his careless, unsympathetic way.

  “It might have happened to anybody, though, a dog and a man against him.”

  “Yes, even a better man.”

  “A better man don’t live,” said Joan, with calm decision.

  Reid bent his eyes to the pommel of his saddle, and sat so a few moments, in the way of a man who turns something in his thoughts. Then:

  “I guess I’ll go on back to the sheep.”

  “He may never get well to thank you for what you did, Earl,” and Joan’s voice threatened tears in its low, earnest tremolo, “but I–––”

  “Oh, that’s all right, Joan.” Reid waved gratitude, especially vicarious gratitude, aside, smiling lightly. “He’s not booked to go yet; wait till he’s well and let him do his own talking. Somebody ought to sneak that gun away from him, though, and slip a twenty-two in his scabbard. They can’t hurt him so bad with that when they take it away from him.”

  “It might have happened to you!” she reproached.

  “Well, it might,” Reid allowed, after some reflection. “Sure, it might,” brightening, looking at her frankly, his ingenuous smile softening the crafty lines of his thin face. “Well, leave him to Rabbit and Dad; they’ll fix him up.”

  “If he isn’t better tomorrow I’m going for a doctor, if nobody else will.”

  “You’re not goin’ to hang around there all the time, are you, Joan?”

  Reid’s face flushed as he spoke, his eyes made small, as if he looked in at a furnace door.

  Joan did not answer this, only lifted her face with a quick start, looking at him with brows lifted, widening her great, luminous, tender eyes. Reid stroked her horse’s mane, his stirrup close to her foot, his look downcast, as if ashamed of the jealousy he had betrayed.

  “I don’t mind the lessons, and that kind of stuff,” said he, looking up suddenly, “but I don’t want the girl––oh well, you know as well as I do what kind of a deal the old folks have fixed up for you and me, Joan.”

  “Of course. I’m going to marry you to save you from work.”

  “I thought it was a raw deal when they sprung it on me, but that was before I saw you, Joan. But it’s all right; I’m for it now.”

  “You’re easy, Earl; dad’s workin’ you for three good years without pay. As far as I’m concerned, you’d just as well hit the breeze out of this country right now. Dad can’t deliver the goods.”

  “I’m soft, but I’m not that soft, Joan. I could leave here tomorrow; what’s to hold me? And as far as the old man’s cutting me out of his will goes, I could beat it in law, and then have a pile big enough left to break my neck if I was to jump off the top of it. They’re not putting anything over on me, Joan. I’m sticking to this little old range because it suits me to stick. I would go tomorrow if it wasn’t for you.”

  Reid added this in a low voice, his words a sigh, doing it well, even convincingly well.

  “I’m sorry,” Joan said, moved by his apparent sincerity, “but there’s not a bit of use in your throwing away three years, or even three more months, of your life here, Earl.”

  “You’ll like me better when you begin to know me, Joan. I’ve stood off because I didn’t want to interfere with your studies, but maybe now, since you’ve got a vacation, I can come over once in a while and get acquainted.”

  “Earl, it wouldn’t be a bit of use.” Joan spoke earnestly, pitying him a little, now that she began to believe him.

  “Why, we’re already engaged,” he said; “they’ve disposed of us like they do princes and princesses.”

  “I don’t know how they marry them off, but if that’s the way, it won’t work on the sheep range,” said Joan.

  “We’ve been engaged, officially, ever since I struck the range, and I’ve never once, never even––” He hesitated, constrained by bashfulness, it seemed, from his manner of bending his head and plucking at her horse’s mane.

  “We’re not even officially engaged,” she denied, coldly, not pitying his bashfulness at all, nor bent to assist him in delivering what lay on the end of his tongue. “You can’t pick up a sheepwoman and marry her off––like some old fool king’s daughter.”

  Reid placed his hand over hers where it lay idly on the saddle-horn, the reins loosely held. He leaned closer, his eyes burning, his face near her own, so near that she shrank back, and drew on her hand to come free.

  “I don’t see why we need to wait three years to get married, Joan,” he argued, his persuasive voice very soft and tender. “If the old man saw I meant business–––”

  “Business!” scorned Joan.

  “Sheep business, I mean, Joan,” chidingly, a tincture of injury in his tone.

  “Oh, sheep business,” said Joan, leaning far over to look at the knotting of her cinch.

  “Sure, to settle down to it here and take it as it comes, the way he got his start, he’d come across with all the money we’d want to take a run out of here once in a while and light things up. We ought to be gettin’ the good out of it while we’ve got an edge on us, Joan.”

  Joan swung to the ground, threw a stirrup across the saddle, and began to tighten her cinch. Reid alighted with a word of protest, offering his hand for the work. Joan ignored his proffer, with a little independent, altogether scornful, toss of the head.

  “You can find plenty of them ready to take you up,” she said. “What’s the reason you have to stay right here for three years, and then marry me, to make a million dollars? Can’t you go anywhere else?”

  “The old man’s picked on this country because he knows your dad, and he settled on you for the girl because you got into his eye, just the way you’ve got into mine, Joan. I was sore enough about it at first to throw the money and all that went with it to the pigs, and blow out of here. But that was before I saw you.”

  “Oh!” said Joan, in her pettish, discounting way.

  “I mean every word of it, Joan. I can’t talk like––like––some men––my heart gets in the way, I guess, and chokes me off. But I never saw a girl that I ever lost sleep over till I saw you.”

  Joan did not look at him as he drew nearer with his words. She pulled the stirrup down, lifted her foot to it, and stood so a second, hand on the pommel to mount. And so she glanced round at him, standing near her shoulder, his face flushed, a brightness in his eyes.

  Quicker than thought Reid threw his arm about her shoulders, drawing her to him, his hot cheek against her own, his hot breath on her lips. Surging with indignation of the mean advantage he had taken of her, Joan freed her foot from the stirrup, twisting away from the impending salute, her hand to Reid’s shoulder in a shove that sent him back staggering.

  “I thought you were more of a man than that!” she said.

  “I beg your pardon, Joan; it rushed over me––I couldn’t help it.” Reid’s voice shook as he spoke; he stood with downcast eyes, the expression of contrition.

  “You’re too fresh to keep!” Joan said, brushing her face savagely with her hand where his cheek had pressed it for a breath.

  “I’ll ask you next time,” he promised, looking up between what seemed hope and contrition. But there was a mocking light in his sophisticated face, a greedy sneer in his lustful eyes, which Joan could feel and see, although she could not read to the last sh
ameful depths.

  “Don’t try it any more,” she warned, in the cool, even voice of one sure of herself.

  “I ought to have a right to kiss my future wife,” he defended, a shadow of a smile on his thin lips.

  “There’s not a bit of use to go on harping on that, Earl,” she said, in a way of friendly counsel, the incident already past and trampled under foot, it seemed. “If you want to stay here and work for dad, three years or thirty years, I don’t care, but don’t count on me. I guess if you go straight and prove you deserve it, you’ll not need any girl to help you get the money.”

  “It’s got to be you––nobody else, Joan.”

  “Then kiss your old million––or whatever it is––good-bye!”

  Joan lifted to the saddle as if swept into it by a wave, and drew her reins tight, and galloped away.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXI

  TIM SULLIVAN BREAKS A CONTRACT

  “And that will be the end of it,” said Tim Sullivan, finality in his tone, his face stern, his manner severe. “I’ve passed my word to old Malcolm that you’ll have his boy, and have him you will.”

  “Boy!” said Joan.

  “In experience he’s no lad, and I’m glad you’ve discovered it,” said Tim, warming a little, speaking with more softness, not without admiration for her penetration. “He’ll be the better able to look after you, and see they don’t get his money away from him like some simpleton.”

  “Oh, they’ll get it, all right.”

  Tim had arrived that morning from a near-by camp as Joan was about to set out for Dad Frazer’s. From his way of plunging abruptly into this matter, which he never had discussed with her before, and his sharpness and apparent displeasure with her, Joan knew that he had seen Reid overnight. They were beside the sheep-wagon, to a wheel of which Joan’s horse was tied, all saddled and ready to mount. The sun was already high, for Joan had helped Charley range the flock out for its day’s grazing, and had put all things to rights in the camp, anxious as her mind was over Mackenzie’s state.

  “I’ll not have you treat the lad like a beggar come to ask of you, Joan; I’ll not have it at all. Be civil with him; use him kindly when he speaks.”

  “He’s a thousand years older than I am; he knows things that you never heard of.”

  “Somebody’s been whisperin’ slanders of him in your ear. He’s a fine lad, able to hold his own among men, take ’em where they’re found. Don’t you heed what the jealous say about the boy, Joan; don’t you let it move you at all.”

  “I wouldn’t have him if he brought his million in a wheelbarrow and dumped it at my feet.”

  “It’s not a million, as I hear it,” Tim corrected, mildly, even a bit thoughtfully, “not more nor a half.”

  “Then he’s only half as desirable,” smiled Joan, the little gleam of humor striking into her gloomy hour like a sudden ray of sun.

  “You’d run sheep till you was bent and gray, and the rheumatiz’ got set in your j’ints, me gerrel, before you’d win to the half of half a million. Here it comes to you while you’re young, with the keenness to relish it and the free hand to spend the interest off of it, and sail over the seas and see the world you’re longin’ to know and understand.”

  Joan’s hat hung on the saddle-horn, the morning wind was trifling with light breath in her soft, wave-rippled hair. Her brilliant necktie had been put aside for one of narrower span and more sober hue, a blue with white dots. The free ends of it blew round to her shoulder, where they lay a moment before fluttering off to brush her cheek, as if to draw by this slight friction some of the color back into it that this troubled interview had drained away.

  She stood with her head high, her chin lifted, determination in her eyes. Thorned shrubs and stones had left their marks on her strong boots, the little teeth of the range had frayed the hem of her short cloth skirt, but she was as fresh to see as a morning-glory in the sun. Defiance outweighed the old cast of melancholy that clouded her eyes; her lips were fixed in an expression which was denial in itself as she stood looking into the wind, her little brown hands clenched at her sides.

  “I want that you should marry him, as I have arranged it with old Malcolm,” said Tim, speaking slowly to give it greater weight. “I have passed my word; let that be the end.”

  “I’ve got a right to have a word, too. Nobody else is as much concerned in it as me, Dad. You can’t put a girl up and sell her like a sheep.”

  “It’s no sale; it’s yourself that comes into the handlin’ of the money.”

  Tim took her up quickly on it, a gleam in his calculative eye, as if he saw a convincing way opening ahead of him.

  “I couldn’t do it, Dad, as far as I’d go to please you; I couldn’t––never in this world! There’s something about him––something–––”

  “It’ll wear off; ’tis the strangeness of him, but three years will bring him closer; it will wear away.”

  “It’ll never wear away, because he isn’t––he isn’t clean!”

  “Clean?” Tim repeated, turning in amazement as if to seek a witness to such a preposterous charge. And again: “Clean? He’s as fresh as a daisy, as clean as a lamb.”

  “It’s the way he seems to me,” she insisted, with conviction that no argument would shake. “I don’t know any other name for it––you can see it in his eyes.”

  “Three year here will brace him up, Joan; he’ll come to you as fresh as lumber out of the mill.”

  “No, all the wind in the world can’t blow it out of him. I can’t do it, I’ll never do it!”

  “And me with my word passed to old Malcolm!” Tim seemed to grieve over it, and the strong possibility of its repudiation; his face fell so long, his voice so accusing, so low and sad.

  “You’ll not lose any money; you can square it up with him some way, Dad.”

  “You’ve been the example of a dutiful child to me,” Tim said, turning to her, spreading his hands, the oil of blarney in his voice. “You’ve took the work of a man off of my hands since you were twelve year old, Joan.”

  “Yes, I have,” Joan nodded, a shading of sadness for the lost years of her girlhood in her tone. She did not turn to face him, her head high that way, her chin up, her nose in the wind as if her assurance lay in its warm scents, and her courage came on its caress.

  “You’ve been the gerrel that’s gone out in the storm and the bitter blast to save the sheep, and stood by them when their poor souls shook with the fright, and soothed down their panic and saved their lives. You’ve been the gerrel that’s worked the sheep over this range in rain and shine, askin’ me nothing, not a whimper or a complaint out of ye––that’s what you’ve been to me, Joan. It’s been a hard life for a lass, it’s been a hard and a lonesome life.”

  Joan nodded, her head drooping just a little from its proud lift. Tears were on her face; she turned it a bit to hide them from his eyes.

  “You mind the time, Joan, four years ago it was the winter past, when you stood a full head shorter than you stand today, when the range was snowed in, and the sheep was unable to break the crust that froze over it, and was huddlin’ in the cañons starving wi’ the hunger that we couldn’t ease? Heh––ye mind that winter, Joan, gerrel?”

  Joan nodded again, her chin trembling as it dropped nearer to the fluttering necktie at her warm, round throat. And the tears were coursing hotter, the well of them open, the stone at the mouth of it rolled away, the recollection of those harsh days almost too hard to bear.

  “And you mind how you read in the book from the farmer college how a handful of corn a day would save the life of a sheep, and tide it over the time of stress and storm till it could find the grass in under the snow? Ah-h, ye mind how you read it, Joan, and come ridin’ to tell me? And how you took the wagons and the teams and drove that bitter length in wind and snow to old Wellfleet’s place down on the river, and brought corn that saved to me the lives of no less than twenty thousand sheep? It’s not you and me, that’s gone
through these things side by side, that forgets them in the fair days, Joan, my little darlin’ gerrel. Them was hard days, and you didn’t desert me and leave me to go alone.”

  Joan shook her head, the sob that she had been smothering breaking from her in a sharp, riving cry. Tim, feeling that he had softened her, perhaps, laid his hand on her shoulder, and felt her body trembling under the emotion that his slow recital of past hardships had stirred.

  “It’ll not be that you’ll leave me in a hole now, Joan,” he coaxed, stroking her hair back from her forehead, his touch gentle as his heart could be when interest bent it so.

  “I gave you that––all those years that other girls have to themselves, I mean, and all that work that made me coarse and rough and kept me down in ignorance––I gave you out of my youth till the well of my giving has gone dry. I can’t give what you ask today, Dad; I can’t give you that.”

  “Now, Joan, take it easy a bit, draw your breath on it, take it easy, gerrel.”

  Joan’s chin was up again, the tremor gone out of it, the shudder of sorrow for the lost years stilled in her beautiful, strong body. Her voice was steady when she spoke:

  “I’ll go on working, share and share alike with you, like I’m doing now, or no share, no nothing, if you want me to, if you need me to, but I can’t––I can’t!”

  “I was a hard master over you, my little Joan,” said Tim, gently, as if torn by the thorn of regret for his past blindness.

  “You were, but you didn’t mean to be. I don’t mind it now, I’m still young enough to catch up on what I missed––I am catching up on it, every day.”

  “But now when it comes in my way to right it, to make all your life easy to you, Joan, you put your back up like a catamount and tear at the eyes of me like you’d put them out.”

  “It wouldn’t be that way, Dad––can’t you see I don’t care for him? If I cared, he wouldn’t have to have any money, and you wouldn’t have to argue with me, to make me marry him.”