Blue Kingdom

by Max Brand

  She sulked. “I’m tired of doing the dishes for you,” she said. “I’m tired of the dirty work. Rod is a good boy. I’d rather see him go home.”

  “Will you do it, nevertheless, Beatrice?”

  “What does it mean to me?” she snapped at him.

  “All that it means to me, I hope,” he said. “We work together, my dear. Whatever I have is yours, and you know it. And if you’ll let me, one day we’ll. . . .” He stopped.

  “You nearly slipped then,” she said, nodding.

  “I’ve promised to keep off that subject,” he answered. “But I don’t stop hoping.”

  “Someday you’ll marry me,” Beatrice Kirk observed thoughtfully. “In the meantime, I’m the fisherman’s fly. I catch the fish and you handle the line. I’m a sort of recruiting agent for you, James.”

  “You like the sport, yourself,” he said.

  “Suppose I have to go off and get engaged to that boy to keep him with us . . . besides, you haven’t said why he wants to leave?”

  “Because he’s learned that he has a chance to go back to respectable society and. . . .”

  “In spite of all the killings that have been chalked up against him?” asked Beatrice incredulously.

  “Newspaper killings, my dear, and apparently the governor knows the truth about them, at last.”

  “Well . . . ,” she drawled.

  “Will you do it?”

  “No,” she flared at him. “I’m sick of this job, and sick of you and your ways!” She slammed the door.

  Tankerton reached for the knob, but, changing his mind, he shrugged his shoulders and walked away, whistling softly.

  She, from a chink near the window, watched him go. “He’s sure of me,” she whispered. She gripped both hands and burst into a silent tantrum that left her, at last, sitting tense and bowed upon the couch. However, her passions rarely lasted long, and now through her mind drifted the words of Tankerton. It was quite true in a sense, that whatever he gained, she gained, also. For in the district over which he was a king, she was a queen, through all the valleys and its hamlets, its logging camps, and its solitary ranches. Her word was law. Guns would be drawn at her bidding as quickly as ever they might be at that of Tankerton.

  Whatever made firm his hold, made hers firm, also. Moreover, she admired and respected Tankerton. On some days, she told herself that she almost loved him. For being a creature of action herself, nothing was so dear to her as the man of indomitable courage, of wits and strong hands. And in all the blue kingdom of the mountains, there was no one to compare with Tanker-ton for power. He, an unsceptered king, was absolute in his mastery. To serve such a man was no shame, and particularly since her logic and his told her that she would be serving herself as well. It seemed to her, to a degree, a crime to flirt with Furneaux, but flirtation never can be a serious crime to a young girl.

  However, she went slowly to the window, still filled with her doubts, and Providence, at that moment, brought the tall and dignified form of Furneaux stalking across the clearing. She did not hesitate another instant. But with a gambler’s love of a hunch, she was instantly out the door, and waving to him.

  He turned and came to her at once.

  “You look like thunder and lightning,” she told him. “Where are you going to strike?”

  “Somewhere on a high stool behind a counter, keeping books, probably,” said Furneaux. “I’m leaving all of this and going back to twenty dollars a week.”

  She dropped her head, as though the blow had bowed her, and she was unwilling that he should see her emotion, but she did let him see a tightly balled fist. “Well, it’s better for you to go,” she said.

  The shadow of Furneaux fell over her as he stepped closer. “Are you playing cat and mouse with me?” he asked her. “Do you care a whit, Beatrice?”

  She dared not let him see her face. She merely put out a hand that fumbled blindly and finally came to rest upon his arm. That was her answer, while the corner of the eye trailed about the clearing and saw no one except little Jimmy Larren, who was busily grooming the mare of Dunmore. She was very glad that she was not observed.

  “I can’t talk to you here,” she told him. “I . . . I’m a little dizzy, Rodman.”

  He was on fire with excitement at once. “We’ll walk back into the trees,” he said. “Beatrice, if you’re acting a part now . . . heaven forgive you.”

  She merely pressed his arm closer with her hand, as they went on. Her heart was racing with a sort of gambler’s pleasure; there was a great fear in her, as well, for she felt in this man a grim and relentless earnestness. The first dappled shadows of the trees brushed across them, and in another moment he had halted and, taking her face between both his hands, turned it up and stared down at her with a scrutiny half stern and half anguished with hope. Her very soul quaked in her, then, and she wished with all her might that she had not stepped so far in this affair, but now she could not withdraw, and she softened her glance so that all he could see of her soul of souls was a film of mist.

  “Beatrice,” he said, “do you really care about me? Do you love me?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “I care about you more than the others that I’ve ever seen. I don’t know that it’s love, but it made me dizzy to think that you were about to leave us. If you. . . .”

  At this, a clear voice rang from the camp, calling: “Furneaux! Furneaux!”

  It was Tankerton, and Beatrice could guess that he had watched her departure with Furneaux, and wished to give her a welcome interruption.

  “It’s the chief,” said Furneaux gloomily. “Will you try to see me again in a moment, unless Tankerton is sending me off on a trip?”

  “I’ll wait for you here,” she said.

  He made a step away from her, then turned back.

  “Furneaux! Furneaux!” called the chief.

  “If you care a whit for me . . . if I am anything to you,” said the boy, “wear this for me until I come back.” He slipped a ring into her hand, and then remained for a moment hanging tensely over her. She saw that he was about to sweep her into his arms, but, bracing herself to endure that, she kept her eyes melancholy and wistful as they met his.

  He left her as Tankerton called again, hurrying away through the spotted shadows, and turning once on the verge of the sunlight to look back at her. She was expecting that, and, therefore, she was ready with a smile and a wave, then Furneaux disappeared.

  A moment later, from the verge of the clearing, she saw him mount and gallop off. She had known it would be so, for Tankerton would send him on some small commission to get him out of the way for the day. She remained holding in her hand his ring. The gem was a little ruby, like a drop of blood.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Tankerton, as she came from the verge of the trees, met her with a smile. “Did I give you long enough?” he asked her.

  For answer, she held out the ring, loosely fitted upon her finger.

  “Hello!” he said. “Did you get yourself engaged to him? I never meant you to go that far.”

  “I’m not engaged,” she said, “but I’m on the dizzy edge of it. You called just in time to save me from a tangle. I’ve more than let him guess that I’m in love with him . . . and I hate your politics, James! Let’s not see each other again today.”

  She left him, aware that he was smiling and nodding after her, and hating him for his coolness. But yonder she saw Jimmy Larren, who was now combing the mane of the dapple chestnut mare, and she went toward him, hoping to forget in talk the disagreeable scene through which she had just passed, for she felt as though she had been smudged and stained by the artifice which she had used.

  “Hello, Jimmy,” she said. “Have you turned yourself into a stable boy?”

  He shifted his keen twinkling eyes on her. “I ain’t a stable boy,” he said. “I’m just getting acquainted with Excuse Me.”

  “Riding her would be a better way, wouldn’t it?” she asked.

  “I tried i
t this mornin’ early,” said Jimmy. “Mister Dunmore, he gave me leave. But Excuse Me is like gunpowder. She hoisted me so far in the air that I thought I’d never come down. I hung up there like a bubble for a while, and then I come down with a whang. I hit the ground so hard that sounded hollow.” He laughed. “So I’ve taken up conversation with Excuse Me, till she gets more used to me.”

  “How did she get her name?” asked the girl.

  “Why, she got it from excusin’ herself when any gent tried to ride her. She slammed everybody on the ground, and then she used to try to eat ’em. She had the same kind of manners as a mountain lion, d’you see?”

  “But Dunmore rides her.”

  “Him? Aw, sure. He fixed her. He can fix anything, if you come down to that.”

  “Is he a great friend of yours, Jimmy?”

  “Him? I wouldn’t go around saying that. But I’m working to make a friend out of him.”

  “Well, I don’t know that you’ll get much out of him, if he gets you to do the grooming of his horses for him.”

  “He’s gotta get his rest,” said the boy seriously. “That’s a mighty pretty ring that you got on.”

  She doubled her hand, instinctively, to hide it. “Is he still asleep this beautiful morning?”

  “He says that one hour’s sleep is worth ten hours of anybody’s scenery,” answered Larren.

  “I don’t see how he can sleep so long, though.”

  “He puts on sleep the way that a camel puts on a hump. Then, when he’s slept up, he can go a month without hardly closin’ an eye.”

  “You haven’t really known him for a full month, Jimmy.”

  “Why,” Jimmy said, “you don’t have to read him for a month to tell what he’s like. Nobody else could teach me nothin’ like Dunmore.”

  “About horses?”

  “Hosses, and trails, and guns. But knives is his main holt.”

  “I’ve heard he’s very clever with them.”

  “He could easily draw your picture, heavin’ knives into that tree,” said the boy.

  She looked around her at the waving of the trees in the wind, at the royal blue of the sky, and one cloud blowing west, like a ship across a sea. “Still in bed?” she asked.

  “If you wanna talk to him, I’ll go see if he’s awake,” said the boy.

  “Talk to him? Oh, I don’t want to talk to him. Yes, I do. I want to know what’s his price for Excuse Me. Go and ask him, Jimmy.”

  Jimmy trotted to the bunkhouse, and, entering, he found it empty except for Dunmore, who was not asleep but even now was pulling on his boots. Jimmy announced: “She’s out yonder askin’ the price of Excuse Me.”

  “Who is she? Beatrice Kirk?”

  “That’s her.”

  Jimmy sat down on the edge of the bunk and began to talk confidentially. “Shall I say that you ain’t awake?”

  “But I’m awake, all right.”

  “It ain’t the mare she’s after. She’s after you. She’s gone and got her one scalp already this mornin’, and the takin’ of it makes her hungry for more.”

  “What d’you mean, Jimmy?”

  “I mean that ruby ring that Furneaux was wearin’ the other day. She’s got that on her now.”

  “She has! Are they engaged?”

  “Not by the look of him as he rode off on his hoss, a while back. But they’re within throwin’ distance of it, I guess.”

  “I’ll go out and talk to her,” said Dunmore. “Jimmy, you know why I’m here. If she becomes engaged to Furneaux, I’ve wasted my time. I’ll never get him away from the camp.”

  “Aw,” answered the boy, “nothin’ that she does is honest Injun.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I used to make play houses out of chips and mud. Well, half the fun was breakin’ down what I’d built up the day before. That’s the way with her. She’d get engaged one day so’s to have the fun of gettin’ unengaged tomorrow.”

  “Jimmy, you’re a hard one on the girls. Wait till you get a little older, then you’ll feel different about them.”

  “Aw, sure,” answered little Jimmy Larren. “I’ll get to the meltin’ point someday and thaw out as soft as mush, but my brains . . . they still belong to myself. I can see her like she was made out of glass and sky blue.”

  “Go on,” chuckled Dunmore. “What comes next?”

  “How would she get herself engaged to one like Furneaux when she’s got a couple of real men around the camp?”

  “Furneaux is a gentleman, in a way of putting it,” said Dunmore.

  “Sure,” said the boy, “but what difference does that make to her? She goes by money in the bank. I mean it’s him that shoots the straightest and hits the hardest and has got the most fox inside his brain. That pleases her.”

  “She’s not as hard as you think, Jimmy.”

  “Well, she’s cracked a good many already. I dunno that you would like to see it this way, but I’d bet you a dollar to your busted knife that they ain’t no man in this camp that she can see between here and the skyline except Tankerton and you.”

  “Hold on, Jimmy!”

  “You wait and see. Besides, she likes new men . . . all them pretty girls do. You go out there, and she’ll melt in your mouth.”

  Dunmore finished his dressing. “I’ll go out and have a chat with her.”

  “Hold on! Hold on!” pleaded Jimmy. “Wait’ll I go out first and talk a mite to her. I gotta break the trail.” He started for the door, and then turned about and came a few steps back. “Chief,” he said, “suppose you really wanted to get Furneaux out of this, dead easy? You take the girl away from the camp . . . and he’ll foller wherever you lay the scent.”

  “Jimmy, you’re crazy. You want me to kidnap her?”

  “Aw, whatcha think?” Larren asked in disgust. “I didn’t say nothin’ about kidnappin’.” And he left the cabin in apparent disgust.

  Dunmore, remaining behind, rubbed his knuckles across his chin. The suggestion of the boy seemed ridiculous enough, but the taking of Furneaux from the gang seemed otherwise impossible. If it were true that Furneaux was engaged to Beatrice, he was bound to Tankerton with bonds of steel.

  So, meditating upon the problem, Dunmore drew closer to the cabin door, and at last he could hear the faint tinkle of the voices of the girl and Jimmy on the farther side of the clearing, without looking out at them.

  He heard the girl say: “Still sleeping?”

  “He’s kind of half awake, and lookin’ at the mornin’ with one eye,” answered Jimmy.

  “Did you speak to him?”

  “Yep.”

  “Jimmy, don’t be obstinate. What did he say?”

  “About what?”

  “About selling the mare, of course!”

  “He said that you might make a meal for Excuse Me, but that oats was better for her.”

  “He didn’t say that!” she exclaimed.

  “Didn’t he?”

  “Is he coming out?”

  “He says that he’ll think it over, but in the mornin’ he don’t do his thinkin’ none too fast.”

  Dunmore leaned against the wall of the cabin, laughing silently. When he could control himself, he straightened again and was about to step out when he heard Jimmy Larren say carelessly: “They’s only one reason that the boss might sell Excuse Me.”

  “What’s that, Jimmy?”

  “I’ll tell you why. She’s a mare. And he don’t like nothin’ female.”

  “That’s a strange idea, Jimmy.”

  “Is it? It’s the way with him. Hosses, dogs, or birds, he don’t like nothin’ female. You take when it comes to women, he’s got no use for ’em at all.”

  “That’s because he’s young,” Beatrice said carelessly.

  “Nope,” said the boy cheerfully. “It’s because he’s growed really up. He says them that stop halfway is the ones that the women get.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  It was a strange mixture of handicap and advantage under w
hich Dunmore labored when he left the bunkhouse and advanced toward Beatrice and Jimmy Larren. He had been established in an unusual position by the boy, but it was a position that he hardly knew how to maintain. He felt just like a gambler who throws in the dark.

  “I’ve been admiring Excuse Me,” said the girl, “and I wondered if you’d like to sell her.”

  “I’d sell anything,” said Dunmore.

  “Well, then, what’s the price for her?”

  “I suppose,” said Dunmore, “that she’d be worth as she stands eight hundred or a thousand of any man’s money.”

  “I’d pay that,” Beatrice Kirk said eagerly.

  “But, besides,” he said, “there’s a lot of other things that she means to me.”

  “You mean that you’re fond of her?”

  “I’m fond of her, and that would boost the price a good deal. Several hundreds, I suppose.”

  “Well, let’s hear the price.”

  “There’s other things to think about. The work I’m doing, a fast hoss might be the price of a man’s neck. There’s nothing in the mountains that can touch her, I suppose.”

  “What?” she cried. “Not Gunfire?”

  “You beat Gunfire with your bay.”

  “That’s because James rode Gunfire with one hand. Even with his weight up, Gunfire would have won if Tankerton had ridden him with both hands, as you might say.”

  Dunmore shook his head. “I don’t think that Gunfire could live with her, no matter who was up on him.”

  “Not with a lightweight like me?”

  “Not even with you.”

  “I’ll make you a wager on that!” she cried eagerly.

  “Anything you like.”

  “Anything I like? Then, what about making the mare the stake? She against Gunfire?”

  “What would you do with her if you had her?” he asked, and stepped to Excuse Me, stroking her neck.

  She turned her lovely head and touched his shoulder fondly. The girl smiled and nodded. “Jimmy tells me that she’s a bad one, but I’d handle her.”

  “That’s what a lot of people have said. When she gets you down, she tries to eat you.”

  “I’ll take time. Time and kindness will beat any horse that I ever saw.”