Lonesome Land

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER VII. VAL'S NEW DUTIES

  To Val the days of heat and smoke, and the isolation, had made life seemunreal, like a dream which holds one fast and yet is absurd and utterlyimprobable. Her past was pushed so far from her that she could not evenlong for it as she had done during the first few weeks. There were nightsof utter desolation, when Manley was in town upon some errand whichprevented his speedy return--nights when the coyotes howled much louderthan usual, and she could not sleep for the mysterious snapping andcreaking about the shack, but lay shivering with fear until dawn; but notfor worlds would she have admitted to Manley her dread of staying alone.She believed it to be necessary, or he would not require it of her, and shewanted to be all that he expected her to be. She was very sensitive, inthose days, about doing her whole duty as a wife--the wife of a Westernrancher.

  For that reason, when Manley shouted to her the news of the fire as hegalloped past the shack, and told her to have something for the men to eatwhen the fire was out, she never thought of demurring, or explaining tohim that there was scarcely any wood, and that she could not cook a mealwithout fuel. Instead, she waved her hand to him and let him go; and whenhe was quite out of sight she went up to the corrals to see if she couldfind another useless pole, or a broken board or two which her slightstrength would be sufficient to break up with the axe. Till she came toMontana, Val had never taken an axe in her hands; but its use was onlyone of the many things she must learn, of which she had all her life beenignorant.

  There was an old post there, lying beside a rusty, overturned plow. Morethan once she had stopped and eyed it speculatively, and the day before shehad gone so far as to lift an end of it tentatively; but she had foundit very heavy, and she had also disturbed a lot of black bugs that wentscurrying here and there, so that she was forced to gather her skirts closeabout her and run for her life.

  Where Manley had built his hayrack she had yesterday discovered some endsof planking hidden away in the rank, ripened weeds and grass. She wentthere now, but there were no more, look closely as she might. She circledthe evil-smelling stable in discouragement, picked up one short piece ofrotten board, and came back to the post. As she neared it she involuntarilycaught her skirts and held them close, in terror of the black bugs.

  She eyed it with extreme disfavor, and finally ventured to poke it with herslipper toe; one lone bug scuttled out and away in the tall weeds. Withthe piece of board she turned it over, stared hard at the yellowed grassbeneath, discovered nothing so very terrifying after all, and, in puredesperation, dragged the post laboriously down to the place where had beenthe woodpile. Then, lifting the heavy axe, she went awkwardly to workupon it, and actually succeeded, in the course of half an hour or so, inworrying an armful of splinters off it.

  She started a fire, and then she had to take the big zinc pail and carrysome water down from the spring before she could really begin to cookanything. Manley's work, every bit of it--but then Manley was so very busy,and he couldn't remember all these little things, and Val hated to keepreminding him. Theoretically, Manley objected to her chopping wood orcarrying water, and always seemed to feel a personal resentment when hediscovered her doing it. Practically, however, he was more and more oftenmaking it necessary for her to do these things.

  That is why he returned with the fire fighters and found Val just layingthe cloth upon the table, which she had moved into the front room so thatthere would be space to seat her guests at all four sides. He frowned whenhe looked in and saw that they must wait indefinitely, and her cheeks tookon a deeper shade of pink.

  "Everything will be ready in ten minutes," she hurriedly assured him. "Howmany are there, dear?"

  "Eight, counting myself," he answered gruffly. "Get some clean towels, andwe'll go up to the spring to wash; and try and have dinner ready when weget back--we're half starved." With the towels over his arm, he led the wayup to the spring. He must have taken the trail which led past the haystack,for he returned in much better humor, and introduced the men to his wifewith the genial air of a host who loves to entertain largely.

  Val stood back and watched them file in to the table and seat themselveswith a noisy confusion. Unpolished they were, in clothes and manner, thoughshe dimly appreciated the way in which they refrained from looking at hertoo intently, and the conscious lowering of their voices while they talkedamong themselves.

  They did, however, glance at her surreptitiously while she was movingquietly about, with her flushed cheeks and her yellow-brown hair fallingbecomingly down at the temples because she had not found a spare minute inwhich to brush it smooth, and her dainty dress and crisp, white apron. Shewas not like the women they were accustomed to meet, and they paid her thehigh tribute of being embarrassed by her presence.

  She poured coffee until all the cups were full, replenished the bread plateand brought more butter, and hunted the kitchen over for the can opener,to punch little holes in another can of condensed cream; and she ratherastonished her guests by serving it in a beautiful cut-glass pitcherinstead of the can in which it was bought.

  They handled the pitcher awkwardly because of their mental uneasiness,and Val shared with them their fear of breaking it, and was guilty of anaudible sigh of relief when at last it found safety upon the table.

  So perturbed was she that even when she decided that she could do no morefor their comfort and retreated to the kitchen, she failed to realize thatthe one extra plate meant an absent guest, and not a miscount in placingthem, as she fancied.

  She remembered that she would need plenty of hot water to wash all thosedishes, and the zinc pail was empty; it always was, it seemed to her, nomatter how often she filed it. She took the tin dipper out of it, so thatit would not rattle and betray her purpose to Manley, sitting just insidethe door with his back toward her, and tiptoed quite guiltily out of thekitchen. Once well away from the shack, she ran.

  She reached the spring quite out of breath, and she actually bumped intoa man who stood carefully rinsing a bloodstained handkerchief under theoverflow from the horse trough. She gave a little scream, and the pail wentrolling noisily down the steep bank and lay on its side in the mud.

  Kent turned and looked at her, himself rather startled by the unexpectedcollision. Involuntarily he threw out his hand to steady her. "How do youdo, Mrs. Fleetwood?" he said, with all the composure he could muster to hisaid. "I'm afraid I scared you. My nose got to bleeding--with the heat, Iguess. I just now managed to stop it." He did not consider it necessary toexplain his presence, but he did feel that talking would help her recoverher breath and her color. "It's a plumb nuisance to have the nosebleed somuch," he added plaintively.

  Val was still trembling and staring at him with her odd, yellow-brown eyes.He glanced at her swiftly, and then bent to squeeze the water from hishandkerchief; but his trained eyes saw her in all her dainty allurement;saw how the coppery sunlight gave a strange glint to her hair, and howher eyes almost matched it in color, and how the pupils had widened withfright. He saw, too, something wistful in her face, as though life wasnone too kind to her, and she had not yet abandoned her first sensation ofpained surprise that it should treat her so.

  "That's what I get for running," she said, still panting a little as shewatched him. "I thought all the men were at the table, you see. Your dinnerwill be cold, Mr. Burnett."

  Kent was a bit surprised at the absence of cold hauteur in her manner; hismemory of her had been so different.

  "Well, I'm used to cold grub," he smiled over his shoulder. "And, anyway,when your nose gets to acting up with you, it's like riding a pitchinghorse; you've got to pass up everything and give it all your time andattention." Then, with the daring that sometimes possessed him like adevil, he looked straight at her.

  "Sure you intend to give me my dinner?" he quizzed, his lips' liftinghumorously at the corners. "I kinda thought, from the way you turned medown cold when we met before, you'd shut your door in my face if I camepestering around. How _about_ that?"

  Little flames of ligh
t nickered in her eyes. "You are the guest of myhusband, here by his invitation," she answered him coldly. "Of course Ishall give you your dinner, if you want any."

  He inspected his handkerchief critically, decided that it was not quiteclean, and held it again under the stream of water. "If I want it--yes," hedrawled maliciously. "Maybe I'm not sure about that part. Are you a prettyfair cook?"

  "Perhaps you'd better interview your friends," she retorted, "if you are sovery fastidious. I--" She drew her brows together, as if she was in doubtas to the proper method of dealing with this impertinence. She suspectedthat he was teasing her purposely, but still--

  "Oh, I can eat 'most any old thing," he assured her, with calm effrontery."You look as if you'd learn easy, and Man ain't the worst cook I ever ateafter. If he's trained you faithful, maybe it'll be safe to take a change.How _about_ that? Can you make sour-dough bread yet?"

  "No!" she flung the word at him. "And I don't want to learn," she added, atthe expense of her dignity.

  Kent shook his head disapprovingly. "That sure ain't the proper spirit toshow," he commented. "Man must have to beat you up a good deal, if you talkback to _him_ that way." He eyed her sidelong. "You're a real little wolf,aren't you?" He shook his head again solemnly, and sighed. "A fellow suremust build himself lots of trouble when he annexes a wife--a wife thatwon't learn to make sour-dough bread, and that talks back. I'm plumb sorryfor Man. We used to be pretty good friends--" He stopped short, his facecontrite.

  Val was looking away, and she was winking very fast. Also, her lips werequivering unmistakably, though she was biting them to keep them steady.

  Kent stared at her helplessly. "Say! I never thought you'd mind a littlejoshing," he said gently, when the silence was growing awkward. "I ought tobe killed! You--you must get awful lonesome--"

  She turned her face toward him quickly, as if he were the first personwho had understood her blank loneliness. "That," she told him, in anodd, hesitating manner, "atones for the--the 'joshing.' No one seems torealize--"

  "Why don't you get out and ride around, or do something beside stick righthere in this coulee like a--a cactus?" he demanded, with a roughness thatsomehow was grateful to her. "I'll bet you haven't been a mile from theranch since Man brought you here. Why don't you go to town with him whenhe goes? It'd be a whole lot better for you--for both of you. Have you gotacquainted with any of the women here yet? I'll gamble you haven't!" He waswaving the handkerchief gently like a flag, to dry it.

  Val watched him; she had never seen any one hold a handkerchief by thecorners and wave it up and down like that for quick drying, and theexpedient interested her, even while she was wondering if it was quiteproper for him to lecture her in that manner. His scolding was even moreconfusing than his teasing.

  "I've been down to the river twice," she defended weakly, and was angrywith herself that she could not find words with which to quell him.

  "Really?" He down at her indulgently. "How did you ever manage to get sofar? It must be all of half a mile!"

  "Oh, you're perfectly horrible!" she flashed suddenly. "I don't see how itcan possibly concern you whether I go anywhere or not."

  "It does, though. I'm a lot public-spirited. I hate to see taxes go up, andevery lunatic that goes to the asylum costs the State just that much more.I don't know an easier recipe for going crazy than just to stay off aloneand think. It's a fright the way it gets sheep-herders, and such."

  "I'm _such_, I suppose!"

  Kent glanced at her, approved mentally of the color in her cheeks and theangry light in her eyes, and laughed at her quite openly.

  "There's nothing like getting good and mad once in a while, to takethe kinks out of your brain," he observed. "And there's nothing likelonesomeness to put 'em in. A good fighting mad is what you need, now andthen; I'll have to put Man next, I guess. He's too mild."

  "No one could accuse you of that," she retorted, laughing a little in spiteof herself. "If I were a man I should want to blacken your eyes--" And sheblushed hotly at being betrayed into a personality which seemed to herundignified, and, what was worse, unrefined. She turned her back squarelytoward him, started down the path, and remembered that she had not filledthe water bucket, and that without it she could not consistently return tothe house.

  Kent interpreted her glance, went sliding down the steep bank and recoveredthe pail; he was laughing to himself while he rinsed and filled it at thespring, but he made no effort to explain his amusement. When he came backto where she stood watching him, Val gave her head a slight downward tiltto indicate her thanks, turned, and led the way back to the house withouta word. And he, following after, watched her slim figure swinging lightlydown the hill before him, and wondered vaguely what sort of a hell her lifewas going to be, out here where everything was different from what she hadbeen accustomed to, and where she did not seem to "fit into the scenery,"as he put it.

  "You ought to learn to ride horseback," he advised unexpectedly.

  "Pardon me--you ought to learn to wait until your advice is wanted," shereplied calmly, without turning her head. And she added, with a sort ofdefiance: "I do not feel the need of either society or diversion, I assureyou; I am perfectly contented."

  "That's real nice," he approved. "There's nothing like being satisfied withwhat's handed out to you." But, though he spoke with much unconcern, histone betrayed his skepticism.

  The others had finished eating and were sitting upon their heels in theshade of the house, smoking and talking in that desultory fashion common tomen just after a good meal. Two or three glanced rather curiously at Kentand his companion, and he detected the covert smile on the scandal-hungryface of Polycarp Jenks, and also the amused twist of Fred De Garmo's lips.He went past them without a sign of understanding, set the water pail downin its proper place upon a bench inside the kitchen door, tilted his hatto Val, who happened to be looking toward him at that moment, and went outagain.

  "What's the hurry, Kenneth?" quizzed Polycarp, when Kent started toward thecorral.

  "Follow my trail long enough and you'll find out--maybe," Kent snapped inreply. He felt that the whole group was watching hum, and he knew that ifhe looked back and caught another glimpse of Fred De Garmo's sneering facehe would feel compelled to strike it a blow. There would be no plausibleexplanation, of course, and Kent was not by nature a trouble hunter; and sohe chose to ride away without his dinner.

  While Polycarp was still wondering audibly what was the matter, Kent passedthe house on his gray, called "So-long, Man," with scarcely a glance at hishost, and speedily became a dim figure in the smoke haze.

  "He must be runnin' away from you, Fred," Polycarp hinted, grinningcunningly. "What you done to him--hey?"

  Fred answered him with an unsatisfactory scowl. "You sure would be wise, ifyou found out everything you wanted to know," he said contemptuously, afteran appreciable Wait. "I guess we better be moving along, Bill." He rose,brushed off his trousers with a downward sweep of his hands, and strolledtoward the corrals, followed languidly by Bill Madison.

  As if they had been waiting for a leader, the others rose also and preparedto depart. Polycarp proceeded, in his usual laborious manner, to draw histobacco from his pocket, and pry off a corner.

  "Why don't you burn them guards now, Manley, while you got plenty of help?"he suggested, turning his slit-lidded eyes toward the kitchen door, whereVal appeared for an instant to reach the broom which stood outside.

  "Because I don't want to," snapped Manley: "I've got plenty to do withoutthat."

  "Well, they ain't wide enough, nor long enough, and they don't run in theright direction--if you ask me." Polycarp spat solemnly off to the right.

  "I don't ask you, as it happens." Manley turned and went into the home.

  Polycarp looked quizzically at the closed door. "He's mighty touchy aboutthem guards, for a feller that thinks they're all right--_he-he!_" heremarked, to no one in particular. "Some of these days, by granny, he'llwisht he'd took my advice!"

  Sinc
e no one gave him the slightest attention, Polycarp did not pursue thesubject further. Instead, with both ears open to catch all that was said,he trailed after the others to the corral. It was a matter of instinct,as well as principle, with Polycarp Jenks, to let no sentence, howevertrivial, slip past his hearing and his memory.