by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER TEN: BUD MEETS THE WOMAN
A woman was stooping at the woodpile, filling her arms with crookedsticks of rough-barked sage. From the color of her hair Bud knew thatshe was not Honey, and that she was therefore a stranger to him. But heswung off the path and went over to her as naturally as he would go topick up a baby that had fallen.
"I'll carry that in for you," he said, and put out his hand to help herto her feet.
Before he touched her she was on her feet and looking at him. Bud couldnot remember afterwards that she had done anything else; he seemed tohave seen only her eyes, and into them and beyond them to a soul thatsomehow made his heart tremble.
What she said, what he answered, was of no moment. He could not havetold afterwards what it was. He stooped and filled his arms with wood,and walked ahead of her up the pathway to the kitchen door, and stoppedwhen she flitted past him to show him where the wood-box stood. He wasconscious then of her slenderness and of the lightness of her steps.He dropped the wood into the box behind the stove on which kettleswere steaming. There was the smell of chicken stewing, and the odor offresh-baked pies.
She smiled up at him and offered him a crisp, warn cookie with sugaredtop, and he saw her eyes again and felt the same tremor at his heart.He pulled himself together and smiled back at her, thanked her and wentout, stumbling a little on the doorstep, the cookie untasted in hisfingers.
He walked down to the corral and began fumbling at his pack, histhoughts hushed before the revelation that had come to him.
"Her hands--her poor, little, red hands!" he said in a whisper as thememory of them came suddenly. But it was her eyes that he was seeingwith his mind; her eyes, and what lay deep within. They troubled him,shook him, made him want to use his man-strength against something thatwas hurting her. He did not know what it could be; he did not know thatthere was anything--but oddly the memory of his mother's white face backin the long ago, and of her tone when she said, "Oh, God, please!" cameback and fitted themselves to the look in this woman's eyes.
Bud sat down on his canvas-wrapped bed and lifted his hat to rumple hishair and then smooth it again, as was his habit when worried. He lookedat the cookie, and because he was hungry he ate it with a foolishfeeling that he was being sentimental as the very devil, thinking howher hands had touched it. He rolled and smoked a cigarette afterwards,and wondered who she was and whether she was married, and what her firstname was.
A quiet smoke will bring a fellow to his senses sometimes whennothing else will, and Bud managed, by smoking two cigarettes in rapidsuccession, to restore himself to some degree of sanity.
"Funny how she made me think of mother, back when I was a kid coming upfrom Texas," he mused. "Mother'd like her." It was the first time he hadever thought just that about a girl. "She's no relation to Honey," headded. "I'd bet a horse on that." He recalled how white and soft wereHoney's hands, and he swore a little. "Wouldn't hurt her to get outthere in the kitchen and help with the cooking," he criticised. Thensuddenly he laughed. "Shucks a'mighty, as Pop says! with those two girlson the ranch I'll gamble Dave Truman has a full crew of men that areplumb willing to work for their board!"
The stage came, and Bud turned to it relievedly. After that, here cameDave Truman on a deep-cheated roan. Bud knew him by his resemblance tothe old man, who came shuffling bent-backed from the machine-shed asDave passed.
Pop beckoned, and Dave reined his horse that way and stopped at the sheddoor. The two talked for a minute and Dave rode on, passing Bud with acurt nod. Pop came over to where Bud stood leaning against the corral.
"How are you feeling, dad?" Bud grinned absently.
"Purty stiff an' sore, boy--my rheumatics is bad to-day." Pop winkedsolemnly. "I spoke to Dave about you wantin' a job, and I guess likelyDave'll put you on. They's plenty to do--hayin' comin' on and all that."He lowered his voice mysteriously, though there was no man save Budwithin a hundred feet of him. "Don't ye go 'n talk horses--not yet.Don't let on like yore interested much. I'll tell yuh when to take 'emup."
The men came riding in from the hayfield, some in wagons, two astrideharnessed work-horses, and one long-legged fellow in chaps on a mower,driving a sweaty team that still had life enough to jump sidewise whenthey spied Bud's pack by the corral. The stage driver sauntered up andspoke to the men. Bud went over and began to help unhitch the team fromthe mower, and the driver eyed him sharply while he grinned his greetingacross the backs of the horses.
"Pop says you're looking for work," Dave Truman observed, coming up."Well, if you ain't scared of it, I'll stake yuh to a hayfork afterdinner. Where yuh from?"
"Just right now, I'm from the Muleshoe. Bud Birnie's my name. I wastelling dad why I quit."
"Tell me," Dave directed briefly. "Pop ain't as reliable as he used tobe. He'd never get it out straight."
"I quit," said Bud, "by special request." He pulled off his glovescarefully and held up his puffed knuckles. "I got that on Dirk Tracy."
The driver of the mower shot a quick, meaning glance at Dave, andlaughed shortly. Dave grinned a little, but he did not ask what had beenthe trouble, as Bud had half expected him to do. Apparently Dave feltthat he had received all the information he needed, for his next remarkhad to do with the heat. The day was a "weather breeder", he declared,and he was glad to have another man to put at the hauling.
An iron triangle beside the kitchen door clamored then, and Bud, lookingquickly, saw the slim little woman with the big, troubled eyes strikingthe iron bar vigorously. Dave glanced at his watch and led the way tothe house, the hay crew hurrying after him.
Fourteen men sat down to a long table with a great shuffling of feet andscraping of benches, and immediately began a voracious attack upon theheaped platters of chicken and dumplings and the bowls of vegetables.Bud found a place at the end where he could look into the kitchen,and his eyes went that way as often as they dared, following the swiftmotions of the little woman who poured coffee and filled empty dishesand said never a word to anyone.
He was on the point of believing her a daughter of the house when asquare-jawed man of thirty, or thereabout, who sat at Bud's right hand,called her to him as he might have called his dog, by snapping hisfingers.
She came and stood beside Bud while the man spoke to her in an arrogantundertone.
"Marian, I told yuh I wanted tea for dinner after this. D'you bring mecoffee on purpose, just to be onery? I thought I told yuh to straightenup and quit that sulkin'. I ain't going to have folks think----"
"Oh, be quiet! Shame on you, before everyone!" she whispered fiercelywhile she lifted the cup and saucer.
Bud went hot all over. He did not look up when she returned presentlywith a cup of tea, but he felt her presence poignantly, as he had neverbefore sensed the presence of a woman. When he was able to swallow hiswrath and meet calmly the glances of these strangers he turned his headcasually and looked the man over.
Her husband, he guessed the fellow to be. No other relationship couldaccount for that tone of proprietorship, and there was no physicalresemblance between the two. A mean devil, Bud called him mentally,with a narrow forehead, eyes set too far apart and the mouth of a brute.Someone spoke to the man, calling him Lew, and he answered with roughgood humor, repeating a stale witticism and laughing at it just asthough he had not heard others say it a hundred times.
Bud looked at him again and hated him, but he did not glance again atthe little woman named Marian; for his own peace of mind he did notdare. He thought that he knew now what it was he had seen in the depthof her eyes, but there seemed to be nothing that he could do to help.
That evening after supper Honey Krause called to him when he wasstarting down to the bunk-house with the other men. What she saidwas that she still had his guitar and mandolin, and that they neededexercise. What she looked was the challenge of a born coquette. In thekitchen dishes were rattling, but after they were washed there would bea little leisure, perhaps, for the kitchen drudge. Bud's impulse to makehis sore hands an excuse for re
fusing evaporated. It might not be wiseto place himself deliberately in the way of getting a hurt--but youthnever did stop to consult a sage before following the lure of a woman'seyes.
He called back to Honey that those instruments ought to have been put inthe hayfield, where there was more exercise than the men could use. "Youboys ought to come and see me safe through with it," he added to theloitering group around him. "I'm afraid of women."
They laughed and two or three went with him. Lew went on to the corraland presently appeared on horseback, riding up to the kitchen andleaving his horse standing at the corner while he went inside and talkedto the woman he had called Marian.
Bud was carrying his guitar outside, where it was cooler, when he heardthe fellow's arrogant voice. The dishes ceased rattling for aminute, and there was a sharp exclamation, stifled but unmistakable.Involuntarily Bud made a movement in that direction, when Honey's voicestopped him with a subdued laugh.
"That's only Lew and Mary Ann," she explained carelessly. "They have aspat every time they come within gunshot of each other."
The lean fellow who had driven the mower, and whose name was JerryMyers, edged carelessly close to Bud and gave him a nudge with hiselbow, and a glance from under his eyebrows by way of emphasis. Heturned his head slightly, saw that Honey had gone into the house, andmuttered just above a whisper, "Don't see or hear anything. It's all thehelp you can give her. And for Lord's sake don't let on to Honey likeyou--give a cuss whether it rains or not, so long 's it don't pour toohard the night of the dance."
Bud looked up at the darkening sky speculatively, and tried not to hearthe voices in the kitchen, one of which was brutally harsh while theother told of hate and fear suppressed under gentle forbearance. Theharsh voice was almost continuous, the other infrequent, reluctant tospeak at all. Bud wanted to go in and smash his guitar over the fellow'shead, but Jerry's warning held him. There were other ways, however, tohelp; if he must not drive off the tormentor, then he would call himaway. He ignored his bruised knuckles and plucked the guitar strings asif he held a grudge against them, and then began to sing the first songthat came into his mind--one that started in a rollicky fashion.
Men came straggling up from the bunk-house before he had finished thefirst chorus, and squatted on their heels to listen, their cigarettesglowing like red fingertips in the dusk. But the voice in the kitchentalked on. Bud tried another--one of those old-time favorites, a"laughing coon" song, though he felt little enough in the mood for it.In the middle of the first laugh he heard the kitchen door slam, andLew's footsteps coming around the corner. He listened until the songwas done, then mounted and rode away, Bud's laugh following himtriumphantly--though Lew could not have guessed its meaning.
Bud sang for two hours expectantly, but Marian did not appear, and Budwent off to the bunk-house feeling that his attempt to hearten her hadbeen a failure. Of Honey he did not think at all, except to wonder ifthe two women were related in any way, and to feel that if they wereMarian was to be pitied. At that point Jerry overtook him and asked fora match, which gave him an excuse to hold Bud behind the others.
"Honey like to have caught me, to-night," Jerry observed guardedly."I had to think quick. I'll tell you the lay of the land, Bud, seeingyou're a stranger here. Marian's man, Lew, he's a damned bully andsomebody is going to draw a fine bead on him some day when he ain'tlooking. But he stands in, so the less yuh take notice the better.Marian, she's a fine little woman that minds her own business, but she'sgetting a cold deck slipped into the game right along. Honey's jealousof her and afraid somebody'll give her a pleasant look. Lew's jealous,and he watches her like a cat watches a mouse it's caught and wants toplay with. Between the two of 'em Marian has a real nice time of it. I'mwising you up so you won't hand her any more misery by trying to takeher part. Us boys have learned to keep our mouths shut."
"Glad you told me," Bud muttered. "Otherwise----"
"Exactly," Jerry agreed understandingly. "Otherwise any of us would."
He stopped and then spoke in a different tone. "If Lew stays off theranch long enough, maybe you'll get to hear her sing. Wow-ee, but thatlady has sure got the meadow-larks whipped! But look out for Honey,old-timer."
Bud laughed unmirthfully. "Looks to me as if you aren't crazy overHoney," he ventured. "What has she done to you?"
"Her?" Jerry inspected his cigarette, listened to the whisper ofprudence in his ear, and turned away. "Forget it. I never said a word."He swept the whole subject from him with a comprehensive gesture, andsnorted. "I'm gettin' as bad as Pop," he grinned. "But lemme tell yuhsomething. Honey Krause runs more 'n the post-office."