Skyrider

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  JOHNNY'S DILEMMA

  "Well, thank heavens she's gone! Perhaps a person can have a minute ortwo of peace and comfort on this ranch now. I don't know when I have everdisliked a person so much. I don't see how you stood her. For my part,that creature would _make_ me sick, just having her around!" As a finalventing of her animosity, Mary V made faces at the car that carried thenurse hack to town.

  Johnny looked at Mary V, looked after the nurse, and looked at Mary Vagain. He had thought the nurse a very nice nurse, with a quiet kind ofefficiency that soothed a fellow without any fuss or frills. It was queerMary V did not like her, but then--

  "I know I've been a darned nuisance," he apologized so meekly that he didnot sound in the least like Johnny Jewel. "But I'm getting well fast.I'll be able to beat it in a few days now."

  "Why, for gracious sake? Haven't we--er--made you _comfortable_?"

  "Sure, you have. Only you shouldn't have put yourselves out, this way.I ought to have gone to a hospital or some place." Johnny looked sodistressed that Mary V could have cried. Only she was afraid that woulddistress him still more, and the doctor had said he must not be worriedabout anything.

  "It wasn't any trouble. You are being absolutely silly, so I guess youare getting well, all right. I--I didn't see any sense of having thatnurse in the first place. Because I can take temperature and count pulseand everything. I've really been crazy for a chance to practice nursingon somebody. And then when I had the chance, they wouldn't let me do athing."

  Johnny grinned, which was rather pathetic--he was so thin and so white."Why didn't you practice on the greasers?" he taunted her. "Bill says yousure made some dandy work for the hospitals."

  "Well, I couldn't help that. I didn't have any way of tying them, oranything, and--"

  "Brag, girl! For Lord's sake don't apologize; it doesn't come natural toyou. What gets me is that I was ripping the atmosphere wide open, tryingto rescue you, and all the while you were making a whole sheriff's posseof yourself--and it was you that rescued me. I should think--"

  "I did not! I--did Bill tell you the latest, Johnny? You know how dadis--about making people tell things he wants to know, and keeping themright to the point--"

  "I know." Johnny's tone was eloquent.

  "Well, he got at those Mexicans, and they told everything they knew--andsome besides. And who do you think was the real leader of that gang,Johnny? And I know now it was his voice that I couldn't quite recognizeover the 'phone. They've arrested him and two or three of his men, andyou wouldn't _believe_ a neighbor could be so tricky and mean as thatTucker Bly. Stealing _our_ horses to sell to the Mexicans, if you please,and selling his own to the government mostly--but some to the Mexicans,too, I suppose. And nobody suspecting a thing all the while, and Tex inwith them and all. And if you hadn't stampeded the horses so they cameback to the line, and the boys rounded them up, dad would have lost a lotmore than he did. But now the whole thing is out, and really, if I hadn'tcaught those two greasers, there wouldn't be any evidence against theTucker Bly outfit, or Tex either. And I just think it's awful, the way--"

  She stopped abruptly. Johnny's bandaged head was leaning against the backof his big chair, and his eyes were closed. His face looked whiter thanit had a few minutes ago. Mary V was scared. She should have known betterthan to talk of those things.

  "Shall--would you like a drink, or--or something?" she asked in a small,contrite voice.

  Johnny opened his eyes and looked at her.

  "No, I don't want a drink; I just want somebody to give me another knockon the head that will finish me." And before Mary V could think ofanything soothing to say, Johnny spoke again. "I think I'll go back andlie down awhile. I--don't feel very good."

  He would not let Mary V help him at all, but walked slowly, steadyinghimself by the chairs, the wall, by anything solid within reach. He didnot look much like the very self-assured, healthy specimen of youngmanhood whom Mary V could bully and tease and talk to without constraint.She felt as though she scarcely knew this thin, pale young man with thebandaged head and the somber eyes. He seemed so aloof, as though hisspirit walked alone in dark places where she could not follow.

  After that she did not mention stolen horses, nor thieves, nor airplanes,nor anything that could possibly lead his thoughts to those taboosubjects. Under that heavy handicap conversation lagged. There seemed tobe so little that she dared mention! She would sit and prattle of schooland shows and such things, and tell him about the girls she knew; andhalf the time she knew perfectly well that Johnny was not listening. Butshe could not bear his moody silences, and he sat out on the porch a gooddeal of the time, so she had to go on talking, whether she bored him todeath or not.

  Then one day, when the bandage had dwindled to a small patch held inplace by strips of adhesive plaster, Johnny broke into her detaileddescription of a silly Western picture she had seen.

  "What's become of Bland?" he asked, just when she was describing athrilling scene.

  "Bland? Oh, why--Bland's gone." Mary V was very innocent as to eyes andvoice, and very uneasy as to her mind.

  "Gone where? He was broke. I didn't get a chance to pay him--"

  "Oh, well, as to that--I suppose dad fixed him up with a ticket and soon. And so this girl, Inez, overhears them plotting--"

  "Where's your dad?"

  "Dad? Why, dad's in Tucson, I believe, at the trial. What _makes_ you sorude when I'm telling you the most thrill--"

  "When's he coming back?"

  "For gracious _sake_, Johnny! What do you want of dad all at once? Am Inot entertaining--"

  "You are. As entertaining as a meadow lark. I love meadow larks, but Inever could put in all my time listening to 'em sing. I generally hadsomething else I had to do."

  "Well, you've nothing else to do now, so listen to this meadow lark, willyou? Though I must say--"

  "I'd like to, but I can't. There are things I've got to do."

  "There are not! Not a single thing but be a nice boy and get well. And toget well you must--"

  "A lot you know about it--you, with nothing to worry you, any more than ameadow lark. Not as much, because they do have to rustle their ownworms and watch out for hawks and things, and you--"

  "I suppose you would imply that I have about as much brains as a meadowlark, perhaps!" Mary V rose valiantly to the argument. If Johnny wouldrather quarrel than talk about things that didn't interest either of thema bit, why, a quarrel he should have.

  But Johnny would not quarrel. He made no reply whatever to the tentativecharge. When Mary V stopped scolding, she became aware that Johnny hadnot heard a word of what she had said.

  "How many horses did your dad figure had been stolen? I mean, besides theones he got back."

  "Why--er--you'll have to ask dad. I don't see what that can have to dowith meadow larks' brains."

  "It hasn't a thing to do with brains. I was merely wondering."

  "Well," Mary V retorted flippantly, "I believe the wondering is very goodto-day. Help yourself, Johnny."

  Johnny looked at her unsmilingly. "That," he told her bitterly, "is whatI'm trying to do."

  He did not explain that somewhat cryptical remark, and presently he lefther and went to his room. Mary V felt that she was not being trusted bya person who surely ought to know by this time that he needn't be sosecretive about his thoughts and intentions. If she had not proved herloyalty and her friendship by this time, what did a person want her todo, for gracious sake?

  Mary V had rather an unhappy time of it, the next week or so. She had,for some reason, lost all interest in collecting "Desert Glimpses"; somuch so that when her mother told her she must stay close to the ranchlest she meet more of those terrible Mexican bandits, Mary V was verysweet about it and did not argue with her mother at all. She seldom wentfarther than the ledge, these days, and she could not keep her mind offJohnny Jewel, even when there was no doubt at all that he was nearlyas well as ever.

  Of course, it did not reall
y matter--but why was Johnny so glum with her?Why wouldn't he talk, or at least quarrel the way he used to do? He didnot seem angry about anything. He simply did not seem to care whether shewas with him or not. She might as well be a stick or a stone, she toldherself viciously, for all the attention Johnny Jewel ever paid to her.She did not mind in the least; but it did seem perfectly silly andunaccountable; she wondered merely because she hated mysteries.

  It really should not have been mysterious. Mary V made the mistake of notputting herself in Johnny's place and from that angle interpreting hispreoccupation. Had she done that she would have seen at once that Johnnywas fighting a battle within himself. All his ideas, his plans, and hishopes had been turned bottom up, and Johnny was working over the wreck.

  She sat and watched him from the ledge one day, and wondered why he didnot act more pleased when he walked down toward the corral and discoveredhis airplane all repaired, just exactly as good as it had been before. Hestood there looking at it with the same apathetic gloom in his bearingthat had marked him ever since he was able to be out of bed. Mary Vthought he might at least show a little gratitude--not to herself, buttoward her dad, because he had kept Bland and had paid him to repairthe machine for Johnny, when Johnny was too sick to know anything aboutit--too sick even to hear the noise of it when Bland tried out themotor--and the nurse was so afraid it would disturb "her patient."

  She saw her dad stroll down that way, and stop and look at the airplanewith Johnny. Johnny seemed to be asking a few questions. But they didnot talk five minutes until Johnny went off by himself to the bunk house,and stayed there. He did not even come back to the house for supper, butate with the boys.

  Mary V would have died before she would ask Johnny what was the matter,but she took what measures she could to find out, nevertheless. She askedher dad, that evening, what Johnny thought about his aeroplane being allfixed up again.

  Sudden smoked for a minute or two before he answered. "Well, I don'tknow, kitten. He didn't say." Sudden's tone was drawling and comfortable,but Mary V somehow got the notion that her dad, too, was ratherdisappointed in Johnny's lack of appreciation.

  "Well, but what's he going to do with it, dad?"

  "He didn't say, kitten."

  "Well, but dad, he was looking at it, and you were with him, and didn'the say _anything_, for gracious sake?" Mary V could not have kept theexasperation out of her voice if she had tried.

  Sudden's lips quirked with the beginning of a smile. He looked at the endof his cigar, looked toward the bunk house, scraped off the cigar's ashcollar on the porch rail, looked at Mary V.

  "Well, he asked me how it got here to the ranch, and I told him with awagon and team and so on. And he said, 'Mh-hum, I see.' Then he asked mewho repaired it, and I told him that buttermilk-eyed aviator he'd hadwith him. He replied, 'I--see.' Then he asked me what the repairing hadcost, and the fellow's wages or whatever he had got, and I told him,'Dam-fi recollect, Johnny.' And he didn't say a word. Just strolled offas if he'd talked himself tired--which I guess maybe he had."

  "Well, but dad, what do you _suppose_ he's going to do? He--he's awfullyqueer since he was hurt. Do you suppose--?"

  "Kitten," said her dad quietly, "when you're breaking a high-strung colthe sometimes sorta resents his schooling and sulks. Then you've just gotto wait till he figures things out for himself a little. If you force himyou're liable to spoil him and make him mean. Johnny's like that. He'sjust a high-strung human colt that life is breaking. I guess, kitten, webetter not crowd him right now."

  "Well, I don't see why he should act that way with _me_," Mary Vcomplained, and thereby proved herself altogether human and feminine inher point of view.