Judith of the Godless Valley/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
LITTLE SWIFT CROSSES THE DIVIDE
"Ride 'em till they drop, then break another. That's what Nature does and that's what I do."
THE following afternoon when Douglas rode after the mail he went round by the west trail to call on Charleton. He found the crippled philosopher propped up in bed, reading the Atlantic Monthly and smoking a pipe. Mrs. Falkner and Little Marion were in the corral doing the chores.
"Well, how's the Moose after his disappointment?" asked Charleton.
"Going strong! Any news of Scott?"
"No; I don't expect any news for a week till I get on my feet."
"I guess we might as well let him go and try again without him," said Doug, looking out the door at Little Marion, who was astride a saddleless mule which was doing its best to climb the corral fence.
Charleton grinned. "No one can double-cross me without my taking the trouble to show him he can't do it twice, can they, Marion?" as his wife came in with an armload of wood she had just split.
"You are as revengeful as a wolf, if that's what you mean," replied Mrs. Falkner. "Not that you've tried it on me."
Charleton gave her an amused glance not unmixed with admiration.
"I don't know that even a wolf would tackle a lynx cat," he chuckled.
Douglas looked from the beautiful woman around the homelike room. "You're a lucky chap, Charleton," he said suddenly.
Mrs. Falkner had picked up her sewing-basket. "Nobody with a mind like Charleton's is so awful lucky," she said.
"Ouch!" grinned Charleton, and lighted his pipe afresh.
Douglas pondered on Mrs. Falkner's remark on his way back to the post-office. Peter was sitting on the doorstep with Sister. The mail had been distributed and most of Lost Chief had come and gone.
"That horse is tired, Doug," said Peter. "What have you been doing? Running him to break him?"
"Aw, he's all right," protested Douglas. "Don't climb a tree about him, Peter. I want to talk to you. Make Sister move over."
"Sister," said Peter, "don't you want to go down and speak nice to your old friend Prince?"
Prince, standing before the platform with slavering tongue, bright eyes shining, wagged his tail in a conciliatory manner. Sister sniffed, growled, whimpered, then walked deliberately down the steps and said something to Prince. He barked and they trotted over to the plains east of the post-office.
"She's got a dead coyote she keeps up there for her special friends," said Peter. "What's your trouble, Doug?"
Douglas sat down in Sister's place. "I've been over to see Charleton, and his wife said something that struck me as queer." He repeated Marion's comment.
Peter laughed. "The women in this valley beat any bunch I've seen anywhere. If the men were their equals, there wouldn't be a spot in the world could touch Lost Chief. What do you think of Charleton's mind, Doug?"
"I think he's a wonder. He's lived, that guy."
"Any guy of forty has lived. It's the way they look at life that makes men different. Charleton hasn't any faith in anything good. That's why he's unlucky. Don't let him influence you too much, Doug. I like Charleton but he's not good medicine for a boy of your kind. Have you thought anything about my offer of a couple of months ago?"
"Not much. I'm putting in most of my time worrying about Jude."
"Has she been doing anything special?"
"Well, yes. If I could just make her care for me, it would be easy. But, Peter, she cares a lot more for that poor old broken down Swift than she does for me."
"She's just a child. You'll have to be patient, Doug."
"I am patient, Peter. But, in the meantime, Scott, or—" He hesitated, then went on. "I tell you, this caring for a woman who don't care for you is hell, Peter!"
Peter stared off toward Fire Mesa, with its rolling clouds of red, and answered seriously, "Yes, it is, Douglas. But I told you in June all that I could think of, in regard to Judith, and you got sore at me."
"Well, I'm not sore now. I was a fool. Here comes Jimmy Day. Give me my mail, Peter, and I'll beat it. I'm in no frame of mind to talk to a kid."
Jimmy, who was perhaps a year older than Douglas, pulled his sweating horse to its haunches. His dog, a mongrel collie, ran up the trail to meet the returning Sister and Prince. There was a whining colloquy, then the three dogs turned back.
"Must be a scandal somewhere," suggested Jimmy.
"No, just a dead coyote," said Peter. "Sister ran him down yesterday. Ain't a dog in the State outside of a greyhound can touch her."
Douglas made a flying leap into the saddle while the Moose whirled on his hind legs.
"Some horse, Doug!" exclaimed Jimmy. "I'll swap this and a two-year-older heifer for him."
"I'm afraid he might hurt you. He's a regular man's horse, Jimmy." Doug lighted a cigarette while the Moose reared.
"Thanks," grunted Jimmy. "Say, did you know Scott Parsons has had four young calves by one milch cow, all the same age? Ree-markable man, Scott. Say, I was by there the other day and there sat Scott in the corral on Ginger cracking a black snake at this fool cow to make her let those four slicks eat. He'll die rich, Scott will. He's the calf-gettingest rider in the Rockies."
Douglas turned the Moose into the home trail. When he reached the ranch, Judith was strolling in the main corral with her arm about the neck of the bull Scott had given her. He would follow Judith about like a pet dog but would allow no one else to touch him.
"When he is a little older, you won't be able to play with him that way, Jude," said Douglas, eying the pair with admiration not untinctured with apprehension.
It was a brilliant afternoon, with the western sun throwing long golden shadows across old Dead Line Peak. The corral with its fringe of quivering aspens a silvery lavender; the great red bull; the young girl with her noble proportions, rubbing the brute's ferocious head with one slender brown hand, made an unforgettable picture. The puppy, Wolf Cub, was chewing an old boot beside the alfalfa stack.
"He'll always be fond of me if I handle him right," said Judith. "Won't you, Sioux? I'm going to saddle him, some day, Doug."
"Well, not while I'm around," exclaimed the young rider, as he pulled the bridle over the Moose's head. "Say, have you seen Scott yet?"
"No. Why?"
"I pity him. Charleton sure is after him."
"Charleton? Why?"
Douglas shrugged his shoulders. "You ask Scott why," and he strode off to his chores.
Doug did not see Charleton again for several days. But one afternoon, about a week after the return from the hunt, they met at the post-office and Charleton, who wanted to see John, rode home with him.
"Scott is back," said Doug.
"Yes; I saw him yesterday." Charleton smiled. "I found out who was his helper on that little deal."
"You did! How?" Douglas' voice was so sharp that the Moose jumped nervously.
"I bought the information. Swapped him something for it."
"Who was it? Do you believe him?" Doug spoke a little breathlessly.
"I don't know. I'm going to check up on it now."
"Charleton, who did he say it was? Please, Charleton!"
The older man turned to look suspiciously at Doug. "How long have you known it?"
"You've no call to speak that way to me," cried Douglas.
"Humph! Well, he says it was that young devil of a Jude."
"Look here, Charleton, don't say anything to my father about it. He'll go crazy."
"I don't know what I'll do. I'll talk to Jude, first." And Charleton would say no more.
He found Judith in the milking shed, and while he talked to her there Douglas engaged his father's attention in the living-room. Here Judith swept upon them.
"Doug Spencer, as long as I live, I'll not speak to you again! You promise breaker, you—"
"Wait, Jude! I haven't told anybody. Did I tell you, Charleton?"
"I've told her that you didn't but she won't believe me," grinned Charleton.
"Scott wouldn't have told. Doug was the only one that knew!" Judith paced the floor.
"What the devil has broke loose?" demanded John.
"Now you have started something, Jude," groaned Douglas.
"Judith! Do calm down!" pleaded her mother, who had taken her hands out of the biscuit dough and now stood, twisting her fingers, in the doorway.
"Well," said Charleton, "I don't know any reason why I should keep quiet after the pretty names Jude has called me. It was Judith that helped Scott double-cross us up on Lost Chief Peak. She claims she didn't know it was our deal."
"She didn't, either!" cried Douglas stoutly.
John gasped, "Jude! She got away with your cattle, Charleton? That sure-gawd is funny! Jude! O Lord!" And John burst into a tornado of laughter that lasted until he dropped weakly on his bed.
Judith stared at him, uncertainly, as did her mother. Douglas scowled. Charleton lighted a cigarette.
"Of course, it has its humorous side," said Charleton, as John's shouts died down. "But I've served notice on Scott and I serve notice on Judith now, that I'm not the man who kisses the hand that spoils his deals."
This remark sobered John. "You're right, too, Charleton. Jude, how'd you come to do such a fool thing?"
"How'd Doug and Charleton come to do such a fool thing?" asked Judith. "Scott and I had as good a right to run cattle off them as they had off Elijah Nelson."
"O Judith! Judith!" exclaimed her mother.
"You know how I feel about Scott Parsons!" cried John. "Jude, I'm going to punish you for this so you'll never forget it."
"In other words, if Doug runs cattle, he's admired. If I run cattle, I'm punished!" Jude's fine eyes were flashing, her tanned cheeks burning.
"Doug's a boy; you're a girl," replied John. "And I've told you to let Scott Parsons alone."
"I wish I were dead!" exclaimed Jude.
"Well," said Charleton casually, "I must be getting back home." No one heeded him as he clanked out the door.
"How are you going to punish Jude, Dad?" demanded Douglas.
"Doug," cried Judith, "you keep out of my affairs from now on! I'll show you that you can't break a promise to me."
"Judith, I tell you that I never breathed a word."
"I know better. Scott wouldn't be such a fool. And he told me not an hour ago that Charleton said you'd given me away. And, anyhow, I think more of Scott Parsons than I do of you and Dad put together! He's not always jawing at me. He thinks I'm just right as I am."
Douglas drew himself up, angry and offended. "You'll come after me, miss, before I speak to you again!"
"That's exactly what I want!" retorted Judith.
During this dialogue, Mary stood with the tears running down her cheeks, begging the two to stop quarreling. John leaned against the table, his eyes half, closed, his month distorted.
"So that's how the land lies with Scott?" he shouted suddenly.
"Yes, and if you lay hands on me, I'll shoot you," said Judith succinctly.
"I know how to get you, miss," sneered John.
He rushed out of the house. A moment later he galloped past the window on Beauty. Judith walked defiantly to the door and looked after him. Douglas went out to the corral. Shortly, John returned, leading Swift. He pulled up in front of the door and dismounted. He kicked Swift in the haunch to make her turn, and before Judith could do more than start toward him from the door, he put his six-shooter to Swift's patient little head and pulled the trigger. Swift dropped to her knees and rolled over.
"Now, Jude, try it again and I'll give Buster a dose," said John, standing tense as he waited for the girl's attack.
But with a look of such horror that John recoiled, she stopped in her tracks. She threw her arms about her head with a groan, ran across the yard to the stable and climbed into the hay-loft. Douglas stood for a moment as if turned to stone. Then he picked up a bridle and went into the corral for the Moose. As he adjusted the saddle, John led Beauty to the fence.
"You finish those chores, Doug!"
Douglas went on tightening the cinch.
"It was just a broken-down cow pony that should have been shot long ago," said John, sullenly.
Douglas leaped into the saddle, took the fence like a swallow, and was gone. Prince yelped on the trail before him.
Where he was going, Doug did not know. He thrust the spurs into the Moose and set him straight up the sheer barren side of Falkner's Peak until the Moose was winded, then he dismounted and led him up and up until they both were exhausted. Then Doug looped the reins over a clump of sage-brush and dropped to the ground. Prince squatted beside him, panting.
A blind despair had engulfed Doug. He could think of nothing to do. Nothing that would adequately punish his father, nothing that would solace Judith or bring her to her senses.
Nothing is so intolerably bitter to youth as its first realization of the fact that one is helpless to change life as it is. Douglas, biting his nails and railing at the heavens, was draining one of life's bitterest drinks. He was in deep trouble, utterly alone, and he had no spiritual star for guidance.
But when he finally descended the mountainside he had taken a resolve. He was going to leave home for a while. He was going to work for Charleton, who was greatly in need of a rider. He was not yet of age, but he was not afraid of John's forcing him to return.
His father and mother were in bed when he reached home. Judith's bed was empty. Douglas went out to the stable and climbed noiselessly to the loft. On the hay close to the open door lay Judith, her face dimly outlined in the moonlight. She was still sobbing in her sleep. Douglas stood looking down on her till his own eyes were tear-blinded. Then he knelt in the hay and kissed her softly on the lips. She stirred but did not open her eyes, and he slipped back to the ladder and down, without a sound.
He went to bed at once but was up in the morning before his father, leaving a note on the kitchen table:
I am going to work for Charleton till things are better here at home.
He found Charleton grooming Democrat. "Charleton," he said, "you made a lot of trouble for Jude last night."
"What happened?" asked Charleton.
Douglas told him.
"That was a rotten trick!" exclaimed Charleton. "I just thought he'd lick her. John's got a mean temper."
"I want to work for you a while, Charleton. I'm sick of the rows at home."
"John willing?"
"I haven't asked him."
Charleton grinned. "I need a rider, sure. You finish currying Democrat while I go in and talk to the missis. Little Marion's visiting at Lone Bend. Maybe my wife will think it's too much cooking for two men." But he came back in a little while, smiling cheerfully. "Come on in to breakfast. It's all right."
So Douglas settled to riding for Charleton Falkner. His father did not come after him, and when the two met on the Black Gorge trail a day or so after Doug's departure, John returned Douglas' muttered greeting with a silent, ugly stare. There was comment and conjecture in Lost Chief, but the fall round-up was coming and this soon engrossed the attention of the community. Of Scott, Douglas saw nothing.
The fall slipped into winter, which in Lost Chief country begins in September, and Christmas passed with none of the Spencers at the schoolhouse party excepting Judith, who attended with Scott. February slipped into March and Douglas' eighteenth birthday passed unnoticed. The snows were too deep to allow Charleton to undertake any of those mysterious missions for which he was so much admired, and Elijah Nelson was allowed to flourish unmolested. It was reported that the Mormon had accused Lost Chief of running some of his cattle, but he evidently had no desire to start a controversy with the valley. And Douglas came more and more under Charleton's influence.
Peter Knight, watching the boy more closely than Doug at all realized, was deeply troubled by what he felt might permanently distort Doug's ideas of life.
"How are you and Judith making it, Doug?" Peter asked him one Sunday afternoon early in April, when he and the young rider were sunning themselves in the post-office door.
"You know Judith hasn't spoken to me since last August," replied Doug impatiently.
"Too bad!" grunted Peter.
"O, I don't know," replied Douglas. "I don't see much to this marriage game anyhow. Look at the couples round here and point me out any of 'em that's been married over five years that're really in love. Just a houseful of brats and a woman to nag you."
"Dry up, Doug! You are just quoting Charleton Falkner. I've heard plenty of his empty ideas in the last twenty years. You've worked for him long enough, anyhow. Better go back to your home; or if you're through with Jude, take my offer and go East to school."
"Forget it, Peter! As soon as Fire Mesa opens up, I'm going after wild horses with Charleton. And you can roast him all you want to, but he knows life."
"Knows your foot!" snorted Peter. "If anybody could catch Charleton with his skin off, we'd find he gets happiness and sorrow out of the same things the rest of us do. He's just a big bluff, Charleton is."
"He's lived too much to let anything get him," said Douglas stoutly.
Peter laughed. "Nobody can accuse you of having lived too much, Douglas." Then he added soberly, "You're disappointing me a lot, Douglas. I never thought you'd let go of Jude."
"Jude let go of me," replied Douglas. "I suppose she thought I'd come running back to her, but she's mistaken. I'm through with women."
"Don't talk like an idiot, Doug," said Peter, after a long careful look at Douglas' face. "I know you. You are breaking your heart this minute for Judith, And she misses you a whole lot more than she'll admit."
"How do you know? Have you talked to her?" asked Douglas quickly. "How are things going up there?"
"Yes, I've talked to her. She's all right, but she's getting too many of Inez' ideas in her head. She says John doesn't say ten words a day. You'd better go back, Doug."
"Go back! With Jude believing I double-crossed her and nothing but rows going all the time? I'll admit I'm unhappy, but at least it's peaceful at Charleton's. He and his wife don't fight. I tell you that if home's just a place to fight in, I don't want a home."
"What do you want, Douglas?" asked Peter.
"I don't know," muttered the young rider.
"I know," said Peter softly. "You want a guiding star, you want something that's not to be found in this valley, an ideal fine enough to save your soul alive. You come of stock that lived and died by a spiritual idea, Doug, and you are going to be unhappy till you find one."
Douglas turned this over in his mind soberly for a few minutes. "Have you got one, Peter?" he finally asked, wistfully.
"No! I might have had if your mother had lived. She was an idealist if ever there was one. Work yourself out a plan, Doug, that is based on something fine, then fight to put it over. That's the only way you'll ever be contented."
"What I want," cried Douglas, "is something to take away this emptiness inside of me."
"Exactly! And I'm telling you how. And the reason I know is because I started out in life with the idea that women and the day's work were enough. Maybe they are for a man like your father, though I doubt it. But a man like you or me isn't built for promiscuity either in love or in work. We are the kind that have to choose a fine, straight line and then hew to it, keep our faith in it, never leave it."
He paused for so long a time that Douglas stirred uneasily, then said, "How did you learn different, Peter?"
"By doing all the things that impulse and youth suggested, regardless of any suggestions or advice, and arriving at middle life with my mind and heart as empty as yours. Don't do it, Doug. It makes tragedy of old age."
Douglas rose slowly. "I don't see what in the world I can do with myself," he said heavily, and he rode back to Charleton's ranch.
Books had perhaps been Douglas' greatest solace that long winter. Charleton had a good many, mostly representing his young delvings into the realms of agnosticism. His later purchases simmered down to a few volumes of poetry. There were several of Shakespeare's plays around the cabin and these Douglas read again and again. He did not see much of Little Marion, who was a great gad-about, and who, when she was at home, was monopolized by Jimmy Day. Mrs. Falkner he found immensely companionable. She had a half-caustic wit which he enjoyed, but he liked best to have her argue with Charleton on what she called his dog-eat-dog theory of life.
He had reason, not long after his conversation with Peter, to recall the postmaster's comments on Charleton. Very early one morning Charleton roused him and told him to ride like forty furies after Grandma Brown.
Douglas obeyed him literally and arrived at the Brown ranch with the Moose in a sweating lather. When he banged on the door, Grandma, clutching her nightdress at the throat, put her head out.
"The baby, I suppose!" she snapped. "Is Little Marion there?"
"Yes!"
"Well, let me dress."
"Hurry, please, Grandma! Charleton seemed awful scared."
"Charleton! Huh! I'm going to get my proper clothes on and drink my coffee, no matter how Charleton Falkner worries. He always was a baby. You go saddle Abe."
Abe was saddled and the Moose was breathing normally before Grandma appeared, plump and calm. Nor would she allow Abe to be hurried out of his usual gentle trot.
"Douglas, when you've seen as many new eyes open and old eyes close as I have, you'll quit hurrying," she said. "The Almighty generally looks out for mothers, anyhow."
So, sedately, in the glory of the sun bursting over the top of the Indian range, they trotted up to Falkner's cabin.
Charleton burst out of the door. "Where in the blank-blank have you been? Hurry, Grandma! I've been nearly crazy!"
"I'll bet your wife ain't crazy." Grandma dismounted with Doug's help. "Now, Douglas, you keep this lunatic outside, no matter what he says or does. It's just the way he acted when Little Marion came." She stamped into the house and closed the door.
"Let's go do the chores!" suggested Douglas.
"Chores! Chores! Don't you know that—"
"Yes, I know all about it," interrupted Doug. "Come on and get the milking done. Are you afraid your wife will die, Charleton, or what?"
"Or what!" gasped Charleton. "You poor, half-baked idiot!"
For an hour, Douglas sweated with Charleton. Then, as they rested for a time on the corral gate, the kitchen door opened and Grandma's head appeared.
"You go, Doug," said Charleton feebly.
But Grandma did not wait. "It's a boy, Charleton!" she shrieked. "A fine, big boy!" And she closed the door.
Charleton sat perfectly still on the fence. His lips moved but for several seconds no sound came forth. Then he said, "Charleton Falkner, Jr.! Charleton Falkner, Jr.! All my life I've been waiting for this moment!" Tears were on his cheeks. "Doug, you go up and ask 'em how my wife is and give her my love."
Douglas stared at his mentor, wonderingly, unwound his long legs from the fence and crossed the yard. Grandma answered his timid rap.
"Charleton says how's his wife and sends his love."
"O, he does!" witheringly. "Why don't he go over to the post-office and telephone us? You tell him she did fine like she always does everything. You folks go up and get Peter to give you some breakfast."
"I'm not going near Peter till I see the boy and my wife!" called Charleton.
Grandma slammed the door.
"I wouldn't go near the post-office," said Douglas, established again on the fence beside Charleton.
"Why not?"
"If—if I felt like you do, I'd want to stay by myself, just take a ride alone up to the top of Fire Mesa."
"I don't care what I do as long as the boy's here. Charleton Falkner, Jr.! I'll tell you, Doug, you'll never know what happiness life can hold for you till a woman like Marion gives you a son."
"Say!" cried Douglas in an outraged voice. "What's all this talk you've been giving me for a year about whiskey and women and horses?"
Charleton did not hear him. "Charleton Falkner, Jr.!" he was murmuring over an unlighted cigarette.
It seemed a very long time before they were admitted to the baby and breakfast. Douglas was entirely unimpressed by the squirming red morsel of humanity that Little Marion proudly brought into the kitchen for their inspection. But Charleton was maudlin with admiration. It was, it seemed, easily the first child ever born in Lost Chief, not excepting Little Marion who had been a wonderful baby herself.
Douglas listened, eating his breakfast grimly the while, filled with an embarrassed consternation at last beholding his mentor with, as Peter had said, his outer skin off.
This, then, was what Charleton really wanted; not whiskey, or promiscuous women, or wild horses, or Omar Khayham. What he wanted was a son, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, to carry on his name. And yet what had Charleton ever done to that name except to besmirch it? For Douglas now in his heart had no illusions about the proper nomenclature for his mentor's mysterious little deals.
"Charleton," he demanded suddenly, "do you want the kid to grow up to be just like you?"
Charleton looked at Douglas in astonishment. "Like me? Listen, Doug, old-timer, I'm going to spend the rest of my life licking out of him anything I see in him like me!"
Douglas gave up in despair and went out to finish the chores.
It was a disjointed day, of course. In the afternoon Charleton went to a choice gathering of spirits at the post-office; and Douglas, feeling particularly lonely and unsettled, rode up the south trail after three of Charleton's young mules which had strayed. He felt somehow that, with the dereliction of Charleton, the last hold he had on reality had gone.