Sheep Limit/Chapter 6
Dowell Peck, the mail-order beau, presented anything but a romantic appearance as he stood beside his luggage where the driver of the livery rig had unloaded him. He was a long, lean man, a peering inquisitiveness in his sharp features, adorned by a sprangling brown moustache, so long, so immense and so heavy, he appeared to carry his head to balance it, as a buck his spreading antlers. His nose was singularly juvenile, his light eyes were large, outstanding in their sockets, such a glassy brightness of artificialty in them as caused the beholder to wonder if he could see.
Peck carried his head thrust forward a little on his long, gaunt neck, as if to keep his moustache clear of entanglements. This pose, taken with the sharp angle of his neck that looked like something in a stocking, gave him the straining appearance of a horse stretching its neck to relieve the pressure of an uncomfortable collar. He was enveloped to the knees in a garment once popular with travelers from such places as St. Joe, known as a linen duster. Few of them were linen, Peck's being no exception. His was cambric of a greenish hue, wrinkled, drawn, drooping. It had large mussel-shell buttons, large packets of some weighty stuff in the pockets of it which contributed nothing to the engaging appearance a man might well desire to present when arriving on a tender mission such as his. A narrow-brimmed derby hat, pressed down hard to the eyebrows, topped off his extraordinary ensemble.
It required both hands to pry Peck loose from his hat, he had fixed it so firmly against the inequalities of the road. He had it off in due time to salute the ladies when they approached him, stepping out from his three pieces of luggage with great elegance, hair so well protected by the tortoise-shell hat that the plaster had not even cracked.
"So this is little old Edith!" he said. "Well, well, well!"
Edith was so embarrassed by this climax in her mail flirtation, together with the presence of Rawlins, whom Mrs. Duke had fairly brought forward by force, and the stage driver, who was hanging out over his seat in eagerness to hear, that she had no words ready for this ardent and familiar courtier. She gave him her hand, grinning ruefully, making the best of it she could.
Peck was not dampened by the reception, if sensible of its coolness, at all, which Rawlins doubted as he watched the forward fellow.
"And this is Missus Duke, natural as life and twice as big," Peck rattled ahead. "Give us a kiss, Aunt Lile."
"Well, I like your gall!" said Mrs. Duke, but not severely, not entirely displeased, although she did not offer her lips to the proposed salutation. She backed away, a capable hand raised to fend against the impetuosity of the man from St. Joe.
Smith Phogenphole, who plainly had possessed himself of the particulars of this romance along the way, chuckled his appreciation of Peck's method. He appeared as a man whose doubts had been removed, comfortable in his enjoyment of the scene, keen in the anticipation of the stir his report would make when he got back to town.
"Come on into the house, Mr. Peck," Edith invited, more concerned about getting out of Smith Phogenphole's eyes than the matter of hospitality. "Grab your gripsacks and come in."
She led the way, Mrs. Duke lingering for a chat with the liveryman, Rawlins going back to the sheeplot again. He was not sorry for Edith, try as he might to get up a little sympathy for her. Ordering by mail was such an established business in the sheep country, he supposed, that a girl naturally thought of getting her romance that way. She had drawn a high prize from the catalogue; that was a cinch. Peck was a rarity fit to put in a case and keep.
Rawlins went grinning about the things he found wanting done around the sheds and lots, wondering what the girl had written that had moved this sample of St. Joe's chivalry to pack his three bags and point his moustaches into the west. He wouldn't have come without encouragement; he hardly would have risked the jump, forward and indelicate as he plainly was, without a pretty strong hope. Peck was not a man to allow any grass to grow between his toes. He would push things along; right along. He was the kind that would take a crack over the nose like a hound, his head popped back in the pot before the yelp was out of his mouth. It was a situation of large possibilities, mainly humorous, as it looked to Rawlins just then.
Vaguely wondering how the young woman was to rid herself of this long-shinned suitor, pretty certain in his own opinion that a little thing like telling him he was not wanted would make very slight difference to Mr. Peck, Rawlins pottered around the place, tidying up the generally neglected aspect of the premises. He was too deeply concerned with his own future, the plans for which must be laid and developed anew, to allow Peck's advent to remain long a matter for speculation.
The sun was low on the hill when Rawlins concluded he had done about all there was lying around loose. He was turning to the house to change his clothes and get ready for supper, when Edith came bursting across the lot, throwing a wild look back over her shoulder as she approached, considerably agitated, panting as if she had just wrenched herself from Peck's ardent but unwelcome arms.
"There's some motherless lambs—five of them—that the ewes wouldn't take," she panted, "back in the far shed. I'm afraid they'll starve."
"They're all right," he assured her cheerfully. "I found them. I divided them up among three ewes—they'll be all right now."
"You did?" she questioned, incredulous and grateful in a breath. "I couldn't do a thing with the selfish old things, I tried all morning before I went to town. How did you do it?"
"Oh, just blarneyed 'em along a little," he replied, discounting his success.
"Well, I couldn't do it, and me a sheepman," she declared. "Aunt Lila must be right, you're a born sheepman."
"Thanks. What's on your mind, Miss Stone?"
He knew well enough it was not the lambs. No sheepman would be that much concerned over a few motherless lambs.
"That pop-eyed Peck wanted to kiss me—he tried to kiss me!"
She was hot enough to fry pancakes, her face as red as if Peck's horny stubble of beard had come too close for comfort. She looked toward the house, fearful that the mail-order suitor might be following her in pursuit of his amorous design, drawing the back of her hand spitefully across her cheek as if brushing away a pestiferous insect.
"Yes, and he did," Rawlins said, laughing unsympathetically.
"He did not!" she denied with high indignation. "He kissed Aunt Lila—he's made a big hit with her already. Darned fool! he thinks I'm going to marry him! He told Aunt Lila I sent for him."
"Didn't you?"
"No, I didn't. I never as much as hinted I wanted him to come. Oh, Mr. Rawlins!" appealingly, her hands extended in earnest supplication—"can't you have a little sympathy for me? Don't you see I'm in a devil of a fix?"
"You certainly are—if you really don't want that chap around."
"He writes a whole lot better than he talks, or looks," she pleaded her excuse for the affair, "and the picture he sent me didn't show all of him."
"I'll bet you. It'd sure take a whopper to do that."
"He'll stay here always, he'll never go away!" she moaned.
"He does look like a pretty good stayer," Rawlins granted cheerfully.
"I want you to help me out!" impetuously, her hands held out in that ingenuous appeal.
"What do you want me to do? take him off and drop him in a hole somewhere?"
"Oh, can't you be serious?" a bit pettishly, very much ashamed of her fix.
"Seriously, then, I'll do what I can to relieve you of him, Miss Stone. You remember the story of the unwelcome suitors?"
"I wouldn't ask you to shoot him, though," she replied, answering him doubly, but too serious for even a smile.
"But I'm afraid that ancient gentleman's method with self-appointed beaux is about the only one that will ever break Mr. Peck loose."
"If he thought there was somebody else—if I gave him to understand there was somebody else," earnestly, her troubled eyes holding his own, her troubled voice like a reproving finger laid on the smile that twitched his lips—"if I could tell him I'm already engaged, and show him the ring."
"Fine! That's the ticket. Slip on a ring and tell him somebody beat him to it. That ought to put him right."
"Yes, and the first thing he'd want to know would be the man's name, simple!" she said. "There's got to be a man, and men aren't so plentiful up in this country you can go out and tag one when you want him. Even that old lizard ain't green enough to believe I'd marry a sheep-herder. I've got to have a real man. Won't you help me out, Mr. Rawlins? Please, won't you—help me out?"
Rawlins was uncomfortable, hot in a flush, and red as a gobbler. But he tried to be calm, and accept the proposal in the spirit of frankness in which it was made.
"You mean you want me to be the man?"
"Yes, if you'll only do me the favor, please, Mr. Rawlins. Only temporarily, you know, not in earnest. It'll only be a bluff, it'll all be off as soon as he goes away and leaves me alone."
"I don't know whether I'm going to be around here longer than to-morrow," Rawlins objected.
"That don't make any difference."
"But if it got talked around that we're engaged, you know, it might be kind of awkward for us. We couldn't explain that it's only a bluff; that would defeat the purpose."
"Oh, he'll leave—he'll leave right away when I tell him I'm engaged to you."
She was confident, and beaming in her confidence so brightly, Rawlins thought it wouldn't be any great hardship to be engaged to her, even though there was no bluff about it.
"It's a little bit cheap, though," he said, "and I wouldn't want you to do anything cheap. There's a better way—there must be a better way—not that I wouldn't feel the honor of being only temporarily engaged to you, Miss Stone. I'll do all I can to help you in any other way, but I don't believe it's necessary for you to—to—frankly, cheapen yourself by announcing your engagement to a perfect stranger just to get rid of this nuisance from St. Joe."
"I've made a fool of myself—I'm always making a fool of myself!" she said, bitterly ashamed, hiding her burning face between her hands, turning away.
"No, you haven't, not in the least. You've just come to a stranger offering him a confidence he doesn't deserve. I couldn't let you do that, you know. The idea came to you in your desperation"
"When he tried to kiss me," she nodded, her face puckered to hold back the tears of vexation and shame. "He said engaged people always kissed when they met. I thought of you—I thought I could get you to help me."
"I will help you, too. You don't have to marry that man, you know. There's no way on earth he can make you do that."
"But he'll hang around!" she wailed. "No telling how long he'll hang around tryin' to make me change my mind."
"We'll see about that. Don't you worry over Mr. McDowell Peck."
"Dowell. There's no Mc to it. I used to think it was kind of cute—but look at him! just look at him!"
"I took a pretty good squint," Rawlins told her. "I think you can have a lot of fun out of Peck if you handle him right. Don't worry. If I stick around this neighborhood a little while, and I'm hoping, I'll see if we can't put something hot under Peck's feet that will start him back to St. Joe on the jump."
"If you only would!"
"Treat him like a Dutch uncle," Rawlins advised, "ride around with him, show him he can be a friend, and nothing but a friend. What's he doing now?"
"He was going to shave, he got out a mug as big as the well-bucket and stood in the kitchen door stirrin' up his mess of lather, talkin' all the time. It's something terrible the deception they can put in a photograph of a man."
"Yes, and even of the ladies now and then."
"He took off his collar to get at his whiskers. You've only seen about half of that man."
"Was it before, or after, that he tried his little loving pass with you?"
"Before, darn him! He slopped his old lather all over the kitchen floor—some of it got on my face. Aunt Lila nearly split herself laughin'. I never saw her take such an off-hand shine to a man—I don't see where her sudden interest in seein' me married comes in. She's my guardian, and will be till I'm my own man."
"That will be a good while yet," he said, not believing it, but following the age-old custom for men to pretend women are younger than they seem.
"No, only a few weeks more. I'll be twenty-one in June, but I don't expect to kick anything over when I am."
"Except Peck's fond hopes, maybe."
"I'd hang myself if I thought he was going to stick around here that long," she declared.
"If that's the way you take it, something's got to be done to start him on his way."
"I hope to God!" she said, with the reckless fervency of people who live aside from the restrictions of theological discipline. "I'll try to handle him the way you say, but if he ever tries to kiss me again I'll slap him to sleep!"
"No, that wouldn't be the way to handle him," Rawlins said. "He's used to ladies who express themselves that way. A man like Peck considers a blow from a lady's hand nothing less than a love tap. It only makes him keener. Be cold; be severely dignified. Back away, put up your hand, and tell him 'Sir!' That always gets a man like Peck: 'Sir!' You could do it about right to freeze him to the floor."
"I'll try it on," she said, greatly encouraged, doubtless believing she was getting advice from a very worldly and sophisticated source.
"That'll be the game. He's been training with slapping ladies all his life, but put him in front of one of the dignified, icy kind and he'll be as helpless as the frog that swallowed the shot."
"Thank you for helping me out, Mr. Rawlins," she said, truly grateful, more for the confidence she had reposed in him, if she had stopped to think about it, than any assistance he had given.
"There's no thanks due on a promise—I haven't helped you yet," he reminded her.
"But you've promised, and that's the same as done."
"I do try to make it come out that way," he said, with somewhat bashful modesty.
"If you're going to learn the sheep business you might as well learn it on this ranch," she suggested hopefully. "I'll speak to Aunt Lila about it, if you're not too proud to take a job from a woman."
"No, that might look like politics," he said. "Let her offer me a job if she wants a man. That would be better."
"Hiring and firing are pretty much in the hands of her foreman, Elmer Tippie," said Edith. "Maybe you'd better strike him for a job. You could do that all right."
"Sure I could, and I will. Where is he?"
"He's on the road home from Jasper; we expect him this evening. He took the last of our clip down last week; he's bringin' up supplies."
"I'll talk to him. There are reasons—several reasons—why I'd rather put in my sheep-raising apprenticeship on this ranch than any other in the world."
"Mr. Peck, for one," she suggested.
"He's only a comical incidental," he said, looking at her warmly, so warmly that her eyes retreated, and a little flush, that was not from the fire of displeasure, brightened in her cheek.
"You'd better come on in and get ready for supper," she said. "Aunt Lila will be yellin' for you in a minute."
He followed her through the corral gate, where she waited until he had fastened it, when they went on together, chatting as if years lay behind the time of their first meeting. Dowell Peck appeared on the kitchen porch, apparently as much at home as a stray dog that has found an open door. He waved at them, flapping his long arm like a railroad semaphore. Then he fell to preening his luxuriant moustache, giving it an upward twirl with elegant crook of the elbow, well satisfied with the sheep country and all in it, but satisfied with himself above all the objects in art and nature that the whole world contained.