Short Grass/Chapter 12
Dunham's employer had given him instructions on the point of rendezvous, appointed for the following day, and turned him loose to go his way alone. This gathering-place of the border defenders was at a certain crossing of the Cimarron River, which flowed toward the east for a matter of fifty miles so nearly on the line that Texas cattlemen used it as a marker to know when they were out of the Indian country. At places it formed the line between the two political divisions, and the point where the Kansas stockmen were gathering was one of these spots. There the old Texas cattle trail crossed.
Garland said he had to go home on his way down, which would increase the distance several miles and throw him late the next day in arriving at the meeting-place, an unnecessary detour which Dunham need not put his horse to the labor of merely for the sake of company. The most direct way to the border, he said, was to follow the old Santa Fé Trail to the crossing of the Arkansas, where it was cut by the cattle trail from Texas. It was as plain as daylight from there on, and Dunham no doubt would be joined by others heading down that way.
So it was that Dunham found himself riding the road that he had tramped with Zora Moore the night before, over ground almost sacred to him out of its romantic traditions of the past. Here that hardy red-bearded uncle of his had journeyed back and forth between Independence and Santa Fé as wagon boss in the old freighting days. Many an adventurous tale Bill Dunham treasured away in his memory from the tongue of that bold-spirited man, whose eyes had looked upon these very scenes when perils shadowed every mile.
They were gone long ago, those times, thought Bill, and there was no more romance left in the world, in spite of the belief that had deluded him into venturing there. It was a sordid and depressing business when such a man as Kellogg pushed a quarrel and crowded a man until he had to slay in self-defense. A man could find romance of that kind in Kansas City, where there was shooting enough going on every day.
There was no aureate tint around the edges of that kind of stuff; it was not the romance Bill Dunham had taken it to be, this thing that pulled youth out of his heart as a greedy despoiler grabs flower, plant and all, leaving him with that old and lonely feeling pressing him down like a clod on a hill of corn.
It was a matter of fifty miles from Pawnee Bend to the line, Garland had told him, leaving it to his own contriving to get there next day without wearing his horse out, a thing of which he had not spoken. Bill, accustomed to the more civilized, furrow-plodding horses of lower altitudes, did not know what endurance was in the little brown bony creature that he straddled. It would have eaten up fifty miles without a stop and been fresher at the end of the journey than the horses he was familiar with would have been at the end of twenty.
In his ignorance of his mount's capabilities, Bill figured on taking it easy until nine or ten o'clock that night, then bunking down on the soft side of a hollow. He could hit the road again at daybreak, and make it to the line about noon.
Not the same Bill Dunham in appearance as the one who had struck the he-woman of the railroaders' kitchen for a handout not more than three hours before, but a Bill Dunham who looked like any other range-roving cow hand, except for the uniform newness of his rig. Bill had preferred to keep his ignorance of usages and requirements from Garland, going to MacKinnon, instead, for advice.
He had bought boots and broad-brimmed hat, and blue-drilling overalls, wide in the leg, gray woolen shirt and a silk handkerchief as big as a tablecloth, it seemed to him, for his neck. Spurs he had passed up, fearing uncomfortable complications for both himself and horse if he should try them out. He had two blankets and a slicker back of his saddle, with some grub in the raw to hold him until he reached the camp, and a skillet to cook it, with a little pot for his coffee.
MacKinnon said he guessed the thirty-eight would do until he had another gun issued to him by the cattlemen. It didn't make so much difference what the size of the bullet was as the direction it went, when you came to figure it out, MacKinnon allowed. Bill said he guessed that was so, and they parted with mutual respect, MacKinnon offering to take care of Bill's suitcase and granger clothes until good luck might bring him back to Pawnee Bend.
Bill hoped he could get past Moore's place without being seen, although he doubted if Zora would recognize him in that outfit and riding a horse, which he could do well enough to get by with it. If he could make it along there about dusk it would suit him better. To further the desired condition he loitered along, stopping now and then to turn his eyes around the country, which looked better to him, now that he had a foot within the door, than it did when he was tramping back to Pawnee Bend with his heavy suitcase earlier in the afternoon.
The bigger the country and the fewer people it contained, the greater a man's chances in it, Bill thought, which was not an original observation, to be sure. His pioneer ancestors had been urged along to the unoccupied places by the same business reasoning for the past hundred years or so. A man who likes arm-room has that comfortable feeling when he stands alone. Liberty is the big chance to such a man. He plants it in the solitudes and nurtures it to vigorous fruition.
There would be a farmhouse on every section of that land one of these days, said Bill; as soon as they learned what to plant there and how to make it yield, the farmers would drop down on that big, empty country like blackbirds out of a tree. Then there would be demand for trees such as nurseryman never confronted before, it was so bare and unfriendly in its nakedness.
Down in the broad flat valley of the Arkansas a nurseryman could plant his apple seeds and set out his evergreens in long straight rows, laying the foundation for certain prosperity. It was a pleasant thought; it took away some of the bitterness of regret and sense of loneliness that came of having a man's blood on his hands.
Bill drew rein where the land fell away in long slope into the valley, the point from which he had seen the first glint of Moore's lights last night. The sun had been down half an hour, but the shank of the day was getting long, and there was no sense in killing any more time. He would kick up a little speed, go by on a lope, and trust to luck for passing unrecognized.
He was ashamed for Zora, and her part in the inhospitable treatment he had received under her roof, or in the shadow of it, to be more exact. She had done him a good and friendly turn, and he didn't want to humiliate her by meeting her now, after their letting him walk away from there that morning like a tramp. Even though she had laughed at him with the bow-legged cowboy she was a good girl at heart, and she sure did have a pretty chin.
Somebody was coming along behind him; he'd kick up a little dust and go on. A little way along Zora Moore came tearing up at a clip a good deal faster than his own. She was riding a blaze-faced roan that carried its neck stretched and its ears back like it was out of humor, although Bill couldn't see the point of its displeasure. Zora was riding straddle, the wind pressing her hat-brim back, and she was so handsome and light in the saddle any horse ought have been in gay good humor to have the pleasure of carrying her.
That was Bill's thought as he gave her a sidling look, only for which she would have passed him for a stranger in the road. She jerked her ill-favored horse up sharply.
"Why, Mr. Dunham!" she said, full of what Dunham could see was very respectful surprise.
Bill was embarrassed, together with the discovery that she was altogether prettier than he had thought and his desire to spare her. He didn't know where to begin, so he let it go with a solemn nod that was half a bow.
She fell in beside him, pulling her horse down to a walk.
"Mr. MacKinnon told me Hal Garland had hired you," she explained, talking fast, a little breathless, as if she had run to overtake him, "and you'd gone on south, but I thought you'd be miles ahead of me. I didn't know you in your new clothes. You sure do look fine!"
"If I look like I feel in this blame hat," said Bill, "my head's about as big as a hick'ry nut."
He wasn't sure she meant it, although she sounded sincere. He'd take it in small doses from that time onward; he'd aged a whole lot since last night.
"I'm glad Garland took you on," she said.
"Mr. Moore may fire me in the morning," he speculated.
"Not on your life he won't fire you!" she protested vehemently. "If I'd been around this morning he wouldn't 'a' done it, either. I raised the roof when I got up and found you'd left. You don't know how cheap I feel, Mr. Dunham, over the way they treated you at our house this morning. I could crawl in a gimlet hole and pull it in after me."
"I wouldn't do that if I was you," Bill advised, with a gentle protestation that made her laugh.
"I guess he'll see now that my judgment of a man is as good as his own," she said with meaning emphasis, but looking straight ahead as she spoke. "When I hire a man I intend for him to stay hired, and I let him know it, good and plenty."
Bill appreciated her delicacy in referring to his late unpleasant meeting with Kellogg that way, sparing him the confusion, even the pain, of going at it untactfully with an effusion of words. She had a lot of sense as well as a lot of good looks; the way she held her chin when she spoke of hiring and firing was enough to prove to anybody she wasn't a scrub.
"I've got to go down there tomorrow," she announced, casually as if she spoke of riding to Pawnee Bend. "You might as well stay here tonight and go along with me."
"I'd be proud to," Bill said, "but I told Mr. Garland I'd bust right on through as fast as this old crowbait'd take me."
"He's not so bad," she said, running an impartial glance over the horse. "But it wouldn't hurt him any to lay over here till morning and put some hay in his hide. You'd miss 'em if you was to go on down tonight—unless you've been in that country and know where the crossing is?"
"I never have seen the Cimarron River, much less the crossin' where they're goin' to meet, Miss Moore."
"You wouldn't know it was a river most of the time unless somebody told you, but this time of the year it's got some water in it along here. I've been over every inch of that country; I used to help pa out summers while he was gettin' his start. But I was only a kid then," she explained, as if to account for something that might be permitted then with propriety which would be out of ladylike bounds now.
"You could; I know by the way you ride that horse you could hold your own with any of them," Bill said, so serious and grave, nodding his head in his judicial habit, that the compliment was multiplied by five, at least.
"I've got a telegram for pa," Zora explained, pleased with this respectful sincerity where she was accustomed to either dumb monosyllabic embarrassment or shallow flippancy. "He gets a good many important ones about markets and business—I nearly always take 'em to him when he's out on the range. I have to chase him two or three days from camp to camp sometimes."
"I'd be proud if I could save you the trip," Bill said. "If you'll trust it to me I'll deliver it to Mr. Moore in the morning."
"You could," she said, gratefully.
Bill held out his hand for the telegram, but she didn't give it to him.
"You could start early in the morning and make it there by noon. It's only forty-odd miles from here."
"I think maybe I'd better rack along to-night," he said, the memory of his departure from that spindle-columned mansion making him seem unfriendly and unforgiving.
They had come to the gate. Zora looked disappointed and hurt as she rested her hand on the lever to swing it open.
"That's saying you don't feel you're welcome here," she said, facing him squarely, a plea in her eyes to make amends. Bill felt like a kicked dog when she turned her head and said, a tremor in her voice as if she was going to cry: "You don't need to rub it in on me that way, Mr. Dunham."
"Miss Moore, it never crossed my mind!" Bill denied fervently, even though it was not entirely true.
"Then please stay. I'll go a piece with you in the morning and start you on the right road. If you don't stay I'll not let you take the telegram—I'll go myself, but I'll take another road."
"Any man," said Bill decisively, swinging to the ground, "would be a blame horse-thief to let you go."
Zora turned to him again with a smile, which was chiefly in her eyes, a friendly and feeling smile that made a man welcome beyond words. She flung out of the saddle to the dusty driveway leading past the bunk house to the corral, saying she would run in and send the kids out to unsaddle the horses, and for Bill to make himself ready for supper, which must be waiting.
Bill took a pretty keen look over his horse, "for leaks," he said to himself, pleased to see it had come that far without anything springing. He thought maybe he'd made a very fair buy. In her end of the long bunk house Mollie Brassfield began to sing, the tune and words giving Bill a start. She sang dolefully, in an easy pitch which carried far:
Till you fetch me the feathers from a skeeter's nest.
Call home your hogs, John Long, John Long,
Call home your hogs, John Long.
Bill breathed easier. He was relieved to learn there were words to that song which a lady could sing, having heard another version that would have stood liberal expurgation before Mollie Brassfield could have given note to it in that public manner. She trailed on:
And h'ist up the kivers round your old bal' head,
Call home your hogs, John Long.
Call home your hogs, John Long, John Long,
Call home your hogs, John Long.
The two lads came running from the house, greeting Dunham with respectful eagerness, in wide contrast with their behavior that morning, when they, taking their example from their father's loud-mouthed ridicule, had made derogatory remarks in no very careful aside. Dunham took his roll from the cantle thongs and carried it into that part of the bunk house he had occupied the night before. Mollie Brassfield, pipe in her jaw, came out to see who had arrived. She squinted from her door at Dunham, sharply, not recognizing him until he spoke to her.
"Lord love you, Mr. Dunham! you're back ag'in, ain't you?" she said in her loud fashion of cordiality. "I'm sure glad to see you lookin' so hearty and pert"—one would have thought he had been gone at least a year—"after luggin' that heavy gripsack over to Pawnee Bend. Where are you bound for now?"
He made a short cut to the heart of the matter, at which she expressed her satisfaction.
"And I bet you must be as holler as a gourd, too," she said, sympathetically. "You come right in, Mr. Dunham, and set down at the table. I've got the nicest mess of greens I've picked this spring—they're powerful scarce in this country, I had to skirmish along the river a mile, I reckon, to gether a apurnful, but I got 'em."
Dunham thanked her, saying he thought he was supposed to eat with Zora and the boys. Mrs. Brassfield said she was sorry to miss his company, and she'd take him over a dish of greens if he wanted her to. Bill said they might take it as a reflection on their table, to which she agreed, saying some folks was techy about them things.
"I wouldn't want 'em to think I was bemeanin' their grub," she said quite seriously, "for you don't find two such good-hearted souls as Mizz Moore and Zora every day. That girl she hitched up to the buggy this morning and racked out after you as soon as she found you was gone, but I knowed she wouldn't overhaul you, 'cause I seen you cuttin' acrost when you went over the hill."
Bill inquired after Shad, to learn that he had been ordered to take a chuck-wagon and supplies down to the Cimarron crossing by Moore, who had come home in a sweat and a stew about noon.
"There's goin' to be trouble down there, Mr. Dunham," she said, twisting her head to give her words gravity. "Them Texas fellers ain't the kind of men to be stopped after drivin' their cows all that ways. They'll fight. Somebody's goin' to git hurt, sure as shootin'."
"I wouldn't doubt it, ma'am," Bill agreed, thinking it looked like a pretty good line-up for trouble himself.
"Well, I can count on one that ain't a goin' to be hurt," she said with contemptuous confidence, "and that's my old man. He can smell powder furder 'n any man that ever was born. I'll bet that man can git in a crack you couldn't shove a caseknife through when bullets begin to hum, but to hear him talk and blow you'd think he was a big man from Bitter Crick. You take what he says in at one year and out at the other, Mr. Dunham, when he goes to tellin' you what he has done and's goin' to do. He's a powerful onery man."
Dunham was glad to have this confirmation from headquarters of his own private conclusions on Shad Brassfield's character. He took it for granted that the elastic word onery covered the trickery that was plain in Shad's shallow blue eyes, which were as shifty as botflies.
The boys came after Bill when they had put the horses away, so deferential in their manner that Mrs. Brassfield eyed them with suspicion. Dunham was more saddened than swelled with pride by this respectful adulation, knowing, as Mrs. Brassfield did not know, the reason of his growth to heroic stature in their eyes since morning. Zora had told them of the shooting affair in town. This altered attitude of respect and admiration was only the sad proof of his own glum conclusion last night: that the difference between heroism and obscurity in that country was the difference between a hit and a miss.
Mrs. Moore was an unaffected, friendly woman, somewhat loud and effusive, like her husband. It was easy to see where Zora got her good looks. Mrs. Moore was still fresh, youthful and slim, some evidence of refinement about her such as school teachers who marry farmers retain a long time against the wear and tear of life's hardships in that situation.
Zora and her mother proved entirely worthy of Mollie Brassfield's high commendation. They took Dunham into the parlor after supper, where Zora played the organ and the boys wanted to get him into a game of seven-up. When their mother reprimanded them for their forwardness they changed around from chair to chair, gazing at Bill with great admiration and deep respect from different angles, as if trying to get hold of his method of putting notable gunmen on the shelf by observing his movements down to the slightest degree.
The parlor was a large room flaming with brightflowered wallpaper, so congested by furniture one had to move about with care. The chairs were adorned by cotton-twine doilies, the handiwork of Mrs. Moore, so fashionable in that day in homes of that sort. An ingrain carpet, flowered with giant roses, showed worn paths between the larger pieces of furniture, like rabbit trails around shocks of fodder in a field. There was an enlargment in black crayon of Mrs. Moore and her husband, in wedding garments, hanging over the organ.
It was an inharmonious array of decorations and furnishings such as delights simple rustic people, quite in keeping with the outward design and color of the house, but altogether rich and grand in Bill Dunham's eyes. He was not at ease in the midst of so much splendor 'and evidence of wealth, for all the kindly questioning by Mrs. Moore on his past life and future intentions. He gave her his uneventful history up to the time of his arrival in Pawnee Bend, grateful from the well of his simple heart that none of them spoke of his encounter with Kellogg, or even hinted at it remotely.
It was impossible that they hadn't heard of it, he knew. Zora had seen MacKinnon, who would have told her the story with trimmings of his own. They kept silent on it, Dunham believed, because they felt instinctively that he would feel the indelicacy of such intrusion.
After a pleasant hour that seemed like a benediction on the straining adventures of his day, Dunham returned to the bunk house to take up, as it appeared to him, the troubles he had put down for this happy interlude. He stretched on the bunk he had occupied last night, to fall into a long train of thought and speculation that dispersed repose like a turmoil before his door.
He could not believe himself clear of that trouble with Kellogg, or understand the town's cool and unconcerned acceptation of the outcome. He thought of a coroner's inquest, of a summons and questioning; of a grand jury and a court. Then he remembered that Pawnee Bend was in territory beyond the jurisdiction of organized law. It seemed to be the rule there that if a man stood on the defensive and won, that ended the case. They simply carried the unfortunate party away and the victor went about his business unchallenged in the public regard.
But it was not so easy for Bill Dunham to obliterate a finished problem of that gravity from the slate and go ahead as before. It had seared him deeply, it bore on him like a galled place, bending his spirits down, troubling him to the core.
When he slept at last it was to fight over again the battle with Kellogg; to slip out of MacKinnon's door on tiptoe, edge along the wall to the corner and try to draw his gun against some cloying influence that bound his hand at his side. Or, weapon out, only to see a futile dribble from its muzzle, and the mocking insult of Kellogg's eyes as he threw down his gun to fire.
So it went, sweating, groaning, tossing; starting from his harassed sleep to wonder where he was, confused for a moment, staring out of the open door. Then to sigh, lie down and try it again, and wear the night out wearily at last, to rise dispirited, and so burdened by remorse that he would have leaped for joy if Shad Brassfield had arrived with the news that Kellogg had risen up from his cooling-board with a sardonic grin.