The Arrow-Point Estate/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
It was two days after the funeral. Lorrie was sitting dispiritedly on the porch with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her palms, trying to adjust herself to the new order of life and gather courage to go on and face the responsibilities which death had thrust upon her. She was not one to shirk; still, the load loomed large before her—so large she could not see over it and wondered dully if she could possibly carry it, even for the sake of Skookum, and because it was the last wish of her father and must, somehow, be obeyed.
The hastily scribbled will that was left pitifully unfinished she had read over and over until she could repeat every word of it. Just now her brain was going wearily over the sentence: “I ask Lorrie to look after the kid, and don’t sell the old place, but she can have full control.” Of course she would look after Skookum—poor Skookum, worse than motherless, and handicapped at the very start for the life of action he would otherwise have lived. And of course she would never sell the ranch which her father had built from raw, untouched prairie land. It was the burden: of having full control of all those acres and of the herds roaming at will over the range, and of the men and the finances, that rather frightened her.
The last sentence of the will—about her Uncle Howard helping her look after things—was small comfort and cheered her not at all. She had never been able to get on very well: with Uncle Howard, who was rather intolerantly religious, as was her Aunt Margaret. Her Uncle Howard believed that all misfortune is sent by the Lord to teach one how vain are earthly things, or else as a punishment for things done and things left undone. Uncle Howard had not approved of her father, and had not taken much pains to hide the fact. Her father, on his part, had not approved overmuch of Howard, and had taken even less pains to hide it. So that, while there had never been an open break between the two, friendly relations had been more or less perfunctory. Both were stockmen, however, and Howard, despite his unpopular religious views, had ever been counted a shrewd man of business; so perhaps it was natural that, at the last, John Burkell should turn to his brother for help for his children. It had been purely an accident that Howard was at the ranch when Chub Simmons came hurrying with the news of John’s hurt.
Lorrie sighed and hoped that she would not need much of Uncle Howard’s help; she wondered what it was that her father had meant to give him. Then, recognizing the futility of wondering about something that could never be known, her thoughts came back to Skookum.
Skookum—Burns it was who first called him that, which is Siwash for “good”—was a dear, and Lorrie loved him as half-brothers are not always loved. Still, Skookum, having the idea in his old little head that he himself was going to look after Lorrie and the ranch and the men, was already giving himself the airs of proprietorship. Lorrie foresaw complications; for Skookum, petted and humored because of his infirmity, and wise with the wisdom of an observing mind and an odd, unchildish reasoning power, held himself and his judgment far above Lorrie, who was only a girl. And Skookum held a deep aversion to his Uncle Howard, and
“Somebody’s coming, Lorrie,” announced that young person, hobbling around the corner on his crutches. “It’s a double rig, but I couldn’t recognize the horses so far off. Do you reckon it’s Uncle Howard, Lorrie? Because if it is, and he goes talking like he done yesterday, I’m going to tell him to chase himself.”
“No, Skookum. You mustn’t be rude to Uncle Howard. Little boys must”
“Aw, quit saying ‘little boys’ at me every five minutes; I’ve had about enough. I’m half-grown-up, and more. Burns says I'll be a man when I’m eighteen; he was. And anyway, Uncle Howard was saying things about dad that I won’t stand for. He said dad died unrepentant, so he didn’t know as dad could get into heaven. He said it was the will of the Lord. And I just told him that dad didn’t want to go to his old heaven, anyhow—he wouldn’t if he could. I told him dad would rather go to
“I’ll get the field-glasses, so you can tell who it is,” put in Lorrie hastily, and retreated, feeling more than ever, that taking care of Skookum was to be no light task.
Skookum took the glasses and studied the coming visitors, and Lorrie, with her responsibilities weighing heavy, studied Skookum, Till then she had not realized what a very odd child he was. A handsome child, of a truth, with his big, soft, brown eyes and tawny curls and the mouth of a cherub—a mouth, however, from which proceeded words quite astonishing at all times, and often disconcerting. When he was not indulging in the most vigorous and slangy remarks, he rolled out polysyllables with a fluency nothing short of amazing. But his vocabulary was not what worried her most; it was his absolute indifference to the opinions of others—with the exception of Burns—and the utter confidence in himself and his own judgment. Skookum was not a child whom one could either intimidate, coax or hoodwink; he was influenced solely through his affections and his convictions. Lorrie sighed, and the sigh caught the quick ear of the boy.
“Oh, you needn’t anticipate trouble,” he remarked, without taking his eyes from the glass. “It ain’t Uncle Howard, thank the Lord. It’s a rig from Fallen Rock, I guess—the horses don’t belong to any of the ranchers in this vicinity—and there’s a man and a woman; a big, fat woman with a blue veil. And they’ve got a trunk in behind. Now, who the dickens would be coming here with a trunk, Lorrie?”
Lorrie did not know. She thought perhaps they had missed their way, meaning to go to some other ranch. Then Skookum condescendingly offered her the glasses—not that he wanted her opinion, but-as a matter of politeness. He leaned upon his crutches and gazed abstractedly across the prairie, thinking of dad, and how lonesome it was going to be without him, and how hard it was to “take his medicine,” as he put it. He did not really care anything about the strangers, or about anything else, if one might judge by the look of his face.
Lorrie sat suddenly down again on the porch, and her face was white; also, her mouth was pinched together in a way that, to the observing Skookum, meant that there was to be “something doing” shortly.
“Well, do you know ’em?” he demanded, with growing interest.
“Yes, I—Skookum, I don’t know what to do. It—it’s your mother.”
“That fat old party?” The tone of Skookum spoke incredulity. He had but the haziest impression of his mother, who had left home and him four years ago, and from whom dad had got a divorce. Skookum knew that, because Burns had told him. Burns had also told him to stick to his dad, because his dad had been given the double-cross in that deal. Burns had also remarked once, apropos the same subject, that the deck had been stacked on dad; and Skookum knew what that meant.
“She wouldn’t come here,” he averred, wide-eyed. “She wouldn't have the nerve.”
Lorrie looked at him curiously; she had not thought that he knew, for they never mentioned his mother to him, and Skookum had never asked about her.
“Oh, as to nerve” She watched the approaching rig with eyes full of trouble and incipient defiance. “Skookum, please be good and don’t say naughty things while she’s here. She—after all, she’s your mother.” She tried to speak gently.
“She gave dad the double-cross. Burns said so. What’s she coming here for?”
Lorrie, herself, was puzzling over that same query, and so did not answer. The team was almost at the gate, now. From a sudden impulse to put off, as long as possible, the meeting of her stepmother—or more exactly, the woman who had once been her stepmother—Lorrie turned and went into the house. She was frightened and indignant at the intrusion which she could not understand.
Skookum, however, stood his ground and waited. While the woman was alighting at the gate and coming—one might say sailing—up the path, his big eyes watched her unblinkingly. He was standing directly in front of the door, and he hopped back until his small person barred the entrance. The woman came up the steps, and held out both hands to him in a way that angered Skookum, though he could not have explained why.
“David—my little David!” She hovered, like a silk-clad mountain of flesh, over him. “Darling, I’m your mother. I've come to take care of my poor little Davy.”
Skookum never stirred, but something in his blazing eyes withheld her ample embrace. “I don’t need taking care of; I can take care of myself all right. And I don’t permit people to call me Davy. I'm Skookum.” He regarded her haughtily.
“You poor little dear! Haven’t you got a kiss for mother? Mother has come a long, long ways to see her little boy”
The smile on the red lips of Skookum was the sneering smile of a man for the woman he scorns. “You can go a long, long ways back again, then,” he said. “I ain't a baby; I don’t kiss.”
“I ain't a baby; I don’t kiss.”
His mother drew back and studied him, from the coppery rings of his hair to the twisted foot that he had utterly refused to have straightened since it would mean weeks in the hospital and braces for months after, with a doubt of recovery, even at that. “You sure do need a mother’s care, Davy. They’ve let you run wild.” Her voice no longer oozed honey, as it were. “Where’s Lorrie? Don’t she know I’m here?” She started to pass, whereat Skookum raised a disrespectful crutch and barred the way.
“You can’t come in,” he cried angrily. “I don’t like you, and Lorrie don’t like you. We ain’t any of us got any time for you. You cold-decked dad; Burns said so.”
She looked down at him a minute, and said something under her breath; something that Skookum wondered at vaguely. He had never before heard a woman use that particular word, which belonged in the vocabulary of men. Then she laughed unpleasantly, picked him up bodily and sat him down in a chair. “You’ve got to learn different manners than them, my lad,” she remarked calmly, and went into the house, carrying his crutches with her.
But if she thought by that expedient to hold him prisoner, it was because she did not know Skookum. With face whitely rigid from the rage he was in, he let himself down upon hands and knees and crept down the path to the bunk-house to find Burns.