The Arrow-Point Estate/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
“Maybe I was taking a good deal upon myself, Miss Burkell,” he began, when the rattle of the light wagon grew faint and far off. “Maybe I shouldn’t have bought into the game—being such a perfect stranger. But it looked to me like you wasn’t over-anxious for her company, and”
“And you needn’t apologize. You've done me—us—a bigger favor than you realize. But if you would explain?” Lorrie’s mouth was almost smiling, but her eyes were still troubled.
“I’d rather not, unless the play comes so it’s necessary. Skookum wanted me to make her go away—seeing Burns didn’t happen to be handy. Skookum is good enough to consider me one of his friends. So I used my influence.” He shifted the crutches a bit and turned to go. “If it was any help to you, I’m glad,” he finished rather lamely.
“It was; a very great help. But—the influence?”
Reid Holleman looked at her reproachfully. Pure, innocent-eyed femininity can ask such very embarrassing questions, sometimes! And Lorrie was one of those direct young women who go straight at a subject—or straight away from it—scorning vague generalities; besides, she wanted to arm herself against a possible return of the woman this man had addressed as “Belladona.”
“Well,” he shifted to the other foot and looked down disapprovingly into her eyes, “you see, I knew her, a while back.”
“Yes, but—what made her go when you told her to go? She isn’t cowardly, as a rule. She’d rather stop here when she wasn’t wanted than if we’d implored her to stay. Just why did she go like that?”
He smiled vaguely. “I guess maybe she’d changed her mind about wanting to stay.”
Lorrie, sitting on the arm of a big, easy chair, tapped one small foot impatiently on the floor. Then she laughed ruefully. “You’re worse than Skookum, even,” she surrendered, “and Skookum, when he doesn’t want to tell, is the limit; at least, I thought he was, till now. Anyway you’ve done us a great favor, and if there’s anything we can do in return”
“You might cut off the last half of my name, for the present, and make it just plain Reid,” he said lightly. “And I want to tell that I can’t explain why, just yet.”
Lorrie studied him curiously. Though she had not appeared to notice him at the time, his battered condition when he had ridden up to them on the prairie came back forcibly to her mind. She had scarcely glimpsed him since. Burns, as ranch foreman, had told him to stay as long as he liked, and he had kept pretty much in the bunk-house. He had not told his name nor the cause of his injuries; and Lorrie had almost forgotten his existence until he appeared in the doorway. Still, she had liked the way he had spoken of her father, that day, and as her father’s friend he had some claim, aside from the service just performed.
“You can be plain Mr. Reid, I suppose,” was her verdict, “and I am not all curious to know why.” If her tone was tinged with pique, she was scarcely conscious of it.
“Thank you,” he smiled. “I hope some time” He stopped and flushed. “I reckon Skookum will think I’ve made away with his crutches,” he said whimsically, and went without another word.
Lorrie, from behind the curtains, watched him go limping back to the bunk-house, and did a good deal of wondering. An hour before she had been brooding over her father’s death and shrinking from the black future she must face alone. It needed something of this sort to bring back her mental poise and hold her from fruitless melancholy.
If she needed anything further in the way of distraction, it came in the form of her Uncle Howard and Aunt Margaret, who drove up half an hour later. Aunt Margaret kissed her, sat down in the easiest chair and asked Lorrie what she intended to do.
He waited again, watching the color flood her cheek.
“Do?” Lorrie opened her eyes at the question. “What should I do besides what I am doing?”
Her aunt looked at her a moment, and went on primly:
“Of course you know, Lorena, that it is scarcely proper for you to be stopping here by yourself. We brought an extra seat in the wagon, so that you and David can go right back with us, and stay until we have made arrangements to send you to school. I’m sure you ought to be glad”
“Oh, perhaps I ought—but I’m not, unfortunately. You are very kind, but Skookum and I will stay here, thank you. This is our home. I never knew before that it wasn’t proper to stay in your own home.”
“But with no older person”
“There’s Gusta; she owns to thirty-eight, so she must be all of that. And she’s going to stay right on. I asked her.”
“Mere age isn’t everything. You’ve no older person to advise you”
“There’s Burns,” reminded Lorrie wickedly. “He’s older than I; he confesses to thirty years, and he’s dead-willing to advise me whenever I want him to.”
“Burns is going to stay right on, too, I suppose? It is very fortunate, Lorena, that your uncle and I are willing to assume the burden of your welfare. I shudder to think”
“Then don’t. You are certainly assuming a great deal, Aunt Margaret. I’d much rather you didn’t. I’m quite willing—in fact, I prefer to bear my own burdens.” She turned again to the window; perhaps because it was an excuse for turning her back on her aunt. Skookum was hurrying up from the bunk-house, and there was that in his manner that told eloquently of much mental perturbation.
“Lorrie Burkell, are yuh crazy?” he cried, when he saw her standing there. “I ain’t going to stay over to Uncle Howard’s; I won’t, I tell you. I’m going to stay here with the rest of the men.” Skookum never referred to himself as a child; he was one of the men always. “What do you want to go over there for? Dad never had any use for them; you know he didn’t. And Uncle Howard said dad couldn’t go to heaven because he was an unregenerate sinner. I’d think you’d be ashamed.”
Lorrie leaned out of the window and implored him with gestures to hush; she could feel how shocked her aunt must be looking—Skookum, when he was angry, did not trouble to modulate his voice; just now he could probably be heard down at the stables. “I haven't said I was going,” she told him placatingly. “I’ve no intention of going. Don’t shout.”
“Uncle Howard said you’d be packing our clothes. You needn’t pack any of mine, I tell you right now. My war-bag will repose in the bunk-house if you quit the game.”
“Lorena, I hope you will not permit that wilful child to influence you or dictate,” rasped her aunt’s voice behind her. “From what I have seen,” she added dryly, “you are utterly unable to exercise any authority over him whatever. You obey David rather than insisting that David obey you.”
“Aunt Margaret, I wish you’d stop calling me David,” came the child’s clear voice. “I can’t endure it. I’m Skookum.”
Aunt Margaret came over to the window. “I shall never call you anything so heathenish, David. Get your clothes immediately, so that we can go, Lorrie.”
Lorrie never moved; her eyes met the eyes of Skookum, and she warned him with lowered brows.
“Nobody stopping you from going,” retorted he, not heeding Lorrie in the least. “The sooner you go the better we’ll be pleased. Lorrie, don’t you pack a thing. This is our ranch. I guess we can stay here if we want to.”
“David Burkell, what you need is a good, sound whipping! I shall tell your uncle”
“If you or Uncle Howard touch me you’ll be sorry. Burns’ll fix you. If he don’t Man-from-nowhere will. I’ve got friends.”
“I think,” said Aunt Margaret indignantly, “that the sooner your Uncle Howard takes you in charge the better. David, if you persist in staring at me like that I shall be compelled to spank you. You and Lorena are going home with me and you may as well calm yourself.”
“You go to the devil!” were the horrible words Skookum said to her. “I’d smile to see you spank me. Huh!”
Whereupon a dreadful thing happened to Skookum. His uncle, coming up behind, overheard and took him by the ear—and the taking was none too gentle. Skookum went white.
“Young man, you ask your aunt’s pardon for that,” his uncle commanded sternly. “What kind of a heathen are you? We'll take that out of you in short order.” He waited a minute, with an occasional tweak by way of hastening the penitence of the erring one. “Well, are you sorry you said it?” The tweaking settled into a pull that made Skookum blink.
“Yes,” said he, through close-set teeth. “I’m damn’ sorry. I wish I’d said you can both go to the devil!”
Even Uncle Howard stood aghast for a second, and as for Lorrie she was running out to them with scared eyes. “Oh, Skookum, be good!” she implored, fearing much.
Skookum stood mulishly, and only glared defiance.
“What that child needs, Howard, is a good sound whipping,” cried Aunt Margaret, from the window.
“Which you’d better think twice before yuh tackle,” asserted a voice as Burns rode up to them. “Let go that kid, yuh big bully. Pick on somebody your size if yuh hunger for trouble!”
For answer Uncle Howard gave an extra hard tweak, which brought tears in spite of much blinking. And after that things happened that shocked and grieved Aunt Margaret. Howard was not a fighting man; he did not believe in fighting, but advocated turning the other cheek. For all that he presently found himself busy giving blows and receiving, but mostly receiving. Burns was not a large man, but he was hard-muscled and active, and naturally a fighter. More important, he was thoroughly angry.
When Uncle Howard and Aunt Margaret—he greatly battered, and she greatly scandalized—had driven away, Burns carefully applied his handkerchief to a skinned knuckle. “Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth,” he said with mock solemnity, repeating a favorite text of Uncle Howard’s. “I’m sure thankful for the privilege of administering the chastisement. How about it, Skookum? Did he hurt yuh much?”
“Yes, he did,” owned Skookum, ever truthful. “But I’m glad, anyway. If he hadn’t got me by the ear I don’t suppose you'd have licked him. I’m going to tell Man-from-nowhere. I guess he’d have done it, too, if he’d been around.”
Burns nodded gravely. “Sure he would; or any uh the boys.”
“Aunt Margaret says the will isn’t any good, and Uncle Howard is going to be appointed administrator,” Lorrie said dispiritedly. “But they can’t interfere here, can they, Burns?”
“When there’s a clover-patch, the bees will sure come buzzing around,” said Burns sententiously. “No, I don’t see as they can make yuh do anything yuh don’t want to do. He can handle the property till yuh come of age. Don’t yuh worry”—his glance dwelt lingeringly on Lorrie’s face—“they won't bother yuh while I’m around here—unless Uncle Howard changes his style uh fighting.” He laughed and turned away to where his horse stood quietly waiting.