Читать книгу The Fighting Shepherdess - Caroline Lockhart - Страница 9

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Major Prouty hung over the hitching post in front of the post office listening with a beatific smile to the sound of the saw and the hammer that came from the Opera House going up at the corner of Prouty Avenue and Wildwood Street. The Major’s eyes held the brooding tenderness of a patron saint, as he looked the length of the wide street of the town which bore his name.

“Sunnin’ yourself, Major?” inquired Hiram Butefish jocularly as he passed; then paused to add, “I’m lookin’ for a big turn-out at the Boosters Club to-night.”

“I trust so, Hiram.”

Aside from himself, no one person had contributed more to Prouty’s growth than the editor of the Grit.

Mr. Butefish had arrived among the first with the intention of opening a plumbing shop, but since the water supply was furnished by a windmill the demand for his services was not apt to be pressing for some time to come.

Therefore, with true western resourcefulness he bought the handpress of a defunct sheet and turned to journalism instead. Though less lucrative, moulding public opinion and editing a paper that was to be a recognized power in the state seemed to Mr. Butefish a step ahead.

The Middle West had responded nobly to his editorial appeals to come out and help found an Empire. The majority of the optimistic citizens who walked with their heads in the clouds and their eyes on the roseate future were there through his efforts. Appreciative of this fact, the Major’s eyes were kindly as they gazed upon the editor’s retreating back.

His expression was benignity itself as his glance turned lovingly to the Prouty House and the White Hand Laundry—the latter in particular being a milestone on the road of Progress since it heralded the fact that the day was not far distant when a man could wear a boiled shirt without embarrassing comment. Three saloons, the General Merchandise Emporium, and “Doc” Fussel’s drug store completed the list of business enterprises as yet, but others were in contemplation and a bottling works was underway. Oh, yes, Prouty was indelibly on the map.

The Major’s complacent smile changed to a slight frown as a man in a black tall crowned hat stopped to rest his back against the post of the Laundry sign.

It had reached the Major’s ears that Mormon Joe had said that Prouty had no more future than a prairie dog town. He had been in his cups at the time but that did not palliate the offense.

Now, there—there was the kind of a man that helped a town! The Major’s brow cleared as Jasper Toomey swung round the corner by the Prouty House and clattered down the main street sitting high-headed and arrogant in a Brewster cart. Spent money like a prince—he did. A few more people like the Toomeys and the future of the country was assured.

In the meantime Toomey had brought the velvet-mouthed horse to its haunches in front of the laundry where he tossed a bundle into the sheepman’s arms, saying casually;

“Take that inside, my man.”

Without a change of expression, Mormon Joe caught it, rolled it compactly and kicked it over the horse’s back into the street.

“There’s no brass buttons sewed on my coat—take it yourself!” Mormon Joe shrugged a shoulder as he walked off.

Walter Scales of the Emporium dashed into the street and recovered the laundry with an apologetic air as though he were somehow responsible for the act.

“You have to make allowances for the rough characters that swarm into a new country,” he said, as he delivered the bundle himself.

“I’ll break that pauper sheepherder before I quit!” A vein under Toomey’s right eye and another on his temple stood out swollen and purple.

“People like him that send away for their grub and never spend a cent they can help in their home town don’t benefit a country none.” Mr. Scales did not attempt to conceal his pleasure at the foot-long list Toomey handed him. He added urgently, “Wisht you’d try and stay in for the Boosters Club to-night, Mr. Toomey. We’d like your advice.”

Toomey refused curtly.

“Get that order out at once,” he said peremptorily, as he drove off.

No invitation cordial or otherwise was extended to Mormon Joe, so it was upon his own initiative that he stumbled into the room where the Boosters Club was in session that evening. Unmistakably drunk, Joe sat down noisily beside Clarence Teeters who was the only one who made room for him.

The purpose of the meeting was to consider ways and means to build a ditch that should bring water from the mountains in sufficient quantity not only to supply the town but to irrigate the agricultural land surrounding it.

Mr. Abram Pantin, a man of affairs from Keokuk, Iowa, in the vicinity with a view to locating, had been called upon for a few remarks and was just closing with the safe and conservative statement that an ample water supply was an asset to any community.

He was followed by the chairman, Mr. Butefish, who pleaded eloquently for the construction of the ditch by local capital, and having aroused the meeting to a high pitch of enthusiasm ended with a peroration that brought forth a loud demonstration of approbation.

“Gentlemen,” declared Mr. Butefish, “back there in the mountains is a noble stream waitin’ to irrigate a thirsty land. For the trifling sum of twenty thousand dollars we can turn this hull country into a garden spot! The time is comin’ when we’ll see nothin’ but alfalfa field in purple bloom as fur as the eye can reach! We’re as rich in natural resources as any section on God’s green earth. We’re lousy with ’em, gentlemen, and all we gotta do is to put our shoulders to the wheel and scratch!”

Mr. Butefish sat down and dried the inside of his collar with his handkerchief midst tumultuous applause.

The evening had been a veritable love-feast without a jarring note and everybody glowed with a feeling of neighborliness and confidence in a future that was to bring them affluence.

“Mr. Chairman, may I have a word?”

There was a general turning of heads as Mormon Joe, thick of tongue, lurched over the back of the seat in front.

“Kindly make it brief,” replied Mr. Butefish reluctantly. “We still have important business to transact.”

“I only want to say that this country hasn’t any more natural resources than a tin roof and when Prouty got any bigger than a saloon and a blacksmith shop it overreached itself.” There was a tightening of lips as the members exchanged looks, but Mormon Joe went on, “One third of the work that you dry farmers put in trying to make ranches out of arid land,” he addressed a row of tousled gentlemen on the front seat, “would bring you independence in a state where climatic conditions are favorable to raising crops.

“As for your ditch, there never was an irrigation project yet that did not cost double and treble the original estimate. If you try to put it through without outside help, you’ll all go broke. In other words,” he jeered, “you haven’t one damned asset but your climate, and you’re wasting your time and energy until you figure out a way to realize on that.”

Shabby, undersized, distinctly drunk, Mormon Joe made an unheroic figure as he stood swaying on his feet looking mockingly into the frowning faces of the Boosters Club, and yet, somehow, his words cast a momentary depression over the room.

He stood an instant, then staggered out, indifferent to the fact that he had committed the supreme offense in a western town—he had “knocked”—and that henceforth and forever he was a marked man—a detriment to the community—to be discredited, shunned, and, if possible, driven out.

The invitation composed and printed by Mr. Butefish after much mental travail, requesting the pleasure of the Toomeys’ company at a reception and dance in the Prouty House to celebrate the third year of the town’s prosperity and progress was one of the results of this meeting of the Boosters Club.

Toomey’s thin lips curled superciliously as he glanced at it and tossed it across the breakfast table:

“Here, Hughie, why don’t you take this in?”

“You’ll go, won’t you?” the lad asked eagerly after reading it.

“We never mingle socially with the natives.” As Mrs. Toomey shook her head her smile and tone expressed ineffable exclusiveness. Seeing that the boy’s face fell in disappointment she urged, “But you go, Hughie.”

“If I knew some one to ask—”

“There’s Maggie Taylor,” Mrs. Toomey suggested.

“And Mormon Joe’s Kate,” Toomey added, laughing.

“Who’s she?” the boy asked curiously.

“Do you remember the day when you were here before that we met those people driving a band of sheep—a man and a barefooted girl in overalls?”

Hughie’s eyes sparkled:

“They stopped here, then?”

Toomey scowled.

“Yes, confound ’em! I’ve had more than one 'run in’ with ’em since over range and water. But,” he urged, “don’t let that hinder you. They live with their sheep back there in the foothills like a couple of white savages, and she’s some greener than alfalfa. Go and ask her. You’ll get some fun out of it. I dare you! I’ll bet you a saddle blanket against anything you like that you haven’t got the sand to take her.”

“Done!” Hughie Disston’s eyes were dancing. “If my nerve fails me when I see her, you are in a new Navajo.”

It was a great lark to Disston, now a tall boy of nineteen, handsome, attractive, with the soft drawl of his southern speech and the easy manners of those who have associated much with women-folk. He was in high spirits as, one morning early, he and Teeters turned off from the main road and took the faint trail which led up Bitter Creek.

They rode until they saw two tepees showing white through the willows.

“We’re in luck to catch them home at this hour,” said Teeters, as they heard a faint tinkle from the corrals on the other side of the creek. “They’ve got the sheep inside—must be cuttin’ out. Yes,” as they forded and drew closer, “there’s Kate at the dodge gate.”

The corral was a crude affair, built at the minimum of expense, of crooked cottonwood poles, willow sticks and brush interlaced. It was divided into three sections, with a chute running from the larger division into two smaller ones.

Kate was standing at the “dodge gate” at the end of the chute separating the sheep as they came through by throwing the gate to and fro, thus sending each into the division in which it belonged. It was work which required intense concentration, a trained eye and quick brain, and even Disston and Teeters, who knew nothing of sheep, could appreciate the remarkable skill with which the girl performed the task.

“Let ’em come, Uncle Joe!” she called in her clear confident voice.

Mormon Joe flapped a grain sack over the backs of the sheep and having started a leader the rest went through the chute on the run.

When the last one was through Kate’s aching arm dropped limply to her side and she called in a tired but jubilant voice:

“I don’t believe I’ve made a single mistake this time.”

Mormon Joe’s expression was not too friendly when he saw strangers but it changed upon recognizing Teeters.

“Maybe you don’t remember this here gent,” said that person, indicating Disston with his thumb after he and Mormon Joe had shaken hands. “He’s growed about four feet since you saw him.”

“I remember him very well.” Mormon Joe’s tone and manner had the suavity and polish which was so at variance with his general appearance.

Hughie, leaving Teeters and Mormon Joe to a conversation which did not interest him, rode up to see Kate at closer range.

Busy in one of the pens, the girl was still unaware of visitors, so he had had ample opportunity to observe her before she saw him.

She, too, had grown since their meeting, being now as tall and straight and slim as an Olympian runner. Her hair swung in a thick fair braid far below her waist as she darted hither and thither in pursuit of a lamb. The man’s blue flannel shirt she wore was faded and the ragged sleeves had been cut off at the elbow for convenience. Her short skirt was of stiff blue denim and a pair of coarse brown and white cotton stockings showed between the hem and the tops of boys’ shoes which disguised the slenderness of her feet. Yet, withal, she was graceful as she ran and somehow managed to look picturesque.

The boy’s face was an odd mixture of expressions as he watched her—amusement, astonishment, disapproval, and grudging admiration all in one.

Finally, catching the lamb by the hind leg she threw it by a twist acquired through much practice and buckled a bell around its neck.

As she turned it loose and straightened up, she saw Disston. When he smiled she knew him instantly and the color rose in her face as she walked towards him, suddenly conscious of her clothes and grimy hands. She was soon at her ease, however, and when he told her his errand the radiance that leaped into her face startled him.

“Would I like to go?” she cried joyously. “There’s nothing I can think of that I would like better. I’ve never been to a dance in all my life. I’ve never been anywhere. It’s so good of you to ask me!”

“It’s good of you to go with me,” he said awkwardly, shamed by her gratitude, remembering the wager.

“But I don’t know how to dance,” she said almost tearfully.

“You don’t?” incredulously. He had thought every girl in the world knew how to dance. “Never mind,” he assured her, “I can teach you in a few lessons.”

So it was settled, and they talked of other things, laughing merrily, frequently, while Mormon Joe and Teeters discussed with some gravity the fact that it had been several months since the latter had been able to get his wages from Toomey.

“I think he’s workin’ on borried capital and they’re shuttin’ down on him,” Teeters conjectured. “His 'Old Man,'” he nodded toward Hughie, “has got consider'ble tied up in the Outfit, I’ve an idea. Anyhow, if I git beat out of my money after the way Toomey’s high-toned it over me—” He cast a significant look at a fist with particularly prominent knuckles.

“You hang on a while,” Mormon Joe cautioned. “You may be boss of the Scissor Outfit yet—stranger things have been waiting around the corner.”

Teeters shifted his weight in the saddle.

“Say,” he confessed in some embarrassment, “a sperrit told me somethin’ like that only day 'fore yisterday. I was settin’ in a circle over to Mis’ Taylor’s and an Injun chief named ‘Starlight’ spelled out on the table that all kinds of honor and worldly power was comin’ to me. It makes me feel cur'ous, hearin’ you say it—like they was somethin’ in it.”

Mormon Joe smiled quizzically but made no comment; perhaps he suspected that the privilege of touching fingers with Miss Maggie Taylor while waiting for the spirits to “take holt” had as much to do with Teeters' interest in the unseen world as the messages he received from it. He asked:

“You remember what I said at the Boosters’ Club the other night?”

“I ain’t apt to fergit it anyways soon,” replied Teeters, dryly, “seein’ as ‘Tinhorn’ riz and put it to a vote as to whether they should tar and feather you or jest naturally freeze you out.”

“The truth is acid,” he laughed. “It’s a fact though, Teeters, that this country’s chief asset is its climate, and,” with his quizzical smile, “this Scissor Outfit would make a fine dude-ranch.”

Kate did not tell Mormon Joe of her invitation until the sheep were bedded for the night, the supper dishes out of the way and they were sitting, as was their custom, on two boxes watching the stars and talking while Mormon Joe smoked his pipe.

“Our company this morning made me forget to tell you how well you handled the gate; it was a clean cut.” Mormon Joe added in obvious pride, “You’re the best sheepman in the country, Katie, bar none.”

“Then I wish you’d listen to me and buy some of those Rambouillets and grade up our herd.”

“We’re doing all right,” he returned, indifferently.

“Anybody would know you didn’t like sheep.”

“They’re a means to an end; they keep me in the hills out of mischief and furnish a living for us both.”

“I wonder that you haven’t more ambition, Uncle Joe.”

“That died and was buried long ago. The little that I have left is for you. I want you to have the benefit of what I have learned from books and life; I want you to be happy—I can’t say that I’m interested in anything beyond that.”

She threw him a kiss.

“You’re too good to be true almost.” Then, with a quite inexplicable diffidence she faltered, “Uncle Joe, that—that boy asked me to go to a dance.”

He turned his head quickly and asked with a sharp note in his voice:

“Where?”

“In Prouty.”

“Do you want to go?”

“I can’t tell you how much!” she cried eagerly. “I can hardly believe it is me—I—invited to a dance. I’ve never been out in the evening in all my life. I don’t know a single woman and may be I’ll never have such a chance again to get acquainted and make friends.”

“I didn’t know that you had been lonely, Katie,” he said after a silence.

“Just sometimes,” she admitted.

“You said you didn’t want to go to Prouty again because the children bleated at you the last time you were in.”

“But that was long ago—a year—they wouldn’t do that now—they’re older, and, besides, there are others who have sheep. We’re not the only ones any more. But,” with a quaver in her voice, “don’t you want me to go, Uncle Joe?”

“I don’t want you to put yourself in a position to get hurt.”

“What—what would anybody hurt me for?” she asked, wide-eyed.

His answer to the question was a shrug. Then, as though to himself, “They may be bigger than I give them credit for.”

He had not refused to let her go, but he had chilled her enthusiasm somewhat so they were silent for a time, each occupied with his own thoughts.

As Mormon Joe, with his hands clasped about his knee, his pipe dead in his mouth, sat motionless in the starlight, he ceased to be conscious of the beauty of the night, of the air that touched his face, soft and cool as the caress of a gentle woman, of the moist sweet odors of bursting buds and tender shoots—he was thinking only that the child who had run into his arms for safety had come to be the center of the universe to him. He could not imagine life without her. He had mended her manners, corrected her speech, bought her books of study to which she had diligently applied herself in the long hours while she herded sheep, and nothing else in life had given him so much pleasure as to watch her mind develop and her taste improve.

Anybody that would hurt her! Instinctively his hands clenched. Aloud he said:

“Go to your party, Katie, and I hope with all my heart it will be everything you anticipate.”