Читать книгу The Man Next Door - Emerson Hough - Страница 3

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Bonnie Bell was her real name—Bonnie Bell Wright. It sounds like a race horse or a yacht, but she was a girl. Like enough that name don't suit you exactly for a girl, but it suited her pa, Old Man Wright. I don't know as she ever was baptized by that name, or maybe baptized at all, for water was scarce in Wyoming; but it never would of been healthy to complain about that name before Old Man Wright or me, Curly. As far as that goes, she had other names too. Her ma called her Mary Isabel Wright; but her pa got to calling her Bonnie Bell some day when she was little, and it stuck, especial after her ma died.

That was when Bonnie Bell was only four years old, that her ma died, and her dying made a lot of difference on the ranch. I reckon Old Man Wright probably stole Bonnie Bell's ma somewhere back in the States when he was a young man. She must of loved him some or she wouldn't of came to Wyoming with him. She was tallish, and prettier than any picture in colors—and game! She tried all her life to let on she liked the range, but she never was made for it.

Now to see her throw that bluff and get away with it with Old Man Wright—and no one else, especial me—and to see Old Man Wright worrying, trying to figure out what was wrong, and not being able to—that was the hardest thing any of us ever tried. The way he worked to make the ma of Bonnie Bell happy was plain for anybody to see. He'd stand and look at the place where he seen her go by last, and forget he had a rope in his hand and his horse a-waiting.

We had to set at the table, all three of us, after she died—him and the kid and me—and nobody at the end of the table where she used to set—her always in clothes that wasn't just like ours. I couldn't hardly stand it. But that was how game Old Man Wright was.

He wasn't really old. Like when he was younger, he was tall and straight, and had sandy hair and blue eyes, and weighed round a hundred and eighty, lean. Everybody on the range always had knew Old Man Wright. He was captain of the round-up when he was twenty and president of the cattle association as soon as it was begun. I don't know as a better cowman ever was in Wyoming. He grew up at it.

So did Bonnie Bell grow up at it, for that matter. She pleased her pa a plenty, for she took to a saddle like a duck, so to speak. Time she was fifteen she could ride any of the stock we had, and if a bronc' pitched when she rid him she thought that was all right; she thought it was just a way horses had and something to be put up with that didn't amount to much. She didn't know no better. She never did think that anything or anybody in the world had it in for her noways whatever. She natural believed that everything and everybody liked her, for that was the way she felt and that was the way it shaped there on the range. There wasn't a hand on the place that would of allowed anything to cross Bonnie Bell in any way, shape or manner.

She grew up tallish, like her pa, and slim and round, same as her ma. She had brownish or yellowish hair, too, which was sunburned, for she never wore no bonnet; but her eyes was like her ma's, which was dark and not blue, though her skin was white like her pa's under his shirt sleeves, only she never had no freckles the way her pa had—some was large as nickels on him in places. She maybe had one freckle on her nose, but little.

Bonnie Bell was a rider from the time she was a baby, like I said, and she went into all the range work like she was built for it. Wild she was, like a filly or yearling that kicks up its heels when the sun shines and the wind blows. And pretty! Say, a new wagon with red wheels and yellow trimmings ain't fit for to compare with her, not none at all!

When her ma died Old Man Wright wasn't good for much for a long time, for he was always studying over something. Though he never talked a word about her I allow that somehow or other after she died he kind of come to the conclusion that maybe she hadn't been happy all the time, and he got to thinking that maybe he'd been to blame for it somehow. After it was too late, maybe, he seen that she couldn't never have grew to be no range woman, no matter how long she lived.

But still we all got to take things, and he done so the best he could; and after the kid begun to grow up he was happier. All the time he was a-rolling up the range and the stock, till he was richer than anybody you ever did see, though his clothes was just about the same. But, come round the time when Bonnie Bell was fourteen or fifteen years old, about proportionate like when a filly or heifer is a yearling or so, he begun to study more.

There was a room up in the half-story where sometimes we kept things we didn't need all the time—the fancy saddles and bridles and things. Some old trunks was in it. I reckon maybe Old Man Wright went up there sometimes when he didn't say nothing about it to nobody. Anyhow once I went up there for something and I seen him setting on the floor, something in his hand that he was looking at so steady he never heard me. I don't know what it was—picture maybe, or letter; and his face was different somehow—older like—so that he didn't seem like the same man. You see, Old Man Wright was maybe soft like on the inside, like plenty of us hard men are.

I crept out and felt right much to blame for seeing what I had, though I didn't mean to. Seems like all my life I had been seeing or hearing things I hadn't no business to—some folks never do things right. That's me. I never told Old Man Wright about my seeing him there and he don't know it yet. But it wasn't so long after that he come to me, and he hadn't been shaved for four days, and he was looking kind of odd; and he says to me:

"Curly, we're up against it for fair!" says he.

"Why, what's wrong, Colonel?" says I, for I seen something was wrong all right.

He didn't answer at first, but sort of throwed his hand round to show I was to come along.

At last he says:

"Curly, we're shore up against it!" He sighed then, like he'd lost a whole trainload of cows.

"What's up, Colonel?" says I. "Range thieves?"

"Hell, no!" says he. "I wish 'twas that—I'd like it."

"Well," says I, "we got plenty of this water, and we branded more than our average per cent of calves this spring." For such was so that year—everything was going fine. We stood to sell eighty thousand dollars' worth of beef cows that fall.

He didn't say a word, and I ast him if there was any nesters coming in; and he shook his head.

"I seen about that when I taken out my patents years ago. No; the range is safe. That's what's the matter with it; the title is good—too good."

"Well, Colonel," says I, some disgusted and getting up to walk away, "if ever you want to talk to me any send somebody to where I'm at. I'm busy."

"Set down, Curly," says he, not looking at me.

So I done so.

"Son," says he to me—he often called me that along of me being his segundo for so many years—"don't go away! I need you. I need something."

Now I ain't nothing but a freckled cowpuncher, with red hair, and some says both my eyes don't track the same, and I maybe toe in. Besides, I ain't got much education. But, you see, I've been with Old Man Wright so long we've kind of got to know each other—not that I'm any good for divine Providence neither.

"Curly," says he after a while when he got his nerve up, "Curly, it looks like I got to sell out—I got to sell the Circle Arrow!"

Huh! That was worse than anything that ever hit me all my life, and we've seen some trouble too. I couldn't say a word to that.

After about a hour he begun again.

"I reckon I got to sell her," says he. "I got to quit the game. Curly, you and me has got to make a change—I'm afraid I've got to sell her out—lock, stock and barrel."

"And not be a cowman no more?" says I.

He nods. I look round to see him close. He was plumb sober, and his face was solemn, like it was the time I caught him looking in the trunk.

"That irrigation syndicate is after me again," says he.

"Well, what of it?" says I. "Let 'em go some place else. It ain't needful for us to make no more money—we're plumb rich enough for anybody on earth. Besides, when a man is a cowman he's got as far as he can go—there ain't nothing in the world better than that. You know it and so do I."

He nods, for what I said was true, and he knowed it.

"Colonel," I ast him, "have you been playing poker?"

"Some," says he. "Down to the Cheyenne Club."

"How much did you lose?"

"I didn't lose nothing—I won several thousand dollars and eight hundred head of steers last week," says he.

"Well, then, what in hell is wrong?" says I.

"It goes back a long ways," says he after a while, and now his face looked more than ever like it did when he was there a-going through them trunks. I turns my own face away now, so as not to embarrass him, for I seen he was sort of off his balance.

"It's her," says the old man at last.

I might have knew that—might have knew it was either Bonnie Bell or her ma that he had in his mind all the time; but he couldn't say a damn word. He went on after a while:

"When she was sick I begun to get sort of afraid about things. One day she taken Bonnie Bell by one hand and me by the other, and says she to me: 'John Willie'—she called me that, though nobody knew it maybe—'John Willie,' says she, 'I want to ask something I never dared ask before, because I never did know before how much you cared for me real,' says she. Oh, damn it, Curly, it ain't nobody's business what she said."

After a while he went on again.

"'Lizzie,' says I to her, 'what is it? I'll do anything for you.'

"'Promise me, then, John Willie,' says she, 'that you'll educate my girl and give her the life she ought to have.'

"'Why, Lizzie,' says I, 'of course I will. I'll do anything in the world you say, the way you ask it.'

"'Then give her the place that she ought to have in life,' she says to me."

He stopped talking then for maybe a hour, and at last he says again:

"Well, Curly, let it go at that. I can't talk about things. I couldn't ever talk about her."

I couldn't talk neither. After a while he kind of went on, slow:

"The kid's fifteen now," says he at last. "She's going to be a looker like her ma. It's in her blood to grow up in the cow business too—that's me. But she's got it in her, besides, like her ma, to do something different.

"I don't like to do my duty no more than anybody else does, but it shore is my duty to educate that kid and give her a chance for a bigger start than she can get out here. It was that that was in her ma's mind all the time. She didn't want her girl to grow up out here in Wyoming; she wanted her to go back East and play the game—the big game—the limit the roof. She ast it; and she's got to have it, though she's been dead more than ten years now. As for you and me, it can't make much difference. We've brought her up the best we knew this far."

"Well, you can't sell the Circle Arrow now," says I, "and I'll tell you why."

"Tell me," says he.

"Well, let's figure on it," says I. "It'll take anyways four years to develop Bonnie Bell ready to turn off the range, according to the way such things run. She'll have to go to school for at least four years. Why not let the thing run like it lays till then, while you send her East?"

"You mean to some girls' college?" says he. "Well, I've been thinking that all out. She'll have to go to the same kind of schools her ma did and be made a lady of, like her ma." He looks a little more cheerful and says to me: "That'll put it off four years anyways, won't it?"

"Shore it will," says I. "Maybe something will happen by that time. It don't stand to reason that them syndicate people will be as foolish four years from now as they are today; and like enough you can't sell the range then nohow." That makes us both feel a lot cheerfuller.

Well, later on him and me begun looking up in books what was the best college for girls, though none of 'em said anything about caring special for girls that knew more of horses and cows than anything else. We seen names of plenty of schools—Vassar and Ogontz and Bryn Mawr—but we couldn't pronounce them names; so we voted against them all. At last I found one that looked all right—it was named Smith.

"Here's the place!" says I to Old Man Wright; and I showed him on the page. "This man Smith sounds like he had some horse sense. Let's send Bonnie Bell to Old Man Smith and see what he'll do with her."

Well, we done that. Old Man Smith must of knew his business pretty well, for what he done with Bonnie Bell was considerable. She was changed when she got back to us the first time, come summer of the first year. I didn't get East and I never did meet up with Old Man Smith at all; but I say he must of knowed his business. His catalogue said his line was to make girls appreciate the Better Things of life. He spelled Better Things in big letters. Well, I don't know whether Bonnie Bell begun to hanker after them Better Things or not, but she was changed after that every year more and more when she come home. In four years she wasn't the same girl.

She wasn't spoiled—you couldn't spoil her noways. She was as much tickled as ever with the colts and the calves and the chickens and the alfalfa and the mountains; and she could still ride anything they brought along, and she hadn't forgot how to rope. Still, she was different. Her clothes was different. Her hats was different. Her shoes was different. Her hair was done up different. Somehow she had grew up less like her pa and more like her ma. So then I seen that 'bout the worst had happened to him and me that could happen. Them Better Things was not such as growed in Wyoming.

Now, Old Man Wright and me, us two, had brought up the kid. Me being foreman, that was part of my business too. We been busy. I could see we was going to be a lot busier. Before long something was due to pop. At last the old man comes to me once more.

"Curly," says he, "I was in hopes something would happen, so that this range of ours wouldn't be no temptation to them irrigation colonizers; I was hoping something would happen to them, so they would lose their money. But they lost their minds instead. These last four years they raised their bid on the Circle Arrow a half million dollars every year. They've offered me more money than there is in the whole wide world. They say now that for the brand and the range stock and the home ranch, and all the hay lands and ditches that we put in so long ago, they'll give me three million eight hundred thousand dollars, a third of it in real money and the rest secured on the place. What do you think of that?"

"I think somebody has been drunk," says I. "There ain't that much money at all. I remember seeing Miss Anderson, Bonnie Bell's teacher down at Meeteetse, make a million dollars on the blackboard, and it reached clear acrost it—six ciphers, with a figure in front of it. And that was only one million dollars. When you come to talking nearly four million dollars—why, there ain't that much money. They're fooling you, Colonel."

"I wisht they was," says he, sighing; "but the agent keeps pestering me. He says they'll make it four million flat or maybe more if I'll just let go. You see, Curly, we picked the ground mighty well years ago, and them ditches we let in from the mountains for the stock years ago is what they got their eyes on now. They say that folks can dry-farm the benches up toward the mountains—they can't, and I don't like to see nobody try it. I'm a cowman and I don't like to see the range used for nothing else. But what am I going to do?"

"Well, what are you going to do, Colonel?" says I. "I know what you'll do, but I'll just ast you."

"Of course," says he, "it ain't in my heart to sell the Circle Arrow—you know that—but I got to. Here's Bonnie Bell. She's finished—that is to say, she ain't finished, but just beginning. She's at the limit of what the range will produce for her right now. We got to move on."

I nodded to him. We both felt the same about it. It wasn't so much what happened to us.

"Well," says he, "we got to pick out a place for her to live at after we sell the range. I thought of St. Louis; but it's too hot, and I never liked the market there. Kansas City is a good cowtown; but it ain't as good as Chicago. I reckon Chicago maybe is as good a cowtown as there is."

"Well, Colonel," says I, "I reckon here's where I go West."

"You go where?" says he to me, sharp.

"West," says I.

"There ain't no West," says he. "Besides, what do you mean? What are you talking about, going anywheres?"

"You said you was going to sell the range," says I. "That ends my work, don't it? I filed on eight or ten homesteads, and so did the other boys. It's all surveyed and patented, and it's yours to sell."

He didn't say nothing for a while, his Adam's apple walking up and down his neck.

"You been square to me all your life, Colonel," says I, "and I can't kick. All cowpunchers has to be turned out to grass sometime and it's been a long time coming for me. I'm as old as you are, Colonel, and I can't complain."

"Curly," says he, "what you're saying cuts me a little more than anything ever did happen to me. Ain't I always done right by you?"

"Of course you have, Colonel. Who said you hadn't?"

"Ain't you always been square with me?"

"Best I knew how," says I. "I never let my right hand know what my left was doing with a running iron—and I was left-handed."

"That's right; you helped me get my start in the early days. I owe a lot to you—a lot more than I've ever paid; but the least I could do for you would be to give you a home and a place at my table as long as ever you live, and more wages than you're worth—ain't that the truth?"

"I don't know how you figure that," says I.

"Yes; you do, too, know how I figure that—you know there ain't but one way I could figure it. You stay with me till hell freezes under both of us; and I don't want to hear no more talk about you going West or nowheres else."

Folkses' Adam's apples bothers sometimes.

"We built this brand together," says he, "and what right you got to shake it now?" says he; me not being able now to talk much. "We rode this range, every foot of it, together, and more than once slept under the same saddle blanket. I've trusted you to tally a thousand head of steers for me a half dozen times a year. You've had the spring rodeo in your hands ever since I can remember. You've been one-half pa of that kid. Has times changed so much that you got a right to talk the way you're talking?"

"You're going back into the States, though, Colonel," says I. "They turn men out there when they're forty—and I'll never see forty again. I read in the papers that forty is the dead line back there."

"It ain't in Wyoming," says he.

"We won't be in Wyoming no more, there," says I.

He set and looked off across the range toward the Gunsight Gap, at the head of the river, and I could see him get white under his freckles. He was game, but he was scared.

"We can't help it, Curly," says he. "We've raised the girl between us and we've got to stick all the way through. You've been my foreman here and you got to be my foreman there in the city. We'll land there with a few million dollars or so and I reckon we'll learn the game after a while."

"I'd make a hell of a vallay, wouldn't I, Colonel?" says I.

"I didn't ast you to be no vallay for me," says he. "I ast you to be my foreman—you know damn well what I mean."

I did know, too, far as that's concerned, and I thought more of Old Man Wright then than I ever did. Of course it's hard for men to talk much out on the range, and we didn't talk. We only set for quite a while, with our knees up, breaking sticks and looking off at the Gunsight Gap, on top of the range—just as if we hadn't saw it there any day these past forty years.

I was plenty scared about this new move and so was he. It's just like riding into a ford where the water is stained with snow or mud and running high, and where there ain't no low bank on the other side. You don't know how it is, but you have to chance it. It looked bad to me and it did to him; but we had rid into such places before together and we both knew we had to do it now.

"Colonel," says I at last to him, "I don't like it none, but I got to go through with you if you want me to."

He sort of hit the side of my knee with the back of his hand, like he said: "It's a trade." And it was a trade.

That's how come us to move from Wyoming to Chicago, looking for some of them Better Things.