Читать книгу Rim of the Desert - Ernest Haycox - Страница 5

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AURORA BRANT returned to the homestead shack with Dr. Ellenburg at midnight. When he left half an hour later he told her the worst of it in his bluntest words. "Your father," he said, "can't last out another day." She had known he would say that. The rest of the long, black night she sat by the bed, watching her father move through his fitful intervals of sleep, half dreaming of death and half-awake and aware of its coming.

Now it was day and he had fallen into a real sleep. Aurora stood at the shanty door to watch strong light move across a sea of sage and yellow grass. Prairie City was a blur twenty-five miles southward. Here and there at lonely intervals small square shanties, no different than the one in which she lived, stood against the sun; far away she saw a rider and his ribbon of dust. This was the Silver Bow flats, on which the homesteaders were settling. Only last year it had been free government land used by the cattle outfits to graze their beef; the hatred of the cattlemen at that intrusion was the one real fear in the heart of every homesteader.

She saddled her pony in the shed, took a bucket with a long rope, and rode toward the river a few hundred yards away. The Silver Bow crossed the flats by means of a deep lava-rock gorge and made a bend here and came out of its canyon to provide the only suitable land within twelve miles.

At the river she rode the horse into the current and dropped the bucket to the full length of the rope, therein filling it. This was a device her father—a clever man who could do anything with his mind and nothing with his hands—had invented to save the labor of dismounting. While the horse had its long morning drink she looked across the river at the small, gray log cabin on the north side.

Beyond the ford two ridges formed the walls of a narrow valley—Cloud Valley—whose grass lay rich yellow in the sunlight; gradually as the valley ran northward the ridges pinched in and became the rough-tumbled chain of the Thunderhead Range, here and there touched by snow patches. All that valley was cattle graze, with the ranch houses of the big outfits—Broken Bit, Rafter T, and Cleve Stewart's Chain and Ball—hidden in small box canyons playing off from the valley. Every foot of that golden fifteen-mile meadow was free land, open to any homesteader who wished to file upon it. Only one homesteader had ever tried. He had built the log cabin across the ford. One night he had been shot dead and now the cabin stood as a stark warning to all other homesteaders.

She turned back. When she reached the yard of the shanty she heard her father calling with more strength than he had to spend. Dropping from the horse, she hurried in and saw the fear frozen in his eyes. He reached for her hand. "A man sees the sorry side of himself at a time like this. At this stage of the game you don't make excuses for yourself any more. I have never really been happy when alone. I can't even die alone."

"Don't regret anything, Dad. We've seen the world. We've had fun."

"If that were only all—"

He was very thin and in the last few years his hair had turned white at the edges, and he had hated that because he hated age. He was sixty but still kept the blue eyes of a young man; his face was without a line of worry. He had never worried, never worked very hard, never bound himself to any one place. Wherever they had moved he had always begun by saying: "This is our home at last. Here's where we make our fortune." But in a little while depression always came upon him and the orthodox pattern of life would bore him and then he would say: "It is not as I'd hoped it would be, Aurora. Let's try New Orleans. It is a lovely place." And so they would move. All her first memories were of trains and boats and coffee at midnight on ferries and stages rocking across lonely places. For him change was the breath of his life and regularity was death.

He held her hand and this too was as it had always been, for even as a child it had been her voice comforting him, her steadiness cheering him. It was her strength he fed on. He said: "One thing I regret. We never should have come here."

"It has been a lovely year, Dad."

She had the power to take his doubts away; now he was pleased to see that she believed in him. "Yes, it has been. And it was the cheapest health cure we could find." Then another thought turned him still and dreary and a pale shadow moved over his face and he spoke from the farther corridors of his strength: "How much money do we have left?"

Money was another responsibility he had never faced. She had been the banker. Now, as before, she lied to him to save him from one more gray fact he could never face. "About two hundred dollars."

"Enough to get you out of here. You can't keep this homestead. You wouldn't want to." He paused to struggle with his own conscience. "I have never cared for your mother's people. They disliked me when I married your mother and hated me when she died. But they're well off and they'll be good to you. I can think of no other way."

"All right, Dad."

It eased him to hear her approval. It took the last responsibility from his shoulders, he who could not bear responsibility. He smiled out of those blue eyes which held her love so securely. A little of the old gay boyishness came back to him and then, in accordance with his changeable mind and heart, it went away. He lay quietly on the bed and she knew he would be thinking of a poem out of Wordsworth or the glitter and laughter of some great party in his younger years, or perhaps he was thinking of tomorrow and the great day to come in another place.

"I leave you so little," he said. "Not even friends. We have never stayed anywhere long enough to make friends."

"Everything," she said, "has been lovely. Always."

"You must not be too serious, Aurora. Let the solemn ones grind out their souls by trying to shake the roots of the world. Life will break you if you let it. Don't let it. Be gay. There is never enough laughter, never enough laziness and dreaming. Remember one thing when people speak those dismal words about duty and usefulness and the necessity of making something great of your life. Remember that the heart of a rose contains all the meaning this world has for any of us. Its fragrance is yours for nothing. Go to your mother's people, take a year in a finishing school. Marry well and have a great house and bring people to it who are wise and witty and full of pleasant nonsense."

"Yes," she said. "Yes."

But, watching her, he had his moment of insight. "I think I have made you old too soon. One of us had to do the worrying and you did it. You do not know yourself. You have the capacity for loving some man with your whole heart. If you find that man permit yourself to love him. Ask no questions and have no doubts. That is the one great adventure." And then, deeper and deeper along the black tunnel into which he steadily receded, he said in a changed and terrible voice: "Aurora—my life has been a failure." When she touched his cheek she knew he was dead.

There was no shock. This event had been long foreshadowed and her first thought as she bent to kiss him was that his face had turned young and a little eager, as though, having stayed in one place too long, the old excitement returned once more for his final journey. She sat down in the doorway, her shoulder against its edge, her arms idle in her lap. Her shoulder bent a little, her head dropped.

Coming along the road, Jim Keene saw her in this attitude and recognized her as the girl who had the previous night asked him about the doctor. When he rode before the shanty she looked up and he observed that the fear and strain of that occasion had been replaced by an expression as near bottomless despair as he had ever seen. As much as it was against his manners to dismount before being invited, he stepped from the saddle and moved to the door and saw the dead man inside.

"Your father?"

"Yes."

It was a tone of heartbreak, of a world fallen forever. She wasn't crying. It looked to him as though her feelings were deadlocked, leaving her wholly powerless; once in his own career he had known something distantly similar when, struck in the pit of the stomach, he could not breathe, speak or move. He sat down beside her. "Maybe," he said, in the most sympathetic of voices, "I can help," and took her shoulders and pulled her against his chest.

He felt the quick loosening of her body and then he was listening to the sudden onset of her crying.

He said nothing. He sat still, watching color come back to her cheeks. Her hair was a solid black, lustrous in the sunlight; the smell of it was sweet. She was tall for a woman and her shoulders were square and strong, and there was a substance to her body; it was warm and firm in his arms. Her skin was lightly browned by the sun and her lips were broad and on the edge of being full—the lips of a giving woman, but not of a pliant one. He had seen her only once before, but even then she had left an impression with him. The impression had remained.

The weight went suddenly from his arms; she straightened and gave him a full, quick look in which he witnessed a self-willed pride now deliberately shutting out the softer things he had seen.

He stood up with his hat in his hand. A rider showed on the desert, slowly jogging forward on a big horse—a nester riding all arms and feet. The sun was half up in the east, red from late fall's dust. Sagebrush carpeted the desert as far as sight ran. On the southern horizon a blue haze beautifully shimmered. He said: "What can I do for you?"

She had never really noticed him before. Now it was his voice that drew her attention, a voice soft as summer's wind. He was young, his face long and thoughtful and thick-tanned from wind and sun and from health. When he looked out upon the desert his lids came together and she caught the poised and thorough alertness of his attention, as though he lived on small margins of safety and watched those margins with care. But when he turned to her she saw the kindness of his eyes—and the approval in them.

Her deep beliefs were secret and lonely ones, seldom shared. It surprised her to find she was explaining herself to him. "It was always a bright and wonderful world for my father, with nothing unkind in it. But at the last the color of it died out and that was the greatest hurt he ever had. I think that is why I cried—because he had to see anything dark."

"Maybe," said Jim Keene, "it was kind of a desert dark, with the stars all shining and the wind blowing cool from the west. When I take the trail I'd like to start in shadows like that. You can't see heaven when the sun's shining."

He had a voice with idle melody in it; he was thinking about her and trying to be kind. Then she remembered the way he laughed when he had shoved the drunk into Red John's arms. Behind that laughter had been a full knowledge of his act and all that it might mean. He was a strange man.

The rider came steadily up and rounded at the cabin, being Spackman from the homestead two miles east. Spackman said: "Your father better?"

She stood up. "He's dead, Fritz." That was all. It was a simplicity, Keene thought, that cut through everything. She was through crying and through being afraid.

"I will send the woman over," said Spackman. "I will send to town for Ellenburg. It is necessary for the certificate. We must of course bury him today."

"Yes, Fritz."

"So," said Spackman and turned away. "That's all you want?"

"When you come back," said Aurora Brant, "will you please bring your wagon?"

"Also I will see Cannon. He will make the coffin and Mrs. Cannon will line it as she did for my baby." He looked at Jim Keene, not knowing him; but since there were necessary things to be done he said to Keene, "You will dig," and rode away.

Aurora spoke to Keene: "I wouldn't want to delay you."

He said: "What is a day, or a year?"

He didn't understand the shadow which made its brief appearance on her face. But she was thinking, "So Father would have said."

She had asked that the grave be dug at the corner of the claim which overlooked the river. Keene had finished this chore when he saw her leave the crowd of neighbors at the house and cross the field. She passed him and dropped to the edge of the bluff; and as he came over to her he saw that she had her eyes on the cabin beyond the ford. He sat down beside her and rolled up a cigarette. For a moment her attention turned to him. She touched his hand. "You've been good," she murmured, and then her mind traveled away.

She had twenty dollars, not the two hundred she had told her father; and she was alone. Never again would she watch her father's face grow eager as he thought of moving to some new-promised wonder; never again would she silently, wearily wait for that eagerness to wear away and discontent to return. She had never let him see how much she hated all that, how dreary a life it had been for her. Gay and charming, he had taken pains to teach her many things but he had never known how terrible a lesson in improvidence he had furnished her, how great her hatred was of their hand-to-mouth existence, the friendlessness of poverty, the cheap hotel rooms in strange towns, the humiliation of pawning their possessions to eat, the hours of waiting on dreary roads for a friendly wagon to come by.

It had left in her a passionate resolve to possess something so that she might look the world in the eye and be proud again. Never henceforth would she be a shadow drifting along the earth; she would take root and grow. No more gaiety, no more high-hearted gambling with tomorrow, no more bright and gallant dawns fading into empty sunsets. She would stay in one place, she would have one spot on earth which belonged to her. That was her fixed resolve; that was the hunger of her heart.

She wouldn't write her mother's people, for that was the old story of improvidence again, another version of asking for a free ride and a free meal. She would stay here. She had decided that months ago when she realized her father could not live out the summer. She wasn't a homestead woman and she couldn't handle a plow like Mrs. Spackman but, looking across the river to the cabin, she knew there was another way to survive. She would have a roof of her own and be strong. She would ask nothing and she would work.

Keene said: "They're coming," and pulled her up. She stood by the grave with Keene, watching the slow and heavy homestead men come across the field with her father's coffin. The crowd made a small ring around the grave and Elijah Patterson, who had once been a preacher in the East, stood at the grave's head and made his talk. All the neighbors had come, impelled by that feeling of help which was so strong among the homesteaders. She noticed too that Cleve Stewart, who owned the Chain and Ball outfit, stood by his horse in the background. He was the only cattleman among them; she remembered that.

Elijah Patterson had finished, and there was nothing left now but to fill in the grave; the homestead men were waiting for her to leave before they began that chore. She delayed a moment, every memory of her father so clear, so painfully alive and dear; and then she said goodbye to him and felt the strangeness of being alone.

Keene turned her away. They walked back across the field to the tar-paper shanty. The homesteaders drifted behind. Spackman came up. "I brought the wagon."

"Will you help me load?"

Spackman went into the house with some of the other men; they came out with Aurora Brant's possessions and lifted them to the wagon—a stove, a bed, a trunk, a crate of dishes, and a board table with its soap-box chairs. Keene noticed a rider follow from the grave—a solid man with a square, outthrust chin. He was around thirty, with the cattle trade stamped on him. He stood before Aurora Brant, saying: "I'm sorry, Aurora." He glanced at the things in the wagon and Keene noticed disappointment cross the bulldog face. The man looked tough and he had the shoulders of a fighter, but there was something different behind his eyes—something perceiving and soft. "You're not moving?"

"Yes, Cleve."

"Come up to Chain and stay a few weeks," said Cleve Stewart.

The homesteaders stood in the background, listening. They stayed away from the cattleman, watching him and not trusting him, not easy in his presence. Once he looked beyond Aurora to them; and his eyes were reserved and cool.

"I'll not be going far away," said Aurora. She paused and watched him carefully. "Only across the ford to that cabin."

Spackman, rising to the wagon seat, had gotten as far as the wheel hub. He dropped back to the ground. "What's that?" Mrs. Cannon said, sharp and alarmed. "Aurora, don't you do that!"

Fear came out of these people like a smell. Keene, now watching Cleve Stewart, noticed how grave his face became as he shook his head. "You can't do that, Aurora."

She said: "Would the cattlemen kill a woman, Cleve?"

An embarrassed blush crossed his face; he dipped his chin toward the ground. Keene looked across the river at the cabin and though he didn't know the story he had seen enough in Prairie City to make an accurate guess. There never was any change in this old hatred between cattle and plow. He admired Aurora Brant for the way she stood in the clear and sunless evening, for her simplicity, for the will that shone out of her, for the changelessness of her purpose.

Cleve Stewart said: "The cabin's on the wrong side of the river, Aurora. It is on Broken Bit grass. I can't help you."

"I didn't ask for help, Cleve."

"Even if I could," said Stewart, struggling with his conscience, "I wouldn't. I'm a ranch owner. I've got to protect my grass. I'd have to stick with them when they protect their grass."

"Not your grass," said Aurora quietly. "It never was yours or theirs. It belongs to the government. It is open to whoever files on it."

Cleve Stewart started to speak, but he looked beyond Aurora to the homesteaders and Keene saw the man slowly shut his mind against them. These two worlds of cattle and plow had no meeting ground. There could never be truce or tolerance between them. There could never be anything but a fight for survival. All he said was: "I'm sorry, Aurora."

Spackman spoke uncertainly: "I don't know about me drivin' over there."

Keene said: "All right, I'll drive the wagon over." Stewart gave Keene an affronted look. He recognized Keene's type at once—one horseman instantly identifying another. He said: "You're no nester, friend." Spackman made up his mind. "To hell with those cowmen. I'll do it."

"Spackman," called his wife, "you be careful! You got enough trouble."

But Spackman was a fighter. "We'll see," he said, and whipped the team toward the ford.

"I'm sorry," said Stewart. Tipping his hat to Aurora, he rode away.

The stove had been set up in the yard, pending a thorough cleaning of the log house; and Keene and Aurora had eaten. Now it was a full star-shining dark with the river rustling on the gravel ford and somewhere a coyote crying and wind moving cool and soundless over the earth.

Keene said: "You'll need a man to set up that stove. You'll need a man for a lot of things. How will you plow, how will you build a fence?" After a thoughtful pause he added, "How will you stick?"

She had learned his name only a moment before and used it now. "I'll stick, Jim. I'll never move. Wait and see." Then she brought her glance to his face. "But you'll not be here to see."

He stood by his horse, a thick raw-boned shadow in the darkness. He was a man hard to know, he was different than any man she had met. He was smiling and his voice had a soft, swinging tone. "Good luck."

"You've been kind," she murmured, watching him rise to the saddle. He removed his hat and he ceased to smile. He had touched her life and now he was moving on. She found herself saying, "What will you be doing?"

"Just riding—just looking."

"Jim," she said with a vehemence that surprised her, "never do that! You'll grow old, you'll find nothing, you'll die disappointed."

"What else can a man do?"

"Good luck," she said, and watched him disappear in the shadows.

Coyotes were crying all through the ridges at either side of the valley. She listened to Keene's horse tap a slow beat from the earth and heard the sound die. Loneliness flowed in the shadows; there were no homestead lights visible from this low side of the river, no friendliness shining through the night. She turned into the cabin and undressed and lay on the bed, hearing the steady rustle of the water. She thought of her father and of his voice, so eager and cheerful, and his smile which had taken the sting from all his shortcomings. Sadness weighted her down; the sudden solitariness of her life was new and hard to bear. But despite that she was sure of her future. This cabin where a man had died was her home. His name had been Garratt and that would be the name of the settlement. She knew exactly what she would do; she drifted into sleep.

She was roused by the sound of horses scuffing near the cabin and the murmur of voices. Something struck against the iron stove and a man cursed and the stove rang loud in the night and seemed to fall from its legs. "Blackie," said a man, "that's a horse over there. Take it along."

She flung on her robe and slid across the cabin's rough floor in her bare feet and opened the door. She saw two riders on foot in the foreground and two other men farther away. She called out: "Who are you?"

One of the men called: "A woman!"

"Sister," said a voice, "you get the hell out of here tomorrow. We're takin' the horse. You'll find it in three-four days, somewhere out in the valley."

"Blackie," said one of the farther-stationed riders, "whut's movin' over there beyond you?"

Blackie grunted as he turned. "Where?"

A gunshot made its dry, flat breach in the night. Aurora pulled back from the door, seeing the short spurt of that weapon's muzzle. Blackie ran into the deeper shadows; the other three men were suddenly fighting their horses. Blackie yelled, "Wait!" The gun spoke again, a bullet scuffed the earth. Blackie's horse reared high in the darkness and ran off, leaving him afoot. Blackie was a thin-bent shadow in the night as he raced toward the other three. The gun steadily searched the yard. She saw Blackie lift himself behind one of the riders. There was an answering fire from these men. Powder smell filled the yard, but the first gun kept on, patient and unhurried, and Blackie yelled in quick pain and then the group rushed northward.

A man rose from the earth, walking forward. When he spoke Aurora recognized Jim Keene's voice. There was amusement in it, as though this had been an expected thing. "You're all right?"

"I thought you had gone."

He was before her. He was near enough for her to see his face. He was smiling and pleased. "You see?" he said. "This is how it will be."

"Tomorrow," she said, "I'll send to town for a gun."

"Tomorrow," he said, "I believe I'll stake out a claim around here. It looks like fun."

"Jim," she said, "you're a man. They'll kill you."

The smile remained. She heard the soft, windy excitement in his voice. "Mighty odd. I've ridden a thousand miles to keep out of trouble and now that I look back it has been a dreary time. I think I'll stand pat. Maybe what I want is here."

"What do you want, Jim?"

He said in a slow, half-puzzled way. "I thought it was peace and quiet. Maybe it isn't that."