Читать книгу The Last Straw - Titus Harold - Страница 6

He stood on a bearskin rug before the blazing fire, hat in hand, boots polished, tall and trim with his handsome head bowed just a trifle. The blazing logs gave the only light to the place and his bronzed face was burnished by their reflection.

"You sent for me?" he asked as she came into the room.

She advanced from the shadows and for a moment did not reply. She felt that he was taking her in from her crown of light hair, down through the smart, high-collared waist to the short, scant skirt which showed her silken clad ankles and the modish shoes. His eyes rested on those shoes. He was thinking that they were wonderfully plain for a city girl to wear, at least the sort of city girl he had ever known. But they had a simplicity which he thought went well with her manner.

"I had planned on talking to Mr. Hepburn this evening," she said. "I want to get all the information and all the advice I can from the start. Carlotta said he had gone away, so, in spite of the fact that you wouldn't gamble with me this afternoon, I sent for you. I think that you can tell me many things I need to know. You don't mind my asking you, do you? You don't feel that you'd be ... be taking a chance, talking to me?"

She took his hat.

"Sit down," motioning to the davenport before the fire. "Would you like to start with a drink?"

"Why, yes," eyeing her calculatingly.

"There's not much here. I slipped one bottle of Vermouth in a trunk. I'll have to try to mix a cocktail in a tumbler and there isn't any ice. It's likely to be a bad cocktail, but maybe it will help us talk."

She walked down the long room toward the dining table and sideboard at the far end and he heard glass clinking and liquids gurgling as he sat looking about with that small part of a smile on his features. All along the walls were books and above the cases hung trophies of the country: heads of deer and elk, a pelt of a mountain lion and of a bobcat, a pair of magnificent sheep's horns and a stuffed eagle. In the low windows were boxes of geraniums, Carlotta's pride.

"Here you are," she said as she returned, holding one of the two glasses toward Beck, who rose to accept it. "My uncle left a very small stock of drinks, but as soon as I know what I'm about I'll try to remedy that defect in an otherwise splendid establishment." Her manner was terse, brisk, open and her eyes met another's directly when she talked.

She lifted her glass to her chin's level and smiled at him.

"To the future!" she said.

His question was adroitly timed for she had just given the glass a slight toss and was already carrying its rim toward her lips when his words checked the movement.

"I take it, ma'am, that you'll want this liquor to go where it'll do your future the most good?"

He looked from her down to the cocktail he held and moved the glass in a quick little circle to set the yellow liquid swirling. His voice had been quite casual, but when he raised his eyes to meet her inquiring look the last of a twinkle was giving way to gravity.

"You mean?..."

"Just about what I said: that you'd like to have this brace of drinks do your future some good?"

"Why, yes, that was my intention. Why?"

"You called me down here to get a little advice. Let's commence here."

He reached out for her glass in a manner which was at once gentle and dominating, presumptuous but unoffending, with a measure of certainty; still, by his face, she might have told that he was experimenting with her, not just sure of how she would react, not, perhaps, caring a great deal. His fingers closed on her glass and she yielded with half laughing, half protesting astonishment. He took both glasses in one hand, moved deliberately toward the hearth and tossed their contents into the flames. He then set the empty tumblers on the mantel and turned about with a questioning smile on his lips.

The sharp, slowly dwindling hiss of quenched flame which followed completely died out before she spoke. Color had leaped into her cheeks and ebbed as quickly; her lips had shut in a tight line and for a fraction of time it was as though she would angrily demand explanation.

But she said evenly enough: "I don't understand that."

"I'm glad you didn't show how mad it made you," he replied.

"But why.... What made you do it?"

"You said, you know, that you wanted that liquor to go where it'd help your future. I thought the fire was about the best place for it under the circumstances."

"But why di—"

"And I believed you when you said you had a lot to learn and that you called me down to start the job. You have a way of makin' people think you mean what you say. I'm mighty glad to give you advice; I thought this was a good way to begin."

Jane gave a queer laugh and sat down, looking blankly into the fire. She turned her face after a moment and found him studying her as he sat at the other end of the davenport.

"I understand your meaning," she said, "but you're as startling in your actions as you must be in your reasoning. You didn't object to the idea of a drink; I didn't think many of you people did out here."

"We don't, ma'am. Most of us drink our share. I do."

"But just now you threw yours away."

"You see, I was bound to throw yours away. It wouldn't have been polite, would it, for me to drink and not let you?" His smile mocked her. "Besides," dryly—"I ain't much on these fancy drinks. You warned me that it wouldn't be so very good anyhow."

She stared at him in perplexity.

"You have no scruples against drinking?"

"Moderate drinking; no."

"Then why did you take this liberty with me?"—suggesting indignation.

"You see, you're a woman. You guessed a minute ago that there wasn't much objection to hard liquor here. I told you you were right; most of us boys drink, but we can afford to and you can't." His manner was light, almost to the degree of banter, as if that which had aroused her was the simplest of matters.

"A man in this country don't build a reputation on many things. So long as he's honest, he gets along pretty well. But a woman: that's different. She has to make people know she's right in everything she does."

"An occasional drink will make her less right?"

"Not a bit less, ma'am, but it won't help other folks to know she's right. And that's all that counts. Everybody, man or woman, who comes into the west has to make or break by what he does here; nothin' that has been, good or bad, matters. They commence from the bottom again and by what they do people judge them.

"Reputation is the first thing you've got to make for yourself. Everybody is watchin' you: the boys here on the ranch, the neighbors down creek, the people in town. You've got to show that you're honest, that you've got courage; if you were a man it could stop there, but you're a woman an' that makes it....

"Well, men out here expect things from a woman that I guess men in cities don't think so much about and you might as well know now as any time that men in this country don't like to see a woman do some of the things they do. We ain't as polite as some; we ain't as gentle, when it's necessary to act quick and for sure, but maybe we make up for some of our roughness in the idea we have of women. We think a good woman is about as fine a thing as God has made, ma'am, and we have our ideas of goodness.

"You see, you've got to handle men; you've got to have their respect and you won't have their respect if you don't understand how they think, and then act accordingly.

"Besides, you're on a job that's going to take all the brains and grit and strength you've got. Booze never helped anybody on a job like that. If you was a man and your job was just ridin' after cattle it'd be different. But neither one is the case....

"My advice, ma'am!"

She watched his face a moment before saying:

"As long as I can remember, women about me have been drinking. Ever since I grew up I've been drinking. I've never taken too much; I've never needed it; I've done it because ... because it was being done."

"Yeah. Well, it ain't done here. It's a new country and a new life for you and one of the first things you've got to learn is how to get on with people. Maybe back east some of the folks wouldn't respect you if you didn't drink. There are folks like that, who think it's smart to do certain things, and maybe there are a lot of 'em like you, who don't need it, don't even want it, but they do it because of their reputations.

"You see, it's the same rule workin' backwards out here."

The girl moved to face the fire again. She scowled a trifle and the glow on her cheeks was not wholly due to the reflection of the blazing logs.

"Did it ever occur to you that there might be people who gave little attention to what others think of them?" she asked rather coldly.

"Sure thing! There are lots like that."

"I can see where, if a stranger were to plan to stay in a place like this for long it might be expedient to ... to cater to the community morals. I don't intend to be a permanent resident. That is, I won't if I can help it. I don't expect that I'd ever come up to your notion of a worthy woman,"—a bitterness creeping into the voice—"so perhaps it is fortunate that I look on this ranch only as means to an end."

"You mean, money, ma'am?" he asked, and when she did not reply at once he went on: "Folks generally come west for one of three reasons: money or health or because they like the country. I take it your health's all right ... and that you ain't just struck with the country."

She made a slight grimace and sat forward, elbows on knees.

"Yes, money!" she said under her breath. "I came here to get it. I'm going to." She looked up at him quickly, eyebrows arched in a somewhat defiant query, and, after a pause, went on: "You don't seem to approve?"

"No, ma'am," candidly, that smile only half hidden in his eyes.

"And why not? What else is there out here for a woman like me?"

"That's a hard question. One thing she might find is herself, for instance."

She gave a startled laugh and asked:

"Herself?"

"The same, ma'am. I s'pose there are folks who live for money and what it'll bring 'em. Cities must be full of 'em, or there wouldn't be so many cities. Folks do work pretty hard to make money an' pile it up, but I've never seen any of 'em that got to be very successful in other ways. The more money they made the more they seemed to depend on makin' money to attract attention. They don't seem to think that it ain't what a man does that really counts so much as what he is. The same goes for a woman."

She sat back, brows drawn together.

"Are you trying to preach to me?" she asked sharply.

Beck laughed lightly, as though that obvious hurting of her pride delighted him.

"Not just, ma'am. Preachers hammer away at folks about sin and such. I hadn't thought about you as a sinner; I was just considerin' you and your job; and what you say brought you here.

"It's none of my business what you want to get out of life. You told me what you wanted and asked me if I didn't like it, and I don't. That's all.

"It seems to me that everybody who's alive ought to want to get the best out of himself and I don't think you can do it by just tryin' to herd dollars." He divined in her retort what she was withholding. "Sure, I'm only an ordinary cowpuncher, ma'am. I don't seem to care much about any kind of success but I'm afflicted like everybody else: I'm a human being, and every one of us likes to pick on the faults he finds in others that correspond to his own faults....

"You see, you've got a big chance here. You've got a chance to be somebody. This is one of the biggest outfits in this state. All this country out here has been this outfit's range for years. You ain't got a neighbor in miles because you amount to so much. Away down Coyote Creek, 'most thirty miles, is Riley's ranch, an' close by him is Hewitt's. Off west an' south is Pat Webb's who, far as you're concerned, might better be a good deal further west," dryly.

"Your uncle an' Riley was the first in here. Why, ma'am, they had to fight Indians to protect their cattle! They made names for 'emselves. They made money, too, or at least your uncle did, but he wasn't respected just because he made money. Men liked him because he did things.

"Men will like you if you do things, ma'am.... Perhaps you'll like yourself better, too."

He looked into her eyes and their gazes were for the moment very serious. Jane Hunter was meeting with a new sense of values; Tom Beck had sensed a faint recklessness, a despair, about her and, behind all his mockery and lightness, was a warm heart. Then she terminated the interval of silence by saying rather impatiently:

"That's all very interesting, but what you said about my needing my brains and my grit is of greater interest. Do you mean that it's just a big job naturally or that there are complications?"

"Both."

"How much of both?"

Beck shoved a hand into his pocket and gave his head a skeptical twist.

"That remains to be seen. It's a man's job to run this place under favorable conditions. Your uncle, Colonel Hunter, sort of got shiftless in the last years. He let things slide. I don't know about debts and such, but I suspect there are some. There are other things, though. You've got some envious neighbors ... and some that ain't particular how they make their money,"—with just a shade of emphasis on the last.

"You mean that they steal?"

"Plenty, ma'am."

"But how? Who?"

"I don't know, but it seems to be gettin' quite the custom here to get rich off the HC ... especially since the place changed owners."

"Why at that particular time?"

"Since it got noised about that a woman was goin' to own it there's been a lively interest in crime. I told you that your uncle was a man who was respected a lot. Some feared him, too."

"And they won't respect me because I'm a woman?"

"That's about it. It's believed, ma'am, that a woman, 'specially an Eastern woman, can't make a go of it out here, so what's the use of givin' her a fair show?"

He waited for her to speak again but she did not and he added with that experimental manner:

"So, maybe, if you want to make money, it'd be well to find a buyer. Maybe if you was to take an interest in this ranch and did want to be ... to stay in this country, you couldn't make it go."

"Do you think that's impossible?"

He waited a moment before saying:

"I don't know. You don't make a very good start, ma'am."

"At least you are deliciously frank!"

"It pays; it does away with misunderstandings. I wouldn't want you to think—since you've asked me—that I believed you could make a go of this ranch, even if you wanted to."

That stung her sharply; she drew her breath in with a slight sound and leaned quickly forward as if ready to denounce his skepticism, but she did not speak.

She only arose impatiently and walked to the mantel.

"Do you smoke?" she asked, holding out a box of cigarettes.

"Yes; do you?"

"Yes."

In the word was a clear defiance. She struck a match and held it towards him; then lighted her own cigarette.

Seated again, she stared into the fire, smoking slowly, but as his eyes remained fast on her the color crept upward into her cheeks, higher and brighter until she turned to meet the gaze that was on her and with a bite to the words asked:

"You don't approve of this, either?"

"Why, ma'am, I like to smoke."

"But you stare at me as though I were committing a crime."

"You see, you're the first good white woman I've ever seen smoke."

"You—" She checked the question, looked at him and then eyed her cigarette critically.

"I don't suppose women out here do smoke, do they?"

"No, ma'am; not much."

"And you men? You men who drink and smoke don't want the women to enjoy the same privilege?"

"That appears about it."

She did not answer. He rose and looked down upon her. One tendril of her golden hair, like silk in texture, caressed her fine-grained cheek, delicately contrasted against its alluring color. He would have liked to press it closer to the skin with his fingers ... quite gently. But he said:

"I guess you and I don't understand each other very well, and, if we don't, it ain't any use in our talking further. As for advisin' you about your business...."

Jane blew on her ash.

"I just tried to show you how to start right, accordin' to my notion, and if it made you mad I'm sorry.

"After all, it don't make so much difference what other folks think of us. It's what we think of ourselves that counts most, but none of us can get clear away from the other hombre's ideas."

That twinkle crept back in to his eyes. Her little frame fairly bristled independence and self-sufficiency; it was in the pert set of her head, the poise of her square shoulders, the languid swinging of one small foot.

"I think that you think a lot of yourself, ma'am. That's more 'n most folks can say."

She rose as he reached for his hat.

"I'm glad to have your opinion on the proportions of my job," she said briefly, "and for that I am glad that you came in."

The oblique rebuke could not be misunderstood.

"I'm complimented," he replied, and, although she looked frankly and impersonally up at him, she had a quick fear that despite her assurance this man was leaving her with a strange feeling of inferiority, and when he went through the doorway into the night she was quite certain he was smiling merrily.

She stood until the sound of his footsteps dwindled, then turned to the table and stood idly caressing the wood. Her fingers encountered something which she picked up and examined, at first abstractedly. It was a bit of straw, the one Beck had refused and, which drawn, would have made him her right hand man. She moved towards the fire to toss it into the flames; checked herself and, instead, put it between the covers of a book which lay handy.

She stood on the stone hearth thinking of what he had said, cigarette smoke curling up her small hand and delicate wrist. The offended feeling subsided and, wonderingly, she tried to restimulate it; the sensation would not return! Of a sudden she felt small and weak and of little consequence.

So he doubted, even, that she could be herself!

She dropped the stub of her cigarette into the fire and, frowning, reached for another, and tapped its end on the mantel. She struck a match and put the white cylinder to her lips. Then, quite slowly, she waved the glare out and tossed the tiny stick into the coals. With a movement which was so deliberate that it was almost weary she dropped the unlighted cigarette after it. Slight as was the gesture there was in it something of finality.

The coals were dimmed with ash before she moved to walk slowly to the window and look out. It was cold and still.

A movement among the cottonwoods attracted her. A man was walking there, slowly, as one on patrol. She watched him go the length of the row of trees; then followed his slow progress back, saw him stand watching the house a moment before he moved on towards the bunkhouse.

She lay awake for hours that night, partly from a helpless rage and, later, a rare thrill, a hope, perhaps, kept sleep from her mind.