Silvermane Page 11

  “Wal, if thet’s how you feel aboot it, I’ll see what I can do,” he drawled.

  In a twinkling he jerked out the tarpaulin and spread it over the new wagon where he had carefully packed her cherished belongings, and in the same twinkling her woebegone face changed to astonished beatitude. Monty thought she might kiss him and he was scared stiff.

  “Ma was right, Sam. You are the wonderfullest fellow,” she said. “But…why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I forgot, I reckon. Now this rain ain’t goin’ to amount to much. After dark it’ll turn off cold. I put some hay in the bottom of the wagon heah, an’ a blanket. So you can sleep comfortable.”

  “Sleep! Sam, you’re not going to stop here?”

  “Shore am. This new wagon is stiff, an’ the other one heavy loaded. We’re darned lucky to reach this good campin’ spot.”

  “But, Sam, we can’t stay here. We must drive on. It doesn’t make any difference how long we are, so that we keep moving.”

  “An’ kill our horses, an’ then not get in? Sorry, Rebecca. If you hadn’t delayed us five hours, we might have done it, allowin’ for faster travel in the cool of mawnin’.”

  “Sam, do you want to ruin me?” she asked with great, childish, accusing eyes on him.

  “Wal! Rebecca Keitch, if you don’t beat me! I’ll tell you what, miss. Where I come from, a man can entertain honest desire to spank a crazy girl without havin’ evil intentions.”

  “You can spank me to your heart’s content…but…Sam…take me home.”

  “Nope. I can fix it with your ma, an’ I cain’t see thet it amounts to a darn otherwise.”

  “Any Mormon girl who laid out on the desert…all night with a Gentile…would be ruined!” she declared.

  “But we’re not alone!” yelled Monty, red in the face. “We’ve got a man an’ boy with us.”

  “No Mormon would ever…believe it,” sobbed Rebecca.

  “Wal, then, to hell with the Mormons who won’t!” exclaimed Monty, exasperated beyond endurance.

  “Mother will make you marry me,” ended Rebecca with such tragedy of eye and voice that Monty could not but believe such a fate would be horrible.

  “Aw, don’t distress yourself, Miss Keitch,” responded Monty with profound dignity. “I couldn’t be druv to marry you…not to save your precious Mormon Church…nor the whole damn’ world of Gentiles from…from conflagration!”

  IV

  Next day Monty drove through White Sage at noon, and reached Cañon Walls about midafternoon, completing a journey he would not want to undertake again under like circumstances. He made haste to unburden himself to his beaming employer.

  “Wal, Missus Keitch, I done aboot everythin’ as you wanted,” he said. “But I couldn’t get an early start yestiddy mawnin’, an’ so we had to camp at the pines.”

  “Why couldn’t you?” she demanded, as if seriously concerned.

  “Wal, for several reasons, particular thet the new harness wouldn’t fit.”

  “You shouldn’t have kept Rebecca out all night,” said the widow severely.

  “I don’t see how it could have been avoided,” replied Monty mildly. “You wouldn’t have had me kill four horses?”

  “Did you stop at White Sage?”

  “Only to water, an’ we didn’t see no one.”

  “Maybe we can keep the Mormons from finding out,” returned Mrs. Keitch with relief. “I’ll talk to those new hands. Mormons are close-mouthed when it’s to their interest.”

  “Wal, lady, heah’s the receipts, an’ my notes on expenditures,” added Monty, handing them over. “My pore haid shore rang over all them figgers. But I got the prices you wanted. I found out you gotta stick to a Mormon. But he won’t let you buy from another storekeeper, if he can help it.”

  “Indeed, he won’t. Well, Daughter, what have you to say for yourself? I expected to see you with the happiest of faces. But you look like you used to, when you stole jam. I hope it wasn’t your fault Sam had to keep you all night on the desert.”

  “Yes, Ma, it was,” admitted Rebecca, and, although she spoke frankly, she plainly feared her mother.

  “So. And Sam wouldn’t tell on you, eh?”

  “No, it seems he wouldn’t…wonderful to see. Come in, Ma, and let me confess the rest…while I’ve the courage.”

  The mother looked grave. Monty saw that her anger would be a terrible thing.

  “Lady, don’t be hard on the girl,” he said with his easy drawl and smile. “Just think. She hadn’t been to Kanab for two years. Two years! An’ she a growin’ girl. Kanab is some shucks of a town. I was surprised. An’ she was just a kid let loose.”

  “Sam Hill! So you have fallen into the ranks, at last!” ejaculated Mrs. Keitch, while Rebecca telegraphed him a passionately grateful glance.

  “Lady, I don’t just savvy that aboot the ranks,” replied Monty stiffly. “But I’ve fallen from grace all my life. Thet’s why I’m….”

  “No matter,” interrupted the widow hostilely, and it struck Monty that she did not care to have him confess such facts before Rebecca. “Unpack the wagons and put the things on the porch, except what should go to the barn.”

  * * * * *

  Monty helped the two new employees to unpack the old wagon first, and then directed them to the barn. Then he removed Rebecca’s many purchases and piled them on the porch, all the while his ears burned at the heated argument going on within. Rebecca grew less and less vociferous while the mother gained, until she harangued her daughter terribly. It ended presently with the girl’s uncontrolled sobbing. Monty drove out to the barn, disturbed in mind.

  “Dog-gone! She’s hell when she’s riled,” he soliloquized. “Now I wonder which it was. Rebecca spendin’ all her money an’ mine, an’ then runnin’ up bills…or because she made us stay a night out…or mebbe it’s somethin’ I don’t know aboot. Whew, but she laid it on thet pore kid. Dog-gone the old Mormon! She’d better not pitch into me.”

  Supper was late that night and the table was set in the dusk. Mrs. Keitch had regained her composure, but Rebecca had a woebegone face, pallid from weeping. Monty’s embarrassment seemed augmented by the fact that she squeezed his hand. But it was a silent meal, soon finished, and, while Rebecca reset the table for the new employees, Mrs. Keitch drew Monty aside on the porch. It suited him just as well that dusk was deepening into night.

  “I am pleased with the way you carried out my instructions,” said Mrs. Keitch. “I could not have done so well. My husband John was never any good in business. You are shrewd, clever, and reliable. If this year’s harvest shows anything near what you claim, I can do no less than make you my partner. There is nothing to prevent us from developing another cañon ranch. John had a lien on one west of here. It’s bigger than this and uncleared. We could acquire that, if you thought it wise. In fact, we could go far. Not that I am money-mad, like many Mormons, but I would like to show them. What do you think about it, Sam?”

  “Wal, I agree, ’cept makin’ me full pardner seems more’n I deserve. But if the crops turn out big this fall…an’ you can gamble on it…I’ll make a deal with you for five years or ten or life.”

  “Thank you. That is well. It insures comfort in my old age as well as something substantial for my daughter. Sam, do you understand Rebecca?”

  “Good Lord, no!” exploded Monty.

  “I reckoned you didn’t. Do you realize that where she is concerned you are wholly unreliable?”

  “What you mean, lady?” he queried, thunderstruck.

  “She can wind you ’round her little finger.”

  “Huh! She just cain’t do anythin’ of the sort,” declared Monty, trying to get angry. She might ask a question presently that would be exceedingly hard to answer.

  “Perhaps you do not know it. That’d be natural. At first I thought you a deep, clever cowboy,
one of the devil-with-the-girls kind, and that you would give Rebecca the lesson she deserves. But now I think you a soft-hearted, easy-going, good young man, actually stupid about a girl.”

  “Aw, thanks, lady,” replied Monty, most uncomfortable, and then his natural spirit rebelled. “I never was accounted all that stupid aboot Gentile girls.”

  “Rebecca is no different from any girl. I should think you’d have seen that the Mormon style of courtship makes her sick. It is too simple, too courteous, too respectful, and too importantly religious to stir her heart. No Mormon will ever get Rebecca, unless I force her to marry him. Which I have been pressed to do and which I should never want to do.”

  “Wal, I respect you for thet, lady,” replied Monty feelingly. “But why all this talk about Rebecca? I’m shore sympathetic, but how does it concern me?”

  “Sam, I have not a friend in all this land, unless it’s you.”

  “Wal, you can shore gamble on me. If you want I…I’ll marry you an’ be a dad to this girl who worries you so.”

  “Bless your heart! No, I’m too old for that, and I would not see you sacrifice yourself. But, oh, wouldn’t that be fun…and revenge?”

  “Wal, it’d be heaps of fun.” Monty laughed. “But I don’t reckon where the revenge would come in.”

  “Sam, you’re given me an idea,” spoke up the widow in a thrilling whisper. “I’ll threaten Rebecca with this. That I could marry you and make you her father. If that doesn’t chasten her…then the Lord have mercy upon me.”

  “She’d laugh at you.”

  “Yes. But she’ll be scared to death. I’ll never forget her face one day when she confessed you said she should be switched…well, it was quite shocking, if you said it.”

  “I shore did, lady,” he admitted.

  “Well, we begin all over again from today,” concluded the widow thoughtfully. “To build anew. Go back to your work and plans. I have utmost confidence in you. My troubles are easing. But I have not one more word of advice about Rebecca.”

  “I can’t say as you gave me any advice a-tall. But mebbe thet’s because I’m stupid. Thanks, Missus Keitch, an’ good night.”

  The painful, pondering hour Monty put in that night, walking in the moonlit shadow under the gleaming walls, only augmented his quandary. He ended it by admitting he was in love with Rebecca, ten thousand times worse than he had ever loved any girl before, and that she could wind him around her little finger. If she knew! But he swore he would never, never let her find it out.

  Next day seemed the inauguration of a new regime at Cañon Walls. The ranch had received an impetus, like that given by water run over rich, dry ground. Monty’s hours were doubly full. Always there was Rebecca, singing on the porch at dusk—“In the gloaming, oh, my darling”—a song that rushed Monty back to home in Iowa, and the zigzag rail fences, or she was at this elbow during the milking hour, an ever-growing task, or in the fields. She could work, that girl, and he told her mother it would not take long for her to earn the money she had squandered.

  Sunday after Sunday passed, with the host of merry callers, and no word was ever spoken of Rebecca having passed a night on the desert with a Gentile. So that specter died, except in an occasional mocking look she gave him that, he interpreted, meant she could still betray herself and him.

  In June came the first cutting of alfalfa—fifty acres with an enormous yield. The rich, green, fragrant hay stood knee-high. Monty tried to contain himself. But it did seem marvelous that the few simple changes he had made could produce such a harvest.

  Monty worked late, and a second bell did not deter him. He wanted to finish this last great stack of alfalfa. Then he espied Rebecca, running along the trail, calling. Monty let her call. It somehow tickled him, pretending not to hear. So she came out in the field and up to him.

  “Sam, are you deaf? Mother rang twice. And then she sent me.”

  “Wal, I reckon I been feelin’ awful good aboot this alfalfa,” he replied.

  “Oh, it is lovely. So dark and green. So sweet to smell! Sam, I’ll just have to slide down that haystack.”

  “Don’t you dare!” called Monty in alarm.

  But she ran around to the lower side and presently appeared on top, flushed, full of fun and desire to torment him.

  “Please, Rebecca, don’t slide down. You’ll topple it over, an’ I’ll have all the work to do again.”

  “Sam, I’ll just have to, like I used to when I was a kid.”

  “You’re a kid right now,” he retorted. “Go back an’ get down careful.”

  She shrieked and let herself go and came sliding down, rather at the expense of modesty. Monty knew he was angry, but he feared he was some other things.

  “There! You see how slick I did it? I could always beat the girls…and boys, too.”

  “Wal, let thet do,” growled Monty.

  “Just one more, Sam.”

  He dropped his pitchfork and made a lunge for her, catching only the air. How quick she was. He controlled an impulse to run after her. Soon she appeared on top again, with something added to her glee.

  “Rebecca, if you slide down heah again, you’ll be sorry,” he said warningly.

  “What’ll you do?”

  “I’ll spank you.”

  “Sam Hill! You wouldn’t dare.”

  “So help me heaven, I will.”

  She did not in the least believe him, but it was evident that his threat made her project only the more thrilling. There was at least a possibility of events.

  “Look out. I’m coming!” she cried with a wild, sweet trill of laughter.

  As she slid down, Monty leaped to intercept her. A scream escaped Rebecca, but it was because of her treacherous skirts. That did not deter Monty. He caught her and held her high off the ground, and there he pinioned her.

  Whatever Monty’s intent had been, it escaped him. A winged flame flicked at every fiber of his being. He had her arms spread, and it took all his strength and weight to hold her there, feet off the ground. She was not in the least frightened at this close contact, although a wonderful speculation sparkled in her big gray eyes.

  “You caught me. Now what?” she said challengingly.

  Monty kissed her squarely on the mouth.

  “Oh!” she cried, divinely startled. Then a rush of scarlet waved up from the rich, gold swell of her neck. She struggled. “Let me down…you Gentile cowpuncher!”

  Monty kissed her again, longer, harder than before. Then, when she tried to scream, he stopped her lips again.

  “You…little Mormon…devil!” he panted. “This heah…was shore…comin’ to you.”

  “I’ll kill you!”

  “Wal, it’ll be worth…dyin’ for.” Then Monty kissed her until she gasped for breath, and, when she sagged, limp and unresisting, in his arms, he kissed her cheeks, her eyes, her hair, and like a madness whose hunger had been augmented by what it fed on he went back to her red, parted lips.

  Suddenly all appeared to grow dark. A weight carried him down with the girl. The top of the alfalfa stack had slid down upon them. Monty floundered out and dragged Rebecca from under the fragrant mass. She did not move. Her eyes were closed. With trembling hand he brushed the leaves and seeds of alfalfa off her white face. But her hair was full of them.

  “My Gawd, I’ve played hob now,” he whispered, as the enormity of his offence dawned upon him. Nevertheless he felt a tremendous drag at him as he looked down on her. Only her lips had a vestige of color. Suddenly her eyes opened wide. From the marvel of them Monty fled.

  V

  Monty’s first wild impulse, as he ran, was to get out of the cañon, away from the incomprehensible forces that had worked such havoc with him. His second was to rush to Mrs. Keitch and confess to her, before Rebecca could damn him forever in the good woman’s estimation. Then by the time he reached his cabin an
d fell on the porch, those impulses had given place to others. But it was not Monty’s nature to be long helpless. Presently he sat up, wringing wet with sweat, and still shaking.

  “Aw, what come over me?” he breathed hoarsely. And suddenly he realized that nothing so terrible had happened. He had been furious when he held her, close and tight, with those challenging eyes and lips right at his. All else except the sweetness of momentary possession had gone into eclipse. He loved the girl and had not had any realization of the magnitude of his love. He believed he could explain to Mrs. Keitch, so that she would not drive him away. But, of course, he would be dirt under Rebecca’s feet from that hour on. Yet, even in his mournful acceptance of this fate, his spirit rose resentfully to wonder and inquire about this Mormon girl.

  Darkness had almost set in. Down the land Monty saw a figure approaching, quite some distance, and he thought he heard a low voice singing. But Rebecca would be weeping.

  “Re-becca!” called Mrs. Keitch from the porch, in her mellow, far-reaching voice.

  “Coming, Ma,” replied the girl.

  Monty sank into the shadow of his little cabin. He felt small enough to be unseen, but dared not risk it. And he watched in fear and trepidation. Suddenly Rebecca’s low contralto voice rang on the quiet, sultry air.

  In the gloaming,

  Oh, my darling

  When the lights are

  dim and low

  And the flickering shadows falling

  Softly come and softly go.

  Monty’s heart swelled to bursting. Did she realize the truth and was she mocking him? He was simply flabbergasted. But how the sweet voice filled the cañon and came back in echo from the walls.

  Rebecca, entering the square between the orchards and the cottonwoods, gave Monty’s cabin a wide berth.

  “Isn’t Sam with you?” called Mrs. Keitch from the porch.

  “Sam? No, he isn’t.”

  “Where is he? Didn’t you call him? Supper’s getting cold.”

  “I haven’t any idea where Sam is. Last I saw of him, he was running like mad,” rejoined Rebecca with a giggle.