283CHAPTER TWENTY-THREELANCE PLAYS THE GAME
That night Lance sauntered into the bunk house, placidly ignoring the fact that Tom was there, and that some sort of intermittent conference was taking place. Cool and clean and silk-shirted and freshly shaved, the contrast was sharp between him and the men sprawled on their beds or sitting listlessly around the table playing keno. Tom lifted an eyebrow at him; Lance sent him a look to match and went over to the card players.
They did not want him in the bunk house. He who had spent nearly all of his life on the Devil’s Tooth ranch knew that he was not wanted. They did not want him to know that he was not wanted, and by their very effort to hide it did they betray themselves.
“Didn’t go to Jumpoff after all, dad,” Lance remarked idly, a rising inflection turning the phrase into a question.
Tom grunted and got up to go. His men cast furtive glances at one another, looked at Lance from under their brows, noted the silk shirt and the low, tan Oxfords, and the texture and cut of284his gray trousers with the tan leather belt that had a small silver buckle. Plain as it was they knew that buckle was silver. They saw how clean-cut was the hairline at the back of his head and over his ears––sure sign that he was “citified.” And toward the man who is citified your purely range-bred product cherishes a distinct if secret grudge. His immaculate presence made them all feel frowsy and unwashed and ill-clad. And to hide how conscious he was of his own deficiencies, the man who sat nearest Lance lifted his hat and rumpled his hair still more.
“Duke and Al didn’t get in yet, eh?” Lance picked up an extra deck of cards and began to shuffle them absent-mindedly but nevertheless dexterously.
“Nope––they stayed out,” replied a blond man named Winters. They called him “Chilly.”
“Hot weather for working cattle,” Lance observed indifferently.
“Yeah––sure is,” responded Ed Moran, who was low-browed and dark and had an ugly jaw.
“Yeah––damnhot,” testified Jim Bloom. “How’s Californy for weather?”
“Oh-h––it has all kinds, same as here.” Lance did not want to talk about California just then, but he followed the lead easily enough. “You can get anything you want in California. In two hours you can go from twenty-five feet of snow to orange groves. You can have it all green, fruit285trees and roses blooming in midwinter, or you can hit into desert worse than anything Idaho can show.”
“Yep––that’s right, all right. Great place, Californy,” Chilly tried to make his voice sound enthusiastic, and failed. “Great place.”
“Speaking about climate––” Lance sat down on a corner of the table, eased his trousers over his knees, crossed his tan Oxfords and began a story. It was a long story, and for some time it was not at all apparent that he was getting anywhere with it. He shuffled the deck of cards while he talked, and the keno game, interrupted when he began, trailed off into “Who’s play is it?” and finally ceased altogether. That was when Lance’s Jewish dialect began to be funny enough to make even Chilly Winters laugh. At the end there was a general cachinnation.
“But that’s only a sample of the stuff they pull out there, on tourists,” said Lance, when the laughter had subsided to a few belated chuckles. “There’s another one. It isn’t funny––but I’m going tomakeit funny. You’ll think it’s funny––but it isn’t, really.”
He told that one and made them think it was funny. At least they laughed, and laughed again when he had finished.
“Now here’s another. This one really is funny––but you won’t feel like laughing at it. I’ll tell it so you won’t.”
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He told that story and saw it fall flat. “You see?” He flipped the cards, tossed them on the table with a whimsical gesture. “It isn’t what you do in this world––it’s how you do it that counts. I’m sitting on your keno game, am I? All right, I’ll get off.”
He went out as abruptly as he had entered, and he paused long enough outside to know that a silence marked his going. Then he heard Ed Koran’s voice depreciating him. Frankly he listened, lighting a cigarette.
“Aw––his mother was an actress, wasn’t she?Thatguy ain’t going to cut no ice around here whatever.”
“Looks an awful darn lot like Tom,” ventured Chilly. “I dunno––you take a Lorrigan––”
“Him? Lorrigan? Why, say! He maylooklike a Lorrigan, but he ain’t one. Tom’s damn right. He don’t set in. Why, like as not he’d––”
“Aw, cut out the gabbling!” Ed’s voice growled again. “It’s yore play, Bob.”
Stepping softly, Lance went on to the house. “I just––looklike one!” he repeated under his breath. “Fine! At any rate,” he added dryly, “I’ve proved that Icango into the bunk house now and then.”
He went up and sang songs with Belle then, until after ten o’clock. He would have sung longer, but it happened that in the middle of a particularly pleasing “Ah-ee, oh-ee, hush-a-bye-ba-by”287yodel, Tom put his head out of the bedroom and implored Lance to for-the-Lord-sake go up on the Ridge to howl. So Lance forbore to finish the “ah-ee, oh-ee,” much to Belle’s disappointment.
“But you know Tom’s been out riding hard and not getting much sleep, so I guess maybe we better cut out the concert, honey,” she told Lance, getting up and laying her plump, brown arms across his shoulders. “My heavens, Lance, you kinda make me think the clock’s set back thirty years, when I look at you. You’re Tom, all over––and I did think you were going to be like me.”
Lance scowled just a little. “No, I’m not Tom all over––I’m Lance all over.”
“You’re Lorrigan all over,” Belle persisted. “And you’re just like Tom when he was your age. Good Lord, how time does slip away! Tom used to be so full of fun and say such funny things––and now it’s just ride and ride and work, and eat and sleep. Honey, I want you to know that I’m glad you learned something a little different. What’s the use of having a million, if you work yourself to death getting it? Look at the boys––look at Al and Duke. They’re like old men, the last year or two. We used to have such good times on the ranch, but we don’t any more––nobody ever thinks of anything but work.”
She lowered her voice to a whisper, her arms still lying on Lance’s shoulders, her clouded blue288eyes looking up into his. “That trouble with Scotty Douglas kind of––changed Tom and the boys. You went away. You’ve changed too, but in a different way. Itsouredthem, just a little. Tom wants to make his million quick and get outa here. I was glad when you stirred things up a little, last spring, and gave that dance. Or I was glad, till it ended up the way it did. It was the first dance we’d been to since you left, Lance! And I thought it would kind of patch up a little more friendliness with the folks around here. But it didn’t. It just made a lot of talk and trouble––and, Lance, honey, I’m awfully darn sorry about that piano. It’s down in the chicken house this minute. Tom wouldn’t even have it in the house. And now, I don’t suppose there ever will be any chance to make friends with any one. Tom––well, all of us were sodarnmad to think she never even asked us––”
“Don’t care any more about that, Belle. Please don’t. And by the way, I took the money Mary Hope wanted to give dad for the schoolhouse. Perhaps he didn’t tell you, but he threatened to burn the house down if she left the money, so I took it and gave her a bill of sale in his name. I wish you’d keep the money. And some day, maybe dad will take it.”
“Tom never told me a word about it,” Belle whispered pitifully, dropping her forehead on Lance’s broad chest. “Honey, it never used to be289this way. He used to tell me things. But now, he doesn’t––much. Last spring, when he built the schoolhouse and all, I was soglad!It was more like old times, and I thought––but the fight turned him and the boys again, and now they’re just as far off as ever. Lance, I don’t whine. You never heard Belle whine in your life, did you, honey? But I’ll tell you this: The only things that haven’t changed, on the Devil’s Tooth, are Riley and the pintos. And even they let you drive ’em to Jumpoff and back last spring without busting things up. They’re getting old, I guess. Maybe we’re all getting old. Still, Rosa and Subrosa are only ten past, and I haven’t had a birthday for years––
“It’s––Lance, do you mind if Belle lets go and tells you things, just this once? You’ve changed, some, but not like the rest. Please, Lance, I want to lean against you and––and feel how strong you are––”
A great tenderness, a great, overwhelming desire to comfort his mother, who had never let him call her mother, seized Lance. His arms closed around her and he backed to an armchair and sat down on it, holding her close.
“Don’t care, Belle––it’s all right. It’sgoingto be all right. I’m just Lance, but I’m a man––and men were made to take care of their women. Talk to me––tell me what’s been eating your heart out, lately. It’s in your eyes. I saw it when I290came home last spring, and I see it now every time I look at you.”
“You’ve seen it, honey?” Belle’s whisper was against his ear. She did not look at his face. “There’s nothing to see, but––one feels it. Tom’s good to me––but he isn’tcloseto me, any more. The boys are good to me––but they’re like strangers. They don’t talk about things, the way they used to do. They come and go.”
Lance’s big, well-kept hand went up to smooth her hair with a comforting, caressing movement infinitely sweet to Belle. “I know,” he said quietly.
“And it isn’t anything, of course. But the old boys have gone, and these new ones––Lance, what is the matter with the Devil’s Tooth ranch? Tell me, for heaven’s sake, if I’m getting to be an old woman with notions!”
“You’ll never be an old woman,” said Lance in the tone Mary Hope built her day-dreams around. “Age has nothing to do with you––you justare. But as to notions––well, you may have. Women do have them, I believe.” He kissed her hair and added, “What do you think is the matter with the ranch?”
“I don’tknow. When I try to pin it to one thing, there’s nothing to put a pin in. Not a thing. You remember Cheyenne? I was afraid Tom would kill him, after the trial. You know it was practically proven that he was a spy, and was291working to get something on the outfit. I was on the warpath myself, over that trial. I would a shot up a few in that courtroom if Tom had been convicted. You know and I know that Tom didn’t have a thing to do with that darned, spotted yearling of Scotty’s.
“But Cheyenne just––just faded out of existence. Tom’s never mentioned him from the day of the trial to this. And I know he hates the whole Rim, and won’t have anything much to do with anybody––but he acts just as if nothing had happened, as if nobody had ever tried to make him out a cow thief. He won’t talk about it. He won’t talk about anything much. When we’re alone he just sits andthinks. And honey, the Lorrigans have always been men thatdidthings.
“He and the boys woke up, and the ranch acted human about the schoolhouse, but it’s other times, when there’s no excitement around, that I feel as if––I don’t know what. It’s something underneath. Something that never comes to the top. Something that’s liable to reach up and grab.” She put a hand up and patted Lance’s lean, hard jaw. “I’d shoot any one that said Belle Lorrigan’safraid––but that’s about what it amounts to,” she finished with a little mirthless laugh.
“Belle Lorrigan’s not afraid. There’s nothing to be afraid of. You’ve lived in the Rim too long, Belle, and you’ve been watching dad and the boys chasing that million. I’ve seen other men working292at it, and it always gets hold of them until they don’t seem to care for anything else. Now, I know an ageless lady who’s going to bed and forget all about her nerves and her notions. Or if she doesn’t forget, she’ll remember too that she has somebody around who knows––and who cares a heap for his mother.” Lance pulled her close and kissed her comfortingly.
“That helps,” whispered Belle. “You’ve changed, too––but not like the rest, thank God. And I thought maybe you had noticed things––”
“I have noticed that the Devil’s Tooth is mighty busy chasing dollars on the hoof,” soothed Lance. “It has left our Belle alone too much, and it has gotten on her nerves. Go to bed, woman––and dream of pleasant things.”
He took her by the shoulders and pushed her playfully to the very door of her bedroom, gave her another kiss and turned the knob for her, and watched her go in with a smile on her face. His own smile lasted only until the door was closed. He went to the lamp, blew it out and entered his own room, removed his shoes and dropped them on the floor with more noise than was considerate of his father’s slumber, lighted his lamp and moved aimlessly about the room for a time.
He sat down on the edge of the bed while he smoked a cigarette, his elbows on his knees, his thoughts traveling far trails. Abruptly he rose,293put on a pair of well-worn tennis shoes, opened a door leading outside and went quietly down to the corrals.
The first corral he crossed and found it empty of any horses save the pintos and Coaley. The second corral held three horses, one of them the chunky roan he had ridden that afternoon. The third and largest corral was empty, the gate swinging open.
“All right––no horses caught up for night-riding––yet,” he said to himself, and returned to the house, leaving the straighter path to pass close to the bunk house. He listened there for a full two minutes, decided that it would take at least five men to do all of that snoring, and went to bed thankful for the comfort of a felt mattress under his tired body.
The next day passed without any incidents save trivial ones that did not count. Lance rode to the creek with his trout-rod and reel––more citified innovations which the ranch eyed askance––and spent four hours loitering along the bank, his fly floating uselessly over shallow pools where was never a fish. It was not the right time of day for fishing, but Lance seemed to have forgotten the lore he had learned along that same creek and others farther away.
Sometimes he could be seen from the ranch buildings, more often he could not. When he could not be seen was when he was crouched294among the rocks, studying the Devil’s Tooth Ridge with his powerful glasses.
“Hope he’s comfortable,” he said once, when, satisfied that his guess was correct, he put the glasses away and settled down seriously to fishing.
He rode home with four trout, and Riley fried them for supper. During supper Lance criticized Squaw Creek, and hinted that Mill Creek and Lava Creek were better fishing waters, and that he meant to try them.
That night at eleven o’clock he made another silent tour of the corrals and went to bed feeling pretty sure that the ranch would show its present complement of men in the morning.
On the second day, four of the hired cowboys rode in at sundown, and with them came Al. Their horses were fagged. They themselves were dirty, hungry, tired. Their faces were glum––and the glumness remained even after they had washed and eaten ravenously. Al did not come to the house at all, but stayed down in the bunk house, whither Tom presently went. Lance did not follow.
Belle looked worried and asked Lance constrainedly if he knew why Duke had not come with the others. Lance laughed.
“Duke? Oh––he’s on the trail of another dollar. By heck, Belle, I’m afraid you’ve raised one son to be a shirk. I don’t seem to need all of that dollar chasing to make me happy.”
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Tom came in then, glanced swiftly from one to the other, said something unimportant, rolled a cigarette with elaborate care, and observed that Duke would find it hot, riding all the way to Shoshone, and that he’d be darned if he’d go that far for any girl. He sat down and disposed himself comfortably, got up, muttered something about forgetting to turn Coaley out, and left the house.
Belle turned and looked at Lance. “Honey, it’s that kind of thing––”
“I used to think, Belle, that you had the bluest eyes in the whole world,” Lance drawled quizzically. “They’re blue enough, in all conscience––by heck, Belle! Does a Lorrigan always love blue eyes?”
“I was going to say that––”
“You were going to say that you were not going to say a darned thing, madam. You need a vacation, a trip somewhere. Why don’t you beat it, and get your nerves smoothed down a little?”
“Lance, you don’t believe Duke––”
“Belle, your boys are old enough to think of girls a little bit, now and then. Even your baby thinks of girls––a little bit. Now and then. I’m going fishing, Belle. I’m going to fish where there are fish. And if I’m not back by the clock, for heck’s sake don’t get yourself excited and callmea mystery.”
She called after him. “Lance, come back here and tell me the truth! You don’t believe––”
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“Belle, I’ll tell you the truth. Sure, I’ll tell you the truth. I tell you to cut out this worrying over nothing. Why, don’t you know the world is plumb full of real things to worry about?” He came close, patting her on the shoulder as one pats a child who feels abused for slight cause. “This notion of yours––it’s all damned nonsense. Cut it out.”
He went off whistling, and Belle gazed after him dubiously, yet reassured in spite of herself. After all, there was nothing.
297CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURWHEN A LORRIGAN LOVES
Followed a day of sweltering heat, when the horses in the corral switched flies and sweated doing nothing; when all of the chickens crawled under the coolest shelter they could find, and panted with their wings spread away from their bodies; when the wind was like a blast from an open furnace, and no man of his own choice remained in the sun.
In the shade of the biggest haystack, Tom and Al squatted on their boot heels with their faces toward the corral and the houses beyond, and talked for two hours in low monotones while they broke spears of fragrant hay into tiny bits and snapped the bits from them with thumb and finger. From the house porch Lance saw them there and wondered what they were talking about so long. He even meditated committing the crime of eavesdropping, but he decided against it. Even if there had been any point from which he could approach the two unseen, his soul rebelled against such tactics employed in cold blood.
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Devil’s Tooth Ranch dragged somehow through its third day of inaction, and that night prepared itself to sleep if possible, though the hot wind still blew half a gale and the sky was too murky to show any stars.
Daylight found Lance awake and brooding as he had done ever since his return. He heard no sound in the house, and after a while he dressed and went down to the bunk house. It was empty. No extra horses had been corralled the night before, of that he was sure. Yet the boys were gone again, and with them had gone Tom and Al. He looked and saw Coaley in the box stall.
On this morning Lance asked no questions of Sam Pretty Cow or Shorty, who presently appeared and went listlessly about their tasks. He returned to the house, heard Riley grinding coffee, and dressed for riding while he waited for breakfast. He was drinking his first cup of coffee when Belle appeared in a thin blue kimono and a lacey breakfast cap which Lance knew had been ordered from the big, dog-eared catalogue on the living room table. He roused himself from scowling meditation and gave her a smile.
“Sleep any?”
“Not much,” sighed Belle. “Tom––” she stopped and looked at Lance hesitatingly. “Tom had to push the cattle back from Lava Bed way––he says this weather’s drying up Lava Creek and the stock’ll suffer if they’re left drifting up and299down the mud-holes where they’ve watered all summer. He took the boys and started about two in the morning––to get out of the heat. I––I didn’t think you’d want to go, honey––”
“You thought right. I didn’t want to go; it’s too hot,” Lance assured her, and refrained from looking at her face and the pathetic cheerfulness she was trying so hard to make real.
“It’s sultry. I thought yesterday I couldn’t stand another hour of that wind––but now I wish it would blow. It’s going to storm––”
“Yes. It’s going to storm.” Lance set down his empty cup. “I may go fishing, Belle. Don’t look for me back––I may ride over and see how the AJ is making out. The little Boyle girl is not married yet, I hope?”
“Oh––no. No, she isn’t. Lance, honey––”
Lance waited beside her chair, but Belle seemed to forget that she had anything to say. She sat leaning her head on one hand, the other stirring her coffee absent-mindedly. “Don’t get caught out,” she said apathetically.
“I won’t.” Lance lifted the lace frill of the cap and kissed her temple lightly. “Go back to bed. It’s too early for you to be up.”
At the stable Sam Pretty Cow looked a question, grunted and went on with his stall cleaning. Lance saddled Coaley, tied on an emergency ration of grub.
“Fishin’s good t’day. Storm’s coming. Uh-huh––you300bet,” Sam Pretty Cow observed as Lance mounted.
“Maybe,” Lance assented non-committally and rode away.
There were no horse tracks in the trail, yet Lance followed it doggedly, the new-risen sun burning his back through two thin shirts. He seemed in no doubt this morning as to the course he should take. He scarcely gave a glance at the trail. His eyes were staring straight before him at a sullen row of blue-black “thunder heads” that showed above the gray skyline. Yet he did not see them, did not give a thought to their meaning.
He was thinking poignantly of Mary Hope, fighting the vivid impression which a dream last night had left with him. In his dream Mary Hope had stood at her door, with her hands held out to him beseechingly, and called and called: “Lance! Oh, Lance! I dinna hate you because you’re a Lorrigan––Oh,Lance!”
It had been a curious dream from start to finish. Curious because, in various forms, this was the third time he had seen her stand with hands outstretched, calling to him. He did not believe in dreams. He had neither patience for presentiments nor faith in anything that bordered on the occult.
It had been against much inner protest that he had ridden to the schoolhouse in obedience to the301persistent idea that she needed him. That he had not found her there seemed to him conclusive proof that there was nothing in telepathy. The dreams, he felt sure, were merely a continuation of that persistent idea––and the persistent idea, he was beginning to believe, was but a perverse twist given to his own longing for her.
“––And I can’t go to her––not yet. Not while the Lorrigan name––” What came before, what came after those incomplete phrases he would not permit his mind to formulate in words. But he could not shake off the effect of the dream, could not stifle altogether the impulse that plucked at his resolve.
For more than an hour he rode and tried to fix his mind upon the thing he had set out to do. He knew perfectly well where he was going––and it wasnotto see Mary Hope. Neither was his destination Lava Creek nor the drying range on either side. His first two days of hard riding had been not altogether fruitless, and he had enough to think of without thinking of Mary Hope. Certain cold facts stared at him, and gibbered their sinister meaning, and dared him to ride on and discover other facts, blood-brothers of these that haunted him o’ nights.
Coaley, feeling his rider’s mood, sensing also the portent of the heavy, heat-saturated atmosphere and the rolling thunder heads, slowed his springy trot to a walk and tossed his head uneasily302from side to side. Then, quite without warning, Lance wheeled the horse short around and touched the reeking flanks with his heels.
“I’m seventeen kinds of a damn fool––but I can’t stand any more of this!” he muttered savagely, and rode at a sharp trot with his back to the slow-gathering storm.
He found Mary Hope half a mile from the Douglas house, at the edge of the meadow round which Hugh was driving a mower, the steady, metallic clicking of the shuttle-like sickle sounding distinct from the farther side of the motionless green expanse. Mary Hope was standing leaning against one lone little poplar tree, her hat in her hand, and her eyes staring dully into the world of sorrowful thoughts. Relief and a great, hungry tenderness flooded the soul of Lance when he saw her. He pulled up and swung off beside her.
“Girl––thank the good God you’re all right,” he said, and took her in his arms, the veins on his temples beating full with his hot blood. “I had to come. I had to see you. You’ve haunted me. Your voice has called me––I was afraid––I had to come––and now I’m not going to let you go. Oh, girl, you’re mine! By all the powers of heaven and earth, you’re mine! The Lorrigan name––what does it matter? You’re mine––I love you. You’ll love me. I’llmakeyou love me. You’ll love me till you won’t care who I am or who you are, or whether there are any other people in303the world––you’ll love me so! And I’ll love you always, always,––to death and beyond, and beyond what lies after that. Girl, girl––you do need me! You need my love. You need it because it’s the biggest thing in the world––and your love is going to match it. We’ll get married––we’ll make a world of our own, just you and I. We won’t care where we make it––it will be our world, the world of our love. Are you game? Are you game to love Lance the way Lance loves you? Oh, girl, tell me!”
A chill breath swept them like the memory of her father’s hate. A deep, basso rumble drowned whatever reply she stammered. He sheltered her in his arms, kissed her lips, her eyes, her hair, went back to her lips again.
“Oh, girl––when a Lorrigan loves––!” He cried softly, exultantly. “I tried not to––but I had to love you. It’s Fate. Are you afraid to love me back? Are you afraid?”
“No Lorrigan can cry coward to a Douglas,” Mary Hope panted. “But––but my mother will be that––”
“My mother will be that––all of that, and more,” Lance stopped her, still exulting in her love. “All the Lorrigans––what does it matter? Life’s for you and me to live, you girl with the bluest eyes in the world. When will you marry me? To-day? Tell me to-day!”
“Oh!” gasped Mary Hope, breathless still from304the suddenness of it all. “Oh, not to-day––oh, but the headlong way you have! I––I canna think. I––”
“I don’t want you to think. I didn’t ask you to think. Just love me––that’s all. And marry me soon, Girl-with-the-blue-eyes. Soon. It must be soon––sooner than to-morrow––”
Splittingly the thunder crashed close behind them, a vivid white line cleaving sharply the snarling clouds. Like a sleeper Lance opened the eyes he had closed against her hair and lifted his head. “I must take you home,” he said more calmly. “It’s going to storm––hard. But let me tell you, sweetheart,––it can’t storm as hard as I can love. I’ll take you home, and then you’ll marry me.”
Mary Hope’s face was pale and radiant. She did not say that she would marry him––nor did she say that she would not. Her eyes were misty with tears until she winked hard, when they shone softly. Lance had never seen them so blue. She stood still, her hands clasped together tightly while he gathered up the reins and mounted. He pulled his foot from the left stirrup, reached down to her and smiled. Never had she seen him smile like that. Never had she seen that look in his eyes. She breathed deep, reached up and caught the saddle horn, put her foot in the stirrup and let him lift her beside him.
Against Coaley’s nervous pull at the bit Lance305held a steadying hand and laughed. “It’s Fate, girl. Let the storm come. We’ll beat it––it can’t hurt us. Nothing can hurt us now.” He had to shout above the crashing thunder. “Do you love me, sweetheart?” His eyes, close to her own, flamed softly, making Mary Hope think dizzily of altar fires.
“I do––I do!” She gasped. “Oh, I cannot think how I love you––it scares me to think!” Her arm was around his neck, her face was turned to his.
He saw her lips form the words, guessed what it was she was saying. The crash on crash of thunder beat the sound of her voice to nothingness. The white glare of the lightning flashes blinded them. Coaley, quivering, his nostrils belling until they showed all red within, his big eyes staring, forged ahead, fighting the bit.
“He’s rinning away wi’ us!” shouted Lance, his lips close to her ear, and laughed boyishly.
“Mother––” he heard her say, and pulled her higher in his arms, so that he could be sure that she heard him.
“I’ll just pick your little old mother up in my arms and make her love me, too!” he cried. “Nothing can spoil our love––nothing!”
As though the gods themselves chided his temerity, the very heavens split and shattered all sound with rending uproar. Coaley squatted, stopped and stood shaking, his heart pounding so306that Lance felt its tremulous tattoo against his thigh. The rumbling after-note of the thunder seemed like silence.
“It struck close. That shed––look!” Lance’s voice was no longer the voice of the young male whose love would override Fate itself. It was the voice of the man who will meet emergencies quietly, unflinchingly, and soothe the woman’s fear. “Don’t be afraid––it’s all right, sweetheart.”
He forced Coaley to go on. He smiled at Mary Hope’s pallor, he reassured her as they neared her home. A shed, sufficiently detached to keep its fire to itself, was blazing. The wind puffed suddenly from nowhere and waved the high, yellow flames like torn ribbons. Great globules of water splashed upon them from the pent torrent above. Coaley galloped through the gate, passed the house, shied at something lying on the ground, stopped abruptly when Lance pulled sharply on the bit.
“Girl––sweetheart––be game!” Lance said sternly when Mary Hope screamed.
He let her to the ground, swung off and passed her, running to the pitifully still little figure of Mother Douglas lying in the pathway, her checked apron flapping, its starchy stiffness showing limp dark spots where the raindrops splashed.
“She’s only shocked. She’s all right––stop that screaming!Good God, girl, where’s your nerve?”
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His severity steadied her. Mary Hope stopped screaming, both hands held tightly over her mouth. Lance was already on his way to the house, carrying Mother Douglas like a sleeping child in his arms. And the rain came, a white curtain of water that drenched them to the skin in the first ten seconds.
On the bed where Aleck Douglas had stared at the ceiling, and raved, and died, Lance laid her carefully as though he feared to waken her. He tore open the faded calico dress at the throat, laid his ear upon her heart.
“She’s alive, sweetheart,” he said hearteningly. “It’s only a shock. Bring a basin of water. We’ll have her all right in no time.”
He worked over the old woman, using all the means he could remember or invent, while the house shook with the fury of the wind, and the lightning dazzled them and the rain drummed incessantly on the roof. Mary Hope watched him, her eyes wide, her lips refusing to form any words. For her own sake he sent her on many little errands, kept her busy at useless little tasks. After what seemed an interminable time he stood looking down at the gently heaving breast.
“How game is my girl?” he asked, taking Mary Hope in his arms. “Is she game enough to stay here while Lance goes for a doctor? It won’t be long––” He paused while he made a rapid mental calculation of the distance, and of what a308horse may endure. “Three hours. Will my girl be brave enough to stay here three hours? I’ll call the man who was mowing––if I can find him. But that will take minutes. Three hours––and you won’t weaken, will you, dear?”
Mary Hope leaned against him, clutched him, shivered at the crashing thunder. “It’s awful,” she moaned. “I’m afraid you might be hit––”
“Afraid? A Douglas not as game as a Lorrigan?” He shook her, lifted his eyebrows at her, pursed his lips at her, shook her again and kissed her. “I can’t love a girl who’s afraid of thunder. Your mother’s all right, you know. We saw where that bolt struck––fifty yards, almost, from where she was. She got a shock, that’s all. But we’ll have a doctor here and make him take the responsibility. And I’ll be back in three hours, and you’re going to be game––just as game as you’ve always been.”
He pulled his hat down over his eyes, buttoned his wet coat to the chin, laid his hand for a minute over the faintly pulsating heart of Mother Douglas, swept Mary Hope up in his arms and kissed her again, pulled open the door and was gone.
Through a rain-blurred window Mary Hope saw him run to the stable, lead out Coaley who had taken refuge there, vault into the saddle without troubling about the stirrup, and come thundering back past the house and out of the gate, his head bent to the storm.
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She looked at the clock. Three hours? He could never do it in three hours! She went back and knelt beside the bed, and prayed as her mother had taught her to pray. And not all of her petition was for her mother. Every lightning flash, every crack, every distant boom of the thunder made her cringe. Lance––Lance was out in the storm, at the mercy of its terrible sword-thrusts that seemed to smite even the innocent. Her mother––even her own mother, who had held unswervingly to her faith––even she had been struck down!
A mile down the road Lance was leaning forward, encouraging Coaley to more speed, because there the trail ran level and fairly free from rocks. Later, he pulled the horse down to a walk, breathing him up a hill; let him trot down the slope beyond, picked him into a swift gallop when they again struck the level. He gauged, with coldblooded attention to certain rough miles in the journey, just how swiftly Coaley could cover ground and live. He knew horses. He knew Coaley, and he knew that never yet had Coaley been pushed to the actual limit of his endurance. But the girl Lance loved––ah, it was a Lorrigan who loved!––was back there alone, and she would be counting the minutes. It might be that he might return to find her weeping over her dead. So Lance counted miles and a horse’s strength, and bent to the storm and rode.
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Ten minutes past the hour, and he was snapping orders to the telegraph operator. The storm, happily, had swept on down the canyon and had given Jumpoff little more than a wetting and a few lightning flashes.
“And order out a special engine and coach,––what do I care what it will cost? I’ll pay. Wire your Lava chief that the money is here. Send the doctor on ahead of the regular train––can’t wait for that.”
He had the Lorrigan habit of carrying a good deal of money on his person, and he counted out banknotes until the operator lifted his hand and said it was enough. He slammed out, then, mounted and rode to a livery stable and gave orders there.
“––And I’llbuythe damn team, so kill ’em if you have to. Only get the doctor out there.” He was in the saddle and gone again before the stableman had recovered from his sag-jawed astonishment.
“Guess there’s something in that talk of him and the Douglas girl,” the stableman gossiped to a friend while he harnessed his swiftest team.
In ten minutes under the three hours Lance stopped at the house, went in and saw that Mary Hope was still being game, and was very glad to be in his arms, and that Mother Douglas was alive and staring up at the ceiling, her face set in a deadly kind of calm.
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“She moves her eyes to me, sometimes––she’s been awake for almost an hour. But she hasn’t moved––” Her voice broke.
“It’s all right––the doctor is on his way. And I’m here, sweetheart––you won’t be alone again. Where’s that man of yours? I’ll send him over with a note to Belle. She’ll come––she’s a wonder with sick folks.”
“Mother––I’m afraid mother wouldn’t let her––she’s thatset!”
Lance looked at the corpse-like figure with the wide-open eyes and a flicker of the lids now and then to show that she was alive, and swallowed a lump in his throat. Mother Douglas would probably not know who was with her, he thought.
Coaley, the proud-spirited, shambled slowly to the stable, his head drooping, his eyes dulled with exhaustion. He had done his part. Lance rubbed him down, blanketed him, working swiftly, his thoughts with Mary Hope and her love and her fresh grief. He found Hugh, scribbled a note to Belle and got him started on Jamie.
Mother Douglas moved her eyes, stared at him sharply when he went to her. But she did not speak, did not move a muscle of her face. The heart of Lance went heavy, but he could smile still at Mary Hope and tell her that it was all right, and that the doctor ought to be there in an hour or so, and that Belle would come, and that he loved her, loved her, loved her.
312CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVEBELLE LORRIGAN WINS
In the second-best suit of Aleck Douglas, with his wrists showing strong and shapely below the coat sleeves, and wrinkles across his back, Lance turned his own steaming apparel before the kitchen fire and waited to hear what the doctor had to say.
In his mind was a great wonder at the inscrutable operations of Fate, that had twice brought tragedy into the Douglas house while he himself was permitted to bring all his love, which without the tragedies might have been rejected; which had sent him hurrying to Mary Hope on this day of all the days when he had longed to come. He could not believe that blind Chance had irresponsibly twisted the threads of Mary Hope’s life so that these things had come upon her. He was abashed, humbled, filled with awe of the tremendous forces that rule our destinies. For perhaps the first time in his life he stood face to face with something beyond his understanding, something against which his arrogant young strength was powerless.
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The doctor presently came to him, beckoned him to the doorway and preceded him into the rain-washed yard, where the late afternoon sun shone with dazzling brightness after the storm.
“I think she’ll live through this,” the doctor began abruptly. “It was not the lightning, altogether, though she undoubtedly did receive a severe shock. There has been a predisposition to paralysis, which is the true nature of this attack. Her right side is completely paralyzed, and so far as I can determine after a more-or-less superficial examination, her vocal chords are also affected, making speech impossible. Her left arm is not affected, and her mind seems fairly normal. Too much work, too much worry, too much monotony––and she has reached the time of life when these things are most apt to occur. Her husband’s death was undoubtedly a contributary cause. With proper medical attention she may recover from this attack––partially, at least. She should be removed to a good hospital, or a trained nurse placed in charge of the case here. That will be expensive. Do you know whether the family can afford––”
“The family can afford anything she needs, anything that will give her a chance,” Lance told him brusquely.
“She will probably be an invalid as long as she lives,” the doctor went on. “She will be a great care. Are there any relatives, other than the girl?314It’s a tremendous burden to fall on her shoulders, Mr. Lorrigan.”
“The burden,” said Lance, “will not fall on her shoulders. I don’t mind telling you that Miss Douglas and I will be married very soon. As soon as possible.”
The doctor brightened visibly. “Congratulations, Mr. Lorrigan! I should strongly advise you, then, to have the old lady removed to a nice, quiet hospital. You will not want the care of her––young people should not be handicapped in that way. I can make the necessary arrangements. She should not be subjected to the discomforts of the journey just at present––it’s a long way by team, and a long way by train. I should like to have her as quiet as possible for a few days, at least.”
“We’ll look after that,” said Lance, and hurried in to tell Mary Hope that her mother was not going to die, and that Belle was coming––he could hear the rattle of the buckboard.
“I don’t know what mother will say,” Mary Hope began, and stopped and hid her eyes behind her hands. Her mother, poor soul, could not say anything. It seemed terrible to Mary Hope that her mother must lie there and endure the presence of the painted Jezebel in her home, and be unable to utter one word of denunciation, one bitter reproach. It was like a judgment; and she could not bear the thought that her mother must suffer315it. A judgment, or treachery on her part,––the terrible treason of a child betraying her mother.
“It’s all right, girl; you don’tknowour Belle. We’ll just leave it to her. She’ll find a way. And I’ll go out now and tell her all about it, and leave her to manage.”
“I’ll go,” Mary Hope decided unexpectedly. “I have things to say––you shall not go, Lance Lorrigan. You will please let me see her alone––first. I’m that afraid of Belle Lorrigan I could creep under the table and hide! And so I shall go alone to her.”
Lance surrendered, and rolled a cigarette and smoked it in the kitchen, and wondered if a cigarette had ever been smoked in that house before, and whether the ghost of Aleck Douglas was somewhere near, struggling vainly against the inevitable. It certainly was unbelievable that a Lorrigan should be there, master––in effect, at least––of the Douglas household, wearing the shoddy garments of Aleck Douglas, and finding them at least three sizes too small.
They were an unconscionably long time out there,––those two women who meant so much to him. He glanced in at Mother Douglas, in bed now and looking terribly shrunken and old. The doctor was with her, sitting close to the bed and leaning forward a little, watching her eyes while he talked soothingly. Lance was not wanted there, either. He returned to the kitchen and put316more wood in the stove, and felt tentatively his drying clothes.
Belle came in, holding Mary Hope by the hand. The eyes of both were moist, shining, blue as the sky outside.
“Lance, honey, I’m glad,” she whispered, kissing him on the cheek. “Hope told me. And don’t you two kids worry about me. I’ll win my way somehow. I always have––and I guess maybe you’ve got it in you, too, Lance. It sure took something more than Lorrigan nerve to win Mary Hope––though I’ll admit Lorrigan nerve won me. No, I won’t go in there now. Don’t tell her I’m here, we’ll wait awhile.”
It was dusk, and the lamp had not yet been lighted. Through the unshaded window Mother Douglas could look out at the first pale stars. The doctor had gone. The house was very quiet, the snapping of the kitchen fire, the steadytick-tock,tick-tock of the old-fashioned clock blending with, rather than breaking, the silence.
Mother Douglas closed her eyes. Her groping left hand ceased its aimless plucking at a yarn knot in the patchwork comforter. Her breath came evenly––Mary Hope wondered if she slept. A hand fell on Mary Hope’s shoulder, though she had not heard a footfall. She seemed prepared, seemed to know what she must do. She slipped out of the chair, and Belle slipped into it. Mother Douglas opened her eyes, turned them that317way; infinite weariness marked the glance. Her left hand resumed again its vague groping, the work-worn fingers plucking at the coverlet.
Sitting there in the dusk, her fingers faintly outlined in the old wooden armchair in which Aleck Douglas had been wont to sit and brood somberly over his work and his wrongs, Belle began softly to sing:
“Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon,How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?”
The withered hand lay still, the fingers clutching tightly a fold of cotton cloth. Mother Douglas looked and closed her eyes. Leaning close, when the song was finished, Belle saw that the grim lips were trembling, that tears were slipping down the too calm face. With her handkerchief she wiped away the tears, and sang again. The “Girl with a Thousand Songs” had many Scottish melodies in her repertoire, and the years had not made her forget.
At the last, the groping left hand reached painfully across, found Belle’s hand waiting, and closed on it tightly. Whenever Belle stopped singing the hand would clutch hers. When she began again the fingers would relax a little. It was not much, but it was enough.
In the kitchen Mary Hope moved quietly about, cooking supper, straining and putting away the milk Hugh brought in. In the kitchen Lance sat318and watched her, and made love to her with his big eyes, with his voice that made of the most commonplace remark a caress.
But that night, when Mary Hope was asleep and Belle was dozing beside the stricken woman, Lance saddled Jamie and led Coaley home. And while he rode, black Trouble rode with him and Love could not smile and beat back the spectre with his fists, but hid his face and whimpered, and was afraid.
For Lance was face to face again with that sinister, unnamed Something that hung over the Devil’s Tooth ranch. He might forget it for a few hours, engrossed with his love and in easing this new trouble that had come to Mary Hope; he might forget, but that did not make his own trouble any the less menacing, any the less real.
He could not tell her so, now while she had this fresh worry over her mother, but Lance knew––and while he rode slowly he faced the knowledge––that he could not marry Mary Hope while the cloud hung over the Devil’s Tooth. And that there was a cloud, a black, ominous cloud from which the lightning might be expected to strike and blast the Lorrigans, he could not deny. It was there. He knew it, knew just how loud were its mutterings, knew that it was gathering swiftly, pushing up over the horizon faster than did the storm of the morning.
He would not put Coaley down the Slide trail,319but took him around by the wagon road. They plodded along at a walk, Coaley’s stiffened muscles giving him the gait of an old horse. There had been no urgent need to take Coaley home at once, but it was an excuse, and Lance used it. He could not think,––he could not face his own trouble when he was near Mary Hope. She drove everything else from his mind, and Lance knew that some things must not be driven from his mind. He had set himself to do certain things. Now, with Mary Hope loving him, there was all the more reason why he should do them.
The ranch seemed deserted, though of course it was late and he knew that every one would be in bed. He found a lantern, put Coaley into the box stall again, and spent a long time rubbing him down and carrying him fresh hay and water. He went up then and roused Sam Pretty Cow, who was sleeping in the small cabin he had elected to make his own private habitation on the ranch. Sam Pretty Cow told him that no one had come home as yet.
“Two, three days, I dunno. Mebby Tom comes then,” he hazarded, blinking at Lance. “This too quick. Nobody comes back same day, you bet.”
Lance stood looking down at him, scowling thoughtfully. “Sam, you’ve been a long time with the outfit. You’ve been a good man. You aren’t crippled up––and you’re the best rider of the bunch of us. Why don’tyougo out any more?”