CHAPTER VIIITwo Years Later
TWO years had passed since the calamity at the Marton homestead. Molly’s eyes were smiling again, and all signs of her grief had been swept out of them, driven headlong by the spirit of youth, and the merciful healing which time brings to the aid of all human grief. Her cheeks had lost none of their bloom, her eyes none of their brightness. The life that was hers once more claimed her to the full.
It had not been so for long weeks after the tragic discovery in the woodland belt. The process of recovery had been slow. But gradually the sun of her life had emerged from behind the clouds, and, when once reaction had set in, the speed of the girl’s transformation had been something almost magical.
Now the labours of the seasons had again assumed their due importance, and were no longer useless, burdensome tasks, without real significance, and only calculated to further depress the spirit. Now the air that came down from the eternal snows imparted to nerves and mind, and the springs of human emotion that sense of well-being that gilds all youthful yearning, and sets old age desperately clinging to the ebb-tide of life.
But the change, the recovery, had been subtle. Molly herself had known nothing of it. Even when the time came when she found it natural to turn her thoughts back to the dead man in deep, abiding, but calm regret, she was left unaware of the metamorphosis. Nevertheless, she found it possible to feel gratitude to Fate, and draw real consolation, that her dead father had been spared allsuffering of mind and body. Death she knew had been instantaneous. And she was glad that he had gone to his rest without a moment of anxiety for the daughter he had left behind.
But Lightning Rogers had no such thought or feeling for the man he had served. This lean, grey-whiskered remains of an unsavoury past was wholly a product of the hard life he had lived. He was desperately human, and his service for George Marton had been solely for wages. He had been wholly uninterested in the man.
But his attitude towards Molly was different. In her case his service was something no wages could have bought. It was the manhood in him—the primitive. Molly had proved an anchorage for all the affection that was parental in him. She was of the other sex, and her eyes were bright and smiling, and her femininity was something that carried memory back to those far-off moments when his pulses had quickened more easily. To him Molly was the beginning and end of his vision of his remaining years. When her father had been struck down horror had leapt upon him. But it was not for the fact of the girl’s disaster. It was for the possibility which the disaster might have for him. He feared lest, as a result, Molly herself might pass out of his life.
He had bethought him heavily on that drive home from the woods. And decision had come on the instant. He spoke no word of comfort to the departing girl, feeling that such an attitude would be the best expression of consummate delicacy. Besides, he had no idea of what might be the suitable thing to say. But, once back at the homestead, he lost not a moment in taking charge of the situation.
He took the already frozen body of the dead man and laid it out in the parlour in such state as seemed to him befitting. Then he returned to the kitchen, where the stewing supper was as Molly had originally left it. Withouta word to the girl, sitting huddled in her grief over the stove, he prepared a meal for her. Then, with an assumption of grave authority, he stood over her with the firm intention of seeing that she ate it. His philosophy taught him that the surest, the only support at a time of grief was a good, round feed of beans and sow-belly.
The girl had looked up at his bidding. It was only one momentary glance, but the old man beheld in it such a look of repulsion for the food that he edged hastily away to the table, and sought to restore his suddenly lost confidence by devouring it himself.
With a return of courage he essayed another magnificent effort. This time, in seeking to enforce the necessary authority, his voice, which was rarely gentle, became unduly harsh.
“You best beat it to your bunk, Molly, gal,” he said. “You best make your blankets right away. Hev a good cry. Ther’ ain’t nothin’ for a dandy gal like a bunch of tears you couldn’t swab right in a week. Susie Larks allus reckoned that way. You ain’t heard tell of Susie Larks, the li’l dancin’ gal o’ Moss Crik, down Arizony way. If things got amiss she just used to cry like hell till they came right, an’—— Eh?”
Again the girl had looked up, and the whole of her tragedy was there, looking back at him out of eyes which were gazing in horrified, tearless amazement. She said no word. She gave no other sign. And, after one apprehensive glance, Lightning had shuffled off out of the room and betaken himself to the lean-to workshop, where he forthwith set the stove going.
The efforts of his brain amounted to something little short of storm that night. He planned, and smoked, and swore. And he swore, and smoked, and planned. And by daylight a tangle of ineptitude completely befogged him. The only clear idea that gripped him was a settled determination that he was going to see “Molly, gal”through her troubles, if it used up his stock of brain-power and left him with nothing over for himself.
With daylight, however, he was free to act, which, in Lightning, was a wholly different proposition. His motives for the things he did that day were never at any moment clear to him. Something impelled him to ride into Hartspool. He took money with him, feeling that at such a time he might need it. He may have been right. At any rate, he contrived to leave it behind him in the town, having exchanged it for a subdued, drunken melancholy.
But he had obtained other results. First a Mounted Policeman appeared at the homestead. He was closely followed by a doctor. And, finally, a man who was known to be a carpenter in Hartspool made his appearance. He interviewed them all, and sternly headed them off from the stricken Molly.
A few days later, Lightning took another trip into Hartspool. He had no money which he could take with him. This time he drove the heavy team and the double-bob sleigh, which usually hauled cordwood. His trip was rapid, for his burden was light. The latter was just one long box of unpolished wood.
He had feared that Molly would accompany him, but, to his extreme satisfaction, the girl completely broke down at the last moment, and the wife of the carpenter, who was a kindly creature, who usually aided her man in that work which was not intended for the living, volunteered to remain and look after her until Lightning’s return.
And now, with the passing of time, and the return of the girl’s smile, Lightning gazed back on those painful days, and took full credit to himself for her recovery. He felt himself more than entitled. His little vanities peeped out from amidst his sterling qualities like blemishes dotting pure, crude metal.
Oh, yes. He had done well. He was glad. And, tohis credit, no thought of thanks concerned him. The girl’s smile and well-being were more than sufficient reward for anything he had done. She was the farmer in place of her father. And he had achieved the thing he had desired.
It was a perfect spring morning. The air was fresh, and the sky, ablaze with golden beauty of dawn, was studded, with wind-tossed, swift-moving cloud-flecks. It was a morning to stir the pulses of the old ranchman, and set the sturdy tide of his vigorous life in full flood. He stood for a moment in the doorway of the log shack, which was his sleeping quarters, and breathed deeply of the mountain air. Then, with a characteristic hunch of his shoulders, he passed out to begin his day’s work.
He moved down to the corral, where, now that the warming spring days had come, the milch cows were housed for the night. His first task was to hay and milk them. But for once his task remained unfulfilled. The bars of the corral were down, and the place stood empty.
For some moments he stared stupidly. To him the discovery was incredible. It was even staggering to his self-confidence. The cows, that were his work to shut up for the night, had got out. It never occurred to him that the bars might have been set up carelessly. It never occurred to him that he could have made any mistake. The cows had been set in their corral overnight. They should still be there in the morning.
His study became active. He looked at the fallen bars. He looked at the cloven hoof-prints in the still soft soil about the entrance. Then his eyes hardened and narrowed and a curious thrust took possession of his bewhiskered chin. He had become a victim of one of his hasty, obstinate opinions that came so easily. He passed to the log barn and saddled up his horse.
After that he hurried up to the house.
Then came an exhibition of the man’s regard for the girl. He said no word of the thing that preoccupied his mind, but contented himself with warning her that the cows had strayed.
“They broke out,” he declared, implying no blame to himself. “They made a getaway. I’ll jest git a sip of your swell coffee, Molly, gal, an’ beat it after ’em.”
Molly, in the midst of her cooking, looked round from the stove.
“Sure you will, Lightning,” she said. “And you’ll get your feed with it. An empty stomach’s no sort of thing to chase up ‘strays’ on. Just sit around while I fix things.”
The man obeyed. He took his place at the spotless table set with homely ware for two. And in less than two minutes he was noisily devouring the bacon and beans, of which, in all his years, he had never yet grown tired.
Molly went on steadily with the work of her home while Lightning ate his food. And when he had finished she speeded him on his journey.
“I’ll make a big seeding while you’re gone,” she said, from the doorway. “Maybe you’ll be quite awhile. You can’t ever guess where those crazy creatures will make. I’d try the sweet-grass flats.”
Lightning shook his head.
“Maybe I will. You just can’t tell,” he added, with a tightening of his thin lips.
Molly watched him go, his tall figure lurching with that peculiar gait which, with advancing years, seems to become ever more marked in men of great height. She knew the man for what he was—a hard ruffian utterly devoid of any graces or refinements, but a creature with a heart of unalloyed gold. She knew how great was the debt she owed him. She knew how much his goodwill meant to her. But beyond all question of self-interest there was real affection in her heart for him. She lovedthe simple, foolish, headlong nature that seemed beyond his power to control. She laughed at his vanities, his inadequate reasoning. Sometimes, even, she found pity for him. But this was only rarely. No one knew better than she how little pity was needed. He lived his life full to the brim of supreme contentment.
She went back to her kitchen and her own breakfast.