CHAPTER XXXIIINight in the Valley
IT was late in the evening. Jim Pryse and his sister were alone in the apartment where Blanche loved to sit in company with her men-folk. The stove was radiating a pleasant warmth, for the summer evenings, so high up in the mountains, were chill with the breezes that came down off the fields of snow. Blanche was still enveloped in the overall of her domestic labours, and Jim was lounging in his favourite rocker, clad in utility garments of his day’s work on the ranch.
A shaded lamp cast its mellow light over the room, and found reflection in the polished walls of red pine. But its light was mainly focused upon those sitting about the stove. Blanche’s busy hands were at work upon her sewing. The door of the room stood ajar, and while she talked, and listened to the deep voice of her brother, there was never a moment when her attention could have missed any sound that came from beyond it. She had left the sick girl asleep. She had left her in the full conviction that her reassurance that noon to Lightning was more than being fulfilled. Now her anxiety was allayed, and she was enjoying the rest she was more than entitled to.
Larry had not yet returned from the work of deporting the four men who had become something more than troublesome to the peace of the valley. He might return that night. On the other hand, he might not return till late next day. His movements were of no particular concern. He had his own methods of dealing with an exodus from the valley. Despard was with him, and one or two others, who were part of his official staff, and thewhole thing would be completed with that effectiveness which gave no opportunity for any trickery.
Blanche glanced up from the tangle of silks in her lap. She surveyed her brother, who was sitting with his head inclined forward till his chin pressed deeply against his cotton shirt.
“I’m glad you gave Larry his head about those boys, Jim,” she said. Then she smiled indulgently. “You know, Jim, I’m beginning to think Larry’s pretty bright. He’s got a rare way of sizing men up. He laughs and says things, but there’s always a deal lying back of what he says. He was talking to Lightning after I brought him along last night. I guess I got mad with him for it. I’d seen him looking at the old man in that queer, half-smiling way of his, and wondered what he was thinking. I got it all later.” She laughed softly. “He said—you know his ridiculous way—‘Do you know what you’ve done, heart of my heart? You’ve brought into our perfect haven of purity a tough that would sooner murder than eat. Maybe your friend Lightning’s all you believe him. I haven’t a doubt. But I’d like to tell you he’s a whole lot more. I’m eternally grateful to the folk who figure out the luck of a red-headed guy that I didn’t get across his trail that night you sent me down to the farm as your express-man.’ I wasn’t going to stand for that, and told him it was a pity he hadn’t.”
Jim’s gaze remained on the stove.
“He’s a type,” he said, without real interest.
“What d’you mean?”
The man bestirred himself.
“Oh, he’s a cattleman, bred and raised in the toughest school of a trade that flourished when he was a youngster. Look at the guns he carries. Never moves about without ’em. They’re prehistoric, but, I’d guess, in his hands mighty effective. It’s always so with his kind. But Larry used the wrong word. It should have been ‘kill,’not ‘murder.’ Lightning couldn’t murder. But he’d kill like a real gentleman.”
Blanche felt her superiority over these men in her understanding of Lightning.
“You’re both wrong by miles,” she said. “You’re judging him, like Larry did, by the outside show. Men are mostly like that. You don’t know the Lightning I know. You don’t know the kindness, the affection and loyalty of the man towards little Molly. And I couldn’t begin to tell you about it. Why, even with her lying here sick, his queer practical mind was worrying for her future. He was crazy to get back to the farm to see to her interests, her stock, and the harvest. No. Lightning’s a swell bluff as a ‘bad man.’ Why, he was scared to face the tunnel on his own horse, because the beast was as scared as he was. I had to lend him my Pedro to get him home.”
Jim was looking up. His preoccupation had gone. He was grinning ironically at the confident woman.
“Lightning borrowed your Pedro to make that trip home?” he asked incredulously. “It’s a—joke, Sis. It’s——”
He broke off. And his irony fell from him, leaving a sudden frown on his even brows.
“Why is it a joke?” Blanche had become aware of the man’s change of expression. “What—what are you—guessing?” she asked.
Jim shook his head.
“Just nothing,” he said, with a shrug. “Only—— Maybe, you’re right, though. That tunnel and the ledge are difficult when you think about it. A scared horse might easily get into a fix. And it’s certainly important that Lightning should—carry on the work of Molly’s farm.”
After that they remained silent. Somehow Jim’s explanation failed to convince, and Blanche had an uncomfortablefeeling. But she refrained from pursuing the subject further.
Jim was thinking hard. Why had Lightning borrowed his sister’s horse? Why not use his own? The idea of Lightning being afraid of facing the tunnel on his own horse was absurd. Inspiration promptly supplied him with all he wanted to know. Pedro! Blanche had told him of the cattleman’s admiration of the beast. He knew the merits of the creature himself. Pedro was capable of anything in the world that a horse of his class might be asked to do. Why should Lightning desire the loan of such a horse? There could only be one reason, and he sat on in silence, staring at the polished sides of the stove, contemplating the tremendous thing that had suggested itself.
Blanche went on with her work. The tangle of silks seemed to cause her no inconvenience. Once she passed out of the room to visit her sleeping patient. It was only to return again to her sewing with a word of reassurance.
The evening slipped away. Blanche began a conversation. But its failure to flourish left her no alternative but to abandon the attempt. And in place of it her woman’s mind made play to itself between her preoccupied brother and the girl lying ill in another room.
Jim bestirred himself at last. He sat up, and shocked his sister into amazed attention.
“I want to marry that little kid, Blanche,” he said, without preamble. “I’m going to. Do you think—I guess you know your own sex—do you think she’s going to want that boy when she gets well?”
With the passing of her first shock, Blanche wanted to laugh. But her desire was not inspired by the thing he had said. It was the curious synchronising with it of the thoughts that had been passing through her own mind.
“If she does, Jim, she’s not worth any good man’s thought,” she said promptly.
Jim was sitting up. His chin was propped on the knuckles of his clasped hands, and his elbows were set upon his spread knees.
“You were right, Sis,” he went on. “I laughed at you when you said it, but I knew you were right even then. When I first saw Molly the thing got hold of me. And it wasn’t just gratitude to that boy, her father, that made me think and feel the way I did when I looked into her child’s eyes. No. Say, I carried that little kid in my arms right up to here. You can’t ever know what carrying a pretty kid like her in your arms means to a man. It just sets him crazy with pity and—love. It wasn’t my gratitude to her dead father made me do it. When I said to you the thing I meant to do, it was all dead fixed in my mind. I’m just crazy to death for that little girl, and I want to have her my wife. Oh, I know. I know it all. I’m only worried she won’t have learnt to hate that boy the way he deserves. And there’s the thing that’s always hanging over me. Would I dare, Sis, if she’d learned to hate that way, with the shadow of penitentiary always around my heels? Would it be right? Would it be honest? Sometimes I reckon it would, and sometimes I reckon I’d be little better than the skunk who betrayed her. I don’t know.” He smiled a little pathetically. “It seems I can’t think right about it. Tell me, Sis; you’re wise to these things. You see, you’re a woman.”
Blanche bent over her work, and spoke without looking up. This brother of hers, this strong, reliant man, seemed more like a child to her than ever.
“It’s all so simple to me, Jim,” she said, without a moment’s hesitation. “The world surrounds the business of marriage with a lot of stuff and notions that have no right to any place in it. A boy loves a girl, and she loves him. There isn’t a thing matters to them beyond the lovewhich is pure, and good, and as natural as God Almighty intended it to be. What matters, to a girl feeling that way, if a human threat is dogging the man she loves? Doesn’t it make it sweeter to her to care for him, and think of him, and worry for him? Sure it does. Then think of her. A boy doesn’t love what has been, only what is. He loves her. Well? Folk say this, folk say that. Who cares what folk say? It doesn’t seem to me that they matter in the least. Their approval wouldn’t help in the hour of need. And their disapproval wouldn’t rob folk who love of one moment of their happiness. When the time comes, Jim, just be yourself. Tell Molly all you think. Make her your wife if she loves you. And if you two are to get the happiness I wish for you there’ll be one, anyway, whose approval will do its best to help it along.”
The first of the dawn had lit the valley with its twilight. Blanche was passing out of Molly’s sick-room. It was her last visit for the night. Three times she had left her own bed to assure herself of the girl’s well-being. At each visit she had found Molly sleeping calmly, and without a sign of fever. Her satisfaction was intense.
She was about to return to the warm comfort of her own room when the sound of a spurred footstep on the verandah broke upon the silence of the house. The meaning of it came to her instantly. It was Larry returned from his journey. And she knew that he must have ridden something like a hundred miles in fifteen hours. She drew her dressing-robe closely about her, and passed out on to the verandah to meet him.
She found him sprawled in a big chair gazing into the twilight of the dawn. The air was chill, but it signifiednothing to her. That great, red-headed creature was the man of her woman’s dream, and her gladness in him rose above any thought of discomfort.
He raised a pair of astonished eyes as she appeared through the French windows.
“For goodness’ sake, child, you haven’t been sitting around waiting for me to get back?” he cried, springing to his feet.
Blanche laughed at the half impatient, wholly solicitous greeting. It was so characteristic of him.
“I guess worry for you wouldn’t keep me from my bed a minute,” she cried. Then came the inevitable touch of affection. “It’s only for an incompetent a woman needs to worry.”
She came close to him and smiled up into his face. In a moment Larry’s arm was about her yielding body, and they stood together gazing out on the broadening of the dawn.
“Dear old Blanche,” he said at last. “Worry or no worry, I’m glad to get back. You know, kid, I’m sick to death of these toughs. I feel like a sort of penitentiary guy, who needs to go around with automatic shooting weapons and a club to make things sure he’ll eat his next meal right. If it wasn’t I’m guessing I can see the end of this crazy notion coming I’d have to get out on the hillside and holler. But it’s coming, kid. I’ve shot that bunch out, and the junk we’ve got around now couldn’t commit crime enough to set the police worrying after ’em. I’ve a notion I’ve been figuring on. It’s a good notion. This ranch gets me all the time. So do the hills and the air—the whole darn thing. I’m herding Jim along a road that’ll leave this place just what it is—a swell mixed farm run right, and the crook shelter can go hang. The only thing that’s got me scared is the thing Jim may get doing to that gopher, McFardell. How’s the little kid?”
“Sleeping like a child. I’ve just been in to her. That’s when I heard your big feet out here.”
A great spread of yellow topped the eastern hills, and Blanche watched it grow.
“If things go right, Jim won’t need much herding along that road, Larry. I don’t think you need to be scared for him,” Blanche went on confidently. “He’s fallen for Molly, and I’m going to help things along all I know. Think of us in the old days back in New York,” she laughed. “Then think of us here. Think of me trying to fix things up with Jim and this poor little soul of a farm girl, who’s hit the biggest trouble a woman can strike. Does it make you want to laugh or weep? No. That’s right. Shake your disreputable old head. And so it is with me. I don’t want to do either. This is our valley of a big hope—hope for Jim and hope for that little girl. Well, old boy, time will show how things are to go. It just can’t go on as it is with that boy McFardell on our trail. Something’s going to break for us. It’s got to be a get-out one way or another. Molly, maybe, is the whole answer to the problem. Meanwhile I’m getting my death standing around making love to a boy who doesn’t know enough to get quick to his blankets after a hundred miles in the saddle.”