"Yes," says I; "she did."
"Who was it, Curly?" says he, quiet.
"It was the man next door--the Wisners' hired man," says I.
I'd rather of shot Old Man Wright and killed him decent than say what I
did then.
"You're a damn liar!" says he to me at length, quiet like.
"Colonel," says I, "you can't call that to me, nor no other man, and you
know it."
"I do call it to you!" says he. "My girl couldn't of done that."
"I wish I was a liar, Colonel," says I; "but I ain't. I'll give you one
day to take that back, and you ain't going to study about no proofs
neither. I've worked for you a long time. I've loved the girl like you
did. It ain't no way for you to do to talk thataway to me. I'll say I've
knew this some time and tried to stop it--it was my business to stop it.
I tried a hundred times to tell you about it, but I couldn't without
pretty near killing her and you too. She ast me not to tell you
and--why, hell! I loved her, same as you did."
"How far has it gone, Curly?" says he. He come over now and patted his
hand up and down my shoulder, looking away, which was his way of saying
he was sorry. "Don't mind me, Curly," says he. "I'm crazy! You mustn't
mind me, but tell me all you know now. I know you couldn't lie to either
of us if you tried."
"Yes, I could too," says I; "but I haven't tried. But I just couldn't go
to you and tell you all this thing, for I knew what it would mean to
you.
"It's been going on quietlike for quite a while and I've been doing all
I could to stop it. It begun maybe when she hauled him out of the
lake--I don't know. They didn't meet often. I heard 'em talking once on
the dock, and I told him I'd run him off if he come across the fence or
said another word to her. She begged for him then; but I never promised
her nothing. I knew it was my job as your foreman to take care of that,
so I didn't go to you."
"Go on," says he. "Tell me!"
"She didn't say nothing to him for a long time--she didn't meet him, not
after she said she wouldn't. Then he sent letters over--tied to the
collar of our little dog--two or three letters; maybe four or five, for
all I know. He was crazy over her. All the time he owned up to her and
me that he oughtn't to do what he done. He said in his letters he
oughtn't to raise his eyes to her--he knowed he ought to of come around
to the front door and not to the back door; and he said that very
thing. But he said, like a man will, that he couldn't help it.
"She didn't never answer his letters, so far as I know. I don't know as
she ever got any word to him at all. So far as I know, they never did
talk much, only that one time when I heard 'em. But, as to something
going on--why, yes, it's been going on for quite a little while. And
I've knew it; I've knew I ought to go and tell you. And all the time I
couldn't, because I loved her and she ast me not to tell."
"Did she ever tell you anything? Do you think she cared anyway for him?
You see," he goes on, "I never seen him to know him. I don't know who he
is. I didn't hardly know he was alive on earth. Gawd forgive me! I ought
to of known. I told her once not to talk to that hired man; but if I'd
thought anything of this I'd maybe of killed him then."
"Yes; and I ought to of told you, Colonel," says I. "It was only the way
things happened and because she ast me not to."
"She had that secret from her father!" says he, slow. "Who can tell
what's in a woman's heart?"
"That's it," says I; "now you got it. She was a woman--she told me so."
"What more did she say, Curly?"
"Once she come to me crying, and she says, 'Curly, I love him!'--she
meant that man next door. And I know for shore now he wasn't fit to wipe
her feet on."
Old Man Wright he set down then, quiet like. I couldn't help him none, I
had to set and see him take it. It was awful.
"She said that--she loved him? How long ago?"
"A few weeks, maybe," says I. "I never could get the nerve to tell you
then. I hoped she'd get to see how foolish it was for her to care for a
cheap gardener--I thought she'd be too proud for that. And then I
allowed she'd, like enough, marry Tom Kimberly, and that'd change her
and it'd all come out all right. All the time I was hoping and trying to
save both her and you. I been nigh about crazy, Colonel. And all the
time, of course, I was only a damn fool cowpuncher, without any brains."
"She's gone!" says he, after a time.
"Yes," says I; "near as I can figure, she's thought about it all night
and concluded it'd be best for her not to marry Tom, feeling like she
did about this other man. She's shook us, Colonel. But, believe me, she
wasn't never happy doing that. It must of been like death to her."
"Why did she do it, Curly?" he whispered. "How could she? Why?"
"I done told you, Colonel," says I. "It was because she found she was a
woman. She hadn't knew that before--nor us neither."
At length he got up, but he couldn't stand up straight.
"How can we keep this quiet?" says he.
We couldn't keep it quiet at all. It was all over the house right now.
That Annette girl had read all them Peanut letters before William ever
got 'em. Like enough he'd read 'em too. They was scared when we walked
into their part of the house.
"Where's that dog?" says Old Man Wright.
William, he got pale.
"Very good, sir," says he, and pretends to go after Peanut, which he
knows wasn't there.
"Hi suppose she took 'im along with 'er, sir," says William after a
while.
Annette she chips in:
"_Oui, oui_--yes, yes; she took him with her."
"Took him with her? What do you mean? What do you know about it? Keep
quiet, you people!" says Old Man Wright. "Get into that room!" He locked
them in.
"Now, Curly----" says he.
I knew he was clear in his own mind by now that the girl had run away
with that gardener. He'd maybe go over there.
"No, Colonel," says I; "you keep out of this."
"What do you mean?" says he. "Ain't you my friend at all? Ain't I got a
friend in all the world?"
"You're alderman here," I says, "and that's the same as being sher'f.
When you was sher'f you couldn't do what the law said you couldn't--now
could you? You have to keep up the law when you're a alderman or sher'f.
With me, it's different. Besides, this is my job, not yours."
"Curly," says he, and I could see his jaw get hard all along the aidge,
"Curly, ain't there no place on earth for a pore old broken-hearted
man?"
"Never mind just yet, Colonel," says I. "It ain't your turn," says
I--"that's all. Sometimes," I says to him, "it's best to go a little
slow at first and not make no foolish breaks. Let's just take it easy
till we see which way the cat has jumped--we don't know much yet."
"She--she wouldn't kill herself?" says he sudden; and he got even
whiter.
"I don't think so," I says; "and I'll tell you why. I don't think she
was thinking so much of dying when she said 'I am a woman.' It was
life!"
He looked at me quiet.
"She said that?"
"Uh-huh!--sever'l times. And it was like you said, Colonel, after all.
There ain't no fence high enough to keep a young man and a young woman
apart. It was bound to come, and we didn't know it--that's all."
"We give her every chance. There was Tom."
"Yes," says I; "and there was the man next door. These things goes by
guess and by Gawd. For instance," says I, "what in the world could
Bonnie Bell's ma ever see in you, Colonel?"
That hit him hard, though I didn't mean it that way. He turned his face
away, like he seen something awful before him.
"My Gawd!" says he. "I done that my own self! I stole her ma away. She
loved me and I loved her. Ain't there no one to show a pore old helpless
man what he ought to do?"
"It's life, and she showed us the way," says I. "When you stole Bonnie
Bell's ma you was ready to meet her folks, I reckon, if they come to
take her away. You taken your chance when you married her. So's the man
that's run off with Bonnie Bell. Let him have a even break, Colonel. He
loves her, maybe--and he seems to have a way with women."
"He's ruined her!" says Old Man Wright. "It's marriage he was after, of
course; but look at the difference. I never touched a cent of her ma's
money. We made our own way. But here's a low-down sneak that's come in
at our back door and run away with my girl for her money! Don't you see
the difference? What's this skunk like?" he says to me after a time.
"He ain't such a bad-looking fellow," says I, "if he was dressed up.
He's a sort of upstanding fellow. His clothes was always so dirty he
didn't look like much. He was a good-talking fellow enough."
"They all are--the damn fortune-hunting curs! I can believe that."
"I was too much a coward to tell you, Colonel," says I. "I love that
girl a awful lot. I'd do anything I could to help the kid, even now when
she's in so bad."
"Yes," says he.
"She had it in her natural," says I. "Her pa and ma run away. She was
plumb gentle till she bolted--and then all hell couldn't hold her. Ain't
that like her pa?"
"Yes," says he, humble; "it's like her pa."
"And she's handsome, and soft, and kind, and gentle--so any man couldn't
help loving her. Ain't she like her ma thataway? Wasn't she thataway
too?"
"Yes," says he, choking up like; "she's like her ma."
"Well, then?" says I. "Well then?"
So I pushed him outen the room and went on out down the walk.
I looked around at our house as I was going out. It was big and fine,
but somehow the curtains looked dull and dirty to me. Everything was
shabby-looking someways. This place was where we'd failed. And then I
seemed to see my own self like I was--Curly, a bow-legged cowpuncher
offen the range, with no use for him in the world but just to get things
mixed up, like I had. And Old Man Wright--that used to be our sher'f and
the captain of the round-up, and the best cowman in Wyoming--what had
come to him here at this place?
I turned around to look back. Just then he come out the room where I'd
pushed him in.
He was a tall man, but now he stood stooped down like. His red mustache
was ragged where he'd gnawed the ends for the last half hour. His face
seemed different colors and wasn't red like usual. He seemed to have got
leaner all at once. His knees didn't seem to keep under him good and his
back was bowed. He'd changed a lot in less than a hour. He seemed to be
thinking of what I was thinking of, and he sort of taken a look around
at the house too.
"I made it, Curly," says he, and his voice was sort of loose and
trembling, like he was old. "I made it for her. I made a lot of money
for her. I tried to make her believe I was happy here, but I never was.
I ain't been happy here, not a hour since we come. It's all been a
mistake."
He hammers his fist on the wall by the door where he stood.
"Brick on brick," says he, "I built it for her. I pretended I liked all
these things, but I didn't care a damn for 'em. It's all been a bluff;
we've bluffed to each other and we've all been wrong. It's been a
failure; all we tried to do for her has been no good. She's throwed us
down. Curly, I don't count for nothing no more."
It was true, all he'd said. We'd played our little game and lost it. I
never felt so bow-legged in my life, or so red-headed, as I did when I
turned to walk down from our house to Wisner's. I looked back just once.
There was Old Man Wright standing in the door, tall and bent over, a
hand against each side of the door frame.
I left him there, holding onto the frame of the front door of what he
called our home, that he'd worked so hard for--that we'd both tried so
hard to make her happy in. He'd found one game at last where he couldn't
win.
And she'd shook us now--our girl--shook us for a man that never had
knocked at our front door!