THE HOME-COMING
Six weeks of all she had ever hoped for, dreamed of, in the lean years
of heart starvation. The complete devotion of a strong man, a man who
held a place in the world she knew. Every luxury wealth could purchase
at her disposal, even to satiation. Her every whim ministered to, and
even anticipated. This was something of the ripe fruit literally
heaped into Elvine's lap. She had longed for it, schemed for it, and
Providence had permitted all her efforts complete success.
Now, with those six weeks behind her, she gazed upon the balance-sheet.
She looked for the balance of happiness. To her horror it was blotted
out, smudged out of all recognition. Oh, yes, the figures had been
entered, but now they were completely obscured.
It was the last stage of her journey to her new home. It was a journey
being made in the saddle. Their baggage, a large number of trunks
loaded with the precious gleanings from the great stores during the
honeymoon, had been sent on ahead by wagon. There was nothing, so far
as could be seen, to rob the home-coming of its proper sense of
delight. Yet delight was more than far off. Elvine was a prey to a
hopelessness which nothing seemed able to relieve.
Summer was not yet over, although the signs of the coming fall were by
no means lacking. The hard trail, like some carefully set out
terra-cotta ribbon upon a field of tawny green, took them through a
region of busy harvesting. The tractors and threshers were busily
engaged in many directions. Great stacks of straw testified to the
ample harvest in progress. Fall ploughing had already begun, and
high-wheeled wagons bore their burden of produce toward the distant
elevators. Then, too, human freight passed them, happy, smiling
freight of old and young, whose sun-scorched faces reflected something
of the joy of life and general prosperity prevailing.
A radiant sun looked down upon the scenes through which they passed.
It was the wonderful ripening God almost worshipped of these people who
lived by the fruits of the earth. Jeffrey Masters understood it all,
and reveled in the pleasant senses it stirred. For he, too, lived by
the fruits of the earth, although his harvest was garnered in the flesh
of creature kind.
Elvine looked on with eyes that beheld but saw nothing of that which
inspired her husband. Remembrance claimed her. Too well she
remembered. And gladly would she have shut out such sights altogether,
for more and more surely they crushed her already depressed spirits to
a depth from which it seemed impossible to raise them.
Nor was her beautiful face without some reflection of this. Her smile
was ready for the man at her side. She laughed and talked in a manner
so care-free that he could never have suspected. But in repose, when
no eyes were upon her, a lurking, hunted dread peered furtively out of
her dark eyes, and the fine-drawn lines gathered about her shapely
lips, and seriously marred the serenity of their youthful contours.
She had one purpose now, one only. It was to ward off the blow which
she knew might fall at any moment when she reached her new home. The
threat of it was with her always. It drove her to panic in the dark of
night. It left her watchful and fearful in the light of day. At all
times the memory of her husband's words dinned through her brain like
the haunt of some sickening melody.
"Now I only hope the good God'll let me come up with the man who took
the price of his blood."
It had been spoken coldly. It had been spoken with an intensity of
bitterness that left an impression as hard as flint. The tone had set
her shuddering. Then the look in those cold blue eyes when at last she
had turned confronting them. No, there had been no mercy in them. No
mercy, she told herself, for--anybody.
At that moment she had known that the earth could hold no future peace
for her. She felt that Fate had passed sentence on her, and she was
powerless to stay its execution. Her husband demanded vengeance upon
the man who had accepted the price of his brother's blood.
For the moment she had been stunned. Then had risen up in her a
desperate courage. She would fight. She would fight for herself, she
would fight for the love which all unbidden, all undesired, had come to
her. Then, in the end, if defeat should overtake her, she would, yes,
she could, submit to the punishment his hand should mete out to her.
Strangely, from that moment her love for this man seemed to increase a
thousandfold. He grew in her heart a towering colossus of worship.
The primitive in her bowed down before his image ready to yield to his
lightest word, while, by every art, she was ready to cajole and foster
his love.
It was all she knew, understood. It was the woman in her who possessed
no other weapons of defense. She loved him, she desired him, then
nothing was too small to cling to with the wild hope of the drowning.
When the day came that he should turn and rend her soul she could
submit. But until that day she would cling to every straw that offered.
While the scenes through which they were passing preoccupied the man,
the silence of the wide plains left Elvine to her fears. The great
breadth of the world about her added to her hopelessness. And after a
silence which had become unduly protracted, she took refuge in talk for
which she had no real desire.
"It's beautiful, but--oppressive," she said, and the words were the
inspiration of genuine thought.
But the man was like one who has spent a world of love and devotion
upon carving a beautiful setting and is now about to complete his work
by securing in place the crowning jewel. He had no room for any
feeling of oppression. He shook his head.
"Say, Evie," he cried, "I just can't allow you the word 'oppressive.'
I just can't. Look--look right out there toward the hills we're
making. Take the colors as they heap up to the distance. Every shade,
I guess, from green to purple. It makes me feel good. It gives me
room to stretch myself. It sort o' sweeps away a whole heap of fusty
city smells, and gives us something a deal more worth breathing. It's
a man's place. And it's full of man's work. Guess Providence got busy
an' set it all out for us. Providence guessed we'd have to use it.
But Providence didn't just guess how far crazy human nature really was.
She didn't foresee we'd gather around in the musty dump-holes we call
cities. She didn't figure on our tastes for the flesh-pots, and the
indulgence of the senses she'd handed us. But then Providence knows
her power to fix us right when she feels that way." Then he spread out
his arms with an inexpressible suggestion of longing. "Say, I'm
crazy--plumb crazy to get the first peek at that dandy home I've had
fixed for you."
The woman's eyes sought her husband's with a smile that was a caress.
"You're good to me, Jeff," she said. Then she added: "So good." Her
smile deepened. "You'd hand me the world with--with a fence around it,
if I asked. Why? Why are you like that?"
It was the love in her seeking reassurance. Nor was she disappointed.
"Why?" The man laughed. And the sound of it was good to hear. It was
deep, and seemed to come from the depths of his soul. His blue eyes
shone with a world of devotion. "Guess I love you--just that," he
said. Then he pointed at the distant hills. "I can't tell you all I
feel, Elvie," he said, "but get those hills. See them. There, that
peak, sitting right up over its fellows, with a cap of snow on it I
don't guess the sun could ever melt. That's thousands of feet up. I'd
say man's foot was never set there, nor bird's, nor animal's either.
Well, if that peak was a throne it 'ud give you pleasure to occupy,
why, I guess I'd just go the limit to have you sit there."
Elvine was gazing at the mountain crest, but she was not thinking of
it. She was thinking of the love which the extravagant words
expressed, and she was wondering at the bigness of it. She was caught
in its power, and it thrilled her with an even greater appreciation of
her danger. What would be the result upon such a nature as this man's
when--he knew?
"I believe you would," she said, her eyes coming back to the strong,
flushed face. Then she added: "Now."
"Now?"
There was a quick lifting in the man's fair brows. There was
incredulity in his tone. To him it seemed impossible, the implied
doubt in her final word.
"I don't change easy, Elvie," he protested. "I kind of get things
hard. It's my way, and it's no doing of mine. Life's a full-sized
proposition, and I don't guess we can see far through it. But I can't
imagine a thing that could come before you in my thoughts."
"I'd like to think that. I'd like to feel that," Elvine returned. She
was smiling up into his eyes. "You see, Jeff, I was kind of thinking.
We're young now. We've been together just six weeks. Maybe you'll get
used to me later. Men do get used to women till they become sort of
part of the furniture. Oh, I guess their love goes right on, but--but
they wouldn't feel like starting in to fence in the North Pole, or--or
hitch up Niagara to their wife's buggy just because she fancied that
way. Say, Jeff, when I lose your love I just lose everything in the
world. You--you won't ever let me lose it, will you?"
Jeff shook his head, and smiled in the confidence of feelings.
"Don't ever talk that way. Don't ever think like that," he urged her.
Then, as their horses ambled side by side up the last gentle incline
before they dropped down to the great plain of the Rainbow Hill Valley,
which was the setting of the Obar Ranch, he drew nearer and reached out
one arm and gently encircled her waist. "Guess you're feeling like me
just now, Evie. Do you know what I mean? We're getting home.
Home--yours and mine. Well, say, that home is in my mind now, and it's
full to the brim of thoughts of you. You're in it--everywhere. You're
part of it. You're just part of me. I can't see any future without
you. It don't seem to me there could be any. I don't doubt. I guess
the thought of it don't scare me a thing. Maybe with you it's
different. Maybe you're scared such happiness can't last. But I tell
you it can--it will. You're with me now and always, and I can't see a
shadow that could come between us."
"None? No, none, none!"
The woman forced conviction into her final denial, and, for a moment,
she permitted herself to yield to the reassuring embrace. Then she
started up and released herself.
"Oh, Jeff!" she cried. "I just pray all the time that nothing shall
ever rob me of your love. Night and day I pray that way. If I were to
lose you, I--I think nothing else would much matter."
The man smiled with supreme confidence. They had reached the top of
the hill, and he set his horse into a canter.
"You're just going to live right on--for me, sweetheart," he cried.
"Be yourself. Just yourself. The frank, honest woman I know and love.
If ever the shadows you fear come to worry us, they'll have to be of
your own creating. We have nothing to fear from the future, nothing at
all. We'll just drive right on down the clear trail of life. It's
only in the byways there's any ugly dumps. Look!" He suddenly flung
out one arm, pointing ahead where the great Obar plains rolled away
toward the hills below them. "That's the ranch. There. That one
there is Bud's homestead, and the other to the right's your--our home.
Say, it's good to see--mighty good!"
* * * * * *
Nan gazed upon the result of her labors and decided that it was good.
Bud was observing her in his unobtrusive way. They were together in
the new parlor of the home which Jeff had had reconstructed under Nan's
most careful supervision.
The girl had put forth her greatest effort, greater even than she
herself realized, for it had been inspired by a desire that Jeff and
his wife should never realize the pain and bitter disappointment she
had endured.
Now, as she surveyed each detail in her final tour of inspection, she
convinced herself that nothing, nothing she could think of had been
forgotten. Even the city-bred Elvine could find no fault with any
detail of it.
She and Bud were standing side by side rather like two children gazing
in awed wonder at some undreamed of splendor suddenly discovered in a
familiar playground, every square foot of which they had believed
themselves familiar with.
"I--don't think I've forgotten a thing," Nan said, in a tone subdued by
her weight of responsibility.
"Not a thing," agreed Bud, with a perfect disregard for any
consequences his statement might have.
He was utterly unchanged. He had made no preparation to receive the
bride and bridegroom in their home. He was just the cattleman nothing
could change him from. His gray flannel shirt was agape over his
sunburned chest. His leather chapps creaked as he moved, his vicious
spurs clanked. Then, too, the curling iron-gray hair of his bared head
was innocent of all extra combing. With Nan it was different. She had
striven to rid herself of every sign of the prairie to which she
belonged. She was dressed with consummate care. Every jealous feeling
of the woman in her had cried out for her rights, and those rights were
that her successful rival should be unable to sneer at or pity her.
The result was a delightful picture that filled Bud's heart with
admiration. And for perhaps the thousandth time he silently
anathematized the blind folly of the man who had wilfully cast his eyes
in another direction.
Nan seated herself in one of the luxuriously inviting armchairs, while
Bud insinuated his huge form on to the polished surface of a large
central table.
"You know, Daddy, I sort of feel like a feller who's guessed the right
answer to a question he hadn't a notion of. Maybe you won't get just
how I mean." The smile in her pretty eyes changed to a deep
seriousness. "You know when I was a little teeny girl all mud and
overall, that never could keep me within measurable distance of being
clean, you used to talk to me just as if you were speaking your
thoughts aloud. Guess it was about the time poor Momma died, or maybe
soon after. I kind of remember you were squatting Indian fashion on
the veranda of our shack, I'd been busy in the hopes of drowning myself
in a half dry mud hole, and had mostly succeeded in absorbing more of
the dirt than seemed good for a single meal. Guess I must have started
to cry, and you'd reached out and grabbed me, and fetched me up on your
lap, and were handing me a few words you reckoned to cheer me up with.
Do you remember them, my Daddy? I don't guess you do. I didn't till a
while later, and then I didn't figure out their meaning till I went to
school. You said, 'Tears is only for kiddies an' grown women. Kiddies
mostly cry because they don't understand, an' grown women because they
do. Anyway, neither of 'em need to cry, if they only get busy an'
think a while. Ther' ain't a thing in this life calls for a tear from
a living soul, not even a stomachful of moist mud, 'cos, you see,
ther's Someone who fixes everything the way it should go, an' it's the
right way. So we'll jest give you a dose of physic to help boost the
show along.'" She glanced round her with smiling eyes at the
tastefully arrayed furnishings of the parlor. "This has been the dose
of physic I gave myself, and--and I feel better for it. I had the mud,
and, why, the tears came just as they did before. Maybe if I'd been
able to think right I wouldn't have shed them. But I just couldn't
think right then. But I've thought since, and the physic's helped me.
Do--do you think he'll like it all?"
The contemplative gaze of her father was full of gentle amusement.
"Sure he will--if he ain't changed any."
Nan shook her head.
"Jeff couldn't change. Even marriage couldn't change Jeff. You see,
Jeff's got notions of life which are just part of him. Maybe he'll
soften some in ways and things, but his notions'll remain, and they'll
stand right out in all he does."
But Bud remained without conviction.
"A good woman can set a big man hunting a halo," he said. "An' I allow
he's li'ble to find it, if she don't weaken in her play. But a bad
woman--why, I guess a bad woman can send him down quicker than most
things in life, once she tucks herself into a corner of his life depot."
"But Jeff would never fall in love with a bad woman." Nan protested
swiftly, an odd little pucker of anxiety gathering between her brows.
"I--I'm sure his wife's a good woman."
"An' I ain't any sort o' reason to think diff'rent."
"But you do think--that way."
Nan's understanding of her father was wide. It could scarcely have
been otherwise, since he had been her sole companion for so many years.
But Bud was to be drawn no further.
"Ther' ain't no accounting fer how folks think when they ain't out on a
joy trip," he grumbled, as he moved across to the open window, and
stood gazing out over the trail from the northeast. Then all further
discussion was abandoned in a small wave of excitement. He was
pointing down the trail.
"Say, they're coming right along now. An'----"
But Nan was at his side. Something of the color had faded out of her
cheeks, and she clung to her father's arm as she gazed along the narrow
winding road. Her breath was coming rapidly. For all her courage, now
that the moment of great trial had arrived, she felt very weak, very
helpless.
Bud understood. He released his arm from her nervous clasp, and placed
it gently about her shoulders. "It's Jeff setting the gait," he said.
"I'd say he's crazy to get home." Then he added as though to himself:
"Guess I'd as lief seen her on the lead."
But Nan gave no heed to his words. The soul of the girl was in her
eyes, which were full of a deep terror and yearning. She had schooled
herself for this meeting How she had schooled herself! And now it
seemed beyond her powers to live up to that schooling.
Never for a moment did she withdraw her gaze. It was held fascinated,
perhaps against her will. They came on, riding at an almost racing
gallop, and finally drew up with their horses fighting against the
restraining bits.
Bud and Nan were on the veranda. Bud's attitude was one of almost shy
reserve. Nan was smiling a welcome such as a moment before would have
seemed quite impossible. But her schooling had finally triumphed in
the crisis, and her loyalty to her generous love had vanquished every
baser feeling. It was her hands which clasped those of the city woman
before she sprang lightly from the saddle. It was her steady voice
spoke the first words of welcome.
"Say, you sure must be tired with your journey," she said. "Come right
in to--your new home."
Bud had averted his eyes the moment she began to speak. He could not
witness that greeting. His courage was unequal to it. Instead he
greeted Jeff in his own fashion, as though nothing unusual had occurred.
"Nan's got everything through for you same as you asked. After you've
eaten, why, I guess we'll need to make some talk. Things have been
moving, boy. Guess we'll need to get busy."
Nan had taken Elvine into the house, and one of the barn-hands was
waiting to take the horses. Jeff leaped from the saddle. Once in the
company of his partner, with all the atmosphere of the world to which
he belonged about him, all the excitement of his home-coming seemed to
drop from him. He even seemed to have forgotten that this was the
final great event of his new life--the bringing of his bride to the
home he had prepared for her. But Nan's estimate of him was right.
Jeff's was a nature that could not be changed, even by his marriage.
His love, his marriage, Elvine; these things were, in reality, merely
episodes. Delightful episodes. Before all things his work claimed him.
"You mean the--rustlers?"
The two men were facing each other on the wide veranda. The trailing
wild cucumber vines tempered the blaze of sunlight and left the
atmosphere of the veranda cool. Jeff mopped the beads of perspiration
from his forehead under his wide hat, which had been thrust back on his
head.
"That's so." Bud's eyes were following the horses as they moved away
in the wake of the barn-hand.
"It's pretty bad?"
"An' gettin' worse."
Bud's eyes came back to his partner's face. They gazed steadily into
it.
"Can't you tell me--now? Evie's in there with Nan," he added
significantly.
Bud shook his head.
"It's a big yarn, an' needs time. But----" He paused, searching the
other's face.
"Go right on."
Jeff read through the pause. He waited, his lips firmly set.
Bud cleared his throat.
"I've got to say these things later if I don't say 'em now, Jeff, boy.
What I need to tell 'll make you sore, an' I don't guess it's the best
sort o' welcome making you sore at your home-comin'. It's the worst of
the yarn anyway, an' I kind o' feel it's best spitting out the worst
right away. We're up against a gang, a slick gang, organized right,
same as----"
He hesitated. But the younger man seemed to have no similar scruples.
"The gang my brother ran."
Bud nodded.
"Some of 'em got clear away--that time."
"And you figure after giving things time to get forgotten they've
gathered up a crowd of toughs and started in on this district?"
"It seems that way."
"How?"
"System," Bud declared sharply. "They're takin' a steady toll of us,
an' other folks in the district. We trailed 'em to the hills,
an'--lost 'em. Say, if we don't handle 'em it means----"
"Something like ruin for the--Obar."
Jeff's manner was shorn of any equivocation. He spoke with almost
ruthless force, but the coldness of tone was incomparable with the
steely light in his blue eyes.
After a moment's silence he turned away. He stood looking back over
the trail he had just left, and Bud regarded his keen profile, waiting.
He felt there was nothing more for him to say at the moment.
At last the other turned in his quick, decided fashion as the sound of
the women's voices reached them from within the parlor.
"Will you stop and eat with us?" he asked bluntly.
Bud shook his head.
"Not now, Jeff, boy. This is your home-coming."
"Yes. Well, I'll get around your place to-morrow morning, Bud. We can
make big talk then."