THE BRAVE BUCKAROO
"BOISE, IDAHO, _December_ 23.
"BRAVE BUCKAROO,--
"I wonder if you ever in your whole life got a Christmas present? I've
been cultivating the Louise of me, and here are the first fruits of my
endeavor; I guess that's the way they say it. I've spent so much time
sitting by mommie when she's asleep, and I get tired of reading all the
time, so a nurse in this ward--mommie has a room to herself of course,
but not a special nurse, because I can do a lot of the little
things--well, the nurse taught me how to hemstitch. So I got some silk
and made some nice, soft neckerchiefs--one for you and one for me.
"This one I made last. I didn't want your eagle eyes seeing all the
bobbly stitches on the first one. I hope you like it, Ward. Every
stitch stands for a thought of the hills and our good times. I've
brought Minervy back to life, and I try to play my old pretends
sometimes. But they always break up into pieces. I'm not a kid now,
you see. And life is a lot different when you get out into it, isn't
it?
"Mommie doesn't seem to get much better. I'm worried about her. She
seems to have let go, somehow. She never talks about the ranch much,
or even worries about whether Phoebe is keeping the windows washed.
She talks about when she was a little girl, and about when she and
daddy were first married. It gets on my nerves to see how she has
slipped out of every-day life. The nurse says that's common, though,
in sickness. She says I could go home and look after things for a week
or so just as well as not. She says mommie would be all right. But I
hate to leave her.
"I'm awfully homesick for a good old ride on Blue. I miss him
terribly. Have you seen anything of the Cove folks lately? Seems like
I'm clear out of the world. I hate town, anyway, and a hospital is the
limit for dismalness. Even the Louise of me is getting ready to do
something awful if I have to stay much longer. Mommie sleeps most of
the time. I believe they dope her with something. She doesn't have
that awful pain so bad. So I don't have anything to do but sit around
and read and sew and wait for her to wake up and want something.
"Pal, the Billy of me is at the exploding point! I believe I'll wind
up by getting out in the corridor some day and shooting holes in all
the steam radiators! Did you ever live with one, Ward? Nasty, sizzly
things; they drive me wild. I'd give the best cow in the bunch for
just one hour in front of our old stone fireplace and see the sparks go
up the chimney, and hear the coyotes. Honest to goodness, I'd rather
hear a coyote howl than any music on earth--unless maybe it was you
singing a ten-dollar hoss an' a forty-dollar saddle. I'd like to hear
that old trail song once more. I sure would, Ward. I'd like to hear
it, coming down old Wolverine canyon. Oh, I just can't stand it much
longer. I'm liable to wrap mommie in a blanket and crawl out the
window, some night, and hit the trail for home. I believe I could cure
her quicker right on the ranch. I wish I'd never brought her here; I
believe it's just a scheme of the doctors to get money out of us. I
know my poultices did just as much good as their old dope does.
"And this is Christmas, almost. I wonder what you'll be doing. Say,
Ward, if you want to be a perfect jewel of a man, send me some of that
jerky you've got hanging at the head of your bunk. I swiped some, that
last time I was there. It would taste mighty good to me now, after all
these hospital slops.
"And write me a nice, long letter, won't you? That's a good buckaroo.
I've got to stop--mommie is beginning to wake up, and it's time for the
doctor to come in and read the chart and look wise and say: 'Well, how
are we to-day? Pretty bright, eh?' I'd like to kick him clear across
the corridor--that is, the Billy of me would. And believe me, the
Billy of me is sure going to break out, some of these days!
"I hope you like the neckerchief. I want you to wear it; if I come
home and find it hasn't been washed a couple of times, there'll be
something doing! Don't rub soap on it, kid. Make a warm lathery suds
and wash it. And don't wave it by the corners till it dries. Hang it
up somewhere. You'll have my stitches looking worse frazzled than my
temper.
"Well, a merry Christmas, Pal-o'-mine--and here's hoping you and mommie
and I will be eating turkey together at the Wolverine when next
Christmas comes. Nummy-num! Wouldn't that taste good, though?
"Now remember and write a whole tablet full to
"WILLIAM LOUISA,
"WILHEMINA,
"BILL-LOO,
"BILL-THE-CONK,
"BILLY LOUISE,
"FLOWER OF THE RANCH-OH."
Phoebe put that letter on the mantel over the fireplace, the day after
Christmas. Frequently she felt its puffy softness and its crackly
crispness and wondered dully what Billy Louise had sent to Ward.
Billy Louise refrained from expecting any reply until after New Year's.
Then she began to look for a letter, and when the days passed and
brought her no word, her moods changed oftener than the weather.
Ward's literary efforts, along about that time, consisted of cutting
notches in the window-sill beside his bunk.
On the day when the stage-driver gave Billy Louise's letter to Phoebe,
Ward cut a deeper, wider notch, thinking that day was Christmas. Under
the notch he scratched a word with the point of his knife. It had four
letters, and it told eloquently of the state of mind he was in.
It was the day after that when Seabeck and one of his men rode up the
creek and out into the field where Ward's cattle grazed apathetically
on the little grass tufts that stuck up out of the snow. Ward was
reading, and so did not see them until he raised himself up to make a
cigarette and saw them going straight across the coulee by the line
fence to the farther hills. He opened the window and shouted after
them, but the wind was blowing keen from that direction, and they did
not hear him.
Seabeck had been studying brands and counting, and he was telling Floyd
Carson that everything was straight as a string.
"He must be out working this winter. I should think he'd stay home and
feed these calves. The cows are looking pretty thin. I guess he isn't
much of a stock hand; these nesters aren't, as a general thing, and if
it's as Junkins says, and he puts all he makes into this place, he's
likely hard up. Mighty nice little ranch he's got. Well, let's work
over the divide and back that way. I didn't think we'd find anything
here."
They turned and angled up the steep hillside, and Ward watched them
glumly. He thought he knew why they were prowling around the place,
but it seemed to him that they might have stretched their curiosity a
little farther and investigated the cabin. He did not know that the
snow of a week ago was banked over the doorstep with a sharp, crusty
combing at the top, to prove that the door had not been opened for some
time. Nor did he know that the two had ridden past the cabin on the
other side of the creek and had seen how deserted the place looked; had
ridden to the stable, noted there the unmistakable and permanent air of
emptiness, and had gone on.
Floyd Carson alone might have prowled through both buildings, but
Seabeck was a slow-going man of sober justice. He would not invade the
premises of another farther than he thought it necessary. He had heard
whispers that the fellow on Mill Creek might bear investigation, and he
had investigated. There was not a shadow of evidence that the Y6
cattle had been gotten dishonestly. Therefore, Seabeck rode away and
did not look into the snow-banked cabin, as another man might have
done; and Ward missed his one chance of getting help from the outside.
Of course, he was doing pretty well as it was; but he would have
welcomed the chance to talk to someone. Taciturn as Ward was with men,
he had enough of his own company for once. And he would have asked
them to make him a cup of coffee and warm up the cabin once more.
Little comforts of that sort he missed terribly. If the room had not
been so clammy cold, he could have sat up part of the time, now. As it
was, he stayed in bed to keep warm; and even so he had been compelled
to drag the two wolf-skins off the floor and upon the bed to keep from
shivering through the coldest nights and days.
One day he did crawl out of bed and try to get over to the stove to
start a fire. But he was so weak that he gave it up and crawled back
again, telling himself that it was not worth the effort.
The letter with the silk neckerchief inside gathered dust upon the
mantel, down at the Wolverine. When the postmark was more than two
weeks old, another letter came, and Phoebe laid it on the fat one with
fingers that trembled a little. Phoebe had a letter of her own, that
day. Both were thin, and the addresses were more scrawly than usual.
Phoebe's Indian instinct warned her that something was amiss.
This was Ward's letter:
"Oh, God, Ward, mommie's dead. She died last night. I thought she was
asleep till the nurse came in at five o'clock. I'm all alone and I
don't know what to do. I wish you could come, but if you don't get
this right away, I'll see you at the ranch. I'm coming home as soon as
I can. Oh, Ward, I hate life and God and everything. BILLY LOUISE."
"Please Ward, stay at the ranch till I come. I want to see you. I
feel as if you're the only friend I've got left, now mommie's gone.
She looked so peaceful when they took her away--and so strange. I
didn't belong to her any more. I felt as if I didn't know her at
all--and there is such an awful gap in my life--maybe you'll
understand. You always do."
The day that letter was written, Ward drew a plan of the house he meant
to build some day, with a wide porch on the front, where a hammock
would swing comfortably. He figured upon lumber and shingles and rock
foundation, and mortar for a big, deep fireplace. He managed to put in
the whole forenoon planning and making estimates, and he was so
cheerful afterwards that he whistled and sang, and later he tied a
piece of jerky on the end of a string and teased a fat fieldmouse,
whose hunger made him venturesome. Ward would throw the jerky as far
as the string would permit and wait till the mouse came out to nibble
at it; then he would pull the meat closer and closer to the bed and
laugh at the very evident perturbation of the mouse. For the time
being he was a boy indulging his love of teasing something.
And while Ward played with that mouse, Billy Louise was longing for his
comforting presence while she faced alone one of the bitterest things
in life--which is death. He had no presentiment of her need of him,
which was just as well, since he was absolutely powerless to help her.