Two 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 all suffering 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. Without a 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, to his 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 loved
the 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.