HOW THICK IS BLOOD?
No sterner figure ever rode the Bad Lands than Jeremiah Lambert appeared
eight days after his escape out of his enemies' hands. The last five
days of his internment he had spent in his own quarters, protesting to
Vesta that he was no longer an invalid, and that further receipt of her
tender ministrations would amount to obtaining a valuable consideration
by false pretense.
This morning as he rode about his duty the scar left by Jim Wilder's
knife in his cheek never had appeared so prominent. It cast over all his
face a shadow of grimness, and imparted to it an aged and seasoned
appearance not warranted by either his experience or his years. Although
he had not carried any superfluous flesh before his night of torture, he
was lighter now by many pounds.
Not a handsome man that day, not much about him to recall the
red-faced, full-blooded agent of the All-in-One who had pushed his
bicycle into the Syndicate camp that night, guided by Taterleg's song.
But there was a look of confidence in his eyes that had not been his in
those days, which he considered now as far distant and embryonic; there
was a certainty in his hand that made him a man in a man's place
anywhere in the extreme exactions of that land.
Vesta was firm in her intention of giving up the ranch and leaving the
Bad Lands as soon as she could sell the cattle. With that program ahead
of him, Lambert was going this morning to look over the herd and
estimate the number of cattle ready for market, that he might place his
order for cars.
He didn't question the wisdom of reducing the herd, for that was good
business; but it hurt him to have Vesta leave there with drooping
feathers, acknowledging to the brutal forces which had opposed the ranch
so long that she was beaten. He would have her go after victory over
them, for it was no place for Vesta. But he would like for her to stay
until he had broken their opposition, and compelled them to take off
their hats to her fence.
He swore as he rode this morning that he would do it. Vesta should not
clean out the cattle, lock the lonesome ranchhouse, abandon the barns
and that vast investment of money to the skulking wolves who waited only
such a retreat to sneak in and despoil the place. He had fixed in his
mind the intention, firm as a rock in the desert that defied storm and
disintegration, to bring every man of that gang up to the wire fence in
his turn and bend him before it, or break him if he would not bend.
This accomplished, the right of the fence established on such terms that
it would be respected evermore, Vesta might go, if she desired. Surely
it would be better for her, a pearl in those dark waters where her
beauty would corrode and her soul would suffer in the isolation too hard
for one of her fine harmony to bear. Perhaps she would turn the ranch
over to him to run, with a band of sheep which he could handle and
increase on shares, after the custom of that business, to the profit of
both.
He had speculated on this eventuality not a little during the days of
his enforced idleness. This morning the thought was so strong in him
that it amounted almost to a plan. Maybe there was a face in these
calculations, a face illumined by clear, dark eyes, which seemed to
strain over the brink of the future and beckon him on. Blood might stand
between them, and differences almost irreconcilable, but the face
withdrew never.
It was evening before he worked through the herd and made it round to
the place where Grace Kerr had cut the fence. There was no message for
him. Without foundation for his disappointment, he was disappointed. He
wondered if she had been there, and bent in his saddle to examine the
ground across the fence.
There were tracks of a horse, but whether old or new he was not educated
enough yet in range-craft to tell. He looked toward the hill from which
he had watched her ride to cut the fence, hoping she might appear. He
knew that this hope was traitorous to his employer, he felt that his
desire toward this girl was unworthy, but he wanted to see her and hear
her speak.
Foolish, also, to yield to that desire to let down the fence where he
had hooked the wire and ride out to see if he could find her. Still,
there was so little probability of seeing her that he was not ashamed,
only for the twinge of a disloyal act, as he rode toward the hill, his
long shadow ambling beside him, a giant horseman on a mammoth steed.
He returned from this little sentimental excursion feeling somewhat like
a sneak. The country was empty of Grace Kerr. In going out to seek her
in the folly of a romance too trivial for a man of his serious mien, he
was guilty of an indiscretion deserving Vesta Philbrook's deepest scorn.
He burned with his own shame as he dismounted to adjust the wire, like
one caught in a reprehensible deed, and rode home feeling foolishly
small. Kerr! He should hate the name.
But when he came to shaving by lamplight that night, and lifted out his
pied calfskin vest to find his strop, the little handkerchief brought
all the old remembrances, the old tenderness, back in a sentimental
flood. He fancied there was still a fragrance of violet perfume about it
as he held it tenderly and pressed it to his cheek after a furtive
glance around. He folded it small, put it in a pocket of the garment,
which he hung on the foot of his bed.
An inspiration directed the act. Tomorrow he would ride forth clothed in
the calfskin vest, with the bright handkerchief that he had worn on the
Sunday at Misery when he won Grace Kerr's scented trophy. For
sentimental reasons only; purely sentimental reasons.
No, he was not a handsome man any longer, he confessed, grinning at the
admission, rather pleased to have it as it was. That scar gave him a
cast of ferocity which his heart did not warrant, for, inwardly, he
said, he knew he was as gentle as a dove. But if there was any doubt in
her mind, granted that he had changed a good deal since she first saw
him, the calfskin vest and the handkerchief would settle it. By those
signs she would know him, if she had doubted before.
Not that she had doubted. As her anger and fear of him had passed that
morning, recognition had come, and with recognition, confidence. He
would take a look out that way in the morning. Surely a man had a right
to go into the enemy's country and get a line on what was going on
against him. So as he shaved he planned, arguing loudly for himself to
drown the cry of treason that his conscience raised.
Tomorrow he would take a further look through the herd and conclude his
estimate. Then he'd have to go to Glendora and order cars for the first
shipment. Vesta wouldn't be able to get all of them off for many weeks.
It would mean several trips to Chicago for him, with a crew of men to
take care of the cattle along the road. It might be well along into the
early fall before he had them thinned down to calves and cows not ready
for market.
He shaved and smoothed his weathered face, turning his eyes now and
again to his hairy vest with a feeling of affection in him for the
garment that neither its worth nor its beauty warranted. Sentimental
reasons always outweigh sensible ones as long as a man is young.
He rode along the fence next morning on his way to the herd, debating
whether he should leave a note on the wire. He was not in such a soft
and sentimental mood this morning, for sense had rallied to him and
pointed out the impossibility of harmony between himself and one so
nearly related to a man who had attempted to burn him alive. It seemed
to him now that the recollection of those poignant moments would rise to
stand between them, no matter how gentle or far removed from the source
of her being she might appear.
These gloomy speculations rose and left him like a flock of somber birds
as he lifted the slope. Grace Kerr herself was riding homeward, just
mounting the hill over which she must pass in a moment and disappear. He
unhooked the wire and rode after her. At the hilltop she stopped,
unaware of his coming, and looked back. He waved his hat; she waited.
"Have you been sick, Duke?" she inquired, after greetings, looking him
over with concern.
"My horse bit me," said he, passing it off with that old stock
pleasantry of the range, which covered anything and everything that a
man didn't want to explain.
"I missed you along here," she said. She swept him again with that slow,
puzzled look of inquiry, her eyes coming back to his face in a frank,
unembarrassed stare. "Oh, I know what it is now! You're dressed like you
were that day at Misery. I couldn't make it out for a minute."
She was not wearing her mannish garb this morning, but divided skirts of
corduroy and a white waist with a bit of bright color at the neck. Her
white sombrero was the only masculine touch about her, and that rather
added to her quick, dark prettiness.
"You were wearing a white waist the first time I saw you," he said.
"This one," she replied, touching it with simple motion of full
identification.
Neither of them mentioned the mutual recognition on the day she had been
caught cutting the fence. They talked of commonplace things, as youth is
constrained to do when its heart and mind are centered on something else
which burns within it, the flame of which it cannot cover from any eyes
but its own. Life on the range, its social disadvantages, its rough
diversions, these they spoke of, Lambert's lips dry with his eagerness
to tell her more.
How quickly it had laid hold of him again at sight of her, this
unreasonable longing! The perfume of his romance suffused her, purging
away all that was unworthy.
"I trembled every second that day for fear your horse would break
through the platform and throw you," she said, suddenly coming back to
the subject that he wanted most to discuss.
"I didn't think of it till a good while afterward," he said in slow
reflection.
"I didn't suppose I'd ever see you again, and, of course, I never once
thought you were the famous Duke of Chimney Butte I heard so much about
when I got home."
"More notorious than famous, I'm afraid, Miss Kerr."
"Jim Wilder used to work for us; I knew him well."
Lambert bent his head, a shadow of deepest gravity falling like a cloud
over the animation which had brightened his features but a moment
before. He sat in contemplative silence a little while, his voice low
when he spoke.
"Even though he deserved it, I've always been sorry it happened."
"Well, if you're sorry, I guess you're the only one. Jim was a bad kid.
Where's that horse you raced the train on?"
"I'm resting him up a little."
"You had him out here the other day."
"Yes. I crippled him up a little since then."
"I'd like to have that horse. Do you want to sell him, Duke?"
"There's not money enough made to buy him!" Lambert returned, lifting
his head quickly, looking her in the eyes so directly that she colored,
and turned her head to cover her confusion.
"You must think a lot of him when you talk like that."
"He's done me more than one good turn, Miss Kerr," he explained, feeling
that she must have read his harsh thoughts. "He saved my life only a
week ago. But that's likely to happen to any man," he added quickly,
making light of it.
"Saved your life?" said she, turning her clear, inquiring eyes on him
again in that expression of wonder that was so vast in them. "How did he
save your life, Duke?"
"I guess I was just talking," said he, wishing he had kept a better
hold on his tongue. "You know we have a fool way of saying a man's life
was saved in very trivial things. I've known people to declare that a
drink of whisky did that for them."
She lifted her brows as she studied his face openly and with such a
directness that he flushed in confusion, then turned her eyes away
slowly.
"I liked him that day he outran the flier; I've often thought of him
since then."
Lambert looked off over the wild landscape, the distant buttes softened
in the haze that seemed to presage the advance of autumn, considering
much. When he looked into her face again it was with the harshness gone
out of his eyes.
"I wouldn't sell that horse to any man, but I'd give him to you, Grace."
She started a little when he pronounced her name, wondering, perhaps,
how he knew it, her eyes growing great in the pleasure of his generous
declaration. She urged her horse nearer with an impetuous movement and
gave him her hand.
"I didn't mean for you to take it that way, Duke, but I appreciate it
more than I can tell you."
Her eyes were earnest and soft with a mist of gratitude that seemed to
rise out of her heart. He held her hand a moment, feeling that he was
being drawn nearer to her lips, as if he must touch them, and rise
refreshed to face the labors of his life.
"I started out on him to look for you, expecting to ride him to the
Pacific, and maybe double back. I didn't know where I'd have to go, but
I intended to go on till I found you."
"It seemed almost a joke," she said, "that we were so near each other
and you didn't know it."
She laughed, not seeming to feel the seriousness of it as he felt it. It
is the woman who laughs always in these little life-comedies of ours.
"I'll give him to you, Grace, when he picks up again. Any other horse
will do me now. He carried me to the end of my road; he brought me to
you."
She turned her head, and he hadn't the courage in him to look and see
whether it was to hide a smile.
"You don't know me, Duke; maybe you wouldn't--maybe you'll regret you
ever started out to find me at all."
His courage came up again; he leaned a little nearer, laying his hand on
hers where it rested on her saddle-horn.
"You wanted me to come, didn't you, Grace?"
"I hoped you might come sometime, Duke."
He rode with her when she set out to return home to the little valley
where he had interposed to prevent a tragedy between her and Vesta
Philbrook. Neither of them spoke of that encounter. It was avoided in
silence as a thing of which both were ashamed.
"Will you be over this way again, Grace?" he asked when he stopped to
part.
"I expect I will, Duke."
"Tomorrow, do you think?"
"Not tomorrow," shaking her head in the pretty way she had of doing it
when she spoke in negation, like an earnest child.
"Maybe the next day?"
"I expect I may come then, Duke--or what is your real name?"
"Jeremiah. Jerry, if you like it better."
She pursed her lips in comical seriousness, frowning a little as if
considering it weightily. Then she looked at him in frank comradeship,
her dark eyes serious, nodding her head.
"I'll just call you Duke."
He left her with the feeling that he had known her many years. Blood
between them? What was blood? Thicker than water? Nay, impalpable as
smoke.