A YEAR'S MAIL
The beef herd was safely delivered at Bender, the feeders disposed of
at Moroni, and the checks sent on to the absentee owner, who did not
know a steer from a stag; the _rodeo_ hands were paid off and
successfully launched upon their big drunk; bills were paid and the
Summer's supplies ordered in, and then at last the superintendent and
_rodeo_ boss settled down to a little domesticity.
Since the day that Hardy had declined to drink with him Creede had
quietly taken to water, and he planted a bag of his accumulated wages
in a corner of the mud floor, to see, as he facetiously expressed it,
if it would grow. Mr. Bill Johnson had also saved his "cow money" from
Black Tex and banked it with Hardy, who had a little cache of his own,
as well. With their finances thus nicely disposed of the two partners
swept the floor, cleaned up the cooking dishes, farmed out their
laundry to a squaw, and set their house in order generally. They were
just greasing up their _reatas_ for a run after the wild horses of
Bronco Mesa when Rafael pulled in with a wagon-load of supplies and
destroyed their peaceful life.
It was late when the grinding and hammering of wheels upon the
boulders of the creek-bed announced his near approach and Creede went
out to help unload the provisions. A few minutes later he stepped into
the room where Hardy was busily cooking and stood across the table
from him with his hands behind his back, grinning mischievously.
"Rufe," he said, "you've got a girl."
Hardy looked up quickly and caught the significance of his pose, but
he did not smile. He did not even show an interest in the play.
"How do you figure that out?" he asked, indifferently.
"Oh, I know," drawled Creede. "Got a letter from her."
A single hawk-like glance was the only answer to this sally.
"She says: 'Why the hell don't you write!'" volunteered the cowboy.
"'S that so!" commented Hardy, and then he went on with his cooking.
For a minute Creede stood watching him, his eyes keen to detect the
slightest quaver, but the little man seemed suddenly to have forgotten
him; he moved about absently, mechanically, dropping nothing, burning
nothing, yet far away, as in a dream.
"Huh!" exclaimed Creede, disgusted with his own make-believe, "you
don't seem to care whether school keeps or not. I'll excuse you from
any further work this evenin'--here's your mail."
He drew a bundle of letters from behind his back and dropped it
heavily upon the table, but even then Hardy did not rise.
"Guess the Old Man must've forwarded my mail," he remarked, smiling at
the size of the pack. "I've been knocking around so, I haven't
received a letter in a year. Chuck 'em on my desk, will ye?"
"Sure," responded Creede, and stepping across the broad living-room he
threw the bundle carelessly on the bed.
"You're like me," he remarked, drawing his chair up sociably to
supper, "I ain't got a letter fer so long I never go near the dam'
post office."
He sighed, and filled his plate with beans.
"Ever been in St. Louis?" he inquired casually. "No? They say it's a
fine burg. Think I'll save up my _dinero_ and try it a whirl some
day."
The supper table was cleared and Creede had lit his second cigarette
before Hardy reverted to the matter of his mail.
"Well," he said, "I might as well look over those letters--may be a
thousand-dollar check amongst them."
Then, stepping into his room, he picked up the package, examined it
curiously, and cut the cords with his knife.
A sheaf of twenty or more letters spilled out and, sitting on the edge
of the bed, he shuffled them over in the uncertain light of the fire,
noting each inscription with a quick glance; and as he gathered up the
last he quietly tucked three of them beneath the folds of his
blankets--two in the same hand, bold and dashing yet stamped with a
certain feminine delicacy and grace, and each envelope of a pale blue;
the third also feminine, but inscribed in black and white, a crooked
little hand that strayed across the page, yet modestly shrank from
trespassing on the stamp.
With the remainder of his mail Hardy blundered over to the table,
dumping the loose handful in a great pile before the weak glimmer of
the lamp.
"There," he said, as Creede blinked at the heap, "I reckon that's mail
enough for both of us. You can read the advertisements and I'll see
what the judge has to say for himself. Pitch in, now." He waved his
hand towards a lot of business envelopes, but Creede shook his head
and continued to smoke dreamily.
"Nope," he said briefly, "don't interest me."
He reached out and thumbed the letters over dumbly, spelling out a
long word here and there or scrutinizing some obscure handwriting
curiously, as if it were Chinese, or an Indian sign on a rock. Then,
shoving back his chair, he watched Hardy's face as he skimmed rapidly
through the first letter.
"Good news in the first part of it and bad in the last," he remarked,
as Hardy put it down.
"That's right," admitted Hardy, "but how'd you know?"
He gazed up at his complacent partner with a look of innocent wonder,
and Creede laughed.
"W'y, hell boy," he said, "I can read you like a book. Your face tells
the whole story as you go along. After you've been down here in
Arizona a few seasons and got them big eyes of yourn squinched down a
little--well, I may have to ast you a few questions, then."
He waved his hand in a large gesture and blew out a cloud of smoke,
while a twinkle of amusement crept into Hardy's unsquinched eyes.
"Maybe I'm smoother than I look," he suggested dryly. "You big, fat
fellows get so self-satisfied sometimes that you let lots of things go
by you."
"Well, I'll take my chances on you," answered Creede placidly. "What
did the old judge say?"
"He says you did fine with the cattle," said Hardy, "and sold 'em just
in time--the market fell off within a week after we shipped."
"Um-huh," grunted Creede. "And what's the bad bunch of news at the
end?"
The bad bunch of news was really of a personal nature, stirring up
unpleasant memories, but Hardy passed it off by a little benevolent
dissimulation.
"He says he's mighty glad I steered the sheep away, but there is
something funny going on back in Washington; some combine of the sheep
and lumber interests has got in and blocked the whole Forest Reserve
business and there won't be any Salagua Forest Reserve this year. So I
guess my job of sheep-wrangler is going to hold; at least the judge
asked me to stay with it until Fall."
"Well, you stay then, Rufe," said Creede earnestly, "because
I've kinder got stuck on you--I like your style," he added half
apologetically.
"All right, Jeff," said Hardy. "Here's another letter--from my father.
See if you can guess what it is like."
He set his face rigidly and read the short letter through without a
quaver.
"You and the Old Man have had a fallin'-out," observed Creede, with a
shrewd grin, "and he says when you git good and tired of bein' a dam'
fool you might as well come home."
"Well, that's about the size of it," admitted Hardy. "I never told you
much about my father, did I?"
"Never knew you had one," said Creede, "until Bill Johnson began to
blow about what an Injun-fighter he was. I reckon that's where you git
your sportin' blood, ain't it?"
"Well, I'll tell you," began Hardy. "The Old Man and I never did get
along together. He's used to commanding soldiers and all that, and I'm
kind of quiet, but he always took a sneaking pride in me when I was a
boy, I guess. Anyway, every time I'd get into a fight around the post
and lick two or three Mexican kids, or do some good work riding or
shooting, he'd say I'd be a man before my mother, or something like
that--but that was as far as he got. And all the time, on the quiet,
he was educating me for the Army. His father was a captain, and he's a
colonel, and I can see now he was lotting on my doing as well or
better--but hell, that only made matters worse."
He slid down in his chair and gazed into the fire gloomily. It was the
first time Creede had heard his partner use even the mildest of the
range expletives, for in that particular he was still a tenderfoot,
and the word suddenly conveyed to him the depths of the little man's
abandonment and despair.
"Why--what was the matter?" he inquired sympathetically. "Couldn't you
git no appointment?"
"Huh!" growled Hardy. "I guess you know, all right. Look at me!" he
exclaimed, in a sudden gust of passion and resentment. "Why, damn it,
man, I'm an inch too short!"
"Well--I'll--be--dogged!" breathed Creede. "I never thought of that!"
"No," rejoined Hardy bitterly, "nor the Old Man, either--not until I
stopped growing! Well, he hasn't had a bit of use for me since. That's
the size of it. And he didn't take any pains to conceal the fact--most
army men don't. There's only one man in the world to them, and that's
a soldier; and if you're not a soldier, you're nothing."
He waved a hand as if dismissing himself from the universe, and sank
moodily into his seat, while Creede looked him over in silence.
"Rufe," he said quietly, "d'ye remember that time when I picked you to
be boss sheep-wrangler, down at Bender? Well, I might as well tell you
about that now--'t won't do no harm. The old judge couldn't figure out
what it was I see in you to recommend you for the job. Like's not you
don't know yourself. _He_ thought I was pickin' you because you was a
peaceful guy, and wouldn't fight Black Tex; but that's where he got
fooled, and fooled bad! I picked you because I knew dam' well you
_would_ fight!"
He leaned far over across the table and his eyes glowed with a fierce
light.
"D'ye think I want some little suckin' mamma's-joy of a diplomat on my
hands when it comes to a show-down with them sheepmen?" he cried. "No,
by God, I want a _man_, and you're the boy, Rufe; so shake!"
He rose and held out his hand. Hardy took it.
"I wouldn't have sprung this on you, pardner," he continued
apologetically, "if I didn't see you so kinder down in the mouth about
your old man. But I jest want you to know that they's one man that
appreciates you for a plain scrapper. And I'll tell you another thing;
when the time comes you'll look jest as big over the top of a
six-shooter as I do, and stand only half the chanst to git hit. W'y,
shucks!" he exclaimed magnanimously, "my size is agin' me at every
turn; my horse can't hardly pack me, I eat such a hell of a lot, and,
well, I never can git a pair of pants to fit me. What's this here
letter?"
He picked one up at random, and Hardy ascertained that his tailor some
six months previously had moved to a new and more central location,
where he would be pleased to welcome all his old customers. But the
subject of diminutive size was effectually dismissed and, having
cheered up his little friend as best he could, Creede seized the
occasion to retire. Lying upon his broad back in his blankets, with
Tommy purring comfortably in the hollow of his arm, he smoked out his
cigarette in speculative silence, gazing up at the familiar stars
whose wheelings mark off the cowboy's night, and then dropped quietly
to sleep, leaving his partner to brood over his letters alone.
For a long time he sat there, opening them one by one--the vague and
indifferent letters which drift in while one is gone; and at last he
stole silently across the dirt floor and brought out the three letters
from his bed. There in a moment, if he had been present, Creede might
have read him like a book; his lips drawn tight, his eyes big and
staring, as he tore open one of the pale blue envelopes with trembling
hands. The fragments of a violet, shattered by the long journey, fell
before him as he plucked out the note, and its delicate fragrance rose
up like incense as he read. He hurried through the missive, as if
seeking something which was not there, then his hungry eyes left the
unprofitable page and wandered about the empty room, only to come back
to those last words: "Always your Friend, Kitty Bonnair."
"Always your friend," he repeated bitterly--"always your friend. Ah,
God!" He sighed wearily and shook his head. For a moment he lapsed
into dreams; then, reaching out, he picked up the second letter,
postmarked over a year before, and examined it idly. The very hour of
its collection was recorded--"Ferry Sta. 1.30 A. M."--and the date he
could never forget. Written on that very same day, and yet its message
had never reached him!
He could see as in a vision the shrouded form of Kitty Bonnair
slipping from her door at midnight to fling a final word after him,
not knowing how far he would flee; he could see the lonely mail
collector, half obscured in the San Francisco fog, as he scooped the
letter from the box with many others and boarded the car for the
ferry. It was a last retort, and likely bitter, for he had spoken in
anger himself, and Kitty was not a woman to be denied. There was an
exaggerated quirk to the square corners of her letters, a brusque
shading of the down strokes--undoubtedly Kitty was angry. But for once
he had disarmed her--it was a year after, now, and he had read her
forgiveness first! Yet it was with a strange sinking of the heart that
he opened the blue envelope and stared at the scribbled words:
DEAR FRIEND THAT WAS: My heart is very sore to-night--I had trusted
you so--I had depended upon you so--and now you have deliberately
broken all your faith and promises. Rufus, I had thought you
different from other men--more gentle, more considerate, more capable
of a true friendship which I fondly hoped would last forever--but now,
oh, I can never forgive you! Just when life was heaviest with
disappointments, just when I was leaning upon you most as a true
friend and comrade--then you must needs spoil it all. And after I had
told you I could never love any one! Have you forgotten all that I
told you in the balcony? Have you forgotten all that I have risked for
the friendship I held so dear? And then to spoil it all! Oh, I hate
you--I hate you!
He stopped and stiffened in his chair, and his eyes turned wild with
horror; then he gathered his letters together blindly and crept away
to bed. In the morning he arose and went about his work with
mouse-like quietness, performing all things thoroughly and well,
talking, even laughing, yet with a droop like that of a wounded
creature that seeks only to hide and escape.
Creede watched him furtively, hung around the house for a while, then
strode out to the pasture and caught up his horse.
"Be back this aft," he said, and rode majestically away up the canyon,
where he would be out of the way. For men, too, have their instincts
and intuitions, and they are even willing to leave alone that which
they cannot remedy and do not understand.
As Creede galloped off, leaving the ranch of a sudden lonely and
quiet, Tommy poked his head anxiously out through a slit in the canvas
bottom of the screen door and began to cry--his poor cracked voice,
all broken from calling for help from the coyotes, quavering dismally.
In his most raucous tones he continued this lament for his master
until at last Hardy gathered him up and held him to his breast.
"Ah, Kitty, Kitty," he said, and at the caressing note in his voice
the black cat began to purr hoarsely, raising his scrawny head in the
ecstasy of being loved. Thief and reprobate though he was, and sadly
given to leaping upon the table and flying spitefully at dogs, even
that rough creature felt the need of love; how much more the
sensitive and high-bred man, once poet and scholar, now cowboy and
sheep-wrangler, but always the unhappy slave of Kitty Bonnair.
The two letters lay charred to ashes among the glowing coals, but
their words, even the kindest meant, were seared deep in his heart,
fresh hurts upon older scars, and as he sat staring at the gaunt
_sahuaros_ on the hilltops he meditated gloomily upon his reply. Then,
depositing Tommy on the bed, he sat down at his desk before the
iron-barred window and began to write.
DEAR FRIEND THAT WAS: Your two letters came together--the one that
you have just sent, and the one written on that same night, which
I hope I may some day forget. It was not a very kind letter--I am
sorry that I should ever have offended you, but it was not gently
done. No friend could ever speak so to another, I am sure. As for
the cause, I am a human being, a man like other men, and I am not
ashamed. Yet that I should so fail to read your mind I am ashamed.
Perhaps it was my egotism, which made me over-bold, thinking that
any woman could love me. But if what I offered was nothing to you,
if even for a moment you hated me, it is enough. Now for all this
talk of friendship--I am not your friend and never will be; and
if, after what has passed, you are my friend, I ask but one
thing--let me forget. For I will never come back, I will never
write, I will never submit. Surely, with all that life offers you,
you can spare me the humiliation of being angry with you.
I am now engaged in work which, out of consideration for Judge
Ware, I cannot leave; otherwise I would not ask you not to write
to me.
Trusting that you will remember me kindly to your mother, I
remain, sincerely,
Rufus Hardy.
He signed his name at the bottom, folded the sheet carefully, and
thrust the sealed envelope into an inner pocket. Then for the first
time, he drew out the third letter and spread its pages before him--a
long letter, full of news, yet asking no questions. The tense lines
about his lips relaxed as he read, he smiled whimsically as he heard
of the queer doings of his old-time friends; how these two had run
away and got married in order to escape a church wedding, how Tupper
Browne had painted a likeness of Mather in Hades--after the "Dante" of
Dore--and had been detected in the act; and then this little note,
cued in casually near the end:
Kitty Bonnair has given up art for the present on account of her
eyes, and has gone in for physical culture and riding lessons in
the park. She dropped in at the last meeting of The Circle, and I
told her how curiously father had encountered you at Bender. We
all miss you very much at The Circle--in fact, it is not doing so
well of late. Kitty has not attended a meeting in months, and I
often wonder where we may look for another Poet, Philosopher, and
Friend--unless you will come back! Father did not tell me where
you had been or what you intended to do, but I hope you have not
given up the Muse. To encourage you I will send down a book, now
and then, and you may send me a poem. Is it a bargain? Then
good-bye.
With best wishes,
LUCY WARE.
P. S.--I met your father on the street the other day, and he
seemed very much pleased to hear how well you were getting along.
Hardy put the letter down and sighed.
"Now there's a thoroughly nice girl," he said. "I wonder why she
doesn't get married." Then, reaching for a fresh sheet of paper, he
began to write, describing the beauty of the country; the noble
qualities of his horse, Chapuli, the Grasshopper; the march of the
vast army of sheep; Creede, Tommy, and whatnot, with all the pent-up
enthusiasm of a year's loneliness. When it was ended he looked at the
letter with a smile, wondering whether to send it by freight or
express. Six cents in stamps was the final solution of the problem,
and as his pocketbook contained only four he stuck them on and awaited
his partner's return.
"Say, Jeff," he called, as Creede came in from the pasture, "have you
got any stamps?"
"Any which?" inquired Creede suspiciously.
"Any postage stamps--to put on letters."
"Huh!" exclaimed Creede. "You must think I've got a girl--or important
business in the States. No, I'll tell you. The only stamp I've got is
in a glass frame, hung up on the wall--picture of George Washington,
you know. Haven't you never seen it? W'y, it's right there in the
parler--jest above the pianney--and a jim-dandy piece of steel
engraving she is, too." He grinned broadly as he concluded this
running fire of jest, but his partner remained serious to the end.
"Well," he said, "I guess I'll go down to Moroni in the morning,
then."
"What ye goin' down there for?" demanded Creede incredulously.
"Why, to buy a stamp, of course," replied Hardy, "it's only forty
miles, isn't it?" And early in the morning, true to his word, he
saddled up Chapuli and struck out down the river.
From the doorway Creede watched him curiously, his lips parted in a
dubious smile.
"There's something funny goin' on here, ladies," he observed sagely,
"something funny--and I'm dogged if I savvy what it is." He stooped
and scooped up Tommy in one giant paw. "Well, Tom, Old Socks," he
said, holding him up where he could sniff delicately at the rafters,
"you've got a pretty good nose, how about it, now--can you smell a
rat?" But even Tommy could not explain why a man should ride forty
miles in order to buy a stamp.