TONGUES WAG
It was afternoon the next day that Bruce Bayard, swinging down from his
horse, whipped the dust from his clothing with his hat and walked
through the kitchen door of the Manzanita House.
"Hello, Nora," he said to the girl who approached him. "Got a little
clean water for a dirty cow puncher?"
He kicked out of his chaps and, dropping his hat to the floor, reached
for the dipper. The girl, after a brief greeting, stood looking at him
in perplexed speculation.
"What's wrong, Sister? You look mighty mournful this afternoon!"
"Bruce, what do you know about Ned Lytton?" she asked, cautiously,
looking about to see that no one could overhear.
"Why? What do _you_ know about him?"
"Well, his wife's here; you took him upstairs with you that night dead
drunk, you went home and he was gone before any of us was up. She ...
she's worried to fits about him. Everybody's tryin' to put her off his
track, 'cause they feel sorry for her; they think he's probably gone
back to his mine to sober up, but nobody wants to see her follow and
find out what he is. Nobody thinks she knows how he's been actin'.
"You know, they think that she's his sister. I don't."
He scooped water from the shallow basin and buried his face in the
cupped hands that held it, rubbing and blowing furiously.
"That's what I come to town for, Nora, because I suspected she'd be
worryin'." To himself he thought, "Sister! That helps!"
"You mean, you know where he is?"
"Yeah,"--nodding his head as he wiped his hands--"I took him home. I got
him there in bed an' I come to town th' first chance I got to tell her
he's gettin' along fine."
"That was swell of you, Bruce," she said, with an admiring smile.
He shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly.
"Yes, it was!" she insisted. "To do it for her. She's th' sweetest thing
ever come into this town, an' he's...."
She ended by making a wry face.
"You had a run-in with him, didn't you?" he asked, as if casually, and
the girl looked at him sharply.
"How'd you know?"
"He's been kind of nutty an' said somethin' about it."
A pause.
"He come in here last week, Bruce, drunk. He made a grab for me an' said
somethin' fresh an' he was so crazy, so awful lookin', that it scart me
for a minute. I told him to keep away or you'd knock all th' poison out
of him. He ... You see,"--apologetically--"I was scart an' I knew that
was th' easiest way out--to tell him you'd get after him. You ... Th'
worst of 'em back up when they think you're likely to land on 'em."
He reached out and pinched her cheek, smiled and shook his head with
mock seriousness.
"Lordy, Sister, you'd make me out a hell-winder of a bad man, wouldn't
you?"
"Not much! 'N awful good man, Bruce. That's what puts a crimp in
'em--your goodness!"
He flushed at that.
"Tryin' to josh me now, ain't you?" he laughed. "Well, josh away, but if
any of 'em get fresh with you an' I'll ... I'll have th' sheriff on
'em!"--with a twinkle in his gray eyes. Then he sobered.
"I s'pose I'd better go up to her room now," he said, an uneasy manner
coming over him. "She'll be glad to know he's gettin' along so well....
"So everybody thinks she's his sister, do they?"--with an effort to make
his question sound casual and as an afterthought.
"Yes, they do. I'm th' only one who's guessed she's his wife an' I kept
my mouth shut. Rest of 'em all swear she couldn't be, that's she's his
sister, 'cause she ... well, she ain't th' kind that would marry a
thing like that. I didn't say nothin'. I let 'em think as they do; but I
know! No sister would worry th' way she does!"
"You're a wise gal," he said, "an' when you said she was th' sweetest
thing that ever come to this town you wasn't so awful wrong."
He opened the door and closed it behind him.
In the middle of the kitchen floor the girl stood alone, motionless, her
eyes glowing, pulses quickened. Then, the keen light went from her face;
its expression became doggedly patient, as if she were confronted by a
long, almost hopeless undertaking, and with a sigh she turned to her
tasks.
Patient Nora! As Bayard had closed the door behind him unthinkingly, so
had he closed the door to his heart against the girl. All her crude,
timid advances had failed to impress him, so detached from response to
sex attraction was his interest in her. And for months she had
waited ... waited, finding solace in the fact that no other woman stood
closer to him; but now ... she feared an unnamed influence.
Ann Lytton, staring at the page of a book, heard his boots on the stair.
He mounted slowly, spurs ringing lightly with each step, and, when he
was halfway up, she rose to her feet, walked to the door of her room and
stood watching him come down the narrow, dark hallway, filling it with
his splendid height, his unusual breadth.
They spoke no greeting. She merely backed into the room and Bruce
followed with a show of slight embarrassment. Yet his gaze was full on
her, steady, searching, intent. Only when she stopped and held out her
hand did his manner of looking at her change. Then, he smiled and met
her firm grasp with a hand that was cold and which trembled ever so
slightly.
"He ... is he ..." she began in an uncertain voice.
"He's doin' fine, ma'am," he said, and her fingers tightened on his,
sending a thrill up his arm and making its muscles contract to draw her
a bit closer to him. "He's doin' fine," he repeated, relinquishing his
grasp. "He's feelin' better an' lookin' better an' he'll begin to gain
strength right off."
An inarticulate exclamation of gladness broke from her.
"Oh, it's been an age!" she said, smiling wanly and shaking her head
slowly as she looked up into his face. "Every hour has seemed a day,
every day a week. I didn't dare, didn't dare think; and I've hoped so
long, with so little result that I didn't dare hope!"
She bowed her head and held her folded hands against her mouth. For a
moment they were so, the cowboy looking down at her with a restless,
covetous light in his eyes and it was the impulsive lifting of one hand
as though he would stroke the blue-black braids that roused her.
"Come, sit down," she said, indicating a chair opposite hers by the
open window. "I want you to tell me everything and I want to ask you if
it isn't best that I go to him now.
"Now, from the beginning, please!"
He looked into her eyes as though he did not hear her words. Her
expression of eager anticipation changed; her look wavered, she left off
meeting his gaze and Bayard, with a start, moved in his chair.
"There ain't much to tell," he mumbled. "I got him home easy enough an'
sent th' team back that day by a friend of mine who happened along...."
Her eyes returned to his face, riveting there with an impersonal
earnestness that would not be challenged. Her red lips were parted as
she sat with elbows on knees in the low rocker before him. It was his
gaze, now, that wavered, but he hastened on with his recital of what he
thought best to tell about what had occurred at his ranch in the last
two days.
From time to time he glanced at her and on every occasion the mounting
appreciation of her beauty, the unfaltering earnestness of her desire to
learn every detail about her husband, the wonder that her sort could
remain devoted to Ned Lytton's kind, combined to enrage him, to make him
rebel hotly, even as he talked, at thought of such impossible human
relations, and he was on the point of giving vent to his indignation
when he remembered with a decided shock that on their first meeting she
had told him that she loved her husband. Beyond that, he reasoned,
nothing could be said.
"He's awful weak, of course, but he was quiet," he concluded. "I left
him sleepin' an' I'll get back before he rouses up, it's likely."
"Well, don't you think I might go back with you?" she asked, eagerly.
"Don't you think he's strong enough now, so I might be with him?"
He had expected this and was steeled against it.
"Why, you might, ma'am, if things was different," he said. "It's sort of
rough out there; just a shack, understand, an' you've never lived that
kind of life. There's only one room, an' I...."
"Oh, I hadn't thought of crowding you out! Please don't think I'd
overlook your own comfort."
Her regret was so spontaneous, that he stirred uneasily, for he was not
accustomed to lying.
"Not at all, ma'am. Why, I'd move out an' sleep in th' hills for you, if
I knew it was best ... for you!"
The heart that was in his voice startled her. She sat back in her chair.
"You've been very kind ... so kind!" she said, after a pause.
He fidgetted in his chair and rose.
"Nobody could help bein' kind ... to you, ma'am," he stammered. "If
anybody was anything but kind to you they deserve...."
He realized of a sudden that the man for whose sake she was undergoing
this ordeal had been cruel to her, and checked himself. Because
bitterness surged up within him and he felt that to follow his first
impulses would place him between Ann Lytton and her husband, aligned
against the man in the role of protector.
She divined the reason for his silence and said very gently,
"Remember the cripples!"
He turned toward her so fiercely that she started back, having risen.
"I'm tryin' to!" he cried, with a surprising sharpness. "Tryin' to,
ma'am, every minute; tryin' to remember th' cripples."
He looked about in flushed confusion. Ann stared at him.
His intensity frightened her. The men of her experience would not have
presumed to show such direct interest in her affairs on brief
acquaintance. A deal of conventional sparring and shamming would have
been required for any of them to evince a degree of passion in the
discussion of her predicament; but this man, on their second meeting,
was obviously forced to hold himself firmly, restraining a natural
prompting to step in and adjust matters to accord with his own sense of
right. The girl felt instinctively that his motives were most high, but
his manner was rough and new; she was accustomed to the usual, the
familiar, and, while her confidence in Bayard had been profoundly
aroused, her inherent distrust of strangeness caused her to suspect, to
be reluctant to accept his attitude without reserve. Looking up at her
he read the conflict in her face.
"I'd better go now," he added in a voice from which the vigor had gone.
"I..."
"But you'll let me know about Ned?" she asked, trying to rally her
composure.
"I'll come to-morrow, ma'am," he promised.
"That'll be so kind of you!"
"You don't understand, maybe, that it's no kindness to you," he said.
"It might be somethin' else. Have you thought of that? Have you thought,
ma'am, that maybe I ain't th' kind of man I'm pretendin' to be?"
Then, he walked out before she could answer and she stood alone, his
words augmenting the disquiet his manner had aroused. She moved to the
window, anxiously waiting to see him ride past. He did, a few minutes
later, his head down in thought, his fine, flat shoulders braced
backward, body poised splendidly, light, masterly in the saddle, the
wonderful creature under him moving with long, sure strides. The woman
drew a deep breath and turned back into the room.
"I mustn't ... I mustn't," she whispered.
Then wheeled quickly, snatched back the curtains and pressed her cheek
against the upper panes to catch a last glimpse of him.
* * * * *
Next day Bayard was back and found that the hours Ann had spent alone
had taken their toll and she controlled herself only by continual
repression. He urged her to talk, hoping to start her thinking fresh
thoughts, but she could think, then, only of the present hour. Her
loneliness had again broken down all barriers. Bayard was her confessor,
her talk with him the only outlet for the emotional pressure that
threatened her self-control; that relief was imperative, overriding her
distrust of the day before. For an hour the man listened while she gave
him the dreary details of her married life with that eagerness of the
individual who, for too long a period, has hidden and nursed
heart-breaking troubles. She was only twenty-four and had married at
twenty. A year later Ned's father had died, the boy came into sudden
command of considerable property, lost his head, frittered away the
fortune, drank, could not face the condemnation of his family and fled
West on the pretext of developing the Sunset mine, the last tangible
asset that remained. She tried to cover the entire truth there, but
Bayard knew that Lytton's move was only desertion, for she told of going
to work to support herself, of standing between Ned and his relatives,
of shielding him from the consequences of the misadministration of his
father's estate, of waiting weeks and months for word of him, of denying
herself actual necessities that she might come West on this mission.
At the end she cried and Bayard felt an unholy desire to ride to his
Circle A ranch and do violence to the man who had functioned in this
woman's life as a maker of misery. But he merely sat there and put his
hands under his thighs to keep them from reaching out for the woman, to
comfort her, to claim a place as her protector....
The talk and tears relieved Ann and she smiled bravely at him when he
left; a tenderness was in her face that disturbed him.
Day after day the rancher appeared in Yavapai, each time going directly
to the hotel and to Ann. Many times he talked to her in her room; often,
they were seen together on the veranda; occasionally, they walked short
distances. The eyes of the community were on Ann anyhow, because, being
new, she was intrinsically interesting, but this regularity on the part
of Bayard could not help but attract curious attention and cause gossip,
for in the years people had watched him grow from a child to manhood one
of the accepted facts about him had been his evident lack of interest in
women. To Nora, the waitress, he had given frank, companionable
attention and regarding them was a whispered tradition arising when the
unknown girl arrived in Yavapai and Bruce appeared to be on intimate
terms with her from the first.
But now Nora received little enough of his time. She watched his comings
and goings with a growing concern which she kept in close secret and no
one, unless they had watched ever so closely, would have seen the slow
change that came over the brown haired girl. Her amiable bearing toward
the people she served became slightly forced, her laughter grew a trifle
hard, and, when Bruce was in sight, she kept her eyes on him with steady
inquiry, as one who reads eagerly and yet dreads to know what is
written.
One day the cattleman came from the hotel and crossed the street to the
Yavapai saloon where a dozen men were assembled. Tommy Clary was there
among others and, when they lined up before the bar on Bruce's arrival,
feet on the piece of railroad steel that did service as footrail, Tommy,
with a wink to the man at his right said:
"Now, Bruce, you're just in time to settle 'n argument. All these here
other _hombres_ are sayin' you've lost your head an' are clean skirt
crazy, an' I've been tellin' 'em that you're only tryin' to be a brother
to her. Ain't that right, now? Just back me up, Bruce!"
He stood back and gestured in mock appeal, while the others leaned
forward over the bar at varying degrees that they might see and grinned
in silence. Bayard looked straight before him and the corners of his
mouth twitched in a half smile.
"Who is this lady you're honorin' by hitchin' me up with?" he asked.
"Ho, that's good! I s'pose you don't quite comprehend our meanin'! Well,
I'll help you out. This Lytton girl, sister to our hydrophobia skunk!
They think you're in love, Bruce, but I stick up for you like a friend
ought to. I think you're only brotherly!"
"Why, Tommy, they ought to take your word on anythin' like that," Bayard
countered, turning slowly to face the other. "Th' reason th' _Yavapai
Argus_ perished was 'cause Tom Clary beat th' editor to all th' news,
wasn't it?"
The laugh was on the short cowboy and he joined it heartily.
"But if that's true--that brother stuff--," he said, when he could be
heard, "seems to me you're throwin' in with a fine sample of stalwart
manhood!"
Then they were off on a concerted damnation of Ned Lytton and under its
cover Bayard thanked his stars that Nora had been right, that Yavapai
had been satisfied with jumping at the conclusion that Ann could not be
her husband's wife.
"But I'll tell you, Bruce," went on Tommy, as Bayard started to leave,
"if I was as pretty a fellow as you are, I'd make a play for that gal
myself! If she'd only get to know me an' know 'bout my brains, it'd all
be downhill an' shady. But she won't. You got th' looks; I've got th'
horse power in my head. Can't we form a combination?"
"I'm sort of again' combinations ... where women are concerned," Bruce
answered, and walked out before they could see the seriousness that
possessed him.
On his way out of town Bayard passed two friends but did not look at
them nor appear to hear their salutations. He was a mile up the road
before his absorption gave way to a shake of the head and the following
summing up, spoken to the jogging Abe:
"Gosh, Pardner, back there they've all got me in love with her. I had a
hard time keepin' my head, when they tried to josh me about it. I ain't
ever admitted it to myself, even, but has that--not admittin' it--got
anything to do with it, I wonder? Does it keep it from bein' so? Why
should I get hot, if it ain't true?"
When they were in sight of the ranch, he spoke again,
"How 'n th' name of God can a man help lovin' a woman like that?"
And in answer to the assertion that popped up in his mind, he cried
aloud: "He ain't no man; _he_ ain't ... an' she loves him!"
He put the stallion into a high lope then, partly to relieve the stress
of his thinking, partly because he suddenly realized that he had been
away from the ranch many hours. This was the first time that Lytton had
been up and about when he departed and he wondered if, in the interval,
the man had left the ranch, had stolen a march on him, and escaped to
Yavapai or elsewhere to find stimulant.
Lytton's improvement seemed to have been marked in the last two days.
That forenoon, when Bayard told him he was to go to town, the man had
insisted on helping with the work, though his body was still weak. He
had been pleasant, almost jovial, and it was with pride that the
rancher had told Ann of the results he had obtained by his care and his
patience; had spoken with satisfaction in spite of the knowledge that
ultimate success meant a snuffing out of the fire that burned in his
heart ... the fire that he would not yet admit existed.
Arrived at the ranch, Bruce forced the sorrel against his gate, leaned
low to release the fastening and went on through. He was grave of face
and silent and he walked toward the house after dismounting, deep in
thought, struggling with the problem of conduct which was evolving from
the circumstance in which he found himself.
On the threshold, after looking into the kitchen, he stood poised a
moment. Then, with a cry of anger he strode into the room, halted and
looked about him.
"You damned liar!" he cried into the silence.
Ned Lytton lay across the bed, face downward, breathing muffled by the
tumbled blankets, and on the floor beside him was an empty whiskey
bottle.
"You liar!" Bayard said again. "You strung me this mornin', didn't you?
This was why you was so crazy to help me get an early start! You
coyote!"
He moved noisily across the room and halted again to survey the scene. A
cupboard had been roughly emptied and the clock had been overturned when
Lytton searched its shelf; in another room an old dresser stood gaping,
the things it had contained in a pile on the floor, its drawers flung in
a corner. Everywhere was evidence of a hurried search for a hidden
thing. And that sought object was the bottle, the contents of which had
sent the prostrate figure into its present state.
"You're just ... carrion!" he said, disgustedly, staring at Lytton.
Then, with set face, he undressed the man, laid him gently on the
pillows and covered him well.
"God help me to remember that you're a cripple!" he muttered, and turned
to straighten the disorder of his house.
An hour later Bayard drew a chair to the bedside, seated himself and
frowned steadily at the sleeping man.
"I've got to remember you're a cripple ... got to," he said, over and
over. "For her sake, I must. An' I can't ... trust myself near her ... I
can't!"
The drunken man roused himself with a start and stared blearily,
unintelligently into the other's face.
"Tha's righ', Ole Man," he mumbled. "Tha's ri'...."