THE FIRING SQUAD
Domestic existence at the Three Sorrows was, in those days, a very
unsettled affair. Came the day that sullen Chinaman left. Charles
Van Brunt had ridden to Mesquite. All the boys were out on the range
and the baby was asleep upstairs. Hilda and Aunt Val were alone with
the problem. The little girl stood by, while to Miss Van Brunt’s
protests, which finally came to be almost hysterical, the yellow man
made brief response: “No can do. Velly lonesome.” And though the
lady pleaded with him for quite a distance down the long avenue of
box elder and black locust, he walked stolidly away in those
boat-shaped shoes of his. His lips were tightly shut, his blouse
tightly buttoned across a resolute bosom, and his queue tightly
coiled around a skull which housed the working machinery of a mind
with which poor Aunt Val had never been able to establish
communication, nor Hilda to get upon friendly terms.
Uncle Hank himself got supper that evening, but he remarked somewhat
humorously that he couldn’t spare himself to cook. He persuaded
Missouri into donning an apron and going to work in the kitchen.
“Why don’t they get another Chink?”, the cowboy grumbled.
“Well, as I understand it, they _have_ wrote somewheres for one, but
they haven’t heard yet,” said Pearsall.
“No, nor they won’t,” was Missouri’s opinion. “A Chink’s plumb shy
of one of these here lonesome ranches. I bet I’m in for a life
sentence,” for a ranch rider hates to cook.
Nothing that really could have been called a neighborhood existed in
the cattle country of the Lame Jones County of that day, yet the Van
Brunts had not been at the Three Sorrows a week before there was an
invitation for Miss Valeria to bring Hilda and Burch to spend the
day at the Capadine ranch, six miles east of them, and enjoy the
company of Clark Capadine, Jr., and the ranch’s young guests, the
two Marchbanks children. Shorty drove them over in the buckboard—a
vehicle Hilda approved of far more than the shiny closed carriage at
home in New York.
To Hilda that visit was a first introduction into the life of her
peers as she was to find it from that time on. Clarkie Capadine was
a good-natured boy of ten, whom Hilda would have liked very much if
she had been capable that day of any natural or comfortable
sentiments. But the Marchbanks boy, an advanced person whose name
was Lafayette, shortened and pronounced in the Southern fashion,
“Fayte,” scorned her utterly. He scorned also his sister Maybelle,
five years younger than himself, and therefore near Hilda’s own age.
Yet his contempt of Maybelle was nothing worse than the male
intolerance of the foolish female, while Hilda learned from him,
coldly, insultingly, that she was a tenderfoot. She was not only a
child, and a girl at that—she was a tenderfoot. Did she know what
chaparajos were?—tapaderos?—latigos?—a cinch, even? She did not.
Maybelle was not expected to deal much in these terms on account of
her deficiencies as a girl; but Hilda didn’t even know what such
things were for! She was a tenderfoot—that’s what she was!
The day was clouded by the murk of Fayte’s sneers. He condescended
to rope the girls as they ran screaming; but being rated as dumb
driven cattle, even by so mighty a person, wasn’t much of a
consolation. Finally he scalped his sister’s dolls by the simple
process of pulling their wigs off. Maybelle went whimpering to Mrs.
Capadine, who indignantly told the boy that he would not be allowed
to go on the return visit to the Three Sorrows which Miss Valeria
was already proposing. Fayte said sullenly that he didn’t want to.
He said that the Three Sorrows was his ranch, anyhow—by rights—and
far’s he was concerned he didn’t care to go and see other people
living on it.
His ranch! What could Fayte Marchbanks mean by that? The next day
Hilda took the question to her father, but he only laughed. It was
Uncle Hank—Uncle Hank, who always talked to one the same as to
grown-ups—who finally explained the matter to her, allowing
tolerantly, “Oh, just a kid’s bragging. Fayte Marchbanks says things
like that, I expect, because his Spanish grandpa, old man Romero,
was the first owner of this ranch, and did give the place its
name—the Rancho of the Three Sorrows.”
“What do you suppose made him call it such a sad name, Uncle Hank?”
Hilda wanted to know. “Do you suppose he had them—three sorrows?”
“He did so, Pettie—in his three daughters. Michaela, his oldest, she
took smallpox from a family of Arkansas movers that came driftin’
through these pastures two weeks before she was to have been
married. Her looks was ruined. She went into a convent up in Santy
Fe. Lola, the next one, was killed in a train wreck. And Guadeloupe,
the third, his baby, and the prettiest of the bunch, ran away with
Lee Marchbanks, which is Fayte’s and Maybelle’s pa. He said neither
of them should ever step foot on his land while he lived. Old
Romero’s wife was dead, and he never had no sons. He took the
trouble about his daughters hard. He drank up all his property—”
Hilda had a moment of wondering how he could do that—“and then drank
himself to death.”
“Maybelle says her mother is dead, too,” said Hilda. “They had the
sorrow, didn’t they, Uncle Hank? Maybelle and Fayte, I mean.”
“Um—well—it’s all in the past, honey. And Lee Marchbanks—Colonel
Marchbanks, they call him, now—is a rich man, I hear, over in New
Mexico. Jest leaving the kids with Mrs. Capadine while he brings out
his second wife from the east somewheres. I expect they’ll have a
fine lady for a mother when they go back.”
“Yes,” said Hilda, turning this information over slowly and
curiously in her mind. “I didn’t know that.” She stole a look over
her shoulder, through the open door, to where Miss Van Brunt,
dressed exactly as she had been used to dress back in her New York
home, sat reading a magazine. “Of course I have Aunt Valeria,” she
remarked hesitantly.
Hank’s glance followed hers; he crinkled up his eyes in a look that
was half smiling, half pitiful. Poor Miss Valeria always looked
somehow like a person who had come to stay for only a day or two.
The wind that whooped up over those great levels from the Gulf, and
brought life and refreshment with it on the hottest summer noon, the
wind that Hilda loved and made a playmate of, was to Miss Van Brunt
a terrible bugbear—a sort of standing accusation against the whole
west Texas country. When it blew three days on end, she went to bed
with a nervous headache. When the domestic affairs of the household
grew too puzzling, she went to bed with a headache, anyhow; one day
Hilda heard Buster say to Missouri in the kitchen, “This here
ranching proposition’s got the New York lady plumb buffaloed. Yet
she’s sort of game, too—so game she won’t holler. I like to watch
her not knowin’ what the mischief’s a-comin’ next, nor whichaway to
turn, and pretendin’ she’s plumb wise to the rules.”
“It would be impossible. We never did so in New York. The Van Brunts
do not do things that way.” These were Miss Valeria’s weapons of
defense, the statements with which she met and repelled clamorous
demands.
“Just a ladylike way of yellin’ ‘scat’ to the whole business,” said
Buster.
As for the outside affairs, a mere change of ownership was a small
matter, so long as Hank Pearsall’s experienced hand still guided
them, and they seemed to run smoothly enough. Charley Van Brunt,
too, lived at the ranch of the Three Sorrows, a guest—a quiet,
graceful guest—whose incompetence was a shield against
responsibility. He endeared himself at once to his men by the
unvarying courtesy and sweetness of his bearing and the boyish
recklessness he displayed when he chose and rode a horse, selecting
always for looks and style, without regard to the beast’s
disposition. It was plain that he drank heavily in the long evenings
when he sat alone in the library, his manager, looking on, hoping
that as the first keenness of his grief wore away, this matter would
be bettered.
But it was the other way. When Charley began to rouse from the
stupor of bereavement, he began also to leave the ranch, on trips to
Mesquite, and beyond to El Centro; whence the news came back to Hank
that Van Brunt was drinking hard and playing high. He found by
natural instinct the clever, well-bred, profligate young Englishmen
over on the Bar Thirteen, pensioned—or exiled—by their own families;
and after that, between the trips to town, there was drinking and
card playing at the Bar Thirteen. In those days the Three Sorrows
was the finest property under private ownership in the Panhandle,
with pastures all fenced—a rare thing at that time—watered by three
noble creeks whose springs were never dry. It had been well stocked
when Katharine bought it. Now Hank looked helplessly on, thinking of
the two children, saw the money from sales of beef poured into the
bottomless pit of Charley’s dissipations. And he understood that
more than one mortgage had been put on the place, and that a choice
pasture had been sold outright.
And Hank had another small worry, to which he finally applied his
own remedy. The men loved to sit on the long back porch, chairs
tilted against the wall, waiting for supper. They were freshly
washed as to faces and hands, damply slick as to hair; their
innocent enjoyment of company other than their own was so evident
that it would have been a hard heart indeed which would have grudged
them the society of the children; yet Hank listened and was
troubled. Did all cowboys swear so much? Had Snake Thompson’s
language always been what it now appeared? This might be Charley Van
Brunt’s ranch, Charley Van Brunt’s back porch, and these might be
Charley Van Brunt’s children—well, as a matter of fact, the
ownership of all the articles mentioned was so placed—yet Hank felt
himself obliged to speak out and speak distinctly on the subject.
“Boys,” he put it, “you-all have got to ride herd a little closer on
your language. Swearing—leastways more’n reason—around where
children air at—”
“Say, Hank,” broke in Shorty O’Meara, “how much is in reason to
swear when your stirrup leather busts on you, and your left eyebrow
hits the ground?”
“Aw, g’long with you,” Hank admonished, half sheepishly. “You know
how much. If you don’t you’ll soon find out.”
Old Snake Thompson’s sense of humor, liberty and justice was
outraged. Snake used very little language of any sort; when he
talked at all it was apt to be done almost exclusively in more or
less conventional and automatic profanity, and he made husky
protest:
“But, Pearsall—Goddlemighty—I mean—how’s a man to talk? How’s a
feller to express hisself? How’ll we get along without any o’ them
words?”
“Well,” said Hank dryly, “I could give you a pretty fair list of
substitutes.”
“Substitute cuss words?”
“Yes, jest that. You may never have took notice to the fact that I
don’t cuss, nor chew tobacker? Well, I used to do both—fact, I was
something of a star performer in them two lines.”
“What made you quit, Pearsall?” questioned Shorty discontentedly.
“I quit,” said Hank, “when I got to be a family man, in a manner of
speaking. I had a—there was a small chap at my place then, nigh
about Pettie’s age, and I sort of looked it over, and made the
change on the little feller’s account.”
“Huh!” grunted Old Snake. Shorty made no comment, but Missouri said
with feeling:
“This da—durned cattle country is a mighty lonesome land, with few
pleasures in it, if you ask me, and a man that neither chews nor
cusses misses a sight o’ comfort.”
“Oh, I dunno, Missou’,” the boss demurred mildly, “I’ve tried it
both ways, and I don’t see much difference in the comfort. I get as
much good out of a cup of coffee as I used to get out of a jolt of
red-eye. I’d ruther beller a camp meetin’ hymn, or ‘The Dyin’
Ranger’ than chew tobacker. ‘Con-twist it!’ or ‘Sufferin’ snakes’ or
‘My granny’ is the most horrible oaths I use.” He concluded with
sudden seriousness, “I’m not a-joking; I won’t stand for it, boys;
I’ll fire the first galoot that turns loose and cusses or talks
rough around where the folks is at.”
So the three S cowpunchers rode in off the range of an evening now,
the most harmless associates for the little girl. About headquarters
they spoke—though somewhat haltingly at times—a tamed and
disciplined language, devoid of offense to the tenderest ears.
The Capadines were to come over for noon dinner—which was the only
meal you could take visiting on ranches, it seemed, unless you spent
the night. Missou’ had said things—Uncle Hank went into the kitchen
and shut the door when he said them—but finally he got the dinner,
Uncle Hank keeping an eye on him to see that it was all it should be
for company. Fayte Marchbanks had come, after all. Things went
pretty well while the children were with the grown-ups, for it
appeared that Fayte had nice company manners, when he cared to
display them; Aunt Val thought him a very well-bred boy. But after
dinner, Burchie in the house with Aunt Val and Mrs. Capadine, while
the two fathers smoked on the porch, it began to be trying.
On the journey out, among other and greater losses, a trunk
containing the children’s toys had gone astray and was never
recovered. So Hilda had nothing to offer for Maybelle’s admiration
but one small china-all-over doll, which had been held out for her
to play with on the train. She realized with a good deal of
satisfaction that Fayte Marchbanks couldn’t scalp it; the hair was
painted on its china head; small and rather miserable as it looked
there were advantages.
The two boys presently ranged off with Fayte’s air rifle, playing at
hunting big game; the two girls settled down in the roots of a big
tree and arranged for a little dinner.
“I wish I’d brought my dolls,” Maybelle said discontentedly. “I
would—only I thought you’d have a lot of your own. You said you
had.”
“I have, only—” and poor Hilda told again the story of the lost
trunk.
“Well, then, I should think they’d buy you some new ones, if they
can’t ever get those again,” Maybelle argued.
“They will,” said Hilda eagerly. “Father’s going to next time he
goes to town.”
“But he’s been in town lots of times since you lost ’em,” said
Maybelle, the practical. “Why doesn’t he bring you—one decent one,
anyhow?” She looked scornfully at the china-all-over.
“He forgets.” Hilda’s lip trembled, but it would never do to let any
one see how cruel the hurt of this forgetfulness was. “That is, he
has been forgetting it, but if ever he goes to Fort Worth he’ll
remember, and then he’ll bring me the most beautiful doll that money
can buy. It’ll be so long,” her trembling hands measured the length,
“and have kid shoes and a white dress and a blue sash—he’s promised.
Now I’ll go and get something for our party.”
Hilda was gone to the house quite a while. Missou’ had been hard to
persuade, and didn’t want to let her have the little cakes. When she
came back she found Maybelle curiously excited, while the two boys
stood back, Clarke Capadine looking rather scared, Fayte grinning.
“Will you boys come to our party?” she asked doubtfully, taking
stock of what Missou’ had finally given her, wondering whether it
would be enough.
Clarke muttered and looked down, but Fayte grinned more than ever.
“Sure. Let’s make it a funeral—if there’s scraps enough to bury. The
firing squad’s been here while you were gone.”
And then she saw the scattered bits of china sprinkled over the
play-house, the rifle in his hand.
Hilda didn’t know for a minute quite who it was that screamed.
Something that was not herself seemed to come up in her throat and
issue from her mouth in a volume of sound that scared the children
and brought the men running from the porch. Quickly as they came,
Uncle Hank was quicker. He had jumped away from the pony he was just
about mounting over at the corral, and run across the lawn; Hilda
was in his arms when her father and Mr. Capadine arrived.
“What in time’s the matter?” the old man asked. Clarke Capadine had
stood his ground, but Fayte Marchbanks was running. Hank caught
sight of the gun in his hand. “Is the child shot?”
“My doll! My doll!” Hilda’s voice had come down to a moan. “I hadn’t
but just one, and—”
Maybelle’s finger was in her mouth. She took it out to point to the
little sprinkling of white scraps.
“Hilda—are you hurt?” That was her father. “Put her down, Pearsall.
See if she’s injured.” Uncle Hank set her on her feet. The gust of
passion had gone by. She was weak from it—and terribly ashamed.
“He broke her doll,” the old man explained. Hilda loved him for the
serious tone. Maybelle giggled. Hilda heard another laugh somewhere,
but it wasn’t Mr. Capadine, for he said:
“That boy ought to be thrashed.”
She turned and buried her face against Uncle Hank, sobbing now, but
very quietly.
“Hilda—don’t be silly,” came Miss Val’s impatient voice. “Go get
another doll to play with. See—you’re spoiling all the good time for
your little visitors.”
“I—hadn’t—but just one,” it came very muffled from the folds of
Uncle Hank’s coat. Her father said quickly,
“Oh, that’s so. But, Hilda, I’m going to buy you more dolls. Be a
good girl now. Stop crying.”
“I don’t want but just one, papa.” Hilda choked, raised her head and
tried to straighten her face. “When—when will you get me my doll?”
They were all looking at her. It was a terrible moment. Yet Hilda
somewhat forgot it in the importance of that question.
“The very next time I go to town,” said her father. “The handsomest
one I can find, dear. Now go on with your play—and don’t let’s have
any more hysterics.”
He went back to the house. Clarke Capadine had slipped away in the
direction Fayte took. Uncle Hank stayed a few minutes, till he saw
that Hilda seemed to be herself again, then he mounted and rode away
to his work.
But that evening, when Hilda came at bedtime to bid him good night,
she looked so woebegone, and her feet dragged so that he inquired:
“Not afraid to go upstairs alone, air you, Pettie? Been seeing any
of them Skulkin’ Door-imps lately?”
She shook her head.
“No—not much. That isn’t it. Never mind.”
“Or Barrel-tops?” Hank pursued cheerily. “You let me know if any of
them come around—and I’ll stave ’em in for you.”
“The—the doll.” She got out the two words, and could manage no more,
but let them lie as they fell.
“Sure enough!” The old man caught her up in his arms and started for
the stairs. “That doll-baby’s still on your mind, ain’t it? I know.
Uncle Hank’ll carry you up to bed.” And on the way he whispered,
“Never you mind, Pettie; there’s got to be a trip to Forth Worth
right soon—Forth Worth—a real big city; and I’ll make sure your
doll-baby comes back from there.”