When Barbara Tower mounted Snedeker's blaze-faced brown horse, she was a
little afraid. All her life she had been accustomed to farm animals of
various kinds, and she had an inborn understanding of them as well as
deep sympathy for them. But her riding had been confined to the placid
farm horses of Missouri, and now she felt this high-strung creature
quivering beneath her and eager to go. Holding the horse in, she bent
down as though to examine the length of her stirrup.
She was not afraid of the horse, but she trembled lest she do something
wrong while Ellis was watching. Expertly, he wheeled his horse and came
to her side.
"Shall I shorten the stirrups?"
"No, I was just looking. I think they're about right."
She warmed to this young man who thought it his place to offer her small
courtesies. Except for Hugo Gearey, all the other young men she'd ever
known would have waited while she herself did whatever was necessary.
Experimentally, she reined the horse about and he responded at once.
That restored her confidence. The horse was spirited but he was
thoroughly broken and without being forced he would heed the wishes of
his rider. She fell in behind Ellis and they walked their horses out to
the Trail. They turned to wave good-by to Barbara's watching family, and
the Towers waved back.
The weather was crisp and cold, with a steady north wind that crimsoned
both young people's cheeks. But they were not cold because they were
dressed for the weather--Barbara wore her heavy brown coat, cut down
trousers, and had a wool scarf over her head--they were young, and the
prospect of an exciting dance provided its own spiritual warmth.
At least once a week and sometimes oftener, cavalry patrols had been
down the Trail. The patrols always stopped at Snedeker's, but they were
always commanded by some non-commissioned officer with a strong sense of
duty and a stronger realization of what would happen if he was in any
way derelict in that duty. Therefore, much to the chagrin of the young
privates who made up the body of the patrol, and who wanted to stay near
Barbara, they never stopped for very long. However, because of them the
Trail was packed, and Ellis dropped back to ride beside Barbara.
He wore a buffalo-skin coat, heavy trousers, and loose moccasins over
two pairs of wool socks. Behind his saddle was a parcel with necessary
toilet articles and a change of clothing, and Barbara had noted that
too. The men of Missouri went to dances and parties in their work
clothing, and civilians who attended dances at Fort Laramie seldom
bothered to change greasy buckskins or whatever else they were wearing.
But Ellis was going to make himself presentable and she knew he was
doing it for her.
Many things about Ellis appealed to her, yet when she asked herself how
she felt about marrying him, no answer came to mind. Actually, although
they had been together a great deal, they had not talked very much and
she knew relatively little about him. He seemed outspoken enough with
her mother and her father, but when he was alone with Barbara he tended
to become tongue-tied. And since she herself had trouble with words in
his presence, their conversations were usually halting and
uninformative.
She could not help thinking, from time to time, of Hugo Gearey's witty
and fascinating talk, of the hours when he had regaled her with
countless stories and anecdotes. She remembered, too, although she
brushed the thought angrily aside, the feeling of his arms about her, of
his lips on her lips. He was a horrid person, but she could not deny
that he had remained in her mind, and his poise and charm, deceptive
though they were, made Ellis's long awkward silences more disturbing
than they otherwise would be. On the other hand, when Ellis looked at
her with his whole heart in his eyes she tingled. She was woman enough
to be thrilled by his devotion, even though she wasn't at all sure of
her own feelings toward him.
Ellis's Kentucky thoroughbred, a sleek and powerful animal, kept its
head high and ears forward as it looked interestedly at everything on
both sides of the Trail. Though he was not boastful, Ellis could not
conceal the pride he took in his horse and occasionally Barbara wondered
whether he would ever take that much pride in anything else. The wool
cap she had knitted for him was pulled down over the left side of his
face to shield his cheek from the wind, and he turned toward her.
"How do you like it?" he asked.
It was meant to be a gay and informal question, but somehow it was
stilted and formal. Barbara tried to respond gaily and for the moment
could not.
"This is fine!"
She smiled, and when he smiled back she could not help thinking that he
had a warm and nice smile. Yet she felt restrained, and could not
understand her feeling. When Ellis asked her to go to the dance, it had
seemed a wonderful adventure and she had gone to bed each night hoping
that he would get her father's and mother's permission. Now that they
were actually on the Trail and started toward Laramie, she had
misgivings. She had gone out with young men before, but never for
overnight, and she wondered suddenly what her friends back in Missouri
would say if they could know. The thought should not disturb her but it
did. For the moment the young man beside her was almost a stranger, and
she thought that she had been ill-advised to go with him at all.
She shifted her hands, and when she did so the rein brushed her mount's
neck and he turned half around. Barbara knew a sudden rush of
embarrassment. She had been holding the reins too loosely, and not
paying enough attention to what she was doing. As a consequence she had
blundered, and in Ellis's eyes she must be less than perfect. But when
she turned to explain her error, he was looking the other way. Barbara
began to relax.
A coyote flashed out of a copse of brush and raced down the Trail. With
a spontaneous whoop that startled her momentarily, Ellis was after it.
Barbara reined her horse to a slow walk and watched, her eyes shining.
Ellis rode his big horse as though he were a part of it, with every move
of horse and rider perfectly coordinated. She watched the coyote
outdistance him. Laughing, he came back. Barbara laughed, too, and
suddenly it seemed that all the ice between them had melted.
"Didn't anyone ever tell you that a horse can't outrun a coyote?"
"King could. I was holding him back. Didn't want to frighten the poor
little coyote to death."
They laughed wildly, as though at some huge joke, and the horses bobbed
happy heads as they went down the Trail at a fast walk. Ellis turned to
watch six elk disappearing into a pine thicket. Barbara stole a covert
glance at his profile.
She'd given Ellis a great deal of thought. Certainly she wanted to get
married. But there should be more to marriage than the simple act of a
man and woman exchanging vows and living together. Her own parents'
marriage was far different, she reflected, than other marriages she had
seen among their neighbors in Missouri. Her parents had a special kind
of feeling for each other that was much more than physical, more even
than their satisfaction in sharing their home and their children. They
laughed together and they worried together, and one could be happy for
no reason except the other had enjoyed himself, the way Emma was happy
when Joe would come back refreshed from an evening at Tenney's store. It
was a kind of blending and merging, with each one willing and eager to
give up his own private world in order to build a sort of combination
world. She couldn't quite get it into words, but it did seem like a real
melting and fusing of two destinies into one destiny. Barbara herself
had never met any man who made her feel like blending and merging her
life that way, and she wondered whether something might be lacking in
her.
Barbara remembered vividly the night Ellis proposed to her. When they'd
first arrived at Snedeker's, she had heard Jim Snedeker refer to Ellis
as a woman chaser and she had thought little about that or about Ellis.
Most of the boys she knew chased girls. But as day followed day,
unaccountably she had found herself watching for Ellis. Working in the
cabin, she would glance out the window to see if he was around. When he
asked her to go walking with him, she was happy to go.
They were strolling on a dark, moonless night when--and she still did
not know how it happened--she was in his arms and his lips were on hers.
Ellis's embrace was not like Hugo Gearey's and his lips had a different
meaning in them. She could yield to this kiss and still feel safe, and
somehow deeply stirred in a new way, a mysterious way. Barbara felt her
knees tingle, and her body went strangely limp. A thousand times since,
in memory, she had heard his whispered,
"I love you, Bobby! Will you marry me?"