The Schoolhouse Dance
Young VB held a twofold interest for the men of Clear River. First, the
story of his fight with the Captain spread over the land, percolating
to the farthest camps. Men laughed at first. The absurdity of it! Then,
their surprise giving way to their appreciation of his attainment,
their commendation for the young Easterner soared to superlatively
profane heights.
When he met those who had been strangers before it was to be
scrutinized and questioned and frankly, honestly admired.
Now came another reason for discussing him about bunk-house stoves. He
had thrashed Rhues! Great as had been the credit accorded VB for the
capture of the stallion, just so great was men's delight caused by the
outcome of that other encounter.
They remembered, then, how Rhues had told of the greenhorn who was
afraid to take a drink; how he had made it a purpose to spread stories
of ridicule, doing his best to pervert the community's natural desire
to let the affairs of others alone. And this recollection of Rhues's
bullying was an added reason for their saying: "Good! I'm glad to hear
it. Too bad th' kid didn't beat him to death!"
Though his meetings with other men were few and scattered, VB was
coming to be liked. It mattered little to others why he was in the
country, from where he came, or who he had been. He had accomplished
two worthy things among them, and respect was accorded him across vast
distances. Dozens of these men had seen him only once, and scores
never, yet they reckoned him of their number--a man to be taken
seriously, worthy of their kindly attention, of their interest, and of
their respect.
Bob Thorpe helped to establish VB in the mountains. He thought much
about his interview with the young chap, and told to a half-dozen men
the story which, coming from him, had weight.
His daughter did not abandon her idea of owning the Captain. Bob told
her repeatedly that it was useless to argue with a man who spoke as did
Jed's rider; but the girl chose to disagree with him.
"I think that if you'd flatter him enough--if we both would--that he
would listen. Don't you?" she asked.
Bob Thorpe shook his head.
"No," he answered. "You can't convince me of that. You don't know men,
and I do. I've seen one or two like him before--who love a thing of
that sort above money; and, I've found you can't do a thing with
'em--ding 'em!"
The girl cried: "Why, don't feel that way about it! I think it's
perfectly fine--to love an animal so much that money won't buy him!"
"Sure it is," answered her father. "That's what makes me out of
patience with them. They're--they're better men than most of us,
and--well, they make a fellow feel rather small at times."
Then he went away, and Gail puzzled over his concluding remark.
A week to a day after her first visit she drove again to Jed's ranch.
"I came over to see the Captain," she told the old man gayly.
"Well, th' Captain ain't here now," he answered, beaming on her; "but
VB'll be back with him before noon."
She looked for what seemed to be an unnecessarily long time at her
watch, and then asked:
"Is that his name?"
"What--th' Captain?"
"No--VB."
Jed laughed silently at her.
"Yep--to be sure an' that's his name--all th' name he's got."
"Well, I wish Mr. VB would hurry back with the Captain," she said.
But that easy flush was again in her cheeks, and the turn she gave the
conversation was, as they say in certain circles, poor footwork.
Within an hour the Captain bore his rider home. Gail stayed for dinner
and ate with the two men.
It was a strange meal for VB. Not in months had he eaten at the same
table with a woman; not in years had he broken bread with a woman such
as this, and realization of the fact carried him back beyond those
darkest days. He remembered suddenly and quite irrelevantly that he
once had wondered if this daughter of Bob Thorpe's was to be a
connecting link with the old life. That had been when he first learned
that the big cattleman had a daughter, and that she was living in his
East. Now as he sat before neglected food and watched and listened,
feasting his starved spirit on her, noting her genuine vivacity, her
enthusiasm, the quick come and go of color in her fine skin, he knew
that she was a link, but not with the past that he had feared. She took
him back beyond that, into his earlier boyhood, that period of
adolescence when, to a clean-minded boy, all things are good and
unstained. She was attractive in all the ways that women can be
attractive, and at the same time she was more than a desirable
individual; she seemed to stand for classes, for modes of living and
thinking, that Young VB had put behind him--put behind first by his
wasting, now by distance. But as the meal progressed a fresh wonder
crept up in his mind. Was all that really so very far away? Was not the
distance just that between them and the big ranch house under the
cotton woods beyond the hills? And was the result of his wasting quite
irreparable? Was he not rebuilding what he had torn down?
He felt himself thrilling and longing suddenly for fresher, newer
experiences as the talk ran on between the others. The conversation was
wholly of the country, and VB was surprised to discover that this girl
could talk intelligently and argue effectively with Jed over local
stock conditions when she looked for all the world like any of the
hundreds he could pick out on Fifth Avenue at five o'clock of any fine
afternoon. He corrected himself hastily. She was _not_ like those
others, either. She possessed all their physical endowments, all and
more, for her eye was clearer, her carriage better, she was possessed
of a color that was no sham; and a finer body. Put her beside them in
their own environment, and they would seem stale by comparison; bring
those others here, and their bald artificiality would be pathetic. The
boy wanted her to know those things, yet thought of telling her never
came to his consciousness. Subjectively he was humble before her.
The interest between the two young people was not centered completely
in VB. Each time he lowered his gaze to his plate he was conscious of
those frank, intelligent blue eyes on him, studying, prying, wondering,
a laugh ever deep within them. Now and then the girl addressed a remark
to him, but for the most part she spoke directly to Jed; however, she
was studying the boy every instant, quietly, carefully, missing no
detail, and by the time the meal neared its end the laughter had left
her eyes and they betrayed a frank curiosity.
When the meal was finished the girl asked VB to take her to the corral.
She made the request lightly, but it smote something in the man a
terrific blow, stirring old memories, fresh desires, and he was
strangely glad that he could do something for her. As they walked from
the cabin to the inclosure he was flushed, embarrassed, awkward. He
could not talk to her, could scarcely keep his body from swinging from
side to side with schoolboy shyness.
The stallion did not fidget at sight of the girl as he had done on the
approach of other strangers. He snorted and backed away, keeping his
eyes on her and his ears up with curiosity, coming to a halt against
the far side of the corral and switching his fine tail down over the
shapely hocks as though to make these people understand that in spite
of his seeming harmlessness he might yet show the viciousness that
lurked down in his big heart.
"I think he'll come to like you," said VB, looking from his horse to
the girl. "I don't see how he could help it--to like women,
understand," he added hastily when she turned a wide-eyed gaze on him.
"He doesn't like strange men, but see--he's interested in you; and it's
curiosity, not anger. I--I don't blame him--for being interested," he
ventured, and hated himself for the flush that swept up from his neck.
They both laughed, and Gail said: "So this country hasn't taken the
flattery out of you?"
"Why, it's been years--years since I said a thing like that to a girl
of your sort," VB answered soberly.
An awkward pause followed.
"Dare I touch him?" the girl finally asked.
"No, I wouldn't to-day," VB advised. "Just let him look at you now.
Some other time we'll see if--That is, if you'll ever come to see
us--to see the Captain again."
"I should like to come to see the Captain very much, and as often as is
proper," she said with mocking demureness.
And she did come again; and again and yet again. Always she took pains
to begin with inquiries about the horse. When she did this in Jed
Avery's presence it was with a peculiar avoidance of his gaze, that
might have been from embarrassment; when she asked Young VB those
questions it was with a queer little teasing smile. A half-dozen times
she found the boy alone at the ranch, and the realization that on such
occasions she stayed longer than she did when Jed was about gave him a
new thrill of delight.
At first there was an awkward reserve between them, but after the
earlier visits this broke down and their talk became interspersed with
personal references, with small, inconsequential confidences that,
intrinsically worthless, meant much to them. Yet there was never a word
of the life both had lived far over the other side of those snowcaps to
the eastward. Somehow the girl felt intuitively that it had not all
been pleasant for the man there, and VB maintained a stubborn
reticence. He could have told her much of her own life back in the
East, of the things she liked, of the events and conditions that were
irksome, because he knew the environment in which she had lived and he
felt that he knew the girl herself. He would not touch that topic,
however, for it would lead straight to _his_ life; and all that he
wanted for his thoughts now were Jed and the hills and the Captain
and--this girl. They composed a comfortable world of which he wanted to
be a part.
Gail found herself feeling strangely at home with this young fellow.
She experienced a mingled feeling compounded of her friendship for the
finished youths she had known during school days and that which she
felt for the men of her mountains, who were, she knew, as rugged, as
genuine, as the hills themselves. To her Young VB rang true from the
ground up, and he bore the finish that can come only from contact with
many men. That is a rare combination.
It came about that after a time the Captain let Gail touch him, allowed
her to walk about him and caress his sleek body. Always, when she was
near, he stood as at attention, dignified and self-conscious, and from
time to time his eyes would seek the face of his master, as though for
reassurance. Once after the girl had gone VB took the Captain's face
between his hands and, looking into the big black eyes, muttered almost
fiercely:
"She's as much of the real stuff as you are, old boy! Do you think,
Captain, that I can ever match up with you two?"
Before a month had gone by the girl could lead the Captain about, could
play with him almost as familiarly as VB did; but always the horse
submitted as if uninterested, went through this formality of making
friends as though it were a duty that bored him.
Once Dick Worth, the deputy from Sand Creek, and his wife rode up the
gulch to see the black stallion. While the Captain would not allow the
man near him, he suffered the woman to tweak his nose and slap his
cheeks and pull his ears; then it was that Jed and VB knew that the
animal understood the difference between sexes and that the chivalry
which so became him had been cultivated by his intimacy with Gail
Thorpe.
After that, of course, there was no plausible excuse for Gail's
repeated visits. However, she continued coming. VB was always reserved
up to a certain point before her, never yielding beyond it in spite of
the strength of the subtle tactics she employed to draw him out. A
sense of uncertainty of himself held him aloof. Within him was a
traditional respect for women. He idealized them, and then set for men
a standard which they must attain before meeting women as equals. But
this girl, while satisfying his ideal, would not remain aloof. She
forced herself into VB's presence, forced herself, and yet with a
delicacy that could not be misunderstood. She came regularly, her
visits lengthened, and one sunny afternoon as they stood watching the
Captain roll she looked up sharply at the man beside her.
"Why do you keep me at this?"
"This? What? I don't get your meaning."
"At coming over here? Why don't you come to see me? I-- Of course, I
haven't any fine horse to show you, but--"
Her voice trailed off, with a hint of wounded pride in the tone. The
man faced her, stunning surprise in his face.
"You--you don't think I fail to value this friendship of ours?" he
demanded, rallying. "You--Why, what can I say to you? It has meant so
much to me--just seeing you; it's been one of the finest things of this
fine country. But I thought--I thought it was because of this,"--with a
gesture toward the Captain, who stood shaking the dust from his hair
with mighty effort. "I thought all along you were interested in the
horse; not that you cared about knowing me--"
"Did you really think that?" she broke in.
VB flushed, then laughed, with an abrupt change of mood.
"Well, it _began_ that way," he pleaded weakly.
"And you'd let it end that way."
"Oh, no; you don't understand, Miss Thorpe," serious again. "I--I can't
explain, and you don't understand now. But I've felt somehow as though
it would be presuming too much if I came to see you."
She looked at him calculatingly a long moment as he twirled his hat and
kicked at a pebble with his boot.
"I think it would be presuming too much if you let me do all the
traveling, since you admit that a friendship does exist," she said
lightly.
"Then the only gallant thing for me to do is to call on you."
"I think so. I'm glad you recognize the fact."
"When shall it be?"
"Any time. If I'm not home, stay until I get back. Daddy likes you.
You'll love my mother."
The vague "any time" occurred three days later. Young VB made a special
trip over the hills to the S Bar S. The girl was stretched in a
hammock, reading, when he rode up, and at the sound of his horse she
scrambled to her feet, flushed, and evidently disconcerted.
"I'd given you up!" she cried.
"In three days?" taking the hand she offered.
"Well--most boys in the East would have come the next morning--if they
were really interested."
"This is Colorado," he reminded her.
He sat crosslegged on the ground at her feet, and they talked of the
book she had been reading. It was a novel of music and a musician and a
rare achievement, she said. He questioned her about the story, and
their talk drifted to music, on which they both could converse well.
"You don't know what it means--to sit here and talk of these things
with you," he said hungrily.
"Well, I should like to know," she said, leaning forward over her knees.
For two long hours they talked as they never had talked before; of
personal tastes, of kindred enthusiasms, of books and plays and music
and people. They went into the ranch house, and Gail played for him--on
the only grand piano in that section of the state. They came out, and
she saddled her pony to ride part way back through the hills with him.
"_Adios,_ my friend," she called after him, as he swung away from her.
"It's your turn to call now," he shouted back to her, and when the
ridge took him from sight he leaned low to the Captain's ear and
repeated gently,--"my friend!"
So the barrier of reserve was broken. VB did not dare think into the
future in any connection--least of all in relation to this new and
growing friendship; yet he wanted to make their understanding more
complete though he would scarcely admit that fact even to himself.
A week had not passed when Gail Thorpe drove the automobile up to the
VB gate.
"I didn't come to see the Captain this time," she announced to them
both. "I came to pay a party call to Mr. VB, and to include Mr. Avery.
Because when a girl out here receives a visit from a man it's of party
proportions!"
As she was leaving, she asked, "Why don't you come down to the dance
Friday night?"
"A big event?"
"Surely!" She laughed merrily. "It's the first one since spring, and
everybody'll be there. Mr. Avery will surely come. Won't you, too, Mr.
VB?"
He evaded her, but when she had turned the automobile about and sped
down the road, homeward bound, he let down the bars for youth's
romanticism and knew that he would dance with her if it meant walking
every one of the twenty-two miles to the schoolhouse.
For the first time in years VB felt a thrill at the anticipation of a
social function, and with it a guilty little thought kept buzzing in
the depths of his mind. The thought was: Is her hair as fragrant as it
is glorious in color and texture?
Jed and VB made the ride after supper, over frozen paths, for autumn
had aged and the tang of winter was in the air. Miles away they could
see the glow of the bonfire that had been built before the little stone
schoolhouse; and VB was not sorry that Jed wanted to ride the last
stages of the trip at a faster pace.
Clear River had turned out, to the last man and woman--and to the last
child, too! The schoolhouse was no longer a seat of learning; it was a
festal bower. The desks had been taken up and placed along the four
walls, seats outward, tops forming a ledge against the calcimined
stones, making a splendid place for those youngest children who had
turned out! Yes, a dozen babies slumbered there in the confusion,
wrapped in many thicknesses of blankets.
Three lamps with polished reflectors were placed on window ledges, and
the yellow glare filled the room with just sufficient brilliance to
soften lines in faces and wrinkles in gowns that clung to bodies in
unexpected places. The fourth window ledge was reserved for the
music--a phonograph with a morning-glory horn, a green morning-glory
horn that would have baffled a botanist. The stove blushed as if for
its plainness in the center of the room, and about it, with a great
scraping of feet and profound efforts to be always gentlemanly and at
ease, circled the men, guiding their partners.
VB stood in the doorway and watched. He coughed slightly from the dust
that rose and mantled everything with a dulling blanket--everything, I
said, but the eyes must be excepted. They flashed with as warm a
brilliance as they ever do where there is music and dancing and
laughter.
The music stopped. Women scurried to their seats; some lifted the edges
of blankets and peered with concerned eyes at the little sleepers lying
there, then whirled about and opened their arms to some new gallant;
for so brief was the interval between dances.
"Well, are you never going to see me?"
VB started at the sound of Gail's voice so close to him. He bowed and
smiled at her.
"I was interested," he said in excuse. "Getting my bearings."
She did not reply, but the expectancy in her face forced his
invitation, and they joined the swirl about the stove.
"I can't dance in these riding boots," he confided with an embarrassed
laugh. "Never thought about it until now."
"Oh, yes, you can! You dance much better than most men. Don't stop,
please!"
He knew that no woman who danced with Gail's lightness could find
pleasure in the stumbling, stilted accompaniment of his handicapped
feet; and the conviction sent a fresh thrill through him. He was glad
she wanted him to keep on! She had played upon the man down in him and
touched upon vanity, one of those weak spots in us. She wanted him
near. His arm, spite of his caution, tightened a trifle and he suddenly
knew that her _hair_ was as fragrant as it should be--a heavy, rich
odor that went well with its other wealth! For an instant he was a bit
giddy, but as the music came to a stop he recovered himself and walked
silently beside Gail to a seat.
After that he danced with the wife of a cattleman, and answered
absently her stammered advances at communication while he watched the
floating figure of Gail Thorpe as it followed the bungling lead of her
father's foreman.
The end of the intermission found him with her again. As they whirled
away his movements became a little quicker, his tongue a little looser.
It had been a long time since he had felt so gay.
He learned of the other women, Gail telling him about them as they
danced, and through the thrill that her warm breath aroused he found
himself delighting in the individuality of her expression, the stamping
of a characteristic in his mind by a queer little word or twisted
phrase. He discovered, too, that she possessed a penetrating insight
into the latent realities of life. The red-handed, blunt, strong women
about him, who could ride with their husbands and brothers, who could
face hardships, who knew grim elementals, became new beings under the
interpretation of this sunny-haired girl; took on a charm tinged with
pathos that brought up within VB a sympathy that those struggles in
himself had all but buried. And the knowledge that Gail appreciated
those raw realities made him look down at her lingeringly, a trifle
wonderingly.
She was of that other life--the life of refinements--in so many ways,
yet she had escaped its host of artificialities. She had lifted herself
above the people among whom she was reared; but her touch, her
sympathies, her warm humanness remained unalloyed! She was real.
And then, when he was immersed in this appreciation of her, she turned
the talk suddenly to him. He was but slightly responsive. He put her
off, evaded, but he laughed; his cold reluctance to let her know him
had ceased to be so stern, and her determination to get behind his
silence rose.
As they stood in the doorway in a midst of repartee she burst on him:
"Mr. VB, why do you go about with that awful name? It's almost as bad
as being branded."
He sobered so quickly that it frightened her.
"Maybe I am branded," he said slowly, and her agile understanding
caught the significance of his tone. "Perhaps I'm branded and can't use
another. Who knows?"
He smiled at her, but from sobered eyes. Confused by his evident
seriousness, she made one more attempt, and laughed: "Well, if you
won't tell me who you are, won't you please tell me what you are?"
The door swung open then, and on the heels of her question came voices
from without. One voice rose high above the rest, and they heard: "Aw,
come on; le's have jus' one more little drag at th' bottle!"
VB looked at Gail a bit wildly.
Those words meant that out there whisky was waiting for him, and at its
mention that searing thing sprang alive in his throat!
"What am I?" he repeated dully, trying to rally himself. "What am I?"
Unknowingly his fingers gripped her arm. "Who knows? I don't!"
And he flung out of the place, wanting but one thing--to be with the
Captain, to feel the stallion's nose in his arms, to stand close to the
body which housed a spirit that knew no defeat.
As he strode past the bonfire a man's face leered at him from the far
side. The man was Rhues.