Polycarp Jenks came ambling into the coulee, rapped perfunctorily upon the
door-casing, and entered the kitchen as one who feels perfectly at home,
and sure of his welcome; as was not unfitting, considering the fact that he
had “chored around” for Val during the last year, and longer.
“Anybody to home?” he called, seeing the front door shut tight.
There was a stir within, and Val, still pale, and with an almost furtive
expression in her eyes, opened the door and looked out.
“Oh, it's you, Polycarp,” she said lifelessly. “Is there anything--”
“What's the matter? Sick? You look kinda peaked and frazzled out. I met Man
las' night, and he told me you needed wood; I thought I'd ride over and
see. By granny, you do look bad.”
“Just a headache,” Val evaded, shrinking back guiltily. “Just do whatever
there is to do, Polycarp. I think--I don't believe the chickens have had
anything to eat to-day--”
“Them headaches are sure a fright; they're might' nigh as bad as rheumatiz,
when they hit you hard. You jest go back and lay down, and I'll look around
and see what they is to do. Any idee when Man's comin' back?”
“No.” Val brought the word out with an involuntary sharpness.
“No, I reckon not. I hear him and Fred De Garmo come might' near havin' a
fight las' night. Blumenthall was tellin' me this mornin'. Fred's quit
the Double Diamond, I hear. He's got himself appointed dep'ty stock
inspector--and how he managed to git the job is more 'n I can figure out.
They say he's all swelled up over it--got his headquarters in town, you
know, and seems he got to lordin' it over Man las' night, and I guess if
somebody hadn't stopped 'em they'd of been a mix-up, all right. Man wasn't
in no shape to fight--he'd been drinkin' pretty--”
“Yes--well, just do whatever there is to do, Polycarp. The horses are in
the upper pasture, I think--if you want to haul wood.” She closed the
door--gently, but with exceeding firmness, and, Polycarp took the hint.
“Women is queer,” he muttered, as he left the house. “Now, she knows Man
drinks like a fish--and she knows everybody else knows it--but if you so
much as mention sech a thing, why--” He waggled his head disapprovingly and
proceeded, in his habitually laborious manner, to take a chew of tobacco.
“No matter how much they may know a thing is so, if it don't suit 'em you
can't never git 'em to stand right up and face it out--seems like, by
granny, it comes natural to 'em to make believe things is different. Now,
she knows might' well she can't fool _me_. I've hearn Man swear at her
like--”
He reached the corral, and his insatiable curiosity turned his thoughts
into a different channel. He inspected the four calves gravely, wondered
audibly where Man had found them, and how the round-up came to miss them,
and criticized his application of the brand; in the opinion of Polycarp,
Manley either burned too deep or not deep enough.
“Time that line-backed heifer scabs off, you can't tell what's on her,” he
asserted, expectorating solemnly before he turned away to his work.
Prom a window, Val watched him with cold terror. Would he suspect? Or was
there anything to suspect? “It's silly--it's perfectly idiotic,” she told
herself impatiently; “but if he hangs around that corral another minute, I
shall scream!” She watched until she saw him mount his horse and ride off
toward the upper pasture. Then she went out and began apathetically picking
seed pods off her sweet-peas, which the early frosts had spared.
“Head better?” called Polycarp, half an hour later, when he went rattling
past the house with the wagon, bound for the river bottom where they got
their supply of wood.
“A little,” Val answered inattentively, without looking at him.
It was while Polycarp was after the wood, and while she was sitting upon
the edge of the porch, listlessly arranging and rearranging a handful of
long-stemmed blossoms, that Kent galloped down the hill and up to the gate.
She saw him coming and set her teeth hard together. She did not want to see
Kent just then; she did not want to see anybody.
Kent, however, wanted to see her. It seemed to him at least a month since
he had had a glimpse of her, though it was no more than half that time. He
watched her covertly while he came up the path. His mind, all the way over
from the Wishbone, had been very clear and very decided. He had a certain
thing to tell her, and a certain thing to do; he had thought it all out
during the nights when he could not sleep and the days when men called him
surly, and there was no going back, no reconsideration of the matter. He
had been telling himself that, over and over, ever since the house came
into view and he saw her sitting there on the porch. She would probably
want to argue, and perhaps she would try to persuade him, but it would be
absolutely useless; absolutely.
“Well, hello!” he cried, with more than his usual buoyancy of
manner--because he knew he must hurt her later on. “Hello, Madam Authoress.
Why this haughty air? This stuckupiness? Shall I get a ladder and climb
up where you can hear me say howdy?” He took off his hat and slapped her
gently upon the top of her head with it. “Come out of the fog!”
“Oh--I wish you wouldn't!” She glanced up at him so briefly that he caught
only a flicker of her yellow-brown eyes, and went on fumbling her flowers.
Kent stood and looked down at her for a moment.
“Mad?” he inquired cheerfully. “Say, you look awfully savage. On the dead,
you do. What do _you_ care if they sent it back? You had all the fun of
writing it--and you know it's a dandy. Please smile. _Pretty_ please!” he
wheedled. It was not the first time he had discovered her in a despondent
mood, nor the first time he had bantered and badgered her out of her gloom.
Presently it dawned upon him that this was more serious; he had never seen
her quite so colorless or so completely without spirit.
“Sick, pal?” he asked gently, sitting down beside her.
“No-o--I suppose not.” Val bit her lips, as soon as she had spoken, to
check their quivering.
“Well, what is it? I wish you'd tell me. I came over here full of something
I had to tell you--but I can't, now; not while you're like this.” He
watched her yearningly.
“Oh, I can't tell you. It's nothing.” Val jerked a sweet-pea viciously from
its stem, pressed her hand against her mouth, and turned reluctantly toward
him. “What was it you came to tell me?”
He watched her narrowly. “I'll gamble you're down in the mouth about
something hubby has said or done. You needn't tell me--but I just want to
ask you if you think it's worth while? You needn't tell me that, either.
You know blamed well it ain't. He can't deal you any more misery than you
let him hand out; you want to keep that in mind.”
Another blossom was demolished. “What was it you came to tell me?” she
repeated steadily, though she did not look at him.
“Oh, nothing much. I'm going to leave the country, is all.”
“Kent!” After a minute she forced another word out. “Why?”
Kent regarded her somberly. “You better think twice before you ask me
that,” he warned; “because I ain't much good at beating all around the
bush. If you ask me again, I'll tell you--and I'm liable to tell you
without any frills.” He drew a hard breath. “So I'd advise you not to ask,”
he finished, half challengingly.
Val placed a pale lavender blossom against a creamy white one, and held the
two up for inspection.
“When are you going?” she asked evenly.
“I don't know exactly--in a day or so. Saturday, maybe.”
She hesitated over the flowers in her lap, and selected a pink one, which
she tried with the white and the lavender.
“And--_why_ are you going?” she asked him deliberately.
Kent stared at her fixedly. A faint, pink flush was creeping into her
cheeks. He watched it deepen, and knew that his silence was filling her
with uneasiness. He wondered how much she guessed of what he was going to
say, and how much it would mean to her.
“All right--I'll tell you why, fast enough.” His tone was grim. “I'm going
to leave the country because I can't stay any longer--not while you're in
it.”
“Why--Kent!” She seemed inexpressibly shocked.
“I don't know,” he went on relentlessly, “what you think a man's made of,
anyhow. And I don't know what _you_ think of this pal business; I know what
I think: It's a mighty good way to drive a man crazy. I've had about all of
it I can stand, if you want to know.”
“I'm sorry, if you don't--if you can't be friends any longer,” she said,
and he winced to see how her eyes filled with tears. “But, of course, if
you can't--if it bores you--”
Kent seized her arm, a bit roughly, “Have I got to come right out and tell
you, in plain English, that I--that it's because I'm so deep in love with
you I can't. If you only knew what it's cost me this last year--to play the
game and not play it too hard! What do you think a man's made of? Do you
think a man can care for a woman, like I care for you, and--Do you think he
wants to be just pals? And stand back and watch some drunken brute abuse
her--and never--Here!” His voice grew testier. “Don't do that--don't! I
didn't want to hurt you--God knows I didn't want to hurt you!” He threw his
seem around her shoulders and pulled her toward him.
“Don't--pal, I'm a brute, I guess, like all the rest of the male humans. I
don't mean to be--it's the way I'm made. When a woman means so much to me
that I can't think of anything else, day or night, and get to counting
days and scheming to see her--why--being friends--like we've been--is like
giving a man a teaspoon of milk and water when he's starving to death, and
thinking that oughta do. But I shouldn't have let it hurt you. I tried
to stand for it, little woman. These were times when I just had to fight
myself not to take you up in my arms and carry you of and keep you. You
must admit,” he argued, smiling rather wanly, “that, considering how I've
felt about it, I've done pretty tolerable well up till now. You don't--you
never will know how much it's cost. Why, my nerves are getting so raw I
can't stand anything any more. That's why I'm going. I don't want to hang
around till I do something--foolish.”
He took his arm away from her shoulders and moved farther off; he was not
sure how far he might trust himself.
“If I thought you cared--or if there was anything I could do for you,” he
ventured, after a moment, “why, it would be different. But--”
Val lifted her head and turned to him.
“There is something--or there was--or--oh, I can't think any more! I
suppose”--doubtfully--“if you feel as you say you do, why--it would
be--wicked to stay. But you don't; you must just imagine it.”
“Oh, all right,” Kent interpolated ironically.
“But if you go away--” She got up and stood before him, breathing unevenly,
in little gasps. “Oh, you mustn't go away! Please don't go! I--there's
something terrible happened--oh, Kent, I need you! I can't tell you what
it is--it's the most horrible thing I ever heard of! You can't imagine
anything more horrible, Kent!”
She twisted her fingers together nervously, and the blossoms dropped, one
by one, on the ground. “If you go,” she pleaded, “I won't have a friend in
the country, not a real friend. And--and I never needed a friend as much
as I do now, and you mustn't go. I--I can't let you go!” It was like her
hysterical fear of being left alone after the fire.
Kent eyed her keenly. He knew there must have been something to put her
into this state--something more than his own rebellion. He felt suddenly
ashamed of his weakness in giving way--in telling her how it was with
him. The faint, far-off chuckle of a wagon came to his ears. He turned
impatiently toward the sound. Polycarp was driving up the coulee with a
load of wood; already he was nearing the gate which opened into the lower
field. Kent stood up, reached out, and caught Val by the hand.
“Come on into the house,” he said peremptorily. “Polly's coming, and you
don't want him goggling and listening. And I want you,” he added, when he
had led her inside and closed the door, “to tell me what all this is about.
There's something, and I want to know what. If it concerns you, then it
concerns me a whole lot, too. And what concerns me I'm going to find out
about--what is it?”
Val sat down, got up immediately, and crossed the room aimlessly to sit in
another chair. She pressed her palms tightly against both cheeks, drew in
her breath as if she were going to speak, and, after all, said nothing. She
looked out of the window, pushing back the errant strand of hair.
“I can't--I don't know how to tell you,” she began desperately. “It's too
horrible.”
“Maybe it is--I don't know what you'd call too horrible; I kinda think it
wouldn't be what I'd tack those words to. Anyway--what is it?” He went
close, and he spoke insistently.
She took a long breath.
“Manley's a thief!” She jerked the words out like as automaton. They were
not, evidently, the Words she had meant to speak, for she seemed frightened
afterward.
“Oh, that's it!” Kent made a sound which was not far from a snort. “Well,
what about it? What's he done? How did you find it out?”
Val straightened in the chair and gazed up at him. Once more her tawny eyes
gave him a certain shock, as if he had never before noticed them.
“After all our neighbors have done for him,” she cried bitterly; “after
giving him hay, when his was burned and he couldn't buy any; after building
stables, and corral, and--everything they did--the kindest, best neighbors
a man ever had--oh, it's too shameful for utterance! I might forgive it--I
might, only for that. The--the ingratitude! It's too despicable--too--”
Kent laid a steadying hand upon her arm.
“Yes--but what is it?” he interrupted.
Val shook off his hand unconsciously, impatient of any touch.
“Oh, the bare deed itself--well, it's rather petty, too--and cheap.” Her
voice became full of contempt. “It was the calves. He brought home five
last night--five that hadn't been branded last spring. Where he found them
_I_ don't know--I didn't care enough about it to ask. He had been drinking,
I think; I can usually tell--and he often carries a bottle in his pocket,
as I happen to know.
“Well, he had me make a fire and heat the iron for him, and he branded
them--last night; he was very touchy about it when I asked him what was his
hurry. I think now it was a stupid thing for him to do. And--well, in the
night, some time, I heard a cow bawling around close, and this morning I
went out to drive her away; the fence is always down somewhere--I suppose
she found a place to get through. So I went out to drive her away.” Her
eyes dropped, as if she were making a confession of her own misdeed. She
clenched her hands tightly in her lap.
“Well--it was a Wishbone cow.” After all, she said it very quietly.
“The devil it was!” Kent had been prepared for something of the sort; but,
nevertheless, he started when he heard his own outfit mentioned.
“Yes. It was a Wishbone cow.” Her voice was flat and monotonous. “He had
stolen her calf. He had it in the corral, and he had branded it with his
own brand--with a VP. _With my initials!_” she wailed suddenly, as if
the thought had just struck her, and was intolerably bitter. “She had
followed--had been hunting her calf; it was rather a little calf, smaller
than the others. And it was crowded up against the fence, trying to get to
her. There was no mistaking their relationship. I tried to think he had
made a mistake; but it's of no use--I know he didn't. I know he _stole_
that calf. And for all I know, the others, too. Oh, it's perfectly horrible
to think of!”
Kent could easily guess her horror of it, and he was sorry for her. But his
mind turned instantly to the practical side of it.
“Well--maybe it can be fixed up, if you feel so bad about it. Does
Polycarp--did he see the cow hanging around?”
Val shook her head apathetically. “No--he didn't come till just a little
while ago. That was this morning. And I drove her out of the coulee--her
and her calf. They went off up over the hill.”
Kent stood looking down at her rather stupidly.
“You--_what?_ What was it you did?” It seemed to him that something--some
vital point of the story--had eluded him.
“I drove them away. I didn't think they ought to be permitted to
hang around here.” Her lips quivered again. “I--I didn't want to see
him--get--into any trouble.”
“You drove them away? Both of them?” Kent was frowning at her now.
Val sprang up and faced him, all a-tremble with indignation. “Certainly,
both! _I'm_ not a thief, Kent Burnett! When I knew--when there was no
possible doubt--why, what, in Heaven's name, _could_ I do? It wasn't
Manley's calf. I turned it loose to go back where it belonged.”
“With a VP on its ribs!” Kent was staring at her curiously.
“Well, I don't care! Fifty VP's couldn't make the calf Manley's. If anybody
came and saw that cow, why--” Val looked at him rafter pityingly, as if she
could not quite understand how he could even question her upon that point.
“And, after all,” she added forlornly, “he's my husband. I couldn't--I had
to do what I could to shield him--just for sake of the past, I suppose.
Much as I despise him, I can't forget that--that I cared once. It's because
I wanted your advice that I--”
“It's a pity you didn't get it sooner, then! Can't you see what you've
done? Why, think a minute! A VP calf running with a Wishbone cow--why,
it's--you couldn't advertise Man as a rustler any better if you tried. The
first fellow that runs onto that cow and calf--well, he won't need to do
any guessing--he'll _know_. It's a ticket to Deer Lodge--that VP calf. Now
do you see?” He turned away to the window and stood looking absently at the
brown hillside, his hands thrust deep into his pockets.
“And there's Fred De Garmo, with his new job, ranging around the country
just aching to cinch somebody and show his authority. It's a matter of days
almost. He'd like nothing better than to get a whack at Man, even if the
Wishbone--”
Outside, they could hear Polycarp throwing the wood off the wagon; knowing
him as they did, they knew, it would not be long before he found an excuse
for coming into the house. He had more than once evinced a good deal of
interest in Kent's visits there, and shown an unmistakable desire to know
what they were talking about. They had never paid much attention to him;
but now even Val felt a vague uneasiness lest he overhear. She had been
sitting, her face buried in her arms, crushed beneath the knowledge of what
she had done.
“Don't worry, little woman.” Kent went over and passed his hand lightly
over her hair. “You did what looked to you to be the right thing--the
honest thing. And the chances are he'd get caught before long, anyhow. I
don't reckon this is the first time he's done it.”
“Oh-h--but to think--to think that _I_ should do it--when I wanted to save
him! He--Kent, I despise him--he has killed all the love I ever felt for
him--killed it over and over--but if anybody finds that calf, and--and
if they--Kent, I shall go crazy if I have to feel that _I_ sent
him--to--prison. To think of him--shut up there--and to know that I did
it--I can't bear it!” She caught his arm. She pressed her forehead
against it. “Kent, isn't there some way to get it back? If I should find
it--and--and shoot it--and pay the Wishbone what it's worth--oh, _any_
amount--or shoot the cow--or--” she raised her face imploringly to
his--“tell me, pal--or I shall go stark, raving mad!”
Polycarp came into the kitchen, and, from the sound, he was trying to enter
as unobtrusively as possible, even to the extent of walking on his toes.
“Go see what that darned old sneak wants,” Kent commanded in an undertone.
“Act as if nothing happened--if you can.” He watched anxiously, while she
drew a long breath, pressed her hands hard against her cheeks, closed her
lips tightly, and then, with something like composure, went quietly to the
door and threw it open. Polycarp was standing very close to it, on the
other side. He drew back a step.
“I wondered if I better git another load, now I've got the team hooked
up,” he began in his rasping, nasal voice, his slitlike eyes peering
inquisitively into the room. “Hello, Kenneth--I _thought_ that was your
horse standin' outside. Or would you rather I cut up a pile? I dunno but
what I'll have to go t'town t'-morrerr or next day--mebby I better cut you
some wood, hey? If Man ain't likely to be home, mebby--”
“I think, Polycarp, well have a storm soon. So it would be good policy to
haul another load, don't you think? I can manage very well with what there
is cut until Manley returns; and there are always small branches that I can
break easily with the axe. I really think it would be safer to have another
load hauled now while we can. Don't you think so?” Val even managed to
smile at him. “If my head wasn't so bad,” she added deceitfully, “I should
be tempted to go along, just for a dose sight of the river. Mr. Burnett is
going directly--perhaps I may walk down later on. But you had better not
wait--I shouldn't want to keep you working till dark.”
Polycarp, eying her and Kent, and the room in all its details, forced his
hand into his trousers pocket, brought up his battered plug of tobacco and
pried off a piece, which he rolled into his left cheek with his tongue.
“Jest as you say,” he surrendered, though it was perfectly plain that he
would much prefer to cut wood and so be able to see all that went on, even
though he was denied the gratification of hearing what they said. He waited
a moment, but Val turned away, and even had the audacity to close the
door upon his unfinished reply. He listened for a moment, his head craned
forward.
“Purty kinda goings-on!” he mumbled. “Time Man had a flea put in 'is ear,
by granny, if he don't want to lose that yeller-eyed wife of hisn.” To
Polycarp, a closed door--when a man and woman were alone upon the other
side--could mean nothing but surreptitious kisses and the like. He
went stumbling out and drove away down the coulee, his head turning
automatically so that his eyes were constantly upon the house; from
his attitude, as Kent saw him through the window Polycarp expected an
explosion, at the very least. His outraged virtue vested itself in one more
sentence; “Purty blamed nervy, by granny--to go 'n' shut the door right in
m' face!”
Inside the room, Val stood for a minute with her back against the door, as
if she half feared Polycarp would break in and drag her secret from her.
When she heard him leave the kitchen she drew a long breath, eloquent in
itself: when the rattle of the wagon came to them there, she left the
door and went slowly across the room until she stood close to Kent. The
interruption had steadied them both. Her voice was a constrained calm when
she spoke.
[Illustration: To draw the red hot spur across the fresh VP did not take
long]
“Well--is there anything I can do? Because I suppose every minute is
dangerous.”
Kent kept his eyes upon the departing Polycarp.
“There's nothing you can do, no. Maybe I can do something; soon as that
granny gossip is outa sight, I'll go and round up that cow and calf--if
somebody hasn't beaten me to it.”
Val looked at him with a certain timid helplessness.
“Oh! Will you--won't it be against the law if you--if you kill it?” She
grew slightly excited again. “Kent, you shall not get into any trouble
for--for his sake! If it comes to a choice, why--let him suffer for his
crime. You shall not!”
Kent turned his head slowly and gazed down at her. “Don't run away with the
idea I'm doing it for him,” he told her distinctly. “I love Man Fleetwood
like I love a wolf. But if that VP calf catches him up, you'd fight your
head over it, God only knows how long. I know you! You'd think so much
about the part you played that you'd wind up by forgetting everything else.
You'd get to thinking of him as a martyr, maybe! No--it's for you. I kinda
got you into this, you recollect? If I'd let you see Man drank, that day,
you'd never have married him; I know that now. So I'm going to get you out
of it. My side of the question can wait.”
She stared up at him with a grave understanding.
“But you know what I said--you won't do anything that can make you
trouble--won't you tell me, Kent, what you're going to do?”
He had already started to the door, but he stopped and smiled reassuringly.
“Nothing so fierce. If I can find 'em, I aim to bar out that VP. Sabe?”