WHICH ONE'S WHICH
Eagle Butte sprawled hot and thirsty under the melting sunshine of
mid-forenoon. It was not a prepossessing town. All told, no more than
two hundred buildings were within its corporate limits. A giant mound,
capped by a crown of crumbling, weather-tinted rock, rose abruptly at
the northern edge of the village and gave the place its name. Cimarron
River, sluggish and yellow, bounded the town on the south. The dominant
note of Eagle Butte was a pathetic mixture of regret for glories of
other days and clumsy ambition to assume the ways of a city. Striving
hard to be modern it succeeded only in being grotesque.
The western plains are sprinkled with towns like that. Towns that once,
in the time of the long-horn steer and the forty-four and the nerve to
handle both, were frankly unconventional. Touched later by the black
magic of development, bringing brick buildings, prohibition, picture
shows, real-estate boosters, speculation and attendant evils or benefits
as one chooses to classify them, they became neither elemental nor
ethical--mere gawky mimics of both.
When western Texas was cow-country and nothing else Eagle Butte at
least was picturesque. Flickering lights, gay laughter--sometimes curses
and the sounds of revolver shots, of battles fought close and quick and
to a finish--wheezy music, click of ivory chips, the clink of glasses,
from old Bonanza's and similar rendezvous of hilarity lured to the
dance, faro, roulette, the poker table or the hardwood polished bar.
The Mecca it was in those days for cowboys weary with months on the
wide-flung range.
To-day Eagle Butte is modest, mild and super-subdued.
A garage, cement built, squatty and low and painfully new, its
wide-mouthed entrance guarded by a gasoline pump freshly painted and
exceedingly red, stands at the eastern end of the single, broad,
un-paved business street. All of the stores face one way--north--and
look sleepily across at the railroad track, the low-eaved, yellow, Santa
Fe station and the sunburnt sides of the butte beyond. Opposite the
station the old Occidental Hotel with its high porch, wide steps, narrow
windows, dingy weather-board sides and blackened roof, still stands to
remind old-timers of the days of long ago.
A city marshal, Tom Poole, a long, slim, Sandy-mustached Missourian,
completes the picture of Eagle Butte. Regularly he meets the arriving
trains and by the glistening three-inch nickel star pinned to his left
suspender announces to the traveling world that here, on the one time
woolly Kiowa, law and order at last prevail. Odd times the marshal farms
a ten-acre truck patch close to the river at the southern edge of the
town. Pending the arrival of trains he divides his time between the
front steps of the old hotel and the Elite Amusement Parlor, Eagle
Butte's single den of iniquity where pocket pool, billiards,
solo--devilish dissipations these!--along with root beer, ginger ale,
nut sundaes, soda-pop, milk shakes and similar enticements are served to
those, of reckless and untamed temperaments.
From the open door of the pool hall the marshal saw a thin, black streak
of smoke curling far out on the horizon--a dozen miles--northeast of
Eagle Butte.
"Seventeen's comin'," he remarked to the trio of idlers leaning against
the side of the building; "guess I'd better go over an' see who's on
her," moving as he spoke out into the sizzling glare of the almost
deserted street. Glancing toward the east his eyes fastened on a cloud
of dust whirling rapidly along the road that came from the direction of
the lower Cimarron.
"Gosh, lookey yonder," he muttered, "that must be Old Heck drivin' his
new automobile--th' darn fool is goin' to bust something some day,
runnin' that car the way he does!"
Walking quickly, to escape the heat, he crossed the street to the
station.
Two minutes later the cloud of dust trailed a rakish, trim-lined,
high-powered, purring Clagstone "Six" to a stop in front of the
Occidental Hotel and Old Heck and Skinny Rawlins climbed glumly and
stiffly from the front seat, after the thirty-minute, twenty-mile run
from the Quarter Circle KT.
Old Heck had his peculiarities. One of them was insistence for the
best--absolutely or nothing. The first pure-bred, hot-blood stallions
turned on the Kiowa range carried the Quarter Circle KT brand on their
left shoulders. He wanted quality in his stock and spent thousands of
dollars importing bulls and stallions to get it. When the automobile
came it was the same. No jit for the erratic owner of the last big
genuine cow-ranch on the Cimarron. Consequently the beautiful car--a car
fit for Fifth Avenue--standing now in front of the old hotel in Eagle
Butte.
The smoke on the northeastern sky-line was yet some miles away.
The lanky marshal had reached the station.
"It's a good thing there's prohibition in this town," Skinny muttered as
he stepped from the car and started brushing the dust from his coat;
"Why?"
"'Cause I'd go get drunk if there wasn't--. Wonder if a feller could get
any boot-leg liquor?"
"Better leave it alone," Old Heck warned, "that kind's worse than none.
It don't make you drunk--just gives you the hysterical hydrophobia!'
"Well, I'd drink anything in an emergency like this if I had it,"
Skinny declared doggedly.
"Train's comin'," Old Heck said shortly; "reckon we'd better go over to
the depot--"
"Let's wait here till they get off first," Skinny said. "We can see them
from where we are and kind of size 'em up and it won't be so sudden."
"Maybe that would be better," Old Heck answered.
A moment later Number Seventeen, west-bound Santa Fe passenger train,
stopped at the yellow station. The rear cars were obscured from the view
of Skinny and Old Heck by freight sheds along the track. With the
exception of the engine, baggage, mail and express cars, which were
hidden by the depot, the rest of the train was in plain sight.
A couple of men got off the day coach. These were followed by a gawky,
weirdly dressed girl of uncertain age carrying an old-fashioned
telescope traveling bag. At sight of the girl Skinny caught his breath
with a gasp. Immediately following her was the tallest, homeliest woman
he had ever seen. Thin to the point of emaciation, a wide striped,
ill-fitting dress of some cheap material accentuated the angular lines
of her body. A tiny narrow-brimmed hat, bright green, with a white
feather, dingy and soiled, sticking straight up at the back made her
more than ever a caricature. The woman also carried a bag. The two
stepped up to the marshal, standing at the cornet: of the station,
apparently asking him a question. He answered, pointing as he did to
Old Heck and Skinny leaning silently against the side of their car. The
woman and girl started toward them.
Fascinated, the cow-men watched them approach.
"My Gawd!" Old Heck hoarsely whispered, "that's them!"
"Let's go!" Skinny exclaimed, sweat starting in unheeded beads on his
forehead. "Good lord, let's get in the car and go while we got a
chance!"
Old Heck made a move as if to comply, then stopped. "Can't now," he said
gloomily, "it's too late!"
As Old Heck turned the woman shrieked in a rasping voice:
"Hey--hey you! Wait a minute!"
The cow-men looked around and stared dumbly, dazedly, at her.
"Can I get you to take me an' my daughter out to that construction camp
where they're buildin' a ditch or something?" she asked; "that policeman
said maybe we could get you to--" she continued. "I got a job cookin'
out there an' Lize here is goin' to wait on table."
Old Heck, still looking up in her eyes, with horror written on every
line of his face, his lips twitching till he could scarcely speak,
finally managed to say:
"Ain't--ain't you Ophelia?"
"Ophelia? Ophelia who?" she asked, then before he could speak she
answered his question: "Ophelia--huh! No, I ain't Ophelia! I'm Missus
Jasamine Swope an' a married woman an' you'd better not try to get fresh
or--"
Simultaneous with Old Heck's question, Skinny, his eyes riveted on the
dowdy girl, asked in a voice barely audible:
"Are you--are you Carolyn June?"
"No, I ain't Carolyn June," she snorted. "Come on, ma; let's go! Them
two's crazy or white slavers or somethin'!"
Expressing their scorn and disdain by the angry flirt of their skirts,
the woman and girl whirled and walked briskly away toward the garage at
the end of the street.
"Praise th' heavens," Old Heck breathed fervently as he gazed
spell-bound after the retreating pair, "it wasn't them!"
"Carolyn June and the widow probably went back after all," Skinny said
without, looking around and with the barest trace of disappointment, now
that the danger seemed past, in his voice. "Maybe they got to thinking
about that telegram and decided not to come at last."
"More than likely that was it," Old Heck answered.
Steps sounded behind them. Skinny and Old Heck turned and again they
almost fainted at what they saw. The marshal, a leather traveling bag
in each hand, accompanied by two smartly dressed women, approached.
"These ladies are huntin' for you," he said to Old Heck, dropping the
bags and mopping his face with the sleeve of his shirt. "Guess they're
some kind of kin folks," he added.
Concealed by the freight sheds Carolyn June Dixon and Ophelia Cobb had
stepped from the Pullman at the rear of the train, unseen by Old Heck
and Skinny. Nor had either noticed, being engrossed with the couple that
had left than a moment before, the trio coming across from the station.
As the cook and her daughter by their very homeliness had appalled and
overwhelmed them, these two, Ophelia and Carolyn June, by their exactly
opposite appearance stunned Old Heck and Skinny and rendered them
speechless with embarrassment. Both were silently thankful they had
shaved that morning and Skinny wondered if his face, like Old Heck's,
was streaked with sweat and dust.
For a moment the group studied one another.
Carolyn June held the eyes of Skinny in mute and helpless admiration.
Despite the heat of the blazing sun she looked fresh and dean and
pleasant--wholly unsoiled by the marks of travel. A snow-white Panama
hat, the brim sensibly wide, drooped over cheeks that were touched with
a splash of tan that suggested much time in the open. An abundance of
hair, wonderfully soft and brown, showing the slightest glint of coppery
red running it in vagrant strands, fluffed from under the hat. The
skirt of her traveling suit, some light substantial material, reached
the span of a hand above the ankle. White shoes, silk stockings that
matched and through which glowed the faint pink of firm, healthy, young
flesh, lent charm to the costume she wore. Her lips were red and moist
and parted over teeth that were strong and white. A saucy upward tilt to
the nose, hinting that Carolyn June was a flirt; brown eyes that were
level almost with Skinny's and that held in them a laugh and yet deep
below the mirth something thoughtful, honest and unafraid, finished the
wreck of the cowboy's susceptible heart. Trim and smooth was Carolyn
June, suggesting to Skinny Rawlins a clean-bred filly of saddle strain
that has developed true to form.
Old Heck gazed in equal awe at the more mature Ophelia.
Somewhere near forty she may have been, cozily plump and solid. She had
gray-blue eyes that were steady and frank yet clearly accustomed to
being obeyed. Her hair was a trifle darker in shade than the silky brown
on the head of Carolyn June. She was dressed with immaculate neatness
and taste and carried that well-preserved assurance no woman in the
world save the American of mature development acquires.
There was energy in every line of her body and Ophelia gave Old Heck,
the embarrassed owner of the Quarter Circle KT, more thrills in that one
moment of silent scrutiny than he ever before had felt in the presence
of any woman.
As they looked, Skinny and Old Heck instinctively, a bit awkwardly
perhaps, removed the Stetsons they wore on their heads.
"Howdy-do!" Old Heck finally managed to say.
Skinny gulped like an echo, another "Howdy-do!" in the direction of
Carolyn June.
"I reckon you are Carolyn June and Missus Ophelia Cobb," Old Heck
stammered "Which one of you is which?" unconsciously paying tribute to
the well preserved youthfulness of the widow.
"Oh, Ophelia, beware!" Carolyn June laughed, not in the least offended;
"the gay old rascal is at it already!"
"He didn't mean nothing" Skinny interposed, sensing that Old Heck some
way had made a blunder. "I guess you must be Carolyn June?" looking
questioningly at the girl.
"Excuse me," Old Heck said, "I'm your uncle, I suppose, and this is
Skinny Rawlins--"
"Howdy-do; I'm glad to meet you," Skinny muttered, reaching for the hand
Carolyn June frankly extended.
"I'm glad, too," she replied candidly; "and this is Mrs. Ophelia
Cobb--just Ophelia--Uncle Josiah," Carolyn added, turning to Old Heck
who clumsily shook hands with the widow while his weather-tanned face
flushed a burning, uncomfortably red.
"We was expecting you," he said, retaining life hold on her hand.
"That was very kind," Ophelia murmured. "I am sure we are delighted to
be here."
"Now I guess we are all acquainted," Carolyn June said with a little
laugh. "It's easy for folks to get acquainted, isn't it?" turning
suddenly to Skinny.
"Seems like it after they once get started," Skinny answered.
"We'd better be heading for home I reckon," Old Heck said, releasing at
last the widow's hand and lifting the bags in the car. "Sing Pete will
have dinner ready by the time we get there."
"We have some trunks," Carolyn June said, "can we take them with us?"
"Yes," Old Heck replied, "get in, and we'll drive over to the depot and
get them."
With Carolyn June and Ophelia in the rear seat and Skinny and himself in
the front Old Heck drove the car across to the station and the trunks
were fastened with ropes on the hood of the engine and running-boards of
the car.
As they started away Carolyn June asked:
"Which way now, Uncle Josiah?"
"Out to the ranch."
"Hadn't we better stop at the drug store," she asked soberly, "and get
some medicine?"
"Medicine? Who for?" Old Heck inquired innocently.
"Why, the patients, of course," Carolyn June answered with a
mischievous chuckle.
"What patients?"
"Out at the Quarter Circle KT where that epidemic of smallpox is
raging!" she answered sweetly.
"That's all a mistake," Old Heck said hastily; "we thought is was
smallpox but it wasn't--"
"No, everybody's got over it," Skinny added nervously; "they're all
cured!"
"Yes, they was just broke out with the heat and didn't have the smallpox
at all--" Old Heck explained.
"Liars, both of them," Carolyn June said laughingly to Ophelia; "they
just didn't want us to come!"
"Very likely," Ophelia answered.
"No, honest, we thought we had it," Old Heck stammered.
"We were plumb uneasy for fear you wouldn't arrive," Skinny declared.
"After we found out it wasn't smallpox we were going to send a special
delivery message and tell you it was all a misunderstanding and to come
anyhow!"
"Shall we forgive them?" Carolyn June asked the widow.
"Perhaps, this time--their first offense!"
"I'll tell you," Carolyn June said, "well suspend sentence pending good
behavior!"
Skinny leaned close to Old Heck.
"Stop a minute at the Golden Rule," he whispered; "I want to do some
personal trading."
"If it ain't important," Old Heck answered, "we oughtn't to take the
time. What do you want to buy?"
"I want to get me a white shirt--"
"Gosh," Old Heck exclaimed, "that bad already! What'll he be in week?"
"Did you speak, Uncle Josiah?" Carolyn asked.
"Huh--no, I--Skinny just thought I was going to hit a rock!" he
answered, and giving the engine more gas, he headed the car, at a
thirty-mile clip, toward the east and the Quarter Circle KT.
The party rode in silence. The speed of the car and the fan of the warm
wind against their faces made conversation difficult. A mile from Eagle
Butte they crossed the long, low, iron-railed bridge over the Cimarron
River and climbed out on to the bench away from the bottom lands. From
that point on to the Quarter Circle KT the road followed the brow of the
bench on the south side of the river. It was smooth and good.
Carolyn June thrilled at the bigness of it all as they swept quickly
past the irrigated district close to the town and sped out on the open
unfenced range. For miles the country was level with here and there
arroyos cross-sectioning into the river valley. Long stretches with the
barest undulations made driving a joy and the winding road was a natural
speedway. Scattered over the plain were dusters of mesquit and in the
low sags where moisture was near the surface patches of thorns. Carolyn
June loved the width and breadth of the great range, strange and new to
her. Here was freedom sweeping as the winds of heaven. Dimly, on the
southern horizon she could see the blue outline of Sentinel Mountain
standing alone out on the plain. To the left green pasture-lands lay
along the river. A narrow strip of cottonwood trees marked the curving
path of the Cimarron. Beds of white quicksand, treacherous and fatal and
dreaded by every rider of the open country could be seen, occasionally,
through openings in the trees showing the bed of the river itself. In
the distance behind them was Eagle Butte, towering above the town they
had left a few brief moments before, and beyond that the Costejo
Mountains, rugged and massive and covered in part on their lower slopes
with blue-green thickets of pine. Across the river was a choppy sea of
sand-dunes stretching away to the north as far as sight could reach.
Here and there a high-flung mound, smooth and oval or capped with ledges
of black, glistening rode broke the monotony of the view.
Engrossed in the study of the almost primitive picture Carolyn June
forgot the flight of time and the speed at which they were traveling.
"Yonder's the ranch!" Skinny announced suddenly, turning half around in
his seat and pointing ahead and to the left toward the river.
The valley widened till it was a mile or more across. The Cimarron swung
sharply to the north and hugged the foot of the bench as if unwilling
to spoil the meadowlands past which it flowed. In a great
half-crescent--"Quarter Circle," Old Heck called it--the green
basin-like area lay spread out before them. It was a half dozen miles in
length, reaching from the canyon gate at the upper end of the valley
where the river turned abruptly northward, to the narrow gorge at the
south through which it disappeared.
A blue crane lazily flapped across the valley.
"Seven thousand acres in the bottoms," Skinny volunteered.
"Beautiful!" Carolyn breathed.
"Splendid!" Ophelia exclaimed.
Half-way down the valley, a quarter of a mile from the bench, the
buildings of the Quarter Circle KT clustered together in a group--the
low adobe house, bunk shack, stables, graineries. Out in the fields were
hay yards with half-built stacks of alfalfa--over the tops of the stacks
white tarpaulins. In a pasture beyond the house were horses and cattle,
perhaps a hundred head in all. Climbing the hills north of the river
were a number of moving figures, dimly seen through the haze.
"Are those cattle," Carolyn June asked, "those things across the river?"
"Where?" Skinny inquired.
"Over there, on the hills," pointing toward the objects.
Old Heck glancing in the direction she indicated answered for Skinny:
"That's Parker and the boys, going over to the North Springs--they're
checking up on some yearlings we just turned across from this side of
the range." Then, speaking to Skinny: "They've already had their dinner
and won't be in till supper-time--"
"Are they cowboys?" Carolyn June asked.
"I reckon," Old Heck responded.
"Is Skinny one?" she inquired naively.
"Sort of, I suppose," Old Heck chuckled while Skinny felt his face
coloring up with embarrassment, "but not a wild one."
"Oh, who is that?" Carolyn June cried suddenly as a lone rider whirled
out of the corral, around the stables, and his horse sprang into a
gallop straight down the valley toward the harrows at its lower end.
"That," Skinny said after a quick glance, "oh, that's th' Ramblin'
Kid--Where in thunder do you reckon the darned fool's going now?" he
added to Old Heck.
"Can't tell nothing about where he's going," Old Heck said. "He's liable
to be heading for anywhere. What's he riding?" he asked without looking
up.
"Captain Jack," Skinny replied. "Wonder if he ain't going over to Battle
Ridge to find out if it's so about them sheep coming in over there?"
"Maybe," Old Heck grunted, "either that or else he's took a notion to
hunt that Gold Dust maverick again"--referring to a strange, wonderfully
beautiful, outlaw filly that had appeared on the Kiowa range a year
before and tormented the riders by her almost fiendish cunning in
dodging corral or rope--"if he's riding Captain Jack that's probably
what he's after."
"Who is he, what's his real name?" Carolyn June asked with interest.
"Just th' Ramblin' Kid, as far as I know," Old Heck answered.
"Does he live at the Quarter Circle KT?" Carolyn June continued
curiously as she studied the slender form rising and falling with the
graceful rhythm of his horse's motion--as if man and animal were a
single living, pulsing creature.
"Off and on," Old Heck replied, "when he wants to he does and when he
don't he don't. He's a witch with horses and knows he's always got a job
if he wants it, and I reckon that makes him kind of undependable about
staying in any one place long at a time. That's why they call him th'
Ramblin' Kid--he's liable to ramble any minute."
The car curled down the narrow dugway off of the bench and a moment
later stopped at the gate in front of the ranch house of the Quarter
Circle KT.
"We're here," Skinny said, as Sing Pete, the Chinese cook, appeared at
the open door.
"They've come, Sing Pete," Old Heck called, climbing out of the car;
"this is them! Is dinner ready?"
"All leady--waitee!" the Oriental answered, shuffling out to the car to
help with the luggage and twisting and squirming as he kept bowing in
greeting.
"This is great!" Carolyn June said, as she stepped on the long cool
porch in front of the house and paused a moment before entering the open
door, "--it's cool and pleasant, I'm going to like it," she added, as
she went into the big low-ceilinged room.
The floor was bare of carpet but spotlessly clean; shades, but no
curtains, were over the windows; in the center stood a large flat-topped
reading table; at one end of the table was a Morris chair upholstered in
brown Spanish leather; a wolf-skin rug was thrown on the floor before an
old-fashioned Mexican fire-place built into one corner of the room; in
another corner was a smaller table on which was a graphophone; a rocker
and several chairs were set about the room and against the north wall;
between two doors, evidently opening into twin bedrooms, was an upright
grand piano--.
"Oh, a piano!" Carolyn June exclaimed delightedly noticing the
instrument. "Who plays?"
"Nobody," Old Heck answered foolishly, "I--I--well, what's the use of
lying?--I bought it one day, before prohibition come, when I was drunk
and just had it brought out because I didn't know what else to do with
it--"
"You funny old uncle!" Carolyn June laughed, "I love you
already.--Ophelia plays," she added.
"Not so well or so much as Carolyn June," Ophelia said.
"Maybe we'll have some music then some day; that ain't canned," Skinny
suggested eagerly.
"You women can use them rooms," Old Heck said, referring to the doors on
each side of the piano. "Parker and me did have them but we've arranged
to sleep in the bunk-house while you are here."
"Carolyn June and I need but one," Ophelia said, "it isn't fair to run
you out--"
"You ain't running us," Old Heck answered, "we've talked it over and
would rather."
After dinner Ophelia and Carolyn June spent their time in settling
themselves in their rooms. A small bath closet connected the two--crude
a bit and somewhat unfinished; but a hot tub, the water supplied from a
tank at the kitchen range, was enjoyed by both.
Old Heck and Skinny helped with the trunks and then withdrew to the
bunk-house.
Old Heck shaved and Skinny put on a clean shirt.
Skinny was not sure but this official love-making job was going to be
interesting work and Old Heck himself was uncertain whether to cuss or
rejoice--sometimes he was almost sorry to-morrow would be Parker's day
to love and entertain Ophelia.