"Why not?"
"After this Dawson business?"
"Why not?"
"She wouldn't look at you."
"Don't you fool yourself. Why wouldn't she look at me, I'd like to
know? I got money. She could wear good clothes and have help in the
kitchen. What more could a woman want?"
Jonesy shook his head. "This Dawson business has queered you there,
and you can bet on it."
"Oh, that's easy explained--to her."
"H-m-m-m, well, maybe so. I dunno, she looks to me like one girl who
knows her own mind. And there's Tom Walton who don't like us, either.
You gotta think of all these things."
"I have. The more I think of it, the more I think she'll do."
"Funny you never noticed it before. She's been around with her uncle
several years now."
"I never even gave her more'n a short look till I seen her holding that
Dawson man's head in her lap, and then stickin' up for him the way she
did. I tell you, she looked mighty handsome."
"She's a lot younger than you."
"What's a few years between man and wife? Besides, I ain't so old. I
ain't forty yet."
"You will be next year, and I'll bet she ain't twenty yet."
"She'll last all the longer."
It was mid-morning next day, when Hazel was making butter, that a rap
sounded on the kitchen door.
"Come in," she called continuing to turn steadily the handle of her box
churn.
It was Rafe Tuckleton who opened the door and walked in. Hazel's eyes
narrowed at sight of the man. Rafe Tuckleton! What on earth did he
want?
"Uncle's out," she said shortly.
"I didn't come to see him," explained Rafe, with a smile he strove to
make ingratiating. "I came to see you."
"I don't know what you can want to see me about."
"I have my reasons," said Rafe vaguely.
Hat in hand, he started to sidle to a chair.
"Don't they have any doors where you live?" Hazel inquired sharply.
"Oh," Rafe wheeled hastily and closed the door. He set a trifle to the
young lady's account. He was not accustomed to being talked to this
way. The snip!
He gained the chair at last, sat down, crossed his legs and crowned a
sharp and bony knee with his hat.
"Yeah," he intoned, pulling one horn of his crescent-shaped mustache.
"I come to see you." It never occurred to him to offer to turn the
churn-handle for her. In his estimation women were made for the
especial comfort and delectation of men. Why put oneself out? Quite
so.
Hazel continued to turn the handle in silence.
"Makin' butter?" was Rafe's next remark.
"Not at all," Hazel replied sweetly. "I'm washing blankets."
As humor it was not subtle. But neither was the man subtle. He
laughed aloud and slapped his knee.
"Pretty good. Got a tongue in your head, ain't you?"
Again he pulled his mustache and favored her with what he conceived to
be a most fetching leer. He succeeded in making her yearn to hurl the
churn at him.
"You've seen me," she said suddenly, raising her dark eyes to his face.
"Why not move right along?"
"That's all right," he said easily. "You're only mad at me account of
that business the other day. Nothing at all, that wasn't. Just a li'l
mistake. We all make them. You mustn't hold it against me."
"But I do hold it against you!" she cried vehemently. "You tried to
murder him!"
Rafe raised a bland hand, palm outward. "Not a-tall. You've got it
all wrong. I might have known you would. Women never do get things
straight."
"I got this straight all right, and you might as well know I haven't a
bit of use for you, and I don't want you in my kitchen. So there!"
"Now listen, li'l girl," he said persuasively. "You don't understand
me a-tall, I tell you. I may look hard--a rough diamond but I'm the
pure quill underneath, and I like you."
Hazel was so surprised that she stopped churning. She stared at him,
saucer-eyed, her mouth open.
Rafe nodded his head at her. "Yeah, I like you. I have liked you
a-uh-long time. And I've got a proposition to make you. How'd you
like to marry me?"
Hazel's expression registered immediate distaste. "I wouldn't like.
Not for a minute. No."
Rafe considered it necessary to explain matters more fully. "I mean
marry me all regular and go to live at my ranch. You wouldn't have to
work hard. You could have the washin' done and have help in the
kitchen. I'm a mighty easy feller to get along with too, once you get
to know me."
"I don't want to get to know you!" Hazel had resumed her churning, but
her negation was no less decisive.
"I'd be good to you. Give you all the dresses and fixings you want--in
reason. Say, I'd even have one of these cabinet organs packed in for
you. New furniture, too--in reason. I'll be generous. I've got
money, and I'd sure be willing to spend it on a girl like you."
"You needn't bother."
He removed his, hat from his knee, uncrossed his legs and dropped the
hat on the floor. He propped his hands on his knees and surveyed her,
his head on one side.
"You don't know what you're refusing," he told her. "Marry me and you
won't have to work like this. Nawsir. I'm a rich man, I am. Here,
let's talk it over."
He rose to his feet and came toward her. She promptly reached behind
her and possessed herself of the singing kettle.
"If you touch me," she said hysterically, "I'll douse you with boiling
water!"
"There, there," he said, with a light laugh, "I didn't mean to scare
you. Set the kettle down, there's a good girl."
But the good girl had other ideas. "You get out of here. I don't want
you around."
Her show of temper caused his own to flare up. "There's no use for you
to get mad. None a-tall. You act like I'd insulted you instead of
doing you a honor."
At which her sense of humor came to her rescue and she laughed in his
face. He picked up his hat and faced her, scowling.
"I ain't mad," he told her. "Not a bit. It don't pay to get mad with
a woman. But I want you to know I'm comin' back for another answer. I
ain't satisfied you mean 'no.' And, anyway, I want you, and I'm gonna
have you. That's all there is to it. You think it over."
He nodded stiffly, still scowling, and started toward the door, but
paused with his hand on the latch. When he turned and came back to the
table, she instantly retreated to the stove and laid her hand on the
kettle.
"You needn't go to pick up that thing," he said, both fists clenched on
the tabletop. "I ain't gonna hurt you. I want to know something.
Billy Wingo comes here, doesn't he?"
"He comes--yes. Why not?"
"You like him?"
"What's that to you?"
"Do you like him?"
"He's a friend of mine."
"A girl don't flush up that way over a friend. I know. And I've
heard, too. They say you like Bill Wingo a lot. They say you were
going with Nate Samson till you met Bill. Is that right?"
"It's none of your business."
"Lemme tell you something, young lady. Don't you think for a minute
that Bill Wingo feller can give you one tenth what I can. Just because
he was elected sheriff last week don't signify. Yours truly is the dog
with the brass collar around here, and don't you forget it. You marry
Bill, and you'll regret it."
"If I marry you, I'll regret it,--that's sure."
"Not a bit of it. I'm ace-high in the county now, and I'll go higher
in the territory. You can't keep me down. I'll make money, more'n you
can shake a stick at. You needn't think you'll have to live on a ranch
all your life. Within three years after you marry me I'll take
you--yes, I'll take you to Hillsville to live where you can see folks
all you want. You know Hillsville has almost three thousand people.
You wouldn't be lonesome there. I----"
"It's no use talking," she interrupted, taking care not to remove her
fingers from the kettle. "I wouldn't marry you or anybody else of your
crowd, not if he was the last man on earth."
"'My crowd!' What's the matter with my crowd?"
"Your crowd! Yes, I'd ask, I would! What do you suppose I mean? The
gang that runs this county, that's what I mean! The gang that has a
finger in every crooked land deal and cattle deal, the gang that cheats
the Indians on the government contracts. Yes, and if it hadn't been
for your gang and for what they've done to the morals of Crocker
County, you wouldn't have dared to try and lynch young John Dawson the
way you did! Let _me_ tell you something: The new sheriff will show
you a thing or two. _He_ is honest!"
"Is that so? Honest, is he? You know who elected him, don't you?
_We_ did, and we own him, body and soul and roll. He'll sit up and
talk when we tell him to, and he will lie down and go to sleep when we
tell him to; and if he don't, he's mighty liable to run into a spell of
bad health. Not that we'll want him to do anything he shouldn't. Not
us." Thus Rafe Tuckleton, realizing his temper had carried him away
and he had said too much by half, thinking it well to right matters if
he could, continued hurriedly:
"Those cattle deals you spoke of and the government contracts weren't
crooked a-tall. Just straight business, but of course the fellers we
got 'em away from are riled up and bound to talk. Naturally,
naturally. But don't you get the notion in your head that everything
wasn't all right. Everything was perfectly straight and aboveboard,
you bet. Shucks, of course it was. I could explain it to you mighty
easy, but it would take a lot of time and whatsa use? Politics ain't
for women, or business either, for that matter. You better forget what
you've heard about our crowd. It's just a pack of jealous lies, that's
all, and if you'll tell me the name of who told you anything out of the
way about us, I'll make him hard to find."
"I know what I know," said the stubborn Miss Walton. "You can't fool
me! Not for a minute! And I've listened to you long enough! You get
out of here and don't you come back! Flit!"
She swung the kettle from the stove. Rafe Tuckleton sprang back two
yards. His temper had again gained the ascendancy. He was so mad he
could have beaten her to a frazzle. But there was not a club handy,
and moreover the lady had, by way of reinforcing the kettle, slipped a
butcher knife from the table drawer.
"All right," gritted Rafe, and turned around from the door to shake his
fist at her. "I'll get you, you li'l devil! You needn't think for a
minute you can get away from me by marrying some one else. I don't
give a damn whether it's Bill Wingo or who it is! Within a week after
you get married, you'll be a widow! A widow, y'understand! I'll show
you!"
He went out, slamming the door. Hazel made haste to run around the
table and drop the bar in place. Then she went to the window and
watched the man cross to the cottonwoods where he had tied his horse.
She uttered a sharp "Oh!" of disgust as he jerked at the horse's mouth
and made the animal rear. He brought it down by kicking it in the
stomach.
"What a beast!" muttered she, with a shudder. "What a cruel beast that
man is."
Not till Rafe rode away, quirting his mount into a wild gallop, did she
return to her churning. She found the butter had come, and she removed
the elmwood dasher and poured off the buttermilk. She put the butter
into a long bowl full of water and began to wash and knead it, but not
with her accustomed briskness. She was thinking of what Rafe Tuckleton
had said. He would come again, the brute. She did not want him to.
He had made her afraid.
She shivered a little as she poured off the water in the bowl and
refilled it from the water bucket behind the door. She had no desire
to marry anybody yet. She supposed she would some time, of course.
All girls did eventually. But he would have to be some nice boy she
loved. She guessed yes.
At that very moment a certain nice boy was riding up the draw toward
the Walton ranch. He met Rafe Tuckleton riding away. Rafe gave him a
nasty look. The nice boy smiled sweetly and pulled his horse across
the trail. "Why all the hurry-scurry this bright and summer day?"
It was not a bright and summer day. It was late fall, the clouds were
lowering darkly and there was more than a hint of winter in the air.