Never had the ranch house seemed so large or
so empty. A wave of homesickness overwhelmed
the lonely girl, a terrible longing to see her
little brothers and sisters, now so widely scattered
about the country, and be with them once again.
The days were gradually shortening and when the
light faded about ten o'clock darkness closed silently
in upon the hill country. Though the days were sunny
the nights were very quiet and somewhat chilly.
Nettie Day knelt by her window. She could see the
lights in the row of bunkhouses and someone moving
about the corrals with a lantern in his hand. How long
she knelt by her window she could not have said, but
she felt no inclination for sleep and put off preparing
for bed as long as possible.
The vast silence of the hills seemed to press down
about the place and in the utter stillness of the night
the low wailing of a hungry coyote in the hills awakened
weird echoes. A healthy, placid girl, nerves had never
troubled Nettie; yet on that night she experienced a
psychic premonition of disaster, and when the depression
weighed unbearably down upon her she called to
Jake from her window.
Stick on shoulder, the breed came from the kitchen
door and grinned up at her in the dusk. Jake was
in one of his periods of delusions and as sentry before
an Indian war camp he patrolled fearlessly but with
catlike caution. His mere presence, however, comforted
her, but her cheek blanched as the breed returned
to the house, gave a startled cry--the cry of a man
struck suddenly. She said to herself:
"Jake's playing! I guess he's shootin' at himself
with his old arrows. My, he's a queer one."
Long since the twinkling lights in the bunkhouses
had disappeared one by one as the men "turned in."
The "hands" of the Bar Q were early risers and "hit
the bunks" as soon as the light left the sky.
The last sign of life had vanished. Even the coyote
was silent and the darkness grew ever deeper.
Nettie turned from her window at last. Her long
plaits of hair hung down, like a Marguerite's, on her
shoulders. In her white night dress she looked very
virginal and sweet. She had raised her hands and
begun to coil up the golden braids when something--a
stealthy, cautious motion--caused her to pause. She
stood still in the middle of the room, her eyes wide and
startled, staring at the door.
The bureau stood by the door and a lamp burned on
it. Slowly the knob turned and she felt something push
against the frail door which she had, however, locked.
Though well-nigh paralyzed with fear she found
strength to seize her one chair and thrust its back underneath
the knob so that its two back legs firmly on the
floor might help the now loudly cracking door to resist
the force that was slowly pushing it in. She blew out
the light and retreated towards the window.
There was the sound of snapping steel and the lock
was burst. The upturned chair quivered on its two
back feet, held sturdily in place a moment and then
splintered under the iron strength of the man without.
As the door gave way a numbness came upon her and,
without power to move, like some fascinated thing, she
watched the approach of the Bull. She knew that she
was trapped and clutching her throat with both hands
she tried to force to her lips the cry that would not
come.
She was in a black dream, a merciless nightmare.
She awoke, screaming wildly:
"Cyril, Cyril, Cyril! Cyril! Cyril!" and over and
over again, "Cyril!"
Like one gone stark mad she groped her way to the
window and threw herself out.
When she regained consciousness the bright, hard sun
was in her eyes. She stared up at a brilliant blue sky.
Jake knelt on the grass beside her and tried to move
her to the shadow of the house. She moaned:
"Leave me be. I want to die."
Jake muttered excitedly:
"Him! Him! Him see--him hurt Nettie. Last
night him hurt Jake bad."
"Him!" She knew whom Jake meant by "him" and
threw up her arm as if to shield herself from a blow.
At that moment his shadow loomed above her and
she cowered and cringed from it.
"How'd you git here?" He looked up at the window.
"You got to cut out this damn nonsense. I ain't
aimin' to hurt you, but you can't lay out here. Here,
I'll carry you into the house. Keep still, will yer?
D'you want me to tie you?"
Her struggles ceased. Eyes closed, she submitted
limply as he lifted her in his arms and carried her to
the house. Jake followed, wringing his hands and
whimpering like a dog.
On the fourth day, holding to the bannisters, she
managed to limp downstairs. For a long time she sat
on the hard kitchen chair, staring with unseeing eyes
before her. Even when she heard the heavy tramp of
the Bull's feet on the outside porch she did not raise
her head and as he came in her hopeless gaze remained
still fixed on space.
"Hello! Whatchu doin' down here? How'd you
get down here?"
"I come down myself," said Nettie listlessly. "My
ankle ain't hurtin' me no more."
"I'd a' carried you down if you asked me," he
grunted angrily. "I done everything a man could for
a girl. Who's been waiting on you hand and foot these
last four days just's if you was a delicate lady instead
of a hired girl on a ranch. What more d'you want?
The more you do for some folks the more they want."
Nettie said nothing, but two great tears suddenly
rolled out of her eyes and splashed slowly down her
cheeks. She resented those tears--a sign of weakness,
where she felt hard and frozen within, and she peevishly
brushed them away.
"What you cryin' about?"
"I jus' want that you should let me alone," said
Nettie.
"You'll be let alone soon enough now. I got to go
to Barstairs, and I got to go on to the States. We're
billed up at the fairs over there, and I got to go along
with my bulls. I'd take you with me if it wasn't for
that young buck at Barstairs. I ain't plannin' on
sharing you with no one, do you get me? You belong
to Bull Langdon. I got you at the sale, same's I got
the rest of your dad's old truck, and what the Bull
gets his hands on he keeps. It's up to yourself how
you git treated. I'm free handed with them that treats
me right. My old woman ain't strong. She'll croak
one of these days and 'twon't be long before they'll be
another Mrs. Langdon at Bar Q. You treat the Bull
right and you'll be the second Mrs. Langdon."
Nettie twisted her hands in her apron. Her heart
ached dully and at the mention of her mistress's name
a fierce lump rose persistently in her throat.
"Well, what you got to say to that?"
She did not answer and he pursued wrathfully:
"You're sulking now and you're sore on me, but
you'll get over that, gell. I'll knock it out of your system
damn soon if you don't, and you'll find out that
it'll pay you to be on the right side of the Bull rather
than the wrong."
"I ain't aiming to make you mad," said Nettie
piteously, shrinking under the implied threat. He
chuckled, relishing his power.
"Well, I'll be off. If it weren't for them bulls nothing
could take me from you now, gell, but I ain't fool
enough to neglect my bulls for a gell. I'm goin' along
with the herd far as St. Louis, and I'll be back to you
before the month is out."
His big lips closed over hers. The loathsome embrace
seemed to strangle her. Then she was alone again.
She sat in the kitchen for more than an hour after
the departure of the Bull, still in that attitude of
stupefied apathy, then limped upstairs, into her room,
closed the battered door, and sat down on the edge of
her bed, holding her head in her hands. She had no
feeling save that of intense weariness and dead despair.
Presently, still dressed, she fell sideways upon the
bed and slept the long, unbroken sleep of one physically
and mentally exhausted.