A MEETING BY THE FORD
Under the cottonwoods that shadowed the landing-place, the clematis
trailed its tufts of fluffy grey; a cluster of wind-flowers nodded,
winking their showy blue eyes; birds whisked about to fetch straws and
scraps for their building; and the grass, bright green, but stubby, wore
a changing spatterwork of sun and leaf.
Marylyn let drop her bonnet and the cow-horn that hung by a thong to her
wrist. Then, with folded hands, she looked up and around her, sniffing
the warm air in delight. The Texas home had never offered such a lovely
retreat. There, the arid _mesa_ had grown thorny mesquite, scraggled
cypress, or stunted live-oak for a shade; sand had whirled ceaselessly
before a high, hot wind; no flowers had bloomed but the pale toadflax
and the prickly-pear; and beside the salt lakes of that almost waterless
waste had nested only the vulture.
But this! It was like the blossom-strewn plain that burst upon them as,
desert-wearied, they travelled into Central Texas; like the glimpses of
April woodland in the Upper and Lower Cross Timbers. It made generous
return for the long, merciless winter; more--in one glance, in one
breath, it swept away a whole winter of hateful memories!
She caught up bonnet and horn and chose a seat close to the river.
Before her was a gap in the knotted grapevine heaps that clung along
the brink of the bank; through it, veiled only by some tendrils that
swung wishfully across, lay a wedge-like vista of muddy water,
bottom-land, bluff, and sky. The mid-morning sun glinted upon the
treacherous current, upon the wet grass of the bottom-land, upon the
green-brown bluff and the Gatling at its top, upon the far, curving
azure of the sky. Against the dazzle, her blue eyes winked harder than
the breeze-tossed anemones; stretching out upon her back, she rested
them in the shifting canopy of foliage.
A startled kingbird flashed past her, coming from a tree by the cut. She
got up, and saw a man in uniform standing near. He was a young man, with
a flushed face and wildly rumpled hair. In one hand he held a tasselled
hat; in the other, a rifle. He leaned forward from behind a bull-berry
bush, and his look was guiltily eager and admiring.
As startled as the kingbird, she grasped the cow-horn and lifted it to
her lips.
But she did not blow a warning. The uniform retreated in cowardly haste,
the tasselled hat lowered, and the eyes beseeched.
A moment. Then, the man smiled and shook his hat at her roguishly.
"A-ah!" he said--in the tone of one who has made a discovery--"I didn't
know before that a fairy lives in this grove!"
Marylyn glanced over a shoulder. "Does there?" she questioned, half
whispering.
He took a forward step. "There does," he answered solemnly. "It's
Goldenhair, as well as I can make out. But where on earth are the
bears?"
Instantly, she had her bonnet. "My! my!" she said. "_Bears!_ Indians is
bad enough." She peered into the long heaps of tangled grapevine.
"Oh, now!" he exclaimed self-accusingly. He whipped a knee with the hat.
"Now, I've gone and scared you! Say, honest! There isn't a bear in a
hundred miles--I'd stake my stupid head on it."
"But Golden----" she began.
"Goldenhair?" He smiled again, by way of entreaty. "Why, Goldenhair
is--you."
She clapped on her bonnet in a little flurry, pulling it down to hide
the last yellow wisp.
Misunderstanding the action, he began to plead. "Oh, don't go; _please_
don't go! I've wanted to meet you for months and months. I've heard so
much about you--Lounsbury's told me."
She gave him a quick look from under the bonnet's rim. "Mr. Lounsbury,"
she repeated, and stiffened her lips.
"Yes."
"He don't know much about me, I reckon. He ain't been to see us for
'months and months.'" She began to dig at the ground with the toe of a
shoe.
"Well--well----" he floundered, "he's been awful rushed, lately--needed
at Clark's--there now. I promised to--to tend to his business here for
him. But he told me about you, just the same, and about your sister,
too. Say, but she is a brick!"
She gave him another look, slightly resentful, but inquiring. "What's a
'brick'?" she demanded.
"It's a person that's all grit," he answered earnestly.
"That's Dallas," she agreed.
He passaged in cavalry fashion until he was between her and the shack.
Then he assumed a front that was cautiously humble. "Lounsbury's had the
best of it," he complained. "He's known you right from the start. And
this is the first chance I've ever had to know you."
She stopped toeing. "But I don't know you," she returned. "Mr.
Lounsbury's never told me----"
"Well, I'll tell you: I'm Robert Fraser, from the Fort. That's really
all there is to say about me. You see, I've only been in one fight--that
was last fall--and I've never even killed an Indian."
She pulled nervously at her bonnet-strings. "You're a soldier," she
said. "And pa--pa'd be mad as a hornet if he knew I'd spoke to you."
Fraser took another step forward. "Pa won't know," he declared.
"Promise you won't tell?" she asked, blushing consciously.
He cast about him as if to find a proper token for his vow. "I promise,"
he answered, hat on heart; "I promise by the Great Horn Spoon!"
"You're the first I--I ever talked to," she faltered.
"That's good!"
"No, it's bad. Because I promised pa once that I wouldn't ever have
anything to do with a soldier. And now I'm breaking my word."
"But he's dead wrong----"
"That's what Dallas says."
"Does she? Bless her heart! Then, why don't you both desert and come
over to the enemy?"
"Pa says you _are_ enemy."
"We were," he corrected soberly. "But the war is over now."
"Maybe it is," she said, wistful, "but pa is still a-fighting."
"And Goldenhair's drafted when she'd rather have peace. Too bad!" He
motioned her to the seat by the gap.
"I can't, I mustn't," she said, and moved a little toward the shack.
"Then I'll go," he said firmly. "I didn't mean to drive you out of
here." He also moved--toward the landing-place.
At that, she assented, fearful of hurting his feelings. But she could
think of nothing to say, and pulled thoughtfully at the grass.
He studied the farther bluff-top and its warding gun.
"Peace," he repeated after a time. "It's a thing we're not likely to
have this summer. And you folks must let us watch out for you, no matter
how much you dislike us. The Indians are out and getting ready. They say
there isn't a young brave left on any of the reservations up this way.
They're all hunting--and we know what that means. They're collecting and
arming for battle. Our troops go to find them at daybreak. See!" He bent
forward, pointing.
Below the stockade, on a level stretch showing yellow with mustard,
where grain had been unshipped the year before, stood long, grey-tented
rows.
"They've moved out of barracks and gone into temporary camp."
"That land man back there's moved and gone, too." She waited. Then,
"Are--are you going?"
He shook his head. "I'm scheduled to stay. It was a disappointment; but
I expected it. I've an idea B Troop won't be idle though."
Her brow knit. "Indians?" she asked.
"Your being on this side of the river assures you folks safety," he
hastened to say. "And they shan't get to you while B Troop's in post."
"All the same, I wish pa'd let Dallas take us away."
"If Indians show up, you'll all come to the Fort. And I'd like that."
"No. Pa wouldn't let us. He'd die first."
"And so maybe I shan't see you again--unless you come here some day. Do
you think that you can?" He bent to see her face. The bonnet framed it
quaintly.
"It's--it's a nice place," she asserted.
He held out his hand to her. "I shall come," he said gently. "But now
I've got to go."
She gave him her hand. He got to his feet still holding it, and helped
her to rise.
"Good-by," she said bashfully, drawing away.
He freed her hand. "You don't know how glad I am that we've met," he
said, "you don't know. It's been pretty lonesome for me since I came
out. And you are a taste of--of the old life. You're like one of those
prairie-flowers that have escaped from the gardens back home. You
sweeten the Western air, Miss Marylyn."
She hung the cow-horn to her wrist and turned away. Overhead the
heart-shaped leaves were trembling to the rush of the river. Her heart
trembled with them, and her voice. "We ain't Eastern," she said,
wistful again. "I was born down yonder in the mesquite, I----" She
paused, glancing back at him.
He stood as she had seen him first. His face was flushed, his uncovered
hair was rumpled. In one hand he held his rifle, in the other his
tasselled hat. And his eyes were eager, admiring. "No, you're not
Eastern," he said; "you were born down in the mesquite. But remember
this, Miss Marylyn--it's the deepest woods that grow the sweetest
violets."
She went on, out of the grove. He lingered to watch her. Beyond the
coulee road, she caught sight of some dandelions and, gathering her
apron into a generous pouch, started to pick a mess. Her bonnet fell
off. She tied it by a string to her braid. Then, flitting here and
there, as she spied new clusters, she began an old Texas bunk-house
song:
"_We saw the Indians coming,
We heard them give a yell.
My feelings at that moment
No mortal tongue could tell._"
Her step was light. Her cheek was pink. Her eyes were happy. The corners
of her mouth were turned upward smilingly. About her warbled the
blackbirds. She mingled her tune with theirs.