THE LONESOMENESS
"He's got the lonesomeness," said Dad, "and I tell you, John, when
that gits a hold of a man he ain't responsible. It's the same as
shuttin' a man up in jail to break him off of booze--say, he'll claw
the rocks out of the wall with his finger nails to git out where he
can take a snort."
"I never had the lonesomeness, so I don't know, but there's something
the matter with the kid."
"Yes, I see him tearin' around the country ridin' the head off of that
horse, never lookin' where he's goin' any more than a bat. He's been
clean over to Four Corners after the mail twice this week. A feller
must want a letter purty bad when he'll go to all that fuss for it."
"I'm afraid it's going to be hard for him; he hasn't any more than
bitten into his three years yet; he don't really know how they
taste."
"It'll break him; he'll go all to pieces, I tell you John. When the
lonesomeness takes a hold of a feller that way something pops in his
head after a while; then he either puts a bullet through his heart or
settles down and gits fat. That feller ain't got it in him to put on
loco fat."
Dad had slicked himself up pretty well that day before cutting across
the range for a chat with Mackenzie. His operations with the
sheep-shears on his fuzzy whiskers had not been uniform, probably due
to the lack of a mirror. Dad trusted to the feel of it when he had no
water by to look into and guide his hand, and this time he had cut
close to the skin in several places, displaying his native color
beneath the beard. But whatever he lacked in his chin-hedge he made up
for in careful arrangement of his truly beautiful hair.
There was a sniff of perfume about him, a nosegay of wild flowers
pinned in the pocket of his shirt. Mackenzie marveled over these
refinements in the old man's everyday appearance, but left it to his
own time and way to tell what plans or expectations prompted them.
"Hector Hall showed up?"
"No."
"Reid wouldn't make any more than a snap and a swaller out of that
feller, I guess. But it ain't good for a man like him to start out
killin'; it goes to his liver too quick and drives him mooney."
"I don't suppose it's very healthy for any man, Dad."
"You said it! I've went fifty miles around a range to skip a feller
that was lookin' for my skelp, and I'd go a thousand before I'd crowd
a fight. I never was much on the fight, and runnin' sheep took what
little was in me out a long time ago."
Dad got out his red box of corn-husk cigarettes, offering it silently
to Mackenzie, who shook his head, knowing very well that Dad did it to
observe conventions rather than out of a desire to have him help
himself. The stock of Mexican smokes was running low; Dad had spoken
of it only the day before, and his feet were itching for the road to
the border, he said.
"Well, he's got a name and a fame in this country he can travel on,"
said Dad.
Which was true enough. Mackenzie's fight with Swan Carlson had taken
second place, his reputation as a fighting man in the sheeplands had
paled almost to nothing, after Reid's swift-handed dealing with Matt
Hall. The fame of his exploit ran through the country, fixing his
place in it at once, for Matt Hall was known as a man who had the
strength of seven in his long, gorilla arms.
Hector Hall, brother of the slain man, seemed to accept the tragedy
with a sorrowful resignation in which no shadow of revenge appeared.
He let it be known that Matt had been irresponsible at times, given to
night-prowlings and outbreaks of violence of strange and fantastic
forms. How much truth there was in this excuse for the dead man,
Hector alone knew. But no matter for his passivity, Mackenzie did not
trust him. He made a requisition on Tim Sullivan at once for revolvers
for himself and Reid, which Tim delegated the young man to go to Four
Corners and buy.
"Well, I come over to see if you'll lend Reid to me three or four days
while I make a trip to town," said Dad. "I've got a little business
over there to tend to I've been puttin' off for more than a month."
"Yes, if it's all right with Tim you can have him. What's up, getting
married?"
"Kind of arrangin', John, kind of arrangin'. There's a widow-lady over
at Four Corners I used to rush that needs a man to help her with her
sheep. A man might as well marry a sheep ranch as work on one, I
reckon."
"It's a shorter cut, anyhow. When do you want Reid?"
"I was aimin' to rack out this evenin', John."
"I'll send him over this afternoon. I don't know where he is, but
he'll be back for dinner."
Dad went away well satisfied and full of cheer, Mackenzie marveling
over his marital complexities as he watched him go. Together with
Rabbit, and the Mexican woman down El Paso way whom John had
mentioned, but of whom Dad never had spoken, and no telling how many
more scattered around the country, Dad seemed to be laying the
groundwork for a lively roundup one of his days. He said he'd been
marrying women off and on for forty years. His easy plan seemed to be
just to take one that pleased his capricious temper wherever he found
her, without regard to former obligations.
Mackenzie grinned. He did not believe any man was so obscure as to be
able to escape many wives. Dad seemed to be a dry-land sailor, with a
wife in every town he ever had made in his life. Mackenzie understood
about Mexican marriages. If they were priest marriages, they were
counted good; if they were merely justice of the peace ones they were
subject to wide and elastic infringement on both sides. Probably
Indian marriages were similar. Surely Dad was old enough to know what
he was about.
Reid came to camp at noontime, and prepared dinner in his quick and
handy way. Mackenzie did not take up the question of his acting as
relief for Dad while the old scout went off to push his arrangements
for marrying a sheep ranch, seeing that Reid was depressed and
down-spirited and in no pleasant mood.
They were almost independent of the camp-mover, owing to their light
equipment, which they could carry with them from day to day as the
sheep ranged. Supplies were all they needed from the wagon, which came
around to them twice a week. After dinner Reid began packing up for
the daily move, moody and silent, cigarette dangling on his lip.
"It's a one-hell of a life!" said he, looking up from the last knot in
the rope about the bundle of tent.
"Have you soured on it already, Earl?"
Reid sat on the bundle of tent, a cloud on his face, hat drawn almost
to the bridge of his nose, scowling out over the sheep range as if he
would curse it to a greater barrenness.
"Three years of this, and what'll I be? Hell! I can't even find that
other Hall."
"Have you been out looking for him?"
"That big Swede over there was tellin' me he's put me down in his book
for a killin'. I thought I'd give him a chance to get it over with if
he meant it."
"Has Carlson been over?"
"No, I rode over there the other evening. Say, is that the woman you
found chained up when you struck this country?"
"She's the one."
Mackenzie looked at Reid curiously as he answered. There was something
of quick eagerness in the young man's inquiry, a sudden light of a new
interest in his face, in sharp contrast with the black mood of a
moment before.
"She looks like an Ibsen heroine," said Reid. "Take that woman out of
this country and dress her right, and she'd be a queen."
"You'd better keep away from there," said Mackenzie, dryly.
"Oh, I guess I can take care of Swan if you could," Reid returned,
with a certain easy insolence, jerking his hip to hitch his gun around
in suggestive movement.
Mackenzie dropped the matter without more words, seeing too plainly
the humor of the youth. Maybe Dad had diagnosed his ailment aright,
but to Mackenzie it appeared something more than plain lonesomeness.
The notoriety attending the killing of Matt Hall had not been good for
Reid. He wanted more of it, and a bigger audience, a wider field.
If this was a taste of the adventure of the West's past romantic
times, Mackenzie felt that he was lucky he had come too late to share
it. His own affair with Swan Carlson had been sordid enough, but this
unlucky embroilment in which Reid had killed a man was a plain
misfortune to the hero of the fight. He told Reid of Dad's request.
"You go and run his sheep for him," Reid suggested. "It'll take you a
little nearer Joan."
This he added as with studied sneer, his face flushing darkly, his
thin mouth twisted in an ugly grin.
Mackenzie passed it, but not without the hurt of the unkind stab
showing in his face. It was so entirely unjustified as to be cruel,
for Mackenzie was not in Reid's way even to the extent of one lurking,
selfish thought. Since Reid had saved his life from Matt Hall's
murderous hands, Mackenzie had withdrawn even his most remote hope in
regard to Joan. Before that he had spun his thread of dreams, quite
honestly, and with intent that he would not have denied, but since,
not at all.
He owed Reid too much to cross him with Joan; he stepped aside,
denying himself a thought of her save only in relation of teacher and
pupil, trying to convince himself that it was better in the end for
Joan. Reid had all the advantage of him in prospects; he could lift up
the curtain on his day and show Joan the splendors of a world that a
schoolmaster could point out only from afar. Mackenzie seemed to
ignore the youth's suggestion that he go and tend Dad's flock.
"If I had a thousand dollars I'd dust it for Mexico tomorrow," said
Reid. He turned to Mackenzie, pushing his hat back from his forehead,
letting the sun on his savagely knotted face. "I haven't got money to
send a telegram, not even a special delivery letter! Look at me! A
millionaire's son and sole heir, up against a proposition like this
for three years!"
Mackenzie let him sweat it out, offering neither water for his thirst
nor wood for his fire. Reid sat in surly silence, running his thumb
along his cartridge belt.
"A man's friends forget him out here," he complained; "he's the same
to them as dead."
"It's the way everywhere when a man wants to borrow money," Mackenzie
told him, not without the shade of a sneer.
"I've let them have enough in my time that they could afford to come
across with what I asked for!"
"I think you'd better stick to the sheep business with Tim,"
Mackenzie advised, not unkindly, ashamed of his momentary weakness and
scorn. "A man's prospects don't look very good back home when a bunch
of parasites and grafters won't come over with a little loan."
"They can go to the devil! I can live without them."
"And get fat on it, kid. Three years here will be little more to you
than as many days, if you get--interested."
Reid exclaimed impatiently, dismissing such assurance with a testy
gesture.
"How much will you give me for my chances?" he asked.
"Nobody else can play your hand, kid."
"On the square, Mackenzie. Will you give me a thousand dollars?"
"I'm not sole heir to any millionaire," Mackenzie reminded him, taking
the proposal in the jesting spirit that he supposed it was given.
"On the dead, Mackenzie--I mean it. Will you give me a thousand
dollars for my place in the sheep game, girl and all? If you will,
I'll hit the breeze tonight for Mexico and kick it all over to you,
win or lose."
"If I could buy you out for a dime we couldn't trade," Mackenzie told
him, a coldness in tone and manner that was more than a reproof.
"Joan ought to be worth that much to you!" Reid sneered.
Mackenzie got up, walked a few steps away, turned back presently, his
temper in hand.
"It's not a question open to discussion between gentlemen," he said.
Reid blinked up at him, an odd leer on his sophisticated face, saying
no more. He made a pack on his saddle of the camp outfit, and started
off along the ridge, leaving Mackenzie to follow as he pleased. A mile
or more along Reid pitched upon a suitable camping place. He had
himself established long before Mackenzie came to where he sat smoking
amid his gloomy, impatient thoughts.
"I'm not going over to relieve that old skunk," Reid announced, "not
without orders from Sullivan. If he gets off you'll have to relieve
him yourself. I don't want that Hall guy to get it into his nut that
I'm runnin' away from him."
"All right, Earl," said Mackenzie, good-naturedly, "I'll go."
"You'll be half an hour nearer Joan's camp--she'll have that much
longer to stay," said Reid, his mean leer creeping into his wide, thin
lips again.
Mackenzie turned slowly to look him squarely in the eyes. He stood so
a few seconds, Reid coloring in hot resentment of the silent rebuke.
"I've heard enough of that to last me the rest of your three years,"
Mackenzie said, something as hard as stones in a cushion under his
calm voice.
Reid jerked his hip in his peculiar twisting movement to shift his
pistol belt, turned, and walked away.
If it was the lonesomeness, Mackenzie thought, it was taking a mighty
peculiar turn in that fellow. He was more like a cub that was
beginning to find itself, and bristle and snarl and turn to bite the
hand that had fended it through its helpless stage. Perhaps it would
pass in a little while, or perhaps it would get worse on him. In the
latter case there would be no living on the range with Reid, for on
the range Mackenzie believed Reid was destined to remain. He had been
trying to borrow money to get away, with what view in his dissatisfied
head Mackenzie could not guess. He hadn't got it; he wouldn't get it.
Those who had fattened on him in his prosperity were strangers to him
in his time of penance and disgrace.
Mackenzie put off his start to Dad's camp until dusk, knowing the old
man would prefer to take the road at night, after his mysterious way.
He probably would hoof it over to Sullivan's and borrow a buckboard to
make a figure in before the widow-lady upon whom he had anchored his
variable heart.
Reid was bringing in the sheep when Mackenzie left, too far away for a
word. Mackenzie thought of going down to him, for he disliked to part
with anything like a shadow between them, feeling that he owed Reid a
great debt indeed. More than that, he liked the kid, for there seemed
to be a streak of good in him that all his ugly moods could not cover.
But he went his way over the hills toward Dad's camp, the thought
persisting in him that he would, indeed, be thirty minutes nearer
Joan. And it was a thought that made his heart jump and a gladness
burn in his eyes, and his feet move onward with a swift eagerness.
But only as a teacher with a lively interest in his pupil, he said;
only that, and nothing more. On a hilltop a little way beyond his camp
he stopped suddenly, his breath held to listen. Over the calm,
far-carrying silence of the early night there came the sound of a
woman singing, and this was the manner of her song:
_Na-a-fer a-lo-o-one, na-a-fer a-lone.
He promise na-fer to leafe me,
Na-fer to leafe me a-lone!_