REID BEGINS HIS PLAY
Dad Frazer came back after five days, diminished in facial outline on
account of having submitted his stubble beard to the barber at Four
Corners. In reverse of all speculation on Mackenzie's part, this
operation did not improve the old man's appearance. Dad's face was one
of the kind that are built to carry a beard; without it his weaknesses
were too apparent to the appraising eye.
Dad made glowing report of his success with the widow at Four Corners.
Preliminaries were smoothed; he had left the widow wearing his ring.
"We'll jump the broomstick in about a month from now," Dad said, full
of satisfaction for his business stroke. "I aim to settle down and
quit my roamin', John."
"And your marrying, too, I hope, you old rascal!"
"Yes, this one will be my last, I reckon. I don't mind, though; I've
had doin's enough with women in my day."
"Is she a good looker, Dad?"
"Well, I've seen purtier ones and I've seen uglier ones, John. No, she
ain't what you might call stylish, I guess, but she's all right for
me. She's a little off in one leg, but not enough to hurt."
"That's a slight blemish in a lady with money in the bank, Dad."
"I look at it that way, on the sensible side. Good looks is all right
in a woman, but that ain't all a man needs to make him easy in his
mind. Well, she did lose the sight of her left eye when she was a
girl, but she can see a dollar with the other one further than I can
see a wagon wheel."
"No gentleman would stop at the small trifle of an eye. What else,
Dad?"
"Nothing else, only she's carryin' a little more meat right now than a
woman likes to pack around in hot weather. I don't mind that; you
know, I like mine fat; you can't get 'em too fat for me."
"I've heard you say so. How much does she weigh?"
"Well, I guess close to three hundred, John. If she was taller, it
wouldn't show so much on her--she can walk under my arm. But it's
surprisin' how that woman can git around after them sheep!"
Dad added this hopefully, as if bound to append some redeeming trait
to all her physical defects.
"How many does she own?"
"About four thousand. Not much of a band, but a lot more than I ever
could lay claim to. She's got a twelve-thousand acre ranch, owns every
foot of it, more than half of it under fence. What do you think of
that? Under fence! Runs them sheep right inside of that bull-wire
fence, John, where no wolf can't git at 'em. There ain't no bears down
in that part of the country. Safe? Safer'n money in the bank, and no
expense of hirin' a man to run 'em."
"It looks like you've landed on a feather bed, Dad."
"Ain't I? What does a man care about a little hobble, or one eye, or
a little chunk of fat, when he can step into a layout like that?"
"Why didn't you lead her up to the hitching-rack while you were there?
Somebody else is likely to pick your plum while your back's turned."
"No, I don't reckon. She's been on the tree quite a spell; she ain't
the kind you young fellers want, and the old ones is most generally
married off or in the soldiers' home. Well, she's got a little cross
of Indian and Mexican in her, anyway; that kind of keeps 'em away, you
know."
It was no trouble to frame a mental picture of Dad's inamorata. Black,
squat, squint; a forehead a finger deep, a voice that would carry a
mile. Mackenzie had seen that cross of Mexican and Indian blood, with
a dash of debased white. They were not the kind that attracted men
outside their own mixed breed, but he hadn't a doubt that this one was
plenty good enough, and handsome enough, for Dad.
Mackenzie left the old man with this new happiness in his heart,
through which a procession of various-hued women had worn a path
during the forty years of his taking in marriage one month and taking
leave the next. Dad wasn't nervous over his prospects, but calm and
calculative, as became his age. Mackenzie went smiling now and then as
he thought of the team the black nondescript and the old fellow would
make.
He found Reid sitting on a hilltop with his face in his hands, surly
and out of sorts, his revolver and belt on the ground beside him as if
he had grown weary of their weight. He gave a short return to
Mackenzie's unaffected greeting and interested inquiry into the
conduct of the sheep and the dogs during his absence.
Reid's eyes were shot with inflamed veins, as if he had been sitting
all night beside a smoky fire. When Mackenzie sat near him the wind
bore the pollution of whisky from his breath. Reid made a show of
being at his ease, although the veins in his temples were swollen in
the stress of what must have been a splitting headache. He rolled a
cigarette with nonchalance almost challenging, and smoked in silence,
the corners of his wide, salamander mouth drawn down in a peculiar
scoffing.
"I suppose that guy told you the whole story," he said at last,
lifting his eyes briefly to Mackenzie's face.
"The sheriff, you mean?"
"Who else?" impatiently.
"I don't know whether he told me all or not, but he told me plenty."
"And you've passed it on to Joan by now!"
"No."
Reid faced around, a flush over his thin cheeks, a scowl in his eyes.
He took up his belt; Mackenzie marked how his hands trembled as he
buckled it on.
"Well, you keep out of it, you damned pedagogue!" Reid said, the words
bursting from him in vehement passion. "This is my game; I'll play it
without any more of your interference. You've gone far enough with
her--you've gone too far! Drop it; let her alone."
Mackenzie got up. Reid stood facing him, his color gone now, his face
gray. Mackenzie held him a moment with stern, accusing eyes. Then:
"Have you been over there spying on me?"
Reid passed over the question, leaving Mackenzie to form his own
conclusions. His face flushed a little at the sting of contempt that
Mackenzie put into his words. He fumbled for a match to light his stub
of cigarette before he spoke:
"I played into your hands when I let you go over there, and you knew
I'd play into them when you proposed it. But that won't happen
twice."
"I'll not allow any man to put a deliberately false construction on my
motives, Reid," Mackenzie told him, hotly. "I didn't propose going
over to let Dad off, and you know it. I wanted you to go."
"You knew I wouldn't," Reid returned, with surly word.
"If you've been leaving the sheep to go over there and lie on your
belly like a snake behind a bush to spy on Joan and me, and I guess
you've been doing it, all right--you're welcome to all you've found
out. There aren't any secrets between Joan and me to keep from
anybody's eyes or ears."
Reid jerked his thin mouth in expression of derision.
"She's green, she's as soft as cheese. Any man could kiss her--I could
have done it fifteen minutes after I saw her the first time."
If Reid hoped to provoke a quarrel leading up to an excuse for making
use of the gun for which his hand seemed to itch, he fell short of his
calculations. Mackenzie only laughed, lightly, happily, in the way of
a man who knew the world was his.
"You're a poor loser, Earl," he said.
"I'm not the loser yet--I'm only takin' up my hand to play. There
won't be room on this range for you and me, Mackenzie, unless you step
back in your schoolteacher's place, and lie down like a little lamb."
"It's a pretty big range," Mackenzie said, as if he considered it
seriously; "I guess you can shift whenever the notion takes you. You
might take a little vacation of about three years back in a certain
state concern in Nebraska."
"Let that drop--keep your hands off of that! You don't know anything
about that little matter; that damned sheriff don't know anything
about it. If Sullivan's satisfied to have me here and give me his
girl, that's enough for you."
"You don't want Joan," said Mackenzie, speaking slowly, "you only want
what's conditioned on taking her. So you'd just as well make a
revision in your plans right now, Reid. You and Sullivan can get
together on it and do what you please, but Joan must be left out of
your calculations. I realize that I owe you a good deal, but I'm not
going to turn Joan over to you to square the debt. You can have my
money any day you want it--you can have my life if you ever have to
draw on me that far--but you can't have Joan."
Mackenzie walked away from Reid at the conclusion of this speech,
which was of unprecedented length for him, and of such earnestness
that Reid was not likely to forget it soon, no matter for its length.
The dogs left Reid to follow him.
That Reid had been fraternizing with Swan Carlson, Mackenzie felt
certain, drinking the night out with him in his camp. Carlson had a
notoriety for his addiction to drink, along with his other unsavory
traits. With Reid going off in two different directions from him,
Mackenzie saw trouble ahead between them growing fast. More than
likely one of them would have to leave the range to avoid a clash at
no distant day, for Reid was in an ugly mood. Loneliness, liquor,
discontent, native meanness, and a desire to add to the fame in the
sheep country that the killing of Matt Hall had brought him, would
whirl the weak fellow to his destruction at no distant day.
Yet Reid had stood by him like a man in that fight with Matt Hall,
when he could have sought safety in withdrawal and left him to his
unhappy end. There was something coming to him on that account which a
man could not repudiate or ignore. Whatever might rise between them,
Mackenzie would owe his life to Reid. Given the opportunity, he stood
ready and anxious to square the debt by a like service, and between
men a thing like that could not be paid in any other way.
Reid remained a while sitting on the hilltop where Mackenzie had found
him, face in his hands, as before. After a time he stretched out and
went to sleep, the ardent sun of noonday frying the lees of Swan
Carlson's whisky out of him. Toward three o'clock he roused, got his
horse, saddled it, and rode away.
Mackenzie believed he was going to hunt more whisky, and went to the
rise of a ridge to see what course he took. But instead of striking
for Carlson's, Reid laid a course for Sullivan's ranch-house. Going to
Tim with a complaint against him, Mackenzie judged, contempt for his
smallness rising in him. Let him go.
Tim Sullivan might give him half his sheep if he liked him well
enough, but he could not give him Joan.