SHEEPMAN--AND MORE
"So I just took his gun away from him and slapped him and sent him
on," said Joan.
"I thought that must have been the way of it," Mackenzie said, sighing
as if his last trouble had left him.
"When he tried to make me believe I wasn't within seven miles of Dad
Frazer's camp I got my suspicions up. The idea of that little town rat
trying to mix me up on my range! Well, I was a little off on my
estimate of where the wagons were, but that was because they'd been
moved so many times while I was over home."
"I figured it that way, Joan."
"But what do you suppose he was tryin' to pull off on me, John,
bringing me out here on the pretense you'd been all shot up in the
fight with Hector Hall and wanted me?"
"I don't know, Joan," Mackenzie said, lying like the "kind of a
gentleman" he was.
"I thought maybe the little fool wanted to make me marry him so he
could get some money out of dad."
"Maybe that was it, Joan; I pass it up."
"Dad Frazer says Earl was crazy from the lonesomeness and killing Matt
Hall."
"I think he must have been, Joan. It's over--let's forget it if we
can."
"Yes, you haven't done a thing but fight since you struck this range,"
Joan sighed.
Mackenzie was lying up in Rabbit's hospital again, undergoing
treatment for the bullet wound in his thigh. He had arrived at Dad
Frazer's camp at sunrise, weak from the drain of his hurt, to find
Joan waiting for him on the rise of the hill. She hurried him into
Rabbit's hands, leaving explanations until later. They had come to the
end of them now.
But Mackenzie made the reservation of Reid's atrocious, insane scheme
in bringing Joan from home on the pretext that the schoolmaster had
fallen wounded to death in the fight with Hector Hall, and lay calling
for her with his wasting breath. Mackenzie knew that it was better for
her faith in mankind for all her future years, and for the peace of
her soul, that she should never know.
"My dad was here a little while ago--he's gone over to put a man in to
take care of your sheep, but he'll be along back here this evening. He
wants to talk some business with you, he said."
"Well, we're ready for him, Joan," Mackenzie said. And the look that
passed between them, and the smile that lighted their lips, told that
their business had been talked and disposed of already, let Tim
Sullivan propose what he might.
"I'll leave it to you, John," said Joan, blushing a little, her eyes
downcast in modesty, but smiling and smiling like a growing summer
day.
Tim Sullivan arrived toward evening, entering the sheep-wagon softly,
his loud tongue low in awe for this fighting man.
"How are you, John? How are you, lad?" he whispered, coming on his
toes to the cot, his face as expressive of respect as if he had come
into the presence of the dead.
Mackenzie grinned over this great mark of respect in the flockmaster
of Poison Creek.
"I'm all right," he said.
Tim sat on an upended box, leaning forward, hat between his knees,
mouth open a bit, looking at Mackenzie as if he had come face to face
with a miracle.
"You're not hurted much, lad?" he inquired, lifting his voice a
little, the wonder of it gradually passing away.
"Not much. I'll be around again in nine or ten days, Rabbit says."
"You will," said Tim, eloquently decisive, as though his heart emptied
itself of a great responsibility, "you will that, and as good as a new
man!"
"She's better than any doctor I ever saw."
"She is that!" said Tim, "and cheaper, too."
His voice grew a little louder, coming thus to familiar ground in the
discussion of values and costs. But the awe of this man who went
fighting his way was still big in the flockmaster's eyes. He sat
leaning, elbows on thighs, mouth still open, as respectfully awed as
if he had just come out of a church. Then, after a little while,
looking around for Joan:
"What was he up to, John? What was he tryin' to do with my girl?"
Mackenzie told him, in few words and plain, pledging him to keep the
truth of it from Joan all his days. Tim's face grew pale through the
deep brown of sun and wind. He put his hand to his throat,
unbuttoning his collar with trembling fingers.
"But she was too smart for him!" he said. "I've brought her up a match
for any of them town fellers--they can't put anything like that over
on my little Joan. And you didn't know but she was there, locked in
and bound hand and foot, lad? And you fought old Swan and laid him
cold at last, hand to hand, man to man! Lord! And you done it for my
little Joan!"
"Let's forget it," Mackenzie said, uncomfortable under the praise.
"It's easy said, lad, but not so easy done. A man remembers a thing
the like of that with gratitude to his last hour. And we thought you
an easy-goin' man, that could be put on and wasn't able to hold your
own," said Tim, confessing more in his momentary softness than he
would have done on reflection.
"We thought you was only a schoolteacher, wrapped up in rhymes and
birds!"
"Just a plain simpleton that would eat out of anybody's hand,"
Mackenzie grinned.
"Not a simpleton, lad; not a simpleton. But maybe soft in your ways of
dealin' with other men, lettin' 'em go when you ought to knocked 'em
cold, the way you let Hall go the day you took his guns off of him.
But we couldn't see deep in you, lad; you're no simpleton, lad--no
simpleton at all."
Tim spoke in soothing conciliation, as if he worked to salve over the
old hurts of injustice, or as if he dealt with the mishap of a child
to whom words were more comforting than balm. He was coming back to
his regular sheepman form, crafty, conciliatory; never advancing one
foot without feeling ahead with the other. But the new respect that
had come over him for Mackenzie could not be put wholly aside, even
though Tim might have the disposition to do it. Tim's voice was still
small in his mouth, his manner softened by awe.
"You've shown the mettle of a sheepman," Tim said, "and more. There'll
be peace and quiet on this range now."
"I brought nothing but trouble to it. You had peace and quiet before I
came."
"Trouble was here, lad, but we dodged it. There wasn't a man of us had
the courage to face it and put it down like you've done it. Carlson
and them Halls robbed me year in and year out, and stole the range I
paid rent on from under my feet. Swan stole sheep from me all the time
that boy was runnin' them next him there--I miss about three hundred
from the flock today."
"Reid sold them to him, but didn't get his money. He complained about
it to Swan last night."
"He'd do it," nodded Tim; "his father before him done it. It runs in
the blood of them Reids to steal. I'll have them three hundred sheep
back out of Swan's widow tomorrow."
"Is she over there with the sheep?"
"I didn't see her around."
"The poor creature's crazy from her hard usage and suffering. I think
somebody ought to go over there and help her straighten things out."
"I'll see to it," Tim promised. "Yes, it must be done. Now that wild
devil's dead we must be neighborly with the widow and give her a
chance. I'll see to it tomorrow. Where's my Joan?"
"She's making some broth for my supper."
"That's right, that's right--she'll care for you, lad; I'll leave her
here with Rabbit to care for you. Sure. She was for you, all along. I
couldn't see it."
"Well, you've got it right this time," Mackenzie said.
Tim beamed. He rubbed his hands, great satisfaction in his face.
"I'll find somebody else for my Mary--we'll consider her no more," he
said. "Let you go on with Joan in the bargain in place of Mary, and
give me three years for her, and the day you marry her I'll drive over
to you a thousand sheep."
"Nothing doing," said Mackenzie.
"Two years, we'll say--two instead of three, John. Joan will be her
own man in two years; she'll be twenty-one. And the day you marry her
I'll make it fifteen hundred sheep."
"She's her own man now under the laws of this state, and I'm taking
her without a single head of sheep. You can keep them all--Joan is
enough for me."
Tim was a greatly injured man. His face lengthened two inches, a look
of reproach came into his eyes; he seemed on the point of dissolving
in tears.
"You're not goin' to quit me and take away my girl, the best one of my
flock, my ewe lamb, my Joan? I didn't think you'd turn on me like
that, lad; I didn't think you had it in your heart!"
"You took away Joan's ewe lambs, and her buck lambs, and all her
lambs, more than a thousand of them, after she'd served you through
sun and storm and earned them like a man. No, I don't think I could
trust you two years, Mr. Sullivan; I don't believe your memory would
hold you to a bargain that long, seeing that it would be in the
family, especially."
"I'll give Joan back her flock, to run it like she was runnin' it, and
I'll put it in writin' with you both. Two years, we'll say, John--two
short easy years."
"No."
"Don't you throw away your chances now, John, don't you do it, lad. If
you marry my Joan now I'll give you not a sheep, not one blind wether!
But if you'll stay by me a year for her I'll give you a weddin' at the
end of that time they'll put big in the papers at Cheyenne, and I'll
hand over to you three thousand sheep, in your own name."
"I'm not thinking as much about sheep as I was three months ago," said
Mackenzie, yawning as though he had grown tired of the subject. "Joan
and I have made our plans; you can approve them or turn them down.
We're going away when we're married."
"Goin' away!" said Tim, his voice betraying the hollowness of his
heart.
"But we're coming back----"
"Comin' back?" said Tim, gladness in every note.
"Joan's heart is in the sheep range--she couldn't tear it away if she
tried. She thought she wanted to go, but I'll have hard work to get
her farther than Jasper. Joan had the lonesomeness; she's cured now."
"She had, poor gerrel! I didn't see it, but I see it now. But you'll
be comin' back!"
"Yes. Joan and I belong on the sheep range--we're both too simple and
confiding to run around loose in the world."
Tim was looking at Mackenzie, his head tipped to one side a little in
his great, new interest, his greater, newer understanding.
"You'll come back and make it home?" said he.
"Home," Mackenzie nodded. "There's no other place that calls. You can
welcome us or turn us away, but we'll find a place on the range, and
I've got money enough to buy us a little band of sheep."
"No need, lad, no need for that. What I have I'll divide with you the
day you come home, for I've made a place in my heart for you that's
the place of a son," said Tim.
Mackenzie knew the flockmaster had reached a point at last where he
would stand, writing or no writing, for there was the earnestness of
truth in his voice, the vibrant softness of affection. He gave the
flockmaster his hand, saying no word. Tim took it between his own as
if he held a woman's, and held it so while he spoke:
"And the place is here for you when you come back be it a year from
now or five years. You're a sheepman now, John."
"And I'm more," said Mackenzie, with a contented sigh. "I'm a
sheepwoman's man."
End of Project Gutenberg's The Flockmaster of Poison Creek, by George W. Ogden