“This woman is the first I have ever saw of 'em,” he continued. “Of
course men will stampede into marriage in this hyeh Western country,
where a woman is a scanty thing. It ain't what Hank has done that
surprises me. And it is not on him that the sorrow will fall. For she is
good. She is very good. Do yu' remember little black Hank? From Texas he
claims he is. He was working on the main ditch over at Sunk Creek last
summer when that Em'ly hen was around. Well, seh, yu' would not have
pleasured in his company. And this year Hank is placer-mining on Galena
Creek, where we'll likely go for sheep. There's Honey Wiggin and a young
fello' named Lin McLean, and some others along with the outfit. But
Hank's woman will not look at any of them, though the McLean boy is a
likely hand. I have seen that; for I have done a right smart o' business
that-a-way myself, here and there. She will mend their clothes for them,
and she will cook lunches for them any time o' day, and her conduct gave
them hopes at the start. But I reckon Austrians have good religion.”
“No better than Americans,” said I.
But the Virginian shook his head. “Better'n what I've saw any Americans
have. Of course I am not judging a whole nation by one citizen, and
especially her a woman. And of course in them big Austrian towns the
folks has shook their virtuous sayin's loose from their daily doin's,
same as we have. I expect selling yourself brings the quickest returns
to man or woman all the world over. But I am speakin' not of towns, but
of the back country, where folks don't just merely arrive on the cyars,
but come into the world the natural way, and grow up slow. Onced a week
anyway they see the bunch of old grave-stones that marks their fam'ly.
Their blood and name are knowed about in the neighborhood, and it's not
often one of such will sell themselves. But their religion ain't to them
like this woman's. They can be rip-snortin' or'tn'ary in ways. Now she
is getting naught but hindrance and temptation and meanness from her
husband and every livin' thing around her--yet she keeps right along,
nor does she mostly bear any signs in her face. She has cert'nly come
from where they are used to believing in God and a hereafter mighty
hard, and all day long. She has got one o' them crucifixes, and Hank
can't make her quit prayin' to it. But what is she going to do?”
“He will probably leave her,” I said.
“Yes,” said the Virginian--“leave her. Alone; her money all spent;
knowin' maybe twenty words of English; and thousands of miles away
from everything she can understand. For our words and ways is all alike
strange to her.”
“Then why did he want such a person?” I exclaimed.
There was surprise in the grave glance which the cow-puncher gave me.
“Why, any man would,” he answered. “I wanted her myself, till I found
she was good.”
I looked at this son of the wilderness, standing thoughtful and splendid
by the fire, and unconscious of his own religion that had unexpectedly
shone forth in these last words. But I said nothing; for words too
intimate, especially words of esteem, put him invariably to silence.
“I had forgot to mention her looks to yu'.” he pursued, simply. “She is
fit for a man.” He stopped again.
“Then there was her wages that Hank saw paid to her,” he resumed. “And
so marriage was but a little thing to Hank--agaynst such a heap of
advantages. As for her idea in takin' such as him--maybe it was that he
was small and she was big; tall and big. Or maybe it was just his white
teeth. Them ridiculous reasons will bring a woman to a man, haven't
yu' noticed? But maybe it was just her sorrowful, helpless state, left
stranded as she was, and him keeping himself near her and sober for a
week.
“I had been seein' this hyeh Yellowstone Park, takin' in its geysers,
and this and that, for my enjoyment; and when I found what they claimed
about its strange sights to be pretty near so, I landed up at Galena
Creek to watch the boys prospectin'. Honey Wiggin, yu' know, and McLean,
and the rest. And so they got me to go down with Hank to Gardner for
flour and sugar and truck, which we had to wait for. We lay around the
Mammoth Springs and Gardner for three days, playin' cyards with friends.
And I got plumb interested in them tourists. For I had partly forgot
about Eastern people. And hyeh they came fresh every day to remind a man
of the great size of his country. Most always they would talk to yu' if
yu' gave 'em the chance; and I did. I have come mighty nigh regrettin'
that I did not keep a tally of the questions them folks asked me. And
as they seemed genu-winely anxious to believe anything at all, and the
worser the thing the believinger they'd grow, why I--well, there's times
when I have got to lie to keep in good health.
“So I fooled and I fooled. And one noon I was on the front poach of the
big hotel they have opened at the Mammoth Springs for tourists, and the
hotel kid, bein' on the watchout, he sees the dust comin' up the hill,
and he yells out, 'Stage!'
“Yu've not saw that hotel yet, seh? Well, when the kid says 'Stage,' the
consequences is most sudden. About as conspicuous, yu' may say, as when
Old Faithful Geyser lets loose. Yu' see, one batch o' tourists pulls
out right after breakfast for Norris Basin, leavin' things empty and
yawnin'. By noon the whole hotel outfit has been slumberin' in its
chairs steady for three hours. Maybe yu' might hear a fly buzz, but
maybe not. Everything's liable to be restin', barrin' the kid. He's
a-watchin' out. Then he sees the dust, and he says 'Stage!' and it
touches the folks off like a hot pokeh. The Syndicate manager he lopes
to a lookin'glass, and then organizes himself behind the book; and the
young photograph chap bounces out o' his private door like one o' them
cuckoo clocks; and the fossil man claws his specimens and curiosities
into shape, and the porters line up same as parade, and away goes the
piano and fiddles up-stairs. It is mighty conspicuous. So Hank he come
rennin' out from somewheres too, and the stage drives up.
“Then out gets a tall woman, and I noticed her yello' hair. She was
kind o' dumb-eyed, yet fine to see. I reckon Hank noticed her too, right
away. And right away her trouble begins. For she was a lady's maid, and
her lady was out of the stage and roundin' her up quick. And it's
'Where have you put the keys, Willomene?' The lady was rich and stinkin'
lookin', and had come from New Yawk in her husband's private cyar.
“Well, Willomene fussed around in her pockets, and them keys was not
there. So she started explaining in tanglefoot English to her lady how
her lady must have took them from her before leavin' the cyar. But the
lady seemed to relish hustlin' herself into a rage. She got tolerable
conspicuous, too. And after a heap o' words, 'You are discharged,' she
says; and off she struts. Soon her husband came out to Willomene, still
standin' like statuary, and he pays her a good sum of cash, and he goes
away, and she keeps a standing yet for a spell. Then all of a sudden
she says something I reckon was 'O, Jesus,' and sits down and starts a
cryin'.
“I would like to have given her comfort. But we all stood around on the
hotel poach, and the right thing would not come into my haid. Then the
baggage-wagon came in from Cinnabar, and they had picked the keys up on
the road between Cinnabar and Gardner. So the lady and her toilet was
rescued, but that did no good to Willomene. They stood her trunk down
along with the rest--a brass-nailed little old concern--and there was
Willomene out of a job and afoot a long, long ways from her own range;
and so she kept sitting, and onced in a while she'd cry some more. We
got her a room in the cheap hotel where the Park drivers sleeps when
they're in at the Springs, and she acted grateful like, thanking the
boys in her tanglefoot English. Next mawnin' her folks druv off in a
private team to Norris Basin, and she seemed dazed. For I talked with
her then, and questioned her as to her wishes, but she could not say
what she wished, nor if it was East or West she would go; and I reckon
she was too stricken to have wishes.
“Our stuff for Galena Creek delayed on the railroad, and I got to know
her, and then I quit givin' Hank cause for jealousy. I kept myself with
the boys, and I played more cyards, while Hank he sca'cely played at
all. One night I came on them--Hank and Willomene--walkin' among the
pines where the road goes down the hill. Yu' should have saw that pair
o' lovers. Her big shape was plain and kind o' steadfast in the moon,
and alongside of her little black Hank! And there it was. Of course it
ain't nothing to be surprised at that a mean and triflin' man tries to
seem what he is not when he wants to please a good woman. But why does
she get fooled, when it's so plain to other folks that are not givin'
it any special thought? All the rest of the men and women at the Mammoth
understood Hank. They knowed he was a worthless proposition. And I
cert'nly relied on his gettin' back to his whiskey and openin' her eyes
that way. But he did not. I met them next evening again by the Liberty
Cap. Supposin' I'd been her brother or her mother, what use was it me
warning her? Brothers and mothers don't get believed.
“The railroad brought the stuff for Galena Creek, and Hank would
not look at it on account of his courtin'. I took it alone myself by
Yancey's and the second bridge and Miller Creek to the camp, nor
I didn't tell Willomene good-bye, for I had got disgusted at her
blindness.”
The Virginian shifted his position, and jerked his overalls to a more
comfortable fit. Then he continued:
“They was married the Tuesday after at Livingston, and Hank must
have been pow'ful pleased at himself. For he gave Willomene a wedding
present, with the balance of his cash, spending his last nickel on
buying her a red-tailed parrot they had for sale at the First National
Bank. The son-of-a-gun hollad so freely at the bank, the president
awde'd the cashier to get shed of the out-ragious bird, or he would
wring its neck.
“So Hank and Willomene stayed a week up in Livingston on her money, and
then he fetched her back to Gardner, and bought their grub, and bride
and groom came up to the camp we had on Galena Creek.
“She had never slep' out before. She had never been on a hawss, neither.
And she mighty near rolled off down into Pitchstone Canyon, comin' up by
the cut-off trail. Why, seh, I would not willingly take you through that
place, except yu' promised me yu' would lead your hawss when I said
to. But Hank takes the woman he had married, and he takes heavy-loaded
pack-hawsses. 'Tis the first time such a thing has been known of in the
country. Yu' remember them big tall grass-topped mountains over in the
Hoodoo country, and how they descends slam down through the cross-timber
that yu' can't scatcely work through afoot, till they pitches over into
lots an' lots o' little canyons, with maybe two inches of water runnin'
in the bottom? All that is East Fork water, and over the divide is
Clark's Fork, or Stinkin' Water, if yu' take the country yondeh to the
southeast. But any place yu' go is them undesirable steep slopes, and
the cut-off trail takes along about the worst in the business.
“Well, Hank he got his outfit over it somehow, and, gentlemen, hush!
but yu'd ought t've seen him and that poor girl pull into our camp. Yu'd
cert'nly never have conjectured them two was a weddin' journey. He was
leadin', but skewed around in his saddle to jaw back at Willomene for
riding so ignorant. Suppose it was a thing she was responsible for, yu'd
not have talked to her that-a-way even in private; and hyeh was the
camp a-lookin', and a-listenin', and some of us ashamed. She was setting
straddleways like a mountain, and between him and her went the three
packanimals, plumb shiverin' played out, and the flour--they had two
hundred pounds--tilted over hellwards, with the red-tailed parrot
shoutin' landslides in his cage tied on top o' the leanin' sacks.
“It was that mean to see, that shameless and unkind, that even a
thoughtless kid like the McLean boy felt offended, and favorable to some
sort of remonstrance. 'The son-of-a--!' he said to me. 'The son-of-a--!
If he don't stop, let's stop him.' And I reckon we might have.
“But Hank he quit. 'Twas plain to see he'd got a genu-wine scare comin'
through Pitchstone Canyon, and it turned him sour, so he'd hardly talk
to us, but just mumbled 'How!' kind o' gruff, when the boys come up to
congratulate him as to his marriage.
“But Willomene, she says when she saw me, 'Oh, I am so glad!' and we
shook hands right friendly. And I wished I'd told her good-bye that
day at the Mammoth. For she bore no spite, and maybe I had forgot her
feelings in thinkin' of my own. I had talked to her down at the
Mammoth at first, yu' know, and she said a word about old friends.
Our friendship was three weeks old that day, but I expect her new
experiences looked like years to her. And she told me how near she come
to gettin' killed.
“Yu' ain't ever been over that trail, seh? Yu' cert'nly must see
Pitchstone Canyon. But we'll not go there with packs. And we will get
off our hawsses a good ways back. For many animals feels that there's
something the matter with that place, and they act very strange about
it.
“The Grand Canyon is grand, and makes yu' feel good to look at it, and
a geyser is grand and all right, too. But this hyeh Pitchstone hole,
if Willomene had went down into that--well, I'll tell yu', that you may
judge.
“She seen the trail a-drawin' nearer and nearer the aidge, between the
timber and the jumpin'-off place, and she seen how them little loose
stones and the crumble stuff would slide and slide away under the
hawss's feet. She could hear the stuff rattlin' continually from his
steps, and when she turned her haid to look, she seen it goin' down
close beside her, but into what it went she could not see. Only, there
was a queer steam would come up now and agayn, and her hawss trembled.
So she tried to get off and walk without sayin' nothin' to Hank. He kep'
on ahaid, and her hawss she had pulled up started to follo' as she was
half off him, and that gave her a tumble, but there was an old crooked
dead tree. It growed right out o' the aidge. There she hung.
“Down below is a little green water tricklin', green as the stuff that
gets on brass, and tricklin' along over soft cream-colored formation,
like pie. And it ain't so far to fall but what a man might not be
too much hurt for crawlin' out. But there ain't no crawlin' out o'
Pitchstone Canyon, they say. Down in there is caves that yu' cannot see.
'Tis them that coughs up the stream now and agayn. With the wind yu'
can smell 'em a mile away, and in the night I have been layin' quiet and
heard 'em. Not that it's a big noise, even when a man is close up.
It's a fluffy kind of a sigh. But it sounds as if some awful thing
was a-makin' it deep down in the guts of the world. They claim there's
poison air comes out o' the caves and lays low along the water. They
claim if a bear or an elk strays in from below, and the caves sets up
their coughin', which they don't regular every day, the animals die. I
have seen it come in two seconds. And when it comes that-a-way risin'
upon yu' with that fluffy kind of a sigh, yu' feel mighty lonesome, seh.
“So Hank he happened to look back and see Willomene hangin' at the aidge
o' them black rocks. And his scare made him mad. And his mad stayed
with him till they come into camp. She looked around, and when she seen
Hank's tent that him and her was to sleep in she showed surprise. And he
showed surprise when he see the bread she cooked.
“'What kind of a Dutch woman are yu',' says he, strainin' for a joke,
'if yu' can't use a Dutch-oven?'
“'You say to me you have a house to live in,' says Willomene. 'Where is
that house?'
“'I did not figure on gettin' a woman when I left camp,' says Hank,
grinnin', but not pleasant, 'or I'd have hurried up with the shack I'm a
buildin'.'
“He was buildin' one. When I left Galena Creek and come away from that
country to meet you, the house was finished enough for the couple to
move in. I hefted her brass-nailed trunk up the hill from their tent
myself, and I watched her take out her crucifix. But she would not let
me help her with that. She'd not let me touch it. She'd fixed it up
agaynst the wall her own self her own way. But she accepted some flowers
I picked, and set them in a can front of the crucifix. Then Hank he come
in, and seein', says to me, 'Are you one of the kind that squats before
them silly dolls?' 'I would tell yu', I answered him; 'but it would not
inter-est yu'.' And I cleared out, and left him and Willomene to begin
their housekeepin'.
“Already they had quit havin' much to say to each other down in their
tent. The only steady talkin' done in that house was done by the parrot.
I've never saw any go ahaid of that bird. I have told yu' about Hank,
and how when he'd come home and see her prayin' to that crucifix he'd
always get riled up. He would mention it freely to the boys. Not that
she neglected him, yu' know. She done her part, workin' mighty hard, for
she was a willin' woman. But he could not make her quit her religion;
and Willomene she had got to bein' very silent before I come away. She
used to talk to me some at first, but she dropped it. I don't know
why. I expect maybe it was hard for her to have us that close in camp,
witnessin' her troubles every day, and she a foreigner. I reckon if she
got any comfort, it would be when we was off prospectin' or huntin', and
she could shut the cabin door and be alone.”
The Virginian stopped for a moment.
“It will soon be a month since I left Galena Creek,” he resumed. “But I
cannot get the business out o' my haid. I keep a studyin' over it.”
His talk was done. He had unburdened his mind. Night lay deep and quiet
around us, with no sound far or near, save Buffalo Fork plashing over
its riffle.