The Flockmaster of Poison Creek Part 25

"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 pa.s.sed 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 d.a.m.ned pedagogue!" Reid said, the words bursting from him in vehement pa.s.sion. "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 pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+ft 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 d.a.m.ned 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.

CHAPTER XVII

HERTHA CARLSON

Swan Carlson or his woman was running a band of sheep very close to the border of Tim Sullivan's lease. All afternoon Mackenzie had heard the plaint of lambs; they had lifted their wavering chorus all during Joan's lesson, giving her great concern that Carlson designed attempting a trespa.s.s on her father's land.

Joan had come shortly after Reid's unexplained departure, and had gone back to her flock again uninformed of Reid's criminal career.

Mackenzie felt that he did not need the record of his rival to hold Joan out of his hands. The world had changed around for him amazingly in the past few days. Where the sheeplands had promised little for him but a hard apprentices.h.i.+p and doubtful rewards a little while ago, they now showered him with unexpected blessings.

He ruminated pleasantly on this sudden coming round the corner into the fields of romance as he went to the top of the hill at sunset to see what Swan Carlson was about. Over in the next valley there spread a handful of sheep, which the shepherd was ranging back to camp.

Mackenzie could not make sure at that distance whether the keeper was woman or man.

Reid had not returned when Mackenzie plodded into camp at dusk. His absence was more welcome, in truth, than his company; Mackenzie hoped he would sulk a long time and stay away until he got his course in the sheep country plainly before his eyes. If he stayed his three years there it would be on account of sheep, and whatever he might win in his father's good graces by his fidelity. Joan was not to figure thenceforward in any of his schemes.

Three years on the sheep range with no prospect of Joan! That was what Reid had ahead of him now.