Bruce of the Circle A Part 7

"How-do-you-do?" he said, with friendly confidence.

Ann murmured a greeting.

"I didn't know anyone was on the road. I was thinking rather fiercely, I guess."

He started to walk beside her and Ann was glad, for he was of that type whose first appearance attracts by its promise of friends.h.i.+p.

"I've been thinking, too," she answered. "Thinking, among other things what a wonderful country this is. I'm from the East, I suppose it is not necessary to say, and this is my first look at your valley."

"Manzanita is a great old sweep of country!" he exclaimed, looking out over it. "That valley is a good thing to look at when we think that human anxieties are mighty matters."

He smiled, and Ann looked into his face with a new interest and said:

"I should think that such an influence as this is would tend to lessen those anxieties; that it would tend to make the people who live near it big, as it is big."

He looked away and shook his head slowly.

"I hold that theory, too, sometimes ... in my most optimistic hours. But the more I see of the places in which men live, the closer I watch the way we humans react to our physical environments, the less faith I have in it. Some of the biggest, rarest souls I know have developed in the meanest localities and, on the other hand, some of the worst culls of the species I've ever seen have been products of countries so big that they would inspire most men. Perhaps, though, the big men of the small places would have been bigger in a country like this; possibly, those who are found wanting out here would fall even shorter of what we expect of them if they were in less wonderful surroundings."

He paused a moment and then continued: "It may be a myth, this tradition of the bigness of mountain men; or the impression may thrive because, out here, we are so few and so widely scattered that we are the only people who get a proper perspective on one another. That would be a comfortable thing to believe, wouldn't it? It would mean, possibly, that if we could only remove ourselves far enough from any community we would appreciate its virtues and be able to overlook its vices. I'd like to believe without qualification that a magnificent creation like this valley would lift us all to a higher level; but I can't. Some of your enthusiastic young men who come out from the East and write books about the West would have it that these specimens of humanity which thrive in the mountains and deserts are all supermen, with only enough rascals sprinkled about to serve the purposes of their plots. That, of course, is a fallacy and it may be due to the surprising point of view which we find ourselves able to adopt when we are removed far enough by distance or tradition from other people. We have some splendid men here, but the average man in the mountains won't measure up to where he will overshadow the average man of any other region ... I believe. We haven't so many opportunities, perhaps, to show our qualities of goodness and badness ... although some of us can be downright nasty on occasion!"

He ended with an inflection which caused Ann to believe that he was thinking of some specific case of misconduct; she felt herself flush quickly and became suddenly fearful that he might refer directly to Ned.

Last night she had poured her misery into a stranger's ears; to-day she could not bear the thought of further discussing her husband's life or condition; she shrank, even, from the idea of being a.s.sociated with him in the minds of other people and in desperation she veered the subject by asking,

"Is it populated much, the valley, I mean?"

"Not yet. Cattle and horse and some sheep ranches are scattered about.

One outfit will use up a lot of that country for grazing purposes, you know. Someday there'll be water and more people ... and less bigness!"

He told her more of the valley, stopping now and then to indicate directions.

"I came from over there yesterday," he said, facing about and pointing into the westward. "Had a funeral beyond those hills. Stopped for dinner with a young friend of mine whose ranch is just beyond that swell yonder.... Fine boy; Bayard, Bruce Bayard."

Ann wanted to ask him more about the rancher, but somehow she could not trust herself; she felt that her voice would be uncertain, for one thing. Some unnamed shyness, too, held her from questioning him now.

They stopped before the hotel and the man said:

"My name is Weyl. I am the clergy of Yavapai. If you are to be here long, I'm sure Mrs. Weyl would like to see you. She is in Prescott for a week or two now."

He put out his hand, and, as she clasped it, Ann said, scarcely thinking:

"I am Ann Lytton. I arrived last night and may be here some time."

She saw a quick look of pain come into his readable eyes and felt his finger tighten on hers.

"Oh, yes!" he said, in a manner that made her catch her breath. "I know.... Your brother, isn't it, the young miner?"

At that the woman started and merely to escape further painful discussion, unthinkingly clouding her own ident.i.ty, replied,

"Ned, you mean ... yes...."

"Well, if you're to be here long we will see you, surely. And if there's anything I can do for you, please ask it."

"You're very kind," she said, as she turned from him.

In her room she stood silent a moment, palms against her cheeks.

Bayard's words came back to her:

"I didn't think you was married ... especially to a thing like that...."

And now this other man concluded that she could not be Ned's wife!

"I must be his wife ... his _good_ wife!" she said, with a stamp of her foot. "If he ever needed one ... it's now...."

CHAPTER VI

AT THE CIRCLE A

Ned Lytton swam back to consciousness through painful half dreams. Light hurt his inflamed eyes; a horrible throbbing, originating in the center of his head, proceeded outward and seemed to threaten the solidity of his skull; his body was as though it had been mauled and banged about until no inch of flesh remained unbruised; his left forearm burned and stung fiendishly. He was in bed, undressed, he realized, and covered to the chin with clean smelling bedding. He moved his tortured head from side to side and marveled dully because it rested on a pillow.

It was some time before he appreciated more. Then he saw that the fine sunlight which hurt his eyes streamed into the room from open windows and door, that it was flung back at him by whitewashed walls and scrubbed floor. He was in someone's house, cared for without his knowing. He moved stiffly on the thought. Someone had taken him in, someone had shown him a kindness, and, even in his semi-stupor, he wondered, because, for an incalculable period, he had been hating and hated.

He did not know how Bayard had dragged a bed from another room and set it up in his kitchen that he might better nurse his patient; did not know how the rancher had slept in his chair, and then but briefly, that he might not be tardy in attending to any need during the early morning hours; did not realize that the whole program of life in that comfortable ranch house had been altered that it might center about him.

He did comprehend, though, that someone cared, that he was experiencing kindness.

The sound of moving feet and the ring of spurs reached him; then a boot was set on the threshold and Bruce Bayard stepped into the room. He was rubbing his face with a towel and in the other hand was a razor and shaving brush. He had been sc.r.a.ping his chin in the shade of the ash tree that waved lazily in the warm breeze and tossed fantastically changing shadows through the far window. He looked up as he entered and encountered the gaze from these swollen, inflamed eyes set in the bruised face of Ned Lytton.

"h.e.l.lo!" he cried in surprise. "You're awake?"

He put down the things he carried and crossed the room to the bedside.

"Yes.... For G.o.d's sake, haven't you got a drink?"--in a painful rasp.

"I have; one; just one, for you," the other replied, left the room and came back with a tumbler a third filled with whiskey. He propped Lytton's head with one hand and held the gla.s.s to his misshapen lips, while he guzzled greedily.

"More ... another ..." Lytton muttered a moment after he was back on his pillow.

"Seems to me you'd ought to know you've punished enough of this by now,"

the rancher said, standing with his hands on his hips and looking at the distorted expression of suffering on Lytton's face.

The sick man moved his head slightly in negation. Then, after a moment:

"How'd I get here? Who are you ... anyhow?"