Lin McLean Part 31

"I reckon so, sir." Jessamine glanced at the man, and he took himself out. Most men took themselves out if Jessamine so willed; and it was mostly achieved thus, in amity.

On the platform the man found his wife again.

"Then I needn't to walk to Tommy's," she said. "And we'll eat as we travel. But you'll wait till I'm through with her." She made a gesture toward the station.

"Why--why--what do you want with her. Don't you know who she is?"

"It was me told you who she was, James Lusk. You'll wait till I've been and asked her after Lin McLean's health, and till I've saw how the likes of her talks to the likes of me."

He made a feeble protest that this would do no one any good.

"Sew yourself up, James Lusk. If it has been your idea I come with yus clear from Laramie to watch yus plant telegraph-poles in the sage-brush, why you're off. I ain't heard much 'o Lin since the day he learned it was you and not him that was my husband. And I've come back in this country to have a look at my old friends--and" (she laughed loudly and nodded at the station) "my old friends' new friends!"

Thus ordered, the husband wandered away to find his wagon and the horse.

Jessamine, in the office, had finished her station duties and returned to her needle. She sat contemplating the scorched sock of Billy's, and heard a heavy step at the threshold. She turned, and there was the large woman with the feather quietly surveying her. The words which the stranger spoke then were usual enough for a beginning. But there was something of threat in the strong animal countenance, something of laughter ready to break out. Much beauty of its kind had evidently been in the face, and now, as subst.i.tute for what was gone, was the brag look of a.s.sertion that it was still all there. Many stranded travellers knocked at Jessamine's door, and now, as always, she offered the hospitalities of her neat abode, the only room in Separ fit for a woman.

As she spoke, and the guest surveyed and listened, the door blew shut with a crash.

Outside, in a shed, Billy had placed the wagon between himself and his father.

"How you have grown!" the man was saying; and he smiled. "Come, shake hands. I did not think to see you here."

"Dare you to touch me!" Billy screamed. "No, I'll never come with you.

Lin says I needn't to."

The man pa.s.sed his hand across his forehead, and leaned against the wheel. "Lord, Lord!" he muttered.

His son warily slid out of the shed and left him leaning there.

PART II

Lin McLean, bachelor, sat out in front of his cabin, looking at a small bright pistol that lay in his hand. He held it tenderly, cheris.h.i.+ng it, and did not cease slowly to polish it. Revery filled his eyes, and in his whole face was sadness unmasked, because only the animals were there to perceive his true feelings. Sunlight and waving shadows moved together upon the green of his pasture, cattle and horses loitered in the opens by the stream. Down Box Elder's course, its valley and golden-chimneyed bluffs widened away into the level and the blue of the greater valley. Upstream the branches and s.h.i.+ning, quiet leaves entered the mountains where the rock chimneys narrowed to a gateway, a citadel of shafts and turrets, crimson and gold above the filmy emerald of the trees. Through there the road went up from the cotton-woods into the cool quaking asps and pines, and so across the range and away to Separ.

Along the ridge-pole of the new stable, two hundred yards down-stream, sat McLean's turkeys, and c.o.c.ks and hens walked in front of him here by his cabin and fenced garden. Slow smoke rose from the cabin's chimney into the air, in which were no sounds but the running water and the afternoon chirp of birds. Amid this framework of a home the cow-puncher sat, lonely, inattentive, polis.h.i.+ng the treasured weapon as if it were not already long clean. His target stood some twenty steps in front of him--a small cottonwood-tree, its trunk chipped and honeycombed with bullets which he had fired into it each day for memory's sake. Presently he lifted the pistol and looked at its name--the word "Neighbor"

engraved upon it.

"I wonder," said he, aloud, "if she keeps the rust off mine?" Then he lifted it slowly to his lips and kissed the word "Neighbor."

The clank of wheels sounded on the road, and he put the pistol quickly down. Dreaminess vanished from his face. He looked around alertly, but no one had seen him. The clanking was still among the trees a little distance up Box Elder. It approached deliberately, while he watched for the vehicle to emerge upon the open where his cabin stood; and then they came, a man and a woman. At sight of her Mr. McLean half rose, but sat down again. Neither of them had noticed him, sitting as they were in silence and the drowsiness of a long drive. The man was weak-faced, with good looks sallowed by dissipation, and a vanquished glance of the eye. As the woman had stood on the platform at Separ, so she sat now, upright, bold, and ma.s.sive. The brag of past beauty was a habit settled upon her stolid features. Both sat inattentive to each other and to everything around them. The wheels turned slowly and with a dry, dead noise, the reins bellied loosely to the shafts, the horse's head hung low. So they drew close. Then the man saw McLean, and color came into his face and went away.

"Good-evening," said he, clearing his throat. "We heard you was in cow-camp."

The cow-puncher noted how he tried to smile, and a freakish change crossed his own countenance. He nodded slightly, and stretched his legs out as he sat.

"You look natural," said the woman, familiarly.

"Seem to be fixed nice here," continued the man. "Hadn't heard of it.

Well, we'll be going along. Glad to have seen you."

"Your wheel wants greasing," said McLean, briefly, his eye upon the man.

"Can't stop. I expect she'll last to Drybone. Good-evening."

"Stay to supper," said McLean, always seated on his chair.

"Can't stop, thank you. I expect we can last to Drybone." He twitched the reins.

McLean levelled a pistol at a chicken, and knocked off its head. "Better stay to supper," he suggested, very distinctly.

"It's business, I tell you. I've got to catch Governor Barker before he--"

The pistol cracked, and a second chicken shuffled in the dust. "Better stay to supper," drawled McLean.

The man looked up at his wife.

"So yus need me!" she broke out. "Ain't got heart enough in yer played-out body to stand up to a man. We'll eat here. Get down."

The husband stepped to the ground. "I didn't suppose you'd want--"

"Ho! want? What's Lin, or you, or anything to me? Help me out."

Both men came forward. She descended, leaning heavily upon each, her blue staring eyes fixed upon the cow-puncher.

"No, yus ain't changed," she said. "Same in your looks and same in your actions. Was you expecting you could scare me, you, Lin McLean?"

"I just wanted chickens for supper," said he.

Mrs. Lusk gave a hard high laugh. "I'll eat 'em. It's not I that cares.

As for--" She stopped. Her eye had fallen upon the pistol and the name "Neighbor." "As for you," she continued to Mr. Lusk, "don't you be standing dumb same as the horse."

"Better take him to the stable, Lusk," said McLean.

He picked the chickens up, showed the woman to the best chair in his room, and went into his kitchen to cook supper for three. He gave his guests no further attention, nor did either of them come in where he was, nor did the husband rejoin the wife. He walked slowly up and down in the air, and she sat by herself in the room. Lin's steps as he made ready round the stove and table, and Lusk's slow tread out in the setting sunlight, were the only sounds about the cabin. When the host looked into the door of the next room to announce that his meal was served, the woman sat in her chair no longer, but stood with her back to him by a shelf. She gave a slight start at his summons, and replaced something. He saw that she had been examining "Neighbor," and his face hardened suddenly to fierceness as he looked at her; but he repeated quietly that she had better come in. Thus did the three sit down to their meal. Occasionally a word about handing some dish fell from one or other of them, but nothing more, until Lusk took out his watch and mentioned the hour.

"Yu've not ate especially hearty," said Lin, resting his arms upon the table.

"I'm going," a.s.serted Lusk. "Governor Barker may start out. I've got my interests to look after."

"Why, sure," said Lin. "I can't hope you'll waste all your time on just me."

Lusk rose and looked at his wife. "It'll be ten now before we get to Drybone," said he. And he went down to the stable.

The woman sat still, pressing the crumbs of her bread. "I know you seen me," she said, without looking at him.

"Saw you when?"

"I knowed it. And I seen how you looked at me." She sat twisting and pressing the crumb. Sometimes it was round, sometimes it was a cube, now and then she flattened it to a disk. Mr. McLean seemed to have nothing that he wished to reply.