Judith of the Godless Valley Part 35

"I wish I could have gone with Charleton," remarked Douglas, watching Judith as she rubbed Sioux's head.

"Charleton! I should think you'd hate a long trip with that old coyote. I hate him."

"It isn't to be with Charleton I want to go. I want to get me some wild horses. But there was a time when I sure was crazy about being with him.

I thought he knew more about how a fellow could get happiness out of life than any one."

"n.o.body in the Valley knows as much as Inez."

"Do you call her happy?"

"No; she's really sad. That's why she knows what real happiness is."

"Judith, how do you suppose Inez will end?"

"Over in the cemetery with a coyote-proof grave like the rest of us. And I ask you, Doug, since that's the end of it, why worry?"

"That's the very reason I worry! Life is so short and if we don't find happiness here, we are clean out of luck, forever."

Judith spurred the nervous Whoop-la into five minutes of active bucking, then she leaped from the saddle and came to perch on the fence beside Douglas. Her gaze wandered from his wistful face to the eternal crimson and orange clouds rolling across Fire Mesa.

"Outside of my riding," she said slowly, "I get most happiness out of my eyes."

Douglas followed her gaze. "Inez likes it too."

Judith nodded. "She got me to using my eyes years ago. She's a funny person. Reads almost nothing but poetry. She's got one she always quotes when she and I are looking at Fire Mesa."

"What is it?" asked Doug.

"I don't know but one verse:

"A fire mist and a planet, A crystal and a cell, A jelly-fish and a saurian, And caves where the cave-men dwell, Then a sense of law and beauty And a face turned from the clod, Some call it Evolution And others call it G.o.d."

"Say it again, slow!" ordered Douglas, his eyes still on Fire Mesa.

Judith obeyed.

"I didn't know Inez had got religious," he said, when Judith finished.

"She hasn't. She doesn't believe anything except that beauty is right and ugliness is wrong."

"Then she'd better clean up her door-yard!" exclaimed Douglas.

"O darn it!" sighed Judith. "I can't even discuss poetry with you without your heaving a brick."

"I'm not heaving bricks. O Judith, I'm so devilishly unhappy!"

"You ought to quit thinking so much and have something you are crazy about doing. When I get blue, I put Whoop-la to bucking."

"I'm crazy about something, all right. Judith, don't you think you're ever going to care about me."

"I don't know, Doug. Who does know, at sixteen?"

"I did."

"I wouldn't marry a man that expected me to be a ranch wife in Lost Chief, if I loved him black in the face." Judith jumped down from the fence and turned Whoop-la free for the night.

Douglas sat staring at her, wondering whether or not to mention the subject of the trip to Mountain City. He was firmly resolved that unless Judith gave in to her mother on the matter, he was going with her and his father. But finally he decided that he would not end their friendly conversation with a row and he clambered down and went about his ch.o.r.es.

And so the days pa.s.sed and the time grew close for the departure to Mountain City. One evening, two days before the start, Douglas and Judith went to call on Little Marion and Jimmy. When they reached the ranch house, they found Little Marion in the big bed in the living-room and Jimmy sitting beside the unshaded lamp, reading to her.

"Well!" exclaimed Douglas. "What's happened to you, Marion?"

Marion put back her great braid of hair, but what answer she might have made they were not to know, for at that moment Charleton returned from his wild horse hunt. Dust-covered and sunburned he strode into the room with a pleasant grin.

"h.e.l.lo, folks! Why, Marion, are you sick?"

"Kind of. What luck, Dad?"

"Fair. Brought in a good stallion and some weedy stuff. How's the ranch, Jimmy?"

He asked this with his eyes still on his daughter.

"O.K., Charleton," replied Jimmy.

"You made a long trip, Charleton," said Douglas.

"Left the day after the rodeo," tossing his hat and gloves on the floor and sitting down on the edge of the bed. "I remember Little Marion was laid up then with a sprained ankle or something. What do you hear from your mother, Marion?"

"She's well and so's the baby. They'll be home anytime now."

"What's the matter with you, Marion?"

"O, I'm sort of used up."

"How do you mean used up? I don't like your looks. I'm not a fool, you know."

Marion burst into tears. "You know what it is!"

Charleton made a sudden spring at Jimmy; but Douglas caught him by the arm.

"Hold on, Charleton!" cried Doug. "If things have gone wrong, you're as much to blame as any one."

"You clear out of here, Doug!" shouted Charleton.

"Don't you go, Doug and Judith!" sobbed Marion. "I need some one to stand by me."

"I'm standing by you, Marion," said Jimmy, who had not stirred from his chair. "I'd just as soon you'd beat me up, Charleton. A little sooner.

But that isn't going to help matters."