A Mountain Woman Part 12

"Yes. I've been up th' gulch these fifteen years. Bin livin' on a shelf of black rock. Th' sun got 'round 'bout ten. Couldn't make a thing grow." The man was looking off toward the hills, with an expression of deep sadness in his eyes. "Didn't never live in a place where nothin'

'd grow, did you? I took geraniums up thar time an' time agin. Red ones. Made me think of mother; she's in Germany. Watered 'em mornin' an'

night. Th' d.a.m.ned things died."

The oath slipped out with an artless unconsciousness, and there was a little moisture in his eyes. Kate felt she ought to bring the conversation to a close. She wondered what Jack would say if he saw her talking with a perfect stranger who used oaths! She would have gone into the house but for something that caught her eye. It was the hand of the man; that hand was a bludgeon. All grace and flexibility had gone out of it, and it had become a mere instrument of toil. It was seamed and misshapen; yet it had been carefully manicured, and the pointed nails looked fantastic and animal-like. A great seal-ring bore an elaborate monogram, while the little finger displayed a collection of diamonds and emeralds truly dazzling to behold. An impulse of humanity and a sort of artistic curiosity, much stronger than her discretion, urged Kate to continue her conversation.

"What were you doing up the gulch?" she said.

The man leaned back in his chair and regarded her a moment before answering. He realized the significance of her question. He took it as a sign that she was willing to be friendly. A look of grat.i.tude, almost tender, sprang into his eyes,--dull gray eyes, they were, with a kindliness for their only recommendation.

"Makin' my pile," he replied. "I've been in these parts twenty years.

When I come here, I thought I was goin' to make a fortune right off. I had all th' money that mother could give me, and I lost everything I had in three months. I went up th' gulch." He paused, and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.

There was something in his remark and the intonation which made Kate say softly:

"I suppose you've had a hard time of it."

"Thar you were!" he cried. "Thar was th' rock--risin', risin', black! At th' bottom wus th' creek, howlin' day an' night! Lonesome! Gee! No one t' talk to. Of course, th' men. Had some with me always. They didn't talk. It's too-too quiet t' talk much. They played cards. Curious, but I never played cards. Don't think I'd find it amusin'. No, I worked. Came down here once in six months or three months. Had t' come--grub-staked th' men, you know. Did you ever eat salt pork?" He turned to Kate suddenly with this question.

"Why, yes; a few times. Did you have it?"

"Nothin' else, much. I used t' think of th' things mother cooked. Mother understood cookin', if ever a woman did. I'll never forget th' dinner she gave me th' day I came away. A woman ought t' cook. I hear American women don't go in much for cookin'."

"Oh, I think that's a mistake," Kate hastened to interrupt. "All that I know understand how to serve excellent dinners. Of course, they may not cook them themselves, but I think they could if it were necessary."

"Hum!" He picked up a long glove that had fallen from Kate's lap and fingered it before returning it.

"I s'pose you cook?"

"I make a specialty of salads and sorbets," smiled Kate. "I guess I could roast meat and make bread; but circ.u.mstances have not yet compelled me to do it. But I've a theory that an American woman can do anything she puts her mind to."

The man laughed out loud,--a laugh quite out of proportion to the mild good humor of the remark; but it was evident that he could no longer conceal his delight at this companions.h.i.+p.

"How about raisin' flowers?" he asked. "Are you strong on that?"

"I've only to look at a plant to make it grow," Kate cried, with enthusiasm. "When my friends are in despair over a plant, they bring it to me, and I just pet it a little, and it brightens up. I've the most wonderful fernery you ever saw. It's green, summer and winter. Hundreds of people stop and look up at it, it is so green and enticing, there above the city streets."

"What city?"

"Philadelphia."

"Mother's jest that way. She has a garden of roses. And the mignonette--"

But he broke off suddenly, and sat once more staring before him.

"But not a d.a.m.ned thing," he added, with poetic pensiveness, "would grow in that gulch."

"Why did you stay there so long?" asked Kate, after a little pause in which she managed to regain her waning courage.

"Bad luck. You never see a place with so many false leads. To-day you'd get a streak that looked big. To-morrow you'd find it a pocket. One night I'd go t' bed with my heart goin' like a race-horse. Next night it would be ploddin' along like a winded burro. Don't know what made me stick t' it. It was hot there, too! And cold! Always roastin' ur freezin'. It'd been different if I'd had any one t' help me stand it.

But th' men were always findin' fault. They blamed me fur everythin'.

I used t' lie awake at night an' hear 'em talkin' me over. It made me lonesome, I tell you! Thar wasn't no one! Mother used t' write. But I never told her th' truth. She ain't a suspicion of what I've been a-goin' through."

Kate sat and looked at him in silence. His face was seamed, though far from old. His body was awkward, but impressed her with a sense of magnificent strength.

"I couldn't ask no woman t' share my hard times," he resumed after a time. "I always said when I got a woman, it was goin' t' be t' make her happy. It wer'n't t' be t' ask her t' drudge."

There was another silence. This man out of the solitude seemed to be elated past expression at his new companions.h.i.+p. He looked with appreciation at the little pointed toes of Kate's slippers, as they glanced from below the skirt of her dainty organdie. He noted the band of pearls on her finger. His eyes rested long on the daisies at her waist. The wind tossed up little curls of her warm brown hair. Her eyes suffused with interest, her tender mouth seemed ready to lend itself to any emotion, and withal she was so small, so compact, so exquisite. The man wiped his forehead again, in mere exuberance.

"Here's my card," he said, very solemnly, as he drew an engraved bit of pasteboard from its leather case. Kate bowed and took it.

"Mr. Peter Roeder," she read. "I've no card," she said. "My name is Sh.e.l.ly. I'm here for my health, as I told you." She rose at this point, and held out her hand. "I must thank you once more for your kindness,"

she said.

His eyes fastened on hers with an appeal for a less formal word. There was something almost terrible in their silent eloquence.

"I hope we may meet again," she said.

Mr. Peter Roeder made a very low and awkward bow, and opened the door into the corridor for her.

That evening the major announced that he was obliged to go to Seattle.

The journey was not an inviting one; Kate was well placed where she was, and he decided to leave her.

She was well enough now to take longer drives; and she found strange, lonely canyons, wild and beautiful, where yellow waters burst through rocky barriers with roar and fury,--tortuous, terrible places, such as she had never dreamed of. Coming back from one of these drives, two days after her conversation on the piazza with Peter Roeder, she met him riding a ma.s.sive roan. He sat the animal with that air of perfect unconsciousness which is the attribute of the Western man, and his attire, even to his English stock, was faultless,--faultily faultless.

"I hope you won't object to havin' me ride beside you," he said, wheeling his horse. To tell the truth, Kate did not object. She was a little dull, and had been conscious all the morning of that peculiar physical depression which marks the beginning of a fit of homesickness.

"The wind gits a fine sweep," said Roeder, after having obtained the permission he desired. "Now in the gulch we either had a dead stagnation, or else the wind was tearin' up and down like a wild beast."

Kate did not reply, and they went on together, facing the riotous wind.

"You can't guess how queer it seems t' be here," he said, confidentially. "It seems t' me as if I had come from some other planet.

Thar don't rightly seem t' be no place fur me. I tell you what it's like. It's as if I'd come down t' enlist in th' ranks, an' found 'em full,--every man marchin' along in his place, an' no place left fur me."

Kate could not find a reply.

"I ain't a friend,--not a friend! I ain't complainin'. It ain't th'

fault of any one--but myself. You don' know what a durned fool I've bin. Someway, up thar in th' gulch I got t' seemin' so sort of important t' myself, and my makin' my stake seemed such a big thing, that I thought I had only t' come down here t' Helena t' have folks want t'

know me. I didn't particular want th' money because it wus money. But out here you work fur it, jest as you work fur other things in other places,--jest because every one is workin' fur it, and it's the man who gets th' most that beats. It ain't that they are any more greedy than men anywhere else. My pile's a pretty good-sized one. An' it's likely to be bigger; but no one else seems t' care. Th' paper printed some pieces about it. Some of th' men came round t' see me; but I saw their game. I said I guessed I'd look further fur my acquaintances. I ain't spoken to a lady,--not a real lady, you know,--t' talk with, friendly like, but you, fur--years."

His face flushed in that sudden way again. They were pa.s.sing some of those pretentious houses which rise in the midst of Helena's ragged streets with such an extraneous air, and Kate leaned forward to look at them. The driver, seeing her interest, drew up the horses for a moment.

"Fine, fine!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Roeder. "But they ain't got no garden. A house don't seem anythin' t' me without a garden. Do you know what I think would be th' most beautiful thing in th' world? A baby in a rose-garden!

Do you know, I ain't had a baby in my hands, excep' Ned Ramsey's little kid, once, for ten year!"

Kate's face shone with sympathy.

"How dreadful!" she cried. "I couldn't live without a baby about."

"Like babies, do you? Well, well. Boys? Like boys?"