Lonesome Land Part 23

"It--oh, surely not!" she whispered, protesting against her understanding.

She gave a little sob that had no immediate relation to tears.

"Surely--_surely_--not!" It was of no use; understanding came, and came clearly, pitilessly. Many things--trifles, all of them--to which she had given no thought at the time, or which she had forgotten immediately, came back to her of their own accord; things she tried _not_ to remember.

The cow stared at her for a minute, and, when she made no hostile move, turned its attention back to its bereavement. Once again it thrust its moist muzzle between two rails, gave a preliminary, vibrant _mmm--mmmmm--m_, and then, with a spasmodic heaving of ribs and of flank, burst into a long-drawn _baww--aw--aw--aw_, which rose rapidly in a tremulous crescendo and died to a throaty rumbling.

Val started nervously, though her eyes were fixed upon the cow and she knew the sound was coming. It served, however, to release her from the spell of horror which had gripped her. She was still white, and when she moved she felt intolerably heavy, so that her feet dragged; but she was no longer dazed. She went slowly around to the gate, reached up wearily and undid the chain fastening, opened the gate slightly, and went in.

Four of the calves were huddled together for mutual comfort in a corner.

They were blatting indefatigably. Val went over to where the fifth one still stood beside the fence, as near the cow as it could get, and threw a small stone, that bounced off the calf's rump. The calf jumped and ran aimlessly before her until it reached the half-open gate, when it dodged out, as if it could scarcely believe its own good fortune. Before Val could follow it outside, it was nuzzling rapturously its mother, and the cow was contorting her body so that she could caress her offspring with her tongue, while she rumbled her satisfaction.

Val closed and fastened the gate carefully, and went back to where the cow still lingered. With her lips drawn to a thin, colorless line, she drove her across the coulee and up the hill, the calf gamboling close alongside.

When they had gone out of sight, up on the level, Val turned back and went slowly to the house. She stood for a minute staring stupidly at it and at the coulee, went in and gazed around her with that blankness which follows a great mental shock. After a minute she s.h.i.+vered, threw up her hands before her face, and dropped, a pitiful, sorrowing heap of quivering rebellion, upon the couch.

CHAPTER XIX

KENT'S CONFESSION

Polycarp Jenks came ambling into the coulee, rapped perfunctorily upon the door-casing, and entered the kitchen as one who feels perfectly at home, and sure of his welcome; as was not unfitting, considering the fact that he had "ch.o.r.ed around" for Val during the last year, and longer.

"Anybody to home?" he called, seeing the front door shut tight.

There was a stir within, and Val, still pale, and with an almost furtive expression in her eyes, opened the door and looked out.

"Oh, it's you, Polycarp," she said lifelessly. "Is there anything--"

"What's the matter? Sick? You look kinda peaked and frazzled out. I met Man las' night, and he told me you needed wood; I thought I'd ride over and see. By granny, you do look bad."

"Just a headache," Val evaded, shrinking back guiltily. "Just do whatever there is to do, Polycarp. I think--I don't believe the chickens have had anything to eat to-day--"

"Them headaches are sure a fright; they're might' nigh as bad as rheumatiz, when they hit you hard. You jest go back and lay down, and I'll look around and see what they is to do. Any idee when Man's comin' back?"

"No." Val brought the word out with an involuntary sharpness.

"No, I reckon not. I hear him and Fred De Garmo come might' near havin' a fight las' night. Blumenthall was tellin' me this mornin'. Fred's quit the Double Diamond, I hear. He's got himself appointed dep'ty stock inspector--and how he managed to git the job is more 'n I can figure out.

They say he's all swelled up over it--got his headquarters in town, you know, and seems he got to lordin' it over Man las' night, and I guess if somebody hadn't stopped 'em they'd of been a mix-up, all right. Man wasn't in no shape to fight--he'd been drinkin' pretty--"

"Yes--well, just do whatever there is to do, Polycarp. The horses are in the upper pasture, I think--if you want to haul wood." She closed the door--gently, but with exceeding firmness, and, Polycarp took the hint.

"Women is queer," he muttered, as he left the house. "Now, she knows Man drinks like a fish--and she knows everybody else knows it--but if you so much as mention sech a thing, why--" He waggled his head disapprovingly and proceeded, in his habitually laborious manner, to take a chew of tobacco.

"No matter how much they may know a thing is so, if it don't suit 'em you can't never git 'em to stand right up and face it out--seems like, by granny, it comes natural to 'em to make believe things is different. Now, she knows might' well she can't fool _me_. I've hearn Man swear at her like--"

He reached the corral, and his insatiable curiosity turned his thoughts into a different channel. He inspected the four calves gravely, wondered audibly where Man had found them, and how the round-up came to miss them, and criticized his application of the brand; in the opinion of Polycarp, Manley either burned too deep or not deep enough.

"Time that line-backed heifer scabs off, you can't tell what's on her," he a.s.serted, expectorating solemnly before he turned away to his work.

Prom a window, Val watched him with cold terror. Would he suspect? Or was there anything to suspect? "It's silly--it's perfectly idiotic," she told herself impatiently; "but if he hangs around that corral another minute, I shall scream!" She watched until she saw him mount his horse and ride off toward the upper pasture. Then she went out and began apathetically picking seed pods off her sweet-peas, which the early frosts had spared.

"Head better?" called Polycarp, half an hour later, when he went rattling past the house with the wagon, bound for the river bottom where they got their supply of wood.

"A little," Val answered inattentively, without looking at him.

It was while Polycarp was after the wood, and while she was sitting upon the edge of the porch, listlessly arranging and rearranging a handful of long-stemmed blossoms, that Kent galloped down the hill and up to the gate.

She saw him coming and set her teeth hard together. She did not want to see Kent just then; she did not want to see anybody.

Kent, however, wanted to see her. It seemed to him at least a month since he had had a glimpse of her, though it was no more than half that time. He watched her covertly while he came up the path. His mind, all the way over from the Wishbone, had been very clear and very decided. He had a certain thing to tell her, and a certain thing to do; he had thought it all out during the nights when he could not sleep and the days when men called him surly, and there was no going back, no reconsideration of the matter. He had been telling himself that, over and over, ever since the house came into view and he saw her sitting there on the porch. She would probably want to argue, and perhaps she would try to persuade him, but it would be absolutely useless; absolutely.

"Well, h.e.l.lo!" he cried, with more than his usual buoyancy of manner--because he knew he must hurt her later on. "h.e.l.lo, Madam Auth.o.r.ess.

Why this haughty air? This stuckupiness? Shall I get a ladder and climb up where you can hear me say howdy?" He took off his hat and slapped her gently upon the top of her head with it. "Come out of the fog!"

"Oh--I wish you wouldn't!" She glanced up at him so briefly that he caught only a flicker of her yellow-brown eyes, and went on fumbling her flowers.

Kent stood and looked down at her for a moment.

"Mad?" he inquired cheerfully. "Say, you look awfully savage. On the dead, you do. What do _you_ care if they sent it back? You had all the fun of writing it--and you know it's a dandy. Please smile. _Pretty_ please!" he wheedled. It was not the first time he had discovered her in a despondent mood, nor the first time he had bantered and badgered her out of her gloom.

Presently it dawned upon him that this was more serious; he had never seen her quite so colorless or so completely without spirit.

"Sick, pal?" he asked gently, sitting down beside her.

"No-o--I suppose not." Val bit her lips, as soon as she had spoken, to check their quivering.

"Well, what is it? I wish you'd tell me. I came over here full of something I had to tell you--but I can't, now; not while you're like this." He watched her yearningly.

"Oh, I can't tell you. It's nothing." Val jerked a sweet-pea viciously from its stem, pressed her hand against her mouth, and turned reluctantly toward him. "What was it you came to tell me?"

He watched her narrowly. "I'll gamble you're down in the mouth about something hubby has said or done. You needn't tell me--but I just want to ask you if you think it's worth while? You needn't tell me that, either.

You know blamed well it ain't. He can't deal you any more misery than you let him hand out; you want to keep that in mind."

Another blossom was demolished. "What was it you came to tell me?" she repeated steadily, though she did not look at him.

"Oh, nothing much. I'm going to leave the country, is all."

"Kent!" After a minute she forced another word out. "Why?"

Kent regarded her somberly. "You better think twice before you ask me that," he warned; "because I ain't much good at beating all around the bush. If you ask me again, I'll tell you--and I'm liable to tell you without any frills." He drew a hard breath. "So I'd advise you not to ask,"

he finished, half challengingly.

Val placed a pale lavender blossom against a creamy white one, and held the two up for inspection.

"When are you going?" she asked evenly.

"I don't know exactly--in a day or so. Sat.u.r.day, maybe."

She hesitated over the flowers in her lap, and selected a pink one, which she tried with the white and the lavender.

"And--_why_ are you going?" she asked him deliberately.