Bruce of the Circle A

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE WOMAN ON HORSEBACK

  Lytton had gone for a ride in the hills, leaving Bayard alone at theranch, busying himself with accomplishing many odds and ends of taskswhich had been neglected in the weeks that his attention had beendivided between his cattle and the troubles of Ann. Ned was back to hisusual strength, now; also, his mending mental attitude had made him abetter companion, a less trying patient. He rode daily, he helpedsomewhat with the ranch work, his sleeps were long and untroubled. Thefirst time a horse had carried him from sight Bayard had scarcelyexpected to see him back again; he had firmly believed that Lytton wouldride directly to Yavapai and fill himself with whiskey. When he cameriding into the ranch, tired, glad to be home once more, Bruce knew thatthe man was not wholly unappreciative, that his earlier remonstrances atremaining at the Circle A had not always been genuine.

  "Mighty white of you, old chap," he had said, after dismounting. "Mightywhite of you to treat me like this. Some day I'll pay you back."

  "You'll pay me back by gettin' to be good an' strong an' goin' out an'bein' a man," the rancher had answered, and Lytton had laughed at hisseriousness.

  No intimation of his wife's nearness had been given to Lytton. Isolatedas they were, far off the beaten path of travel, few people ever stoppedat the ranch and, when stray visitors had dropped in, chance or Bayard'sdiplomacy had prevented their discovering the other man's presence. Notonce after their argument over the rights of a man to his wife had Nedreferred to Ann and in that Bruce found both a conscious and anunconscious comfort: the first sort because it hurt him brutally to bereminded of the girl as this man's mate, and the other because the factthat while Lytton had only bitterness for Ann Bayard could whollyjustify his own attention to her, his own love.

  Day after day the progress continued uninterrupted, Bruce making it apoint to have his charge ride alone, unless Ned himself expressed adesire to go in company. The rancher believed that if the other wereever to be strong enough to resist the temptation to return to his oldhaunts and ways, now was the time. Although Lytton's attitude was,except at rare intervals, subtly resentful, his passive acceptance ofthe conditions under which he lived was evidence that he saw the wisdomin remaining at the ranch and those hours alone on horseback, out ofsight, away from any influencing contact, were the first tests. Bayardwas delighted to see that his work did not collapse the moment heremoved from it his watchful support. And yet, while he took pride inthis accomplishment, he went about his daily work with a sense ofdepression constantly on him. It was as though some inevitable calamityimpended, as though, almost, hope had been removed from his future. Hetried not to allow himself to think of Ann Lytton. He knew that to lethis fancies and emotions go unrestrained for an hour would rouse in hisheart a hatred so intense, so compelling, that he would rise in all hisstrength during some of Lytton's moods and do the man violence; or, ifnot that, then, when talking to her, he would lose self-control andbreak his word to her and to himself that not again so long as she lovedher husband would he speak of his regard for her.

  But the end of that phase was approaching. Within a few days Lyttonwould know that his wife was in the country, would go to her, andBayard's interval of protectorate over them both, which at least gavehim opportunity to see the woman he loved, would come to its conclusion.

  Now, as he worked on a broken hinge of the corral gate his heart washeavy and, finally, to force himself to stop brooding, he broke intosong:

  "From th' desert I come to thee On a stallion shod wi--

  "No ... not that," he muttered. "I'll not be comin' ... on a stallionshod with fire, or anythin' else." Then he began this cruder, livelierstrain:

  "Foot in th' stirrup an' hand on th' horn, Best damn cowboy ever was born,

  "Coma ti yi youpa ya, youpa ya, Coma ti yi--

  "Dog-gone bolt's too short, Abe," he muttered to the sorrel who stoodwithin the enclosure. "Too short--

  "I herded an' I hollered an' I done very well, Till th' boss says, Boys, just let 'em go to hell!

  "Coma ti yi--

  "What do you see, Boy?"

  As he turned to go toward the blacksmith shop, he saw the horse standingwith head up and every line of his body rigid, gazing off on the valley.

  "You see somebody?" he asked, and swung up on the corral for a betterview.

  Far out beyond and below him a lazy wisp of dust rose lightly to betrailed away by the breath of warm breeze, and, after his eyes hadstudied it a moment, he discerned a moving dot that he knew was horseand rider.

  "Lytton didn't go that way," he muttered, as he dropped to the groundagain. "No use worryin' any more, though; it's time somebody knew he washere; they will soon, an' it won't do any harm."

  He swept the valley with his gaze again and shook his head. "Seems likeit's in shadow all the time now," he muttered, "an' not a cloud in thesky!"

  When he found a bolt of proper length and fitted it in place the horseand rider were appreciably nearer and he watched them crawl toward him amoment.

  "I went to th' wagon to get my roll, To come back to Texas, dad-burn my soul; I went to th' wagon to draw my roll, Th' boss said I was nine dollars in th' hole!

  "Coma ti yi, youpy, youpy ya, youpy ya, Coma ti--"

  He turned again to look at the approaching rider before he went into thestable. Then, for twenty minutes he was busy with hammer and saw,humming to himself, thinking of things quite other than the work atwhich his hands were busy.

  "Is this the way you greet your visitors?"

  It was Ann Lytton's voice coming from the stable doorway, and Bayardstraightened slowly, turning awkwardly to look at her over his shoulder.She was flushed, flustered, uncertain for the moment just how to comportherself, but he did not notice for he was far off balance himself.

  "Good-mornin', ma'am," he said, taking off his hat and stepping out fromthe stall in which he had been working. "What do you want here?"

  His voice was pitched almost in a tone of rebuke.

  "I came to see my husband," she answered, and for a moment they staredhard at one another, Bayard, as though he did not believe her, and thewoman, as if conscious that he questioned the truth of her reply. Also,as if she feared he might read in her the _whole_ truth.

  "He ought to be back soon," the rancher said, replacing his hat. "He'soff for a ride. Won't you come into the house?"

  They stepped outside. He saw that behind her saddle a bundle was tied.He looked from it to her inquiringly.

  "I have thought it all over," she said, as if he had challenged her withwords, "and I've made up my mind that my place, for the time, anyhow, iswith Ned. It's best for me to be here; it's best for Ned to know andhave it over with.... Have a complete understanding."

  He looked away from her, failing to mark the significance of her lastwords or to see the fresh determination in her face.

  "It had to come sometime. I expect now's about as likely a day as any,"he said, gloomily, and untied the roll from her saddle. "I'll show youaround th' house so you'll know where things are,"--and started acrosstoward the shade of the ash tree.

  Ann walked beside him, wanting to speak, not knowing what to say. Shefound no words at all, until they gained the kitchen and stood within.Bayard placed her bundle on the table.

  "Do you mean that you won't be here?" she faltered.

  "Well, that's th' best way," he said, looking down and rubbing the backof a chair thoughtfully.

  "I can't...."

  "Yes, you can,"--divining what was in her mind and interrupting. "I'llbe glad to have you meet him here, ma'am. 'Twould offend me if you wentaway, but I think, considerin' everythin', how you've been apart so longan' all, it'd be better for me to leave you two alone. I've got businessin town anyhow," he lied. "I'd have to go in either to-night or in th'mornin'. It's th' best way all round."

  He did not look at her during this, could not trust himself to. He feltthat to meet her gaze would mean that he woul
d be tempted again todeclare his love for her, his hatred for her husband, because this hourwas another turning point for them all. For the safety of Ned Lytton tohold himself in accord with his own sense of right, it was wise for himto be away at the meeting of husband and wife; not fear for himself butof himself drove him from his hearth. He knew that Ann's eyes were onhim, steady and inquiring, felt somehow that she had suddenly becomemistress of the situation. Heretofore, he had dominated all theirinterviews. But now that eminence was gone. He was retreating from thiswoman and not wholly in good order, for he could not remain with her norcould he trust himself to give a true explanation of his departure.

  To delay longer, to just stand there and discuss the very embarrassingsituation, would be no relief, might only lead to greater discomfiture,he knew, so he said:

  "All th' things to cook with are in that cupboard, ma'am,"--turning awayfrom her to indicate. "All th' pots an' pans an' dishes are below there,on those shelves. He ... your husband knows, anyhow. He can show youround.

  "In here.... This is his room."

  He paused when halfway across the floor, turned and looked at her. Inher eye he caught a troubled quality.

  "He's been sleepin' here," he repeated, walking on and opening the door.

  The woman followed and looked over his shoulder.

  "But I've another room; my room, in here,"--moving to another door."This is mine, an' as I won't be here you can use it as you ... as youwant to."

  Nothing in his tone or manner of speech suggested anything but the ideacontained in his words, but Ann's eyes rested on his profile with asudden gratitude, a warmth. Surprise came to her a moment later and sheexclaimed,

  "Oh, how fine!"

  He had thrown the door back and stood aside for her to enter. Light cameinto the room from three windows and before the gentle breeze whitecurtains billowed inward. Navajo blankets covered the floor. The bed,in one corner, was spread with a gay serape and beside it was a bookcasewith shelves well filled. In the center of the room stood a table and onit a reading lamp. About the walls were pictures, few in number butinteresting.

  At Ann's exclamation Bruce smiled broadly, pleased.

  "I'm glad you like it," he said. "I do. I thought maybe you would."

  "Why, it's splendid!" she cried again. "It doesn't look like a room inthe house of a bachelor rancher. It doesn't look like...."

  She stopped and looked up at him, puzzled, questioning so eloquentlywith her gaze that it was unnecessary for him to await the spoken query.

  "Yes, I did it myself," he said with a flushed laugh. Theirself-consciousness was relieved by the change of thought. "It's mine;all mine. You ... You're the first person to come in here, ma'am, exceptTim.... He was my daddy, an' he's dead. I don't ask folks in here 'causeit's so much trouble to explain to most of 'em. They'd think I'm stuckup, with lace curtains an' all...."

  He waved his hands to include the setting.

  "I can live with th' roughest of 'em an' enjoy it; I can put up withanything when it's necessary, but somehow I've always wanted somethingdifferent, something that'll fill a place that plenty of grub an' a hotstove don't always satisfy.

  "Them curtains,"--with a chuckle--"came from th' Manzanita House. Theywere th' first decorations I put up. I woke up one mornin' after I'dbeen ... well, relieving my youth a little. I was in one of th' hotelrooms. 'Twas about this time of year an' th' wind was soft an' gentle,blowin' through th' windows like it does now, an' them curtains lookedso cool an' clean an' homelike that I... Well, I just rustled threepair, ma'am!"

  He laughed again and crossed the room to free one curtain that hadcaught itself on a protruding hook.

  "Tim an' me had a great argument, when I brought 'em home. Tim, he saysthat if I was goin' to have curtains, I ought to go through with th'whole deal an' have gilt rods to hang 'em on. I says, no, that was goin'too far, gettin' to be too dudish, so I nailed 'em up!"

  He pointed to show her the six-penny nails that held them in place, andAnn laughed heartily.

  "Then, I played a little game that th' boys out here call Monte. It'splayed with cards, ma'am. I played with a Navajo I know--an' cards--an'he had just one kind of luck, awful bad. That's where these blanketscome from,"--smiling in recollection.

  All this pleased him; he saw the humor of a man of his physique, hispursuit, furnishing a room with all the pains of a girl.

  "Those are good rugs. See? They're all black an' gray an' brown: naturalcolors. Red an' green are for tourists.

  "I bought that serape from a Mexican in Sonora when I was down therelookin' around. That lamp, though, that's th' best thing I got."

  He leaned low to blow the dust from its green shade with great pains,and Ann laughed outright at him.

  "I never could learn to dust proper, ma'am. It don't bother me so long'sI don't see it," he confessed. "A man who came out here to stay with usfor his health--a teacher--brought that lamp; when he went back, he leftit for me. I think a lot of it."

  "You read by it?" she asked.

  "Lord, yes! Those,"--waving his hand toward the books, and she walkedacross to inspect them, Bayard moving beside her. "He left 'em for me.He keeps sendin' me more every fall. I ... I learnt all I know out ofthem, an' from what he told me. It ain't much--what I know. But I got itall myself; that makes it seem more."

  Ann's throat tightened at that, but she only leaned lower over theshelves. Dickens was there, and Thackeray; one or two of Scott and abroken set of Dumas. History and travel predominated, with a volume ofKipling verse and a book on mythology discovered in a cursoryinspection.

  "I think a lot of my books. I like 'em all.... I liked that story 'boutOliver Twist th' best of 'em," he said, pointing to the Dickens. "Poorkid! An' old Bill Sykes! Lord, he was a hellion--a bad one,ma'am,"--correcting himself hastily. "An' Miss Sharpe this manThackeray wrote about in his book! I'd like to know a woman like her;she sure was a slick one, wasn't she? She'd done well in th' cowbusiness."

  "Do you like these?" she asked, indicating the Scott.

  "Well, sometimes," he said. "I like th' history in 'em, but, unless Igot a lot of time, like winter, I don't read 'em much. I like 'Ivanhoe'pretty well any time, but in most of 'em Walt sure rounded up a lot ofwords!"

  She smiled at that.

  "This is th' best of 'em all, though," he said, drawing out Carlyle'sFrench Revolution. "It took me all one winter to get on to th' hang ofthat book, but I stayed by her an' ... well, I'd rather read it now thananythin'. Funny that a man writin' so long ago could say so many thingsthat keep right on makin' good.

  "I'd like to know him," he said a moment later. "I could think up a lotof questions to ask a man like that."

  He stood running over the worn, soiled pages of his "French Revolution"lost in thought and Ann, stooping before the shelves, turned her face towatch him covertly. This was the explanation of the Bruce Bayard sheknew and loved; she now understood. This was why he had drawn her to himso easily. He was rough of manner, of speech, but behind it all wasthought, intelligence; not that alone, but the intelligence of anintrinsically fine mind. For an unschooled man to accomplish what he hadaccomplished was beyond her experience.

  "I liked them," he said, touching some volumes of Owen Wister. "Lord, hesure knows cowboys an' such. He wrote a story about 'n _hombre_ calledJones, Specimen Jones, that makes me sore from laughin' every time Iread it. It's about Arizona an' naturally hits me.

  "That's why I like that picture. It's my country, too." He pointed to aprint of Remington's "Fight for The Water Hole."

  "That's th' way it looks--heat an' color an' distance," he said. "Butwhen a thing's painted like that, you get more 'n th' looks. You gettaste an' smell an' th' feeling. I get thirsty an' hot an' desperateevery time I look at that picture very long....

  "This Cousin Jack, Kipling," he resumed, turning back to the books, "hewrote a poem about what a man ought to be before he considers himself aman that says all there is to say on th' subject. Nothin' new in what hewrote, but he's corral
ed all th' ideas anybody's ever thought about.It's fine--"

  "But who is that?" she broke in, walking closer to the photograph of ayoung woman, too eager to see the whole of this room to pause long overany one thing.

  He smiled in embarrassment.

  "My sister, ma'am."

  "Your sister!"

  "Yeah. You see, I never had any folks. Nearest thing to ancestors I knowabout was a lot of bent steel an' burnin' railroad cars. Old Tim pickedme out of a wreck when I was a baby, an' we never found out nothin'about me." He rubbed the back of one hand on his hip. "I... It ain'tnice, knowin' you don't belong to nobody, so I picked out myfamily,"--smiling again.

  "I was in Phoenix once an' I saw that lady's picture in front of aphotograph gallery. It was early mornin' an' I was on my way to th'train comin' north. I busted th' glass of th' show case an' took it. Ileft a five-dollar gold piece there so th' photographer wouldn't mind,an' I guess th' lady, if she knew, wouldn't care so awful much. Nobodyever seen her here but Tim an' me. I respect her a lot, like I would mysister. You expect she would mind, ma'am?"

  "I think she would be very much pleased," Ann said, soberly.

  "An' that up there's my mother," he said, after their gazes had clung amoment.

  "Whistler's 'Mother'!"

  "Yes, he painted it; but she's th' one I'd like to have for my mother,if I could picked her out. She looks like a good mother, don't she? Ithought so when I got that ... with a San Francisco newspaper."

  Ann did not trust herself to speak or to look at him.

  "Your father?" she asked after a moment.

  "Oh, I had one. Tim. He was my daddy. He did all any father could forme. No, ma'am, I wouldn't pick out nobody to take Tim's place. Hebrought me up. But if I was to have uncles, I'd like them."

  He moved across the room to where prints of Lincoln and Lee were tackedto the wall.

  "But, they were enemies!" Ann objected.

  "Sure, I know it. But they both thought somethin' an' stuck by it an'fought it out. Lincoln believed one way, Lee another; they both stood bytheir principles an' that's all that counts. Out here we have cattlemenan' sheepmen. I'm in cattle an' lots of times I've felt like gunnin' forth' fellers who were tryin' to sheep me, but then I'd stop an' thinkthat maybe there was somethin' to be said on their side.

  "I'd sure liked to have men for uncles who could believe in a thing ashard as they believed!"

  A pause followed and he looked about the room again calculatingly; thenstarted as though he had forgotten something.

  "But what I brought you in here for was to tell you that this is yours,to do what you want with ... you ..."

  His words brought them back to the situation they confronted and anembarrassed silence followed.

  "I don't feel right, driving you out like this," Ann protested, atlength.

  "But don't you understand? Nobody's ever been in here, but Tim, who'sdead, an' you. You're th' first person I've ever asked to stay in here.I'd like it ... to think you'd been in here ... stayin'.... It's you who're doin' th' favor...."

  He ended in a lowered tone and was so intent, so keen in his desire thatAnn looked on him with a queer little feeling of misgiving. Every nowand then she had encountered those phases of him for which she could notaccount, which made her doubt and, for the instant, fear him. But, aftershe had searched his face and found there nothing but the sincereconcern for her welfare, she knew that his motive was of the highest,that he thought only of her, and she answered,

  "Why, I'll be glad to stay here, in your room."

  He turned and walked into the kitchen, swinging one hand.

  "I'll be driftin'," he said, when she followed, forcing himself to abrusque manner which disarmed her.

  "You ask Ned to water th' horses. I'm ridin' th' pinto to town. I'll beback to-morrow sometime."

  He put on his hat and started for the door resolutely. Then halted.

  "If anything should happen," he began, attempting a casual tone. But hecould not remain casual, nor could he finish his sentence. He stammeredand flushed and his gaze dropped. "Nothin' will ... to you," hefinished.

  With that he was gone, leading her borrowed horse back to town at herrequest. From a point half a mile distant he looked back. She was stillin the doorway and when he halted his pony he saw a flicker of white asshe waved a handkerchief at him. He lifted his hat in salute; then rodeon, with a heart that was heavy and cold.

  "Th' finest woman that God ever gave a body," he said, "an' I've givenher over to th' only man that walks th' earth who wouldn't try toappreciate her!"