XV: BULL AND THE WIDOW CONSPIRE
"Ain't that queer?"
The Three were in full enjoyment of the noon smoke on the broad plankbench in front of their 'dobe. Though Lee always encouraged them tosmoke in the house, they preferred it there--partly through a rootedinstinct that, no matter how cleverly she dissemble, woman is thenatural enemy of "Lady Nicotine," regarding her always as a formidablerival; secondly, because, while sitting at ease, the life of thecompound passed under their eyes. Just now, when Sliver's remark brokethe hot noon silence, their attention was concentrated upon Gordon, whosat in the doorway of a 'dobe opposite, playing with a chubby girl ofthree, while its dark mother looked on with a pleased smile.
"Ain't what queer?" Jake sent a stream of smoke rings writhing throughthe warm air. "There's so many queer things down here I'll have to askyou to come again."
Sliver nodded at Gordon. "Ain't it odd how he cottons to them littleMexes? To me they're no more' n little brown dogs. Did you know he satup night afore last with a sick one?"
"No-o-o-o!" Jake's surprise knew no bounds.
"He did. Kid had a sore throat that looked like diphtheria, an' he satthere all night a-painting it with kerosene. Brought it 'round, too, hedid."
"Kain't understan' it." Jake shook his head. "For my part, I'd sink thecountry under water twenty minutes if I could, an' drown the hull brownb'iling. But let me tell you, Son, them peculiar interests of his'nain't going to hurt him none with Missy. If there's anything a girllikes in a man it's to see him make over kids. Marks him for a gooddaddy, I s'pose, an' without actually reasoning it out that way it'swhat they're all a-wanting."
"Don't seem to have feazed her much as yet," Sliver grumbled. "Look athim. A fine lad, straight an' strong an' true, eddicated an' wellraised; now where in hell ked you find a better match for Lady-girl? Butthough he's been here two months, there's nothing doing. Sometimes Iketch myself wishing he'd hand her a crack like he give me. It 'u'd makeher sit up an' take notice!"
Jake approved the diagnosis. "They're real friendly--friendly as a braceof bugs in a rug. She likes to chin with him. When he's telling,evenings, about New York, an' university doings, her eyes shine likeclear wax candles, but 'tain't fer him. She's jest a-seeing an' a-doingan' a-being what he's telling. Sure she likes him an' him her, but, asyou say--there's nothing doing."
Bull ripped out an oath, but his feeling was so sincere, hisdisappointment so deep, that the profanity was like unto a consecration."Makes me feel like knocking their damn young heads together." As,rising, he tapped the ashes out of his pipe on his huge palm, he added:"I've gotter ride out to the valley pastures this afternoon, an' whileI'm that far I'll jest go on an' have a word with Mrs. Mills. She's thatclever I'll bet you she'd have 'em hitched be this if she'd been here."
"Say!" Sliver's nod followed Bull as he walked away. "Third time thismonth--once beca'se he'd heard Betty was ailing; again 'cause it wasrumored raiders had been seen around her _rancho_; now beca'se he wantsadvice. D'y' know, I believe it's the widow herself. Whoopee! kin youthink of it! Old Bull an' her an' domestic bliss an'--"
"D'you reckon it's anything to josh about?" Jake sternly interrupted. "Iuster laugh at the very idee of living straight an' sorter scorn them asdid, but let me tell you, hombre, that after a man touches forty thereain't a thing in the world left for him but a wife's smile across thetable an' children's hands clutching his knee." His bleak eyes, lean,sarcastic face, had lit as to a vision. Now the illumination died andleft it even colder. "After the pleasant time we've had here, that oldhell an' ruin life looks like a bad dream. I've thought, sometimes, I'dtry to quit it. I would with jest half of Bull's natural goodness. ButI'm bad clean through to the bone. Why, I'm fixing even now, while I'mtalking, for a bust. My system's that dry I ked drink up a lake, an' myfingers is itching to get into a game."
"Me, too." Sliver, always reflective, took the color of Jake's mood."I'll soon be due for a night at the _fonda_." He added, with comicalpathos: "You bet, I'll go an' lie down to it again. But I do wishFelicia, out there, would put in a better brand of p'ison. I suffer sowhen I'm through."
"Sure." Jake accepted the inevitable with fatalism that almost amountedto satisfaction. "One of these days I'll take a tumble an' go back tothe old life till it's cut off by the sheriff's rope. But Bull--"
Seven hours of steady riding brought Bull to the rise from which, on hisfirst visit, he had looked back on the widow's _rancho_. The low sunfilled the pocket in the hills wherein the buildings stood with fluidgold that set the chrome-yellow walls off in a blaze, fired the redmasses of the bougainvillea with deeper flame. It also set a glow onBull's face, revealing a softness, expectancy that could not be creditedaltogether to his mission. A few yards to his right stood an old 'dobewall, relic of some former building, and so absorbed was he in hismusing that he never noticed a rifle-barrel projecting through a cracktill a voice broke the golden silence.
"It will pay you, senor, to watch more carefully. One could shoot theeyes out of you with perfect ease."
As Bull turned quickly, a dark face rose above the old wall. Oval inoutline, the features, nose, brows, mouth, were all straight,emphasizing its naturally cold expression. Strangest of all, investingit with a weird, uncanny look, the eyes were blue. No hint of a smilewarmed its ruling bleakness when he answered Bull's question.
"Si, the senora is there. Ride on, senor. I shall watch here for alittle while."
Five minutes later, while Betty sat on Bull's knee, the widow explainedthe apparition. "That was Terrubio, my Mexican foreman. He's veryfaithful. Always he gets up and takes a look around two or three timesin the night, and he does as much work as two ordinary Mexicans. He usedto be a bandit in the old days; and once, when the rurales were hot onhis trail, he hid in an old stable of ours. We found him next morning,almost shot to pieces. After I'd nursed him back to health Mr. Mills gothis pardon from Diaz on condition that he'd stay with us and behave.That's over ten years ago. He's been with us ever since, and that oldbandit reputation of his has been our best protection."
"That's fine, ma'am," Bull made hearty comment. "It takes a bad man toscare a bad man. I'll feel easier for knowing this."
The widow had already dismissed Terrubio's woman, who served as her_criada_, for the night. Now while she bustled around preparing Bull'ssupper he looked on with huge content, his glance, in its respect andconstancy, very like that of a mastiff. Several times, in passing, herskirts brushed him, and at each slight contact he blushed and trembled.Perhaps they were not quite accidental. At least she was fully aware ofthe effect, for each time she turned quickly to hide a smile. When, atlast, she sat down with plump white arms folded on the table to watchhim eat, the glow on his face was certainly not due to his business,though he introduced it then.
"Two months he's been here, ma'am," he concluded his tale of woe, "an'nary a thing doing."
"Why, what did you expect?" Her pretty, plump figure shook with laughterand Betty joined her childish merriment. "Did you think it would happenin the first five minutes? Now just consider--what good would she everhave of a man that would fall as easily as that? They talk of love atfirst sight, but let me tell you that those are the kind that fall outat second. It takes a slow horse for a steady pull and a slow man for alasting love. It's good that he isn't impressionable, for he'll go downall the harder for it. And you yourself wouldn't have liked Lee to fallin love with him at once. But she isn't that easy kind. The man thatgets her will have to win her. But tell me the symptoms. How do theyact?"
Bull gave the diagnosis--they appeared to like each other! Were veryfriendly! She liked to hear him talk! He couldn't think of anythingelse!
The widow had checked off each count with a little nod. Now she burstout laughing. "Is that all? My goodness! Mr. Perrin, how blind you menare! That isn't much to go on. Did you ever see him touch her, or shehim, accidental, as it were?"
Recalling the effect of her brushing skirts, Bull blushed, and under thestimulus of personal exper
ience he divined the inwardness of thequestion. "Sure! She was showing him how to hog-tie a steer t'other day.It lashed out an' upset them an' for a minute they was that balled upyou kedn't tell t'other from which. Didn't seem a bit anxious to let go,either."
"That's favorable," the widow nodded thoughtfully. "Looking at it from adistance, I should say what was needed is a little competition. It's thelife of love as well as trade. A man and a girl are like fire and tow.They'll go along, nice as you please, till a little rivalry blows uplike a wind, then--up in a blaze they go. Has Ramon been at Los Arbolessince Mr. Nevil came?"
"A couple of times. But Gordon was out with us on the range, an' Ramonwas gone afore we kem in."
"It's a pity he hadn't been there. He'd feel the same about as we do,and he wouldn't be human if he didn't try to cut Ramon out. Let me see."She mused for a while, chin propped in her hands. Then her face lit up."I know! I'm having a birthday next week. I'll make a little party andinvite Ramon and Lee. You'll see to it that Gordon brings her here?"
"But then Bull won't be able to come," Betty's small voice piped,indignantly. "And you told me only yesterday that you weren't going toask any one but him."
Now the widow blushed. But she braved it out. "So I did, dear, and I'drather have him. But when Lee's happiness is at stake we'll have to giveup our own pleasure. And you mustn't call him that. 'Tisn't respectful.Say Mr. Perrin."
"But Jake and Sliver do it, and he said I could--didn't you, Bull?There, you see!" Thus triumphantly vindicated, she was proceeding withfurther revelations. "Mother will be thirty-sev--" when the widowclapped her hand over the small, traitorous mouth.
She broke into a little, conscious laugh. "I know it's silly. But wasthere ever a real woman that would own up to her age? I won'tacknowledge to a day over thirty."
"And you look five years younger than that, ma'am," Bull gallantlyreplied.
He was paid, of course, with a brilliant smile, and, the conspiracy thusconsummated, they gradually drifted into one of those pleasant talks,warm, intimate, communicative, which have been banished from the hectic,electric cities, but still linger where the habitants of the mountains,forest, desert, range, spend long evenings under the golden lamplight orflickering fire-blaze. From news of their countryside, rumors of raidsand revolutions, neighborhood gossip, it passed on to a closer, morepersonal note, touching their thoughts, hopes, aspirations.
In the course of it Betty exercised her usual privilege and went tosleep in Bull's arms. But though, when he retired, the warmth of thesoft child-body enwrapped, as before, his heart, his thoughts were notof her. Long after the silence of midnight wrapped the dark house hedismissed a waking dream with the brusque comment:
"'Tain't for you, Bull. You killed all that years ago, with your ownhand."
He repeated it next morning, looking back on the _rancho_ from the lastrise. "No, Son, 'tain't for you."
At that moment Betty and her mother stood in the doorway watching hisdistant figure, and had he been close enough to see and hear he mighthave read denial of his thought in both the child's words and thewidow's reflective smile. Said reflection was due to a lively memory ofhis sudden reddening when she had left her hand in his just a shadelonger than was necessary. She blushed, now, and cut off Betty's wordswith a sudden squeeze.
"Mother, I just know he's falling in love with you. Wouldn't it be niceif he asked--"