Laramie Holds the Range

  CHAPTER XXXVII

  KATE BURNS THE STEAK

  Laramie, held for a week in bed, learned from the Doctor of Belle'soutburst at Kate, and, acting through him and with him, arranged peace.

  Complaining of a cold, with her other troubles, Belle took to bed whenLaramie was moved to the hotel and Kate turned in to nurse her.

  "You won't starve while she stays, Belle," declared Carpy, leaving Katein possession at the cottage, "and while I think of it," he added,turning to Kate, "Laramie says he wants to see you. You call him up onthe telephone, will you?"

  "What for, doctor?"

  "To oblige me, girl. I want to hold that fellow in his room a few daysmore and keep his arm in a sling. He's no easier to handle than awildcat."

  Kate looked perplexed: "What shall I say to him?"

  Carpy stood at the door with his hand on the knob: "Jolly himalong--you know how. He says he's coming down here for dinner tonight.Tell him Belle's sick."

  Belle listened. The more Kate considered the mandate, the moreconfusing it seemed. But she rang up the hotel, called for Laramie andheard presently a man's voice in answer.

  "Is this Mr. Laramie?" she asked.

  "It is not," was the answer.

  "Isn't he there?"

  "No."

  "Can you tell me when he will be in?"

  "He won't be in."

  She sighed with impatience: "I want to speak to him. And I think thisis he speaking. You know very well who I am," she persisted.

  "I do."

  "And I know very well who you are."

  "In that you may be mistaken."

  "Surely I'm not mistaken in believing Mr. Laramie a gentleman."

  "But you are mistaken in believing any person by that name here."

  "There is a person there who loves to persecute me, isn't there?"

  "There is not."

  "Is there one there that likes to have his own way?"

  "No more than you like to have your own way."

  "Is there a man named Jim there?"

  "Speaking, Kate."

  "I've a message from Belle."

  "What is the message?"

  "She is in bed with a cold and fever and wants you not to come tonight.As soon as she is up she will let you know."

  Belle held her peace till Kate left the telephone. "I can't makeDoctor Carpy out," she grumbled. "If he didn't want Jim Laramie tocome down here what did he ask _you_ to call him up for? If he doesn'tknow any more than that about doctoring," she added, contemptuously,"I'd hate to take his medicine."

  She waited for Kate's comment but Kate possessed the great art ofsaying nothing. "I guess," continued Belle, at length, "it's time totake that pill he left, but I guess I won't take it. What do you thinkabout it?" she asked, referring again to Carpy.

  Kate was not to be drawn out: "I found out a long time ago that DoctorCarpy doesn't tell all he knows," she observed dryly. "But I do knowhe wants Mr. Laramie to stay in his room. He says his shoulder willnever heal if he doesn't keep still."

  Belle made no response, but when Laramie knocked at the door in theevening she knew who it was. Kate received him.

  Talking in leisurely fashion to her, he walked to the door of Belle'sroom, looked in, wanted to know whom she had been fighting with andasked if she would get up and get supper for him.

  He carried his right arm at his side with the thumb hooked into hisbelt: "Where's your sling?" demanded Belle, tartly. Laramie pulled itout of his pocket: "I put it on when Carpy comes around," he explained.

  "You keep fooling around the streets this way and they'll get yousometime," said Belle, tartly.

  He turned the remark: "That idea doesn't seem to worry me as much as itused to. Have I got to cook my own supper?"

  This venture after discussion was assumed by Kate. She put on her hatto go across the street to get a steak. Laramie insisted on going withher. She asked him not to.

  "Why not?" he asked.

  Kate was keyed up with apprehension: "Why take chances all the time?"she asked in turn. "Someone might shoot from the dark."

  Belle answered for him: "Nobody in this country would shoot a man whena woman's with him," she said. "Go along."

  The butcher stumping in from the back room to wait on them showed nosurprise at the two from hostile camps asking for one steak, but hetried so hard to watch the pair and to hear what they were saying thathe nearly ruined one quarter of beef before he got what Kate wanted.What he finally cut off and trimmed looked more like a roast than asteak but neither customer seemed disturbed by this.

  Laramie paid, over indignant protests, and placing the package in theloop of his left arm, opened the shop door for his companion. Hepassed out behind her in excellent spirits. The butcher, looking afterthem, took his surreptitious pipe from his pocket, watched the shopdoor close, shook his head and ramming the burnt tobacco down hard withthe finger that lacked the first joint, stumped back to his lonelystove.

  The kitchen was farthest removed from Belle's room. Laramie startedthe fire with kerosene. When he lighted it there was a flare-back thatalarmed Belle in her bed, but she could hear nothing of what was goingon in the kitchen. While the supper was being cooked, Laramie stood onthe other side of the stove from his enemy's daughter, watching everymove. If Kate walked over to the cupboard, his eyes followed herstep--she walked with such decision and planted her heels so fast andfirm. If she turned from the stove to the table, his eyes devoured herslenderness in amazement that one so delicately proportioned could socrowd everything else out of his head. It seemed as if nothing beforehad ever been shaped like her ankles--there was so little of them tobear uncomplainingly even so slight a figure--and Kate was by no meansdiminutive.

  As the supper progressed, Laramie watched almost in awe the short-armjabs she gave the meat on the broiler. The cuffs of her shirtwaist,half back to her elbows, revealed white arms tapering to wrists moldedlike the ankles, and hands that his eyes fed on as a miser's feed ongold. The blazing coals flushed her cheeks and when she looked up athim to answer some foolish question her own eyes, flushed and softenedby the heat, took on an expression that stole all the strength he hadleft. When she asked him how he liked it, he exclaimed, "Fine," andKate had to ask him whether he liked the steak well done or rare.

  "Any way you like it," he stammered, "but lots of gravy."

  As he watched her laugh at his efforts to help her by picking up thehot platter, a sense of his own clumsiness and size and generalroughness overcame him. She was too far removed, he told himself, fromhis kind to make it possible for her ever to like him.

  The closer he got to her daintiness and spirit and laughter, the morehopeless his wild dreams seemed. Whenever she asked if the steak werecooked enough, he suggested--to prolong the pleasure of watching herhands--that she give it one more turn. Every moment he saw somethingnew to admire. While she was attending to the meat he could look ather hair and see where the sun had browned her pink throat and neck.As the broiling drew near an end, almost a panic gripped Laramie. Thehappiest moments of his life had been spent there at the stove. Theywere slipping away. She was lifting the steak the last time from thefire. He asked her to turn it once more.

  "Why, look at it," she exclaimed, "it's burnt up now; hold the plattercloser."

  It brought him closer in spirit than he had ever been to heaven, tofeel her elbow brush against his own, as she deftly landed the smokingsteak on the platter while Laramie held it.

  A great melancholy overcame him: "What do you want me to do?" he saidsuddenly.

  Kate's eyebrows rose. She looked at him: "Why, set it on the table,"she laughed.

  "No, I mean what do you want me to do--myself."

  She could not wholly misunderstand his look, though little did herealize how she feared it; or what a dread respect she secretly had forthe grave eyes so closely bent on her own. She laughed really togather courage, and it was easy to laugh a little because he did lookso odd as he stood befo
re her, with the platter in both hands, butterribly in earnest. "Set the platter on the table before you burnyourself," she pleaded.

  "You must want me to do something," he persisted, "get off the earth orstay on it--now, don't you? Say what you want me to do, and, by----"He checked himself. "And I'll do it."

  She could restrain him but she could not turn him. He did put theplatter on the table without getting any answer but now that his mindwas set, it reverted stubbornly to the one subject and when supper wasover and they sat opposite each other in the little dining-roomtalking, she said she knew he had burned his hands. "I wouldn't mindif I had," he remarked frankly. "Almost every time I've talked withyou I've held the hot end of a poker; I'm getting to look for it." Hedrew a deep breath. "You never liked me, did you, Kate?"

  "That isn't so."

  "You always kind of held off."

  "Perhaps I was a little afraid of you."

  "You're not afraid of me now--are you--with one arm out of commission?Are you?"

  She looked at him in a troubled sort of way: "Why, no--not very," shereturned, half laughing.

  "You were never half as much afraid of me as I was of you," he murmured.

  His eyes across the table were growing very importunate. She could notrealize how flushed and soft and tantalizing her own eyes were, framedby the warm color high in her cheeks. She rose with a hurriedexclamation and looked dismayed at him, her hands tilted on the table,her brows high and her burning eyes still laughing: "We've left thelight on by the stove all this time," she whispered. "Belle will befurious!"

  She slipped hurriedly out into the kitchen and turned off the light.Her face was hot. She was thirsty and stepping to the water faucet shepicked up a glass. The mountain water tasted so cold and good; in someway it made her think of great peaks and the crisp, clear air of hishome far up among them. She had not realized how heated she was. "Doyou want a drink?" she called back to the dining room.

  He was standing directly behind her. She turned only to stumbleagainst him and before she knew what had happened he was raining kisseson her resisting cheeks. Then his lips found hers and, faint with themoment, she resisted no more.

  After a long time she got one hand around his neck and laid the otheracross his mouth: "Don't make so much noise," she whispered wildly."Belle will hear us!"