The Flockmaster of Poison Creek

  CHAPTER XXII

  PHANTOMS OF FEVER

  "That was ten or twelve days ago," Dad explained, when Mackenzie foundhimself blinking understandingly at the sunlight through the open endof the sheep-wagon one morning. "You was chawed and beat up till youwas hangin' together by threads."

  Mackenzie was as weak as a young mouse. He closed his eyes and laythinking back over those days of delirium through which a gleam ofunderstanding fell only once in a while. Dad evidently believed thathe was well now, from his manner and speech, although Mackenzie knewthat if his life depended on rising and walking from the wagon hewould not be able to redeem it at the price.

  "I seem to remember a woman around me a good deal," he said, nottrusting himself to look at Dad. "It wasn't--was it----?"

  Mackenzie felt his face flush, and cursed his weakness, but he couldnot pronounce the name that filled his heart.

  "Yes, it was Rabbit," said Dad, catching him up without the slightestunderstanding of his stammering. "She's been stickin' to you night andday. I tell you, John, them Indians can't be beat doctorin' a man upwhen he's been chawed up by a animal."

  "I want to thank her," Mackenzie said, feeling his heart swing verylow indeed.

  "You won't see much of her now since you've come to your head, Ireckon she'll be passin' you over to me to look after. She's shy thatway. Yes, sir, any time I git bit up by man or beast, or shot up orknifed, I'll take Rabbit ahead of any doctor you can find. ThemIndians they know the secrets of it. I wouldn't be afraid to stand andlet a rattlesnake bite me till it fainted if Rabbit was around. Shecan cure it."

  But Mackenzie knew from the odor of his bandages that Rabbit was notdepending on her Indian knowledge in his case, or not entirely so.There was the odor of carbolic acid, and he was conscious all alongthat his head had been shaved around the wound in approved surgicalfashion. He reasoned that Rabbit went about prepared with theemergency remedies of civilization, and put it down to her schoolingat the Catholic sisters' hands.

  "Was there anybody--did anybody else come around?" Mackenzieinquired.

  "Tim's been by a couple of times. Oh, well--Joan."

  "Oh, Joan," said Mackenzie, trying to make it sound as if he had noconcern in Joan at all. But his voice trembled, and life came boundingup in him again with glad, wild spring.

  "She was over the day after you got hurt, but she ain't been back,"said Dad, with such indifference that he must have taken it forgranted that Mackenzie held no tenderness for her, indeed. "I metCharley yesterday; he told me Joan was over home. Mary's out here withhim--she's the next one to Joan, you know."

  Mackenzie's day clouded; his sickness fell over him again, taking thefaint new savor out of life. Joan was indifferent; she did not care.Then hope came on its white wings to excuse her.

  "Is she sick?" he inquired.

  "Who--Mary?"

  "Joan. Is she all right?"

  "Well, if I was married to her I'd give up hopes of ever bein' left awidower. That girl's as healthy as a burro--yes, and she'll outliveone, I'll bet money, and I've heard of 'em livin' eighty years down inMexico."

  Dad did not appear to be cognizant of Mackenzie's weakness. Accordingto the old man's pathology a man was safe when he regained his headout of the delirium of fever. All he needed then was cheering up, andDad did not know of any better way of doing that than by talking. Sohe let himself go, and Mackenzie shut his eyes to the hum of the oldfellow's voice, the sound beating on his ears like wind against closeddoors.

  Suddenly Dad's chatter ceased. The silence was as welcome as thefalling of a gale to a man at sea in an open boat. Mackenzie heard Dadleaving the wagon in cautious haste, and opened his eyes to see.Rabbit was beside him with a bowl of savory-smelling broth, which sheadministered to him with such gentle deftness that Mackenzie could nothelp believing Dad had libeled her in his story of the accident thathad left its mark upon her face.

  Rabbit would not permit her patient to talk, denying him with upliftedfinger and shake of head when he attempted it. She did not say a wordduring her visit, although her manner was only gentle, neither timidnor shy.

  Rabbit was a short woman, turning somewhat to weight, a little gray inher black hair, but rather due to trouble than age, Mackenziebelieved. Her skin was dark, her face bright and intelligent, butstamped with the meekness which is the heritage of women of her race.The burn had left her marked as Dad had said, the scar much lighterthan the original skin, but it was not such a serious disfigurementthat a man would be justified in leaving her for it as Dad had done.

  When Rabbit went out she drew a mosquito netting over the opening inthe back of the wagon. Mackenzie was certain that Dad had libeled herafter that. There was not a fly in the wagon to pester him, and heknew that the opening in the front end had been similarly screened,although he could not turn to see. Grateful to Rabbit, with the almosttearful tenderness that a sick man feels for those who have ministeredkindly to his pain, Mackenzie lay with his thoughts that first day ofconsciousness after his tempestuous season of delirium.

  They were not pleasant thoughts for a man whose blood was not yetcool. As they surged and hammered in his brain his fever flashedagain, burning in his eyes like a desert wind. Something had happenedto alienate Joan.

  That was the burden of it as the sun mounted with his fever, heatingthe enclosed wagon until it was an oven. Something had happened toalienate Joan. He did not believe her weak enough, fickle enough, toyield to the allurements of Reid's prospects. They must haveslandered him and driven her away with lies. Reid must have slanderedhim; there was the stamp of slander in his wide, thin mouth.

  It would be many days, it might be weeks, before he could go abroad onthe range again to set right whatever wrong had been done him. Then itwould be too late. Surely Joan could not take his blunder intoCarlson's trap in the light of an unpardonable weakness; she was notso sheep-blind as that. Something had been done outside any act of hisown to turn her face and her sympathies away.

  Consumed in impatience to be up, anxiety for the delay, Mackenzie laythe throbbing day through like a disabled engine spending its vainpower upon a broken shaft. Kind Rabbit came frequently to give himdrink, to bathe his forehead, to place a cool cloth over his burningeyes. But Dad did not come again. How much better for his peace if thegarrulous old rascal had not come at all!

  And then with the thought of Joan there came mingling the vexingwonder of the train of violence that had attended him into thesheeplands. He had come there to be a master over flocks, notexpecting to encounter any unfriendly force save the stern face ofnature. He had begun to muddle and meddle at the outset; he hadcontinued to muddle, if not meddle, to the very end.

  For this would be the end. No sheepman would countenance a herder whocould not take care of his flock in summer weather on a bountifulrange. His day was done in that part of the country so far as hisplans of becoming a sharing herdsman went. Earl Reid, a thin, anemiclad fresh from city life, had come in and made much more a figure of aman.

  So his fever boiled under the fuel of his humiliating thoughts. Thewagon was a bake-oven, but there was no sweat in him to cool hisparching skin. He begged Rabbit to let him go and lie under the wagon,where the wind could blow over him, but she shook her head in denialand pressed him down on the bunk. Then she gave him a drink that hadthe bitterness of opium in it, and he threw down his worrying snarl ofthoughts, and slept.