Lonesome Land by B. M. Bower (life changing books to read .TXT) 📗

It was the middle of the next forenoon when Manley came riding home, sullen from drink and a losing game of poker, which had kept him all night at the table, and at sunrise sent him forth in the mood which meets a grievance more than half-way. He did not stop at the house, though he saw Val through the open door; he did not trouble to speak to her, even, but rode on to the stable, stopping at the corral to look over the fence at the calves, still bawling sporadically between half-hearted nibblings at the hay which Polycarp had thrown in to them.

Just at first he did not notice anything wrong, but soon a vague disquiet seized him, and he frowned thoughtfully at the little group. Something puzzled him; but his brain, fogged with whisky and loss of sleep, and the reaction from hours of concentration upon the game, could not quite grasp the thing that troubled him. In a moment, however, he gave an inarticulate bellow, wheeled about, and rode back to the house. He threw himself from the horse almost before it stopped, and rushed into the kitchen. Val, ironing one of her ruffled white aprons, looked up quickly, turned rather pale, and then stiffened perceptibly for the conflict that was coming.

“There's only four calves in the corral—and I brought in five. Where's the other one?” He came up and stood quite close to her—so close that Val took a step backward. He did not speak loud, but there was something in his tone, in his look, that drove the little remaining color from her face.

“Manley,” she said, with a catch of the breath, “why did you do that horrible thing? What devil possessed you? I—”

“I asked you 'where is that other calf'? Where is it? There's only four. I brought in five.” His very calmness was terrifying.

Val threw back her head, and her eyes were—as they frequently became in moments of stress—yellow, inscrutable, like the eyes of a lion in a cage.

“Yes, you brought in five. One of the five, at least, you—stole. You put your brand, Manley Fleetwood, on a calf that did not belong to you; it belonged to the Wishbone, and you know it. I have learned many disagreeable things about you, Manley, in the past two years; yesterday morning I learned that you were a thief. Ah-h—I despise you! Stealing from the very men who helped you—the men to whom you owe nothing but gratitude and—and friendship! Have you no manhood whatever? Besides being weak and shiftless, are you a criminal as well? How can you be so utterly lacking in—in common decency, even?” She eyed him as she would look at some strange monster in a museum about which she was rather curious.

“I asked you where that other calf is—and you'd better tell me!” It was the tone which goes well with a knife thrust or a blow. But the contempt in Val's face did not change.

“Well, you'll have to hunt for it if you want it. The cow—a Wishbone cow, mind you!—came and claimed it; I let her have it. No stolen goods can remain on this ranch with my knowledge, Manley Fleetwood. Please remember—”

“Oh, you turned it out, did you? You turned it out?” He had her by the throat, shaking her as a puppy shakes a purloined shoe. “I could—kill you for that!”

“Manley! Ah-h-h—” It was not pleasant—that gurgling cry, as she straggled to get free.

He had the look of a maniac as he pressed his fingers into her throat and glared down into her purpling face.

With a sudden impulse he cast her limp form violently from him. She struck against a chair, fell from that to the floor, and lay a huddled heap, her crisp, ruffled skirt just giving a glimpse of tiny, half-worn slippers, her yellow hair fallen loose and hiding her face.

He stared down at her, but he felt no remorse—she had jeopardized his liberty, his standing among men. A cold horror caught him when he thought of the calf turned loose on the range, his brand on its ribs. He rushed in a panic from the kitchen, flung himself into the saddle, and went off across the coulee, whipping both sides of his horse. She had not told him—indeed, he had not asked her—which way the cow had gone, but instinctively he rode to the west, the direction from which he had driven the calves. One thought possessed him utterly; he must find that calf.

So he rode here and there, doubling and turning to search every feeding herd he glimpsed, fearing to face the possibility of failure and its inevitable consequence.

The cat with the white spots on its sides—Val called her Mary Arabella, for some whimsical reason—came into the kitchen, looked inquiringly at the huddled figure upon the floor, gave a faint mew, and went slowly up, purring and arching her back; she snuffed a moment at Val's hair, then settled herself in the hollow of Val's arm, and curled down for a nap. The sun, sliding up to midday, shone straight in upon them through the open door.

Polycarp Jenks, riding that way in obedience to some obscure impulse, lifted his hand to give his customary tap-tap before he walked in; saw Val lying there, and almost fell headlong into the room in his haste and perturbation. It looked very much as if he had at last stumbled upon the horrible tragedy which was his one daydream. To be an eyewitness of a murder, and to be able to tell the tale afterward with minute, horrifying detail—that, to Polycarp, would make life really worth living. He shuffled over to Val, pushed aside the mass of yellow hair, turned her head so that he could look into her face, saw at once the bruised marks upon her throat, and stood up very straight.

“Foul play has been done here!” he exclaimed melodramatically, eying the cat sternly. “Murder—that's what it is, by granny—a foul murder!”

The victim of the foul murder stirred slightly. Polycarp started and bent over her again, somewhat disconcerted, perhaps, but more humanly anxious.

“Mis' Fleetwood—Mis' Fleetwood! You hurt? It's Polycarp Jenks talkin' to you!” He hesitated, pushed the cat away, lifted Val with some difficulty, and carried her into the front room and deposited her on the couch. Then he hurried after some water.

“Come might' nigh bein' a murder, by granny—from the marks on 'er neck—come might' nigh, all right!”

He sprinkled water lavishly upon her face, bethought him of a possible whisky flask in the haystack, and ran every step of the way there and back. He found a discarded bottle with a very little left in it, and forced the liquor down her throat.

“That'll fetch ye if anything will—he-he!” he mumbled, tittering from sheer excitement. Beyond a very natural desire to do what he could for her, he was extremely anxious to bring her to her senses, so that he could hear what had happened, and how it had happened.

“Betche Man got jealous of her'n Kenneth—by granny, I betche that's how it come about—hey? Feelin' better, Mis' Fleetwood?”

Val had opened her eyes and was looking at him rather stupidly. There was a bruise upon her head, as well as upon her throat. She had been stunned, and her wits came