Lost Ecstasy/Chapter 41
IN May the various cattle outfits began their cow and calf round-ups. Here and there over the leased lands of the Reservation were small branding corrals; the herds were gathered near them and held, cows with calves were cut out and driven to the wide log jaws which led into it, the line of riders closed up solidly behind them, and to pitiful outcries and wailings the burning and ear-cropping went on. The calf was roped from its mother's side, thrown, branded and released; the acrid odor of burning hair and flesh filled the air, and then the bewildered animals were turned loose, to retreat once more to coulee or protected valley, there to ponder on the inscrutable ways of mankind.
The spring had been late, and the winter loss heavy. Potters' men, gathering together in the cook tent after dark for poker or conversation, were disgruntled. They had worked hard, but the calf crop was low. And their tallies showed other losses, not to be accounted for by the drought and the hard winter. Rumors of rustlers went around. The Bristols, to the north of them, claimed to have lost three thousand head out of their herd of forty thousand during the past year, but the old days of quick justice were over. The rustler moved his cattle by night and hid them during the daylight. When he got them far enough off he sweated on a new brand or reworked the old one, and if he was caught there were always shyster lawyers to get him off.
"Not enough neck-tie parties," they said among themselves. "Nowadays, unless a fellow follows a hide to Chicago or Omaha, he's got a poor chance to prove anything."
Sitting on their heels, smoking their eternal cigarettes, they threshed out the matter. And Gus would listen and grin to himself, a mysterious smile that nobody noticed. Gus was helping the cook. He had not been quite the same since he lost his foot; he talked to himself at times, and the men found it dangerous to tease him.
"You and your rustlers!" he would say. "Couldn't winter your herd, so you blame it on somebody else!"
He was reported to have a knife and a revolver hidden in his bed-roll.
Only for Tom did he show any affection. He would fill Tom's plate for him, his long body hanging between his crutches, his one trouser leg flapping loose at the bottom; fill it as full as he could.
"Come and get it, Tom, or I'll throw it away!"
He had an inordinate pride when Tom's tallies showed that he had a good calf crop.
"He's a cow-man, he is," he said. "While the rest of you buckaroos were sitting on your hind ends, he was working."
"Oh, go and hire a hall!"
"It's the truth."
"Yes, and the devil's a Sunday school teacher!"
Tom never heard any of these discussions.
He was gaunt and untidy those days; his clothing showed the wear and tear of the winter, his hair was long and unkempt. And he was taciturn in the extreme. He worked hard; his rope was always in his hand. He was the first out in the morning and the last in at night. He was a sort of trouble-shooter for the outfit, in spite of his lameness. His leg was bothering him again. But he was not popular with the men. His brooding silences, and perhaps the fact that his cattle had wintered better than the rest, set him apart from them.
Sometimes when he limped into the cook tent conversation would suddenly cease, and he knew they had been talking about him and his affairs. He would glance around at them with a mocking smile, get his plate and sit down, and after awhile they would find a safe topic and start again.
But he had had a good calf crop in spite of everything. Sixty-five calves now bore his brand, and were fattening and growing on the young spring grass. He had made good. If all went well he could pay Tulloss his interest that fall, maybe even reduce his loan somewhat. He played no poker during those days of the round-up. He had no money to lose, and no inclination anyhow.
He was still on round-up when Kay's telegram came.
"Mother passed away quietly yesterday. Kay."
He stood—it had been brought out with the mail for the outfit—and stared at it.
It was like a voice from beyond the grave; she had been dead to him for a long time, and now, for a moment, she lived again. She was real. She even remembered him.
That night, lying out in his bed with his face to the stars, he was sorely tempted. After all she was still his wife, and she had said she would come if he sent for her. Suppose he demanded that she come back? That would force them into the open, at least. Then, if they tried to keep her, or she wanted to stay
But of course she wanted to stay. She had planned ahead to leave him, had written home and got money. It was not Clare who had parted them; she was through before that. Weeks maybe before that.
At the end of the round-up he sent his reply, went back home and cleaned up the ranch house as best he could, and then went to Ursula. He looked rather better, although the story of the winter was written on his face for all to see, and his leg was very bad. He had had to split the front of his old boot. But Tulloss had not seen him for months, and he was startled.
"Looking kind of moth-eaten, Tom."
"I'm all right. At least I've pulled through, and that's saying something."
"So it is, Tom. I guess you know your business."
"It's a damned poor business, but it's all I know. Maybe the wheat fellows are right. After a winter like this last one"
"They've got their troubles too."
They worked over their accounts together, Tom with secret pride, the banker satisfied and rather thoughtful. It was not until they had finished that Mr. Tulloss leaned back in his chair, perhaps to feel the bullet reputed to be there—and stretched out his legs.
"Tom," he said, "I want to know something. If you answer that squarely But first of all, where's Little Dog?"
"I haven't seen him. Maybe it's just as well. When things were bad last winter, if I'd happened on him I figured to put a bullet in him, agreement or no agreement."
"Why, if he hasn't given you any trouble?"
"He cut my dam last fall. All the water I had."
"When was that?"
"Before I sent—my wife into town here."
"I see. Tom, don't you owe me a little information on that matter?"
"I figure that's between me and her," he said stubbornly.
"Well, look at it this way. I loaned that money for two reasons: first, because I thought you would make good, and second, because I was fond of your wife. In my mind it was a partnership arrangement. If you have dissolved that partnership I have a right to know."
"I'm ready to liquidate, if you are."
"Oh, don't be such a God-damned fool, Tom. She has left you, has she?"
Tom nodded sullenly. He could not speak.
"Why?"
"She'd been planning to go for some time. Then something happened, and she took the first train East."
"The something was the Hamel girl, I suppose?"
There was little that Jennie Tulloss did not know.
Tom nodded and got up.
"There was nothing to it," he said somberly, "but she thought there was." He picked up his battered Stetson and rose. "I didn't come here to discuss my troubles," he said. "I'm not asking her back and she knows it. She wrote once, saying she would come if I did, but I hadn't done anything I was ashamed of. She was tired of me, that's all." He stood, fingering his hat. "I was just something for her to play around with for awhile. That's all."
"You're sure of that, are you?"
"She'd been planning to go anyhow. She'd written for money before that happened. With what she left here, and what she took with her, she must have had a thousand dollars or so."
"Is that so!" said Mr. Tulloss, suddenly cheerful. "Is that so, indeed! Well, my young buckaroo, you may be a good cow-man, but you're a fool about women. That little girl of yours brought that check West with her when she came. Bessie Osborne gave it to her for emergencies. She brought it in here herself and offered it to me as security for your loan. And her grandmother's pearls too, by heck!"
Tom sat down. The self-righteousness which had upheld him all winter was suddenly knocked from under him, and his hands were trembling.
"You're sure of that, are you, Mr. Tulloss?"
"I'm telling you."
There was a silence, broken by Mr. Tulloss.
"You're in good shape now, Tom. We won't have another year like this last one for a long time. Why don't you go East and see her? Bring her back, Tom. She's lost her mother, and if I know Henry Dowling You've been an obstinate young fool long enough. Put your pride in your pocket, man, and go and get her."
"How do I know she wants to see me?"
"Well, there's such a thing as finding out!" said the banker.
Tom sat very still, His leg was stretched out in front of him; it ached like a toothache, and it was badly swollen. It was a most disreputable leg indeed. He tried to smile.
"With that?" he said.
"If it was my wife," Mr. Tulloss said rather tartly, "I'd go if I had to sit down and slide on the seat of my pants."
It is hardly likely, however, that he was thinking of Jennie. "Go and see Dunham," he added, more practically. "He'll fix you up. And if it's a question of money"
"I can manage that." Tom got up. "I—you've been mighty good to me, Mr. Tulloss." He stood fingering his hat, after his old habit. "I'm not much good at talking, but"
He stopped. He had a horrible lump in his throat. He blinked wildly, turned and limped out.
He had recovered himself when he got to the street. It was a day of brilliant sunshine, like the one when he and Kay had come back to Ursula; the same heat, the same procession of cars from the back country, the same friendly greetings.
"Tom, you old son of a gun, what you doin' in town?"
"I figured on getting a hair-cut."
"Well, it's sure time!"
He moved up the street. His foot was very bad, his grin a trifle fixed, but he was supremely happy. The Indians had taken advantage of the good roads to come to town for their buying; in brilliant shawls and high moccasins the squaws stared into the shop windows, sometimes with a bead-eyed baby looking over their shoulders. Tom thought he saw Weasel Tail's widow among them, but he was not sure. But what did it matter? Weasel Tail and Little Dog had faded to the background of his mind; the long hard winter was as though it had never been. Summer was here again; the trees were in full leaf, the little gardens in bloom, the creeks running bank full, the wide plains green and lush with grass. And Kay!
He passed the Emporium without a glance or a thought, but in front of the new haberdashery on a corner he stopped. There was a complete outfit in the window, a suit of a violent blue, a straw hat, a pair of yellow shoes. He would see Dunham, and on the way back he would stop in and buy it. Time: enough later to figure how to pay for it. Kay mustn't be ashamed of him.
He limped on, up the street. . . .
Lily May was on the doctor's doorstep, and the old doctor was inside. It took both of them, with Lily May looking on, to get his boots off, and when the old doctor had examined the leg, he straightened and glared at him.
"What the hell have you been doing to it? Are you trying to lose your leg, like Gus?"
"I knocked it some, a while back. Horse threw me against a post."
The doctor looked at his watch.
"It's eleven o'clock," he said. "I'll operate at the hospital at one-thirty. You'll get no lunch today, my handsome lad."
Nor did he.
He made no protest; accepted the operation and the delay in his hopes with that new stoicism of his, fixed Kay firmly in his mind as he went under the ether, made frantic efforts to reach her as she began to slip away
"Tom, you young idiot! Hold him, somebody!"
And came out to find himself kissing the hand of a strange elderly nurse, to be saved from any embarrassment by being instantly deadly sick.
Recovery was harder for him. He was not ruined; save for a small amount of unthrifty stock his cattle were on the range growing fat, filling out their lean flanks, their hollow backs. But the days were endless, the nights interminable. Life had become one long waiting, for some fulfillment of which he hardly dared to think. He slept as much as he could, to pass the time away. And he had needed sleep.
Sometimes the nurses brought him books and he tried to read them. Kay liked books and books could learn—teach—a fellow a lot if he kept at them. But his eyes would close, the volume would drop on his chest. Occasionally, as he had in Jake's cabin, he dreamed that Kay herself was in the room, or beside him in the bed. Once indeed he flung out his arm, after his old fashion, and it touched something; but it was Clare, sitting beside him with a bunch of garden flowers in her hand.
He stared at her, still half asleep, and she bent over and kissed him.
"There!" she said. "I guess that didn't hurt you any!"
"Oh, for God's sake quit it, Clare!"
She only laughed, and hid her flowers on the bed.
"What's the use of acting like a spoiled child, Tom? You did me as much harm as I did you."
"I never did you any harm. You lied, that's all."
She only smiled. But she did not stay very long, and when she had gone he asked the nurse not to admit her ain.
He had one or two visitors, Mr. Tulloss, Bill, Mrs. Mal lory. Once even Gus came on his crutches and stood grinning his strange smile in the doorway. Gus was "sure touched in the head."
"Reckon them Indians put a curse on you, Tom!" he said, and disappeared chuckling, as mysteriously as he had come.
Even Nellie Mallery came. She was growing up now, was self-conscious and delicately made up. But although she simpered and posed somewhat for Tom's benefit, the old infatuation was apparently gone. She was "going with" the new clerk at the drug store.
"What's he like, Nellie? Nice fellow?"
"He's the best dancer in town."
"That's the h that's a mighty poor recommendation for a husband, my child," he said paternally. "You better look him over before you close the deal."
But Nellie only smiled.
Mr. Tulloss's visit was only a trifle less mysterious than Gus's. He was, he said, going East. Jennie wanted some theaters and clothes, and he—well, he had a little business of his own to attend to.
"You hurry up and get well, Tom," he said. "Maybe I'll see you there. You never can tell." Then he went away.
And so matters stood when one day Doctor Dunham signed his card for him, and gave him a parting admonition before he left.
"You'll have considerable more use of that foot from now on, Tom, if you're careful. But if you abuse it, don't come whining back to me."
"I'm plumb grateful to you, doc. And if you'll let me know how much I owe you"
"You don't owe me a red cent," said old Dunham testily. "It was worth the price of admission for me to get in there and see what those eastern fellows with their rubber gloves and folderol thought they were doing to you!"
Tom was very happy that day. He left the hospital, walking carefully, and going up the street he bought the very blue suit, the hat, the yellow shoes. He could only fit one shoe, but what did that matter? Soon he would be on his way; he thought of that earlier trip of his from Chicago, the sticky children with their warm small bodies, the day coach, even the contretemps at the club house later on. Like the shoe, what did that matter now? Things were different this time. Kay was his wife, his own wife. She had not planned to leave him, and when he told her how he loved her—if only he could find the words—she would come back.
He whistled as he got the old car from the garage, and let the clutch in. Careful? Of course he would be careful. He was taking mighty good care of that leg from now on; there was a reason, a darned good reason.
"Well, so long, Tom. She's got a gallon of gas and a pint of water."
"What do you think I'm doing to her? Trying to wean her?"
He was off, on his way to the ranch. His bundles bounced in the rear, the loose mud-guards rattled, and once out of town, for the first time in months he began to sing under his breath:
I'm a poor lonesome cowboy,
I'm a poor lonesome cowboy,
And a long ways from home."
Two days after he got back he knew that the rustlers had been at work again, and that he had lost practically his entire herd.
He was ruined.