The Arrow-Point Estate/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII.
Skookum met Reid gravely at the corral. When he observed that Reid did not pull off the saddle and bridle, but simply dropped the reins to the ground, his face grew still more grave; indeed, there was a pitiful wistfulness in the great, brown eyes of him that Reid noticed, but could not, in that moment, define. He only knew that he felt suddenly sorry for Skookum, and that he wanted to pat him on the head and comfort him for some reason. That was something, however, that he did not dare attempt.
“You ain’t going to make a very extended stay from the looks,” Skookum remarked tentatively.
“I’ve got to get back to the round-up; it’s poor business paying a crew of men wages to stand around and look pretty, you know. How’s the world using you, old man?” The cheerfulness of Reid was very thin and unconvincing.
“Punk!” said Skookum briefly and eloquently, and studied long the face of his friend. “Say, Lorrie says if you run things she’s going off to school. She says she’ll even go to that Young Ladies’ Cemetery that Aunt Margaret wised up at. She says I’ve got to go, too. I won't, though. Can’t you take me on round-up, Man-from-nowhere? I could ride on the bed-wagon. I wouldn’t be in the road, would 1?”
“She’d worry,” Reid parried. “And you know it isn’t proper to worry a lady.”
“You worried her yourself,” Skookum flung back. “Lorrie cried after you left yesterday. I went in where she was just when you went, and she was watching you out of the window, and wiping her eyes. And when she heard me she went out quick and shut the door like it was egg-shells that she mustn’t break. And that,” explained Skookum, “is a sure symptom she was mad. Lorrie always does that way, because she used to slam things, and she’s disciplining herself because slamming ain’t ladylike. And the madder she is the stiller she shuts the door. I guess, Man-from-nowhere, you needn’t say anything to me about worrying a lady!”
“You're right there,” admitted Reid. “And the worst of it is, Skookum, I’ve got to worry her a lot more.” He sat down upon an overturned box and put his face down between his gloved hands. “Lord,” he groaned, “I’ve got to! She’ll sure hate me for it, too.”
“Will that cut many lemons with you?” asked Skookum sympathetically.
Reid pulled himself together, ashamed of his weakness; it was not his way to whine, but the last week or two had been full of nerve-strain, and he was beginning to feel the effects of it.
He looked at Skookum, hesitated, and then spoke to the man-wisdom of this strange, unchildlike child.
“It will, Skookum. A man can’t see much of a girl like her without getting to care a lot what she thinks about him. And she cares for Burns, you see, and”
“I ain't so dead sure about that,” put in Skookum sagely.
“And I’ve got to tell her a lot of bad news. Bad for you, too, old man. Your Uncle Howard, Skookum, is dead. A man in town shot him this morning.”
Skookum looked shocked. “That’s pretty tough—for Aunt Margaret,” he said guardedly, as if he feared to speak ill of the dead. “I guess she liked him.”
“That isn’t the worst. I hate to make you feel bad, old man, but you're bound to know it soon or late, and it’s best you should know it straight from me. You’ve lost one of your friends, Skookum. I was out in Idaho last week. I went to look up some Arrow-Point cattle that I had good reason to think were stolen. I saw Burns there. We went out to this place together, and unc—er—the man that had stolen the cattle came and knew what we were there for. He followed us, and—and shot Burns.” He avoided looking at Skookum then, for he knew how dear he held his friend. “And that,” he added bitterly, “is what I’ve got to tell Lorrie.”
Skookum’s face was pale when Reid looked, and his eyes were dark and shiny with tears he tried to force back. “Thank you, Man-from-nowhere,” he said shakily. “I—I think I'll go to the bunk-house now. Was—was it Uncle Howard? You said ‘unc.’ Was it?”
“Don’t ask me. You're better off not to know. He’s your uncle—your father’s brother, and he’s dead.” Reid spoke gently. He had no wish to embitter the child.
Skookum looked at him a minute and then gathered his crutches close under his arms and went lifting himself slowly along the path to the bunk-house, tumbled the latch as if he could not see quite clearly, went in and shut the door after him. Reid watched him with stinging eyelids and an ache in his throat. “Poor, crippled, little kid,” were the words that shaped themselves upon his lips. “He’s carrying a grown man’s pack of trouble right now—and I can’t help him.”
Ten feet away, behind the corner of the stable, a horse sneezed the dust from his nostrils. Involuntarily Reid turned to the sound. It was Mister standing there quietly, and Lorrie was in the saddle watching him. She swung off like a cowboy and came up to him, leading the horse by the bridle-reins.
“I didn’t mean to listen, really, but I heard what you told him,” she owned frankly. “It’s perfectly horrible. Is it really true about Uncle Howard—and about Burns? And was it Uncle Howard that shot him?”
Reid looked at her unbelievingly. She was a bit pale, as Skookum had been, and her eyes held much degree of trouble; but they met his candidly, for all that. A weight slipped from his mind; at all events, she couldn’t be really in love with Burns, or she never could look just like that.
“It was,” he told her bluntly. Since she already knew, there was no advantage in beating warily about the unsavory facts. “Putting it briefly, it’s this way: That day I went to town and didn’t come back”—he observed a flush of consciousness creep into her cheeks—“I got a letter from Burns. He was in Blue River, Idaho, and he spoke of seeing some Arrow-Point stuff near there, and hearing that a new ranch was being stocked up with them. I thought that ought to be looked into, and so I dropped everything and took the next train for there.
“I met Burns and found out from him that things must have been going mighty crooked here since last Spring, and that you and Skookum wouldn’t have anything left if the game wasn’t broken up. We went out to the new ranch—the Dipper—and found out that it was owned by a man named McGraw, which looked suspicious, and a partner. Just as we were leaving, Uncle Howard rode up and we met him face to face. Of course, the stuff was off, right there, and he knew it. We went on, and ten miles, maybe, from the ranch, while we were crossing a creek, Burns was shot off his horse. I saw him fall and got off just as they shot again, so I dropped to the ground and laid there. Pretty quick two men rode out on the hillside behind us and stood sizing up the result. I’d take oath it was your uncle and his foreman there. When they went back, thinking they’d got us both, I got on my horse and went on to Blue River and notified the sheriff. Then I came back here.”
Lorrie, at that point, became very much absorbed in smoothing out a tangled place in the mane of Mister.
“When I went back to town,” Reid went on, “I had myself appointed special administrator. I had to,” he apologized, “so that I could go ahead and get things straightened out, and your stock and money back. I don’t think now that you will be out so very much. McGraw did all I asked him to when he found out his hand was tipped. And this morning, when I went back to have him transfer all the Dipper stock and land back to the estate—it would save a lot of talk, that way—I found that your uncle had got back, and they had quarreled, each man thinking the other had played crooked, and McGraw shot your uncle. I’ve got to get back this afternoon to the inquest. I just came out to tell you.”
Lorrie leaned against her horse and patted down the dust with the toe of a riding-boot. “I’m very much obliged,” she said. “I—I don’t want you to think that I don’t appreciate”
“Oh, that’s all right,” interrupted Reid, and added tritely and untruthfully, “I’d do the same for anybody.”
Reid, watching her covertly, made himself a cigarette as if that were the most important thing in the world.
Lorrie glanced up at him from under her lashes. He was not making easy what she wanted to say. “I—I hope you don’t—that is, I didn’t mean to be so nasty about that letter yesterday: I thought, maybe, you’d tell me” She drew a long breath and plunged recklessly. “But it doesn’t matter. I—I want to say that I trust you, anyway. I don’t ask to know.”
Reid studied her face curiously—or as much of it as he could see. “It wasn't my secret, really,” he said, coming closer. “But I’ll tell you, Miss Burkell. You’ve a right to know. It was a range mix-up, the kind that does come up sometimes between the sheep-men and us. My brother and I have a big outfit down in Wyoming. He’s a hot-headed fellow, but white as they make them. We got into a fight over water. It happened that my brother shot straight—too straight. And he’s got one of the nicest little women for a wife, and a baby. So I drifted, and they thought I did it. You saw how I struck this place; I never stopped for anything, but rode to the nearest railroad, turned my horse loose and got aboard the first train with my riding-outfit. It happened to be coming north. I knew your father, and that he would help me out if any man would. I bought a horse when I got off the train, and came straight here. And that’s all there is to it,” he finished simply. “Only there’s Belle, Skookum’s mother. She used to hold forth at a kind of road-house down in that country. She wasn’t much account, I’m sorry to say. It got to be a rather notorious joint, and finally she had to leave suddenly—almost as suddenly,” he said with a slight, rueful smile, “as I did. They'd like to see her back there almost as much as they want to see me. I’ve heard since, from a fellow I knew down there, that the man didn’t die, after all. But Ed can run things all right, and I was—I thought I’d stay on here a while longer. You see, it’s all simple enough, Miss Burkell.”
Lorrie did not seem to think of anything much to say. Indeed, when she did speak, it was of other things. “I suppose I ought to go over to Aunt Margaret’s,” she said. “She will take all this terribly to heart. I believe she really loved him, and I am sure, disagreeable as she is, that she means to do right, and that she never suspected that he was—was dishonest, or that he would resort to” Her voice choked a little.
Reid, watching her covertly, made himself a cigarette as if that were the most important thing in the world just then. The tiny paper trough was not steady in his fingers, however, and he spilled a lot of tobacco on the ground. Also he had much trouble finding a match, and more in getting it lighted. And when all was done he let the cigarette go cold and did not seem to know it.
“I’ll have to be getting back to town,” he remarked at last. “There’s a lot to look after. As soon as things are straightened up a little I’ll have the court appoint an administrator for you, Miss Burkell; one that is honest. I’m going back where I live; I don’t think they'll do much to me—seeing the man got well all right.”
He walked over to where his horse was waiting, half-asleep; gathered up the reins, mounted and started to ride away; remembered something and turned back. “Here’s that ribbon,” he told her, and, leaning, handed the package down to her. “I hope you weren’t in a hurry for it.” He gave her another long glance, saw returning memory sweep, with a faint smile, into her face, and rode away without looking back.
A week later, when Reid was thinking that he could, without detriment to the estate, put the affairs into the hands of another, an Arrow-Point man sought him out at the round-up camp and handed him a letter, comprehensive and wholly characteristic, from Skookum:
- Dear Man-from-nowhere: Lorrie says you are going away pretty soon. I wish you wouldn’t. It’s been pretty hard sleding since that last time you was here. Lorrie is so cranky I have to stay down in the bunk-house pretty near all the time or to the stable with the sweed which I can’t stand. I hate to be looking at a man’s teeth all the time and he don’t ever cover his up not even when he’s engaged in punishing the english languadge. It’s pretty tough. Whenever a man shows up on the trail riding horseback Lorrie gets down the feild glasses and sizes him up. And then she’s crankier than ever for about two hours. I guess she wants you to come back. Did you have a fight? Once I went in on her and she was setting in front of her desk and had a big bunch of ribbon up to her face. She was awful sore at me that time, and forgot to shut the door still. She like to took a side out of the house that time which is not lady like and I told her so. Is it lower than a snak in a forty foot well to chew the rag with a lady when she like to snaps your head off? I guess its because you are going away. I have changed my mind about Burns. I don’t believe she cared much for Burns. She don’t show much feeling about him getting killed like that. I’m dissapointed in Lorrie. I thought she had more feeling.
- Please write soon or come and see me. I want to talk to somebody besides the sweed and I can’t talk to Lorrie and Gusta is stuck on the sweed and won’t talk to any body but him. Its pretty tough for
yours truley, Skookum.
Reid read the letter over twice, smiling to himself—at first incredulously, and then hopefully. “I'll sure come, old boy, and come a-running,” he said aloud.
Then he went out hurriedly and slapped the saddle on his horse.