CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: TRAILS END
At the last camp, just north of the Platte, Bud's two black sheepbalked. Bud himself, worn by sleepless nights and long hours in thesaddle, turned furiously when Jerry announced that he guessed he and Edwouldn't go any farther.
"Well, damn you both for ungrateful hounds!" grated Bud, hurt to thequick. "I hope you don't think I brought you this far to help hold me inthe saddle; I made it north alone, without any mishap. I think I couldhave come back all right. But if you want to quit here, all right. Youcan high-tail it back to your outlaws--"
"Well, if you go 'n put it that way!" Jerry expostulated, lifting bothhands high in the air in a vain attempt to pull the situation toward thehumorous. "You're a depity sheriff, and you got the drop." He grinned,saw that Bud's eyes were still hard and his mouth unyielding, andlowered his hands, looking crestfallen as a kicked pup that had tried tobe friendly.
"You can see for yourself we ain't fit to go 'n meet your motherand your father like we was--like we'd went straight," Eddie put inexplanatorily. "You've been raised good, and--say, it makes a man wantto BE good to see how a feller don't have to be no preacher to liveright. But it don't seem square to let you take us right home with you,just because you're so darned kind you'd do it and never think a thingabout it. We ain't ungrateful--I know I ain't. But--but--"
"The kid's said it, Bud," Jerry came to the rescue. "We come alongbecause it was a ticklish trip you had ahead. And I've knowed as goodriders as you are, that could stand a little holding in the saddle whensome freak had tried to shoot 'em out of it. But you're close to homenow and you don't need us no more, and so we ain't going to horn in onthe prodigal calf's milkbucket. Marian, She's likely there--"
"If Sis ain't with your folks we'll hunt her up," Eddie interruptedeagerly. "Sis is your kind--she--she's good enough for yuh, Bud, and Ihope she--ll--well if she's got any sense she will--well, if it comes tothe narrying point, I--well, darn it, I'd like to see Sis git as good aman as you are!" Eddie, having bluntered that far, went headlong as ifhe were afraid to stop. "Sis is educated, and she's an awful good singerand a fine girl, only I'm her brother. But I'm going to live honest fromnow on, Bud, and I hope you won't hold off on account of me. Iain't going to have sis feel like crying when she thinks about me!You--you--said something that hurt like a knife, Bud, when you told methat, up in Crater. And she wasn't to blame for marryn' Lew--and shedone that outa goodness, the kind you showed to Jerry and me. And wedon't want to go spoilin' everything by letting your folks see whatyou're bringin' home with yuh! And it might hurt Sis with your folks, ifthey found out that I'm--"
Bud had been standing by his horse, looking from one to the other,listening, watching their faces, measuring the full depth of theirmanhood. "Say! you remind me of a story the folks tell on me," he said,his eyes shining, while his voice strove to make light of it all. "Once,when I was a kid in pink-aprons, I got lost from the trail-herd my folkswere bringing up from Texas. It was comin' dark, and they had the wholeoutfit out hunting me, and everybody scared to death. When they were allabout crazy, they claim I came walking up to the camp-fire dragginga dead snake by the tail, and carrying a horn toad in my shirt, andclaiming they were mine because I 'ketched 'em.' I'm not branding thatyarn with any moral--but figure it out for yourself, boys."
The two looked at each other and grinned. "I ain't dead yet," Eddiemade sheepish comment. "Mebbe you kinda look on me as being a horn toad,Bud."
"When you bear in mind that my folks raised that kid, You'll realizethat it takes a good deal to stampede mother." Bud swung into the saddleto avoid subjecting his emotions to the cramped, inadequate limitationsof speech. "Let's go, boys. She's a long trail to take the kinks out ofbefore supper-time."
They stood still, making no move to follow. Bud reined Smoky around sothat he faced them, reached laboriously into that mysterious pocket ofa cowpuncher's trousers which is always held closed by the belt of hischaps, and which invariably holds in its depths the things he wants in ahurry. They watched him curiously, resolutely refusing to interpret hisbit of autobiography, wondering perhaps why he did not go.
"Here she is." Bud had disinterred the deputy sheriff's badge, and beganto polish it by the primitive but effectual method of spitting on it andthen rubbing vigorously on his sleeve. "You're outside of Crater County,but by thunder you're both guilty of resisting an officer, and countylines don't count!" He had pinned the badge at random on his coat whilehe was speaking, and now, before the two realized what he was about, hehad his six-shooter out and aimed straight at them.
Bud had never lived in fear of the law. Instantly was sorry when hesaw the involuntary stiffening of their muscles, the quick wordlesssuspicion and defiance that sent their eyes in shifty glances to rightand left before their hands lifted a little. Trust him, love him theymight, there was that latent fear of capture driven deep into theirsouls; so deep that even he had not erased it.
Bud saw--and so he laughed.
"I've got to show my folks that I've made a gathering," he said. "Youcan't quit, boys. And I'm going to take you to the end of the trail, nowyou've started." He eyed them, saw that they were still stubborn, anddrew in his breath sharply, manfully meeting the question in theirminds.
"We've left more at the Sinks than the gnashing of teeth," he saidwhimsically. "A couple of bad names, for instance. You're two bullygood friends of mine, and--damn it, Marian will want to see both of youfellows, if she's there. If she isn't--we'll maybe have a big circleto ride, finding her. I'll need you, no matter what's ahead." He lookedfrom one to the other, gave a snort and added impatiently, "Aw, forkyour horses and don't stand there looking like a couple of damn fools!"
Whereupon Jerry shook his head dissentingly, grinned and gave Eddie soemphatic an impulse toward his horse that the kid went sprawling.
"Guess We're up against it, all right--but I do wish yo 'd lose thatbadge!" Jerry surrendered, and flipped the bridle reins over the neck ofhis horse. "Horn toad is right, the way you're scabbling around amongstthem rocks," he called light-heartedly to the kid. "Ever see a purtiersunrise? I never!"
I don't know what they thought of the sunset. Gorgeous it was, with manysoft colors blended into unnamable tints and translucencies, and thesongs of birds in the thickets as they passed. Smoky, Sunfish andStopper walked briskly, ears perked forward, heads up, eyes eager tocatch the familiar landmarks that meant home. Bud's head was up, also,his eyes went here and there, resting with a careless affection on thosesame landmarks which spelled home. He would have let Smoky's reins havea bit more slack and would have led his little convoy to the corralsat a gallop, had not hope begun to tremble and shrink from meetingcertainty face to face. Had you asked him then, I think Bud would haveowned himself a coward. Until he had speech with home-folk he wouldmerely be hoping that Marian was there; but until he had speech withthem he need not hear that they knew nothing of her. Bud--like, however,he tried to cover his trepidation with a joke.
"We'll sneak up on 'em," he said to Ed and Jerry when the roofs ofhouse and stables came into view.
"Here's where I grew up, boys. And in a minute or two more you'll seethe greatest little mother on earth--and the finest dad," he added,swallowing the last of his Scotch stubbornness.
"And Sis, I hope," Eddie said wistfully. "I sure hope she's here."
Neither Jerry nor Bud answered him at all. Smoky threw up his headsuddenly and gave a shrill whinny, and a horse at the corrals answeredsonorously.
"Say! That sounds to me like Boise!" Eddie exclaimed, standing up in hisstirrups to look.
Bud turned pale, then flushed hotly. "Don't holler!" he muttered, andheld Smoky back a little. For just one reason a young man's heart poundsas Bud's heart pounded then. Jerry looked at him, took a deep breathand bit his lip thoughtfully. It may be that Jerry's heartbeats were notquite normal just then, but no one would ever know.
They rode slowly to a point near the corner of the table, and there Budhalted the two with his lifted hand. Bud was tr
embling a little--but hewas smiling, too. Eddie was frankly grinning, Jerry's face was the faceof a good poker-player--it told nothing.
In a group with their backs to them stood three: Marian, Bud's motherand his father. Bob Birnie held Boise by the bridle, and the two womenwere stroking the brown nose of the horse that moved uneasily, withlittle impatient head-tossings.
"He doesn't behave like a horse that has made the long trip he hasmade," Bud's mother observed admiringly. "You must be a wonderful littlehorsewoman, my dear, as well as a wonderful little woman in every otherway. Buddy should never have sent you on such a trip--just to bring homemoney, like a bank messenger! But I'm glad that he did! And I do wishyou would consent to stay--such an afternoon with music I haven't hadsince Buddy left us. You could stay with me and train for theconcert work you intend doing. I'm only an old ranch woman in a slatsunbonnet--but I taught my Buddy--and have you heard him?"
"An old woman in a slat sunbonnet--oh, how can you? Why, you're the mostwonderful woman in the whole world." Marian's voice was almost tearfulin its protest. "Yes--I have heard--your Buddy."
"'T is the strangest way to go about selling a horse that I ever saw,"Bob Birnie put in dryly, smoothing his beard while he looked at them."We'd be glad to have you stay, lass. But you've asked me to place aprice on the horse, and I should like to ask ye a question or two. Howfast did ye say he could run?"
Marian laid an arm around the shoulders of the old lady in a slatsunbonnet and patted her arm while she answered.
"Well, he beat everything in the country, so they refused to raceagainst him, until Bud came with his horses," she replied. "It tookSunfish to outrun him. He 's terribly fast, Mr. Birnie. I--really, Ithink he could beat the world's record--if Bud rode him!"
Just here you should picture Ed and Jerry with their hands over theirmouths, and Bud wanting to hide his face with his hat.
Bob Birnie's beard behaved oddly for a minute, while he leaned andstroked Boise's flat forelegs, that told of speed. "Wee-ll," hehesitated, soft-heartedness battling with the horse-buyer's keenness,"since Bud is na ere to ride him, he'll make a good horse for theroundup. I'll give ye "--more battling--"a hundred and fifty dollars forhim, if ye care to sell--"
"Here, wait a minute before you sell to that old skinflint!" Bud shoutedexuberantly, dismounting with a rush. The rush, I may say, carried himto the little old lady in the slat sunbonnet, and to that other littlelady who was staring at him with wide, bright yes. Bud's arms wentaround his mother. Perhaps by accident he gathered in Marian also--theywere standing very close, and his arms were very long--and he was slowto discover his mistake.
"I'll give you two hundred for Boise, and I'll throw in one brother, andone long-legged, good-for-nothing cowpuncher--"
"Meaning yourself, Buddy?" came teasingly from he slat sunbonnet, whoseoccupant had not been told just everything. "I'll be surprised if she'llhave you, with that dirty face and no shave for a week and more. Butif she does, you're luckier than you deserve, for riding up on us likethis! We've heard all about you, Buddy--though you were wise to sendthis lassie to gild your faults and make a hero of you!"
Now, you want to know how Marian managed to live through that. I willsay that she discovered how tenaciously a young man's arms may clingwhen he thinks he is embracing merely his mother; but she freed herselfand ran to Eddie, fairly pulled him off his horse, and talked veryfast and incoherently to him and Jerry, asking question after questionwithout waiting for a reply to any of them. All this, I suppose, in thehope that they would not hear, or, hearing, would not understand whatthat terrible, wonderful little woman was saying so innocently.
But you cannot faze youth. Eddie had important news for Sis, and he feltthat now was the time to tell it before Marian blushed any redder, sohe pulled her face up to his, put his lips so close to her ear that hisbreath tickled, and whispered--without any preface whatever that shecould marry Bud any time now, because she was a widow.
"Here! Somebody--Bud--quick! Sis has fainted! Doggone it, I only toldher Lew's dead and she can marry you--shucks! I thought she'd be glad!"
Down on the Staked Plains, on an evening much like the evening when Budcame home with his "stake" and his hopes and two black sheep who werebecoming white as most of us, a camp-fire began to crackle and wavesmoke ribbons this way and that before it burned steadily under thesupper pots of a certain hungry, happy group which you know.
"It's somewhere about here that I got lost from camp when I was a kid,"Bud observed, tilting back his hat and lifting a knee to snap a drystick over it. "Mother'd know, I bet. I kinda wish we'd brought her anddad along with us. That's about eighteen years ago they trailed a herdnorth--and here we are, taking our trail--herd north on the same trail!I kinda wish now I'd picked up a bunch of yearling heifers along withour two-year-olds. We could have brought another hundred head just aswell as not. They sure drive nice. Mother would have enjoyed this trip."
"You think so, do you?" Marian gave him a superior little smile alongwith the coffee-boiler. "If you'd heard her talk about that trip northwhen there weren't any men around listening, you'd change your mind.Bud Birnie, you are the SIMPLEST creature! You think, because a womandoesn't make a fuss over things, she doesn't mind. Your mother told methat it was a perfect nightmare. She taught you music just in the hopethat you'd go back to civilization and live there where there are somemodern improvements, and she could visit you! And here you are--allrapped up in a bunch of young stock, dirty as pig and your whiskers--ow!Bud! Stop that immediatly, or I'll go put my face in a cactus just forrelief!"
"Maybe you're dissatisfied yourself with my bunch of cattle. Maybe youdidn't go in raptures over our aim and make more plans in a day thanfour men could carry out in a year. Maybe you wish your husband was aman that was content to pound piano keys all his life and let his hairgrow long instead of his whiskers. If you hate this, why didn't you sayso?"
"I was speaking," said Marian as dignifiedly as was possible, "of yourmother. She was raised in civilization, and she has simply made the bestof pioneering all her married life. I was born and raised in cow-countryand I love it. As I said before, you are the SIMPLEST creature! Wouldyou really bring a father and mother a honeymoon trail--especially whenthe bride didn't want them, and they would much rather stay home?"
"Hey!" cried Eddie disgustedly, coming up from a shallow creek with abucket of water and a few dry sticks. "The coffee's upset and puttingthe fire out. Gee whiz! Can't you folks quit love-makin' and tend tobusiness long enough to cook a meal?"
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