CHAPTER XXXIII.
_The Gentile Invasion_
When she came across the fields late in the afternoon, the strangeyouth's horse was picketed where the bunch-grass grew high, and theyoung man himself talked with her father by the corral bars. She hadnever realised how old her father was, how weak, and small, and bent,until she saw him beside this erect young fellow. Her heart went out tothe older man with a new sympathy as she saw his feebleness so sharplyin relief against the well-blooded, hard-muscled vigour of the younger.When she would have passed them, her father called to her.
"Prudence, this is Mr. Ruel Follett. He will stay with us to-night."
The sombrero was off again and she felt the blue eyes seeking hers,though she could not look up from the ground when she had given herlittle bow. She heard him say:
"I already met your daughter, sir, at the mouth of the canon."
She went on toward the house, hearing them resume their talk, thestranger saying, "That horse can sure carry all the weight you want toput on him and step away good; he'll do it right at both ends,too--Dandy will--and he's got a mighty tasty lope."
Later she brought him a towel when he had washed himself in the tinbasin on the bench outside the house. He had doffed the "chapps" andhung them on a peg, the scarlet kerchief was also off, his shirt wasopen at the neck, and soap and water had played freely over his head. Hetook the towel from her with a sputtering, "Thank you," and with a pairof muscular, brown hands proceeded to scour himself dry until the yellowhair stood about him as a halo--without, however, in the leastsuggesting the angelic or even saintly: for his face, from the frictioninflamed to a high degree, was now a mass of red with two inquiringspots of blue near the upper edge. But then the clean mouth opened inits frank smile, and her own dark lashes had to fall upon her cheeksuntil she turned away.
At supper and afterwards Mr. Follett talked freely of himself, or seemedto. He was from the high plains and the short-grass country, whereverthat might be--to the east and south she gathered. He had grown up inthat country, working for his father, who had been an overlandfreighter, until the day the railroad tracks were joined at Promontory.He, himself, had watched the gold and silver spikes driven into the tieof California mahogany two years before; and then, though they stillkept a few wagon trains moving to the mining camps north and south ofthe railroad, they had looked for other occupations.
Now their attention was chiefly devoted to mines and cattle. There weregreat times ahead in the cattle business. His father remembered whenthey had killed cattle for their hides and tallow, leaving the meat tothe coyotes. But now, each spring, a dozen men, like himself, under aherd boss, would drive five thousand head to Leavenworth, putting themthrough ten or twelve miles a day over the Abiline trail, keeping themfat and getting good prices for them. There was plenty of room for thebusiness. "Over yonder across the hills," as Mr. Follett put it. Therewas a herding ground four hundred miles wide, east and west, and athousand miles north and south, covered with buffalo grass, especiallytoward the north, that made good stock feed the year around. He himselfhad, in winter, followed a herd that drifted from Montana to Texas; andin summer he had twice ranged from Corpus Christi to Deadwood.
Down in the Panhandle they were getting control of a ranch that wouldcover five thousand square miles. Some day they would have every one ofits three million acres enclosed with a stout wire fence. It would be abig ranch, bigger than the whole state of Connecticut--bigger thanDelaware and Rhode Island "lumped together", he had been told. Here theywould have the "C lazy C" brand on probably a hundred and fiftythousand head of cattle. He thought the business would settle down tothis conservative basis with the loose ends of it pulled together; withcloser attention paid to branding, for one thing; branding the calves,so they would no longer have to rope a full-grown steer, and tie it witha scarf such as he wore about his waist.
But they were also working some placer claims up around Helena, anddeveloping a quartz prospect over at Carson City. And the freighting wasby no means "played out." He, himself, had driven a six-mule team withone line over the Santa Fe trail, and might have to do it again. Theresources of the West were not exhausted, whatever they might say. A manwith a head on him would be able to make a good living there for someyears to come.
Both father and daughter found him an agreeable young man in spite ofhis being an alien from the Commonwealth of Israel. He remained withthem three days looking over the country about Amalon, talking with itspeople and making himself at least not an object of suspicion andaversion, as the casual Gentile was apt to be. Prudence found herselfusually at ease with him; he was so wholly likable and unassuming. Yetat times he seemed strangely mature and reserved to her, so that she wasjust a little awed.
He told her in their evenings many wonder-tales of that outside worldwhere the wicked Gentiles lived; of populous cities on the western edgeof it, and of vast throngs that crowded the interior clear over to theAtlantic Ocean. She had never realised before what a small handful ofpeople the Lord had set His hand to save, and what vast numbers He hadmade with hearts that should be hardened to the glorious articles of thenew covenant.
The wastefulness of it rather appalled her. Out of the world with itsmyriad millions, only the few thousand in this valley of the mountainshad proved worthy of exaltation. And this young man was doubtless a fairsample of them,--happy, unthinking, earning perdition by merecarelessness. If only there were a way to save them--if only there werea way to save even this one--but she hardly dared speak to him of herreligion.
When he left he told them he was making a little trip through thesettlements to the north, possibly as far as Cedar City. He did not knowhow long he would be gone, but if nothing prevented he might be backthat way. He shook hands with them both at parting, and though he spokeso vaguely about a return, his eyes seemed to tell Prudence that hewould like very much to come. He had talked freely about everything butthe precise nature of his errand in the valley.
In her walks to the canon she thought much of him when he had gone. Shecould not put his face into the dream because he was too real andimmanent. He and the dream would not blend, even though she had decidedthat his fresh-cheeked, clear-eyed face, with its clean smile and theyellow hair above it was almost better to look at than the face of theyouth in the play. It was not so impalpable; it satisfied. So she musedabout them alternately, the dream and the Gentile,--taking perhaps awarmer interest in the latter for his aliveness, for the grasp of hishand at parting, which she, with astonishment, had felt her own handcordially returning.
Her father talked much of the young man. In his prophetic eye thisfearless, vigorous young stranger was the incarnate spirit of thatGentile invasion to which the Lord had condemned them for their sins. Hehad come, resourceful, determined, talking of mighty enterprises, ofcattle, and gold, and wheat, of wagon-trains, and railroad,--an eloquentforerunner of the Gentile hordes that should come west upon theshoulders of Israel, and surround, assimilate, and reduce them, untilthey should lose all their powers and gifts and become a mere sect amongsects, their name, perhaps, a hissing and a scorn. He foresaw theinvasion of which this self-poised, vital youth of three or four andtwenty was a sapper; and he knew it was a just punishment from on highfor the innocent blood they had shed. Yet now he viewed it ratherimpersonally, for he felt curiously disconnected from the affairs of theChurch and the world.
He no longer preached on the Sabbath, giving his ill-health as anexcuse. In truth he felt it would not be honest since, in his secretheart, he was now an apostate. But with his works of healing he busiedhimself more than ever, and in this he seemed to have gained new power.Weak as he was physically, gray-haired, bloodless, fragile, with whatseemed to be all of his remaining life burning in his deep-set eyes, heyet laid his hands upon the sick with a success so marked that his famespread and he was sent for to rebuke plagues and fevers from as far awayas Beaver.
For two weeks they heard nothing of the wandering Gentile, and Prudencehad begun to wonder if she wo
uld ever see him again; also to wonder whyan uncertainty in the matter should seem to be of importance.
But one evening early in June they saw him walking up in the dusk, thelight sombrero, the scarlet kerchief against the blue woollen shirt, theholster with its heavy Colt's revolver at either hip, the easy movingfigure, and the strong, yet boyish face.
He greeted them pleasantly, though, the girl thought, with somerestraint. She could not hear it in his words, but she felt it in hismanner, something suppressed and deeply hidden. They asked where hishorse was and he replied with a curious air of embarrassment:--
"Well, you see, I may be obliged to stop around here a quite some while,so I put up with this man Wardle--not wanting to impose upon youall--and thanking you very kindly, and not wishing to intrude--so I justcame to say 'howdy' to you."
They expressed regret that he had not returned to them, Joel Rae urginghim to reconsider; but he declined politely, showing a desire to talk ofother things.
They sat outside in the warm early evening, the young man and Prudencenear each other at one side of the door, while Joel Rae resumed hischair a dozen feet the other side and lapsed into silence. The two youngpeople fell easily into talk as on the other evenings they had spentthere. Yet presently she was again aware, as in the moment of hisgreeting, that he laboured under some constraint. He was uneasy andshifted his chair several times until at length it was so placed that hecould look beyond her to where her father had tilted his own chairagainst the house and sat huddled with his chin on his breast. He talkedabsently, too, at first, of many things and without sequence; and whenhe looked at her, there was something back of his eyes, plain even inthe dusk, that she had not seen there before. He was no longer theingenuous youth who had come to them from off the Kanab trail.
In a little while, however, this uneasiness seemed to vanish and he wasspeaking naturally again, telling of his life on the plains with aboyish enthusiasm; first of the cattle drives, of the stampede of a herdby night, when the Indians would ride rapidly by in the dark, dragging abuffalo-robe over the ground at the end of a lariat, sending thefrightened steers off in a mad gallop that made the earth tremble. Theywould have to ride out at full speed in the black night, over groundtreacherous with prairie-dog holes, to head and turn the herd offrenzied cattle, and by riding around and around them many times getthem at last into a circle and so hold them until they became quietagain. Often this was not until sunrise, even with the lullabys theysang "to put them to sleep."
Then he spoke of adventures with the Indians while freighting over theSanta Fe trail, and of what a fine man his father, Ezra Calkins, was. Itwas the first time he had mentioned the name and her ear caught it atonce.
"Your father's name is Calkins?"
"Yes--I'm only an adopted son."
Unconsciously she had been letting her voice fall low, making their chatmore confidential. She awoke to this now and to the fact that he haddone the same, by noting that he raised his voice at this time with acasual glance past her to where her father sat.
"Yes--you see my own father and mother were killed when I was eightyears old, and the people that murdered them tried to kill me too, but Iwas a spry little tike and give them the slip. It was a bad country, andI like to have died, only there was a band of Navajos out tradingponies, and one morning, after I'd been alone all night, they picked meup and took care of me. I was pretty near gone, what with being scaredand everything, but they nursed me careful. They took me away off to thesouth and kept me about a year, and then one time they took me with themwhen they worked up north on a buffalo hunt. It was at Walnut Creek onthe big bend of the Arkansas that they met Ezra Calkins coming alongwith one of his trains and he bought me of those Navajos. I remember hegave fifty silver dollars for me to the chief. Well, when I told him allthat I could remember about myself--of course the people that did thekilling scared a good deal of it out of me--he took me to Kansas Citywhere he lived, and went to law and made me his son, because he'd lost aboy about my age. And so that's how we have different names, he tellingme I'd ought to keep mine instead of taking his."
She was excited by the tale, which he had told almost in one breath, andnow she was eager to question, looking over to see if her father wouldnot also be interested; but the latter gave no sign.
"You poor little boy, among those wretched Indians! But why were yourfather and mother killed? Did the Indians do it?"
"No, not Indians that did it--and I never did know why they killedthem--they that _did_ do it."
"But how queer! Don't you know who it was?"
Before answering, he paused to take one of the long revolvers from itsholster, laying it across his lap, his right hand still grasping it.
"It was tiring my leg where it was," he explained. "I'll just restmyself by holding it here. I've practised a good smart bit with thesepistols against the time when I'd meet some of them that did it--thatkilled my father and mother and lots of others, and little children,too."
"How terrible! And it wasn't Indians?"
"No--I _told_ you that already--it wasn't Indians."
"Don't you know who it was?"
"Oh, yes, I know all of them I want to know. The fact is, up there atCedar City I met some people that got confidential with me one day, andtold me a lot of their names. There was Mr. Barney Carter and Mr. SamWoods, and they talked right freely about some folks. I found out what Iwas wanting to know, being that they were drinking men."
He had moved slightly as he spoke and she glanced at the revolver stillheld along his knee.
"Isn't that dangerous--seems to me it's pointed almost toward father."
"Oh, not a bit dangerous, and it rests me to hold it there. You see itwas hereabouts this thing happened. In fact, I came down here lookingfor a big man, and a little girl that I remembered, whose father andmother were killed at the same time mine was. This little girl was aboutthree or four, I reckon, and she was taken by one of the murderers. Heseemed like an awful big man to me. By the way, that's mean whiskey yourBishop sells on the sly up at Cedar City. Why, it's worse than Taoslightning. Well, this Barney Carter and Mr. Sam Woods, they would drinkit all right, but they said one drink made a man ugly and two made himso downright bad that he'd just as lief tear his wife's best bonnet topieces as not. But they seemed to like me pretty well, and they drank alot of this whiskey that the Bishop sold me, and then they got talkingpretty freely about old times. I gathered that this man that took thelittle girl is a pretty big man around here. Of course I wasn'texpecting anything like that; I thought naturally he'd be a low-downsort to have been mixed up in a thing like that."
He spoke his next words very slowly, with little pauses.
"But I found out what his name was--it was--"
He stopped, for there had been an indistinct sound from where her fathersat, now in the gloom of the evening. She called to him:
"Did you speak, father?"
There was no reply or movement from the figure in the chair, and Follettresumed:
"I guess he was just asleep and dreaming about something. Well,anyway--I--I found out afterwards by telling it before him, that Mr.Barney Carter and his drunken friend had given me his name right, thoughI could hardly believe it before."
"What an awful, awful thing! What wickedness there is in the world!"
"Oh, a tolerable lot," he assented.
He had been all animation and eagerness in the telling of the story, buthad now become curiously silent and listless; so that, although she waseager with many questions about what he had said, she did not ask them,waiting to see if he would not talk again. But instead of talking, hestayed silent and presently began to fidget in his chair. At last hesaid, "If you'll excuse us, Miss Prudence, your pa and I have got alittle business matter to talk over--to-night. I guess we can go downhere by the corral and do it."
But she arose quickly and bade him good night. "I hope I shall see youto-morrow," she said.
She bent over to kiss her father as she went in, and when she had don
eso, warned him that he must not sit in the night air.
"Why your face is actually wet with a cold sweat. You ought to come inat once."
"After a very little, dear. Go to bed now--and always be a good girl!"
"And you've grown so hoarse sitting here."
"In a little while,--always be a good girl!"
She went in with a parting admonition: "Remember your cough--goodnight!"
When she had gone neither man stirred for the space of a minute. Thelittle man, huddled in his seat, had not changed his position; he stillsat with his chair tilted back against the house, his chin on hisbreast.
The other had remained standing where the girl left him, the revolver inhis hand. After the minute of silence he crossed over and stood infront of the seated man.
"Come," he said, gruffly, "where do you want to go?"