Lonesome Land (30 page)

“You’ll remember, Polycarp, not to speak of this?” Val urged abruptly when he drew up before the Hawley Hotel. “Not a hint, you know until—until I give you
permission. You promised.”

“Oh, certainly, Mis’ Fleetwood. Certainly. Don’t you be a mite oneasy.” But the tone of Polycarp was dejected in the extreme.

“And please be ready to drive me back in the morning. I should like to be at the ranch by noon, at the latest.” With that she left him and went into the hotel.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A F
RIEND
IN
N
EED

“A
ND SO
,” V
AL FINISHED, RATHER APATHETICALLY, PUSHING BACK THE
fallen lock of hair, “it has come to that. I
can’t remain here and keep any shred of self-respect. All my life I’ve been taught to believe divorce a terrible thing—a crime, almost; now I think it is sometimes a crime
not
to be divorced. For months I have been coming slowly to a decision, so this is really not as sudden as it may seem to you. It is humiliating to be compelled to borrow money—but I
would much rather ask you than any of my own people. My pride is going to suffer enough when I meet them, as it is; I can’t let them know just how miserable and sordid a
failure—”

Arline gave an inarticulate snort, bent her scrawny body nearly double, and reached frankly into her stocking. She fumbled there a moment and straightened triumphantly, grasping a flat, buckskin
bag.

“I’d feel like shakin’ you if you went to anybody else but me,” she declared, untying the bag. “I know what men is—Lord knows I see enough of ’em and
their meanness—and if I can help a woman outa the clutches of one, I’m tickled to death to git the chancet. I ain’t sayin’ they’re all of ’em bad—I
c’n afford to give the devil his due and still say that men is the limit. The good ones is so durn scarce it ain’t one woman in fifty lucky enough to git one. All I blame you for is
stayin’ with him as long as you have. I’d of quit long ago; I was beginnin’ to think you never would come to your senses. But you had to fight that thing out for yourself; every
woman has to.

“I’m glad you’ve woke up to the fact that Man Fleetwood didn’t git a deed to you, body and soul, when he married you; you’ve been actin’ as if you thought he
had. And I’m glad you’ve got sense enough to pull outa the game when you know the best you can expect is the worst of it. There ain’t no hope for Man Fleetwood; I seen that when
he went back to drinkin’ again after you was burnt out. I did think that would steady him down, but he ain’t the kind that braces up when trouble hits him—he’s the sort that
stays down ruther than go to the trouble of gittin’ up. He’s hopeless now as a rotten egg, and has been for the last year. Here; you take the hull works, and if you need more, I can
easy git it for you by sendin’ in to the bank.”

“Oh, but this is too much!” Val protested when she had counted the money. “You’re so good—but really and truly, I won’t need half—”

Arline pushed away the proffered money impatiently. “How’n time are you goin’ to tell how much you’ll need? Lemme tell you, Val Peyson—I ain’t goin’ to
call you by his name no more, the dirty cur! I’ve been packin’ that money in my stockin’ for six months, jest so’st to have it handy when you wanted it. Divorces cost
more’n marriage licenses, as you’ll find out when you git started. And—”

“You—why, the idea!” Val pursed her lips with something like her old spirit. “How could
you
know I’d need to borrow money? I didn’t know it myself,
even. I—”

“Well, I c’n see through a wall when there’s a knothole in it,” paraphrased Arline calmly. “You may not know it, but you’ve been gittin’ your back-East
notions knocked outa you pretty fast the last year or so. It was all a question of what kinda stuff you was made of underneath. You c’n put a polish on most anything, so I couldn’t
tell, right at first, what there was to you. But you’re all right—I’ve seen that a long time back; and so I knowed durn well you’d be wantin’ money to pull loose with.
It takes money, though I know it ain’t polite to say much about real dollars ’n’ cents. You’ll likely use every cent of that before you’re through with the
deal—and remember, there’s a lot more growin’ on the same bush, if you need it. It’s only waitin’ to be picked.”

Val stared, found her eyes blurring so that she could not see, and with a sudden, impulsive movement leaned over and put her arms around Arline, unkempt, scrawny, and wholly unlovely though she
was.

“Arline, you’re an angel of goodness!” she cried brokenly. “You’re the best friend I ever had in my life—I’ve had many who petted me and flattered
me—but you—you
do
things! I’m ashamed—because I haven’t loved you every minute since I first saw you. I judged you— I mean—oh, you’re pure,
shining gold inside, instead of—”

“Oh, git out!” Arline was compelled to gulp twice before she could say even that much. “I don’t shine nowhere—inside er out. I know that well enough. I never had no
chancet to shine. It’s always been wore off with hard knocks. But I like shiny folks all right—when they’re fine clear through, and—”

“Arline—dear, I do love you. I always shall. I—”

Arline loosened her clasp and jumped up precipitately.

“Git out!” she repeated bashfully. “If you git me to cryin’, Val Peyson, I’ll wish you was in Halifax. You go to bed, ’n’ go to sleep, er
I’ll—” She almost ran from the room. Outside, she stopped in a darkened corner of the hallway and stood for some minutes with her checked gingham apron pressed tightly over her
face, and several times she sniffed audibly. When she finally returned to the kitchen her nose was pink, her eyelids were pink, and she was extremely petulant when she caught Minnie eying her
curiously.

Val had refused to eat any supper, and, beyond telling Arline that she had decided to leave Manley and return to her mother in Fern Hill, she had not explained anything very clearly—her
colorless face, for instance, nor her tightly swathed throat, nor the very noticeable bruise upon her temple.

Arline had not asked a single question. Now, however, she spent some time fixing a tray with the daintiest food she knew and could procure, and took it upstairs with a certain diffidence in her
manner and a rare tenderness in her faded, worldly wise eyes.

“You got to eat, you know,” she reminded Val gently. “You’re bucking up ag’inst the hardest part of the trail, and grub’s a necessity. Take it like you would
medicine—unless your throat’s too sore. I see you got it all tied up.”

Val raised her hands in a swift alarm and clasped her throat as if she feared Arline would remove the bandages.

“Oh, it’s not sore—that is, it is sore—I mean not very much,” she stammered betrayingly.

Arline set down the tray upon the dresser and faced Val grimly.

“I never asked you any questions, did I?” she demanded. “But you act for all the world as if—do you want me to give a guess about that tied-up neck, and that black
’n’ blue lump on your forehead? I never asked any questions—I didn’t need to. Man Fleetwood’s been maulin’ you around. I was kinda afraid he’d git to that
point someday when he got mad enough; he’s just the brand to beat up a woman. But if it took a beatin’ to bring you to the quitting point, I’m glad he done it.
Only,
”
she added darkly, “he better keep outa my reach; I’m jest in the humor to claw him up some if I should git close enough. And if I happened to forget I’m a lady, I’d sure
bawl him out, and the bigger crowd heard me the better. Now, you eat this—and don’t get the idee you can cover up any meanness of Man Fleetwood’s; not from me, anyhow. I know men
better’n you do; you couldn’t tell me nothing about ’em that would su’prise me the least bit. I’m only thankful he didn’t murder you in cold blood. Are you going
to eat?”

“Not if you keep on reminding me of such h-horrid things,” wailed Val, and sobbed into her pillow. “It’s bad enough to—to have him ch-choke me without having you
t-talk about it all the time!”

“Now, honey, don’t you waste no tears on a brute like him—he ain’t w-worth it!” Arline was on her bony knees beside the bed, crying with sympathy and
self-reproach.

So, in truly feminine fashion, the two wept their way back to the solid ground of everyday living. Before they reached that desirable state of composure, however, Val told her
everything—within certain limits set not by caution, but rather by her woman’s instinct. She did not, for instance, say much about Kent, though she regretted openly that Polycarp knew
so much about it.

“Hope never needed no newspaper so long as Polycarp lives here,” Arline grumbled when Val was sitting up again and trying to eat Arline’s toast, and jelly made of buffalo
berries, and sipping the tea which had gone cold. “But if I can round him up in time, I’ll try and git him to keep his mouth shet. I’ll scare the liver outa him some way. But if
he caught onto that calf deal—” She shook her head doubtfully. “The worst of it is, Fred’s in town, and he’s always pumpin’ Polycarp dry, jest to find out all
that’s goin’ on. You go to bed, and I’ll see if I can find out whether they’re together. If they are—but you needn’t to worry none. I reckon I’m a match
for the both of ’em. Why, I’d dope their coffee and send ’em both to sleep till Man got outa the country, if I had to!”

She stood with her hands upon her angular hips and glared at Val.

“I sure would do that very thing—for
you,
” she reiterated solemnly. “I don’t purtend I’d do it for Man—but I would for you. But it’s likely
Kent has fixed things up so they can’t git nothing on Man if they try. He would if he said he would; that there’s
one
feller that’s on the square. You go to bed now, whilst
I go on a still hunt of my own. I’ll come and tell you if there’s anything to tell.”

It was easy enough to make the promise, but keeping it was so difficult that she yielded to the temptation of going to bed and letting Val sleep in peace; which she could not have done if she
had known that Polycarp Jenks and Fred De Garmo left town on horseback within an hour after Polycarp had entered it, and that they told no man their errand.

Over behind Brinberg’s store, Polycarp had told Fred all he knew, all he suspected, and all he believed would come to pass. “Strictly on the quiet,” of course—he reminded
Fred of that, over and over, because he had promised Mrs. Fleetwood that he would not mention it.

“But, by granny,” he apologized, “I didn’t like the idee of keepin’ a thing like that from
you;
it would kinda look as if I was standin’ in on the
deal, which I ain’t. Nobody can’t accuse me of rustlin’, no matter what else I might do; you know that, Fred.”

“Sure, I know you’re honest, anyway,” Fred responded quite sincerely.

“Well, I considered it my duty to tell you. I’ve kinda had my suspicions all fall, that there was somethin’ scaly goin’ on at Cold Spring. Looked to me like Man had too
blamed many calves missed by spring round-up—for the size of his herd. I dunno, of course, jest where he gits ’em—you’ll have to find that out. But he’s brung twelve
er fourteen to the ranch, two er three at a time. And what she said when she first come to—told me right out, by granny, ’at Man choked her because she called ’im a thief, and
somethin’ about a cow comin’ an’ claimin’ her calf, and her turnin’ it out. That oughta be might’ nigh all the evidence you need, Fred, if you find it. She
don’t know she said it, but she wouldn’t of told it, by granny, if it wasn’t so—now would she?”

“And you say all this happened today?” Fred pondered for a minute. “That’s queer, because I almost caught a fellow last night doing some funny work on a calf. A Wishbone
cow it was, and her calf fresh burned—a barred-out brand, by thunder! If it was today, I’d say Man found it and blotched the brand. I wish now I’d hazed them over to the Double
Diamond and corralled ’em, like I had a mind to. But we can find them, easy enough. But that was last night, and you say this big setting came off today; you
sure,
Polly?”

“’Course I’m sure.” Polycarp waggled his head solemnly. He was enjoying himself to the limit. He was the man on the inside, giving out information of the greatest
importance, and an officer of the law was hanging anxiously upon his words. He spoke slowly, giving weight to every word. “I rode up to the house—Man’s house—somewhere close
to noon, an’ there she was, layin’ on the kitchen floor. Didn’t know nothin’, an’ had the marks of somebody’s fingers on ’er throat; the rest of her
neck’s so white they showed up, by granny, like—like—” Polycarp never could think of a simile. He always expectorated in such an emergency, and left his sentence unfinished.
He did so now, and Fred cut in unfeelingly.