Lonesome Land (6 page)

Kent swung down close beside them, his form indistinct but purposeful. “I’m late, I guess,” he remarked, turning to Fleetwood. “Fred got next, somehow, and—I was
detained.”

“Where is he?” asked Manley, going up and laying a questioning hand upon the horse, by that means fully recognizing it as Kent’s own.

“In the oats box,” said Kent laconically. He turned to the girl. “I couldn’t get the sidesaddle,” he explained apologetically. “I looked where Mrs. Hawley
said it was, but I couldn’t find it—and I didn’t have much time. You’ll have to ride a stock saddle.”

Valeria drew back a step. “You mean—a man’s saddle?” Her voice was carefully polite.

“Why, yes.” And he added: “The horse is dead gentle—and a sidesaddle’s no good, anyhow. You’ll like this better.” He spoke, as was evident, purely from
a man’s viewpoint.

That viewpoint Mrs. Fleetwood refused to share. “Oh, I couldn’t ride a man’s saddle,” she protested, still politely, and one could imagine how her lips were pursed.
“Indeed, I’m not sure that I care to leave town at all.” To her the declaration did not seem unreasonable or abrupt; but she felt that Kent was very much shocked. She saw him turn
his head and look back toward the town, as if he half expected a pursuit.

“I don’t reckon the oats box will hold Fred very long,” he observed meditatively. He added reminiscently to Manley: “I had a deuce of a time getting the cover down and
fastened.”

“I’m very sorry,” said Valeria, with sweet dignity, “that you gave yourself so much trouble—”

“I’m kinda sorry myself,” Kent agreed mildly, and Valeria blushed hotly, and was glad he could not see.

“Come, Val—you can ride this saddle, all right. All the girls out here—”

“I did not come West to imitate all the girls. Indeed, I could never think of such a thing. I couldn’t possibly—really, Manley! And, you know, it does seem so childish of us to
run away—”

Kent moved restlessly, and felt to see if the cinch was tight.

Fleetwood took her coaxingly by the arm. “Come, sweetheart, don’t be stubborn. You know—”

“Well, really! If it’s a question of obstinacy—You see, I look at the matter in this way: You believe that you are doing what is best for my sake; I don’t agree with
you—and it does seem as if I should be permitted to judge what I desire.” Then her dignity and her sweet calm went down before a flash of real, unpolished temper. “You two can
take those nasty horses and ride clear to Dakota, if you want to. I’m going back to the hotel. And I’m going to tell somebody to let that poor fellow out of that box. I think
you’re acting perfectly horrid, both of you, when I don’t want to go!” She actually started back toward the scattered points of light.

She did not, however, get so far away that she failed to hear Kent’s “Well, I’ll be damned!” uttered in a tone of intense disgust.

“I don’t care,” she assured herself, because of the thrill of compunction caused by that one forcible sentence. She had never before in her life heard a man really swear. It
affected her very much as would the accidental touch of an electric battery. She walked on slowly, stumbling a little and trying to hear what it was they were saying.

Then Kent passed her, loping back to the town, the led horse shaking his saddle so that it rattled the stirrups like castanets as he galloped. “I don’t care,” she told herself
again very emphatically, because she was quite sure that she did care—or that she would care if only she permitted herself to be so foolish. Manley overtook her then, and drew her hand under
his arm to lead her. But he seemed quite sullen, and would not say a word all the way back.

CHAPTER FOUR

T
HE
“S
HIVAREE
”

K
ENT JERKED OPEN THE STABLE DOOR, LED IN HIS HORSES, TURNED
them into their stalls, and removed the saddles with quick, nervous movements which told
plainly how angry he was.

“I’ll get myself all excited trying to do her a favor again—I don’t think!” he growled in the ear of Michael, his gray gelding. “Think of me getting let down
on my face like that! By a woman!”

He felt along the wall in the intense darkness until his fingers touched a lantern, took it down from the nail where it hung, and lighted it. He carried it farther down the rude passage between
the stalls, hung it high upon another nail, and turned to the great oats box, from within which came a vigorous thumping and the sound of muttered cursing.

Kent was not in the mood to see the humor of anything in particular. Had he known anything about Pandora’s box he might have drawn a comparison very neatly while he stood scowling down at
the oats box, for certainly he was likely to release trouble in plenty when he unfastened that lid. He felt of the gun swinging at his hip, just to assure himself that it was there and ready for
business in case Fred wanted to shoot, and rapped with his knuckles upon the box, producing instant silence within.

“Don’t make so much noise in there,” he advised grimly, “not unless you want the whole town to know where you are, and have ’em give you the laugh. And, listen
here: I ain’t apologizing for what I done, but, all the same, I’m sorry I did it. It wasn’t any use. I’d rather be shut up in an oats box all night than get let down like I
was—and I’m telling you this so as to start us off even. If you want to fight about it when you come out, all right; you’re the doctor. But I’m just as sorry as you are it
happened. I lay down my hand right here. I hope you shivaree Man and his wife—and shivaree ’em good. I hope you bust the town wide open.”

“Why this sudden change of heart?” came muffled from within.

“Ah—that’s my own business. Well, I don’t like you a little bit, and you know it; but I’ll tell you, just to give you a fair show. I wanted to keep Man sober, and I
tried to get him and his wife out of town before that shivaree of yours was pulled off. But the lady wouldn’t have it that way. I got let right down on my face, and I’m done. Now you
know just where I stand. Maybe I’m a fool for telling you, but I seem to be in the business tonight. Come on out.”

He unfastened the big iron hasp, which was showing signs of the strain put upon it, and stepped back watchfully. The thick, oaken lid was pushed up, and Fred De Garmo, rather dusty and
disheveled and purple from the close atmosphere of the box and from anger as well, came up like a jack-in-the-box and glared at Kent. When he had stepped out upon the stable floor, however, he
smiled rather unpleasantly.

“If you’ve told the truth,” he said maliciously, “I guess the lady has pretty near evened things up. If you haven’t—if I don’t find them both at the
hotel—well—Anyway,” he added, with an ominous inflection, “there’ll be other days to settle this in!”

“Why, sure. Help yourself, Fred,” Kent retorted cheerfully, and stood where he was until Fred had gone out. Then he turned and closed the box. “Between that yellow-eyed dame
and the chump that went and left this box wide open for me to tip Fred into,” he soliloquized, while he took down the lantern, and so sent the shadows dancing weirdly about him,
“I’ve got a bunch of trouble mixed up, for fair. I wish the son of a gun would fight it out now, and be done with it; but no, that ain’t Fred. He’d a heap rather wait and
let it draw interest!”

Over in the hotel the “yellow-eyed dame” was doing her unsophisticated best to meet the situation gracefully, and to realize certain vague and rather romantic dreams of her life out
West. She meant to be very gracious, for one thing, and to win the chivalrous friendship of every man who came to participate in the rude congratulations that had been planned. Just how she meant
to do this she did not know—except that the graciousness would certainly prove a very important factor.

“I’m going to remain downstairs,” she told Manley, when they reached the hotel. It was the first sentence she had spoken since he overtook her. “I’m so glad,
dear,” she added diplomatically, “that you decided to stay. I want to see that funny landlady now, please, and get her to serve coffee and cake to our guests in the parlor. I wish I
might have had one of my trunks brought over here; I should like to wear a pretty gown.” She glanced down at her tailored suit with true feminine dissatisfaction. “But everything was
so—so confused, with your being late, and sick—is your head better, dear?”

Manley, in very few words, assured her that it was. Manley was struggling with his inner self, trying to answer one very important question, and to answer it truthfully: Could he meet “the
boys,” do his part among them, and still remain sober? That seemed to be the only course open to him now, and he knew himself just well enough to doubt his own strength. But if Kent would
help him—He felt an immediate necessity to find Kent.

“You’ll find Mrs. Hawley somewhere around,” he said hurriedly. “I’ve got to see Kent—”

“Oh, Manley! Don’t have anything to do with that horrid cowboy! He’s not—nice. He—he swore, when he must have known I could hear him; and he was swearing about
me,
Manley. Didn’t you hear him?” She stood in the doorway and clung to his arm.

“No,” lied Manley. “You must have been mistaken, sweetheart.”

“Oh, I wasn’t; I heard him quite plainly.” She must have thought it a terrible thing, for she almost whispered the last words, and she released him with much reluctance. It
seemed to her that Manley was in danger of falling among low associates, and that she must protect him in spite of himself. It failed to occur to her that Manley had been exposed to that danger for
three years, without any protection whatever.

She was thankful, when he came to her later in the parlor, to learn from him that he had not held any speech with Kent. That was some comfort—and she felt that she needed a little
comforting, just then. Her consultation with Arline had been rather unsatisfactory. Arline had told her bluntly that “the bunch” didn’t want any coffee and cake. Whisky and
cigars, said Arline, without so much as a blush, was what appealed to them fellows. If Manley handed it out liberal enough, they wouldn’t bother his bride. Very likely, Arline had assured
her, she wouldn’t see one of them. That, on the whole, had been rather discouraging. How was she to show herself a gracious lady, forsooth, if no one came near her? But she kept these things
jealously tucked away in the remotest corner of her own mind, and managed to look the relief she did not feel.

And, after all, the
charivari,
as is apt to be the case when the plans are laid so carefully, proved a very tame affair. Valeria, sitting rather dismally in the parlor with Mrs. Hawley
for company, at midnight heard a banging of tin cans somewhere outside, a fitful popping of six-shooters, and an abortive attempt at a procession coming up the street. But the lines seemed to waver
and then break utterly at the first saloon, where drink was to be had for the asking and Manley Fleetwood was pledged to pay, and the rattle of cans was all but drowned in the shouts of laughter
and talk which came from the “office,” across the hall. For where is the pleasure or the profit in
charivaring
a bridal couple which stays up and waits quite openly for the
clamor?

“Is it always so noisy here at night?” asked Valeria faintly when Mrs. Hawley had insisted upon her lying down upon the uncomfortable sofa.

“Well, no—unless a round-up pulls in, or there’s a dance, or it’s Christmas, or something. It’s liable to keep up till two or three o’clock, so the sooner you
git used to it, the better off you’ll be. I’m going to leave you here, and go to bed—unless you want to go upstairs yourself. Only it’ll be noisier than ever up in your
room, for it’s right over the office, and the way sound travels up is something fierce. Don’t you be afraid—I’ll lock this door, and if your husband wants to come in he can
come through the dining room.” She looked at Valeria and hesitated before she spoke the next sentence. “And don’t you worry a bit over him, neither. My old man was in the kitchen
a minute ago, when I was out there, and he says Man ain’t drinking a drop tonight. He’s keeping as straight as—”

Valeria sat up suddenly, quite scandalized. “Oh—why, of course Manley wouldn’t drink with them! Why—who ever heard of such a thing? The idea!” She stared
reproachfully at her hostess.