Under the Tonto Rim (1991) (6 page)

"It dries up in summer," said Mary, indicating the brook. "Sometimes the spring does, too. Then we all have to pack water from way down."

They came at length to a green bench that had been cleared of brush and small trees, yet, owing to the giant spreading pines above, did not long get direct rays of the sun. Rude boxes, some of them painted, were scattered around on little platforms of stones.

"Edd's beehives," said Mary, with grave importance. "We must be awful good. Edd doesn't mind if we behave."

"I'll be very careful, Mary. I don't want to get stung. Are they real wild bees?"

"Shore. But Edd tames them. Oh, Edd loves bees somethin' turrible," answered the child solemnly. "Bees never sting him, even when he's choppin' a new bee tree."

"Why does Edd do that? inquired Lucy.

"Didn't you ever--ever hear of Edd Denmeade's honey?" returned Mary, in great surprise. "Pa says it's the best in the world. Oh-umum! He'll shore give you some. Edd likes girls next to his bees...He's a bee hunter. Pa says Edd's the best bee liner he ever seen."

"Bee liner! What's that, Mary?"

"Why, he watches for bees, an' when they come he lines them. Bees fly straight off, you know. He lines them to their hive in a tree. Then he chops it down. Always he saves the honey, an' sometimes he saves the bees."

The child added to the interest accumulating round the name of Edd Denmeade.

"Where is Edd now?" asked Lucy.

"He went to Winbrook with the pack burros," replied Mary. "That's up over the Rim an' far off, to the railroad. Edd's promised to take me there some day. Shore he ought to be back soon. I want him awful bad. Candy! Edd always fetches us candy. He'll come by Mertie's birthday. That's next Wednesday. He's fetchin' Mertie's new dress. Her first boughten one! She's sixteen. An' Edd's givin' it to her. Oh, he'll come shore 'cause he loves Mertie."

"Of course he loves you, too? queried Lucy, winningly.

"Ma says so. But Mertie's his favourite. She's so pretty. I wish I was," replied Mary, with childish pathos.

"You will be, Mary, when you are sixteen, if you are good and learn how to take care of yourself, and have beautiful thoughts," said Lucy.

"Ma told Mrs. Claypool you was a home-teacher. Are you goin' to teach me all that?"

"Yes, and more. Won't you like to learn how to make nice dresses?"

"Oh!" cried Mary beamingly, and she burst into a babble of questions. Lucy answered. How simple! She had anticipated cudgelling her brains to satisfy these backwoods children. But Mary was already won. They remained in the gully until the sun sank, and then climbed out. Mary ran to confide her bursting news to the little twin sisters, and Lucy was left to herself for the time being. She walked down the lane, and across the strip of woodland to the open fields, and out where she could see.

Westward along the Rim vast capes jutted out, differing in shape and length, all ragged, sharp, fringed, reaching darkly for the gold and purple glory of the sunset. Shafts and rays of light streamed from the rifts in the clouds, blazing upon the bold rock faces of the wall. Eastward the Rim zigzagged endlessly into pale cold purple. Southward a vast green hollow ran like a river of the sea, to empty, it seemed, into space. Beyond that rose dim spectral shapes of mountains, remote and detached. To the north the great wall shut out what might lie beyond.

How unscalable it looked to Lucy! Points of rim ran out, narrow, broken, sloping, apparently to sheer off into the void. But the distance was far and the light deceiving. Lucy knew a trail came down the ragged cape that loomed out over Denmeade's ranch.

She had heard someone say Edd would come back that way with the pack-train. It seemed incredible for a man, let alone a burro. Just to gaze up at that steep of a thousand deceptive ridges, cracks, slants, and ascents was enough to rouse respect for these people who were conquering the rock-confined wilderness.

This lifting of Lucy's spirit gave pause to the growth of something akin to contempt that had unconsciously formed in her mind. After hearing and reading about these primitive inhabitants of the wild she had developed abstract conceptions of kindliness, sympathy, and close contact with them. They had been very noble sentiments. But she was going to find them hard to live up to. By analysing her feelings she realised that she did not like the personal intimations. Her one motive was to help these people and in so doing help herself. She had come, however, with an unconscious sense of her personal aloofness, the height to which, of course, these common people could not aspire. Yet their very first and most natural reaction, no doubt, was to imagine a sentimental attachment between her and one of these backwood boys.

From amusement Lucy passed to annoyance, and thence to concern. She had experienced her troubles with cowboys even in town, where there were ample avenues of escape. What would she encounter here? Would she find at the very outset a ridiculous obstacle to her success, to the fine record of welfare work she longed to establish?

The matter became a problem, no less because a faint accusing voice had begun to reach her conscience. She listened to it and strained at it until she heard something like doubt of her being big enough for this job. She humiliated herself. It had never occurred to her that she might be found wanting. A wonderfully stabilising though painful idea this was. After all, what excuse had she for superiority?

Standing there in the open fields, Lucy forgot the magnificent red wall and the gorgeous sunset-flushed panorama. She realised her vanity, that she had wounded it, that in all probability it would have to be killed before she could be wholly worthy of this work. Her humility, however, did not withstand the rush of resentment, eagerness, and confidence of her youth. Lucy stifled in its incipiency a thought vaguely hinting that she would have to suffer and grow before she really was what she dreamed she was.

Presently she heard the crack of hoofs on rock, and, turning, she espied two riders entering the corral at the end of the field. She decided they must be two more of the Denmeades, Dick and Joe, if she remembered rightly. They dismounted, threw their saddles, turned the horses loose. They appeared to be long, lean, rangy young men, wearing huge sombreros that made them look top-heavy. They whistled and whooped, creating sounds which clapped back in strange echo from the wall. It emphasised the stillness to Lucy. Such hilarity seemed out of place there. Lucy watched the tall figures stride out of sight up the lane toward the cabin.

"One thing sure," soliloquised Lucy, gravely, "I've got to realise I have myself to contend with up here. Myself!...It seems I don't know much about me."

She returned to the cabin, entering the yard by the side gate. Some of the hounds followed her, sniffing at her, not yet over their hostility. The Denmeades were collecting round the table on the porch. The mother espied Lucy and greeted her with a smile.

"Reckon we was about ready to put the hounds on your trail," she called, and when Lucy reached the table she added: "You set in this place...Here's Dick an' Joe. You've only one more to see, an' that's Edd. Boys, meet Miss Lucy Watson of Felix."

Lucy smiled at the young men, waiting to sit down opposite her. Which was Dick and which Joe she could not tell yet. The younger was exceedingly tall and thin. The older, though tall and angular, too, appeared short by comparison. Both had smooth, still, shining faces, lean and brown, with intent clear eyes.

"Hod-do!" said the older boy to Lucy, as he took his seat across the table. He was nothing if not admiring.

"Joe, did you meet teacher Jenks?" asked Denmeade, from the head of the table.

"Yep. Saw him at Johnson's. He told us about Miss Watson. An' we passed Sam on the trail. He was packin' her baggage."

Before Allie and Mertie, who were carrying steaming dishes from the kitchen, had brought in all the supper, the Denmeades set about the business of eating.

"Help yourself, miss," said the father.

The table was too small for so many. They crowded close together. Lucy's seat was at one end of a bench, giving her the free use of her right hand. Mary sat on her left, happily conscious of the close proximity. The heads of the little girls and Dan just topped the level of the table. In fact, their mouths were about on a level with their tin plates. At first glance Lucy saw that the table was laden with food, with more still coming. Pans of smoking biscuits, pans of potatoes, pans of beans, pans of meat and gravy, and steaming tin cups of black coffee! Lucy noted the absence of milk, butter, sugar, green or canned vegetables. She was hungry and she filled her plate. And despite the coarseness of the food she ate heartily. Before she had finished, dusk had settled down around the cabin, and when the meal ended it was quite dark.

"I hear Sam's hoss," said Dick, as he rose, clinking his spurs. "Reckon I'll help him unpack."

Lucy sat down on the edge of the porch, peering out into the woods. The children clustered round her. Mrs. Denmeade and her older daughters were clearing off the supper table. A dim lamplight glimmered in the kitchen. Lucy was aware of the tall form of Dick Denmeade standing to one side. He had not yet spoken a word. Lucy addressed him once, but for all the answer she got he might as well have been deaf. He shifted one of his enormous boots across the other. In the dim light Lucy made out long spurs attached to them. Then Mrs. Denmeade ordered the children off to bed. One by one they vanished. Mary's pale face gleamed wistfully and was gone.

It dawned on Lucy, presently, that the air was cold. It had changed markedly in an hour. Big white stars had appeared over the tips of the pines; the sky was dark blue. The blackness of the night shadows had lighted somewhat or else her eyes had become accustomed to it. Quiet settled over the cabin, broken only by low voices and sounds from the kitchen. It struck Lucy as sad and sombre, this mantle of night descending upon the lonely cabin, yet never before had she felt such peace, such sweet solitude. By straining her ears she caught a dreamy murmur of the stream down in the gorge, and a low mourn of wind in the pines. Where were the coyotes, night hawks; whip-poor-wills, all the noisy creatures she had imagined lived in the wilderness?

Pound of hoofs and clink of spurs became audible in the lane, approaching the cabin. Lucy heard a laugh she recognised, and low voices, merry, subtle, almost hoarse whisperings. Then the gate creaked, and the musical clink of spurs advanced toward the porch. At last Lucy made out two dark forms. They approached, and one mounted the steps, while the other stopped before Lucy. She conceived an idea that this fellow could see in the dark.

"Wal, Miss Lucy, here's your bags without a scratch," said Sam Johnson's drawling voice. "Shore I bet you was worried. How'd you find my hoss Buster?"

"Just fine, thank you," replied Lucy. "Full of spirit and go. Yet he obeyed promptly. I never had a slip. Now were you not trying to frighten me a little--or was it Mr. Jenks?--telling me he was some kind of a mustang?"

"Honest, Buster's gentle with girls," protested Sam. "Shore he pitches when one of these long-legged Denmeades rake him. But don't you believe what anyone tells you."

"Very well, I won't. Buster is a dandy little horse."

"Wal, then, you're invited to ride him again," said Sam, with subtle inflection.

"Oh, thank you," replied Lucy. "I--I'll be pleased--if my work allows me any spare time."

"Howdy, Sam!" interposed Allie, from the kitchen door. "Who're you goin' to take to the dance?"

"Wal, I ain't shore, jest yet," he returned. "Reckon I know who I'd like to take."

"Sadie told me you asked her."

"Did she?...Sent her word. But she didn't send none back," protested Sam lamely.

"Sam, take a hunch from me. Don't try to shenanegin out of it now," retorted Allie, and retreated into the kitchen.

Lucy was both relieved and amused at Allie's grasp of the situation. No doubt Sam had been approaching another invitation.

Denmeade's heavy footfall sounded on the porch, accompanied by the soft pad of a dog trotting. "That you, Sam? How's yore folks?"

"Tip top," replied Sam shortly.

"Get down an' come in," drawled Denmeade as the other shuffled restlessly.

"Reckon I'll be goin'," said Sam. "I've a packhoss waitin'...Evenin', Miss Lucy. Shore I hope to see you at the dance."

"I hardly think you will," replied Lucy. "Thank you for fetching my baggage."

Sam's tall form disappeared in the gloom. The gate creaked as if opened and shut with forceful haste. Almost directly followed the sound of hoofs going off into the darkness.

"Hey, Sam!" called Joe, coming out of the cabin, where he had carried Lucy's grips.

"He's gone," said his father laconically.

"Gone! Why, the dinged galoot had somethin' of mine! Funny, him runnin' off. He shore was rarin' to get here. Never saw him make such good time on a trail. What riled him?"

"Wal, I have an idea," drawled Denmeade. "Allie give him a dig."

"I shore did," spoke up Allie, from the kitchen, where evidently she heard what was going on outside. "It's a shame the way he treats Sadie."

Lucy began to gather snatches of the complexity of life up here. After all, how like things at home! This girl Sadie had refused to marry Edd Denmeade. There was an intimation that she was attached to Sam Johnson. On his part, Sam had manifested a slight interest in a new-comer to the country.