Rimrock Trail by Joseph Allan Dunn (best novel books to read .TXT) 📕

I want to take her into my home, Mr. Bourke. She is practically a woman grown, much more so than the girls with whom she associates. This, I suppose, is due to her early experiences. There she would be under my own eye, which will be a maternal one, and she can have private tutoring in what she still lacks. I think she feels the need of the companionship and advice of an older woman, rather than that of the girls at the school.

I wish I could talk with you personally about this. Letters are such inadequate things. But I know, from Mr. Keith, that you have her interests at heart—and so have I. I shall dearly love to have her with me. I have, of course, said absolutely nothing to her about this plan before I hear from you, but I feel confident from what I have seen of her, that she will be happier in a home, with some one, who, however poorly, may take the place of the mother she must have missed all these years.

Let me hear from you soon. If my health and other matters permit, I must try to come out with Molly before very long. Mr. Keith has seen this letter and approves of my suggestion to have Molly with us.

Most sincerely yours,
Elizabeth Vernon Keith.

It was a clever letter. There were several touches about it that almost amounted to genius. The hints of Molly's unhappiness so cleverly suggested, the mother suggestion, the need of companionship and advice from an older woman, Molly's intolerance of conventionalities, all went home; though it was some time before the trio entirely absorbed the meaning of the glossy phrases and glib vocabulary. The letter passed about in silence after Sandy had read it, Sam and Mormon plowing through the maze of the fashionable script.

"Reckon she's right," said Mormon. "Molly's different. She had a mighty hard time of it along with her old man, compared to what them soft-skinned snips must have had. Stands to reason she c'udn't be like 'em, any mo' than Sam c'ud be easy in his spiketail suit, or me handin' ice-cream at a swarry. Not that Molly 'ud make no breaks, but their ways w'udn't be her'n, most of the time. How 'bout it, Sam?"

"This Mrs. Keith must live high," said Sam. "She w'udn't be botherin' about Molly if she didn't see a heap of promise in her. I mind me it must be tough to be herded inter a corral where you got to learn all over ag'in how to handle yore feet an' hands, not to mention forks. This Keith woman's spotted Molly ain't easy at school. The other gals like her, but they ain't her style. She's range bred an' free. Those other fillies have been brought up in loose boxes. They probably don't mean to hurt her feelin's none, but I 'low they snicker once in a while if Molly forgets the right sasshay. An' Molly's proud as they make 'em. Sounds good to me. What you think, Sandy? It's up to you as her guardeen."

"It sure sounds good," said Sandy. "Seems like this Mrs. Keith must be a pritty fine woman to think of takin' Molly into her own home. I reckon Molly must have changed a good deal. I'd be inclined to put it this way; if Molly cottons to the idea, let her hop to it."

"Mirandy ain't brought over the butter yet," put in Mormon, with a glance at his partners that was half shamefaced. "Why not git her opinion? Takes a woman to understand a woman. She'd sabe this letter a heap bettern' we c'ud."

Sam winked covertly at Sandy and shoved his tongue in his cheek.

"That's a good idea, Mormon," said Sandy.

"Never did find out jest what happened to that last wife of your'n, did ye, Mormon?" asked Sam.

"Never did."

"That's too bad."

"Why?"

"Gen'ral principles." Sam said no more but took out his harmonica, ever in one hip pocket, and crooned into it. A jiggly-jazz edition of Mendelssohn's Wedding March strained through the curtains of Sam's drooping mustache.

"Speakin' wide, the weddin' cake of matrimony has been mostly mildewed for me," said Mormon reflectively, "but there was one thing about my last wife I sure admired. Uncommon thing in woman an' missin' in some men."

Sam, eager for chaffing, fell.

"What was that, Mormon? I heerd she was a good cook."

"It warn't her cookin', though that was prime when she was in the humor. But she sure c'ud attend to her own business, an' there's damn few can do that. Sandy's one of the few. I can't call another to mind jest now."

Sam grinned.

"You sure had me that time, ol' hawss. An' the mildew on the weddin' cake warn't none of yore fault. That sort of pastry's too rich for me to tackle. I used to wonder why they allus put frostin' on weddin' cake. I reckon it's a warnin'—or else sarcasm."

"Ef you ever git roped thataway, Sam, you're goin' to fall high an' hard," said Mormon. "You'll come to consciousness hawg-tied an' branded."

"That the way it was with you?"

"Yep. I've allus had an affinity fo' the sex. I ain't like Sandy. Nature give him an instinct ag'in' 'em, as pardners. He was bo'n lucky."

But Sandy had gone out. Sam and Mormon trailed him and saw him walking toward the cottonwood grove with Grit at his heels.

"He thinks a heap of Molly," opined Sam. "I reckon he sure hates to lose her, if he is woman-shy. 'Course Molly was jest a kid. But I don't fancy she'll take the back-trail once she gits mixed up with the Keith outfit."

"I ain't so plumb sure of that," returned Mormon. "Molly's bo'n an' bred with the West in her blood. She'll allus hear the call of the range, like a colt that's stepped wild. He'll drink at the tank, but he ain't forgettin' the water-hole."

Sam glanced at Mormon curiously. It wasn't often Mormon showed any touch of what Sam characterized as poetical.

Sandy, under the cottonwoods where the spring bubbled, so near the old prospector's grave that perhaps the old-miner lying there could, in his new affinities with Nature, hear its flow, was thinking much the same thing Mormon had expressed, hoping it might be true, chiding himself lest the thought be selfish.

A granite block stood now as marker for Patrick Casey's resting-place, carved with the words that Mormon had chalked on the wooden headstone. A railing outlined the grave, and the turf within it was kept short and green. Sandy squatted down and rolled a cigarette, smoking it as he sat cross-legged. Grit, as was his custom, leaped the railing lightly and lay down above the dust of his dead master, head couched on paws, turned a little sidewise, his grave eyes surveying Sandy.

"Miss her, ol' son? So do I. Mebbe she'll come back to see us-all. She sure did seem to belong."

Memories of Molly flickered across the screen of his mind: Molly beside her father by the broken wagon, climbing to get the cactus blossom for his cairn; Molly at the grave; Molly giving him the gold piece; the wild ride across the pass and the race for the train and a recollection that was freshest of all, one he had not mentioned to his partners; the touch of Molly's lips on his as he had bade her good-by. The kiss had not been that of a child, there had been a magic in it that had thrilled some chord in Sandy that still responded to that remembrance. He never dwelt on it long, it brought a vague reaction always, stirred that strange instinct of his that had branded him as woman-shy, kept him clean. Part of it was intuitive desire for freedom of will and action, as the wild horse shies at even the shadow of a halter that may mean bondage, however pleasant. Part of it was reverence for woman, deep-seated, a hazy, never analyzed feeling that this belief might be disappointed.

Miranda, alone in the flivver, a new car of her own, bought with money paid by Keith for her claim, was at the ranch-house when Sandy returned. Miranda and young Ed Bailey, accepting Westlake's advice, had sold for cash, getting fifteen thousand dollars to divide between them, refusing more glittering offers of stock. It was a windfall well worth their endeavor and they were amply satisfied. Young Ed had promptly gone to Agricultural College, putting in part of his money to buy new stock and implements for his father's ranch, in which he now held a half partnership. Miranda, Mormon and Sam were talking about this when Sandy came up.

"It sure made a man of young Ed overnight," said the spinster. "He thought it out all by himse'f an' nigh surprised us off our feet. He was sort of ganglin', more ways than one, an' we feared the money 'ud go to his head. Which it did, as a matter of fact, but it was a tonic, 'stead of actin' like an intoxicant. We're plumb proud of him.

"Mr. Westlake was over day before yesterday," she went on. "Goin' on through to the East fo' a consultation with Mr. Keith an' his crowd. Said to say he was mighty sorry he c'udn't git out to the Three Star, but he only had a couple of hours before his train. He says things is boomin' up to Casey Town. There's been some good strikes, one in the claim nex' but one to ours. Keith's goin' to start things whirlin', I reckon."

"Mebbe he'll see Molly," suggested Sam. "Though of course she ain't to Keith's house yet."

"How's that?" asked the spinster eagerly.

"We are waitin' fo' Sandy to show you the letter," said Sam.

Miranda read the letter through twice, folded it and held it in her lap for a few moments.

"Want my opinion on it?" she asked finally.

"Yes," said Sandy. "If the mines are goin' to produce big she'll likely be rich. She went east to git culchured up. Seems like the school idea might not have been the best, after all."

"I don't know. I don't rightly git the motive back of this writin'. It ain't been sent without one. Mebbe she's just taken a fancy to Molly, mebbe she's a woman that likes to do kind things and thinks Molly'll pay well for bein' taken up. I don't mean in money but, if Molly didn't have a show of bein' rich, an' warn't pritty, which she is, I ain't certain Mrs. Keith 'ud be so eager. I guess it's all right but, somehow, it don't hit me as plumb sincere. Still ... I reckon my opinion is like that gilt hawss top of Ed's barn," she ended with a smile. "It was set up too light, I reckon, an' it was allus shiftin', north, south, east an' west, when you c'udn't feel a breath of wind on the level. I ain't got a thing to pin it to, but I feel there's something back of it, like a person's rheumatic spot'll ache when rain's comin'."

"You'd vote ag'in' it?" asked Sandy.

"No-o. I w'udn't."

"I figgered on puttin' it up to Molly."

"That's a good idee. An', as her guardeen, I'd suggest that Mrs. Keith lives up to that half-promise of hers an' make it a condition she brings Molly out here inside of six months. That'll give time for a fair trial an' you can see right then fo' yoreself how it's workin'. Long's she goin' to have teachers she can't lose much."

"That's a plumb fine idee," said Mormon, looking triumphantly at his partners.

It