THE TRAIL OF CONFLICT by EMILIE BAKER LORING (classic fiction .txt) 📕

In her cool, silvery gray linen riding clothes Jerry drew an ecstatic breath as she gave Patches his head. He pirouetted for a moment then settled to a steady canter. On all sides spread fields and pastures in luxuriant greenness. Beyond them mountains swept to hazy, purple heights. In one of the fields a rider turned and looked at her as she passed. She leaned forward in her saddle, opened a gate and closed it; she hoped the man had noticed with what ease it had been accomplished. Great blooded Shorthorns turned ruminative eyes upon her; she had seen women with that same expression when at a society function another entered as to whose social status they were in doubt. Off in a pen a perfect specimen of pure-blooded Ayreshire bull pawed the ground and sent showers of earth spraying on his satiny back. Where the trail left the flower-dotted meadow a spring bubbled from under a mushroom-shaped rock. Jerry dismounted and knelt for a drink, more for the feel of the sparkling water against her lips than because of thirst.

Where should she go, she wondered as she mounted Patches. She had an inspiration. She would make a neighborly call on the wife of the ex-service man at Bear Creek ranch. Jerry had never seen her, but Sandy the Carrier, who was the artery for news in the county, had told her that she was lonely.

The water was high in the stream. The banks were pink with wild roses and among their denseness the meadow-larks kept up an invisible chorus. Jerry forced Patches to a coquettish prance across the rustic bridge. It was there that the apex of the B C triangle of land forced its way between the Double O and the X Y Z. She knew the place; Tommy had shown her the dividing fences. From where the rushing water narrowed and whitened over a rocky bed an aged pack-trail staggered into a cuplike ravine. Rejuvenated by the sunshine in the hollow it straightened and sprinted straight as an arrow for the foot-hills. The sun shone warmly on lustrous fields. The air was spicy with the breath of pines. A rabbit hopped from cover and skurried back again.

As Patches, with ears pricked, silky neck preened, stepped daintily along the trail the girl sang happily:

"'My road calls me, lures me West, east, south and north;

"'Most roads lead me homeward, But my road leads men forth-- To add more miles to the tal----'"

The last word was broken in the middle as they rounded a clump of cottonwoods and came suddenly upon a horseman with a small bunch of sheep. He jerked his hat low over his eyes as the girl hailed him.

"Good-afternoon! I am looking for Bear Creek ranch. Will you direct me?"

Without answering in words the man pointed toward a clutter of buildings in a slight depression. Back of them a scantily timbered hill, in places rich with grass dotted with grazing sheep, gave the impression of an animated Corot. Before Jerry could speak the stranger had galloped off.

"A responsive party," she soliloquized. "Was he afraid of me, I wonder? He registered guilt, all right. If he is the owner of B C ranch Uncle Nick and Bruce Greyson were buncoed. That man is hiding something."

A woman flung open the cabin door as Jerry rode up. She was young and pretty. Her clear, full eyes reminded the girl of Ox-eyed Juno. She was dressed in a bungalow apron of hectic design but scrupulous neatness. A wistful smile trembled on her lips as she asked:

"Have--have you lost your way?"

Jerry Courtlandt shook her head and slipped from the saddle. The gold in her brown eyes predominated as she fastened Patches to a post and approached the door.

"Lost? No, I came to call. I am Geraldine Courtlandt, your neighbor at the Double O."

The woman's face colored a delicate shell pink. Her expression was radiance tempered by incredulity.

"How--how nice of you, Mrs. Courtlandt, how human. I--I am Mrs. Jim Carey. Nell Carey. Won't you come in?"

Jerry liked her dignity. She showed no consciousness of the difference between her three-room shack and the luxurious ranch-house from which the visitor had come. "Thoroughbred," thought the girl as she preceded her hostess into a small but immaculately clean room. With a happy laugh tinged with excitement, Nell Carey waved her to a seat.

"Do make yourself comfortable. If you'll excuse me for a moment I'll bring some tea. The kettle has just boiled. You won't vanish while I'm gone, will you? Promise. I have a horrible fear that your being here may be nothing but an iridescent dream."

Jerry's heart smarted with self-reproach. What heathen people can be and yet be neighbors, she thought. Here was this girl, and she was a girl in spite of that betraying heap of white sewing on the machine in the corner, craving companionship, and she spent hours and hours riding about the country with never a thought of being neighborly. She looked about the room. What part of it wasn't taken up by a roll-top desk was filled by a table fairly groaning under its load of magazines. Three chairs and the machine completed the furnishings; that is, unless a worn violin case in a corner came under that head. She hastily cleared an end of the table as Nell Carey entered with a tea-tray.

"Thank you. You are the first woman who has been inside my house since I came here a year ago," she announced breathlessly. Her eyes glowed, her cheeks were flushed. "Of course Jim has flivvered me to town, but--but I haven't met anyone whom I cared to have here. Cream?"

The loneliness of it, Jerry thought, as she watched her hostess pour thick cream into the fragrant tea with hands that trembled. Then she remembered that she had been at the Double O three months, and that except for Ming Soy and Mrs. Simms, the foreman's wife at Upper Farm, she had not seen a woman. Curious that she had not missed them. Doc Rand had been as neighborly as his busy life permitted; Bruce Greyson had been away from the X Y Z since her arrival. With Steve and Tommy she had been absolutely content. Why? Her thoughts bolted on a tour of investigation; she dragged them back to answer a question from her hostess:

"Not another cookie, thank you. I've been a gourmand, but they are delicious."

"Jim likes them."

"I wonder if I saw your husband by the stream?"

"No. Jim left yesterday on a hunt for help. He'll only be away four days but it seems years to look forward to. You must have met our range-rider, Bill Small. He dropped from the sky, figuratively speaking, ten months ago. I call him the Man of Mystery. He never talks about himself, never mentions his people, never has letters, but he's a shark for work and he plays beautifully. That is his." She nodded toward the violin case in the corner. "The boys from the Double O and the X Y Z hit the trail for the Bear Creek every chance they can get to hear him play."

The sun topped the cap of a mountain like a mammoth red button as Jerry leaned from the saddle and held out her hand.

"You will come and see me, won't you?"

Nell Carey's lips quivered betrayingly.

"Of course, if you really want me. But it will be after----" Jerry gave the hand she held an impulsive squeeze.

"I'll come here again before that. Aren't you madly happy? I must hurry or they'll have the entire outfit hunting for me. Good-bye!"

As she reached the pack-trail she turned and waved and the woman standing alone by her door waved back. What an atom she seemed in the wide spaces about her. As she rode Jerry's mind was full of the home she had left behind. What courage Nell Carey had had to follow her man into a wilderness like that. And now a little child was coming. She thought of her father, of his anger because his daughter had insisted upon accompanying the man she had married to the Double O ranch with all its luxury. Men were curious creatures.

The sun had disappeared, fluffy islands of cloud, pink, lemon and violet, floated above the tops of the mountains, the sky was fast purpling, there was a suspicion of razor-edge in the crystal-clear air as Jerry unlatched the gate by the road and closed it after her. She gave Patches his head and raced toward the ranch-house. In the distance she saw two horsemen galloping toward her. Steve and Pete Gerrish! She glanced guiltily at her wrist watch. She was late. Did Steve care enough to be anxious? The thought gave a tingling sense of excitement. As she came near the two riders she touched Patches with her spurs, then pulled him up suddenly. He stop-slid on his haunches, a bit of circus-variety of horsemanship which Tommy had taught her. She pulled off her broad-brimmed hat with a sweep reminiscent of José at his best and called gayly:

"Que hay, señors! Buenos dias! La señora has been on a wild devil of a ride, yes?"

She laughed up into Steve's white face. He moistened his lips as though they were stiff. She had worried him then. Pete Gerrish's eyes regarded her with frank admiration.

"Can she ride, Chief? I want to know! Can she ride! Steve is scared, ma'am. There's a lot of strangers snooping round and he----"

"Where have you been, Jerry?" Courtlandt had recovered his voice.

"Don't beat me, Steve!" Patches was loping along between Blue Devil and Gerrish's big sorrel. Encouraged by the foreman's quickly suppressed "Haw-haw" at her pleasantry, she went on, "I've been to Bear Creek ranch for tea."

"To the B C alone?"

"Do I look as though I carried concealed escorts?" with tormenting charm. "I had an acute attack of conscience. It occurred to me that I had been something of a heathen to ignore little Mrs. Carey, though I didn't know that she was little when I went. I only knew what Sandy had told me, that there was a woman at Bear Creek hungering for someone of her own sex to talk to."

"You are to be commended more for your conscience than your common sense," retorted Courtlandt dryly. "Don't do it again." They reached the ranch-house steps as he spoke. He slipped to the ground and before Jerry could protest had lifted her from the saddle. She felt the muscles of his arms twitch in the second he held her. Before she could speak he had gathered up the bridles of the horses and started for the corral. The brown depths of the girl's eyes were troubled as she looked after him. What menaced the good-comradeship which their arrival at the Double O had established between herself and Steve? Now he reminded her of a wary foe thrusting and retreating on the slightest pretext. What could she have done to change him so? She looked up at Gerrish, a puzzled question in her eyes. He shook his head as his met them.

"We mustn't mind if the Chief does act a little locoed, ma'am. He's walkin' right into trouble. It's Ranlett the Skunk, saving your presence. Somebody's cayuse got rid of some hobbles when the fence was cut where the Double O and the X Y Z join, and a bunch of calves has disappeared. There ain't hide nor hair of 'em to be seen. But, shucks, don't tell the Chief I told you. I'll mosey 'long now."

Jerry looked after him with narrowed eyes. "Where the Double O and the X Y Z join," Pete had said. That was