The Ramblin' Kid by Earl Wayland Bowman (free novel reading sites .TXT) 📕

Ophelia," Chuck advised, "one of them can love her one day and the other the next—"

"That's reasonable," Bert declared, "she'd probably enjoy a change herself."

"I tell you I ain't got time," Parker protested.

"Neither have I," Old Heck added.

"All right then, I ain't either!" Skinny declared. "If you two ain't willing to take turn about with the widow and love her off and on between you I'll be everlastingly hell-tooted if I'm going to stand for a whole one by myself all of the time! I'll go on strike first and start right now!"

"We'll stay with you, Skinny," the Ramblin' Kid exclaimed with a laugh, "th' whole bunch will quit till Parker an' Old Heck grants our demands."

"We'll all quit!" the cowboys chorused.

"Oh, well, Parker," Old Heck grumbled, "I reckon we'll have to do it!"

"It won't be hard work," the Ramblin' Kid said consolingly, "all you got to do is set still an' leave it to Ophelia. Widows are expert love-makers themselves an' know how to keep things goin'!"

It was settled. Skinny Rawlins, at an increase of ten dollars a month on his wage, protestingly, was elected official love-maker to Carolyn June Dixon, Old Heck's niece, speeding unsuspectingly toward the Quarter Circle KT, and Old Heck and Parker between them were to divide the affections of Ophelia Cobb, widow and chaperon.

In the mind of every cowboy on the ranch there was one thought unexpressed but very insistent that night, "Wonder what She looks like?" thinking, of course, of Carolyn June.

Old Heck and Parker also were disturbed by a common worry. As each sank into fitful sleep, thinking of Ophelia Cobb, the widow, and his own predestinated affinity he murmured:

"What if she insists on getting married?"

CHAPTER III WHICH ONE'S WHICH

Eagle Butte sprawled hot and thirsty under the melting sunshine of mid-forenoon. It was not a prepossessing town. All told, no more than two hundred buildings were within its corporate limits. A giant mound, capped by a crown of crumbling, weather-tinted rock, rose abruptly at the northern edge of the village and gave the place its name. Cimarron River, sluggish and yellow, bounded the town on the south. The dominant note of Eagle Butte was a pathetic mixture of regret for glories of other days and clumsy ambition to assume the ways of a city. Striving hard to be modern it succeeded only in being grotesque.

The western plains are sprinkled with towns like that. Towns that once, in the time of the long-horn steer and the forty-four and the nerve to handle both, were frankly unconventional. Touched later by the black magic of development, bringing brick buildings, prohibition, picture shows, real-estate boosters, speculation and attendant evils or benefits as one chooses to classify them, they became neither elemental nor ethical—mere gawky mimics of both.

When western Texas was cow-country and nothing else Eagle Butte at least was picturesque. Flickering lights, gay laughter—sometimes curses and the sounds of revolver shots, of battles fought close and quick and to a finish—wheezy music, click of ivory chips, the clink of glasses, from old Bonanza's and similar rendezvous of hilarity lured to the dance, faro, roulette, the poker table or the hardwood polished bar.

The Mecca it was in those days for cowboys weary with months on the wide-flung range.

To-day Eagle Butte is modest, mild and super-subdued.

A garage, cement built, squatty and low and painfully new, its wide-mouthed entrance guarded by a gasoline pump freshly painted and exceedingly red, stands at the eastern end of the single, broad, un-paved business street. All of the stores face one way—north—and look sleepily across at the railroad track, the low-eaved, yellow, Santa Fe station and the sunburnt sides of the butte beyond. Opposite the station the old Occidental Hotel with its high porch, wide steps, narrow windows, dingy weather-board sides and blackened roof, still stands to remind old-timers of the days of long ago.

A city marshal, Tom Poole, a long, slim, Sandy-mustached Missourian, completes the picture of Eagle Butte. Regularly he meets the arriving trains and by the glistening three-inch nickel star pinned to his left suspender announces to the traveling world that here, on the one time woolly Kiowa, law and order at last prevail. Odd times the marshal farms a ten-acre truck patch close to the river at the southern edge of the town. Pending the arrival of trains he divides his time between the front steps of the old hotel and the Elite Amusement Parlor, Eagle Butte's single den of iniquity where pocket pool, billiards, solo—devilish dissipations these!—along with root beer, ginger ale, nut sundaes, soda-pop, milk shakes and similar enticements are served to those, of reckless and untamed temperaments.

From the open door of the pool hall the marshal saw a thin, black streak of smoke curling far out on the horizon—a dozen miles—northeast of Eagle Butte.

"Seventeen's comin'," he remarked to the trio of idlers leaning against the side of the building; "guess I'd better go over an' see who's on her," moving as he spoke out into the sizzling glare of the almost deserted street. Glancing toward the east his eyes fastened on a cloud of dust whirling rapidly along the road that came from the direction of the lower Cimarron.

"Gosh, lookey yonder," he muttered, "that must be Old Heck drivin' his new automobile—th' darn fool is goin' to bust something some day, runnin' that car the way he does!"

Walking quickly, to escape the heat, he crossed the street to the station.

Two minutes later the cloud of dust trailed a rakish, trim-lined, high-powered, purring Clagstone "Six" to a stop in front of the Occidental Hotel and Old Heck and Skinny Rawlins climbed glumly and stiffly from the front seat, after the thirty-minute, twenty-mile run from the Quarter Circle KT.

Old Heck had his peculiarities. One of them was insistence for the best—absolutely or nothing. The first pure-bred, hot-blood stallions turned on the Kiowa range carried the Quarter Circle KT brand on their left shoulders. He wanted quality in his stock and spent thousands of dollars importing bulls and stallions to get it. When the automobile came it was the same. No jit for the erratic owner of the last big genuine cow-ranch on the Cimarron. Consequently the beautiful car—a car fit for Fifth Avenue—standing now in front of the old hotel in Eagle Butte.

The smoke on the northeastern sky-line was yet some miles away.

The lanky marshal had reached the station.

"It's a good thing there's prohibition in this town," Skinny muttered as he stepped from the car and started brushing the dust from his coat;

"Why?"

"'Cause I'd go get drunk if there wasn't—. Wonder if a feller could get any boot-leg liquor?"

"Better leave it alone," Old Heck warned, "that kind's worse than none.
It don't make you drunk—just gives you the hysterical hydrophobia!'

"Well, I'd drink anything in an emergency like this if I had it,"
Skinny declared doggedly.

"Train's comin'," Old Heck said shortly; "reckon we'd better go over to the depot—"

"Let's wait here till they get off first," Skinny said. "We can see them from where we are and kind of size 'em up and it won't be so sudden."

"Maybe that would be better," Old Heck answered.

A moment later Number Seventeen, west-bound Santa Fe passenger train, stopped at the yellow station. The rear cars were obscured from the view of Skinny and Old Heck by freight sheds along the track. With the exception of the engine, baggage, mail and express cars, which were hidden by the depot, the rest of the train was in plain sight.

A couple of men got off the day coach. These were followed by a gawky, weirdly dressed girl of uncertain age carrying an old-fashioned telescope traveling bag. At sight of the girl Skinny caught his breath with a gasp. Immediately following her was the tallest, homeliest woman he had ever seen. Thin to the point of emaciation, a wide striped, ill-fitting dress of some cheap material accentuated the angular lines of her body. A tiny narrow-brimmed hat, bright green, with a white feather, dingy and soiled, sticking straight up at the back made her more than ever a caricature. The woman also carried a bag. The two stepped up to the marshal, standing at the cornet: of the station, apparently asking him a question. He answered, pointing as he did to Old Heck and Skinny leaning silently against the side of their car. The woman and girl started toward them.

Fascinated, the cow-men watched them approach.

"My Gawd!" Old Heck hoarsely whispered, "that's them!"

"Let's go!" Skinny exclaimed, sweat starting in unheeded beads on his forehead. "Good lord, let's get in the car and go while we got a chance!"

Old Heck made a move as if to comply, then stopped. "Can't now," he said gloomily, "it's too late!"

As Old Heck turned the woman shrieked in a rasping voice:

"Hey—hey you! Wait a minute!"

The cow-men looked around and stared dumbly, dazedly, at her.

"Can I get you to take me an' my daughter out to that construction camp where they're buildin' a ditch or something?" she asked; "that policeman said maybe we could get you to—" she continued. "I got a job cookin' out there an' Lize here is goin' to wait on table."

Old Heck, still looking up in her eyes, with horror written on every line of his face, his lips twitching till he could scarcely speak, finally managed to say:

"Ain't—ain't you Ophelia?"

"Ophelia? Ophelia who?" she asked, then before he could speak she answered his question: "Ophelia—huh! No, I ain't Ophelia! I'm Missus Jasamine Swope an' a married woman an' you'd better not try to get fresh or—"

Simultaneous with Old Heck's question, Skinny, his eyes riveted on the dowdy girl, asked in a voice barely audible:

"Are you—are you Carolyn June?"

"No, I ain't Carolyn June," she snorted. "Come on, ma; let's go! Them two's crazy or white slavers or somethin'!"

Expressing their scorn and disdain by the angry flirt of their skirts, the woman and girl whirled and walked briskly away toward the garage at the end of the street.

"Praise th' heavens," Old Heck breathed fervently as he gazed spell-bound after the retreating pair, "it wasn't them!"

"Carolyn June and the widow probably went back after all," Skinny said without, looking around and with the barest trace of disappointment, now that the danger seemed past, in his voice. "Maybe they got to thinking about that telegram and decided not to come at last."

"More than likely that was it," Old Heck answered.

Steps sounded behind them. Skinny and Old Heck turned and again they almost fainted at what they saw. The marshal, a leather traveling bag in each hand, accompanied by two smartly dressed women, approached.

"These ladies are huntin' for you," he said to Old Heck, dropping the bags and mopping his face with the sleeve of his shirt. "Guess they're some kind of kin folks," he added.

Concealed by the freight sheds Carolyn June Dixon and Ophelia Cobb had stepped from the Pullman at the rear of the train, unseen by Old Heck and Skinny. Nor had either noticed, being engrossed with the couple that had left than a moment before, the trio coming across from the station.

As the cook and her daughter by their very homeliness had appalled and overwhelmed them, these two, Ophelia and Carolyn June, by their exactly opposite appearance stunned Old Heck and Skinny and rendered them speechless with embarrassment. Both were silently thankful they had shaved that morning and Skinny wondered if his face, like Old Heck's, was streaked with sweat and dust.

For a moment the group studied one another.

Carolyn June held the eyes of Skinny in mute and helpless admiration. Despite the heat of the blazing sun she looked fresh and dean and pleasant—wholly unsoiled by the marks of travel. A snow-white Panama hat, the brim sensibly wide, drooped over cheeks that were touched with a splash of tan that suggested much time in the open. An abundance of hair, wonderfully soft and brown, showing the slightest glint of coppery red running it in vagrant strands, fluffed from under the hat. The skirt of her traveling suit, some light substantial material, reached the span of a hand above the ankle. White shoes, silk stockings that matched and through which glowed the faint pink of firm, healthy, young flesh, lent charm to the costume she wore. Her lips were red and moist and parted over teeth that were strong and white. A saucy upward tilt to the nose, hinting that Carolyn June was a flirt; brown eyes that were level almost with Skinny's and that held in them a