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Authors: Owen Wister

Virginian (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (33 page)

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Molly Wood looked at the envelope. She had never before seen the Virginian’s handwriting. She knew it instantly. She closed her door, and sat down to read it with a beating heart.

SUNK CREEK RANCH,
May 5, 188-.

MY DEAR MISS WOOD:
¹I am sorry about this. My plan was different. It was to get over for a ride with you about now or sooner. This year Spring is early. The snow is off the flats this side the range and where the sun gets a chance to hit the earth strong all day it is green and has flowers too, a good many. You can see them bob and mix together in the wind. The quaking-asps down low on the South side are in small leaf and will soon be twinkling like the flowers do now. I had planned to take a look at this with you and that was a better plan than what I have got to do. The water is high but I could have got over and as for the snow on top of the mountain a man told me nobody could cross it for a week yet, because he had just done it himself. Was not he a funny man? You ought to see how the birds have streamed across the sky while Spring was coming. But you have seen them on your side of the mountain. But I can’t come now Miss Wood. There is a lot for me to do that has to be done and Judge Henry needs more than two eyes just now. I could not think much of myself if I left him for my own wishes.

But the days will be warmer when I come. We will not have to quit by five, and we can get off and sit too. We could not sit now unless for a very short while. If I know when I can come I will try to let you know, but I think it will be this way. I think you will just see me coming for I have things to do of an unsure nature and a good number of such. Do not believe reports about Indians. They are started by editors to keep the soldiers in the country. The friends of the editors get the hay and beef contracts. Indians do not come to settled parts like Bear Creek is. It is all editors and politicianists.

Nothing has happened worth telling you. I have read that play Othello. No man should write down such a thing. Do you know if it is true? I, have seen one worse affair down in Arizona. He killed his little child as well as his wife but such things should not be put down in fine language for the public. I have read Romeo and Juliet. That is beautiful language but Romeo is no man. I like his friend Mercutio that gets killed. He is a man. If he had got Juliet there would have been no foolishness and trouble.

Well Miss Wood I would like to see you to-day. Do you know what I think Monte would do if I rode him out and let the rein slack? He would come straight to your gate for he is a horse of great judgement. (“That’s the first word he has misspelled,” said Molly.) I suppose you are sitting with George Taylor and those children right now. Then George will get old enough to help his father but Uncle Hewie’s twins will be ready for you about then and the supply will keep coming from all quarters all sizes for you to say big A little a to them. There is no news here. Only calves and cows and the hens are laying now which does always seem news to a hen every time she does it. Did I ever tell you about a hen Emily we had here? She was venturesome to an extent I have not seen in other hens only she had poor judgement and would make no family ties. She would keep trying to get interested in the ties of others taking charge of little chicks and bantams and turkeys and puppies one time, and she thought most anything was an egg. I will tell you about her sometime. She died without family ties one day while I was building a house for her to teach school in. (“The outrageous wretch!” cried Molly. And her cheeks turned deep pink as she sat alone with her lover’s letter.)

I am coming the first day I am free. I will be a hundred miles from you most of the time when I am not more but I will ride a hundred miles for one hour and Monte is up to that. After never seeing you for so long I will make one hour do if I have to. Here is a flower I have just been out and picked. I have kissed it now. That is the best I can do yet.

Molly laid the letter in her lap and looked at the flower. Then suddenly she jumped up and pressed it to her lips, and after a long moment held it away from her.

“No,” she said. “No, no, no.” She sat down.

It was some time before she finished the letter. Then once more she got up and put on her hat.

Mrs. Taylor wondered where the girl could be walking so fast. But she was not walking anywhere, and in half an hour she returned, rosy with her swift exercise, but with a spirit as perturbed as when she had set out.

Next morning at six, when she looked out of her window, there was Monte tied to the Taylors’ gate. Ah, could he have come the day before, could she have found him when she returned from that swift walk of hers!

—25—

PROGRESS OF THE LOST DOG

IT WAS NOT EVEN an hour’s visit that the Virginian was able to pay his lady love. But neither had he come a hundred miles to see her. The necessities of his wandering work had chanced to bring him close enough for a glimpse of her, and this glimpse he took, almost on the wing. For he had to rejoin a company of men at once.

“Yu’ got my letter?” he said.

“Yesterday.”

“Yesterday! I wrote it three weeks ago. Well, yu’ got it. This cannot be the hour with you that I mentioned. That’is coming, and maybe very soon.”

She could say nothing. Relief she felt, and yet with it something like a pang.

“To-day does not count,” he told her, “except that every time I see you counts with me. But this is not the hour that I mentioned.”

What little else was said between them upon this early morning shall be told duly. For this visit in its own good time did count momentously, though both of them took it lightly while its fleeting minutes passed. He returned to her two volumes that she had lent him long ago, and with Taylor he left a horse which he had brought for her to ride. As a good-by, he put a bunch of flowers in her hand. Then he was gone, and she watched him going by the thick bushes along the stream. They were pink with wild roses; and the meadow-larks, invisible in the grass, like hiding choristers, sent up across the empty miles of air their unexpected song. Earth and sky had been propitious, could he have stayed; and perhaps one portion of her heart had been propitious too. So, as he rode away on Monte, she watched him, half chilled by reason, half melted by passion, self-thwarted, self-accusing, unresolved. Therefore the days that came for her now were all of them unhappy ones, while for him they were filled with work well done and with changeless longing.

One day it seemed as if a lull was coming, a pause in which he could at last attain that hour with her. He left the camp and turned his face toward Bear Creek. The way led him along Butte Creek. Across the stream lay Balaam’s large ranch; and presently on the other bank he saw Balaam himself, and reined in Monte for a moment to watch what Balaam was doing.

“That’s what I’ve heard,” he muttered to himself. For Balaam had led some horses to the water, and was lashing them heavily because they would not drink. He looked at this spectacle so intently that he did not see Shorty approaching along the trail.

“Morning,” said Shorty to him, with some constraint.

But the Virginian gave him a pleasant greeting.

“I was afraid I’d not catch you so quick,” said Shorty. “This is for you.” He handed his recent foreman a letter of much battered appearance. It was from the Judge. It had not come straight, but very gradually, in the pockets of three successive cow-punchers. As the Virginian glanced over it and saw that the enclosure it contained was for Balaam, his heart fell. Here were new orders for him, and he could not go to see his sweetheart.

“Hello, Shorty!” said Balaam, from over the creek. To the Virginian he gave a slight nod. He did not know him, although he knew well enough who he was.

“Hyeh’s a letter from Judge Henry for yu’,” said the Virginian, and he crossed the creek.

Many weeks before, in the early spring, Balaam had borrowed two horses from the Judge, promising to return them at once. But the Judge, of course, wrote very civilly. He hoped that “this dunning reminder” might be excused. As Balaam read the reminder, he wished that he had sent the horses before. The Judge was a greater man than he in the Territory. Balaam could not but excuse the “dunning reminder,”—but he was ready to be disagreeable to somebody at once.

“Well,” he said, musing aloud in his annoyance, “Judge Henry wants them by the 30th. Well, this is the 24th, and time enough yet.”

“This is the 27th,” said the Virginian, briefly.

That made a difference! Not so easy to reach Sunk Creek in good order by the 30th! Balaam had drifted three sunrises behind the progress of the month. Days look alike, and often lose their very names in the quiet depths of Cattle Land. The horses were not even here at the ranch. Balaam was ready to be very disagreeable now. Suddenly he perceived the date of the Judge’s letter. He held it out to the Virginian, and struck the paper.

“What’s your idea in bringing this here two weeks late?” he said.

Now, when he had struck that paper, Shorty looked at the Virginian. But nothing happened beyond a certain change of light in the Southerner’s eyes. And when the Southerner spoke, it was with his usual gentleness and civility. He explained that the letter had been put in his hands just now by Shorty.

“Oh,” said Balaam. He looked at Shorty. How had he come to be a messenger? “You working for the Sunk Creek outfit again?” said he.

“No,” said Shorty.

Balaam turned to the Virginian again. “How do you expect me to get those horses to Sunk Creek by the 30th?”

The Virginian levelled a lazy eye on Balaam. “I ain’ doin’ any expecting,” said he. His native dialect was on top to-day. “The Judge has friends goin’ to arrive from New Yawk for a trip across the Basin,” he added. “The hawsses are for them.”

Balaam grunted with displeasure, and thought of the sixty or seventy days since he had told the Judge he would return the horses at once. He looked across at Shorty seated in the shade, and through his uneasy thoughts his instinct irrelevantly noted what a good pony the youth rode. It was the same animal he had seen once or twice before. But something must be done. The Judge’s horses were far out on the big range, and must be found and driven in, which would take certainly the rest of this day, possibly part of the next.

Balaam called to one of his men and gave some sharp orders, emphasizing details, and enjoining haste, while the Virginian leaned slightly against his horse, with one arm over the saddle, hearing and understanding, but not smiling outwardly. The man departed to saddle up for his search on the big range, and Balaam resumed the unhitching of his team.

“So you’re not working for the Sunk Creek outfit now?” he inquired of Shorty. He ignored the Virginian. “Working for the Goose Egg?”

“No,” said Shorty.

“Sand Hill outfit, then?”

“No,” said Shorty.

Balaam grinned. He noticed how Shorty’s yellow hair struck through a hole in his hat, and how old and battered were Shorty’s overalls. Shorty had been glad to take a little accidental pay for becoming the bearer of the letter which he had delivered to the Virginian. But even that sum was no longer in his possession. He had passed through Drybone on his way, and at Drybone there had been a game of poker. Shorty’s money was now in the pocket of Trampas. But he had one valuable possession in the world left to him, and that was his horse Pedro.

“Good pony of yours,” said Balaam to him now, from across Butte Creek. Then he struck his own horse in the jaw because he held back from coming to the water as the other had done.

“Your trace ain’t unhitched,” commented the Virginian, pointing.

Balaam loosed the strap he had forgotten, and cut the horse again for consistency’s sake. The animal, bewildered, now came down to the water, with its head in the air, and snuffing as it took short, nervous steps.

The Virginian looked on at this, silent and sombre. He could scarcely interfere between another man and his own beast. Neither he nor Balaam was among those who say their prayers. Yet in this omission they were not equal. A half-great poet
^blonce had a wholly great day, and in that great day he was able to write a poem that has lived and become, with many, a household word. He called it
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
And it is rich with many lines that possess the memory; but these are the golden ones:—

“He prayeth well who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best who loveth best

All things both great and small;

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.”

These lines are the pure gold. They are good to teach children; because after the children come to be men, they may believe at least some part of them still. The Virginian did not know them,—but his heart had taught him many things. I doubt if Balaam knew them either. But on him they would have been as pearls to swine.

“So you’ve quit the round-up?” he resumed to Shorty.

Shorty nodded and looked sidewise at the Virginian.

For the Virginian knew that he had been turned off for going to sleep while night-herding.

Then Balaam threw another glance on Pedro the horse.

“Hello, Shorty!” he called out, for the boy was departing. “Don’t you like dinner any more? It’s ready about now.”

Shorty forded the creek and slung his saddle off, and on invitation turned Pedro, his buckskin pony, into Balaam’s pasture. This was green, the rest of the wide world being yellow, except only where Butte Creek, with its bordering cotton-woods, coiled away into the desert distance like a green snake without end. The Virginian also turned his horse into the pasture. He must stay at the ranch till the Judge’s horses should be found.

“Mrs. Balaam’s East yet,” said her lord, leading the way to his dining room.

He wanted Shorty to dine with him, and could not exclude the Virginian, much as he should have enjoyed this.

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