The Ranch at the Wolverine
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"Ward Warren, you're a perfectly awful hookin'-cough man! There. Now that's going to be the very last one – Oh, Ward, it isn't!" She knelt and curved an arm around his face and kissed him again and yet again. "I do love you, Ward. I've been a weak-kneed, horrid thing, and I'm ashamed to the middle of my bones. You're my own brave buckaroo always – always! You've done what no other man would do, and you don't whine about it; and I've been weak and – horrid; and I'll have to love you about a million years before I can quit feeling ashamed." She kissed him again with a passion of remorse for her doubts of him.
"Are you through being pals, Wilhemina?" Ward broke rules and freed an arm, so that he could hold her closer.
"No, I'm just beginning. Just beginning right. I'm your pal for keeps. But – "
"I love you for keeps, lady mine." Ward stifled another cough. "When are you going to – marry me?"
"Oh, when you get over the hookin'-cough, I s'pose." Once more Billy Louise, for the good of her patient, forced herself into safe flippancy – that was not flippant at all, but merely a tender pretense.
"Now it's up to you to show me whether you are in any hurry at all to get well," she said. "Keep your hands under the covers while I make some tea. That fever of yours has got to be stopped immediately – to once."
She went over and busied herself about the stove, never once looking toward the bed, though she must have felt Ward's eyes worshiping her. She was terribly worried about Ward; so worried that she put everything else into the background of her mind and set herself sternly to the need of breaking the fever and lessening the evident congestion in his lungs.
She hunted through the cupboards and found a bottle of turpentine; syrupy and yellowed with age, but pungent with strength. She found some lard in a small bucket and melted half a teacupful. Then she tore up a woolen undershirt she found hanging on a nail and bore relentlessly down upon him.
"You gotta be greased all over your lungs," she announced with a matter-of-factness that cost her something; for Billy Louise's innate modesty was only just topped by her good sense.
Ward submitted without protest while she bared his chest – as white as her own – and applied the warm mixture with a smoothly vigorous palm. "That'll fix the hookin'-cough," she said, as she spread the warm layers of woolen cloth smoothly from shoulder to shoulder. "How does it feel?"
"Great," he assured her succinctly, and wisely omitted any love-making.
"Will your game leg let you turn over? Because there's some dope left, and it ought to go between your shoulders."
"The game leg ought to stand more than that," he told her, turning slowly. "If I hadn't got this cold tacked onto me, I'd have been trying to walk on it by now."
"Better give it time – since you've been game enough to lie here all this while and take care of it. I don't believe I'd have had nerve enough for that, Ward." She poured turpentine and lard into her palm, reached inside his collar and rubbed it on his shoulders. "Good thing you had plenty of grub handy. But it must have been awful!"
"It was pretty damned lonesome," he admitted laconically, and that was as far as his complainings went.
Billy Louise then poured the water off the sage leaves she had been brewing in a tin basin, carefully fished out a stem or two, and made Ward drink every bitter drop. Then she covered him to the eyes and hardened her heart against his discomfort, while she kept the handkerchief cool on his head and between times swept the floor with a carefully dampened broom and wiped the dust off things and restored the room to its most cheerful atmosphere of livableness.
"Wan' a drink," mumbled Ward, with a blanket over his mouth and a raveled thread tickling his nose so that he squirmed.
Billy Louise went over and laid her fingers on his neck. "I can't tell whether it's grease or perspiration," she said, laughing a little. "What are you squinting up your nose for? Surely to goodness you don't mind that little, harmless raveling? If you wouldn't go on breathing, it wouldn't wiggle around so much!" Nevertheless, she plucked the tormenting thread and threw it on the floor.
"Gimme – drink," Ward mumbled again.
"There's more sage tea – "
"Waugh!"
"I suppose that means you aren't crazy about sage tea! Well, I might give you a teenty-weenty speck more of coffee. You can't have water yet, you know. You've – you've got to sweat like a nigger in a cotton patch first." (Billy Louise could talk very nicely when she wanted to do so. The Billy of her could also be humanly inelegant when she felt like it, as you see.)
Ward grunted something and afterwards signified that he would take the coffee and call it square.
The next time she went near him, he was wrinkling his lean nose because beads of perspiration were standing there and slipping occasionally down to his cheeks.
"Fine! You're two niggers in a cotton patch now," she announced cheeringly. "And Mr. Hookin'-cough will have to hunt another home, I reckon. You weren't half as hoarse when you swore that last time."
It was physically impossible for Ward to blush, since he was already the color of a boiled beet; but he looked guilty when she uncovered the rest of his face and wiped off the gathered moisture. "I didn't think you'd hear," he grinned embarrassedly.
"I was listening for it, buckaroo. I'd have been scared to pieces if you hadn't cussed a little. I'd have thought sure you were going to die. A man," she added sententiously, "always has a chance as long as he's able to swear. It's like a horse wiggling his ears."
The comparison reminded her that she intended to shut Rattler in the hay corral; she dried Ward's hands hastily, pulled the wolf-skins off the bed, and commanded him to keep covered until she came back. She ran down bareheaded to the stable, saw Rattler industriously boring his nose into the stack, and put up the gate.
When she went into the cabin again, Ward gave a start and opened his eyes like one who has been dozing. Billy Louise smiled with gratification. He was better. She knew he was better. She did not speak, but went over to the stove and pretended to be busy there, though she was careful to make no noise. When she turned finally and glanced toward the bed, Ward was asleep.
Billy Louise took a deep breath, tiptoed over to the bench beside the table, sat down, and pillowed her head on her folded arms. She wanted to cry, and she needed to think, and she was deadly, deadly tired.
CHAPTER XXV
THE WOLF JOKE
Billy Louise stayed all night. She was afraid to leave Ward until his cold was safely better, and there was no one living near enough to summon; no one whom she wanted to summon, in fact, however close they might have been. She spent most of the night curled comfortably on the wolf-skins beside the stove, with a sack of flour for a pillow and Ward's fur coat for covering. Ward slept more unbrokenly than he had done for a long time, while Billy Louise lay cuddled under the smelly fur and thought and thought.
In the morning, if Ward were well enough, she meant to ask him about those cattle he had mentioned when he thought her Buck Olney. They were the same ones which she had seen in the Cove, she knew. Ward had told enough to prove that. He had, in fact, told nearly all she needed to know – except the mystery of his prosperity. He had not mentioned that, and Billy Louise was more curious than ever about his "wolf hunting."
At sunrise she rebuilt the fire and made fresh coffee and a stew from the pieces of jerky she had soaked overnight for the purpose. She wanted eggs, and bread for toast, and fresh cream; but she did not have them, and so she managed a very creditable breakfast for her patient without these desirables.
"Say, that's great. A fellow doesn't appreciate coffee and warm food until he's eaten out of cans and boxes for a month or so. You're a great little lady, Wilhemina. I wish you'd happened along sooner – about six weeks sooner. I'd have got some pleasure out of my broken leg then, maybe."
"Was it – did Buck Olney break it?" Billy Louise knew he had not, but she had been waiting for a chance to open the subject.
"No. I broke it myself, pulling Rattler off a bank into some rocks. I believe I could walk on it, doctor, if you could rustle me something to use for crutches. That's what held me in bed so long. Beckon you could manufacture a pair for me?" His eyes made love. "You've done everything else." He caught her hand and kissed the palm of it. "Can't the Billy part turn carpenter?"
"I'll see. Say, Ward, do you think you could shave off those whiskers if I got everything ready for you? I don't like you to look like old Sourdough. Or maybe I could do it. I – I used to shave daddy's neck, sometimes."
Ward ran his fingers thoughtfully over his hairy cheeks. "I expect I do look like a prehistoric ancestor. I'll see what I can do about it. I set my own leg; I guess I can shave myself. You're a great doctor, Wilhemina. You knocked that cold up to a peak, all right. But – I don't believe you'd better tackle barbering, my dear girl."
Billy Louise pouted her lips at him. She could afford to pout now: Ward was so like himself that she did not worry over him at all. She also felt that she could afford to badger him into telling her some of the things she wanted to know.
"Where did you hang Buck?" she asked naïvely.
"Huh?" Ward's eyes bored into hers with his intent look, trying to read her thoughts.
"Where was it you hanged Buck Olney?"
"Nowhere. I put the fear of the Lord into him, that's all. How did you hear about it?"
"From you." Billy Louise was maddeningly calm. "You told me all about it yesterday. And about those cattle in the corral up here. I found them yesterday myself, Ward – only it seems a month ago! – down in the Cove."
"Did you?"
"Yes, and I drove them up to the corral and read the riot act to Marthy and Charlie Fox – "
"Huh! What did they say?"
"Oh, they denied it, of course! What are we going to do about it, Ward?"
"Nothing, I guess. What did you want to do?"
"I don't know. I don't want to hurt them, and I don't want them to hurt anyone else. Do you know Seabeck? He's an awfully square old fellow. I believe – " An idea formed vaguely in the back of Billy Louise's mind. "I believe I could persuade him – "
"I believe you could persuade the devil himself, if you took a notion to try," Ward affirmed sincerely, when she hesitated. "What do you want to persuade him into?"
"Oh, nothing, I guess! How do you feel, Ward? We've got to stick to the job of getting you fit to leave here and go on down to the ranch with me. When do you think you could manage to ride?"
Ward looked longingly out of the window, just as he had been looking for six weeks. "I think I could manage it now," he said doggedly, because of his great longing. "I set my own leg – "
"Yes, and I'm willing to admit you're a wonder, and have gotten the stoics beaten at their own game. Still, there's a limit to what the human body will stand. I'm going down to tend the horses, and if you think you can walk without hurting your leg, I'll hunt some forked sticks for crutches. We'll see how you make out with them, first, before we talk about riding twenty miles on horseback. Besides, you'd catch more cold if you went out to-day."
While she talked, her plans took definite shape in the back of her mind. She took Buck Olney's knife that was lying on the window-sill and went in search of crutches among the willows along the creek. Forked sticks were plentiful enough, but it was not so easy to find two that would support even so skinny a man as Ward. She compromised by cutting four that seemed suitable and binding them together in couples.
When she went in with her makeshifts, Ward was sitting upon the side of the bunk, clothed and in his right mind – but pitifully wobbly and ashamed of his weakness.
"You shouldn't have tried to get up yet," she scolded. "Do you want to be worse, so I'll have to cure you all over again?" Then, woman-like, she proceeded to annul the effect by petting and sympathy.
It was while she was sitting in the one chair, padding the sticks crudely enough but effectively, that Ward, gazing at her with the light of love in his eyes, thought of something he had meant to tell her.
"Oh, by the way, I've got something for you, Wilhemina," he said. "Put down that thing and come over here. I want to shave before I take a try at walking, anyway. See here, lady-mine. How would you like these strung on a gold chain?"
From under his pillow he drew out a tobacco sack and emptied the contents into her palm. "Those are your Christmas present, Bill-Loo. Like 'em?"
"Do I!" Billy Louise held up the biggest one and stared at it round-eyed. "Gold nuggets! Where in the world – "
"That's what I'm going to tell you – now you're through being just pals. Oh, I'd have told you, anyway, I reckon, only the play never came right, after that first little squabble we had over it." He put an arm around her, pulled her down beside him, and rubbed his bristly chin over her hair. "That's the wolf joke, William. I did make a lot of money wolfing – on the square. I dug out a den of pups and struck a little pocket of pretty rich gravel. I've been busy panning it out all the time I could spare, till the creek froze up."
"You found a gold mine?" Billy Louise gasped. "Why, whoever would have thought – "
"Oh, I wouldn't call it a gold mine, exactly," he hastened to assure her, before her imagination dazzled her. "There isn't enough of it. It's just a pocket. I've cleaned up about eighteen hundred dollars, this summer, besides these nuggets. Maybe more. And there's some left yet. I found both ends of the streak; it lies along a ledge on the side of a gully. I couldn't find anything except in that one streak of gravel; and when that's gone she's done, as near as I can figure. But it isn't all gone yet, lady mine. There's enough left to pay the preacher, anyway. That big fellow I found along toward the last, just before I quit working." He kissed her gravely. "Poor old girl! She's dead game, all right, and she's kind of had the cards stacked against her from the start. But things are going to come easier from now on, if I'm any prophet. It's too bad – "
Billy Louise read his thought.
"Mommie looked so peaceful, Ward. At the last, I mean. If I could have waked her up, I don't believe I'd have had the heart to do it. She never was very happy; you know that. She couldn't seem to see the happiness in little things. So many are like that. And she looked happier – at the last – than I ever saw her look before. So – I'm happier, too – since yesterday."
"Are you?" Ward dropped his face against her hair and held it there for a minute. It was not his cold altogether that had made his voice break hoarsely over those two words.
"Do you know – " Billy Louise was lifting the nuggets one after the other and letting them drop to her lap – "happiness is like gold, Ward. We've got to pan it out of life ourselves. If we try to steal it from someone else, we pay the penalty, don't you think? And so many go looking and looking for great big chunks of it all – all – whatever they do to it." She laughed a little at her ignorance of the technical process. "You see what I mean, don't you? We get a streak of gravel; that's life. And we can pan out happiness if we try – little nuggets and sometimes just colors – but it keeps us hoping and working."
"Doctor of philosophy!" Ward kissed her hair. "You're a great little girl, all right. And I'm the buckaroo that has struck a mighty rich streak of pay dirt in life, Wilhemina. I'm panning out happiness millions to the pan right now."
Billy Louise, attacked with a spasm of shyness, went abruptly back to padding the makeshift crutches and changed the subject.
"I'm going home, soon as I fix you comfy," she said.
Whereupon Ward protested most strenuously and did not look in the least like a man who has just announced himself a millionaire in happiness.
"What for?" he demanded, after he had exhausted himself to no purpose in telling her that she should not leave the cabin until he could go along.
"I want eggs – for you, you ungrateful beast. And some bread for toast. And I want to tell Phoebe and John where I am."
"You think those Injuns are going to hurt themselves worrying? I don't want any eggs and toast. I've managed all right on crackers and jerky for six weeks, so I guess I can stand it a few hours longer. Still, if you're crazy to go – " He dropped back on the pillow and turned his face away.
Billy Louise worked silently until she had made the crutches as soft on top as she could. Then she hunted for Ward's razor and shaving-cup and after one or two failures – through using too much water – she managed to make a cup of very nice lather.
"Now, buckaroo, don't be a sulky kid," she said, firmly as she could. "You know it's hard enough for me to go off and leave you here like this. But, as you say, you've managed to get along for six weeks without me, so – "
"Sure. I could do it again, I reckon." Ward turned a gloomy pair of eyes upon her. "What's the rush? Do you think it isn't proper – "
"It's always proper to do what is right and helpful and kind," said Billy Louise with dignity, because she had made up her mind and was trying not to weaken. "I've lived in this country all my life, and I guess my reputation will stand this little strain," she went on lightly, "even if anyone finds it out. I've got to go, that's all. Those people in the Cove – " It was eloquent of her stern justice that she could not bring herself to speak them by name.
"You aren't going to turn them over to the sheriff, are you, William? Good Lord, girl! If I can – "
"Your lather is getting cold," Billy Louise said evenly. "I ought to have known better than mention the subject at all. I'm going to do what's right. I believe I have some faint idea of right and wrong, Ward Warren. And I'm not going to do anything that I don't feel is right, or anything that I'll be sorry for. You might trust me, I think. It's early yet – "
"You'll come back before night, won't you?" From his tone, Ward had yielded the point – and was minded to yield with what graciousness he could command. It had occurred to him that he was behaving like a selfish booby. Billy Louise should not call him weak-kneed; whatever happened.
"No, I don't think I can, Ward. I might send John."
"You needn't bother. I don't want John."
"Well, I don't suppose he would be much comfort. I'll make a pot of coffee, Ward, and I'll fill the lantern and fix it so you can heat a cup when you want to; how will that be?" She brightened a little at the idea. "And I'll fix your lungs up again before I go and bake some nice, hot biscuits and put here, and butter, and fix you just as comfy as possible. Or, if you can manage to get around with the crutches, all the better. I'll leave things so you won't have to go outside for a thing.
"And, Ward" – she bent over him anxiously – "I'm going because I must. For all our sakes I must go right away. And I'll come back to-morrow just as early as I can get here. So if you are real good, and take care of your cold, and get a little strong about walking, you can go back with me. And to-morrow night you can sit in daddy's chair before the fireplace, and we'll have chicken and – "
"All right – all right!" Ward laughed suddenly. "Will you give me a lump of sugar and let me look at all the pitty pittys in the album? Oh, you William the Conqueror!" He caught her close, when he saw that he had hurt her feelings a little, and held her a minute. "When I get two good legs under me, Wilhemina," he promised softly, "I'm going to stake myself to the job of taking care of you. Your cheeks are pretty thin, little lady-girl. Damn the luck, anyway!"
"Here's the lather. I'm going down and saddle up," said Billy Louise. "When I come back, we'll see how the crutches work."
"Oh, say!" Ward called after her. "My saddle's behind a buck bush up along the trail where the bank is cut straight. I forgot about that. And would you mind bringing the looking-glass, William? How the deuce do you think a man's going to shave without a glass? And that old paper to wipe the lather on, while you're at it. I see the Billy of you hasn't got to the shaving-point yet, at any rate!"
Billy Louise took down the glass and flung it on the bed, threw the newspaper after it, and departed with her chin in the air to find his saddle and bridle and carry them to the stable.
Ward, sitting up in bed, stared at the closed door remorsefully. When he was convinced that she did not intend to return even for the last word which is so tempting to a woman, he reached for the glass, held it up, and looked within.
"Sufferin' saddle blankets!" he grunted and dropped the glass. "And she could kiss a mug like that!"
CHAPTER XXVI
"HM-MM!"
Floyd Carson was a somewhat phlegmatic young man, but he swore an astonished oath when he saw Billy Louise galloping along the lane that led nowhere except to the womanless abode of Samuel Seabeck. He walked very fast to the stable, which was the first logical stopping-place, and so he met Billy Louise before she had time to dismount, even supposing she intended to do so.
"Hello, Floyd! Is Mr. Seabeck at home?" Billy Louise was not one to waste time in the superfluities of speech when she had anything on her mind.
"Sure. Get off, and I'll put up your horse. We're just through eatin', but our grub carpenter will rustle something for yuh, all right."
"No, I can't stop this time. I'm not hungry, anyway. Just give a yell for Mr. Seabeck, will you? I want to see him a minute."
Floyd eyed her uncertainly, decided that Billy Louise was not in the mood to yield to persuasion, and tactfully hurried off to find Seabeck without shouting for him – lest he bring others also, who were evidently not wanted at all. He took it that Billy Louise felt some diffidence about visiting a strictly bachelor outfit, and he set himself to relieve her of any embarrassment.
Presently Seabeck himself came from the dirt-roofed, rambling cabin which was his home and strode down the path, buttoning his coat as he came. Floyd's face showed for a minute in the doorway before he effaced himself completely, and not another man was in sight anywhere. Billy Louise was grateful to circumstance; she had dreaded this visit, though not for the reason Floyd Carson believed.
"How de do, Miss MacDonald? Pretty nice day, but I'm afraid it's a weather-breeder. The wind's trying to change, I notice."
"Yes, and so I mustn't stop. Could you ride part way home with me, Mr. Seabeck? I – want to talk with you about something. And I can't stop a minute. I must get home."
"Why, certainly, I'll go. If you'll wait just a minute while I saddle up – or if you'd rather ride on, I'll overtake you."
"I'll ride on, I think. Blue hates standing around, and he's a little warm, too. You're awfully good, Mr. Seabeck – "
"Oh, not at all!" Seabeck stubbed his toe on the stable doorsill in his confusion at the praise. "I'll be right along, soon as I can slap a saddle on." He disappeared, and Billy Louise turned and loped slowly down the lane.
So far, so good. Billy Louise tried to believe that it was all going to be as plain sailing as this fortuitous beginning, but she was aware of a nervous fluttering in her throat while she waited, and she knew that she positively dreaded hearing Seabeck gallop up behind her on the frozen trail. "Why will people do things that make a lot of trouble for others?" she cried out petulantly. And then she heard the steady pluck, pluckety-pluck of Seabeck's horse, and twisted her lips with a whimsical acceptance of the part she had set herself to play. She might smash things, she told herself, but at the worst it would be only a premature smash. "Come, Bill," she adjured herself, pretending it was what Ward would have said, had he looked into her mind. "Be a Bill-the-Conk – and a good one! Shove in your chips and play for all there is in it."
"You must have some lightning method of saddling, Mr. Seabeck," she smiled over her shoulder at him when he came up.
"We learn to do things quick when we've handled cattle a few years," he admitted. He had a diffident manner of receiving compliments which pleased Billy Louise and gave her confidence a needed brace. She was not a skilled coquette; she was too honest and too straightforward for that. Still, nature places certain weapons in the hands of a woman, and instinct shows her how to use them. Seabeck, from his very unaccustomedness to women, seemed to her particularly pliable. Billy Louise took her courage in both hands and went straight to the point.