_ CHAPTER IX. THE HALT AND THE BLIND
The sweet valley, surrounded by its mountains, was now a sight to quicken the pulse of any heart alive to beauty, as it lay in its long vistas before them; but neither of these two saw the mountains or the trees, or the green levels that lay between. Long silences fell, broken only by the crackling clatter of the horses' hoofs on the hard roadway.
It was Mary Warren who at last spoke, after a deep breath, as though summoning her resolution. "You're an honest man," said she. "I ought to be honest with you."
"I reckon that's so enough, ma'am," said Sim Gage. "But I just told you I ain't been honest with you. I never wrote one of them letters that you got--it was some one else."
"But you came to meet me--you're here----"
"Yes, but I didn't write them letters. That was all done by friends of mine."
"That's very strange. That's just the reason I wanted to tell
you that I hadn't been honest--I never wrote the letters that
you got! It was my room-mate, Annie Squires."
"So? That's funny, ain't it? Some folks has funny idees of jokes. I reckon they thought this was a joke. It ain't."
"Your letters seemed like you seem now," she broke in. "It seems to me you must have written every word."
"Ma'am----" said Sim Gage; and broke down.
"Yes, sir?"
"Them is the finest words I ever heard in my life! I ain't been much. If I could only live up to them words, now----
"Besides," he went on, a rising happiness in his tones, "seems like you and me was one just as honest as the other, and both meaning fair. That makes me feel a heap easier. If it does you, you're welcome."
Blind as she was, Mary Warren knew now the gulf between this man's life and hers. But his words were so kind. And she so much needed a friend.
"You're a forgiving man, Mr. Gage," said she.
"No, I ain't. I'm a awful man. When you learn more about me you'll think I'm the worst man you ever seen."
"We'll have to wait," was all that Mary Warren could think to say. But after a time she turned her face toward him once more.
"Do you know," said she, "I think you're a gentleman!"
"Oh, my Lord!" said Sim Gage, his eyes going every which way. "Oh, my good Lord!"
"Well, it's true. Look--you haven't said a word or done a thing--you haven't touched me--or laughed--or--or hinted--not once. That's being a gentleman, in a time like this. This--this is a very hard place for a woman."
"It ain't so easy fer a man! But I couldn't have done no other way, could I?"
She made no answer. "Are there many other women in this valley, Mr. Gage?" she asked after a time. "Who are they? What are they like?"
"Five, in twenty-two miles between my place and town, ma'am," he answered, "when they're home. The nearedest one to us is about couple miles, unless you cut through the fields."
"Who is she? What is she like?"
"That is Mis' Davidson, our school ma'am-- She's the only woman I seen a'most all last summer, unlessen onct in a while a woman would come out with some fishing party in a automobile. Most of them crosses up above on the bridge and comes down the other side of the creek from us. Seems to me sometimes women has always been just acrosst the creek from me, ma'am. I don't know much about them. Now, Wid--Wid Gardner--he's the next rancher to me, this side--he sometimes has folks come there in the fishing season."
"Your log house is all painted and nice, isn't it?"
"
Painted, ma'am? Lord, no! You don't paint a log house none."
"I never saw one in my life," said she contritely; then, sighing. "I never will, now."
"Do men come to your place very much, then?" she asked at length.
"Why, Wid, he sometimes comes over."
"And who is Wid?"
"Like I said, he's got the next ranch to mine. He's maybe a forwarder sort of man than me."
"Did he have anything to do with--that advertisement?"
"How can you guess things like that?"
"He thought you were all alone?"
"We did have some talk. But I want to tell you one thing, ma'am--if I had ever thought onct that we'd a-brung a woman like
you here, I'd never of been part nor party to it. I guess not!"
"And yet you can't see why you're a gentleman!" said she again slowly.
"You said you'd be going back home again before long?" It was the first thing Sim Gage could say.
"I haven't any home."
"Nor no folks neither?"
"There's not a soul in the world that I could go back to, Mr. Gage. So now, I've told you the truth."
"But there was oncet, maybe?" he said shrewdly. "How old are you?" He flushed suddenly at this question, which he asked before he thought.
"I'm twenty-five."
"You don't look that old. Me, I'm thirty-seven. I'm too old to marry. Now I never will."
"How do you know?" she said. "What do you mean?" As she spoke she felt the tears come again on her cheeks, felt her hands trembling.
"Well, ma'am, I know mighty well I'll never marry now. Of course, if one sort of woman had came out here--big and strong enough to be a housekeeper and nothing else, and all that, and one thing with another--I won't say what might have happened. Strange things has happened that way--right out of them damn
Hearts Aflame ads--right around along in here, in this here valley, too, I know. Well, of course, a man can't get along so well, ranching, unless he has a wife----"
"Or a housekeeper?"
"Why, yes. That's what we advertised fer. I didn't know it."
Mary Warren pondered for a long time.
"Look at me," she said at last. "There's no place for me back home, and none here. What sort of housekeeper would I make--and what sort of--of--wife? I'm disappointing you; and you're disappointing me. What shall we both do?"
"Why, how do you mean?" said Sim Gage, wonderingly. "Disappoint you? Of course I couldn't marry a woman like you! You don't want me to do
that? That wouldn't be right."
"Oh, I don't mean that! I don't know what I did mean!"
Some sense of her perturbation must have come to him. "Now don't you worry, ma'am. Don't you git troubled none a-tall. I'm a-goin' to take care of you myself until everything gits all right."
"I'm a thief! I'm a beggar!" was all she could say.
"The same here, ma'am! You've got nothing on me," said Sim Gage. "What I said is, we're in the same boat, and we got to go the best way we can till things shapes out. It ain't very much I got to offer you. Us sagebrushers has to take the leavings."
"You've said the truth for me--the very truth. I'm of the discard--I can't earn my living. Leavings! And I wanted to earn my living."
"You've earned it now, ma'am," said Sim Gage; and perhaps made the largest speech of all his life.
"Well, anyways, we're going to come to my land right now," he added after a time. "We've passed the school house, only couple mile from my place. On ahead here is Wid Gardner's ranch, on the left hand side. I don't reckon he's at home. I told you the school ma'am had maybe went off to her homestead, didn't I? Maybe Nels Jensen, he's maybe driving her to the Big Springs station down below. This here is Wid Gardner's team and buckboard, ma'am. I ain't got around to fixing mine up this spring. I've got to drive back after a while and take these things back to Wid."
Her situation grew more tense. They were coming now to the end of the journey--to her home--to his home. She did not speak. To her ears the sound of the horses' feet seemed less, as though they were passing on a road not so much used.
"This is a sort of alley, like, down along between the willers and the rail fence," explained Sim Gage. "It's about half a mile of this. Then we come to my gate."
And presently they did come to his gate, where the silver-edged willows came close on the one side and the wide hay meadows reached out on the other toward the curving pathway of the river. He pulled up.
"Could you hold these horses, ma'am, fer a minute? I got to open the gate."
He handed her the reins, it never occurring to him that there was any one in the world who had never driven horses. She was frightened, but resolved to appear brave and useful.
Sim Gage began to untwist the short club which bound the wire gate shut. He pulled it back, and clucked to the horses, seeing that she did not start them.
Mary Warren knew nothing of horses. It seemed to her that the correct thing to do was to drop the reins loosely, shaking them a little. The half wild horses, with their uncanny brute sense, knew the absence of a master, and took instant advantage of the knowledge. With one will they sprang, lunged, and started forward, plunging. Mary Warren dropped the lines.
"
Sit still there!" she heard a voice call out imperatively. Then, "Whoa! damn you, whoa now!"
She could see nothing, but sensed combat. Sim Gage had sprung forward and caught the cheek strap of the nearest horse. It reared and struck out wildly. She heard an exclamation, as though of pain, but could not see him as he swung across to the other horse and caught his fingers in its nostrils, still calling out to them, imperiously, in the voice of a commander.
At length they halted, quieted. She heard his voice speaking brokenly. "Set still where you are, ma'am. I'll tie 'em."
"You're hurt!" she called out. "It was my fault."
"I'm all right. Just you set still."
Apparently he finished fastening the horses to something. She heard him come to the end of the seat, knew that he was reaching up his arms to help her down. But when she swung her weight from the seat she felt him wince.
"One of 'em caught me on the knee," he admitted. "It was my new pants, too."
She could not see his face, gray with pain now under the dust.
"It's all my fault--I didn't dare tell you--I don't know anything about horses. I don't know anything about anything out here!"
"Take hold of my left hand coat sleeve," he answered to her confession. "We'll walk on into the yard. Keep hold of me, and I'll keep hold of them horses. I'll look out if they jump."
For some reason of their own the team became less fractious. He limped along the road, his hand at the bit of the more vicious. She could feel him limp.
"You're hurt--they did jump on you!" she reiterated.
"Knee's busted some, but we'll git along. Don't you mind. Anyhow, we're here. Now, you go off, a little ways--it's all level here--and I'll unhitch these critters."
"That's the barn over there," he added, pointing in a direction which she could not see. "Plain trail between the house and the corral gate. On beyond is my hay lands and the willers along the creek. There's a sort of spring thataway"--again he pointed, invisibly to her--"and along it runs a band of willers--say a hundred yards from the house. It all ain't much. I never ought to of brought you here a-tall, but like I said, we'll do the best we can. Please don't be afraid, or nothing."
Stripped of their harness, the wild team turned and made off at a run down the road, through the gate and back to their own home.
"Good riddance," said Sim Gage, stooping, his hands at his cut knee-cap. "Wid can come over here fer his own buckboard, fer all of me."
"Take right a-holt of my arm tight, and go easy now," he added, turning to Mary Warren. She felt his hand on her arm.
They passed around the corner of the cabin. She reached out a hand to touch the side post as she heard the door open.
"It's a right small little place inside," said Sim Gage, "only one bunk in it. I've got some new blankets and I'll fix it all up. Maybe you'll want to lay down and rest a while before long.
"Over at the left is the stove--when I git the fire going you can tell where it is, all right. Between the stove and the bunk is the table, where we eat--I mean where I used to eat. It all ain't so big. Pretty soon you'll learn where the things all is. It's like learning where things is in the dark, ma'am, I suppose?"
"Yes. What time is it?" she asked suddenly. "You see, I can't tell."
"Coming on evening, ma'am. I reckon it's around three or four o'clock. You see, I ain't got a clock. I ain't got round to gitting one yet. Mine's just got busted recent.
"This here's a chair, ma'am," he said. "Jest set down and take it right easy. Lay off your wraps, and I'll put 'em on the bunk. You mustn't worry about nothing. We're here now."
By and by she felt his hand touch her sleeve.
"Here's a couple of poker sticks," said he. "I reckon maybe you'll need to use one onct in a while to kind of feel around with. Well, it's the same with me--I'm going to need something, kind of, my own self. That knee's going to leave me lame a while,
I believe."
A sudden feeling that they two were little better than lost children came to her as she turned toward him. A strange, swift feeling of companionship rose in her heart. Her vague fears began to vanish.
"You're hurt," said she. "What can I do? Can't you put some witch hazel on your knee?"
"I ain't got none, ma'am."
"Isn't there some alcohol, or anything, in the place?"
"No, ma'am--why, yes, there is too! I got some whiskey left. Whiskey is good fer most anything. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll just go round the house, and I'll rub some of that whiskey on my knee."
She heard him pass out of the door. She was alone. Absolutely she welcomed the sound of his foot again. He might have seen her face almost light up.
"When you git kicked on a bone," he said, "it hurts worse. She's swelled up some, but I reckon she'll get well in a few days or weeks. I don't think she's busted much, though at first I thought he'd knocked the knee cap plump off. There's a cut in above there. Cork of the shoe must of hit me there."
The gravity of her face was her answer. She could see nothing.
"I reckon you can smell that whiskey," said he, "but I ain't drunk none--it's just on my leg, that's all."
"You're not a drinking man?" she asked.
"Why, yes, of course I am. All of us people out here drinks more or less when they can git it--this is a dry state. But I allow I'll cut it out fer a while, now, ma'am."
"Ain't you hungry now, ma'am?" he added. "We didn't have a bite to eat all day."
"Yes," said she. "But how can I help cook supper--what can I do?"
"There ain't much you need to do, ma'am. If I've lived here alone all this time, and lived alone everywhere else fer thirty-seven years, I reckon I can cook one more meal."
"For your housekeeper!" she said, smiling bitterly.
"Well, yes," he replied. "You don't know where things is yet. I got some bacon here, and aigs too. I brought out some oranges from town--fer you." She did not see him color shyly. Oranges were something Sim Gage never had brought to his ranch before. He had bought them of the Park commissary at the station.
"Then I got some canned tomatoes--they're always good with bacon. Out under my straw pile I got some potatoes that ain't froze so very bad anyways, and you know spuds is always good. I didn't bring no more flour, because I had plenty. I can make all sorts of bread, ma'am--flapjacks, or biscuits, or even sour dough--even dough-gods. I ain't so strong when it comes to making the kind of bread you put in the oven."
"Why, I can make that--I know I can do that!" she said, pleased at the thought.
"We'll start in on that to-morrow," said he. "I'll just cook you one meal--as bad as I can, ma'am--so as to show you how bad I needed a housekeeper out here."
The chuckle in his tones was contagious, so that she almost laughed herself. "All right," said she.
She heard him bustling around here and there, rattling pans, stumbling over sticks of wood on the floor.
"Haven't you any chickens?" she asked.
"No, ma'am, I ain't got around to it. I was a-going to have some."
"I'd like awfully well to have some chickens. Those little yellow things, in my hands----"
"We can get plenty, ma'am. I can drive out just a leetle ways, about forty miles, to where the Mormons is at, and I can get plenty of 'em, even them yeller ones."
"Where is the dog? Haven't you got a dog?"
"No, ma'am, I ain't. The wolves got mine last winter, and I ain't got round to getting another one yet. What kind would you like?"
"Why, a collie--aren't they nice?"
"Yes, ma'am, I reckon. Only thing is, they might take me fer a sheep man. I'd hate that."
"Well--even a little dog?"
"I'll get you one, any kind you want. I allow myself, a dog is a heap of comfort. I'm about the only homesteader in this valley that ain't got one right now. Some has sever'l."
"I can make the coffee, I'm sure," she said, still endeavoring to be of use. But she was skimpy in her measurement, and he reproached her.
"That won't make it strong enough. Don't you like it right strong?"
"Well, Annie and I," said she honestly, "couldn't afford to make it very strong. Annie was my roommate, you see."
"We can afford anything we want out here, ma'am. I got a credit at the store. We're going to make six hundred tons of hay right out there in them medders this summer. We're going to have plenty of money. Hay is mighty high. I can get eight dollars a ton standing out there, and not put a machine into it myself. Wheat is two dollars and twenty cents a bushel, the lowest."
"Why, that's fine, that's fine!" said she. "I'm so glad." She knew nothing in the world about hay or wheat.
The odors from the stove appealed pleasantly enough to the tired woman who sat on the box chair, in the same place she originally had taken. "Draw up," said Sim Gage. But it was clumsy work for her to eat, newly blind. She was so sensitive that she made no pretence of concealing her tears.
"I wouldn't worry none, ma'am," said Sim Gage, "if I could help it. I wouldn't worry any more'n I could help, anyways. I'll put things where you can find 'em, and pretty soon you'll get used to it."
"But at least I can wash the dishes."
"That's so," said he. "That's so. I reckon you could do that. It ain't hard." And indeed in due course he made arrangements for that on the table in front of her, so that she might feel easier in being useful.
"Why, that isn't the dish pan," said she.
Sim Gage flushed with great guiltiness.
"No, ma'am, it ain't. It's only the wash pan. Fact is, some one has been in this place since I been away, and they stole my dish pan, the low-down pups. I didn't know as you'd notice the wash pan."
"Well, it will do for once," she said dubiously, and so she went on, making good shift, wiping the dishes carefully and placing them before her on the table. Then she laughed. "It was the same with Annie and me--we only had the one pan. Yours is much larger than ours was. I always helped with the dishes."
"That's fine," said he. "Do you know, that's the part of keeping house I always hated more'n anything else, just washing dishes."
"I almost always did that for Annie and me," said Mary Warren, feeling out with her hands gently and trying to arrange the battered earthenware upon the table.
"Now," said Sim Gage, "I reckon I'd better get them new blankets in and make up that bed. Come along, ma'am, and I'll show you." And in spite of all he took her arm and led her to the side of the rude bunk.
"I'm so tired," she said. "Do you know, I'm awfully scared out here." Her lips were quivering.
"Ain't a woman a funny thing, though?" said Sim Gage. "No use to be scared, none a-tall. I'll show you how us folks makes a bed. There's willer branches and pine underneath, and hay on top. Over that is the tarp, and now I'm spreading down the blankets. You can feel 'em--soft ones--
good blankets, I can tell you! Whole bed's kind of soft and springy, ma'am. You reckon you can sleep?"
Responsively she stretched out a hand and felt across the surface of the soft new blankets.
"Why, where are the sheets?" said she.
"Sheets!" said Sim Gage in sudden consternation. "Now, look at that! That ornery low-down pup that come and stole my dish pan must of took all my sheets too! Fact is, I just made it up with blankets, like you see. But you needn't mind--they're plumb new and clean. Besides, it gets cold here along toward morning, even in the summer time. Blankets is best, along toward morning."
She stood hesitant as she heard his feet turning away.
"I'm going away fer a hour or so," said he. "I got to take care of my horse and things. Now, you feel around with your stick, sort of. I reckon I better go over before long and make up my own bed--my tent is beyond the willers yonder."
She could not know that Sim Gage's bed that night would be composed of nothing better than a pile of willow boughs. He had given her the last of the new blankets--and his own old bed was missing now. Wid had fulfilled his threat and burned it.
She stood alone, her throat throbbing, hesitant, at the side of the rude bunk.
"He's a kind man," said she to herself, half aloud, after a time. "Oh, if only I could see!"
She began to feel her way about, stood at the door for a time, looking out. Something told her that the darkness of night was coming on. She turned, felt her way back to the edge of the bunk, and knelt down, her head in her hands. Mary Warren prayed.
She paused after a long time--half-standing, a hand upon the soft-piled blankets, her eyes every way. Yes, she was sure it was dark. And above all things she was sure that she was weary, unutterably, unspeakably weary. The soft warmth of the blankets about her was comforting.
Sim Gage in his own place of rest was uneasy. Darkness came on late by the clock in that latitude. Something was on Sim's mind. He had forgotten to tell his new housekeeper how to make safe the door! He wondered whether she had gone to bed or whether she was sitting there in the dark--an added darkness all around her. He was sure that if he told her how to fasten the door she would sleep better.
Timidly, he got up out of his own comfortless couch, and groped for the electric flash-light which sometimes may be seen in places such as his to-day. He tiptoed along the path through the willows, across the yard, and knocked timidly at the door. He heard no answer. A sudden fear came to him. Had she in terror fled the place--was she wandering hopelessly lost, somewhere out there in the night? He knocked more loudly, pushed open the door, turned the flash light here and there in the room.
He saw her lying, the blankets piled up above her, a white arm thrown out, her eyes closed, her face turned upon her other arm, deep in the stupor of exhaustion. She was a woman, and very beautiful.
Suddenly frightened, he cut off the light. But the glare had wakened her. She started up, called out, "Who's there?" Her voice was vibrant with terror. "Who's
there?" she repeated.
"It's only me, ma'am," said Sim Gage, his voice trembling.
"You said you wouldn't come!--Go away!"
"I wanted to tell you----"
"Go away!"
He went outside, but continued stubbornly, gently.
"--I wanted to say to you, ma'am," said he, "you can lock this here door on the inside. You come around, and you'll find a slat that drops into the latch. Now, there's a nail on a string, fastened to that latch. You can find that nail, and if you'll just drop that bar and push the nail in the hole up above it--why, you'll be safe as can be, and there can't
no one get in."
He stood waiting, fumbling at the button of the flash light. By accident it was turned on again.
He saw her then sitting half upright in the bed, both her white arms holding the clothing about her, the piled mass of her dark hair framing a face which showed white against the background. Her eyes, unseeing, were wide open, dark, beautiful. Sim Gage's heart stopped in his bosom. She was a woman. She had come, of her own volition. They were utterly alone. _