The Flockmaster of Poison Creek Page 16

  CHAPTER XVI

  REID BEGINS HIS PLAY

  Dad Frazer came back after five days, diminished in facial outline onaccount of having submitted his stubble beard to the barber at FourCorners. In reverse of all speculation on Mackenzie's part, thisoperation did not improve the old man's appearance. Dad's face was oneof the kind that are built to carry a beard; without it his weaknesseswere too apparent to the appraising eye.

  Dad made glowing report of his success with the widow at Four Corners.Preliminaries were smoothed; he had left the widow wearing his ring.

  "We'll jump the broomstick in about a month from now," Dad said, fullof satisfaction for his business stroke. "I aim to settle down andquit my roamin', John."

  "And your marrying, too, I hope, you old rascal!"

  "Yes, this one will be my last, I reckon. I don't mind, though; I'vehad doin's enough with women in my day."

  "Is she a good looker, Dad?"

  "Well, I've seen purtier ones and I've seen uglier ones, John. No, sheain't what you might call stylish, I guess, but she's all right forme. She's a little off in one leg, but not enough to hurt."

  "That's a slight blemish in a lady with money in the bank, Dad."

  "I look at it that way, on the sensible side. Good looks is all rightin a woman, but that ain't all a man needs to make him easy in hismind. Well, she did lose the sight of her left eye when she was agirl, but she can see a dollar with the other one further than I cansee a wagon wheel."

  "No gentleman would stop at the small trifle of an eye. What else,Dad?"

  "Nothing else, only she's carryin' a little more meat right now than awoman likes to pack around in hot weather. I don't mind that; youknow, I like mine fat; you can't get 'em too fat for me."

  "I've heard you say so. How much does she weigh?"

  "Well, I guess close to three hundred, John. If she was taller, itwouldn't show so much on her--she can walk under my arm. But it'ssurprisin' how that woman can git around after them sheep!"

  Dad added this hopefully, as if bound to append some redeeming traitto all her physical defects.

  "How many does she own?"

  "About four thousand. Not much of a band, but a lot more than I evercould lay claim to. She's got a twelve-thousand acre ranch, owns everyfoot of it, more than half of it under fence. What do you think ofthat? Under fence! Runs them sheep right inside of that bull-wirefence, John, where no wolf can't git at 'em. There ain't no bears downin that part of the country. Safe? Safer'n money in the bank, and noexpense of hirin' a man to run 'em."

  "It looks like you've landed on a feather bed, Dad."

  "Ain't I? What does a man care about a little hobble, or one eye, ora little chunk of fat, when he can step into a layout like that?"

  "Why didn't you lead her up to the hitching-rack while you were there?Somebody else is likely to pick your plum while your back's turned."

  "No, I don't reckon. She's been on the tree quite a spell; she ain'tthe kind you young fellers want, and the old ones is most generallymarried off or in the soldiers' home. Well, she's got a little crossof Indian and Mexican in her, anyway; that kind of keeps 'em away, youknow."

  It was no trouble to frame a mental picture of Dad's inamorata. Black,squat, squint; a forehead a finger deep, a voice that would carry amile. Mackenzie had seen that cross of Mexican and Indian blood, witha dash of debased white. They were not the kind that attracted menoutside their own mixed breed, but he hadn't a doubt that this one wasplenty good enough, and handsome enough, for Dad.

  Mackenzie left the old man with this new happiness in his heart,through which a procession of various-hued women had worn a pathduring the forty years of his taking in marriage one month and takingleave the next. Dad wasn't nervous over his prospects, but calm andcalculative, as became his age. Mackenzie went smiling now and then ashe thought of the team the black nondescript and the old fellow wouldmake.

  He found Reid sitting on a hilltop with his face in his hands, surlyand out of sorts, his revolver and belt on the ground beside him as ifhe had grown weary of their weight. He gave a short return toMackenzie's unaffected greeting and interested inquiry into theconduct of the sheep and the dogs during his absence.

  Reid's eyes were shot with inflamed veins, as if he had been sittingall night beside a smoky fire. When Mackenzie sat near him the windbore the pollution of whisky from his breath. Reid made a show ofbeing at his ease, although the veins in his temples were swollen inthe stress of what must have been a splitting headache. He rolled acigarette with nonchalance almost challenging, and smoked in silence,the corners of his wide, salamander mouth drawn down in a peculiarscoffing.

  "I suppose that guy told you the whole story," he said at last,lifting his eyes briefly to Mackenzie's face.

  "The sheriff, you mean?"

  "Who else?" impatiently.

  "I don't know whether he told me all or not, but he told me plenty."

  "And you've passed it on to Joan by now!"

  "No."

  Reid faced around, a flush over his thin cheeks, a scowl in his eyes.He took up his belt; Mackenzie marked how his hands trembled as hebuckled it on.

  "Well, you keep out of it, you damned pedagogue!" Reid said, the wordsbursting from him in vehement passion. "This is my game; I'll play itwithout any more of your interference. You've gone far enough withher--you've gone too far! Drop it; let her alone."

  Mackenzie got up. Reid stood facing him, his color gone now, his facegray. Mackenzie held him a moment with stern, accusing eyes. Then:

  "Have you been over there spying on me?"

  Reid passed over the question, leaving Mackenzie to form his ownconclusions. His face flushed a little at the sting of contempt thatMackenzie put into his words. He fumbled for a match to light his stubof cigarette before he spoke:

  "I played into your hands when I let you go over there, and you knewI'd play into them when you proposed it. But that won't happentwice."

  "I'll not allow any man to put a deliberately false construction on mymotives, Reid," Mackenzie told him, hotly. "I didn't propose goingover to let Dad off, and you know it. I wanted you to go."

  "You knew I wouldn't," Reid returned, with surly word.

  "If you've been leaving the sheep to go over there and lie on yourbelly like a snake behind a bush to spy on Joan and me, and I guessyou've been doing it, all right--you're welcome to all you've foundout. There aren't any secrets between Joan and me to keep fromanybody's eyes or ears."

  Reid jerked his thin mouth in expression of derision.

  "She's green, she's as soft as cheese. Any man could kiss her--I couldhave done it fifteen minutes after I saw her the first time."

  If Reid hoped to provoke a quarrel leading up to an excuse for makinguse of the gun for which his hand seemed to itch, he fell short of hiscalculations. Mackenzie only laughed, lightly, happily, in the way ofa man who knew the world was his.

  "You're a poor loser, Earl," he said.

  "I'm not the loser yet--I'm only takin' up my hand to play. Therewon't be room on this range for you and me, Mackenzie, unless you stepback in your schoolteacher's place, and lie down like a little lamb."

  "It's a pretty big range," Mackenzie said, as if he considered itseriously; "I guess you can shift whenever the notion takes you. Youmight take a little vacation of about three years back in a certainstate concern in Nebraska."

  "Let that drop--keep your hands off of that! You don't know anythingabout that little matter; that damned sheriff don't know anythingabout it. If Sullivan's satisfied to have me here and give me hisgirl, that's enough for you."

  "You don't want Joan," said Mackenzie, speaking slowly, "you only wantwhat's conditioned on taking her. So you'd just as well make arevision in your plans right now, Reid. You and Sullivan can gettogether on it and do what you please, but Joan must be left out ofyour calculations. I realize that I owe you a good deal, but I'm notgoing to turn Joan over to you to square the debt. You can have mymoney any day you want it--you can have my life if yo
u ever have todraw on me that far--but you can't have Joan."

  Mackenzie walked away from Reid at the conclusion of this speech,which was of unprecedented length for him, and of such earnestnessthat Reid was not likely to forget it soon, no matter for its length.The dogs left Reid to follow him.

  That Reid had been fraternizing with Swan Carlson, Mackenzie feltcertain, drinking the night out with him in his camp. Carlson had anotoriety for his addiction to drink, along with his other unsavorytraits. With Reid going off in two different directions from him,Mackenzie saw trouble ahead between them growing fast. More thanlikely one of them would have to leave the range to avoid a clash atno distant day, for Reid was in an ugly mood. Loneliness, liquor,discontent, native meanness, and a desire to add to the fame in thesheep country that the killing of Matt Hall had brought him, wouldwhirl the weak fellow to his destruction at no distant day.

  Yet Reid had stood by him like a man in that fight with Matt Hall,when he could have sought safety in withdrawal and left him to hisunhappy end. There was something coming to him on that account which aman could not repudiate or ignore. Whatever might rise between them,Mackenzie would owe his life to Reid. Given the opportunity, he stoodready and anxious to square the debt by a like service, and betweenmen a thing like that could not be paid in any other way.

  Reid remained a while sitting on the hilltop where Mackenzie had foundhim, face in his hands, as before. After a time he stretched out andwent to sleep, the ardent sun of noonday frying the lees of SwanCarlson's whisky out of him. Toward three o'clock he roused, got hishorse, saddled it, and rode away.

  Mackenzie believed he was going to hunt more whisky, and went to therise of a ridge to see what course he took. But instead of strikingfor Carlson's, Reid laid a course for Sullivan's ranch-house. Going toTim with a complaint against him, Mackenzie judged, contempt for hissmallness rising in him. Let him go.

  Tim Sullivan might give him half his sheep if he liked him wellenough, but he could not give him Joan.