Lord Apache (18 page)

Dunaway turned sharply from his contemplation of the distant mountains. "She is?"

"Surely you noticed how she threw her arms about you! Also, she kissed you on the cheek. In addition to being a fine figure of a woman, Phoebe is also affectionate."

Dunaway was silent, apparently at a loss for words.

"Look here!" Jack pressed on. "I won't shilly-shally any longer! The other night in Prescott you said you were going to leave the Army, go to Australia to make a new life."

"That's right."

"Take Phoebe with you! Make a new life for the both of you!"

Dunaway stared at Jack Drumm. The stogie drooped. "Take— her? Take Phoebe with me?"

"Of course! Can't you see, man, it solves all sorts of problems! You get a pretty wife for your old age, Phoebe is at last safe from Detective Meech—"

"I'll be God damned!" Dunaway paled, chewed vigorously at his cigar. He rose, paced the dirt floor, furiously puffing. "I never dreamed—"

"She is certainly too much of a lady to throw herself at you! But I believe there is a real affection there."

"Are you sure? I wouldn't want to be made a fool of!"

Jack swallowed another mouthful of the bourbon and tea mixture. The earthenware olla, swinging on a cord in the shade, kept the drink delightfully cool and refreshing.

"These things always have an element of risk, I suppose. But I would say your chances were very good."

Dunaway took the tattered cigar from his mouth. "How do I go about it? I'm not exactly a lady's man, you know! Never had much to do with females, excepting whores."

"After dinner," Jack explained, "I'll arrange to get you and Phoebe alone for a little talk. Go at it slow, George; don't hurry. By and by you'll get the feel of it, and I know it'll come out right for everyone."

Dunaway spat out a shred of tobacco. "Speaking of everyone, what about Beulah—Mrs. Glore?"

"What about her?"

"What are you planning for her? After all, from what you tell me, she's in the soup too."

Impatient, Jack said, "Don't worry about Beulah! I'll arrange something for her too, though I don't know at the moment exactly what. In any case, Beulah is not your problem. Phoebe is! What do you say?"

Dunaway walked nervously about. A spider dropped from the thatch onto his shirt but he did not notice it. "By God!" he muttered, as if confronted by some blinding apparition. Chewing on the wet remnants of the cigar, he suddenly lifted his head. "What was that?"

Beluah Glore was ringing the piece of wagon tire that served as dinner pile. "Hash pile's ready!" she bawled. "All come a-runnin'!"

Dunaway turned to Jack Drumm.

"I'll do it!" he cried. "I'll have a go at it!"

After they ate and ate and ate, and drank and drank and drank, Drumm arranged for George Dunaway and Phoebe to take one of Beulah's pies to the ailing Mrs. Ben Sprankle. "On the way back," he whispered to George, "just stroll along the river and make your case."

The lieutenant was as excited as a small boy. "I have you to thank for this!" he said, and wrung Jack Drumm's hand.

"Here I am with the pie!" Phoebe announced. "Are you ready, George?"

She wore a lacy shirtwaist; the long red curls fell fetchingly about her cheeks. Her eyes danced. "If George and I don't come back soon," she teased Jack, "don't bother to look for us! We'll be back in our own good time!"

Satisfied, he watched them go hand in hand down the road, Dunaway carefully balancing the pie, the muffler Phoebe had knitted for him around his neck. It was not a bad feeling at all, Jack mused, to play Cupid. Sometimes deserving people had to be put in each other's way. Phoebe would have a man to satisfy her loving nature, George Dunaway would gain a wife for Australia, Alonzo Meech would be finally balked. Of course, Phoebe Larkin would move beyond Jack Drumm's ken. He would no longer be distracted by her, no longer have to feel guilty of disloyalty to Cornelia Newton-Barrett.

Vaguely distraught, he watched for their return. They were a long time coming. Worried, he picked up the Sharp's rifle and started for the river. Perhaps wandering Apache scouts had seen them, silently ambushed them with knife and hatchet. But soon he saw Phoebe's blouse in the greenery, then George Dunaway's dress blues. Phoebe quickly left George and ran into the adobe. Dunaway himself seemed perplexed and angry. He walked slowly toward the ramada where Jack Drumm was lounging and sat down.

"I've been a damned fool!" he muttered.

Jack was puzzled. "How did it work out?"

Dunaway contemplated his knuckles. "She got mad, real mad."

"Mad?"

"She don't love me! Oh, she was real nice about it! She thanked me and all that, said how it was a compliment she'd never forget. But she said she didn't love me."

Jack was as disappointed as Dunaway. The plan, so carefully nurtured and executed, had failed.

"I'm sorry," he said. "George, I'm truly sorry. I thought—"

"
You're
sorry!" Suddenly Dunaway bristled. "I guess you better be! God damn it, you got me into this situation! I must have sounded like a lovesick fool, my head all filled up with church music and wedding bells! I thought this was it! I thought that after all these years of paying for rides, I'd finally caught the brass ring on the carousel! Now I'm back where I started, only this time it's worse!"

Jack was startled at the emotion, and uncomfortable.

"I told you I am sorry! I meant well! And I'll talk to Phoebe and try to straighten it out with her."

"If she'll talk to
you
!" Dunaway said savagely.

"What do you mean?"

"Phoebe said she doesn't want to talk to you ever again! She said you can rot in hell before she ever utters another word to you, that's what she said. I tell you—she's madder about the whole thing than I am!"

"But—"

Swearing, Dunaway jammed the battered hat on his head and stalked away toward his horse.

"Now wait a minute—"

Rising, the yellow folded paper fell from Jack Drumm's pocket. Still swearing, Dunaway was searching the reeds for his mount. Baffled and unhappy, Jack slumped back in the chair and unfolded the crumpled form. After the usual military hieroglyphics, the message was terse. It had been sent by the Drumms' solicitors through Headquarters of the Department of the Missouri, U. S. Army:

ANDREW DRUMM DIED THIS DATE OF INDIA FEVER. CAN YOU RETURN CLARENDON HALL IMMEDIATELY TO ATTEND TO ESTATE BUSINESS AND ASSUME TITLE LORD FIFIELD?

In the brush hut Jack Drumm sat silent and morose. Phoebe and Mrs. Glore had taken over the more luxurious structure of adobe. They all knew his bereavement, and left him alone to his thoughts. Andrew had been several years senior to Jack, always the protective elder brother. While Jack went to Cambridge and kept his head in books, Andrew was fighting rebel tribesmen in the Khyber. When Jack wanted to make the Grand Tour, Andrew, invalided home with the fever, took over the management of Clarendon Hall and its lands. Andrew had always protected him, accommodated him, cherished him. Now Andrew was gone.

He took his sextant from his case and examined it: 112° 13' W…34° 17' N.—that was where he had been, far away from Hampshire and home, when Andrew, dear Andrew, died. His brother had probably died alone, except for Cousin Lionel, who lived nearby in Godalming and was the only other living heir. Trying to divert his grief, he picked up the dogeared
Traveler's Guide to the Far West
and thumbed through it. The plants, the animals, the mountains and deserts, all had once seemed foreign and exotic. Now, while Andrew sickened and died at Clarendon Hall, these things had become common and familiar, but at what a price! Angry, he flung the book from him. It fell to the earthen floor in a flutter of white pages.

Someone scratched at the door.

"Who is it?"

"Me—Phoebe."

She came in and sat on the edge of the sagging pallet, looking distraught. This morning she had done her hair very badly; it lay in listless coils and tangles. The freckles stood out, and the blue eyes were dark, with unattractive circles around them.

"I thought," he muttered, "you were not ever again going to speak to me."

She stared at the slender hands in her lap. "I—I wasn't. I'd made up my mind, that's right. But—" She shrugged, her face pale and wan. "I lost Uncle Buell, and I wasn't there either when he passed on. So I know how you feel, losing your only brother and being so far away when he died. So—I'm sorry. I came to tell you that."

He had been cruel, and regretted it, but could not let her off so easily. She
had
been headstrong about George Dunaway's courtship and his own plan for the two of them. But before he could speak she went on.

"Mr. Eggleston proposed marriage to Beulah. I suppose you know that."

"Yes," he said. "Eggie told me. He is very happy."

"She did not want to leave me, did not want to go to England without me, but I insisted. After all, I am the one who got her into this horrible mess, and I want her to be happy. If I am at my wit's ends, there is no need for her to be desolate also."

He picked up the
Traveler's Guide
and smoothed the rumpled pages. "What will you do, then?"

When Phoebe Larkin first stepped off the Prescott stage she had looked like a Paris mannequin, the utmost in
haute couture
. Now she resembled poor sickly Mrs. Ben Sprankle down the road—dress torn and stained, feet bare, nails rimmed with grime. She had not been taking care of herself.

"I'll just go to Prescott and give myself up. What else is there to do? Mr. Meech, at least, should be glad to see me, if no one else is."

He looked sharply up from the
Guide
. "What do you mean by that?"

She took a deep breath. "Please—I don't want to be unpleasant about anything. I haven't the stomach for it anymore. I—I just came to tell you I was sorry for your loss."

"Go to Prescott!" he flared. "Give yourself up!" He paced the dirt floor. "What foolish talk!"

"But what else is there for me? You are going back to England, and I—"

"I tried to help you!" he cried. "Damn it, Phoebe, your happiness means much to me! I had all the arrangements made! George Dunaway was in love with you! George is a good man, an honest man, and a good provider, too, I daresay. But no! You had to knock everything into a cocked hat with your stubbornness, your willfulness, your headstrong ways!"

"Stubborn? Headstrong?" She rose quickly; her eyes flashed blue sparks, and under the shabby niching her breasts heaved. "Mr. Jack Drumm, if ever there was a person stubborn and headstrong—pigheaded and obstinate and unseeing—it's
you
!" Her eyes dimmed with sudden tears. "Call
me
stubborn! Why, you take the blue ribbon for pure mulishness!"

He shook a schoolmasterly finger. "I devoted a great deal of trouble and thought to relieving your condition—"

"My condition!" Her voice was incredulous. "You sound like I was a mare with the glanders!"

"To relieving your condition," he insisted. "And when I had everything satisfactorily laid out—"

Angry, she raised clenched fists high in a hopeless gesture. "Stop it, I tell you! Stop it! Don't go on talking about me in that damned cold way!"

Women's tears unnerved him. Cornelia had used them artfully and effectively. Disconcerted, he paused.

"Listen!" Phoebe begged. "Listen to me!" She paid no attention to the great tears rolling down her cheeks, stitching their way into her bosom. "Maybe you're just stupid, or maybe it's your English ways that make you unable to show any affection, any love, and regard for others. You're like a damned icicle! So you
force
me to say something—something I would rather my tongue would rot out than say! Listen to me! Mr. John Peter Christian Drumm, I do not love George Dunaway! Do you understand that? I do not love him. I love someone else!"

Feeling faint and feverish, he goggled at her.

"I love
you
!" Phoebe cried. "There, I said it! And I am ashamed to have thrown away my love on a heartless and unfeeling Englishman!" Wiping her eyes with the soiled hem of her skirt, she fled.

He stared at the open doorway. Love
him
? Phoebe Larkin love him? It was impossible. He shook his head. He was much older than she. Besides—he was already engaged to Cornelia Newton-Barrett, and she knew that. In addition, Phoebe was an aggressive kind of female—strange and unpredictable. His own methodical and logical Drumm ways would never accommodate her spirit, her impulsiveness, her rashness. Cornelia Newton-Barrett was much more suited to his phlegmatic temperament. He could never imagine Cornelia acting as Phoebe Larkin had just done.

Someone seemed to be covertly watching him. Suspicious, he wheeled, and found himself staring into the cracked mirror on the wall. A bearded and shaken countenance stared back wildly at him. The beard, the woolen poncho, the coarse manta shirt—these things had by now become homely and familiar. But his face was somehow different. It betrayed powerful and unfamiliar emotion.

Stepping forward, he looked questioningly into the mirror. Love
him
? Impossible! How could anyone love a figure like that? Yet— what was this experience he had just undergone? Love? Did he love
her—
Phoebe Larkin? He shook his head. It could hardly be love. When he came to marry Cornelia, he supposed love would then come. They would be comfortable together, they would have children to carry on the Drumm name, they would like each other very much, know each other's thoughts, they would grow old and gray together and finally lie side by side in the Drumm plot at Salisbury. That was love, real English love—the genuine article.