the Light Of Western Stars (1992) (21 page)

"No!" he cried
.

"Listen to me again
.
Somehow I know you're worthy of Stillwell's love
.
Will you come back with us-for his sake?"

"No
.
It's too late, I tell you
.
"

"Stewart, the best thing in life is faith in human nature
.
I have faith in you
.
I believe yen are worth it
.
"

"You're only kind and good-saying that
.
You can't mean it
.
"

"I mean it with all my heart," she replied, a sudden rich warmth suffusing her body as she saw the first sign of his softening
.
"Will you come back-if not for your own sake or Stillwell's- then for mine?"

"What am I to such a woman as you?"

"A man in trouble, Stewart
.
But I have come to help you, to show my faith in you
.
"

"If I believed that I might try," he said
.

"Listen," she began, softly, hurriedly
.
"My word is not lightly given
.
Let it prove my faith in you
.
Look at me now and say you will come
.
"

He heaved up his big frame as if trying to cast off a giant's burden, and then slowly he turned toward her
.
His face was a blotched and terrible thing
.
The physical brutalizing marks were there, and at that instant all that appeared human to Madeline was the dawning in dead, furnace-like eyes of a beautiful light
.

"I'll come," he whispered, huskily
.
"Give me a few days to straighten up, then I'll come
.
"

IX - The New Foreman Toward the end of the week Stillwell informed Madeline that Stewart had arrived at the ranch and had taken up quarters with Nels
.

"Gene's sick
.
He looks bad," said the old cattleman
.
"He's so weak an' shaky he can't lift a cup
.
Nels says that Gene has hed some bad spells
.
A little liquor would straighten him up now
.
But Nels can't force him to drink a drop, an' has hed to sneak some liquor in his coffee
.
Wal, I think we'll pull Gene through
.
He's forgotten a lot
.
I was goin' to tell him what he did to me up at Rodeo
.
But I know if he'd believe it he'd be sicker than he is
.
Gene's losin' his mind, or he's got somethin' powerful strange on it
.
"

From that time Stillwell, who evidently found Madeline his most sympathetic listener, unburdened himself daily of his hopes and fears and conjectures
.

Stewart was really ill
.
It became necessary to send Link Stevens for a physician
.
Then Stewart began slowly to mend and presently was able to get up and about
.
Stillwell said the cowboy lacked interest and seemed to be a broken man
.
This statement, however, the old cattleman modified as Stewart continued to improve
.
Then presently it was a good augury of Stewart's progress that the cowboys once more took up the teasing relation which had been characteristic of them before his illness
.
A cowboy was indeed out of sorts when he could not vent his
.
peculiar humor on somebody or something
.
Stewart had evidently become a broad target for their badinage
.

"Wal, the boys are sure after Gene," said Stillwell, with his huge smile
.
"Joshin' him all the time about how he sits around an' hangs around an' loafs around jest to get a glimpse of you, Miss Majesty
.
Sure all the boys hev a pretty bad case over their pretty boss, but none of them is a marker to Gene
.
He's got it so bad, Miss Majesty, thet he actooly don't know they are joshin' him
.
It's the amazin'est strange thing I ever seen
.
Why, Gene was always a feller thet you could josh
.
An' he'd laugh an' get back at you
.
But he was never before deaf to talk, an' there was a certain limit no feller cared to cross with him
.
Now he takes every word an' smiles dreamy like, an' jest looks an' looks
.
Why, he's beginnin' to make me tired
.
He'll never run thet bunch of cowboys if he doesn't wake up quick
.
"

Madeline smiled her amusement and expressed a belief that Stillwell wanted too much in such short time from a man who had done body and mind a grievous injury
.

It had been impossible for Madeline to fail to observe Stewart's singular behavior
.
She never went out to take her customary walks and rides without seeing him somewhere in the distance
.
She was aware that he watched for her and avoided meeting her
.
When she sat on the porch during the afternoon or at sunset Stewart could always be descried at some point near
.
He idled listlessly in the sun, lounged on the porch of his bunk-house, sat whittling the top bar of the corral fence, and always it seemed to Madeline he was watching her
.
Once, while going the rounds with her gardener, she encountered Stewart and greeted him kindly
.
He said little, but he was not embarrassed
.
She did not recognize in his face any feature that she remembered
.
In fact, on each of the few occasions when she had met Stewart he had looked so different that she had no consistent idea of his facial appearance
.
He was now pale, haggard, drawn
.
His eyes held a shadow through which shone a soft, subdued light; and, once having observed this, Madeline fancied it was like the light in Majesty's eyes, in the dumb, worshiping eyes of her favorite stag-hound
.
She told Stewart that she hoped he would soon be in the saddle again, and passed on her way
.

That Stewart loved her Madeline could not help but see
.
She endeavored to think of him as one of the many who, she was glad to know, liked her
.
But she could not regulate her thoughts to fit the order her intelligence prescribed
.
Thought of Stewart dissociated itself from thought of the other cowboys
.
When she discovered this she felt a little surprise and annoyance
.
Then she interrogated herself, and concluded that it was not that Stewart was so different from his comrades, but that circumstances made him stand out from them
.
She recalled her meeting with him that night when he bad tried to force her to marry him
.
This was unforgetable in itself
.
She called subsequent mention of him, and found it had been peculiarly memorable
.
The man and his actions seemed to hinge on events
.
Lastly, the fact standing clear of all others in its relation to her interest was that he had been almost ruined, almost lost, and she had saved him
.
That alone was sufficient to explain why she thought of him differently
.
She had befriended, uplifted the other cowboys; she had saved Stewart's life
.
To be sure, he had been a ruffian, but a woman could not save the life of even a ruffian without remembering it with gladness
.
Madeline at length decided her interest in Stewart was natural, and that her deeper feeling was pity
.
Perhaps the interest had been forced from her; however, she gave the pity as she gave everything
.

Stewart recovered his strength, though not in time to ride at the spring round-up; and Stillwell discussed with Madeline the advisability of making the cowboy his foreman
.

"Wal, Gene seems to be gettin' along," said Stillwell
.
"But he ain't like his old self
.
I think more of him at thet
.
But where's his spirit?The boys'd ride rough-shod all over him
.
Mebbe I'd do best to wait longer now, as the slack season is on
.
All the same, if those vaquero of Don Carlos's don't lay low I'll send Gene over there
.
Thet'll wake him up
.
"

A few days afterward Stillwell came to Madeline, rubbing his big hands in satisfaction and wearing a grin that was enormous
.

"Miss Majesty, I reckon before this I've said things was amazin' strange
.
But now Gene Stewart has gone an' done it!Listen to me
.
Them Greasers down on our slope hev been gettin' prosperous
.
They're growin' like bad weeds
.
An' they got a new padre-the little old feller from El Cajon, Padre Marcos
.
Wal, this was all right, all the boys thought, except Gene
.
An' he got blacker 'n thunder an' roared round like a dehorned bull
.
I was sure glad to see he could get mad again
.
Then Gene haids down the slope fer the church
.
Nels an' me follered him, thinkin' he might hev been took sudden with a crazy spell or somethin'
.
He hasn't never been jest right yet since he left off drinkin'
.
Wal, we run into him comin' out of the church
.
We never was so dumfounded in our lives
.
Gene was crazy, all right-he sure hed a spell
.
But it was the kind of a spell he hed thet paralyzed us
.
He ran past us like a streak, an' we follered
.
We couldn't ketch him
.
We heerd him laugh-the strangest laugh I ever heerd!You'd thought the feller was suddenly made a king
.
He was like thet feller who was tied in a bunyin'-sack an' throwed into the sea, an' cut his way out, an' swam to the island where the treasures was, an' stood up yellin', 'The world is mine
.
'Wal, when we got up to his bunk-house he was gone
.
He didn't come back all day an' all night
.
Frankie Slade, who has a sharp tongue, says Gene hed gone crazy for liquor an' thet was his finish
.
Nels was some worried
.
An' I was sick
.

"Wal
.
this mawnin' I went over to Nels's bunk
.
Some of the fellers was there, all speculatin' about Gene
.
Then big as life Gene struts round the corner
.
He wasn't the same Gene
.
His face was pale an' his eyes burned like fire
.
He had thet old mockin', cool smile, an' somethin' besides thet I couldn't understand
.
Frankie Slade up an' made a remark-no wuss than he'd been makin' fer days-an' Gene tumbled him out of his chair, punched him good, walked all over him
.
Frankie wasn't hurt so much as he was bewildered
.
'Gene,' he says, 'what the hell struck you?'An' Gene says, kind of sweet like, 'Frankie, you may be a nice feller when you're alone, but your talk's offensive to a gentleman
.
'

"After thet what was said to Gene was with a nice smile
.
Now, Miss Majesty, it's beyond me what to allow for Gene's sudden change
.
First off, I thought Padre Marcos had converted him
.
I actooly thought thet
.
But I reckon it's only Gene Stewart come back-the old Gene Stewart an' some
.
Thet's all I care about
.
I'm rememberin' how I once told you thet Gene was the last of the cowboys
.
Perhaps I should hev said he's the last of my kind of cowboys
.
Wal, Miss Majesty, you'll be apprecatin' of what I meant from now on
.
"

It was also beyond Madeline to account for Gene Stewart's antics, and, making allowance for the old cattle-man's fancy, she did not weigh his remarks very heavily
.
She guessed why Stewart might have been angry at the presence of Padre Marcos
.
Madeline supposed that it was rather an unusual circumstance for a cowboy to be converted to religious belief
.
But it was possible
.
And she knew that religious fervor often manifested itself in extremes of feeling and action
.
Most likely, in Stewart's case, his real manner had been both misunderstood and exaggerated
.
However, Madeline had a curious desire, which she did not wholly admit to herself, to see the cowboy and make her own deductions
.