Under the Tonto Rim (1991) (18 page)

"Oh, I'm glad you see it!" cried Lucy, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Edd, you must come back to your old self."

"Yes, I reckon I have to," he agreed. "If only it's not too late--for Mertie!"

"Let us hope and pray it is not," rejoined Lucy earnestly. "I'm shocked at what you say, but yet I feel absolutely sure Mertie is still good. She's vain, she's wild. I know her kind. And, Edd, I promise to devote myself to Mertie. I must go to Felix for a week this fall. I'll talk about that to Mertie, hold it out to her. I'll take her with me. Oh, I know how to manage her. We'll marry her to Bert before she knows it."

"Wal, what ma said about you is shore true," he said, lifting his dark face stained with tears. "An' I'll make you a promise."

"Yes?" queried Lucy encouragingly.

"I'll go back to my wild-bee huntin'."

Lucy divined the import of that strange promise and she rejoiced over it, happily proud for him and the Denmeades.

Chapter
VIII

The news that Lucy's sister was coming spread all over the immediate country. Lucy was hugely amused at the number of gallants who visited Denmeade's on Sunday and found transparent excuses to interview her. There was no use to try to avoid them on the issue that portended.

Lucy exhibited Clara's picture with conscious pride, and did not deem it necessary to explain that the likeness dated back several years. She was both delighted and concerned over the sensation it created. Of all the boys she had met there, Joe Denmeade appeared to be the quietest and nicest, the least given to dances, white mule, and girls. Lucy experienced one acute qualm of conscience before she approached Joe to ask him to meet her sister at Cedar Ridge. That qualm was born of a fear that Joe might meet his downfall in Clara. She silenced it with the resigned conviction that circumstances were beyond her. What a feeble little woman she was!

Sunday afternoon on the Denmeade porch found the usual visiting crowd largely augmented. Sam Johnson paid his first call for weeks, this time without Sadie. He seemed less debonair and obtrusive than had been his wont. Least of all did he question Lucy about the pretty sister, but he drank in all that was said. Lucy watched Sam closely as he looked at Clara's picture; and soberly she judged by his expression that, unless, as she devoutly hoped, Clara had changed, there would be some love-lorn gallants haunting the Denmeade homestead.

"When's she comin'?" queried Sam.

"I'll hear in to-morrow's mail. Wednesday or Saturday," replied Lucy.

"Reckon you're goin' in to meet her?"

"Indeed I am. Joe will drive me to town from the school-house. Mr. Jenks has offered his buckboard."

"Joe! So he's the lucky cub?" snorted Sam. "Reckon you'd need a man."

Lucy's choice was news to all the listeners, including Joe himself, who, as usual, sat quietly in the background. She had shot him a quick glance, as if to convey they had an understanding. Whereupon Joe exhibited surprising qualifications for the trust she had imposed upon him.

"Sam, you don't get the hunch," he drawled. "Miss Lucy's sister isn't a well girl. She's goin' to need rest!"

The crowd was quick to grasp Joe's import, and they laughed their glee and joined in an unmerciful bantering of the great backwoods flirt.

After supper, as Lucy sat on the steps of her tent, Joe approached her.

"Now, teacher, how'd you come to pick on me?" he asked plaintively.

"Pick on you! Joe, you don't mean--"

"Reckon I mean pick me out, as the lucky boy," he interrupted. "I'm just curious about it."

Lucy liked his face. It was so young and clean and brown, square-jawed, fine-lipped, with eyes of grey fire!

"Joe, I chose you because I think you will give my sister a better impression than any other boy here," replied Lucy with deliberation.

"Aw, teacher!" he protested, as shyly as might have a girl. "Are you jokin' me? An' what you mean by this heah impression?"

"Joe, I ask you to keep what I tell you to yourself. Will you?"

"Why, shore!"

"My sister is not well and she's not happy. It would give her a bad impression to meet first thing a fellow like Sam or Gerd or Hal, who would get mushy on sight. Edd now would be too cold and strange. I ask you because I know you'll be just the same to Clara as you are to me. Won't you?"

"An' how's that, teacher?" he queried, with his frank smile.

"Why, Joe, you're just yourself!" answered Lucy, somewhat taken at a disadvantage.

"Never thought aboot bein' just like myself. But I'll try. I reckon you're not savvyin' what a big job you're givin' me. I mean pickin' me out to take you to town. If your sister comes on Saturday's stage every boy under the Rim will be there in Cedar Ridge. Reminds me of what I heard teacher Jenks say once. Some men are born great an' some have greatness thrust on them. Shore I'm goin' to be roped in that last outfit."

"I like you, Joe, and I want you to live up to what I think of you."

"Miss Lucy, are you shore aboot me bein' worth it?" he asked solemnly.

"Yes, I am...To-morrow you stay till the mail comes for Mr. Jenks. He'll have mine. Then we'll know whether Clara is coming Wednesday or Saturday. I'd like you to borrow Edd's horse Baldy for Clara to ride up from the school-house. Any horse will do for me. We'll have to leave early."

"It'd be better. I can drive in from the school-house in three hours. The stage arrives anywheres from eleven to four. I'm givin' you a hunch. We want to be there when it comes."

The following day when Joe rode home from school he brought Lucy's mail, among which was the important letter from Clara--only a note, a few lines hastily scrawled, full of a wild gratitude and relief, with the news that she would arrive at Cedar Ridge on Saturday.

"It's settled, then, she's corning," mused Lucy dreamily. "I don't believe I was absolutely sure. Clara was never reliable. But now she'll come. There seems some kind of fate in this. I wonder will she like my wild, lonesome country."

Lucy had imagined the ensuing days might drag; she had reckoned falsely, for they were singularly full of interest and work and thought. Edd had taken to coming home early in the afternoons, serious and moody, yet intent on making up for his indifference toward Lucy's activities with his family. He veered to the opposite extreme. He would spend hours listening to Lucy with the children. He was not above learning to cut animals and birds and figures out of paper, and his clumsy attempts roused delight. Lucy had, in a way vastly puzzling to the Denmeades, succeeded in winning Mertie to a great interest in manual training, which she now shared with Mary. Edd wanted to know the why and wherefore of everything. He lent Dick a hand in the carpentry work, of which Lucy invented no end. And he showed a strange absorption at odd moments in the children's fairy-story books. He was a child himself.

Naturally, during the late afternoon and early evening hours of the long summer days he came much in contact with Lucy. She invited his co-operation in even the slightest tasks. She was always asking his help, always inventing some reason to include him in her little circle of work and play. She found time to ask him about his bee hunting, which was the one subject that he would talk of indefinitely. Likewise she excited and stimulated an interest in reading. As he read very slowly and laboriously, he liked best to listen to her, and profited most by that, but Lucy always saw he was left to finish the passage himself.

At night when all was dark and still, when she lay wide-eyed and thoughtful under the shadowy canvas, she would be confronted by an appalling realisation. Her sympathy, her friendliness, her smiles and charms, of which she had been deliberately prodigal, her love for the children and her good influence on Mertie--all these had begun to win back Edd Denmeade from the sordid path that had threatened to lead to his ruin. He did not know how much of this was owing to personal contact with her, but she knew. Edd was unconsciously drawn toward a girl, in a way he had never before experienced. Lucy felt he had no thought of sentiment, of desire, of the old obsession that he "must find himself a woman." Edd had been stung to his soul by his realisation of ignorance. She had pitied him. She had begun to like him. Something of pride, something elevating, attended her changing attitude toward him. What would it all lead to? But there could be no turning back. Strangest of all was for her to feel the dawn of real happiness in this service.

Saturday morning arrived earlier for Lucy than any other she remembered. It came in the dark hour before dawn, when Joe called her to get up and make ready for the great ride to Cedar Ridge--to meet Clara Lucy dressed by lamp-light and had her breakfast in the dim, pale obscurity of daybreak. Mrs. Denmeade and Edd were the only others of the household who had arisen. Even the dogs and the chickens were asleep.

It was daylight when Lucy arrived at the corrals, where the boys had the horses saddled.

"I'd like to ride Baldy as far as we go horseback," said Lucy.

"Shore," replied Edd. "An' I reckon you'd better ride him back. For he knows you an' he might not like your sister. Horses have likes an' dislikes, same as people."

"Oh, I want Clara to have the pleasure of riding him."

"Shore she'll take a shine to him, an' then you'll be out of luck," drawled Edd as he held the corral gate open.

"Indeed, I hope she takes a shine to Baldy and everything here," declared Lucy earnestly.

"Me an' Joe, too?" he grinned.

"Yes, both of you."

"Wal, I reckon it'll be Joe...Good-bye. We'll be lookin' for you all about sundown."

Joe rode into the trail, leading an extra horse, which would be needed upon the return; and he set off at a gait calculated to make time. Lucy followed, not forgetting to wave a gloved hand back at Edd; then she gave herself up to the compelling sensations of the hour and thoughts of the day.

There were scattered clouds in the sky, pale grey, pearly white where the light of dawn touched their eastern edges, and pink near the great bright flare above the Rim. The forest seemed asleep. The looming wall wandered away into the soft misty distance.

Joe did not take the school-house trail, but the wilder and less travelled one toward Cedar Ridge. The woodland was dark, grey, cool. Birds and squirrels had awakened noisily to the business of the day. Deer and wild turkeys ran across the trail ahead of the horses. The freshness and fragrance of the forest struck upon Lucy as something new and sweet. Yet the wildness of it seemed an old familiar delight. Green and brown and grey enveloped her. There were parts of the trail where she had to ride her best, for Joe was making fast time, and others where she could look about her, and breathe freely, and try to realise that she had grown to love this wilderness solitude. Her grandfather had been a pioneer, and her mother had often spoken of how she would have preferred life in the country. Lucy imagined she had inherited instincts only of late cropping out. How would her sister react to this lonely land of trees and rocks? Lucy hoped against hope. There was a healing strength in this country. If only Clara had developed mind and soul enough to appreciate it!

Lucy well remembered the dark ravine, murmurous with its swift stream, and the grand giant silver spruces, and the mossy rocks twice as high as her head, and the gnarled roots under banks suggestive of homes for wild cats, and the amber eddying pools, deep like wells, and the rushing rapids.

The climb out of this deep endlessly sloped canyon brought sight of sunrise, a rose and gold burst of glory over the black-fringed Rim. Then a brisk trot through a lighter and drier forest ended in the clearing of the Johnsons.

Early as was the hour, the Johnsons were up, as was evidenced by curling blue smoke, ringing stroke of axe, and the clatter of hoofs. Mr. Jenks, too, was stirring, and soon espying Lucy, he hastened to come out to the fence.

"Mawnin', folks," he drawled, imitating the prevailing mode of speech. "Miss Lucy, I shore forgot this was your great day. Reckon I'm out of luck, for I'll not be here when you drive back. I'm going to visit Spralls', to see why their children are absent so much from school."

"Mr. Jenks, will you please take note of these Spralls, so you can tell me about them?" asked Lucy eagerly. "I feel that I must go there, in spite of all I hear."

"Yes, I'll get a fresh line on them," he replied. "And if that isn't enough to keep you away I'll find other means."

"Oh, you are conspiring against me," cried Lucy reproachfully.

"Yes, indeed. But listen, I've news for you," he went on as Joe led the unsaddled horses inside the fence. "Your sister's coming has given me a wonderful idea. When she gets well, which of course she will do here very quickly, why not let her take my school? Affairs at my home are such that I must return there, at least for a time, and this would provide me with a most welcome opportunity."

"I don't know," replied Lucy doubtfully. "Clara had a good education. But whether or not she could or would undertake such a work, I can't say. Still, it's not a bad idea. I'll think it over, and wait awhile before I speak to her."

Mr. Jenks made light of Lucy's doubts, and argued so insistently that she began to wonder if there were not other reasons why he wanted a vacation. She had an intuitive feeling that he wanted to give up teaching, at least there, for good. They conversed a few moments longer, until Joe drove up in the buckboard. Then Mr. Jenks helped Lucy to mount the high seat beside Joe, and bade them a merry good-bye.