Virginian (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (51 page)

“Well, I have not been able to raise it. There has been this and that and the other,—yu’ know most of the later doings yourself,—and today is the first time I’ve happened to see the man since the doings last autumn. Yu’ seem to know about them, too. He knows I can’t prove he was with that gang of horse thieves. And I can’t prove he killed poor Shorty. But he knows I missed him awful close, and spoiled his thieving for a while. So d’ yu’ wonder he don’t think much of me? But if I had lived to be twenty-nine years old like I am, and with all my chances made no enemy, I’d feel myself a failure.”

His story was finished. He had made her his confidant in matters he had never spoken of before, and she was happy to be thus much nearer to him. It diminished a certain fear that was mingled with her love of him.

During the next several miles he was silent, and his silence was enough for her. Vermont sank away from her thoughts, and Wyoming held less of loneliness. They descended altogether into the map which had stretched below them, so that it was a map no longer, but earth with growing things, and prairie-dogs sitting upon it, and now and then a bird flying over it. And after a while she said to him, “What are you thinking about?”

“I have been doing sums. Figured in hours it sounds right short. Figured in minutes it boils up into quite a mess. Twenty by sixty is

twelve hundred. Put that into seconds, and yu’ get seventy-two thousand seconds. Seventy-two thousand. Seventy-two thousand seconds yet before we get married.”

“Seconds! To think of its having come to seconds!”

“I am thinkin’ about it. I’m choppin’ sixty of ’em off every minute.” With such chopping time wears away. More miles of the road lay behind them, and in the virgin wilderness the scars of new-scraped water ditches began to appear, and the first wire fences. Next, they were passing cabins and occasional fields, the outposts of habitation. The free road became wholly imprisoned, running between unbroken stretches of barbed wire. Far off to the eastward a flowing column of dust marked the approaching stage, bringing the bishop, probably, for whose visit here they had timed their wedding. The day still brimmed with heat and sunshine; but the great daily shadow was beginning to move from the feet of the Bow Leg Mountains outward toward the town. Presently they began to meet citizens. Some of these knew them and nodded, while some did not, and stared. Turning a corner into the town’s chief street, where stood the hotel, the bank, the drug store, the general store, and the seven saloons, they were hailed heartily. Here were three friends,—Honey Wiggin, Scipio Le Moyne, and Lin McLean.—aIl desirous of drinking the Virginian’s health, if his lady—would she mind? The three stood grinning, with their hats off; but behind their gayety the Virginian read some other purpose.

“We’ll all be very good,” said Honey Wiggin.

“Pretty good,” said Lin.

“Good,” said Scipio.

“Which is the honest man?” inquired Molly, glad to see them.

“Not one!” said the Virginian. “My old friends scare me when I think of their ways.”

“It’s bein’ engaged scares yu’,” retorted Mr. McLean. “Marriage restores your courage, I find.”

“Well, I’ll trust all of you,” said Molly, “He’s going to take me to the hotel, and then you can drink his health as much as you please.”

With a smile to them she turned to proceed, and he let his horse move with hers; but he looked at his friends. Then Scipio’s bleached blue eyes narrowed to a slit, and he said what they had all come out on the street to say:—

“Don’t change your clothes.”

“Oh!” protested Molly, “isn’t he rather dusty and countrified?”

But the Virginian had taken Scipio’s meaning
“Don’t change your clothes.”
Innocent Molly appreciated these words no more than the average reader who reads a masterpiece, complacently unaware that its style differs from that of the morning paper. Such was Scipio’s intention, wishing to spare her from alarm.

So at the hotel she let her lover go with a kiss, and without a thought of Trampas. She in her room unlocked the possessions which were there waiting for her, and changed her dress.

Wedding garments, and other civilized apparel proper for a genuine frontiersman when he comes to town, were also in the hotel, ready for the Virginian to wear. It is only the somewhat green and unseasoned cow-puncher who struts before the public in spurs and deadly weapons. For many a year the Virginian had put away these childish things. He made a sober toilet for the streets. Nothing but his face and bearing remained out of the common when he was in a town. But Scipio had told him not to change his clothes; therefore he went out with his pistol at his hip. Soon he had joined his three friends.

“I’m obliged to yu‘,” he said. “He passed me this mawnin’.”

“We don’t know his intentions,” said Wiggin.

“Except that he’s hangin’ around,” said McLean.

“And fillin’ up,” said Scipio, “which reminds me—”

They strolled into the saloon of a friend, where, unfortunately, sat some foolish people. But one cannot always tell how much of a fool a man is, at sight.

It was a temperate health-drinking that they made. “Here’s how,” they muttered softly to the Virginian, and “How,” he returned softly, looking away from them. But they had a brief meeting of eyes, standing and lounging near each other, shyly; and Scipio shook hands with the bridegroom. “Some day,” he stated, tapping himself; for in his vagrant heart he began to envy the man who could bring himself to marry. And he nodded again, repeating, “Here’s how.”

They stood at the bar, full of sentiment, empty of words, memory and affection busy in their hearts. All of them had seen rough days together, and they felt guilty with emotion.

“It’s hot weather,” said Wiggin.

“Hotter on Box Elder,” said McLean. “My kid has started teething.”

Words ran dry again. They shifted their positions, looked in their glasses, read the labels on the bottles. They dropped a word now and then to the proprietor about his trade, and his ornaments.

“Good head,” commented McLean.

“Big old ram,” assented the proprietor. “Shot him myself on Gray Bull last fall.”

“Sheep was thick in the Tetons last fall,” said the Virginian.

On the bar stood a machine into which the idle customer might drop his nickel. The coin then bounced among an arrangement of pegs, descending at length into one or another of various holes. You might win as much as ten times your stake, but this was not the most usual result; and with nickels the three friends and the bridegroom now mildly sported for a while, buying them with silver when their store ran out.

“Was it sheep you went after in the Tetons?” inquired the proprietor, knowing it was horse thieves.

“Yes,” said the Virginian. “I’ll have ten more nickels.”

“Did you get all the sheep you wanted?” the proprietor continued.

“Poor luck,” said the Virginian.

“Think there’s a friend of yours in town this afternoon,” said the proprietor.

“Did he mention he was my friend?”

The proprietor laughed. The Virginian watched another nickel click down among the pegs.

Honey Wiggin now made the bridegroom a straight offer. “We’ll take this thing off your hands,” said he.

“Any or all of us,” said Lin.

But Scipio held his peace. His loyalty went every inch as far as theirs, but his understanding of his friend went deeper. “Don’t change your clothes,” was the first and the last help he would be likely to give in this matter. The rest must be as such matters must always be, between man and man. To the other two friends, however, this seemed a very special case, falling outside established precedent. Therefore they ventured offers of interference.

“A man don’t get married every day,” apologized McLean. “We’ll just run him out of town for yu’.”

“Save yu’ the trouble,” urged Wiggin. “Say the word.”

The proprietor now added his voice. “It’ll sober him up to spend his night out in the brush. He’ll quit his talk then.”

But the Virginian did not say the word, or any word. He stood playing with the nickels.

“Think of her,” muttered McLean.

“Who else would I be thinking of?” returned the Southerner. His face had become very sombre. “She has been raised so different!” he murmured. He pondered a little, while the others waited, solicitous.

A new idea came to the proprietor. “I am acting mayor of this town,” said he. “I’ll put him in the calaboose
^bt
and keep him till you get married and away.”

“Say the word,” repeated Honey Wiggin.

Scipio’s eye met the proprietor’s, and he shook his head about a quarter of an inch. The proprietor shook his to the same amount. They understood each other. It had come to that point where there was no way out, save only the ancient, eternal way between man and man. It is only the great mediocrity that goes to law in these personal matters.

“So he has talked about me some?” said the Virginian.

“It’s the whiskey,” Scipio explained.

“I expect,” said McLean, “he’d run a mile if he was in a state to appreciate his insinuations.”

“Which we are careful not to mention to yu‘,” said Wiggin, “unless yu’ inquire for ’em.”

Some of the fools present had drawn closer to hear this interesting conversation. In gatherings of more than six there will generally be at least one fool; and this company must have numbered twenty men.

“This country knows well enough,” said one fool, who hungered to be important, “that you don’t brand no calves that ain’t your own.”

The saturnine Virginian looked at him. “Thank yu’,” said he, gravely, “for your indorsement of my character.” The fool felt flattered. The Virginian turned to his friends. His hand slowly pushed his hat back, and he rubbed his black head in thought.

“Glad to see yu’ve got your gun with you,” continued the happy fool. “You know what Trampas claims about that affair of yours in the Tetons? He claims that if everything was known about the killing of Shorty-”

“Take one on the house,” suggested the proprietor to him, amiably. “Your news will be fresher.” And he pushed him the bottle. The fool felt less important.

“This talk had went the rounds before it got to us,” said Scipio, “or we’d have headed it off. He has got friends in town.”

Perplexity knotted the Virginian’s brows. This community knew that a man had implied he was a thief and a murderer; it also knew that he knew it. But the case was one of peculiar circumstances, assuredly. Could he avoid meeting the man? Soon the stage would be starting south for the railroad. He had already to-day proposed to his sweetheart that they should take it. Could he for her sake leave unanswered a talking enemy upon the field? His own ears had not heard the enemy.

Into these reflections the fool stepped once more. “Of course this country don’t believe Trampas,” said he. “This country—”

But he contributed no further thoughts. From somewhere in the rear of the building, where it opened upon the tin cans and the hinder purlieus of the town, came a movement, and Trampas was among them, courageous with whiskey.

All the fools now made themselves conspicuous. One lay on the floor, knocked there by the Virginian, whose arm he had attempted to hold. Others struggled with Trampas, and his bullet smashed the ceiling before they could drag the pistol from him. “There now! there now!” they interposed; “you don’t want to talk like that,” for he was pouring out a tide of hate and vilification. Yet the Virginian stood quiet by the bar, and many an eye of astonishment was turned upon him. “I’d not stand half that language,” some muttered to each other. Still the Virginian waited quietly, while the fools reasoned with Trampas. But no earthly foot can step between a man and his destiny. Trampas broke suddenly free.

“Your friends have saved your life,” he rang out, with obscene epithets. “I’ll give you till sundown to leave town.”

There was total silence instantly.

“Trampas,” spoke the Virginian, “I don’t want trouble with you.”

“He never has wanted it,” Trampas sneered to the bystanders. “He has been dodging it five years. But I’ve got him corralled.”

Some of the Trampas faction smiled.

“Trampas,” said the Virginian again, “are yu’ sure yu’ really mean that?”

The whiskey bottle flew through the air, hurled by Trampas, and crashed through the saloon window behind the Virginian.

“That was surplusage, Trampas,” said he, “if yu’ mean the other.”

“Get out by sundown, that’s all,” said Trampas. And wheeling, he went out of the saloon by the rear, as he had entered.

“Gentlemen,” said the Virginian, “I know you will all oblige me.”

“Sure!” exclaimed the proprietor, heartily. “We’ll see that everybody lets this thing alone.”

The Virginian gave a general nod to the company, and walked out into the street.

“It’s a turruble shame,” sighed Scipio, “that he couldn’t have postponed it.”

The Virginian walked in the open air with thoughts disturbed. “I am of two minds about one thing,” he said to himself uneasily.

Gossip ran in advance of him; but as he came by, the talk fell away until he had passed. Then they looked after him, and their words again rose audibly. Thus everywhere a little eddy of silence accompanied his steps.

“It don’t trouble him much,” one said, having read nothing in the Virginian’s face.

“It may trouble his girl some,” said another.

“She’ll not know,” said a third, “until it’s over.”

“He’ll not tell her?”

“I wouldn’t. It’s no woman’s business.”

“Maybe that’s so. Well, it would have suited me to have Trampas die sooner.”

“How would it suit you to have him live longer?” inquired a member of the opposite faction, suspected of being himself a cattle thief.

“I could answer your question, if I had other folks’ calves I wanted to brand.” This raised both a laugh and a silence.