Judith of the Plains, Page 4

  IV

  Judith, The Postmistress

  The arrival of Chugg's stage with the mail should have been coincidentwith the departure of the stage that brought the travellers from "Town,"but Chugg was late--a tardiness ascribed to indulgence in local lethewaters, for Lemuel Chugg had survived a romance and drank to forget thatwoman is a variable and a changeable thing. In consequence of which thesober stage-driver departed without the mails, leaving Mary Carmichael andthe fat lady to scan the horizon for the delinquent Chugg, andincidentally to hear a chapter of prairie romance.

  Some sort of revolution seemed to be in progress in the room in which thetravellers had breakfasted. Mrs. Dax had assumed the office of dictator,with absolute sway. Leander, as aide-de-camp, courier, and staff, executedmarvellous feats of domestic engineering. The late breakfast-table, sweptand garnished with pigeon-holes, became a United States post-office,prepared to transact postal business, and for the time being to become thesocial centre of the surrounding country.

  Down the yellow road that climbed and dipped and climbed and dipped againover foot-hills and sprawling space till it was lost in a world withoutend, Mary Carmichael, standing in the doorway, watched an atom, so smallthat it might have been a leaf blowing along in the wind, turn into ahorseman.

  There was inspiration for a hundred pictures in the way that horse wasridden. No flashes of daylight between saddle and rider in the jolting,Eastern fashion, but the long, easy sweep that covers ground imperceptiblyand is a delight to the eye. It needed but the solitary figure to signifythe infinitude of space in the background. In all that great, wide worldthe only hint of life was the galloping horseman, the only sound therhythmical ring of the nearing hoofs. The rider, now close enough for MissCarmichael to distinguish the features, was a thorough dandy of thesaddle. No slouching garb of exigence and comfort this, but a prettydisplay of doeskin gaiter, varnished boot, and smart riding-breeches. Thelad--he could not have been, Miss Carmichael thought, more than twenty--wastanned a splendid color not unlike the bloomy shading on a nasturtium. Andwhen the doughty horseman made out the girl standing in the doorway, hesmiled with a lack of formality not suggested by the town-cut of histrappings. Throwing the reins over the neck of the horse with the realWestern fling, he slid from the saddle in a trice, and--Mary Carmichaelexperienced something of the gasping horror of a shocked old lady as shemade out two splendid braids of thick, black hair. Her doughty cavalierwas no cavalier at all, but a surprisingly handsome young woman.

  Miss Carmichael gasped a little even as she extended her hand, for themasquerader had pulled off her gauntlet and held out hers as if she wasconferring the freedom of the wilderness. It was impossible for a homesickgirl not to respond to such heartiness, though it was with difficulty atfirst that Mary kept her eyes on the girl's face. Curiosity, agreeablypiqued, urged her to take another glimpse of the riding clothes that thisyoung woman wore with such supreme unconcern.

  Now, "in the East" Mary Carmichael had not been in the habit of meetingblack-haired goddesses who rode astride and whose assurance of thepleasure of meeting her made her as self-conscious as on her first day atdancing-school; and though she tried to prove her cosmopolitanism by notbetraying this, the attempt was rather a failure.

  "Are you surprised that I did not wait for an introduction?" the girl inthe riding clothes asked, noticing Mary's evident uneasiness; "but youdon't know how good it is to see a girl. I'm so tired of spurs andsombreros and cattle and dust and distance, and there's nothing elsehere."

  "Where I come from it's just the other way--too many petticoats andhat-pins."

  The horseman who was no horseman dropped Miss Carmichael's hand and wentinto the house. Mary wondered if she ought to have been more cordial.

  From the back door came Leander, with dishcloths, which he began to hangon the line in a dumb, driven sort of way.

  "Who is she?" asked Mary.

  "Her?" he interrogated, jerking his head in the direction of the house."The postmistress, Judith Rodney; yes, that's her name." He dropped hisvoice in the manner of one imparting momentous things. "She never wears askirt ridin', any more than a man."

  Mary felt that she was tempting Leander into the paths of gossip,undoubtedly his besetting sin, but she could not resist the temptation tolinger. He had disposed of his last dish-cloth, and he withdrew theremaining clothes-pin from his mouth in a way that was patheticallyfeminine.

  "She keeps the post-office here, since Mrs. Dax lost the job, and boardswith us; p'r'aps it's because she is my wife's successor in office, orp'a'ps it's jest the natural grudge that wimmin seem to harbor agin eachother, I dunno, but they don't sandwich none."

  Leander having disposed of his last dish-towel, squinted at it through hishalf-closed eyes, like an artist "sighting" a landscape, saw apparentlythat it was in drawing, and next brought his vision to bear on the backpremises of his own dwelling, where he saw there was no wifely figure inevidence.

  "Sh-sh-h!" he said, creeping towards Mary, his dull face transfigured withthe consciousness that he had news to tell. "Sh-sh--her brother's arustler. If 'twan't for her"--Leander went through the grewsome pantomimeof tying an imaginary rope round his neck and throwing it over the limb ofan imaginary tree. "They're goin' to get him for shore this time, soon ashe comes out of jail; but would you guess it from her bluff?"

  There was no mistaking the fate of a rustler after Mr. Dax's grislydemonstration, but of the quality of his calling Mary was as ignorant asbefore.

  "And why should they do that?" she inquired, with tenderfoot simplicity.

  "Stealin' cattle ain't good for the health hereabouts," said Leander, asone who spoke with authority. "It's apt to bring on throat trouble."

  But Mary did not find Leander's joke amusing. She had suddenly rememberedthe pale, gaunt man who had walked into the eating-house the previousmorning and walked out again, his errand turned into farce-comedy by thecowardice of an unworthy antagonist. The pale man's grievance had had todo with sheep and cattle. His name had been Rodney, too. She understoodnow. He was Judith Rodney's brother, and he was in danger of being hanged.Mary Carmichael felt first the admiration of a girl, then the pity of awoman, for the brave young creature who so stoutly carried so unspeakablea burden. But she could not speak of her new knowledge to Leander.

  She glanced towards this childlike person and saw from his stealthy mannerthat he had more to impart. He walked towards the kitchen door, saw noone, and came back to Mary.

  "There ain't a man in this Gawd-forsaken country wouldn't lope at thechance to die for her--but the women!" Leander's pantomimic indication ofabsolute feminine antagonism was conclusive.

  "The wimmin treats her scabby--just scabby. Don't you go to thinkin' sheain't a good girl on that account"; and something like an attitude ofchivalrous protection straightened the apologetic crook in his cravenoutline.

  "She's good, just good, and when a woman's that there's no use in sayin'it any more fanciful. As I says to my wife, every time she give me achance, 'If Judy wasn't a good girl these boys about here would justnatchrally become extinct shootin' each other upon account of her.' Butshe don't favor none enough to cause trouble."

  "Are the women jealous of her?"

  "It's her independence that riles 'em. They take on awful about her ridin'in pants, an' it certainly is a heap more modest than ridin' straddle in ahitched up caliker skirt, same as some of them do."

  "And do all the women out here ride astride?" Mary gasped.

  "A good many does, when you ain't watchin'; horses in these parts ain'tbroke for no such lopsided foolishness as side-saddles. But you see shedoes it becomin', and that's where the grudge comes in. You can't stirabout these foot-hills without coming across a woman, like as not, holdin'on to a posse of kids, and ridin' clothes-pin fashion in a looped-upskirt; when she sees you comin' she'll p'r'aps upset a kid or twoassoomin' a decorous attitood. That's feemi_nine_, and as such is approvedby the ladies, but"--and here Leander put his head on one s
ide and gave agrotesque impression of outraged decorum--"pants is considered unwomanly."

  "Leander! Leander!" came in accusing accents from the kitchen.

  "Run!" gasped Mrs. Dax's handmaiden; "don't let her catch us chinnin'."

  Mary Carmichael ran round one side of the house as she was bidden, but,like Lot's wife, could not resist the temptation of looking back. Leander,with incredible rapidity, grabbed two clothes-pins off the line, clutcheda dish-towel, shook it. "Comin'! comin'!" he called, as he went throughthe farce of rehanging it.

  The lonesomeness of plain and foot-hill, the utter lack of the humanelement that gives to this country its character of penetratingdesolation, had been changed while Mary Carmichael forgathered withLeander by the clothes-line. From the four quarters of the compass, men insombreros, flannel shirts, and all manner of strange habiliments camegalloping over the roads as if their horses were as keen on reaching Dax'sas their riders. They came towards the house at full tilt, their horsesstretching flat with ears laid back viciously, and Mary, who was unused tothe tricks of cow-ponies, expected to see them ride through the frontdoor, merely by way of demonstrating their sense of humor. Not so; thelittle pintos, buckskins, bays, and chestnuts dashed to the door andstopped short in a full gallop; as a bit of staccato equestrianism it wassuperb.

  And then the wherefore of all this dashing horsemanship, this curveting,prancing, galloping revival of knightly tourney effects wasapparent--Judith Rodney had opened post-office. She had changed her ridingclothes; or, rather, that portion of them to which the ladies tookexception was now concealed by a long, black skirt. Her wonderful braidsof black hair had been twisted high on her head. She was well worth a tripacross the alkali wastes to see. The room was packed with men. Oneunconsciously got the impression that a fire, a fight, or somecrowd-collecting casualty had happened. Above the continual clinking ofspurs there arose every idiom and peculiarity of speech of which theseUnited States are capable. There is no Western dialect, properly speaking.Men bring their modes of expression with them from Maine or Minnesota, asthe case may be, but their figures of speech, which give an essentialpicturesqueness to their language, are almost entirely local--the cattleand sheep industries, prospecting, the Indians, poker, faro, thedance-halls, all contribute their printable or unprintable embellishment.

  Judith managed them all--cow-punchers, sheep-herders, prospectors,freighters--with an impersonal skill that suggested a little solitaryexercise in the bowling-alley. The ten-pins took their tumbles in goodpart--no one could congratulate himself on escaping the levelling ball--andwhere there's a universal lack of luck, doubtless also there will be founda sort of grim fellowship.

  That they were all more or less in love with her there could be no doubt.As a matter of fact, Judith Rodney did not depend on the scarcity of womenin the desert for her pre-eminence in the interests of this hot-headedgroup. Her personality--and through no conscious effort of hers--would havebeen pre-eminent anywhere. As it was, in this woman-forsaken wildernessshe might have stirred up a modern edition of the Trojan war at anymoment. That she did not, despite the lurking suggestion of temptationwritten all over her, brought back the words of Leander: "If Judy wasn't agood girl, these boys would just nacherally become extinct shooting eachother upon account of her."

  And yet what a woman she was! It struck Miss Carmichael, as she watchedJudith hold these warring elements in the hollow of her hand, that herinterest might be due to a certain temperamental fusion; that there mightlie, at the essence of her being, a subtle combination of saint and devil.One could fancy her leading an army on a crusade or provoking a bar-roombrawl. The challenging quality of her beauty, the vividness of color, thesuggestion of endurance and radiating health in every line, werecomparable to the great primeval forces about her. She was cast to be themother of men of brawn and muscle, who would make this vast, unclaimedwilderness subject to them.

  At present neither pole of her character, as it had been hastilyestimated, was even remotely suggested. The atmosphere in the post-officewas, considering the potential violence of its visitors, singularly calm.And Judith, feeding these wild border lads on scraps of chaff and banter,and retaining their absolute loyalty, was a sight worth seeing. She hadthe alertness of a lion-tamer locked in a cage with the lords of thejungle; the rashly confident she humbled, the meek she exalted, and allwith such genuine good-fellowship, such an absence of coquetry in thegenial game of give and take, that one ceased to wonder at even thedevotion of Leander. And since they were to her, on her own confession,but "spurs and sombreros," one wondered at the elaboration of the comedy,the endless wire-pulling in the manipulation of these most picturesquemarionettes--until one remembered the outlaw brother and felt that what shedid she did for him.

  "You right shore there ain't a letter for me, Miss Judith. My creditorsare pretty faithful 'bout bearing me in mind." It was the third time thatthe big, shambling Texan who had been one of the company at Mrs. Clark'seating-house had inquired for mail, and seemed so embarrassed by his ownbulk that he moved cautiously, as if he might step on a fellow-creatureand maim him. Each time he had asked for a letter he took his place at theend of the waiting-line and patiently bided his time for the chance of anextra word with the postmistress.

  "They've begun to lose hope, Texas."

  She shuffled the letters impartially, as a goddess dispensing fate, andbarely glanced at the man who had ridden a hundred and fifty miles acrosssand and cactus to see her.

  "That's the difference between them and me." There was a grim finality inhis tone.

  "What, you're going to take your place at the end of that line again! I'lltry and find you a circular."

  He tried to look at her angrily, but she smiled at him with suchgood-fellowship that he went off singing significantly that universalanthem of the cow-puncher the West over:

  "Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie, In a narrow grave just six by three, Where the wild coyotes will howl o'er me. Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie."

  "Ain't there a love letter for me?" The young man who inquired seemed tobelong to a different race from these bronzed squires of the saddle. Hesuggested over-crowded excursion boats on Sunday afternoons in swarmingEastern cities. He buttonholed every one and explained his presence in theWest on the score of his health, as though leaving his native asphalt werea thing that demanded apology.

  "Yes," answered the postmistress, with a real motherly note, "here is onefrom Hugous & Co."

  A roar went up at this, and the blushing tenderfoot pocketed his thirdbill for the most theatrical style of Mexican sombrero; it had a brasssnake coiled round the crown for a hat-band, and a cow-puncher in good andregular standing would have preferred going bareheaded to wearing it.

  "She seems to be pressing her suit, son; you better name the day," one ofthe loungers suggested.

  "The blamed thing ain't worth twenty-five dollars," the young man from theEast declared. A conspicuous silence followed. It seemed to irritate theowner of the hat that no one would defend it. "It ain't worth it," herepeated.

  "I think you allowed you was out here for your health?" the big Texan, whohad returned from the corral, inquired.

  "Betcher life," swaggered the man with the hat, "N'York's good enough forme."

  "But"--and the Texan smiled sweetly--"the man who sold you the hat ain't outhere for his."

  Judith hid her head and stamped letters. The boys were suspiciously quiet,then some one began to chant:

  "The devil examined the desert well, And made up his mind 'twas too dry for hell; He put up the prices his pockets to swell, And called it a--heal-th resort."

  The postmistress waited for the last note of the chorus to die away, andread from a package she held in her hand--"'Mrs. Henry Lee, Deer Lodge,Wyoming.' Well, Henry, here's a wedding-present, I guess. And mycongratulations, though you've hardly treated us well in never saying aword."

  The unfortunate Henry, who hadn't even a sweetheart, and who was noted asthe shyest man in the "Goose Cre
ek Outfit," had to submit to the mockcongratulations of every man in the room and promise to set up the drinkslater.

  "I never felt we'd keep you long, son; them golden curls seldom gets achance to ripen singly."

  "Shoshone squaw, did you say she was, Henry? They ain't much for looks,but there's a heep of wear to 'em."

  "Oh, go on, now; you fellows know I ain't married." And the boy handledthe package with a sort of dumb wonder, as if the superscription wereindisputable evidence of a wife's existence.

  "Open it, Henry; you shore don't harbor sentiments of curiosity regardingthe post-office dealings of your lady."

  "Now, old man, this here may be grounds for divorce."

  "See what the other fellow's sending your wife."

  Henry, badgered, jostled, the target of many a homely witticism, finallyopened the package, which proved to be a sample bottle of baby food. Atsight of it they howled like Apaches, and Henry was again forced toreceive their congratulations. Judith, who had been an interestedon-looker without joining in the merriment, now detected in the tenor oftheir humor a tendency towards breadth. In an instant her manner wasofficial; rapping the table with her mailing-stamp, she announced:

  "Boys, this post-office closes in ten minutes, if you want to buy anystamps."

  The silence following this statement on the part of the postmistress wasinstantaneous. Henry took his mirth-provoking package and went his way;some of the more hilariously inclined followed him. The remainder confinedthemselves absolutely to business, scrawling postal-cards or reading theirmail. The pounce of the official stamp on the letters, as the postmistresschecked them off for the mail-bag, was the only sound in the hotstillness.

  A heavily built man, older than those who had been keeping the post-officelively, now took advantage of the lull to approach Judith. He had atwinkling face, all circles and pouches, but it grew graver as he spoke tothe postmistress. He was Major Atkins, formerly a famous cavalry officer,but since his retirement a cattle-man whose herds grazed to the pan-handleof Texas. As he took his mail, talking meantime of politics, of the heat,of the lack of water, in the loud voice for which he was famous, hemanaged, with clumsy diplomacy, to interject a word or two for her own earalone.

  "Jim's out," he conveyed to her, in a successfully muffled tone. "He'sout, and they're after him, hot. Get him out of the State, Judy--get himout, _quick_. He tried to kill Simpson at Mrs. Clark's, in town,yesterday. The little Eastern girl that's here will tell you." Then themajor was gone before Judith could perfectly realize the significance ofwhat he had told her.

  She threw back her head and the pulse in her throat beat. Like a wildforest thing, at the first warning sound, she considered: Was it time forflight?--or was the warning but the crackling of a twig? Major Atkins was acattle-man: her brother hated all cattle-men. How disinterested had beenthe major's warning! He had always been her friend. Mrs. Atkins had beenone of the ladies at the post who had helped to send her to school to thenuns at Santa Fe. She despised herself for doubting; yet these weretroublous times, and all was fair between sheep and cattle-men. MajorAtkins had spoken of the Eastern girl; then that pretty, little,curly-haired creature, whom Judith had found standing in the sunshine, hadseen Jim--had heard him threaten to kill. Should she ask her aboutit--consult her? Judith's training was not one to impel her to give herconfidence to strangers, still she had liked the little Eastern girl.

  These were the perplexities that beset her, sweeping her thoughts hitherand thither, as sea-weed is swept by the wash of the waves. She strove tocollect her faculties. How should she rid the house of her cavaliers? Shehad regularly to refuse some half-dozen of them each day that she keptpost-office.

  In a few minutes more the group in the post-office began to disperse underthe skilful manipulation of the postmistress. To some she sold stamps withan air of "God speed you," and they were soon but dwindling specks on thehorizon. To others she implied such friendly farewells that there wasnothing to do but betake themselves to their saddles. Others hadcompromised with the saloon opposite, and their roaring mirth came insnatches of song and shouts of laughter. She fastened up the little pileof letters that had remained uncalled for with what seemed a deliberateslowness. Each time any one entered the room she looked up--then the hopedied hard in her face. Leander came in with catlike tread and removed thepigeon-holes from the table. The post-office was closed. Family life hadbeen resumed at the Daxes'.

  Judith left the room and stood in the blinding sunlight, basking in it asif she were cold. The mercury must have stood close to a hundred, and shewas hatless. There was no trace of her ebullient spirits of the morning.Her head was sunk on her breast and she held her hands with locked fingersbehind her. It was hot, hot as the breaths of a thousand belchingfurnaces. A white, burning glare had spread itself from horizon tohorizon, and the earth wrinkled and cracked beneath it. From every cornerof this parched wilderness came an ominous whirring, like the lastwheezing gasp of an alarm-clock before striking the hour. This menacingorchestration was nothing more or less than millions of grasshoppersrasping legs and wings together in hoarse appreciation of the heat andglare; but it had a sound that boded evil. Again and again she turnedtowards the yellow road as it dipped over the hills; but there was never aglimpse of a horseman from that direction.