The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains
Where the steer had been roasted, the powdered ashes were now cold
white, and Mr. McLean, feeling through his dreams the change of dawn
come over the air, sat up cautiously among the outdoor slumberers and
waked his neighbor.
“Day will be soon,” he whispered, “and we must light out of this. I
never suspicioned yu’ had that much of the devil in you before.”
“I reckon some of the fellows will act haidstrong,” the Virginian
murmured luxuriously, among the warmth of his blankets.
“I tell yu’ we must skip,” said Lin, for the second time; and he rubbed
the Virginian’s black head, which alone was visible.
“Skip, then, you,” came muffled from within, “and keep you’self mighty
sca’ce till they can appreciate our frolic.”
The Southerner withdrew deeper into his bed, and Mr. McLean, informing
him that he was a fool, arose and saddled his horse. From the
saddle-bag, he brought a parcel, and lightly laying this beside Bokay
Baldy, he mounted and was gone. When Baldy awoke later, he found the
parcel to be a pair of flowery slippers.
In selecting the inert Virginian as the fool, Mr. McLean was scarcely
wise; it is the absent who are always guilty.
Before ever Lin could have been a mile in retreat, the rattle of
the wheels roused all of them, and here came the Taylors. Before the
Taylors’ knocking had brought the Swintons to their door, other wheels
sounded, and here were Mr. and Mrs. Carmody, and Uncle Hughey with his
wife, and close after them Mr. Dow, alone, who told how his wife had
gone into one of her fits--she upon whom Dr. Barker at Drybone had
enjoined total abstinence from all excitement. Voices of women and
children began to be uplifted; the Westfalls arrived in a lather,
and the Thomases; and by sunrise, what with fathers and mothers and
spectators and loud offspring, there was gathered such a meeting as has
seldom been before among the generations of speaking men. To-day you can
hear legends of it from Texas to Montana; but I am giving you the full
particulars.
Of course they pitched upon poor Lin. Here was the Virginian doing
his best, holding horses and helping ladies descend, while the name of
McLean began to be muttered with threats. Soon a party led by Mr. Dow
set forth in search of him, and the Southerner debated a moment if he
had better not put them on a wrong track. But he concluded that they
might safely go on searching.
Mrs. Westfall found Christopher at once in the green shawl of Anna
Maria Dow, but all was not achieved thus in the twinkling of an eye. Mr.
McLean had, it appeared, as James Westfall lugubriously pointed out, not
merely “swapped the duds; he had shuffled the whole doggone deck;” and
they cursed this Satanic invention. The fathers were but of moderate
assistance; it was the mothers who did the heavy work; and by ten
o’clock some unsolved problems grew so delicate that a ladies’ caucus
was organized in a private room,--no admittance for men,--and what was
done there I can only surmise.
During its progress the search party returned. It had not found Mr.
McLean. It had found a tree with a notice pegged upon it, reading, “God
bless our home!” This was captured.
But success attended the caucus; each mother emerged, satisfied that
she had received her own, and each sire, now that his family was itself
again, began to look at his neighbor sideways. After a man has been
angry enough to kill another man, after the fire of righteous slaughter
has raged in his heart as it had certainly raged for several hours in
the hearts of these fathers, the flame will usually burn itself out.
This will be so in a generous nature, unless the cause of the anger is
still unchanged. But the children had been identified; none had taken
hurt. All had been humanely given their nourishment. The thing was over.
The day was beautiful. A tempting feast remained from the barbecue.
These Bear Creek fathers could not keep their ire at red heat. Most
of them, being as yet more their wives’ lovers than their children’s
parents, began to see the mirthful side of the adventure; and they
ceased to feel very severely toward Lin McLean.
Not so the women. They cried for vengeance; but they cried in vain, and
were met with smiles.
Mrs. Westfall argued long that punishment should be dealt the offender.
“Anyway,” she persisted, “it was real defiant of him putting that up on
the tree. I might forgive him but for that.”
“Yes,” spoke the Virginian in their midst, “that wasn’t sort o’ right.
Especially as I am the man you’re huntin’.”
They sat dumb at his assurance.
“Come and kill me,” he continued, round upon the party. “I’ll not
resist.”
But they could not resist the way in which he had looked round upon
them. He had chosen the right moment for his confession, as a captain
of a horse awaits the proper time for a charge. Some rebukes he did
receive; the worst came from the mothers. And all that he could say for
himself was, “I am getting off too easy.”
“But what was your point?” said Westfall.
“Blamed if I know any more. I expect it must have been the whiskey.”
“I would mind it less,” said Mrs. Westfall, “if you looked a bit sorry
or ashamed.”
The Virginian shook his head at her penitently. “I’m tryin’ to,” he
said.
And thus he sat disarming his accusers until they began to lunch upon
the copious remnants of the barbecue. He did not join them at this meal.
In telling you that Mrs. Dow was the only lady absent upon this historic
morning, I was guilty of an inadvertence. There was one other.
The Virginian rode away sedately through the autumn sunshine; and as
he went he asked his Monte horse a question. “Do yu’ reckon she’ll have
forgotten you too, you pie-biter?” said he. Instead of the new trousers,
the cow-puncher’s leathern chaps were on his legs. But he had the new
scarf knotted at his neck. Most men would gladly have equalled him in
appearance. “You Monte,” said he, “will she be at home?”
It was Sunday, and no school day, and he found her in her cabin that
stood next the Taylors’ house. Her eyes were very bright.
“I’d thought I’d just call,” said he.
“Why, that’s such a pity! Mr. and Mrs. Taylor are away.”
“Yes; they’ve been right busy. That’s why I thought I’d call. Will yu’
come for a ride, ma’am?”
“Dear me! I--”
“You can ride my hawss. He’s gentle.”
“What! And you walk?”
“No, ma’am. Nor the two of us ride him THIS time, either.” At this she
turned entirely pink, and he, noticing, went on quietly: “I’ll catch up
one of Taylor’s hawsses. Taylor knows me.”
“No. I don’t really think I could do that. But thank you. Thank you very
much. I must go now and see how Mrs. Taylor’s fire is.”
“I’ll look after that, ma’am. I’d like for yu’ to go ridin’ mighty well.
Yu’ have no babies this mawnin’ to be anxious after.”
At this shaft, Grandmother Stark flashed awake deep within the spirit of
her descendant, and she made a haughty declaration of war. “I don’t know
what you mean, sir,” she said.
Now was his danger; for it was easy to fall into mere crude impertinence
and ask her why, then, did she speak thus abruptly? There were various
easy things of this kind for him to say. And any rudeness would have
lost him the battle. But the Virginian was not the man to lose such
a battle in such a way. His shaft had hit. She thought he referred
to those babies about whom last night she had shown such superfluous
solicitude. Her conscience was guilty. This was all that he had wished
to make sure of before he began operations.
“Why, I mean,” said he, easily, sitting down near the door, “that it’s
Sunday. School don’t hinder yu’ from enjoyin’ a ride to-day. You’ll
teach the kids all the better for it to-morro’, ma’am. Maybe it’s your
duty.” And he smiled at her.
“My duty! It’s quite novel to have strangers--”
“Am I a stranger?” he cut in, firing his first broadside. “I was
introduced, ma’am,” he continued, noting how she had flushed again. “And
I would not be oversteppin’ for the world. I’ll go away if yu’ want.”
And hereupon he quietly rose, and stood, hat in hand.
Molly was flustered. She did not at all want him to go. No one of
her admirers had ever been like this creature. The fringed leathern
chaparreros, the cartridge belt, the flannel shirt, the knotted scarf at
the neck, these things were now an old story to her. Since her arrival
she had seen young men and old in plenty dressed thus. But worn by this
man now standing by her door, they seemed to radiate romance. She did
not want him to go--and she wished to win her battle. And now in
her agitation she became suddenly severe, as she had done at Hoosic
Junction. He should have a punishment to remember!
“You call yourself a man, I suppose,” she said.
But he did not tremble in the least. Her fierceness filled him with
delight, and the tender desire of ownership flooded through him.
“A grown-up, responsible man,” she repeated.
“Yes, ma’am. I think so.” He now sat down again.
“And you let them think that--that Mr. McLean--You dare not look me in
the face and say that Mr. McLean did that last night!”
“I reckon I dassent.”
“There! I knew it! I said so from the first!”
“And me a stranger to you!” he murmured.
It was his second broadside. It left her badly crippled. She was silent.
“Who did yu’ mention it to, ma’am?”
She hoped she had him. “Why, are you afraid?” And she laughed lightly.
“I told ’em myself. And their astonishment seemed so genu-wine I’d just
hate to think they had fooled me that thorough when they knowed it all
along from you seeing me.”
“I did not see you. I knew it must--of course I did not tell any one.
When I said I said so from the first, I meant--you can understand
perfectly what I meant.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Poor Molly was near stamping her foot. “And what sort of a trick,” she
rushed on, “was that to play? Do you call it a manly thing to frighten
and distress women because you--for no reason at all? I should never
have imagined it could be the act of a person who wears a big pistol and
rides a big horse. I should be afraid to go riding with such an immature
protector.”
“Yes; that was awful childish. Your words do cut a little; for maybe
there’s been times when I have acted pretty near like a man. But I
cert’nly forgot to be introduced before I spoke to yu’ last night.
Because why? You’ve found me out dead in one thing. Won’t you take a
guess at this too?”
“I cannot sit guessing why people do not behave themselves--who seem to
know better.”
“Well, ma’am, I’ve played square and owned up to yu’. And that’s not
what you’re doin’ by me. I ask your pardon if I say what I have a right
to say in language not as good as I’d like to talk to yu’ with. But at
South Fork Crossin’ who did any introducin’? Did yu’ complain I was a
stranger then?”
“I--no!” she flashed out; then, quite sweetly, “The driver told me it
wasn’t REALLY so dangerous there, you know.”
“That’s not the point I’m makin’. You are a grown-up woman, a
responsible woman. You’ve come ever so far, and all alone, to a
rough country to instruct young children that play games,--tag, and
hide-and-seek, and fooleries they’ll have to quit when they get old.
Don’t you think pretendin’ yu’ don’t know a man,--his name’s nothin’,
but him,--a man whom you were glad enough to let assist yu’ when
somebody was needed,--don’t you think that’s mighty close to
hide-and-seek them children plays? I ain’t so sure but what there’s a
pair of us children in this hyeh room.”
Molly Wood was regarding him saucily. “I don’t think I like you,” said
she.
“That’s all square enough. You’re goin’ to love me before we get
through. I wish yu’d come a-ridin, ma’am.”
“Dear, dear, dear! So I’m going to love you? How will you do it? I know
men think that they only need to sit and look strong and make chests at
a girl--”