The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains
mind.”--“You mean a man,” said Andrew Bell.--“A man, Andrew?”--“Yes,
Mrs. Wood, that’s what Sarah always means.”
It may be mentioned that Sarah’s surmises did not greatly contribute to
her mother’s happiness. And rumor is so strange a thing that presently
from the malicious outside air came a vague and dreadful word--one of
those words that cannot be traced to its source. Somebody said to Andrew
Bell that they heard Miss Molly Wood was engaged to marry a RUSTLER.
“Heavens, Andrew!” said his wife; “what is a rustler?”
It was not in any dictionary, and current translations of it were
inconsistent. A man at Hoosic Falls said that he had passed through
Cheyenne, and heard the term applied in a complimentary way to people
who were alive and pushing. Another man had always supposed it meant
some kind of horse. But the most alarming version of all was that a
rustler was a cattle thief.
Now the truth is that all these meanings were right. The word ran a sort
of progress in the cattle country, gathering many meanings as it went.
It gathered more, however, in Bennington. In a very few days, gossip had
it that Molly was engaged to a gambler, a gold miner, an escaped stage
robber, and a Mexican bandit; while Mrs. Flynt feared she had married a
Mormon.
Along Bear Creek, however, Molly and her “rustler” took a ride soon
after her return. They were neither married nor engaged, and she was
telling him about Vermont.
“I never was there,” said he. “Never happened to strike in that
direction.”
“What decided your direction?”
“Oh, looking for chances. I reckon I must have been more ambitious than
my brothers--or more restless. They stayed around on farms. But I got
out. When I went back again six years afterward, I was twenty. They was
talking about the same old things. Men of twenty-five and thirty--yet
just sittin’ and talkin’ about the same old things. I told my mother
about what I’d seen here and there, and she liked it, right to her
death. But the others--well, when I found this whole world was hawgs and
turkeys to them, with a little gunnin’ afteh small game throwed in, I
put on my hat one mawnin’ and told ’em maybe when I was fifty I’d look
in on ’em again to see if they’d got any new subjects. But they’ll
never. My brothers don’t seem to want chances.”
“You have lost a good many yourself,” said Molly.
“That’s correct.”
“And yet,” said she, “sometimes I think you know a great deal more than
I ever shall.”
“Why, of course I do,” said he, quite simply. “I have earned my living
since I was fourteen. And that’s from old Mexico to British Columbia.
I have never stolen or begged a cent. I’d not want yu’ to know what I
know.”
She was looking at him, half listening and half thinking of her
great-aunt.
“I am not losing chances any more,” he continued. “And you are the best
I’ve got.”
She was not sorry to have Georgie Taylor come galloping along at this
moment and join them. But the Virginian swore profanely under his
breath. And on this ride nothing more happened.
XXIII. VARIOUS POINTS
Love had been snowbound for many weeks. Before this imprisonment its
course had run neither smooth nor rough, so far as eye could see; it
had run either not at all, or, as an undercurrent, deep out of sight. In
their rides, in their talks, love had been dumb, as to spoken words at
least; for the Virginian had set himself a heavy task of silence and of
patience. Then, where winter barred his visits to Bear Creek, and there
was for the while no ranch work or responsibility to fill his thoughts
and blood with action, he set himself a task much lighter. Often,
instead of Shakespeare and fiction, school books lay open on his cabin
table; and penmanship and spelling helped the hours to pass. Many sheets
of paper did he fill with various exercises, and Mrs. Henry gave him her
assistance in advice and corrections.
“I shall presently be in love with him myself,” she told the Judge. “And
it’s time for you to become anxious.”
“I am perfectly safe,” he retorted. “There’s only one woman for him any
more.”
“She is not good enough for him,” declared Mrs. Henry. “But he’ll never
see that.”
So the snow fell, the world froze, and the spelling-books and exercises
went on. But this was not the only case of education which was
progressing at the Sunk Creek Ranch while love was snowbound.
One morning Scipio le Moyne entered the Virginian’s sitting room--that
apartment where Dr. MacBride had wrestled with sin so courageously all
night.
The Virginian sat at his desk. Open books lay around him; a
half-finished piece of writing was beneath his fist; his fingers were
coated with ink. Education enveloped him, it may be said. But there was
none in his eye. That was upon the window, looking far across the cold
plain.
The foreman did not move when Scipio came in, and this humorous spirit
smiled to himself. “It’s Bear Creek he’s havin’ a vision of,” he
concluded. But he knew instantly that this was not so. The Virginian
was looking at something real, and Scipio went to the window to see for
himself.
“Well,” he said, having seen, “when is he going to leave us?”
The foreman continued looking at two horsemen riding together. Their
shapes, small in the distance, showed black against the universal
whiteness.
“When d’ yu’ figure he’ll leave us?” repeated Scipio.
“He,” murmured the Virginian, always watching the distant horsemen; and
again, “he.”
Scipio sprawled down, familiarly, across a chair. He and the Virginian
had come to know each other very well since that first meeting at
Medora. They were birds many of whose feathers were the same, and the
Virginian often talked to Scipio without reserve. Consequently, Scipio
now understood those two syllables that the Virginian had pronounced
precisely as though the sentences which lay between them had been fully
expressed.
“Hm,” he remarked. “Well, one will be a gain, and the other won’t be no
loss.”
“Poor Shorty!” said the Virginian. “Poor fool!”
Scipio was less compassionate. “No,” he persisted, “I ain’t sorry for
him. Any man old enough to have hair on his face ought to see through
Trampas.”
The Virginian looked out of the window again, and watched Shorty and
Trampas as they rode in the distance. “Shorty is kind to animals,” he
said. “He has gentled that hawss Pedro he bought with his first money.
Gentled him wonderful. When a man is kind to dumb animals, I always say
he had got some good in him.”
“Yes,” Scipio reluctantly admitted. “Yes. But I always did hate a fool.”
“This hyeh is a mighty cruel country,” pursued the Virginian. “To
animals that is. Think of it! Think what we do to hundreds an’ thousands
of little calves! Throw ’em down, brand ’em, cut ’em, ear mark ’em, turn
’em loose, and on to the next. It has got to be, of course. But I say
this. If a man can go jammin’ hot irons on to little calves and slicin’
pieces off ’em with his knife, and live along, keepin’ a kindness for
animals in his heart, he has got some good in him. And that’s what
Shorty has got. But he is lettin’ Trampas get a hold of him, and both of
them will leave us.” And the Virginian looked out across the huge winter
whiteness again. But the riders had now vanished behind some foot-hills.
Scipio sat silent. He had never put these thoughts about men and animals
to himself, and when they were put to him, he saw that they were true.
“Queer,” he observed finally.
“What?”
“Everything.”
“Nothing’s queer,” stated the Virginian, “except marriage and lightning.
Them two occurrences can still give me a sensation of surprise.”
“All the same it is queer,” Scipio insisted
“Well, let her go at me.”
“Why, Trampas. He done you dirt. You pass that over. You could have
fired him, but you let him stay and keep his job. That’s goodness. And
badness is resultin’ from it, straight. Badness right from goodness.”
“You’re off the trail a whole lot,” said the Virginian.
“Which side am I off, then?”
“North, south, east, and west. First point. I didn’t expect to do
Trampas any good by not killin’ him, which I came pretty near doin’
three times. Nor I didn’t expect to do Trampas any good by lettin’ him
keep his job. But I am foreman of this ranch. And I can sit and tell all
men to their face: ‘I was above that meanness.’ Point two: it ain’t any
GOODNESS, it is TRAMPAS that badness has resulted from. Put him anywhere
and it will be the same. Put him under my eye, and I can follow his
moves a little, anyway. You have noticed, maybe, that since you and I
run on to that dead Polled Angus cow, that was still warm when we got
to her, we have found no more cows dead of sudden death. We came mighty
close to catchin’ whoever it was that killed that cow and ran her calf
off to his own bunch. He wasn’t ten minutes ahead of us. We can prove
nothin’; and he knows that just as well as we do. But our cows have all
quit dyin’ of sudden death. And Trampas he’s gettin’ ready for a change
of residence. As soon as all the outfits begin hirin’ new hands in the
spring, Trampas will leave us and take a job with some of them. And
maybe our cows’ll commence gettin’ killed again, and we’ll have to take
steps that will be more emphatic--maybe.”
Scipio meditated. “I wonder what killin’ a man feels like?” he said.
“Why, nothing to bother yu’--when he’d ought to have been killed. Next
point: Trampas he’ll take Shorty with him, which is certainly bad for
Shorty. But it’s me that has kept Shorty out of harm’s way this long. If
I had fired Trampas, he’d have worked Shorty into dissatisfaction that
much sooner.”
Scipio meditated again. “I knowed Trampas would pull his freight,” he
said. “But I didn’t think of Shorty. What makes you think it?”
“He asked me for a raise.”
“He ain’t worth the pay he’s getting now.”
“Trampas has told him different.”
“When a man ain’t got no ideas of his own,” said Scipio, “he’d ought to
be kind o’ careful who he borrows ’em from.”
“That’s mighty correct,” said the Virginian. “Poor Shorty! He has told
me about his life. It is sorrowful. And he will never get wise. It was
too late for him to get wise when he was born. D’ yu’ know why he’s
after higher wages? He sends most all his money East.”
“I don’t see what Trampas wants him for,” said Scipio.
“Oh, a handy tool some day.”
“Not very handy,” said Scipio.
“Well, Trampas is aimin’ to train him. Yu’ see, supposin’ yu’ were
figuring to turn professional thief--yu’d be lookin’ around for a nice
young trustful accomplice to take all the punishment and let you take
the rest.”
“No such thing!” cried Scipio, angrily. “I’m no shirker.” And then,
perceiving the Virginian’s expression, he broke out laughing. “Well,” he
exclaimed, “yu’ fooled me that time.”
“Looks that way. But I do mean it about Trampas.”
Presently Scipio rose, and noticed the half-finished exercise upon the
Virginian’s desk. “Trampas is a rolling stone,” he said.
“A rolling piece of mud,” corrected the Virginian.
“Mud! That’s right. I’m a rolling stone. Sometimes I’d most like to quit
being.”
“That’s easy done,” said the Virginian.
“No doubt, when yu’ve found the moss yu’ want to gather.” As Scipio
glanced at the school books again, a sparkle lurked in his bleached blue
eye. “I can cipher some,” he said. “But I expect I’ve got my own notions
about spelling.”
“I retain a few private ideas that way myself,” remarked the Virginian,
innocently; and Scipio’s sparkle gathered light.
“As to my geography,” he pursued, “that’s away out loose in the brush.
Is Bennington the capital of Vermont? And how d’ yu’ spell bridegroom?”
“Last point!” shouted the Virginian, letting a book fly after him:
“don’t let badness and goodness worry yu’, for yu’ll never be a judge of
them.”