The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains
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,--all 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 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 coralled.”
Some of the Trampas faction smiled.
“Trampas,” said the Virginian again, “are yu’ sure yu’ really mean
that?”