Part 10 (2/2)
”Honey,” he said, ”you're eating your heart out about something. How come?”
”Red Perris is overdue,” she said. ”But I don't want to bother you with my troubles, Dad.”
”Red Perris? Who's he?”
”Don't you remember? I told you how he rode Rickety. And now I've sent for him to come and hunt Alcatraz--because once that man-killing horse is dead, it will be easy to get the mares back. And every day counts-- every day the mares are getting wilder!”
”What mares?” Then he nodded. ”I remember. And they ain't nothing but that worrying you, Marianne.”
His expression of concern vanished; his glance wandered far east where the shades were already br.i.m.m.i.n.g the valleys.
”I'll be getting on, then, honey.”
All at once, for pity at thought of him driving into the lonely silences, she caught his hand. It was still lean, hard of palm, sinewy with strength of which most extreme age, indeed, would never entirely rob it. And the touch of those strong fingers called back to her mind the picture of Oliver Jordan as he had been, a kingly man among men.
Tears came into the eyes of Marianne.
”But where are you going?” she asked him gently. ”And why do you never let me go with you, dear?”
”You?” he chuckled. ”Waste time driving out nowheres with an old codger like me? I didn't give you all that schooling to have you throw your life away doing things like that. Don't you bother about me, Marianne.
I'm just going to drift over yonder around Jackson Peak. You see?”
”But who is there, and what is there?”
He merely rubbed his knuckles across his forehead and then shook his head. ”I dunno. Nothing much. It's tolerable quiet, though. And you get the smell of the pines the minute the trail starts climbing. Sort of a lazy place to go, but then I've turned into a lazy man, honey. Just sitting and thinking is about all I'm good for, or most like just the sitting without the thinking. Why, Marianne, where'd you get them tears?”
She choked them back.
”I wish--I wish--” she began.
”That's right,” he nodded. ”Keep right on wis.h.i.+ng things. That's what I been doing lately. And wis.h.i.+ng things is better than doing them. The way kids are, that's the best way to be. S'long, Marianne.”
She stepped back, trying valiantly to smile, and he raised a cautioning finger, chuckling: ”Look here, now, don't you go to bothering your head about me. Just save your worrying for this Perris gent.”
He clucked to the greys and their sudden start threw him violently against the back of the seat.
The promise of that start, however, was by no means borne out by the pace into which they immediately fell, which was a dog-trot executed with trailing hoofs that raised little wisps of dust at every stride.
She saw the lines slacken and hang loosely to every swing of the buckboard. Had she not, ten years before, trembled at the sight of this same team das.h.i.+ng into the road, high-headed, eyes of fire, and the reins humming with the strength of Oliver Jordan's pull?
The buckboard jolted slowly down the road and swung out of sight, but Marianne Jordan remained for long moments, staring after her father.
Every time they pa.s.sed through one of these interviews--and today's talk had been longer than most--she always felt that she had been pushed a little farther away from him. At the very time of his life when his daughter should have become a comfort to him, Oliver Jordan withdrew himself more and more from the world, and she could not but feel that his evening drives through the silences of the hill were dearer and closer to him than his daughter. The buckboard reappeared, lurching up a farther knoll, and then rolled out of sight to be seen no more. And Marianne felt again, what she had often felt before, seeing her father drive away in this fas.h.i.+on, that some day Oliver Jordan would never come back from the hills.
A moment later half a dozen of the cowpunchers came into view with the unmistakable form of Lew Hervey in the lead. He was a big-looking man in the saddle and he showed himself to the greatest advantage by riding rigidly erect with his head thrown a little back, so that the loose brim of his sombrero was continually in play about his face. For all her dislike of him she could not but admit that he was the beau ideal of the fine horseman. The dominant leader showed in every line and it was no wonder that the cowpunchers feared and respected him. Besides, there were many tales of his prowess with rifle and revolver to make him stand out in bolder relief.
She saw the riders disappear in the direction of the corrals and then turned back towards the house. Unquestionably it was to avoid sight of his men returning from their day's work that Oliver Jordan usually drove off at this time of the day; it brought home to him too keenly the many times when he himself had ridden back by the side of Lew Hervey from a day of galloping in the wind; it crushed him with a sense of the impotence into which his life had fallen. Indeed, unless some vital change came, her father must soon mourn himself into a grave. For the first time Marianne clearly perceived this. Oliver Jordan was wasting for grief over his lost freedom just as some youthful lover might decline because of the death of his mistress. The shock of this perception brought Marianne to a halt. When she looked up Shorty and Red Perris were not a hundred yards away, swinging along at a steady lope!
All sad thoughts were whisked from her mind as a gust whirls dead leaves away and shows the green gra.s.s beneath, newly growing. How it lifted her heart to see him. But she looked down, with a cold falling of gloom, at her blue gingham dress. That was not as she wished to appear. She could be in her riding costume, with the rather mannish blouse and loosely tied cravat, spurs on her boots and quirt in her hand as became the mistress and ruling force of a big ranch. Then she received sudden and convincing proof that mere outward appearances meant nothing in the life of Red Jim Perris. He took off his hat and swung it in greeting. There was a white flash of his teeth as he laughed, a red flash of his amazing hair in the sunset light. Then he was pulling up and swinging down to the ground. He came to meet her with his hat dangling in one hand and the other extended.
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