Part 44 (1/2)
So she swaggered with her little brown hand on her gun, the firelight glowing on her leather clothes and gold bright hair, on the flush of her sunburnt skin, on milk-white teeth, and laughing, flas.h.i.+ng eyes. Jim's heart was burning, I reckon, for he went down on one knee and reached out his arms to her. There was only the fire between them.
”Say you love me, Curly?”
”It cayn't be helped, Jim,” she whispered, and her face went grave, ”but I sh.o.r.ely love you.”
Riding the ranges of the world and grazing in life's pastures, I've got to be plumb content with things present, which I can grab the same with my teeth, instead of hungering after that heaven above which seems a lot uncertain, and apt to prove disappointing. Here I've got horses for sure, plenty cows, and Monte, one of my old riders, for my partner. Bear Hole is the name of our new ranche, with the bull pines of the coconino forest all around us, the h.o.a.ry old volcanoes towering above, and the lava-beds fencing our home pasture. Back of the cabin is the spring where Curly used to splash me when she washed, the cave where she sang to me beside our camp fire. The bubble spring, the wind in the pines, the chatter of the birds, and the meadow flowers remind me of her always. She has put away her spurs and gun never to ride any more with free men on G.o.d's gra.s.s, because, poor soul! she's only a lady now and gone respectable.
Last summer--it sure makes me sweat to think of that scary business--I went to Ireland. First came civilisation--which I'd never seen it before--cities all cluttered up with so various noises and smells that I got lost complete. When you stop to study the trail you get killed by a tramcar. Then there was the ocean, a sure great sight and exciting to the stomach--mine got plumb dissolute, pitching and bucking around like a mean horse, so that I was heaps glad to dismount at Liverpool. That Old Country is plenty strange, too, for a plain man to consider, for I seen women drunk and children starving, and had to bat a white man's head for s.h.i.+ning a n.i.g.g.e.r's shoes. It beats me how such a tribe can ride herd on a bunch of empires as easy as I drive cows, but if I proceed to unfold all I don't know, I'll be apt to get plumb talkative.
When I came up against Balshannon Castle, I found it a sure enough palace, which was no place for me, so I pawed around outside inquiring.
Her ladys.h.i.+p was to home, and I found her setting in a fold-up chair on the terrace. It made me feel uplifted to see her there nursing a small baby, crooning fool talk to the same, which she patted and smacked and nuzzled all at once.
”Wall,” says she, as I came looming up accidental, ”ef it ain't ole Chalkeye! Didn't I tell you awdehs to come long ago? Now don't you talk, or you'll spoil my kid's morals, 'cause he ain't broke to hawss-thieves.
Yes, you may set on that stool.”
”Curly,” says I, feeling scared, ”is that yo' kid?”
”Sort of. I traded for him. He's a second-hand angel. Now jest ain't he cute?”
He was a sure cunning little person, and thought me great medicine to play with.
”Whar is his lawds.h.i.+p?” says I.
”Jim's down to the pasture, breaking a fool colt, and Chalkeye--oh, you ole felon, how I enjoy to see yo' homely face! I got good news. Father's alive, yes, in New York. He writes to say he's got a job at a theatre, giving shows of roping and shooting. He's the Cowboy Champion, and”--her voice dropped to a whisper--”planning enormous robberies. He'll steal New York, I reckon.”
”Curly,” says I, ”spose I give you good news. May I hold that kid just to try?”