Part 30 (2/2)
She turned abruptly and walked toward Beck.
The man had purposely held aloof to watch the encounter between the two women. He had been certain that the meeting would be anything but amicable and it was like other situations into which he had let Jane Hunter walk, needlessly and only to see how she would handle herself.
Usually the result only amused him but today he had watched Jane bear up admirably under difficult circ.u.mstances, refusing to be angered or confused, refusing to plead yet, while retaining dignity, leaving the door to friends.h.i.+p open.
As Jane mounted Bobby Cole stepped back into the cabin with no word and the riders turned back on the way they had come.
”I've been wonderin',” Beck said after a time, ”how this old codger rakes up the dust to buy cattle and wire.”
Jane did not reply. She wondered at that, too, but there was another wonder in her mind about another, more human mystery, going back to a night of storm in the heavens and storm in hearts. How did Bobby Cole know she had turned d.i.c.k Hilton out?
As they went silently each thinking of significant things which had been revealed the girl threw back the curtain in the doorway and watched them.
”I hate you!” she whispered at Jane Hunter. ”I hate you!... Because you turned him out ... because you're ... you're _you_.”
She stood a long time watching them and with the darkness in her face another quality finally mingled: that envy again.
After a time Jane said:
”A queer creature, that girl.”
”On the peck from the start!” Beck replied.
”And beautiful!”
”Ain't she, though?... Poor kid! I've seen 'em before, kids of movers like that, not so good lookin', not so smart as she is, but like her because they was always suspicious, always ready to sc.r.a.p....
”That's because they've never had a chance to be decent, brought up in a wagon that way.”
”A shame!” Jane whispered.
”I like kids,” he said later, as though his mind had been on nothing else. ”I like all kids, but I feel sorry for a lot of 'em ... for most of 'em.... Every kid that's born ought to have a chance, a fair show against the world, because the old world don't seem to like kids any too much.
”That girl didn't have a chance, never will have it. She was marked from the day she was born.
”Why, ma'am, one winter I worked for a cow man down in the Salt River valley which is in Arizona. He didn't have a big outfit, he didn't have much luck; trouble with his water, his cattle got sick and his horses didn't do well and he had just one dose of trouble after another.
”But he had three kids, all in a row they seemed,”--indicating progressive heights with his hand. ”I think they was the happiest kids I've ever seen. I always think of 'em when I see kids that've had to grow up like that girl. I remember those mornin's when we used to start out for a day's ride, looking back and seeing those kids playing in the dirt beside the rose bushes. Their clothes was dirty the minute they stepped outside and their hands an' faces was a sight from the 'dobe, but there was roses in their cheeks as bright as th' roses on the bushes and they laughed loud and their eyes always smiled ... like that Arizona sky, which ain't got a match anywhere....
”This man and his wife just buckled down an' bucked old Mister Hard Luck from the word Go, for them kids! They sure thought the world of 'em. I guess that was what put the roses in their cheeks an' the smiles in their eyes....
”I'll never forget those kids by the rose bushes with somebody to care for 'em, an' work their hearts out for 'em. That's the way kids ought to grow up; not like that catamount grew up.”
He smiled in reminiscence and his smile was tender.
”Roses and kids,” he repeated after a while. ”They ought to go together.”
He looked at Jane and saw that her eyes were filmed.
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