Part 38 (1/2)

”Course, you couldn't be expected to know men and women like us fellers that's batted around among 'em all our lives, and you shut up with a houseful of kids teachin' 'em cipherin' and spellin'. I never did see a schoolteacher in my life, man or woman, that you couldn't take on the blind side and beat out of their teeth, not meanin' any disrespect to you or any of 'em, John.”

”Oh, sure not. I understand what you mean.”

”I mean you're too trustful, too easy to take folks at their word.

You're kids in your head-works, and you always will be. I advise you strong, John, to have somebody read your hand.”

”Even before marrying Mary?”

”We-el-l, you _might_ be safe in marryin' Mary. If I'd 'a' had my hand read last spring before I come up here to this range I bet I'd 'a'

missed the trap I stumbled into. I'd 'a' been warned to look out for a dark woman, like I was warned once before, and I bet you a dime I'd 'a' _looked_ out, too! Oh, well, it's too late now. I guess I was fated.”

”Everybody's fated; we're all branded.”

”I've heard it said, and I'm beginnin' to believe it. Well, I don't know as I'd 'a' been any better off if I'd 'a' got that widow-lady.

Rabbit ain't so bad. She can take care of me when I git old, and maybe she'll treat me better'n a stranger would.”

”Don't you have any doubt about it in the world. It was a lucky day for you when Rabbit found you and saved you from the Four Corners widow.”

”Yes, I expect that woman she'd 'a' worked me purty hard--she had a drivin' eye. But a feller's got one consolation in a case where his woman ribs him a little too hard; the road's always open for him to leave, and a woman's nearly always as glad to see a man go as he is to git away.”

”There's no reason why it shouldn't work both ways. But fas.h.i.+ons are changing, Dad; they go to the divorce courts now.”

”That costs too much, and it's too slow. Walk out and leave the door standin' open after you; that's always been my way. They keep a lookin' for you to come back for a month or two; then they marry some other man. Well, all of 'em but Rabbit, I reckon.”

”She was the one that remembered.”

”That woman sure is some on the remember, John. Well, I ought 'a' had my hand read. A man's a fool to start anything without havin' it done.”

Dad nursed his regret in silence, his face dim in the starlight.

Mackenzie was off with his own thoughts; they might have been miles apart instead of two yards, the quiet of the sheeplands around them.

Then Dad:

”So you're thinkin' of Mary, are you, John?”

Mackenzie laughed a little, like an embarra.s.sed lover.

”Well, I've got my eye on her,” he said.

”No gamble about Mary,” Dad said, in deep earnestness. ”Give her a couple of years to fill out and widen in and you'll have a girl that'll do any man's eyes good to see. I thought for a while you had some notions about Joan, and I'm glad to see you've changed your mind.

Joan's too sharp for a trustin' feller like you. She'd run off with some wool-buyer before you'd been married a year.”

CHAPTER XXV

ONE MAN'S JOKE

Mackenzie went across the hills next morning to relieve Reid of his watch over the sheep, feeling almost as simple as Dad and the rest of them believed him to be. He was too easy, he had been too easy all along. If he had beaten Hector Hall into a blue lump that day he sent him home without his guns; if he had pulled his weapon at Swan Carlson's first appearance when the giant Swede drove his flock around the hill that day, and put a bullet between his eyes, Tim Sullivan and the rest of them would have held him in higher esteem.

Reid would have held him in greater respect for it, also, and it might not have turned out so badly for Joan. He wondered how Reid would receive him, and whether they would part in no greater unfriendliness than at present.