WESTERN CLASSICS - Ultimate Collection: Historical Novels, Wild West Adventures & Action Romance Novels. Owen Wister

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СКАЧАТЬ I told her of my own journey back to the railroad. In Buffalo she walked to the court-house and stood a moment as if bidding this site of one life-memory farewell, and from the stage she watched and watched the receding town and mountains. "It's awful to be leaving him!" she said. "Excuse me for acting so in front of you." With the poignant emptiness overcoming her in new guise, she blamed herself for not waiting in Illinois until he had been sent to Joliet, for then, so near home, he must have gone with her.

      How could I tell her that Nate's death was the best end that could have come to him? But I said: "You know you don't think it was your fault. You know you would do the same again." She listened to me, but her eyes had no interest in them. "He never knew pain," I pursued, "and he died doing the thing he liked best in the world. He was happy and enjoying himself, and you gave him that. It's bad only for you. Some would talk religion, but I can't."

      "Yes," she answered, "I can think of him so glad to be free. Thank you for saying that about religion. Do you think it's wicked not to want it—to hate it sometimes? I hope it's not. Thank you, truly."

      During our journey she summoned her cheerfulness, and all that she said was wholesome. In the robust, coarse soundness of her fibre, the wounds of grief would heal and leave no sickness—perhaps no higher sensitiveness to human sufferings than her broad native kindness already held. We touched upon religion again, and my views shocked her Kentucky notions, for I told her Kentucky locked its religion in an iron cage called Sunday, which made it very savage and fond of biting strangers. Now and again I would run upon that vein of deep-seated prejudice that was in her character like some fine wire. In short, our disagreements brought us to terms more familiar than we had reached hitherto. But when at last Separ came, where was I? There stood Mr. McLean waiting, and at the suddenness of him she had no time to remember herself, but stepped out of the stage with such a smile that the ardent cow-puncher flushed and beamed.

      "So I went away without telling you goodbye!" he began, not wisely. "Mrs. Pierce has been circulating war talk about me, you bet!"

      The maiden in Jessamine spoke instantly. "Indeed? There was no special obligation for you to call on me, or her to notice if you didn't."

      "Oh!" said Lin, crestfallen. "Yu' sure don't mean that?"

      She looked at him, and was compelled to melt. "No, neighbor, I don't mean it."

      "Neighbor!" he exclaimed; and again, "Neighbor," much pleased. "Now it would sound kind o' pleasant if you'd call me that for a steady thing."

      "It would sound kind of odd, Mr. McLean, thank you."

      "Blamed if I understand her," cried Lin. "Blamed if I do. But you're going to understand me sure quick!" He rushed inside the station, spoke sharply to the agent, and returned in the same tremor of elation that had pushed him to forwardness with his girl, and with which he seemed near bursting. "I've been here three days to meet you. There's a letter, and I expect I know what's in it. Tubercle has got it here." He took it from the less hasty agent and thrust it in Jessamine's hand. "You needn't to fear. Please open it; it's good news this time, you bet!" He watched it in her hand as the boy of eight watches the string of a Christmas parcel he wishes his father would cut instead of so carefully untie. "Open it," he urged again. "Keeping me waiting this way!"

      "What in the world does all this mean?" cried Jessamine, stopping short at the first sentence.

      "Read," said Lin.

      "You've done this!" she exclaimed.

      "Read, read!"

      So she read, with big eyes. It was an official letter of the railroad, written by the division superintendent at Edgeford. It hoped Miss Buckner might feel like taking the position of agent at Separ. If she was willing to consider this, would she stop over at Edgeford, on her way east, and talk with the superintendent? In case the duties were more than she had been accustomed to on the Louisville and Nashville, she could continue east with the loss of only a day. The superintendent believed the salary could be arranged satisfactorily. Enclosed please to find an order for a free ride to Edgeford.

      Jessamine turned her wondering eyes on Lin. "You did do this," she repeated, but this time with extraordinary quietness.

      "Yes," said he. "And I am plumb proud of it."

      She gave a rich laugh of pleasure and amusement; a long laugh, and stopped. "Did anybody ever!" she said.

      "We can call each other neighbors now, yu' see," said the cow-puncher.

      "Oh no! oh no!" Jessamine declared. "Though how am I ever to thank you?"

      "By not argufying," Lin answered.

      "Oh no, no! I can do no such thing. Don't you see I can't? I believe you are crazy."

      "I've been waiting to hear yu' say that," said the complacent McLean. "I'm not argufying. We'll eat supper now. The east-bound is due in an hour, and I expect you'll be wanting to go on it."

      "And I expect I'll go, too," said the girl.

      "I'll be plumb proud to have yu'," the cow-puncher assented.

      "I'm going to get my ticket to Chicago right now," said Jessamine, again laughing, sunny and defiant.

      "You bet you are!" said the incorrigible McLean. He let her go into the station serenely. "You can't get used to new ideas in a minute," he remarked to me. "I've figured on all that, of course. But that's why," he broke out, impetuously, "I quit you on Bear Creek so sudden. 'When she goes back away home,' I'd been saying to myself every day, 'what'll you do then, Lin McLean?' Well, I knew I'd go to Kentucky too. Just knew I'd have to, yu' see, and it was inconvenient, turruble inconvenient—Billy here and my ranch, and the beef round-up comin'—but how could I let her go and forget me? Take up, maybe, with some Blue-grass son-of-a-gun back there? And I hated the fix I was in till that morning, getting up, I was joshin' the Virginia man that's after Miss Wood. I'd been sayin' no educated lady would think of a man who talked with an African accent. 'It's repotted you have a Southern rival yourself,' says he, joshin' back. So I said I guessed the rival would find life uneasy. 'He does,' says he. 'Any man with his voice broke in two halves, and one down in his stomach and one up among the angels, is goin' to feel uneasy. But Texas talks a heap about his lady vigilante in the freight-car.' 'Vigilante!' I said; and I must have jumped, for they all asked where the lightning had struck. And in fifteen minutes after writing you I'd hit the trail for Separ. Oh, I figured things out on that ride!" (Mr. McLean here clapped me on the back.) "Got to Separ. Got the sheriff's address—the sheriff that saw her that night they held up the locomotive. Got him to meet me at Edgeford and make a big talk to the superintendent. Made a big talk myself. I said, 'Put that girl in charge of Separ, and the boys'll quit shooting your water-tank. But Tubercle can't influence 'em.' 'Tubercle?' says the superintendent. 'What's that?' And when I told him it was the agent, he flapped his two hands down on the chair arms each side of him and went to rockin' up and down. I said the agent was just a temptation to the boys to be gay right along, and they'd keep a-shooting. 'You can choose between Tubercle and your tank,' I said; 'but you've got to move one of 'em from Separ if yu' went peace.' The sheriff backed me up good, too. He said a man couldn't do much with Separ the way it was now; but a decent woman would be respected there, and the only question was if she could conduct the business. So I spoke up about Shawhan, and when the whole idea began to soak into that superintendent his eyeballs jingled and he looked as wise as a work-ox. 'I'll see her,' says he. And he's going to see her."

      "Well," said I, "you deserve success after thinking of a thing like that! You're wholly wasted punching cattle. But she's going to Chicago. By eleven o'clock she will have passed by your superintendent."

      "Why, СКАЧАТЬ