Essential Western Novels - Volume 4. Max Brand

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СКАЧАТЬ I happened along the next morning with a pair of pliers and cut him loose. He was a right old horse, and he must have got wise with age."

      "Maybe if Lightfoot lives long enough he will have as much sense as a mule," suggested Kay.

      "Maybe," he replied, "and then again maybe he won't. There are a lot of things, horses and men, too, who would never have any sense if they lived to be a thousand years old."

      "He must have been terribly frightened yesterday," said the girl, "because he is always so sweet and gentle. Don't you suppose he would have stopped before the trail dropped off into the ravine?"

      He shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "You can't always tell what a horse will do. Some folks say they're blind when they're frightened like that. I've seen them run right into a rail fence when they were real frightened, without even trying to jump it."

      "It makes me shiver every time I think what might have happened if it hadn't been for you," she said.

      He glanced up at her quickly. "It makes me feel mighty shaky, too," he said. "I am sure glad I was there."

      "And you were the only one who thought to do it," she said.

      "I reckon they knew their horses weren't fast enough," he said. "You know I knew Baldy could run. I've seen him run every morning; and he's built for speed, too. Anybody could see that. If I hadn't been sure he could beat Lightfoot, it would have been worse than useless to chase him, for then nothing on earth could have stopped him; and if you had jumped, the other horse might have hurt you."

      "Every time I think of what you did I feel so ashamed of myself," said the girl.

      "What have you got to be ashamed of?" he asked.

      "I did you such an injustice," she said.

      "You never did anything to me," he replied good naturedly.

      "I mean in my thoughts," she explained. "I—it is rather hard to tell you, but I should feel like a hypocrite if I didn't."

      "You don't have to," he said. "I think I know."

      "I was deceived by outward appearances," she said.

      "These clothes are sort of silly," he said; "I realize that now. Of course, though, when you are a stranger in a country it is hard to tell what to wear. You solved it though by adopting a sort of international garb. I guess overalls are worn everywhere."

      "At least they are practical," she said, "and I am comfortable in them. It always seemed silly to me to dress up like an actor playing a part, especially when the part is one with which you are not familiar. Hikers who have never hiked, fliers who have never flown, golfers who have never golfed, and riders who have never ridden raid the sport tog shops seeking the last word in equipment and sartorial elegance, no matter how uncomfortable or weird the result. I remember hearing my father telling how he and mother fixed up when they got their first automobile—linen dusters, gauntlets, and goggles; and mama wore a veil with streaming ends that floated out in the wind behind the car. Now they haven't a single thing specially for motoring."

      "I remember reading a little while ago about some chap who was after some trans-continental non-stop record, who had a special sky-blue uniform made, while Lindbergh was apt to cop off a record any afternoon in a business suit. No, you can't tell much about people by their clothes."

      "Sometimes people try to deceive through the clothes that they wear," she remarked.

      "Do you think that is wrong?" he asked.

      "It depends upon what their purpose is, I suppose."

      "Now Mrs. Talbot has the right idea," he said with a trace of a smile. "She aint trying to deceive anyone. She's dressed for hiking, golfing, riding or bridge. You can just take your choice, and I reckon that underneath she's got on a bathing suit."

      "That's mean," she said.

      "Oh, no, it aint mean," he defended himself. "Everybody has been making fun of me as though I was the only funny looking thing around, but perhaps I'm the only one that is dressed sensible and according to what he really is."

      "Don't try to tell me that you are an Eastern polo player, Bruce," she said.

      "I haven't," he said.

      "But your clothes have tried to tell that," she insisted.

      "But Dora's clothes just rear up on their hind legs and shout that she's a cowgirl, when she aint; and I'm sure I wouldn't be any funnier playing polo than you would be working in a section gang."

      "I guess you're right," she said, laughing. "We are all of us fourflushers."

      "Except Bud, perhaps," he suggested.

      "How about Cory and Butts?" she asked. "How do you think they ought to be dressed?"

      "If I told you you'd be surprised," he replied.

      "'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players,'" she quoted.

      "'And one man in his time plays many parts,'" he added; "but a lot of us are bum actors."

      "You are an enigma," she said.

      "Why?" he asked.

      She shook her head and did not reply. His recognition of her quotation from Shakespeare baffled her, for she had noted the carelessness of his English and his many lapses into Western vernacular; and, like Dora Crowell, with whom she had discussed him, she had come to the conclusion that he was a Westerner playing a part. It was Dora's theory that he had suddenly made a lot of money in Texas or Oklahoma oil and that, prompted by silly vanity, he was trying to pretend to be something that he was not. The more she saw of him and the longer she talked with him, the more convinced she became, however, that he was genuine at heart; and before they rode into camp that night she would have had to have admitted, had she asked herself the question, that she had found Marvel tremendously congenial and that she was more than a little interested in him.

      Nor was she alone the troubled victim of an awakened interest. Perhaps a consciousness of the girl's personality had been developing within Marvel during the several days that he had known her, but it had not been until this afternoon that it had made itself objectively felt by him. It came suddenly, like an awakening, and with it a realization that this girl, a type such as he had never before met, had achieved a place in his thoughts that he had believed reserved forever for another.

      The man's loyalty was inherent and almost entirely apart from any objective mental processes, so that the realization of his interest in Kay came at first in the nature of a distinct shock. He tried to put her out of his mind by conjuring the features of the girl to whom he believed he owed all the loyalty of his heart and mind; but if the features of the absent one faded easily to be replaced by those of a little blonde in blue overalls, it was not entirely surprising, for the one was close and very real, while the other he had not seen for years.

      When she had gone away there had been no understanding, only in his own heart; but to that understanding he had always been loyal, and upon it had been built a secret dream castle of hope and longing.

      Some day she would come back and he would claim her, or, if she did not, he would go after her wherever she might be; and so it was when СКАЧАТЬ