Prospector's Gold and Canyon Walls (1990) Page 8

  Monty sighed and returned to camp. He was up before daylight, but did not appear to be in any rush. He had a premonition what to expect. Day broke and the sun tipped the low desert in the east, while Monty leisurely got breakfast. He kept an eye on the lookout for Rebecca. The new boy, Jake, arrived with shiny face, and later one of the men engaged by Mrs. Keetch came. Monty had the two teams fetched in from pasture, and hitched up. It was just as well that he had to wait for Rebecca, because the new harness did not fit and required skilled adjustment, but he was not going to tell her that. The longer she made him wait the longer would be the scolding she would get.

  About nine o'clock she arrived in a very much overloaded buckboard. She was gay of attire and face, and so happy that Monty, had he been sincere with himself, could never have reproved her. But he did it, very sharply, and made her look like a chidden child before her friends. This reacted upon Monty so pleasurably that he began afresh. But this was a mistake.

  "Yah! Yah! Yah!" she cried. And her friends let out a roar of merriment.

  "Becky, you shore have a tiptop chaperon," remarked one frank-faced Mormon boy. And other remarks were not wanting to convey the hint that at least one young rider in the world had not succumbed to Rebecca's charms.

  "Where am I going to ride?" she asked curtly.

  Monty indicated the high driver's seat. "Onless you'd rather ride with them two new hands in the old wagon."

  Rebecca scorned to argue with Monty, but climbed quickly to the lofty perch.

  "Girls, it's nearer heaven than I've ever been yet," she called gayly.

  "Just what do you mean, Becky?" replied a pretty girl with roguish eyes. "So high up--or because--"

  "Go along with you," interrupted Rebecca with a blush. "You think of nothing but men. I wish you had . . . but good-by--good-by. I've had a lovely time."

  Monty clambered to the driver's seat, and followed the other wagon out of town, down into the desert. Rebecca appeared to want to talk.

  "Oh, it was a wonderful change! I had a grand time. But I'm glad you wouldn't let me go to Salt Lake. It'd have ruined me, Sam."

  Monty felt subtly flattered, but he chose to remain aloof and disapproving.

  "Hope. Hardly that. You was ruined long ago, Miss Rebecca," he drawled.

  "Don't call me miss," she flashed. "And see here, Sam Hill--do you hate us Mormons?"

  "I shore don't. I like all the Mormons I've met. They're jist fine. An' your ma is the best woman I ever knew."

  "Then I'm the only Mormon you've no use for," she retorted with bitterness. "Don't deny it. I'd rather you didn't add falsehood to your--your other faults. It's a pity, though, that we can't get along. Mother depends on you now. You've certainly pulled us out of a hole. And I--I'd like you--if you'd let me. But you always make me out a wicked, spoiled girl. Which I'm not. . . . Why couldn't you come to the dance last night?

  They wanted you. Those girls were eager to meet you."

  "I wasn't asked--not thet I'd of come anyhow," stammered Monty.

  "You know perfectly well that in a Mormon town or home you are always welcome," she said. "What did you want? Would you have had me stick my finger in the top hole of your vest and look up at you like a dying duck and say, 'Sam, please come'?"

  "My Gawd, no. I never dreamed of wantin' you to do anythin'," replied Monty hurriedly. He was getting beyond his depth here, and began to doubt his ability to say the right things.

  "Why not? Am I so hideous? Aren't I a human being? A girl?" she asked with resentful fire.

  Monty deliberated a moment, as much to recover his scattered wits as to make an adequate reply.

  "Wal, you shore are a live human critter. An' as handsome as any gurl I ever seen. But you're spoiled somethin' turrible. You're the most orful flirt I ever watched, an' the way you treat these fine Mormon boys is shore scandalous. You don't know what you want more'n one minnit straight runnin'. An' when you get what you want you're sick of it right away."

  "Oh, is that all?" she burst out, and then followed with a peal of riotous laughter. But she did not look at him or speak to him again for several long hours.

  Monty liked the silence better. He still had the thrill of her presence, without her disturbing chatter. A nucleus of a thought tried to wedge its way into his consciousness--that this girl was not completely indifferent to him. But he squelched it.

  At noon they halted in a rocky depression, where water filled the holes, and Rebecca got down to sit in the shade of a cedar.

  "I want something to eat," she declared imperiously.

  "Sorry, but there ain't nothin'," replied Monty imperturbably, as he mounted to the seat again. The other wagon rolled on, crushing the rocks with its wide tires.

  "Are you going to starve me into submission?"

  Monty laughed at her. "Wal, I reckon if someone took a willow switch to your bare legs an'--wal, he might get a little submission out of you."

  "You're worse than a Mormon," she cried in disgust, as if that was the very depth of depravity.

  "Come along, youngster," said Monty with pretended weariness. "If we don't keep step-pin' along lively we'll never get home tonight."

  "Good! I'll delay you as much as I can. . . . Sam, I'm scared to death to face Mother." And she giggled.

  "What about ?"

  "I went terribly in debt. But I didn't lose my 'haid' as you say. I thought it all out. I won't be going again for ages. And I'll work. It was the change in our fortunes that tempted me."

  "Wal, I reckon we can get around tellin' your ma," said Monty lamely.

  "You wouldn't give me away, Sam ?" she asked in surprise, with strange intent eyes. And she got up to come over to the wagon.

  "No, I wouldn't. Course not. What's more I can lend you the money--presently."

  "Thanks, Sam. But I'll tell Mother."

  She scrambled up and rode beside him again for miles without speaking. It seemed nothing to Monty to ride in that country and keep silent. The desert was not conducive to conversation. It was so beautiful that talking seemed out of place. Mile after mile of rock and sage, of black ridge and red swale, and always the great landmarks looming as if unattainable. Behind them the Pink Cliffs rose higher the farther they traveled; to their left the long black fringe of the Buckskin gradually sank into obscurity; in front rolled away the colorful desert, an ever-widening bowl that led the gaze to the purple chaos in the distance--that wild region of the riven earth called the canyon country.

  Monty did not tell Rebecca that they could not get even half way home that day, and that they would have to make camp for the night.

  But eventually, as a snow squall formed over Buckskin, he told her it likely would catch up with them and turn to rain.

  "Oh, Sam!" she wailed. "If my things get wet!"

  He did not give her any assurance or comfort, and about mid-afternoon, when the road climbed toward a low divide, he saw that they would not miss the storm. But he would make camp at the pines where they could easily weather it.

  Before sunset they reached the highest point along the road, from which the spectacle down toward the west made Monty acknowledge that he was gazing at the grandest panorama his enraptured eyes had ever viewed.

  Rebecca watched with him, and he could feel her absorption. Finally she sighed and said, as if to herself, "One reason I'll marry a Mormon--if I have to--is that I never want to leave Utah."

  They halted in the pines, low down on the far side of the divide, where a brook brawled merrily, and here the storm, half snow and half rain, caught them. Rebecca was frantic. She did not know where her treasures were packed.

  "Oh, Sam, I'll never forgive you!"

  "Me? What have I got to do about it?" he asked, in pretended astonishment.

  "Oh, you knew all the time that it would rain," she wailed. "And if you'd been half a man--if you didn't hate me so, you--you could have saved my things."

  "Wal, if thet's how you feel about it I'll see what I can do," he drawled.

 
And in a twinkling he jerked out the tarpaulin and spread it over the new wagon where he had carefully packed her cherished belongings. And in the same twinkling her woebegone face changed to joy. Monty thought for a moment that she was going to kiss him and he was scared stiff.

  "Ma was right, Sam. You are the wonder-fullest man," she said. "But--why didn't you tell me?"

  "I forgot, I reckon. Now this rain ain't goin' to amount to much. After dark it'll turn off cold. I put some hay in the bottom of the wagon, heah, an' a blanket. So you can sleep comfortable."

  "Sleep! . . . Sam, you're not going to stop here?"

  "Shore am. This new wagon is stiff, an' the other one's heavy loaded. We're blamed lucky to reach this good campin' spot."

  "But, Sam, we can't stay here. We must drive on. It doesn't make any difference how long we are, so that we keep moving."

  "An' kill our horses, an' then not get in. Sorry, Rebecca. If you hadn't delayed us five hours we might have done it, allowin' fer faster travel in the cool of the mawnin'."

  "Sam, do you want to see my reputation ruined?" she asked, her great accusing eyes on him.

  "Wal! . . . Rebecca Keetch, if you don't beat me! I'll tell you what, miss. Where I come from a man can entertain honest desire to spank a crazy gun without havin' evil intentions charged agin him!"

  "You can spank me to your heart's content--but--Sam--take me home first." "Nope. I can fix it with your ma, an' I cain't see thet it amounts to a darn otherwise."

  "Any Mormon girl who stayed out on the desert--all night with a gentile--would be ruined!" she declared.

  "But we're not alone," yelled Monty, red in the face. "We've got two men and a boy with us."

  "No Mormon will ever--believe it," sobbed Rebecca.

  "Wal, then, to hell with the Mormons who won't," exclaimed Monty, exasperated beyond endurance.

  "Mother will make you marry me," ended Rebecca, with such tragedy of eye and voice that Monty could not but believe such a fate would be worse than death for her.

  "Aw, don't distress yourself Miss Keetch," responded Monty with profound dignity. "I couldn't be druv to marry you--not to save your blasted Mormon Church--nor the whole damn world of gentiles from--from conflaggeration!"

  Chapter 4

  NEXT DAY MONTY DROVE THROUGH WHITE SAGE at noon, and reached Canyon Walls about mid-afternoon, completing a journey he would not want to undertake again, under like circumstances. He made haste to unburden himself to his beaming employer.

  "Wal, Mrs. Keetch, I done about everythin' as you wanted," he said. "But I couldn't get an early start yestiddy mawnin' an' so we had to camp at the pines."

  "Why couldn't you?" she demanded, as if seriously concerned.

  "Wal, fer several reasons, particular thet the new harness wouldn't fit."

  "You shouldn't have kept Rebecca out all night," said the widow severely.

  "I don't know how it could have been avoided," replied Monty mildly. "You wouldn't have had me kill four good horses." "Did you meet anyone?" she asked.

  "Not even a sheepherder."

  "Did you stop at White Sage?"

  "Only to water, an' we didn't see no one." "Maybe we can keep the Mormons from finding out," returned Mrs. Keetch with relief. "I'll talk to these new hands. Mormons are close-mouthed when it's to their interest."

  "Wal, ma'am, heah's the receipts, an' my notes an' expenditures," added Monty, handing them over. "My pore haid shore buzzed over all them figgers. But I got the prices you wanted. I found out you gotta stick to a Mormon. But he won't let you buy from no other storekeeper, if he can help it."

  "Indeed he won't. . . . Well, daughter, what have you to say for yourself ? I expected to see you with the happiest of faces. But you look the way you used to when you stole jam. I hope it wasn't your fault Sam had to keep you all night on the desert."

  "Yes, Ma, it was," admitted Rebecca, and though she spoke frankly she plainly feared her mother's displeasure.

  "So. And Sam wouldn't tell on you, eh?"

  "No, I don't know why he wouldn't! Not out of any feelings for me. . . . Come in, Ma, and let me confess the rest--while I've still got the courage."

  Mrs. Keetch looked worried. Monty saw that her anger would be a terrible thing if aroused.

  "Ma'am, don't be hard on the gurl," he said, with his easy drawl and smile. "Jist think! She hadn't been to Kanab fer two years. Two years! An' she a growin' gurl. Kanab is some shucks of a town. I was surprised. An' she was jist a kid let loose." "Sam Hill! So you have fallen into the ranks at last," exclaimed Mrs. Keetch, while Rebecca telegraphed him a grateful glance. "Lady, I don't savvy about the ranks," replied Monty stiffly. "But I've been falling from grace all my life. Thet's why I'm--" "No matter," interrupted the widow hastily, and it struck Monty that she did not care to have him confess his shortcomings before Rebecca. "Unpack the wagons and put the things on the porch, except what should go to the barn."

  Monty helped the two new employees unpack the old wagon first, and then directed them to the barn. Then he removed Rebecca's many purchases and piled them on the porch. All the time his ears burned over the heated argument going on within the house. Rebecca seemed to have relapsed into tears while her mother still continued to upbraid her. Monty drove out to the barn considerably disturbed by the sound of the girl's uncontrolled sobbing.

  "Doggone! The old lady's hell when she's riled," he thought. "Now I wonder which it was. Rebecca spendin' all her money an' mine, an' this runnin' up bills--or because she made us stay a night out . . . or mebbe it's somethin' I don't know a blamed thing about. . . . Whew, but she laid it onto thet pore kid. Doggone the old Mormon! She'd better not pitch into me."

  Supper was late that night and the table was set in the dusk. Mrs. Keetch had regained her composure, but Rebecca's face was woebegone and pallid from weeping. Monty's embarrassment seemed augmented by the fact that she squeezed his hand under the table. But it was a silent meal, soon finished; and while Rebecca reset the table for the new employees, Mrs. Keetch drew Monty aside on the porch. It suited him just as well that dusk was deepening into night.

  "I am pleased with the way you carried out my instructions," said Mrs. Keetch. "I could not have done so well. My husband John was never any good in business. You are shrewd, clever, and reliable. If this year's harvest shows anything near what you claim, I can do no less than make you my partner. There is nothing to prevent us from developing another canyon ranch. John had a lien on one west of here. It's bigger than this and uncleared. We could acquire that, if you thought it wise. In fact we could go far. Not that I am money mad, like many Mormons are. But I would like to show them. . . . What do you think about it, Sam?"

  "Wal, I agree, 'cept makin' me full pardner seems more'n I deserve. But if the crops turn out big this fall--an' you can gamble on it--I'll make a deal with you fer five years or ten or life."

  "Thank you. That is well. It insures comfort in my old age as well as something substantial for my daughter. . . . Sam, do you understand Rebecca?"

  "Good Lord, no," exploded Monty.

  "I reckoned you didn't. Do you realize that where she is concerned you are wholly unreliable?"

  "What do you mean, ma'am?" he asked, thunderstruck.

  "She can wind you round her little finger."

  "Huh! . . . She jist cain't do anythin' of the sort," declared Monty, trying to appear angry. The old lady might ask a question presently that would be exceedingly hard to answer.

  "Perhaps you do not know it. That'd be natural. At first I thought you a pretty deep, clever cowboy, one of the devil-with-the-girls kind, and that you would give Rebecca the lesson she deserves. But now I think you a soft-hearted, easy-going, good young man, actually stupid when it comes to a girl."

  "Aw, thanks, ma'am," replied Monty, most uncomfortable, and then his natural spirit rebelled. "I never was accounted stupid about gentile gurls."

  "Rebecca is no different from any girl. I should think you'd have seen that the Mormon style of courtship
makes her sick. It is too simple, too courteous, too respectful, and too much bordering on the religious to stir her heart. No Mormon will ever get Rebecca, unless I force her to marry him. Which I have been pressed to do and which I hope I shall never do."

  "Wal, I respect you fer thet, ma'am," replied Monty feelingly. "But why all this talk about Rebecca? I'm shore mighty sympathetic, but how does it concern me?"

  "Sam, I have not a friend in all this land, unless it's you."

  "Wal, you can shore gamble on me. If you want I--I'll marry you an' be a dad to this gurl who worries you so."

  "Bless your heart! . . . No, I'm too old for that, and I would not see you sacrifice yourself. But, oh, wouldn't that be fun--and revenge?"

  "Wal, it'd be heaps of fun," laughed Monty. "But I don't reckon where the revenge would come in."

  "Sam, you've given me an idea," spoke up the widow, in a quick whisper. "I'll threaten Rebecca with this. That I could marry you and make you her father. If that doesn't chasten her--then the Lord have mercy upon us."

  "She'd laugh at you."

  "Yes. But she'll be scared to death. I'll never forget her face one day when she confessed that you claimed she should be switched--well, it must have been sort of shocking, if you said it."

  "I shore did, ma'am," he admitted.

  "Well, we begin all over again from today," concluded the widow thoughtfully. "To build anew! Go back to your work and plans. I have the utmost confidence in you. My troubles are easing. But I have not one more word of advice about Rebecca."

  "I cain't say as you gave me any advice at all. But mebbe thet's because I'm stupid. Thanks, Mrs. Keetch, an' good night."

  The painful hour of confused thinking which Monty put in that night, walking in the moonlight shadows under the canyon walls, resulted only in increasing his bewilderment. He ended it by admitting he was now in love with Rebecca, ten thousand times worse than he had ever loved any girl before, and that she could wind him around her little finger all she wanted to. If she knew! But he swore he would never let her find it out.