the Drift Fence (1992) (28 page)

Jim, in bent position, had both arms round Slinger's legs. The terrible spurs stuck up, but they scarcely moved. Jim threw Slinger from him with such force that he turned clear over, his head and shoulders acting as a pivot. He fell with a flop. Jim made one jump and landed square on him with both heavy boots. This overbalanced Jim, who went down, but he went down kicking. Rolling over, he was up and at Slinger just as that hideous blood-and-dirt-begrimed individual tried to rise.

Jim fastened both hands in his neck and lifted him and flung him sheer against the wall, where his head rang like a bone on wood. But Jim did not stop. As Slinger, eyes rolling, tongue hanging out, was sinking down, Jim banged him against the wall again, and finished with a terrific sodden blow. Slinger sank down limp and senseless.

The crowd grew silent. Molly had sense enough left to hide behind someone. Jim gazed down a long moment at his beaten antagonist, and then with scarf he wiped the blood and sweat and dirt from his face. He turned sidewise, so that Molly saw a pale, tense cheek.

"See here--you fellows," panted Jim, "I come down--here--to lick him--and to offer him--a job... Reckon he's not worth it... But I'll go through with my part... Tell him--when he comes to--that if he can play square--there's a place on the Diamond for him."

Then Jim parted the crowd and disappeared. Molly slipped back up on the porch into the store, and, never even thinking of her mother, she hurried through to the other corner store and went out the side entrance.

Sobbing, and in a terrible condition of mind, she ran home.

Chapter
EIGHTEEN

It did not help much for Molly to be home, safely hidden in her loft, except that presently she could breathe freely and would not be seen. Her world of the Cibeque had come to an end. She had been publicly championed, in a royal way that left no peg for the poison-mongers of West Fork to hang calumny upon. Jim Traft had beaten her brother half to death. He had proclaimed his love in the street, for those who ran to hear. He had blazoned abroad the incredible fact that twice Molly Dunn had refused to marry him and that he meant to ask her again. He had called Slinger Dunn all the dastardly names he could lay his tongue to, had banged and pounded and kicked him to insensibility, and then he had told the crowd Slinger could have a place on the Diamond, if he were man enough to take it.

Not one of the romances Jim had sent her in book form could reach up to the heights of this true happening in West Fork. How impossible to believe! Yet Molly knew her eyes and ears were to be trusted, if not her heart. Jim Traft had done a marvellous thing. It was breath-taking. He had a noble spirit that might not be wholly realized in the valley, but his ability to whip the wildcat of the Cibeque and then offer him a job on the greatest outfit of the range would be appreciated. That kind of language was understood down in the brakes.

Molly began to divine that Jim was invincible. He had brought brains and brawn with him, and the West had taken stock of it. He had given his enemies a hard row to hoe. Molly had spent so many hours dreaming and thinking about Jim that now in the light of his decisive and open stand she could understand him. And she summed up her reaction to it all in a tragic whisper: "My land! If he comes heah I--I'll fall at his feet!"

Her mother's return warned Molly that she was liable to have a bad half-hour, and she tried to fortify herself.

"Molly, you up there?" came a trenchant call.

"Yes, ma."

"Come down pronto."

Molly started promptly, but lagged slower and slower, and she thought she would drop off the last steps of the ladder. Her mother stood there, arms akimbo, gazing at her with an entirely new and astounding expression.

"Why'd you run home?" she demanded.

"There was a fight--an'--an' it scared me."

"It needn't have--since it was in your honour... Molly Dunn, did you hear what that young Traft told the crowd?"

"Yes, ma. I was there."

"And it's the truth? He did ask you to marry him?"

Molly nodded mournfully. Presently she would be treated to a terrible harangue, and she had already stood enough for one day.

"It's all over town. Crowds on the corners talking. I was told by ten or a dozen people. But I couldn't believe it. You're sure it's no trick? I ran everywhere, hunting you."

"Mother, it's the bitter truth," said Molly, steadily.

"Bitter! Are you crazy, girl?... It tastes pretty sweet to me... Did you say 'No' to young Traft?"

"Of course I did."

"But you're in love with him. That's what has ailed you ever since you went to Flag. Anybody could see you were lovesick. Aren't you?"

"Ma, I'm shore sick aboot somethin'," replied Molly. "For Heaven's sake, then, why didn't you accept him?"

"Because I'm Molly Dunn of the Cibeque."

Then indeed the storm broke over Molly, though it was so vastly different from what she had anticipated that instead of casting her down it began to do the opposite. In fact her mother presented a most interesting and amusing study, after the first tirade about Molly's lack of family pride.

Molly learned learned that she was a grand-daughter of Rose Hillyard of Virginia, and had bluer blood than any Traft who ever lived.

"Didn't I always try to keep these West Fork louts away from you?" demanded Mrs. Dunn, in protest at the outrageous way she had been foiled.

"Didn't I bring you up different? You always were somebody, Molly Dunn.

And that's where your father and me split. Now it's proved. You're courted by a fine young chap. He must be mad about you--to tell it in the street. They said his being a tenderfoot didn't make him any the less a fighter from way back... He damn near killed your brother, and folks weren't backward about saying that'd have been a good thing... Molly, this young fellow will go far out here in the West. He's got stuff in him.

He's nephew to old Jim Traft, they tell me, who owns ranches all over, and eighty thousand head of stock... You can't refuse to marry him. Why, it'll be our salvation!"

Molly had to listen and she dared not voice her protest. Moreover, she was as much amazed as her mother was indignant. She could not understand this sudden right-about-face in regard to her admirers. Temporary relief, however, came with an interruption in shape of the arrival of several young men, bringing Slinger home.

For once her mother's tongue stopped its wagging. Arch Dunn was a spectacle to behold. He could walk, but that was about all, and he rewarded the kindly offices of those who had escorted him by driving them off. Both Mrs. Dunn and Molly stood back, afraid to approach or speak, and almost afraid to look. Slinger dragged himself around to the back porch, where he sagged to his bed.

"Arch--can I do anythin'?" faltered Molly.

"Wal, I reckon, since I cain't do for myself," was the surprising answer.

Molly hastened to get a pan of water, soap and bandages and salve, and hurried to his side. She divined that by this incident she would either gain or lose a brother. She unbuckled the long spurs, shuddering at the bloodstains on one of them. Arch had got what he deserved. The imprint of hobnails on his face appeared to be a brand. He had been treated to a dose of his own medicine. But the fatal issue might be now that he would kill Jim Traft. Molly prayed and hoped. Could not the same thing, almost, that had happened to her, happen to Arch? She pulled off his boots, and then his wet and torn shirt. The mixture of blood, sweat, and dirt actually made it heavy.

It was not pleasant to look into her brother's visage. Yet pity and tenderness came to her aid.

"Much obliged, Molly," he said, when she had finished what little she could do. "Was you in town when the cyclone hit?"

"Yes, Arch. I--I saw it," she replied, thrilled that he would talk to her in such wise. She prayed for something to make the moment helpful for this wayward brother.

"Did you see him lick me?"

She murmured an affirmative.

"My Gawd! who'd ever thunk it? A Missourie tenderfoot! But, Molly, he had it on me. I never was so hurted in all my fights. He must have binged my nose a thousand times. I could have bellared out."

"Arch, you must have--have hurt him very much, too," said Molly. "He was all bloody."

"Shore. I reckon so. I'd have cut him to pieces--I was thet mad... Molly, I got too mad. An' at thet he hurt me vuss with his sharp tongue."

"It'd not have been so--so bad if you hadn't tried to 'rooster' him."

"Wal, all's fair in thet kind of a fight. I don't care aboot thet any more'n I care aboot his lickin' me. He's simply a better man. I told them so... But I reckon there's another way."

"Arch, you--you'll meet Jim--force him to draw?"

"Thet'd be natural-like, wouldn't it?"

"From the stand of the Cibeque, yes. But there's a bigger way to meet it.

If you forced him to draw, you'd kill him!"

"Huh! I'm not so damn shore of thet. Mister Jim Traft is a surprisin' hombre."

"Arch, I shan't beg you again," went on Molly, eloquently, "but I'll pray."

"Pray? What fer?"

"For you to see clear."

"How'n hell can I see anyway with both eyes shet?"

"Brother, I mean see with your spirit."

"Aw, you talk like thet parson who was shot heah onct... Molly, did Traft want to marry you?"

Solemnly Molly nodded.

"I cain't see very well. Talk. Honest now--did he?"

"Yes, Arch--an' that justified my faith in him."

"Reckon a fellar could do no more... An' you wouldn't take him up 'cause you was Slinger Dunn's sister?"

"That was one reason," admitted Molly.

"What you mean?"

"Well, you've a reputation that to civilized folks would look terrible."

"Molly, I'll gamble there's wuss men than me. It ain't nuthin' to pack a gun an' use it when you're crowded... Now thet day up the canyon. I shore gave young Traft a long time to shoot. An' he had a rifle in his hands."

"That's what's wrong aboot it, Arch. He wouldn't want to kill you in the first place--an' second, when you met him he'd forget he had a gun. Or be scared."

"Scared! Thet hombre? He was orful scared of me today! Nope, it's jest gun-slingin' wasn't brought up with him."

"It'd be plain murder."

"Wal, I'll let him off--providin' you agree to marry him."

"Arch!" whispered Molly, at once rapt and stricken.

"Only deal you can make with me, an' you bet it's a hard one to swaller."

Molly knew Slinger Dunn and that she must grasp at straws. "I--I'll--take you up, Arch," she said, in a strangled voice, "if he--asks me--any more."

"Don't worry none, sister. Thet hombre will be heah today. An' you can make him ask you again. Reckon, though, he'll wait till dark--not wantin' you to see his mug. I shore bunged him up."

Molly trembled on the brink of the precipice to which she had been driven. She dared not look over. She must leap with closed eyes.

"Did you--rooster him bad?" she asked.

"Nope. Only scratched him. But I was shore leggin' it fer him when he ducked an' grabbed me... Fetch me a drink. I'm shore parchin'."

Presently Molly stole away to her nest under the roof, thankful to let well enough alone, so far as Slinger was concerned. To secure his promise not to kill Jim was more than she had hoped for, at any cost. And that cost! What a terrible thing to take upon herself! If Jim did not ask her again and soon, he would not live very long. Slinger kept his promises.

Molly felt that she would die for Jim and it was not so very much worse to have to marry him. The prospect dazzled and terrified her. If Jim would live in a log cabin and let her work for him! That would be heaven.

But he would want to take her away from the Cibeque--from the woods! from Maple Spring! and wear stockings and live in the mansion of a ranch-house at Flagerstown, and meet his rich old uncle--his other relatives--and his mother. Molly was overcome at the thought. She could not do it. But to save his life she would do anything. She sank on her bed with a sensation as if her breast was caved in. And there she lay, like a wounded deer, for hours, and never could have accounted for them.

She crawled down to help get supper and she took some to Arch, who could not eat, and she sat at table more to avoid clash with her mother than to satisfy hunger.

In the dusk she wandered along outside the lane, irresistibly drawn. Her mother and brother were fools. Jim would not come. She longed for him, yet prayed he would stay away.

The bats were whirling in the clear, cool air overhead. The Diamond stood up black and bold, somehow strengthening her. All her life she had looked up to that mighty bulk. The smell of burning pine floated from the dark forest. A night-hawk flitted by with sharp note.

Then a whistle electrified Molly. She had been whistled for many times in this gloaming hour. It was one of the courting tricks of the Cibeque. But never before had a whistle sent a blade into her heart or lent her wings.

Her moccasined feet pattered on the hard-packed ground.