Under the Tonto Rim (1991) (28 page)

"I don't care who or what has done it," cried Lucy, embracing her again. "Bless Joe!...But, oh, Clara, if he was the way Edd said he was before I left--what is he now?"

"He loves me, yes," said Clara, with a dreaming smile.

Lucy's lips trembled shut on a query she feared to utter, and she endeavoured to conceal her emotion by lifting her baggage to the bed.

"Well, that's no news," she said lightly. "How's my wild-bee hunter?"

"I can't see any change," replied Clara, laughing. "You wrote me only twice, and him not at all."

"Him? Clara, did he expect to hear from me?" asked Lucy, facing about.

"I'm not sure, but he wanted to. Every night when he got home from his work--he's gathering honey now--he'd come to me and ask if I'd heard. I think he missed you and Mertie. He wondered how she'd get along in Felix."

"I ought to have written," said Lucy, as much to herself as to Clara. "But I found it hard. I wanted to...I don't know where I stand. Perhaps now...Heigho! Well, as for Mertie, he needn't have worried about her."

"Lucy, I confess I'm curious myself," replied Clara.

"Mertie was just a crazy country girl who'd been badly influenced," went on Lucy. "She had good stuff in her, as I guessed, and she really cared for Bert. Mertie wanted something, she didn't know what. But I knew. And I gave it to her. I bought her everything she fancied and I took her everywhere. It did not seem possible to me that anyone could be so wildly happy as she was. And Bert? Goodness! It was good to see him...They're married, and, I'm sure, settled for life."

"Married! Well, Lucy Watson, you are a worker. So that was why you took them to Felix?" replied Clara.

"Not at all. But it fell in with the natural order of things. Don't you breathe it. Mertie and Bert will be out here to-morrow to surprise the folks. They'll be glad. I wonder how Edd will take it."

"He'll be happy," mused Clara. "He loves that flibbertigibbet...So they're married. It seems about all young people can do."

"Are you speaking for yourself, or for me, sister?" queried Lucy teasingly.

"Not for myself, surely...Lucy, I think I hear Allie calling us to supper."

The welcome accorded Lucy in that simple household was something even more satisfying that the meed of praise she had received at Felix. Edd Denmeade was not present. His father said he was out, camping on a long bee hunt. Lucy tried to ward off conviction that his absence was a relief. Yet she wanted to see him. The feelings were contrary.

Lucy parried the queries about Mertie by saying that she would be home to-morrow to answer for herself. The clamour of the children was subdued by the delivery of sundry presents from town. For that matter, Lucy did not forget any of the Denmeades. She had remembered what joy a gift brought to them, one and all. For Edd she had purchased a magnifying glass and a field glass, for use in his study of bees.

"Sis, what'd you bring me?" queried Clara jealously when they were back in the tent.

"Myself. Is that enough?" teased Lucy.

"Of course...Lucy, you must have spent a lot of money," said Clara seriously.

"I shore did. All I had except what you wrote for. I have that."

"It's very--good of you," replied Clara.

"What'd you need so much money for?" asked Lucy frankly. "It surprised me."

"It's--I--Well, there's a woman in Kingston," said Clara, averting her face. "I owed her money. I hated to tell you before, hoping she'd wait till I could earn some. But she wrote me."

"How did she know you were here?" queried Lucy in surprise.

"I wrote to her first--about it," returned Clara.

"You mustn't owe money to anyone," said Lucy decidedly. "Send her a money order from Cedar Ridge...Don't look like that, dear. I'm glad to help you. What's mine is yours...You'll be pleased when I tell you my salary was raised and my work highly recommended. I had to teach several new welfare workers."

And Lucy talked on and on, trying to chase away that strange look from Clara's face, and also to talk herself into a forgetfulness of questioning surprise and vague misgivings. Not in a month could Clara recover wholly from the past! Lucy was unutterably grateful for a change far beyond her hopes.

"It was warm in Felix. Here it's cold," said Lucy, shivering closer to the little stove. "But the frost, the air feel so good."

"We had six inches of snow," replied Clara importantly. "I just loved it. Second snow I ever saw! But it melted off next day...Edd and Joe fixed up our tent. Oh, when the wind howled and the snow seeped, it would have been great if you'd been here. I was a little afraid, all alone!"

"Snow already? Well, I missed it, didn't I?...Clara, let's stay out here all winter."

"Oh, I hope we can. I don't see what else we can do--not till spring...Lucy, I've news for you. Mr. Denmeade told me that both the Claypools and Johnsons had complained to him because he was keeping you here so long. They say you're partial to the Denmeades, and that if you don't go to them soon they'll report you. I hope it's not possible for them to hurt you."

Lucy had expected to hear this very news. While in Felix she had anticipated it and prepared her employers for complaints of this nature.

"They can't hurt me, Clara," she rejoined soberly. "I made this job and I can handle it to suit myself. But the Claypools and Johnsons are right. I am partial to the Denmeades, so far. I always meant to be fair, and I shall try to be. Circumstances, however, make my duty harder than I thought it would be. Indeed, I was fortunate to come here first. I owe my success to that. Now I've got to face the music. We'll ride down to Claypool's and then to Johnson's and arrange to go to them in the spring and summer. But we'll return here in the fall."

"We! Must I go with you?" exclaimed Clara.

"Must you? Why, Clara, of course you must go with me," declared Lucy, in amaze. "Whatever are you thinking of? How could I get along without you now?"

"I--I thought you might let me stay here," replied Clara, with confusion rare in her. "They have talked about it, and I'd hate to leave, to break into a strange family. Mr. Denmeade and Joe, the mother and children, all say they won't let you go. Edd says you'll have to go, and you will go because you're honest...I'm selfish, Lucy. I hope you can do your welfare work from here. You could in all seasons but winter. We could ride horseback twice a day, even as far as Miller's. But if you can't see it that way, or let me stay here at least part of the time, of course I'll be glad to go, to work for you. I'm just a coward. These Denmeades have put something back in my heart. To live near that Sam Johnson would drive me wild. Mrs. Denmeade says the Spralls are bad, and Edd says you'll go there despite him or all of us. I met Bud Sprall one day when I was hunting squirrels with Joe. He was at the dance we went to in September. I caught him looking at me. And you should have seen him looking at me when I was with Joe...Lucy, he couldn't have heard about me, could he?

"I don't see how," declared Lucy emphatically. "Way up here in this wilderness? Impossible! I did not hear about you even in Felix. I met all our old friends. But no one even hinted of what you fear."

Clara received this information with a stress of feeling disproportionate to its importance, Lucy thought, and she seemed singularly grateful for it.

"Lucy, there's bad blood between Edd and this Bud Sprall," went on Clara. "I've heard things not intended for my ears. You've got to hold in your wild-bee hunter or he'll kill Bud Sprall."

"Clara, I called Edd Denmeade my wild-bee hunter just for fun," protested Lucy. "I--I thought it would amuse you. But goodness! he's not mine! That's ridiculous! And I'm not responsible for his feuds. He hated Bud Sprall before I ever came here."

"That's perfectly true, Lucy, but the fact remains Edd is yours whether you want him or not. And you can keep him from killing this fellow."

"What have I got to do?" demanded Lucy flippantly. "I suppose you'll suggest that I--I throw myself into Edd's arms to keep him from becoming a murderer."

"It'd be noble welfare work, wouldn't it? And you like the boy!"

"I don't like him as much as that," muttered Lucy doggedly.

"Well, then, you're as fickle as I used to be. For when you came back from the bee hunt with Edd last month you were in love. Or else I don't know that little old disease."

"Nonsense, Clara!" exclaimed Lucy, greatly irritated and perplexed with her sister. "I was out of my head. Excited, full of the joy of the outdoors. I might have been in love with the forest, the canyon, the wildness and beauty of this country. I am so still. But that's--"

"Edd Denmeade and this wilderness are one and the same," interrupted Clara. "But pray don't mind my arguments, dearest Lucy. Sometimes you seem my little sister, instead of me being yours. We always disagreed. I suppose we always shall. I don't think you will ever care to live in Felix again. I know I never shall. And we can't help the effect we have on these boys...Something will come of it, that's all...You're tired, and I've worried you. Let's go to bed."

Next day Lucy was too devoted to getting settled and taking up the threads of her work to face at once the serious self-scrutiny that was inevitable. She welcomed any excuse to postpone it. Besides, she was weary of introspection. She felt like a fluttering leaf attached to a shaking twig and soon to be at the mercy of the storm. Always something was going to happen, but so far as she could tell it had not happened yet. Clara was an enigma. Despite the marvellous improvement in her, Lucy could not dispel a vague dread. It was intuitive, and resembled the shadow of a sword over her head.

She had a frank talk with Denmeade about the Claypools and the Johnsons. The old backwoodsman was honest and fair in his attitude toward them, in his statement of how much more they needed Lucy now than his own family. She could not delay her service in their behalf longer than early spring. He believed that Lucy could allay their jealous anxieties by going to see them and to plan with them for her coming. At the conclusion of this interview with Denmeade Lucy carried away the rather disturbing impression that the Denmeades had made her presence there a sort of personal triumph. She was living with them. What she had taught them, the improvements she had installed for cleaner and happier living, had only elevated them in their own regard above their neighbours. It made a bad situation.

Late that afternoon Mertie and Bert arrived in their best Felix clothes, mysteriously radiant.

"Clara, look," said Lucy, peeping out of the tent. "I knew nothing in the world would keep Mertie from arriving in that dress. She has ridden horseback--from Johnson's anyway."

"She looks nice. It's a pretty dress," replied Clara. "Bert, though--isn't he perfectly killing? Acts like a young lord...I hope they'll be happy."

"Let's not miss this. They can't keep it longer. Why, it shines from them!"

"Excuse me, Lucy. You go. I'll see them later," returned Clara.

Though Lucy went out at once, she was too late to be present when the young couple confessed. As Lucy entered the yard an uproar began on the porch. Mertie and Bert had timed their arrival for an hour when the whole family was at home. The parental blessing had certainly been received. Lucy halted a moment to peep through the thin-foliaged peach trees. The children were screaming at the top of their lungs, yet that din could not quite drown the gay, happy, excited voices of the Denmeade women and the deep, hoarse tones of the men.

Lucy's eyes suddenly filled with tears and her heart throbbed with gladness. Only she knew just how responsible she had been for this happy event. Only she--and perhaps Edd--had known the narrow verge Mertie Denmeade had wilfully trod. Therefore she tarried a little longer at the fence, patting the noses of the smoking horses.

When she did present herself to the family on the porch the wild excitement had subsided.

"Reckon the boys an' girls will storm Mertie tomorrow, shore," Denmeade was saying. "An' you want to make ready for a high old time."

Lucy mounted the porch to gaze about her, smiling, with pretended surprise.

"What's all the fun about?" she inquired.

"Wal now, Miss Lucy!" ejaculated Denmeade, rising and actually taking off his hat. Then he seized her hand in his big rough ones and beamed down on her, his brown grizzled face as rugged as the bark of a pine, yet expressive of the deepest feeling. "Wal, now, you played hob!"

That was all he had time to say before the children enveloped Lucy, and Allie and Mrs. Denmeade for once manifested their womanly appreciation of her goodness to them. The boys were undemonstrative. Dick stood like a tall sapling outlined against the open sky. Joe sat in the background against the wall, quiet-eyed, intent. Edd had evidently just come home, for his ragged leather chaps and his jeans bore substance and odour of the woods. He stood behind Mertie, who sat on the edge of the table, pale with the passion of her importance and the sensation she had created. She had her hands behind her, holding to Edd's. The bright silk dress contrasted strangely with the subdued colours around her. Bert stood, foot on a bench, elbow on his knee, gazing adoringly down upon his bride. His gaudy necktie matched her gown.

"Howdy, city girl!" drawled Edd to Lucy. He gave her no other greeting. The deep gaze accompanying his words was embarrassing and baffling to Lucy. She laughed and retorted: