Prospector's Gold and Canyon Walls (1990) (10 page)

"You bet. An' the ranch is worth twice what he offered."

"Sam, I've been an outcast too, in a way, but this will sweeten my cup."

"Wal, ma'am, you never made me no confidences, but I always took you fer the happiest woman I ever seen," declared Monty stoutly.

At this juncture Rebecca. Keetch, who had been listening thoughtfully to the talk, as was her habit, spoke feelingly: "Ma, I want a lot of new dresses. I haven't a decent rag to my back. And look there!" She stuck out a shapely foot, bursting from an old shoe. "I want to go to Salt Lake City and buy some things. And if we're not poor any more--"

"My dear daughter, I cannot go to Salt. Lake," interrupted the mother, a tone of sadness in her voice.

"But I can. Sue Tyler is going with her mother," burst out Rebecca eagerly. "Why can't I go with them?"

"Of course, daughter, you must have clothes to wear. And I have long thought of that. But to go to Salt Lake! . . . I don't know. It worries me. . . . Sam, what do you think of Rebecca's idea?"

"Which one?" asked Monty.

"About going to Salt Lake to buy clothes." "Perfickly redic'lous," replied Monty blandly.

"Why?" flashed Rebecca, turning upon him with her great eyes aflame.

"Wal, you don't need no clothes in the fust place--"

"Don't I?" demanded Rebecca hotly. "You bet I don't need any clothes for you. You never even look at me. I could go around here positively stark naked and you'd never even see me."

"An' in the second place," continued Monty, with a wholly assumed imperturbability, "you're too young an' too crazy about boys to go on sech a long journey alone." "Daughter, I--I think Sam is right," said Rebecca's mother.

"I'm eighteen years old," cried Rebecca. "And I wouldn't be going alone."

"Sam means you should have a man with you."

Rebecca stood for a moment in speechless rage, then she broke down. "Why doesn't the damn fool--offer to take me--then?"

"Rebecca!" cried Mrs. Keetch, horrified.

Monty meanwhile had been undergoing a remarkable transformation.

"Lady, if I was her dad--"

"But you're--not," sobbed Rebecca.

"Shore it's lucky fer you I'm not. For I'd spank some sense into you. . . . But I was goin' to say I'd drive you back from Kanab. You could go that far with the Tylers."

"There, daughter. . . . And maybe next year you could go to Salt Lake," added Mrs. Keetch consolingly.

Rebecca accepted the miserable compromise, but it was an acceptance she did no
t
care for, as was made plain to Monty by th
e
dark look she gave him as she flounced away.

"Oh, dear," sighed Mrs. Keetch. "Rebecca is a good girl. But nowadays she often flares up like that. And lately she had been acting queer. If she'd only set her heart on some man!"

Chapter
3

MONTY HAD HIS DOUBTS ABOUT THE VENTURE TO
w
hich he had committed himself. But he undertook it willingly enough, because Mrs.

Keetch was obviously so pleased and relieved. She evidently feared for this high-
s
pirited girl. And so it turned out that Rebecc
a
rode as far as Kanab with the Tylers, with th
e
understanding that she would return in Monty's wagon.

The drive took Monty all day and there was a good deal of upgrade in the road. He did not believe he could make the thirty miles back in daylight hours, unless he got a very early start. And he just about knew he never could get Rebecca Keetch to leave Kanab before dawn. Still the whole prospect was on
e
that offered adventure, and much of Monty's old devil-may-care spirit seemed roused to meet it.

He camped on the edge of town, and next morning drove in and left the old wagon at a blacksmith shop for needed repairs. The four horses were turned into pasture. Then Monty went about executing Mrs. Keetch's instructions, which had to do with engaging helpers and making numerous purchases. That evening saw a big, brand-new shiny wagon at the blacksmith shop, packed full of flour, grain, hardware, supplies, harness, and whatnot. The genial storekeeper who waited upon Monty averred that Mrs. Keetch must have had her inheritance returned to her. All the Mormons had taken a kindly interest in Monty and his work at Canyon Walls, which had become the talk all over the range. They were likable men, except for a few gray-whiskered old patriarchs who belonged to another day. Monty did not miss seeing several pretty Mormon girls; and their notice of him pleased him immensely, especially when Rebecca happened to be around to see. Monty seemed to run into her every time he entered a store. She spent all the money she had saved up, and all her mother had given her, and she even borrowed the last few dollars he had in his pockets.

"Shore, you're welcome," said Monty in reply to her thanks. "But ain't you losin' your haid a little?"

"Well, so long's I don't lose it over you, what do you care?" she retorted, saucily, with another of those dark glances which had mystified him before.

Monty replied that her mother had expressly forbidden her to go into debt for anything.

"Don't you try to boss me, Sam Hill," she warned, but she was still too happy to be really angry.

"Rebecca, I don't care two bits what you do," said Monty shortly.

"Oh, don't you?-- Thanks! You're always flattering me," she returned mockingly.

It struck Monty then that she knew something about him or about herself which he did not share.

"We'll be leavin' before sunup," he added briefly. "You'd better let me have all your bundles so I can take them out to the wagon an' pack them tonight."

Rebecca demurred, but would not give a reason, which could only have been because she wanted to gloat over her purchases. Monty finally prevailed upon her; and it took two trips for him and a boy he had hired to carry the stuff out to the blacksmith's shop.

"Lord, if it should rain!" said Monty, remembering that he had no extra tarpaulin. So he went back to the store and got one, and hid it, with the idea of having fun with Rebecca in case a storm threatened on the way back to the ranch.

After supper Rebecca drove out to Monty's camp with some friends.

"I don't care for your camping out like this. You should have gone to the inn," she said loftily.

"Wal, I'm used to campin'," he drawled. "Sam, they're giving a dance for me tonight," announced Rebecca.

"Fine. Then you needn't go to bed atall, an' we can get an early start."

The young people with Rebecca shouted with laughter, and she looked dubious. "Can't we stay over another day?"

"I should smile we cain't," retorted Monty with unusual force. "An' if we don't get an early start we'll never reach home tomorrow. So you jist come along heah, young lady, about four o'clock."

"In the morning?"

"In the mawnin'. I'll have some breakfast fer you."

It was noticeable that Rebecca made no rash promises. Monty rather wanted to give in to her--she was so happy and gay--but he remembered his obligations to Mrs. Keetch, and remained firm.

As they drove off Monty's sharp ears caught Rebecca complaining--"and I can't do a solitary thing with that stubborn Arizona cowpuncher."

This rather pleased Monty, as it gave him distinction, and was proof that he had no
t
yet betrayed himself to Rebecca. He would proceed on these lines.

That night he did a remarkable thing, for him. He found out where the dance was being held, and peered through a window to see Rebecca in all her glory. He did not miss, however, the fact that she did not appear to outshine several other young women there. Monty stifled a yearning that had not bothered him for a long time. "Doggone it! I ain't no old gaffer. I could dance the socks off some of them Mormons." He became aware presently that between dances some of the young Mormon men came outdoors and indulged in desultory fist fights. He could not see any real reason for these encounters, and it amused him. "Gosh, I wonder if thet is jist a habit with these hombres. Fact is, though, there's shore not enough girls to go round. . . . Holy mackerel, how I'd like to have my old dancin' pards heah! Wouldn't we wade through thet corral! . . . I wonder what's become of Slim an' Cuppy, an' if they ever think of me. Doggone!"

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 tw
o
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. Bu
t
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.