The Wrong Woman (8 page)

"That's what Pete said. Me and him trailed round Belleview all morning, and I
got him to go along and bid in this horse for me. I saw he was a good horse, but
I did n't know he was rope-wise. Look at his backbone. Look at how he's coupled
up."

The drug clerk, having affected horse wisdom and miscarried, now stepped
forward and began feeling the distance between the horse's rump and floating
ribs, a move evidently intended to show his knowledge of this last technical
term.

"What's all that for!" inquired Todd, with a touch of surprise. "Ain't them
bones plain enough to see? I guess you think he is one of them nice fat horses
that you have got to feel."

"That's right, Al," remarked Whallen. "Buy a horse like that and you see what
you 're getting. What's the use feeling when the package is open?"

The drug clerk, thus suddenly put out of countenance by the very bones he had
been flouting, stepped back and held his peace; and presently, under cover of
Whallen's going, he took his own departure.

Al, now that he had vanquished his opponent and made him seek the
intrenchment of his counter, cast his eye about and searched the length of Main
Street, one side and then the other. He expected to get sight of some one of the
crew that had brought the cattle into the loading-pens; but they had totally
disappeared. After looking into a few likely places, and finding that he had
guessed wrong, he paused on a street corner to give the matter deeper thought.

"Come on, Al," said Toot Wilson, hastening past.

"Where at?"

"Up to the saddle-maker's. They 're in there. He is making a fine one. Did
you see it?"

"No."

"It's for young Chase. It's great work."

In John Diefenbach's workroom was a numerous company of saddle admirers,
sitting and lounging about in the seductive odor of new-mown leather. The
saddler, happily busied among his patterns and punches and embossing-tools,
turned at times and peered over the rims of his spectacles in evident
satisfaction. The heavy stock saddle, its quantities of leather all richly
beflowered, was mounted on a trestle beside him. It was so near completion that
the long saddle-strings now hung down in pairs all round, and these thongs,
being of lighter-colored leather, and sprouting out of the hearts of embossed
primroses, looked quite as if they were the natural new growth of that springin
fact the whole flourishing affair might have been expected to put on a few more
layers of leather out of its own powers of luxuriance. But there was nothing
superfluous about it.

"What do you think of it, Al?" asked one of the company.

Todd looked it over, the broad hair girths fore and aft, the big cinch rings
and strong stirrup straps. The stirrups were missing. His eye sought the hooks
and pegs over the workbench.

"Do
them
things go on it?" he asked, pointing an accusing finger.

Hanging on the wall was a pair of Mexican
tapaderas
deep hooded
stirrups with a great superfluity of leather extending below as if they were
wings for the feet.

"Oh! no, no, no," said the saddler, turning hastily and holding up his hand
as if to quell this mental disturbance before it had gone too far. "These go on
itthese." He held out a pair of plain wooden hoops.

Todd's countenance rearranged itself at once.

"She's a jim-dandy," said Todd.

With this verdict rendered, he seated himself on a chair which had a nail-keg
for legs and gave his attention to the principal speaker as he resumed his
account of a roping-match. The story was rather long, showing how it was that
the best man did n't win.

In the ensuing silence Todd found his opportunity to speak.

"I just heard something," he said. "Steve Brown is herding sheep."

"That's nothing," said the story-teller. "He done that a couple of times
before."

"And they say there is a woman out there with him," added Todd.

"A woman! What woman?"

"I don't know. Tuck Reedy rode past and saw them sitting by the fire. Ed
Curtis saw her too."

"Whose sheep's he herdin'?" asked big Tom Brodie.

"I don't know anything about the sheep. He's out there tending them. And
she's out there with him."

"I know what he's doing with them," said Harry Lee. "He's administrating
them."

"What have they got?" inquired big Tom.

"Who's got what?"

"What is it that's ailin' them? I say, what have they
got
?" repeated
Tom assertively, being a little in liquor.

"They have n't got anything. I said he is administrating them. When a man
dies, the court chooses somebody that's reliable to settle up what he leaves.
And this other fellow sees that everything is tended to and done on the square.
They were John Clarkson's sheep, and they belong to his little boy. He is
administrating them."

"Huh!" grunted Tom, whose untutored mind now needed a rest.

"But how about this woman?" asked Frank Sloan.

"She's turned her horse out to grass; and she's out there with him. Just him
and her. All alone."

"Pshaw!" said Harry Lee. "They ain't alone. How could Tuck Reedy tell she was
alone just by the light of the fire? There might have been somebody in the
shack. Or behind it."

"And maybe the horse had just pulled up his stake-rope," said another.

"Or maybe the horse had hobbles on," added another.

"
Did n't I tell you Ed Curtis saw the same woman?
" said Todd, now
growing assertive. "And she was going out there alone. And if there was anybody
else around would n't they be eating supper with them? And if a horse was
dragging a stake-rope would n't Tuck Reedy know it?"

To make the matter unquestionable he now started at the very beginning and
told it all, going into details and pointing out how one witness corroborated
another.

"You say she wore a felt hat? And was light-haired?"

"Yes. It was black. It was turned up at the side."

"Hell! I know who that is!" exclaimed Sloan.

"Why, that's a woman that was up here at Preston. Said she was an actress.
She came along with a fellow and started a saloon over on the other side of the
tracks near the loading-pen. After a while the women folks got to talking about
the place and making objections; so then the rent was raised. I heard just the
other day that she left town on a horse and was looking around the country. She
fastened the side of it up with a big pin."

"A big breastpin," said Al Todd.

"That's her."

Here was a sufficient subject. Recollection failed to bring up a parallel. It
was something new in sheep-herding.

"Well," said Sloan, finally, "a man's liable to end almost anywhere if he
takes it into his head to herd sheep. They can raise all of them they want, but
I 'll stick to cattle; 'specially in spring. One thing about a cow or a mare is
that you don't ever have to teach her the mamma business."

"Some sheep," remarked Todd, "ain't got natural human affections. When one of
that kind has a lamb you've got to mix in and get her to adopt it. And half the
time it's twins. And maybe she's willin' to take one and won't have the other. I
would n't have the patience."

"Nor me, either," said Harry Lee. "I have a brother that tried it one time.
And after he got through with that band of sheep, it would have taken Solomon to
straighten out the family troubles. One thousand of them. Some had twins and
some did n't have any, and the bunch was full of robber lambs."

"What's robber lambs?" asked Diefenbach, who had now turned his back on the
workbench.

"That's a lamb that has n't got any mother in particular. Maybe his own
mother died or disowned him. And the other sheep all know their own lambs and
won't have anything to do with him. You see, a sheep is mighty particular; no
admittance unless he 's the right one, according to smell. And maybe she won't
take one anyway. Then the lamb is up against trouble; he keeps going round
trying to get dinner everywhere. If he 's a robber lamb, he finds out that if he
comes up and takes his dinner from behind she can't smell him and don't know the
difference. What a sheep don't know don't hurt her. That's where a lot of
trouble comes in."

"What hurt does that do?" inquired the philosophic Diefenbach. "Has n't a
lamb got to have some milk?"

"Sure. But that sheep has got a lamb of her own; and pretty likely she has
twins, and it's all she can do to keep them. So this lamb that's onto the game
comes and robs them."

"You see, it's like this," put in Sloan. "Suppose you have a thousand sheep;
and over here is a lot of lambs playing around. You see, a sheep and a lamb
don't always go together like a cow and a calf. Sheep are awful monotonous, and
I guess the lambs know it. So they go off in a bunch and have a good time. And
when one of them gets hungry he lets a bleat out of him and starts for the bunch
of sheep. They are all tuned up to a different sound; so are the sheep. And the
lamb and the sheep know each other by sound. Well, the sheep will hear that and
she'll let out her sound and get an answer back, and that way he 'll find her in
the bunch. Maybe they meet halfway; then she smells him and it is all right.
Well, we have a thousand sheep all grazing together; and off here is a bunch of
lambs with a lot of robbers among them, all playing and skipping around and
having a hell of a time. Well, a robber lamb gets hungry all of a sudden, so he
skips off and takes the first sheep that comes handy. He takes what ain't his.
And maybe it's twins. After a while little Johnny and Mary come home and then
they 're
up against it."

"And if you let things go like that," added Lee, "one sheep won't have any
lamb or any milk and another will be feeding two twins and a robber. You can't
raise sheep that way."

"But what is a man going to do about
that
? How can
he
help it?"
pursued Diefenbach.

"Why," said Lee, "he 's got to keep track of them when they 're being born
and see that every sheep takes her lamb and gets to liking it. Whenever there's
one that don't want a lamb he's got to tend to her."

"
Donnerwetter!
" exclaimed Diefenbach, reverting momentarily to his
native tongue. He picked up a beading-punch and turned to his own line of
industry.

From sheep they got back to horses again,conversation usually travels in a
circle,and being now in their native element they continued in one stay,
discussing ways and means

"To wind and turn a fiery Pegasus,
And witch the world with
noble horsemanship."

The story of the woman had reached this state, circumstantial and complete,
when, by divers methods, it got out to the more aristocratic circles of Claxton
Road.

There was not a stone, it is safe to say, within half a day's walk of Claxton
Road. Prairie country of the black-waxy variety is noticeably bereft of this
usual feature of life, the lazy Southern ocean which formerly brooded over these
parts having deposited black, rich muck till it covered everything post-hole
deep. And so if a man had wanted a stone to throw he would have had to walk
several miles to find one, by which time, of course, his anger would have cooled
off. Originally there had been one here and there, but these solitary specimens,
being such a novelty, and standing out so plainly on the flat scene, had been
picked up by farmer or cowboy and taken home. Thus each of the several stones in
those parts was engaged in holding open the barn door or the ranch gate, or was
established in the back yard to crack pecan nuts on, much to the improvement of
flatirons. If a man had stolen one and used it openly, he would sooner or later
have been found out. But why do we speak of stones?

Shortly after supper, Mrs. Arthur WrightKitty they still called hercame out
of the front gate whistling, and going to the middle of the road, there being no
sidewalk that far out from town, she turned to the left and set out for the
Chautauqua meeting at Captain Chase's. Claxton road, coming in from the
county-seat, changed its name a mile or so out of Thornton and became Claxton
Road. The Wright residence may be said to have been located just where the
capital R began. At this point the barb wire of the prairie thoroughfare gave
way, on the left-hand side, to the white fences of suburban estates with big
front yards and windmills and stables; and on the right there came, at the same
time, an unfenced vacancy, or "free grass," which, though it had a private owner
somewhere, might be called a common. The estates along Claxton Road faced this
big common, looking across it toward the cottages which marked the edge of town
on the other side, and there was nothing to obstruct the view except a
time-blackened frame house which, for some reason, had posted itself right in
the middle of this spacious prospect. These places along Claxton Road were the
homes of cattle and sheep-men who owned vast ranches in adjacent counties. They
had thus herded themselves together, largely, if not entirely, on account of
Woman and her institutions.

As the Wright place was the farthest out in this row of suburban estates,
Mrs. Wright was frequently the first to start to a Chautauqua or other social
affair; indeed, had it not been that she made a practice of hurrying up the
others as she went along, she would usually have been the first to arrive. A
short walk brought her to Harmon's, and here bringing to a hurried conclusion
the Wedding March from "Lohengrin,"an excellent tune to march by,she changed
her flutelike notes for a well-known piercing trill. At the second shrill
summons Mrs. Harmon came to the door.

"Just a minute, KittyI 'm coming."

"Don't forget your specimen," called Mrs. Wright.

Mrs. Harmon, after a somewhat protracted minute, came out with nothing on her
arm but a book.

"I 've just been too busy for anything," she explained. "You know I had the
dressmaker two daysI thought I 'd take the opportunity while George was away at
the ranch. And, besides," she added, after a short pause, "I did n't think of
it."