B M Bower - Wolverine Page 2

  "Say, I 'll dig some more bait, and then we 'll go fishing; shall we?"

  "I -- dunno as I better -- " Jase's hand hovered aimlessly over the potato pile. "I got quite a lot sprouted, though -- and mebby -- "

  "I 'll lock you in till I get the bait dug," suggested Billy Louise craftily. " And you work fast; and then I 'll let you out, and we 'll lock the door agin, so Marthy 'll think you 're in there yet."

  "You 're sure smart to think up things," Jase admired, smiling loose-lipped behind his scraggly beard, that was fading with the years. " I dunno but what it 'd serve Marthy right. She ain't got no call to lock the door on me. She hates like sin t' see me with a fish-pole in m' hand -- but she 's always et her share uh the messes I ketch. She ain't a reasonable woman, Marthy ain't. You git the bait. I 'll show Marthy who 's boss in this Cove!"

  He might have encouraged himself into defying Marthy to her face, in another five minutes of complaining. But the cellar door closed upon him with a slam. Billy Louise was not interested in his opinion of Marthy; with her, opinions were valueless if not accompanied by action.

  "I never thought to ask him about Minervy," occurred to her while she was relentlessly dragging pale, fleshly fishworms from the loose black soil of Marthy's onion bed. "But I know she was mean to Minervy. She 's awful mean to Jase -- locking him up in the root cellar just 'cause he wanted to go fishing. If I was Jase I would n't sprout a single old potato for her. My goodness, but she 'll be mad when she opens the cellar door and Jase ain't in there; I -- guess I 'll go home early, before Marthy finds it out."

  She really meant to do that, but the fish were hungry fish that day, and the joy of having a companion to exclaim with her over every hard tug -- even though that companion was only Jase -- enticed her to stay on and on, until a whiff of frying pork on the breeze that swept down the Cove warned Billy Louise of the near approach of supper-time.

  "I guess mebby I might as well go back to the suller," Jase remarked, his defiance weakening as he climbed the bank. "You come and lock the door agin, Billy Louise, and Marthy won't know I ain't been there all the time. She 'll think you caught the fish." He looked at her with a weak leer of conscious cunning.

  Billy Louise, groping vaguely for the sunbonnet that was dangling between her straight shoulder-blades, stared at him with wide eyes that held disillusionment and with it a contempt all the keener because it was the contempt of a child, whose judgment is merciless.

  "I should thing you 'd be ashamed!" she said at last, forgetting that the idea had been born in her own brain. "Cowards do things and then sneak about it. Daddy says so. I don't care if Marthy is mad 'cause I let you out, and I don't care if she knows we went fishing. I thought you wanted Marthy to see she ain't so smart, locking you up in the cellar. I ain't going to bake you a single cookie with raisings on it, like I was going to."

  "Marthy 's got a sharp tongue in 'er head," Jase wavered, his eyes shifting from Billy Louise's uncompromising stare.

  "Daddy says when you do a thing that 's mean, do it and take your medicine," Billy Louise retorted. "The boy of me that belongs to dad ain't a sneak, Jase Meilke. And," she added loftily, "the girl of me that belongs to mommie is a perfeck lady. Good day, Mr. Meilke. Thank you for a pleasant time fishing."

  Whereupon the perfect lady part switched short skirts up the path and held a tousled head high with disdain.

  Jase, thus deserted, went shambling back to the cellar and fell to sprouting potatoes with what might almost be termed industry.

  It pained Jase later to discover that Marthy was not interested in the open door, but in the very small heap of potatoes which he had "sprouted" that afternoon. There was other work to be done in the Cove, and there were but two pairs of hands to do it; that one pair was slow and shiftless and inefficient was bitterly accepted by Marthy, who worked from sunrise until dark to make up for the shirking of those other hands.

  It was the trail experience over again, and it was an experience that dragged through the years without change or betterment. Marthy wanted to "get ahead." Jase wanted to sit in the sun with his knees drawn up, just -- I don't know what, but I suppose he called it thinking. When he felt unusually energetic, he liked to dangle an impaled worm over a trout pool. Theoretically he also wanted to get ahead and to have a fine ranch and lots of cattle and a comfortable home. He would plan these things sometimes in an expansive mood, whereupon Marthy would stare at him with her hard, contemptuous look until Jase trailed off into mumbling complaints into his beard. He was not as able-bodied as she thought he was, he would say, with vague solemnity. Some uh these days Marthy 'd see how she had driven him beyond his strength.

  When one is a Marthy, however, with ambitions and a tireless energy and the persistence of a beaver, and when one listens to vague mutterings for many hard laboring years, one grows accustomed to the complainings and fails to see certain warning symptoms of which even the complainer is only vaguely aware.

  She kept on working through the years, and as far as was humanly possible she kept Jase working. She did not soften, except toward Billy Louise, who rode sometimes over from her father's ranch on the Wolverine to the flowery delights of the Cove. The place was a perfect jungle of sweetness, seven months of each year; for Marthy owned and indulged a love of beauty, even if she could not realize her dream of prosperity. Wherever was space in the house-yard for a flower or a fruit tree or a berry bush, Marthy planted one or the other. You could not see the cabin from April until the leaves fell in late October, except in a fragmentary way as you walked around it. You went in at a gate of pickets which Marthy herself had split and nailed in place; you followed a narrow, winding path through the sweet jungle -- and if you were tall, you stooped now and then to pass under an apple branch. And unless you looked up at the black, lava-rock rim of the bluff which cupped this Eden incongruously, you would forget that just over the brim lay parched plain and barren mountain.

  When Billy Louise was twelve, she had other ambitions than the making of cookies with "raisings" on them. She wanted to do something big, though she was hazy as to the particular nature of that big something. She tried to talk it over with Marthy, but Marthy could not seem to think beyond the Cove, except that now and then Billy Louise would suspect that her mind did travel to the desert and Minervy's grave. Marthy's hair was growing streaked with yellowish gray, though it never grew less unkempt and dusty looking. Her eyes were harder, if anything, except when they rested on Billy Louise.

  When she was thirteen, Billy Louise rode over with a loaf of bread she had baked all by herself, and she put this problem to Marthy:

  "I 've been thinking I 'd go ahead and write poetry, Marthy -- a whole book of it with pictures. But I do love to make bread -- and people have to eat bread. Which would you be, Marthy; a poet, or a cook?"

  Marthy looked at her a minute, lent her attention briefly to the question, and gave what she considered good advice.

  "You learn how to cook, Billy Louise. Yuh don't want to go and get notions. Your maw ain't healthy and your paw likes good grub. Po'try is all foolishness; there ain't any money in it."

  "Walter Scott paid his debts writing poetry," said Billy Louise argumentatively. She had just read all about Walter Scott in a magazine which a passing cowboy had given her; perhaps that had something to do with her new ambition.

  "Mebby he did and mebby he did n't. I 'd like to see our debts paid off with po'try. It 'd have to be worth a hull lot more 'n what I 'd give for it."

  "Oh. Have you got debts too, Marthy?" Billy Louise at thirteen was still ready with sympathy. "Daddy's got lots and piles of 'em. He bought some cattle and now he talks to mommie all the time about debts. Mommie wants me to go to Boise to school, next winter, to Aunt Sarah's. And daddy says there's debts to pay. I did n't know you had any, Marthy."

  "Well, I have got. We bought some cattle, too -- and they ain't done 's well 's they might. If I had a man that was any good on earth, I could put up more hay. But I can't git nothing outa Jase but whi
nes. Your paw oughta send you to school, Billy Louise, even if he has got debts. I 'd 'a' sent -- "

  She stopped there, but Billy Louise knew how she finished the sentence mentally. She would have sent Minervy to school.

  "Your paw ain't got any right to keep you outa school," Marthy went on aggressively. "Debts er no debts, he 'd see't you got schoolin' -- if he was the right kinda man."

  "Daddy is the right kinda man. He ain't like Jase. He says he wishes he could, but he don't know where the money's coming from."

  "How much 's it goin' to take?" asked Marthy heavily.

  "Oh, piles." Billy Louise spoke airily to hide her pride in the importance of the subject. "Fifty dollars, I guess. I 've got to have some new clothes, mommie says. I 'd like a blue dress."

  "And your paw can't raise fifty dollars?" Marthy's tone was plainly belligerent.

  "Got to pay interest," said Billy Louise importantly. Marthy said not another word about debts or the duties of parents. What she did was more to the point, however, for she hitched the mules to a rattly old buckboard next day and drove over to the MacDonald ranch on the Wolverine. She carried fifty dollars in her pocket -- and that was practically all the money Marthy possessed, and had been saved for the debts that harassed her. She gave the money to Billy Louise's mother and said that it was a present for Billy Louise, and meant for "school money." She said that she had n't any girl of her own to spend the money on and that Billy Louise was a good girl and a smart girl, and she wanted to do a little something toward her schooling.

  A woman will sacrifice more pride than you would believe, if she sees a way toward helping her children to an education. Mrs. MacDonald took the money, and she promised secrecy -- with a feeling of relief that Marthy wished it. She was astonished to find that Marthy had any feelings not directly connected with work or the shortcomings of Jase, but she never suspected that Marthy had made any sacrifice for Billy Louise.

  So Billy Louise went away to school and never knew whose money had made it possible to go, and Marthy worked harder and drove Jase more relentlessly to make up that fifty dollars. She never mentioned the matter to anyone. The next year it was the same; when, in August, she questioned Billy Louise clumsily upon the subject of finances, and learned that "daddy" still talked about debts and interest and did n't know where the money was coming from, she drove over again with money for the "schooling." And again she extracted a promise of silence.

  She did this for four years, and not a soul knew that it cost her anything in the way of extra work and extra harassment of mind. She bought more cattle and cut more hay and went deeper into debt; for as Billy Louise grew older and prettier and more accustomed to the ways of town, she needed more money, and the August gift grew proportionately larger. The mother was thankful beyond the point of questioning. An August without Marthy and Marthy's gift of money would have been a tragedy; and so selfish is mother-love sometimes that she would have accepted the gift even if she had known what it cost the giver.

  At eighteen, then, Billy Louise knew some things not taught by the wide plains and the wild hills around her. She was not spoiled by her little learning, which was a good thing. And when her father died tragically beneath an overturned load of poles from the mountain at the head of the canyon, Billy Louise came home. The Billy of her tried to take his place, and the Louise of her attempted to take care of her mother, who was unfitted both by nature and habit to take care of herself. Which was, after all, a rather big thing for anyone to attempt.

  CHAPTER II

  A Storm And A Stranger

  JASE began to complain of having "all-gone" feelings during the winter after Billy Louise came home and took up the whole burden of the Wolverine ranch. He complained to Billy Louise, when she rode over one clear, sunny day in January; he said that he was getting old -- which was perfectly true -- and that he was not as able-bodied as he might be, and did n't expect to last much longer. Billy Louise spoke of it to Marthy, and Marthy snorted.

  "He 's able-bodied enough at mealtimes, I notice," she retorted. "I 've heard that tune ever since I knowed him; he can't fool me!"

  "Not about the all-goneness, have you?" Billy Louise was preparing to wipe the dishes for Marthy. "I knew he always had 'cricks' in different parts of his anatomy, but I never heard about his feeling all-gone, before. That sounds mysterious, don't you think?"

  "No; and he never had nothin' the matter with his anatomy, neither; his anatomy's just as sound as mine. Jase was born lazy, is all ails him."

  "But, Marthy, have n't you noticed he does n't look as well as he used to? He has a sort of gray look, don't you think? And his eyes are so puffy underneath, lately."

  "No, I ain't noticed nothing wrong with him that ain't always been wrong." Marthy spoke grudgingly, as if she resented even the possibility of Jase's having a real ailment. "He 's feelin' his years, mebby. But he ain't no call to; Jase ain't but three years older 'n I be, and I ain't but fifty-nine last birthday. And I 've worked and slaved here in this Cove for twenty-seven years, now; what it is I 've made it. Jase ain't ever done a hand's turn that he was n't obliged to do. I 've chopped wood, and I 've built corrals and dug ditches, and Jase has puttered around and whined that he was n't able-bodied enough to do no heavy lifting. That there orchard out there I planted and packed water in buckets to it till I got the ditch through. Them corrals down next the river I built. I dug the post-holes, and Jase set the posts in and held 'em steady while I tamped the dirt! In winter I 've hauled hay and fed the cattle; and Jase, he packed a bucket uh slop, mebby, to the pigs! If he ain't as able-bodied as I be, it 's because he ain't done nothing to git strong on. He can't come around me now with that all-gone feeling uh his; I know Jase Meilke like a book."

  There was more that she said about Jase. Standing there, a squat, unkempt woman with a seamed, leathery face and hard eyes now quite faded to gray, she told Billy Louise a good deal of the bitterness of the years behind; years of hardship and of slavish toll and no love to lighten it. She spoke again of Minervy, and the name brought back to Billy Louise poignant memories of her own lonely childhood and of her "pretend" playmate.

  Half shyly, because she was still sometimes touched with the inarticulateness of youth, Billy Louise told Marthy a little of that playmate. "Why, do you know, every time I rode old Badger anywhere, after that day you told me about Minervy, I used to pretend that Minervy rode behind me. I used to talk to her by the hour and take her places. And up our canyon is a cave that I used to play was Minervy's cave. I had another one, and I used to go over and visit Minervy. And I had another pretend playmate -- a boy -- and we used to have adventures. It 's a queer place; I just found that cave by accident. I don't believe there's another person in the country who knows it 's there at all. Well, that 's Minervy's cave to me yet. And Marthy -- " Billy Louise giggled a little and eyed the old woman with a sidelong look that would have set a young man's blood a-jump -- "I hope you won't be mad; I was just a kid, and I did n't know any better. But just to show you how much I thought: I had a little pig, and I named it Minervy, after you told me about her. And mommie told me that was no name for it; it was -- it was n't a girl pig, mommie said. So I called it Man-ervy, as the next best thing." She gave Marthy another wasted glance from the corners of her eyes. "Oh, Marthy!" she cried remorsefully, setting down the gravy bowl that she might pat Marthy on her fat age-rounded shoulder. "What a little beast I am! I should n't have told that; but honest, I thought it was an honor. I -- I just worshiped that pig!"

  Jase maundered in at that moment, and Marthy, catching up a corner of her dirty apron -- Billy Louise could not remember ever seeing Marthy in a perfectly clean dress or apron -- wiped away what traces of emotion her weathered face could reveal. Also, she turned and glared at Jase with what Billy Louise considered a perfectly uncalled-for animosity. In reality, Marthy was covertly looking for visible symptoms of the all-goneness. She shut her harsh lips together tightly at what she saw; Jase certainly was puffy under his watery, pink-rimmed eye
s, and the withered cheeks above his thin graying beard really did have a pasty, gray look.

  "D' you turn them calves out into the corral?" she demanded, her voice harder because of her secret uneasiness.

  "I was goin' to, but the wind's changed into the north, 'n' I thought mebby you would n't want 'em out." Jase turned back aimlessly to the door. His voice was getting cracked and husky, and the deprecating note dominated pathetically all that he said. "You 'll have to face the wind goin' home," he said to Billy Louise. "More 'n likely you 'll be facin' snow, too. Looks bad, off that way."

  "You go on and turn them calves out!" Marthy commanded him harshly. "Billy Louise ain't goin' home if it storms; I sh'd think you 'd know enough to know that."

  "Oh, but I 'll have to go, anyway," the girl interrupted. "Mommie can't be there alone; she 'd worry herself to death if I did n't show up by dark. She worries about every little thing since daddy died. I ought to have gone before -- or I ought n't to have come. But she was worrying about you, Marthy; she had n't seen or heard of you for a month, and she was afraid you might he sick or something. Why don't you get someone to stay with you? I think you ought to." She looked toward the door, which Jase had closed upon his departure. "If Jase should -- get sick, or anything -- "