Emerson Hough

I never went to bed none at all that night. I couldn't of slept, nohow. I set there in the ranch room thinking and trying to figure out what I had ought to do. I concluded that might depend some on what Bonnie Bell was going to do; and I couldn't tell what that was, for she didn't seem clear about it herself.

Along about daybreak, maybe sooner, when I set there—maybe I'd been asleep once or twice a little—I heard the noise of a car going out not far from us. I suppose, like enough, it was over at the Wisners'; maybe some of their folks was going or coming. In the city, folks don't use the way they do on a ranch and night goes on about the same as daytime.

I'd been studying so hard over all these things, trying to see how I'd have to play the game, that I didn't notice Old Man Wright when he come in that morning, about the time he usual got up for breakfast. He wasn't worried none, but seemed right happy, like something was clear in his mind.

"Well, Curly," says he, "you're up right early, ain't you? What makes you so keen to hear the little birds sing this morning?"

He fills up his pipe. I didn't say nothing.

"Well," says he after a time, smoking and looking out the window, "I suppose I'm a fond parent again right now. Maybe I'll be a grandpa before long—who can tell? I never did figure on being a grandpa in my born days," says he; "but such is life."

"What do you mean, Colonel?" I ast him.

"Well," says he, "I ain't a real grandpa yet, maybe, but I reckon it's like enough. All them flowers and that sort of thing—and that late executive session last night. When's the day?"

He still looks right contented. What could I say to him then?

"Too bad," says he, "you couldn't of stayed up to get the happy news, Curly!" says he. "I expect Tom Kimberly would of been right glad to tell you or me; but I knew how the thing was going. I been a young man once myself. He don't want old people setting round—he wants the whole field clear for hisself. It takes young folks several hours sometimes to set and tell things to each other that could be told in just a minute. Proposing is a industrial waste, the way it's done customary.

"Well, well!" he goes on. "I'm glad my little girl's going to be so happy. She's a good girl and she loves her pa. Sometimes I even think she's right fond of you, Curly," says he. "I can't see why. You're a mighty trifling man, Curly," says he. "I don't see why I keep you."

Then I knowed he was feeling good. He wouldn't turn me off noways in the world, but he liked to joke thataway sometimes.

"Well," says he after a while, "what do you say about it your own self, Curly?"

"I say she loves you as much as any girl ever did her pa. She loves me, too, though I don't know why, neither."

"Shore she does!" he nods. "And she'll do the square thing by us two—that's shore."

"Is it?" says I. "Well, who knows what's the square thing in the world? Sometimes it's hard to tell what is."

"That's so," says he, thoughtful. "Sometimes it is. I might of liked some other man better'n Tom, maybe, if there'd been any other man; but there isn't. I'm glad she's taken him. He'll turn out all right. He's a good boy and his folks is good. He'll come out all right—don't you worry."

"No," says I; "I reckon it'll do no good to worry, Colonel."

"What do you mean?" says he. "Ain't it all right?" says he.

"That remains to be saw," says I.

"She accepts him, don't she?"

"If I knew I'd tell you," says I; "but I don't know for shore."

"Of course," he says to me, "the girl wouldn't be apt to talk very free to you about it, especial since you was in bed."

"Was I?" says I. "Oh, all right, if I was in bed! If I didn't talk to Bonnie Bell a while here last night, then everything is done, and I'm glad to know it."

"Well, where's she now?" says he. "I'm hungry as all get out; and you know I can't eat till she comes down to breakfast—I've got to have her setting right across the table from me, like her ma used to set. Oh, hum! I suppose some day she won't be setting there no more. Just you and me'll be setting there, looking at each other like two damn old fools. That's what fathers is for, Curly," says he. "That's the best they can get out of the draw.

"Well, that's what I've been living for ever since she was knee-high—just to make her happy; just to give her, like her ma told me I must, the place in life that she had coming to her. No little calico dress and a wide hat for Miss Mary Isabel Wright now, I reckon, Curly. Her game is different now. Them Better Things is coming her way, I reckon now, Curly. She's left the ranch and is playing a bigger game—and she's won it. Well, I'll tell 'em both how glad I am; but I wisht she'd come down to breakfast, for I'm getting right hungry."

She didn't come. I couldn't say anything to him yet, for I didn't exactly know what the truth was; Bonnie Bell hadn't told me whether or not she accepted Tom, but only said he was going to come back again. I wisht she'd come down and take this thing off my hands, for I was getting cold feet as shore as you're born.

He walks up and down, getting hungrier all the time, and singing "Tom Bass He Was a Ranger!" But she didn't come. At last he calls our William; and says he to William:

"Go send Annette up to ask Miss Bonnie if she's ready for breakfast."

"Yes, sir; very well, sir. Hit's all growing quite cold, sir," says William; and he went away.

He come back in a few minutes and stood in the door and said his Ahum! like he always did, and the old man turned to him.

"Beg pardon, sir, but Miss Wright's mide says Miss Wright 'as not come in."

"Not come in! What do you mean?"

"She's not in her room, sir. The mide thinks she's not been in her room during the night."

"What's that? What's that?" says he. "Curly, didn't you just now say she was here? Wasn't you up after I was?"

"I seen her around midnight," says I—"maybe later; I don't know. I thought she went to bed. I never did hear her go out. She couldn't of gone out—I'd of heard her."

"You'd of heard her! With you in bed yourself? What do you mean?"

The old man turned to me now and seen my face. He come close up to me.

"Where was you?" says he. "What do you mean?"

"Colonel," says I, "she was here after midnight. I ain't been to bed at all tonight."

"What did she say to you? Why didn't you go to bed? Where is she? What have you done?"

"I ain't done nothing," says I. "I've been trying to talk to you for days, and I couldn't. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to interfere in any girl's business and this shore is hers."

"It's hers?" says he, cold and hard. "I'm in this too. There's something in here that's got to come out. Come!" says he.

He motioned to me and I followed him up the staircase to the part of the house that was Bonnie Bell's—the second story and on the corner toward the lake. She had a fine, big bedroom, with wide windows, all the wood in white, and all the silks a sort of pale green.

We walked into the room; and he didn't knock. The room was empty! Her bed hadn't been slept in. On a chair, smoothed out, was her pale blue dress, which I remembered.

"That's the one she wore last," says I, pointing to it. "She's changed it."

"She's—she's gone!" says her pa. "Gone—without asking me—without telling me! Where's she gone? Tell me, Curly. Has—has anybody—— My girl—where is she? Tell me!"

He had hold of my shoulders then and shook me; and I ain't no chicken neither.

I got a look at the bed then, and there was something on the pillow. I showed it to him. It was a letter.

If you've ever seen a man shot, you know how it gets him. He'll stand for a time like he ain't hurt so bad. Then his face'll pucker, surprised, and he'll begin to crumble down slow. That was the way Old Man Wright done when he read the letter. It was like he was shot and trying to stand and couldn't, only a little while.

"She's—she's gone!" says he, like he was talking, to someone else. "She's run away—from me! She's gone, Curly!" He says it over again, and this time so loud you could of heard it for a block. "Our girl's left here—left her father after all! Curly, tell me, what was this? Could she—did she—— How could she?"

I taken the piece of paper from his hand when he didn't see me. It said:

Father [I never knew her to call him that before] Father, I'm going away. I'm a thief. I've broken your heart and Curly's and Tom's. I'm the wickedest girl in the world; and I'll never ask your forgiveness, for I don't deserve it. You must not look for me any more. I'm going away. Good-by!

Well, that was all. The letter had been all over wet—and a man can't cry.

"Curly," says her pa to me—"why, Curly, it can't be! She's hiding—she's just joking; she wouldn't do this with her old pa. She's scared me awful. Come on, let's find her, and tell her she mustn't do this way no more. There's some things a man can't stand."

"Colonel," says I, "we got to stand it. She's gone and it ain't no joke."

"How do you know?" He turned on me savage now. "Damn you! What do you know? There's nothing wrong about my girl—you don't dare to tell me that there is! She couldn't do no wrong; it wasn't in her."

"No," says I; "she wouldn't do anything but what she thought was right, I reckon. But, you see, you and me, we never knew her at all. I didn't till last night about half past twelve or one o'clock."

"What do you mean? What did she say?"

"She told me she'd got to be a woman."

He stood and looked at me; and now I seen I had to come through, for the girl couldn't be saved no more.

"Oh, hell, Colonel," says I, "I might of known all along the thing would have to come out—it was due to break some day. I ought to of told you, of course."

"What do you mean?" says he; and he caught me once more in his hands—he's strong too.

"Turn me loose, Colonel!" says I. "There can't no man put hands on me—I won't have it. I worked for you all my life pretty near, and I done right, near as I knew. Turn loose of me!"

He let go easy like, but kept his eyes on me.

"I want to be fair," says he, and he half whispered—"I want to be fair; but, the man that's done this'll have to settle with me! Tell me, did you and her plot against me?"

"I didn't plot none," says I. "I was only hoping she'd forget all about it and get married and settle down."

"Forget about what? Did she have any affairs that you knew about?"

I nods then. I was glad to get it off'n my mind.

"Yes," says I; "she did."

"Who was it, Curly?" says he, quiet.

"It was the man next door—the Wisners' hired man," says I.

I'd rather of shot Old Man Wright and killed him decent than say what I did then.

"You're a damn liar!" says he to me at length, quiet like.

"Colonel," says I, "you can't call that to me, nor no other man, and you know it."

"I do call it to you!" says he. "My girl couldn't of done that."

"I wish I was a liar, Colonel," says I; "but I ain't. I'll give you one day to take that back, and you ain't going to study about no proofs neither. I've worked for you a long time. I've loved the girl like you did. It ain't no way for you to do to talk thataway to me. I'll say I've knew this some time and tried to stop it—it was my business to stop it. I tried a hundred times to tell you about it, but I couldn't without pretty near killing her and you too. She ast me not to tell you and—why, hell! I loved her, same as you did."

"How far has it gone, Curly?" says he. He come over now and patted his hand up and down my shoulder, looking away, which was his way of saying he was sorry. "Don't mind me, Curly," says he. "I'm crazy! You mustn't mind me, but tell me all you know now. I know you couldn't lie to either of us if you tried."

"Yes, I could too," says I; "but I haven't tried. But I just couldn't go to you and tell you all this thing, for I knew what it would mean to you.

"It's been going on quietlike for quite a while and I've been doing all I could to stop it. It begun maybe when she hauled him out of the lake—I don't know. They didn't meet often. I heard 'em talking once on the dock, and I told him I'd run him off if he come across the fence or said another word to her. She begged for him then; but I never promised her nothing. I knew it was my job as your foreman to take care of that, so I didn't go to you."

"Go on," says he. "Tell me!"

"She didn't say nothing to him for a long time—she didn't meet him, not after she said she wouldn't. Then he sent letters over—tied to the collar of our little dog—two or three letters; maybe four or five, for all I know. He was crazy over her. All the time he owned up to her and me that he oughtn't to do what he done. He said in his letters he oughtn't to raise his eyes to her—he knowed he ought to of come around to the front door and not to the back door; and he said that very thing. But he said, like a man will, that he couldn't help it.

"She didn't never answer his letters, so far as I know. I don't know as she ever got any word to him at all. So far as I know, they never did talk much, only that one time when I heard 'em. But, as to something going on—why, yes, it's been going on for quite a little while. And I've knew it; I've knew I ought to go and tell you. And all the time I couldn't, because I loved her and she ast me not to tell."

"Did she ever tell you anything? Do you think she cared anyway for him? You see," he goes on, "I never seen him to know him. I don't know who he is. I didn't hardly know he was alive on earth. Gawd forgive me! I ought to of known. I told her once not to talk to that hired man; but if I'd thought anything of this I'd maybe of killed him then."

"Yes; and I ought to of told you, Colonel," says I. "It was only the way things happened and because she ast me not to."

"She had that secret from her father!" says he, slow. "Who can tell what's in a woman's heart?"

"That's it," says I; "now you got it. She was a woman—she told me so."

"What more did she say, Curly?"

"Once she come to me crying, and she says, 'Curly, I love him!'—she meant that man next door. And I know for shore now he wasn't fit to wipe her feet on."

Old Man Wright he set down then, quiet like. I couldn't help him none, I had to set and see him take it. It was awful.

"She said that—she loved him? How long ago?"

"A few weeks, maybe," says I. "I never could get the nerve to tell you then. I hoped she'd get to see how foolish it was for her to care for a cheap gardener—I thought she'd be too proud for that. And then I allowed she'd, like enough, marry Tom Kimberly, and that'd change her and it'd all come out all right. All the time I was hoping and trying to save both her and you. I been nigh about crazy, Colonel. And all the time, of course, I was only a damn fool cowpuncher, without any brains."

"She's gone!" says he, after a time.

"Yes," says I; "near as I can figure, she's thought about it all night and concluded it'd be best for her not to marry Tom, feeling like she did about this other man. She's shook us, Colonel. But, believe me, she wasn't never happy doing that. It must of been like death to her."

"Why did she do it, Curly?" he whispered. "How could she? Why?"

"I done told you, Colonel," says I. "It was because she found she was a woman. She hadn't knew that before—nor us neither."

At length he got up, but he couldn't stand up straight.

"How can we keep this quiet?" says he.

We couldn't keep it quiet at all. It was all over the house right now. That Annette girl had read all them Peanut letters before William ever got 'em. Like enough he'd read 'em too. They was scared when we walked into their part of the house.

"Where's that dog?" says Old Man Wright.

William, he got pale.

"Very good, sir," says he, and pretends to go after Peanut, which he knows wasn't there.

"Hi suppose she took 'im along with 'er, sir," says William after a while.

Annette she chips in:

"Oui, oui—yes, yes; she took him with her."

"Took him with her? What do you mean? What do you know about it? Keep quiet, you people!" says Old Man Wright. "Get into that room!" He locked them in.

"Now, Curly——" says he.

I knew he was clear in his own mind by now that the girl had run away with that gardener. He'd maybe go over there.

"No, Colonel," says I; "you keep out of this."

"What do you mean?" says he. "Ain't you my friend at all? Ain't I got a friend in all the world?"

"You're alderman here," I says, "and that's the same as being sher'f. When you was sher'f you couldn't do what the law said you couldn't—now could you? You have to keep up the law when you're a alderman or sher'f. With me, it's different. Besides, this is my job, not yours."

"Curly," says he, and I could see his jaw get hard all along the aidge, "Curly, ain't there no place on earth for a pore old broken-hearted man?"

"Never mind just yet, Colonel," says I. "It ain't your turn," says I—"that's all. Sometimes," I says to him, "it's best to go a little slow at first and not make no foolish breaks. Let's just take it easy till we see which way the cat has jumped—we don't know much yet."

"She—she wouldn't kill herself?" says he sudden; and he got even whiter.

"I don't think so," I says; "and I'll tell you why. I don't think she was thinking so much of dying when she said 'I am a woman.' It was life!"

He looked at me quiet.

"She said that?"

"Uh-huh!—sever'l times. And it was like you said, Colonel, after all. There ain't no fence high enough to keep a young man and a young woman apart. It was bound to come, and we didn't know it—that's all."

"We give her every chance. There was Tom."

"Yes," says I; "and there was the man next door. These things goes by guess and by Gawd. For instance," says I, "what in the world could Bonnie Bell's ma ever see in you, Colonel?"

That hit him hard, though I didn't mean it that way. He turned his face away, like he seen something awful before him.

"My Gawd!" says he. "I done that my own self! I stole her ma away. She loved me and I loved her. Ain't there no one to show a pore old helpless man what he ought to do?"

"It's life, and she showed us the way," says I. "When you stole Bonnie Bell's ma you was ready to meet her folks, I reckon, if they come to take her away. You taken your chance when you married her. So's the man that's run off with Bonnie Bell. Let him have a even break, Colonel. He loves her, maybe—and he seems to have a way with women."

"He's ruined her!" says Old Man Wright. "It's marriage he was after, of course; but look at the difference. I never touched a cent of her ma's money. We made our own way. But here's a low-down sneak that's come in at our back door and run away with my girl for her money! Don't you see the difference? What's this skunk like?" he says to me after a time.

"He ain't such a bad-looking fellow," says I, "if he was dressed up. He's a sort of upstanding fellow. His clothes was always so dirty he didn't look like much. He was a good-talking fellow enough."

"They all are—the damn fortune-hunting curs! I can believe that."

"I was too much a coward to tell you, Colonel," says I. "I love that girl a awful lot. I'd do anything I could to help the kid, even now when she's in so bad."

"Yes," says he.

"She had it in her natural," says I. "Her pa and ma run away. She was plumb gentle till she bolted—and then all hell couldn't hold her. Ain't that like her pa?"

"Yes," says he, humble; "it's like her pa."

"And she's handsome, and soft, and kind, and gentle—so any man couldn't help loving her. Ain't she like her ma thataway? Wasn't she thataway too?"

"Yes," says he, choking up like; "she's like her ma."

"Well, then?" says I. "Well then?"

So I pushed him outen the room and went on out down the walk.

I looked around at our house as I was going out. It was big and fine, but somehow the curtains looked dull and dirty to me. Everything was shabby-looking someways. This place was where we'd failed. And then I seemed to see my own self like I was—Curly, a bow-legged cowpuncher offen the range, with no use for him in the world but just to get things mixed up, like I had. And Old Man Wright—that used to be our sher'f and the captain of the round-up, and the best cowman in Wyoming—what had come to him here at this place?

I turned around to look back. Just then he come out the room where I'd pushed him in.

He was a tall man, but now he stood stooped down like. His red mustache was ragged where he'd gnawed the ends for the last half hour. His face seemed different colors and wasn't red like usual. He seemed to have got leaner all at once. His knees didn't seem to keep under him good and his back was bowed. He'd changed a lot in less than a hour. He seemed to be thinking of what I was thinking of, and he sort of taken a look around at the house too.

"I made it, Curly," says he, and his voice was sort of loose and trembling, like he was old. "I made it for her. I made a lot of money for her. I tried to make her believe I was happy here, but I never was. I ain't been happy here, not a hour since we come. It's all been a mistake."

He hammers his fist on the wall by the door where he stood.

"Brick on brick," says he, "I built it for her. I pretended I liked all these things, but I didn't care a damn for 'em. It's all been a bluff; we've bluffed to each other and we've all been wrong. It's been a failure; all we tried to do for her has been no good. She's throwed us down. Curly, I don't count for nothing no more."

It was true, all he'd said. We'd played our little game and lost it. I never felt so bow-legged in my life, or so red-headed, as I did when I turned to walk down from our house to Wisner's. I looked back just once. There was Old Man Wright standing in the door, tall and bent over, a hand against each side of the door frame.

I left him there, holding onto the frame of the front door of what he called our home, that he'd worked so hard for—that we'd both tried so hard to make her happy in. He'd found one game at last where he couldn't win.

And she'd shook us now—our girl—shook us for a man that never had knocked at our front door!