Caroline Lockhart

“ She looked down through dimmed eyes upon the lights streaming from the windows of the Prouty House, as they climbed the steep pitch to the bench above town, and the alluring brightness increased the aching heaviness of her heart, for she felt that she was leaving all they represented behind her forever. She knew she never could find the courage to risk going through such an ordeal again.
A childhood without playmates had created a longing for companionship that was pathetic in its eagerness, and the yearning had not been modified by the isolation and monotony of her present life. ”

“ Toomey was truly sorry. Her liking for Kate was more genuine than any feeling of the kind she had had for another woman in a longer time than she could remember. Because, perhaps, the girl was so strikingly her opposite in every particular, she admired Kate exceedingly. The freshness of her candid friendly face, her general wholesomeness attracted her. She felt also the latent strength of character beneath the ingenuous surface, and the girl’s courage and self-reliance drew her in her own trembling uncertainty at this period, like a magnet. ”

“ Bowers fired his evening salute before retiring as a hint to the coyotes, and, sometimes, when the wind veered, a far-off tinkle as a bell-sheep stirred on the bed-ground came to Kate’s ears—all were familiar sounds, so familiar that she heard them only subconsciously. In the same way she saw the dark outlines of objects inside the sheep wagon—the turkey-wing duster thrust between an oak bow and the canvas, the outline of the coffee pot on the stove, the cherished frying pans dangling on their nails, her rifle standing on the bench within reach. ”

“ As Mormon Joe, with his hands clasped about his knee, his pipe dead in his mouth, sat motionless in the starlight, he ceased to be conscious of the beauty of the night, of the air that touched his face, soft and cool as the caress of a gentle woman, of the moist sweet odors of bursting buds and tender shoots—he was thinking only that the child who had run into his arms for safety had come to be the center of the universe to him. He could not imagine life without her. ”

“ It proclaimed this travel-stained sheepherder in his faded overalls and peak-crowned limp-brimmed hat another of the incongruities of the far west. The sagebrush plains and mountains have held the secrets of many Mysteries locked in their silent breasts, for, since the coming of the White Man, they have been a haven for civilization’s Mistakes, Failures and Misfits.
While he poured out his soul with only the sheep and the tired collie sleeping on its paws for audience, the gorgeous sunset died and a chill wind came up, scattering the gray ashes of the camp fire and swaying the tepee tent. ”

“ She did not expect any quarter because she was a woman—or intend to give any. She meant to shoot to kill, if she had the opportunity.
It was in this survey that Kate saw Disston and recognized him instantly. She had a notion that even if her eyesight had failed her, her heart would have told her, for it jumped as if she had been badly frightened. She felt dizzy for a moment after she verified her first look—the world swam, as though she had been blinded. If she had followed her impulse, she would have held out her arms and ran to meet him crying, “Hughie! Hughie!” ”

“ The perspicacity of years of experience seemed to come to Kate in a few minutes, so surely did she follow Mrs. Toomey’s motives and reasoning.
Was this human nature when one understood it? Was this what the world was like if one were out in it? Wasn’t there anybody sincere or kind or disinterested? She asked herself these questions despairingly as she untied her horse and swung slowly into the saddle.
“Poverty makes most people sordid, selfish, cowardly.” ”

“ Toomey found the opportunity to say:
“Jap, our goose is cooked!”
Adversity had sharpened her intuitions, developed her sensibilities; what others might fear, she knew, and this commonplace held all her disappointment, all the chagrin and hopelessness that in an instant had dissipated the roseate dreams she had again dared to entertain.
Toomey was too dazed to reply. What did it mean, he was asking himself in bewilderment as he found the seat at the table which had been assigned him. When he had disparaged and insulted Kate, why had Prentiss not resented it verbally, knocked him down? ”

“ I feel so alone—adrift—and I long so for some one to lean on, just for a little, until I get my bearings. It seems as though every atom of courage and confidence had oozed out of me. I don’t believe that ever again in all my life I’ll long for sympathy as I do this minute.” She spoke slowly with breaths between, as though the heaviness of her heart made talking an effort.
“I presume you miss your—uncle.” There was a constraint in Mrs. Toomey’s voice and manner which Kate was too engrossed and wretched to notice. ”

“ There was a substantial horse corral, and across the creek the sheep-pens had tripled in size, with a row of well-built shearing-pens beside them. Under a long shed with a corrugated-iron roofing there were sacks of wool piled to a height which gave Kate a feeling of deep satisfaction each time she passed them.
Everything showed thrift, economy, a practical intelligence and a Spartan disregard for personal comfort. The camp was as devoid of luxuries and superfluities as an Indian village. ”

“ Toomey saw herself as Kate saw her. Stripped of the virtues in which the girl had clothed her, she stood forth a scheming, inconsequential little coward in a weak ineffectual rack of a body—not strong enough to be vicious, without the courage to be dangerous. Thin-lipped, neutral-tinted, flat of chest and scrawny, without a womanly charm save the fragility that incited pity; to Kate who had idealized her she now seemed a stranger. ”

“ Bowers sat up and said complainingly as he grabbed the lamb by the wool and drew it towards him:
“There ain’t a minute’s peace when you’re awake, Mary! If I done what I ort, I’d work you over. You’re the worst nuisance of a bum lamb ever raised on canned milk.”
The lamb, which Bowers had named regardless of its sex, stood motionless with bliss as he rubbed the base of what would some day probably be as fine a pair of horns as ever grew on a buck. At present they were soft and not more than an inch and a half in length as they sprouted through its dingy wool. ”

“ Hiram Butefish merely echoed the opinion of the community when he made the assertion, upon seeing Kate turn the corner by the Prouty House and ride down the main street the day following the delivery of Mr. Wentz’s summons.
Suffering had made Kate acutely sensitive and she was quick to feel the atmosphere of hostility. She read it in the countenances of the passersby on the sidewalk, in the cold eyes staring at her from the windows, in the bank president’s uncompromising attitude, even in the cashier’s supercilious inventory as he looked her over. ”

“ Lifting the woman to her feet, with an arm about her shoulders, Kate kissed her impulsively. She was so slight, so crushable, that Kate experienced a sense of shock as one does when he feels the bones of a little bird through its feathers. Her frailty appealed to something within the girl that was like masculine chivalry, awakening a desire that was keener than ever to protect and help her, while, as before, Mrs. Toomey felt the magnetism of the younger woman’s health and strength and courage. ”

“ But like most prearranged things in life it all went differently. When he was close enough to see well his jaw dropped automatically. There was no more resemblance between the girl who straightened up and smiled upon him and the hard-featured woman he had pictured as “Mormon Joe’s Kate,” than there was between himself and the horse he was riding.
Younger by years than he had anticipated, she radiated wholesomeness, simple friendliness and candor. A strand of soft hair had slipped from beneath her cap and lay upon a cheek that was a vivid pink in the cold atmosphere ”

“ Her thoughts were a jumble; as yet she could only feel and suffer terribly. Remorse took precedence over all other emotions, over the sense of loneliness and loss, over the appalling accusation. Her writhing conscience was never quiet. She would gladly have exchanged every hope of the future she dared harbor for five minutes of the dead man’s life in which to beg forgiveness.
In the short interval since the coroner’s inquest public opinion had crystallized in Prouty, and Kate’s guilt was now a certainty in the minds of its citizens. ”

“ Life took on a sudden interest, a zest that it never had elsewhere. He supposed it was because she was herself so vital. A feeling of exultation now swept over him—he forgot his fatigue, that he was hungry, and was conscious only of the fact that he was going to be near her, to talk to her uninterruptedly—for hours, maybe. After that he would go back content, ask Beth to marry him, and recover from this fever, this unreasoning, uncontrollable longing to see Kate again, which made him weak to imbecility. ”

“ During their week’s stay in Chicago Mrs. Toomey had gone about mostly in a state which resembled the delightful languor of hasheesh, untroubled, irresponsible, save when something reminded her that after Chicago—the cataclysm. Yet she had not yielded easily to Toomey’s importunities. It had required all his powers of persuasion to overcome her scruples, her ingrained thrift and natural prudence.
“We need the change; we’ve lived too long in a high altitude, and we’re nervous wrecks, both of us,” he had argued. “We should get in touch with things and the right kind of people. ”

“ She was dressed to meet the weather in boys’ boots and arctics, woolen mittens, riding skirt of heavy blue denim, the fleece-lined canvas coat of the sheepherder, and a coonskin cap with ear-laps. Her face wore an expression that was both sad and troubled as she mechanically watched such sheep as showed a disposition to stray, and kept an eye out for coyotes.
Save in her sleep, her quarrel with Mormon Joe had not been out of her mind since, three days before, she had stood shivering at the door and watched him vanish through the sagebrush. Now, in addition, she was worried over his absence. ”

“ Disston said slowly. “But, Kate, is it worth the price you’ll pay for it?”
“I’m used to paying well for everything, whether it’s success or experience,” she replied bitterly. “As I feel now, it’s worth the sacrifice demanded, and I’m willing to make it.”
“It’s like seeing a great musician concentrate his energies upon the banjo—he may dignify the instrument, but he belittles himself in doing it. ”

“ It was all a part of the business and would come to any herder. The sheep were the chief consideration, and she never doubted but that she could endure it somehow until daylight.
“I’ve got to keep moving or I’ll freeze solid,” she told herself practically, and added between her set teeth with a grim whimsicality:
“Be a man, Kate Prentice! It’s part of the price of success and you’ve got to pay it!”
Kate knew that hourly she was getting farther from the wagon as the sheep drifted and she followed. But daylight would bring surcease of suffering—she had only to endure and keep moving. ”

“ With a sublimated confidence that was sickening to such citizens as had known him when he worked for wages and wore overalls, and particularly to Toomey, who took Teeters’ success upon the ranch where he himself had failed as a personal affront, Mr. Teeters flitted among the ladies, as impartial as a bee in a bed of hollyhocks, tossing off compliments with an ease which was a revelation to those who remembered the time when his brain stopped working in the presence of the opposite sex quite as effectually as though he had been hit with an axe. ”

“ As Prentiss stood at the window of the Prouty House looking down Main Street, his face wore a smile that was at once amused and kindly.
So this was Kate’s environment, or a part of it—where she had grown to womanhood. The very pavements seemed invested with a kind of sacredness because they had known the imprint of her feet. ”

“ Can’t you cry without wiggling your nose?”
Mrs. Toomey’s quavering voice rose to the upper register:
“Do you suppose I care how I look when I feel like this?”
“How do you think I feel,” ferociously, “with my stomach slumping in so I can hardly straighten up?” He raised a long arm and shook a fist as though in defiance of the Fate that had brought him to this. “I’d sell my soul for a ham! I’m going to Scales and put up a talk.”
Toomey found his hat and coat. “Don’t cut your throat with the scissors while I’m gone, Little Sunbeam, and I’ll be back with food pretty quick—unless I blow off.” ”