CHAPTER XLV
HOME FOLKS
Noon found them within sight of the ranch-house. In an hour they were unsaddling at the corral, having ridden in the back way, at Andy's suggestion, that they might surprise the folks. But it did not take them long to discover that there were no folks to surprise. The bunk-house was open, but the house across from it was locked, and Andy knew immediately that the Baileys had driven to town, because the pup was gone, and he always followed the buckboard.
Pete was not displeased, for he wanted to shave and "slick up a bit" after his long journey. "They'll see my hoss and know that I'm back," said Andy, as he filled the kettle on the box-stove in the bunk-house. "But we can put Blue Smoke in a stall and keep him out of sight till you walk in right from nowhere. I can see Ma Bailey and Jim and the boys! 'Course Ma's like to be back in time to get supper, so mebby you'll have to hide out in the barn till you hear the bell."
"I ain't awful strong on that conquerin' hero stuff, Andy. I jest as soon set right here—"
"And spoil the whole darn show! Look here, Pete,—you leave it to me and if we don't surprise Ma Bailey clean out of her—specs, why, I'll quit and go to herdin' sheep."
"A11 right. I'm willin'. Only you might see if you kin git in the back way and lift a piece of pie, or somethin'." Which Andy managed to do while Pete shaved himself and put on a clean shirt.
They sat in the bunk-house doorway chatting about the various happenings during Pete's absence until they saw the buckboard top the distant edge of the mesa. Pete immediately secluded himself in the barn, while Andy hazed Blue Smoke into a box stall and hid Pete's saddle.
Ma Bailey, alighting from the buckboard, heard Andy's brief explanation of his absence with indifference most unusual in her, and glanced sharply at him when he mentioned having shot a wild turkey.
"I suppose you picked it and cleaned it and got it all ready to roast," she inquired. "Or have you just been loafing around waiting for me to do it?"
"I et it," asserted Andy.
Ma Bailey glared at him, shook her head, and marched into the house while Andy helped Bailey put up the horses.
"Ma's upset about somethin'," explained Bailey. "Seems a letter came for Pete—"
"Letter from Pete! Why, he ain't comin' back, is he?"
"A letter for Pete. Ma says it looks like a lady's writin' on the envelope. She says she'd like to know what female is writin' to Pete, and him goodness knows where, and not a word to say whether he's sick or broke, or anything."
"I sure would like to see him," said Andy fervently.
"Well, if somebody's writin' to him here at the Concho, looks like he might drift in one of these days. I'd sure like to know how the kid's makin' it."
And Bailey strode to the house, while Andy led the team to the corral.
Later Andy appeared in the kitchen and asked Mrs. Bailey if he couldn't help her set the table, or peel potatoes, or something. Ma Bailey gazed at him suspiciously over her glasses. "I don't know what's ailin' you, Andy, but you ain't actin' right. First you tell me that you had to camp at the Blue last night account o' killin' a turkey. Then you tell me that you et the whole of it. Was you scared you wouldn't get your share if you fetched it home? Then you want to help me get supper. You been up to something! You just keep me plumb wore out worrying about you. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
"For why, Ma? What have I done?"
"I don't know, but it'll come to the top. There's the boys now—and me a-standing here— Run along and set the table if you ain't so full of whatever is got into you that you can't count straight. Bill won't be in to-night. Leastwise, Jim don't expect him." And Ma Bailey flapped her apron at him and shooed him out as though he were a chicken that had dared to poke its inquisitive neck into the kitchen.
"Count straight!" chuckled Andy. "Mebby I know more about how many's here than Ma does."
Meanwhile Ma Bailey busied herself preparing supper, and it was evident to the boys in the bunkhouse that Ma had something on her mind from the sounds which came from the kitchen. Ma scolded the potatoes as she fried them, rebuked the biscuits because they had browned a little too soon, censured the stove for its misbehavior in having scorched the biscuits, accused the wood of being a factor in the conspiracy, reprimanded the mammoth coffee-pot that threatened to deluge the steak, and finally chased Andy from the premises when she discovered that he had laid the table with her best set of dishes.
"Ma's steamin' about somethin'," remarked Andy as he entered the bunk-house.
This information was received with characteristic silence as each and every cowboy mentally straightened up, vowing silently that he wasn't goin' to take any chances of Ma b'ilin' over on him.
The clatter of the pack-horse bell brought the men to their feet and they filed across to the house, a preternaturally silent aggregation that confirmed Ma Bailey's suspicion that there was something afoot.
Andy, loitering behind them, saw Pete coming from the stables, tried to compose himself, but could not get rid of the boyish grin, which provoked Ma Bailey to mutter something which sounded like "idiot," to which the cowboys nodded in cheerful concurrence, without other comment.
Hank Barley, the silent, was gazing surreptitiously at Ma's face when he saw her eyes widen, saw her rise, and stand staring at the doorway as Andy clumped in, followed by Pete.
Ma Bailey sat down suddenly.
"It's all right, Ma," laughed Andy, alarmed at the expression on her face. "It's just Pete."
"Just Pete!" echoed Ma Bailey faintly. And then, "Goodness alive, child, where you been?"
Pete's reply was lost in the shuffle of feet as the men rose and shook hands with him, asking him a dozen questions in as many seconds, asserting that he was looking fine, and generally behaving like a crowd of schoolboys, as they welcomed him to their midst again.
Pete sat in the absent Bill Haskins's place. And "You must 'a' knowed he was coming" asserted Avery. "Bill is over to the line shack."
"I got a letter," asserted Ma Bailey mysteriously.
"And you jest said nothin' and sprung him on us! Well, Ma, you sure fooled me," said Andy, grinning.
"You go 'long." Mrs. Bailey smiled at Andy, who had earned her forgiveness by crediting her—rather wisely—with having originated the surprise.
They were chatting and joking when Bill Haskins appeared in the door-way, his hand wrapped in a handkerchief.
Ma Bailey glared at him over her spectacles. "Got any stickin'-plaster?" he asked plaintively, as though he had committed some misdemeanor. She rose and placed a plate and chair for him as he shook hands with Pete, led him to the kitchen and inspected and bandaged his hand, which he had jagged on a wire gate, and finally reinstated him at the table, where he proved himself quite as efficient as most men are with two hands. "Give Bill all the coffee he wants and plenty stickin'-plaster, and I reckon he never would do no work," suggested Hank Barley.
Bill Haskins grinned good-naturedly. "I see Pete's got back," he ventured, as a sort of mild intimation that there were other subjects worth discussing. He accompanied this brilliant observation by a modest request for another cup of coffee, his fourth. The men rose, leaving Bill engaged in his favorite indoor pastime, and intimated that Pete should go with them. But Ma Bailey would not bear of it. Pete was going to help her with the dishes. Andy could go, however, and Bill Haskins, as soon as he was convinced that the coffee-pot was empty. Ma Bailey's chief interest in life at the moment was to get the dishes put away, the men out of the way, and Pete in the most comfortable rocking-chair in the room, that she might hear his account of how it all happened.
And Pete told her—omitting no circumstance, albeit he did not accentuate that part of his recital having to do with Doris Gray, merely mentioning her as "that little gray-eyed nurse in El Paso"—and in such an offhand manner that Ma Bailey began to suspect that Pete was keeping something to himself. Finally, by a series of cross-questioning, comment, and sympathetic concurrence, she arrived at the feminine conclusion that the gray-eyed nurse in El Paso had set her cap for Pete—of course Pete was innocent of any such adjustment of headgear—to substantiate which she rose, and, stepping to the bedroom, returned with the letter which had caused her so much speculation as to who was writing to Pete, and why the letter had been directed to the Concho.
Pete glanced at the letter, and thanked Ma Bailey as he tucked it in his pocket.
"I don't mind if you open it, Pete," she told him. "Goodness knows how long it's been laying in the post-office! And it, mebby, is important—from that doctor, or that lawyer, mebby. Oh, mebby it's from the bank. Sakes alive! To think of that man leaving you all that money! Mebby that bank has failed!"
"Well, I'd be right where I started when I first come here—broke—lookin' for a job."
"And the boys'll worry you most to death if you try to read any letters in the bunk-house to-night. They're waitin' to hear you talk."
"Guess the letter can wait. I ain't such a fast reader, anyhow."
"And you're like to lose it, carryin' it round."
"I—I—reckon I better read it," stammered Pete helplessly.
He felt somehow that Ma would feel slighted if he didn't. Ma Bailey watched his face as he read the rather brief note from Doris, thanking him for his letter to her and congratulating him on the outcome of his trial, and assuring him of her confidence in his ultimate success in life. "Little Ruth," wrote Doris, "cried bitterly when I told her that you had gone and would not come back. She said that when you said 'good-bye' to her you promised to come back—and of course I had to tell her that you would, just to make her happy. She has lost all interest in the puzzle game since you left, but that queer watch that you gave her, that has to be shaken before taken—and then not taken seriously—amuses her quite a bit. She gets me to wind it up—her fingers are not strong enough—and then she laughs as the hands race around. When they stop she puts her finger on the hour and says, 'Pitty soon Pete come back.' Little Ruth misses you very much."
Pete folded the letter and put it in his pocket. "From a friend of mine," he said, flushing slightly.
Ma Bailey sighed, smiled, and sighed again. "You're just itching to go see the boys. Well, run along, and tell Jim not to set up all night." Ma Bailey rose, and stepping to the bedroom returned with some blankets. "You'll have your old bunk. It's yours just as long as you want to stay, Pete. And—and I hope that girl in El Paso—is a—a nice—sensible—"
"Why, Ma! What's the matter?—" as Mrs. Bailey blinked and showed unmistakable signs of emotion.
"Nothing, Pete. I reckon your coming back so sudden and all you been through, and that letter, kind of upset me. D-does she powder her face, Pete?"
"Who? You mean Miss Gray? Why, what would she do that for?"
"Does she wear clothes that—that cost lots of money?"
"Great snakes, Ma! I dunno. I never seen her except in the hospital, dressed jest like all the nurses."
"Is—is she handsome?"
"Say, Ma, you let me hold them blankets. They're gittin' you all sagged down. Why, she ain't what I'd say was handsome, but she sure got pretty eyes and hair—and complexion—and the smoothest little hands—and she's built right neat. She steps easy—like a thoroughbred filly—and she's plumb sensible, jest like you folks."
This latter assurance did not seem to comfort Ma Bailey as much as the implied compliment might intimate.
"And there's only one other woman I ever saw that made me feel right to home and kind o' glad to have her round, like her. And she's got gray eyes and the same kind of hair, and—"
"Sakes alive, Pete Annersley! Another?"
"Uh-huh. And I'm kissin' her good-night—right now." And Pete grabbed the blankets and as much of Ma Bailey as could be included in that large armful, and kissed her heartily.
"He's changed," Ma Bailey confided to herself, after Pete had disappeared. "Actin' like a boy—to cheer me up. But it weren't no boy that set there readin' that letter. It was a growed man, and no wonder. Yes, Pete's changed, bless his heart!"
Ma Bailey did not bless Pete's heart because he had changed, however, nor because he had suffered, nor yet because he was unconsciously in love with a little nurse in El Paso, nor yet because he kissed her, but because she liked him: and because no amount of money or misfortune, blame or praise, could really change him toward his friends. What Ma Bailey meant was that he had grown a little more serious, a little more gentle in his manner of addressing her—aside from saying good-night—and a little more intense in a quiet way. To sum it all up, Pete had just begun to think—something that few people do on the verdant side of forty, and rather dread having to do on the other side of that mile-post.
A week later, as they sat at table asking one another whether Ma Bailey had took to makin' pies ag'in jest for practice or for Pete, and plaguing that good woman considerably with their good-natured banter, it occurred to Bill Haskins to ask Pete if he were going to become a permanent member of the family or if he were simply visiting; only Bill said, "Are you aimin' to throw in with us—or are you goin' to curl your tail and drift, when the snow flies?"
"I reckon I'll drift," said Pete.
This was news. Andy White demurred forcibly. Bailey himself seemed surprised, and even old Hank Barley, the silent, expressed himself as mildly astonished.
"We figured you'd stay till after the round-up, anyhow," said Bailey.
"Reckon it's too tame for Pete here," growled Andy.
"That's no fault of yours, Andrew," observed Ma Bailey.
"You're always peckin' at me," grumbled Andy, who detested being called "Andrew" quite as much as that robust individual known to his friends as Bill detests being called "Willie"—and Ma Bailey knew it.
"So you aim to leave us," said Haskins, quite unaware of Ma Bailey's eye which glared disapproval of the subject.
"Pete's going—next Tuesday—and just to set your mind at rest and give you a chance to eat your supper"—Bill had been doing scarcely anything else since he sat down—"Pete has a right good reason to go."
"Kin I have another cup of coffee?" queried Bill.
"Sakes alive, yes! I reckon that's what's ailing you."
"I only had three, Ma."
"Pete is going away on business," asserted Ma Bailey.
"Huh," snorted Andy.
Bailey glanced at his wife, who telegraphed to him to change the subject. And that good man, who had been married twenty-five years, changed the subject immediately.
But Andy did not let it drop. After supper he cornered Pete in the bunk-house, and following some wordy fencing, ascertained that Pete was going to Tucson for the winter to get an education. Pete blushingly admitted that that was his sole intent, swore Andy to secrecy, and told him that he had discussed the subject with Ma Bailey, who had advised him to go.
"So you're quittin' the game," mourned Andy.
"Nope, jest beginnin'."
"Well, you might 'a' said somethin', anyhow."
Pete put his hand on Andy's shoulder. "I wa'n't sure—till yesterday. I was goin' to tell you, Andy. Shucks! Didn't I tell you about the money and everything—and you didn't say a word to the boys. I ain't forgittin'."
"Oh, I knowed havin' money wouldn't swell you up. It ain't that. Only, I was wonderin'—"
"So was I, Andy. And I been wonderin' for quite a spell. Come on out and let's go set on the corral bars and smoke and—jest smoke."
But they did more than just smoke. The Arizona stars shot wondrous shafts of white fire through the nipping air as the chums sensed the comfortable companionship of horses moving slowly about the corral; and they heard the far, faint call of the coyote as a drift of wind brought the keen tang of the distant timberlands. They talked together as only youth may talk with youth, when Romance lights the trail, when the heart speaks from itself to heart in sympathy. Yet their chat was not without humor or they would not have been Pete and Andy.
"You always was a wise one," asserted Andy; "pickin' out a professional nurse for your girl ain't a bad idee."
"I had a whole lot to do with pickin' her out, didn't I?"
"Well, you can't make me believe that she did the pickin', for you was tellin' me she had good eyes."
"I reckon it was the Doc that did the pickin',"' suggested Pete.
"Well, I suppose the next thing you'll be givin' the preacher a chanct."
"Nope. Next thing I'll be givin' Miss Gray a chanct to tell me I'm a doggone idiot—only she don't talk like that."
"Then it'll be because she don't know you like I do. But you're lucky— No tellin'—" Andy climbed down from the bars.
"No tellin' what?" queried Pete.
"No tellin' you how much I sure want you to win, pardner—because you know it."
Pete leapt from the top rail square on to Andy, who, taken off his guard, toppled and fell. They rolled over and over, not even trying to miss the puddle of water beside the drinking-trough. Andy managed to get his free hand in the mud and thought of feeding some of it to Pete, but Pete was too quick for him, squirming loose and making for the bunkhouse at top speed.
Pete entrenched himself in the far corner of the room where Bill Haskins was reading a novel,—exceedingly popular, if the debilitated condition of the pages and covers were any criterion,—when Andy entered, holding one hand behind him in a suspicious manner. Pete wondered what was coming when it came. Andy swung his arm and plugged a fair-sized mud-ball at Pete, which missed him and hit the innocent and unsuspecting Bill on the ear, and stayed there. Bill Haskins, who was at the moment helping the hero hold a spirited pair of horses while the heroine climbed to a seat in the romantic buckboard, promptly pulled on the reins and shouted "Whoa!" and the debilitated novel came apart in his hands with a soft, ripping sound. It took Bill several seconds to think of something to say, and several more to realize just what had happened. He opened his mouth—but Andy interrupted with "Honest, Bill, I wasn't meanin' to hit you. I was pluggin' at Pete, there. It was his fault; he went and hid out behind you. Honest, Bill—wait and I'll help you dig that there mud out of your ear."
Bill shook his head and growled as he scraped the mud from his face and neck. Andy, gravely solicitous, helped to remove the mud and affectionately wiped his fingers in Bill's hair.
"Here—what in hell you doin'!" snorted Bill.
"That's right! I was forgittin'! Honest, Bill!"
"I'll honest you! I'll give you somethin' to forgit." But Andy did not wait.
A little later Bill appeared at the kitchen door and plaintively asked Ma Bailey if she had any sticking-plaster.
"Sakes alive! Now what you done to yourself, William?"
"Nothin' this time, Miss Bailey. I—I done tore a book—and jest want to fix it."
When Bill returned to the bunk-house with the "sticking-plaster," Pete and Andy both said they were sorry for the occurrence, but Bill was mighty suspicious of their sincerity. They were silent while Bill laboriously patched up the book and settled himself to take up the reins where he had dropped them. The heroine had just taken her seat beside the driver—when— "It's a darned shame!" said a voice, Pete's voice.
"It sure is—and Bill jest learnin' to read. He might 'a' spelled out a whole page afore mornin'."
"I wa'n't meanin' Bill," asserted Pete.
"Oh, you won't bother Bill none. He can't hear you. His off ear is full of mud. Go on and say anything you like about him."
Bill slowly laid down his book, stepped to his bunk, and drew his six-shooter from its holster. He marched back to the table and laid the gun quite handy to him, and resumed his chair.
Bill Haskins was long-suffering—but both Andy and Pete realized that it was high time to turn their bright particular talents in some other direction. So they undressed and turned in. They had been asleep an hour or two before Bill closed his book regretfully, picked up his gun, and walked to his bunk. He stood for a moment gazing at Andy, and then turned to gaze at Pete. Then he shook his head—and a slow smile lighted his weathered face. For despite defunct mountain lions, bent nails, and other sundries, Bill Haskins liked Andy and Pete—and he knew if it came to a test of friendship that either of them would stand by him to the last dollar, or the last shot even, as he would have gladly done to help them.