She lowered her voice to a whisper, her arms still lying on Lance’s shoulders, her clouded blue 288 eyes looking up into his. “That trouble with Scotty Douglas kind of––changed Tom and the boys. You went away. You’ve changed too, but in a different way. It soured them, just a little. Tom wants to make his million quick and get outa here. I was glad when you stirred things up a little, last spring, and gave that dance. Or I was glad, till it ended up the way it did. It was the first dance we’d been to since you left, Lance! And I thought it would kind of patch up a little more friendliness with the folks around here. But it didn’t. It just made a lot of talk and trouble––and, Lance, honey, I’m awfully darn sorry about that piano. It’s down in the chicken house this minute. Tom wouldn’t even have it in the house. And now, I don’t suppose there ever will be any chance to make friends with any one. Tom––well, all of us were so darn mad to think she never even asked us––”
“Don’t care any more about that, Belle. Please don’t. And by the way, I took the money Mary Hope wanted to give dad for the schoolhouse. Perhaps he didn’t tell you, but he threatened to burn the house down if she left the money, so I took it and gave her a bill of sale in his name. I wish you’d keep the money. And some day, maybe dad will take it.”
“Tom never told me a word about it,” Belle whispered pitifully, dropping her forehead on Lance’s broad chest. “Honey, it never used to be 289 this way. He used to tell me things. But now, he doesn’t––much. Last spring, when he built the schoolhouse and all, I was so glad! It was more like old times, and I thought––but the fight turned him and the boys again, and now they’re just as far off as ever. Lance, I don’t whine. You never heard Belle whine in your life, did you, honey? But I’ll tell you this: The only things that haven’t changed, on the Devil’s Tooth, are Riley and the pintos. And even they let you drive ’em to Jumpoff and back last spring without busting things up. They’re getting old, I guess. Maybe we’re all getting old. Still, Rosa and Subrosa are only ten past, and I haven’t had a birthday for years––
“It’s––Lance, do you mind if Belle lets go and tells you things, just this once? You’ve changed, some, but not like the rest. Please, Lance, I want to lean against you and––and feel how strong you are––”
A great tenderness, a great, overwhelming desire to comfort his mother, who had never let him call her mother, seized Lance. His arms closed around her and he backed to an armchair and sat down on it, holding her close.
“Don’t care, Belle––it’s all right. It’s going to be all right. I’m just Lance, but I’m a man––and men were made to take care of their women. Talk to me––tell me what’s been eating your heart out, lately. It’s in your eyes. I saw it when I 290 came home last spring, and I see it now every time I look at you.”
“You’ve seen it, honey?” Belle’s whisper was against his ear. She did not look at his face. “There’s nothing to see, but––one feels it. Tom’s good to me––but he isn’t close to me, any more. The boys are good to me––but they’re like strangers. They don’t talk about things, the way they used to do. They come and go.”
Lance’s big, well-kept hand went up to smooth her hair with a comforting, caressing movement infinitely sweet to Belle. “I know,” he said quietly.
“And it isn’t anything, of course. But the old boys have gone, and these new ones––Lance, what is the matter with the Devil’s Tooth ranch? Tell me, for heaven’s sake, if I’m getting to be an old woman with notions!”
“You’ll never be an old woman,” said Lance in the tone Mary Hope built her day-dreams around. “Age has nothing to do with you––you just are. But as to notions––well, you may have. Women do have them, I believe.” He kissed her hair and added, “What do you think is the matter with the ranch?”