“He’s got the lonesomeness,” said Dad, “and I tell you, John, when that gits a hold of a man he ain’t responsible. It’s the same as shuttin’ a man up in jail to break him off of booze––say, he’ll claw the rocks out of the wall with his finger nails to git out where he can take a snort.”
“I never had the lonesomeness, so I don’t know, but there’s something the matter with the kid.”
“Yes, I see him tearin’ around the country ridin’ the head off of that horse, never lookin’ where he’s goin’ any more than a bat. He’s been clean over to Four Corners after the mail twice this week. A feller must want a letter purty bad when he’ll go to all that fuss for it.”
“I’m afraid it’s going to be hard for him; he hasn’t any more than bitten into his three years yet; he don’t really know how they taste.”
“It’ll break him; he’ll go all to pieces, I tell you John. When the lonesomeness takes a hold of a feller that way something pops in his head after a while; then he either puts a bullet through his heart or settles down and gits fat. That feller ain’t got it in him to put on loco fat.”
Dad had slicked himself up pretty well that day before cutting across the range for a chat with Mackenzie. His operations with the sheep-shears on his fuzzy whiskers had not been uniform, probably due to the lack of a mirror. Dad trusted to the feel of it when he had 150 no water by to look into and guide his hand, and this time he had cut close to the skin in several places, displaying his native color beneath the beard. But whatever he lacked in his chin-hedge he made up for in careful arrangement of his truly beautiful hair.
There was a sniff of perfume about him, a nosegay of wild flowers pinned in the pocket of his shirt. Mackenzie marveled over these refinements in the old man’s everyday appearance, but left it to his own time and way to tell what plans or expectations prompted them.
“Hector Hall showed up?”
“No.”
“Reid wouldn’t make any more than a snap and a swaller out of that feller, I guess. But it ain’t good for a man like him to start out killin’; it goes to his liver too quick and drives him mooney.”