Where the Trail Divides

by Will Lillibridge

FATE, THE SATIRIST

Four months drifted by. The will of Colonel William Landor had been read and executed. According to its provisions the home ranch with one-tenth of the herd, divided impartially as they filed past the executor, were left to Mary Landor; in event of her death to descend to "an only nephew, Clayton Craig by name." A second fraction of the great herd, a tenth of the remainder, selected in the same manner, reverted at once "unqualifiedly and with full title to hold or to sell to the aforementioned sole blood relative, Clayton Craig." All of the estate not previously mentioned, the second ranch whereon How Landor had builded, various chattels enumerated, a small sum of money in a city bank, and the balance of the herd, whose number the testator himself could not give with certainty, were willed likewise unqualifiedly to "my adopted daughter, Elizabeth Landor." That was all. A single sheet of greasy note paper, a collection of pedantic antiquated phrases, penned laboriously with the scrawling hand of one unused to writing; but incontrovertible in its laconic directness. Save these three no other names were mentioned. So far as the Indian Ma-wa-cha-sa, commonly called How Landor, was concerned he might never have existed. In a hundred words the labour was complete; and at its end, before the single sheet was covered, sprawling, characteristic, was the last signature of him who at the time was the biggest cattleman west of the river: William Landor of the Buffalo Butte.

Craig himself did not appear, either at the reading or the execution. Instead a dapper city attorney with a sarcastic tongue and an isolated manner was present to conserve his interests; and, satisfied on that score, and ere the supply of Havanas in a beautifully embossed leather case was exhausted, in fact, to quote his own words, "as quickly as a kind Providence would permit," he vanished into the unknown from whence he came. Following, on the next train, came a big-voiced, red-bearded Irishman who proclaimed himself the new foreman and immediately took possession. Simultaneously there disappeared from the scene the Buffalo Butte ranch and the brand by which it had been known; and in its place upon the flank of every live thing controlled, stared forth a C locked to a C (C-C): the heraldry of the new master, Clayton Craig.

Likewise the long-planned wedding journey had taken place and become a memory. Into the silent places they went, this new-made man and wife—and no one was present at the departure to bid them adieu. Back from the land of nothingness they came—and again no one was at hand to welcome their return. In but one respect did the accomplishment of that plan alter from the prearranged; and that one item was the consideration of time. They did not stay away until winter, as the girl had announced. Starting in November, they did not complete the month. Nor did they stay for more than a day in any one spot. Like the curse of the Wandering Jew, a newborn restlessness in the girl kept calling "On, on." Battle against it as she might, she was powerless under its dominance. She knew not from whence had come the change, nor why; but that in the last weeks she had altered fundamentally, unbelievably, she could not question. The very first night out, ere they had slept, she had begun to talk of change on the morrow. The next day it was the same—and the next. When they were moving the morbid restlessness gradually wore away; for the time being she became her old careless-happy self; and in sympathy her companion opened as a flower to the sun. Then would come a pause; and the morbid, dogging spirit of unrest would close upon her anew. Thus day by day passed until a week had gone by. Then one morning when camp was struck, instead of advancing farther, the man had faced back the way they had come. He made no comment, nor did she. Neither then nor in days that followed did he once allude to the reason that had caused the change of plan. When the girl was gay, he was gay likewise. When she lapsed listlessly into the slough of silence and despond, he went on precisely as though unconscious of a change. His acting, for acting it was, even the girl could not but realise at that time, was masterly. What he was thinking no human being ever knew, no human being could ever know; for he never gave the semblance of a hint. Probably not sinc e man and woman began under the sanction of law and of clergy to mate, had there been such a honeymoon. Probably never will there be such another. That the whole expedition was a piteous, dreary failure neither could have doubted ere the first week dragged by. That the marriage journey which it ushered in was to be a failure likewise, neither could have questioned, ere the second week, which brought them home, had passed. The Garden of Eden was there, there as certainly in its frost-brown sun-blessed perfection as though spread luxuriously within the tropics. Adam was there, Adam prepared to accept it as normally content as the first man; but Eve was not satisfied. Within the garden the serpent had shown his face and tempted her. For very, very long she would not admit the fact even to herself, deluded herself by the belief that this newborn discontent was but temporary; yet bald, unaltering as the prairie itself, the truth stood forth. Thus they went, and thus they returned. Thus again thereafter the days went monotonously by.

One bright spot, and one alone, appeared on their firmament; and that was the opening of the new house. This was to be a surprise, a climax boyishly reserved by its builder for their return. The man had intentionally so arranged that the start should be from the old ranch, and in consequence the girl had never seen either the new or its furnishings, until the November day when the overloaded surrey drew up in the dooryard, and the journey was complete. Pathetic, indescribable, in the light of the past, in the memory of the solitary hours that frontier nest represented, the moment must have been to the man when he led the way to the entrance and turned the key. Yet he smiled as he threw open the door; and, standing there, ere she entered, he kissed her.

"It isn't much, but it was mine, Bess, and now it's yours," he said, and, her hand in his, he crossed the threshold.

A moment the girl stood staring around her. Crude as everything was, and cheap in aggregate, it spoke a testimony that was overwhelming. Never before, not even that first night they had been alone, had the girl realised as at this moment what she meant to this solitary, impassive human. Never before until these mute things he had fashioned with his own hands stood before her eyes did she realise fully his love. With the knowledge now came a flood of repentance and of appreciation. Her arms flew about his neck. Her wet face was hid.

"How you love me, man," she voiced. "How you love me!"

"Yes, Bess," said the other simply; and that was all.

For that day, and the next, and the next, the mood lasted, an awakening the girl began to fancy permanent; then inevitably came the reaction. The man took up his duties where he had laid them down: the supervision of a herd scattered of necessity to the winds, the personal inspection of a range that stretched away for miles. Soon after daylight, his lunch for the day packed in the pouch he slung over his shoulder, he left astride the mouse-coloured, saddleless broncho; not to return until dark or later, tired and hungry, but ever smiling at the home-coming, ever considerate. Thus the third night he returned to find the house dark and the fire in the soft coal stove dead; to find this and the girl stretched listless on the bed against the wall, staring wide-eyed into the darkness.