Rimrock Trail Part 6

"Molly ses her dad never grubstaked. She don't lie an' she was close to the old man. Mo' like pardners than dad an' daughter. Plimsoll smells somethin'. Figgers there's somethin' in the rumor an' stahts this talk of bein' pardners with Casey 'cause there's a strike. Me, I'm goin' to take a pasear to town soon an' I'll have a li'l' conversation with Jim the Gambolier."

"Count me in on that," said Sam.

"Me too," said Mormon.

"Can't all three leave the ranch to once," demurred Sandy.

The half-breed came sleepily round the corner of the ranch-house and struck at the gong for the breakfast call. The vibrations flooded the air with wave after wave of barbaric sound and Joe pounded, with awakening delight in the savage noise and rhythm, until Sandy, after yelling uselessly, threw a rock at him and hit him between the shoulders, whereupon the light died out of his face and he shuffled away.

With the boom of the gong, daylight leaped up from the rim of the world.

In the east the mountains seemed artificial, sharply profiled like a theatrical setting, a slate-purple in color. To the west, the sharp crests were luminous with a halo that stole down them, staining them rose. With the jump of the sun everything took on color and lost form, plain and hills swimming, seeming to be composed of vapor, the shapes of the mountains s.h.i.+fting every second, tenuous, smoky. The air was crisp, making the fingers tingle. The riders came from their bunk-houses, yawning, slos.h.i.+ng a hasty toilet at a trough with good-natured banter, hurrying on to the shack, where Joe tendered them the prodigious array of viands provided by Pedro, who waited himself on the three partners and the girl, at the ranch-house. The smell of bacon and hot coffee spiced the air. Sam, twisting his mustache, led the way.

"Smells like somethin' in the line of new bread to me," he said. "Bread or--it ain't _biscuits_, Molly?"

"Sure is." Molly came in with a plate piled high with biscuits that were evidently the present pride of her heart. "Made a-plenty," she announced. "Had to wrastle Pedro away from the stove an' I ain't quite on to that oven yet, but they look good, don't they?"

"They sure do," said Sandy, taking one to break and b.u.t.ter it. The eagerness with which his jaws clamped down upon it died into a meditative chewing as of a cow uncertain about the quality of her cud.

He swallowed, took a deep swig of coffee and deliberately went on with his biscuit. Mormon and Sam solemnly followed his example while Molly beamed at them.

"You don't _say_ they're good?" she said.

"Too busy eating," said Sandy. And winked at Sam.

Molly caught the wink, took a biscuit, b.u.t.tered it, bit into it.

Camp-bread and biscuits, eaten in the open, garnished with the wilderness sauce that creates appet.i.te, eaten piping hot, are mighty palatable though the dough is mixed with water and shortening is lacking. As a camp cook, Molly was a success. Confused with Pedro's offer of lard and a stove that was complicated compared to her Dutch kettle, the result was a bitter failure that she acknowledged as soon as her teeth met through the deceptive crust.

Molly was slow to tears and quick to wrath. She picked up the plate of biscuits and marched out with them, her back very straight. In the kitchen the three partners heard first the smash of crockery, then the bang of a pan, a staccato volley of words. She came in again, empty-handed, eyes blazing.

"There's no bread. Pedro's makin' hot cakes." Then, as they looked at her solemnly: "You think you're d.a.m.ned smart, don't you, tryin' to fool me, purtendin' they was good when they'd pizen the chickens? I hate folks who _act_ lies, same as them that speaks 'em."

"I've tasted worse," said Mormon. "Honest I have, Molly. My first wife put too much saleratus an' salt in at first but, after a bit, she was a wonder--as a cook."

Molly, as always, melted to his grin.

"I ain't got no mo' manners than a chuckawaller," she said penitently.

"Sandy, would you bring me a cook-book in from town?"

"Got one somewheres around."

"No we ain't. Mormon used the leaves for shavin'," said Sam. "Last winter. W'udn't use his derned ol' catalogue."

"I'll git one," said Sandy. "Here's the hot cakes."

They devoured the savory stacks, spread with b.u.t.ter and sage-honey, in comparative silence. There came the noise of the riders going off for the day's duties laid out by Sam, acting foreman for the month. Sandy got up and went to the window, turning in mock dismay.

"Here comes that Bailey female," he announced. "Young Ed Bailey drivin'

the flivver. Sure stahted bright an' early. Wonder what she's nosin'

afteh now? Mormon--an' you, Sam," he added sharply, "you'll stick around till she goes. Sabe? I don't aim to be talked to death an' then pickled by her vinegar, like I was las' time she come oveh."

A tinny machine, in need of paint, short of oil, braked squeakingly as a horn squawked and the auto halted by the porch steps. Young Ed Bailey slung one leg over another disproportionate limb, glanced at the windows, rolled a cigarette and lit it. His aunt, tall, gaunt, clad in starched dress and starched sunbonnet, with a rigidity of spine and feature that helped the fancy that these also had been starched, descended, strode across the porch and entered the living-room, her bright eyes darting all about, needling Molly, taking in every detail.

"Out lookin' fo' a stray," she announced. "Red-an'-white heifer we had up to the house for milkin'. Got rambuncterous an' loped off. Had one horn crumpled. Rawhide halter, ef she ain't got rid of it. You ain't seen her, hev you?"

"No m'm, we ain't. No strange heifer round the Three Star that answers that description." Sam winked at Molly, who was flus.h.i.+ng under the inspection of Miranda Bailey, maiden sister of the neighbor owner of the Double-Dumbbell Ranch. He fancied the missing milker an excuse if not an actual invention to furnish opportunity for a visit to the Three Star, an inspection of Molly Casey and subsequent gossip. "You-all air up to date," he said, "ridin' herd in a flivver."

"I see a piece in the paper the other day," she said, "about men playin'

a game with autos 'stead of hawsses--polo it was called--an' another piece about cowboys cuttin' out an' ropin' from autos. Hawsses is pa.s.sin'. Science is replacin' of 'em."

"Reckon they'll last my time," drawled Sandy. "I hear they aim to roll food up in pills an' do us cattlemen out of a livin'. But I ain't worryin'. Me, I prefers steaks--somethin' I can set my teeth in. I reckon there's mo' like me. Let me make you 'quainted with Miss Bailey, Molly. This is Molly Casey, whose dad is dead. Molly, if you-all want to skip out an' tend to them chickens, hop to it."

Molly caught the suggestion that was more than a hint and started for the door. The woman checked her with a question.

"How old air you, Molly Casey?"

The girl turned, her eyes blank, her manner charged with indifference that unbent to be polite.

"Fifteen." And she went out.

"H'm," said Miranda Bailey, "fifteen. Worse'n I imagined."

Sandy's eyebrows went up. The breath that carried his words might have come from a refrigerator.

"You goin' back in the flivver?" he asked, "or was you aimin' to keep a-lookin' fo' that red-an'-white heifer?"

Miranda sniffed.

"I'm goin', soon's as I've said somethin' in the way of a word of advice an' warnin', seein' as how I happened this way. It's a woman's matter or I wouldn't meddle. But, what with talk goin' round Hereford in settin'-rooms, in restyrongs, in kitchens, as well as in dance-halls an'

gamblin' h.e.l.ls where they sell moons.h.i.+ne, it's time it was carried to you which is most concerned, I take it, for the good of the child, not to mention yore own repitashuns."

"Where was it _you_ heard it, ma'am?" asked Sam politely.

"Where you never would, Mister Soda-Water Sam-u-el Manning," she flashed. "In the parlor of the Baptis' Church. I ain't much time an' I ain't goin' to waste it to mince matters. Here's a gel, a'most a woman, livin' with you three bachelor men."

"I've been married," ventured Mormon.

"So I understand. Where's yore wife?"

"One of 'em's dead, one of 'em's divorced an' I don't rightly sabe where the third is, nor I ain't losin' weight concernin' that neither."

"More shame to you. You're one of these women-haters, I s'pose?"

"No m'm, I ain't. That's been my trouble. I admire the s.e.x but I've been a bad picker. I'm jest a woman-dodger."

Miranda's sniff turned into a snort.

"I ain't heard nothin' much ag'in' you men, I'll say that," she conceded. "I reckon you-all think I've jest come hornin' in on what ain't my affair. Mebbe that's so. If you've figgered this out same way I have, tell me an' I'll admit I'm jest an extry an' beg yore pardons."