The Sagebrusher by Emerson Hough (first ebook reader txt) 📖

was any way, shape or manner you could get out of marrying me, why of course I wouldn't let you. But what else is there we can do?"

"Some time it would come to that," said Mary Warren, trying to dry her eyes. "It's the only way fair to us both."

"Putting it that way, now!" said Sim Gage, wisely, "putting it that way, I'm here to say I ain't a-scared to do nothing that's best fer you. And I want to say right now and here, I didn't mean no harm to you. I swear, neither Wid nor me ever did dream that a woman like you'd come out here—I never knew such a woman as you was in the whole world. I just didn't know—that was all. You won't blame me too much fer gettin' you here into this awful place, will you?"

"No, I understand," said she gently. "I think I know more about you now than I did at first."

"I ain't much to know, ma'am. But you—why, if I studied all my life, I wouldn't begin to know you hardly none at all." She could not doubt the reverence of his tone, could not miss the sweetness of it. No; nor the sureness of the anchorage that it offered.

"If this is the way you want it," he went on, "I'll promise you never to bother you, no way in the world. I'll be on the square with you, so help me God! I'll take care of you the best way I can, so help me God! I'll work, I'll do the best I can fer you; so help me God!"

"And I promise to be faithful to you, Sim Gage," said she, using his common name unconsciously now. "I swear to be true to you, and to help you all I can, every way I can. I'll do my duty—my duty. Do you understand?"

She was pale again by now, and trembling all through her body. Her hands trembled on the blankets. It was a woman's pledge she was giving. And no man's hands or lips touched hers. It was terrible. It was terrible, but had it not been thus she could not have endured it. She must wait.

"I understand a heap of things I can't say nothing about, ma'am," said Sim Gage. "I'm that sort of man, that can't talk very much. But I understand a heap more'n I'm going to try to say. Sometimes it's that way."

"Sometimes it's that way," said Mary Warren, "yes. Then that's our promise!"

"Yes, it's a promise, so fer as I'm concerned," said Sim Gage.

"Then there isn't much left," said she after a time, her throat fluttering. She patted his great hand bravely as it lay upon the blankets, afraid to touch her own. "The rest will be—I think the rest will be easier than this."

"A heap easier," said he. "I dreaded this more'n I would to be shot. I wanted to do the right thing, but I didn't know what was right. Won't you say you knowed I wanted to do right all the time, and that I just didn't know? Can't you see that I'm sorry I made you marry me, because it wasn't no way right? Can't you see it's only just to get you some sort of a home?"

"I said yes, Sim Gage," said Mary Warren.

"Yes?" A certain exultation was in his voice. "To me? All my life everything's been no to me!"

She laid her hand on his, pity rising in her own heart. "I'll take care of you," said she.

"I was scared from the first of any woman coming out here," said Sim Gage truthfully. "But whatever you say goes. But our gettin' married! When?"

"The sooner the better."

They both nodded assent to this, neither seeing the other, for he dared not look her way now.

"I'll go down to the Company dam right soon," said he. "Ministers comes in down there sometimes. Up here we ain't got no church. I ain't been to church—well, scarcely in my whole life, but sure not fer ten years. You want to have it over with, don't you, ma'am?"

"Yes."

"That's just the way I feel! It may take a week or so before I can get any minister up here. But I hope you ain't a-goin' to change?"

"I don't change," said Mary Warren. "If I promise, I promise. I have said—yes."

"How is your bad knee?" she asked after a time, with an attempt to be of service to him. "You've never told me."

"Swoll up twict as big as it ought to be, ma'am. But how come you to think of that? You mustn't mind about me. You mustn't never think of me a-tall."

"Now," he continued a little later, the place seeming insufferably small to him all at once, "I think I've got to get out in the air." He pushed over his box seat with much clatter as he rose, agony in every fiber of his soul.

"I suppose you could kiss me," said Mary Warren, hesitatingly. "It's—usual." She tried to smile as she turned her face toward him. It was a piteous thing, a terrible thing.

"No, ma'am, thank you. I don't think I will, now, but I thank you just the same. You see, this ain't a usual case."

"Good-by!" said Mary Warren to him with a sudden wondering joy. "Go out and look at the mountains for me. Look out over the valley. I wish I could see them. And you'll come in and see me when you can, won't you?"

She was talking to the empty room, weeping to an empty world.

CHAPTER XX MAJOR ALLEN BARNES, M.D., PH.D.—AND SIM GAGE

Sim Gage's reflections kept him wandering about for the space of an hour or two in the open air.

"I'll tell you," said he, after a time to Mrs. Jensen, who once more had cared for their household needs, "I reckon I'll go on down to the dam, on the mail coach this evening. You go in and tell her, won't you? Say I can't noways get back before to-morrow. I got to see about one thing and another. She'll understand."

Therefore, when the mail wagon came down the valley an hour later, Sim Gage was waiting for it at the end of his own lane. He had meantime arrayed himself cap-a-pie in all the new apparel he recently had purchased, so that he stood now reeking of discomfort, in his new hat, his new shoes, his tight collar. Evidently something of formal character was in his plans.

It was well toward midnight when the leisurely mail wagon arrived at the end of its semi-weekly round and put up at the Company works. At that hour the company doctor was not visible, so Sim found quarters elsewhere. It was a due time after breakfast on the following morning before he ventured to the doctor's office.

Doctor Barnes himself was engaged in bringing up his correspondence. He was his own typist, and at the time was engaged in picking out letter after letter upon a small typewriter with which he had not yet acquired familiarity. He was occupied with two letters of importance. One was going to a certain medical authority of the University from which he himself had received his degree. It contained a certain hypothetical question regarding diseases of the eye, upon which he himself at the time did not feel competent to pass.

The second letter was one to his new Chief, an officer of the reclamation engineers, at Washington. He wore again to-day the uniform of a Major of the Army. The wheels of officialdom were revolving. The public quality of this enterprise was well understood. That lawless elements were afoot in that region was a fact also well recognized. To have this dam go out now would be an injury to the peace measures of the country. Soldiers were coming to protect it, and the soldiers must have a commander. In the hurried times of war, when there was not opportunity always for exactness, majors were made overnight when needful out of such material as the Government found at hand. It might have used worse than that of Allen Barnes to-day and here.

"Oh, there you are," said he at length, turning around and finding Sim Gage standing in the door. "What brought you down here? Anything gone wrong?"

"Well, I ain't sure, Doc," said Sim Gage, "but like enough. One thing, my knee hurts me considerable." In reality he was sparring for time. "But you're dressed up for a soldier?"

"Yes. Sit down there on the operating chair," said Doctor Barnes, tersely. "We'll look it over. Anything happen to it?"

"Why, nothing much," said Sim. "I hurt it a little when I was getting in the mail wagon yesterday evening—busted her open. So last night, when I was going to bed, I took a needle and thread and sewed her up again."

"What's that? Sewed it up?"

"Yes, I got a needle and some black patent thread. Do you reckon she'll hold all right now, Doctor?"

Doctor Barnes was standing, scissors in hand, about to rip open the trouser leg.

"No, you don't!" said Sim. "Them's my best pants. You just go easy now, and don't you cut them none a-tall. Wait till I take 'em off."

The doctor bent over the wounded member. "You put in a regular button-hole stitch," said he, grinning, "didn't you? About three stitches would have been plenty. You put in about two dozen—and with black thread! Like enough poisoned again."

"Well," said Sim, "I didn't want to take no chances of her breaking open again."

The doctor was busy, removing the stitches, and with no gentle hand this time made the proper surgical suture. "Leave it alone this way," said he, "and mind what I tell you. Seems like you can't kill a man out in this country. You can do things in surgery out here that you wouldn't dare tackle back in France, or in the States. I suppose, maybe, I could cut your head off, for instance."

"I wish't you would," said Sim Gage. "She bothers me sometimes."

After a pause he continued, "I been thinking over a heap of things. You see, I'm busted about flat. If I could go on and put up some hay, way prices is, I could make some money this fall, but them damn robbers has cleaned me, and I can't start with nothing. And I ain't got nothing. So there I am."

He vouchsafed nothing more, but had already said so much that Doctor Barnes sat regarding him quietly.

"Gage," said he after a time, "things might be better in this valley. I know that you'll stick with the Government. Now, listen. I'm going to have practical command here from this time on. This is under Army control. I'm going to run a telephone wire up the valley as far as your settlement. I'll appoint you a government special scout, to watch that road. If these ruffians are in this valley again we want to catch them."

"You think I could be any use that way, Doc?" said Sim.

"Yes, I've got to have some of the settlers with me that I can depend on, besides the regular detail ordered in here."

"Would I be some sort of soldier, too, like?" demanded Sim Gage. "I tried to get in. They wouldn't take me. I'm—I'm past forty-five."

"You'd be under orders just like a soldier."

"Would I have any sort of uniform, like, now?"

Doctor Barnes sat thinking for some time. "No," said he. "You have to pass an examination before you really get into the Army; and you're over age, you and Wid, both of you. But I'll tell you—I'll give you a hat—you shall have a hat with a cord on it, so you'll be like a soldier. We'll have a green service cord on it,—say green with a little white in it, Sim Gage? Don't that make you feel as if you were in a uniform?"

"Now that'd sure be fine, Doc, a hat like that," said Sim. "I sure would like that. And I certainly would try