Hamlin Garland - Cavanagh, Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West

There are women to whom all this warfare would have been diverting, but it was not so to Lee. Her sense of responsibility was too keen. It was both a torture and a shame. The chivalry of the plains, of which she had read so much – and which she supposed she remembered – was gone. She doubted if it had ever existed among these centaurs. Why should it inhere in ignorant, brutal plainsmen any more than in ignorant, brutal factory hands?

There came to her, now and again, gentle old ranchers – “grangers,” they would be called – and shy boys from the farms, but for the most part the men she saw embittered her, and she kept out of their sight as much as possible. Her keenest pleasures, almost her only pleasures, lay in the occasional brief visits of the ranger, as he rode in for his mail.

Lize perceived all these attacks on her daughter, and was infuriated by them. She snapped and snarled like a tigress leading her half-grown kitten through a throng of leopards. Her brows were knotted with care as well as with pain, and she incessantly urged Virginia to go back to Sulphur. “I’ll send you money to pay your board till you strike a job.” But to this the girl would not agree; and the business, by reason of her presence, went on increasing from day to day.

To Redfield Lize one day confessed her pain. “I ought to send for that doctor up there, but the plain truth is I’m afraid of him. I don’t want to know what’s the matter of me. It’s his job to tell me I’m sick and I’m scared of his verdict.”

“Nonsense,” he replied; “you can’t afford to put off getting him much longer. I’m going back to-night, but I’ll be over again to-morrow. Why don’t you let me bring him down? It will save you twelve dollars. And, by the way, suppose you let me take Lee Virginia home with me? She looks a bit depressed; an outing will do her good. She’s taken hold here wonderfully.”

“Hasn’t she! But I should have sent her away the very first night. I’m getting to depend on her. I’m plumb foolish about her now – can’t let her out of my sight; and yet I’m off my feed worryin’ over her. Gregg is getting dangerous – you can’t fool me when it comes to men. Curse ’em, they’re all alike – beasts, every cussed one of them. I won’t have my girl mistreated, I tell you that! I’m not fit to be her mother, now that’s the God’s truth, Reddy, and this rotten little back-country cow-town is no place for her. But what can I do? She won’t leave me so long as I’m sick, and every day ties her closer to me. I don’t know what I’d do without her. If I’m goin’ to die I want her by me when I take my drop. So you see just how I’m placed.”

She looked yellow and drawn as she ended, and Redfield was moved by her unwonted tenderness.

“Now let me advise,” he began, after a moment’s pause. “We musn’t let the girl get homesick. I’ll take her home with me this afternoon, and bring her back along with a doctor to-morrow.”

“All right, but before you go I want to have a private talk – I want to tell you something.”

He warned her away from what promised to be a confession. “Now, now, Eliza, don’t tell me anything that requires that tone of voice; I’m a bad person to keep a secret, and you might be sorry for it. I don’t want to know anything more about your business than I can guess.”

“I don’t mean the whiskey trade,” she explained. “I’ve cut that all out anyway. It’s something more important – it’s about Ed and me.”

“I don’t want to hear that either,” he declared. “Let bygones be bygones. What you did then is outlawed, anyway. Those were fierce times, and I want to forget them.” He looked about. “Let me see this Miss Virginia and convey to her Mrs. Redfield’s invitation.”

“She’s in the kitchen, I reckon. Go right out.”

He was rather glad of a chance to see the young reformer in action, and smiled as he came upon her surrounded by waiters and cooks, busily superintending the preparations for the noon meal, which amounted to a tumult each day.

She saw Redfield, nodded, and a few moments later came toward him, flushed and beaming with welcome. “I’m glad to see you again, Mr. Supervisor.”

He bowed profoundly. “I’m delighted to find you well, Miss Virginia, and doubly pleased to see you in your regimentals, which you mightily adorn.”

She looked down at her apron. “I made this myself. Do you know our business is increasing wonderfully? I’m busy every moment of the day till bedtime.”

“Indeed I do know it. I hear of the Wetherford House all up and down the line. I was just telling your mother she’ll be forced to build bigger, like the chap in the Bible.”

“She works too hard. Poor mother! I try to get her to turn the cash-drawer over to me, but she won’t do it. Doesn’t she seem paler and weaker to you?”

“She does, indeed, and this is what I came in to propose. Mrs. Redfield sends by me a formal invitation to you to visit Elk Lodge. She is not quite able to take the long ride, else she’d come to you.” Here he handed her a note. “I suggest that you go up with me this afternoon, and to-morrow we’ll fetch the doctor down to see your mother. What do you say to that?”

Her eyes were dewy with grateful appreciation of his kindness as she answered: “That would be a great pleasure, Mr. Redfield, if mother feels able to spare me.”

“I’ve talked with her; she is anxious to have you go.”

Virginia was indeed greatly pleased and pleasantly excited by this message, for she had heard much of Mrs. Redfield’s exclusiveness, and also of the splendor of her establishment. She hurried away to dress with such flutter of joyous anticipation that Redfield felt quite repaid for the pressure he had put upon his wife to induce her to write that note. “You may leave Lize Wetherford out of the count, my dear,” he had said. “There is nothing of her discernible in the girl. Virginia is a lady. I don’t know where she got it, but she’s a gentlewoman by nature.”

Lize said: “Don’t you figure on me in any way, Reddy. I’m nothing but the old hen that raised up this lark, and all I’m a-livin’ for now is to make her happy. Just you cut me out when it comes to any question about your wife and Virginia. I’m not in their class.”

It was hot and still in the town, but no sooner was the car in motion than both heat and dust were forgotten. Redfield’s machine was not large, and as he was content to go at moderate speed, conversation was possible.

He was of that sunny, optimistic, ever-youthful nature which finds delight in human companionship under any conditions whatsoever. He accepted this girl for what she seemed – a fresh, unspoiled child. He saw nothing cheap or commonplace in her, and was not disposed to impose any of her father’s wild doings upon her calendar. He had his misgivings as to her future – that was the main reason why he had said to Mrs. Redfield, “The girl must be helped.” Afterward he had said “sustained.”

It was inevitable that the girl should soon refer to the ranger, and Redfield was as complimentary of him as she could wish. “Ross hasn’t a fault but one, and that’s a negative one: he doesn’t care a hang about getting on, as they say over in England. He’s content just to do the duty of the moment. He made a good cow-puncher and a good soldier; but as for promotion, he laughs when I mention it.”

“He told me that he hoped to be Chief Forester,” protested Virginia.

“Oh yes, he says that; but do you know, he’d rather be where he is, riding over the hills, than live in London. You should see his cabin some time. It’s most wonderful, really. His walls are covered with bookshelves of his own manufacture, and chairs of his own design. Where the boy got the skill, I don’t see. Heaven knows, his sisters are conventional enough! He’s capable of being Supervisor, but he won’t live in town and work in an office. He’s like an Indian in his love of the open.”