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

Every word the woman uttered, every tone of her drawling voice, put Lee Virginia back into the past. She heard again the swift gallop of hooves, saw once more the long line of armed ranchers, and felt the hush of fear that lay over the little town on that fateful day. The situation became clearer in her mind. She recalled vividly the words of astonishment and hate with which the women had greeted her mother on the morning when the news came that Edward Wetherford was among the invading cattle-barons – was, indeed, one of the leaders.

In Philadelphia the Rocky Mountain States were synonyms of picturesque lawlessness, the theatre of reckless romance, and Virginia Wetherford, loyal daughter of the West, had defended it; but in the coarse phrase of this lean rancheress was pictured a land of border warfare as ruthless as that which marked the Scotland of Rob Roy.

Commonplace as the little town looked at the moment, it had been the scene of many a desperate encounter, as the girl herself could testify, for she had seen more than one man killed therein. Some way the hideousness of these scenes had never shown itself to her – perhaps because she had been a child at the time, and had thrilled to the delicious excitement of it; but now, as she imagined it all happening again before her eyes, she shivered with horror. How monstrous, how impossible those killings now seemed!

Then her mind came back to her mother’s ailment. Eliza Wetherford had never been one to complain, and her groans meant real suffering.

Her mind resolved upon one thing. “She must see a doctor,” she decided. And with this in mind she reentered the café, where Lize was again in violent altercation with a waitress.

“Mother,” called Lee, “I want to see you.”

With a parting volley of vituperation, Mrs. Wetherford followed her daughter back into the lodging-house.

“Mother,” the girl began, facing her and speaking firmly, “you must go to Sulphur City and see a doctor. I’ll stay here and look after the business.”

Mrs. Wetherford perceived in her daughter’s attitude and voice something decisive and powerful. She sank into a chair, and regarded her with intent gaze. “Hett Jackson’s been gabblin’ to you,” she declared. “Hett knows more fool things that ain’t so than any old heffer I know. She said I was about all in, didn’t she? Prophesied I’d fall down and stay? I know her.”

Lee Virginia remained firm. “I’m not going by what she said, I’ve got eyes of my own. You need help, and if the doctor here can’t help you, you must go to Sulphur or to Kansas City. I can run the boarding-house till you get back.”

Eliza eyed her curiously. “Don’t you go to countin’ on this ‘chivalry of the West’ which story-writers put into books. These men out here will eat you up if you don’t watch out. I wouldn’t dare to leave you here alone. No, what I’ll do is sell the place, if I can, and both of us get out.”

“But you need a doctor this minute.”

“I’ll be all right in a little while; I’m always the worst for an hour or two after I eat. This little squirt of a local doctor gave me some dope to ease that pain, but I’ve got my doubts – I don’t want any morphine habit in mine. No, daughter Virginny, it’s mighty white of you to offer, but you don’t know what you’re up against when you contract to step into my shoes.”

Visions of reforming methods about the house passed through the girl’s mind. “There must be something I can do. Why don’t you have the doctor come down here?”

“I might do that if I get any worse, but I hate to have you stay in the house another night. It’s only fit for these goats of cowboys and women like Hett Jackson. Did the bugs eat you last night?”

Virginia flushed. “Yes.”

Eliza’s face fell. “I was afraid of that. You can’t keep ’em out. The cowboys bring ’em in by the quart.”

“They can be destroyed – and the flies, too, can’t they?”

“When you’ve bucked flies and bugs as long as I have, you’ll be less ’peart about it. I don’t care a hoot in Hades till somebody like you or Reddy or Ross comes along. Most of the men that camp with me are like Injuns, anyway – they wouldn’t feel natural without bugs a ticklin’ ’em. No, child, you get ready and pull out on the Sulphur stage to-morrow. I’ll pay your way back to Philadelphy.”

“I can’t leave you now, mother. Now that I know you’re ill, I’m going to stay and take care of you.”

Lize rose. “See here, girl, don’t you go to idealizin’ me, neither. I’m what the boys call an old battle-axe. I’ve been through the whole war. I’m able to feed myself and pay your board besides. Just you find some decent boarding-place in Sulphur, and I’ll see that you have ten dollars a week to live on, just because you’re a Wetherford.”

“But I’m your daughter!”

Again Eliza fixed a musing look upon her. “I reckon if the truth was known your aunt Celia was nigher to being your mother than I ever was. They always said you was all Wetherford, and I reckon they were right. I always liked men better than babies. So long as I had your father, you didn’t count – now that’s the God’s truth. And I didn’t intend that you should ever come back here. I urged you to stay – you know that.”

Lee Virginia imagined all this to be a savage self-accusation which sprang from long self-bereavement, and yet there was something terrifying in its brutal frankness. She stood in silence till her mother left the room, then went to her own chamber with a painful knot in her throat. What could she do with elemental savagery of this sort?

The knowledge that she must spend another night in the bed led her to active measures of reform. With disgustful desperation, she emptied the room and swept it as with fire and sword. Her change of mind, from the passive to the active state, relieved and stimulated her, and she hurried from one needed reform to another. She drew others into the vortex. She inspired the chambermaid to unwilling yet amazing effort, and the lodging-house endured such a blast from the besom that it stood in open-windowed astonishment uttering dust like the breath of a dragon. Having swept and garnished the bed-chambers, Virginia moved on the dining-room. As the ranger had said, this, too, could be reformed.

Unheeding her mother’s protests, she organized the giggling waiters into a warring party, and advanced upon the flies. By hissing and shooing, and the flutter of newspapers, they drove the enemy before them, and a carpenter was called in to mend screen doors and windows, thus preventing their return. New shades were hung to darken the room, and new table-cloths purchased to replace the old ones, and the kitchen had such a cleaning as it had not known before in five years.

In this work the time passed swiftly, and when Redfield and Cavanagh came again to lunch they exclaimed in astonishment – as, indeed, every one did.

“How’s this?” queried Cavanagh, humorously. “Has the place ’changed hands?’”

Lize was but grimly responsive. “Seem’s like it has.”

“I hope the price has not gone up?”

“Not yet.”

Redfield asked: “Who’s responsible for this – your new daughter?”

“You’ve hit it. She’s started right in to polish us all up to city standards.”

“We need it,” commented Cavanagh, in admiration of the girl’s prompt action. “This room is almost civilized, still we’ll sort o’ miss the flies.”

Lize apologized. “Well, you know a feller gits kind o’ run down like a clock, and has to have some outsider wind him up now and again. First I was mad, then I was scared, but now I’m cheerin’ the girl on. She can run the whole blame outfit if she’s a mind to – even if I go broke for it. The work she got out o’ them slatter-heels of girls is a God’s wonder.”