LITMIR.BIZ

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keep their land and be damned! Here he would have his own bit of earth and no man to give him orders as if he were a stable boy. And here, as soon as he had the money, he’d have Prim Munro, his lassie.

      Kelsey walked slowly now, forgetting the sagebrush that shuddered in the wind, forgetting the whole of North Park. He saw only Prim, a pert bit of a lass with a tiny waist he delighted to span with his big hands; he saw her clear green eyes, her smooth black hair, and her mouth so full and smiling. What was it folk at the village always said of Prim? “A wee breath of a lass, but with a look in her eyes that says there’s iron in her.”

      His arms ached to hold her again as he had held her before he left Scotland; there, in the hut he had built on the shore—his hut—he had loved Prim Munro and made her his own. Ah, what a night that had been!—the smell of the sea around them and the plushy sound of it breaking against the shore. He stopped in the narrow road, drew a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped the moisture from his eyes. More than the wind does this to me, he thought—more than the wind, for what is a man until he loves a woman and makes her his? Surely nothing but an empty shell waiting to be filled. I should never have left Prim back there—not after what we were to each other. Some way I should have brought her with me.

      Then he was angry. God in heaven, could any man reason with Prim’s mother? Could any man talk sense into the stubborn and selfish mind of that old sow Big Mina Munro? Certainly he had tried hard enough; he had explained that Prim must come to America with him, that they were married in the eyes of God if not before men, and that to leave her was a cruel thing and not fair to either of them. But Big Mina had cursed him and ordered him from her house. And Prim had only wept and cowered in a corner like a demented child.

      “Stand up to your mother!” Kelsey had cried. “Don’t let her do this to us.”

      But there had been no answer from Prim, and no comfort from anyone that night until he went home to Taraleean to pour out the whole story of his love for Prim, the words torn from him in passion and sorrow. “Oh, Taraleean, Taraleean, my mother, what is this thing between a man and a woman, that an ugliness is put over it? What is so wicked about the thing we did, my lassie and me?”

      “Hush, lad. Hush and sit here by me. Take the stool there at my feet. Put your head in my lap.” And he had felt the gentle touch of her fingers that had so often dug in the earth to fit the curve of the new potatoes when she was a tattie howker, before his father found her and loved her and married her. And her voice with its clear, singing sound spoke quietly to him. “All things are ugly or beautiful as a man sees himself and the way of his heart. It is what some folk make of a thing that puts ugliness on it. Make what happened with you and Prim Munro a good and beautiful thing; make it so if it takes a lifetime. And what is the meaning of life, anyhow, but we lift our ways above ugliness into beauty, that we make honor out of dishonor and good from evil? Big Mina is wicked. Don’t let her hurt you or Prim. You must rise above Big Mina—and above the world.”

      Again he wiped his eyes, staring over the strange, barren country. His mother’s words had been good; they had been with him like a warm cloak in the days before he sailed for America. And she had kept her step light and her head high, even when all the Camerons gathered to bid him farewell with weeping and drinking and the tossing off of their little poems that were so poor in meter but strong in feeling.

      Now he felt the need of his mother, and the need of all his people with their warm, deep voices and their quick way of talking and doing. And he wanted Prim. Damn Big Mina Munro! Surely here in America there would be ways to deal with Big Mina. He would write Prim every day, pouring out his love, and Prim would become weary of listening to Big Mina’s talk; Prim would cease to believe that, because Big Mina had borne a daughter late in life, she, Prim, was to blame for the asthma and rheumatism that plagued Big Mina. When he had a job and money, then Prim would come to him; for what could really separate them now? Not an ocean or Big Mina or the world!

      He was comforted by this thought and walked more lightly toward the west. He came at last to a place where the rising prairie dipped sharply and the road wound down a steep hill. Then a smile came over his face, for there, at the foot of the hill, was a rider. Kelsey hurried down the road, eager to meet whoever it might be.

      The rider had pulled up his old black horse and sat slackly in the saddle. He was a small man with wisps of white hair sticking out from under a dirty black cap. His face was brown and wrinkled, and his crooked neck was set deep in the thick shoulders. As Kelsey came close and stopped, he looked into eyes the color of faded blue cloth.

      “Afternoon, son,” the stranger said. “What you doin’ out here on the flats afoot?”

      Flats, Kelsey thought. What kind of name was that for the rolling country? Before he had time to answer, the little man swung down from the saddle in such a free, smooth motion that Kelsey could only stare.

      “Hell of a big country to be walkin’ over, son. Come far?”

      “From across the Platte River. I left the stage there. I’m Tommy Cameron’s cousin, and I’m looking for his ranch.”

      The faded eyes opened wide. “Whadda you know!” And the man stepped forward, thrusting out a chapped, dirt-lined hand. “Glad to make your acquaintance, son. I’m Jediah Walsh.”

      Jediah Walsh was very close now, and Kelsey could smell the strange rank odor that came from him. Didn’t this little old man ever wash his clothes?

      “I know Tommy real well,” Jediah said. “I take care of the headgate up at the mountain lake, and I walk the big ditch. That ditch waters the meadows of the Red Hill Ranch. Yep, I chase water when I’m not runnin’ trap lines. You might say I’m a man that’s just part employed, for I only work in irrigatin’ season—and that don’t get goin’ good until May and ends about the first week in July. Trappin’, that’s not work; it’s usin’ your wits and havin’ fun at it. Takes a right smart man to outwit foxes and coyotes, mink and martin, to say nothin’ of beaver.”

      Talkative old bugger, Kelsey thought, restraining a smile. And then he thought of the empty country. It was no wonder men had a lot to say when they met other men.

      Jediah spat on the ground, and a brown river of tobacco juice ran down his gray-whiskered chin. “And I betcha Tommy never opens his mouth to you about me bein’ responsible for the water he uses. Most ranchers gotta blow about their fences bein’ in good shape, about the hay they’re gonna cut, or about the cattle and the markets. Hell, son, they wouldn’t have no grass, no cows or nothin’, if it wasn’t for water. Yep, water controls everything in the West—and don’t you ever forget it.”

      “And a fine place Tommy must have,” Kelsey cut in, eager to hear about the ranch.

      “Hmm. So Tommy’s told you all about his place, eh?”

      “He’s written to me since he left Scotland six years ago.” Kelsey’s face broke into a smile. “I haven’t seen him since I was fourteen. It’ll be a great time when we meet again.”

      Jediah scratched under one arm. “Gotta get me some new clothes; been wearin’ these so damn long they’re ready to drop off. That’s why I’m headed for town. Tell Tommy I’ll be back soon.”

      “How far is it to the ranch?”

      “I dunno—maybe five or six miles yet. See that ridge over there—the long one runnin’ north and south with the peaks lookin’ over its shoulder? Ranch is right at the foot of it. We don’t measure distance out here; we just take a look and guess at it. All you have to do is follow the road.”

      Kelsey looked at the long ridge. “That’s close.”

      “Nothin’s as close as it looks in this country, son. You see a mountain and it’s so sharp and big you figure you can hop right over to it. Instead you walk until your belly’s up against your backbone.” Jediah shifted the chew of tobacco, making a bulge on his cheek, and looked across the land. “Great country, ain’t it? God’s own. Ain’t another like it on the face of the earth.”

      Kelsey didn’t answer. One place

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