Chapter 23. Lance Plays The Game

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_ Chapter Twenty-Three. Lance Plays The Game

That night Lance sauntered into the bunk house, placidly ignoring the fact that Tom was there, and that some sort of intermittent conference was taking place. Cool and clean and silk-shirted and freshly shaved, the contrast was sharp between him and the men sprawled on their beds or sitting listlessly around the table playing keno. Tom lifted an eyebrow at him; Lance sent him a look to match and went over to the card players.

They did not want him in the bunk house. He who had spent nearly all of his life on the Devil's Tooth ranch knew that he was not wanted. They did not want him to know that he was not wanted, and by their very effort to hide it did they betray themselves.

"Didn't go to Jumpoff after all, dad," Lance remarked idly, a rising inflection turning the phrase into a question.

Tom grunted and got up to go. His men cast furtive glances at one another, looked at Lance from under their brows, noted the silk shirt and the low, tan Oxfords, and the texture and cut of his gray trousers with the tan leather belt that had a small silver buckle. Plain as it was they knew that buckle was silver. They saw how clean-cut was the hairline at the back of his head and over his ears--sure sign that he was "citified." And toward the man who is citified your purely range-bred product cherishes a distinct if secret grudge. His immaculate presence made them all feel frowsy and unwashed and ill-clad. And to hide how conscious he was of his own deficiencies, the man who sat nearest Lance lifted his hat and rumpled his hair still more.

"Duke and Al didn't get in yet, eh?" Lance picked up an extra deck of cards and began to shuffle them absent-mindedly but nevertheless dexterously.

"Nope--they stayed out," replied a blond man named Winters. They called him "Chilly."

"Hot weather for working cattle," Lance observed indifferently.

"Yeah--sure is," responded Ed Moran, who was low-browed and dark and had an ugly jaw.

"Yeah--damn hot," testified Jim Bloom. "How's Californy for weather?"

"Oh-h--it has all kinds, same as here." Lance did not want to talk about California just then, but he followed the lead easily enough. "You can get anything you want in California. In two hours you can go from twenty-five feet of snow to orange groves. You can have it all green, fruit trees and roses blooming in midwinter, or you can hit into desert worse than anything Idaho can show."

"Yep--that's right, all right. Great place, Californy," Chilly tried to make his voice sound enthusiastic, and failed. "Great place."

"Speaking about climate--" Lance sat down on a corner of the table, eased his trousers over his knees, crossed his tan Oxfords and began a story. It was a long story, and for some time it was not at all apparent that he was getting anywhere with it. He shuffled the deck of cards while he talked, and the keno game, interrupted when he began, trailed off into "Who's play is it?" and finally ceased altogether. That was when Lance's Jewish dialect began to be funny enough to make even Chilly Winters laugh. At the end there was a general cachinnation.

"But that's only a sample of the stuff they pull out there, on tourists," said Lance, when the laughter had subsided to a few belated chuckles. "There's another one. It isn't funny--but I'm going to make it funny. You'll think it's funny--but it isn't, really."

He told that one and made them think it was funny. At least they laughed, and laughed again when he had finished.

"Now here's another. This one really is funny--but you won't feel like laughing at it. I'll tell it so you won't."

He told that story and saw it fall flat. "You see?" He flipped the cards, tossed them on the table with a whimsical gesture. "It isn't what you do in this world--it's how you do it that counts. I'm sitting on your keno game, am I? All right, I'll get off."

He went out as abruptly as he had entered, and he paused long enough outside to know that a silence marked his going. Then he heard Ed Koran's voice depreciating him. Frankly he listened, lighting a cigarette.

"Aw--his mother was an actress, wasn't she? That guy ain't going to cut no ice around here whatever."

"Looks an awful darn lot like Tom," ventured Chilly. "I dunno--you take a Lorrigan--"

"Him? Lorrigan? Why, say! He may look like a Lorrigan, but he ain't one. Tom's damn right. He don't set in. Why, like as not he'd--"

"Aw, cut out the gabbling!" Ed's voice growled again. "It's yore play, Bob."

Stepping softly, Lance went on to the house. "I just--look like one!" he repeated under his breath. "Fine! At any rate," he added dryly, "I've proved that I can go into the bunk house now and then."

He went up and sang songs with Belle then, until after ten o'clock. He would have sung longer, but it happened that in the middle of a particularly pleasing "Ah-ee, oh-ee, hush-a-bye-ba-by" yodel, Tom put his head out of the bedroom and implored Lance to for-the-Lord-sake go up on the Ridge to howl. So Lance forbore to finish the "ah-ee, oh-ee," much to Belle's disappointment.

"But you know Tom's been out riding hard and not getting much sleep, so I guess maybe we better cut out the concert, honey," she told Lance, getting up and laying her plump, brown arms across his shoulders. "My heavens, Lance, you kinda make me think the clock's set back thirty years, when I look at you. You're Tom, all over--and I did think you were going to be like me."

Lance scowled just a little. "No, I'm not Tom all over--I'm Lance all over."

"You're Lorrigan all over," Belle persisted. "And you're just like Tom when he was your age. Good Lord, how time does slip away! Tom used to be so full of fun and say such funny things--and now it's just ride and ride and work, and eat and sleep. Honey, I want you to know that I'm glad you learned something a little different. What's the use of having a million, if you work yourself to death getting it? Look at the boys--look at Al and Duke. They're like old men, the last year or two. We used to have such good times on the ranch, but we don't any more--nobody ever thinks of anything but work."

She lowered her voice to a whisper, her arms still lying on Lance's shoulders, her clouded blue eyes looking up into his. "That trouble with Scotty Douglas kind of--changed Tom and the boys. You went away. You've changed too, but in a different way. It soured them, just a little. Tom wants to make his million quick and get outa here. I was glad when you stirred things up a little, last spring, and gave that dance. Or I was glad, till it ended up the way it did. It was the first dance we'd been to since you left, Lance! And I thought it would kind of patch up a little more friendliness with the folks around here. But it didn't. It just made a lot of talk and trouble--and, Lance, honey, I'm awfully darn sorry about that piano. It's down in the chicken house this minute. Tom wouldn't even have it in the house. And now, I don't suppose there ever will be any chance to make friends with any one. Tom--well, all of us were so darn mad to think she never even asked us--"

"Don't care any more about that, Belle. Please don't. And by the way, I took the money Mary Hope wanted to give dad for the schoolhouse. Perhaps he didn't tell you, but he threatened to burn the house down if she left the money, so I took it and gave her a bill of sale in his name. I wish you'd keep the money. And some day, maybe dad will take it."

"Tom never told me a word about it," Belle whispered pitifully, dropping her forehead on Lance's broad chest. "Honey, it never used to be this way. He used to tell me things. But now, he doesn't--much. Last spring, when he built the schoolhouse and all, I was so glad! It was more like old times, and I thought--but the fight turned him and the boys again, and now they're just as far off as ever. Lance, I don't whine. You never heard Belle whine in your life, did you, honey? But I'll tell you this: The only things that haven't changed, on the Devil's Tooth, are Riley and the pintos. And even they let you drive 'em to Jumpoff and back last spring without busting things up. They're getting old, I guess. Maybe we're all getting old. Still, Rosa and Subrosa are only ten past, and I haven't had a birthday for years--

"It's--Lance, do you mind if Belle lets go and tells you things, just this once? You've changed, some, but not like the rest. Please, Lance, I want to lean against you and--and feel how strong you are--"

A great tenderness, a great, overwhelming desire to comfort his mother, who had never let him call her mother, seized Lance. His arms closed around her and he backed to an armchair and sat down on it, holding her close.

"Don't care, Belle--it's all right. It's going to be all right. I'm just Lance, but I'm a man--and men were made to take care of their women. Talk to me--tell me what's been eating your heart out, lately. It's in your eyes. I saw it when I came home last spring, and I see it now every time I look at you."

"You've seen it, honey?" Belle's whisper was against his ear. She did not look at his face. "There's nothing to see, but--one feels it. Tom's good to me--but he isn't close to me, any more. The boys are good to me--but they're like strangers. They don't talk about things, the way they used to do. They come and go."

Lance's big, well-kept hand went up to smooth her hair with a comforting, caressing movement infinitely sweet to Belle. "I know," he said quietly.

"And it isn't anything, of course. But the old boys have gone, and these new ones--Lance, what is the matter with the Devil's Tooth ranch? Tell me, for heaven's sake, if I'm getting to be an old woman with notions!"

"You'll never be an old woman," said Lance in the tone Mary Hope built her day-dreams around. "Age has nothing to do with you--you just are. But as to notions--well, you may have. Women do have them, I believe." He kissed her hair and added, "What do you think is the matter with the ranch?"

"I don't know. When I try to pin it to one thing, there's nothing to put a pin in. Not a thing. You remember Cheyenne? I was afraid Tom would kill him, after the trial. You know it was practically proven that he was a spy, and was working to get something on the outfit. I was on the warpath myself, over that trial. I would a shot up a few in that courtroom if Tom had been convicted. You know and I know that Tom didn't have a thing to do with that darned, spotted yearling of Scotty's.

"But Cheyenne just--just faded out of existence. Tom's never mentioned him from the day of the trial to this. And I know he hates the whole Rim, and won't have anything much to do with anybody--but he acts just as if nothing had happened, as if nobody had ever tried to make him out a cow thief. He won't talk about it. He won't talk about anything much. When we're alone he just sits and thinks. And honey, the Lorrigans have always been men that did things.

"He and the boys woke up, and the ranch acted human about the schoolhouse, but it's other times, when there's no excitement around, that I feel as if--I don't know what. It's something underneath. Something that never comes to the top. Something that's liable to reach up and grab." She put a hand up and patted Lance's lean, hard jaw. "I'd shoot any one that said Belle Lorrigan's afraid--but that's about what it amounts to," she finished with a little mirthless laugh.

"Belle Lorrigan's not afraid. There's nothing to be afraid of. You've lived in the Rim too long, Belle, and you've been watching dad and the boys chasing that million. I've seen other men working at it, and it always gets hold of them until they don't seem to care for anything else. Now, I know an ageless lady who's going to bed and forget all about her nerves and her notions. Or if she doesn't forget, she'll remember too that she has somebody around who knows--and who cares a heap for his mother." Lance pulled her close and kissed her comfortingly.

"That helps," whispered Belle. "You've changed, too--but not like the rest, thank God. And I thought maybe you had noticed things--"

"I have noticed that the Devil's Tooth is mighty busy chasing dollars on the hoof," soothed Lance. "It has left our Belle alone too much, and it has gotten on her nerves. Go to bed, woman--and dream of pleasant things."

He took her by the shoulders and pushed her playfully to the very door of her bedroom, gave her another kiss and turned the knob for her, and watched her go in with a smile on her face. His own smile lasted only until the door was closed. He went to the lamp, blew it out and entered his own room, removed his shoes and dropped them on the floor with more noise than was considerate of his father's slumber, lighted his lamp and moved aimlessly about the room for a time.

He sat down on the edge of the bed while he smoked a cigarette, his elbows on his knees, his thoughts traveling far trails. Abruptly he rose, put on a pair of well-worn tennis shoes, opened a door leading outside and went quietly down to the corrals.

The first corral he crossed and found it empty of any horses save the pintos and Coaley. The second corral held three horses, one of them the chunky roan he had ridden that afternoon. The third and largest corral was empty, the gate swinging open.

"All right--no horses caught up for night-riding--yet," he said to himself, and returned to the house, leaving the straighter path to pass close to the bunk house. He listened there for a full two minutes, decided that it would take at least five men to do all of that snoring, and went to bed thankful for the comfort of a felt mattress under his tired body.

The next day passed without any incidents save trivial ones that did not count. Lance rode to the creek with his trout-rod and reel--more citified innovations which the ranch eyed askance--and spent four hours loitering along the bank, his fly floating uselessly over shallow pools where was never a fish. It was not the right time of day for fishing, but Lance seemed to have forgotten the lore he had learned along that same creek and others farther away.

Sometimes he could be seen from the ranch buildings, more often he could not. When he could not be seen was when he was crouched among the rocks, studying the Devil's Tooth Ridge with his powerful glasses.

"Hope he's comfortable," he said once, when, satisfied that his guess was correct, he put the glasses away and settled down seriously to fishing.

He rode home with four trout, and Riley fried them for supper. During supper Lance criticized Squaw Creek, and hinted that Mill Creek and Lava Creek were better fishing waters, and that he meant to try them.

That night at eleven o'clock he made another silent tour of the corrals and went to bed feeling pretty sure that the ranch would show its present complement of men in the morning.

On the second day, four of the hired cowboys rode in at sundown, and with them came Al. Their horses were fagged. They themselves were dirty, hungry, tired. Their faces were glum--and the glumness remained even after they had washed and eaten ravenously. Al did not come to the house at all, but stayed down in the bunk house, whither Tom presently went. Lance did not follow.

Belle looked worried and asked Lance constrainedly if he knew why Duke had not come with the others. Lance laughed.

"Duke? Oh--he's on the trail of another dollar. By heck, Belle, I'm afraid you've raised one son to be a shirk. I don't seem to need all of that dollar chasing to make me happy."

Tom came in then, glanced swiftly from one to the other, said something unimportant, rolled a cigarette with elaborate care, and observed that Duke would find it hot, riding all the way to Shoshone, and that he'd be darned if he'd go that far for any girl. He sat down and disposed himself comfortably, got up, muttered something about forgetting to turn Coaley out, and left the house.

Belle turned and looked at Lance. "Honey, it's that kind of thing--"

"I used to think, Belle, that you had the bluest eyes in the whole world," Lance drawled quizzically. "They're blue enough, in all conscience--by heck, Belle! Does a Lorrigan always love blue eyes?"

"I was going to say that--"

"You were going to say that you were not going to say a darned thing, madam. You need a vacation, a trip somewhere. Why don't you beat it, and get your nerves smoothed down a little?"

"Lance, you don't believe Duke--"

"Belle, your boys are old enough to think of girls a little bit, now and then. Even your baby thinks of girls--a little bit. Now and then. I'm going fishing, Belle. I'm going to fish where there are fish. And if I'm not back by the clock, for heck's sake don't get yourself excited and call me a mystery."

She called after him. "Lance, come back here and tell me the truth! You don't believe--"

"Belle, I'll tell you the truth. Sure, I'll tell you the truth. I tell you to cut out this worrying over nothing. Why, don't you know the world is plumb full of real things to worry about?" He came close, patting her on the shoulder as one pats a child who feels abused for slight cause. "This notion of yours--it's all damned nonsense. Cut it out."

He went off whistling, and Belle gazed after him dubiously, yet reassured in spite of herself. After all, there was nothing. _

Read next: Chapter 24. When A Lorrigan Loves

Read previous: Chapter 22. Lance Rides Another Trail

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