"She'll hear you singin' sooprano," said Honey Wiggin. "It's good this country has reformed, or they'd have you warblin' in some dance-hall and corrupt your morals."
"You sca'cely can corrupt the morals of a soprano man," observed the Virginian. "Go and play with Billy till you can talk bass."
But it was the boldest adults that Billy chose for playmates. Texas he found immature. Moreover, when next he came, he desired play with no one. Summer was done. September's full moon was several nights ago; he had gone on his hunt with Lin, and now spelling-books were at hand. But more than this clouded his mind, he had been brought to say good-bye to Jessamine Buckner, who had scarcely seen him, and to give her a wolverene-skin, a hunting trophy. "She can have it," he told me. "I like her." Then he stole a look at his guardian. "If they get married and send me back to mother," said he, "I'll run away sure." So school and this old dread haunted the child, while for the man, Lin the lucky, who suspected nothing of it, time was ever bringing love nearer to his hearth. His Jessamine had visited Box Elder, and even said she wanted chickens there; since when Mr. McLean might occasionally have been seen at his cabin, worrying over barn-yard fowls, feeding and cursing them with equal care. Spring would see him married, he told me.
"This time right!" he exclaimed. "And I want her to know Billy some more before he goes to Bear Creek."
"Ah, Bear Creek!" said Billy, acidly. "Why can't I stay home?"
"Home sounds kind o' slick," said Lin to me. "Don't it, now? 'Home' is closer than 'neighbor,' you bet! Billy, put the horses in the corral, and ask Miss Buckner if we can come and see her after supper. If you're good, maybe she'll take yu' for a ride to-morrow. And, kid, ask her about Laramie."
Again suspicion quivered over Billy's face, and he dragged his horses angrily to the corral.
Lin nudged me, laughing. "I can rile him every time about Laramie," said he, affectionately. "I wouldn't have believed the kid set so much store by me. Nor I didn't need to ask Jessamine to love him for my sake. What do yu' suppose? Before I'd got far as thinking of Billy at all—right after Edgeford, when my head was just a whirl of joy—Jessamine says to me one day, 'Read that.' It was Governor Barker writin' to her about her brother and her sorrow." Lin paused. "And about me. I can't never tell you—but he said a heap I didn't deserve. And he told her about me picking up Billy in Denver streets that time, and doing for him because his own home was not a good one. Governor Barker wrote Jessamine all that; and she said, 'Why did you never tell me?' And I said it wasn't anything to tell. And she just said to me, 'It shall be as if he was your son and I was his mother.' And that's the first regular kiss she ever gave me I didn't have to take myself. God bless her! God bless her!"
As we ate our supper, young Billy burst out of brooding silence: "I didn't ask her about Laramie. So there!"
"Well, well, kid," said the cow-puncher, patting his head, "yu' needn't to, I guess."
But Billy's eye remained sullen and jealous. He paid slight attention to the picture-book of soldiers and war that Jessamine gave him when we went over to the station. She had her own books, some flowers in pots, a rocking-chair, and a cosey lamp that shone on her bright face and dark dress. We drew stools from the office desks, and Billy perched silently on one.
"Scanty room for company!" Jessamine said. "But we must make out this way—till we have another way." She smiled on Lin, and Billy's face darkened. "Do you know," she pursued to me, "with all those chickens Mr. McLean tells me about, never a one has he thought to bring here."
"Livin' or dead do you want 'em?" inquired Lin.
"Oh, I'll not bother you. Mr. Donohoe says he will—"
"Texas? Chickens? Him? Then he'll have to steal 'em!" And we all laughed together.
"You won't make me go back to Laramie, will you?" spoke Billy, suddenly, from his stool.
"I'd like to see anybody try to make you?" exclaimed Jessamine. "Who says any such thing?"
"Lin did," said Billy.
Jessamine looked at her lover reproachfully. "What a way to tease him!" she said. "And you so kind. Why, you've hurt his feelings!"
"I never thought," said Lin the boisterous. "I wouldn't have."
"Come sit here, Billy," said Jessamine. "Whenever he teases, you tell me, and we'll make him behave."
"Honest?" persisted Billy.
"Shake hands on it," said Jessamine.
"Cause I'll go to school. But I won't go back to Laramie for no one. And you're a-going to be Lin's wife, honest?"
"Honest! Honest!" And Jessamine, laughing, grew red beside her lamp.
"Then I guess mother can't never come back to Lin, either," stated Billy, relieved.
Jessamine let fall the child's hand.
"Cause she liked him onced, and he liked her."
Jessamine gazed at Lin.
"It's simple," said the cow-puncher. "It's all right."
But Jessamine sat by her lamp, very pale.
"It's all right," repeated Lin in the silence, shifting his foot and looking down. "Once I made a fool of myself. Worse than usual."
"Billy?" whispered Jessamine. "Then you—But his name is Lusk!"
"Course it is," said Billy. "Father and mother are living in Laramie."
"It's all straight," said the cow-puncher. "I never saw her till three years ago. I haven't anything to hide, only—only—only it don't come easy to tell."
I rose. "Miss Buckner," said I, "he will tell you. But he will not tell you he paid dearly for what was no fault of his. It has been no secret. It is only something his friends and his enemies have forgotten."
But all the while I was speaking this, Jessamine's eyes were fixed on Lin, and her face remained white.
I left the girl and the man and the little boy together, and crossed to the hotel. But its air was foul, and I got my roll of camp blankets to sleep in the clean night, if sleeping-time should come; meanwhile I walked about in the silence To have taken a wife once in good faith, ignorant she was another's, left no stain, raised no barrier. I could have told Jessamine the same old story myself—or almost; but what had it to do with her at all? Why need she know? Reasoning thus, yet with something left uncleared by reason that I could not state, I watched the moon edge into sight, heavy and rich-hued, a melon-slice of glow, seemingly near, like a great lantern tilted over the plain. The smell of the sage-brush flavored the air; the hush of Wyoming folded distant and near things, and all Separ but those three inside the lighted window were in bed. Dark windows were everywhere else, and looming above rose the water-tank, a dull mass in the night, and forever somehow to me a Sphinx emblem, the vision I instantly see when I think of Separ. Soon I heard a door creaking. It was Billy, coming alone, and on seeing me he walked up and spoke in a half-awed voice.
"She's a-crying," said he.
I withheld from questions, and as he kept along by my side he said: "I'm sorry. Do you think she's mad with Lin for what he's told her? She just sat, and when she started crying he made me go away."
"I don't believe she's mad," I told Billy; and I sat down on my blanket, he beside me, talking while the moon grew small as it rose over the plain, and the light steadily shone in Jessamine's window. Soon young Billy fell asleep, and I looked at him, thinking how in a way it was he who had brought this trouble on the man who had saved him and loved him. But that man had no such untender thoughts. Once more the door opened, and it was he who came this time, alone also. She did not follow him and stand to watch him from the threshold, though he forgot to close the door, and, coming over to me, stood looking down.
"What?" I said at length.
I don't know that he heard me. He stooped over Billy and shook him gently. "Wake, son," said he. "You and I must get to our camp now."
"Now?" said Billy. "Can't we wait till morning?"