The Arrow-Point Estate/Chapter 5

During the ten days that intervened between the serving of the administration notice and her attendance at court for the hearing, Lorrie lived in a state of mental siege. Burns did not want her to consent to Uncle Howard’s appointment, though he could give no reason except that he was “an ornery cuss to get along with.” Burns had taken the will to a lawyer, and the lawyer had told him that, being incompleted [sic], and the unfinished sentence indicating that John Burkell had intended giving something which it was impossible to discover, it was worthless, and that legally Burkell had died intestate. So Burns, grumbling at laws which defeated their own ends, could do nothing further.

Lorrie, herself, did not relish Uncle Howard having anything to do with her business affairs; but since some one must be appointed, and as he was their only relative, it seemed to her that it could not very well be helped, and she told Burns so.

Time came when she went with her uncle to Fallen Rock, the county-seat, leaving Skookum to digest the information that it was on “business”; she had reason to know that Skookum would not take kindly to the rule of Uncle Howard.

There was a tiresome ordeal of listening to much legal stuff which she could hardly understand before the judge, a huge man with sleepy eyelids and a face of baby innocence and good nature. He seemed to know Uncle Howard very well, and to take it all as a mere favor which they had come to ask of him personally, and which he was polite enough to grant. There were bonds to be signed by Uncle Howard, and appraisers of the estate to be appointed. The judge named them quite casually. It seemed horrible to her to listen to those men weaving legal phraseology around her father and his property, and speaking of him as the “decedent.”

When the last crackling paper was signed and it was all over, they started home. She was glad when they reached her uncle’s ranch and she could get her own horse and go galloping off into the dusk by herself. It was good to go galloping over the hushed range- land with the stars just beginning to glow faintly in the darkening sky; to watch the line of hills draw back into the shadows, and to listen to the creeping wind whisper mysterious things to the grasses. Once a coyote slid furtively across the trail before her, a gray shadow against the dusk. Once a meadow-lark flew up from the grass and startled her horse with his sudden flight. And as she rode, the spell of the night was restful, and she forgot some of the loneliness that had wrapped her close since her father died.

Next day her uncle came to the ranch, and Lorrie saw with. misgivings that she should have told Skookum and given him time to adjust himself to the situation. As it was, she foresaw complications with Skookum.

It was perhaps an hour later that she heard the familiar tap-tap of his crutches on the porch. He burst into the house in a white heat of wrath.

“Say, is Uncle Howard going to be main squeeze on this ranch?” he demanded in a breath.

“So far as business matters go, he is, Skookum. Somebody must have the right to—well, to do the business; sign papers and buy and sell stock, and all that. We can’t, till we’re twenty-one. Uncle Howard has been appointed administrator of the estate, you see.”

Skookum glared at her. As she had expected, however, he paused to digest mentally the long words and fix them firmly in his memory. “Well, can an administrator of a state do as he darn pleases on another fellow’s ranch?”

Lorrie considered a moment; on the whole she thought it better to impress at once upon him the full authority of his uncle; it might save future heart-burnings. “I think he can, except in our personal affairs.”

But that did not seem to relieve the mind of him. “Are the men on the ranch personal affairs or are they business? Is Burns a personal affair, Lorrie?”

Lorrie blushed and parried the question; in one sense, Burns might, she thought, be considered a “personal affair.” “They haven’t had another fight, have they?” she asked anxiously. Lorrie hated quarreling.

“No—but Burns ought to have smashed him good. He’s canned Burns.”

“Not really!”

“It kinda sounded that way,” Skookum retorted savagely. “He told Burns he could roll his bed, because he wouldn’t need him from now on. He said he’d have a man over here to-night to take charge. And Burns—Burns never did a thing!” Skookum choked back a sob at the humiliating memory. “He just said ‘all right,’ and walked off. And Uncle Howard said none of the men were worth their grub, and he’d have to get new ones. He said so. And Man-from-nowhere was standing there, and he said he was so new the shine wasn’t off him yet, and Uncle Howard asked him where he was from and how he got hurt, and he said he didn’t have any voting precinct, and his horse fell on him. That ain’t so,” Skookum added gravely. “Horses don’t shoot bullet-holes in your hat nor your arm, Lorrie. Do you reckon he’s on the dodge?”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Lorrie evaded hastily. “And you should call him Mr. Reid. Is he—did Uncle Howard”

“No, he didn’t run him off—I guess because he’s new. Burns sha’n’t go; I won't let Burns go!” He stood a minute, eying her thoughtfully. “Say, why don’t you marry Burns? He could stay then. Uncle Howard couldn’t fire him then, could he?”

Lorrie turned her back on him and seemed very busy straightening some books on the table. “I wouldn’t marry a man for that. Don’t be silly!”

“Well, it would suit him all right, I guess. He wants you.” Skookum clung to the idea as a solution of the problem of keeping Burns. Burns was his best friend, and no sacrifice was too great, in a case like that. “You like him, don’t you? You used to let him hang around the porch”

“You’ve said enough about that. You don’t know what you're talking about. You talk”—Lorrie turned and flung out the insult defiantly—“like a six-year-old kid! I’ve never given you or Burns any reason to”

“Well, here he is,” cried Skookum maliciously. “I leave it to him if he don’t want you. Don’t you, Burns?”

“Do what?” Burns, looking anything but cheerful, stopped in the doorway. He had come to tell Lorrie that he was going, not knowing that Skookum was before him with the news.

“Do want Lorrie,” Skookum repeated. “You better marry her; then Uncle Howard can’t fire you if he wants to. You'll have some say about things.”

“Yuh’ve sure got a great head on yuh,” commented Burns laconically. “That new pal of yours wants to consult yuh about a sudden emergency. Yuh better drift—he’s in one deuce of a hurry.” He watched the boy hurry off, and his face was wistful. “He’s a great kid. I’m afraid things won't come any too smooth for him, from now on.”

He looked at Lorrie, and waited a minute. But Lorrie was still busy—too busy to be convincing. “The kid was right,” he said, going over to her. “Only he don’t know how much I want yuh. I did think I wouldn’t be fool enough to ask yuh to marry me—and me with nothing much on earth but a few head of horses. But—will yuh?” He waited again, watching the color flood her cheek, the one he could see.

Of a sudden she turned and faced him. “Is it, as Skookum said, because you don’t want to”

“Yuh know it isn’t,” he cut in. “Yuh know—Lord! what’s the use of me telling yuh a lot of things yuh know as well as I do? And if I never asked yuh before, it was because yuh’ve got so much, and I haven’t got anything much. But yuh ain’t fitted to buck against any such combination as this is liable to be. And if yuh’ll marry me, Lorrie”

“I don’t want to marry you. I don’t want to marry anybody.” Lorrie, driven to speech, spoke bluntly.

Burns squared his shoulders, and the glimmer of hope he had clung to went out of his eyes and his face. “All right, if that’s the case,” he said quietly. “There’s no use saying any more. I came up to tell yuh good-by, and that if yuh need a friend any time, I hope yuh won't pass me up. Your father and I rode the range together a good many years, and I'd like to see yuh through this game. But if yuh don’t want” He pulled himself together and held out his hand. “Good-by, then.”

She watched him go back down to the bunk-house, and then dropped her head on her folded arms.

Burns looked in at the bunk-house door, made a slight gesture to Reid, and when Reid had impolitely left Skookum in the middle of a sentence and gone out to him, they started together for the stables.

“Looks like yuh’ll be about the only man left,” Burns began bitterly. “The old bunch is all due to be canned—I can see that. But maybe, if yuh’re real good and don’t say any cuss-words in the presence of his nibs, and knuckle under proper, yuh’ll be allowed to stop a while.” He stopped and rolled a cigarette with fingers not half as steady as was his voice. “What I want to ask yuh is this: Will yuh kinda lay low and keep your eyes peeled, and help the girl and the kid out, if the play comes so they need any help?”

“I sure will”, promised Reid emphatically.

“I sized yuh up for a white man—and I may as well tell yuh I hate the sight of that Siwash of an uncle. The old man never had any truck with him, more than he could help; but he’s all the relative they’ve got, so I guess it’s natural he should get charge uh the property. It’s all right—but I'll gamble the old man never intended it to be so. He didn’t have time to say all he wanted to. There’s going to be all kinds of trouble, him running things. The kid and Lorrie won’t have any too smooth a time with him—not if I know them and him. And I wish yuh’d kinda ease things up all yuh can. No telling what kind of a bunch he’ll put to work in place of these men. I wish Rhody could get to stay.”

They were at the stable by then, and Reid stopped and faced Burns. “I don’t love Uncle Howard a little bit,” he said, “but I see where you're right. I’ll hang on as long as I can, and they won’t get the worst of it if I can butt in and help any. If it’s any of my affairs, are you headed anywhere in particular?”

“New Mexico, maybe; I'll write when I get located,” said Burns shortly, and left Reid standing there looking thoughtfully at the nearest rim of hills.