The Lone Ranger Rides. Striker Fran
the voice of her cousin, Vince.
Vince Cavendish was the runt of the family. About one hundred pounds of concentrated ill will; a small package of frustrated manhood, who tried to make himself heard and observed by the mere power of his bellow. His jet-black, wiry hair was usually cropped short, so it bristled on his small head like stubble in a hayfield when the mowers have passed. His face when shaved was blue in cast, but it was more often unshaved and bristling. Vince was puny, with narrow shoulders and a narrower mind. As usual, he was arguing. Penny guessed from the outline of the men that it was Mort to whom Vince talked. Lightning, a moment later, proved her guess correct. The two were right beneath her window, sheltered from the rain by overhanging eaves.
Mort was the sort of man who would have liked to bear the weight of the world on shoulders unsuited to support the burden of a household. Much larger than Vince, he listened to his brother in the detached sort of way one waits for a kettle to boil. More accurately, in this case, Mort was waiting for Vince to stop boiling.
Penny was accustomed to arguments between the brothers, her cousins. "I'd give my favorite eyetooth," she thought, "to see Mort knock the runt down, but that's too much to hope for." She didn't know what the row was all about, she didn't especially care. Vince could pick a fight over the most trivial of subjects. She did, however, wonder why those two were out so early in the morning.
"Yuh gotta keep her in hand, I tell yuh," bellowed Vince.
"Might be a mare or a cow he's talking about," mused Penny, "or even a sow."
"They ain't none of us can handle her, if you can't, an' so it's up tuh you. I said all I aim tuh say on the subject, an' I'll act the next time that damn wife of yores breaks bounds, Mort!"
"Gosh!" said Penny to herself. "I was wrong on all counts; it's Mort's wife he's talking about. I wonder why Mort doesn't spank the little weasel."
Penny could think of nothing more incongruous than poor, mouselike, negative Rebecca breaking bounds, especially with so many small hands on her apron strings. Equally incongruous was the idea of Mort's being unable to handle Becky. Becky was a living example of a woman who had failed miserably to live up to the heroic name given her by romantic parents.
Yet, Vince had made flat statements, and there was Mort agreeing with them. "I'll see that she don't pull no more stunts like that last," he promised. "I was pretty sore about that, an' I let her know it. I reckon after what I said an' done she'll think a good many times before she tries tuh interfere with my affairs again."
"And mine!" snarled Vince. "If it was only yore affairs I wouldn't give a damn, but when she starts mixin' intuh my affairs I won't stand fer it."
"She won't no more. She's had a lesson she won't fergit."
Penny couldn't suppress a shudder at the thought of the punishment probably inflicted upon Mort's wife. A bully who dared not defy another man, Mort was almost sadistic in the way he treated Rebecca.
"Now that that's settled," said Mort, "how soon is Rangoon due here?"
"Any time now," Vince replied.
Rangoon was one of several cowhands who had come to the Basin during Penny's absence to replace the men she had known. All the newcomers seemed to have a common surliness of manner, an unwholesome look about them, a furtiveness that Penny didn't like. She could think of no reason why her cousins should be out in the rain before daybreak to meet one of the hired hands.
She drew a chair to the window and sat down to eavesdrop without the slightest feeling of compunction. She rested her arms on the windowsill and her head on her forearms. Her stockinged feet were boyishly wide apart.
Mort and Vince grumbled in low tones about the weather while they waited for Rangoon. Presently the dark-faced cowhand appeared in the gathering dawn.
"Have any trouble?" asked Mort.
"Naw," replied Rangoon, "we didn't have no trouble, but it took time tuh git back here in the dark an' the rain."
"You might've come back last night," said Vince.
"Better this way," said Rangoon. "Everything's fixed. Six men come an' we got all six. That's that. We'll have tuh keep a close check an' see that there ain't others comin' tuh learn what's happened when them six don't return."
"If any others come," Mort stated softly, "we'll know about it an' take care of them."
Rangoon gazed steadily at Mort. "You," he said, after a pause, "better give that wife of yores a lesson."
"He's goin' tuh!" promised Vince. Then the three men moved away, and Penny saw them disappear beyond the corner of a building.
For some time she sat at the window with her thoughts. Ever since her return, she had been bothered by an unexplainable apprehension. The Basin, which had been her home for many years, had always been a happy place despite her surly uncle and her cousins. Now the air of the place was changed. Bryant's surliness had trebled. On several occasions he had spoken sharply, even to Penny—a thing he'd never done before. At times the girl felt quite unwelcome in the only home she knew.
She pulled on her boots, still wondering what the three men were talking about. Her thoughts were punctuated by a period in the form of a soft rap on her bedroom door. Soft as it was, the rap was so unexpected that it startled Penny.
Whoever had rapped had tried to do so as silently, as secretly perhaps, as possible, and Penny opened the door in the same cautious manner. Rebecca Cavendish, the wife of Mort and mother of too many children, made her appearance, stepping into the room nervously, quickly, with birdlike motions, and closing the door behind her.
Penny had always felt sorry for Rebecca. She understood the woman better than did any of the men. Becky always reminded Penny of a scarecrow in faded calico. What curves and grace Rebecca might have had were mental. Penny felt sure that her mind, in spite of years of hard treatment, had retained a womanly softness and a wistful desire for gracious living. She was a woman who, in the midst of plenty, lived like a slave; a woman whose mate turned to her only in passion, whose children looked to her only in hunger. Her eyes were jet, but dulled. They reminded Penny of the sharp eyes of an eagle, grown discouraged by long years of beating strong wings against the stronger bars of a cage. Rebecca's hair was black, without a trace of gray to complement the many wrinkles on her thin, high-cheekboned face.
Rebecca opened the door again, glanced quickly into the hall, then stepped back.
"Wasn't seen, I guess," she said.
"Is something wrong, Becky?" asked Penny.
It was the first time Becky had been in her room, and one of the few times she'd been in Uncle Bryant's big house.
"I've got tuh be special careful," whispered the woman in a husky voice. "Bryant never did get over me marryin' Mort, an' Mort'd beat me tuh within a inch of my life if he was tuh catch me here."
At a loss, Penny said, "Sit down, won't you, Becky?"
Rebecca shuffled across the floor, sat on one edge of the bed, and motioned with a clawlike hand for Penny to sit beside her.
"What I got tuh tell," she began when Penny was seated, "won't take me long. You must've seen that things around here's changed aplenty since you left fer school."
"Things have changed a lot," said Penny, "but the people have changed a lot more. There used to be a dandy lot of cowhands around here, but they're all gone. I don't like the looks of the new men."
Becky nodded quickly. "Just so," she said. "That's why I'm here. I've come to tell you to clear out."
"Clear out!" echoed Penny. "You mean leave the Basin?"
"That's just what I mean. It don't matter how you get out, just get. An' the sooner the better. There's things goin' on around here that ain't healthy. Things you'll be happier an' better fer not knowin' about. Now don't ask no questions, just git!"
Penny at first thought that torment and torture had addled the poor brain of her visitor. There was a burning sincerity in Becky's eyes.