Part 2

Mrs. Brownlie’s husband had died of tuberculosis, “lung trouble,” Old man Givens had called it. And he, too, had worked for the Bar V’s, “till they fired him.” What a coincidence! “Mebby you wouldn’t believe it.” Givens had said, “but Miz Brownlie used to be a good-lookin’ woman....”

Kendall’s heart stood still with this shock. Everything in the story fitted hideously. “His name’s _Andrew_ Rogers--” Kendall suddenly remembered, and almost cried it aloud. Mrs. Brownlie’s youngest boy was Andy....

“Does your friend realize that by the time he comes back to get his sweetheart, she may have changed, so that he’ll hardly recognize her?”

“Sure! He knows she’ll be changed--some. He expects that.”

Kendall thought of the phonograph wailing--“Darling, I am growing o-old”; and it was all he could do to restrain a mirthless, hysterical laugh. Of course it would be by some such esthetic alteration that Rogers would picture her as changing in the years since he had left. Never would it occur to him, the romantic, that the cruel life of the country that was “hard on women and horses” could destroy her utterly; and leave in her place that melancholy travesty of womanhood. He passed his hand across his eyes as he tried to brush away a vision of this man when he should come face to face with reality.

And the woman! He understood her now; understood her mania for shielding Lily. The child was a symbol to her mother of her own lost beauty. No merciful stolidity had protected the woman; she had been aware of what was happening to her. With what unspeakable bitterness she must have watched that gradual, terrible change in her beauty!

They could see the house, still a good two miles away, and a narrow strip of the Paloduro. Rogers asked with elaborate casualness, “Isn’t that the Brownlie place?” Then began to whistle a swinging, cowboy lay about being “home, home, home on the plains, where the deer and the buffalo roam.”

“This old plains air sure feels good to me,” he said, turning to Kendall with warm eyes. “I feel like gettin’ out an’ runnin’ a spell ’stead of settin’ in this buggy. Wisht I was a-horseback!” Kendall knew he would be galloping if he were, galloping and waving his hat and shouting.

Something like a physical nausea gripped Kendall. There was nothing he could do for this man. It would be the sheerest impertinence to tell him that he had pierced the flimsy screen of his story, and then to warn him of its climax.

* * * * *

He thought hopefully that the woman might not recognize Rogers; he was probably clean-shaven when he left. There would be that possible chance for him to keep his identity secret if he wanted to. And, naturally he would want to when he saw her. He could go back then to Tulia, where Miss Irene thrived placidly. Yes, certainly Miss Irene! Kendall felt a weary cynicism. Her kind were the age-old solace for lost illusions; the sordid priestesses of Reality. And life always stood ready to punish those who set up other gods than Reality. It was about to punish Rogers mercilessly for his faithfulness to an ideal. Even more mercilessly had it punished Mrs. Brownlie for her sacrifice to duty; for not seizing and holding love while she had it. For love faded with the color and contours of human flesh--so little spiritual and enduring was this best thing that man had.

Lily, in a little pink sunbonnet, was clinging to the gate at the horse pasture when they drove up. Her face was a rose-shaded flower. She turned away shyly from Rogers’ devouring stare.

“Hello, sister,” he said, his lips twitching in a smile; “want to open the gate for us?”

The child climbed down and swung it open--the big chain rattling as she let it drop.

“Now you get in and ride to the house with us.” She came to the side of the buggy and Kendall lifted her to his lap. He tried not to see how the reins shook in Rogers’ hands.

“So your name’s Lily, is it?” Again that transparent effort at casualness. “Named after your maw, hey?”

“Yes, how’d you know?”

“Oh, just guessed. Who’s that man down there in the field?” Rogers bent his head, trying to see the child’s face beneath her sunbonnet.

She gave the smallest laugh. “That ain’t a man--it’s my brother. His name’s Emmet.”

“Emmet!” Kendall saw the first shock in Rogers’ face. He felt a quick impatience with this man who seemed oblivious to what twelve years could do to the child, Emmet, he had known. He must, he felt, nurse this impatience; it was all that stood between him and some outbreak before the unbearable poignancy of what he knew was to follow.

“Where’s your other brothers?”

“They’s gone for the cows.”

They drew up at the hitching post by the front gate and Kendall got down from the buggy. “Is your mother in the house, Lily?” he asked, knowing that Rogers could not voice the question.

“Yes. She’s a-ironin’.”

“Well, you tell her I’ve come back. I’m going for a little walk.” He opened the gate without looking at Rogers. His only thought was to get away while this horrible thing was happening.

He walked rapidly toward the windmill. He wanted water; his mouth was very dry. He saw the woman coming toward him, carrying a bucket. She wore a blue-checked apron over her brown denim dress. She was bent with the weight of her burden, and as she came nearer she raised her arm in that familiar gesture of brushing the straying hair from her face. “So you’re back,” she said colorlessly.

“Yes,” said Kendall, “and--”

Within four feet of the back steps she stood, still as a stone, staring past him. He turned and saw Rogers coming around the corner of the house. He came slowly, uncertainly, looking fixedly at the woman. In her masklike face, only the eyes were alive; alive with recognition and despair.

The creaking of the windmill sounded to Kendall like cracked, sardonic laughter. The man, too, was standing motionless.

“I’ve brought this gentleman, he wants to see you about your cattle.” A detached part of Kendall’s mind marvelled at his own glibness. Then all of him was suspended in amazement at Mrs. Brownlie.

“Howdy,” she said, nodding casually to the stranger as she turned toward the kitchen door. “Reckon we can talk business after supper. Make yourself at home. Mr. Kendall’ll show you where to wash up.” She stumbled a little as she climbed the steps to the porch, and some of the water from the bucket slopped her skirt.

“Lily!” cried a hoarse voice; and she set down the bucket and turned. Her hand fumbled with the screen door; her knees trembled.

* * * * *

Kendall felt her action at that moment to have been the noblest he had ever seen. She had given the man his chance to get away.

And he was coming toward her falteringly, one hand holding his hat, the other shading his eyes from the sun which shone straight in his face.

“It’s you, Lily! Don’t you know me, Lily?--It’s Andrew.”

“Yes, I know you--I knowed you right away.” The words were emotionless.

“I’ve come back.” He was quite near her, his eyes level with her own as she stood on the steps. “I’ve come for you, Lily--don’t you remember?” The man’s eyes lifted to hers.

But she answered him with the same passionless harshness with which she addressed her sons: “Yes, I remember all right, but that don’t go now. You couldn’t want me--like I am.”

At that moment the little girl came slowly toward them. She pushed back her sunbonnet and stood regarding the motionless group with a child’s intent absorption. The mother looked at her. “Go put on a clean dress,” she said with the old guarding fierceness, “and brush your hair.”

As the child turned to obey, a terrifying change came over the woman’s face. She threw her apron over her head and sank on the steps, torn with sobbing.

Rogers was beside her, his arms around her small, bowed figure, his lips pressed to that straggling knot of hair. “Don’t, Lily, don’t! Your hard times is over. I’m goin’ to take you and little Lily and the boys--I’ve made a home for you. Don’t cry, Lily, don’t!”

Out on the edge of the canyon where he had fled from the two who were as unconscious of his going as they had been of his presence, Kendall stood wiping his eyes and swallowing at the lump in his throat. The evening haze was on the Paloduro: The vast, cedar-scragged expanse of red cliffs and hills lay remote, alluring. But from infinite distance, to the dream’s very edge, encroached the dun, level plains--as vast, as strong and beautiful in their simplicity as the measureless strength and beauty of the human heart.

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the March 1930 issue of McCall’s Magazine.]