Part 1

Stubborn People

By Ernest Haycox Author of “A Burnt Creek Yuletide,” etc.

Old man Bud sat on the porch of his Burnt Creek store, watching the shimmering heat waves that rose out of the jack-pine forest and trailed across the small sand-floored clearing. A lazy drone pervaded the air, broken by the snapping of myriad insects and the impalpable, shutterlike beat of the blazing atmosphere.

He had a habit of reflecting on life. Every act in a man’s life, he reflected now, was affected by every other act. There was no beginning and no end. Just an everlasting onward march. Take Jim Hunter for example.

Bud’s impassive face lightened. “Think of the devil an’ he’s sure to pop up.” From the north leg of the Bend Klamath Highway rode Jim Hunter, a tall and supple fellow who, even in the saddle, seemed unable to bend his shoulders.

“Stubborn as a mule,” reflected Bud in admiration. He waited until Hunter had reached the porch and led the horse into an ineffectual patch of shade before vouchsafing welcome. “You’d save a lot of energy, young fella, if you’d just slouch in the saddle when you’re ridin’. That’s advice from a broken-down cow-puncher. This ain’t no parade.”

Hunter stepped up on the porch. The effect of his stature was heightened by the way he carried himself and the seasoned leanness of his body. The struggle on homestead land had definitely left its impression. With some men the abrasion of weather and work affects only a general hardening of features. In Jim Hunter it brought out the original tenacity of his nature and left decisive lines on the berry-colored face. A flash of humor widened his eyes.

“There’s no use trying to save me trouble, Bud. Takes fire to burn a fool. I need some coffee and beans.”

“Huh.” The storekeeper hoisted himself from the chair and ambled into the dark building. “There’s a letter. Mebbe you’ll want it afore the beans.”

Hunter took it with unrestrained eagerness. The gravity dropped from him like a mantle. It seemed he could not tear away the envelope quick enough. Bud, sharply watching, saw the young man’s eyes race down the written page with actual avidity. But, as quickly did the face turn expressionless again and presently he crumpled the page in his fist, scowling--so bitter and unforgiving a scowl that the storekeeper clucked his tongue and dumped the provisions on the counter softly.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“No! There wasn’t anything else,” muttered Hunter. “There never is.” He stared out of the door upon the sun-scorched clearing. His mind was far from Burnt Creek.

“I mean in the line o’ grub,” added Bud dryly.

That brought the young man back. “You old goat, quit reading my mind.”

“I been called a lot of things in my time, but I pause at the term goat,” grumbled the storekeeper. “I figger some day I’m agoin’ to quit tendin’ store fer a bunch of sassy homesteaders. Take your grub and git.”

Hunter stalked to the porch, dumped the grub in his saddlebags, and climbed to the saddle.

“If a man was in his right mind, he’d never come to this God-forsaken land.”

“Road’s plumb open. You ain’t tied to that land. If you don’t admire it, why’n’t you just sashay out?”

“Same reason you’ve stuck to this dump for fifteen years,” retorted Hunter.

The two traded sober glances. Bud nodded. “Guess you’re right, son. We’re sort of spellbound. Gets in the blood, I reckon.”

Hunter turned his horse to the road. In a moment he had disappeared through the jack pines. Bud settled in his chair after securing a fresh cigar and reverted to his original lines of thought. Jim Hunter now had been a homesteader three years and wore the same hard-bitten look that they all carried. It was partly the result of fighting the land. But that wasn’t wholly so. Jim had come from Portland with the same tight lips and the same stubborn carriage of body. Three years had done a great deal in seasoning and tempering the body and wearing away all softness. The essentials remained untouched. Regularly he came to Burnt Creek for supplies and mail. Regularly he received a letter in the same feminine handwriting, which he opened always with a brightening of face and crumpled later with a scowl which seemed to cover hurt pride and forlorn hope. Those letters, evidently, demanded something he would not give, for he never sent an answer through Bud’s little post office.

The storekeeper reluctantly left the chair and wandered back to his kitchen. The sun blazed up in the sky, intolerably scorching. Bud viewed an empty pitcher and set to work at making a supply of lemonade against the greater heat of the long afternoon. A few beans, some hard bread, and a dish of canned peaches served for dinner. Then, with a fresh cigar and the lemonade at hand, he settled himself in the sultry shade. All things, in Bud’s philosophy, came to those who waited--provided the waiting was mixed with a little judicious helping.

But the afternoon was not to be lonely. He had just started on the lemonade when the sputter of the Bend Klamath stage motor reached him. The vehicle swayed out of the forest, climbed the ruts of the road, skidded perilously amid a shower of sand, and brought a boiling radiator nose and nose with the porch. The driver had a passenger this trip. A woman it was, veiled against the dirt and sun. Teddy Hanson climbed away from his wheel and helped her to the porch.

“Aw,” he said, “now what’s the good of stoppin’ at a horrible hole like this, ma’am? Gosh, think how lonely I’ll be all the way to Klamath.”

“Flattery,” said the girl. She drew back the veil and Bud, greatly puzzled by this visit, found himself looking at an extremely pretty mouth and a pair of hazel eyes that could, when they pleased, be very friendly. Some shade of dark hair strayed pleasantly down a white temple. “Is this Mr. Bud?” she asked.

“That’s him,” growled out the driver. “There’s a lot of circum-feerance, you see. He gets it sittin’ on the porch of this so-called store.”

“I wouldn’t listen to such slander,” replied Bud. “It’s the heat makes him that way. But I mistrust you’ve got to the wrong place. Ain’t hardly anything here you could stop off for. It must be Klamath you mean.” He could not help noting that it was not the friendly eyes nor the pretty mouth which most attracted him as it was a firm little chin with the dab of a freckle on it, and an Irish nose. “She’ll be wantin’ her own way,” he silently prophesied.

“No,” she answered. “It’s Burnt Creek.”

Teddy Hanson boosted the girl’s trunk on the porch, obviously disinclined to go. She settled the matter by paying him. “Thank you.” The inflection was as much as a dismissal. Teddy shot a glance of envy toward Bud, and climbed into his seat.

“It’s a wonder you wouldn’t fix the road in front of your shack,” he shouted above the clatter of the engine.

“That sand flea c’n burrow where it won’t climb,” retorted Bud. A cloud of sand shot from the wheels; when the dust settled, the stage was gone.

“I dunno how that thing sticks together,” he said. “It drinks sand an’ runs on grasshoppers. They’s a hundred dollars’ worth of bailin’ wire in it.” He saw that she had lost spirit and was staring wistfully at the road. “What’d you say you were after, ma’am?”

“They told me in Bend that you’d help me. I--I’m looking for a homestead here.”

“A homestead, ma’am?”

“Never mind how I look!” she cried. “And don’t try to argue me out of it! I’ve argued all the way from Portland, and it’s settled. If you won’t help me, I’ll have to get some one else. I want a homestead near Burnt Creek.”

“Why near Burnt Creek, ma’am?”

“For--for reasons.”

There was metal in her. She wore clothes that stamped her as a refined city woman, and her hands and clear skin were plain enough witnesses that she had never trafficked much with spade and bucket. Still, Bud did not make the mistake of arguing. He saw her determined little chin with the dab of a freckle on it. She was another of those stubborn people--such kind as made good in this country. They never knew when they were licked.

“Why, sure, I’ll help you, ma’am,” he agreed affably. “Most everybody comes to me sooner or later, around here, leastwise. But it’s powerful hot here. Come in an’ have some lemonade.”

It was a great deal later, when the courtesies were dispensed with and the subject of land well talked over, that Bud thought of the Hazen place. “I been thinkin’,” said he, spoiling a new cigar, “that you’ll be all by yourself. It’s a hard life any way you take it, an’ if you c’d get near other folks it’d be a great boost. I’ve located durn near every other family in these parts, an’ it strikes me there’s a nice section about an hour’s ride from here, adjoinin’ Jim Hunter’s place.”

Her head came up of a sudden and a sparkle of triumph set her blue eyes to shining. “That’s the place I want!” she cried.

It staggered Bud. “Why, ma’am, how do you know? Mebbe you wouldn’t like it at all. Better wait till you see it.”

“I do know! Is there a house on it?”

“Ordinarily the go’ment don’t furnish houses,” said Bud with the suggestion of dryness. “But it so happens ol’ man Hazen took this up an’ got plumb discouraged. He went to Bend. You c’n take up the rights fer next to nothin’. I’ll see about that. There’s a house, well, an’ barn on it.”

She sprang from the chair. “Mr. Bud, can’t we go right over and move in now? I want to get started.”

Her face was tinted with a pink excitement and her mouth, which Bud decided was about as kissable a one as he had ever seen, was puckered in determination. She was finding a great satisfaction in something. The puzzled storekeeper watched her. “Why, I reckon you could, but----”

“_But!_” she exclaimed. “That’s the only word I’ve heard lately! I don’t want to hear any more of it. I want you to help me file the necessary things and help me move. Whatever it’s worth I’ll pay you. But you’ve got to help. Can’t we start right now?”

The storekeeper found things moving too fast, and he promptly vetoed the suggestion.

“We ain’t goin’ no place at two o’clock in the afternoon. Why, ma’am, people don’t travel through them jack pines this time o’ day, unless it’s powerful necessary. Terrible hot. ’Bout four thirty we’ll start. Meanwhile, we’ll be collectin’ some grub an’ tools.”

She seemed to acquire more and more energy. The delay fretted her and she moved restlessly around the store, choosing what she needed from the shelves. There were sundry implements of which she knew nothing at all, and Bud explained them. She listened quite carefully, a wry expression now and then tempering the determination. Bud was compelled to admire the way in which she accepted his picture of homestead life. None too rosy did he paint that picture, either. He wanted recruits for the land, but he wanted them to be disillusioned before they started residence. Once she stopped him.

“You’re trying to discourage me,” she said.

“Huh. I been here in this country twenty-five years, an’ I’m tellin’ you as straight as I can. The land grows on them as can stand it. For the rest it kills or drives out.”

“It won’t scare me. What others do I can do.”

He silently applauded. “You can go out an’ live on the place without hindrance while I sort of fix up things with Hazen an’ the land office. You can go to Bend later.”

The sun blazed downward and after four o’clock. Bud ventured from the store, hitched his buggy, loaded on the trunk and duffle, and began the journey through the jack pines with his passenger. He watched her from his heavy-lidded eyes, waiting for some sign of weakness. For, in the dwarf forest the heat scorched them and the sand rose out of the road and cascaded from the branches. It was a dismal entrance to a hard land. However, if the girl felt any discouragement, she kept it well to herself, hands folded in her lap and sitting erect in the swaying seat. So Bud turned to casual topics, directing her attention in his kindly way to the things she must do and expect.

“Ma’am,” he said finally, “if I ain’t too personal, just what makes you do this?”

It struck tinder. He saw a spark flash. “Because I want to show him--people--that I’m no butterfly! That’s why! And I _will_ do it!”

There was, then, a man involved. Bud, seeing partial light, moved from the subject. They drove in silence while the rutted highway wound slowly through the heart of the pines, passed sundry trails, and came at last to a vast open plain over which the sun shed a blood glow.

“Purty, ain’t it?” asked Bud, wistful pride in his voice. “See yonder house? That’ll be your nearest neighbor, Jim Hunter. A mighty fine boy. You’ll do well to know Jim.”

“H’m.”

“Yes, sir. Jim’s the stubborn kind. Hard as nails an’ never says much, but that’s the only breed who’ll survive this country. He’ll help you.”

The buggy turned off the road and went bumping over the flat land. They passed a corner fence and in time drew up at the door of Hunter’s house. Bud called out: “Hey, Jim.”

The girl seemed to become very still, and the storekeeper, turning, found a flutter of excitement again in her eyes. Jim walked from his place, stooping slightly to pass the upper sill.

“You’re goin’ to have a neighbor, Jim. I’m locatin’ her on the next place. You’ll kinda watch----”

But he got no further and found himself thrust completely out of the picture. Hunter strode toward the buggy, the soberness quite gone from his face.

“Why, Mary, what on earth----”

“Don’t make any mistake,” she broke in. “I’ve come for that apology.”

Bud raised a hand to a sorely puzzled head. The girl was sitting like a statue, her fingers interlaced in her lap, her chin held a little higher than usual, the delicate pink spreading slowly. The excitement was gone. Bud had the idea that it was suppressed only by an effort. Hunter stopped dead. “What?”

“I said I’ve come for that apology, Jim.”

“Now why,” he said angrily, “did you come all the way out in this hot and dusty place. Bud, you ought to have more sense.”

“I asked him to bring me.” She stamped a foot against the buggy floor. “Jim Hunter, don’t you boss me. The time’s past for that. I’m going to make you take back what you said that time if it takes me ten years! If writing letters won’t do it, then I’ll try farming. You might at least have answered my letters out of courtesy.”

“What’s all this foolishness about her living on the next place?” demanded Hunter, turning on Bud with a scowl. “Have you lost your mind? Great Scott, a woman can’t fight this desert, and you ought to know it, of all men!”

Bud made an ineffectual gesture with his hand. There had been no preliminary warning to all this. The girl’s mouth was puckered together, and she seemed on the point of crying from sheer anger.

“Oh, if I were a man I’d make you apologize right now! You can’t bully me, Jim Hunter! I’ll not stand for it, you hear? And I’ll show you if I’m a butterfly! Go on, Mr. Bud.”

The storekeeper was only too glad to escape. The end of the reins smartly thwacked the horse’s rump, and they bumped over the uneven ground toward the Hazen place, a quarter mile on. Bud threw a quick glance behind him and saw Jim Hunter rooted in the same spot, arms akimbo, face furrowed. If he knew anything about it, Bud reflected, there was a young man who would soon wish a strong interview.

But he discreetly held his peace and, when they reached the house, began the job of packing the trunk and the various tools and utensils inside. When he had finished he found the girl seated on the trunk, surveying the walls with a plain dismay. Truly, it was a sight to discourage mortal woman. A bachelor originally had lived here, a bachelor who had found the job of keeping up externals too great, let alone the niceties of housekeeping. The floor was littered with dirt, the walls and ceilings were bare and unpleasant. A stove stood half dismantled. A chair and table were overturned and partly broken. A bunk once stood against a wall, but now had parted company from itself.

“Well,” said the girl, taking off her jacket, “the first thing’s to sweep.”

The storekeeper was ready to shout. Spunk! She had more of it than a dozen men. Heretofore he had nourished misgivings, but now he moved solidly to her support. Those nice clothes and white hands didn’t mean anything.

“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed. “We need a new deal. You just take a bucket and go out back fer some water in the well. Meanwhile I’ll tackle the broom, it bein’ a dirty job.”

Broom and water, hammer and nails, elbow grease and much talk--by these means and two or three hours’ time Bud and the girl transformed the place into a passable shelter. There had been some wood left. Bud built a fire and cooked a meal while the girl added a touch here and there to the bare walls. It was after dark when Bud climbed into his buggy and started for home.

“Well, I reckon you’re dog tired. It’s easy to sleep out here. An’ that gun I give you will scare away most anything that walks or crawls. Ain’t nothin’ to be afeerd of, anyhow. In case anything should happen, you----”

“I’m not asking him for any favors!”

He suppressed a grin and continued as if there had been no interruption. “In a few days I’ll bring you a collie dog an’ a hoss. Then you’ll be fixed. Meanwhile you just set tight an’ git organized. I’ll see Hazen an’ the land office. G’night.”

He drove away, bent for the pines and Burnt Creek. But if he thought to avoid Jim Hunter, he was mistaken. The young man was camped outside the house and Bud saw him move through the dark toward the buggy. The storekeeper sighed a little and came to a halt.

“All right,” he acquiesced wearily. “Go on now an’ say what’s been burnin’ you.”

“Of all the old fools!” rasped out Jim Hunter. “You know very well she can’t stay out here! It’s impossible. What can a woman do? Here I work my head off and just break even. How do you expect her to get by? Just because she’s bent on----”

“What should I have done?” asked Bud gently.

“Told her to go home, of course. Discourage her from such a crazy idea.”

“Huh. No wonder you’n she quarreled. Don’t you s’pose I did some arguin’? Huh; it was like talkin’ to myself. If I hadn’t brought her she’d up an’ walked out on the darn desert by herself. Got to handle her another way. She’s as stubborn as you.”

Hunter groaned. “I know it. She’s always been like that. If she gets her mind set, nothing short of an act of God can change it. But she can’t stay!”

“I wouldn’t be so durned certain,” snapped out Bud. The late hour and the prior excitement had put him a little out of humor. “She seems plumb able to take care of herself. I’ve seen women get by on this desert. She can beat a man all hollow fer endurin’ things.”

“It’s not only that,” broke in Hunter. “It’s not safe. All sorts of queer ducks roam these places. A lone woman just invites trouble. There’s ‘Bottle-nose’ Henderson, for example. Great Scott----”

Bud scratched his stubbled chin. He, too, had thought of Bottle-nose. It was a prickling thought that remained in the rear of his head, vaguely disturbing. Yet here was Jim within a short distance of her. If she called for help, he’d be over in a jiffy. “Ain’t nothin’ to worry about. G’ap, Toby. You people fight it out atween you.”

“There’s not going to be any fight--or anything else!” bellowed Jim.

Bud had no answer for that. But a mile later, when the pines swallowed him, one small phrase came out of all the wonderment. “Son of a gun, just look what’s happened to us to-day!” The peace--and the monotony--which had enfolded him during the last hot summer month was gone. Life was just one dog-goned problem after another. That’s what made living endurable. “G’ap, Toby. We got to figger around this summow. There’s a couple plumb in love with each other an’ wantin’ to make up. But they’d die afore they’d admit it. Got to fix that.”

He found as the week went along that all ordinary conciliatory means had no effect. The quarrel had gone too far, endured too long. The battle had arrived at a stage of siege. It worried him, for the robust storekeeper was not a man to stand by and watch the tide carry “his people” downstream. Faith had made him the prophet and leader of the homesteaders. He loved them and fought for them, took an unreasoning interest in their small affairs, argued with them, cursed them, and, at the last word when it seemed they could no longer struggle against the eternal hardships, gave his own time and money to keep the small flame of courage in their hearts. They were all, Bud believed, in a common brotherhood, striving for a common happiness and every sorrow and discouragement they suffered was sure to find its way eventually to his own big heart.

He had no means of knowing the nature of the quarrel, but still he worked shrewdly to dispel it. The day after the girl had settled on the homestead, Bud saddled the gentlest horse of his lot and sent it over to her by “Slivers” Gilstrap, a passing cow hand.

“You tell her, Slivers, that I’ll be over after a while with the necessary filin’ doodads, an’ that she’d better ask Jim Hunter to fix that lock on the door.”

Late that night Slivers came back with blood in his eye. “Say, you ol’ galoot, what’d you go an’ tell me to tell her that for? Minute I says it she flies off’n the handle an’ says she ain’t askin’ Jim fer nuthin’. I thought mebbe he’d insulted her an’, bein’ a gentleman, offers to shoot him er hog tie him, er anything. Dog-goned if she didn’t larrup me, then.”

Thereupon Bud went to Bend and rode back to the girl’s place with filing papers, another sage move up his sleeve. But he had no chance to act upon it. Mary, dressed in some kind of old clothes and already freckled by the sun, met him with fire in her eyes.

“Mr. Bud, I wish you’d go over and tell Jim Hunter I forbid him coming on my land! He’s been here twice trying to browbeat me! You tell him I don’t want but one thing from him, and that’s an apology. Otherwise I’ll use this pistol. I will!”