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Destiny At Drybone
by
“‘Why did you do it?’ I says to her, while she was a-sitting. ‘How could you act so, and you a woman?’ She just sat, and her sad eyes made me madder at the idea of her. ‘You have had real sorrow,’ says I, ‘if they report correct. You have knowed your share of death, and misery, and hard work, and all. Great God! ain’t there things enough that come to yus uncalled for and natural, but you must run around huntin’ up more that was leavin’ yus alone and givin’ yus a chance? I knowed him onced. I knowed your Lin McLean. And when that was over, I knowed for the first time how men can be different.’ I’m started, Lin, I’m started. Leave me go on, and when I’m through I’ll quit. ‘Some of ’em, anyway,’ I says to her, ‘has hearts and self-respect, and ain’t hogs clean through.’
“‘I know,” she says, thoughtful-like.
“And at her whispering that way I gets madder.
“‘You know!’ I says then. ‘What is it that you know? Do you know that you have hurt a good man’s heart? For onced I hurt it myself, though different. And hurts in them kind of hearts stays. Some hearts is that luscious and pasty you can stab ’em and it closes up so yu’d never suspicion the place–but Lin McLean! Nor yet don’t yus believe his is the kind that breaks–if any kind does that. You may sit till the gray hairs, and you may wall up your womanhood, but if a man has got manhood like him, he will never sit till the gray hairs. Grief over losin’ the best will not stop him from searchin’ for a second best after a while. He wants a home, and he has got a right to one,’ says I to Miss Jessamine. ‘You have not walled up Lin McLean,’ I says to her. Wait, Lin, wait. Yus needn’t to tell me that’s a lie. I know a man thinks he’s walled up for a while.”
“She could have told you it was a lie,” said the cow-puncher.
“She did not. ‘Let him get a home,’ says she. ‘I want him to be happy.’ ‘That flash in your eyes talks different,’ says I. ‘Sure enough yus wants him to be happy. Sure enough. But not happy along with Miss Second Best.’
“Lin, she looked at me that piercin’!
“And I goes on, for I was wound away up. ‘And he will be happy, too,’ I says. ‘Miss Second Best will have a talk with him about your picture and little “Neighbor,” which he’ll not send back to yus, because the hurt in his heart is there. And he will keep ’em out of sight somewheres after his talk with Miss Second Best.’ Lin, Lin, I laughed at them words of mine, but I was that wound up I was strange to myself. And she watchin’ me that way! And I says to her: ‘Miss Second Best will not be the crazy thing to think I am any wife of his standing in her way. He will tell her about me. He will tell how onced he thought he was solid married to me till Lusk came back; and she will drop me out of sight along with the rest that went nameless. They was not uncomprehensible to you, was they? You have learned something by livin’, I guess! And Lin–your Lin, not mine, nor never mine in heart for a day so deep as he’s yourn right now–he has been gay–gay as any I’ve knowed. Why, look at that face of his! Could a boy with a face like that help bein’ gay? But that don’t touch what’s the true Lin deep down. Nor will his deep-down love for you hinder him like it will hinder you. Don’t you know men and us is different when it comes to passion? We’re all one thing then, but they ain’t simple. They keep along with lots of other things. I can’t make yus know, and I guess it takes a woman like I have been to learn their nature. But you did know he loved you, and you sent him away, and you’ll be homeless in yer house when he has done the right thing by himself and found another girl.’