PAGE 7
"Ma’am?"
by
“I take your point,” said Saterlee. She had spoken warmly and vehemently, with an honest ring in her voice. “I have never thought of it along those lines. See that furrow across the road–that’s where a snake has crossed. But I may as well tell you, Ma’am, that I myself have buried more than one wife. And yet when I size myself up to myself I don’t seem a regular hell-hound.”
“If we are to be on an honest footing,” said the lady, “I must tell you that I have divorced more than one husband, and yet when I size myself up, as you call it, I do not seem to myself a lost woman. It’s true that I act for my living–“
“I know,” he interrupted, “you are Mrs. Kimbal. But I thought I knew more about you than I seem to. I’m Saterlee. And my business at Carcasonne House is the same as yours.”
She was silent for a moment. And then:
“Well,” she said, “here we are. And that’s lucky in a way. We both seem to want the same thing–that is, to keep our children from marrying each other. We can talk the matter over and decide how to do it.”
“We can talk it over anyway, as you say,” said Saterlee. “But–” and he fished in his pocket and brought out his son’s letter and gave it to her. She read it in the waning light.
“But,” he repeated gently, “that don’t read like a letter that a brute of a son would write to a brute of a father; now, does it?”
She did not answer. But she opened her purse and took out a carefully and minutely folded sheet of note-paper.
“That’s my Dolly’s letter to me,” she said, “and it doesn’t sound like–” her voice broke. He took the letter from her and read it.
“No, it doesn’t,” he said. And he said it roughly, because nothing brought rough speech out of the man so surely as tears–when they were in his own eyes.
“Well,” said Mrs. Kimbal with a sigh, “let’s talk.”
“No,” said Saterlee, “let’s think.”
IV
They could hear from far ahead a sound as of roaring waters.
“That,” said Saterlee dryly, “will be Gila River. Mebbe we’ll have to think about getting across that first. It’s a river now, by the sound of it, if it never was before.”
“Fortunately it’s not dark yet,” said Mrs. Kimbal.
“The last time I had trouble with a river,” said Saterlee, “was when my first wife died. That was the American River in flood. I had to cross it to get a doctor. We’d gone prospectin’–just the old woman and me–more for a lark than profit.”
“Yes?” said Mrs. Kimbal sympathetically.
“She took sick in an hour,” he went on. “From what I’ve heard since, I guess it was appendicitis. Anyway, I rode off for help, hell for leather, and when I come to the river the whole thing was roaring and foaming like a waterfall. My horse, and he was a good one, couldn’t make it. But I did. And when I come to it on the return trip with the doctor, he gave one look and folded his arms. ‘Mark,’ he said, ‘I’m no boaster, but my life is not without value. I think it’s my duty not to attempt this crossing.’ ‘Jim,’ I said, ‘if you don’t your soul will be scotched. Don’t you know it? Folks’ll point at you as the doctor that didn’t dare.’ ‘It’s not the daring, Mark,’ he says, ‘it’s wanting to be sure that I make the right choice.’ I says: ‘She was in terrible pain, Jim. Many a time she’s done you a good turn; some you know of, some you don’t.’ That fetched him. He caught up his bridle and drove his spurs into his horse, and was swept down-stream like a leaf. I rode along the bank to help if I could. But he got across on a long diagonal–horse and all. I waved to him to go on and not mind about me. And he rode off at the gallop. But I was too heavy, I guess. I lost my second horse in that flood, and had to foot it into camp. I was too late. Pain had made her unconscious, and she was dead. But before givin’ in she’d wrote me a letter.” He broke off short. “And there’s Gila River,” he said.