Lord Apache

Dunaway walked nervously about. A spider dropped from the thatch onto his shirt but he did not notice it. 'By God!' he muttered, as if confronted by some blinding apparition. Chewing on the wet remnants of the cigar, he suddenly lifted his head. 'What was that?'

Beluah Glore was ringing the piece of wagon tire that served as dinner pile. 'Hash pile's ready!' she bawled. 'All come a-runnin'!'

Dunaway turned to Jack Drumm.

'I'll do it!' he cried. 'I'll have a go at it!'

After they ate and ate and ate, and drank and drank and drank, Drumm arranged for George Dunaway and Phoebe to take one of Beulah's pies to the ailing Mrs. Ben Sprankle. 'On the way back,' he whispered to George, 'just stroll along the river and make your case.'

The lieutenant was as excited as a small boy. 'I have you to thank for this!' he said, and wrung Jack Drumm's hand.

'Here I am with the pie!' Phoebe announced. 'Are you ready, George?'

She wore a lacy shirtwaist; the long red curls fell fetchingly about her cheeks. Her eyes danced. 'If George and I don't come back soon,' she teased Jack, 'don't bother to look for us! We'll be back in our own good time!'

Satisfied, he watched them go hand in hand down the road, Dunaway carefully balancing the pie, the muffler Phoebe had knitted for him around his neck. It was not a bad feeling at all, Jack mused, to play Cupid. Sometimes deserving people had to be put in each other's way. Phoebe would have a man to satisfy her loving nature, George Dunaway would gain a wife for Australia, Alonzo Meech would be finally balked. Of course, Phoebe Larkin would move beyond Jack Drumm's ken. He would no longer be distracted by her, no longer have to feel guilty of disloyalty to Cornelia Newton-Barrett.

Vaguely distraught, he watched for their return. They were a long time coming. Worried, he picked up the Sharp's rifle and started for the river. Perhaps wandering Apache scouts had seen them, silently ambushed them with knife and hatchet. But soon he saw Phoebe's blouse in the greenery, then George Dunaway's dress blues. Phoebe quickly left George and ran into the adobe. Dunaway himself seemed perplexed and angry. He walked slowly toward the ramada where Jack Drumm was lounging and sat down.

'I've been a damned fool!' he muttered.

Jack was puzzled. 'How did it work out?'

Dunaway contemplated his knuckles. 'She got mad, real mad.'

'Mad?'

'She don't love me! Oh, she was real nice about it! She thanked me and all that, said how it was a compliment she'd never forget. But she said she didn't love me.'

Jack was as disappointed as Dunaway. The plan, so carefully nurtured and executed, had failed.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'George, I'm truly sorry. I thought—'

'You're sorry!' Suddenly Dunaway bristled. 'I guess you better be! God damn it, you got me into this situation! I must have sounded like a lovesick fool, my head all filled up with church music and wedding bells! I thought this was it! I thought that after all these years of paying for rides, I'd finally caught the brass ring on the carousel! Now I'm back where I started, only this time it's worse!'

Jack was startled at the emotion, and uncomfortable.

'I told you I am sorry! I meant well! And I'll talk to Phoebe and try to straighten it out with her.'

'If she'll talk to you!' Dunaway said savagely.

'What do you mean?'

'Phoebe said she doesn't want to talk to you ever again! She said you can rot in hell before she ever utters another word to you, that's what she said. I tell you—she's madder about the whole thing than I am!'

'But—'

Swearing, Dunaway jammed the battered hat on his head and stalked away toward his horse.

'Now wait a minute—'

Rising, the yellow folded paper fell from Jack Drumm's pocket. Still swearing, Dunaway was searching the reeds for his mount. Baffled and unhappy, Jack slumped back in the chair and unfolded the crumpled form. After the usual military hieroglyphics, the message was terse. It had been sent by the Drumms' solicitors through Headquarters of the Department of the Missouri, U. S. Army:

ANDREW DRUMM DIED THIS DATE OF INDIA FEVER. CAN YOU RETURN CLARENDON HALL IMMEDIATELY TO ATTEND TO ESTATE BUSINESS AND ASSUME TITLE LORD FIFIELD?

Chapter Nine

In the brush hut Jack Drumm sat silent and morose. Phoebe and Mrs. Glore had taken over the more luxurious structure of adobe. They all knew his bereavement, and left him alone to his thoughts. Andrew had been several years senior to Jack, always the protective elder brother. While Jack went to Cambridge and kept his head in books, Andrew was fighting rebel tribesmen in the Khyber. When Jack wanted to make the Grand Tour, Andrew, invalided home with the fever, took over the management of Clarendon Hall and its lands. Andrew had always protected him, accommodated him, cherished him. Now Andrew was gone.

He took his sextant from his case and examined it: 112° 13' W…34° 17' N.—that was where he had been, far away from Hampshire and home, when Andrew, dear Andrew, died. His brother had probably died alone, except for Cousin Lionel, who lived nearby in Godalming and was the only other living heir. Trying to divert his grief, he picked up the dogeared Traveler's Guide to the Far West and thumbed through it. The plants, the animals, the mountains and deserts, all had once seemed foreign and exotic. Now, while Andrew sickened and died at Clarendon Hall, these things had become common and familiar, but at what a price! Angry, he flung the book from him. It fell to the earthen floor in a flutter of white pages.

Someone scratched at the door.

'Who is it?'

'Me—Phoebe.'

She came in and sat on the edge of the sagging pallet, looking distraught. This morning she had done her hair very badly; it lay in listless coils and tangles. The freckles stood out, and the blue eyes were dark, with unattractive circles around them.

'I thought,' he muttered, 'you were not ever again going to speak to me.'

She stared at the slender hands in her lap. 'I—I wasn't. I'd made up my mind, that's right. But—' She shrugged, her face pale and wan. 'I lost Uncle Buell, and I wasn't there either when he passed on. So I know how you feel, losing your only brother and being so far away when he died. So—I'm sorry. I came to tell you that.'

He had been cruel, and regretted it, but could not let her off so easily. She had been headstrong about George Dunaway's courtship and his own plan for the two of them. But before he could speak she went on.

'Mr. Eggleston proposed marriage to Beulah. I suppose you know that.'

'Yes,' he said. 'Eggie told me. He is very happy.'

'She did not want to leave me, did not want to go to England without me, but I insisted. After all, I am the one who got her into this horrible mess, and I want her to be happy. If I am at my wit's ends, there is no need for her to be desolate also.'

He picked up the Traveler's Guide and smoothed the rumpled pages. 'What will you do, then?'

When Phoebe Larkin first stepped off the Prescott stage she had looked like a Paris mannequin, the utmost in haute couture. Now she resembled poor sickly Mrs. Ben Sprankle down the road—dress torn and stained, feet bare, nails rimmed with grime. She had not been taking care of herself.

'I'll just go to Prescott and give myself up. What else is there to do? Mr. Meech, at least, should be glad to see me, if no one else is.'