shrugged, a glint in his eyes now. “Well, she sleeps around, they say. Only trouble is, them that are supposed to get it don’t keep it long.”
“You talk dirty, Harry Plunkett! Didn’t ever see it, did you? Got no proof, have you? And what if she has slept with a few men? She’s human and lonely, and no man or kids to hold her down. Maybe I’d do the same thing—if I was free.”
Harry laughed. “Now, Amie—”
“You think because I’ve been pregnant and spread out until I’m two ax-handles across the rear that I couldn’t find a man?”
“Now, look here, Amie, there’s some things men can do and it’s figured to be their right because they gotta, but—”
“Got to, my foot! Men been gettin’ away with that idea since heck was a pup. Trouble is, women let ’em and never put up a fight.” She turned to Kelsey. “You got two letters in that pile of mail—both of them from Scotland.”
“Amie.” Harry glared at her. “You’re not supposed to fiddle with other people’s mail.”
Her dark eyes opened wide. “Am I to sort letters with my eyes shut? How could I help seeing they were from Scotland?”
“Don’t forget one day I caught you holding a letter of that kid Long Dalton’s up to the light,” her husband accused.
“I was only tryin’ to find out if he got that girl in a fix—the one was waitin’ table in Posser’s hotel. He didn’t. Found out since he can’t get nobody in trouble. He’s got something wrong with his—”
“Amie!”
“Oh, all right! He’s sort of sterile, you might say—and a good thing, or this country would be full of Dalton bastards.”
Kelsey burst into laughter. A man never knew what Amie would say next. It was one of the pleasures of being in her company.
“Be quiet,” Harry said. “Let Kelsey read his letters in peace, will you?”
“Be quiet yourself. Pass the cream.” There was a sound of ripping cloth as she stretched an arm toward the pitcher. “Damn, there goes that seam again! What’s the matter with the thread they make nowadays?”
“Haven’t noticed you usin’ any,” Harry replied.
Kelsey turned his attention to the stack of mail before him. He sorted through the catalogues for Hilder, Dalt, Tommy, and the cowpunchers. He went through the ads. Then he came to the two letters. One was from Taraleean, and the other—His hand trembled and his heart was suddenly full. Prim had written at last! Prim had found courage to defy Big Mina. He laughed softly back in his throat. Did Big Mina really think Prim would forget him because an ocean lay between them?
It was only a small page of a letter, and very wrinkled. He smoothed it impatiently, thinking, Not long enough, my lassie—not nearly long enough, and I’ll be telling you about that when I write. Then he bent close to the blurred page, his breath quickening.
Words leaped up at him, smudged and shocking. “I may as well tell you before somebody else does. . . . I’m back from the highlands, and it’s as I feared all along. . . . It can’t be kept from the harbor folk any longer. . . .” He read on, a sickness growing in the pit of his stomach, a numbness creeping over his mind. And when he finished he put his head down on his arms and made a groaning sound in his throat.
“Kelsey—what is it, boy?” He felt Amie’s strong hand gripping his shoulder. “Bad news?”
“Yes,” he said stupidly, “bad news, Amie.”
She shouted at her husband, “Don’t sit there like a bump on a log! Get him a drink! He needs it.”
“No, Amie—no, I don’t want any whiskey.”
“Get it anyway, Harry. He can use it.”
Moments later Harry thrust the glass into his hand. Kelsey gulped the whiskey.
“Cut some wood, Harry,” Amie said. “We’re out, and it’s cold in here.”
Harry raised his voice in a bellow. “Andy! Jimmy! Dick!” But his three small sons continued their playing. He shoved back his chair. “For hell’s sake! Were they born deaf?” Muttering, he banged the kitchen door behind him.
“Is it a death in the family?” Amie asked.
Kelsey didn’t answer. He sat thinking. No, not a death, a life, a life beginning that’s my own—a wee one that’s mine and Prim’s. And me here in this far country, and the lassie with no husband to stand by her side and stop the wagging tongues.
Harry came in and dumped an armload of wood on the floor by the stove. He looked at Kelsey and at his wife. Then he put on an old jacket and went out into the wet day.
“Nothing’s ever bad as it seems,” Amie said. “Another drink, boy?”
He shook his head, and then, because the whole thing was too big and painful for him to hold in himself, he looked into Amie’s kind, plain face and blurted, “The lassie I have in the old country—she’s to have a child, and it’s mine.”
Amie Plunkett lifted her broad shoulders. She put her hand over his and said slowly, “Well, what about it? You love her, don’t you? It might be something to fret over if you didn’t love her. Listen, boy, lots of good people have started off in the world not marrying because they wanted to but because they had to. Take it easy, Kelsey. You can send for her. You can meet her outside—maybe in Denver—and get married, and who’s to ever know you didn’t marry her in Soctland?”
He got up and began to pace back and forth. “I’ve got to get the cow—today,” he said, talking to himself. “I’ve got to have more than wages to take care of Prim and the wee one. And I better write a letter—now.”
Amie found paper and pencil. “I’ll see it gets to town tomorrow,” she promised. “Harry’s got to buy groceries. We’re down to our last bean.”
For a time he just sat at the kitchen table, staring out at the fall landscape. There was a wet and muted sadness over the whole big country, the like of which lay in himself. Then he turned to the paper and began to write quickly and passionately. He loved her, and she surely knew that. She was his own before God, and there was nothing to be ashamed of. He couldn’t come for her, not now, but she must come to him. He’d send his check for this month’s work—it was all he had—and surely her brothers would let her have enough money to book passage. She must come quickly. . . . He glanced up, a mist before his eyes, wiping quickly at his nose. Again the pencil moved across the paper. “As long as I live, I’ll make it up to you, Prim. What a glory I’ll have in loving you, in making the world right for our bairn. You are my own, my dearly beloved, my wife.”
Early that afternoon, after eating the noon meal with Harry and Amie, he rode on toward Vic Lundgren’s ranch. Now that the cattle were all back on the meadows, he would get the cow that Vic was holding for him. He’d take her home to the Red Hill Ranch. Time enough later to worry about what Tommy or Monte Maguire might say.
He saw no sign of Vic around the corrals and went up the slope to the ranch house. Ellie Lundgren
