Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1941-08-01

rhsrps's men. LAat1srs' gk1 MasV1ea.
isvo1 Rspar. NJ nsAs Q 6sspsFato a9sst
- savs him but was sosa svspswsreA- Ths
msa vsfs dragging Rspsr ssts11s - haa0
him vSn thsy heard ths sssnA q runaing
horssa-
downed Jim Leathers. The sobs that
convulsed her were dying % now.
leaving her deeply fatigued. and pro-
fosndly shaken.
you might a. well get up now"
Aarquita said. Her soft MEXICAN
slur gave an odd turn to The blunt
American words she used. '~Ths
fights over: and that boy you've
got there II dead ~ . herring"
With q visible effort Jody Cor
don pulled herself together. and gen
tly lowered the head Of the dead
boy to the door. She got up shakily.
and for q moment looked at Mar
quita.
why did you come here?" Mar
quita asked at last. Her voice con-
tinued gently curious-nothing more.
II knew Billy Roper was alive"
Jody told her. Because l was
watching when Leathers left Fork
Creek with him. I already knew
Thorpe at Sundance, for the reward.
That would be death, to him. And
knew they meant to stop over here
on the way. So got the boys, from
our Red Butte camp. and / come
on :"
"You are a very foolish little
GIRL" Marquita said. Luck saved
you; but il this camp had been full
Of men, it would have been suicide"
Wouldn't you have done the
same?"
Marquita shrugged impatiently. II
seel very sorry for you," she said.
"why?"
because l think you are in love
with this Billy Roper"
why do you say that?"
"Es claro," Marquita said. "It is
plain. And it's a pity; because this
kind of man is not for you"
At first Jody Gordon did not an
swer. But behind the softness Of
Marquita's voice was a cogency as
strange as her American words-a
cogency that would not be ignored.
Here Jody found herself facing q
woman whom she could not possibly
have understood. Marquita's care
less, even reckless mode Of life, her
uncoded relationships with men
NJ
quita's life which did not deny ev-
cry value Of which Jody was aware.
Marquita appeared to thrive and
flower in a mode of life in which
Jody incorrectly believed she her
self would have died.
II don't understand you"
Marquita's glance swept the room
the bare chinked walls, the dead
boy. Her glance seemed to 60 be-
yond the door, where they were
dressing Old Joe's wound; beyond
the walls, to the cold wind-swept
prairie, where men still rode this
night, though morning was close.
"What do you know" she said
"what can you know Of the lives Of
these men?
Jody lifted her head, then, and
looked at Marquita; and again the
simple words and the mask-like face
of Marquita seemed to have mean
ing for which she CROPPED. In the
silence that followed, it came to
Jody that the nights fighting was
not yet over, that she must still fight
for herself and for Billiard some
how for that foolish house in Ogalla-
la, with its tall tower overlooking
the plain.
DO you ride with them?" the
gentle, inexorable voice went on.
do you share their blankets7 Do
you ride under their ponchos in the
rain7 Where are you when their
guns speak? Who prays for them at
dawn, knees down in this God-for-
saken snow?"
Marquita paused, and her body
swung, lazily assured, across a
shadowy angle Of the room toward
the closed door that had hid Roper,
working now over the wounded men.
the doorposts and it seemed to Jody,
watching her. as il Marquita were
barrier between what might have
been Jody's. and that she had lost
now.
"You don't have to bar the door,"
she said.
Marquita's hands came away from
the doorposts. Il know I don't"
The words were 70 indolently ca
denced that they might have been
spoken In Spanish. And at their soft
assurance something awoke in Jody
Gordon Something was still
worth fighting for. Perhaps It had
nothing to do with Bill Roper. but it
flowed deep into the roots of her
life; deeper than her life with one
man-with any man-could ever
dow.
As Jody looked at Marquita.
strange things came to her. that she
herseH could not have put into
words. She knew that Marquita and
an her kind would presently pass.