Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner [125]
“Can you ride today?”
“Not today, I’m afraid. I’ve got to go over to Big Evans.”
“Might I go along?”
He considered, squatting. “Not there. I’ll send Frank or Pricey to take you out.”
“Can you make it Frank? Pricey is such a goose. I’m always afraid he’ll fall off, and I have to poke along because he bounces so if we run.”
“It’s easier to get along without Pricey. Anyway you shouldn’t run a horse at this altitude.”
“Yes sir,” she said pertly. “And how did you manage day before yesterday to ride sixty miles? Your horse must be the fastest walker in Colorado.”
“I go fast because I want to get back quick.”
She loved the way his eyes rested on her, she thought he had a strong, masculine, unflighty sort of face. He looked like a contented man. And she was a contented woman, or would be as soon as she could get Ollie out.
He was gone by seven-thirty. For an hour she lay in bed, letting the stove and the sun work on the cabin’s chill. Then she got up in her dressing gown and assaulted the disorder–made up the cots, washed the dishes, swept the floor. If she didn’t do that at once, her disposition remained disheveled all day. She opened the door and the two windows to let the morning sweep away the cooking odors. Only when the place was clean and fresh could she settle down contentedly to drawing, reading, sewing, or writing letters.
Here is part of one to Augusta and Thomas, then following the spring northward into the Alps.
Do you remember, by chance, a family named Sargent on Staten Island? General Timothy Sargent? Their son Frank, who is Oliver’s assistant here, believes that his family and yours are slightly acquainted. You can imagine the feast of talk we had, the first time we sat down before our fire.
Frank is a splendid boy. He extravagantly admires Oliver, “the best man to work for in Colorado,” and he is indispensable to me when Oliver’s business keeps him in the office or sends him off on some inspection trip. Frank chops my kindling, carries in my wood, comes (at six!) to build my fire, burns my rubbish, fetches my bundles from town, runs my errands, takes me riding. It is of course quite out of the question that I should go alone.
Such a gentlemanly boy Frank is, for these circumstances. Not that he isn’t capable of dealing with anything that arises–he is six feet three and as limber as a blacksnake. He is intensely excited about the West, loves the adventure of it, delights in the strange people and the queer situations. But he has been gently reared, and is not inclined to sink to the level of life in these mountains. Every month he sends a third of his salary to his widowed mother, and when I asked him what he did for entertainment in Leadville–fearing the answer–he said there was not much to tempt him. He and Pricey, with whom he shares a shack, are both readers. The other night we had quite an earnest talk. He is consciously keeping himself pure, both as to the awful women he might meet in this place, and as to liquor, which he has seen destroy several of his friends. Liquor is a terrible temptation to lonely men cut off from their wives, or fighting for success they cannot attain. It is exhilarating to see someone like Frank determined to stand above it. On the other hand, Oliver tells me, he is manly to a degree, and only a little while ago had to put down a bully who presumed to think Pricey, with his English accent, amusing. The bully suffered a broken jaw, and is not yet quite able to speak again. Can you imagine knowing, and liking, a man who engages in fist fights? Yet here at least they are something a man of honor cannot entirely avoid.
I sister him, and flirt with him (a little). It is amusing and harmless since I am nine years older. The devastating thing about him is that he has those darkly glowing brown eyes like yours. His devotion is so open that of course Oliver has observed