Pretty, young Mae Morrison was in the yard outside her parents’ rented cabin, turning the crank at the well to draw up a bucket of water. She was barefoot, and the flour-sack dress she wore clung to her sweating flesh. Her brown hair was blowing in the wind. Some errant strands stuck to her face. She turned the crank almost with ease. She was not a frail girl. Her skin was tanned—almost, Henry Starr thought as he rode up into the yard, as dark as his own. As the horse and rider approached, kicking up puffs of dust from the flat prairie, dry already under the hot sun in spite of the recent heavy rains, Mae looked up and recognized Henry. She hauled the bucket on up out of the well and unhooked it from the rope.
“Henry,” she said, her voice betraying a certain amount of surprise, “what are you doing here?”
Henry dismounted and let the reins trail in the dust. He noticed a few puddles of water standing around here and there, witnesses to the heavy rains in an otherwise dry setting. He took a step or two toward Mae, his thumbs hooked in the waistband of his trousers, his head ducked, eyes on the toes of his well-worn boots. He didn’t know what he was doing there, but he didn’t really want to tell her that. He was there because he was drawn to her. He had never had a sweetheart before. And she was a lovely one, he thought. He was there because he really had no other place to go. He was there because he had found himself traveling in that direction without having given it any particular thought.
“Oh,” he said, “I just thought I’d stop by and see if there’s anything I could give you a hand with.”
Mae brushed some of the wild strands of hair away from her face with one hand, her other hand holding the bucket of water at arm’s length. Water dripped from the bucket, forming a small but spreading patch of mud at her feet. Her toes dug into the mud. The picture was not, Henry realized, what most folks would think of as especially ladylike and dainty, but to Henry it was beautiful. It was real. Mae belonged to the land, he thought. She fit her setting the way—well, the way Henry fit his saddle.
“No,” she said, “I mean, why aren’t you at work?”
Henry walked boldly to Mae and put his arms around her, pulling her toward him. As he started to kiss her, she turned her face away from his, and he kissed her cheek, tasting the salty perspiration. He savored the taste. It was the taste of Mae.
“Henry,” she said, “shouldn’t you be at work?”
Henry let go of Mae and reached for the water bucket, pulling it out of her grip.
“Here,” he said, “let me tote this bucket for you.”
“Will you answer my question?”
Henry turned his back on Mae and started walking toward the house.
“I quit that job,” he said.
After Henry had taken the water into the house, a small log cabin, and had said hello to Mrs. Morrison, he and Mae walked out back and strolled between the rows of corn in the garden. The rains had not yet had a noticeable effect on the scrawny corn that Mr. Morrison was trying to raise. The stalks were only as high as Henry’s shoulders, and the husks had a sad, dry look. Henry held Mae’s hand in his. Their palms were both sweaty. He told her the story of Clint Chambers’ horse, and he told her how Mr. Roberts had not wanted him to quit. He told the whole story, being careful not to leave out any details, including how it all had made him feel.
“But I quit anyway,” he said. “I just didn’t want to be around those people anymore.”
They walked on some more in silence. As they came to the end of a corn row and rounded it to stroll down another, Mae broke the silence.
“What will you do now?” she asked. “Go home?”
Henry stopped walking. He turned loose of Mae’s hand and began to fumble with some drying corn tassels that were blowing in the wind with a rattling sound on a stalk there beside him.
“I don’t have a home,” he said.
“I mean your mother’s house,” said Mae.
It was a few seconds before Henry answered.
“When she married C.N.,” he said, “that place stopped being my home. She chose him. I didn’t. And I don’t have to live with him. I guess there might be a good stepfather somewhere, but I haven’t seen him. And if there is one, C. N. Walker is sure not it. He just married my mother for what he could get out of us.”
Henry thought bitterly about his horse and saddle.
“No,” he said. “I’m not going back there.”
“What will you do then?” said Mae.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Henry. “I guess something will turn up. Don’t worry about it. Okay?”
It was Mae’s turn to pause and think. She ambled along a few steps ahead of Henry, brushing the rough cornstalks with her hand. When she stopped and turned around to face him, she dug her bare feet into the dusty earth as if they were seeking moisture below the dry top layer of dirt. She looked at Henry, then reaching down the front of her homemade dress, she pulled out a string that was hanging around her neck. There was something on the end of the string, which she held tightly in her fist. She gave a sharp tug, breaking the string, then held the fist out toward Henry.
“I have something for you,” she said.
Henry walked toward her as she opened the fist to reveal a gold ring.
“Will you wear it for me?”
Henry took the ring from her sweaty palm and tried it on. It fit the little finger on his right hand.
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll wear it. Always.”
Once again he reached out to take her in his arms, and this time, when he leaned forward to kiss her lips, she did not turn her face away. He was no longer thinking about Clint Chambers and his horse, about the humiliation of the confrontation in front of the other cowboys, about the loss of his job or about C. N. Walker. Mae felt good in his arms. Her lips felt good pressing onto his. He thought of nothing else. He felt just fine.
Henry had been right not to worry about the job. It was only a few days later that he found himself sitting idly on a street in Nowata, a small town not far from the Roberts Ranch. He had found a chair on the wooden sidewalk of the main street of town, and he sat down in it to rest up from his footloose wandering and began whittling on a stick with his pocketknife. He had just gotten a fine, sharp point on the stick when a wagon drew up in the street there before him. The driver hauled back on the reins and set the brake as the dust rose around him. His clothes indicated to Henry that he was a prosperous man, and he appeared to be in his early thirties.
“Morning,” he said.
Henry looked up and saw that the man was talking to him.
“Howdy,” he said.
“You’re Henry Starr, ain’t you?” asked the driver.
“Yeah.”
“Well, my name’s Charles Todd. I’ve got a little ranch out here. I heard you quit Roberts. That right?”
“That’s right,” said Henry. He quit whittling and looked at the man.
“You looking for a job?” asked Todd.
“Well, sir,” said Henry, pitching the stick aside and folding up his pocketknife, “I just might be.”
And it had been as easy as that. Roberts had been better than his word. He had made the recommendation before Henry had asked for it, and after only a few short days of unemployment, Henry Starr found himself back at work cowboying again, still not too far from the rented cabin of the Morrisons. The world seemed all right to Henry. He had a job doing the kind of work that he enjoyed, being around the kind of people he could understand, and he had a sweetheart—the prettiest gal he could ever remember seeing anywhere. Life was just fine.