Corral Nocturne by Elisabeth Grace Foley Page A

edge of her calico apron. It was quiet—peaceful and
beautiful, with the near-noon sun shining on wildflowers bobbing in
the long grasses stirred by the wind. But today the quiet only
served to remind Ellie that hardly anybody came down the road to
the Strickland place, and those who did come disliked Ed Strickland
so much that they never paid attention to Ed’s sister.
    Ellie sighed a little, and scuffed the toe of
her buttoned boot in the dust. She was eighteen now. A lot of the
girls she had gone to school with in the little one-room
schoolhouse over on Catlin Creek had beaus by now, who escorted
them to picnics and dances and took them out for buggy rides on
Sundays. Ellie and her mother seldom went anywhere except
occasionally to church, for Ed disliked social gatherings and
didn’t like to spare the team from work for them to drive anywhere.
So they were cut off, to a large degree, from the other women in
the area, who had plenty of acquaintances among their neighbors to
keep them busy, and knew very little about the Stricklands except
what they heard their husbands and sons say of Ed. And as for young
men…well, the men that came out here usually left with a sardonic
expression like John Bentley’s, and hardly even noticed that Ed had
a mother and sister.
    Ellie put her chin in her hand and stared
away up the double-rutted track to the main road, with the green
grass waving softly in its center strip. She was a quiet, practical
girl, who simply accepted the little trials of her life that she
could do nothing about. She did not spend her time pining for a
beau—it was not a real cause of heartache, or something that
constantly occupied her thoughts. But there were days, like today,
when the accumulated loneliness of months made her heart weigh
heavy; when she wondered wistfully how the right kind of young man
was ever going to find his way down the road to her isolated
home—and once there, what there possibly was that could make him
want to stay long enough for a second look.
    “No man in his right mind would want Ed for a
brother,” she said aloud to herself, and then added as an
afterthought, “and I wouldn’t want to marry the other kind.”
    And with this reflection she stood up, looked
round again at the sunny and empty horizon—empty of either kind—and
then picked up the basket and went up the steps into the house.
     

     
    Cole Newcomb had not been out to the
Strickland place in the year since he had been home from college.
He had known Ed Strickland slightly, as he knew most other young
men of his own age in their ranching community, before he went
away, but had not had much occasion to think of him in the
intervening time. So it was the unfamiliarity, perhaps, that made
him look around with moderate interest as he rode down the track to
the little ranch on this particular afternoon. Cole was always
alert to new sights and impressions; he had a quick eye and an
interest in the world around him that made him sometimes stop and
look where others passed by. This attentiveness was occasionally
coupled with a tendency to overlook the obvious, which landed him
in hot water now and again.
    Cole was tall and dark-haired and decidedly
good-looking, with an engaging smile that made a pleasant
impression on nearly everyone, and especially upon young persons of
the feminine persuasion. He also happened to be the son of the
wealthiest man in the county, and taking both of these
circumstances into account, it was a credit to his parents’ good
training, even more than his own forthright nature, that he had
remained decently unspoiled. The Newcombs were the nearest thing to
cattle royalty left in this part of Montana, with herds still on
the open range and several thousand acres under fence, in addition
to the finest horses for miles around and a big white-painted ranch
house with furnishings imported from the East. As their fortunes
had improved over the years, the family had become well-traveled,
their