272CHAPTER XIXI STAKE AGAIN
They were indistinguishable except as vocal sounds deadened by the impeding fog; but human voices they certainly were. Throwing off her robe she abruptly sat up, seeking, her features tensed with the strain. She beckoned to me. I scuttled over, as anxious as she. The voices might be far, they might be near; but it was an eerie situation, as if we were neighboring with warlocks.
“I’ve been hearing them some little while,” she whispered.
“The Captain Adams men may be trailing us?”
“I hope not! Oh, I hope not,” she gasped, in sheer agony. “If we might only know in time.”
Suddenly the fog was shot with gold, as the sun flashed in. In obedience to the command a slow and stately movement began, by all the troops of mist. The myriad elements drifted in unison, marching and countermarching and rearranging, until presently, while we crouched intent to fathom the secrets of their late camp, a wondrously beautiful phenomenon offered.
The great army rose for flight, lifting like a273blanket. Gradually the earth appeared in glimpses beneath their floating array, so that whereas our plot of higher ground was still invested, stooping low and scanning we could see beyond us by the extent of a narrow thinning belt capped with the heavier white.
“There!” she whispered, pointing. “Look! There they are!”
Feet, legs, moving of themselves, cut off at the knees by the fog layer, distant not more than short rifle range: that was what had been revealed. A peculiar, absurd spectacle of a score or two of amputated limbs now resurrected and blindly in quest of bodies.
“The Mormons!” I faltered.
“No! Leggins! Moccasins! They are Indians. We must leave right away before they see us.”
With our stuff she ran, I ran, for the mules. We worked rapidly, bridling and saddling while the fog rose with measured steadiness.
“Hurry!” she bade.
The whole desert was a golden haze when having packed we climbed aboard—she more spry than I, so that she led again.
As we urged outward the legs, behind, had taken to themselves thighs. But the mist briefly eddied down upon us; our mules’ hoofs made no sound appreciable, on the scantily moistened soil; we lost the legs, and the voices, and pressing the pace I rode beside her.274
“Where?” I inquired.
“As far as we can while the fog hangs. Then we must hide in the first good place. If they don’t strike our trail we’ll be all right.”
The fog lingered in patches. From patch to patch we threaded, with many a glance over shoulder. But time was traveling faster. I marked her searching about nervously. Blue had already appeared above, the sun found us again and again, and the fog remnants went spinning and coiling, in last ghostly dance like that of frenzied wraiths.
Now we came to a rough outcrop of red sandstone, looming ruddily on our right. She quickly swerved for it.
“The best chance. I see nothing else,” she muttered. “We can tie the mules under cover, and wait. We’ll surely be spied if we keep on.”
“Couldn’t we risk it?”
“No. We’ve not start enough.”
In a moment we had gained the refuge. The sculptured rock masses, detached one from another, several jutting ten feet up, received us. We tied the mules short, in a nook at the rear; and we ourselves crawled on, farther in, until we lay snug amidst the shadowing buttresses, with the desert vista opening before us.
The fog wraiths were very few; the sun blazed more vehemently and wiped them out, so that through the marvelously clear air the expanse of lone, weird275country stood forth clean cut. No moving object could escape notice in this watchful void. And we had been just in time. The slight knoll had been left not a mile to the southwest. I heard My Lady catch breath, felt her hand find mine as we lay almost touching. Rounding the knoll there appeared a file of mounted figures; by their robes and blankets, their tufted lances and gaudy shields, yes, by the very way they sat their painted ponies, Indians unmistakably.
“They must have been camped near us all night.” And she shuddered. “Now if they only don’t cross our trail. We mustn’t move.”
They came on at a canter, riding bravely, glancing right and left—a score of them headed by a scarlet-blanketed man upon a spotted horse. So transparent was the air, washed by the fog and vivified by the sun, that I could decipher the color pattern of his shield emblazonry: a checkerboard of red and black.
“A war party. Sioux, I think,” she said. “Don’t they carry scalps on that first lance? They’ve been raiding the stage line. Do you see any squaws?”
“No,” I hazarded, with beating heart. “All warriors, I should guess.”
“All warriors. But squaws would be worse.”
On they cantered, until their paint stripes and daubs were hideously plain; we might note every detail of their savage muster. They were paralleling our outward course; indeed, seemed to be diverging from our ambush and making more to the west. And276I had hopes that, after all, we were safe. Then her hand clutched mine firmly. A wolf had leaped from covert in the path of the file; loped eastward across the desert, and instantly, with a whoop that echoed upon us like the crack of doom, a young fellow darted from the line in gay pursuit.
My Lady drew quick breath, with despairing exclamation.
“That is cruel, cruel! They might have ridden past; but now—look!”
The stripling warrior (he appeared to be scarcely more than a boy) hammered in chase, stringing his bow and plucking arrow. The wolf cast eye over plunging shoulder, and lengthened. Away they tore, while the file slackened, to watch. Our trail of flight bore right athwart the wolf’s projected route. There was just the remote chance that the lad would overrun it, in his eagerness; and for that intervening moment of grace we stared, fascinated, hand clasping hand.
“He’s found it! He’s found it!” she announced, in a little wail.
In mid-career the boy had checked his pony so shortly that the four hoofs ploughed the sand. He wheeled on a pivot and rode back for a few yards, scanning the ground, letting the wolf go. The stillness that had settled while we gazed and the file of warriors, reining, gazed, gripped and fairly hurt. I cursed the youth. Would to God he had stayed at home—God grant that mangy wolf died by trap or277poison. Our one chance made the sport of an accidental view-halloo, when all the wide desert was open.
The youth had halted again, leaning from his saddle pad. He raised, he flung up glad hand and commenced to ride in circles, around and around and around. The band galloped to him.
“Yes, he has found it,” she said. “Now they will come.”
“What shall we do?” I asked her.
And she answered, releasing my hand.
“I don’t know. But we must wait. We can stand them off for a while, I suppose——”
“I’ll do my best, with the revolver,” I promised.
“Yes,” she murmured. “But after that——?”
I had no reply. This contingency—we two facing Indians—was outside my calculations.
The Indians had grouped; several had dismounted, peering closely at our trail, reading it, timing it, accurately estimating it. They had no difficulty, for the hoof prints were hardly dried of the fog moisture. The others sat idly, searching the horizons with their eyes, but at confident ease. In the wide expanse this rock fortress of ours seemed to me to summon imperatively, challenging them. They surely must know. Yet there they delayed, torturing us, playing blind, emulating cat and mouse; but of course they were reasoning and making certain.
Now the dismounted warriors vaulted ahorse; at a278gesture from the chief two men rode aside, farther to the east, seeking other sign. They found none, and to his shrill hail they returned.
There was another command. The company had strung bows, stripped their rifles of the buckskin sheaths, had dropped robe and blanket about their loins; they spread out to right and left in close skirmish order; they advanced three scouts, one on the trail, one on either flank; and in a broadened front they followed with a discipline, an earnestness, a precision of purpose and a deadly anticipation that drowned every fleeting hope.
This was unbearable: to lie here awaiting an inevitable end.
“Shall we make a break for it?” I proposed. “Ride and fight? We might reach the train, or a stage station. Quick!”
In my wild desire for action I half arose. Her hand restrained me.
“It would be madness, Mr. Beeson. We’d stand no show at all in the open; not on these poor mules.” She murmured to herself. “Yes, they’re Sioux. That’s not so bad. Were they Cheyennes—dog-soldiers—— Let me think. I must talk with them.”
“But they’re coming,” I rasped. “They’re getting in range. We’ve the gun, and twenty cartridges. Maybe if I kill the chief——”
She spoke, positive, under breath.279
“Don’t shoot! Don’t! They know we’re here—know it perfectly well. I shall talk with them.”
“You? How? Why? Can you persuade them? Would they let us go?”
“I’ll do what I can. I have a few words of Sioux; and there’s the sign language. See,” she said. “They’ve discovered our mules. They know we’re only two.”
The scouts on either flanks had galloped outward and onward, in swift circle, peering at our defenses. Lying low they scoured at full speed; with mutual whoop they crisscrossed beyond and turned back for the main body halted two hundred yards out upon the flat plain.
There was a consultation; on a sudden a great chorus of exultant cries rang, the force scattered, shaking fists and weapons, preparing for a tentative charge; and ere I could stop her My Lady had sprung upright, to mount upon a rock and all in view to hold open hand above her head. The sunshine glinted upon her hair; a fugitive little breeze bound her shabby gown closer about her slim figure.
They had seen her instantly. Another chorus burst, this time in astonishment; a dozen guns were leveled, covering her and our nest while every visage stared. But no shot belched; thank God, no shot, with me powerless to prevent, just as I was powerless to intercept her. The chief rode forward, at a walk, his hand likewise lifted.
280The Scouts Galloped Onward
The Scouts Galloped Onward
281
“Keep down! Keep down, please,” she directed to me, while she stood motionless. “Let me try.”
The chief neared until we might see his every lineament—every item of his trappings, even to the black-tipped eagle feather erect at the part in his braids. And he rode carelessly, fearlessly, to halt within easy speaking distance; sat a moment, rifle across his leggined thighs and the folds of his scarlet blanket—a splendid man, naked from the waist up, his coppery chest pigment-daubed, his slender arms braceleted with metal, his eyes devouring her so covetously that I felt the gloating thoughts behind them.
He called inquiringly: a greeting and a demand in one, it sounded. She replied. And what they two said, in word and sign, I could not know, but all the time I held my revolver upon him, until to my relief he abruptly wheeled his horse and cantered back to his men, leaving me with wrist aching and heart pounding madly.
She stepped lightly down; answered my querying look.
“It’s all right. I’m going, and so are you,” she said, with a faint smile, oddly subtle—a tremulous smile in a white face.
About her there was a mystery which alarmed me; made me sit up, chilled, to eye her and accuse.
“Where? We are free, you mean? What’s the bargain?”282
“I go to them. You go where you choose—to the stage road, of course. I have his promise.”
This brought me to my feet, rigid; more than scandalized, for no word can express the shock.
“You go to them? And then where?”
She answered calmly, flushing a little, smiling a little, her eyes sincere.
“It’s the best way and the only way. We shall neither of us be harmed, now. The chief will provide for me and you yourself are free. No, no,” she said, checking my first indignant cry. “Really I don’t mind. The Indians are about the only persons left to me. I’ll be safe with them.” She laughed rather sadly, but brightened. “I don’t know but that I prefer them to the whites. I told you I had no place. And this saves you also, you see. I got you into it—I’ve felt that you blamed me, almost hated me. Things have been breaking badly for me ever since we met again in Benton. So it’s up to me to make good. You can go home, and I shall not be unhappy, I think. Please believe that. The wife of a great chief is quite a personage—he won’t inquire into my past. But if we try to stay here you will certainly be killed, and I shall suffer, and we shall gain nothing. You must take my money. Please do. Then good-bye. I told him I would come out, under his promise.”
She and the rocks reeled together. That was my eyes, giddy with a rush of blood, surging and hot.283
“Never, never, never!” I was shouting, ignoring her hand. How she had misjudged me! What a shame she had put upon me! I could not credit. “You shall not—I tell you, you sha’n’t. I won’t have it—it’s monstrous, preposterous. You sha’n’t go, I sha’n’t go. But wherever we go we’ll go together. We’ll stand them off. Then if they can take us, let ’em. You make a coward of me—a dastard. You’ve no right to. I’d rather die.”
“Listen,” she chided, her hand grasping my sleeve. “They would take me anyway—don’t you see? After they had killed you. It would be the worse for both of us. What can you do, with one arm, and a revolver, and an unlucky woman? No, Mr. Beeson (she was firm and strangely formal); the cards are faced up. I have closed a good bargain for both of us. When you are out, you need say nothing. Perhaps some day I may be ransomed, should I wish to be. But we can talk no further now. He is impatient. The money—you will need the money, and I shall not. Please turn your back and I’ll get at my belt. Why,” she laughed, “how well everything is coming. You are disposed of, I am disposed of——”
“Money!” I roared. “God in Heaven! You disposed of? I disposed of? And my honor, madam! What of that?”
“And what of mine, Mr. Beeson?” She stamped her foot, coloring. “Will you turn your back,284or——? Oh, we’ve talked too long. But the belt you shall have. Here——” She fumbled within her gown. “And now, adios and good luck. You shall not despise me.”
The chief was advancing accompanied by a warrior. Behind him his men waited expectant, gathered as an ugly blotch upon the dun desert. Her honor? The word had double meaning. Should she sacrifice the one honor in this crude essay to maintain the other which she had not lost, to my now opened eyes? I could not deliver her tender body over to that painted swaggerer—any more than I could have delivered it over to Daniel himself. At last I knew, I knew. History had written me a fool, and a cad, but it should not write me a dastard. We were together, and together we should always be, come weal or woe, life or death.
The money belt had been dropped at my feet. She had turned—I leaped before her, thrust her to rear, answered the hail of the pausing chief.
“No!” I squalled. And I added for emphasis: “You go to hell.”
He understood. The phrase might have been familiar English to him. I saw him stiffen in his saddle; he called loudly, and raised his rifle, threatening; with a gasp—a choked “Good-bye”—she darted by me, running on for the open and for him. She and he filled all my landscape. In a stark blinding rage of fear, chagrin, rancorous jealousy, I leveled revolver285and pulled trigger, but not at her, though even that was not beyond me in the crisis.
The bullet thwacked smartly; the chief uttered a terrible cry, his rifle was tossed high, he bowed, swayed downward, his comrade grabbed him, and they were racing back closely side by side and she was running back to me and the warriors were shrieking and brandishing their weapons and bullets spatted the rocks—all this while yet my hand shook to the recoil of the revolver and the smoke was still wafting from the poised muzzle.
What had I done? But done it was.
286CHAPTER XXTHE QUEEN WINS
She arrived breathless, distraught, instantly to drag me down beside her, from where I stood stupidly defiant.
“Keep out of sight,” she panted. And—“Oh, why did you do it? Why did you? I think you killed him—they’ll never forgive. They’ll call it treachery. You’re lost, lost.”
“But he sha’n’t have you,” I gabbled. “Let them kill me if they can. Till then you’re mine. Mine! Don’t you understand? I want you.”
“I don’t understand,” she faltered. She turned frightened face upon me. “You should have let me go. Nothing can save you now; not even I. You’ve ruined the one chance you had. I wonder why. It was my own choice—you had no hand in it, and it was my own chance, too.” Her voice broke, her eyes welled piteously. “But you fired on him.”
“That was the only answer left me,” I entreated. “You misjudged me, you shamed me. I tell you——”
Her lips slightly curled.287
“Misjudged you? Shamed you? Was that all? You’ve misjudged and shamed me for so long——” A burst of savage hoots renewed interrupted. “They’re coming!” She knelt up, to peer; I peered. The Indians had deployed, leaving the chief lying upon the ground, their fierce countenances glaring at our asylum. How clear their figures were, in the sunshine, limned against the lazy yellowish sand, under the peaceful blue! “They’ll surround us. I might parley for myself, but I can do nothing for you.”
“Parley, then,” I bade. “Save yourself, any way you can.”
She drew in, whitening as if I had struck her.
“And you accuse me of having misjudged you! I save myself—merely myself? What do you intend to do? Fight?”
“As long as you are with me; and after. They’ll never take me alive; and take you they shall not if I can prevent it. Damn them, if they get you I mean to make them pay for you. You’re all I have.”
“You’d rather I’d stay? You need me? Could I help?”
“Need you!” I groaned. “I’m just finding out, too late.”
“And help? How? Quick! Could I?”
“By staying; by not surrendering yourself—your honor, my honor. By saying that you’d rather stay288with me, for life, for death, here, anywhere—after I’ve said that I’m not deaf, blind, dumb, ungrateful. I love you; I’d rather die for you than live without you.”
Such a glory glowed in her haggard face and shone from her brimming eyes.
“We will fight, we will fight!” she chanted. “Now I shall not leave you. Oh, my man! Had you kissed me last night we would have known this longer. We have so little time.” She turned from my lips. “Not now. They’re coming. Fight first; and at the end, then kiss me, please, and we’ll go together.”
The furious yells from that world outside vibrated among our rocks. The Sioux all were in motion, except the prostrate figure of the chief. Straight onward they charged, at headlong gallop, to ride over us like a grotesquely tinted wave, and the dull drumming of their ponies’ hoofs beat a diapason to the shrill clamor of their voices. It was enough to cow, but she spoke steadily.
“You must fire,” she said. “Hurry! Fire once, maybe twice, to split them. I don’t think they’ll rush us, yet.”
So I rose farther on my knees and fired once—and again, pointblank at them with the heavy Colt’s. It worked a miracle. Every mother’s son of them fell flat upon his pony; they all swooped to right and to left as if the bullets had cleaved them apart in the289center; and while I gaped, wondering, they swept past at long range, half on either flank, pelting in bullet and near-spent arrow.
She forced me down.
“Low, low,” she warned. “They’ll circle. They hold their scalps dearly. We can only wait. That was three. You have fifteen shots left, for them; then, one for me, one for you. You understand?”
“I understand,” I replied. “And if I’m disabled——?”
She answered quietly.
“It will be the same. One for you, one for me.”
The circle had been formed: a double circle, to move in two directions, scudding ring reversed within scudding ring, the bowmen outermost. Around and ’round and ’round they galloped, yelling, gibing, taunting, shooting so malignantly that the air was in a constant hum and swish. The lead whined and smacked, the shafts streaked and clattered——
“Are you sorry I shot the chief?” I asked. Amid the confusion my blood was coursing evenly, and I was not afraid. Of what avail was fear?
“I’m glad, glad,” she proclaimed. But with sudden movement she was gone, bending low, then crawling, then whisking from sight. Had she abandoned me, after all? Had she—no! God be thanked, here she came back, flushed and triumphant, a canteen in her hand.
“The mules might break,” she explained, short of290breath. “This canteen is full. We’ll need it. The other mule is frantic. I couldn’t touch her.”
At the moment I thought how wise and brave and beautiful she was! Mine for the hour, here—and after? Montoyo should never have her; not in life nor in death.
“You must stop some of those fiends from sneaking closer,” she counseled. “See? They’re trying us out.”
More and more frequently some one of the scurrying enemy veered sharply, tore in toward us, hanging upon the farther side of his horse; boldly jerked erect and shot, and with demi-volt of his mount was away, whooping.
I had been desperately saving the ammunition, to eke out this hour of mine with her. Every note from the revolver summoned the end a little nearer. But we had our game to play; and after all, the end was certain. So under her prompting (she being partner, commander, everything), when the next painted ruffian—a burly fellow in drapery of flannel-fringed cotton shirt, with flaunting crimson tassels on his pony’s mane—bore down, I guessed shrewdly, arose and let him have it.
She cried out, clapping her hands.
“Good! Good!”
The pony was sprawling and kicking; the rider had hurtled free, and went jumping and dodging like a jack-rabbit.291
“To the right! Watch!”
Again I needs must fire, driving the rascals aside with the report of the Colt’s. That was five. Not sparing my wounded arm I hastily reloaded, for by custom of the country the hammer had rested over an empty chamber. I filled the cylinder.
“They’re killing the mules,” she said. “But we can’t help it.”
The two mules were snorting and plunging; their hoofs rang against the rocks. Sioux to rear had dismounted and were shooting carefully. There was exultant shout—one mule had broken loose. She galloped out, reddened, stirrups swinging, canteen bouncing, right into the waiting line; and down she lunged, abristle with feathered points launched into her by sheer spiteful joy.
The firing was resumed. We heard the other mule scream with note indescribable; we heard him flounder and kick; and again the savages yelled.
Now they all charged recklessly from the four sides; and I had to stand and fire, right, left, before, behind, emptying the gun once more ere they scattered and fled. I sensed her fingers twitching at my belt, extracting fresh cartridges. We sank, breathing hard. Her eyes were wide, and bluer than any deepest summer sea; her face aflame; her hair of purest gold—and upon her shoulder a challenging oriflamme of scarlet, staining a rent in the faded calico.
“You’re hurt!” I blurted, aghast.292
“Not much. A scratch. Don’t mind it. And you?”
“I’m not touched.”
“Load, sir. But I think we’ll have a little space. How many left? Nine.” She had been counting. “Seven for them.”
“Seven for them,” I acknowledged. I tucked home the loads; the six-shooter was ready.
“Now let them come,” she murmured.
“Let them come,” I echoed. We looked one upon the other, and we smiled. It was not so bad, this place, our minds having been made up to it. In fact, there was something sweet. Our present was assured; we faced a future together, at least; we were in accord.
The Sioux had retired, mainly to sit dismounted in close circle, for a confab. Occasionally a young brave, a vidette, exuberantly galloped for us, dared us, shook hand and weapon at us, no doubt spat at us, and gained nothing by his brag.
“What will they do next?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said she. “We shall see, though.”
So we lay, gazing, not speaking. The sun streamed down, flattening the desert with his fervent beams until the uplifts cringed low and in the horizons the mountain peaks floated languidly upon the waves of heat. And in all this dispassionate land, from horizon to horizon, there were only My Lady and I, and293the beleaguering Sioux. It seemed unreal, a fantasy; but the rocks began to smell scorched, a sudden thirst nagged and my wounded arm pained with weariness as if to remind that I was here, in the body. Yes, and here she was, also, in the flesh, as much as I, for she stirred, glanced at me, and smiled. I heard her, saw her, felt her presence. I placed my hand over hers.
“What is it?” she queried.
“Nothing. I wanted to make sure.”
“Of yourself?”
“Of you, me—of everything.”
“There can be no doubt,” she said. “I wish there might, for your sake.”
“No,” I thickly answered. “If you were only out of it—if we could find some way.”
“I’d rather be in here, with you,” said she.
“And I, with you, then,” I replied honestly. The thought of water obsessed. She must have read, for she inquired:
“Aren’t you thirsty?”
“Are you?”
“Yes. Why don’t we drink?”
“Should we?”
“Why not? We might as well be as comfortable as we can.” She reached for the canteen lying in a fast dwindling strip of rock shade. We drank sparingly. She let me dribble a few drops upon her shoulder. Thenceforth by silent agreement we moistened294our tongues, scrupulously turn about, wringing the most from each brief sip as if testing the bouquet of exquisite wine. Came a time when we regretted this frugalness; but just now there persisted within us, I suppose, that germ of hope which seems to be nourished by the soul.
The Sioux had counciled and decided. They faced us, in manner determined. We waited, tense and watchful. Without even a premonitory shout a pony bolted for us, from their huddle. He bore two riders, naked to the sun, save for breech clouts. They charged straight in, and at her mystified, alarmed murmur I was holding on them as best I could, finger crooked against trigger, coaxing it, praying for luck, when the rear rider dropped to the ground, bounded briefly and dived headlong, worming into a little hollow of the sand.
He lay half concealed; the pony had wheeled to a shrill, jubilant chorus; his remaining rider lashed him in retreat, leaving the first digging lustily with hand and knife.
That was the system, then: an approach by rushes.
“We mustn’t permit it,” she breathed. “We must rout him out—we must keep them all out or they’ll get where they can pick you off. Can you reach him?”
“I’ll try,” said I.
The tawny figure, prone upon the tawny sand, was just visible, lean and snakish, slightly oscillating as it295worked. And I took careful aim, and fired, and saw the spurt from the bullet.
“A little lower—oh, just a little lower,” she pleaded.
The same courier was in leash, posted to bring another fellow; all the Sioux were gazing, statuesque, to analyze my marksmanship. And I fired again—“Too low,” she muttered—and quickly, with a curse, again.
She cried out joyfully. The snake had flopped from its hollow, plunged at full length aside; had started to crawl, writhing, dragging its hinder parts. But with a swoop the pony arrived before we were noting; the recruit plumped into the hollow; and bending over in his swift circle the courier snatched the snake from the ground; sped back with him.
The Sioux seized upon the moment of stress. They cavorted, scouring hither and thither, yelling, shooting, and once more our battered haven seethed with the hum and hiss and rebound of lead and shaft. That, and my eagerness, told. The fellow in the foreground burrowed cleverly; he submerged farther and farther, by rapid inches. I fired twice—we could not see that I had even inconvenienced him. My Lady clutched my revolver arm.
“No! Wait!” The tone rang dismayed.
Trembling, blinded with heat and powder smoke, and heart sick, I paused, to fumble and to reload the almost emptied cylinder.296
“I can’t reach him,” said I. “He’s too far in.”
Her voice answered gently.
“No matter, dear. You’re firing too hastily. Don’t forget. Please rest a minute, and drink. You can bathe your eyes. It’s hard, shooting across the hot sand. They’ll bring others. We’ve no need to save water, you know.”
“I know,” I admitted.
We niggardly drank. I dabbled my burning eyes, cleared my sight. Of the fellow in the rifle pit there was no living token. The Sioux had ceased their gambols. They sat steadfast, again anticipative. A stillness, menaceful and brooding, weighted the landscape.
She sighed.
“Well?”
The pregnant truce oppressed. What was hatching out, now? I cautiously shifted posture, to stretch and scan; instinctively groped for the canteen, to wet my lips again; a puff of smoke burst from the hollow, the canteen clinked, flew from my hand and went clattering among the rocks.
“Oh!” she cried, aghast. “But you’re not hurt?” Then—“I saw him. He’ll come up again, in a moment. Be ready.”
The Sioux in the background were shrieking. They had accounted for our mules; by chance shot they had nipped our water. Yet neither event affected us as they seemed to think it should. Mules,297water—these were inconsequentials in the long-run that was due to be short, at most. We husbanded other relief in our keeping.
Suddenly, as I craned, the fellow fired again; he was a good shot, had discovered a niche in our rampart, for the ball fanned my cheek with the wings of a vicious wasp. On the instant I replied, snapping quick answer.
“I don’t think you hit him,” she said. “Let me try. It may change the luck. You’re tired. I’ll hold on the spot—he’ll come up in the same place, head and shoulders. You’ll have to tempt him. Are you afraid, sir?” She smiled upon me as she took the revolver.
“But if he kills me——?” I faltered.
“What of that?”
“You.”
“I?” Her face filled. “I should not be long.”
She adjusted the revolver to a crevice a little removed from me—“They will be hunting you, not me,” she said—and crouched behind it, peering earnestly out, intent upon the hollow. And I edged farther, and farther, as if seeking for a mark, but with all my flesh a-prickle and my breath fast, like any man, I assert, who forces himself to invite the striking capabilities of a rattlesnake.
Abruptly it came—the strike, so venomous that it stung my face and scalded my eyes with the spatter of sandstone and hot lead; at the moment her Colt’s298bellowed into my ears, thunderous because even unexpected. I could not see; I only heard an utterance that was cheer and sob in one.
“I got him! Are you hurt? Are you hurt?”
“No. Hurrah!”
“Hurrah, dear.”
The air rocked with the shouts of the Sioux; shouts never before so welcome in their tidings, for they were shouts of rage and disappointment. They flooded my eyes with vigor, wiped away the daze of the bullet impact; the hollow leaped to the fore—upon its low parapet a dull shade where no shade should naturally be, and garnished with crimson.
He had doubled forward, reflexing to the blow. He was dead, stone dead; his crafty spirit issued upon the red trail of ball through his brain.
“Thank God,” I rejoiced.
She had sunk back wearily.
“That is the last.”
“Won’t they try again, you think?”
“The last spare shot, I mean. We have only our two left. We must save those.” She gravely surveyed me.
“Yes, we must save those,” I assented. The realization broke unbelievable across a momentary hiatus; brought me down from the false heights, to face it with her.
A dizzy space had opened before me. I knew that she moved aside. She exclaimed.299
“Look!”
It was the canteen, drained dry by a jagged gash from the sharpshooter’s lead.
“No matter, dear,” she said.
“No matter,” said I.
The subject was not worth pursuing.
“We have discouraged their game, again. And in case they rush us——”
This from her.
“In case they rush us——” I repeated. “We can wait a little, and see.”
300CHAPTER XXIWE WAIT THE SUMMONS
The Sioux had quieted. They let the hollow alone, tenanted as it was with death; there was for us a satisfaction in that tribute to our defense. Quite methodically, and with cruel show of leisure they distributed themselves by knots, in a half-encircling string around our asylum; they posted a sentry, ahorse, as a lookout; and lolling upon the bare ground in the sun glare they chatted, laughed, rested, but never for an instant were we dismissed from their eyes and thoughts.
“They will wait, too. They can afford it,” she murmured. “It is cheaper for them than losing lives.”
“If they knew we had only the two cartridges——?”
“They don’t, yet.”
“And they will find out too late,” I hazarded.
“Yes, too late. We shall have time.” Her voice did not waver; it heartened with its vengeful, determined mien.
Occasionally a warrior invoked us by brandishing arm or weapon in surety of hate and in promise of fancied reprisal. What fools they were! Now and301again a warrior galloped upon the back trail; returned gleefully, perhaps to flourish an army canteen at us.
“There probably is water where we heard the frogs last night,” she remarked.
“I’m glad we didn’t try to reach it, for camp,” said I.
“So am I,” said she. “We might have run right into them. We are better here. At least, I am.”
“And I,” I confirmed.
Strangely enough we seemed to have little to say, now in this precious doldrums where we were becalmed, between the distant past and the unlogged future. We had not a particle of shade, not a trace of coolness: the sun was high, all our rocky recess was a furnace, fairly reverberant with the heat; the flies (and I vaguely pondered upon how they had existed, previously, and whence they had gathered) buzzed briskly, attracted by the dead mule, unseen, and captiously diverted to us also. We lay tolerably bolstered, without much movement; and as the Sioux were not firing upon us, we might wax careless of their espionage.
Her eyes, untroubled, scarcely left my face; I feared to let mine leave hers. Of what she was thinking I might not know, and I did not seek to know—was oddly yielding and content, for our decisions had been made. And still it was unreal, impossible: we, in this guise; the Sioux, watching; the desert, waiting;302death hovering—a sudden death, a violent death, the end of that which had barely begun; an end suspended in sight like the Dionysian sword, with the single hair already frayed by the greedy shears of the Fate. A snap, at our own signal; then presto, change!
It simply could not be true. Why, somewhere my father and mother busied, mindless; somewhere Benton roared, mindless; somewhere the wagon train toiled on, mindless; the stage road missed us not, nor wondered; the railroad graders shoveled and scraped and picked as blithely as if the same desert did not contain them, and us; cities throbbed, people worked and played, and we were of as little concern to them now as we would be a year hence.
Then it all pridefully resolved to this, like the warming tune of a fine battle chant: That I was here, with my woman, my partner woman, the much desirable woman whom I had won; which was more than Daniel, or Montoyo, or the Indian chief, or the wide world of other men could boast.
Soon she spoke, at times, musingly.
“I did make up to you, at first,” she said. “In Omaha, and on the train.”
“Did you?” I smiled. She was so childishly frank.
“But that was only passing. Then in Benton I knew you were different. I wondered what it was; but you were different from anybody that I had met303before. There’s always such a moment in a woman’s life.”
I soberly nodded. Nothing could be a platitude in such a place and such an hour.
“I wished to help you. Do you believe that now?”
“I believe you, dear heart,” I assured.
“But it was partly because I thought you could help me,” she said, like a confession. And she added: “I had nothing wrong in mind. You were to be a friend, not a lover. I had no need of lovers; no, no.”
We were silent for an interval. Again she spoke.
“Do you care anything about my family? I suppose not. That doesn’t matter, here. But you wouldn’t be ashamed of them. I ran away with Montoyo. I thought he was something else. How could I go home after that? I tried to be true to him, we had plenty of money, he was kind to me at first, but he dragged me down and my father and mother don’t know even yet. Yes, I tried to help him, too. I stayed. It’s a life that gets into one’s blood. I feared him terribly, in time. He was a breed, and a devil—a gentleman devil.” She referred in the past tense, as to some fact definitely bygone. “I had to play fair with him, or—— And when I had done that, hoping, why, what else could I do or where could I go? So many people knew me.” She smiled. “Suddenly I tied to you, sir. I seemed to feel—I took the chance.”
“Thank God you did,” I encouraged.304
“But I would not have wronged myself, or you, or him,” she eagerly pursued. “I never did wrong him.” She flushed. “No man can convict me. You hurt me when you refused me, dear; it told me that you didn’t understand. Then I was desperate. I had been shamed before you, and by you. You were going, and not understanding, and I couldn’t let you. So I did follow you to the wagon train. You were my star. I wonder why. I did feel that you’d get me out—you see, I was so madly selfish, like a drowning person. I clutched at you; might have put you under while climbing up, myself.”
“We have climbed together,” said I. “You have made me into a man.”
“But I forced myself on you. I played you against Daniel. I foresaw that you might have to kill him, to rid me of him. You were my weapon. And I used you. Do you blame me that I used you?”
“Daniel and I were destined to meet, just as you and I were destined to meet,” said I. “I had to prove myself on him. It would have happened anyway. Had I not stood up to him you would not have loved me.”
“That was not the price,” she sighed. “Maybe you don’t understand yet. I’m so afraid you don’t understand,” she pleaded. “At the last I had resigned you, I would have left you free, I saw how you felt; but, oh, it happened just the same—we were fated, and you showed that you hated me.”305
“I never hated you. I was perplexed. That was a part of love,” said I.
“You mean it? You are holding nothing back?” she asked, anxious.
“I am holding nothing back,” I answered. “As you will know, I think, in time to come.”
Again we reclined, silent, at peace: a strange peace of mind and body, to which the demonstrations by the waiting Sioux were alien things.
She spoke.
“Are we very guilty, do you think?”
“In what, dearest?”
“In this, here. I am already married, you know.”
“That is another life,” I reasoned. “It is long ago and under different law.”
“But if we went back into it—if we escaped?”
“Then we should—but don’t let’s talk of that.”
“Then you should forget and I should return to Benton,” she said. “I have decided. I should return to Benton, where Montoyo is, and maybe find another way. But I should not live with him; never, never! I should ask him to release me.”
“I, with you,” I informed. “We should go together, and do what was best.”
“You would? You wouldn’t be ashamed, or afraid?”
“Ashamed or afraid of what?”
She cried out happily, and shivered.306
“I hope we don’t have to. He might kill you. Yes, I hope we don’t have to. Do you mind?”
I shook my head, smiling my response. There were tears in her eyes, repaying me.
Our conversation became more fitful. Time sped, I don’t know how, except that we were in a kind of lethargy, taking no note of time and hanging fast to this our respite from the tempestuous past.
Once she dreamily murmured, apropos of nothing, yet apropos of much:
“We must be about the same age. I am not old, not really very old.”
“I am twenty-five,” I answered.
“So I thought,” she mused.
Then, later, in manner of having revolved this idea also, more distinctly apropos and voiced with a certain triumph:
“I’m glad we drank water when we might; aren’t you?”
“You were so wise,” I praised; and I felt sorry for her cracked lips. It is astonishing with what swiftness, even upon the dry desert, amid the dry air, under the dry burning sun, thirst quickens into a consuming fire scorching from within outward to the skin.
We lapsed into that remarkable patience, playing the game with the Sioux and steadily viewing each other; and she asked, casually:
“Where will you shoot me, Frank?”307
This bared the secret heart of me.
“No! No!” I begged. “Don’t speak of that. It will be bad enough at the best. How can I? I don’t know how I can do it!”
“You will, though,” she soothed. “I’d rather have it from you. You must be brave, for yourself and for me; and kind, and quick. I think it should be through the temple. That’s sure. But you won’t wait to look, will you? You’ll spare yourself that?”
This made me groan, craven, and wipe my hand across my forehead to brush away the frenzy. The fingers came free, damp with cold sticky sweat—a prodigy of a parchment skin which puzzled me.
We had not exchanged a caress, save by voice; had not again touched each other. Sometimes I glanced at the Sioux, but not for long; I dreaded to lose sight of her by so much as a moment. The Sioux remained virtually as from the beginning of their vigil. They sat secure, drank, probably ate, with time their ally: sat judicial and persistent, as though depending upon the progress of a slow fuse, or upon the workings of poison, which indeed was the case.
Thirst and heat tortured unceasingly. The sun had passed the zenith—this sun of a culminating summer throughout which he had thrived regal and lustful. It seemed ignoble of him that he now should stoop to torment only us, and one of us a small woman. There was all his boundless domain for him.308
But stoop he did, burning nearer and nearer. She broke with sudden passion of hoarse appeal.
“Why do we wait? Why not now?”
“We ought to wait,” I stammered, miserable and pitying.
“Yes,” she whispered, submissive, “I suppose we ought. One always does. But I am so tired. I think,” she said, “that I will let my hair down. I shall go with my hair down. I have a right to, at the last.”
Whereupon she fell to loosening her hair and braiding it with hurried fingers.
Then after a time I said:
“We’ll not be much longer, dear.”
“I hope not,” said she, panting, her lips stiff, her eyes bright and feverish. “They’ll rush us at sundown; maybe before.”
“I believe,” said I, blurring the words, for my tongue was getting unmanageable, “they’re making ready now.”
She exclaimed and struggled and sat up, and we both gazed. Out there the Sioux, in that world of their own, had aroused to energy. I fancied that they had palled of the inaction. At any rate they were upon their feet, several were upon their horses, others mounted hastily, squad joined squad as though by summons, and here came their outpost scout, galloping in, his blanket streaming from one hand like a banner of an Islam prophet.309
They delayed an instant, gesticulating.
“It will be soon,” she whispered, touching my arm. “When they are half-way, don’t fail. I trust you. Will you kiss me? That is only the once.”
I kissed her; dry cracked lips met dry cracked lips. She laid herself down and closed her eyes, and smiled.
“I’m all right,” she said. “And tired. I’ve worked so hard, for only this. You mustn’t look.”
“And you must wait for me, somewhere,” I entreated. “Just a moment.”
“Of course,” she sighed.
The Sioux charged, shrieking, hammering, lashing, all of one purpose: that, us; she, I; my life, her body; and quickly kneeling beside her (I was cool and firm and collected) I felt her hand guide the revolver barrel. But I did not look. She had forbidden, and I kept my eyes upon them, until they were half-way, and in exultation I pulled the trigger, my hand already tensed to snatch and cock and deliver myself under their very grasp. That was a sweetness.
The hammer clicked. There had been no jar, no report. The hammer had only clicked, I tell you, shocking me to the core. A missed cartridge? An empty chamber? Which? No matter. I should achieve for her, first; then, myself. I heard her gasp, they were very near, how they shouted, how the bullets and arrows spatted and hissed, and I had convulsively cocked the gun, she had clutched it—when310looking through them, agonized and blinded as I was—looking through them as if they were phantasms I sensed another sound and with sight sharpened I saw.
Then I wrested the revolver from her. I fired pointblank, I fired again (the Colt’s did not fail); they swept by, hooting, jostling; they thudded on; and rising I screeched and waved, as bizarre, no doubt, as any animated scarecrow.
It had been a trumpet note, and a cavalry guidon and a rank of bobbing figures had come galloping, galloping over an imperceptible swell.
She cried to me, from my feet.
“You didn’t do it! You didn’t do it!”
“We’re saved,” I blatted. “Hurrah! We’re saved! The soldiers are here.”
Again the trumpet pealed, lilting silvery. She tottered up, clinging to me. She stared. She released me, and to my gladly questing gaze her face was very white, her eyes struggling for comprehension, like those of one awakened from a dream.
“I must go back to Benton,” she faltered. “I shall never get away from Benton.”
We stood mute while the blue-coats raced on with hearty cheers and brave clank of saber and canteen. We were sitting composedly when the lieutenant scrambled to us, among our rocks; the troopers followed, curiously scanning.
His stubbled red face, dust-smeared, queried us keenly; so did his curt voice.311
“Just in time?”
“In time,” I croaked. “Water! For her—for me.”
There was a canteen apiece. We sucked.
“You are the two from the Mormon wagon train?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. You know?” I uttered.
“We came on as fast as we could. The Sioux are raiding again. By God, you had a narrow squeak, sir,” he reproved. “You were crazy to try it—you and a woman, alone. We’ll take you along as soon as my Pawnees get in from chasing those beggars.”
Distant whoops from a pursuit drifted in to us, out of the desert.
“Captain Adams sent you?” I inquired.
“Yes, sir.”
“I will go back,” I agreed. “I will go back, but there’s no need of Mrs. Montoyo. If you could see her safely landed at a stage station, and for Benton——?”
“We’ll land you both. I have to report at Bridger. The train is all right. It has an escort to Bitter Creek.”
“I can overtake it, or join it,” said I. “But the lady goes to Benton.”
“Yes, yes,” he snapped. “That’s nothing to me, of course. But you’ll do better to wait for the train at Bridger, Mr. ——? I don’t believe I have your name?”312
“Beeson,” I informed, astonished.
“And the lady’s? Your sister? Wife?”
“Mrs. Montoyo,” I informed. And I repeated, that there should be no misunderstanding. “Mrs. Montoyo, from Benton. No relative, sir.”
He passed it over, as a gentleman should.
“Well, Mr. Beeson, you have business with the train?”
“I have business with Captain Adams, and he with me,” I replied. “As probably you know. Since he sent you, I shall consider myself under arrest; but I will return of my own free will as soon as Mrs. Montoyo is safe.”
“Under arrest? For what?” He blankly eyed me.
“For killing that man, sir. Captain Adams’ son. But I was forced to it—I did it in self-defense. I should not have left, and I am ready to face the matter whenever possible.”
“Oh!” said he, with a shrug, tossing the idea aside. “If that’s all! I did hear something about that, from some of my men, but nothing from Adams. You didn’t kill him, I understand; merely laid him out. I saw him, myself, but I didn’t ask questions. So you can rest easy on that score. His old man seemed to have no grudge against you for it. Fact is, he scarcely allowed me time to warn him of the Sioux before he told me you and a woman were out and were liable to lose your scalps, if nothing313worse. I think,” the lieutenant added, narrowing upon me, “that you’ll find those Mormons are as just as any other set, in a show down. The lad, I gathered from the talk, drew on you after he’d cried quits.” He turned hastily. “You spoke, madam? Anything wanted?”
The trumpeter orderly plucked me by the sleeve. He was a squat, sun-scorched little man, and his red-rimmed blue eyes squinted at me with painful interest. He whispered harshly from covert of bronzed hand.
“Beg your pardon, sorr. Mrs. Montoyo, be it—that lady?”
“Yes.”
“From Benton City, sorr, ye say?”
“From Benton City.”
“Sure, I know the name. It’s the same of a gambler the vigilantes strung up last week; for I was there to see.”
I heard a gusty sigh, an exclamation from the lieutenant. My Lady had fainted again.
“The reaction, sir,” I apologized, to the lieutenant, as we worked.
“Naturally,” answered he. “You’ll both go back to Benton?”
“Certainly,” said I.