240CHAPTER XVII DO THE DEED
We had camped well beyond a last bunch of the red-shirted graders, so that the thread of a trail wended before, lonely, sand-obscured, leading apparently nowhere, through this desert devoid of human life. Line stakes of the surveyors denoted the grade; but the surveyors’ work was done, here. Rush orders from headquarters had sent them all westward still, to set their final stakes across other deserts and across the mountains, clear to Ogden at the north end of the Salt Lake itself.
Seemingly we had cut loose and were more than ever a world to ourselves. The country had grown sterile beneath ordinary, if possible; and our thoughts and talk would have been sterile also were it not for that one recurrent topic which kept them quick. In these journeyings men seize upon little things and magnify them; discuss and rediscuss a phase until launched maybe as an empty joke it returns freighted with tragedy.
However, now that once My Lady had eliminated herself from my field I did not see but that Daniel and I might taper off into at least an armed neutrality. If he continued to nag me, it would be wholly of his own free will. He had no grievance.241
Then in case that I did kill him—if kill him I must (and that eventuality hung over me like the sword of Damocles) I should be not ashamed to tell even my mother. In this I took what small comfort I might.
I had not spoken at length with Mrs. Montoyo for several days. We had exchanged merely civil greetings. To-day I did not see her during the march; did not attempt to see her—did not so much as curiously glance her way, being content to let well enough alone, although aware that my care might be misinterpreted as a token of fear. But as to proving the case against me, Daniel was at liberty to experiment with the status in quo.
Toward evening we climbed a second wide, flat divide. We were leaving the Red Basin, they said, and about to cross into the Bitter Creek Plains, which, according to the talk, were “a damned sight wuss!” Somewhere in the Bitter Creek Plains our course met the course of the Overland Stage road, trending up from the south for the passage of the Green River at the farther edge of the Plains.
I had only faint hope that Mrs. Montoyo would be delivered over to the stage there. It scarcely would be her wish. We were destined to travel on to Salt Lake City together—she, Daniel and I.
If the Red Basin had been bad and if the Bitter Creek Plains were to be worse, assuredly this plateau was limbo: a gray, bleak, wind-swept elevation fairly level and extending, in elevation perceptible mainly by242the vista, as far as eye might see, northward and southward, separating basin from basin—one Hell, as Jenks declared, from the other.
Nevertheless there was a wild grandeur in the site, flooded all with crimson as the sun sank in the clear western sky beyond the Plains themselves, so that our plateau was still bathed in ruddy color when the Red Basin upon the one hand had deepened to purple and the white blotches of soda and alkali down in the Plains upon the other hand gleamed evilly in a tenuous gloaming.
We had corralled adjacent to another tainted pond, of which the animals refused to drink but which furnished a little rank forage for them and an oasis for a half dozen ducks. A pretty picture these made, too, as they lightly sat the open water, burnished to brass by the sunset so that the surface shimmered iridescent, its ripples from the floating bodies flowing molten in all directions.
After supper I took the notion to go over there, in the twilight, on idle exploration. Water of any kind had an appeal; a solitary pond always has; the ducks brought thoughts of home. Many a teal and widgeon and canvasback had fallen to my double-barreled Manton, back on the Atlantic coast—very long ago, before I had got entangled in this confounded web of misadventure and homicidal tendencies.
To the pond I went, mood subdued. It set slightly in a cup; and when I had emerged from a little swale243or depression that I had followed, attracted by the laughter of children playing at the marge, whom should I see, approaching on line diagonal, but Mrs. Montoyo—her very hair and form—coming in likewise, perhaps with errand similar to mine: simple inclination.
And that (again perhaps) was a mutual surprise, indeed awkward to me, for we both were in plain sight from the camp. Certainly I could not turn off, nor turn back. Not now. It was make or break. Hesitate I did, with involuntary action of muscles; I thought that she momentarily hesitated; then I drove on, defiant, and so did she. The fates were resolved that there should be no dilly-dallying by the principals chosen for this drama that they had staged.
Our obstinate paths met at the base of a small point white with alkali, running shortly into the sedges. Had we timed by agreement beforehand we could not have acted with more precision. So here we halted, in narrow quarters, either willing but unable to yield to the other.
She smiled. I thought that she looked thinner.
“An unexpected pleasure, Mr. Beeson. At least, for me. It has been some days.”
“I believe it has,” I granted. “Shall I pass on?”
“You might have turned aside.”
“And so,” I reminded, “might you.”
“But I didn’t care to.”244
“Neither did I, madam. The pond is free to all.”
I was conscious that a hush seemed to have gripped the whole camp, so that even the animals had ceased bawling. The children near us stared, eyes and mouths open.
“You have kept away from me purposely?” she asked. “I do not blame your discretion.”
“I am not courting trouble. And as long as you are contented yonder——”
“I contented?” She drew up, paling. “Why do you say that, when you must know.” She laughed weakly. “I am still for the Lion’s den.”
“You have become more reconciled—I’ve been requested not to interfere.”
“You? Without doubt. By Daniel, by Captain Adams, likely by others. More than requested, I fancy. And you do perfectly right to avoid trouble if possible. In fact, you can leave me now and continue your walk, sir, with no reproaches. Believe me, I shall not drag you farther into my affairs.”
“Daniel and Captain Adams have no weight with me, madam,” I stammered. “But when you yourself requested——”
“That was merely for the time being. I asked you to leave me at the fire because I felt sure that Daniel would kill you.”
“But yesterday evening—I refer to yesterday,” I corrected. “You sent me word, following my talk with Hyrum.”245
“I did not.”
“Not by Rachael?”
“No, sir.”
“I so understood. I thought that she intimated as much. She said that you were to be happy; were already content. And that I would only be making you trouble if I continued our acquaintance.”
“Oh! Rachael.” She smiled with sudden softness. “Rachael cannot understand, either. I’m sure she intended well, poor soul. Were they all like Rachael—— But I had no knowledge of her talk with you. Anyway, please leave me if you feel disposed. Whether I marry Daniel or not should be no concern of yours. I shall have to find my own trail out. Look! There go the ducks. I came down to watch them. Now neither of us has any excuse for staying. Good——”
The hush had tightened into a strange pent stillness like the poise of earth and sky and beast and bird just before the breaking of a great and lowering storm. The quick clatter of the ducks’ wings somehow alarmed me—the staring of the children, their eyes directed past us, sharpened my senses for a new focus. And glancing, I witnessed Daniel nearing—striding rapidly, straight for the point, a figure portentous in the fading glow, bringing the storm with him.
She saw, too. Her eyes widened, startled, surveying not him, but me.246
“Please go. At once! I’ll keep him.”
“It is too late now,” I asserted, in voice not mine. “I am here first and I’ll go when I get ready.”
“You mean to face him?”
“I mean to hear what he has to say, and learn what he intends to do. I don’t see any other way—unless you really wish me to go?”
“No, no!” cried My Lady. “I don’t want you to be harmed; but oh, how I have suffered.” All her countenance was suffused—with anger, with shame, and even with hope. She trembled, gazing at me, and fluctuant.
“So have I, madam,” said I, grimly.
“I think,” she remarked in quiet tone, “that in a show-down you will best him. I’m sure of it; yes, I know it. You will play the man. You act cool. Good! Watch him very close. He’ll give you little grace, this time. But remember this: I’ll never, never, never marry him. Rather than be bound to him I’ll deal with him myself.”
“It won’t be necessary, madam,” said I—a catch in my throat; for while I was all iciness and clamminess, my hands cold and my tongue dry, I felt that I was going to kill him at last. Something told me; the sheer horror of it struck through; the inevitable loomed grisly and near indeed.
A panoramic lifetime crowds the brain of a drowning man; that same crowded my brain during the few moments which swung in to us Daniel, scowling,247masterful, his raw bulk and his long shambling stride never before so insolent.
From New York and home and peace I traveled clear here to desert, outlawry and blood—and thence on through a second life as a marked man; but while I knew very well where I should shoot him (right through the heart), I turned over and over the one doubtful pass: where would he shoot me? Shoot me he would—chest, shoulder, arm, head; I could not escape, did not hope to escape. Yet no matter where his ball ploughed (and I poignantly felt it enter and sear me) my final bullet would end the match. Also, I argued my rights in the business; argued them before my father and mother, before the camp, before the world.
These thoughts which precede a certain duel to the death are not inspiring thoughts; since then I have learned that other men, even practiced gun-men, have had the same trepidation to the instant of pulling weapon.
Daniel charged in for us. I did not touch revolver butt; he did not. My Lady lifted chin, to receive him. My eyes, fastened upon him, noted her, and noted, beyond us, the spying visages of the camp folk, all turned our way, transfixed and agog.
He barked first at her.
“Go whar yu belong, yu Jezebel! Then I’ll tend to this——” The rabid epithet leveled at me I shall not repeat.248
She straightened whitely.
“Be careful what you say, Daniel. No man on this earth can speak to me like that.”
All his face flushed livid with a sneer, merging together yellow freckles and tanned skin.
“Can’t, can’t he? I kin an’ I do. Why yu—yu—yu reckon yu kin shame me ’fore that hull train? Yu sneak out this-away, meetin’ this spindle-shank, no-’count States greenie who hain’t sense enough to swing a bull whip an’ ain’t man enough to draw a gun? I’ve told yu an’ I’m done tellin’ yu. Now yu git. I’ve stood yore fast an’ loose plenty. I mean business. Git! Whar yu’ll be safe. I’ll not hold off much longer.”
“You threatenme?”
Her blue eyes were blazing above a spot of color in either cheek—with a growl he took a step, so that she shrank from his clutching hand, its scarred, burly fingers outcurved. And the time, perhaps the very moment had arrived. I must, I must.
“No more of that, you brute,” I uttered, while my pounding heart flooded me with a cold, tingling stream. “If you have anything to say, say it to me.”
He whirled.
“Yu! Why, yu leetle piece o’ nothin’—yu shut up!” By sudden reach he gripped her arm; to her sharp, short scream he thrust her about.
“Git! I’m boss hyar.” And at me: “What yu goin’ to do? She’s promised to me. I’m takin’ keer249of her; she’s rode on my wagon; an’ naow yu think to toll her off? Yu meet her ag’in right under my nose arter I’ve warned yu? Git, yoreself, or I’ll stomp on yu like on a louse.”
Absolutely, hot tears of mortification, of bitter injury, showed in his glaring eyes. He was but a big boy, after all.
“Our meeting here was entirely by accident,” I answered. “Mrs. Montoyo had no expectation of seeing me, nor I of seeing her. You’re making a fool of yourself.”
He burst, red, quivering, insensate.
“Yu’re a liar! Yu’re a sneakin’, thievin’ liar, like all Gentiles. Yu’re both o’ yu liars. What’s she?” And he spoke it, raving with insult. “But I’ll tame her. She’ll be snatched from yu an’ yore kind. We’ll settle naow. Yu’re a liar, I say. Yu gonna draw on me? Draw, yu Gentile dog; for if I lay hands on yu once——”
“Look out!” she gasped tensely. But she had spoken late. That cold blood which had kept me in a tremor and a wonderment, awaiting his pistol muzzle, exploded into a seethe of heat almost blinding me. I forgot instructions, I disregarded every movement preliminary to the onset, I remembered only the criminations and recriminations culminating here at last. Bullets were too slow and easy. I did not see his revolver, I saw but the hulk of him and the intolerable sneer of him, and that his flesh was ready to my fingers.250And quicker than his hand I was upon him, into him, climbing him, clinging to him, arms binding him, legs twining around his, each ounce of me greedy to crush him down and master him.
The shock drove him backward. Again My Lady screamed shortly; the children screamed. He proved very strong. Swelling and tugging and cursing he broke one grip, but I was fast to him, now with guard against his holstered gun. We swayed and staggered, grappling hither and thither. I had his arms pinioned once more, to bend him. He spat into my face; and shifting, set his teeth into my shoulder so that they champed like the teeth of a horse, through shirt and hide to the flesh. I raised him; his boots hammered at my shins, his knee struck me in the stomach and for an instant I sickened. Now I tripped him; we toppled together, came to the ground with a thump. Here we churned, while he flung me and still I stuck. The acrid dust of the alkali enveloped us. Again he spat, fetid—I sprawled upon him, smothering his flailing arms; gave him all my weight and strength; smelled the sweat of him, snarled into his snarling face, close beneath mine.
Once he partially freed himself and buffeted me in the mouth with his fist, but I caught him—while struggling, tossed and upheaved, dimly saw that as by a miracle we were surrounded by a ring of people, men and women, their countenances pale, alarmed, intent. Voices sounded in a dull roar.251
Presently I had him crucified: his one outstretched arm under my knees, his other arm tethered by my two hands, my body across his chest, while his legs threshed vainly. I looked down into his bulging crooked eyes, glaring back presumably into my eyes, and might draw breath.
“’Nuf? Cry ‘’Nuf,’” I bade.
“’Nuf! Say ‘’Nuf,’” echoed the crowd.
He strained again, convulsive; and relaxed.
“’Nuf!” he panted through bared teeth. “Lemme up, Mister.”
“This settles it?”
“I said ‘’Nuf,’” he growled.
With quick movement I sprang clear of him, to my feet. He lay for a moment, baleful, and slowly scrambled up. On a sudden, as he faced me, his hand shot downward—I heard the surge and shout of men and women, to the stunning report of his revolver ducked aside, felt my left arm jerk and sting—felt my own gun explode in my hand (and how it came there I did not know)—beheld him spin around and collapse; an astonishing sight.
252CHAPTER XVIITHE TRAIL FORKS
So there I stood, amidst silence, gaping foolishly, breathing hard, my revolver smoking in my fingers and my enemy in a shockingly prone posture at my feet, gradually reddening the white of the torn soil. He was upon his face, his revolver hand outflung. He was harmless. The moment had arrived and passed. I was standing here alive, I had killed him.
Then I heard myself babbling.
“Have I killed him? I didn’t want to. I tell you, I didn’t want to.”
Figures rushed in between. Hands grasped me, impelled me away, through a haze; voices spoke in my ear while I feebly resisted, a warm salty taste in my throat.
“I killed him. I didn’t want to kill him. He made me do it. He shot first.”
“Yes, yes,” they said, soothing gruffly. “Shore he did; shore you didn’t. It’s all right. Come along, come along.”
Then——
“Pick him up. He’s bad hurt, himself. See that blood? No, ’tain’t his arm, is it? He’s bleedin’ internal. Whar’s the hole? Wait! He’s busted something.”253
They would have carried me.
“No,” I cried, while their bearded faces swam. “He said ‘’Nuf’—he shot me afterward. Not bad, is it? I can walk.”
“Not bad. Creased you in the arm, if that’s all. What you spittin’ blood for?”
As they hustled me onward I wiped my swollen lips; the back of my hand seemed to be covered with thin blood.
“Where he struck me, once,” I wheezed.
“Yes, mebbe so. But come along, come along. We’ll tend to you.”
The world had grown curiously darkened, so that we moved as through an obscuring veil; and I dumbly wondered whether this was night (had it been morning or evening when I started for the pond?) or whether I was dying myself. I peered and again made out the sober, stern faces hedging me, but they gave me no answer to my mutely anxious query. Across a great distance we stumbled by the wagons (the same wagons of a time agone), and halted at a fire.
“Set down. Fetch a blanket, somebody. Whar’s the water? Set down till we look you over.”
I let them sit me down.
“Wash your mouth out.”
That was done, pinkish; and a second time, clearer.
“You’re all right.” Jenks apparently was ministering to me. “Swaller this.”254
The odor of whiskey fumed into my nostrils. I obediently swallowed, and gasped and choked. Jenks wiped my face with a sopping cloth. Hands were rummaging at my left arm; a bandage being wound about.
“Nothin’ much,” was the report. “Creased him, is all. Lucky he dodged. It was comin’ straight for his heart.”
“He’s all right,” Jenks again asserted.
Under the bidding of the liquor the faintness from the exertion and reaction was leaving me. The slight hemorrhage from the strain to my weak lungs had ceased. I would live, I would live. But he—Daniel?
“Did I kill him?” I besought. “Not that! I didn’t aim—I don’t know how I shot—but I had to. Didn’t I?”
“You did. He’ll not bother you ag’in. She’s yourn.”
That hurt.
“But it wasn’t about her, it wasn’t over Mrs. Montoyo. He bullied me—dared me. We were man to man, boys. He made me fight him.”
“Yes, shore,” they agreed—and they were not believing. They still linked me with a woman, whereas she had figured only as a transient occasion.
Then she herself, My Lady, appeared, running in breathless and appealing.
“Is Mr. Beeson hurt? Badly? Where is he? Let me help.”255
She knelt beside me, her hand grasped mine, she gazed wide-eyed and imploring.
“No, he’s all right, ma’am.”
“I’m all right, I assure you,” I mumbled thickly, and helpless as a babe to the clinging of her cold fingers.
“How’s the other man?” they abruptly asked.
“I don’t know. He was carried away. But I think he’s dead. I hope so—oh, I hope so. The coward, the beast!”
“There, there,” they quieted. “That’s all over with. What he got is his own business now. He hankered for it and was bound to have it. You’d best stay right hyar a spell. It’s the place for you at present.”
They grouped apart, on the edge of the flickering fire circle. The dusk had heightened apace (for nightfall this really was), the glow and flicker barely touched their blackly outlined forms, the murmur of their voices sounded ominous. In the circle we two sat, her hand upon mine, thrilling me comfortably yet abashing me. She surveyed me unwinkingly and grave—a triumph shining from her eyes albeit there were seamy shadows etched into her white face. It was as though she were welcoming me through the outposts of hell.
“You killed him. I knew you would—I knew you’d have to.”
“I knew it, too,” I miserably faltered. “But I256didn’t want to—I shot without thinking. I might have waited.”
“Waited! How could you wait? ’Twas either you or he.”
“Then I wish it had been I,” I attempted.
“What nonsense,” she flashed. “We all know you did your best to avoid it. But tell me: Do you think I dragged you into it? Do you hate me for it?”
“No. It happened when you were there. That’s all. I’m sorry; only sorry. What’s to be done next?”
“That will be decided, of course,” she said. “You will be protected, if necessary. You acted in self-defense. They all will swear to that and back you up.”
“But you?” I asked, arousing from this unmanly despair which played me for a weakling. “You must be protected also. You can’t go to that other camp, can you?”
She laughed and withdrew her hand; laughed hardly, even scornfully.
“I? Above all things, don’t concern yourself about me, please. I shall take care of myself. He is out of the way. You have freed me of that much, Mr. Beeson, whether intentionally or not. And you shall be free, yourself, to act as your friends advise. You must leave me out of your plans altogether. Yes, I know; you killed him. Why not? But he257wasn’t a man; he was a wild animal. And you’ll find there are matters more serious than killing even a man, in this country.”
“You! You!” I insisted. “You shall be looked out for. We are partners in this. He used your name; he made that an excuse. We shall have to make some new arrangements for you—put you on the stage as soon as we can. And meanwhile——”
“There is no partnership, and I shall require no looking after, sir,” she interrupted. “If you are sorry that you killed him, I am not; but you are entirely free.”
The group at the edge of the fire circle dissolved. Jenks came and seated himself upon his hams, beside us.
“Wall, how you feelin’ now?” he questioned of me.
“I’m myself again,” said I.
“Your arm won’t trouble you. Jest a flesh wound. There’s nothin’ better than axle grease. And you, ma’am?”
“Perfectly well, thank you.”
“You’re the coolest of the lot, and no mistake,” he praised admiringly. “Wall, there’ll be no more fracas to-night. Anyhow, the boys’ll be on guard ag’in it; they’re out now. You two can eat and rest a bit, whilst gettin’ good and ready; and if you set out ’fore moon-up you can easy get cl’ar, with what help we258give you. We’ll furnish mounts, grub, anything you need. I’ll make shift without Frank.”
“Mounts!” I blurted, with a start that waked my arm to throbbing. “‘Set out,’ you say? Why? And where?”
“Anywhar. The stage road south’ard is your best bet. You didn’t think to stay, did you? Not after that—after you’d plugged a Mormon, the son of the old man, besides! We reckoned you two had it arranged, by this time.”
“No! Never!” I protested. “You’re crazy, man. I’ve never dreamed of any such thing; nor Mrs. Montoyo, either. You mean that I—we—should run away? I’ll not leave the train and neither shall she, until the proper time. Or do I understand that you disown us; turn your backs upon us; deliver us over?”
“Hold on,” Jenks bade. “You’re barkin’ up the wrong tree. ’Tain’t a question of disownin’ you. Hell, we’d fight for you and proud to do it, for you’re white. But I tell you, you’ve killed one o’ that party ahead, you’ve killed the wagon boss’s son; and Hyrum, he’s consider’ble of a man himself. He stands well up, in the church. But lettin’ that alone, he’s captain of this train, he’s got a dozen and more men back of him; and when he comes in the mornin’ demandin’ of you for trial by his Mormons, what can we do? Might fight him off; yes. Not forever, though. He’s nearest to the water, sech as it is, and259our casks are half empty, critters dry. We sha’n’t surrender you; if we break with him we break ourselves and likely lose our scalps into the bargain. Why, we hadn’t any idee but that you and her were all primed to light out, with our help. For if you stay you won’t be safe anywhere betwixt here and Salt Lake; and over in Utah they’ll vigilant you, shore as kingdom. As for you, ma’am,” he bluntly addressed, “we’d protect you to the best of ability, o’ course; but you can see for yourself that Hyrum won’t feel none too kindly toward you, and that if you’ll pull out along with Beeson as soon as convenient you’ll avoid a heap of unpleasantness. We’ll take the chance on sneakin’ you both away, and facin’ the old man.”
“Mr. Beeson should go,” she said. “But I shall return to the Adams camp. I am not afraid, sir.”
“Tut, tut!” he rapped. “I know you’re not afraid; nevertheless we won’t let you do it.”
“They wouldn’t lay hands on me.”
“Um-m,” he mused. “Mebbe not. No, reckon they wouldn’t. I’ll say that much. But by thunder they’d make you wish they did. They’d claim you trapped Dan’l. You’d suffer for that, and in place of this boy, and a-plenty. Better foller your new man, lady, and let him stow you in safety. Better go back to Benton.”
“Never to Benton,” she declared. “And he’s not260my ’new man.’ I apologize to him for that, from you, sir.”
“If you stay, I stay, then,” said I. “But I think we’d best go. It’s the only way.” And it was. We were twain in menace to the outfit and to each other but inseparable. We were yoked. The fact appalled. It gripped me coldly. I seemed to have bargained for her with word and fist and bullet, and won her; now I should appear to carry her off as my booty: a wife and a gambler’s wife. Yet such must be.
“You shall go without me.”
“I shall not.”
With a little sob she buried her face in her hands.
“If you don’t hate me now you soon will,” she uttered. “The cards don’t fall right—they don’t, they don’t. They’ve been against me from the first. I’m always forcing the play.”
Whereupon I knew that go together we should, or I was no man.
“Pshaw, pshaw,” Jenks soothed. “Matters ain’t so bad. We’ll fix ye out and cover your trail. Moon’ll be up in a couple o’ hours. I’d advise you to take an hour’s start of it, so as to get away easier. If you travel straight south’ard you’ll strike the stage road sometime in the mornin’. When you reach a station you’ll have ch’ice either way.”
“I have money,” she said; and sat erect.
261CHAPTER XVIIIVOICES IN THE VOID
The directions had been plain. With the North Star and the moon as our guides we scarcely could fail to strike the stage road where it bore off from the mountains northward into the desert.
For the first half mile we rode without a word from either of us to violate the truce that swathed us like the night. What her thoughts were I might not know, but they sat heavy upon her, closing her throat with the torture of vain self-reproach. That much I sensed. But I could not reassure her; could not volunteer to her that I welcomed her company, that she was blameless, that I had only defended my honor, that affairs would have reduced to pistol work without impulse from her—that, in short, the responsibility had been wholly Daniel’s. My own thoughts were so grievous as to crush me with aching woe that forebade civil utterance.
This, then, was I: somebody who had just killed a man, had broken from the open trail and was riding, he knew not where, through darkness worse than night, himself an outlaw with an outlawed woman—at the best a chance woman, an adventuring woman,262and as everybody could know, a claimed woman, product of dance hall and gaming resort, wife of a half-breed gambler, and now spoil of fist and revolver.
But that which burned me almost to madness, like hot lava underneath the deadening crust, was the thought that I had done a deed and a defensible deed, and was fleeing from it the same as a criminal. Such a contingency never had occurred to me or I might have taken a different course, still with decency; although what course I could not figure.
We rode, our mules picking their way, occasionally stumbling on rocks and shrubs. At last she spoke in low, even tones.
“What do you expect to do with me, please?”
“We shall have to do whatever is best for yourself,” I managed to answer. “That will be determined when we reach the stage line, I suppose.”
“Thank you. Once at the stage line and I shall contrive. You must have no thought of me. I understand very well that we should not travel far in company—and you may not wish to go in my direction. You have plans of your own?”
“None of any great moment. Everything has failed me, to date. There is only the one place left: New York State, where I came from. I probably can work my way back—at least, until I can recoup by telegraph message and the mails.”
“You have one more place than I,” she replied.263She hesitated. “Will you let me lend you some money?”
“I’ve been paid my wages due,” said I. “But,” I added, “you have a place, you have a home: Benton.”
“Oh, Benton!” She laughed under breath. “Never Benton. I shall make shift without Benton.”
“You will tell me, though?” I urged. “I must have your address, to know that you reach safety.”
“You are strictly business. I believe that I accused you before of being a Yankee.” And I read sarcasm in her words.
Her voice had a quality of definite estimation which nettled, humbled, and isolated me, as if I lacked in some essential to a standard set.
“So you are going home, are you?” she resumed. “With the clothes on your back, or will you stop at Benton for your trunk?”
“With the clothes on my back,” I asserted bitterly. “I’ve no desire to see Benton. The trunk can be shipped to me.”
She said on, in her cool impersonal tone.
“That is the easiest way. You will live warm and comfortably. You will need to wear no belt weapon. The police will protect you. If a man injures you, you can summon him at law and wash your hands of him. Instead of staking on your luck among new people, you can enter into business among your friends and win from them. You can marry the girl264next door—or even take the chance of the one across the street, her parentage being comme il faut. You can tell stories of your trip into the Far West; your children will love to hear of the rough mule-whacker trail—yes, you will have great tales but you will not mention that you killed a man who tried to kill you and then rode for a night with a strange woman alone at your stirrup. Perhaps you will venture to revisit these parts by steam train, and from the windows of your coach point out the places where you suffered those hardships and adventures from which you escaped by leaving them altogether. Your course is the safe course. By all means take it, Mr. Beeson, and have your trunk follow you.”
“That I shall do, madam,” I retorted. “The West and I have not agreed; and, I fear, never shall.”
“By honest confession, it has bested you; and in short order.”
“In short order, since you put it that way. Only a fool doesn’t know when to quit.”
“The greatest fool is the one who fools himself, in the quitting as in other matters. But you will have no regrets—except about Daniel, possibly.”
“None whatever, save the regret that I ever tried this country. I wish to God I had never seen it—I did not conceive that I should have to take a human life—should be forced to that—become like an outlaw in the night, riding for refuge——” And I choked passionately.265
“You deserve much sympathy,” she remarked, in that even tone.
I lapsed into a turbulence of voiceless rage at myself, at her, at Daniel’s treachery, at all the train, at Benton, and again at this damning predicament wherein I had landed. When I was bound to wrest free after having done my utmost, she appeared to be twitting me because I would not submit to farther use by her. I certainly had the right to extricate myself in the only way left.
So I conned over and over, and my heart gnawed, and the acid of vexation boiled in my throat, and despite the axle grease my arm nagged; while we rode unspeaking, like some guilty pair through purgatory.
My lip had subsided; the pistol wound was superficial. Under different circumstances the way would have been full of beauty. The high desert stretched vastly, far, far, far before, behind, on either side, the parched gauntness of its daytime aspect assuaged and evanescent. For the moon, now risen, although on the wane, shed a light sufficient, whitening the rocks and the scattered low shrubs, painting the land with sharp black shadows, and enclosing us about with the mystery of great softly illumined spaces into which silent forms vanished as if tempting us aside. Of these—rabbits, wolves, animals only to be guessed—there were many, like potential phantoms quickened by the touch of the moonbeams. Mule-back, we twain towered, the sole intruders visible between266the two elysians of glorified earth and beatific sky.
The course was southward. After a time it seemed to me that we were descending from the plateau; craunching gradually down a flank until, in a mile or so, we were again upon the level, cutting through another basin formed by the dried bed of an ancient lake whose waters had evaporated into deposits of salt and soda.
At first the mules had plodded with ears pricked forward, and with sundry snorts and stares as if they were seeing portents in the moonshine. Eventually their imaginings dulled, so that they now moved careless of where or why, their heads drooped, their minds devoted to achieving what rest they might in the merely mechanical setting of hoof before hoof.
I could not but be aware of my companion. Her hair glinted paly, for she rode bareheaded; her gown, tightened under her as she sat astride, revealed the lines of her boyish limbs. She was a woman, in any guise; and I being a man, protect her I should, as far as necessary. I found myself wishing that we could upturn something pleasant to talk about; it was ungracious, even wicked, to ride thus side by side through peace and beauty, with lips closed and war in the heart, and final parting as the main desire.
But her firm pose and face steadily to the fore invited with no sign; and after covertly stealing a glance or two at her clear unresponsive profile I still267could manage no theme that would loosen my tongue. Thereby let her think me a dolt. Thank Heaven, after another twenty-four hours at most it might not matter what she thought.
The drooning round of my own thoughts revolved over and over, and the scuffing gait of the mules upon way interminable began to numb me. Lassitude seemed to be enfolding us both; I observed that she rode laxly, with hand upon the horn and a weary yielding to motion. Words might have stirred us, but no words came. Presently I caught myself dozing in the saddle, aroused only by the twitching of my wounded arm. Then again I dozed, and kept dozing, fairly dead for sleep, until speak she did, her voice drifting as from afar but fetching me awake and blinking.
“Hadn’t we better stop?” she repeated.
That was a curious sensation. When I stared about, uncomprehending, my view was shut off by a whiteness veiling the moon above and the earth below except immediately underneath my mule’s hoofs. She herself was a specter; the weeds that we brushed were spectral; every sound that we made was muffled, and in the intangible, opaquely lucent shroud which had enveloped us like the spirit of a sea there was no life nor movement.
“What’s the matter?” I propounded.
“The fog. I don’t know where we are.”
“Oh! I hadn’t noticed.”268
“No,” she said calmly. “You’ve been asleep.”
“Haven’t you?”
“Not lately. But I don’t think there’s any use in riding on. We’ve lost our bearings.”
She was ahead; evidently had taken the lead while I slept. That realization straightened me, shamed, in my saddle. The fog, fleecy, not so wet as impenetrable—when had it engulfed us?
“How long have we been in it?” I asked, thoroughly vexed.
“An hour, maybe. We rode right into it. I thought we might leave it, but we don’t. It’s as thick as ever. We ought to stop.”
“I suppose we ought,” said I.
And at the moment we entered into a sudden clearing amidst the fog enclosure: a tract of a quarter of an acre, like a hollow center, with the white walls held apart and the stars and moon faintly glimmering down through the mist roof overhead.
She drew rein and half turned in the saddle. I could see her face. It was dank and wan and heavy-eyed; her hair, somewhat robbed of its sheen, crowned with a pallid golden aureole.
“Will this do? If we go on we’ll only be riding into the fog again.”
I was conscious of the thin, apparently distant piping of frogs.
“There seems to be a marsh beyond,” she uttered.269
“Yes, we’d better stop where we are,” I agreed. “Then in the morning we can take stock.”
“In the morning, surely. We may not be far astray.” She swung off before I had awkwardly dismounted to help her. Her limbs failed—my own were clamped by stiffness—and she staggered and collapsed with a little laugh.
“I’m tired,” she confessed. “Wait just a moment.”
“You stay where you are,” I ordered, staggering also as I hastily landed. “I’ll make camp.”
But she would have none of that; pleaded my one-handedness and insisted upon coöperating at the mules. We seemed to be marooned upon a small rise of gravel and coarsely matted dried grasses. The animals were staked out, fell to nibbling. I sought a spot for our beds; laid down a buffalo robe for her and placed her saddle as her pillow. She sank with a sigh, tucking her skirt under her, and I folded the robe over.
Her face gazed up at me; she extended her hand.
“You are very kind, sir,” she said, in a smile that pathetically curved her lips. There, at my knees, she looked so worn, so slight, so childish, so in need of encouragement that all was well and that she had a friend to serve her, that with a rush of sudden sympathy I would—indeed I could have kissed her, upon the forehead if not upon the lips themselves. It was an impulse well-nigh overmastering; an impulse that270must have dazed me so that she saw or felt, for a tinge of pink swept into her skin; she withdrew her hand and settled composedly.
“Good-night. Please sleep. In the morning we’ll reach the stage road and your troubles will be near the end.”
Under my own robe I lay for a long time reviewing past and present and discussing with myself the future. Strangely enough the present occupied me the most; it incorporated with that future beyond the fog, and when I put her out back she came as if she were part and parcel of my life. There was a sense of balance; we had been associates, fellow tenants—in fact, she was entwined with the warp and woof of all my memories dating far back to my entrance, fresh and hopeful, into the new West. It rather flabbergasted me to find myself thinking that the future was going to be very tame; perhaps, as she had suggested, regretful. I had not apprehended that the end should be so drastic.
And whether the regrets would center upon my slinking home defeated, or in having definitely cast her away, puzzled me as sorely as it did to discover that I was well content to be here, with her, in our little clearing amidst the desert fog, listening to her soft breathing and debating over what she might have done had I actually kissed her to comfort her and assure her that I was not unmindful of her really brave spirit.271
Daniel had been disposed of, Montoyo did not deserve her; I had won her, she could inspire and guide me if I stayed; and I saw myself staying, and I saw myself going home, and I already regretted a host of things, as a man will when at the forking of the trails.
The fog gently closed in during the night. When I awakened we were again enshrouded by the fleece of it, denser than when we had ridden through it, but now whiter with the dawn. As I gazed sleepily about I could just make out the forms of the two mules, standing motionless and huddled; I could see her more clearly, at shorter distance—her buffalo robe moist with the semblance of dew that had beaded also upon her massy hair.
Evidently she had not stirred all night; might be still asleep. No; her eyes were open, and when I stiffly shifted posture she looked across at me.
“Sh!” she warned, with quick shake of head. The same warning bade me listen. In a moment I heard voices.