Kitabı oku: «The Golden Woman: A Story of the Montana Hills», sayfa 13
She felt his hot breath on her cheeks, she closed her eyes to shut out the sight of his grinning face. He released his hold with one hand and flung his arm about her waist. She fought with might and main, shrieking with all the power of her lungs. She suddenly felt the impress of his hot lips on her cheek, not once, but a dozen times. Then of a sudden he released her with a bitter oath, as the shrieking voice of Mrs. Ransford sounded close by, and the thwack of a heavy broom fell upon his head and shoulders.
“I’ll teach you, you miser’ble hoboe!” cried the old woman’s strident voice as her powerful arms swung her lusty broom aloft. “I’ll teach you, you scallawag!” Thwack fell the broom, and, releasing Joan, the man sought to protect his head with his arms. “I’ll give you a dose you won’t fergit, you scum o’ creation!” Thwack went the broom again. “Wait till the folks hear tell o’ this, you miser’ble, miser’ble cur!” Again the broom fell, and the man turned to flee. “You’d run, would you? Git a fork, Miss Joan!” With a surprising rush the fat creature lunged another smash at the man’s head with her favorite weapon.
The blow fell short, for Ike had made good his retreat. And curiously enough he made no attempt to disarm her, or otherwise stand his ground once he was beyond the range of her blows. Perhaps he realized the immensity of his outrage, perhaps he foresaw what might be the result to himself when the story of his assault reached the camp. Perhaps it was simply that he had a wholesome terror of this undoubted virago. Anyway, he bolted for his horse and vaulted into the saddle, galloping away as though pursued by something far more hurtful than a fat farm-wife’s avalanche of vituperation.
“Mussy on us!” cried the old woman, flinging her broom to the ground as the man passed out of sight. “Mussy me, wot’s he done to you, my pretty?” she cried, rushing to the girl’s side and catching her to her great bosom. “There, there, don’t ’e cry, don’t ’e to cry for a scallawag like that,” she said, as the girl buried her face on her shoulder and sobbed as though her heart would break. “There, there,” she went on, patting the girl’s shoulder, “don’t ’e demean yerself weppin’ over a miser’ble skunk like that. Kiss yer, did he? Kiss yer! Him! Wal, he won’t kiss nobody no more when the folks is put wise. An’ I’ll see they gets it all. You, a ’Merican gal, kissed by a hog like that. Here, wipe yer cheeks wi’ this overall; guess they’ll sure fester if you don’t. Ther’, that’s better,” she went on as Joan, choking back her sobs, presently released herself from her bear-like embrace.
“It’s my own fault,” the girl said tearfully. “I ought never to have spoken to him at all. I – ”
But Mrs. Ransford gave her no chance to finish what she had to say.
“Wot did I tell you?” she cried, with a power of self-righteousness. “Wot did I tell you? You ain’t got no right to git a hob-a-nobbin’ with sech scum. They’re all scallawags, every one of ’em. Men! – say, these yer hills is the muck-hole o’ creation, an’ the men is the muck. I orter know. Didn’t I marry George D. Ransford, an’ didn’t I raise twins by him, as you might say, an’ didn’t I learn thereby, an’ therewith, as the sayin’ is, that wi’ muck around there’s jest one way o’ cleanin’ it up an’ that’s with a broom! Come right into the house, pretty. You’re needin’ hot milk to soothe your nerves, my pore, pore! Come right in. Guess I’m a match fer any male muck around these hills. Mussy on us, what’s that!”
Both women started and stood staring with anxious, terrified eyes down the trail which led to the camp. Two shots had been fired almost simultaneously, and now, as they waited in horrified silence, two more shots rang out, echoing against the hills in the still air with ominous threat. After that all was quiet again.
Presently the strained look in the farm-wife’s face relaxed, and she turned to her charge.
“That’s him,” she cried, with a swift return to her angry, contemptuous manner. “It’s him showin’ off – like all them scallawags. Come right in, missie,” she added, holding out her hands to lead the girl home.
But her kindly intention received an unexpected shock. Joan brushed her roughly aside, and her look was almost of one suddenly demented.
“No, no,” she cried in a voice of hysterical passion. “You don’t understand. You can’t understand. Those shots – oh! It is my fate – my curse. I must go!”
And she fled down the trail in the direction whence the sound had proceeded – fled, leaving Mrs. Ransford staring stupidly after her, a prey to utter bewilderment.
CHAPTER XXI
THE MEETING ON THE TRAIL
The quiet was profound. All the world seemed so still. There was no sign of life, yet the warm air was thrilling with the unseen life of an insect world. The heat haze rose from the soft, deep surface sand of the trail, and the grass-lined edges looked parched beneath the glare of the summer sun. There was no breath from the mountains down here, where the forest trees crowded in on either side, forming a great screen against the cooling breezes, and holding the heat like the sides of an oven.
A startled bird fluttered amongst the branches of a tree with that restless movement which so surely indicates the alarm of some subtle sense which no other creature possesses in so keen a degree. An answering rustle came from near by. And in a moment this was followed by a bustling rush among the leaves as two winged mates fled farther into the forest. Yet the sudden flight seemed quite unnecessary.
Again the stillness was broken. This time it was by the harsh voice of a black carrion. This too was followed by movement, only the movement had no haste or suggestion of fear. It was simply the heavy flapping of slow-moving wings. Two enormous crows launched themselves upon the air from the topmost branches of a distant tree, and perched on the crest of another at the trail-side.
They sat there in solemn, unmoving silence, but with eyes alert and watchful, and who might tell the thought passing through their unwholesome minds!
But now a further sound broke the stillness – a sound which perhaps accounted for the movements of the birds. A soft patter grew out of the distance like the pad of muffled feet. But it was faint and seemingly far off. The sharp eyes of the feathered watchers were scanning the horizon from their lofty perches. The sound grew. And as it grew the waiting carrion turned to view both distances of the trail. It was evident that the growing sound had a double source.
The padding feet became more distinct. Yes, the sounds were sharper. The softness had gone, developing into the rhythmic beat of hard hoofs speeding from either direction. Two horses were galloping down the trail at a rapid pace, and quickly it became evident that their meeting must occur somewhere almost directly beneath the watchful eyes of the waiting birds.
Nearer and nearer came the hoof-beats. The birds were plucking at their feathers with an unconcern all too apparent. They ruffled their wings and preened their plumage, a sure indication of satisfaction. One of the galloping horses slackened its gait. Perhaps its rider had heard the approach of that other, and, with the curious instinctive suspicion of the western trail, prepared to pass him under the best conditions for defensiveness. Perhaps it was simply the natural action of a horseman on the trail.
But the horse from the other direction had slackened speed too. His rider, too, had reduced his gait to a walk.
The birds overhead ceased their preening and looked below for the possible development they seem to be ever awaiting. It makes no difference, they follow the trail of all animal life, waiting, waiting, with a patience inexhaustible, for the moment of stillness which tells them that life has passed and the banquet awaits them.
One of the horsemen came into full view from the height above. The second horseman appeared round a bend. Both men were mounted on the lean, hard-muscled horses of prairie breeding. They were spare of flesh and uncared for, but their muscles were hard and their legs clean. Between them a bend in the trail still intervened, but with each moment they were drawing nearer to each other.
Right under the tree upon which the crows were perched Pete drew rein and sat listening to the shuffling gait of the oncoming horse. The man’s lean face was dark with a brooding hatred. His eyes were fiercely alight with expectancy. A revolver lay across his thigh, the butt of it firmly grasped in a hand clutching it with desperate purpose.
The trail was the trail to the farm. Ike had gone to the farm. A horseman was returning along that trail from the direction of the farm. Such was the argument behind his aggressive action. It was a simple argument which in his sober senses might have needed support to urge him to the course he now contemplated. But he was not sober; Beasley had seen to that. He was no more sober than was Ike.
Ike’s horse was moving slowly – much slower than its usual walking gait The man was craning forward. Who, he wondered, was riding toward the farm, and for what purpose? His right hand was on the butt of his revolver, but his weapon was still in its holster, for his action was purely precautionary in a country where, when a man has enemies, or has done those things which he knows his fellows resent, it is advisable to look for no support outside his own ability to defend himself.
He remembered the screams of Joan, and he knew how the hills echoed. He wondered, and wondering he regretted something of what he had done. But he regretted it only for possible consequences to himself. In reality he reveled in the warm memory of the feel of the girl’s soft cheek.
His horse reached the bend. He could no longer hear the hoof-beats of the other. He drew up with a sudden, nervous movement, and his gun left its holster. But his nerves passed, and, with a foul oath, he urged his horse forward. He rounded the bend and came face to face with the figure of Blue Grass Pete.
“Wher’ you bin?” demanded the latter in a manner that was a deliberate insult.
Ike did the only thing his wit could prompt. He laughed. It was a harsh, mirthless laugh, which was equally an insult.
“Quit it!” roared Pete in a blind fury. “Wher’ you bin, I say?”
Ike abandoned his laugh, but his face was furiously grinning.
“Bin?” he echoed. “I bin wher’ you needn’t to go – wher’ it ain’t no use your goin’,” he cried, his love of boast prompting him. “I bin to fix things up. She’s goin’ to mar – ”
A shot rang out. Ike’s face blanched, but like lightning his pistol bit out its retort. Pete reeled and recovered himself, and again he fired. Ike leant forward as though seeking support from the horn of his saddle. Pete had fallen forward on to his horse’s neck. Ike raised his gun and fired again, but there had really been no need for the shot. Even as his gun spoke the other man fell to the ground and rolled over. His dark face was turned upward, so that the waiting crows had a full view of it.
After that Ike remained quite still. His pale face, turning to a greenish hue in contrast to his ginger hair, was staring down at the result of his handiwork. But his eyes were almost unseeing. He was faint and weary, and in great pain.
The moments passed. At last he stirred. But his movement was merely to clutch with feeble fingers at the mane of his horse. Vainly his left hand clawed amongst the lank hair, while the fingers of his right released their grip upon his pistol and let it clatter to the ground.
He crouched there breathing heavily, while a harsh croak from above split the air. Again he moved as though the sound had awakened him. He strove to sit up, to lift the reins, and to urge his horse forward. The beast moved in response to his effort. But the movement was all that was needed. The man reeled, lost his balance, and fell heavily to the ground. He too had rolled on to his back – he too was gazing up with unseeing eyes at the dark-hued carrion whose patience was inexhaustible.
For a moment all was still. Then the horses moved as by common consent. They drew near to each other, and their noses met in that inquiring equine fashion which suggests friendly overtures. They stood thus for a while. Then both moved to the side of the trail and began to graze upon the parching grass after the unconcerned manner of their kind.
The heavy flapping of wings told of a fresh movement in the trees above. Two great black bodies swung out upon the air. They circled round as though assuring themselves that all was as they could wish it. Then they settled again. But this time it was on the boughs of a low bush less than six feet above the staring faces of their intended victims.
CHAPTER XXII
A MAN’S SUPPORT
Buck looked up as two crows flew low over his head and passed on their way, croaking out their alarm and dissatisfaction. Mechanically his eyes followed their movements. For he was well versed in the sights, and sounds, and habits of his world.
Presently he turned again to the trail, and the expression of his eyes had changed to one of speculation. Cæsar was traveling eagerly. He had not yet forgotten that farther on along that trail lay the old barn which had been his home from his earliest recollections.
Buck had had no intention of making this visit to the farm when he left Beasley’s saloon. He had not had the remotest intention of carrying out the man’s broadly-given hint. A hint from Beasley was always unwelcome to him, and generally roused an obstinate desire to take an opposite course. Nor was it until he reached the ford of the creek that the significance of the man’s tone penetrated his dislike of him. Quite abruptly he made up his mind to keep straight on. Curiosity, added to a slight feeling of uneasiness, urged him, and, leaving the ford behind him, he kept on down the trail.
His decision once taken, he felt easier as he rode on. Besides, he admitted to himself now, he was rather thankful to the saloon-keeper for providing him with something in the nature of an excuse for such a visit. He was different from those others, who, in perfect confidence and ignorance, required not the least encouragement to persecute Joan with their attentions. He found it more than difficult to realize that his visits were anything but irksome to the new owner of the farm now that she had settled down with the adequate support of her “hired” man.
Joan’s graciousness to him was the one great delight of his every waking hour. But he dreaded the moment when her manner might become the mere tolerance she displayed toward Ike and Pete, and any of the others who chose to make her farm a halting-place. So his visits had become rarer; far rarer than made for his own peace of mind, for Joan was always in his thoughts.
Tramping the long trail of the mountains her smiling eyes were always somewhere ahead of him, encouraging him, and shedding a radiance of hope and delight upon the dullest moments of his routine. Never for one moment was the delightful picture of her presence absent from his thoughts. And to him there was nothing in the whole wide world so fair, and sweet, and worthy of the worship he so willingly cast at her feet.
His life had always been full in his wilderness of Nature’s splendor. In his moments of leisure he had been more than happily content in the pleasant friendship of the man who had sheltered him from childhood. But now – now as he looked back over all those years, the associations seemed dull and empty – empty of all that made life worth living. Not only had he come to realize the woman’s place in a man’s life. It was the old story of the fruit of knowledge. Woman had always been a sealed book to him. Now, at last, the cover had been turned and the pages lay before him for the reading. He yearned for Joan with all the strength and passionate ardor of his strong young heart. Nor, even in his yearning, had he full understanding of the real depths of his feelings.
How could he study or analyze them? His love had no thought of the world in it. It had no thought of anything that could bring it down to the level of concrete sensation. He could not have told one feeling that was his. With Joan at his side he moved in a mental paradise which no language could depict. With Joan at his side he lived with every nerve pulsating, attuned to a perfect consciousness of joy. With Joan at his side there was nothing but light and radiance which filled every sense with a happiness than which he could conceive no greater. Alone, this great wide world about him was verily a wilderness.
The man’s feelings quickly mastered his momentary uneasiness as his horse bore him on toward his goal. The forest path over which he was traveling had lost its hue of gloom which the shadowed pine woods ever convey. There was light everywhere, that light which comes straight from the heart and is capable of lending radiance even to the grave-side itself.
The trail lay straight ahead of him for some distance. Then it swerved in a big sweep away to the left. He knew this bend. The farm lay something less than half a mile beyond it. As they neared it Cæsar pricked his ears and whinnied. Buck leant forward and patted his neck out of the very joy of anticipation. It almost seemed to him as if the creature knew who was waiting at the end of the journey and was rejoicing with him. For once he had misunderstood the mood of his horse.
He realized this in a moment. The eager creature began to move with a less swinging stride, and his gait quickly became something in the nature of a “prop.” They were round the bend, and the horse whinnied again. This time it raised its head and snorted nervously. And instantly Buck was alive to the creature’s anxiety. He understood the quick glancing from side to side, and the halting of that changing step which is always a sign of fear.
Ahead the trail completed the letter S it had begun. They were nearing the final curve to the right. Buck searched the distance for the cause of Cæsar’s apprehension. And all unconsciously his mind went back to the winging of the crows overhead and the sound of their harsh voices. He spurred the creature sharply, and steadied him down.
They reached the final bend and passed round it, and in a moment Buck had an answer to the questions in his mind. It was a terrible spectacle that greeted his eyes as he reined his horse in and brought him to an abrupt halt. He had reached the battle-ground where death had claimed its toll of human passion. There, swiftly, almost silently, two men had fought out their rivalry for a woman’s favor – a favor given to neither.
It needed little enough imagination to read the facts. All the ingredients of the swift-moving drama were there before his eyes – the combatants stretched out in the sand of the trail, with staring eyes and dropping jaws, gazing up at the brilliant vault of the heavens, whither, may be, their savage spirits had fled; the woman crouching down at the roadside with face buried upon outstretched arms, her slight body heaving with hysterical sobs; the horses, horses he knew well enough by sight, lost to the tragedy amidst the more succulent roots of the parching grass beneath the shadow of overhanging trees.
One glance at the combatants told Buck all he wanted to know. They were dead. He had been too long upon the western trail to doubt the signs he beheld. His duty and inclination were with the living. In a moment he was out of the saddle and at Joan’s side, raising her from her position of grief and misery in arms as gentle as they were strong.
He had no real understanding of the necessities of the moment. All he knew, all he desired, was to afford the girl that help and protection he felt she needed. His first thought was to keep her from a further sight of what had occurred. So he held her in his arms, limp and yielding, for one uncertain moment. Then, for the second time in his life, he bore her off toward her home.
But now his feelings were of a totally different nature. There was neither ecstasy nor dreaming. He was anxious and beset. As he bore her along he spoke to her, encouraging her with gentle words of sympathy and hope. But her fainting condition left him no reward, and her half-closed eyes, filled with unshed tears, remained dull and unresponsive.
No sound broke the stillness in the parlor at the farm. Buck was leaning against the small centre-table gravely watching the bowed head of the silently-weeping girl, who was seated upon the rough settle which lined the wall. Her slight figure was supported by the pillows which had been set in place by the ministering hands of Mrs. Ransford.
Buck’s reception by the farm-wife had been very different on this occasion. She had met him with his burden some distance down the trail, whither she had followed her young mistress, whose fleetness had left her far behind. Her tongue had started to clack at once, but Buck was in no mood to put up with unnecessary chatter. A peremptory order had had the astonishing effect of silencing her, and a further command had set her bustling to help her mistress.
Once immediate needs had been attended to, the man told his story briefly, and added his interpretation of the scene he had just witnessed. He further dispatched the old woman to summon the hired man from his ploughing, and, for once, found ready obedience where he might well have expected nothing but objection.
Thus it was the man and girl were alone in the parlor. Buck was waiting for Joan’s storm of tears to pass.
The moment came at last, and quite abruptly. Joan stirred; she flung her head up and dashed the weak tears from her eyes, struggling bravely for composure. But the moment she spoke her words belied the resolution, and showed her still in the toils of an overwhelming despair.
“What can I do?” she cried piteously. “What am I to do? I can see nothing – nothing but disaster in every direction. It is all a part of my life; a part of me. I cannot escape it. I have tried to, but – I cannot. Oh, I feel so helpless – so helpless!”
Buck’s eyes shone with love and pity. He was stirred to the depths of his manhood by her appeal. Here again was that shadow she had spoken of before, that he had become familiar with. He tried to tell himself that she was simply unnerved, but he knew her trouble was more than that. All his love drove him to a longing for a means of comforting her.
“Forget the things you seen,” he said in a low tone. And he felt that his words were bald – even stupid.
The girl’s troubled eyes were looking up into his in a desperate hope. It was almost as if this man were her only support, and she were making one final appeal before abandoning altogether her saving hold.
“Forget them? Oh, Buck, Buck, you don’t know what you are saying. You don’t understand – you can’t, or you would not speak like that. You see,” she went on, forgetting in her trouble that this man did not know her story, “Ike was here. Here! He made – love to me. He – he kissed me. He brutally kissed me when I had no power to resist him. And now – now this has happened.”
But the man before her had suddenly changed while she was speaking. The softness had left his eyes. They had suddenly become hot, and bloodshot, and hard. His breath came quickly, heavily, his thin nostrils dilating with the furious emotion that swept through his body. Ike had kissed her. He had forgotten all her sufferings in his own sudden, jealous fury.
Joan waited. The change in the man had passed unobserved by her. Then, as no answer was forthcoming, she went on —
“Wherever I go it is the same. Death and disaster. Oh, it is awful! Sometimes I think I shall go mad. Is there no corner of the earth where I can hide myself from the shadow of this haunting curse?”
“Ike kissed you?”
Buck’s voice grated harshly. Somehow her appeal had passed him by. All his better thoughts and feelings were overshadowed for the moment. A fierce madness was sweeping through his veins, his heart, his brain, a madness of feeling such as he had never before experienced.
The girl answered him, still without recognizing the change.
“Yes,” she said in a dull, hopeless way. “And the inevitable happened. It followed swiftly, surely, as it always seems to follow. He is dead.”
“He got it – as he should get it. He got no more than he’d have got if I’d been around.”
Buck’s mood could no longer escape her. She looked into the hard, young face, startled. She saw the fury in his eyes, the clenched jaws, with their muscles outstanding with the force of the fury stirring him.
The sight agitated her, but somehow it did not frighten. She half understood. At least she thought she did. She read his resentment as that of a man who sees in the outrage a breaking of all the laws of chivalry. She missed the real note underlying it.
“What does his act matter?” she said almost indifferently, her mind on what she regarded as the real tragedy. “He was drunk. He was not responsible. No, no. It is not that which matters. It was the other. He left me – to go to his death. Had Pete not been waiting for him it would have been just the same. Disaster! Death! Oh! can you not see? It is the disaster which always follows me.”
Her protest was not without its effect. So insistent was she on the resulting tragedy that Buck found himself endeavoring to follow her thought in spite of his own feelings. She was associating this tragedy with herself – as part of her life, her fate.
But it was some moments before the man was sufficiently master of himself – before he could detach his thought altogether from the human feelings stirring him. The words sang on his ear-drums. “He – he kissed me.” They were flaming through his brain. They blurred every other thought, and, for a time, left him incapable of lending her that support he would so willingly give her. Finally, however, his better nature had its way. He choked down his jealous fury, and strove to find means of comforting her.
“It’s all wrong,” he cried, with a sudden force which claimed the girl’s attention, and, for the time at least, held her troubled thought suspended. “How can this be your doing? Why for should it be a curse on you because two fellers shoot each other up? They hated each other because of you. Wal – that’s natural. It’s dead human. It’s been done before, an’ I’m sure guessin’ it’ll be done again. It’s not you. It’s – it’s nature – human nature. Say, Miss Joan, you ain’t got the lessons of these hills right yet. Folks out here are diffrent to city folks. That is, their ways of doin’ the same things are diff’rent. We feel the same – that’s because we’re made the same – but we act diff’rent. If I’d bin around, I’d have shot Ike – with a whole heap of pleasure. An’ if I had, wher’s the cuss on you? Kissin’ a gal like that can’t be done around here.”
“But Pete was not here. He didn’t know.”
Joan was quick to grasp the weakness of his argument.
“It don’t matter a cent,” cried Buck, his teeth clipping his words. “He needed his med’cine – an’ got it.”
Joan sighed hopelessly.
“You don’t understand, and – and I can’t tell it you all. Sometimes I feel I could kill myself. How can I help realizing the truth? It is forced on me. I am a leper, a – a pariah.”
The girl leant back on her cushions, and her whole despairing attitude became an appeal to his manhood. The last vestige of Buck’s jealousy passed from him. He longed to tell her all there was in his heart. He longed to take her in his arms and comfort her, and protect her from every shadow the whole wide world held for her. He longed to tell her of the love that was his, and how no power on earth could change it. But he did none of these things.
“The things you’re callin’ yourself don’t sound wholesome,” he said simply. “I can’t see they fit in anyway. Guess they ain’t natural.”
Joan caught at the word.
“Natural!” she cried. “Is any of it natural?” She laughed hysterically.
Buck nodded.
“It’s all natural,” he said. “You’ve hit it. You don’t need my word. Jest you ask the Padre. He’ll give it you all. He’ll tell you jest how notions can make a cuss of any life, an’ how to get shut of sech notions. He’s taught me, an’ he’ll teach you. I can’t jest pass his words on. They don’t git the same meaning when I say ’em. I ain’t wise to that sort of thing. But ther’s things I am wise to, and they’re the things he’s taught me. You’re feeling mean, mean an’ miser’ble, that makes me ter’ble mean to see. Say, Miss Joan, I ain’t much handin’ advice. I ain’t got brain enough to hand that sort of thing around, but I’d sure ask you to say right here ther’ ain’t no cuss on your life, an’ never was. You jest guess there’s a cuss around chasin’ glory at your expense. Wal, git right up, an’ grit your teeth an’ fight good. Don’t sit around feeling mean. If you’d do that, I tell you that cuss’ll hit the trail so quick you won’t git time to see it, an’ you’ll bust yourself laffin’ to think you ever tho’t it was around your layout. An’ before I done talkin’ I’ll ast you to remember that when menfolks git around insultin’ a helpless gal, cuss or no cuss, he’s goin’ to git his med’cine good – an’ from me.”
Buck’s effort had its reward. The smile that had gradually found its way into his own eyes caught something of a reflection in those of the girl. He had dragged her from the depths of her despair by the force of the frank courage that was his. He had lifted her by the sheer strength and human honesty which lay at the foundation of his whole, simple nature. Joan sighed, and it was an acknowledgment of his success.
“Thank you, Buck,” she said gently. “You are always so good to me. You have been so ever since I came. And goodness knows you have little enough reason for it, seeing it is I who have turned you out of this home of yours – ”
“We got your money,” interrupted Buck, almost brusquely. “This farm was the Padre’s. You never turned me out. An’ say, the Padre don’t live a big ways from here. Maybe you’d like him to tell you about cusses an’ things.” His eyes twinkled. “He’s sure great on cusses.”
