Border Legion (1990) Page 20

  "Wal, go back to Montana an' make thet fool girl sick," suggested one of the men who had heard Jim's fictitious story of himself.

  "Dug or stole is all the same!" boomed the imperturbable Gulden.

  Kells turned white with rage, and Cleve swept a swift and shrewd glance at the giant.

  "Sure, that's my idea," declared Cleve. "I'll divide as--as we planned."

  "You'll do nothing of the kind," retorted Kells. "You dug for that gold and it's yours."

  "Well, boss, then say a quarter share to you and the same to me--and divide the rest among the gang."

  "No!" exclaimed Kells, violently.

  Joan imagined he was actuated as much by justice to Cleve as opposition to Gulden.

  "Jim Cleve, you're a square pard if I ever seen one," declared Pearce, admiringly. "An' I'm here to say thet I wouldn't hev a share of your nugget."

  "Nor me," spoke up Jesse Smith.

  "I pass, too," said Chick Williams.

  "Jim, if I was dyin' fer a drink I wouldn't stand fer thet deal," added Blicky, with a fine scorn.

  These men, and others who spoke or signified their refusal, attested to the living truth that there was honor even among robbers. But there was not the slightest suggestion of change in Gulden's attitude or of those back of him.

  "Share and share alike for me!" he muttered, grimly, with those great eyes upon the nugget.

  Kells, with an agile bound, reached the table and pounded it with his fist, confronting the giant.

  "So you say!" he hissed in dark passion. "You've gone too far, Gulden. Here's where I call you! ... You don't get a gram of that gold nugget. Jim's worked like a dog. If he digs up a million I'll see he gets it all. Maybe you loafers haven't a hunch what Jim's done for you. He's helped our big deal more than you or I. His honest work has made it easy for me to look honest. He's supposed to be engaged to marry my daughter. That more than anything was a blind. It made my stand, and I tell you that stand is high in this camp. Go down there and swear Blight is Jack Kells! See what you get! ... That's all. ... I'm dealing the cards in this game!"

  Kells did not cow Gulden--for it was likely the giant lacked the feeling of fear--but he overruled him by sheer strength of spirit.

  Gulden backed away stolidly, apparently dazed by his own movements; then he plunged out the door, and the ruffians who had given silent but sure expression of their loyalty tramped after him.

  "Reckon thet starts the split!" declared Red Pearce.

  "Suppose you'd been in Jim's place!" flashed Kells.

  "Jack, I ain't sayin' a word. You was square. I'd want you to do the same by me. ... But fetchin' the girl into the deal--"

  Kells's passionate and menacing gesture shut Pearce's lips. He lifted a hand, resignedly, and went out.

  "Jim," said Kells, earnestly, "take my hunch. Hide your nugget.

  Don't send it out with the stage to Bannack. It'd never get there. ...

  And change the place where you sleep!"

  "Thanks," replied Cleve, brightly. "I'll hide my nugget all right.

  And I'll take care of myself."

  Later that night Joan waited at her window for Jim. It was so quiet that she could hear the faint murmur of the shallow creek. The sky was dusky blue; the stars were white, the night breeze sweet and cool. Her first flush of elation for Jim having passed, she experienced a sinking of courage. Were they not in peril enough without Jim's finding a fortune? How dark and significant had been Kells's hint! There was something splendid in the bandit. Never had Joan felt so grateful to him. He was a villain, yet he was a man.

  What hatred he showed for Gulden! These rivals would surely meet in a terrible conflict--for power--for gold. And for her!--she added, involuntarily, with a deep, inward shudder. Once the thought had flashed through her mind, it seemed like a word of revelation.

  Then she started as a dark form rose out of the shadow under her and a hand clasped hers. Jim! and she lifted her face.

  "Joan! Joan! I'm rich! rich!" he babbled, wildly.

  "Ssssh!" whispered Joan, softly, in his ear. "Be careful. You're wild to-night. ... I saw you come in with the nugget. I heard you. ...

  Oh, you lucky Jim! I'll tell you what to do with it!"

  "Darling! It's all yours. You'll marry me now?"

  "Sir! Do you take me for a fortune-hunter? I marry you for your gold? Never!"

  "Joan!"

  "I've promised," she said.

  "I won't go away now. I'll work my claim," he began, excitedly. And he went on so rapidly that Joan could not keep track of his words.

  He was not so cautious as formerly. She remonstrated with him, all to no purpose. Not only was he carried away by possession of gold and assurance of more, but he had become masterful, obstinate, and illogical. He was indeed hopeless to-night--the gold had gotten into his blood. Joan grew afraid he would betray their secret and realized there had come still greater need for a woman's wit. So she resorted to a never-failing means of silencing him, of controlling him--her lips on his.

  Chapter 15

  For several nights these stolen interviews were apparently the safer because of Joan's tender blinding of her lover. But it seemed that in Jim's condition of mind this yielding of her lips and her whispers of love had really been a mistake. Not only had she made the situation perilously sweet for herself, but in Jim's case she had added the spark to the powder. She realized her blunder when it was too late. And the fact that she did not regret it very much, and seemed to have lost herself in a defiant, reckless spell, warned her again that she, too, was answering to the wildness of the time and place. Joan's intelligence had broadened wonderfully in this period of her life, just as all her feelings had quickened. If gold had developed and intensified and liberated the worst passions of men, so the spirit of that atmosphere had its baneful effect upon her.

  Joan deplored this, yet she had the keenness to understand that it was nature fitting her to survive.

  Back upon her fell that weight of suspense--what would happen next?

  Here in Alder Creek there did not at present appear to be the same peril which had menaced her before, but she would suffer through fatality to Cleve or Kells. And these two slept at night under a shadow that held death, and by day they walked on a thin crust over a volcano. Joan grew more and more fearful of the disclosures made when Kells met his men nightly in the cabin. She feared to hear, but she must hear, and even if she had not felt it necessary to keep informed of events, the fascination of the game would have impelled her to listen. And gradually the suspense she suffered augmented into a magnified, though vague, assurance of catastrophe, of impending doom. She could not shake off the gloomy presentiment.

  Something terrible was going to happen. An experience begun as tragically as hers could only end in a final and annihilating stroke. Yet hope was unquenchable, and with her fear kept pace a driving and relentless spirit.

  One night at the end of a week of these interviews, when Joan attempted to resist Jim, to plead with him, lest in his growing boldness he betray them, she found him a madman.

  "I'll pull you right out of this window," he said, roughly, and then with his hot face pressed against hers tried to accomplish the thing he threatened.

  "Go on--pull me to pieces!" replied Joan, in despair and pain. "I'd be better off dead! And--you--hurt me--so!"

  "Hurt you!" he whispered, hoarsely, as if he had never dreamed of such possibility. And then suddenly he was remorseful. He begged her to forgive him. His voice was broken, husky, pleading. His remorse, like every feeling of his these days, was exaggerated, wild, with that raw tinge of gold-blood in it. He made so much noise that Joan, more fearful than ever of discovery, quieted him with difficulty.

  "Does Kells see you often--these days?" asked Jim, suddenly.

  Joan had dreaded this question, which she had known would inevitably come. She wanted to lie; she knew she ought to lie; but it was impossible.

  "Every day," she whispered. "Please--Jim--never mind that.
Kells is good--he's all right to me. ... And you and I have so little time together."

  "Good!" exclaimed Cleve. Joan felt the leap of his body under her touch. "Why, if I'd tell you what he sends that gang to do--you'd-- you'd kill him in his sleep."

  "Tell me," replied Joan. She had a morbid, irresistible desire to learn.

  "No. ... And WHAT does Kells do--when he sees you every day?"

  "He talks."

  "What about?"

  "Oh, everything except about what holds him here. He talks to me to forget himself."

  "Does he make love to you?"

  Joan maintained silence. What would she do with this changed and hopeless Jim Cleve?

  "Tell me!" Jim's hands gripped her with a force that made her wince.

  And now she grew as afraid of him as she had been for him. But she had spirit enough to grow angry, also.

  "Certainly he does."

  Jim Cleve echoed her first word, and then through grinding teeth he cursed. "I'm going to--stop it!" he panted, and his eyes looked big and dark and wild in the starlight.

  "You can't. I belong to Kells. You at least ought to have sense enough to see that."

  "Belong to him! ... For God's sake! By what right?"

  "By the right of possession. Might is right here on the border.

  Haven't you told me that a hundred times? Don't you hold your claim-

  -your gold--by the right of your strength? It's the law of this border. To be sure Kells stole me. But just now I belong to him. And lately I see his consideration--his kindness in the light of what he could do if he held to that border law. ... And of all the men I've met out here Kells is the least wild with this gold fever. He sends his men out to do murder for gold; he'd sell his soul to gamble for gold; but just the same, he's more of a man than---"

  "Joan!" he interrupted, piercingly. "You love this bandit!"

  "You're a fool!" burst out Joan.

  "I guess--I--am," he replied in terrible, slow earnestness. He raised himself and appeared to loom over her and released his hold.

  But Joan fearfully retained her clasp on his arm, and when he surged to get away she was hard put to it to hold him.

  "Jim! Where are you going?"

  He stood there a moment, a dark form against the night shadow, like an outline of a man cut from black stone.

  "I'll just step around--there."

  "Oh, what for?" whispered Joan.

  "I'm going to kill Kells."

  Joan got both arms round his neck and with her head against him she held him tightly, trying, praying to think how to meet this long- dreaded moment. After all, what was the use to try? This was the hour of Gold! Sacrifice, hope, courage, nobility, fidelity--these had no place here now. Men were the embodiment of passion--ferocity.

  They breathed only possession, and the thing in the balance was death. Women were creatures to hunger and fight for, but womanhood was nothing. Joan knew all this with a desperate hardening certainty, and almost she gave in. Strangely, thought of Gulden flashed up to make her again strong! Then she raised her face and began the old pleading with Jim, but different this time, when it seemed that absolutely all was at stake. She begged him, she importuned him, to listen to reason, to be guided by her, to fight the wildness that had obsessed him, to make sure that she would not be left alone. All in vain! He swore he would kill Kells and any other bandit who stood in the way of his leading her free out of that cabin. He was wild to fight. He might never have felt fear of these robbers. He would not listen to any possibility of defeat for himself, or the possibility that in the event of Kells's death she would be worse off. He laughed at her strange, morbid fears of Gulden. He was immovable.

  "Jim! ... Jim! You'll break my heart!" she whispered, wailingly.

  "Oh! WHAT can I do?"

  Then Joan released her clasp and gave up to utter defeat. Cleve was silent. He did not seem to hear the shuddering little sobs that shook her. Suddenly he bent close to her.

  "There's one thing you can do. If you'll do it I won't kill Kells.

  I'll obey your every word."

  "What is it? Tell me!"

  "Marry me!" he whispered, and his voice trembled.

  "MARRY YOU!" exclaimed Joan. She was confounded. She began to fear Jim was out of his head.

  "I mean it. Marry me. Oh, Joan, will you--will you? It'll make the difference. That'll steady me. Don't you want to?"

  "Jim, I'd be the happiest girl in the world if--if I only COULD marry you!" she breathed, passionately.

  "But will you--will you? Say yes! Say yes!"

  "YES!" replied Joan in her desperation. "I hope that pleases you.

  But what on earth is the use to talk about it now?"

  Cleve seemed to expand, to grow taller, to thrill under her nervous hands. And then he kissed her differently. She sensed a shyness, a happiness, a something hitherto foreign to his attitude. It was spiritual, and somehow she received an uplift of hope.

  "Listen," he whispered. "There's a preacher down in camp. I've seen him--talked with him. He's trying to do good in that hell down there. I know I can trust him. I'll confide in him--enough. I'll fetch him up here tomorrow night--about this time. Oh, I'll be careful--very careful. And he can marry us right here by the window.

  Joan, will you do it? ... Somehow, whatever threatens you or me-- that'll be my salvation! ... I've suffered so. It's been burned in my heart that YOU would never marry me. Yet you say you love me! ...

  Prove it! ... MY WIFE! ... Now, girl, a word will make a man of me!"

  "Yes!" And with the word she put her lips to his with all her heart in them. She felt him tremble. Yet almost instantly he put her from him.

  "Look for me to-morrow about this time," he whispered. "Keep your nerve. ... Good night."

  That night Joan dreamed strange, weird, unremembered dreams. The next day passed like a slow, unreal age. She ate little of what was brought to her. For the first time she denied Kells admittance and she only vaguely sensed his solicitations. She had no ear for the murmur of voices in Kells's room. Even the loud and angry notes of a quarrel between Kells and his men did not distract her.

  At sunset she leaned out of the little window, and only then, with the gold fading on the peaks and the shadow gathering under the bluff, did she awaken to reality. A broken mass of white cloud caught the glory of the sinking sun. She had never seen a golden radiance like that. It faded and dulled. But a warm glow remained.

  At twilight and then at dusk this glow lingered.

  Then night fell. Joan was exceedingly sensitive to the sensations of light and shadow, of sound and silence, of dread and hope, of sadness and joy.

  That pale, ruddy glow lingered over the bold heave of the range in the west. It was like a fire that would not go out, that would live to-morrow, and burn golden. The sky shone with deep, rich blue color fired with a thousand stars, radiant, speaking, hopeful. And there was a white track across the heavens. The mountains flung down their shadows, impenetrable, like the gloomy minds of men; and everywhere under the bluffs and slopes, in the hollows and ravines, lay an enveloping blackness, hiding its depth and secret and mystery.

  Joan listened. Was there sound or silence? A faint and indescribably low roar, so low that it might have been real or false, came on the soft night breeze. It was the roar of the camp down there--the strife, the agony, the wild life in ceaseless action--the strange voice of gold, roaring greed and battle and death over the souls of men. But above that, presently, rose the murmur of the creek, a hushed and dreamy flow of water over stones. It was hurrying to get by this horde of wild men, for it must bear the taint of gold and blood. Would it purge itself and clarify in the valleys below, on its way to the sea? There was in its murmur an imperishable and deathless note of nature, of time; and this was only a fleeting day of men and gold.

  Only by straining her ears could Joan hear these sounds, and when she ceased that, then she seemed to be weighed upon and claimed by silence. It was not a silence like that of
Lost Canon, but a silence of solitude where her soul stood alone. She was there on earth, yet no one could hear her mortal cry. The thunder of avalanches or the boom of the sea might have lessened her sense of utter loneliness.

  And that silence fitted the darkness, and both were apostles of dread. They spoke to her. She breathed dread on that silent air and it filled her breast. There was nothing stable in the night shadows.

  The ravine seemed to send forth stealthy, noiseless shapes, specter and human, man and phantom, each on the other's trail.

  If Jim would only come and let her see that he was safe for the hour! A hundred times she imagined she saw him looming darker than the shadows. She had only to see him now, to feel his hand, and dread might be lost. Love was something beyond the grasp of mind.

  Love had confounded Jim Cleve; it had brought up kindness and honor from the black depths of a bandit's heart; it had transformed her from a girl into a woman. Surely with all its greatness it could not be lost; surely in the end it must triumph over evil.

  Joan found that hope was fluctuating, but eternal. It took no stock of intelligence. It was a matter of feeling. And when she gave rein to it for a moment, suddenly it plunged her into sadness. To hope was to think! Poor Jim! It was his fool's paradise. Just to let her be his wife! That was the apex of his dream. Joan divined that he might yield to her wisdom, he might become a man, but his agony would be greater. Still, he had been so intense, so strange, so different that she could not but feel joy in his joy.

  Then at a soft footfall, a rustle, and a moving shadow Joan's mingled emotions merged into a poignant sense of the pain and suspense and tenderness of the actual moment.

  "Joan--Joan," came the soft whisper.