Border Legion (1990) Page 28

  Then she saw Kells standing there. He looked abject, stupid, drunk.

  Yet evidently he had begun to comprehend the meaning of his deed.

  "Kells," began Cleve, in low, hoarse tones, as he stepped forward with a gun. "I'm going to kill you--and Joan--and myself!"

  Kells stared at Cleve. "Go ahead. Kill me. And kill the girl, too.

  That'll be better for her now. But why kill yourself?"

  "I love her. She's my wife!"

  The deadness about Kells suddenly changed. Joan flung herself before him.

  "Kells--listen," she whispered in swift, broken passion. "Jim Cleve was--my sweetheart--back in Hoadley. We quarreled. I taunted him. I said he hadn't nerve enough--even to be bad. He left me--bitterly enraged. Next day I trailed him. I wanted to fetch him back. ... You remember--how you met me with Robert--how you killed Roberts? And all the rest? ... When Jim and I met out here--I was afraid to tell you. I tried to influence him. I succeeded--till we got to Alder Creek. There he went wild. I married him--hoping to steady him. ...

  Then the day of the lynching--we were separated from you in the crowd. That night we hid--and next morning took the stage. Gulden and his gang held up the stage. They thought you had put us there.

  We fooled them, but we had to come on--here to Cabin Gulch--hoping to tell--that you'd let us go. ... And now--now--"

  Joan had not strength to go on. The thought of Gulden made her faint.

  "It's true, Kells," added Cleve, passionately, as he faced the incredulous bandit. "I swear it. Why, you ought to see now!"

  "My God, boy, I DO see!" gasped Kells. That dark, sodden thickness of comprehension and feeling, indicative of the hold of drink, passed away swiftly. The shock had sobered him.

  Instantly Joan saw it--saw in him the return of the other and better Kells, how stricken with remorse. She slipped to her knees and clasped her arms around him. He tried to break her hold, but she held on.

  "Get up!" he ordered, violently. "Jim, pull her away! ... Girl, don't do that in front of me ... I've just gambled away--"

  "Her life, Kells, only that, I swear," cried Cleve.

  "Kells, listen," began Joan, pleadingly. "You will not let that-- that CANNIBAL have me?"

  "No, by God!" replied Kells, thickly. "I was drunk--crazy. ...

  Forgive me, girl! You see--how did I know--what was coming? ... Oh, the whole thing is hellish!"

  "You loved me once," whispered Joan, softly. "Do you love me still? ...

  Kells, can't you see? It's not too late to save my life--and YOUR soul! ... Can't you see? You have been bad. But if you save me now--from Gulden--save me for this boy I've almost ruined--you--you. ...

  God will forgive you! ... Take us away--go with us--and never come back to the border."

  "Maybe I can save you," he muttered, as if to himself. He appeared to want to think, but to be bothered by the clinging arms around him. Joan felt a ripple go over his body and he seemed to heighten, and the touch of his hands thrilled.

  Then, white and appealing, Cleve added his importunity.

  "Kells, I saved your life once. You said you'd remember it some day.

  Now--now! ... For God's sake don't make me shoot her!"

  Joan rose from her knees, but she still clasped Kells. She seemed to feel the mounting of his spirit, to understand how in this moment he was rising out of the depths. How strangely glad she was for him!

  "Joan, once you showed me what the love of a good woman really was.

  I've never seen the same since then. I've grown better in one way-- worse in all others. ... I let down. I was no man for the border.

  Always that haunted me. Believe me, won't you--despite all?"

  Joan felt the yearning in him for what he dared not ask. She read his mind. She knew he meant, somehow, to atone for his wrong.

  "I'll show you again," she whispered. "I'll tell you more. If I'd never loved Jim Cleve--if I'd met you, I'd have loved you. ... And, bandit or not, I'd have gone with you to the end of the world!"

  "Joan!" The name was almost a sob of joy and pain. Sight of his face then blinded Joan with her tears. But when he caught her to him, in a violence that was a terrible renunciation, she gave her embrace, her arms, her lips without the vestige of a lie, with all of womanliness and sweetness and love and passion. He let her go and turned away, and in that instant Joan had a final divination that this strange man could rise once to heights as supreme as the depths of his soul were dark. She dashed away her tears and wiped the dimness from her eyes. Hope resurged. Something strong and sweet gave her strength.

  When Kells wheeled he was the Kells of her earlier experience--cool, easy, deadly, with the smile almost amiable, and the strange, pale eyes. Only the white radiance of him was different. He did not look at her.

  "Jim, will you do exactly what I tell you?"

  "Yes, I promise," replied Jim.

  "How many guns have you?"

  "Two."

  "Give me one of them."

  Cleve held out the gun that all the while he had kept in his hand.

  Kells took it and put it in his pocket.

  "Pull your other gun--be ready," said he, swiftly. "But don't you shoot once till I go down! ... Then do your best. ... Save the last bullet for Joan--in case--"

  "I promise," replied Cleve, steadily.

  Then Kells drew a knife from a sheath at his belt. It had a long, bright blade. Joan had seen him use it many a time round the camp- fire. He slipped the blade up his sleeve, retaining the haft of the knife in his hand. He did not speak another word. Nor did he glance at Joan again. She had felt his gaze while she had embraced him, as she raised her lips. That look had been his last. Then he went out.

  Jim knelt beside the door, peering between post and curtain.

  Joan staggered to the chink between the logs. She would see that fight if it froze her blood--the very marrow of her bones.

  The gamblers were intent upon their game. Not a dark face looked up as Kells sauntered toward the table. Gulden sat with his back to the door. There was a shaft of sunlight streaming in, and Kells blocked it, sending a shadow over the bent heads of the gamesters. How significant that shadow--a blackness barring gold! Still no one paid any attention to Kells.

  He stepped closer. Suddenly he leaped into swift and terrible violence. Then with a lunge he drove the knife into Gulden's burly neck.

  Up heaved the giant, his mighty force overturning table and benches and men. An awful boom, strangely distorted and split, burst from him.

  Then Kells blocked the door with a gun in each hand, but only the one in his right hand spurted white and red. Instantly there followed a mad scramble--hoarse yells, over which that awful roar of Gulden's predominated--and the bang of guns. Clouds of white smoke veiled the scene, and with every shot the veil grew denser. Red flashes burst from the ground where men were down, and from each side of Kells. His form seemed less instinct with force; it had shortened; he was sagging. But at intervals the red spurt and report of his gun showed he was fighting. Then a volley from one side made him stagger against the door. The clear spang of a Winchester spoke above the heavy boom of the guns.

  Joan's eyesight recovered from its blur or else the haze of smoke drifted, for she saw better. Gulden's actions fascinated her, horrified her. He had evidently gone crazy. He groped about the room, through the smoke, to and fro before the fighting, yelling bandits, grasping with huge hands for something. His sense of direction, his equilibrium, had become affected. His awful roar still sounded above the din, but it was weakening. His giant's strength was weakening. His legs bent and buckled under him. All at once he whipped out his two big guns and began to fire as he staggered--at random. He killed the wounded Blicky. In the melee he ran against Jesse Smith and thrust both guns at him. Jesse saw the peril and with a shriek he fired point-blank at Gulden. Then as Gulden pulled triggers both men fell. But Gulden rose, bloody- browed, bawling, still a terrible engine of destruction. He seemed to glare in one direction and s
hoot in another. He pointed the guns and apparently pulled the triggers long after the shots had all been fired.

  Kells was on his knees now with only one gun. This wavered and fell, wavered and fell. His left arm hung broken. But his face flashed white through the thin, drifting clouds of smoke.

  Besides Gulden the bandit Pike was the only one not down, and he was hard hit. When he shot his last he threw the gun away, and, drawing a knife, he made at Kells. Kells shot once more, and hit Pike, but did not stop him. Silence, after the shots and yells, seemed weird, and the groping giant, trying to follow Pike, resembled a huge phantom. With one wrench he tore off a leg of the overturned table and brandished that. He swayed now, and there was a whistle where before there had been a roar.

  Pike fell over the body of Blicky and got up again. The bandit leader staggered to his feet, flung the useless gun in Pike's face, and closed with him in weak but final combat. They lurched and careened to and fro, with the giant Gulden swaying after them. Thus they struggled until Pike moved under Gulden's swinging club. The impetus of the blow carried Gulden off his balance. Kells seized the haft of the knife still protruding from the giant's neck, and he pulled upon it with all his might. Gulden heaved up again, and the movement enabled Kells to pull out the knife. A bursting gush of blood, thick and heavy, went flooding before the giant as he fell.

  Kells dropped the knife, and, tottering, surveyed the scene before him--the gasping Gulden, and all the quiet forms. Then he made a few halting steps, and dropped near the door.

  Joan tried to rush out, but what with the unsteadiness of her limbs and Jim holding her as he went out, too, she seemed long in getting to Kells.

  She knelt beside him, lifted his head. His face was white--his eyes were open. But they were only the windows of a retreating soul. He did not know her. Consciousness was gone. Then swiftly life fled.

  Chapter 20

  Cleve steadied Joan in her saddle, and stood a moment beside her, holding her hands. The darkness seemed clearing before her eyes and the sick pain within her seemed numbing out.

  "Brace up! Hang--to your saddle!" Jim was saying, earnestly. "Any moment some of the other bandits might come. ... You lead the way.

  I'll follow and drive the pack-horse."

  "But, Jim, I'll never be able to find the back-trail," said Joan.

  "I think you will. You'll remember every yard of the trail on which you were brought in here. You won't realize that till you see."

  Joan started and did not look back. Cabin Gulch was like a place in a dream. It was a relief when she rode out into the broad valley.

  The grazing horses lifted their heads to whistle. Joan saw the clumps of bushes and the flowers, the waving grass, but never as she had seen them before. How strange that she knew exactly which way to turn, to head, to cross! She trotted her horse so fast that Jim called to say he could not drive a pack-animal and keep to her gait.

  Every rod of the trail lessened a burden. Behind was something hideous and incomprehensible and terrible; before beckoned something beginning to seem bright. And it was not the ruddy, calm sunset, flooding the hills with color. That something called from beyond the hills.

  She led straight to a camp-site she remembered long before she came to it; and the charred logs of the fire, the rocks, the tree under which she had lain--all brought back the emotions she had felt there. She grew afraid of the twilight, and when night settled down there were phantoms stalking in the shadows. When Cleve, in his hurried camp duties, went out of her sight, she wanted to cry out to him, but had not the voice; and when he was close still she trembled and was cold. He wrapped blankets round her and held her in his arms, yet the numb chill and the dark clamp of mind remained with her. Long she lay awake. The stars were pitiless. When she shut her eyes the blackness seemed unendurable. She slept, to wake out of nightmare, and she dared sleep no more. At last the day came.

  For Joan that faint trail seemed a broad road, blazoned through the wild canons and up the rocky fastness and through the thick brakes.

  She led on and on and up and down, never at fault, with familiar landmarks near and far. Cleve hung close to her, and now his call to her or to the pack-horse took on a keener note. Every rough and wild mile behind them meant so much. They did not halt at the noon hour.

  They did not halt at the next camp-site, still more darkly memorable to Joan. And sunset found them miles farther on, down on the divide, at the head of Lost Canon.

  Here Joan ate and drank, and slept the deep sleep of exhaustion.

  Sunrise found them moving, and through the winding, wild canon they made fast travel. Both time and miles passed swiftly. At noon they reached the little open cabin, and they dismounted for a rest and a drink at the spring. Joan did not speak a word here. That she could look into the cabin where she had almost killed a bandit, and then, through silent, lonely weeks, had nursed him back to life, was a proof that the long ride and distance were helping her, sloughing away the dark deadlock to hope and brightness. They left the place exactly as they had found it, except that Cleve plucked the card from the bark of the balsam-tree--Gulden's ace--of--hearts target with its bullet--holes.

  Then they rode on, out of that canon, over the rocky ridge, down into another canon, on and on, past an old camp-site, along a babbling brook for miles, and so at last out into the foot--hills.

  Toward noon of the next day, when approaching a clump of low trees in a flat valley, Joan pointed ahead.

  "Jim--it was in there--where Roberts and I camped--and--"

  "You ride around. I'll catch up with you," replied Cleve.

  She made a wide detour, to come back again to her own trail, so different here. Presently Cleve joined her. His face was pale and sweaty, and he looked sick. They rode on silently, and that night they camped without water on her own trail, made months before. The single tracks were there, sharp and clear in the earth, as if imprinted but a day.

  Next morning Joan found that as the wild border lay behind her so did the dark and hateful shadow of gloom. Only the pain remained, and it had softened. She could think now.

  Jim Cleve cheered up. Perhaps it was her brightening to which he responded. They began to talk and speech liberated feeling. Miles of that back-trail they rode side by side, holding hands, driving the pack-horse ahead, and beginning to talk of old associations. Again it was sunset when they rode down the hill toward the little village of Hoadley. Joan's heart was full, but Jim was gay.

  "Won't I have it on your old fellows!" he teased. But he was grim, too.

  "Jim! You--won't tell--just yet!" she faltered.

  "I'll introduce you as my wife! They'll all think we eloped."

  "No. They'll say I ran after you! ... Please, Jim! Keep it secret a little. It'll be hard for me. Aunt Jane will never understand."

  "Well, I'll keep it secret till you want to tell--for two things," he said.

  "What?"

  "Meet me to--night, under the spruces where we had that quarrel.

  Meet just like we did then, but differently. Will you?"

  "I'll be--so glad."

  "And put on your mask now! ... You know, Joan, sooner or later your story will be on everybody's tongue. You'll be Dandy Dale as long as you live near this border. Wear the mask, just for fun. Imagine your Aunt Jane--and everybody!"

  "Jim! I'd forgotten how I look!" exclaimed Joan in dismay. "I didn't bring your long coat. Oh, I can't face them in this suit!"

  "You'll have to. Besides, you look great. It's going to tickle me-- the sensation you make. Don't you see, they'll never recognize you till you take the mask off. ... Please, Joan."

  She yielded, and donned the black mask, not without a twinge. And thus they rode across the log bridge over the creek into the village. The few men and women they met stared in wonder, and, recognizing Cleve, they grew excited. They followed, and others joined them.

  "Joan, won't it be strange if Uncle Bill really is the Overland of Alder Creek? We've packed out every pound of Overland's g
old. Oh! I hope--I believe he's your uncle. ... Wouldn't it be great, Joan?"

  But Joan could not answer. The word gold was a stab. Besides, she saw Aunt Jane and two neighbors standing before a log cabin, beginning to show signs of interest in the approaching procession.

  Joan fell back a little, trying to screen herself behind Jim. Then Jim halted with a cheery salute.

  "For the land's sake!" ejaculated a sweet-faced, gray-haired woman.

  "If it isn't Jim Cleve!" cried another.

  Jim jumped off and hugged the first speaker. She seemed overjoyed to see him and then overcome. Her face began to work.

  "Jim! We always hoped you'd--you'd fetch Joan back!"

  "Sure!" shouted Jim, who had no heart now for even an instant's deception. "There she is!"

  "Who? ... What?"

  Joan slipped out of her saddle and, tearing off the mask, she leaped forward with a little sob.

  "Auntie! Auntie! ... It's Joan--alive--well! ... Oh, so glad to be home! ... Don't look at my clothes--look at me!"

  Aunt Jane evidently sustained a shock of recognition, joy, amaze, consternation, and shame, of which all were subservient to the joy.

  She cried over Joan and murmured over her. Then, suddenly alive to the curious crowd, she put Joan from her.

  "You--you wild thing! You desperado! I always told Bill you'd run wild some day! ... March in the house and get out of that indecent rig!"

  That night under the spruces, with the starlight piercing the lacy shadows, Joan waited for Jim Cleve. It was one of the white, silent, mountain nights. The brook murmured over the stones and the wind rustled the branches.

  The wonder of Joan's home-coming was in learning that Uncle Bill Hoadley was indeed Overland, the discoverer of Alder Creek. Years and years of profitless toil had at last been rewarded in this rich gold strike.

  Joan hated to think of gold. She had wanted to leave the gold back in Cabin Gulch, and she would have done so had Jim permitted it. And to think that all that gold which was not Jim Cleve's belonged to her uncle! She could not believe it.

  Fatal and terrible forever to Joan would be the significance of gold. Did any woman in the world or any man know the meaning of gold as well as she knew it? How strange and enlightening and terrible had been her experience! She had grown now not to blame any man, honest miner or bloody bandit. She blamed only gold. She doubted its value. She could not see it a blessing. She absolutely knew its driving power to change the souls of men. Could she ever forget that vast ant-hill of toiling diggers and washers, blind and deaf and dumb to all save gold?