Robber's Roost (1989) (16 page)

Here the hounds jumped a herd of deer. Despite the yelling of the cowboys, they dashed up the ridge with a chorus of wild yelps and barks. Barnes and his companion rider gave pursuit, trying to call them off. They all passed out of hearing.

Jim caught up with Miss Herrick, who waited in an open spot among the pines. Flushed and disheveled, with her sombrero on the pommel, panting from the arduous ride, she made a distracting picture.

"Hunt's off for us, Miss Herrick," said Jim. "The cowboys will be hours catching that pack."

"Too bad! But wasn't--it fun--while it--lasted," she replied, gaily. "I'm glad the coyote--got away. I had designs on--his brushy tail."

"Shall we ride down?" went on Jim, uneasily. He had been alone with this girl on a couple of brief occasions, just long enough to realize the danger of such a fateful accident as this.

"Let us rest the horses. I'm out of breath myself. . . . Listen.

Don't I hear the hounds? They might fetch those deer back. Oh, I love to see deer bound on their springy legs."

Jim turned his ear to the wind. First he heard the beating of his blood, like a muffled drum, and then the swish of the tree-tops.

"No. It's not the hounds you hear. Only the wind in the pines."

"How mournful and sweet!" she murmured.

Jim dismounted to tighten his saddle-cinches. He felt queerly helpless, and impatient to be on the move.

"Wall, take a look at my cinches," she said.

"May I ask you not to call me Wall?" he queried, with unreasonable resentment. He hated the way she addressed him occasionally. "I must remind you I'm no butler."

"Pray pardon me," she rejoined, in surprise. "I presume I should address you as Mister Wall?"

"Yes, if you're too stuck up to call me Jim," he said, rudely.

She lifted her chin and deigned no reply. And that infuriated him.

"While I'm at it I'll tell you this, too," he went on, doggedly.

"You must not ride around alone again. I've had no chance to speak with you. But I told your brother. He laughed in my face. He is a damned fool."

"Mr. Wall, I will not listen to such talk," she spoke up, spiritedly.

"Oh, yes, you will!" he flashed, striding over to her horse.

"You're not in an English drawing-room now, confronted by a disrespectful butler. You're in Utah, girl. And I am Jim Wall."

"That last is obvious, to my regret," she returned, coldly. "Will you please be so kind as to tighten my cinches? It will be the last service I shall require of you."

"Thank the Lord!" ejaculated Jim, in grim heartiness. "All the same, I'll tell you. If you were an American tenderfoot, it wouldn't be hard to make you understand. If you were Western, you would not need to be told. But as an English lady of quality, who thinks class, HER class will protect her anywhere, you need to be jarred. . . . It's wrong for you to ride around alone on this range like any wild tomboy."

"Why? You intimated this on our way from Grand Junction. But you do not give me any concrete reasons why it is wrong."

"Some of these men might kidnap you for ransom."

"Nonsense!" she retorted, contemptuously.

"Or one of them might waylay you with worse intention."

"Mr. Wall, I still believe YOUR intention is good, but you grossly exaggerate the dangers out here, if there are any. Bernie asked Heeseman about this and was assured that you, being from Wyoming, maligned Utah."

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed Jim, at himself as much as at that information. "What do you say, Miss Herrick, when I tell you that Hank Hays has been watching you from the ridges, riding the lonely trails, biding his chance to waylay you?"

She paled at that, or at his piercing look and change of tone.

"I don't believe it," she said, presently. "For some reason you are over-zealous on my behalf. It is becoming absurd."

"You think I lie?"

"Mr. Wall, I didn't call you a liar," she returned, in annoyance.

"I did say--"

"And you'll go on riding alone when it suits your royal fancy?" he queried, witheringly.

"That is no longer any concern of yours," she replied, at last stung. "But I certainly shall ride when and how I please."

"Then you're as big a damn fool as your nincompoop brother," declared Jim, hotly. "Here I am, the only man in this Star outfit with honesty enough and guts enough to tell you the truth. And I get insulted and fired for my pains."

She sat her horse, mute. Jim laid a strong hand on her pommel and shook it.

"Your saddle's loose. Will you oblige me by getting off?"

"I can ride it back," she rejoined, icily.

"But your blanket will slip out. The saddle might turn with you. . . . At that it might be a good thing for you to fall off and hit your head on a rock."

She removed her boot from the stirrup. "Tighten the cinches then-- and hurry."

Jim complied expeditiously enough, but in doing so he accidentally touched her. Something like fire shot through him at the contact.

Under its stimulus he looked up to say a few more words to her, words to mitigate his offense and protest his sincerity. But they were never uttered. She had bent over to fasten a lace of her boot, and when Jim raised his head it was to find his face scarcely a foot from her red lips. Without a thought, in a flash, he kissed them, and then drew back stricken.

With startled movement she jerked erect, her face flushing scarlet.

"HOW DARE YOU!" she cried, in incredulous amaze and anger.

"My God! I didn't mean that!" ejaculated Jim. "It just happened.

I--I don't know--"

She swung her leather quirt and struck him across the mouth. The blood spurted. The leap of Jim's fury was as swift. He half intercepted a second blow, which stung his neck, and snatching the quirt from her hand he flung it away. Then his iron clutch fastened in her blouse. One lunge dropped her out of the saddle.

He wrapped his other arm around her and bent her back so quickly that when she began a furious struggle it was too late.

His mouth hard pressed on hers stilled any but smothered cries.

There was a moment's fierce wrestling. She was no weakling, but she was in the arms of a maddened giant. Repeatedly he kissed her lips, long, hard, passionate kisses. Suddenly she collapsed heavily in his arms. The shock of that--its meaning--pierced Wall with something infinitely more imperious and staggering than bitter wrath. He let go of her. Reeling away from him to collide with the pine tree, she sank against it, slid to her knees, and thrust out with repelling gesture of hands spread toward him.

"There--my English lady--maybe that will convince you!" he panted, hoarsely. His chin quivered and there was terrific commotion in his breast. "If you weren't a--pink-and-white-faced--washed-out-- ninny of an aristocrat . . . if you had any--blood in you--I'd PROVE--by God!--what men are in Utah! . . . But I wouldn't lay-- another hand on you--to save my life. . . . Now get up."

She obeyed him, slowly, with one hand clutching nervelessly at the bark of the pine, the other at her breast. There was blood on her lips and cheeks; otherwise her face was like alabaster.

"I think I must have been in love with you--and wanted to protect you--from men worse than myself," he went on, huskily. "I hope to God this will be a lesson to you. . . . Keep your beautiful face and body from sight of Hank Hays--or any of these robbers. Their thirst for gold is nothing compared to that for a woman. They are starved. They would almost eat you alive. It's criminal carelessness for you to go about as you do brazenly, as if it were your due to let the sun shine on your head for men to see. Your brother was crazy to come to Utah--crazier to let you come. Go home! Go before it's too late. Make him go. He will be ruined shortly."

She wiped the blood from her cheeks, and then, shudderingly, from her lips.

"You--outraged me that way--to frighten me?" she presently whispered, in horror, yet as if fascinated by something looming.

"Get on your horse and ride ahead of me," he ordered, curtly.

"Now, Miss Helen Herrick, one last word. Don't tell your brother what I did to you till after I'm gone. . . . If you do. I'll kill him!"

She left a glove lying on the ground. Jim made no effort to recover it. His horse had grazed a few paces away, and when he had reached him and mounted, Miss Herrick was in her saddle. Jim let her get a few rods in advance before he followed.

The excess of his emotion wore off, leaving him composed, and sternly glad the issue had developed as it had. The situation had become intolerable for him. It mocked him that he had actually desired to appear well in the eyes of this girl. How ridiculous that one of a robber gang should be vain! But he was not conscious that being a thief made any difference in a man's feeling about women. He knew that he could not command respect or love; but that in no wise inhibited his own feelings. Strange to realize, he had indeed fallen in love with Helen Herrick.

She rode on slowly down the ridge without looking to right or left.

Her gaze appeared to be lowered. The droop of her head and of her shoulders indicated shame and dejection. Outraged by a few kisses taken by force! She would remember them--the brutal kisses of a hard man. Jim would remember forever that first kiss, surprised on sweet, full lips.

The ranch-house came in sight, not far down now, standing out yellow against the green and gray. Miss Herrick saw it and halted a moment as if that had been the last thing in her mind. It recalled perhaps that she must face her brother presently. Jim had nearly caught up with her when she rode on again, bracing in her saddle. The next time he looked she had recovered the old poise and grace.

When they got down to the level bench at a point where the road curved up from below, Miss Herrick waited for Jim to come up abreast of her.

She gazed straight ahead, her face coldly pure against the green.

"Can you be gentleman enough to tell me the truth?" she asked.

"I have not lied to you," replied Jim, in weary amaze.

Who could make anything of a woman?

"That--that first time you kissed me--was it honestly unpremeditated?"

"Miss Herrick, I don't know what to swear by--having no God or honor or anything. But, yes, I have. My mother! I swear by memory of her that I never dreamed of insulting you. . . . I looked up. There your face was close. Your lips red! And I kissed them."

They went on for perhaps ten paces, as far as the road, before she spoke again. "I believe you," she said, without a tremor of the rich, low voice, though it was evident her emotion was deeply stirred. "Your action was inexcusable, unforgivable. But I should not have struck you with the whip. . . . That, and your passion to frighten me, perhaps justified your brutality. . . . I shall not tell. . . . Don't leave Star Ranch."

For an instant Jim felt as if he were upon the verge of a precipice. That was the crowning shock of this unnatural experience. What she meant no wit of Jim's could fathom; he could only take her literally. But her change from revulsion to inscrutable generosity called to all that was good within him.

"Miss Herrick, I'm sorry, but I must leave," he replied, sadly.

"I'm only a wandering rider--a gun-slinger and--a member of a gang of robbers. And I was mad enough to fall in love with you. . . .

Forget it. . . . Go home to England. But if you won't do that-- never ride out alone again."

He spurred his horse and galloped down the road, by the barns and across the court, into the lane that led along the brook. Suddenly he espied a compact group of mounted riders coming down the road beyond Hays' cabin. They bestrode bays and blacks, and there was that about them which drew Jim sharply up with a fiery thrill.

Smoky's outfit!

Chapter
8

Hays stood out in front of the cabin, bareheaded, his legs spread apart as if to anchor himself solidly, his hands at his hips, his sandy hair standing up ruffled like a mane.

"Huh! The boss isn't mad. Oh no!" soliloquized Jim. "Not at all!

I'll bet his teeth are grinding thunder. . . . Small wonder.

Smoky's outfit has busted loose or is going to. . . . Well, now, I've a hunch there's luck in this for me."

Jim turned off into the corral, and took his time unsaddling. He did not wish to appear in a hurry to know what was up. He fed Bay grain and did not turn him into the pasture. Moreover, he left his rifle in its saddle-sheath. If he did not miss his calculation he would be riding away from Star Ranch that night, a thought that afforded relief even while it stabbed.

Above the babble of the brook he heard the angry voice of the robber leader. Jim made for the bridge then, and crossing, looked up to see the horses of Smoky's outfit standing, bridles down, and the riders up on the porch. Jim mounted the steps.

Hank Hays sat upon the bench, his shaggy head against the wall, his pale eyes blazing hell at the row of men leaning on the porch rail.

Hays' long legs stuck out, with his spurs digging into the porch.

He looked an infuriated, beaten man, and his twitching lips attested to impotent speech.