Zane Grey (18 page)

Kells had begun under restraint, but the sound of his voice, the
liberation of his great idea, roused him to a passion. The man radiated
with passion. This, then, was his dream—the empire he aspired to.

He had a powerful effect upon his listeners, except Gulden; and it was
evident to Joan that the keen bandit was conscious of his influence.
Gulden, however, showed nothing that he had not already showed. He
was always a strange, dominating figure. He contested the relations of
things. Kells watched him—the men watched him—and Jim Cleve's piercing
eyes glittered in the shadow, fixed upon that massive face. Manifestly
Gulden meant to speak, but in his slowness there was no laboring, no
pause from emotion. He had an idea and it moved like he moved.

"DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES!" The words boomed deep from his cavernous
chest, a mutter that was a rumble, with something almost solemn in its
note and certainly menacing, breathing murder. As Kells had propounded
his ideas, revealing his power to devise a remarkable scheme and
his passion for gold, so Gulden struck out with the driving inhuman
blood-lust that must have been the twist, the knot, the clot in his
brain. Kells craved notoriety and gold; Gulden craved to kill. In the
silence that followed his speech these wild border ruffians judged him,
measured him, understood him, and though some of them grew farther
aloof from him, more of them sensed the safety that hid in his terrible
implication.

But Kells rose against him.

"Gulden, you mean when we steal gold—to leave only dead men behind?" he
queried, with a hiss in his voice.

The giant nodded grimly.

"But only fools kill—unless in self-defense," declared Kells,
passionately.

"We'd last longer," replied Gulden, imperturbably.

"No—no. We'd never last so long. Killings rouse a mining-camp after a
while—gold fever or no. That means a vigilante band."

"We can belong to the vigilantes, just as well as to your Legion," said
Gulden.

The effect of this was to make Gulden appear less of a fool than
Kells supposed him. The ruffians nodded to one another. They stirred
restlessly. They were animated by a strange and provocative influence.
Even Red Pearce and the others caught its subtlety. It was evil
predominating in evil hearts. Blood and death loomed like a shadow here.
The keen Kells saw the change working toward a transformation and he
seemed craftily fighting something within him that opposed this cold
ruthlessness of his men.

"Gulden, suppose I don't see it your way?" he asked.

"Then I won't join your Legion."

"What WILL you do?"

"I'll take the men who stand by me and go clean up that gold-camp."

From the fleeting expression on Kells's face Joan read that he knew
Gulden's project would defeat his own and render both enterprises fatal.

"Gulden, I don't want to lose you," he said.

"You won't lose me if you see this thing right," replied Gulden. "You've
got the brains to direct us. But, Kells, you're losing your nerve....
It's this girl you've got here!"

Gulden spoke without rancor or fear or feeling of any kind. He merely
spoke the truth. And it shook Kells with an almost ungovernable fury.

Joan saw the green glare of his eyes—his gray working face—the flutter
of his hand. She had an almost superhuman insight into the workings of
his mind. She knew that then—he was fighting whether or not to kill
Gulden on the spot. And she recognized that this was the time when Kells
must kill Gulden or from that moment see a gradual diminishing of his
power on the border. But Kells did not recognize that crucial height of
his career. His struggle with his fury and hate showed that the thing
uppermost in his mind was the need of conciliating Gulden and thus
regaining a hold over the men.

"Gulden, suppose we waive the question till we're on the grounds?" he
suggested.

"Waive nothing. It's one or the other with me," declared Gulden.

"Do you want to be leader of this Border Legion?" went on Kells,
deliberately.

"No."

"Then what do you want?"

Gulden appeared at a loss for an instant reply. "I want plenty to do,"
he replied, presently. "I want to be in on everything. I want to be free
to kill a man when I like."

"When you like!" retorted Kells, and added a curse. Then as if by magic
his dark face cleared and there was infinite depth and craftiness in
him. His opposition, and that hint of hate and loathing which detached
him from Gulden, faded from his bearing. "Gulden, I'll split the
difference between us. I'll leave you free to do as you like. But all
the others—every man—must take orders from me."

Gulden reached out a huge hand. His instant acceptance evidently amazed
Kells and the others.

"LET HER RIP!" Gulden exclaimed. He shook Kells's hand and then
laboriously wrote his name in the little book.

In that moment Gulden stood out alone in the midst of wild abandoned
men. What were Kells and this Legion to him? What was the stealing of
more or less gold?

"Free to do as you like except fight my men," said Kells. "That's
understood."

"If they don't pick a fight with me," added the giant, and he grinned.

One by one his followers went through with the simple observances that
Kells's personality made a serious and binding compact.

"Anybody else?" called Kells, glancing round. The somberness was leaving
his face.

"Here's Jim Cleve," said Pearce, pointing toward the wall.

"Hello, youngster! Come here. I'm wanting you bad," said Kells.

Cleve sauntered out of the shadow, and his glittering eyes were fixed
on Gulden. There was an instant of waiting. Gulden looked at Cleve. Then
Kells quickly strode between them.

"Say, I forgot you fellows had trouble," he said. He attended solely
to Gulden. "You can't renew your quarrel now. Gulden, we've all fought
together more or less, and then been good friends. I want Cleve to join
us, but not against your ill will. How about it?"

"I've no ill will," replied the giant, and the strangeness of his remark
lay in its evident truth. "But I won't stand to lose my other ear!"

Then the ruffians guffawed in hoarse mirth. Gulden, however, did not
seem to see any humor in his remark. Kells laughed with the rest. Even
Cleve's white face relaxed into a semblance of a smile.

"That's good. We're getting together," declared Kells. Then he faced
Cleve, all about him expressive of elation, of assurance, of power.
"Jim, will you draw cards in this deal?"

"What's the deal?" asked Cleve.

Then in swift, eloquent speech Kells launched the idea of his Border
Legion, its advantages to any loose-footed, young outcast, and he ended
his brief talk with much the same argument he had given Joan. Back there
in her covert Joan listened and watched, mindful of the great need of
controlling her emotions. The instant Jim Cleve had stalked into the
light she had been seized by a spasm of trembling.

"Kells, I don't care two straws one way or another," replied Cleve.

The bandit appeared nonplussed. "You don't care whether you join my
Legion or whether you don't?"

"Not a damn," was the indifferent answer.

"Then do me a favor," went on Kells. "Join to please me. We'll be good
friends. You're in bad out here on the border. You might as well fall in
with us."

"I'd rather go alone."

"But you won't last."

"It's a lot I care."

The bandit studied the reckless, white face. "See here, Cleve—haven't
you got the nerve to be bad—thoroughly bad?"

Cleve gave a start as if he had been stung. Joan shut her eyes to blot
out what she saw in his face. Kells had used part of the very speech
with which she had driven Jim Cleve to his ruin. And those words
galvanized him. The fatality of all this! Joan hated herself. Those
very words of hers would drive this maddened and heartbroken boy to join
Kells's band. She knew what to expect from Jim even before she opened
her eyes; yet when she did open them it was to see him transformed and
blazing.

Then Kells either gave way to leaping passion or simulated it in the
interest of his cunning.

"Cleve, you're going down for a woman?" he queried, with that sharp,
mocking ring in his voice.

"If you don't shut up you'll get there first," replied Cleve,
menacingly.

"Bah!... Why do you want to throw a gun on me? I'm your friend: You're
sick. You're like a poisoned pup. I say if you've got nerve you won't
quit. You'll take a run for your money. You'll see life. You'll fight.
You'll win some gold. There are other women. Once I thought I would quit
for a woman. But I didn't. I never found the right one till I had gone
to hell—out here on this border.... If you've got nerve, show me. Be a
man instead of a crazy youngster. Spit out the poison.... Tell it before
us all!... Some girl drove you to us?"

"Yes—a girl!" replied Cleve, hoarsely, as if goaded.

"It's too late to go back?"

"Too late!"

"There's nothing left but wild life that makes you forget?"

"Nothing.... Only I—can't forget!" he panted.

Cleve was in a torture of memory, of despair, of weakness. Joan saw how
Kells worked upon Jim's feelings. He was only a hopeless, passionate
boy in the hands of a strong, implacable man. He would be like wax to a
sculptor's touch. Jim would bend to this bandit's will, and through his
very tenacity of love and memory be driven farther on the road to drink,
to gaming, and to crime.

Joan got to her feet, and with all her woman's soul uplifting and
inflaming her she stood ready to meet the moment that portended.

Kells made a gesture of savage violence. "Show your nerve!... Join
with me!... You'll make a name on this border that the West will never
forget!"

That last hint of desperate fame was the crafty bandit's best trump. And
it won. Cleve swept up a weak and nervous hand to brush the hair from
his damp brow. The keenness, the fire, the aloofness had departed from
him. He looked shaken as if by something that had been pointed out as
his own cowardice.

"Sure, Kells," he said, recklessly. "Let me in the game.... And—by
God—I'll play—the hand out!" He reached for the pencil and bent over
the book.

"Wait!... Oh, WAIT!" cried Joan. The passion of that moment, the
consciousness of its fateful portent and her situation, as desperate
as Cleve's, gave her voice a singularly high and piercingly sweet
intensity. She glided from behind the blanket—out of the shadow—into
the glare of the lanterns—to face Kells and Cleve.

Kells gave one astounded glance at her, and then, divining her purpose,
he laughed thrillingly and mockingly, as if the sight of her was a spur,
as if her courage was a thing to admire, to permit, and to regret.

"Cleve, my wife, Dandy Dale," he said, suave and cool. "Let her persuade
you—one way or another!"

The presence of a woman, however disguised, following her singular
appeal, transformed Cleve. He stiffened erect and the flush died out of
his face, leaving it whiter than ever, and the eyes that had grown dull
quickened and began to burn. Joan felt her cheeks blanch. She all but
fainted under that gaze. But he did not recognize her, though he was
strangely affected.

"Wait!" she cried again, and she held to that high voice, so different
from her natural tone. "I've been listening. I've heard all that's been
said. Don't join this Border Legion.... You're young—and still, honest.
For God's sake—don't go the way of these men! Kells will make you a
bandit.... Go home—boy—go home!"

"Who are you—to speak to me of honesty—of home?" Cleve demanded.

"I'm only a—a woman.... But I can feel how wrong you are.... Go back
to that girl—who—who drove you to the border.... She must repent. In
a day you'll be too late.... Oh, boy, go home! Girls never know their
minds—their hearts. Maybe your girl—loved you!... Oh, maybe her heart
is breaking now!"

A strong, muscular ripple went over Cleve, ending in a gesture of fierce
protest. Was it pain her words caused, or disgust that such as she dared
mention the girl he had loved? Joan could not tell. She only knew
that Cleve was drawn by her presence, fascinated and repelled, subtly
responding to the spirit of her, doubting what he heard and believing
with his eyes.

"You beg me not to become a bandit?" he asked, slowly, as if revolving a
strange idea.

"Oh, I implore you!"

"Why?"

"I told you. Because you're still good at heart. You've only been
wild.... Because—"

"Are you the wife of Kells?" he flashed at her.

A reply seemed slowly wrenched from Joan's reluctant lips. "No!"

The denial left a silence behind it. The truth that all knew when spoken
by her was a kind of shock. The ruffians gaped in breathless attention.
Kells looked on with a sardonic grin, but he had grown pale. And upon
the face of Cleve shone an immeasurable scorn.

"Not his wife!" exclaimed Cleve, softly.

His tone was unendurable to Joan. She began to shrink. A flame curled
within her. How he must hate any creature of her sex!

"And you appeal to me!" he went on. Suddenly a weariness came over him.
The complexity of women was beyond him. Almost he turned his back upon
her. "I reckon such as you can't keep me from Kells—or blood—or hell!"

"Then you're a narrow-souled weakling—born to crime!" she burst out in
magnificent wrath. "For however appearances are against me—I am a good
woman!"

That stunned him, just as it drew Kells upright, white and watchful.
Cleve seemed long in grasping its significance. His face was half
averted. Then he turned slowly, all strung, and his hands clutched
quiveringly at the air. No man of coolness and judgment would have
addressed him or moved a step in that strained moment. All expected some
such action as had marked his encounter with Luce and Gulden.