Zane Grey (8 page)

"You're out of your head. Once for all—no!" she replied, firmly.

"You—you—" His voice failed in a terrible whisper....

In the succeeding days Kells did not often speak. His recovery was
slow—a matter of doubt. Nothing was any plainer than the fact that if
Joan had left him he would not have lived long. She knew it. And he knew
it. When he was awake, and she came to him, a mournful and beautiful
smile lit his eyes. The sight of her apparently hurt him and uplifted
him. But he slept twenty hours out of every day, and while he slept he
did not need Joan.

She came to know the meaning of solitude. There were days when she did
not hear the sound of her own voice. A habit of silence, one of the
significant forces of solitude, had grown upon her. Daily she thought
less and felt more. For hours she did nothing. When she roused herself,
compelled herself to think of these encompassing peaks of the lonely
canon walls, the stately trees, all those eternally silent and changless
features of her solitude, she hated them with a blind and unreasoning
passion. She hated them because she was losing her love for them,
because they were becoming a part of her, because they were fixed and
content and passionless. She liked to sit in the sun, feel its warmth,
see its brightness; and sometimes she almost forgot to go back to her
patient. She fought at times against an insidious change—a growing
older—a going backward; at other times she drifted through hours that
seemed quiet and golden, in which nothing happened. And by and by when
she realized that the drifting hours were gradually swallowing up the
restless and active hours, then strangely, she remembered Jim Cleve.
Memory of him came to save her. She dreamed of him during the long,
lonely, solemn days, and in the dark, silent climax of unbearable
solitude—the night. She remembered his kisses, forgot her anger
and shame, accepted the sweetness of their meaning, and so in the
interminable hours of her solitude she dreamed herself into love for
him.

Joan kept some record of days, until three weeks or thereabout passed,
and then she lost track of time. It dragged along, yet looked at as the
past, it seemed to have sped swiftly. The change in her, the growing
old, the revelation and responsibility of serf, as a woman, made this
experience appear to have extended over months.

Kells slowly became convalescent and then he had a relapse. Something
happened, the nature of which Joan could not tell, and he almost died.
There were days when his life hung in the balance, when he could not
talk; and then came a perceptible turn for the better.

The store of provisions grew low, and Joan began to face another serious
situation. Deer and rabbit were plentiful in the canon, but she could
not kill one with a revolver. She thought she would be forced to
sacrifice one of the horses. The fact that Kells suddenly showed a
craving for meat brought this aspect of the situation to a climax. And
that very morning while Joan was pondering the matter she saw a number
of horsemen riding up the canon toward the cabin. At the moment she was
relieved, and experienced nothing of the dread she had formerly felt
while anticipating this very event.

"Kells," she said, quickly, "there are men riding up the trail."

"Good," he exclaimed, weakly, with a light on his drawn face. "They've
been long in—getting here. How many?"

Joan counted them—five riders, and several pack-animals.

"Yes. It's Gulden."

"Gulden!" cried Joan, with a start.

Her exclamation and tone made Kells regard her attentively.

"You've heard of him? He's the toughest nut—on this border.... I never
saw his like. You won't be safe. I'm so helpless.... What to say—to
tell him!... Joan, if I should happen to croak—you want to get away
quick... or shoot yourself."

How strange to hear this bandit warn her of peril the like of which she
had encountered through him! Joan secured the gun and hid it in a niche
between the logs. Then she looked out again.

The riders were close at hand now. The foremost one, a man of Herculean
build, jumped his mount across the brook, and leaped off while he hauled
the horse to a stop. The second rider came close behind him; the others
approached leisurely, with the gait of the pack-animals.

"Ho, Kells!" called the big man. His voice had a loud, bold, sonorous
kind of ring.

"Reckon he's here somewheres," said the other man, presently.

"Sure. I seen his hoss. Jack ain't goin' to be far from thet hoss."

Then both of them approached the cabin. Joan had never before seen two
such striking, vicious-looking, awesome men. The one was huge—so wide
and heavy and deep-set that he looked short—and he resembled a gorilla.
The other was tall, slim, with a face as red as flame, and an expression
of fierce keenness. He was stoop shouldered, yet he held his head erect
in a manner that suggested a wolf scenting blood.

"Someone here, Pearce," boomed the big man.

"Why, Gul, if it ain't a girl!"

Joan moved out of the shadow of the wall of the cabin, and she pointed
to the prostrate figure on the blankets.

"Howdy boys!" said Kells, wanly.

Gulden cursed in amaze while Pearce dropped to his knee with an
exclamation of concern. Then both began to talk at once. Kells
interrupted them by lifting a weak hand.

"No, I'm not going—to cash," he said. "I'm only starved—and in need of
stimulants. Had my back half shot off."

"Who plugged you, Jack?"

"Gulden, it was your side-partner, Bill."

"Bill?" Gulden's voice held a queer, coarse constraint. Then he added,
gruffly. "Thought you and him pulled together."

"Well, we didn't."

"And—where's Bill now?" This time Joan heard a slow, curious, cold note
in the heavy voice, and she interpreted it as either doubt or deceit.

"Bill's dead and Halloway, too," replied Kells.

Gulden turned his massive, shaggy head in the direction of Joan. She had
not the courage to meet the gaze upon her. The other man spoke:

"Split over the girl, Jack?"

"No," replied Kells, sharply. "They tried to get familiar with—MY
WIFE—and I shot them both."

Joan felt a swift leap of hot blood all over her and then a coldness, a
sickening, a hateful weakness.

"Wife!" ejaculated Gulden.

"Your real wife, Jack?" queried Pearce.

"Well, I guess, I'll introduce you... Joan, here are two of my
friends—Sam Gulden and Red Pearce."

Gulden grunted something.

"Mrs. Kells, I'm glad to meet you," said Pearce.

Just then the other three men entered the cabin and Joan took advantage
of the commotion they made to get out into the air. She felt sick,
frightened, and yet terribly enraged. She staggered a little as she
went out, and she knew she was as pale as death. These visitors thrust
reality upon her with a cruel suddenness. There was something terrible
in the mere presence of this Gulden. She had not yet dared to take a
good look at him. But what she felt was overwhelming. She wanted to
run. Yet escape now was infinitely more of a menace than before. If she
slipped away it would be these new enemies who would pursue her, track
her like hounds. She understood why Kells had introduced her as his
wife. She hated the idea with a shameful and burning hate, but a
moment's reflection taught her that Kells had answered once more to
a good instinct. At the moment he had meant that to protect her.
And further reflection persuaded Joan that she would be wise to act
naturally and to carry out the deception as far as it was possible for
her. It was her only hope. Her position had again grown perilous. She
thought of the gun she had secreted, and it gave her strength to control
her agitation and to return to the cabin outwardly calm.

The men had Kells half turned over with the flesh of his back exposed.

"Aw, Gul, it's whisky he needs," said one.

"If you let out any more blood he'll croak sure," protested another.

"Look how weak he is," said Red Pearce.

"It's a hell of a lot you know," roared Gulden. "I served my time—but
that's none of your business.... Look here! See that blue spot!" Gulden
pressed a huge finger down upon the blue welt on Kells's back. The
bandit moaned. "That's lead—that's the bullet," declared Gulden.

"Wall, if you ain't correct!" exclaimed Pearce.

Kells turned his head. "When you punched that place—it made me numb all
over. Gul, if you've located the bullet, cut it out."

Joan did not watch the operation. As she went away to the seat under the
balsam she heard a sharp cry and then cheers. Evidently the grim Gulden
had been both swift and successful.

Presently the men came out of the cabin and began to attend to their
horses and the pack-train.

Pearce looked for Joan, and upon seeing her called out, "Kells wants
you."

Joan found the bandit half propped up against a saddle with a damp and
pallid face, but an altogether different look.

"Joan, that bullet was pressing on my spine," he said. "Now it's out,
all that deadness is gone. I feel alive. I'll get well, soon.... Gulden
was curious over the bullet. It's a forty-four caliber, and neither Bill
Bailey nor Halloway used that caliber of gun. Gulden remembered. He's
cunning. Bill was as near being a friend to this Gulden as any man I
know of. I can't trust any of these men, particularly Gulden. You stay
pretty close by me."

"Kells, you'll let me go soon—help me to get home?" implored Joan in a
low voice.

"Girl, it'd never be safe now," he replied.

"Then later—soon—when it is safe?"

"We'll see.... But you're my wife now!"

With the latter words the man subtly changed. Something of the power she
had felt in him before his illness began again to be manifested. Joan
divined that these comrades had caused the difference in him.

"You won't dare—!" Joan was unable to conclude her meaning. A tight
band compressed her breast and throat, and she trembled.

"Will you dare go out there and tell them you're NOT my wife?" he
queried. His voice had grown stronger and his eyes were blending shadows
of thought.

Joan knew that she dared not. She must choose the lesser of two evils.
"No man—could be such a beast to a woman—after she'd saved his life,"
she whispered.

"I could be anything. You had your chance. I told you to go. I said if I
ever got well I'd be as I was—before."

"But you'd have died."

"That would have been better for you..... Joan, I'll do this. Marry
you honestly and leave the country. I've gold. I'm young. I love you. I
intend to have you. And I'll begin life over again. What do you say?"

"Say? I'd die before—I'd marry you!" she panted.

"All right, Joan Randle," he replied, bitterly. "For a moment I saw a
ghost. My old dead better self!... It's gone.... And you stay with me."

After dark Kells had his men build a fire before the open side of the
cabin. He lay propped up on blankets and his saddle, while the others
lounged or sat in a half-circle in the light, facing him.

Joan drew her blankets into a corner where the shadows were thick and
she could see without being seen. She wondered how she would ever sleep
near all these wild men—if she could ever sleep again. Yet she seemed
more curious and wakeful than frightened. She had no way to explain
it, but she felt the fact that her presence in the camp had a subtle
influence, at once restraining and exciting. So she looked out upon the
scene with wide-open eyes.

And she received more strongly than ever an impression of wildness. Even
the camp-fire seemed to burn wildly; it did not glow and sputter and
pale and brighten and sing like an honest camp-fire. It blazed in red,
fierce, hurried flames, wild to consume the logs. It cast a baleful
and sinister color upon the hard faces there. Then the blackness of the
enveloping night was pitchy, without any bold outline of canon wall
or companionship of stars. The coyotes were out in force and from all
around came their wild sharp barks. The wind rose and mourned weirdly
through the balsams.

But it was in the men that Joan felt mostly that element of wildness.
Kells lay with his ghastly face clear in the play of the moving flare
of light. It was an intelligent, keen, strong face, but evil. Evil power
stood out in the lines, in the strange eyes, stranger then ever, now
in shadow; and it seemed once more the face of an alert, listening,
implacable man, with wild projects in mind, driving him to the doom he
meant for others. Pearce's red face shone redder in that ruddy light. It
was hard, lean, almost fleshless, a red mask stretched over a grinning
skull. The one they called Frenchy was little, dark, small-featured,
with piercing gimlet-like eyes, and a mouth ready to gush forth hate
and violence. The next two were not particularly individualized by any
striking aspect, merely looking border ruffians after the type of Bill
and Halloway. But Gulden, who sat at the end of the half-circle, was
an object that Joan could scarcely bring her gaze to study. Somehow her
first glance at him put into her mind a strange idea—that she was a
woman and therefore of all creatures or things in the world the farthest
removed from him. She looked away, and found her gaze returning,
fascinated, as if she were a bird and he a snake. The man was of huge
frame, a giant whose every move suggested the acme of physical power. He
was an animal—a gorilla with a shock of light instead of black hair,
of pale instead of black skin. His features might have been hewn and
hammered out with coarse, dull, broken chisels. And upon his face, in
the lines and cords, in the huge caverns where his eyes hid, and in the
huge gash that held strong, white fangs, had been stamped by nature
and by life a terrible ferocity. Here was a man or a monster in whose
presence Joan felt that she would rather be dead. He did not smoke; he
did not indulge in the coarse, good-natured raillery, he sat there like
a huge engine of destruction that needed no rest, but was forced to rest
because of weaker attachments. On the other hand, he was not sullen or
brooding. It was that he did not seem to think.