Cabin Gulch (15 page)

Used as she had become to the villainous countenances of border ruffians she yet, upon closer study, discovered wilder and more abandoned ones. Yet despite that, and the brazen unconcealed admiration, there was not lacking kindliness and sympathy and good-nature. Presently Joan sauntered away, and she went among the tired shaggy horses and made friends with them. An occasional rider swung up the trail to dismount before Kells's cabin, and once two riders rode in, both staring—all eyes—at her. The meaning of her intent alertness dawned upon her then. Always, whatever she was doing or thinking or
saying, behind it all hid the driving watchfulness for Jim Cleve. And the consciousness of this fixed her mind upon him—where was he? What was he doing? Was he drunk or gambling, or fighting or sleeping? Was he still honest? When she did meet him what would happen?—how could she make herself and circumstances known to him before he killed somebody? A new fear had birth and grew—Cleve would recognize her in that disguise, mask and all.

She walked up and down for a while, absorbed with this new idea. Then an unusual commotion among the loungers drew her attention to a group of men on foot, surrounding and evidently escorting several horsemen. Joan recognized Red Pearce and Frenchy, and then with a start—Jim Cleve. They were riding up the trail. Joan's heart began to pound. She could not meet Jim; she dared not trust this disguise; all her plans were as if they had never been. She forgot Kells. She even forgot her fear of what Cleve might do. The meeting—the inevitable recognition—the pain Jim Cleve must suffer when the fact and apparent significance of her presence there burst upon him—these drove all else from her mind. Mask or no mask she could not face his piercing eyes, and like a little coward she turned to enter the cabin.

Before she got in, however, it was forced upon her that something unusual had roused the loungers. They had arisen and were interested in the approaching group. Loud talk dinned in Joan's ears. Then she went to the door as Kells stalked by, eyes agleam, without even noticing her. Once inside her cabin, with the curtain drawn, Joan's fear gave place to anxiety and curiosity.

There was no one in the large cabin. Through the outer door she caught sight of a part of the crowd, close together, heads up, all noisy. Then she heard
Kells's authoritative voice, but she could understand nothing. The babble of hoarse voices grew louder. Kells appeared, entering the door with Pearce. Jim Cleve came next, and once the three were inside, the crowd spilled itself after them like angry bees. Kells was talking—Pearce was talking, but their voices were lost. Suddenly Kells vented his temper.

“Shut up . . . the lot of you!” he yelled, and his power and position might have been measured by the menace he showed.

The gang became sullenly quiet.

“Now . . . what the hell?” demanded Kells.

“Keep your shirt on, boss,” replied Pearce with good-humor. “There ain't much gone wrong. Cleve, here, throwed a gun on Gulden, that's all.”

Kells gave a slight start, barely perceptible, but the intensity of it and a fleeting tigerish gleam across his face impressed Joan with the idea that he felt a fiendish joy. Her own heart clamped in a cold amaze.

“Gulden?”—Kells's exclamation was likewise a passionate query.

“No, he ain't cashed,” replied Pearce. “You can't kill that bull so easy. But he's shot up some. He's layin' over at Beard's. Reckon you'd better go over an' dress them shots.”

“He can rot before I doctor him,” replied Kells. “Where's Bate Wood? Bate, you can take my kit and go fix Gulden up. And now, Red, what was all the roar about?”

“Reckon as that was Gulden's particular pards tryin' to mix it with Cleve an' Cleve tryin' to mix it with them . . . an' me in between. I'm here to say, boss, that I had a hell of a time stavin' off a scrap.”

During this rapid exchange between Kells and his lieutenant, Jim Cleve sat on the edge of the table, one dusty boot swinging so that his spur jangled, a wisp
of a cigarette in his lips. His face was whole except where there seemed to be bruises under his eyes. Joan had never seen him look like this. She guessed that he had been drunk—perhaps was still drunk. That utterly abandoned face Joan was so keen to read made her bite her tongue to keep from crying out. Yes, Jim was lost.

“What'd they fight about?” queried Kells.

“Ask Cleve,” replied Pearce. “Reckon I'd just as lief not talk any more about him.”

Then Kells turned to Cleve, and stepped before him. Somehow these two men face to face thrilled Joan to her depths. They presented such contrasts. Kells was keen, imperious, vital, strong, and complex, with an unmistakable friendly regard for this young outcast. Cleve seemed aloof, detached, indifferent to everything, with a white weary reckless scorn. Both were far above the gaping ruffians around them.

“Cleve, why'd you draw on Gulden?” asked Kells sharply.

“That's my business,” replied Cleve slowly, and with his piercing eyes on Kells he blew a long thin blue stream of smoke upward.

“Sure. But I remember what you asked me the other day . . . about Gulden. Was that why?”

“Nope,” replied Cleve. “This was my affair.”

“All right. But I'd like to know. Pearce says you're in bad with Gulden's friends. If I can't make peace between you, I'll have to take sides.”

“Kells, I don't need anyone on my side,” said Cleve, and he flung the cigarette away.

“Yes, you do,” replied Kells persuasively. “Every man on this border needs that. And he's lucky when he gets it.”

“Well, I don't ask for it. I don't want it.”

“That's your own business, too. I'm not insisting or advising.”

Kells's force and ability to control men manifested itself in his speech and attitude. Nothing could have been easier than to rouse the antagonism of Jim Cleve, abnormally responding as he was to the wild conditions of this border environment.

“Then you're not calling my hand?” queried Cleve with his dark piercing glance on Kells.

“I pass, Jim,” replied the bandit easily.

Cleve began to roll another cigarette. Joan saw his strong brown hands tremble, and she realized that this came from his nervous condition, not from agitation. Her heart ached for him. What a white somber face—so terribly expressive of the overthrow of his soul. He had fled to the border in reckless fury at her—at himself. There in its wildness he had, perhaps, lost thought of himself and memory of her. He had plunged into the unrestrained border life. Its changing, raw, and fateful excitement might have made him forget, but behind all was the terrible seeking to destroy and be destroyed. Joan shuddered when she remembered how she had mocked this boy's wounded vanity—how soothingly she had said he did not possess manhood and nerve enough even to be bad.

“See here, Red,” said Kells to Pearce. “Tell me what happened . . . what you saw. Jim can't object to that.”

“Sure,” replied Pearce, thus admonished. “We was all over at Beard's an' several games were on. Gulden rode into camp last night. He's always sore, but last night it seemed more'n usual. But he didn't say much an' nothin' happened. We all reckoned his trip fell through. Today he was restless. He walked an' walked just like a cougar in a pen. You know how Gulden has to be on the move. Well, we let him alone,
you can bet. But sudden-like he comes up to our table . . . me an' Cleve an' Beard an' Texas was playin' cards . . . an' he nearly kicks the table over. I grabbed the gold an' Cleve, he saved the whiskey. We'd been drinkin' an' Cleve most of all. Beard was white at the gills with rage an' Texas was suffocatin'. But we all was afraid of Gulden, except Cleve, as it turned out. But he didn't move or look mean. An' Gulden pounded on the table an' addressed himself to Cleve.

“ ‘I've a job you'll like. Come on.'

“ ‘Job? Say, man, you couldn't have a job I'd like,' replied Cleve, slow an' cool.

“You know how Gulden gets when them spells come over him. It's just plain cussedness. I've seen gunfighters lookin' for trouble . . . for someone to kill. But Gulden was worse than that. You-all take my hunch . . . he's got a screw loose in his nut!

“ ‘Cleve,' he said, ‘I located the Brander gold diggin's . . . an' the girl was there.'

“Some kind of a white flash went over Cleve. An' we-all, rememberin' Luce, began to bend low, ready to duck. Gulden didn't look no different from usual. You can't see any change in him. But I for one felt all hell burnin' in him.

“ ‘Oho! You have,' said Cleve, quick like he was pleased. ‘An' did you get her?'

“ ‘Not yet. Just looked over the ground. I'm pickin' you to go with me. We'll split on the gold, an' I'll take the girl.'

“Cleve slung the whiskey bottle an' it smashed on Gulden's mug, knockin' him flat. Then Cleve was up, like a cat, gun burnin' red. The other fellers was dodgin' low. An' as I ducked, I seen Gulden, flat on his back, draggin' at his gun. He stopped short an' his hand flopped. The side of his face went all bloody. I
made sure he'd cashed, so I leaped up, an' grabbed Cleve.

“It'd've been all right if Gulden had only cashed. But he hadn't. He came to an' bellowed for his gun an' fer his pards. Why, you could have heard him for a mile. Then, as I told you, I had trouble in holdin' back a general mix-up. An' while we was hollerin' about it, I led them all over to you. Gulden is layin' back there with his ear shot off. An' that's all.”

Kells, with thoughtful mien, turned from Pearce to the group of dark-faced men.

“This fight settles one thing,” he said, to them. “We've got to have organization. If you're not all a lot of fools, you'll see that. You need a head. Most of you swear by me, but some of you are for Gulden. Just because he's a bloody devil. These times are the wildest the West ever knew and they're growing wilder. Gulden is a great machine for execution. He has no sense of fear. He's a giant. He loves to fight . . . to kill. But Gulden's all but crazy. This last deal proves that. I leave it to your common sense. He rides around, hunting for some lone camp to rob. Or some girl to make off with. He does not plan with me or the men whose judgment I have confidence in. He's always without gold. And so are most of his followers. I don't know who they all are. And I don't care. But here we split . . . unless they and Gulden take advice and orders from me. I'm not siding so much with Cleve. Any of you ought to admit that Gulden's kind of work will disorganize a gang. He's been with us so long, and he approaches Cleve with a job. Cleve is a stranger. He may belong here, but he's not yet one of us. Gulden ought not to have approached him. It was no straight deal. We can't figure what Gulden meant exactly, but it isn't likely he wanted Cleve to go. It was a bluff. He got called. You men think this
over . . . whether you'll stick to Gulden or to me. Clear out now.”

His strong direct talk evidently impressed them, and in silence they crowded out of the cabin, leaving Pearce and Cleve behind.

“Jim, are you just hell-bent on fighting or do you mean to make yourself the champion of every poor girl in these wilds?”

Cleve puffed a cloud of smoke that enveloped his head.

“I don't pick quarrels,” he replied.

“Then you get red-headed at the very mention of a girl.”

A savage gesture of Cleve's suggested that Kells was right.

“Here, don't get red-headed at me!” called Kells with piercing sharpness. “I'll be your friend if you let me. But declare yourself like a man . . . if you want me for a friend.”

“Kells, I'm much obliged,” replied Cleve with a semblance of earnestness. “I'm no good, or I wouldn't be out here. But I can't stand for those . . . those deals with girls.”

“You'll change,” rejoined Kells bitterly. “Wait till you live a few lonely years out here. You don't understand the border. You're young. I've seen the gold fields of California and Nevada. Men go crazy with the gold fever. It's gold that makes men wild. If you don't get killed, you'll change. If you live, you'll see life on this border. War debases the moral force of a man, but nothing like what you'll experience here the next few years. Men with their wives and daughters are pouncing into this range. They've tasted blood. Wait till the great gold strike comes! Then you'll see men and women go back ten thousand years. And then what'll one girl more or less matter?”

“Well, you see, Kells, I was loved so devotedly by one and made such a hero of . . . that I just can't bear to see any girl mistreated.”

He almost drawled the words and he was suave and cool, and his face was inscrutable, but a certain bitterness in his tone gave the lie to all he said and looked.

Pearce caught the broader inference and he laughed as at a great joke. Kells shook his head doubtfully, as if Cleve's transparent speech only added to the complexity. And Cleve turned away, as if in an instant he had forgotten his comrades.

Afterward, in the silence and darkness of night, Joan Randle lay upon her bed, sleepless, haunted by Jim's white face, amazed at the magnificent madness of him, thrilled to her soul by the meaning of his attack on Gulden, and tortured by a love that had grown immeasurably, full of the strength of these hours of suspense and the passion of this wild border.

Even in her dreams Joan seemed to be bending all her will toward that inevitable and fateful moment when she must stand before Jim Cleve. It had to be. Therefore she would absolutely compel herself to meet it, regardless of the tumult that must rise within her. When all had been said, her experiences so far among these bandits, in spite of the shocks and suspense that had made her a different girl, had been infinitely more fortunate than might have been expected. She prayed for this luck to continue and forced herself into a belief that it would.