Cabin Gulch (16 page)

That night she slept in Dandy Dale's clothes, except for the boots, and sometimes, while turning in restless slumber, she had been awakened by rolling on the heavy gun, which she had not removed from the belt. At such moments she had to ponder in the darkness,
to realize that she, Joan Randle, lay a captive in a bandit's camp, dressed in a dead bandit's garb, and packing his gun—even while she slept. It was such an improbable, impossible thing. Yet the cold feel of the polished gun sent a thrill of certainty through her.

In the morning she at least did not have to suffer the shame of getting into Dandy Dale's clothes, for she was already in them. That was something. She formed a grain of comfort even in that. When she had put on the mask and sombrero, she studied the effect in her little mirror. And she again decided that no one, not even Jim Cleve, could recognize her in this disguise. Likewise she gathered courage from the fact that even her best girl friend would have found her figure unfamiliar and striking where once it had been merely tall and slender and strong, ordinarily dressed. Then how would Jim Cleve ever recognize her? She remembered her voice that had been called a contralto, low and deep, and how she used to sing the simple songs she knew. She could not disguise that voice. But she need not let Jim hear it. Then there was a return of the idea that he would instinctively recognize her—that no disguise could be proof to a lover who had ruined himself for her. Suddenly she realized how futile all her worry and shame. Sooner or later she must reveal her identity to Jim Cleve. Out of all this complexity of emotion Joan divined that what she yearned for most was to spare Cleve the shame consequent upon recognition of her and then the agony he must suffer at a false conception of her presence here. It was a weakness in her. When death menaced her lover and the most inconceivably horrible situation yawned for her, still she could only think of her passionate yearning to have him know, all in a flash, that she loved him, that she had followed him in remorse, that she was true to him and would die before being anything else.

When she left her cabin, she was in a mood to force an issue. Kells was sitting at table, and being served by Bate Wood.

“Hello, Dandy,” he greeted her in surprise and pleasure. “This's early for you.”

Joan returned his greeting and said that she could not sleep all the time.

“You're coming around. I'll bet you hold up a stage before a month is out.”

“Hold up a stage?” echoed Joan.

“Sure. It'll be great fun,” replied Kells with a laugh. “Here . . . sit down and eat with me. Bate, come along lively with breakfast. It's fine to see you there. That mask changes you, though. No one can see how pretty you are. Joan, your admirer Gulden has been incapacitated for the present.”

Then in evident satisfaction Kells repeated the story that Joan had heard Red Pearce tell the night before, and in the telling Kells enlarged somewhat upon Jim Cleve.

“I've taken a liking to Cleve,” said Kells. “He's a strange youngster. But he's more man than boy. I think he's broken-hearted over some rotten girl who's been faithless or something. Most women are no good, Joan. A while ago I'd have said
all
women were that, but since I've known you, I think . . . I know different. Still one girl out of a million doesn't change a world.”

“What will this J-Jim C-Cleve do . . . when he sees . . . me?” asked Joan, and she choked over the name.

“Don't eat so fast, girl,” said Kells. “You're only seventeen years old and you've plenty of time. . . . Well, I've thought some about Cleve. He's not crazy like Gulden, but he's just as dangerous. He's dangerous because he doesn't know what he's doing . . . has
absolutely no fear of death . . . and then he's swift with a gun. That's a bad combination. Cleve will kill a man presently. He's shot three already, and in Gulden's case he meant to kill. If he once kills a man . . . that'll make him a gunfighter. I've worried a little about his seeing you. But I can manage him, I guess. He can't be scared or driven. But he may be led. I've had Red Pearce tell him you are my wife. I hope he believes it, for none of the other fellows believe it. Anyway, you'll meet this Cleve soon, maybe today, and I want you to be friendly. If I can steady him . . . stop his drinking . . . he'll be the best man for me on this border.”

“I'm to help persuade him to join your band?” asked Joan, and she could not yet control her voice.

“Is that so black a thing?” queried Kells, evidently nettled, and he glared at her.

“I . . . I don't know,” faltered Joan. “Is this . . . this boy a criminal yet?”

“No. He's only a fine decent young chap gone wild . . . gone to hell for some girl. I told you that. You don't seem to grasp the point. If I can control him, he'll be of value to me . . . he'll be a bold and clever and dangerous man . . . he'll last out here. If I can't win him, why, he won't last a week longer. He'll be shot or knifed in a brawl. Without any control Cleve'll go straight to the hell he's headed for.”

Joan pushed back her plate and, looking up, steadily eyed the bandit. “Kells, I'd rather he ended his . . . his career quickly . . . and went to . . . to hell . . . rather than live to be a bandit and murderer at your command.”

Kells laughed mockingly, yet the savage action with which he threw his cup against the wall attested to the fact that Joan had strange power to hurt him.

“That's your sympathy, because I told you some
girl drove him out here,” said the bandit. “He's done for. You'll know that the moment you see him. I really think he or any man out here would be the better for my interest. Now, I want to know if you'll stand by me . . . put in a word to help influence this wild boy.”

“I . . . I'll have to see him first,” replied Joan.

“Well, you take it sort of hard,” growled Kells. Then presently he brightened. “I seem always to forget that you're only a kid. Listen. Now you do as you like. But I want to warn you that you've got to get back the same kind of nerve”—here he lowered his voice and glanced at Bate Wood—“that you showed when you shot me. You're going to see some sights. A great gold strike. Men grown gold mad. Women of no more account than a puff of cottonseed. Hunger, toil, pain, disease, starvation, robbery, blood, murder, language, death . . . all nothing, nothing. There will be only gold. Sleepless nights . . . days of hell . . . rush and rush . . . all strangers with greedy eyes. The things that made life will be forgotten and life itself will be cheap. There will be only that yellow stuff . . . gold . . . over which men go mad and women sell their souls.”

After breakfast, Kells had Joan's horse brought out of the corral and saddled.

“You must ride some every day. You must keep in condition,” he said. “Pretty soon we may have a chase, and I don't want it to tear you to pieces.”

“Where shall I ride?” asked Joan.

“Anywhere you like, up and down the gulch.”

“Are you going to have me watched?”

“Not if you say you won't run off.”

“You trust me?”

“Yes.”

“All right. I promise. And if I change my mind, I'll tell you.”

“Lord! Don't do it, Joan. I . . . I . . . well, you've come to mean a great deal to me. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you.” As she mounted the horse, Kells added: “Don't stand any raw talk from any of the gang.”

He had meant to tell her again that he loved her, yet he controlled it. Was he ashamed? Had he seen into the depths of himself and despised what he had imagined love? There were antagonistic forces at war within him.

It was early morning and a rosy light tinged the fresh green. She let the eager horse break into a canter and then a gallop, and she rode up the gulch till the trail started into rough ground. Then, turning, she went back down under the pines, and by the cabins, to where the gulch narrowed its outlet into the wide valley. Here she met several dusty horsemen driving a pack train. One, a jovial ruffian, threw up his hands in mock surrender.

“Hands up, pards!” he exclaimed. “Reckon we've run ag'in' Dandy Dale come to life.”

His companions made haste to comply, and then the three regarded her with bold and roguish eyes. Joan had run squarely into them around a corner of slope, and, as there was no room to pass, she had halted.

“Shore it's the Dandy Dale we heerd of,” vouchsafed another.

“Thet's Dandy's outfit with a girl inside,” added the third.

Joan wheeled her horse and rode back up the trail. That glance of these ruffians seemed to search her with the reality of her appearance. She wore a disguise,
but her womanhood was more manifest in it than in her feminine garb. It attracted the bold glances of these men. If there were any possible decency among them, this outrageous bandit costume rendered it null. How could she ever continue to wear it? Would not something good and sacred within her be sullied by a constant exposure to the effect she had upon these vile border men? She did not think it could while she loved Jim Cleve, and with thought of him came a mighty throb of her heart to assure her that nothing mattered if only she could save him.

Upon the return trip up the gulch there were men in sight leading horses, chopping wood, stretching arms in cabin doors. Joan avoided riding near them, yet even at a distance she was aware of their gaze. One rowdy, half hidden in a window, curved hands around his mouth and called softly: “Hullo, sweetheart!”

Joan was ashamed that she could feel insulted. She was amazed at the temper that seemed raised in her. This border had caused her feelings she had never dreamed possible to her. Avoiding the trail, she headed for the other side of the gulch. There were clumps of willows along the brook through which she threaded a way, looking for a good place to cross. The horse snorted for water. Apparently she was not going to find any better crossing, so she turned the horse into a narrow lane through the willows and, dismounting on a mossy bank, she slipped the bridle so the horse could drink.

Suddenly she became aware that she was not alone, but she saw no one in front of her or on the other side of her horse. Then she turned. Jim Cleve was in the act of rising from his knees. He had a towel in his hand. His face was wet. He stood no more than ten steps from her.

Joan could not have repressed a little cry to save her
life. The surprise was tremendous. She could not move a finger. She expected to hear him call her name.

Cleve stared at her. His face, in the morning light, was as drawn and white as that of a corpse. Only his eyes seemed alive and they were flames. A lightning flash of scorn leaped to them. He only recognized in her a woman and his scorn was for the creature that bandit garb proclaimed her to be. A sad and bitter smile crossed his face, and then it was followed by an expression that was a lash upon Joan's bleeding spirit. He looked at her shapely person with something of the brazen and evil glance that had been so revolting to her in the eyes of those ruffians. That was the unexpected—the impossible—a connection with Jim Cleve. How could she stand there under it—and live?

She jerked at the bridle, and, wading blindly across the brook, she somehow mounted the bank, and rode with blurred sight back to the cabin. Kells appeared busy with men outside and did not accost her. She fled to her cabin and barricaded the door.

Then she hid her face on her bed, covered herself to shut out the light, and lay there, broken-hearted. What had been that other thing she had imagined was shame—that shrinking and burning she had suffered through Kells and his men? What was that compared to this awful thing? A brand of red-hot pitch, blacker and bitterer than death, had been struck brutally across her soul. By the man she loved—who she would have died to save? Jim Cleve had seen in her only an abandoned creature of the camps. His sad and bitter smile had been for the thought that he could have loved anything of her sex. His scorn had been for the betrayed youth and womanhood suggested by her appearance. And then the thing that struck into Joan's heart was the fact that her grace
and charm of person, revealed by this costume forced upon her, had roused Jim Cleve's first response to the evil surrounding him, the first call to that baseness he must be assimilating from these border ruffians. That he could look at her so! The girl he had loved! Joan's agony lay not in the circumstance of his being so mistaken in her character as he had been in her identity, but that she of all women had to be the one who made him answer, like Kells and Gulden, and all those ruffians, to the instincts of the beast!

Oh, he'd been drunk . . . he was drunk,
thought Joan.
He isn't to be blamed. He's not my old Jim. He's suffering . . . he's changed . . . he doesn't care. What could I expect . . . standing there like a hussy before him . . . in this . . . this damned indecent rig? I must see him. I must tell him. If he recognized me now . . . and I had no chance to tell him why I'm here . . . why I look like this . . . that I love him . . . am still good . . . and true to him . . . if I couldn't tell him I'd . . . I'd shoot myself!

Joan sobbed out the final words, and then broke down. And when the spell had exercised its sway, leaving her limp and shaken and weak, she was the better for it. Slowly calmness returned so that she could look at her wild and furious rush from the spot where she had faced Jim Cleve, at the storm of shame ending in her collapse. She realized that, if she had met Jim Cleve here in the dress in which she had left home, there would have been the same shock of surprise and fear and love. She owed part of that break-down to the suspense she had been under and then the suddenness of the meeting. Looking back at her agitation, she felt that it had been natural—that, if she could only tell the truth to Jim Cleve, the situation was not impossible. But the meeting, and all following it, bore tremendous revelation of how through all
this wild experience she had learned to love Jim Cleve. But for his reckless flight and her blind pursuit, toil, and despair, she would never have known her woman's heart and its capacity for love.