Cabin Gulch (31 page)

He began pacing the floor. Budd and Smith strolled outside. Bate Wood fumbled in his pockets for pipe and tobacco. Cleve sat down at the table and leaned on his hands. No one took notice of the dead Pearce. Here was somber and terrible sign of the wildness of the border clan—that Kells could send out for a person to marry him to a woman he hopelessly loved, there in the presence of murder and death, with Pearce's distorted face upturned in stark and ghastly significance.

It might have been a quarter of an hour, although to Joan it seemed an endless time, until footsteps and voices outside announced the return of Blicky. He held by the arm a slight man who he was urging along with no gentle force. This stranger's face presented as great a contrast to Blicky's as could have been imagined. His apparel proclaimed his calling. There were consternation and bewilderment in his expression, but very little fear.

“He was preachin' down there in a tent,” said Blicky. “An' I jest waltzed him up without explainin'.”

“Sir, I want to be married at once,” declared Kells peremptorily.

“Certainly. I'm at your service,” replied the preacher. “But I deplore the manner in which I've been approached.”

“You'll excuse the haste,” rejoined the bandit. “I'll pay you well.” Kells threw a small buckskin sack of gold dust upon the table, and then he turned to Joan. “Come, Joan,” he said in the tone that brooked neither resistance nor delay.

It was at this moment that the preacher first noticed Joan. Was her costume accountable for his start? Joan had remembered his voice and she wondered if he would remember her. Certainly Jim had called her Joan more than once on the night of the marriage. The preacher's wild eyes grew keener. He glanced from Joan to Kells, and then at the other men who had come in. Jim Cleve stood behind Jesse Smith's broad person, and evidently the preacher did not see him. That curious gaze, however, next discovered the dead man on the floor. Then to the curiosity and anxiety upon the preacher's face was added horror.

“A minister of God is needed here, but not in the capacity you name,” he said. “I'll perform no marriage ceremony in the presence of murder.”

“Mister Preacher, you'll marry me quick or you'll go along with him,” replied Kells deliberately.

“I cannot be forced.” The preacher still maintained some dignity, but he had grown pale.

“
I
can force you. Get ready now! Joan, come here.” Kells spoke sternly yet something of the old self-mocking spirit was in his tone. His intelligence was deriding the flesh and blood of him, the beast, the fool. It spoke that he would have his way and that the choice was fatal for him.

Joan shook her head. In one stride Kells reached her and swung her spinning before him. The physical violence acted strangely upon Joan—roused her rage.

“I wouldn't marry you to save my life . . . even if I
could!
” she burst out.

At her declaration the preacher gave a start that must have been suspicion or confirmation, or both. He bent low to peer into the face of the dead Pearce. When he arose, he was shaking his head. Evidently he had decided Pearce was not the man to whom he had married Joan.

“Please remove your mask,” he said to Joan.

She did so swiftly, without a tremor. The preacher peered into her face again, as he had upon the night he had married her to Jim. He faced Kells again.

“I am beyond your threats,” he said, now with calmness. “I can't marry you to a woman who already has a husband. But I don't see that husband here.”

“You don't see that husband here!” echoed the bewildered Kells. He stared with open mouth. “Say, have you got a screw loose?”

The preacher, in his swift glance, had apparently not observed the half-hidden Cleve. Certainly it appeared now that he would have no attention for any other than Kells. The bandit was a study. His astonishment
was terrific and held him like a chain. Suddenly he lurched.

“What did you say?” he roared, his face turning livid.

“I can't marry you to a woman who already has a husband.”

Swift as light the red flashed out of Kells's face. “Did you ever see her before?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied the preacher.

“Where and when?”

“Here . . . at the back of this cabin . . . a few nights ago.”

It hurt Joan to look at Kells now, yet he seemed wonderful to behold. She felt as guilty as if she had really been false to him. Her heart labored high in her breast. This was the climax—the moment of catastrophe. Another word and Jim Cleve would be facing Kells. The blood pressure in Joan's throat almost strangled her.

“At the back of this cabin . . . ? At her window?”

“Yes.”

“What were you there for?”

“In my capacity as minister. I was summoned to marry her.”

“To marry her?” gasped Kells.

“Yes. She is Joan Randle from Hoadley, Idaho. She is over eighteen. I understood she was detained here against her will. She loved an honest young miner of the camp. He brought me up here one night. And I married them.”

“You . . . married . . . them!”

“Yes.”

Kells was slow in assimilating the truth and his action corresponded with his mind. Slowly his hand moved toward his gun. He drew it, and then all the terrible evil of the man flamed forth. But as he deliberately
aimed at the preacher, Blicky leaped forward and knocked up the gun. Flash and report followed; the discharge went into the roof. Blicky grasped Kells's arm and threw his weight upon it to keep it down.

“I fetched that parson here,” he yelled, “an' you ain't a-goin' to kill him! Help, Jesse! He's crazy! He'll do it!”

Jesse Smith ran to Blicky's aid and tore the gun out of Kells's hand.

Jim Cleve grasped the preacher by the shoulders and, whirling him around, sent him flying out of the door. “Run for your life!” he shouted.

Blicky and Jesse Smith were trying to hold the lunging Kells.

“Jim, you block the door!” called Jesse. “Bate, you grab any loose guns an' knives. Now, boss, rant an' be damned!”

They released Kells and backed away, leaving him the room. Joan's limbs seemed unable to execute her will.

“Joan! It's true!” he exclaimed with whistling breath.

“Yes.”

“Who?” he bellowed.

“I'll never tell.”

He reached for her with hands like claws, as if he meant to tear her, rend her. Joan was helpless, weak, terrified. Those shaking, clutching hands reached for her throat and yet never closed around it. Kells wanted to kill her, but he could not. He loomed over her, dark, speechless, locked in his paroxysm of rage. Perhaps then came a realization of ruin through her. He hated her because he loved her. He wanted to kill her because of that hate, yet he could not harm her,evenhurt her. His soul seemed in conflict with two giants—the evil in him that was hate—and the love that was good.

Suddenly he flung her aside. She stumbled over Pearce's body, almost falling, and staggered back to the wall. Kells had the center of the room to himself. Like a mad steer in a corral he gazed about, stupidly seeking some way to escape. But the escape Kells longed for was from himself. Then either he let himself go or was unable longer to control his rage. He began to plunge around. His actions were violent, random, half insane. He seemed to want to destroy himself and everything. But the weapons were guarded by his men and the room contained little he could smash. There was something magnificent in his fury, yet childish and absurd. Even under the influence and his abandonment he showed a consciousness of its futility. In a few moments the inside of the cabin was a disaster and Kells seemed a disheveled, sweating, panting wretch. The rapidity and violence of his action, coupled with his fury, soon exhausted him. He fell from plunging here and there, to pacing the floor. And even the dignity of passion passed from him. He looked a hopeless, beaten, stricken man, conscious of defeat.

Jesse Smith approached the bandit leader.

“Jack, here's your gun,” he said. “I only took it because you was out of your head. An' listen, boss. There's a few of us left.”

That was Smith's expression of fidelity, and Kells received it with a pallid grateful smile.

“Bate, you an' Jim clean up this mess,” went on Smith. “An' Blicky, come here an' help me with Pearce. We'll have to plant him.”

The stir begun by the men was broken by a sharp exclamation from Cleve.

“Kells, here comes Gulden . . . Beady Jones, Williams, Beard!”

The bandit raised his head and paced back to where he could look out.

Bate Wood made a violent and significant gesture. “Somethin' wrong,” he said hurriedly. “An' it's more'n to do with Gul! Look down the road. See that gang. All excited an' wavin' hands an' runnin'. But they're goin' down into camp.”

Jesse Smith turned a gray face toward Kells. “Boss, there's hell to pay! I've seen
thet
kind of excitement before.”

Kells thrust the men aside and looked out. He seemed to draw upon a reserve strength, for he grew composed even while he gazed.

“Jim, get in the other room,” he ordered, sharply. “Joan, you go, too. Keep still.”

Joan hurried to comply. Jim entered after her and closed the door. Instinctively they clasped hands, drew closely together.

“Jim, what does it mean?” she whispered fearfully. “Gulden?”

“He must be looking for me,” replied Jim. “But there's more doing. Did you see that crowd down the road?”

“No. I couldn't see out.”

“Listen.”

Heavy tramp of boots sounded without. Silently Joan led Jim to the crack between the boards through which she had spied on the bandits. Jim peeped through, and Joan saw his hand go to his gun. Then she looked.

Gulden was being crowded into the cabin by fierce, bulging-jawed men who meant some kind of dark business. The strangest thing about that entrance was its silence. In a moment they were inside, confronting Kells with his little group. Beard, Jones, Williams, former
faithful allies of Kells, showed a magnificent opposition. The huge Gulden resembled an enraged gorilla. For an instant his great pale cavernous eyes glared. He had one hand under his coat, and his position had a sinister suggestion. Kells stood, cool and sure. When Gulden moved, Kells's gun was leaping forth. But he withheld his fire for Gulden had only a heavy round object wrapped in a handkerchief.

“Look there!” he boomed, and he threw the object on the table.

The dull heavy sodden
thump
had a familiar ring. Joan heard Jim gasp and his hand tightened spasmodically upon hers.

Slowly the ends of the red scarf slid down to reveal an irregularly round glinting lump. When Joan recognized it, her heart seemed to burst.

“Jim Cleve's nugget!” ejaculated Kells. “Where'd you get that?”

Gulden leaned across the table, his massive jaw working. “I found it on the miner, Creede,” replied the giant stridently.

Then came a nervous shuffling of boots on the creaky boards. In the silence a low dull murmur of distant voices could be heard, strangely menacing. Kells stood transfixed, white as a sheet.

“On Creede!”

“Yes.”

“Where was his . . . his body?”

“I left it out on the Bannack trail.”

The bandit leader appeared mute.

“Kells, I followed Creede out of camp last night!” fiercely declared Gulden. “I killed him! I found this nugget on him!”

Apparently to Kells that nugget did not accuse Jim Cleve of treachery. Not only did this possibility seem lost upon the bandit leader, but also the sinister intent of Gulden and his associates.

“Then Jim didn't kill Creede!” cried Kells. A strange light flashed across his face. It fitted the note of gladness in his exclamation. How strange that in his amaze there should be relief instead of suspicion. Joan thought she understood Kells. He was glad that he had not yet made a murderer out of Cleve.

Gulden appeared slow in rejoining. “I told you I got Creede,” he said. “And we want to know if this says to you what it says to us.”

His huge hairy hand tapped the nugget. Then Kells caught the implication.

“What does it say to you?” he queried coolly, and he eyed Gulden, and then the grim men behind him.

“Somebody in the gang is crooked. Somebody's giving you the double-cross. We've known that for a long time. Jim Cleve goes out to kill Creede. He
comes in with Creede's gold dust . . . and a lie. We think Cleve is the crooked one.”

“No! You're way off, Gulden,” replied Kells earnestly. “That boy is absolutely square. He's lied to me about Creede. But I can excuse that. He lost his nerve. But he's only a youngster. To knife a man in his sleep . . . that was too much for Jim! And I'm damn' glad! I see it all now. Jim swapped his big nugget for Creede's belt. And in the bargain he saw that Creede hit the trail out of camp. You happened to see Creede and went after him yourself. Well, I don't see where you've any kick coming. For you've ten times the money in Cleve's nugget than there was in a share of Creede's gold.”

“That's not my kick,” declared Gulden. “What you say about Cleve may be true. But I don't believe it. And the gang's sore. Things have leaked out. We're watched. We're not welcome in the gambling places anymore. Last night I was not allowed to sit in the game at Belcher's.”

“You thinks Cleve has squealed?” queried Kells.

“Yes.”

“I'll bet you every ounce of dust I've got you're wrong,” declared Kells. “A straight square bet against anything you want to put up.”

Kells's ringing voice was nothing if not convincing.

“Appearances are against Cleve,” growled Gulden dubiously. Always he had been swayed by the stronger mind of the leader.