Zane Grey (37 page)

"Joan!" The name was almost a sob of joy and pain. Sight of his face
then blinded Joan with her tears. But when he caught her to him, in a
violence that was a terrible renunciation, she gave her embrace, her
arms, her lips without the vestige of a lie, with all of womanliness and
sweetness and love and passion. He let her go and turned away, and in
that instant Joan had a final divination that this strange man could
rise once to heights as supreme as the depths of his soul were dark.
She dashed away her tears and wiped the dimness from her eyes. Hope
resurged. Something strong and sweet gave her strength.

When Kells wheeled he was the Kells of her earlier experience—cool,
easy, deadly, with the smile almost amiable, and the strange, pale eyes.
Only the white radiance of him was different. He did not look at her.

"Jim, will you do exactly what I tell you?"

"Yes, I promise," replied Jim.

"How many guns have you?"

"Two."

"Give me one of them."

Cleve held out the gun that all the while he had kept in his hand. Kells
took it and put it in his pocket.

"Pull your other gun—be ready," said he, swiftly. "But don't you shoot
once till I go down!... Then do your best.... Save the last bullet for
Joan—in case—"

"I promise," replied Cleve, steadily.

Then Kells drew a knife from a sheath at his belt. It had a long, bright
blade. Joan had seen him use it many a time round the camp-fire. He
slipped the blade up his sleeve, retaining the haft of the knife in his
hand. He did not speak another word. Nor did he glance at Joan again.
She had felt his gaze while she had embraced him, as she raised her
lips. That look had been his last. Then he went out. Jim knelt beside
the door, peering between post and curtain.

Joan staggered to the chink between the logs. She would see that fight
if it froze her blood—the very marrow of her bones.

The gamblers were intent upon their game. Not a dark face looked up as
Kells sauntered toward the table. Gulden sat with his back to the
door. There was a shaft of sunlight streaming in, and Kells blocked it,
sending a shadow over the bent heads of the gamesters. How significant
that shadow—a blackness barring gold! Still no one paid any attention
to Kells.

He stepped closer. Suddenly he leaped into swift and terrible violence.
Then with a lunge he drove the knife into Gulden's burly neck.

Up heaved the giant, his mighty force overturning table and benches and
men. An awful boom, strangely distorted and split, burst from him.

Then Kells blocked the door with a gun in each hand, but only the one
in his right hand spurted white and red. Instantly there followed a
mad scramble—hoarse yells, over which that awful roar of Gulden's
predominated—and the bang of guns. Clouds of white smoke veiled the
scene, and with every shot the veil grew denser. Red flashes burst from
the ground where men were down, and from each side of Kells. His form
seemed less instinct with force; it had shortened; he was sagging. But
at intervals the red spurt and report of his gun showed he was fighting.
Then a volley from one side made him stagger against the door. The clear
spang of a Winchester spoke above the heavy boom of the guns.

Joan's eyesight recovered from its blur or else the haze of smoke
drifted, for she saw better. Gulden's actions fascinated her, horrified
her. He had evidently gone crazy. He groped about the room, through the
smoke, to and fro before the fighting, yelling bandits, grasping with
huge hands for something. His sense of direction, his equilibrium, had
become affected. His awful roar still sounded above the din, but it was
weakening. His giant's strength was weakening. His legs bent and buckled
under him. All at once he whipped out his two big guns and began to fire
as he staggered—at random. He killed the wounded Blicky. In the melee
he ran against Jesse Smith and thrust both guns at him. Jesse saw the
peril and with a shriek he fired point-blank at Gulden. Then as Gulden
pulled triggers both men fell. But Gulden rose, bloody-browed, bawling,
still a terrible engine of destruction. He seemed to glare in one
direction and shoot in another. He pointed the guns and apparently
pulled the triggers long after the shots had all been fired.

Kells was on his knees now with only one gun. This wavered and fell,
wavered and fell. His left arm hung broken. But his face flashed white
through the thin, drifting clouds of smoke.

Besides Gulden the bandit Pike was the only one not down, and he was
hard hit. When he shot his last he threw the gun away, and, drawing a
knife, he made at Kells. Kells shot once more, and hit Pike, but did
not stop him. Silence, after the shots and yells, seemed weird, and the
groping giant, trying to follow Pike, resembled a huge phantom. With one
wrench he tore off a leg of the overturned table and brandished that. He
swayed now, and there was a whistle where before there had been a roar.

Pike fell over the body of Blicky and got up again. The bandit leader
staggered to his feet, flung the useless gun in Pike's face, and closed
with him in weak but final combat. They lurched and careened to and fro,
with the giant Gulden swaying after them. Thus they struggled until
Pike moved under Gulden's swinging club. The impetus of the blow
carried Gulden off his balance. Kells seized the haft of the knife still
protruding from the giant's neck, and he pulled upon it with all his
might. Gulden heaved up again, and the movement enabled Kells to pull
out the knife. A bursting gush of blood, thick and heavy, went flooding
before the giant as he fell.

Kells dropped the knife, and, tottering, surveyed the scene before
him—the gasping Gulden, and all the quiet forms. Then he made a few
halting steps, and dropped near the door.

Joan tried to rush out, but what with the unsteadiness of her limbs
and Jim holding her as he went out, too, she seemed long in getting to
Kells.

She knelt beside him, lifted his head. His face was white—his eyes were
open. But they were only the windows of a retreating soul. He did not
know her. Consciousness was gone. Then swiftly life fled.

Cleve steadied Joan in her saddle, and stood a moment beside her,
holding her hands. The darkness seemed clearing before her eyes and the
sick pain within her seemed numbing out.

"Brace up! Hang—to your saddle!" Jim was saying, earnestly. "Any moment
some of the other bandits might come.... You lead the way. I'll follow
and drive the pack-horse."

"But, Jim, I'll never be able to find the back-trail," said Joan.

"I think you will. You'll remember every yard of the trail on which you
were brought in here. You won't realize that till you see."

Joan started and did not look back. Cabin Gulch was like a place in
a dream. It was a relief when she rode out into the broad valley. The
grazing horses lifted their heads to whistle. Joan saw the clumps of
bushes and the flowers, the waving grass, but never as she had seen them
before. How strange that she knew exactly which way to turn, to head, to
cross! She trotted her horse so fast that Jim called to say he could
not drive a pack-animal and keep to her gait. Every rod of the trail
lessened a burden. Behind was something hideous and incomprehensible and
terrible; before beckoned something beginning to seem bright. And it
was not the ruddy, calm sunset, flooding the hills with color. That
something called from beyond the hills.

She led straight to a camp-site she remembered long before she came to
it; and the charred logs of the fire, the rocks, the tree under which
she had lain—all brought back the emotions she had felt there. She grew
afraid of the twilight, and when night settled down there were phantoms
stalking in the shadows. When Cleve, in his hurried camp duties, went
out of her sight, she wanted to cry out to him, but had not the voice;
and when he was close still she trembled and was cold. He wrapped
blankets round her and held her in his arms, yet the numb chill and the
dark clamp of mind remained with her. Long she lay awake. The stars were
pitiless. When she shut her eyes the blackness seemed unendurable. She
slept, to wake out of nightmare, and she dared sleep no more. At last
the day came.

For Joan that faint trail seemed a broad road, blazoned through the wild
canons and up the rocky fastness and through the thick brakes. She led
on and on and up and down, never at fault, with familiar landmarks near
and far. Cleve hung close to her, and now his call to her or to the
pack-horse took on a keener note. Every rough and wild mile behind them
meant so much. They did not halt at the noon hour. They did not halt
at the next camp-site, still more darkly memorable to Joan. And sunset
found them miles farther on, down on the divide, at the head of Lost
Canon.

Here Joan ate and drank, and slept the deep sleep of exhaustion. Sunrise
found them moving, and through the winding, wild canon they made fast
travel. Both time and miles passed swiftly. At noon they reached the
little open cabin, and they dismounted for a rest and a drink at the
spring. Joan did not speak a word here. That she could look into the
cabin where she had almost killed a bandit, and then, through silent,
lonely weeks, had nursed him back to life, was a proof that the long
ride and distance were helping her, sloughing away the dark deadlock to
hope and brightness. They left the place exactly as they had found
it, except that Cleve plucked the card from the bark of the
balsam-tree—Gulden's ace—of—hearts target with its bullet—holes.

Then they rode on, out of that canon, over the rocky ridge, down into
another canon, on and on, past an old camp-site, along a babbling brook
for miles, and so at last out into the foot—hills.

Toward noon of the next day, when approaching a clump of low trees in a
flat valley, Joan pointed ahead.

"Jim—it was in there—where Roberts and I camped—and—"

"You ride around. I'll catch up with you," replied Cleve.

She made a wide detour, to come back again to her own trail, so
different here. Presently Cleve joined her. His face was pale and
sweaty, and he looked sick. They rode on silently, and that night they
camped without water on her own trail, made months before. The single
tracks were there, sharp and clear in the earth, as if imprinted but a
day.

Next morning Joan found that as the wild border lay behind her so did
the dark and hateful shadow of gloom. Only the pain remained, and it had
softened. She could think now.

Jim Cleve cheered up. Perhaps it was her brightening to which he
responded. They began to talk and speech liberated feeling. Miles of
that back-trail they rode side by side, holding hands, driving the
pack-horse ahead, and beginning to talk of old associations. Again it
was sunset when they rode down the hill toward the little village of
Hoadley. Joan's heart was full, but Jim was gay.

"Won't I have it on your old fellows!" he teased. But he was grim, too.

"Jim! You—won't tell—just yet!" she faltered.

"I'll introduce you as my wife! They'll all think we eloped."

"No. They'll say I ran after you!... Please, Jim! Keep it secret a
little. It'll be hard for me. Aunt Jane will never understand."

"Well, I'll keep it secret till you want to tell—for two things," he
said.

"What?"

"Meet me to—night, under the spruces where we had that quarrel. Meet
just like we did then, but differently. Will you?"

"I'll be—so glad."

"And put on your mask now!... You know, Joan, sooner or later your story
will be on everybody's tongue. You'll be Dandy Dale as long as you
live near this border. Wear the mask, just for fun. Imagine your Aunt
Jane—and everybody!"

"Jim! I'd forgotten how I look!" exclaimed Joan in dismay. "I didn't
bring your long coat. Oh, I can't face them in this suit!"

"You'll have to. Besides, you look great. It's going to tickle me—the
sensation you make. Don't you see, they'll never recognize you till you
take the mask off.... Please, Joan."

She yielded, and donned the black mask, not without a twinge. And thus
they rode across the log bridge over the creek into the village. The few
men and women they met stared in wonder, and, recognizing Cleve, they
grew excited. They followed, and others joined them.

"Joan, won't it be strange if Uncle Bill really is the Overland of Alder
Creek? We've packed out every pound of Overland's gold. Oh! I hope—I
believe he's your uncle.... Wouldn't it be great, Joan?"

But Joan could not answer. The word gold was a stab. Besides, she saw
Aunt Jane and two neighbors standing before a log cabin, beginning to
show signs of interest in the approaching procession.

Joan fell back a little, trying to screen herself behind Jim. Then Jim
halted with a cheery salute.

"For the land's sake!" ejaculated a sweet-faced, gray-haired woman.

"If it isn't Jim Cleve!" cried another.

Jim jumped off and hugged the first speaker. She seemed overjoyed to see
him and then overcome. Her face began to work.

"Jim! We always hoped you'd—you'd fetch Joan back!"

"Sure!" shouted Jim, who had no heart now for even an instant's
deception. "There she is!"

"Who?... What?"

Joan slipped out of her saddle and, tearing off the mask, she leaped
forward with a little sob.

"Auntie! Auntie!... It's Joan—alive—well!... Oh, so glad to be
home!... Don't look at my clothes—look at me!"

Aunt Jane evidently sustained a shock of recognition, joy, amaze,
consternation, and shame, of which all were subservient to the joy.
She cried over Joan and murmured over her. Then, suddenly alive to the
curious crowd, she put Joan from her.

"You—you wild thing! You desperado! I always told Bill you'd run wild
some day!... March in the house and get out of that indecent rig!"

That night under the spruces, with the starlight piercing the lacy
shadows, Joan waited for Jim Cleve. It was one of the white, silent,
mountain nights. The brook murmured over the stones and the wind rustled
the branches.