CHAPTER XII
THE FURY OF DOVES
Lambert released her the moment that he made his double discovery,foolishly shaken, foolishly hurt, to realize that she had been afraid tohave him know it was a woman he pursued. He caught her rein and checkedher horse along with his own.
"There's no use to run away from me," he said, meaning to quiet herfear. She faced him scornfully, seemingly to understand it as a boast.
"You wouldn't say that to a man, you coward!"
Again he felt a pang, like a blow from an ungrateful hand. She wasbreathing fast, her dark eyes spiteful, defiant, her face eloquent ofthe scorn that her words had only feebly expressed. He turned his head,as if considering her case and revolving in his mind what punishment toapply.
She was dressed in riding breeches, with Mexican goatskin chaps, a heavygray shirt such as was common to cowboys, a costly white sombrero, itscrown pinched to a peak in the Mexican fashion. With the bighandkerchief on her neck flying as she rode, and the crouching posturethat she had assumed in the saddle every time her pursuer began to closeup on her in the race just ended, Lambert's failure to identify her sexwas not so inexcusable as might appear. And he was thinking that she hadbeen afraid to have him know she was a girl.
His discovery had left him dumb, his mind confused by a cross-current ofemotions. He was unable to relate her with the present situation,although she was unmistakably before his eyes, her disguise ineffectualto change one line of her body as he recalled her leaning over therailing of the car, her anger unable to efface one feature as picturedin his memory.
"What are you going to do about it?" she asked him defiantly, not a hintin her bearing of shame for her discovery, or contrition for her crime.
"I guess you'd better go home."
He spoke in gentle reproof, as to a child caught in some trespasswell-nigh unforgivable, but to whose offense he had closed his eyes outof considerations which only the forgiving understand. He looked herfull in the eyes as he spoke, the disappointment and pain of hisdiscovery in his face. The color blanched out of her cheeks, she staredat him a moment in waking astonishment, her eyes just as he rememberedthem when they drew him on in his perilous race after the train.
Such a flame rose in him that he felt it must make him transparent, andlay his deepest sentiments bare before her gaze. So she looked at him amoment, eye to eye, the anger gone out of her face, the flash of scornno longer glinting in the dark well of her eye. But if she recognizedhim she did not speak of it. Almost at once she turned away, as from theface of a stranger, looking back over the way that she had ridden insuch headlong flight.
He believed she was ashamed to have him know she recognized him. It wasnot for him to speak of the straining little act that romance had castthem for at their first meeting. Perhaps under happier circumstancesshe would have recalled it, and smiled, and given him her hand.Embarrassment must attend her here, no matter how well she believedherself to be justified in her destructive raids against the fence.
"I'll have to go back the way I came," she said.
"There is no other way."
They started back in silence, riding side by side. Wonder filled thedoor of his mind; he had only disconnected, fragmentary thoughts, uponthe current of which there rose continually the realization, only halfunderstood, that he started out to search the world for this woman, andhe had found her.
That he had discovered her in the part of a petty, spiteful lawbreaker,dressed in an outlandish and unbecoming garb, did not trouble him. If hewas conscious of it at all, indeed, the hurrying turmoil of his thoughtspushed it aside like drifted leaves by the way. The wonderful thing wasthat he had found her, and at the end of a pursuit so hot it might havebeen a continuation of his first race for the trophy of white linen inher hand.
Presently this fog cleared; he came back to the starting-point of it, tothe coldness of his disappointment. More than once in that chase acrossthe pasture his hand had dropped to his pistol in the sober intention ofshooting the fugitive, despised as one lower than a thief. She seemed tosound his troubled thoughts, riding there by his side like a friend.
"It was our range, and they fenced it!" she said, with all the feelingof a feudist.
"I understand that Philbrook bought the land; he had a right to fenceit."
"He didn't have any right to buy it; they didn't have any right to sellit to him! This was our range; it was the best range in the country.Look at the grass here, and look at it outside of that fence."
"I think it's better here because it's been fenced and grazed lightly solong."
"Well, they didn't have any right to fence it."
"Cutting it won't make it any better now."
"I don't care, I'll cut it again! If I had my way about it I'd drive ourcattle in here where they've got a right to be."
"I don't understand the feeling of you people in this country againstfences; I came from a place where everybody's got them. But I supposeit's natural, if you could get down to the bottom of it."
"If there's one thing unnatural, it's a fence," she said.
They rode on a little way, saying nothing more. Then she:
"I thought the man they call the Duke of Chimney Butte was working onthis side of the ranch?"
"That's a nickname they gave me over at the Syndicate when I firststruck this country. It doesn't mean anything at all."
"I thought you were his partner," she said.
"No, I'm the monster himself."
She looked at him quickly, very close to smiling.
"Well, you don't look so terrible, after all. I think a man like youwould be ashamed to have a woman boss over him."
"I hadn't noticed it, Miss Kerr."
"She told you about me," she charged, with resentful stress.
"No."
So they rode on, their thoughts between them, a word, a silence, nothingworth while said on either side, coming presently to the gap she hadmade in the wire.
"I thought you'd hand me over to the sheriff," she told him, betweenbanter and defiance.
"They say you couldn't get a conviction on anything short of cattlestealing in this part of the country, and doubtful on that. But Iwouldn't give you over to the sheriff, Miss Kerr, even if I caught youdriving off a cow."
"What would you do?" she asked, her head bent, her voice low.
"I'd try to argue you out of the cow first, and then teach you better,"he said, with such evident seriousness that she turned her face away, hethought to hide a smile.
She stopped her horse between the dangling ends of wire. Her long braidof black hair was swinging down her back to her cantle, her hard ridehaving disarranged its cunning deceit beneath her hat until it droopedover her ears and blew in loose strands over her dark, wildly piquantface, out of which the hard lines of defiance had not quite melted.
She was not as handsome as Vesta Philbrook, he admitted, but there wassomething about her that moved emotions in him which slept in theother's presence. Perhaps it was the romance of their first meeting;perhaps it was the power of her dark, expressive eyes. Certainly Lamberthad seen many prettier women in his short experience, but none that evermade his soul vibrate with such exquisite, sweet pain.
"If you owned this ranch, Mr.----"
"Lambert is my name, Miss Kerr."
"If you owned it, Mr. Lambert, I believe we could live in peace, even ifyou kept the fence. But with that girl--it can't be done."
"Here are your nippers, Miss Kerr; you lost them when you jumped thatarroyo. Won't you please leave the fence-cutting to the men of thefamily, if it has to be done, after this?"
"We have to use them on the range since Philbrook cut us off fromwater," she explained, "and hired men don't take much interest in aperson's family quarrels. They're afraid of Vesta Philbrook, anyhow.She can pick a man off a mile with her rifle, they believe, but shecan't. I'm not afraid of her; I never was afraid of old Philbrook, theold devil."
Even though she concluded with that spiteful little stab, she
gave theexplanation as if she believed it due Lambert's generous leniency andcourteous behavior.
"And there being no men of the family who will undertake it, and nohired men who can be interested, you have to cut the fence yourself," hesaid.
"I know you think I ought to be ashamed of cutting her fence," she said,her head bent, her eyes veiled, "but I'm not."
"I expect I'd feel it that way if it was my quarrel, too."
"Any man like you would. I've been where they have fences, too, andsigns to keep off the grass. It's different here."
"Can't we patch up a truce between us for the time I'm here?"
He put out his hand in entreaty, his lean face earnest, his clear eyespleading. She colored quickly at the suggestion, and framed a hotreply. He could see it forming, and went on hurriedly to forestall it.
"I don't expect to be here always! I didn't come here looking for a job.I was going West with a friend; we stopped off on the way through."
"Riding fence for a woman boss is a low-down job."
"There's not much to it for a man that likes to change around. MaybeI'll not stay very long. We'd just as well have peace while I'm here."
"You haven't got anything to do with it--you're only a fence-rider! Thefight's between me and that girl, and I'll cut her fence--I'll cut herheart out if she gets in my road!"
"Well, I'm going to hook up this panel," he said, leaning and takinghold of the wire end, "so you can come here and let it down any time youfeel like you have to cut the fence. That will do us about the samedamage, and you every bit as much good."
She was moved out of her sullen humor by this proposal for giving ventto her passion against Vesta Philbrook. It seemed as if he regarded heras a child, and her part in this fence-feud a piece of irresponsiblefolly. It was so absurd in her eyes that she laughed.
"I suppose you're in earnest, but if you knew how foolish it sounds!"
"That's what I'm going to do, anyway. You know I'll just keep on fixingthe fence when you cut it, and this arrangement will save both of ustrouble. I'll put a can or something on one of the posts to mark thespot for you."
"This fence isn't any joke with us, Mr. Lambert, funny as you seem tothink it. It's more than a fence, it's a symbol of all that standsbetween us, all the wrongs we've suffered, and the losses, on account ofit. I know it makes her rave to cut it, and I expect you'll have a gooddeal of fixing to do right along."
She started away, stopped a few rods beyond the fence, came back.
"There's always a place for a good man over at our ranch," she said.
He watched her braid of hair swinging from side to side as she gallopedaway, with no regret for his rejected truce of the fence. She would comeback to cut it again, and again he would see her. Disloyal as it mightbe to his employer, he hoped she would not delay the next excursionlong.
He had found her. No matter for the conditions under which the discoveryhad been made, his quest was at an end, his long flights of fancy weredone. It was a marvelous thing for him, more wonderful than therealization of his first expectations would have been. This wild spiritof the girl was well in accord with the character he had given her inhis imagination. When he watched her away that day at Misery he knew shewas the kind of woman who would exact much of a man; as he looked afterher anew he realized that she would require more.
The man who found his way to her heart would have to take up herhatreds, champion her feuds, ride in her forays, follow her wild willagainst her enemies. He would have to sink the refinements of hiscivilization, in a measure, discard all preconceived ideas of justiceand honor. He would have to hate a fence.
The thought made him smile. He was so happy that he had found her thathe could have absolved her of a deeper blame than this. He felt,indeed, as if he had come to the end of vast wanderings, a peace as ofthe cessation of turmoils in his heart. Perhaps this was because of theimmensity of the undertaking which so lately had lain before him, itsresumption put off from day to day, its proportions increasing with eachdeferment.
He made no movement to dismount and hook up the cut wires, but satlooking after her as she grew smaller between him and the hill. He wasso wrapped in his new and pleasant fancies that he did not hear theapproach of a horse on the slope of the rise until its quickened pace asit reached the top brought Vesta Philbrook suddenly into his view.
"Who is that?" she asked, ignoring his salutation in her excitement.
"I think it must be Miss Kerr; she belongs to that family, at least."
"You caught her cutting the fence?"
"Yes, I caught her at it."
"And you let her get away?"
"There wasn't much else that I could do," he returned, with thoughtfulgravity.
Vesta sat in her saddle as rigid and erect as a statue, looking afterthe disappearing rider. Lambert contrasted the two women in mentalcomparison, struck by the difference in which rage manifested itself intheir bearing. This one seemed as cold as marble; the other had flashedand glowed like hot iron. The cold rigidity before his eyes must be theslow wrath against which men are warned.
The distant rider had reached the top of the hill from which she hadspied out the land. Here she pulled up and looked back, turning herhorse to face them when she saw that Lambert's employer had joined him.A little while she gazed back at them, then waved her hat as in exultantchallenge, whirled her horse, and galloped over the hill.
That was the one taunt needed to set off the slow magazine of VestaPhilbrook's wrath. She cut her horse a sharp blow with her quirt andtook up the pursuit so quickly that Lambert could not interpose eitherobjection or entreaty.
Lambert felt like an intruder who had witnessed something not intendedfor his eyes. He had no thought at that moment of following andattempting to prevent what might turn out a regretful tragedy, but satthere reviling the land that nursed women on such a rough breast as toinspire these savage passions of reprisal and revenge.
Vesta was riding a big brown gelding, long-necked, deep-chested, slim ofhindquarters as a hound. Unless rough ground came between them she wouldoverhaul that Kerr girl inside of four miles, for her horse lacked thewind for a long race, as the chase across the pasture had shown. In casethat Vesta overtook her, what would she do? The answer to that was inVesta's eyes when she saw the cut wire, the raider riding free acrossthe range. It was such an answer that it shot through Lambert like alightning-stroke.
Yet, it was not his quarrel; he could not interfere on one side or theother without drawing down the displeasure of somebody, nor as a neutralwithout incurring the wrath of both. This view of it did not relieve himof anxiety to know how the matter was going to terminate.
He gave Whetstone the reins and galloped after Vesta, who was alreadyover the hill. As he rode he began to realize as never before thesmallness of this fence-cutting feud, the really worthless bone at thebottom of the contention. Here Philbrook had fenced in certain landswhich all men agreed he had been cheated in buying, and here uprosethose who scorned him for his gullibility, and lay in wait to murder himfor shutting them out of his admittedly worthless domain. It was aquarrel beyond reason to a thinking man.
Nobody could blame Philbrook for defending his rights, but they seemedsuch worthless possessions to stake one's life against day by day, yearafter year. The feud of the fence was like a cancerous infection. Itspread to and poisoned all that the wind blew on around the borders ofthat melancholy ranch.
Here were these two women riding break-neck and bloody-eyed to pull gunsand fight after the code of the roughest. Both of them were primed bythe accumulated hatred of their young lives to deeds of violence with nothought of consequences. It was a hard and bitter land that could fosterand feed such passions in bosoms of so much native excellence; a roughand boisterous land, unworthy the labor that men lavished on it to maketherein their refuge and their home.
The pursued was out of sight when Lambert gained the hilltop, thepursuer just disappearing behind a growth of stunted brushwood in thewinding dry valley beyon
d. He pushed after them, his anxiety increasing,hoping that he might overtake Vesta before she came within range of herenemy. Even should he succeed in this, he was at fault for some way ofstopping her in her passionate design.
He could not disarm her without bringing her wrath down on himself, orattempt to persuade her without rousing her suspicion that he wasleagued with her destructive neighbors. On the other hand, thefence-cutting girl would believe that he had wittingly joined in anunequal and unmanly pursuit. A man's dilemma between the devil and thedeep water would be simple compared to his.
All this he considered as he galloped along, leaving the matter ofkeeping the trail mainly to his horse. He emerged from the hemmingbrushwood, entering a stretch of hard tableland where the parched grasswas red, the earth so hard that a horse made no hoofprint in passing.Across this he hurried in a ferment of fear that he would come too late,and down a long slope where sage grew again, the earth dry and yieldingabout its unlovely clumps.
Here he discovered that he had left too much to his horse. The creaturehad laid a course to suit himself, carrying him off the trail of thosewhom he sought in such breathless state. He stopped, looking round himto fix his direction, discovering to his deep vexation that Whetstonehad veered from the course that he had laid for him into the south, andwas heading toward the river.
On again in the right direction, swerving sharply in the hope that hewould cut the trail. So for a mile or more, in dusty, headlong race,coming then to the rim of a bowl-like valley and the sound of runningshots.
Lambert's heart contracted in a paroxysm of fear for the lives of boththose flaming combatants as he rode precipitately into the littlevalley. The shooting had ceased when he came into the clear and pulledup to look for Vesta.
The next second the two girls swept into sight. Vesta had not onlyovertaken her enemy, but had ridden round her and cut off her retreat.She was driving her back toward the spot where Lambert stood, shootingat her as she fled, with what seemed to him a cruel and deliberatehand.
The Duke Of Chimney Butte Page 12