by Zane Grey
“Red, I thought our talk concerned men and gold and — things,” he said, with a cool, slow softness that had a sting, “but since you’ve nerve enough or are crazy enough to speak of — her — why, explain your meaning.”
Pearce’s jaw worked so that he could scarcely talk. He had gone too far — realized it too late.
“She meets a man — back there — at her window,” he panted. “They whisper in the dark for hours. I’ve watched an’ heard them. An’ I’d told you before, but I wanted to make sure who he was.... I know him now!... An’ remember I seen him climb in an’ out—”
Kells’s whole frame leaped. His gun was a flash of blue and red and white all together. Pearce swayed upright, like a tree chopped at the roots, and then fell, face up, eyes set — dead. The bandit leader stood over him with the smoking gun.
“My Gawd, Jack!” gasped Handy Oliver. “You swore no one would pull a gun — an’ here you’ve killed him yourself!... YOU’VE DOUBLE-CROSSED YOURSELF! An’ if I die for it I’ve got to tell you Red wasn’t lyin’ then!”
Kells’s radiance fled, leaving him ghastly. He stared at Oliver.
“You’ve double-crossed yourself an’ your pards,” went on Oliver, pathetically. “What’s your word amount to? Do you expect the gang to stand for this?... There lays Red Pearce dead. An’ for what? Jest once — relyin’ on your oath — he speaks out what might have showed you. An’ you kill him!... If I knowed what he knowed I’d tell you now with thet gun in your hand! But I don’t know. Only I know he wasn’t lyin’.... Ask the girl!... An’ as for me, I reckon I’m through with you an’ your Legion. You’re done, Kells — your head’s gone — you’ve broke over thet slip of a woman!”
Oliver spoke with a rude and impressive dignity. When he ended he strode out into the sunlight.
Kells was shaken by this forceful speech, yet he was not in any sense a broken man. “Joan — you heard Pearce,” said he, passionately. “He lied about you. I had to kill him. He hinted — Oh, the low-lived dog! He could not know a good woman. He lied — and there he is — dead! I wouldn’t fetch him back for a hundred Legions!”
“But it — it wasn’t — all — a lie,” said Joan, and her words came haltingly because a force stronger than her cunning made her speak. She had reached a point where she could not deceive Kells to save her life.
“WHAT!” he thundered.
“Pearce told the truth — except that no one ever climbed in my window. That’s false. No one could climb in. It’s too small.... But I did whisper — to someone.”
Kells had to moisten his lips to speak. “Who?”
“I’ll never tell you.”
“Who?... I’ll kill him!”
“No — no. I won’t tell. I won’t let you kill another man on my account.”
“I’ll choke it out of you.”
“You can’t. There’s no use to threaten me, or hurt me, either.”
Kells seemed dazed. “Whisper! For hours! In the dark!... But, Joan, what for? Why such a risk?”
Joan shook her head.
“Were you just unhappy — lonesome? Did some young miner happen to see you there in daylight — then come at night? Wasn’t it only accident? Tell me.”
“I won’t — and I won’t because I don’t want you to spill more blood.”
“For my sake,” he queried, with the old, mocking tone. Then he grew dark with blood in his face, fierce with action of hands and body as he bent nearer her. “Maybe you like him too well to see him shot?... Did you — whisper often to this stranger?”
Joan felt herself weakening. Kells was so powerful in spirit and passion that she seemed unable to fight him. She strove to withhold her reply, but it burst forth, involuntarily.
“Yes — often.”
That roused more than anger and passion. Jealousy flamed from him and it transformed him into a devil.
“You held hands out of that window — and kissed — in the dark?” he cried, with working lips.
Joan had thought of this so fearfully and intensely — she had battled so to fortify herself to keep it secret — that he had divined it, had read her mind. She could not control herself. The murder of Pearce had almost overwhelmed her. She had not the strength to bite her tongue. Suggestion alone would have drawn her then — and Kells’s passionate force was hypnotic.
“Yes,” she whispered.
He appeared to control a developing paroxysm of rage.
“That settles you,” he declared darkly. “But I’ll do one more decent thing by you. I’ll marry you.” Then he wheeled to his men. “Blicky, there’s a parson down in camp. Go on the run. Fetch him back if you have to push him with a gun.”
Blicky darted through the door and his footsteps thudded out of hearing.
“You can’t force me to marry you,” said Joan. “I — I won’t open my lips.”
“That’s your affair. I’ve no mind to coax you,” he replied, bitterly. “But if you don’t I’ll try Gulden’s way with a woman.... You remember. Gulden’s way! A cave and a rope!”
Joan’s legs gave out under her and she sank upon a pile of blankets. Then beyond Kells she saw Jim Cleve. With all that was left of her spirit she flashed him a warning — a meaning — a prayer not to do the deed she divined was his deadly intent. He caught it and obeyed. And he flashed back a glance which meant that, desperate as her case was, it could never be what Kells threatened.
“Men, see me through this,” said Kells to the silent group. “Then any deal you want — I’m on. Stay here or — sack the camp! Hold up the stage express with gold for Bannack! Anything for a big stake! Then the trail and the border.”
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 parson 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, though 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 whom 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 — the manner in which I’ve been approached.”
“You’ll excuse 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 that 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 hers. Certainly Jim had called her Joan more than once on the night of the marriage. The preacher’s 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.”
“Mr. 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, bu
t 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 that 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 flaming.
“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, threw it aloft. And then all the terrible evil in the man flamed forth. But as he deliberately drew down on 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 thet 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 round 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, even hurt her. And 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 its influence and his abandonment he showed a consciousness of its futility. In a few moments the inside of the cabin was in disorder 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 thet 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 close 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 boots sounded without. Silently Joan led Jim to the crack between the boards through which she had spied upon 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 malignant opposition. And 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. But 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!”
CHAPTER 17
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.