by Zane Grey
Cal kept to the dim back trails, and he walked fast. It was two hours’ horseback ride from Boyd’s ranch to Rock Spring Mesa, over the regular trail. This one was longer, rough and brushy, and steep. Cal did not feel any fatigue or cold, or anything but a terrible disfavor with himself. What an end to his poor little romance. To marry a girl through brute force, terrorizing her into consenting, and to lose her next day — how cowardly and vulgar it began to look! Yet always his mind wandered back to the motive which had impelled him.
Sunset caught him on the rim of the last bench under Rock Spring Mesa. Purple clouds massed in the west, and wondrous gold lights shone between them. Promontary blazed its reflection, and the cliff-barred Rim zigzagged away into the dim hazed east. Cal’s mesa stood up above him, a green-brushed ascent, symmetrical on all sides, and shining in the rays of sunset. The trail here was hard on both man and horse. Cal rested often, and at these intervals he gazed out over the darkening Basin. He did not look at Georgiana.
At last the summit of the Mesa no longer seemed an unattainable height. Soon Cal led his horse up on the level, in under the great, gnarled, gray-colored checker-barked junipers, through the brown-matted aisles, to the new clearing.
There, across the open field, where the blackened stumps still smoked, stood the new cabin. Sight of it gave Cal a sudden pang, as if a blade had pierced his side. His homestead! What mockery was this bringing home a bride! In the gloaming the cabin seemed to presage the loneliness that must always belong to it.
A few more steps, a few more false words, and then the farce would be ended.
At that very moment Tuck Merry’s words returned to Cal. Make it a grand finale! Out of sheer mockery at himself Cal gathered force to fling that ridiculous speech at Georgiana. Why not? What would she do or say? There might be a grim humor in it for him. She would call him “a poor fish,” or laugh in his face. Yet somehow to say just what Tuck had invented seemingly was as far as Cal had gone in thought or plan. He would do that just for the deviltry of it. Then, unless the world came to an end, he would tell her the truth. Would there be any use to fall on his knees at her feet, to beg her to listen — that it had all been a trick to frighten her into marrying him — that never, except in self-defense, would he have harmed Bid Hatfield — that the blow which had stunned her had come from riding under a low branch of a tree — that he never could have hurt her — that he loved her with all his heart and soul — that if she left him now he would be lost? That was what he yearned to confess. But let her, when she came to tell the story, have Tuck Merry’s absurd finale with which to amuse her friends.
Cal dropped the bridle in front of the porch. Turning to Georgiana, he found her sitting up, peering curiously at the cabin. She did not look much the worse for this second long ride. Then her dark gaze fell upon him. In the twilight her face appeared small and wan. Pulling the blanket from round her, he threw it upon the porch.
“Get down an’ come in!” he said. The old cordial welcome of Westerners to any visitor! Here it did not ring true.
Georgiana neither moved nor spoke. Her head appeared tilted back a little. Cal expected one of her stinging slang remarks that would make him hate himself worse than he did already. His nerves were all unstrung.
“Come on — my bride!” he called, hoarsely, and laid a heavy hand on her.
Suddenly she slapped him violently across the face. It was such a shock that he almost staggered. The blow burned him. He had not meant to insult her. To himself he could have explained that facetious mocking allusion.
Then a kind of bursting passion made a savage of him. One powerful pull brought her out of the saddle, sliding into his arms. He held her there, hard and tight, so that her feeble resistance was futile. He kissed her, almost as violently as she had struck him. All his wrath and love and agony then found terrible expression in the kisses he pressed upon her eyes and cheeks and lips. She became limp in his arms. Had she fainted again? He drew back. Her dark eyes were open wide in her white face, and in the gulf of them he seemed to see his own soul.
Mounting the porch, he carried her to the door of the kitchen and opened it. Going into the dark room, he felt around until he found a corner with a built-in couch, and there he deposited her.
Everything was in readiness for him to put his hand on. He lighted the lamp. It was a large new one and gave forth a bright light. His hands ceased their trembling and that cataclysm of his heart slowly subsided. Without a glance at the girl he proceeded to start a fire in the stove. The splinters of dry hard juniper began to blaze and sputter. He added larger split pieces, and soon there was a cheerful blaze. Then he closed the stove. In his right hand he still held a billet of wood. This he clutched tightly, as if somehow it might inspire or incite him to the delivery of Tuck Merry’s ultimatum.
Wheeling suddenly, Cal looked for the girl. She was sitting up, with her hands clutched in his coat, which she had removed. Her gaze was fixed strangely on him. All about her seemed strange, not what he had anticipated or feared. Even in that moment her sweetness and beauty filled him with despair. But nothing could hold back the climax of this tragic comedy.
“Now, Mrs. Cal Thurman!” he thundered, and then beat the stove with the billet of wood. It clanged loud. Georgiana gave a fearful start. “I want my supper!... I’m not goin’ to beg for it an’ I’m not goin’ to serenade you to get it.... But I want it!”
Then Cal had the surprise of his life. She dropped his coat and rose to her feet. This was not the Georgiana he knew. Yet it was, too — her face, the wide eyes, now darker and more strained, the disheveled hair. She came right up to him. Something was gone from her.
“Yes — I — I will get your — supper,” she said tremulously.
“Ah — !” Cal’s favorite exclamation broke off in the middle. Yet it served as an acceptance.
“Have you — things here?” she asked.
“Everythin’ ready for you,” he replied, thickly. “I — I’ll go put my horse away an’ do some chores.”
He stamped out, closing the door behind him. The cold night wind fanned his heated face.
“Whew!” he whispered as he leaned against a porch post. “Scared her into the middle of next week! . . . Damn that Tuck Merry! I’ll lick him for this.... Poor kid! It must have been hell for her. She’s only a child an’ maybe I did dig up some old Tonto blood. — I’m a damned brute an’ right here ends this rough-house stuff, as Tuck called it.”
He unsaddled his horse, and hobbling him turned him loose in the clearing. Then he carried the saddle and put it on a pack under the porch. Next he carried some pieces of wood, and thumped them down near the door of the cabin room that stood across the porch space from the kitchen. Opening the door, he went in. This was the living-room. Cal lit a lamp, and then proceeded to kindle a fire in the open fireplace. This leisurely done, he surveyed the room. It was cheerful. He and Tuck had made elaborate efforts to utilize all Cal had bought. A red blanket on the bed lent a touch of color. What would Georgiana think of the bedposts that reached to the ceiling? There were even a mirror and a white pitcher and bowl. Cal feared it was somewhat luxurious for a pioneer. Then, suddenly, as grim, cold realization returned, he felt his castle of dreams fall asunder forever. Georgiana would never share this homestead with him.
“Scared half to death!” he muttered, as he paused. “What must she be thinkin’ now? . . . My God!”
He strode out, leaving the door wide, and the broad flare of light followed him across the intervening space of porch to the kitchen door. Vigorously he opened that. Georgiana was setting the table, and his entering so suddenly startled her.
Cal faced her now, feeling like a man for the first time in a long while. She had been frightened, and she had experienced a rough ride, but she had not been harmed. He was the one who must suffer. He was the one upon whose head ridicule and scorn must fall. She had been saved, at least from the Tonto. All his pretense and his former morbidness fell away from him like dead husks.
She poured it out of a steaming teakettle. Cal was aware of her scrutiny, but he paid no heed, and went to splashing in the basin. He washed his face thoroughly, as if to remove with the brush-dirt all of the villainous expression he had counterfeited.
“How about supper?” he asked, as genially as if this was really natural.
“It’s ready,” she said, “the best I could do.... My fingers are all thumbs tonight.”
“No wonder,” he replied as he pulled up the little bench to sit upon. And he surveyed the table. “If it’s as good as it looks — —”
Cal was hungry, and he wished to spare her and himself any further pain. He did not speak again except to ask her if she could not eat.
“I’m afraid I cannot,” she replied.
Soon he had finished and then he rose. “Jollyin’ aside, Georgie, it was a good supper. Reckon there’s no danger of my forgettin’ it. I’ll wash the dishes.”
“Cal, you’re different — like your old self!” she exclaimed, suddenly.
“Me! Aw, it’s just because I cleaned up,” he replied, with a smile.
“I — I don’t get you,” she said, dubiously, yet hopefully.
“Well, Georgie, you never did get me, an’, worse luck for me, you never will.... Come now, I want you to see the other cabin.”
“Other cabin?” she echoed.
“Sure. This is only the kitchen. Come on.”
As she made no move to accompany him, and stood with eyes dilating, he possessed himself of her hand and led her out of the kitchen. The shaking of her hand, its clammy touch, told him much. He had to urge her, drag her a little to get her into the other cabin.
How bright, rosy, cheerful, and cosy! It was warm, too, and the burning juniper sent out a fragrance.
“Isn’t this nice?” he asked, without looking at her, and he released her hand.
Georgiana did not reply.
“Reckon you’re all in,” he said, hurriedly. “Here — see the bar that locks the door. Uncle Gard said a grizzly bear couldn’t get in here with the door barred.”
Then he drew his gun from his belt and laid it on the table.
“Reckon you won’t need that, but there it is,” he said, and moved back to the door.
Suddenly he flung up his head, with pride and finality, and looked at her with piercingly sad and revealing eyes.
“Good night,” he said, and wheeling he went out and closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER XIV
AS THE DOOR slammed behind Cal, not violently, but decisively, Georgiana’s nerve-wracked body gave a little leap. For a moment she stood there, trembling, passing from uncertain dread to certain relief, gazing at the door where Cal had disappeared. Then, answering to instinct, she ran to lift the heavy bar and place it in position. That seemed to make a vast, strange difference.
Her legs threatened to give way under her, and again she was visited by that lightness of head. She got to the bed, and falling upon it lay there for a long time, with only dull, vague thoughts. This stupor passed, and at length she sat up, conscious of bodily weariness and a headache, but otherwise gradually returning to herself.
What was it that had happened? Gazing around this log cabin room so new, so redolent of freshly hewn pine, at the rough slanting shingled roof, at the red clay hardened in the chinks between the logs, at the few articles of crudely fashioned furniture, strong and serviceable, at the several deerskins on the solid plank floor, at the small windows opening to the inside like doors, at the great open fireplace, made of white stone, with its glowing red fire on the hearth — gazing at these, and then at her ragged dress, Georgiana Stockwell established something of the reality of her situation.
When her roving eyes fell upon the big blue gun Cal had left upon the table, a thrill ran through her. That was the gun he had leveled at Bid Hatfield, and with which he might have killed him. Georgiana shuddered. She closed her eyes. But that did not blot out a picture of Cal Thurman, wild-eyed, villainous of mien, suddenly revealed in his true character.
“What’d he leave that gun there for?” pondered Georgiana, and she opened her eyes to stare at it. She recalled that he had said, significantly, “Reckon you won’t need it, but there it is.” . . . What for? It had a dark, sinister significance. For only one purpose — to protect herself, to kill him, if she wanted to. That clear fact struck Georgiana forcibly and quickened her reasoning powers. Only her emotions kept continually obstructing logical thought. Why should he think she wanted to kill him? Was it not scorn of her — that she could imagine she needed protection from him? Was it not a suggestion of how bitter his life had become and that he did not care how soon it ended? Had he not struck her brutally, cruelly? Georgiana suffered again the sudden terrible shock, the blinding, streaking lights before her eyes, and the blackness.
“He wasn’t drunk — he wasn’t crazy,” she soliloquized. “It was just the devil in him. He’s a descendant of these Tonto backwoodsmen.”
That seemed to fix itself in Georgiana’s mind. She hated him. She would go away from this place tomorrow as soon as she dared. Some one would come to whom she could tell her story. But what if she raised that devil in him again? The thought made her absolutely weak. How cold-bloodedly savage he had been! In such a mood Cal Thurman was capable of anything. Yet, why had he suddenly become transformed, back seemingly to the Cal she had liked so well? Why had he told her to bar the door of this room and had given her his gun, and then stalked out like an outraged prince? It was this which perplexed and troubled Georgiana. There seemed no way to connect it with his earlier conduct. He had two sides to his nature, then, both of which were new to her.
The fire burned down into a beautiful bed of red and white embers. Outside the wind had risen. Georgiana heard the bark of some wild animal. How lonely and wild! She felt chilled. The room was growing cold. She went to the window and closed it all but a couple of inches. The mountain air blew in, like ice, with some strange tang. She saw the dark Rim standing up against the white stars, and the sight impressed her powerfully. This place was different from Green Valley.
“It’s wild and woolly, all right,” said Georgiana, “and there’s an Indian in the next cabin, I’ll tell the world.... What am I going to do?”
After a moment’s deliberation she extinguished the lamp, and without removing even her shoes she lay down on the bed and pulled a couple of blankets up over her. The room now seemed wonderfully changed. The red embers threw ruddy shadows on the floor and sent long streaks to her eyes. Suddenly she became aware of a low moaning sound. It startled her. She listened. Only the wind under the eaves of the cabin. It had the strangest, loneliest, most haunting sound she had ever heard. Lower she crept down under the blankets. She had begun to feel warm and comfortable and a languor was stealing over her.
“I couldn’t sleep. Not on a bet,” she whispered. “But I’m sleepy, all right.... It’s funny. — I wonder what that caveman is doing.”
Every thought, every emotion, seemed to bring Cal Thurman back before her consciousness. She resented that. He had become a monster in her sight. How abominably he had turned out! She found herself correcting a sort of self-pity because he had so bitterly disappointed her. But this thought seemed hardly fair, for she confessed she was not exactly an angel. She wanted to put Cal Thurman out of her mind, as much out of her mind as he would be out of her life after tomorrow.
“Yes — very well — but you are his wife!”
Georgiana spoke these words aloud to her own ears. They brought her upright in bed, transfixed and thrilling. Had she spoken? Had she been dreaming? It was almost as if some one had spoken for her.
The room seemed darkening, more lonely and cold than ever. The fire was dying out in dull ruddy glow on the hearth. Shivering, frightened, aghast, Georgiana sank back into the warm protection of the blankets.
“His wife!” she whispered. “My God! I married him! I
said yes, yes, just as if I meant it.... That parson never guessed I was forced. He’d never believe me if I swore it on my bended knees.... And that sly fox, Tuck Merry — I don’t just get him.... But I’m Cal Thurman’s wife — right this minute — of my own free will!”
Somehow it seemed a terrible realization. Not that it changed her future action in the least! But how would she be regarded in the Tonto? She had not been any too well liked, except by a lot of those sentimental mooning riders. Cal Thurman, however, was liked by everybody, even by Bid Hatfield. What had Bid said once? “Cal’s a square shooter.” And from Bid, who had been insanely jealous of Cal, that was equivalent to an eulogy.
“It’ll have to be annulled,” said Georgiana. “I can put him in jail.... Won’t his life be one long round of bliss after I tell what he did to me? . . . He won’t be so darn popular then.”
As the night wore away Georgiana lay there refusing to go to sleep or listen to a still small voice that seemed to be knocking at the gate of her conscience. Yet she grew drowsy, and her reflections lost clarity as weariness gradually overcame her. At last, when she was thinking how dark it was and cold and strange, she fell asleep.
Georgiana awakened with a start. Her eyelids almost refused to come open. Her body felt in a comfortable, immovable state. A bright sunlight was streaming into the room. One glance around brought instant establishment of time, place, situation. After all, she had slept. The sun was high. Now she became aware of a knocking on the door.
“Georgie, are you all right?” called Cal, in a tone of anxiety.
Georgiana felt like telling him that he had an awful nerve. What did he expect? But she lay quiet.
“Georgie, are you dead?” he yelled, and pounded hard on the door.
“It’s no fault of yours that I’m not dead,” she replied. “What do you want?”
“Aw!” She heard him exclaim in relief. “If you’ll let me in I’ll start a fire for you. It’s cold up here under the Rim.”