CHAPTER XXXII
THE TRUTH
With the desperation of a joy born of despair she laid her burningcheek hysterically against his cheek. She rained kisses on hisice-crusted brows and snow-beaten eyes. Her arms held him rigidly. Hecould not move nor speak till she would let him. Transformed, thismountain girl who gave herself so shyly, forgot everything. Her wordscrowded on his ears. She repeated his name in an ecstasy of welcome,drew down his lips, laughed, rejoiced, knew no shamefacedness and norestraint--she was one freed from the stroke of a descending knife. Amoment before she had faced death alone; it was still death shefaced--she realized this--but it was death, at least, together, andher joy and tears rose from her heart in one stream.
De Spain comforted her, quieted her, cut away one of the coats fromhis horse, slipped it over her shoulders, incased her in the heavyfur, and turned his eyes to Duke.
The old man's set, square face surrendered nothing of implacabilityto the dangers confronting him. De Spain looked for none of that. Hehad known the Morgan record too long, and faced the Morgan men toooften, to fancy they would flinch at the drum-beat of death.
The two men, in the deadly, driving snow, eyed each other. Out of theold man's deep-set eyes burned the resistance of a hundred stormsfaced before. But he was caught now like a wolf in a trap, and he knewhe had little to hope for, little to fear. As de Spain regarded him,something like pity may have mixed with his hatred. The old outlaw wasthinly clad. His open throat was beaten with snow and, standing besidethe wagon, he held the team reins in a bare hand. De Spain cut theother coat from his saddle and held it out. Duke pretended not to seeand, when not longer equal to keeping up the pretense, shook hishead.
"Take it," said de Spain curtly.
"No."
"Take it, I say. You and I will settle our affairs when we get Nan outof this," he insisted.
"De Spain!" Duke's voice, as was its wont, cracked like a pistol, "Ican say all I've got to say to you right here."
"No."
"Yes," cried the old man.
"Listen, Henry," pleaded Nan, seeking shelter from the furious blastwithin his arm, "just for a moment, listen!"
"Not now, I tell you!" cried de Spain.
"He was coming, Henry, all the way--and he is sick--just to say it toyou. Let him say it here, now."
"Go on!" cried de Spain roughly. "Say it."
"I'm not afraid of you, de Spain!" shouted the old man, his neck baredto the flying ice. "Don't think it! You're a better man than I am,better than I ever was--don't think I don't know that. But I'm notafraid of e'er a man I faced, de Spain; they'll tell you that when I'mdead. All the trouble that ever come 'tween you and me come by anaccident--come before you was born, and come through Dave Sassoon, andhe's held it over me ever since you come up into this country. I was ayoung fellow. Sassoon worked for my father. The cattle and sheep warwas on, north of Medicine Bend. The Peace River sheepmen raided ourplace--your father was with them. He never did us no harm, but mybrother, Bay Morgan, was shot in that raid by a man name of Jennings.My brother was fifteen years old, de Spain. I started out to get theman that shot him. Sassoon trailed him to the Bar M, the old de Spainranch, working for your father."
The words fell fast and in a fury. They came as if they had beenchoked back till they strangled. "Sassoon took me over there. Towardnight we got in sight of the ranch-house. We saw a man down at thecorral. 'That's Jennings,' Sassoon says. I never laid eyes on himbefore--I never laid eyes on your father before. Both of us fired.Next day we heard your father was killed, and Jennings had left thecountry. Sassoon or I, one of us, killed your father, de Spain. If itwas I, I did it never knowing who he was, never meaning to touch him.I was after the man that killed my brother. Sassoon didn't care a damnwhich it was, never did, then nor never. But he held it over me tomake trouble sometime 'twixt you and me. I was a young fellow. Ithought I was revenging my brother. And if your father was killed by apatched bullet, his blood is not on me, de Spain, and never was.Sassoon always shot a patched bullet. I never shot one in my life. AndI'd never told you this of my own self. Nan said it was the wholetruth from me to you, or her life. She's as much mine as she is yours.I nursed her. I took care of her when there weren't no other livingsoul to do it. _She got me and herself out into this, this morning.I'd never been caught like this if I'd had my way._ I told her 'forewe'd been out an hour we'd never see the end of it. She said she'drather die in it than you'd think she quit you. I told her I'd go onwith her and do as she said--that's why we're here, and that's thewhole truth, so help me God!
"I ain't afraid of you, de Spain. I'll give you whatever you think'scoming to you with a rifle or a gun any time, anywhere--you're abetter man than I am or ever was, I know that--and that ought tosatisfy you. Or, I'll stand my trial, if you say so, and tell thetruth."
The ice-laden wind, as de Spain stood still, swept past the littlegroup with a sinister roar, insensible alike to its emotions and itsdeadly peril. Within the shelter of his arm he felt the yielding formof the indomitable girl who, by the power of love, had wrung from theoutlaw his reluctant story--the story of the murder that had stainedwith its red strands the relations of each of their lives to both theothers. He felt against his heart the faint trembling of her frailbody. So, when a boy, he had held in his hand a fluttering bird andfelt the whirring beat of its frightened heart against his strong,cruel fingers.
A sudden aversion to more bloodshed, a sickening of vengeance, sweptover him as her heart mutely beat for mercy against his heart. She haddone more than any man could do. Now her. In the breathless embracethat drew her closer she read her answer from him. She looked up intohis eyes and waited. "There's more than what's between you and me,Duke, facing us now," said de Spain sternly, when he turned. "We'vegot to get Nan out of this--even if we don't get out ourselves. Wheredo you figure we are?" he cried.
"I figure we're two miles north of the lava beds, de Spain," shoutedMorgan.
De Spain shook his head in dissent. "Then where are we?" demanded theolder man rudely.
"I ought not to say, against you. But if I've got to guess, I say twomiles east. Either way, we must try for Sleepy Cat. Is your team allright?"
"Team is all right. We tore a wheel near off getting out of the lava.The wagon's done for."
De Spain threw the fur coat at him. "Put it on," he said. "We'll lookat the wheel."
They tried together to wrench it into shape, but worked without avail.In the end they lashed it, put Nan on the Lady, and walked behindwhile the team pushed into the pitiless wind. Morgan wanted to cut thewagon away and take to the horses, but de Spain said, not till theyfound a trail or the stage road.
So much snow had fallen that in spite of the blizzard, driving withan unrelenting fury, the drifts were deepening, packing, and makingall effort increasingly difficult. It was well-nigh impossible to headthe horses into the storm, and de Spain looked with ever more anxiouseyes at Nan. After half an hour's superhuman struggle to regain atrail that should restore their bearings, they halted, and de Spain,riding up to the wagon, spoke to Morgan, who was driving: "How long isthis going to last?"
"All day and all night." Nan leaned closely over to hear the curtquestion and answer. Neither man spoke again for a moment.
"We'll have to have help," said de Spain after a pause.
"Help?" echoed Morgan scornfully. "Where's help coming from?"
De Spain's answer was not hurried. "One of us must go after it." Nanlooked at him intently.
Duke set his hard jaw against the hurtling stream of ice that showeredon the forlorn party. "I'll go for it," he snapped.
"No," returned de Spain. "Better for me to go."
"Go together," said Nan.
De Spain shook his head. Duke Morgan, too, said that only one shouldgo; the other must stay. De Spain, while the storm rattled and shookat the two men, told why he should go himself. "It's not claiming youare not entitled to say who should go, Duke," he said evenly. "Northat our men, anywhere you reach, wouldn't
give you the same attentionthey would me. And it isn't saying that you're not the better man forthe job--you've travelled the Sinks longer than I have. But betweenyou and me, Duke, it's twenty-eight years against fifty. I ought tohold out a while the longer, that's all. Let's work farther to theeast."
Quartering against the mad hurricane, they drove and rode on until theteam could hardly be urged to further effort against the infuriatedelements--de Spain riding at intervals as far to the right and theleft as he dared in vain quest of a landmark. When he halted besidethe wagon for the last time he was a mass of snow and ice; horse andrider were frozen to each other. He got down to the ground with avisible effort, and in the singing wind told Duke his plan andpurpose.
He had chosen on the open desert a hollow falling somewhat abruptlyfrom the north, and beneath its shoulder, while Morgan loosened thehorses, he scooped and kicked away a mass of snow. The wagon had beendrawn just above the point of refuge, and the two men, with the aid ofthe wind, dumped it over sidewise, making of the body a windbreakover the hollow, a sort of roof, around which the snow, driven by thegale, would heap itself in hard waves. Within this shelter the menstowed Nan. The horses were driven down behind it, and from one ofthem de Spain took the collar, the tugs, and the whiffletree. He stucka hitching-strap in his pocket, and while Morgan steadied the Lady'shead, de Spain buckled the collar on her, doubled the tugs around thewhiffletree, and fastened the roll at her side in front of thesaddle.
Nan came out and stood beside him as he worked. When he had finishedshe put her hand on his sleeve. He held her close, Duke listening, totell her what he meant to try to do. Each knew it well might be thelast moment together. "One thing and another have kept us frommarriage vows, Nan," said de Spain, beckoning at length to Morgan tostep closer that he might clearly hear. "Nothing must keep us longer.Will you marry me?"
She looked up into his eyes. "I've promised you I would. I willpromise every time you ask me. I never _could_ have but one answer tothat, Henry--it must always be yes!"
"Then take me, Henry," he said slowly, "here and now for your weddedhusband. Will you do this, Nan?"
"I've promised you I would. I will promise every time youask me."]
Still looking into his eyes, she answered without surprise or fear:"Henry, I do take you."
"And I, Henry, take you, Nan, here and now for my wedded wife, forbetter for worse, for richer for poorer, from this day forward, untildeath us do part."
They sealed their pact with a silent embrace. De Spain turned to Duke."You are the witness of this marriage, Duke. You will see, if anaccident happens, that anything, everything I have--some personalproperty--my father's old ranch north of Medicine Bend--some littlemoney in bank at Sleepy Cat--goes to my wife, Nan Morgan de Spain.Will you see to it?"
"I will. And if it comes to me--you, de Spain, will see to it thatwhat stock I have in the Gap goes to my niece, Nan, your wife."
She looked from one to the other of the two men. "All that I have,"she said in turn, "the lands in the Gap, everywhere around MusicMountain, go to you two equally together, or whichever survives. Andif you both live, and I do not, remember my last message--bury thepast in my grave."
Duke Morgan tested the cinches of the saddle on the Lady once more,unloosed the tugs once more from the horse's shoulder, examined eachbuckle of the collar and every inch of the two strips of leather, thereinforced fastenings on the whiffletree, rolled all up again,strapped it, and stood by the head till de Spain swung up into thesaddle. He bent down once to whisper a last word of cheer to his wifeand, without looking back, headed the Lady into the storm.
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