Bruce of the Circle A

by Harold Titus

  CHAPTER VIII

  A HEART SPEAKS

  With forebodings Bruce Bayard went to Ann Lytton the next day. She sawtrouble on his face as he entered her room.

  "What is it?" she asked, quietly, steadying herself, for she was everready for the worst.

  He only continued to look gravely at her.

  "Don't be afraid to tell me, Mr. Bayard. I can stand it; you can't hideit."

  He looked at her, until he made sure that she was not speculating, thatshe was certain that he brought her bad news.

  "Yesterday, while I was here, your husband ransacked my house an' found aquart of whiskey I had...."

  "Oh! After he sent you away, making you feel..."

  "You know him right well, ma'am," he interrupted. "Yes, I guess all hisshow of bein' himself in th' mornin' was to get me to move out so hecould look for th' booze. He knew it was there; he'd been waitin' thischance, I expect."

  "How awful! What a way to treat you."

  He smiled. "Don't mind me, ma'am; I'm thinkin' about you."

  She looked back at him bravely.

  "And the other day ... when you left, you tried to make me stop thinkingthese kind things about you," she challenged. "You suggested that yourinterest in Ned and in me might not be fine."

  It did not occur to either of them that at such a moment, under thoseconditions which they told themselves prevailed, talk and thought oftheir own special relations was out of place.

  "I'm only doin' what I can ... for you," he assured her. "An' I guess itain't much I can do. I'm kind of a failure at reformin' men, I guess. Iwant to keep on tryin', though. I,"--he moistened his lips--"I don'tlike to think of givin' up an' I don't like to think of turnin' him overto you like he is."

  She smiled appreciatively, downing her misery for the moment, andhastened to say:

  "Don't you think it would be better, if I were there now? You see, Icould be with him all the time, watch him, help him over the worst days.It surely wouldn't set him back to see me now."

  "And might it not be that living alone with you, away from the things heneeds: good care, the comforts he's been brought up to know, the rightfood...."

  So confused was Bayard before the conviction that he must meet thisargument, that he proceeded without caution, without thought of thefoundation of lies on which his separation of husband and wife rested,he burst out:

  "But he has them there! Here, ma'am, he'd been seein' an' hearin' folks,he'd be tempted continually. Out there ... why, ma'am, he don't seenobody, hear nothin'. He couldn't be more comfortable. There ain't ahouse in Yavapai, not one this side o' Prescott, that's better fixed up.I brought out a bed for him into th' kitchen so 't would be lighter,easier for him to be watched. He ... I have sheets for him an' goodbeddin'. I got eggs an' fruit an' ..."

  The perplexity on her face stopped him.

  "But you said, you said it was too rough for a woman, that it wasn'tmuch of a house, that it only had one room, that it ..."

  One hand extended, leaning toward him, brows raised, accusing, shesought for explanation and she saw his face flood with flush, saw hischest fill.

  "Well, I lied to you," he said, the lines of his body going suddenly laxas he half turned from her. "It ain't rough. It's a pretty fair outfit."

  She dropped her hands until they met before her and a look of offendedtrust, came into her face, settling the lines about her mouth into anexpression of determination.

  "But why?" she asked him. "Why should you lie to me and keep me fromNed, my husband? I trusted you; I believed what you said. Why was it,Mr. Bayard?"

  He turned on her, eyes burning, color running from his face.

  "I'll tell you why, ma'am," he said, chokingly, as though his lungs weretoo full of air. "I'll tell you: It's because I didn't dare trust myselfunder th' same roof with you, that's why; it's because I know that ifyou're around me you'll be ... you'll be in danger."

  "No man should tempt himself too far an' 'twould be temptin', if I wasto let you come there. You don't know this country. You don't know usmen ... men like I am. I don't know your kind of men myself; but we'rerough, we're not nice when we want a thing. We haven't got nice manners.I tell you, ma'am, I want to help you all I can, but I've got to lookout for myself, you see! Do you see that, ma'am? I thought I could seeyou now an' then safe enough, but I can't I guess.... This had to comeout; it had to!"

  A forearm half raised she stepped back from him, settling her weight toone foot. He breathed heavily twice to relieve the congestion thatstrained his voice.

  "When I stood down there th' other night,"--gesturing toward theentrance of the hotel--"an' looked into the darkness an' saw your facethere, it was like an angel ... or somethin'. It caught me in th'throat, it made my knees shake--an' they've never shook from fear oranythin' else in my life. When we set in that next room washin' out thatwound, bindin' it up, I didn't give a damn if that man lived or died--"

  "Oh!" she cried, and drew away another step, but he followed close,bound that she should hear, should understand.

  "--If he lived or died," he repeated. "I wanted to be near you, to watchyour fingers, to see th' move of your shoulders, to look at th'--th'pink of your neck through your waist, to see your lips an' your eyes an'your hair ... ma'am. I didn't give a damn about that man. It was you;your strangeness, your nerve, your sand, I wanted to see, to knowabout ... an' your looks. Then you said, you said he was your husbandan' for a minute I wanted him to die, I did! That was a black minute,ma'am; things went round, I didn't know what was happenin'. Then, I comeout of it and I realized; realized what kind of a woman you are, ifyou'd come clear from th' East on th' trail of a ... a ... your husband,an' speak of him as a cripple an' be as ... as wrought up over him asyou was--

  "I thought then, like a fool I was, that I'd be doin' somethin' fine ifI took that ... that ... your husband an' made a man of him an' sent himback to you, a man!"

  He gulped and breathed and his hands fell to his sides. He moved back anawkward pace.

  "Well, it would,"--averting his face. The resonance had gone from hisvoice. "It would have been fine. It ... it _will_ be fine,"--in awhisper.

  "But I can't stand you around," he muttered, the tone rallying some ofits strength. "I can't; I can't! I couldn't have you in th' same roomin my sight. I'd keep thinkin' what he is an' what you are; comparin'you. It'd tear my heart out!

  "Ma'am don't think I ain't tried to fight against this!" extending hispalms pleadingly. "I've thought about you every minute since I first sawyou down there 'n th' hallway. I've lied to myself, I've tried to makemyself think different but I can't! I can't help it, ma'am ... an' Idon't know as I would if I could, 'cause it's somethin' I never knewcould be before!"

  He was talking through clenched teeth now, swiftly, words runningtogether, and the woman, a hand on her lips, gave evidence of a queer,fascinating fright.

  He had said that she did not know his sort of man. He had spoken truththere. And because she did not know his breed, she did not know how tojudge him now. Would he really harm her? Was he possessed of desires andurgings of which he had no control? She put those questions to herselfand yet she could not make her own heart believe the very things he hadtold her about himself. She feared, yes; but about the quality shefeared was a strong fascination. He caused her to sense his own uncurbedvitality, yet about the danger of which he talked was a compellingquality that urged her on, that made her want to know that dangerintimately ... to suffer, perhaps, but to know!

  "You'll let me alone, won't you, ma'am?" he continued. "You'll stayaway? You'll stay right here an' give me a chance to play my hand? I'llmake him or break him, ma'am! I'll send him back to you, if there's aspark of man left in him, I will; I promise you that! I will becauseyou're th' only woman--"

  "Don't!" She threw up a hand as she cried sharply, "Don't say it!"

  "I will say it!" he declared, moving to her again. "I will!

  "I love you, I love you! I love that lock of hair blowin' across yourcheek; I love that sc
ared look in your eyes now; I love th' way th'blood's pumpin' in your veins; I love you ... all of you. But you toldme th' other night, you loved your husband. I asked you. You said youdid. 'I do,' that's what you said. I know how you looked, how itsounded, when you said it, 'I do.' That's why I'm workin' with him;that's why I want to make him a man. You can't waste your lovin', ma'am;you can't!"

  He stepped even closer.

  "That's why you've got to keep away from me! You can't handle him alone.You can't come to my ranch to handle him because of _me_. Nobody elsewill take him in around here. It's me or nobody. It's my way or th' oldway he's been goin' until he comes to th' end.

  "I promise you this. I'll watch over him an' care for him an' guard himin every way. I'll put the best I've got into bringin' him back.... An'all th' time I'll be wishin'--prayin', if I could--that a thunderbolt'uld strike him dead! He ain't fit for you, ma'am! He's no more fit foryou than ... than ...

  "Hell, ma'am, there's no use talkin'! He's your husband, you've said youloved him, that's enough. But if he, if he wasn't your husband, if he..."

  He jerked open the front of his shirt, reached in and drew out his flat,blue automatic pistol.

  She started back with a cry.

  "Don't you be afraid of me," he cried fiercely, grasping her wrist."Don't you ever!

  "You take this gun; you keep it. It's mine. I don't want to be able tohurt him, if I should ever lose my head. Sometimes when I set there an'look at him an' hear him cussin' me, I get hot in th' head; hot an'heavy an' it buzzes. I ... I thought maybe sometime I might go crazy an'shoot him,"--with deadly seriousness. "An' I wouldn't do that, ma'am,not to yours, no matter what he might do or say to me. I brought myrifle in to-day to have th' sights fixed; they needed it an' 't wouldget it out of th' house. You'll keep this gun, won't you, please,ma'am?"

  His pleading was as direct as that of a child and, eyes on his with amingling of emotions, Ann Lytton reached a groping hand for the weapon.She was stunned. Her nervous weakness, his strength, the putting intowords of that great love he bore for her, the suggested picture ofcontrast with the man between them, the conflict it all aroused in herconscience, the reasonless surging of her deepest emotions, combined tobewilder the woman. She reached out slowly to take his weapon and do hisbidding, moved by a subconscious desire to obey, and all the while hereyes grew wider, her breath faster in its slipping between her partedlips.

  Her fingers touched the metal, warmed by his body heat, closed on it andher hand, holding the pistol, fell back to her side. She turned her facefrom him and, with a palm hard against one cheek, whispered,

  "Oh, this is horrible!"

  The man made a wry smile.

  "I presume it is, ma'am,"--drearily, "but I can't help it, lovin' you."

  "No, no, not that!" she cried. "I didn't mean _that_ was horrible.It ... it isn't. The horrible thing is the rest, the whole situation."

  "I know it is," he went on, heedless of her explanation, moving towardthe window and looking into the street as he talked, his back to her. "Iknow it is, but it had to be. If I had kept from talkin' it would sortof festered in me. When a horse runs somethin' in his foot, you've gotto cut th' hoof away, got to hurt him for a while, or it'll go bad withhim. Let what's in there out an' gettin' along will be simple.

  "That's how it was with me, you see. If I'd kept still, I'd 'a' gonesort of _loco_, I might have hurt him. But now ...

  "Why, now, I can just remember that you know how I feel, that youwouldn't want a man who's said he loves you to be anythin' but kind toyour ... to Ned Lytton."

  When he finished, the woman took just one step forward. It was animpulsive movement, as if she would run to him, throw herself on him;and her lips were parted, her throat ready to cry out and ask him totake her and forget all else but that love he had declared for her. In aflash the madness was past; she remembered that she must not forgetanything because of his confession of love, rather that she must keepmore firmly than ever in mind those other factors of her life, that shemust stifle and throttle this yearning for the man before her which hadbeen latent, the existence of which she had denied to herself until thishour, and which was consuming her strength now with its desire forexpression.

  She walked slowly to the dresser and laid his gun there, as though evenits slight weight were a burden.

  "I'm so sorry," she said, as though physically weak, "I'm so sorry." Heturned away from the window with a helpless smile. "I don't feel right,now, in letting you do this for me. I feel ..."

  "Why don't you feel right?"

  "Because ... because it means that you are giving me everything and I'mgiving nothing in return."

  "Don't think that, ma'am," with a slow, convinced shaking of his head,"I'm doin' little enough for what I get."

  "For what _you_ get!"

  "What I get, ma'am, is this. I can come to see you. I can look at yourface, I can see your hair, I can watch you move an' hear you talk an' benear you now an' then, even if I ain't any right, even if ..."

  He threw out his arms and let them fall back to his thighs as he turnedfrom her again.

  "That's what I get in exchange," he continued a moment later. "That's mypay, an' for it, I'd go through anything, thirst or hunger or cold ...anythin', ma'am. That's how much I think of you: that's why carin'for ... for that man out home ain't any job even if he is ... if you arehis!"

  On that, doubt, desire, again overrode her training, her traditionalmanner of thought. She struggled to find words, but she could not evenclarify her ideas. Impressions came to her in hot, passing flashes. Adozen times she was on the point of crying out, of telling him one thingor another, but each time the thought was gone before she could seizeupon and crystallize it. All she fully realized was that this thing waslove, big, clean, sanctified; that this man was a natural lover ofwomen, with a body as great, as fine as the heart which could so revealitself to her; and that in spite of that love's quality she washelpless, bound, gagged even, by the circumstances that life had thrownabout her. She would have cried out against them, denouncing it all ...

  Only for the fact that that thing, conscience, handed down to herthrough strict-living generations, kept her still, binding her tosilence, to passivity.

  "I won't bother you again this way," she heard him saying, his voicesounding unreal as it forced its way through the roaring in her head. "Ihad to get it out of my system, or it'd have gone in some otherdirection; reaction, they call it, I guess. Then, somebody'd have beenhurt or somethin' broken, maybe your heart,"--looking at her with hispatient smile.

  "I'll go back home; I'll work with him. Sometimes, I'll come to see you,if you don't mind, to tell you about ... him. You don't mind, do you?"

  With an obvious effort, she shook her head. "No, I don't mind. I'll beglad to see you," she muttered, holding her self-possession doggedly.

  An awkward pause followed in which Bayard fussed with the ends of thegay silk scarf that hung about his neck and shoulders.

  "I guess I'd better go now," he mumbled, and picked up his hat.

  "You see, I don't know what to say to you," Ann confessed, drawing ahand across her eyes. "It has all overwhelmed me so. I ... perhapsanother time I can talk it over with you."

  "If you think it's best to mention it again, ma'am," he said.

  She extended her hand to him and he clasped it. On the contact, his armtrembled as though he would crush the small fingers in his, but thegrasp went no further than a formal shake.

  "In a day or two ... Ann," he said, using her given name for the firsttime.

  He bowed low, turned quickly and half stumbled into the hall, closingthe door behind him as he went.

  The woman sat down on the edge of the bed weakly.

  * * * * *

  In the dining room Nora Brewster was dusting and she looked up quicklyat Bayard's entrance.

  "Hello, Bruce," she said, eyes fastening on him eagerly. "You're gettin'to be a frequent caller, ain't you?"

  He trie
d to smile when he answered,

  "Hardly a caller; kind of an errand boy, between bein' a nurse an'jailer."

  He could not deceive the girl. She dropped her dustcloth to a chair,scanning his face intently.

  "What's wrong, Bruce? You look all frazzled out."

  He could not know how she feared his answer.

  "Nothin'," he evaded. "He's been pretty bad an' I've missed sleeplately; that's all."

  But that explanation did not satisfy Nora. She knew it was not the wholetruth. She searched his face suspiciously.

  "She ... his wife," he went on, steadying his voice. "It's hard on her,Nora."

  "I know it is, poor thing," she replied, almost mechanically. "I talkto her every time I can, but she, she ain't my kind, Bruce. You knowthat. The' ain't much I can say to her. Besides, I dasn't let on that Iknow who she is or that you've got her husband."

  Her eyes still held on his inquiringly.

  "You might get her outdoors," he ventured. "Keepin' in that room day an'night, worryin' as she does, is worse 'n jail. You ... You ride a lot.Why don't you get her some ridin' clothes an' take her along? I'll tellNate to give you an extra horse. You see...."

  The girl did see. She saw his anxiety for the woman upstairs. She knewthe truth then, and the thing which she had feared through those daysrang in her head like a sullen tocsin. She had felt an uneasiness comeinto her heart with the arrival of this eastern woman, this product ofanother civilization with her sweetness, her charm for both her own sexand for men. And that uneasiness had grown to apprehension, had mountedas she watched the change in Bayard under Ann's influence until now,when she realized that the thing which she had hoped against for months,which she had felt impending for days, had become reality; and that she,Bayard, Ned Lytton, Ann, were fast in the meshes of circumstances thatbound and shut down upon them like a net, forecasting tragedy and thedestruction of hopes. Nora feared, she feared with that groundless,intuitive fear peculiar to her kind; almost an animal instinct, and shefelt her heart leaping, her head becoming giddy as that warning notestruck and reverberated through her consciousness. Her gaze left theman's face slowly, her shoulders slackened and almost impatiently sheturned back to her work that he might not see the foreboding about her.

  "You see, th' open air would help her, an' bein' with you, anotherwoman, even if you an' she don't talk th' same language, would helptoo," he ended.

  "I see," Nora answered after a moment, as she tilted a chair to one legand stooped low to rub the dust from its spindles. "I understand, Bruce.I'll take her to ride ... every day, if you think it's best."

  Something about her made Bayard pause, and the moment of silence whichfollowed was an uneasy one for him. The girl kept on with her task, eyesaverted, and he did not notice that she next commenced working on achair that she had already dusted.

  "That's a good girl, Nora," he said. "That'll help her."

  He left then and, when the ring of his spurs had been lost in the lazyafternoon, the girl sat suddenly in the chair on which she had busiedherself and pressed the dustcloth hard against her eyes. She drew along, sharp breath. Then, she stood erect and muttered,

  "Oh, God, has it come?"

  Then, stolidly, with set mouth, she went on with her work, movements alittle slower, perhaps, a bit lethargic, surely, bungling now and then.Something had gone from her ... a hope, a sustaining spark, a leaventhat had lightened the drudgery.

  * * * * *

  Upstairs in her room Ann Lytton lay face down on her bed, hands grippingthe coarse coverlet, eyes pressed shut, breath swift and irregular,heart racing. What had gone from the girl below--the hope, the spark,the leaven which makes life itself palatable--had come to her afterthose years of nightmare, and Ann was resisting, driving it back,telling herself that it must not be, that it could not be, not in theface of all that had happened; not now, when ethical, moral, legal tiesbound her to another! Oh, she was bound, no mistaking that; but it wasnot Ann's heart that wrenched at the bonds. It was her conscience, hertrained sense of right and wrong, the traditions that had moulded her.No, her heart was gone, utterly, to the man who crossed the hard, beatenstreet of Yavapai, head down, dejection in the swing of his shoulders,for her heart knew no right, no wrong ... only beauty and ugliness.

  Bayard, too, fought his bitter fight. The urge in him was to take her,to bear her away, to defy the laws that men had made to hurt her and todevil him; but something behind, something deep in him, forbade. He mustgo on, nursing back to strength that mockery of manhood who could lifthis fuddled, obscene head and, with the blessing of society, claim AnnLytton as his--her body, her soul! He must go on, though he wanted tostrangle all life from the drunken ruin, because in him was the samerigid adherence to things that have been which held the woman there onher bed, face down, even though her limbs twitched to race after him andher arms yearned to twine about his neck, to pull herself close to hisgood chest, within which the great heart pumped.

  And Nora? Was she conscienceless? Indeed, not. She had promised tobefriend this strange woman because Bruce Bayard had asked it. It wasnot for Ann's sake she dully planned diversion; it was because of herlove for the owner of the Circle A that she stifled her sorrow, hernatural jealousy. She knew that to refuse him, to follow her firstimpulses, would hurt him; and that would react, would hurt her, for herdevotion was that sort which would go to any length to make the man ofher heart happier.

  To Ann's ears came Bruce's sharp little whistle, and she could no longerlie still. She rose, half staggered to the window and stood holding thecurtains the least bit apart, watching him stand motionless in themiddle of the thoroughfare. Again, his whistle sounded and from adistance she heard the high call of the sorrel horse who had moved alongthe strip of grass that grew close beside the buildings, nibbling hereand there. The animal approached his master at a swinging trot, holdinghis head far to the right, nose high in the air, that the trailing reinsmight not dangle under his feet. All the time he nickered hisreassurance and, when he drew to a halt beside his master, Abe's voiceretreated down into his long throat until it was only a guttural murmurof affection.

  "Old Timer, if I was as good a man as you are horse, I'd find a way,"Bruce said half aloud as he gathered the reins.

  He mounted with a rhythmical swing of shoulder and limb, and gave thestallion his head, trotting out of town with never a look about.