The Girl of the Golden West

by David Belasco

  XIV.

  Conscious-stricken at the fraud that she had imposed upon the gambler,the Girl lived a lifetime in the moments that followed his departure.With her face buried in her hands she stood lost in contemplation of hershameful secret.

  A sound--the sound of a man in great pain checked her hysterical sobs.Dazed, she passed her hand over her face as if to clear away the darkshades that were obstructing her vision. Another groan--and like a flashshe was down on her knees lavishing endearments upon the road agent.

  Never before, it is true, had the Girl had any experience in gun-shotwounds. She had played the part of nurse, however, more than once whenthe boys met with accidents at the mines. For the women of theCalifornia camps at that time had endless calls upon them. It was aperiod for sacrifices innumerable, and help and sympathy were neverasked that they were not freely given. So, if the Girl did not know thevery best thing to do, she knew, at least, what not to do, and it wasonly a few minutes before she had cut the coat from his back.

  The next thing to be done--the dragging of the unconscious man to thebed--was hard work, of course, but being strong of arm, as well as stoutof heart, she at last accomplished it.

  Now she cut away his shirt in order to find the wound, which proved tobe in his breast. Quickly then she felt with her fingers in an endeavourto find the ball, but in this she was unsuccessful. So after a moment'sdeliberation she made up her mind that the wound was a flesh one andthat the ball was anywhere but in the man's body--a diagnosis that waslargely due to the cheerful optimism of her nature and which,fortunately, proved to be true.

  Presently she went to a corner of the room and soon returned with abasin of water and some hastily torn bandages. For a good fifteenminutes after that she washed the gash and, finally, bandaged it as wellas she knew how. And now, having done all that her knowledge or instinctprompted, she drew up a chair and prepared to pass the rest of the nightin watching by his side.

  For an hour or so he slept the sleep of unconsciousness. In the room nota sound could be heard, but outside the storm still roared and raged. Itwas anything but an easy or cheerful situation: Here she was alone witha wounded, if not dying, man; and she well knew that, unless there camean abatement in the fury of the storm, it might be days before anyonecould climb the mountain. True, the Indians were not far off, but likeas not they would remain in their wigwam until the sun came forth again.In the matter of food there was a scant supply, but probably enough totide them over until communication could be had with The Polka.

  For three days she watched over him, and all the time the stormcontinued. On the third day he became delirious, and that was the nightof her torture. Despite a feeling that she was taking an unfairadvantage of him, the Girl strained her ears to catch a name which, inhis delirium, was constantly on his lips; but she could not make it out.All that she knew was that it was not her name that he spoke, and itpained her. She had given him absolute faith and trust and, already, shewas overwhelmed with the fierce flames of jealousy. It was a newsensation, this being jealous of anyone, and it called forth apassionate resentment. In such moments she would rise and flee to theother end of the room until the whispered endearments had ceased. Thenshe would draw near again with flushes of shame on her cheeks for havingheeded the sayings of an irresponsible person, and she would take hishead in her lap and, caressing him the while, would put cold towels onhis heated brow.

  Dawn of the fourth day saw the Girl still pale and anxious, thoughdespair had entirely left her; for the storm was over and colour andspeech had come back to the man early that morning. Love and goodnursing, not to speak of some excellent whisky that she happened to havestored away in her cabin, had pulled him through. With a sigh of reliefshe threw herself down on the rug for a much-needed rest.

  The man woke just before the sun rose. His first thought, that he washome in the foothills, was dissipated by the sight of the snow ranges.Through the window of the cabin, as far as the eye could see, nothing ofgreen was visible. Snow was everywhere; everything was white, save atthe eastern horizon where silver was fast changing into rose and rose toa fiery red as the fast-rising sun sent its shafts over the snow-coatedmountains.

  And now there came to him a full realisation of what had happened andwhere he was. To his amazement, though, he was almost without pain. Thathis wound had been dressed he was, of course, well aware for when heattempted to draw back still further the curtain at the window themovement strained the tight bandage, and he was instantly made consciousof a twinge of pain.

  Nevertheless, he persevered, for he wisely decided that it would be wellto reconnoitre, to familiarise himself, as much as possible, with thelay of the land and find out whether the trail that he had followed toreach the cabin which, he recalled, was perched high up above a ravine,was the only means of communication with the valley below. It was auseless precaution, for the snow would have wholly obliterated any suchtrail had there been one and, soon realising the fact, he fell backexhausted by his effort on the pillows.

  A half hour passed and the man began to grow restless. He had, ofcourse, no idea whatever of the length of time he had been in the cabin,and he knew that he must be thinking of an immediate escape. Indesperation, he tried to get out of bed, but the task was beyond hispower. At that a terrible feeling of hopelessness assailed him. His onlychance was to reach the valley where he had little fear of capture; butwounded, as he was, that seemed out of the question, and he saw himselfcaught like a rat in a trap. In an access of rage at the situation inwhich he was placed he made another effort to raise himself up on hiselbow and peer through the window at the Sierras. The noise that hemade, slight though it was, awoke the Girl. In an instant she was at hisbedside drawing the curtain over the window.

  "What you thinkin' of?" she asked. "At any moment--jest as soon as thetrail can be cleared--there'll be someone of the boys up here to see howI've pulled through. They mustn't see you . . ."

  Forcibly, but with loving tenderness, she put him back among his pillowsand seated herself by the bed. An awkward silence followed. For now thatthe man was in his right senses it was borne in upon her that he mightremember that she had fed him, given him drink and fondled him. It was asituation embarrassing to both. Neither knew just what to say or how tobegin. At length, the voice from the bed spoke:

  "How long have I been here?"

  "Three days."

  "And you have nursed me all that--"

  "You mustn't talk," warned the girl. "It's dangerous in more ways thanone. But if you keep still no one'll suspect that you're here."

  "But I must know what happened," he insisted with increasing excitement."I remember nothing after I came down the ladder. The Sheriff--Rance--what's become . . .?"

  The Girl chided him with gentle authority.

  "You keep perfectly still--you mustn't say nothin' 'til you've rested.Everythin's all right an' you needn't worry a bit." But then seeing thathe chafed at this, she added: "Well, then, I'll tell you all there is toknow." And then followed an account of the happenings of that night. Itwas not a thoroughly truthful tale, for in her narrative she told himonly what she thought was necessary and good for him to know, keepingthe rest to herself. And when she had related all that there was to tellshe insisted upon his going to sleep again, giving him no opportunitywhatsoever to speak, since she left his bedside after drawing thecurtains.

  Unwillingly the man lay back and tried to force himself to be patient;but he fretted at the enforced quietude and, as a result, sleep refusedto come to him. From time to time he could hear the Girl movingnoiselessly about the room. The knowledge that she was there gave him asense of security, and he began to let his thoughts dwell upon her. Nolonger did he doubt but what she was a real influence now; and thethought had the effect of making him keenly alive to what his life hadbeen. It was not a pleasant picture that he looked back upon, now thathe had caught a glimpse of what life might mean with the Girl at hisside. From the moment that he had taken her in his arms he realised tothe full that hi
s cherished dream had come true; he realised, also, thatthere was now but one answer to the question of keeping to the oathgiven to his father, and that was that gratitude--for he had guessedrightly, though she had not told him, that she had saved him fromcapture by the Sheriff and his posse--demanded that he should put an endto his vocation and devote his life henceforth to making her happy.

  Once or twice while thus communing with himself he fancied that he heardvoices. It seemed to him that he recognised Nick's voice. But whoever itwas, he spoke in whispers, and though the wounded man strove to hear, hewas unsuccessful.

  After a while he heard the door close and then the tension was somewhatrelaxed, for he knew that she was keeping his presence in her cabin asecret with all the wiles of a clever and loving woman. And more andmore he determined to gain an honoured place for her in somecommunity--an honoured place for himself and her. Vague, very vague, ofcourse, were the new purposes and plans that had so suddenly sprang upbecause of her influence, but the desire to lead a clean life hadtouched his heart, and since his old calling had never been pleasing tohim, he did not for a moment doubt his ability to succeed.

  The morning was half gone when the Girl returned to her patient. Then,in tones that did her best to make her appear free from anxiety, shetold him that it was the barkeeper, as he had surmised, with whom shehad been talking and that she had been obliged to take him into herconfidence. The man made no comment, for the situation necessarily wasin her hands, and he felt that she could be relied upon not to make anymistake. Four people, he was told, knew of his presence in the cabin. Sofar as Rance was concerned she had absolute faith in his honour, gamblerthough he was; there was nothing that Nick would not do for her; and asfor the Indians, the secret was sure to be kept by them, unlessJackrabbit got hold of some whisky--a contingency not at all likely, forNick had promised to see to that. In fact, all could be trusted to be assilent as the grave.

  The invalid had listened intently; nevertheless, he sighed:

  "It's hard to lie here. I don't want to be caught _now_."

  The Girl smiled at the emphasis on the last word, for she knew that itreferred to her. Furthermore, she had divined pretty well what had beenhis thoughts concerning his old life; but, being essentially a woman ofaction and not words, she said nothing.

  A moment or so later he asked her to read to him. The Girl looked as shemight have looked if he had asked her to go to the moon.Notwithstanding, she got up and, presently, returned with a lot of oldschool-books, which she solemnly handed over for his inspection.

  The invalid smiled at the look of earnestness on the Girl's face.

  "Not these?" he gently inquired. "Where is the Dante you were telling meabout?"

  Once more the Girl went over to the book-shelf; when she came back shehanded him a volume, which he glanced over carefully before showing herthe place where he wished her to begin to read to him.

  At first the Girl was embarrassed and stumbled badly. But on seeing thathe seemed not to notice it she gained courage and acquitted herselfcreditably, at least, so she flattered herself, for she could detect, asshe looked up from time to time, no expression other than pleasure onhis face. It may be surmised, though, that Johnson had not merely chosena page at random; on the contrary, when the book was in his hand he hadquickly found the lines which the Girl had, so to say, paraphrased, andhe was intensely curious to see how they would appeal to her. But now,apparently, she saw nothing in the least amusing in them, nor in otherpassages fully as sentimental. In fact, no comment of any kind wasforthcoming from her--though Johnson was looking for it and, to tell thetruth, was somewhat disappointed--when she read that Dante had probablynever spoken more than twice to Beatrice and his passion had no otherfood than the mists of his own dreaming. However, it was differentwhen,--pausing before each word after the manner of a child,--she cameto a passage of the poet's, and read:

  "'In that moment I say most truly that the spirit of life, which hathits dwelling in the most secret chambers of the heart, began to trembleso violently that the least pulse of my body shook herewith, and in thetrembling it said these words: "Here is a deity stronger than I who,coming shall rule over me."'"

  At that the Girl let the book fall and, going down on her knees andtaking both his hands in hers, she raised to him a look so full ofadoring worship that he felt himself awed before it.

  "That 'ere Dante ain't so far off after all. I know jest how he feels.Oh, I ain't fit to read to you, to talk to you, to kiss you."

  Nevertheless, he saw to it that she did.

  After this he told her about the Inferno, and she listened eagerly tohis description of the unfortunate characters, though she declared, whenhe explained some of the crimes that they had committed, that they "Gotonly what was rightly comin' to them."

  The patient could hardly suppress his amusement. Dante was discarded andinstead they told each other how much love there was in that littlecabin on Cloudy Mountain.

  The days that followed were all much like this one. Food was brought upfrom The Polka and, by degrees, the patient's strength came back. And itwas but natural that he became so absorbed in his newly-found happinessthat he gradually was losing all sense of danger. Late one night,however, when he was asleep, an incident happened that warned the Girlthat it was necessary to get her lover away just as soon as he was ableto ride a horse.

  Lying on the rug in front of the fire she had been thinking of him when,suddenly, her quick ear, more than ever alert in these days, caught thesound of a stealthy footstep outside the cabin. With no fear whateverexcept in relation to the discovery of her lover, the Girl wentnoiselessly to the window and peered out into the darkness. A man wasmaking signs that he wished to speak with her. For a moment she stoodwatching in perplexity, but almost instantly her instinct told her thatone of that race, for she believed the man to be a Mexican, would neverdare to come to her cabin at that time of night unless it was on afriendly errand. So putting her face close to the pane to reassureherself that she had not been mistaken in regard to his nationality, shethen went to the door and held it wide open for the man to enter, at thesame time putting her finger to her lips as a sign that he should bevery still.

  "What are you doin' here? What do you want?" she asked in a low voice,at the same time leading him to the side of the room further away fromher lover.

  Jose Castro's first words were in Spanish, but immediately perceivingthat he failed to make her understand, he nodded comprehendingly, andsaid:

  "All righta--I espeak Engleesh--I am Jose Castro too well known to the_Maestro_. I want to see 'im."

  The Girl's intuition told her that a member of the band stood beforeher, and she regarded him suspiciously. Not that she believed that hewas disloyal and had come there with hostile intent, but because shefelt that she must be absolutely sure of her ground before she revealedthe fact that Johnson was in the cabin. She let some moments pass beforeshe replied:

  "I don't know nothin' about your master. Who is he?"

  An indulgent smile crossed the Mexican's face.

  "That ver' good to tella other peoples; but I know 'im here too much.You trusta me--me quita safe."

  All this was said with many gestures and an air that convinced the Girlthat he was speaking the truth. But since she deemed it best that theinvalid should be kept from any excitement, she resolved to make theMexican divulge to her the nature of his important errand.

  "How do you know he's here?" she began warily. "What do you want 'imfor?"

  The Mexican's shifty eyes wandered all over the room as if to makecertain that no inimical ears were listening; then he whispered:

  "I tella you something--you lika the _Maestro_?"

  Unconsciously the Girl nodded, which evidently satisfied the Mexican,for he went on:

  "You thinka well of him--yees. Now I tella you something. The man Pedro'e no good. 'E wisha the reward--the money for Ramerrez. 'E and thewoman--woman no good--tell Meester Ashby they thinka 'im 'ere."

  The Girl felt the colou
r leave her cheeks, though she made a gesture forhim to proceed.

  "Pedro not 'ere any longer," smiled the Mexican. "Me senda 'im to thedevil. Serva 'im right."

  "An' the woman?" gasped the Girl.

  "She gone--got away--Monterey by this time," replied Castro with evidentdisappointment. "But Meester Ashby 'e know too much--'ees men everywheresearched the camp--no safa 'ere now. To-norrow--" Castro stopped short;the next instant with a joyful gleam in his eyes he cried out:"_Maestro_!"

  "Castro's right, Girl," said Johnson, who had waked and heard theMexican's last words; "it is not safe a moment more here, and I mustgo."

  With a little cry of loving protest the Girl abruptly left the men totalk over the situation and sought the opposite side of the room. There,her eyes half-closed and her lips pressed tightly together she gaveherself up to her distressing fears. After a while it was made plain toher that she was being brought into the conversation, for every now andthen Castro would look curiously at her; at length, as if it had beendetermined by them that nothing should be undertaken without her advice,Johnson, followed by his subordinate, came over to her and related indetail all the startling information that Castro had brought.

  Quietly the Girl listened and, in the end, it was agreed between themthat it would be safer for the men not to leave the cabin together, butthat Castro should go at once with the understanding that he shouldprocure horses and wait for the master at a given point across theravine. It was decided, too, that there was not a moment to be lost inputting their plan into execution. In consequence, Castro immediatelytook his departure.

  The hour that passed before the time set for Johnson to leave the cabinwas a most trying one for both of them. It was not so hard on the man,of course, for he was excited over the prospect of escaping; but theGirl, whose mind was filled with the dread of what might happen to him,had nothing to sustain her. Despite his objection, she had stipulatedthat, with Jackrabbit as a companion, she should accompany him to theoutskirts of the camp. And so, at the moment of departure, throwingabout her a cloak of some rough material, she went up to her lover andsaid with a quiver in her voice:

  "I'm ready, Dick, but I'm a-figurin' that I can't let you go alone--youjest got to take me below with you, an' that's all there is to it."

  The man shook his head.

  "There's very little risk, believe me. I'll join Castro and ride allthrough the night. I'll be down below in no time at all. But we must begoing, dear."

  The man passed through the door first. But when it came the Girl's turnshe hesitated, for she had seen a dark shadow flit by the window. It wasas if someone had been stealthily watching there. In another moment,however, it turned out to be Jackrabbit and, greatly relieved, the Girlwhispered to Johnson that he was to descend the trail between the Indianand herself, and that on no account was he to utter a word until shegave him permission.

  For another moment or so they stood in silence; Johnson, appreciatingfully what were the Girl's feelings, did not dare to whisper even a wordof encouragement to her. At last, she ordered the Indian to lead theway, and they started.

  The trail curved and twisted around the mountain, and in places they hadto use the greatest care lest a misstep should carry them over aprecipice with a drop of hundreds of feet. It was a perilous descent,inasmuch as the path was covered with snow. Moreover, it was necessarythat as little noise as possible should be made while they were makingtheir way past the buildings of the camp below, for the Mexican had notbeen wrong when he stated that Ashby's men were quartered at, or in theimmediate vicinity of, The Palmetto. Fortunately, they passed throughwithout meeting anyone, and before long they came to the edge of theplateau beneath which was the ravine which Johnson had to cross to reachthe spot where it had been agreed that Castro should be waiting withhorses for his master. It was also the place where the Girl was to leaveher lover to go on alone, and so they halted. A few moments passedwithout either of them speaking; at length, the man said in as cheery avoice as he could summon:

  "I must leave you here. I remember the way well. All danger is past."

  The Girl's lips were quivering; she asked:

  "An' when will you be back?"

  The man noted her emotion, and though he himself was conscious of achoking sensation he contrived to say in a most optimistic tone:

  "In two weeks--not more than two weeks. It will take all that time toarrange things at the rancho. As it is, I hardly see my way clear todismissing my men--you see, they belong to me, almost, and--but I'll doso, never fear. No power on earth could make me take up the old lifeagain."

  The Girl said nothing in reply; instead she put both her arms around hisneck and remained a long time in his embrace. At last, summoning up allher fortitude she put him resolutely from her, and whispered:

  "When you are ready, come. You must leave me now." And with a curtcommand to the Indian she fled back into the darkness.

  For an instant the road agent's eyes followed the direction that she hadtaken; then, his spirits rising at the thought that his escape was nowwell-nigh assured, he turned and plunged down the ravine.