Bruce of the Circle A Part 37

"Ann!" he called, as he drew near. "Ann!"

She turned with a quick, terrified movement and looked at him. He saw that her face was a mask, her eyes feverishly dry.

"He didn't--"

"No, Ann, he didn't," he answered, taking her hands in his, his voice unsteady. "Benny ... he fired last ... an' there'll be no more shootin'...."

She swayed toward him.

"I sent for you," she began, brushing the hair out of her eyes with the back of one hand.

"An' I came, Ann."

"I ... It was only chance ... that I saw him and ... screamed...."

"But you did; an' it saved me."

"I sent for you, Bruce.... To take me away ... from Ned.... To take me away from him ... with you...."

She stepped closer and with a quivering sigh lifted her arms wearily and clasped them about his neck, while Bayard, heart pounding, gathered her body close against his as the tears came and great convulsions of grief shook her.

He leaned back against the rock, holding her entire weight in his arms, and they were there for minutes, his lips caressing her hair, her temples, her cheeks. Her crying quieted, and, when she no longer sobbed aloud, he turned his head to look downward.

Benny Lynch was just then straightening from a stooping posture beside Lytton. He turned away, took a cartridge from his belt, slipped it into the chamber from which the empty piece of smoky bra.s.s had been removed and shoved the gun back into his holster. As it went home, he looked down at it curiously, stared a moment, drew it out again and examined it slowly, first one side, then the other. He shook his head and threw the weapon down the gulch, where it clattered on the rocks. After that, he walked toward the house, and about his movements was an indication of the sense of finality, of accomplishment, that filled him.

"I'll take you away, Sweetheart," Bayard whispered, gently. "But it won't be necessary to take you ... away from Ned...."

She shrank closer against him.

CHAPTER XIX

THE TRAILS UNITE

So it was that Ned Lytton ceased to be and with his going went all barriers that had existed between Ann and Bruce. Each had played a part in the grim drama which ended with violence, yet to neither could any echo of blame for Ned's death be attached. Their hands and hearts were clean.

Ann's appeal to Bruce for help when Ned led her away from the ranch had been made because she knew that real danger of some sort awaited Ned at the Sunset mine; she had not considered herself or her own safety at all.

Bruce, for his part, had concentrated his last energy on averting the tragedy. He had looked for the moment on his love of Ann only as a factor which had helped bring about the crisis, thereby making him accountable. To play the game as he saw it, to be squared with his own conscience, he had risked everything, even his life, in his attempt to save Lytton.

Ned's true self had come to the surface just long enough to answer all questions that might have been raised after his death. In that last experience of his life he had risen above his cowardice. After hearing Ann's warning scream, he must have known that to fire on Bayard the second time meant his own death. Yet he was not dissuaded, just kept on attempting to satiate his l.u.s.t for the rancher's life. So, utterly revealed, he died.

The fourth individual was to be considered--Benny Lynch. Through the months that he had brooded over the injustice which sent his father to a quick end, through the weeks that he had planned to administer his own justice, through the straining days that he had waited to kill, a part of him had been stifled. That part was the kindly, deliberate, peace loving Benny, and so surely as he was slow to anger he would have lived to find himself tortured by regret had he slain for revenge. As it was, he shot to save the life of a friend ... and only that. He lived to thank the scheme of things that had called on him to untangle the skein which events had snarled about Bruce and the woman he loved ... for it took from him the stain of killing for revenge.

Somehow, Bruce got Ann away from the Sunset mine that day. She was brave and struggled to bear up, but after the strain of those last weeks the fatigue of the ride Ned had forced her to take unnerved her and she was like a child when they gained the Boyd ranch where she was taken to the maternal arms of the mistress of that house, to be petted and cried over and comforted.

In his rattling, jingling buckboard Judson Weyl drove out to the mining camp and beside a rock-covered grave murmured a prayer for the soul which had gone out from the body buried there; when he drove away, his chin was higher, his face brighter, reflecting the thought within him that an ugly past must be forgotten, that the future a.s.sured those qualities which would make it forgettable.

News of the killing roused Yavapai. In the first hour the community's attention was wholly absorbed in the actual affair at the mine, but, as the story lost its first edge of interest, inquisitive minds commenced to follow it backward, to trace out the steps which had led to the tragedy.

Ann's true ident.i.ty became known. The fact that Bayard had sheltered Lytton was revealed. After that the gossip mongers insinuated and speculated. No one had known what was going on; when men hide their relationships with others and with women it must be necessary to hide something, they argued.

And then the clergyman, waiting for this, came forward with his story.

He had known; his wife had known. Nora, the girl who had gone, had known. No, there had been no deception in Bayard's att.i.tude; merely discretion. With that the talk ceased, for Yavapai looked up to its clergy.

Within the fortnight Ann boarded a train bound for the East. Her face had not regained its color, but the haunted look was gone from her eyes, the tensity from about her lips. She was in a state of mental and spiritual convalescence, with hope and happiness in sight to hasten the process of healing. Going East for the purpose of explaining, of making what amends she could for Ned's misdeeds, was an ordeal, but she welcomed it for it was the last condition she deemed necessary to set her free.

"It won't be long," she said, a.s.suringly, when Bruce stood before her to say farewell, forlorn and lonely looking already.

"It can't be too quick," he answered.

"Impatient?"

"I'd wait till 'th' stars grow old an' th' sun grows cold'" he quoted with his slow smile, "but ... it wouldn't be a pleasant occupation."

She looked at him earnestly.

"You might; you could," she whispered, "but _I_ wouldn't wait ... that long...."

Weeks had pa.s.sed and October was offering its last glorious days. Not with madly colored leaves and lazy hazes of Indian summer that are gifts to men in the hardwood belt, but with the golden light, the infinite distances, the super silence which comes alone to Northern Arizona. The green was gone from gra.s.ses and those trees which drop their foliage were clothed only in the withered remains of leaves, but color of incredible variety was there--the mauves, the lavendars, the blues and purples and ochres of rock and soil, changing with the swinging sun, becoming bold and vivid or only a tint and modest as the light rays played across the valley from various angles. The air, made crystal by the crisp nights, brought within the eyes' register ranges and peaks that were of astonishing distance. The wind was most gentle, coming in leisurely breaths and between its sighs the silence was immaculate, ravished by no jar or hum; even the birds were subdued before it.

On a typical October morning, before the sun had shoved itself above the eastern reaches of the valley, two men awoke in the new bunkhouse that had been erected at the Circle A ranch. They were in opposite beds, and, as they lifted their heads and stared hard at one another with that momentary bewilderment which follows the sleep of virile, active men, the shorter flung back his blankets and swung his feet to the floor. He rubbed his tousled hair and yawned and stretched.

"Awake!" he said, sleepily, and shook himself, "...

awake,"--brightening. "Awake, for 'tis thy weddin' morn!"

The speaker was Tommy Clary and on his words Bruce Bayard grinned happily from his pillow.

"... weddin' morn ..." he murmured, as he sat up and reached for his boots at the head of his bunk.

"Yes, you wake up this mornin', frisky an' young an' full of th' love of life an' liberty, just like them pictures of th' New Year comin' in! An'

by sundown you'll be roped an' tied for-good-an'-for-all-by-G.o.d, an' t'

won't be long before you look like th' old year goin' out!"

He grinned, as he drew on his shirt, then dodged, as Bayard's heavy hat sailed at him.

"It's goin' to be th' other way round, Tommy," the big fellow cried.

"We're going to turn time backward to-day!"

"Yes, I guess _you_ are, all right," deliberated Tommy. "Marriage has always seemed to me like payin' taxes for somethin' you owned or goin'

to jail for havin' too much fun; always like payin' for somethin'. But yourn ain't. Not much."

Bruce laughed. They talked in a desultory way until they had dressed.