Desert Dust Part 35

"Means to marry him, does she?"

"Rachael did not say as to that. Rather, she gave me to understand that a way would be found to release Mrs. Montoyo from Benton connections, but that no woman in Utah is obliged to marry. Is that true?"

"Um-m." Jenks rubbed his beard. "Wall, they do say Brigham Young is ag'in promisc'yus swappin', and things got to be done straight, 'cordin' to the faith. But an unjined female in the church is a powerful lonely critter.

Sticks out like a sore thumb. They read the Bible at her plenty. Um-m,"

mused he. "I don't put much stock in that yarn you bring me. There's a n.i.g.g.e.r in the wood-pile, but he ain't black. What you goin' to do about it?"

"Nothing. It's not my concern. Now if Daniel will mind his affairs I'll continue to mind mine."

"Wall, Zion's a long way off yet," quoth friend Jenks. "I don't look to see you or she get there--nor Dan'l either."

He being stubborn, I let him have the last word; did not seek to develop his views. But his contentious harping shadowed like an omen.

CHAPTER XVI

I DO THE DEED

We had camped well beyond a last bunch of the red-shirted graders, so that the thread of a trail wended before, lonely, sand-obscured, leading apparently nowhere, through this desert devoid of human life. Line stakes of the surveyors denoted the grade; but the surveyors' work was done, here. Rush orders from headquarters had sent them all westward still, to set their final stakes across other deserts and across the mountains, clear to Ogden at the north end of the Salt Lake itself.

Seemingly we had cut loose and were more than ever a world to ourselves.

The country had grown sterile beneath ordinary, if possible; and our thoughts and talk would have been sterile also were it not for that one recurrent topic which kept them quick. In these journeyings men seize upon little things and magnify them; discuss and rediscuss a phase until launched maybe as an empty joke it returns freighted with tragedy.

However, now that once My Lady had eliminated herself from my field I did not see but that Daniel and I might taper off into at least an armed neutrality. If he continued to nag me, it would be wholly of his own free will. He had no grievance.

Then in case that I did kill him--if kill him I must (and that eventuality hung over me like the sword of Damocles) I should be not ashamed to tell even my mother. In this I took what small comfort I might.

I had not spoken at length with Mrs. Montoyo for several days. We had exchanged merely civil greetings. To-day I did not see her during the march; did not attempt to see her--did not so much as curiously glance her way, being content to let well enough alone, although aware that my care might be misinterpreted as a token of fear. But as to proving the case against me, Daniel was at liberty to experiment with the status in quo.

Toward evening we climbed a second wide, flat divide. We were leaving the Red Basin, they said, and about to cross into the Bitter Creek Plains, which, according to the talk, were "a d.a.m.ned sight wuss!" Somewhere in the Bitter Creek Plains our course met the course of the Overland Stage road, trending up from the south for the pa.s.sage of the Green River at the farther edge of the Plains.

I had only faint hope that Mrs. Montoyo would be delivered over to the stage there. It scarcely would be her wish. We were destined to travel on to Salt Lake City together--she, Daniel and I.

If the Red Basin had been bad and if the Bitter Creek Plains were to be worse, a.s.suredly this plateau was limbo: a gray, bleak, wind-swept elevation fairly level and extending, in elevation perceptible mainly by the vista, as far as eye might see, northward and southward, separating basin from basin--one h.e.l.l, as Jenks declared, from the other.

Nevertheless there was a wild grandeur in the site, flooded all with crimson as the sun sank in the clear western sky beyond the Plains themselves, so that our plateau was still bathed in ruddy color when the Red Basin upon the one hand had deepened to purple and the white blotches of soda and alkali down in the Plains upon the other hand gleamed evilly in a tenuous gloaming.

We had corralled adjacent to another tainted pond, of which the animals refused to drink but which furnished a little rank forage for them and an oasis for a half dozen ducks. A pretty picture these made, too, as they lightly sat the open water, burnished to bra.s.s by the sunset so that the surface shimmered iridescent, its ripples from the floating bodies flowing molten in all directions.

After supper I took the notion to go over there, in the twilight, on idle exploration. Water of any kind had an appeal; a solitary pond always has; the ducks brought thoughts of home. Many a teal and widgeon and canvasback had fallen to my double-barreled Manton, back on the Atlantic coast--very long ago, before I had got entangled in this confounded web of misadventure and homicidal tendencies.

To the pond I went, mood subdued. It set slightly in a cup; and when I had emerged from a little swale or depression that I had followed, attracted by the laughter of children playing at the marge, whom should I see, approaching on line diagonal, but Mrs. Montoyo--her very hair and form--coming in likewise, perhaps with errand similar to mine: simple inclination.

And that (again perhaps) was a mutual surprise, indeed awkward to me, for we both were in plain sight from the camp. Certainly I could not turn off, nor turn back. Not now. It was make or break. Hesitate I did, with involuntary action of muscles; I thought that she momentarily hesitated; then I drove on, defiant, and so did she. The fates were resolved that there should be no dilly-dallying by the princ.i.p.als chosen for this drama that they had staged.

Our obstinate paths met at the base of a small point white with alkali, running shortly into the sedges. Had we timed by agreement beforehand we could not have acted with more precision. So here we halted, in narrow quarters, either willing but unable to yield to the other.

She smiled. I thought that she looked thinner.

"An unexpected pleasure, Mr. Beeson. At least, for me. It has been some days."

"I believe it has," I granted. "Shall I pa.s.s on?"

"You might have turned aside."

"And so," I reminded, "might you."

"But I didn't care to."

"Neither did I, madam. The pond is free to all."

I was conscious that a hush seemed to have gripped the whole camp, so that even the animals had ceased bawling. The children near us stared, eyes and mouths open.

"You have kept away from me purposely?" she asked. "I do not blame your discretion."

"I am not courting trouble. And as long as you are contented yonder----"

"I contented?" She drew up, paling. "Why do you say that, when you must know." She laughed weakly. "I am still for the Lion's den."

"You have become more reconciled--I've been requested not to interfere."

"You? Without doubt. By Daniel, by Captain Adams, likely by others. More than requested, I fancy. And you do perfectly right to avoid trouble if possible. In fact, you can leave me now and continue your walk, sir, with no reproaches. Believe me, I shall not drag you farther into my affairs."

"Daniel and Captain Adams have no weight with me, madam," I stammered.

"But when you yourself requested----"

"That was merely for the time being. I asked you to leave me at the fire because I felt sure that Daniel would kill you."

"But yesterday evening--I refer to yesterday," I corrected. "You sent me word, following my talk with Hyrum."

"I did not."

"Not by Rachael?"

"No, sir."

"I so understood. I thought that she intimated as much. She said that you were to be happy; were already content. And that I would only be making you trouble if I continued our acquaintance."

"Oh! Rachael." She smiled with sudden softness. "Rachael cannot understand, either. I'm sure she intended well, poor soul. Were they all like Rachael---- But I had no knowledge of her talk with you. Anyway, please leave me if you feel disposed. Whether I marry Daniel or not should be no concern of yours. I shall have to find my own trail out. Look! There go the ducks. I came down to watch them. Now neither of us has any excuse for staying. Good----"

The hush had tightened into a strange pent stillness like the poise of earth and sky and beast and bird just before the breaking of a great and lowering storm. The quick clatter of the ducks' wings somehow alarmed me--the staring of the children, their eyes directed past us, sharpened my senses for a new focus. And glancing, I witnessed Daniel nearing--striding rapidly, straight for the point, a figure portentous in the fading glow, bringing the storm with him.

She saw, too. Her eyes widened, startled, surveying not him, but me.

"Please go. At once! I'll keep him."