Desert Dust Part 38

"Your arm won't trouble you. Jest a flesh wound. There's nothin' better than axle grease. And you, ma'am?"

"Perfectly well, thank you."

"You're the coolest of the lot, and no mistake," he praised admiringly.

"Wall, there'll be no more fracas to-night. Anyhow, the boys'll be on guard ag'in it; they're out now. You two can eat and rest a bit, whilst gettin' good and ready; and if you set out 'fore moon-up you can easy get cl'ar, with what help we give you. We'll furnish mounts, grub, anything you need. I'll make shift without Frank."

"Mounts!" I blurted, with a start that waked my arm to throbbing. "'Set out,' you say? Why? And where?"

"Anywhar. The stage road south'ard is your best bet. You didn't think to stay, did you? Not after that--after you'd plugged a Mormon, the son of the old man, besides! We reckoned you two had it arranged, by this time."

"No! Never!" I protested. "You're crazy, man. I've never dreamed of any such thing; nor Mrs. Montoyo, either. You mean that I--we--should run away? I'll not leave the train and neither shall she, until the proper time. Or do I understand that you disown us; turn your backs upon us; deliver us over?"

"Hold on," Jenks bade. "You're barkin' up the wrong tree. 'Tain't a question of disownin' you. h.e.l.l, we'd fight for you and proud to do it, for you're white. But I tell you, you've killed one o' that party ahead, you've killed the wagon boss's son; and Hyrum, he's consider'ble of a man himself. He stands well up, in the church. But lettin' that alone, he's captain of this train, he's got a dozen and more men back of him; and when he comes in the mornin' demandin' of you for trial by his Mormons, what can we do? Might fight him off; yes. Not forever, though. He's nearest to the water, sech as it is, and our casks are half empty, critters dry. We sha'n't surrender you; if we break with him we break ourselves and likely lose our scalps into the bargain. Why, we hadn't any idee but that you and her were all primed to light out, with our help. For if you stay you won't be safe anywhere betwixt here and Salt Lake; and over in Utah they'll vigilant you, sh.o.r.e as kingdom. As for you, ma'am," he bluntly addressed, "we'd protect you to the best of ability, o' course; but you can see for yourself that Hyrum won't feel none too kindly toward you, and that if you'll pull out along with Beeson as soon as convenient you'll avoid a heap of unpleasantness. We'll take the chance on sneakin' you both away, and facin' the old man."

"Mr. Beeson should go," she said. "But I shall return to the Adams camp. I am not afraid, sir."

"Tut, tut!" he rapped. "I know you're not afraid; nevertheless we won't let you do it."

"They wouldn't lay hands on me."

"Um-m," he mused. "Mebbe not. No, reckon they wouldn't. I'll say that much. But by thunder they'd make you wish they did. They'd claim you trapped Dan'l. You'd suffer for that, and in place of this boy, and a-plenty. Better foller your new man, lady, and let him stow you in safety. Better go back to Benton."

"Never to Benton," she declared. "And he's not my 'new man.' I apologize to him for that, from you, sir."

"If you stay, I stay, then," said I. "But I think we'd best go. It's the only way." And it was. We were twain in menace to the outfit and to each other but inseparable. We were yoked. The fact appalled. It gripped me coldly. I seemed to have bargained for her with word and fist and bullet, and won her; now I should appear to carry her off as my booty: a wife and a gambler's wife. Yet such must be.

"You shall go without me."

"I shall not."

With a little sob she buried her face in her hands.

"If you don't hate me now you soon will," she uttered. "The cards don't fall right--they don't, they don't. They've been against me from the first. I'm always forcing the play."

Whereupon I knew that go together we should, or I was no man.

"Pshaw, pshaw," Jenks soothed. "Matters ain't so bad. We'll fix ye out and cover your trail. Moon'll be up in a couple o' hours. I'd advise you to take an hour's start of it, so as to get away easier. If you travel straight south'ard you'll strike the stage road sometime in the mornin'.

When you reach a station you'll have ch'ice either way."

"I have money," she said; and sat erect.

CHAPTER XVIII

VOICES IN THE VOID

The directions had been plain. With the North Star and the moon as our guides we scarcely could fail to strike the stage road where it bore off from the mountains northward into the desert.

For the first half mile we rode without a word from either of us to violate the truce that swathed us like the night. What her thoughts were I might not know, but they sat heavy upon her, closing her throat with the torture of vain self-reproach. That much I sensed. But I could not rea.s.sure her; could not volunteer to her that I welcomed her company, that she was blameless, that I had only defended my honor, that affairs would have reduced to pistol work without impulse from her--that, in short, the responsibility had been wholly Daniel's. My own thoughts were so grievous as to crush me with aching woe that forebade civil utterance.

This, then, was I: somebody who had just killed a man, had broken from the open trail and was riding, he knew not where, through darkness worse than night, himself an outlaw with an outlawed woman--at the best a chance woman, an adventuring woman, and as everybody could know, a claimed woman, product of dance hall and gaming resort, wife of a half-breed gambler, and now spoil of fist and revolver.

But that which burned me almost to madness, like hot lava underneath the deadening crust, was the thought that I had done a deed and a defensible deed, and was fleeing from it the same as a criminal. Such a contingency never had occurred to me or I might have taken a different course, still with decency; although what course I could not figure.

We rode, our mules picking their way, occasionally stumbling on rocks and shrubs. At last she spoke in low, even tones.

"What do you expect to do with me, please?"

"We shall have to do whatever is best for yourself," I managed to answer.

"That will be determined when we reach the stage line, I suppose."

"Thank you. Once at the stage line and I shall contrive. You must have no thought of me. I understand very well that we should not travel far in company--and you may not wish to go in my direction. You have plans of your own?"

"None of any great moment. Everything has failed me, to date. There is only the one place left: New York State, where I came from. I probably can work my way back--at least, until I can recoup by telegraph message and the mails."

"You have one more place than I," she replied. She hesitated. "Will you let me lend you some money?"

"I've been paid my wages due," said I. "But," I added, "you have a place, you have a home: Benton."

"Oh, Benton!" She laughed under breath. "Never Benton. I shall make shift without Benton."

"You will tell me, though?" I urged. "I must have your address, to know that you reach safety."

"You are strictly business. I believe that I accused you before of being a Yankee." And I read sarcasm in her words.

Her voice had a quality of definite estimation which nettled, humbled, and isolated me, as if I lacked in some essential to a standard set.

"So you are going home, are you?" she resumed. "With the clothes on your back, or will you stop at Benton for your trunk?"

"With the clothes on my back," I a.s.serted bitterly. "I've no desire to see Benton. The trunk can be shipped to me."

She said on, in her cool impersonal tone.

"That is the easiest way. You will live warm and comfortably. You will need to wear no belt weapon. The police will protect you. If a man injures you, you can summon him at law and wash your hands of him. Instead of staking on your luck among new people, you can enter into business among your friends and win from them. You can marry the girl next door--or even take the chance of the one across the street, her parentage being comme il faut. You can tell stories of your trip into the Far West; your children will love to hear of the rough mule-whacker trail--yes, you will have great tales but you will not mention that you killed a man who tried to kill you and then rode for a night with a strange woman alone at your stirrup. Perhaps you will venture to revisit these parts by steam train, and from the windows of your coach point out the places where you suffered those hardships and adventures from which you escaped by leaving them altogether. Your course is the safe course. By all means take it, Mr.

Beeson, and have your trunk follow you."

"That I shall do, madam," I retorted. "The West and I have not agreed; and, I fear, never shall."

"By honest confession, it has bested you; and in short order."

"In short order, since you put it that way. Only a fool doesn't know when to quit."

"The greatest fool is the one who fools himself, in the quitting as in other matters. But you will have no regrets--except about Daniel, possibly."

"None whatever, save the regret that I ever tried this country. I wish to G.o.d I had never seen it--I did not conceive that I should have to take a human life--should be forced to that--become like an outlaw in the night, riding for refuge----" And I choked pa.s.sionately.