Judith of the Plains Part 26

It was dark in the valley, but the menacing stillness seemed to be lifting. The range-cattle had again taken up their plaint, the sounds of the desert night swept across the stony walls of the canon. Alida knew that it must have happened at the dead cotton-woods. There were no other high trees about for miles. Again she listened before advancing. There was no sound of hoof or champing bit or men moving quickly. They had gone their way into the valley. She ran swiftly, her lantern throwing its beam across the scrubby inequalities of ground, but for her there was no need of its beacon. To-night she was beyond the halting, stumbling uncertainties of tread to which man is subject. There was magic in her feet and in her hands and brain. Like the wind she ran, the wind on the great plain where there are no foot-hills to hinder its course. The black, dead trees stood out distinctly against the starry sky, and from a cross-limb of one of them dangled something with head awry, like a broken jumping-jack, something that had once been a man-and her husband. She could touch the feet of this frightful thing and feel its human warmth. A wind came up from the desert and blew across the canon's rocky walls into the valley, and the parody of a man swayed to it.

She had been expecting this thing. For weeks the image of it had been graven on her heart. Sleeping or waking, she had seen nothing but his dangling body from the cross-limb. Yet with the actual consummation before her, she felt its hideous novelty as though it were unexpected. At sight of it the force that had borne her up through the happenings of that day went out of her, and as she stood with the knife and the rope, that she had brought in the hope of cheating the lynchers, dangling from her nerveless hand her helplessness overcame her. Again and again she called to the dead man for help, called to him as she had been accustomed to call when her woman's strength had been unequal to some heavy household task.

Far down the trail she could hear the gallop of a horse coming closer, and mingled with the sounds of its flying feet was a voice urging the horse to greater speed in the shrill cabalistic "Hi-hi-hi-ki!" of the plains-man.

What was it-one of them returning to see that she did not cheat the rope of its due?-to hang her beside him, as an after-thought, as they hanged Kate Watson beside her man? Let them. She was standing near the swaying thing when horse and rider gained the ground beside her, and what was left to her of consciousness made out that the rider was Judith. She pointed to it, and stood helpless with the dangling rope in her hand.

"Are we too late?" Judith almost whispered, as she caught Alida's cold, inert hands. "I dreamed it all and came. If I could have dreamed it sooner!"

Alida did not seem to hear, neither could she speak. She only pointed again to the thing beside her.

Judith understood. The women had a task to share, and in silence they began it. The lynchers had done their work all too well. Again and again the women strove with all their strength to take down the dangling parody of a man, which in its dead-weight resistance seemed in league with the forces against them. At last the thing was done. Down to a pale world, that in the haggard gray of morning seemed to bear in its countenance something of the pinch of death, Judith lowered the thing that had so lately been a man. She cut the rope away from the neck, she straightened the wry neck that seemed to wag in pantomimic representation of the last word to the lynchers. They'd have to reckon with him on dark nights, and when the wind wailed like a famished wolf and when things not to be explained lurked in the shadows of the desert.

The morning stillness came flooding into the cup-shaped valley like a soft, resistless wave. Something had come to the gray, old earth-another day, with all its human gift of joy and woe, and the earth welcomed it though it had known so many. The sun burst through the gold-tipped aureole of cloud, scattering far and wide lavish promises of a perfect day. The earth seemed to respond with a thrill. No longer was the pinch of death in her countenance. The valley, the mountains, the invisible wind, even the dead cotton-woods, seemed endowed with throbbing life that contrasted fearsomely with the terrible nullity of this thing that once had been Jim Rodney.

Alida had ceased to take any part in the hideous drama. She sat on the ground, a crouching thing with glittering eyes. It was past comprehension that the sun could shine and the world go on with her man dead before her.

Judith had become the force that planned and did to save the family pride.

While her hands were busy with preparations for the dead, she rehea.r.s.ed what she would say to this and that one to account for Jim's absence. The silence of the men who had done this thing would be as steadfast as their own.

And there were the children. Through all her frantic search for things in the house, Judith remembered that she must step softly and not waken the children. With each turn of the screw, as her numbed consciousness rallied and responded afresh to the hideous realization of this thing, there came no release from the tyrannous hold of petty detail. She remembered that she must be back at noon to hold post-office, and there would be the endless comedy to be played once more with her cavaliers. They must never suspect from word or look of hers. And there was the dance to-night at the Benton ranch-she hid her face in her hands. Ah, no, she could not do this thing! And yet they must not suspect. She must contrive to give the impression that Jim had cheated the rope. Yes, she must go and dance, and, if need be, dance with his very murderers. Jim's children were to have the "clean start" that he intended, and they would have to get it here. There was no money for an exodus and a beginning elsewhere.

Alida still crouched beside the long, even tarpaulin roll that Judith had prepared with hands that knew not what they did. But now Judith gently roused her and put in her hand a spade; already she herself had begun. But Alida stared at it dully, as if she did not understand. Then Judith pointed to something black that had begun to wheel in the sky, wheel, and with each circular swoop come closer to the roll of tarpaulin. Then Alida knew, and, taking the spade, she and Judith began to dig the grave.

XX

The Ball

The dance in the Benton ranch was the great social event of the midsummer season. The Bentons had begun to give dances in the days of plenty, when the cattle industry had been at its dizziest height; and they had continued to give dances through all the depressing fluctuations of the trade, perhaps in much the same spirit as one whistles in the dark to keep up his courage. Thus, though cattle fell and continued to fall in the scale of prices till the end no man dared surmise, the Benton "boys"-they were two brothers, aged respectively forty-five and fifty years-continued to hold out facilities to dance and be merry.

All day strange wagons-ludicrous, makeshift things-had been discharging loads of women and children at the Benton ranch, tired mothers and their insistent offspring. To the women this strenuous relaxation came as manna in the wilderness. What was the dreary round of washing, ironing, baking, and the chain of household tasks that must be done as primitively as in Genesis, if only they might dance and forget? So the mothers came early and stayed late, and the primary sessions of the dances fulfilled all the functions of the latter-day mothers' congresses-there were infant ailments to be discussed, there were the questions of food and of teething, of paregoric and of flannel bands, which, strange heresy, seemed to be "going out," according to the latest advices from those compendiums of all domestic information, the "Woman's Pages" of the daily papers.

Inasmuch as these more than punctual debaters must be cooked for, there was, to speak plainly, "feeling" on the part of the housekeeper at the Bentons'. Wasn't it enough for folks to come to a dance and get a good supper, and go away like Christians when the thing was over, instead of coming a day before it began and lingering on as if they had no home to go to? This, at least, was the housekeeper's point of view, a crochety one, be it said, not shared by the brothers Benton, whose hospitality was as genuine as it was primitive. To this same difficult lady the infants, who were too tender in years to be separated from their mothers, were as productive of anxiety as their elders. A room had been set apart for their especial accommodation, the floor of which, carefully spread with bed-quilts and pillows, prevented any great damage from happening to the more tender of the guests; and they rolled and crooned and dug their small fists into each other's faces while their mothers danced in the room beyond.

By nightfall the Benton ranch gleamed on the dark prairie like a constellation. Lights burned at every window; a broad beam issued from the door and threw a welcoming beacon across the darkness and silence of the night. The sc.r.a.ping of fiddles mingled with the rhythmic scuffle of feet and the singsong of the words that the dancers sung as they whirled through the figures of the quadrille and lancers. About the walls of the room where the dancing was in progress stood a fringe of gallants, their heads newly oiled, and proclaiming the fact in a bewildering variety of strong perfumes. Red silk neckerchiefs knotted with elaborate carelessness displayed to advantage bronzed throats; new overalls, and of the s.h.a.ggiest species, amply testified to the social importance of the Benton dance.

As yet the dancing was but intermittent and was engaged in chiefly by the mothers with large progeny, who felt that after the arrival of a greater number of guests, and among them the unmarried girls, their opportunities might not be as plentiful as at present. One or two cow-punchers, in an excess of civility at the presence of the fair, had insisted on giving up their six-shooters, mumbling something about "there being ladies present and a man being hasty at times." In the "bunk-room," which did duty as a gentleman's cloak-room, things were really warming up. There was much drinking of healths, as the brothers Benton had thoughtfully provided the wherewithal, and that in excellent quality.

Costigan was there, and Texas Tyler, who had ridden sixty miles to "swing a petticoat," or, if there were not enough to go round, to dance with a handkerchief tied to some fellow's sleeve. By "swinging a petticoat" it was perfectly understood among all his friends that he meant a chance to dance with Judith Rodney. Year in and year out Texas never failed to present himself at the post-office on mail-days, if his work took him within a radius of fifty miles of the Daxes. No dance where the possibility of seeing Judith was even remote was too long a ride for him to undertake, even when it took him across the dreariest wastes of the desert. Texas had been devoted to Judith since she had left the convent, and sometimes, perhaps twice a year, she told him that she valued his friendship. On all other occasions she rejected his suit as if his continual pressing of it were something in the nature of an affront. Yet Texas persevered.

"Well, here's lukin' at you, since in the way of a frind there's nothing better to look at!" and Costigan drained a tin cup at Texas Tyler.

"Your very good health," said Texas, who was somewhat embarra.s.sed by what was regarded as Costigan's "floweriness."

"Begorra, is that Hinderson or the ghost av the b'y?" Costigan's roving eye was arrested by the foreman of the "x.x.x," who stood drinking with two or three men of his outfit. He was pale and ill-looking. He drank several times in succession, as if he needed the stimulant, and without the formality of drinking to any one. The two or three "x.x.x" men who were with him seemed to be equally in need of restoratives.

They talked of the cattle stampede in which several of the outfits had been heavy losers. Some nine hundred head of cattle had been recovered, and members of the different outfits were still scouring the Red Desert for strays.

Something in the nature of a sensation was created by the arrival of the Wetmore party. The women were frankly interested in the clothes, bearing, and general deportment of the New-Yorkers. Rumors of Miss Colebrooke's beauty were rife, and there was a general inclination to compare her with local belles. Such exotic types-they had seen these city beauties before-were as a rule too colorless for their appreciation. They liked faces that had "more go to them," was the verdict pa.s.sed upon one famous beauty who had visited the Wetmores the year before. In arrangement of the hair, perhaps, in matters of dress, the judges were willing to concede the laurels to city damsels, but there concession stopped. But evidently Kitty, to judge from the elaboration of her toilet, did not intend to be dismissed thus cursorily. She herself was delicately, palely pretty, as always, but her hair was tortured to a fashionable fluffiness, and the simplicity of her green muslin gown was only in the name. It was muslin disguised, elaborated, beribboned, lace-trimmed till its ident.i.ty was all but lost in the mult.i.tude of pretty complications.

"Did you know that old Ma'am Yellett had a school-marm up to her place?"

asked one of the men, apropos of Eastern prettiness.

"Well, well," Costigan reminisced, "'tis some av thim Yillitt lambs thot's six fut in their shtockings, if Oi be rimimbering right. Sure, the tacher ought to be something av a pugilist, Oi'm thinkin'."

"I seen her the other day, and a neater little heifer never turned out to pasture. Lord, I'd like to be gnawing the corners of the primer right now, if she was there to whale the ruler."

"Arrah," bayed Costigan, "but the women question is gittin' complicated ontoirely, wid Miss Rodney-an' herself lukin' loike a saint in a church window-dalin' the mails an' th' other wan tachin' in the mountains. Sure, this place is gittin' to be but a sorry shpot for bachelors loike mesilf."

"I ain't mentionin' no names, but there's a man here ain't treatin' a mighty fine woman square and accordin' to the way she ought to be treated."

The information ran through the circle like an electric shock. Men stopped in the act of pledging each other's healths to listen. Loungers straightened up; every topic was dropped. The man who had made the statement was the loose-lipped busybody who had suggested to his host that he give up his six-shooter since there were "ladies present."

"What the h.e.l.l are you waiting for?" queried Texas Tyler, savagely.

"You've cracked your whip, made your bow, and got our attention; why the h.e.l.l don't you go on?"

The man looked about nervously. He was rather alarmed at the interest he had excited. The next moment Peter Hamilton had walked into the room.

There was something crucial in his entrance at this particular time; it crystallized suspicion. The gossip took advantage of the greetings to Hamilton to make his escape. Texas Tyler left the bunk-room immediately and looked for him in the room with the dancers. The fiddles, in the hands of a couple of Mexicans, had set the whole room whirling as if by magic.

As they danced they sang, joining with the "caller-out," who held his vociferous post between the rooms, till the room was full of singing, dancing men and women, who spun and pirouetted as if they had not a care in the world. But Texas Tyler was not of these, as he looked through the dancers for his man. There was a red flash in the pupils of his eyes, and he told himself that he was going to do things the way they did them in Texas, for, of course, he knew that the loose-lipped idiot had meant Judith Rodney and Peter Hamilton. Never before had such an idea occurred to him, and now that it had been presented to his mind's eye, he wondered why he had been such a blind fool. Never had the singing to these dances seemed so absurd.

"Hawk hop out and the crow hop in, Three hands round and go it ag'in.

Allemane left, back to the missus, Grande right and left and sneak a few kisses."

He rushed from the room and down to the stable. At sight of him some one leaped on a horse and rode out into the darkness.

"Who was that?" asked Texas of a man lounging by the corral.

"That was-" and he gave the name of the loose-lipped man.

Texas cursed long and picturesquely. Then he went back to the bunk-room and tried to pick a quarrel with Peter Hamilton, who good-naturedly a.s.sumed that his old friend had been drinking and refused to take offence.

Peter went in to ask Kitty to dance with him. All that evening he had been waiting anxiously for Judith. Meanwhile he had used all his influence as a newly appointed member of the Wetmore outfit to soothe the ruffled feelings of the cattle-men. Of the tragedy in the valley he had heard no rumor.

Kitty had come to the point where she was willing to waive the Recamier-Chateaubriand friendship in favor of one more personal and ordinary. In fact, as Peter showed a disposition to regard as final her answer to him on the day he had spurred across the desert, Kitty, with true feminine perversity, inclined to permit him to resume his suit. His acquiescence in her refusal she had at first regarded as the turning of the worm; after the wolf-hunt, however, her meditations were more disturbing. She had never told Peter of that strange woodland meeting with Judith, yet Judith's beauty, her probable hold over Peter, the degree of his affection for her were rankling questions in Kitty's consciousness. In the stress of these considerations Kitty lost her head completely for so old a campaigner. She drew the ap.r.o.n-string tight-attempted force instead of strategy.

Kitty and Peter finished their waltz, one of the few round dances of the evening.

"How perfectly you dance, Kitty! It's a long time since we've had a waltz together."

The cow-punchers looked at Kitty as if she were not quite flesh and blood.

Such flaxen daintiness, femininty etherealized to angelic perfection, was new to them, but their admiration was like that given to a delicate exotic which, wonderful as it is, one is well pleased to view through the gla.s.s of the florist's window.

Peter was deferentially attentive and zealous to make the Wetmore party have a thoroughly good time, yet he did all these things, as it were, with his eye on the door. He was not obviously distrait; he was the man of the world, talking, making himself agreeable, "doing his duty," while his subconsciousness was busy with other matters. It was rather through telepathy than through any lack of attention paid to her that Kitty realized the state of things, and in proportion to her realization came a feeling of helplessness; it was so new, so unexpected, so cruel. He seemed drifting away from her on some tide of affairs of the very existence of which she had been unconscious. Further and further he had drifted, till intelligible speech no longer seemed possible between them. They said the foolish, empty things that people call out as the boat glides away from the sh.o.r.e, the things that all the world may hear, and in his eyes there was only that smiling kindness. How had it come about after all these years? What was it that had first cut the cable that sent him drifting?

What was it? She must think. Oh, who could think with that noise! How silly was their singing as they danced, how uncouth!