Over the Pass Part 8

VIII

ACCORDING TO CODE

It was the supreme moment of night before dawn. A violet mist shrouded everything. The clamminess of the dew touched Mary's forehead and her hand brushed the moisture-laden hedge as she left the Ewold yard. She remembered that Jack had said that he would camp near the station, so there was no doubt in which direction she should go. Hastening along the silent street, it was easy for her to imagine that she and Ignacio were the only sentient beings, abroad in a world that had stopped breathing.

Softly, impalpably, with both the graciousness of a host and the determinedness of an intruder who will not be gainsaid, the first rays of morning light filtered into the mist. The violet went pink. From pale pink it turned to rose-pink; to the light of life which was as yet as still as the light of the moon. The occasional giant cactus in the open beyond the village outskirts ceased to be spectral.

For the first time Mary Ewold was in the presence of the wonder of daybreak on the desert without watching for the harbinger of gold in the V of the pa.s.s, with its revelation of a dome of blue where unfathomable s.p.a.ce had been. For the first time daybreak interested her only in broadening and defining her vision of her immediate surroundings.

When the permeating softness suddenly yielded to full transparency, spreading from the fanfare of the rising sun come bolt above the range, and the mist rose, she left the road at sight of two ponies and a burro in a group, their heads together in drooping fellowship. She knew them at once for P.D., Wrath of G.o.d, and Jag Ear. Nearby rose a thin spiral of smoke and back of it was a huddled figure, Firio, preparing the morning meal. Animals and servant were as motionless as the cactus. Evidently they did not hear her footsteps. They formed a picture of nightly oblivion, unconscious that day had come. Firio's face was hidden by his big Mexican hat; he did not look up even when she was near. She noted the two blanket-rolls where the two comrades of the trail had slept. She saw that both were empty and knew that Jack had already gone.

"Where is Mr. Wingfield?" she demanded, breathlessly.

Firio was not startled. To be startled was hardly in his Indian nature.

The hat tipped upward and under the brim-edge his black eyes gleamed, as the sandy soil all around him gleamed in the dew. He shrugged his shoulders when he recognized the lady speaking as the one who had delayed him at the foot of the pa.s.s the previous afternoon. Thanks to her, he had been left alone without his master the whole evening.

"He go to stretch his legs," answered Firio.

Apparently, Sir Chaps had been disinclined to disturb the routine of camp by telling Firio anything about the duel.

"Where did he go? In which direction?" Mary persisted.

Firio moved the coffee-pot closer to the fire. This seemed to require the concentration of all his faculties, including that of speech. He was a fit servant for one who took duels so casually.

"Where? Where?" she repeated.

"Where? Have you no tongue?" snapped Ignacio.

Firio gazed all around as if looking for Jack; then nodded in the direction of rising ground which broke at the edge of a depression about fifty yards away. Her impatience had made the delay of a minute seem hours, while the brilliance of the light had now become that of broad day. She forgot all constraint. She ran, and as she ran she listened for a shot as if it were something inevitable, past due.

And then she uttered a m.u.f.fled cry of relief, as the scene in a depression which had been the bed of an ancient river flashed before her with theatric completeness. In the bottom of it were five men, two moving and three stationary. Jim Galway and Ropey Smith were walking side by side, keeping a measured step as they paced off a certain distance, while Bill Lang and Pete Leddy and Jack stood by. Leddy and Lang were watching the process inflexibly. Jack was in the costume which had flushed her curiosity so vividly on the pa.s.s and he appeared the same amused, disinterested and wondering traveller who had then come upon strange doings.

She stopped, her temples throbbing giddily, her breaths coming in gasps; stopped to gain mastery of herself before she decided what she would do next. On the opposite bank of the _arroyo_ was a line of heads, like those of infantry above a parapet, and she comprehended that, in the same way that news of a c.o.c.k-fight travels, the gallery G.o.ds of Little Rivers had received a tip of a sporting event so phenomenal that it changed the sluggards among them into early risers. They were making themselves comfortable lying flat on their stomachs and exposing as little as possible of their precious bodies to the danger of that tenderfoot firing wild.

It was a great show, of which they would miss no detail; and all had their interest whetted by some possible new complication of the plot when they saw the tall, familiar figure of Jasper Ewold's daughter standing against the skyline. She felt the greedy inquiry of their eyes; she guessed their thoughts.

This new element of the situation swept her with a realization of the punishment she must suffer for that chance meeting on Galeria and then with resentful anger, which transformed Jack Wingfield's indifference to callous bravado.

Must she face that battery of leers from the town ruffians while she implored a stranger, who had been nothing to her yesterday and would be nothing tomorrow, to run away from a combat which was a creation of his own stubbornness? She was in revolt against herself, against him, and against the whole miserable business. If she proceeded, public opinion would involve her in a sentimental interest in a stranger. She must live with the story forever, while to an idle traveller it was only an adventure at a way-station on his journey.

She had but to withdraw in feigned surprise from the sight of a scene which she had come upon unawares and she would be free of any a.s.sociation with it. For all Little Rivers knew that she was given to random walks and rides. No one would be surprised that she was abroad at this early hour. It would be ascribed to the nonsense which afflicted the Ewolds, father and daughter, about sunrises.

Yes, she had been in a nightmare. With the light of day she was seeing clearly. Had she not warned him about Leddy? Had not she done her part?

Should she submit herself to fruitless humiliation? Go to him in as much distress as if his existence were her care? If he would not listen to her yesterday, why should she expect him to listen to her now?

She would return to her garden. Its picture of content and isolation called her away from the stare of the faces on the other bank. She turned on her heel abruptly, took two or three spasmodic steps and stopped suddenly, confronted with another picture--one of imagination--that of Jack Wingfield lying dead. The recollection of a voice, the voice that had stopped the approach of Leddy's pa.s.sion-inflamed face to her own on the pa.s.s, sounded in her ears.

She faced around, drawn by something that will and reason could not overcome, to see that Jim Galway and Ropey Smith had finished their task of pacing off the distance. The two combatants were starting for their stations, their long shadows in the slant of the morning sunlight travelling over the sand like pursuing spectres. Leddy went with the quick, firm step which bespoke the keenness of his desire; Jack more slowly, at a natural gait. His station was so near her that she could reach him with a dozen steps. And he was whistling--the only sound in a silence which seemed to stretch as far as the desert--whistling gaily in apparent unconsciousness that the whole affair was anything but play.

The effect of this was benumbing. It made her muscles go limp. She sank down for very want of strength to keep erect; and Ignacio, hardly observed, keeping close to her dropped at her side.

"Ignacio, tell the young man, the one who was our guest last evening, that I wish to see him!" she gasped.

With flickering, shrewd eyes Ignacio had watched her distress. He craved the word that should call him to service and was off with a bound. His rushing, agitated figure was precipitated into a scene hard set as men on a chess-board in deadly serenity. Leddy and Jack, were already facing each other.

"Senor! Senor!" Ignacio shouted, as he ran. "Senor Don't Care of the Big Spurs--wait!"

The message which he had to give was his mistress's and, therefore, n.o.body else's business. He rose on tiptoes to whisper it into Jack's ear. Jack listened, with head bent to catch the words. He looked over to Mary for an instant of intent silence and then raised his empty left hand in signal.

"Sorry, but I must ask for a little delay!" he called to Leddy. His tone was wonderful in its politeness and he bowed considerately to his adversary.

"I thought it was all bluff!" Leddy answered. "You'll get it, though--you'll get it in the old way if you haven't the nerve to take it in yours!"

"Really, I am stubbornly fond of my way," Jack said. "I shall be only a minute. That will give you time to steady your nerves," he added, in the encouraging, rea.s.suring strain of a coach to a man going to the bat.

He was coming toward Mary with his easy, languid gait, radiant of casual inquiry. The time of his steps seemed to be reckoned in succeeding hammer-beats in her brain. He was coming and she had to find reasons to keep him from going back; because if it had not been for her he would be quite safe. Oh, if she could only be free of that idea of obligation to him! All the pain, the confusion, the embarra.s.sment was on her side. His very manner of approach, in keeping with the whole story of his conduct toward her, showed him incapable of such feelings. She had another reaction. She devoutly wished that she had not sent for him.

Had not his own perversity taken his fate out of her hands? If he preferred to die, why should it be her concern? Should she volunteer herself as a rescuer of fools? The gleaming sand of the _arroyo_ rose in a dazzling mist before her eyes, obscuring him, clothing him with the unreality of a dream; and then, in physical reality, he emerged. He was so near as she rose spasmodically that she could have laid her hand on his shoulder. His hat under his arm, he stood smiling in the bland, questioning interest of a spectator happening along the path, even as he had in her first glimpse of him on the pa.s.s.

"I don't care! Go on! Go on!" she was going to say. "You have made sport of me! You make sport of everything! Life itself is a joke to you!"

The tempest of the words was in her eyes, if it did not reach her tongue's end. It was halted by the look of hurt surprise, of real pain, which appeared on his face. Was it possible, after all, that he could feel? The thought brought forth the pa.s.sionate cry of her mission after that sleepless night.

"I beg of you--I implore you--don't!"

Had anyone told her yesterday that she would have been begging any man in melodramatic supplication for anything, she would have thought of herself as mad. Wasn't she mad? Wasn't he mad? Yet she broke into pa.s.sionate appeal.

"It is horrible--unspeakable! I cannot bear it!"

A flood of color swept his cheeks and with it came a peculiar, feminine, almost awkward, gentleness. His air was that of wordless humility. He seemed more than ever an uncomprehending, sure prey for Leddy.

"Don't you realize what death is?" she asked.

The question, so earnest and searching, had the contrary effect on him.

It changed him back to his careless self. He laughed in the way of one who deprecates another's illusion or pa.s.sing fancy. This added to her conviction that he did not realize, that he was incapable of realizing, his position.

"Do you think I am about to die?" he asked softly.

"With Pete Leddy firing at you twenty yards away--yes! And you pose--you pose! If you were human you would be serious!"

"Pose?" He repeated the word. It startled him, mystified him. "The clothes I bought to please Firio, you mean?" he inquired, his face lighting.

"No, about death. It is horrible--horrible! Death for which I am responsible!"

"Why, have you forgotten that we settled all that?" he asked. "It was not you. It was the habit I had formed of whistling in the loneliness of the desert. I am sorry, now, that I did not stick to singing, even at the expense of a sore throat."

Now he called to Leddy, and his voice, high-pitched and powerful, seemed to travel in the luminous air as on resilient, invisible wires.

"Leddy, wasn't it the way I whistled to you the first time we met that made you want satisfaction? You remember"--and he broke into a whistle.