The Border Legion Part 22

"But you won't last."

"It's a lot I care."

The bandit studied the reckless, white face. "See here, Cleve--haven't you got the nerve to be bad--thoroughly bad?"

Cleve gave a start as if he had been stung. Joan shut her eyes to blot out what she saw in his face. Kells had used part of the very speech with which she had driven Jim Cleve to his ruin. And those words galvanized him. The fatality of all this! Joan hated herself. Those very words of hers would drive this maddened and heartbroken boy to join Kells's band. She knew what to expect from Jim even before she opened her eyes; yet when she did open them it was to see him transformed and blazing.

Then Kells either gave way to leaping pa.s.sion or simulated it in the interest of his cunning.

"Cleve, you're going down for a woman?" he queried, with that sharp, mocking ring in his voice.

"If you don't shut up you'll get there first," replied Cleve, menacingly.

"Bah!... Why do you want to throw a gun on me? I'm your friend: You're sick. You're like a poisoned pup. I say if you've got nerve you won't quit. You'll take a run for your money. You'll see life. You'll fight.

You'll win some gold. There are other women. Once I thought I would quit for a woman. But I didn't. I never found the right one till I had gone to h.e.l.l--out here on this border.... If you've got nerve, show me. Be a man instead of a crazy youngster. Spit out the poison.... Tell it before us all!... Some girl drove you to us?"

"Yes--a girl!" replied Cleve, hoa.r.s.ely, as if goaded.

"It's too late to go back?"

"Too late!"

"There's nothing left but wild life that makes you forget?"

"Nothing.... Only I--can't forget!" he panted.

Cleve was in a torture of memory, of despair, of weakness. Joan saw how Kells worked upon Jim's feelings. He was only a hopeless, pa.s.sionate boy in the hands of a strong, implacable man. He would be like wax to a sculptor's touch. Jim would bend to this bandit's will, and through his very tenacity of love and memory be driven farther on the road to drink, to gaming, and to crime.

Joan got to her feet, and with all her woman's soul uplifting and inflaming her she stood ready to meet the moment that portended.

Kells made a gesture of savage violence. "Show your nerve!... Join with me!... You'll make a name on this border that the West will never forget!"

That last hint of desperate fame was the crafty bandit's best trump. And it won. Cleve swept up a weak and nervous hand to brush the hair from his damp brow. The keenness, the fire, the aloofness had departed from him. He looked shaken as if by something that had been pointed out as his own cowardice.

"Sure, Kells," he said, recklessly. "Let me in the game.... And--by G.o.d--I'll play--the hand out!" He reached for the pencil and bent over the book.

"Wait!... Oh, WAIT!" cried Joan. The pa.s.sion of that moment, the consciousness of its fateful portent and her situation, as desperate as Cleve's, gave her voice a singularly high and piercingly sweet intensity. She glided from behind the blanket--out of the shadow--into the glare of the lanterns--to face Kells and Cleve.

Kells gave one astounded glance at her, and then, divining her purpose, he laughed thrillingly and mockingly, as if the sight of her was a spur, as if her courage was a thing to admire, to permit, and to regret.

"Cleve, my wife, Dandy Dale," he said, suave and cool. "Let her persuade you--one way or another!"

The presence of a woman, however disguised, following her singular appeal, transformed Cleve. He stiffened erect and the flush died out of his face, leaving it whiter than ever, and the eyes that had grown dull quickened and began to burn. Joan felt her cheeks blanch. She all but fainted under that gaze. But he did not recognize her, though he was strangely affected.

"Wait!" she cried again, and she held to that high voice, so different from her natural tone. "I've been listening. I've heard all that's been said. Don't join this Border Legion.... You're young--and still, honest.

For G.o.d's sake--don't go the way of these men! Kells will make you a bandit.... Go home--boy--go home!"

"Who are you--to speak to me of honesty--of home?" Cleve demanded.

"I'm only a--a woman.... But I can feel how wrong you are.... Go back to that girl--who--who drove you to the border.... She must repent. In a day you'll be too late.... Oh, boy, go home! Girls never know their minds--their hearts. Maybe your girl--loved you!... Oh, maybe her heart is breaking now!"

A strong, muscular ripple went over Cleve, ending in a gesture of fierce protest. Was it pain her words caused, or disgust that such as she dared mention the girl he had loved? Joan could not tell. She only knew that Cleve was drawn by her presence, fascinated and repelled, subtly responding to the spirit of her, doubting what he heard and believing with his eyes.

"You beg me not to become a bandit?" he asked, slowly, as if revolving a strange idea.

"Oh, I implore you!"

"Why?"

"I told you. Because you're still good at heart. You've only been wild.... Because--"

"Are you the wife of Kells?" he flashed at her.

A reply seemed slowly wrenched from Joan's reluctant lips. "No!"

The denial left a silence behind it. The truth that all knew when spoken by her was a kind of shock. The ruffians gaped in breathless attention.

Kells looked on with a sardonic grin, but he had grown pale. And upon the face of Cleve shone an immeasurable scorn.

"Not his wife!" exclaimed Cleve, softly.

His tone was unendurable to Joan. She began to shrink. A flame curled within her. How he must hate any creature of her s.e.x!

"And you appeal to me!" he went on. Suddenly a weariness came over him.

The complexity of women was beyond him. Almost he turned his back upon her. "I reckon such as you can't keep me from Kells--or blood--or h.e.l.l!"

"Then you're a narrow-souled weakling--born to crime!" she burst out in magnificent wrath. "For however appearances are against me--I am a good woman!"

That stunned him, just as it drew Kells upright, white and watchful.

Cleve seemed long in grasping its significance. His face was half averted. Then he turned slowly, all strung, and his hands clutched quiveringly at the air. No man of coolness and judgment would have addressed him or moved a step in that strained moment. All expected some such action as had marked his encounter with Luce and Gulden.

Then Cleve's gaze in unmistakable meaning swept over Joan's person. How could her appearance and her appeal be reconciled? One was a lie! And his burning eyes robbed Joan of spirit.

"He forced me to--to wear these," she faltered. "I'm his prisoner. I'm helpless."

With catlike agility Cleve leaped backward, so that he faced all the men, and when his hands swept to a level they held gleaming guns. His utter abandon of daring transfixed these bandits in surprise as much as fear. Kells appeared to take most to himself the menace.

"_I_ CRAWL!" he said, huskily. "She speaks the G.o.d's truth.... But you can't help matters by killing me. Maybe she'd be worse off!"

He expected this wild boy to break loose, yet his wit directed him to speak the one thing calculated to check Cleve.

"Oh, don't shoot!" moaned Joan.

"You go outside," ordered Cleve. "Get on a horse and lead another near the door.... Go! I'll take you away from this."

Both temptation and terror a.s.sailed Joan. Surely that venture would mean only death to Jim and worse for her. She thrilled at the thought--at the possibility of escape--at the strange front of this erstwhile nerveless boy. But she had not the courage for what seemed only desperate folly.

"I'll stay," she whispered. "You go!"

"Hurry, woman!"