Cabin Gulch (11 page)

Presently Joan finished her supper and said: “I'll go hobble my horse. He strays, sometimes.”

“Shore I'll go, miss,” said Bate Wood. He had never called her Mrs. Kells, but Joan believed he had not thought of the significance. Hardened old ruffian that he was, Joan regarded him as the best of a bad lot. He had lived long and some of his life had not been bad.

“Let me go,” added Pearce.

“No thanks. I'll go myself,” she replied.

She took the rope hobble off her saddle, and boldly
swung down the trail. Suddenly she heard two or more of the men speak at once, and then low and clear: “Gulden, where'n hell are you goin'?” This was Red Pearce's voice.

Joan glanced back. Gulden had started down the trail after her. Her heart quaked, her knees shook, and she was ready to run back. Gulden halted, then turned away, growling. He acted as if caught in something surprising to himself.

“We're on to you, Gulden,” continued Pearce deliberately. “Be careful or we'll put Kells on.”

A booming angry curse was the response. The men grouped closer and a loud altercation followed. Joan almost ran down the trail, and heard no more. If any one of them had started her way now, she would have plunged into the thickets like a frightened deer. Evidently, however, they meant to let her alone. Joan found her horse, and, before hobbling him, she was assailed by a temptation to mount him and ride away. This she did not want to do and would not do under any circumstances; still she could not prevent the natural instinctive impulses of a woman.

She crossed to the other side of the brook and returned toward camp under the spruce and balsam trees. She did not hurry. It was good to be alone—out of sight of those violent men—away from that constant wearing physical proof of catastrophe. Nevertheless, she did not feel free or safe for a moment; she peered fearfully into the shadows of the rocks and trees, and presently it was a relief to get back to the side of the sleeping Kells. He lay in a deep slumber of exhaustion. She arranged her own saddle and blankets near him and prepared to meet the night as best she could. Instinctively she took a position where in one swift snatch she could get possession of Kells's gun.

It was about time of sunset, warm and still in the cañon, with rosy lights fading upon the peaks. The men were all busy with one thing and another. Strange it was to see that Gulden, who Joan thought might be a shirker, did twice the work of any man, especially the heavy work. He seemed to enjoy carrying a log that could have overweighted two ordinary men. He was so huge, so active, so powerful that it was fascinating to watch him. They built the campfire for the night uncomfortably near Joan's position. Remembering how cold the air would become later, she made no objection. Twilight set in and the men, through for the day, gathered near the fire.

There Joan was not long in discovering that the situation had begun to impinge upon the feeling of each of these men. They looked at her differently. Some of them invented pretexts to approach her, to ask something, to offer service—anything to get near her. A personal and individual note had been injected into the attitude of each. Intuitively Joan guessed that Gulden's rising to follow her had turned the eyes inwardly. Gulden remained silent and inactive at the edge of the campfire circle of light that flickered fitfully around him, making him seem a huge gloomy ape of a man. So far as Joan could tell, Gulden never cast his eyes in her direction. That was a difference that left cause for reflection. Had that bulk of brawl and bone begun to think? Bate Wood's overtures to Joan were rough, but inexplicable to her because she dared not wholly trust him.

“An' shore, miss,” he had concluded in a hoarse whisper, “we-all know you ain't Kells's wife. That bandit wouldn't marry no woman. He's a woman-hater. He was famous fer that over in California. He run off with you . . . kidnapped you, thet's shore. An' Gulden swears he shot his own men an' was in turn
shot by you. Thet bullet hole in his back was full of powder. There's liable to be a muss up any time. Shore, miss, you'd better sneak off with me tonight when they're all asleep. I'll git grub an' horses, an' take you off to some prospector's camp. Then you can git home.”

Joan only shook her head. Even if she could have felt trust in Wood—and she was of half a mind to believe him—it was too late. Whatever befell her mattered little if, in suffering it, she could save Jim Cleve from the ruin she had wrought.

Since this wild experience of Joan's had begun, she had been sick so many times with raw and naked emotions hitherto unknown to her that she believed she could not feel another new fear or torture. But these strange sensations grew by what they had been fed upon.

The man called Frenchy was audacious, persistent, smiling, amorous-eyed, and rudely gallant. He cared no more for his companions than if they had not been there. He vied with Pearce in his attention, and the two of them discomfited the others. The situation might have been amusing had it not been so terrible. Always the portent was a shadow behind their interest and amiability and jealousy. Except for that one abrupt and sinister move of Gulden's—that of a natural man beyond deceit—there was no word, no look, no act at which Joan could be offended. They were joking, sarcastic, ironical, and sullen in their relation to each other, but to Joan each one presented what was naturally or what he considered his kindest and most friendly front. A young and attractive woman had dropped into the camp of lonely wild men, and in their wild hearts was a rebirth of egotism, vanity, hunger for notice. They seemed as foolish as a lot of cock grouse preening themselves and parading before
a single female. Surely in some heart was born real brotherhood for a helpless girl in peril. Inevitably in some of them would burst a flame of passion as it had in Kells.

Between this amiable contest for Joan's glances and replies, with its possibility of latent good to her and the dark, lurking, unspoken meaning, such as lay in Gulden's brooding, Joan found another new and sickening torture.

“Say, Frenchy, you're no lady's man,” declared Red Pearce, “an' you, Bate, you're too old. Move . . . pass by . . . sashay!”

Pearce good-naturedly, but deliberately, pushed the two men back.

“Shore she's Kells's lady, ain't she?” drawled Wood. “Ain't you-all forgettin' thet?”

“Kells is asleep or dead,” replied Pearce, and he succeeded in getting the field to himself.

“Where'd you meet Kells, anyway?” he asked Joan, with his red face bending near her.

Joan had her part to play. It was difficult, because she divined Pearce's curiosity held a trap to catch her in a falsehood. He knew—they all knew she was not Kells's wife. But if she were a prisoner, she seemed a willing and contented one. The query that breathed in Pearce's presence was how was he to reconcile the fact of her submission with what he and his comrades had potently felt as her goodness?

“That doesn't concern anybody,” replied Joan.

“Reckon not,” said Pearce. Then he leaned nearer with intense face. “What I want to know . . . is Gulden right? Did you shoot Kells?”

In the dusk Joan reached back and clasped Kells's hand. For a man as weak and weary as he had been, it was remarkable how quickly touch awakened him. He lifted his head.

“Hello! Who's that?” he called out sharply.

Pearce rose guardedly, startled, but not confused. “It's only me, boss,” he replied. “I was about to turn in, an' wanted to know how you are . . . if I could do anythin'.”

“I'm all right, Red,” replied Kells coolly. “Clear out and let me alone. All of you.”

Pearce moved away with an amiable good night and joined the others at the campfire. Presently they sought their blankets, leaving Gulden hunching there silently in the gloom.

“Joan, why did you wake me?” whispered Kells. “Pearce asked me if I shot you,” replied Joan. “I woke you instead of answering him.”

“The hell he did!” exclaimed Kells under his breath. Then he laughed. “Can't fool that gang. I guess it doesn't matter. Maybe it'd be well if they knew you shot me.”

He appeared thoughtful, and lay there with the fading flare of the fire on his pale face. But he did not speak again. Presently he fell asleep.

Joan leaned back, within reach of him, with her head on her saddle, and, pulling a blanket over her, relaxed her limbs to rest. Sleep seemed the farthest thing from her. She wondered that she dared to think of it. The night had grown chilly; the wind was sweeping with low roar through the balsams; the fire burned low and dull and red. Joan watched the black shapeless bulk that she knew to be Gulden. For a long time he remained motionless. By and by he moved, approached the fire, stood one moment in the dying ruddy glow, his great breadth and bulk magnified, with all about him vague and shadowy, but the more sinister for that. The cavernous eyes were only black spaces in that vast face, yet Joan saw them upon her.
He lay down then among the other men and soon his deep and heavy breathing denoted the tranquil slumber of an ox.

For hours, through changing shadows and starlight, Joan lay awake, while a thousand thoughts besieged her, all centering around that vital and compelling one of Jim Cleve.

Only upon awakening, with the sun in her face, did Joan realize that she had actually slept.

The camp was bustling with activity. The horses were in, fresh and quarrelsome, with ears laid back. Kells was sitting upon a rock near the fire with a cup of coffee in his hand. He was looking better. When he greeted Joan, his voice sounded stronger. She walked by Pearce and Frenchy and Gulden on her way to the brook, but they took no notice of her. Bate Wood, however, touched his sombrero and said: “ ‘Mornin', miss.” Joan wondered if her memory of the preceding night were only a bad dream. There was a different atmosphere by daylight and it was dominated by Kells. Presently she returned to camp, refreshed and hungry. Gulden was throwing a pack, which action he performed with ease and dexterity. Pearce was cinching her saddle. Kells was talking, more like his old self than at any time since his injury.

Soon they were on the trail. For Joan time always passed swiftly on horseback. Movement and changing scene were pleasurable to her. The passing of time now held a strange expectancy, a mingled fear and hope and pain—for at the end of this trail was Jim Cleve. In other days she had flouted him, made fun of him, dominated him, everything except loved and feared him. And now she was assured of her love and almost convinced of her fear. The reputation these
wild bandits gave Jim was astounding and inexplicable to Joan. She rode the miles thinking of Jim, praying and planning for him.

About noon the cavalcade rode out of the mouth of a cañon into a wide valley, surrounded by high, rounded foothills. Horses and cattle were grazing on the green levels. A wide shallow noisy stream split the valley. Joan could tell from the tracks at the crossing that this place, whatever and wherever it was, saw considerable travel, and she concluded the main rendezvous of the bandits was close at hand.

The pack drivers led across the stream and the valley to enter an intersecting ravine. It was narrow, rough-sided, and floored, but the trail was good. Presently it opened out into a beautiful V-shaped gulch, very different from the high-walled, shut-in cañons. It had a level floor, through which a brook flowed, and clumps of spruce and pine, with here and there a giant balsam. Huge patches of wildflowers gave rosy color to the grassy slopes. At the upper end of this gulch Joan saw a number of widely separated cabins. This place, then, was Cabin Gulch.

Upon reaching the first cabin, the cavalcade split up. There were men here who hallooed a welcome. Gulden halted with his pack horse. Some of the others rode on. Wood drove other pack animals off to the right, up the gentle slope. Red Pearce, who was beside Kells, instructed Joan to follow them. They rode up to a bench of struggling spruce trees, in the midst of which stood a large log cabin. It was new, as, in fact, all the structures in the gulch appeared to be, and none of them had seen a winter. The chinks between the logs were yet open. This cabin was of the rudest make of notched logs one upon another, and the roof of brush and earth. It was low and flat, but very long, and extending before the whole of it was a
porch roof, supported by posts. At the end was a corral. There were doors and windows with nothing in them. Upon the front wall, outside, hung saddles and bridles.

Joan had a swift sharp gaze for the men who rose from their lounging to greet the travelers. Jim Cleve was not among them. Her heart left her throat then, and she breathed easier. How could she meet him?

Kells was in better shape than at noon of the preceding day. Still he had to be lifted off his horse. Joan heard all the men talking at once. They crowded around Pearce, each lending a hand. However, Kells appeared able to walk into the cabin. It was Bate Wood who led Joan inside.

There was a long room, with stone fireplace, rude benches and a table, skins and blankets on the floor, and lanterns and weapons on the wall. At one end, Joan saw a litter of cooking utensils and shelves of supplies.

Suddenly Kells's impatient voice silenced the clamor of questions.

“I'm not hurt,” he said. “I'm all right . . . only weak and tired. Fellows, this girl is my wife. Joan, you'll find a room there . . . at the back of the cabin. Make yourself comfortable.”

Joan was only too glad to act upon his suggestion. A door had been cut through the back wall. It was covered with a blanket. When she swept this aside, she came upon several steep steps that led up to a small lighter cabin of two rooms, separated by a partition of boughs. She dropped the blanket behind her and went up the steps. Then she saw that the new cabin had been built against an old one. It had no door or opening except the one by which she had entered. It was light because the chinks between the logs were open. The furnishings were a wide bench of
boughs covered with blankets, a shelf with a blurred and cracked mirror hanging above it, a table made of boxes, and a lantern. This room was four feet higher than the floor of the other cabin. At the bottom of the steps leaned a half dozen slender, trimmed poles. She gathered presently that these poles were intended to be slipped under cross-pieces above and fastened by a bar below, which means effectually barricaded the opening. Joan could stand at the head of the steps and peep under an edge of the swinging blanket into the large room, but that was the only place she could see through, for the openings between the logs of each wall were not level. These quarters were comfortable, private, and could be shut off from intruders. Joan had not expected so much consideration from Kells and she was grateful.