Cabin Gulch (25 page)

Presently Bate Wood called her in to supper. Pearce, Smith, and Cleve were finding seats at the table, but Kells looked rather sick. Joan observed him then more closely. His face was pale and damp, strangely shaded as if there were something dark under the pale skin. Joan had never seen him appear like this, and she shrank as from another and forbidding side of the man. Pearce and Smith acted naturally, ate with relish, and talked about the gold diggings. Cleve, however, was not as usual, and Joan could not quite make out what constituted the dissimilarity. She hurried through her own supper and back to her room.

Already it was dark outside. Joan lay down to listen and wait. It seemed long, but probably was not, before she heard the men go outside, and the low thump of their footsteps as they went away. Then came the rattle and bang of Bate Wood's attack on the pans and pots. Bate liked to cook, but he hated to clean up afterward. By and by he settled down outside for his evening smoke and there was absolute quiet. Then Joan rose to stand at the window. She could see the dark mass of rock overhanging the
cabin, the bluff beyond and the stars. For the rest all was gloom.

She did not have to wait long. A soft step, almost indistinguishable, made her pulse beat quicker. She put her face out of the window and on the instant a dark form seemed to loom up to meet her out of the shadow. She could not recognize that shape, yet she knew it belonged to Cleve.

“Joan,” he whispered.

“Jim,” she replied, just as low and gladly.

He moved closer, so that the hand she had gropingly put out touched him, then seemed naturally to slip along his shoulder, around his neck, and his face grew clearer in the shadow. His lips met hers, and Joan closed her eyes to that kiss. What hope, what strength for him and for her now in that meeting of lips.

“Oh, Jim . . . I'm so glad . . . to have you near . . . to touch you,” she whispered.

“Do you love me still?” he whispered back tensely.

“Still? More. More.”

“Say it, then.”

“Jim, I love you.”

And their lips met again and clung, and it was he who drew back first.

“Dearest, why didn't you let me make a break to get away with you . . . before we came to this camp?”

“Oh, Jim, I told you. I was afraid. We'd've been caught. And Gulden. . . .”

“We'll never have half the chance here. Kells means to keep you closely guarded. I heard the order. He's different now. He's grown crafty and hard. And the women of this Alder Creek. . . . Why, I'm more afraid to trust them than men like Wood or Pearce. They've gone clean crazy. Gold mad. If you shouted for your life, they wouldn't hear you. And if you could make them hear, they wouldn't believe. This camp has
sprung up in a night. It's not like any place I ever heard of. It's not human. It's so strange . . . so . . . oh, I don't know what to say. I think I mean that men in a great gold strike become like coyotes at a carcass. You've seen that. No relations at all.”

“I'm frightened too, Jim. I wish I'd had the courage to run, when we were back in Cabin Gulch. But don't ever give up, not for a second. We can get away. We must plan and wait. Find out where we are . . . how far from Hoadley . . . what we must expect . . . whether it's safe to approach anyone in this camp.”

“Safe? I guess not, after today,” he whispered grimly.

“Why? What's happened?” she asked quickly.

“Joan, have you guessed yet why Kells sent you down into camp alone?”

“No.”

“Listen. I went with Kells and Smith and Pearce. They hurried straight to the Last Nugget. There was a crowd of men in front of the place. Pearce walked straight up to one . . . a gambler by his clothes. And he said in a loud voice . . . ‘Here's the man!' The gambler looked startled, turned pale, and went for his gun. But Kells shot him. He fell dead, without a word. There was a big shout, then silence. Kells stood there with his smoking gun. I never saw the man so cool . . . so masterful. Then he addressed the crowd . . . ‘This gambler insulted my daughter! My men here saw him. My name's Blight. I came here to buy up gold claims. And I want to say this. Your Alder Creek has got the gold. But it needs some of your best citizens to run it right, so a girl can be safe on the street.'

“Joan, I tell you it was a magnificent bluff,” went on Jim excitedly. “And it worked. Kells walked away amid cheers. He meant to give an impression of character
and importance. He succeeded. So far as I could tell, there wasn't a man present who did not show admiration for him. I saw that dead gambler kicked.”

“My God, Jim,” breathed Joan. “He killed him . . . just for that.”

“Just for that . . . the bloody devil.”

“But still . . . what for? Oh, it was cold-blooded murder.”

“No, an even break. Kells made the gambler go for his gun. I'll have to say that for Kells.”

“It won't change the thing. I'd forgotten what a monster he is.”

“Joan, his motive is plain. This new gold camp has not reached the blood-spilling stage yet. It hadn't, I should say. The news of this killing will fly. It'll focus minds on this claim buyer, Blight. His deed rings true . . . like that of an honest man with a daughter to protect. He'll win sympathy. Then he talks as if he were prosperous. Soon he'll be represented in this changing, growing population as a man of importance. He'll play that card for all he's worth. Meanwhile, secretly he'll begin to rob the miners. It'll be hard to suspect him. His plot is just like the man . . . great.”

“Jim, oughtn't we tell?” whispered Joan, trembling.

“I've thought of that. Somehow I seem to feel guilty. But who on earth could we tell? We wouldn't dare speak here. Remember, you're a prisoner. I'm supposed to be a bandit . . . one of the Border Legion. How to get away from here, and save our lives . . . that's what tortures me.”

“Something tells me we'll escape, if only we can plan the right way. Jim, I'll have to be penned here, with nothing to do but wait. You must come every night. Won't you?”

For answer he kissed her again.

“Jim, what'll you do meanwhile?” she asked anxiously.

“I'm going to work a claim. Dig for gold. I told Kells so today, and he was delighted. He said he was afraid his men wouldn't like the working part of his plan. It's hard to dig gold. Easy to steal it. But I'll dig a hole as big as a hill. Wouldn't it be funny if I struck it rich?”

“Jim, you're getting the fever.”

“Joan, if I did happen to run into a gold pocket . . . there're lots of them found . . . would . . . you marry me?”

The tenderness—the timidity—and the yearning in Cleve's voice told Joan as never before how he had hoped and feared and despaired. She patted his cheek with her hand, and in the darkness, with her heart swelling to make up for what she had done to him, she felt a boldness and a recklessness, sweet, tumultuous, irresistible.

“Jim, I'll marry you . . . whether you strike gold or not,” she whispered.

And there was another blind sweet moment. Then Cleve tore himself away, and Joan leaned at the window, watching his shadow, with tears in her eyes and an ache in her heart.

From that day Joan lived a life of seclusion in the small room. Kells wanted it so, and Joan thought best for the time being not to take advantage of Bate Wood's duplicity. Her meals were brought to her by Wood, who was supposed to unlock and lock her door. But Wood never turned the key in that padlock. Prisoner though Joan was, the days and nights sped swiftly.

Kells was always up till late in the night and slept half of the next morning. It was his wont to see Joan
every day about noon. He had a care for his appearance. When he came in, he was dark, forbidding, weary, and cold. Manifestly he came to her to get rid of the imponderable burden of the present. He left it behind him. He never spoke a word of Alder Creek, of gold, of the Border Legion. Always he began by inquiring for her welfare, by asking what he could do for her, what he could bring her. Joan had an abhorrence of Kells in his absence that she never felt when he was with her, and the reason must have been that she thought of him, remembered him as the bandit, and saw him as another and growing character. Always mindful of her influence she was as companionable, as sympathetic, as cheerful and sweet as it was possible for her to be. Slowly he would warm and change under her charm, and the grim gloom, the dark strain would pass from him. When that left, he was indeed another person. Frankly he told Joan that the glimpse of real love she had simulated back there in Cabin Gulch was seldom out of his mind. No woman had ever kissed him like she had. That kiss had transfigured him. It haunted him. If he could not win kisses like that from Joan's lips, of her own free will, then he wanted none. No other woman's lips would ever touch his. And he begged Joan in the terrible earnestness of a stern and hungering outcast for her love. Joan could only sadly shake her head and tell him she was sorry for him, that the more she really believed he loved her, the surer she was that he would let her go. This always he passionately refused. He must have her to keep, to look at as his treasure, to dream over, and hope against hope that she would love him someday. Women sometimes learned to love their captors, he said, and, if she only learned, then he would take her away to Australia, to distant lands. But most of all he begged her to show him
again what it meant to be loved by a good woman. Joan, who knew that her power now lay in her being unattainable, feigned a wavering reluctance when in truth any surrender was impossible. He left her with a spirit that her presence gave him, in a kind of trance, radiant, yet with mocking smile, as if he foresaw the overthrow of his soul through her, and in the light of that his waning power over his legion was as nothing.

In the afternoons he went down into camp to strengthen the association he had made, to buy claims, and to gamble. Upon his return, Joan, peeping through a crack between the boards, could always tell whether he had been gambling, whether he had won or lost.

Most of the evenings he remained in his cabin that after dark became a place of mysterious and stealthy action. The members of his legion visited him, sometimes alone, never more than two together. Joan could hear them slipping in at the hidden aperture in the back of the cabin; she could hear the low voices, but seldom what was said; she could hear those night prowlers as they departed. Afterward, Kells would have the lights lit, and then Joan could see into the cabin. Was that dark haggard man Kells? She saw him take little buckskin sacks full of gold dust and hide them under the floor. Then he would pace the room in his old familiar manner, like a caged tiger. Later his mood usually changed with the advent of Wood and Pearce and Smith and Cleve, who took turns at guard and going down into camp. Then Kells would join them in a friendly game for small stakes. Gambler though he was, he refused to allow any game there that might lead to heavy wagering. From the talk sometimes, Joan learned that he played for exceedingly large stakes with gamblers and prosperous
miners, usually with the same result—a loss. Sometimes he won, however, and then he would crow to Pearce and Smith, and delight in telling them how cunningly he had played.

Jim Cleve had his bed up under the bulge of bluff, in a sheltered nook. Kells had appeared to like this idea, for some reason relative to his scout system, which he did not explain. And Cleve was happy about it because this arrangement left him absolutely free to have his nightly rendezvous with Joan at her window, sometimes between dark and midnight. Her bed was right under the window. If awake, she could rest on her knees and look out, and, if she was asleep, he could thrust a slender stick between the boards to awaken her. But the fact was that Joan lived for these stolen meetings and unless he could not come by until very late she waited, wide-eyed and listening for him. Then, besides, as long as Kells was stirring in the cabin, she spent her time spying on him.

Jim Cleve had gone to an unfrequented part of the gulch for no particular reason and here he had located his claim. The very first day he struck gold, and Kells more for advertisement than for any other motive had his men stake out a number of claims near Cleve's, and bought them. Then they had a little field of their own. All found the rich pay dirt, but it was Cleve to whom the goddess of fortune turned her bright face. As he had been lucky at cards, so he was lucky at digging. His claim paid big returns. Kells spread the news. And that part of the gulch saw a rush of miners.

Every night Joan had her whispered hour with Cleve, and each succeeding one was the sweeter. Jim had become a victim of the gold fever. But having Joan to steady him, he did not lose his head. If he gambled, it was to help out with his part. He was generous
to his comrades. He pretended to drink, but did not drink at all. Jim seemed to regard his good fortune as Joan's, also. He believed, if he struck it rich, he could buy his sweetheart's freedom. He claimed that Kells was drunk for gold to gamble away. Joan let Jim talk, but she coaxed him and persuaded him to follow a certain line of behavior; she planned for him, she thought for him, she influenced him to hide the greater part of his gold dust, and let it be known that he wore no gold belt. She had a growing fear that Jim's success was likely to develop a temper in him inimical to the cool waiting tolerant policy needed to outwit Kells in the end. It seemed the more gold Jim acquired, the more passionate he became, the more he importuned Joan, the more he hated Kells. Gold had gotten into his blood, and it was Joan's task to keep him sane. Naturally she gained more by yielding herself to Jim's caresses than by any direct advice or admonishment. It was her love that held Jim in check.

One night the instant their hands met Joan knew that Jim was greatly excited or perturbed.

“Joan,” he whispered thrillingly, with his lips at her ear. “I've made myself solid with Kells. Oh, the luck of it.”