Cabin Gulch (37 page)

The goddess of chance, as false as the bandit's vanity, played with him. He brightened under a streak of winning. But just as his face began to lose its haggard shade, to glow, the tide again turned against him. He lost and lost, and with each bag of gold dust went something of his spirit. And when he was reduced to his original share, he indeed showed that yellow streak that Jesse Smith had attributed to him. The bandit's effort to pull himself together, to be a man before that scornful gang, was pitiful and futile. He might have been magnificent, confronted by other issues, of peril or circumstances, but here he was craven. He was a man who should never have gambled.

One after the other, in quick succession, he lost the two bags of gold, his original share. He had lost utterly. Gulden had the great heap of dirty little buckskin sacks, so significant of the hidden power within.

Joan was amazed and sick at sight of Kells then, and, if it had been possible, she would have withdrawn her gaze. But she was chained there. The catastrophe was imminent.

Kells stared down at the gold. His jaw worked convulsively. He had the eyes of a trapped wolf. Yet he seemed not wholly to comprehend what had happened to him.

Gulden rose, slow, heavy, ponderous, to tower over his heap of gold. Then this giant, who had never shown an emotion, suddenly, terribly blazed. “One more bet . . . a cut of the cards . . . my whole stake of gold!” he boomed.

The bandits took a stride forward as one man, then stood breathless.

“One bet?” echoed Kells, aghast.

“Against what?” “Against the girl!”

Joan sank against the wall, a piercing torture in her breast. She clutched the logs to keep from falling. So that was the impending horror. She could not remove her eyes from the paralyzed Kells, yet she seemed to see Jim Cleve leap straight up, and then stand with Kells, equally motionless.

“The cut of the cards . . . my gold against the girl!” boomed the giant.

Kells made a movement as if to go for his gun. But it failed. His hand was a shaking leaf.

“You always bragged about your nerve!” went on Gulden mercilessly. “You're the gambler of the border! Come on.”

Kells stood there, his doom upon him. Plain to all was his torture, his weakness, his defeat. It seemed
that with all his soul he combated something, only to fail.

“One cut . . . my gold against your girl!”

The gang burst into one concerted taunt. Like snarling bristling wolves, they craned their necks at Kells.

“No damn . . . you! No!” cried Kells in hoarse, broken fury. With both hands before him he seemed to push back the sight of that gold, of Gulden, of the malignant men, of a horrible temptation.

“Reckon, boss, that yellow streak is operatin',” sang out Jesse Smith.

But neither gold nor Gulden, or men, or taunts ruined Kells at this perhaps most critical crisis of his life. It was the mad, clutching, terrible opportunity presented. It was the strange and terrible nature of the wager. What vision might have flitted through the gambler's mind! But neither vision of loss or gain moved him. There, licking like a flame at his soul, consuming the good in him at a blast, overpowering his love, was the strange and magnificent gamble. He could not resist it. Speechless, with a motion of his hand, he signified his willingness.

“Blicky, shuffle the cards!” boomed Gulden.

Blicky did so and dropped the deck with a slap in the middle of the table.

“Cut!” called Gulden.

Kells's shaking hand crept toward the deck.

Jim Cleve suddenly appeared to regain power of speech and motion.

“Don't, Kells, don't!” he cried piercingly as he leaped forward.

But neither Kells nor the others heard him, or even saw his movement.

Kells cut the deck. He held up his card. It was the king of hearts. What a transformation! His face might
have been that of a corpse suddenly revivified with glorious leaping life.

“Only an ace can beat thet,” muttered Jesse Smith into the silence.

Gulden reached for the deck as if he knew every card left was an ace. His cavernous eyes gloated over Kells. He cut, and, before he looked himself, he let Kells see the card.

“You can't beat my streak!” he boomed.

Then he threw the card upon the table. It was the ace of spades.

Kells seemed to shrivel, to totter, to sink. Jim Cleve went quickly to him, held to him.

“Kells, go say good bye to your girl!” boomed Gulden. “I'll want her pretty soon. Come on, you Beady, and Braverman. Here's your chance to get even.”

Gulden resumed his seat, and the two bandits, invited to play, were eager to comply, while the others pressed close once more.

Jim Cleve led the dazed Kells toward the door into Joan's cabin. To Joan, just then, all seemed to be dark.

When she recovered, she was lying on the bed and Jim was bending over her. He looked frantic with grief and desperation and fear.

“Jim! Jim!” she moaned, grasping his hands. He helped her to sit up. Then she saw Kells, standing there. He looked abject, stupid, drunk. Yet evidently he had begun to comprehend the meaning of his deed.

“Kells,” began Cleve in a low, hoarse tone, as he stepped forward with a cocked gun. “I'm going to kill you . . . and Joan . . . and myself.”

Kells stared at Cleve.

“Go ahead. Kill me. And the girl, too. That'll be better for her now. But why kill yourself?”

“I love her. She's my wife.”

The deadness about Kells suddenly changed. Joan flung herself before him.

“Kells, listen,” she whispered in swift broken passion. “Jim Cleve was . . . my sweetheart . . . back in Hoadley. We quarreled. I taunted him. I said he hadn't nerve enough . . . even to be bad. He left me . . . bitterly enraged. Next day I trailed him . . . I wanted to fetch him back. You remember . . . how you met me with Roberts . . . how you killed Roberts? And all the rest? When Jim and I met out here . . . I was afraid to tell you. I tried to influence him. I succeeded . . . till we got to Alder Creek. There he went wild. I married him . . . hoping to steady him. Then the day of the lynching . . . we were separated from you in the crowd. That night we hid . . . and next morning took the stage. Gulden and his gang held up the stage. They thought you had put us there. We fooled them, but we had to come . . . here to Cabin Gulch . . . hoping to tell you . . . so that you'd let us go. And now . . . now . . .”

Joan had not strength to go on. The thought of Gulden made her faint.

“It's true, Kells,” added Cleve passionately as he faced the incredulous bandit. “I swear it. Why, you ought to see now.”

“My God, boy, I
do
see,” gasped Kells. That dark sodden thickness of comprehension and feeling, indicative of the hold of drink, passed away swiftly. The shock had sobered him.

Instantly Joan saw it—saw in him the return of the other and better Kells, now stricken with remorse. She slipped to her knees and clasped her arms around him. He tried to break her hold, but she held on.

“Get up!” he ordered violently. “Jim, pull her away! Girl, don't do that in front of me! I've just gambled away . . .”

“Her life, Kells, only that, I swear!” cried Cleve.

“Kells, listen,” began Joan pleadingly. “You will not let that . . . that
cannibal
have me?”

“No, by God!” replied Kells thickly. “I was drunk, crazy. Forgive me, girl! You see . . . howdidIknow . . . what was coming? Oh, the whole thing is hellish!”

“You loved me once,” whispered Joan softly. “Do you love me still? Kells, can't you see? It's not too late to save my life . . . and
your
soul? Can't you see? You never have been bad. But if you save me now . . . from Gulden . . . save me for this boy I've almost ruined . . . you . . . you . . . oh, God will forgive you! Take me away . . . go with me . . . and never come back to the border.”

“Maybe I can save you,” he muttered, as if to himself. He appeared to want to think, but to be bothered by the clinging arms around him. Joan felt a ripple go over his body and he seemed to heighten, and the touch of his hands thrilled.

Then, white and appealing, Cleve added his importunity: “Kells, I saved your life once. You said you'd remember it someday. Now . . . now! For God's sake don't make me shoot her!”

Joan rose from her knees, but she still clasped Kells. She seemed to feel the mounting of his spirit, to understand how in this moment he was rising out of the depths. How strangely glad she was for him!

“Joan, once you showed me what the love of a good woman really was. I've never been the same since then. I've grown better in one way . . . worse in all others. I let down. I was no man for the border. Always that haunted me. Believe me, won't you . . . despite all?”

Joan felt the yearning in him for what he dared not ask. She read his mind. She knew he meant somehow to atone for his wrong.

“I'll show you again,” she whispered. “I'll tell you more. If I'd never loved Jim Cleve . . . if I'd met you, I'd have loved
you
. . . . And bandit or not, I'd have gone with you anywhere!”

“Joan!” The name was almost a sob of joy and pain. Sight of his face then blinded Joan with hot tears. But when he caught her to him, in a violence that was a terrible renunciation, she gave her embrace, her arms, her lips without the vestige of a lie, with all of womanliness, and sweetness and love and passion. He let her go and turned away, and in that instant Joan had a final divination that this strange man would rise once to heights as supreme as the depths of his soul were dark. She dashed away her tears and wiped the dimness from her eyes. Hope resurged. Something strong and sweet gave her strength.

When Kells wheeled, he was the Kells of her earlier experience—cool, easy, deadly, with the smile almost amiable, and the strange pale eyes. Only the white radiance of him was different. He did not look at her.

“Jim, will you do exactly what I tell you?”

“Yes, I promise,” replied Jim.

“How many guns have you?”

“Two.”

“Give me one of them.”

Cleve held out the gun that all the while he had kept in his hand. Kells took it and put it in his pocket.

“Pull your other gun . . . be ready,” he said swiftly. “But don't you shoot once till I go down . . . then do your best. Save the last bullet for Joan . . . in case . . .”

“I promise,” replied Cleve steadily.

Then Kells drew a knife from a sheath at his belt. It had a long bright blade. Joan had seen him use it many a time around the campfire. He slipped the blade up his sleeve, retaining the haft of the knife in his hand. He did not speak another word, nor did he
glance at Joan again. She had felt his gaze while she had embraced him, as she raised her lips. That look had been his last. Then he went out. Jim knelt beside the door, peering between post and curtain.

Joan staggered to the chink between the logs. She would see that fight if it froze her blood—the very marrow of her bones.

The gamblers were intent upon their game. Not a dark face looked up as Kells sauntered toward the table. Gulden sat with his back to the door. There was a shaft of sunlight streaming in, and Kells blocked it, sending a shadow over the bent heads of the gamesters. How significant that shadow—a blackness blocking gold! Still no one paid any attention to Kells.

He stepped closer. Suddenly he leaped into swift and terrible violence. High he swung the long blade. It flashed in the gold light. Then with a lunge he drove it into Gulden's burly neck.

The giant heaved up, his mighty force overturning table and benches and men. An awful boom, strangely distorted and split, burst from him. He flung back his massive head. The knife had pierced his neck diagonally. The haft stuck out behind and the point of blade in front. A thin tiny stream of red shot out, like a slender spurt of water from an overcharged pipe.

Then Kells blocked the door with a gun in each hand, but only the one in his right hand spurted white and red. Instantly there followed a mad scramble—hoarse yells, over which that awful roar of Gulden's predominated—and the bang of guns. Clouds of white smoke veiled the scene, and with every shot the veil grew denser. Red flashes burst from the ground where men were down, and from each side of Kells. His form seemed less instinct with
force; it had shortened; he was sagging. But at intervals the red spurt and report of his gun showed he was fighting. Then a volley from one side made him stagger against the door. The clear
spang
of a Winchester spoke above the heavy boom of the guns.

Joan's eyesight recovered from its blur or else the haze of smoke drifted, for she saw better. Gulden's actions fascinated her, horrified her. He had evidently gone crazy. He groped about the room, through the smoke, to and fro before the fighting, yelling bandits, grasping with huge hands for something—perhaps the blade through his neck. His sense of direction—his equilibrium had become affected. His awful roar still sounded above the din, but it was weakening. His giant's strength was weakening. His legs bent and buckled under him. All at once he whipped out his two big guns and began to fire as he staggered—at random. He killed the wounded Blicky. In the mêlée he ran against Jesse Smith and thrust both guns at him. Jesse saw the peril and with a shriek he fired point-blank at Gulden. Then as Gulden pulled triggers, both men fell. But Gulden rose, bloody browed, bawling, still a terrible engine of destruction. Before him leaped out that slender spurt of blood from his neck, growing thick now as a red cord. Gulden's eyes were protruding, an uncanny unearthly sight, and he seemed to glare in one direction and shoot in another. He pointed the guns and apparently pulled the triggers long after the shells had all been fired.

Kells was on his knees now with only one gun. This wavered and fell, wavered and fell. His left arm hung broken. The front of his shirt showed spots of blood, slowly coalescing, but his face flashed white through the thin drifting clouds of smoke.