the Drift Fence (1992) (24 page)

"Morning, Molly! I reckoned you'd never come," he said, gladly.

"Are you--all right?"

"I had an awful night. And I was bad until just now," he replied.

She sat down, and, depositing her bundle, she put a hand to her bosom as if to still its heaving. She averted her eyes. It was plain she could not look at him. She appeared worn and troubled, as if she had passed a harassed, sleepless night. She seemed such a wistful, pathetic little figure. Jim's heart filled with tenderness and he could scarce contain his tremendous secret.

"Molly, did you get home safe?" he asked, anxiously.

"Yes. Slinger didn't come, an' ma never heahed me."

"That's fine. I'm sure glad. I've worried a lot." Then, noticing that she wore a blood-stained bandage around her left hand, he asked solicitously if she had not injured herself.

"No. I just put this on to fool ma, so I could go to the store," she explained in a matter-of-fact tone. "An' I told Mr. Summers I'd cut myself an' was scared of blood poison. I bought this medicine, an' I've fetched some clean linen, a towel an' soap, an' somethin' for you to eat."

"You're just wonderful, Molly!" said Jim, and meant it in a multiplicity of ways.

She gave him a fleeting flash of eyes. "I'll fetch some water," she returned.

Jim noted, as she glided away with the canteen, how cautiously she peeped around the spruce tree before venturing farther. She was none some moments, that dragged for the eager Jim. Then presently she reappeared as noiseless as a shadow, to get the dripping canteen down beside him, and knelt to undo a buckskin thong around the bundle.

"It's goin' to hurt right smart," she said, practically.

"Molly, I could stand to be carved into mincemeat by you."

Whereupon she laid a cool hand on his forehead and temples, and then slipped it inside his open shirt to feel the bandages.

"Wal, you don't 'pear to have fever, but you shore look an' talk flighty," she said. "Will you hold still an' keep quiet? This's goin' to hurt like sixty. I've done it more'n once for Arch."

Jim nodded his acquiescence, and thought it would be safer and facilitate the operation if he closed his eyes. She cut the strips of scarf that had served as a bandage and then she essayed to remove the pads. They had evidently crusted with blood and they stuck tight. She saturated them with water and pulled gently at them until it appeared that more force must be used. Jim made the mental reservation that it hurt twice times sixty. But once the pads had been removed, how soothing to his hot skin and the irritated wounds were the touch of her cool hand and the feel of water!

"Mister Jim, from what little I know aboot gunshot wounds, I'd say you're not so bad off this mawnin'," she said.

"I dare say my--my favourable condition can be laid to my beautiful and splendid nurse," he replied, without opening his eyes. He thought he caught a suppressed titter, but could not be sure. Then he attended to her applying a stinging solution to his wounds and a deft and thorough bandaging of them.

"There. I cain't do no more foryou," she said. "I reckon these bullet holes are healin' clean, but it'd be sense to have your men get you to Flag, pronto... An' then stay there, Mister Jim."

"Thanks, Molly. I'm very grateful to you," he rejoined, opening, his eyes to smile up at her. "I'll go to Flag, of course, if it's necessary. But I'll come back... Molly, is it safe for you to stay with me awhile?"

"Safe? I reckon so, now I'm heah," she replied, thoughtfully. "Ma won't miss me... But all the same I ought to run!"

"Run? From what?"

"From you, Mister Jim."

"Please leave off the 'Mister.' We've known each other a long time, now.

It'd be perfectly proper."

She laughed, and her mirth had just a touch of bitter mockery.

"Why should you run from me?"

"I've been with you only twice an' you made a fool of me both times," she replied, resentfully.

"I never did," he protested. If he could stir her, even to anger, he might overcome the aloofness he sensed in her this morning. But failing in this, he thought he knew a way.

"You shore did. That night on the porch at Flag! You grabbed me just like Hack Jocelyn an' other cowpunchers I know. An' yesterday--that was worse.

Your persuadin' me!"

"Molly, consider. There was no excuse for me at the dance. But yesterday there was."

"Maybe for you. But not for me. I shore wonder what you think of me."

Jim saw the delight of playing upon her simplicity must be forsworn. She seemed to be smarting under shame. The moment had come, far swifter than he had anticipated, but he welcomed it, hastened to end for ever her doubts of him.

"Molly, if you'll look around I'll tell you what I think of you," he said, in the coolest, easiest tone he could muster.

The dark head whirled. Her spirited action, the fire of her eyes, the receding of hot colour, implied a doubt of him and her resentment at it.

Yet there seemed something else in her expression, not conscious hope, but a pathos due to the dream she only half divined.

"Will you marry me?" he asked, simply, but with deep emotion.

Perhaps nothing else could have so altered her. At length she burst out:

"Mister Jim!"

"Let's dispense with the 'Mister.' Call me plain Jim, and say 'yes.'"

"Boy, now I know what ails you," she said, in self-reproach. "No, you don't. I haven't come to that."

"If you're not out of your haid, what on earth are you?" she cried, wildly.

"In love, Molly."

"In love!... With me?" she whispered.

He got hold of her hand, to find it trembling. "Listen, child," he began, determined to convince her. "You remember our meeting. Well, I think I fell in love with you then. If not then, at the dance surely. And last night I made up my mind to ask you to marry me. I've been shot, I know, Molly. And I'm excited. But I am absolutely in possession of all my wits.

I love you very dearly. And I want to make you my wife."

"Me? Molly Dunn?"

"Yes, you, Molly Dunn."

Then Jim Traft devoutly thanked the god of love or faith, or both, whatever it had been that had prompted him to broach this most impelling and sacred of all propositions to a woman. For though Molly Dunn was wholly unconscious of it, the instant he had convinced her was one of a singular transformation. He had convinced her of so marvellous a thing that it worked a like change in her.

"Oh!... I cain't believe it," she exclaimed, incredulous with the amazing truth. "My God! What would Slinger say to that? An' ma an' pa an'

Andy--an' that grinnin' Jocelyn?"

"Molly, it doesn't matter in the least what they'd say. But a great deal what you say."

"Wal, Mister Jim--"

"Stop calling me that." interrupted Jim, imperiously, and he shook her.

He divined not only that she really cared for him, but that she could never hold out against him. It shone in her startled eyes. She betrayed it in other unconscious ways. "Call me Jim... Do you hear? Jim!"

"Shore I heah you... Jim," she replied, sweetly.

"It sounds very nice. Now, what do you say, Molly?"

"I'm shore upset. An' I'll be so--so proud all my life--an' happy that you love me an' want me... But, Jim, I cain't marry you."

"Molly! Do you love someone else?" he queried, sharply. "No."

"Don't you--couldn't you care for me?" he implored.

She gave him an enigmatical little smile, as much mournful as derisive--something dedicated to the stupidity of man.

"Jim, heah you have lost your haid," she went on. "I'm Molly Dunn of the Cibeque. They always called me that. My brother is Slinger Dunn. An' this last shootin' will make him an outlaw."

"It needn't, Molly. No one need ever know. I'll not tell. And I'll find a way to change Slinger."

"But that's only one reason." she protested. "My father has lived for years under a cloud. No one can prove he belonged to that murderous outfit. But it's behind... My mother isn't much good, either. There's talk aboot her an' this an' that cowboy."

"Molly, I wouldn't be marrying your family," replied Jim, sagely.

"Jim, I may be pretty, like a wood-mouse, as Arch calls me, but I'm nobody," said Molly, mercilessly. "I'm no--no fit girl for you."

"Why not?" he demanded, stabbed again by that fierce, jealous doubt.

"You've sure got good looks. You've the face, the hands--the instincts of a lady. There must be good blood in your family somewhere."

"Yes. My mother came from a Southern family. She brags aboot it to this day. It's a lot to do with her fittin' so poor in a log cabin."

"Molly. if--if"--he tortured himself to get this out--"if you've had affairs with any boys--that damned Jocelyn--or anyone--affairs you're ashamed of--just forget them. I know you're the kind of a girl who'd tell me. But I really don't want to know. I think you've had a rotten deal down here in the Cibeque. What chance have you had--among these louts?

Curly Prentiss said that... So, Molly, turn your back on the whole mess and come to me."

"Jim Traft, do you think I'd ever disgrace you now?" she flashed, with tears welling down over her cheeks. "Just that you said would make me love you, if nothin' else could. But it also makes me see clear... I--I cain't marry you."

Jim did not press this point any further, for her demeanour, the way she clung to his hand, the tremendous agitation that shook her, the traitorous eyes which she did not realize, were facts that moved him with tumultuous joy.

"But, Jim, I reckon you've heahed talk about me," she went on. "An' you're shore the one man I'd tell everythin'. Don't you let any lies aboot me stick in your haid."

"I didn't, Molly," said Jim, which he feared was not wholly truth. But on the other hand, under circumstances of extreme exasperation, had he not clung to some strange championship of her? Then he told her of Hack Jocelyn's vain boastings, of his innuendoes, and at last his open, vile claim.

"Slinger will kill him for that," she replied, furiously.

"I'd have done it myself," declared Jim. "The boys had to pull me off him."

"I saw his face an' taunted him with it," she said. "Hack admitted you licked him... Jim, he scared me bad that time. He lay in wait for me along the trail home. An' he jerked me into the brush. That's when I learned he was quittin' the Diamond an' makin' up to the Cibeque. He was playin' for a big stake. My brother had no use for Hack. An' Hack aimed to win him over by makin' me tell him he'd quit the Diamond because you insulted me.

When I didn't take kind to this deal, he grabbed me up in his arms an' near broke every rib I own. An' he kissed me, Jim--all over except my mouth... You bet I was scared an' I changed my tune. He let me down then, an' pretty quick I broke an' ran."

"And that's all the claim Hack Jocelyn had on you!... Molly. all the time I knew he was a liar. But, oh, it nearly broke my heart."

"Jim, he never had no claim on me," she replied, earnestly. "Some of the other boys have tried to make up to me by grabbin' me. You did, Jim Traft! It must be a failin'. But, I cross my heart, Jim, no boy ever got anythin' like you got from me."

"Darling!" cried Jim.

That and the stealing of Jim's arm round her waist, drawing her down, would have been Molly's undoing. But he heard a soft step. He felt Molly freeze under his arm. A shadow crossed the light above him.

Chapter
SIXTEEN

Jim had only a glimpse of Slinger Dunn looming over him, gun in hand.

Then Molly, with a scream, threw herself upon Jim protectingly.

"So heah you are, you wood-louse," grated Slinger.

"Arch, I found him--on the trail--bleedin' to death," cried Molly.

"When--an' what you doin' up heah?"

"I--I went ridin', Arch. Yesterday. I heahed a shot. Then you came by like mad. An' I found him."

"You was meetin' him heah."

"No. No. Honest to God--I wasn't."

"Molly Dunn, I've had my doubts aboot you lately. An' now I'm shore."

Jim managed to move enough to get his eyes from under Molly's dishevelled hair. He needed only one look up at Slinger Dunn's face to understand Molly's terror.

"Dunn, she's not a liar," he said, hurriedly. "She couldn't have known I was on the trail. I was trailing the man who cut the drift fence."

"Aw, she'd lie an' you'd swear to it." His piercing gaze rested curiously on Jim. "How'n hell do you happen to be alive?"

"Your bullet hit my watch."

"Wal, heah's another," said Slinger, with strange intensity, and he brought the gun up to align it with Jim's head. But quick as a flash Molly covered Jim.

"For God's sake, Slinger, don't kill him," she begged.

"I shore will. An' I jest aboot as lief bore you, too... Git up."

He kicked Molly, and his boot came partly in contact with Jim's thigh.

The brutality of it, after the deadly speech, seemed to liberate Jim from a cold paralysis.