Zane Grey (15 page)

"See here, Red," said Kells to Pearce, "tell me what happened—what you
saw. Jim can't object to that."

"Sure," replied Pearce, thus admonished. "We was all over at Beard's
an' several games was on. Gulden rode into camp last night. He's always
sore, but last night it seemed more'n usual. But he didn't say much an'
nothin' happened. We all reckoned his trip fell through. Today he was
restless. He walked an' walked just like a cougar in a pen. You know how
Gulden has to be on the move. Well, we let him alone, you can bet. But
suddenlike he comes up to our table—me an' Cleve an' Beard an' Texas
was playin' cards—an' he nearly kicks the table over. I grabbed the
gold an' Cleve he saved the whisky. We'd been drinkin' an' Cleve most of
all. Beard was white at the gills with rage an' Texas was soffocatin'.
But we all was afraid of Gulden, except Cleve, as it turned out. But he
didn't move or look mean. An' Gulden pounded on the table an' addressed
himself to Cleve.

"'I've a job you'll like. Come on.'

"'Job? Say, man, you couldn't have a job I'd like,' replied Cleve, slow
an' cool.

"You know how Gulden gets when them spells come over him. It's just
plain cussedness. I've seen gunfighters lookin' for trouble—for someone
to kill. But Gulden was worse than that. You all take my hunch—he's got
a screw loose in his nut.

"'Cleve,' he said, 'I located the Brander gold-diggin's—an' the girl
was there.'

"Some kind of a white flash went over Cleve. An' we all, rememberin'
Luce, began to bend low, ready to duck. Gulden didn't look no different
from usual. You can't see any change in him. But I for one felt all hell
burnin' in him.

"'Oho! You have,' said Cleve, quick, like he was pleased. 'An' did you
get her?'

"'Not yet. Just looked over the ground. I'm pickin' you to go with me.
We'll split on the gold, an' I'll take the girl.'

"Cleve swung the whisky-bottle an' it smashed on Gulden's mug, knockin'
him flat. Cleve was up, like a cat, gun burnin' red. The other fellers
were dodgin' low. An' as I ducked I seen Gulden, flat on his back,
draggin' at his gun. He stopped short an' his hand flopped. The side of
his face went all bloody. I made sure he'd cashed, so I leaped up an'
grabbed Cleve.

"It'd been all right if Gulden had only cashed. But he hadn't. He came
to an' bellered fer his gun an' fer his pards. Why, you could have heard
him for a mile.... Then, as I told you, I had trouble in holdin' back a
general mix-up. An' while he was hollerin' about it I led them all over
to you. Gulden is layin' back there with his ear shot off. An' that's
all."

Kells, with thoughtful mien, turned from Pearce to the group of
dark-faced men. "This fight settles one thing," he said to them. "We've
got to have organization. If you're not all a lot of fools you'll see
that. You need a head. Most of you swear by me, but some of you are for
Gulden. Just because he's a bloody devil. These times are the wildest
the West ever knew, and they're growing wilder. Gulden is a great
machine for execution. He has no sense of fear. He's a giant. He loves
to fight—to kill. But Gulden's all but crazy. This last deal proves
that. I leave it to your common sense. He rides around hunting for some
lone camp to rob. Or some girl to make off with. He does not plan with
me or the men whose judgment I have confidence in. He's always without
gold. And so are most of his followers. I don't know who they are. And
I don't care. But here we split—unless they and Gulden take advice and
orders from me. I'm not so much siding with Cleve. Any of you ought to
admit that Gulden's kind of work will disorganize a gang. He's been with
us for long. And he approaches Cleve with a job. Cleve is a stranger.
He may belong here, but he's not yet one of us. Gulden oughtn't have
approached him. It was no straight deal. We can't figure what Gulden
meant exactly, but it isn't likely he wanted Cleve to go. It was a
bluff. He got called.... You men think this over—whether you'll stick
to Gulden or to me. Clear out now."

His strong, direct talk evidently impressed them, and in silence they
crowded out of the cabin, leaving Pearce and Cleve behind.

"Jim, are you just hell-bent on fighting or do you mean to make yourself
the champion of every poor girl in these wilds?"

Cleve puffed a cloud of smoke that enveloped his head "I don't pick
quarrels," he replied.

"Then you get red-headed at the very mention of a girl."

A savage gesture of Cleve's suggested that Kells was right.

"Here, don't get red-headed at me," called Kells, with piercing
sharpness. "I'll be your friend if you let me.... But declare yourself
like a man—if you want me for a friend!"

"Kells, I'm much obliged," replied Cleve, with a semblance of
earnestness. "I'm no good or I wouldn't be out here... But I can't stand
for these—these deals with girls."

"You'll change," rejoined Kells, bitterly. "Wait till you live a few
lonely years out here! You don't understand the border. You're young.
I've seen the gold-fields of California and Nevada. Men go crazy with
the gold fever. It's gold that makes men wild. If you don't get killed
you'll change. If you live you'll see life on this border. War debases
the moral force of a man, but nothing like what you'll experience here
the next few years. Men with their wives and daughters are pouring
into this range. They're all over. They're finding gold. They've tasted
blood. Wait till the great gold strike comes! Then you'll see men and
women go back ten thousand years... And then what'll one girl more or
less matter?"

"Well, you see, Kells, I was loved so devotedly by one and made such a
hero of—that I just can't bear to see any girl mistreated."

He almost drawled the words, and he was suave and cool, and his face was
inscrutable, but a bitterness in his tone gave the lie to all he said
and looked.

Pearce caught the broader inference and laughed as if at a great joke.
Kells shook his head doubtfully, as if Cleve's transparent speech only
added to the complexity. And Cleve turned away, as if in an instant he
had forgotten his comrades.

Afterward, in the silence and darkness of night, Joan Randle lay
upon her bed sleepless, haunted by Jim's white face, amazed at the
magnificent madness of him, thrilled to her soul by the meaning of his
attack on Gulden, and tortured by a love that had grown immeasurably
full of the strength of these hours of suspense and the passion of this
wild border.

Even in her dreams Joan seemed to be bending all her will toward that
inevitable and fateful moment when she must stand before Jim Cleve. It
had to be. Therefore she would absolutely compel herself to meet it,
regardless of the tumult that must rise within her. When all had been
said, her experience so far among the bandits, in spite of the shocks
and suspense that had made her a different girl, had been infinitely
more fortunate than might have been expected. She prayed for this luck
to continue and forced herself into a belief that it would.

That night she had slept in Dandy Dale's clothes, except for the boots;
and sometimes while turning in restless slumber she had been awakened by
rolling on the heavy gun, which she had not removed from the belt. And
at such moments, she had to ponder in the darkness, to realize that
she, Joan Randle, lay a captive in a bandit's camp, dressed in a dead
bandit's garb, and packing his gun—even while she slept. It was such an
improbable, impossible thing. Yet the cold feel of the polished gun sent
a thrill of certainty through her.

In the morning she at least did not have to suffer the shame of getting
into Dandy Dale's clothes, for she was already in them. She found a
grain of comfort even in that. When she had put on the mask and sombrero
she studied the effect in her little mirror. And she again decided
that no one, not even Jim Cleve, could recognize her in that disguise.
Likewise she gathered courage from the fact that even her best girl
friend would have found her figure unfamiliar and striking where once
it had been merely tall and slender and strong, ordinarily dressed. Then
how would Jim Cleve ever recognize her? She remembered her voice that
had been called a contralto, low and deep; and how she used to sing the
simple songs she knew. She could not disguise that voice. But she need
not let Jim hear it. Then there was a return of the idea that he would
instinctively recognize her—that no disguise could be proof to a lover
who had ruined himself for her. Suddenly she realized how futile all
her worry and shame. Sooner or later she must reveal her identity to Jim
Cleve. Out of all this complexity of emotion Joan divined that what
she yearned most for was to spare Cleve the shame consequent upon
recognition of her and then the agony he must suffer at a false
conception of her presence there. It was a weakness in her. When death
menaced her lover and the most inconceivably horrible situation yawned
for her, still she could only think of her passionate yearning to have
him know, all in a flash, that she loved him, that she had followed him
in remorse, that she was true to him and would die before being anything
else.

And when she left her cabin she was in a mood to force an issue.

Kells was sitting at the table and being served by Bate Wood.

"Hello, Dandy!" he greeted her, in surprise and pleasure. "This's early
for you."

Joan returned his greeting and said that she could not sleep all the
time.

"You're coming round. I'll bet you hold up a stage before a month is
out."

"Hold up a stage?" echoed Joan.

"Sure. It'll be great fun," replied Kells, with a laugh. "Here—sit down
and eat with me.... Bate, come along lively with breakfast.... It's
fine to see you there. That mask changes you, though. No one can see how
pretty you are.... Joan, your admirer, Gulden, has been incapacitated
for the present."

Then in evident satisfaction Kells repeated the story that Joan had
heard Red Pearce tell the night before; and in the telling Kells
enlarged somewhat upon Jim Cleve.

"I've taken a liking to Cleve," said Kells. "He's a strange youngster.
But he's more man than boy. I think he's broken-hearted over some rotten
girl who's been faithless or something. Most women are no good, Joan. A
while ago I'd have said ALL women were that, but since I've known you I
think—I know different. Still, one girl out of a million doesn't change
a world."

"What will this J—jim C—cleve do—when he sees—me?" asked Joan, and
she choked over the name.

"Don't eat so fast, girl," said Kells. "You're only seventeen years old
and you've plenty of time.... Well, I've thought some about Cleve.
He's not crazy like Gulden, but he's just as dangerous. He's dangerous
because he doesn't know what he's doing—has absolutely no fear of
death—and then he's swift with a gun. That's a bad combination. Cleve
will kill a man presently. He's shot three already, and in Gulden's
case he meant to kill. If once he kills a man—that'll make him a
gun-fighter. I've worried a little about his seeing you. But I can
manage him, I guess. He can't be scared or driven. But he may be led.
I've had Red Pearce tell him you are my wife. I hope he believes it,
for none of the other fellows believe it. Anyway, you'll meet this
Cleve soon, maybe to-day, and I want you to be friendly. If I can steady
him—stop his drinking—he'll be the best man for me on this border."

"I'm to help persuade him to join your band?" asked Joan, and she could
not yet control her voice.

"Is that so black a thing?" queried Kells, evidently nettled, and he
glared at her.

"I—I don't know," faltered Joan. "Is this—this boy a criminal yet?"

"No. He's only a fine, decent young chap gone wild—gone bad for some
girl. I told you that. You don't seem to grasp the point. If I can
control him he'll be of value to me—he'll be a bold and clever and
dangerous man—he'll last out here. If I can't win him, why, he won't
last a week longer. He'll be shot or knifed in a brawl. Without my
control Cleve'll go straight to the hell he's headed for."

Joan pushed back her plate and, looking up, steadily eyed the bandit.

"Kells, I'd rather he ended his—his career quick—and went to—to—than
live to be a bandit and murderer at your command."

Kells laughed mockingly, yet the savage action with which he threw his
cup against the wall attested to the fact that Joan had strange power to
hurt him.

"That's your sympathy, because I told you some girl drove him out here,"
said the bandit. "He's done for. You'll know that the moment you see
him. I really think he or any man out here would be the better for my
interest. Now, I want to know if you'll stand by me—put in a word to
help influence this wild boy."

"I'll—I'll have to see him first," replied Joan.

"Well, you take it sort of hard," growled Kells. Then presently he
brightened. "I seem always to forget that you're only a kid. Listen! Now
you do as you like. But I want to warn you that you've got to get back
the same kind of nerve"—here he lowered his voice and glanced at
Bate Wood—"that you showed when you shot me. You're going to see some
sights.... A great gold strike! Men grown gold-mad! Woman of no more
account than a puff of cottonseed!... Hunger, toil, pain, disease,
starvation, robbery, blood, murder, hanging, death—all nothing,
nothing! There will be only gold. Sleepless nights—days of hell—rush
and rush—all strangers with greedy eyes! The things that made life
will be forgotten and life itself will be cheap. There will be only that
yellow stuff—gold—over which men go mad and women sell their souls!"

After breakfast Kells had Joan's horse brought out of the corral and
saddled.

"You must ride some every day. You must keep in condition," he said.
"Pretty soon we may have a chase, and I don't want it to tear you to
pieces."

"Where shall I ride?" asked Joan.