CHAPTER XXX
HOPE FORLORN
There were hours in that night that each had reason long to remember;a night that seemed to bring them, in spite of their devotion, to theend of their dream. They parted late, each trying to soften the blowas it fell on the other, each professing a courage which, in the faceof the revelation, neither could clearly feel.
In the morning Jeffries brought down to de Spain, who had spent asleepless night at the office, a letter from Nan.
De Spain opened it with acute misgivings. Hardly able to believe hiseyes, he slowly read:
DEAREST:
A wild hope has come to me. Perhaps we don't know the truth of this terrible story as it really is. Suppose we should be condemning poor Uncle Duke without having the real facts? Sassoon was a wretch, Henry, if ever one lived--a curse to every one. What purpose he could serve by repeating this story, which he must have kept very secret till now, I don't know; but there was some reason. I _must_ know the whole truth--I feel that I, alone, can get hold of it, and that you would approve what I am doing if you were here with me in this little room, where I am writing at daybreak, to show you my heart.
Long before you get this I shall be speeding toward the Gap. I am going to Uncle Duke to get from him the exact truth. Uncle Duke is breaking--has broken--and now that the very worst has come, and we must face it, he will tell me what I ask. Whether I can get him to repeat this to you, to come to you, to throw himself on your pity, my dearest one, I don't know. But it is for this I am going to try, and for this I beg of your love--the love of which I have been so proud!--that you will let me stay with him until I at least learn everything and can bring the whole story to you. If I can bring him, I will.
And I shall be safe with him--perfectly safe. Gale has been driven away. Pardaloe, I know I can trust, and he will be under the roof with me. _Please, do not try to come to me._ It might ruin everything. Only forgive me, and I shall be back with what I hope for, or what I fear, very, very soon. Not till then can I bear to look into your eyes. You have a better right than anyone in the world to know the whole truth, cost what it may. Be patient for only a little while with
NAN.
It was Jeffries who said, afterward, he hoped never again to be thebearer of a letter such as that. Never until he had read and graspedthe contents of Nan's note had Jeffries seen the bundle of resourceand nerve and sinew, that men called Henry de Spain, go to pieces. Foronce, trouble overbore him.
When he was able to speak he told Jeffries everything. "It is myfault," he said hopelessly. "I was so crippled, so stunned, she musthave thought--I see it now--that I was making ready to ride out bydaybreak and shoot Duke down on sight. It's the price a man must pay,Jeffries, for the ability to defend himself against this bunch ofhold-up men and assassins. Because they can't get me, I'm a'gunman'----"
"No, you're not a 'gunman.'"
"A gunman and nothing else. That's what everybody, friends andenemies, reckon me--a gunman. You put me here to clean out thisCalabasas gang, not because of my good looks, but because I've been,so far, a fraction of a second quicker on a trigger than thesedouble-damned crooks.
"I don't get any fun out of standing for ten minutes at a time with asixty-pound safety-valve dragging on my heart, watching a man's eye tosee whether he is going to pull a gun on me and knock me down with aslug before I can pull one and knock him down. I don't care for thatkind of thing, Jeff. Hell's delight! I'd rather have a little ranchwith a little patch of alfalfa--enough alfalfa to feed a little bunchof cattle, a hundred miles from every living soul. What I would liketo do is to own a piece of land under a ten-cent ditch, and watch thewheat sprout out of the desert."
Jeffries, from behind his pipe, regarded de Spain's random talkcalmly.
"I do feel hard over my father's death," he went on moodily. "Whowouldn't? If God meant me to forget it, why did he put this mark on myface, Jeff? I did talk pretty strong to Nan about it on MusicMountain. She accused me then of being a gunman. It made me hot to beset down for a gunman by her. I guess I did give it back to her toostrong. That's the trouble--my bark is worse than my bite--I'm alwaysputting things too strong. I didn't know when I was talking to herthen that Sandusky and Logan were dead. Of course, she thought I was abutcher. But how could I help it?
"I did feel, for a long time, I'd like to kill with my own hands theman that murdered my father, Jeff. My mother must have realized thather babe, if a man-child, was doomed to a life of bloodshed. I've beentrying to think most of the night what she'd want me to do now. Idon't know what I _can_ do, or can't do, when I set eyes on that oldscoundrel. He's got to tell the truth--that's all I say now. If helies, after what he made my mother suffer, he ought to die like adog--no matter who he is.
"I don't want to break Nan's heart. What can I do? Hanging him here inSleepy Cat, if I could do it, wouldn't help her feelings a whole lot.If I could see the fellow--" de Spain's hands, spread before him onthe table, drew up tight, "if I could get my fingers on his throat,for a minute, and talk to him, tell him what I think of him--I mightknow what I would want to do--Nan might be there to see and judgebetween us. I'd be almost willing to leave things to her to settleherself. I only want what's right. But," the oath that recorded hisclosing threat was collected and pitiless, "if any harm comes to thatgirl now from this wild trip back among those wolves--God pity the menthat put it over. I'll wipe out the whole accursed clan, if I have toswing for it right here in Sleepy Cat!"
John Lefever, Jeffries, Scott in turn took him in hand to hold himduring three days, to restrain the fury of his resentment, and keephim from riding to the Gap in a temper that each of them knew wouldmean only a tragedy worse than what had gone before. Mountain-men whohappened in and out of Sleepy Cat during those three days remember howit seemed for that time as if the attention of every man and woman inthe whole country was fixed on the new situation that balked de Spain.They knew only that Nan had gone back to her people, not why she hadgone back; but the air was eager with surmise and rumor as to what hadhappened, and in this complete overturning of all de Spain's hopes,what would happen before the story ended.
Even three days of tactful representation and patient admonition fromcool-headed counsellors did not accomplish all they hoped for in deSpain's attitude. His rage subsided, but only to be followed by asettled gloom that they knew might burst into uncontrollable anger atany moment.
A report reached McAlpin that Gale Morgan was making ready to returnto Music Mountain with the remnant of Sandusky's gang, to make ademand on Duke for certain property and partnership adjustments. Thisrumor he telephoned to Jeffries. Before talking with de Spain,Jeffries went over the information with Lefever. The two agreed it wasright, in the circumstances, that de Spain should be nearer thanSleepy Cat to Nan. Moreover, the period of waiting she had enjoined onhim was almost complete.
Without giving de Spain the story fully, the two men talking beforehim let the discussion drift toward a proposal on his part to go downto Calabasas, where he could more easily keep track of any movement toor from the Gap, and this they approved. De Spain, already chafingunder a hardly endured restraint, lost no time in starting forCalabasas, directing Lefever to follow next day.
It added nothing to his peace of mind in the morning to learndefinitely from McAlpin that Gale Morgan, within twenty-four hours,had really disappeared from Calabasas. No word of any kind had comefrom Music Mountain for days. No one at Calabasas was aware even thatNan had gone into the Gap again. Bob Scott was at Thief River. DeSpain telephoned to him to come up on the early stage, and turned hisattention toward getting information from Music Mountain withoutviolating Nan's injunction not to frustrate her most delicate effortwith her uncle.
As a possible scout to look into her present situation and report onit, McAlpin could point only to Bull Page. Bull was a readyinstrument, but his present value as an assistant had become a matterof doubt, since practically
every man in the Gap had threatened withinthe week to blow his head off--though Bull himself felt no scruplesagainst making an attempt to reach Music Mountain and get back again.It was proposed by the canny McAlpin to send him in with a team andlight wagon, ostensibly to bring out his trunk, which, if it had notbeen fed to the horses, was still in Duke's barn. As soon as a rigcould be got up Page started out.
It was late November. A far, clear air drew the snow-capped rangessharply down to the eye of the desert--as if the speckless sky,lighted by the radiant sun, were but a monster glass rigged to trickthe credulous retina. De Spain, in the saddle in front of the barn,his broad hat brim set on the impassive level of the Western horseman,his lips seeming to compress his thoughts, his lines over his forearm,and his hands half-slipped into the pockets of his snug leather coat,watched Page with his light wagon and horses drive away.
Idling around the neighborhood of the barns in the saddle, de Spainsaw him gradually recede into the long desert perspective, theperspective which almost alone enabled the watcher to realize as hecurtained his eyes behind their long, steady lashes from the blazingsun, that it was a good bit of a way to the foot of the great outpostof the Superstition Range.
De Spain's restlessness prevented his remaining quietly anywhere forlong. As the morning advanced he cantered out on the Music Mountaintrail, thinking of and wishing for a sight of Nan. The deadly shock ofPardaloe's story had been dulled by days and nights of pain. Hisdeep-rooted love and his loneliness had quieted his impulse forvengeance and overborne him with a profound sadness. He realized howdifferent his feelings were now from what they had been when she kneltbefore him in the darkened room and, not daring to plead for mercyfor her uncle, had asked him only for the pity for herself that he hadseemed so slow to give. Something reproached him now for his coldnessat the moment that he should have thought of her suffering before hisown.
The crystal brightness of the day brought no elation to his thoughts.His attention fixed on nothing that did not revert to Nan and hishunger to see her again. If he regarded the majestic mountain beforehim, it was only to recall the day she had fed him at its foot, longbefore she loved him--he thought of that truth now--when he lay dyingon it. If the black reaches of the lava beds came within view, it wasonly to remind him that, among those desolate rocks, this simple,blue-eyed girl, frail in his eyes as a cobweb despite her gracefulstrength, had intrusted all her life and happiness to him, given herfresh lips to his, endured without complaint the headstrong ardor ofhis caresses and, by the pretty mockery of her averted eyes, provokedhis love to new adventure.
Memory seemed that morning as keen as the fickle air--so sharply didit bring back to him the overwhelming pictures of their happinesstogether. And out of his acute loneliness rose vague questionings andmisgivings. He said to himself in bitter self-reproach that she wouldnot have gone if he had been to her all he ought to have been in thecrisis of that night. If harm should befall her now! How the thoughtclutched and dragged at his heart. Forebodings tortured him, and inthe penumbra of his thoughts seemed to leave something he could notshake off--a vague, haunting fear, as if of some impending tragedythat should wreck their future.
It was while riding in this way that his eyes, reading mechanicallythe wagon trail he was aimlessly following--for no reason otherthan that it brought him, though forbidden, a little closer toher--arrested his attention. He checked his horse. Something, thetrail told him, had happened. Page had stopped his horses. Page hadmet two men on horseback coming from the Gap. After a parley--forthe horses had tramped around long enough for one--the wagon hadturned completely from the trail and struck out across the desert,north; the two horsemen, or one with a led horse, had started backfor the Gap.
All of this de Spain gathered without moving his horse outside acircle of thirty feet. What did it mean? Page might have fallen inwith cronies from the Gap, abandoned his job, and started for SleepyCat, but this was unlikely. He might have encountered enemies, beenpointedly advised to keep away from the Gap, and pretended to startfor Sleepy Cat, to avoid trouble with them. Deeming the second themore probable conclusion, de Spain, absorbed in his speculations,continued toward the Gap to see whether he could not pick up the trailof Page's rig farther on.
Within a mile a further surprise awaited him. The two horsemen, whohad headed for the Gap after stopping Page, had left the trail, turnedto the south, down a small draw, which would screen them from sight,and set out across the desert.
No trail and no habitation lay in the direction they had taken--and itseemed clearer to de Spain that the second horse was a led horse.There was a story in the incident, but his interest lay in followingPage's movements, and he spurred swiftly forward to see whether hismessenger had resumed the Gap trail and gone on with his mission. Hefollowed this quest almost to the mountains, without recovering anytrace of Page's rig. He halted. It was certain now that Page had notgone into the Gap.
Perplexed and annoyed, de Spain, from the high ground on which he sathis horse, cast his eyes far out over the desert. The brilliantsunshine flooded it as far as the eye could reach. He scanned thevast space without detecting a sign of life anywhere, though nonebetter than he knew that any abundance of it might be there. But hisgaze caught something of interest on the farthest northern horizon,and on this his scrutiny rested a long time. A soft brown curtain rosejust above the earth line against the blue sky. Toward the east itdied away and toward the west it was cut off by the Superstitionpeaks.
De Spain, without giving the weather signs much thought, recognizedtheir import, but his mind was filled with his own anxieties and herode smartly back toward Calabasas, because he was not at ease overthe puzzles in the trail. When he reached the depression where thehorsemen had, without any apparent reason, turned south, he halted.Should he follow them or turn north to follow Page's wanderings? IfPage had been scared away from the Gap, for a time, he probably had noinformation that de Spain wanted, and de Spain knew his cunning andpersistence well enough to be confident he would be back on the Gaproad, and within the cover of the mountains, before a storm shouldovertake him. On the north the brown curtain had risen fast andalready enveloped the farthest peaks of the range. Letting his horsestretch its neck, he hesitated a moment longer trying to decidewhether to follow the men to the south or the wagon to the north. Awoman might have done better. But no good angel was there to guide hisdecision, and in another moment he was riding rapidly to the southwith the even, brown, misty cloud behind him rolling higher into thenorthern sky.