26
Beauty Stanton threw a cloak over her bare shoulders and, hurriedlyleaving the house by the side entrance, she stood a moment, breathlessand excited, in the dark and windy street.
She had no idea why she halted there, for she wanted to run. But theinstant she got out into the cool night air a check came to action andthought. Strange sensations poured in upon her--the darkness, lonesomeand weird; the wailing wind with its weight of dust; the roar ofBenton's main thoroughfare; and the low, strange murmur, neither musicalnor mirthful, behind her, from that huge hall she called her home.Stranger even than these emotions were the swelling and aching of herheart, the glow and quiver of her flesh, thrill on thrill, deep, likebursting pages of joy never before experienced, the physical sense of atouch, inexplicable in its power.
On her bare breast a place seemed to flush and throb and glow. "Ah!"murmured Beauty Stanton. "That girl laid her face here--over myheart! What was I to do?" she murmured. "Oh yes--to find hersweetheart--Neale!" Then she set off rapidly, but if she had possessedwings or the speed of the wind she could not have kept pace with herthoughts.
She turned the corner of the main street and glided among the hurryingthrong. Men stood in groups, talking excitedly. She gathered that therehad been fights. More than once she was addressed familiarly, butshe did not hear what was said. The wide street seemed strange, dark,dismal, the lights yellow and flaring, the wind burdened, the dark tideof humanity raw, wild animal, unstable. Above the lights and the throngshovered a shadow--not the mantle of night nor the dark desert sky.
Her steps took familiar ground, yet she seemed not to know this Benton.
"Once I was like Allie Lee!" she whispered. "Not so many years ago."
And the dark tide of men, the hurry and din, the wind and dust, theflickering lights, all retreated spectral--like to the background ofa mind returned to youth, hope, love, home. She saw herself ateighteen--yes, Beauty Stanton even then, possessed of a beauty that washer ruin; at school, the favorite of a host of boys and girls; at home,where the stately oaks were hung with silver moss and the oldColonial house rang with song of sister and sport of brother, where asweet-faced, gentle-voiced mother--
"Ah... Mother!" And at that word the dark tide of men seemed to rise andswell at her, to trample her sacred memory as inevitably and brutally asit had used her body.
Only the piercing pang of that memory remained with Beauty Stanton. Shewas a part of Benton. She was treading the loose board-walk of the greatand vile construction camp. She might draw back from leer and touch, butnone the less was she there, a piece of this dark, bold, obscure life.She was a cog in the wheel, a grain of dust in the whirlwind, a morselof flesh and blood for the hungry maw of a wild and passing monster ofprogress.
Her hurried steps carried her on with her errand. Neale! She knewwhere to find him. Often she had watched him play, always regretfully,conscious that he did not fit there. His indifference had baffled her asit had piqued her professional vanity. Men had never been indifferent toher; she had seen them fight for her mocking smiles. But Neale! He hadbeen stone to her charm, yet kind, gracious, deferential. Always shehad felt strangely shamed when he stood bareheaded before her. BeautyStanton had foregone respect. Yet respect was what she yearned for. Theinstincts of her girlhood, surviving, made a whited sepulcher of herpresent life. She could not bear Neale's indifference and she had failedto change it. Her infatuation, born of that hot-bed of Benton life,had beaten and burned itself to destruction against a higher and betterlove--the only love of her womanhood. She would have slaved for him. Buthe had passed her by, absorbed with his own secret, working toward somefateful destiny, lost, perhaps, like all the others there.
And now she learned that the mystery of him--his secret--was the sameold agony of love that sent so many on endless, restless roads--AllieLee! and he believed her dead!
After all the bitterness, life had moments of sweetest joy. Fate wasbeing a little kind to her--Beauty Stanton. It would be from her lipsNeale would hear that Allie Lee was alive--Beauty Stanton's soul seemedto soar with the realization of how that news would uplift Neale, crazehim with happiness, change his life, save him. He was going to hearthe blessed tidings from a woman whom he had scorned. Always afterward,then, he would think of Beauty Stanton with a grateful heart. She was tobe the instrument of his salvation. Hough and Ancliffe had died to saveAllie Lee from the vile clutch of Benton but to Beauty Stanton, thewoman of ill-fame, had been given the power. She gloried in it. AllieLee was safely hidden in her house. The iniquity of her establishmentfurnished a haven for the body and life and soul of innocent Allie Lee.Beauty Stanton marveled at the strange ways of life. If she could haveprayed, if she had ever dared to hope for some splendid duty, someatonement to soften the dark, grim ending of her dark career, itwould not have been for so much as fate had now dealt to her. She wasoverwhelmed with her opportunity.
All at once she reached the end of the street. On each side the wallof lighted tents and houses ceased. Had she missed her way--gone downa side street to the edge of the desert? No. The rows of lights behindassured her this was the main street. Yet she was far from the railroadstation. The crowds of men hurried by, as always. Before her reacheda leveled space, dimly lighted, full of moving objects, and noise ofhammers and wagons, and harsh voices. Then suddenly she remembered.
Benton was being evacuated. Tents and houses were being taken down andloaded on trains to be hauled to the next construction camp. Benton'sday was done! This was the last night. She had forgotten that theproprietor of her hall, from whom she rented it, had told her that earlyon the morrow he would take it down section by section, load it onthe train, and put it together again for her in the next town. Inforty-eight hours Benton would be a waste place of board floors, nakedframes, debris and sand, ready to be reclaimed by the desert. It wouldbe gone like a hideous nightmare, and no man would believe what hadhappened there.
The gambling-hell where she had expected to find Neale had vanished,in a few hours, as if by magic. Beauty Stanton retraced her steps. Shewould find Neale in one of the other places--the Big Tent, perhaps.
This hall was unusually crowded, and the scene had the number ofmen, though not the women and the hilarity and the gold, that wascharacteristic of pay-day in Benton. All the tables in the gambling-roomwere occupied.
Beauty Stanton stepped into this crowded room, her golden headuncovered, white and rapt and strangely dark-eyed, with all the beautyof her girlhood returned, and added to it that of a woman transformed,supreme in her crowning hour. As a bad woman, infatuated and piqued, shehad failed to allure Neale to baseness; now as a good woman, with puremotive, she would win his friendship, his eternal gratitude.
Stanton had always been a target for eyes, yet never as now, when shedrew every gaze like a dazzling light in a dark room.
As soon as she saw Neale she forgot every one else in that hall. Hewas gambling. He did not look up. His brow was somber and dark.She approached--stood behind him. Some of the players spoke to her,familiarly, as was her bitter due. Then Neale turned apparently to bowwith his old courtesy. Thrill on thrill coursed over her. Always he hadshowed her respect, deference.
Her heart was full. She had never before enjoyed a moment like this. Shewas about to separate him from the baneful and pernicious life of thecamps--to tender him a gift of unutterable happiness--to give all of himback to the work of the great railroad.
She put a trembling hand on his shoulder--bent over him. "Neale--comewith me," she whispered.
He shook his head.
"Yes! Yes!" she returned, her voice thrilling with emotion.
Wearily, with patient annoyance, he laid down his cards and looked up.His dark eyes held faint surprise and something that she thought mightbe pity.
"Miss Stanton--pardon me--but please understand--No!"
Then he turned and, picking up his cards, resumed the game.
Beauty Stanton suffered a sudden vague check. It was as if a coldthought was trying to enter a
warm and glowing mind. She found speechdifficult. She could not get off the track of her emotional flight. Herwoman's wit, tact, knowledge of men, would not operate.
"Neale!... Come with--me!" she cried, brokenly. "There's--"
Some men laughed coarsely. That did not mean anything to Stanton untilshe saw how it affected Neale. His face flushed red and his handsclenched the cards.
"Say, Neale," spoke up this brutal gamester, with a sneer, "never mindus. Go along with your lady friend... You're ahead of the game--as Ireckon she sees."
Neale threw the cards in the man's face; then, rising, he bent over toslap him so violently as to knock him off his chair.
The crash stilled the room. Every man turned to watch.
Neale stood up, his right arm down, menacingly. The gambler arose,cursing, but made no move to draw a weapon.
Beauty Stanton could not, to save her life, speak the words she wantedto say. Something impeding, totally unexpected, seemed to have arisen.
"Neale--come with--me!" was all she could say.
"No!" he declared, vehemently, with a gesture of disgust and anger.
That, following the coarse implication of the gambler, conveyed toStanton what all these men imagined. The fools! The fools! A hotvibrating change occurred in her emotion, but she controlled it. Nealeturned his back upon her. The crowd saw and many laughed. Stanton feltthe sting of her pride, the leap of her blood. She was misunderstood,but what was that to her? As Neale stepped away she caught his arm--heldhim while she tried to get close to him so she could whisper. He shookher off. His face was black with anger. He held up one hand in a gesturethat any woman would have understood and hated. It acted powerfully uponBeauty Stanton. Neale believed she was importuning him. To him her look,whisper, touch had meant only the same as to these coarse human animalsgaping and grinning as they listened. The sweetest and best and mostexalted moment she had ever known was being made bitter as gall,sickening, hateful. She must speak openly, she must make him understand.
"Allie Lee!... At my house!" burst out Stanton, and then, as if struckby lightning she grew cold, stiff-lipped.
The change in Neale was swift, terrible. Not comprehension, but passiontransformed him into a gray-faced man, amazed, furious, agonized, actingin seeming righteous and passionate repudiation of a sacrilege.
"------!" His voice hurled out a heinous name, the one epithet thatcould inflame and burn and curl Beauty Stanton's soul into hellishrevolt. Gray as ashes, fire-eyed, he appeared about to kill her. Hestruck her--hard--across the mouth.
"Don't breathe that name!"
Beauty Stanton's fear suddenly broke. Blindly she ran out into thestreet. She fell once--jostled against a rail. The lights blurred; thestreet seemed wavering; the noise about her filtered through deadenedears; the stalking figures before her were indistinct and unreal.
"He struck me! He called me------!" she gasped. And the exaltation ofthe last hour vanished as if it had never been. All the passion of herstained and evil years leaped into ascendency. "Hell--hell! I'll havehim knifed--I'll see him dying! I'll wet my hands in his blood! I'llspit in his face as he dies!"
So she gasped out, staggering along the street toward her house. Thereis no flame of hate so sudden and terrible and intense as that ofthe lost woman. Beauty Stanton's blood had turned to vitriol. Men hadwronged her, ruined her, dragged her down into the mire. One by one,during her dark career, the long procession of men she had known hadeach taken something of the good and the virtuous in her, only to leavebehind something evil in exchange. She was what they had made her. Hersoul was a bottomless gulf, black and bitter as the Dead Sea. Her heartwas a volcano, seething, turgid, full of contending fires. Her body wasa receptacle into which Benton had poured its dregs. The weight of allthe iron and stone used in the construction of the great railroad wasthe burden upon her shoulders. These dark streams of humanity passingher in the street, these beasts of men, these hairy-breasted toilers,had found in her and her kind the strength or the incentive to endure,to build, to go on. And one of them, stupid, selfish, merciless, a manwhom she had really loved, who could have made her better, to whom shehad gone with only hope for him and unselfish abnegation for herself--hehad put a vile interpretation upon her appeal, he had struck her beforea callous crowd, he had called her the name for which there was nopardon from her class, a name that evoked all the furies and the powersof hell.
"Oh, to cut him--to torture him--to burn him alive... But it would notbe enough!" she panted.
And into the mind that had been lately fixed in happy consciousness ofher power of good there flashed a thousand scintillating, corruscatinggleams of evil thought. And then came a crowning one, an inspirationstraight from hell.
"By God! I'll make of Allie Lee the thing I am! The thing he struck--thething he named!"
The woman in Beauty Stanton ceased to be. All that breathed, in thathour, was what men had made her. Revenge, only a word! Murder, nothing!Life, an implacable, inexplicable, impossible flux and reflux ofhuman passion! Reason, intelligence, nobility, love, womanhood,motherhood--all the heritage of her sex--had been warped by false andabnormal and terrible strains upon her physical and emotional life. Notigress, no cannibal, no savage, no man, no living creature except awoman of grace who knew how far she had fallen could have been capableof Beauty Stanton's deadly and immutable passion to destroy. Thus lifeand nature avenged her. Her hate was immeasurable. She who could havewalked naked and smiling down the streets of Benton or out upon thebarren desert to die for the man she loved had in her the inconceivableand mysterious passion of the fallen woman; she could become a flame,a scourge, a fatal wind, a devastation. She was fire to man; to her ownsex, ice. Stanton reached her house and entered. Festivities in honorof the last night of Benton were already riotously in order. She placedherself well back in the shadow and watched the wide door.
"The first man who enters I'll give him this key!" she hissed.
She was unsteady on her feet. All her frame quivered. The lights in thehall seemed to have a reddish tinge. She watched. Several men passedout. Then a tall, stalking form appeared, entering.
A ball of fire in Stanton's breast leaped and burst. She had recognizedin that entering form the wildest, the most violent and the mostdangerous man in Benton--Larry Red King.
Stanton stepped forward and for the first time in the cowboy's presenceshe did not experience that singular chill of gloom which he was wont toinspire in her.
Her eyes gloated over King. Tall, lean, graceful, easy, with his flushedruddy face and his flashing blue eyes and the upstanding red hair, helooked exactly what he was--a handsome red devil, fearing no man orthing, hell-bent in his cool, reckless wildness.
He appeared to be half-drunk. Stanton was trained to read the faces ofmen who entered there; and what she saw in King's added the last andcrowning throb of joy to her hate. If she had been given her pick ofthe devils in Benton she would have selected this stalking, gun-packingcowboy.
"Larry, I've a new girl here," she said. "Come."
"Evenin', Miss--Stanton," he drawled. He puffed slightly, after themanner of men under the influence of liquor, and a wicked, boyish,heated smile crossed his face.
She led him easily. But his heavy gun bumped against her, giving herlittle cold shudders. The passage opened into a wide room, which in turnopened into her dancing-hall. She saw strange, eager, dark facesamong the men present, but in her excitement she did not note themparticularly. She led Larry across the wide room, up a stairway toanother hall, and down this to the corner of an intersecting passageway.
"Take--this--key!" she whispered. Her hand shook. She felt herself tobe a black and monstrous creature. All of Benton seemed driving her.She was another woman. This was her fling at a rotten world, her slapin Neale's face. But she could not speak again; her lips failed. Shepointed to a door.
She waited long enough to see the stalking, graceful cowboy halt infront of the right door. Then she fled.