Part 22 (2/2)
”I got to. How should I be with this wound out there on the range?”
”I'll see to that, youngster. It's only a little way to La Soledad, and I'll get you through. It may hurt, but it's not so bad as being hanged.”
”I cayn't travel. We're due to be caught and killed. You go alone, Jim.”
”We go together and live, or we stay together and die. Take your choice, Curly.”
”Oh, I cayn't bear it--you don't understand!”
”I understand you're a little coward!”
”That's no dream.”
”You own to being a coward?”
”Yes. All these years I've tried to play the game, to be a boy, to live a boy's life, but now--I'd rather die, and get it finished.”
”Why?”
”I've been off my haid last night and all to-day. This pain has stampeded me, and I'm goin' crazy. To-night the pain is worse. I'll be making fool talk, giving myself away, and you'll find me out. It's better to own up than to be found out.”
”To own up what?”
”Oh, don't be hard on me, Jim! I tried so hard! I was born for a boy, I had to be a boy. Don't you see, girls was plumb impossible in a gang of robbers!”
”Have you gone mad?”
”Oh, you cayn't understand, and it's so hard to say.” Curly lay face downwards, hiding a shamed face. ”My mother must have made a mistake--I wasn't bawn for a boy.”
”Good gracious!”
”I had to be raised for a boy--it had to be done. What else was possible at the Robbers' Roost?”
”And you're not a boy!”
”G.o.d help me, I'm only a girl.”
”You, a girl?”
”Oh, don't be hard on me--it ain't my fault! I tried so hard to be a man--but I'm crazy with pain--and I wisht I was daid!”
”But I can't believe--it can't be true. Why, I've seen you ride--the first horseman in Arizona, scout, cowboy, desperado, wanted for robbery and murder--you a girl!”
”Have pity! Don't! Don't talk like that--I'm not so bad as you think--I never robbed--I never----”
”You killed men to save my life. Oh, Curly, I'm so sorry I talked like that--I take it all back. I must have been _loco_ to call you a coward--I wish I'd half your courage! I never knew a woman could be brave; my mother wasn't, and all the girls I've known--they weren't like you. Oh, the things you've seen me do, the things I've said--treating you no better than a boy. Can you ever forgive the way I treated you?”
One little hand stole out and touched him: ”Stop--talk no more.”
A _vaquero_ was singing for all he was worth in the guardroom, to the strum of a guitar, while hands clapped out the time--
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