Part 25 (1/2)
Before Cinnabar Joe could fire again at the fleeing Purdy, his wife reached the door of the cabin and knocked his gun-barrel up so that the bullet sped harmlessly into the air. ”Don't! Don't Joe!” she screamed, ”he said--there was others, an' they'd----”
”I don't care a d.a.m.n what he said! If the others don't spill it, he will. It ain't no use, an' I'd ruther git it over with.”
Jennie noticed the dull hopelessness of the tone and her very soul seemed to die within her. ”Oh, what is it, Joe?” she faltered, ”what's Purdy got on you? What you gone an' done? Tell me, Joe!” The man laid the six-gun on the table and faced her with set lips. ”Wait!” she cried before he could speak, ”he said they was a woman--in the coulee. They'll be plenty of time to tell me, after you've got her here. Hurry! He said she'd rode a long ways. Chances is she ain't had nothin' to eat all day.
An' while you're gone I'll git things fixed for her.” Even as she talked, Jennie was busy at the stove, and without a word Cinnabar left the room, crossed the creek, and walked rapidly toward the mouth of the coulee.
”It ain't no use,” he repeated bitterly, ”but, I'll git Purdy first--or he'll git me!”
Back in the cabin Jennie completed her arrangements, and stepping to the door, stood with an arm against the jamb and allowed her eyes to travel slowly over the new horse corral and the unfinished stable. Joe's tools lay as he had left them when she had interrupted his work to give him the sandwich. Her fists clenched and she bit her lip to keep back the tears. The wind rustled the curtain in the window and she caught her breath in a great dry sob. ”It _is_ all a dream. It was too good to be true--oh--well.” A horse splashed through the creek and she saw Cinnabar coming toward her leading a blaze-faced buckskin. A woman was lashed in the saddle, her feet secured by means of a rope that pa.s.sed beneath the horse's belly, her hands lashed to the horn, and her body held in place by means of other strands of rope that pa.s.sed from horn to cantle. Her hat was gone and she sagged limply forward, her disarranged hair falling over her face to mingle with the mane of the horse. She looked like a dead woman. Hastening to meet them, Jennie pushed aside the hair and peered up into the white face: ”My Lord!” she cried, ”it's--it's her!”
Cinnabar stared: ”Do you know her?” he asked in surprise.
”Know her! Of course I know her! It's the pilgrim's girl--that he shot Purdy over. An' a pity he didn't kill him! That Tex Benton, he got 'em acrost the bad lands--an' I heard they got married over in Timber City.”
”Who Tex?”
”No, the pilgrim, of course! Get to work now an' cut them ropes an'
don't stand 'round askin' fool questions. Carry her in an' lay her on the bed, an' get the whisky, an' see if that water's boilin' an' pull off her boots, an' stick some more wood in the stove, an' then you clear out till I get her ondressed an' in bed!” And be it to the everlasting credit of Cinnabar Joe that he carried out these commands, each and several, in the order of their naming, and then he walked slowly toward the stable and sat down upon the newly hewn sill and rolled a cigarette.
His tools lay ready to his hand but he stared at them without enthusiasm. When the cigarette was finished he rolled another.
In the cabin Alice Endicott slowly opened her eyes. They swept the room wildly and fixed upon Jennie's face with a look of horror. ”There, deary, you're all right now,” Jennie patted her cheek rea.s.suringly: ”You're all right,” she repeated. ”Don't you remember me--Jennie Dodds, that was? At the Wolf River Hotel?”
Alice's lips moved feebly: ”It must have been a horrible dream--I thought I was tied up--and I broke loose and saw Long Bill and when I tried to get away there stood that horrible Purdy--and he said--” she closed her eyes and shuddered.
”I guess it wasn't no dream, at that. Purdy brung you here. But you're safe an' sound now, deary. Jest you wait till I feed you some of this soup. I'll guarantee you ain't et this noon--an' prob'ly all day.”
Jennie moved to the stove and returned a moment later with a cup of steaming soup. Supporting her in a sitting posture, she doled out the hot liquid by spoonfuls. Several times during the process Alice endeavoured to speak but each time Jennie soothed her to silence, and when the cup was finally emptied her eyes closed wearily and she sank back onto the pillow.
Presently her eyes opened: ”Where--where is Tex?” she asked, in a scarcely audible tone. ”Was he here, too?”
”Tex! You mean Tex Benton? Law! I don't know! He ain't be'n seen sence that night back in Wolf River.”
”He didn't drown--and he's--somewhere--after Purdy--” the voice trailed off into silence and at the bedside Jennie waited until the regular breathing told her that the girl had sunk into the deep sleep of utter exhaustion. Then, with a heavy heart, she turned and stepped from the cabin, closing the door softly behind her.
Out of the tail of his eye Cinnabar Joe saw his wife step from the doorway. Rising, hastily from the sill he seized his hammer and began to pound industriously upon a nail that had been driven home two days before. And as he pounded, he whistled. He turned at the sound of his wife's voice. She stood close beside him.
”Now, Joe Banks, don't you stand there an' whistle like a fool! They ain't no more a whistle in your heart than they is in mine!” There was a catch in her voice, and she sank down upon the sill. The whistling ceased, and with rough tenderness Cinnabar laid a hand on her shoulder:
”It's tough on you, girl--after gittin' such a good start. When I told you awhile back that there couldn't nothin' happen, I overlooked one bet--Purdy.”
”Oh, what is it, Joe? What's he got on you? Come, Joe, tell me all about it. I married you fer better or fer worse--I've took the better, an' I'd be a poor sport if I couldn't take the worse. Even if I didn't love you, Joe, I'd stick. But I do love you--no matter what you've got into. Tell me all about it, an' we'll work it out--you an' me. You ain't be'n rustlin' horses, have you? An' the bank stakin' us 'cause they trusted us to make good! Oh, Joe--you ain't! Have you Joe?”
The fingers tightened rea.s.suringly upon the woman's shoulder and rea.s.suring were the words with which he answered the appeal of the eyes that looked imploringly into his own:
”No, no, girl--not that. Not nothin' I've done sence--sence I growed up.
I've played the game square sence then.” The man seated himself beside her upon the sill: ”It's a long story an' starts back, let's see, I was seventeen then, an' now I'm twenty-six--nine years ago, it was, I was workin' over near Goldfield in a mine. Everything was wide open them days an' I was jest a fool kid, spendin' my wages fast as I got 'em, same as all the rest of the miners.
”Out of the riff-raff that worked there in the mines was four men I throw'd in with. They'd drifted in from G.o.d knows where, an' they'd all be'n cowpunchers, an' their talk run mostly to the open range. They was counted hard in a camp that was made up of hard men, an' they kep'
pretty much to theirselves. Somehow or other they kind of took a s.h.i.+ne to me, an' it wasn't long till the five of us was thick as thieves. When we'd be lickered up, makin' the rounds of the saloons, men would edge along an' give us room at the bar. They didn't want none of our meat; although we never made no gun-play, they always figgered we would.
”Bein' a kid, that way, it made me feel mighty big an' important to be jammin' around with 'em. Lookin' back at it now, from my experience on the other side of the bar, I know that if that bunch had drifted into a place I was runnin' I'd spot how my guns laid under the bar so's I could reach 'em without lookin', you bet!
”There was Old Pete Bradley, one-eyed, he was, an' he didn't have no teeth but false ones that clicked when he talked an' rattled when he et.