Part 35 (1/2)

As she went up the steps of the store with Cleve, Lola of the Golden Cloud, blazing like a comet in her red-and-black came face to face with her purposely. What was in Lola's head none would ever know, but she wanted to see Courtrey's wife.

As they met they stopped dead still, these two women who loved one man, and the look that pa.s.sed between them was electric, deep, revealing. They stood so long staring into each other's eyes that Cleve, frowning, plucked Ellen by the sleeve and made to push forward.

But as suddenly as a flash of light Lola reached out her two hands and caught Ellen's in a tight clasp that only women know, the swift, clinging clasp of the secret fellows.h.i.+p of those who suffer.

For one tense moment she held them, while Ellen swayed forward for all the world as if she would sink in upon the deep full breast of this wanton whom she had hated! Then the spell broke, they fell apart with a rush, Lola swung out and went down the steps, while Ellen obediently followed Cleve into Baston's store, where she sat on a nail keg and waited in a dull lethargy. Outside Courtrey, who had witnessed the thing from across the street, slapped his thigh and laughed uproariously.

It was a funny sight to him. But Lola's beautiful black eyes blazed across at him with a light that none had ever seen before in their inscrutable depths.

Then the hour struck, and all Corvan, it seemed to Cleve, strung out toward the Court House. This was to be in open court--a spectacle.

From somewhere in the adobe outskirts of the town came Ellen's serving women, most of them, whom Cleve had sent in early in the day. They fell in with her and so, with only the brother who had never failed her and these dusky women of the silent tongues to back her, Ellen Courtrey went to her crucifixion as truly as though she had been one of the two thieves on Golgotha.

At the sight of Courtrey across the big bare room she went whiter than she was, if such a thing were possible, and slid weakly into the chair placed for her.

Then the thing proceeded--swiftly, lightly, with smiles on the faces of the crowd.

Old Ben Garland on the judge's bench, was furtive, scared, nervous, fiddling with his papers and clearing his throat from time to time.

The county clerk at his table made a great deal out of the ceremony of swearing in the witnesses--Wylackie Bob, Black Bart, Arizona and one young Wylackie Indian woman who worked at the Stronghold. Cleve put up only the serving women whom he had sent in, some seven of them, every one of whom loved their mistress with the faithful fidelity of a dog. These women knew Ellen Courtrey as not even the master of the Stronghold himself knew her. They knew her in her idle hours, at her small tasks, at her bedside, in the loving solicitude she displayed for all of them--and they knew her on her knees in prayer, for Ellen had a strange and simple religion, half Catholic and half Pomo paganism.

In the straight-backed chair they gave her Ellen sat like a statue, sweet and still, a thing so obviously good that it seemed even Courtrey himself must weaken to behold her. But not Courtrey. He was on fire with the vision of Tharon Last on the Cup Rim's floor, shaking her fist toward him in challenge--at Baston's steps calling him a murderer and worse--at her western door, striking him from her with the strength of a man. He saw the signal fire flaring across the darkened Valley--and nothing on earth or in Heaven could have softened him to the woman who bound him away from this fighting girl, this gun woman whom he was breaking to him slowly but surely. He visioned her in Ellen's room at the Stronghold--and the breath came fast in his throat.

And Ellen?

Ah, Ellen was thinking of the long past day when this man had found her in the barren rocklands and taken her with the high hand of a lover. She, too, drifted away from the chilling courtroom with its judge and its petty officials.... And then all suddenly she knew that men were talking--and about her. She heard the drone of question and answer--the rambling statements of the stranger, Arizona, accusing her of strange things--of asking him to take her on rides in Courtrey's absence--of swinging with him nights in the hammock by the watering trough!

She sat and listened with parted lips and large innocent eyes fixed on the man in wonder. Cleve Whitmore clenched his hands until the nails cut deep, but he held his tongue and controlled his face. Only the blazing blue eyes spoke. She knew that Black Bart tried to tell something, that he made some mistake or other and had to begin all over again. There was a long and tedious time in here when she looked away out the window to where the prairie gra.s.s was blowing in the little winds and the shadows of clouds drifted across the green expanse.... She was numb and far away with misery. She did not care for anything in all this world. It seemed as if she was detached, aloof, dead already in body as she was in soul.... And then she heard the drawling voice of Wylackie Bob--and he was saying something unspeakable--about her! She listened like one in a trance--then she struggled up from her chair with tragic long arms extended, and the cry that rang from her lips was piteous.

”Buck!” it pealed across the stillness of the crowded room, ”Buck!--it ain't so! Never in this world, Buck! I ben true to you as your shadow!

Before G.o.d, it ain't true!”

There was a stir throughout the crowd, a breath that was audible.

There were many of the Vigilantes there--a goodly number, all wondering where Tharon Last was, where Kenset was, where were the riders from Last's. They had expected, what they did not know--something, at any rate, for this seemed somehow a test, a turning point. But there was nothing. They stirred and waited, like a great force heaving in its bed, blind, sluggish, but wakening.

And Ellen, chilled by Courtrey's sneering face, the cold disapproval of Ben Garland's striking mallet, sank back in her chair and covered her face with her shaking hands.... She heard some more awful things--then the voice of d.i.c.k Burtree beginning soft, low, silver like running waters. She heard it tell of that far away day of her marriage--of the years that followed--of Courtrey's love for her--of her own gentleness, her beauty, ”like the tender sunlight of spring on the snow and the golden sands”--of her service, her loyalty, her love that had ”never faltered nor intruded” that ”patient obedience to her master had but strengthened and made perfect.” Of the pitiful thing that her life had been this man made a wondrous thing, all sweet with twilights and haloed with service.

He talked until the courtroom was still as death and the Indian women behind her were rocking in unison of grief. Then she heard questions again and the gutteral soft voices of her women answering--with love and devotion in every halting word. Once again the crowd in the room stirred--and Courtrey's narrow eyes went over it in that cold, promising glance.

For once in his life Courtrey, the bully, felt a premonitory chill down his spine--because for the first time that promising glance of his failed of its effect! Only here and there along the rows of faces did one cower. There were faces, many faces, that looked back at him with steady eyes and tight lips.... Verily it was time he conquered the riding, shooting, beautiful she-devil who had made this thing possible! The sooner he got Tharon Last away from this bunch of sp.a.w.n the better. Then he would sweep in with all his old swift methods, only sharper ones this time, and ”clean” them all. When he got through it would be a different man's Valley, make no mistake about that!

Here Ellen looked straight into his eyes and both were conscious of the shock. Ellen wilted and Courtrey frowned and struck a fist against the railing near him.... He looked up and met the hesitating eyes of Ben Garland on the bench and his own hardened down to pin points.

The farce was finished save for the Judge's decision--d.i.c.k Burtree was slumped in his chair, dead drunk and asleep. Wylackie Bob was lighting a cigarette in his brown fingers, a smile on his evil mouth, his slow, black eyes covering the slim white form of Ellen in a speculative way, as if he dreamed of making true his blasphemous lies. Ellen was sweet as a flower in her open-lipped beauty, her panting despair. Wylackie did not notice the slim man beside her whose lips were so tight that they were a mere line across his face. No one at the Stronghold noticed Cleve much.

Then Ben Garland was speaking, and Ellen gathered her dim wits enough to make out that he was saying strange things--awful things--that had to do with Courtrey's freedom.