When Joan returned to consciousness she was lying half outside the opening of the cabin and above her was a drift of blue gun-smoke, slowly floating upward. Almost as swiftly as perception of that smoke came a shuddering memory. She lay still, listening. She did not hear a sound except the tinkle and babble and gentle rush of the brook. Kells was dead, then. And overmastering the horror of her act was a relief, a freedom, a lifting of her soul out of the dark dread, a something that whispered justification of the fatal deed.
She got up and, avoiding to look within the cabin, walked away. The sun was almost at the zenith. Where had the morning hours gone?
"I must get away," she said, suddenly. The thought quickened her. Down the canon the horses were grazing. She hurried along the trail, trying to decide whether to follow this dim old trail or endeavor to get out the way she had been brought in. She decided upon the latter. If she traveled slowly, and watched for familiar landmarks, things she had seen once, and hunted carefully for the tracks, she believed she might be successful. She had the courage to try. Then she caught her pony and led him back to camp.
"What shall I take?" she pondered. She decided upon very little—a blanket, a sack of bread and meat, and a canteen of water. She might need a weapon, also. There was only one, the gun with which she had killed Kells. It seemed utterly impossible to touch that hateful thing. But now that she had liberated herself, and at such cost, she must not yield to sentiment. Resolutely she started for the cabin, but when she reached it her steps were dragging. The long, dull-blue gun lay where she had dropped it. And out of the tail of averted eyes she saw a huddled shape along the wall. It was a sickening moment when she reached a shaking hand for the gun. And at that instant a low moan transfixed her.
She seemed frozen rigid. Was the place already haunted? Her heart swelled in her throat and a dimness came before her eyes. But another moan brought a swift realization—Kells was alive. And the cold, clamping sickness, the strangle in her throat, all the feelings of terror, changed and were lost in a flood of instinctive joy. He was not dead. She had not killed him. She did not have blood on her hands. She was not a murderer.
She whirled to look at him. There he lay, ghastly as a corpse. And all her woman's gladness fled. But there was compassion left to her, and, forgetting all else, she knelt beside him. He was as cold as stone. She felt no stir, no beat of pulse in temple or wrist. Then she placed her ear against his breast. His heart beat weakly.
"He's alive," she whispered. "But—he's dying.... What shall I do?"
Many thoughts flashed across her mind. She could not help him now; he would be dead soon; she did not need to wait there beside him; there was a risk of some of his comrades riding into that rendezvous. Suppose his back was not broken after all! Suppose she stopped the flow of blood, tended him, nursed him, saved his life? For if there were one chance of his living, which she doubted, it must be through her. Would he not be the same savage the hour he was well and strong again? What difference could she make in such a nature? The man was evil. He could not conquer evil. She had been witness to that. He had driven Roberts to draw and had killed him. No doubt he had deliberately and coldly murdered the two ruffians, Bill and Halloway, just so he could be free of their glances at her and be alone with her. He deserved to die there like a dog.
What Joan Randle did was surely a woman's choice. Carefully she rolled Kells over. The back of his vest and shirt was wet with blood. She got up to find a knife, towel, and water. As she returned to the cabin he moaned again.
Joan had dressed many a wound. She was not afraid of blood. The difference was that she had shed it. She felt sick, but her hands were firm as she cut open the vest and shirt, rolled them aside, and bathed his back. The big bullet had made a gaping wound, having apparently gone through the small of his back. The blood still flowed. She could not tell whether or not Kell's spine was broken, but she believed that the bullet had gone between bone and muscle, or had glanced. There was a blue welt just over his spine, in line with the course of the wound. She tore her scarf into strips and used it for compresses and bandages. Then she laid him back upon a saddle-blanket. She had done all that was possible for the present, and it gave her a strange sense of comfort. She even prayed for his life, and, if that must go, for his soul. Then she got up. He was unconscious, white, death-like. It seemed that his torture, his near approach to death, had robbed his face of ferocity, of ruthlessness, and of that strange amiable expression. But then, his eyes, those furnace-windows, were closed.
Joan waited for the end to come. The afternoon passed and she did not leave the cabin. It was possible that he might come to and want water. She had once administered to a miner who had been fatally crushed in an avalanche; and never could forget his husky call for water and the gratitude in his eyes.
Sunset, twilight, and night fell upon the canon. And she began to feel solitude as something tangible. Bringing saddle and blankets into the cabin, she made a bed just inside, and, facing the opening and the stars, she lay down to rest, if not to sleep. The darkness did not keep her from seeing the prostrate figure of Kells. He lay there as silent as if he were already dead. She was exhausted, weary for sleep, and unstrung. In the night her courage fled and she was frightened at shadows. The murmuring of insects seemed augmented into a roar; the mourn of wolf and scream of cougar made her start; the rising wind moaned like a lost spirit. Dark fancies beset her. Troop on troop of specters moved out of the black night, assembling there, waiting for Kells to join them. She thought she was riding homeward over the back trail, sure of her way, remembering every rod of that rough travel, until she got out of the mountains, only to be turned back by dead men. Then fancy and dream, and all the haunted gloom of canon and cabin, seemed slowly to merge into one immense blackness.
The sun, rimming the east wall, shining into Joan's face, awakened her. She had slept hours. She felt rested, stronger. Like the night, something dark had passed away from her. It did not seem strange to her that she should feel that Kells still lived. She knew it. And examination proved her right. In him there had been no change except that he had ceased to bleed. There was just a flickering of life in him, manifest only in his slow, faint heart-beats.
Joan spent most of that day in sitting beside Kells. The whole day seemed only an hour. Sometimes she would look down the canon trail, half expecting to see horsemen riding up. If any of Kells's comrades happened to come, what could she tell them? They would be as bad as he, without that one trait which had kept him human for a day. Joan pondered upon this. It would never do to let them suspect she had shot Kells. So, carefully cleaning the gun, she reloaded it. If any men came, she would tell them that Bill had done the shooting.
Kells lingered. Joan began to feel that he would live, though everything indicated the contrary. Her intelligence told her he would die, and her feeling said he would not. At times she lifted his head and got water into his mouth with a spoon. When she did this he would moan. That night, during the hours she lay awake, she gathered courage out of the very solitude and loneliness. She had nothing to fear, unless someone came to the canon. The next day in no wise differed from the preceding. And then there came the third day, with no change in Kells till near evening, when she thought he was returning to consciousness. But she must have been mistaken. For hours she watched patiently. He might return to consciousness just before the end, and want to speak, to send a message, to ask a prayer, to feel a human hand at the last.
That night the crescent moon hung over the canon. In the faint light Joan could see the blanched face of Kells, strange and sad, no longer seeming evil. The time came when his lips stirred. He tried to talk. She moistened his lips and gave him a drink. He murmured incoherently, sank again into a stupor, to rouse once more and babble tike a madman. Then he lay quietly for long—so long that sleep was claiming Joan. Suddenly he startled her by calling very faintly but distinctly: "Water! Water!"
Joan bent over him, lifting his head, helping him to drink. She could see his eyes, like dark holes in something white.
"Is—that—you—mother?" he whispered.
"Yes," replied Joan.
He sank immediately into another stupor or sleep, from which he did not rouse. That whisper of his—mother—touched Joan. Bad men had mothers just the same as any other kind of men. Even this Kells had a mother. He was still a young man. He had been youth, boy, child, baby. Some mother had loved him, cradled him, kissed his rosy baby hands, watched him grow with pride and glory, built castles in her dreams of his manhood, and perhaps prayed for him still, trusting he was strong and honored among men. And here he lay, a shattered wreck, dying for a wicked act, the last of many crimes. It was a tragedy. It made Joan think of the hard lot of mothers, and then of this unsettled Western wild, where men flocked in packs like wolves, and spilled blood like water, and held life nothing.
Joan sought her rest and soon slept. In the morning she did not at once go to Kells. Somehow she dreaded finding him conscious, almost as much as she dreaded the thought of finding him dead. When she did bend over him he was awake, and at sight of her he showed a faint amaze.
"Joan!" he whispered.
"Yes," she replied.
"Are you—with me still?"
"Of course, I couldn't leave you."
The pale eyes shadowed strangely, darkly. "I'm alive yet. And you stayed!... Was it yesterday—you threw my gun—on me?"
"No. Four days ago."
"Four! Is my back broken?"
"I don't know. I don't think so. It's a terrible wound. I—I did all I could."
"You tried to kill me—then tried to save me?"
She was silent to that.
"You're good—and you've been noble," he said. "But I wish—you'd only been bad. Then I'd curse you—and strangle you—presently."
"Perhaps you had best be quiet," replied Joan.
"No. I've been shot before. I'll get over this—if my back's not broken. How can we tell?"
"I've no idea."
"Lift me up."
"But you might open your wound," protested Joan.
"Lift me up!" The force of the man spoke even in his low whisper.
"But why—why?" asked Joan.
"I want to see—if I can sit up. If I can't—give me my gun."
"I won't let you have it," replied Joan. Then she slipped her arms under his and, carefully raising him to a sitting posture, released her hold.
"I'm—a—rank coward—about pain," he gasped, with thick drops standing out on his white face. "I can't—stand it."
But tortured or not, he sat up alone, and even had the will to bend his back. Then with a groan he fainted and fell into Joan's arms. She laid him down and worked over him for some time before she could bring him to. Then he was wan, suffering, speechless. But she believed he would live and told him so. He received that with a strange smile. Later, when she came to him with broth, he drank it gratefully.
"I'll beat this out," he said, weakly. "I'll recover. My back's not broken. I'll get well. Now you bring water and food in here—then go."
"Go?" she echoed.
"Yes. Don't go down the canon. You'd be worse off.... Take the back trail. You've got a chance to get out.... Go!"
"Leave you here? So weak you can't lift a cup! I won't."
"I'd rather you did."
"Why?"
"Because in a few days I'll begin to mend. Then I'll grow like—myself.... I think—I'm afraid I loved you.... It could only be hell for you. Go now, before it's too late!... If you stay—till I'm well—I'll never let you go!"
"Kells, I believe it would be cowardly for me to leave you here alone," she replied, earnestly. "You can't help yourself. You'd die."
"All the better. But I won't die. I'm hard to kill. Go, I tell you."
She shook her head. "This is bad for you—arguing. You're excited. Please be quiet."
"Joan Randle, if you stay—I'll halter you—keep you naked in a cave—curse you—beat you—murder you! Oh, it's in me!... Go, I tell you!"
"You're out of your head. Once for all—no!" she replied, firmly.
"You—you—" His voice failed in a terrible whisper....
In the succeeding days Kells did not often speak. His recovery was slow—a matter of doubt. Nothing was any plainer than the fact that if Joan had left him he would not have lived long. She knew it. And he knew it. When he was awake, and she came to him, a mournful and beautiful smile lit his eyes. The sight of her apparently hurt him and uplifted him. But he slept twenty hours out of every day, and while he slept he did not need Joan.
She came to know the meaning of solitude. There were days when she did not hear the sound of her own voice. A habit of silence, one of the significant forces of solitude, had grown upon her. Daily she thought less and felt more. For hours she did nothing. When she roused herself, compelled herself to think of these encompassing peaks of the lonely canon walls, the stately trees, all those eternally silent and changeless features of her solitude, she hated them with a blind and unreasoning passion. She hated them because she was losing her love for them, because they were becoming a part of her, because they were fixed and content and passionless. She liked to sit in the sun, feel its warmth, see its brightness; and sometimes she almost forgot to go back to her patient. She fought at times against an insidious change—a growing older—a going backward; at other times she drifted through hours that seemed quiet and golden, in which nothing happened. And by and by when she realized that the drifting hours were gradually swallowing up the restless and active hours, then strangely, she remembered Jim Cleve. Memory of him came to save her. She dreamed of him during the long, lonely, solemn days, and in the dark, silent climax of unbearable solitude—the night. She remembered his kisses, forgot her anger and shame, accepted the sweetness of their meaning, and so in the interminable hours of her solitude she dreamed herself into love for him.
Joan kept some record of days, until three weeks or thereabout passed, and then she lost track of time. It dragged along, yet looked at as the past, it seemed to have sped swiftly. The change in her, the growing old, the revelation and responsibility of serf, as a woman, made this experience appear to have extended over months.
Kells slowly became convalescent and then he had a relapse. Something happened, the nature of which Joan could not tell, and he almost died. There were days when his life hung in the balance, when he could not talk; and then came a perceptible turn for the better.
The store of provisions grew low, and Joan began to face another serious situation. Deer and rabbit were plentiful in the canon, but she could not kill one with a revolver. She thought she would be forced to sacrifice one of the horses. The fact that Kells suddenly showed a craving for meat brought this aspect of the situation to a climax. And that very morning while Joan was pondering the matter she saw a number of horsemen riding up the canon toward the cabin. At the moment she was relieved, and experienced nothing of the dread she had formerly felt while anticipating this very event.
"Kells," she said, quickly, "there are men riding up the trail."
"Good," he exclaimed, weakly, with a light on his drawn face. "They've been long in—getting here. How many?"
Joan counted them—five riders, and several pack-animals.
"Yes. It's Gulden."
"Gulden!" cried Joan, with a start.
Her exclamation and tone made Kells regard her attentively.
"You've heard of him? He's the toughest nut—on this border.... I never saw his like. You won't be safe. I'm so helpless.... What to say—to tell him!... Joan, if I should happen to croak—you want to get away quick... or shoot yourself."
How strange to hear this bandit warn her of peril the like of which she had encountered through him! Joan secured the gun and hid it in a niche between the logs. Then she looked out again.
The riders were close at hand now. The foremost one, a man of Herculean build, jumped his mount across the brook, and leaped off while he hauled the horse to a stop. The second rider came close behind him; the others approached leisurely, with the gait of the pack-animals.
"Ho, Kells!" called the big man. His voice had a loud, bold, sonorous kind of ring.
"Reckon he's here somewheres," said the other man, presently.
"Sure. I seen his hoss. Jack ain't goin' to be far from thet hoss."
Then both of them approached the cabin. Joan had never before seen two such striking, vicious-looking, awesome men. The one was huge—so wide and heavy and deep-set that he looked short—and he resembled a gorilla. The other was tall, slim, with a face as red as flame, and an expression of fierce keenness. He was stoop shouldered, yet he held his head erect in a manner that suggested a wolf scenting blood.
"Someone here, Pearce," boomed the big man.
"Why, Gul, if it ain't a girl!"
Joan moved out of the shadow of the wall of the cabin, and she pointed to the prostrate figure on the blankets.
"Howdy boys!" said Kells, wanly.
Gulden cursed in amaze while Pearce dropped to his knee with an exclamation of concern. Then both began to talk at once. Kells interrupted them by lifting a weak hand.
"No, I'm not going—to cash," he said. "I'm only starved—and in need of stimulants. Had my back half shot off."
"Who plugged you, Jack?"
"Gulden, it was your side-partner, Bill."
"Bill?" Gulden's voice held a queer, coarse constraint. Then he added, gruffly. "Thought you and him pulled together."
"Well, we didn't."
"And—where's Bill now?" This time Joan heard a slow, curious, cold note in the heavy voice, and she interpreted it as either doubt or deceit.
"Bill's dead and Halloway, too," replied Kells.
Gulden turned his massive, shaggy head in the direction of Joan. She had not the courage to meet the gaze upon her. The other man spoke:
"Split over the girl, Jack?"
"No," replied Kells, sharply. "They tried to get familiar with—MY WIFE—and I shot them both."
Joan felt a swift leap of hot blood all over her and then a coldness, a sickening, a hateful weakness.
"Wife!" ejaculated Gulden.
"Your real wife, Jack?" queried Pearce.
"Well, I guess, I'll introduce you... Joan, here are two of my friends—Sam Gulden and Red Pearce."
Gulden grunted something.
"Mrs. Kells, I'm glad to meet you," said Pearce.
Just then the other three men entered the cabin and Joan took advantage of the commotion they made to get out into the air. She felt sick, frightened, and yet terribly enraged. She staggered a little as she went out, and she knew she was as pale as death. These visitors thrust reality upon her with a cruel suddenness. There was something terrible in the mere presence of this Gulden. She had not yet dared to take a good look at him. But what she felt was overwhelming. She wanted to run. Yet escape now was infinitely more of a menace than before. If she slipped away it would be these new enemies who would pursue her, track her like hounds. She understood why Kells had introduced her as his wife. She hated the idea with a shameful and burning hate, but a moment's reflection taught her that Kells had answered once more to a good instinct. At the moment he had meant that to protect her. And further reflection persuaded Joan that she would be wise to act naturally and to carry out the deception as far as it was possible for her. It was her only hope. Her position had again grown perilous. She thought of the gun she had secreted, and it gave her strength to control her agitation and to return to the cabin outwardly calm.
The men had Kells half turned over with the flesh of his back exposed.
"Aw, Gul, it's whisky he needs," said one.
"If you let out any more blood he'll croak sure," protested another.
"Look how weak he is," said Red Pearce.
"It's a hell of a lot you know," roared Gulden. "I served my time—but that's none of your business.... Look here! See that blue spot!" Gulden pressed a huge finger down upon the blue welt on Kells's back. The bandit moaned. "That's lead—that's the bullet," declared Gulden.
"Wall, if you ain't correct!" exclaimed Pearce.
Kells turned his head. "When you punched that place—it made me numb all over. Gul, if you've located the bullet, cut it out."
Joan did not watch the operation. As she went away to the seat under the balsam she heard a sharp cry and then cheers. Evidently the grim Gulden had been both swift and successful.
Presently the men came out of the cabin and began to attend to their horses and the pack-train.
Pearce looked for Joan, and upon seeing her called out, "Kells wants you."
Joan found the bandit half propped up against a saddle with a damp and pallid face, but an altogether different look.
"Joan, that bullet was pressing on my spine," he said. "Now it's out, all that deadness is gone. I feel alive. I'll get well, soon.... Gulden was curious over the bullet. It's a forty-four caliber, and neither Bill Bailey nor Halloway used that caliber of gun. Gulden remembered. He's cunning. Bill was as near being a friend to this Gulden as any man I know of. I can't trust any of these men, particularly Gulden. You stay pretty close by me."
"Kells, you'll let me go soon—help me to get home?" implored Joan in a low voice.
"Girl, it'd never be safe now," he replied.
"Then later—soon—when it is safe?"
"We'll see.... But you're my wife now!"
With the latter words the man subtly changed. Something of the power she had felt in him before his illness began again to be manifested. Joan divined that these comrades had caused the difference in him.
"You won't dare—!" Joan was unable to conclude her meaning. A tight band compressed her breast and throat, and she trembled.
"Will you dare go out there and tell them you're NOT my wife?" he queried. His voice had grown stronger and his eyes were blending shadows of thought.
Joan knew that she dared not. She must choose the lesser of two evils. "No man—could be such a beast to a woman—after she'd saved his life," she whispered.
"I could be anything. You had your chance. I told you to go. I said if I ever got well I'd be as I was—before."
"But you'd have died."
"That would have been better for you..... Joan, I'll do this. Marry you honestly and leave the country. I've gold. I'm young. I love you. I intend to have you. And I'll begin life over again. What do you say?"
"Say? I'd die before—I'd marry you!" she panted.
"All right, Joan Randle," he replied, bitterly. "For a moment I saw a ghost. My old dead better self!... It's gone.... And you stay with me."