“COMPANY FOR EACH OTHER”
RUTH, weak and shaken from her struggle with the storm, stood in
bewildered amazement near the door. A man was facing her, in his hands a
rifle. He stood crouched and wary, like a wolf at bay.
The man was Falkner.
“Any more of you?” he demanded. Not for an instant had his eyes relaxed.
“No.”
“Sure of that?”
She nodded, too much exhausted for speech.
“Fine!” he went on, lowering his gun slowly. “We’ll be company for each
other. Better shut the door.”
Instead, she staggered forward to the table and put down the bundle of
shawls. Her arms were as heavy as though they were weighted. She sank
down on the long bench in front of the table.
Like many deserted mining cabins, this one still held the home-made
furniture the prospector had built with a hammer and a saw. In one
corner was a rusty old stove, just now red-hot from a crackling wood
fire.
“Storm-bound, I reckon,” suggested the man, watching her with narrowed
lids.
“Yes,” she panted. “Going home from Yerbys’.”
From outside came the shriek of the rising storm.
“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good, my dear,” he grinned, with a
flash of his broken teeth.
Ruth looked round at him, her steady eyes fixed in his. There came to
her a fugitive memory of meeting him on a hill trail with that look in
his eyes that was a sacrilege to her womanhood. She remembered once
before when he had used those words, “my dear.” Since then the wolf in
him had become full grown, fed by the horrors of his prison life. He was
a hunted creature. His hand was against society and its against him. The
bars that had restrained him in the old days were down. He was a
throwback to the cave man, and, what was worse, that primitive animal
with enemies hot on his trail.
If this adventure had befallen her two years earlier the terror-stricken
eyes of the girl would have betrayed her, the blood in her veins would
have chilled with horror. But she had learned to be captain of her soul.
Whatever fear she may have felt, none of it reached the surface.
A little wail rose from the bundle of shawls. Falkner, his nerves jumpy
from sleepless nights and the continuous strain of keeping his senses
alert, flashed a quick, suspicious look around the room.
Ruth turned and unloosened the wraps. The convict, taken by sheer
astonishment, moved forward a step or two.
“Well, I’ll be dog-goned! You got a kid in there,” he said slowly.
At sight of his mother the face of the youngster cleared. Through all
the fight with the storm, snug and warm in his nest, he had slept
peacefully. But now he had wakened, and objected to being half
smothered.
“Don’t you remember?” Ruth asked the man. “I told you I had a baby. Do
you think he is like me or Rowan?”
She walked straight to him, and held the baby up for his inspection.
Falkner murmured something that sounded like an oath. But it happened
that Rowan, junior, took to men. He smiled and stretched out his arms.
Before the outlaw could speak, before he could voice the sullen
rejection of friendliness that was in his mind, Ruth had pushed the boy
into his arms.
The soft little hands of the baby explored the rough face of the man.
Rowan, junior, beamed with delight.
“You da-da,” he announced confidently.
Ruth managed a little laugh. “He’s claiming you already, Mr. Falkner,
even though he doesn’t know that meeting you has probably saved our
lives.”
For years Falkner had fought his snarling way against those who held the
upper hand. Hatred and bitterness had filled his soul. But the contact
with this soft, helpless bit of gurgling humanity sent a queer thrill
through him. It was as if pink velvet of exquisite texture, breathing
delicious life, were rubbing itself against his cheek. But it was not
alone the physical sensation that reached him. Somehow the little
beggar, so absolutely sure of his welcome, twined those dimpled fingers
around the heartstrings of the callous man. Not since his mother’s death
had any human being come to him with such implicit trust. The Adam’s
apple in the convict’s throat shot up and registered emotion.
“The blamed little cuss! See him grab a-holt of my ear.”
Ruth left the baby in his arms, took off her coat, and walked to the
stove. She held out her hands and began to warm them.
“We were in the car,” she explained. “I took the high-line back because
I was afraid of the upper bridge. The machine stalled in a drift.”
“You don’t ask me how-come I’m here,” he growled.
“I know,” she said simply. “Art Philips dropped in to Yerbys’ and stayed
for dinner. He told us you escaped four days ago.”
“Did he tell you I killed a guard?”
“No. He said you wounded one.”
“First I knew he wasn’t dead. Wish I’d been more thorough. If ever a man
needed killing, he did.”
“They abused you a good deal, didn’t they?” she ventured.
He ripped out a sudden furious oath. “If ever I get a chance at two or
three of them——”
“Better not think of that now. The question is how you are going to get
away.”
“What’s that to you?” he demanded, his suspicions all alert.
“I thought if you’d come down to the Circle Diamond you could get a
horse. That would give you a much better chance.”
“And how do I know you wouldn’t ’phone to Matson?” he sneered.
She looked at him. “Don’t you know me better than that, Mr. Falkner?”
she said gently.
He mumbled what might be taken either for an apology or for an oath.
“That’s all right. I dare say I wouldn’t be very trustful myself if I
had been through what you have.” Ruth tossed him a smiling nod and
dismissed the subject. “But we’re not down at the ranch yet. How long is
this storm likely to last, Mr. Falkner?”
“It will blow itself out before morning. Too early in the season for it
to last. I reckon it’s only a one-day blizzard.”
“You don’t think there will be any trouble about getting down to-morrow,
do you?” she asked anxiously. “I’m not worried about myself, but I’ve
got to get food for Baby.”
“Depends on the snow,” he said sulkily. “If it keeps on, you can’t break
trail and carry the kid.”
“Perhaps you could go with me; then you could cut out a horse and ride
away after dark.”
“I don’t have to go down there. I can pick up a horse at Yerbys’.” He
added grudgingly in explanation: “Me for the hills. I don’t want to get
down into the valleys, where too many people are.”
At midnight the storm outside was still howling and the sleety snow was
beating against the window. The wind, coming straight from the divide
above, buffeted the snow clouds in front of it. Drifts sifted and
shifted as the snow whirled with the changing gusts.
The young mother, crouched behind the stove with her baby asleep across
her knees, drowsed at times and wakened again with a start to see
half-shuttered eyes shining across at her from the other side of the
fire. In the darkness of the night she was afraid. Those gleaming points
of light, always focused on her, were too suggestive of a beast of prey.
With that blizzard raging outside she was a thousand miles from help,
beyond the chance of human aid in case of need.
Again her instinct served Ruth well. She rose stiffly and carried the
baby across to the man.
“Would you mind holding him for a while? I’ve been still so long my
muscles are stiff and numb.”
Grudgingly Falkner took the baby, but as the warm body of the sleeping
child nestled close to him he felt once more that queer tug at his
heart. A couple of inches of the fat, pink little legs were exposed
where the dress had fallen back. The man’s rough forefinger touched the
soft flesh gently. To the appeal of this amazing miracle—a helpless
babe asleep in his arms—everything that was good and fine in him
responded. He had lived a harsh and bitter life, he had cherished hatred
and dwelt with his own evil imagination; but as he looked down and felt
the clutch of those small fingers on his wrist the devil that had been
in his eyes slowly vanished.
Ruth tramped the floor till the pin pricks and the numbness were gone
from her limbs. Then she returned to her place against the wall back of
the stove. Her eyes closed drowsily, opened again. She told herself that
she must not fall asleep—dare not. Falkner was sitting motionless with
Rowan in his arms, his whole attention on the child. The woman’s head
nodded. She struggled to shake off the sleep that was stealing over her.
When she wakened it was broad day. A slant of sunshine made a ribbon of
gold across the floor. Rowan was crying a little fretfully, and the
convict was dancing him up and down as a diversion from his hunger.