THE END OF HER STRATAGEM
For some minutes there was no speech, no sound except the swift beat
of the horses' hoofs on the hard roadway, and the crisp crunching of
wheels in the sand. Marion sat rigid, staring straight in front of
her, yet seeing nothing. Dazed and benumbed, her thoughts were in a
hopeless tangle, without beginnings, without ends. How she had bungled
the whole thing! And she might have been so happy, there at his side.
Twilight was coming on in the serene, clear beauty of the mountains:
the distant peaks glowed like great opals in the sundown hues; there
was an indescribable sweetness in the air, something magical in the
soft but cold night breeze that began to pour down upon the valley
from the eternal snows.
Timidly, out of the corner of her eye, Marion glanced at Haig, and saw
that he was gazing steadily at the changing colors on the distant
range. But there was no beauty for her in that perfect panorama. The
fire had gone out of her, and she was shivering. He must have felt her
movement, for suddenly he leaned forward, lifted the edge of the heavy
lap-robe that had lain neglected at their feet, and tucked it around
her. She drew back with a quick intake of breath as his face was for
an instant close to her own. A moment later he began to speak in a
tone that surprised and encouraged her, so little did it resemble the
tones he had employed before. It was as if nothing had happened, as if
they had long been talking of things casual, impersonal to them both.
"It's different in the San Luis," he said. "There's red down there.
Nature's palette is a little short of red in this valley. Too much
blue. Even nature sometimes gets a one-color obsession, like the
painters. Here she's gone off on blue. It's the most dangerous color.
Darwin says it was the last color produced in nature's laboratory.
Ordinarily it's the least common in flowers and birds and insects.
Hearn--Have you read Lafcadio Hearn? No? But you ought to, that is, if
you care for such things. He goes after blue--the misuse of it. He
says it's the color most pleasureable to the eye in its purest
intensity. But you mustn't dab it on. A blue house is a crime. Blue's
overdone here too, blue sky, blue mists, blue shadows, blue lakes,
blue flowers,--anemones, harebells, columbines and the rest. It's a
relief to get into the reds of the San Luis--"
"Where Sunnysides came from!" interrupted Marion, eager despite her
misery.
"Yes."
"Tell me about him, please!"
She wanted him to continue in that strain, and even Sunnysides was a
less dangerous subject than--another.
"Well, about Sangre de Cristo first. That's a great range that stands
up high and white along the east. Sangre de Cristo is Spanish for
Blood of Christ. I can see those pious old rascal adventurers
uncovering their blessed heads when they first glimpsed it. At sunset
it takes the color--not always, not often, in fact, perhaps a dozen
times a year. There are days and days when the range is only white and
cold, days when it's black with storms, and days when it's dismal
gray. Then there comes an evening when the sun goes down red behind
the San Juan, and the snows on Sangre de Cristo run like blood. The
whole world, for a few minutes, seems to halt and stand still in awe
at that weird and mysterious spectacle--trainmen setting the brakes on
squealing ore trains on Marshall Pass, and miners coming out of their
tunnels above Creed all stop and look; Mexican sheep-herders in
Conejos pause to cross themselves; ranchmen by their lonely corrals up
and down the San Luis, and cowboys in the saddle on the open
range--all spellbound. It gives you a strange feeling--something that
goes back to the primitive instincts of mankind--something of
reverence, something of wonder, something of fear--the fear that the
first men had when they gazed on the phenomena they could not
understand, and began to make their myths and their religions.
Primitive superstition, primitive terror will never quite down in us,
no matter how wise and practical we become. There's always, in
beauty--in sheer beauty something terrifying, as well as something
sad. But--do I bore you with my dithyrambs?"
"No! No!" she exclaimed.
"The scene couldn't have been set better for that spectacle. There's a
green strip along the river, then bare sagebrush flats, and beyond the
flats are sand dunes where nothing grows but cactus and mesquite, and
here and there some tufts of grass as tough and dry as wire. In summer
the dunes are a parched and blistered inferno. In October they are
raw gray desolation. I don't want to know what they are like in
winter. The wind never ceases there. It builds the dunes into new
shapes every day, and the sagebrush is always bent and lopsided and
torn, and the colors are the gray and brown of the world's secret
tragedy. But when the red sunset is on the dunes there's nothing I
have ever seen so wild and passionate and beautiful.
"It was late in the autumn. I rode out of a deep arroya, and came,
without warning, into all that weird and solemn glory. There was a
cold gush of air from up the valley. Far in the north were purple
patches on the flats, and violet shadows in the foothills. But the
dunes were all vermilion, and I can't tell you what hue of red lay
spread out deep and vivid on the Sangre de Cristo peaks,--a living,
passionate, terrible blood-red. I'm not very devout, but I tell you
candidly that I reined up my horse, took off my hat, and sat there
gazing, with the queerest feelings, and saying, like the old
Spaniards, 'Sangre de Cristo! Blood of Christ!'
"Then something queer happened to me. You've seen a flash of sunlight
reflected from a window, far off? Well, it wasn't like that, except in
the sharpness of its effect. And I knew there was no house in all that
waste of sand. It was just a flash, and was gone. I searched the
horizon, and saw nothing but red dunes, and little puffs of sand
kicked up by the rising wind. Must have been some trick of vision, I
thought, and I looked away again toward the blood-red peaks. And there
it was again, in the corner of my eye. But it was gone when I tried to
fix it. I put spurs to my horse, and rode toward the dunes, and caught
the flash again--just a bright yellow speck in the darkening
vermilion. It came and went, and seemed then to have been lost
completely. I was about convinced that the red sunset had gone to my
head--that I was following something that existed only in my brain.
"Then, as I loped up to the top of a dune--there he stood, on another
dune, perhaps two hundred yards away. His golden hide reflected the
red glow like polished metal, his mane flamed in the wind. You cannot
possibly imagine the effect of it, in that unreal light, in that
setting of desolation, with the crimson mountains behind him. He stood
alone on the hill, with his head high, motionless as a statue. For as
long as half a minute he let me look at him. Then he turned, and was
gone like a flash of fire. I had just one more glimpse of him, flying
over the dunes, and followed by a score or more of wild horses of all
colors except his color, and none worth looking at. With him the red
went out of the landscape, the peaks turned white, and I sat alone in
the gray, raw twilight. But right there I made up my mind about one
thing: I must have that horse. You know the rest."
"But what do you mean to do with him?" asked Marion, vaguely
troubled.
"Ride him."
"Don't!" she gasped.
"Why not?" he demanded.
"He'll kill you!"
Haig laughed.
"Oh, I think not!"
"But what is the use?"
"What's the use of anything?"
"But it's--"
"Mere folly, you think?"
"Yes."
"Now you don't mean that at all, Miss Gaylord. You know perfectly well
that if I were doing it to please you--to win your admiration--you
wouldn't call it folly."
"You will please me--and win my admiration--if you don't do it.
Please!"
"But I don't want--You'll pardon me?--I don't want to win your
admiration."
What could she say to that? There was a moment of silence.
"When?" she asked quietly.
"I'm waiting for Farrish, my foreman. He's the only man I can
absolutely depend upon. He's in Omaha. He'll be back next week."
"And you won't begin without him?"
"No."
She had no choice but to be satisfied with a few days of grace.
Moreover, something might happen before the return of Farrish; the
outlaw might escape, or she might find another opportunity to plead
with Haig, or--What was she thinking of? Something was going to
happen that very evening; and she had almost forgotten it, in her
absorption!
She had meant to do, long before now, what he had prevented her doing
at the stable,--to confess her deception, to plead for mercy, to beg
him to go back. Failing in that, there was Tuesday trotting behind the
trap; she could leap out, prove to Haig that her foot was uninjured,
and insist upon riding home alone. But now the confession seemed ten
times more difficult than it had seemed in the first flush of her
resolution. They were far up the Brightwater by this time; a few
minutes more would bring them to the branch road that led to
Huntington's. Yet how could she tell him?
"My foot doesn't hurt any more," she began, compromising with her
resolution.
"That's because you've been sitting still," he replied.
"But it doesn't hurt when I move it. See!"
She lifted the foot, and rested it on the dashboard, bending and
twisting it.
"By which you mean to tell me that I am to go back," he said.
"Please!"
"No!" he answered curtly.
"It wasn't badly sprained at all," she persisted. "I was only--" She
caught herself, with a shock. "I was only frightened, I think."
"I don't believe you."
"But it's the truth."
"Then it was not the truth in the first place."
There it was now, her best occasion to come out with it. But no; she
could not.
"It's not so bad as I feared," she stammered.
"I trust not. A sprain is a bad business."
"But you'll go back now!" she pleaded.
"No."
"Oh, why won't you?"
"I've started."
"That's not the reason!" she cried desperately.
"True, there's another reason. That makes two."
"What other reason?"
"I want to ask Huntington about his health."
The deviltry had come back into his voice; and just ahead of them she
saw the fork of the road.
"There's a third reason too, I'm afraid," she answered bitterly.
"What's that, do you think?"
"You want to punish me!"
"Perhaps--a little."
"Do you think that's--"
"Noble? Manly? Kind? Generous?" he broke in.
"Do you really think it's worth your while to punish me?" she asked
with passionate irony.
"Yes."
"But why?"
"Because I hope to be let alone hereafter."
At that her anger rose.
"Do you think that is the way a man should speak to a woman?"
"It seems to be the only way to make a woman understand. And even
then--"
She felt that he shrugged his shoulders in the darkness.
"Then I'm sorry for the women you have known!" she retorted.
"That should make it all the easier for you to avoid any more
accidents in my part of the Park," he answered unperturbed. "It's your
own fault if I'm rude. I haven't forced my attentions upon you. If you
feel that you've been mistreated, there's another reason--that makes
four, doesn't it?--for my going to Huntington's. We'll be there in
five minutes. You can tell him."
She could find no answer to all this. Brutal as it was, she knew that
she had deserved it. Her anger fell away, for she had found already
that she could not be angry with him long; and now, even in her
torment, she began to be sorry for him, wondering what he had passed
through that had so hardened and embittered him.
But the team had turned into the branch road; and she must act at
once. There remained but one thing for her to do: to leap out of the
trap, and refuse to go farther with him. On the thought, she measured
the distance to the ground, the speed of the trotting sorrels. Perhaps
she moved a little. Or had he actually read her thoughts? For
suddenly, but very quietly, he laid a hand on her shoulder.
"No!" he said. "You might really hurt yourself this time."
She sank back in dismay, but with a thrill of admiration. What was
this man, who knew her thoughts before she herself knew them, who
mastered her--and despised her? She trembled, and was glad of the
night that concealed her flushed face from him. As for her purpose,
she was at the end of her resources. No confession, no plea would
avail to shake his determination. She could do no more; and judgment
was upon her--soon.
"Hold the reins, please!" commanded Haig.
He leaped out of the trap, opened the gate, and closed it when he had
led the sorrels through. Then he climbed into the trap, and drove on.
There was no moon. The ranch buildings lay huddled and indistinct in
the dim starlight.
At the sound of the hoofs and wheels a man emerged from the stable,
bearing a lantern. He hurried up to them, stumbling sleepily, and
peering at the figures vaguely seen in the gloom.
"Here, Williams!" Haig said shortly. "Hold my team, will you! I'll be
only a few minutes."
The lantern fell from the man's hand, struck the ground with a
clatter, and lay on its side, flaming and smoking.
"Pick it up!" ordered Haig.
The man obeyed, with the suddenness of a jack-in-the-box, and stood as
if petrified.
"Quick! The horses! They're no damned broncos!"
Williams jumped to the bridles; and a gleam from the lantern showed
Marion his face. His mouth was open, his eyes staring with incredulity
and alarm. She was seized with a preposterous desire to laugh at that
comical visage, made grotesque by the wavering light of the lantern
that danced in the fellow's hand. She was on the verge of hysteria.
Haig leaped out, and held up his arms for her, snapping his fingers
impatiently. In almost complete inertia, yet with every nerve
quivering, she let him help her to the ground, where he placed her arm
in his, and started toward the ranch house.
"Limp! Limp!" he whispered in her ear.
She obeyed him mechanically. Everything seemed to have become very
still and cold; feeling had frozen in her limbs; terror clutched at
her icily out of the gloom. There were two lighted windows in front of
her, two baleful yellow gleams, like the eyes of a monster of the
night. At any instant the door would open, gulping her in.
She choked down a cry. Her feet were like lead now, and she stumbled
on the first of the half-dozen steps that led to the veranda. Haig
pulled her up quickly, flung his right arm around her waist, and
fairly carried her up the steps. At that moment, just as they stood on
the level floor, the door was opened, and Huntington's huge body
appeared in silhouette against the lamplight.
"That you, Marion?" he called out, peering into the darkness. Then,
almost instantly: "Somebody with you, Marion?"
Haig answered for her.
"Good evening, Cousin Seth!" he called out cheerily. "I just dropped
in to ask about your health."
For perhaps as long as it took him to catch his arrested breath,
Huntington stood motionless. Then, with an oath, he bounded back into
the room, and disappeared, as Marion dully realized, in the direction
of his room, where his revolver hung on a rack. She felt the form
beside her straighten out like a loosed spring; and the next instant
she was borne swiftly forward into the light, into the house, into the
scene she had pictured, the scene she herself had prepared. The arm
that supported her was quickly withdrawn, and she was left standing at
one side of the door, while Haig leaped away from her, and stood
waiting at the other.
Even as this was done, Huntington reappeared at the door of his
bedroom. The revolver in his right hand moved slowly upward. In
the kitchen doorway was Claire--a stricken thing in blue and
gold--clinging to the doorpost, her lips parted, her eyes wide with
terror. But Haig! Could anything have been more horrible than that
smile? It was fearless, mocking, insolent. And his whole attitude
matched it perfectly. He stood carelessly erect, with arms folded,
disdaining Huntington's weapon. But not the slightest motion of his
enemy--perhaps not even the thought before it--could have escaped
him. Marion knew him; and she felt as certain as if it had already
happened that if Seth lifted his revolver by so much as another
inch he would be stretched out on the floor there as he had been on
the ground at Paradise.
All this she saw in an interval as brief as that between two clicks of
the shutter of her kodak. Then the clock on the mantel began to
strike. It was a friendly clock, with a musical, soft note. But now
its stroke crashed upon the silence like a tolling bell. It seemed to
have its part in that halted scene, as if all waited on its last
solemn count. If she could only move, think, speak, before it
finished!
The next thing she knew she was in the middle of the room, directly
between the two men, and speaking.
"Wait, Seth!" she heard herself saying. "I did it. I brought him here
to--to make peace with you."
She ended on the clock's last note; and silence fell again.
Huntington's jaw dropped; amazement was printed on his face, and
incredulity. Marion walked quietly up to him, took the revolver from
his hand, and left him standing in the doorway, his arms hanging loose
at his side. She crossed the room to Haig, slowly, somewhat gropingly
like a somnambulist, with a half-smiling, strange expression fixed on
her chalk-white face. She stretched out her left hand to him, her
right still clasping Seth's six-shooter. There was something
magnetic, curiously compelling in her manner; for she said nothing,
made no sound. Haig stared at her, the odious smile fading from his
lips; his arms slowly fell apart, one hand in the direction of the
revolver at his hip; and for a moment it seemed that he too would
yield to her. But suddenly he threw back his head, and laughed.
"By Jupiter!" he cried. "I didn't think it was in you. You almost got
me too. Good night--all!"
On that he turned on his heel, and vanished into the night. Marion
heard him laughing still as his boots crunched on the gravel; heard
his voice in brief and sharp command at the stable; heard the beat of
the sorrels' hoofs on the road, and the fragment of a song wafted back
to her,--something rollicking and insolent, in a foreign tongue. She
stood listening until the sounds had died away in the night, and
silence enveloped her. Then, just as Huntington leaped forward with a
bellow of rage,--too late, as ever,--and Claire, with a shriek, rushed
to throw herself between him and the door, Marion's head drooped
forward, her knees gave way, and she fell senseless on the floor.
Huntington's big revolver, slipping from her nerveless fingers as she
fell, struck the Navajo rug with a muffled thump, bounced and rolled
over, and settled down harmlessly on a patch of barbaric red.