THE RENUNCIATION
Ballard, riding ahead of his posse, reined in his horse sharply at the
head of the trail leading down to the stream as a shot crackled
viciously in the depths of the canyon below. There was no mistaking
that crisp, whip-like report of a small-calibered, high-pressure rifle
cartridge, and he wondered much that it was not accompanied by the whine
of the long metal-cased bullet about his ears. For the last twenty-four
hours had he been in momentary expectation of that sinister song, of a
possible succeeding agony of blindness, for he realized that he was now
in the hands of the gods, and more or less at the mercy of the desperate
man whom he had been relentlessly pursuing for the last three days, a
man who would just as relentlessly kill him if the opportunity offered,
a man who knew every inch of these mountain fastnesses in which he had
taken refuge in his last extremity.
But despite all hazards of ambush he had kept doggedly on the trail, and
now he was within reach of his quarry. Hurriedly directing two of his
best mounted followers to cover the canyon's mouth below, and the
remaining two to guard the only other possible exit above, he rode at
breakneck speed down the precipitous trail, spurred to recklessness by
a woman's wailing scream.
Four days before, the Gunnison Express had been boarded at a watering
tank, some fifty miles out of the city, by a particularly villainous
band of desperadoes who, not content with looting the passengers, mails
and express matter, had maliciously aggravated their crime with murder,
deliberately shooting down the conductor and express messenger after the
robbery had been accomplished. It was an unheard-of brutality, the men
being helpless, unarmed and unresisting, and pursuit of the wretches had
been so prompt and successful that every member of the gang, save the
one now in the canyon before him, was presently decorating a series of
telegraph posts on the outskirts of the city, their captors having given
them but exceedingly short shrift. And one of them, in an unavailing
attempt to enlist the mercy of his grim executioners, had confessed that
Matlock was the leader of the gang; but with characteristic cowardice
had refrained from personal active participation in the robbery, merely
directing their operations from a safe distance as arch plotter. His
trail was soon found and had been skillfully followed so far by the
expert marshal, whose long experience in trailing cattle on the cow
range had made him one of the best trackers in the mountains.
Ballard was at a loss to account for the fatal recklessness of that
shot. Matlock must certainly have known that It would betray his
whereabouts and he was far too shrewd a villain to so unnecessarily
expose himself to the risk of possible capture. There was but one
explanation, and the marshal sent the spurs home with a great foreboding
at heart.
"He _had_ to fire that shot!" was the quick conjecture. "But why? He is
either in a tight place or else Is up to some fearful deviltry. That was
certainly a woman's cry!" He was using both spur and cuerto now, and his
gallant horse was responding grandly.
But before he reached the little glade, the echoes wakened to a rumbling
roar at the duller concussion of a revolver shot. Then followed that
most unnerving thing, the mourning of a woman for her dead. With a
magnificent leap the horse cleared the brawling torrent and in the edge
of the glade Ballard checked him with a savage oath. Flinging himself
from the saddle, he ran eagerly forward, pulling his revolver as he
went.
In the middle of the glade, beside a little spring which bubbled up
amidst the grass, sat a stylishly-gowned woman holding to her bosom the
head of his best friend. Across the white forehead trickled down a thin
crimson stream which sadly stained and discolored the fawn-colored
riding habit and left its grewsome horror on the lips passionately
pressed to those of the man lying so still and quiet in her rocking
arms.
And ten feet away, with his sightless eyes staring up at the blue sky,
his shirt still smouldering from a powder burn above his heart, lay
Matlock, still clutching the Mauser in his stiffening hand.
Douglass, on dismounting, had picketed the horses and thrown himself at
full length on the grass with his head in Constance's lap. She had
temporarily regained dominion over him and was deliriously happy in
consequence, lavishing upon him all the tenderness of her really
unselfish affection. With tact she induced him to talk of his earlier
life and its vicissitudes, and in the relation he was so frank and
confiding that he was invested with a new glory in her sight. Of his
amours he was considerately reticent, his innate chivalry prompting him
to repress anything which would give her pain, and she was wise enough
to refrain from any embarrassing questions. Their communion was
intimate, and she had not been so happy in many months.
Then by some unfortunate vagary she chanced to refer to his first
difficulty with Matlock, asking him for the real facts in the case, and
the man crouched in the clematis gnashed his teeth at Douglass's
contemptuous reflections upon his cowardice.
"Oh, I took no particular risk," Douglass said carelessly; "the man was
not only a cowardly cur, but a blundering fool as well, as was plainly
shown in his foolish sale of that apex mine. Why, he might just as well
have got the million out of it that I did, if he had been honest and
only ordinarily intelligent. I knew the vein was there all the time, and
I really think he had a suspicion of it. But his great mistake was his
insane hatred of me, and he bungled his revenge badly. He really thought
he was cleverly swindling me, when the fact was that he was playing
directly into my hand."
He laughed scornfully and drew down the fair head to his.
"Let us forget about the fool. I had sworn to kill him once, but now
that he was unconsciously the cause of all my good fortune I feel only
pity for him."
Over in the clematis the sun was gleaming on a polished tube of steel
that was leveled directly at his heart, the eyes aligned along its
sights malignant with insane fury. But the finger crooked about the
trigger was restrained by a fiendish thought and with a chuckle Matlock
waited.
The distance was absurdly short and at that range he could clip the head
of a match. Just two more inches of elevation of that hated head and he
could send the jacketed bullet shearing just through the bridge of the
aquiline nose, splitting both eyeballs and blinding his enemy for the
little space of life he would thereafter accord him. It would be passing
sweet to have that helpless, sightless thing listen unseeingly to his
maltreatment of the woman.
At that moment his horse, which had been picketed some distance away in
the brush, discovered the presence of the two horses in the glade and
gave a loud whinny of salutation. Douglass was on his feet in a second,
his hand upon his revolver butt. The presence of another horse in that
canyon was a suspicious thing and as he inclined his head toward the
direction from which the whinny had come, his sharp eye discerned the
gleam in the clematis.
Instantly the gun leaped from its scabbard, but in the moment of its
release there came a faint haze from the leafy screen, a sharp report,
and Douglass pitched forward, face down, beside the little spring, the
revolver falling from his nerveless hand directly into the lap of the
screaming woman.
Baffled of his proposed torture, and intent now only on making sure of
the man he feared even in death, Matlock came running forward, working
the bolt of his rifle as he ran. At the side of his victim he paused and
thrust the muzzle of the weapon against the motionless head. He would
not bungle this job, at any rate.
But even as his finger closed about the trigger, Constance Brevoort was
upon him with a spring like that of a lioness fighting for her mate, her
arms fully extended and both hands clutching the butt of the heavy .44
Colt. Instinctively he raised his weapon to fend off this new and
unlooked-for antagonist; but he was a moment too late. As the flame
leaped from the muzzle to his breast he numbly lowered the rifle, turned
half around, and walking forward a few steps, clutched blindly at the
air and sank limply to the ground. One spasmodic struggle in which he
turned over on his back and then he lay very still, his mouth distorted
by a ghastly grin.
At Ballard's signaling call, he was hastily rejoined by his posse and a
hurried examination of Douglass's wound was made. The bullet had entered
the skull just above the left temple, making its exit at the back of the
head just where the parting of the hair ended. From all appearances it
had passed directly through the upper portion of the brain, and Ballard
shook his head hopelessly. But the heart was still beating vigorously
and there was a very perceptible pulse.
A rider was dispatched instantly to the nearest ranch, some two miles
away, for a conveyance, returning quickly with a buckboard. A rude
stretcher was improvised, on which Douglass was tenderly carried to the
head of the trail, and with his head in Constance's lap he was carefully
but quickly driven to the hotel. A dozen riders were soon scouring the
suburbs for the doctor, who was out making his round of daily calls, and
just at noon he came riding post-haste. As it most fortunately happened,
he was a practitioner of ability and experience, having filled for years
the responsible position of operating surgeon in one of the East's most
famous hospitals.
"It's an extra thousand on the side from me if you save him, Doc," said
Ballard earnestly. "Don't you let my pard die!" The surgeon paused long
enough from his examination to give him an assuring hand-grip.
"That was superfluous, Ballard," he said quietly. "He is my friend,
too." And there was an appeal in the eyes of Constance Brevoort that
outweighed all the treasures of Golconda.
Ballard, looking at her sympathetically, suddenly received an
inspiration. Taking her quietly to one side he coughed apologetically
and finally stammered out:
"I don't want to butt in, Mrs. Brevoort, but there will have to be a
more or less rigid investigation of this affair by the coroner
and--well, there is no use of your being put to any annoyance or
embarrassment. And I reckon you really _don't_ know what happened after
Ken was shot. The coroner is a friend of ours and will not deem It
necessary to question you at all; you will not have to appear at the
inquest. It's a lucky thing I happened to get there in time to kill
Matlock before he could do any further mischief."
He looked meaningly at her and she gasped with relief and wonder as the
significance of his words dawned upon her.
"And you would do that for me, a stranger!" she said incredulously. "How
noble you are!"
"Well," he said slowly, confused by the gratitude streaming from her
eyes, "you are a friend of his, and I think he would prefer it so. So
don't discuss the matter at all with anyone; just stand 'em all off
somehow. Say you fainted when the first shot was fired. And let me do
all the explaining. I was justified in doing it in my official capacity,
you know, and my statement will end the matter."
And so the world was none the wiser. In the days to come two others were
to learn the truth, and to these four alone was It restricted for all
time. That night after the inquest the body of the dead desperado was
taken to Gunnison, and Justice was satisfied.
To the woman waiting in the darkened room that afternoon it seemed an
age before the surgeon returned with the implements necessary for the
operation he had promptly determined on. Ever and anon she would look
fearfully at her hands and shudder at what she thought she saw there. It
would be easier to bear if she could only be assured that it had not all
been in vain; the figure on the bed lay so alarmingly still. A dozen
times she placed her ear to his heart to convince herself that it was
still beating.
The door creaked shrilly on its rusty hinges and the doctor entered.
After him followed Blount and Ballard, bearing between them a long deal
table requisitioned from the dining-room. Raising the curtains, the room
was flooded with a strong white light, in which the table was placed.
When the wounded man had been removed thereto, the surgeon turned to
Constance.
"All operations are more or less attended with unpleasant features,
Madam," he said kindly. "Had you not better retire?"
She begged piteously to be allowed to remain, even insisting upon her
ability to render any necessary assistance. But he saw her shudder of
apprehension as he opened the case of glittering instruments and he
hesitated dubiously. She clasped her hands in prayerful entreaty and he
turned to his work.
A few skillful strokes of the scalpel and he nodded his satisfaction.
"Merely a scalp wound with a slight depression of the parietal bone," he
said reassuringly. "It will require trephining but that is at the worst
only a minor operation. As soon as the pressure on the brain is relieved
he will recover consciousness. The bullet did not penetrate the skull at
all, being deflected by its acute angle of impact. It was an exceedingly
close call, but in six weeks he will never know he was shot at all,
provided no unforeseen complications arise."
A half hour later Douglass opened his eyes. His vision was still
uncertain and he blinked uncomprehendingly at the white faces about him.
Then he caught sight of the woman kneeling at the bedside in an agony of
thanksgiving, her face hidden in her hands. He half rose from the table
where he was lying and held out his arms pleadingly through the mists
that clouded brain and eyes alike:
"Gracie, sweetheart, forgive--!"
As he fell back fainting in the arms of the irate doctor, who was taken
unawares by his patient's unexpected action, and who was savagely
cursing his own remissness in not having strapped him to the table, the
woman rose from her knees and with one hand pressed to her heart,
tottered unsteadily towards the door. Ballard, springing to her
assistance, recoiled at the hopeless despair and misery written on that
face. At the threshold she hesitated a moment, steadying herself with
one hand braced against the casing. Then of a sudden she turned and
walked firmly to the table; disregarding the surgeon's indignant
remonstrance, she leaned over the unconscious man and laid her lips on
his. For a full minute she held them there, her form as motionless as
his, then with the slowness of one who is wearied unto death, she raised
her head and stood with closed eyes beside him.
The men's faces were averted and their heads bowed as she went silently
out. For not a one of them but was fully conversant with her relations
to Douglass, and one of them at least knew of his engagement to Grace
Carter.
But all of them were awed by the tragedy of this woman's misspent love,
all reverently silenced by the atoning sacrifice offered up in that
heart-breaking kiss of renunciation.
A week later when Douglass had regained full consciousness he was
informed that Mr. and Mrs. Brevoort had returned to New York. He felt
not a little hurt at her unceremonious departure without a word of
farewell to him and was inclined to be morose and splenetic during the
succeeding fortnight of convalescence. From Red McVey he had learned of
Grace's departure on the day of his mishap, and was much relieved to
know that she was probably unaware of his injury at the time of leaving,
it being very doubtful if she had even heard of it up to the present
time; her foreign address being unknown to any of her western friends,
there had been no interchange of correspondence, and local happenings of
this nature were not of sufficient Interest to the eastern public to
receive insertion in the New York papers. At least that is what he
thought, forgetting that a robbery of the mails is an item of universal
interest and also overlooking the fact that he was now a millionaire,
whose attempted assassination by a ringleader of the desperadoes had
been the welcome justification for glaring scare-heads in all the
metropolitan dailies. It would have cut him to the quick had she been
cognizant of his trouble and evinced no interest. He was also cynically
resentful of Constance's apparent defection, ungenerously attributing it
to her fear of being compromised.
Imagine his contrition when Ballard one day sought him out and
delivered unto him an envelope addressed in Constance's familiar dainty
chirography, admitting its detention for over three weeks by her express
command.
"I was not to give it to you until you were fairly off the puny list,"
said the marshal gravely, "and there is something else that you should
know before you read that letter."
And he proceeded to relate without any embellishment the facts in the
matter of Matlock's taking off, supplementing them with other details of
interest to the man who sat for hours after his friend had gone in
bitter self-communion. It was quite dark when he went supperless to his
room and opened the cream-tinted envelope.
The hours came and passed unrecked, and the gray dawn found him still
sitting by the rickety little table, head in hands, poring dully over
the lines that to his disordered fancy seemed written in her heart's
blood.
"I am going away to-morrow, out into the pitiful Nothing in which
all things end; and soon I will be even less than a memory to you.
It is best so, for I would not have you hampered by a single regret
in your enjoyment of the happiness that the future holds for you.
"You owe me nothing, although I have given you all--and gloried in
the giving. For you at least vouchsafed me, through barred windows,
a glimpse into the sanctuary where such as I may not enter. I
realize now that it was impossible for me to have ever entered into
the holy of holies; and yet, dear, can you blame me for hoping?
"I know now that I could never have entered fully into your life;
the clay of my being leans too awry for that. But am I to blame for
the shaking of the Potter's hand? I sought with all the assiduity
of a weak woman's love, but there was a door to which I never
found the key, a veil behind which I could not peer. Yet to me was
given the rapture of the outer temple--and it was the bread of
life.
"Be generous to me in this, the hour of my bitter atonement, and
believe that my love was as pure and unselfish as it is possible
for a woman to give. The proof of it is that I am giving you up now
when I know that by a little finesse I could pull you down to hell
with me. For I have spilled the Red Wine for you, my Wolf, and the
reek of it would have been a bond and heel-rope between us.
"It is because of my love for you that I am giving you up, giving
you into the hands of another woman. I have been but a flame to
you, burning out the dross from your nature so that she might pour
into her heart's crucible only the pure gold. God grant she mold
the chalice aright.
"And now farewell while I have yet strength to say it. Forget me if
you can. But if from the heights you ever look backward and
downward, and in the sea of memory catch one faint reflection of
me, let the thought be a kindly one.
"For oh, Man, who was more than God to me, I loved you too well!"
Very reverently he kissed the letter, then burned it in the flame of the
smoky lamp. It was a long and weary ride to the nearest telegraph office
at Gunnison, yet he never dismounted from his staggering horse until he
heard the clicking of the sounders in the dingy little office.
"My life is yours alone," he wrote firmly; "let me make amends. Will you
mold the chalice?"
Feverishly he strode up and down his apartment at the hotel until her
answering wire was laid in his hand:
"You are even more noble than I thought, and shall have your reward.
Grace waits you at Cairo. Have written her all that she must ever know.
Go at once and God bless you both!"
He left that night for the East, and at the house of the Brevoorts
learned that Mr. Brevoort and his wife had taken their departure two
days before on an extended tour of the Orient. Yes, Mrs. Brevoort had
left an enclosure for him.
It contained only a little note from Grace Carter to Constance and in
his misery he could not understand why the latter had urged him to go to
Cairo:
"I forgive you, even as I think God has forgiven you," Grace wrote, "for
I, too, have been whirled in the maelstrom of his irresistible passion.
I do not presume to sit in judgment of you, for you have given him his
life--and at what an awful price! May God grant you forgetfulness, the
boon that has been denied me."
Underneath this was written in Mrs. Carter's angular hand:
"I found this on my daughter's table the day after she was stricken down
by brain fever, and an investigation of her correspondence shows it to
have been intended for you. Now that the danger is passed and she is on
the way to recovery, I send it to you with my contempt. Deem yourself
fortunate that it is not my curse, instead."
On the forward deck of the great ocean grayhound that was cleaving the
waters at record speed, a man stood that night with his face turned ever
to the East. It would be ten days more before he could kiss the hem of
her garment in supplication, ten days of hell in whose torturing fires
his soul shriveled with a sickening fear.
If he had lost her, after all!