NAN DRIFTS
Without going in to speak to Gale, whom Bull Page, his nurse, reported
very cross but not hurt much, Nan left her packet for him and rode
home. Her uncle Duke was in town. She had the house to herself, with
only Bonita, the old Mexican serving-woman, and Nan ate her late
supper alone.
The longer she pondered on de Spain and his dilemma--and her own--the
more she worried. When she went to bed, up-stairs in her little gable
room, she thought sleep--never hard for her to woo--would relieve her
of her anxiety for at least the night. But she waited in vain for
sleep. She was continually asking herself whether de Spain was really
very badly hurt, or whether he might be only tricking her into
thinking he was. Assailed by conflicting doubts, she tossed on her
pillow till a resolve seized her to go up again to his hiding-place
and see what she could see or hear--possibly, if one were on foot, she
could uncover a plot.
She dressed resolutely, buckled a holster to her side, and slipping a
revolver--a new one that Gale had given her--into it for protection,
she walked softly down-stairs and out of doors.
The night air was clear with a three-quarter moon well up in the sky.
She took her way rapidly along the trail to the mountain, keeping as
much as possible within the great shadows cast by the towering peaks.
Not a sound met her acute listening as she pressed on--not a living
thing seemed to move anywhere in the whole great Gap, except this
slender-footed, keen-eyed girl, whose heart beat with apprehension of
wiles, stratagems, and ambush concerning the venture she was making.
Breathing stealthily and keyed to a tense feeling of uncertainty and
suspicion, Nan at length found herself below the ledge where de Spain
was in hiding. She stopped and, with the craft of an Indian, stood
perfectly still for a very long time before she began to climb up to
where the enemy lay. Hearing no sound, she took courage and made the
ascent. She reached without adventure the corner of the ledge where
she had first seen him, and there, lying flat, listened again.
Hearing only the music of the little cascade, she swept the ledge as
well as she could with her eyes, but it was now so far in shadow as to
lie in impenetrable darkness. Hardly daring to breathe, she crept and
felt her way over it with her hands, discovering nothing until she had
almost reached de Spain's retreat at the farther side. Then her heart
stopped in an agony of fear--underneath the overhanging wall she heard
voices.
To attempt to escape was as dangerous as to lie still. Had she dared,
she would have retreated at once the way she came. Since she dared
not, she was compelled to hear what was said, and, indeed, was eager
to hear. De Spain had confederates, then, and had tricked her, after
all. Whatever his plot, she was resolved to know it, and instead of
retreating she took her revolver in hand and drew herself nearer. When
she had gained her new position the mutterings, which had been
indistinct, became audible. It was not two voices she had heard, but
one--de Spain, she judged, was talking in his sleep.
But a moment later this explanation failed to satisfy her. The
mutterings were too constant and too disconnected to be mistaken for
sleep-talking--it dawned on Nan that this must be delirium. She could
hear de Spain throwing himself from side to side, and the near and far
sounds, as if of two voices, were explained. It was possible now for
her to tell herself she was mistress of the situation. She crept
nearer.
He was babbling in the chill darkness about ammunition, urging men to
make haste, warning them of some one coming. He turned on the rock
floor ceaselessly, sometimes toward her, sometimes from her, muttering
of horses, water, passengers, wheels, wrecks. He made broken appeals
to be chopped out, directed men where to use their axes. Nan listened
to his ravings, overcome by the revelation of his condition. Once her
uncle had lain sick of a fever and had been delirious; but that, her
sole experience, was nothing to this. Once de Spain threw out a
groping hand and, before she could escape, caught her skirt. Nan tried
to pull away. His grip did not loosen. She took his hand in hers and,
while he muttered meaningless words, forced his fingers open and drew
away. His hand was dry and burning hot.
She told herself he must die if he remained longer unaided, and there
were unpleasant possibilities, if he died where he lay. Such a death,
so close to her own home might, if it were ever known, throw suspicion
on her uncle and arouse the deeper resentment of the wounded man's
friends. If the least of pity played a part in suggesting that her
safest course was to help de Spain, Nan kept its promptings as much as
she could in the penumbra of her thoughts. She did not want to pity or
to help him, she convinced herself; but she did not want his death
laid to a Morgan plot--for none of his friends would ever believe de
Spain had found his way alive and alone to where he lay.
All of this Nan was casting up in her mind as she walked home. She had
already decided, but without realizing it, what to do, and was willing
to assume that her mind was still open.
Toward daylight of the morning, de Spain dreamed he was not
alone--that a figure moved silently in the faintness of the dawn--a
figure he struggled to believe a reality, but one that tricked his
wandering senses and left him, at the coming of another day, weaker,
with failing courage, and alone.
But when he opened his eyes later, and with a clearer head, he found
food and drink near. Unable to believe his sight, he fancied his
wavering senses deceiving him, until he put out his hand and felt
actually the substance of what he saw. He took up a bottle of milk
incredulously, and sipped at it with the caution of a man not unused
to periods of starvation. He broke eggs and swallowed them, at
intervals, hungrily from the shell; and meat he cached, animal-like,
in near-by crannies and, manlike, in his pockets.
He was determined, if she should come again, to intercept his visitor.
For forty-eight hours he tried cat-naps with an occasional sandwich
to keep up his strength. Nan returned unseen, and disappeared despite
his watchfulness. A new supply of food proved she had been near, but
that it would be hard to time her coming.
When she did come, the third time, an innocent snare discovered her
presence. It was just before day, and de Spain had so scattered small
obstacles--handfuls of gravel and little chips of rock--that should
she cross the ledge in the dark she could hardly escape rousing him.
The device betrayed her. "I'm awake," announced de Spain at once from
his retreat. When she stopped at the words he could not see her; she
had flattened herself, standing, against a wall of the ledge. He
waited patiently. "You give me no chance to thank you," he went on
after a pause. Nan, drawing nearer, put down a small parcel. "I don't
need any thanks," she replied with calculated coolness. "I am hoping
when you are well enough you will go away, quietly, in the night. That
will be the only way you can thank me."
"I shall be as glad to go as you can be to have me," rejoined de
Spain. "But that won't be thanking you as I am going to. If you think
you can save my life and refuse my thanks as I mean to express
them--you are mistaken. I will be perfectly honest. Lying out here
isn't just what I'd choose for comfort. But if by doing it I could see
you once in two or three days----"
"You won't see me again."
"No news could be worse. And if I can't, I don't know how I'm going to
get out at all. I've no horse--you know that. I can't stand on my foot
yet; if you had a light you might see for yourself. I think I showed
you my gun. If you could tell me where I am----"
He halted on the implied question. Nan took ample time to reply.
"Do you mean to tell me you don't know where you are?" she asked, and
there was a touch of vexed incredulity in her tone.
De Spain seemed unmoved by her scepticism. "I can't tell you anything
else," he said simply. "You couldn't have any idea I crawled up here
for the fun of it."
"I've been trying to think," she returned, and he perceived in the
hardness of her voice how at bay she felt in giving him the least bit
of information, "whether I ought to tell you anything at all----"
"I couldn't very decently take any unfair advantage after what you've
done, could I?"
"Then--you are in Morgan's Gap," she said swiftly, as if she wanted it
off her mind.
There was no movement of surprise, neither was there any answer. "I
supposed, when I found you here, you knew that," she added less
resolutely; the darkness and silence were plainly a strain.
"I know you are telling the truth," he responded at length. "But I can
hardly believe it. That's the reason, of course, you _did_ find me. I
rode a good many miles that night without knowing where I was or what
I was doing. I certainly never figured on winding up here. How could I
get in here without being stopped?"
"Everybody inside the Gap was outside hunting for you, I suppose."
"There isn't much use asking where I am, in the Gap. I never was
inside but once. I shouldn't know if you did tell me."
"You are at the foot of Music Mountain, about a mile from where I
live."
"You must have thought I meant to raid your house. I didn't. I was
hit. I got mixed up in trying to get away. You want me out of here?"
"Very much."
"No more than I want to get out. Perhaps by to-morrow I could walk a
few miles. I should have to assassinate somebody to get some
ammunition."
"It wouldn't be hard for you to do that, I presume."
Her words and her tone revealed the intensity of her dislike and the
depth of her distrust.
He was silent for a moment. Then he said, without resentment: "You are
ashamed already of saying that, aren't you?"
"No, I am not," she answered defiantly.
"Yes, you are. You know it isn't true. If you believed it you never
would have brought food here to save my life."
"I brought it to save some of my own people from possible death at
your hands--to prevent another fight--to see if you hadn't manhood
enough after being helped, to go away, when you were able to move,
peaceably. One cartridge might mean one life, dear to me."
"I know whose life you mean."
"You know nothing about what I mean."
"I know better than you know yourself. If I believed you, I shouldn't
respect you. Fear and mercy are two different things. If I thought you
were only afraid of me, I shouldn't think much of your aid. Listen--I
never took the life of any man except to defend my own----"
"No murderer that ever took anybody's life in this country ever said
anything but that."
"Don't class me with murderers."
"You are known from one end of the country to the other as a gunman."
He answered impassively: "Did these men who call me a gunman ever
tell you why I'm one?" She seemed in too hostile a mood to answer. "I
guess not," he went on. "Let me tell you now. The next time you hear
me called a gunman you can tell them."
"I won't listen," she exclaimed, restive.
"Yes, you will listen," he said quietly; "you shall hear every word.
My father brought sheep into the Peace River country. The cattlemen
picked on him to make an example of. He went out, unarmed, one night
to take care of the horses. My mother heard two shots. He didn't come
back. She went to look for him. He was lying under the corral gate
with a hole smashed through his jaw by a rifle-bullet that tore his
head half off." De Spain did not raise his voice nor did he hasten his
words. "I was born one night six months after that," he continued. "My
mother died that night. When a neighbor's wife took me from her arm
and wrapped me in a blanket, she saw I carried the face of my father
as my mother had seen it the night he was murdered. That," he said,
"is what made me a 'gunman.' Not whiskey--not women--not cards--just
what you've heard. And I'll tell you something else you may tell the
men that call me a gunman. The man that shot down my father at his
corral gate I haven't found yet. I expect to find him. For ten years
I've been getting ready to find him. He is here--in these mountains. I
don't even know his name. But if I live, I'll find him. And when I do,
I'll tear open his head with a soft bullet in the way he tore my
father's open. After I get through with that man"--he hesitated--"they
may call me whatever they like."
The faint ghostliness of the coming day, writing its warning in the
eastern sky, the bitter chill of the dying night, the slow, hard,
impassive utterance, the darkness in which she stood listening to an
enemy she could not see, the loneliness and danger of her situation
combined to impress on the unwilling listener the picture of the
murder, the tragic birth, and the mother's death. "You want me out of
the Gap," de Spain concluded, his voice unchanged. "I want to get out.
Come back, once more, in the daytime. I will see what I can do with my
foot by that time." He paused. "Will you come?"
She hesitated. "It would be too dangerous for me to come up here in
the daytime. Trouble would follow."
"Come at dusk. You know I am no murderer."
"I don't know it," she persisted stubbornly. It was her final
protest.
"Count, some day, on knowing it."