THE WOMAN
The woman turned from the window at the sound of footsteps somewhere
behind her. That was her way now. She started at each fresh sound that
suggested anyone approaching. Her nerves were on edge for some reason
she could never have put into words. She did not fear, yet a curious
nervousness was hers which made her listen acutely at every footstep,
and breathe her relief if the sound died away without further
intrusion upon her privacy.
Presently she turned back to the window with just such relief. The
footstep had passed. She drew her feet up into the ample seat of the
rocking-chair, and, with her elbow resting upon its arm, heavily
pressed her chin into the palm of her hand, and again stared at the
rampart of mountains beyond.
Nor had all the beauties spread out before her yearning gaze the least
appeal for her. How should they? Her thoughts were roaming in a world
of her own, and her eyes were occupied in gazing upon her woman's
pictures as she saw them in her mind. The wonders of that scene of
natural splendor laid out before her had no power to penetrate the
armor of her preoccupation. All her mind and heart were stirred and
torn by emotions such as only a woman can understand, only a woman can
feel. The ancient battle of titanic forces, which had brought into
existence that world of stupendous might upon which her unseeing eyes
gazed, was as nothing, it seemed, to the passionate struggle going on
in her torn heart. To her there was nothing beyond her own regretful
misery, her own dread of the future, her passionate revulsion at
thoughts of the past.
The truth was, she had not yet found the happiness she had promised
herself, that had been promised to her. She had left behind her all
that life which, when it had been hers, she had hated. Her passionate
nature had drawn her whither its stormy waves listed. And now that the
tempest was passed, and the driving forces had ceased to urge, leaving
her in a rock-bound pool of reflection, she saw the enormity of the
step she had taken, she realized the strength of Nature's tendrils
which still bound her no less surely.
The mild face of Scipio haunted her. She saw in her remorseful fancy
his wondering blue eyes filled with the stricken look of a man
powerless to resent, powerless to resist. She read into her thought
the feelings of his simple heart which she had so wantonly crushed.
For she knew his love as only a woman can. She had probed its depth
and found it fathomless--fathomless in its devotion to herself. And
now she had thrown him and his love, the great legitimate love of the
father of her children, headlong out of her life.
A dozen times she bolstered her actions with the assurance that she
did not want his love, that he was not the man she had ever cared
for seriously, could ever care for. She told herself that the
insignificance of his character, his personality, were beneath
contempt. She desired a man of strength for her partner, a man who
could make himself of some account in the world which was theirs.
No, she did not want Scipio. He was useless in the scheme of life, and
she did not wish to have to "mother" her husband. Far rather would she
be the slave of a man whose ruthless domination extended even to
herself. And yet Scipio's mild eyes haunted her, and stirred something
in her heart that maddened her, and robbed her of all satisfaction in
the step she had taken.
But this was only a small part of the cause of her present mood. She
had not at first had the vaguest understanding of the bonds which
really fettered her, holding her fast to the life that had been hers
for so long. Now she knew. And the knowledge brought with it its
bitter cost. Some forewarning had been hers when she appealed to her
lover for the possession of her children. But although her mother's
instinct had been stirred to alarm at parting, she had not, at that
time, experienced the real horror of what she was doing in abandoning
her children.
She was inconsolable now. With all her mind and heart she was crying
out for the warm, moist pressure of infant lips. Her whole body
yearned for those who were flesh of her flesh, for the gentle beating
hearts to which her body had given life. They were hers--hers, and of
her own action she had put them out of her life. They were hers, and
she was maddened at the thought that she had left them to another.
They were hers, and--yes, she must have them. Whatever happened, they
must be restored to her. Life would be intolerable without them.
She was in a wholly unreasoning state of mind. All the mother in her
was uppermost, craving, yearning, panting for her own. For the time,
at least, all else was lost in an overwhelming regret, and such a
power of love for her offspring, that she had no room for the man who
had brought about the separation.
She was a selfish woman, and had always craved for the best that life
could give her, but now that her mother-love was truly roused her
selfishness knew no bounds. She had no thought for anybody, no
consideration. She could have none until her desire was satisfied.
Her tortured heart grew angry against Scipio. She was driven to fury
against James. What mattered it that her lover had so far fulfilled
all his other promises to her, if he did not procure the children and
return them to her arms? What mattered it that she was surrounded
with luxury uncommon on the prairie, a luxury she had not known for so
many years?
She had her own rooms, where no one intruded without her consent. The
spacious house had been ransacked to make them all that she could
desire. All the outlaw's associates were herded into the background,
lest their presence should offend her. Even James himself had
refrained from forcing his attentions upon her, lest, in the first
rush of feeling at her breaking with the old life, they should be
unwelcome. His patience and restraint were wonderful in a man of his
peculiar savagery. And surely it pointed his love for her. Had it been
simply the momentary passion of an untamed nature, he would have
waited for nothing, when once she had become his possession.
It was a curious anachronism that she should be the mistress of the
situation with such a man as James. Yet so far she was mistress of the
situation. The question was, how long would she remain so? It is
possible that she had no understanding of this at first. It is
possible that she would have resented such a question, had it occurred
to her when she first consented to break away from her old life.
But now it was different. Now that she began to understand all she had
flung away for this man, when the mother in her was at last fully
aroused, and all her wits were driven headlong to discover a way by
which to satisfy her all-consuming desire for her children, now the
native cunning of the woman asserted itself. She saw in one revealing
flash her position, she saw where lay her power at the moment, and she
clung to it desperately, determined to play the man while she could to
gain her ends.
Thus it was she was nervous, apprehensive, every time she thought it
likely that her lover was about to visit her. She dreaded what might
transpire. She dreaded lest her power should be weakened before she
had accomplished her end. It was difficult; it was nerve-racking. She
must keep his love at fever-heat. It was her one chance.
Again she started. It was the sound of a fresh footstep beyond the
door. She glanced at the door with half-startled eyes and sat
listening. Then her lips closed decidedly and a look of purpose crept
into her eyes. A moment later she stood up. She was pale, but full of
purpose.
"Is that you, Jim?" she called.
"Sure," came the ready response.
The next instant the door was flung open and the man came in.
His bronzed face was smiling, and the savage in him was hidden deep
down out of sight. His handsome face was good to look upon, and as the
woman's eyes surveyed his carefully clad slim figure she felt a thrill
of triumph at the thought that he was hers at the raising of her
finger.
But she faced him without any responsive smile. She had summoned him
with a very definite purpose in her mind, and no display of anything
that could be interpreted into weakness must be made.
"I want to talk to you," she said, pointing at the rocking-chair she
had just vacated.
James glanced at the chair. Then his eyes turned back to her with a
question in them. Finally he shrugged his shoulders and flung himself
into the seat, and stretched out his long legs luxuriously.
Apparently Jessie had not noticed the shrug. It would have been better
had she done so. She might then have understood more fully the man she
was dealing with. However, she turned to the window and spoke with her
back to him.
"It's about--things," she said a little lamely.
The man's smile was something ironical, as his eyes greedily devoured
the beauty of her figure.
"I'm glad," he said in a non-committing way. Then, as no reply was
immediately forthcoming, he added, "Get going."
But Jessie made no answer. She was thinking hard, and somehow her
thoughts had an uneasy confusion in them. She was trying hard to find
the best way to begin that which she had to say, but every opening
seemed inadequate. She must not appeal, she must not dictate. She must
adopt some middle course. These things she felt instinctively.
The man shifted his position and glanced round the room.
"Kind of snug here," he said pleasantly, running his eyes appreciatively
over the simple decorations, the cheap bric-a-brac which lined the
walls and, in a world where all decoration was chiefly conspicuous
by its absence, gave to the place a suggestion of richness. The red
pine walls looked warm, and the carpeted floor was so unusual as to
give one a feeling of extraordinary refinement. Then, too, the chairs,
scattered about, spoke of a strain after civilized luxury. The whole
ranch-house had been turned inside out to make Jessie's quarters all
she could desire them.
"Yes," he muttered, "it's sure snug." Then his eyes came back to the
woman. "Maybe there's something I've forgotten. Guess you've just got
to fix a name to it."
Jessie turned instantly. Her beautiful eyes were shining with a sudden
hope, but her face was pale with a hardly controlled emotion.
"That's easy," she said. "I want my children. I want little Vada. I--I
must have her. You promised I should. If you hadn't, I should never
have left. I must have her." She spoke breathlessly, and broke off
with a sort of nervous jolt.
In the pause that followed James' expression underwent a subtle
change. It was not that there was any definite movement of a single
muscle. His smile remained, but, somehow, through it peeped a hard
look which had not been there before.
"So you want--the kids," he said at last, and a curious metallic
quality was in his voice. "Say," he added thoughtfully, "you women are
queer ones."
"Maybe we are," retorted Jessie. She tried to laugh as she spoke, but
it was a dismal failure. Then she hurried on. "Yes," she cried a
little shrilly, "it was part of our bargain, and--so far you have not
carried it out."
"Bargain?" The man's brows went up.
"Yes, bargain."
"I don't remember a--bargain." James' eyes had in them an ominous
glitter.
"Then you've got a bad memory."
"I sure haven't, Jess. I sure haven't that. I generally remember good.
And what I remember now is that I promised you those kids if you
needed them. I swore that you should have 'em. But I made no bargain.
Guess women don't see things dead right. This is the first time you've
spoken to me of this, and you say I haven't fulfilled my bargain. When
I refuse to give you them kiddies, it's time to take that tone. You
want them kids. Well--go on."
The change in her lover's manner warned Jessie that danger lay ahead.
In the brief time she had spent under his roof she had already learned
that, as yet, she had only seen the gentlest side of the man, and that
the other side was always perilously near the surface.
In the beginning this had been rather a delight to her to think that
she, of all people, was privileged to bask in the sunny side of a man
who habitually displayed the storm clouds of his fiercer side to the
world in general. But since that time a change, which she neither knew
nor understood, had come over her, and, instead of rejoicing that he
possessed that harsher nature, she rather feared it, feared that it
might be turned upon her.
It was this change that had helped to bring her woman's cunning into
play. It was this change which had brought her her haunting visions of
the old life. It was this change which had prompted her that she must
keep her lover at arm's length--as yet. It was this change, had she
paused to analyze it, which might have told her of the hideous mistake
she had made. That the passion which she had believed to be an
absorbing love for the man was merely a passion, a base human passion,
inspired in a weak, discontented woman. But as yet she understood
nothing of this. The glamour of the man's personality still had power
to sway her, and she acknowledged it in her next words.
"Don't be angry, Jim dear," she said, with a smile of seductive
sweetness which had immediate effect upon the man. "You don't
understand us women. We're sure unreasonable where our love is
concerned."
Then a flush spread itself slowly over her handsome face, and passion
lit her eyes.
"But I must have my children," she broke out suddenly. "One of them,
anyhow--little Vada. You--you can't understand all it means to be away
from them. They are mine. They are part of me. I--I feel I could kill
anyone who keeps them from me. You promised, Jim, you sure did. Get
her for me. My little girl--my little Vada."
The man had risen from his chair and moved to the window. He sat on
the rough sill facing her. His eyes were hot with passion, too, but it
was passion of a very different sort.
"And if I do?" he questioned subtly.
"If you do?" Jessie's eyes widened with a world of cunning simplicity.
"Yes, if I do?" The man's face was nearer.
"You'll have fulfilled your promise."
Jessie had turned again to the window, and her eyes were cold.
The man's brows drew together sharply, and his dark eyes watched the
perfect outline of her oval cheek. Then he drew a sharp breath, and
biting words leapt to his lips. But he held them back with a sudden
grip that was perilously near breaking. Jessie's power was still
enormous with him. But this very power was maddening to a man of his
nature, and the two must not come into too frequent conflict.
He suddenly laughed, and the woman turned in alarm at the note that
sounded in it.
"Yes," he said tensely. "I'll fulfill my promise. It'll amuse me,
sure, getting back at that Sufferin' Creek lay-out. I owe them
something for keepin' back the gold-stages. You shall have Vada,
sure."
He broke off for an instant and drew nearer. He leant forward, and
one arm reached out to encircle her waist. But with an almost
imperceptible movement the woman stood beyond his reach.
"And--and after?" he questioned, his arm still outstretched to embrace
her.
The woman made no answer.
"And after?"
There was a hot glow in his tone. He waited. Then he went on.
"Then I'll have done everything," he said--"all that a man can do to
make you happy. I'll have fulfilled all my promises. I'll--And you?"
he went on, coming close up to her.
This time she did not repulse him. Instinct told her that she must
not. Before all things she wanted Vada. So his arms closed about her,
and a shower of hot, passionate kisses fell upon her face, her hair,
her lips.
At last she pushed him gently away. For the moment all the old passion
had been stirred, but now, as she released herself, an odd shiver
passed through her body, and a great relief came to her as she stood
out of his reach. It was the first real, definite feeling of
repulsion she had had, and as she realized it a sudden fear gripped
her heart, and she longed to rush from his presence. But, even so, she
did not fully understand the change that was taking place in her. Her
predominating thought was for the possession of little Vada, and she
urged him with all the intensity of her longing.
"You'll get her for me?" she cried, with an excitement that
transfigured her. "You will. Oh, Jim, I can never thank you
sufficiently. You are good to me. And when will you get her--now? Oh,
Jim, don't wait. You must do it now. I want her so badly. I wonder how
you'll do it. Will you take her? Or will you ask Zip for her? I--I
believe he would give her up. He's such a queer fellow. I believe he'd
do anything I asked him. I sure do. How are you going to get her?"
The man was watching her with all the fire of his love in his eyes. It
was a greedy, devouring gaze of which Jessie must have been aware had
she only been thinking less of her child. Nor did he answer at once.
Then slowly the passionate light died out of his eyes, and they became
thoughtful.
"Tell me," the woman urged him.
Suddenly he looked into her face with a cruel grin.
"Sit down, Jess," he said sharply, "and write a letter to Zip asking
him, in your best lingo, to let you have your kid. An' when you done
that I'll see he gets it, an'--I'll see you get the kid. But make the
letter good an' hot. Pile up the agony biz. I'll fix the rest."
For a moment the woman looked into his face, now lit with such a cruel
grin. Something in her heart gave her pause. Somehow she felt that
what she was called upon to do was intended to hurt Zip in some subtle
way, and the thought was not pleasant. She didn't want to hurt Zip.
She tried in those few seconds to probe this man's purpose. But her
mind was not equal to the task. Surely a letter appealing to Zip
could not really hurt him. And she wanted little Vada so much. It was
this last thought that decided her. No, nothing should stand in her
way. She steeled her heart against her better feelings, but with some
misgivings, and sat down to write.
James watched her. She procured paper and pen, and he watched her
bending over the table. No detail of her face and figure escaped his
greedy eyes. She was very beautiful, so beautiful to him that he
stirred restlessly, chafing irritably under the restraint he was
putting upon himself. Again and again he asked himself why he was fool
enough to do as he was doing. She was his. There was no one to stop
him, no one but--her.
Ah! There was the trouble. Such was the man's temper that nothing
could satisfy him that gave him no difficulty of attaining. His was
the appetite of an epicure in all things. Everything in its way must
be of the best, and to be of the best to him it must be the most
difficult of achievement.
He waited with what patience he could until the letter was written.
Then he watched Jessie seal and address it. Then she rose and stood
staring down at the cruel missive. She knew it was cruel now, for,
trading on the knowledge of the man who was to receive it, she had
appealed through the channel of her woman's weakness to all that great
spirit which she knew to abide in her little husband's heart.
James understood something of what was passing in her mind. And it
pleased him to think of what he had forced her to do--pleased him as
cruelty ever pleases the truly vicious.
At last she held the missive out to him.
"There it is," she said. And as his hand closed upon it her own was
drawn sharply away, as though to avoid contact with his.
"Good," he said, with a peculiar grin.
For a moment the silence remained unbroken. Then the woman raised
appealing eyes to his face.
"You won't hurt Zip?" she said in a voice that would surely have
heartened the object of her solicitude had he heard it.
The man shook his head. His jaws were set, and his smile was
unpleasing.
"Guess any hurtin' Zip gets'll be done by you."
"Ah, no, no!"
The woman reached out wildly for the letter, but James had passed
swiftly out of the room.