RENUNCIATION
It looked like trouble and there was trouble.
Beck, with the Reverend, Curtis and two of the ranch hands preceded
Jane to the Hole at dawn and when she rode down the trail she saw them
on their horses, forming a little group well away from the nester's
cabin.
Her cattle were there and the fenced area was fringed with them as they
moved back and forth, sniffing at the water they wanted, which they
needed and which, though just on the other side of the wire strands,
might as well have been days away. Inside the fence grazed Cole's herd
with plenty to eat and drink.
Tom's face was troubled as he rode to meet the girl.
"It's serious," he said. "There's enough of your stock down here to
ruin you, ma'am, unless we get 'em out to water."
"Let's take them out, then!"
He shook his head skeptically.
"They're in bad shape. They're crazy wild and we haven't got enough men
here to shove 'em up the trail. It's an awful job with quiet cattle
because they have to go in single file and there's no drivin' 'em. I
don't dare risk taking these through the Gap and around to water the
other way. Why, Jane, that's forty miles!
"It'll be another day before we can get the boys back to help get 'em
out and it looks like a heavy loss at best unless we get water. There's
only one way to get it and that's to persuade Cole or his daughter that
we'd ought to have it."
"They must have water!" she cried. "It's inhuman not to give it to
them!" She watched a big steer going past at a rapid walk, eyes bright
and protruding as in fright; he bawled hoarsely for drink. "Why, Tom,
people can't refuse water to beasts that need it."
"See! There's Cole and Bobby now,"--pointing toward the cabin. "Come.
I'll buy water if necessary."
She spurred her horse and Beck followed at a gallop. When he came
abreast he looked curiously at her face. Her jaw was tight and her eyes
dark with determination. This was her fight and she was thoroughly
aroused to it. She asked no advice, she showed no hesitation; she went
forward with all confidence, certain that in this cause which involved
not only the loss of property but the suffering of dumb creatures she
could have her way.
A hundred yards from the cabin a steer thrust his head through the wire
strands and shoved, heedless of barbs, tantalized by the smell of
water. Cole shouted with his weak voice and picked up a stick and ran
toward the animal, brandishing his cudgel.
Bobby stood watching the riders approach.
"I've come to see you again," Jane said in brief preface. "This time it
is an urgent matter." She dismounted and faced the other girl. "My
cattle are here and they need drink very badly. You have all the water.
Will you let them through your fence? As soon as they can be moved we
will take them out and they will bother you no more."
Bobby eyed her with loathing but it was not as she had been on their
previous encounter, for about her manner was something more concrete,
as though she cherished a definite grudge this time.
"Is your memory so bad that you don't recollect what I told you
before?" she asked slowly. "I told you once to keep away from us; I
tell you that again. This is our range now; your stock ain't got any
rights here."
"I'll grant you that I have no right to ask. I did what I could to keep
my cattle out of here. The man I set to guard the Gap was shot down;
that is why they are here this morning; that is why I must have your
water, because it is the only water available.
"I am willing to pay. This means very much to me. Won't you name a
price, give me water? I am asking it as a favor and will be willing to
pay for that favor."
"Favor!"
The girl shot the word out harshly.
"Favor! You're a sweet one to come askin' _me_ for a favor!"
A fever of rage rose in her face and her brows gathered threateningly.
"Nothin' we've got is for sale to you! I wouldn't help you if I could
save your outfit by liftin' my hand ... an' if I was starvin' for that
you'd give me in pay!"
Jane was nonplussed. Bobby's breast rose and fell quickly and her white
teeth gleamed behind drawn lips. She was the catamount, ready to fight!
"But think of these cattle! They're suffering--"
"Cattle! You ask me to think of cattle because they're suffering and
you'd make human beings suffer from worse things than thirst!"
"I don't understand you. What have I done that would make people
suffer?"
"I s'pose you don't know?"--jeeringly. "I s'pose you don't _want_
to know in front of him,"--with a flirt of her quirt to indicate Beck.
"I wouldn't either if I was in your place, you--sneak!"
"Sneak?" Jane repeated, stung to open resentment. "Sneak?"
"Yes, sneak. You'd run us out of this country if you could, but you
can't. You'd take my man if you could ... but you can't!"--through shut
teeth.
"Your man?"--looking at the girl and then at Beck in bewilderment.
"Your--"
"Yes, my man! Oh, don't think I don't know. I saw it all. I saw one of
your hands take him to your home last night. I followed him, I watched
through your window. I seen you beg with him and plead with him. I know
what you want....
"Why, he's told me everything, from th' first! You got him to follow
you out here, you got mad at him and threw him out of your house once.
Now you want him back. You want him back. I suppose while he,"--tilting
her head toward Tom--"is away on round-up! You want him back when
you've got everything you want and he's all I got, all I ever had!"
Tears sprang into her eyes and her voice came trembling through
trembling lips. Jane, swept by confusion, sought words and found none.
It was preposterous! And yet the very accusation degraded her. Drawn
into a quarrel over a man, and such a man!
"You'd take this claim, if you could, when you've got more land than
anybody around here. You'd take my man when you've got lots of others
yourself. You _must_ have lots like you got lots of other things.
Maybe you think that by takin' him you can drive me out and get the
claim that way. Maybe that's your reason, you ... you...." She seemed
to search in vain for an expletive that would convey her contempt.
"But you misunderstand! You're all wrong."
"Wrong, am I? Wrong, when you put your arms around his neck and put
your face close to his an' make him look at you an' beg him to do
things for your sake. I watched through your window last night. I heard
those words, 'For my sake.' You said 'em. I suppose that's wrong, is
it? I--"
"But it wasn't that! It wasn't what you think it--"
"I s'pose you thought he wouldn't tell me, but he did. He won't come
back to you. You couldn't get him away from me!"--in triumph.
Her manner was so assured, she was so convinced of the truth of
Hilton's version of last night's encounter that Jane Hunter was at a
loss for argument. Impulsively she turned to look at Beck, as for
suggestion, and what she saw there stripped her of ability to fight
back. His face was as devoid of expression as a countenance can be, but
his eyes challenged, accused, bore down upon her, demanding that she
explain!
He _demanded_ that she explain!
He suspected her! He gave credence to Bobby's accusation. He could do
that!
A word, even a gesture, would have cleared the situation but his look
struck her inarticulate, immobile. She had been so confident of
herself, of his trust; and now he had grasped upon this monstrous
charge and held her to answer.
"You with your fine notions, your money, your city ways!" the other
taunted. "You, with all you've got, would take the only thing I've got,
the only thing I've ever had!
"An' now you come, askin' favors. Favors from me! Why, all I'll do for
you is to run you out of this country. I've heard what they call me
here: the catamount. I'll show you how the catamount can scratch and
bite!"
It swept over Jane that she must reply, that she must say some word in
her defense, that she must say it now ... _now_ ... that in this
second of time her fate swung in balance, that bitter though
explanation might be she must make it, for Beck was listening, Beck was
watching, Beck was doubting!
And, as she would have spoken, lamely, but with enough clarity to
absolve her from suspicion, Bobby stepped closer.
"You take your men an' light out!" she snapped. "You keep your men out
of here an' your cattle away from this fence. Th' first steer that
breaks through 'll get shot down, th' first man that tries to help 'em
through will find that he needs help himself. I hate you!" she cried.
"I hate you worse 'n I hate a snake an' I'll treat you like a snake
from now on.
"You carry that idea home with you an' you carry this ... as first
payment, to bind the bargain!"
With a quick, sharp swing of her arm, she whipped her quirt through the
air and it wrapped about Jane's soft throat with a vicious snap.
She stepped back with a choking cry, hiding her face. She heard Beck's
short, "That'll do!" in a strange, unnatural voice, as though his
throat were dry. She heard the Catamount's contemptuous sniff and her
hard, "Clear out!"
She found herself in her saddle again, riding beside Beck as they moved
toward the other HC riders, who, dismounted and seated on the ground,
had not witnessed the dramatic parley and its humiliating climax. She
was confronted by a situation which clearly spelled disaster for her
ranch unless solved and solved quickly but that did not matter now.
She had been whipped, as the man who had insulted Bobby Cole had been
whipped. Had been drawn into a brawl! And, far worse, she had found
that the man toward whom she had toiled from the Jane Hunter that had
been to the Jane Hunter she had one day dreamed she might be, had
doubted her!
He was talking haltingly, something about bringing more men to shove
the cattle up into the Coyote Creek country, but even through her
confusion she realized that his thoughts were not finding words, that
he was forcing himself to talk of those things. Her heart wanted to cry
out, to tell him that he had misunderstood, that her encounter with
Hilton was not occasioned by the motive Bobby Cole had suspected. The
old Jane Hunter would have done so, but with her new strength had come
another thing, until that hour hidden: it was pride, a pride which was
as noble as her love, which would permit no cavail, which would not
stoop to conquer!
She fought it down, striving for clarified thought, feeling for the
word, the brief sentence which would explain away Beck's suspicion and
leave that pride uninjured, for there must be such a way. And while she
fought, blinded by tears and confused by humiliation, the moment of
opportunity passed. Beck left her.
They were with the others, who grouped about her foreman, and he said:
"I was going to send one of you men to bring a dozen of the boys from
the wagon to help save this stuff, if we can, but I've changed my
mind,"--with a bitter significance which they did not catch. "I'm goin'
myself. Curtis, you're in charge. Keep your head. Keep the cattle from
breakin' his fence because they'll shoot 'em down an' if they start
shooting cattle there'll be a lot of us get shot."
He started away at a gallop without so much as a look at Jane.
Impulsively she called his name and spurred her sorrel after him. He
set his horse on his haunches, wheeled and waited for her, face white,
those eyes so dark, so accusing. That look checked the words that were
on her lips as effectively as a blow on the mouth and he spoke first as
she halted beside him:
"You did send for him, I take it? You didn't deny that."
He was hard, cruel, brows gathered, and the storm within him stung that
pride of hers further, roused it to newer life.
"Yes, I sent for him," she managed to say, "but Tom, won't--"
"That's all that's necessary then," he said, and was gone.
She sat on her horse watching him ride across the flat for the steep
trail that led out of the Hole and she felt that all the sweetness, all
the worth-while quality of her life was riding hard behind that
straight figure. A bitterness rose in her heart, a rebellion. He would
not listen to her and she had tried to speak!
Jane did not consider that this was but one evidence of the greatness
of the love of such a man, of the sacredness with which he treasured
it; all she saw was the distrust, unbelief, and after a time she rode
slowly on, watching him become a fleck on the face of the mountain,
seeing him finally disappear over the rim, out of her life, it seemed.
* * * * *
With leaden heart she entered her house and sat heavily in the chair
before the desk. An envelope was there, addressed to her in Beck's
coarse hand. She tore it open with unsteady fingers.
The little gold locket which had been warmed first by her heart, then
by Beck's, which had been her talisman for months, slipped into her
palm. With tear-dimmed eyes she looked at it and then turned to the
letter, reading:
"It is likely that you need your luck worse than I do so I am returning
your gift. I would go away from your outfit now but if I did they would
say that they drove me out as they have said they would do. My
reputation is all I have left now and I would like to keep that because
a man must have something.
"I did not want to love you in the first place as you may recall but I
guess I was pretty weak for a man. I told you once that there were
things I did not understand about you and I guess the way you think
about men is one of them. I wanted to drive him out of the country and
you would not let me. I waited a long time today for you to deny what
the Cole girl said and you did not do it. I was pretty mad when I left
you but I realize now it is all my fault. I took a chance which is not
the way to do and now I am paying for it. Well, I am able to pay.
"I hope you will not answer this and will not try to talk to me again
unless on business. I do not blame you. I blame myself but I do not
want to talk about it. I will take good care of your cattle and your
men because that is my job. I will run these men out of this country
and then if I am able to resign I will.
"Respectfully,
"TOM BECK."
She put down the letter, feeling queerly numb. She experienced no
particular resentment because she could well see how her failure to
speak at the proper moment had condemned her in Beck's eyes; her
sensation was of one who has failed in a crisis. Bobby Cole had
dominated her, had swept her off her feet, had given her that
depressing feeling of inferiority again and before her lover's eyes; it
had shaken her assurance, made her question the strength of which she
had been so certain in the last weeks! It was that which hurt her far
more than the stinging welt about her throat where the lash had bitten
her flesh.
She inquired for Two-Bits, learning that the doctor had left him with
the assurance that his recovery would not be unduly delayed. She ate
her dinner abstractedly. In all she did she moved as one who is only
partly alive; a portion of her body, even, seemed insensate, while her
mind was dead. A dull ache pervaded her, an emptiness, for something
vastly important was gone and she was without resource to call it back.
The Reverend came and went, taking beds on pack horses and when Jane
saw him departing she laughed rather weakly to herself.
It was so simple! There was the agency which could bridge this chasm
and while so doing could save the pride which was creating the conflict
within her.
The Reverend knew her motive in sending for Hilton. He could and would
make Beck aware of what had transpired. She even thought of writing Tom
a note, something as follows:
"I am terribly hurt but in a way it is of my own doing. I have just one
thing to request: Ask the Reverend how Dick Hilton came to be here."
But she had no one to send with it and Beck would be back on the morrow
with the men to move the thirst tortured cattle. Besides, there must be
another way than the despatch of such a message. That was too cold and
formal. It would bring him humbly to her but she knew how he would
suffer when his pride was hurt; and such a thing would do no less than
hurt his pride. She would make it as easy as possible.
A let-down came and she cried and when she slept that night her dreams
were not distressing.