ACROSS THE DESERT TO THE END
Never in the after years could Winston clearly recall the incidents of
that night's ride across the sand waste. The haze which shrouded his
brain would never wholly lift. Except for a few detached details the
surroundings of that journey remained vague, clouded, indistinct. He
remembered the great, burning desert; the stars gleaming down above
them like many eyes; the ponderous, ragged edge of cloud in the west;
the irregular, castellated range of hills at their back; the dull
expanse of plain ever stretching away in front, with no boundary other
than that southern sky. The weird, ghostly shadows of cactus and
Spanish bayonet were everywhere; strange, eerie noises were borne to
them out of the void--the distant cries of prowling wolves, the
mournful sough of the night wind, the lonely hoot of some far-off owl.
Nothing greeted the roving eyes but desolation,--a desolation utter and
complete, a mere waste of tumbled sand, by daylight whitened here and
there by irregular patches of alkali, but under the brooding night
shadows lying brown, dull, forlorn beyond all expression, a trackless,
deserted ocean of mystery, oppressive in its drear sombreness.
He rode straight south, seeking no trail, but guiding their course by
the stars, his right hand firmly grasping the pony's bit, and
continually urging his own mount to faster pace. The one thought
dominating his mind was the urgent necessity for haste--a savage
determination to intercept that early train eastward. Beyond this
single idea his brain seemed in hopeless turmoil, seemed failing him.
Any delay meant danger, discovery, the placing of her very life in
peril. He could grasp that; he could plan, guide, act in every way the
part of a man under its inspiration, but all else appeared chaos. The
future?--there was no future; there never again could be. The chasm of
a thousand years had suddenly yawned between him and this woman. It
made his head reel merely to gaze down into those awful depths. It
could not be bridged; no sacrifice, no compensation might ever undo
that fatal death-shot. He did not blame her, he did not question her
justification, but he understood--together they faced the inevitable.
There was no escape, no clearing of the record. There was nothing left
him to do except this, this riding through the night--absolutely
nothing. Once he had guided her into safety all was done,--done
forever; there remained to him no other hope, ambition, purpose, in all
this world. The desert about them typified that forthcoming
existence--barren, devoid of life, dull, and dead. He set his teeth
savagely to keep back the moan of despair that rose to his lips, half
lifting himself in the stirrups to glance back toward her.
If she perceived anything there was not the slightest reflection of it
within her eyes. Lustreless, undeviating, they were staring directly
ahead into the gloom, her face white and almost devoid of expression.
The sight of it turned him cold and sick, his unoccupied hand gripping
the saddle-pommel as though he would crush the leather. Yet he did not
speak, for there was nothing to say. Between these two was a fact,
grim, awful, unchangeable. Fronting it, words were meaningless,
pitiable.
He had never before known that she could ride, but he knew it now. His
eye noted the security of her seat in the saddle, the easy swaying of
her slender form to the motion of the pony, in apparent unconsciousness
of the hard travelling or the rapidity of their progress. She had
drawn back the long tresses of her hair and fastened them in place by
some process of mystery, so that now her face was revealed unshadowed,
clearly defined in the starlight. Dazed, expressionless, as it
appeared, looking strangely deathlike in that faint radiance, he loved
it, his moistened eyes fondly tracing every exposed lineament. God!
but this fair woman was all the world to him! In spite of everything,
his heart went forth to her unchanged. It was Fate, not lack of love
or loyalty, that now set them apart, that had made of their future a
path of bitterness. In his groping mind he rebelled against it, vainly
searching for some way out, urging blindly that love could even blot
out this thing in time, could erase the crime, leaving them as though
it had never been. Yet he knew better. Once she spoke out of the
haunting silence, her voice sounding strange, her eyes still fixed in
that same vacant stare ahead into the gloom.
"Isn't this Mercedes' pony? I--I thought she rode away on him herself?"
With the words the recollection recurred to him that she did not yet
know about that other tragedy. It was a hard task, but he met it
bravely. Quietly as he might, he told the sad story in so far as he
understood it--the love, the sacrifice, the suffering. As she listened
her head drooped ever lower, and he saw the glitter of tears falling
unchecked. He was glad she could cry; it was better than that dull,
dead stare. As he made an end, picturing the sorrowing Stutter
kneeling in his silent watch at the bedside, she looked gravely across
to him, the moisture clinging to the long lashes.
"It was better so--far better. I know how she felt, for she has told
me. God was merciful to her;" the soft voice broke into a sob; "for
me, there is no mercy."
"Beth, don't say that! Little woman, don't say that! The future is
long; it may yet lead to happiness. A true love can outlast even the
memory of this night."
She shook her head wearily, sinking back into the saddle.
"Yes," she said soberly, "love may, and I believe will, outlast all.
It is immortal. But even love cannot change the deed; nothing ever
can, nothing--no power of God or man."
He did not attempt to answer, knowing in the depths of his own heart
that her words were true. For an instant she continued gazing at him,
as though trustful he might speak, might chance to utter some word of
hope that had not come to her. Then the uplifted head drooped wearily,
the searching eyes turning away to stare once again straight ahead.
His very silence was acknowledgment of the truth, the utter
hopelessness of the future. Although living, there lay between them
the gulf of death.
Gray, misty, and silent came the dawn, stealing across the wide
desolation like some ghostly presence--the dawn of a day which held for
these two nothing except despair. They greeted its slow coming with
dulled, wearied eyes, unwelcoming. Drearier amid that weird twilight
than in the concealing darkness stretched the desolate waste of
encircling sand, its hideous loneliness rendered more apparent, its
scars of alkali disfiguring the distance, its gaunt cacti looking
deformed and merciless. The horses moved forward beneath the constant
urging of the spur, worn from fatigue, their heads drooping, their
flanks wet, their dragging hoofs ploughing the sand. The woman never
changed her posture, never seemed to realize the approach of dawn; but
Winston roused up, lifting his head to gaze wearily forward. Beneath
the gray, out-spreading curtain of light he saw before them the dingy
red of a small section-house, with a huge, rusty water-tank outlined
against the sky. Lower down a little section of vividly green grass
seemed fenced about by a narrow stream of running water. At first
glimpse he deemed it a mirage, and rubbed his half-blinded eyes to make
sure. Then he knew they had ridden straight through the night, and
that this was Daggett Station.
He helped her down from the saddle without a word, without the exchange
of a glance, steadying her gently as she stood trembling, and finally
half carried her in his arms across the little platform to the rest of
a rude bench. The horses he turned loose to seek their own pasturage
and water, and then came back, uncertain, filled with vague misgiving,
to where she sat, staring wide-eyed out into the desolation of sand.
He brought with him a tin cup filled with water, and placed it in her
hand. She drank it down thirstily.
"Thank you," she said, her voice sounding more natural.
"Is there nothing else, Beth? Could you eat anything?"
"No, nothing. I am just tired--oh, so tired in both body and brain.
Let me sit here in quiet until the train comes. Will that be long?"
He pointed far off toward the westward, along those parallel rails now
beginning to gleam in the rays of the sun. On the outer rim of the
desert a black spiral of smoke was curling into the horizon.
"It is coming now; we had but little time to spare."
"Is that a fast train? Are you certain it will stop here?"
"To both questions, yes," he replied, relieved to see her exhibit some
returning interest. "They all stop here for water; it is a long run
from this place to Bolton Junction."
She said nothing in reply, her gaze far down the track where those
spirals of smoke were constantly becoming more plainly visible. In the
increasing light of the morning he could observe how the long night had
marked her face with new lines of weariness, had brought to it new
shadows of care. It was not alone the dulled, lustreless eyes, but
also those hollows under them, and the drawn lips, all combining to
tell the story of physical fatigue, and a heart-sickness well-nigh
unendurable. Unable to bear the sight, Winston turned away, walking to
the end of the short platform, staring off objectless into the grim
desert, fighting manfully in an effort to conquer himself. This was a
struggle, a remorseless struggle, for both of them; he must do nothing,
say nothing, which should weaken her, or add an ounce to her burden.
He came back again, his lips firmly closed in repression.
"Our train is nearly here," he said in lack of something better with
which to break the constrained silence.
She glanced about doubtfully, first toward the yet distant train, then
up into his face.
"When is the local east due here? Do you know?"
"Probably an hour later than the express. At least, I judge so from
the time of its arrival at Bolton," he responded, surprised at the
question. "Why do you ask?"
She did not smile, or stir, except to lean slightly forward, her eyes
falling from his face to the platform.
"Would--would it be too much if I were to ask you to permit me to take
this first train alone?" she asked, her voice faltering, her hands
trembling where they were clasped in her lap.
His first bewildered surprise precluded speech; he could only look at
her in stupefied amazement. Then something within her lowered face
touched him with pity.
"Beth," he exclaimed, hardly aware of the words used, "do you mean
that? Is it your wish that we part here?
"Oh, no, not that!" and she rose hastily, holding to the back of the
bench with one hand, and extending the other. "Do not put it in that
way. Such an act would be cruel, unwarranted. But I am so tired, so
completely broken down. It has seemed all night long as though my
brain were on fire; every step of the horse has been torture. Oh, I
want so to be alone--alone! I want to think this out; I want to face
it all by myself. Merciful God! it seems to me I shall be driven
insane unless I can be alone, unless I can find a way into some peace
of soul. Do not blame me; do not look at me like that, but be
merciful--if you still love me, let me be alone."
He grasped the extended hand, bending low over it, unwilling in that
instant that she should look upon his face. Again and again he pressed
his dry lips upon the soft flesh.
"I do love you, Beth," he said at last, chokingly, "love you always, in
spite of everything. I will do now as you say. Your train is already
here. You know my address in Denver. Don't make this forever,
Beth--don't do that."
She did not answer him; her lips quivered, her eyes meeting his for a
single instant. In their depths he believed he read the answer of her
heart, and endeavored to be content. As the great overland train
paused for a moment to quench its thirst, the porter of the Pullman,
who, to his surprise, had been called to place his carpeted step on the
platform of this desert station, gazed in undisguised amazement at
those two figures before him--a man bareheaded, his clothing tattered
and disreputable, half supporting a woman who was hatless, white-faced,
and trembling like a frightened child.
"Yas, sah; whole section vacant, sah, Numbah Five. Denvah; yas, sah,
suttinly. Oh, I'll look after de lady all right. You ain't a-goin'
'long wid us, den, dis trip? Oh, yas; thank ye, sah. Sure, I'll see
dat she gits dere, don't you worry none 'bout dat."
Winston walked restlessly down the platform, gazing up at the
car-windows, every ounce of his mustered resolve necessary to hold him
outwardly calm. The curtains were many of them closed, but at last he
distinguished her, leaning against the glass, that same dull, listless
look in her eyes as she stared out blindly across the waste of sand.
As the train started he touched the window, and she turned and saw him.
There was a single moment when life came flashing back into her eyes,
when he believed her lips even smiled at him. Then he was alone,
gazing down the track after the fast disappearing train.