Over the Pass

by Frederick Palmer

  VIII

  ACCORDING TO CODE

  It was the supreme moment of night before dawn. A violet mist shroudedeverything. The clamminess of the dew touched Mary's forehead and herhand brushed the moisture-laden hedge as she left the Ewold yard. Sheremembered that Jack had said that he would camp near the station, sothere was no doubt in which direction she should go. Hastening along thesilent street, it was easy for her to imagine that she and Ignacio werethe only sentient beings, abroad in a world that had stopped breathing.

  Softly, impalpably, with both the graciousness of a host and thedeterminedness of an intruder who will not be gainsaid, the first rays ofmorning light filtered into the mist. The violet went pink. From palepink it turned to rose-pink; to the light of life which was as yet asstill as the light of the moon. The occasional giant cactus in the openbeyond the village outskirts ceased to be spectral.

  For the first time Mary Ewold was in the presence of the wonder ofdaybreak on the desert without watching for the harbinger of gold in theV of the pass, with its revelation of a dome of blue where unfathomablespace had been. For the first time daybreak interested her only inbroadening and defining her vision of her immediate surroundings.

  When the permeating softness suddenly yielded to full transparency,spreading from the fanfare of the rising sun come bolt above the range,and the mist rose, she left the road at sight of two ponies and a burroin a group, their heads together in drooping fellowship. She knew them atonce for P.D., Wrath of God, and Jag Ear. Nearby rose a thin spiral ofsmoke and back of it was a huddled figure, Firio, preparing the morningmeal. Animals and servant were as motionless as the cactus. Evidentlythey did not hear her footsteps. They formed a picture of nightlyoblivion, unconscious that day had come. Firio's face was hidden by hisbig Mexican hat; he did not look up even when she was near. She noted thetwo blanket-rolls where the two comrades of the trail had slept. She sawthat both were empty and knew that Jack had already gone.

  "Where is Mr. Wingfield?" she demanded, breathlessly.

  Firio was not startled. To be startled was hardly in his Indian nature.The hat tipped upward and under the brim-edge his black eyes gleamed, asthe sandy soil all around him gleamed in the dew. He shrugged hisshoulders when he recognized the lady speaking as the one who had delayedhim at the foot of the pass the previous afternoon. Thanks to her, he hadbeen left alone without his master the whole evening.

  "He go to stretch his legs," answered Firio.

  Apparently, Sir Chaps had been disinclined to disturb the routine of campby telling Firio anything about the duel.

  "Where did he go? In which direction?" Mary persisted.

  Firio moved the coffee-pot closer to the fire. This seemed to requirethe concentration of all his faculties, including that of speech. He wasa fit servant for one who took duels so casually.

  "Where? Where?" she repeated.

  "Where? Have you no tongue?" snapped Ignacio.

  Firio gazed all around as if looking for Jack; then nodded in thedirection of rising ground which broke at the edge of a depression aboutfifty yards away. Her impatience had made the delay of a minute seemhours, while the brilliance of the light had now become that of broadday. She forgot all constraint. She ran, and as she ran she listened fora shot as if it were something inevitable, past due.

  And then she uttered a muffled cry of relief, as the scene in adepression which had been the bed of an ancient river flashed before herwith theatric completeness. In the bottom of it were five men, twomoving and three stationary. Jim Galway and Ropey Smith were walkingside by side, keeping a measured step as they paced off a certaindistance, while Bill Lang and Pete Leddy and Jack stood by. Leddy andLang were watching the process inflexibly. Jack was in the costume whichhad flushed her curiosity so vividly on the pass and he appeared thesame amused, disinterested and wondering traveller who had then comeupon strange doings.

  She stopped, her temples throbbing giddily, her breaths coming in gasps;stopped to gain mastery of herself before she decided what she would donext. On the opposite bank of the _arroyo_ was a line of heads, likethose of infantry above a parapet, and she comprehended that, in thesame way that news of a cock-fight travels, the gallery gods of LittleRivers had received a tip of a sporting event so phenomenal that itchanged the sluggards among them into early risers. They were makingthemselves comfortable lying flat on their stomachs and exposing aslittle as possible of their precious bodies to the danger of thattenderfoot firing wild.

  It was a great show, of which they would miss no detail; and all hadtheir interest whetted by some possible new complication of the plot whenthey saw the tall, familiar figure of Jasper Ewold's daughter standingagainst the skyline. She felt the greedy inquiry of their eyes; sheguessed their thoughts.

  This new element of the situation swept her with a realization of thepunishment she must suffer for that chance meeting on Galeria and thenwith resentful anger, which transformed Jack Wingfield's indifference tocallous bravado.

  Must she face that battery of leers from the town ruffians while sheimplored a stranger, who had been nothing to her yesterday and would benothing tomorrow, to run away from a combat which was a creation of hisown stubbornness? She was in revolt against herself, against him, andagainst the whole miserable business. If she proceeded, public opinionwould involve her in a sentimental interest in a stranger. She must livewith the story forever, while to an idle traveller it was only anadventure at a way-station on his journey.

  She had but to withdraw in feigned surprise from the sight of a scenewhich she had come upon unawares and she would be free of any associationwith it. For all Little Rivers knew that she was given to random walksand rides. No one would be surprised that she was abroad at this earlyhour. It would be ascribed to the nonsense which afflicted the Ewolds,father and daughter, about sunrises.

  Yes, she had been in a nightmare. With the light of day she was seeingclearly. Had she not warned him about Leddy? Had not she done her part?Should she submit herself to fruitless humiliation? Go to him in as muchdistress as if his existence were her care? If he would not listen to heryesterday, why should she expect him to listen to her now?

  She would return to her garden. Its picture of content and isolationcalled her away from the stare of the faces on the other bank. She turnedon her heel abruptly, took two or three spasmodic steps and stoppedsuddenly, confronted with another picture--one of imagination--that ofJack Wingfield lying dead. The recollection of a voice, the voice thathad stopped the approach of Leddy's passion-inflamed face to her own onthe pass, sounded in her ears.

  She faced around, drawn by something that will and reason could notovercome, to see that Jim Galway and Ropey Smith had finished their taskof pacing off the distance. The two combatants were starting for theirstations, their long shadows in the slant of the morning sunlighttravelling over the sand like pursuing spectres. Leddy went with thequick, firm step which bespoke the keenness of his desire; Jack moreslowly, at a natural gait. His station was so near her that she couldreach him with a dozen steps. And he was whistling--the only sound in asilence which seemed to stretch as far as the desert--whistling gaily inapparent unconsciousness that the whole affair was anything but play.The effect of this was benumbing. It made her muscles go limp. She sankdown for very want of strength to keep erect; and Ignacio, hardlyobserved, keeping close to her dropped at her side.

  "Ignacio, tell the young man, the one who was our guest last evening,that I wish to see him!" she gasped.

  With flickering, shrewd eyes Ignacio had watched her distress. He cravedthe word that should call him to service and was off with a bound. Hisrushing, agitated figure was precipitated into a scene hard set as men ona chess-board in deadly serenity. Leddy and Jack, were already facingeach other.

  "Senor! Senor!" Ignacio shouted, as he ran. "Senor Don't Care of the BigSpurs--wait!"

  The message which he had to give was his mistress's and, therefore,nobody else's business. He rose on tiptoes to whisper it into Jack'sear. Jack listened, wi
th head bent to catch the words. He looked over toMary for an instant of intent silence and then raised his empty lefthand in signal.

  "Sorry, but I must ask for a little delay!" he called to Leddy. His tonewas wonderful in its politeness and he bowed considerately to hisadversary.

  "I thought it was all bluff!" Leddy answered. "You'll get it,though--you'll get it in the old way if you haven't the nerve to take itin yours!"

  "Really, I am stubbornly fond of my way," Jack said. "I shall be only aminute. That will give you time to steady your nerves," he added, in theencouraging, reassuring strain of a coach to a man going to the bat.

  He was coming toward Mary with his easy, languid gait, radiant of casualinquiry. The time of his steps seemed to be reckoned in succeedinghammer-beats in her brain. He was coming and she had to find reasons tokeep him from going back; because if it had not been for her he would bequite safe. Oh, if she could only be free of that idea of obligation tohim! All the pain, the confusion, the embarrassment was on her side. Hisvery manner of approach, in keeping with the whole story of his conducttoward her, showed him incapable of such feelings. She had anotherreaction. She devoutly wished that she had not sent for him.

  Had not his own perversity taken his fate out of her hands? If hepreferred to die, why should it be her concern? Should she volunteerherself as a rescuer of fools? The gleaming sand of the _arroyo_ rose ina dazzling mist before her eyes, obscuring him, clothing him with theunreality of a dream; and then, in physical reality, he emerged. He wasso near as she rose spasmodically that she could have laid her hand onhis shoulder. His hat under his arm, he stood smiling in the bland,questioning interest of a spectator happening along the path, even as hehad in her first glimpse of him on the pass.

  "I don't care! Go on! Go on!" she was going to say. "You have made sportof me! You make sport of everything! Life itself is a joke to you!"

  The tempest of the words was in her eyes, if it did not reach hertongue's end. It was halted by the look of hurt surprise, of real pain,which appeared on his face. Was it possible, after all, that he couldfeel? The thought brought forth the passionate cry of her mission afterthat sleepless night.

  "I beg of you--I implore you--don't!"

  Had anyone told her yesterday that she would have been begging any manin melodramatic supplication for anything, she would have thought ofherself as mad. Wasn't she mad? Wasn't he mad? Yet she broke intopassionate appeal.

  "It is horrible--unspeakable! I cannot bear it!"

  A flood of color swept his cheeks and with it came a peculiar, feminine,almost awkward, gentleness. His air was that of wordless humility. Heseemed more than ever an uncomprehending, sure prey for Leddy.

  "Don't you realize what death is?" she asked.

  The question, so earnest and searching, had the contrary effect on him.It changed him back to his careless self. He laughed in the way of onewho deprecates another's illusion or passing fancy. This added to herconviction that he did not realize, that he was incapable of realizing,his position.

  "Do you think I am about to die?" he asked softly.

  "With Pete Leddy firing at you twenty yards away--yes! And you pose--youpose! If you were human you would be serious!"

  "Pose?" He repeated the word. It startled him, mystified him. "Theclothes I bought to please Firio, you mean?" he inquired, his facelighting.

  "No, about death. It is horrible--horrible! Death for which I amresponsible!"

  "Why, have you forgotten that we settled all that?" he asked. "It was notyou. It was the habit I had formed of whistling in the loneliness of thedesert. I am sorry, now, that I did not stick to singing, even at theexpense of a sore throat."

  Now he called to Leddy, and his voice, high-pitched and powerful, seemedto travel in the luminous air as on resilient, invisible wires.

  "Leddy, wasn't it the way I whistled to you the first time we met thatmade you want satisfaction? You remember"--and he broke into a whistle.His tone was different from that to Leddy on the pass; the whistle wasdifferent. It was shrill and mocking.

  "Yes, the whistle!" yelled Leddy. "No man can whistle to me like thatand live!"

  Jack laughed as if he appreciated all the possibilities of humor inherentin the picture of the bloodthirsty Leddy, the waiting seconds and thegallery. He turned to Mary with a gesture of his outstretched hands:

  "There, you see! I brought it on myself."

  "You are brutal! You are without feeling--you are ridiculous--you--" shestormed, chokingly.

  And in face of this he became reasoning, philosophical.

  "Yes, I admit that it is all ridiculous, even to farce, this little_comedie humaine_. But we must remember that beside the age of the desertnone of us last long. Ridiculous, yes; but if I will whistle, why, then,I must play out the game I've started."

  He was looking straight into her eyes, and there was that in his gazewhich came as a surprise and with something of the effect of a blade outof a scabbard. It chilled her. It fastened her inactive to the earth witha helplessness that was uncanny. It mixed the element of fear for himwith the element of fear of him.

  "Remember I am of age--and I don't mind," he added, with the faintestglint of satire in his reassurance.

  He was walking away, with a wave of his hand to Leddy; he was goingover the precipice's edge after thanking the danger sign. He did nothasten, nor did he loiter. The precipice resolved itself into anincident of a journey of the same order as an ankle-deep streamtrickling across a highway.