The Zane Grey Megapack

by Zane Grey

  “Joan, kiss me,” he whispered, with a softness, a richer, deeper note in his voice.

  “No!” cried Joan, violently.

  There was a moment of silence in which she felt his grasp slowly tighten—the heave of his breast.

  “Then I’ll make you,” he said. So different was the voice now that another man might have spoken. Then he bent her backward, and, freeing one hand, brought it under her chin and tried to lift her face.

  But Joan broke into fierce, violent resistance. She believed she was doomed, but that only made her the fiercer, the stronger. And with her head down, her arms straining, her body hard and rigidly unyielding she fought him all over the room, knocking over the table and seats, wrestling from wall to wall, till at last they fell across the bed and she broke his hold. Then she sprang up, panting, disheveled, and backed away from him. It had been a sharp, desperate struggle on her part and she was stronger than he. He was not a well man. He raised himself and put one hand to his breast. His face was haggard, wet, working with passion, gray with pain. In the struggle she had hurt him, perhaps reopened his wound.

  “Did you—knife me—that it hurts so?” he panted, raising a hand that shook.

  “I had—nothing.… I just—fought,” cried Joan, breathlessly.

  “You hurt me—again—damn you! I’m never free—from pain. But this’s worse.… And I’m a coward.… And I’m a dog, too! Not half a man!—You slip of a girl—and I couldn’t—hold you!”

  His pain and shame were dreadful for Joan to see, because she felt sorry for him, and divined that behind them would rise the darker, grimmer force of the man. And she was right, for suddenly he changed. That which had seemed almost to make him abject gave way to a pale and bitter dignity. He took up Dandy Dale’s belt, which Joan had left on the bed, and, drawing the gun from its sheath, he opened the cylinder to see if it was loaded, and then threw the gun at Joan’s feet.

  “There! Take it—and make a better job this time,” he said.

  The power in his voice seemed to force Joan to pick up the gun.

  “What do—you mean?” she queried, haltingly.

  “Shoot me again! Put me out of my pain—my misery.… I’m sick of it all. I’d be glad to have you kill me!”

  “Kells!” exclaimed Joan, weakly.

  “Take your chance—now—when I’ve no strength—to force you.… Throw the gun on me.… Kill me!”

  He spoke with a terrible impelling earnestness, and the strength of his will almost hypnotized Joan into execution of his demand.

  “You are mad,” she said. “I don’t want to kill you. I couldn’t.… I just want you to—to be—decent to me.”

  “I have been—for me. I was only in fun this time—when I grabbed you. But the feel of you!… I can’t be decent any more. I see things clear now.… Joan Randle, it’s my life or your soul!”

  He rose now, dark, shaken, stripped of all save the truth.

  Joan dropped the gun from nerveless grasp.

  “Is that your choice?” he asked hoarsely.

  “I can’t murder you!”

  “Are you afraid of the other men—of Gulden? Is that why you can’t kill me? You’re afraid to be left—to try to get away?”

  “I never thought of them.”

  “Then—my life or your soul!”

  He stalked toward her, loomed over her, so that she put out trembling hands. After the struggle a reaction was coming to her. She was weakening. She had forgotten her plan.

  “If you’re merciless—then it must be—my soul,” she whispered. “For I can’t murder you.… Could you take that gun now—and press it here—and murder me?”

  “No. For I love you.”

  “You don’t love me. It’s a blacker crime to murder the soul than the body.”

  Something in his strange eyes inspired Joan with a flashing, reviving divination. Back upon her flooded all that tide of woman’s subtle incalculable power to allure, to charge, to hold. Swiftly she went close to Kells. She stretched out her hands. One was bleeding from rough contract with the log wall during the struggle. Her wrists were red, swollen, bruised from his fierce grasp.

  “Look! See what you’ve done. You were a beast. You made me fight like a beast. My hands were claws—my whole body one hard knot of muscle. You couldn’t hold me—you couldn’t kiss me.… Suppose you are able to hold me—later. I’ll only be the husk of a woman. I’ll just be a cold shell, doubled-up, unrelaxed, a callous thing never to yield.… All that’s me, the girl, the woman you say you love—will be inside, shrinking, loathing, hating, sickened to death. You will only kiss—embrace—a thing you’ve degraded. The warmth, the sweetness, the quiver, the thrill, the response, the life—all that is the soul of a woman and makes her lovable will be murdered.”

  Then she drew still closer to Kells, and with all the wondrous subtlety of a woman in a supreme moment where a life and a soul hang in the balance, she made of herself an absolute contrast to the fierce, wild, unyielding creature who had fought him off.

  “Let me show—you the difference,” she whispered, leaning to him, glowing, soft, eager, terrible, with her woman’s charm. “Something tells me—gives me strength.… What might be!… Only barely possible—if in my awful plight—you turned out to be a man, good instead of bad!… And—if it were possible—see the differences—in the woman.… I show you—to save my soul!”

  She gave the fascinated Kells her hands, slipped into his arms, to press against his breast, and leaned against him an instant, all one quivering, surrendered body; and then lifting a white face, true in its radiance to her honest and supreme purpose to give him one fleeting glimpse of the beauty and tenderness and soul of love, she put warm and tremulous lips to his.

  Then she fell away from him, shrinking and terrified. But he stood there as if something beyond belief had happened to him, and the evil of his face, the hard lines, the brute softened and vanished in a light of transformation.

  “My God!” he breathed softly. Then he awakened as if from a trance, and, leaping down the steps, he violently swept aside the curtain and disappeared.

  Joan threw herself upon the bed and spent the last of her strength in the relief of blinding tears. She had won. She believed she need never fear Kells again. In that one moment of abandon she had exalted him. But at what cost!

  THE BORDER LEGION [Part 2]

  CHAPTER 10

  Next day, when Kells called Joan out into the other cabin, she verified her hope and belief, not so much in the almost indefinable aging and sadness of the man, as in the strong intuitive sense that her attraction had magnified for him and had uplifted him.

  “You mustn’t stay shut up in there any longer,” he said. “You’ve lost weight and you’re pale. Go out in the air and sun. You might as well get used to the gang. Bate Wood came to me this morning and said he thought you were the ghost of Dandy Dale. That name will stick to you. I don’t care how you treat my men. But if you’re friendly you’ll fare better. Don’t go far from the cabin. And if any man says or does a thing you don’t like—flash your gun. Don’t yell for me. You can bluff this gang to a standstill.”

  That was a trial for Joan, when she walked out into the light in Dandy Dale’s clothes. She did not step very straight, and she could feel the cold prick of her face under the mask. It was not shame, but fear that gripped her. She would rather die than have Jim Cleve recognize her in that bold disguise. A line of dusty saddled horses stood heads and bridles down before the cabin, and a number of lounging men ceased talking when she appeared. It was a crowd that smelled of dust and horses and leather and whisky and tobacco. Joan did not recognize anyone there, which fact aided her in a quick recovery of her composure. Then she found amusement in the absolute sensation she made upon these loungers. They stared, open-mouthed and motionless. One old fellow dropped his pipe from bearded lips and did not seem to note the loss. A dark young man, dissipated and wild-looking, with years of lawlessness stamped upon his face, was the first to move;
and he, with awkward gallantry, but with amiable disposition. Joan wanted to run, yet she forced herself to stand there, apparently unconcerned before this battery of bold and curious eyes. That, once done, made the rest easier. She was grateful for the mask. And with her first low, almost incoherent, words in reply Joan entered upon the second phase of her experience with these bandits. Naturalness did not come soon, but it did come, and with it her wit and courage.

  Used as she had become to the villainous countenances of the border ruffians, she yet upon closer study discovered wilder and more abandoned ones. Yet despite that, and a brazen, unconcealed admiration, there was not lacking kindliness and sympathy and good nature. Presently Joan sauntered away, and she went among the tired, shaggy horses and made friends with them. An occasional rider swung up the trail to dismount before Kells’s cabin, and once two riders rode in, both staring—all eyes—at her. The meaning of her intent alertness dawned upon her then. Always, whatever she was doing or thinking or saying, behind it all hid the driving watchfulness for Jim Cleve. And the consciousness of this fixed her mind upon him. Where was he? What was he doing? Was he drunk or gambling or fighting or sleeping? Was he still honest? When she did meet him what would happen? How could she make herself and circumstances known to him before he killed somebody? A new fear had birth and grew—Cleve would recognize her in that disguise, mask and all.

  She walked up and down for a while, absorbed with this new idea. Then an unusual commotion among the loungers drew her attention to a group of men on foot surrounding and evidently escorting several horsemen. Joan recognized Red Pearce and Frenchy, and then, with a start, Jim Cleve. They were riding up the trail. Joan’s heart began to pound. She could not meet Jim; she dared not trust this disguise; all her plans were as if they had never been. She forgot Kells. She even forgot her fear of what Cleve might do. The meeting—the inevitable recognition—the pain Jim Cleve must suffer when the fact and apparent significance of her presence there burst upon him, these drove all else from Joan’s mind. Mask or no mask, she could not face his piercing eyes, and like a little coward she turned to enter the cabin.

  Before she got in, however, it was forced upon her that something unusual had roused the loungers. They had arisen and were interested in the approaching group. Loud talk dinned in Joan’s ears. Then she went in the door as Kells stalked by, eyes agleam, without even noticing her. Once inside her cabin, with the curtain drawn, Joan’s fear gave place to anxiety and curiosity.

  There was no one in the large cabin. Through the outer door she caught sight of a part of the crowd, close together, heads up, all noisy. Then she heard Kells’s authoritative voice, but she could understand nothing. The babel of hoarse voices grew louder. Kells appeared, entering the door with Pearce. Jim Cleve came next, and, once the three were inside, the crowd spilled itself after them like angry bees. Kells was talking, Pearce was talking, but their voices were lost. Suddenly Kells vented his temper.

  “Shut up—the lot of you!” he yelled, and his power and position might have been measured by the menace he showed.

  The gang became suddenly quiet.

  “Now—what’s up?” demanded Kells.

  “Keep your shirt on, boss,” replied Pearce, with good humor. “There ain’t much wrong.… Cleve, here, throwed a gun on Gulden, that’s all.”

  Kells gave a slight start, barely perceptible, but the intensity of it, and a fleeting tigerish gleam across his face, impressed Joan with the idea that he felt a fiendish joy. Her own heart clamped in a cold amaze.

  “Gulden!” Kells’s exclamation was likewise a passionate query.

  “No, he ain’t cashed,” replied Pearce. “You can’t kill that bull so easy. But he’s shot up some. He’s layin’ over at Beard’s. Reckon you’d better go over an’ dress them shots.”

  “He can rot before I doctor him,” replied Kells. “Where’s Bate Wood?… Bate, you can take my kit and go fix Gulden up. And now, Red, what was all the roar about?”

  “Reckon that was Gulden’s particular pards tryin’ to mix it with Cleve an’ Cleve tryin’ to mix it with them—an’ me in between!… I’m here to say, boss, that I had a time stavin’ off a scrap.”

  During this rapid exchange between Kells and his lieutenant, Jim Cleve sat on the edge of the table, one dusty boot swinging so that his spur jangled, a wisp of a cigarette in his lips. His face was white except where there seemed to be bruises under his eyes. Joan had never seen him look like this. She guessed that he had been drunk—perhaps was still drunk. That utterly abandoned face Joan was so keen to read made her bite her tongue to keep from crying out. Yes, Jim was lost.

  “What’d they fight about?” queried Kells.

  “Ask Cleve,” replied Pearce. “Reckon I’d just as lief not talk any more about him.”

  Then Kells turned to Cleve and stepped before him. Somehow these two men face to face thrilled Joan to her depths. They presented such contrasts. Kells was keen, imperious, vital, strong, and complex, with an unmistakable friendly regard for this young outcast. Cleve seemed aloof, detached, indifferent to everything, with a white, weary, reckless scorn. Both men were far above the gaping ruffians around them.

  “Cleve, why’d you draw on Gulden?” asked Kells, sharply.

  “That’s my business,” replied Cleve, slowly, and with his piercing eyes on Kells he blew a long, thin, blue stream of smoke upward.

  “Sure.… But I remember what you asked me the other day—about Gulden. Was that why?”

  “Nope,” replied Cleve. “This was my affair.”

  “All right. But I’d like to know. Pearce says you’re in bad with Gulden’s friends. If I can’t make peace between you I’ll have to take sides.”

  “Kells, I don’t need anyone on my side,” said Cleve, and he flung the cigarette away.

  “Yes, you do,” replied Kells, persuasively. “Every man on this border needs that. And he’s lucky when he gets it.”

  “Well, I don’t ask for it; I don’t want it.”

  “That’s your own business, too. I’m not insisting or advising.”

  Kells’s force and ability to control men manifested itself in his speech and attitude. Nothing could have been easier than to rouse the antagonism of Jim Cleve, abnormally responding as he was to the wild conditions of this border environment.

  “Then you’re not calling my hand?” queried Cleve, with his dark, piercing glance on Kells.

  “I pass, Jim,” replied the bandit, easily.

  Cleve began to roll another cigarette. Joan saw his strong, brown hands tremble, and she realized that this came from his nervous condition, not from agitation. Her heart ached for him. What a white, somber face, so terribly expressive of the overthrow of his soul! He had fled to the border in reckless fury at her—at himself. There in its wildness he had, perhaps, lost thought of himself and memory of her. He had plunged into the unrestrained border life. Its changing, raw, and fateful excitement might have made him forget, but behind all was the terrible seeking to destroy and be destroyed. Joan shuddered when she remembered how she had mocked this boy’s wounded vanity—how scathingly she had said he did not possess manhood and nerve enough even to be bad.

  “See here, Red,” said Kells to Pearce, “tell me what happened—what you saw. Jim can’t object to that.”

  “Sure,” replied Pearce, thus admonished. “We was all over at Beard’s an’ several games was on. Gulden rode into camp last night. He’s always sore, but last night it seemed more’n usual. But he didn’t say much an’ nothin’ happened. We all reckoned his trip fell through. Today he was restless. He walked an’ walked just like a cougar in a pen. You know how Gulden has to be on the move. Well, we let him alone, you can bet. But suddenlike he comes up to our table—me an’ Cleve an’ Beard an’ Texas was playin’ cards—an’ he nearly kicks the table over. I grabbed the gold an’ Cleve he saved the whisky. We’d been drinkin’ an’ Cleve most of all. Beard was white at the gills with rage an’ Texas was soffocatin’. But we all was
afraid of Gulden, except Cleve, as it turned out. But he didn’t move or look mean. An’ Gulden pounded on the table an’ addressed himself to Cleve.

  “‘I’ve a job you’ll like. Come on.’

  “‘Job? Say, man, you couldn’t have a job I’d like,’ replied Cleve, slow an’ cool.

  “You know how Gulden gets when them spells come over him. It’s just plain cussedness. I’ve seen gunfighters lookin’ for trouble—for someone to kill. But Gulden was worse than that. You all take my hunch—he’s got a screw loose in his nut.

  “‘Cleve,’ he said, ‘I located the Brander gold-diggin’s—an’ the girl was there.’

  “Some kind of a white flash went over Cleve. An’ we all, rememberin’ Luce, began to bend low, ready to duck. Gulden didn’t look no different from usual. You can’t see any change in him. But I for one felt all hell burnin’ in him.

  “‘Oho! You have,’ said Cleve, quick, like he was pleased. ‘An’ did you get her?’

  “‘Not yet. Just looked over the ground. I’m pickin’ you to go with me. We’ll split on the gold, an’ I’ll take the girl.’

  “Cleve swung the whisky-bottle an’ it smashed on Gulden’s mug, knockin’ him flat. Cleve was up, like a cat, gun burnin’ red. The other fellers were dodgin’ low. An’ as I ducked I seen Gulden, flat on his back, draggin’ at his gun. He stopped short an’ his hand flopped. The side of his face went all bloody. I made sure he’d cashed, so I leaped up an’ grabbed Cleve.

  “It’d been all right if Gulden had only cashed. But he hadn’t. He came to an’ bellered fer his gun an’ fer his pards. Why, you could have heard him for a mile.… Then, as I told you, I had trouble in holdin’ back a general mix-up. An’ while he was hollerin’ about it I led them all over to you. Gulden is layin’ back there with his ear shot off. An’ that’s all.”

  Kells, with thoughtful mien, turned from Pearce to the group of dark-faced men. “This fight settles one thing,” he said to them. “We’ve got to have organization. If you’re not all a lot of fools you’ll see that. You need a head. Most of you swear by me, but some of you are for Gulden. Just because he’s a bloody devil. These times are the wildest the West ever knew, and they’re growing wilder. Gulden is a great machine for execution. He has no sense of fear. He’s a giant. He loves to fight—to kill. But Gulden’s all but crazy. This last deal proves that. I leave it to your common sense. He rides around hunting for some lone camp to rob. Or some girl to make off with. He does not plan with me or the men whose judgment I have confidence in. He’s always without gold. And so are most of his followers. I don’t know who they are. And I don’t care. But here we split—unless they and Gulden take advice and orders from me. I’m not so much siding with Cleve. Any of you ought to admit that Gulden’s kind of work will disorganize a gang. He’s been with us for long. And he approaches Cleve with a job. Cleve is a stranger. He may belong here, but he’s not yet one of us. Gulden oughtn’t have approached him. It was no straight deal. We can’t figure what Gulden meant exactly, but it isn’t likely he wanted Cleve to go. It was a bluff. He got called.… You men think this over—whether you’ll stick to Gulden or to me. Clear out now.”