by Zane Grey
“Miss Stanton—pardon me—but please understand—No!”
Then he turned and, picking up his cards, resumed the game.
Beauty Stanton suffered a sudden vague check. It was as if a cold thought was trying to enter a warm and glowing mind. She found speech difficult. She could not get off the track of her emotional flight. Her woman’s wit, tact, knowledge of men, would not operate.
“Neale!… Come with—me!” she cried, brokenly. “There’s—”
Some men laughed coarsely. That did not mean anything to Stanton until she saw how it affected Neale. His face flushed red and his hands clenched the cards.
“Say, Neale,” spoke up this brutal gamester, with a sneer, “never mind us. Go along with your lady friend… You’re ahead of the game—as I reckon she sees.”
Neale threw the cards in the man’s face; then, rising, he bent over to slap him so violently as to knock him off his chair.
The crash stilled the room. Every man turned to watch.
Neale stood up, his right arm down, menacingly. The gambler arose, cursing, but made no move to draw a weapon.
Beauty Stanton could not, to save her life, speak the words she wanted to say. Something impeding, totally unexpected, seemed to have arisen.
“Neale—come with—me!” was all she could say.
“No!” he declared, vehemently, with a gesture of disgust and anger.
That, following the coarse implication of the gambler, conveyed to Stanton what all these men imagined. The fools! The fools! A hot vibrating change occurred in her emotion, but she controlled it. Neale turned his back upon her. The crowd saw and many laughed. Stanton felt the sting of her pride, the leap of her blood. She was misunderstood, but what was that to her? As Neale stepped away she caught his arm—held him while she tried to get close to him so she could whisper. He shook her off. His face was black with anger. He held up one hand in a gesture that any woman would have understood and hated. It acted powerfully upon Beauty Stanton. Neale believed she was importuning him. To him her look, whisper, touch had meant only the same as to these coarse human animals gaping and grinning as they listened. The sweetest and best and most exalted moment she had ever known was being made bitter as gall, sickening, hateful. She must speak openly, she must make him understand.
“Allie Lee!… At my house!” burst out Stanton, and then, as if struck by lightning she grew cold, stiff-lipped.
The change in Neale was swift, terrible. Not comprehension, but passion transformed him into a gray-faced man, amazed, furious, agonized, acting in seeming righteous and passionate repudiation of a sacrilege.
“———!” His voice hurled out a heinous name, the one epithet that could inflame and burn and curl Beauty Stanton’s soul into hellish revolt. Gray as ashes, fire-eyed, he appeared about to kill her. He struck her—hard—across the mouth.
“Don’t breathe that name!”
Beauty Stanton’s fear suddenly broke. Blindly she ran out into the street. She fell once—jostled against a rail. The lights blurred; the street seemed wavering; the noise about her filtered through deadened ears; the stalking figures before her were indistinct and unreal.
“He struck me! He called me———!” she gasped. And the exaltation of the last hour vanished as if it had never been. All the passion of her stained and evil years leaped into ascendency. “Hell—hell! I’ll have him knifed—I’ll see him dying! I’ll wet my hands in his blood! I’ll spit in his face as he dies!”
So she gasped out, staggering along the street toward her house. There is no flame of hate so sudden and terrible and intense as that of the lost woman. Beauty Stanton’s blood had turned to vitriol. Men had wronged her, ruined her, dragged her down into the mire. One by one, during her dark career, the long procession of men she had known had each taken something of the good and the virtuous in her, only to leave behind something evil in exchange. She was what they had made her. Her soul was a bottomless gulf, black and bitter as the Dead Sea. Her heart was a volcano, seething, turgid, full of contending fires. Her body was a receptacle into which Benton had poured its dregs. The weight of all the iron and stone used in the construction of the great railroad was the burden upon her shoulders. These dark streams of humanity passing her in the street, these beasts of men, these hairy-breasted toilers, had found in her and her kind the strength or the incentive to endure, to build, to go on. And one of them, stupid, selfish, merciless, a man whom she had really loved, who could have made her better, to whom she had gone with only hope for him and unselfish abnegation for herself—he had put a vile interpretation upon her appeal, he had struck her before a callous crowd, he had called her the name for which there was no pardon from her class, a name that evoked all the furies and the powers of hell.
“Oh, to cut him—to torture him—to burn him alive… But it would not be enough!” she panted.
And into the mind that had been lately fixed in happy consciousness of her power of good there flashed a thousand scintillating, corruscating gleams of evil thought. And then came a crowning one, an inspiration straight from hell.
“By God! I’ll make of Allie Lee the thing I am! The thing he struck—the thing he named!”
The woman in Beauty Stanton ceased to be. All that breathed, in that hour, was what men had made her. Revenge, only a word! Murder, nothing! Life, an implacable, inexplicable, impossible flux and reflux of human passion! Reason, intelligence, nobility, love, womanhood, motherhood—all the heritage of her sex—had been warped by false and abnormal and terrible strains upon her physical and emotional life. No tigress, no cannibal, no savage, no man, no living creature except a woman of grace who knew how far she had fallen could have been capable of Beauty Stanton’s deadly and immutable passion to destroy. Thus life and nature avenged her. Her hate was immeasurable. She who could have walked naked and smiling down the streets of Benton or out upon the barren desert to die for the man she loved had in her the inconceivable and mysterious passion of the fallen woman; she could become a flame, a scourge, a fatal wind, a devastation. She was fire to man; to her own sex, ice. Stanton reached her house and entered. Festivities in honor of the last night of Benton were already riotously in order. She placed herself well back in the shadow and watched the wide door.
“The first man who enters I’ll give him this key!” she hissed.
She was unsteady on her feet. All her frame quivered. The lights in the hall seemed to have a reddish tinge. She watched. Several men passed out. Then a tall, stalking form appeared, entering.
A ball of fire in Stanton’s breast leaped and burst. She had recognized in that entering form the wildest, the most violent and the most dangerous man in Benton—Larry Red King.
Stanton stepped forward and for the first time in the cowboy’s presence she did not experience that singular chill of gloom which he was wont to inspire in her.
Her eyes gloated over King. Tall, lean, graceful, easy, with his flushed ruddy face and his flashing blue eyes and the upstanding red hair, he looked exactly what he was—a handsome red devil, fearing no man or thing, hell-bent in his cool, reckless wildness.
He appeared to be half-drunk. Stanton was trained to read the faces of men who entered there; and what she saw in King’s added the last and crowning throb of joy to her hate. If she had been given her pick of the devils in Benton she would have selected this stalking, gun-packing cowboy.
“Larry, I’ve a new girl here,” she said. “Come.”
“Evenin’, Miss—Stanton,” he drawled. He puffed slightly, after the manner of men under the influence of liquor, and a wicked, boyish, heated smile crossed his face.
She led him easily. But his heavy gun bumped against her, giving her little cold shudders. The passage opened into a wide room, which in turn opened into her dancing-hall. She saw strange, eager, dark faces among the men present, but in her excitement she did not note them particularly. She led Larry across the wide room, up a stairway to another hall, and down this to the corner of an intersecting pa
ssageway.
“Take—this—key!” she whispered. Her hand shook. She felt herself to be a black and monstrous creature. All of Benton seemed driving her. She was another woman. This was her fling at a rotten world, her slap in Neale’s face. But she could not speak again; her lips failed. She pointed to a door.
She waited long enough to see the stalking, graceful cowboy halt in front of the right door. Then she fled.
CHAPTER 27
For many moments after the beautiful bare-armed woman closed and locked the door Allie Lee sat in ecstasy, in trembling anticipation of Neale.
Gradually, however, in intervals of happy mind-wanderings, other thoughts intruded. This little bedroom affected her singularly and she was at a loss to account for the fact. It did not seem that she was actually afraid to be there, for she was glad. Fear of Durade and his gang recurred, but she believed that the time of her deliverance was close at hand. Possibly Durade, with some of his men, had been killed in the fight with Hough. Then she remembered having heard the Spaniard order Fresno and Mull to go round by the street. They must be on her trail at this very moment. Ancliffe had been seen, and not much time could elapse before her whereabouts would be discovered. But Allie bore up bravely. She was in the thick of grim and bloody and horrible reality. Those brave men, strangers to her, had looked into her face, questioned her, then had died for her. It was all so unbelievable. In another room, close to her, lay Ancliffe, dead. Allie tried not to think of him; of the remorseless way in which he had killed the Mexican; of the contrast between this action and his gentle voice and manner. She tried not to think of the gambler Hough—the cold iron cast of his face as he won Durade’s gold, the strange, intent look which he gave her a moment before the attack. There was something magnificent in Ancliffe’s bringing her to a refuge while he was dying; there was something magnificent in Hough’s standing off the gang. Allie divined that through her these two men had fought and died for something in themselves as well as for her honor and life.
The little room seemed a refuge for Allie, yet it was oppressive, as had been the atmosphere of the parlor where Ancliffe lay. But this oppressiveness was not death. Allie had become familiar with death near at hand. This refuge made her flesh creep.
The room was not the home of anyone—it was not inhabited, it was not livable. Yet it contained the same kind of furniture Durade had bought for her and it was clean and comfortable. Still, Allie shrank from touching anything. Through the walls came the low, strange, discordant din to which she had become accustomed—an intense, compelling blend of music, song, voice, and step actuated by one spirit. Then at times she imagined she heard distant hammering and the slap of a falling board.
Probably Allie had not stayed in this room many moments when she began to feel that she had been there hours. Surely the woman would return soon with Neale. And the very thoughts drove all else out of her mind, leaving her palpitating with hope, sick with longing.
Footsteps outside distracted her from the nervous, dreamy mood. Some one was coming along the hall. Her heart gave a wild bound—then sank. The steps passed by her door. She heard the thick, maudlin voice of a man and the hollow, trilling laugh of a girl.
Allie’s legs began to grow weak under her. The strain, the suspense, the longing grew to be too much for her and occasioned a revulsion of feeling. She had let her hopes carry her too high.
Suddenly the door-handle rattled and turned. Allie was brought to a stifling expectancy, motionless in the center of the room. Some one was outside at the door. Could it be Neale? It must be! Her sensitive ears caught short, puffing breaths—then the click of a key in the lock. Allie stood there in an anguish of suspense, with the lift of her heart almost suffocating her. Like a leaf in the wind she quivered.
Whoever was out there fumbled at the key. Then the lock rasped, the handle turned, the door opened. A tall man swaggered in, with head bent sideways, his hand removing the key from the lock. Before he saw Allie he closed the door. With that he faced around.
Allie recognized the red face, the flashing eyes, the flaming hair.
“Larry!” she cried, with bursting heart. She took a quick step, ready to leap into his arms, but his violent start checked her. Larry staggered back—put a hand out. His face was heated and flushed as Allie had never seen it. A stupid surprise showed there. Slowly his hand moved up to cross his lips, to brush through his red hair; then with swifter movement it swept back to feel the door, as if he wanted the touch of tangible things.
“Reckon I’m seein’ ’em again!” he muttered to himself. “Oh, Larry—I’m Allie Lee!” she cried, holding out her hands.
She saw the color fade out of his face. A shock seemed to go over his body. He took a couple of dragging strides toward her. His eyes had the gaze of a man who did not believe what he saw. The hand he reached out shook.
“I’m no ghost! Larry, don’t—you—know me?” she faltered. Indeed he must have thought her a phantom. Great, clammy drops stood out upon his brow.
“Dear old—redhead!” she whispered, brokenly, with a smile of agony and joy. He would know her when she spoke that way—called him the name she had tormented him with—the name no one else would have dared to use.
Then she saw he believed in her reality. His face began to work. She threw her arms about him—she gave up to a frenzy of long-deferred happiness. Where Larry was there would Neale be.
“Allie—it ain’t—you?” he asked, hoarsely, as he hugged her close.
“Oh, Larry—yes—yes—and I’ll die of joy!” she whispered.
“Then you shore ain’t—daid?” he went on, incredulously.
How sweet to Allie was the old familiar Southern drawl!
“Dead? Never.…Why, I’ve kissed you!…and you haven’t kissed me back.”
She felt his breast heave as he lifted her off her feet to kiss her awkwardly, boyishly.
“Shore—the world’s comin’ to an end!… But mebbe I’m only drunk!”
He held her close, towering over her, while he gazed around him and down at her, shaking his head, muttering again in bewilderment.
“Reddy dear—where, oh, where is Neale?” she breathed, all her heart in her voice.
As he released her Allie felt a difference. His whole body seemed to gather, to harden, then vibrate, as if he had been stung.
“My Gawd!” he whispered in hoarse accents of amaze and horror. “Is it you—Allie—here?”
“Of course it’s I,” replied Allie, blankly.
His face turned white to the lips.
“Reddy, what in the world is wrong?” she gasped, beginning to wring her hands.
Suddenly he leaped at her. With rude, iron grasp he forced her back, under the light, and fixed piercing eyes upon hers. He bent closer. Allie was frightened, yet fascinated. His gaze hurt with its intensity, its strange, penetrating power. Allie could not bear it.
“Allie, look at me,” he said, low and hard. “For I reckon you mayn’t hev very long to live!”
Allie struggled weakly. He looked so gray, grim, and terrible. But she could resist neither his strength nor his spirit. She lay quiet and met the clear, strange fire of his eyes. In a few swift moments he had changed utterly.
“Larry—aren’t—you—drunk?” she faltered.
“I was, but now I’m sober.… Girl, kiss me again!”
In wonder and fear Allie complied, now flushing scarlet.
“I—I was never so happy,” she whispered. “But Larry—you—you frighten me.… I—”
“Happy!” ejaculated Larry. Then he let her go and stood up, breathing hard. “There’s a hell of a lie heah somewheres—but it ain’t in you.”
“Larry, talk sense. I’m weak from long waiting. Oh, tell me of Neale!”
What a strange, curious, incomprehensible glance he gave her!
“Allie—Neale’s heah in Benton. I can take you to him in ten minutes. Do you want me to?”
“Want you to!… Reddy! I’ll die if you don’t take me—
at once!” she cried, in anguish.
Again Larry loomed over her. This time he took her hands. “How long had you been heah—before I came?” he asked.
“Half an hour, perhaps; maybe less. But it seemed long.”
“Do you—know—what kind of a house you’re in—this heah room—what it means?” he went on, very low and huskily.
“No, I don’t,” she replied, instantly, with sudden curiosity. Questions and explanations rushed to her lips. But this strangely acting Larry dominated her.
“No other man—came in heah? I—was the first?”
“Yes.”
Then Larry King seemed to wrestle with—himself—with the hold drink had upon him—with that dark and sinister oppression so thick in the room. Allie thrilled to see his face grow soft and light up with the smile she remembered. How strange to feel in Larry King a spirit of gladness, of gratefulness for something beyond her understanding! Again he drew her close. And Allie, keen to read and feel him, wondered why he seemed to want to hide the sight of his face.
“Wal—I reckon—I was nigh onto bein’ drunk,” he said, haltingly. “Shore is a bad habit of mine—Allie.… Makes me think of a lot of—guff—jest the same as it makes me see snakes—an’ things.… I’ll quit drinkin’, Allie.… Never will touch liquor again—now if you’ll jest forgive.”
He spoke gently, huskily, with tears in his voice, and he broke off completely.
“Forgive! Larry, boy, there’s nothing to forgive—except your not hurrying me to—to him!”
She felt the same violent start in him. He held her a moment longer. Then, when he let go of her and stepped back Allie saw the cowboy as of old, cool and easy, yet somehow menacing, as he had been that day the strangers rode into Slingerland’s camp.
“Allie—thet woman Stanton locked you in heah?” queried Larry.
“Yes. Then she—”
Larry’s quick gesture enjoined silence. Stealthy steps sounded out in the hall. They revived Allie’s fear of Durade and his men. It struck her suddenly that Larry must be ignorant of the circumstances that had placed her there.
