CHAPTER XXI
For a minute, perhaps longer, John Aldous stood staring at the photographwhich he held in his hand. It was the picture of Culver Rann--not once didhe question that fact, and not once did the thought flash upon him thatthis might be only an unusual and startling resemblance. It was assuredlyCulver Rann! The picture dropped from his hand to the table, and he wenttoward the door. His first impulse was to go to Joanne. But when he reachedthe door he locked it, and dropped into a chair, facing the mirror in hisdresser.
The reflection of his own face was a shock to him. If he was pale, the dustand grime of his fight in the cavern concealed his pallor. But the facethat stared at him from out of the glass was haggard, wildly and almostgrotesquely haggard, and he turned from it with a grim laugh, and set hisjaws hard. He returned to the table, and bit by bit tore the photographinto thin shreds, and then piled the shreds on his ash-tray and burnedthem. He opened a window to let out the smoke and smell of charring paper,and the fresh, cool air of early evening struck his face. He could look offthrough the fading sunshine of the valley and see the mountain where CoyoteNumber Twenty-eight was to have done its work, and as he looked he grippedthe window-sill so fiercely that the nails of his fingers were bent andbroken against the wood. And in his brain the same words kept repeatingthemselves over and over again. Mortimer FitzHugh was not dead. He wasalive. He was Culver Rann. And Joanne--Joanne was not _his_ wife; she wasstill the wife of Mortimer FitzHugh--of Culver Rann!
He turned again to the mirror, and there was another look in his face. Itwas grim, terribly grim--and smiling. There was no excitement, nothing ofthe passion and half-madness with which he had faced Quade and Rann thenight before. He laughed softly, and his nails dug as harshly into thepalms of his hands as they had dug into the sills of the window.
"You poor, drivelling, cowardly fool!" he said to his reflection. "And youdare to say--you dare to _think_ that she is not your wife?"
As if in reply to his words there came a knock at the door, and from thehall Blackton called:
"Here's MacDonald, Aldous. He wants to see you."
Aldous opened the door and the old hunter entered.
"If I ain't interruptin' you, Johnny----"
"You're the one man in the world I want to see, Mac. No, I'll take thatback; there's one other I want to see worse than you--Culver Rann."
The strange look in his face made old Donald stare.
"Sit down," he said, drawing two chairs close to the table. "There'ssomething to talk about. It was a terribly close shave, wasn't it?"
"An awful close shave, Johnny. As close a shave as ever was."
Still, as if not quite understanding what he saw, old Donald was staringinto John's face.
"I'm glad it happened," said Aldous, and his voice became softer. "Sheloves me, Mac. It all came out when we were in there, and thought we weregoing to die. Not ten minutes ago the minister was here, and he made us manand wife."
Words of gladness that sprang to the old man's lips were stopped by thatstrange, cold, tense look in the face of John Aldous.
"And in the last five minutes," continued Aldous, as quietly as before, "Ihave learned that Mortimer FitzHugh, her husband, is not dead. Is it veryremarkable that you do not find me happy, Mac? If you had come a fewminutes ago----"
"Oh, my God! Johnny! Johnny!"
MacDonald had pitched forward over the table, and now he bowed his greatshaggy head in his hands, and his gaunt shoulders shook as his voice camebrokenly through his beard.
"I did it, Johnny; I did it for you an' her! When I knew what it would meanfor her--I _couldn't_, Johnny, I couldn't tell her the truth, 'cause I knewshe loved you, an' you loved her, an' it would break her heart. I thoughtit would be best, an' you'd go away together, an' nobody would ever know,an' you'd be happy. I didn't lie. I didn't say anything. ButJohnny--Johnny, _there weren't no bones in the grave!_"
"My God!" breathed Aldous.
"There were just some clothes," went on MacDonald huskily, "an' the watchan' the ring were on top. Johnny, there weren't nobody ever buried there,an' I'm to blame--I'm to blame."
"And you did that for us," cried Aldous, and suddenly he reached over andgripped old Donald's hands. "It wasn't a mistake, Mac. I thank God you keptsilent. If you had told her that the grave was empty, that it was a fraud,I don't know what would have happened. And now--she is _mine!_ If she hadseen Culver Rann, if she had discovered that this scoundrel, thisblackmailer and murderer, was Mortimer FitzHugh, her husband----"
"Johnny! John Aldous!"
Donald MacDonald's voice came now like the deep growling roar of ashe-bear, and as he cried the other's name he sprang to his feet, and hiseyes gleamed in their deep sockets like raging fires.
"Johnny!"
Aldous rose, and he was smiling. He nodded.
"That's it," he said. "Mortimer FitzHugh is Culver Rann!"
"An'--an' you know this?"
"Absolutely. Joanne gave me Mortimer FitzHugh's photograph to destroy. I amsorry that I burned it before you saw it. But there is no doubt. MortimerFitzHugh and Culver Rann are the same man."
Slowly the old mountaineer turned to the door. Aldous was ahead of him, andstood with his hand on the knob.
"I don't want you to go yet, Mac."
"I--I'll see you a little later," said Donald clumsily.
"Donald!"
"Johnny!"
For a full half minute they looked steadily into each other's eyes.
"Only a week, Johnny," pleaded Donald. "I'll be back in a week."
"You mean that you will kill him?"
"He'll never come back. I swear it, Johnny!"
As gently as he might have led Joanne, Aldous drew the mountaineer back tothe chair.
"That would be cold-blooded murder," he said, "and I would be the murderer.I can't send you out to do my killing, Mac, as I might send out a hiredassassin. Don't you see that I can't? Good heaven, some day--very soon--Iwill tell you how this hound, Mortimer FitzHugh, poisoned Joanne's life,and did his worst to destroy her. It's to me he's got to answer, Donald.And to me he shall answer. I am going to kill him. But it will not bemurder. Since you have come into this room I have made my final plan, and Ishall follow it to the end coolly and deliberately. It will be a greatgame, Mac--and it will be a fair game; and I shall play it happily, becauseJoanne will not know, and I will be strengthened by her love.
"Quade wants my life, and tried to hire Stevens, up at Miette, to kill me.Culver Rann wants my life; a little later it will come to be the greatestdesire of his existence to have me dead and out of the way. I shall givehim the chance to do the killing, Mac. I shall give him a splendid chance,and he will not fail to accept his opportunity. Perhaps he will have anadvantage, but I am as absolutely certain of killing him as I am that thesun is going down behind the mountains out there. If others should stepin, if I should have more than Culver Rann on my hands--why, then you maydeal yourself a hand if you like, Donald. It may be a bigger game than Oneagainst One."
"It will," rumbled MacDonald. "I learned other things early this afternoon,Johnny. Quade did not stay behind. He went with Rann. DeBar and the womanare with them, and two other men. They went over the Lone Cache Pass, andthis minute are hurrying straight for the headwaters of the Parsnip. Thereare five of 'em--five men."
"And we are two," smiled Aldous. "So there _is_ an advantage on their side,isn't there, Mac? And it makes the game most eminently fair, doesn't it?"
"Johnny, we're good for the five!" cried old Donald in a low, eager voice."If we start now----"
"Can you have everything ready by morning?"
"The outfit's waiting. It's ready now, Johnny."
"Then we'll leave at dawn. I'll come to you to-night in the coulee, andwe'll make our final plans. My brain is a little muddled now, and I've gotto clear it, and make myself presentable before supper. We must not letJoanne know. She must suspect nothing--absolutely nothing."
"Nothing," repeated MacDonald as he went to the doo
r.
There he paused and, hesitating for a moment, leaned close to Aldous, andsaid in a low voice:
"Johnny, I've been wondering why the grave were empty. I've been wonderingwhy there weren't somebody's bones there just t' give it the look it should'a' had an' why the clothes were laid out so nicely with the watch an' thering on top!"
With that he was gone, and Aldous closed and relocked the door.
He was amazed at his own composure as he washed himself and proceeded todress for supper. What had happened had stunned him at first, had eventerrified him for a few appalling moments. Now he was superblyself-possessed. He asked himself questions and answered them with apromptness which left no room for doubt in his mind as to what his actionsshould be. One fact he accepted as absolute: Joanne belonged to him. Shewas his wife. He regarded her as that, even though Mortimer FitzHugh wasalive. In the eyes of both God and man FitzHugh no longer had a claim uponher. This man, who was known as Culver Rann, was worse than Quade, ascoundrel of the first water, a procurer, a blackmailer, even amurderer--though he had thus far succeeded in evading the rather loose andpoorly working tentacles of mountain law.
Not for an instant did he think of Joanne as Culver Rann's wife. She was_his_ wife. It was merely a technicality of the law--a technicality thatJoanne might break with her little finger--that had risen now between themand happiness. And it was this that he knew was the mountain in his path,for he was certain that Joanne would not break that last link of bondage.She would know, with Mortimer FitzHugh alive, that the pledge between themin the "coyote," and the marriage ceremony in the room below, meantnothing. Legally, she was no more to him now than she was yesterday, or theday before. And she would leave him, even if it destroyed her, heart andsoul. He was sure of that. For years she had suffered her heart to beground out of her because of the "bit of madness" that was in her, becauseof that earlier tragedy in her life--and her promise, her pledge to herfather, her God, and herself. Without arguing a possible change in herbecause of her love for him, John Aldous accepted these things. He believedthat if he told Joanne the truth he would lose her.
His determination not to tell her, to keep from her the secret of the graveand the fact that Mortimer FitzHugh was alive, grew stronger in him witheach breath that he drew. He believed that it was the right thing to do,that it was the honourable and the only thing to do. Now that the firstshock was over, he did not feel that he had lost Joanne, or that there wasa very great danger of losing her. For a moment it occurred to him that hemight turn the law upon Culver Rann, and in the same breath he laughed atthis absurdity. The law could not help him. He alone could work out his ownand Joanne's salvation. And what was to happen must happen very soon--up inthe mountains. When it was all over, and he returned, he would tell Joanne.
His heart beat more quickly as he finished dressing. In a few minutes morehe would be with Joanne, and in spite of what had happened, and what mighthappen, he was happy. Yesterday he had dreamed. To-day was reality--and itwas a glorious reality. Joanne belonged to him. She loved him. She was hiswife, and when he went to her it was with the feeling that only a serpentlay in the path of their paradise--a serpent which he would crush with aslittle compunction as that serpent would have destroyed her. Utterly andremorselessly his mind was made up.
The Blacktons' supper hour was five-thirty, and he was a quarter of an hourlate when he tapped at Joanne's door. He felt the warmth of a strange anddelightful embarrassment flushing his face as the door opened, and shestood before him. In her face, too, was a telltale riot of colour which thedeep tan partly concealed in his own.
"I--I am a little late, am I not, Joanne?" he asked.
"You are, sir. If you have taken all this time dressing you are worse thana woman. I have been waiting fifteen minutes!"
"Old Donald came to see me," he apologized. "Joanne----"
"You mustn't, John!" she expostulated in a whisper. "My face is afire now!You mustn't kiss me again--until after supper----"
"Only once," he pleaded.
"If you will promise--just once----"
A moment later she gasped:
"Five times! John Aldous, I will never believe you again as long as Ilive!"
They went down to the Blacktons, and Peggy and Paul, who were busy oversome growing geraniums in the dining-room window, faced about with a forcedand incongruous appearance of total oblivion to everything that hadhappened. It lasted less than ten seconds. Joanne's lips quivered. Aldoussaw the two little dimples at the corners of her mouth fighting to keepthemselves out of sight--and then he looked at Peggy. Blackton could standit no longer, and grinned broadly.
"For goodness sake go to it, Peggy!" he laughed. "If you don't you'llexplode!"
The next moment Peggy and Joanne were in each other's arms, and the two menwere shaking hands.
"We know just how you feel," Blackton tried to explain. "We felt just likeyou do, only we had to face twenty people instead of two. And you're nothungry. I'll wager that. I'll bet you don't feel like swallowing amouthful. It had that peculiar effect on us, didn't it, Peggy?"
"And I--I almost choked myself," gurgled Peggy as they took their places atthe table. "There really did seem to be something thick in my throat,Joanne, dear. I coughed and coughed and coughed before all those peopleuntil I wanted to die right there! And I'm wondering----"
"If I'm going to choke, too?" smiled Joanne. "Indeed not, Peggy. I'm ashungry as a bear!"
And now she did look glorious and self-possessed to Aldous as she satopposite him at that small round table, which was just fitted for four. Hetold her so when the meal was finished, and they were following theBlacktons into the front room. Blackton had evidently been carefullydrilled along the line of a certain scheme which Peggy had formed, for inspite of a negative nod from her, which signified that he was to wait awhile, he pulled out his watch, and said:
"It isn't at all surprising if you people have forgotten that to-morrow isSunday. Peggy and I always do some Saturday-night shopping, and if youdon't mind, we'll leave you to care for the house while we go to town. Wewon't be gone more than an hour."
A few minutes later, when the door had closed behind them, Aldous ledJoanne to a divan, and sat down beside her.
"I couldn't have arranged it better myself, dear," he exclaimed. "I havebeen wondering how I could have you alone for a few minutes, and tell youwhat is on my mind before I see MacDonald again to-night. I'm afraid youwill be displeased with me, Joanne. I hardly know how to begin. But--I'vegot to."
A moment's uneasiness came into her eyes as she saw how seriously he wasspeaking.
"You don't mean, John--there's more about Quade--and Culver Rann?"
"No, no--nothing like that," he laughed, as though amused at the absurdityof her question. "Old Donald tells me they have skipped the country,Joanne. It's not that. It's you I'm thinking of, and what you may think ofme a minute from now. Joanne, I've given my word to old Donald. He haslived in my promise. I've got to keep that promise--I must go into theNorth with him."
She had drawn one of his hands into her lap and was fondling it with herown soft palm and fingers.
"Of course, you must, John. I love old Donald."
"And I must go--soon," he added.
"It is only fair to him that you should," she agreed.
"He--he is determined we shall go in the morning," he finished, keeping hiseyes from her.
For a moment Joanne did not answer. Her fingers interweaved with his, herwarm little palm stroked the rough back of his hand. Then she said, verysoftly:
"And why do you think that will displease me, John, dear? I will be ready!"
"You!"
Her eyes were on him, full, and dark, and glowing, and in them were bothlove and laughter.
"You dear silly John!" she laughed. "Why don't you come right out and tellme to stay at home, instead of--of--'beating 'round the bush'--as PeggyBlackton says? Only you don't know what a terrible little person you'vegot, John. You really don't. So you needn't say any mo
re. We'll start inthe morning--and I am going with you!"
In a flash John Aldous saw his whole scheme shaking on its foundation.
"It's impossible--utterly impossible!" he gasped.
"And why utterly?" she asked, bending her head so that her soft hairtouched his face and lips. "John, have you already forgotten what we saidin that terrible cavern--what we told ourselves we would have done if wehad lived? We were going adventuring, weren't we? And we are not dead--butalive. And this will be a glorious trip! Why, John, don't you see, don'tyou understand? It will be our honeymoon trip!"
"It will be a long, rough journey," he argued. "It will be hard--hard for awoman."
With a little laugh, Joanne sprang up and stood before him in a glow oflight, tall, and slim, and splendid, and there was a sparkle of beautifuldefiance and a little of triumph in her eyes as she looked down on him.
"And it will be dangerous, too? You are going to tell me that?"
"Yes, it will be dangerous."
She came to him and rumpled up his hair, and turned his face up so that shecould look into his eyes.
"Is it worse than fever, and famine, and deep swamps, and crawlingjungles?" she asked. "Are we going to encounter worse things than beasts,and poisonous serpents, and murderous savages--even hunger and thirst,John? For many years we dared those together--my father and I. Are thesegreat, big, beautiful mountains more treacherous than those Ceylon junglesfrom which you ran away--even you, John? Are they more terrible to live inthan the Great African Desert? Are your bears worse than tigers, yourwolves more terrible than lions? And if, through years and years, I facedthose things with my father, do you suppose that I want to be left behindnow, and by my husband?"
So sweet and wonderful was the sound of that name as it came softly fromher lips, that in his joy he forgot the part he was playing, and drew herclose down in his arms, and in that moment all that remained of the schemehe had built for keeping her behind crumbled in ruin about him.
Yet in a last effort he persisted.
"Old Donald wants to travel fast--very fast, Joanne. I owe a great deal tohim. Even you I owe to him--for he saved us from the 'coyote.'"
"I am going, John."
"If we went alone we would be able to return very soon."
"I am going."
"And some of the mountains--it is impossible for a woman to climb them!"
"Then I will let you carry me up them, John. You are so strong----"
He groaned hopelessly.
"Joanne, won't you stay with the Blacktons, to please me?"
"No. I don't care to please you."
Her fingers were stroking his cheek.
"John?"
"Yes."
"Father taught me to shoot, and as we get better acquainted on ourhoneymoon trip I'll tell you about some of my hunting adventures. I don'tlike to shoot wild things, because I love them too well. But I can shoot.And I want a gun!"
"Great Scott!"
"Not a toy--but a real gun," she continued. "A gun like yours. And then, ifby any chance we should have trouble--with Culver Rann----"
She felt him start, and her hands pressed harder against his face.
"Now I know," she whispered. "I guessed it all along. You told me thatCulver Rann and the others were after the gold. They've gone--and theirgoing isn't quite 'skipping the country' as you meant me to understand it,John Aldous! So please let's not argue any more. If we do we may quarrel,and that would be terrible. I'm going. And I will be ready in the morning.And I want a gun. And I want you to be nice to me, and I want it to be ourhoneymoon--even if it is going to be exciting!"
And with that she put her lips to his, and his last argument was gone.
Two hours later, when he went to the coulee, he was like one who had comeout of a strange and disturbing and altogether glorious dream. He had toldJoanne and the Blacktons that it was necessary for him to be with MacDonaldthat night. Joanne's good-night kiss was still warm on his lips, the lovingtouch of her hands still trembled on his face, and the sweet perfume of herhair was in his nostrils. He was drunk with the immeasurable happiness thathad come to him, every fibre in him was aquiver with it--and yet, possessedof his great joy, he was conscious of a fear; a fear that was new andgrowing, and which made him glad when he came at last to the little fire inthe coulee.
He did not tell MacDonald the cause of this fear at first. He told thestory of Mortimer FitzHugh and Joanne, leaving no part of it unbared, untilhe could see Donald MacDonald's great gaunt hands clenching in thefirelight, and his cavernous eyes flaming darkly through the gloom. Then hetold what had happened when the Blacktons went to town, and when he hadfinished, and rose despairingly beside the fire, Donald rose, too, and hisvoice boomed in a sort of ecstasy.
"My Jane would ha' done likewise," he cried in triumph. "She would that,Johnny--she would!"
"But this is different!" groaned Aldous. "What am I going to do, Mac? Whatcan I do? Don't you see how impossible it is! Mac, Mac--she isn't mywife--not entirely, not absolutely, not in the last and vital sense ofbeing a wife by law! If she knew the truth, she wouldn't consider herselfmy wife; she would leave me. For that reason I can't take her. I can't.Think what it would mean!"
Old Donald had come close to his side, and at the look in the gray oldmountaineer's face John Aldous paused. Slowly Donald laid his hands on hisshoulders.
"Johnny," he said gently, "Johnny, be you sure of yourself? Be you a man,Johnny?"
"Good heaven, Donald. You mean----"
Their eyes met steadily.
"If you are, Johnny," went on MacDonald in a low voice, "I'd take her withme. An' if you ain't, I'd leave these mount'ins to-night an' never look inher sweet face again as long as I lived."
"You'd take her along?" demanded Aldous eagerly.
"I would. I've been thinkin' it over to-night. An' something seemed to tellme we mustn't dare leave her here alone. There's just two things to do,Johnny. You've got to stay with her an' let me go on alone or--you've gotto take her."
Slowly Aldous shook his head. He looked at his watch. It was a little afterten.
"If I could make myself believe that she would not be safe here--I wouldtake her," he said. "But I can't quite make up my mind to that, Mac. Shewill be in good hands with the Blacktons. I will warn Paul. Joanne isdetermined to go, and I know she will think it pretty indecent to be toldemphatically that she can't go. But I've got to do it. I can't see----"
A break in the stillness of the night stopped him with the suddenness of abullet in his brain. It was a scream--a woman's scream, and there followedit shriek after shriek, until the black forest trembled with the fear andagony of the cries, and John Aldous stood as if suddenly stripped of thepower to move or act. Donald MacDonald roused him to life. With a roar inhis beard, he sprang forth into the darkness. And Aldous followed, a hotsweat of fear in his blood where a moment before had been only a chill ofwonder and horror. For in Donald's savage beastlike cry he had caughtJoanne's name, and an answering cry broke from his own lips as he followedthe great gaunt form that was tearing with the madness of a wounded bearahead of him through the night.
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