“It doesn’t matter, Maggie; you eat in the kitchen, both of us are women.”
“Yes, and some saints’ images are made of lead, some of gold.”
“But they are all saints’ images, Maggie.”
“The kitchen will be brighter from this day,” Maggie declared, in the extravagant way of her race, only meaning more than usually carries in a Castilian compliment.
She backed away from the table, never having it in her delicate nature to be so rude as to turn her back upon her guest, and admired Frances from a distance. The sun was reaching through a low window, moving slowly up the cloth as if stealing upon the guest to give her a good-night kiss.
“Ah, miss!” sighed Maggie, her hands clasped as in adoration, “no wonder that he lives with a well in his body. He has much to live for, and that is the truth from a woman’s lips.”
“It is worth more because of its rarity, then, Maggie,” Frances said, warming over with blushes at this ingenuous praise. “Do they let you go into his room?”
“The door is open to the servant,” Maggie replied, with solemn nod.
“It is closed to me—did you know?”
“I know. Miss tells you it is orders from some captain, some general, some soldier I do not know what”—a sweeping gesture to include all soldiers, great and small and far away—“but that is a lie. It came out of her own heart. She is a traitor to friendship, as well as a thief.”
“Yes, I believed that from the beginning, Maggie.”
“This house of deceit is not a place for me, for even servant that I am, I am a true servant. But I will not lie for a liar, nor be traitor for one who deceives a friend. I shall go from here. Perhaps when you are married to Mr. Macdonald you will have room in your kitchen for me?”
“We must not build on shadows, Maggie.”
“And there is that Alvino, a cunning man in a garden. You should see how he charms the flowers and vegetables—but you have seen, it is his work here, all this is his work.”
“If there is ever a home of my own—if it ever comes to that happiness—”
“God hasten the day!”
“Then there will be room for both of you, Maggie.”
Frances rose from the table, and stood looking though the window where the sun’s friendly hand had reached in to caress her a few minutes gone. There was no gleam of it now, only a dull redness on the horizon where it had fallen out of sight, the red of iron cooling upon the anvil.
“In four weeks he will be able to kneel at the altar with you,” said Maggie, making a clatter with the stove lids in her excitement, “and in youth that is only a day. And I have a drawn piece of fine linen, as white as your bosom, that you must wear over your heart on that day. It will bring you peace, far it was made by a holy sister and it has been blessed by the bishop at Guadalupe.”
“Thank you, Maggie. If that day ever comes for me, I will wear it.”
Maggie came nearer the window, concern in her homely face, and stood off a little respectful distance.
“You want to be with him, you should be there at his side, and I will open the door for you,” she said.
“You will?” Frances started hopefully.
“Once inside, no man would lift a hand to put you out.”
“But how am I going to get inside, Maggie, with that sentry at the door?”
“I have been thinking how it could be done, miss. Soon it will be dark, and with night comes fear. Miss is with him now; she is there alone.”
Frances turned to her, such pain in her face as if she had been stabbed.
“Why should you go over that again? I know it!” she said, crossly. “That has nothing to do with my going into the room.”
“It has much,” Maggie declared, whispering now, treasuring her plot. “The old one is upstairs, sleeping, and she will not wake until I shake her. Outside the soldiers make their fires and cook, and Alvino in the barn sings ‘La Golondrina’—you hear him?—for that is sad music, like his soul. Very well. You go to your room, but leave the door open to let a finger in. When it is just creeping dark, and the soldiers are eating, I will run in where the one sits beside the door. My hair will be flying like the mane of a wild mare, my eyes bi-i-i-g—so. In the English way I will shout ‘The rustlers, the rustlers! He ees comin’—help, help!’ When you hear this, fly to me, quick, like a soul set free. The soldier at the door will go to see; miss will come out; I will stand in the door, I will draw the key in my hand. Then you will fly to him, and lock the door!”
“Why, Maggie! what a general you are!”
“Under the couch where he lies,” Maggie hurried on, her dark eyes glowing with the pleasure of this manufactured romance, “are the revolvers which he wore, just where we placed them last night. I pushed them back a little, quite out of sight, and nobody knows. Strap the belt around your waist, and defy any power but death to move you from the man you love!”
“Maggie, you are magnificent!”
“No,” Maggie shook her head, sadly, “I am the daughter of a peon, a servant to bear loads. But”—a flash of her subsiding grandeur—“I would do that—ah, I would have done that in youth—for the man of my heart. For even a servant in the back of a house has a heart, dear miss.”
Frances took her work-rough hands in her own; she pressed back the heavy black hair—mark of a vassal race—from the brown forehead and looked tenderly into her eyes.
“You are my sister,” she said.
Poor Maggie, quite overcome by this act of tenderness, sank to her knees, her head bowed as if the bell had sounded the elevation of the host.
“What benediction!” she murmured.
“I will go now, and do as you have said.”
“When it is a little more dark,” said Maggie, softly, looking after her tenderly as she went away.
Frances left her door ajar as Maggie had directed, and stood before the glass to see if anything could be done to make herself more attractive in his eyes. It did not seem so, considering the lack of embellishments. She turned from the mirror sighing, doubtful of the success of Maggie’s scheme, but determined to do her part in it, let the result be what it might. Her place was there at his side, indeed; none had the right to bar her his presence.
The joy of seeing him when consciousness flashed back into his shocked brain had been stolen from her by a trick. Nola had stood in her place then. She wondered if that slow smile had kindled in his eyes at the sight of her, or whether they had been shadowed with bewilderment and disappointment. It was a thing that she should never know.
She heard Mrs. Chadron leave her room and pass heavily downstairs. Hope sank lower as she descended; it seemed that their simple plot must fail. Well, she sighed, at the worst it could only fail. As she sat there waiting while twilight blended into the darker waters of night, she reflected the many things which had overtaken her in the two days past. Two incidents stood out above all the haste, confusion, and pain which gave her sharp regret. One was that her father had parted from her to meet his life’s heaviest disappointment with anger and unforgiving heart; the other that the shot which she had aimed at Saul Chadron had been cheated of its mark.
There came a trampling of hoofs from the direction of the post, unmistakably cavalry. She strained from the window to see, but it was at that period between dusk and dark when distant objects were tantalizingly indefinite. Nothing could be made of the number, or who came in command. But she believed that it must be Major King’s troops returning from escorting the raiders to Meander.
Of course there would be no trying out of Maggie’s scheme now. New developments must come of the arrival of Major King, perhaps her own removal to the post. Surely he could not sustain an excuse that she was dangerous to his military operations now.
Doors opened, and heavy feet passed the hall. Presently all was a tangle of voices there, greetings and warm words of welcome, and the sound of Mrs. Chadron weeping on her husband’s breast for joy at his return.
Nola’s light
chatter rose out of the sound of the home-coming like a bright thread in a garment, and the genteel voice of Major King blended into the bustle of welcome with its accustomed suave placidity. Frances felt downcast and lonely as she listened to them, and the joyous preparations for refreshing the travelers which Mrs. Chadron was pushing forward. They had no regard, no thought it seemed, for the wounded man who lay with only the thickness of a door dividing him from them.
She was moved with concern, also, regarding Chadron’s behavior when he should learn of Macdonald’s presence in that house. Would Nola have the courage to own her attachment then, and stand between the wrath of her father and his wounded enemy?
She was not to be spared the test long. There was the noise of Chadron moving heavily about, bestowing his coat, his hat, in their accustomed places. He came now into the dining-room, where the sentinel kept watch at Macdonald’s door. Frances crept softly, fearfully, into the hall and listened.
Chadron questioned the soldier, in surprise. Frances heard the man’s explanation of his presence before the door given in low voice, and in it the mention of Macdonald’s name. Chadron stalked away, anger in the sound of his step. His loud voice now sounded in the room where the others were still chattering in the relief of speech after long silence. Now he came back to the guarded door, Nola with him; Mrs. Chadron following with pleading words and moanings.
“Dead or alive, I don’t care a damn! Out of this house he goes this minute!” Chadron said.
“Oh, father, surely you wouldn’t throw a man at death’s door out in the night!”
It was Nola, lifting a trembling voice, and Frances could imagine her clinging to his arm.
“Not after what he’s done for us, Saul—not after what he’s done!” Mrs. Chadron sounded almost tearful in her pleading. “Why, he brought Nola home—didn’t you know that, Saul? He brought her home all safe and sound!”
“Yes, he stole her to make that play!” Chadron said, either still deceived, or still stubborn, but in any case full of bitterness.
“I’ll never believe that, father!” Nola spoke braver than Frances had expected of her. “But friend or enemy, common charity, common decency, would—”
“Common hell! Git away from in front of that door! I’m goin’ to throw his damned carcass out of this house—I can’t breathe with that man in it!”
“Oh, Saul, Saul! don’t throw the poor boy out!” Mrs. Chadron begged.
“Will I have to jerk you away from that door by the hair of the head? Let me by, I tell you!”
Frances ran down stairs blindly, feeling that the moment for her interference, weak as it might be, and ineffectual, had come. Now Major King was speaking, his voice sounding as if he had placed himself between Chadron and the door.
“I think you’d better listen to your wife and daughter, Chadron. The fellow can’t harm anybody—let him alone.”
“No matter for the past, he’s our guest, father, he’s—”
“Hell! Haven’t they told you fool women the straight of it yet? I tell you I had to shoot him to save my own life—he was pullin’ a gun on me, but I beat him to it!”
“Oh Saul, my Saul!” Mrs. Chadron moaned.
“Was it you that—oh, was it you!” There was accusation, disillusionment, sorrow—and more than words can define—in Nola’s voice. Frances waited to hear no more. In a moment she was standing in the open door beside Nola, who blocked it against her father with outstretched arms.
Chadron was facing his wife, his back to Frances as she passed.
“Yes, it was me, and all I’m sorry for is that I didn’t finish him on the spot. Here, you fellers”—to some troopers who crowded about the open door leading to the veranda—“come in here and carry out this cot.”
But it wasn’t their day to take orders from Chadron; none of them moved. Frances touched Nola’s arm; she withdrew it and let her pass.
Macdonald, alone in the room, had lifted himself to his elbow, listening. Frances pressed him back to his pillow with one hand, reaching with the other under the cot for his revolvers. Her heart jumped with a great, glad bound, as if it had leaped from death to safety, when she touched the weapons. A cold steadiness settled over her. If Saul Chadron entered that room, she swore in her heart that she would kill him.
“Don’t interfere with me, King,” said Chadron, turning again to the door, “I tell you he goes, alive or dead. I can’t breathe—”
“Stop where you are!” Frances rose from her groping under the cot, a revolver in her hand.
Chadron, who had laid hold of Nola to tear her from the door, jumped like a man startled out of his sleep. In the heat of his passion he had not noticed one woman more or less.
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” he said, catching himself as his hand reached for his gun.
“Frances will take him away as soon as he’s able to be moved,” said Nola, pleading, fearful, her eyes great with the terror of what she saw in Frances’ face.
“Yes, she’ll go with him, right now!” Chadron declared. “I’ll give you just ten seconds to put down that gun, or I’ll come in there and take it away from you! No damn woman—”
A loud and impatient summons sounded on the front door, drowning Chadron’s words. He turned, with an oath, demanding to know who it was. Frances, still covering him with her steady hand, heard hurrying feet, the door open, and Mrs. Chadron exclaiming and calling for Saul. The man at the door had entered, and was jangling his spurs through the hall in hasty stride. Chadron stood as if frozen in his boots, his face growing whiter than wounded, blood-drained Macdonald’s on his cot of pain.
Now the sound of the newcomer’s voice rose in the hall, loud and stern. But harsh as it was, and unfriendly to that house, the sound of it made Frances’ heart jump, and something big and warm rise in her and sweep over her; dimming her eyes with tears.
“Where’s my daughter, Chadron, you cutthroat! Where’s Miss Landcraft? If the lightest hair of her head has suffered, by God! I’ll burn this house to the sills!”
* * *
CHAPTER XXII
PAID
Colonel Landcraft stood before Chadron in his worn regimentals, his old campaign hat turned back from his forehead as if he had been riding in the face of a wind. Macdonald, looking up at Frances from his couch, spoke to her with his eyes. There was satisfaction in them, a triumphant glow. She moved a step toward the door, and the colonel, seeing her there, rushed to her and clasped her against his dusty breast.
“Standing armed against you in your own house, before your own wife and daughter!” said he, turning like the old tiger that he was upon Chadron again. “And in the presence of an officer of the United States Army—my daughter, armed to protect herself! By heaven, sir! you’ve disgraced the uniform you wear!”
Major King, scowling darkly, dropped his hand in suggestive gesture to his sword. Colonel Landcraft, his slight, bony old frame drawn up to its utmost inch, marched to him, fire in his eye.
“Unbuckle that sword! You’re not fit to wear it,” said he.
Chadron had drawn away from the door of Macdonald’s room a little, and stood apart from Major King with his wife and daughter. The cattleman had attempted no defense, had said no word. In the coming of Colonel Landcraft, full of authority, strong and certain of hand, Chadron appeared to know that his world was beginning to tumble about his ears.
Now he stepped forward to interpose in behalf of his tool and co-conspirator, in one last big bluff. Major King fell back a stride before the charge of the infuriated old colonel, which seemed to have a threat of personal violence in it, the color sinking out of his face, his hand still on his sword.
“What authority have you got to come into my house givin’ orders?” Chadron wanted to know. “Maybe your bluffin’ goes with some people, but it don’t go with me. You git to hell out of here!”
“In your place and time I’ll talk to you, you sneaking hound!” Colonel Landcraft answered, throwing Chadron one blasting look. “Take off that
sword, surrender those arms! You are under arrest.” This to Major King, who stood scowling, watching the colonel as if to ward an attack.
“By whose authority do you make this demand?” questioned Major King, insolently. “I am not aware that any command—”
Colonel Landcraft turned his back upon him and strode to the open door, through which the dismounted troopers could be seen standing back a respectful distance in the shaft of light that fell through it. At his appearance there, at the sight of that old battered hat and familiar uniform, the men lifted a cheer. Little tyrant that he was, hard-handed and exacting, they knew him for a soldier and a man. They knew, too, that their old colonel had not been given a square deal in that business, and they were glad to see him back.
The colonel acknowledged the greeting with a salute, his old head held prouder at that moment than he ever had carried it in his life.
“Sergeant Snow!” he called.
The sergeant hurried forward, stepped out into the light, came up at salute with the alacrity of a man who found pleasure in the service to be demanded of him.
“Bring a detail of six men into this room, disarm Major King, and place him under guard.”
The colonel wheeled again to face Chadron and King.
“I am not under the obligation of explaining my authority to enter this house to any man,” said he, “but for your satisfaction, madam, and in deference to you, Miss Chadron, I will tell you that I was recalled by the department on my way to Washington and sent back to resume command of Fort Shakie.”
Chadron was biting his mustache like an angry horse mouthing the bit. In the background a captain and two lieutenants, who had arrived with Chadron and King, stood doubtful, it seemed, of their part in that last act of the cattleman’s rough melodrama.
Frances had returned to Macdonald’s side, fearful that the excitement might bring on a hemorrhage in his wound. She stood soothing him with low, soft, and unnecessary words, unconscious of their tenderness, perhaps, in the stress of her anxiety. But that they were appreciated was evident in the slow-stealing smile that came over his worn, rugged face like a breaking sun.
The Rustler of Wind River Page 22
