The Hash Knife Outfit

by Zane Grey

  CHAPTER

  12

  ALL too soon that dance ended, and Jim got Molly into an out-of-the-way corner, where a few other couples, evidently lovers, were too concerned with themselves to look at anyone else.

  Jim believed the tide had turned in his favor, though tragic little Molly was unconscious of it. She gazed up at him as if fascinated, with almost a terrible yearning and hopelessness. “Don’t do it,” whispered Jim, “or I’ll kiss you right here.”

  “Do—do what?”

  “Look at me like that. … Molly, you’ve sure made a mess of Christmas Eve, but it’s not too late.”

  “Oh yes, Jim dear, it is too late,” she sighed, mournfully. “They all gave me—the cold shoulder. Except Glory, bless her! I—I cain’t realize she didn’t take me at my word.”

  “Not Glory. And what do you care for the others? You won’t have to live with them. … Molly, you were mistaken in this Darnell. He’s no good. He very nearly ruined Gloriana. What she told you was true. Look how he has treated you——”

  “Jim, I don’t need to be told now,” she interrupted, bitterly. “He’s made a fool out of me. … But only tonight did I learn he’s no good. Before we got here. He—he insulted me, Jim.”

  “Did he?—Well, that’s not surprising. Just how?” returned Jim, in cool, hard query. “I hope he didn’t lay a hand on you.”

  “He laid two hands on me,” she said, frankly. “An’ he was ’most as bad as Hack Jocelyn, if you remember, Jim. … I was aboot ready to bite when some one came into the hall.”

  “Ahuh!—Why did you come with him, then?” queried Jim, serenely.

  “I had to come to this dance or die. Besides, I reckon I was some to blame. I told Darnell I wasn’t good enough for the Trafts an’ their crowd.”

  “Molly, you’re generous, but you can’t save him now.”

  “You leave him alone,” flashed Molly. “He carries a gun. He might hurt you—an’ thet’d shore kill me. … I’ll tell Slinger. Honest, I will. But Slinger has never even looked at me tonight. He must despise me.”

  “No. Slinger is just angry with you. … Now, Molly, you must not let Darnell take you home. Promise you won’t—or I’ll go right out now——”

  “I promise, Jim. Please ask Slinger to take me away. I’m sick of this dance. I want to go home.”

  “Out to the ranch?” he asked, hopefully.

  “Home to the Cibeque, where I belong.”

  “All right, I’ll find Slinger,” rejoined Jim, thinking fast and furiously. “But let’s dance again. There goes the music.”

  Jim did not break the sweet tumultuousness of that dance by a single word. When it was over he asked Molly to wait near the door, and left her back somewhat out of the throng. Then he instituted a wild search for Gloriana, whom he found presently with Curly.

  “Gee! you two must be having the time of your lives!” he exclaimed, surprised at Gloriana’s radiance and something indescribable about Curly.

  “Jim, I am enjoying myself,” admitted Gloriana, with a blush.

  “Boss, this heah is aboot as near heaven as I ever hope to get,” drawled Curly.

  “Fine. Then you see Glory home. I’m going to be—engaged. … Glory, don’t stay late.” And Jim rushed away to find Slinger. In this he was also fortunate, as he found him in the smoking-room, alone and watchful. His dark face wore rather a sad expression. He was out of his element at a dance.

  “Slinger, I want you. What’re you doing? Dancing any?”

  “I had one with Glory. Thet’ll be aboot all fer me. If I wasn’t worried about the kid I’d chase myself back to the ranch. I’ve been hangin’ around heah listenin’ to this fellar Darnell.” Slinger spoke low and indicated a noisy group of young men. They had a flask and were exchanging it. Darnell had here the same ingratiating manner, the same air of good fellowship, which Jim had noted in the dance-hall. He appeared to be a man nearing thirty, well set up, handsome in a full-faced, sensual way, and unmistakably egotistical. He would go far with young people.

  “What of him?” whispered Jim.

  “Wal, I shore ain’t crazy aboot him. Strikes me sort of tincanny. … Jim, he’s packin’ a gun. Can you see thet?”

  “No, Slinger, I’ll be hanged if I can.”

  “Wal, he is, an’ thet’s kind of funny. If I could find a reason, I’d mess up this heah place with him. But it’d look all the wuss fer Molly——”

  “Yes, it would. Let Darnell alone. And, Slinger, listen. Molly has had enough of this. She sent me to ask you to take her home. But I’ve got an idea. You run over to the stable and send a boy with a sleigh. Pronto. I’ll let Molly think you’re going to take her. But I’ll take her myself, and out to the ranch. Savvy, pard?”

  “I shore do. An’ damn if you ain’t a good fellar,” declared Slinger. “Molly had better sit tight this time. … Jim, this heah deal eases my mind.”

  “Rustle, then, you Indian.”

  Jim saw Slinger glide out with his inimitable step, and then he went to get his overcoat and hat. For the moment he had forgotten the fur coat, which he had folded inside his. But there it was. With these he hurried back to the hall, eager and thrilling, afraid, too, that Molly might have bolted or that Darnell might have come out. To his relief, however, he found her waiting, strained of face, her eyes like burnt holes in a blanket. They leaped at sight of him.

  “Slinger has gone for a sleigh,” said Jim, as he reached her, and he tried to be natural. “Here, slip into this. You won’t need to go upstairs. I’ll get your coat tomorrow. And no one will see you as you go out.”

  “Whose coat is this? … Oh, what lovely fur!—Glory’s?”

  “Hurry!” he replied, holding it for her.

  “Slinger can fetch it right back.”

  Jim turned up the high collar of the coat, and against the dark fox fur Molly’s eyes shone beautifully. What a difference fine feathers made!

  “Come,” he said, taking Molly’s arm. He led her out, relieved that but few dancers paid attention to their departure. In the lobby entrance they ran squarely into Darnell, gay, heated of face.

  “Hello, kid!—Where the deuce are you going?” he shot out, and his gaiety suddenly fled. Two men behind him came up, evidently his companions, and curious. Jim did not recognize either.

  “Home,” replied Molly, and she flashed by.

  Darnell took a step forward to confront Jim.

  “We’ve met before?” he said, and both voice and look were uncertain.

  “Yes. I happen to be Jim Traft—Miss Dunn’s fiancé. And if you don’t step aside this meeting will be somewhat like the one you spoke of.”

  It was certain that long before Jim completed this deliberate speech Darnell had recognized him. One of the strangers drew him aside, so Jim could pass. And as Jim went out he heard Darnell curse. Molly was already out in the corridor. As Jim joined her Slinger came up the steps.

  “Any ruction heah?” he queried, sharply. “I seen Darnell stop you.”

  “No. I got out of it all right, Slinger. Come on,” replied Jim, grimly, and he laughed inwardly at the thought of what this Ed Darnell had happened upon. His luck, at least, was out.

  A two-seated sleigh, with a Mexican driver, stood at the curb. Jim bundled Molly into the back seat, and stepping in he tucked the heavy robe round her and himself. Molly uttered an exclamation which was surely amazed protest.

  “Slinger, I’ll see Molly—home,” said Jim, and for the life of him he could not keep the elation out of his voice.

  “Shore, Jim, you see her home,” drawled Slinger, meaningly. And he leaned over the side of the sleigh. “Sister, you’ve messed up things considerable. But somehow Jim still loves you, an’ I reckon I do, too. We jest cain’t help it. All the same, don’t go triflin’ with strange fellars no more. I’ll see you in the mawnin’.”

  “Slinger, you lay off Darnell,” insisted Jim, forcefully.

  “All right, Boss. But I’ll jest watch him a little. Shore is
an interestin’ cuss. I seen him gettin’ gay with one of them rich gurls.”

  Jim laughed and told the Mexican boy to drive straight out the main street.

  “It’s closer, turnin’ heah,” spoke up Molly, a little alarmed. As yet, however, she had no inkling of the plot.

  “More snow out this way. This bare ground is hard on the runners,” replied Jim, and indeed the rasping sound of iron on gravel was irritating to nerves as well. Jim felt for Molly’s hand under the robe, and found it, an ungloved cold little member. She started and tried to draw it away. In vain! Jim held on as a man gripping some treasure he meant to keep. Soon they were on the snow, and then the sleigh glided smoothly with the merry bells ringing. Soft heavy flakes were falling, wet and cool to the face.

  “Heah—turn down heah,” called Molly, as they reached the last side street.

  “Boy, drive straight out to the Traft ranch,” ordered Jim.

  Molly stood up, and would have leaped out of the sleigh had not Jim grasped her with no uncertain hands, and hauled her down, almost into his arms. She twisted round to look up at him. The darkness was thick, but he could see a pale little face, with great staring eyes.

  “You—you want to get somethin’ before takin’ me home?” she asked.

  “Why, of course, Molly. This is Christmas, you know,” he returned, cheerfully.

  “I—I didn’t know you could be like this.” And Jim imagined he had more cause to be happy.

  No more was said. Jim endeavored to secure Molly’s hand again, but she had hidden it somewhere. Thwarted thus, Jim put an arm round her. When they reached the big pine trees, black against the snow, Jim knew they were nearing the ranch. He nerved himself for the crisis. There was no use of persuasion or argument or subterfuge. Then the ranch-house loomed dark, with only one light showing. The bells ceased jangling in a crash.

  “Molly, come in for—a minute,” said Jim, easily, as he stepped out.

  “No, thanks, Jim,” she replied, with pathos. “I’ll stay heah. Hurry, an’ remember—I—I cain’t accept no Christmas presents.”

  Jim leaned over, as if to rearrange the robe, but he snatched her bodily out of the sleigh.

  “All right, boy, drive back,” he ordered, and as the bells clashed again he turned with the kicking Molly in his arms. He heard her voice, muffled in the furs, as he pressed her tight, and he feared she used some rather strong language. Up the steps, across the wide veranda and into the dark ranch-house he packed her, fighting all the while, and on into the dim-lighted living-room, where he deposited her in his uncle’s big armchair. Then he flew to lock the door. It was done. He felt no remorse—only a keen, throbbing, thick rapture. He turned up the lamp, and then lighted the other one with the red shade. Next he removed the screen from before the smoldering fire, to replenish it with chips of cedar and pine cones.

  “Jim Traft—what’ve you done?” cried Molly, huskily.

  Jim turned then, to see her in the chair, precisely as he had bundled her.

  “Fetched you home, Molly,” he said, with emotion.

  “It was a trick.”

  “Reckon so.”

  “You didn’t mean to take me to my boardin’-house?”

  “I’m afraid I never thought of that.”

  “An’ thet damn Slinger! He was in the deal with you?”

  “Yes. Slinger was implicated—to the extent of getting the sleigh.”

  “Wal, now you got me heah—what you think you’re goin’ to do?” she demanded.

  “Oh, wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.”

  “Jim—honest I wish—you the same,” she responded, faltering a little.

  “Thanks. But it’s not Christmas yet,” rejoined Jim, consulting his watch. “Only eleven o’clock. At midnight I’ll give you the other Christmas present.”

  “Other?—Jim Traft, are you loony? Or am I dreamin’? You didn’t give me nothin’. You tantalized me with thet—thet ring, which was shore low-down. But thet’s all.”

  “Molly, you have one of your presents. You’ve got it on. … That fur coat.”

  Uttering a cry of surprise and consternation, she bounced out of the chair to slip out of the rich, dark, fragrant coat. She handled it with awe, almost reverence, stroked it, and then with resignation laid it over the table.

  “Pretty nice, don’t you think?” queried Jim, pleasantly. “Becomes you, too.”

  “I’m findin’ out you’re as much of—of a brute as any cowboy,” she asserted, tearfully. “How’m I to get back to my boardin’-house? When Glory comes? You’ll send me then, Jim?”

  “Molly, you’re not going back to your boarding-house—tonight—or ever again,” he replied, confronting her and reaching for her, so that Molly backed into the armchair and fell into it.

  “I am—too,” she retorted, but she was vastly alarmed.

  “No, this is home, till you’ve grown out of your schoolgirl days.”

  “Kidnappers—you an’ Slinger!”

  “I reckon we are, Molly.”

  “You’re wuss than Hack Jocelyn,” she cried, wildly. “Are you goin’ to hawg-tie me heah?”

  “No. I don’t believe you’ll want to leave, after tomorrow when you see Uncle Jim and Glory.”

  “Jim—I cain’t see them. It’d hurt too bad. Please let me go.”

  “Nope. … You hurt me, didn’t you?”

  “All fer your good, Jim. … Cain’t you see thet?”

  “Indeed I can’t. You just almost broke my heart, Molly Dunn. If it hadn’t been for Uncle and Glory—Well, never mind. I don’t want to heap coals of fire upon your head.”

  “What did Uncle Jim an’ Glory do?” she asked, poignantly.

  “They both have faith in you. Faith!”

  “I cain’t stand thet, Jim. I cain’t,” she wailed.

  He slipped into the big chair and gathered her in his arms. What a tight, quivering little bundle!

  “Molly, both Uncle and Glory love you.”

  “No—no. Thet’s not so,” she cried, half smothered. “Let me go, Jim.”

  “Ha, ha! I see myself. … Hold up your head, Molly.”

  “If you dare kiss me—Jim Traft—I—I. … Oh——”

  “Don’t you dare me, Molly Dunn,” added Jim, quite beside himself now. Molly’s lips were sweet fire, and she could not control them. But she was strong, and as slippery as an eel. Jim had to confine his muscular efforts to holding her merely.

  “Molly, you are mussing a perfectly beautiful little dress,” he said, mildly, “besides, darling, you’re making a very indecorous, not to say immodest, display of anatomy.”

  “I don’t care,” panted Molly, red of face, blazing of eye. But she did care. She was weakening.

  “Darling.” Jim divined this word had considerable power; at least enough to make Molly hide her face.

  “Sweetheart,” he went on.

  And this appeared to end her struggling.

  “Don’t you love me, Molly?”

  “Thet has been—all the trouble. … Too much—to disgrace you,” she replied, haltingly, and she looked up with wet eyes and trembling lips. Jim was quick to kiss them, and when he desisted this time, she lay back upon his arm, her eyes closed, heavy-lidded, her face pale and rapt.

  “Don’t you want to stay, Molly,” he went on, tenderly.

  “No—no. … But I’m a liar,” she replied, brokenly, without stirring.

  “To be my wife?”

  She was mute and therefore won. Jim found the little box in his pocket, and extracting the diamond ring from it he slipped it upon her finger, where it fitted tight and blazed triumphantly.

  “There!”

  Moreover, it had potency to make her eyes pop open. She stared. Slowly a transformation set in. She became ecstatic and ashamed, filled with sudden wild misery and joy, all at once.

  “Oh, I—I’ve been—jest what Slinger called me,” she cried.

  “What was that?”

  “It’s too turrible
to tell. … How can you be so good—to make me love you more? … Jim, honest I thought I was thinkin’ only of you. If I was fit for you I wanted to—an’ sometimes deep down in me I reckoned I was, because love ought to count—I wanted to make myself unfit. … Yet when thet mouthin’, pawin’ Darnell laid hold of me—when I had my chance to disgrace you an’ degrade myself—I couldn’t. My very soul went sick. An’ then I only wanted to get free of him at any cost. I did. An’ afterward he begged so hard, an’ I longed so to go to the dance, thet I went.”

  “Well, I’m glad you did, since we had to have this ruction. But don’t mention Darnell to me again, at least tonight.”

  “After all, people won’t know how bad it was,” she said, with a passion of hope and regret.

  “They’ll think it only a lovers’ quarrel,” replied Jim, happily, and he was glad to believe that himself.

  “If only Glory will forgive me!”

  “Glory! Why, she has already.”

  “You don’t know thet lovely sister of yours, Jim. … The more she persuaded me I was doin’ wrong, the kinder an’ sweeter she talked, the proud way she looked—the more I wanted to do somethin’ awful. I wanted to hide thet I loved her, too. … Oh, she seemed so wonderful—so far above me. But if she’ll forgive I’ll never do wrong again, so help me Gawd!”

  “Molly, that’s a vow. I’ll hold you to it. … And now, honey, make up to me for all I suffered—for every miserable moment.”

  “I cain’t, Jim,” she replied, mournfully. “What’s done is done. Oh, if I only could.”

  “Well, then for every wretched moment you spent with him. Could you count how many?”

  “I reckon I could,” she said, thoughtfully. “What’s a moment? Same as a minute?”

  “More like a second. Some are utterly precious, like this one. Others are horrible.”

  “Wal, with sixty seconds to the minute and sixty minutes to the hour—an’ I reckon aboot five hours, all told—thet would be how much?—A lot to make up for!”

  “Will you try? That will be your repentance.”