by Zane Grey
Stone found a pail and went to fill it at the spring. His mind seemed full of happy yet vague thoughts. He felt sort of boyish, and warm deep down within. Going back inside, Stone filled a cup with water and watched Molly drink. What a glossy head she had! Two such pretty girls at once quite took his breath. One Western and the other Eastern! Stone regarded them with interest, with a growing sense of the importance he had played in their lives, with an assurance of the food for memory that would be in the future.
“Glory—you called her?”
“Shore. But her name’s Gloriana.”
“An’ she’s a city girl from the East?”
“Yes. An’, Jed, she’s come to live out West always.”
“Fine, if you can keep her. Proud-lookin’ lass! Won’t this little adventure sicken her on the West?”
“It’ll be the best thing thet ever happened to her,” avowed Molly, with bright eyes. “Jed, she shore was aboot the proudest girl I ever met. An’ Jim’s sister. His family, really! Gosh! it was hard on me. I made a mess of things. Jed, I went back on Jim because I thought I wasn’t good enough for him—for his aristocratic family. But he kidnapped me—thank the good Lord. I reckon I was jealous, too.”
“Small wonder, Molly. It was tough on you—to stack up against these Trafts, you just fresh from the Cibeque. But you’re good enough fer anybody, Molly Dunn. I shore hope it’ll come out all right.”
“Oh, it will, Jed,” replied Molly, hopefully. “Glory has a heart of gold. I love her—an’ indeed I believe she’s comin’ to love me. But she can’t savvy me. Heah I’ve had only two years’ schoolin’, an’ lived all my life in a log cabin no better’n this, almost. Never had any clothes or nothin’. An’ she has had everythin’. Uncle Jim says the West will win her an’ thet she an’ I will get along an’ be sisters soon as Glory is broke in. He says she must get up against the real old West—you know, an’ thet will strike the balance. I don’t savvy jest what Uncle Jim means, but I believe him.”
“Molly, I reckon I savvy what Uncle Jim is drivin’ at,” replied Stone, smiling thoughtfully at the earnest girl. “The real old West means hard knocks, like this one she’s gettin’, cowboys an’ cattle, work when you want to drop, an’ no sleep when you’re dyin’ fer it. Cold an’ wet an’ dust an’ wind! To be starved! To be scared stiff! … A hundred things thet are nothin’ at all to you, Molly Dunn, are what this city girl needs.”
“Jed, thet’s exactly what Uncle says. … I’m to marry Jim soon,” she went on, with a blush. “They all wanted it this spring, but I coaxed off till fall.”
“Ahuh. I reckon you love him heaps, Molly?”
“Oh!—I’m not really Molly Dunn any more. I’ve lost myself. I’m happy, though, Jed. I’m goin’ to school. An’ if only Glory could see me as I see her!”
“Wal, I’ll help her see you true, Molly,” returned Stone, patting her hand. “Now, I’d better go outside while you fetch her to. Sight of the desperado who came a-rarin’ in here, swearin’ an’ shootin’, mightn’t be good.”
“Jed, she was simply crazy aboot desperadoes,” said Molly. “An’ I honestly believe she was tickled when Malloy carried us off. Leastways, she was till he got to pawin’ her.”
“Dog-gone! Thet’s good. … Now, Molly, don’t you say one word aboot me till I think it over. I’ll go outside an’ see to my horse. An’ when she’s all right, you come out to tell me. Mebbe by then I’ll have a plan.”
“Jed Stone, never in my life—an’ I’ve always known you—did I ever think of you as a rustler, a killer, a bad man. An’ now I know you’re not really.”
“Thanks, Molly; thet’ll be sweet to remember,” he replied. “Fetch her to, now, an’ say nothin’.”
Stone went outside, unsaddled his horse and turned him loose, then walked to and fro, in his characteristic way when deep in thought. Presently Molly came running to him. What pleasure that afforded the outlaw whose life had been lived apart from the influence of women!
“She’s come to, Jed. An’ she’s not so knocked out as I reckoned she’d be,” said the girl, happily. “I darn near exploded keepin’ our secret—thet we’re safe with you an’ will start in the mawnin’ fer Yellow Jacket.”
“Wal now, Molly Dunn, you stick to me,” rejoined Stone, eagerly. “We’ll let on I’m wuss than Croak—thet I jest killed them fellars an’ drove the third off so I could have you girls to myself. It’s a good three-day ride to Yellow Jacket, fer you, anyhow. Thet gives us time to cure Miss Gloriana of all her bringin’-up. I’ll be a real shore-enough desperado—up to a certain point. Savvy, Molly?”
“Oh, Jed, if I only dared do it!” exclaimed Molly, pale with excitement. How her dark eyes glowed! “But she’ll suffer. An’—an’ I love her so!”
“Shore. All the same, if she’s got the real stuff in her thet’s the way to fetch it out. It’s the only way, Molly, to strike thet balance between you an’ her which your Uncle Jim meant. If you’ve got the nerve, girl, an’ do your part, you’ll never regret it.”
“Jed, you don’t mean never to tell Glory you’re good instead of bad. I couldn’t agree to thet.”
“Wal, of course, she’s bound to find out sometime thet I’m not so bad, after all. But I’d advise you to put Uncle Jim wise an’ keep the secret for a while. Molly, I’ll be disappointed in you if you fall down on this chance. I’ll bet you young Jim would jump at it.”
“He would—he would,” panted Molly. “Jed, Heaven forgive me—I’ll do it. I’ll trust you an’ do my part.”
“Thet’s like a girl of the Cibeque,” replied Jed, heartily. “Go back now, an’ tell her you both have fallen out of the fryin’-pan into the fire.”
CHAPTER
18
LIFE played even an outlaw queer pranks, thought Jed Stone, as he stalked toward the cabin, conscious of a strange elevation of spirit. When a young man he had shouldered the sin of his friend, for the sake of the girl they both loved—and the noble deed had earned him twenty years of loneliness, misery, and infamy. Just now he had actually committed a crime—he had murdered his confederate, who, vile as he was, had yet the elements of loyalty, the virtue of trust; and out of this circumstance, again in the interest of woman, he divined that he would climb out of the depths. It was an enigma.
Stone entered the cabin, as once he had seen the villain in a melodrama. The Traft girl was sitting up, with Molly fluttering around her. He sustained a shock—like wind rushing back through his veins to his heart. It was as if he had not before seen this girl. In all his life such eyes had never before met his. They were large, dark violet, strained with an expression which might have been horror or terror, or fascination. How wondrously lovely! Stone doubted that he could play his part before their gaze.
“Wal, what’d this Dunn kid tell you?” he demanded, with a fierce glare.
“Oh—sir—she said you—you were Jed Stone, the desperado,” faltered the girl, in haste. “That we’d fallen out of the frying-pan into the fire—that you killed those men so you could have us all—to yourself.”
“Correct. An’ now what do you think?” queried Stone, studying the girl. She was frightened, and still under the influence of shock, but she was no fool.
“Think? About—what?”
“Why, your new owner, of course. Reckon I always was jealous of Croak Malloy—of his gun-play an’ his way with wimmen.”
“Mister Stone, when you came in this cabin—when that little beast was tearing my clothes off—I knew you were going to save me from him.”
“Wal, you’re the smart girl,” he replied, and almost wavered before those searching, imploring eyes. “Shore I was.” Then he reached down with a slow hand and clutched the front of her blouse and jerked her to her feet. Holding her to the light, he bent his face closer to her. “You’re a beautiful thing, but are you good?”
“Good? … I think so—I hope so.”
“Wal, you gotta know—if I ask you. Are you a good girl?”
“Ye
s, sir, if I understand you.”
“Wal, thet’s fine. I’ve shore been hungry fer one of your kind. Molly Dunn there, she’s a Western kid, an’ a little wildcat thet’s not afraid of desperadoes. She comes of the raw West, same as me. She’ll furnish game fer me. But you’re different. You belong to the class that made me an outlaw. An’ I’m gonna take twenty years of shame an’ sufferin’ out on you. … Make you slave for me! … Make you love me! Beat you! Drag you down.”
She sagged under his grasp, without which she would have fallen. Her face could not have been any whiter. “I—I am at your mercy. … But, for God’s sake—if you had the manhood to kill those brutes—can’t you have enough to spare us?”
Stone let her sink down upon the couch. Tenderfoot as she was, she had instinctively recognized or at least felt the truth of him. He would need to be slow, careful, and probably brutal to convince her.
“If you’re gonna flop over an’ faint every time I grab you or speak to you this’ll be a picnic fer me,” he said, disgustedly. “Where’s your Traft nerve. Thet brother of yours, young Jim, has shore got nerve. He braced me an’ my whole outfit. Come right to us, an’ without a gun. I shore liked him. Thet was the day he knocked the stuffin’s out of Croak Malloy. … No, Gloriana, you ain’t no real Traft.”
That stung red into her marble cheeks and a blaze to her wonderful eyes.
“I haven’t had half a chance,” she flashed, as much to herself as to him.
“You’d never make a go of the West, even if you hadn’t had the bad luck to run into Jed Stone,” he went on. “You’re too stuck up. You think you’re too good fer plain Western folks, like Molly there, an’ her brother, an’ me, an’ Curly Prentiss. An’ you really ain’t good enough. Because here it’s what you can do thet counts. Wal, I’ll bet you cain’t do much. An’ I’m shore gonna see. Come hyar!”
He dragged her across the floor to the fireplace, where Madden had opened packs and spread utensils and supplies.
“Get down on your knees, you white-faced Easterner,” he ordered, forcing her down. “Bake biscuits fer me. If they ain’t good I’ll beat you. An’ fry meat an’ boil coffee. Savvy?”
With trembling hands she rolled up her sleeves and began to knead the flour Madden had left in the pan. Stone observed that she was not so helpless and useless as he had supposed. Then he turned to Molly.
“Wal, my dusky lass, you can amoose me while Gloriana does the housework.”
“I shore won’t. Stay away from me!” shouted Molly, bristling like a porcupine. When Stone attempted to lay hold of her person she eluded him, and catching up a pan she flung it with unerring aim. Stone dodged, but it took him on the back of the head with a great clang, and then banged to the floor.
“You’ll pay fer thet, you darned little hussy,” he roared, and made at her.
Then followed a wild chase around the cabin, that to an observer who was not obsessed with fear, as was Gloriana, would have been screamingly funny. As an actor Jed was genuine, but he was as heavy on his feet as an ox, and he had to face the brunt of missiles Molly threw, that never failed to connect with some part of his anatomy. When she hit him on the knee with a heavy fruit-can he let out a bawl of honest protest. Molly finally ran behind the half-partition which projected out from the wall, and here allowed Jed to catch her. The partition was constructed of brush. He tore out a long bough and cracked the wall with it.
“Take thet—you darned—little Apache squaw,” he panted, and he whacked away with his switch. Then he bent over Molly, who was convulsed on the pine-needle floor, and whispered in her ear, “Yell—scream!”
Whereupon Molly obeyed: “Ah! … Oh! … OUU!”
Stone paused for effectiveness, while he peeped through the screen. Gloriana knelt erect, her breast heaving, her eyes wildly magnificent. They were searching round for a weapon, Jed concluded.
“Now—Molly Dunn—mebbe thet’ll learn you not to monkey with Jed Stone. … Come hyar, an’ kiss me.”
He had to shake her to keep her remembering her part. Stone made smacking sounds with his lips, capital imitations of lusty kisses.
“Oh—you crazy—desperado!” burst out Molly, choking. “Jim Traft—will kill you—for this!”
“Haw! Haw! Thet’s funny. … Now, you be good fer a minnit.” Whereupon he picked her up and carried her, along with the wicked whip, out to the couch, where he dropped her like a sack of potatoes. Molly’s face was a spectacle. It was wet and working. She hid it on the green spruce boughs and then she kicked like a furious colt. Her smothered imprecations sounded like: “Brute! Beast! Coyote! Skunk!”
Stone had made a discovery. His keen sight caught Gloriana concealing the butcher knife, clutched in her hand and half hidden in the folds of her dress. She, too, was a spectacle to behold, but beautiful and marvelous to him—her spirit so much greater than her strength.
“Say, what’re you goin’ to do with thet knife?” demanded Stone.
“You’re no desperado! You’re a dog,” she cried. “If you lay hand on Molly again I—I’ll kill you.”
Here indeed was a quick answer to the primitive instincts which Stone and Molly had wished to rouse in the Eastern girl. Indeed, Stone thought she might develop too fast and spoil the game. Most assuredly she had to be intimidated. “You’d murder me—you white-faced panther?” he shouted, ferociously. “Drop thet knife!” And whipping out his gun he fired, apparently pointblank at her; but he knew the bullet would hit the bucket of water. The crash in the encompassing cabin walls was loud. Gloriana not only dropped the knife—she dropped herself. However, she did not quite faint. Stone lifted her up, with feelings vastly different from what he pretended, and then he made a show of collecting everything around which she might have used as a weapon.
“Get back to work,” he ordered.
Just then Gloriana was a pitiful sight, verging on collapse. It quite wrung Molly’s heart, as Jed saw. But he was adamant. He had divined the thing had gone beyond them both. It was serious, earnest business; and if they kept on, simply making situations for Gloriana to react to, the benefit to her would be incalculable. She had a surprising lot of courage for a tenderfoot placed, as she believed she was, in a terrible, irremediable situation. She weakly brushed back her amber hair, leaving a white blot of flour on it and her forehead, and then went at the biscuit dough again.
“Say, darlin’, did you wash them slim little paws of yourn?” asked Stone, suddenly.
“No. I—I never thought to,” she faltered.
“Wal, you wash them. There’s the washpan. … What’re you tryin’ to do—poison me with dirty hands? I’ll have you know, Gloriana Traft, thet I’m a clean desperado, an’ any woman who cooks fer me has gotta be spick an’ span.”
Suddenly Molly, with an almost inarticulate cry, leaped off the bed and bolted out the door. Stone did not understand her move, but yelling, he thudded after her. But she was not trying to escape. Manifestly she had to get outside, away from Gloriana. She waited behind the young spruces for Stone.
“What’s the matter, lass?” he asked, anxiously. “It’s shore goin’ fine. You’re a grand aktress. You’d beat thet Siddons woman all holler.”
Molly had a hand pressed into her heaving bosom. Her eyes were distended.
“Oh, Jed—I—I cain’t bear it!” she wailed. “I’m afraid it’ll do her some harm. … Please, Jed, let me tell her you’re not the—the devil you seem?”
“An’ spoil it all!—No, Molly, I jest won’t,” he replied, stubbornly. “Cain’t you see the good it’ll do? Look at the spunk she showed. She’d knifed me, too!—Molly, fer Heaven’s sake, stick it out. We’ll make a man out of her.”
“But—but you’ll overdo it,” cried Molly.
“You dog-gone little simpleton,” he retorted. “I cain’t overdo it with thet girl. She’ll lick us both yet, if we don’t watch out.”
“Wasn’t she jest—wonderful? When I seen her with thet knife I aboot went stiff. … Jed, what we’re doi
n’ is turrible wrong. Heah you’ve killed two men. Right before her eyes! There’s blood all over the floor yet. … You’ve pretended to beat me—an’ kiss me—which I didn’t reckon was in the play. An’ you’ve shot at her! … Jed, people can die of fright. You scare me into thinkin’ you’re not actin’—you mean it all. … An’ oh, I’m sick—sick.”
“Molly, I swear to Gawd I wouldn’t harm one hair of thet girl’s haid,” he avowed, earnestly. “But I had a hunch. I seen what she needs—an’, by thunder, if you don’t show yellar, she’ll get it! … Molly, I’ve knowed you since you was a baby, an’ I used to call you ‘Little wood-mouse.’ Slinger got thet name from me. Shore you can trust me. It’s hard to do—an’ the hardest of all is to come fer her. But, honest, Molly, I reckon this deal’s a Godsend to her, an’ to you, an’ to me.”
“You!—How come, Jed?” she queried, sharply.
“Dog-gone-it, Molly, I cain’t tell all in a minnit. But I feel it’s somethin’ big an’ wonderful fer me—to remember all my life after as the thing which helped change me.”
“Jed!—You’re goin’ to give up rustlin’?” she asked, breathlessly.
“I shore am, Molly Dunn.”
“Gawd! I’m glad! ’Most as glad as when my brother quit. I reckon it’s gettin’ through my thick haid. … Go on, Jed, with our play. I’ll stick, but fer my sake don’t—don’t hurt her.”
“You’re shore real Arizona,” returned Stone, feelingly. “Run back in, now. I’ve some diggin’ to do before dark.”
“But you’d better drag me back,” objected Molly.
Wherefore Stone presently heaved a kicking rebellious young woman into the cabin, with a fiercely appropriate command. And he followed that with an order to put some pine cones on the fire. Then Stone searched among the packs to find a short-handled shovel, with which he proposed to dig Croak Malloy’s grave. The thing was monstrously impelling. Jed Stone digging Croak Malloy’s grave! Arizona would learn that some day, and the range-riders would marvel as they talked about the campfires, adding bit by bit to the story of the doom of the Hash Knife.
