The Golden Woman

by Cullum, Ridgwell

“It’s—it’s a—woman,” cried Pete stupidly, unable to contain his astonishment longer.

  “It sure is,” murmured Curly, with equal brightness.

  But while they gave the company the benefit of their keenness of perception Buck had dropped upon his knees and was bending over the wretched victim of the storm. He raised her, and drew her tenderly into his arms.

  “’Tain’t one of ours,” announced Ike over his shoulder.

  “No.” Buck’s monosyllable displayed no great interest in his remark.

  Amidst a dead silence Buck suddenly straightened up, with the dripping figure clasped tightly in his strong arms. A great pity shone in his eyes as he gazed down into the fair young face. It was the first time in all his life he had held a woman in his arms, and the sensation of it made him forget those others about him.

  Suddenly Ike’s voice aroused him.

  “By Gar!” he cried. “Jest look at that red ha’r. Say, easy, boys, we’re treadin’ it around in the mud.”

  It was true. The great masses of the girl’s red-gold hair had fallen loose and were trailing in the water as Buck held her. It reached from the man’s shoulder, where her head was pillowed, and the heavy-footed men were trampling the ends of it into the mud. Ike stooped and rescued the sodden mass, and laid it gently across Buck’s shoulders.

  For a moment the sun shone down upon the wondering group. The clouds had broken completely, and were scattering in every direction as though eager to escape observation after their recent shameful display. No one seemed to think of moving out into the rapidly warming open. They were content to gather about Buck’s tall figure and gape down at the beautiful face of the girl lying in his arms.

  It was Beasley Melford who first became practical.

  “She’s alive, anyway,” he said. “Sort o’ stunned. Mebbe it’s the lightnin’.”

  Pete turned, a withering glance upon his foxy face.

  “Lightnin’ nuthin’,” he cried scornfully. “If she’d bin hit she’d ha’ bin black an’ dead. Why, she—she ain’t even brown. She’s white as white.” His voice became softer, and he was no longer addressing the ex-Churchman. “Did y’ ever see sech skin—so soft an’ white? An’ that ha’r, my word! I’d gamble a dollar her eyes is blue—ef she’d jest open ’em.”

  He reached out a great dirty hand to touch the beautiful whiteness of the girl’s throat with a caressing movement, but instantly Buck’s voice, sharp and commanding, stayed his action.

  “Quit that!” he cried. “Ke’p your durned hands to yourself,” he added, with a strange hoarseness.

  Pete’s eyes lit angrily.

  “Eh? What’s amiss?” he demanded. “Guess I ain’t no disease.”

  Beasley chuckled across at him, and the sound of his mirth infuriated Buck. He understood the laugh and the meaning underlying it.

  “Buck turned wet nurse,” cried the ex-Churchman, as he beheld the sudden flush on the youngster’s face.

  “You can ke’p your durned talk,” Buck cried. “You Beasley—and the lot of you,” he went on recklessly. “She’s no ord’nary gal; she’s—she’s a lady.”

  Curly and Ike nodded agreement.

  But Beasley, whatever his fears of the storm, understood the men of his world. Nor had he any fear of them, and Buck’s threat only had the effect of rousing the worst side of his nature, at all times very near the surface.

  “Lady? Psha’! Write her down a woman, they’re all the same, only dressed different. Seems to me it’s better they’re all just women. An’ Pete’s good enough for any woman, eh, Pete? She’s just a nice, dandy bit o’ soft flesh an’ blood, eh, Pete? Guess you like them sort, eh, Pete?”

  The man’s laugh was a hideous thing to listen to, but Pete was not listening. Buck heard, and his dark face went ghastly pale, even though his eyes were fixed on the beautiful face with its closed, heavily-lashed eyes. Pete’s attention was held by the delicate contours of her perfect figure and the gaping, bedraggled white shirt-waist, where the soft flesh of her fair bosom showed through, and the delicate lace and ribbons of her undergarments were left in full view.

  No one offered Beasley encouragement and his laugh fell flat. And when Curly spoke it was to express something of the general thought.

  “Wonder how she came here?” he said thoughtfully.

  “Seems as though the storm had kind o’ dumped her down,” Abe Allinson admitted.

  Again Beasley chuckled.

  “Say, was ther’ ever such a miracle o’ foolishness as you fellers? You make me laff—or tired, or something. Wher’d she come from? Ain’t the Padre sold his farm?” he demanded, turning on Buck. “Ain’t he sold it to a woman? An’ ain’t he expectin’ her along?”

  Buck withdrew his eyes from the beautiful face, and looked up in answer to the challenge.

  “Why, yes,” he said, his look suddenly hardening as he confronted Beasley’s face. “I had forgotten. This must surely be Miss—Miss Rest. That’s the name Mrs. Ransford, the old woman at the farm, said. Rest.” He repeated the name as though it were pleasant to his ears.

  “Course,” cried Curly cheerfully. “That’s who it is—sure.”

  “Rest, eh? Miss—Rest,” murmured the preoccupied Pete. Then he added, half to himself, “My, but she’s a dandy! Ain’t—ain’t she a pictur’, ain’t she——?”

  Buck suddenly pushed him aside, and his action was probably rougher than he knew. But for some reason he did not care. For some reason he had no thought for any one but the fair creature lying in his arms. His head was throbbing with a strange excitement, and he moved swiftly toward the door, anxious to leave the inquisitive eyes of his companions behind him.

  As he reached the door Beasley’s hateful tones arrested him.

  “Say, you ain’t takin’ that pore thing up to the fort, are you?” he jeered.

  Buck swung about with the swiftness of a panther. His eyes were ablaze with a cold fire.

  “You rotten outlaw parson!” he cried.

  He waited for the insult to drive home. Then when he saw the fury in the other’s face, a fury he intended to stir, he went on—

  “Another insinuation like that an’ I’ll shoot you like the dog you are,” he cried, and without waiting for an answer he turned to the others. “Say, fellers,” he went on, “I’m takin’ this gal wher’ she belongs—down to the farm. I’m goin’ to hand her over to the old woman there. An’ if I hear another filthy suggestion from this durned skunk Beasley, what I said goes. It’s not a threat. It’s a promise, sure, an’ I don’t ever forgit my promises.”

  Beasley’s face was livid, and he drew a sharp breath.

  “I don’t know ’bout promises,” he said fiercely. “But you won’t find me fergittin’ much either.”

  Buck turned to the door again and threw his retort over his shoulder.

  “Then you sure won’t forgit I’ve told you what you are.”

  “I sure won’t.”

  Nor did Buck fail to appreciate the venom the other flung into his words. But he was reckless—always reckless. And he hurried through the doorway and strode off with his still unconscious burden.

  * * *

  CHAPTER VII

  A SIMPLE MANHOOD

  All thought of Beasley Melford quickly became lost in feelings of a deeper and stronger nature as Buck passed out into the open. His was not a nature to dwell unnecessarily upon the clashings of every-day life. Such pinpricks were generally superficial, to be brushed aside and treated without undue consideration until such time as some resulting fester might gather and drastic action become necessary. The fester had not yet gathered, therefore he set his quarrel aside for the time when he could give it his undivided attention.

  As he strode away the world seemed very wide to Buck. So wide, indeed, that he had no idea of its limits, nor any desire to seek them. He preferred that his eyes should dwell only upon those things which presented themselves before a plain, wholesome vision. He had no desire to peer into the tainted recesses
of any other life than that which he had always known. And in his outlook was to be witnessed the careful guidance of his friend, the Padre. Nor was his capacity stunted thereby, nor his strong manhood. On the contrary, it left him with a great reserve of power to fight his little battle of the wilderness.

  Yet surely such a nature as his should have been dangerously open to disaster. The guilelessness resulting from such a simplicity of life ought surely to have fitted him for a headlong rush into the pitfalls which are ever awaiting the unwary. This might have been so in a man of less strength, less reckless purpose. Therein lay his greatest safeguard. His was the strength, the courage, the resource of a mind trained in the hard school of the battle for existence in the wilderness, where, without subtlety, without fear, he walked over whatever path life offered him, ready to meet every obstruction, every disaster, with invincible courage.

  It was through this very attitude that his threat against Beasley Melford was not to be treated lightly. His comrades understood it. Beasley himself knew it. Buck had assured him that he would shoot him down like a dog if he offended against the unwritten laws of instinctive chivalry as he understood them, and he would do it without any compunction or fear of consequences.

  A woman’s fame to him was something too sacred to be lightly treated, something quite above the mere consideration of life and death. The latter was an ethical proposition which afforded him, where a high principle was in the balance against it, no qualms whatsoever. It was the inevitable result of his harsh training in the life that was his. The hot, rich blood of strong manhood ran in his veins, but it was the hot blood tempered with honesty and courage, and without one single taint of meanness.

  As he passed down the river bank, beyond which the racing waters flowed a veritable torrent, he saw the camp women moving about outside their huts. He saw them wringing out their rain-drenched garments. Thus he knew that the storm had served their miserable homes badly, and he felt sorry for them.

  For the most part they were heavy, frowsy creatures, slatternly and uncouth. They came generally from the dregs of frontier cities, or were the sweepings of the open country, gleaned in the debauched moments of the men who protected them. Nor, as his eyes wandered in their direction, was it possible to help a comparison between them and the burden of delicate womanhood he held in his arms, a comparison which found them painfully wanting.

  He passed on under the bold scrutiny of those feminine eyes, but they left him quite unconscious. His thoughts had drifted into a wonderful dreamland of his own, a dreamland such as he had never visited before, an unsuspected dreamland whose beauties could never again hold him as they did now.

  The sparkling sunlight which had so swiftly followed in the wake of the storm, lapping up the moisture of the drenching earth with its fiery tongue, shed a radiance over the familiar landscape, so that it revealed new and unsuspected beauties to his wondering eyes. How came it that the world, his world, looked so fair? The distant hills, those hills which had always thrilled his heart with the sombre note of their magnificence, those hills which he had known since his earliest childhood, with their black, awe-inspiring forests, they were somehow different, so different.

  He traced the purple ridges step by step till they became a blurred, gray monotony of tone fading away until it lost itself in the glittering white of the snowcaps. Everything he beheld in a new light. No longer did those hills represent the battle-ground where he and the Padre fought out their meagre existence. They had suddenly become one vast and beautiful garden where life became idyllic, where existence changed to one long joy. The torrents had shrunk to gentle streams, babbling their wonderful way through a fairy-land of scented gardens. The old forceful tearing of a course through the granite hearts of the hills was a thought of some long-forgotten age far back in the dim recesses of memory. The gloom of the darkling forests, too, had passed into the sunlit parks of delight. The rugged canyons had given place to verdant valleys of succulent pasture. The very snows themselves, those stupendous, changeless barriers, suggested nothing so much as the white plains of perfect life.

  The old harsh lines of life had passed, and the sternness of the endless battle had given way to an unaccountable joy.

  Every point that his delighted eyes dwelt upon was tinged with something of the beatitude that stirred his senses. Every step he took was something of an unreality. And every whispering sound in the scented world through which he was passing found an echo of music in his dreaming soul.

  Contact with the yielding burden lying so passive in his strong arms filled him with a rapture such as he had never known. The thought of sex was still far from his mind, and only was the manhood in him yielding to the contact, and teaching him through the senses that which his upbringing had sternly denied him.

  He gazed down upon the wonderful pale beauty of the girl’s face. He saw the rich parted lips between which shone the ivory of her perfect, even teeth. The hair, so rich and flowing, dancing with glittering beams of golden light, as, stirring beneath the breath of the mountains, it caught the reflection of a perfect sun.

  How beautiful she was. How delicate. The wonderful, almost transparent skin. He could trace the tangle of small blue veins like a fairy web through which flowed the precious life that was hers. And her eyes—those great, full, round pupils hidden beneath the veil of her deeply-fringed lids! But he turned quickly from them, for he knew that the moment she awoke his dream must pass into a memory.

  His gaze wandered to the swanlike roundness of her white throat, to the gaping shirt-waist, where the delicate lace and tiny ribbon peeped out at him. It was all so wonderful, so marvelous. And she was in his arms—she, this beautiful stranger. Yet somehow she did not seem like a stranger. To his inflamed fancy she seemed to have lain in his arms all his life, all her life. No, she was no stranger. He felt that she belonged to him, she was part of himself, his very life.

  Still she slept on. He suddenly found himself moving with greater caution, and he knew he was dreading the moment when some foolish stumble of his should bring her back to that life which he feared yet longed to behold. He longed for the delight of watching the play of emotions upon her lovely features, to hear her speak and laugh, and to watch her smile. He feared, for he knew that with her waking those delicious moments would be lost to him forever.

  So he dreamed on. In his inmost soul he knew he was dreaming, and, in his reckless fashion, he desired the dream to remain unending. He saw the old fur fort no longer the uncouth shelter of two lonely lives, but a home made beautiful by a presence such as he had never dreamed of, a presence that shed beauty upon all that came under the spell of its influence. He pictured the warmth of delight which must be the man’s who lived in such an atmosphere.

  His muscles thrilled at the thought of what a man might do under such an inspiration. To what might he not aspire? To what heights might he not soar? Success must be his. No disaster could come—

  The girl stirred in his arms. He distinctly felt the movement, and looked down into her face with sudden apprehension. But his anxiety was swiftly dispelled, and a tender smile at once replaced the look in his dark eyes. No, she had not yet awakened, and so he was content.

  But the incident had brought him realization. His arms were stiff and cramped, and he must rest them. Strong man that he was he had been wholly unaware of the distance he had carried her.

  He gently laid her upon the grass and looked about him. Then it was that wonder crept into his eyes. He was at the ford of the creek, more than two miles from the camp, and on the hither bank, where the road entered the water, a spring cart lay overturned and broken, with the team of horses lying head down, buried beneath the turbulent waters as they raced on down with the flood.

  Now he understood the full meaning of her presence in the camp. His quick eyes took in every detail, and at once her coming was explained. He turned back in the direction whence he had come, and his mind flew to the distance of the ford from the camp. She had bravely faced a strugg
le over two miles of a trail quite unknown to her when the worst storm he had ever known was at its height. His eyes came back to the face of the unconscious girl in even greater admiration.

  “Not only beautiful but——”

  He turned away to the wreck, for there were still things he wished to know. And as he glanced about him he became more fully aware of the havoc of the storm. Even in the brilliant sunshine the whole prospect looked woefully jaded. Everywhere the signs told their pitiful tale. All along the river bank the torn and shattered pines drooped dismally. Even as he stood there great tree trunks and limbs of trees were washed down on the flood before his eyes. The banks were still pouring with the drainings of the hills and adding their quota to the swelling torrent.

  But the overturned spring cart held most interest just now, and he moved over to it. The vehicle was a complete wreck, so complete, indeed, that he wondered how the girl had escaped without injury. Two trunks lay near by, evidently thrown out by the force of the upset, and it pleased him to think that they had been saved to their owner. He examined them closely. Yes, the contents were probably untouched by the water. But what was this? The initials on the lid were “J. S.” The girl’s name was Rest. At least so Mrs. Ransford had stated. He wondered. Then his wonder passed. These were very likely trunks borrowed for the journey. He remembered that the Padre had a leather grip with other initials than his own upon it.

  Where was the teamster? He looked out at the racing waters, and the question answered itself. Then he turned quickly to the girl. Poor soul, he thought, her coming to the farm had been one series of disasters. So, with an added tenderness, he stooped and lifted her gently in his arms and proceeded on his way.

  At last he came to the farm, which only that morning he had so eagerly avoided. And his feelings were not at all unpleasant as he saw again the familiar buildings. The rambling house he had known so long inspired him with a fresh joy at the thought of its new occupant. He remembered how it had grown from a log cabin, just such as the huts of the gold-seekers, and how, with joy and pride, he and the Padre had added to it and reconstructed as the years went by. He remembered the time when he had planted the first wild cucumber, which afterward became an annual function and never failed to cover the deep veranda with each passing year. There, too, was the cabbage patch crowded with a wealth of vegetables. And he remembered how careful he had been to select a southern aspect for it. The small barns, the hog-pens, where he could even now hear the grunting swine grumbling their hours away. The corrals, two, across the creek, reached by a log bridge of their own construction. Then, close by stood the nearly empty hay corrals, waiting for this year’s crop. No, the sight of these things had no regrets for him now. It was a pleasant thought that it was all so orderly and flourishing, since this girl was its future mistress.