The Golden Woman

by Cullum, Ridgwell

  Buck’s eyes shone with love and pity. He was stirred to the depths of his manhood by her appeal. Here again was that shadow she had spoken of before, that he had become familiar with. He tried to tell himself that she was simply unnerved, but he knew her trouble was more than that. All his love drove him to a longing for a means of comforting her.

  “Forget the things you seen,” he said in a low tone. And he felt that his words were bald—even stupid.

  The girl’s troubled eyes were looking up into his in a desperate hope. It was almost as if this man were her only support, and she were making one final appeal before abandoning altogether her saving hold.

  “Forget them? Oh, Buck, Buck, you don’t know what you are saying. You don’t understand—you can’t, or you would not speak like that. You see,” she went on, forgetting in her trouble that this man did not know her story, “Ike was here. Here! He made—love to me. He—he kissed me. He brutally kissed me when I had no power to resist him. And now—now this has happened.”

  But the man before her had suddenly changed while she was speaking. The softness had left his eyes. They had suddenly become hot, and bloodshot, and hard. His breath came quickly, heavily, his thin nostrils dilating with the furious emotion that swept through his body. Ike had kissed her. He had forgotten all her sufferings in his own sudden, jealous fury.

  Joan waited. The change in the man had passed unobserved by her. Then, as no answer was forthcoming, she went on—

  “Wherever I go it is the same. Death and disaster. Oh, it is awful! Sometimes I think I shall go mad. Is there no corner of the earth where I can hide myself from the shadow of this haunting curse?”

  “Ike kissed you?”

  Buck’s voice grated harshly. Somehow her appeal had passed him by. All his better thoughts and feelings were overshadowed for the moment. A fierce madness was sweeping through his veins, his heart, his brain, a madness of feeling such as he had never before experienced.

  The girl answered him, still without recognizing the change.

  “Yes,” she said in a dull, hopeless way. “And the inevitable happened. It followed swiftly, surely, as it always seems to follow. He is dead.”

  “He got it—as he should get it. He got no more than he’d have got if I’d been around.”

  Buck’s mood could no longer escape her. She looked into the hard, young face, startled. She saw the fury in his eyes, the clenched jaws, with their muscles outstanding with the force of the fury stirring him.

  The sight agitated her, but somehow it did not frighten. She half understood. At least she thought she did. She read his resentment as that of a man who sees in the outrage a breaking of all the laws of chivalry. She missed the real note underlying it.

  “What does his act matter?” she said almost indifferently, her mind on what she regarded as the real tragedy. “He was drunk. He was not responsible. No, no. It is not that which matters. It was the other. He left me—to go to his death. Had Pete not been waiting for him it would have been just the same. Disaster! Death! Oh! can you not see? It is the disaster which always follows me.”

  Her protest was not without its effect. So insistent was she on the resulting tragedy that Buck found himself endeavoring to follow her thought in spite of his own feelings. She was associating this tragedy with herself—as part of her life, her fate.

  But it was some moments before the man was sufficiently master of himself—before he could detach his thought altogether from the human feelings stirring him. The words sang on his ear-drums. “He—he kissed me.” They were flaming through his brain. They blurred every other thought, and, for a time, left him incapable of lending her that support he would so willingly give her. Finally, however, his better nature had its way. He choked down his jealous fury, and strove to find means of comforting her.

  “It’s all wrong,” he cried, with a sudden force which claimed the girl’s attention, and, for the time at least, held her troubled thought suspended. “How can this be your doing? Why for should it be a curse on you because two fellers shoot each other up? They hated each other because of you. Wal—that’s natural. It’s dead human. It’s been done before, an’ I’m sure guessin’ it’ll be done again. It’s not you. It’s—it’s nature—human nature. Say, Miss Joan, you ain’t got the lessons of these hills right yet. Folks out here are diffrent to city folks. That is, their ways of doin’ the same things are diff’rent. We feel the same—that’s because we’re made the same—but we act diff’rent. If I’d bin around, I’d have shot Ike—with a whole heap of pleasure. An’ if I had, wher’s the cuss on you? Kissin’ a gal like that can’t be done around here.”

  “But Pete was not here. He didn’t know.”

  Joan was quick to grasp the weakness of his argument.

  “It don’t matter a cent,” cried Buck, his teeth clipping his words. “He needed his med’cine—an’ got it.”

  Joan sighed hopelessly.

  “You don’t understand, and—and I can’t tell it you all. Sometimes I feel I could kill myself. How can I help realizing the truth? It is forced on me. I am a leper, a—a pariah.”

  The girl leant back on her cushions, and her whole despairing attitude became an appeal to his manhood. The last vestige of Buck’s jealousy passed from him. He longed to tell her all there was in his heart. He longed to take her in his arms and comfort her, and protect her from every shadow the whole wide world held for her. He longed to tell her of the love that was his, and how no power on earth could change it. But he did none of these things.

  “The things you’re callin’ yourself don’t sound wholesome,” he said simply. “I can’t see they fit in anyway. Guess they ain’t natural.”

  Joan caught at the word.

  “Natural!” she cried. “Is any of it natural?” She laughed hysterically.

  Buck nodded.

  “It’s all natural,” he said. “You’ve hit it. You don’t need my word. Jest you ask the Padre. He’ll give it you all. He’ll tell you jest how notions can make a cuss of any life, an’ how to get shut of sech notions. He’s taught me, an’ he’ll teach you. I can’t jest pass his words on. They don’t git the same meaning when I say ’em. I ain’t wise to that sort of thing. But ther’s things I am wise to, and they’re the things he’s taught me. You’re feeling mean, mean an’ miser’ble, that makes me ter’ble mean to see. Say, Miss Joan, I ain’t much handin’ advice. I ain’t got brain enough to hand that sort of thing around, but I’d sure ask you to say right here ther’ ain’t no cuss on your life, an’ never was. You jest guess there’s a cuss around chasin’ glory at your expense. Wal, git right up, an’ grit your teeth an’ fight good. Don’t sit around feeling mean. If you’d do that, I tell you that cuss’ll hit the trail so quick you won’t git time to see it, an’ you’ll bust yourself laffin’ to think you ever tho’t it was around your layout. An’ before I done talkin’ I’ll ast you to remember that when menfolks git around insultin’ a helpless gal, cuss or no cuss, he’s goin’ to git his med’cine good—an’ from me.”

  Buck’s effort had its reward. The smile that had gradually found its way into his own eyes caught something of a reflection in those of the girl. He had dragged her from the depths of her despair by the force of the frank courage that was his. He had lifted her by the sheer strength and human honesty which lay at the foundation of his whole, simple nature. Joan sighed, and it was an acknowledgment of his success.

  “Thank you, Buck,” she said gently. “You are always so good to me. You have been so ever since I came. And goodness knows you have little enough reason for it, seeing it is I who have turned you out of this home of yours——”

  “We got your money,” interrupted Buck, almost brusquely. “This farm was the Padre’s. You never turned me out. An’ say, the Padre don’t live a big ways from here. Maybe you’d like him to tell you about cusses an’ things.” His eyes twinkled. “He’s sure great on cusses.”

  But Joan did not respond to the lightness of his manner, and Buck real
ized that her trouble was still strong upon her.

  He waited anxiously, watching for the signs of her acceptance of his invitation. But they were not forthcoming. The deep violet of her eyes seemed to grow deeper with a weight of thought, and gradually the man’s hopes sank. He had wanted her to see his friend, he had wanted his friend to see her. But more than all he had wanted to welcome her to his own home. Nor was the reason of his desire clear even to himself.

  At last she rose from her seat and crossed over to the window, just as the sound of voices heralded the return of Mrs. Ransford and the hired man. It was at that moment she turned to him, speaking over her shoulder.

  “They’ve got back,” she said. “What are you going to do?”

  “Send those—others—on into camp.”

  “Yes.” Joan shivered.

  Then she came back to him, and stood with one hand resting on the table.

  “I—I think I should like to see the Padre. Will you take me to him one day?”

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXIII

  THE BRIDGING OF YEARS

  It was nearly a week later that Joan paid her visit to the fur fort.

  The Padre moved about the room a little uncertainly. Its plainness troubled him, but its cleanliness was unquestionable. Both he and Buck had spent over two hours, earlier in the day, setting the place to rights and preparing for their visitor.

  He shook his head as he viewed the primitive condition of the furniture. It was all very, very home-made. There was not one seat he felt to be suitable to offer to a lady. He was very dissatisfied. Dissatisfied with it all, and particularly with Buck for bringing Joan to this wretched mountain abode. It would have been far better had he called at the farm. It even occurred to him now as curious that he had never done so before.

  Yet perhaps it was not so curious after all. He had been attached to the home which had sheltered him all those years, the home his own two hands had built. Yes, it was different making a place, building it, driving every nail oneself, setting up every fence post, turning every clod of soil. It was different to purchasing it, ready-made, or hiring labor. He had no desire to go near the farm again. That, like other things, had passed out of his life forever.

  Three times he rearranged the room in the vain hope of giving it an added appearance of comfort, but the task was hopeless. Finally, he sat down and lit his pipe, smiling at his almost childish desire that his home should find favor in the eyes of the girl Buck was bringing to see him.

  Buck had told him very little. He had spoken of the visit, and hinted at Joan’s desire for advice. He had been very vague. But then that was Buck’s way in some things. It was not often that he had need to go into reasons in his intercourse with his friend. Such a perfect understanding had always existed between them that they were rarely discoursive. He had told the Padre of the shooting, and explained the apparent cause. He had also told him of the reception of the news in the camp, and how a small section of the older inhabitants had adopted an attitude of resentment against the innocent cause of it. He had shown him that there was plainly no sympathy, or very little, for Joan when the story was told. And to the elder man this was disquieting. Buck had treated it with the contempt of youth, but the Padre had detected in it a food for graver thought than he let the boy understand.

  It would be time enough to break up Buck’s confidence should any trouble develop. In the meantime he had understood that there was something like real necessity for him to see this girl. If she needed any help then it was plainly his duty to give it her. And, besides, there was another reason. Buck desired this interview.

  He smiled to himself as he thought of the turn events had taken with Buck. He must have been blind indeed if he had not seen from the very first the way things were going. The boy had fallen hopelessly in love with the first girl with whom he had definitely been brought into contact. And why not? Yes, he was rather anxious to see and talk with this girl who had set the boy’s heart on fire.

  Yet it seemed strange. Buck had never been anything but a boy to him. He had never really grown up. He was still the small, pathetic figure he had first encountered on the trail-side. And now here he was hopelessly, madly in love with a girl. He would never forget the fire of jealousy that had lain behind his words when Buck had told him that Ike had forcibly kissed her.

  His thought lost its more sympathetic note, and he became grave. Love had come into this youngster’s life, and he wondered in what direction it would influence it. He knew well enough, no one better, how much damage love could do. He knew well enough the other, and right side of the picture. But Buck was an unusual experiment. Even to him, who knew the boy so well, he was still something of a problem in many ways. One thing was certain. He would get the trouble badly, and time alone could show what ravages and complications might be forthcoming.

  He rose from his chair and knocked out his pipe. Then, in smiling dismay, he sniffed the air. He had done the very thing he had meant to avoid. He shook his white head, and opened wide both the window and the door in the hope that the fresh mountain air would sweeten the atmosphere before the girl’s arrival.

  But his hopes were quickly dashed. As he took up his position in the doorway, prepared to extend her the heartiest greeting, he heard the clatter of hoofs on the trail, and the man and the girl rode into the stockade.

  Buck had departed to perform his usual evening tasks. He had gone to water and feed the horses, to “buck” cord-wood for the stove, and to draw the water for their household purposes. He was full early with his work, but he was anxious that the Padre and Joan should remain undisturbed. Such was his faith in the Padre that he felt that on this visit depended much of the girl’s future peace of mind.

  Now the white-haired man and the girl were alone—alone with the ruddy westering sun pouring in through window and door, in an almost horizontal shaft of gracious light. Joan was sitting bending over the cook-stove, her feet resting on the rack at the foot of the oven, her hands outstretched to the warming glow of the fire. The evenings in the hills, even in the height of summer, were never without a nip of cold which drifted down from the dour, ages-old glaciers crowning the distant peaks. She was talking, gazing into the glowing coals. She was piecing out her story as it had been told her by her Aunt Mercy, feeling that only with a full knowledge of it could this wise old white-haired friend of Buck’s understand and help her.

  The Padre was sitting close under the window. His back was turned to it, so that his face was almost lost in the shadow. And it was as well. As the story proceeded, as incident after incident was unfolded, the man’s face became gray with unspeakable emotion, and from robust middle age he jumped to an old, old man.

  But Joan saw none of this. Never once did she turn her eyes in his direction. She was lost in painful recollections of the hideous things with which she seemed to be surrounded. She told him of her birth, those strange circumstances which her aunt had told her of, and which now, in her own cold words, sounded so like a fairy tale. She told him of her father and her father’s friend, the man who had always been his evil genius. She told him of her father’s sudden good fortune, and of the swift-following disaster. She told him of his dreadful death at the hands of his friend. Then she went on, mechanically reciting the extraordinary events which had occurred to her—how, in each case where men sought her regard and love, disaster had followed hard upon their heels; how she had finally fled before the disaster which dogged her; how she had come here, here where she thought she might be free from associations so painful, only to find that escape was impossible.

  “I need not tell you what has happened since I came,” she finished up dully. “You know it all. They say I brought them their luck. Luck? Was there ever such luck? First my coming cost a man’s life, and now—now Ike and Pete. What is to follow?”

  The Padre had not once interrupted her in her long story, and, even now, as the last sound of her voice died out, it was some moments before he spoke.

  The fire
in the grate rustled and the cinders shook down.

  It was then that the girl stirred as though suddenly made aware of the silence. Immediately the man’s voice, cold—almost harsh, in contrast to his usual tone, startled her.

  “‘Rest’ is not your name,” he said. “You have changed your name—to further aid your escape from——”

  “How do you know that?” Then the girl went on, wondering at the man’s quickness of understanding. “I had not intended telling you. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing seems to matter. Evidently my disguise is useless with you. No, my name is not Rest. My father was Charles Stanmore.”

  The man made no reply. He did not move. His keen eyes were on the red-gold hair so neatly coiled about the girl’s head. His lips were compressed, and a deep frown had disturbed the usual serenity of his broad brow.

  For a moment Joan bowed her head, and her hands clasped tightly as they were held toward the fire. Presently her voice sounded again. It began low, held under a forced calm.

  “Is there no hope?” she implored him. “Buck said you could help me. What have I done that these things should curse my life? I only want peace—just a little peace. I am content to live and die just as I am. I desire nothing more than to be left—alone.”

  “Who told you—all this?” The Padre’s voice had no sympathy.

  “My aunt. Aunt Mercy.”

  “You were—happy before she told you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did she tell you?”

  “I don’t know. At least—yes, she told me so as to warn me. So that I might avoid bringing disaster upon those whom I had no desire to hurt.”

  The Padre rose from his seat and crossed to where the girl was sitting. He stood for a moment just behind her chair. Then, very gently, he laid one sunburnt hand upon her shoulder.

  “Little girl,” he said, with a wonderful kindliness that started the long-threatened tears to the girl’s eyes, “you’ve got a peck of trouble inside that golden head of yours. But it’s all in there. There’s none of it outside. Look back over all those things you’ve told me. Every one of them. Just show me where your hand in them lies. There is not a disaster that you have mentioned but what possesses its perfectly logical, natural cause. There is not one that has not been duplicated, triplicated, ah! dozens and dozens of times since this quaint old world of ours began. You believe it is due to your influence because a silly old woman catches you in an overwrought moment and tells you so. She has implanted a parasite in your little head that has stuck there and grown out of all proportion. Believe me, child, you cannot influence the destinies of men. You have no say in the matter. As we are made, so we must work out our own salvation. It has been your lot to witness many disasters, but had these things occurred with other girls as the central figure, would you have attributed this hideous curse to their lives? Would you? Never. But you readily attribute it to your own. I am an old man my dear; older to-day, perhaps, by far than my years call for. I have seen so much of misery and trouble that sometimes I have thought that all life is just one long sea of disaster. But it isn’t—unless we choose to make it so. You are rapidly making yours such. You are naturally generous, and kind, and sympathetic. These things you have allowed to develop in you until they have become something approaching disease. Vampires sucking out all your nervous strength. Abandon these things for a while. Live the life the good God gave you. Enjoy your living moments as you were intended to enjoy them. And be thankful that the sun rises each morning, and that you can rise up from your bed refreshed and ready for the full play of heart, and mind, and limbs. Disasters will go on about you as they go on about me, and about us all. But they do not belong to us. That is just life. That is just the world and its scheme. There are lessons in all these things for us to learn—lessons for the purification of our hearts, and not diseases for our silly, weak brains. Now, little girl, I want you to promise that you will endeavor to do as I say. Live a wholesome, healthy life. Enjoy all that it is given you to enjoy. Where good can be done, do it. Where evil lies, shun it. Forget all this that lies behind you, and—Live! Evil is merely the absence of Good. Life is all Good. If we deny that good, then there is Evil. Live your life with all its blessings, and your God will bless you. This is your duty to yourself; to your fellows; to life; to your God.”