The Forfeit

by Cullum, Ridgwell

  Jeff shook his head, and smiled in the confidence of feelings.

  "Don't ever talk that way. Don't ever think like that," he urged her. Then, as their horses ambled side by side up the last gentle incline before they dropped down to the great plain of the Rainbow Hill Valley, which was the setting of the Obar Ranch, he drew nearer and reached out one arm and gently encircled her waist. "Guess you're feeling like me just now, Evie. Do you know what I mean? We're getting home. Home-yours and mine. Well, say, that home is in my mind now, and it's full to the brim of thoughts of you. You're in it-everywhere. You're part of it. You're just part of me. I can't see any future without you. It don't seem to me there could be any. I don't doubt. I guess the thought of it don't scare me a thing. Maybe with you it's different. Maybe you're scared such happiness can't last. But I tell you it can-it will. You're with me now and always, and I can't see a shadow that could come between us."

  "None? No, none, none!"

  The woman forced conviction into her final denial, and, for a moment, she permitted herself to yield to the reassuring embrace. Then she started up and released herself.

  "Oh, Jeff!" she cried. "I just pray all the time that nothing shall ever rob me of your love. Night and day I pray that way. If I were to lose you, I-I think nothing else would much matter."

  The man smiled with supreme confidence. They had reached the top of the hill, and he set his horse into a canter.

  "You're just going to live right on-for me, sweetheart," he cried. "Be yourself. Just yourself. The frank, honest woman I know and love. If ever the shadows you fear come to worry us, they'll have to be of your own creating. We have nothing to fear from the future, nothing at all. We'll just drive right on down the clear trail of life. It's only in the byways there's any ugly dumps. Look!" He suddenly flung out one arm, pointing ahead where the great Obar plains rolled away toward the hills below them. "That's the ranch. There. That one there is Bud's homestead, and the other to the right's your-our home. Say, it's good to see-mighty good!"

  * * * * * *

  Nan gazed upon the result of her labors and decided that it was good. Bud was observing her in his unobtrusive way. They were together in the new parlor of the home which Jeff had had reconstructed under Nan's most careful supervision.

  The girl had put forth her greatest effort, greater even than she herself realized, for it had been inspired by a desire that Jeff and his wife should never realize the pain and bitter disappointment she had endured.

  Now, as she surveyed each detail in her final tour of inspection, she convinced herself that nothing, nothing she could think of had been forgotten. Even the city-bred Elvine could find no fault with any detail of it.

  She and Bud were standing side by side rather like two children gazing in awed wonder at some undreamed of splendor suddenly discovered in a familiar playground, every square foot of which they had believed themselves familiar with.

  "I-don't think I've forgotten a thing," Nan said, in a tone subdued by her weight of responsibility.

  "Not a thing," agreed Bud, with a perfect disregard for any consequences his statement might have.

  He was utterly unchanged. He had made no preparation to receive the bride and bridegroom in their home. He was just the cattleman nothing could change him from. His gray flannel shirt was agape over his sunburned chest. His leather chapps creaked as he moved, his vicious spurs clanked. Then, too, the curling iron-gray hair of his bared head was innocent of all extra combing. With Nan it was different. She had striven to rid herself of every sign of the prairie to which she belonged. She was dressed with consummate care. Every jealous feeling of the woman in her had cried out for her rights, and those rights were that her successful rival should be unable to sneer at or pity her.

  The result was a delightful picture that filled Bud's heart with admiration. And for perhaps the thousandth time he silently anathematized the blind folly of the man who had wilfully cast his eyes in another direction.

  Nan seated herself in one of the luxuriously inviting armchairs, while Bud insinuated his huge form on to the polished surface of a large central table.

  "You know, Daddy, I sort of feel like a feller who's guessed the right answer to a question he hadn't a notion of. Maybe you won't get just how I mean." The smile in her pretty eyes changed to a deep seriousness. "You know when I was a little teeny girl all mud and overall, that never could keep me within measurable distance of being clean, you used to talk to me just as if you were speaking your thoughts aloud. Guess it was about the time poor Momma died, or maybe soon after. I kind of remember you were squatting Indian fashion on the veranda of our shack, I'd been busy in the hopes of drowning myself in a half dry mud hole, and had mostly succeeded in absorbing more of the dirt than seemed good for a single meal. Guess I must have started to cry, and you'd reached out and grabbed me, and fetched me up on your lap, and were handing me a few words you reckoned to cheer me up with. Do you remember them, my Daddy? I don't guess you do. I didn't till a while later, and then I didn't figure out their meaning till I went to school. You said, 'Tears is only for kiddies an' grown women. Kiddies mostly cry because they don't understand, an' grown women because they do. Anyway, neither of 'em need to cry, if they only get busy an' think a while. Ther' ain't a thing in this life calls for a tear from a living soul, not even a stomachful of moist mud, 'cos, you see, ther's Someone who fixes everything the way it should go, an' it's the right way. So we'll jest give you a dose of physic to help boost the show along.'" She glanced round her with smiling eyes at the tastefully arrayed furnishings of the parlor. "This has been the dose of physic I gave myself, and-and I feel better for it. I had the mud, and, why, the tears came just as they did before. Maybe if I'd been able to think right I wouldn't have shed them. But I just couldn't think right then. But I've thought since, and the physic's helped me. Do-do you think he'll like it all?"

  The contemplative gaze of her father was full of gentle amusement.

  "Sure he will-if he ain't changed any."

  Nan shook her head.

  "Jeff couldn't change. Even marriage couldn't change Jeff. You see, Jeff's got notions of life which are just part of him. Maybe he'll soften some in ways and things, but his notions'll remain, and they'll stand right out in all he does."

  But Bud remained without conviction.

  "A good woman can set a big man hunting a halo," he said. "An' I allow he's li'ble to find it, if she don't weaken in her play. But a bad woman-why, I guess a bad woman can send him down quicker than most things in life, once she tucks herself into a corner of his life depot."

  "But Jeff would never fall in love with a bad woman." Nan protested swiftly, an odd little pucker of anxiety gathering between her brows. "I-I'm sure his wife's a good woman."

  "An' I ain't any sort o' reason to think diff'rent."

  "But you do think-that way."

  Nan's understanding of her father was wide. It could scarcely have been otherwise, since he had been her sole companion for so many years.

  But Bud was to be drawn no further.

  "Ther' ain't no accounting fer how folks think when they ain't out on a joy trip," he grumbled, as he moved across to the open window, and stood gazing out over the trail from the northeast. Then all further discussion was abandoned in a small wave of excitement. He was pointing down the trail.

  "Say, they're coming right along now. An'--"

  But Nan was at his side. Something of the color had faded out of her cheeks, and she clung to her father's arm as she gazed along the narrow winding road. Her breath was coming rapidly. For all her courage, now that the moment of great trial had arrived, she felt very weak, very helpless.

  Bud understood. He released his arm from her nervous clasp, and placed it gently about her shoulders. "It's Jeff setting the gait," he said. "I'd say he's crazy to get home." Then he added as though to himself: "Guess I'd as lief seen her on the lead."

  But Nan gave no heed to his words. The soul of the girl was in her eyes, which were
full of a deep terror and yearning. She had schooled herself for this meeting How she had schooled herself! And now it seemed beyond her powers to live up to that schooling.

  Never for a moment did she withdraw her gaze. It was held fascinated, perhaps against her will. They came on, riding at an almost racing gallop, and finally drew up with their horses fighting against the restraining bits.

  Bud and Nan were on the veranda. Bud's attitude was one of almost shy reserve. Nan was smiling a welcome such as a moment before would have seemed quite impossible. But her schooling had finally triumphed in the crisis, and her loyalty to her generous love had vanquished every baser feeling. It was her hands which clasped those of the city woman before she sprang lightly from the saddle. It was her steady voice spoke the first words of welcome.

  "Say, you sure must be tired with your journey," she said. "Come right in to-your new home."

  Bud had averted his eyes the moment she began to speak. He could not witness that greeting. His courage was unequal to it. Instead he greeted Jeff in his own fashion, as though nothing unusual had occurred.

  "Nan's got everything through for you same as you asked. After you've eaten, why, I guess we'll need to make some talk. Things have been moving, boy. Guess we'll need to get busy."

  Nan had taken Elvine into the house, and one of the barn-hands was waiting to take the horses. Jeff leaped from the saddle. Once in the company of his partner, with all the atmosphere of the world to which he belonged about him, all the excitement of his home-coming seemed to drop from him. He even seemed to have forgotten that this was the final great event of his new life-the bringing of his bride to the home he had prepared for her. But Nan's estimate of him was right. Jeff's was a nature that could not be changed, even by his marriage. His love, his marriage, Elvine; these things were, in reality, merely episodes. Delightful episodes. Before all things his work claimed him.

  "You mean the-rustlers?"

  The two men were facing each other on the wide veranda. The trailing wild cucumber vines tempered the blaze of sunlight and left the atmosphere of the veranda cool. Jeff mopped the beads of perspiration from his forehead under his wide hat, which had been thrust back on his head.

  "That's so." Bud's eyes were following the horses as they moved away in the wake of the barn-hand.

  "It's pretty bad?"

  "An' gettin' worse."

  Bud's eyes came back to his partner's face. They gazed steadily into it.

  "Can't you tell me-now? Evie's in there with Nan," he added significantly.

  Bud shook his head.

  "It's a big yarn, an' needs time. But--" He paused, searching the other's face.

  "Go right on."

  Jeff read through the pause. He waited, his lips firmly set.

  Bud cleared his throat.

  "I've got to say these things later if I don't say 'em now, Jeff, boy. What I need to tell 'll make you sore, an' I don't guess it's the best sort o' welcome making you sore at your home-comin'. It's the worst of the yarn anyway, an' I kind o' feel it's best spitting out the worst right away. We're up against a gang, a slick gang, organized right, same as--"

  He hesitated. But the younger man seemed to have no similar scruples.

  "The gang my brother ran."

  Bud nodded.

  "Some of 'em got clear away-that time."

  "And you figure after giving things time to get forgotten they've gathered up a crowd of toughs and started in on this district?"

  "It seems that way."

  "How?"

  "System," Bud declared sharply. "They're takin' a steady toll of us, an' other folks in the district. We trailed 'em to the hills, an'-lost 'em. Say, if we don't handle 'em it means--"

  "Something like ruin for the-Obar."

  Jeff's manner was shorn of any equivocation. He spoke with almost ruthless force, but the coldness of tone was incomparable with the steely light in his blue eyes.

  After a moment's silence he turned away. He stood looking back over the trail he had just left, and Bud regarded his keen profile, waiting. He felt there was nothing more for him to say at the moment.

  At last the other turned in his quick, decided fashion as the sound of the women's voices reached them from within the parlor.

  "Will you stop and eat with us?" he asked bluntly.

  Bud shook his head.

  "Not now, Jeff, boy. This is your home-coming."

  "Yes. Well, I'll get around your place to-morrow morning, Bud. We can make big talk then."

  * * *

  A long day of anxiety and fevered apprehension merged into a night of terror. It was the outcome of a conviction that was irresistible. The shadow of disaster was marching hard upon her heels. Nor had she the power to avoid it.

  As night came on Elvine remained alone in her twilit bedroom. She had no desire to come into contact with the servants, she had no desire for human companionship of any sort. So, with the fading light, she betook herself to the bedroom.

  But there was no relief. It was haunted to-night, teeming with the fancies of a dreading imagination. It seemed to her like the cell of a condemned prisoner.

  The day had passed heavily, drearily. Every moment of it had been filled with the thought that Jeff was on his way to Orrville. On his way to meet Dug McFarlane. On his way to meet the one man in whose hands her whole fate lay. He alone knew the source of the ten thousand dollars which she had carried back to her paternal home as the net result of her first marriage. He alone knew it to be the price of the blood of men, amongst whom was the twin brother of her present husband.

  Memory was alive, and full of a poignant torture. It brought back to her the scene when she had driven her first husband to help her to the money she had desired to possess. He had spoken, in his horror and anger, of "blood money," of "Judas," and she would not hear. She had derided him, she had lashed him with the scorn of an unbridled tongue, she had turned upon him in her selfish craving, without a thought of any principle.

  Now she understood what she had done, but she only understood because of the threat which overshadowed her. It was no spiritual awakening. It was again the self in her, threatened in its desires as a result of her earlier wanton actions. Her motives, even the picture of the carnage in that hidden valley, which came back to her unbidden, had no power to add to the hopelessness of her feelings. Every emotion was wrapped in the thought that she was about to be robbed of all the fruits of the one great passion of her life.

  She had one desire now, one motive in life only. It was the man she had married. The man she had designed to marry for the station and wealth he could offer her, and who had almost instantly become the centre of her whole life. Nothing of any worldly consideration counted any longer. There was nothing could interest her of which he did not occupy the centre of the focus. Self dominated still, but it was a more human type of self, which had, perhaps, some rightful claim on human sympathy.

  The shadows grew, and the wide airy room was filled with a hundred added terrors which claimed reality in the troubled brain. The silence of the world about her became a threat. The darkening of the cloudless sky beyond the open window. She sat on, refusing to invoke the aid of lamp-light to banish the gathering legions of her dread. She knew it was impossible to banish them.

  Oh, she had no physical fear of the world about her. What was there to fear? Did she not know it all? Had she not lived it all before? The two wide open windows invited her. She moved to one of them, and drew a chair so that she could rest upon the sill and gaze out into the space so perfectly jeweled. And the cool night air fanned her cheeks, and seemed to relieve the fever that was raging behind her hot eyes.

  The morrow. There was no other concern with her now but-the morrow. To-morrow Jeff would return. To-morrow she would know the worst, she would know if the purpose of Fate were for or against her. Oh, that to-morrow! And in the meantime there were interminable hours of darkness to endure, when sleep was impossible. And after that the daylight, when she must fear every eye t
hat was turned in her direction, when every moment brought nearer the possibility of the end for her of all things in the world which mattered.

  The night wore on. Midnight came and passed. She had not moved again. Her straining eyes had watched the starry groups as they set beyond the horizon. There was no moon to create shadows upon the wide, rolling pasture before her. Everything was in shadow, just as her every thought was similarly enwrapped. There was no relief anywhere.

  Once she heard a sound that set her jarred nerves hammering. It was a distant sound, and, to her fancy, it was the rapid beat of horse's hoofs sweeping across the wide valley. But it died out. She had been caught by the thought of the possibility of her husband's return, suddenly, in the night. She pictured for one brief instant the headlong race of the man to charge her with the crime of his brother's life.

  She saw that keen, stern face with its cold blue eyes and the grimly tightened lips. She had seen some such expression there before, and she knew there were depths within his soul which she had never probed, and hoped that she might never have to probe.

  It was the mystery of these unknown depths which had inspired her passion. It was because of that cognizance of something unusual, profound, in his personality that he had first become so completely desirable. Then as she grew to know him, so she found she knew him less, and desired to know him more. Her love and worship of him was of the primitive. It was such as is the love of all women when inspired by an emotion not untouched by fear.

  So, when the sounds of hoof-beats broke the night silence, she became panic-stricken, because such a return, at such an hour, could have but one meaning.

  Then the sounds passed, and her nerves steadied, and presently a stirring night breeze rustled the lank grass. It came over the plain toward her. It reached her window and fanned her cheeks with its chill breath. Then it passed, sighing round an angle of the house. Then, in its wake, came the plaintive dole of a scavenging coyote. The combination, to her fancy, was an echo of her feelings. It was the sigh of despair, and the cry of a lost soul.