RHODA FAIR: The Classic Novel of a Woman at the Crossroads

by Clarence Budingtion Kelland

  "But he will insist. Jaunty believes that if one has an advantage he is entitled to use it. It is his philosophy. . . . Under the surface he is rather a ruthless person."

  Paul nodded, but that mental trait which compelled him to strive always for the truth of any matter compelled him to say, "But I believe he loves you. In so far as his life will allow, he will be kind to you and protect you."

  "You're a surprising person," said Rhoda.

  He considered that and agreed. "I must be to others," he said, "for of late I am constantly startling myself."

  "You have been most kind and gentle with me these past dreadful days. . . . I wonder if that is not your true self and the other I knew first—the crackling, selfish, egoistic person—was not a disguise."

  "I have not changed," he said, stiffly. "Because I have lapsed, because in a few moments of excitement I have followed impulse, that is no proof I have deteriorated into a sentimental animal without intelligence."

  Rhoda laughed. "You're ashamed of saving that child, aren't you? You're ashamed of every kindness you've shown me—even to covering me with your coat at night while you shivered. . . . Oh, Jaunty told me. . . . Do you realize how you have labored and suffered to make things easier for him—and you hate him, don't you?"

  "I hate him. . . . but I had to do my share. We were compelled to be allies. The most illogical mind will see that allies, no matter what their personal feelings, must act together for their common purpose."

  "Even to pretending your leg didn't pain—when we both knew how you were suffering! Even to hiding part of your food in your pockets instead of eating it, so you could share it with us later?"

  He sniffed. "I used my brains—you followed your appetites."

  "Either," said Rhoda, "you are very slightly acquainted with yourself, or you are very well acquainted and ashamed of what would make another man proud."

  "Absurd. . . . But you may rest assured of this. I shall not permit you to marry this man if I can prevent it. You shan't ruin your life. He shan't drag you down. . . . Oh, the moral aspect don't worry me—"

  "Are you sure of that?" she asked, and her question brought him down from full flight, jolted him. He blinked and stared at her while he considered it, and then he answered honestly as his mind made the discovery, "Not so sure as I once was," he said.

  "What do you propose to do?"

  His jaw set, his fists clenched, and he sprang to his feet. "By Heaven!" he said "I'll make him fight me for you!"

  She laughed outright. "And here is the man who was all reason! . . . Going back to the primitive!" Nevertheless, the laughter lay no deeper than her lips; her eyes lingered upon his lean, bronzed, handsome falcon face with a look that had in it nothing of derision.

  "I mean what I say," he said, stubbornly.

  "What about me? Suppose you win—have I no voice in the matter? Do I pass from hand to hand, willing or unwilling?"

  "You pass out of his hands. . . . As for me, I shall spend the rest of my life working to make you love me."

  Suddenly, inexplicably, rather terrifying to Paul Dare Rhoda threw herself upon her face and burst into tears. . . . He stood over her, clenching and unclenching his hands, urged fiercely to seize her in his arms and to comfort her, withheld by the thought that she was not his to comfort—not until he had fought for her and won her. . . . It was a strange contradiction; he would take a woman from another by force, but convention prevented him from touching her while the other's claim held good. . . .

  A pebble rolled from the path and Paul turned to see Bailey descending; something in Jaunty's expression held him, made him step forward.

  "What is it?" he demanded.

  Bailey touched his lips warningly, and then, in a whisper which could not reach Rhoda's ears, said: "We're bottled. Abdullah and four of the seven sons are topside. Lucky I learned to be an Injun on this trip. Just shoved my nose over the edge to take a look-see before I climbed up—and there they were, big as life and twice as natural." He shrugged his shoulders. "I take back what I said about being out of the woods—and we'll put off the meal in Jerusalem."

  "There's no way up but the path!"

  "Unless we sprout wings."

  "And we've neither food nor water for half a day."

  "Buck up, Prof. There's always a way. Leave it to me." Even in this extremity Jaunty was true to form.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  JAUNTY BAILEY sat hunched upon a rock before the fire; his eyes, half closed, peered into the leaping flames, and he seemed half asleep. But he was not asleep; he was thinking, planning, weighing chances, and delving for an opportunity. Without warning he threw back his head and laughed—a gay laugh but tinctured with something ironical, jeering. It was startling, and his companions glanced at him with sudden concern.

  "I was just laughing at a man I know," Jaunty said. "Fellow by the name of Bailey." His tone changed, became casual. "Let me take your automatic, Prof. I'll leave this rifle. Just want to go scouting above."

  "I'll go along."

  "No. Your job's to hold the fort." He started up the path, an automatic in each side coat pocket, but turned and stood a moment as if considering; but he was not considering, he was looking, looking at Rhoda as she stood within the circle of firelight as if he desired to preserve that picture in all its details forever. Then he waved his hand jauntily. "If you hear any shooting, don't come up. It won't be anything. Sit tight!"

  A scant minute elapsed before Bailey appeared again at the edge of the shelf. "Rhoda—catch!" he said, and tossed a little packet into her lap. I’ve had it four days!" He chuckled. "Better keep a sharper watch on it or the Prof'll snag it next." Then he was gone again.

  Rhoda stared at Paul Dare and at the paper of jewels in her hand. "He had it," she said in a whisper. "He took it. . . . It's not like him to give it back. What does it mean?"

  Dare shook his head "I don't pretend to understand him. The man is full of contradictions."

  "I understand him," said Rhoda, softly. "Poor Jaunty. . . Poor Jaunty. . .

  "Why poor?"

  She shook her head, refusing to answer. "You hate him?" she asked.

  "I hate him, but—very much against my will—I'm compelled to—er—to like him!"

  Rhoda smiled wanly. "You're different," she said. "I didn't imagine you could be like this. . . . You're—you're—" She paused for a word, but could not find it. "It is as if your heart had been dead and something had brought it to life."

  He frowned. "All my life," he said, "I have been thinking; I have never felt. During the past weeks, I've been feeling without much thinking. It's illogical. . . . But one seems to get more truth that way. It's upsetting."

  "Do you remember how you used to talk about doing things for other people? You were so scornful about it! . . . Now, for—it seems years, doesn't it?—you've had not a thought for yourself. You've lived and breathed and worked and suffered for—me. And even for Jaunty, whom you hate."

  "If I did so it was unconsciously," he said, uneasily.

  She touched his hand. "You've grown, Paul. You're growing. I think very soon you will be big. . . . And I have grown, too. But nothing can come of it. . . . I wonder if God does punish children for the sins of their fathers and mothers. . . . But I mustn't say that or think it. I love my mother." Rhoda spoke as if her mother were living, in the body, waiting for her daughter's return.

  "The nonexistent," said Paul in his old-time didactic manner, "cannot punish."

  "In that, then, you have not changed."

  "I have not changed."

  After this they sat silent for minutes, perhaps for a quarter of an hour. Then, startlingly, came the muffled but unmistakable report of a revolver. The reverberations died and the night was very still—fearsomely still—as Rhoda and Paul crouched, tense, listening watchful.

  "He said I must not come," muttered Dare.

  "Then stay," said Rhoda. "He knows what he's doing."

  "But—" Something new, something stron
g and fierce, tugged and pulled him. It was an urge he never had experienced, to go, to stand shoulder to shoulder with a companion, to share what he shared and to dare what he dared. . . . The name of it was loyalty.

  Now, after that intervention of silence, came another shot, then the not to be mistaken staccato stutter of Jaunty's automatic, so rapid the shots were not to be counted. . . Paul was on his feet. "I'm going. . . . I've got to go. . . . I've got to go!"

  "Then go," said Rhoda.

  Clutching his rifle, he sprang up the path, Rhoda at his heels. . . . Into the darkness, with the gulf of black—liquid, impenetrable black—stretching below them, fluid and living. It seemed to pulsate, to throb, to be palpable to the touch. But they did not see it, think of it, for their minds were upon what they should find on the plateau above; upon what Jaunty had done, what he was doing, how he fared. . . .

  Jaunty had fared as it was his nature to fare! His plan was made, in so far as a plan was possible, while he sat gazing into the fire. He had weighed chances and results as much as his character would permit him to weigh—impatiently. "It's up to me," had been the thought upon which his venture was based, and he was eager to see how it would come out. Almost he was gay. . . . It was an adventure, exciting, thrilling, splendid. . . . Quite the most daring thing he ever had attempted, and, as he said to himself, it was up to him! In a vague, tortuous way he felt responsibility. . . . As for results, well, whatever happened to him, Rhoda and Dare would be no worse off. If luck perched on his shoulder, they might be much better, off—and he owed it to himself to end in what he called a fireworks display, if end he must. Somehow he couldn't see himself starved out or driven out by thirst; he was no rabbit to be taken in its burrow. . . . But back of it all, underlying it all, was something he declined to bring to the surface, something admirable and splendid and unselfish and of high courage. . . .

  As he neared the lip of the plateau he proceeded softly and with infinite caution; for the last dozen feet he crawled upon his stomach, and when he came to the top lifted only his eyes above the rock at the rim. . . . Fifty feet away was a little fire, lighting the scrub and undergrowth garishly. About the fire sat five men—Abdullah and four of the seven sons!

  A marksman—and Jaunty was a marksman—could have picked off a man or two before his whereabouts were discovered, but that did not occur to him. He was not of a breed which slaughters from ambush—and besides there would be no fun in it. It would not be a thing he could remember with satisfaction as he would be able to remember a fight, fair on his side, against odds. . . . Then there was his love of the dramatic; the theatrical in him which demanded a climax and a flare for the curtain.

  With infinite care he crawled over the edge and lay still; presently, inch by inch, he worked to the left, taking advantage of every bush, every rock, as he wormed his way nearer and nearer to the encampment. He loved it, every instant of it, and his only regret was that he could have no audience; how he could have played up to an audience!

  Ten minutes brought him to a clump of bushes so close to the fire that one leap would have carried him into their midst, and he chuckled noiselessly. In a moment he would have an audience, and it gave him boyish delight to speculate upon their astonishment. From each coat pocket he drew an automatic, grinning as he did so, very cool, not apprehensive, eager to open the play.

  As everyone knows who has been in the woods, a shot fired near at hand bewilders. For instance, it is impossible to say with certainty what direction it comes from. Jaunty understood this, calculated upon it. He aimed into the midst of the fire and pulled the trigger. The resultant roar seemed tremendous; brands flung into the air, the men, crouching on their haunches leaped to their feet or threw themselves prone. . . . The shot cast them into bewilderment. Before they could recover, before they could even take to flight if they intended flight, Jaunty leaped from behind his shelter and stood over them, crouching, two automatics, held close to his body, leveled in their faces.

  "Greetings," he said, and salams and compliments of the season."

  He had to do, he knew, with fatalists, with men who did not fear death, to whom death in the prosecution of a vengeance or to wipe out a dishonor was the highest virtue; and he recognized the necessities that not one of those five men might be allowed to continue in fighting trim, for one man could hold the top of that path. . . . It was one against five, and the one must abolish the five!

  "Well," he said jeeringly, "start something."

  Abdullah, hands held before him like clutching talons, snarled; the four stood erect, their eyes glittering, every muscle tense and ready. In them was no thought of flight, only fury—and watchfulness for the slenderest opportunity.

  As he waited, Jaunty planned how he would fight his fight; the way of it flicked into his mind, and the possibilities it offered. He edged toward one of the four until he stood at his side and a trifle behind. . . . Then, suddenly, from the folds of the robe of one of the four spat a bullet. It flicked Jaunty's sleeve, and on the instant he resolved into action—all resolved into action. The automatic spoke twice, one bullet smashing the arm of him who had fired the shot, the second crashing into the side of the man at Jaunty's side. Then, before this man could fall, Jaunty's arms were around him, supporting him, holding him erect as a bulwark between himself and his enemies, and he loosed his guns with coolness and precision. . . . The thing was over in seconds, tremendous, thrilling seconds! From behind his human shield Jaunty poured lead upon them in a dreadful stream.

  The man with the broken arm fired from the ground. He lay at the side and Jaunty was vulnerable to him, but he fired but once. A bullet in the chest stopped that. . . . There was no thought of taking cover; the remaining three sprang toward him, and he could see the fierce hatred in their burning eyes. Coolly he marked the first and the spot where folds of gaudy, striped silk marked the girdle beneath the heavy robe. This was his mark and he pumped two pellets of lead into it with his right hand. . . . The remaining brother fired, and Jaunty's left arm became powerless, the automatic dropped from his fingers. . . . With the remaining hand he discharged his weapon almost in the man's face, and the face became a blur of red and black. . . . Abdullah alone remained. . . .

  It was upon this scene that Paul and Rhoda came over the rim. Upon Jaunty standing upright, unsheltered—for his human shield had fallen when the bullet smashed his shoulder; upon Abdullah crouching, poising upon the palm of his hand his favorite weapon, the knife. . . . Jaunty's eyes were not clear; pain tore at his shoulder; his legs were not steady beneath him. . . . He fired, but the bullet went astray—and Abdullah flicked his knife, flicked it before Paul Dare could throw his rifle to his shoulder and fire.

  Wickedly the blade glittered as it hissed through the air, and the thud of its haft against Jaunty's breast was audible. . . . But Abdullah did not hear it, for Dare's bullet had been but the flash of an eye too late.

  Jaunty stood erect. He lowered his arm and the revolver dropped from his finger! He swayed, but with eyes upon which the darkness came swiftly, he surveyed the battlefield, and then he made a pitiful, gay, little jesture with that uninjured arm, a jesture of triumph, a boyish, jaunty movement as if to say, "There, I told you I could do it. . . . Isn't Jack a big boy!"

  Paul Dare caught him in his arms and lowered him to the earth; Rhoda threw herself down to receive his head upon her lap.

  "Curtain," said Jaunty."

  "Jaunty! . . . Jaunty!, . . .

  "Gave 'em the first shot—and cleaned—the works!" He was very proud and satisfied.

  "Are you—did they hurt you—badly?"

  "Fineesh!" Jaunty said. "I'm satisfied."

  "Why, oh, why, Jaunty? Why did you do it?"

  "It was right up—my street. . . . Born for it." He felt for her hand and she pressed his fingers to her breast. "Promised I'd look—after you—didn't I? . . . Well. . . ."

  "You're not—not—. Oh, Jaunty, I can't let you—" She could not pronounce the word, but he spoke it for her, ga
yly, unafraid.

  "Die! . . ." He tried to shrug his shoulders. "Always curious about it. . . ." He turned his face upward, "Rather do it for you—this way—than slide off—in bed—with a hard cold."

  He nodded his head weakly. "Wanted to do something for you. . . . And the prof's a good egg. . . ."

  "Aren't you—afraid? Of what is beyond? . . . I—Jaunty I could try to say a prayer."

  "No good. . . . Get what's coming to me. . . . Take my chance as things lie." He was silent a moment. "It'll have to be a pretty slick heaven—if it beats this world." Again he was silent. "Lucky for everybody," he said at last. Then: "No praying. If He doesn't like me, it's no use to—mumble words. If He does, why bother Him!"

  "Jaunty! . . . Jaunty! . . .

  "I did love you. That was on the level."

  "I know." Her hand was cool upon his forehead. Dare knelt at his side, his face a mask. He was shaken, smashed by what he saw and realized; torn by the knowledge which such a death alone could teach to him. Bailey turned to him, "So long, Prof," he said.

  "Good-by, Bailey," Paul said, simply.

  Jaunty pressed Rhoda's hands. "I'm on my way," he said in a whisper so low as to be almost inaudible. "Don't bother me any more. . . . I kind of want to be thinking—about you—as the—lights—go—out. . . "

  And so the lights grew lower and the candle flame flickered weakly and ever more weakly. He did not speak again, but just before the flame subsided forever he chuckled; at the very last he had found something within himself that puzzled and amused him. . . .

  Chapter Twenty-six

  JAUNTY lay upon the ground between them, and Rhoda faced Paul Dare across his body. Bailey was dead, but he lived. For them he would never die while memory persisted. . . . Yet, while Rhoda's grief was deepest, Paul Dare was most deeply affected by Jaunty's closing act. He felt submerged, engulfed in a strange, dark sea. It was incomprehensible to him—what Bailey had done, why he had done it, the effect of it upon himself. . . . It smashed down the walls which had hidden some store of knowledge from him, and that knowledge lay bared, brightly shining before his eyes. . . . It seemed to teach him everything. It opened to him an amazing world, a world to which he could not accommodate himself in an instant, but in which he must wander bewildered until his feet set themselves upon charted roadway.