The Last Straw

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE BIG CHANCE

  Hours later, after the Reverend had offered a strong, verbose prayer,invoking the wrath of the Almighty upon those who plot to strike fromcover, after the bunk house had finally become quiet, Beck stole outinto the night.

  The moon rode high, flooding the creek bottom with its cold, blue-whitelight and he stood bareheaded, shirt open at the chest, staring at onebright star which stared back from the edge of the hills. Far off, awaydown the creek, a coyote yapped and, waiting, cried again and its faintecho reverberated into silence. A horse in the corral stomped and blewloudly....

  He moved on down toward the cottonwoods and reaching them stood intheir shadows, arms at his sides, shoulders slacked as if weakened,irresolute. The ranch house was dark, its shingles smeared with a sheenof silver by the moon, the veranda in deep black.

  Tom did not see her coming until she was halfway across the dooryard.Then, rather heavily, he climbed the wire fence and met her.

  Without words of greeting Jane put out her hands and he took them both,holding them between his, looking down into her face silently. Her eyeswere dry, but there had been tears on her cheeks, and her lips, as shelooked into his smouldering eyes, trembled.

  "What were they trying to do to you?" she whispered.

  "They were trying to send me to jail for shooting at a man," heanswered. "Why did you lie for me?"

  "Oh, you were in trouble! I didn't know. I couldn't think.... I saw itall so clearly, all in a flash, saw that all you needed was one littleword from someone else to make it right and I didn't care beyond that.It was the only thing that mattered. If they had taken you away I'dhave been alone, wholly alone...."

  "You believed me when I told 'em I shot at a coyote?"

  "Believe? Believe? I didn't think, didn't consider. It made nodifference to me what you had done. The only thing I wanted to do wasto set you free, to clear you!"

  "You'd lie for me, even if you thought I'd shot to kill a man?" heinsisted.

  "I didn't know what you had--"

  "You'd take a chance like that? Why would you, ma'am?"

  For a long moment their eyes, half seen to one another in thoseshadows, clung almost fiercely, his inquisitory, hers changing as wavefollowed wave of emotion through her body. She had never seen him sodominating, and he had no need to insist again that she answer. She lether head fall back with a half smile.

  "Oh, I did it because it was the only thing I could do.... I did it,Tom, because I--"

  He straightened sharply and cut in:

  "I know, ma'am; you did it because you need me here, on the ranch."

  His chest swelled with a great breath and he released her hands,stepping back and putting a hand slowly to his head.

  For an instant she made no sound. Then she laughed strangely.

  "Because I need you here.... Yes, that was it. That was why I lied foryou." She spoke with nervous rapidity, rather breathlessly, and onehand went again to that locket, clutching it in a cold clasp. "I knewit was not like you to try to shoot a man unfairly. I didn't thinkthere was much chance in lying. All I saw was them taking you away andleaving me here alone to face all this, without anyone I can trust,without anyone to help me. That was why I lied to them.

  "You promised me once that you would stay. I knew then that I neededyou; every hour since that promise was made I've had a greaterrealization of my need for you until it ... it ..." Her breath caughtin a sob and she pressed knuckles to her lips.

  Beck stood silently watching her, a cold moisture forming on his brow,hands clenched as if he were holding himself against the urge of somegreat impulse.

  "I felt when I stepped in there and learned what it all was, that thelast thing I have to depend on was slipping away ... and I reached outand grasped you like I'd grasp a straw in a sea. It ... I can't tellyou,"--her voice trembled, "what it meant, what it means to me...."

  Words, words! They spilled from her lips with a rapidity thatapproached hysteria. She was talking without thought, without reason,letting her voice run on while her consciousness, divorced entirelyfrom it, fell into chaos.

  "Everything seems to be working against me and now, because you havebeen my help, my strength, they are trying to take you away. Oh, I needall the help there is, and that is you!"--with a stamp of the foot asshe drove tears back.

  "There are influences which I can't see, which I can only feel, allabout me, within me,"--beating her breast--"and outside."

  "It may be interestin' to you to know that I didn't shoot at anycoyote."

  She gasped lightly and for a moment did not speak.

  "Then you did shoot at Hepburn?"--in a whisper.

  "No, I didn't. I'd never shoot from cover."

  "I knew that," she said quickly, knowing that by her question she hadhurt him.

  "It appears that I ain't very welcome with your foreman. It was aframe-up, a good way to get rid of me. They planted that evidence in mygun while I was eating. It was one of those influences at work, thekind you've only felt. You can see some of 'em now, ma'am....

  "It's lucky you thought to lie," he said, with a weak laugh that wasunlike him. "I guess you're going to need all your luck....

  "But you better go in now. It's late and cold."

  He wanted her to be away from him, to be rid of her presence, for itpulled him, drew him, and he fought against it, fought against thestrongest impulse that has been born to man, fought blindly, his old,deeply rooted caution, dragging him back ... dragging him....

  "I don't want to go in; I don't want to leave you," she said. "I want--"

  "But you must go. Have I got to pick you up an' carry you into yourhouse, ma'am?"

  "I want you to take this," she went on where he had interrupted,fumbling at the catch of the chain which held the locket against herthroat. "Take it," she said, holding it swinging toward him, spatteredwith moonlight. "It's brought me all the luck I've ever had; it willhelp you, it will protect you. You need luck as much as I do ... andyou need it for me. Wear it, a foolish little trinket but it means ...oh, more than you can know! I'd like to think of you as wearing it...."

  "I don't think I need that, ma'am. What's in it?"

  "Don't ask that! Don't even open it, please. Just take it and wear it,for me."

  He made no move to take the ornament, just stood looking at itskeptically.

  "Take it ... and then I will go in, without being carried."

  She reached up to place the chain about his neck with her own hands;her unsteady fingers, fumbling with the catch, slipped and her cool,bared arms, touched his flesh. At the contact she swayed against him.

  "Oh, carry me in," she pleaded gently, "carry me in ... not into myhouse, but into your life!"

  All the caution, all the reason he had summoned to hold back that urgewas swept aside. The touch of her skin against his skin sent seethingblood to the ends of his limbs. It did not need her plea to break himdown; the touch accomplished it, and fiercely, roughly, he caught herto him.

  "It's all been a lie, another lie, all this you've said!" he criedlowly. "You didn't lie tonight because you need me; you lied becauseyou love me, ma'am! You love me, like a good woman can love, and I loveyou.... I love you, ma'am, like I never thought I could love. It'sbigger than I am, bigger than all the rest of my life....

  "From that first night you talked to me I've been afraid I was goin' tolove you. That was why I planned to go away because I didn't want totake a chance with my love. It's the only sacred thing I've ever ownedand I've kept it back, savin' it for the time when I could turn itloose....

  "When you told me you'd made up your mind to stay here, that you wantedto do something that was real and worth-while, I felt that I couldn'thold it back....

  "But I didn't know you. I got to love you so much I was afraid of you,afraid of myself. That was why I bullied you, that was why I picked onyou. I tried to drive you away from me, I tried, even, to keep frombein' your friend, but somethin' told me all the time that this had tocom
e.

  "I've watched you grow strong and big. I've hurt you on purpose. I'vemade some things hard for you to do, but you've done 'em. You're like aman, in the way you stand up to things ... and the gentlest, thesweetest woman down in your heart!"

  "Not that!" she pleaded. "Not all that. I'm not what you think, I'monly what you can make me. I'm weak and need it. I want to be carried... along and upward by it!"

  Chin drawn in, he looked down into her face as she lay in his arms, herbreath quick and fast and warm on his cheek. He could feel his limbsvibrate as his pulse leaped and his whole body trembled as he read thelook in her eyes, revealed by the moonlight.

  Up on the hills a little owl hooted and again the coyote yapped. Avagrant night wind touched the trees above them and the leaveswhispered sleepily, as if roused by a pleasant dream. The murmur of thecreek sounded almost as a blessing. None of these they heard. They werelost in a vague, limitless world, alone, swayed by the most powerful,the most beautiful forces in life.

  "You lied because you love me," he whispered.

  And at that she stirred and her breath slipped out in a long sob. Helowered his face to hers as scalding tears brimmed from her eyes. Hefelt them on his cheek, mingled with her breath and he felt her armstighten about his neck, her body draw closer to his.

  "It wasn't any chance!" he whispered fiercely. "It wasn't any chance,and I've been holdin' back, fighting it off, denying it to myself forweeks ... afraid to risk it, afraid to let it come out ... afraid ofwhat is _so!_"

  "Isn't it a chance?" she asked almost in a gasp. "Isn't it? Are yousure, Tom?"

  "As sure as I am that the moon is up there, Jane."

  He lowered his lips to hers and for a long kiss they clung.

  "But you don't know--you don't know!" she cried, suddenly struggling tobe free. "You don't know me," pressing her palms against his chest ashe held her. "It's big, it's fine ... the biggest, the finest thingthat has ever come into my life.

  "Tom! What if it should be a chance?"

  "But, Jane it can't--"

  With a faint little cry, almost as though she were hurt, she broke fromhim and fled toward the house through the moonlight.

  He stood alone, the feel of her lips still on his, heart leaping, mindswirling. And, looking down, he saw that in his hand he held the littlegold locket.