CHAPTER XXI
A GIRL LIKE YOU
A lone rider guided his horse in the early night, among the black lavas,on the desolate desert near Capaline, the dead volcano. He rode to thesouth, in the direction of the Cimarron. Silently, steadily, like a darkshadow, the broncho picked his way among the fields of fire-blisteredrock and held his course, unerringly, through the starlit gloom hangingover the earth before the late moon should flash its silver disk abovethe sand-hills miles to the east.
The rider was the Ramblin' Kid; the little horse--Captain Jack.
For a week, following the fight in Eagle Butte, the Ramblin' Kid hadfound shelter in the hut of "Indian Jake"--a hermit Navajo who, longago, turned his face toward the flood of white civilization rolling overthe last pitiful remnants of his tribe and drifted far toward the landof the rising sun. Among the scenes of desolation around the grimly coldvolcano, alone, the old Indian made his last stand, and in a rude cabin,beside a tiny spring that seeped from under the black rock on themountain-side, lived in splendid isolation--silent, brooding, desiringonly to be left in peace with his few ponies, his small herd of cattleand the memories and traditions of his people.
The Ramblin' Kid and the lonely Navajo were friends since the Ramblin'Kid could remember.
The aged Indian's face was pitted with horrible scars--marks of the samedisease that had cost the wandering cowboy his father and left him,years ago, an orphan, almost worshiped, because of the sacrifice hisparent had made fighting the epidemic among the tribes of the Southwest.
Often the "Young Whirlwind"--the name by which the Indians knew theRamblin' Kid and which old Jake himself always called the cowboy--spenta night, sometimes days, with his stoical friend among the lavas.
To him the cabin door was always open.
As Captain Jack, followed by the bullets from the marshal's revolver,dashed madly down the street of Eagle Butte, instinctively the Ramblin'Kid had turned the stallion toward the hut of the old Navajo.
The fugitive cowboy believed Sabota was dead.
Naturally the law would demand vengeance, even though the brutal Greekhad deserved to die. Posses, undoubtedly, would scour the country,searching for his slayer. The Quarter Circle KT would be watched.
There was no regret in the heart of the Ramblin' Kid. Instead he felt astrange elation. With his fists and heels he had beaten the giant Greekinto a lifeless mass!
"'Ign'rant--savage--stupid--brute!" he muttered as Captain Jack spedfrom the scene of fight; "I reckon she _was pretty near right!_"
At gray dawn he swung down from the back of the little stallion at thedoor of the Indian's hut.
Old Jake asked no questions.
The Ramblin' Kid himself volunteered:
"Killed a man--Sabota--got to lay low, Jake--some three, four, fivedays! Then I go--south--Mexico!"
"The Young Whirlwind had cause?" the Navajo grunted sententiously.
"Sure--plenty!" the Ramblin' Kid laughed, slipping his hand to hisbreast pocket and caressing the pink satin garter.
"It is good," the Indian said. "The Navajo will watch!"
For seven days the Ramblin' Kid rested, securely, in the lonely hutamong the lavas and "pot-holes" of the desert. Then he saddled CaptainJack and when the full shadow of night had settled over the desolationabout him mounted the little broncho and turned him to the south, in thedirection of the Cimarron, toward the Quarter Circle KT, where the GoldDust maverick waited, alone, in the corral.
Carolyn June could not sleep. The night was more than half gone andstill she sat on the front porch and watched the gradual spread of amisty, silvery sheen over the brow of the bench and the distant peaks ofthe shadowy Costejo range as the pale moon, in its last half, lifteditself above the sand-hills at the gap through which the Cimarrontumbled out of the valley.
Old Heck and Ophelia had retired hours ago.
The Quarter Circle KT was sleeping. From the meadows the heavy odor ofwilted alfalfa hung on the night air as the dew sprinkled the windrowsof new-cut hay.
A strange restlessness filled the heart of the girl.
Something seemed to be holding her in a tense, relentless grip. She hadno desire to seek her room. Indeed, she felt that the air of the housewould stifle her. She arose and strolled idly through the gate, past thebunk-house where Skinny, Pedro and the hay hands snored peacefully, asshe wandered aimlessly through the slanting moonlight down to thecircular corral.
The Gold Dust maverick seemed to reflect the girl's own uneasy mood.
The filly moved with quick nervous strides about the corral. As CarolynJune leaned against the bars and stretched out her hand the marewhinnied softly, tossed her head, nosed an instant the white fingers andtrotted in a circle around the enclosure.
"What's the matter, Heart o' Gold?" Carolyn June laughedsympathetically, "can't you either?"
In the shed at the side of the corral, on the spot where, that firstmorning, the Ramblin' Kid's saddle had rested and the cowboy slept,Carolyn June's own riding gear was lying. She glanced at the outfit Fora second she fancied she saw again the slender form stretched in theshadow upon the ground while a pair of black inscrutable eyes lookedwith unfathomable melancholy up into her own.
"Seein' things!" she laughed jerkily, with a little catch in her throat."I'll ride it off!"
Quickly she stepped over, picked up the saddle, bridle and blanket,returned to the corral gate, swung it open and entered.
The Gold Dust maverick came to her, as if eager, herself, to get outinto the night.
A moment later Carolyn June was in the saddle and the mare, dancinglightly, pranced out of the gate. She turned swiftly toward the gradethat led out to the bench and to Eagle Butte. They had almost reachedthe foot of the grade, when some impulse caused Carolyn June to whirlthe filly about and gallop back past the barn and down the lane towardthe Cimarron.
As the feet of the outlaw mare splashed into the water at the lower fordthe Ramblin' Kid rode past the corner of the upland pasture fence andstopped Captain Jack on the brink of the ridge looking down at thecrossing. Below him the river whirled in dark eddies under theoverhanging curtains of cottonwoods and willows; the Quarter Circle KTlay in the hollow of the valley, like a faint etching of silentrestfulness; through the tops of the trees a white splash of moonlightstruck on the smooth level surface of the treacherous quicksand bar thathad drawn Old Blue down to an agonizing death and from which, scarcely amonth ago, the Ramblin' Kid had dragged Carolyn June.
This, the Ramblin' Kid believed, was his last long look at the QuarterCircle KT.
He would ride down to the circular corral, turn out the Gold Dustmaverick--give her again to the range and freedom--and while theunconscious sleepers at the ranch dreamed he would pass on, silently,toward the south and Mexico should throw about him her black arms ofmystery!
For a while he sat and gazed down on the shadowy scene while his mindthrobbed with memory of the incidents of the last few weeks. He drew thepink satin garter from his pocket, looked at it a long moment--suddenlycrushed it tightly in his hand while his eyes closed as if renouncing avision that had come before them--then carefully, that the dainty thingmight not be lost, replaced it in the pocket that was over his heart.
At last he swung to the ground and tightened the front cinch of hissaddle.
As he pulled the leather into place the sound of nervous hoofs kickingthe gravel on the grade that led to the ridge on which he stoodshattered the silence around him. The Ramblin' Kid whirled and faced thedirection in which the approaching horse, would appear. His hand droppedto his gun and without raising the weapon from his hip he leveled it tocover the turn in the road a few feet away.
The waxy mane of the outlaw filly rocked into view as she sprang up andaround the turn on to the ridge.
On the maverick's back, bareheaded, her brown hair tumbled about herneck, was Carolyn June.
Captain Jack pricked forward his ears at the sound of hoofs and as thebeautiful mare leaped around the turn and appeared above t
he bank of thegrade the little roan squealed a nicker of recognition. The filly sprangforward, swerved to the side of the stallion, and with an answeringwhinny stopped.
"Oh!" Carolyn June gasped, as the horses met and she saw the Ramblin'Kid, his gun still in his hand, standing beside Captain Jack.
There was a brief, questioning silence.
"What th' hell!" he breathed.
"What the--'_hell_--yourself!" she laughed nervously. "Is--this--is thisa hold-up?"
"What are _you_ doin' here--this time of night--an' on that filly?" heasked without heeding her question.
"I'm riding that--this--filly!" Carolyn June shot back independently."And what are _you_ doing here--at this time of--Oh," she added,before he could answer, "I--I--believe my saddle's slipping!" and sheswung lightly from the back of the outlaw mare.
"That filly'll kill you," he began.
"She will not!" Carolyn June interrupted with a pout. "I--I--guessyou're not the only one, Mister 'Nighthawk,' that knows the way to theheart of a horse! If you were just as wise about--" but she stopped, herblush hidden as she turned her back to the rising moon.
"They was made for each other!" the Ramblin' Kid muttered to himself.Then he spoke aloud: "I reckon you know," he said slowly, "why I'mridin' at night--about me killin' Sabota--I'm leavin'--"
"But Sabota isn't dead," she interrupted again. "You don't need to goaway!"
"Sabota ain't dead!" the Ramblin' Kid exclaimed. "Then I'll go back toEagle Butte instead of--Mexico!"
"Why?" Carolyn June asked.
"To finish th' job!" and his voice was dangerously soft.
"You can't finish it," she laughed. "He isn't in Eagle Butte! The Greekhas gone away and--well, it--it--was a good 'job'--good enough the wayyou did it! I--I--don't want you 'teetotally' to kill him--clear, allthe way dead," she stammered. "The way it is you--you--won't haveto--leave!"
"What's th' difference?" he said dully. "It's time I was ramblin'anyhow!"
"Is it?"
"Yes."
"Listen, Ramblin' Kid," she broke in, "I--I--know all abouteverything--about what started the fight--"
"You do?" looking quickly and keenly at her. "Who told you?"
"Skinny," she answered; "he saw it. Said it was a pale pink ribbon orsomething with a little silver 'do-funny' on it!" she finished with alaugh.
"I--I--reckon you want it back, then?" the Ramblin' Kid said, reachingto his left breast. "You wouldn't want--"
"Did I say I wanted it?" Carolyn June questioned naively.
"And I know," she hurried on, "about you being drugged the day of therace! Why didn't you say you were sick? We--we--thought you were drunk!"
"Nobody asked me," he answered without interest.
"Does everybody have to--to--ask you everything?" she questionedsuggestively. "Don't you ever--ever--'ask' anybody anything yourself?"
"What are you tryin' to do?" he said almost brutally, "play with me likeyou played with them other blamed idiots th' night of th' dance?"
"You're mean--" she started to say.
"Am I?" he interrupted, and spoke with sudden intenseness. "Maybe youthink I am. Maybe you think a lot of things. Maybe you think God putthem brown eyes in your face just so you could coax men, with a look outof them, to love you an' then laugh because th' damned fools do it!"
"You're unfair!" she replied. "I was just paying the boys back the nightof the dance for--for--'framing' up on Ophelia and me the way they did!"
For a moment they looked squarely into each other's eyes. Captain Jackand the Gold Dust maverick nosed each other over the shoulders of theirdismounted riders.
"Oh, well, it don't matter," the Ramblin' Kid finally said, wearily; "itdon't matter, you're what you are an' I reckon you can't help it!"
Carolyn June said nothing.
"I--I--was goin' to turn th' filly back to th' range," he continued inthe same emotionless voice, "but--well, you can have her--I'll trade herto you for--for--th' thing that started th' fight. You can ride th'maverick till you go back east--"
"I'm not going back east," she said in a hurt tone, "at least not for along time. Dad is going to--to--get me a stepmother! He's going to marrysome female person and he doesn't need me so I'm going to live--most ofthe time--with Uncle Josiah and Ophelia! Anyhow I--I--like it outwest--or that is--I did like it--"
There was another little period of silence between them.
"Ramblin' Kid," Carolyn June spoke suddenly very softly, "Ramblin'Kid--why--why do you hate me?"
"Me hate you?" he answered slowly. "I don't hate _you_--I hate myself!"
"Yourself?" with a questioning lift of her voice.
"Yes, myself!" he replied with a short, bitter laugh. "Why shouldn'tI--bein' an 'ign'rant, savage, stupid brute!'"
Carolyn June flinched as he repeated the cruel words she herself hadspoken, it seemed, now so long ago.
"You are right!" she said, after a pause, while a ripple of quivering,mischievous laughter leaped from her lips and she laid her hand lightlyon his arm. "Oh, Ramblin' Kid, you are indeed an 'ign'rant, savage,stupid brute!' You are 'ign'rant,'" she continued while he looked at herwith a puzzled expression in his eyes, "of the ways of a woman's heart;you are 'savage'--in the defense of a woman's honor; you are'stupid'--not to see that it is the _man_ a woman wants and not the thinsocial veneer; you are a 'brute'--an utter brute, Ramblin' Kid--to--to--make a girl almost tell you--tell you--that she--she--"
The sentence was not finished.
The Ramblin' Kid caught her by both shoulders. He pushed her back--arm'slength--and held her while the clean moonlight poured down on herupturned face and his black eyes searched her own as though to read hervery soul.
An instant she was almost frightened by the agony that was in his face.
Then she opened her mouth and laughed--such a laugh as comes only fromthe throat of a woman when love is having its way!
"By God!" he whispered, his voice hoarse with passion, his hot breathfanning the brown hair on her forehead; "this has gone far enough! I'lltell you what you want me to say--I'll say it! And it's the truth--Ilove you--love you--_love you_! Yes!" And he shook her toward him. "Doyou hear me? I love you--love you--so much it hurts! Now laugh! Now makefun of me! I know I'm a fool. I know where I stand! I know I don'tbelong in your crowd--I ain't fit to mix with 'em! I ain't been raisedlike you was raised. You don't need to tell me that! I know it already!I know there's somethin' a man has to have besides what he gets on th'open range among th' cattle--an' th' bronchos--an' th' rattlesnakes--he's got to be ground in th' mill of schoolin'--of books;he's got to be hammered into shape under th' heels of 'civilization';he's got to be trained to jump through and roll over an' know which forkto eat with before a girl like you--"
His hands relaxed, but before his fingers loosened their grip on hershoulders Carolyn June's own soft palms reached up and caught the man'ssun-tanned cheeks between them. Her eyes burned back into its own. Oncemore the laugh rippled from the full pulsing throat.
"Ramblin' Kid, oh, Ramblin' Kid," she murmured, while the long lasheslifted over brown pools tenderness, "a man--my man--does not need to beor to know all of those things, any of those things, before a girl likeme--"
He crushed her to him and stopped the words on her lips.
"My God--don't fool me--be sure you know!" he cried, his whole bodyquivering with the intensity of his feelings; "don't tell me you loveme--unless you mean it! I can stand to love you--without hope--insilence--alone! But I can't--an' I swear I won't, be lifted up to Paradise just to be dropped again into the depths of hell! Don't say you love meunless you know it is _all_ love! Half love ain't love--it's a lie! An'love ain't to play with! Don't insult God by makin' a joke of th' thingHe made an' planted in th' hearts of all Creation to hold th' Universetogether."
"Ramblin' Kid," she whispered softly, "God himself is looking down intomy heart!"
He smothered her mouth with his own--they drank each other in, theirsouls mingled in a mad-sense-reeling, time-defy
ing pressure of lips!
It was their hour, as was the next and yet the one that followed that.
When the old-rose of dawn melted the gray above the sand-hills behindthem and the white moon was fading in the zenith above the Kiowa; whenthe cottonwoods beside the Cimarron began to shake their leaves in themorning breeze that tripped across the valley; when the low buildings ofthe Quarter Circle KT silhouetted against the bench beyond the meadows;when the smooth surface of the beach of quicksand under which the bodyof Old Blue was hidden began to look smoother yet and still more firm,the Ramblin' Kid and Carolyn June parted.
"I'm goin' away," he said; "I'm goin' away, Carolyn June, but I'm goin'for another reason now. I'm goin' away an' make myself so you'll neverhave a chance to be ashamed of me! I'm goin' away an' learn how to talkwithout cussin' 'most every other word--I'm goin' away an' get thatpolish I know; women love in men th' same as they love their own shoesto be shiny an' their own dresses to be soft an' dainty! When I've gotthat I'll come back! I ain't goin' to Mexico. I'm going to ride intothat world that you come out of an' when I'm so you'll be proud to walkin that world with me--when I'm so you won't need to apologize for me inHartville or any other place, I'm comin' back an' a preacher can O.K.th' bargain you an' me have made! Will you keep faith an' be true,Carolyn June? Will you keep faith an' be true--? Will you be waitin'?"
"I'll be waiting," she whispered, "--and keep faith and be true!"
And he rode away into the face of the red glow rising above thesand-hills. He rode away--to meet the morning sun--hidden yet behind theeastern horizon--to conquer himself, to master the ways of men, in theworld that lay beyond!
Carolyn June watched him go.
Then she guided the outlaw filly down the grade, across the Cimarron andalong the lane, in the gently stirring dawn, back to the still sleepingQuarter Circle KT. In her heart was a song; in her eyes a new light; inher soul a great peace--on her lips, a smile. She carried in her bosomtheir secret--hers and the Ramblin' Kid's--and she knew he would return,for he would not lie.
THE END
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