CHAPTER XXIX
HORSEHEAD PASS
Bradley had not been able to tell her just when the funeral was setfor. But it surged in Kate's heart that after what Abe Hawk had donefor her, to let the poor, bullet-torn, neglected body be put into theground without some effort to pay a tribute of gratitude to the manthat had once animated it, would be on her part fearfully cold.
The difficulties of the situation were many. She feared the anger ofher father, and owed his feelings something as well. But every timeshe decided she ought to stay at home, the pricking at her heart grewkeener. In the end, her feelings overrode her restraint. She resolvedat least to go to town. The funeral might have already taken place--itwould be a relief even to learn more about his death.
Late in the afternoon, she got Spider Legs up again, saddled him and,telling Kelly she might not be back that night, rode away.
It was dark by the time she reached town and leaving her horse withMcAlpin she crossed the street from the barn and walked hurriedlyaround the corner to Belle's. The front door stood open and thered-shaded lamp burned low on the dining-room table.
Tapping on the screen door, Kate, without waiting for Belle to answer,opened it and went in. There was no light in the living-room and theportieres were drawn. She walked down the hall to the dining-room,where she laid down her gloves and took off her coat and hat.Smoothing her hair, she knocked on the door of Belle's room, but got noanswer. Conjecturing that she had gone out on an errand, Kate sat downin a rocking chair and, taking a newspaper from the table, tried toread.
Her thoughts soon blurred the print. She read on only to think of whathad brought her so irresistibly to town and to wonder what she shouldhear now that she had come.
After some struggle to concentrate, she tossed the paper aside to askherself why Belle did not return, and, being tense, began withoutrealizing it, to rock softly. Her eyes naturally turned to thefamiliar lamp. Its somber paper shade threw the light in a circle onthe table, leaving the room in the heavy shadows of its figuredpattern. Kate became all at once conscious of the utter silence, andimpatient for Belle's return, got up and walked through the dark halltoward the front door.
Passing the living-room portieres, she pushed open the screen door andstepped out on the porch. There she stood for a moment at the top ofthe steps looking at the stars. Lights here and there burned inneighboring cottage windows. No wind stirred. The street and the townwere as still as the night. After some minutes, Kate descended thesteps, opened the gate, leaving it to close with a click behind her,and walked to the corner of Main Street. It looked dark. The storeswere closed. From the saloon windows spotty lights shot at intervalsacross the upper street, but these only made the darkened store frontsblacker and revealed the nakedness and desertion of the street itself.Not a man, much less a woman, could she see anywhere moving.
Either the silence, or the night, or her long wait changed herimpatience into a feeling of loneliness. She turned back toward thecottage gate. She had not noticed before how very dark the side streetwas. Reaching the gate she hesitated, pushed it open and then stopped,conscious of a curious repugnance to entering the house.
Her feeling refused to explain itself. Through the screen she couldsee the lamp still burning on the dining-room table. Things appearedjust as she had left them, yet she did not want to go in. But,dismissing the qualm, she walked up the steps, crossed the narrowporch, opened the screen door and, stepping inside, closed it after her.
This time that she passed the living-room she noticed the portiereswere partly open. Both times she had passed before, she felt sure,they had been closed.
Kate sat down in the dining-room and looked suspiciously back at theportieres. She was already sorry she had come into the house, for thesilence and her aloneness added to the conviction fast stealing overher that someone must be in the dark living-room.
Once entertained, the suspicion became insupportable. Her ears werepitched to a painful intensity of listening and her eyes were fastenedimmovably on the motionless curtains.
She carried a ranchwoman's revolver and, putting her hand on it, sherose, stepped close to the door of Belle's room--into which she couldretreat--and, with one hand on the knob, called sharply toward theliving-room: "Who's there?"
Not a sound answered her.
"Who is in the living-room?" she demanded again. This time, after amoment's delay, she heard something move in the darkness, then a man'sstep and Laramie stood out between the portieres.
Except for a fatigued look as he rested one hand on the portiere andthe other on his hip, he appeared quite as she had last seen him. "Areyou calling me?" he asked.
"Yes," she responded tartly. "Why didn't you answer?"
"I didn't know who you were speaking to at first. I've been here allthe evening. I didn't know you were in town till I saw your hat on thetable a few minutes ago."
"Where is Belle?" asked Kate, still on edge.
"She went over to Mrs. Kitchen's."
"When will she be back?"
He seemed to take no offense at her peremptory tone. "She said shewouldn't be gone a great while. But," he added, with his customarydeliberation, "all the same, I wouldn't be surprised if she stayed overpretty late--or even all night."
This was not just what Kate wanted to hear. "Why didn't you saysomething when I first came in?" she asked, her suspicion reflected inher voice.
He did not seem nonplused but he answered slowly: "I heard someone comein. I didn't pay much attention, that's about the truth."
"What are you doing in there in the dark?"
He was provokingly deliberate in answering. "You probably haven'theard about Abe Hawk?"
Her manner changed instantly and her voice sank. "Is it true that heis dead?"
"Yes."
"He didn't drown that morning, did he?" she asked eagerly anxious."You thought he could get out--what happened?"
"He got out of the creek. But he strained his wounds--they opened. Iwasn't much of a surgeon. I got him to the hospital--he died there. Ihad no place to take him then. I wouldn't leave him there alone.Belle said I might bring him here. I'm spending my last night withhim."
"You're not trying to spare me, are you?" she asked, unsteadily. "Hereally did get out of the creek?"
"He did get out."
She spoke again brokenly: "He saved my life."
"Well," remarked Laramie, meditating, "he wouldn't ask anything muchfor that. Do you mind if I smoke?"
"Not a bit."
"I'm kind of nervous tonight," he confessed simply. Then he crossedthe room, rested his elbow on the mantelpiece and made ready acigarette. "I wonder," he said, "if I could ask you a question?"
"What is it?"
"You always act kind of queer with me. Why is it? You've never beenthe way you were the first day we met. Haven't I always been squarewith you?"
She hesitated but she answered honestly: "You always have."
"Then why are you so different?"
"I've made that confession once. I was acting a part that day."
"No, I can't figure it in that way. That day you were acting natural.Why can't you be like that again."
"But, Mr. Laramie----"
"No--Jim."
"But----"
"Every time you call me Mr. Laramie I'm looking around for a gentleman.Why can't you be the way you were the first time?"
She realized his eyes were on her, demanding the truth--and his eyeswere uncomfortably steady as she had reason to know. "If I spoke Ishould hurt your feelings," she urged, summoning all her courage. "Youknow as well as I do that the first time I met you I didn't know whoyou were."
He did not seem much disconcerted, except that he tossed away theunlighted cigarette. "You don't know now," was his only comment.
"I can't help knowing what is said about you--you and your friends."
He made an impatient gesture. "That gives you no clue to me."
"What ar
e people to believe when such stories are public property?"
"Only what they know to be true."
"How are they to find out what is true?"
"By going straight to the person most concerned in the stories."
"Would you honestly expect a young woman to go to work and investigateall the charges against men she hears in Sleepy Cat?"
"We are talking now about the charges against one man--against me. Iwant to give you an instance:
"I suppose there's been a good many hard words over your way about mykeeping Abe Hawk out of the hands of your people. Because I didshelter him--you know how--they've blackened my name here at Sleepy Catand down at Medicine Bend. A man doesn't have to approve all anotherman does, to befriend him when he's down and a bunch of men--not asgood as he--set out to finish him. I haven't got any apologies to maketo anybody for protecting Abe when he was wounded--and if he wasn'twounded, no man would talk any kind of protection to him. But you'vebeen fed up with stories about it--I know that--so," he added grimly,"I'm going to tell you one story more.
"I grew up in this country when the mining fever was on--everybodyplumb crazy in the rush for the Horsehead Camp in the Falling Wallcountry. One winter five hundred men in tents were hanging aroundSleepy Cat waiting for the first thaw, to get up to the camp. That'swhen I got acquainted with Abe Hawk. Abe was carrying the mails to themines. He hadn't a red cent in the world. My father had just died; Iwas a green kid with a pocketful of money. Abe didn't teach me any badhabits--I didn't need any teacher. One night we were sitting next toeach other, with Harry Tenison dealing faro.
"I heard Abe was going up over the pass to Horsehead with the Christmasbag. The few miners that got in the fall before had hung up a fatpurse for their Christmas mail and Abe needed the money. He was theonly man with the crazy nerve to try such a thing. And there weretwenty men, with all kinds of money, crowding him to take them along:to beat the bunch in might mean a million dollar strike to anytenderfoot in Sleepy Cat.
"Abe wouldn't hear a word of it, not from anybody--and he could talkback awful rough. He was sure he could make the trip alone. He wasthe strongest man in the mountains. I never saw the day I could handleAbe Hawk. But the pass in December was not a job for any ordinarymountain man--let alone a bunch of greenhorns. Just the same, I mademy play to go with him. He cursed me as hard as he did anybody andturned me down.
"One night, after that, I was at Tenison's again. I was losing money.Hawk was near me. He saw it. I waited for him to come out. I knewhe'd be starting soon and I was desperate. I tackled him prettystrong. He swore if I talked again about going with him he'd kill me.Old Bill Bradley ran the livery. My horse was in the same barn withAbe's and Bill promised to tip me off when Abe was ready to start. Hewaited for a blizzard. When it passed he was ready. But I got aheadof him, out of town, and trailed him--I knew how. Only it snowedagain, as if all hell was against me; I had to close up on Abe or losehim, but he never saw me till we got so far I couldn't get back; thoughhe could have dropped me out of the saddle with a bullet, and had theright to do it.
"When I rode up he only looked at me. If I had been as small as Ifelt, he'd never seen me. He ought to have abused me; but he didn't.He ought to have shot me; but he didn't; or turned me back and thatwould have been worse than shooting. But if he'd been my own father hecouldn't have acted different. He just told me to come along."
Laramie paused. He was speaking under a strain: "I didn't understandit then; but he knew it was too late to quarrel. He knew there wasabout one chance in a hundred for him to get through; for me, there wasabout one in a hundred thousand--in fact, he knew I _couldn't_ getthrough, so he didn't abuse me.
"You don't know what the winter snow on the pass is. When it got toobad for us, he put his horse ahead to break the trail, but he let meride mine as far as I could--he knew what was coming. When my horsequit, he told me to tramp along behind him.
"I guess you know about how long a boy's wind would last ten thousandfeet up in the air. I wasn't used to it. I quit."
Laramie drew from his pocket a handkerchief and knotted it nervously inhis fingers: "He told me to get up," he went on. "I did my level besta way farther. It was no use. I quit again. He was easy with me.But I couldn't get up and I told him to go on.
"Abe wouldn't go. I couldn't walk another step in that wind and snowto save my soul from perdition. I just couldn't. And when I tell younext what I asked of him, then you'll understand how mean a commontramp like me can be. But I've got past pretty much caring what youthink of me--only I want you to know what _I_ think, and thought, ofAbe Hawk. I did the meanest thing then I ever did in my life--I askedhim to let me ride his horse. It was useless. I offered him all themoney I had. He refused. He didn't just look at me and move on, theway most men would to save their own skins and leave me to what Ideserved. He stopped and explained that if his horse gave out we weredone--we could never break a trail to the top without the horse.
"It was blowing. He stripped his horse. The mail went into the snow.I tried again to walk. I didn't get a hundred feet. When I fell downthat time he saw it was my finish.
"He stood a minute in front of me, looking all around before he spoke.His horse was breathing pretty heavy; the snow blowing pretty bad.After a while he loosened the quirt from his saddle and looked at me:'Damn you,' he said, 'you were bound to come. All hell couldn't keepyou back, could it? Now it's come in earnest for you. You're goin'over the pass with me. Get up out of that snow.'
"I could hear him, but I couldn't move hand or foot. And I neverdreamed what was going to happen till he laid the quirt across my facelike a knife.
"All I ever hoped for was to get up so I could live long enough to killhim. He gave me that quirt till I was insane with rage; long afterwardhe told me my eyes turned green. I cursed him. He asked me whetherI'd get up. I knew, if I didn't, I'd have to take more. I draggedmyself out of the snow again and pitched and struggled after him--tothe top of the pass.
"Then he put me on his pony--we got the wind worse up there. Abe had alittle shack a way down the pass, rigged up for storm trouble. But thepony quit before we got to the shack, and when the pony fell down, myhands and feet were no use. Abe carried and dragged and rolled me downinto the shack. I was asleep. There was always a fire left laid inthe stove. Abe had a hard time to light it. But he got it lighted andwhen he fell down he laid both hands on the stove--so when they beganto burn it would wake him up; if the fire didn't burn he didn't want towake up. The marks of that fire are on his hands right in that roomthere now, tonight. He saved my hands and feet. He stayed with mewhile I was crazy and got me safe to Horsehead.
"Do you suppose I could ever live long enough to turn that man,wounded, over to an enemy? He didn't ask me for any shelter after VanHorn's raid. All he ever asked me for was cartridges--and he got 'em.He'd get anything I had, and all I had, as long as there was a breathleft in my body, and he asked within reason. And Abe Hawk wouldn't askanything more."
Kate rose from her chair: "I've a great deal to learn about people andthings in this country," she said slowly. "Not all pleasant things,"she added. "I suppose some unpleasant things have to be. Anyway, I'llride home tonight better satisfied for coming in."
"You going home?" he asked.
She was moving toward the door: "I only hope," she exclaimed, "thisfighting is over."
"That doesn't rest in my hands. It's no fun for me. You say you'regoing to ride home?"
"There's a moon. I shan't get lost again."
He was loath to let her get away. At the door he asked if he couldn'tride a way with her. "I'll get Lefever or Sawdy to stay here while I'mgone," he urged.
"No, no."
"It isn't that they don't want to," he explained. "But the boys feltkind of bad and went down to the Mountain House. Why not?"
She regarded him gravely: "One reason is, I'd never get rid of you tillI got home."
"I'll cr
oss my heart."
"We might meet somebody. I don't want any more explosions. Let's talkabout something else."
He asked to go with her to the barn to get her horse. The simplicityof his urging was hard to resist. "I must tell you something," shesaid at last. "If you go with me to the barn we should be seentogether."
"And you're ashamed of me?"
"I said I must tell you something," she repeated with emphasis. "Willyou give me a chance?"
"Go to it."
She looked at him frankly: "I don't always have the easiest time in theworld at home. And there is always somebody around a big ranch tobring stories to father about whom I'm seen with. Everybody in towntalks--except Belle. I must just do the best I can till things getbetter."
"Here's hoping that'll be soon."
"Good-by!"
"Safe journey."