Over the Pass

  IX

  THE DEVIL IS OUT

  She had done her best and she had failed. What reason was there for herto remain? Should she endure witnessing in reality the horror which shehad pictured so vividly in imagination? A flash of fire! The fall of acareening figure to the earth! Leddy's grin of satisfaction! Therejoicing of his clan of spectators over the exploit, while youth whichsang airs to the beat of a pony's hoofs and knew the worship of theEternal Painter lay dead!

  What reason to remain except to punish herself! She would go. Butsomething banished reason. She was held in the leash of suspense, staringwith clearness of vision in one second; staring into a mist the next;while the coming and going of Ignacio's breaths between his teeth was theonly sound in her ears.

  "Senor Don't Care of the Big Spurs will win!" he whispered.

  "He will?" she repeated, like one marvelling, in the tautness of everynerve and muscle, that she had the power of speech.

  She peered into Ignacio's face. Its Indian impassivity was gone. His lipswere twitching; his eyes were burning points between half-closed lids.

  "Why?" she asked. "How?"

  "I know. I watch him. I have seen a mountain lion asleep in a tree. Hispaw is like velvet. He smiles. There seems no fight in him. I know. Thereis a devil, a big devil, in Senor Don't Care. It sleeps so much it veryterrible when it awakes. And Pete Leddy--he is all the time awake; allthe time too ready. Something in him will make his arm shake when themoment to shoot comes and something in Senor Don't Care--his devil--willmake his arm steady."

  Could Ignacio be right? Did Jack really know how to shoot? Was heconfident of the outcome? Were his smiles the mask of a conviction thathe was to kill and not to be killed? After all, had his attitude towardher been merely acting? Had she undergone this humiliation as the fish onthe line of the mischievous play of one who had stopped over a train inorder to do murder? No! If he were capable of such guile he knew thatLeddy could shoot well and that twenty yards was a deadly range for agood shot. He was taking a chance and the devil in him was laughing atthe chance, while it laughed at her for thinking that he was an innocentgoing to slaughter in expression of a capricious sense of chivalry.

  "He will win--he will win if Leddy plays fair!" Ignacio repeated.

  Now she was telling herself that it was solely for the sake of herconscience that she wanted to see Senor Don't Care survive; solely forthe sake of her conscience that she wanted to see him go aboard the trainsafe. After that, she could forget ever having owed this trifler thefeeling of gratitude for a favor done. Literally, he must live in orderto be a dead and unremembered incident of her existence.

  And Jack was back at his station, with the bright sunlight heighteningthe colors of his play cowboy attire, his weight on the ball of his rightfoot thrown well ahead of the other, his head up, but the whole effectlanguid, even deferential. He seemed about to take off his hat to thejoyous sky of a fair day in May. His shadow expressed the same feeling ashis pose, that of tranquil youth with its eyes on the horizon. Leddy hadthe peculiar slouch of the desperado, which is associated with the spreadof pioneering civilization by the raucous criers of red-bloodedindividualism. If Jack's bearing was amateurish, then Pete's wasprofessional in its threatening pose; and his shadow, like himself, hadan unrelieved hardness of outline.

  Both drew their guns from their holsters and lowered them till thebarrels lay even with the trousers seams. They awaited the word to firewhich Bill Lang, who stood at an angle equidistant from the two men,was to give.

  "Wait!" Jack called, in a tone which indicated that something hadrecurred to him. Then a half laugh from him fell on the brilliant,shining, hard silence with something of the sound of a pebble slippingover glare ice.

  "Leddy, it has just occurred to me that we are both foolish--honestly, weare!" he said. "The idea when Arizona is so sparsely settled of ourstarting out to depopulate it in such a premeditated manner on such abeautiful morning, and all because I was such an inept whistler! Why, ifI had realized what a perfectly bad whistler I was I would never havewhistled again. If my whistle hurt your feelings I am sorry, and I--"

  "No, you don't!" yelled Leddy. "I've waited long enough! It'sfight, you--"

  "Oh, all right! You are so emphatic," Jack answered. His voice was stillpleasant, but shot with something metallic. The very shadow of him seemedto stiffen with the stiffening of his muscles.

  "Ready!" called Bill Lang.

  The ruling passion that had carved six notches on his gun-handleoverwhelmed Pete Leddy. At least, let us give him the benefit of thedoubt and say that this and not calculation was responsible for hisaction. Before the word for preparation was free of Lang's lips, andwithout waiting for the word to fire, his revolver came up in a swiftquarter-circle. He was sure of his aim at that range with a ready draw.Again and again he had thus hit his target in practice and six times hehad winged his man by such agile promptness.

  With the flash from the muzzle all the members of the gallery rose onhands and knees. They were as sure that there was to be a seventh notchas of their identity. There was no question in their minds but Pete hadplayed a smart trick. They had known from the first that he would win.And the proof of it was in the sudden, uncontrollable movement of theadversary.

  Jack whirled half round. He was falling. But even as he fell he was stillfacing his adversary. He plunged forward unsteadily and came to rest onhis left elbow. A trickle of blood showed on the chap of his left leg,which had tightened as his knee twisted under him. Leddy's rage had beenso hot that for once his trigger finger had been too quick. He had aimedtoo low. But he was sure that he had done for his man and he lookedtriumphantly toward the gallery gods whose hero he was. They had nowrisen to their feet. In answer to their congratulations he waved hisleft hand, palm out, in salutation. His gun-hand had dropped back to histrousers seam.

  Even as it dropped, Jack's revolver had risen, his own gun-hand steadiedin the palm of his left hand, which had an elbow in the sand for a rest.Victor and spectators, in their preoccupation with the relief and elationof a drama finished, had their first warning of what was to come in avoice that did not seem like the voice of the tenderfoot as they hadheard it, but of another man. And Leddy was looking at a black hole in arim of steel which, though twenty yards away, seemed hot against hisforehead, while he turned cold.

  "Now, Pete Leddy, do not move a muscle!" Jack told him. "Pete Leddy,you did not play my way. I still have a shot due, and I am going tokill you!"

  Jack's face seemed never to have worn a smile. It was all chin, and thin,tightly-pressed lips, and solid, straight nose, bronze and unyielding.

  "And I am going to kill you!"

  This was surely the devil of Ignacio's imagery speaking in him--a cold,passionless, gray-eyed devil. Though they had never seen him shoot,everybody felt now that he could shoot with deadly accuracy and thatthere was no play cowboy in his present mood. He had the bead of deathon Leddy and he would fire with the first flicker of resistance. Hiscall seemed to have sunk the feet of everyone beneath the sand tobed-rock and riveted them there. Lang and the two seconds were asmotionless as statues.

  Mary recalled Leddy's leer at her on the pass, with its intent ofsomething more horrible than murder. Savagery rose in her heart. It wasright that he should be killed. He deserved his fate. But no sooner wasthe savagery born--born, she felt, of the very hypnosis of that carvedface--than she cast it out shudderingly in the realization that she hadwished the death of a fellow human being! She looked away from Jack; andthen it occurred to her that he must be bleeding. He was again acompanion of the trail, his strength ebbing away. Her impulse wasretarded by no fear of the gallery now. It brought her to her feet.

  "But first drop your revolver!" she heard Jack call, as she ran.

  She saw it fall from Leddy's trembling hand, as a dead leaf goes free ofa breeze-shaken limb. All the fight was out of him. The courage of sixnotches was not the courage to accept in stoicism the penalty of foulplay. And that black rim was burning his foreh
ead.

  "Galway, you have a gun?" Jack asked.

  "Yes," Galway answered, mechanically. His presence of mind, which hadbeen so sure in the store, was somewhat shaken. He had seen men killed,but never in such deliberate fashion.

  "Take it out'"

  There was a quality in the command like frosty madness, which oneinstinctively obeyed. The half-prostrate figure of the tenderfoot seemedto dominate everything--men, earth, and air.

  Mary had a glimpse of Galway drawing an automatic pistol from his pocketwhen she dropped at Jack's side. She knew that Jack had not heard or seenher approach. All his will was flowing out along a pistol's sight, evenas his blood was flowing out on the sand in a broadening circle of red.

  It was well that she had come. Her fingers were splashed as she felt forthe artery, which she closed by leaning her whole weight on the thumb.

  Ignacio had followed her and immediately after him came Firio, who hadbeen startled in his breakfast preparations by the sound of a shot andhad set out to investigate its cause. He was as changed as his master; atwitching, fierce being, glaring at her and at the wound and thenprolongedly and watchfully at Pete Leddy.

  "Can you shoot to kill?" Jack asked Galway, in a piercing summons.

  "Yes," drawled Galway.

  "Then up with your gun--quick! There! A bead on Ropey Smith!"

  Galway had the bead before Ropey could protest.

  "Give Ropey ten seconds to drop his gun or we will care for him at thesame time as Pete'" Jack concluded.

  Ropey did not wait the ten seconds. He was over-prompt for thesame reasons of temperament that made Pete Leddy prefer his ownway of fighting.

  "I take it that we can count on the neutrality of our spectators. Theycannot be interested in the success of either side," Jack observed, withdry humor, but still methodically. "All they ask is a spectacle."

  "Yes, you bet!" came a voice from the gallery, undisguisedly eagerto concur.

  "Now, Pete and Ropey," Jack began, and broke off.

  There was a poignant silence that waited on the processes of his mind.Not only was there no sound, but to Mary there seemed no movementanywhere in the world, except the pulse of the artery trying to drive itsflood past the barrier of her thumb. Jack kept his bead unremittingly onPete. It was Firio who broke the silence.

  "Kill him! He is bad! He hates you!" said Firio.

  "_Si, si_! If you do not kill him now, you must some time," said Ignacio.

  Mary felt that even if Jack heard them he would not let their adviceinfluence him. On the bank before she had hastened to him a strange andawful visitor in her heart had wished for Leddy's death. Now she wishedfor him to go away unharmed. She wished it in the name of her ownresponsibility for all that had happened. Yet her tongue had no urgingword to offer. She waited in a supernatural and dreadful curiosity onJack's decision. It was as if he were to answer one more question inexplanation of the mystery of his nature. Could he deliberately shootdown an unarmed man? Was he that hard?

  "I am thinking just how to deal with you, Pete and Ropey," Jackproceeded. "As I understand it, you have not been very useful citizens ofLittle Rivers. You can live under one condition--that you leave town andnever return armed. Half a minute to decide!"

  "I'll go!" said Pete.

  "I'll go!" said Ropey.

  "And keep your words?"

  "Yes!" they assented.

  But neither moved. The fact that Jack had not yet lowered hisrevolver made them cautious. They were obviously over-anxious to playsafe to the last.

  "Then go!" called Jack.

  Pete and Ropey slouched away, leaving behind Ropey's gun, which wasunimportant as it had only one notch, and Pete's precious companion ofmany campaigns with its six notches, lying on the sand.

  "And, gentlemen," Jack called to the spectators, "our littleentertainment is over now. I am afraid that you will be late forbreakfast."

  Apparently it came as a real inspiration to all at once that they mightbe, for they began to withdraw with a celerity that was amazinglyspontaneous. Their heads disappeared below the skyline and only theactors were left. Pete and Ropey--Bill Lang following--walked away alongthe bed of the _arroyo_, instead of going over the bank. Pete paused whenhe was out of range. The old threat was again in his pose.

  "I'm not through with you, yet!" he called.

  "Why, I hope you are!" Jack answered.

  He let his revolver fall with a convulsion of weakness. Mary wondered ifhe were going to faint. She wondered if she herself were not going tofaint, in a giddy second, while the red spot on the sand shaped itself inrevolving grotesquery. But the consciousness that she must not lift herweight from the artery was a centering idea to keep her faculties in somesort of equilibrium.

  He was looking around at her, she knew. Now she must see his face afterthis transformation in him which had made her fears of his competencysilly imaginings; after she had linked her name with his in anoverwhelming village sensation. She was stricken by unanalyzable emotionsand by a horror of her nearness to him, her contact with his very blood,and his power. She was conscious of a glimpse of his turning profile,still transfixed with the cool purpose of action. Then they were gazingfull at each other, eyes into eyes, directly, questioningly. He wassmiling as he had on the pass; as he had when he stood with his armsfull of mail waiting for the signal to deposit his load. His devil hadslipped back into his inner being.

  He spoke first, and in the voice that went with his vaguest mood; thevoice in which he had described his escape from the dinosaur whose scaleshad become wedged in the defile at the critical moment.

  "You have a strong thumb and it must be tired, as well as allbluggy," he said, falling into a childhood symbol for taking thewhole affair in play.

  Could he be the same man who had said, "I am going to kill you!" sorelentlessly? He had eased the situation with the ready gift he had foreasing situations; but, at the same time, he had made those unanalyzableemotions more complex, though they were swept into the background for themoment. He glanced down at his leg with comprehending surprise.

  "Now, certainly, you are free of all responsibility," he added. "You keptthe strength in me to escape the fate you feared. Jim Galway will make atourniquet and relieve you."

  The first available thing for tightening the tourniquet was the barrelof Pete Leddy's gun and the first suggestion for material came from her.It was the sash of her gown, which Galway knotted with his strong,sunburned fingers.

  When she could lift her numbed thumb from its task and rose to her feetshe had a feeling of relief, as if she were free of magnetic bonds anduncanny personal proximity. The incident was closed--surely closed. Shewas breathing a prayer of thanks when a remark from Galway to Jackbrought back her apprehension.

  "I guess you will have to postpone catching to-day's train," he said.

  Certainly, Jack must remain until his wound had healed and his strengthhad returned. And where would he go? He could not camp out on the desert.As Jasper Ewold had the most commodious bungalow it seemed natural thatany wounded stranger should be taken there. The idea chilled her as aninsupportable intrusion. Jack hesitated a moment. He was evidentlyconsidering whether he could not still keep to his programme.

  "Yes, Jim, I'm afraid I shall have to ask you for a cot for a few days,"he said, finally.

  Again he had the right thought at the right moment. Had he surmised whatwas passing in her mind?

  "Seeing that you've got Pete Leddy out of town, I should say that youwere fairly entitled to a whole bed," Jim drawled. "These two Indianshere can make a hustle to get some kind of a litter."

  Now she could go. That was her one crying thought: She could go! Andagain he came to her rescue with his smiling considerateness.

  "You have missed your breakfast, I'll warrant," he said to her. "Pleasedon't wait. You were so brave and cool about it all, and--I--" A fainttide of color rose to his cheeks, which had been pale from loss of blood.For once he seemed unable to find a word.

  Mary denied
him any assistance in his embarrassment.

  "Yes," she answered, almost bluntly. Then she added an excuse: "And youshould have a doctor at once. I will send him."

  She did not look at Jack again, but hastened away. When she was over thebank of the _arroyo_ out of sight she put her fingers to her temples instrong pressure. That pulse made her think of another, which had beenunder her thumb, and she withdrew her fingers quickly.

  "It is the sun! I have no hat," she said to herself, "and I didn'tsleep well."