Desert Dust Part 44

It was the canteen, drained dry by a jagged gash from the sharpshooter's lead.

"No matter, dear," she said.

"No matter," said I.

The subject was not worth pursuing.

"We have discouraged their game, again. And in case they rush us----"

This from her.

"In case they rush us----" I repeated. "We can wait a little, and see."

CHAPTER XXI

WE WAIT THE SUMMONS

The Sioux had quieted. They let the hollow alone, tenanted as it was with death; there was for us a satisfaction in that tribute to our defense.

Quite methodically, and with cruel show of leisure they distributed themselves by knots, in a half-encircling string around our asylum; they posted a sentry, ahorse, as a lookout; and lolling upon the bare ground in the sun glare they chatted, laughed, rested, but never for an instant were we dismissed from their eyes and thoughts.

"They will wait, too. They can afford it," she murmured. "It is cheaper for them than losing lives."

"If they knew we had only the two cartridges----?"

"They don't, yet."

"And they will find out too late," I hazarded.

"Yes, too late. We shall have time." Her voice did not waver; it heartened with its vengeful, determined mien.

Occasionally a warrior invoked us by brandis.h.i.+ng arm or weapon in surety of hate and in promise of fancied reprisal. What fools they were! Now and again a warrior galloped upon the back trail; returned gleefully, perhaps to flourish an army canteen at us.

"There probably is water where we heard the frogs last night," she remarked.

"I'm glad we didn't try to reach it, for camp," said I.

"So am I," said she. "We might have run right into them. We are better here. At least, I am."

"And I," I confirmed.

Strangely enough we seemed to have little to say, now in this precious doldrums where we were becalmed, between the distant past and the unlogged future. We had not a particle of shade, not a trace of coolness: the sun was high, all our rocky recess was a furnace, fairly reverberant with the heat; the flies (and I vaguely pondered upon how they had existed, previously, and whence they had gathered) buzzed briskly, attracted by the dead mule, unseen, and captiously diverted to us also. We lay tolerably bolstered, without much movement; and as the Sioux were not firing upon us, we might wax careless of their espionage.

Her eyes, untroubled, scarcely left my face; I feared to let mine leave hers. Of what she was thinking I might not know, and I did not seek to know--was oddly yielding and content, for our decisions had been made. And still it was unreal, impossible: we, in this guise; the Sioux, watching; the desert, waiting; death hovering--a sudden death, a violent death, the end of that which had barely begun; an end suspended in sight like the Dionysian sword, with the single hair already frayed by the greedy shears of the Fate. A snap, at our own signal; then presto, change!

It simply could not be true. Why, somewhere my father and mother busied, mindless; somewhere Benton roared, mindless; somewhere the wagon train toiled on, mindless; the stage road missed us not, nor wondered; the railroad graders shoveled and sc.r.a.ped and picked as blithely as if the same desert did not contain them, and us; cities throbbed, people worked and played, and we were of as little concern to them now as we would be a year hence.

Then it all pridefully resolved to this, like the warming tune of a fine battle chant: That I was here, with my woman, my partner woman, the much desirable woman whom I had won; which was more than Daniel, or Montoyo, or the Indian chief, or the wide world of other men could boast.

Soon she spoke, at times, musingly.

"I did make up to you, at first," she said. "In Omaha, and on the train."

"Did you?" I smiled. She was so childishly frank.

"But that was only pa.s.sing. Then in Benton I knew you were different. I wondered what it was; but you were different from anybody that I had met before. There's always such a moment in a woman's life."

I soberly nodded. Nothing could be a plat.i.tude in such a place and such an hour.

"I wished to help you. Do you believe that now?"

"I believe you, dear heart," I a.s.sured.

"But it was partly because I thought you could help me," she said, like a confession. And she added: "I had nothing wrong in mind. You were to be a friend, not a lover. I had no need of lovers; no, no."

We were silent for an interval. Again she spoke.

"Do you care anything about my family? I suppose not. That doesn't matter, here. But you wouldn't be ashamed of them. I ran away with Montoyo. I thought he was something else. How could I go home after that? I tried to be true to him, we had plenty of money, he was kind to me at first, but he dragged me down and my father and mother don't know even yet. Yes, I tried to help him, too. I stayed. It's a life that gets into one's blood. I feared him terribly, in time. He was a breed, and a devil--a gentleman devil." She referred in the past tense, as to some fact definitely bygone.

"I had to play fair with him, or---- And when I had done that, hoping, why, what else could I do or where could I go? So many people knew me."

She smiled. "Suddenly I tied to you, sir. I seemed to feel--I took the chance."

"Thank G.o.d you did," I encouraged.

"But I would not have wronged myself, or you, or him," she eagerly pursued. "I never did wrong him." She flushed. "No man can convict me. You hurt me when you refused me, dear; it told me that you didn't understand.

Then I was desperate. I had been shamed before you, and by you. You were going, and not understanding, and I couldn't let you. So I did follow you to the wagon train. You were my star. I wonder why. I did feel that you'd get me out--you see, I was so madly selfish, like a drowning person. I clutched at you; might have put you under while climbing up, myself."

"We have climbed together," said I. "You have made me into a man."

"But I forced myself on you. I played you against Daniel. I foresaw that you might have to kill him, to rid me of him. You were my weapon. And I used you. Do you blame me that I used you?"

"Daniel and I were destined to meet, just as you and I were destined to meet," said I. "I had to prove myself on him. It would have happened anyway. Had I not stood up to him you would not have loved me."

"That was not the price," she sighed. "Maybe you don't understand yet. I'm so afraid you don't understand," she pleaded. "At the last I had resigned you, I would have left you free, I saw how you felt; but, oh, it happened just the same--we were fated, and you showed that you hated me."

"I never hated you. I was perplexed. That was a part of love," said I.

"You mean it? You are holding nothing back?" she asked, anxious.

"I am holding nothing back," I answered. "As you will know, I think, in time to come."

Again we reclined, silent, at peace: a strange peace of mind and body, to which the demonstrations by the waiting Sioux were alien things.

She spoke.

"Are we very guilty, do you think?"