Читать книгу The Raider - Charles Alden Seltzer - Страница 6

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The ancestors might be scandalized. Jeff might squirm.

Ellen did not care. She had started from the Hour Glass with the intention of marrying Jim Kellis. She couldn’t marry a man who was already married, nor would she go back to the Hour Glass unmarried, to endure her father’s amused glances.

She knew Matthew M. Ballinger. He’d smile at her. There would be no reproaches, no rebukes. But the Ballinger smile was singularly expressive. It could be bland and smooth and at the same time it could be eloquent with unspoken accusation and derision.

She would marry anybody rather than return to the Hour Glass in humiliation. Besides, Jeff wasn’t “anybody”; he was “somebody.” She knew character. Not for nothing had she calmly and coldly studied her male acquaintances.

No man, except Kellis, had ever appealed to her, and she realized at this moment that what she had felt for Kellis had been merely a sort of maternal sympathy for a weakling. She was rather glad she had found Kellis already married, for now that she had met Jeff she was aware that something startling had happened to her. For the first time in her life she discovered that she was interested in a man.

She wasn’t in love with Jeff. Not that. Certainly not. Jeff merely interested her. He interested her because he was a new sort of being.

All the men she had known had been cut from the same pattern. They talked alike, dressed the same way, with some slight variation their manners were the same. She had never been able to detect a flash of individuality in any of them.

Jeff was intensely individual. He was a vital force. He was passionate, ruthless, vibrant with authority. Primitive. A glance into his moody, smouldering eyes had almost awed her. The fact that he had helped to hang a man aroused no emotion in her except that of a reluctant admiration for his daring.

He was not, she was certain, in the habit of hanging men. That is, he did not make a business of it. So far as she had been able to determine the man he and his men had executed had been a criminal who should have been lawfully killed, but had not because the law was reluctant or weak. Jeff and his friends had merely taken the law into their own hands. It was a primitive method, to be sure, but did that fact make the criminal less deserving of his fate? Weren’t primitive emotions rampant in everybody? How often had she been angry enough to punish people! What is the cause of intolerance? What is behind the malicious impulse that makes people interfere in the lives of others? The primitive passion to punish for a fault, of course! Nothing less. Well, Jeff’s primitiveness was not petty, since it deprived the culprit of life!

She felt the grimness of the tragedy; she was horrified, but her good sense told her that when the law failed there was justification in such executions. What was the difference between a chief witness and the executioner? She knew of respected men who had been chief witnesses.

She had not witnessed the tragedy and so she did not know what part Jeff had taken in it. She preferred not to know, because if she married Jeff she didn’t want to be haunted by certain mental pictures.

“Well,” said Jeff, watching her cynically, “I seem to have put my foot in it!”

“It was your own fault, you know. I didn’t ask you to abduct me.”

“Oh, no,” he said, “you wouldn’t do that. But you’ve got a mighty short memory for voices.”

“Maybe I have. But I remember yours. And I won’t forget that you cursed me!”

“I seem to have forgotten it,” he said, his voice full of mockery.

“And I certainly won’t forget that you threatened to slap my face,” she added, maliciously, enjoying his rage.

“I must have thought you needed slapping!” he jeered. He looked closer at her. It appeared to her that for the first time he was studying her face. His gaze was critical; he seemed to be appraising her.

To her amazement she flushed. She could feel the blood surging hotly into her cheeks, up her neck, into her temples. She had not blushed in years, and this was a miracle which required explanation. The trouble was that at that instant she was not in a mood for analyzing her emotions. She was dismayed and her thoughts were incoherent.

The moonlight was white and her cheeks were crimson, so of course Jeff observed her embarrassment. Jeff had been skeptical, but the blush banished his last doubt.

“Hell!” was his thought, “the poor kid sure does think I’m the guy that abducted her! I’m in with both feet!”

“If you think I need slapping why don’t you slap me?” she said, offering her cheek.

“I’ll think it over,” he answered gruffly. “The chances are that you need it.”

He abruptly left the window and vanished from her sight.

She was tired now, and the bunks looked more inviting. Besides, although Jeff’s final word enraged her, she was no longer afraid; so she walked to one of the bunks, stretched out on it and went to sleep.

The sunlight was flooding the room when she opened her eyes and sat up to gaze about.

The door was wide open and a cool, keen breeze was entering. She listened, but heard no sound. She swung around and sat on the edge of the bunk, wonderingly communing with herself, for she had awakened with a very definite sense of sheer delight in her existence. She had not experienced such a sensation since she had been a very young girl. A new and enchanting vista had been opened, and when she decided that Jeff loomed large in it she blushed again.

She got up quickly and walked to the door. Standing on the threshold she gazed outside.

Her pony was grazing contentedly in a grove directly in front of the door. She did not see another animal and she quickly decided that Jeff had deserted her. Very quietly and slowly she sat down on the threshold of the doorway and gazed with unseeing eyes into the dark green aisles of the forest.

Jeff had fled.

She felt like crying, but of course she wouldn’t. No Ballinger ever yielded to tears when things went wrong. But she wondered if any of the Ballinger women had ever seen a man like Jeff!

She smiled wryly. Well, anyway, she hadn’t wanted Jeff so badly. She had wanted him only because she had promised herself that she would marry the first man she met. After all, he wasn’t gallant. But perhaps he had known she was lying. Darn him! She never wanted to see him again! She’d go back to the Hour Glass, pack her things and go back East!

“You’re up, eh?”

Jeff was standing at a corner of the cabin. His voice had been gruff, unfriendly even, but it straightened her, brought her to her feet. She stood, her hands unconsciously clasped over her bosom, her eyes shining.

“Oh!” she exclaimed weakly, “then you didn’t go!”

“Didn’t go where?” he asked, staring at her.

“Why—why—I—I thought you’d left me!”

“Did, eh? Well, that would be just like you! What gave you that idea? Think I’m scared of you? Seems you must have been raised wrong.”

Where was her independence? Ordinarily she would have overwhelmed him with her contempt, but somehow just now she was overjoyed to think that this particular man was here to talk to her. It made no difference what he was saying. At any rate he had not deserted her!

Then he said, more gently:

“You’re hungry, I reckon. I’ve rustled some grub. It’s in the mess house right around the corner here. Come along when you are ready.”

Ten minutes later Ellen entered the door of a small building in the rear of the cabin to find Jeff pouring coffee into two cups that stood on a crude table. On a platter were some strips of crisp bacon and on a plate a mound of soda biscuits. There was no butter. But the biscuits were steaming and the coffee Jeff was pouring had a delicious aroma. Ellen was hungry, and when she saw that Jeff was not going to invite her to sit down she drew up a bench and dropped into it without invitation. The table was a long one and she felt very small sitting at it with Jeff opposite her.

She was strongly satisfied. The bacon was crisp, the coffee good, the biscuits light and flaky—and Jeff hadn’t deserted her.

She had a qualm of misgiving. Where had Jeff learned to cook? She had never tasted such biscuits! The bacon was marvellous, and the coffee had been brewed by an expert. Was Jeff already married?

“You didn’t find these biscuits already baked?” she asked.

“What got that idea into your head? I baked them myself,” he answered brusquely, looking at her with level hostility.

“And the bacon! It is wonderful! And the coffee! Wherever did you learn to cook like that?”

“Just learned, I reckon.”

“Your wife taught you, I suppose.”

“Your supposing is away off.”

That did not answer her question. It sounded like equivocation.

“Some wives teach their husbands to cook,” she ventured.

“Mine didn’t.”

“Why?” Ellen almost held her breath.

“Look here,” he said, glowering at her. “Get this straight. I ain’t married, and I don’t want to get married!”

Did he suspect her intentions? Was he warning her? Well, if he did not have a wife he was going to get one very soon, whether he wanted one or not! But before she took him as a husband she wanted to know something more about him. So now she pretended a great unconcern.

“Of course, living alone, you would have to do your own cooking—or go hungry,” she said.

“Who told you I live alone?” he asked belligerently.

“Why—don’t you? I got that impression. I suppose it was because of the way you go about things. Depending upon yourself, you know.”

“I live with my father and mother,” he told her.

He was so very young, after all! Young in spite of his tallness, his lithe muscles, his leonine head, his stern mouth and his glowering, moody eyes. She judged him to be twenty-eight or thirty, but she knew that his wilderness life had brought him none of the sophistication that makes people mentally old before their time. He was natural, sincere, and entirely without affectation. A novelty! Hers!

“Your father is one of the early settlers, I suppose?”

“He was one of the first in Cochise County.”

“Oh. A cattleman?”

He nodded.

“I presume he finds it difficult to make a living, now that the country has so many big owners?”

“That’s good!” he exclaimed. “My father is the biggest owner in the county.”

She sipped her coffee to conceal her astonishment, for now she was almost positive that he was a son of Adam Hale, who owned the Diamond A. The Diamond A was the largest ranch in Cochise County. She had heard her father speaking of it; had overheard Jim Peters telling another man that Adam Hale practically ruled Cochise. The Hour Glass was a big ranch, but the Diamond A was bigger. Adam Hale must be a man of great importance. His son, of course, must also be a man of importance.

At any rate she was aware that Jeff was more interesting than ever. She knew now where he had got his air of authority; why he had gruffly told her that he made his own laws.

“Then your name must be Hale,” she said.

He nodded.

“Is this cabin on your property?”

“It’s a place we bought some years ago; we use it as a range camp.”

They had finished with the food. Jeff sat with folded arms, gazing straight at his guest. He was perplexed, perhaps, but not perturbed. Perplexed because being innocent of the crime of abducting her he must devise some way of protecting her from the gossip that would inevitably follow the revelation that she had spent a night with him in a cabin on his father’s property. He was aware that public opinion would be with the girl, that any explanation he might make would be rejected.

She would talk, of course. She had told him she would, and he believed her. He didn’t like women of her type, but he had met courage in various forms and he knew she had it.

He could not understand how she could have made the mistake of thinking that he was her abductor, but if that was her belief he must accept it.

He could not consult his own feelings. He didn’t even know if his feelings toward her were definite. She was beautiful, but he was convinced that she was headstrong and argumentative. She had opinions, a calm self-reliance that irritated him, a freedom of manner that aroused his disgust. She was of that strange breed of woman, who, emerging from the clouded atmosphere of the depths of inferiority, gazes with bright and ingenuous eyes at an amazed world and demands to be accepted as an equal, while blandly disregarding the fact that she is not equipped for equality.

She had plenty of spirit, he perceived that. Likewise, he surmised that so far she looked upon men as mere humans who had been placed in the world for the express purpose of being imposed upon.

Twice he had observed her blushing, and he had been amazed and baffled at the sight. That she had blushed because of him he could not presume to believe, for toward the man who had abducted her she could entertain only resentment. He was of the opinion that her blushes had been provoked by contemplation of her predicament. Yet he could not understand how a woman who would take such damn fool chances could have sensibilities that were susceptible to the emotion. She was a damn fool, he was certain. But whether she was or not he would have to do the right thing by her. But he was certain he would not enjoy the experience.

She made some sort of an appeal to him as she sat opposite him. She was now demure, shy, pensive. Around her was an atmosphere of alluring mystery, which always reaches out and envelops a man who is alone with an attractive woman. Jeff perceived that there was a delicacy about her that had previously escaped him, a persuasive feminine grace which he had not seen in women he had known—a helplessness so obvious that it smote him with the conviction that he was a great, overawing brute who was taking an unfair advantage.

He experienced his first pang of perturbation, of pity. He was exasperated by the emotion, so he abruptly got up and walked to the door, where he stood, frowning at the flashing green of the sunlit forest.

Her voice reached him. She was standing, also, and her voice had just the suspicion of a quaver in it:

“Will you please get my pony?”

He turned slowly and looked at her. The frown still wrinkled his brow.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Home, of course. Don’t you think I shall have enough to explain without—without staying here longer?”

Jeff abruptly turned again to face the forest. He hadn’t thought this situation could contain so much tragedy! Hell! He was sending this girl to face a father who might disown her; who at any rate would always be suspicious of her! And she hadn’t done anything wrong. She had only been indiscreet in riding out alone.

He faced her again.

“Look here,” he said. “I know Matt Ballinger. He would be suspicious of his great-aunt. You can’t go back to the Hour Glass and tell him the truth.”

“You mean I can’t tell him that you abducted me? I shall, of course!”

“You can tell him what you damn please! He won’t believe anything you tell him.” He scowled at her, adding: “If you go back there you will only make a fool of yourself!”

“Oh, you think I have a choice of several places to go. Is that it?”

“You’ve a choice of two places that I know of,” he returned, watching her intently; “you can go back to the Hour Glass or you can ride with me to Randall and get married.”

He saw her cheeks grow pale; grimly watched how a stream of pink mounted the rounded column of her neck and spread to her face.

He felt that she did not appear to be greatly astonished at his proposal, though he should have known that a girl of her type wouldn’t betray astonishment if she felt it. She faced him quietly and he observed that her eyes were very bright and that the stains in her cheeks took on a new shade—crimson. He was aware that she was more beautiful than ever. But he had no enthusiasm for his part in this affair. He didn’t love her, and he probably never would love her. He’d marry her, though.

He spoke his thoughts, trying to make it easy for her to accept.

“It needn’t be permanent. Likely it wouldn’t be. As a matter of fact, it couldn’t be. A girl like you couldn’t stand it to be married to a man like me. You’ve been raised different and our ideas wouldn’t jibe. But getting married will untangle this, and then you can go back East, stay for a while and apply for a divorce. You’ll get it without any trouble. You don’t even need to go to the house with me, if you don’t want to.”

She gazed straight at him. To his amazement the colour was still in her cheeks. There was defiance in her eyes.

“If I marry you I shall stay here and be your wife!” she declared. “At least for a time. If I married you and left you immediately father would understand. That ruse wouldn’t fool him. I won’t be laughed at! If you marry me you have got to pretend that you want me more than anything else in the world!”

“Well,” he said cynically, “I reckon there’s a lot of married men playing that game. It won’t be hard, for I’ve been watching my friends.”

“Well, you don’t need to be offensive about it!”

“I’ll do my best to be a proper married man,” he said gravely.