Читать книгу Riders West - Ernest Haycox - Страница 3

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Beyond the blurred car window the land lay dark and formless and unvarying—a flat emptiness across which the westbound train rushed hour after hour and yet seemed to make little progress. Occasionally the shape of a corral whipped by, less occasionally glimmering ranch lights reached forward from the remoteness of the prairie; but these were minute flaws to accent the loneliness of a world lost in its own immensity. When some restless passenger opened either vestibule door, the clacking assaults of iron on iron rushed in, and biting air currents turned the gauze gaslights of the coach redly dim. Cecile, a social and warmth-loving creature to her last plump fiber, made a small shuddering gesture.

"This is simply insane, Nan. It really is. You've got to change your mind in the next half-hour. Listen to me. You can't drop out of your own set—it will be so horribly dreary. If you must run, come on to the coast, where at least you'll meet your own kind of people."

Nan Avery answered with a falling inflection, with a queer lack of tone. "The past is quite dead, Cecile. I buried it, laid on the flowers, and shed my tears." She sat relaxed, supple hands crossed in her lap, the neat military shoulders swaying in response to the motion of the car. Nothing, Cecile thought, could ever erase the smooth, fine regularity of Nan Avery's face. It was definite, it was proud, it was close to being beautiful. The mass of brushed copper hair heightened a whiteness of temple and brow; and had some odd disciplinary effect on the gray, straight-glancing eyes. All the Averys were like that, very direct and honest, very strict with themselves. What saved Nan from the otherwise Puritan sobriety of the tribe was a zest for living, a vital gayety that once had colored everything she did or said.

But she was not gay now. She sat there with an air of inner quiescence, as if all thinking and all hoping had ceased to be important; and in those expressive eyes was a foiled, faint bitterness. No strong character herself, Cecile felt a queer sense of desolation to see this swift surrender. For it was surrender; it was defeat. Even Cecile knew that after five miserable days on the train. Somewhat desperately she said:

"I actually can't bear the thought of leaving you. Nan, you'll come home after everything has settled and been forgotten."

"No," murmured Nan in the same detached manner. "I don't know what lies ahead. It doesn't matter. But I'll never go back."

"But why, of all places, should you choose to live out here?" cried Cecile.

Nan Avery's words were aloof, impartial—as if she were viewing herself from afar. "My life has been luxurious and easy. See what has come of it. Now I shall really find out if I'm any good."

"Oh, you little fool, there is no blame on you!"

"But there is," said Nan softly. "My name has been dragged around the mud. However right or wrong it may be, people are talking. They always will." Then a small echo of hurt anger warmed her speech. "Can't you see what that does to me? It—it makes me feel like soiled linen! I hate it! I hate myself! I never expected it and never deserved it. But it happened, and so it must be my fault. Why should I try to find excuses? Well, it won't happen again. What's done is done, and I am through crying."

"You don't know anything about this country," brooded Cecile. "Nor anybody in it. You're stepping into a wilderness. Really you are. You might as well be dead as far as your friends are concerned."

"Just as I want it to be," said Nan indifferently; and her clouded glance turned to the vague landscape. A red-and-green light bloomed and vanished. The engine's whistle signal fled by in long, undulating ropes of sound.

The conductor came in to collect fares from a group of obvious cowhands at one end of the car, and Cecile, always intensely interested in people, looked at the visible figures with a silent admiration. During the past two days the transcontinental had become a sort of accommodation local that collected and dropped travelers at each station. Sometimes it would be a woman, sometimes a family; but usually it was otherwise, for this clearly was a man's country. The coach was crowded with men now, of a type entirely new to her. They were tall or short and of all degrees of appearance, but certain particulars about them were inevitably uniform. For one thing, a characteristic slimness of body; for another, a similarity of boots, vests, and broad hats. When they walked they were awkward. When they sat they talked with a slurred briefness, and they used their hands freely to piece out phrases, Indian-like. Their faces were watchful, somehow deliberately wooden. Their eyes were more often than not blue, a blue turned almost green by the surrounding darkness of tanned skin. They moved about a great deal, played poker interminably, always were rolling cigarettes. The coach was a fog of smoke. Directly across the aisle a pair of them, more subdued than the rest, sat silently along the miles, and only when the end doors opened did they show interest—a momentary alertness that was quick and hard. Both had their saddles beside them, and both wore belts and guns. By now Cecile was accustomed to the weapons. More men wore them than didn't. She was thinking of the scratched scar on the face of the younger one when Nan broke a prolonged silence:

"You really don't know how glad I am to have you along. No, you don't, Cecile. It has kept me from remembering things I don't want to remember. But when I get off, you'll go on and I shan't ever see you again. After you reach the coast, take another route home. If you want to write, address the letter in care of the lawyer. Save for yourself, he is the only person who has the name of the town I'm going to. He will never tell." Then Nan bent forward and said soberly: "And you must never tell. I don't want the past to follow me. It is too hard to get rid of."

The conductor came along the aisle and paused. "We reach Trail in twenty minutes. I'll see about your luggage. Kind of sorry you have to put up with this smoke, but you can't do much with these fellows."

Nan's answer was limpidly cool: "I have observed that men like to make their own rules."

The conductor, appearing a little puzzled, went on.

Cecile spoke: "You never used to be bitter, Nan. It isn't like you to be unkind."

"That, too," said Nan gently, "is part of the past. I shall not again trust a man, make allowances for him, ask favors of him."

"You'll soon forget that notion," said Cecile, very positive. She could not let such heresy go unchallenged; for if she was not reflective, she had the wisdom of her own desires.

"No," contradicted Nan. "Now remember what I told you. Don't ever give anyone my address."

Cecile flushed. "I shan't."

But Nan, looking sharply at her friend, thought she had touched an otherwise frame of mind. So she said: "If you do, I'll of course have to move on. Beyond even your letters."

"Oh, Lord, Nan, I won't!"

"The break is complete," Nan observed, more to herself than to Cecile. "I am glad I had just enough courage to make it."

"But what will you do?" demanded Cecile forlornly.

"Does that matter?"

"I hate to leave you like this," worried Cecile.

Cold air poured into the car, and the lights dimmed again. A man hurried forward, stopped beside the pair across the aisle—a young and bulky man with a wide, loose mouth and a flattened nose. It was not possible to avoid hearing him speak.

"Get on at Green Springs, boys?"

"Howdy, Hugo. Yeah."

Hugo's glance swept the coach and fell on the women with a focused brightness. Cecile felt that she was being weighed, considered unimportant, and dismissed from thought. The man's voice dropped to a lower pitch: "Dan Bellew is on this train."

That name had its instant effect. The younger of the pair stood up and looked to either end of the car. The other said: "When did he come aboard, Hugo?"

"At Big Mound."

"He's seen you?"

"Think so," answered Hugo.

The older one was obviously irritated. "He's always showin' up where he shouldn't be. I don't want him to see us."

"Get in the washroom," said Hugo.

The other rose. The older man murmured something Cecile, now frankly listening, didn't catch; then the two went along the aisle and disappeared into the washroom. Hugo sat down in the vacated section and hoisted his feet to the red plush seat. Nan was speaking again:

"When you get back home, Cecile, you'll probably meet Jamie Scarborough. There's no doubt he'll ask you about me. Tell him nothing. Absolutely nothing."

"You're sure?" asked Cecile.

"Well," amended Nan, "tell him this—tell him I don't want to see him or hear from him. And that there is absolutely no use trying to find me."

"That will hurt Jamie," observed Cecile.

"How about me?" answered Nan curtly.

Cecile started to speak and stopped. The inquisitive half of her mind was engaged in the affair across the aisle; and now she saw the rear vestibule door swing open before a high-built man. He stood in the opening for a while, visually searching the car. Then he came on and halted before the apparently indifferent Hugo, one hand idly resting on the arm of Cecile's seat. Over a long interval he said nothing—only looked down with a faint amusement that had no friendliness in it. He was, Cecile thought, cut in much the same pattern as the others; with a slimness of waist that strengthened his shoulders and a sense of solidity and deep-seated health about him. The flare of his hat accentuated all the angles of a rather broad face, sharpened the sweep of jawbones. His skin was ruddy and quite smooth, save for those finely etched weather wrinkles about the temples which seemed so universally stamped on these riding men. And that sense of inner amusement turned a broad, compressed mouth into a slightly skeptical curve. There was, Cecile said to herself, something just a little formidable about him. His continued silence disturbed her.

Quite apparently it also disturbed the reclining Hugo. His attitude of unawareness failed him. Turning his head, he looked up through half-closed eyes and casually spoke:

"Hello, Dan."

Dan Bellew's "Hello, Hugo," was equally casual. He pushed back the brim of his hat. "Traveling for your health?"

"A little business," muttered Hugo.

"Going to Trail?"

"Yeah."

"That's strange."

"What's strange about it?" demanded Hugo, on the defensive.

"Shouldn't think you'd find much business in a town you got run out of," mused Bellew. He had never taken his attention from the other, and that attitude of being sardonically entertained grew more obvious. It seemed to Cecile he was playing with this Hugo. Turning, she found Nan watching the scene, and she said to herself, "Nan's not too depressed to see a good-looking man."

"My business is my business," grunted Hugo.

"Would be if it was a legitimate business," observed Dan Bellew. "You wouldn't really try to fool me, would you, Hugo?"

"What do you want?" rapped out Hugo.

The lurking grin broke through Bellew's face, hard and sharp. "Just came in to tell you that you're not going to Trail."

"I think I am," contradicted Hugo flatly.

"You've been wrong before," drawled Bellew. "You're wrong again."

Hugo said nothing, but he was staring back at Bellew with a winkless attention. His body had gone still on the seat; his hands were idle beside him. The softness, the suavity of this quarrel astonished Cecile, who glanced at Nan in mute astonishment. Nan—and this was surprising, too—looked on with little signals of anger staining her cheeks. The conductor came down the aisle, stopped in front of Bellew and recognized him with a friendly nod.

Bellew said: "This man has made a slight mistake, Sam. He thought he was going to Trail, but he finds he isn't. He'd be pleased if you'd stop the train just long enough for him to get off."

It was, of course, rank insolence, and Cecile waited breathlessly for the conductor's explosion. Oddly, the latter's answer was mild to the point of being conciliatory:

"Maybe he's got a different idea, Bellew."

"Hugo," stated Bellew gently, "seldom has ideas of much importance. Sorry to bother you, Sam. Please pull down on that bell cord."

The conductor was handling the situation gingerly. He looked now to the seated Hugo, Hugo abruptly rose. "You're puttin' me afoot on the prairie, Bellew?"

"My apologies."

Cecile could see no weakening of the deadlock. But the conductor apparently did, for he reached up and seized the bell cord. There was a swift reply from the engine's whistle ahead and an immediate shrilling of the applied brakes. All the other men in the car had turned silent and were watching with an absorbed, inscrutable interest. Hugo's countenance was dry of expression; nothing of his thinking showed through except for a brighter flare of light in his greenish eyes. He said, very briefly:

"All right—this time, Dan."

Something of Bellew's preoccupation left him. He stepped back a pace and waited for Hugo to precede him down the aisle. The door opened and let them out, and afterwards there was a moment's strange quiet as the train came to a full halt. Cecile heard feet strike the graveled roadbed; a man in a near-by seat murmured, "Told you so." Then the coaches lurched ahead under a wrenching application of power. The conductor returned to collect Nan's baggage. "Ten minutes to Trail," he warned her. Presently Dan Bellew came again into the coach and walked to the deserted section. For a little while he looked down, rolling a cigarette with an air of abstraction. Cecile wondered about that until the man abruptly reached over and lifted the skirts of the two saddles still lying there.

He seemed to find something of particular interest.

Straightening, he studied the car, and when he lit the cigarette the matchlight glowed against a smooth, guarded face. Cecile was startled to hear Nan Avery speak in a clear anger:

"Arrogance in men is not a pretty thing to see."

Cecile swung to caution her friend, but she saw instantly that Nan had meant the observation to be heard. Nan sat straight, her chin up—sure sign of her temper—and she was directly meeting the surprised look of Dan Bellew. He had turned; he had withdrawn the cigarette from his mouth. His eyes, Cecile thought, confusedly, could be very bleak and unfriendly. They were now. She had the distressing feeling that he was stripping Nan's mind for his own cool satisfaction. Yet even as she thought so a sure gleam of humor replaced the severity of his glance.

"Little girls, especially strange little girls, should be seen and not heard," he said and walked away.

"Why didn't the other man fight back?" fumed Nan.

"You deserved what you got," said Cecile candidly.

"What right has he to put anybody off this train?" demanded Nan irritably. "It was outrageous. I hate men who use force like that."

"Must have been a reason," said Cecile practically. "He doesn't look like one to do anything without cause. Anyhow, why should you care?"

Nan caught a quick phrase on her tongue and turned to the window.

After a long period she spoke: "You're right. I shouldn't mind it. Only there is so little fairness in this world, especially among men."

Cecile was thinking, in half a panic, of other things.

Through the window she saw the clustered lights of an advancing town. The train was again whistling for a stop, and some of the cowhands were collecting their effects. The conductor put his head into the coach and shouted, "Trail—Trail!" Nan's face was turned back to her, a sign of strain showing through the long-maintained composure.

"I guess this is the end, Cecile. Remember what I've told you. And be a good girl."

"It's so damn hard to see you go!" cried Cecile.

"Don't!" warned Nan. She rose and walked along the aisle. There were quite a few men in the vestibule, and the two women stood silent and constrained while the cars came to a sighing halt. The conductor swung down and held up his arm for Nan. One faint light seeped out of a station house—and that seemed to be all of the city of Trail, to which she had blindly bought a ticket. Behind her was the pressure of the men impatient to be off; but Cecile was clinging to her shoulder, and suddenly she turned and kissed the girl. Cecile, frankly crying, said:

"You little fool!"

"Nothing," said Nan in a small voice, "can be any worse than what was." Then she got down and stood uncertainly to one side. Cecile disappeared, the men filed out. Steam jets from the engine made sharp reports through the night, and the bell's ringing rolled resonantly across an emptiness that seemed to have no boundaries. The conductor waved his lantern in a full bright circle and swung up, the cars gathered momentum and slid by.

She saw Cecile's face pressed against a window, very dim; and presently there was only a line of faintly, glimmering lights curving across the flat land westward.

She stood there in the darkness, with her luggage around her, ridden by a loneliness she could not help. The rest of the deposited passengers had gone off, and she was quite alone, smothered in the shadows. Small impressions came to her—the smell of sage and wood-smoke, the clatter of a telegraph key. Along the station wall was a sign that read: "See Townsite Jackson." But her mind was on that fast-fading red-and-green glow of the train; and as the lights grew dimmer and dimmer, so did her courage. Out there vanished the last of her old life, gone forever with nothing to replace it: and it was like a dark omen to think that her last view of Cecile had been blurred and uncertain. She found herself thinking desperately: "Why should this happen to me?" As much as she had prepared herself for this final break, the sweeping reaction of helplessness and regret was worse than she had ever imagined it could be; it carried her downward into an abyss from which there seemed no return.

She heard a shifting of weight on the gravel. That literally dragged her from her reflections. Turning, she found the tall shadow of a man standing by. When he spoke she instantly recognized—with a revival of resentment—the casual calm voice of Dan Bellew:

"Were you expecting someone to meet you?"