Bruce of the Circle A Part 25

"And if I do?" she asked weakly. "What if I do?"

"What if you do? Ain't lovin' a man answer enough for any woman?" cried the other. "Is the' anything else that holds folks together? Is the'

anything else that makes men an' women happy? Does your bein' a man's wife mean happiness? Your promisin' to love him didn't make you love, did it? Because a preacher told you you was one didn't make it so, did it? n.o.body can make you love him, not even yourself, 'cause you said it was duty that takes you back; that you don't love him. But you can't help lovin' Bruce Bayard!

"Oh, M's. Lytton, don't fool yourself about this duty! It's up to a man an' a woman to take love, to take happiness, when it comes. You can't set still an' watch it go by an' hope to have it come again; real happiness don't happen but once in most of our lives. I know. I've been down ... I've been happy, too ... I know!

"An' duty! Why, ma'am, duty like you think you ought to do, is waste!

You're young, you're healthy, you're pretty. You'll waste your best years, you'll waste your health, you'll waste your looks on duty!

You'll waste all your love; you'll get old an' bitter an'....

"If the's anything under heaven that's a crime, it's wasted love! Oh, M's. Lytton, I wasted my love when I was a kid, 'cause I didn't know better. I sold mine for money. For G.o.d's sake, don't sell yours for duty! If the's anything your G.o.d meant folks to do was to get what joy they can out of life. He wouldn't want you to think of bein' Ned Lytton's wife as ... as your duty. He ... G.o.d ain't that kind, M's.

Lytton; he ain't!"

"Nora, Nora, don't say these things!" Ann pleaded. "You're wrong, you must be! Don't tempt me to ... these new ways ... don't...."

"New!" the girl broke in. "It ain't new, what I've been sayin'. It's as old as men an' women. It's as old as th' world. Th' things you try to make yourself believe are th' new ones. Love was old before folks first thought about duty. It seems new, because you ain't ever let yourself see straight ... you never had to until now."

"Nora, stop I You must stop! You can't be right ... you can't be!"

The waitress trembled against Ann and commenced to cry under the strain of her earnestness.

"But I know I'm right, M's. Lytton, I know I am! I know what you're doin'. Do--don't you see that you wouldn't be much different from what I was, if you went back to your husband, hatin' him an' lovin' another?

Happiness comes just once; it's a sin to let it go by!"

Slowly Ann withdrew her embrace from the girl. She sat with hands limp in her lap until Nora's sobbing had subsided to mere long-drawn breaths; then she rose and walked to the window, looking out into the moonlit night. And when Nora, drying her eyes, regaining control of her emotions, started to speak again she saw that Ann was lost in thought, that it was unnecessary to argue further, so she went quietly from the room. The rattle of the k.n.o.b, the sound of the closing door did not rouse the woman she left behind. Ann only stared out at the far hills which were a murky blot in the cold light; stared with eyes that did not see, for out of the storm of that night a new creature was coming into active life within her and the re-birth was so wonderful that it quite deadened her physical senses.

CHAPTER XIV

THE WOMAN ON HORSEBACK

Lytton had gone for a ride in the hills, leaving Bayard alone at the ranch, busying himself with accomplis.h.i.+ng many odds and ends of tasks which had been neglected in the weeks that his attention had been divided between his cattle and the troubles of Ann. Ned was back to his usual strength, now; also, his mending mental att.i.tude had made him a better companion, a less trying patient. He rode daily, he helped somewhat with the ranch work, his sleeps were long and untroubled. The first time a horse had carried him from sight Bayard had scarcely expected to see him back again; he had firmly believed that Lytton would ride directly to Yavapai and fill himself with whiskey. When he came riding into the ranch, tired, glad to be home once more, Bruce knew that the man was not wholly unappreciative, that his earlier remonstrances at remaining at the Circle A had not always been genuine.

"Mighty white of you, old chap," he had said, after dismounting. "Mighty white of you to treat me like this. Some day I'll pay you back."

"You'll pay me back by gettin' to be good an' strong an' goin' out an'

bein' a man," the rancher had answered, and Lytton had laughed at his seriousness.

No intimation of his wife's nearness had been given to Lytton. Isolated as they were, far off the beaten path of travel, few people ever stopped at the ranch and, when stray visitors had dropped in, chance or Bayard's diplomacy had prevented their discovering the other man's presence. Not once after their argument over the rights of a man to his wife had Ned referred to Ann and in that Bruce found both a conscious and an unconscious comfort: the first sort because it hurt him brutally to be reminded of the girl as this man's mate, and the other because the fact that while Lytton had only bitterness for Ann Bayard could wholly justify his own attention to her, his own love.

Day after day the progress continued uninterrupted, Bruce making it a point to have his charge ride alone, unless Ned himself expressed a desire to go in company. The rancher believed that if the other were ever to be strong enough to resist the temptation to return to his old haunts and ways, now was the time. Although Lytton's att.i.tude was, except at rare intervals, subtly resentful, his pa.s.sive acceptance of the conditions under which he lived was evidence that he saw the wisdom in remaining at the ranch and those hours alone on horseback, out of sight, away from any influencing contact, were the first tests. Bayard was delighted to see that his work did not collapse the moment he removed from it his watchful support. And yet, while he took pride in this accomplishment, he went about his daily work with a sense of depression constantly on him. It was as though some inevitable calamity impended, as though, almost, hope had been removed from his future. He tried not to allow himself to think of Ann Lytton. He knew that to let his fancies and emotions go unrestrained for an hour would rouse in his heart a hatred so intense, so compelling, that he would rise in all his strength during some of Lytton's moods and do the man violence; or, if not that, then, when talking to her, he would lose self-control and break his word to her and to himself that not again so long as she loved her husband would he speak of his regard for her.

But the end of that phase was approaching. Within a few days Lytton would know that his wife was in the country, would go to her, and Bayard's interval of protectorate over them both, which at least gave him opportunity to see the woman he loved, would come to its conclusion.

Now, as he worked on a broken hinge of the corral gate his heart was heavy and, finally, to force himself to stop brooding, he broke into song:

"From th' desert I come to thee On a stallion shod wi--

"No ... not that," he muttered. "I'll not be comin' ... on a stallion shod with fire, or anythin' else." Then he began this cruder, livelier strain:

"Foot in th' stirrup an' hand on th' horn, Best d.a.m.n cowboy ever was born,

"Coma ti yi youpa ya, youpa ya, Coma ti yi--

"Dog-gone bolt's too short, Abe," he muttered to the sorrel who stood within the enclosure. "Too short--

"I herded an' I hollered an' I done very well, Till th' boss says, Boys, just let 'em go to h.e.l.l!

"Coma ti yi--

"What do you see, Boy?"

As he turned to go toward the blacksmith shop, he saw the horse standing with head up and every line of his body rigid, gazing off on the valley.

"You see somebody?" he asked, and swung up on the corral for a better view.

Far out beyond and below him a lazy wisp of dust rose lightly to be trailed away by the breath of warm breeze, and, after his eyes had studied it a moment, he discerned a moving dot that he knew was horse and rider.

"Lytton didn't go that way," he muttered, as he dropped to the ground again. "No use worryin' any more, though; it's time somebody knew he was here; they will soon, an' it won't do any harm."

He swept the valley with his gaze again and shook his head. "Seems like it's in shadow all the time now," he muttered, "an' not a cloud in the sky!"

When he found a bolt of proper length and fitted it in place the horse and rider were appreciably nearer and he watched them crawl toward him a moment.

"I went to th' wagon to get my roll, To come back to Texas, dad-burn my soul; I went to th' wagon to draw my roll, Th' boss said I was nine dollars in th' hole!

"Coma ti yi, youpy, youpy ya, youpy ya, Coma ti--"

He turned again to look at the approaching rider before he went into the stable. Then, for twenty minutes he was busy with hammer and saw, humming to himself, thinking of things quite other than the work at which his hands were busy.

"Is this the way you greet your visitors?"

It was Ann Lytton's voice coming from the stable doorway, and Bayard straightened slowly, turning awkwardly to look at her over his shoulder.

She was flushed, fl.u.s.tered, uncertain for the moment just how to comport herself, but he did not notice for he was far off balance himself.

"Good-mornin', ma'am," he said, taking off his hat and stepping out from the stall in which he had been working. "What do you want here?"

His voice was pitched almost in a tone of rebuke.

"I came to see my husband," she answered, and for a moment they stared hard at one another, Bayard, as though he did not believe her, and the woman, as if conscious that he questioned the truth of her reply. Also, as if she feared he might read in her the _whole_ truth.

"He ought to be back soon," the rancher said, replacing his hat. "He's off for a ride. Won't you come into the house?"

They stepped outside. He saw that behind her saddle a bundle was tied.

He looked from it to her inquiringly.