Bruce of the Circle A Part 6

"If you ain't, just remember that he's a hundred times worse than he was when you had your last try at him."

She squeezed the fingers of one hand with the other. Her chin trembled sharply but she mastered the threatened breakdown.

"What would you have me do?" she asked, weakly, and at that Bayard swung his arms slightly and smiled at her in relief.

"Can't you stay right here in Yavapai and wait until the worst is over?

It won't be so very long."

"I might. I'll try. If you think best ... I will, of course."

"I'll come in town every time I get a chance and tell you about him," he promised, eagerly. "I'll ... I'll be glad to," he hastened to add, with a drop in his voice that made her look at him. "Then, when he's better, when he's able to make it around the place on foot, when you think you can manage him, I s'pose you can go off to his mine, then."

He ceased to smile and smote one hip in a manner that told of his sudden feeling of hopelessness. He walked toward the bed again and Ann watched him. As he pa.s.sed the lamp on the chair, she saw the fine ripple of his thigh muscles under the close-fitting overalls, saw with eyes that did not comprehend at first but which focused suddenly and then scrutinized the detail of his big frame with an odd uneasiness.

He turned on her and said irrelevantly, as if they had discussed the idea at length,

"I'm glad to do it for you, ma'am."

He stared at her steadily, seeming absorbed by the thought of service to her, and the woman, after a moment, removed her gaze from his.

"It's so good of you!" she said, and became silent when he gave her no heed.

So it was arranged that Bayard should take Ned Lytton to his home to nurse and bring him back to bodily health and moral strength, if such accomplishments were possible. The hours pa.s.sed until night had ceased to age and day was young before the cowman deemed it wise to move the still sleeping Easterner. He chose to make the drive to his ranch in darkness, rather than wait for daylight when his going would attract attention and set minds speculating and tongues wagging.

Until his departure, the three remained in the room where they had met, Ann much of the time sitting beside her husband, staring before her, Bayard moving restlessly about in the shadows, watching her face and her movements, questioning her occasionally, growing more absorbed in studying the woman, until, during their last hour together, he was in a fever to be away from her where he could think straight of all that had happened since night came to Yavapai.

Before he left he said:

"Probably n.o.body will ask you questions, but if they do just say that your husband went away before daylight an' that I left after I washed his arm out. That'll be the truth an' what folks don't know won't hurt 'em ... nor make you uncomfortable by havin' 'em watch you an' do a lot of unnecessary talkin'."

From her window Ann watched Bayard emerge from the doorway below and place the limp figure of his burden on the seat of the buckboard he had secured for the trip home. In the starlight she saw him knot the bridle reins of his sorrel over the saddle horn, heard him say, "Go home, Abe,"

and saw the splendid beast stride swiftly off into the night alone.

Then, the creak of springs as he, too, mounted the wagon, his word to the horses, the sounds of wheels, and she thought she saw him turn his face toward her window as he rounded the corner of the hotel.

The woman stood a moment in the cold draught of the wind that heralded dawn. It was as though something horrible had gone out of her life and, at the same time, as if something wonderful had come in; only, while the one left the heaviness, the other brought with it a sweet sorrow. Half aloud she told herself that; then cried:

"No, it can't be! Nothing has gone; nothing has come. Things are as they were ... or worse...."

Then, she turned to her hard, lumpy bed.

CHAPTER V

THE CLERGY OF YAVAPAI

Hours pa.s.sed before Ann could sleep, and then her slumber was broken, her rest harried by weird dreams, her half-waking periods crammed with disturbing fantasies. When broad daylight came, she rose and drew down the shades of her window and after she had listened to the birds, to the sounds of the awakening town, to the pa.s.sing of a train, rest came and until nearly noon she slept heavily.

She came to herself possessed by a queer sense of unreality and it was moments before she could determine its source. Then the events of the evening and night swept back to her intelligence and she closed her eyes, feeling sick and worn.

Restlessness came upon her finally and she arose, dressed, went downstairs and forced herself to eat. Several others were in the dining room and two men sat with her at table. She was conscious that the talk, which had been loud, diminished when she entered and that those nearest her were evidently uncomfortable, embarra.s.sed, glad to be through and gone.

When Nora, the waitress, took her order, Ann saw that the girl eyed her curiously, possibly sympathetically, and, while that quality could not help but rouse an appreciation in her, she shrank from the thought that this whole strange little town was eying her, wondering about her, dissecting her as she suffered in its midst and even through her loyalty to her husband crept a hope that her true ident.i.ty might remain secret.

She left the table and started for the stairway, when the boy who had given her her room the night before came out of the office. He had not expected to see her. He stopped and flushed and stammered.

"You ... last night ... you said you might ... that is, do you want th'

automobile, ma'am?"

"I shan't want to go out to-day," Ann answered him, forcing her voice to steadiness. "I have changed my mind."

Then, she went swiftly up the stairs.

She knew that the youth knew at least a part of her reason for altering her plans. She knew that within the hour all Yavapai would know that she was not going to the Sunset mine because Ned Lytton was drunk and hurt, and she felt like crying aloud to relieve the distress in her heart.

Her room was hot, its smallness was unbearable and, putting on her hat, she went down the stairs, out of the hotel and, looking up and down the main street, struck off to the left, for that direction seemed to offer the quickest exit from the town.

Ann walked swiftly along the hard highway, head down until she had left the last buildings behind. Then she lifted her chin and drew a deep breath of the fine mountain air and for the first time realized the immensity of the surrounding country. Sight of it brought a little gasp of wonder from her and she halted and turned slowly to look about.

The town was set in the northern edge of a huge valley which appeared to head in abruptly rising hills not so far to the westward. But to the south and eastward it swept on and out, astonis.h.i.+ng in its apparent smoothness, its lavish colorings. Northward, its rise was more decided and not far from the town clumps of brush and scant low timber dotted the country, but out yonder there appeared to be no growth except the gra.s.s which, where it grew in rank patches, bowed before the breeze and flashed silver under the brilliant sun. The distances were blue and inviting. She felt as though she would like to start walking and walk and walk, alone under that high blue sky.

She strolled on after that and followed the wagon track an hour. Then, bodily weariness a.s.serted itself and she rested in the shade of a low oak scrub, twining gra.s.s stalks with nervous fingers.

"I would have said that a country like this would have inspired anybody," she said aloud after a time. "But he's the same. He's small, he's small!"

Vindictiveness was about her and her tone was bitter.

"Still," she thought, "it may not be too late. That other man ... is as big as this...."

When she had rested and risen and gone a half mile back toward Yavapai, she repeated aloud:

"As big as this...."

A great contrast that had been! Bruce Bayard, big, strong, controlled, clean and thinking largely and clearly; Ned Lytton, little, weak, victim of his appet.i.tes, foul and selfish. She wondered rather vaguely about Bayard. Was he of that country? Was he the lover of some mountain girl?

Was he, possibly, the husband? No, she recalled that he had said that he lived alone.... Well, so did she, for that matter!

Sc.r.a.ps of Bayard's talk the night before came back to her and she pondered over them, twisting their meanings, wondering if she had been justified in the relief his a.s.surances gave her. There, alone in the daylight, they all seemed very incredible that she should have opened her heart, given her dearest confidences to that man. As she thought back through the hour, she became a trifle panicky, for she did not realize then that to have remained silent, to have bottled her emotions within herself longer would have been disastrous; she had reached Yavapai and the breaking point at the same hour, and, had not Bayard opportunely encountered her, she would have been forced to talk to the wheezing hotel proprietor or Nora, the waitress, or the first human being she met on the street ... someone, anyone! Then, abruptly changing her course of thought, she reminded herself of the strangeness of the truth that not once had it occurred to her to worry over the fact that her husband, in an unconscious condition, had been taken away, she knew not where, by this stranger. The faith she had felt in Bayard from the first prevailed. She faced the future with forebodings; about the present condition of Ned Lytton she did not dare think. A comforting factor was the conviction that everything was being done for him that she could do and more ... for she always had been helpless.

She breathed in nervous exasperation at the idea that everything she saw, talked about, thought or experienced came back to impress her further with the hopelessness of the situation, then told herself that fretting would not help; that she must do her all to make matters over, that she must make good her purpose in coming to this new place.

As she neared the town again, she saw the figure of a man approaching.

He walked slowly, with head down, and his face was wholly shaded by the broad brim of his felt hat. His hands were behind his back and the aimlessness of his carriage gave evidence of deep thought.

When the woman was about to pa.s.s him, he turned back toward town without looking up and it was the scuffing of her shoe that attracted him. He faced about quickly at the sound and stared hard at Ann. The stare was not offensive. She saw first his eyes, black and large and wonderfully kind; his hair was white; his shaven lips gentle. Then she observed that he wore the clothing of a clergyman.

His hand went to his hat band, after his first gaze at her, and he smiled.