Crossroads (20 page)

I
t seemed to Dix Van Dyck that he had scarcely laid down to sleep, warm with the consciousness of having comforted the Indian girl, when he was wide awake again. His eyes opened as suddenly as the eyes of a man who rouses from deep sleep with the consciousness that some danger is near. Only this was not danger. It was a fluttering sense of happiness tinged with vague regret such as comes from the interruption of a happy dream. He stared a moment into the black-blue depth of the sky, so low hanging and yet luring to the eye that it will draw the vision on from infinity to infinity until the soul seems somewhere up there, plunging through space, and the earth and the consciousness of this world are only a dwindling unreality far below. Up through those quiet stars Dix Van Dyck stared for a time, but the illusion pursued him so sharply that he almost thought he heard, or had heard a footstep on the slope of the hill.

Finally he sat up in his blanket and glanced at Dolores. She was sound asleep. She could not have touched him without getting up and moving several steps. Yet there lingered in Dix Van Dyck a definite and foolishly happy sensation. He could have almost sworn that a moment before a face had leaned above his. There was still a tingling sensation in his lips—he could almost breathe a faint scent of perfume. All the night was surcharged as
with the feeling of watching eyes—happily watching eyes that surrounded him with care and tenderness.

Still sitting up, he canted back his head and listened for a repetition of that imaginary footstep on the cañon side. At last, shaking his head at this unaccustomed folly, he was about to turn on his side and lie down again in the fold of the blanket when his eyes dropped on a glitter of metal. It was merely a sparkle of two points of light and he thought, at first that it was the flare of the firelight on the eyes of a rattler coiled to strike. The shudder of that thought had scarcely passed over him, however, when he saw, by a taller flare of the fire, that it was a little piece of metal and, leaning closer, he observed with deep astonishment that it was a cross laid upon a small stone and holding down a small piece of paper. It was this that, fluttering in the wind, had made the singing, voice-like whisper that had intruded on his sleep. Someone had been here. Someone had withdrawn and left this singular memorial as what? A warning? A blessing?

Then light burst in upon him from every side, and his heart stood still. With an eager, faltering hand he took the cross and examined it closely. It was of purest silver, slightly carved, and it was suspended by a stout chain of silver. It was the great cross, the cross of good and ill luck—the cross of Jacqueline Boone—and there he held in his hand the strange attraction that had lured him after the girl and finally into hopeless slavery. He could not think. Why had she come, and why had she gone silently? Why had she left the cross? He cut short his dazed ponderings by lifting the scrap of paper. Holding it so that the light struck at an angle across the surface, he read:

That was all. No signature.
Both be happy?
He stared from the paper in one hand to the cross in the other. It suddenly came to him that there was evil in this. He laid the paper carefully back upon the rock and dropped the cross over it. Still his mind was too dazed even to rejoice over his pardon.
Both be happy?

He turned at last and stared into the unconscious face of the Indian girl. Then knowledge struck him like a physical blow. He ground his teeth and rose swiftly from his blankets, swiftly, never so fast in his life. Yet, he stepped silently, for the last thing he wanted in the world was to waken the Indian girl.

He understood. Jack stole in upon them to bring the happy news of the pardon, and she had seen him with Dolores in his arms. He ground his teeth again at that. If Dolores had wakened, he could not have ruled his tongue. Not that it was her fault, poor girl. He tried to convince himself of this while he slammed the saddle across the back of his great horse, but somehow the argument stuck in his throat. Much has been said about the faultless instinct of woman. A little might be noised abroad now and then concerning that of man.

He led his horse a little way down the hillside, after pausing to send a long, bitter glance at the cross. A drift of sand covered the sound of his departure as it must have covered the sound of the coming of Jacqueline. Now there was no trace of her anywhere. The night covered it perfectly. If he waited until day to trail, he would be helplessly left behind the white stallion. Yes, he might lose her forever by the horrible mischance of this night. For she was one of those who will move swiftly, without preparation, and cut themselves off from the life they had left behind them.

A sailor in a fog without a compass was not more helpless than was Dix Van Dyck as he sat his saddle in the
heart of the cañon and searched the pitiless, thick heart of the night. Nothing was visible except the tall, cold outlines of the mountains. Suddenly he shouted like a hunter who sights his game. He drove in his spurs and made at a racing pace up the floor of the valley. Fool! Of course she would ride, feeling as she must, straight for the upper ranges of the mountains. That would be her impulse, and what was there to guide her except the first strong impulse? He rode hard, pitiless of the horse, for he was matching him in at least a short spurt against the white beauty that Jacqueline rode. A strange race, that, in the blind darkness, yet, as he rode, a gathering surety came to him that he was right. It was almost as if an encouraging voice were speaking continually at his ear.

The trail grew so steep that he had to bring his horse to a stumbling trot among the rocks and finally to a walk. So he came to the first crest and then, staring down into the valley beyond, he saw a glimmering form—a glimmering form that must have been white to be visible by the faint starlight. What a yell came to the teeth of Dix Van Dyck! It drove down the valley. It struck the faces of granite cliffs, and they sent long echoes leaping sharply from one side of the valley to the other. It was like the sudden, wild clamor of Indians on the trail and raising the scalp yell in full sight of the enemy. It was like the scream of a Highland Clan, Campbells with Stuarts or Camerons in view.

Then Dix Van Dyck went down the farther valley, and the thunder of the hoofs of the tall horse was like the charging of a company. Other sounds fled before him. But the white horse, the matchless white stallion, was galloping slowly, slowly, slowly. A common cattle pony could have overtaken the famous horse that night, and the steed of Dix Van Dyck gained greatly at every long stride.

He shouted again. The exultation overflowed his heart.
Then a clear, thin sound came back to him. It was like a whistling in the fierce wind that cut against his face.

“Dix!” cried the sound. “Keep back.”

His wild laughter answered, booming down the rocky valley like the water of a spring freshet. It was her voice!

“Keep back!” sounded the shrill whistle.

His answer was another hunting yell. Then a gun cracked, sobering him, and there was an angered hum high above his head. She had fired wild the first time to warn him, but the second time…?

He lowered his head with a growl of fury. He had become for the instant the same blind bull who charged up the valley after seeing the bloodstained sleeve of Jacqueline on the ground. In those days he had feared her. But now she did not have the cross. She had surrendered it to him. Yes, he saw the meaning of that pitiful tribute that still lay on the rock near the Indian girl. She had surrendered the cross and with it the power that had kept the range in awe. Now she was only a beautiful woman.

He plied whip and spur, and his horse grunted with effort. A stern chase is a long one, at sea or on horse back, but as Dix Van Dyck came closer he saw that the white stallion was hardly maintaining a gallop. It was the feeble effort of an exhausted horse. So it was that he whirled alongside. He saw the glitter of the girl’s poised gun and laughed in furious triumph. He leaned from his saddle. His big arm caught at her reins. Then they came to a sliding halt that swerved his own mount around, and there they sat, face to face, though in the pitch black of the shadow of the valley he could make out only the outline of her head. What mattered that? He did not need light to help him remember. He leaned and set his hands on her shoulders.

“Jack” he said, “you’re only a woman, and I’m only a man, and there ain’t no damned cross between us.”

“There’s a greater thing than that,” she answered faintly.

“Nothing that I can’t explain…easy, Jack, you know why I’m here. How’d we stand?”

“Apart,” she said.

“Once,” growled Dix Van Dyck, “I was half afraid of you, Jack. But now you got no cross, and…here’s where I take charge.”

It was hardly a struggle.

“How’d we stand?” he repeated.

“Partners,” said the girl.

T
he late moon, ragged through a low-lying mist along the western peaks, pushed up a glowing edge and looked at them. The slant light slid down the valley and outlined the black cliffs that had bellowed back the voice of Dix Van Dyck the moment before. Not a pleasant scene. No pleasant curves to the hills, but gaunt outlines, jutting, grotesque peaks, very black. Against that blackness the sky seemed marvelously blue, the sort of blue that paint cannot reproduce. The stars stared down with a queer, eye-like effect that stars never have except over the desert. The desert! The soul of ugliness, defying man. And these two with the smell of the sweating horses in their nostrils and the thought of love in their hearts.

No, it was not such stuff as poetry is made of. The ribs of the horses puffed and fell with their sharp breathing, and the souls of the two rose and fell in the same cadence. Not beautiful? Perhaps not, but life, stirring, commanding, overwhelming life. They should have talked. Instead, they were silent, growing into one another. They did not talk of the moon; they did not talk of the stars, or the gaunt cliffs, or the odor of the dry, deadly sand; they did not even think of them. The background against which they saw each other was nothingness. Their muscles were tired and aching from long labors. Their minds
were fresh and young, bounding to meet a new emotion. Not beautiful. If you doubt, listen to their words.

He is saying: “Jack!”

She is saying: “Dix!”

Just those two words, many times repeated. What beauty is in that? Nothing. The chatter of two fools, meaningless. But how their hearts thunder and how their minds stand still!

At length: “How’d you come to give up the cross, Jack?”

“I dunno. I just had to. I thought you might use it.”

“And bring bad luck on you?”

“You left it there?”

“Yes, with the Indian.”

“Thank God!”

“Now I’m going to explain about the girl, Jack.”

“I don’t want to hear it. It doesn’t matter, somehow. That’s funny, isn’t it! A moment ago it was the only thing in the world that
did
matter.”

“Partners,” said Dix Van Dyck, and repeated the word as if it were a poem.

“Where’d we go from here?”

“I got only one thing left.”

“Well?”

“Oñate.”

A silence and the first clash of their wills. One could feel it through the shadows of the moonlight and sense the hardening of their faces.

“Are you going after Oñate, Dix?” she queried softly at length.

“Yep.”

Another silence, cruel and interminable.

“Dix, you can’t do it. The governor was after you before. I had to hold him up with a gun under his nose before he’d sign your pardon. If you do this, nothin’ this
side of hell will keep him from outlawin’ you again. You know what happens to outlaws in the end.”

“I know.”

“Well?”

“If you were me, could you stay clear of Oñate?”

“I dunno, Dix. All I know is that, if you go after Oñate, we’re both done for.”

“Both?”

“If they get you, they might as well get me. You know that, Dix.”

“Never thought of it before.”

“Neither did I.”

“I
can’t
let him go free, Jack.”

“You’ve got to, Dix. For my sake.”

“For your sake I’d do more’n I would for anything alive or dead. But….”

“But not this?”

“Gimme time to think, Jack.”

“I will. All the time you want. The more time the better. Oh, Dix, you dunno what it means, but I do. My father was an outlaw all my life. D’you know how he died?”

“Not exactly.”

“I seen him sitting in a chair, looking as if he was laughing. The house was on fire. There he sat and seemed to laugh with the flames, bulging up through the floor so’s I couldn’t get to him. It was a dead man’s laugh, Dix. That’s the way he died. He was a good man, lots of ways, but they made him an outlaw, and he lived in hell and that’s the way he died. It was McGurk, of course. D’you hear me, Dix?”

“Every word.”

“Honey, you’re not goin’ to do it?”

“How can I leave Oñate? The whole range’d say I was takin’ water!”

“Nobody that knows you, and what d’you care about the rest?”

“It ain’t really what people think about me. It’s what I think about myself. I owe Oñate a trip to hell, and I’m going to send him there!”

“Is that final, Dix?”

“I got an idea it is.”

“Then, God help us!”

“Even that won’t drive you away from me, Jack?”

“I thought it would, but it don’t seem to.”

“D’you know where I’ll find Oñate?”

“Back in Double Bend. He knows you’re free, and he knows that you’re pardoned. So he’s got his house full of men. He’s about to ride down to his old house in Guadalupe, they say. He’s waiting for you to come back to Double Bend and get him. Is that clear?”

“Then we start back on the double.”

They turned their horses and jogged slowly up the rise of ground for the white stallion was wearied to the death.

“When we get into action, let me do the shooting, Dix.”

“You!”

“Sure. They ain’t so hard on a woman in these parts. Let me take my chances with Oñate, and I’ll ’count for the Mexican.”

“You?” he stammered. “D’you mean to say you’d even take a hand at the shooting yourself, Jack?”

“Oh, Dix,” she said sadly, “I been raised with a gun in my hand. My whole life…it ain’t been anything but one long fight. With a gun there ain’t anybody better ’n me on the whole range.”

“Even without the cross to help you?” he asked wonderingly.

“Even without the cross,” she nodded. “There was once two men who could’ve beat me to the draw. One of them
was McGurk. But his heart was broken and that’s how I got his horse.”

“I thought he was killed?” said the big man curiously.

“Nope. I met him after he was beat.”

“Who beat him?”

“Another man.”

“Well?”

“Dix, I’d rather talk about anything in the world better than about that one man.”

“I got an idea,” mused Dix Van Dyck, “that the feller that beat McGurk had something to do with the cross.”

She would not answer. He gave up the riddle, and they rode side by side, slowly still, up the slope and down the next toward Double Bend.