For the first half mile we rode without a word from either of us to violate the that swathed us like the night. What her thoughts were I might not know, but they sat heavy upon her, closing her throat with the torture of vain self-reproach. That much I sensed. But I could not her; could not volunteer to her that I welcomed her company, that she was blameless, that I had only defended my honor, that affairs would have reduced to pistol work without impulse from her—that, in short, the responsibility had been wholly Daniel’s. My own thoughts were so grievous as to crush me with aching that forebade civil .
This, then, was I: somebody who had just killed a man, had broken from the open trail and was riding, he knew not where, through darkness worse than night, himself an with an woman—at the best a chance woman, an adventuring woman, 262and as everybody could know, a claimed woman, product of dance hall and gaming resort, wife of a half-breed gambler, and now spoil of fist and revolver.
But that which burned me almost to madness, like hot the deadening crust, was the thought that I had done a deed and a defensible deed, and was fleeing from it the same as a criminal. Such a never had occurred to me or I might have taken a different course, still with ; although what course I could not figure.
We rode, our picking their way, occasionally stumbling on rocks and . At last she in low, even tones.
“What do you expect to do with me, please?”
“We shall have to do whatever is best for yourself,” I managed to answer. “That will be when we reach the stage line, I suppose.”
“Thank you. Once at the stage line and I shall . You must have no thought of me. I understand very well that we should not travel far in company—and you may not wish to go in my direction. You have plans of your own?”
“None of any great moment. Everything has failed me, to date. There is only the one place left: New York State, where I came from. I probably can work my way back—at least, until I can recoup by telegraph message and the mails.”
“You have one more place than I,” she replied.She hesitated. “Will you let me lend you some money?”
“I’ve been paid my wages due,” said I. “But,” I added, “you have a place, you have a home: Benton.”
“Oh, Benton!” She laughed under breath. “Never Benton. I shall make shift without Benton.”
“You will tell me, though?” I urged. “I must have your address, to know that you reach safety.”
“You are business. I believe that I accused you before of being a Yankee.” And I read in her words.
Her voice had a quality of definite estimation which , , and me, as if I lacked in some essential to a standard set.
“So you are going home, are you?” she resumed. “With the clothes on your back, or will you stop at Benton for your trunk?”
“With the clothes on my back,” I asserted bitterly. “I’ve no desire to see Benton. The trunk can be shipped to me.”
She said on, in her cool tone.
“That is the easiest way. You will live warm and comfortably. You will need to wear no belt weapon. The police will protect you. If a man injures you, you can summon him at law and wash your hands of him. Instead of staking on your luck among new people, you can enter into business among your friends and win from them. You can marry the girl 264next door—or even take the chance of the one across the street, her parentage being comme il faut. You can tell stories of your trip into the Far West; your children will love to hear of the rough mule-whacker trail—yes, you will have great tales but you will not mention that you killed a man who tried to kill you and then rode for a night with a strange woman alone at your stirrup. Perhaps you will venture to revisit these parts by steam train, and from the windows of your coach point out the places where you suffered those hardships and adventures from which you escaped by leaving them altogether. Your course is the safe course. By all means take it, Mr. Beeson, and have your trunk follow you.”
“That I shall do, madam,” I retorted. “The West and I have not agreed; and, I fear, never shall.”
“By honest , it has bested you; and in short order.”
“In short order, since you put it that way. Only a fool doesn’t know when to quit.”
“The greatest fool is the one who fools himself, in the quitting as in other matters. But you will have no regrets—except about Daniel, possibly.”
“None whatever, save the regret that I ever tried this country. I wish to God I had never seen it—I did not conceive that I should have to take a human life—should be forced to that—become like an outlaw in the night, riding for refuge——” And I choked .265
“You deserve much sympathy,” she remarked, in that even tone.
I into a of voiceless rage at myself, at her, at Daniel’s treachery, at all the train, at Benton, and again at this damning predicament wherein I had landed. When I was bound to free after having done my utmost, she appeared to be twitting me because I would not submit to farther use by her. I certainly had the right to myself in the only way left.
So I over and over, and my heart , and the acid of vexation boiled in my throat, and despite the axle grease my arm ; while we rode unspeaking, like some guilty pair through .
My lip had ; the pistol wound was superficial. Under different circumstances the way would have been full of beauty. The high desert stretched vastly, far, far, far before, behind, on either side, the gauntness of its daytime aspect and evanescent. For the moon, now risen, although on the , shed a light sufficient, whitening the rocks and the low shrubs, painting the land with sharp black shadows, and enclosing us about with the mystery of great softly illumined spaces into which silent forms vanished as if us aside. Of these—rabbits, wolves, animals only to be guessed—there were many, like potential quickened by the touch of the moonbeams. Mule-back, we twain towered, the sole intruders visible between the two elysians of earth and sky.
The course was southward. After a time it seemed to me that we were from the plateau; craunching gradually down a flank until, in a mile or so, we were again upon the level, cutting through another basin formed by the dried bed of an ancient lake whose waters had evaporated into deposits of salt and .
At first the mules had with ears forward, and with snorts and stares as if they were seeing in the moonshine. Eventually their imaginings dulled, so that they now moved careless of where or why, their heads
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