The Border Legion by Zane Grey (which ebook reader TXT) đź“–
- Author: Zane Grey
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A strong, muscular ripple went over Cleve, ending in a gesture of fierce protest. Was it pain her words caused, or disgust that such as she dared mention the girl he had loved? Joan could not tell. She only knew that Cleve was drawn by her presence, fascinated and repelled, subtly responding to the spirit of her, doubting what he heard and believing with his eyes.
“You beg me not to become a bandit?” he asked, slowly, as if revolving a strange idea.
“Oh, I implore you!”
“Why?”
“I told you. Because you're still good at heart. You've only been wild.... Because—”
“Are you the wife of Kells?” he flashed at her.
A reply seemed slowly wrenched from Joan's reluctant lips. “No!”
The denial left a silence behind it. The truth that all knew when spoken by her was a kind of shock. The ruffians gaped in breathless attention. Kells looked on with a sardonic grin, but he had grown pale. And upon the face of Cleve shone an immeasurable scorn.
“Not his wife!” exclaimed Cleve, softly.
His tone was unendurable to Joan. She began to shrink. A flame curled within her. How he must hate any creature of her sex!
“And you appeal to me!” he went on. Suddenly a weariness came over him. The complexity of women was beyond him. Almost he turned his back upon her. “I reckon such as you can't keep me from Kells—or blood—or hell!”
“Then you're a narrow-souled weakling—born to crime!” she burst out in magnificent wrath. “For however appearances are against me—I am a good woman!”
That stunned him, just as it drew Kells upright, white and watchful. Cleve seemed long in grasping its significance. His face was half averted. Then he turned slowly, all strung, and his hands clutched quiveringly at the air. No man of coolness and judgment would have addressed him or moved a step in that strained moment. All expected some such action as had marked his encounter with Luce and Gulden.
Then Cleve's gaze in unmistakable meaning swept over Joan's person. How could her appearance and her appeal be reconciled? One was a lie! And his burning eyes robbed Joan of spirit.
“He forced me to—to wear these,” she faltered. “I'm his prisoner. I'm helpless.”
With catlike agility Cleve leaped backward, so that he faced all the men, and when his hands swept to a level they held gleaming guns. His utter abandon of daring transfixed these bandits in surprise as much as fear. Kells appeared to take most to himself the menace.
“I CRAWL!” he said, huskily. “She speaks the God's truth.... But you can't help matters by killing me. Maybe she'd be worse off!”
He expected this wild boy to break loose, yet his wit directed him to speak the one thing calculated to check Cleve.
“Oh, don't shoot!” moaned Joan.
“You go outside,” ordered Cleve. “Get on a horse and lead another near the door.... Go! I'll take you away from this.”
Both temptation and terror assailed Joan. Surely that venture would mean only death to Jim and worse for her. She thrilled at the thought—at the possibility of escape—at the strange front of this erstwhile nerveless boy. But she had not the courage for what seemed only desperate folly.
“I'll stay,” she whispered. “You go!”
“Hurry, woman!”
“No! No!”
“Do you want to stay with this bandit?”
“Oh, I must!”
“Then you love him?”
All the fire of Joan's heart flared up to deny the insult and all her woman's cunning fought to keep back words that inevitably must lead to revelation. She drooped, unable to hold up under her shame, yet strong to let him think vilely of her, for his sake. That way she had a barest chance.
“Get out of my sight!” he ejaculated, thickly. “I'd have fought for you.”
Again that white, weary scorn radiated from him. Joan bit her tongue to keep from screaming. How could she live under this torment? It was she, Joan Randle, that had earned that scorn, whether he knew her or not. She shrank back, step by step, almost dazed, sick with a terrible inward, coldness, blinded by scalding tears. She found her door and stumbled in.
“Kells, I'm what you called me.” She heard Cleve's voice, strangely far off. “There's no excuse... unless I'm not just right in my head about women.... Overlook my break or don't—as you like. But if you want me I'm ready for your Border Legion!”
12
Those bitter words of Cleve's, as if he mocked himself, were the last Joan heard, and they rang in her ears and seemed to reverberate through her dazed mind like a knell of doom. She lay there, all blackness about her, weighed upon by an insupportable burden; and she prayed that day might never dawn for her; a nightmare of oblivion ended at last with her eyes opening to the morning light.
She was cold and stiff. She had lain uncovered all the long hours of night. She had not moved a finger since she had fallen upon the bed, crushed by those bitter words with which Cleve had consented to join Kells's Legion. Since then Joan felt that she had lived years. She could not remember a single thought she might have had during those black hours; nevertheless, a decision had been formed in her mind, and it was that to-day she would reveal herself to Jim Cleve if it cost both their lives. Death was infinitely better than the suspense and fear and agony she had endured; and as for Jim, it would at least save him from crime.
Joan got up, a little dizzy and unsteady upon her feet. Her hands appeared clumsy and shaky. All the blood in her seemed to surge from heart to brain and it hurt her to breathe. Removing her mask, she bathed her face and combed her hair. At first she conceived an idea to go out without her face covered, but she thought better of it. Cleve's reckless defiance had communicated itself to her. She could not now be stopped.
Kells was gay and excited that morning. He paid her compliments. He said they would soon be out of this lonely gulch and she would see the sight of her life—a gold strike. She would see men wager a fortune on the turn of a card, lose, laugh, and go back to the digging. He said he would take her to Sacramento and 'Frisco and buy her everything any girl could desire. He was wild, voluble, unreasoning—obsessed by the
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