Randall Parrish - Beth Norvell

R >> Randall Parrish >> Beth Norvell

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

The intense agony apparent in his voice seemed to break her down
utterly. The tears sprang blinding to her dry eyes, her head bent
forward.

"And," she asked, as if the thought had not yet reached her
understanding, "you will not go without--without me?"

"No; whatever the result, no."

She lifted her face, white, haggard, and looked at him through the mist
obscuring her eyes, no longer wide opened in wildness.

"Then I must go; I must go," she exclaimed, a shudder shaking her from
head to foot; "God help me, I must go!"

A moment she gazed blankly back toward the motionless body on the
ground, the ghastly countenance upturned to the stars, her own face as
white as the dead, one hand pressing back her dark hair. She reeled
from sudden faintness, yet, before he could touch her in support, she
had sunk upon her knees, with head bowed low, the long tresses trailing
upon the ground.

"Beth! Beth!" he cried in an agony of fear.

She looked up at him, her expression that of earnest pleading.

"Yes, yes, I will go," she said, the words trembling; "but--but let me
pray first."

He stood motionless above her, his heart throbbing, his own eyes
lowered upon the ground. He was conscious of the movement of her lips,
yet could never afterward recall even a broken sentence of that prayer.
Possibly it was too sacred even for his ears, only to be measured by
the infinite love of God. She ceased to speak at last, the low voice
sinking into an inarticulate whisper, yet she remained kneeling there
motionless, no sound audible excepting her repressed sobbing. Driven
by the requirements of haste, Winston touched her gently upon the
shoulder.

"Come, my girl," he said, the sight of her suffering almost more than
he could bear. "You have done all you can here now."

She arose to her feet slowly, never looking toward him, never appearing
to heed his presence. He noticed the swelling of her throat as though
the effort to breathe choked her, the quick spasmodic heaving of her
bosom, and set his teeth, struggling against the strain upon his own
nerves.

"You will go with me now?"

She glanced about at him, her eyes dull, unseeing.

"Oh, yes--now," she answered, as if the words were spoken
automatically. He led her away, ignoring the constant efforts she
made, as they climbed the bank, to gaze back across his shoulder.
Finally the intervening branches completely hid that white, dead face
below, and, as if with it had vanished all remaining strength of will,
or power of body, the girl drooped her head against him, swaying
blindly as she walked. Without a word he drew her close within his
arm, her hair blowing across his face, her hand gripping his shoulder.
It was thus they came forth amid the clearer starlight upon the ridge
summit. Again and again as they moved slowly he strove to speak, to
utter some word of comfort, of sympathy. But he could not--the very
expression of her partially revealed face, as he caught glimpses of it,
held him speechless. Deep within his heart he knew her trouble was
beyond the ministration of words. Some one was standing out in front
of the cabin. His eyes perceived the figure as they approached, and he
could not bring himself to speak of this thing of horror in her
presence.

"Beth," he said gently, but had to touch her to attract attention, "I
want you to sit here and wait while I arrange for our journey. You are
not afraid?"

"No," her voice utterly devoid of emotion, "I am not afraid."

"You will remain here?"

She looked at him, her face expressionless, as though she failed to
understand. Yet when he pointed to the stone she sat down.

"Yes," she answered, speaking those common words hesitatingly as if
they were from some unfamiliar foreign tongue, "I am to do what you
say."

She bent wearily down, her head buried within her hands. For a moment
Winston stood hesitating, scarcely daring to leave her. But she did
not move, and finally he turned away, walking directly toward that
indistinct figure standing beside the cabin door. As he drew closer he
recognized the old miner, his rifle half-raised in suspicion of his
visitor. It must be done, and the engineer went at his task directly.

"Has Brown come back?"

"Shore; he 's in thar now," and Hicks peered cautiously into the face
of his questioner, even while pointing back into the dark cabin. "He
come in a while ago; never said no word ter me, but just pushed past in
thar ter the bed, an' kneeled down with his face in the bed-clothes.
He ain't moved ner spoke since. I went in onct, an' tried ter talk ter
him, but he never so much as stirred, er looked at me. I tell yer, Mr.
Winston, it just don't seem nat'ral; 't ain't a bit like Stutter fer
ter act in that way. I just could n't stand it no longer, an' had ter
git out yere into the open air. Damn, but it makes me sick."

"This has been a terrible night," the younger man said gravely, laying
his hand upon the other's shoulder. "I hope never to pass through such
another. But we are not done with it yet. Hicks, Farnham has been
killed--shot. His body lies over yonder in that little cove, just
beyond the trail. You will have to attend to it, for I am going to get
his wife away from here at once."

"You are what?"

"I am going to take Miss Norvell away--now, to-night. I am going to
take her across to Daggett Station, to catch the east-bound train."

Hicks stared at him open-eyed, the full meaning of all this coming to
his mind by degrees.

"Good God! Do yer think she did it?" he questioned incredulously.

Winston shook him, his teeth grinding together savagely.

"Damn you! it makes no difference what I think!" he exclaimed fiercely,
his nerves throbbing. "All you need to know is that she is going;
going to-night; going to Daggett Station, to Denver, to wherever she
will be beyond danger of ever being found. You understand that? She
's going with me, and you are going to help us, and you are going to do
your part without asking any more fool questions."

"What is it you want?"

"Your horse, and the pony Mercedes was riding."

Hicks uttered a rasping oath, that seemed to catch, growling, in his
lean throat.

"But, see yere, Winston," he protested warmly. "Just look at the shape
your goin' now will leave us in yere at the 'Little Yankee.' We need
yer testimony, an' need it bad."

Winston struck his hand against the log, as slight vent to his feelings.

"Hicks, I never supposed you were a fool. You know better than that,
if you will only stop and think. This claim matter is settled already.
The whole trouble originated with Farnham, and he is dead. Tomorrow
you 'll bury him. The sheriff is here, and he's already beginning to
understand this affair. He stands to help you. Now, all you 've got
to do is to swear out warrants for Farnham's partners, and show up in
evidence that tunnel running along your lead. It's simple as A B C,
now that you know it's there. They can't beat you, and you don't
require a word of testimony from me. But that poor girl needs
me,--she's almost crazed by this thing,--and I 'm going with her, if I
have to fight my way out from here with a rifle. That's the whole of
it--either you give me those horses, or I 'll take them."

Old Hicks looked into the grim face fronting him so threateningly, the
complete situation slowly revealing itself to his mind.

"Great Guns!" he said at last, almost apologetically. "Yer need n't do
nothin' like that. Lord, no! I like yer first rate, an' I like the
girl. Yer bet I do, an' I 'm damn glad that Farnham 's knocked out.
Shore, I 'll help the both o' yer. I reckon Stutter 'd be no good as a
guide ter-night, but I kin show yer the way down the ravine. The rest
is just ridin'. Yer kin leave them hosses with the section-boss at
Daggett till I come fer 'em."

CHAPTER XXVIII

ACROSS THE DESERT TO THE END

Never in the after years could Winston clearly recall the incidents of
that night's ride across the sand waste. The haze which shrouded his
brain would never wholly lift. Except for a few detached details the
surroundings of that journey remained vague, clouded, indistinct. He
remembered the great, burning desert; the stars gleaming down above
them like many eyes; the ponderous, ragged edge of cloud in the west;
the irregular, castellated range of hills at their back; the dull
expanse of plain ever stretching away in front, with no boundary other
than that southern sky. The weird, ghostly shadows of cactus and
Spanish bayonet were everywhere; strange, eerie noises were borne to
them out of the void--the distant cries of prowling wolves, the
mournful sough of the night wind, the lonely hoot of some far-off owl.
Nothing greeted the roving eyes but desolation,--a desolation utter and
complete, a mere waste of tumbled sand, by daylight whitened here and
there by irregular patches of alkali, but under the brooding night
shadows lying brown, dull, forlorn beyond all expression, a trackless,
deserted ocean of mystery, oppressive in its drear sombreness.

He rode straight south, seeking no trail, but guiding their course by
the stars, his right hand firmly grasping the pony's bit, and
continually urging his own mount to faster pace. The one thought
dominating his mind was the urgent necessity for haste--a savage
determination to intercept that early train eastward. Beyond this
single idea his brain seemed in hopeless turmoil, seemed failing him.
Any delay meant danger, discovery, the placing of her very life in
peril. He could grasp that; he could plan, guide, act in every way the
part of a man under its inspiration, but all else appeared chaos. The
future?--there was no future; there never again could be. The chasm of
a thousand years had suddenly yawned between him and this woman. It
made his head reel merely to gaze down into those awful depths. It
could not be bridged; no sacrifice, no compensation might ever undo
that fatal death-shot. He did not blame her, he did not question her
justification, but he understood--together they faced the inevitable.
There was no escape, no clearing of the record. There was nothing left
him to do except this, this riding through the night--absolutely
nothing. Once he had guided her into safety all was done,--done
forever; there remained to him no other hope, ambition, purpose, in all
this world. The desert about them typified that forthcoming
existence--barren, devoid of life, dull, and dead. He set his teeth
savagely to keep back the moan of despair that rose to his lips, half
lifting himself in the stirrups to glance back toward her.

If she perceived anything there was not the slightest reflection of it
within her eyes. Lustreless, undeviating, they were staring directly
ahead into the gloom, her face white and almost devoid of expression.
The sight of it turned him cold and sick, his unoccupied hand gripping
the saddle-pommel as though he would crush the leather. Yet he did not
speak, for there was nothing to say. Between these two was a fact,
grim, awful, unchangeable. Fronting it, words were meaningless,
pitiable.

He had never before known that she could ride, but he knew it now. His
eye noted the security of her seat in the saddle, the easy swaying of
her slender form to the motion of the pony, in apparent unconsciousness
of the hard travelling or the rapidity of their progress. She had
drawn back the long tresses of her hair and fastened them in place by
some process of mystery, so that now her face was revealed unshadowed,
clearly defined in the starlight. Dazed, expressionless, as it
appeared, looking strangely deathlike in that faint radiance, he loved
it, his moistened eyes fondly tracing every exposed lineament. God!
but this fair woman was all the world to him! In spite of everything,
his heart went forth to her unchanged. It was Fate, not lack of love
or loyalty, that now set them apart, that had made of their future a
path of bitterness. In his groping mind he rebelled against it, vainly
searching for some way out, urging blindly that love could even blot
out this thing in time, could erase the crime, leaving them as though
it had never been. Yet he knew better. Once she spoke out of the
haunting silence, her voice sounding strange, her eyes still fixed in
that same vacant stare ahead into the gloom.

"Isn't this Mercedes' pony? I--I thought she rode away on him herself?"

With the words the recollection recurred to him that she did not yet
know about that other tragedy. It was a hard task, but he met it
bravely. Quietly as he might, he told the sad story in so far as he
understood it--the love, the sacrifice, the suffering. As she listened
her head drooped ever lower, and he saw the glitter of tears falling
unchecked. He was glad she could cry; it was better than that dull,
dead stare. As he made an end, picturing the sorrowing Stutter
kneeling in his silent watch at the bedside, she looked gravely across
to him, the moisture clinging to the long lashes.

"It was better so--far better. I know how she felt, for she has told
me. God was merciful to her;" the soft voice broke into a sob; "for
me, there is no mercy."

"Beth, don't say that! Little woman, don't say that! The future is
long; it may yet lead to happiness. A true love can outlast even the
memory of this night."

She shook her head wearily, sinking back into the saddle.

"Yes," she said soberly, "love may, and I believe will, outlast all.
It is immortal. But even love cannot change the deed; nothing ever
can, nothing--no power of God or man."

He did not attempt to answer, knowing in the depths of his own heart
that her words were true. For an instant she continued gazing at him,
as though trustful he might speak, might chance to utter some word of
hope that had not come to her. Then the uplifted head drooped wearily,
the searching eyes turning away to stare once again straight ahead.
His very silence was acknowledgment of the truth, the utter
hopelessness of the future. Although living, there lay between them
the gulf of death.

Gray, misty, and silent came the dawn, stealing across the wide
desolation like some ghostly presence--the dawn of a day which held for
these two nothing except despair. They greeted its slow coming with
dulled, wearied eyes, unwelcoming. Drearier amid that weird twilight
than in the concealing darkness stretched the desolate waste of
encircling sand, its hideous loneliness rendered more apparent, its
scars of alkali disfiguring the distance, its gaunt cacti looking
deformed and merciless. The horses moved forward beneath the constant
urging of the spur, worn from fatigue, their heads drooping, their
flanks wet, their dragging hoofs ploughing the sand. The woman never
changed her posture, never seemed to realize the approach of dawn; but
Winston roused up, lifting his head to gaze wearily forward. Beneath
the gray, out-spreading curtain of light he saw before them the dingy
red of a small section-house, with a huge, rusty water-tank outlined
against the sky. Lower down a little section of vividly green grass
seemed fenced about by a narrow stream of running water. At first
glimpse he deemed it a mirage, and rubbed his half-blinded eyes to make
sure. Then he knew they had ridden straight through the night, and
that this was Daggett Station.

He helped her down from the saddle without a word, without the exchange
of a glance, steadying her gently as she stood trembling, and finally
half carried her in his arms across the little platform to the rest of
a rude bench. The horses he turned loose to seek their own pasturage
and water, and then came back, uncertain, filled with vague misgiving,
to where she sat, staring wide-eyed out into the desolation of sand.
He brought with him a tin cup filled with water, and placed it in her
hand. She drank it down thirstily.

"Thank you," she said, her voice sounding more natural.

"Is there nothing else, Beth? Could you eat anything?"

"No, nothing. I am just tired--oh, so tired in both body and brain.
Let me sit here in quiet until the train comes. Will that be long?"

He pointed far off toward the westward, along those parallel rails now
beginning to gleam in the rays of the sun. On the outer rim of the
desert a black spiral of smoke was curling into the horizon.

"It is coming now; we had but little time to spare."

"Is that a fast train? Are you certain it will stop here?"

"To both questions, yes," he replied, relieved to see her exhibit some
returning interest. "They all stop here for water; it is a long run
from this place to Bolton Junction."

She said nothing in reply, her gaze far down the track where those
spirals of smoke were constantly becoming more plainly visible. In the
increasing light of the morning he could observe how the long night had
marked her face with new lines of weariness, had brought to it new
shadows of care. It was not alone the dulled, lustreless eyes, but
also those hollows under them, and the drawn lips, all combining to
tell the story of physical fatigue, and a heart-sickness well-nigh
unendurable. Unable to bear the sight, Winston turned away, walking to
the end of the short platform, staring off objectless into the grim
desert, fighting manfully in an effort to conquer himself. This was a
struggle, a remorseless struggle, for both of them; he must do nothing,
say nothing, which should weaken her, or add an ounce to her burden.
He came back again, his lips firmly closed in repression.

"Our train is nearly here," he said in lack of something better with
which to break the constrained silence.

She glanced about doubtfully, first toward the yet distant train, then
up into his face.

"When is the local east due here? Do you know?"

"Probably an hour later than the express. At least, I judge so from
the time of its arrival at Bolton," he responded, surprised at the
question. "Why do you ask?"

She did not smile, or stir, except to lean slightly forward, her eyes
falling from his face to the platform.

"Would--would it be too much if I were to ask you to permit me to take
this first train alone?" she asked, her voice faltering, her hands
trembling where they were clasped in her lap.

His first bewildered surprise precluded speech; he could only look at
her in stupefied amazement. Then something within her lowered face
touched him with pity.

"Beth," he exclaimed, hardly aware of the words used, "do you mean
that? Is it your wish that we part here?

"Oh, no, not that!" and she rose hastily, holding to the back of the
bench with one hand, and extending the other. "Do not put it in that
way. Such an act would be cruel, unwarranted. But I am so tired, so
completely broken down. It has seemed all night long as though my
brain were on fire; every step of the horse has been torture. Oh, I
want so to be alone--alone! I want to think this out; I want to face
it all by myself. Merciful God! it seems to me I shall be driven
insane unless I can be alone, unless I can find a way into some peace
of soul. Do not blame me; do not look at me like that, but be
merciful--if you still love me, let me be alone."

He grasped the extended hand, bending low over it, unwilling in that
instant that she should look upon his face. Again and again he pressed
his dry lips upon the soft flesh.

"I do love you, Beth," he said at last, chokingly, "love you always, in
spite of everything. I will do now as you say. Your train is already
here. You know my address in Denver. Don't make this forever,
Beth--don't do that."

She did not answer him; her lips quivered, her eyes meeting his for a
single instant. In their depths he believed he read the answer of her
heart, and endeavored to be content. As the great overland train
paused for a moment to quench its thirst, the porter of the Pullman,
who, to his surprise, had been called to place his carpeted step on the
platform of this desert station, gazed in undisguised amazement at
those two figures before him--a man bareheaded, his clothing tattered
and disreputable, half supporting a woman who was hatless, white-faced,
and trembling like a frightened child.

"Yas, sah; whole section vacant, sah, Numbah Five. Denvah; yas, sah,
suttinly. Oh, I'll look after de lady all right. You ain't a-goin'
'long wid us, den, dis trip? Oh, yas; thank ye, sah. Sure, I'll see
dat she gits dere, don't you worry none 'bout dat."

Winston walked restlessly down the platform, gazing up at the
car-windows, every ounce of his mustered resolve necessary to hold him
outwardly calm. The curtains were many of them closed, but at last he
distinguished her, leaning against the glass, that same dull, listless
look in her eyes as she stared out blindly across the waste of sand.
As the train started he touched the window, and she turned and saw him.
There was a single moment when life came flashing back into her eyes,
when he believed her lips even smiled at him. Then he was alone,
gazing down the track after the fast disappearing train.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE SUMMIT OF SUCCESS

There followed three years of silence, three years of waiting for that
message which never came. As though she had dropped into an ocean of
oblivion, Beth Norvell disappeared. Winston had no longer the
slightest hope that a word from her would ever come, and there were
times when he wondered if it was not better so--if, after all, she had
not chosen rightly. Love untarnished lived in his heart; yet, as she
had told him out in the desert, love could never change the deed. That
remained--black, grim, unblotted, the unalterable death stain. Why,
then, should they meet? Why seek even to know of each other? Close
together, or far apart, there yawned a bottomless gulf between.
Silence was better; silence, and the mercy of partial forgetfulness.

Winston had toiled hard during those years, partly from a natural
liking, partly to forget his heartaches. Feverishly he had taken up
the tasks confronting him, sinking self in the thought of other things.
Such work had conquered success, for he did his part in subjecting
nature to man, thus winning a reputation already ranking him high among
the mining experts of the West. His had become a name to conjure with
in the mountains and mining camps. During the long months he had hoped
fiercely. Yet he had made no endeavor to seek her out, or to uncover
her secret. Deep within his heart lay a respect for her choice, and he
would have held it almost a crime to invade the privacy that her
continued silence had created. So he resolutely locked the secret
within his own soul, becoming more quiet in manner, more reserved in
speech, with every long month of waiting, constantly striving to forget
the past amid a multitude of business and professional cares.

It was at the close of a winter's day in Chicago. Snow clouds were
scurrying in from over the dun-colored waters of the lake, bringing
with them an early twilight. Already myriads of lights were twinkling
in the high office buildings, and showing brilliant above the smooth
asphalt of Michigan Avenue. The endless stream of vehicles homeward
bound began to thicken, the broad highway became a scene of continuous
motion and display. After hastily consulting the ponderous pages of a
city directory in an adjacent drug store, a young man, attired in dark
business suit, his broad shoulders those of an athlete, his face
strongly marked and full of character, and bronzed even at this season
by out-of-door living, hurried across the street and entered the busy
doorway of the Railway Exchange Building. On the seventh floor he
unceremoniously flung open a door bearing the number sought, and
stepped within to confront the office boy, who as instantly frowned his
disapproval.

"Office hours over," the latter announced shortly. "Just shuttin' up."

"I am not here on business, my lad," was the good-natured reply, "but
in the hope of catching Mr. Craig before he got away."

The boy, still somewhat doubtful, jerked his hand back across his
shoulder toward an inner apartment.

"Well, his nibs is in there, but he 's just a-goin'."

The visitor swung aside the gate and entered. The man within, engaged
in closing down his roll-top desk for the day, wheeled about in his
chair, quite evidently annoyed by so late a caller. An instant he
looked at the face, partially shadowed in the dim light, then sprang to
his feet, both hands cordially extended.

"Ned Winston, by all the gods!" he exclaimed, his voice full of
heartiness. "Say, but I 'm glad to see you, old man. Supposed it was
some bore wanting to talk business, and this happens to be my busy
night. By Jove, thought I never was going to break away from this
confounded desk--always like that when a fellow has a date. How are
you, anyhow? Looking fine as a fiddle. In shape to kick the pigskin
at this minute, I 'll bet a hundred. Denver yet, I suppose? Must be a
great climate out there, if you 're a specimen. Must like it, anyhow;
why, you 've simply buried yourself in the mountains. Some of the old
fellows were in here talking about it the other day. Have n't been
East before for a couple of years, have you, Ned?"

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20