The Girl of the Golden West, David Belasco [read with me txt] 📗

And even as he spoke his trained ear caught the sound of horses hoofs. "Why, they're coming now!" he exclaimed with suppressed excitement, and his eyes immediately fastened themselves on his saddle.

The Girl looked her disappointment when she said:

"I'm awfully sorry you've got to go. I was goin' to say--" She stopped, and began to roll the keg back to its place. Now she took the lantern from the bar and placed it on the keg; then turning to him once more she went on in a voice that was distinctly persuasive: "If you didn't have to go so soon, I would like to have you come up to the cabin to-night an' we would talk o' reachin' out up there. You see, the boys will be back here--we close The Polka at one--any time after . . ."

Hesitatingly, helplessly, Johnson stared at the Girl before him. His acceptance, he realised only too well, meant a pleasant hour or two for him, of which there were only too few in the mad career that he was following, and he wanted to take advantage of it; on the other hand, his better judgment told him that already he should be on his way.

"Why, I--I should ride on now." He began and then stopped, the next moment, however, he threw down his hat on the table in resignation and announced: "I'll come."

"Oh, good!" cried the Girl, making no attempt to conceal her delight. "You can use this," she went on, handing him the lantern. "It's the straight trail up; you can't miss it. But I say, don't expect too much o' me--I've only had thirty-two dollars' worth o' education." Despite her struggle to control herself, her voice broke and her eyes filled with tears. "P'r'aps if I'd had more," she kept on, regretfully, "why, you can't tell what I might have been. Say, that's a terrible tho't, ain't it? What we might a been--an' I know it when I look at you."

Johnson was deeply touched at the Girl's distress, and his voice broke, too, as he said:

"Yes, what we might have been is a terrible thought, and I know it, Girl, when I look at you--when I look at you."

"You bet!" ejaculated the Girl. And then to Johnson's consternation she broke down completely, burying her face in her hands and sobbing out: "Oh, 'tain't no use, I'm rotten, I'm ignorant, I don't know nothin' an' I never knowed it 'till to-night! The boys always tol' me I knowed so much, but they're such damn liars!"

In an instant Johnson was beside her, patting her hand caressingly; she felt the sympathy in his touch and was quick to respond to it.

"Don't you care, Girl, you're all right," he told her, choking back with difficulty the tears in his own voice. "Your heart's all right, that's the main thing. And as for your looks? Well, to me you've got the face of an angel--the face--" He broke off abruptly and ended with: "Oh, but I must be going now!"

A moment more and he stood framed in the doorway, his saddle in one hand and the Girl's lantern in the other, torn by two emotions which grappled with each other in his bosom. "Johnson, what the devil's the matter with you?" he muttered half-aloud; then suddenly pulling himself together he stumbled rather than walked out of The Polka into the night.

Motionless and trying to check her sobs, the Girl remained where he had left her; but a few minutes later, when Nick entered, all trace of her tears had disappeared.

"Nick," said she, all smiles now, "run over to The Palmetto restaurant an' tell 'em to send me up two charlotte rusks an' a lemming turnover--a good, big, fat one--jest as quick as they can--right up to the cabin for supper."

"He says I have the face of an angel," is what the Girl repeated over and over again to herself when perched up again on the poker table after the wondering barkeeper had departed on her errand, and for a brief space of time her countenance reflected the joy that Johnson's parting words had imprinted on her heart. But in the Girl's character there was an element too prosaic, and too practical, to permit her thoughts to dwell long in a region lifted far above the earth. It was inevitable, therefore, that the notion should presently strike her as supremely comic and, quickly leaping to the floor, she let out the one word which, however adequately it may have expressed her conflicting emotions, is never by any chance to be found in the vocabulary of angels in good standing.


IX.


Notwithstanding that The Palmetto was the most pretentious building in Cloudy, and was the only rooming and eating house that outwardly asserted its right to be called an hotel, its saloon contrasted unfavourably with its rival, The Polka. There was not the individuality of the Girl there to charm away the impress of coarseness settled upon it by the loafers, the habitual drunkards and the riffraff of the camp, who were not tolerated elsewhere. In short, it did not have that certain indefinable something which gave to The Polka Saloon an almost homelike appearance, but was a drab, squalid, soulless place with nothing to recommend it but its size.

In a small parlour pungent at all times with the odour of liquor,--but used only on rare occasions, most of The Palmetto's patrons preferring the even more stifling atmosphere of the bar-room,--the Wells Fargo Agent had been watching and waiting ever since he had left The Polka Saloon. On a table in front of him was a bottle, for it was a part of Ashby's scheme of things to solace thus all such weary hours.

Although a shrewd judge of women of the Nina Micheltorena type and by no means unmindful of their mercurial temperament, Ashby, nevertheless, had felt that she would keep her appointment with him. In the Mexican Camp he had read the wild jealousy in her eyes, and had assumed, not unnaturally, that there had been scarcely time for anything to occur which would cause a revulsion of feeling on her part. But as the moments went by, and still she did not put in an appearance, an expression of keen disappointment showed itself on his face and, with mechanical regularity, he carried out the liquid programme, shutting his eyes after each drink for moments at a time yet, apparently, in perfect control of his mind when he opened them again; and it was in one of these moments that he heard a step outside which he correctly surmised to be that of the Sheriff.

Without a word Rance walked into the room and over to the table and helped himself to a drink from the bottle there, which action the Wells Fargo Agent rightly interpreted as meaning that the posse had failed to catch their quarry. At first a glint of satisfaction shone in Ashby's eyes: not that he disliked Rance, but rather that he resented his egotistical manner and evident desire to overawe all who came in contact with him; and it required, therefore, no little effort on his part to banish this look from his face and make up his mind not to mention the subject in any manner.

For some time, therefore, the two officers sat opposite to each other inhaling the stale odour of tobacco and spirits peculiar to this room, with little or no ventilation. It was enough to sicken anyone, but both men, accustomed to such places in the pursuit of their calling, apparently thought nothing of it, the Sheriff seemingly absorbed in contemplating the long ash at the end of his cigar, but, in reality, turning over in his mind whether he should leave the room or not. At length, he inaugurated a little contest of opinion.

"This woman isn't coming, that's certain," he declared, impatiently.

"I rather think she will; she promised not to fail me," was the other's quiet answer; and he added: "In ten minutes you'll see her."

It was a rash remark and expressive of a confidence that he by no means felt. As a matter of fact, it was induced solely by the cynical smile which he perceived on the Sheriff's face.

"You, evidently, take no account of the fact that the lady may have changed her mind," observed Rance, lighting a fresh cigar. "The Nina Micheltorenas are fully as privileged as others of their sex."

As he drained his glass Ashby gave the speaker a sharp glance; another side of Rance's character had cropped out. Moreover, Ashby's quick intuition told him that the other's failure to catch the outlaw was not troubling him nearly as much as was the blow which his conceit had probably received at the hands of the Girl. It was, therefore, in an indulgent tone that he said:

"No, Rance, not this one nor this time. You mark my words, the woman is through with Ramerrez. At least, she is so jealous that she thinks she is. She'll turn up here, never fear; she means business."

The shoulders of Mr. Jack Rance strongly suggested a shrug, but the man himself said nothing. They were anything but sympathetic companions, these two officers, and in the silence that ensued Rance formulated mentally more than one disparaging remark about the big man sitting opposite to him. It is possible, of course, that the Sheriff's rebuff by the Girl, together with the wild goose chase which he had recently taken against his better judgment, had something to do with this bitterness; but it was none the less true that he found himself wondering how Ashby had succeeded in acquiring his great reputation. Among the things that he held against him was his everlasting propensity to boast of his achievements, to say nothing of the pedestal upon which the boys insisted upon placing him. Was this Wells Fargo's most famous agent? Was this the man whose warnings were given such credence that they stirred even the largest of the gold camps into a sense of insecurity? And at this Rance indulged again in a fit of mental merriment at the other's expense.

But, although he would have denied it in toto, the truth of the matter was that the Sheriff was jealous of Ashby. Witty, generous, and a high liver, the latter was generally regarded as a man who fascinated women; moreover, he was known to be a favourite--and here the shoe pinched--with the Girl. True, the demands of his profession were such as to prevent his staying long in any camp. Nevertheless, it seemed to Rance that he contrived frequently to turn up at The Polka when the boys were at the diggings.

After Ashby's observation the conversation by mutual, if unspoken, consent, was switched into other channels. But it may be truthfully said that Rance did not wholly recover his mental equilibrium until a door was heard to open noiselessly and some whispered words in Spanish fell upon their ears.

Now the Sheriff, as well as Ashby, had the detective instinct fully developed; moreover, both men knew a few words of that language and had an extreme curiosity to hear the conversation going on between a man and a woman, who were standing just outside in a sort of hallway. As a result, therefore, both officers sprang to the door with the hope--if indeed it was Nina Micheltorena as they surmised--that they might catch a word or two which would give them a clue to what was likely to take place at the coming interview. It came sooner than they expected.

". . . Ramerrez--Five thousand dollars!" reached their ears in a soft,