The Hunted Woman, James Oliver Curwood [13 inch ebook reader .TXT] 📗

worse than you--Culver Rann."
The strange look in his face made old Donald stare.
"Sit down," he said, drawing two chairs close to the table. "There's something to talk about. It was a terribly close shave, wasn't it?"
"An awful close shave, Johnny. As close a shave as ever was."
Still, as if not quite understanding what he saw, old Donald was staring into John's face.
"I'm glad it happened," said Aldous, and his voice became softer. "She loves me, Mac. It all came out when we were in there, and thought we were going to die. Not ten minutes ago the minister was here, and he made us man and wife."
Words of gladness that sprang to the old man's lips were stopped by that strange, cold, tense look in the face of John Aldous.
"And in the last five minutes," continued Aldous, as quietly as before, "I have learned that Mortimer FitzHugh, her husband, is not dead. Is it very remarkable that you do not find me happy, Mac? If you had come a few minutes ago----"
"Oh, my God! Johnny! Johnny!"
MacDonald had pitched forward over the table, and now he bowed his great shaggy head in his hands, and his gaunt shoulders shook as his voice came brokenly through his beard.
"I did it, Johnny; I did it for you an' her! When I knew what it would mean for her--I _couldn't_, Johnny, I couldn't tell her the truth, 'cause I knew she loved you, an' you loved her, an' it would break her heart. I thought it would be best, an' you'd go away together, an' nobody would ever know, an' you'd be happy. I didn't lie. I didn't say anything. But Johnny--Johnny, _there weren't no bones in the grave!_"
"My God!" breathed Aldous.
"There were just some clothes," went on MacDonald huskily, "an' the watch an' the ring were on top. Johnny, there weren't nobody ever buried there, an' I'm to blame--I'm to blame."
"And you did that for us," cried Aldous, and suddenly he reached over and gripped old Donald's hands. "It wasn't a mistake, Mac. I thank God you kept silent. If you had told her that the grave was empty, that it was a fraud, I don't know what would have happened. And now--she is _mine!_ If she had seen Culver Rann, if she had discovered that this scoundrel, this blackmailer and murderer, was Mortimer FitzHugh, her husband----"
"Johnny! John Aldous!"
Donald MacDonald's voice came now like the deep growling roar of a she-bear, and as he cried the other's name he sprang to his feet, and his eyes gleamed in their deep sockets like raging fires.
"Johnny!"
Aldous rose, and he was smiling. He nodded.
"That's it," he said. "Mortimer FitzHugh is Culver Rann!"
"An'--an' you know this?"
"Absolutely. Joanne gave me Mortimer FitzHugh's photograph to destroy. I am sorry that I burned it before you saw it. But there is no doubt. Mortimer FitzHugh and Culver Rann are the same man."
Slowly the old mountaineer turned to the door. Aldous was ahead of him, and stood with his hand on the knob.
"I don't want you to go yet, Mac."
"I--I'll see you a little later," said Donald clumsily.
"Donald!"
"Johnny!"
For a full half minute they looked steadily into each other's eyes.
"Only a week, Johnny," pleaded Donald. "I'll be back in a week."
"You mean that you will kill him?"
"He'll never come back. I swear it, Johnny!"
As gently as he might have led Joanne, Aldous drew the mountaineer back to the chair.
"That would be cold-blooded murder," he said, "and I would be the murderer. I can't send you out to do my killing, Mac, as I might send out a hired assassin. Don't you see that I can't? Good heaven, some day--very soon--I will tell you how this hound, Mortimer FitzHugh, poisoned Joanne's life, and did his worst to destroy her. It's to me he's got to answer, Donald. And to me he shall answer. I am going to kill him. But it will not be murder. Since you have come into this room I have made my final plan, and I shall follow it to the end coolly and deliberately. It will be a great game, Mac--and it will be a fair game; and I shall play it happily, because Joanne will not know, and I will be strengthened by her love.
"Quade wants my life, and tried to hire Stevens, up at Miette, to kill me. Culver Rann wants my life; a little later it will come to be the greatest desire of his existence to have me dead and out of the way. I shall give him the chance to do the killing, Mac. I shall give him a splendid chance, and he will not fail to accept his opportunity. Perhaps he will have an advantage, but I am as absolutely certain of killing him as I am that the sun is going down behind the mountains out there. If others should step in, if I should have more than Culver Rann on my hands--why, then you may deal yourself a hand if you like, Donald. It may be a bigger game than One against One."
"It will," rumbled MacDonald. "I learned other things early this afternoon, Johnny. Quade did not stay behind. He went with Rann. DeBar and the woman are with them, and two other men. They went over the Lone Cache Pass, and this minute are hurrying straight for the headwaters of the Parsnip. There are five of 'em--five men."
"And we are two," smiled Aldous. "So there _is_ an advantage on their side, isn't there, Mac? And it makes the game most eminently fair, doesn't it?"
"Johnny, we're good for the five!" cried old Donald in a low, eager voice. "If we start now----"
"Can you have everything ready by morning?"
"The outfit's waiting. It's ready now, Johnny."
"Then we'll leave at dawn. I'll come to you to-night in the coulee, and we'll make our final plans. My brain is a little muddled now, and I've got to clear it, and make myself presentable before supper. We must not let Joanne know. She must suspect nothing--absolutely nothing."
"Nothing," repeated MacDonald as he went to the door.
There he paused and, hesitating for a moment, leaned close to Aldous, and said in a low voice:
"Johnny, I've been wondering why the grave were empty. I've been wondering why there weren't somebody's bones there just t' give it the look it should 'a' had an' why the clothes were laid out so nicely with the watch an' the ring on top!"
With that he was gone, and Aldous closed and relocked the door.
He was amazed at his own composure as he washed himself and proceeded to dress for supper. What had happened had stunned him at first, had even terrified him for a few appalling moments. Now he was superbly self-possessed. He asked himself questions and answered them with a promptness which left no room for doubt in his mind as to what his actions should be. One fact he accepted as absolute: Joanne belonged to him. She was his wife. He regarded her as that, even though Mortimer FitzHugh was alive. In the eyes of both God and man FitzHugh no longer had a claim upon her. This man, who was known as Culver Rann, was worse than Quade, a scoundrel of the first water, a procurer, a blackmailer, even a murderer--though he had thus far succeeded in evading the rather loose and poorly working tentacles of mountain law.
Not for an instant did he think of Joanne as Culver Rann's wife. She was _his_ wife. It was merely a technicality of the law--a technicality that Joanne might break with her little finger--that had risen now between them and happiness. And it was this that he knew was the mountain in his path, for he was certain that Joanne would not break that last link of bondage. She would know, with Mortimer FitzHugh alive, that the pledge between them in the "coyote," and the marriage ceremony in the room below, meant nothing. Legally, she was no more to him now than she was yesterday, or the day before. And she would leave him, even if it destroyed her, heart and soul. He was sure of that. For years she had suffered her heart to be ground out of her because of the "bit of madness" that was in her, because of that earlier tragedy in her life--and her promise, her pledge to her father, her God, and herself. Without arguing a possible change in her because of her love for him, John Aldous accepted these things. He believed that if he told Joanne the truth he would lose her.
His determination not to tell her, to keep from her the secret of the grave and the fact that Mortimer FitzHugh was alive, grew stronger in him with each breath that he drew. He believed that it was the right thing to do, that it was the honourable and the only thing to do. Now that the first shock was over, he did not feel that he had lost Joanne, or that there was a very great danger of losing her. For a moment it occurred to him that he might turn the law upon Culver Rann, and in the same breath he laughed at this absurdity. The law could not help him. He alone could work out his own and Joanne's salvation. And what was to happen must happen very soon--up in the mountains. When it was all over, and he returned, he would tell Joanne.
His heart beat more quickly as he finished dressing. In a few minutes more he would be with Joanne, and in spite of what had happened, and what might happen, he was happy. Yesterday he had dreamed. To-day was reality--and it was a glorious reality. Joanne belonged to him. She loved him. She was his wife, and when he went to her it was with the feeling that only a serpent lay in the path of their paradise--a serpent which he would crush with as little compunction as that serpent would have destroyed her. Utterly and remorselessly his mind was made up.
The Blacktons' supper hour was five-thirty, and he was a quarter of an hour late when he tapped at Joanne's door. He felt the warmth of a strange and delightful embarrassment flushing his face as the door opened, and she stood before him. In her face, too, was a telltale riot of colour which the deep tan partly concealed in his own.
"I--I am a little late, am I not, Joanne?" he asked.
"You are, sir. If you have taken all this time dressing you are worse than a woman. I have been waiting fifteen minutes!"
"Old Donald came to see me," he apologized. "Joanne----"
"You mustn't, John!" she expostulated in a whisper. "My face is afire now! You mustn't kiss me again--until after supper----"
"Only once," he pleaded.
"If you will promise--just once----"
A moment later she gasped:
"Five times! John Aldous, I will never believe you again as long as I live!"
They went down to the Blacktons, and Peggy and Paul, who were busy over some growing geraniums in the dining-room window, faced about with a forced and incongruous appearance of total oblivion to everything that had happened. It lasted less than ten seconds. Joanne's lips quivered. Aldous saw the two little dimples at the corners of her mouth fighting to keep themselves out of sight--and then he looked at Peggy. Blackton could stand it no longer, and grinned broadly.
"For goodness sake go to it, Peggy!" he laughed. "If you don't you'll explode!"
The next moment Peggy and Joanne were in each other's arms, and the two men were shaking hands.
"We know just how you feel," Blackton tried to explain. "We felt just like