Chapter 28

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.