CHAPTER XXV

THE KILLER

IT was high noon of the third day north of the Red River; a frank spring noon on the prairies. All the morning nothing except the countless wild game had offered life and motion to the eye of Jim Nabours, scouting carefully ahead of the herd. But now, as he topped a gentle rise, he saw coming toward him from the cover of a clump of distant timber the figure of a rider whom soon he knew to be a white man. He pulled up, sat intent. The rider seemed a not unfamiliar figure.

The horseman advanced directly toward him, evidently seeing him. As he approached more closely in his steady trot he flung up his right hand in the sign of peace.

Nabours himself rode out to meet the stranger. All at once he halted sharply, his hand on his gun. But the other paid no attention to the hostile movement, came up at the same pace.

“How are you, Jim Nabours?” said he quietly. He dropped both his hands to his own saddle horn.

A scowl came over the foreman’s face.

“You have broke your word, Mr. McMasters,” said he. “You are in a risky place right now.”

“I come with my hands up,” said McMasters. “I’m in no more risk than you are. But I am going back with you to your own camp.”

“No! We want no truck with you.” Then a sense of the proprieties coming to him, he added, “You’re counting too damn much on what you done down at the Red. No one ast you.”

“Look at my horse,” said McMasters quietly. “He’s a Fishhook, isn’t he? Yes. And I have been back of this herd or alongside of it for three hundred and fifty miles. You know that you got my letter, and you seem to have followed my advice. You’ve done very well by it. You’d have done a lot better if I’d been with you before you tried that crossing.”

“Well, we put you out of our camp oncet. We meant it. We hain’t held no trial sence then. I haven’t ast you in, no time.”

“Yes; but you don’t seem to be able to keep me out. I’ll ride this country the way I like, and not even Texans can keep me from it. I have come now because I think you need me again, and need me very much.”

He told his news. The features of Nabours changed as he listened.

“My God!” said he. Then, suspicion dominant again: “But you was traveling with them people. You went right from us to them. Now here you’re back.”

“I need travel with them no more. I have got what I was after. I know who killed my father and Miss Lockhart’s father. I am coming into your camp, and I am going to talk with Miss Lockhart.”

“She sont you out oncet. We tried you. She won’t talk to you—no, not even after what you done. She’s never mentioned your name about that.” Nabours still sat looking at him uneasily. “Besides, my men won’t let you in again.”

“No? I have been in your camp more than once since you first put me out.”

“Not that I know of, you haven’t.”

“No? Jim, who killed that man near the women’s carts the night of the big run on the Colorado?”

“I don’t know who killed him; I only know he was dead.”

“Well, that man was after the trunk you thought that I had stolen. Rudabaugh wants that trunk. He sent his boldest man after it that night. I was a little ahead of him, that was all. You know what happened to him. Now you know who did it. Yes, you might say I stole Miss Lockhart’s trunk and put it in my wagon. But I stole it from Rudabaugh, not from her. What I said at the trial was true. Theft from her—why, good Heavens!”

He suddenly spread out his hands.

“I’m a killer now, Jim!” said he, his face strangely drawn by a smile that could not come to it. “I can’t turn back now. The man who says I ever was a friend of Rudabaugh is a liar, and a fool besides. I call that to you here. I will call it to your whole campful just the same.”

“Them’s right strong words,” said Jim Nabours quietly. “I only listen because I more’n half believe you’re right. I can’t answer what you say. But why in hell didn’t you say all this at the trial?”

“Trial! Who gave you any right to try a McMasters of Gonzales? I took what you-all gave me because I thought it might make it easier for me to stay away.”

“Well, I don’t know what you mean by that.”

“No; and I don’t know that I can make you understand. Let me say, I realized that my path and hers could never run together.

“But you’re in the Indian Nations now. There are three hundred Comanches in here somewhere north of you that have come in from the Plains to visit with the Kiowas. That’s Yellow Hand’s band. If you meet those Comanches after what they surely will hear—why, I suppose, you might maybe be willing to have a good killer along with you.

“I supposed maybe you’d be thankful to get this word in time. So, to that extent, you see, my path does once more run for a little way not far from hers. Maybe she’ll talk to me. I’m going to see. You can’t any of you stop me. You’ve all been ignorant fools. You deserve nothing.”

“I used to read my Bible, in Sunday school,” said Nabours after a long silence. “I done read about that there, now, Rachel—was it?—same name, she had, as Cohen’s wife down to Gonzales, of the Golden Eagle Store. Now Jacob, he was a good cow hand, and he worked seven years night wrangling for said Rachel—maybe her name was Rebecca, I don’t know. Well, anyhow, I reckon, maybe it was all right about Jacob and the ranch boss. The trouble with me is, I got too damned many Jacobs along already in this here outfit. I wasn’t studying to take on no more.

“Still, when the men hear about old Yellow Hand it’s more’n likely they’ll be glad to pick up a hand that can throw lead if he has to. Come on in. I won’t let nobody start nothing. We can dig into this further along.”

* * * * *

McMasters paid no attention to the other men about the camp that evening, who, even after the foreman’s explanation, remained sullen and aloof. Without asking consent, he walked to the cook-cart plunder, unearthed his own bed roll and war bag and chose a place for himself outside the circle appropriated by the other hands. He made such toilet as he could, helped himself at the cook’s kettle and pans—breaking a two days’ fast—all without converse with the men who once had adjudged him unfit for their association. And in the twilight he walked without any by-your-leave directly to the camp of Taisie Lockhart and her servants. They watched him go. She saw him coming in the dusk; she felt her heart leap strangely. How could she keep her face calm, her eyes severe?

“It is Mr. McMasters?” she spoke coldly, did not put out her hand. He had remained silent, his own face sad enough. “Why do you come—how dare you come?”

She had not asked him to be seated; was treating him as though he were one of the hands; as though he were her enemy, not her hereditary friend or ally, not a man who had saved her life but now. It was hard even for his courage to endure. Something at last gave way. When he spoke a resonance was in his voice which she had never known before.

“Dare? Why did I dare come? I dared not stay away!”

“You always presume on obligations I never asked of you. But I can’t see—I don’t know——”

“You know I love you; that’s the thing I can’t help. You couldn’t help knowing it. I am the man who kissed you that night in the dark—yes, I did that. You knew! I won’t tell you why I was there that night, or why I am here now. Forget what happened the other day at the river—you’d as well. The woman who doubts me once is done with me forever.”

She could not speak to this new man, savage, impetuous, the chill all gone from him.

“Dare? I do dare! I dare tell you that there will never be any other woman in the world for me. I’ll never be even the last man in the world for you.”

Doubt, contrition, fear—a horrible fear that she had been cruelly unjust, a yet more terrible fear that he was going away—all mingled in the mind of the girl who heard him.

“I cannot possibly understand how you could come. I don’t know why you should. Always you put a load on me.” Her own voice had been more certain at other times.

His answer came very slowly.

“A man has an indefeasible right to tell the one woman in the world that he cares for her, even if he is going to the gallows. I might as well be on my way to the gallows, so far as any chance with you is concerned. Chance? Why, a chance with you? I’d not give myself one if I could. Look at my hands!”

He extended his hands, long, slender, well kept, so that she might see.

“I am a killer!” said Dan McMasters bitterly. “That’s what I have become for sake of Texas, for sake of the law, for sake of women and children, I suppose. But no woman or child for me! It’s worse to be a killer than it is to be killed. Well I know that. But I was mad that night. I just thought of what might have happened to you.”

“Sir, this is not easy to listen to!” She sank back on her rude fireside seat, trembling. “I wish you had not come! I wish I had never seen you!”

“I can say the same! But why do you wish that? It’s easy to forget me. But I cannot forget.”

He stepped closer, his voice low. She only shook her head from side to side and would not speak.

“Why?” he demanded again fiercely; and still she answered not at all.

“You have nothing to forget,” he went on. “It may be easy for women to forget—I don’t know. But it is my curse that I can never change—I can’t forget. What I want I must have—I can’t change!” He sighed. His hands dropped, still crooked to clasp her, to grasp her arms, and hold her fast.

“Well, say that I come to you now only as a peace officer to-night. I have used my own methods. That’s all the life work there is for Daniel McMasters. There is no possible reward for me except to come to you some time and tell you that I have finished the work I started out to do.”

She sat, her head bowed forward in her hands. A cricket was calling loudly in the grass. Presently she heard the man’s even voice go on.

“I know who killed your father and mine. I could have killed Rudabaugh three days ago. I ought to have done so. I was on the point of killing him. What kept me from it? I knew that some one of his men would kill me if I did, but that ought not to have mattered—I don’t think it would have mattered; we have to take those chances in my business. Why did I hold back? Why did I wait for another time? I’ll have to tell you! Suddenly I thought, ‘If these men kill me now I’ll never see her face again!’ Wasn’t it silly?

“I reckon I wanted to see your face again. I’d not be honest if I did not tell you that. I, McMasters of the Rangers, held back—for that! But this will be the last time. I came to your camp—it was a hard thing for a proud man to do. Well, now you know why I dared.”

“Won’t you be seated, sir?” Taisie’s voice came faintly.

“No; you speak too late. I must go. But before I go I shall tell you once more, so you may remember it always—I love you more than anything else and everything else in all the world. There’ll never be any other woman for me.”

“Then, why, why?” she demanded hoarsely. “What is it that you mean when you say that you must go—that you never will——”

The cricket in the grass was asserting himself loudly, insistently.

“Life is short for me,” he answered. “It may be long for you. Why should I pretend, who am about to die?”

His voice was relentless. He carried always the feeling of relentlessness, of an unemotional, unconditional coldness in purpose. An icy man, a terrible man, even now.

Again the cricket, for a little space. The firelight was but faint.

Suddenly he sank on his knees beside her, one hand on the bed roll that made her seat, so that he could look into her face. But her hands covered it. He touched her hand. It was wet with tears. Slowly he drew back.

“What have I said? What have I done?”

“Ah, you should be content!” she broke out presently. “You have your revenge!”

“What do you mean? I can’t well stand to hear you say that. Revenge?”

“Yes! Very well, I called you a thief once. Let that go. You are one now.”

He was entirely silent for a long space, trying to understand. Then she felt her fingers caught in a clasp like steel.

“Have I stolen anything I ought not to have taken? Tell me! Believe me, that one thing I never dreamed! I never thought that you—that you did—that you ever could! You don’t! You cannot! That can never be! That’s not possible! There are many men in the world for you—all of them—for you. I said only that there was no other woman but you in all the world for me. I didn’t ask or expect even justice, even mercy, from you!”

“You are avenged!” said Anastasie Lockhart again. “It is noble of you! You—you reason well! You come in the night!”

After all, how could they avoid youth, evade love? In some way, when or how, neither of them knew, they were standing. He had caught her up, they were face to face, body to body. Their arms found themselves about each other. He felt her arms about his neck, his shoulders; to her his clasp was like steel. He saw her face, pale, wet, wholly adorable, irresistible, a woman of a million. She saw his eyes, studious, marveling, frowning, his face one she never had seen before. It was done. It was too late.

He struggled as though to put off a mask, as though some armor coat oppressed him. Their lips met as though they dreamed; they did not know of plan at all, were as two dazed, beyond volition, beyond right or wrong.

It was he who drew back, half sobbing, still wrestling with that something, now that it was too late. He felt the swift rush of her awakened impetuous woman emotion, strong and sudden as though some dam had been disrupted to let an unmeasured torrent through; felt her arms slide back along the sides of his neck, her hands catch the sides of his face as they parted. Her face was not that of a country girl kissed merrily by some swain, or evilly; it was high, serious, not illusioned, calm; the face of a great soul in a splendid beauty, a woman of a million; a face terrible and young, as was his own.

There were no tears now. The great hour, the one instant for two strong natures had arrived—had passed. If any theft were done it had been done.

“You were a savage, a criminal!” said she after a time, voicing that. “But what is done is done, and what is written is written. Many men? Where? And I think I shall hate you now.”

She heard his voice as of a man musing, chanting to himself: “I was strong! You are taking my strength away.

“Do you want me to break my vow to my state?” He groaned after a time. “Would you ruin a man? Do you want me killed before my day’s over? I love you, and it cannot be.”

“I suppose not.” Her voice dreamed. “I said, you are avenged. But I suppose I was wrong about—about calling you a thief. That trial—I suppose I ought to tell you——”

“That’s too late! I told you, I can never change. That’s my curse—I can’t change. My honor is as good as you are good, and I know you are. But you doubted me once. It was forever. I don’t know how to forgive that, for man or woman. And even if you hadn’t, I’m not for you. Unclean! Unclean! Look at my hands—they’re red, I say. Look at yours—white, sweet, good.”

He choked, struggled; could no more than crush her hands to his lips.

“It’s not for us!” he said at last. “Yes, I’m a thief. I’m almost a coward. I did not know. I’ll never ask you to forgive me. Let me go. Let me finish my work. If I live, when I’m old and done and crippled, let me come and kiss the hem of your garment. There are—there must be—other men. They say there’s more than one love, for a woman. I don’t know. I reckon that’s not true. Oh, if I could only change!”

But even so he could not go. Frowning, he caught her face in his steel-like hands once more, and at the flame ripple of her hair above her temple kissed her again and again and yet again where he had seen her cup her hand over the first kiss he gave her—stolen also—in the dark.

He was gone. What comfort for her now? Or what for him? There is no such thing as fairness in love between man and woman.