Bruce of the Circle A Part 12

I brought out a bed for him into th' kitchen so 't would be lighter, easier for him to be watched. He ... I have sheets for him an' good beddin'. I got eggs an' fruit an' ..."

The perplexity on her face stopped him.

"But you said, you said it was too rough for a woman, that it wasn't much of a house, that it only had one room, that it ..."

One hand extended, leaning toward him, brows raised, accusing, she sought for explanation and she saw his face flood with flush, saw his chest fill.

"Well, I lied to you," he said, the lines of his body going suddenly lax as he half turned from her. "It ain't rough. It's a pretty fair outfit."

She dropped her hands until they met before her and a look of offended trust, came into her face, settling the lines about her mouth into an expression of determination.

"But why?" she asked him. "Why should you lie to me and keep me from Ned, my husband? I trusted you; I believed what you said. Why was it, Mr. Bayard?"

He turned on her, eyes burning, color running from his face.

"I'll tell you why, ma'am," he said, chokingly, as though his lungs were too full of air. "I'll tell you: It's because I didn't dare trust myself under th' same roof with you, that's why; it's because I know that if you're around me you'll be ... you'll be in danger."

"No man should tempt himself too far an' 'twould be temptin', if I was to let you come there. You don't know this country. You don't know us men ... men like I am. I don't know your kind of men myself; but we're rough, we're not nice when we want a thing. We haven't got nice manners.

I tell you, ma'am, I want to help you all I can, but I've got to look out for myself, you see! Do you see that, ma'am? I thought I could see you now an' then safe enough, but I can't I guess.... This had to come out; it had to!"

A forearm half raised she stepped back from him, settling her weight to one foot. He breathed heavily twice to relieve the congestion that strained his voice.

"When I stood down there th' other night,"--gesturing toward the entrance of the hotel--"an' looked into the darkness an' saw your face there, it was like an angel ... or somethin'. It caught me in th'

throat, it made my knees shake--an' they've never shook from fear or anythin' else in my life. When we set in that next room was.h.i.+n' out that wound, bindin' it up, I didn't give a d.a.m.n if that man lived or died--"

"Oh!" she cried, and drew away another step, but he followed close, bound that she should hear, should understand.

"--If he lived or died," he repeated. "I wanted to be near you, to watch your fingers, to see th' move of your shoulders, to look at th'--th'

pink of your neck through your waist, to see your lips an' your eyes an'

your hair ... ma'am. I didn't give a d.a.m.n about that man. It was you; your strangeness, your nerve, your sand, I wanted to see, to know about ... an' your looks. Then you said, you said he was your husband an' for a minute I wanted him to die, I did! That was a black minute, ma'am; things went round, I didn't know what was happenin'. Then, I come out of it and I realized; realized what kind of a woman you are, if you'd come clear from th' East on th' trail of a ... a ... your husband, an' speak of him as a cripple an' be as ... as wrought up over him as you was--

"I thought then, like a fool I was, that I'd be doin' somethin' fine if I took that ... that ... your husband an' made a man of him an' sent him back to you, a man!"

He gulped and breathed and his hands fell to his sides. He moved back an awkward pace.

"Well, it would,"--averting his face. The resonance had gone from his voice. "It would have been fine. It ... it _will_ be fine,"--in a whisper.

"But I can't stand you around," he muttered, the tone rallying some of its strength. "I can't; I can't! I couldn't have you in th' same room in my sight. I'd keep thinkin' what he is an' what you are; comparin'

you. It'd tear my heart out!

"Ma'am don't think I ain't tried to fight against this!" extending his palms pleadingly. "I've thought about you every minute since I first saw you down there 'n th' hallway. I've lied to myself, I've tried to make myself think different but I can't! I can't help it, ma'am ... an' I don't know as I would if I could, 'cause it's somethin' I never knew could be before!"

He was talking through clenched teeth now, swiftly, words running together, and the woman, a hand on her lips, gave evidence of a queer, fascinating fright.

He had said that she did not know his sort of man. He had spoken truth there. And because she did not know his breed, she did not know how to judge him now. Would he really harm her? Was he possessed of desires and urgings of which he had no control? She put those questions to herself and yet she could not make her own heart believe the very things he had told her about himself. She feared, yes; but about the quality she feared was a strong fascination. He caused her to sense his own uncurbed vitality, yet about the danger of which he talked was a compelling quality that urged her on, that made her want to know that danger intimately ... to suffer, perhaps, but to know!

"You'll let me alone, won't you, ma'am?" he continued. "You'll stay away? You'll stay right here an' give me a chance to play my hand? I'll make him or break him, ma'am! I'll send him back to you, if there's a spark of man left in him, I will; I promise you that! I will because you're th' only woman--"

"Don't!" She threw up a hand as she cried sharply, "Don't say it!"

"I will say it!" he declared, moving to her again. "I will!

"I love you, I love you! I love that lock of hair blowin' across your cheek; I love that scared look in your eyes now; I love th' way th'

blood's pumpin' in your veins; I love you ... all of you. But you told me th' other night, you loved your husband. I asked you. You said you did. 'I do,' that's what you said. I know how you looked, how it sounded, when you said it, 'I do.' That's why I'm workin' with him; that's why I want to make him a man. You can't waste your lovin', ma'am; you can't!"

He stepped even closer.

"That's why you've got to keep away from me! You can't handle him alone.

You can't come to my ranch to handle him because of _me_. n.o.body else will take him in around here. It's me or n.o.body. It's my way or th' old way he's been goin' until he comes to th' end.

"I promise you this. I'll watch over him an' care for him an' guard him in every way. I'll put the best I've got into bringin' him back.... An'

all th' time I'll be wis.h.i.+n'--prayin', if I could--that a thunderbolt 'uld strike him dead! He ain't fit for you, ma'am! He's no more fit for you than ... than ...

"h.e.l.l, ma'am, there's no use talkin'! He's your husband, you've said you loved him, that's enough. But if he, if he wasn't your husband, if he ..."

He jerked open the front of his s.h.i.+rt, reached in and drew out his flat, blue automatic pistol.

She started back with a cry.

"Don't you be afraid of me," he cried fiercely, grasping her wrist.

"Don't you ever!

"You take this gun; you keep it. It's mine. I don't want to be able to hurt him, if I should ever lose my head. Sometimes when I set there an'

look at him an' hear him cussin' me, I get hot in th' head; hot an'

heavy an' it buzzes. I ... I thought maybe sometime I might go crazy an'

shoot him,"--with deadly seriousness. "An' I wouldn't do that, ma'am, not to yours, no matter what he might do or say to me. I brought my rifle in to-day to have th' sights fixed; they needed it an' 't would get it out of th' house. You'll keep this gun, won't you, please, ma'am?"

His pleading was as direct as that of a child and, eyes on his with a mingling of emotions, Ann Lytton reached a groping hand for the weapon.

She was stunned. Her nervous weakness, his strength, the putting into words of that great love he bore for her, the suggested picture of contrast with the man between them, the conflict it all aroused in her conscience, the reasonless surging of her deepest emotions, combined to bewilder the woman. She reached out slowly to take his weapon and do his bidding, moved by a subconscious desire to obey, and all the while her eyes grew wider, her breath faster in its slipping between her parted lips.

Her fingers touched the metal, warmed by his body heat, closed on it and her hand, holding the pistol, fell back to her side. She turned her face from him and, with a palm hard against one cheek, whispered,

"Oh, this is horrible!"

The man made a wry smile.

"I presume it is, ma'am,"--drearily, "but I can't help it, lovin' you."

"No, no, not that!" she cried. "I didn't mean _that_ was horrible.

It ... it isn't. The horrible thing is the rest, the whole situation."

"I know it is," he went on, heedless of her explanation, moving toward the window and looking into the street as he talked, his back to her. "I know it is, but it had to be. If I had kept from talkin' it would sort of festered in me. When a horse runs somethin' in his foot, you've got to cut th' hoof away, got to hurt him for a while, or it'll go bad with him. Let what's in there out an' gettin' along will be simple.

"That's how it was with me, you see. If I'd kept still, I'd 'a' gone sort of _loco_, I might have hurt him. But now ...

"Why, now, I can just remember that you know how I feel, that you wouldn't want a man who's said he loves you to be anythin' but kind to your ... to Ned Lytton."

When he finished, the woman took just one step forward. It was an impulsive movement, as if she would run to him, throw herself on him; and her lips were parted, her throat ready to cry out and ask him to take her and forget all else but that love he had declared for her. In a flash the madness was past; she remembered that she must not forget anything because of his confession of love, rather that she must keep more firmly than ever in mind those other factors of her life, that she must stifle and throttle this yearning for the man before her which had been latent, the existence of which she had denied to herself until this hour, and which was consuming her strength now with its desire for expression.