Bruce of the Circle A Part 22

Again and again she saw Bruce as he delivered his message, heard his even, dogged voice uttering the words. He had waited until they reached the hotel, he had let Nora leave them and, then, in the sunset quiet, standing on the steps where she had first seen him, he had refused to hear her thanks for saving her from bodily hurt, and had broken in:

"It ain't likely I'll be in again for a while, ma'am. Your husband's about ready to move. I've done all I can; it'd only hurt him to stay on against his will. Sometime this week, ma'am, he'll be comin'."

And that was Wednesday! She had been struck stupid by his words. She had heard him no further, though he did say other things; she had watched him go, unable to call him back.

It relieved Ann not at all to tell herself that it was this for which she had waited, had worried, had restrained herself throughout these weeks; that she had come West to find her husband and that she was about to join him, knowing that he was strengthened, that he had been lifted up to a physical and mental level where she might guide him, aid him in the fight which must continue.

That knowledge was no solace. It was that for which she had outwardly waited, but it was that against which she inwardly recoiled. She realized this truth now, and conscience cried back that it must not be so, that she must stifle that feeling of revulsion, that she must welcome her husband, eagerly, gladly. And it went on to accuse ... that conscience; it shamed her because she had been held to the breast of another man; it scorned her because she had drawn herself closer to him with her own arms; it taunted her bitterly because she could not readily agree with her older self that in the doing she had sinned, because to her slowly opening eyes that moment had seemed the most beautiful interval of her life!

A peculiar difference in the vivacity of her impressions had been a.s.serting itself. The memory of the runaway had faded. Her picture of the moment when she strained her body against Bayard's was not so clear as it had been an hour before, though the thrill, the great joy of it, still remained to mingle with those other thoughts and emotions which confused her. The last great impression of the day, though--Bayard's solemn announcement of his completed task--grew more sharply defined, more outstanding, more important as the moments pa.s.sed, because its eventuality was a thing before which she felt powerless in the face of her conscience, before which all this other must be forgotten, before which this new rebellious Ann must give way to the old long-suffering, submissive wife. She felt as though she had known her moment of beauty and that it had gone, leaving her not even a sweet memory; for her grimmer self whispered that that brief span of time had been vile, unchaste. And yet, in the next moment, her strength had rallied and she was fighting against the influence of tradition, against blind precedents.

A knock came on her door and Ann, wondering with a thrill if it could be Bayard, both troubled and pleased at the possibility, stepped across the floor to answer it.

"Oh, Nora!" she said in surprise. "Come in,"--when the girl stood still in the hall, neither offering to speak nor to enter. "Do come in," she insisted after a pause and the other crossed the threshold, still without speaking.

"I've been sitting here in the dark thinking about what happened this afternoon," Ann said, drawing a chair to face hers that was by the window. "It was all very exciting, wasn't it?"

Nora had followed across the room slowly and Ann felt that the girl's gaze held on her with unusual steadfastness.

"I guess it's a fortunate thing that Bruce Bayard came along when he did. I ... I tremble every time I think of the way my horse went down!"

She broke off and laughed nervously.

Nora stood before her, still silent, still eyeing her pointedly.

"Well ... Won't you sit down, Nora?"--confused by the portentous silence and the staring of the other. "Won't you sit down here?"

Mechanically the girl took her seat and Ann, wondering what this strange bearing might mean, resumed her own chair. They sat so, facing one another in the last sunset glow, the one staring stolidly, Ann covering her embarra.s.sment, her wonder with a forced smile. Gradually, that smile faded, an uncertainty appeared in Ann's eyes and she broke out:

"Why, what is the matter with you, Nora?"

At that question the girl averted her face and let her hands drop down over the chair arms with careless laxity.

"Don't you know what it is?" she asked, in her deep, throaty voice, meeting Ann's inquiring gaze, s.h.i.+fting her eyes quickly, moving her shoulders with a slight suggestion of defiance.

"Why, no, Nora! You're so queer. Is something troubling you? Can't you tell me?"

Ann leaned forward solicitously.

The waitress laughed sharply, and lifted a hand to her brow, and shook her head.

"Don't you know what it is?" she asked again, voice hardening. "Can't you see? Are you blind? Or are you afraid?

"What'd you come out here for anyhow?" she cried, abruptly accusing, one hand out in a gesture of challenge, and Ann could see an angry flush come into her face and her lower lids puff with the emotion.

"Why, Nora...."

"Don't tell me! I know what you come for! You come to look after your worthless whelp of a man; that's why; an' you stayed to try to take mine!"--voice weakening as she again turned her face toward the window.

"Why, Nora Brewster ..."

The sharp shake of the girl's arm threw off Ann's hand that had gone out to grasp it and the rasp in Nora's voice checked the eastern woman's protest.

"Don't try to tell me anything different! I know! Can't I see? Am I as blind as you try to make me think you are?"--with another swagger of the shoulders as she moved in her chair. "Can't I see what's goin' on? Can't I see you makin' up to him an' eyein' him an' leadin' him on?--You, a married woman!"

"Nora, stop it!"

With set mouth Ann straightened, her breathing audible.

"I _won't_ stop. You're goin' to hear me through, understand? You're goin' to know all about it; you're goin' to know what I am an' what he is an' what's been between us ... what you've been breakin' up. Then, I guess you won't come in here with your swell eastern ways an' try to take him.... I guess not!"

She laughed bitterly and Ann could see the baleful glow in her eyes.

"I told you that he brung me here an' put me to work, I guess. Well, that was so; he did. I'll tell you where he got me." She hitched forward. "He brung me from th' Fork. You come through there; all you know 'bout it is that there's a swell hotel there an' it's a junction point. Well, the's a lot more to know about th' Fork ... or was."

She paused a moment and rubbed her palms together triumphantly, as if she had long antic.i.p.ated this moment.

"When I was there, the' wasn't no hotel; the' wasn't nothin' but a junction an' ... h.e.l.l itself. 'Twasn't a place with much noise about it, not so many killin's as some places maybe, but 'twas bad, low down.

"The' was a place there ... Charley Ling's.... 'Twas a Chinese place, with white women. I was one of 'em."

Ann gasped slightly and drew back, and Nora laughed.

"I thought that'd hurt," she mocked. "I thought you couldn't stand it!

"Charley's was a fine place. Sheep herders come there an' Mexicans an'

sometimes somebody of darker color. We wasn't particular, see? We wasn't particular, I guess not! Men was white or black or red or yellow or brown, but their money was all one color....

"The' was dope an' booze an' ... h.e.l.l.... Charley's was a reg'lar boil on th' face of G.o.d's earth, that's what it was.... He--Bruce Bayard--got me out of there."

The girl breathed hard and swiftly. Her upper lip was drawn back and her white teeth gleamed in the semi-darkness as she sat forward in her chair, flushed, her accusing face thrust forward toward the bewildered, horrified Ann Lytton.

"He got me there, so you know what I was, what I am. He brung me here, got me this job, has kept me here ever since,"--with a suggestion of faltering purpose in her voice. "It's been him ever since; just him.

I'll say that for myself. I've been on th' level with Bruce an' ain't had nothin' to do with others.

"You see he's mine!"--her voice, which had dropped to a monotone, rose bitingly again. "He's mine; he's all I got. If 'twasn't for him, I wouldn't be here. If he quits me, I'll go back to that other. I don't want to go back; so long as he sticks by me I won't go back. If I leave, it'll be because I'm drove back....

"That's what you're doin'. You're drivin' me back to Charley's ... or some place like it...."

She moved from side to side, defiantly, and leaned further forward, resting her elbows on her knees, staring out into the darkened street below them.

"You come here, a married woman; you got one man now, an' he don't suit.

So you think you're goin' to take mine. That's big business for a ... a respectable lady, like yourself, ain't it? Stealin' a man off a woman like me!"

She laughed shortly, and did not so much as look up as Ann tried to reply and could not make words frame coherent sentences.

"I've kept still until now, 'cause I ain't proud of my past, 'cause I thought you, havin' one man, had enough without meddlin' with mine. But I'm through keepin' my mouth shut now,"--menacingly. "I'm through, I tell you,"--wiping her hands along her thighs and straightening her body slowly as she turned a malevolent gaze on the silent Ann. "You're tryin' to take what belongs to me an' I won't set by an' let you walk off with him. I'll--

"Why, what'd this town say, if I was to tell 'em you're Ned Lytton's wife instead of his sister? They all know you've been havin' Bruce come here to your room; they all think he's your lover. First thing, they'd fire you out of th' hotel; then, they'd laugh at you as you walked along th' street! It'd ruin him, too; what with keepin' your man out at his ranch so's he can see you without trouble!"