Bruce of the Circle A Part 31

Bruce was not certain that he had acted wisely. Many circ.u.mstances might arise in which his presence at the ranch could be a determining factor.

At times he wondered vaguely if Lytton might not attempt to do his wife violence, but always he comforted himself by a.s.surance of her strength of character, of her moral fiber, contrasting it with Ned's vacillating nature.

"She'd take care of herself anywhere," he thought time after time.

When he had gone through with the formal routine of feeding himself he went out to stroll about. He watched the train arrive and depart, he talked absently with an Indian he knew and jested with the red man's squaw. He bought a Los Angeles paper and could not center his mind on a line of its printed pages. He walked aimlessly, finally entering the saloon where a dozen were congregated.

"That piano of yours has got powerful lungs, ain't it?" he asked the bartender, wincing, as the mechanical instrument banged out its measure.

"This here beer's so hot it tastes like medicine," he complained, putting down his gla.s.s after his first swallow, and picking up the bottle to look at it with a wry face.

"It's right off th' ice," the other a.s.sured.

"You can have th' rest of it for th' deservin' poor," he said and strode out, while the others laughed after him.

Up and down the street, into the general store to exchange absent-minded pleasantries with the proprietor's wife, across to the hotel where he tried to sit quietly in a chair, back to the saloon; up and down, up and down.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Down the main street of Yavapai]

A hundred yards from the Manzanita House was a corral and in it a score of young horses were being held to await s.h.i.+pment. In the course of his ambling, Bruce came to this bunch of animals and leaned against the bars, poking a hand through and snapping his thumb encouragingly as the ponies crowded against the far side and eyed him with suspicion. He talked to them a time, then climbed the fence and perched on the top pole, snapping his fingers and making coaxing sounds in futile effort to tempt the horses to come to him; and all the time his mind was back at the Circle A, wondering what had transpired under his roof, in his room, that day.

Nora's voice startled him when it sounded so close behind, for he had not heard her approach.

"Why, you scart me bad!" he said, with a laugh, letting himself down beside her. "What you doin' out to-night?"

He pinched her cheek with his old familiarity, but under the duress of his own thinking did not notice that she failed to respond in any way to his pretended mood.

"I thought I'd like to walk a little an' get th' air," she said.

"An' ... tell you that I'm goin' away."

"Away, Nora?"

"Yes, I'm goin' to Prescott, Bruce."

He lifted his hat and scratched his ear and moved beside her as she started walking along the road, now a dim tape under the mountain stars.

"Why, Nora, I thought you was a fixture here; what'll we do without you?"

He did not know how that hurt her, how the thought that he _could_ do without her hung about her heart like a sodden weight. She covered it well, holding her voice steady, restraining the discouragement that wanted to break into words, and the night kept secret with her the pallor of her face.

"I guess you'll get along, Bruce; you done it before I come an' I guess th' town'll keep on prosperin' after I leave. I ... I got a chance to go into business."

"Why, that's fine, Sister."

"A lunch counter that I can get for two hundred; I've saved more 'n that since ... since I come here. That'll be better than workin' for somebody else an' I figure I'll make as much and maybe considerable more."

"That's fine!" he repeated. "Fine, Nora!"

In spite of the complexity of his thinking he found an interval of respite and was truly glad for her.

"I ... I wanted to tell you before anybody else knew, 'cause I ... Well, you made it possible. If you hadn't done this for me ... this here in Yavapai ... I'd never been ..."

He laughed at her.

"Oh, yes you would, Nora. You had it in you. If I hadn't happened along some one else would. What we're goin' to be, we're goin' to be, I figure. I was only a lucky chance."

"Lucky," she repeated. "Lucky! G.o.d, Bruce, lucky for me!"

"Naw, lucky for me, Nora. Why, don't you know that every man likes to have some woman dependin' on him? It's in us to want some female woman lookin' to us for protection an' help. It tickled me to death to think I was helpin' you, when, all the time, I knew down in my heart, I was only an accident."

"You can say that, Bruce, but you can't make me believe it."

They walked far, talking of the past, of her future, but not once did the conversation touch on Ann Lytton. Bayard kept away from it because of that privacy with which he had come to look on the affair, and the girl knew that his presence there in town after Ann's departure for the ranch could mean only that a crisis had been reached. With her woman's heart, her intuition, she was confident of what the outcome would be.

And though she had given her all to help bring it about, she knew that the sound of it in speech would precipitate that self-revelation which she had avoided so long, at such cost.

"I'll see you again," she said, when they stood before the hotel and she was ready to enter for the night. "I'll see you again before I go, Bruce. And--I ... thank you ... thank you...."

She gripped his hand convulsively and lowered her head; then turned and ran quickly up the steps, for she would not let him see the emotion, nor let him hear uncertain words form on her lips.

In her last speech with him, Nora had lied; she had lied because she knew that to tell him she had packed her trunk and would leave on the morning train would bring thanks from him for what she had done for Ann Lytton; and Nora could not have stood this. From the man downstairs she had learned kindness, had learned that not all mistakes are sins, had learned that there is a judgment above that which denounces or commends by rule of thumb. He had set in her heart a desire to be possessed by him, had fed it unconsciously, had led her on and on to dream and plan; then, had unwittingly wrecked it. But he had made her too big, too fine, too gentle, to let jealousy control her for long. She had weakened just once, and that had served to set in Nora's heart a new resolve, a finer purpose than had ever found a place there before. And, as she stumbled up the narrow stairway, the tears scalding her cheeks, her soul was glad, was light, was happy, for she knew true greatness.

Bayard roamed until after midnight; then went to his room in the hotel and slept brokenly until dawn. In those hours he chilled with fear and experienced flushes of temper, but behind it all he was resigned, willing to wait. He had done his all, he had held himself strictly within the bounds of justice as he conceived it, and beyond that he could do no more.

The east had only commenced to silver when he rode out of town at a brisk gallop. He did not realize what going back to his ranch meant until he was actually on his way and then with every length of the road traveled, his apprehensions rose. It was no business of his he argued, what had transpired the day before; it was Ann's affair ... and her husband's. Yet, if he had left her alone, unprotected, and Lytton had done her harm, he knew that he could never escape reproaching himself, and his suffering would be in proportion to hers. Then, of the many, there was another disturbing possibility. Perhaps a complete reconciliation had followed. Perhaps he would ride into his dooryard to find Ann Lytton cooking breakfast for her husband, smiling and happy, refusing to meet his gaze, ashamed of what had been between them.

He prodded his pony to greater speed with that thought.

The sun was not yet up when he pulled his swift-breathing horse to a stop. The outer gate stood open, and, as he rode through, his face clouded slightly with annoyance over the unusual occurrence, but when he looked to the horse corral and saw that it, too, was open, and empty, that Abe was gone, his annoyance became fear. He spurred the tired pony across the yard and flung off before the house with eyes on that portion of the kitchen which was visible through the door. Then, stopped, stood still, and listened.

Not a sound except the breathing of his horse. The breeze had not yet come up, no animal life was moving. An uncanny sense of desertion was upon the place and for a moment Bayard knew real panic. What if some violence....

"Lytton!" he called, cutting his half-formed, horrible thought short, and stepped into the room.

No answer greeted him and, after listening a moment, he again shouted.

Then walked swiftly to the room where Ned Lytton had lived through those weeks. He knocked, waited, flung open the door and grunted at the emptiness which he found. One more room remained to be inspected--his room--and he turned to the door which was almost closed. He rapped lightly on the casing; louder, called for Lytton, grasped the k.n.o.b and entered.

The overturned table, broken lamp, the spreading stain of its oil, the rumpled rugs yielded their mute suggestion, and he moved slowly about, eyeing them, searching for other evidence, searching for something more than the fact that a struggle had taken place, hoping to find it, fearing to know.

He stopped suddenly, holding his head to one side as though listening to catch a distant sound.

"Both saddle horses gone ... they're gone," he muttered to himself and started from the room on a run.

He inspected the saddle rack under his wagonshed and saw that the third saddle was missing, and then, with expert eyes, studied the ground for evidence.

A trail, barely discernible in the mult.i.tude of hoof-marks, led through to the outer gate, crossed the road and struck straight east across the valley.

"That's Abe," he said excitedly to himself. "That was made late yesterday."

He stood erect and looked into the far reaches of the lower valley where the wreaths of mists in the hollows were turning to silver and those without shelter becoming dispelled as the sun spread its first warmth over the country.