Crossroads (3 page)

D
o I get you right, Dix Van Dyck?” she asked. “Am I sort of a bait that pulls trouble your way? Is that why you want to hang around with me?”

“Jack…can I call you that?”

“Sure.”

“Jack, you guessed right the first time. That’s why I want to hang around. Here I am, six feet two, hard as nails, handy with two guns, and nothing to do. Can you beat that?”

“Nope,” said the girl, and broke into her musical chuckle again. “Nope, you beat the world, partner.”

“Thanks,” grinned Dix Van Dyck. “I’ll just oil up my guns and get in fighting shape, and we’ll make a team of it.”

She grew serious again, shaking her head. “It won’t do. I can’t let you do it. Look here, Dix Van Dyck, I like you more ’n any man I’ve run into in a long time. That’s telling you straight. I’m not going to let you go to hell because of a fool idea. If you want action, just shoot out these lights, and I’ll guarantee you all the action you want.”

“But you see,” explained Dix Van Dyck sadly, “the trouble a man makes ain’t half so pleasin’ as the kind he just runs into sort of accidental. Understand?”

“Yep.”

“How long,” said Dix Van Dyck wistfully, “before things most generally starts.”

“Mostly different a lot,” said Jacqueline.

“In the meantime,” he said, “there’s considerable room on the floor. Do we dance?”

She hesitated, as if she still wished to argue the question with him, as if she fought the temptation to let him stay, but then her head nodded with the rhythm of the music—she started up, and in an instant they were gliding across the floor.

There is a strange and dangerous potency in the dance. There is no need of polished, gleaming floor, of bright lights, of a numerous and accomplished orchestra, or of a brilliant assembly of women and men. There is no need of all this. Granted an age a little under thirty, a rhythm supplied by a rusty, stringed piano, the floor of a barn or the stones of a street, and the result is the same—an intoxication, a forgetfulness of the world, two bodies moving in harmony with a thought, and that thought one of beauty. Faces tilt up—a light comes upon them—in their blood is the fragrance of spring and the richness of autumn—the pulse of life runs quicker, quicker, races—and the two strike closer to the heart of things.

So it was with Dix Van Dyck and Jacqueline. She danced rather clumsily at first, as though she had almost forgotten the steps, but, before he became conscious of disappointment, she changed and grew more warmly alive in his arms. There was a cat-like lightness in her step so that the sway of her body followed him almost as if she were poised in air and drawn hither and thither mysteriously—at his will.

As for Jack, she glimpsed the glances of envy and admiration that followed her and knew that she was dancing divinely—knew it and was grateful to the man who held her. The incense of flattery had long been absent, and now it swept up gloriously until her nostrils trembled to inhale it deeply. She had been a creature of action, of masculine and terrible action, and, as such, accepted by
the men and the women among whom she moved. Now she became, in an instant, femininely appealing, beautiful. A new and mighty strength filled her.

With all her heart she hated the bearded man who tapped Dix Van Dyck on his shoulder in the middle of the dance. They had paused at the edge of the dance floor and the man said: “Stranger, be on your way. You’ve started your own little hell by dancing with Jack, but someone else is liable to put on the finishing touch. There was a Mexican in here a minute ago…a bad one by the look…asking after a man like you. The deputy marshal…Glasgow…was with him. I sent ’em down the street, but they’ll be back. Take my advice, and don’t wait.”

With that, he turned on his heel, and Dix Van Dyck, a towering figure in the crowd, stiffened and stared after him. Truly the arm of Sheriff Oñate was long.

“The bad luck,” he nodded and stared down at the face of the girl.

“The bad luck,” she agreed. “It didn’t wait.” She said it half ruefully, half carelessly, like one familiar with danger. “Take the back door,” she advised. “It’s the easiest way out.”

“The easiest way,” said the big man calmly, “is to get back to our table and wait for what comes. This ain’t the finish. It’s only the beginning of a long trail.”

She followed him back to the table. It was only because she wanted a chance to argue the point.

“But you see,” she explained, as they slipped again into their chairs, Van Dyck facing the door, “that everything is against you. The deputy marshal can call on everyone in the house, if he wants ’em. Besides, do you know the country in case you make a getaway?”

“Not a mile of it. I come from the south.”

“What’ve you done that started the law after you?”

“Nothing. We’ve got a badman for sheriff down in Chaparna County. He’s after my scalp.”

“And you’re going to sit here and see this through?”

“Sure. What would you do?”

She avoided the question. “It’s a crazy idea. Take my word, the best thing is to cut and run. It’s bad to have a sheriff after you. It’s a lot worse to have a marshal, and Glasgow sticks to a trail like glue to a dog’s tail.”

Apparently he barely heard her words but sat stiff and straight in his chair, his keen eyes plunging into the future. By deep and sympathetic intuition she knew all that was passing in his mind.

His reason told him in no uncertain terms to take the advice of the girl and leave the saloon. But the same perverse instinct that had first made the man hunt her out, now held him in his chair, waiting for the surely approaching danger.

She knew at once that it was useless to argue longer with him. But the suspense began to make her uncomfortable and sick inside—the qualm that comes to the soldier before the battle. What made it doubly deadly was the noise that continued unabated throughout the rest of the great room. From the gaming tables, from the bar, from the orchestra, from the dance floor and the tables around it, the same unbroken stream of chatter, cries, curses, laughter poured out at them. It was like a grim parody of the whole of life. Into this gay throng death was about to come with silent steps, stretch out his arm, and beckon his victim. Then would fall an instant of silence, a few cries of horror, but almost at once the noise would be recommenced. Conscience would be drowned in the clamor of self-conscious gaiety.

“There’s going to be a gun play,” said Dix Van Dyck, “and I don’t want you in the danger zone. Go to another table.”

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled. He got the impression, somehow, that she valued her life less than anything in the world. He knew in fact that, when a woman turns daredevil, she passes beyond the limit of any man, but he was unprepared for this contemptuous indifference. He made no further effort to persuade her. His mind was too filled with conjecture. Was it indeed true that the girl was fatal to her friends? Or was the story half lie and half rumor? Against a common danger he was willing to take his chance, but to have his hands tied and the muzzle of his gun jolted by fate in the crisis of action was too much. It was superhuman—it was ghostly and paralyzing.

All of this Jack read in his face. She saw the keen eyes sink deeper under the bush of brow, saw his cheeks contract and the lower jaw thrust out, saw his forehead turn a sickly white, glimmering with perspiration. It was not cowardice. She had seen other men in her company face danger with the same aspect. But this man was different. Fear turned him cold, but it did not make him shake. It occurred to her, vaguely, that this might be the man who could break the power of the strange charm she carried. She could not stand the suspense of his silence any longer.

“How can you tell,” she said, “when the man who’s after you comes in?”

“I’ll wait,” answered the big, white-faced man, “until he makes a dive for his gun.”

“Wait for that before you draw?”

“Yes.”

“Then why not order your coffin now?”

“Because I take my chance on beating him to his gun.”

“Beat two of them?” she repeated incredulously.

“Don’t talk,” he answered sharply. “I got to sit here and do a pile of thinking.”

So she lapsed into silence. The face of Van Dyck, naturally homely, now grew horrible as the nervous strain of the wait told upon him. She began to have an odd feeling that she could hear the ticking of a clock somewhere through the din. It began very softly, click-click-clicking through the room and gradually rising to a crescendo, louder and louder and louder, till she wondered that everyone in the room did not hear it. It rose louder and more rapidly until she wanted to jump up from the table with an outcry of horror. Then she discovered that the mysterious beating was the drum of her own excited heart. She dared not rise.

It was a singular duel of courage between her and the man opposite. On him the danger rested. But upon her, she felt more and more strongly, would lie the blame for his death. For she did not dream of any other outcome to the encounter. She forced herself back to calmness and considered the figure of Van Dyck carefully, critically. It was that of the natural fighter, beyond a doubt, hard, lean, marvelously suggestive of activity in spite of its size. Her eyes centered on the hands. They had never worn gloves, it seemed, for they were as brown as his cheeks. They had never performed the labors of the range, for the fingers were long, sinewy, fleshless, and, when the fist closed, the row of knuckles stood out sharply. Nervous fingers. They hovered here and there. Sometimes, falling into a detached mood, it seemed to her that the hands on the opposite edge of the table were two spiders, deadly, long-leaping, and crouching, about to lunge at some prey. Perhaps at
her
throat.

Fear of the man grew slowly up in her. He was in an agony of apprehension. She knew he did not really expect to outlive the coming fight. She knew he believed in the potent power of the cross she wore and its damning
bad luck. There remained his will-power and his pride. It made a terrible and silent fight—a man within a man.

Then that slender, long-fingered right hand grew tense on the edge of the table. He leaned back a little in his chair so that he would have free play to get at this revolvers.

Y
ou see him?” she whispered.

“Don’t turn!” he warned her softly, fiercely. “I think I see the man. I think I see a Mexican I knew in Chaparna County.”

“And the marshal?”

“There’s no one with him…no one I can see.”

“Thank God.”

“Not yet. This Mex is a bad one…if he’s the man I think. Pedro Alvarez…long record…snap shot.”

“What’s he doing?”

She yearned for a single glance back. But such a glance might have betrayed her companion to the hunter. Small things, she knew, frequently turned the odds in such battles.

“He’s walkin’ about…slow. He’s looking hard.”

“Dix Van Dyck, it ain’t too late. Start for that back door before he sees you.”

“You’re right, Jack, I’m scared. Not of the Mex, but of that cross you wear. But I’m not too scared to fight. My hand don’t shake none.”

It was, in fact, as steady as a rock.

“Get your hand on your gun.”

“Nope, I’ll keep it here till he makes his move. I’m givin’ your cross every chance to get in its work, see?”

“Maybe he won’t sight you.”

“Maybe.”

“Then…?”

But the words froze on her lips. The eyes of Dix Van Dyck had widened and narrowed suddenly, and into them came the gleam of recognition. She knew that somewhere behind her a man stood, staring at her companion. Death was there—its wings outspread—hesitating over which to strike.

Then the hand of Dix Van Dyck shot down, and a gun flashed with a crazy wobble over the edge of the table. The wobble came from the force of the explosion that kicked the muzzle of the gun high. No answering shot. She rose, whirling from her chair, and saw a tall, thin Mexican in an enormous sombrero, toppling backward. From his outstretched hand a revolver dropped. He struck a post, staggered, and then pitched forward on his face. With both his guns now in his hands Dix Van Dyck stood like one transfixed, staring at his work.

She caught at his arm. “Follow me. Glasgow will be here in a jiffy.”

She fled before him toward the door, through it, and into the blessed dimness of the night. A form raced toward her.

“What was it?” shouted the voice of Glasgow in her ear.

“A Mex shot,” she answered. “Your man’s inside.”

He leaped into the door of the saloon with his gun poised, and at the same time she saw the big form of Van Dyck lunge across the street, making for the stables. In a moment she sprang into her own saddle and waited.

In hardly more than half a minute there came a thunder of galloping hoofs over the wooden floor of the stable, and she spurred into place beside him. Behind them babel was issuing from the door of the dance hall and pouring out onto the street, but a winding of the way shut them from her view almost immediately.

He was well mounted, she saw at once, not on a horse
like the matchless stallion that carried her, but on a tall charger that covered the distance with mighty, swinging strides. He towered above her on this steed by a whole foot, and she felt suddenly reduced to impotence again, as she had felt when she sat opposite him in the dance hall, waiting. However, he reined in his horse when she reined in hers, keeping always half a length behind her. At length she reduced the pace to a gentle trot.

“No chase?” he called.

“Nope.”

“What’s wrong?”

“They know you’re with me.”

“Well?”

“They know I’m hard to catch.”

He chuckled through the dark, and she added rather spitefully: “Besides, they’ll wait for your bad luck.”

“Bad luck be damned!” cried the ringing voice of Dix Van Dyck. “I’ve broken the bad luck to night.”

“Is it better,” she queried almost angrily, resenting his confidence, “to be a free man in Double Bend or on the run in the desert with Marshal Glasgow behind you? I ask you that man to man? Is that good luck or bad?”

“Any way you want to put it,” he replied carelessly. “It’s the sort of luck I want. Besides, there’s one more burr under the saddle of
Señor
Oñate, damn his eyes! Where’ll we camp?”

“Up this cañon to the left a few miles. There’s a good spring there and a circle of cottonwoods. We’ll camp in the center of ’em.”

“Risk a fire?”

“I tell you, they ain’t going to hunt you to night. They know you’re with me. They know my hoss can carry double farther and faster than any of their ponies. Maybe they won’t hunt at all but trust to your bad luck.”

Over this he brooded in silence while they worked
their way up the rough bed of the ravine until they reached the circle of trees. They were ancient, mighty cottonwoods, nourished by the water from the spring.

In the center of the little grove they kindled a fire, for they found an abundance of dry wood and the whole, half-rotten trunk of a fallen giant. Then, propping themselves against their saddles, they sat on opposite sides of the fire. He rolled and lighted a cigarette, and she sat with her hands locked in front of her knees and her face turned up to the stars. Even the sailor has less love for the stars than the dweller of the desert. To the sailor they are guides and steering points, but to the desert dweller they are friends—the eyes of friends who look down through the long, breathless silence of the nights.

The two held their positions for minute after minute, unchanging. They were happy, for the quiet, the sense of space that was their proper environment. Now and then the flicker of the fire flashed clearly across their faces, but for the most part they were withdrawn and lost in the deep gloom of the night, and the glow of the fire with its thousand shadows actually helped to conceal them.

Tall, broad, black as the heart of the night, the cottonwoods fenced them in. There was but one way for them to look, and that was straight up, past the dizzy tops of the trees and on to the yellow lights of the stars. Up to these the girl stared, but the man, his head lowered to the palms of his hands and his face made ominous and ugly by the fire-shadows, stared steadily across at Jack. An age-old instinct, perhaps, directed them, for woman looks up—in acceptance—and man looks down—in doubt. By the flare and the leap of the fire he was studying her features, and every penetrating glimpse was like the reading of a new page in an endless story, each one strangely revealing.

Finally he got some fresh wood and piled it discreetly,
so that it made a thin little arm of flame, stabbing into the night, and by that light he could look steadily at the girl. She paid no attention. Her face was still raised, and her expression was one of deep, vague content. Looking at her in that manner he could well understand that no human thing in all the world was necessary to her. It gave her a singular charm—this independence of attitude. Also it was deeply challenging. It made him long to break through her reserve. Without knowing it, he adopted toward her little house hold gods the attitude of an iconoclast.