THE FURY OF DOVES
Lambert released her the moment that
he made his double discovery, foolishly shaken, foolishly
hurt, to realize that she had been afraid to have
him know it was a woman he pursued. He caught
her rein and checked her horse along with his own.
“There’s no use to run
away from me,” he said, meaning to quiet her
fear. She faced him scornfully, seemingly to understand
it as a boast.
“You wouldn’t say that to a man, you coward!”
Again he felt a pang, like a blow
from an ungrateful hand. She was breathing fast,
her dark eyes spiteful, defiant, her face eloquent
of the scorn that her words had only feebly expressed.
He turned his head, as if considering her case and
revolving in his mind what punishment to apply.
She was dressed in riding breeches,
with Mexican goatskin chaps, a heavy gray shirt such
as was common to cowboys, a costly white sombrero,
its crown pinched to a peak in the Mexican fashion.
With the big handkerchief on her neck flying as she
rode, and the crouching posture that she had assumed
in the saddle every time her pursuer began to close
up on her in the race just ended, Lambert’s failure
to identify her sex was not so inexcusable as might
appear. And he was thinking that she had been
afraid to have him know she was a girl.
His discovery had left him dumb, his
mind confused by a cross-current of emotions.
He was unable to relate her with the present situation,
although she was unmistakably before his eyes, her
disguise ineffectual to change one line of her body
as he recalled her leaning over the railing of the
car, her anger unable to efface one feature as pictured
in his memory.
“What are you going to do about
it?” she asked him defiantly, not a hint in
her bearing of shame for her discovery, or contrition
for her crime.
“I guess you’d better go home.”
He spoke in gentle reproof, as to
a child caught in some trespass well-nigh unforgivable,
but to whose offense he had closed his eyes out of
considerations which only the forgiving understand.
He looked her full in the eyes as he spoke, the disappointment
and pain of his discovery in his face. The color
blanched out of her cheeks, she stared at him a moment
in waking astonishment, her eyes just as he remembered
them when they drew him on in his perilous race after
the train.
Such a flame rose in him that he felt
it must make him transparent, and lay his deepest
sentiments bare before her gaze. So she looked
at him a moment, eye to eye, the anger gone out of
her face, the flash of scorn no longer glinting in
the dark well of her eye. But if she recognized
him she did not speak of it. Almost at once she
turned away, as from the face of a stranger, looking
back over the way that she had ridden in such headlong
flight.
He believed she was ashamed to have
him know she recognized him. It was not for him
to speak of the straining little act that romance had
cast them for at their first meeting. Perhaps
under happier circumstances she would have recalled
it, and smiled, and given him her hand. Embarrassment
must attend her here, no matter how well she believed
herself to be justified in her destructive raids against
the fence.
“I’ll have to go back the way I came,”
she said.
“There is no other way.”
They started back in silence, riding
side by side. Wonder filled the door of his mind;
he had only disconnected, fragmentary thoughts, upon
the current of which there rose continually the realization,
only half understood, that he started out to search
the world for this woman, and he had found her.
That he had discovered her in the
part of a petty, spiteful lawbreaker, dressed in an
outlandish and unbecoming garb, did not trouble him.
If he was conscious of it at all, indeed, the hurrying
turmoil of his thoughts pushed it aside like drifted
leaves by the way. The wonderful thing was that
he had found her, and at the end of a pursuit so hot
it might have been a continuation of his first race
for the trophy of white linen in her hand.
Presently this fog cleared; he came
back to the starting-point of it, to the coldness
of his disappointment. More than once in that
chase across the pasture his hand had dropped to his
pistol in the sober intention of shooting the fugitive,
despised as one lower than a thief. She seemed
to sound his troubled thoughts, riding there by his
side like a friend.
“It was our range, and they
fenced it!” she said, with all the feeling of
a feudist.
“I understand that Philbrook
bought the land; he had a right to fence it.”
“He didn’t have any right
to buy it; they didn’t have any right to sell
it to him! This was our range; it was the best
range in the country. Look at the grass here,
and look at it outside of that fence.”
“I think it’s better here
because it’s been fenced and grazed lightly so
long.”
“Well, they didn’t have any right to fence
it.”
“Cutting it won’t make it any better now.”
“I don’t care, I’ll
cut it again! If I had my way about it I’d
drive our cattle in here where they’ve got a
right to be.”
“I don’t understand the
feeling of you people in this country against fences;
I came from a place where everybody’s got them.
But I suppose it’s natural, if you could get
down to the bottom of it.”
“If there’s one thing unnatural, it’s
a fence,” she said.
They rode on a little way, saying nothing more.
Then she:
“I thought the man they call
the Duke of Chimney Butte was working on this side
of the ranch?”
“That’s a nickname they
gave me over at the Syndicate when I first struck
this country. It doesn’t mean anything at
all.”
“I thought you were his partner,” she
said.
“No, I’m the monster himself.”
She looked at him quickly, very close to smiling.
“Well, you don’t look
so terrible, after all. I think a man like you
would be ashamed to have a woman boss over him.”
“I hadn’t noticed it, Miss Kerr.”
“She told you about me,” she charged,
with resentful stress.
“No.”
So they rode on, their thoughts between
them, a word, a silence, nothing worth while said
on either side, coming presently to the gap she had
made in the wire.
“I thought you’d hand
me over to the sheriff,” she told him, between
banter and defiance.
“They say you couldn’t
get a conviction on anything short of cattle stealing
in this part of the country, and doubtful on that.
But I wouldn’t give you over to the sheriff,
Miss Kerr, even if I caught you driving off a cow.”
“What would you do?” she
asked, her head bent, her voice low.
“I’d try to argue you
out of the cow first, and then teach you better,”
he said, with such evident seriousness that she turned
her face away, he thought to hide a smile.
She stopped her horse between the
dangling ends of wire. Her long braid of black
hair was swinging down her back to her cantle, her
hard ride having disarranged its cunning deceit beneath
her hat until it drooped over her ears and blew in
loose strands over her dark, wildly piquant face,
out of which the hard lines of defiance had not quite
melted.
She was not as handsome as Vesta Philbrook,
he admitted, but there was something about her that
moved emotions in him which slept in the other’s
presence. Perhaps it was the romance of their
first meeting; perhaps it was the power of her dark,
expressive eyes. Certainly Lambert had seen many
prettier women in his short experience, but none that
ever made his soul vibrate with such exquisite, sweet
pain.
“If you owned this ranch, Mr. ”
“Lambert is my name, Miss Kerr.”
“If you owned it, Mr. Lambert,
I believe we could live in peace, even if you kept
the fence. But with that girl it can’t
be done.”
“Here are your nippers, Miss
Kerr; you lost them when you jumped that arroyo.
Won’t you please leave the fence-cutting to the
men of the family, if it has to be done, after this?”
“We have to use them on the
range since Philbrook cut us off from water,”
she explained, “and hired men don’t take
much interest in a person’s family quarrels.
They’re afraid of Vesta Philbrook, anyhow.
She can pick a man off a mile with her rifle, they
believe, but she can’t. I’m not afraid
of her; I never was afraid of old Philbrook, the old
devil.”
Even though she concluded with that
spiteful little stab, she gave the explanation as
if she believed it due Lambert’s generous leniency
and courteous behavior.
“And there being no men of the
family who will undertake it, and no hired men who
can be interested, you have to cut the fence yourself,”
he said.
“I know you think I ought to
be ashamed of cutting her fence,” she said,
her head bent, her eyes veiled, “but I’m
not.”
“I expect I’d feel it
that way if it was my quarrel, too.”
“Any man like you would.
I’ve been where they have fences, too, and signs
to keep off the grass. It’s different here.”
“Can’t we patch up a truce
between us for the time I’m here?”
He put out his hand in entreaty, his
lean face earnest, his clear eyes pleading. She
colored quickly at the suggestion, and framed a hot
reply. He could see it forming, and went on hurriedly
to forestall it.
“I don’t expect to be
here always! I didn’t come here looking
for a job. I was going West with a friend; we
stopped off on the way through.”
“Riding fence for a woman boss is a low-down
job.”
“There’s not much to it
for a man that likes to change around. Maybe
I’ll not stay very long. We’d just
as well have peace while I’m here.”
“You haven’t got anything
to do with it you’re only a fence-rider!
The fight’s between me and that girl, and I’ll
cut her fence I’ll cut her heart
out if she gets in my road!”
“Well, I’m going to hook
up this panel,” he said, leaning and taking
hold of the wire end, “so you can come here and
let it down any time you feel like you have to cut
the fence. That will do us about the same damage,
and you every bit as much good.”
She was moved out of her sullen humor
by this proposal for giving vent to her passion against
Vesta Philbrook. It seemed as if he regarded her
as a child, and her part in this fence-feud a piece
of irresponsible folly. It was so absurd in her
eyes that she laughed.
“I suppose you’re in earnest,
but if you knew how foolish it sounds!”
“That’s what I’m
going to do, anyway. You know I’ll just
keep on fixing the fence when you cut it, and this
arrangement will save both of us trouble. I’ll
put a can or something on one of the posts to mark
the spot for you.”
“This fence isn’t any
joke with us, Mr. Lambert, funny as you seem to think
it. It’s more than a fence, it’s a
symbol of all that stands between us, all the wrongs
we’ve suffered, and the losses, on account of
it. I know it makes her rave to cut it, and I
expect you’ll have a good deal of fixing to
do right along.”
She started away, stopped a few rods
beyond the fence, came back.
“There’s always a place
for a good man over at our ranch,” she said.
He watched her braid of hair swinging
from side to side as she galloped away, with no regret
for his rejected truce of the fence. She would
come back to cut it again, and again he would see
her. Disloyal as it might be to his employer,
he hoped she would not delay the next excursion long.
He had found her. No matter for
the conditions under which the discovery had been
made, his quest was at an end, his long flights of
fancy were done. It was a marvelous thing for
him, more wonderful than the realization of his first
expectations would have been. This wild spirit
of the girl was well in accord with the character he
had given her in his imagination. When he watched
her away that day at Misery he knew she was the kind
of woman who would exact much of a man; as he looked
after her anew he realized that she would require
more.
The man who found his way to her heart
would have to take up her hatreds, champion her feuds,
ride in her forays, follow her wild will against her
enemies. He would have to sink the refinements
of his civilization, in a measure, discard all preconceived
ideas of justice and honor. He would have to
hate a fence.
The thought made him smile. He
was so happy that he had found her that he could have
absolved her of a deeper blame than this. He felt,
indeed, as if he had come to the end of vast wanderings,
a peace as of the cessation of turmoils in his heart.
Perhaps this was because of the immensity of the undertaking
which so lately had lain before him, its resumption
put off from day to day, its proportions increasing
with each deferment.
He made no movement to dismount and
hook up the cut wires, but sat looking after her as
she grew smaller between him and the hill. He
was so wrapped in his new and pleasant fancies that
he did not hear the approach of a horse on the slope
of the rise until its quickened pace as it reached
the top brought Vesta Philbrook suddenly into his view.
“Who is that?” she asked,
ignoring his salutation in her excitement.
“I think it must be Miss Kerr;
she belongs to that family, at least.”
“You caught her cutting the fence?”
“Yes, I caught her at it.”
“And you let her get away?”
“There wasn’t much else
that I could do,” he returned, with thoughtful
gravity.
Vesta sat in her saddle as rigid and
erect as a statue, looking after the disappearing
rider. Lambert contrasted the two women in mental
comparison, struck by the difference in which rage
manifested itself in their bearing. This one
seemed as cold as marble; the other had flashed and
glowed like hot iron. The cold rigidity before
his eyes must be the slow wrath against which men
are warned.
The distant rider had reached the
top of the hill from which she had spied out the land.
Here she pulled up and looked back, turning her horse
to face them when she saw that Lambert’s employer
had joined him. A little while she gazed back
at them, then waved her hat as in exultant challenge,
whirled her horse, and galloped over the hill.
That was the one taunt needed to set
off the slow magazine of Vesta Philbrook’s wrath.
She cut her horse a sharp blow with her quirt and
took up the pursuit so quickly that Lambert could not
interpose either objection or entreaty.
Lambert felt like an intruder who
had witnessed something not intended for his eyes.
He had no thought at that moment of following and
attempting to prevent what might turn out a regretful
tragedy, but sat there reviling the land that nursed
women on such a rough breast as to inspire these savage
passions of reprisal and revenge.
Vesta was riding a big brown gelding,
long-necked, deep-chested, slim of hindquarters as
a hound. Unless rough ground came between them
she would overhaul that Kerr girl inside of four miles,
for her horse lacked the wind for a long race, as
the chase across the pasture had shown. In case
that Vesta overtook her, what would she do? The
answer to that was in Vesta’s eyes when she
saw the cut wire, the raider riding free across the
range. It was such an answer that it shot through
Lambert like a lightning-stroke.
Yet, it was not his quarrel; he could
not interfere on one side or the other without drawing
down the displeasure of somebody, nor as a neutral
without incurring the wrath of both. This view
of it did not relieve him of anxiety to know how the
matter was going to terminate.
He gave Whetstone the reins and galloped
after Vesta, who was already over the hill. As
he rode he began to realize as never before the smallness
of this fence-cutting feud, the really worthless bone
at the bottom of the contention. Here Philbrook
had fenced in certain lands which all men agreed he
had been cheated in buying, and here uprose those
who scorned him for his gullibility, and lay in wait
to murder him for shutting them out of his admittedly
worthless domain. It was a quarrel beyond reason
to a thinking man.
Nobody could blame Philbrook for defending
his rights, but they seemed such worthless possessions
to stake one’s life against day by day, year
after year. The feud of the fence was like a cancerous
infection. It spread to and poisoned all that
the wind blew on around the borders of that melancholy
ranch.
Here were these two women riding break-neck
and bloody-eyed to pull guns and fight after the code
of the roughest. Both of them were primed by
the accumulated hatred of their young lives to deeds
of violence with no thought of consequences.
It was a hard and bitter land that could foster and
feed such passions in bosoms of so much native excellence;
a rough and boisterous land, unworthy the labor that
men lavished on it to make therein their refuge and
their home.
The pursued was out of sight when
Lambert gained the hilltop, the pursuer just disappearing
behind a growth of stunted brushwood in the winding
dry valley beyond. He pushed after them, his anxiety
increasing, hoping that he might overtake Vesta before
she came within range of her enemy. Even should
he succeed in this, he was at fault for some way of
stopping her in her passionate design.
He could not disarm her without bringing
her wrath down on himself, or attempt to persuade
her without rousing her suspicion that he was leagued
with her destructive neighbors. On the other hand,
the fence-cutting girl would believe that he had wittingly
joined in an unequal and unmanly pursuit. A man’s
dilemma between the devil and the deep water would
be simple compared to his.
All this he considered as he galloped
along, leaving the matter of keeping the trail mainly
to his horse. He emerged from the hemming brushwood,
entering a stretch of hard tableland where the parched
grass was red, the earth so hard that a horse made
no hoofprint in passing. Across this he hurried
in a ferment of fear that he would come too late,
and down a long slope where sage grew again, the earth
dry and yielding about its unlovely clumps.
Here he discovered that he had left
too much to his horse. The creature had laid
a course to suit himself, carrying him off the trail
of those whom he sought in such breathless state.
He stopped, looking round him to fix his direction,
discovering to his deep vexation that Whetstone had
veered from the course that he had laid for him into
the south, and was heading toward the river.
On again in the right direction, swerving
sharply in the hope that he would cut the trail.
So for a mile or more, in dusty, headlong race, coming
then to the rim of a bowl-like valley and the sound
of running shots.
Lambert’s heart contracted in
a paroxysm of fear for the lives of both those flaming
combatants as he rode precipitately into the little
valley. The shooting had ceased when he came into
the clear and pulled up to look for Vesta.
The next second the two girls swept
into sight. Vesta had not only overtaken her
enemy, but had ridden round her and cut off her retreat.
She was driving her back toward the spot where Lambert
stood, shooting at her as she fled, with what seemed
to him a cruel and deliberate hand.