 | The Wife of Chino |  |
IV
A DESPATCH FROM THE EXPRESS MESSENGER
WHAT made it harder for Lockwood just now was that even on that very day, in spite of all precaution, in spite of all good resolutions, he had at last seen Felice. Doubtless the young woman herself had contrived it; but, be that as it may, Lockwood, returning from a tour of inspection along the ditch, came upon her not far from camp, but in a remote corner, and she had of course demanded why he kept away from her. What Lockwood said in response he could not now remember; nor, for that matter, was any part of the conversation very clear to his memory. The reason for this was that, just as he was leaving her, something of more importance than conversation had happened. Felice had looked at him.
And she had so timed her look, had so insinuated it into the little, brief, significant silences between their words, that its meaning had been very clear. Lockwood had left her with his brain dizzy, his teeth set, his feet stumbling and fumbling down the trail, for now he knew that Felice wanted him to know that she regretted the circumstance of her marriage to Chino Zavalla; he knew that she wanted him to know that the situation was as intolerable for her as for him.
All the rest of the day, even at this moment, in fact, this new phase of the affair intruded its pregnant suggestions upon his mind, to the exclusion of everything else. He felt the drift strong around him; he knew that in the end he would resign himself to it. At the same time he sensed the abyss, felt the nearness of some dreadful, nameless cataclysm; a thing of black shadow, bottomless, terrifying.
"Lord!" he murmured, as he drew his hand across his forehead, "Lord! I wonder where this thing is going to fetch up." As he spoke, the telegraph key on his desk, near at hand, began all at once to click off his call. Groaning and grumbling, Lockwood heaved himself up, and, with his right leg bent, hobbled from chair-back to chair-back over to the desk. He rested his right knee on his desk chair, reached for his key, opened the circuit, and answered. There was an instant's pause, then the instrument began to click again. The message was from the express messenger at Iowa Hill. Word by word Lockwood took it off as follows:
reno—kid—will—attempt—hold-up—of— brick—on—trail—to-night—do—not—send— till—advised—at—this—end.
Lockwood let go the key and jumped back from the desk, lips compressed, eyes alight, his fists clenched till the knuckles grew white. The whole figure of him stiffened as tense as drawn wire, braced rigid like a finely bred hound "making game."
Chino was already half an hour gone by the trail, and the Reno Kid was a desperado of the deadliest breed known to the West. How he came to turn up here there was no time to inquire. He was on hand, that was the point; and Reno Kid always "shot to kill." This would be no mere hold-up; it would be murder.
Just then, as Lockwood snatched open a certain drawer of his desk where he kept
To the war I must go,
To fight for my country and you, dear.
Lockwood stopped short, his arm at full stretch, still gripping tight the revolver that he had half pulled from the drawer— stopped short and listened.
The solution of everything had come.
He saw it in a flash. The knife hung poised over the knot, even at that moment was falling. Nothing was asked of him— nothing but inertia.
For an instant, alone there in that isolated mining-camp, high above the world, lost and forgotten in the gloom of the cañons and redwoods, Lockwood heard the crisis of his life come crashing through the air upon him like the onslaught of a whirlwind. For an instant, and no more, he considered. Then he cried aloud:
"No, no, I can't, I can't—not this way!" And with the words he threw the belt of the revolver about his hips and limped and scrambled from the room, drawing the buckle close.
How he gained the stable he never knew, nor how he backed the horse from the building, nor how, hopping on one leg, he got the head-stall on and drew the cinches tight.
But the wrench of pain in his foot as, swinging up at last, he tried to catch his off stirrup was reality enough to clear any confusion of spirit. Hanging on as best he might with his knees and one foot, Lockwood, threshing the horse's flanks with the stinging quirt that tapered from the reins of the bridle, shot from the camp in a swirl of clattering hoofs, flying pebbles, and blinding clouds of dust.
| The Wife of Chino | |