Part 63

But where was she? I waited to see if Bonnie Bell would come out anywhere; but she didn't.

I walked over to him; and he seen me standing there looking at him just as he was going to pull out. I went on over and got onto the seat with him.

"Drive right on straight out of town," says I, quiet. "Don't say anything. Just act like nothing had happened," says I.

Under my coat I pushed the muzzle of my gun into his ribs. He looked straight ahead and done what I told him to. If he was scared bad he didn't let on.

"I haven't got any gun," says he after a while. "I don't pack one."

"I haven't packed one for years myself," says I. "Sometimes a man has to pack one for coyotes and such things," says I.

He got kind of red in his face, but he didn't say anything.

"I'm just that kind of a man--when it comes to a show-down I don't care what happens," says I. "And I reckon you see it's a show-down now. Tell me where she is."

"She's out at our place," says he; "forty miles or so--you know where it is. I've got the Arrow Head Spring homestead; I bought it a while ago. I've got a few cows--not many. You see," says he, "I've saved a little money--not a whole lot. Our property isn't paid for yet. We've got a quarter section, but you know the range is in back of it. We think we can make some sort of a start."

"With her? Her that was used to so much?" says I. "Are you married? But, of course, that was what you was after--her money, not her."

He flushed plumb red then, and sort of swallowed several times.

"You think high of me and her, don't you, Curly?" says he.

I seen that, after all, I was too late; and my gun dropped down into the bottom of the buckboard, and neither of us noticed it.

"You married her--our girl," says I, "that we'd tried so hard to get a place for? She could of owned the whole ranch--and you give her forty acres, part paid for! That's fine--for the girl we loved so much!"

"You don't love her no more than I do," says he. "You never tried harder for her than I'll try for her. Love--why, what do you know about it? If she hadn't loved me do you think she'd of done what she done and run away with me? Do you think she'd of broke her father's heart and forgot all that had been done for her if it hadn't been for love? If it hadn't been for thinking of those things we'd be the happiest two young fools in all the world. We are now! She's some happy anyway. But it breaks my own heart to think she isn't any happier."

After a while he goes on:

"What could I do, Curly? It's a awful thing to love a woman this way; it's a terrible thing. There's no sense nor reason about it at all," says he. "But now if I only could have had any decent chance----"

"Pick up your gun," says he after a while; "it might fall out."

We rode on for quite a while. He made like he was going to reach into his pocket for something and I covered him quick, but he only hauled out a piece of Arrow Head plug. He offered me a chaw, absent-minded.

"No," says I; "I can't take no chaw of tobacco with such as you."

He put it back in his pocket, then, and didn't take none his own self. His face was right red and troubled now.

"Curly," says he, "what am I going to do? What's right to do? I hadn't much to give up, but such as it was I give it up gladly for her; I'd give up everything in the world--if I had everything--for her. That's what she means to me," says he. "We are so much to one another that I haven't any time to be scared of you. We haven't got around to that yet--not that I'm so cheap as to believe you're bluffing; I know you're not."

"No, I ain't," says I. "This thing has got to be squared and I come out here to square it. I know your record--I've heard you talk to more'n one woman. You've got a cast iron nerve," says I; "but it won't do you no good. Drive right on now till I tell you to stop."

"If you want to kill her too," says he, "all right--then shoot me down. Ride on out then and explain to her what you've done. Look at her face the way it will be then. Maybe you can tell then whether she cares anything for me or not. Do you want to see a woman's face looking thataway--see it all your life? And do you think you can square things or end things by killing me or her, or both of us? Maybe you'd murder more--who knows? We're man and wife. Would that square things, Curly? I don't know much myself, but I don't seem to think it would."

It was curious, but it seemed like it was true--he didn't seem to have got around to thinking of whether he was in danger or not. And I knowed he wasn't running any cheap bluff, neither, any more than me. He looked right on ahead and didn't pay no attention to my gun.

"Curly," says he, "you didn't make this and you can't end it. This is a case of man and woman, the way God made them. 'Male and female made He them.' If I died today--if she did too--I'd thank God that we had gone this far anyways together.

"Why," says he, going on like he was half talking to hisself, "I didn't believe in anything much--I was a atheist and a socialist--till I saw her. I couldn't see anything much worth while in the world--till I saw her. I didn't want to do or be anything much--till I saw her. And now, I see it all--everything! I see how much worth while the world is, and how much worth while she is and I am, and how much worth while other people are too. I just didn't know it before--till I saw her. Then I knew what life was all about. Do you think you can settle this now, or help it, Curly? No; it's too late."

We drove on quite a little way yet.