Chapter 13. Stark Takes A Hand In The Game

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_ CHAPTER XIII. STARK TAKES A HAND IN THE GAME

The old man greeted the Lieutenant affably, but as his glance fell on his daughter he stopped stock-still on the threshold.

"I told you never to wear that dress again," he said, in a dry, harsh voice.

The girl made no answer, for her heart was breaking, but turned and went into her room. Burrell had an irresistible desire to tell Gale that he wanted his daughter for his wife; it would be an unwonted pleasure to startle this iron-gray old man and the shawled and shambling mummy of red, with the unwinking eyes that always reminded him of two ox-heart cherries; but he had given Necia his promise. So he descended to the exchange of ordinary topics, and inquired for news of the creek.

"Necia's ground is getting better every hour," the trader said. "Yesterday they found a sixty-dollar pan."

"Have you struck pay on yours?"

"No; Poleon and I seem to hold bad hands. Some of his laymen are quitting work. They've cross-cut in half a dozen places and can't find a color."

"But surely they haven't fully prospected his claims yet; there must be plenty of room for a pay-streak somewhere, mustn't there?"

"It looks like he had drawn three blanks," said Gale, "although we can't tell for sure. They're breaking most as bad for me, too; but I've got a new hunch, and I'm running up a dreen to catch bed-rock along the left rim. I've got twenty men at work, and I'll know before long. You heard about Runnion, of course?"

"Yes; the usual story--the bad men get the good mines, and the good ones get the hungry spots. Well, I might have been one of the unfortunates if I had staked for myself; but I hardly think so, I'm pretty lucky." He laughingly bade them good-night, content with himself and at peace with the world.

Gale went to Necia's door and called her, but when she appeared he was unprepared for the tragic face with which she greeted him.

"Daughter," he said, "don't feel bad over what I said; I didn't mean to be cross with you, but--I don't like that dress."

"Were you cross with me, daddy?" she said, dully. "I didn't hear. What did you say?"

He looked at her in amazement. "Necia, little girl, what is the trouble?"

She was staring past him, and her fingers were fumbling helplessly with the lace of her gown, but she began to show signs of collapse.

"I sent him away--I--gave him up, when he wanted me--wanted me--Oh, daddy! he wants to marry me--and I sent him away."

Alluna uttered a short, satisfied exclamation, and, looking at Gale meaningly, said:

"It is good. It is good. He is a stranger."

But the man disregarded her interruption.

"He asked you to marry him in--in--in spite of who you are and what I am?"

"Yes; he is ready to give up his ambition, his army, his future, his family, everything, for me--to sacrifice it all; and so, of course, I couldn't let him." She spoke simply, as if her father would surely understand and approve her action, while in her voice was a note of inevitable resignation. "You see, I never understood what my blood would mean to him until to-night. I've been selfish and thoughtless, I guess. I just wanted him, and wanted him to take me; but now that he is mine, I love him more than I thought. He is so dear to me that I can't drag him down--I can't--I can't!" She went to the open door and stood leaning against the casing, facing the cool outer darkness, her face hidden from them, her form sagging wearily, as if the struggle had sapped her whole strength.

Alluna crept to the trader and looked up at him eagerly, whispering:

"This will end in a little while, John. She is young. She can go back to the Mission to-morrow. She will soon forget."

"Forget! Do you think she can forget?"

"Any woman can forget. Only men remember."

"It is the red blood in you--lying. You know you lie."

"It is to save your life," she said.

"I know; but it's no use." To Necia he said; "You needn't worry, little daughter." But her ears were deaf. "You needn't give him up, I say--this will end all right."

Seeing that she gave no sign of heeding, he stepped closer, and swung her about till she faced him.

"Can't you trust me this one time? You always have before, Necia. I say he'll marry you, and it will all come out right."

She raised her hopeless eyes and strove gamely to meet his, then, failing, broke away, and turned back to the door. "I knew you couldn't understand. I--I--oh, God, I love him so!" With a cry like that of a wounded animal she fled out into the night, where she could give vent to her anguish unseen; for she had never wept before her father, but always crept away and hid herself until her grief was spent. Gale would have started after her, but Alluna dragged him back fiercely.

"No, no! It means your life, John. Let the secret die, and she will forget. She is so young. Time will cure her--time cures everything. Don't tell her--don't tell any one--and, above all, don't tell that soldier! He would not believe, nor would she. Even I have doubted!"

"You?"

"Yes, John. And if I don't believe, what is a stranger to say? No man knowing you would believe the tale--without proof. Suppose she doubted--have you ever thought of that? Would you not rather have her die still loving you than live and disbelieve?"

"Yes, yes! Of course, I--I've thought of that, but--Woman, you're worse than a rattlesnake!"

"Even if he knew, he might not marry her. You at least are clean, and that other man was a devil. A brave man's life is too great a price to pay for a grief that will die in a year." Alluna was speaking swiftly in her own language, her body tense, her face ablaze, and no man seeing her could ever again have called her people stolid.

"You think time will cure a love like that?" he said.

"Yes, yes!"

"That's all you know about it. Time may act that way perhaps in cities and such places, but out in the hills it is different. When you've got the breath of the forest in you, I say it is different. Time--why, I've lived fifteen years in the open with a living memory. Every night I've dreamed it over, every day I've lived it through; in every camp-fire I see a face, and every wind from the south brings a voice to me. Every stormy night a girl with eyes like Necia's calls to me, and I have to follow. Every patch of moonlight shows her smiling at me, just beyond, just in the shadow's edge. Love! Time! Why, Alluna, love is the only thing in the world that never dies, and time only makes it the more enduring."

He took up the white slouch hat he had thrown down when he came in, and stepped to the door.

"Where are you going?" inquired the squaw, fearfully.

"To the barracks to give myself up!"

She flung herself at him with a great cry, and seized him about the waist.

"You never loved me, John, but I have been a good woman to you, although I knew you were always thinking of her--and had no thought of me. I have loved this girl because you loved her. I have hated your enemies because you hated them, and now I remember while you forget."

"Forget! What do you mean?"

"Stark!"

The man paused. "I did almost forget him--and after fifteen years!"

"Let us kill him to-night; then we will go to the soldier together, side by side--I am your woman. Necia will look after the little ones."

Gale stared at her, and as he gazed the red pigment underneath her skin, the straight-hanging, mane-like hair, the gaudy shawl she never went without, the shapeless, skin-shod feet, the slovenly, ill-fitting garb of a mis-cast woman vanished, and he saw her as she was on a day long past, a slim, shy, silent creature, with great, watchful, trusting eyes and a soul unspoiled. No woman had ever been so loyal, so uncomplaining. He had robbed her of her people and her gods. He had shifted hither and yon at the call of his uncertain fortune, or at a sign of that lurking fear that always dogged him, and she had never left his side, never questioned, never doubted, but always served him like a slave, without asking for a part in that other love, without sharing in the caresses he had consecrated to a woman she had never seen.

"By Heaven! You're game, Alluna, but there's a limit even to what I can take from you," he said, at last. "I don't ever seem to have noticed it before, but there is. No! I've got to do this thing alone to-night, all of it, for you have no place in it, and I can't let the little girl go on like this. The sooner that soldier knows the better." He leaned down and touched her brown mouth with his grizzled lips. "Thank you, Alluna, for making a man of me when I'd nearly forgotten. Now you stay here." He knew he could count on her obedience, and so he left her. When he had gone she drew the shawl up over her face and crouched in the doorway, straining her eyes after him through the dark. In time she began to rock and sway, and then to chant, until the night moaned with the death-song of her people.

Necia had no idea whither she went; her only thought was to flee from her kin, who could not understand, to hide under cover in some solitary place, to let the darkness swallow her up, so that she might give way to her grief and be just a poor, weak woman. So, with a dull and aching heart, she wandered, bareheaded, bare-necked, half-demented, and wholly oblivious to her surroundings, without sense of her incongruous attire or of the water that squeezed up through the soggy moss at her tread and soaked her frail slippers. On she stumbled blindly through the murk like some fair creature of light cast out and banished.

The night was cloudy and a wind came sighing from the north, tossing the girl's hair and tugging at the careless folds of her dress, but she heard nothing save the devil's tattoo that rang in her head, and felt nothing beyond the pain at throat and breast, which in time became so bitter that the tears were wrung from her dry eyes, and she began to weep in a pitiful woman fashion, as if her heart would burst. The first drops cleared a way for others, and soon she was sobbing freely, alone and without solace, lost in the night.

She had not succeeded in thoroughly isolating herself, however, for a man who was steering his course by the sense of feel and the wind's direction heard her and paused. His steps were muffled in the soft footing, so that she had no warning of his presence until he was near enough to distinguish her dimly where she leaned against the log wall of a half-completed cabin.

To his question, "What's the trouble here?" she made no answer, but moved away, whereupon he detained her. "There's something wrong. Who are you, anyhow?"

"It's only Necia, Mr. Stark," said the girl, at which he advanced and took her by the arm.

"What ails you, child? What in the world are you doing here? Come! It's only a step to my cabin; you must come in and rest awhile, and you'll soon be all right. Why, you'll break your neck in this darkness."

She hung back, but he compelled her to go with him in spite of her unwillingness.

"Now, now," he admonished, with unusual kindliness for him; "you know you're my little friend, and I can't let you go on this way; it's scandalous. I won't stand for it. I like you too much."

In truth he had done things during these last few weeks to make her think so, having never missed an opportunity to stop and pass a word with her, at the same time showing her a queer courtesy and consideration quite foreign to his saturnine habits. She had never mentioned the fact to her father or the others, for she had developed a sort of sympathy for the man, and felt that she understood him better than they did.

He led her inside his cabin, and closed the door in the face of the night wind before he struck a light.

"I can't stand to see you cry," he repeated, as he adjusted the wick. "Now, as soon as--" He stopped in astonishment, for he had turned to behold, instead of the little half-breed girl, this slender, sorrowful stranger in her amazingly wonderful raiment.

"By--" He checked himself insensibly, and stood motionless for a long time, while she wiped her eyes and, woman-like, straightened out her gown and smoothed her hair with little feminine touches.

"I--I--hope you'll excuse me for acting this way," she smiled at him, piteously; then, observing his strange features, "Why, what is the matter, Mr. Stark; are you angry?"

His hawklike face was strained and colorless, his black eyes fierce and eager, his body bent as if to pounce upon a victim. In truth he was now the predatory animal.

"No," he replied, as if her question carried no meaning; then, coming to himself, "No--no! of course not, but--you gave me a start. You reminded me of some one. How do you come to be dressed like that? I never knew you had such clothes?"

"Poleon brought them from Dawson; they are the first I ever had."

He shook his head in a slow, puzzled fashion.

"You look just like a white girl--I mean--I don't know what I mean." This time he roused himself fully, the effort being more like a shudder.

"So I have always thought," she said, and her eyes filled again.

"Your skin is like milk beneath your tan, and--I don't mean any disrespect, but--Well, I'm just so damned surprised! Come over here and sit down while I mix you something to put the heart back into you."

He shoved forward a big chair with a wolf-skin flung over it, into which she sank dejectedly, while he stepped to the shelves beside the Yukon stove and took down a bottle and some glasses. She glanced about with faint curiosity, but the interior of the cabin showed nothing out of the ordinary, consisting as it did of one room with a cot in the corner, upon which were tumbled blankets, and above which was a row of pegs. Opposite was a sheet-iron box-stove supported knee-high on a tin-capped framework of wood, and in the centre a table with oil-cloth cover. Around the walls were some cooking utensils, a few cases of canned goods, and clothes hanging in a row.

"I'm not fixed up very well yet," he apologized; "I've been too busy at the saloon to waste time on living quarters. But it's comfortable enough for an old roadster like me, for I've bruised around the frontier so long that I've learned there's only three things necessary to a man's comfort--warm clothes, a full stomach, and a dry place to sleep. All the rest that goes to make a man content he has inside him, and I'm not the kind to be satisfied, no matter where I am or what I have. I never was that kind, so I just don't make the attempt."

He was talking to give her leeway, and when he had concocted a weak toddy, insisted that she must drink it, which she did listlessly, while he rambled on.

"I've noticed a few things in my life, Miss Necia, and one of them is that it often does a heap of good to let out and talk things over; not that a fellow gains any real advantage from disseminating his troubles, but it serves to sort of ease his mind. Folks don't often come to me for advice or sympathy. I don't have it to give, but maybe it will help you to tell me what caused this night-marauding expedition of yours." Seeing that she hesitated, he went on: "I suppose there's a lot of reasons why you shouldn't confide in me--I don't like that old man of yours, nor any of your friends; but maybe that's why I'm interested. If any of them has upset you, I'll take particular pleasure in helping you get even."

"I don't want to get even, and there is nothing to tell," said Necia, "except a girl's troubles, and I can't talk about them." She smiled a painful, crooked smile at him.

"Your old man has been rough to you?"

"No, no! Nothing of that sort."

"Then it's that soldier?" he quizzed, shrewdly. "I knew you cared a heap for him. Don't he love you?"

"Yes! That's the trouble; and he wants to many me; he swears he will in spite of everything."

"See here! I don't quite follow. I thought you liked him--he's the kind most women go daffy over."

"Like him!" The girl trembled with emotion. "Like him! Why--why, I would do anything to make him happy."

"I guess I must be kind of dull," Stark said, perplexedly.

"Don't you see? I've got to give him up--I'm a squaw."

"Squaw hell! With those shoulders?"

Stark checked himself, for he found he was rejoicing in his enemy's defeat, and was in danger of betraying himself to the girl. In every encounter the young man had bested him, and these petty defeats had crystallized his antipathy to Burrell into a hatred so strong that he had begun to lie awake nights planning a systematic quarrel. For he was the kind of man who throve upon contentions: so warped in soul that when no man offered him offence he brooded over fancied wrongs and conjured up a cause for enmity, goading himself into that sour, sullen habit of mind that made him a dread and a menace to all who lacked his favor. His path was strewn from the border North with the husks of fierce brawls, and he bore the ineradicable mark of the killer, carrying always in his brain those scars that hate had seared. In his eyes forever slumbered a flame waiting to be blown to life, and when embroiled in feuds or bickerings a custom had grown upon him to fight these fights in secret many times, until of nights he would lie in solitary darkness writhing in spirit as he hounded his man to desperation, or forced him into a corner where he might slake his thirsty vengeance. After such black, sleepless hours he dragged himself from his battle-grounds of fancy, worn and weary, and the daylight discovered him more saturnine and moody, more menacing than ever.

He had brooded over his quarrel with Gale and the Lieutenant ever since their first clash, for in this place they furnished the only objects upon which his mania could work--and it was a mania, the derangement of a diseased, distorted mind. His regard for Necia was a careless whim, a rather aimless, satisfying hobby, not at all serious, entirely extraneous to his every-day life, and interesting only from its aimlessness, being as near to an unselfish and decent motive as the man had ever come. But it was not of sufficient consequence to stand out against or swerve the course of a quarrel; wherefore, he was gladdened by the news of Burrell's discomfiture.

"So you like him too much to stand in his way," he said, meditatively. "How does your father look at it?"

"He wants the Lieutenant to marry me. He says he will fix it up all right; but he doesn't understand. How could he?"

"You are doing just right," concurred the man, hypocritically, "and you'll live to be glad you stood out." Now that both his enemies desired this thing, he was set on preventing it, regardless of the girl. "How did the Lieutenant take it when you refused him?"

"He wouldn't take it at all. He only laughed and declared he would marry me, anyhow." The very thought thrilled her.

"Does he knew you love him?"

The tender, sobbing laugh she gave was ample answer.

"Well, what's your plan?"

"I--I--I don't know. I am so torn and twisted with it all that I can't plan, but I have thought I--ought--to go--away."

"Good!" he said, quickly, but his acquiescence, instead of soothing her, had the contrary effect, and she burst out impulsively:

"Oh--I can't--I can't! I can't go away and never see him! I can't do it! I want to stay where he is!" She had been holding herself in stubbornly, but at last gave way with reckless abandon. "Why wasn't I born white like other girls? I've never felt like an Indian. I've always dreamed and fancied I was different, and I am, in my soul--I know I am! The white is so strong in me that it has killed the red, and I'm one of father's people. I'm not like the other two; they are brown and silent, and as cold as little toads; but I'm white and full of life, all over. They never see the men and women that I see in my dreams. They never have my visions of the beautiful snow-white mother, with the tender mouth and the sad eyes that always smile at me."

"You have visions of such things, eh?"

"Yes, but I came a generation late, that's all, and I've got that other woman's soul. I'm not a half-breed--I'm not me at all. I'm Merridy--Merridy! That's who I am."

Her face was turned away from him, so that she did not notice the frightful effect her words had upon Stark.

"Where did you get--that name?" His voice was pitched in a different key now. Then, after a moment, he added, "From the story I told you at the mine that night, I suppose?"

"Oh no," she answered. "I've always had it, though they call me Necia. Merridy was my father's mother. I guess I'm like her in many ways, for I often imagine she is a part of me, that her spirit is mine. It's the only way I can account for the sights I see."

"Your father's mother?" he said, mechanically. "That's queer." He seemed to be trying to shake himself free from something. "It's heredity, I suppose. You have visions of a white woman, a woman named Merridy, eh?" Suddenly his manner changed, and he spoke so roughly that she looked at him in vague alarm.

"How do you know? How do you know she was his mother?"

"He told me so--"

Stark snarled. "He lied!"

"I can show you her wedding-ring--I've always worn it." She fumbled for the chain about her neck, but it eluded her trembling fingers. "It has her name in it--'From Dan to Merridy.'"

Stark's hand darted forward and tore the thing from her shoulders, then he thrust it under the lamp and glared at the inscription, while his fingers shook so that he could barely distinguish the words. His eyes were blazing and his face livid.

Necia cried out, but he dropped the ornament and seized her fiercely, lifting her from the chair to her feet; then, with one swift, downward clutch, he laid hold of her dress at the left shoulder and ripped it half to her waist. A hoarse sound came from his throat, a cry half of amazement, half of triumph.

"Let me go! Let me go!" She struggled to free herself, but he held her in a viselike grip, while he peered closely at a blemish well down upon her back. Then he let her slip from his grasp, and, seized with terror, she staggered away from him. He was leaning heavily with both hands upon the table, his face working, his head drawn down between his shoulders, his thin lips grinning, his whole manner so terrifying that she shrank back till she brought up against the bark walls. She turned and made for the door, whereupon he straightened up and said, in a queer, commanding voice:

"Wait--don't go! I--I--you--" He licked his lips as if they were dust dry, passed an uncertain hand across his beaded brow, and, raising the water-pail beside the door to his mouth, drank heavily in great, noisy gulps.

"Let me out of here!" the girl demanded, imperiously.

"Don't be scared," he said, more quietly now. "You must excuse me. You--you gave me an awful fright. Yes--that was it. Don't worry. I didn't mean any harm."

"You hurt my shoulder," she said, almost ready to cry. "And you tore my dress," she added, angrily--"my fine dress. Are you crazy?"

"You see, it's like this, that name of Merridy and that ring--well, the whole thing was so startling, I--I went off my head. It came sudden, and I thought--I thought--it don't matter what I thought, but I'm sorry. I'll apologize--and I'll get you a new dress, a whole lot of dresses, if you like." This seemed to amuse him, and he began to laugh silently.

His first impulse had been to tell her everything, but his amazement had rendered him speechless, and now he was thankful for it. Following his discovery of her identity, he had been stricken dumb, staring at her like one demented; then, as he was about to explain, his mind suddenly grasped the significance of this revelation and the advantage it gave him over his enemies; a plan began to unfold, vague at first, its details not worked out, but a plan whereby he could by keeping silent use this knowledge to serve his vengeful ends. In an instant his vision cleared and his brain became active and alert, like that of a man brought suddenly under the stimulus of strong liquor. Care must be exercised--she must not learn too much--for if she suspected the truth she would go to her soldier lover at once, and no power on earth could hold her back. That would block the vengeance that he saw shaping in the dank recesses of his distorted brain.

First, and above all, he must get the girl away from Flambeau.

"I went clear off my head," he heard himself saying, "at that name of Merridy, that ring, and all. Why--why, I thought you might be the missing girl I told you of--you remember, that day up on Lee's Creek--so I had to see; but, dear me, I should have been more considerate--I should have explained. The trouble is I'm a nervous man, and I get impulsive streaks on me sometimes that I can't control. I'm sorry I spoiled your dress, but I'll get you another--you bet I will."

This explanation of his strange behavior seemed plausible enough to banish all personal fears from Necia's mind. Indeed, Stark had now become so gentle and apologetic in his demeanor that her woman's curiosity overcame her instinct to flee, and she ventured the question:

"So you really thought I was that other girl?"

"I did for a minute. The mother was a--a--friend of mine, and so--I lost my head. But I'm all right now, and if you'll overlook my roughness we'll go back to your troubles."

These last few moments had driven her own worries from her mind, but he was bent on recalling them, and so continued, cautiously:

"You were saying that you thought you'd go away. I think that's a good plan, and you'd be wise to do it for more reasons than one. It will give you time to think it all over and know your own mind--"

"I know my mind now, and yet--I don't want to go away."

"--and it will give Burrell a chance to prove himself. He'll either show that he has got to have you at any cost, or that you are right in your decision. If the first should happen, you can come back to him; if the last--why, it will be better for you, anyhow. As long as you stay here neither one of you can see clearly."

She was touched by his interest, and realized the force of his argument, which, strange to say, seemed to second her own thoughts; yet she hesitated.

"I want to help you--I'm going to help you--because I've got an interest in you like you were mine." Again he betrayed that strange, mirthless amusement.

"There is no place for me to go," said Necia, blankly, "except the Mission, and I have no way of getting there."

"Don't you worry. I'll furnish the means, and you'd better go to-night"--she flinched--"yes, to-night; there's no use prolonging your agony. I'll get a boat ready and send a trusty man with you. The current is swift, and if he rows well you can make it by to-morrow evening. That's only one night out, and I'll put some blankets aboard so you can wrap up and have a sleep."

"I feel as if I'd never sleep again," she sighed.

"Now, now, this will come out all right yet. I'd take you down there myself, but I've got to stay here. I've got work to do. Yes, I've sure got work of importance ahead of me."

"I must go back and get some clothes," she said, At which he would have demurred had he not seen that she could not travel in her present condition.

"Very well. But don't let anybody see you."

"Of course not."

"It's getting late, and your folks will be abed." He looked at his watch. "Midnight! Be here in an hour, and I'll have the skiff ready."

The light of sacrifice was in Necia's eyes, and her cheeks were blanched with the pallor of a great resolution. She did not stop to reason why or how she had been led to this disposal of her future, but clutched desperately at Stark's plan of rescue from her agonizing predicament.

"I'll be here in an hour," she said, simply.

He let her out, closed the door after her, and locked it; then, drawing a deep breath, he raised his clenched hands above his head, and gave a great sigh of exultation. Next he took out his six-shooter and examined it carefully. The shells did not suit him, so he filled the gun with new ones, loosened the three lower buttons of his vest, and slid the weapon inside his trousers band; then, facing the direction of Gale's trading-post, he spoke aloud.

"I was a long time coming, Gaylord, but I'm here, and I've got you where I've wanted you these fifteen years--yes, and I've got you, too, Burrell! By God, this is my night!"

His lithe body became panther-like in poise, his bearing that of the meat-eating animal, and his face set in a fierce, exultant cruelty as he blew out his light and left the cabin. _

Read next: Chapter 14. A Mystery Is Unravelled

Read previous: Chapter 12. A Tangled Skein

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