_ CHAPTER XIX. THE PLEDGE
Wid Gardner, by some miracle of self-confidence, did prove able to drive a car in some fashion, for he made the round trip to the dam in good enough time. But he had had his trip for nothing; for Doctor Barnes now made sudden and unexplained resolution not to remain longer at Sim Gage's ranch. After his departure in his own car, Wid Gardner approached Sim as he stood, hands in pockets, in his door yard.
"Well," said he. And Sim, in the succinct fashion of the land, replied likewise, "Well"; which left honors even conversationally.
"How's things down below?" asked Sim presently.
"Sort of uneasylike," replied Wid. "News had got down there that something's wrong. Company of soldiers is expected any day from Kansas. This here Doc Barnes is the main guy down there, a Major or something. They're watching the head engineer for the Company, I believe. No one knows who's who. A heap of things has happened that oughtn't to happen, but looks like Washington was getting on the game.
"Well, I got to go over home and look around," he concluded. "We've got to do some building before long--you got to get up another house and barn, and so have I."
"I don't see why," said Sim Gage bitterly. "I ain't got nothing to put into a barn, ner I ain't got no cows to feed no hay to neither. I could of sold the Government plenty hay this fall if I'd had any, but now how could I, without no horses and no money to get none? I'm run down mighty low, Wid, and that's the truth. Mrs. Jensen can't stay along here always, though Lord knows what we would a-done if she hadn't come now. One thing's sure--
She ain't a-goin' to stay here lessen things straightens out. You know who I mean."
Wid nodded, his face grave under its grizzled stubble. "Yes," said he.
"Say," he added, suddenly. "You know that letter we got fer her? Now, if that girl that wrote it, that Annie Squires, could come out here and get into this here game, why, how would that be? You reckon she would?"
"Naw, she wouldn't come," said Sim Gage. "But, say, that reminds me--I never did tell
her about that letter."
"Better take it in to her," said Wid, turning away.
He walked towards the gate. After Sim had seen him safely in the distance he went with laggard step toward the door of his own home.
Mary Warren was not asleep. It was her voice, not loud, which greeted his timid tapping at the half-burned door frame.
"Come in. Who is it?"
"It's me, ma'am," said he; and entered a little at a time.
He might have seen the faint color rise to her cheek as she drew herself up in bed, to talk with him. Her face, turned full toward him, was a thing upon which he could not gaze direct. It terrified him with its high born beauty, even as he now resolved to "look right into her eyes."
"You've not been in to see me, Mr. Gage," said she at length, bravely. "Why didn't you come? I get awfully lonesome."
"Is that so?" said he. "That's just the way I do."
"It's too bad, all this awful trouble," said she. "I've been what they call a Jonah, don't you think, Mr. Gage?"
"Oh, no, ma'am!"
"It was very noble of you--up there," she began, on another tack. "You saved my life. Not worth much."
She was smiling cheerily as she could. Sim Gage looked carefully at her face to see how much she knew.
"Doctor Barnes told me that that man, the one that took me away, was hurt by a tree; that you got there too late to save him. But to think, I'd have shot that man. I
did try to shoot him, Mr. Gage!"
"Why,
did you, ma'am?" said Sim Gage. "But then, it would of been a miracle if you had a-hit him, your eyes being poor, like. I reckon it's just as well you didn't."
"Won't you sit down?" She motioned her hand vaguely. "There's a box right there."
"How do you know, ma'am?"
"Oh, I know where everything is now. I'm going to learn all about this place. I can do all sorts of things after a while--cook and sweep and wash dishes and feed the chickens, and--oh, a lot of things." It was well enough that he did not see her face as she turned it away, anxious to be brave, not succeeding.
"That there looks, now, like you'd moved in," said Sim Gage. "Looks like you'd come to stay, as the feller says." He tried to laugh, but did not make much of it; nor did she.
"Oh, I forgot," he resumed suddenly, bethinking himself of the errand which had brought him hither. "I got a letter fer you, ma'am."
"A letter? Why, that's strange--I didn't know of any one----"
"Sure, it's fer you, ma'am. It's from Annie Squires."
"Annie! Oh! what does she say? Tell me!"
Sim had the letter opened now, his face puckered.
"Why, nothing very much, ma'am," said he. "I can't exactly see what it says--light's rather poor in here just now. But Wid, he read it. And she said it was all right with her, and that she was back in her little room again. I reckon it's the room where you both used to live?"
"She isn't married! What did she say?"
"No'm, not married. That's all off. Her feller throwed her down. But she says she wants you to write to her right away and tell her--now--tell her about things--you know----"
"What does she say?--Tell me
exactly what she said."
"One thing-"--he plunged desperately--"she said she was sure you was happily married. And she wanted you to tell her all about your husband. But then, good God A'mighty! she didn't know!"
"Well," said Mary Warren, her blood high in her face, "I'll have to tell her all about that, won't I? I'll write to her at once."
"You'll write to her? What?"
--"And tell her how happy I am, how fortunate I've been. I'll tell her how you took me in even though I was blind; how you saved my life; how kind and gentle you've been all along, where you might have been so different! I'll tell her how fine and splendid it's been of you to take care of a sick, blind, helpless girl like me; and to--to--give her a man's protection."
He was speechless. She struggled on, red to the hair.
"You don't know women, how much they want a strong man to depend on, Mr. Gage; a man like you. Chivalrous? Why, yes, you've been all of that and more. I'll write to Annie and tell her that I'm very happy, and that I've got the very best--the very best--
husband--in all the world. I'll tell her that? I'll say that--that my
husband----"
He heard her sobbing. He could endure no more. Suddenly he reached out a hand and touched hers very gently.
"Don't, ma'am," said he. "Fer God's sake don't cry."
It was some time after that--neither could have told how long--that he managed to go on, his voice trembling. "Do you
mean that, ma'am? Do you mean that, real and for sure? You wouldn't joke with a feller like over a thing like that?"
"I'm not joking," said she. "My God! Yes, I mean it."
His hand, broad, coarse, thick-fingered, patted hers a hundred times as it lay upon the blankets, until she got nervous over his nervousness.
"It's too bad I ain't got no linen sheets," said he suddenly. "But them blankets is eleven-pound four-points, at that. Of course, you know, ma'am," said he, turning towards her, his voice broken, his own vague eyes wet all at once, "you
do know I only want to do whatever is the best fer you, now don't you?"
"Of course. I do believe that."
"And it
couldn't run on this way very long. Even Mrs. Jensen wouldn't stay very long. Nobody would come. They'd like enough tar and feather you and me, people in this Valley, if we
wasn't married. And yet you say you've got no place to go back to. You talk like you was going to tell her, Annie Squires, that you was married. She supposes it
now, like enough. If there was any way, shape or manner you could get out of marrying me, why of course I wouldn't let you. But what else is there we can do?"
"Some time it would come to that," said Mary Warren, trying to dry her eyes. "It's the only way fair to us both."
"Putting it that way, now!" said Sim Gage, wisely, "putting it
that way, I'm here to say I ain't a-scared to do
nothing that's best fer you. And I want to say right now and here, I didn't mean no harm to you. I swear, neither Wid nor me ever did dream that a woman like you'd come out here--I never knew such a woman as you was in the whole
world. I just didn't
know--that was all. You won't blame me too much fer gettin' you here into this awful place, will you?"
"No, I understand," said she gently. "I think I know more about you now than I did at first."
"I ain't much to know, ma'am. But you--why, if I studied all my life, I wouldn't begin to know you hardly none at all." She could not doubt the reverence of his tone, could not miss the sweetness of it. No; nor the sureness of the anchorage that it offered.
"If this is the way you want it," he went on, "I'll promise you never to bother you, no way in the world. I'll be on the square with you, so help me God! I'll take care of you the best way I can, so help me God! I'll work, I'll do the best I can fer you; so help me God!"
"And I promise to be faithful to you, Sim Gage," said she, using his common name unconsciously now. "I swear to be true to you, and to help you all I can, every way I can. I'll do my duty--my
duty. Do you understand?"
She was pale again by now, and trembling all through her body. Her hands trembled on the blankets. It was a woman's pledge she was giving. And no man's hands or lips touched hers. It was terrible. It was terrible, but had it not been thus she could not have endured it. She must wait.
"I understand a heap of things I can't say nothing about, ma'am," said Sim Gage. "I'm that sort of man, that can't talk very much. But I understand a heap more'n I'm going to try to say. Sometimes it's that way."
"Sometimes it's that way," said Mary Warren, "yes. Then that's our promise!"
"Yes, it's a promise, so fer as I'm concerned," said Sim Gage.
"Then there isn't much left," said she after a time, her throat fluttering. She patted his great hand bravely as it lay upon the blankets, afraid to touch her own. "The rest will be--I think the rest will be easier than this."
"A heap easier," said he. "I dreaded this more'n I would to be shot. I wanted to do the right thing, but I didn't know what
was right. Won't you
say you knowed I wanted to do right all the time, and that I just didn't
know? Can't you see that I'm sorry I made you marry me, because it wasn't no way right? Can't you see it's only just to get you some sort of a home?"
"I said
yes, Sim Gage," said Mary Warren.
"Yes?" A certain exultation was in his voice. "To
me? All my life everything's been
no to me!"
She laid her hand on his, pity rising in her own heart. "I'll take care of you," said she.
"I was scared from the first of any woman coming out here," said Sim Gage truthfully. "But whatever you say goes. But our gettin' married! When?"
"The sooner the better."
They both nodded assent to this, neither seeing the other, for he dared not look her way now.
"I'll go down to the Company dam right soon," said he. "Ministers comes in down there sometimes. Up here we ain't got no church. I ain't been to church--well, scarcely in my whole life, but sure not fer ten years. You want to have it over with, don't you, ma'am?"
"Yes."
"That's just the way I feel! It may take a week or so before I can get any minister up here. But I hope you ain't a-goin' to change?"
"I don't change," said Mary Warren. "If I promise, I promise. I have said--yes."
"How is your bad knee?" she asked after a time, with an attempt to be of service to him. "You've never told me."
"Swoll up twict as big as it ought to be, ma'am. But how come you to think of that?
You mustn't mind about me. You mustn't never think of me a-tall."
"Now," he continued a little later, the place seeming insufferably small to him all at once, "I think I've got to get out in the air." He pushed over his box seat with much clatter as he rose, agony in every fiber of his soul.
"I suppose you could kiss me," said Mary Warren, hesitatingly. "It's--usual." She tried to smile as she turned her face toward him. It was a piteous thing, a terrible thing.
"No, ma'am, thank you. I don't think I will, now, but I thank you just the same. You see, this ain't a usual case."
"Good-by!" said Mary Warren to him with a sudden wondering joy. "Go out and look at the mountains for me. Look out over the valley. I wish I could see them. And you'll come in and see me when you can, won't you?"
She was talking to the empty room, weeping to an empty world. _