He heard no sound but the wind among the trees, and the tumbling of the water. The gelding, he noticed, was gaunt. Even that fine, strong horse was beginning to show the effect of the miles, and even his winter coat failed to disguise it. Suddenly Cleve was tired.
There were many miles to go before they would reach the gold fields, and more miles beyond that to San Francisco—why should he wait? Why march with the slow-moving wagons, when on his fast gelding he could be there in a fraction of the time? Why not saddle up at daybreak and ride on, and then just keep on riding, all the way to the Golden Gate?
No sooner had the thought occurred to him than he knew it was the solution.
After all, what reason had he to suppose Lilith had changed, or would change? True, she was more agreeable, easier to be with, and sometimes there had seemed to be genuine liking in her manner, but he knew better than to put faith in such things.
It was true that he had no money, and a gambler needs a stake, but there might be old friends among the gambling houses who would set him up with a faro layout, and he would do the rest.
He was still considering it when the wagons rolled in, and then he became busy with the mules, the fire, the problem of fuel. But the thought remained. Lilith was lovely. If a man had to marry for money, he certainly could do no better. She had a mind of her own, but he liked that … and when he came to think of it, what had gambling brought him in those wasted years? Years lost now, beyond recovery.
Yet he would be a fool to go inching along over these mountains, breaking his back with toil, when a few hours of riding would take him out of them. Why not forget Lilith? Why not leave now, tonight?
“We’ve not much farther to go,” Lilith said suddenly beside the fire. She spoke the words and they rested there, seeming almost to ask a question. “After we cross the mountains you won’t have any use for me,” he said. “It will be easy going from there on to wherever it is you’re going.” “Rabbit Gulch … it’s in the Mother Lode.”
Lilith had replied almost without thinking, then as she stooped to lift the lid from a kettle the import of his remark reached her. No use for him? Did that imply that he would leave, once they crossed the Sierras? For an instant she felt as if she had been struck. Unmoving, she stared blindly at the kettle; then she slowly put the lid on it again and straightened up. She felt suddenly lost, empty, forsaken. What was the matter with her? After all, he was a fortune-hunter, wasn’t he? A drifting, ne’er-do-well gambler? What kind of a man was that to make her feel as she did? She started to ask about his leaving, but feared his reply. She poked sticks into the fire, then lifted the lid again and stirred the stew. When he spoke he said what she had been dreading to hear. “I was thinking I might ride on ahead … we’re almost there now, and I guess I’m impatient.” She forced herself to be casual. “You’re going to the gold fields?”
“Frisco … I’m not likely to be much good at mining.” “I think you could do whatever you set out to do,” she said carefully. She was struggling to order her thoughts, to say the right thing; struggling, too, against an overpowering sense of loss, or impending loss. “Well,” she said at last, “you’ve earned your money. You promised a day’s work for a day’s pay, and you have done more than your share … even Roger admits that.”
So it was Roger now, was it? Had it gone that far? Morgan had made a habit of dropping around by the fire, and a couple of times he had seen them talking quietly, almost intimately.
What kind of a fool was he, anyway, Cleve asked himself. Morgan was a stable man, even if an unimaginative one, and he was well off, according to reports. In short, he had a good deal to offer a girl—and what did he, Cleve van Valen, have?
He had no money, he had a reputation as a gambler, and some skill with weapons. Looked at coldly and logically, it didn’t add up to much. What kind of a fool had he been to go chasing off after a girl, believing he could marry her when so many others were in the running?
The truth of the matter was, he had acted just as the kind of a man she suspected him of being would act—like an egotistical fool. All of which added up to the fact that he was wasting his time.
Agatha came to the fire and dished up their food, glancing from one to the other with a thoughtful expression. She was too worldly-wise not to understand something of what went on here, but for once she had no idea of what to do. “He’s earned it, all right,” she said, “earned whatever he’s to get … but there’s things you can’t pay for, believe me.”
In the morning, Cleve thought, in the morning I shall go. I have played out my time, and there’s always a time to quit. The thing to do was to quit when you were ahead.
“I’ll be riding on in the morning,” he said; “you’ve no need for me any longer.” She stared helplessly into the fire, her appetite gone. Finally she said, “But what will I pay you? I don’t know … we didn’t settle on anything, on any amount, I mean.”
“You owe me nothing. I’ve had my keep.”
“You’ve earned more than that, much more. We could never have made it through without you … for that matter, if it hadn’t been for you when the Cheyennes attacked, we would all have been killed. You stopped that panic, you got them into a circle.”
“Morgan wouldn’t have let it start,” he said, “and if it hadn’t been for me it might never have started.” He looked up. “I never told you of this before, but Morgan caught me gambling, and we had trouble. If it hadn’t been for that, Morgan would have stopped that damned fool before he could go off half-cocked.” “You can’t be sure of that.”
He got up. “I can be sure that I distracted Morgan’s attention at an important moment. I risked all your lives.”
He looked around, wanting to say something more, but he could find no words.
Then he said again: “I’ll go in the morning. You don’t need me.” Abruptly, he turned and walked away from the fire. Lilith started to speak, but did not go on … she just stared after him, helplessly. “You goin’ to let him get away?” Agatha asked.
“What can I do?”
“Women have known the answer to that since Eve bobbed that apple with Adam. If you don’t know at your age, you ain’t about to learn from me.” “I love him.”
Agatha shot her a quick glance. “Bad as that, is it? I’d say latch onto him then. That’s a rarely good man, take it from me. You get to my age and you’ll settle for almost any kind of a man, so long as he breathes and he’s warm. They’re a comfort, take it from me.”
“I love him.” Lilith repeated, as if astonished by the realization. “I really do.”
“Don’t tell me your troubles … tell him.”
The whole camp was bedded down, and most of them were asleep, before Cleve returned to the wagon. Lying awake, staring up at the wagon cover which was weirdly lit from the dying flames, Lilith listened to him unroll his bed and pull off his boots. She could hear every sound, and interpret it. At last he stretched out with a sigh, and after a minute she could hear his even, regular breathing.
Sleep would not come. Several times she turned over, seeking to find a more comfortable position, and then suddenly, she heard another sound. Something—some large animal—was moving around outside the wagon. She heard a snort from Clove’s gelding and she started to reach for the rifle that lay beside her in the wagon, then she drew her hand back quickly. The sounds continued, there was a subdued snuffling, and she could hear Cleve’s horse struggling at his picket pin. “Cleve!” she whispered. “Cleve!” “I hear it,” he said aloud, calmly.
He lay perfectly still, listening. For an instant after he spoke there had been absolute stillness, then the snuffling began again, and a bucket rattled as something turned it over. Suddenly the gelding started to rear and plunge, fighting the picket rope.
Grabbing his pistol, Cleve rolled out from under the wagon and started to rise to his feet, and at the same instant the animal, a huge bear, reared up, almost beside him. Angered by the plunging snorting horse, as well as by the man who suddenly appeared beside him, the bear gave an ugly growl. It was point-blank range when Cleve fired.