第57章 CHAPTER XII. THE INVISIBLE HAND(5)

"I reckon. An' if you ever do an' get away with the blacks I wouldn't like to see Wrangle left here on the sage. Wrangle could catch you. I know Venters had him. But you can never tell. Mebbe he hasn't got him now....Besides--things are happenin', an' somethin' of the same queer nature might have happened to Venters."

"God knows you're right!...Poor Bern, how long he's gone! In my trouble I've been forgetting him. But, Lassiter, I've little fear for him. I've heard my riders say he's as keen as a wolf....

"As to your reading my thoughts--well, your suggestion makes an actual thought of what was only one of my dreams. I believe I dreamed of flying from this wild borderland, Lassiter. I've strange dreams. I'm not always practical and thinking of my many duties, as you said once. For instance--if I dared--if I dared I'd ask you to saddle the blacks and ride away with me--and hide me."

"Jane!"

The rider's sunburnt face turned white. A few times Jane had seen Lassiter's cool calm broken--when he had met little Fay, when he had learned how and why he had come to love both child and mistress, when he had stood beside Milly Erne's grave. But one and all they could not be considered in the light of his present agitation. Not only did Lassiter turn white--not only did he grow tense, not only did he lose his coolness, but also he suddenly, violently, hungrily took her into his arms and crushed her to his breast.

"Lassiter!" cried Jane, trembling. It was an action for which she took sole blame. Instantly, as if dazed, weakened, he released her. "Forgive me!" went on Jane. "I'm always forgetting your--your feelings. I thought of you as my faithful friend. I'm always making you out more than human...only, let me say--I meant that--about riding away. I'm wretched, sick of this--this--Oh, something hitter and black grows on my heart!"

"Jane, the hell--of it," he replied, with deep intake of breath, "is you can't ride away. Mebbe realizin' it accounts for my grabbin' you--that way, as much as the crazy boy's rapture your words gave me. I don't understand myself....But the hell of this game is--you can't ride away."

"Lassiter!...What on earth do you mean? I'm an absolutely free woman."

"You ain't absolutely anythin' of the kind....I reckon I've got to tell you!"

"Tell me all. It's uncertainty that makes me a coward. It's faith and hope--blind love, if you will, that makes me miserable. Every day I awake believing--still believing. The day grows, and with it doubts, fears, and that black bat hate that bites hotter and hotter into my heart. Then comes night--I pray--I pray for all, and for myself--I sleep--and I awake free once more, trustful, faithful, to believe--to hope! Then, O my God! I grow and live a thousand years till night again!...But if you want to see me a woman, tell me why I can't ride away--tell me what more I'm to lose--tell me the worst."

"Jane, you're watched. There's no single move of yours, except when you're hid in your house, that ain't seen by sharp eyes. The cottonwood grove's full of creepin', crawlin' men. Like Indians in the grass. When you rode, which wasn't often lately, the sage was full of sneakin' men. At night they crawl under your windows into the court, an' I reckon into the house. Jane Withersteen, you know, never locked a door! This here grove's a hummin' bee-hive of mysterious happenin's. Jane, it ain't so much that these soles keep out of my way as me keepin' out of theirs.

They're goin' to try to kill me. That's plain. But mebbe I'm as hard to shoot in the back as in the face. So far I've seen fit to watch only. This all means, Jane, that you're a marked woman. You can't get away-- not now. Mebbe later, when you're broken, you might. But that's sure doubtful. Jane, you're to lose the cattle that's left--your home en' ranch--en' amber Spring. You can't even hide a sack of gold! For it couldn't be slipped out of the house, day or night, an' hid or buried, let alone be rid off with. You may lose all. I'm tellin' you, Jane, hopin' to prepare you, if the worst does come. I told you once before about that strange power I've got to feel things."

"Lassiter, what can I do?"

"Nothin', I reckon, except know what's comin' an' wait an' be game. If you'd let me make a call on Tull, an' a long-deferred call on--"

"Hush!...Hush!" she whispered.

"Well, even that wouldn't help you any in the end."

"What does it mean? Oh, what does it mean? I am my father's daughter--a Mormon, yet I can't see! I've not failed in religion--in duty. For years I've given with a free and full heart. When my father died I was rich. If I'm still rich it's because I couldn't find enough ways to become poor. What am I, what are my possessions to set in motion such intensity of secret oppression?"

"Jane, the mind behind it all is an empire builder."

"But, Lassiter, I would give freely--all I own to avert this--this wretched thing. If I gave--that would leave me with faith still. Surely my--my churchmen think of my soul? If I lose my trust in them--"

"Child, be still!" said Lassiter, with a dark dignity that had in it something of pity. "You are a woman, fine en' big an' strong, an' your heart matches your size. But in mind you're a child.

I'll say a little more--then I'm done. I'll never mention this again. Among many thousands of women you're one who has bucked against your churchmen. They tried you out, an' failed of persuasion, an' finally of threats. You meet now the cold steel of a will as far from Christlike as the universe is wide. You're to be broken. Your body's to be held, given to some man, made, if possible, to bring children into the world. But your soul?...What do they care for your soul?"