The Light of the Western Stars

In the shaded seclusion of her room, buried face down deep among the soft cushions on her couch, Madeline Hammond lay prostrate and quivering under the outrage she had suffered.

The afternoon wore away; twilight fell; night came; and then Madeline rose to sit by the window to let the cool wind blow upon her hot face. She passed through hours of unintelligible shame and impotent rage and futile striving to reason away her defilement.

The train of brightening stars seemed to mock her with their unattainable passionless serenity. She had loved them, and now she imagined she hated them and everything connected with this wild, fateful, and abrupt West.

She would go home.

Edith Wayne had been right; the West was no place for Madeline Hammond. The decision to go home came easily, naturally, she thought, as the result of events. It caused her no mental strife. Indeed, she fancied she felt relief. The great stars, blinking white and cold over the dark crags, looked down upon her, and, as always, after she had watched them for a while they enthralled her. “Under Western stars,” she mused, thinking a little scornfully of the romantic destiny they had blazed for her idle sentiment. But they were beautiful; they were speaking; they were mocking; they drew her. “Ah!” she sighed. “It will not be so very easy to leave them, after all.”

Madeline closed and darkened the window. She struck a light. It was necessary to tell the anxious servants who knocked that she was well and required nothing. A soft step on the walk outside arrested her. Who was there—Nels or Nick Steele or Stillwell? Who shared the guardianship over her, now that Monty Price was dead and that other—that savage—? It was monstrous and unfathomable that she regretted him.

The light annoyed her. Complete darkness fitted her strange mood. She retired and tried to compose herself to sleep. Sleep for her was not a matter of will. Her cheeks burned so hotly that she rose to bathe them. Cold water would not alleviate this burn, and then, despairing of forgetfulness, she lay down again with a shameful gratitude for the cloak of night. Stewart’s kisses were there, scorching her lips, her closed eyes, her swelling neck. They penetrated deeper and deeper into her blood, into her heart, into her soul—the terrible farewell kisses of a passionate, hardened man. Despite his baseness, he had loved her.

Late in the night Madeline fell asleep. In the morning she was pale and languid, but in a mental condition that promised composure.

It was considerably after her regular hour that Madeline repaired to her office. The door was open, and just outside, tipped back in a chair, sat Stillwell.

“Mawnin’, Miss Majesty,” he said, as he rose to greet her with his usual courtesy. There were signs of trouble in his lined face. Madeline shrank inwardly, fearing his old lamentations about Stewart. Then she saw a dusty, ragged pony in the yard and a little burro drooping under a heavy pack. Both animals bore evidence of long, arduous travel.

“To whom do they belong?” asked Madeline.

“Them critters? Why, Danny Mains,” replied Stillwell, with a cough that betrayed embarrassment.

“Danny Mains?” echoed Madeline, wonderingly.

“Wal, I said so.”

Stillwell was indeed not himself.

“Is Danny Mains here?” she asked, in sudden curiosity.

The old cattleman nodded gloomily.

“Yep, he’s hyar, all right. Sloped in from the hills, an’ he hollered to see Bonita. He’s locoed, too, about that little black-eyed hussy. Why, he hardly said, ‘Howdy, Bill,’ before he begun to ask wild an’ eager questions. I took him in to see Bonita. He’s been there more ’n a half-hour now.”

Evidently Stillwell’s sensitive feelings had been ruffled. Madeline’s curiosity changed to blank astonishment, which left her with a thrilling premonition. She caught her breath. A thousand thoughts seemed thronging for clear conception in her mind.

Rapid footsteps with an accompaniment of clinking spurs sounded in the hallway. Then a young man ran out upon the porch. He resembled a cowboy in his lithe build, his garb and action, in the way he wore his gun, but his face, instead of being red, was clear brown tan. His eyes were blue; his hair was light and curly. He was a handsome, frank-faced boy. At sight of Madeline he slammed down his sombrero and, leaping at her, he possessed himself of her hands. His swift violence not only alarmed her, but painfully reminded her of something she wished to forget.

This cowboy bent his head and kissed her hands and wrung them, and when he straightened up he was crying.

“Miss Hammond, she’s safe an’ almost well, an’ what I feared most ain’t so, thank God,” he cried. “Sure I’ll never be able to pay you for all you’ve done for her. She’s told me how she was dragged down here, how Gene tried to save her, how you spoke up for Gene an’ her, too, how Monty at the last throwed his guns. Poor Monty! We were good friends, Monty an’ I. But it wasn’t friendship for me that made Monty stand in there. He would have saved her, anyway. Monty Price was the whitest man I ever knew. There’s Nels an’ Nick an’ Gene, he’s been some friend to me; but Monty Price was—he was grand. He never knew, any more than you or Bill, here, or the boys, what Bonita was to me.”

Stillwell’s kind and heavy hand fell upon the cowboy’s shoulder.

“Danny, what’s all this queer gab?” he asked. “An’ you’re takin’ some liberty with Miss Hammond, who never seen you before. Sure I’m makin’ allowance fer amazin’ strange talk. I see you’re not drinkin’. Mebbe you’re plumb locoed. Come, ease up now an’ talk sense.”

The cowboy’s fine, frank face broke into a smile. He dashed the tears from his eyes. Then he laughed. His laugh had a pleasant, boyish ring—a happy ring.

“Bill, old pal, stand bridle down a minute, will you?” Then he bowed to Madeline. “I beg your pardon, Miss Hammond, for seemin’ rudeness. I’m Danny Mains. An’ Bonita is my wife. I’m so crazy glad she’s safe an’ unharmed—so grateful to you that—why, sure it’s a wonder I didn’t kiss you outright.”

“Bonita’s your wife!” ejaculated Stillwell.

“Sure. We’ve been married for months,” replied Danny, happily. “Gene Stewart did it. Good old Gene, he’s hell on marryin’. I guess maybe I haven’t come to pay him up for all he’s done for me! You see, I’ve been in love with Bonita for two years. An’ Gene—you know, Bill, what a way Gene has with girls—he was—well, he was tryin’ to get Bonita to have me.”

Madeline’s quick, varying emotions were swallowed up in a boundless gladness. Something dark, deep, heavy, and somber was flooded from her heart. She had a sudden rich sense of gratitude toward this smiling, clean-faced cowboy whose blue eyes flashed through tears.

“Danny Mains!” she said, tremulously and smilingly. “If you are as glad as your news has made me—if you really think I merit such a reward—you may kiss me outright.”

With a bashful wonder, but with right hearty will, Danny Mains availed himself of this gracious privilege. Stillwell snorted. The signs of his phenomenal smile were manifest, otherwise Madeline would have thought that snort an indication of furious disapproval.

“Bill, straddle a chair,” said Danny. “You’ve gone back a heap these last few months, frettin’ over your bad boys, Danny an’ Gene. You’ll need support under you while I’m throwin’ my yarn. Story of my life, Bill.” He placed a chair for Madeline. “Miss Hammond, beggin’ your pardon again, I want you to listen, also. You’ve the face an’ eyes of a woman who loves to hear of other people’s happiness. Besides, somehow, it’s easy for me to talk lookin’ at you.”

His manner subtly changed then. Possibly it took on a little swagger; certainly he lost the dignity that he had shown under stress of feeling; he was now more like a cowboy about to boast or affect some stunning maneuver. Walking off the porch, he stood before the weary horse and burro.

“Played out!” he exclaimed.

Then with the swift violence so characteristic of men of his class he slipped the pack from the burro and threw saddle and bridle from the horse.

“There! See ’em! Take a look at the last dog-gone weight you ever packed! You’ve been some faithful to Danny Mains. An’ Danny Mains pays! Never a saddle again or a strap or a halter or a hobble so long as you live! So long as you live nothin’ but grass an’ clover, an’ cool water in shady places, an’ dusty swales to roll in an’ rest an’ sleep!”

Then he untied the pack and, taking a small, heavy sack from it, he came back upon the porch. Deliberately he dumped the contents of the sack at Stillwell’s feet. Piece after piece of rock thumped upon the floor. The pieces were sharp, ragged, evidently broken from a ledge; the body of them was white in color, with yellow veins and bars and streaks. Stillwell grasped up one rock after another, stared and stuttered, put the rocks to his lips, dug into them with his shaking fingers; then he lay back in his chair, head against the wall, and as he gaped at Danny the old smile began to transform his face.

“Lord, Danny if you hevn’t been an’ gone an’ struck it rich!”

Danny regarded Stillwell with lofty condescension.

“Some rich,” he said. “Now, Bill, what’ve we got here, say, offhand?”

“Oh, Lord, Danny! I’m afraid to say. Look, Miss Majesty, jest look at the gold. I’ve lived among prospectors an’ gold-mines fer thirty years, an’ I never seen the beat of this.”

“The Lost Mine of the Padres!” cried Danny, in stentorian voice. “An’ it belongs to me!”

Stillwell made some incoherent sound as he sat up fascinated, quite beside himself.

“Bill, it was some long time ago since you saw me,” said Danny. “Fact is, I know how you felt, because Gene kept me posted. I happened to run across Bonita, an’ I wasn’t goin’ to let her ride away alone, when she told me she was in trouble. We hit the trail for the Peloncillos. Bonita had Gene’s horse, an’ she was to meet him up on the trail. We got to the mountains all right, an’ nearly starved for a few days till Gene found us. He had got in trouble himself an’ couldn’t fetch much with him.

“We made for the crags an’ built a cabin. I come down that day Gene sent his horse Majesty to you. Never saw Gene so broken-hearted. Well, after he sloped for the border Bonita an’ I were hard put to it to keep alive. But we got along, an’ I think it was then she began to care a little for me. Because I was decent. I killed cougars an’ went down to Rodeo to get bounties for the skins, an’ bought grub an’ supplies I needed. Once I went to El Cajon an’ run plumb into Gene. He was back from the revolution an’ cuttin’ up some. But I got away from him after doin’ all I could to drag him out of town. A long time after that Gene trailed up to the crags an’ found us. Gene had stopped drinkin’, he’d changed wonderful, was fine an’ dandy. It was then he began to pester the life out of me to make me marry Bonita. I was happy, so was she, an’ I was some scared of spoilin’ it. Bonita had been a little flirt, an’ I was afraid she’d get shy of a halter, so I bucked against Gene. But I was all locoed, as it turned out. Gene would come up occasionally, packin’ supplies for us, an’ always he’d get after me to do the right thing by Bonita. Gene’s so dog-gone hard to buck against! I had to give in, an’ I asked Bonita to marry me. Well, she wouldn’t at first—said she wasn’t good enough for me. But I saw the marriage idea was workin’ deep, an’ I just kept on bein’ as decent as I knew how. So it was my wantin’ to marry Bonita—my bein’ glad to marry her—that made her grow soft an’ sweet an’ pretty as—as a mountain quail. Gene fetched up Padre Marcos, an’ he married us.”

Danny paused in his narrative, breathing hard, as if the memory of the incident described had stirred strong and thrilling feeling in him. Stillwell’s smile was rapturous. Madeline leaned toward Danny with her eyes shining.

“Miss Hammond, an’ you, Bill Stillwell, now listen, for this is strange I’ve got to tell you. The afternoon Bonita an’ I were married, when Gene an’ the padre had gone, I was happy one minute an’ low-hearted the next. I was miserable because I had a bad name. I couldn’t buy even a decent dress for my pretty wife. Bonita heard me, an’ she was some mysterious. She told me the story of the lost mine of the padres, an’ she kissed me an made joyful over me in the strangest way. I knew marriage went to women’s heads, an’ I thought even Bonita had a spell.

“Well, she left me for a little, an’ when she came back she wore some pretty yellow flowers in her hair. Her eyes were big an’ black an’ beautiful. She said some queer things about spirits rollin’ rocks down the canyon. Then she said she wanted to show me where she always sat an’ waited an’ watched for me when I was away.

“She led me around under the crags to a long slope. It was some pretty there—clear an’ open, with a long sweep, an’ the desert yawnin’ deep an’ red. There were yellow flowers on that slope, the same kind she had in her hair—the same kind that Apache girl wore hundreds of years ago when she led the padre to the gold-mine.

“When I thought of that, an’ saw Bonita’s eyes, an’ then heard the strange crack of rollin’ rocks—heard them rattle down an’ roll an’ grow faint—I was some out of my head. But not for long. Them rocks were rollin’ all right, only it was the weatherin’ of the cliffs.

“An’ there under the crags was a gold pocket.

“Then I was worse than locoed. I went gold-crazy. I worked like seventeen burros. Bill, I dug a lot of goldbearin’ quartz. Bonita watched the trails for me, brought me water. That was how she come to get caught by Pat Hawe an’ his guerrillas. Sure! Pat Hawe was so set on doin’ Gene dirt that he mixed up with Don Carlos. Bonita will tell you some staggerin’ news about that outfit. Just now my story is all gold.”

Danny Mains got up and kicked back his chair. Blue lightning gleamed from his eyes as he thrust a hand toward Stillwell.

“Bill, old pal, put her there—give me your hand,” he said. “You were always my friend. You had faith in me. Well, Danny Mains owes you, an’ he owes Gene Stewart a good deal, an’ Danny Mains pays. I want two pardners to help me work my gold-mine. You an’ Gene. If there’s any ranch hereabouts that takes your fancy I’ll buy it. If Miss Hammond ever gets tired of her range an stock an’ home I’ll buy them for Gene. If there’s any railroad or town round here that she likes I’ll buy it. If I see anythin’ myself that I like I’ll buy it. Go out; find Gene for me. I’m achin’ to see him, to tell him. Go fetch him; an’ right here in this house, with my wife an’ Miss Hammond as witnesses, we’ll draw up a pardnership. Go find him, Bill. I want to show him this gold, show him how Danny Mains pays! An’ the only bitter drop in my cup to-day is that I can’t ever pay Monty Price.”

---

Madeline’s lips tremblingly formed to tell Danny Mains and Stillwell that the cowboy they wanted so much had left the ranch; but the flame of fine loyalty that burned in Danny’s eyes, the happiness that made the old cattleman’s face at once amazing and beautiful, stiffened her lips. She watched the huge Stillwell and the little cowboy, both talking wildly, as they walked off arm in arm to find Stewart. She imagined something of what Danny’s disappointment would be, of the elder man’s consternation and grief, when he learned Stewart had left for the border. At this juncture she looked up to see a strange, yet familiar figure approaching. Padre Marcos! Certain it was that Madeline felt herself trembling. What did his presence mean on this day? He had always avoided meeting her whenever possible. He had been exceedingly grateful for all she had done for his people, his church, and himself; but he had never thanked her in person. Perhaps he had come for that purpose now. But Madeline did not believe so.

Mention of Padre Marcos, sight of him, had always occasioned Madeline a little indefinable shock; and now, as he stepped to the porch, a shrunken, stooped, and sad-faced man, she was startled.

The padre bowed low to her.

“Senora, will you grant me audience?” he asked, in perfect English, and his voice was low-toned and grave.

“Certainly, Padre Marcos,” replied Madeline; and she led him into her office.

“May I beg to close the doors?” he asked. “It is a matter of great moment, which you might not care to have any one hear.”

Wonderingly Madeline inclined her head. The padre gently closed one door and then the others.

“Senora, I have come to disclose a secret—my own sinfulness in keeping it—and to implore your pardon. Do you remember that night Senor Stewart dragged me before you in the waiting-room at El Cajon?”

“Yes,” replied Madeline.

“Senora, since that night you have been Senor Stewart’s wife!”

Madeline became as motionless as stone. She seemed to feel nothing, only to hear.

“You are Senor Stewart’s wife. I have kept the secret under fear of death. But I could keep it no longer. Senor Stewart may kill me now. Ah, Senora, it is very strange to you. You were so frightened that night, you knew not what happened. Senor Stewart threatened me. He forced you. He made me speak the service. He made you speak the Spanish yes. And I, Senora, knowing the deeds of these sinful cowboys, fearing worse than disgrace to one so beautiful and so good as you, I could not do less than marry you truly. At least you should be his wife. So I married you, truly, in the service of my church.”

“My God!” cried Madeline, rising.

“Hear me! I implore you, Senora, hear me out! Do not leave me! Do not look so—so—Ah, Senora, let me speak a word for Senor Stewart. He was drunk that night. He did not know what he was about. In the morning he came to me, made me swear by my cross that I would not reveal the disgrace he had put upon you. If I did he would kill me. Life is nothing to the American vaquero, Senora. I promised to respect his command. But I did not tell him you were his wife. He did not dream I had truly married you. He went to fight for the freedom of my country—Senora, he is one splendid soldier—and I brooded over the sin of my secret. If he were killed I need never tell you. But if he lived I knew that I must some day.

“Strange indeed that Senor Stewart and Padre Marcos should both come to this ranch together. The great change your goodness wrought in my beloved people was no greater than the change in Senor Stewart. Senora, I feared you would go away one day, go back to your Eastern home, ignorant of the truth. The time came when I confessed to Stewart—said I must tell you. Senor, the man went mad with joy. I have never seen so supreme a joy. He threatened no more to kill me. That strong, cruel vaquero begged me not to tell the secret—never to reveal it. He confessed his love for you—a love something like the desert storm. He swore by all that was once sacred to him, and by my cross and my church, that he would be a good man, that he would be worthy to have you secretly his wife for the little time life left him to worship at your shrine. You needed never to know. So I held my tongue, half pitying him, half fearing him, and praying for some God-sent light.

“Senora, it was a fool’s paradise that Stewart lived in. I saw him, often. When he took me up into the mountains to have me marry that wayward Bonita and her lover I came to have respect for a man whose ideas about nature and life and God were at a variance with mine. But the man is a worshiper of God in all material things. He is a part of the wind and sun and desert and mountain that have made him. I have never heard more beautiful words than those in which he persuaded Bonita to accept Senor Mains, to forget her old lovers, and henceforth to be happy. He is their friend. I wish I could tell you what that means. It sounds so simple. It is really simple. All great things are so. For Senor Stewart it was natural to be loyal to his friend, to have a fine sense of the honor due to a woman who had loved and given, to bring about their marriage, to succor them in their need and loneliness. It was natural for him never to speak of them. It would have been natural for him to give his life in their defense if peril menaced them. Senora, I want you to understand that to me the man has the same stability, the same strength, the same elements which I am in the habit of attributing to the physical life around me in this wild and rugged desert.”

Madeline listened as one under a spell. It was not only that this soft-voiced, eloquent priest knew how to move the heart, stir the soul; but his defense, his praise of Stewart, if they had been couched in the crude speech of cowboys, would have been a glory to her.

“Senora, I pray you, do not misunderstand my mission. Beyond my confession to you I have only a duty to tell you of the man whose wife you are. But I am a priest and I can read the soul. The ways of God are inscrutable. I am only a humble instrument. You are a noble woman, and Senor Stewart is a man of desert iron forged anew in the crucible of love. Quien sabe? Senor Stewart swore he would kill me if I betrayed him. But he will not lift his hand against me. For the man bears you a very great and pure love, and it has changed him. I no longer fear his threat, but I do fear his anger, should he ever know I spoke of his love, of his fool’s paradise. I have watched his dark face turned to the sun setting over the desert. I have watched him lift it to the light of the stars. Think, my gracious and noble lady, think what is his paradise? To love you above the spirit of the flesh; to know you are his wife, his, never to be another’s except by his sacrifice; to watch you with a secret glory of joy and pride; to stand, while he might, between you and evil; to find his happiness in service; to wait, with never a dream of telling you, for the hour to come when to leave you free he must go out and get himself shot! Senora, that is beautiful, it is sublime, it is terrible. It has brought me to you with my confession. I repeat, Senora, the ways of God are inscrutable. What is the meaning of your influence upon Senor Stewart? Once he was merely an animal, brutal, unquickened; now he is a man—I have not seen his like! So I beseech you in my humble office as priest, as a lover of mankind, before you send Stewart to his death, to be sure there is here no mysterious dispensation of God. Love, that mighty and blessed and unknown thing, might be at work. Senora, I have heard that somewhere in the rich Eastern cities you are a very great lady. I know you are good and noble. That is all I want to know. To me you are only a woman, the same as Senor Stewart is only a man. So I pray you, Senora, before you let Stewart give you freedom at such cost be sure you do not want his love, lest you cast away something sweet and ennobling which you yourself have created.”