CHAPTER XXIV
THE FIGHT IN THE RANCH-HOUSE
Mary Aikens, alone at the ranch-house, went about her morning work with fumbling hands and tired brain. The shadow of impending crisis was over her though she recognised only the thickening of a cloud of doubt, suspicion, and fear that had been closing in on her for more than a year. To her it was conviction enough of Jim's share in the mysteries she was struggling single handed to unravel, that he refused to take her into his confidence.
The last act of her morning duties was always a visit to the Bulkeleys' rooms. Isabel had refused to leave to her any of the care of their rooms, but Mary Aikens, as hostess, never omitted that morning visit to see that nothing was lacking for their comfort—perhaps, too, to dream a little over the wonderful thing that had happened that summer to the H-Lazy Z, the lonely ranch where never before in her time had another woman set foot. In Isabel's kindly eyes and sympathetic silences she read what one woman can tell another without the perils of speech. The Professor? There she always stopped short. The only indulgence she permitted her thoughts was that the Professor needed most a strong and understanding wife, indulgent—a little—but very firm at times. He was a spoiled child she longed to mother.
Softly she closed the stair door behind her and dropped on the seat before the piano. In the kitchen the cook was doing his morning cleaning with his usual noiselessness, only the patter of his slippered feet and the subdued rattle of dishes betraying his presence. In all the great north country were only the dim sounds from the kitchen, and her absent-minded fingers on the keyboard.
The great north country—the lonely ranch she had had so long to herself, where for months at a time she was cut off from every other human being save the cowboys, and a husband who was wilfully forcing her from his inner life—the silent stretches had that year taken on a different note. Even those forbidding cliffs, with their long, uneven lines, had become the hunting ground of scientists—very human scientists—a cemetery of bygone ages with an absorbing story to tell. Professor Bulkeley, big, childlike in his simplicity, frank in his likes and fears, with an instinctive strain of gallantry so pleasing to one accustomed to the stifled gentleness of the West and the proprietary affection of her English husband—would he ever come again? Would there be enough in that isolated land to lure him back another year?
She hummed as she played, her eyes staring vacantly at the wall before her.
When he uttered her name softly from the open door she did not hear him. But when he repeated it, stepping into the room, her face reddened hotly. She tried to drop her eyes from his but they refused her will; something strange about his appearance held there in spite of her. He was without his spectacles. Never before had she seen him thus. It was as if he had disrobed before her, so naked did he appear, for the depths of simplicity and dependence had gone with the horn rims. Even his shoulders seemed to have straightened.
He must have noticed the flush on her face. His lips moved as if he were speaking to himself. Then, fumblingly, he put on the spectacles.
"That's funny," he said lightly, but his face was pale. "I didn't know you had that bit of Chopin among your music. So many of the old masters suffer from the emotionless piano. Taming the ivory keys is an art so many dabble at that almost none of them know when they have mastered them—or care. In all of us our hearts are nearer our throats than our fingers. Please hum it again for me, will you?"
He was speaking rapidly, nervously, and she had time to force herself to a rational reply.
"To-night—maybe. I—I didn't know what I was playing; I didn't know I was humming at all. In reality I was only dreaming."
The recollection of her dreams revived the flush in her face, and she rose abruptly from the piano to hide her confusion. He took one quick step forward, but stopped himself with a sudden breath.
"Is your husband in? I'd like to see him."
"He hasn't returned yet."
He frowned with sudden impatience.
"I hoped—I thought he would surely be back this morning. I couldn't wait. I wanted to see him right away."
She came nearer to him and peered up into his face.
"Why do you want to see him? Tell me—please." Her little hands were gripped over her bosom. "Oh, don't tell me you, too, are mixed up in all these things. I hoped there was someone—someone I might talk to if things went worse. You stopped me once——"
"I'm afraid I can be of no use to you, Mrs. Aikens," he replied formally.
She shuddered and put her hands before her face, and he turned away quickly.
"I don't think you need worry," he told her in a low, lifeless voice. "Your husband is his own worst enemy. I believe God intended him to be a model in more than body ... but something went wrong—only temporarily, I believe. The jealous gods—the old very human Greek gods may have been less a myth than an allegory—touched his mind when it was most sensitive."
She moved over to the side-table and began to readjust the pile of papers. She was strangely moved by his defence of her husband.
"May I thank you, Professor Bulkeley, for Jim's sake?"
"I—I'd like you to," he stammered eagerly. "It's an instinct to do one's best for Jim Aikens—especially for me."
She realised then how near the danger line they had been, and how firmly he had steered them to safety. It seemed to give her the chance to place their relationship on the old innocent level, when compliments were no deeper than their wording.
"And what of Jim's wife—is she worthy of such a paragon, or——"
"Jim's wife," he repeated vaguely.
"Perhaps she's the evil influence you call a god."
He turned on her with dilated eyes.
"You knew—you—knew? My God! She knew!"
Her knees were trembling with a sudden overwhelming fear, but she stumbled over to the table beside him and stared into his reluctant eyes.
With a burst the outer door opened and Cockney entered. At sight of the two standing there so close, the man's eyes falling before hers, his great shoulders shook and his chin went out.
"Ah!" It was a breath rather than a word. "So this is what you do when I'm away? This is what guest number two does to requite our hospitality? Is this the way of palæontologists, or of Americans, or"—his voice went hard as steel—"of a sneaking cur who represents nothing but the vicious things that make beasts of men?"
A flame sprang to the Professor's eyes, but the horror in Mary's quelled it, and he only shrugged his shoulders.
"You do not answer," Cockney hissed. "You have at least the common sense to make no denial. There have been terrible things happen in lonely places out here, but nothing so bad as this, you dirty cad."
He faced his wife, his chest heaving and falling.
"Go to your room. I don't want witnesses."
But Mary Aikens had reached the limit of her subservience. She stood before him unfalteringly and glared back into his furious eyes.
"Very well!" He laughed recklessly. "Perhaps it's better so. Perhaps it'll do you good to see me twist the rotten life from him—with these fingers—these fingers."
He held before him his great hands, the fingers crooked like claws. His eyes seemed to protrude, and his teeth were bare like a beast's.
"She'll hear the screams from that big soft throat of yours, you hound, and your dying gasps. And I'll laugh—I'll laugh!"
He crouched, the crooked fingers thrust before him.
Professor Bulkeley had not moved since Cockney entered. Slowly now he removed his spectacles and laid them on the table.
"You'd better leave the room, Mrs. Aikens," he ordered quietly.
"She's not going for you if she wouldn't for me!" Cockney thundered. "If she does, I swear to God I'll kill her without mercy when I'm through with you."
There were to be no blows in the struggle, the Professor knew. He was to be choked to death with those claw-like fingers; the whistling of his tightening throat was to be the triumph of his mad foe. So be it; neither would he strike until he must.
As Cockney leaped the Professor neither struck nor retired. His body twisted far side ways and his right arm wound round Cockney's waist. And the big rancher, who had never yet met his equal, was lifted clear of the floor and flung back almost to the wall.
Mary Aikens gasped. She had thought of but one outcome to the uneven struggle. But the Professor was standing there as if nothing had happened, while Cockney, stumbling over a chair, saved himself from falling only by thrusting a long arm against the wall.
"Will you let me explain, Mr. Aikens? It would be better for both of us—for you as well as for me."
But Cockney was past reason. A flash of diabolical anticipation lit his face, making it only the more terrible.
"Ah! So you have muscle under those flabby clothes! So much the better. When I've killed you there'll be no remorse. It's man to man, muscle to muscle. We'll see who's the stronger."
He advanced with the deliberation of unflinchable purpose—slowly—slowly.
Mary Aikens stifled a scream to a moan.
The Professor met him half-way. One wrist in either hand he seized before Cockney could dodge. Cockney's right, clasped in the Professor's left, went up. The other the Professor wrenched downward, and the pain of it made Cockney's face twist. Thus, face to face they stood for seconds, muscle pressing against muscle, Cockney straining to tear his wrists from the bands of steel that gripped them. Their heads fell over each other's shoulders. For one moment of dizziness Mary Aikens thought her husband's bared teeth would sink into his opponent's back.
Slowly Cockney's left hand bent behind his back. He began to struggle with his whole body, wrenching, fighting. He read the Professor's purpose. It was body to body now. The Professor's left hand was having its way with Cockney's right. Cockney saw defeat, horrible defeat, staring him in the face. He let his left yield and concentrated on his right. And inch by inch the Professor's left fell back before it. Another inch and his grip would be broken.
Mary Aikens gasped.
The Professor heard it. His teeth bared like Cockney's, the lips drawn thin and bloodless. He, too, became the beast fighting for his life. His shoulders heaved a little, as if new vigour had entered them—and his left began to win back what it had lost. Up and up it moved, and straight above their shoulders the arms halted.
To Mary Aikens they seemed to stand thus for hours, neither yielding an inch. It was endurance as well as strength now, and surely there the hardened rancher would win. But almost imperceptibly over Cockney's back the arms began to move. Cockney stiffened his body against it, and with failure his back bent. With the fury of insanity he writhed, but the hold on him now was more relentless than ever.
With a groan that was as much shriek he sank suddenly to his knees, blank incredulity distorting his crimson face.
Instantly the Professor's hands fell from him. Perspiration dripped from both swollen faces. Cockney leaped back, dropped his head, and charged with a bellow. Foam was dripping from his mouth.
The Professor met the lowered head with his knee, stooped over Cockney's back and encircled his waist, and tossed him in a somersault over his head. The high riding heels crashed into the ceiling as they went over, bringing down a shower of plaster and dust, but the falling man landed on his feet against the stove. It fell with a clatter, and the pipes went with it.
The Professor's teeth were still bared. He saw nothing now but the enemy before him, the death that waited for either one of them. With a heave he sent the table slithering into the wall. Crouching, circling, glaring, he moved on Cockney. It was to the death now.
Mary Aikens could stand it no longer.
"Don't, don't!" she cried. "Oh, Professor! Don't kill him, for my sake!"
Professor Bulkeley shivered, stopped where he crouched, and with a long, quivering breath straightened and moved backward.
On Cockney the effect was different. A moment ago his resources seemed to be exhausted—baffled by this man he had ridiculed. But the appeal of his wife—to the Professor—for him—drove the blood to his eyes.
"I'll kill you!" he frothed. "I'll kill you!"
He mouthed it like a madman, his great head rolling loosely, his fingers closing and opening.
"And you, too, you Jezebel!"
Through panting lips the Professor spoke:
"It wouldn't be the first time you'd done a deed like that to a woman, would it—Jim Cathers?"
Cockney staggered back, his hand fumbling at his lips.
"Jim—Cathers!" he faltered. "You know—that!"
Mary Aikens' eyes dilated. She came swiftly to the Professor.
"Jim Cathers? What do you mean?"
The Professor shifted his eyes to hers—and Cockney sprang forward. The Professor threw up his arms but missed, and Cockney's right hand wound round his neck and hooked beneath his shoulder. The shock and strain almost dislocated the Professor's neck, and his eyes closed, his legs shook. He braced against the wave of dizziness, but he was powerless against such a hold of such a powerful maniac. There was nothing now but submission or a broken neck. Either meant death. Burning waves of agony and dull insensibility chased each other through his head.
Cockney shouted derisively.
"Now—now!"
The Professor's arms fell limply away, his knees bent. A burst of agony parted his swollen lips.
Mary Aikens saw only certain death to one of them—and the other a murderer—if she did not act quickly. She seized a Chinese vase from the piano beside her and, closing her eyes, brought it down with all her might on her husband's head. Dimly she heard staggering feet, the thud of a body, and then she fell unconscious.