CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
MRS. NITSCHKAN spent the entire day after her return in various household activities; but toward evening she decided to call upon the Black Pearl, who for some reason had not been among those to bid her welcome during the day. So, her curiosity aroused, she betook herself to the O'Brien cottage soon after supper.
Involuntarily she paused at the gate, struck by something indescribably neglected and forlorn in the air of the whole place. The flowers drooped dustily in the garden; the door, usually so hospitably open, was barred; the blinds were drawn before the closed windows.
The gipsy considered a moment or two, and then curiosity getting the better of her, she unlatched the little white gate and walked up the path with its glaring, scentless border of scarlet geraniums and yellow zinnias. She knocked loudly once or twice, and failing to elicit an answer, forced an entrance at the kitchen door. Here a sight met her eyes which caused her to raise her hands with a loud "Gosh a'mighty!"
The room was in appalling disorder. A cloth had been half dragged from the table scattered with food, while the floor was covered with pots, pans and broken dishes. After one comprehensive glance, Mrs. Nitschkan made her way to an inner room. There she stood on the threshold peering about her until her eyes became accustomed to the darkness. Then she dimly discerned a black, huddled shape on the bed, and her gaze was caught and held by the smouldering, sullen fire of two dark eyes.
"Pearl?" she asked uncertainly.
The woman on the bed did not answer, only gazed at her in silence.
"Pearl, air you sick?"
No answer.
Mrs. Nitschkan threw the windows wide, and then bent over her friend.
"Now, Pearl, you speak up. What's the matter? Air you sick?"
"I'm a-goin' to kill him," whispered the woman on the bed. "He beat me last night, an' he wasn't jealous. He come home with all the devils in hell in his face. When I set him out his supper he threw the vittles all over the place, an' said it wasn't fit fer dogs to eat; an' then he beat me."
"Gosh a'mighty! An' you the best cook in the camp! He must 'a' been crazy drunk," exclaimed Mrs. Nitschkan indignantly.
"He wasn't drunk an' he wasn't jealous. He wasn't jealous, an' he beat me, me," she raised herself with difficulty in the bed, and lifted her stag-like head superbly.
"Air you hurt, Pearl?" anxiously.
"Am I hurt? Am I hurt? Oh, that a-way. Yes, I guess so. Come to think of it, there ain't a inch on me that don't ache. I guess none of my bones is broke, though. But he'll get it." She half drew her hand from under the pillow, disclosing the sharp, keen edge of steel. "That's the medicine he's a-goin' to get. I'm a-goin' to knife him, sure."
"Now, Pearl," remonstrated Mrs. Nitschkan severely, "that ain't no way to talk. You're all right to get even with him, but you mustn't forget a thing or two. Us ladies here in Zenith has overlooked your past 'cause you're a decent married woman now, with a ring on your finger, an' a certificate framed on the wall. Now you go to knifin' him an' it'll be a disgrace to the whole camp. What I say, an' what I always says in such cases is, 'get even with him, an' get even with him good; but for the Lord's sake, do it ladylike.' Heave skillets an' stove lids at him all you're a mind to; but throw that knife away."
The Pearl looked at her a moment or two with sullen, contemptuous eyes. "Shut up," she commanded, "I'm tired of hearin' you talk."
"Here, here," admonished Mrs. Nitschkan. "Now I'll hustle around and make you a good, strong cup of coffee. There's nothin' like it fer soul an' body. You'll feel better then. Then we'll get your clothes off, an' a nightgown on, an' we'll see where you're hurted."
"Where I'm hurted?" repeated Pearl, her vague eyes more veiled, more tragically mysterious than ever. "I'm hurted so deep that you can't find it, Sadie Nitschkan."
"Aw, come now, we'll have you all right in a jiffy. an' Shock a-hangin' 'round cryin' over you, an' beatin' his chest in that crazy French way of his'n. Now you lay still an' I'll heat up some water."
She bustled about making a fire, preparing coffee and putting the place in order, when her attention was suddenly arrested by the sound of flying footsteps on the path outside. Then a thunderous knocking, and before she could reach the door, it was burst open, and a white-faced boy stuttered on the threshold: "Mis' O'Brien, Mis' O'Brien, Bob Flick's shot Shock up at Johnson's an' he wants you quick."
The Pearl had leaped to her feet, casting her knife from her, and before Sadie Nitschkan could reach her she was flying up the mountain road.
A tiny crescent moon was swinging far up in the pale sky. On the platform before the saloon was a black group of men, who made way for the Pearl as she darted through them. The doctor was bending over Jacques, who lay in an open space where the air might reach him. The Pearl dropped beside him, her face to his for a moment, and then she lifted him to her heart.
"Shock, Shock," she moaned.
"Pearl," he whispered, his accent more marked than ever, "it wasn't the vittles. I heard straight that Flick was after you, an' I was jealous mad. I tried to get him first; but he pulled his gun too quick for me."
"Oh, Shock! I never cared for nobody really but you."
A faint reflection of his charming smile flickered over his face. "I know it," he said. "You—you always talked about being free, Pearl. I guess you're free at last." He smiled again and then lay heavily on her heart.
For a moment while she held him closely to her breast, her eyes showed some ecstatic illumination, as if she had followed him to the vast and illimitable spaces her spirit craved. Then the shackles of that desolate semblance of reality which she knew as life fell about her again.
"Free!" she cried in the voice of one who faces the terrible nemesis of a granted desire. "Free!" her anguished eyes challenged the grave group of men about her. "There ain't no such damned word fer a woman that kin love."