At intervals of fevered wakefulness during that night, Rawley went over and over the astonishing state of affairs. The hour and the temperature that was almost inevitable conspired to twist and exaggerate the truth, to give him an intolerable sense of kinship with the slovenly, platter-faced Gladys, the stolid obesity of the old squaw, and of a hopeless abyss between himself and Nevada. They were related, somehow. They must be, since her Uncle Peter was also his uncle. Uncle Peter, he thought, had been terribly wronged, and he must somehow make amends, must remove the handicap of that savage blood. In the morning he must tell Gladys that he was her cousin; why, that made him Indian, too! No wonder his hair was so black, and he loved the wilderness with such a passion. He was part Indian, that was why. Johnny Buffalo was some relation; how Rawley’s mother would hate that!
What he did not know was that he talked about it, with Johnny Buffalo awake and listening in the bed against the farther wall, and with Peter awake, too, in a bed he had made for himself on the porch. He remembered that Peter came and gave him a drink, and that it did not seem to matter so much, after that. He slept late into the morning, after the opiate, and awoke to a saner point of view.
As before, Nevada and her grandmother brought trays of food and helped the two helpless ones to eat. With the knowledge Peter had given him, Rawley looked with more interest at the old lady, covertly trying to see the slim little half-caste Spanish girl whom Grandfather King had found “the joy of his heart.” On the whole, Rawley could not feel that his grandfather would have gone on loving, in any case. And he could not get away from the fact that Anita had consoled herself with considerable expedition.
“You aren’t such a hero, after all,” Nevada bantered him, bringing him out of his revery with a laugh. “You’re looking abominably well, this morning, for a young man who was brought in dead only yesterday. And after all, you did not kill Queo. Uncle Jess and Uncle Peter went up to the spot last evening, just before dark, to identify him beyond all doubt, and—he’d disappeared. They found where he had lain behind the rock, and they knew he was wounded, by the blood.” She shivered involuntarily. “But he wasn’t anywhere to be found. Uncle Peter feels quite put out. He looked at Queo when he went up after you, and he felt sure the man was dead. So now, if he lives, he’ll be more venomous than ever.”
“Then I’m sorry I hit him at all,” Rawley declared. “But I had to. He was after the grub, all right. He thanked me for carrying it up to the trail for him. Then he plugged me—I didn’t duck quite soon enough. So—I always hate to be killed, like that,” he finished whimsically.
“That sounds like Uncle Peter,” Nevada observed. “Your voice, I mean. Grandmother, don’t you think Mr. King looks and talks like Uncle Peter?”
Rawley tried not to look as startled as he felt. The pillowy (after all, one letter would have called her willowy in the old days, so that not so much had been changed) Anita walked deliberately over to them, advancing one side at a time, like a duck that travels in a leisurely mood. She laid her cushioned knuckles on her bulging hips and regarded Rawley steadfastly.
“Mebby he look—a lil bit,” she conceded with a superb indifference. “Peter, he t’inner—a lil bit. More darker. More—like his fadder, Jesse.”
“Yes-s—he does look more like Grandfather, of course. But I do think Mr. King looks like them both.” Nevada spoke with a perfect sincerity which sent the spirits of three persons up a notch or two.
Rawley laughed. “Well, maybe we’re some relation—away back,” he said recklessly. “A Cramer, connected with my family, was known to have come West, years ago. I remember reading it in some old record. But I’m afraid I can’t claim he was very closely related. In fact, I rather think he wasn’t.” His eyes met the eyes of old Anita, and he almost thought he saw a gleam of approval in them. He could not be sure.
Of the look in the eyes of Peter, who was standing in the doorway, he was much more positive. The color came into his face as their eyes met. After all, others were sure to notice the resemblance, and there must be some explanation ready.
“I’m sure that’s it.” Nevada laughed softly. “You’re a fourth or fifth cousin, perhaps. Likenesses do travel that way. I wonder if Grandfather would know.”
“I wouldn’t want to ask him,” her Uncle Peter observed in his grim way. “Why stir the old man up for days, just to satisfy idle curiosity?” He laid his hand on Nevada’s head, smoothing back a lock of her hair with a gesture inexpressibly tender. “On the strength of the fifth-cousin relationship, seems like we might drop the Mr. King. Father hates to think of his past,—a quarrel with his family brought him West, as nearly as I can make out. What do folks call you, young man, when they know you well?”
“Oh, Rawley is what I grew up under. George Rawlins King is my name. I wish you would call me Rawley. Then I could say Uncle Peter, and Nevada, and—Grandmother, maybe, if Mrs. Cramer will let me.”
“Uncle me all you please,” grinned Peter. “And Nevada is down on all the school maps. If you don’t mind, when you do meet father, let it be as George Rawlins. Your last name might or might not recall a family quarrel. But—we spare him excitement as much as possible. And while you’re here, the outfit will call you—Rawlins.”
“Well, then I’ll explain to Aunt Gladys,” said Nevada, as if they were planning a secret for fun; and yet there was a certain look of anxiety, too, in her face. “I think I can manage her—but then she never says much to Grandfather, anyway. They don’t like each other very well,” she explained to Rawley. “Grandfather was angry when Uncle Jess married her, and while they never quarrel, it is merely toleration. Aunt Gladys won’t tell.”
Rawlins then lay for a long time thinking how strangely the pattern is woven into the woof of Life. With the sun shining and the noise of playing children outside, the unexpected turn of events seemed more natural. So much had happened in the past twenty-four hours that Rawley found himself checking up, as he called it, on events and emotions engendered by the sudden crises. He glanced across at the other bed and found Johnny Buffalo awake and seemingly comfortable; wherefore he made bold to ask a few questions.
“Johnny, I thought I had those women hidden around a bend in the trail. How did Queo manage to spot them so as to try a shot? I’ve been wondering about that first rifle shot. Are you sure it was fired at us?”
“I am sure. You were not hidden altogether. I, myself, could see heads, though I could not see the trail. Queo was higher. I think that little point was too low.”
“Well, that accounts for it. I lost my bearings down there, then. Part of the ridge was hidden, I know. I thought it was the place where he was located. He shot wide, anyway.” He lay looking at a Las Vegas merchant’s calendar, reviewing still the immediate past.
“There’s another thing that just struck me this morning. How did Grandfather know that Jess Cramer was located here on the river? Jess was a soldier at the fort, I thought, when Grandfather saw him last. It’s in the diary.”
“I think you should read again more carefully, my son. My sergeant spoke to me often of Jess Cramer. He had found gold here at this canyon. He was often at the fort, spending his gold in the games of chance. Jess Cramer played not for sport, but to win. A sergeant’s pay was not large, and my sergeant spent many hours in searching for such gold as Jess Cramer brought with him to the fort. My sergeant had won a little. He kept it and searched for more of the same. It was not only for Anita that the two quarreled. A woman and gold make hatreds that do not die. He did not tell me all. He longed for a son who would take up the search. Or so I believed. I did not know that he had found his gold. I thought that the nuggets he gave to you he had won at cards from Jess Cramer. He told you that he picked them up. My sergeant does not lie. So I know that he had found the gold he had sought, and that if you obeyed him you would learn the secret he had kept from me.”
“He had a son,” Rawley muttered, “and he’d have been proud of him if he had known about him. Johnny, I can’t help thinking that Peter is more Grandfather’s son than my father was.”
Johnny Buffalo meditated, staring at the ceiling.
“There was love,” he said softly at last. “My sergeant did not love the mother of your father. I could see in his eyes when he looked upon her that his thoughts were not with her, and that his heart was far away.”
They lay for a long time silent. Each thought that the other slept, he lay so still. But of a sudden Rawley reached up his uninjured hand and pushed back the bandage that was slipping over his eye. The movement betrayed not so much protest against a physical discomfort as the impatient mind that seeks in vain for the correct answer to a puzzle.
But Johnny Buffalo did not sleep. He lay staring at the ceiling, his mouth closed firmly with lines beside it which nature draws to show when the soul is weary. But there was no longer any bitterness there, though there was pain. The hollow eyes glowed steadily, as if the old man had found a light ahead somewhere in the blackness of his grief. Once, a gentle snore drew his attention, and he turned his head and stared for a long while at the young, unlined face with the bandage drawn diagonally above it. For Rawley the Great Game had only begun; his stakes were piled before him, to win or to lose. The old Indian wondered gravely how that Game would be played. Wisely? Bravely,—he was sure. Honestly,—he hoped.