There had been many times, even after starting on her pilgrimage, when the whole adventure had appealed to her as one that was no better than a weird, senseless obsession, one that she would do well to turn back from and forget. Probably, at first, she had only been kept to the task by a certain spirit of adventure, a youthful and long-repressed urge for romance, fortified by inherited traditions of the sacredness of vengeance. It is even probable that, had it not been for the fortuitous advent of De Launay and the wild impulse which had led her to 205 enlist him in the affair, she would have remained at home and settled down to—what?
It was that memory of what her fate must be at home that had always furnished the final prick to her faltering resolution. Better to wander, lonely and helpless, fighting and struggling to achieve some measure of independence, than remain to what her existence must be in France, whether it was the drab life of a seamstress or shopgirl, the gray existence of a convent, the sluggish grind of a sordid marriage—provided she could find a man to marry—or the feverish degradation of the demi-monde.
But now, as she rode under the frowning, yellow-brown, black-patched rocks of the Esmeraldas, or looked backward over the drab plain behind her, she felt an ever-increasing exaltation and tingling sense of expectation. She could not guess what was going to happen. She had no idea of what awaited her among those mountains, but she had a strong and distinct impression that fate was leading her on to a final accounting.
Why De Launay should be inextricably entangled in that settlement she could not imagine but he was always there. Her recollections of him were those of disgust and contempt. To her he was merely a fallen, weak, dissipated man, criminally neglectful of opportunities, criminally indifferent to his obligations. She recalled him as he had stood in the cell of the jail, unkempt, shattered of nerve, and she 206 shivered to think that he had been a man who was once considered great. The fact that she was bound to him, even though the affair was one purely of form, should have affected her as something degrading.
Peculiarly, however, it did not. Most of the time she never considered the marriage at all. When she did it was with a feeling of mingled security and comfort. It was convenient and, somehow, she felt that, in De Launay, she had the one husband who would not have been a nuisance or have endeavored to take advantage of the circumstances. The marriage being a matter of form, a divorce was inevitable and simple, yet, when she considered that matter of divorce, she felt a queer sort of reluctance and distaste, as though it were best to shove consideration of that point into the future as far as possible.
The gaunt, bare cañon thrilled her. She felt as though she were breaking into some mysterious, Bluebeard region where danger, adventure and intrigue awaited her. The mine, indeed, remained a mere vague possibility, hoped for but hardly expected. But her father’s slayer and the vengeance that she had nursed so long became realities. The rocks that blocked the way might hide him and, somewhere in those hills, rode De Launay, who would lead her to that evil beast who had blighted her life. 207
Again, why De Launay? She did not know, except that she felt that the drunken soldier held the key to the search. Probably he was to be the instrument of vengeance; the slayer of the criminal; the settler of the blood feud. He was hers by marriage, and in marrying her had wedded the vendetta. Besides, he was the type. A légionnaire, probably a criminal, and certainly one who had killed without compunction in his time. The instrument of Providence, in fact!
Ahead of her rode Sucatash, ahead of him the long string of laden pack horses and ahead of them the silent Dave. The two cow-punchers had jogged throughout the day with silent indifference to their surroundings, but after they had entered the foothills and were creeping into the shadow of the cañon they evinced more animation. Every now and then Solange observed that one or the other cast a glance up into the air and ahead of them, toward the interior of the range. She was riding closer to Sucatash who motioned toward the distant crest of the range which showed through the gap of the cañon.
She nodded. She was mountain born and bred and recognized the signs.
“There will be a storm, monsieur.”