The Golden Woman: A Story of the Montana Hills

by Ridgwell Cullum

  CHAPTER V

  THE STEEPS OF LIFE

  Buck leant over his horse's withers as the laboring creature clawedtenaciously up the face of the rugged hill. His whole poise was thatof sympathetic straining. Nor were his eyes a whit less eager thanthose of the faithful animal under him.

  He was making the last twenty yards of the climb up Devil's Hill fromthe side on which lay the new home adopted by the Padre and himself.Hitherto this point of approach had been accepted as inaccessible fora horseman, nor, until now, had Buck seen reason to dispute theverdict. But, to-day, a sudden impulse had constrained him to make theattempt, not from any vainglorious reason, or from the recklessnesswhich was so much a part of his nature, but simply that somewhere highup on the great table-land at the summit of the hill he hoped to findan answer to a riddle that was sorely puzzling him.

  It had been a great struggle even on the lower and more gradualslopes, for the basaltic rocks were barren, and broken, and slippery.There was no gripping soil, or natural foothold. Just the weather-wornrocks which offered no grip to Caesar's metal-shod hoofs. Yet thegenerous-hearted beast had floundered on up to the last stretch, wherethe hill rose abruptly at a perilous angle.

  It was a terrible scramble. As he looked above, at the point where thesky-line was cut by the broken rocks, even the reckless heart of theman quailed. Yet there was no turning back. To do so meant certaindisaster. No horse, however sure-footed, could ever hope to make thedescent by the way they had come. Buck had looked back just for onebrief second, but his eyes had instantly turned again for relief tothe heights above. Disaster lay behind him. To go on--well, if hefailed to reach the brow of the blackened hill it would mean disasteranyway. And a smile of utter recklessness slowly lit his face.

  So, with set jaws and straining body, he urged Caesar to a last supremeeffort, and the great black creature responded gallantly. With headlow to the ground, his muscles standing out like ropes upon hisshoulders, his forelegs bent like grappling-hooks, his quarters tuckedbeneath him, he put his giant heart into the work. Step by step, inchby inch he gained, yawing and sliding, stumbling and floundering,making way where all way seemed impossible. Slowly they crept up,slowly, slowly they neared that coveted line. Buck was breathing hard.Caesar was blowing and had thrown his mouth agape, a sign that beyondthis he could make no further effort. Five yards--two yards. Thejagged line seemed to come down to meet them. At last, with a finalspring, the great horse trampled it under foot.

  Buck heaved a sigh of relief.

  "Gee!" he murmured. Then with the wide, black plain stretching beforehim, its limits lost in a strange mist, he flung out of the saddle.

  He stared about him curiously. Devil's Hill was in no way new to him.Many a time he had visited its mysterious regions, but always had heapproached it from the prospecting camp, or his own farm, both ofwhich lay away on the northern side of it.

  A wide plateau, nearly two miles in extent, stretched out before him.It was as flat as the proverbial board, with just one isolated rocktowering upon its bosom. This was the chief object of interest now.Away in the distance he beheld its ghostly outline, almost lost in theruddy atmosphere which, just now, seemed to envelop the whole of thatWestern world.

  It was a desolate scene. So desolate as to carry a strange sense ofdepression to the heart of the horseman. There was not a tree insight--nor a single blade of grass. There was nothing but the funerealblack of basaltic rock, of which the hill seemed to be one solid mass.Such was its desolation that even the horse seemed to be drooping atthe sight of it. It was always the same with Buck. There was aninfluence about the place which always left him feeling ratherhopeless. He knew the old Indian stories of superstition. He knew theawe in which the more ignorant among the white folk held this hill.But these things left him unaffected. He only regarded it from his ownpersonal observations, which were not very enlivening.

  Apart from the fact that not one atom of vegetation would grow eitherupon the surface or slopes of Devil's Hill, no snows in winter hadever been known to settle upon its uninviting bosom. Long before thesnow touched its surface, however low the temperature of theatmosphere, however severe a blizzard might be raging--and the Montanablizzards are notorious for their severity--the snow was turned towater, and a deluge of rain hissed upon its surface.

  Then, too, there was that mystery rock in the distance of the greatplateau. It was one of Nature's little enigmas with which she loves topuzzle the mind of man. How came it there, shot up in the midst ofthat wide, flat stretch of rock? It stood within a few hundred yardsof the eastern brink of the hill which, in its turn, was anothermystery. The eastern extremity was not a mere precipice, it was a vastoverhang which left Yellow Creek, upon whose banks the mining campswere pitched, flowing beneath the roof of a giant tunnel supported bya single side.

  The rock on the plateau reared its misshapen head to the heavens at aheight of something over two hundred feet, and its great base formed avast cavern out of which, fanwise, spread a lake of steaming water,which flowed on to the very brink of the hill where it overshadowedthe creek below. Thus it was, more than half the lake was heldsuspended in mid-air, with no other support than the parent hill fromwhich its bed projected. It was an awesome freak of nature, calculatedto astonish even eyes that were accustomed to the sight of it.

  But Buck was not thinking of these things now. He was looking at theview. He was looking at the sky. He was looking from this great heightfor an explanation of the curious, ruddy light in the sunless sky, theteeming haze which weighted down the brain, and, with the slightestmovement, opened the pores of the skin and set the perspirationstreaming.

  In all his years of the Montana hills he had never experienced such acurious atmospheric condition. Less than an hour ago he had left thePadre at the fur fort under a blazing summer sky, with the crispmountain air whipping in his nostrils. Then, quite of a sudden, hadcome this change. There were no storm-clouds, and yet storm was inevery breath of the superheated air he took. There was no wind, noranything definite to alarm except this sudden blind heat and thepurple hue which seemed to have spread itself over the whole world.Thus it was, as he neared the mysterious mountain, he had made up hismind to its ascent in the hope of finding, there upon the unwholesomeplateau, the key to the atmospheric mystery.

  But none seemed to be forthcoming, so, turning at last to the patientCaesar, he once more returned to the saddle and rode on to the barrenshores of Devil's Lake.

  The lake was a desolate spot. The waters stretched out before him,still, and silent, and black. There was not even a ripple upon itssteaming surface. Here the haze hung as it always hung, and the cavernwas belching forth deep mists, like the breathing of some prehistoricmonster. He glanced up at the birdless rock above, and into the brokenoutlines of it he read the distorted features of some baleful, livingcreature, or some savage idol. But there was no answer here to thequestions of his mind, any more than there had been on the rest of theplateau, so he rode on along the edge of the water.

  He reached the extreme end of the lake and paused again. He could gono farther, for nothing but a rocky parapet, less than twenty feetwide, barred the waters from tumbling headlong to the depths below.

  After a moment Caesar grew restless, his equine nerves seemed to be ona jangle, and the steadying hand of his master had no effect. His eyeswere wistful and dilated, and he glanced distrustfully from side toside, snorting loudly his evident alarm. Buck moved him away from hisproximity to the water, and turned to a critical survey of the remotercrests of the Rocky Mountains.

  The white snowcaps had gone. The purple of the lesser hills, usuallyso delicate in their gradings, were lost in one monotony of dull redlight. The nearer distance was a mere world of ghostly shadows tingedwith the same threatening hue, and only the immediate neighborhood wasin any way clean cut and sharp to the eye. His brows drew together inperplexity. Again, down there in the valley, beyond the brink of theplateau, the dull red fog prevailed, and yet through it he could seethe dim picture of g
rass-land, of woods, of river, and the risingslopes of more hills beyond.

  No, the secret of the atmospheric phenomenon was not up here, and itwas useless to waste more time. So he moved off, much to his impatienthorse's relief, in a direction where he knew a gentle slope would leadhim from the hilltop to the neighborhood of the old farm and the fordacross Yellow Creek.

  But even this way the road required negotiation, for the same baldrocks and barrenness offered no sure foothold. However, Caesar was usedto this path, and made no mistakes. His master gave him his head, and,with eyes to the ground, the sure-footed beast moved along with almostcat-like certainty. At last the soft soil of the valley was reachedagain, and once more the deepening woods swallowed them up.

  The end of Buck's journey lay across Yellow Creek, where a fewmiserable hovels sheltered a small community of starving gold-seekers,and thither he now hastened. On his way he had a distant view of theold farm. He would have preferred to have avoided it, but that wasquite impossible. He had not yet got over the parting from it, whichhad taken place the previous day. To him had fallen the lot of handingit over to the farm-wife who had been sent on ahead from Leeson Butteto prepare it for her employer's coming. And the full sense of hisloss was still upon him. Wrong as he knew himself to be, he resentedthe newcomer's presence in his old home, and could not help regardingher as something in the nature of a usurper.

  The camp to which he was riding was a wretched enough place. Nor couldNature, here in her most luxuriant mood, relieve it from its sordidaspect. A few of the huts were sheltered at the fringe of the darkwoods, but most were set out upon the foreground of grass, whichfronted the little stream.

  As Buck approached he could not help feeling that they were the mostdeplorable huts ever built. They were like a number of inverted squareboxes, with roofs sloping from front to back. They were made out ofrough logs cut from the pine woods, roofed in with an ill-laid thatchof mud and grass, supported on the lesser limbs cut from the treesfelled to supply the logs. How could such despairing hovels ever beexpected to shelter men marked out for success? There was disaster,even tragedy, in every line of them. They were scarcely even sheltersfrom the elements. With their broken mud plaster, their doorlessentrances, their ill-laid thatch, they were surely little better thansieves.

  Then their surroundings of garbage, their remnants of coarse garmentshanging out upon adjacent bushes, their lack of every outward sign ofindustrial prosperity. No, to Buck's sympathetic eyes, there wastragedy written in every detail of the place.

  Were not these people a small band of regular tramp gold-seekers? Whatwas their outlook? What was their perspective? The tramp gold-seekeris a creature apart from the rest of the laboring world. He is not anordinary worker seeking livelihood in a regular return from his dailyeffort. He works under the influence of a craze that is little lessthan disease. He could never content himself with stereotypedemployment.

  Besides, the rot of degradation soon seizes upon his moral nature. Nomatter what his origin, what his upbringing, his education, hispursuit of gold seems to have a deadening effect upon all his finerinstincts, and reduces him swiftly to little better than the originalanimal. Civilization is forgotten, buried deep beneath a mire ofmoral mud, accumulated in long years, and often in months only ofassociation with the derelicts and "hard cases" of the world. Rarelyenough, when Fortune's pendulum swings toward one more favoredindividual, a flickering desire to return to gentler paths willmomentarily stir amidst the mire, but it seldom amounts to more thansomething in the nature of a drunkard's dream in moments of sobriety,and passes just as swiftly. The lustful animal appetite is toopowerful; it demands the sordid pleasures which the possession of goldmakes possible. Nor will it be satisfied with anything else. A trampgold-seeker is irreclaimable. His joy lies in his quest and the dreamsof fortune which are all too rarely fulfilled Every nerve centre isdrugged with his lust, and, like all decadents, he must fulfil thedestiny which his own original weakness has marked out for him.

  Buck understood something of all this without reasoning it out inhis simple mind. He understood with a heart as reckless as their own,but with a brain that had long since gathered strength from thegentle wisdom of the man who was a sort of foster-father to him. Hedid not pity. He felt he had no right to pity, but he had a deepsympathy and love for the strongly human motives which stirred thesepeople. Success or failure, he saw them as men and women whose manycontradictory qualities made them intensely lovable and sometimes evenobjects for respect, if for nothing else, at least for their veryhardihood and courage.

  He rode up to the largest hut, which stood beyond the shadow of agroup of pine-trees, and dropped out of the saddle. With carefulforethought he loosened the cinchas of Caesar's saddle and removed thebit from his mouth. Then, with one last look at the purpling heavens,he pushed aside the tattered blanket which hung across the doorway andstrode into the dimly-lit apartment.

  It was a silent greeting that welcomed him. His own "Howdy" met withno verbal response. But every eye of the men lying about on blanketsoutspread upon the dusty floor was turned in his direction.

  The scene was strange enough, but for Buck it had nothing new. Thegaunt faces and tattered clothing had long since ceased to drive himto despairing protest. He knew, in their own phraseology, they were"up against it"--the "it" in this case meaning the hideous spectre ofstarvation. He glanced over the faces and counted seven of them. Heknew them all. But, drawing forward an upturned soap-box, he sat downand addressed himself to Curly Saunders, who happened to be lying onhis elbow nearest the door.

  "Say, I just came along to give you word that vittles are on the wayfrom Leeson Butte," he said, as though the fact was of no seriousimportance.

  Curly, a short, thick-set man of enormous strength and round, youngishface, eased himself into a half-sitting position. But before he couldanswer another man, with iron-gray hair, sat up alertly and eyed theirvisitor without much friendliness.

  "More o' the Padre's charity?" he said, in a manner that suggestedresentment at the benefit he had no intention of refusing. Curiouslyenough, too, his careless method of expression in no way disguised thenatural refinement of his voice.

  Buck shook his head, and his eyes were cold.

  "Don't guess there's need of charity among friends, Beasley."

  Beasley Melford laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh.

  "Guess it makes him feel good dopin' out stuff to us same as if we wasbums," he said harshly.

  "Shut up!" cried a voice from a remote corner. Buck looked over andsaw a lean, dark man hugging his knees and smoking a well-burnt briarpipe. The same voice went on: "Guess you'd sicken most anybody,Beasley. You got a mean mind. Guess the Padre's a hell of a bullyfeller."

  "He sure is," said Montana Ike, lolling over on to his side andpushing his canvas kit-bag into a more comfortable position. "You wassayin' there was vittles comin' along, Buck? Guess ther' ain't no'chawin'' now?"

  "Tobacco, sure," responded Buck with a smile.

  One by one the men sat up on their frowsy blankets. The thought ofprovisions seemed to have roused them from their lethargy. Buck's eyeswandered over the faces peering at him out of the murky shadows. Thesqualor of the hut was painful, and, with the knowledge that help wasat hand, the sight struck him even more forcibly.

  "Quit work?" he asked a moment later, in his abrupt fashion.

  Somebody laughed.

  Buck looked round for an answer. And again his eyes caught the steely,ironical gleam in the man Beasley's.

  "The last o' Slaney's kids 'passed in' last night. Guess we're goin'to bury her."

  Buck nodded. He had no words. But he carefully avoided looking in thedirection of Slaney Dick, who sat in a far corner smoking his pipe andhugging his great knees.

  Beasley went on in the same half-mocking tone--

  "Guess it's up to me to read the service over her."

  "You!"

  Buck could not help the ejaculation. Beasley Melford was an unfrockedChurchman. Nor was it
known the reason of his dismissal from hiscalling. All Buck knew was that Beasley was a man of particularly lowmorals and detestable nature. The thought that he was to administerthe last rites of the Church over the dead body of a pure and innocentinfant set his every feeling in active protest. He turned to Slaney.

  "The Padre buried the others?" he said questioningly.

  It was Dick's partner, Abe Allinson, who took it upon himself toanswer.

  "Y' see the Padre's done a heap. Slaney's missis didn't guess we'dorter worrit him. That's how she said."

  Buck suddenly swung round on Beasley.

  "Fix it for to-morrow, an' the Padre'll be right along."

  He looked the ex-Churchman squarely in the eye. He was not making arequest. His words were an emphatic refusal to allow the other theoffice. It was Slaney who answered him.

  "I'm glad," he said. Then, as an afterthought, "an' the missis'll beglad, too."

  After that nobody seemed inclined to break the silence. Nor was ituntil somebody hawked and spat that the spell was broken.

  "We bin holdin' a meetin'," said Curly Saunders heavily. "Y' see, itain't no good."

  Buck nodded at the doorway.

  "You mean----?"

  "The prospect," Beasley broke in and laughed. "Say, we sure beensuckers stayin' around so long. Ther' ain't no gold within a hundredmiles of us. We're just lyin' rottin' around like--stinkin' sheep."

  Curly nodded.

  "Sure. That's why we held a meeting. We're goin' to up stakes an'git."

  "Where to?"

  Buck's quick inquiry met with a significant silence, which Montana Ikefinally broke.

  "See here," he cried, with sudden force. "What's the use in astin'fool questions? Ther' ain't no gold, ther' ain't nuthin'. We got colorfer scratchin' when we first gathered around like skippin' lambs, butther's nuthin' under the surface, an' the surface is played rightout. I tell you it's a cursed hole. Jest look around. Look at yonderDevil's Hill. Wher'd you ever see the like? That's it. Devil's Hill.Say, it's a devil's region, an' everything to it belongs to the devil.Ther' ain't nuthin' fer us--nuthin', but to die of starvin'. Ah,psha'! It's a lousy world. Gawd, when I think o' the wimminfolk itmakes my liver heave. Say, some of them pore kiddies ain't had milkfer weeks, an' we only ke'p 'em alive thro' youse two fellers. Say,"he went on, in a sudden burst of passion, "we got a right, same asother folk, to live, an' our kids has, an' our wimmin too. Mebbe weain't same as other folks, them folks with their kerridges an' thingsin cities, mebbe our kiddies ain't got no names by the Chu'ch, an' ourwimmin ain't no Chu'ch writin' fer sharin' our blankets, but we got aright to live, cos we're made to live. An' by Gee! I'm goin' to live!I tell youse folk right here, ther's cattle, an' ther's horses, an'ther's grain in this dogone land, an' I'm goin' to git what I need of'em ef I'm gettin' it at the end of a gun! That's me, fellers, an'them as has the notion had best foller my trail."

  The hungry eyes of the man shone in the dusk of the room. The harshlines of his weak face were desperate. Every word he said he meant,and his whole protest was the just complaint of a man willing enoughto accept the battle as it came, but determined to save life itself byany means to his hand.

  It was Beasley who caught at the suggestion.

  "You've grit, Ike, an' guess I'm with you at any game like that."

  Buck waited for the others. He had no wish to persuade them to anydefinite course. He had come there with definite instructions from thePadre, and in his own time he would carry them out.

  A youngster, who had hitherto taken no part in the talk, suddenlylifted a pair of heavy eyes from the torn pages of a five-cent novel.

  "Wal!" he cried abruptly. "Wot's the use o' gassin'? Let's light rightout. That's how we sed 'fore you come along, Buck." He paused, and asly grin slowly spread over his features. Then, lowering his voice toa persuasive note, he went on, "Here, fellers, mebbe ther' ain'tmore'n cents among us. Wal, I'd sure say we best pool 'em, an' I'llset right out over to Bay Creek an' git whisky. I'll make it in fourhours. Then we'll hev jest one hell of a time to-night, an' up stakesin the morning, fer--fer any old place out o' here. How's that?"

  "Guess our few cents don't matter, anyways," agreed Curly, his dulleyes brightening. "I'd say the Kid's right. I ain't lapped a sup o'rye in months."

  "It ain't bad fer Soapy," agreed Beasley. "Wot say, boys?"

  He glanced round for approval and found it in every eye exceptSlaney's. The bereaved father seemed utterly indifferent to anythingexcept his own thoughts, which were of the little waxen face he hadwatched grow paler and paler in his arms only yesterday morning, untilhe had laid the poor little dead body in his weeping woman's lap.

  Buck felt the time had come for him to interpose. He turned on Beasleywith unmistakable coldness.

  "Guess the Padre got the rest of his farm money yesterday--when thewoman came along," he said. "An' the vittles he ordered are on thetrail. I'd say you don't need to light out--yet."

  Beasley laughed offensively.

  "Still on the charity racket?" he sneered.

  Buck's eyes lit with sudden anger.

  "You don't need to touch the vittles," he cried. "You haven't anywoman, and no kiddies. Guess there's nothing to keep you from gettingright out."

  He eyed the man steadily, and then turned slowly to the others.

  "Here, boys, the Padre says the food and canned truck'll be alongto-morrow morning. And you can divide it between you accordin' to yourneeds. If you want to get out it'll help you on the road. And he'llhand each man a fifty-dollar bill, which'll make things easier. If youwant to stop around, and give the hill another chance, why the fiftyeach will make a grub stake."

  The proposition was received in absolute silence. Even Beasley had nosneering comment. The Kid's eyes were widely watching Buck's darkface. Slaney had removed his pipe, and, for the moment, his owntroubles were forgotten under a sudden thrill of hope. Curly Saunderssat up as though about to speak, but no words came. Abe Allinson,Ike, and Blue Grass Pete contented themselves with staring theirastonishment at the Padre's munificence. Finally Slaney hawked andspat.

  "Seems to me," he said, in his quiet, drawling voice, "the Padre soldhis farm to help us out."

  "By Gee! that's so," exclaimed Curly, thumping a fist into the palm ofhis other hand.

  The brightening eyes lit with hope. The whole atmosphere of the placeseemed to have lost something of its depression.

  Ike shook his head.

  "I'm gettin' out. But say, the Padre's a bully feller."

  Abe nodded.

  "Ike's right. Slaney an' me's gettin' out, too. Devil's Hill's acursed blank."

  "Me, too," broke in the Kid. "But say, wot about poolin' our cents forwhisky?" he went on, his young mind still intent upon the contemplatedorgie.

  It was Buck who helped the wavering men to their decision. Heunderstood them. He understood their needs. The ethics of theproposition did not trouble him. These men had reached a point wherethey needed a support such as only the fiery spirits their stomachscraved could give them. The Padre's help would come afterward. At themoment, after the long weeks of disappointment, they needed somethingto lift them, even if it was only momentarily. He reached round to hiship-pocket and pulled out two single-dollar bills and laid them on thedusty ground in front of him.

  "Ante up, boys," he said cheerfully. "Empty your dips. The Kid'sright. An' to-morrow you can sure choose what you're going to do."Then he turned to the Kid. "My plug Caesar's outside. Guess you besttake him. He'll make the journey in two hours. An' you'll need tobustle him some, because ther's a kind o' storm gettin' around rightsmart. Eh?" He turned and glanced sharply at Beasley. "You got adollar?"

  "It's fer whisky," leered the ex-Churchman, as he laid the dirty paperon the top of Buck's.

  In two minutes the pooling was completed and the Kid prepared to setout. Eight dollars was all the meeting could muster--eight dollarscollected in small silver, which represented every cent these menpossessed in the world. Buck knew this. At least he c
ould answer foreverybody except perhaps Beasley Melford. That wily individual hebelieved was capable of anything. He was sure that he was capable ofaccepting anything from anybody, while yet being in a position to morethan help himself.

  Buck went outside to see the Kid off, and some of the men had gatheredin the doorway. They watched the boy swing himself into the saddle,and the desperate shadows had lightened on their hungry faces. Thebuoyancy of their irresponsible natures was reasserting itself. Thatbridge, which the Padre's promise had erected between their despairand the realms of hope, however slight its structure, was sufficientto lift them once more to the lighter mood so natural to them.

  So their tongues were loosened, and they offered their messengerthe jest from which they could seldom long refrain, the coarse,deep-throated jest which sprang from sheer animal spirits rather thanany subtlety of wit. They forgot for the time that until Buck's comingthey had contemplated the burial of a comrade's only remainingoffspring. They forgot that the grieving father was still within thehut, his great jaws clenched upon the mouthpiece of his pipe, hishollow eyes still gazing straight in front of him. That was their way.There was a slight ray of hope for them, a brief respite. There wasthe thought, too, of eight dollars' worth of whisky, a just portion ofwhich was soon to be in each stomach.

  But Buck was not listening to them. He had almost forgotten themessenger riding away on his treasured horse, so occupied was he bythe further change that had occurred in the look of the sky and in theatmosphere of the valley. Presently he lifted one strong, brown handto his forehead and wiped the beads of perspiration from it.

  "Phew! What heat! Here," he cried, pointing at Devil's Hill, away tohis left, "what d'you make of that?"

  For a moment all eyes followed the direction of his outstretched arm.And slowly there grew in them a look of awe such as rarely found placein their feelings.

  The crown of the hill, the whole of the vast, black plateau wasenveloped in a dense gray fog. Above that hung a mighty, thunderouspall of purple storm-cloud. Back, away into the mountains in billowyrolls it extended, until the whole distance was lost in a blackness asof night.

  It was Curly Saunders who broke the awed silence.

  "Jumpin' Mackinaw!" he cried. Then he looked after their departingmessenger. "Say, that feller oughtn't to've gone to Bay Creek. He'llnever make it."

  Beasley, whose feelings were less susceptible, and whose mind was seton the promised orgie, sneered at the other's tone.

  "Skeered some, ain't you? Tcha'! It's jest wind----"

  But he never completed his sentence. At that instant the whole of theheavens seemed to split and gape open. A shaft of light, extendingfrom horizon to horizon, paralyzed their vision. It was accompanied bya crash of thunder that set their ear-drums well-nigh bursting. Bothlightning and the thunder lasted for what seemed interminable minutesand left their senses dazed, and the earth rocking beneath theirfeet. Again came the blinding light, and again the thunder crashed.Then, in a moment, panic had set in, and the tattered blanket hadfallen behind the last man as a rush was made for the doubtful shelterof the hut.