Collected Works of Zane Grey

by Zane Grey

  Stewart had answered to the same strange antagonistic passion that beset Starr. No doubt Nels also was under its influence or he would have shot the gangster and made an end of the thing. Nels had been a gunman in his day; and later cowboys, who packed and shot guns, were wont to view with contempt the exploits of the modern killers with their automatic and hidden firing. They were simply murderers. An even break was Greek to them. But Ren wanted the test.

  “Listen to reason, cowboy,” importuned Stewart. “I savvy you. But even a little risk...”

  “Risk, hell? There won’t be none. Anyway, Boss, neither you nor Nels must hev this crook’s blood on yore hands.”

  “What’s the difference whether it’s you or me or all of us?”

  “On account of Madge. An’ if you elected to take him to jail — why Sidway would ride down there an’ shoot him in his cell. Thet wouldn’t do either, Boss.”

  Nels appeared to be struck mute and Stewart had no ready answer. At that moment Starr reminded Stewart again of Monty Price. The advance of time did not change the hearts of these firebrand range riders.

  Starr drew his gun, and kept it in his hand while he helped the gangster into his coat.

  “There!... Stewart, you fellers get back pronto.... Now Uhl, don’t move a hand.” Starr backed away from him for perhaps twenty feet. “Turn around, Uhl.”

  The gangster did as he was bidden, exposing a front that was sickening to men who held courage and nerve as Stewart held them. Blood had again begun to stream down the side of Uhl’s temple and cheek.

  “Ten — grand — if you’ll...”

  “Bah!” interrupted Starr, piercingly. “You’re talkin’ to an American cowboy.” Starr sheathed his gun and held his hand out, his fingers clutching at the air.

  “Nels, you give the word.... Come on, kidnaper! Let’s hev yore game.”

  “Ready!” rang out Nels. “Shoot!”

  Stewart’s gaze was riveted on the gangster. In a flash he jerked his right hand down into his coat pocket. As the corner of his coat suddenly pointed out to bark and smoke, Starr’s gun crashed and in a second again. The gangster’s bullet sputtered up dust and gravel. Between the shots his visage underwent an indescribable change, and as he fell the terrible instinct to survive left his body.

  * * * * *

  Darkness found Stewart and his men around a campfire in another spot, several rods from the cabin. Nels was cooking some supper. And he was speaking:

  “Wal, Gene, I cain’t see any sense in tryin’ to trail Sidway in the dark.”

  “Hawses all in, Mr. Stewart,” interposed Sloan. “We’ll have to rest up tonight at least.”

  Stewart endeavored to subdue his impatience and dread, knowing how right his comrades were.

  “Anyway, wait till Ren comes back,” added Nels, and presently called them to supper. While they were sitting there the cowboy returned. In the campfire light his face showed white and set, without the violence that had distorted it.

  “I found Lance’s trail,” he said, eagerly. “Used my flashlight. He had Ump goin’ some when he struck into the trail. But he soon slowed down. I follered the tracks till they turned left off the trail.”

  “What’ll he do?” queried Stewart, sharply.

  “Beat it fer home. Thet guy an’ thet hoss — nothin’ to it, Boss, if Madge is okay.”

  “Does he know how to get down out of here?”

  “Wal, we rode all over when we was up heah.”

  “Ren, you take his trail at daybreak,” suggested Nels.

  “Shore. I’d thought of thet. But mark my hunch, Sid will beat us home half a day.”

  “Set in an’ hev a bite.”

  “Nels, I sorta ain’t hungry.”

  “Wal, eat an’ drink anyhow. It’s been a tough day.”

  “You boys go after our horses and hobble them out for tonight. And Sloan, you’ll hunt up the rest of your horses tomorrow,” asserted Stewart.

  “They’ll be around close. Seldom thet stock will leave this grass an’ water.”

  Stevens set propped against a pack, with a blanket around him, his hair damp on his pale forehead.

  “Rollie, you had a hand in that lynching,” said Stewart. “How you feel?”

  “Pretty scared — and sick yet,” he replied, weakly. “But it — isn’t my part in that hanging. That was great.”

  “Fine. Brace up now. Everything is okay. And we’re d —— lucky.”

  Very little was spoken after that and nothing at all about the tragedy. The cowboys brought a pile of firewood to last out the night. Stewart asked one of them to fetch the cut spruce in the cabin, and he made his bed upon that. Starr was the only one who did not smoke. He stood back to the fire, his head bent. Stewart appreciated how he felt. The night wind set up its dirge in the pines and coyotes barked off in the distance. Despite his extreme fatigue Stewart could not sleep at once. The stars seemed to mock his troubled mind.

  CHAPTER XII

  UHL’S STRIKING MADGE down had less to do with her collapse than the appearance of Sidway in the cabin, with his darkly stern visage, his deadly voice, and the bursting red boom of his gun.

  She did not wholly lose consciousness, for she felt him lift her and wrap her in a blanket and carry her out. More clearly then she heard a string of shots and the spang and thud of bullets all about, and felt herself swung upon a horse, and the violent jars of her body as he plunged away.

  A vague, almost blank interval succeeded. When her mind cleared again she was being carried comfortably upon a pacing horse over a level trail. Through the big black pines she saw the stars shining, and then a dim outline of Sidway’s face and bare head. That thrilling reality brought back vividly the fight with the gangster, his half stripping her, and the brutal blow he had dealt her, and then Sidway’s startling and fatal intervention. Sidway, no matter why, had saved her again, and this time from a horrible fate — an insupportable shame and inevitable death. Her thoughts grew so wildly whirling that she had to disrupt them by talking.

  “Lance,” she whispered. Apparently he did not hear her.

  “Lance!... We got away.” She felt a strong vibration pass through him.

  “Hello! You’ve come to?” he returned, hastily.

  “Yes. But I wasn’t altogether out.”

  “I haven’t had time to see.... Did he hurt you?”

  “Lance, I was holding my own with him — when he struck me. I wasn’t afraid of him — till then.... I suppose he could have beaten me helpless?”

  “Then... Uhl didn’t — harm you?” queried Sidway, in a halting husky voice.

  “No, not outside the blow. Lance! You — killed him?”

  “Yes.”

  “You saved — me?”

  “Yes.”

  “From something hideous. He never meant to let me go for ransom. He’d have kept me.... Merciful heaven! What an idiot I was — to flirt with Honey Bee Uhl!”

  “It takes a lot to cure some girls’ egotism,” returned Sidway with an intonation she could not define. He seemed far removed from her, somehow.

  “I’m cured — Lance.”

  “Listen, baby! — Excuse me. I fell into Uhl’s way of speech.... The day will never come when you won’t look at a man.”

  “But for goodness sake! I have eyes. I can’t hang my head — never look.”

  “A look from your eyes is enough.”

  “Yeah? — For what?”

  “To incite a man to madness — kidnaping — outrage — murder.”

  “Oh! — Not a real man. What do you mean?”

  “I mean, Miss Stewart, that whether you have guilty intent or perfect innocence, when you look at men with those eyes, you play hell.”

  “I observe, Mr. Sidway, that my marvelous eyes failed to play hell with you,” she returned, sarcastically.

  “Only because I was wise to you.”

  Madge had no quick retort for that, mainly because there seemed some hope for her with this young man of dual nature. Th
ey rode along the trail in silence. But she watched him from between narrowed eyelids. If she had not been spent and in pain she would have found this situation vastly intriguing. At length Umpqua exchanged his pacing gait for a walk. Evidently the mountain clearing had been passed. Presently Sidway turned off the trail to the left, and had to pick his course. The forest gradually grew less dense, and therefore lighter. Thickets of pine and spruce reached above Sidway’s head, and in places had to be carefully threaded. It became evident to Madge that they were traveling downhill. At length the cowboy halted as if undecided how to proceed.

  “Lost?” inquired Madge.

  “I’ll tell the world,” he replied, with a queer laugh.

  “I’d just as soon you made a halt till morning. I’m about done for.”

  “My idea exactly.... Soon as I hit a level spot.”

  He zigzagged down the slope for a while, and eventually stopped, to slide out of the saddle. Madge could not help feeling that he handled her as if she were a child. He set her down, back against a tree, which Madge observed to be a cedar. There were still big pines about, but scattering, and the presence of cedars denoted lower altitude.

  “I’m freezing to death,” she said.

  He stripped the horse and haltered him to a sapling. Then from his saddle he untied a blanket, and other trappings. This he doubled and wrapped around her. Then he tore sheathes of bark off the cedar, and snapped twigs and dead branches, with which he started a fire not far from her feet. The crackling of wood and leaping of red flame changed the moon-blanched gloom. While Madge stretched her hands to the heat, Sidway opened a saddlebag.

  “Here’s some meat, biscuits, dried apples, and a piece of chocolate.... Yes, and a little salt. Are you hungry?”

  “I could go for a filet mignon in a big way.”

  “Daresay you could. Sorry I can’t furnish one.”

  “Very well. I’ll have a biscuit and a piece of meat.... Thanks. Where are we, Lance?”

  “Up in the Peloncillos.”

  “How far from that camp?”

  “Miles, I’d say.”

  “I wish you could have gotten Rollie away from them.”

  “Well, I expect trouble enough, without your boy friend.”

  “Trouble? — You’ll not have any with me,” she returned, all at once cognizant again of the double role he played. “Lance, you’re after that ransom yourself!”

  In the light of the fire she saw a dark tide sweep across his face. His somber eyes regarded her as if somehow she had recalled to him her true character. He let out a mirthless laugh.

  “You guessed it, Majesty,” he replied, grimly.

  “I will gladly pay you.... What will those gangsters do with Rollie? His people are rich. They will pay. But it’ll take time. Meanwhile Dad and Nels will be on the rampage. That demand of Uhl’s will drive him crazy. He can’t pay it. I’ll bet they are on our trail now.”

  Sidway had averted his face and he made no reply, facts that excited Madge’s speculation. Suddenly a wild conviction bore crushingly upon her. “Lance! Ransom or no ransom — you mean to — to keep me?”

  “You sure are some guesser,” he declared, bitterly.

  “My — God! — You can’t — be so low.”

  “Men as a rule are pretty bad hombres. Don’t you think you deserve it?”

  “Yes — yes! Oh, I’ve been a heedless, vain and selfish thing!... But, Lance, I — I haven’t been rotten...”

  “Are you telling me?” he queried, turning his back on her.

  “Yes, I am. I never.... Oh, what you must think me!... Lance Sidway, you killed that devil Uhl just so you could have me — take me yourself?”

  “You said it, baby.”

  “Don’t call me that. I’ll hate you.”

  “I thought you did already.”

  “I didn’t. But I shall.”

  “Okay by me. More sport if I have to beat you.”

  “Beat me! You’ve already done that.”

  “Miss Stewart, I think you hit me first.”

  “Yes I did. For the dirtiest remark any fellow ever dared make to me.”

  “Struck me at the moment as strictly merited.”

  “Oh, the way we quarrel! It gets my goat!... What do you intend to do with me?”

  “You’re so damn smart — why don’t you tell me?”

  “I can.... You’ve fallen for this temptation, Lance Sidway. Too much easy money in sight! And a chance to get even with me!... I suppose you’ll tie me in a cave — starve me — beat me... till you get that money.”

  “I declare,” he interrupted, as she choked over her words, “you grow better all the time. Wise girl! College girl, you know!”

  “Oh, damn! — Lance Sidway, you’ll have to marry me!”

  She might have struck him, judging by his shrinking start. “I’ll refuse to pay that ransom or move out of my tracks unless you swear you’ll marry me.”

  “Very well, if you think that important,” he returned, in a queer voice.

  Madge, in the wildness of that agitation, thought she must make the best of a bad bargain. She loved him, whether he was a crook or a cowboy, a Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde, a strange combination of virtue and vice. It ran through her mind that he could not forever stay immune, that she could win his love, and reform him. That might be the retribution meted out to her for her imperious and willful ways. After all he had saved her. She could not hate him. If he beat her she would fight back, and perhaps, womanlike, love him the more for his brutality. There was a queer streak in her, she feared, or at least one strongly primitive.

  “You are fagged out,” he said, presently turning. “I’ll make a bed for you.”

  He broke an armful of cedar brush, laid it flat, and put a saddle blanket on that. Then he arranged his saddle for her head. As she moved over, half crawling, the folded blanket fell, and the one wrapped around her half slipped off. Madge made no great haste to wrap it around her again.

  “What’s the odds?” she said, moodily. “You’ve seen me almost naked twice.” And she lay down to stretch out wearily, her eyes upon him, as he bent to cover her with the extra blanket. She made the discovery then that if the moonlight did not deceive her, his face was white.

  “Now it’s settled, let’s talk...”

  “What’s settled?” he interposed.

  “Why, I suppose you’d vulgarly call it my hash.... I intend to make up for the ruin I unwittingly brought upon Dad and Mom. I suppose you’ll block that.”

  “Too late! I’ll need the money.”

  “But you needn’t be a hog. You seemed to like them. Can’t you be sport enough to let me make amends?”

  “Sure, I liked Gene. And your mother is... swell!... But they won’t need the money after you’ve gone.”

  “Mr. Sidway, when you were snooping over my securities and bankbooks, did you get a line on what I was worth?”

  “I did, you bet. It used to be about a million!”

  “Yes. But that won’t do you much good now. I can sell my pearls and other jewels for a hundred grand — as your gangster pards call it. I’ll do that on one condition only. You let me split with Dad and Mom!”

  “Okay! Fifty grand will do for our honeymoon — at least until the dicks get me.”

  “Oh, you were wanted by the police even before this,” cried Madge, despairingly. Then she grew enraged and flung at him: “How can you be so — so fine — so — Oh, so many things, and still be such a beast.”

  “Mystery of life, baby,” he retorted. “How can you be so sweet — have such an angel-face — such soulful, eloquent, lovely eyes — such a winning way with everyone, when at heart you are just no damn good?”

  “You’ve about convinced me,” she said, darkly. “Perhaps this will either kill or cure me.... But beating me, as no doubt you will, depriving me of the home I’d just begun to love, packing me off like this to misery and — and God knows what else — perhaps it’ll reform me.... Yes? No?”

  “I would
n’t limit your possibilities any more than I’d believe one word you said,” he returned, passionately.

  “We’re certainly two of a kind,” she retorted. “But let’s not be fourflushers. If you’re not big enough to reform yourself, and me, then be big enough to be outright bad. And not a two-faced liar such as you are!”

  That stinging speech appeared to wither him. Presently he began to gather firewood and pile it conveniently. Madge had an intense curiosity in regard to him, and tried hard to keep awake. But she was utterly exhausted, and felt her eyelids falling again and again until they shut for good. She seemed scarcely to have slept any time at all when she was awakened. Sidway was shaking her, and not gently.

  “Are you dead?” he called, with something besides impatience.

  “Oh!”... The gray dawn, the piercing cold, the ghostly pines quickly regulated her bewildered senses to actuality. “Buenos dias, darling. No, I’m not dead — yet.”

  “Don’t call me that,” he almost shouted, most unreasonably. “I’m liable to slap you good.”

  “Well, you put one black and blue brand on me. Why not another?”

  “Get up. Move around. Eat something,” he ordered, peremptorily.

  Madge found the first desperately hard to accomplish, and the second no easy matter, and the third impossible. Her hands were numb and her feet blocks of ice, until she almost burned them in the fire. Sidway went off somewhere in to the woods, presumably to hunt his horse. Madge could easily have escaped from him then. But that would have been absurd, even if she had wanted to. She walked away from the fire and back again, and presently found that exercise relieved both cold and cramp. At length the cowboy returned with his horse, which he saddled and bridled.

  “You’ll have to ride,” he said, brusquely.

  “Thanks. You’re very kind to your squaw — darling.”

  “But not in that blanket. Here, put on my coat.”

  “No. You’ll need that yourself. I can ride with this blanket around me. Only my hands and feet are cold now.”