Judith of Blue Lake Ranch

by Gregory, Jackson

  Judith spent many a long hour exploring her prison, hoping to find a way out. So far as she knew she had but one person to reckon with, Mad Ruth. True, Trevors had said that he'd have a man on the ledge outside day and night; Judith had never seen such a person, had never heard his voice, and began to believe that it was a bit of bluff on Trevors's part. But she had never again been where she could look out of the cave's mouth, since Mad Ruth had her own pallet on the floor at the narrowest part of the cave where it was like the neck of a monster bottle, and always at the first sound of the girl's approach, was on her feet to thrust her back. Clearly there was no way out of this place of shadows except that through which she had come.

  Judith sought an explanation of her imprisonment, and after long groping she came very near the truth: Trevors would work his will with Hampton through Hampton's faith in him and admiration for him. And, in her absence, Hampton was the head of Blue Lake ranch.

  Sunday night, hearing Mad Ruth moving cautiously, Judith raised herself on her elbow, listening. She was confident that the woman was moving toward the cave's mouth; she hoped wildly that Mad Ruth was tricked into believing her asleep and was going out. Her shoes in her hands, her stockinged feet falling lightly, Judith moved toward the mad woman's couch.

  Ruth was going out; was in fact even now slipping out of the narrow throat of the cave and to the ledge. But Judith could not see her. For a new, unexpected obstacle was in her way. Her outthrust hands touched not rock walls but heavy wooden panels; she knew then that the narrow neck of the cave was fitted with a heavy door and that it had been drawn shut, fastened from without. In a sudden access of fury and despair she beat at it with her two hands, crying out bitterly.

  It was so dark, so inky black, and as still, save for her own outcry, as a tomb sealed and forgotten. Such darkness, smothering hope, suddenly was filled with vague terrors; for one worn-out and nervous as Judith was, the darkness seemed to harbor a thousand ugly things which watched her and mocked at her despair and reached out vile hands toward her. She called loudly, and for answer had the crazed laugh of Mad Ruth which floated in to her from without, but which seemed to drop down from the void above.

  "Judith, Judith," the girl whispered after the first outburst, when she found that she was shaking pitifully. "You've got to do better than this; I'm ashamed of you."

  She went back to her couch, where she sat down seeking to hold her jangling nerves in check. But, despite her intention, she sat shaking, listening, listening—praying for even the footfall of her jailer.

  When Ruth was with her she attempted in a hundred ways to gauge the woman's warped brain, to seek some way to get the better of her, to gain her trust and so to slip away. But she found that here was the usual cunning born of madness, and that Ruth's one idea was to keep the girl who had escaped her once but who must never escape again. There were times when suspicion awakened in Ruth's mind, and she broke into violent rage, so that her big body shook and her eyes in the lantern-light were cruel and murderous, when Judith shrank back, and tried to change the woman's thoughts. For more than once had Mad Ruth cried out:

  "I'll kill you! Kill you with my own hands to keep you here. To keep you mine, mine, mine!"

  The woman carried no weapon, but after her two hands had once gripped the girl's shoulders, shaking her, Judith knew that Ruth needed no weapon. Hers was a strength greater than Trevors's, greater than two men's. If Mad Ruth saw fit to kill Judith with her two hands, she could do it.

  Sunday passed and Sunday night; Monday and Monday night. Judith knew that she had accomplished nothing, except perhaps to make Ruth believe that she was very much of a coward. In Ruth's mad brain that was little enough, since this did not allay her cunning watchfulness. Then Judith began to do something else, something actively. Just to be occupied, was something. Her fingers selected the largest, thickest branch from her bed of fir-boughs. It was perhaps a couple of inches in diameter and heavy, because it was green. Silently, cautious of a twig snapped, she began with her fingers to strip the branch, tough and pliable. Then the limb must be cut into a length which would make it a club to be used in a cramped space. She found a bit of stone, hard granite, which had scaled from the walls and which had a rough edge. With this, working many a quiet hour, she at last cut in two the fir-bough. She lifted it in her hands, to feel the weight of it, before she thrust it under her bed to lie hidden there against possible need. Poor thing as it was, she felt no longer utterly defenseless.

  Once Mad Ruth, lighting the lantern, had dropped a good match. When she had gone, Judith secured it hastily, hiding it as if it were gold. She knew that now and then Mad Ruth went down the cliffs and to the cabin across the chasm. Always at night and at the darkest hour. When she heard her go, Judith rose swiftly and went to the heavy door. Always she found it locked; her shaking at it hardly budged the heavy timbers. But though she could not see it, she studied it with her fingers until she had a picture of it in her mind. A picture that only increased her hopelessness. Barehanded she could never hope to break it down or push it aside. And above it and below, and on each side, were the solid walls of stone.

  She no longer knew what day it was. She scarcely knew if it were day or night. But, setting herself something to do so that she would not go mad, mad as Mad Ruth, she secured for herself another weapon. Another bit of stone which her groping fingers had found and hidden with her club; a jagged, ugly rock half the size of a man's head. Some little scraps of bread and meat, hoarded from her scanty meals, she hid in her blouse.

  "If I could stun her, just stun her," she got into the way of whispering to herself. "Not kill her outright—just stun her——"

  At last, seeing that she must work her own salvation with the crude weapons given her, Judith told herself that she could wait no longer. Another day and another and she would be weak from the confinement and poor food and nervous, wakeful hours. She must act while the strength was in her. And, if Trevors had spoken the truth, if there were a man to deal with outside—well, she must shut her mind to that until she came to it.

  Mad Ruth was gone again, and Judith stood by the thick door, her heart beating furiously while she waited. It seemed to her eager impatience that Ruth would never come back. Then after a long, long time she heard a little scraping sound upon the rock ledge outside, the sound of a quick step. And then, before she heard the snarling, ugly voice which she had heard once and had never forgotten, she knew that this time she had waited too long, that it was not Ruth coming.

  One man—and there might be others. She stepped back to her bed, hid the two weapons and waited. She must make no mistakes now.

  The door was flung open. Outside it was dark, pitch-dark. But evidently the man entering had no fear of being seen. He threw down a bundle of dry fagots, and set fire to them. The blaze, leaping up, casting wavering gleams to where Judith stood, showed her plainly the twisted, ugly face of Quinnion, his red-rimmed eyes peering at her, filled with evil light.

  XXVI

  JUDITH'S PERIL

  "The better to see you by, my dear!" was Quinnion's word of greeting. Judith made no answer. She drew a little farther back into the shadows, a little closer to the things she had hidden among the fir-branches.

  "Ho," sneered Quinnion, his mood from the first plain enough to read in the glimpses of his face and in the added harshness of his voice. "Timid little fawn, huh? By God, a man would say from the bluff you put up that it was all a dream about findin' you an' the han'some Lee in the cabin together! Stan' off all you damn please; I've come to tame you, you little beauty of the big innocent eyes!"

  Not drunk; no, Quinnion was never drunk. But, as he came a step closer, the heavy air of the cave grew heavier with the whiskey he carried, whiskey enough to stimulate the evil within him, not to quench it.

  "Stand back!" cried Judith, with a sharp intake of breath. "I want to talk with you, Chris Quinnion."

  "So you know who I am, do you? Well, much good it'll do you."

  "I know w
ho you are and what you are," she told him defiantly, suddenly sick of her long hours of playing baby, knowing at the moment less fear than hatred and loathing. "Listen to me: Bayne Trevors has come out in the open at last; he has made his big play and is going to lose out on it. Your one chance now is to let me go and to go yourself. Go fast and far, Chris Quinnion. For when the law knows the sort Bayne Trevors is and how you have worked hand and glove with him, it will know just how much his word was worth when he swore you were with him when father was killed! Coward and cur and murderer!"

  Quinnion laughed at her.

  "Little pussy-cat," he jeered. "You've got claws, have you? And you spit and growl, do you? Want me to let you go back to that swaggering lover of yours, do you? Back to Lee——"

  "That's enough, Quinnion," she said sharply.

  "Is it?" He laughed at her again, and again came on toward her, the red-rimmed evil of his eyes driving quick fear at last into her. "Enough? Why, curse you and curse him, I haven't begun yet! When I'm through with you I'll go fast enough. And he can have you then an' damn welcome to him!"

  "Stop!" cried Judith.

  His laughter did not reach her ears now, but as he kicked the fire at his foot and the flames leaped up and showed his face, she read the laughter in his soul; read it through the gleaming eyes, the twisted mouth which showed the teeth at one side in a horrible leer. His long arms thrust out before him, he came on.

  "Oh, my God!" cried Judith. "My God!"

  Then suddenly she was silent. She thought that she had known the uttermost of fear and now for the first time did she fully know what terror was. His strength was many times her strength, his brutality was unbounded, she was alone with him. There was no one to call to, not even Ruth, the mad woman.

  She was shaking now, shaking so that she could barely stand. Quinnion came on, his long arms out.…

  She felt the strength die out of her body, grew for a moment blind and dizzy and sick. She tried again to call out to him, to plead with him. But her voice stuck in her throat.

  He was gloating over her, a look strangely like Mad Ruth's in his eyes. Good God! He was like Mad Ruth; the same eyes, the same long, powerful arms, the same look of cunning! In a flash there came to her a suspicion which was near certainty: this man was blood of Mad Ruth's blood, bone of her bone; her son, and, like her, tainted with madness.

  He shot out a long arm, his hand barely brushing her shoulder. She shrank back. He stood, content to pause a moment, to gloat further over her.

  "You little beauty," he said, panting. "You little white and pink and brown beauty!"

  Judith had shuddered when he touched her. But a strange thing had happened to her. His touch had angered her so that she almost forgot to be afraid, angered her so that the loathing was gone in white hot hatred, giving her back her old strength.

  Now, though he had the brutal force of a strong man, Quinnion did not have the swiftness of movement of an alert, desperate girl. Before he could grasp her motive she leaped toward him and toward the bed of boughs, found the ragged stone, and lifting it high above her head flung it full into his face. The man staggered back, crying out in throaty harshness, a cry of blind rage. But he did not fall, did not pause more than a brief instant.

  A little dazed, with blood in his eyes, he lunged toward her. She had found the club now and struck with all her might, again beating into his face and again and again. He sought to grapple with her and she beat him back. She saw his hand go to his hip and heard him curse her, and she leaped in on him and, panting with the blow, struck again. He flung up his arm. She struck once more. Taking the blow full across the face, Quinnion reeled back, stumbled at an uneven spot in the rock floor, balanced, almost falling.…

  Only a moment he held thus. But there was a chance to pass him in the narrow way, and she took her chance, her heart beating wildly. And as she shot by she struck again.

  She heard him after her, shouting curses, stumbling a little, coming on. The door was open, thank God, the door was open! She shot through. If she could but take time to close it! But there was no time for that; he was almost at her heels. And outside was the ledge and the dizzy climb down.

  If she slipped, if she fell, well, it would just be a clean death and nothing more. Quinnion was but a few steps behind her. He had not fired. Had he perhaps dropped his gun back there in the darkness? Or was he so sure of taking her, alive and struggling, into his arms in another moment?

  She was on the ledge. It was dark, pitch-dark.

  But she found a handhold, threw herself flat down and thrust her feet out over the edge, less afraid of what lay below than what came on behind her. She was gripping the ledge now with her hands, already torn and bleeding, her feet swinging, touching sheer rock wall, slipping, seeking a foothold. Quinnion was just there, above her. She must move her hands so that he could not reach her. It seemed an eternity that she hung there, seeking a place somewhere to set her feet.

  She found it, another, lesser ledge which she had almost missed, and knew that this way she had clambered upward with Bayne Trevors. If she could only find another step and another before Quinnion came upon her! She held her club in her teeth; she must not let that go.

  Quinnion was over the ledge, following her. She heard his heavy breathing, heard him cursing her again. She was going so slowly, so slowly, and Quinnion would know the way better than she. Quinnion would make better time in the dark.

  She moved along this lower ledge. At each instant she wondered if it were to be her last, if she were going to fall, if a swift drop through the darkness would be the end of life.

  Suddenly there was scarce room in the girl's breast for hatred of Chris Quinnion, so filled was it with the love of life. She wanted to see the sun come up again, she wanted the sweet breath of the dawn in her nostrils, the beauty of a sun-lit world in her eyes. She thought of Bud Lee.

  Clinging to the rocks, hanging on desperately, taking a score of desperate chances momentarily, she made her way on and down. She found scant handhold and, almost falling, dropped her club, heard it strike, strike again. Black as the night was, its gloom was less than that of the cavern to which Judith had grown accustomed; little by little she began to make out the broken surface of the cliffs. The chasm below was a pool of ink; above were the little stars; in the eastern sky, low down, was a promise of the rising moon.

  The surge of quickening hope came into her heart. Had she hurt Quinnion more than she had guessed? For, slowly as she made her hazardous way down, it seemed to her that Quinnion came even more slowly. Could she but once get down into the gorge below, could she slip along the course of the racing stream, she might run and the sound of her steps would be lost even to her own ears in the sound of the water; the sight of her flying body would be lost to Quinnion's eyes.

  Then she heard him laughing above her. Laughing, with a snarl and a curse in his laugh, and something of malicious triumph. Was he so certain of her then?

  "Ruth!" called Quinnion. "Oh, Ruth! The girl's gettin' away. Goin' down the rocks. Head her off at the bottom."

  Judith had found, because her fate was good to her, the long slanting crack in the wall of rock up which she had come that day with Bayne Trevors. There was still danger of a fall, but the danger was less now than it had been ten seconds ago. She could move more swiftly now and confidence had begun to com to her that she could elude Quinnion. But now, suddenly, she heard Mad Ruth's voice screaming a shrill answer to Quinnion's shout; knew that Ruth had been in her cabin across the gorge and was running to intercept her at the foot of the cliffs.

  Well, still there was a race to be run and the odds not entirely uneven. Ruth must descend the other side of the cañon, get down into the gorge, make the crossing, which, so far as Judith knew, might be farther up or farther down stream, come to the cliffs below Judith before Judith herself made her way down.

  Again Judith took what risks the night and the rocks offered her and thanked God in her soul that it was given her to take a chance i
n the open, to use her own muscles in her own fight, not to lie longer, playing the part of a do-nothing. Now and then, across the void, there floated to her a little moaning cry from the mad woman's lips. Now and then she heard a curse from Quinnion above; often from above her, from below her own feet, from across the chasm, dropping stones, falling almost sheer, told of haste and death which might come from an unlucky step.

  Fast as Judith went now, having a fair sort of cliff trail under her, Mad Ruth went faster. The gorge measured a scant fifty feet between them and the girl's alert senses told her that already Ruth was on a level with her. Ruth was winning in the desperate race. She knew her way down so perfectly, her heart was so filled with madness, that danger was nothing to her.

  Down and down climbed Judith, caution wedded to haste, as she told herself that she had a chance yet, that that chance must not be tossed away in a fall, though it were but a few feet. She must have no sprained ankle if she meant to see the sun rise to-morrow.

  The flush had brightened in the sky where the moon was so near the ridge. The moon, too, had joined in the race; with one quick glance toward it, Judith again discarded caution for haste. She must get down into the floor of the cañon before the moonlight did; she must be running before its radiance showed her out to Quinnion and Ruth.