“Unless he belongs t’ Last’s,” said the irrepressible Billy. “I’ll lay that fer every calf branded by Courtrey’s gang we’ll get back two.”
“Billy,” said Tharon again, “Jim Last wasn’t a thief. Neither will his people be thieves. For every calf branded by Courtrey, one calf wearin’ th’ J. L.––an’ one calf only. We don’t steal, but we won’t lose.”
“You bet your boots an’ spurs throwed in, we won’t,” said the boy fervently.
As they rose from the table with all the racket of out-door men there came once more the sound of a horse’s hoofs on the hard earth outside.
Last’s Holding was a vast sounding-board. No one on horseback could come near without advertising his arrival far ahead.
This time it was no stranger. Tharon went to the western door to bid him ’light.
It was John Dement from down at the Rolling Cove. He was a thin, worn man, who looked ten years beyond his forty, his face wrinkled by the constant fret and worry of the constant loser.
Tonight he was strung up like a wire. His voice shook when he returned the hearty greetings that met him.
“Boys,” he said abruptly, “an’ Tharon––I come t’ tell ye all good-bye.”
“Good-bye! John, what you mean?”
Tharon went forward and put a hand on his arm. Her blue eyes searched his face.
The man stood by his horse and struck a tragic fist in a hard palm.
“That’s it. I give up. I’m done. I’m goin’ down the wall come day––me an’ my woman an’ th’ two boys. Got our duffle ready packed, an’ Lord knows, it ain’t enough t’ heft th’ horses. After five year!”
There was the sound of the hopeless tears of masculine failure in the man’s tragic voice. His fingers twisted his flabby hat.
“Hold up,” said Conford, pushing nearer, “straighten out a bit, Dement. Now, tell us what’s up.”
“Th’ last head––th’ last hoof––run off last night as we was comin’ in with ’em a leetle mite late. Had ben up Black Coulee way, an’ it got dark on us. Just as we got abreast o’ th’ mouth of th’ Coulee, where th’ poplars grow, three men come a-boilin’ out. They was on fast horses––o’ course––an’ right into th’ bunch they went, hell-bent. Stampeded the hull lot. You know my bunch’d got down t’ about a hundred head––don’t know what I ben a-hangin’ on fer, only a man hates t’ give up an’ own hisself beat out. An’ my woman––she’s a fighter.
“She kep’ standin’ at my back like, oh, like––well, she kep’ a-sayin’ ‘We’ll win out yet, John, you see. Right’ll win ev’ry time.’ You see we are just ready to get th’ patent on our land. She couldn’t give that up, seems like. All this time gone an’ nothin’ gained. So we ben a-hangin’ on when things went from bad to worse. Th’ herd’s been a-goin’ down an’ down. Calves with their tongues slit so’s they’d lose their mothers––fed up in some coulee by hand an’ branded. Knowed ’em by my own colour cattle, w’ich I drove in here five year ago––th’ yellers.
“Mothers killed outright an’ th’ calves branded. Oh, I know it all––but what could I do? Kep’ gettin’ poorer an’ poorer. Couldn’t afford enough riders t’ protect ’em. Then couldn’t afford any an’ tried t’ make it go as th’ boys got older. Courtrey, damn him, wants me offen that piece o’ land a-fore th’ patent’s granted. Him with his twenty thousan’ acres of Lost Valley now! An’ how’d he get it? False entry, that’s what! How many men’s come in here, took up land, ‘sold out’ to Courtrey an’ went? Or didn’t go. A lot of ’em didn’t go. We all know that. An’ who dares to speak in a whisper about it? Th’ men that did wouldn’t go––never––nowheres.”
There was the bitterness of utter defeat and hatred in the shaking voice. The tree-toads, beginning their nightly chorus from the wet places below the cottonwoods, emphasized the dreariness of the recital, the ancient hopelessness of the weak beneath the heel of the oppressor.
Dement ceased speaking and stood in silhouette against the last yellow-and-black of the dead sunset. The protruding apple in his hawk-like throat worked up and down grotesquely.
For a long moment there was utter silence.
Then he began again.
“I knowed I wasn’t welcome in th’ Valley when I hadn’t ben here more’n six months. Th’ first leetle string o’ fence I put up fer corrals went down, mysterious, as fast as I could fix it. Th’ woman’s garden was broke open an’ trampled to dust by cattle, drove in. Winter ketched us with mighty leetle t’ eat in th’ way o’ truck. Next year she guarded it herself some nights, sleepin’ by day, an’ oncet she took a shot at some one that come prowlin’ around. They let her fence alone after that, but what’d they do outside? Killed all th’ hogs we had one night an’ piled ’em in a heap in th’ front door yard! That was hint enough, but I kep’ a-thinkin’ that ef we behaved decent like, an’ minded our own business we sartainly must win out. We did,” he added grimly after a little pause, “like hell. An’ how many others of th’ settlers has gone through th’ like? We ain’t no tin gods ourselves, I own, but we got t’ fight fire with fire. Only I ain’t got no more light-wood,” he finished quaintly, “I got to quit.”
There was another silence while the tree-toads sang. Then the man held out his hand, hardened and warped with the unceasing toil of those tragic years.
“Good-bye, Tharon,” he said, “I wisht Jim Last was here. With him gone Lost Valley’s in Courtrey’s hand an’ no mistake. He was th’ only man dared face him an’ hold his own. Last’s was th’ only head th’ weaker faction had, its master their only leader. While he lived we had some show, us leetle fellers. Now there ain’t no leader. Th’ ranchers’ll go out fast now. It’ll be a one-man valley.”
In the soft darkness Tharon took the extended hand, held it a moment and laid her other one upon it.
“John Dement,” she quietly said, “I want you to go home an’ bar your house for fight. Fix up your fences, unpack your duffle. In the morning my riders will drive down to your place a hundred head o’ cattle. You put your brand on em. There’s goin’ to be no one-man doin’s in Lost Valley yet awhile––not while Jim Last’s daughter lives. See,” she dropped his hand and pointed to the east where the tall pine lifted to the stars, “out yonder there’s a cross at Jim Last’s grave––an’ there’s my mark on it. Th’ settlers have a leader still––an’ I name myself that leader. I’m set against Courtrey, now an’ forever. I mean to fight him t’ th’ last inch o’ ground in Lost Valley, th’ last word o’ law, th’ last drop o’ blood, both his an’ mine. You go down among ’em––th’ settlers––an’ take ’em that word from me. Tell ’em Jim Last’s daughter stands facin’ Courtrey, an’ she’ll need at her back t’ fight him every man in Lost Valley that ain’t a coward.”
When the settler had gone, incoherent and half-incredulous, Conford drew a long breath and looked at his mistress in the dusk.
“Tharon, dear,” he said so gently that his words were like a caress “you’re jest a-breakin’ your riders’ hearts. You’re heapin’ anxiety on us mountain-high. Now what on earth’ll we do?”
Young Billy Brent pushed near and slapped a hand against a doubled fist. His eyes were sparkling like harbour lights, his voice was like the sound of running fire.
“Do?” he cried. “Do? We’ll stand behind her so tight they can’t see daylight through, an’ we’ll fight with an’ for her every inch o’ that way, every word o’ that law, every drop o’ that blood! Who says Last’s ain’t on th’ map in Lost Valley?” Tharon smiled and touched him again.
“Billy,” she said softly, “you’re after my own heart. Now get to bed. I want t’ think.”
* * *
CHAPTER III
THE MAN IN UNIFORM
Spring was warming swiftly into summer. Where the gently sloping ranges went up in waves and swells toward the uplands at the east, the bright new green had turned to a darker shade. The tiny purple and white flowers had disappeared to give
place to sturdier ones of crimson and gold. The veil of water that fell sharply down the face of the Wall for a thousand feet at the Valley’s southern end had thinned to sheerest gauze. In the Cañon Country the snow had disappeared from most of the high points. Red, black, yellow, the great face of the encircling Wall stood in everlasting majesty, looking down upon the level cup of Lost Valley. The unspeakable upheaval of peaks and crags, of cañons and splits and unfathomable depths, was almost a sealed book to the denizens of the Valley. There were those who knew False Ridge.
There were those who said they knew more. Many a man had adventured therein, and few had returned to tell of their adventures. Cañon Jim had not returned. Not that he was a loss to the community, or that they mourned him, but his absence pointed again to the formidable secretive power of the Cañon Country.
Tharon Last, standing in her western door, could look across the Valley’s deceptive miles and see the huge black seams and fissures that rent the grim face. These splits and cañons were peculiar in that none came down to the Valley’s floor, their yawning doorways being, in every instance, set from two hundred to five hundred feet up the Wall.
Often the girl watched them in the changing lights and her active mind formed many a conjecture concerning them.
“Some day,” she told young Paula, “I’ll go into the Cañon Country and see it for myself.”
“Saints forbid, Señorita!” said Paula, who had no love for the mysterious, and who was more Mexic than Porno, “there are demons and devils there!”
“Yes, I doubt not, Paula,” said Tharon grimly. “They say Courtrey knows th’ Cañons, an’ when he’s there, it’s peopled, an’ no mistake!
“But it must be beautiful––beautiful! Why––there’s a thousand feet of crevasse on every hand, I know, steps an’ benches an’ weathered faces that no man can climb. They say there’s bright waters that tumble down like th’ Vestal’s Veil and sink into holes without an outlet. Just go away in the rock. There’s strange flowers an’ stunted trees. An’ they tell of th’ Cup of God, a hidden glade so beautiful that th’ eye of man has never seen its like. All my life it’s called me, th’ Cañon Country.
“Don’t you believe, Paula, that there’s somethin’ there for me? Some reason why I know I must some day go into its heart an’ give myself up to it for a time? If I was free,” she finished with a sigh, “if I was my own woman, wholly, I’d go soon. There’s rest an’ peace up there, I know––and a place to think of Jim Last without such bitterness that my heart turns t’ gall.”
She shook her bright head against the doorpost and shut her soft lips into a straight line.
“Nope,” she finished sadly, “I ain’t my own woman yet.”
* * *
“Tharon,” said Billy Brent this day, clanking around the corner of the adobe house, his leather chaps flapping with every step, his yellow hair curling boyishly under his hat-brim. “Tharon, I got bad news for you.”
There was genuine distress in his grey eyes.
“Yes?” asked the mistress of Last’s, straightening up.
“Yes, sir, an’ I hate like hell t’ tell it.”
“Out with it, Billy. What’s wrong?”
“Somebody’s dynamited th’ Crystal Spring in th’ Cup Rim.”
“What?”
The word was in italics. Its one syllable told all one might care to know of the importance of Billy’s news.
“Yes. Opened her up fer two square yards. Spread th’ lovely old Crystal all over th’ range. An’ she’s gone, as sure’s shootin’. Nothin’ but a lot o’ wet an’ dryin’ mud to show for her.”
Tharon drew a long breath.
“Courtrey’s beginnin’,” she said. “He’s heard th’ word I sent th’ settlers. He’s goin’ t’ use th’ tactics now with Last’s that he’s used with every poor devil he wanted to run out of th’ Valley, th’ tactics he darsent use while Jim Last lived. Well––go send Conford to me, Billy.”
The girl sat down in the doorway and gazed sombrely out over the summer land.
When her foreman came and stood before her, a slim, efficient figure, dark-faced and quiet, she had already made up her mind.
“Burt,” she said swiftly, “drive th’ cattle down from th’ Cup Rim right away. We’ll run those two bunches under Blue Pine an’ Nick Bob out toward th’ Black Coulee. Tell ’em t’ keep close t’ th’ others. I trust th’ Indians, but there ain’t no Indian livin’ can meet Courtrey’s white renegades in courage an’ wits. Then we’ll start right in an’ dig a well th’ first well ever dug on th’ open range in this man’s land.”
“Good Lord, Tharon!” said Conford, “A well!”
“Yes. Th’ livin’ water holes have been th’ pride of th’ Valley, I know, but we’ll fix this well of ours so’s even Courtrey will respect it.”
There was a grim note in the golden voice.
“How?” asked Conford uneasily.
“Dig it first,” said Tharon, “then I’ll tell you.”
What the mistress said, went. Therefore, the next morning saw a disgusted bunch of cowboys and Indian vaqueros setting to with a will at a spot much nearer the Holding than the Crystal had been, and it took a much shorter time to reach water in a good gravel bed than any one had dreamed.
In three days the thing was done and Conford presented himself, smiling.
“Now, Miss Secrecy,” he said, “come on with th’ mystery.”
Tharon went in to the big desk which Jim Last had used and which was now her own, and returned with a square white slab of pine, elaborately smoothed and finished by José.
“Read that,” she said, and held it up, face out.
Printed neatly upon its shining surface, in the jet-black ink that old Anita made from the berries of a certain bush which grew at the foot of the cliffs across the Valley, were these words:
“This well is planted. I hope it blows up the first thief who tries to destroy it. Tharon Last.”
Conford took the slab, scratched his head, holding his hat between thumb and finger, read it over, read it again, smiled, and then looked up.
“Might work,” he said, “an’ you’re givin’ out your stand an’ knowledge broadcast, ain’t you?”
“Certainly am,” said Tharon briefly. “I said I’d fight, an’ I want th’ whole Valley t’ know it.”
“It does,” said Conford with conviction. “I heard in Corvan yesterday that John Dement has rode th’ range continuous since he finished brandin’ his new herd to tell th’ settlers about it.”
“Good,” said Tharon, “couldn’t be better. There’s got to be a change in Lost Valley sooner or later. Might as well be sooner.”
And with that thought the girl let her quick mind sweep out to take in the future. She sent Conford off to post her placard and herself went rummaging among the possibilities which her defy had placed before her. She knew that Courtrey would be coldly furious. He had lived his life as suited him, had taken what and where he listed, by fair means or foul, and though every soul in the Valley knew him and his methods, none had spoken the convicting word. It was the pen-stroke at the end of the death-warrant to do so.
She knew that the faction of the settlers hated him and his with a vitriolic passion, that they were in the minority, that they were no tin gods themselves, and that they were being beaten out, one by one.
Year by year Courtrey had added to his vast acreage, and it was a matter of common knowledge how he had done it. He was rich, powerful, bullying, a man whose self-aggrandizement knew no limit, whose merest whim was his law, whose will must not be thwarted. Year by year his vaqueros drove down the Wall herds of fat cattle, their brands blurred, insolently raw and careless. Many a hapless man had stood and seen his own stock go by in Courtrey’s band and dared not open his mouth. In fact Courtrey had been known to stop and chat with such a one, smiling his evil smile and enjoying the helpless chagrin of his victim.
“Insolent ruffian!” muttered Tharon this day, frowning above h
er daddy’s pipes on the desk top. “He’s goin’ t’ get one run for his money from now till one of us is whipped. It may be me, but I’ll leave my mark on him, so help me!
“Straight killin’s too good for him. I want to smash him first.”
“Tharon, mi Corazon,” said Anita, stopping soft-foot beside her, “it is bad for one to talk so, to himself. The Evil One works on the mind that way.”
Tharon laughed.
“Perhaps, Anita,” she said shortly, “it is with the Evil One I have t’ do, an’ no mistake.”
The old woman crossed herself and went away, her wrinkled face dim with care. And Tharon dressed herself neatly, put a ribbon on her hair, set her wide hat carefully on her head, buckled on her heavy gun-belt, and went to the corral for El Rey. Her daddy’s saddle was her own now, a huge affair carved and ornamented, profusely studded with silver.
Along the right side below the pommel ran a darker stain, Jim Last’s blood, set before his daughter like a star.
She mounted the silver stallion and went away down along the summer land, a shaft of light shooting through the green of the ranges.
Far over to her left she could see her cattle, beautiful bunches spread like figures in a tapestry. The figures of her riders were small dots on the outskirts.
El Rey, always hard on the bit, always strong-headed, wanted to run and she swung loose her rein and let him go. But run as he might, there was always in his speed that rising note, that seeming of reserve power.
She passed the head of Black Coulee, swung out across the edge of Rolling Cove, thundered down to the ford of the Broken Bend. Here she let the stallion drink, deep draughts that would have slowed a lesser horse. El Rey went up the bank beyond the ford like a charging engine, squared away and stretched out to finish his run. He was within three miles of Corvan, set like a stone in a smooth green surface, before he came down and lifted his shoulders into his gait. With the first rock and swing of the singlefoot, Tharon smiled and settled herself more comfortably in the saddle. This was joy to her, this beautiful syncopation, this poetic marked time that reeled off the miles beneath her and would scarcely have shaken a pebble from her hat-brim.
Tharon of Lost Valley Page 4
