“This,” she said, panting, “is some of the law of Lost Valley. Courtrey’s law. That is the man I’m goin’ to kill some day.”
Kenset felt the blood flow back upon his heart, an icy flood. The words were simple, sincere, unconscious of dramatic effect. They were as final as death itself, and he dropped his eyes unconsciously to the two guns at her hips. He wondered why she had ridden without a shot this time.
He found his lips suddenly dry and moistened them before he spoke.
“Why?” he asked, and his voice sounded strange to him.
“Because,” said Tharon simply, “because he kissed me––once––an’ shot my daddy––in th’ back, th’ hound!”
“God!” said Kenset
For a moment there was silence while a bird called sharply from a pine top and the voice of the little stream became subtly audible.
It seemed to the man that all his values of life had suddenly become shifted, changed. The commonplace had become the unreal, the unlikely the familiar.
Guns and threats and racing horses with a woman for prize became on the moment natural events in this hidden setting.
And what a woman she was! He looked up in her face again and saw there sweetness and strength, and grim purpose beyond his conception. He knew that her words were downright, and that they meant no more to her than duty to be done, a conscience cleared of debt. He glanced at the hand lying so quietly on the pommel and thought of it as stained with blood. At the fancy he frowned and mentally shook himself.
Then, with an impulse wholly beyond his command, he reached up and laid his own hand over that one on the pommel.
“Miss Last,” he said gravely, “I have no words to express what I feel this moment about Lost Valley and its people. Will you get down and let me show you my house, here in my glade?”
Tharon sat quietly for a moment and looked down at him. She did not remove her hand from under his, neither did she seem to be conscious of it.
“Why should I?” she asked presently, “you don’t owe me anything. I sent you away from my house. I wouldn’t have come here if I’d known where I was goin’. It was a chance.”
“Granted. And yet I want you to come across my threshold, to sit in my big chair. Will you come?”
Never in her life had the girl heard so low a voice. It was soft and gentle, yet full of a vibrant quality that belied its softness. The man himself was unlike Lost Valley men. He wore the olive drab trousers of the semi-military uniform, the leather leggings, a tan leather belt and a soft woolen shirt of the same drab color. It lay open at the throat, and the base of his strong neck was white as a woman’s. The dark eyes upturned to hers were deep and winning. The dark beard showed through his sharply shaven cheeks where the red blood pulsed, like dusky shadows.
A strange man, surely.
Tharon wondered what made him so different from other men she had known. There was Billy who had come into Lost Valley from somewhere “below,” and Conford, and Curly. Jack Masters had been born in the Valley. So had Bent Smith. These men were her men, like herself and Jim Last. This man was from “below,” too, yet he was unlike.
While she studied him he met her glance with the same grave look.
Presently, without a word, she swung herself from the saddle, dropped El Rey’s rein, and stepped around his shoulder.
“All right,” she said briefly, “but I won’t stay any longer than I let you stay.”
For the first time Kenset laughed.
“Twenty minutes, then,” he said, “I don’t think you let me exceed that limit.”
He led the way to the door, stepped back and let her enter. As she did so she passed close to him and caught the scent of him, the clean soft smell of shaving soap, blended with the aroma of good tobacco.
That, too, was different.
Inside the cabin there was a sense of comfort, of brightness. The long pennants, like captured rainbows, tacked to the rough walls, the soft toned prints, the gay cushions, all these lent an air of permanence, of home, that she had never before seen in a man’s cabin. She stood and looked all around with that same half-insolent stare which had greeted Kenset at the Holding that memorable day.
Then she went slowly forward and sat down in the big chair by the table.
The man stood in her presence for a moment, thereby giving a subtle effect of deference which was not wholly lost upon Tharon, though she would have been at a loss to define it.
Then, he, too, sat down on the edge of the table desk in the corner, and with folded arms waited while she finished her scrutiny of the interior.
“I am proud of my home, Miss Last,” he said presently. “What do you think of it?”
“I think,” said Tharon slowly, “that it looks like there’s a woman somewhere.”
This time Kenset laughed in earnest, a ringing peal that startled El Rey at the doorstep, and made him clink his bit-chains.
“There is,” said the man, “assuredly.”
Tharon turned her head and looked quickly over her shoulder.
“Where?” she asked in surprise.
“There in my big chair.”
“Oh––I meant a woman livin’ here, th’ woman who owns the pretties.”
And she waved a hand at the gay furnishings.
“No,” said Kenset, “these are all my own pretties. I have books, as you see, and my maps and several more pictures to put up, not to mention some Mexican pottery that I brought from Ciudad Juarez, and my chiefest treasure, a tapestry from France. That last I can’t decide upon. I have two splendid spaces––over there between the northern windows, facing the door, and yonder at the end. Perhaps you will be good enough to help me choose.”
There was a boyish eagerness in his voice.
“Will you? After a while, I mean, when you have rested from your ride.”
“Rested?”
Tharon looked at him in wonder. That ride had been like wine to her, a stimulant, a thing that sent the blood pounding in her veins.
Over the excitement had fallen a subtle shade, however, a hush, with the sight of Bolt so close behind El Rey. If it had not been for that grave thing she would have felt like a wound-up spring, intent with energy, filled with action. She was always so when El Rey ran beneath her. And this stranger spoke of rest! Tharon Last could ride all day without a thought of rest.
“Sure,” she said, “I’ll help you if I can. But what’s this thing?”
“A sort of picture,” replied Kenset quickly, “a picture woven in cloth. But first, if you’ll be so kind, I want you to break bread with me. You said we would not be friends. I’m not so sure of that. There is nothing like a man’s bread and salt for the refutation of logic.”
He slipped off the desk with a lithe rippling of his body, but Tharon was first on her feet.
“You mean stay to supper?” she asked decisively. “No, I can’t do that. I took back a meal from you. That stan’s between.”
“Why, you funny girl,” said Kenset, “nothing stands between. And I don’t mean supper, exactly, either. Please sit down.”
Tharon stood, considering. She turned the matter over in her mind.
She had taken this man’s house by storm. It had, indeed, given her refuge. If it had not been for the glade in the pines, she wondered where she would be now––driven deep into Black Coulee, she made no doubt, a prisoner to Courtrey.
“All right,” she said abruptly, “I’ll stay. But you must be quick. Th’ time is goin’ fast.”
Kenset went swiftly across the cabin to that part which served as kitchen, and took from a curtain-covered set of shelves, a shiny nickel object on spindly legs, which he brought and placed near Tharon on the table.
He struck a match and presently a clean blue flame grew up beneath it.
He lifted the lid and filled the small pot, thereby exposed, with water from the bucket on a bench. Then he delved in one of the big trunks against the farther wall and brought out a little tin of cakes, such as one could b
uy in any city of the world.
All this was absorbing to the girl in the big chair, who watched with grave eyes. And Kenset kept up a running stream of gay talk all the time. He wanted to make her at ease, to cover the thought of the strain between them, and how much he wanted to drive from his own mind the knowledge that this sweet and wholesome creature was a potential murderer, he did not know. From a can he measured chocolate. From a pan somewhere outdoors he brought milk. Sugar he added carefully as a woman, and presently he spread between them on the table a small repast that was strange to this girl of the wilderness.
He watched her with appraising eyes and saw that there was in her no consciousness of the unusual. She might have sat at meat in the big room of the Holding for all the flutter there was in her.
He told her somewhat of himself, of his life in the East, but he was careful not to ask about Lost Valley, to make mention of the circumstances that had brought her to his door. And so an hour passed as if it had been a bagatelle. The afternoon was waning when Tharon rose swiftly and abruptly terminated this first visit inside his home of any Lost Valley denizen.
“Bring out your picture,” she said decisively, “I’ll help you hang it, an’ then I must go home.”
So Kenset dived once more into the mysterious recesses of the trunk and this time brought out a thing of rare beauty and value, a large tapestry, some four by six feet in size, a wonderful thing of soft and deathless hues, of cunning distances, of Greek figures and leaning trees, of sea-line so faint as to be almost lost in the misty skies.
“Oh!” said Tharon Last with an intake of her breath, “Oh, where do they make such things?”
“Far on the other side of the world,” said Kenset gently, pleased with the wonder in her wide eyes, the evident and quick realization of beauty.
She whirled from it and glanced quickly at the two spaces on the rugged walls.
“There,” she said, pointing to the broad expanse between the northern windows, “hang it there.”
“Done,” said Kenset, and went promptly for a hammer.
When the huge thick mat was securely stretched in place, Tharon helping to hold it while he pounded in the broad-topped tacks, Kenset stepped back and wondered how he had ever for a moment considered hanging it in any other spot. The tempered light from the door came in upon it, bringing out each enchanted charm, each tender vista.
“Wonderful!” he said to himself, “I never knew how lovely it was amid conventional surroundings!”
“Huh?” asked Tharon.
The man laughed in spite of himself and turned his eyes to hers, to lose his quick amusement in the earnest blue depths that seemed to question him at every angle.
“I mean that it looks better here in my cabin than it ever did on city walls.”
“Why?”
“Well––I don’t know. Contrast, perhaps.”
Tharon stood a moment thinking.
“Perhaps,” she answered slowly, “yes, perhaps. I guess that’s why you seem so diff’rent to me. Jim Last used to say that was why th’ Valley was so soft-like an’ lovely, contrasted by th’ Rockface.”
“Do I seem different to you?” asked Kenset quickly. “How?”
“Yes. I don’t know how. You seem soft, like a woman––some women––an’ I’m afraid–––”
She stopped suddenly, abruptly halted in her naïve speech, as if she had come face to face with something she had not meant to meet.
“Afraid?” probed the man gravely, “go on. You are afraid––of what?”
“No,” said Tharon, “I won’t say it”
“Please do. I want to know.”
“Then,” answered the girl straightly, after the honest and downright fashion of all her dealings, “I’m afraid you are––are too soft. You don’t pack a gun. I’m afraid you wouldn’t use it if you did.”
There was a certain finality about the short speech, as if she had put the last word of condemnation to his estate.
Kenset looked down at his hands, spread them out a bit.
“You’re right,” he said shortly, though his voice was still gentle. “I don’t. And I wouldn’t. Not until the last extremity.”
“An’ what would that be?” she asked.
“I don’t just know, Miss Last,” he answered smiling and raising his eyes once more to hers, “it would have to be––the last extremity, I know.
“The hands of all my forbears have been clean, so far as I know. I have a deep horror of that imaginary stain which human blood seems to leave on the hands of the killer. Blood guilt.”
“You call it that? My daddy had his killin’s, but they were all in fair-an’-open. I called him a man.”
There was a ringing quality in her voice, a depth and resonance that spoke of war and heroes. The fire that all the Holding knew was suddenly in her eyes, flashing and flaming. Kenset caught it, and a thrill shot through him.
“Granted,” he said quickly. “But is there only one type of man?”
“For me,” said Tharon, “yes.”
“I’m sorry,” said he, and for the life of him he did not know why.
“So’m I,” said Tharon honestly.
They looked at each other for a pregnant moment, while a silence fell on the cabin and they could hear the singing water running down the slopes.
Then the girl stooped and rearranged the cushion in the big chair, laid a book more neatly on top of another at the table’s edge.
“Th’ time is up,” she said, “I must be goin’.”
She straightened her shoulders and looked at him again.
“I thank you for th’ meal,” she said, “an’ some day I’ll return it––in some manner. I don’t know yet just what you’re here for, nor if you’re Courtrey’s man or not––––––”
“Good Lord!” ejaculated Kenset, but she went on.
“I won’t shake hands with you, for whilst I ain’t done no killin’ yet, I’m sworn––an’ Jim Last’s hands was red––they would be to such as you––an’ down to th’ last drop o’ blood, th’ last beat o’ my heart, I’m Jim Last’s girl––th’ best gun man in Lost Valley, if I do say so.”
And she swung quickly to the door.
Kenset followed her. He longed for words, but found none.
There was a sudden tragic seeming in the very air, a change from the pleasant commonplace to the tense and unexpected. It was always so in these strange meetings with the people of Lost Valley, it seemed, as if he was never to find his way among them, the sane and quiet course that he must travel.
As they reached the step at the door sill El Rey stamped and whinnied a shrill blast. In through the gateway between the pines there came a rider on a running horse, Billy on Golden who ploughed to a stop before them, his grey eyes troubled.
“Hello, Billy,” said Tharon. “How’s this?”
“Been lookin’ for you,” said the boy. “We saw Courtrey an’ his ruffians ridin’ up east––watched ’em with th’ glass, an’ Anita said you rode south. Thought you might have met ’em.”
“I didn’t meet ’em, so to speak,” she said, smiling, “though if I’d been on anythin’ but El Rey I would. They tried to drive me into Black Coulee.”
“Hell!” said Billy softly.
Then the Mistress of Last’s remembered her manners.
“Billy,” she said, “I make you acquainted with Kenset of th’ foothills. I rode in here just in time to shake th’ Stronghold bunch.”
The two men spoke, reached to shake each other’s hands, and took a long survey that was mutual. As the two pairs of eyes met, a wall seemed to rear itself between them, a mist, a curtain, something intangible, but there.
They looked across the woman’s shoulder, and from that moment she was to stand between, though what there could be in common between the man in the U. S. service and the common rider from Last’s was not apparent. El Rey was eager for flight and by the time Tharon’s foot was in the stirrup he was up on his hind feet, fore fee
t beating the air, silver mane like a flying cloud. The girl rose with him gracefully, threw her leg across the saddle, waved a hand to Kenset in the door, and in another moment they were gone away down the grassy slope, out through the opening, had stretched away along the oak-dotted plain, swung toward the north, and were out of sight.
The forest man turned away from the doorway, stood a moment looking over the cabin where the late light was making golden patterns on the green and brown rug, sighed and reached for his pipe.
Somehow all the spirit seem to have gone from the summer day. The long twilight was setting in.
“She wouldn’t shake hands,” he muttered to himself, “and what she said was true as death. She’s sworn––and it is a solemn oath to her. God help the man who killed her daddy!”
Then once more he sighed, unconsciously.
“And Lord God help her!” he finished very gravely, “she is so sweet––so wild and spirited and sweet.”
Tharon and Billy let the horses run. Golden was a racer himself, though he could not hold a candle to the silver king, and the two young creatures atop were free as the summer winds, as buoyant and filled with joy of being. So they shot down along the levels, Tharon holding El Rey up a bit, though it was a man-size job to do so, and Billy’s rein swinging loose on Golden’s neck. They passed the last of the scattered oaks, came out to the green stretches. The sun was swinging like a copper ball above the Wall at the west. Down through the cañons the light came in long red shafts that cut through the cobalt shadows like sharp lances of fire and reached half across Lost Valley. All the western part of the Valley lay in that blue-black shadow. They could see Corvan set like a dull gem in the wide green country, the scattered ranches, miles apart.
They swung down to the west a bit, for Tharon said she wanted to go by the Gold Pool and see how it was holding out.
“Fine,” said Billy, “she’s deep as she ever was at this time of year, an’ cold as snow.”
Where one tall cottonwood stood like a sentinel in the widespread landscape they drew rein and dismounted. Here a huge boulder cropped from the plain and under its protecting bulk there lay as lovely a spring as one would care to see, deep and golden as its name implied, above its swirling sands, for the waters were in constant turmoil as they pressed up from below.
Tharon of Lost Valley Page 10
