by Zane Grey
“I should say not,” declared Slone, quickly lifting his hand to his face. “Must be from my cut, that blood. I barked my hand holdin’ Wildfire.”
“Oh! I—I was sick with—with—” Lucy faltered and broke off, and then drew back quickly, as if suddenly conscious of her actions and words.
Then Slone began to relate everything that had been said, and before he concluded his story his heart gave a wild throb at the telltale face and eyes of the girl.
“You said that to Dad!” she cried, in amaze and fear and admiration. “Oh, Dad richly deserved it! But I wish you hadn’t. Oh, I wish you hadn’t!”
“Why?” asked Slone.
But she did not answer that. “Where are you going?” she questioned.
“Come to think of that, I don’t know,” replied Slone, blankly. “I started back to fetch my things out of my room. That’s as far as my muddled thoughts got.”
“Your things?… Oh!” Suddenly she grew intensely white. The little freckles that had been so indistinct stood out markedly, and it was as if she had never had any tan. One brown hand went to her breast, the other fluttered to his arm again. “You mean to—to go away—for good.”
“Sure. What else can I do?”
“Lin!… Oh, there comes Dad! He mustn’t see me. I must run.… Lin, don’t leave Bostil’s Ford—don’t go—don’t!”
Then she flew round the corner of the house, to disappear. Slone stood there transfixed and thrilling. Even Bostil’s heavy tread did not break the trance, and a meeting would have been unavoidable had not Bostil turned down the path that led to the back of the house. Slone, with a start collecting his thoughts, hurried into the little room that had been his and gathered up his few belongings. He was careful to leave behind the gifts of guns, blankets, gloves, and other rider’s belongings which Bostil had presented to him. Thus laden, he went outside and, tingling with emotions utterly sweet and bewildering, he led the horses down into the village.
Slone went down to Brackton’s, and put the horses into a large, high-fenced pasture adjoining Brackton’s house. Slone felt reasonably sure his horses would be safe there, but he meant to keep a mighty close watch on them. And old Brackton, as if he read Slone’s mind, said this: “Keep your eye on thet daffy boy, Joel Creech. He hangs round my place, sleeps out somewheres, an’ he’s crazy about hosses.”
Slone did not need any warning like that, nor any information to make him curious regarding young Creech. Lucy had seen to that, and, in fact, Slone was anxious to meet this half-witted fellow who had so grievously offended and threatened Lucy. That morning, however, Creech did not put in an appearance. The village had nearly returned to its normal state now, and the sleepy tenor of its way. The Indians, had been the last to go, but now none remained. The days were hot while the sun stayed high, and only the riders braved its heat.
The morning, however, did not pass without an interesting incident. Brackton approached Slone with an offer that he take charge of the freighting between the Ford and Durango. “What would I do with Wildfire?” was Slone’s questioning reply, and Brackton held up his hands. A later incident earned more of Slone’s attention. He had observed a man in Brackton’s store, and it chanced that this man heard Slone’s reply to Brackton’s offer, and he said: “You’ll sure need to corral thet red stallion. Grandest hoss I ever seen!”
That praise won Slone, and he engaged in conversation with the man, who said his name was Vorhees. It developed soon that Vorhees owned a little house, a corral, and a patch of ground on a likely site up under the bluff, and he was anxious to sell cheap because he had a fine opportunity at Durango, where his people lived. What interested Slone most was the man’s remark that he had a corral which could not be broken into. The price he asked was ridiculously low if the property was worth anything. An idea flashed across Slone’s mind. He went up to Vorhees’s place and was much pleased with everything, especially the corral, which had been built by a man who feared horse-thieves as much as Bostil. The view from the door of the little cabin was magnificent beyond compare. Slone remembered Lucy’s last words. They rang like bells in his ears. “Don’t go—don’t!” They were enough to chain him to Bostil’s Ford until the crack of doom. He dared not dream of what they meant. He only listened to their music as they pealed over and over in his ears.
“Vorhees, are you serious?” he asked. “The money you ask is little enough.”
“It’s enough an’ to spare,” replied the man. “An’ I’d take it as a favor of you.”
“Well, I’ll go you,” said Slone, and he laughed a little irrationally. “Only you needn’t tell right away that I bought you out.”
The deal was consummated, leaving Slone still with half of the money that had been his prize in the race. He felt elated. He was rich. He owned two horses—one the grandest in all the uplands, the other the faithfulest—and he owned a neat little cabin where it was a joy to sit and look out, and a corral which would let him sleep at night, and he had money to put into supplies and furnishings, and a garden. After he drank out of the spring that bubbled from under the bluff he told himself it alone was worth the money.
“Looks right down on Bostil’s place,” Slone soliloquized, with glee. “Won’t he just be mad! An’ Lucy!… Whatever’s she goin’ to think?”
The more Slone looked around and thought, the more he became convinced that good fortune had knocked at his door at last. And when he returned to Brackton’s he was in an exultant mood. The old storekeeper gave him a nudge and pointed underhand to a young man of ragged aspect sitting gloomily on a box. Slone recognized Joel Creech. The fellow surely made a pathetic sight, and Slone pitied him. He looked needy and hungry.
“Say,” said Slone, impulsively, “want to help me carry some grub an’ stuff?”
“Howdy!” replied Creech, raising his head. “Sure do.”
Slone sustained the queerest shock of his life when he met the gaze of those contrasting eyes. Yet he did not believe that his strange feeling came from sight of different-colored eyes. There was an instinct or portent in that meeting.
He purchased a bill of goods from Brackton, and, with Creech helping, carried it up to the cabin under the bluff. Three trips were needed to pack up all the supplies, and meanwhile Creech had but few words to say, and these of no moment. Slone offered him money, which he refused.
“I’ll help you fix up, an’ eat a bite,” he said. “Nice up hyar.”
He seemed rational enough and certainly responded to kindness. Slone found that Vorhees had left the cabin so clean there was little cleaning to do. An open fireplace of stone required some repair and there was wood to cut.
“Joel, you start a fire while I go down after my horses,” said Slone.
Young Creech nodded and Slone left him there. It was not easy to catch Wildfire, nor any easier to get him into the new corral; but at last Slone saw him safely there. And the bars and locks on the gate might have defied any effort to open or break them quickly. Creech was standing in the doorway, watching the horses, and somehow Slone saw, or imagined he saw, that Creech wore a different aspect.
“Grand wild hoss! He did what Blue was a-goin’ to do—beat thet there damned Bostil’s King!”
Creech wagged his head. He was gloomy and strange. His eyes were unpleasant to look into. His face changed. And he mumbled. Slone pitied him the more, but wished to see the last of him. Creech stayed on, however, and grew stranger and more talkative during the meal. He repeated things often—talked disconnectedly, and gave other indications that he was not wholly right in his mind. Yet Slone suspected that Creech’s want of balance consisted only in what concerned horses and the Bostils. And Slone, wanting to learn all he could, encouraged Creech to talk about his father and the racers and the river and boat, and finally Bostil.
Slone became convinced that, whether young Creech was half crazy or not, he knew his father’s horses were doomed, and that the boat at the ferry had been cut adrift. Slone could not understand why he was conv
inced, but he was. Finally Creech told how he had gone down to the river only a day before; how he had found the flood still raging, but much lower; how he had worked round the cliffs and had pulled up the rope cables to find they had been cut.
“You see, Bostil cut them when he didn’t need to,” continued Creech, shrewdly. “But he didn’t know the flood was comin’ down so quick. He was afeared we’d come across an’ git the boat thet night. An’ he meant to take away them cut cables. But he hadn’t no time.”
“Bostil?” queried Slone, as he gazed hard at Creech. The fellow had told that rationally enough. Slone wondered if Bostil could have been so base. No! and yet—when it came to horses Bostil was scarcely human.
Slone’s query served to send Creech off on another tangent which wound up in dark, mysterious threats. Then Slone caught the name of Lucy. It abruptly killed his sympathy for Creech.
“What’s the girl got to do with it?” he demanded, angrily. “If you want to talk to me don’t use her name.”
“I’ll use her name when I want,” shouted Creech.
“Not to me!”
“Yes, to you, mister. I ain’t carin’ a damn fer you!”
“You crazy loon!” exclaimed Slone, with impatience and disgust added to anger. “What’s the use of being decent to you?”
Creech crouched low, his hands digging like claws into the table, as if he were making ready to spring. At that instant he was hideous.
“Crazy, am I?” he yelled. “Mebbe not damn crazy! I kin tell you’re gone on Lucy Bostil! I seen you with her out there in the rocks the mornin’ of the race. I seen what you did to her. An’ I’m a-goin’ to tell it!… An’ I’m a-goin’ to ketch Lucy Bostil an’ strip her naked, an’ when I git through with her I’ll tie her on a hoss an’ fire the grass! By Gawd! I am!” Livid and wild, he breathed hard as he got up, facing Slone malignantly.
“Crazy or not, here goes!” muttered Slone, grimly; and, leaping up, with one blow he knocked Creech half out of the door, and then kicked him the rest of the way. “Go on and have a fit!” cried Slone. “I’m liable to kill you if you don’t have one!”
Creech got up and ran down the path, turning twice on the way. Then he disappeared among the trees.
Slone sat down. “Lost my temper again!” he said. “This has been a day. Guess I’d better cool off right now an’ stay here.… That poor devil! Maybe he’s not so crazy. But he’s wilder than an Indian. I must warn Lucy.… Lord! I wonder if Bostil could have held back repairin’ that boat, an’ then cut it loose? I wonder? Yesterday I’d have sworn never. Today—”
Slone drove the conclusion of that thought out of his consciousness before he wholly admitted it. Then he set to work cutting the long grass from the wet and shady nooks under the bluff where the spring made the ground rich. He carried an armful down to the corral. Nagger was roaming around outside, picking grass for himself. Wildfire snorted as always when he saw Slone, and Slone as always, when time permitted, tried to coax the stallion to him. He had never succeeded, nor did he this time. When he left the bundle of grass on the ground and went outside Wildfire readily came for it.
“You’re that tame, anyhow, you hungry red devil,” said Slone, jealously. Wildfire would take a bunch of grass from Lucy Bostil’s hand. Slone’s feelings had undergone some reaction, though he still loved the horse. But it was love mixed with bitterness. More than ever he made up his mind that Lucy should have Wildfire. Then he walked around his place, planning the work he meant to start at once.
Several days slipped by with Slone scarcely realizing how they flew. Unaccustomed labor tired him so that he went to bed early and slept like a log. If it had not been for the ever-present worry and suspense and longing, in regard to Lucy, he would have been happier than ever he could remember. Almost at once he had become attached to his little home, and the more he labored to make it productive and comfortable the stronger grew his attachment. Practical toil was not conducive to daydreaming, so Slone felt a loss of something vague and sweet. Many times he caught himself watching with eager eyes for a glimpse of Lucy Bostil down there among the cottonwoods. Still, he never saw her, and, in fact, he saw so few villagers that the place began to have a loneliness which endeared it to him the more. Then the view down the gray valley to the purple monuments was always thrillingly memorable to Slone. It was out there Lucy had saved his horse and his life. His keen desert gaze could make out even at that distance the great, dark monument, gold-crowned, in the shadow of which he had heard Lucy speak words that had transformed life for him. He would ride out there some day. The spell of those looming grand shafts of colored rock was still strong upon him.
One morning Slone had a visitor—old Brackton. Slone’s cordiality died on his lips before it was half uttered. Brackton’s former friendliness was not in evidence. Indeed, he looked at Slone with curiosity and disfavor.
“Howdy, Slone! I jest wanted to see what you was doin’ up hyar,” he said.
Slone spread his hands and explained in few words.
“So you took over the place, hey? We all figgered thet. But Vorhees was mum. Fact is, he was sure mysterious.” Brackton sat down and eyed Slone with interest. “Folks are talkin’ a lot about you,” he said, bluntly.
“Is that so?”
“You ’pear to be a pretty mysterious kind of a feller, Slone. I kind of took a shine to you at first, an’ thet’s why I come up hyar to tell you it’d be wise fer you to vamoose.”
“What!” exclaimed Slone.
Brackton repeated substantially what he had said, then, pausing an instant, continued: “I’ve no call to give you a hunch, but I’ll do it jest because I did like you fust off.”
The old man seemed fussy and nervous and patronizing and disparaging all at once.
“What’d you beat up thet poor Joel Creech fer?” demanded Brackton.
“He got what he deserved,” replied Slone, and the memory, coming on the head of this strange attitude of Brackton’s, roused Slone’s temper.
“Wal, Joel tells some queer things about you—fer instance, how you took advantage of little Lucy Bostil, grabbin’ her an’ maulin’ her the way Joel seen you.”
“Damn the loon!” muttered Slone, rising to pace the path.
“Wal, Joel’s a bit off, but he’s not loony all the time. He’s seen you an’ he’s tellin’ it. When Bostil hears it you’d better be acrost the canyon!”
Slone felt the hot, sick rush of blood to his face, and humiliation and rage overtook him.
“Joel’s down at my house. He had fits after you beat him, an’ he ain’t got over them yet. But he could blab to the riders. Van Sickle’s lookin’ fer you. An’ today when I was alone with Joel he told me some more queer things about you. I shut him up quick. But I ain’t guaranteein’ I can keep him shut up.”
“I’ll bet you I shut him up,” declared Slone. “What more did the fool say?”
“Slone, hev you been round these hyar parts—down among the monuments—fer any considerable time?” queried Brackton.
“Yes, I have—several weeks out there, an’ about ten days or so around the Ford.”
“Where was you the night of the flood?”
The shrewd scrutiny of the old man, the suspicion, angered Slone.
“If it’s any of your mix, I was out on the slope among the rocks. I heard that flood comin’ down long before it got here,” replied Slone, deliberately.
Brackton averted his gaze, and abruptly rose as if the occasion was ended. “Wal, take my hunch an’ leave!” he said, turning away.
“Brackton, if you mean well, I’m much obliged,” returned Slone, slowly, ponderingly. “But I’ll not take the hunch.”
“Suit yourself,” added Brackton, coldly, and he went away.
Slone watched him go down the path and disappear in the lane of cottonwoods.
“I’ll be darned!” muttered Slone. “Funny old man. Maybe Creech’s not the only loony one hereabouts.”
Slone tried to laugh off th
e effect of the interview, but it persisted and worried him all day. After supper he decided to walk down into the village, and would have done so but for the fact that he saw a man climbing his path. When he recognized the rider Holley he sensed trouble, and straightway he became gloomy. Bostil’s right-hand man could not call on him for any friendly reason. Holley came up slowly, awkwardly, after the manner of a rider unused to walking. Slone had built a little porch on the front of his cabin and a bench, which he had covered with goatskins. It struck him a little strangely that he should bend over to rearrange these skins just as Holley approached the porch.
“Howdy, son!” was the rider’s drawled remark. “Sure makes—me—puff to climb—up this mountain.”
Slone turned instantly, surprised at the friendly tone, doubting his own ears, and wanting to verify them. He was the more surprised to see Holley unmistakably amiable.
“Hello, Holley! How are you?” he replied. “Have a seat.”
“Wal, I’m right spry fer an old bird. But I can’t climb wuth a damn.… Say, this here beats Bostil’s view.”
“Yes, it’s fine,” replied Slone, rather awkwardly, as he sat down on the porch step. What could Holley want with him? This old rider was above curiosity or gossip.
“Slone, you ain’t holdin’ it ag’in me—thet I tried to shut you up the other day?” he drawled, with dry frankness.
“Why, no, Holley, I’m not. I saw your point. You were right. But Bostil made me mad.”
“Sure! He’d make anybody mad. I’ve seen riders bite themselves, they was so mad at Bostil. You called him, an’ you sure tickled all the boys. But you hurt yourself, fer Bostil owns an’ runs this here Ford.”
“So I’ve discovered,” replied Slone.
“You got yourself in bad right off, fer Bostil has turned the riders ag’in you, an’ this here punchin’ of Creech has turned the village folks ag’in you. What’d pitch into him fer?”
Slone caught the kindly interest and intent of the rider, and it warmed him as Brackton’s disapproval had alienated him.
