The Man of the Forest

by Grey, Zane

  He seemed greatly embarrassed.

  "Wal—miss—I—I'll do my best licks. But I ain't gamblin' none on results. Be patient. Keep your nerve. Don't get scared. I reckon between me an' Dale you'll git away from heah."

  Withdrawing his head, he got up and returned to the camp-fire, where Anson was waiting curiously.

  "I left the grub. But she didn't touch it. Seems sort of sick to me, like she was poisoned."

  "Jim, didn't I hear you talkin'?" asked Anson.

  "Shore. I was coaxin' her. Reckon she ain't so ranty as she was. But she shore is doubled-up, an' sickish."

  "Wuss an' wuss all the time," said Anson, between his teeth. "An' where's Burt? Hyar it's noon an' he left early. He never was no woodsman. He's got lost."

  "Either thet or he's run into somethin'," replied Wilson, thoughtfully.

  Anson doubled a huge fist and cursed deep under his breath—the reaction of a man whose accomplices and partners and tools, whose luck, whose faith in himself had failed him. He flung himself down under a tree, and after a while, when his rigidity relaxed, he probably fell asleep. Moze and Shady kept at their game. Wilson paced to and fro, sat down, and then got up to bunch the horses again, walked around the dell and back to camp. The afternoon hours were long. And they were waiting hours. The act of waiting appeared on the surface of all these outlaws did.

  At sunset the golden gloom of the glen changed to a vague, thick twilight. Anson rolled over, yawned, and sat up. As he glanced around, evidently seeking Burt, his face clouded.

  "No sign of Burt?" he asked.

  Wilson expressed a mild surprise. "Wal, Snake, you ain't expectin' Burt now?"

  "I am, course I am. Why not?" demanded Anson. "Any other time we'd look fer him, wouldn't we?"

  "Any other time ain't now.... Burt won't ever come back!" Wilson spoke it with a positive finality.

  "A-huh! Some more of them queer feelin's of yourn—operatin' again, hey? Them onnatural kind thet you can't explain, hey?"

  Anson's queries were bitter and rancorous.

  "Yes. An', Snake, I tax you with this heah. Ain't any of them queer feelin's operatin' in you?"

  "No!" rolled out the leader, savagely. But his passionate denial was a proof that he lied. From the moment of this outburst, which was a fierce clinging to the old, brave instincts of his character, unless a sudden change marked the nature of his fortunes, he would rapidly deteriorate to the breaking-point. And in such brutal, unrestrained natures as his this breaking-point meant a desperate stand, a desperate forcing of events, a desperate accumulation of passions that stalked out to deal and to meet disaster and blood and death.

  Wilson put a little wood on the fire and he munched a biscuit. No one asked him to cook. No one made any effort to do so. One by one each man went to the pack to get some bread and meat.

  Then they waited as men who knew not what they waited for, yet hated and dreaded it.

  Twilight in that glen was naturally a strange, veiled condition of the atmosphere. It was a merging of shade and light, which two seemed to make gray, creeping shadows.

  Suddenly a snorting and stamping of the horses startled the men.

  "Somethin' scared the hosses," said Anson, rising. "Come on."

  Moze accompanied him, and they disappeared in the gloom. More trampling of hoofs was heard, then a cracking of brush, and the deep voices of men. At length the two outlaws returned, leading three of the horses, which they haltered in the open glen.

  The camp-fire light showed Anson's face dark and serious.

  "Jim, them hosses are wilder 'n deer," he said. "I ketched mine, an' Moze got two. But the rest worked away whenever we come close. Some varmint has scared them bad. We all gotta rustle out thar quick."

  Wilson rose, shaking his head doubtfully. And at that moment the quiet air split to a piercing, horrid neigh of a terrified horse. Prolonged to a screech, it broke and ended. Then followed snorts of fright, pound and crack and thud of hoofs, and crash of brush; then a gathering thumping, crashing roar, split by piercing sounds.

  "Stampede!" yelled Anson, and he ran to hold his own horse, which he had haltered right in camp. It was big and wild-looking, and now reared and plunged to break away. Anson just got there in time, and then it took all his weight to pull the horse down. Not until the crashing, snorting, pounding melee had subsided and died away over the rim of the glen did Anson dare leave his frightened favorite.

  "Gone! Our horses are gone! Did you hear 'em?" he exclaimed, blankly.

  "Shore. They're a cut-up an' crippled bunch by now," replied Wilson.

  "Boss, we'll never git 'ern back, not 'n a hundred years," declared Moze.

  "Thet settles us, Snake Anson," stridently added Shady Jones. "Them hosses are gone! You can kiss your hand to them.... They wasn't hobbled. They hed an orful scare. They split on thet stampede an' they'll never git together. ... See what you've fetched us to!"

  Under the force of this triple arraignment the outlaw leader dropped to his seat, staggered and silenced. In fact, silence fell upon all the men and likewise enfolded the glen.

  Night set in jet-black, dismal, lonely, without a star. Faintly the wind moaned. Weirdly the brook babbled through its strange chords to end in the sound that was hollow. It was never the same—a rumble, as if faint, distant thunder—a deep gurgle, as of water drawn into a vortex—a rolling, as of a stone in swift current. The black cliff was invisible, yet seemed to have many weird faces; the giant pines loomed spectral; the shadows were thick, moving, changing. Flickering lights from the camp-fire circled the huge trunks and played fantastically over the brooding men. This camp-fire did not burn or blaze cheerily; it had no glow, no sputter, no white heart, no red, living embers. One by one the outlaws, as if with common consent, tried their hands at making the fire burn aright. What little wood had been collected was old; it would burn up with false flare, only to die quickly.

  After a while not one of the outlaws spoke or stirred. Not one smoked. Their gloomy eyes were fixed on the fire. Each one was concerned with his own thoughts, his own lonely soul unconsciously full of a doubt of the future. That brooding hour severed him from comrade.

  At night nothing seemed the same as it was by day. With success and plenty, with full-blooded action past and more in store, these outlaws were as different from their present state as this black night was different from the bright day they waited for. Wilson, though he played a deep game of deceit for the sake of the helpless girl—and thus did not have haunting and superstitious fears on her account—was probably more conscious of impending catastrophe than any of them.

  The evil they had done spoke in the voice of nature, out of the darkness, and was interpreted by each according to his hopes and fears. Fear was their predominating sense. For years they had lived with some species of fear—of honest men or vengeance, of pursuit, of starvation, of lack of drink or gold, of blood and death, of stronger men, of luck, of chance, of fate, of mysterious nameless force. Wilson was the type of fearless spirit, but he endured the most gnawing and implacable fear of all—that of himself—that he must inevitably fall to deeds beneath his manhood.

  So they hunched around the camp-fire, brooding because hope was at lowest ebb; listening because the weird, black silence, with its moan of wind and hollow laugh of brook, compelled them to hear; waiting for sleep, for the hours to pass, for whatever was to come.

  And it was Anson who caught the first intimation of an impending doom.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  "Listen!"

  Anson whispered tensely. His poise was motionless, his eyes roved everywhere. He held up a shaking, bludgy finger, to command silence.

  A third and stranger sound accompanied the low, weird moan of the wind, and the hollow mockery of the brook—and it seemed a barely perceptible, exquisitely delicate wail or whine. It filled in the lulls between the other sounds.

  "If thet's some varmint he's close," whispered Anson.

  "But shore, it's far off," said Wilson.
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br />   Shady Jones and Moze divided their opinions in the same way.

  All breathed freer when the wail ceased, relaxing to their former lounging positions around the fire. An impenetrable wall of blackness circled the pale space lighted by the camp-fire; and this circle contained the dark, somber group of men in the center, the dying camp-fire, and a few spectral trunks of pines and the tethered horses on the outer edge. The horses scarcely moved from their tracks, and their erect, alert heads attested to their sensitiveness to the peculiarities of the night.

  Then, at an unusually quiet lull the strange sound gradually arose to a wailing whine.

  "It's thet crazy wench cryin'," declared the outlaw leader.

  Apparently his allies accepted that statement with as much relief as they had expressed for the termination of the sound.

  "Shore, thet must be it," agreed Jim Wilson, gravely.

  "We'll git a lot of sleep with thet gurl whinin' all night," growled Shady Jones.

  "She gives me the creeps," said Moze.

  Wilson got up to resume his pondering walk, head bent, hands behind his back, a grim, realistic figure of perturbation.

  "Jim—set down. You make me nervous," said Anson, irritably.

  Wilson actually laughed, but low, as if to keep his strange mirth well confined.

  "Snake, I'll bet you my hoss an' my gun ag'in' a biscuit thet in aboot six seconds more or less I'll be stampedin like them hosses."

  Anson's lean jaw dropped. The other two outlaws stared with round eyes. Wilson was not drunk, they evidently knew; but what he really was appeared a mystery.

  "Jim Wilson, are you showin' yellow?" queried Anson, hoarsely.

  "Mebbe. The Lord only knows. But listen heah.... Snake, you've seen an' heard people croak?"

  "You mean cash in—die?"

  "Shore."

  "Wal, yes—a couple or so," replied Anson, grimly.

  "But you never seen no one die of shock—of an orful scare?"

  "No, I reckon I never did."

  "I have. An' thet's what's ailin' Jim Wilson," and he resumed his dogged steps.

  Anson and his two comrades exchanged bewildered glances with one another.

  "A-huh! Say, what's thet got to do with us hyar? asked Anson, presently.

  "Thet gurl is dyin'!" retorted Wilson, in a voice cracking like a whip.

  The three outlaws stiffened in their seats, incredulous, yet irresistibly swayed by emotions that stirred to this dark, lonely, ill-omened hour.

  Wilson trudged to the edge of the lighted circle, muttering to himself, and came back again; then he trudged farther, this time almost out of sight, but only to return; the third time he vanished in the impenetrable wall of light. The three men scarcely moved a muscle as they watched the place where he had disappeared. In a few moments he came stumbling back.

  "Shore she's almost gone," he said, dismally. "It took my nerve, but I felt of her face.... Thet orful wail is her breath chokin' in her throat.... Like a death-rattle, only long instead of short."

  "Wal, if she's gotta croak it's good she gits it over quick," replied Anson. "I 'ain't hed sleep fer three nights. ... An' what I need is whisky."

  "Snake, thet's gospel you're spoutin'," remarked Shady Jones, morosely.

  The direction of sound in the glen was difficult to be assured of, but any man not stirred to a high pitch of excitement could have told that the difference in volume of this strange wail must have been caused by different distances and positions. Also, when it was loudest, it was most like a whine. But these outlaws heard with their consciences.

  At last it ceased abruptly.

  Wilson again left the group to be swallowed up by the night. His absence was longer than usual, but he returned hurriedly.

  "She's daid!" he exclaimed, solemnly. "Thet innocent kid—who never harmed no one—an' who'd make any man better fer seein' her—she's daid!... Anson, you've shore a heap to answer fer when your time comes."

  "What's eatin' you?" demanded the leader, angrily. "Her blood ain't on my hands."

  "It shore is," shouted Wilson, shaking his hand at Anson. "An' you'll hev to take your medicine. I felt thet comin' all along. An' I feel some more."

  "Aw! She's jest gone to sleep," declared Anson, shaking his long frame as he rose. "Gimme a light."

  "Boss, you're plumb off to go near a dead gurl thet's jest died crazy," protested Shady Jones.

  "Off! Haw! Haw! Who ain't off in this outfit, I'd like to know?" Anson possessed himself of a stick blazing at one and, and with this he stalked off toward the lean-to where the girl was supposed to be dead. His gaunt figure, lighted by the torch, certainly fitted the weird, black surroundings. And it was seen that once near the girl's shelter he proceeded more slowly, until he halted. He bent to peer inside.

  "SHE'S GONE!" he yelled, in harsh, shaken accents.

  Than the torch burned out, leaving only a red glow. He whirled it about, but the blaze did not rekindle. His comrades, peering intently, lost sight of his tall form and the end of the red-ended stick. Darkness like pitch swallowed him. For a moment no sound intervened. Again the moan of wind, the strange little mocking hollow roar, dominated the place. Then there came a rush of something, perhaps of air, like the soft swishing of spruce branches swinging aside. Dull, thudding footsteps followed it. Anson came running back to the fire. His aspect was wild, his face pale, his eyes were fierce and starting from their sockets. He had drawn his gun.

  "Did—ye—see er hear—anythin'?" he panted, peering back, then all around, and at last at his man.

  "No. An' I shore was lookin' an' listenin'," replied Wilson.

  "Boss, there wasn't nothin'," declared Moze.

  "I ain't so sartin," said Shady Jones, with doubtful, staring eyes. "I believe I heerd a rustlin'."

  "She wasn't there!" ejaculated Anson, in wondering awe. "She's gone!... My torch went out. I couldn't see. An' jest then I felt somethin' was passin'. Fast! I jerked 'round. All was black, an' yet if I didn't see a big gray streak I'm crazier 'n thet gurl. But I couldn't swear to anythin' but a rushin' of wind. I felt thet."

  "Gone!" exclaimed Wilson, in great alarm. "Fellars, if thet's so, then mebbe she wasn't daid an' she wandered off. ... But she was daid! Her heart hed quit beatin'. I'll swear to thet."

  "I move to break camp," said Shady Jones, gruffly, and he stood up. Moze seconded that move by an expressive flash of his black visage.

  "Jim, if she's dead—an' gone—what 'n hell's come off?" huskily asked Anson. "It, only seems thet way. We're all worked up.... Let's talk sense."

  "Anson, shore there's a heap you an' me don't know," replied Wilson. "The world come to an end once. Wal, it can come to another end.... I tell you I ain't surprised—"

  "THAR!" cried Anson, whirling, with his gun leaping out.

  Something huge, shadowy, gray against the black rushed behind the men and trees; and following it came a perceptible acceleration of the air.

  "Shore, Snake, there wasn't nothin'," said Wilson, "presently."

  "I heerd," whispered Shady Jones.

  "It was only a breeze blowin' thet smoke," rejoined Moze.

  "I'd bet my soul somethin' went back of me," declared Anson, glaring into the void.

  "Listen an' let's make shore," suggested Wilson.

  The guilty, agitated faces of the outlaws showed plain enough in the flickering light for each to see a convicting dread in his fellow. Like statues they stood, watching and listening.

  Few sounds stirred in the strange silence. Now and then the horses heaved heavily, but stood still; a dismal, dreary note of the wind in the pines vied with a hollow laugh of the brook. And these low sounds only fastened attention upon the quality of the silence. A breathing, lonely spirit of solitude permeated the black dell. Like a pit of unplumbed depths the dark night yawned. An evil conscience, listening there, could have heard the most peaceful, beautiful, and mournful sounds of nature only as strains of a calling hell.

  Suddenly the silent, oppressive, surch
arged air split to a short, piercing scream.

  Anson's big horse stood up straight, pawing the air, and came down with a crash. The other horses shook with terror.

  "Wasn't—thet—a cougar?" whispered Anson, thickly.

  "Thet was a woman's scream," replied Wilson, and he appeared to be shaking like a leaf in the wind.

  "Then—I figgered right—the kid's alive—wonderin' around—an' she let out thet orful scream," said Anson.

  "Wonderin' 'round, yes—but she's daid!"

  "My Gawd! it ain't possible!"

  "Wal, if she ain't wonderin' round daid she's almost daid," replied Wilson. And he began to whisper to himself.

  "If I'd only knowed what thet deal meant I'd hev plugged Beasley instead of listenin'.... An' I ought to hev knocked thet kid on the head an' made sartin she'd croaked. If she goes screamin' 'round thet way—"

  His voice failed as there rose a thin, splitting, high-pointed shriek, somewhat resembling the first scream, only less wild. It came apparently from the cliff.

  From another point in the pitch-black glen rose the wailing, terrible cry of a woman in agony. Wild, haunting, mournful wail!

  Anson's horse, loosing the halter, plunged back, almost falling over a slight depression in the rocky ground. The outlaw caught him and dragged him nearer the fire. The other horses stood shaking and straining. Moze ran between them and held them. Shady Jones threw green brush on the fire. With sputter and crackle a blaze started, showing Wilson standing tragically, his arms out, facing the black shadows.

  The strange, live shriek was not repeated. But the cry, like that of a woman in her death-throes, pierced the silence again. It left a quivering ring that softly died away. Then the stillness clamped down once more and the darkness seemed to thicken. The men waited, and when they had begun to relax the cry burst out appallingly close, right behind the trees. It was human—the personification of pain and terror—the tremendous struggle of precious life against horrible death. So pure, so exquisite, so wonderful was the cry that the listeners writhed as if they saw an innocent, tender, beautiful girl torn frightfully before their eyes. It was full of suspense; it thrilled for death; its marvelous potency was the wild note—that beautiful and ghastly note of self-preservation.