The Fighting Edge

by William MacLeod Raine

  CHAPTER XI

  JUNE PRAYS

  When June turned away from her husband of an hour she abandoned hope. Shehad been like a child lost in the forest. A gleam of light from a windowhad cheered her for a moment, but it had flickered out and left her inthe darkness.

  In one sense June was innocent as an infant. She knew nothing of feminineblandishments, of the coquetry which has become so effective a weapon inthe hands of modern woman when she is not hampered by scruples. But shehad lived too close to nature not to be aware of carnal appetite.

  It is a characteristic of frontier life that one learns to face facts.June looked at them now, clear-eyed, despair in her heart. As she walkedbeside Jake to the corral, as she waited for him to hitch up the broncos,as she rode beside him silently through the gathering night, the girl'smind dwelt on that future which was closing in on her like prison walls.

  Not for an instant did she deceive herself. Houck did not mean to takeher to Tolliver. She knew that his conscience would acquit him of blamefor what he meant to do. He had given her a chance to marry him, and shehad made it impossible. That was not his fault. He would take her toBrown's Park with him when he returned. Probably they were on the waythere now.

  After the plunging broncos had steadied down, Jake spoke. "You're wellshet of him. He's no good, like he said himself. A man's got to haveguts. You'd 'a' had to wear the breeches, June." The long whip curved outinexorably. "Git over there, Buckskin."

  Houck drove like a master. After one wild bolt the dancing ponies hadsensed that a strong hand was at the reins. They accepted the factplacidly. June watched his handling of the lines sullenly, a dullresentment and horror in her heart. He would subdue her as easily as hehad the half-broken colts, sometimes bullying, sometimes mocking,sometimes making love to her with barbaric ardor. There were times whenhis strength and ruthlessness had fascinated June, but just now she feltonly horror weighted by a dull, dead despair.

  No use to fight longer. In a world filled with Jake Houck there was nofree will. She was helpless as a wolf in a trap.

  They drove through a country of sagebrush hills. The moon came out andcarpeted the slopes with silver lace. Deep within June was a born love ofbeauty as it found expression in this land of the Rockies. But to-nightshe did not taste the scent of the sage or see the veil of mist that hadtransformed the draws magically to fairy dells.

  "Where you goin'?" she asked at last. "You said you'd take me to Dad."

  He laughed, slipped a strong arm round her shoulders, and drew hercloser. "Found yore tongue at last, June girl, eh? We're going home--tomy place up in Brown's Park."

  She made a perfunctory protest. It was, she knew, quite useless, and herheart was not in it. No words she used, no appeal she could make, wouldtouch this man or change his intentions.

  "You got no right to take me there. I'm not yore slave. I want to go toDad."

  "Tha's right," he mocked. "I'm _yore_ slave, June. What's the use offighting? I'm so set on you that one way or another I'm bound to haveyou."

  She bit her lip, to keep from weeping. In the silvery night, alone withhim, miles from any other human being, she felt woefully helpless andforlorn. The years slipped away. She was a little child, and her heartwas wailing for the mother whose body lay on the hillside near thedeserted cabin in Brown's Park. What could she do? How could she saveherself from the evil shadow that would blot the sunshine from her life?

  Somewhere, in that night of stars and scudding clouds, was God, shethought. He could save her if He would. But would He? Miracles did nothappen nowadays. And why would He bother about her? She was such a triflein the great scheme of things, only a poor ragged girl from the backcountry, the daughter of a convict, poor hill trash, as she had onceheard a woman at Glenwood whisper. She was not of any account.

  Yet prayers welled out in soundless sobs from a panic-stricken heart. "OGod, I'm only a li'l' girl, an' I growed up without a mother. I'm rightmean an' sulky, but if you'll save me this time from Jake Houck, I'llmake out to say my prayers regular an' get religion first chance comesalong," she explained and promised, her small white face lifted to thevault where the God she knew about lived.

  Drifts floated across the sky blown by currents from the northwest. Theycame in billows, one on top of another, till they had obscured most ofthe stars. The moon went into eclipse, reappeared, vanished behind thestorm scud, and showed again.

  The climate of the Rockies, year in, year out, is the most stimulating onearth. Its summer breezes fill the lungs with wine. Its autumns areincomparable, a golden glow in which valley and hill bask lazily. Itswinters are warm with sunshine and cold with the crisp crackle of frost.Its springs--they might be worse. Any Coloradoan will admit the climateis superlative. But there is one slight rift in the lute, hardly to bementioned as a discord in the universal harmony. Sudden weather changesdo occur. A shining summer sun vanishes and in a twinkling of an eye thewind is whistling snell.

  Now one of these swept over the Rio Blanco Valley. The clouds thickened,the air grew chill. The thermometer was falling fast.

  Houck swung the team up from the valley road to the mesa. Along this theytraveled, close to the sage-covered foothills. At a point where a drawdipped down to the road, Houck pulled up and dismounted. A gate made ofthree strands of barbed wire and two poles barred the wagon trail. Foralready the nester was fencing the open range.

  As Houck moved forward to the gate the moon disappeared back of thebanked clouds. June's eye swept the landscape and brightened. The sageand the brush were very thick here. A grove of close-packed quaking aspsfilled the draw. She glanced at Jake. He was busy wrestling with the loopof wire that fastened the gate.

  God helps those that help themselves, June remembered. She put down thelines Houck had handed her, stepped softly from the buckboard, andslipped into the quaking asps.

  A moment later she heard Jake's startled oath. It was certain that hewould plunge into the thicket of saplings in pursuit. She crept to oneside of the draw and crouched low.

  He did not at once dive in. From where she lay hidden, June could hearthe sound of his footsteps as he moved to and fro.

  "Don't you try to make a fool of Jake Houck, girl," he called to herangrily. "I ain't standin' for any nonsense now. We got to be movin'right along. Come outa there."

  Her heart was thumping so that she was afraid he might hear it. She heldherself tense, not daring to move a finger lest she make a rustling ofleaves.

  "Hear me, June! Git a move on you. If you don't--" He broke off, withanother oath. "I'll mark yore back for you sure enough with my whip whenI find you."

  She heard him crashing into the thicket. He passed her not ten feet away,so close that she made out the vague lines of his big body. A few pacesfarther he stopped.

  "I see you, girl. You ain't foolin' me any. Tell you what I'll do. Youcome right along back to the buckboard an' I'll let you off the lickin'this time."

  She trembled, violently. It seemed that he did see her, for he moved astep or two in her direction. Then he stopped, to curse, and the ragethat leaped into the heavy voice betrayed the bluff.

  Evidently he made up his mind that she was higher up the draw. He wentthrashing up the arroyo, ploughing through the young aspens with a greatcrackle of breaking branches.

  June took advantage of this to creep up the side of the draw and out ofthe grove. The sage offered poorer cover in which to hide, but herknowledge of Houck told her that he would not readily give up the ideathat she was in the asps. He was a one-idea man, obstinate even topigheadedness. So long as there was a chance she might be in the grove hewould not stop searching there. He would reason that the draw was soclose to the buckboard she must have slipped into it. Once there, shewould stay because in it she could lie concealed.

  Her knowledge of the habits of wild animals served June well now. Thefirst instinct was to get back to the road and run down it at full speed,taking to the brush only when she heard the pursuit. But this would notdo. The sage here was muc
h heavier and thicker than it was nearer BearCat. She would find a place to hide in it till he left to drive back andcut her off from town. There was one wild moment when she thought ofslipping down to the buckboard and trying to escape in it. June gave thisup because she would have to back it along the narrow road for fifteen ortwenty yards before she could find a place to turn.

  On hands and knees she wound deeper into the sage, always moving towardthe rim-rock at the top of the hill. She was still perilously close toHouck. His muffled oaths, the thrashing of the bushes, the threats andpromises he stopped occasionally to make; all of these came clear to herin spite of the whistling wind.

  It had come on to rain mistily. June was glad of that. She would havewelcomed a heavy downpour out of a black night. The rim-rock was closeabove. She edged along it till she came to a scar where the sandstone hadbroken off and scorched a path down the slope. Into the hollow formed bytwo boulders resting against each other she crawled.

  For hours she heard Jake moving about, first among the aspens and lateron the sage hill. The savage oaths that reached her now and again wereevidence enough that the fellow was in a vile temper. If he should findher now, she felt sure he would carry out his vow as to the horsewhip.

  The night was cold. June shivered where she lay close to the ground. Therain beat in uncomfortably. But she did not move till Houck drove away.

  Even then she descended to the road cautiously. He might have laid a trapfor her by returning on foot in the darkness. But she had to take achance. What she meant to do was clear in her mind. It would require allher wits and strength to get safely back to town.

  She plodded along the road for perhaps a mile, then swung down from themesa to the river. The ford where Jake had driven across was fartherdown, but she could not risk the crossing. Very likely he was lying inwait there.

  June took off her brogans and tied them round her neck. She would haveundressed, but she was afraid of losing the clothes while in the stream.

  It was dark. She did not know the river, how deep it was or how strongthe current. As she waded slowly in, her courage began to fail. She mightnever reach the other shore. The black night and the rain made it seemvery far away.

  She stopped, thigh deep, to breathe another prayer to the far-away God ofher imagination, who sat on a throne in the skies, an arbitrary emperorof the universe. He had helped her once to-night. Maybe He would again.

  "O God, don't please lemme drown," she said aloud, in order to be quitesure her petition would be heard.

  Deeper into the current she moved. The water reached her waist. Presentlyits sweep lifted her from the bottom. She threw herself forward and beganto swim. It did not seem to her that she was making any headway. Theheavy skirts dragged down her feet and obstructed free movement of them.Not an expert swimmer, she was soon weary. Weights pulled at the arms asthey swept back the water in the breast-stroke. It flashed through hermind that she could not last much longer. Almost at the same instant shediscovered the bank. Her feet touched bottom. She shuffled heavilythrough the shallows and sank down on the shore completely exhausted.

  Later, it was in June's mind that she must have been unconscious. Whenshe took note of her surroundings she was lying on a dry pebbly washwhich the stream probably covered in high water. Snowflakes fell on hercheek and melted there. She rose, stiff and shivering. In crossing theriver the brogans had washed from her neck. She moved forward in herstocking feet. For a time she followed the Rio Blanco, then struckabruptly to the right through the sagebrush and made a wide circuit.

  It was definitely snowing now and the air was colder. June's feet werebleeding, though she picked a way in the grama-grass and the tumbleweedto save them as much as possible. Once she stepped into a badger holecovered with long buffalo grass and strained a tendon.

  She had plenty of pluck. The hardships of the frontier had instilled intoher endurance. Though she had pitied herself when she was riding besideJake Houck to moral disaster, she did not waste any now because she waslimping painfully through the snow with the clothes freezing on her body.She had learned to stand the gaff, in the phrase of the old bullwhackerwho had brought her down from Rawlins. It was a part of her code thatphysical pain and discomfort must be trodden under foot and disregarded.

  A long detour brought her back to the river. She plodded on through thestorm, her leg paining at every step. She was chilled to the marrow andvery tired. But she clamped her small strong teeth and kept going.

  The temptation to give up and lie down assailed her. She fought againstit, shuffling forward, stumbling as her dragging feet caught in the snow.She must be near Bear Cat now. Surely it could not be far away. If it wasnot very close, she knew she was beaten.

  After what seemed an eternity of travel a light gleamed through the snow.She saw another--a third.

  She zigzagged down the road like a drunkard.