Slowly the big coyote backed away from Peter. For the first time he recognized it for what it was. The animal had flashed at him so suddenly out of the darkness that his hands still trembled as he fingered his gun. The coyote was old; not less than fifteen years. It glared at him now with the savage ferocity of a wolf.
“So that’s your dog, eh?” the old man muttered shakily.
“I am sorry,” the boy said. “She is a faithful friend. I did not think of her when I raised my voice in anger to you. I ask your pardon.”
“You was makin’ pretty strong medicine for me,” Peter grinned as he brushed his lips with his hand. “That animal been tendin’ those sheep?”
The old man shook his head incredulously as the boy nodded.
“I never expected to live to see that,” he said. “She ain’t a cross, neither. What’s that you call her?”
“Slippy-foot.”
“Humph! Strange—mighty strange,” Peter mused aloud. “I’ve heard tell that animals don’t fergit.”
The youth gazed at the old man shrewdly, and although he sensed the note of intimation in Peter’s words he preferred to let it go unnoticed.
“You are a very old man,” said he. “Your days may be numbered even now. Are you going to take your secret to the grave with you?”
“You ain’t none too cheerful, be yuh?” Peter said with a sly grin. “I intend to go on livin’ for years and years. But seriously, now, I was thinkin’ about that very thing on my way up here to-night. Ain’t no man ever heard what you call my secret, but Kincaid—I reckon if anybody ought to hear it, it’s you.”
The youth could not repress a sudden start.
“Man,” he exclaimed, “you talk in riddles.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” Peter said, and he got to his feet. “The time’s come for you and me to be frank. I’ve been doin’ a heap of thinkin’ while I been sittin’ here. I knew I’d seen your eyes and mouth before. They belong to Margarida Gault. When you called that thar animal Slippy-foot, I knew I wa’n’t mistaken. Boy—I reckon I know who you are. I ain’t never liked no one better. Thar’s my hand.”
The young stranger silently stared at Peter. Seconds passed, and he did not move, but slowly his eyes softened.
“I believe you do,” he whispered.
“You are Joe Gault’s boy—” A mist was in old Peter’s eyes. As from a distance he saw the youth nod and heard his softly uttered:
“Yes; I am Joseph.”
CHAPTER VIII.
EVEN UNTO THE LOWEST.
WITH that peculiar reticence of men who lead lonely lives, old Peter refrained from asking the many questions which rushed to his tongue. That the lad was Joseph, here in the flesh and not dead, surprised him less than may be imagined.
The manner of the boy’s coming, his strange dress, the return of the coyote—these were matters of far greater interest at the moment. In fact, they occupied Peter’s attention so fully that many minutes passed before he spoke of that storm-tossed night when Kit Dorr was killed.
“Joseph,” he said solemnly, “I am afeerd that what I’m a-goin’ to tell you will lead to more killin’s—you bein’ here this-a-way. I see it in your eyes. I know what you’ve come back to do.
“A-fore I tell you, I want to say somethin’ about Angel. You know, these Basques ain’t a bad people; they’re fightin’-men. In some ways they’re right like the mountain-people yore daddy came from. Yore daddy’s paw and me and the rest of us fit pretty hard for this country.
“When the Basques came pilin’ in here we jumped ’em. We didn’t allow to let ’em have this land after what we’d been through. Lord only knows what we’d a-done with it all! But they stuck; and they’ve done pretty well.
“Lookin’ back, I see how foolish the whole fight was. But men go on like that—like Angel has done. He’s been the biggest fool of all. Now, things has changed—everythin’ but him! The country’s changed; the Basques has changed; and they’re goin’ to keep on changin’. They can’t do nuthin’ else; they ain’t ever going back to Spain.
“And so I want to ask you—what’s Angel got for himself out of all the hatin’ he’s done? He’s an old man—I reckon he’s known his mistakes for a long time—but he’s afeered to admit it now; he’s too stiff-necked. I guess God’s just lettin’ him live till he’s willin’ to eat crow.
“No matter what you do to him, Joseph, I won’t hold it ag’in you. He’s got it a-comin’ to him; but boy, if you’d only promise—”
“Please! Do not exact a promise from me. This matter concerns only that man and me. No one must come between us. But his death would only defeat my purpose. Angel Irosabal must live. Tell me—who killed Kit Dorr?”
The suddenness of the question made Peter recoil. It grew very still in the little dug-out. Both man and boy seemed to be caught up and held motionless in a tensely charged way. Waiting—one to hear, and the other to voice—a brief syllable or two; and both fully conscious that the course of their lives might well be changed thereby.
Joseph’s eyes never left the old man’s. Seconds dragged by before Peter’s lips moved. No sound escaped them, however, and when he did speak his voice was dry, unnatural.
“It—it—was—Andres.”
“Andres—” It was a whisper.
For a seemingly endless time, the boy remained motionless, his eyes closed. Slippy-foot stared at him anxiously. She whimpered softly as Joseph sat down.
“Andres—my mother’s brother!” he repeated. He did not raise his voice, but the hatred and bitterness with which he spoke gave his words a dreadful sound.
“It was Andres,” Peter muttered, but his was not the air of one who enjoys his own tale. To escape the boy’s staring eyes, he spread his blankets upon the floor and made ready for sleep, but as he bent over, the expected question came from the boy:
“How do you know?”
“Joseph,” Peter scolded, “don’t look at me that-a-way. You make me feel all clammy and cold as if death was stalkin’ around in here.”
“Oh, man, go on,” the boy insisted. “How do you know it was Andres?”
The old man pulled off his boots and sat down upon his blankets before he spoke.
“I heard him say so,” he began. “When I got into that pocket, I crawled way in below the ledge and rolled up and tried to go to sleep. I was on foot and thankin’ my stars I didn’t have no animal to look after that night, when I caught sound of some one comin’ up the hogback. I don’t remember who I thought it was. It wa’n’t late—’bout eight thirty. A man had to yell that night to make himself heard.
“I savvy Basque pretty well, and the first word I made out was zaldiak—horses. In those days the Basque gente wa’n’t particularly welcome round here. I got kinda curious right off. And the next minute I heard those horses comin’ right down into that pocket. One of the men—they was two of them—tried to strike a light, but you couldn’t make fire even thar that night.” Peter paused and reflected for a moment.
“I didn’t say nu thin’,” he went on; “I knew they didn’t know I was there.”
“Who was the second man?” Joseph interrupted.
“Andres’s kid brother, Timoteo. The kid went on directly, but he left Andres in the pocket. Andres was to follow him on foot when he thought the time was right. Well, I was doin’ some pretty fast thinkin’. Here was hell to pay, for fair, and me not knowin’ what to do.
“I wa’n’t afraid of Timoteo. I reckoned your daddy could manage him if this thing that was brewin’ was aimed at your folks. Andres had me trapped; and so we stayed thar-me under the ledge and him backed against his horse—wai tin’ and waitin’.
“I guess an hour must have passed. God, it was awful. I wanted to yell and get out where they was air; I was stranglin’—Andres thar all that time, so close, and not knowin’ that I was watchin’ him.
“Well, he gave a yell all of a sudden and jumpin’ into his saddle he fanned it out of thar, leadin’ the kid’s horse
behind him. I got out and stretched myself directly. I hadn’t been able to do no thinkin’ with him thar.
“I’d heard them tossing a word back and forth that I hadn’t savvied. It came to me, then—nippers! That meant wire! I began to see a thing or two right off. Those boys were out to cut the Circle-Z fence. Wa’n’t no other wire for ’em to cut.
“I felt considerable relieved. Thad Taylor of the Circle-Z wa’n’t no bosom friend of mine. ’Let him look out for his own wire,’ I said to myself and I crawled back into my nest, thinkin’ that those boys had a good night for what they was about, whether they got away with it or not.
“But I wa’n’t any sleepier then than I am right now, which I ain’t at all. I knew if they came back, I’d hear them. More than an hour passed; nuthin’ happened. And then I heard horses comin’ on the run. I got up and listened.
“In about a minute Andres flashed by. He was cryin’—mad! He was gibberin’ to himself in Basque: ’I killed him! I killed him!’ He had the kid’s horse on a rope, but the saddle was empty.
“’He’s killed the kid,’ I told myself, and so I thought until the posse dug me out and told me that Kit Dorr had been murdered, and that they was after your paw.
“Save for tellin’ Kincaid, I ain’t said nuthin’ ’till now. You can guess what happened, can’t you ?—two men was killed that night.”
“Dorr and Timoteo—”
“Ain’t a doubt of it. The boy went down to cut the wire. Kit got him. Andres came along later, stampedin’ your sheep. The kid must have crawled away and tipped him off, and Andres nailed Kit.”
“A supposition-”
“Facts is what I’m tellin’ you,” Peter exclaimed. “Kit was killed by a .30-30 bullet. Andres had the rifle.”
“But Timoteo—I remember it was said that he had gone to Spain.”
Peter smiled weakly.
“So it was said,” he replied. “But he’s never come back. Timoteo went a lot further than Spain that night.”
“But his body-?”
“Never been found—leastwise not that any one knows of. I looked for it. You know, Joseph,” and Peter fastened his eyes on the boy’s face, “I’ve always felt that your mother found it—that somewhere on this mountain little Timoteo lies buried. He was Angel’s baby. I tell you he looked for him. You know how range is now he needs more-but he’s never run a head of stock up here. In his eyes this mountain is a tomb.”
“Yes; and from this tomb I will arise to humble him and his sons.”
He got to his feet and stood over the old man. Unconsciously he raised his right hand.
“When you leave here, make no mystery of me. Let them know I am Joseph. You can serve me best that way. I have come back to avenge my mother; to see justice done my father—and it will be done unto both of them!”
The blazing wrath of the avenger flamed in his eyes.
“When I found my mother cold in death she held my school-boy slate clutched in her hands. On it she had written a message. I have come back to fulfill every word of it. I do not doubt that she found Timoteo, nor do I question but what I know where to find his body. He will serve me well.
“Angel Irosabal—he and his sons—shall be humbled, broken-cast into the dust. Let them look to me! For I warn you, my friend, that the seven lean years are upon this land, even as they were upon Egypt. The time of plenty has passed.
“There shall be no rain in summer; no snow in winter; the sage and grass shall wither and die, and a famine will be upon the land. The very men whose flocks have worn the roads to powder will live to see their sheep dying of hunger.”
Peter stared at him as though he were a character that had stepped out of the Bible. He sucked in his breath noisily as he waited for the boy to go on.
“Never have they thought of the lean years, and yet, it was the lean years that drove them out of California—and lack of food will drive them out of this valley. In its abundance, they have wasted this land and they will have no place to turn in their anguish. They will sell their flocks and herds for a pittance, or they will die.”
Joseph lowered his hand and gazed intently at Peter.
“And now, my friend,” he said, “a secret for a secret. There is one who has moved about in these hills—unknown, unseen—leasing land, contracting for it against a day to come. And that day is near. He has schemed well. For months he has known that when fall comes, a scratch of the pen will close the Reservation to sheep.
“And though he knows me not—that man is my father.”
Old Peter was left speechless. There was something uncanny, unreal, about this boy. He spoke with such an air of finality, of truth, that the aged man felt the absurdity of questioning his words. Joseph’s appearance, his dress and the weirdness of his surroundings combined to instill in him a feeling of awe such as no other man had ever awakened. A Basque, steeped in superstition, would run in fear from the boy.
Just now, with that matter-of-fact tone which one uses to announce trivial happenings, he made a statement not less startling than word of his own presence there on the mountain had been. And the calm assurance with which he looked forward to the adjusting of his account with his grandfather; his frankly expressed conviction that he was there as God’s instrument; the biblical flavor of his speech—Peter thought of these things in a muddled way.
He wished himself elsewhere. As in a vision, he saw the Gaults—father and son—biding their time, waiting the propitious moment, gathering strength to strike—grim, unrelenting, unforgiving, never forgetting, placing their dependence on God. By comparison, he felt himself impotent, decisionless.
Was it fear of this boy that made him so uneasy? Hot anger flared in his old veins as he answered his own question. Suddenly, he reached out for his boots, determined to sleep in the open, but his hand paused in mid-air. Some one was commg.
Peter cocked his head and listened expectantly. The sound which reached his ears was not that of a human footfall, nor was it the soft pad-pad of an animal’s feet. It was strange, grating, harsh in the stillness.
Peter glanced at Slippy-foot. Her hair was ruffled, and she was backing away from the door, but she neither whimpered nor growled.
Joseph had turned and was staring out into the night. Peter tried to read his feeling from the pose of his back, but he found it straight, un-tensed—apparently untouched by any emotion.
Whatever was approaching the dug-out was coming toward it with a measured stride. Peter had become aware of the rhythmic insistence of the ghastly sound. He felt a shiver pass up and down his spine.
It was not the wolf shiver. He had trembled at the timber-gray’s call too many times not to recognize it. Never had the wolf-cry brought him a sense of fear, and he knew that the thing which gripped him now was fear.
He drew his legs up as he waited. Slippy-foot nudged closer to him, and he was glad she was there.
Then in the doorway appeared the thing that had frightened him. Blacker than the night it was; with lordly mien it strutted into the room, its black claws tapping upon the hard-packed floor, its gold-rimmed eyes wide, piercing—the wisdom of the world in their depths—a giant crow!
It made no cry as it advanced. Peter’s mouth had sagged open. As in a daze, he stared at the sleek feathered thing standing before him. He drew back into his blankets, his blood cold. Watching, he saw the great bird spread its wings and rise to the table, where it perched in forbidding importance, its black head rolling from side to side—ominous, chilling, the hand-servant of Death.
For forty years this grisly bird had scoured the desert, despised of men and feasting on the dead, but doing that which nature had intended it to do; justifying its place in the great scheme of things that is life; its only law, the survival of the fittest. Ever had man’s hand been raised against it. And yet it entered the dug-out this night, unafraid.
Peter wanted to cry out and ask what illomened business brought it there, but his voice would not come. Everything had a queer draw to it to-nigh
t! Where would this hellish nightmare end? He wanted to get out—away; to fill his lungs with clean air again. He willed his hands to grasp his boots, but they refused to obey, and he could only sit and stare at that great, black, blinking thing there before him.
“Look not on this bird as an enemy,” he heard Joseph say. “He is an old friend—I call him Grimm. He passes on all that I do; and he is never wrong. He never mistakes an enemy for a friend. He it was who told me you were coming up the mountain to-night. He says nothing now because he accepts you as a friend.”
“Take him away,” Peter gasped. “He makes my flesh creep. Are you mad? Havin’ such things about you!”
Joseph smiled at him.
“I understand you,” he said. “Here you see me, clad in rags, my companions the scavenger coyote and the carrion crow—outcasts of the desert—reviled, unloved—what a picture I And yet it is given even unto the lowest to reward kindness with faith.
“When you speak of me, speak of my companions, for we are three; and if the least of these shall love me, I will not fail.”
CHAPTER IX.
TIMOTEO SPEAKS.
FROM the day that he had returned to Buck-skin, Joseph had cast his eyes at its rocky crest. Throughout the years he had looked forward to the time when he should stand there and read the message his mother had left him. In fancy, he had done so a thousand times. And yet—now that he was there—he had found himself reluctant to face it.
As he had grown older, a fixed idea of what he would find had settled on him; but his return to the mountain had destroyed that assurance. He had expected to find his old home still standing, and in his bitterness at finding it destroyed he had told himself he dared not hope that any sign remained for him on Buckskin.
Peter Organ had explained many things to Joseph. For a day after the old man had left, the boy did not leave the coulee. With great patience he arranged in his mind what Peter had said. Of one thing he was certain—his mother’s message was a secret no longer. He felt that he knew its contents in full. It was not what he had expected. But his way was clear before him now; and at sunrise, the following morning, he stood upon the mountain-top.
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