by Zane Grey
No—there was nothing to prevent him—nothing to fear. When he gave up his intention to kill his most notorious partner he had freed himself from intricate and subtle fetters. That was the secret of his surprise, his relief, his elation. Because when he abandoned that bloody revenge on Malloy he was in reality abandoning his position as a leader of outlaws.
Pecos would be waiting for him up at the headwaters of the Little Colorado. Stone decided that the sooner he started the better for him. There was a shadow over the yellow cabin built by Malloy, and more than that cast by the bulk of the looming wall. Besides he hardly trusted himself, so long as he remained in propinquity to the remnant of the Hash Knife.
Upon Stone’s return to the cabin, at sunset, he found it deserted. Malloy and his two comrades had departed in a hurry, leaving the interior of the cabin in a state of confusion. He felt no surprise. It had happened before. Still, there might have been good reason for such a departure. Sonora might have returned or anything could have happened. Hastily packing some food supplies and a blanket, Stone made his way under cover of the wall to the corral. His horse was among the several horses left. In a few moments Stone rode down the slope into the darkening forest.
CHAPTER
17
THREE mornings later, in the first rosy flush of sunrise, when the black squirrels were chattering and the blue jays screeching, Jed Stone struck into a blazed trail new to him and which led to a newly graded road. This he concluded was the road recently cut down into Yellow Jacket.
He would have suffered a pang for this desecration of the wilderness but for the satisfaction and even melancholy happiness which had increased during his slow and wary working up toward Clear Creek and Cottonwood Canyon, from which junction he could find his way to the Little Colorado. He had meat and salt, hard biscuits and coffee, enough to last him for the journey.
Up out of the canyon country now, on the level of the slowly rising plateau, where forest of pine began to be sprinkled with open patches of desert of cedar and piñon and sage, he relaxed something of vigilance and made much faster time. Because of this he discovered, presently, that he had ridden some distance over fresh horse tracks before he had observed them.
“That’s queer,” he soliloquized, halting. “They shore weren’t in the road back there a ways.”
Riders had come along here that very morning, and they had certainly cut off into the woods somewhere between this point and back where Stone had noticed the clean untracked road.
The fact was disturbing, but after he had reflected a moment he made sure that he would have heard and seen them long before they could have discovered him. For he had been alone, and though relaxed somewhat from strain he still exercised keen eyes and ears. They had turned off not to avoid him, but for reasons of their own.
Stone spurred on and rode at a brisk canter for a while, anxious to get to the Cottonwood country, where again he could take to the deep forest. But when he came to the junction of the new road with the old one he was halted by plain evidences of a hold-up. A vehicle of some sort had come along here headed south and had gone no farther, along either road. Stone found a canvas bag, open and rifled of its contents, and thrown aside. The ground about had been so cut up with hoofs that he could read but little from the tracks. But soon he ascertained that the wheel tracks turned back the way they had come.
“Wal, now, jest what come off heah?” he muttered. He was accustomed to read the signs of the open. These might have meant little, and again they might have meant a great deal. Stone sensed the latter, and he searched the roadside until he found along the wheel tracks a bloody glove that had fallen into the weeds.
“Ahuh. I smelled it—as Croak would say,” declared Stone. “I’m jest curious now to catch up with whatever had these wheels.”
Whereupon he put his horse to a gallop, walk and trot, and lope, according to the stretches of road open far ahead or turning through the cedars. And in an hour or less he sighted a buckboard with one occupant driving slowly north. Stone kept on. He would have a look at that driver and his vehicle. A strong instinct prompted this, not all curiosity. He did not need to come to close quarters with the driver. This individual wore no hat; he had gray hair; he sagged in his seat, now with his head hunched between square shoulders and again with it lifted doggedly. Stone, after the manner of riders of his kind, like hounds on scent, caught the color of blood on stones along the roadside. Then he spurred his horse into a run.
Before he caught up with the buckboard it stopped, and the man turned, evidently having heard the thudding hoofs behind. As Stone flashed up, to haul his horse to a sliding halt, he caught sight of the dark face of a Mexican lying on the floor behind the back seat. Stone had seen too many dead men not to know this was one.
“Hey, old-timer—” Then he experienced a violent heart-stabbing start. He was staring into the hard convulsed visage of a man he had not seen for twenty years, yet whom he instantly recognized. A wrench tore Stone. “Dog-gone-me if it ain’t Jim Traft!”
“Howdy, Jed!” replied the rancher, grimly. “An’ what do you want?”
“Me!—Hell, nothin’, except to ask what’s happened? I run across your tracks a ways back. Looked like a hold-up to me. An’ I knew it when I found this glove.”
Stone pulled out the stained glove, which he had tucked under the pommel of his saddle.
“Belonged to my driver, Pedro, lyin’ there,” said Traft, nodding at the dead man. “But, shore, you know what come off.”
“I don’t. I know nothin’. I’ve been three days ridin’ out of the brakes. I jest run across you.”
“Jed Stone, can you expect me to believe thet?” queried Traft, incredulously.
“Reckon I expect it, Jim, ’cause I swear it’s true,” replied Stone, and gazed straight into the steel-blue eyes bent so piercingly and accusingly, and yet so strangely, upon him. That look bridged the long cruel years back to the dim cowboy days.
“You don’t know I’ve been held up an’ robbed by Croak Malloy?” demanded Traft, derisively.
“By God! … You have? … No, Jim, I didn’t know.”
“Nor thet he killed my driver?”
“I didn’t know, Jim,” repeated Stone, now with terrible earnestness to be believed by this old rancher.
“Jed, I reckon I don’t see any reason for you lyin’ to me. Many years ago you lied to me—an’ that lie ruined you an’ saved me. But don’t lie now.”
“Jim, I’m not lyin’. I swear to God! … I’d quit the Hash Knife. I left our hole down in the brakes three days ago. My outfit’s done. Malloy broke it up. I’m leavin’ Arizona forever—an’ this life I’ve led.”
After a protracted study of Stone’s face the rancher burst out: “My Gawd! Jed, I’m glad. An’ it’s shore a queer meetin’ for me an’ you. … But listen. I was goin’ down to Yellow Jacket to surprise my nephew Jim. I had his sweetheart, Molly Dunn, with me, an’ his sister, Gloriana. We slept last night at Miller’s sheep-ranch, I reckon some fifteen miles up the road. An’ at the turn-off down there we got held up by three men. I didn’t know Malloy till one of his pardners called him Croak. … Wal, when Pedro drove on, at my order, Malloy rode up an’ shot him. An’ you bet he’d have done fer me but fer an idee he got. Anyway, they robbed me an’ yanked the girls out of the buckboard. They had to hawg-tie Molly. She shore fought. Malloy says, ‘Traft, I’ll give you three days to come to Tobe’s Well with ten thousand dollars. Put the money in the loft of the cabin, next the chimney. We’ll see you come, or whoever you send. An’ these girls will be set free. Mebbe a little wuss fer love-makin’!’ … The little ruffian said jest thet, an’ grinned aboot it. I agreed. An’ he let me go.”
“Jim, if I know Malloy he let you off easy,” declared Stone, sharply, and he reined his horse over close to the buckboard. “I struck their tracks down by the new road. An’ I know aboot where they cut off into the woods. … Jim, I’ll trail Malloy, an’ go round an’ haid him off, or come up on him at To
be’s Well. Mebbe I better make a short cut an’ beat him there. … But I’ll come up on him before dark. An’ I’ll get the girls.”
“Jed Stone, are you aimin’ fer thet ten thousand?” demanded Traft.
“I don’t want a dollar. I’ll do this because, wal, because I liked young Jim an’ because I’d starve before I’d do you another dirty deal. At thet Malloy an’ Bambridge rung me into the only one. An’ I killed Bambridge fer doin’ it.”
“You killed Bambridge?” ejaculated the rancher.
“I shore did. An’ Croak told me he’d seen thet gambler Darnell kickin’ at the end of a rope. But, Jim, you’ll hear all thet pronto. I’ll have to rustle. … One thing more. Malloy may kill me. I reckon I can outfigger him, but to be on the safe side you’d better send a trusty rider with thet money, an’ after you do, make a bee line for Yellow Jacket. For I’ll fetch the girls there.”
“Jed Stone, by—heaven! … wait!” faltered the old cattleman.
But Stone had spurred away, to call over his shoulder, “So long, Jim—old pard!”
Like the wind Stone raced back down the road, and as soon as he was sure of direction he cut across the cedared desert and into the woods, where gallop and trot soon brought him upon Malloy’s tracks. He followed them, and marveled in mind at the inscrutability of chance, at the inevitableness of life—at this meeting with Jim. After all, he was not to ride away from the brakes without the blood of Croak Malloy on his hands. How his heart leaped at the just cause! For as surely as his keen eyes were finding the tracks over moss and pine needles, he realized he would kill Malloy. Very likely all three of the rustlers! He must come up to them before night, otherwise the young women would be subjected to abuse and worse. Malloy had always made much of his few opportunities to degrade women. Probably owing to his misshapen body and repulsive face all women, even the slatterns of the towns, had wanted none of his acquaintance, which had made the little gunman a woman-hater.
The hours of the day were as moments. Forest and ravine, pine and spruce, rock and log, all looked alike to Stone. Yet he recognized familiar country when he rode into it. By mid-afternoon he had approached the vicinity of Tobe’s Well, a wonderful natural hollow in the high escarpment overlooking the Cibeque. Stone left the trail he was hounding, and going around came up on the rim from the south. Horses rolling below in the sandy patches! Smoke curling from the stone chimney of the log cabin! Saddles and packs under the great silver spruce!
Jed Stone led his horse around the rim and down a dim seldom-trodden trail to the opening into the circular gorge. And never in all his twenty years of hard wild life had he been more Jed Stone.
No one hailed him as he strode along the mossy bank of the brook, under the stately pines, and on toward the cabin. The lonely isolation of the place invited carelessness. But Stone muttered: “They must be powerful keen on what’s inside. Reckon I didn’t get here too soon.”
Dropping the bridle reins, he strode on to the open door. It was a big bright cabin, open on the lee side. And as he glanced in he heard a girl’s low cry, deep, broken with emotion. He saw a dark little girl with gold-brown hair, all tossed and tangled, lying bound half upright against a pile of packs. That was Molly Dunn. He did not need to look twice. His eyes swept on.
Madden was on his knees, his hand white with flour, but on the moment he appeared riveted. Reeves stood back, his face set toward Malloy, who manifestly had just torn the blouse off a white-faced, white-shouldered girl, shrinking before him.
The moment had been made for Jed Stone. He recognized it, and saw, as if by magic, how far in the past it had its incipiency and now had reached fulfillment. He gloried in it. What debts he would pay here!
He stepped inside to call out, harshly, “What the hell’s goin’ on?”
It was the first occasion on which he had ever seen Malloy surprised, but perhaps the thousandth when he had seen him angry. Stone felt his sudden presence had been decidedly inopportune for his erstwhile partner and his accomplices.
“Aw, it’s the boss!” gasped Madden, in explosion of breath that suggested relief.
“Who’s been chasin’ you?” burst out Malloy, and with gesture of impatience he flung down the torn blouse.
“Jed Stone!” screamed Molly Dunn, and if ever a voice thrilled Stone this one did then. She had recognized him. Even on the moment he remembered the times he had patted Molly’s curly head when she was a mere tot, had bought her candy at the store in West Fork, had often lifted her upon his horse, and in later years, when she was grown into a pretty girl, he had talked with her on occasions when he rode to and fro from the Cibeque to the Tonto.
“Wal, I reckon ten thousand devils might be chasin’ me, fer all you’d care, Croak,” replied Stone. “I jest happened in on you here.”
“Damn queer, an’ I call it tough. You’re wuss’n an old woman,” complained Malloy.
“Who’re these girls an’ what’re you doin’ with them?”
“Jed, we got into another brush down in the brakes,” replied Malloy. “Damn if it wasn’t full of cowpunchers. But we give them the slip. An’ comin’ out we run plumb into old Jim Traft an’ these gurls. It gave me a great idee. An’ hyar air the gurls while old Jim is raisin’ the dust back to Flag.”
“My Gawd!—Not old Jim Traft—the rancher?” burst out Stone, loudly, in pretended consternation.
“Shore. I said old Jim, didn’t I?”
“An’ these girls are friends or kin of his?”
“Shore. I reckon you’d know Molly Dunn if you’d look. She knowed you all right. The other is young Jim Traft’s sister.”
“An’ you aim to make money out of them?”
“I shore do.”
“An’ make game of them while the money’s comin’?” demanded Stone, harshly.
“Wal, thet’s none of your bizness, Jed,” rejoined Malloy, testily. Habit was strong upon him. This interruption had upset him and he had scarcely adapted himself to it.
But Stone, acting his part, intense and strung, saw already that Malloy’s mind had not grasped the situation.
“Man, are you crazy?” shouted Stone. “Jim Traft will have a hundred cowboys ridin’ on your trail. You couldn’t hit it—with nine horses. They’ll catch you—they’ll hang you.”
“Hang nothin’. Jed, you’re the one who’s crazy. What’s got into you lately?” replied Malloy, in plaintive amaze and disgust. “You’re gettin’ old or you’ve lost your nerve.”
“Croak, you’ve done fer the Hash Knife, an’ now this deal will set the whole country ablaze.”
Malloy stared his amaze. Stone, seizing the instant, strode to and fro in apparent despair, and wringing his hands, he wheeled away. But when he turned, swift as light, he held a gun spouting red. The little gunman died on his feet, without a movement, even of that terribly sensitive right hand. But he fell face down, showing where the bullet had blown off the back of his head.
Madden, with a bawling curse, swept one of his flour-covered hands for his gun. Too late, for Stone’s second shot knocked him over as if it had been a club.
Reeves leaped for the door, just escaping the bullet Stone fired after him. And he was visible running madly in the direction of the horses. Stone let him go. Then he surveyed the cabin. A glance sufficed for Madden and Malloy, but it was a dark and terrible one, of reckoning, of retribution.
The girl Malloy had half stripped had slipped to the floor in a faint, her white arms spread. Then on the instant Molly Dunn’s eyes opened, black and dilated with terror.
“How do, Molly!” said Stone, as he bent over her to slash the thongs of buckskin round her boots. He had to roll her over to free her hands. “I reckon I got here none too soon, but not too late, either.”
“Oh, Jed—you’ve come—to save us?” cried Molly.
“Shore. An’ as I said I hope not—too late.”
“We’re all right, Jed. But, oh, I was scared. Thet croakin’ devil! … Is he daid?”
“Malloy
has croaked his last, Molly,” went on Stone. “I happened to run across old Jim out on the road. Thet’s how I got on your trail. Brace up, now, Molly. Why, this little affair shouldn’t faze Molly Dunn of the Cibeque.”
“I knowed—knew you at first sight, Jed. An’ oh, my heart leaped! … Jed, thank God you came in time. I was aboot ready to die. I’d fought Malloy till he hawgtied me. … Oh, how can I ever thank you enough? How will Jim ever do it?”
Her passion of gratitude, her wet eloquent eyes, her trembling little hands, so prodigal of their pressure on his, warmed all the ghastly deadliness out of Jed Stone’s veins. Happy moments had vanished forever, for him, he had imagined. But this one was reward for all the lonely starved past.
“Wal, you needn’t try to thank me, Molly,” he replied. “Now let’s see. … It’s ’most dark already. We’d better camp here tonight. An’ tomorrow we’ll start for Yellow Jacket. … Reckon I’d better pull these disagreeable-lookin’ hombres outside.”
Madden was of heavy build and took considerable strength to drag out, but Malloy was slight and light.
“With your boots on, Croak, old man!” ejaculated Stone, as he let the limp body flop down. Then Stone possessed himself of the bone-handled gun and the belt with its shiny shells. As an afterthought he rifled the dead man’s pockets, to extract considerable money, watch and knife, and the one golden double-eagle Malloy had taken from Madden for luck.
Inside the cabin Stone saw that Molly had somehow gotten the torn blouse on the unconscious girl, and was now trying to bring her to.
“Let nature take its course, Molly,” he advised. “She’ll come to presently of her own accord, an’ mebbe the shock to her will be less. … Lord! what a pretty girl! I never seen her like. … An’ she’s young Jim’s sister?”
“Yes. An’ isn’t she just lovely?”
“Here, we’ll lift her up on this bed of spruce. Somebody cut it nice an’ fresh. You can both sleep there tonight.”
“Jed, fetch me some cold water. I’m near daid of thirst. Thet wretch tried to make us drink whisky. Ughh!”
