by Zane Grey
Stone had sense enough of the dramatic to choose the most striking spot at Tobe’s Well, and that was under the monarch of a silver spruce which dominated the place, and where the cowboys, hunters, trappers, as well as outlaws, always camped in pleasant weather. Stone found the ground soft. He dug a deep grave, and dragging Madden over he tumbled him into it, with scant ceremony. While performing a like office for Malloy he got blood on his hands. It seemed to burn, and before filling up the grave he went to the brook to wash it off.
“Wal, Croak, you shore didn’t end as you always swore you would,” mused the outlaw, as he plied the shovel. “You shore wasn’t back against the wall—your guns shootin’ red. … You an’ Madden were pretty close these late years. Now you can rot together an’ go to hell together.”
The job done, he placed a huge rock at the foot of the grave, with the prophetic remark: “Shore some wag of a cowpuncher will plant a haidpiece.”
Whereupon Jed’s active mind reverted to the issue in the cabin, and on the way back he picked up a good-sized stone which he concealed under his coat. The light of blazing pine cones revealed the two girls working frantically to get supper for him. He caught the tail end of Molly’s conversation: “—an’ no use lyin’, Glory—I’m as scared as you.”
“O Heaven! how false men are!” sighed Glory. “When this desperado came in I had a wild thought he was a hero.”
“Hey, don’t talk aboot me,” put in Stone. “I’m a sensitive man.”
Silence ensued then. The girls did not look up. And Stone, profiting by this, threw some sacks over the blood pools on the hard-packed clay floor. Also he surreptitiously laid the stone on the box seat where he intended to sit at the rickety old rough-hewn table. This he cleared by piling Malloy’s trappings on the ground, and covering it with the cleanest piece of canvas he could find. Then he sat down to watch and wait. He realized he had fallen upon the most delicious situation of his life—if he had ever had one before—and he wanted to live every second of it to the full. Finally the girls put the supper on the table.
“Thet’s right, wait on me, Gloriana,” he said. “An’ you, Molly, set down an’ eat. … Gimme one of them turrible-lookin’ biscuits. … Ou! Hot!”
He contrived to drop the biscuit and at the same instant push the heavy rock off the box seat. It fell with a solid thump. Gloriana actually jumped. Her eyes opened wide.
“Golly! Did you heah thet biscuit hit?” ejaculated Stone, as if dumbfounded.
“I heahed somethin’ heavy,” corroborated Molly, serious-faced, but her sweet red lips slightly twitched.
“Say, gurl, air you aimin’ to poison me?” demanded Stone, suspiciously. “What’n hell did you put in thet biscuit?”
Gloriana stammered something, and then walking round the table, she espied the rock, which, unfortunately, had fallen upon the biscuit.
“It was a rock,” she said, slowly.
“Wal, dog-gone! So it was. Must have been on the box. I shore didn’t see it. … I offer my humble apologies, Miss Traft.”
No doubt Gloriana’s mind was so steeped in fright that it could not function normally, yet she gazed with dubious tragic eyes at the desperado.
Stone then devoted himself to the meal, which he soon discovered was the best he had sat at for many a weary moon. Days on end he had prepared frugal meals for himself, and the last few he had lived on dried meat, hard biscuits, and coffee. This was a repast—a feast, to which he did ample justice.
“Wal,” he drawled, when he could eat no more, as he transfixed Gloriana with eyes he tried to make devouring, “if you can love as well as cook, I’m shore a lucky desperado. … Get out now and I’ll wash up. No sweethearts of mine ever had to do the dirty work round my camp.”
While he was noisily banging pans, cups, and other utensils around his trained ear caught Gloriana’s whisper, “Now—let’s run!”
“An’ get lost in the woods—for bears to eat!” whispered Molly.
Stone dried the camp utensils and placed them on the shelf, after which he washed his hands in hot water.
“Put some wood on the fire,” he said, filling his black pipe. “Pass me a red coal on a chip. … Thet’s it, darlin’; you’re shore learnin’ fast.”
The interior of the cabin brightened with blazing cones and sticks. Molly sat as in a trance. Gloriana stood awaiting another command, nervous, with great blank eyes. She might have been a bird fascinated by a snake.
“Spread some blankets on the bed there,” he said, pointing to the pack he had opened. While this order was being complied with he puffed his pipe, and opened his big hands to the fire with an air of content. Molly’s reproachful glance might have been lost upon him. Jed reasoned it out that the little Cibeque girl had lived too long among Western men to trust him wholly. That gave Stone more thrills. He would fool Molly, too. At length he got up to view the bed.
“Kinda narrow fer three to sleep comfortable,” he said, laconically. “I always wear my boots an’ spurs to bed—in case I have to hurry to a hoss—an’ I kick when I have nightmare. But I reckon there’s room fer two. Now, Molly, you an’ Gloriana draw lots to see who’ll sleep fust night with me.”
“Jed Stone, I’ll see you in hell before I’d do it,” cried Molly, passionately. “You’ll have to tie me, hand an’ foot.”
“Wal, you needn’t take my head off. I kinda lean to Glory, anyhow.”
Gloriana gazed at him with eyes full of a sickening horror and desperate defiance.
“You’ll have to kill me—you monster!” she said, hoarsely.
“Wal, both buckin’ on me, huh,” replied Stone, as if resigned to the nature of women. “All right, I don’t want no tied gurl sleepin’ with me, an’ shore no daid one. So I’ll pass. You can sleep together, an’ I’ll be a gentleman an’ go outdoors. But you gotta entertain me before. Molly, you sing, ‘Bury me not on the Lone Prairie.’”
“I cain’t sing a note an’ I wouldn’t if I could,” avowed Molly.
“Gloriana, my duckie, can you sing?”
“I used to sing hymns, in Sunday school. But they would scarcely be to your taste, Mister Stone,” was the partly satiric reply.
“Say, where’d you think I was brought up?” queried Stone, as if deeply insulted. “I used to go to church. I had a gurl once who took me to prayer-meetin’.”
“You did? Impossible to believe! I wish she were here now to pray for us.”
“Ahuh. So do I. … But she’s daid—these many years,” replied Stone, and was lost in reverie for a moment. He saw that girl, and the little church, and the gate where he bade her good night. “I bet you can dance,” he went on, looking up. “You’ve shore got dancin’ feet an’ ankles. I never seen such bootiful laigs, if you’ll excoose me bein’ familiar.”
“Yes, I can dance, and I’ll try,” replied the girl, as if relieved to get off so easily. Whereupon she began a swaying of her graceful body, a sliding of her little feet. But she appeared unsteady.
“Hold on. You need a bracer,” said Stone, and going to his pack he took out a black bottle, from which he emptied some liquor into a cup. This he diluted with water and offered her with the curt word, “Drink.”
“No!”
“Say, it’s fine old stuff. It’ll do you good. An’ when you get to be a grandma you can tell your grandchildren you once drank out of Jed Stone’s flask.”
“The honor does not appeal to me.”
“Glory, he’s gettin’ mad,” spoke up Molly, in alarm. “An’ it shore won’t hurt you.”
“I—I won’t,” replied Gloriana, backing away weakly.
“Gurl, I’ll pour it down your lily throat,” said Stone, in a terrible tone, while he reached for her. But Gloriana eluded him. Then Stone whipped out his gun and aimed at her feet. “You drink an’ you dance—or I’ll shoot at your feet.”
At this dire threat Gloriana took the cup with trembling hands and drank the contents.
“Ag-hhh!” she choked, and then stood with d
istended eyes, with hand on her breast, as if feeling fire within. “Oh, Molly—such stuff! … Is there no way out of this nightmare?”
“Dance!” thundered Stone.
And then he was to see the girl waltz fantastically over the open space of the clay floor, with the firelight shining fitfully on her wan face, until she gave out and collapsed upon the bed.
“Thanks, Glory,” he said, huskily. “You’re shore a fairy on your feet. … Now, I reckon, I’ll let you go to bed. You gotta sleep, for we have a long tough ride tomorrow.”
Stone picked up one of the bed rolls, and carrying it out back through the open side of the cabin he unrolled it in the gloom of the cliff and stretched himself as if he never meant to move again. He could see the flicker of the firelight on one wall of the cabin, but the girls were out of his sight. He heard their low voices for what seemed a long time.
Sleep did not come readily. He doubted if it would that night, and welcomed wakefulness. When had he lain down in such strange sweet sense of security? Was it peace? What had happened to him? And he rested there trying to understand the vast change. It was not the little service he had rendered these young women, or the strenuous and agonizing experience he meant to give Gloriana Traft, out of which would come wholesome good. No—it was that he was free. The Hash Knife outfit was dead—every one dead, since he, too, Jed Stone, was dead to all that strife. He had no enemy in the world, it seemed, except every honest rancher and cowboy. But they were no longer enemies. He had squared himself. He could lie down without fear, without one eye kept open, without distrust of comrades, of the morrow, of the future. Without certainty of inevitable death at the crack of a gun or the end of a rope! For years Malloy had been the dark shadow over him—the step on his trail. And Malloy would never awaken again—never ruin another rancher—never spread fear and hate about him—never exercise that fatal draw—never by reason of his personality cause better men to lose poise and serenity in their desire to kill him.
The flicker of the fire died out, as did also the low voices. They slept—those two pretty girls, destined to make two lucky cowboys happy and Arizona the better for their worth. Arizona! The name lingered in Stone’s consciousness. He had been born and bred in this country of arid zones, of canyon and forest, of the clear streams with the gray salt margins along the sand. But who—what Arizonian had ever loved a country more than had he?
The night wind arose, mournful as always, cold off the heights. Yet it seemed a different music, as if it blew from far-off forests, as yet unknown to the fame of Jed Stone.
CHAPTER
19
JED Stone awoke with the first pink streak of dawn flushing the sky. The old somber distrust of the new day had departed. He seemed young again.
Going to the door of the cabin, he called: “Hey, babes in the woods! Roll out an’ rustle.”
He heard a gasp, and then a low moan, but he did not look in. He went out to fetch the horses. There had been nine in the canyon the night before; now he could see but six, including his own. One was a pretty pinto mare which he selected for Gloriana, with a chuckle at the thought of how all her life she would remember this ride. He drove four horses in, haltered them, and chose the best saddles for the girls, the stirrups of which he shortened to fit them. It tickled him to see blue smoke curling up from the cabin, and a little later his keen nostrils took note of the fragrance of coffee. When he got a pack-saddle strapped on the fourth horse he was ready to go in, but he tarried a moment. How sweet, rich, melodious, and rose-green the sunrise-flushed canyon! Henceforth Tobe’s Well would be famous as the last resting-place of the great Croak Malloy.
Presently he repaired to the cabin.
“Mawnin’, gurls,” he bawled, stalking in.
Gloriana had been listlessly brushing her lustrous hair, while Molly attended to the breakfast chores.
“Ha, makin’ yourself look pretty,” remarked Stone. “Wal, you can’t bamboozle the boss of the Hash Knife. An’ you ought to be ashamed—lettin’ Molly do all the work.”
“I started the fire and made the biscuits,” she retorted. Stone had grasped before that she seemed peculiarly susceptible to criticism, and decided he would work on her sensitiveness to the limit.
“Wal, we can’t pack much of this outfit,” observed Stone. “You gurls pick out what belongs to you.”
Molly designated two duffle-bags and one small grip. Stone carried them outside. Then returning, he rolled some blankets. He remembered that he had some hard bread and dried meat in his saddle-bags, which supply he would add to without letting the girls know. His plan precluded an insufficiency of food on this three-day ride down to Yellow Jacket. When he had packed the horse Molly called from the cabin, “Come an’ get it!”
“You come hyar yourself an’ get somethin’,” he replied.
Molly came running, anxious and big-eyed. “What—Jed?”
“Pitch in now, an’ show this Eastern gurl what a Western lass is made of. Savvy?”
“I reckon.”
“I’m givin’ you the chance, Molly. Don’t fall down. Take everythin’ as a matter of course. Help her, shore, but give her a little dig now an’ then.”
“Jed, you’re a devil,” returned Molly, slowly, and turned away.
Stone stamped into the cabin, upon her heels: “Feed me, now, ladylove. An’ then we gotta rustle. I’m a hunted desperado, you know. Soon as your Uncle Jim gets back to Flag the woods will be full of cowboys, sheriffs, deputies, an’ a lot of gallants who’d like to win the hearts of my captives. Haw! Haw!”
The breakfast was even more tasteful than had been the supper the night before. Stone ate with the appetite of an Indian, and the wisdom of a range-rider who had to go far.
“You ain’t eatin’ much,” he observed, addressing Gloriana.
“I’m not hungry,” she replied.
“Wal, you eat. Heah me? Or I’ll be givin’ you another drink.”
This threat had the desired result.
“Gurls, I’ve gotta hurry, so can’t pack much grub,” said Stone, rising to gather up a few utensils, some coffee and meat, and what biscuits had been left. These he tied up securely, and took them out to put upon the pack-animal. The rest of the outfit he would leave until his return that way. His last service to Croak Malloy was pounding and smoothing the grave.
Presently the girls appeared. Molly had taken the precaution to don a riding-skirt and boots, but Gloriana wore the thin dress which Malloy had torn considerably.
“Where’s your hat?” asked Stone.
“It blew off, yesterday. … I—I forgot to look in my bag—and change. If you’ll give me time——”
“Nope. Sorry, Gloriana. Didn’t I tell you I was a hunted man? You’ll have to ride as you are. Strikes me the Lord made you wonderful to look at, but left out any brains. You’ll do fine in Arizona. … Here, wear Croak’s sombrero. … Haw! Haw! If your ma could see you now!”
She had to be helped upon the pinto, which promptly bucked her off upon the soft sward. What injury she suffered was to her vanity. She threw off the old sombrero, but Stone jammed it back on her head.
“Can’t you ride?” inquired Stone, gazing down upon her.
“Do you think I was born in a stable?” she asked, bitterly.
“Wal, it’d be a darn sight better if you was. An’ far as thet is concerned the Lord was born in a stall, so I’ve heerd. So it ain’t no disgrace. … I’m curious to know why you ever come to Arizona?”
“I was a fool.”
“Wal, get up an’ try again. This little mare isn’t bad. She was jest playin’. But don’t let her see you’re afraid. An’ don’t kick her in the ribs, like you did when you got up fust.”
“I—I can’t ride this way,” she said, scarlet of face.
“Wal, you are a holy show, by golly!” observed Stone. “I never seen so much of a pretty gurl. You shore wouldn’t win no rodeo prizes fer modesty.”
“Molly, I can’t go on,” cried Gloriana, almo
st weeping. “My skirt’s up round my neck!”
“Glory, I don’t see what else you can do. You’ll have to ride,” replied Molly.
“Thet’s talkin’. Glory, you’ll get some idee of the difference between a no-good tenderfoot from the East an’ a healthy Western cowgurl. … Now, you follow me, an’ you keep up, or there’ll be hell to pay.”
The ease with which Molly mounted her horse, a wicked black animal, was not lost upon Gloriana, nor the way she controlled him.
“Molly, you better lead this pack-hoss. I’ll have to keep my eye on our cultured lady-friend hyar,” drawled Stone, and he started off. At the gateway of the canyon, where a rough trail headed up toward the rim he turned to caution Gloriana. “Hang on to her mane.”
When they reached the top he had satisfaction in the expression of that young woman’s face. Stone then struck out along the rim, and he did not need to pick out a rough way. The trail was one seldom used, and then only by riders who preferred to keep to the wilder going. It led through thickets of scrub oak, manzanita, and dwarf pine, with a generous sprinkling of cactus. To drag Gloriana Traft through them was nothing short of cruelty. Stone kept an eye on her, though he appeared never to turn his head, never to hear her gasps and cries. Molly, who came last, often extricated her from some tangle.
Stone, from long habit, was a silent and swift traveler, and did not vary his custom now. But he had to stop more often to let the girls catch up. The condition of Gloriana’s dress—what was left of it—seemed satisfactory to the outlaw. She had lost one of the sleeves that Malloy had almost torn from her blouse, and her beautiful white arm showed the red and black of contact with brush. What a ludicrous and pathetic figure she made, hunched over her saddle, with the gunman’s battered and bullet-marked sombrero on her head! She had pulled it down now, to protect eyes and face, thankful for it. Where was her disgust and horror? Nothing could have better exemplified the leveling power of the wilderness. Before Gloriana Traft got through this ride she would give all her possessions for a pair of blue jeans.
