The Hash Knife Outfit

by Zane Grey

  It was not remarkable to Stone that almost before he had ceased talking Gloriana was asleep. He knew what worn-out nature would do. Nevertheless, as soon as Molly had dropped off he made such a commotion that he would almost have awakened the dead. Then he began to snore outrageously, and between snores he broke out into the thick weird utterance of a man in a nightmare.

  “Molly—Molly!” cried Gloriana, in a shrill whisper, as she clutched her friend madly. “He’s got it!”

  “Sssh! Don’t wake him. He won’t be dangerous unless he wakes,” replied Molly.

  Jed made the mental reservation that his little ally was all right, and began to rack his brain for appropriate exclamations: “AGGH! I’ll—carve—your—gizzard!” And he sprang up to thump back. Then he gave capital imitations of Malloy’s croaking laugh. Then he shouted: “You can’t have the gurl! She’s mine, Croak, she’s mine! … I’ll have your heart’s blood!” After which he snored some more, while listening intently. He did not hear anything, but he thought he felt the bed trembling. Next he rolled over, having thrown the blankets, to bump hard into Gloriana. But that apparently did not awaken him. He laid a heavy arm across both the girls and went on snoring blissfully.

  “Molly,” whispered Gloriana, in very low and blood-curdling voice. “Let’s—kill him—in his sleep!”

  “Oh, I wish we could, but we’re not strong enough,” replied Molly, horrified. “Don’t you dare move!”

  Stone could scarcely contain himself, and wanted to roar his mirth and elation. So his acting had been so good, so convincing that it had driven this lovely tenderfoot to consider murder! He could not have asked more. She was responding nobly to the unplumbed primitive instincts which, happily for her and those who loved her, she shared in common with the less sophisticated characters of the West.

  Lastly Jed thought he would try the love-making of a man suffering from delusions in a nightmare. This rather taxed his capacity. His actual experience had never gone so far. But he bawled out endearments of every kind, and he hugged both girls until they appeared to be squeezed into one. Suddenly there came a terrific tug at his hair. He bawled in earnest. A tight little fist was fast in his hair and pulling fiercely. It was Molly’s, and he had trouble in tearing it loose. After that rebuke Jed rolled back against the tree, and pulling his blanket free he composed himself to slumber.

  In the gray of dawn he got up, pulled on his big boots, and went at the camp-fire tasks, careful not to make noise. His two babes in the woods were locked in sleep, also in each other’s arms. Stone cooked the last of the meat and boiled the last of the coffee. A few biscuits were left, hard as rocks. Then he went to awaken the girls. Their heads were close together, one dark, the other amber, and their sweet pale faces took the first flush of the sunrise. It was a picture the outlaw would carry in his memory always, and he found himself thanking God that he had come upon Croak Malloy before they had suffered harm.

  “Gurls, roll out,” he called.

  Molly awakened first and was bright and quick in an instant. She smiled, and Jed thought he would treasure that smile. Then Gloriana’s eyes popped open. Dim gulfs of sleep! Stone turned away from them with a conscience-stricken pang.

  “Rustle an’ eat. I gotta hunt the hosses,” he said.

  Upon his return they had finished eating. Molly said: “Glory’s bag is missin’. With all her outdoor clothes!”

  “Shore. I hid it. I don’t want her dressin’ up. She looks so cute in thet outfit,” he replied. “Saddle your hoss, you starin’ idgit,” he said to Gloriana. “An’, Molly, rustle with the bed an’ packs while I eat.”

  Molly proved as capable as any cowboy, but poor Gloriana could not get the saddle up, and when the pinto bit and kicked at her, which was no wonder, she gave up coaxing and struck it smartly with a branch.

  “Hyar! Don’t beat thet pony,” expostulated Stone. “Who’d ever think you’d show cruelty to a dumb beast?”

  “Dumb! He sure is,” replied Gloriana, “and he’s not the only be—thing around that ought to be beaten.”

  “Molly, you cain’t never tell aboot people till you get them in the woods,” said Stone, reflectively. “Their real natoor comes out. I reckon Glory, hyar, would have murdered Croak Malloy in cold blood if he’d got away with her. It’s turrible to contemplate.”

  Soon they were mounted and riding in single file, as on the day before. Stone led them out of this gorge, miles and miles through the forest, out into the sunny desert, and back again, and finally, without a halt to the rim of the Black Brakes. He followed along that until mid-afternoon, when he came to a trail he knew, which was seldom used even by rustlers, unless pressed. Here they had to walk down and it was no fun. “Don’t let your hoss fall on you,” was all Stone said. At a particularly bad descent Gloriana and her pinto both fell, and she miraculously escaped being rolled on. “Whew!” ejaculated Stone. “I reckoned you was a goner then. The Lord shore watches over you.”

  “I don’t—care,” panted the girl. “I’d sooner die—that way—than some other way.” Her spirit was hard to break. She seemed to recover her courage after each successive trial. But her strength was almost spent. Once down in the brakes Stone eased up on rough going, and wended a leisurely course through the labyrinthine glades and aisles, groves and fields of broken cliff. The gold slants from the westering sun fell across their path, and the wilderness appeared more than usually beautiful. Stone calculated their position at that hour was less than a dozen miles below Yellow Jacket. And his intention was, if Gloriana could stand it, to climb out of the brakes, and ride to the head of Yellow Jacket, where he could show the girls their way and then take leave of them. There was a risk of being held up along the trail by one or more of the Diamond outfit, but since he had the girls to credit him with their rescue he had little to worry about. Still he did not want that to happen. He had planned a climax to his plot.

  The sun set behind the western wall of the brakes; a mellow roar of running water filled the forest with dreaming music. Stone thought it about time to choose a place to camp, and he desired it to be remote from the trail, which he believed ran somewhat to his left along the stream. With this end in view he wormed his way through the woods toward the wall they had long since descended.

  It loomed above him, gray and lofty, always silent and protective. And suddenly he emerged into an open space, where tall spruces and wide-spreading sycamores dominated the green. The glade appeared familiar, and as Gloriana and Molly rode out of the forest he reined his horse.

  “O my God—look!” cried Molly, in accents of horror.

  Simultaneously then Stone’s senses accounted for a smell of burned wood, the pile of charred logs that was once the trapper’s cabin, and three grotesque and hideously swaying figures of men, hanging limp by their necks from a prominent branch of a sycamore.

  Stone’s shock had its stimulus in Gloriana’s shriek. She swayed and slid out of the saddle. He caught her and lifted her in front of him, a dead weight.

  “Jed—this heah is too much,” expostulated Molly, hoarsely. She looked as if she, too, would faint.

  Cursing under his breath, he turned to the girl. “I swear it was accident,” he avowed, earnestly. “We were east of the trail, an’ if I thought aboot it at all, I reckoned we were far from thet old cabin. By Gawd! I’m sorry, Molly. It is too much.”

  “Jed, I’ll be—keelin’ over, too,” gasped Molly. “Thet’s a hard sight for me, let alone Glory. … If I recognized Darnell, she recognized him, you bet.”

  “Shore she did. I never seen him but once, an’ I knew him. An’ there’s my old Sheriff Lang, his star still a-shinin’ on his vest. An’ Joe Tanner. … Wal, thet’s shore a cowboy job, slick an’ clean. Thet’s the way of the West!”

  Darnell’s distorted and discolored features had been stamped by an appalling surprise and terror, something wholly wanting from the visages of the other two dead men. They swayed as the evening breeze moved the sycamore branch. Darnell’s watc
h fob dangled from his vest.

  “Jed, come on—fetch her,” implored Molly. “I’ll hate you forever—if she doesn’t get over this.”

  “Molly, it’s shore sickening’, but mebbe jest as well she seen it.”

  “I—I wasn’t above bein’ took in myself—by thet handsome gambler,” admitted Molly, with intense humility. “What an end! … An’ Jim an’ Slinger were responsible. I’ll never get——”

  “Don’t you believe it,” interrupted Stone. “Thet’s the work of Arizona range-riders. Prentiss an’ his pards are back of thet. … An’ see there. Graves! But wait, Molly.”

  The outlaw’s sharp eyes, in further survey of the glade, had fallen upon freshly made graves.

  “Wal, there are no cowboys buried here, thet’s shore. … Ride on, Molly.”

  Stone halted in the first likely spot for camp, and slipping out of his saddle with Gloriana in his arms, he laid her down on a soft pine-needle mat. She was conscious.

  “Tend to her, Molly,” said Stone, briefly, and he turned to look after the horses. Then he cut ample spruce boughs for two beds, and made them, one of which, for the girls, he laid in a protected niche of the cliff. Having finished these tasks, he approached his prisoners.

  “There’s nothin’ to eat.”

  “Small matter, Jed. Our appetites are shore not a-rarin’,” replied Molly.

  Gloriana transfixed him with solemn tragic eyes.

  “I take back—calling you a liar,” she said, simply.

  “Thanks. I accept your apology.”

  “Who—who did that?” she asked, with a gesture to indicate the tragedy down the valley.

  “What? Who did what?”

  “Hanged those men?”

  “I reckon thet was Curly Prentiss an’ his pards. Shore young Jim had a hand in it, unless, of course, Curly an’ Jim got killed by the rustlers. Some of the Diamond were done for, thet’s shore.”

  “But—you—said—” she faltered, piteously.

  “Shore. I said I reckoned it wasn’t Jim or Curly. I forgot thet. Must have been one or more of them daredevils. Bud or Lonestar—an’ mebbe Slinger. I seen where blood had dripped on the leaves, about saddle-high, along the trail. Some cowboys packed out, shore.”

  That surely finished Gloriana and all but did the same for Molly. She just had strength left to help Stone carry Gloriana to bed. The outlaw then sought his own rest, and the meditations inspired by the latest developments. This adventure had not lost its sting, despite the knocking at the gate of his conscience. Tomorrow would see the end of it and he must not fail in the task he had set himself.

  Morning disclosed Molly to be herself again, and Gloriana able to get up, though she could not stand erect. She could do nothing but watch the others saddle and pack. Still, her perceptions were all the keener, and she paid Molly mute and eloquent tribute of appreciation.

  “I’m made of straw and water,” she said, humbly.

  “Wal, Gloriana, darlin’, a thing of beauty is a joy forever,” rejoined Stone, with gallant cheerfulness.

  Once more they were mounted and off. Stone led up out of the brakes through a narrow hidden crack in the east wall, a secret exit known only to outlaws. It was a long gloomy ascent which took an hour of labored climbing on foot. From the outlet Stone made his way along the rim, north, and in the direction of Yellow Jacket. He led the pack-horse, while Molly supported Gloriana in her saddle. Stone kept close to them, fearing Molly might weaken and betray him. But she did not. And the outlaw recalled what she had confessed about her brother giving up rustling. Slinger had once belonged to the Cibeque outfit, and the years were not many since Stone had tried to get him into the Hash Knife. Molly could be generous and strong.

  Before they reached the head of Yellow Jacket, which Stone was approaching, he had fears the Eastern girl would not make it. Yet a little rest enabled her to go on, without complaint, without appeal for mercy.

  At last Stone espied the new road, where it turned to go down into the canyon. He halted before the girls noticed it and dismounted near the rim.

  “Wal, we’ve reached the partin’ of the trails,” he said. “There’s a ranch down heah where one of you can go an’ send word to the cowboys. ’Cause I cain’t take you both with me any farther. I’m a hunted desperado, you know. An’ I’ve gotta hole up till all this blows over. One of you goes with me.”

  “Take us both—Jed,” implored Molly, and that plainly was her last word in this trick perpetrated upon an innocent tenderfoot.

  “No, Molly, I will go,” interposed Gloriana. “You love Jim. He worships you. … There’s no one cares for me or—or whom I care for. … And I’m not strong, as you’ve seen from my miserable frailty on this ride. I won’t live long, so it’ll not matter much.”

  Molly, with eyes suddenly full of tears, averted her gaze. Stone regarded the Eastern girl with poignant emotion he gladly hid.

  “Ahuh. So you’ll go willin’?”

  “Yes, since you compel me. But on one condition.”

  “An’ what’s thet?”

  “You must—marry me honestly. I have religious principles.”

  “Wal, I reckon I could fetch a padre down into the brakes—where we’ll be hidin’,” replied Stone. “An’ so—Miss Gloriana Traft—you’d marry me—Jed Stone of the Hash Knife—thief, killer, outlaw, desperado—to save your friend?”

  “Yes, I’ll do even that for Jim and Molly.”

  Suddenly Jed Stone turned away, gripped by a whirlwind of passion. It had waylaid him, at this pathway of middle life, like a tiger in ambush. All the hard bitter years of outlawry rose like a hydra-headed monster to burn his soul with the poison of hate, revenge, lust, and the longing to kill. To wreak his vengeance upon civilization by despoiling the innocence and crushing the life of this young girl! The thing roared in his brain, a hellstorm of fury. He had never realized the depths into which he had been thrust until this madness wrapped him in a whirling flame.

  But the instant he understood that this was actual temptation—that it had tripped him with surprise and feeling he never dreamed he possessed—he rejected it with the hard stern courage of the outlaw who had survived baseness. That kind of crime was for Croak Malloy—never for Jed Stone.

  He stepped through the brush to the rim and gazed down into Yellow Jacket. The canyon seemed to lift to meet his eye, with all the gold and green beauty, the noble gray cliffs, the singing amber stream, and with some indefinable peacefulness of solitude that he grasped then and there, forever to be a possession of his lonely soul.

  Then he returned in thought to the issue at hand. Far beyond his hope had he succeeded in forcing latent good into being. This Eastern girl had really defeated him. What could be greater than sacrificing virtue and life itself for her friend? Stone bowed under that. Gloriana Traft had love—which was greater than all the fighting instincts he had meant to rouse. It would have been an error of nature to have created such a beautiful being as this girl and not have endowed her with unquenchable spirit. She was as noble, in her extremity, as she was beautiful. Her eyes and lips, the turn of her face, were no falsehoods. And so Jed Stone divined how he was to profit by the courage of a girl he had driven to such desperate straits. The lesson, the good would rebound upon him.

  “Ride over hyah a step,” he said to the girls, and he pointed down into the canyon. “This is Yellow Jacket, an’ thet new house you see way down there in the green is Jim Traft’s.”

  While they stared he went back to mount his own horse and turn to them again.

  “The road is right hyar,” he went on, as coolly and casually as if that fact was nothing momentous. “Shore you can make it thet fer.”

  Then he patted Molly’s dusky tousled head: “Good-by, little wood-mouse. Be good——”

  “Oh, Jed,” cried Molly, wildly, with tears streaming down her cheeks. “Remember aboot never—rustlin’ no more!”

  Stone turned to the Eastern girl. “Big-eyes!” he called her, for that was th
e most felicitous of all names for her then. “So long!—Marry Curly or Bud, an’ have some real Western kids. … But don’t never forget your desperado!”

  As he spurred away he heard her poignant call: “Oh wait—wait!” But Jed Stone rode as never had he from sheriffs and posse, from vengeful cowboys who pursued with gun and rope.

  CHAPTER

  20

  “—— —— ——Luck!” shouted Jim Traft, slamming down his pencil, and crumpling the white sheet of paper to fling it into the fire.

  “Why, James!” exclaimed Curly, looking in grave surprise from his game of checkers, which he was playing with the crippled Bud, on his bed.

  “Boss, thet shore’s amazin’ fine example fer us—on a Sunday night, too,” added Bud, plaintively.

  “Shore the way Jim can cuss now is somethin’ frazzlin’ on the nerves,” put in Jackson Way, who, as usual during any leisure, was writing to his young wife.

  “Aw, you weren’t listening,” returned Jim, exasperated. “I said, ‘Dod blast the dog-gone luck.’”

  “Yes, you did. Haw! Haw!”

  “Jim, you’re shore demoralizin’ what’s left of the Diamond.”

  “Next an’ last it’ll be red-eye, an’ then good-by.”

  It was Sunday evening at the ranch-house down in Yellow Jacket. The big living-room shone bright and new with lamp and blazing fire. Jim had been endeavoring to write a letter to his uncle, reporting loss of two thousand head of Diamond-brand stock, and the fight at the cabin down in the brakes, which had entailed a more serious loss. But the letter for many reasons was difficult to write. For one thing, Molly and Gloriana would surely see it, and as Gloriana took care of her uncle’s mail she would be very likely to read it first. And it had to be bad news. Jim could not gloss over the deaths of Uphill Frost and Hump Stevens, nor the serious condition of Slinger Dunn and Bud Chalfack. Moreover, he found it impossible to confess his part in that fight. On the moment Curly was trying to keep the fretful and feverish Bud from reopening wounds. Lonestar Holliday read quietly by the lamplight across the table from Jim, but he could not sit still, and as he moved his bandaged foot from one resting-place to another he betrayed the pain he was suffering. Jack Way wore the beatific smile which characterized his visage while writing to the absent bride.