Thunder Mountain

by Zane Grey

  Kalispel watched that rifle, and if it had started for a level he meant to leap aside for cover. He would not take any chances with a hound like Borden. The crowd seemed locked in suspense, waiting, with eyes on the two principals. Into this oppressive lull the leather-lunged miner projected his raw yell:

  “Take your choice, Borden!...”

  And the shout that burst from the crowd proclaimed that every watcher divined what the choice was—to drop the long-range rifle and come out like a man, or use it and swing by the neck. Certainly Borden understood, for the echo of that taunting decree had not ceased, when he lifted the rifle high to fling it down. The metallic crash of its contact with the flagstones came plainly to the listening ears.

  Even at that distance Borden’s swarthy visage gleamed.

  “Wal, Emerson, he’s cornin’ an’ we’re gamblin’ you’ll bore him low down in the middle,” yelled the wag from the crowd.

  Borden whipped out two guns, and lowering his head, like a bull about to charge, he leaped out of the doorway.

  “Spread out everybody!” boomed the miner with the clarion voice. “The ball’s opened!”

  Kalispel started to stride forward, drawing his gun. Borden gained the center of the street and, like a man propelled by irresistible force from behind, came lurching on. He threw forward the gun in his left hand and fired. The ball whizzed by Kalispel, glanced on the gravel behind, and brought a shrill yell from some person in the crowd. Shouts and trample of feet attested to the splitting of the mob to both sides of the street.

  Kalispel kept on swiftly. Borden halted. His gun flamed red and cracked. Another bullet hissed uncomfortably close to Kalispel’s body. Far beyond it struck up dust and ricocheted along the street. Again Borden strode on and again his big gun boomed. Then bang! bang! bang! he emptied the gun in his left hand, as if driven to be free of it. He flung it aside and raised the one in his right.

  Kalispel stopped to turn his side toward his adversary, upon whom he brought his gun to bear. The distance was far over a hundred yards. Kalispel froze in his aim and pulled trigger.

  Everybody heard the sudden impact of that bullet. It had the soft, thudding sound of lead entering flesh. Borden’s hurried stride appeared blocked as if by a battering-ram. He uttered a choking cry, but he strung like a whipcord and began to shoot. Deliberate and cold, Kalispel took time, well knowing that this was no game for snap-shooting, and aimed as at a target, while Borden’s first and second bullets passed whistling by Kalispel, one on each side. Kalispel shot. And Borden was knocked flat, as if by a hard fist. In frenzied action he sprang up like a bent willow released, and shot wildly. But something about Kalispel’s posture, his statue-like immobility, his dark, terrible calm, pierced Borden’s chaotic brain. He essayed to take his cue from his adversary. Dropping on one knee he rested his elbow on the other, and steadying his gun, took slow and careful aim.

  A suspended breath seemed to wait in the onlookers. A woman screamed as if she could not stand the deliberation for which Kalispel was famed.

  The silence burst to the ringing crack of his gun. Borden’s rigidity underwent a break. His gun fell to explode. And simultaneously he appeared to be batted to one side, as by an invisible force. On hands and knees, his back to the crowd, he wrestled himself almost erect, then suddenly plunged down on his face to kick the dust and lie still.

  Standing alone in the street, with the breathless crowd beginning to stir, Kalispel stood over his prostrate enemy to watch him die. It was one of the prerogatives of gunmen, to be in at the death, and owed its origin to the incentive to make sure that the enemy did die. In Kalispel’s case it was an ordeal, where ruthlessness gave way to a sickening remorse.

  Borden lay beyond his last convulsion, conscious.

  “Nugget?” he tried to articulate. She was his last thought, one seemingly divorced from the hard motive that had brought him to this pass. It might have been a revelation of love.

  “I’ll look after her,” replied Kalispel. And Borden died with something like relief on his ghastly face.

  Kalispel hurried down the street to avoid the surging crowd. He made his way out of town and down the stream to the bend, and up to the sage slope where he had often gone. It seemed almost a physical action to dismiss Borden from his consciousness. Then he was solely concerned with the revolt in heart and brain, the battle of returning normalcy with the primeval instinct of self-preservation, which was to kill or be killed. He had to make slow shift of that here, because there was Ruth to think of. And his first thought of her was that the name Nugget died with Borden.

  The hour was past sunset, crimson and gold, tranquil and sad. The relentlessness of man, with his love, his hate, his avarice, did not intrude here. The stream murmured on, unmindful of the little lives of men, and the great walls frowned broodingly down. The shadows came and deepened to purple. High up on the rugged slope a wolf wailed his wild note of loneliness. Nature had been a panacea for Kalispel’s ills, from the old recovery after a cowboy debauch to the heartbreak he had sustained recently, and now to the repetition of the cruel retrogression of blood-lust.

  Dusk fell. He could tarry no longer. A chill air floated down the canyon. Nighthawks and bats were fluttering. He left the fragrant sage bench and retracing his steps, crossed the bridge to Sloan’s tent. Several miners, and Barnes, the kindly partner of Sloan, met Kalispel and informed him that they had just buried Sloan on his own claim, in the deep hole where he had dug for gold and had found a grave.

  “Barnes, I’ll be takin’ the girl up to my cabin,” said Kalispel. “Sloan’s claims an’ tools are yours....An’ I won’t forget your friendship for him—an’ your goodness to her.”

  “Aw—thet’s nothin’,” replied Barnes, haltingly. He, like the others was, for the moment, inhibited by Kal-ispel’s presence.

  Kalispel went into the tent. The interior was almost too dark to discern objects.

  “Ruth,” he called, “where are you?”

  “Kal!” she cried, gladly, and her light feet pattered on the floor. He made out her pale form against the gloom. Then she was clinging to him, with her head pressed against his breast.

  “Wal?... Don’t shake so, child,” he said, gently, as he held her. “Brace up. You’ve seen a lot of hard doin’s, though not so close to home....Barnes told me they’d buried Dick right here. I reckon that was the thing—to get it over.”

  “Yes. I told them to,” she replied.

  “Can’t you stand on your feet?” he asked, finding that he had to hold her.

  “My legs are—shaky.”

  “But, Ruth—you’re the gamest kid. This is gold-diggin’s life, you know. Shore it is awful tough, your losin’ Dick—but it’s done—it’s over, an’ you got to brace.”

  “Kal, I’m terribly sorry about Dick,” she whispered, and then suddenly she clutched him, “but—but it was your fight with Borden—that knocked me out.”

  “Aw!—Didn’t Barnes drag you off the street?”

  “I stayed. I seemed possessed of a thousand devils while you waited for Borden....Oh, how I wanted you to kill him! And I knew you would. I gloated over the thought. The crowd was for you and that thrilled me.... But when Borden plunged out, like a mad bull—then I went to pieces. I suddenly realized—he might kill you, too. And I nearly died of terror....I saw it all....Then I collapsed.”

  “Ah-huh.... Wal!” ejaculated Kalispel, strangely affected by her poignant words and clinging hands. She was only a child, this dance-hall girl, and he was her only friend. “Ruth,” he got out, at length, “I’m takin’ you up to my cabin.”

  “Kal!—I’m glad, but I can’t walk.”

  “I’ll carry you.” He lifted her and swung her around comfortably against his shoulder, and edged sideways through the door.

  “Barnes,” he said to the waiting miner, “would you be good enough to have your wife pack up all Ruth’s clothes an’ things, an’ bring them up to my cabin?”

  “Shore’ll be glad to,” wa
s the reply.

  Kalispel took the trail up the stream. For the most part it was dark, though he could readily see the pale path winding between the shacks and the creek. Here and there lamps cast a yellow glow through doors or canvas, and camp fires flickered, silhouetting burly, red-shirted miners at their evening meal.

  “Kal, I’ll walk now,” said Ruth, after they had gone a long way.

  “You might stumble in the dark.”

  “How strong you are!—But I am heavy, and you must be tired.”

  “Wal, you were like thistle down at first. An’ I’m bound to admit you’re not quite as light as that now. But I can pack you.”

  When Kalispel passed the Blair cabin, almost under its high porch, he saw a light and heard Sydney’s contralto voice. How strange to pass by Sydney this way in the darkness with a girl in his arms—a girl whose life and happiness henceforth must be his care! He tightened his hold on the slender form in his arms. And he was unable for the moment to straighten out his labyrinthine thoughts or comprehend his conflicting emotions.

  They passed the last shack. Far across the bench flickered a camp fire that was Jake’s. Kalispel had been increasingly aware that Ruth’s head had slipped from his shoulder closer and closer until her cheek rested against his neck. It felt warm and moist. She was crying.

  Jake was stirring around a camp fire outside the cabin. He heard Kalispel’s footsteps and straightened up to peer out into the darkness.

  “It’s me, Jake.”

  “Aw!—Shore glad, son. I saw your meetin’ with Borden. All same Kalispel Montana!—Suited me fine.... Hey! what you packin’?”

  “What you think? A sack of flour?”

  “My Gawd—a girl!—If you don’t beat the Dutch!”

  “Shut up, an’ light the lamp in the cabin.”

  Jake knocked things over in his hurry to execute that order. He stared with rolling ox eyes at the whitefaced, golden-haired girl Kalispel laid on the couch. Ruth sat up.

  “I’m not an invalid,” she said, with a wan smile. “Howdy, Jake. Your brother has packed me up here.”

  “I see,” replied Jake, with a broad grin. Ruth’s looks quickly found the hearts of men. “I reckon you’re the gurl——”

  “Ruth,” interrupted Kalispel, shortly. “Jake, put a canvas up outside the cabin. An’ take your bed out. You an’ me will bunk together.”

  “So our family’s increased permanent?” rejoined Jake, beamingly.

  “Our family’s shore increased permanent,” drawled Kalispel. “Rustle now, an’ get some supper first.”

  When Jake went out, whistling, Kalispel turned to the girl, sensing full well that he was in for what he knew not. He caught the recession of a vivid blush which left her face white, and accentuated the cornflower blue of her eyes. He had never met such an earnest, lovely light in a human’s gaze.

  “Kal, let’s have it out now,” she said.

  “Out! Have what out?” he queried, blankly.

  “This deal.”

  “Gosh, child——”

  “Don’t call me child, I am a woman, Kal.”

  “How old?” asked Kalispel, sparring for time.

  “Eighteen in years—but years are nothing.”

  “So old? You’re shore huntin’ Methuselem....An’ what deal is this you’re rarin’ about? Fetchin’ you to my cabin? What else could I do? Just because Borden has gone to join the angels is no reason to believe you’d be safe alone.”

  “No. I heard what you promised Dick.”

  “Wal?”

  “You said, I’ll take care of her, Dick’!... What did you mean by that?”

  “I meant what I said,” declared Kalispel, bluntly, as if his word had been questioned.

  “You’ll be my friend—my brother—as Dick was?”

  “No. I reckon I didn’t mean that.”

  “What then?”

  “Didn’t Dick intend to marry you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wal, that’s what I meant.”

  “You’d marry me—Kal?” she cried.

  “Why, shore! What kind of a hombre do you take me for?”

  “You are the most wonderful.. .But, Kal, you’re in love with Sydney Blair!”

  “I reckon I was, tolerable. But when she dared me to come over an’ see her in Leavitt’s arms—an’ I took that dare—Wal, it all died, pronto.”

  “Oh, Kal, she wouldn’t—she couldn’t do such a thing.”

  “The hell she wouldn’t,” flashed Kalispel, stung by the memory. “She did do it. I saw Leavitt kiss her.”

  “Oh, she must have been driven.”

  “Wal, I don’t care a whoop whether she was or not,” declared Kalispel, bitterly. “It hurt. An’ it showed me a lot. You’ll oblige me, Ruth, by not alludin’ to that again.”

  “Forgive me. I never will....But, Kal, do you think Dick meant for you to marry me?”

  “Shore he did. How else could a man take care of you?”

  “Very well, then,” she replied, with a dangerous softness. “I won’t marry you.”

  “Why not?”

  “I won’t, that’s all,” she rejoined, and averted her agitated face.

  “Ah-huh. Wal, shore I’m no match for Sydney Blair or for you either.—No honest, fine, young fellow like Dick!”

  “Kal Emerson!” she flashed, and turned with an angry blaze of eyes.

  “Shore. Kal Emerson! Bad hombre! Tough cowboy! Rustler! Gun-slinger! All-around desperado who no woman atall would be wife to!” ejaculated Kalispel, in sincere scorn of himself. This emotion, no doubt, was a partial regurgitation to the sickening aftermath of a fatal gun-fight.

  “Don’t lie that way about yourself,” she retorted.

  “You’re Western and you’re great, Kal Emerson, I won’t have you demean yourself to me.”

  “Never mind my promise to Dick. I’d have asked you to marry me, anyhow.”

  “Oh, KaJ!—Don’t!—God knows it’s hard to refuse—”

  “Wal, why won’t you?”

  “Because I love you,” she cried, passionately.

  “Ruth!—You mean same as you did Dick?”

  “No. I didn’t love him.”

  “But, child, how come you to love me? ...Aw, it’s just gratitude, Ruth. An’ you’re awful upset.”

  “Don’t ask any woman, good or bad, how she came to love. It can’t be explained, it happens.”

  “Wal, then, if—if you do—why that’s all the more reason for you to be my wife.”

  “It is not.”

  “Ruth, we’re off the trail,” he said, soberly. “When I thought of marryin’ you it wasn’t just to get a wife—a woman. I had only a wonderful feelin’ for you—the kid who’s had such a rotten deal from life. An’ I meant to take care of you always as I would of my own sister. But when you say you love me, why that makes me think and remember. I always wanted a real home, a wife to keep me straight, an’ kids——”

  “Hush!” she sobbed, and put her hand to his lips. “I love you, Kal....I love you as I never loved anyone, even my mother. I will live with you, be faithful till my dying breath, work my fingers to the bone for you, but I will not marry you!”

  He took her hand in his and kissed it. For a while, neither spoke.

  “I’m distressin’ you, Ruth,” he said, finally. “But, one more word. If you won’t marry me you can’t be my real wife. Savvy, dear?”

  “Yes, I savvy,” she whispered, sagging against him.

  “An’ I’ll keep my promise to Dick just the same,” he went on, eagerly. “An’ I reckon you’ll be my salvation, just the same....Forget it now, Ruth....There’s so much to think of. To plan for! An’ I’ve much to do before we leave here.”

  “Leavitt!” she cried, lifting eyes he could not gaze into.

  “Yes. I meant to kill him. I ought to.”

  “Kal, it’s not for me to—to stop you. Not to serve him, of all men!...Only—today!...Can I stand that again?”

  “Wal, don’t worry
, maybe Masters will take care of him.”

  Jake opened the door a half-inch. “Hey, Romeo an’ Juliet! Will you have supper served in the drawin’-room or out on the balcony?”

  CHAPTER

  * * *

  14

  DURING the night the long-deferred equinoctial storm broke.

  Jake got up to reinforce his end of the improvised shelter. “Hey, Kal, is it wet over where you are?” he called.

  “Ump-umm,” replied Kalispel, sleepily.

  “Wal, it’s wetter’n hell over hyar,” growled Jake. “Thet storm finally busted an’ I’ll bet it’ll be a humdinger. Might as wal wake up an’ get ready to be washed away.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Wal, it was somewhere’s near mornin’, but I don’t know what it is now...Whew! Blazes an’ brimstone! Kal, I wish we was safe out of this hole.”

  “So do I,” replied Kalispel, sitting up. A blue-white blaze filled the valley with weird light and a ripping thunderbolt rent the heavens. And before the booming echoes ceased reverberating, another flash of lightning streaked the inky blackness and a mighty sound as of mountains rolling down deafened Kalispel. Soon the intervals between the illuminating flashes appeared to be mere glimmerings and the thunder mingled continuously. Rain fell in torrents.

  Kalispel and Jake huddled close to the cabin wall, and by covering themselves and blankets with a tarpaulin managed to keep dry. Toward dawn the violence of the storm subsided and the rain slackened. Morning broke dreary and gray.

  The stream was roaring. Kalispel went over to look at it. Miners all along, as far down as he could see, were trying to rescue rocks, flumes, boxes, tools from the yellow flood. It was bank-full and rising rapidly. Many of the claims would be flooded. Even those above high water could not be worked, for all of the holes were filled.

  Thunder City would continue to roar, but not with labor. The saloons and halls and dens would reap a harvest.

  As always, Kalispel swept an appreciative gaze across to the bare slope. This morning it presented a furrowed front. Thin yellow streams were running down its face, flattening out on the level to triangular areas of mud and silt. It presented an ugly sight. Far up, the peak was obscured in gray cloud. Kalispel calculated that it would be snowing up there; and he conceived the idea that it would be well to get ready to leave the valley as soon as the storm was over. He returned to the cabin. Jake was fanning a refractory camp fire which he had started under the shelter.