Wildfire and the Heritage of the Desert (31 page)

“I'm glad Holley's to look after you,” replied Slone. “Yesterday I saw you tearin' down into the sage on Sarch. I wondered what you'd do, Lucy, if Cordts or that loon Creech should get hold of you?”

“I'd fight!”

“But, child, that's nonsense. You couldn't fight either of them.”

“Couldn't I? Well, I just could. I'd— I'd shoot Cordts. And I'd whip Joel Creech with my quirt. And if he kept after me I'd let Sarch run him down. Sarch hates him.”

“You're a brave sweetheart,” mused Slone. “Suppose you were caught an' couldn't get away. Would you leave a trail somehow?”

“I sure would.”

“Lucy, I'm a wild-horse hunter,” he went on, thoughtfully, as if speaking to himself. “I never failed on a trail. I could track you over bare rock.”

“Lin, I'll leave a trail, so never fear,” she replied. “But don't borrow trouble. You're always afraid for me. Look at the bright side. Dad seems to have forgotten you. Maybe it all isn't so bad as we thought. Oh, I hope so!… How is my horse, Wildfire? I want to ride him again. I can hardly keep from going after him.”

And so they whispered while the moments swiftly passed.

*   *   *

It was early during the afternoon of the next day that Slone, hearing the clip-clop of unshod ponies, went outside to look. One part of the lane he could see plainly, and into it stalked Joel Creech, leading the leanest and gauntest ponies Slone had ever seen. A man as lean and gaunt as the ponies … stalked behind.

The sight shocked Slone. Joel Creech and his father! Slone had no proof, because he had never seen the elder Creech, yet strangely he felt convinced of it. And grim ideas began to flash into his mind. Creech would hear who was accused of cutting the boat adrift. What would he say? If he believed, as all the villagers believed, then Bostil's Ford would become an unhealthy place for Lin Slone. Where were the great race-horses—Blue Roan and Peg—and the other thoroughbreds? A pang shot through Slone.

“Oh, not lost—not starved!” he muttered. “That would be hell!”

Yet he believed just this had happened. How strange he had never considered such an event as the return of Creech.

“I'd better look him up before he looks me,” said Slone.

It took but an instant to strap on his belt and gun. Then Slone strode down his path, out into the lane toward Brackton's. Whatever before boded ill to Slone had been nothing to what menaced him now. He would have a man to face—a man whom repute called just, but stern.

Before Slone reached the vicinity of the store he saw riders come out to meet the Creech party. It so happened there were more riders than usually frequented Brackton's at that hour. The old storekeeper came stumbling out and raised his hands. The riders could be heard, loud-voiced and excited. Slone drew nearer, and the nearer he got the swifter he strode. Instinct told him that he was making the right move. He would face this man whom he was accused of ruining. The poor mustangs hung their heads degectedly.

“Bags of bones,” some rider loudly said.

And then Slone drew close to the excited group. Brackton held the center; he was gesticulating; his thin voice rose piercingly.

“Creech! Whar's Peg an' the Roan? Gawd Almighty, man! You ain't meanin' then cayuses thar are all you've got left of thet grand bunch of hosses?”

There was scarcely a sound. All the riders were still. Slone fastened his eyes on Creech. He saw a gaunt, haggard face almost black with dust—worn and sad—with big eyes of terrible gloom. He saw an unkempt, ragged form that had been wet and muddy, and was now dust-caked.

Creech stood silent in a dignity of despair that wrung Slone's heart. His silence was an answer. It was Joel Creech who broke the suspense.

“Didn't I tell you-all what'd happen?” he shrilled.
“Parched an' starved!”

“Aw no!” chorused the riders.

Brackton shook all over. Tears dimmed his eyes—tears that he had no shame for. “So help me Gawd—I'm sorry!” was his broken exclamation.

Slone had forgotten himself and possible revelation concerning him. But when Holley appeared close to him, with a significant warning look, Slone grew keen once more on his own account. He felt a hot flame inside him—a deep and burning anger at the man who might have saved Creech's horses. And he, like Brackton, felt sorrow for Creech, and a rider's sense of loss, of pain. These horses—these dumb brutes—faithful and sometimes devoted, had to suffer an agonizing death because of the selfishness of men.

“I reckon we'd all like to hear what come off, Creech, if you don't feel too bad to tell us,” said Brackton.

“Gimme a drink,” replied Creech.

“Wal, damn my old head!” exclaimed Brackton. “I'm damn gittin' old. Come on in. All of you! We're glad to see Creech home.”

The riders filed in after Brackton and the Creeches. Holley stayed close beside Slone, both of them in the background.

“I heerd the flood comin' thet night,” said Creech to his silent and tense-faced listeners. “I heerd it miles up the canon. 'Peared a bigger roar than any flood before. As it happened, I was alone, an' it took time to git the hosses up. If there'd been an Indian with me—or even Joel—mebbe—” His voice quavered slightly, broke, and then he resumed. “Even when I got the hosses over to the landin' it wasn't too late—if only someone had heerd me an' come down. I yelled an' shot. Nobody heerd. The river was risin' fast. An' thet roar had begun to make my hair raise. It seemed like years the time I waited there.… Then the flood came down—black an' windy an' awful. I had hell gittin' the hosses back.

“Next mornin' two Piutes come down. They had lost mustangs up on the rocks. All the feed on my place was gone. There wasn't nothin' to do but try to git out. The Piutes said there wasn't no chance north—no water—no grass—an' so I decided to go south, if we could climb over thet last slide. Peg broke her leg there, an'—I—I had to shoot her. But we climbed out with the rest of the bunch. I left it then to the Piutes. We traveled five days west to head the cañons. No grass an' only a little water, salt at thet. Blue Roan was game if ever I seen a game hoss. Then the Piutes took to workin' in an' out an' around, not to git out, but to find a little grazin'. I never knowed the earth was so barren. One by one them hosses went down.… An' at last, I couldn't—I couldn't see Blue Roan starvin'—dyin' right before my eyes—an' I shot him, too.… An' what hurts me most now is thet I didn't have the nerve to kill him fust off.”

There was a long pause in Creech's narrative.

“Them Piutes will git paid if ever I can pay them. I'd parched myself but for them.… We circled an' crossed them red cliffs an' then the strip of red sand, an' worked down into the cañon. Under the wall was a long stretch of beach—sandy—an' at the head of this we found damn Bostil's boat.”

“Wal, damn!” burst out the profane Brackton. “Bostil's boat!… Say, 'ain't Joel told you yet about thet boat?”

“No, Joel ain't said a word about the boat,” replied Creech. “What about it?”

“It was cut loose jest before the flood.”

Manifestly Brackton expected this to be staggering to Creech. But he did not even show surprise.

“There's a rider here named Slone—a wild-hoss wrangler,” went on Brackton, “an' Joel swears this Slone cut the boat loose so's he'd have a better chance to win the race. Joel swears he tracked this feller Slone.”

For Slone the moment was fraught with many emotions, but not one of them was fear. He did not need the sudden force of Holley's strong hand, pushing him forward. Slone broke into the group and faced Creech.

“It's not true. I never cut that boat loose,” he declared, ringingly.

“Who're you?” queried Creech.

“My name's Slone. I rode in here with a wild horse, an' he won a race. Then I was blamed for this trick.”

Creech's steady, gloomy eyes seemed to pierce Slone through. They were terrible eyes to look into, yet they held no menace for him. “An' Joel accused you?”

“So they say. I fought with him—struck him for an insult to a girl.”

“Come round hyar, Joel,” called Creech, sternly. His big, scaly, black hand closed on the boy's shoulder. Joel cringed under it. “Son, you've lied. What for?”

Joel showed abject fear of his father. “He's gone on Lucy—an' I seen him with her,” muttered the boy.

“An' you lied to hurt Slone?”

Joel would not reply to this in speech, though that was scarcely needed to show he had lied. He seemed to have no sense of guilt. Creech eyed him pityingly and then pushed him back.

“Men, my son has done this rider dirt,” said Creech. “You-all see thet. Slone never cut the boat loose.… An' say, you-all seem to think cuttin' thet boat loose was the crime.… No! Thet wasn't the crime. The crime was keepin' the boat out of the water fer days when my hosses could have been crossed.”

Slone stepped back, forgotten, it seemed to him. Both joy and sorrow swayed him. He had been exonerated. But this hard and gloomy Creech—he knew things. And Slone thought of Lucy.

“Who did cut thet thar boat loose?” demanded Brackton, incredulously.

Creech gave him a strange glance. “As I was sayin', we come on the boat fast at the head of the long stretch. I seen the cables had been cut. An' I seen more'n thet.… Wal, the river was high an' swift. But this was a long stretch with good landin' way below on the other side. We got the boat in, an' by rowin' hard an' driftin' we got acrost, leadin' the hosses. We had five when we took to the river. Two went down on the way over. We climbed out then. The Piutes went to find some Navajos an' get hosses. An' I headed fer the Ford—made camp twice. An' Joel seen me comin' out a ways.”

“Creech, was there anythin' left in thet boat?” began Brackton, with intense but pondering curiosity. “Anythin' on the ropes—or so—that might give an idee who cut her loose?”

Creech made no reply to that. The gloom burned darker in his eyes. He seemed a man with a secret. He trusted no one there. These men were all friends of his, but friends under strange conditions. His silence was tragic, and all about the man breathed vengeance.

 

CHAPTER XVI

 

No moon showed that night, and few stars twinkled between the slow-moving clouds. The air was thick and oppressive, full of the day's heat that had not blown away. A dry storm moved in dry majesty across the horizon, and the sheets and ropes of lightning, blazing white behind the black monuments, gave weird and beautiful grandeur to the desert.

Lucy Bostil had to evade her aunt to get out of the house, and the window, that had not been the means of exit since Bostil left, once more came into use. Aunt Jane had grown suspicious of late, and Lucy, much as she wanted to trust her with her secret, dared not do it. For some reason unknown to Lucy, Holley had also been hard to manage, particularly to-day. Lucy certainly did not want Holley to accompany her on her nightly rendezvous with Slone. She changed her light gown to the darker and thicker riding-habit.

There was a longed-for, all-satisfying flavor in this night adventure—something that had not all to do with love. The stealth, the outwitting of guardians, the darkness, the silence, the risk—all these called to some deep, undeveloped instinct in her, and thrilled along her veins, cool, keen, exciting. She had the blood in her of the greatest adventurer of his day.

Lucy feared she was a little late. Allaying the suspicions of Aunt Jane and changing her dress had taken time. Lucy hurried with less cautious steps. Still she had only used caution in the grove because she had promised Slone to do so. This night she forgot or disregarded it. And the shadows were thick—darker than at any other time when she had undertaken this venture. She had always been a little afraid of the dark—a fact that made her contemptuous of herself. Nevertheless, she did not peer into the deeper pits of gloom. She knew her way and could slip swiftly along with only a rustle of leaves she touched.

Suddenly she imagined she heard a step and she halted, still as a tree-trunk. There was no reason to be afraid of a step. It had been a surprise to her that she had never encountered a rider walking and smoking under the trees. Listening, she assured herself she had been mistaken, and then went on. But she looked back. Did she see a shadow—darker than others—moving? It was only her imagination. Yet she sustained a slight chill. The air seemed more oppressive, or else there was some intangible and strange thing hovering in it. She went on—reached the lane that divided the grove. But she did not cross at once. It was lighter in this lane; she could see quite far.

As she stood there, listening, keenly responsive to all the influences of the night, she received an impression that did not have its origin in sight nor sound. And only the leaves touched her—and only their dry fragrance came to her. But she felt a presence—a strange, indefinable presence.

But Lucy was brave, and this feeling, whatever it might be, angered her. She entered the lane and stole swiftly along toward the end of the grove. Paths crossed the lane at right angles, and at these points she went swifter. It would be something to tell Slone—she had been frightened. But thought of him drove away her fear and nervousness, and her anger with herself.

Then she came to a wider path. She scarcely noted it and passed on. Then came a quick rustle—a swift shadow. Between two steps—as her heart leaped—violent arms swept her off the ground. A hard hand was clapped over her mouth. She was being carried swiftly through the gloom.

Lucy tried to struggle. She could scarcely move a muscle. Iron arms wrapped her in coils that crushed her. She tried to scream, but her lips were tight-pressed. Her nostrils were almost closed between two hard fingers that smelled of horse.