The Max Brand Megapack (448 page)

That, which should have depressed him still more, gave him a sudden hope, and with the hope came strength.

He could not have endured the strain of going back to the last ridge which he had left. The very idea of turning back, however, had not come to him. And he worked on, gritting his teeth until his jaws ached as well as his arms.

Then, fumbling forward with his left foot, he touched a firm support.

He rested his whole weight upon the rock beneath. It was strong and firm.

At this the relief was so great that the blood bounded violently into his head, and he was dizzy. But he clung, fighting his way through the first moments of the reaction after the strain was over.

Still his body was shaking a little, and his arms were numb, but he began to breathe more easily, and his mind was more at ease also.

Those who have passed through the desperate gates of an enterprise feel that the early danger must assure them of better luck further on. At least, so the Kid felt, as he stood there in the dark of the ravine, with the chilly drops of snow water flicking at him.

The canyon walls opened here perceptibly, moreover, and there was sufficient starlight to enable him to see dimly what was before him.

It was no easy road. Here the ledge ran a little distance. There it disappeared entirely. But the walls were not so perpendicular and the weight of his body would in no place fall so sheerly upon his tired hands and upon his shoulders.

He swung his arms. He kneaded them with his shaking hands until the flow of blood subdued their aching. And when at last he felt sufficient master of himself, he resumed his progress toward the mouth of the canyon.

He had had practice now; besides, he had some sight to help him, so that the work went on more easily, and he made good use of all his advantages until he carne to where the very lips of the ravine spread out wider and wider, and the opening flood of the river flattened and lost its noise over a more ample bed. Its speed was quenched, in the same manner and moment, for a final reef of rocks in the neck of the canyon had chopped up the waters and taken their headway from them.

Now, all in a moment, the water slackened and spread out shallowly across a bed four times as spacious as that into which it had been crowded by the narrow walls of the ravine. Here, flat-faced, gently, it ran into the open valley, heading toward the other dark throat into which it was soon to fall and again begin to rage and roar like a lion.

And the Kid, soaked to the skin, tired, and aching from his labors, looked out on that flow of water as a strong and busy man looks out upon one placid moment between strenuous days of action and of danger—one walk through the green country, one solemn moment of peace.

Yet there was no peace for him.

He had performed all of these labors merely to bring himself to the door which opened upon the real peril. And of all the arduous tasks which he had taken in hand in his days, none was comparable with the thing which lay before him.

No strength or craft of hand, he knew, could ever make him equal to the assembled strength which Dixon had gathered here.

If he were superior to each of them by the flickering, broken part of a second in speed of draw; if he were a finger’s breadth closer to the bull’s-eye when he fired, these advantages which meant life and victory in a single combat were nothing compared with the overwhelming odds which he would have to encounter.

No, there was now nothing left for him except subtlety and silent craft, like an adventuring Indian in a camp of the enemy.

The Kid, taking stock of these truths, gravely advanced still farther, until he was on the exact verge of the canyon mouth, where a little shore of gravel went down to the waters.

From this point, he could see all that the hollow contained. He could see the mist rising faintly against the stars above the uneasy cattle. He could hear the desperate moaning voices of the thirst-starved creatures. That sound made the roar of the river at once a small thing.

He looked down on the red beacon of the camp fire where his enemies were. He looked away to either side, where the soft curves of the hills undulated against the sky line; surely those hills never had seen a stranger thing than he would attempt this night!

Then, narrowing his eyes, he crouched low, his head close to the water, and scanned the shore on each side.

He was inside the lines. He could see, here and there, the flicker of the barbed wire which made the outer defense. He could see also the occasional form of a guard marching as a sentinel up and down the fences.

Now, as he watched, he saw the vague outline of a man come from the camp fire and walk down to the water’s edge. There the fellow stood. It was Dixon, perhaps rejoicing in the mischief which he was working, and grinning as he listened to the noise of the tormented cattle.

His own mind flashed back to another picture—the sunwhitened desert, and the two poor cows struggling and swaying under their unaccustomed yokes.

Then he stepped with his naked feet into the cold waters of the stream.

CHAPTER 34

The Approach

His revolver he kept above the surface of the stream, which was now not more than three or four feet deep. But though it was shallow, and slid along a fairly fiat surface, there was amazing force in it still, the last effect of the long impetus which it had received in shooting down the flume of the ravine.

He had to lean upstream at a sharp angle, with the current heaping shoulder and even neck high as it bubbled and rushed and gurgled loudly.

His nerves were as good as those of any man, but before he was halfway across the stream, walking in the dim, red path of the light from the camp fire, he made certain that the men on the shore must have seen him. If they had not seen, they must have heard. Surely they were watching there, laughing in the dark of the covert, and grinning at the poor fool who was walking into their hands.

Then he remembered that there were other noises abroad in the valley besides the intimate voice of the river just under his ear. There was the dull and distant roaring of the penned-up waters in the canyon above, and a deeper, fainter call from the lower ravine; above all, the solemn music of the lowing cattle flooded across the hollow.

No, he could not be heard, but surely he was seen!

The long, red arm of the firelight stretched toward him and caught him by the throat.

He thought of lying flat on the surface of the stream. It would shoot him like a log safe past the fire, past all the watchers, and at the mouth of the lower canyon, he would struggle on shore and try to escape.

That thought of flight tempted him mightily. He fairly trembled on the verge of giving way to it.

But he went on.

The strength of the resolve which drove him had a pull like that of gravity and carried him step by step against his reason. And then the ground was shoaling beneath him. The suction grew less in the shallows, and finally he crawled out on his hands and knees.

There on the shore he lay flat.

He was shuddering with cold. He was helpless with it. Any yokel, any cowardly boy might have mastered him then, he felt. The snow water had sent its numbing chill through him to the bone. His breathing failed. The tremors shook him more than earthquakes shake cities.

But he had to lie quietly while he took stock of the situation before him.

He was not nearly as close to the camp fire as he had thought while striding across the creek. He lay, in fact, some distance to the north of it, and between him and the flames stood a row of three wagons. Their wheels looked enormous and misshapen. They seemed to be broken and flattened on the lower surface that met the ground. Their shadows went wavering across the ground. Sometimes it was as though the wheels were turning.

Around the fire three or four men were sitting.

Others, wrapped in their blankets, apparently were asleep, or trying to sleep. And it seemed to the Kid that this was the ultimate proof of their brutality. They could sleep while that sound of agony from the thirsty cattle moaned and howled across the valley! That water which had tugged at him which had swept by him in countless barrelfuls, in unnumerable tones, which had frozen and shaken him, how sweet it would have been in the dusty, dry gullets of those thousands and thousands of dying beasts. All the sweetness of life would have been in it.

A blast of heat came to him out of memory as he thought again of the unforgotten picture of his boyhood—the creaking wagon, and the two old cows swaying and staggering before it, halting in their steps, but leaning again on the yoke and slowly drifting the miles behind them. He himself had had the thirst of fever in his body on that day. He had it again now. A flash of burning heat, and of hatred for these men or devils who were with Dixon.

When he looked more closely toward the fire, he saw that on the opposite side, with the full red flush of the flame in his face, sat Dixon himself, looking rather old and stoop-shouldered, as almost any man will, who is sitting cross-legged on the ground.

Suppose that Dixon guessed, even faintly dreamed, that his enemy had broken through the invincible outer lines and was lying there in easy gunshot? Oh, so easy to draw a bead even from this distance, and by pressing the trigger, beckon the brain and heart of the enterprise out of existence!

He could not do it.

His philosophy, blunt and uncertain on many points of life, was in one respect absolute and true. He could not strike from behind or from the dark. There was no Indian in his nature to excuse such ways of fighting.

But he felt, at the sight of Dixon, a calm heat of anger rise that made him forget the river water and its cold hands.

He got up to his knees and went slowly on, still pausing to turn his head from time to time, until he reached a thick, solid wedge of shadow that extended behind one of the wagons.

When he came to this, he rose, and as he rose, he saw suddenly that a man was standing before him!

The breath was pressed from him by that sight. His mind spun about. It was as though a spirit had risen through and out of the solid ground.

How long had the man been there, lost in the shadow, calmly watching the progress of the spy, the secret enemy? Who was he that he dared to take that advance so calmly?

These questions rushed through the mind of the Kid in a broken portion of a second.

“Where’d you get the redeye that knocked you out, buddy?” said the man. “You know where you been? You been crawlin’ around, this side of the water, like a sick snake! Did Bolony Joe open up that keg of his for you, or d’you tap it for yourself? Old Champ will sure raise a riot if he finds out. You better not let him see you!”

“You’re a fool,” snarled the Kid in apparent anger. “I got a slip and fall down there on the edge of the water, and I got soaked, and turned my ankle. The ligaments are ’bout pulled out of place. Get out of the way, will you, and leave me be with your fool ideas!”

“Who are you?” demanded the other, taking a step closer. “Who are you to be orderin’ me around? I’ll tel! you a thing or two, old son, if you was ten Champ Dixons rolled into one!”

He came closer. The Kid was silent, but putting down his right foot on the ground, he made a slow, hobbling step, and groaned aloud.

The other was not moved. He had come much closer.

“Yeah. You come out of the river, all right,” said he, “but I dunno that I recognize you. What’s your moniker, son? I don’t seem to place your head and shoulders, sort of, among the boys. What’s your name?”

“I’m the Kid,” said he.

This name made the man jump back a good yard in surprise and in fear.

Then he began to laugh. He laughed with deep enjoyment. “Yeah, you’re the Kid, are you?”

“I’m the Kid,” said he truthfully.

“I didn’t know you, Larry,” said the other. “I wouldn’t never of guessed you, except you begun kidding, like that. It’s a funny thing the way night changes things. Your voice is changed too.”

“How could it help?” said the Kid, “and me doused in that ice water and pneumonia likely, coming on!”

“Here,” said the other. “I’ll give you a hand back to your blankets. Where’d you bed down? Over by the fire, or in one of the wagons?”

“Leave me be,” said the Kid. “I don’t want any help. Keep out of my way, that’s all. There’s too darn many boys and fools along on this trip to suit me. They got the place all cluttered up.”

“Aw—go to the dickens,” said the other suddenly. “You’ve got your stomach soured and your head turned because some of the boys has been fool enough to laugh at some of your bum jokes. I’m glad you’ve turned your ankle. I wish you’d broke it, and your head along with it!”

“I’m going to wring your neck,” said the Kid, “when I get fixed of this.”

“Yeah?” demanded the other. “You’re gonna wring my neck, are you? Why, you sucker, I could eat you in a salad and not know that you was there. You make me sick!”

He turned on his heel with his final declaration and strode away.

He had used the strongest expression that the law allows. Swearing in its most violent forms is as common as dust on the Western range, but there is nothing in the entire, powerfu! range of the vocabulary which has the meaning of the heartfelt statement: “You make me sick!” It takes the heart out of the man addressed. It leaves him crumpled. It does not even lead to a fight, usually. And the victim feels that he has been criticized, not insulted.

“You make me sick!” said the puncher of the Dixon crowd, and then walked away.

But the Kid, behind him, felt none of the usual qualms following this speech. Instead, he could not help smiling. And that little touch of triumph warmed his blood as thoroughly as an hour beside a steaming fire.

He went on in the same hobbling gait until the other had disappeared among the shadows.

Then he stepped out freely and silently, and in another moment, found himself between the last wagon and a heap of stuff which had been in part unloaded from it.

Between the two objects he was comparatively safe.

And now that he was here, what was he to do?